{"id":950452,"date":"2021-11-17T07:15:27","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T12:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=950452"},"modified":"2021-11-17T07:15:27","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T12:15:27","slug":"the-morning-after-the-premium-toaster-maker-thats-launching-a-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=950452","title":{"rendered":"The Morning After: The premium toaster maker that's launching a smartphone"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been obsessed with Balmuda\u2019s fancy toaster<\/a> for years. As some readers might know, I used to live in Japan while working for Engadget, and I\u2019d browse around electronics superstores like Yodobashi Camera and Yamada Denki, gawping at high-level cameras, weird 3DS games that would never make it to the West and touring floors upon floors of home appliances and gadgets. There are entire shop floors dedicated to rice cookers, water boilers and the rest. And it is amazing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Balmuda\u2019s premium toaster oven was the apex, though. Fortunately, the company\u2019s steam-based toaster has made it to the US in recent years and now, for $329, you can have the fluffiest slices of toasted bread you can imagine. But for those in Japan<\/a>, Balmuda has now announced its first-ever smartphone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"The
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Balmuda<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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It’s a petite device with a full-HD 4.9-inch display. The company teamed up with Kyocera to manufacture the Android device, which has 5G and wireless charging. It comes with a 48-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel front-facing camera and a fingerprint sensor. The Balmuda Phone <\/a>is powered by a Snapdragon 765 processor and, as you might tell, the device packs relatively middleweight specs. The company may be banking on its premium status to convince smartphone shoppers.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the company doesn\u2019t have plans to release the phone outside Japan.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mat Smith<\/p>\n

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Fender’s latest Acoustasonic hybrid guitar is almost affordable<\/a><\/h2>\n

The new guitar is for younger musicians.<\/h3>\n

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\"The
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Fender<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Fender’s acoustic-electric hybrid guitars are technical marvels \u2014 with a price to reflect that. Now, the instrument brand has unveiled its $1,200 Acoustic Player Telecaster with a simpler design with a three-way voice selector (versus five on other models) and one blend knob.<\/p>\n

Continue reading.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Sponsored by Ledger<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interested in crypto? The best way to get started is with Ledger.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"TMA
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Google Cloud outage took down Spotify, Snapchat, Etsy and more<\/a><\/h2>\n

And yet Gmail and Hangouts were working fine, ugh.<\/h3>\n

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A Google Cloud networking issue took down a handful of prominent websites late yesterday, including Spotify, Snapchat, Etsy and Discord. As one colleague put it: \u201cAnnoyed that my fun stuff is down, but Slack remains miraculously up, as does other work stuff.\u201d Google announced the issue was partially resolved as of 1:17 PM ET but a full fix didn\u2019t occur until around 3:15 PM ET. Google said it \u201cwill publish an analysis of this incident, once we have completed our internal investigation.”<\/p>\n

Continue reading.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Activision Blizzard workers walk out and demand CEO Bobby Kotick’s resignation<\/a><\/h2>\n

A new report says Kotick knew about the company’s sexual harassment problems for years.<\/h3>\n

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Employees at Activision Blizzard are calling for the resignation of CEO Bobby Kotick following new revelations about the role he may have played in creating the toxic workplace culture that has mired the company. A Wall Street Journal<\/em> report outlined Kotick’s handling of the sexual harassment lawsuit from California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). The newspaper claimed Kotick not only knew about many of the worst instances of abuse at the company, but in some cases, he may have also acted to protect employees accused of harassment.<\/p>\n

“We have instituted our own Zero Tolerance Policy,” Activision Blizzard employee advocacy group A Better ABK said on Twitter after the report came out. “We will not be silenced until Bobby Kotick has been replaced as CEO and continue to hold our original demand for Third-Party review by an employee-chosen source.”<\/p>\n

Continue reading.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Microsoft is speeding up its Windows 11 rollout<\/a><\/h2>\n

The update is now more broadly available.<\/h3>\n

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\"The
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Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Having slowly rolled out its OS update to the most powerful (and up-to-date) PCs, Microsoft is accelerating the rollout of Windows 11, making it more broadly available. Provided your system is running version 2004 or later of Windows 10 and you recently installed the September 14th, 2021 servicing update Microsoft released, you can now upgrade directly to Windows 11. When Microsoft first released the new OS on October 4th, the company said it expected to offer the upgrade to all eligible devices by mid-2022.<\/p>\n

Continue reading.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Roku now has an 8K channel for TCL TVs<\/a><\/h2>\n

It\u2019ll feature a library of ultra-high definition nature documentary videos.<\/h3>\n

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Roku’s added its first premium 8K channel to its platform: The Explorers. The only 8K Roku TVs on the market right now are from TCL, in 65- and 75-inch formats. TCL first showed off the TV at CES, and would you know it, the next CES is just around the corner. I\u2019m sure there are more 8K TVs waiting to be revealed in January.<\/p>\n

Ultra-high-definition premium content from The Explorers (which also offers free content through its channel) will typically cost $3\/month. A tenth of that fee will be donated to The Explorers Foundation, which aims to preserve biodiversity. The channel will also offer 8K content at a time when it\u2019s still rare. YouTube remains the main place for 8K footage.<\/p>\n

Continue reading.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The biggest news stories you might have missed<\/h3>\n

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Google Maps grocery pickup feature expands to 2,000 US stores<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

Firefox Relay offers unlimited email aliases as part of its new premium plan<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

‘Deathloop’ and ‘Ratchet & Clank’ top the 2021 Game Awards nominees<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

Snapchat’s camera can identify food and recommend recipes<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

Sonos is rolling out DTS surround sound support<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

Engadget Deals: Samsung’s T7 portable SSD in 1TB is cheaper than ever right now<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n

1Password 8 is now officially available for Windows<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n


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\nSource: Engadget – The Morning After: The premium toaster maker that’s launching a smartphone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been obsessed with Balmuda\u2019s fancy toaster for years. As some readers might know, I used to live in Japan while working for Engadget, and I\u2019d browse around electronics superstores like Yodobashi Camera and Yamada Denki, gawping at high-level cameras, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-950452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}