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BIG SCREEN, BIG PRICE! Amazon’s rebuilt Echo Show 16 went up for preorder Oct. 28 at $499.99, or $569.99 with an anti-glare “Nanomatte” screen, with a $100 preorder discount and shipping “later this year,” per Amazon and The Verge.

Amazon says the 16-inch screen is nearly 40% thinner than the old model. It comes with a wall mount in the box and works with VESA mounts, and you can add a $69.99 stand or a $124.99 swivel/tilt stand. It has full Fire TV built in and a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera with night vision, a first for an Echo Show, so it doubles as an indoor security camera.

The headline feature is Screen Styles: always-on home screens you can set as a family organizer (calendar, chores, meal plans), a smart home dashboard with the new 3D Alexa Home Map, an Alexa widgets screen, or a photo frame. The Verge says the new interface will come to older Shows eventually, but Amazon confirmed the customizable home screens will need a subscription on those older devices. Pricing wasn’t given.

THE ADS AREN’T GONE: Amazon confirmed to The Verge that the optional “Alexa Recommendations” screen still shows full-screen display ads. The good news is you can turn that screen off. The Verge also notes the Show 16 costs double the $250 Echo Show 11 and $200 more than Apple’s new HomeView.

For the nightstand, the new Echo Time ($199.99, available now) is a camera-free smart alarm clock with a 3.2-inch round touchscreen and hundreds of clock faces, The Verge reports. Its optional smart alarm uses Amazon’s Omnisense sensing to wake you during lighter sleep within 10 to 60 minutes of your alarm time, no wearable needed, and the screen brightens like a sunrise. A Kids version starts at $209.99. Some features need Alexa+, included with Prime.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: Amazon, The Verge (hands-on), The Verge (roundup)

THE LITTLE BALL GOT BIG! Amazon’s new Echo Dot, out Oct. 28 for $99.99, has a built-in smart home hub with Zigbee, Matter and Thread support, the first time Amazon has put a hub in the Dot, according to Amazon and The Verge. Translation: lights, locks and thermostats that used to need a separate hub box can connect to the cheap Dot instead.

It also has a built-in eero Wi-Fi extender that Amazon says adds up to 1,000 square feet of coverage. The catch: Amazon says it extends your existing eero network, so it won’t fix dead zones on a different brand of router.

Under the fabric: Amazon’s own AZ3 chip for on-device processing, a fourth microphone so Alexa hears you better across the room, and what Amazon claims is 50% more bass than the last model. Its “Omnisense” sensors can detect room temperature and presence, so Alexa can do things like turn up the heat or switch on lights when you walk in. Colors: graphite, glacier white, agave green and coral pink. A Kids version with a year of Amazon Kids+ starts at $109.99.

Meanwhile the premium Echo Studio with Home Camera ($249.99, graphite) adds a built-in camera. You can check on the room from the Alexa app while you’re out, hold things up for Alexa to see (Amazon’s examples: board game rules, reordering cereal), and “soon,” make video calls through a compatible Fire TV. The camera-free Echo Studio stays on sale at $219.99.

The privacy fine print: Amazon says a dedicated button turns off the microphones and camera, and an LED lights up whenever the Studio’s camera is streaming to the cloud. Some features require Alexa+, which is included with Prime. If you don’t want a camera in your living room, buy the old Studio and save $30.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: Amazon, The Verge

UNPLUG IT NOW! DREO is recalling about 338,800 of its DR-HSH015 ceramic space heaters in the U.S., plus about 36,300 more sold in Canada, because they can overheat and ignite, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Oct. 29.

DREO has received 17 reports of the heaters igniting, three with property damage and one burn injury to a hand. The recalled units are black, about 11.5 inches wide and 13 inches tall, come with a remote, and say “DREO” on the front. Only heaters made April 2025 through January 2026 are included. Flip it over: the manufacture date (YYYY/MM) and model number are on a label underneath.

They were sold at Costco stores nationwide and online at Dreo.com, BestBuy.com, Kohls.com, Lowes.com, QVC.com, HomeDepot.com, B2BRenew.com and Costco.com from September 2025 through October 2026 for $70 to $110. The fix is a free replacement heater: stop using it, unplug it, cut the cord, and send DREO a photo of the destroyed heater. Contact DREO at 833-820-0887 or go to dreo.com and click “PRODUCT RECALLS.”

ALSO ON THE SAME DAY’S LIST: about 11,000 HAIARA W5 PRO power banks sold on Amazon by Mitrytech from May 2025 through September 2026 for $18 to $22. The CPSC notice says the lithium battery can explode and ignite, and Mitrytech knows of 600 reports of fire and other thermal incidents, including three burn injuries and nine reports of property damage. The recall covers black units with “20W” on the front, “Model: W5 PRO” on the side, and no date code printed on the side. Remedy: a full refund. Write “recalled” on it in permanent marker, photograph it, and contact HAIARArecall@outlook.com or haiara.net/recalls.html.

Bottom line: heater season is here. If one of these is plugged in under your desk, it shouldn’t be.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: CPSC (DREO), CPSC (HAIARA)

KEEP UP, KIDS! David Carbert, 87, finished his 400th Parkrun on Saturday at the Humber Bridge Country Park event, and he thinks the running may have added years to his life, the BBC reports.

Carbert showed up for the first time 10 years ago, aged 77, full of trepidation. “I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, but everyone welcomed me,” he said. “You know it’s one big happy family here.” His reason for starting: “Really, I didn’t want to sit around at home vegetating.”

The numbers: his personal best of 28 minutes 13 seconds came at age 80. These days he covers the 5km (3.1-mile) course in around 38 minutes. He stretches at home before every run and goes out in all weathers unless there’s deep snow or ice. And he’s not done; he’s aiming for 500 Parkruns, when he’ll be nearly 90.

“We love him – he is an inspiration,” said event director Helen Penn. “I think he’s only just getting going.” Neighbour and running mate Tony Nicholson called him a role model, with one complaint: “We have a sprint at the end and he always wins. It really annoys me.”

Carbert’s post-race report? “I’m a bit shattered at the moment, but I’ll recover.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Source: BBC News

NO GROOM? NO PROBLEM! When Bridget Devaney’s fiancé suffered a medical emergency and their planned elopement, and then the relationship, fell apart, she didn’t quietly close the chapter. She went online and invited strangers to come celebrate the wedding that never happened, BBC News NI reports.

The nudge came in April, when a photographer emailed to check on her postponed wedding plans. A friend suggested advertising a women-only group trip on her anonymous social media profile. Hundreds of inquiries poured in. “When these women signed up for this trip, they didn’t know my name. They didn’t know what I looked like,” said Bridget, who splits her time between the US and Killarney in the Republic of Ireland.

In the end, 11 strangers from the US, Canada and Wales signed on. Janae Pettit, a design consultant from Utah, spotted the post on 1 April and figured it was a prank. “It was April Fool’s Day, but Bridget was like, ‘this is not a joke!’” Shana Johnson of Minnesota signed up before she’d even cleared it with her partner. “It was kind of like we were all long-lost friends,” she said.

Earlier this month the group spent a week on the north coast, hitting the Giant’s Causeway, the Dark Hedges and Londonderry, and capping it with a “non-wedding day” photoshoot. Photographer Rob Dight of Epic Love Photography, who had extended Bridget’s deposit after her fiancé was injured, was “blown away” to learn mid-shoot that the women had met just three days earlier. “It was kind of a ‘jaw-on-the-floor scenario’… It was just so wholesome,” he said.

The group chat is still going, and more trips are in the works. Bridget’s takeaway: “There is community if you want to find it… You just have to keep trying.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Source: BBC News NI

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS ON FOOT! Former paratrooper Karl Bushby set off from Punta Arenas, Chile, in November 1998, aged 29, to walk an unbroken path home to Hull in England. Now 57, he is on his final few miles, the BBC reports.

He set himself two rules and never broke them: no returning to the UK until the walk was done, and no transport to move forward. Along the way he hacked through the jungles of the Darién Gap, crossed the frozen Bering Strait (in 2006), and just weeks ago swam the English Channel to land near Dover. The total: about 36,000 miles across four continents.

Waiting at the finish: his 36-year-old son Adam, a 12-year-old granddaughter he has never met, his father and brothers, and his mother, at the gate of the childhood home he left 28 years ago.

It hasn’t been glamorous. Bushby says he spent only about 15 of those years actually walking; the rest went to visas, “dealing with geopolitics,” and Covid delays, often waiting it out in Mexico where living was cheap. “I’m dealing with the day-to-day stuff – punctures, just trying to find a place where you can wash your underwear,” he told the BBC. “It’s not as glorious as it looks.” Before sponsors and a book deal, he says he was a “penniless backpacker” living on donations and even food discarded by the roadside.

The scary part may be the finish line. “Everything that I am and everything that I know of me is going to go away,” he said. “I will have to figure out who I am again.”

His verdict on the planet after all those miles? “I personally have met the very best of humanity… The kindness of strangers made it all come together. I couldn’t have done it without the world.” And his first fish, chips and mushy peas in almost three decades? Nobody does it like the Brits, he says.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Source: BBC News

BAD MOVE, OTTAWA! Parks Canada is ending its search-and-rescue dog programme in Banff National Park, cutting the sole dog handler role as part of public service cuts, and the backlash is fierce, the BBC reported.

For 55 years, rescue dogs worked the Canadian Rockies, sniffing out skiers and hikers buried by avalanches and finding kids who wandered away from campsites. Banff welcomes more than four million visitors a year.

The last dog on the job, a German Shepherd named Leroy, retired in August. In seven years he helped track 156 people, found 57 who were lost, and helped solve two murders. A new dog was trained and ready before Parks Canada gave notice last week that the programme was going, part of C$145m in budget cuts, local paper the Rocky Mountain Outlook reported.

Parks Canada calls it a “difficult decision” and says “search and rescue operations will continue to be delivered” through other means. More than 5,000 people have signed a petition to bring it back, started by local Conservative MP William Stevenson: “How could they possibly make such a bad choice in where to cut?”

Retired handler Scott Ward, 73, who spent 17 years in the role, put it best, quoting the old warden who trained him: “You can make an armpit smell like a lilac bush and you can put a man on the moon, but nothing can replace the nose of the avalanche dog.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

HOLY SMOKE, IT’S A MAIL-IN BALLOT! Pope Leo XIV has submitted his mail-in ballot in Illinois for the midterm elections, becoming the first pope ever to vote in a US election, the BBC reported.

“The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” the Holy See Press Office said. The Chicago-born pontiff, chosen in May 2025, is the first US citizen to hold the job, and the Vatican says he has voted as an American “whenever he was eligible to do so,” including during his years in Peru.

According to NBC News, he requested his ballot from the Will County Clerk’s Office on 3 October. Less than two weeks later, the Vatican announced he’d had surgery to remove a lower lobe of his right lung after a lung cancer diagnosis. The 71-year-old is still set to travel to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru in early November.

Don’t expect a fan letter from the White House. After the Pope called for peace following US-Israeli strikes on Iran in April, President Trump said: “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo.” The Pope’s reply: “If someone wants to criticise me for preaching the Gospel… I hope simply to be listened to because of the value of God’s words.”

Elections are on 3 November. Polls suggest Democrats are favoured to take the House. Who the Pope voted for? The Vatican isn’t saying.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

THE PARTY IS OVER, OR AT LEAST THE BILL JUST ARRIVED! US tech stocks tumbled for a second straight day on Friday as investors balk at the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into artificial intelligence, the BBC reported.

Intel shares plummeted by as much as 30%, putting the chipmaker on track to lose more than $130bn in value. That came a day after Google owner Alphabet’s market value plunged by more than $500bn. The tech-heavy Nasdaq sank more than 3.5%.

Intel’s finance chief David Zinsner said the firm didn’t expect to bring in more cash than it spent this year, forecast weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue, and said: “Looking ahead, we see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year.” And yet it plans to spend even more on equipment.

The carnage spread. Reddit fell 26% after weaker daily user numbers and a warning that Google’s AI search is hurting referral traffic. Roblox dropped nearly 20%. Amazon, which has committed to $220bn in spending this year and revealed it spent more cash than it made, was down about 1.6% after sliding as much as 6% overnight.

The big picture: Meta, Alphabet, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft have committed to spending $800.6bn between them in 2026. “Investors have turned ruthless, punishing any signs of disappointment,” said Kathleen Brookes of XTB. “The AI trade has had a good run in recent years, but now investors want payback.”

Perspective check: the Nasdaq is still up 7.6% over the past year. But if AI stocks keep stumbling, Brookes warns, “it could suggest the AI trade is past its peak.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

WHO YOU GONNA CALL? The Justice Department, apparently! A US investigation dubbed Operation Ghostbusters is going after an alleged scheme that used stolen identities to enroll fake students in American colleges and pocket federal financial aid, linked to a loss of $130m in taxpayer funds, the BBC reported.

Investigators flagged 830,840 potentially fraudulent Federal Student Aid ID numbers tied to nearly $130m in September and October 2026 and recommended they be disabled. That’s aid tied to suspect accounts, not confirmed losses. So far there are five indictments involving Kenyan nationals, with 40 more investigations open.

The grift is ugly. Stolen personal details sometimes sold online for $4 to $8, often belonging to low-income Americans who never got to go to college. Prosecutors say fraudsters use what’s described as “super intelligence” to complete coursework and keep the ghosts enrolled “semester after semester after semester.” Victims can end up with student loan debt for classes they never took.

One case: Kenyan national Francis Mogambi, who came to the US on the Diversity Visa lottery in 2024, was indicted in Nebraska on 19 October on five counts of theft of government money and five of aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors allege he kept 30% and sent the rest to associates in Kenya. He hasn’t commented, and faces at least 10 years if convicted.

“If you steal taxpayers’ dollars, if you exploit a programme meant to help students, we are resolved to find you and prosecute you,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M McDonald. US authorities have already seized more than $750,000 from a crypto account in Kenya in a related case.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News