Lego sets are probably at the top of your kid’s wish list, and maybe they’re at the top of your personal list, too. With so many to choose from, you’ll be able to find one that makes a great gift for anyone who you know loves these little building bricks. Black Friday Lego deals are what to look for this time of year, because you can typically save at least 20 percent on a good number of sets. Yes, that often includes the most popular ones from the Star Wars, Super Mario, Harry Potter and other collections. In general, we always recommend using a price tracker when determining if a Lego deal is in fact a good one. Below, we’ve collected the best Lego Black Friday deals we could find right now.

You’ll find Lego deals across the board this holiday season at retailers like Amazon and Walmart, but don’t overlook Lego’s own site. If you join the free Lego Insiders program, you’ll build up points with each purchase that you can redeem in the future, get special discounts and sometimes get exclusive gifts when you buy.

While not a deal, arguably the hottest Lego for Black Friday will be the brand new Star Trek USS Enterprise set, which was announced recently. It has a whopping 3,600 pieces and will be a must-have for any Star Trek fans. The set will be available starting November 28 for $400.

Best Lego Black Friday deals

LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 2025 75418 for $27 (40 percent off)

LEGO Disney Frozen Advent Calendar 2025 43273 for $31 (32 percent off)

Lego Harry Potter Advent Calendar 2025 76456 for $39 (13 percent off)

LEGO Star Wars Brick-Built Star Wars Logo 75407 for $48 (20 percent off)

LEGO Star Wars Grogu with Hover Pram Building Toy Set 75403 for $65 (36 percent off)

LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon A New Hope 25th Anniversary Collectable Model 75375 for $68 (20 percent off)

LEGO Star Wars R2-D2 Building Toy Set 75379 for $80 (20 percent off)

LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle and Grounds 76419 for $136 (20 percent off)

LEGO Creator 3 in 1 Magical Unicorn Toy 31140 for $7 (32 percent off)

LEGO City Donut Truck Toy 60452 for $16 (20 percent off)

LEGO Speed Champions 2 Fast 2 Furious Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) Race Car 76917 for $18 (28 percent off)

LEGO Botanicals Happy Plants Building Toys 10349 for $20 (13 percent off)

LEGO Botanicals Mini Orchid Building Set 10343 for $24 (20 percent off)

LEGO Ideas Tuxedo Cat 21349 for $80 (20 percent off)

LEGO Art Hokusai The Great Wave Framed Japanese Wall Art Building Set 31208 for $85 (15 percent off)

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/lego-black-friday-deals-early-sales-include-up-to-40-percent-off-star-wars-and-disney-sets-155007870.html?src=rss

When Ford electrified its best-selling pickup truck, it pulled out the stops. The F-150 Lightning may look virtually identical to other versions of the pickup, but it’s smoother, faster, and obviously far, far more efficient than the ones that run on gas, diesel, or hybrid power. But the future of the country’s best-selling electric truck may be in doubt.

That’s according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, which claims that Ford’s management is “in active discussions about scrapping” the Lightning. Production had already been suspended a few weeks ago as a result of an aluminum shortage following a destructive fire at a supplier’s factory in New York, which Ford estimates may result in as much as $2 billion of losses to the company.

While Ford told Ars it doesn’t comment on speculation on its future product plans, the automaker said that “F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup truck in the US—despite new competition from CyberTruck, Chevy, GMC, Hummer and Rivian—and delivered record sales in Q3.”

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The volume of activity on Polymarket, one of the most popular prediction markets, has been significantly inflated by so-called wash trading in which users rapidly buy and sell the same contracts, according to a new study by Columbia University researchers. The “artificial trading,” as the authors call it, varied over time but accounted for an average of 25% of all buying and selling on Polymarket over the past three years, the researchers concluded.

The paper, which has not undergone peer review, was posted Thursday on the open-access research platform SSRN. The authors do not suggest that Polymarket itself was responsible for the wash trading, but they point to elements of the exchange’s crypto-based structure that make it possible.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At a site in Kenya, archaeologists recently unearthed layer upon layer of stone stools from deposits that span 300,000 years, and include a period of intense environmental upheaval. The oldest tools at the site date back to 2.75 million years ago. According to a recent study, the finds suggest that for hundreds of millennia, ancient hominins relied on the same stone tool technology as an anchor while the world changed around them.

Oldowan choppers dated to 1.7 million years ago, from Melka Kunture, Ethiopia.
Credit:
By Didier Descouens – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11291046

“An extraordinary story of cultural continuity”

George Washington University archaeologist David Braun and his colleagues recently unearthed stone tools from a 2.75 million-year-old layer of Kenyan sediment at a site called Nomorotukunan. They’re classic examples of a type of tools archaeologists call Oldowan: the earliest types of sharp-edged stone tools made by hominins. The tools unearthed at Nomorotukunan are some of the oldest Olduwan tools ever found; only three other Oldowan sites in Africa date back any farther than 2.6 million years ago.

These hand-sized chunks of river rock, with flakes chipped off one or two sides to make sharp edges, were cutting-edge technology (not sorry) from 2.9 million years ago until about 1.7 million years ago. In technical terms, that’s what’s called a long flipping time, enough to span several hominin species and more than one genus. The last hominins to use Oldowan tools looked very different, and probably lived and behaved very differently, from the first; over this huge span of time, the stone tool technology itself changed less than the beings using it.

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There are times when I feel like my AirPods are pure magic. It’s always impressive how they automatically shift from my Mac to my iPhone when I get a call, or how I don’t need to reconnect them to my iPad when I want to start watching a show. But when it comes to automatically swapping my audio over to Bluetooth speakers, they can get pretty jarring.

Often, speakers and audio outputs will take over audio from my AirPods when I’m wearing them. This happens every time I get in my car while wearing a single AirPod, usually while listening to music or podcasts (I would not recommend driving while using both AirPods). As soon as I turn on my car, bam, the media starts blaring through my car speakers, whether I want it to or not. Until recently, there was no remedy for this (other than manually pausing and then resuming playback from the AirPods themselves).

It seems like I wasn’t the only person annoyed be this, though. In iOS 26, Apple has introduced a dedicated setting that stops speakers from taking over your audio when you’re wearing your AirPods, or any other wireless headsets.

Here’s how to try it. On your iPhone running iOS 26 and above, go to Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity and then enable the new “Keep Audio with Headphones” setting.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Don’t worry. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use your car speakers or other audio outputs. Your device will still connect to your car speakers when they’re available, and you can switch to them manually using the Control Center.

As for the rest of your car, in iOS 26, Apple is also starting to play nice with AirPods and CarPlay, adding official support for AirPods in CarPlay systems. So, if you’re accessing content through CayPlay, you can continue using your AirPods to listen to music, or answer calls.

The best part? This won’t take away your AirPods’ auto-switching feature, as that’s powered by Handoff. If you want your AirPods to never automatically switch between any device, you can disable the Handoff feature from the AirPlay & Continuity menu.

The Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto, California, has some of the best real estate in the country, with a charming hodgepodge of homes ranging in style from Tudor revival to modern farmhouse and contemporary Mediterranean. It also has a gigantic compound that is home to Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan, and their daughters Maxima, August, and Aurelia. Their land has expanded to include 11 previously separate properties, five of which are connected by at least one property line.

The Zuckerberg compound’s expansion first became a concern for Crescent Park neighbors as early as 2016, due to fears that his purchases were driving up the market. Then, about five years later, neighbors noticed that a school appeared to be operating out of the Zuckerberg compound. This would be illegal under the area’s residential zoning code without a permit. They began a crusade to shut it down that did not end until summer 2025.

WIRED obtained 1,665 pages of documents about the neighborhood dispute—including 311 records, legal filings, construction plans, and emails—through a public record request filed to the Palo Alto Department of Planning and Development Services. (Mentions of “Zuckerberg” or “the Zuckerbergs” appear to have been redacted. However, neighbors and separate public records confirm that the property in question belongs to the family. The names of the neighbors who were in touch with the city were also redacted.)

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