Technologies

With Help From Snoop Dogg, Amazon Relaunches Luna as a More Social Gaming Service

The biggest change is more multiplayer games that can be played with mobile devices as a group.

Less than a month after retiring its Amazon Prime Gaming brand, the retailer has relaunched its Luna streaming gaming service with a bigger emphasis on multiplayer social games and an exclusive new title in the hizzy.

Courtroom Chaos Starring Snoop Dogg, a new Luna launch title available now to Amazon Prime members, is described as «a human-built, AI-powered, voice-driven improv courtroom game where players take turns inventing absurd characters, spinning wild stories, and doing anything it takes to defend their testimonies in front of Judge Snoop Dogg.»

That title, however, is just one of the big announcements for Luna’s relaunch. Amazon is reworking some existing titles to include more multiplayer features and controls for a section of games it calls GameNight. Those games include The Jackbox Party Pack 9 and what Amazon calls «reimagined» versions of Tetris Effect: Connected and Angry Birds. One of the hooks for these games is that groups of people can play them together and use their mobile devices as controllers.

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In addition, games being added to the service that are already available include Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, TopSpin 2K25 and Hogwarts Legacy. Those are available to any Prime member, but for $10 more, Amazon says players can unlock a bigger selection of titles to play on Luna Premium, such as Sports FC 25, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Batman: Arkham Knight. It replaces the Luna Plus premium service.

Luna’s history

Luna was first announced in 2020 and debuted in 2021 as a premium gaming service. Amazon also developed a controller to play with the service.

And while it had its fans, in recent years, Luna was considered a component of Amazon Gaming, which was primarily a collection of free games and perks for existing games that was updated monthly.

Luna debuted about a year after another ambitious game streaming service, Google Stadia, which then shut down in 2023.

Technologies

The FCC Just Approved Charter’s $34.5B Cox Purchase. Here’s What It Means for 37M Customers

Technologies

Spotify Expands Into Audiobook Rankings With Weekly Charts

The feature is available to both free users and Premium subscribers. Wuthering Heights is reaching the heights on both the US and UK charts.

If you’re a Spotify user, you may be familiar with features like the year-end summary Wrapped, as well as your daily usage stats. Now, the service has a new popularity chart tracking audiobooks.

Spotify’s audiobook charts are now available to free and Premium users within the service’s Audiobooks hub. While only Premium users receive 15 hours of audiobook listening per month, the company offers a larger selection of titles you can buy.

US charts and UK charts are both available now.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services for 2026

Spotify says that the audiobook charts will help customers discover new and popular titles in real time.

«As we’ve proven with Music and Podcasts Charts, when content is easier to access, discover, and enjoy, the demand grows,» said Duncan Bruce, Spotify’s director of audiobook partnerships and licensing, in a statement on Friday.

Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022, and has since added features such as the AI catchup tool Recaps and PageMatch, which lets you swap more easily between a printed book and the audio version.

Spotify Premium currently costs $13 a month and includes more than 100 million songs, as well as audiobooks. Spotify Premium is currently CNET’s Editors’ Choice for best music streaming service.

The current US audiobooks chart lists Emily Brontë’s romantic classic Wuthering Heights as the top listen, followed by James Clear’s self-help book Atomic Habits and Freida McFadden’s psychological thriller The Housemaid. Audiobook popularity is also broken down by genre, with charts for romance, mystery and thriller books, self-help, science fiction and fantasy, biography and memoir, business and careers, teen and young adult, religion and spirituality, history, and parenting and relationships.

Powered by its blockbuster movie adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, Wuthering Heights also leads the overall chart for the UK.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 28, #523

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 523, for Saturday, Feb. 28.

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 is a tough one. Chicagoans and southerners, you might have an advantage, at least with the blue and purple categories. 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 own 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: Fore!

Green group hint: Take me out to the ballgame.

Blue group hint: Alma mater.

Purple group hint: Bear down.