Kalakshar US

Google Voice has made it easier to filter out spammers trying to call your number. The tech giant has announced that the service will now flag suspected spam calls and will clearly label them as such, complete with a big red exclamation mark. Spam calls and texts have been a huge issue for a years, and they aren’t going away anytime soon — according to the FCC, consumers in the US receive approximately 4 billion robocalls per month and that Americans had lost nearly $30 billion to scam calls in 2021. Google says the feature was designed to help protect you “from unwanted calls and potentially harmful scams.”

The new label that says “suspected spam caller” will show up not just on the incoming call screen, but also in call history for future reference. If you confirm that the call is spam, any future call from that number will head straight to voicemail, and all its call history entries will be sent to the spam folder. But if you confirm that the number is legitimate and isn’t a spam caller, the warning will never be displayed for it again. Here’s what the label would look like on the call screen:

Google uses the same artificial intelligence that’s in charge of identifying spam calls across its ecosystem to pinpoint spam callers for this feature. Apparently, that AI has been filtering out billions of spam calls a month for the tech giant. To note, the new label will only appear if your spam filter setting under Security is turned off. If it’s on, all calls Google suspects to be spam are sent to voicemail from the start.

 

JLab has consistently produced some of the best cheap earbuds over the last few years. The company offers solid performance and decent sound quality for well under $50 in some models. For 2023, JLab is taking things a step further in multiple ways with its smallest true wireless earbuds yet and also its first premium noise-canceling set. What’s more, the company is jumping into the over-the-counter hearing aid market with two options with “discreet” designs. 

First, the $39 JBuds Mini are 30-percent smaller than JLab’s Go Air Pop that debuted in 2021. They aren’t the company’s cheapest model, but despite the tiny stature, the JBuds Mini still pack on-board controls, Bluetooth multipoint connectivity and over six hours of listening on a charge (over 20 hours with the case). The charging case is also quite small — about the size of a car key fob — and has an integrated key ring loop. 

On the higher end, the $199 Epic Air Lab Edition earbuds are JLab’s first hybrid dual driver design and, as you might expect, the company is calling them its best-sounding option to date. Equipped with active noise cancellation (ANC) and ambient sound mode, the Epic Air Lab Edition also offers touch controls, Bluetooth multipoint and over 54 hours of use when you factor in the wireless charging case. The company says there will be multiple ANC modes available in its app and a USB-C dongle will offer low-latency Bluetooth LE audio for video and games. 

JLab OTC Hearing Aid prototype. 

Now that over-the-counter hearing aids have been approved by the FDA, you can expect to see a lot of headphone companies entering that market. JLab has two models that will debut in 2023: the OTC Hearing Aid and the Self-Fitting OTC Hearing Aid. The former is $99 while the pricing on the latter is TBD. The company says both will be compatible with iOS and Android with “impressive” battery life. Details are scarce for now, but we expect a lot more info before these two hearing aids arrive later in the year. And based on the early renders, at least one of them will look like a set of JLab true wireless earbuds.

JLab says all of these new products, which will be the focus of its CES showcase, will be available during Q3 2023.

 

TikTok will be outlawed on almost all devices issued by the federal government after lawmakers passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill. Officials crammed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which the Senate unanimously approved last week, into the mammoth 4,155-page omnibus bill. The spending package was fast tracked in order to avoid a partial government shutdown. It will fund the government through September.

The Senate voted 68-29 to pass the bill on December 22nd. The House approved it on Friday with a vote of 225-201. On the same day, President Joe Biden signed a stopgap bill that funded the government for another week in order to avert a shutdown until the omnibus bill landed on his desk. Today, President Biden signed the bill into law.

The legislation requires the Biden administration to establish rules to remove TikTok from government devices by mid-February. The bill carved out exceptions for elected officials, congressional staff, law enforcement agents and other officials. However, the House of Representatives separately banned TikTok on devices it owns and manages.

Earlier this month, FBI Director Chris Wray warned that China could use the app (which is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance) to collect data on users. Some attempts have been made, including in the last few weeks, to prohibit TikTok in the US entirely. Several states have banned TikTok from government devices, including Georgia, South Dakota, Maryland and Texas. Indiana has sued TikTok over alleged security and child safety issues.

TikTok has attempted to soothe US lawmakers’ concerns that the app could be used for spying purposes. Since June, it has been directing all traffic from the country to Oracle servers based domestically. TikTok and ByteDance said they’d delete US user data from their own servers in the US and Singapore. In August, Oracle began a review of TikTok’s algorithms and content moderation systems.

As Congress was voting on the bill, news broke that ByteDance fired four employees (two in the US and two in China) who accessed the TikTok data of US journalists. The workers were allegedly trying to find the sources of leaks to the reporters.

The omnibus bill includes other tech-related provisions, including more funding for federal antitrust officials. In addition, the package incorporates the Computers for Veterans and Students Act. This requires the government to hand over certain surplus computers to nonprofits. The systems will be repaired and/or refurbished, then distributed to schools, homeschooled students, veterans, seniors and others in need.

There’s also another $1.8 billion in new funding to implement the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to boost domestic production of semiconductors. The omnibus bill earmarks $25.4 billion for NASA — 5.6 percent more than the agency received in fiscal year 2022, but less than the $26 billion the White House asked for. The National Science Foundation will get $9.9 billion, an increase of 12 percent. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will receive increases of 32 percent (up to $1.6 billion) and 17.5 percent ($761 million), respectively.

 

Almost seven months after the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a right-to-repair bill, New York governor Kathy Hochul has signed it into law. But Hochul only greenlit the bill after the legislature agreed to some changes. Hochul wrote in a memo that the legislation, as it was originally drafted, “included technical issues that could put safety and security at risk, as well as heighten the risk of injury from physical repair projects.” The governor said the modifications addressed these issues, but critics say the amendments will weaken the law’s effectiveness.

“This legislation would enhance consumer options in the repair markets by granting them greater access to the parts, tools and documents needed for repairs,” Hochul wrote. “Encouraging consumers to maximize the lifespan of their devices through repairs is a laudable goal to save money and reduce electronic waste.”

The changes strip out the bill’s requirement for “original equipment manufacturers [or OEMs] to provide to the public any passwords, security codes or materials to override security features.” OEMs will also be able to bundle “assemblies of parts” instead of just the specific component actually needed for a DIY repair if “the risk of improper installation heightens the risk of injury.” 

The rules will only apply to devices that are originally built and used or sold in New York for the first time after July 1st. There’s also an exemption for “digital products that are the subject of business-to-business or business-to-government sales and that otherwise are not offered for sale by retailers.”

As Ars Technica reported earlier this month, representatives for Microsoft and Apple pressed Hochul’s office for changes. So did industry association TechNet, which represents many notable tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Dell, HP and Engadget parent Yahoo.

As a result, the bill’s revised language excludes enterprise electronics, such as those that schools, hospitals, universities and data centers rely on, as iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens wrote in a blog post. Home appliances, motor vehicles, medical devices and off-road equipment were previously exempted.

“Such changes could limit the benefits for school computers and most products currently in use,” Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), a collective of consumer rights organizations, said in a statement to Engadget. “Even more troubling, the bill now excludes certain smartphone circuit boards from parts the manufacturers are required to sell, and requires repair shops to post unwieldy warranty language.”

“We knew it was going to be difficult to face down the biggest and wealthiest companies in the world,” PIRG right to repair director Nathan Proctor said. “But, though trimmed down, a new Right to Repair law was signed. Now our work remains to strengthen this law and pass others until people have what they need to fix their stuff.”

As The Verge notes, repair technician and right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann said the changes have watered down the law to the point where it’s “functionally useless.” Rossmann, who spent seven years trying to get the bill passed, called Hochul’s assertion that the changes were necessary to include protections from physical harm and security risks “bullshit,” citing a Federal Trade Commission report on the issue.

The right-to-repair movement has picked up steam over the last couple of years. Ahead of expected legislation coming into force, companies such as Google, Apple, Samsung and Valve started providing repair manuals and selling parts for some of their products.

Last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that aimed at bolstering competition in the US, including in the tech industry. Among other measures, it called on the FTC to ban “anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment.”

 

It’s been a decade since the first Tesla EV made its commercial debut and the electrification of American automotive society began in earnest. Acceptance at the newfangled technology was slow at first but, over the past ten years as battery capacities have grown and range anxieties have shrunk, electric vehicles have become a daily sight in most parts of the country. Doesn’t hurt that virtually every notable automaker on the planet has jumped on the electric bandwagon with sizable investments in battery and production technologies as well as pledges to electrify their lineups within a decade or so.

Not even recent years’ production slowdowns and supply chain disruptions brought on by the COVID pandemic managed to stall the industry’s momentum. The International Energy Agency in January reported that EVs had managed to triple their market share between 2019 and 2021 with 6.6 million units being sold globally last year. That’s not to discount the crippling impacts of the chip shortage, which saw fleets of nearly-finished electrified vehicles parked and idled as they awaited necessary components. Or in Tesla’s case, simply sold without the needed part — oh calm down, it’s just the steering column, there’s nothing critical in there, anyway that’s what autopilot is for, right?

2022 has eliminated any lingering doubts about whether EVs are here to stay (hint: they are). “So far in 2022, global EV sales are up 70 percent, or around 2 million units,” from 2021’s figures, according to Morgan Stanley. It is expecting a further 22 percent increase — around another 1.8 million units — in 2023. China’s BYD set monthly EV sales records throughout the year. Domestically, an Experian study released in October noted more than 600,000 new EV registrations through the first ten months of 2022, a 60 percent year-over-year jump. EVs may not be quite as ruggedized as their hybrid cousins, but who cares about that when you’ve got Ken “Let’s See If I Can Barrel Roll This Car” Block blowing the doors off of the Vegas Strip in an 800V Audi S1 Hoonitron? Or have VW tickling the American public’s deep seated nostalgia with a reimagined Hippy Wagon for the 21st century? Even Sony is getting into the EV game. EVs are no longer niche, they’ve become an indelible part of the culture.

In terms of market share, Tesla and BYD both retained their dominant positions within their relative markets and briefly jockeyed for the world number one spot before BYD pulled away. The Chinese automaker’s EV sales now account for nearly 20 percent of the global total. For its part, Tesla passed notable milestones in its 10,000th Model Y produced at the Texas Gigafactory and the millionth vehicle to roll out of production at Gigafactory Shanghai.

2022 also saw big moves and bigger investments from the rest of the automotive industry, from Ford and General Motors especially. Ford began delivering its highly-anticipated F-150 Lightning EV pickup in May, turned them into roving conference rooms with help from Cisco, began beta testing their bidirectional charging capabilities with California’s public utility as did GM, developed a new battery chemistry, announced plans to bring seven more EV models to the European market by 2024, and imagined a world without dealer showrooms for EV sales. General Motors had a banner year of its own. The company began production on its new marquee Lyriq EV, unveiled its Yukon Denali, Silverado, Blazer and Celestiq EVs; teased its upcoming Corvette hybrid, and secured a sizable federal loan to expand its battery manufacturing base.

Not to be left out, Hyundai announced in 2022 a $5 billion investment in its US-based production capacity, including a new EV factory in Georgia. The Korean automaker, which has quietly risen to prominence in the US market in recent years, announced its next EV flagship, the Ioniq 6, in July the latest in Hyundai’s effort to release 17 electric vehicle models by the end of the decade. Kia, Hyundai’s sister brand, showed off the company’s brawnier EV6 GT at Monterey Car Week.

VW’s 2022 was fruitful as well and it appears that the automaker has fully embraced its electrified future (following the dieselgate scandal, how could it not?). VW opened a new ID.4 production plant in Tennessee, announced plans to invest an additional $7.1 billion into its North American production capacity over the next five years and dipped its toes into the EV battery business as well. Pfft, all Volvo did this year was debut the “safest car ever.”

And it wasn’t just the established brands, Lucid Motors is riding high this holiday season, buoyed by the November unveiling of its new top of the line Air Sapphire along with two (ahem, relatively) less expensive Air model variants, which will start at $87,000 with 410 miles of range and go up from there. The company also revealed plans this year to sell 100,000 units to the Saudi government, which has heavily invested in the company.

2022 also saw a drastic expansion of the nation’s various fast charging networks. In June, the Biden White House proposed a set of standards for the national EV charging network. The following month, GM announced that it will partner with EVGo to create a 500-station “coast-to-coast” fast-charge network and in December, opened its first two Community Charging Initiative sites in Wisconsin and Detroit. Hertz, fresh off two significant purchase contracts with Polestar and GM, revealed it is working with BP to host the latter’s BP Pulse chargers at select Hertz car rental locations — not unlike what VW and BP have planned for Europe. Similarly, IKEA will team up with Electrify America to bring EA’s fast charging network to the Swedish homeware maker’s parking lots. Perhaps most exciting, the White House in July confirmed rumors that Tesla would be opening its expansive North American SuperCharger network to non-Tesla EVs by the end of the year — that’s an additional 1,700-plus charging points for drivers to fill up at.

But 2022 wasn’t all smooth asphalt and sunshine. Rivian fell on hard times this year, struggling with production issues, layoffs, price hikes, lawsuits in response to said price hikes followed by reversals of said price hiles, delays to the R1S delivery schedule and trim level cullings. Rivian performed so badly in 2022 that it dragged Ford’s stock value down alongside it — but it was still a better year than Lordstown had.

And hey, at least they didn’t use the tip of their tongue to test for live wires like BMW did in July when it tried to paywall access to seat heaters that vehicle owners had already paid for. Even Mercedes had the good sense to charge $1,200 a year only for funtime performance extras like added torque and a shortened 0-60, rather than essential capabilities like retaining rear-end sensation on cold winter mornings.

We also saw significant pricing fluctuations in EVs this year. Tesla raised prices across the board for its entire lineup, as did Polestar with its single motor variant, while VW dropped the price of its 2023 ID.4 by around $4,000 thanks to its use of a slightly smaller battery pack.

For as eventful as 2022 turned out to be, 2023 and beyond is sure to be even bigger for the EV industry. We’re expecting debuts of the VW ID.3; the Lucid Gravity, Polestar 3, Jeep (one of four!) and Honda Prologue SUVs. The Kia EV9 is slated for release in the second half of the year while the Buick Wildcat won’t be realized until 2024. With any luck, these EVs will serve merely as stopgaps until Volkswagen can perfect its Gen.Travel concept and begin shuttling us around in automated transport pods. Like Wall-E, but just as fat.

 

So you managed to buy a PlayStation 5 – congratulations, you beat supply shortages to obtain one of the most sought-after consoles in recent memory. Now comes the fun part. No PS5 is complete without a library of games and accessories to elevate your experience. Thankfully, you won’t have as much trouble getting your hands on those. However, if you’re new to the console, the tricky part is knowing what titles and peripherals are worth your time. We’ve gathered our favorites here to make the search easier for you.

PlayStation Plus Extra

If the PS5 is your first console or you’re coming from an Xbox, one of the first things you’ll want to pick up is a PlayStation Plus Extra subscription. It’ll help you flesh out your library. Sony recently revamped the service to add separate tiers. Of the three tiers that are currently available, the “Extra” one is the best value. Priced at $15 per month, it grants you access to a library of up to 400 downloadable PS4 and PS5 games. Each month, you’ll also get a handful of free games and PlayStation Store discounts. The combination of those perks makes it easy to start making the most of your new PS5.

SteelSeries Arctis 7P+

Do the people you live with a favor and buy yourself a decent headset. It will help you stop nerves from fraying and is a must for any multiplayer game. The options for gaming headsets are vast, so we recommend picking one with a solid track record. SteelSeries recently updated its iconic Arctis 7 headset with the 7P+ which has improved battery life and a USB-C port for charging. What the company didn’t change was the headband design that many people credit for making the Arctis 7 one of the more comfortable headsets on the market. The 7P+ costs the same as the standard 7+ variant, but also adds full support for the PS5’s Tempest 3D audio technology.

WD Black SN850

Sony recently released an update to allow PS5 owners to expand their console’s internal storage. And it’s a good thing, because the 667GB of usable storage the console comes with can feel limiting quickly. We already published a comprehensive guide on the best SSDs you can buy for your PlayStation 5. You’ll want to check that article out for a step-by-step guide on how to upgrade your SSD. But if you want to make things as simple as possible, your best bet is a Gen4 M.2 NVME SSD with a built-in heatsink. One of the better plug-and-play options is the SN850 from WD Black. It checks off all the compatibility requirements listed by Sony and is reasonably priced, too.

Samsung T7 SSD

If you don’t feel comfortable opening your PS5 to install a new SSD, another option is to purchase an external solid-state drive. Keep in mind that you can’t play PS5 games from an external drive. However, it takes less time to copy one over from an SSD than it does to download it from the PlayStation Store. One of our favorite portable drives is the Samsung T7. It can write files at a speedy 1,000 MB/s and comes with a shock-resistant enclosure to protect the drive from physical damage. If you plan to use the SSD exclusively for storing games, you can save money by buying the standard model instead of the Shield variant, which has a ruggedized exterior for extra protection for those who are always on the go.

DualSense Charging Station

While you can charge your DualSense controller with the USB-C cable that comes with your PS5, a more elegant solution is the DualSense Charging Station. It can store and charge two controllers simultaneously. In that way, you can always have a second controller ready to go if the one you’re currently using runs out of battery. It will also free up the USB ports on your PS5 for other accessories.

Elden Ring

Unless you spent very little time on the internet this year, it’s safe to say it was impossible to avoid the conversation around Elden Ring. After putting about 100 hours into FromSoftware’s latest, I can safely say the praise is warranted. Like a lot of other people, I was tired of Western-style open-world games and their endless checklists by the time I got around to playing Elden Ring, but its take on the genre was anything but tired. As I stumbled my way through the game’s dark caves, ruined cathedrals and enchanted forests, I felt like there was a discovery waiting for me across every hill and river. That’s a feeling I haven’t had since I was a kid playing through the Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.

If that’s not enough to convince you to try Elden Ring, know that the game’s maximalist approach makes it the most approachable FromSoftware release to date. Whenever you’re stuck on a boss, you can go elsewhere to level your character and master the game’s punishing combat.

God of War Ragnarök

Did you think Sony’s latest exclusive would be absent from this list? God of War Ragnarök can sometimes suffer from pacing issues and overly chatty NPCs, but there’s no denying that Santa Monica Studio has crafted another heartfelt chapter in the story of Kratos and Atreus. The PS5 is also the best place to play Ragnarök. On Sony’s latest console, the game ships with two rendering modes and support for variable and high frame rates. Provided you own a relatively recent TV, those features make it possible to play the action RPG at up to 90 frames per second in some situations. That’s a level of technical proficiency we haven’t seen in a lot of AAA console games.

Death’s Door

With a title that evokes the end of all things, you might think Death’s Door is a bleak game. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Buoyed by a beautiful soundtrack and art style, it’s one of the most thoughtful and pleasant indies I’ve played recently. Developer Acid Nerve’s tribute to The Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls is a must-play for those who love to lose themselves in a world of mystery and intrigue.

Ghosts of Tsushima Directors Cut

You’ve played games like Ghost of Tsushima before. It borrows from the familiar open-world formula popularized by Assassin’s Creed and other Ubisoft titles. But that’s not a knock against it. Far from it, Sucker Punch’s latest is so easy to recommend because it executes the open-world concept flawlessly. The studio has created a beautiful playground steeped in Feudal Japanese culture, myth and history for players to explore, with something interesting to find beyond every ridge. Combat is also a highlight, allowing you to play either as honorable samurai, terrifying assassin or a mixture of both. And once you have finished Tsushima’s touching single-player story, there’s the excellent Legends multiplayer mode to keep you busy for the long haul.

Hades

If you pick up only one game from this list, make it Hades. It is as close to a perfectly executed game as you’ll find. Everything from the art style, music, story and gameplay mechanics coalesces into one of the most memorable experiences in recent memory. Even if you’re not a fan of roguelike games, don’t worry: Hades is so successful because even when you die, it never feels like you’ve wasted your time.

 

CES 2023 is nearly here, which means we’re once again writing about Samsung smart refrigerators. With the Family Hub Plus, Samsung has boosted the touch display size to 32-inches from 21-inches in the previous models, giving you a much bigger canvas to display photos, shopping lists and videos, or control SmartThings devices.

On top of the bigger display, Samsung has added support for Google Photos along with the OneDrive integration seen on past models. That allows you to display family or other photos on the refrigerator, or upload photos to a mobile device from the Family Hub Plus. As before, you can also display artwork from Samsung’s Bespoke Atelier app. 

The built-in hub can control multiple SmartThings devices, giving you a smart home control center on a very large touchscreen. It also supports six SmartThings Home Life services: air care, home care, pet care, clothing care, energy, and cooking. Samsung has also included Samsung TV Plus, giving US users 190 TV channels for free. You can use it in the vertical orientation for TikTok, Facebook Shorts and other social media content, or employ picture-in-picture mode to view videos and do other tasks at the same time. 

Finally, it supports Amazon’s Your Essentials service, letting you order groceries and other products directly from the touchscreen. Samsung didn’t detail any other specs or pricing, but we’ll see it at CES 2023 early next month and should learn more then.

 

As we approach the end of the year, it’s time for Engadget to wrap up the successes and failures in tech from the last twelve months. While it might be easier point out the messes made by the likes of crypto, Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform and, ugh, Twitter, there were some highlights too. These include the eventual arrival of Steam’s handheld gaming PC, all those Wordle options, and some dazzling new views of space. The worst of 2022 centers an awful lot on tech bros, if you hadn’t rolled your eyes at them enough in the preceding years. From the collapse of FTX to the precarious state of Twitter, it’s been a mess. Meanwhile, the likes of Peloton have struggled to hold onto their pandemic user base, and Toyota’s EV efforts haven’t been great. Check out all our hits and our misses of 2022.

– 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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Amazon might be making a standalone sports streaming app

No word yet on when the company expects to launch the service.

A report from The Information says that Amazon is working on a new standalone streaming app to declutter Prime Video and better highlight its deals with the NFL, the UK’s Premier League and New York Yankees. The development follows recent comments from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who highlighted live sports content as one of the areas where the company plans to continue spending money even as it cuts costs in other areas. The Information says it doesn’t know when Amazon might release the app, nor if the company plans to charge separately for access to Prime Video’s sports content. The outlet also notes Amazon may decide to shelve the app. Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. Earlier this month, Google reportedly agreed to pay between $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion for the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package.

Continue reading.

The Evie is a smart ring designed ‘for women’

It can measure heart rate, clinical SpO2, skin temperature variability and more.

Health company Movano has teased its first smart ring, the Evie, designed for health, fitness and cycle tracking. It looks like a rival to Oura’s latest smart ring, though the company says it’s “designed uniquely for women.” It offers many of the health metrics seen on Oura’s ring and wearables from Apple and others. It can measure heart rate, blood-oxygen, skin temperature variability, steps, calories, sleep, period and ovulation tracking, and more. Movano plans to provide a closer look next week at CES 2023.

Continue reading.

A Stan Lee documentary will hit Disney+ next year

Marvel announced the news on Lee’s 100th birthday.

Yesterday was Marvel legend Stan Lee’s 100th birthday and the comic giant marked the occasion by revealing that a documentary about his life will hit Disney+ next year. Lee, who died in 2018, is a critical part of Marvel’s legacy. The many, many characters he’s credited with co-creating include Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Panther, Ant-Man, X-Men, The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk. Disney has mined its history for several documentary projects for its streaming service. When Disney+ debuted three years ago, it featured a docuseries on the Imagineers, the minds behind its theme parks.

Continue reading.

Researchers develop blood test that can reliably detect Alzheimer’s disease

The test could replace lumbar punctures and brain scans.

When doctors need to confirm an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, alongside brain scans, it can involve a lumbar puncture – an invasive and painful procedure that’s more commonly known as a spinal tap. The next best tool for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease is a blood test. While some tests can detect abnormal tau protein counts as a possible indicator of Alzheimer’s disease, they’re less effective at spotting the telltale signs of neurodegeneration. But this week, in the journal Brain, a multinational team of researchers from Sweden, Italy, the UK and US detailed a new antibody-based blood test that can detect brain-derived tau proteins specific to Alzheimer’s disease. Following a study of 600 patients, the team found their test could reliably distinguish the illness from other neurodegenerative diseases.

Continue reading.

 

You can get the latest MacBook Air on sale right now — even better, the discounted variant is the one with the bigger storage capacity. The silver 2022 MacBook Air with 512GB of internal storage and Apple’s M2 processor is currently listed for $1,279 on Amazon, which is $220 off (or 15 percent less than) its retail price. That’s a new low for the model. While the other colors are not quite as deeply discounted, you can still get the midnight and the starlight color options of the 512GB laptop for $1,300. 

We gave the 2022 MacBook Air a score of 96 in our review and found it far speedier than the previous model, which we already thought was “stunningly fast.” The laptop mostly shines thanks to Apple’s M2 chip that the tech giant had designed to have double the memory bandwidth of the M1 and to be able to support up to 24GB of RAM. 

The new MacBook Air is far thinner than its predecessor, and we even found it to be more portable than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro that weighs about 3 pounds when attached to a Smart Keyboard. Its 13.6-inch Liquid Retina screen also looks more expansive than the previous Air’s due to Apple bumping up its brightness to 500 nits and making its bezel a bit thinner. To note, we found its display to be on par with the more expensive 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, except without Apple’s ProMotion 120Hz refresh rate technology. 

The Air also comes with the larger MacBook Pros’ improved speaker technology that supports Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos. In addition, it has the same keyboard and trackpad as the Pro laptops’ and comes with two USB-C ports, as well as a MagSafe connector for power. During our tests, the Air lasted for 16 hours and 30 minutes on a single charge — enough time to get through a day’s work. While the 512GB MacBook Air is still few hundred dollars more expensive than the 256GB version, which starts at $923 right now, it may be the perfect time to get one if you’re looking for an ultraportable with a bigger storage capacity.

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

 

Thousands of Twitter users reported having issues accessing the website tonight on Downdetector. Based on people’s reports, the outage started just before 7PM Eastern time and reached its peak at around 7:44PM. We haven’t had any issues from our end, but reports continued well into the night and (as of this writing) is still ongoing for some users. Downdetector reports also indicate that most people have had issues accessing the website itself — only a fraction had problems loading the social network through its apps. 

According to The Guardian, users who couldn’t access the website were met with a message that read “something went wrong, but don’t fret — it’s not your fault.” Twitter has yet to issue an official statement for the outage. The Twitter Support account hasn’t tweeted about it, and when some users posted about Twitter being broken, Elon Musk responded that he wasn’t having any trouble loading the social network.

On Christmas Eve, Musk revealed that he had disconnected one of Twitter’s more sensitive server racks, but that the social network still works. Musk famously purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October, months after initiating the acquisition and trying to back out of the deal. The company had laid off around half of the workforce and thousands of contractors since then, and one former employee told The Washington Post in November that they knew of six critical systems that “no longer have any engineers.”

Isik Mater, the director of research at internet monitoring service NetBlocks, told The New York Times that “the problems with Twitter exhibit in multiple countries and are widespread.” Mater also said that the “platform API is affected, which serves the mobile app as well as many aspects of the desktop site.”