The Apple Watch Series 9 is only a few months old, but it’s already on sale. You can grab the smartwatch for $349 from Amazon or from Walmart as part of an early Black Friday deal. The standard price is $399, so that’s a savings of $50 or 13 percent. The discount only applies to the 41mm model but includes multiple band and color options. The larger 45mm model is also on sale, but for $379.

We admired the watch in our review, calling out many positive aspects. The newly-launched double tap feature is actually useful, the health and fitness tracking is as good as ever and the voice control options are on-point, thanks to having Siri on-board the actual watch. Previously, the watch interacted with your phone to call up Siri responses, so everything works much quicker now.

This opens up plenty of new use case scenarios for the watch. You can ask it all about various health metrics, fitness goals and even how long you slept. You can raise the watch to your mouth to activate the digital assistant or say “Hey Siri” as usual. We had a bit of trouble with the former, but a software update should patch that right up.

We dinged the battery life a bit, as the Series 9 peters out after around 12 to 18 hours of use, depending on what you’re doing with the watch. This is not a huge issue, but does impact the sleep-tracking features because when else are you supposed to charge it if it doesn’t last an entire day and night? Beyond that, the $400 price tag is a bit difficult to swallow, but this sale certainly puts a bandage on that issue.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-series-9-drops-to-349-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-200224064.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – The Apple Watch Series 9 drops to 9 in an Amazon Black Friday deal

Cruise, General Motors’ driverless car subsidiary, will soon lay off employees. According to Forbes, the company’s CEO Kyle Vogt told staff of the decision in an all-hands meeting earlier this week. Cruise hasn’t yet decided who or how many people will lose their jobs, Vogt said, but promised to provide more details in the next three weeks. The company will also conduct internal “listening sessions”, and explore building websites detailing collisions Cruise cars are involved in, Forbes said.

The news comes on the heels of multiple crises facing the company since October after a Cruise robotaxi dragged a San Francisco pedestrian thrown into its path more than 20 feet before braking to a halt. That incident caused California’s DMV to revoke Cruise’s operating permit in the state. In a statement, the DMV said that Cruise’s vehicles “are not safe for the public’s operation”, and said that Cruise had “misrepresented” information relating to the safety of its autonomous vehicles.

Weeks after the incident, Cruise, which operated in San Francisco, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix, fully paused its driverless operations. This week, General Motors recalled Cruise’s entire fleet of 950 robotaxis.

Other reports, based on Cruise’s internal safety documents, showed that the car’s algorithms had trouble identifying children, something that Cruise employees knew about.

On Wednesday, Cruise published a blog post responding to the recent events. The company said that it was looking to hire a Chief Safety Officer who would report directly to Vogt. Cruise will also hire a third-party law firm to review its response to the October incident. The firm, Quinn Emmanuel, is known for its work for Tesla and Elon Musk, CNBC noted.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cruise-is-reportedly-planning-to-lay-off-employees-after-weeks-of-crises-195546324.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Cruise is reportedly planning to lay off employees after weeks of crises

Lego just unveiled another set based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and boy is it a doozy. The massive 5,200-piece Avengers Tower set measures nearly three feet tall and ships with 31 minifigures, including Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige. It also includes several dioramas that let you create many of the important scenes that took place in Avengers Tower, from the Chitauri battle of the original film to the party scene from Age of Ultron and beyond.

The set releases on November 24 and will cost an eye-watering $500. Still, this is the 17th-largest collection the company has ever made and the one with the most minifigures. Beyond Feige, other figures include Captain America, Thor, Loki, some Ultron drones and just about every other major character that appeared in Avengers Tower throughout the films. There’s even an appropriately-scaled Hulk.

Winter is almost upon us and Airbnb has announced a new feature that could help folks avoid fumbling for keys while wearing a bunch of layers. Starting in the US and Canada later this year, Airbnb hosts who are in the invite-only Early Access program will be able to link compatible smart locks to their Airbnb account and generate a unique code for each reservation. Guests will then be able to input the code in the Airbnb app to open the lock. At the outset, Airbnb will support some models from Schlage, August and Yale.

That could make some Airbnb pain points much easier to deal with. Hosts won’t have to worry about bad actors sharing entry codes with other people after they check out, and guests should find it more straightforward to find and enter their code. They also won’t have to download a separate app if they’re staying at a place that uses a compatible smart lock.

Airbnb is making a string of other changes as part of its winter update. You’ll be able to access a collection of the 2 million most-loved homes on the platform. These Guest Favorites all have an average rating of above 4.9 with high marks for things like value, the check in process, cleanliness, listing accuracy, host communication and location. Hosts of Guest Favorites will all have strong track records of reliability and almost two-thirds of the listings are from Superhosts.

You’ll soon start seeing a badge denoting a listing as a Guest Favorite on the listing page and in search results. There’ll also be an option to filter results by Guest Favorites.

Elsewhere, you’ll be able to sort reviews by recency or rating, while a new chart should make the distribution of reviews on the five-star scale easier to grok. When you leave a review, you’ll be able to include more details that may be useful for context, such as where you’re from, how long you stayed and whether you traveled with family, another group or pets. Airbnb is starting to roll out the reviews and Guest Favorites updates this week.

Since last year, Airbnb has been making its pricing more transparent. To that end, service fees will now be included in the prices that hosts set. According to Airbnb, that will give hosts a better idea of how much guests are paying overall. It should be easier for hosts to compare their prices to similar listings through the calendar too.

Hosts will have access to other new listing tools, such as an Ai-powered photo tour. Airbnb says its AI engine can recognize photos and assign them to up to 19 rooms to help guests better understand the layouts of properties. Hosts will be able to edit the photo tour whenever they like and pinpoint amenities in each room.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/airbnb-will-soon-let-you-open-smart-locks-in-its-app-192753343.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Airbnb will soon let you open smart locks in its app

In addition to music and podcasts, Spotify has recently been working to cement its presence in the audiobook space. Today, the company announced Premium users in the US will be able to stream 15 hours of free audiobook content monthly as a part of their subscription. This offering was previously only available to Premium users in the UK and Australia.

The company says there’s no need for users to do anything. Audiobooks that are available to stream will be marked as “Included in Premium” and users can hit play right away. Spotify notes that 15 hours is roughly two average audiobooks per month. If you end up hitting the limit, you can purchase a 10-hour top-up.

The company says its Spotify Premium audiobook catalog now has something for everyone. Users with a Premium subscription can access over 70 percent of today’s bestsellers, including Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me and Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend. There are also many classic pieces of literature, like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Spotify believes its listeners will “love exploring the depths of our 200,000-strong catalog, unearthing genres from ‘cozy mystery’ to ‘historical romance.'”

Books that aren’t eligible for free streaming will need to be purchased outright. Those books will have a lock on the play button, which means you’ll need to purchase the title. To make a purchase, you’ll follow a link to your browser. Once that’s completed, you’ll be taken back to the app to listen to your new book. All your purchased titles will show up in your library and be available for offline listening. Spotify also gives you the option to control playback speed so you can listen at your own pace.

It makes sense that Spotify has included audiobooks in its app, but there are a few things that may deter users from tapping in. Yes, having a single place to listen to your music, podcasts and books is convenient but unlike with music and podcasts, you have a streaming limit here. Additionally, only a limited number of books are free to stream with your $11 subscription. While Audible also charges a subscription fee, users get one book to own every month, which may make it the more appealing and affordable option for some.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-subscribers-in-the-us-now-get-15-hours-of-audiobooks-every-month-192000398.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Spotify subscribers in the US now get 15 hours of audiobooks every month