Apple’s first AR headset will be released in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a research note from analyst Ming-chi Kuo. The Verge: Kuo predicted back in March that the headset would be released sometime next year, and is now also providing more technical information on the device. The headset will have two processors, according to Kuo, one with “the same level of computing power as M1” and one lower-end chip to handle input from the various sensors. For example, Kuo says that the headset has “at least 6-8 optical modules to simultaneously provide continuous video see-through AR services.” The headset is also said to have two 4K OLED microdisplays from Sony. Kuo cites the headset’s “Mac-level (PC-level) computing power,” its ability to be operated untethered, and its wide range of applications as factors that will differentiate it from competitors. Various reports on the device have disagreed as to whether it will be wholly independent or rely on an iPhone or a separate processor box to stream content.
Audio gadgets are, consistently, some of the most sought after, whether it’s Black Friday or not. A good pair of headphones or earbuds makes a great gift for almost anyone, and they’re even better if you can catch them on sale. While there are a bunch of budget devices we recommend, most of our top rated headphones and earbuds tend to be on the expensive side. Luckily, Black Friday usually comes in clutch with sales on most of our favorite models — and this year is no exception. Here are the best deals on headphones, earbuds, speakers and other audio gadgets we could find for Black Friday.
Sony WH-1000XM4
Billy Steele / Engadget
Our favorite pair of Sony headphones, the WH-1000XM4, are down to $248 right now. We gave these cans a score of 94 for their powerful ANC, immersive sound quality and multi-device connectivity.
Sony’s excellent WF-1000XM4 earbuds are down to $248. We gave them a score of 86 for their great sound quality, powerful ANC and improved battery life.
The updated AirPods Pro with the MagSafe case are on sale for $159 at Walmart and $169 at Amazon. If you’re a Sam’s Club member, you can grab the Pros for $150 with $70 of Scan & Go Savings starting today. These offer the best sound quality and fit of any of Apple’s earbuds, and now they have a magnetic wireless charging case that’s compatible with MagSafe accessories.
Apple’s latest AirPods are down to $150 for Black Friday at Amazon. We gave them a score of 88 for their more comfortable design, much improved audio quality and longer battery life.
The previous-generation AirPods are on sale for $100 right now, or roughly $60 off its normal price. While not the latest models, these are still decent earbuds that we liked for their improved wireless performance and good battery life.
Apple’s AirPods Max in a few colors are down to $440 right now, or only $10 more than their record-low price. These headphones earned a score of 84 from us for their excellent, balanced sound, solid ANC and good battery life.
Bose’s new QuietComfort 45 headphones remain on sale for $279 right now, or $50 off their normal price. We gave them a score of 86 for their clear, balanced audio, improved ANC and long battery life.
Bose’s QuietComfort earbuds have been discounted to $199. These are some of the company’s best true wireless earbuds and they earned a score of 87 from us for their clear sound, powerful ANC and comfortable size.
Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 2 earbuds are down to $200, or $100 off their normal price. These are the buds to get if you want the best audio quality available, and we gave them a score of 85 in part for that as well as their solid ANC, customizable controls and comprehensive companion app.
The Beats Studio Buds have been discounted to $100. These are some of the best Beats buds for most people and we gave them a score of 84 for their balanced sound, hands-free Siri controls and quick pairing with both iOS and Android.
Jabra’s Elite 85t earbuds are on sale for $150, which is $80 off its normal price. These earbuds impressed us with their strong ANC, comfortable size and wireless charging case.
Jabra’s Elite 75t earbuds have dropped to $80. These are some of our favorite wireless earbuds and they earned a score of 87 from us for their solid audio quality, long battery life and small, comfortable design.
Sony’s affordable WH-CH710N wireless headphones are even cheaper right now at $78. We like these cans for their deep, punchy bass, solid ANC and 35-hour battery life.
The Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds are on sale for $128, or more than $70 off their usual price. We gave these buds a score of 89 for their excellent sound quality, great battery life and comprehensive companion app.
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.
Samsung’s high-end earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Pro, are on sale for $150, or $50 off their usual price. They earned a score of 85 from us for their comfortable fit, wireless charging and good sound quality.
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 are even cheaper right now at $120. These much improved earbuds impressed us with their better audio quality, adjustable ambient sound mode and tiny, comfortable design.
The second-generation Echo Buds are on sale for $70 right now. Amazon massively improved its wireless earbuds this time around and we gave them a score of 80 for their better sound quality, good ANC and smaller design.
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.
Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series are on sale for $80, or $20 off their normal price. In addition to their solid sound quality, these buds earned a score of 84 from us for their small, comfortable design and deep Google Assistant integration.
Amazon’s latest Echo smart speaker has been discounted to $60, or $40 off its normal price. We gave the orb-shaped device a score of 89 for its good audio quality, solid Alexa performance and stereo pairing option.
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.
Google’s Nest Audio is down to $60, or $40 off its normal price. This is one of the best smart speakers you can get, especially if you already use the Google Assistant. We gave it a score of 87 for its solid audio quality, attractive design and good performance.
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.
The Earin A-3 earbuds are 30 percent off for Black Friday, bringing them down to $140. These were announced at CES in January and they have a new open design without an ear tip, allowing you to listen to music while also taking in the sounds around you.
The Emberton portable speaker from Marshall has dropped to $100, which is $50 off its normal price. It has multi-directional audio, a compact design and more than 20 hours of battery life.
Ableton’s music-making software is 25 percent off through November 29, and that includes all three tiers of Ableton Live 11. The Intro tier is down to $74, while the Standard and Suite tiers are on sale for $337 and $562, respectively.
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.
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Aside from Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday is the best time of year to save on Amazon gadgets. It’s arguably better than Amazon’s exclusive shopping day because anyone, not just Prime members, can get Black Friday discounts. Everything from Echo speakers to Fire tablets to Kindles are down to record-low prices, and many devices have optional bundles you can choose from that get you things like a Blink Mini camera for $5 extra or a free smart light bulb. Here are the best deals on Amazon devices we could find for Black Friday.
Echo
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Amazon’s Echo smart speaker is on sale for $60 right now. We gave it a score of 89 for its solid audio quality, attractive design and inclusion of a 3.5mm audio jack.
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.
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.
The Echo Show 8 smart display is on sale for $90, or $40 off its normal rate. It earned a score of 87 from us for its attractive design, stellar audio quality and improved camera for video calls. Both the first- and second-gen Show 8s have discounted bundles that include a Blink Mini camera for only $5 extra, too.
The second-generation Echo Buds are on sale for $70 right now. Amazon massively improved its wireless earbuds this time around and we gave them a score of 80 for their better sound quality, good ANC and smaller design.
The Echo Frames are on sale for $155. We gave them a score of 76 for their lightweight, comfortable design, hands-free Alexa access and compatibility with prescription lenses.
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 kids version of the e-reader is also on sale for $60.
The new Kindle Paperwhite has dropped to $105 for Black Friday, or $35 off its normal price. This updated model has 17 front lights, a sleeker design, an adjustable warm light, weeks of battery life and Audible support. You can also grab the kids edition for $115 right now.
The higher-end Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped to $35, or $20 off its normal price. On top of all of the features in the standard Fire TV Stick 4K, the Max version also supports WiFi 6 and live picture-in-picture viewing. You can get the standard Fire TV Stick for $20 as well right now.
Amazon’s most affordable streaming stick is even cheaper right now at $18. It supports 1080p streaming and gives you access to some of the most popular services like Netlfix and Disney+.
Amazon’s most powerful streaming device, the Fire TV Cube, has dropped to $80. It supports 4K streaming, Dolby Vision and Atmos, plus hands-free Alexa controls.
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.
The biggest of Amazon’s tablets, the Fire HD 10, is half off right now, bringing it down to $75. It’s the best Fire tablet to get if you care at all about performance. We like its 1080p display, 12-hour battery life and its Show Mode feature.
The 8-inch version of Amazon’s kids tablet is half off and down to $70. This comes with a protective case, a two-year warranty and a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+.
The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is 40 percent off, knocking it down to $120. You’re getting the same thing in this bundle — a protective case, a two-year warranty and a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ — along with a larger tablet.
The Blink Indoor and Outdoor one-camera kits are on sale for $50 and $60, respectively. These cams are totally wireless, so you can place them almost anywhere. They supports 1080p recording, motion alerts, two-way audio and temperature monitoring. The Blink Mini wired camera is also on sale for only $20.
The Eero 6 dual-band mesh WiFi system is down to $77, or 40 percent off its normal price. One node can cover up to 1,500 square feet and it supports WiFi 6. The Eero Pro 6 is also on sale and it’s a bit more advanced than the standard 6: it’s a tri-band system that supports WiFi 6 and covers up to 2,000 square feet with just one node.
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.
Are you looking for cool gifts for people on your holiday shopping list or ideas for your own wishlist? If so, consider one of the ten suggestions below. Each of these gift suggestions connects in some way to the open source ethos. From DIY projects to computers to books, this list provides gift suggestions that foster creativity, learning, and exploring.
FaceTime is a proprietary videotelephony product. It works by establishing a connection between two supported devices. FaceTime forces many to stay locked into a proprietary world. Its end-to-end encryption doesn’t let in Linux users. What are the best free and open source alternatives?
We’re on alert overload. Stray comments and offhand requests once shouted across the office now blink and buzz at us from Microsoft Teams and Slack. Our communication has grown fragmented, spread across myriad apps we have to learn, conform to, remember to check. From a report: Meanwhile, personal texts and social-media mentions have bled into the workday after all this time at home, adding another layer of distraction to our time on the clock. Why put your phone on silent if the boss isn’t hovering over you? Our culture has evolved to accommodate rapid communication, says Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and it can be mentally taxing. Many of us struggle to conjure up that brilliant thought that hit right before the notification burst in. “Your memory is just overflowing with information,” she says.
It doesn’t make for great circumstances for getting work done, but there are ways individuals, managers and organizations can contend with the onslaught. Dr. Mark’s research finds people switch screens an average of 566 times a day. Half the time we’re interrupted; the other half we pull ourselves away. Breaks — even mindless ones like scrolling Facebook — can be positive, replenishing our cognitive resources, Dr. Mark says. But when something external diverts our focus, it takes us an average of 25 minutes and 26 seconds to get back to our original task, she has found. (Folks often switch to different projects in between.) And it stresses us out. Research using heart monitors shows that the interval between people’s heart beats becomes more regular when they’re interrupted, a sign they’re in fight-or-flight mode. The onus is on teams and organizations to create new norms, Dr. Mark says. If individuals just up and turn off their notifications they’ll likely be penalized for missing information. Instead, managers should create quiet hours where people aren’t expected to respond. “It’s a matter of relearning how to work,” she says.
Apple’s long-rumored mixed reality headset will be powered by two processors, according to renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In Kuo’s latest research report seen by MacRumors and 9to5Mac, the analyst said that the device will have a main processor with the same computing power as the M1 chip and a secondary processor to handle all sensor-related computing. With both processors in place, the headset won’t need to be tethered to an iPhone or a Mac.
The device will be able to provide not just augmented, but also virtual reality experiences, Kuo said, thanks to a pair of 4K Micro OLED displays from Sony. That’ll only be possible, because the M1 chip has the power needed to be able to support the displays. As for the separate processor for its sensor, it’s apparently necessary because “the computing power of the sensor is significantly higher than that of the iPhone.” Kuo expects the device to arrive in late 2022 and said Apple will make sure it can support a “comprehensive range of applications” with the ultimate goal of replacing the iPhone in a decade’s time.
Kuo’s prediction that the headset will be a standalone device goes against a report by The Information from September claiming that it will need to wirelessly communicate with an an iPhone, an iPad or a computer to handle most of its computing. That report also said that the headset will be aimed at developers and creators and will have a potential price of around $3,000.
Germany plans to phase out coal use by 2030, eight years earlier than previously planned, as part of its latest climate pledge. That same year, the country wants 80 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources. Per the BBC, Olaf Scholz, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, announced the plan on Wednesday as part of a deal that will see the former vice-chancellor govern the country at the head of a three-party coalition made up of the Greens and Free Democrats.
Germany’s September 28th national election saw the Greens claim 118 seats in the Bundestag, making it the party’s best-ever showing. Scholz is expected to tap Greens leader Annalena Baerbock to serve as his foreign minister. Moreover, it’s likely Greens co-leader Robert Habeck will get the vice-chancellorship and the chance to oversee the country’s energy transition.
Notably, the coalition didn’t set a more aggressive emissions reduction target. By 2030, the country still plans to cut emissions by 65 percent from 1990 levels. According to an estimate from nonprofit Climate Action Tracker, Germany needs to reduce its greenhouse gas output by at least 70 percent by the end of the decade to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target put forward by the Paris Agreement.
Additionally, in making a deal with the Social Democratic Party, the Greens made a significant compromise. Per Bloomberg, the country will use natural gas to ease the transition between coal and renewables. Critics also say the coalition had to do more to push electric vehicle adoption. The government only plans to have 15 million EVs on German roads by 2030. “This does not look like a coalition for progress,” Christoph Bautz, the head of Campact, told Clean Energy Wire. “The climate movement will have to keep pushing the coalition to truly make it a climate government.”
Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Organizers of the signature drive for a popular referendum on the construction of an Integrated Resort (IR) including a casino at Marina City, Wakayama, have stated that they are already well above the necessary threshold.
Needing about 6,200 resident signatures to make a referendum petition to the Wakayama City Council, the organizers say they’ve already collected over 8,000 signatures and expect many more before the December 5 deadline.
Attorney Yasushi Toyoda, one of the leaders of the referendum campaign, stated, “The prefectural government and the operator have made insufficient efforts to explain their IR initiative. The fact that so many signatures have been gathered shows that interest among the people is spreading.”
Once the signatures have been handed over the local government and verified, the city council must decide whether or not to go forward with the popular referendum.
In a similar case in Yokohama earlier this year, that city council rejected the referendum appeal, but later paid a political price when an anti-casino opposition candidate won the mayoral election. There is no indication yet what the Wakayama City Council might do.
The Wakayama IR initiative is already facing several major challenges, including uncertainty whether or not the Clairvest Neem Ventures-led consortium has sufficient financial backing to proceed with the construction.
Enlarge/ A sampling of the best Black Friday deals we’ve found.
The turkey has been consumed and the football games are over, which means the avalanche of Black Friday deals has begun. To help you sort through the barrage of breathless retailer promotions, we’ve pored over every so-called deal we can find, checking price histories and researching whether a product is worth buying in the first place to bring you this hand-picked roundup of the deals most worth your time.
If you’ve been following the early Black Friday sales that’ve ran over the past couple of weeks, many of the offers below may look familiar. Nevertheless, plenty of gadgets and gear we like are available at good prices. We’ll update this list continuously, so feel free to bookmark this page in case something you’ve wanted sees a discount later.
Magento is a free and open-source eCommerce application that allows you to host your online store. In this tutorial, I will show you how to install Magento2 on Debian 11.
South Africa’s government is considering new public-health restrictions to contain a fast-spreading new variant of the coronavirus that scientists say has a high number of mutations that may make it more transmissible and allow it to evade some of the immune responses triggered by previous infection or vaccination. From a report: The warning from the South African scientists and the Health Ministry, issued in a hastily called news briefing Thursday, prompted the World Health Organization to call a meeting of experts for Friday to discuss whether to declare the new strain a “variant of concern.” The WHO uses this label for virus strains that have been proven to be more contagious, lead to more serious illness or decrease the effectiveness of public-health measures, tests, treatments or vaccines. Other variants of concern include the Delta variant that is now dominant world-wide and the Alpha variant that drove a deadly wave of infections across Europe and the U.S. last winter and spring. While the scientists said they were still studying the exact combination of mutations of the new variant — currently dubbed B.1.1.529 — and how they affect the virus, its discovery underlines how changes to the virus’s genome continue to pose a risk to the world’s emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Russian officials are investigating Netflix after the public commissioner for protecting families accused the company of violating a “gay propaganda” law, according to Reuters. The commissioner claimed that some Netflix content with LGBTQIA+ themes was rated suitable for those aged 16 and older. The country’s laws do not allow the distribution of “propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations” among under 18s.
The Interior Ministry is said to be looking into the complaint. If Netflix is deemed to have broken the law, it faces a fine of up to a million rubles ($13,390). More significantly, the service could be temporarily suspended.
A Netflix source told Vedomosti the company didn’t find any LGBT content that was rated 16+ during a review earlier in November. The newspaper also reported this month that officials may ban streaming services from having shows and movies that depict “non-traditional sexual relationships and sexual deviations” in their libraries, including the likes of Fifty Shades of Gray and Billions.
The European Court of Human Rights determined in 2017 that the “propaganda” law, which was enacted in 2013, discriminates against LGBTQIA+ people and violates European treaty rules and the right to freedom of expression. Activists and Western states have also criticized the regulation.
Meanwhile, Russia is taking aim at foreign tech companies at a broader level. This week, it said the likes of Apple, Facebook parent Meta, Google, TikTok, Telegram and Twitter would need to set up official presences in the country by the end of the year, if they haven’t already done so.
