Microsoft said Saturday that clients of its Azure cloud platform might experience increased latency after multiple undersea cables were cut in the Red Sea, as reported in Bloomberg.
In a status update, the company said traffic going through the Middle East or ending in Asia or Europe had been affected. It did not say who had cut the cables or why.
“Undersea fiber cuts can take time to repair, as such we will continuously monitor, rebalance, and optimize routing to reduce customer impact in the meantime,” the status update said.
By Saturday evening, Microsoft said it was no longer detecting any Azure issues. But it seems Azure was not the only service affected, with NetBlocks reporting that “a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries” including India and Pakistan.
Sometimes, rising prices for streaming services feels as inevitable as death and taxes. So when a serious discount is available, we tend to sit up and take notice. For a few weeks, you can get a whopping half off an annual subscription to Paramount+. A year of the Paramount+ Essential plan, which is ad-supported, will cost $30 compared to the usual $60. Paramount+ Premium, which is ad-free except for live tv programming, will cost $60 for a year instead of $120.
Paramount+
Get half off plans for new and returning customers through September 18.
This is a substantial deal that both new and returning subscribers can take advantage of; it’s not uncommon for this type of serious discount to only be offered to a first-timer. Anyone who signs up for a year-long subscription to Paramount+ from now through September 18 will be able to get this pricing. The only real caveat with this deal is that you have to pay for the full year in advance; month-to-month subscriptions will still cost the usual rate.
Paramount+ has some great programming options, particularly if you’re a fan of anything involving RuPaul. It’s also the home of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks, which are arguably the best modern additions to the sci-fi show’s canon, as well as the other past and present Star Trek series. The platform offers a solid lineup of sports as well. And if you opt to go for the Premium plan, you’ll also be granted access to Showtime titles such as Yellowjackets and the rebooted Dexter: Resurrection.
Check out our coverage of the best streaming deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Over the past few days I’ve been on the ground in Berlin covering IFA 2025, and one of the most common things to see on the show floor has been Qi2 accessories. With the Pixel 10 finally adding magnets, I was like a kid in a candy store, so here are some of my favorite Qi2 accessories from IFA.
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As one of the longest-running tech shows on the planet, there was a lot at IFA 2025 this week. TVs, home appliances, robots for your robots, and so much more. I saw a lot of cool stuff, but one of the biggest themes I saw around the show – besides AI, of course – was Qi2.
With Qi2’s big 25W upgrade making a splash recently, tons of brands were showcasing their accessories this week ahead of the iPhone launch in just a few days. And, carrying around my Pixel 10 Pro XL around the show floor, I was pretty excited to see everything.
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There were so many Qi2 accessories at IFA, you could simply throw your phone across the room – and I mean absolutely launch it – and there was actually a pretty decent chance it would land on a magnetic accessory.
Of course, there were chargers aplenty.
Aukey’s MagFusion Ark is a stand-out with its flexible charging spheres, while Ugreen caught my eye with a range of battery banks that support 25W charging speeds. What stood out to me about both of these brands is that, unlike many of the other ones out there, the lineups weren’t fully focused on stuffing in an Apple Watch charger. So many of the clever multi-device Qi2 setups I saw across the show felt like a waste as a Pixel 10 owner who’d just have an Apple Watch charger sitting there with nothing to do, so it was nice that Aukey and Ugreen weren’t so hyper-focused on that 3-in-1 setup.
But options went well beyond these two.
Battery banks were clearly a huge area of focus. As mentioned, Aukey and Ugreen both had their own options there, but I also saw options from a lot of other brands. A couple of stand-outs there include one from BMX (short for “Better Mobile Experience”), which has a solid-state battery inside. This means that it can take damage without being dangerous. To prove it, the company put a screw into one of its batteries just before the show and, well, the building hasn’t burned down yet. Meanwhile, a pleather-clad battery from “Uniq” offers passthrough for magnetic accessories, meaning you can still keep your wallet attached to the battery while the battery charges your phone.
Other interesting chargers I spotted include a charging puck from Energea that has a built-in retractable USB-C cable, a desktop charging dock from Baseus that has several charging ports, built-in retactable cables, and a posable Qi2 25W dock.
There was also this wild Qi2 charging dock built into a lamp from a company called Ricomm.
But magnetic accessories go beyond just chargers and batteries! I also found some neat wallets with kickstands from Moft, a pair of flexible car mounts from Baseus, and a Bluetooth speaker stand from Energea. Several brands were also showing off little magnetic panels that include suction cups.
Towards the end of my visit, I also visited the “Oh Snap” booth, a smaller company that had some neat options to show off.
The two main products on display included a phone grip that, by their description, “doesn’t suck.” Unlike the many other phone grips I’ve seen, this one is very thin. It’s even thinner than Google’s Pixelsnap Ring and, while the kickstand isn’t nearly as strong, it also comes with the benefit of still supporting wireless charging passthrough on magnetic chargers. But by far the coolest thing was a game controller that’s slim, has a pop-out design to reveal the gamepad, and also comes in a translucent design. The design is surprisingly comfortable, but also super portable. It’s a great idea, and while the controller is still in the final stages of crowdfunding, I’m certainly excited to see it come to market.
And that really put a perfect bookend on my experience at IFA exploring all of the Qi2 accessories that, finally, my phone actually supports. The world of Qi2 (and MagSafe) is wacky and wonderful, full of plenty of practical ideas, but also plenty of clever use cases that I wouldn’t have expected.
I’m really excited to start testing out more of these Qi2 offerings with my Pixel 10 over the coming months, and thrilled that it seems like more Android brands are set to follow Google’s lead.
Did any of these accessories catch your eye? Let’s discuss!
This Week’s Top Stories
Android 16’s big redesign is finally, actually here
After a “false” start to Android 16 a few weeks ago, the full Material 3 Expressive redesign we’ve been waiting for has arrived as QPR1 is now available to all Pixel 6 and newer owners.
IFA 2025 recap (aside from all the Qi2)
Here are all of our stories from IFA 2025, including launches from Samsung, Lenovo, and many more.
“While we do not typically comment on ongoing investigations, we believe it is important to address public concern,” the post reads. “Based on evidence to date — including a review of body-worn cameras and consultation with medical professionals — it appears the officer experienced a medical episode.”
All potential contributing factors are being examined, the department said. The officer will remain on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated, according to the post.
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The European Commission announced this week that it’s fining Google €2.95 billion (just under $3.5 billion).
The commission found that Google had violated European Union antitrust rules by favoring its own advertising services. Specifically, the commission said Google “abused” its “dominant positions” by favoring its ad exchange AdX in both its publisher ad server and in its ad-buying tools.
The commission also said Google has 60 days to “bring these self-preferencing practices to an end” and “to implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain.”
“Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,” said Teresa Ribera, the commission’s executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition, in a statement. “Digital markets exist to serve people and must be grounded in trust and fairness. And when markets fail, public institutions must act to prevent dominant players from abusing their power.”
In response, a Google spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that the company would appeal the commission’s decision, adding, “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”
The WSJ reports that the announcement was delayed from a planned date of September 1, reportedly due to concerns over the European Union and United States’ continuing negotiations over a potential trade deal.
This is the EU’s second largest antitrust fine ever (behind a $5 billion fine against Google in 2018). The decision was criticized not just by Google, but also by U.S. President Donald Trump, who complained in a Truth Social post about the “many other Fines and Taxes that have been issued against Google and other American Tech Companies” such as Apple.
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“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies,” Trump said.
The president hosted a televised dinner on Thursday, where tech executives including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google co-founder Sergey Brin praised Trump’s policies, particularly around AI.
Google, meanwhile, appeared to score an antitrust victory in the United States this week. Although a federal judge had previously ruled that the company had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, his remedies fell far short of Justice Department proposals for the company to sell Chrome and potentially even Android.
It’s September, and that usually means it’s iPhone season. Like clockwork, Apple once again appears set to show off new smartphones with its latest showcase next week. The upcoming event has been dubbed “Awe dropping,” so we’re hoping for a few announcements that’ll warrant the tagline. The showcase begins on September 9 at 1PM ET/10AM PT.
If you want to tune in to hear what Tim Cook and crew have to say about the presumed iPhone 17, you can stream the show on Apple’s website or YouTube channel. We’ve also got the livestream embedded below so you can follow along with our liveblog while you watch.
With just a few days to go until the “Awe dropping” event, it seems like we’ve already gotten a lot of advanced insights about what the iPhone 17 lineup has in store. Apple introduced the software side of the equation with the iOS 26 unveil at WWDC this summer, and since then we’ve gotten some pretty reliable insights on the hardware.
The big reveal is expected to be an ultralight smartphone, likely called the iPhone 17 Air. This would be Apple’s first application of its Air nomenclature for mobile, and when we had Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman on the Engadget Podcast at the end of August, he suggested that the first iteration of the smartphone might come with some growing pains. We also anticipate seeing a base iPhone 17, an iPhone 17 Pro, and an iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Beyond the smartphones, the “Awe dropping” event could also include three new Apple Watches and updated AirPods Pro earbuds. Bloomberg reports that Apple has several other devices in the works as well, including a new AirTag, Apple TV and iPad Pro, but it’s not as certain if those will pop up at this specific event. Either way, you can tune in on September 9 to hear about all the new product launches.
Following the Material 3 Expressive redesign, the next big update to Google Keep should be the Google Tasks switch, with more details now available.
Google previously said this migration away from Google Keep’s built-in system would take place in the “second half of 2025.” We haven’t seen any reports of this getting underway yet.
When this occurs, “new reminders will be saved as tasks” with ability to “view, edit, and complete” them from Calendar, Keep, and Tasks, as well as Gemini. Google previously showed that Keep’s Reminders page (in the navigation drawer) will remain.
One thing to note is how Google Keep will stop sending reminder notifications, with Calendar or Tasks handling alerts instead. However, “you can mark reminders as complete” anywhere:
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Reminder notification on your mobile device
Keep note
Task details in Tasks or Calendar
In the Calendar grid and Tasks list, they will be badged as “From Keep,” with a tap opening the original note.
You can “edit the date and time of a reminder” from Keep, Tasks, or Calendar, but the name of the reminder can only be changed through the two latter apps.
If you only change the title of the Keep note, the reminder’s title doesn’t update.
The one feature Google Keep will lose is location-based reminders: “You can no longer create or get location-based reminders.” Any locations you’ve inputted will appear in the Tasks description field in an unfortunate removal. Hopefully, Google will add that underlying capability to Tasks in the future now that things have coalesced.
That’s the main Google Tasks caveat, with Google listing other edge cases with this switch for Keep:
Limits on tasks: You can have up to 100,000 tasks. If the number of Keep reminders is more than the task limit, the oldest reminders don’t migrate to Tasks.
Long reminders: If your Keep reminder is too long, its title is shortened after it migrates to Tasks.
Pending tasks: You can find a list of all “Pending tasks” from the last 365 days in the “All-day” section of your calendar for the current day.
Repeating tasks: If you have a task that repeats more than every 1,000 days, weeks, months, or years, we adjust the recurrence schedule to be once every 1,000 days, weeks, months, or years. For example, a task that repeats every 2,000 days is adjusted to every 1,000 days.
Reminders that don’t repeat and are older than a year are added to an “Old Google Keep Reminders” list.
Tasks beyond the year 3000: Any tasks with dates beyond the year 3000 are adjusted to the year 2900.
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It’s time to grab your tickets and check to see if you’re a big winner! Someone from Texas and another from Missouri won the jackpot worth $1.8 billion dollars in the Powerball lottery. The jackpot resets again for Monday night’s drawing.
Here are Saturday’s winning lottery numbers:
11-23-44-61-62, Powerball: 17, Power Play: 2X
Double Play winning numbers:
21-29-34-41-65, Powerball: 17
The estimated Powerball jackpot is $1.8 billion. The lump sum payment before taxes would be about $826.4 million.
The Double Play is a feature that gives players in select locations another chance to match their Powerball numbers in a separate drawing. The Double Play drawing is held following the regular drawing and has a top cash prize of $10 million.
Powerball is held in 45 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The Double Play add-on feature is available for purchase in 13 lottery jurisdictions, including Pennsylvania and Michigan.
A $2 ticket gives you a one in 292.2 million chance at joining the hall of Powerball jackpot champions.
The drawings are held at 10:59 p.m. Eastern, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The deadline to purchase tickets is 9:45 p.m.
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Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden, pictured in 1977, died Saturday. The Hall of Famer helped the Canadiens win six Stanley Cup titles.
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MONTREAL — Ken Dryden, the Hall of Fame goaltender who helped the Montreal Canadiens win six Stanley Cup titles in the 1970s, has died after a fight with cancer. He was 78.
The Canadiens announced his death early Saturday, saying Dryden’s family asked for privacy. A team spokesperson said a close friend of Dryden’s appointed by the family contacted the organization, adding he died peacefully Friday at his home.
“Ken Dryden was an exceptional athlete, but he was also an exceptional man,” Canadiens owner Geoff Molson said. “Behind the mask he was larger than life. We mourn today not only the loss of the cornerstone of one of hockey’s greatest dynasties but also a family man, a thoughtful citizen and a gentleman who deeply impacted our lives and communities across generations.”
Dryden backstopped the NHL’s most successful franchise to championships in six of his eight seasons in the league from 1970-71 to ’78-79. He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year, the Vezina as the best goalie five times and the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP in 1971, while being a six-time All-Star.
“Ken embodied the best of everything the Montreal Canadiens are about,” Molson said.
Known for resting his blocker and glove hands on top of his stick in a relaxed manner that became one of hockey’s most recognizable poses, the 6-foot-4 Dryden retired at just 31 in 1979.
“From the moment Ken Dryden joined the Montreal Canadiens as a 23-year-old rookie in 1971, he made an immediate and lasting impact on the NHL, the Canadiens franchise and the goaltending position,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “Ken’s love for his country was evident both on and off the ice.”
Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, Dryden was 258-57-74 with a .922 save percentage, 2.24 goals-against average and 46 shutouts in just over seven seasons and went 80-32 in the playoffs.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on social media he was “deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the Hon. Ken Dryden, a Canadian hockey legend and hall of famer, public servant and inspiration.”
“Few Canadians have given more, or stood taller, for our country,” Carney said. “Ken Dryden was Big Canada. And he was Best Canada. Rest in peace.”
From Hamilton, Ontario, Dryden played three seasons at Cornell University from 1966-69, leading the Big Red to the 1967 NCAA title and finishing with a career record of 76-4-1.
He was an NHL star, broadcaster and politician
Dryden entered the NHL in 1971 and spent just six games in the crease before making his NHL postseason debut. He and Montreal upset rival Boston in the first round and beat Chicago in the final.
He then was a cornerstone of Canada’s 1972 Summit Series team that defeated the Soviet Union, starting in goal in the decisive 6-5 victory in Game 8.
“I feel the history of that tournament, the legacy of that team just as strongly as all Canadian fans do,” Dryden told The Canadian Press in a 2022 interview. “It never goes away. It’s kind of like a good wine, I guess. Actually, the legacy of it grows.”
He also worked at a Toronto law firm while sitting out the 1973-74 NHL season — after previously earning a law degree at Montreal’s McGill University.
After retiring as a player, he went into broadcasting and wrote “The Game,” one of the best known books about the sport, after publishing “Face-off at the Summit” as part of an accomplished career as an author. He was the color analyst alongside Al Michaels for the “Miracle on Ice” when the U.S. beat the Soviet Union and went on to win the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Dryden served as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1997 through 2004 — a stretch accented by trips to the Eastern Conference final in both 1999 and 2002 — before resigning to enter politics. He ran for the federal Liberals in 2004 and was named minister of social development in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s cabinet.
Dryden, who also taught at various universities across Canada, held onto his seat in Toronto’s York Centre riding in 2006 when the Liberals were ousted, and again in 2008, but lost in 2011.
Dryden is survived by wife Lynda and their two children.
Brother Dave Dryden was a longtime NHL and WHA goalie. He died in 2022 at the age of 81.
On Friday, a startup called Fable announced an ambitious, if head-scratching, plan to recreate the lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Why is a startup that bills itself as the “Netflix of AI,” and that recently raised money from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, talking about remaking a movie that was first released in 1942?
Now Fable is launching a new AI model that can supposedly generate long, complex narratives. Over the next two years, filmmaker Brian Rose — who has already spent five years working to digitally reconstruct Welles’ original vision — plans to use that model to remake the lost footage from “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Remarkably, Fable has not obtained the rights to the film, making this a prospective tech demo that will probably never be released to the general public.
Why “Ambersons”? If you’re not a Welles-loving cinephile, I’m guessing it sounds like an obscure choice for digital resurrection.
Even among classic movie buffs, Welles’ second film is overshadowed by its older, more famous sibling. While “Citizen Kane” is often called the greatest movie ever made, “Ambersons” is remembered as a lost masterpiece that the studio took out of the director’s hands, dramatically cutting it down and adding an unconvincing happy ending.
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The movie’s reputation — the sense of loss and what could have been — is presumably what interested Fable and Rose. But it’s worth emphasizing that the only reason we care about “The Magnificent Ambersons” today is because of Welles — because of how it derailed his Hollywood career, and how even in its diminished form, it still reveals so much of his filmmaking genius.
That makes it even more astonishing that Fable apparently failed to reach out to Welles’ estate. David Reeder, who handles the estate for Welles’ daughter Beatrice, described the project to Variety as an “attempt to generate publicity on the back of Welles’ creative genius” and said that it will amount to nothing more than “a purely mechanical exercise without any of the uniquely innovative thinking [of] a creative force like Welles.”
Despite Reeder’s criticism, he seems less upset by the idea of attempting to recreate “Ambersons” and more by the fact that the estate was not “even given the courtesy of a heads up.” After all, he noted, “the estate has embraced AI technology to create a voice model intended to be used for VO work with brands.”
I’m not so open-minded. Even if Welles’ heirs were being consulted and compensated, I’d have zero interest in this new “Ambersons,” just as I have zero interest in hearing a digital simulacrum of Welles’s legendary voice being used to hawk new products.
Now, Welles fans know this isn’t the first time other filmmakers have tried to posthumously fix or finish his movies. But at least those attempts used footage that Welles had shot himself. Fable, meanwhile, describes its planned approach as a hybrid of AI and traditional filmmaking — apparently some scenes will be reshot with contemporary actors whose faces will be then swapped for digital recreations of the original cast.
Despite the absurdity of announcing a project like this without the film rights or the blessing of Welles’ daughter, at least Rose seems motivated by a genuine desire to honor Welles’ vision. For example, in a statement about why he wants to recreate the film, Rose mourned the destruction of “a four-minute-long, unbroken moving camera shot whose loss is a tragedy,” with only 50 seconds of the shot remaining in the recut film.
I share his sense of loss — but I also believe this is a tragedy that AI cannot undo.
No matter how convincingly Fable and Rose may be able to stitch together their own version of that tracking shot, it will be their shot, not Welles’, filled with Frankensteined replicas of Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, not the actors themselves. Their final product will not be Welles’ version of “The Magnificent Ambersons” that RKO destroyed more than 80 years ago. Barring a miraculous rediscovery of lost footage, that version is gone forever.
