The Morning After: We might get an iPhone ‘Ultra’ next year

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, next year’s iPhone could introduce a change to Apple’s naming convention. It could call its largest and most expensive device in 2023 the iPhone 15 Ultra instead of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Gurman expects the iPhone 15 to feature USB-C, among other “bigger changes” – which he didn’t elaborate on at this point.

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Engadget

Interestingly, Gurman thinks Apple might not hold another event this fall. He says the company will announce new Mac mini, MacBook Pro and iPad Pro models before the end of the year, but that they’ll likely be iterative and land without the Apple event fanfare.

– Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

In ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader was voiced by an AI so James Earl Jones could retire

Respeecher recreated the actor’s voice as it was in 1977.

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Disney

James Earl Jones has said goodbye to Darth Vader. At 91, the 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. Respeecher can use archival recordings and a “proprietary AI algorithm” to create new dialogue featuring the voices of “performers from long ago.”

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

Meanwhile, season three of ‘The Witcher’ arrives next summer.

The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novel series, will debut on December 25th. Set thousands of years before the story of the Witcher Geralt and Ciri, Blood Origin will center on the moment in the Witcher universe when humans, elves and monsters all come to inhabit the fantasy world of the series. Actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Scian, the elven protagonist. Originally slated to run six episodes, Blood Origin will instead be four episodes long.

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‘Oxenfree II: Lost Signals’ is delayed until 2023

Night School Studio needs more time to make the sequel ‘truly special.’

The sequel to 2016’s Oxenfree won’t arrive until next year, the developer announced on Saturday. “To make Oxenfree II truly special and add more localizations, we’re moving our release window to 2023,” the studio posted on Twitter. News of the delay came shortly after Netflix announced subscribers could download the original game for free. Yes, more than six years after its PC debut, Netflix is making Oxenfree available freely to those with a subscription to its streaming service.

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UK police arrest alleged ‘GTA VI’ hacker

The 17-year-old may also have been responsible for an Uber cybersecurity incident.

Police in the UK have arrested a 17-year-old suspected hacker, with reports connecting it to the Rockstar Games hack that led to a major Grand Theft Auto VI leak. The individual may have been involved with an intrusion on Uber as well. The arrest is the result of an investigation involving the City of London Police, the UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit and the FBI. According to reports, he was arrested earlier this year for hacking Microsoft and NVIDIA.

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

The holiday shopping season will begin earlier than ever this year.

Amazon 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 on October 11th and 12th in the US, UK, Canada and 12 other countries, following the same two-day format as the original event. That said, we don’t know what sort of discounts this event will include. There will probably be a Kindle or two, though.

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Watch the trailer for NieR: Automata’s spinoff anime

It arrives this January.

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A1 Pictures.

Square Enix’s genre-twisting RPG, NieR Automata was a cult hit in 2017. Now, an anime adaptation is almost here. Titled NieR: Automata Version 1.1a, it will debut in January 2023. NieR creator Yoko Taro shared the release window, adding that the anime’s story would differ from its source material.

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Interpol issues red notice for Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon

Following a request by South Korean prosecutors, Interpol has placed Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on a “red notice” list, TechCrunch has reported. That will create a request for law enforcement agencies around the world to arrest Kwon following his blockchain company’s collapse that took $40 billion from investors with it. 

After Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kwon last week, he tweeted that he was “not on the run” or “anything similar.” However, prosecutors said that they believed Kwon left Korea to “evade investigation” as he told them through his lawyers that he didn’t intend to appear before questioning. “He is clearly on the run as his family members and the company’s key finance people also left for the same country [Singapore] at the same time,” they said.

Kwon and other Terraform Labs’ employees are under investigation for financial fraud and tax evasion following the collapse of its stablecoins, TerraUSD and Luna. The investors, many of whom lost their life savings following the collapse, filed complaints accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme. The crash of the Luna token also played a roll in the collapse of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. 

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 falls to a new low of $250

If you have your eye on Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 5 but were waiting for a deal, one has already arrived. Amazon’s Woot portal is selling the 40mm model in several colors (Grey, Pink Gold and Silver) for $250, a savings of $30 or 11 percent off the regular price. 

Buy Galaxy Watch 5 at Woot – $250

The Galaxy Watch 5 scored a solid 85 in our Engadget review, and we once again called it “the best non-Apple smartwatch.” Samsung was focused more on perfecting it over the Watch 4, adding extra battery life (a runtime of up to 80 hours), greater durability with Sapphire Crystal glass and an inactive temperature sensor. 

Otherwise, it carries the same design and features as before, which is a good thing. Powered by a responsive 5-nanometer Exynos processor and running Wear OS, it uses Samsung’s bezel-based navigation with a touch-sensitive ring framing the screen. That gives you access to numerous apps, along with sleep-tracking and coaching plus health and activity tracking. You can get your body composition reading using the body-impedance analysis tool, take ECG scans, reply to messages, control music playback and more. 

The lightly curved underside keeps the sensors in contact with your wrist, and it’s rated IP68, 5ATM and MIL-STD-810H for durability (water, dust and pressure resistance). The main downside is that battery life is considerably lower with the always-on display compared to the Apple Watch 7. Still, it’s the best Android smartwatch available and it’s rare to see a discount on such a new device. Bear in mind that sales from Woot are time limited and have a different return policy from parent Amazon.

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Amazon 會員折扣日再臨，10 月 11 至 12 日迎接 Prime Early Access Sales

經過數週的傳言後，Amazon 終於正式公佈他們將會今年舉辦第二次會員專屬的大型促銷活動 Prime Early Access Sales ，將於 10 月 11 – 12 日舉行，今年 Prime Day 的超大折扣都會有望再一次出現。

EPA opens new office dedicated to environmental justice and civil rights

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has formed a new office designed to help marginalized communities deal with the extra burdens of pollution and climate change, Reuters has reported. The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights will be staffed by 200 EPA employees located in the agency’s Washington head office and 10 regional bureaus. 

“The establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing environmental justice and civil rights at EPA will ensure the lived experiences of underserved communities are central to our decision-making while supporting community-driven solutions,” said US Vice President Kamala Harris.

One of the primary jobs of the new office will be to oversea the distribution of $3 billion in environmental justice grants created by the passage the of Inflation Reduction Act, as part of a $60 billion investment in environmental justice. It’ll also check that other EPA programs hew to President Biden’s Justice40 initiative designed to ensure that 40 percent of certain government investments flow to disadvantaged communities. Finally, it’ll help communities access grants, enforce civil rights laws and resolve environmental conflicts.

The new office was launched at an event in Warren County, North Carolina, the site of 1982 protests over toxic waste dumping in the region. The resulting civil disobedience actions and arrests failed to stop the 22-acre dump, but gave birth to the modern environmental justice movement. The 40th anniversary of the protests was commemorated by participants last week. 

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.