Chaotic 10-player party-platformer Pico Park: Classic Edition just got a big, inadvertently free upgrade
The post Adored Party Game Accidentally Gets Permanently Stuck As Free On Steam appeared first on Kotaku.
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Amazon Big Deal Days is coming October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it’s over.
Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find.
Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.
New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
I’ve spent more than a decade reviewing laptops—which has involved a lot of battery and performance benchmarking—and I’ve been digging deep into the Amazon Prime Day sales to find you the best deals on laptops. If you’re thinking of investing in an upgrade, these are the discounts I’d recommend taking advantage of.
Dell is always a good bet for a solid, no-nonsense laptop that can cover the basics for most users, and that’s a perfect description of the Dell 15. It’s now available for $449.99 from Amazon rather than the original list price of $599.99, which is a notable reduction of $150 or 25 percent, making this laptop well worth snapping up.
You get a spacious 15.6-inch screen, a capable Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage for your money. Those specs aren’t going to break any benchmarking records, but aside from high-end gaming and demanding tasks like video editing, you’re going to be well-covered.
Who says Windows users can’t have MacBook-level quality laptops? The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge begs to differ, with its polished and elegant exterior, and powerful innards—you get a Snapdragon X Plus CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and a stylish 15.6-inch screen with this model, plus Galaxy AI on board.
If you’re not already convinced, Amazon Prime Day has lowered this laptop down to $684.99 from $899.99. It’s a versatile and capable laptop—with HDMI and microSD slots included—and it also meets the criteria for Microsoft’s Copilot+ program.
You don’t have to wander far on the internet to find someone singing the praises of the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air: It’s fast, it’s quiet, it’s cool, it’s lightweight, and it has all the build quality and software expertise you’d expect from Apple. It’s so good that it’s probably the best laptop for most people right now.
On top of all that, it’s also $200 off at Amazon, for the entry-level configuration—a drop of 20%. It combines that M4 processor with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. If you work your way up through the specs there are deals on the more expensive models as well—all available in four colors.
The Microsoft Surface Pro is the best two-in-one laptop and tablet combination you can get right now, and the 2024 Snapdragon X Elite configuration with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is down by a huge 36 percent in the Prime Day sales: It now costs $899.99 rather than the original $1,399.99.
After several false starts, Windows 11 is now equally at home in tablet or laptop mode, and the 13-inch touchscreen OLED is superb. Do bear in mind that you’ll need to attach a keyboard cover to get the most out of this device as a laptop—which you should be able to afford from the savings you’re making on the main device.
If you’re after a gaming laptop deal, you can’t do much better than the Alienware 16 Area-51: Its original price of $2,999.99 is a testament to how powerful this beast of a machine is, but you can now get $600 (or 20%) knocked off.
That’s still a significant chunk of money, but it’s a huge savings, and this is one of the most highly rated gaming laptops on the market—from a brand you can trust. You get an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070Ti GPU on the inside, so it’s packed with power.
Looking for something else? Retailers like Walmart and Best Buy have Prime Day competition sales that are especially useful if you don’t have Amazon Prime.
Walmart’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. ET through Oct. 12 and includes deals up to 50% off. It’s an especially good option if you have Walmart+.
Best Buy’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 12, and has some of the best tech sales online. It’s an especially good option if you’re a My Best Buy “Plus” or “Total” member.
Target’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 5 through Oct. 11, and it has deals going up to 50% off. You can become a Circle member for free.
The Roborock QV 35A delivers ultra-effective vacuuming and mopping, while its all-in-one dock automatically empties debris and washes the mop pads.
The post Roborock QV 35A at 40% Off Eliminates Cleaning Stress, Now Cheaper Than a Mid-Range Stick Vacuum appeared first on Kotaku.
Last week System76 released the Pop!_OS 24.04 beta along with the beta COSMIC desktop. This long overdue update to Pop!_OS re-bases against the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base while featuring their modern, Rust-based desktop environment. For those curious I ran some benchmarks of Pop!_OS 24.04 beta compared to the current Pop!_OS 22.04 stable release.
Cali chip giant insists single-board computer house will remain independentQualcomm has acquired Arduino, maker of microcontrollers (and now single-board computers), in a move designed to boost its presence in edge computing, as evidenced by a new Arduino product based on one of its Dragonwing chips.…
Act now before the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price rises to $29.99/month as announced by Microsoft in early October.
The post Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Just Got Cheaper, Amazon Quietly Sells Digital Codes for Prime Day appeared first on Kotaku.
TiVo, the digital video recording pioneer, has moved on from its legacy DVR technology, focusing instead on its branded operating system software promoting third-party content searches, recommendation, including free ad-supported streaming options and more for smart televisions. From a report: “As of Oct. 1, 2025, TiVo has stopped selling Edge DVR hardware products,” the company said in an AI-based message. The recording said that the company and its associates no longer manufacture DVR hardware, “and our remaining inventory is now depleted.” TiVo said it remains “committed to providing support for our DVR customers and will continue to provide support for the foreseeable future.” TiVo in 1999 created the first set-top device enabling users to record and skip ads within television programming.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This LEGO set featuring Hagrid is hitting an all-time low price for the final day of Amazon’s Big Deal Day.
The post LEGO Clears Out Harry Potter Stock, Hagrid’s Hut Selling for Mere Pennies appeared first on Kotaku.
Nintendo has released a second version of the animated short that confused many fans and is now likely to have made some of those who guessed what was going on feeling very pleased with themselves. The video appears to be the same as the one that the company foisted upon the world on Tuesday, but there’s one critical difference. This time, you can more clearly see Pikmin moving a a baby’s building blocks and pacifier around its bedroom.
The little creatures were invisible in the first version of the video for the most part, though there was an out-of-focus one running underneath the tot’s crib. Well done you, if you spotted that, or noticed the nods to Pikmin music in the short’s score.
According to the Pikmin Bloom mobile game, Pikmin are invisible to humans, which is likely why the tot’s mother doesn’t react to them here. The parent is probably more interested in her kiddo’s apparent first steps than how the pacifier got caught in the mobile above the crib, anyway.
As with the first version of the short, the updated video first appeared in the Nintendo Today app — we’ll update this story to include a version from elsewhere once it’s available. Nintendo clearly really wants fans to use that to get major announcements from the company first.
Being able to see the Pikmin in all their glory this time around does clear up one key question about the initial short (which is now even more adorable), but another one remains. Just what the heck is Nintendo actually teasing here? It’s unclear whether the company has a new Pikmin game up its sleeve or whether it’s making a movie about the lil’ critters. It could be something else entirely! Perhaps another version of the short is coming to clear that up.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendos-mystery-animated-short-is-in-fact-for-a-pikmin-project-135410770.html?src=rss
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is going free for an entire week
The post <i>Call Of Duty</i> Hits The Emergency Red Button To Prevent A <i>Battlefield</i> Comeback appeared first on Kotaku.
Sorry to Rosalina fans, but the ‘Close to You’ short has been updated and it’s got the little plant guys running around
The post Nintendo’s Mysterious Animated Short Was A <em>Pikmin</em> Tease After All appeared first on Kotaku.
If you finally got your hands on a Nintendo Switch 2 and have been loading it up with games, the thought of storage expansion may have crossed your mind by now (maybe more than once). But since the Switch 2 is only compatible with newer microSD Express cards, the pickings are slim at the moment. You can’t just buy any microSD card on sale for Prime Day — but day two of the sale has brought some new deals on microSD Express cards, specifically. The most affordable of the bunch is this 128GB PNY microSD Express card, which is 15 percent off for Prime members and down to $38.
Engadget’s Jeff Dunn has been testing microSD Express cards since the Switch 2 launched. The best microSD Express card for Switch 2 at the moment is really the one you can most easily afford. While the cards he’s tried out so far didn’t perform identically in our benchmark tests, the differences in overall performance and load times will be tough for most people to notice. Thankfully, the ones he’s tested so far have been good — there isn’t a bad one in the bunch, and while the most consistent performer was the SanDisk microSD Express card, you won’t really sacrifice by getting a different one. In fact, at least in the case of Prime Day deals, you’ll be gaining by saving some cash.
PNY’s card in particular was actually slightly faster than SanDisk’s in our testing when it came to moving games from the card back to the Switch 2’s internal storage. However, it was a bit slower in writing games to the card itself. That just means you may wait a few extra minutes before you can open Mario Kart World and get to racing, but for most people, the difference will be negligible.
Also on sale for Prime Day are two configurations of Lexar’s Play Pro microSD card. The 256GB version is down to $50, while the 512GB model is on sale for $100. That’s 17 percent off each and the lowest they’ve been. If you’re hoping to make a one-and-done purchase and you already plan on packing your console with the best Switch 2 games, we’d recommend getting the card with the highest capacity that’s still within your budget.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/nintendo-switch-2-compatible-microsd-express-cards-are-on-sale-for-the-first-time-thanks-to-prime-day-134147311.html?src=rss
We’ve never seen a hair dryer as powerful and safe as this one.
The post Dyson Is Going All In, Its Iconic Hair Dryer Is Now Selling for a New Record Low on Amazon appeared first on Kotaku.
Following last week’s RISC-V pull request that brought support for the MIPS Vendor Extensions and other changes plus separately the SoC pull that added mainline ESWIN EIC7700 SoC support and the HiFive Premier P550, a secondary round of RISC-V architecture updates was submitted for the Linux 6.18 merge window…
OpenAI and Anthropic are considering using investor funds to settle potential claims from multibillion-dollar lawsuits, as insurers balk at providing comprehensive coverage for the risks associated with artificial intelligence.
The two US-based AI start-ups have traditional business insurance coverage in place, but insurance professionals said AI model providers will struggle to secure protection for the full scale of damages they may need to pay out in the future.
OpenAI, which has tapped the world’s second-largest insurance broker Aon for help, has secured cover of up to $300 million for emerging AI risks, according to people familiar with the company’s policy.
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Amazon Big Deal Days is October 7-8, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it’s over.
Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find.
Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.
New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
The iPad Air is the best iPad for most users. It features an 11-inch screen, Touch ID sensor, M3 processor, and sufficient RAM to power even pro-level workflows, along with the new free-flowing windowing features introduced with iPadOS 16. For Prime Day, the 11-inch iPad Air with 128GB storage is now just $449, $150 off its usual selling price. This is tied with the lowest rate I’ve seen yet, matching the discount from a previous Prime Day sale.
The device has an 11-inch Liquid Retina display with 500 nits of brightness and 2360×1640 resolution. It’s powered by the M3 chip from last year, which remains highly capable, featuring an 8-core CPU, a 9-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. There’s also 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.
The iPad Air is compatible with both the USB-C Apple Pencil and the Apple Pencil Pro, which offer additional features such as Squeeze to Select, Barrel Roll for rotating pen tips, haptic feedback, and more. In its expert review, PCMag gave the M3 iPad Air a 4-star rating and an Editor’s Choice award, noting, “[The] iPad Air remains the best choice for students and creators who need a powerful tablet at a decent price.”
If you’re looking for a smaller iPad, consider the iPad mini, which is now $120 off, the lowest price I’ve seen yet for the compact and portable tablet. The regular iPad, on the other hand, is also discounted to $279.
Looking for something else? Retailers like Walmart and Best Buy have Prime Day competition sales that are especially useful if you don’t have Amazon Prime.
Walmart’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. ET through Oct. 12 and includes deals up to 50% off. It’s an especially good option if you have Walmart+.
Best Buy’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 12, and has some of the best tech sales online. It’s an especially good option if you’re a My Best Buy “Plus” or “Total” member.
Target’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 5 through Oct. 11, and it has deals going up to 50% off. You can become a Circle member for free.
This power bank delivers emergency smartphone charging without hogging space in your bag.
The post Credit-Card Sized, Our Favorite 10,000mAh 45W Power Bank Is Going for Pennies appeared first on Kotaku.
