Black Friday (which is now basically all of November) is one of the best times of the year to pick up things for yourself and for other people. But to say money is tight is an understatement this year. If Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days was any indicator, folks are spending more on essentials than anything else during these big sales. That, combined with the rising trend of holding on to big tech purchases for longer means that you may not have gadgets at the top of your to-buy list this year.

Even if that’s the case, I’d recommend not overlooking tech entirely this Black Friday. After all, all of us have essential tech that we use every day, and more often than not, you can avoid paying full price for most of those gadgets (and all of the rest of the best tech of the year) if you’re looking to add to your repertoire or you need a replacement. Personally, I’m not eyeing a new smartphone or laptop this holiday shopping season, but there are a few tech purchases I’d like to make if the prices are right. This is the tech I’m hoping to save on this year during Black Friday.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/these-are-the-black-friday-deals-on-tech-im-hoping-to-see-for-2025-100014802.html?src=rss

Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarter, fueled by a 34% surge in Google Cloud revenue and booming AI demand. The tech giant also announced an increase in expected capital expenditures for the fiscal year of 2025. CNBC reports: “With the growth across our business and demand from Cloud customers, we now expect 2025 capital expenditures to be in a range of $91 billion to $93 billion,” the company said in its earnings report (PDF) Wednesday. “Looking out to 2026, we expect a significant increase in CapEx and will provide more detail on our fourth quarter earnings call,” said finance chief Anat Ashkenazi on the earnings call with investors Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the company increased its capital expenditure expectation from $75 billion to $85 billion. Most of that goes toward technical infrastructure such as data centers. The latest earnings show the company is seeing rising demand for its AI services, which largely sit in its cloud unit. It also shows the company is continuing to spend more to try and build out more infrastructure to accomodate the backlog of customer requests. “We continue to drive strong growth in new businesses. Google Cloud accelerated, ending the quarter with $155 billion in backlog,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in the earnings release.

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sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: From enabling life as we know it to greasing the geological machinery of plate tectonics, water can have a huge influence on a planet’s behavior. But how do planets get their water? An infant world might be bombarded by icy comets and waterlogged asteroids, for instance, or it could form far enough from its host star that water can precipitate as ice. However, certain exoplanets pose a puzzle to astronomers: alien worlds that closely orbit their scorching home stars yet somehow appear to hold significant amounts of water.

A new series of laboratory experiments, published today in Nature, has revealed a deceptively straightforward solution to this enigma: These planets make their own water. Using diamond anvils and pulsed lasers, researchers managed to re-create the intense temperatures and pressures present at the boundary between these planets’ hydrogen atmospheres and molten rocky cores. Water emerged as the minerals cooked within the hydrogen soup. Because this kind of geologic cauldron could theoretically boil and bubble for billions of years, the mechanism could even give hellishly hot planets bodies of water — implying that ocean worlds, and the potentially habitable ones among them, may be more common than scientists already thought. “They can basically be their own water engines,” says Quentin Williams, an experimental geochemist at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not involved with the new work.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In March, three months after being forced out of his position as the CEO of Intel and sued by shareholders, Patrick Gelsinger took the reins at Gloo, a technology company made for what he calls the “faith ecosystem” — think Salesforce for churches, plus chatbots and AI assistants for automating pastoral work and ministry support. […] Now Gloo’s executive chair and head of technology (who’s largely free of the shareholder suit), Gelsinger has made it a core mission to soft-power advance the company’s Christian principles in Silicon Valley, the halls of Congress and beyond, armed with a fundraised war chest of $110 million. His call to action is also a pitch for AI aligned with Christian values: tech products like those built by Gloo, many of which are built on top of existing large language models, but adjusted to reflect users’ theological beliefs.

“My life mission has been [to] work on a piece of technology that would improve the quality of life of every human on the planet and hasten the coming of Christ’s return,” he said. Gloo says it serves “over 140,000 faith, ministry and non-profit leaders”. Though its intended customers are not the same, Gloo’s user base pales in comparison with those of AI industry titans: about 800 million active users rely on ChatGPT every week, not to mention Claude, Grok and others.

[…] Gelsinger wants faith to suffuse AI. He has also spearheaded Gloo’s Flourishing AI initiative, which evaluates leading large language models’ effects on human welfare across seven variables — in essence gauging whether they are a force for good and for users’ religious lives. It’s a system adapted from a Harvard research initiative, the Human Flourishing Program. Models like Grok 3, DeepSeek-R1 and GPT-4.1 earn high marks, 81 out of 100 on average, when it comes to helping users through financial questions, but underperform, about 35 out of 100, when it comes to “Faith,” or the ability, according to Gloo’s metrics, to successfully support users’ spiritual growth. Gloo’s initiative has yet to visibly attract Silicon Valley’s attention. A Gloo spokesperson said the company is “starting to engage” with prominent AI companies. “I want Zuck to care,” Gelsinger said.

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Rode’s range of tiny, portable microphones are a mainstay for creators looking for crisp audio on their phone videos. The company knows that those using digital cameras probably want that same blend of portability and performance for their own footage. That’s why it’s launching the new Wireless Micro Camera Kit, which outputs audio over USB-C or via a 3.5mm line-in.

As with the Wireless Micro, the new set includes a pair of microphones and a transmitter that all sit in a portable charging case. You’ll also find a pair of furry wind screens should you need to film in less than favorable weather. But unlike that model, the receiver comes with both a cold shoe mount and a 1.1-inch AMOLED screen. That will let you configure the audio setup on the fly, plus you’ll get battery data for all three units and an on-screen visualizer.

Rode

It would appear that Rode noticed user gripes that its own kit was being shown up by DJI’s Mic Mini, which had a transmitter with its own 3.5mm jack and shoe mount for camera connection. In addition, Rode has added Bluetooth Direct Connect to the microphones so they’ll connect to your iOS phone directly via the Rode Capture App. Which, like the 3.5mm, was a notable omission from the older hardware.

In terms of battery life, Rode says the kit and the charging case will hold up to 21 hours of use before you need to head back to an outlet.

Plus, to sweeten the deal, Rode is also throwing in one of its first-generation USB-C smartphone receivers into the package for free.

Rode’s Wireless Micro Camera Kit is available to purchase today for $149.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/rodes-latest-wireless-microphones-now-work-with-digital-cameras-025338766.html?src=rss

schwit1 shares a report from IOL: China has enacted a new law regulating social media influencers, requiring them to hold verified professional qualifications before posting content on sensitive topics such as medicine, law, education, and finance, IOL reported. The new law went into effect on Saturday. The regulation was introduced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) as part of its broader effort to curb misinformation online.

Under the new rules, influencers must prove their expertise through recognized degrees, certifications, or licenses before discussing regulated subjects. Major platforms such as Douyin (China’s TikTok), Bilibili, and Weibo are now responsible for verifying influencer credentials and ensuring that content includes clear citations, disclaimers, and transparency about sources. A separate report notes that if influencers are caught talking about the “serious” topics, they will face a fine of up to 100,000 yuan ($14,000).

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It hasn’t been a good year for Xbox so far. Microsoft has released its earnings report for the quarter ending on September 30, and it has revealed that its revenue from the Xbox hardware fell by 30 percent year-over-year. Take note that the revenue decline doesn’t reflect any dip in sales caused by the console’s $20-to-$70 price hike, since that took effect on October 3. Similarly, Microsoft only raised the price for its Game Pass Ultimate subscription from $20 to $30 in October. 

Meanwhile, revenue from Xbox content and services remained relatively unchanged from the same period last year. Microsoft says it saw growth from Xbox subscriptions and third-party content, but it was “partially offset” by the decline in first-party gaming content. 

The Xbox division was one of the most affected teams when Microsoft started cutting down its global workforce earlier this year, with the company cancelling games that were being developed for the console. Microsoft scrapped the modern reimagining of Perfect Dark, a first-person shooter from the year 2000, and even closed down the Xbox studio working on it. The company also cancelled Everwild, a project that had long been in development by Xbox studio Rare, also in the midst of its mass layoffs. 

Overall, Microsoft’s $77.7 billion revenue was 17 percent higher compared to the same period last year, and its operating income was up by 22 percent. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted a few highlights about the company’s earnings call on X, mostly focusing on its AI efforts. He said that the company will increase its AI capacity by 80 percent this year and will double its data center footprint over the next two. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-console-revenue-fell-30-percent-year-over-year-this-summer-012245146.html?src=rss

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: SUSE is making headlines with the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16, the first enterprise Linux distribution to integrate agentic AI directly into the operating system. It uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to securely connect AI models with data sources while maintaining provider freedom. This gives organizations the ability to run AI-driven automation without relying on a single ecosystem. With a 16-year lifecycle, reproducible builds, instant rollback capabilities, and post-2038 readiness, SLES 16 also doubles down on long-term reliability and transparency.

For enterprises, this launch marks a clear step toward embedding intelligence at the infrastructure level. The system can now perform AI-assisted administration via Cockpit or the command line, potentially cutting downtime and operational costs. SUSE’s timing might feel late given the AI boom, but its implementation appears deliberate — balancing innovation with the stability enterprises demand. It’s likely to pressure Red Hat and Canonical to follow suit, redefining what “AI-ready” means for Linux in corporate environments.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Substrate, a small U.S. startup, said on Tuesday that it had developed a chipmaking tool capable of competing with the most advanced lithography equipment made by Dutch firm ASML. Substrate’s tool is the first step in the startup’s ambitious plan to build a U.S.-based contract chip-manufacturing business that would compete with Taiwan’s TSMC in making the most advanced AI chips, its CEO James Proud told Reuters in an interview. Proud wants to slash the cost of chipmaking by producing the tools needed much more cheaply than rivals. […]

An engineering feat that has eluded even large companies, lithography needs extreme precision. ASML is the only company in the world that has been able to make at scale the complex tools that use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to produce patterns on silicon wafer at a high rate of throughput. Substrate said that it has developed a version of lithography that uses X-ray light and is capable of printing features at resolutions that are comparable to the most advanced chipmaking tools made by ASML that cost more than $400 million apiece. The company said it has conducted demonstrations at U.S. National Laboratories and at its facilities in San Francisco. The company provided high resolution images that demonstrate the Substrate tool’s capabilities. “This is an opportunity for the U.S. to recapture this market with a homegrown company,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory director Stephen Streiffer, an expert on high-energy x-ray beams, said in an interview. “It’s a nationally important effort and they know what they’re doing.”

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