Technologies

Save Up to $1,100 on the New iPhone 17 with Xfinity

Whether you’re excited about ultra-thin iPhone Air or the stunning cameras and battery life on iPhone 17 Pro Max, get up to $1,100 off when you trade in your current phone with Xfinity.

September is in the air, which means it’s back to work, back to school and…time for a new iPhone. At its «awe dropping» event last week, Apple unveiled its iPhone 17 lineup with four new models, including the long-awaited iPhone Air, which at 5.6mm thick is the thinnest iPhone ever.

Whether you’re eager to go thin with iPhone Air or all-out with iPhone 17 Pro Max, you can save up to $1,100 when you trade in an eligible phone with Xfinity before October 9. (That means your new iPhone could be completely free.) Plus, you’ll get to use it on Xfinity, America’s largest and most reliable 5G network that also gets you access to millions of WiFi hotspots.

Here are a few standout features of the new iPhone lineup to help you decide which one is right for you.

From ultra-thin iPhone Air to all-out iPhone 17 Pro Max

Better cameras, faster chips, brighter screens — Apple’s latest collection delivers improvements to hardware, design and battery life, plus some fun surprises.

iPhone 17

Available in black, white, or three pastel colors, iPhone 17 also boasts a larger (6.3 inches) and brighter (up to 3,000 nits) screen, protected with an improved scratch- and glare-resistant coating. Most exciting: the standard model now includes the ProMotion display, formerly available only on Pro models, as well as the Pro’s 48-megapixel Dual Fusion camera. Inside, its A19 chip boasts a five-core GPU. Pricing starts at $799, or get it free when you trade in your qualifying phone with Xfinity.

iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max

Available with a 6.3-inch (Pro) or 6.9-inch (Max) screen and protected with a Ceramic Shield on both sides, Apple’s top-tier iPhone sets itself apart with an 18-megapixel front Center Stage camera, as well as three 48-mexapixel lenses in its Fusion telephoto system. With updated processor cooling and thermal management, Apple says iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max will get up to 39 hours of video playback. Pricing starts at $1,099, or as low as $0 with your qualifying trade-in at Xfinity.

iPhone Air

The newsiest of Apple’s announcements, iPhone Air is a visual stunner at only 5.6mm thick, all without skimping on the specs. With the same A19 Pro processor found in the Pro models, iPhone Air incorporates neural accelerators into each of its six GPU cores. Its 6.5-inch ProMotion XDR display, 48-megapixel camera, new N1 networking chip and C2 modem make it a very powerful, compact device. And don’t let its slim profile fool you: With a new polished titanium frame and Apple’s Ceramic Shield protecting the front and back, the Air is Apple’s strongest iPhone yet. Pricing starts at $999—or free when you trade in your phone with Xfinity.

Save up to $1,100 whether you’re switching to Xfinity or not

The iPhone 17 lineup is available now, and you can save big when you trade in your qualifying phone with Xfinity before October 9. Your trade-in phone doesn’t have to be a previous iPhone model, and you can take advantage of the offer whether you’re switching to Xfinity or an existing customer looking to upgrade. If you have a phone made by a major manufacturer in the past few years, you’ll likely qualify for the full $1,100 credit, meaning you can get any new iPhone 17 model for free via credits on your monthly bill.

As an Xfinity customer, you’ll enjoy your new iPhone 17 on America’s largest and most reliable 5G network as well as millions of WiFi hotspots that bring connection to you wherever you are. Check your phone’s trade-in value today and save up to $1,100 on iPhone 17 now through October 9.

Technologies

If You Were ‘Tricked’ Into an Amazon Prime Subscription, You Should Have Been Paid by Today

Amazon is paying $1.5 billion to people who mistakenly subscribed to Prime, and the first round of payments are due today.

Amazon Prime provides a lot of valuable benefits to its members, but the company’s registration practices for its premium subscription from 2019 to 2025 led to many customers accidentally subscribing to a service they didn’t want.

Amazon is now paying the price for that deception — the US Federal Trade Commission levied a massive $2.5 billion settlement on the company for its subscription tactics.

The majority of the settlement — $1.5 billion — has been earmarked to refund eligible subscribers, with the rest serving as a civil penalty. Amazon is also now legally required to provide a clear, obvious option to decline Prime, making it as easy to leave the service as it is to join.

Amazon isn’t admitting to shady behavior. «Amazon and our executives have always followed the law, and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,» Mark Blafkin, Amazon senior manager, said in a statement. «We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world.»

The online retail giant started sending out payments to eligible people in November and was supposed to conclude its initial automatic payments today, Dec. 24. Read on to learn more about Amazon’s settlement and what to do if you think you’re eligible for compensation but didn’t receive a payment.

Why did the FTC fine Amazon?

The FTC filed suit against Amazon, accusing the company of using «dark patterns» to nudge people into Prime subscriptions and then making it too hard to cancel. The FTC maintained Amazon was in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.

«Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions,» the FTC complaint stated.

Who’s eligible for Amazon’s payout?

Amazon’s legal settlement is limited to customers who enrolled in Amazon Prime between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025. It’s also restricted to customers who subscribed to Prime using a «challenged enrollment flow» or who enrolled in Prime through any method but were unsuccessful in canceling their memberships.

The FTC called out specific enrollment pages, including Prime Video enrollment, the Universal Prime Decision page, the Shipping Option Select page and the Single Page Checkout. To qualify for a payout, claimants must also not have used more than 10 Amazon Prime benefits in any 12-month period.

Customers who signed up via those challenged processes and did not use more than three Prime benefits within one year will be paid automatically by Amazon within 90 days. Other eligible Amazon customers will need to file a claim, and Amazon is required to send notices to those people within 30 days of making its automatic payments.

If you are eligible for the automatic payment, you should have received an email from Amazon by today explaining how to claim the money. You can be paid via PayPal or Venmo. If you prefer a paper check, don’t accept the digital payment. The FTC says Amazon will mail you a check that you must cash within 60 days.

How big will the Amazon payments be?

Payouts to eligible Amazon claimants will be limited to a maximum of $51. That amount could be reduced depending on the number of Amazon Prime benefits you used while subscribed to the service. Those benefits include free two-day shipping, watching shows or movies on Prime Video or Whole Foods grocery discounts.

Customers who qualify for the payments should have received them from Nov. 12 to Dec. 24, 2025.If you are eligible for compensation from Amazon but didn’t receive a payout, you’ll need to file a claim after Amazon starts the claim process. The FTC says it will update its Amazon settlement site once that process has begun.

Customers who did not use a challenged sign-up process but instead were unable to cancel their Prime memberships will also need to file claims for payment.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Dec. 25, #458

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Dec. 25, No. 458.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has a real mix of categories, including one that’s all about a certain famous athlete. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Swing away!

Green group hint: What’s that on your bat?

Blue group hint: Catch the football.

Purple group hint: Lake Placid or Lillehammer.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Baseball bat materials.

Green group: Associated with George Brett.

Blue group: NFL rookie WRs.

Purple group: Olympic ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is baseball bat materials. The four answers are aluminum, ash, birch and maple.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with George Brett. The four answers are 5, pine tar, Royals and third base.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is NFL rookie WRs. The four answers are Burden, Egbuka, Golden and McMillan.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Olympic ____. The four answers are Games, rings, torch and village.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Christmas Eve Gaming Crushed as Steam Goes Offline

Services related to the popular game hub seem to slowly be returning as of Wednesday afternoon.

Your Christmas Eve gaming session might not go as planned. Online gaming hub Steam went down on Wednesday. As of about 1:30 pm PT, the Steam store page was once again accessible, so services seemed to be coming back online.

The Steam outage appeared to begin mid-afternoon ET, according to Downdetector, which monitors site outages. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

A representative for Steam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As of Wednesday noon PT, Steam’s official X and Bluesky accounts hadn’t posted anything about the outage.

Gamers certainly noticed. «Steam down, Steam down!!!» wrote one Bluesky user.

Others commented on the bad timing just as gamers were enjoying time off or receiving gaming gifts. «‘You got a gift on Steam!’ oh cool ‘Steam is down’ oh cool,» wrote another Bluesky user.