Kalakshar US

Our pick for the best robot vacuum (or at least one of its many variants) is on sale. Amazon’s Black Friday deals include the Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum. This model has a list price of $599, but you can snag one for $250. That’s 58 percent off — and a record low.

One of this model’s standout features is its bagless design. Like many robovacs, it has an auto-empty station. But here, you can remove part of the base, dump its contents in the garbage, and lock it back in place. The base holds up to 60 days of dirt and debris, and you’ll never need to order bag refills.

The Shark AI Ultra has strong suction and decent obstacle avoidance (via LiDAR). The robovac cleans in a matrix grid. It auto-maps your home and supports Google Assistant and Alexa for voice control.

The vacuum has a runtime of about 120 minutes. (If it needs to stop and charge, it will auto-resume afterward.) Also note that this is a vacuum-only model: no mopping here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/this-is-the-shark-robot-vacuum-to-get-for-black-friday-100013969.html?src=rss 

For anyone looking to get a great deal on a streaming device, Roku’s Black Friday deals are here. The Roku Streaming Stick Plus, which just happens to be one of our favorite streaming devices, is 50 percent off, on sale for just $20. The regular Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick 4K are also on sale for 47 percent and 50 percent off, coming in at $16 and $25 respectively.

Roku makes some of the best streaming devices you can get, and any of the ones on sale would be great picks to upgrade an old TV you already have. The Streaming Stick Plus is our favorite of the bunch since it supports 4K HDR content and gives you access to a bunch of free content thanks to Roku’s streaming OS. We also appreciate its accurate universal search and the fact that it draws power from your TV, so it doesn’t need to be plugged into a wall outlet to get power.

The standard Streaming Stick is a good alternative to Amazon’s most basic Fire TV Stick, and if you already prefer Roku’s streaming OS, it’s arguably the better choice. The Streaming Stick 4K adds Dolby Vision into the mix, if that’s a must-have for you. Also, if you’re looking for a more powerful set-top streaming box, the Roku Ultra is 30 percent off, marked down to $70 from $100.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-roku-streaming-stick-plus-drops-to-only-20-for-black-friday-103023110.html?src=rss 

The Amazon Smart Plug is on sale for just $13 as part of a Black Friday promotion. This is a discount of $12 and represents a record low price. If you’ve been waiting to stock up on some smart plugs, now might be the time.

To that end, this product made our list of the best smart plugs. It’s the perfect accessory for those who rely on Alexa to control aspects of the smart home. These plugs are really easy to set up via the Alexa app. You don’t have to pop in a Wi-Fi password or anything. It’s basically plug-and-play.

Once connected, you’ll be able to use any device with Alexa to control whatever it’s plugged into. For instance, you can group multiple plugs together as lights and then just say “Alexa, turn all the lights off” and it’ll do just that. They are compatible with just about any household device with a physical on/off switch, including lamps and coffee makers.

While these are the perfect smart plugs for Alexa households, they are only for Alexa households. The plugs don’t integrate with any other digital assistant. They are still the best choice for those tied into the ecosystem.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-amazon-smart-plug-drops-to-only-13-for-black-friday-093033211.html?src=rss 

One of Meta’s top AI researchers, Yann LeCun, is leaving after 12 years with the company to found his own AI startup, he announced. LeCun, who is also a professor at New York University, joined the company in 2013 to lead Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) lab and later took on the role of Chief AI Scientist. 

LeCun said his new startup would “continue the Advanced Machine Intelligence research program (AMI) I have been pursuing over the last several years with colleagues at FAIR, at NYU, and beyond” and that it would partner with Meta. “The goal of the startup is to bring about the next big revolution in AI: systems that understand the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason, and can plan complex action sequences,” he wrote in an update on Threads. “AMI will have far-ranging applications in many sectors of the economy, some of which overlap with Meta’s commercial interests, but many of which do not. Pursuing the goal of AMI in an independent entity is a way to maximize its broad impact.”

Speculation about LeCun’s future at Meta has been mounting in recent months. Earlier this year, the company invested nearly $15 billion into Scale AI and made the 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang, its Chief AI Officer. Meta also recruited Shengjia Zhao, who helped create GPT-4, making him Chief AI Scientist of its newly created Meta Superintelligence Labs unit. 

LeCun, on the other hand, has been openly skeptical of LLMs. “We are not going to get to human-level AI by just scaling LLMs,” he said during an appearance on the Big technology podcast earlier this year. And in a recent talk at a conference, he advised aspiring researchers to “absolutely not work on LLMs,” according to remarks reported by The Wall Street Journal.

At the same time, Meta has been reshuffling its AI teams. The company cut “several hundred” jobs from its Superintelligence group, including from FAIR, last month. And LeCun has “had difficulty getting resources for his projects at Meta as the company focused more intently on building models to compete with immediate threats from rivals including OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Anthropic,” Bloomberg reported. 

LeCun said he will stay on at Meta until the end of the year. “I am extremely grateful to Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Bosworth (Boz), Chris Cox, and Mike Schroepfer for their support of FAIR, and for their support of the AMI program over the last few years,” he wrote.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/metas-chief-ai-scientist-is-leaving-the-company-after-12-years-224325268.html?src=rss 

Sling TV offers multiple ways to stream cable channels without having to commit to a month of service, and for Black Friday it’s offering its new $5 Day Passes for a healthy discount. You can get a Sling Orange Day Pass for just $1 through November 30, and get access to 34 channels, including ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPN 3.

Besides ESPN, the Sling Orange Day Pass includes access to TNT and TBS, which makes it a solid option if you’re trying to watch the NBA, NFL or college sports. The pass also includes children’s channels like Disney Channel and Nick Jr., CNN for news and HGTV and Food Network for purer forms of lean back entertainment. Sling TV is Engadget’s pick for the best customizable live streaming service for a reason: You can add on extra premium channels when you buy a pass, and their price will be prorated for whatever length you choose. That way even if a dollar isn’t getting you all the channels you need, you don’t need to pay that much more to get them.

It’s worth noting, while this promotion runs during Thanksgiving in the US, a Sling Orange subscription won’t get you access to the football games scheduled for that Thursday. To watch those, you’ll need at least a Sling Blue subscription, which includes FS1 and NFL Network, but isn’t available as a day-long pass. A Sling Blue subscription currently starts at $46 a month.

Still, for your $1, around $4 off the price Sling TV normally charges, you’re getting a deal. Dozens of popular channels, access to Sling TV’s DVR feature, and the ability to use your subscription from a smartphone, tablet, the web or your TV. Plus, Sling TV’s interface is easy to navigate, which is what you want when you’re likely subscribing with one game or show in mind.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/sling-orange-day-passes-are-only-1-right-now-for-black-friday-231208163.html?src=rss 

YouTube has started a renewed effort to integrate direct messaging into its platform. According to a support page, the service has started testing DMs as a way for users to share and discuss videos. The test is for users aged 18 and up in Ireland and Poland. But while a DM usually comes with some expectation of privacy, Google noted that “messages may be reviewed to ensure they follow our Community Guidelines.”

This isn’t the video platform’s first attempt to provide a messaging angle. YouTube added DMs to its app in 2017, then removed the feature in 2019 in order to emphasize public conversations in comments sections. The new test for sharing within YouTube’s ecosystem won’t mean any change to other ways you might send people videos. Re-introducing the same system six years after cutting it seems like an odd choice, but Google claims this is “a top feature request,” so maybe it’ll get a broader adoption this time around.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-is-once-again-trying-to-make-dms-happen-205724221.html?src=rss 

Major League Baseball has entered a new broadcasting deal that will see Netflix hosting live games for the first time. Under this three-year agreement, Netflix will have the rights to air a new Opening Night game the evening ahead of the Opening Day matchups. It will also stream the T-Mobile Home Run Derby as well as select special events during the season, including the 2026 MLB at Field of Dreams Game and the previously announced World Baseball Classic in Japan. 

It’s a limited amount of content, but aligns with Netflix’s recent pushes into both live events and sports programming. Last year the streaming service inked deals to show a double-header of NFL games on Christmas Day and snagged exclusive US rights to two FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments. Netflix has previously gotten access to documentary content from the MLB, but 2026 will mark its first time showing live baseball. 

The MLB deal also included some shuffling on the broadcast side, moving certain matches between ESPN and NBCUniversal properties. Apple TV will still have the rights to the Friday night games going forward. So between the growing number of platforms grabbing slices of viewership and the MLB’s existing blackout rules, in future seasons you’ll need to undertake a thorough research assignment to figure out where you can watch each game.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/netflix-lands-a-deal-with-mlb-to-air-select-live-baseball-games-213336003.html?src=rss