Tech
Audible’s new ‘Read & Listen’ feature syncs your Kindle e-books with audiobooks
Only days after Spotify announced its foray into physical book sales, which included an audiobook feature that lets you sync your listening and your offline reading progress, Amazon-owned Audible has launched a feature that brings e-books together with audiobooks.
The company announced on Wednesday an “immersion reading” feature in the Audible app, which allows readers who have both the e-book and audiobook versions of a title in their Audible and Kindle libraries to read the e-book’s text while the audio plays. The feature also lets users switch between the different formats across devices. While in the “Read & Listen” mode, the text of the book is highlighted in real time in sync with the narration.
The Kindle app already offered a tool that would allow readers to move between the Audible version and the e-book, when both versions had been purchased. This feature is now coming to Audible’s app for the first time. Customers will need to own both versions of the book for this to work, but discounted audiobooks will be made available to customers who own the matching e-book, the company says.
At launch, hundreds of thousands of titles will be supported by the new “Read & Listen” feature, including those in English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French. Initially, the option will be offered in the U.S., with the U.K., Australia, and Germany gaining support over the next few months.
To discover eligible titles, Audible will automatically identify which Kindle e-books have audiobook matches within its app.
Of course, many customers were already reading and listening to their books without buying two versions — by having Alexa narrate their e-books from their Kindle library. Alexa is not a professional narrator by any means, and the AI assistant’s more monotonous delivery can lead you to zone out. By offering a way to add on the audiobook for a lower price when you’ve already bought the e-book, Amazon hopes to boost book sales across formats.
The company also claims that the combination of reading and listening can improve focus and comprehension, according to industry research and its own internal data. In addition, customers who read and listen are the most engaged, consuming nearly twice as much content per month as audiobook-only customers, Audible noted.
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The feature may make sense for students and those learning a new language, as well as those who are trying to get through more books quickly. It’s also useful for those who regularly switch back and forth between reading and listening, and those who want the experience of the narration — particularly if a book is read by a favorite voice actor. Plus, some may simply appreciate having a narrator introduce all the characters by name, so they can learn the pronunciation without having to guess (a particularly thorny issue in fantasy novels!).
“Audiobooks count as reading,” said Andy Tsao, chief product officer at Audible, in a statement about the launch. “But now at Audible, you can read with your eyes too. Read & Listen gives book lovers the best of both worlds. Whether you’re learning a new language, studying for school, or lost in a story’s world, you no longer have to choose one format over the other.”
Amazon notes that the new feature will not impact publishers’ royalty payments.
Tech
SoftBank to spend an eye-popping $33B to build huge US gas power plant
SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy is expected to build a massive 9.2 gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant on the Ohio-Kentucky border, according to a report from Bloomberg. If completed, it would be the largest power plant in the U.S., capable of powering around 7.5 million homes.
With a price tag of $33 billion, the project would be more expensive than recent natural gas-fired power plants, which have skyrocketed in cost, Bloomberg notes. It’s unclear who will ultimately foot the bill, though traditionally rate-payers have shouldered the burden for new generating capacity.
The Japanese investor is a partner in the Stargate project with OpenAI. SB Energy did not say whether the new power plant would feed directly into the grid or if it would power data centers. OpenAI and SoftBank are in the process of building a “proof of concept” data center at GM’s former Lordstown automotive assembly plant.
A power plant of this size is likely to take years, perhaps a decade, to complete even before taking into account the shortage of natural gas turbines. If completed, the project could emit around 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to our calculations based on public, energy-use metrics. When including methane leaks from the natural gas supply chain, the climate impact could be even bigger.
Tech
Reddit is testing a new AI search feature for shopping
Reddit announced on Thursday that it’s testing a new AI search tool that takes community recommendations and matches them with products from some of the company’s shopping and advertising partners.
A small group of users in the U.S. will start to see search results that include interactive product carousels with pricing, images, and direct where-to-buy links.
The announcement reflects Reddit’s broader push to combine its community-driven platform with e-commerce capabilities. The move comes as Reddit launched its first shoppable ad product last year, called Dynamic Product Ads (DPA), which display personalized product recommendations to users based on their interests.
Now, when users who are part of the test search for something like “best noise-canceling headphones” or “electronic gift ideas for a college student,” they will see a carousel of related products at the bottom of the results.
This carousel will feature products directly mentioned by users from conversations on related posts and comments. If users tap on the product, they can view more details and then be directed to the retailer to purchase the item.
“This feature surfaces top-recommended products directly from discussions, giving redditors instant information about any product,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This test is designed to make Reddit easier to navigate while keeping community perspectives at the center of the experience. We’ll continue learning from how people use this new feature and refine the experience over time.”
While platforms like TikTok and Instagram have long integrated shopping features, Reddit is now looking to follow suit. Of course, Reddit isn’t the only tech platform that recently started exploring AI-driven shopping, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT rolled out an “Instant Checkout” feature last September that lets users make Etsy and Shopify purchases within conversations.
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Thursday’s announcement comes after Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said during the company’s earnings release last week that the platform’s AI search engine could be the next big opportunity for its business, not just in terms of product, but also as a revenue driver.
Huffman also noted that weekly active users for search grew 30% over the past year, increasing from 60 million to 80 million, while weekly active users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers feature rose from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter.
Tech
As browser wars heat up, Chrome adds new productivity features
As AI companies and startups push their way into the web browser market, the world’s biggest browser, Google Chrome, is rolling out a handful of new features. The company on Thursday announced the official launch of a trio of options, including Split View, PDF annotations, and a Save to Google Drive feature, designed to more deeply integrate Chrome with one of Google’s other online services.
While these particular additions aren’t focused on AI, Google already integrated its Gemini AI assistant into Chrome. The move was made in response to the increased competition from AI providers like OpenAI and Perplexity, which are dabbling in agentic browsers. These so-called browser wars have pushed Google to be less stagnant in terms of developing and releasing more consumer-facing features.
With Split View, multitasking in Chrome has become easier as the feature puts two pages side-by-side in the same tab. This lets you work across two web pages or watch a video while taking notes, among other things. To use the feature, you’ll drag a tab to the left or right edge of the browser window or right-click a link and select “Open Link in Split View.” The tabs will automatically snap into place. When no longer needed, you can exit the Split View layout via an option found via a right-click.

Another practical addition is the PDF annotations feature, which lets you add notes to a PDF or highlight its text from the browser. This means you don’t have to download the PDF and then open it in another application to work with its content. The option, a long time coming, could make it much simpler to do basic PDF tasks, like digitally signing a document, filling out a form, making notes within a file or personal document, and more.

Finally, the new Save to Google Drive feature will allow you to save any PDF directly to your Google Drive account, instead of your computer, where it may get lost. When using this feature, the saved files will appear in a Saved from Chrome folder in your Drive, making them easy to find.

Today’s update follows the expansion of Gemini and other agentic features to Chromebook users last month. And soon, Chrome is poised to adopt another change that was first spearheaded by its competitors: support for vertical tabs. (Tech-savvy users can even enable that option now, in an experimental phase, by changing a flag.)
This reimagined way to organize open tabs was one of the flagship features in The Browser Company’s first alternative browser, Arc, and is now found in its AI browser, Dia. By adding this feature and the others, Google hopes to give Chrome users fewer reasons to switch.
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