Cyber Monday has come and gone, but if you’re still looking to pick up a new smart display or two ahead of the holidays, a newer deal on Amazon’s Echo Shows may be of interest: The retailer is currently offering a bundle that pairs its Echo Show 8 with the Kids edition of its Echo Show 5 for $70. 

Buy Echo Show 8 + Echo Show 5 Kids at Amazon – $70

We’ve seen the Echo Show 8 alone go for $70 for much of the last two months, but that still equals the lowest price we’ve tracked. Normally, it retails closer to $100. With this deal, you’re effectively getting an Echo Show 5 Kids thrown in at no extra cost. That device is currently available on its own for $40, but its average street price over the last few months has sat closer to $60.

Most people don’t need a smart display, but for those who like using a voice assistant to pull up the weather, control smart lights and doorbells, stream podcasts and so on, it can provide more context than a screenless smart speaker. Amazon and Google are really your only options in this market, but if you’re already partial to Alexa, the Echo Show 8 is your best bet. 

We gave the 8-inch display a review score of 87 last year and currently recommend it in our guide to the best smart displays: It can’t double as a smart home hub like the bigger Echo Show 10, but its display is big and sharp (1,280 x 800) enough to comfortably stream video or display photos around the house, its speakers are powerful enough to fill a room, its processor can keep up with most tasks and its 13-megapixel camera is suitable for video calls. And while no Alexa or Google Assistant device is ideal for the privacy-conscious, there’s at least a physical camera shutter and mic mute button built in.

The Echo Show 5 isn’t as quick, spacious or loud, and its 2-megapixel camera is a noticeable downgrade. Still, it can do just about everything the larger models can do, and its 5.5-inch screen makes it a better fit for bathrooms or bedside tables. We gave it a score of 85 last year. The Kids version has the same hardware as the normal model, but it comes with a two-year warranty, a year of Amazon’s Kids+ content service and a more child-friendly interface. Whether you’re okay putting an Amazon mic and camera in your kid’s room is up to you, but there is a camera cover and various parental controls for limiting and monitoring how the device is used.

If you’re not beholden to Alexa, we’ll note that Google’s Nest Hub, our top pick among Google displays, is still on sale for $50. We generally find the Google Assistant to be a little smarter than Alexa, particularly for web queries, and it naturally plays nicer with widely-used Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube and the like. The Nest Hub also lacks a camera, which may be a positive if you don’t care about video calling. That said, if you already own a bunch of Alexa-enabled devices and want a couple new displays for around the house, this is a good deal, regardless of Alexa’s broader struggles.

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Source: Engadget – Amazon bundles the Echo Show 8 with an Echo Show 5 Kids for only

Twitch has steadily added to its streamer safety measures, but they can still be a pain to use if a hate raid or dedicated harasser makes life miserable. The service might now have a much simpler solution. It’s introducing “Shield Mode,” a one-button toggle that activates several customizable safety measures at once. You and your moderators can limit chat to followers or subscribers, require verification and implement stricter AutoMod levels, and immediately revert back to looser policies once the crisis is over.

There are even a pair of Shield Mode-only defenses. You can automatically ban everyone who recently used a given phrase in chat, or disallow all first-time chatters. If a raid includes a wave of bigoted slurs from newcomers or bots, you might just silence all of them with a click. You’ll have to file reports for each banned user at launch, but Twitch hopes to streamline the process in the future.

The feature is mainly meant to help guard against hate raids without forcing targeted channels to keep tight security active at all times. Streamers can mostly stick to relaxed, welcoming policies that help grow their audiences. However, Twitch adds that this could also help any broadcaster who’s featured on the front page or planning a stream on a delicate subject.

This comes over a year after Twitch streamers conducted a virtual walkout to protest Twitch’s allegedly slow responses to hate raids. At the time, creators dealt with racist, sexist and transphobic raiding that frequently abused channel hashtags, with some so bad that streams had to be cut short. Twitch promised changes in response, including better ban evasion detection. Shield Mode is another part of that response, and is clearly meant to supplement or replace community-made “panic button” tools that accomplished similar goals.

Source: Engadget – Twitch’s new ‘Shield Mode’ is a one-button anti-harassment tool for streamers