The Morning After: Not AirPods, 'AirDots'

The budget buds boast a charging case and Bluetooth 5.0.Xiaomi’s true wireless ‘AirDots’ earbuds cost less than $30

Xiaomi’s latest budget offering is a pair of true wireless earbuds that cost around $28 (depending on the exchange rate). They’re dubbed AirDots, which sounds confusingly (or intentionally) similar to Apple’s $159 AirPods. To further fuel the comparisons, they also come in white and tout a minimal design, and they have a plastic case that’ll also charge the tiny things. For now, the buds are set to launch in China, with no word on a global launch.

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Because competition.Verizon cuts the price of its unlimited prepaid plan

Verizon (owner of Engadget’s parent company — you know you’re reading Engadget’s newsletter, right?) is shaking up its prepaid plans with an emphasis on better value at the high end. Responding to competition from T-Mobile’s Metro, the price of Verizon’s unlimited plan has effectively dropped by $10 to $65 when you set up Auto Pay — it’s still more expensive than Metro, but closer. You’ll also get an extra gig with the $45 plan.

You can have up to 10 lines on your account instead of the earlier five, and you can add both tablets and hotspots to your account at the same prices as adding smartphone lines. That said, the Metro unlimited options start at $50 with Google One perks, and AT&T’s unlimited prepaid tiers are also less expensive at as little as $45.

You’ll need to go online to find out how much each product costs.Amazon sends out toy catalog with no prices ahead of the holidays

The PlayStation Classic, slider phones, the resurrection of Palm. What’s next? The return of the toy catalog. Kind of. Amazon will be sending out a toy catalog, minus prices, ahead of the holidays, containing bonkers gift ideas for the Richie Richs of this world, and Fire 10 HD tabs for the rest of us. This isn’t an iPad, Mom. It’s not the same.

There’s time.Animated ‘Super Mario Bros.’ movie tentatively planned for 2022

Nintendo and Universal’s Mario anime is still a few years away from release, but the big question is how to make a movie better than the 1993 flick. According to its producer, the answer is putting his creator Shigeru Miyamoto “front and center” throughout the process. We’ll see if that works.

Trolley coming through.Waymo blames self-driving collision on pesky human

Waymo has admitted in a blog post that one of its test vehicles hit a motorcycle in Mountain View. The company defended its technology in the post, though, clarifying that the event was caused by human error. Apparently, the test driver took control of the vehicle after seeing a passenger car to the left moving into their lane.

As far as Waymo is concerned, while the situation challenged the test driver, the data suggested its autonomous tech could see the situation developing thanks to 360-degree sensor vision and would’ve responded safely.

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