We have come a long way from the era of boomboxes, those large and unwieldy music systems like the one that Johnny Lawrence treated unkindly in Karate Kid and Lloyd Dobler held up in Say Anything (ah, the 1980s!). These days, portable speakers are much more compact and high tech. There’s also a bunch of them on sale for Cyber Monday.
One
Source: Hot Hardware – Great Cyber Monday Bluetooth Speaker Deals On JBL, Oontz, TREBLAB, Save Over 60 Percent
A married couple that had tested positive for COVID-19 was apprehended by Dutch police this weekend after they managed to sneak out of the local quarantine hotel. According to a local report from Dutch newspaper Het Parool, the pair were arrested onboard just moments before their plane was set to head to Spain from…
Source: Gizmodo – Tourist Couple Apprehended by Dutch Police After Sneaking Out of Quarantine Hotel
Whistleblower Frances Haugen will once again appear before Congress. On Wednesday, December 1st, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology will hold a hearing dedicated to discussing potential “targeted reforms” to Section 230 of The Communications Decency Act.
Haugen is among a handful of witnesses House Democrats have called to testify. She’ll be joined by Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, as well as James Steye of Common Sense Media. The subcommittee’s Republicans will also call forward a witness. A second panel later in the day will feature additional testimony from organizations like Free Press Action.
The last time Haugen testified before Congress was in October when she appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee. In her opening statement, Haugen urged lawmakers to impose new regulations on her former employer. “The choices being made inside of Facebook are disastrous for our children, our public safety, our privacy and for our democracy,” she said at the time. Haugen’s second testimony will come just days before Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, will take part in a series of Senate hearings dedicated to online protections for kids.
Source: Engadget – Congress will hold a hearing on potential Section 230 reforms this week
Samsung is expected to reveal the flagship Galaxy S22 Ultra in early 2022, but you don’t have to wait any longer to get a glimpse of its design. Based on a recent leak, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will look similar to its predecessor, the Galaxy S21 Ultra, but with a few notable changes that should excite Galaxy Note owners.
Source: Gizmodo – Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra Could Be the Galaxy Note Successor We’ve Been Waiting For
Security officials in one of China’s largest provinces have commissioned a surveillance system they say they want to use to track journalists and international students among other “suspicious people,” Reuters reported Monday, citing internal documents. From the report: A July 29 tender document published on the Henan provincial government’s procurement website — reported in the media for the first time — details plans for a system that can compile individual files on such persons of interest coming to Henan using 3,000 facial recognition cameras that connect to various national and regional databases. A 5 million yuan ($782,000) contract was awarded on Sept. 17 to Chinese tech company Neusoft (600718.SS), which was required to finish building the system within two months of signing the contract, separate documents published on the Henan government procurement website showed. Reuters was unable to establish if the system is currently operating.
China is trying to build what some security experts describe as one of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technology networks, with millions of cameras in public places and increasing use of techniques such as smartphone monitoring and facial recognition. U.S.-based surveillance research firm IPVM, which has closely tracked the network’s expansion and first identified the Henan document, said the tender was unique in specifying journalists as surveillance targets and providing a blueprint for public security authorities to quickly locate them and obstruct their work.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Chinese Province Targets Journalists, Foreign Students With Planned New Surveillance System
Maybe you’ve crossed all of the big items off your gift list for the year, but you’re still on the lookout for stocking stuffers that aren’t the typical picks. There are plenty of options in the tech space that are both small and affordable, and Cyber Monday deals have made a good number of them even more budget-friendly. Everything from microSD cards to streaming sticks to wireless earbuds are cheaper than ever, so we gathered the best tech deals under $50 here so you don’t have to go searching for them.
Samsung’s EVO Select microSDXC card in 256GB is down to $25, or 38 percent off its normal price. This is the latest model and while you can find microSD cards for less, EVO is a reliable brand and you’re getting a full-sized adapter with this one.
Buy EVO Select microSD (256GB) at Amazon – $25
A number of SanDisk memory cards are on sale for Cyber Monday, including this Ultra microSD card in 128GB for $16. While not all items are under $50, most are and any of the microSD cards on sale would make a good option for extra smartphone or Nintendo Switch storage.
Buy SanDisk Ultra microSD card (128GB) at Amazon – $16Shop SanDisk memory card sale at Amazon
Nintendo’s Switch Pro Controller is $20 off for Cyber Monday, bringing it down to a record low fo $50. It’s a good choice for anyone who wants more control than Joy-Cons can provide, and we like that it preserves features like an infrared sensor and vibration that are often lost on third-party controllers.
Buy Switch Pro Controller at Amazon – $50
A bunch of Belkin accessories have been discounted for Cyber Monday, including most of the company’s AirTag cases, which are down to $10 each. The Secure Holder keeps Apple’s Bluetooth trackers secure and protected, and we like the strap it comes with, which makes it easier to hook the AirTag to a water bottle, luggage handle and other things.
Buy Belkin Secure Holder at Amazon – $10Shop Belkin accessories sale at Amazon
Razer’s Kishi mobile controller is 44 percent off, bringing it down to $45. Touchscreens are fine for casual games, but when you’re tackling something a little more hardcore like Fortnite the Kishi is just the thing you need. It adds d-pads and shoulder buttons to your gaming experience, and folds up nicely when not in use. Since it connects to your device directly via Lightning port or USB-C, not via Bluetooth, you don’t have to worry about keeping it charged — though you do need to make sure you buy the right one for your device.
Buy Razer Kishi at Amazon – $45
SteelSeries’ Arctis 3 headset for consoles is 51 percent off right now, bringing it down to $34. These wired cans have balanced audio, a clear cast mic and an attractive design.
Anker’s portable battery pack in 20,000mAh is on sale for $37, or 15 percent off its regular rate. This brick can charge two devices at once thanks to its multiple ports and its trickle-charging mode provides optimal charging to low-power devices like wireless earbuds,
Buy Anker PowerCore Essential at Amazon – $37
The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped to $35. This has all of the features of the standard Fire TV Stick 4K plus support for WiFi 6 and picture-in-picture live view.
Buy Fire TV Stick 4K Max at Amazon – $35
The Chromecast with Google TV has dropped to $40, which is $10 cheaper than usual. We gave the device a score of 86 for its 4K HDR streaming capabilities, Dolby Vision and Atmos support plus its much needed and very handy new remote.
Buy Chromecast with Google TV at Best Buy – $40
The tiny Echo Dot has dropped to $30, and you can grab the Echo Dot with Clock for only $35. We gave it a score of 88 for its good audio quality for the price, compact design and tap-to-snooze feature.
Buy Echo Dot at Amazon – $30Buy Echo Dot with Clock at Amazon – $35
The Nest Mini is down to $25. It’s the affordable speaker to get if you want to put the Google Assistant in your home without dropping too much money, or taking up too much space.
Buy Nest Mini at Best Buy – $25
Anker’s wireless charging stand is on sale for $15 right now, or 22 percent off its normal price. It’s a handy accessory to have next to your computer or on your nightstand since it can change your smartphone either in landscape or portrait mode, and it’s compatible with cases up to 5mm thick.
Buy PowerWave stand at Amazon – $15
JLab’s already affordable Go Air Pop earbuds are down to only $13 right now. These colorful true wireless buds sport an eight-hour battery life, a small and comfortable design and touch controls.
Buy Go Air Pop at Best Buy – $13
Anker’s impressive Soundcore Spirit Dot 2 earbuds have been discounted to $40. We consider them to be the best budget buds out there right now thanks in part to their punchy base, IPX7-rated design and affordable price.
Buy Spirit Dot 2 at Amazon – $40
Wacom’s compact Intuos drawing tablet is down to a new all-time low of $50, which is $30 off its normal price. Artists and doodlers are typically drawn to Wacom’s tablets, but those who just want a bit more control over their computer may also like them. It comes with a 4k pressure-sensitive pen that’s battery free, and the tablet itself has a few customizable shortcut keys. And since it plugs into your machine via a USB-A port, it will work with almost any computer, including Chromebooks.
Buy Intuos drawing tablet at Amazon – $50
The Echo Show 5 has dropped to $45, or $40 off its normal price. This is the best Echo smart display if you want one as a smart alarm clock. We like its ambient light sensor, smart home controls and tap-to-snooze feature.
Buy Echo Show 5 (2nd gen) at Amazon – $45
Amazon’s standard Kindle has been discounted to $50, which is its best price yet. We gave this e-reader a score of 91 for its improved contrast display, extra front lights and sleeker design.
The Fire 7 tablet is on sale for $35. If you’re looking for a cheap tablet to be a couch device, or to give your kid without worry, this is a good option. While it doesn’t have the Google Play Store, you can still use it to check email, watch videos, play music and more.
The Fire HD 8 tablet is on sale for $45, or half off its normal price. We gave it a score of 79 for its decent performance, good battery life, wireless charging capabilities and USB-C port.
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is on sale for $25 right now. It’s one of the easiest ways to get 4K streaming TV into your TV, plus it supports Dolby Audio and Alexa voice commands.
Buy Fire TV Stick 4K at Amazon – $25
The Fire TV Stick Lite has dropped to $18. It provides 1080p streaming, access to services like Netflix and Prime Video and can stream music from services like Spotify and Pandora.
Buy Fire TV Stick Lite at Amazon – $18
The new Roku Streaming Stick 4K is on sale for $30, or $20 off its normal price. It builds upon the technology in the Streaming Stick+, supporting 4K HDR10+ content, Dolby Vision, long-range WiFi, voice search and TV controls with the included remote.
Buy Roku Streaming Stick 4K at Amazon – $30
The Blink Indoor one-camera kit is on sale for $50 and the cam itself is totally wireless, so you can place them almost anywhere. It supports 1080p recording, motion alerts, two-way audio and temperature monitoring. The Blink Mini wired camera is also on sale for only $20.
Buy Blink Indoor at Amazon – $50Buy Blink Mini at Amazon – $20
Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Source: Engadget – The best Cyber Monday tech deals you can get for under
Growing up, there wasn’t a strong Christmas ornament tradition in my family. Or one at all, really. There were no hand-crafted trinkets with sentimental value, or delicate keepsakes passed down through generations. The main thing I remember about our tree was its comical 1980s artificiality of sparse, rigid branches,…
Source: LifeHacker – You Should Start This Ornament Tradition With Your Kids
Spoiler: Peter Parker (Tom Holland) does not die in the upcoming movie Spider-Man: No Way Home. Apparently. Because Amy Pascal says that work has already begun on an entirely new trilogy of movies starring the baby-faced actor, still set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if someone would know it’s very likely the…
Source: Gizmodo – Spider-Man Producer Says Another Marvel Cinematic Universe Trilogy Is in the Works
As Cyber Monday rages on we have more deals popping up, this time for laptops. For those who want to save some cash on a laptop for school, work, or fun (or any combination thereof) look no further as we have rounded up tantalizing deals on systems from HP, Lenovo, ASUS and Dell.
The first Laptop on deck is the HP 15-dy2024nr priced at
Source: Hot Hardware – Laptop And Chromebook Cyber Monday Deals: HP, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo Up To 50 Percent Off
The irony gods have smiled upon us once again: After Disney+ made its long-awaited Hong Kong debut earlier this month, a 2005 episode of “The Simpsons” lampooning Chinese government censorship seems to have been discreetly scrubbed from the app in the region.
Source: Gizmodo – Hong Kong’s Disney+ Nuked an Episode of The Simpsons That Mocked Mao Zedong
If you’ve been slavering for your chance to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to head to Walt Disney World’s upcoming Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser experience, might I suggest you towel off your chin for the time being? Disney has released a video preview of some of what awaits families who come aboard the …
Source: Gizmodo – Take a Peek at Disney World’s Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, Save ,000
In theory, winter running is easy: It’s just normal running with extra layers. But sometimes it’s tough to find exactly what layers you need. Fortunately, a bunch of cold-dwelling redditors have come through with their recommendations to keep you toasty all winter long.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Winter Running Gear, According to Reddit
An anonymous reader writes: People running Android phones may want to hold off upgrading to Android 12 if they also use apps purchased through the Amazon Appstore. The Appstore app itself is not compatible with Android 12, which prevents many, if not all, apps purchased and downloaded via Amazon from running. The Android OS update began to be rolled out to Pixel phones over a month ago, and more recently, newer Samsung Galaxy handsets, such as the S21. Amazon has acknowledged the problem in a 90-post support forum thread, as well as in the Appstore app itself, but has not provided a timeline for a fix to restore users’ apps.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Amazon Appstore Still Broken On Android 12 a Month After OS Release
Enlarge (credit: A. Duraj-Thatte, A. Manjula-Basvanna et. al./Nature)
3D printing has already been put to use in many interesting applications, from large-scale homebuilding to robot hands that are good at Super Mario Bros.—and even creepy materials that can shape-shift into a human face. But researchers Anna M. Duraj-Thatte and Avinash Manjula-Basavanna have something more lively in mind. A new type of 3D printer ink with self-assembling properties may play a role in the future of renewable building materials and even ink that grows itself.
Researchers from Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, among others, reported their findings in a paper published Tuesday in Nature Communications. As reported by Phys.org on Saturday, the paper details ink made of Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells bioengineered to make nanofibers.
Despite 3D printing’s advances, creating arbitrary shapes and patterns is still challenging, the paper explains. So the researchers set out to create what they call “microbial ink” made “entirely from genetically engineered microbial cells, programmed to perform a bottom-up, hierarchical self-assembly of protein monomers into nanofibers, and further into nanofiber networks that comprise extrudable hydrogels.”
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – This 3D printer ink is alive
The latest batch of Pokémon games, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, are experiencing a handful of silly glitches. While the duplication glitch is something players are exploiting to their advantage, there’s another glitchy issue players are encountering that is just plain weird: seeing their monsters’ nicknames…
Source: Kotaku – Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl Glitch Is Renaming Monsters
Apple’s Messages is probably one of the most-used apps on your iPhone that you spend the least time thinking about. After all, it’s just texting.
But this humble messaging app is actually remarkably feature-packed, and if you spend a few minutes poking around in your settings, you’ll be able to unlock lots of useful…
Source: LifeHacker – 16 of the Most Useful iPhone Messages Features You Should Be Using
As you sort through the plethora of Cyber Monday deals that are out there, including bargains on gaming laptops, discounts on Motorola phones, and the such, be on the lookout for scammers hoping to capitalize on your holiday spending spree. This is a popular time of year for holiday scams, and such a big deal that the FBI felt compelled to
Source: Hot Hardware – FBI Warns Online Holiday Shopping Scams Likely To Top Million, How To Stay Safe
If you’ve been patiently waiting for Apple’s new MacBook Pros to go on sale, Cyber Monday has delivered. Adorama and B&H have discounted the base 14-inch model by $200. That’s a 10 percent discount off its usual $1,999 starting price. We’ve seen price reductions on the new MacBook a handful of times since launch — most notably when Amazon discounted both the 14- and 16-inch variants by $50 the week they came out. However, $200 off is an all-time low for a computer that only went on sale at the end of October
Buy MacBook Pro at Adorama – $1,799Buy MacBook Pro at B&H – $1,799
We’ll note here only the Space Gray model is part of today’s promotion. If you want the computer in Silver, it’s $1,999. You also can’t upgrade any of the components without paying the full price of the computer. Thankfully, the base model is plenty powerful with its 8-core M1 Pro processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage.
We gave the new MacBook Pros a score of 92. Apple addressed a lot of the issues that made the previous generation so divisive. To start, unlike its predecessor, the 14-inch model comes with almost all the ports you could want. It features three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI connection, a MagSafe power port, a headphone jack and an SD card slot. Another standout feature of the 2021 MacBook Pro is its Liquid Retina XDR display. The one on the 14-inch model features a resolution of 3,024 x 1,964 and is capable of reaching 1,600 nits of brightness. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate, which makes using the computer feel smoother. The only downside of the display is that unsightly notch. But if you don’t mind it, there’s a lot to like about the 2021 MacBook Pro.
Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter.
Source: Engadget – The 14-inch MacBook Pro is 0 off right now
Enlarge / Twitter cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), on November 12, 2018, in New Delhi, India. (credit: Amal KS | Hindustan Times | Getty Images)
Jack Dorsey announced today that he’s stepping down as CEO of Twitter, the social network he helped found in 2006. The change is effective immediately.
Dorsey did not say what spurred the sudden move, though in his resignation letter, which he also shared on Twitter, he said, “There has been a lot of talk about the importance of a company being ‘founder-led.’ Ultimately, I believe that’s severely limiting and a single point of failure. I’ve worked hard to ensure this company can break away from its founding and founders.”
not sure anyone has heard but,
I resigned from Twitter pic.twitter.com/G5tUkSSxkl
— jack
(@jack) November 29, 2021
Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief technical officer, has been named the new CEO. “The board ran a rigorous process considering all options and unanimously appointed Parag,” Dorsey wrote. “He’s been my choice for some time given how deeply he understands the company and its needs.”
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Jack Dorsey resigns as CEO of Twitter
While Eternals is one of Marvel’s most cosmically-oriented features to date, director Choé Zhao crafted the film with a distinct focus on emphasizing the Earth’s natural beauty that first made the Eternals themselves fall in love with the planet. Finding a balance between the brand’s big-screen spectacles and moments…
Source: Gizmodo – Eternals VFX Supervisor Discusses the Movie’s Focus on Beauty in a New Breakdown
