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Plus GM’s Hummer EV SUV goes into production, and Paramount’s streaming service gets a rebrand.

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Tuesday’s top tech news: Hands-on with the HomePod

Here&rsquo;s the&nbsp;top tech news for Wednesday, February 1st, 2023.
We have a review of Apple&rsquo;s new smart speaker as Chris Welch and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy evaluate the &ldquo;all-new&rdquo; $299.99 HomePod.
They praised its sound quality, useful set of sensors, and deep integration with Apple TV, but noted it&rsquo;s a bit more expensive than similar smart speakers, and said you&rsquo;ll really need two of them to get the best experience.
The E3 video game trade show, which has traditionally served as one of the year&rsquo;s major press events, could be a much smaller affair in 2023. A new report from IGN suggests that the three major console manufacturers, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, are all skipping out on the June convention. There&rsquo;s a chance they could still hold press events that month that aren&rsquo;t officially part of E3, but it&rsquo;d be very bad news for the Entertainment Software Association&rsquo;s flagship event itself.
Elsewhere, GM&rsquo;s Hummer EV SUV has entered mass production, and the first customers are expected to receive their gigantic electric cars by the end of Q1. The SUV joins the truck version of the Hummer EV, whose deliveries started in late 2021.
And finally, Paramount is reconfiguring its streaming offering to combine Showtime with Paramount Plus. The resulting streaming service will be called, inventively enough, &ldquo;Paramount Plus with Showtime.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s part of a wave of changes coming to streaming players that also include the merger of HBO Max and Discovery Plus.
For now, here&rsquo;s a silly tweet to start your day:
[Media: https://twitter.com/boogerdiner/status/1620243041004171265]
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Tuesday, January 31st, 2023.

Meta is inexplicably shutting down one of the best Oculus games

AMD thinks the PC sales slump will end after one more rough quarter

EA’s free-to-play Lord of the Rings mobile game is set to launch this year.

Rode added a removable microphone to its headphones

The US government wants to ban gas stoves? Good luck fighting Hank Hill.

Custom build turns the Framework Laptop into a triple-screen powerhouse

AMD made just $21 million last quarter.

Twitter ends CoTweets, its collaborative posting feature

ChatGPT’s creator made a free tool for detecting AI-generated text

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 EV can keep it rolling with its new EPA-estimated 361 miles of range

PayPal is laying off 2,000 employees.

James Gunn’s DC Universe will debut a new Batman movie, the Green Lantern Corps, and a Booster Gold series

Microsoft’s post-layoffs Halo studio is smaller and switching to Unreal Engine

Apple Arcade is getting some more mobile classics.

Apple Music’s Replay 2023 playlist is here to track your favorite songs

Celsius reportedly used investor money to prop up its token price.

Did you want to know more about the software that’s the excuse for jacking up rent prices?

The next Sims will have both solo play and multiplayer

Discord is slowing down some Nvidia graphics cards

Inside the global battle over chip manufacturing

NASA’s Martian rover has finished hoarding samples that might contain proof of ancient life

January was the worst month for tech layoffs.

This computer was pretty “OK.”

Forget Atlas — this is the Boston Dynamics robot that might actually take your job.

Instagram’s co-founders are back with Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text

Schlage’s new lever lock can smarten up all your other doors

Apple’s new HomePod plays it safe

Cyberpunk 2077 now has DLSS 3 to boost frame rates

Google is adding Microsoft 365 integration to ChromeOS later this year

The Nintendo Switch showed us we deserve more from joysticks

PlayStation VR2 sales expectations reportedly halved after disappointing preorders

Fortnite is getting two new Dragon Ball characters and a welcome change to quests

“Now we’re stuck on this stupid freaking tower in the middle of freaking nowhere.”

GM has started producing the Hummer EV SUV

Paramount Plus and Showtime become ‘Paramount Plus with Showtime’

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are reportedly all skipping E3 2023

Sony’s PlayStation 5 is $200 off for the first time since December

Microsoft brings Xbox back, scraps Microsoft Gaming

You’re about to feel the AI money squeeze

Anthropic’s most dangerous AI model just fell into the wrong hands

Elon Musk admits that millions of Tesla vehicles won’t get unsupervised FSD

More from Tuesday’s top tech news: Hands-on with the HomePod

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More from Tuesday’s top tech news: Hands-on with the HomePod

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