Kalakshar US

January is almost over, and Amazon has some new Apple deals for us. The 13-inch M4 iPad Pro is now down to a record-low price of $1,099 if you get the 256GB model. Additionally, the 11-inch M4 iPad Pro is also on sale for $899, and both color options have an extra $50 coupon to reduce the price even further to $849.

The M4 is Apple’s latest chipset, and it boasts 10 cores in its CPU for high-settings gaming and video editing. The 2,752 x 2,064 Ultra Retina XDR OLED screen’s color accuracy is also great for streaming content on Netflix, YouTube and more. The high refresh rate ProMotion, P3 wide color and True Tone display technologies further improve the experience by improving the refresh rate and colors — in our review, we called it one of the nicest portable screens we’ve seen.

Some users also like capturing pictures and videos with their iPads, and the M4 iPads are equipped with a 12MP ultra wide front camera that performs superbly on video calls. The 12MP wide rear camera captures video up to 4K resolution with ProRes support.

If you’re still not sure, the M4 iPad is on our list of best Apple tablets. It’s a premium device, but one that won’t let you down when it comes to processing power and screen quality.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m4-ipad-pro-is-up-to-200-off-right-now-150555119.html?src=rss 

Chinese AI assistant DeepSeek has become the top rated free app on Apple’s App Store in the US and elsewhere, beating out ChatGPT and other rivals. It’s powered by the open-source DeepSeek V3 model, which reportedly requires far less computing power than competitors and was developed for under $6 million, according to (disputed) claims by the company. At the same time, it offers performance that’s on par with Claude-3.5, GPT-4o and other rivals, DeepSeek said last week.

Available on web, app and API, DeepSeek is similar to AI Assistant like ChatGPT with features like coding content creation and research. Its first DeepSeek-R1 release is available under an MIT license, so it can be used commercially and without restrictions. 

The company is headquartered in Hangzhou, China and was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who also launched the hedge fund backing DeepSeek. To develop the tech, he reportedly stockpiled NVIDIA A100 chips prior to the US export ban and paired those with less powerful chips that can still be imported, according to MIT Technology Review. 

However, DeepSeek was still at a significant hardware disadvantage next to rival models from OpenAI, Google and others. That forced the company to be more efficient with its AI models, and it has supposedly been able to build and train them at a far lower cost than previously thought possible. 

Analysts from Citi and elsewhere have questioned those claims, though, and pointed out that China is a “more restrictive environment” for AI development than the US. Still, the rise of DeepSeek has raised concerns about the potential profits of rivals like OpenAI that have already invested billions in AI infrastructure. In fact, the news that DeepSeek topped the App Store charts caused a sharp drop in tech stocks like NVIDIA and ASML this morning. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/deepseeks-ai-assistant-from-china-has-become-the-top-free-iphone-app-134445339.html?src=rss 

Life can be really hard and sometimes all we want is to sink onto the couch, turn our brains off and play game after game. That’s part of the reason we’re such big fans of the Xbox Ultimate Game Pass, which offers access to hundreds of Xbox and PC games all for one monthly price. 

Well, right now, you can get a three-month Xbox Ultimate Game Pass for just $34, down from $50. The 32 percent discount means it’s a few dollars shy of its December deal, but it’s still a great offer. You can shop the sale at Woot for the next two days or until it sells out. 

Speaking of deals, Woot is also running a sale on lots of gaming items, such as the 8Bitdo Retro Mechanical Keyboard — down to $60 from $100 — and the 8Bitdo Ultimate 3-mode Controller for Xbox — down to $40 from $70. Then there’s games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is down to $40 from $60, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is available for $45, down from $70. 

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/deals/three-months-of-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-costs-only-34-right-now-143301599.html?src=rss 

Calling all iPhone lovers: we might just have a full look at Apple’s iPhone SE 4 on our hands. X (formerly Twitter) user Majin Bu shared what Bu claims is the new iPhone SE 4. The leaker posted a video of the device from all angles and then four photos of both a black and white model from the back.

There’s no guarantee that these posts aren’t just highlighting a well-done dummy unit — a version typically made for accessory manufacturers. But, if real, then there’s a few things we can glean. One of the most significant bits is that this iPhone SE 4 still has a notch. In 2022, Apple released its Dynamic Island design on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, foregoing the front camera’s notch for a more integrated appearance. The iPhone 15 and 16 also got the Dynamic Island but, despite rumors it would come to the next SE, this leak indicates the notch will remain.

One big change, however, on the iPhone SE 4 is a switch from the lightning port to a USB-C. New regulations mean this move is necessary for the device to be on sale in the European Union. The posts also show a single rear camera, the same as previous iPhone SE phones. Again, most of this is just a possibility at the moment. The leaker has been wrong in the past, such as a 2022 prediction for an iPhone 15 Ultra with two front cameras. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/a-convincing-dummy-iphone-se-4-suggests-the-return-of-the-notch-130049779.html?src=rss 

I didn’t set out to play jump rope STAR! when I picked up my Playdate this weekend. I was actually looking for something else, but lazily searched only half of the correct title and found myself staring at jump rope STAR! at the top of the results instead. Curious — in part because “Hot Rope Jump” was one of my favorite minigames in Mario Party 2 back in the day — I clicked on it, and was greeted by pictures that look like something I’d tape to my refrigerator if given by a 5-year-old. It was kind of a “say no more” moment; I purchased it immediately.

As you’d expect from the title, jump rope STAR! is a jump rope game for Playdate. It offers a few different modes for solo and co-op play, the latter involving two players sharing one device. I haven’t run into many multiplayer games for Playdate, so that alone is pretty cool. The game was made by Chris Corciega (Soinksters Games), but the art was “designed by a talented 5-year old,” Maya. And it is adorable. As you try to set new high scores, you use the crank to control the swing of a jump rope held by a bipedal bunny and a… striped pig (?). Okay I’m not entirely sure what the second character is, but those two are swinging the rope, and the goal is to do so in time with the little stick-figure girl’s jumps so you don’t trip her up.

Her timing isn’t always consistent and she speeds up as you progress, so it starts to get pretty tricky after a minute or so. But, achieving perfect swings will earn you points in the Star Meter that’s on the side of the screen, and once it’s filled, you can use that power to temporarily slow down time and get more swings in while the girl is in the air. In the other modes, things get a little more complicated. Playing with a friend in the two-player catch mode, for example, one of you will have to press buttons to move the girl around so she can catch falling stars while the other person swings the rope. (Very hard to do on your own, I discovered).

It’s a simple but fun little game, made even better by the fact that you can involve someone else in the silliness. Both adults and children would be able to enjoy it, and there is a kid mode for a more forgiving style of play if you don’t want family game night to get too competitive. This strikes me as another one of those perfectly Playdate games — the kind that just seems like a natural fit for the device, and that you’d show your friends to try to get them to understand its charm.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/i-think-i-found-the-most-wholesome-game-in-the-playdate-catalog-222138394.html?src=rss