It was only last August that Sony raised PS5 console prices in the US, blaming a “challenging economic environment” at the time. Today it has slightly tweaked the phrasing to “continued pressures in the global economic landscape,” but the outcome is the same: price rises across the board, this time even affecting the PS Portal handheld.

Starting April 2, the price of the standard PS5 (that’s the one with the disc drive) is going up to $650. That’s a whopping $100 hike, or $150 if you go back to before the August price increases. The Digital Edition is getting the same increase, up to $600 from $500 since August.

But the most eye-wateringly huge bump goes to the PS5 Pro, which will now cost you $900, $150 more than its (already very high) previous $750 MSRP. If you managed to pick up a Pro during last year’s Black Friday sale, when its price was slashed to $650, then you’re probably feeling pretty smug right now.

Even the PlayStation Portal is getting a $50 increase, up from $199 to $250. The Portal has gotten a lot more capable in the last 12 months, but $250 for a device that can’t run any games natively might make a purchase harder to justify for a lot of people.

In a blog post, Sony acknowledged the impact of prices increases on its audience, but said after “careful evaluation” that it was “a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide.”

Global economic turbulence is affecting the entire games industry right now. Valve has already pushed back the launch date for the Steam Machine, while the ongoing RAM crisis could also be to blame for Steam Deck stock shortages. 

Microsoft also raised Xbox prices twice last year, and earlier this week Nintendo announced that some of its physical first-party Switch 2 games will soon be more expensive than purchasing the game digitally. While Nintendo has experimented with this kind of pricing structure before, it might point to the increasingly prohibitive costs of making and shipping products right now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps5-is-getting-more-expensive-again-133141514.html?src=rss

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Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is underway, and one of the more practical big-ticket deals right now is on the Anker Solix F2000 Portable Power Station. It’s down to $799.99 (from $1,999), which is about 60% off and the lowest price tracked so far, according to price tracking tools like Keepa. That kind of drop makes this a very different conversation. At full price, it’s a niche buy. At this price, it starts to feel like a realistic backup option for homes, road trips, or anyone who deals with frequent power cuts and wants something more reliable than a basic inverter setup.

Anker Solix F2000 Portable Power Station

Backup power for home use, outdoor camping or RVs

$799.99
at Amazon

$1,999.00
Save $1,199.01

$799.99
at Amazon

$1,999.00
Save $1,199.01

The F2000 is built around a 2,048Wh battery and a 2,300W AC output. In real terms, that’s enough to run a dishwasher through a full cycle or keep essentials like a fridge, lights, and a few devices going during a blackout. It can also handle heavier appliances like a washing machine or oven, just not all at once, since that 2,300W is shared across its three AC outlets. You also get a mix of ports that cover most setups: three AC sockets, three USB-C ports with up to 100W output for laptops, two USB-A ports, and car-style outlets. Plus, there’s a screen that gives you a clear read on battery levels, power usage, and time estimates, and the companion app adds extra control like switching ports on or off and monitoring battery temperature.

Charging is flexible, too. You can plug it into a wall for a full recharge in a little over an hour, use a car adapter, or connect up to 1,000W of solar panels (sold separately) for off-grid use. If you want more runtime, there’s also an optional expansion battery that doubles the capacity to 4,048Wh, though the output stays the same at 2,300W. It’s currently bundled with the F2000 for $1,498.99, down from $2999. The main downside here is size and weight. Even with wheels and a telescopic handle, this is not something you casually move around.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Josh Hawley are urging the US’s central energy information agency to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use.

In a joint letter sent to the Energy Information Administration Thursday morning, seen by WIRED, Hawley and Warren press the agency to publicly collect “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers. This information, they write, is “essential for accurate grid planning and will support policymaking to prevent large companies from increasing electricity costs for American families.”

As the data center boom spreads across the country, there have been widespread worries from voters about how their massive energy needs may increase consumers’ electric bills; this concern helped shape some midterm elections in data-center-heavy states, including Virginia and Georgia. Last month, Hawley cosponsored a bill with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal that would require data centers to supply their own power sources in order to protect consumers. Earlier this month, Donald Trump convened a group of executives from Big Tech companies at the White House to sign a nonbinding (and toothless) agreement pledging to pay for their own power for data centers.

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Hisense’s mid-range TVs tend to land in that sweet spot of good features at a not-astronomical price. That certainly describes the 2025 U7 Series right now, as the 65-inch model is discounted by $800 at Best Buy, dropping to just $699. It’s one of Lifehacker’s picks for the best 65-inch TVs in 2026, especially at this price.

The sale price is good through April 19, and Best Buy is sweetening the deal with a discount on mounting and free haul-away for members, which will make upgrading your older TV a bit less of a chore.

65-inch Hisense 65U75QG TV

MiniLED Smart 4K TV (2025)

$699.00
at Best Buy

$1,499.00
Save $800.00

$699.00
at Best Buy

$1,499.00
Save $800.00

The Mini-LED backlighting and QLED panel of the 65U75QG deliver deep blacks with minimal blooming, and displays punchy HDR content with support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+, so watching movies or sports feels lively. It gets bright enough to handle sunlit rooms without looking washed out, though if your room has a lot of light, reflections can show up during darker scenes. There’s a built-in speaker setup with a subwoofer and upward-firing speakers, which adds some height to the soundstage, though it won’t replace a dedicated soundbar. As Google TV runs the interface, apps, casting, and voice control are all baked in.

On the downside, this TV doesn’t track brightness levels as precisely as higher-end models, so scenes can look slightly off without careful calibration. Also, the viewing angle is narrow enough that colors and contrast shift if you’re sitting too far to the side. While gaming works well overall, with smooth performance and plenty of support for high refresh rates, fast-moving scenes may blur more than expected. None of these factors will be a dealbreaker for casual use, but they matter if you’re picky about image accuracy or plan to use this in a wide seating setup. For most people, though, this is a bright, capable TV that covers a lot of ground, especially for this price.

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If your wifi is too damn slow (and I bet it is), the bottleneck is probably the router. This TP-Link Archer AXE75 might be the solution, and it’s 44% off for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, bringing it down to $112.99—and it’s already a good deal at the full price.

TP-Link Archer AXE75

$112.99
at Amazon

$199.99
Save $87.00

$112.99
at Amazon

$199.99
Save $87.00

This is a Wi-Fi 6E router, which unlocks the 6GHz band, so it’s a serious router for the price of a bargain one. It features a 1.7 GHz Quad-Core CPU, so it won’t freeze up when you’re gaming while someone else is streaming 4K in the next room, and it has six high-gain antennas that are built to kill dead zones in medium-to-large homes. Check out PCMag’s review for more details.

That’s the good news. The bad news is the FCC regulations regarding foreign-made routers going into effect. Like most routers, AXE75 is “foreign made”—but the regulations only affect the future authorization of brand-new models. Since the Archer AXE75 is already an authorized, existing model, you can legally buy and use it without worry. But there’s a caveat: The FCC has allowed security updates for these models through March 1, 2027. After that, it’s not certain it will be supported. TP Link says it’s planning to move manufacturing to the U.S. If that happens, the FCC is expected to extend its waiver, and the device will be supported. But no one can say for sure.

For decades, video conferencing has been defined by a persistent, frustrating barrier: the screen. No matter how high the resolution or how low the latency, you are always acutely aware that you are looking at a flat representation of a human being. You are talking to a TV, not a person. But as I sat across from a woman who appeared to be sitting just three feet away from me—despite being hundreds of miles apart—I realized that the “glass wall” has finally shattered. This is the promise of HP Dimension with Google Beam, a collaboration that represents the most significant leap in communication technology since the invention of the telephone.

A Handshake Across the Void

My journey with this technology began with a demonstration that felt less like a product briefing and more like a magic trick. The setup for HP Dimension uses specialized light-field display technology, similar to the anamorphic 3D electronic billboards you might see in Times Square or Tokyo, which make objects appear to float in free space or move toward the viewer.The moment of “total buy-in” happened when the woman on the other side of the link picked up an apple. She held it out toward me, and as her arm extended, the apple moved beyond the physical plane of the monitor. It was well out of the screen, rendered in full 3D with perfect depth parity. My brain didn’t see a pixelated fruit; it saw an object I could reach out and grab. This is the power of Google Beam—it provides a true-to-life sense of presence that traditional 2D video simply cannot replicate.

Beyond the Headset: Natural Interaction

One of the most profound advantages of HP Dimension is what it doesn’t require: a headset. While the industry has pushed VR and AR as the future of work, the reality is that wearing a heavy goggle set for eight hours is a non-starter for most professionals. It ruins eye contact, causes physical fatigue, and creates a barrier to the very “human” connection it tries to facilitate.

HP Dimension delivers a glasses-free 3D experience. By using advanced computational photography and light-steering optics, the system ensures that your eyes see different perspectives of the remote person simultaneously. This mimics how we perceive depth in the real world. Because you aren’t tethered to a headset, you can maintain natural eye contact, read subtle micro-expressions, and engage in the kind of deep, empathetic communication that is often lost in the “Zoom fatigue” of the modern era.

From the Home Office to the Boardroom

While the initial rollout of HP Dimension with Google Beam—slated for later in 2026—will likely target high-end enterprise environments, the roadmap for this technology is expansive. We are looking at a future line of teleconferencing products that scale to meet every need:

• The Prosumer/Home Edition: A compact, lower-cost version designed for the millions of remote workers who need to maintain a “seat at the table” without being physically present in the corporate office.
• The Executive Suite: Mid-tier systems for private offices that allow for 1:1 mentorship and high-stakes negotiations where non-verbal cues are critical.
• The Dimension Hall: High-cost, large-scale versions for conference rooms where two remote teams can be “joined” at a virtual table. Imagine a board meeting where half the team is in London and half is in New York, yet everyone feels as though they are sharing the same physical air.

Healing the Distance: Family and Legacy

The implications of this technology extend far beyond the quarterly earnings call. As these systems become more affordable, they will redefine how we maintain our most personal relationships.

Imagine a college student living thousands of miles from home. Instead of a grainy FaceTime call on a smartphone, they can sit down for “dinner” with their parents. The sense of presence provided by HP Dimension could drastically reduce the isolation often felt by remote students or elderly family members.

Taking this a step further, the integration of human digital twins and AI-driven avatars opens a door to something even more profound. By utilizing historical data and high-fidelity 3D modeling, we could eventually use this technology to “speak” with virtual celebrities, politicians, or even relatives who have passed away. While the ethical considerations are vast, the ability to have a 3D, life-sized conversation with a digital representation of a lost loved, or a living person who doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to chat with fans or constituents, one offers a level of closure and connection that a photograph or video recording never could.

Speculating on the 3D Frontier

Once we master the ability to project “presence” without headsets, the use cases for HP Dimension and Google Beam will explode into other sectors:

1. Remote Medicine: A specialist in one country could virtually “stand” over a patient in another, guiding a local GP through a complex diagnostic procedure with perfect spatial awareness.
2. High-End Retail: Imagine a luxury car brand or a high-fashion house “beaming” a salesperson into your living room to show you the intricate details of a product that appears to be sitting on your coffee table.
3. Education and Training: Instead of watching a video on how to repair a jet engine, a 3D instructor could stand next to the technician, pointing to specific components in three-dimensional space.

Challenges and the Path to 2026

Of course, moving from a demo to a shipping product involves hurdles. The bandwidth requirements for “true to life” 3D are significant, requiring  high speed connections and sophisticated compression algorithms from Google. There is also the matter of lighting and camera placement—the system must capture the user from multiple angles to reconstruct the 3D volume in real-time.

However, HP’s history of hardware engineering combined with Google’s AI and cloud prowess makes this the most “realistic” attempt at holography we’ve seen to date.

Wrapping Up

HP Dimension with Google Beam is more than just an upgrade to your webcam; it is the first step toward the “Star Trek” (Holodeck) future of communication. By removing the headset and breaking the 2D plane of the screen, this technology restores the physical and emotional nuances of human interaction. Whether it is a business leader closing a deal, a family staying together across oceans, or the preservation of a legacy through digital twins, the feeling of being “in person” is no longer a luxury of geography. When this ships in 2026, the world will get a little smaller, and our connections will become significantly deeper.

For about four years now, AMD has offered special “X3D” variants of its high-end desktop processors with an extra 64MB of L3 cache attached, an addition that disproportionately benefits games. AMD calls this “3D V-Cache” because it stacks the cache directly on top of (for Ryzen 5000 and 7000) or beneath (for Ryzen 9000) the CPU die.

The 12- and 16-core Ryzen chips have their CPU cores split between two silicon chiplets, which has historically made the 7900X3D, 7950X3D, 9900X3D, and 9950X3D a bit weird. One of their two CPU chiplets has the 64MB of 3D V-Cache attached, and one does not. AMD relies on its driver software to make sure that software that benefits from the extra cache is run on the V-Cache-enabled CPU cores, which usually works well but is occasionally error-prone.

Enter the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, a mouthful of a chip that includes 64MB of 3D V-Cache on both processor dies, without the hybrid arrangement that has defined the other chips up until now. This gives the chip a grand total of 208MB of cache—16MB of L2 cache, the 32MB of L3 cache built into each of the two CPU dies (for a total of 64MB), and then another 64MB chunk of 3D V-Cache per die. In total, AMD says the new chip should be as much as 10 percent faster than the 9950X3D in games and other apps that benefit from the extra cache.

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Welcome to Edition 8.35 of the Rocket Report! The headlines this week are again dominated by the big changes afoot in NASA’s exploration program, with the announcement of a Moon base and a nuclear-powered rocket to Mars. The shakeups come as the agency is just a week away from launching Artemis II, a circumlunar flight carrying a crew of four around the Moon. The Ars space team will be writing extensively about this mission in the days ahead, and we may skip the Rocket Report next week to focus on our Artemis II coverage.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

NASA announces nuclear rocket demo. NASA’s announcement Tuesday that it will “pause” work on a lunar space station and focus on building a surface base on the Moon was no big surprise to anyone paying attention to the Trump administration’s space policy. But what should NASA do with hardware already built for the Gateway outpost? NASA spent close to $4.5 billion on developing a human-tended complex in orbit around the Moon since the Gateway program’s official start in 2019. There are pieces of the station undergoing construction and testing in factories scattered around the world. The centerpiece of Gateway, called the Power and Propulsion Element, is closest to being ready for launch. NASA’s rejigged exploration roadmap, revealed Tuesday in an all-day event at NASA headquarters in Washington, calls for repurposing the core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space, Ars reports.

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This week is Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and I can think of no better way to celebrate the end of this interminable winter than a backyard film festival. Amazon has just the thing for it: this Onoayo digital projector. It’s currently $219.98 from a list price of $439.99, and that’s for a projector with a 4.6/5 rating with over 1000 reviews on Amazon.

Onoayo Digital Projector

$219.98
at Amazon

$439.99
Save $220.01

$219.98
at Amazon

$439.99
Save $220.01

This isn’t one of those projectors where you need to figure out how to connect it with something else, either. While you can stream from other devices, you don’t have to; major streaming apps are built in, as are a pair of Dolby-tuned speakers. It features automatic focus, keystone correction, obstacle avoidance, screen-fit, and projection orientation detection right out of the box. The picture is great, too: 3200 ANSI brightness and 4K video decoding means a very defined, bright image. It weighs less than three pounds, so you can take it anywhere you need to project anything. But it’s seriously good enough to replace a TV in your house.

It turns out people don’t actually love having Copilot shoved into their faces. This week, Devindra and PCWorld Senior Editor Mark Hachman discuss Microsoft’s surprising plan to “fix” Windows 11 by refocusing on customization and core features, instead of bringing Copilot AI into tons of apps. Is there any enthusiasm left for Windows? Or will most people be better off considering macOS or Linux?

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Topic

• Microsoft hits the reset button on Windows 11, de-emphasizing Copilot AI – 1:03

• OpenAI pulls the plug on its Sora video generation app after just 5 months – 25:23

• Meta’s terrible week in court, part 1: $375 million ruling in New Mexico child engagement case – 33:58

• Meta’s terrible week in court, part 2: Meta and Google lose landmark social media addiction suit – 38:49

• OpenAI puts erotic chat on hold indefinitely – 43:49

• Update your iPhones: iOS exploit ‘Darksword’ released on GitHub – 46:39

• Epic games lays off 1,000 workers after Fortnite engagement dips – 47:48

• Honda and Sony kill off their Afeela EV collaboration – 49:26

• Listener Mail: Which Mac Mini to get for a budding pro photographer – 55:15

• Pop culture picks – 57:52

Credits

Host: Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Mark Hachman
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/engadget-podcast-can-microsoft-fix-windows-11-by-dumping-ai-122601592.html?src=rss

Honda and Sony announced that they are discontinuing both the Afeela 1 and 2, their electric cars. The company is reviewing its “business direction,” but it’s hard to expect much from a car company that’s cancelled all of its cars.

The Afeela 1, casually called the PlayStation Car, was meant to be a fusion of a modern EV and your own digital media bubble. (You could have a God of War-themed dash — if you wanted that.)

Engadget

There’s a wider pressure on Honda, beyond this risky collaboration with Sony. It expects to take a $15.7 billion loss after writing off a large portion of its EV investment. The US’s removal of federal EV tax credits and the imposition of tariffs have hit everything hard.

The Afeela was exciting on paper, but in person, it was a pretty unassuming sedan. And expensive! Rival EV makers were offering more for less. Also: don’t tease a car for six full years. It’s never a good sign. Check out Tim Steven’s editorial on how it all fell apart.

– Mat Smith

The other big stories (and deals) this morning

• Ugh, Netflix is raising prices again

• Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez introduce a bill to pause US data center construction.

• OpenAI is shutting down its Sora video generation app

• Hades 2 is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PS5 on April 14

Meta and YouTube lose social media addiction case

TikTok and Snap settled ahead of the trial. Smart.

A jury in Los Angeles has found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in a closely watched trial over social media addiction. The two companies were ordered to pay $6 million in damages to a woman who said their addictive features harmed her.

For Meta, it’s the second legal setback in recent weeks, after a New Mexico jury ruled against it on child safety issues. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties, making this settlement seem small in comparison. The companies are planning to appeal.

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Sonos Play review

The company’s best portable speaker so far.

Engadget

The Sonos Play could be the company’s reset button, a way to remind people what the company does well – and move on from busted updates, expensive gambits and fussy apps. The $299 Play is a portable speaker that sits between the $499 Sonos Move 2 and the $179 Roam 2. The new speaker sounds great, has a wide and versatile feature set and won’t break the bank. We particularly like the inclusion of Bluetooth grouping.

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DJI Avata 360 drone review

There’s a new 360-degree drone in town.

Engadget

DJI responded quickly to Insta360’s debut drone, the Antigravity A1, with the Avata 360. It’s drawn from years of drone experience (and tech from its new Osmo 360 action cam). Compared to the A1, it’s safer to fly around people and offers single-camera OIS 4K footage in addition to 8K 360 video. The 360 video it shoots offers incredible editing flexibility, but overall quality is lower than that of DJI’s other drones. It’s cheaper than its 360 drone rival, too, though US availability remains unclear.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121539576.html?src=rss