Kalakshar US

You can now get a Starlink Mini in the US, wherever you are and even if you’re not paying for a residential subscription. SpaceX started offering select users the new Starlink dish model that’s small enough to fit in a backpack in late June. Despite its small size that makes it easy to transport and carry around, the Mini used to require an existing $150 standard service plan — you could only tack on the Mini Roam service for an additional fee of $30 a month. Now, you can get it on its own with a roaming service. 

The mobile regional plan costs $150 a month and will give you access to unlimited data. It’s probably the better option if you live in an RV or travel to remote locations for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, the Mini Roam plan costs $50 a month and will give you access to 50GB of data, which is likely enough if you don’t live on the road full time. Take note that you can use Mini Roam in motion anytime, as long as you’re on land. The mobile regional plan has limited in-motion use and only works when you’re going slower than 10mph, though you can choose to add data meant for in-motion use on a per-GB basis. 

Like Starlink’s other terminals, you’ll have to pay for the Mini up front. It will cost you $599 for the kit, which includes a kickstand, a pipe adapter, a power supply and a cord with a USB-C connector on one end and a barrel jack on the other. (As The Verge notes, you can plug it into a 100W USB-PD power bank if you don’t have access to other power sources.) There’s no Wi-Fi router with the kit, because it’s already integrated into the dish, giving you one less component to carry. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/starlink-mini-is-now-widely-available-and-doesnt-need-a-residential-subscription-150039444.html?src=rss 

Amazon Prime Day hasn’t even officially started yet and we are already starting to see a massive influx of deals. For instance, the Amazon Smart Thermostat is on sale for $52. This is a discount of more than 30 percent and the best price we’ve seen all year.

The good news? This is one heck of a smart thermostat with a robust list of features. The bad news? It does require a C-wire or a power adapter kit, and these are sold separately. Once you get it hooked up though, the Amazon Start Thermostat allows for voice control over your climate, thanks to Alexa. It also lets you to make adjustments via the Alexa app on your phone, so you never have to suffer the indignity of walking downstairs at night when cold.

This is, basically, a Honeywell thermostat packed with Amazon’s smart tech, so it should be reliable and durable. One of the best reasons to go with a smart thermostat is to help reduce energy usage. It won’t automatically save you money, but the voice control means you can make adjustments when you think of it and app control means you can, for instance, shut down the AC from work.

It does lack a couple of the features found with its more expensive cousins, like the Google Nest thermostat. There’s no touchscreen controls and no motion sensors. Beyond those nitpicks, however, this is a mighty fine thermostat perfect for the hot summer months.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/early-prime-day-deal-brings-the-amazon-smart-thermostat-down-to-only-52-153006809.html?src=rss 

Here’s a juicy early Amazon Prime Day deal for you. Ahead of the blockbuster event, the base 13-inch M2 MacBook Air has dropped to its lowest price to date at Amazon. You can snap up this Apple laptop for $799, which is 200 bucks off the regular price. The discount applies to all colorways, so you can score one in that beautiful Midnight finish.

This model isn’t exactly top of the MacBook Air line anymore. It’s been supplanted by the M3-powered MBA, which is now our pick for the best MacBook overall. But if you’d like to save some cash and still have a very capable Apple laptop to carry around, the M2 variant is our choice for the best budget MacBook — this latest discount just makes it even easier to recommend.

Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar called the M2 Air a “near-perfect Mac” in his 2022 review and gave it a score of 96. One of the first things you’ll notice is the 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, which can reach a commendable 500 nits of brightness and has a 60Hz refresh rate. The inclusion of a 1080p webcam is welcome, while the triple-mic array does a solid job of capturing your voice for your calls. The speakers are impressive too, especially for a laptop that’s just 11.3 millimeters thin and weighs only 2.7 pounds.

Despite that slender form factor, Apple has still kept fans of physical headphone jacks happy by retaining the 3.5mm port. There are two USB-C Thunderbolt ports and a MagSafe charging connector as well. You shouldn’t have to worry too much if you leave your charger at home when you head to the office — the M2 MacBook Air’s battery should easily last for an entire workday unless you’re carrying out very power-hungry work like video editing.

The M2 MBA should handle everyday tasks with relative ease, and you’ll be able to play a bunch of App Store and Steam games on it too (good luck doing anything else ever again if you install Balatro). One of our main reservations with the base M2 Air is that there’s only 8GB of memory. That doesn’t seem quite enough these days and unfortunately, Apple charges a premium for RAM upgrades. Still, if you just want a MacBook Air that checks pretty much all the boxes most people will need for a few years, this is a great option.

It’s also worth noting that there are some cool features on the way when macOS Sequoia arrives later this year, including the ability to mirror your iPhone on your Mac and a new Passwords app. Apple Intelligence features are also coming to M1 and later Macs.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m2-macbook-air-drops-to-a-new-low-of-799-ahead-of-prime-day-140716407.html?src=rss 

It’s the end of the line for Redbox and its DVD rental kiosks. The movie rental service’s parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late June. But it apparently shifted its filing from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, which means it intends to liquidate its business altogether instead of putting the company through a reorganization. According to Deadline, the company was initially looking to raise funds by selling some assets and keeping around 100 employees. However, in the end, it decided that the best course of action was to let all 1,000 Redbox employees go and to shut down all 24,000 Redbox kiosks. 

“There is no means to continue to pay employees, pay any bills, otherwise finance this case,” US bankruptcy judge Thomas Horan said, according to Lowpass. Horan also said that there’s “at least the possibility of misappropriation of funds that were held in trust for employees.” Redbox couldn’t pay its people for nearly a month, and its parent company had to secure a loan of $8 million for their salaries and to be able to restore their medical benefits that haven’t been active since mid-May. 

Redbox kiosks, which are typically located in groceries and convenience stores, used to rent out movie DVDs and Blu-ray discs, as well as video games. In 2019, however, it stopped renting out video games to focus on movie rentals and its on-demand streaming service. The company is long past its prime, and its rental service is nowhere near as appealing these days with all the streaming services out there. In fact, the bankruptcy proceedings have revealed that Redbox’s payroll obligations were higher than it earnings. Still, the kiosks continued to serve people with no access to a strong and steady internet connection, who’ll now have to say goodbye to being able to rent a DVD or two whenever they step out to run errands. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/say-goodbye-to-redbox-130044411.html?src=rss