Google’s Pixel 9a, a candidate to be the “midrange smartphone king,” was announced last week but delayed at the last second due to a component problem. Today, we finally know when the handset will arrive: April 10 in North America.
In an update to a Pixel 9a support page (via 9to5Google) on Friday, Google wrote that the phone will arrive on April 10 in the US, Canada and the UK. On April 14, it will land in a long list of European countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland. Meanwhile, Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia have to wait until April 16.
Pre-announcement reports suggested the phone would arrive on March 26, but Google said on the day of its unveiling that it was delayed into April. An unverified leak hinted that the pushback was related to camera-related heating problems, but Google only said it was to address a “component quality issue that’s affecting a small number of Pixel 9a devices.” Regardless of the specifics, at least the problem ultimately only amounted to a short delay.
The Pixel 9a has dual cameras, a Tensor G4 chip and AI tools like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Best Take and Photo Unblur. (However, an Ars Technica report suggests it runs an “extra extra small” version of Gemini.) In his hands-on, Engadget’s Sam Rutherford found the midrange phone to offer compelling features and performance relative to its $499 and up pricing. The phone isn’t yet available for pre-order.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/the-pixel-9a-launches-on-april-10-in-the-us-161940732.html?src=rss
Jennifer Salke is stepping down as the head of Amazon MGM Studios, according to reporting by Deadline. She’s been at the post for over seven years, which is a ripe old age for a studio head. Before Amazon, Salke was president of NBC Entertainment.
She will not be replaced. Instead, the head of studio role will be eliminated as part of a new structure for the division. Prime Video honcho Mike Hopkins said in a memo that the company “decided to flatten our leadership structure a bit.” The studio will split into two distinct arms, with one focusing on TV and the other handling films.
“We will be taking a couple of weeks to have thoughtful conversations with Jen’s directs and others to finalize the ideal long-term structure for the Amazon MGM Studios organization as a whole, and we’ll have more to share on that work soon,” Hopkins said.
Salke isn’t leaving the studio entirely. She’s transitioning to a first-look film and TV deal with the company. However, industry rumors suggest that it’s more like a firing than a voluntary career change. She was largely absent from the deals that brought in Amy Pascal and David Heyman as the producers of the next James Bond film.
Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson sold creative control of 007 to Amazon for around $1 billion earlier this year. Insiders have suggested that Broccoli and Salke didn’t get along, which Jeff Bezos allegedly caught wind of. It has been reported that one condition of Pascal and Heyman signing on was that the pair would not report to Salke.
We don’t know what any of this means for James Bond, other than new movies are most definitely coming. It’s also been suggested that the platform could be prepping an affiliated TV show.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/jennifer-salke-steps-down-as-head-of-amazon-mgm-studios-161856700.html?src=rss
An anonymous reader shares a report: Staff at the Federal Trade Commission have been instructed to no longer refer to the agency as “independent” in complaints, according to an email obtained by The Verge.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
As a society, we have decided to carry expensive electronic devices that are made out of glass. It’s a real problem, especially if you have butter fingers. Gorilla Glass maker Corning has announced a new material that might help save the day the next time you drop a phone. The company claims its latest Gorilla Glass Ceramic can withstand drops that would shatter lesser materials.
As the name implies, Corning’s new glass incorporates ceramic components to improve strength compared to other types of hardened glass. Corning has offered a bit of data to support this claim. In its lab tests (PDF), Gorilla Glass Ceramic withstood 10 drops from one meter onto surfaces that closely resemble asphalt. Why Corning does not use real asphalt for this test is unclear. Regardless, the company says an unspecified “competitive” type of aluminosilicate glass would typically fail on the first drop.
Chemically strengthened glass has been a key component in the proliferation of smartphones across the world. Since the company provided the glass for that first iPhone back in 2007, it has made glass for more than 7 billion devices. That makes Corning the largest glass supplier in the mobile industry, but it does face increasing competition in the budget and midrange segments.
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck company Nikola, has received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump. A jury found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud in October 2022. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison.
Milton announced the pardon in a press release and the White House confirmed it to CNBC. It came two weeks after prosecutors asked a judge to order Milton to pay $680 million in restitution to Nikola shareholders as well as $15.2 million to a wire fraud victim. However, due to the pardon, the judge is unable to order any restitution.
Prosecutors argued that Milton pumped up his company’s stock by lying to investors about “nearly all aspects” of Nikola’s business, such as having a fully functional electric truck. Nikola (which filed for bankruptcy last month) released a video in 2018 that appeared to show a Nikola One prototype moving by itself, but prosecutors claimed the truck was rolling down a hill and that Milton had a hand in the video’s creation. Following a damning report by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research that prompted an SEC investigation, the company said in 2020 it never claimed that the “truck was driving under its own propulsion in the video,” which has been made private on YouTube. Milton now plans to release a documentary to tell his side of the story.
Milton has given Trump and his associates millions of dollars in political donations, according to reports. Filings show he donated $750,000 to MAHA Alliance — now-Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s political action committee — in September and $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October, just ahead of the election. CNBC notes that Milton did not make any six-figure political contributions before 2024, per federal campaign finance records.
Trump has pardoned hundreds of people in the first couple of months of his second term, including around 1,500 who were convicted or charged with crimes related to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. On his second day in office, Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking.
Meanwhile, the family and associates of Sam Bankman-Fried are reportedly campaigning for Trump to pardon him. The founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was sentenced in 2024 to a 25-year prison sentence after he was found guilty of seven fraud and conspiracy charges.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-receives-a-full-pardon-from-president-trump-160107880.html?src=rss
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Right before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, I noticed a trend in robot vacuums. The suction power these robots were reporting were astronomical. Where Pa (suction power is measured in pascals) in 2024 was considered “high” at 8,000 or 10,000, the Ecovacs x8 is 18,000, the Dreame x50 is 20,000, and the Roborock Saros 10 is 22,000. In calls with the marketing reps and engineers of these machines I would routinely ask, “Is there a limit to how much suction is realistically useful?” And on more than one occasion, engineers revealed that the reason Pa levels had gone sky high was primarily because internal studies had revealed suction power was the primary way consumers chose robot vacuums. While I disagree that suction power translates to a good vacuum, I understand why consumers use this basis to choose: What other criteria would be important?
To understand why suction power isn’t a good determining criteria, you first have to understand how robot vacuums function. Regardless of brand, almost all robots work like a regular vacuum does. On the bottom of the robot are a roller or series of rollers, like a regular vacuum. As the rollers go over debris, the suction from the robot pulls the debris off the rollers and sucks the debris into an internal, bagless chamber. To move debris toward these rollers, most robots have brushes that sweep the debris. In a perfect situation, all debris is picked up by the rollers, suctioned off of them into the chamber, and the floor is left clean.
The reality is that certain types of debris, such as hair, tie up the rollers, which wraps around the roller and can slice the silicone on it. Larger debris, like a receipt or even a small piece of mulch can get stuck in the roller, requiring a human to dislodge it. Debris can also be sucked up but clog the pipe because it gets stuck on the way to the internal chamber. In some of these cases, more suction might help, but how straight a suction tube is designed, or even how big the flapper is on the internal chamber make a difference, too. In truth, the entire design of the system, and all the parts working in concert is what makes a robot vacuum successful (or not).
For instance, while recently testing the Eureka J15, which has over 16,000Pa, I noticed that even though the sweepers were moving debris directly towards the rollers, the debris wasn’t making it up into the roller, so the robot left the debris behind. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav, which has over 20,000Pa, rides so low to the ground that some debris can’t get to the rollers to be affected by the suction and is instead simply pushed around the floor by the robot. Meanwhile, the original Switchbot K10+ had only 3,000Pa and did a spectacular job grabbing debris off the floor because it rides a little higher, allowing the rollers to access more debris, and the rollers are designed so that debris doesn’t get stuck as often. My favorite robot vacuum and mop of all time, the Roborock MaxV Ultra Vacuum, has only 10,000Pa but is undeterred by any type of debris and gets floors cleaner than any other vacuum I’ve tried. Roborocks have a very effective roller design that doesn’t seem to suffer from getting beat up by debris, and their sweepers are always being redesigned to be more effective at sweeping debris toward the rollers.
It’s not only the rollers, sweeper, and suction that determines how well it will suction debris off the floor—the robot also has to be able to access the space where the debris is. Robots are now getting slimmer so they can slide under more furniture, but they’re generally still 12-13 inch objects trying to squeeze themselves into spaces, and if you have a lot of floor furniture, the robot will have trouble getting between those objects to effectively clean. Robots do best in big, open spaces, with walls that have no toekicks. The AI on board most robots can sometimes identify debris as obstacles, and tell the robot to avoid the debris altogether. (This is a repercussion of a few robot vacuums accidentally rolling over pet waste years ago and smearing it all over a room; now, robots are overly cautious about anything that could be remotely interpreted as such by AI).
There’s another point where suction matters, though most product listings don’t discuss it: the robot dock. This is where, in most cases these days, the robot will be auto-emptied into a real vacuum bag that has to be changed every few months. The value of the auto empty is infinite; it’s what makes robot vacuums autonomous. If the dock gets clogged, it’s a lot more work to solve than if the robot does. Recently, I’ve seen mentions of docks like the Narwal Freo Z getting redesigned so there’s less turns in the suction pipe that receives the debris in the dock, since that will translate to less clogs.
Ultimately, there likely isn’t one “best” robot vacuum, but rather the best robot vacuum for your home, since each house is different. For example, if you have a lot of large debris in your home, you would likely want a Roborock, since they handle that type of debris better than most. If your house has a lot of obstacles, you might consider the Switchbot K10+ Pro, which is much smaller than most robots, and can navigate into smaller spaces. If you have high thresholds in your home, a robot that can navigate those thresholds, like the Dreame x50 or the Roborock Saros line would be important. While suction is a factor of robot success, it shouldn’t be the only or determining factor when making a buying decision.
On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US’s foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation’s complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness”—a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.
But in the process of airing the administration’s grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.
The executive order, entitled “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History,” is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to “rewrite our nation’s history.” It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”
AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.
While there were a few graphics benchmarks in yesterday’s Ubuntu 25.04 beta benchmarks, today’s article is looking more at the Ubuntu 25.04 Linux gaming performance for both the GNOME 48 and KDE Plasma 6.3 desktops that default to the Wayland-based session by default while also trying out the X11 session for both of these desktops.
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Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is almost over, but there are still deals you can take advantage of, including Lifehacker Associate Tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt’s favorite tech deals. One deal you can take advantage of right now is the Dangbei Freedo, a portable projector with an official Netflix license and a 1080p resolution. You can get it for $399 (originally $549), the lowest price it has ever been, according to price-tracking tools.
Portable projectors, obviously, must work independently of an outlet and be easy to carry around. They don’t get the best brightness, since they’re meant to be light and portable and rely on a limited battery, so keep that in mind. This projector does all of the basics well. It’s light, portable, has a 2.5 hours of battery life, which is on par with the competition, has 450 ISO lumens of brightness, which is good for its price, and has Dolby Audio and HDR10, nice perks that not all portable projectors have.
With 450 lumens of brightness, you’ll need to keep a room relatively dark to get the best picture. However, it is usable in a backyard with some low ambient light (with some sacrifices in color and contrast). Since it’s officially licensed by Netflix, the app comes pre-installed, and it uses the Google TV operating system, which is my favorite because it means you get to cast your phone using Chromecast.
The Dangbei Freedo has a full HD 1080p resolution, but it supports 4K, meaning it’ll receive the signal but it will scale it down to 1080p. It’s also impressive that it can cast a screen of up to 180 inches. The auto focus and keystone correction automatically kick in and work well, which is important for a portable projector.
A Nature survey has found that three-quarters of responding U.S. scientists are considering leaving the nation following disruptions to science under the Trump administration.
Out of 1,608 respondents, 75.3% said they were contemplating leaving the country. Scientists cited concerns over research funding and the general treatment of science as contributing factors for their reasoning. Europe and Canada were mentioned as potential destinations for those looking for opportunities abroad.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
These are several videos of the work of João Paulo Gonçalves, who uses carefully placed wooden blocks illuminated by a mirrored bulb in the center to produce precisely shaped shadows. How about that! Me and my shadow? We’re not talking. We got into a huge fight after he said he’s tired of being attached and living his entire life on back of the couch and wants to do his own thing. I regret ever letting him watch Peter Pan.
When Nintendo finally officially revealed the Switch 2 in January, one of our major unanswered questions concerned whether games designed for the original Switch would see some form of visual or performance enhancement when running on the backward-compatible Switch 2. Now, Nintendo-watchers are pointing to a fleeting mention of “Switch 2 Edition games” as a major hint that such enhancements are in the works for at least some original Switch games.
The completely new reference to “Switch 2 Edition games” comes from a Nintendo webpage discussing yesterday’s newly announced Virtual Game Cards digital lending feature. In the fine print at the bottom of that page, Nintendo notes that “Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games and Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games can only be loaded on a Nintendo Switch 2 system [emphasis added].”
The specific wording differentiating these “Switch 2 Edition” games from “Switch 2 exclusives” suggests a new category of game that is compatible with the original Switch but able to run with enhancements on the Switch 2. But it’s currently unclear what Switch games will get “Switch 2 Edition” releases or how much developer work (if any) will be needed to create those new versions.
Back during the Linux 6.13 kernel cycle initial support for many (pre-M1) Apple devices were upstreamed including various iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch devices. That though was the very preliminary support and continuing to work their way upstream are various drivers/patches to further enhance the support. Now for the Linux 6.15 kernel is a new Apple backlight driver for controlling the backlight on various mobile Apple devices…
As of this writing, 6,653 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the
mainline kernel repository for the 6.15 release. This merge window is thus
well underway. A number of significant changes have been merged so far;
read on for our summary of the first half of the 6.15 merge window.
Grab your popcorn. Nintendo just announced the official release date of the live-action Legend of Zelda movie. It hits theaters on March 26, 2027, which is just about two years from now. The film was first announced back in 2023.
The company dropped this bombshell on the official Nintendo Today! app that was surprise-released during a recent Direct livestream. The stream promised that the app would be a constant source of news and information. It looks like that promise was not hyperbole.
The Legend of Zelda live-action film releasing on March 26, 2027 (via Nintendo Today!) pic.twitter.com/8DzgH5e1YF
— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 28, 2025
Anyone who opened up the app this morning saw a short video of a Tri-Force floating alongside the iconic Zelda theme music. After that, text confirmed the release date for the movie. Now we’ll all have to check that darned app every day for more news.
The release date, however, is pretty much all we know about the film. It’s being directed by Wes Ball, who made Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the Maze Runner trilogy. There’s no casting information yet, or a look at sets or anything like that. We don’t even know who is writing it. Ball has said that he envisions the film as “live-action Miyazaki,” referring to the legendary Studio Ghibli director.
Will Nintendo ready a Zelda game to accompany the film? We have no idea, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder followed the release of the Super Mario Bros. Movie a couple of years back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-legend-of-zelda-movie-hits-theaters-on-march-26-2027-150145662.html?src=rss
In 2022, a team of AI researchers at Sony sat down and made an AI agent that was nearly unbeatable at the racing game Gran Turismo 7. More than just car control, the agent, called GT Sophy, had to also learn racing tactics and strategies—and even etiquette. Up against the world’s best human players, Sophy beat the humans by 104 races to 52 in a match in 2021.
Since then, Sony and Polyphony Digital have been hard at work retraining it from being able to dominate the world’s best with ease into something that’s more fun for the rest of us to compete against. The latest refinement is GT Sophy 2.1, which appeared as part of GT7‘s latest update yesterday. It’s now enabled at more tracks, and you can finally set up custom races at those tracks using the better AI.
“Since we first introduced GT Sophy three years ago, we have worked closely with [Polyphony Digital] to explore how AI can enhance gameplay and create more dynamic and fun racing experiences for players of all skill levels,” said Kaushik Subramanian, senior staff research scientist at Sony AI. “With GT Sophy 2.1, we are giving players more control than ever over their interactions with GT Sophy by allowing them to fine-tune gameplay, experiment with new strategies, and advance their racing skills.”
