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All Netflix users can transfer a profile to an existing account starting today. That should make things a bit easier for users who are moving in with roommates or a partner and want to hang onto all their settings and recommendations while splitting the cost. The company told Engadget that this was a much-requested feature.Since October, users have been able to set up a new account with their existing profile. That way, they're able to retain their viewing history, saved titles in My List, game save data and other settings when they move out of their parents' place or break up with an ex. But if you didn't have an existing account to move your profile to, you'd have to set up a new one.Netflix initially offered the feature before it expanded its crackdown on password sharing. In February, the company began charging users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain extra to let friends and family who don't live with them to keep using their account. The company expanded the account sharing charges to the US in May.A third-party analysis suggested that account sign-ups spiked in the US shortly after Netflix started enforcing the policy in the country. We'll soon have a clearer sense of just how well the strategy is working for the company when it posts its quarterly earnings results next week.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-now-move-your-netflix-profile-to-an-existing-account-175539026.html?src=rss

The August premiere date of the highly-anticipated Disney+ Star Wars: Ahsoka series is rapidly approaching and there's an action-packed new trailer that's sure to delight fans of the animated Star Wars: Rebels series. It's filled to the brim with live-action appearances from beloved Rebels characters like Hera Syndula, Sabine Wren, Chopper, Ezra Bridger and even series antagonist Grand Admiral Thrawn.The show takes place in the same timeline of The Mandalorian, but stars Ahsoka Tano, former apprentice of sand-hating Anakin Skywalker. Tano (Rosario Dawson) never appeared in the prequel films but was a mainstay in the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon before moving onto Star Wars: Rebels and, finally, season two of The Mandalorian.Fans have long-surmised that Ahsoka would follow-up the cliffhanger ending (no spoilers) from Rebels, and they're definitely getting their wish. The trailer's packed with call-backs to the cartoon, even lingering on an animated still that appeared in the series finale back in 2018. For long-time franchise fans, the trailer boasts the very first live action appearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen.Thrawn was the primary villain in Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire book trilogy that followed the adventures of Luke Skywalker and the gang after the events of Return of the Jedi. Those books aren't canon, because Luke went on to become a blue milk-loving hermit or whatever, but Ahsoka looks to be incorporating certain elements from the novels, as have recent seasons of The Mandalorian. Many fans speculate that the juiciest parts of Zahn's books will make up the basic plot of the forthcoming Filoni-verse' movie, a crossover event featuring all of the newer TV characters.Ahsoka premieres on August 23rd, with two episodes dropping at the same time before heading to weekly installments. In addition to Dawson and Mikkelsen, the series stars Natasha Liu Borzizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eman Esfandi and recently-deceased character actor Ray Stevenson.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-star-wars-ahsoka-trailer-teases-a-full-on-star-wars-rebels-reunion-172056371.html?src=rss

On the same day a US federal judge denied the Federal Trade Commission's request for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the tech giant and the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said they have agreed to take a break from their legal battle to negotiate a compromise that could allow the deal to move forward."After today's court decision in the US, our focus now turns back to the UK. While we ultimately disagree with the CMA's concerns, we are considering how the transaction might be modifiedin order to address those concerns in a way that is acceptable to the CMA," Microsoft President Brad Smith posted to Twitter. "In order to prioritize work on these proposals, Microsoft and Activision have agreed with the CMA that a stay of the litigation in the UK would be in the public interest and the parties have made a joint submission to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to this effect."

For any number of reasons, some people might not want to shop at Amazon, regardless of how low Prime Day discounts go. So it's good news that the sale prompts other retailers, including Walmart, Target and B&H Photo to also offering some pretty strong deals of their own - some of which match or beat those at Amazon. We're also seeing sales on devices the super e-retailer doesn't typically carry, like the Google Nest Hub and the Apple HomePod. Here are the best anti-Prime Day sales from outlets that aren't Amazon.Sony WH-1000XM5Our current favorite wireless headphones are Sony's WH-1000XM5 and Amazon has them for $328, which is an all-time low and a $70 discount. B&H Photo has matched that price. These cans are the total package, combining excellent audio quality with good ANC and a comfortable fit, even if you wear them all day - which you can thanks to their 30-hour battery life.Apple AirPods ProApple's second-generation AirPods Pro are going for $199 during Amazon's sale, but both Walmart and Verizon have matched that price. This generation is a big improvement over the previous buds, with better sound quality, improved active noise cancellation and the best transparency mode of the buds we've tried. Engadget named them the best earbuds for iPhone users because they have a good battery life, a case with wireless charging and solid integration with Siri.Google Nest Hub (2nd gen)As Amazon tends to favor its Echo smart displays on its site, you typically can't get Google's Nest Hub on the site. It's the top pick in Engadget's guide to smart displays and right now you can get it from Walmart for $55. It's also on sale for the same price at Target and directly from Google. It has a seven-inch screen housed within an unobtrusive exterior that will fit in with most people's home decor. It provides all the smart display perks like watching YouTube, accessing the Google Assistant and controlling your smart home devices. It works particularly well as a monitor for your smart cams and doorbells too. Keep in mind that it lacks a camera, which is good for privacy, but makes video calls impossible.MacBook Air (M2, 13-inch)B&H Photo has the base model of Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air on sale for $949 which is a $150 discount and cheaper than we've ever seen it on Amazon. That applies to all four colorways with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. We gave the ultraportable an impressive 96 in our review, calling it a near-perfect Mac." It has a Liquid Retina display, a quad speaker array and a battery that lasted over 16 hours in our video rundown tests.iRobot Roomba 694Walmart is selling the iRobot Roomba 694 for $199, which is the same as Amazon's price. You can also get the robovac directly from iRobot for $200. Of all the models we've tried, this is our favorite budget option because it combines strong suction with an easy-to-understand companion app. We also like its minimalist yet attractive design which is nice for something that will be roaming around your home regularly.Apple Watch Series 8The 41mm, GPS model of the Apple Watch Series 8 usually sells for $399 and Amazon is selling it for $280 for Prime Members right now. Walmart brought the price down to $329, which isn't as good of a discount, but you don't need to be a member of anything to get it. This smartwatch is our overall top pick in our guide because it combines health and fitness tracking with excellent iPhone integration. This latest generation packs a slew of new sensors that can detect your temperature, give ECG and blood oxygen readings and give improved sleep metrics. The upcoming WatchOS 10 will take advantage of many of those sensors to give you even more insight into your everyday health.Apple 10.2-inch iPadApple's 9th-generation iPad is down to $250 at Amazon which is a record low. Walmart is selling it for $279. This is the previous generation of the standard iPad and the budget pick in our guide to the best iPads. It's a great couch companion for casual browsing, binge streaming and light gaming.The latest (10th) generation iPad in the 64GB size is down to $380 at Amazon for Prime Members only, but Best Buy is offering it for $399. This latest generation slate has a slightly larger screen and a newer chip (though not Apple's own M-series silicon). It also does away with the home button but, unfortunately, Apple also decided to remove the headphone jack.Apple HomePodYou can't usually buy Apple's HomePod smart speakers on Amazon, so they're not part of Prime Day discounts. However, you can get the new HomePod from B&H Photo right now for $289. We reviewed the new generation of the speaker upon its debut early this year and liked the design, good sound quality and quick Siri responses. It's also adept at integrating compatible smart home controls. They also have the smaller HomePod mini for $95.Bose QuietComfort 45The Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones have dropped to a new low of $199 for Prime Members during Amazon's sale. If you don't feel like joining Amazon's club, you can get them for $229 from Walmart or directly from Bose. That's still a decent $100 off their usual price. These cans earned a spot in our best wireless headphone guide thanks to their comfortable, if a little dated, design, excellent ANC and balanced audio.Google Pixel 7aThe Google Pixel 7a is on sale for $449 for Amazon's sale. That's $50 off its usual rate and an all-time low. If you'd rather get it directly from Google, it's going for the same price at their store. This is the best midrange phone you can get right now thanks to its speedy Tensor G2 chip, smooth 90Hz display and support for wireless charging. The 7a also has solid cameras and an IP67 water-resistant design.Google Nest Hub MaxThe Google Nest Hub Max is going for $190 at Walmart instead of the usual $229. The smart display is the runner up pick in our guide to those devices. It's got a larger screen than the standard Nest Hub, adds a camera for video calls and offers a nifty gestures function that lets you control media with hand movements.Samsung Pro Plus microSDThe top pick in our best microSD cards guide is Samsung's Pro Plus 256GB, which is on sale for $20 at Amazon, and B&H Photo is selling it for the exact same price. It had some of the best sequential write speeds of any of the microSD cards we tested, and the best random read/write speeds. It's rated U3, V30 and A2, aka, the faster ratings most people are looking for, and will work great to add space to your tablet, Nintendo Switch or a smartphone. It even comes with an adapter to fit SD slots.Samsung T7 ShieldThe 1TB version of Samsung's T7 Shield SSD is down to $75 for Prime Day and Samsung has matched that price on its own storefront. You can snag the same deal from B&H Photo as well. The T7 series is among our favorite SSDs and the Shield model wraps the drive in a tough casing with an IP65 rating for water and dust resistance and the ability to withstand drops from up to 10 feet high. The 1,050/1,000 MB/s read/write speeds should be enough for most of your external storage needs.Crucial MX500The Crucial MX500 internal SSD in the 500GB size is down to $35 at Amazon, but the same price can be had from B&H Photo, or directly from Crucial. Other capacity models are on sale too. The sequential read speeds hit 560MB/s and the standard 2.5-inch design should make it easy to add in to your desktop or laptop's slot.Instant Vortex PlusThe Instant Vortex Plus is the top pick in our air fryer guide and you can get it for $100 right now at Walmart and directly from Instant Brands, which matches Amazon's price. It's great for crisping up a lot of different foods and the "ClearCook" window lets you see your food while it's cooking. The OdorEase technology does a decent job keeping food smells from getting overpowering and reduces overall smokiness.Google Chromecast 4KThe Google Chromecast 4K dongle is the runner up in our Engadget guide to streaming devices and earned an 86 in our review, in which we praised the Google Assistant integration and the excellent remote. It's on sale for $40 at Target, Walmart and directly from Google, which is $10 off.Roku Streaming Stick 4KAmazon is selling Roku's Streaming Stick 4K for $35 this Prime Day but you can get the same discount directly from Roku. Or you can save a dollar extra at Walmart, which has it for $34. We named it our favorite streaming device in our streamers guide because it can stream in 4K, supports HDR content with Dolby Vision along with AirPlay 2 and Roku makes one of the easiest smart TV interfaces.Corsair MP600 Pro LPXCorsair MP600 Pro LPX drive is the top pick in our guide to the best PS5 SSDs. Amazon is selling the 1TB model for $68 and Walmart has matched that price. Or you can get it directly from Corsair. We think it's a good drive for your console because it has fast read speeds of up to 7,100MB/s, it comes with a pre-installed heatsink and it's protected by a five-year warranty. Plus, it's typically affordable, especially when it's down to this price.Bose QuietComfort Earbuds IIWe think the QuietComfort Earbuds II offer the best active noise cancellation of the buds we tested for our guide. Amazon is selling them for $249 - but only for Prime members. You can grab them from Walmart or directly from Bose for the same price, no membership required. If you want to fully block out the world as you listen to music or podcasts, these buds with their comfortable fit and good sound quality are the way to go.Google Pixel 7 ProWe named the Google Pixel 7 Pro the smartphone with the best camera on the market in our guide. Prime Day has it for $649 for Prime members, which is a massive $250 discount. Unlocked 128GB models from Target or from Google's store are just $100 off, down to $799. Still a decent savings if you don't want to shop from Amazon. In our review, we also praised the bright screen that pumps out deep blacks and lively colors, and the software that makes phone calls less of a hassle.Google Nest WiFi Pro 6EIn Engadget's recent review of Google's Nest WiFi Pro 6E, we called the mesh WiFi system more approachable than its competitors because it's easy to use, simple to set up using your phone, and doesn't cost as much as other systems. Prime Day dropped it to $300 for a three-pack which is $100 off the list price but you can get it from the Google Store for the same price.TP-Link Deco XE75 WiFi 6E mesh systemA two-pack of TP-Link's XE75 WiFi 6E mesh router system is on sale for $210 for Prime Day instead of $300 or you can snag it for the same price from Tp-Link. It's our current favorite mesh WiFi setup because it's a reliable system that balances power with user-friendliness.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-walmart-prime-day-deals-you-can-get-161136179.html?src=rss

Just five months after Anthropic debuted its ChatGPT rival, Claude, the company is back with an updated version that promises longer answers, more detailed reasonings, fewer hallucinations and generally better performance. It also now scores in the 90th percentile of graduate school applicants on the GRE reading and writing exams.The updated version, Claude 2, is available today for users in the US and the UK. It can now handle as many as 100,000 tokens - that's around 75,000 words, or a few hundred pages of documents users can have Claude digest and analyze - up significantly from the previous version's 9,000 token limit. In AI, tokens are the bits and pieces that your input prompt gets broken down into so that the model can more readily process them - hence Claude's ability to "digest" user data.This increased capacity will also translate into longer, more nuanced responses. Claude 2 will even be able to generate short stories up to a few thousand tokens," the company announced. Its coding capabilities have also improved, rising to a score of 71.2 percent on the Codex HumanEval benchmark, up from 56 percent.The Claude Constitutional AI" system is already guided by 10 foundational" principals of fairness and autonomy. Extensive red-team testing since the release of the first version has tempered Claude 2 into a more emotionally stable and harder to fool AI. Compared to its predecessor Claude 2 is reportedly, 2x better at giving harmless responses compared to Claude 1.3," the company's announcement claimed. If you're already subscribed to the Claude 1.3 API, great news, you'll be automatically rolled over to Claude 2 at no extra charge.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropic-releases-claude-2-a-more-capable-less-gullible-ai-chatbot-160053168.html?src=rss

Intel is bowing out of making its own mini PCs. The chip designer has confirmed to Engadget that it's ending its "direct investment" in its Next Unit of Compute (NUC) business. Instead, the company will rethink its approach to help partners foster the NUC PC market. The firm will honor its existing commitments, including support for NUC systems already in customers' hands.The company doesn't explain why it's ending production of first-party NUC machines. However, there's little doubt the company is reeling from a bleak computer market prompted by both a rough economy and the early pandemic surge in sales. Intel's revenue has plunged by more than a third in the past two quarters, and its PC-oriented Client Computing Group has been one of the worst-hit divisions. As ServeTheHomenotes, a move like this lets Intel offload a non-essential business and focus on making chips. The company sold its server business to MiTAC earlier this year.Intel launched the first NUC in 2013 as a tiny, barebones PC kit meant to showcase both the latest processors as well as the possibilities for compact desktops. Over time, they evolved into more complete systems with robust performance and, in some later incarnations, dedicated GPUs. You could use them at home, but they also had a following in business - they were useful for compute clusters and other situations where size and simplicity mattered.The NUC faced a number of challenges, however. While some models were better-suited to gaming and other demanding tasks, it became a challenge to stuff increasingly power-hungry CPUs and GPUs into compact cases. Intel also faced increasingly stiff competition. In the home market, the Mac mini is arguably the best-known mini computer. At work, brands like Dell and Lenovo offer more flexible configurations and stronger support for the corporate crowd. Simply put, there's not as much reason for the NUC to exist as there was a decade ago.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intel-will-stop-making-its-own-nuc-mini-pcs-154527920.html?src=rss

Nothing has finally unveiled the Phone 2 after plenty of teasers, and it's likely what you're looking for if you thought the Phone 1 was underpowered - or if you simply couldn't buy the earlier model where you live. The new device offers performance much closer to a flagship thanks to a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip versus the mid-tier 778G+ from last year's hardware. While that's still not cutting edge, the company claims it's 80 percent faster. It enables 4K video at 60 frames per second, too, and RAW HDR photography captures eight frames (and thus more overall scene detail) instead of three frames like its predecessor.Accordingly, Nothing says it has upgraded the Phone 2's camera quality. The updated 50MP primary and 50MP ultra-wide rear cams now have 2X "super-res" digital zoom, object tracking and other imaging updates. The front camera, meanwhile, jumps from a 16MP sensor to 32MP. As with some competitors, there's now an "Action Mode" to deliver extra-stable video recording.There are some more conspicuous changes. You can expect a larger 6.7-inch, 120Hz LTPO OLED (if still 1080p) screen with a higher 1,600-nit peak brightness and thinner bezels. There's a tapered "2.5D" glass back. And yes, the signature Glyph lighting on the back is more advanced. In addition to more LED segments, you can create different lighting sequences for every contact and notification type. You can also have persistent lights for must-see notifications, and some lights now double as progress trackers for delivery and ride hailing services like Uber.NothingSoftware plays a considerably more important role. Where the first model only had a few modest customizations, Nothing OS 2.0 on the Phone 2 lets you tweak considerably more. You can now have multiple home screens with custom color themes, grid sizes and app labels. You'll likewise find customizable folders, and a more advanced widget set includes shortcuts to quick settings. Those widgets are available on the lock screen as well.The Phone 2 is billed as longer-lasting thanks to its 4,700mAh battery, and you'll get a complete charge in 55 minutes. The 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging aren't surprising, but they're not always present in this upper-midrange phone segment.Crucially, the Nothing Phone 2 will be priced right when it arrives in North America. It will be available in the US and Canada on July 17th at 4AM Eastern starting at $599 (and an oddly high $929 CAD) for a version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Pay $699 ($999 CAD) and you'll get 12GB of RAM with 256GB of storage, while the top-end 12GB/512GB configuration sells for $799 ($1,099 CAD). Pre-orders are available now, and there will be early sales on July 13th through physical "Nothing Drops" in New York City (69 Gansevoort Street) and London (4 Peter Street).There's no mention of North American carrier deals as of this writing, so this sequel might not be as easy to find as more mainstream offerings. However, the launch in the region remains a big deal. The Phone 2 significantly expands the audience for Nothing's handsets, and provides fresh competition to bang-for-the-buck phones like Google's similarly-priced Pixel 7.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nothing-phone-2-comes-to-the-us-on-july-17th-for-599-153012499.html?src=rss

A judge has rejected the Federal Trade Commission's request for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Both Microsoft and Activision said they'd abandon the blockbuster merger if Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted the injunction."Our merger will benefit consumers and workers. It will enable competition rather than allow entrenched market leaders to continue to dominate our rapidly growing industry." Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement."We're grateful to the court in San Francisco for this quick and thorough decision and hope other jurisdictions will continue working towards a timely resolution." Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith said. "As we've demonstrated consistently throughout this process, we are committed to working creatively and collaboratively to address regulatory concerns."

Discord is announcing Family Center, a new tool that will help keep parents and guardians in the loop on what their teens are doing on the platform. The company says the main goal of the tool is to help both teens and parents build better internet habits.The new Family Center utility comes in two parts: an activity dashboard and a weekly email summary. The dashboard will give parents an insight into how many people their kids have messaged or called, along with data on how many friends they've added and how many servers they're connected to at any time. The weekly summary is all of that, but in an email sent every week.Family Center will join all of the existing parental control tools already found on Discord, giving both teens and guardians more options to customize their experience on the platform. Tools such as direct message and explicit image filtering, friend request settings and user blocking have helped teens stay safe on Discord.While Discord's new Family Center tool is a step in the right direction, the company has a lot of work to do to make its platform a safe space not only for teenagers but adults as well. Last month, it was reported that Discord was in hot water over an astonishing amount of cases regarding child safety on the platform. Hopefully, Family Center can help reduce these incidents on Discord.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-family-center-tool-gives-parents-better-insight-into-their-teens-discord-usage-150014579.html?src=rss

Samsung widened its OLED TV range early this year, but it didn't include any sets larger than 77 inches - you still had to turn elsewhere if you wanted a bigger set. That won't be an issue after today. The company has introduced an 83-inch model to its relatively affordable S90C series. The 4K screen shares the smaller models' 144Hz QD-OLED panel technology, AI-powered HDR mapping, Dolby Atmos support, soundbar syncing and "lite" object tracking audio.As with other S90C variants, you only miss a few features compared to the top-end S95C. You won't get the slightly better display, external connection box or almost-flush wall mounting, and you'll want the S95C if you insist on more advanced built-in speakers with full object tracking. In that sense, the S90C is a sweet-spot offering that delivers nearly all of the experience for considerably less money.The 83-inch S90C will be available for $5,400, and you can sign up now to be alerted when it's in stock. That's significantly more than the 77-inch TV's normal $3,600 price. There's no S95C equivalent as we write this, though, so this is your only choice from Samsung if you want OLED's deep blacks and vivid picture while insisting on the largest display possible.The catch, of course, is that Samsung doesn't exist in a vacuum. LG already has very large OLED sets, and this year's 83-inch C3 officially sells for $5,300. It includes Dolby Vision HDR support you won't find on Samsung TVs, for that matter. You'll want the S90C if you prefer Samsung's interface and specific feature bundle.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-adds-an-83-inch-set-to-its-affordable-oled-tv-lineup-130045890.html?src=rss

The first Rolls-Royce EV, the Spectre, is going on sale soon at a cool $425,000 - and at that price, purchasing slots will be limited, to say the least. But any buyers planning to flip one for a quick profit may want to think twice. CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos said that any customers attempting to resell their Spectre models for profit will be banned for life from ever buying another Rolls-Royce from official dealers, according to a report from Car Dealer."I can tell you we are really sanitizing the need to prove who you are, what you want to do with the car - you need to qualify for a car and then you might get a slot for an order," he said. And anyone who violates the policy and sells the Spectre for a profit is "going immediately on a blacklist and this is it - you will never ever have the chance to acquire again."The British, BMW-owned company isn't the first to impose bans on flipping its vehicles. Last year, GM said it would ban buyers from flipping Hummer EVs, Corvette Z06's and other vehicles within 12 months under the threat of limiting the transferability of certain warranties. On top of that stick, it offered a carrot in the form of $5,000 in reward points for customers who kept their eighth-generation Corvette Z06's for at least a year.With a potential lifetime ban, Rolls-Royce's rules are even more strict, but some secondhand dealers aren't happy. A London dealer told Car Dealer that he had already agreed to pay a 50,000 ($65,000) premium for two Spectre EVs, and will have them for sale "within two weeks of it being launched" this fall. "I do not think it is fair for carmakers to tell customers who have spent close to half a million pounds on a car what they can do with it," he said.The Rolls-Royce Spectre has generally received positive reviews, as you'd hope at such a price. A 102kWh battery pack gives it a 329 mile WLTP range, and it should be relatively quick for a 2.9 tonne (3.19 ton) vehicle thanks to the 576 HP/664 pound-feet powertrain. "Only a Rolls-Royce, maybe a Bentley, really lets you close the door on the world, like a house deep in parkland," said Autocar - though you might be able to buy that parkland house for less.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/rolls-royce-wont-let-customers-buy-another-car-if-they-sell-its-new-ev-for-a-profit-113529957.html?src=rss

It's back and here to ruin our savings and increase the gadgets in our homes. Yes, Amazon Prime Day isn't entirely about headphones, tablets and wearables, but for Engadget staff... well, it feels like it is. Prime Day deals on tech are typically only matched by Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, making it a good time to pick up any devices you want - at a discount.In the past, the best devices often weren't given the Prime Day discount treatment, but this year has several things I not only bought myself but have recommended to friends and family. That includes $50 off the second-generation AirPods Pro (literally using them as I write this newsletter), last year's Kindle e-reader, down from $100 to $65 and, my pick for the best smartphone under $500, the Google Pixel 7a, now a dollar shy of $450.Our editors are looking out for subsequent bargains, as things have only just started. You can also follow Engadget Deals on Twitter for the latest news, and sign up for Engadget Deals newsletter - because you're already subscribed to TMA, right?- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedEA is making a single-player Black Panther gameHulu debuts hub for adult animation and animeThe best iPads for 2023: How to pick the best Apple tablet for you The best laptops for gaming and schoolworkWhat we bought: The last gamepad I'll need to buy for Switch and PCSarah Silverman sues ChatGPT owners and Meta over copyright infringementThe comedian alleges the companies didn't get her consent to use her work.ReutersSarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, and Meta. On Friday, the comedian and author, alongside novelists Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, filed a pair of complaints against both companies. The complaints center around the datasets OpenAI and Meta allegedly used to train ChatGPT and LLaMA. In the case of OpenAI, while its Books1 dataset conforms approximately to the size of Project Gutenberg - a well-known copyright-free book repository - lawyers argue the Books2 dataset is too large to have derived from anywhere other than "shadow libraries" of illegally available copyrighted material. In one exhibit from the lawsuit, Silverman's legal team asked the chatbot to summarize The Bedwetter, a memoir she published in 2010. The chatbot could not only outline entire parts of the book but also appeared to reproduce some passages verbatim.Continue reading.Google is testing its medical AI chatbot at the Mayo ClinicMed-PaLM 2 can respond to medical questions, summarize documents and more.According to The Wall Street Journal, Google is already testing its Med-PaLM 2 AI chat technology at the Mayo Clinic and other hospitals. It's based on the company's PaLM 2 large language model (LLM) that underpins Bard, Google's ChatGPT rival - and was launched just months ago at Google I/O.During I/O, Google released a paper detailing its work on Med-PaLM2. On the positive side, it demonstrated features like "alignment with medical consensus," reasoning ability and even the ability to generate answers preferred by respondents over physician-generated responses. Less ideally, it showed the same accuracy problems we've seen on other Chat AI models - not what you're looking for when in medical advice.Continue reading.This EV is basically an RC car, supersizedIt can go over 60 MPH, costs $45k and will be street-legal in Europe.The Little Car CompanyUK-based The Little Car Company has built an adult-sized version of the Tamiya Wild One RC car, a toy that took the toy world by storm back in the 1980s. This is a fully electric vehicle with eight swappable battery packs that give an advertised 124 miles of range. The Tamiya Wild One Max was originally announced back in 2021, but the design has changed significantly since then. It's bigger, more powerful and, of course, more expensive, as the original design was set to cost around $8,500. The new design also features a revised front suspension system, an interior for two occupants and a weight of 1,100 pounds.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-the-amazon-prime-day-deals-worth-your-time-and-money-111513048.html?src=rss

Apple's latest and greatest smartwatch, the Series 8, has dropped to its lowest price ever, thanks to Prime Day. You can pick one up for $280, beating the previous low of $330. We called the Series 8 well-rounded and full-featured" in our review last year, stating that it's arguably the best smartwatch around."To that end, the Series 8 is generally considered to be the best standard smartwatch available right now, thanks to solid fitness-tracking features, car crash detection, blood oxygen measurement tools, onboard music storage and so much more. The battery life is improved over the Series 7 and the build is extremely durable.While the Series 8 is currently the best arm candy on the block, Apple's likely to launch an improved Series 9 this fall. If you long for the newest tech, you might want to wait a few months, though the Series 9 will most likely cost a fair bit more than $280.If $280 is a bit too rich for your blood, you can pick up the entry-level Apple Watch SE for just $200, thanks to a related Prime Day deal. The SE shares many features with its more expensive sibling, including crash detection, a Retina display and a durable aluminum casing.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-series-8-falls-to-280-for-prime-day-103731788.html?src=rss

Elizabeth Holmes may be getting out of prison around two years earlier than expected. According to her profile on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Holmes' release date is now scheduled for December 29th, 2032. That means the time she'll serve is almost two years shorter than her original sentence, which was supposed to last for 11 years and three months. The agency has confirmed her shortened (nine years and seven months) sentence to The Guardian but didn't comment further, citing the privacy and safety of inmates.Holmes was indicted on charges of fraud back in 2018, a few years after a series of reports from the Wall Street Journal exposed that Theranos' proprietary "fingerprick" blood-testing technology was faulty. The publication had also reported that the company was aware of its issues but sent inaccurate test results to patients anyway. In 2022, Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors and was sentenced to 135 months in prison, as well as three years of supervised release.The former Theranos chief, who had been out on bail from the time she was indicted, tried to convince the court to allow her to stay out of prison while she was appealing her case. She failed in her bid to stay out of prison, though, and reported to a minimum-security, all-female facility in Texas on May 30th. It's unclear why her sentence was quietly reduced, but factors like good conduct, the completion of assignments and rehabilitation programs, as well as the credits inmates receive for various activities could result in a shorter sentence. Based on the prison bureau's website, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, who was Theranos' former president, will also be released two years earlier than expected in April 2034.As for Holmes, she was ordered to pay $452 million in restitution to the fraud victims in addition to serving time in prison and going through supervised release. As Gizmodo notes, Holmes had an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion before Theranos' downfall. Forbes had lowered her estimated net worth to nothing a year later, and her lawyers argued that she could not afford to add $250 per month to her restitution schedule after she gets out.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elizabeth-holmes-has-her-11-year-prison-sentence-cut-by-two-years-101541361.html?src=rss

Samsung makes some of the best high-end Android phones money can buy, and as it just so happens, Amazon has discounted a handful of the company's flagships during Prime Day 2023. The highlight of the sale is the 256GB variant of the Galaxy S23+, which is down to an all-time low of $800. Normally, that version of the S23+ will set you back $1,000, though it's been possible to find the handset on sale for $850 in recent months. Either way, the additional $50 off makes an already great phone even more compelling. Engadget awarded the Galaxy S23+ a score of 86 at the start of the year. Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low praised the phone for its solid battery life, excellent performance and vibrant display, but found the main camera could have performed better in low-light situations.If you want the best slate device Samsung offers, it's worth noting the Galaxy S23 Ultra is also on sale. At the moment, you can buy the 256GB model for $950, or $250 off MSRP. That too is an all-time low, with the S23 Ultra going on sale for $1,000 on a few occasions in the last year.Amazon has also discounted Samsung's foldables during Prime Day. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is currently $1,100. That's a substantial discount from the $1,800 the device was at launch last year. It's even a decent discount from the $1,350 the Z Fold 4 has sold for on occasion. Meanwhile, you can get the Galaxy Z Flip 4 for $800, a $100 discount from its previous all-time low of $900. Those are great prices for Samsung's latest foldables, but I would advise against buying either the Z Fold 4 or Z Flip 4 right now. Samsung's next Unpacked showcase is later this month, and the company has already said that it plans to unveil the next-generation of its foldables at the event.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-entire-galaxy-s23-lineup-is-cheaper-than-ever-for-prime-day-100635179.html?src=rss

Amazon's Fire tablets are some of the best devices available if you want a basic slab with which to check email, watch videos and browse the web without spending too much money. Whereas you'd have to spend a couple of hundred dollars to get most of the top picks in our best tablets guide, some Fire tablets can often be had for around $100. And when a day like Prime Day comes around, you can get these devices for even less - we usually see some of the lowest prices of the year during Amazon's two-day shopping event, and this year is no different. Here are the best deals on Fire tablets you can get for Amazon Prime Day 2023.Amazon Fire 7Amazon's Fire 7 tablet is on sale for $40 for Prime Day. It's the cheapest device in the Fire tablet lineup, and it's really only a viable option if you have a strict budget to adhere to since other Fire tablets provide much stronger performance. The Fire 7 provides a 7-inch 1024 x 600 touchscreen, up to 32GB of storage and up to 10 hours of battery life.Amazon Fire HD 8The Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet has dropped to $55 for Prime Day. It's a solid step-up from the Fire 7 if you're willing to spend slightly more. You'll get an 8-inch HD touchscreen, a hexa-core processor, a 5MP rear-facing camera in addition to the selfie cam and a battery that should last up to 13 hours on a single charge.Amazon Fire HD 10The Fire HD 10 tablet has dropped to $75 for Prime Day. One of the more powerful slabs in Amazon's lineup, the HD 10 provides a 10.1-inch FHD touchscreen, an octa-core processor, up to 64GB of internal storage and a 12-hour battery life.Amazon Fire Max 11Amazon's recently released Fire Max 11 tablet is on sale for $150 for Prime Day. It's the best discount we've seen since Amazon's most powerful tablet launched in May. The slab has an 11-inch 2000 x 1200 touchscreen, an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, up to 128GB of built-in storage and up to 14 hours of battery life. It can also work with a detachable keyboard and stylus, so you could use it like a 2-in-1 laptop.Amazon Fire 7 KidsAmazon's Fire 7 Kids tablet has dropped to $55 for this shopping event. It's a full-featured Fire 7 tablet, but it comes with a kid-proof case, a two-year warranty and a one year subscription to Amazon Kids+. The latter gives your child access to age-appropriate books, movies, shows and other content that they can easily access from the tablet.Amazon Fire HD 8 KidsIf you're willing to spend a bit more for a larger screen, the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids tablet is on sale for $75 right now. It comes with the extra parental controls, a kid-friendly case, a two-year warranty and one year of Amazon Kids+ that all of the company's child-focused slabs do, and it has an HD touchscreen and up to 13 hours of battery life.Amazon Fire HD 10 KidsThe Fire HD 10 Kids tablet is on sale for $120 for Prime Day. It sports a 10-inch FHD touchscreen and a 12-hour battery life, plus it has the parental controls, kid-friendly case, two-year warranty and one year of Amazon Kids+ that you'd expect to receive in a child-focused tablet like this.Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids ProAmazon's Fire HD 8 Kids Pro tablet has dropped to $75 for Prime Day. This is very similar to the standard Kids slab, but it has a slightly more modern case and access to a wider range of content, both of which will be better for older kids. Parents still have some control over what their children can consume on the HD 8 Kids Pro, and you still get one year of Amazon Kids+ when you buy one.Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids ProThe Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro tablet has been discounted to $120 for Prime Day. This could be a good starter tablet for a pre-teen since it's the fastest Kids tablet that Amazon offers, but parents can still have control over what their child uses it for. It comes with a case, a two-year warranty and one year of Amazon Kids+.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-fire-tablet-deals-095216852.html?src=rss

Amazon Prime Day is upon us and there are deals galore to be found on some of the best wireless headphones on the market. Sony's WH-1000XM5 are our favorite over-ear cans, and they are on sale for the lowest price we've seen to date. Prime members can pick up a pair on Amazon for $328. They typically sell for $385, so that's a discount of around 15 percent.Sony has long taken top honors for having the best wireless headphones through its flagship 1000X line. We gave the WH-1000XM5 a score of 95 in our review, lauding them for the fit, audio quality, active noise cancellation and long battery life (around 30 hours with ANC on). We had one relatively minor quibble, perhaps due to Bluetooth. We encountered occasional audio stuttering and dropouts during music and video playback on macOS.The improved comfort stems from a redesign of the headphones, They weigh four grams less than the WH-1000XM4 and they have improved weight distribution. The soft, cushioned earcups should also help you to keep the cans on your head for an extended length of time.Sony doubled the number of ANC microphones in these headphones and added an extra processor to help filter out background noise. In terms of audio, the bass seems punchier than the previous model, while there's more depth and clarity. You can expect clear call quality too.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonys-wh-1000xm5-headphones-drop-to-a-record-low-of-328-for-prime-day-094557393.html?src=rss

It's not only Amazon devices that are on sale during Prime Day. You'll find discounts on a massive array of tech products, including Google devices. The Pixel Watch and the Pixel 7a are available for record low prices, though perhaps the most eye-catching deal of the bunch is for the Pixel 7 Pro. The smartphone has dropped to $649 for the 128GB model. The handset typically retails for $899, so that's a 28 percent discount. The Pixel 7 Pro is among the best smartphones you can buy right now, largely thanks to its excellent camera system.The Pixel 8 Pro is likely just a few months away (and some people seem to be testing it out in the wild). Still, Google's current flagship device is definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a higher-end Android phone. Especially so at this price, which is the lowest we've seen to date.We gave the Pixel 7 Pro a score of 92 in our review. The flatter edges and 6.7-inch 120Hz screen are major plus points, as is the upgraded camera array, which includes a 5x telephoto lens and an ultra-wide camera.Pixel owners are typically the first to get certain nifty Android features that Google develops before the company offers them to the broader ecosystem. Those include Clear Calling, which isolates your voice and filters out background noise. The handy Magic Eraser was only available on newer Pixel devices before Google expanded it to older models and its other products earlier this year.If you're looking for a more budget-friendly Pixel device, you're in luck as the Pixel 7a is also on sale. It's a very capable mid-range device that includes the same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7 Pro, a 90Hz display, wireless charging, a long battery life and great cameras. Even though the Pixel 7a was only announced two months ago, it's already on sale for $50 off during Prime Day as it has dropped to $449.Elsewhere, the Pixel Watch has also been discounted. Google made a decent stab at its first smartwatch. It has a nice design along with terrific health and fitness tracking. However, the battery life pales in comparison to some of the competition and you'll need to pay for Fitbit Premium to access some of the tracked data. If you can overlook those downsides, you can snap up a Pixel Watch for $249. That's $100 off the usual price.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-7-pro-is-on-sale-for-649-during-prime-day-093807024.html?src=rss

It's Prime Day, and that means deals on Fire TV devices. Though we have some broader issues with Amazon's media streamers - each one peppers the UI with ads and tends to prioritize the company's own apps and content - the models on sale today can still provide good value, especially if you already use services like Alexa and Prime Video on a regular basis. (If you don't, consider the top picks from Roku and Google in our best streaming devices guide.) We've compiled the best Prime Day Fire TV deals we can find below. Note that you'll need to be an Amazon Prime member to see the discounts.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K MaxThe Fire TV Stick 4K Max is on sale for $25, which is $30 below its list price and $10 lower than the usual sale price we've seen over the course of the year. This is Amazon's fastest streaming stick, and its remote comes with Alexa baked in. It supports the major HDR standards in Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HDR10+, and like the rest of the Fire TV lineup, it works with just about all of the necessary streaming apps. Unlike the standard Fire TV Stick 4K, it also has a WiFi 6 radio, though you'll need a compatible router and an unusually fast internet connection to ever see any advantage from that.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4KThe Fire TV Stick 4K is nearly the same as the 4K Max, but it's a little slower to load menus and sticks to WiFi 5. Most people should pay up for the 4K Max, if only for that extra bit of futureproofing. If you just want the cheapest 4K streaming stick possible, however, this model is down to $23, which is about $17 below its average street price.Amazon Fire TV StickThe standard Fire TV Stick is best used with older TVs, as it tops out at a 1080p resolution instead of 4K. It lacks Dolby Vision HDR as well - though it retains HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG - and it can be more sluggish than the 4K Max when switching between apps. That said, the rest of the experience is similar, and the device still includes an Alexa voice remote with app shortcuts and TV controls for volume and power. Again, most people should just get the 4K Max, but if you want to upgrade a secondary TV on the cheap, this model is on sale for $17. That's $23 less than usual.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K LiteWe call the Fire TV Stick Lite the best budget pick in our guide to the best streaming devices. It's essentially the same as the standard Fire TV Stick, only its remote lacks built-in volume and TV controls. It can't output Dolby Atmos audio to a compatible sound system, either. It makes up for all of this by being extremely affordable, and Prime Day has only furthered that: The device is down to $15, which is a 50 percent discount.Amazon Fire TV CubeThe Fire TV Cube blends a 4K media streamer with a hands-free Alexa speaker, and right now it's down to $110 for Prime Day. That's $30 below Amazon's list price and a new all-time low. This is the most powerful Fire TV device by a comfortable margin, and because it's a box instead of a stick, it has a host of ports, including an Ethernet jack and an HDMI input. The latter means you can run a game console or cable box through the Cube yet still see an Alexa overlay whenever you call on the assistant. (This passthrough is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, though.) It also supports WiFi 6E.The Cube runs the same OS as any other Fire TV streamer, so it can be hard to justify over devices with less ad-heavy UIs like the Apple TV 4K. Its lack of AirPlay or Google Cast support is harder to swallow at this price, too. But if you don't own an Echo and want the ability to use Alexa hands-free, it's the only streamer with that functionality.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-fire-stick-deals-093004088.html?src=rss

In 2022, NASA chose Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop next-gen spacesuits meant to finally replace the decades-old gear astronauts are using to this day. Now, the space agency has expanded their existing contracts and is giving them $5 million apiece to design and develop new spacesuits not included in the original orders they received.NASA has ordered a spacesuit from Axiom Space meant for use in Low Earth Orbit, specifically for spacewalks outside the International Space Station. The original contract for Axiom was for a spacewalking system that the Artemis III astronauts will wear on the lunar surface when they land on the moon. Axiom unveiled a prototype for its original order in March, showcasing a suit with joints that allow wearers to move around with ease and a helmet equipped with a light and an HD camera.Meanwhile, Collins Aerospace has received an order for a spacesuit meant for use on the lunar surface. The company was previously contracted to develop a spacewalking suit for use outside the ISS. In other words, each company has received a new order that mirrors the other's previous one. Lara Kearney, manager of the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said:"These task orders position NASA for success should additional capabilities become necessary or advantageous to NASA's missions as the agency paves the way for deep space exploration and commercialization of low Earth orbit. Using this competitive approach we will enhance redundancy, expand future capabilities, and further invest in the space economy."Redundancy is an important part of space tech development. In this case, spacesuits meant for the same purpose developed by two different companies could ensure that astronauts will have something to use if the other one fails for any reason. That said, the new task orders are for the companies' initial "design modification work" - they're essentially modifying their original suits for a new purpose - and NASA wants to see them first before committing to their continued development. Axiom told SpaceNews that if NASA decides to push through with the new spacesuits' development, the full order will cost the agency $142 million over four years.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-expands-developers-contracts-for-its-next-gen-spacesuits-054254263.html?src=rss

Amazon Prime Day 2023 is a few hours out, but you can still snag some early deals before the two-day shopping event begins in earnest. We've rounded up the best early Prime Day deals we can find below. Remember that you'll need to subscribe to Prime to take advantage of many (but not all) of the offers, and that there's always a chance that prices drop lower during the event itself. For those with no interest in Prime, we've also included a few of the best tech deals that aren't explicitly tied to the event.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K MaxAmazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped to $25 for Prime members before Prime Day, which is more than half off its regular price and ties its all-time low. This the most powerful streaming dongle Amazon makes, with a superior processor than the standard Fire TV Stick 4K, plus support for WiFi 6, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio. While Amazon's Fire TV OS can be messy compared to other platforms from Roku, Google and Apple, it still gets you access to just about all of the major streaming apps. A few other Fire streaming devices have been discounted as well, including the latest Fire TV Cube, which Prime members can pick up for $110.Fire TV Stick LiteAmazon's Fire TV Stick Lite is half off and down to only $15. It was slightly cheaper last Prime Day when it was on sale for $12, but nevertheless, this is a great sale on Amazon's most affordable streaming dongle. With its support for 1080p video and WiFi 5 connectivity, it's arguably best for those on tight budgets who just want to upgrade an old TV with basic streaming chops.Amazon Fire HD 8If you're on an ultra-tight budget and need a new tablet, the Fire HD 8 is worth considering at its current deal price of $55, which matches its lowest price to date. Normally, the device retails around $90. This tablet has a smaller (8-inch) and lower-resolution (1,280x800) display than the Fire HD 10, and it isn't as quick in day-to-day use. Like all Fire tablets, its app support lags well behind iPadOS, which is most noticeable in its lack of Google apps. But it has just enough power for the basics, it gets a solid 10-ish hours of battery life and it's light in the hand. You can expand its 32GB of storage with a microSD card, too. If all you want is a competent tablet for casual reading and streaming for as little as possible, it should do the job.Amazon Fire Max 11Amazon's recently released Fire Max 11 tablet is on sale for $150 for Prime Day. It's the best discount we've seen since Amazon's most powerful tablet launched in May. The slab has an 11-inch 2000 x 1200 touchscreen, an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, up to 128GB of built-in storage and up to 14 hours of battery life. It can also work with a detachable keyboard and stylus, so you could use it like a 2-in-1 laptop.Amazon Echo Buds (2023)The latest Echo Buds just arrived in May yet they're already 30 percent off at Amazon for Prime members. You can get them for $35, which is $15 off and ties the lowest price we've seen. We recommended the Echo Buds to those who prefer an open design in our best budget wireless earbuds guide. They lack active noise cancellation and don't completely seal off the ear canal, but their sound quality is decent for the price, and they come with features we don't often see in cheap earbuds, such as multipoint connectivity, auto-pausing and a customizable EQ tool. Naturally, they also work well with Alexa. If you hate the feeling of in-ear headphones, they'll be a good value.Amazon eGift Card + $5 promo creditAmazon is giving Prime members a $5 promotional credit when they buy an eGift card valued at $50 or more before July 10th. You'll need to use the promo credit by August 25, 2023, but the only things it won't apply to are items sold by third-party merchants and e-books.Blink MiniPrime members can get a two-pack of Blink Mini security cameras for $34 right now. Single cameras are also on sale for $18. While these Blink cameras are wired, they have most of the same features as the standard wireless models, including 1080p video recording, motion alerts and support for two-way talk. Several other Blink wireless cameras are on sale as well.Ring Battery Doorbell PlusThe new Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is down to a new low of $130 for Prime members. This model just came out this year and it's powered by a quick-release, rechargeable battery that you can easily remove when the device needs more power. It also supports some of the latest Ring Doorbell features including 156p video recording, color night vision, two-way talk, Quick Replies and customizable motion zones.Amazon Kindle Unlimited 3-month membershipIf you're a Prime member who has never subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, you can get a three-month trial to Amazon's e-book service for no extra cost. Normally, the subscription goes for $12 a month after a 30-day free trial. Just note that the membership will be set to auto-renew by default. As a refresher, Kindle Unlimited makes a selection of e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines accessible on-demand. It doesn't include every e-book in the Kindle library, but it may still be worthwhile if you're a particularly avid reader. If nothing else, this deal makes it easier to figure out if it's worth paying for.Audible Premium Plus 3-month membershipSimilar to that Kindle Unlimited offer, Prime members who are new to Audible Premium Plus can get three months of the audiobook service for free. This membership usually costs $14.95 a month after a 30-day free trial, so you're saving about $30. Premium Plus is Audible's upper tier: Like the less expensive Audible Plus, it provides an assortment of audiobooks, podcasts and other audio content you can access on-demand. The main difference is that it also includes a monthly credit that you can use to buy any book in the Audible store permanently. As with Kindle Unlimited, Premium Plus will be most worth it if you burn through audiobooks and podcasts quickly, but this extended trial is a comfier way to see if it's useful. Again, be aware that the subscription will be set to auto-renew by default.Amazon Echo DotAmazon has knocked the latest Echo Dot down to $23, which is roughly half off its typical street price, and is throwing in a Sengled color smart bulb for no extra cost. We consider the Echo Dot the best smart speaker you can get for less than $50 thanks to its compact design, surprisingly good sound quality for its size and handy Alexa integration. The newest Echo Dots can also act as Eero WiFi boosters, adding up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your existing Eero system.Amazon EchoAmazon has discounted several other Echo speakers as well. The base Echo, for one, is down to $55, which is $5 more than its all-time low but still $35 off its typical going rate. This is the top pick for less than $100 in our smart speaker buying guide, as it represents a clear step-up from the Echo Dot in terms of sound quality. If you aren't tied to Apple or Google, we generally found it to outperform the HomePod Mini and Nest Audio as well.If you're looking for something more affordable than the Echo Dot, the unidirectional Echo Pop doesn't sound as nice, but it offers most of the same Alexa capabilities and is currently on sale for $18. The Echo Dot with Clock, meanwhile, has similar hardware to the standard Dot, but adds an LED display that can show the time and basic weather and music info. That one is down to a new low of $30. And while the larger Echo Studio can't top something like the Sonos Era 100, it's still the best-sounding Echo, and it could be a decent value at its current price of $155 if you already own several other Alexa speakers and want to save some cash. That deal also matches the lowest price we've tracked.Amazon Echo Show 5The latest Echo Show 5 is half off and down to a record low of $45. We've previously recommended the Show 5 to those who prefer Alexa over the Google Assistant and want a smart display that won't take up much space. It's particularly useful as a smart alarm clock, as it has a gentle sunrise alarm feature and a tap-to-snooze function. This new model has a faster processor, a slightly larger speaker and an extra mic for better Alexa performance.Amazon Echo Show 8If you don't need something so compact, the Echo Show 8 is our favorite Amazon smart display overall and is currently on sale for $60. That's a new all-time low and roughly $45 off the device's average street price. Compared to the 5.5-inch panel on the Echo Show 5, the 8-inch touchscreen here is much better suited for making video calls or viewing photos. You get a vastly superior camera, more powerful speakers and a faster processor as well. As with the Show 5, there's also a physical camera shutter and mic mute button.The more spacious Echo Show 10 and Echo Show 15 are also down to new lows at $163 and $182, respectively. Neither of those devices are outright bad, but our reviews found them to be less universally appealing than their smaller and more affordable siblings.Ring Video Doorbell + Echo Show 5Amazon's sweeping early Prime Day sale on Ring devices includes a bundle that gives you the Ring Video Doorbell plus an Echo Show 5 for only $65. Considering the Video Doorbell alone is going for $55 as an early Prime Day deal, that means you'll only spend $10 on the Show 5 if you opt for the bundle. The Video Doorbell itself is a fairly basic 1080p option, but it's easy to install and generally accurate at delivering motion alertsAmazon Kindle Paperwhite KidsThe 16GB version of Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite Kids is down to $105, which is $65 off and a new low. While this e-reader is marketed toward children, it features the same hardware as the standard Paperwhite, with a lightweight and waterproof design, 6.8-inch 300 ppi display, 10-week battery life and extensive e-book library. Here, though, you also get a cover case, a longer two-year warranty and a year of Amazon's Kids+ service (which you can ignore if you aren't buying for a little one). We gave the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition a review score of 97 back in 2021. The Kids edition lacks that model's ad-free lock screen (when you aren't using a child account, at least), upgraded front light, wireless charging and 32GB of storage, but the two devices are otherwise similar.Motorola Razr+The foldable Moto Razr+ only just arrived last month, but it's already received a 15 percent discount for Prime Day, albeit in a roundabout way. You'll need to be a Prime member and request an invite first, after which you'll be able to buy the phone on Prime Day for the discounted price. While jumping through Amazon's hoops is annoying, doing so will get you an unlocked Razr+ for $850 instead of $1,000.We spent some time with the new foldable before it came out last month and gave it a full review upon its debut. The verdict? Samsung's Galaxy foldables have some serious competition. The Razr+ has a 6.9-inch screen when open and offers a 3.6-inch screen when folded, which is much larger than the 1.9-inch exterior screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. The foldable design unlocks different uses, as it can act as its own tripod in addition to taking up less space in your pocket.Eero Pro routersA number of Eero and Eero Pro WiFi router packs have been discounted for Prime members ahead of the shopping event. You can pick up one Eero router for as low as $45, or an Eero Pro router for $70. We recommend going for the Eero Pro if you can, since it's a tri-band system that supports speeds up to 1Gbps and covers slightly more square feet than the standard Eero does. Just keep in mind that these are not the latest Eero systems; for WiFi 6 support, you'll have to shell out a bit more money for an Eero 6 set.Apple AirPods Pro (2nd gen)Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro are back on sale for $200, which is $50 off their usual rate and a record low. These remain the best true wireless earbuds for Apple lovers, even though the company didn't drastically overhaul the design with this latest model. Most of the new features are under the hood, with Apple noticeably improving the pair's sound quality, noise cancellation and transparency mode.Samsung Pro Plus microSD cardThe 256GB version of Samsung's latest Pro Plus microSD card is down to a new low of $20. That's $10 off its MSRP. If you need more space, the 512GB model is within a couple dollars of its best price at $43.52. The Pro Plus is the top pick in our guide to the best microSD cards, as it finished at or near the top of all of our sequential and random speed tests. It's also backed by a 10-year warranty.Samsung 980 ProThe 2TB version of Samsung's 980 Pro is down to a new low of $100. We've seen this SSD steadily drop in price over the course of the year, but this deal marks a roughly $35 drop from the device's average street price in recent months. The 980 Pro isn't Samsung's fastest SSD - that would be the 990 Pro, the 1TB model of which is down to $70 - but it still meets Sony's requirements for expanding the PS5's storage. You'll just need to add a heatsink for a few bucks more to go along with it. If you aren't buying for a PS5 specifically, a speedy PCIe 4.0 drive like this may be overkill but will provide fast storage all the same.Both this and the Evo Plus microSD card deal come as part of a wider sale on Samsung storage devices. This includes the Fit Plus, a tiny flash drive we recommend in our best SSDs guide, down to $22, and the T7 Shield, a ruggedized version of one of our favorite portable SSDs, back down to $75. Both deals match the lowest prices we've tracked, and nothing in the sale is exclusive to Prime subscribers.Apple iPad (9th gen)The 64GB model of Apple's 9th-gen iPad is down to $250 at Amazon, matching the lowest price we've tracked. You'll see the price listed as $279 and an additional $29 discount will apply at checkout. Apple normally sells the device for $329, though we've seen it retail closer to $275 in recent months. This is the budget pick in our iPad buying guide: It lacks the accessory support, thinner bezels and laminated display of the iPad Air, but it's by far the most affordable route into iPadOS, and it remains fast and comfortable enough for casual reading, streaming and gaming. It's also the only current iPad with a headphone jack.Samsung Galaxy Watch 5The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is down to $199 for a 40mm model and $229 for a 44mm model. We gave the Galaxy Watch 5 a score of 85 last year, and it's currently the "best for Android users" pick in our smartwatch buying guide. While its battery life could be better, its design is durable and attractive, its OS is easy to navigate and its health tracking is relatively comprehensive. Samsung is expected to announce a Galaxy Watch 6 in the coming weeks, however, so it may be worth waiting to see how that model stacks up if you don't need a new smartwatch right this instant.Google Pixel 7aGoogle's Pixel 7a is $50 off and down to a new low of $449 right now. It's currently the best midrange phone you can get thanks to its fast Tensor G2 chipset, smooth 90Hz display, IP67 water resistance, fantastic cameras and support for wireless charging. If you're willing to spend an extra $50, you can spend $500 and upgrade to the Pixel 7.Elgato Stream Deck +Elgato's Stream Deck + is 10 percent off right now and down to $180 in one of the first real discounts we've seen on the gaming accessory. In addition to eight customizable buttons, the Deck+ also has a touch bar and four knobs that make it easier to control things like lighting and sound during a stream. The Deck+ also supports plugins for Camera Hub, Elgato Wave Link, Spotify, Twitch and more.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know, and hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-prime-day-early-amazon-deals-2023-040014747.html?src=rss

Tumblr could be the latest platform to borrow from TikTok's playbook. The company is planning a major revamp of its platform that will bring algorithmic recommendations to users' feeds, according to a memo published on the Tumblr Staff blog.The memo is notably frank about the reasons for the upcoming changes and what it describes as Tumblr's current shortcomings. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use," the company writes. Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person's preconceived impressions of Tumblr."While Tumblr doesn't provide exact details about new features, it offers some pretty big hints about what's to come. The company says that one of its primary goals will be to deliver great content each time the app is opened" and refers to its current following" feed as outdated."To address this, the Automattic-owned platform says it's working to improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds" and make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are." The company also notes that building more creator-friendly features, including improvements to the way replies and reblogs work, will also be key to attracting new users.Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback," the company writes. The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (Following"), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators."Taken together, the changes Tumblr is describing sound a lot like TikTok (or even Instagram): algorithmic recommendations in users' primary feeds, creator-friendly features that encourage sharing, and more streamlined commenting and conversation tools. As a strategy, that all may sound pretty straightforward in 2023, when users increasingly expect these kinds of features from social platforms anyway. But considering Tumblr's core interface hasn't changed that much in its decade and a half of existence, the new direction could bring significant changes to the overall dynamics of the platform.The coming redesign isn't the only way Automatic has tried to breathe new life into the platform it acquired in 2019. The company has also experimented with subscriptions and other paid features, introducing Post+ in 2021, though there was some backlash against the feature from longtime users. More recently, the company began selling completely useless" checkmarks to users soon after Elon Musk's botched rollout of Twitter's new paid verification.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tumblrs-building-a-tiktok-inspired-feed-in-bid-to-grow-its-user-base-220929704.html?src=rss

Nearly three years after a 2020 court decision threatened to grind transatlantic e-commerce to a halt, the European Union has adopted a plan that will allow US tech giants to continue storing data about European users on American soil. In a decision announced Monday, the European Commission approved the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework. Under the terms of the deal, the US will establish a court Europeans can engage with if they feel a US tech platform violated their data privacy rights. President Joe Biden announced the creation of the Data Protection Review Court in an executive order he signed last fall. The court can order the deletion of user data and impose other remedial measures. The framework also limits access to European user data by US intelligence agencies.The Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework is the latest chapter in a saga that is now more than a decade in the making. It was only earlier this year the EU fined Meta a record-breaking 1.2 billion after it found that Facebook's practice of moving EU user data to US servers violated the bloc's digital privacy laws. The EU also ordered Meta to delete the data it already had stored on its US servers if the company didn't have a legal way to keep that information there by the fall. As TheWall Street Journal notes, Monday's agreement should allow Meta to avoid the need to delete any data, but the company may end up still paying the fine.Even with a new agreement in place, it probably won't be smooth sailing just yet for the companies that depend the most on cross-border data flows. Max Schrems, the lawyer who successfully challenged the previous Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield agreements that governed transatlantic data transfers before today, told The Journal he plans to challenge the new framework. "We would need changes in US surveillance law to make this work and we simply don't have it," he said. For what it's worth, the European Commission says it's confident it can defend its new framework in court.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-privacy-deal-allows-us-tech-giants-to-continue-storing-european-user-data-on-american-servers-214347975.html?src=rss

Peacock launched a live-action Twisted Metal trailer today that provides a much clearer glimpse of the upcoming series than its teaser from earlier this year. Set to the beat of DMX's Party Up (Up In Here)," the campy clip has high-speed chases, guns and carjackings along with ample wisecracks and one maniacal clown - everything you'd expect from a live-action adaptation of the over-the-top franchise.The two-minute trailer begins with star Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier) setting the tone as protagonist John Doe. 20 years ago, the world fell to shit," he explains. Cities put up walls to protect themselves and threw the criminals out so they could fight over what was left. But there are humble motherfuckers like me delivering cargo from one walled city to another. That's where the cars and guns come in." The series, which Peacock describes as a high-octane action comedy," appears to have a self-aware tone that relishes in the game's extravagance with knowing winks to the audience (metaphorical or otherwise). Think Deadpool-style humor in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic wasteland.In addition to Mackie, the series stars Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as a carjacking outlaw who hitches a ride with Mackie's Doe at gunpoint. We also get a peek at Neve Campbell as Raven, who promises Doe a great reward to deliver a package, Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) as Agent Stone and wrestler Samoa Joe (performing movement) and Will Arnett (voice) as the killer clown Sweet Tooth. The series is written and developed by Michael Jonathan Smith.Twisted Metal will include ten half-hour episodes. It premieres on July 27th, streaming exclusively on Peacock.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twisted-metal-trailer-basks-in-post-apocalyptic-extravagance-211534351.html?src=rss

The constant pressure to treat TikTok as a national security threat appears to be working, albeit only on some people. A Pew Research Center survey indicates that 59 percent of American adults see TikTok as a danger, but that this perception varies based on whether or not someone uses the service. Only nine percent of TikTok users see the social network as a major threat, while 36 percent of non-users feel the same. In all, 42 percent of users see the service as any kind of risk where 65 percent of outsiders are worried.It won't surprise you to hear that age plays a significant role in the perception of TikTok. Only 49 percent of users under 30 see TikTok as any threat (just 13 percent as a major threat), but those figures climb higher with older demographics. About 65 percent of those over 65 are nervous about TikTok, and 46 percent of that group sees it as a critical threat. Politics are also a factor. A whopping 76 percent of conservatives are concerned where 49 percent of liberals share that sentiment.Roughly 64 percent of American adults are at least somewhat worried about TikTok's data handling practices, Pew adds. Again, the figures change based on age. Only 54 percent of people under 30 feel that way, while 75 percent of those over 65 are concerned.The study was taken just as Montana enacted a law banning TikTok in the state, and long after politicians from both major US parties called for national bans. The platform is already banned on most federal devices. The reasoning is frequently similar. Officials are concerned that ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, might feed American users' data to the Chinese government or influence algorithms to spread pro-China propaganda.TikTok has repeatedly denied Chinese government influence, and has taken a number of steps to reassure US politicians. It's storing US data domestically, offering transparency into its code and firing staff that improperly access sensitive data. However, those measures haven't done much to assuage government representatives - and the Pew data suggests the public is similarly wary.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/people-who-dont-use-tiktok-think-its-a-national-security-threat-203921153.html?src=rss

Workers at Sega of America have voted to unionize. In a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board, the workers voted 91-26 in favor of their unit, which is called the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS-CWA). Nineteen ballots were challenged, while three were void. As a result, the group has now officially organized with the Communication Workers of America.The unit comprises more than 200 workers in various departments across the company, including the brand marketing, games as a service, localization, marketing services, product development, sales and quality assurance teams. While it's hardlythe first games union in North America, the workers say it's "the largest multi-department union of organized workers in the entire gaming industry." However, ZeniMax Workers United/CWA includes around 300 quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Studios.

The Massachusetts state legislature is considering a bill that would ban the sale of users' phone location data. If passed, the Location Shield Act would be the first such law in the nation as Congress stalls on comprehensive user privacy solutions on a national scale. The state's proposed legislation would also require a warrant for law enforcement to access user location data from data brokers.Today, The Wall Street Journalpublished a report with numerous details on the proposed legislation, following earlier discussions at the state house (as reported byThe Athol Daily News). Of course, the bill wouldn't prevent Massachusetts residents from using their phone's location services for things that directly benefit them - like Google Maps navigation, DoorDash deliveries or hailing an Uber. However, it would bar tech companies and data vendors from selling that data to third parties - a practice without any clear consumer benefit.The Location Shield Act is backed by the ACLU and various progressive and pro-choice groups, who see a greater urgency to block the dissemination of user location in a post-Dobbs world. As red states increasingly criminalize abortion, concerns have grown over the transfer of user data to catch women traveling out of state to undergo the procedure or access medication. In addition, the bill's backers raise concerns about national security and digital-stalking implications.Opposing the legislation is the State Privacy & Security Coalition, a trade association representing the tech industry. The definition of sale is extremely broad," said Andrew Kingman, an association lawyer. He says the group supports heightened protections but would prefer giving consumers the ability to opt-out of sale," as other state laws have done, rather than imposing an outright ban. Of course, making it optional rather than a complete ban would likely be much better for data brokers' bottom lines.Requiring law enforcement to provide a warrant to access user location data could also help curtail the rising trend of law enforcement buying that information commercially. A 2022 ACLU investigation found that the Department of Homeland Security bought over 336,000 data points to essentially bypass the Fourth Amendment requirement for a search warrant. Although the US Supreme Court has said a warrant is usually needed for agencies to access location data from carriers, purchasing the data from private companies has served as a loophole.The Massachusetts legislative session runs through next year, and the bill's backers show optimism that it will pass. I have every reason to be optimistic that something will be happening in this session," MA Senate Majority Leader Cindy Creem (D), the bill's sponsor, told the WSJ.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/massachusetts-weighs-outright-ban-on-selling-user-location-data-191637974.html?src=rss

Animation is big business for Hulu, as the streamer's roster of cartoons regularly rank in the top ten for hours watched on the platform, thanks to shows like Bob's Burgers, Futurama, King of the Hill and many more. Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of adult animation, Hulu's launching a sub-brand to house all of its animated and anime-based content, as originally reported by Variety. Animayhemis now the home for legacy content like the above titles and original content like Solar Opposites and Koala Man.All told, the hub/sub-brand allows access to 2,600 episodes of traditional animated programming, spread across 46 series, and a whopping 18,400 episodes of anime, spread across 435 series. That's over 20,000 episodes of cartoon goodness, for those keeping count. As such, Hulu is advertising the platform as the streamer's Animation Destination."The surprise-launch of Animayhem comes just two weeks before the latest Futurama reboot, and that's just the start of the streamer's plans for animation domination. Hulu's ordered new episodes of Mike Judge's King of the Hill and it plans on having a heavy presence at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, promising an immersive experience called Hulu Animayhem: Into the Second Dimension."In the meantime, the hub's already available as part of the standard Hulu subscription, so go ahead and binge Archer, Family Guy and all the hundreds upon hundreds of available anime series like One Piece and Naruto.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hulu-debuts-hub-for-adult-animation-and-anime-182929897.html?src=rss

Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI. On Friday, the comedian and author, alongside novelists Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, filed a pair of complaints against OpenAI and Meta (via Gizmodo). The group alleges the firms trained their large language models on copyrighted materials, including works they published, without obtaining consent.The complaints center around the datasets OpenAI and Meta allegedly used to train ChatGPT and LLaMA. In the case of OpenAI, while it's "Books1" dataset conforms approximately to the size of Project Gutenberg - a well known copyright-free book repository - lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that the Books2" datasets is too large to have derived from anywhere other than so-called "shadow libraries" of illegally available copyrighted material, such as Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. Everyday pirates can access these materials through direct downloads, but perhaps more usefully for those generating large language models, many shadow libraries also make written material available in bulk torrent packages. One exhibit from Silverman's lawsuit involves an exchange between the comedian's lawyers and ChatGPT. Silverman's legal team asked the chatbot to summarize The Bedwetter, a memoir she published in 2010. The chatbot was not only able to outline entire parts of the book, but some passages it relayed appear to have been reproduced verbatim.Silverman, Golden and Kadrey aren't the first authors to sue OpenAI over copyright infringement. In fact, the firm faces a host of legal challenges over how it went about training ChatGPT. In June alone, the company was served with two separate complaints. One is a sweeping class action suit that alleges OpenAI violated federal and state privacy laws by scraping data to train the large language models behind ChatGPT and DALL-E.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sarah-silverman-sues-openai-and-meta-over-copyright-infringement-175322447.html?src=rss

If you've ever wanted to point that ole' growth ray at your childhood toys, UK-based The Little Car Company has got you covered. The organization has built an adult-sized version of the Tamiya Wild One RC car that took the kid world by storm back in the 1980s, as reported by Car and Driver. This is a fully electric vehicle with eight swappable battery packs that add up to an advertised 124 miles of range.The Wild One Max has got plenty of get-up-and-go, with a top speed of 62 mph. However, the main draw is just how closely this full-size vehicle resembles its fun-size cousin. Just look at this thing. Even cooler? The EV makes its public debut next weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England, which is where many manufacturers unveil wacky automobile concept designs.This is more than just a concept car, though, as it's going to be street legal and available for purchase, with an estimated cost of around $45,000. You won't be able to cruise the hills of Virginia with this beast, however, as it's only launching in the UK due to US-based federal vehicle standards.The Tamiya Wild One Max was originally announced back in 2021, but the design has changed significantly since then. It's bigger, more powerful and, of course, more expensive, as the original design was set to cost around $8,500. The new design also features a revised front suspension system, an interior that fits two occupants and an overall weight of 1,100 pounds.Interestingly, manufacturer The Little Car Company is better known for shrinking classic cars into smaller-sized collectibles and not the other way around. It looks like the company has gone from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. More power to em.If you're in Europe with cash to burn, you can purchase an optional Road Pack along with the EV that includes a windscreen, a pair of tiny wipers, mirrors, mudguards and detachable lights. Though this vehicle qualifies as a quadricycle in Europe, thus allowing it to be registered for road use, you won't be able to take this thing on highways.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-ev-is-basically-an-rc-car-hit-with-a-growth-ray-170737868.html?src=rss

Marvel and Electronic Arts have revealed the second game they're making together as part of a deal between the two sides. A new Seattle-based Electronic Arts studio called Cliffhanger Games is developing a single-player Black Panther title.It will be an action-adventure game with a third-person perspective, suggesting it'll share some similarities with the likes of Insomniac's Spider-Man titles. According to Marvel, Cliffhanger aims to build an expansive and reactive world that empowers players to experience what it is like to take on the mantle of Wakanda's protector, the Black Panther."Cliffhanger says it and Marvel Games will collaborate "to ensure that we craft every aspect of Wakanda, its technology, its heroes and our own original story with the attention to detail and authenticity that the world of Black Panther deserves." However, Marvel and EA are staying tight-lipped on further details for now.

If you regularly play video games, there's a good chance you've dealt with stick drift. You may be lining up a shot in Apex Legends or surveying the land in Tears of the Kingdom, and suddenly, you notice your cursor slowly dragging to one side on its own. This, to put it nicely, sucks. It takes you out of the game, and you quickly realize that your state-of-the-art $70 controller is now a degraded hunk of plastic.The Switch's Joy-Cons are infamous for developing drift, but PlayStation and Xbox controllers aren't immune to it either. Over the past year or so, however, there's been a mini-resurgence in controllers that use magnets and Hall effect" sensors in their joysticks instead of traditional potentiometers, making them less susceptible to wear over time. A few months back, I grabbed 8BitDo's Ultimate Bluetooth Controller, which costs $70, works with Switch and PC and has these Hall effect sticks.Let's take a step back. Most game controllers use analog joysticks with potentiometers, little electromechanical components that measure the stick's position by sliding a contact arm (or wiper") against a sensor to read its resistance. This is generally precise, but because the wiper has to make repeated physical contact with the resistor, the mechanism will eventually wear down, increasing the likelihood of unreliable readings. Hall effect setups, meanwhile, use magnets and an electrical conductor that don't physically touch. As the former moves in relation to the latter, the resulting change in voltage generated by the magnetic field is converted to positional data for the joystick.This tech isn't new, and Hall effect sticks still aren't totally immune to drift. Everything breaks down eventually, and it's always possible to get a defective unit. If made right, though, Hall effect joysticks should last for several years. They also won't be as vulnerable to dust and grime.Photo by Jeff Dunn / EngadgetHow does all of this feel in practice with 8BitDo's controller? Well...normal. There's little immediate difference between the sticks on the Ultimate Bluetooth Controller and those on a DualSense or Switch Pro Controller, which is a good thing. You can customize the controller's dead zone - something many controllers use to mask eventual drift issues - through 8BitDo's Ultimate Software app, but by default, the joysticks feel smooth and responsive. The real benefit here is their long-term durability. It's hard to predict the future, but I've waited six months to make this recommendation, and so far, so good.There are other Hall effect controllers from brands like NYXI and GuliKit (the company that makes the joysticks used here), but 8BitDo has built several quality accessories over the years, many of which we've recommended. (It sells a couple of cheaper variants of this controller as well, but those lack the higher-quality joysticks.) I had already used the company's SN30 Pro gamepad and GBros. Adapter for a few years prior to picking up the Ultimate Controller and have had no troubles with reliability.The Hall effect sticks are the Ultimate Bluetooth Controller's major selling point, but most of its other aspects are commendable as well. I've always found asymmetrical joysticks more natural than a side-by-side layout, so I appreciate that the general design is shaped like an Xbox controller. The whole thing is a little smaller than a Series X/S controller, but not to the point of discomfort for my relatively large hands. The face buttons are crisp and well-spaced (albeit not quite as large as the Switch Pro Controller), the bumpers are ample-sized and the analog triggers have a pleasing amount of travel.On the back are two paddles that sit almost flush against the grips, right where my fingers naturally rest. As a racing game aficionado, I appreciate having back buttons when I'm too lazy to hook up my wheel: in F1 23, for instance, being able to manually shift gears without taking my thumb off the steering input gives me better control over the car. The d-pad, while on the stiffer side, has been consistently accurate for rapidly moving pieces during my semi-regular Tetris (or TETR.IO) binges, too.Photo by Jeff Dunn / EngadgetI also appreciate that the controller is so customizable. 8BitDo's Ultimate Software app lets me remap just about any button, assign macros, and create up to three settings profiles, which save to the pad itself. It's also possible to adjust the sensitivity of the vibration, joysticks and triggers. Do I constantly use all of these tweaks? No, because the default experience is pretty good. But if something ever does feel off, I can more easily address it. I have a profile for shooters like Overwatch 2, for example, that raises the sensitivity of the triggers so my shots register faster.The Ultimate Bluetooth Controller costs $70, the same as a Switch Pro Controller or a DualSense. Here, though, you also get a slick-looking charging dock, which powers up via USB-C and stores the included USB wireless dongle. On the whole, the pad can connect over the dongle, Bluetooth or a USB-C cable. A switch on the back swaps between Bluetooth or WiFi, but confusingly, the former only works on Switch. I almost always use a 2.4GHz connection anyway since Bluetooth can add latency, but if I lost the dongle, I'd have to use a wire on PC. Pairing is simple, though; you just have to turn on the Switch's Pro Controller Wired Communication" setting before using the dongle with that system's dock.There are other minor issues. The 20-ish hours of battery life isn't bad, but it's well short of the 40+ hours of the Switch Pro Controller. The Switch-style face button layout is inverted on PC, so B is usually A." Like most third-party Switch controllers, the 8BitDo pad doesn't work with the console's HD Rumble" feature, nor does it have an NFC reader for scanning Amiibos (if you're into that). It is one of the few non-Nintendo pads that can wake the Switch from sleep mode - but you have to awkwardly shake the controller to do so, and the feature only works over Bluetooth. And while the gyro controls work fine most of the time, they can be thrown off when the controller vibrates.Those aren't dealbreakers, though. I immediately turn off most forms of motion control anyway and I'm not starting an Amiibo collection anytime soon. So far, the Ultimate Bluetooth Controller has proven to be a comfortable and versatile pro-style pad that should stay alive over the long haul. After many hours of play, I think I can safely call it my endgame controller for both Switch and PC.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-we-bought-the-last-gamepad-ill-need-to-buy-for-switch-and-pc-140047518.html?src=rss

If you've been eying Google's midrange phone but felt it was a tad too expensive, now's the time to act. Amazon is selling the Google Pixel 7a at a new low price of $449, or $50 off. The savings apply regardless of color. The discount makes it a considerably better value, and puts it on par with rivals like Samsung's Galaxy A54.The Pixel 7a remains our favorite midrange Android smartphone for a good reason. It's as fast as its higher-end counterparts thanks to the Tensor G2 chip. Moreover, it delivers features that aren't always easy to find in this price class, including a 90Hz display, wireless charging and IP67 water resistance. Combine that with Google's usual top-tier photography and this might be all the phone you need.There is one reason for pause. Google's standard Pixel 7 is down to $499 as of this writing, and it still offers a few advantages over the 7a. It packs a slightly larger and higher-quality screen, more advanced camera sensors and faster wireless charging. You also have the option of 256GB of storage if the 7a's 128GB isn't enough. You may prefer the 7a's smaller screen, though, and the $50 you save could be rolled into accessories like a case and earbuds.Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for the best Amazon Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In the Know. Hear from Autoblog's car experts on must-shop auto-related Prime Day deals and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-pixel-7a-drops-to-a-new-low-of-449-130509079.html?src=rss

It didn't take long for the downsides of a generative AI-empowered newsroom to make themselves obvious, between CNet's secret chatbot reviews editor last November and Buzzfeed's subsequent mass layoffs of human staff in favor of AI-generated content" creators. The specter of being replaced by a good enough AI" looms large in many a journalist's mind these days with as many as a third of the nation's newsrooms expected to shutter by the middle of the decade.But AI doesn't have to necessarily be an existential threat to the field. As six research teams showed at NYU Media Lab's AI & Local News Initiative demo day in late June, the technology may also be the key to foundationally transforming the way local news is gathered and produced.Now in its second year, the initiative is tasked with helping local news organizations to harness the power of artificial intelligence to drive success." It's backed as part of a larger $3 million grant from the Knight Foundation which is funding four such programs in total in partnership with the Associated Press, Brown Institute's Local News Lab, NYC Media Lab and the Partnership on AI.This year's cohort included a mix of teams from academia and private industry, coming together over the course of the 12-week development course to build AI applications for local news to empower journalists, support the sustainability of news organizations and provide quality information for local news audiences," NYU Tandon's news service reported.There's value in being able to bring together people who are working on these problems from a lot of different angles," Matt Macvey, Community and Project Lead for the initiative, told Engadget, and that that's what we've tried to facilitate."It also creates an opportunity because ... if these news organizations that are out there doing good work are able to keep communicating their value and maintain trust with their readers," he continued. I think we could get an information ecosystem where a trusted news source becomes even more valued when it becomes easier [for anyone] to make low-quality [AI generated] content."The six teams include Bangla AI, which is developing a web platform that surfaces and translates relevant news stories into the Bengali language for journalists and New York City's sizable Bangladeshi immigrant community.More than 200,000 legal Bangladeshi immigrants live in the United States, half of them in New York City," Bangla team member, MD Ashraful Goni, told reporters during the demo day. Only half of the population are fluent in English," depriving the other half of easy access to the day's news through mainstream media outlets like the New York Times or the Associated Press.Bangla AI will search for information relevant to the people of the Bengali community that has been published in mainstream media ... then it will translate for them. So when journalists use Bangla AI, they will see the information in Bengali rather than in English." The system will also generate summaries of mainstream media posts both in English and Bengali, freeing up local journalists to cover more important news than rewriting wire copy.Similarly, the team from Chequeado, a non-profit organization fighting disinformation in the public discourse showed off the latest developments of its Chequeabot platform, Monitorio. It leverages AI and natural language processing capabilities to streamline fact-checking efforts in Spanish-language media. Its dashboard continually monitors social media in search of trending misinformation and alerts fact checkers so they can blunt the piece's virality.One of the greatest promises of things like this and Bangla AI," Chequeado team member Marcos Barroso said during the demo, is the ability for this kind of technology to go to an under-resourced newsroom and improve their capacity, and allow them to be more efficient."The Newsroom AI team from Cornell University hope that their writing assistant platform will help do for journalists what Copilot did for coders - eliminate drudge work. Newsroom can automate a number of common tasks including transcription and information organization, image and headline generation, and SEO implementation. The system will reportedly even write articles in a journalist's personal style if fed enough training examples.On the audio side, New York public radio WNYC's team spent its time developing and prototyping a speech-to-text model that will generate real-time captioning and transcription for its live broadcasts. WNYC is the largest public media station in New York, reaching 2 million visitors monthly through its news website.Our live broadcast doesn't have a meaningful entry point right now for deaf or hard of hearing audiences," WNYC team member, Sam Guzik, said during the demo. So, we really want to think about as we're looking to the future is, how can we make our audio more accessible to those folks who can't hear?'"Utilizing AI to perform the speech-to-text transformation alleviates one of the biggest sticking points of modern closed-captioning: that it's expensive and resource-intensive to turn around quickly when you have humans do it. Speech-to-text models are relatively low cost," Guzik continued. They can operate at scale and they support an API driven architecture that would tie into our experiences."The result is a proof-of-concept audio player for the WNYC website that generates accurate closed captioning of whatever clip is currently being played. The system can go a step further by summarizing the contents of that clip in a few bullet points, simply by clicking a button on the audio player.This is a meaningful improvement, both for folks who can't hear," Guznik said. But also for folks who are just not in the space where they can listen, and this is a really great tool if you're in a place where you don't have headphones and you want to follow along with what's being said.On the back end, NOBL Media has developed an ad tech product that, allows programmatic advertisers to reach publishers' content in service of smaller audiences that can be targeted by geography or demography," while the Graham Media Group created an automated natural language text prompter to nudge the comments sections of local news articles closer towards civility.The comment-bot posts the first comment on stories to guide conversations and hopefully grow participation and drive users deeper into our engagement funnels," GMG team member Dustin Block said during the demo. This solves two significant challenges that human comment moderation faces: preventing the loudest voices from dominating the discussion and providing form and structure to the conversation, he explained."The bot scans and understands news articles using the GPT 3.5 Turbo API. It generates thought-provoking starters and then it encourages discussions," he continued. It's crafted to be friendly."Whether the AI revolution remains friendly to the journalists it's presumably augmenting remains to be seen, though Macvey isn't worried. Most news organizations, especially local news organizations, are so tight on resources and staff that there's more happening out there than they can cover," he said. So I think tools like AI and [the automations seen during the demo day] enable the journalists and editorial staff more bandwidth."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-ai-could-help-local-newsrooms-remain-afloat-in-a-sea-of-misinformation-130023064.html?src=rss

In just four days of the app going live on Wednesday evening, Threads already has more than 100 million users, according to Quiver Quantitative's Threads Tracker. Thread is a sibling app to Instagram, making it easy for that platform's existing billion-plus users to sign up - unless they live in the European Union.It's a huge audience already, but it's still very, very early days for Threads. You can only search for usernames, there are no hashtags and, seemingly specific to me, I can't upload videos or images.The worst part of early Threads, however, is the lack of a chronological feed. Instead, its algorithmic feed is bloated with brands, influencers and celebrities - none of which I care about. And if someone you do follow replies to those accounts, that appears in your feed. It's already making my finger hover dangerously close to the mute and unfollow for several Engadget colleagues who will remain nameless. For now.We've covered our questions about Threads here, but how's your experience so far?- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedSonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka receives suspended prison sentence for insider trading Xbox Game Pass Ultimate $1 deal is back for new usersThe best early Prime Day deals for 2023ChatGPT saw its first-ever user decline in JuneApple will stream the first episode of 'Foundation' on YouTube, for freeScientists make ibuprofen and other common painkillers from paper industry wasteThe secret is... turpentine?According to one study by The Conversation, drug companies produce more carbon dioxide equivalents per million dollars than the automotive industry. In short, drug companies need to reduce their carbon emissions. Here's a step in the right direction: Scientists from the University of Bath in the UK may have found a way of converting -pinene, a component in turpentine, into pharmaceutical precursors used to synthesize paracetamol and ibuprofen. What's notable is that the paper industry produces 350,000 metric tons of turpentine by-product per year.Continue reading.Jony Ive's first post-Apple hardware project is a $60,000 turntableA turntable that already exists.LinnJony Ive's design agency, LoveFrom, has worked on typefaces, a charity clown nose and the future of Airbnb." But there hasn't been any hardware since Ive departed Apple, until now. Now, it's redesigned Linn's Sondek LP12 to celebrate the modular turntable's 50th anniversary. Ive told Fast Company that the LoveFrom team's admiration for Linn made it a very gentle and modest project." Perhaps because of that, LoveFrom carried out the work pro bono. Don't mention Bono.Continue reading.Hayao Miyazaki's final film will be Studio Ghibli's first IMAX releaseHow Do You Live?' heads to Japanese theaters next week.Hayao Miyazaki's final film, How Do You Live?, is coming to IMAX theaters. The milestone marks a first for Miyazaki and his animation studios. Past Studio Ghibli films did not receive the IMAX treatment during their original theatrical runs. The movie is also supposed to be Miyazaki's swan song (again), but details have been sparse until now. Studio Ghibli has not released a trailer for the film or bought any TV spots. The only promotion it has done so far is the single poster the studio shared last month. It doesn't even have an international release date yet.Continue reading.Casetify's Evangelion' series lets you put AirPods in the robotYou can also order iPhone cases and chargers celebrating the beloved anime.CasetifyCasetify is launching a new series of Apple-device accessories based on Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact collection lets you drape your iPhone, AirPods or Apple Watch in cases that show off your love of the acclaimed mid-'90s anime series. Like this hulking AirPods Pro case, which is definitely not pocketable.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-metas-threads-tops-100-million-users-in-under-a-week-111515756.html?src=rss

Prime Day is almost upon us and we're seeing some early gadget deals, including Apple's sixth-generation iPad Mini back on sale for $400. This discount takes 20 percent off its sticker price of $500 and marks the latest instance of the iPad Mini hitting this all-time low since Apple released it in late 2021. Right now the deal only applies to the iPad Mini's 64GB Space Gray and Pink models.The iPad Mini is small but mighty, with an A15 Bionic chip, a 12MP Ultra Wide front camera and up to 10 hours of active use per charge. Its 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display also features P3 wide color, an anti-reflective coating and True Tone. Plus, the iPad Mini is compatible with the second-generation Apple Pencil.Apple's 64GB 10th-generation iPad is also on sale for $400, and it's a good option if you're looking for something with a bit of a larger screen. The 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display model is 11 percent off, down from $450, in Pink, Silver and Yellow. It has many of the same features as the iPad Mini, such as a 12MP Wide camera, 4K video, a USB-C connector and 5G connectivity. It falls behind in terms of only working with the first generation Apple Pencil, using an A14 Bionic chip, and having an sRGB color display - meaning colors aren't as accurately shown. However, a lot of these features, like 4K video and an A14 Bionic chip, are improvements from the ninth-generation iPad.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-ipad-mini-falls-back-to-400-at-amazon-105528952.html?src=rss

Google is already testing its Med-PaLM 2 AI chat technology at at the Mayo Clinic and other hospitals, The Wall Street Journal has reported. It's based on the company's PaLM 2 large language model (LLM) that underpins Bard, Google's ChatGPT rival - and was launched just months ago at Google I/O.Unlike the base model, Med-PaLM-2 has been trained on questions and answer from medical licensing exams, along with a curated set of medical expert demonstrations. That gives it expertise in answering health-related questions, and it can also do labor-intensive tasks like summarizing documents and organizing research data, according to the report.During I/O, Google released a paper detailing its work on Med-PaLM2. On the positive side, it demonstrated features like "alignment with medical consensus," reasoning ability, and even the ability to generate answers that were preferred by respondents over physician-generated responses. More negatively, it showed the same accuracy problems we've seen on other Chat AI models.Microsoft is also developing medical AI chat tech based on OpenAI's ChatGPT, having teamed up with the healthcare software company Epic. Google is also working on using its AI for ultrasound diagnosis and cancer therapy, it revealed in March. Both companies have promised to keep patient information confidential, saying they don't train their models on patient data. Last month, Microsoft expressed alarm about its ChatGPT technology being used by doctors to improve communications with patients.In an internal email seen by the WSJ, Google said it believes the updated model could "be of tremendous value in countries that have more limited access to doctors." Still, Google has admitted that the technology is still in its early stages. "I don't feel that this kind of technology is yet at a place where I would want it in my family's healthcare journey," said Google senior research director Greg Corrado. However, he added that the tech "takes the places in healthcare where AI can be beneficial and expands them by 10-fold."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-testing-its-medical-ai-chatbot-at-the-mayo-clinic-102055669.html?src=rss

If you're looking to up your streaming game this summer, now might be the time to do it. Elgato's Stream Deck + is down from $200 to $180 - a ten percent discount. This deal is one of the first real sales on the Stream Deck + since it came out last year.The Stream Deck + comes with eight customizable LCD keys that automate actions like going live, playing music and changing scenes. It includes a touch bar and four knobs to control parts of your stream, such as audio, lighting and video. The Stream Deck + also has plugins for Camera Hub, Elgato Wave Link, Spotify, Twitch and more.Its counterparts, Elgato's Stream Deck Mini and Stream Deck Classic, are on sale, too, if you're looking for something a bit cheaper. The Stream Deck Mini is 13 percent off, down from $80 to $69.90, making it the most affordable option in the lineup. It offers six customizable LCD keys and includes integrations like YouTube and Twitch. The main differences here are that the Stream Deck Mini allows you to automate fewer actions at a time, and it doesn't have the control knobs to manage features like audio and lighting.The Stream Deck Classic falls somewhere between its siblings - so it might be your Goldilocks option. It has 15 customizable LCD keys and integrations like Discord and Spotify but no control knobs. The Classic is on sale for $120, down from $150, giving it the largest discount of the three at 20 percent.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elgatos-stream-deck-gets-its-first-discount-at-amazon-093537440.html?src=rss

Meta's Twitter competitor is off to a flying start. In under five days of the app going live, Threads already has more than 100 million users according Quiver Quantitative's Threads Tracker. It helps that Thread is a sibling app to Instagram and it's easy for the image-sharing platform's billion-plus users to sign up - unless they live in the European Union, where it's not yet available.Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, has provided several updates on Threads' user numbers. The app had 10 million users in the first seven hours and more than 30 million by Thursday morning. Around 24 hours later, that figure had more than doubled.It's very, very early days for Threads, as the app is missing basic features that many users see as essential. It has minimal accessibility options at the minute, with no way to append alt text to an image for those who use screen readers. Search is limited to usernames, there's no hashtag support and you can't post to Threads from the web.Quiver QuantitativePerhaps most gallingly of all for folks used to Twitter, Threads doesn't yet have a chronological feed of posts. The algorithmic feed is full of brands, influencers and celebrities, making it difficult for users to keep up with what friends and family are posting. A chronological feed is on the way, but Twitter may still be many people's app of choice for up-to-the-minute news."Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads - they have on Instagram as well to some extent - but we're not going to do anything to encourage those verticals," Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote, noting that the aim of Threads isn't to replace Twitter."Politics and hard news are important, I don't want to imply otherwise," Mosseri added. "But my take is, from a platform's perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue they might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let's be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them. There are more than enough amazing communities - sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc - to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news."Quiver Quantitative's Threads Tracker uses data taken from Instagram users' profiles, according to the person who built the tool, co-founder Christopher Kardatzke. "By viewing the profiles of people who joined the platform, I can see where they were in line and get a general idea of how many users have signed up," he said. He added that the estimates appear to line up with Zuckerberg's Threads posts about user milestones.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-threads-races-to-100-million-users-in-under-a-week-070740016.html?src=rss

We all need to mature someday, and for Lotus, that time is now. Welcome to the Eletre, the company's first production SUV. An electric one at that, with comfortable seating for four or een five. Lotus has been historically known for producing cars that typified the bare minimum needed for enjoyable driving.The Eletre? Well, it's a lot. It weighs a lot, at about 5,500 pounds. Its styling certainly extends to a point of excess, and that interior is nothing if not dazzling. This thing won't be for everybody, in fact I'm not sure who it is for, but it's easily the highest quality, and most comprehensive, interior that Lotus has ever produced. And, with an Unreal Engine-based infotainment system sitting on top of not one but two Qualcomm SoCs, plus four separate LIDAR arrays, there's no shortage of tech cred.What is missing? The emotionality of all the cars Lotus has produced until now and, frankly, a clear sense of purpose. After a few days behind the wheel I'm not convinced many folks will truly love this thing, but Lotus simply had to evolve to survive, and this is an impressive first effort. Watch the video below for the full story.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lotus-eletre-suv-shows-the-company-has-finally-grown-up-070031949.html?src=rss

Evernote has axed most of its workforce. In a statement shared with SFGate, Bending Spoons, the Milan-based app developer that bought the company last November, said Friday it had laid off nearly all of Evernote's employees in the US and Chile. Bending Spoons plans to move most of the company's remaining operations to Europe. The layoffs come less than six months after the firm cut 129 positions at Evernote because the app had been "unprofitable for years." Bending Spoons didn't share exactly how many employees were affected by this latest round of layoffs. A scan of LinkedIn reveals some software engineers that had been with Evernote for a few years lost their jobs on Friday."Our plans for Evernote are as ambitious as ever: Going forward, a growing, dedicated team based in Europe will continue to assume ownership of the Evernote product," Bending Spoons CEO Luca Ferrari told SFGate. "This team will also be in an ideal position to leverage the extensive expertise and strength of the 400-plus workforce at Bending Spoons, many of whom have been working on Evernote full-time since the acquisition." Ferrari added Bending Spoons would provide affected employees with 16 weeks of salary, a prorated performance bonus and up to one year of health insurance.How the company plans to make Evernote successful in a market crowded with competitors like Notion and Obsidian Ferrari did not say. Whatever Bending Spoons has planned for Evernote, there's no denying this marks another low point for what was once one of the more popular note-taking apps you could download and an early darling of the App Store boom. Evernote enjoyed a valuation of $1 billion at its height, but a lack of focus and buggy software left the company a shell of itself in recent years.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/evernote-is-relocating-to-europe-after-laying-off-most-of-its-us-workforce-205012133.html?src=rss

It's probably fair to say that when most people conjure images of the pharmaceutical industry, it's not often there's an association between the production of life-saving drugs and environmental decline. But according to one 2019 study by The Conversation, drug companies produce more tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per million dollars than the automotive industry. "By our calculations, the pharma market is 28 percent smaller yet 13 percent more polluting than the automotive sector," the outlet said of the state of the pharmaceutical industry in 2015. Put another way: drug companies need to reduce their carbon emissions for the health of the planet and everyone living on it.Thankfully, a group of scientists from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom may have found a way for the industry to do exactly that. In a study published in the journal ChemSusChem, the team describes a process they created for converting -pinene, a component found in turpentine, into pharmaceutical precursors that they then used to synthesize paracetamol and ibuprofen. Right now, most companies producing those painkillers use chemical precursors derived from crude oil. Turpentine, meanwhile, is a waste by-product the paper industry makes at a scale of more than 350,000 metric tonnes per year. The researchers say they also successfully used turpentine to synthesize 4-HAP, a precursor for beta-blockers, the asthma inhaler drug salbutamol and a range of household cleaners.In addition to being more sustainable, the team's "bio-refinery" process could lead to more consistent drug costs for consumers since turpentine isn't subject to the same geopolitical pressures that can send energy and oil prices skyrocketing. However, a significant pitfall of the process in its current form is that it costs more to produce drugs with turpentine than crude oil. The team suggests consumers may be willing to pay slightly higher prices for more sustainable drugs, but let's be honest, when someone is sick or in pain, paying more for relief is the last thing most people want to do.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/scientists-make-ibuprofen-and-other-common-painkillers-from-paper-industry-waste-182758699.html?src=rss

After a meteoric rise in popularity late last year and into early 2023, it looks like OpenAI's chatbot is beginning to lose some steam. According to data internet analytics firm Similarweb shared with The Washington Post, last month mobile and desktop traffic to ChatGPT's website fell by 9.7 percent globally. If Similarweb's data is accurate, the drop marks the first time the chatbot has seen a user decline. In June, app tracker Sensor Tower also saw downloads of ChatGPT's iOS client fall off after peaking earlier in the month. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Engadget's comment request.Waning interest in ChatGPT appears to be part of an industry trend. Similarweb's numbers show fewer people visiting the desktop and mobile websites for Microsoft Bing, Google Bard and Character.AI in recent months. Microsoft, for instance, saw traffic to its search engine surge between February and March when Bing AI became available in public preview. Since then, monthly traffic to the website has steadily declined, returning nearly to the levels it was before Microsoft retooled Bing around GPT-4. Separately, Similarweb says it saw a drop in ChatGPT engagement, with user minutes down by 8.5 percent as of May 2023.As for what could be causing the decline, ThePost suggests the end of the school year may have something to do with it. With most college students on summer break, it speculates not as many young adults are using ChatGPT to write their papers. Another reason could be that companies like Samsung are prohibiting employees from using AI chatbots over the very real fear of a potential data leak. Whatever the reason for the decline, you can bet no one at OpenAI is panicking. If anything, the research lab is probably happy to see fewer people use the public version of ChatGPT. CEO Sam Altman has said the service costs OpenAI an eye-watering" amount to operate.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chatgpt-saw-its-first-ever-user-decline-in-june-163043304.html?src=rss

When it comes to online merchandizing, nobody is bigger than Amazon. The same can be said for Walmart's utter domination of physical retail. But for a brief time in 2016, the two behemoths sought to get all up in each other's lanes. The resulting multi-year fracas would shake the world of commerce to its foundations with every above-board strategy and under-handed trick made available to crush the competition. In Winner Sells All, journalist Jason Del Rey recounts the business battles both between and within these titans of industry as both corporations sought to further entrench their market positions. In the excerpt below, we see some of said underhanded tricks.Harper CollinsExcerpted from Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart and the Battle for Our Wallets by Jason Del Rey . Published by Harper Business. Copyright (C) 2023 by Jason Del Rey. All rights reserved.In the late 2010s, the power and valuations that Amazon and other titans of the technology industry were accumulating incited a new movement in antitrust circles, catalyzed by a law school paper written by a then-unknown law student named Lina Khan. In her seminal paper, Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," published in the Yale Law Journal, Khan argued that our interpretation of antitrust laws was outdated in light of a new digital economy, and there was a need to return to the days when merely having low prices or providing free services wasn't enough to avoid scrutiny for anticompetitive behavior.Amazon doesn't just want to dominate markets; it wants to own the infrastructure that underpins those markets," said Stacy Mitchell, the longtime critic of both Amazon and Walmart who runs a left-leaning think tank called the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). And that's an order of magnitude difference of a monopoly ambition than Walmart's." Mitchell had spent many years agitating for the government to step in to slow down Walmart during its go-go Supercenter growth years and she is still clear today that she finds the company's power problematic.But in her view, and that of many Big Tech critics in her circles, Amazon poses an altogether different threat to business competition. It's not just the retail platform, but it's AWS [Amazon Web Services], it's the logistics piece, it's [Alexa] and being the interface for how we interact with the web, and all the devices and everything that are connected to the smart home," she said. It enables Amazon to favor its own goods and services in those markets, to levy a kind of tax on all the businesses that rely on that infrastructure, and to surveil all of that activity and use that intelligence to its own advantage."As the pressure from Washington, DC, increased, Amazon leaders were becoming heated. In one key annual meeting of Bezos's senior leaders in early 2020, Jassy, the then-CEO of AWS, digested the content of a memo sitting in front of him. It laid out Amazon's plans for messaging in response to accusations that it was too big or too powerful and engaged in anticompetitive behavior. As Bezos listened in by phone, Jassy pointedly asked those before him why the messaging didn't argue that Walmart, and AWS rival Microsoft, should be investigated. Other top company officials tried to explain that each of those companies had already been scrutinized years ago and their time had passed. But Jassy's reaction left a lasting impression on those in attendance.It was very clear from his comments that we shouldn't let our foot off the gas," someone in attendance told me years later. In subsequent years, especially in the part of the company that focused on so-called competition issues, there wasn't a day that Walmart didn't come up." The fact that Walmart, with more annual revenue than Amazon, was not being scrutinized by policy makers drove executives like Jassy crazy. It didn't help when Amazon executives discovered that Walmart was indirectly funding a nonprofit front group called Free and Fair Markets, which was bombarding reporters and social media with anti-Amazon accusations. For some time, Amazon leaders suspected that a competitor, or group of competitors, was funding the operation but couldn't prove it. One of Amazon's longtime spokesmen, Drew Herdener, grew frustrated every time the group placed an op-ed or social media message that got traction.How does the press not know this is a front group?" he would lament. As a result, an Amazon communications staffer named Doug Stone spent upward of a year trying to help reporters uncover the group's funders. Finally, in the fall of 2019, the Wall Street Journal pulled back the veil in an expose titled A Grass Roots' Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon's Biggest Rivals." A Walmart spokesperson denied funding the group to the newspaper-the article had stated that Walmart used an intermediary to pass along funds to FFM, so the company's defense might have been a matter of semantics- but said that Walmart share[s] concerns about issues" that the group was publicizing.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-winner-sells-all-jason-del-rey-harper-business-143059940.html?src=rss

Earlier this week, Twitter began migrating users to the "new" version of TweetDeck after its decision to limit how many tweets people could view temporarily broke the previous iteration of its list aggregator. For many, the change was a downgrade due to the new version missing some of the features found within its predecessor. If you want to go back to using the previous release of TweetDeck, now you can, but almost certainly only for a limited time.As noted by The Verge, overnight some Twitter users noticed that the old TweetDeck was back without so much as an official announcement from Elon Musk, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino or any of the company's official social accounts. Additionally, a handful of developers, including Harpy creator Roberto Doering, noticed Twitter's legacy API was working again, allowing their third-party clients to work once more. Again, how long that will remain true is hard to say."Please note that this doesn't mean that Harpy will be maintained again, seeing as Twitter will most likely shut down access to their legacy API (again) soon and third-party apps are still against their [terms of service]," Doering wrote on Harpy's GitHub page. When Twitter began forcing users to migrate to the new Tweetdeck, the company said users will need to be verified to continue using the tool, meaning most people will need to subscribe to Twitter Blue if they want continued access.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-old-good-version-of-tweetdeck-is-back-222423088.html?src=rss

Hayao Miyazaki's final film, the tentatively titled How Do You Live?, is coming to IMAX theaters. The milestone marks a first for Miyazaki and the animation studio he co-founded nearly four decades ago. According to Anime News Network, the film will also screen in Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema and DTS:X when it arrives in Japan on July 14th.As Gizmodo notes, past Studio Ghibli films did not receive the IMAX treatment during their original theatrical runs. When you add that to the fact How Do You Live? is supposed to be Miyazaki's swan song(or so the auteur claims), you have the makings of a must-see movie event. However, one potential hitch is that the film doesn't have an international release date yet, and it's unclear if a North American distributor could secure IMAX screens for How Do You Live? when and if it arrives outside of Japan. In recent weeks, the availability of IMAX screens has been a contentious issue in Hollywood, with Tom Cruise reportedly calling some theaters to convince them to screen Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One instead of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.Details on How Do You Live? are sparse. Studio Ghibli has not released a trailer for the film or bought any TV spots. In fact, the only promotion it has done so far for How Do You Live? is the single poster the studio released last month. The film is an original work but is named after the 1937 novel of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino. In interviews, Miyazaki has said the book plays an influential role in the life of his film's protagonist.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hayao-miyazakis-final-film-will-be-studio-ghiblis-first-imax-release-195624834.html?src=rss

Late last month, Apple uploaded the debut episode of Siloto Twitter to promote the show's season one finale. Now it's doing the same with its other tentpole sci-fi series. Starting Monday, you can watch Foundation's first episode on YouTube ahead of season two'sJuly 14th premiere.Apple's live-action adaptation of Issac Asimov's classic novel series of the same name premiered in 2021 following a pandemic-related production delay. As 9to5Mac notes, you can already watch the first episode of the series for free on Apple TV, but that requires access to the app and not everyone might want to install Apple's streaming service on their smart TV. Season two of Foundation sees some of season one's original cast, including Lee Pace and Jared Harris, return. Filming of season three is rumored to be already underway. In the meantime, you can watch the show's first episode on Monday at 2PM ET, followed by a live Q&A with showrunner David Goyer.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-will-stream-the-first-episode-of-foundation-on-youtube-175203218.html?src=rss

It's probably safe to say no one could have predicted that LinkedIn would add Stories before Twitch, but here we are. Nearly eight years after Instagram lifted the feature from Snapchat, Twitch announced Saturday that its own users will be able to begin recording Stories starting later this year. At its TwitchCon Paris event, Twitch said it plans to roll out the ephemeral media format in October. Once they arrive, Stories will live on the Following page of the Twitch mobile app, where they'll be subject to Twitch's Community Guidelines and automated safety systems. Additionally, creators will have the option to limit the visibility of their Stories to only those who follow them.Stories is one of a handful of features Twitch announced on Saturday. In the fall, the company said it plans to introduce a new Discovery Feed it promises will make it easier for creators to grow their audiences, even when they're not streaming. Like Stories, the Discovery Feed will live on the company's mobile app and include live and recorded content.Because Twitch is all about live, interactive channels, it's not our goal for viewers to spend hours in a Clips feed," Twitch said. Our investment in Clips is to help viewers discover your channel so they join you and your community when you stream." Twitch plans to conduct limited testing of the Discovery Feed before rolling out the feature to the broader Twitch user base in late 2023. Other features the company said it was working on include improvements to the platform's built-in clip editor. Come late next month, the tool will allow creators to export vertical videos directly to TikTok.On Saturday, Twitch said it would also give creators more control over when ad breaks play during their streams. A new chat countdown timer will display exactly when an ad is about to play. Streamers can delay an advertisement if it's about to disrupt an exciting bit of gameplay or a conversation with their community. The feature comes after Twitch last month backpedaled on a proposed ad policy that would have restricted the kinds of branded content creators had the ability to include in their streams.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-is-finally-adding-stories-and-a-feed-for-discovering-new-streamers-to-watch-163846190.html?src=rss