Author Archives: Will Shanklin

Amazon’s Black Friday sale has Ember Smart Mugs for record-low prices

Posted on by

Amazon’s Black Friday deals include record-low prices on Ember self-heating coffee mugs. Typically $130, the 10-oz. Ember Smart Mug 2 starts at $90. The devices keep your coffee, tea or other heated beverage at an ideal temp and make a perfect gift for coffee lovers. The white, black and red variants are all on sale, but the black and red versions cost $100. Only the white model is available for $90.

The Ember Smart Mug 2 can heat your coffee between 120 and 145 degrees Fahrenheit, preventing your cozy, warm drink from becoming lukewarm and unpleasant. It has a companion app for Android and iOS that allows you to pick your favorite temp, set it and forget it.

The mug begins heating automatically when it detects liquid and will go to sleep when it’s empty. It lasts up to 80 minutes per charge, but leaving it on its bundled charging coaster means it can last all day, no matter how insatiable your caffeine habit is.

Amazon’s Black Friday sale also includes the larger (14 oz.) Ember Smart Mug 2 for $40 off. Other than size, this model has the same features, battery life and temperature range as the 10 oz. version. The white model is available for the sale price of $109.46 at the time of publication. Alternatively, the copper metallic model is only $129.95, down from its usual $180.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-black-friday-sale-has-ember-smart-mugs-for-record-low-prices-212058308.html?src=rss

PS5 Cyber Monday deals 2023: You can still get $50 off the PlayStation 5

Posted on by

Cyber Monday may be over, but there are still a few deals on the PlayStation 5 lingering on the internet today. You can save $50 on the console by itself, or about $60 if you pick up the PS5 with the latest Spider-Man game. Color options are slim, but you can still save upwards of $25 on PS5 controllers today, and there are a number of PS5 game deals still to be had as well. Here are the best PS5 games you can still get even now that Cyber Monday has come and gone.

Sony PS5 Slim console with Spider-Man 2

If you’re happy to go disc-free, Amazon has the month-old PS5 Slim console bundled with a digital code for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which Engadget found to be “bigger and better” than the 2018 original, for $499 ($60 off). Sony’s “Slim” PS5 console (officially called the PS5 Digital Edition) removes the system’s disc drive but lets you change your mind later. Unlike previous digital variants, the disc drive is a modular attachment you can add later as a separate $80 purchase.

Sony PS5 console with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

You can also get the console with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III for the same price. This is the latest version of the gaming system with its removable disc drive already included and mounted. You also get a digital copy of the newest Call of Duty game, which includes remastered versions of all 16 maps from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009).

Sony PS5 console (with disc drive)

A GameStop Cyber Monday deal has the PS5 console on sale for $450 ($50 off). This standard model includes a built-in disc drive that lets you choose between physical discs (without any extra purchases) or digital downloads of your favorite games.

Cyber Monday PS5 game deals

Unfortunately, most of the best deals we saw on PS5 games over the weekend are gone now. However, you can still get the dramatic action-RPG Final Fantasy XVI is still down to $35. The well-reviewed turn-based RPG Octopath Traveler II is still available for $30 and Assassin's Creed Mirage remains $20 off at $40. Sony has also started an "End of Year Deals" sale with a few OK discounts on first-party games, including the wholesome action game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the open-world samurai game Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut for $30 each.

Your Cyber Monday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Cyber Monday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Cyber Monday tech deals. Learn about Cyber Monday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Cyber Monday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Cyber Monday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ps5-cyber-monday-deals-2023-you-can-still-get-50-off-the-playstation-5-195013341.html?src=rss

The Ooni Fyra 12 pizza oven is 30 percent off for Black Friday

Posted on by

Ooni has the Fyra 12 wood pellet pizza oven on sale for 30 percent off this Black Friday. Usually $349, you can pick up the acclaimed outdoor pizza maker for $244. This model is one of Engadget’s favorite pizza ovens, and the Black Friday deal returns its price to an all-time low.

The Ooni Fyra 12 uses “sustainably sourced hardwood pellets,” reaching 950 degrees Fahrenheit in 15 minutes — making stone-baked pizzas in as little as a minute. The oven’s gravity-fed hopper automatically refills its pellet tray, keeping your pizzas baking without constant equipment checkups.

The oven makes 12-inch pizzas so everyone with you can tailor their pies to their liking. It weighs a mere 22 lbs, and most people can easily transport it from home to backyard, campground, tailgates or other outdoor get-togethers.

Lifestyle marketing photo of the Ooni Pizza Steel 13, a stainless steel slab for oven-baked pizza. An oven door is open as we view a ready-to-eat pizza on the steel surface.
Ooni

Also discounted among Ooni’s Black Friday deals is the Pizza Steel 13. This slab slides into indoor stoves to make those pizzas taste like they came from dedicated pizza ovens. Its stainless steel surface heats rapidly and retains warmth as you bake away. An excellent choice for those who spend less time outdoors (or want to keep their budget tighter), the Pizza Steel 13 is on sale for $70 for Black Friday (typically $100).

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ooni-fyra-12-pizza-oven-is-30-percent-off-for-black-friday-130032284.html?src=rss

This Black Friday deal knocks the Fitbit Charge 6 down to $100

Posted on by

Amazon has a Black Friday deal on the Fitbit Charge 6 that brings the wearable back down to $100. That’s $60 off the sticker price for this fitness tracker that only launched in September. It pairs with Android and iOS phones and offers what the company calls its most accurate heart rate tracking yet.

The Fitbit Charge 6 marks the return of the physical side button, which the company removed from the Charge 5. The fitness tracker also has deeper Google integration than previous models, showing Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions on your wrist, supporting Google Wallet for payments and allowing YouTube Music playback.

The wearable ships in three color options, including black, red and white. (All three are eligible for the sale.) Each unit includes two bands (large and small) in the box, so you don’t have to measure your wrist and choose carefully before buying.

The Fitbit Charge 6 has a body made of aluminum, glass and resin housing its 1.04-inch AMOLED touchscreen. The device’s battery lasts an estimated seven days per charge, and it can pair with Bluetooth Heart Rate Profile-supported exercise equipment, including brands like Peloton, Nordic and Tonal.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-black-friday-deal-knocks-the-fitbit-charge-6-down-to-100-030048419.html?src=rss

Amazon’s Kindle is down to $80 for Black Friday

Posted on by

Amazon has ereaders aplenty on sale for Black Friday. You can get the entry-level Kindle for $80, close to a record low. In addition, the retailer has its higher-end Kindle Paperwhite for $120, the Kindle Scribe for $240 and the Kindle Oasis for $180.

The latest Kindle, Engadget’s pick for the best budget reader in 2023, has a 6-inch display with a crisp 300ppi pixel density. Its screen is glare-free with a front light you can adjust to match your environment’s brightness. It’s also Amazon’s lightest and most compact Kindle, weighing only 5.56 oz (158 g) — about 23 percent lighter than the Paperwhite.

Typically $100, the Kindle’s $80 sale price approaches its all-time low of $65 from July Prime Day 2023. The device ships in black and denim (blue), includes a charging cable (but not a wall plug) and lasts an estimated six weeks per charge. Its sale price includes lock-screen ads: Although they’re pretty unobtrusive and won’t disturb your reading, you can pay more upfront or change your mind later and pony up (usually $20) to remove them through your Amazon account.

Kindle Paperwhite

Although the budget model will offer enough features for most people, the pricier Kindle Paperwhite adds a few extra perks. Its screen is bigger, at 6.8 inches. Its front light has more LEDs (17) for more even coverage, and it lets you adjust its warmth, making the illumination more yellowish or white to match your surroundings. It also adds IPX8 water resistance, meaning it can handle up to two meters of submersion for up to 60 minutes. In addition, its battery lasts an estimated 10 weeks. Usually $150, Amazon’s Black Friday sale has the Kindle Paperwhite for just $120.

Kindle Scribe

If you want a larger device that doubles as a digital notebook, the Kindle Scribe is also on sale. It has a 10.2-inch display and a bundled stylus for creating notes and annotating PDFs or books. Although its limited cloud syncing abilities have frustrated some customers, the device is cheaper than direct rivals like the reMarkable 2 and Boox’s various e-ink tablets — while including access to the Kindle Store. Typically $340, you can get the Kindle Scribe now for $240.

Kindle Oasis

Although the Kindle Oasis hasn’t been updated in a while, the 2019 model is still an option for those who like using physical page-turn buttons instead of tapping the screen. The 7-inch, 300 ppi ereader has a warm light (similar to the Paperwhite) to adjust its front light from white to amber. Like the Paperwhite, it’s also rated IPX8 for water resistance, and its design and weight distribution make it exceptionally comfortable for one-handed use. The typically $250 Kindle Oasis is on sale for Black Friday for $180, making it easier to justify paying for a (still lovely) four-year-old product.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-kindle-is-down-to-80-for-black-friday-133030100.html?src=rss

HW Electro’s solar-powered Puzzle will bring microvan cuteness to the US in 2025

Posted on by

Japanese EV automaker HW Electro (HWE) says its delightfully boxy Puzzle will come to the US in 2025. More “kei van” than kei car, the electric vehicle has rooftop solar panels and equipment for commercial disaster relief (including a crowbar!). But it could be equally appealing for those wanting an EV with maxed-out charm and a minimal environmental footprint. It’s on track to be HWE’s first vehicle available in the US market.

HW Electro CEO Xiao Weicheng said that the Puzzle “embodies HWE’s core values of sustainability, connectivity and social contribution.” Its solar panels mean owners could perhaps drive it for much longer than typical EVs without plugging in. It also includes emergency features like power outlets, photovoltaic panels, built-in WiFi, USB ports, a first aid kit and a crowbar. Notably, these features are all on the vehicle’s exterior.

As reported by The Independent and Electrek, HWE unveiled the Puzzle micro-van at the 2023 Japan Mobility Show before teasing 2025 US availability this week in New York. “With Puzzle, a new world begins,” Weicheng predicted.

The EV, currently still in the concept stage, has a two-person cabin and looks strikingly smaller than the gargantuan EVs Americans are growing accustomed to. The Puzzle aligns with Japan’s regulatory definition of a kei car, ideal for tight or crowded roadways and cramped parking spots. The vehicle has 15-inch wheels, and it’s over six feet tall, nearly five feet wide and over 11 feet long. It has a cargo capacity of 770 lbs and sliding rear doors for easy cargo management. Its sole passenger seat folds down to boost its hauling capacity (and can double as a work surface when not in use).

HWE hasn’t yet revealed the Puzzle’s price or max speed. Auto Evolution reports that its lithium iron phosphate battery will offer a 125-mile range.

It’s hard to predict what America’s EV market will look like by the time the Puzzle arrives in 2025. Although sales are growing, consumer demand has fallen behind auto industry projections, leaving room for uncertainty as the world tries to avoid climate change’s most catastrophic scenarios.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hw-electros-solar-powered-puzzle-will-bring-microvan-cuteness-to-the-us-in-2025-202326474.html?src=rss

The Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad is 28 percent off in an Amazon Black Friday deal

Posted on by

Amazon has a hefty price cut on the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro / Air. The Black Friday deal drops the (typically $299) accessory’s price to $215, which represents a 28 percent discount. Initially launched in 2020, the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad provides an easy and seamless way to jump between tablet and laptop(-ish) modes. Attach your iPad magnetically to the accessory’s back (it appears to “float”), and Apple’s software immediately recognizes it for typing and cursor control — no Bluetooth pairing or cables required. Engadget recommended it as one of the best iPad accessories.

Its (scissor mechanism) keys feel similar to those of recent Mac keyboards, and its trackpad, although smaller than those on MacBooks, gives you desktop-like cursor control and swipe-based multitasking gestures in iPadOS. The accessory supports USB-C passthrough charging, so you can juice up your iPad while plugging an external drive or monitor into the tablet’s port. The accessory is available in black and white.

This model is only compatible with recent iPad Pro and iPad Air models. Specifically, it supports the 11-inch iPad Pro (1st generation through the current 4th-gen model) and iPad Air (4th and 5th generations). If you have the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, there’s a separate Magic Keyboard model for it that’s also on sale: You can grab that one for $299 (it’s usually $349).

If you've already got a keyboard that works for your iPad setup, a few of our other favorite iPad accessories are on sale as well. The second-gen Apple Pencil has dropped to $89 for Black Friday, and Tablift's iPad holder is on sale for $32 for Amazon Prime members as well.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-magic-keyboard-for-ipad-is-28-percent-off-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-175522472.html?src=rss

The Kobo Clara 2E ereader drops to a record-low price for Black Friday

Posted on by

Amazon’s Black Friday deals have dropped the Kobo Clara 2E ereader to a record-low price. This model is Engadget’s top pick for the best ereader in 2023, with its terrific design, intuitive navigation and seamless library book borrowing. Typically $140, the Clara 2E is only $120 right now on Amazon and Kobo.

After spending countless hours trying eight models from five different brands, Engadget chose the Kobo Clara 2E as the top ereader for most people. Despite being pricier than the baseline Kindles, Engadget’s Amy Skorheim loved the Kobo’s intuitive design, IPX8 water resistance (it can handle submersion in two meters of water for 60 minutes), warm light and lack of ads.

The device has a 6-inch touchscreen with “ComfortLight Pro,” Kobo’s branding for adjustable brightness and warmth. It has 16GB of storage, enough for around 12,000 ebooks, and its battery life lasts for “weeks.” It has a pleasant onboarding experience, walking you through account setup and asking about your favorite books to help improve its algorithmic recommendations. It even nudges you toward its library lending feature (through Overdrive integration), a rare example of a company notifying you of free alternatives to its digital wares. We found the borrowing process to be seamless.

Most importantly, the Kobo Clara 2E provides a top-notch reading experience. The device is light (only six ounces) and has a textured back that makes longer reading sessions more comfortable. We found the quality of its front light to make it the most paper-like of any ereader we tried, and adjusting brightness is as easy as swiping your finger down the screen’s left edge. It was also the most responsive to touch of any ereader we tested. It even has a quick wake-up feature that, after pushing its button, immediately jumps to the page you were last reading without any swiping past ads or extra taps.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-kobo-clara-2e-ereader-drops-to-a-record-low-price-for-black-friday-221518316.html?src=rss

Anthropic’s ChatGPT rival Claude can now analyze 150,000 words in one prompt

Posted on by

OpenAI rival Anthropic launched Claude 2.1 today. The latest version of the ChatGPT rival boosts its context window to 200,000 tokens, allowing you to paste the entirety of Homer’s The Odyssey for AI analysis. (Tokens are chunks of text it uses to organize information, and a context window is the set limit of tokens it can parse in a single request.) The company said version 2.1 also halves Claude’s hallucination rate, leading to fewer erroneous answers (like those the ChatGPT lawyer trusted far too much). Coincidentally or not, the update arrives as the tech world watches Anthropic’s rival OpenAI descending into pandemonium.

The company says Claude 2.1’s 200K-token context window allows users to upload entire codebases, academic papers, financial statements or long literary works. (Anthropic says 200,000 tokens translates roughly to 150,000 words or over 500 pages of material.) After uploading the material, the chatbot can provide summaries, answer specific questions about its content, compare / contrast multiple documents or recognize patterns humans may have a harder time seeing.

“Processing a 200K length message is a complex feat and an industry first,” the company wrote in an announcement blog post. “While we’re excited to get this powerful new capability into the hands of our users, tasks that would typically require hours of human effort to complete may take Claude a few minutes. We expect the latency to decrease substantially as the technology progresses.”

Anthropic warns that analyzing and responding to extremely long inputs could take the AI bot a few minutes to complete — significantly longer than the seconds we typically have to wait for simpler queries. “We expect the latency to decrease substantially as the technology progresses,” the company wrote.

Hallucinations, or confidently inaccurate information, are still prevalent in this generation of AI chatbots. However, Anthropic says Claude 2.1 has cut its hallucination rate in half compared to Claude 2.0. The company attributes some of the progress to an improved ability to separate incorrect claims from admissions of uncertainty, making Claude 2.1 about twice as likely to admit it doesn’t know an answer rather than providing a wrong one.

Anthropic says Claude 2.1 also commits 30 percent fewer errors in extremely long documents. In addition, it has a three to four times lower rate of “mistakenly concluding a document supports a particular claim” when using more robust context windows.

The updated bot adds a few perks specifically for developers, too. A new Workbench console allows devs to refine prompts “in a playground-style experience and access new model settings to optimize Claude’s behavior.” For example, it lets users test multiple prompts and tap into Claude’s codebase to generate snippets for SDKs. Another new developer beta feature, “tool use,” lets Claude “integrate with users’ existing processes, products, and APIs.” The company cites examples like using a calculator for complex equations, translating plain language to structured API calls, using a web search API, tapping into clients’ private APIs or connecting to product datasets. The company cautions that the tool use feature is in early development and urges customers to submit feedback.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropics-chatgpt-rival-claude-can-now-analyze-150000-words-in-one-prompt-201033756.html?src=rss

Cities: Skylines II developer delays DLC to to focus on fixing the base game

Posted on by

Cities: Skylines II developer Colossal Order is delaying the city building simulation’s expansion roadmap. After numerous complaints about the PC game’s performance (and the delay of console versions until 2024), the team decided to pause rapid patches, digging instead into more time-consuming performance and bug fixes. CEO Mariina Hallikainen apologized for the delay in a blog post, explaining, “We must not rush new content out before the base [game] is ready for it.”

The development delay pushes most Cities: Skylines II expansion pass content back by a quarter. The Beach Properties asset pack has been postponed to Q1 2024 from Q4 2023. Two creator packs (Modern Architecture and Urban Promenades), initially scheduled for Q1 2024, will arrive in Q2 2024. Finally, the Deluxe Relax and Soft Rock radio stations are knocked back to Q1 and Q2 2024, respectively. Meanwhile, the Bridges & Ports expansion remains in the Q2 2024 slot.

Hallikainen’s blog post cited a need to address more time-consuming bug fixes and performance problems before rolling out new content. “We have made it through the quicker fixes and we’re now digging into the ones that require a bit more work,” she wrote. The CEO mentioned applying fixes for graphical details to improve GPU performance before moving on to CPU optimizations, including stutter fixes, while ensuring a fast and smooth experience. She said the development team is currently sifting through players’ bug reports, identifying 100 reproducible issues the team will look into and another 100 reports requiring more investigation.

Screenshot from the game City Skylines II, showing green and red buildings and zones, indicating the selected category in the city-building simulation.
Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Weeks before launch, Colossal Order raised the game’s minimum and recommended specs, warning, “We have not achieved the benchmark we targeted.” However, it and its publisher, Paradox Interactive, opted to continue with Cities: Skylines II’s planned release date. When it arrived in late October, fans, hoping for a stable experience expanding on the 2015 original, panned the product they got. They complained about shoddy performance, buggy core gameplay elements and an overall lack of optimization relative to the PC hardware it runs on — even, in some cases, on fairly high-end setups.

Despite fans’ disappointment with the stability of the hotly anticipated title, Colossal Order seems to have received the message. “Once the PC version is where we want it to be, we will be focusing on the console release and DLC content,” Hallikainen wrote.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cities-skylines-ii-developer-delays-dlc-to-to-focus-on-fixing-the-base-game-180702925.html?src=rss