Amazon will hold a Prime Early Access Sale on October 11th and 12th

After weeks of rumors, Amazon has officially announced that it plans to hold a second sales event this fall exclusively for Prime members. The second Prime Day of the year, dubbed “Prime Early Access Sale,” will be held on October 11th and 12th in the US, UK, Canada and 12 other countries, following the same two-day format as the original event.

Amazon Prime Day has historically been an annual event in which Prime members have access to thousands of sales from the online retailer. It’s been not only a way for Amazon to increase sales during the summer months, but also helps the company to drum up more subscribers for Prime. This year’s Prime Day on July 12th and 13th brought a plethora of discounts on things like household essentials, clothing, electronics and more, and most of them were reserved for Prime members. However, like years past, there were select sales available to anyone on Prime Day as well.

Since Amazon has not had a second Prime Day in one year before, it’s hard to anticipate what this new sales event will bring. Since it’ll be held in the middle of October, we expect it to unofficially mark the start of the holiday shopping season for Amazon. It’s also possible that the discounts available to Prime members only during this sales event may not come back around for everyone until Black Friday or Cyber Monday. That may encourage some shoppers to stock up on holiday gifts as early as they can snag them on sale.

Engadget will cover all of the best tech deals we can find during this second sales event, held in 15 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, much of Europe, and Turkey. If you plan on taking advantage of those sales, be sure to check Engadget for more information leading up to the event, and follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and sign up for our Engadget Deals newsletter so you never miss the latest news.

iPhone 15 ‘Ultra’ could replace next year’s Pro Max model

Next year’s iPhone could introduce a change to Apple’s naming convention. According to Bloombergreporter Mark Gurman, the company could call its largest and most expensive device in 2023 the iPhone 15 Ultra instead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max as you would…

NieR: Automata’s spinoff anime arrives this January

NieR: Automata’s anime spinoff will arrive early next year. The adaptation, now titled NieR: Automata Version 1.1a, will debut in January 2023. NieR creator Yoko Taro shared the release window during Aniplex Online Fest over the weekend (via Gizmodo), revealing at the same time that the story of the anime would differ from its source material. The two will at least share the same premise. NieR: Automata opens with a ruined Earth and a proxy war involving human-made androids. “Nier: Automata was a story we created to be a game, so copying it as-is wouldn’t make an interesting story for an anime,” Taro said during the panel.

A-1 Pictures, best known for its work on series like Erased, From the New World and Your Lie in April, is producing the project, with Ryouji Masuyama co-writing the script alongside Taro. Masuyama’s previous credits include Gurren Lagann and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. “I’m the one going around and breaking things for [A-1 Pictures], so if anyone is dissatisfied [with the anime’s story], it’s likely to be my fault,” Taro warned fans. Given that NieR: Automata features multiple endings, it’s probably for the best the anime won’t hew too closely to the game.

The panel didn’t mention details about distribution outside of Japan. However, since Sony owns both Aniplex and Crunchyroll, there’s a good chance simulcast rights will go to the streaming service. It will be interesting to see if the anime brings renewed interest to NieR: Automata, much like the recent release of Edgerunners on Netflix did for Cyberpunk 2077. Commercially, Automata performed better than publisher Square Enix expected, but the company has yet to announce a proper sequel – though we did get a mobile spinoff and remaster of the original NieR last year.

Hitting the Books: How Southeast Asia’s largest bank uses AI to fight financial fraud

Yes, robots are coming to take our jobs. That’s a good thing, we should be happy they are because those jobs they’re taking kinda suck. Do you really want to go back to the days of manually monitoring, flagging and investigating the world’s daily bank …

An AI program voiced Darth Vader in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ so James Earl Jones could finally retire

After 45 years of voicing one of the most iconic characters in cinema history, James Earl Jones has said goodbye to Darth Vader. At 91, the legendary actor recently told Disney he was “looking into winding down this particular character.” That forced the company to ask itself how do you even replace Jones? The answer Disney eventually settled on, with the actor’s consent, involved an AI program.

If you’ve seen any of the recent Star Wars shows, you’ve heard the work of Respeecher. It’s a Ukrainian startup that uses archival recordings and a “proprietary AI algorithm” to create new dialogue featuring the voices of “performers from long ago.” In the case of Jones, the company worked with Lucasfilm to recreate his voice as it had sounded when film audiences first heard Darth Vader in 1977.

According to Vanity Fair, Jones had signed off on Disney using recordings of his voice and Respeecher’s software to “keep Vader alive.” Lucasfilm veteran Matthew Wood told the outlet that James guided the Sith Lord’s performance in Obi-Wan Kenobi, acting as “a benevolent godfather,” but it was ultimately the AI that gave Vader his voice in many of the scenes.

While there’s something to be said about preserving Vader’s voice, Disney’s decision to use an AI to do so is likely to add fuel to disagreements over how such technology should be used in creative fields. For instance, Getty Images recently banned AI-generated art over copyright concerns. With Jones, there’s the possibility we could hear him voice Vader long after he passes away. 

‘Oxenfree’ is now free to download for Netflix subscribers

More than six years after its PC debut and five years after arriving on iOS and Android, Netflix is making Oxenfree freely available to those with a subscription to its streaming service. Starting today, you can download the new “Netflix Edition” of the game from the iOS and Android app stores. New to this version of Oxenfree is expanded localization support. All told, you can now play the game with subtitles in more than 30 languages.  

Oxenfree joins Netflix’s growing catalog of games but is particularly notable for being an in-house release. The company acquired Oxenfree developer Night School Studio last year. Despite what seems like little interest from subscribers, Netflix is moving forward with its gaming ambitions. The company will release Desta: The Memories Between, the latest project from Monument Valley developer Ustwo, on September 27th. It also teased that the critically acclaimed Kentucky Route Zero would “soon” be available for free as well. 

‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ debuts December 25th on Netflix

The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th, the streamer announced today during its Tudum event. Netflix also revealed that English actress Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting, Starstruck) is part of the cast. Driver will narrate the events of the series and may even appear in The Witcher, which will return next summer. Driver said her character plays a pivotal part “in connecting Blood Origin’s past with The Witcher’s future.”       

Set thousands of years before the story of Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the Conjunction of the Spheres, the moment in the Witcher universe where humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist of the tale. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long.