Category: Technology

It’s now much simpler to participate in a Microsoft Teams meeting if you have hearing issues. Microsoft has introduced a sign language view that lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as their interpreters, prioritize each other during meetings. Those video feeds will remain in consistent locations, at sizes large enough for sign language to be visible. You’ll see as many as two other signers throughout a meeting, and video will remain large even when slides or screen shares are visible.

The view also makes preferences “sticky” thanks to a new accessibility settings pane, Microsoft says. You won’t have to worry about pinning interpreters or enabling captions every time a Teams call begins. You can jump directly into a meeting instead of tweaking options.

The sign language view and accessibility pane are currently available only through a Public Preview available on a user-by-user basis. They’ll roll out to all commercial and government customers in the “coming weeks,” Microsoft says. It could take a while before everyone can use the functionality. Still, this promises to greatly simplify meetings for anyone with limited hearing — and might make Teams more viable if alternatives like Zoom (which only recently added support for interpreters) aren’t up to the task.

 

Charging is usually one of the least exciting parts of driving an EV, but the FIA thinks it can make these pauses more engaging. As part of updated regulations, Formula E will trial a 30-second “Attack Charge” during some races in the ninth season. New battery technology will give cars 4kWh of energy from the half-minute session thanks to a 600kW booster. The charging stop will be mandatory at a specified point in the race, but drivers will receive two “enhanced” Attack Mode periods later in the race as compensation.

The quick charge is tied to the Gen3 cars making their debut in the new season. The current Attack Mode, where drivers can activate a momentary power boost, will still be available in those races where Attack Charge isn’t in use.

The upcoming season also makes fundamental changes to the league’s competitive format. Races now take place over a set number of laps, rather than a fixed amount of time. If there are safety car and full course yellow disruptions, organizers will add more laps. Teams will also have to complete a minimum of two Free Practice 1 sessions with rookie drivers to help them experience Formula E. And don’t expect to play a role in your favorite driver’s victory — the spectator-driven Fanboost is going away.

The modified Attack Mode isn’t what was originally planned. FIA had originally hoped to revive pit stops, but the necessary system wasn’t ready in time. Those more conventional stops are expected to come, but not for a while yet.

Season nine and Gen3 will launch in Mexico City this January. It’s too soon to say if Attack Charge will spice up races in real-world conditions. However, it might point to the future of roadgoing EVs. Even the fastest-charging street models take at least a few minutes to get a meaningful amount of range from a charging session. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 needs five minutes on a 350kW charger for 53 miles of driving, for instance. While 600kW chargers won’t become mainstream for a while (Geely’s Viridi brand only unveiled its tech this September), Formula E’s testing hints at a day when your EV might only need a brief stop to recover enough range for a long drive.

 

You’re not alone if you’ve waited until Black Friday to scope out deals on the latest MacBooks. Considering these are some of the best (and most expensive) laptops out there right now, plenty of people will be looking for the best MacBook deals over the holiday shopping period. We me be still one week out from Black Friday proper, but we’re already seeing some solid deals on machines like the new MacBook Air M2, and even the high-powered 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

While you’ll likely get the best deal by shopping at a retailer like Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama and others, Apple does have it’s own holiday sales as well. However, you’ll have to wait until Black Friday for those, plus they give you up to a $250 Apple gift card with purchase rather than a discounted price. If you know you’ll use that gift card, that may be the best option for you. But if you’d rather the instant gratification of a couple hundred dollars off, we’ve collected the best MacBook deals here so you don’t have to go searching for them.

MacBook Air M1

The 2020 MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chipset is at an all-time low right now — only $800 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. While, yes, the M2 chip in the latest model will give you a slight performance boost, the M1 processor is still quite powerful. It’ll certainly be an upgrade for anyone coming from an older, Intel-powered MacBook. We gave the M1 Air a score of 94 when it first came out for its incredibly fast performance, excellent keyboard and trackpad, lovely Retina display and its lack of fan noise.

MacBook Air M2

The latest and greatest MacBook Air, the 2022 model with the M2 chipset, is $150 off and down to a record low of $1,050. This laptop looks and feels quite different from the 2020 version thanks to Apple redesigning the machine to have a uniformly thing frame all around (no more wedge) and its screen is slightly larger at 13.6-inches. We also appreciated its quad-speaker setup and its excellent performance overall, so much so that we called it Apple’s “near-perfect” Mac.

13-inch MacBook Pro

Apple’s most compact Pro laptop, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, is on sale for $1,149 right now, or 12 percent off its normal rate. It sits, somewhat confusingly, in the middle of the company’s notebook lineup. While it has solid performance thanks to the M2 chipset, a long battery life and stellar build quality, it’s hard for us to recommend outright. Most people would be better served by the M2 MacBook Air, or jumping up to the 14-inch MacBook Pro for even more power. But if you’re set on the 13-inch size and want the efficiency provided by an internal fan (which the Air doesn’t have), this MacBook Pro is your best bet.

14-inch MacBook Pro

The 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage is a whopping $400 off and down to a record low of $1,600. This machine has the most advanced features of any Apple laptop (aside from its larger, 16-inch sibling), including a Liquid Retina XDR display, remarkable performance using that Pro chipset, excellent battery life and a bevy of ports that make connecting all of your peripherals and accessories much easier. Apple is overdue for a MacBook Pro refresh, though, but it’s likely that those machines won’t launch until early 2023.

16-inch MacBook Pro

The biggest of Apple’s laptops, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, is cheaper than ever at $2,000 thanks to a $500 discount. That still-hefty price gets you an M1 Pro chipset, a 10‑core CPU and 16‑core GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This model is essentially an enlarged version of the 14-inch Pro, sharing most of the same features with it. You’re getting a Liquid Retina XDR display, a bunch of ports including an SD card slot, a fantastic keyboard and great battery life.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

Twitter may not be restoring Blue verification for a couple of weeks, but it hopes to be more careful when the feature comes back. The social network has updated its FAQ site to warn that new accounts will have to wait 90 days before they can subscribe to Blue. The company also says it reserves the right to demand waiting periods “at our discretion without notice.”

The new policy comes shortly after Twitter blocked new accounts from joining Blue. Within two days of Twitter adopting its pay-to-verify system, the social media service grappled with a flood of impersonators and trolls using their new checkmarks to confuse users. The firm tried using a secondary “official” checkmark for public figures and organizations, but new Twitter owner scrapped the system mere hours after it launched.

Musk added that a “new release” would discourage fraudsters by dropping the Blue checkmark if they change their name — they wouldn’t get it back until Twitter confirmed that the new handle honored the Terms of Service. There isn’t yet any official policy to this effect, however.

There’s plenty of pressure for revised policies like these. Senator Ed Markey has grilled Elon Musk over the ease of creating fake accounts under the new verification system, and suggested that Congress might intervene if the entrepreneur doesn’t fix Twitter and his other brands. Twitter is also dealing with internal chaos as employees resign en masse in response to Musk’s demands for “long hours” from “hardcore” staff.

 

The digitization of the music industry leveled the playing field for artists. An album can be written, recorded and released from a bedroom without an expensive recording studio or predatory record label. This DIY ethic isn’t new. Bands have been recording and releasing albums on their own or out of friendly record stores for decades.

Digitization has also created a glut of available music, which can make it difficult for new bands or artists to break through the noise. Plus, popular artists with record deals still get the lion’s share of the attention. I’m pretty sure every Beyonce release is now a national holiday. For every other artist, the resurgence of vinyl and cassette has revived the ability to give or sell something tangible to their fans – a physical keepsake that could offer a tighter emotional bond with the music. While making copies of tapes has been an at-home pastime since the 1980s, vinyl has required a third party that specializes in cutting records. At least, until recently.

Teenage Engineering’s $149 PO-08 Record Factory combines the nostalgia of a Fisher-Price turntable with the utility of a machine that can actually cut vinyl. You’ll have to assemble it yourself and master each song specifically for the device. Even after all that work, your music probably will sound like it’s being played through an AM radio. That might sound like a nightmare for some, yet is potentially wonderful for others.

The PO-08 is a rebranding of magazine publisher Gakken’s “Easy Record Maker” — a record cutter/player designed by Yuri Suzuki. Teenage Engineering worked with Suzuki for its version and even includes an interview with the designer in the supplied magazine/instruction booklet.

Though the turntable looks like a toy, Teenage Engineering tells you (again and again) that it’s not recommended for kids under the age of 12. It’s really built for “children” between the ages of 17 and 64 — for the type of person that has three bands, strong opinions about direct drive turntables, a very active Discogs account and a DIY attitude. Oh, and also the patience needed to fiddle with tiny parts for hours to create a single, not-so-perfect mono copy of a song. Yes, it works, but it’s a lo-fi representation of a professionally created record; The Factory is an EZ bake oven for vinyl.

Building the Record Factory takes about 60 to 90 minutes, and it helps give you the confidence to disassemble it when you realize that, say, you didn’t attach the cable for the needle securely. I had to do exactly that when there was no audio after I first put the device together – everything seemed to be working but there was no actual sound.

Having to assemble the device also lends insight into the Record Factory’s inner workings, which are quite clever. The cutting needle vibrates via a tiny speaker to engrave your audio onto one of Teenage Engineering’s blank discs. A tiny gearing system moves the needle along and after three to four minutes (depending on the recording speed), your song is inscribed onto the vinyl.

But everything leading up to that is a series of adjustments. If you’re the type of person that requires a thing to “just work” without much tinkering, stay far away from the PO-08.

You begin with your original recording and at the end of the inscription, you get a mono representation. The single-channel audio is a technical limitation of the device. To make sure the audio going in is mono, the Record Factory comes with a minijack cable that takes the left and right channels of your stereo signal and merges them together. You also end up losing fidelity, which is another technical limitation. The top and low ends of a song can get muddy easily and too much bass actually causes the cutter needle to jump.

You can try to fix this yourself, but it’s smarter to use Teenage Engineering’s online audio mastering tool. Just upload the file, wait a few minutes and the site spits out something that works better with the device. This process does result in the loss of all the intricate details of your song. The low end becomes slightly muddy or disappears altogether while the high end loses its bite. If you’re looking for crisp, exact copies, skip the PO-08 entirely.

A whole 45 minutes after mastering your audio, you get to cut a record. In that time, you’ll be adjusting the pressure of the cutting arm, listening very carefully to the audio being sent to the device to make sure it’s not distorting and if it is, turning down the volume. But you can’t go too low, or the signal wont be strong enough to engrave. That means you have to open up the equalizer and make adjustments (so many adjustments) until the audio sounds good (enough).

Now you’re ready to put it on wax (as they used to say in the olden days). Except before you create a record you can share, you need to cut audio onto a test vinyl. You record 10 seconds, wash the disc with water to get all the excess bits out of the grooves, then switch the Record Factory to play mode and listen to your masterpiece.

The test record isn’t that a big deal until you realize that Teenage Engineering has sold out of the discs needed for the turntable and hasn’t shared information on when they’ll be back in stock. This makes testing all the more important.

A word of caution: the cutter slows down the turntable, so when played back at regular speed it might sound a little higher pitched. Like low-level Chipmunks high. So make sure you drop your file into the relevant tools online to adjust your song. Except it likely still needs work if you want the closest representation of your song available from the PO-80, which means you’ll have to, surprise surprise, make more adjustments. I conducted five test cuts before I was finally ready to create my first at-home vinyl record of a song.

On top of all that, the turntable itself isn’t a great player, either. It sounds like you’re listening to music from under the sea. It’s fun to create and play on the same device, but it’s best to take the disc to a proper turntable. On my Technics SL-1200 MK2, the mono audio with the high and low-end cut-off sounded a bit far away compared to the original and the fidelity is nowhere near the quality of professional vinyl in my collection. Yet, it’s exactly what I anticipated and I’m happy with the end result.

The Record Factory lives or dies by its owner’s expectations. There are two types of people in this world: those that lose their minds and patience dealing with even the tiniest inconvenience and those that live for tinkering and experimenting.

The second group are people like me, and are excited about the difference in sounds between an at-home produced record, a cassette and a digital file. My band typically records on a digital eight-track but I also use a cassette four-track from the late 80s. There’s something special about sending a fan a vinyl recording that was produced at home. The PO-08 is for people that find beauty in the inherent potential for errors in DIY analog recordings.

The Record Factory will find its niche of users that happily spend hours creating the perfectly imperfect vinyl copy of their song. Unfortunately, if someone doesn’t already have a PO-08 turntable they will have to find one of these beauties on eBay or Craigslist. The power move is to search for the Gaken branded version on eBay. Those turntables are much cheaper (under $100) than the Teenage Engineering version.

Teenage Engineering told Engadget that it has no plans to produce more of the sold-out turntables which is a shame. Not every musician can afford to have hundreds of records produced by a third party. But, if they can find a Record Factory (they’re currently selling from $250 to $500) they can cut one-of-a-kind vinyl they can share with friends and fans while they wait to make it big. As long as they are happy doing that on a toy built for very patient music nerds that are happy trading fidelity for something real.

 

YouTube has created own signature launch sound and slick animation just like Netflix’s “Tudum” and detailed exactly how it made it in a new blog post. The mini-fanfare has already appeared in the YouTube app on TVs, playing each time you start the app.

The platform went into a lot of detail about how it built the sound in partnership with Antfood, a “sonic branding” studio. It aimed to make something “human,” “connected,” “expressive” and “story-driven,” by marrying together a variety of sounds. You can hear it for yourself below:

In fact, each part of the mix has its own name, like “deep dive,” “upward flourish,” “melodic signature,” “tactile motion” and “sentimental harmony.” A lot of thought (and no doubt, money) went into all of this. For instance, YouTube said that “sentimental harmony” is a major 7th chord that “represents the way YouTube allows you to explore the things you really love.”

So that’s all well and fine, but how does the three-second piece sound? Putting on my tiny music critic hat, it’s certainly pleasant and harmonious, though not nearly as memorable as “Tudum.” The accompanying animation is equally well executed but also a bit boring. It’s early days, though, so it could grow on me. 

YouTube didn’t come up with a catchy name for it like Netflix did, calling it simply the “YouTube sound,” and I can’t think of any onomatopoeia that would do it justice. In any case, YouTube said that the sound and animation will appear “in more places over the next few weeks and months.” 

 

We at Engadget spend a lot of time thinking about the best tech gifts for anyone and everyone in your life. But during that process, we often can’t help but think about the things we’d like to receive as gifts. We encourage everyone to treat themselves in some way while scrambling to find gifts for those they love, and it’s about time we take our own advice. Here, we’ve compiled a list of gadgets on our staffers’ wish lists with the hope that it may inspire you to splurge a bit on yourself this year.

Vestaboard

With a price starting at just under $3,000, I don’t expect anyone to ever buy me a Vestaboard. But that won’t stop me from dreaming. Capable of displaying up to 132 characters, the Vestaboard is an updated twist on the traditional split-flap sign board you used to see at airports and train stations. Each cell can display 64 different characters or colors and thanks to support for WiFi and a companion app, you can create new patterns or messages right on your phone. But most importantly, whenever the display refreshes itself, you’ll hear that iconic clack clack as the flaps whirl around inside. It’s a nostalgic blend of old-school tech and modern convenience.Even though I probably will never own one, the Vestaboard (and Oat Foundry’s alternative) still puts a smile on my face. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Reporter

Shop Vestaboard

LEGO Galaxy Explorer set

This year, the Lego Group turned 90 — and while the company didn’t start making Lego bricks as we know them until 1958, Lego still released a few special sets to commemorate the occasion. As a child of the ‘80s, I played with a host of old-school, iconic Lego sets, including many spaceships — so the brand-new, $100 Galaxy Explorer set immediately caught my eye. It’s basically a larger, more complex version of a one Lego released in 1979 that includes more than 1,200 pieces, instead of the 338 found in the original model.

That makes it a lot more intriguing to nerdy adults like me who still love the chill mood that comes with putting together a Lego set. And the design captures the vibe of ones I built when I was a kid, before Lego was mostly known for licensing Star Wars and Harry Potter. The gray / blue color scheme is a classic, and the astronaut mini-figures have the uncomplicated, slightly smiling face and bright yellow coloring that was used on almost every figure Lego made for decades. What can I say? I’m a nostalgia junky, and a throwback spaceship that’s bigger and uses modern building techniques is just the right mix of old and new for me. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor

Buy Galaxy Explorer set at LEGO – $100

Razor EcoSmart Cargo

I’ve been fascinated by micromobility (if we must call it that) for years, but a lot of the offerings are lackluster at best. It doesn’t help that e-scooters aren’t legal here in the UK unless you rent one as part of a special trial, limited to a handful of select providers. But when I saw Razor’s EcoSmart Cargo, the wheels of my imagination began to spin like an excited hamster on its exercise wheel. Not only is it a remarkably stylish offering, but its rear rack can take either an extra passenger, or a decent chunk of cargo.

With a 300-pound carrying weight, elegant design and quick speed, it’s the sort of scooter that would do plenty of things in my weekly routine. Not to mention that, looking like it does, it might pass under the watchful eye of local law enforcement who might not spot what’s going on. Not that I’m advocating you should do that, of course, I’m just saying it’s an interesting potential benefit, you know? If there’s a downside, it’s that range of 16.6 miles, which would mean I’d likely need to recharge it after every other trip or so, but I’d forgive that if it saved me time. — Daniel Cooper, Senior Reporter

Buy EcoSmart Cargo at Razor – $1,100

Babboe Curve Mountain

During August and September, I borrowed a Babboe Curve-E as part of a long story about cargo cycling (read it here!). The Babboe is the SUV of bicycles, with a beefy forward box that can take loads of up to 220 pounds, or four kids at a time. And boy, did my kids love riding around in the Babboe, asking to go in it at every possible opportunity no matter the weather. Unfortunately, the Curve-E’s relatively milquetoast rear hub was no match for the hills in my local area, reducing its efficacy. After all, this bike was primarily designed for the flat roads of the Netherlands, not the steep hills of the UK.

That’s why my fantasy gift pick would either be the Babboe Curve Mountain, or the smaller two-seater City Mountain. Both of those bikes ditch the puny rear hub motor (boo, hiss) for a 36v, 250W Yamaha mid-drive motor. (Mid-drive motors are far more powerful for a number of reasons, but they’re also significantly more expensive as a consequence.) Certainly, both are priced for the sort of people who use “Summer” as a verb – with the cheapest model priced at around $4,500. But maybe, given the look on my kids’ faces when we rode around on it, that’s a price worth paying (if I had that sort of money, at least). — D.C.

Shop Babboe bicycles

Moen smart water leak detector

The things that get me excited as a new homeowner are decidedly not things I thought I’d ever get excited about a year ago. Case in point, this water leak detector kit from Moen that I’d absolutely love to get as a gift. Potential water damage is something I have to think about now and these smart sensors are designed to detect when water goes into places it’s not supposed to go in a home.

The sensors are small enough to go almost anywhere like your basement, under your kitchen sink or near your washing machine and it will send alerts to your phone if it detects excess moisture in that area. They come with screws and mounts so you can install them pretty easily anywhere and this pack comes with a 48-inch extension disk, allowing a sensor to reach into a tight space. I particularly like that these sensors primarily work with WiFi and Moen’s companion app, but even if your WiFi goes out, they’ll still alert you via an audible chip and a flashing light on the sensors themselves. — Valentina Palladino, Senior Commerce Editor

Buy Moen leak detector at Amazon – $130

MacBook Air M2

When we were asked to figure out what we’d really like for the holidays, it didn’t take long for me to add the Air M2 to my list. I mean, it’s certainly a fantasy purchase, give the eye-watering cost of the new machine, especially since everyone screams about how bad the base model is. It’s only when you get to the 512GB model, with 16GB RAM, that the MacBook Air M2 goes from gorgeous, expensive toy to a powerhouse worth screaming about. But it’s exactly the sort of machine that I’d like to get my hands on, if only to test those performance claims for myself. Not to mention seeing if it really can replace far more expensive machines for creative tasks, including image and video editing. — D.C.

Buy MacBook Air M2 at Amazon – $1,200

Jerky of the Month Club

If there’s one thing I enjoy more than the surprise and excitement of getting something other than a bill in the mail, it’s eating whatever is inside the envelope — especially if it turns out to be edible (coincidentally, we really need to start calling “packing peanuts” something else). That’s why receiving a subscription for Jerky.com’s Jerky of the Month Club is at the top of my holiday wish list this year.

Jerky’s monthly subscription is an easy way to get access to the company’s ever-changing catalog of limited-edition flavors. With a monthly subscription, Jerky will send two pouches of more traditional meat products — teriyaki, cracked pepper, BBQ, and the like — along with one off-the-wall flavor to keep things interesting. These selections are the results of the company’s R&D process. Whenever Jerky comes up with a new flavor profile, they’ll make a small batch and then distribute it to select customers (aka the “Taste Testers”) and collect their feedback. The Jerky of the Month club gets me access to those flavors without the added work of having to both form and convey opinions about them. — Andrew Tarantola, Senior Reporter

Shop Jerky of the Month Club subscriptions

Slough House series

I don’t suppose any show which airs on Apple TV+ can be described as an underdog, but certainly Slow Horses arrived without much fanfare. Despite it featuring Oscar winner Gary Oldman, it was still enough of a surprise that I felt compelled to tell everyone how good it was. And as someone who’s got… more than a few John LeCarré books on his shelf, something I’m actually hoping to get this holiday season is the book series Slow Horses was based on.

Slough House is a (far as we know) fictional branch of the security services where agents too useless to be in the field, but who know too much to be fired, are parked. The series has already stretched to nine books, with the first four optioned by Apple for adaptation. And if the books are half as good as the TV series, then they’ll make for gripping reading when I’m looking for something to keep me warm through the darkest months of winter. — D.C.

Shop Slough House series at Amazon

 

Yuji Naka, who co-created Sonic the Hedgehog and headed programming for the original game series, has reportedly been arrested for insider trading. According to Fuji News Network, authorities believe Naka bought 10,000 shares in game development company Aiming for 2.8 million yen ($20,000) before it became public that the developer was working with Square Enix on Dragon Quest Tact. 

Naka joined Square Enix in 2018 and worked on the platform game Balan Wonderworld. He wasn’t there that long, however, and announced that he had left the company shortly after the game was released. Naka also revealed earlier this year that he had sued Square Enix after they removed him as Balan Wonderland’s director six months before the game was launched. While he has already left the company, he was still with Square Enix while Dragon Quest Tact was being developed, and that was allegedly how he learned about the smartphone game before it was even announced.

Naka wasn’t the only former Square Enix employee who was arrested for insider trading. A Taisuke Sasaki and a Fumiaki Suzuki were also arrested for purchasing 162,000 shares of Aiming for around 47.2 million yen ($337,609). Like Naka, they reportedly bought Aiming stocks with the belief that they’d go up in value after Dragon Quest Tact’s announcement. In a statement addressing the duo’s arrest, Square Enix said that it’s fully cooperating with the investigation and that it has set up a system to prevent any more instances of insider trading. 

 

Amazon’s Black Friday deals have started going live, and its Echo Show displays, Fire tablets and Fire TV devices are already being sold at a discount. Also on sale? Its Kindle e-readers, some of which are now listed for the lowest prices we’ve seen for them on the website. The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, for instance, is currently priced at $130 or 32 percent off retail, which is an all-time low for what we once called “the best e-reader” in a review. It has a bigger and more responsive screen (6.8 inches) compared to the previous generation, similar to the base fifth-gen Paperwhite. But the Signature edition also comes with 32GB of storage instead of 8GB. That’s four times the space for your ebook collection. 

Buy Kindle e-readers at Amazon – up to 34 percent off

The Signature edition has no ads and comes with a wireless charging capability on top of USB-C charging, as well. It can also automatically adjust the screen’s brightness and has warm lighting options to choose from. And now, it costs just as much as a regular-priced base Kindle Paperwhite. Meanwhile, the base Kindle Paperwhite model will set you back $95, which is also 32 percent less than retail and an all-time low for the device. If you don’t find wireless charging and auto-adjusting backlights important, don’t think you can use up 32GB of storage and don’t mind seeing ads on the lock screen, then this may be the better choice. 

But if you’ve been waiting for a deal on Amazon’s most expensive e-reader, the Kindle Oasis, then this is a great time to get one. It’s also on sale for $255 — that’s $95 less than retail and is also an all-time low for the device. The 7-inch e-reader has 32GB of storage and adjustable warm light. Unlike any of the other models in the Kindle lineup, though, it has page turn buttons and free cellular connectivity, so you can download books even without WiFi. If you have a non-US shipping address, it’s also worth noting that the international, no-ads version of the Kindle e-readers are on sale, as well.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

 

The next big VR avatar performance will be the late Notorious B.I.G., East Coast rap legend. Broadcast in Meta’s Horizon Worlds, the show will use a virtual recreation of ’90s Brooklyn as a backdrop and will have performances by guest artists like Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs. It will also feature a narrative journey of Biggie’s life by music journalist Touré.

Bringing an artist back from the dead in avatar form often meets a wave of criticism – and that was true this time as well. Meta responded, saying it received the blessing of the Notorious B.I.G. Estate.

Notorious’ long-standing rival, Tupac, starred in a hologram performance ten years ago at Coachella. We’ve also seen holograms of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. These have usually appeared in major awards ceremonies or standalone tours. Meta’s Horizon Worlds, however, doesn’t quite have the same cachet. But fans of Notorious B.I.G. will likely be intrigued.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Get the Pixel 6a for $299 in Google’s Black Friday sale

Or a Pixel 7 for $499.

We’re a week early, but the Black Friday deals are flowing in. This one’s particularly good: Google’s entry-level Pixel 6a is just $299, $100 less than normal. It’s one of if not the best cheap smartphones around, with a contemporary Pixel design and killer cameras. The sale runs for nearly two weeks, until November 28th. There are also discounts on home products like the Nest Thermostat, Nest Security Cam and Nest Doorbell.

Continue reading.

James Webb telescope captures the hidden features of a young protostar

More insight into the formation of stars in the early stages.

The latest image from your second favorite space telescope reveals the once-hidden features of a very young protostar in the dark cloud L1527, giving us a look into how stars form and turn into something like our sun. NASA says the 100,000-year-old protostar is at the earliest stage of star formation — our sun formed 4.6 billion years ago or so. The images give us an idea of what our solar system was like in its very early years.

Continue reading.

Testing out the Yale Assure Lock 2

The do-everything smart lock.

Tempted by a smart lock? Yale, a trusted, familiar name in locks, has launched the Assure Lock 2, which addresses many of the issues of smart locks in the past. With four configurations (touchscreen and keypad models, both with and without dedicated keyways) and three finishes, you should be able to find one that suits your door. It’s also compatible with most doors in the US and Canada. Thanks to support for all the major smart home platforms and modules that can add WiFi, Zigbee and Matter connectivity, the Assure Lock 2 covers all the bases. Engadget’s Sam Rutherford tests it out.

Continue reading.

Blizzard games like ‘World of Warcraft’ will go offline in China next year

Its license agreement with NetEase in the nation will expire on January 23, 2023.

Blizzard Entertainment will suspend key games like Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft in China because it failed to reach an agreement with partner NetEase, it announced. Those titles, along with Hearthstone, StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III and Warcraft III: Reforged, will be unavailable in China starting on January 23, 2023. The money-making Diablo Immortal, which arrived earlier this year, won’t be affected as it’s covered by a separate agreement.

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Meta reportedly fired staff for hijacking Facebook and Instagram accounts

Some employees may have taken bribes.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta has fired or punished over two dozen workers for hijacking Facebook and Instagram accounts over the past year. Some offenders reportedly used Meta’s account recovery tool and even took “thousands of dollars” in bribes from outsiders seeking access.

The account recovery tool, called Oops, lets workers file reports about inaccessible accounts, which can then lead to restored control. It’s meant for use only in rare situations, such as for public personalities and family members, and asks questions about the source of the request. Its use has supposedly climbed in recent years, The Journal says, jumping from 22,000 “tasks” in 2017 to 50,270 in 2020.

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Democratic senators ask FTC to investigate Elon Musk over his handling of Twitter

The lawmakers cited the botched rollout of paid verification.

In a letter to FTC chair Lina Khan, signed by seven senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat senators have asked the FTC to investigate Elon Musk over his handling of users’ privacy and security in the wake of his takeover of Twitter. Under the terms of a 2011 agreement with the FTC, Twitter is required to review new features for potential privacy issues and regularly send reports to the FTC. The recent departures of top privacy and security executives came just ahead of a deadline to send one of those reports, according to The New York Times.

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