Nothing has announced that it will allow users to delete Facebook, Instagram and other Meta services from its mid-range and entry-level phones after users objected to the company’s decision to pre-install these apps. The update will arrive by the end of November for devices running the Android 16-based OS 4.0 on the Phone (3a) series. Nothing said it will continue to pre-install partner apps on non-flagship devices in most regions.
Devices in the United Kingdom, European Union and Japan will also come with TikTok installed by default. The company defended the practice by saying most users rely on these apps and that pre-installing them allows faster cold starts. Carl Pei’s company blamed razor-thin margins on mid-range devices for the decision to bundle third-party software. Nothing did not address whether users can uninstall the service that powers newly introduced lock screen advertisements, which the company previously described as disabled by default and standard across the industry.
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It’s not Black Friday yet, but OLED TVs are already dropping to new record-low prices. Last week, the LG G5 OLED TV dropped to its lowest price, and now, Samsung’s OLED S95F TV has followed suit. You can get the 65-inch for $2,297.99 (originally $2,997.99), the lowest price, according to price-tracking tools. The 55-, 77-, and 83-inch models also have good discounts right now.
As you probably already know, OLED TVs offer the best colors and contrast ratio that money can buy. Of course, you’ll have to pay up to experience the best (but you can still shop for budget options). Two of the biggest downsides of OLED TVs, though, are that they can suffer from the notorious burn-in effect and that they don’t get as bright as QLED or LED TVs, so they’re better suited for dimmer or theater rooms. But that seems to be turning a corner in 2025, at least for brightness. The S95F can reach 1,364 nits, which is not the brightest OLED, but it’s much better than most. Where it shines is with reflections. Its matte coating makes it the least reflective OLED TV, and combined with its brightness, it makes for a great daytime OLED TV.
The HDR highlights make this a great TV for shows and TVs with compatible with HDR10 and HDR10+. Gaming is also smooth with its low input lag of 4.8 ms at 4K resolution and 60 Hz and high refresh rate of 120 Hz (supports up to 160 Hz). PCMag praised the S95F’s advanced speaker system in their “excellent” review—just be aware that there is no Dolby Vision for movies. If you care about brightness and Dolby Vision, go with the LG G5; but if you prefer the matte anti-reflective display and care about quality audio, the S95F is the better choice.
Quantum computers based on ions or atoms have one major advantage: the hardware itself isn’t manufactured, so there’s no device-to-device variability. Every atom is the same and should perform similarly every time. And since the qubits themselves can be moved around, it’s theoretically possible to entangle any atom or ion with any other in the system, allowing for a lot of flexibility in how algorithms and error correction are performed.
This combination of consistent, high-fidelity performance with all-to-all connectivity has led many key demonstrations of quantum computing to be done on trapped-ion hardware. Unfortunately, the hardware has been held back a bit by relatively low qubit counts—a few dozen compared to the hundred or more seen in other technologies. But on Wednesday, a company called Quantinuum announced a new version of its trapped-ion hardware that significantly boosts the qubit count and uses some interesting technology to manage their operation.
Trapped-ion computing
Both neutral atom and trapped-ion computers store their qubits in the spin of the nucleus. That spin is somewhat shielded from the environment by the cloud of electrons around the nucleus, giving these qubits a relatively long coherence time. While neutral atoms are held in place by a network of lasers, trapped ions are manipulated via electromagnetic control based on the ion’s charge. This means that key components of the hardware can be built using standard electronic manufacturing, although lasers are still needed for manipulations and readout.
DAZN, a sports streaming service that covers everything from MMA to golf, is now available as an add-on subscription through Amazon Prime Video in the US and UK. The streaming service was previously available in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Canada.
Subscribing to DAZN requires an additional $30 a month subscription on top of what users already pay for Prime Video ($9 a month for a standalone plan or the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription). The service includes access to a mixture of live sports coverage including “more than 185 fight nights per year” and “over 300 live soccer games from Italy’s Lega Series A,” according to Amazon.
While it costs extra, the service makes for a nice complement to the sports content that’s already available through Prime Video for no additional fee, like Thursday Night Football, select NBA games, the NASCAR Cup Series and the Masters golf tournament in 2026.
Access to live games is increasingly the defining feature of most video streaming platforms. Amazon has its carveouts, YouTube TV has NFL Sunday Ticket and Apple continues to hold down MLS and now, F1 racing.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/dazn-is-available-through-amazon-prime-video-in-the-us-and-uk-195348836.html?src=rss
The company promises a “sleek” new look, but that’s not the only change. This visual redesign should make it much easier to quickly glance at recent songs you’ve identified via the Home tab. They now appear directly on the home screen.
There’s also a revamped toolbar that lets you quickly swap between different tabs, including one that lists nearby concerts. The search icon is now separated into its own button on the bottom of the app.
The Steam Deck just got a smart quality-of-life update that allows it to stretch further into the realm of proper dedicated gaming devices. Valve has added a new display-off, low-power mode that lets the handheld finish downloading games or updates before it goes fully to sleep—perfect for queueing up those big game installs overnight.
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If you’re looking for a new QLED TV for everyday gaming and watching TV shows and movies, the 2025 Samsung 50” QN90F Neo QLED TV is a smart option, offering high-end picture performance for an LED TV. Right now, it’s $997.99 (originally $1,397.99) on Amazon, marking a 25% discount and its lowest price ever, according to price tracking tools.
The QN90F uses Mini-LED backlight technology, which delivers impressive high peak brightness. This translates into excellent visibility in bright rooms, and even when facing glare and reflections, thanks to its Glare-Free screen treatment. Its NQ4 AI Gen2 processor analyzes scenes to boost brightness and upscale content to 4K. According to this PCMag review, it delivers high contrast, deep blacks, and almost no light bloom (its peak brightness even surpasses most OLED TVs).
While it doesn’t have Dolby Vision, the TV includes a Dolby Atmos speaker system, offering fuller sound than the stereo speakers found on many other TVs. PCMag also considers it a solid choice for gamers: The TV has four HDMI ports and two USB ports; while it has a 120Hz native refresh rate, it can support a VRR of up to 165 Hz refresh rate and features AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. The Tizen OS OS platform is powerful and supports most streaming apps, though some users note that menu navigation can feel a bit clunky, and input settings can be hard to access.
Ultimately, if you want a feature-packed, visually capable QLED TV that performs well in bright rooms, the Samsung 50” QN90F Neo QLED TV is a compelling choice. It can’t quite match the infinite blacks of an OLED, but at 25% off and at a sub $1,000 price point, it offers strong value for its class.
Solar geoengineering could increase the ferocity of North Atlantic hurricanes, cause the Amazon rainforest to die back and cause drought in parts of Africa if deployed above only some parts of the planet by rogue actors, a report has warned. The Guardian: However, if technology to block the sun was used globally and in a coordinated way for a long period — decades or even centuries — there is strong evidence that it would lower the global temperature, the review from the UK’s Royal Society concluded.
The world is failing to halt the climate crisis and the researchers said that in future, a judgment might need to be made between the risks of geoengineering and the those of continued global heating, which is already costing lives and livelihoods. The logistics of a large-scale geoengineering effort would be daunting, the experts said, but the cost would be small relative to climate action — billions of dollars a year against trillions.
The researchers emphasised that geoengineering only masked the symptoms of the climate crisis, and did not tackle the root cause — the burning of fossil fuels. Geoengineering could only complement the cutting of emissions, not replace it, they said. If geoengineering was halted abruptly but emissions had not been reduced, there would be a termination shock of rapidly rising temperatures — 1-2C within a couple of decades — that would have severe effects on people and ecosystems unable to rapidly adapt.
Google and Disney have been in a contract dispute since October 30 that has resulted in YouTube TV subscribers losing access to 21 Disney-owned TV channels, including ABC, ESPN, and The Disney Channel.
In addition to reducing access to popular live content, the corporate conflict is highlighting another frustration in the streaming era. As Google and Disney continue duking it out, their customers have lost some access to content they thought was permanent: DVR files and digital movie purchases.
A perk of subscribing to YouTube TV, per Google’s marketing, is the ability to “record it all with unlimited DVR space.” A footnote on the YouTube TV homepage notes that unlimited DVR is subject to “device, regional, and Internet restrictions” but overlooks an additional restriction in the form of multi-conglomerate spats.
Your house is supposed to be your refuge from the weather, a place where you can feel comfortable no matter how frigid it gets outside. But with rising utility costs, keeping your house warm can be more of a challenge than it used to be—and even if you’re proactive about defending against the cold, your home can still take a wintry beating.
Now’s the time to take action. Home maintenance products designed to defend your home against freezing temperatures, blowing snow, and freezing damage will not only make your home more comfortable, but also hardened against winter damage.
The basics
There are a few simple purchases you shouldn’t skip this year—even if the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a moderate season.
Space heaters. No matter how much effort you put into it, your house (or specific areas of it) may still be chillier than you want. A solid space heater or two will serve you well.
Caulk. Re-caulking windows and doors will help keep out drafts and protect your home from water and ice damage. You can even use a caulk with a built-in trigger so you don’t need a caulking gun.
If you live in an area where it snows, you know you’ve got some shoveling in your future. In this day and age, however, doing that shoveling manually is just a way to destroy your back and ruin your day. A cordless power shovel will make clearing those steps, sidewalks, and driveways a lot easier, and get you inside for cocoa a lot faster.
Thermal curtains
If you’ve taken the basic steps to stop drafts from coming into the house but you’re still feeling the chill near your windows, thermal curtains will add a layer of insulation to hold back that cold air. Bonus: They’ll do similar work in the summer, helping your home to stay cool.
Frozen pipes are a nightmare. Leaving a strategically chosen faucet to drip during cold snaps can help prevent your pipes from bursting, but it won’t actually stop them from freezing. You need two things: Pipe insulation tape (or foam covers, though the tape is more flexible and easier to adapt), and pipe temperature monitors like this one, or this one. The insulation can help keep your pipes warm, and the monitors will give you some warning if things are headed toward a freezing disaster.
If you want to be really proactive about frozen pipes, you could also invest in pipe heat cables, which will keep your pipes at a steady temperature and make freezing pretty much impossible as long as you have power.
Garage door insulation kit
Your garage door is just slightly better than having a huge, garage-sized open space on your house. If you want to have a warmer home overall, sealing up that drafty garage door with an insulation kit is a good start. It’s relatively easy to apply, and will make a difference in terms of drafts and heat transfer without compromising your door’s operation. Bonus: It also works to reduce sound transfer, making your garage a little quieter.
Your roof is (hopefully) built to handle snow loads, but that doesn’t mean having several feet of heavy snow sitting on it for weeks or months is a good idea. You can shovel your roof if you’re careful, but a good roof rake is a safer and easier option. You can also invest in some roof heat cables—these can prevent ice dams, which occur when your home’s interior heat melts roof snow, which then re-freezes at the edges, causing leaks and expensive damage.
Faucet covers
All the pipe insulation in the world won’t help if you have exterior spigots or faucets on your house. These fixtures can freeze, too, and cause damage to both the exterior and interior of your home. To prevent that, pick up a few inexpensive faucet covers and pop them on every exterior fixture you have.
Zwift’s latest update includes a new frame from London-based Brompton, and it’s sure to turn some heads! The first Brompton in game, the P Line, will feature in an upcoming Virtual Brompton World Championship series (watch Zwift Insider for a post with details). Here’s what it looks like IRL:
Brompton sells several models: an A, C, G, P, and T Line. The P line is a lighter, performance-oriented 4-speed titanium and steel build.
We’ll all be riding the P Line during the Virtual World Champs events, but you can purchase it to keep today. To do so, you’ll need to be updated to game version 1.101+. You’ll also need to be at level 10+ with 600,000 Drops to spend! Here’s how it’s described in the Drop Shop:
“Ride a British icon. The folding bike hand built in London since 1975. Portable, foldable, unstoppable. Probably not aerodynamical… but mega fun to ride!”
It’s rated just 1 star for aero and weight, so we didn’t expect this frame to be anything close to a fast contender. Still, since the 4-star system isn’t the most granular of performance measurements, we ran this frame through our precise tests to measure performance at nerd-level detail. Let’s dive in!
Note: test results below are from a 75kg, 183cm rider holding 300W steady using the Brompton P Line wheels on the un-upgraded version of the frame.
Aero (Flat/Rolling) Performance
The P Line isn’t a terribly aero bike, and that’s reflected in its performance in our flat tests. It turned in a time 7.8 seconds slower than our baseline Zwift Carbon bike.
That makes it the third-slowest bike on Zwift, approximately on par with the Zwift Safety Bike.
Climb Performance
The Brompton’s climbing performance is, comparatively, much worse than its aero performance. Which seems a bit unfair, given this is the P Line with its lightened frame and a stated weight of only 21.8lb! That puts it just 20 seconds behind the Buffalo Fahrrad (which weighs around 50 lbs IRL, but is much lighter on Zwift) in a full climb up Alpe du Zwift.
It also means it’s the second-worst climbing road bike in Zwift (not counting gravel or MTB), with a time 96.5 seconds behind our baseline Zwift Carbon bike.
Upgrading the Brompton P Line
Like all frames in Zwift, your Brompton can be upgraded in five stages. It is grouped with entry-level road bikes, so only the first three stages yield performance improvements. The Brompton P Line’s upgrade stages are as follows:
Ride 100km, pay 25,000 Drops for an aero upgrade
Ride 130km, pay 50,000 Drops for a weight reduction
Ride 160km, pay 75,000 Drops for a drivetrain efficiency improvement
Ride 190km, pay 100,000 Drops to enable a 5% Drops bonus when riding this bike
Ride 220km, pay 150,000 Drops to enable a 5% XP bonus when riding this bike
You can expect a fully-upgraded (level 3+) Brompton P Line to be approximately 28 seconds faster on a flat hour and 36 seconds faster on an hour-long climb vs the “stock” Brompton P Line.
Upgrading the Brompton P Line
Like Zwift’s mountain bike frames, the Brompton P Line can use only one wheelset in game, aptly named the “Brompton P Line.” So you won’t be able to upgrade the bike’s wheels for improved overall performance.
Conclusions
The Brompton P Line isn’t going to set any speed records on Zwift, but it sure will turn heads. With Bromptons being popular among commuting Brits, I predict we’ll see lots of IRL Brompton owners buying this bike as a fun addition to their Zwift garage, for use in non-competitive, easier efforts.
A Note About Colorways
Notably, Zwift has included two different colorways with your Brompton P Line purchase. (I’m not sure this has ever been done in the past.) You have the standard one-color look, which includes a color slider. Then you have a funky custom paintjob that includes the Tour de France logo on the top tube. See both below:
Questions or Comments?
What do you think of this new addition from Brompton? Share below…
Important note: this post contains speed test results for Zwift frames or wheels. These results may change over time, and a bike’s performance relative to others may also change. We don’t always revise posts when performance rankings change, but we do keep current, master versions of our speed test results which are always available. See the frame charts, wheel charts, and Tron vs Top Performers for current performance data.
Fitbit is holding an early Black Friday and there are plenty of noteworthy deals. The Charge 6 fitness tracker is on sale for $100, which is a nice discount of $60 and 38 percent off. The deal applies to multiple colorways.
The Charge 6 topped our list of the best fitness trackers, and for good reason. It features built-in GPS, which means it doesn’t have to be tethered to a phone when doing some cardio. The heart rate monitor is much more accurate when compared to the Charge 5 and the battery lasts a full week before requiring a trip to the outlet.
All told, it tracks 20 exercise types, in addition to sleep. The Charge 6 features a full-color AMOLED display that’s easy on the eyes and a relatively thin design. This makes it feel fairly premium, especially when compared to rival devices.
On the downside, there’s no real integration with Apple Health. This could be a dealbreaker for some. Also, some health data is hidden behind a Fitbit Premium paywall. That service costs $10 each month.
This isn’t the only Fitbit product on sale right now. The Inspire 3 fitness tracker is available for $70, which is a discount of 30 percent.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/fitbit-black-friday-deals-are-here-early-and-one-of-our-favorite-fitness-trackers-is-on-sale-for-100-185704387.html?src=rss
Direct File, the free, government-provided alternative to services like TurboTax, won’t be available for the 2026 tax season, Bloomberg Tax reports. That’s based on a letter sent from the Internal Revenue Service to participating states that says that “no launch date has been set for the future.”
A Biden administration project, Direct File was designed to be an easy way for eligible taxpayers to file taxes online, without having to pay for a service like TurboTax or H&R Block to do it on their behalf. The IRS began piloting Direct File for the 2024 tax season, and opted to make it a permanent option later that year. Direct File was available for the most recent 2025 tax season in 25 states in the US.
Despite the service’s success, the Trump administration appears to opposed to offering Direct File in its current form. The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July 2025 includes funding for the IRS to research “the cost to replace any direct e-file programs run by the Internal Revenue Service” and “the cost of developing and running a free direct e-file tax return system.” Whatever the results of that research, later in July, former IRS Commissioner Billy Long seemed to suggest the e-filing option had been eliminated. “You’ve heard of Direct File, that’s gone,” Long said at a tax professional summit. “Big beautiful Billy wiped that out.”
Engadget has contacted the IRS to confirm that Direct File won’t be offered in 2026. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
While the IRS has yet to formally announce that Direct File is going away outside of Long’s comments, the tool is currently unavailable through the IRS website. Additionally, the position to lead the Direct File project inside the IRS is currently vacant under acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-irs-free-tax-filing-tool-reportedly-wont-be-offered-in-2026-185430716.html?src=rss
Financial Times: Deutsche Bank is exploring ways to hedge its exposure to data centres after extending billions of dollars in debt to the sector to keep up with demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Executives inside the bank have discussed ways to manage its exposure to the booming industry as so-called hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions of dollars into building infrastructure for their AI needs that is increasingly funded by debt.
The German lender is looking at options including shorting a basket of AI-related stocks that would help mitigate downside risk by betting against companies in the sector. It is also considering buying default protection on some of the debt using derivatives through a transaction known as synthetic risk transfer (SRT).
Deutsche’s investment banking business has “bet big” on data centre financing, according to one senior executive. However, the scale of expenditure on AI infrastructure has prompted concerns that a bubble is forming with some likening the enthusiasm to that which preceded the dotcom crash. Sceptics have pointed out that billions of dollars have been deployed in an untested industry with assets that quickly depreciate in value due to the rapid change in technology.
The outlook for future generations isn’t looking so great. The UN released its annual Emissions Gap Report on Tuesday, and the news is mostly bad. The world’s projected climate path falls far short of the Paris Agreement targets. Although the 2025 projections are slightly better than last year’s, some of that improvement is due to the report’s methodological changes. The UN also notes that the upcoming US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will basically cancel that out.
The UN measures progress based on projections of rising temperatures (relative to pre-industrial levels) by 2030. The Paris Agreement’s goals are to limit that to 2 degrees Celsius (while pursuing a path to 1.5 degrees C). The current projections are well above both numbers: 2.3 to 2.5 degrees C.
Those numbers compare to 2.5 to 2.8 degrees C in last year’s report, but the improvement is partially chalked up to methodological changes. The report states that the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in January 2026 will wipe out around 0.1 degrees C of progress.
Wildfires
Matt Palmer / Unsplash
Getting the temperature rise down to 1.5 degrees C by 2100 is still possible, but it appears increasingly unlikely. To get there, the world would need to cut emissions by 55 percent by 2035. Meanwhile, to achieve 2 degrees C of warming by 2030, those cuts would need to reach 35 percent. As the report bleakly puts it, national pledges and the current geopolitical situation “do not provide promising signs that this will happen.”
“Given the size of the cuts needed, the short time available to deliver them and a challenging political climate, a higher exceedance of 1.5 degrees C will happen, very likely within the next decade,” the UN says. The best hope for reaching the long-term goals now lies in reversing that change after the fact. However, that carries the risk of crossing “irreversible climate tipping points,” such as the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet.
Of course, rising temperatures alone aren’t the only things to worry about. Cascading effects would include crop losses (and food insecurity), water scarcity, wildfires, coastal flooding and coral reef collapse. You also can’t ignore the geopolitical implications, as desperate migrants flee uninhabitable regions, crowding the more livable ones.
A small silver lining is that solar and wind energy development has exceeded expectations, making their expansion easier and cheaper. The UN notes that CO2 removal tech could eventually help supplement policy changes, but that approach is “uncertain, risky and costly.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/un-emissions-report-the-planet-is-falling-well-short-of-its-climate-targets-184255639.html?src=rss
