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The best budgeting apps for 2025

Over a year ago, I was prompted to look for another budgeting app. Intuit, parent company of Mint, the budgeting app I had been using for a long time, shut down the service in March 2024. The company encouraged Mint users to migrate to its other financial app, Credit Karma, but I found it to be a poor Mint replacement after trying it out. That sent me searching elsewhere to find an app to track all of my financial accounts, monitor my credit score, track spending and set goals like building a rainy-day fund and paying down my mortgage faster. If youre looking for a new budgeting app to get your finances straight, allow Engadget to help. I tried out Mint's top competitors in the hopes that I'd be able to find a new budgeting app that could handle all of my financial needs, and to see which are actually worth the money. Best budget apps of 2025 Other budgeting apps we tested PocketGuard PocketGuard used to be a solid free budget tracker, but the company has since limited its free version to just a free seven-day trial. Now, youll have to choose between two plans once the trial is over: a $13 monthly plan or a $75 annual plan. When I first tested it, I found it to be more restricted than NerdWallet, but still a decent option. The main overview screen shows you your net worth, total assets and debts; net income and total spending for the month; upcoming bills; a handy reminder of when your next paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you have; and any goals. Like some other apps, including Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an after bills approach, where you enter all of your recurring bills, and then PocketGuard shows you whats left, and thats what youre supposed to be budgeting: your disposable income. Although PocketGuards UI is easy enough to understand, it lacks polish. The accounts tab is a little busy, and doesnt show totals for categories like cash or investments. Seemingly small details like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy occasionally make the app feel janky. More than once, it prompted me to update the app when no updates were available. The web version, meanwhile, feels like the mobile app blown up to a larger format and doesnt take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Ultimately, now that the free tier is gone, it just doesnt present the same value proposition as it once did. How we test budgeting apps Before I dove in and started testing out budgeting apps, I had to do some research. To find a list of apps to try out, I consulted trusty ol Google (and even trustier Reddit); read reviews of popular apps on the App Store; and also asked friends and colleagues what budget tracking apps (or other budgeting methods) they might be using for money management. Some of the apps I found were free and these, of course, show loads of ads (excuse me, offers) to stay in business. But most of the available apps require paid subscriptions, with prices typically topping out around $100 a year, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My top pick is cheaper than that.) All of the services I chose to test needed to do several things: import all of your account data into one place; offer budgeting tools; and track your spending, net worth and credit score. Except where noted, all of these apps are available for iOS, Android and on the web. Once I had my shortlist of six apps, I got to work setting them up. For the sake of thoroughly testing these apps, I made a point of adding every account to every budgeting app, no matter how small or immaterial the balance. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Just hours of entering passwords and one-time passcodes, for the same banks half a dozen times over. Hopefully, you only have to do this once. Budgeting app FAQs What is Plaid and how does it work? Each of the apps I tested uses the same underlying network, called Plaid, to pull in financial data, so its worth explaining what it is and how it works. Plaid was founded as a fintech startup in 2013 and is today the industry standard in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. Additionally, more than 8,000 third-party apps and services rely on Plaid, the company claims . To be clear, you dont need a dedicated Plaid app to use it; the technology is baked into a wide array of apps, including all of the budgeting apps listed in this guide. Once you find the add an account option in whichever one youre using, youll see a menu of commonly used banks. Theres also a search field you can use to look yours up directly. Once you find yours, youll be prompted to enter your login credentials. If you have two-factor authentication set up, youll need to enter a one-time passcode as well. As the middleman, Plaid is a passthrough for information that may include your account balances, transaction history, account type and routing or account number. Plaid uses encryption, and says it has a policy of not selling or renting customer data to other companies. However, I would not be doing my job if I didnt note that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for collecting more financial data than was needed. As part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to change some of its business practices. In a statement provided to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson said the company continues to deny the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that the crux of the non-financial terms in the settlement are focused on us accelerating workstreams already underway related to giving people more transparency into Plaids role in connecting their accounts, and ensuring that our workstreams around data minimization remain on track. Why did Mint shut down? When parent company Intuit announced in December 2023 that it would shut down Mint, it did not provide a reason why it made the decision to do so. It did say that Mint's millions of users would be funneled over to its other finance app, Credit Karma. Credit Karma is thrilled to invite all Minters to continue their financial journey on Credit Karma, where they will have access to Credit Karmas suite of features, products, tools and services, including some of Mints most popular features, Mint wrote on its product blog . In our testing, we found that Credit Karma isn't an exact replacement for Mint so if you're still looking for a Mint alternative , you have some decent options. What about Rocket Money? Rocket Money is another free financial app that tracks spending and supports things like balance alerts and account linking. If you pay for the premium tier, the service can also help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. We did not test it for this guide, but we'll consider it in future updates. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/best-budgeting-apps-120036303.html?src=rss

Lava launches Play Max smartphone with VC cooling in budget segment

Lava Play Max features MediaTek Dimensity 7300 processor with up to 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128 GB UFS 3.1 storage

Fairphone updates its over ear headphones with better sound

Two years ago, Fairphone launched a pair of modular, fully-repairable headphones called the Fairbuds XL . Now, the Dutch social enterprise is releasing an updated version where the focus isnt just on the quality of its hardware, but on the merits of its raw materials. The 2025 Fairbuds XL ship with new premium 40mm dynamic drivers and stronger N52 rated magnets for more power and enhanced bass response. Listeners should expect to hear improved accuracy in mid and high frequencies thanks to improved audio tuning. And theres a new paper-based speaker membrane thats more refined than what went before. Sound-quality is certainly improved over the predecessor, with cleaner bass and sharper mid and high tones. You can really hear how clean the sound is, especially when youre listening to something lush and orchestral. Going by my memory from two years ago, the ANC seems to be unchanged, able to deal with unwanted sounds like the tapping of my own keyboard with ease. Obviously, you shouldnt go in expecting the same sort of brilliant sound youd get from top tier manufacturers. Although I think Fairphone has likely closed the gap so while youre still a generation or two behind the bleeding edge, its not by a shameful degree. And, if were honest, if youre looking for a pair of cans thatll last you years and years, youre likely able to forgive the absence of the shiniest bells and whistles. Closeup image of the Fairbuds XL (2025) Daniel Cooper for Engadget Its easy to notice the design changes, too, with the more austere Fairphone logo and the use of solid plastic in place of the original speckled pattern. Sadly, that extends to the little pop of copper found on the four way joystick, which is now a different shade of the same colorway. I get it: A lot of people want their consumer electronics to blend in, but the loss of whimsy pains me a little. Theres some fairly minor but welcome quality of life improvements, including adding automatic power off after 30 minutes. Plus, buyers get the benefit of a three year warranty, and can rest assured the XL are Longtime certified. Longtime is a new European labeling standard for gear built to be long-lived, repairable and supported by a robust repair infrastructure. And, if you already own a pair of XLs, you can buy the new drivers and slot them into your existing cans. Side showing logo. Daniel Cooper for Engadget But, in line with Fairphones founding principles, the update is equally focused on the raw materials that have gone into making the 2025 XLs. The PU leather found in the ear cushions hardly a climate friendly material has been ditched in favor of Birds Eye Fabric. Thats a cotton fabric produced with a series of air holes for breathability more commonly found in athleisure products. Similarly the PU found in the headband gets replaced with fabric that reminds me of plenty of other high end sport headphones. Beneath the surface, the new model contains 100 percent fair mined cobalt, copper and silver via mining credits, at least. The rare earth metals used in the speaker magnets are now 100 percent recycled, and they were assembled in a facility using 100 percent renewable energy. Youll also find more than 90 percent recycled aluminum, and 80 percent recycled plastics, with the company pledging to recycle an equal amount of e-waste to every pair sold. Plus, as usual, Fairphone will pay the people who assemble the hardware a living wage bonus to ensure workers can cover their familys needs. Fairbuds XL are available to order today in Europe both from the Fairphone website and select third party retailers. If youre in the US, youll need to wait until later this month, but youll be able to pick them up via Amazon for $229. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/fairphone-updates-its-over-ear-headphones-with-better-sound-080000773.html?src=rss

Poco C85 5G launched in India for budget buyers

Poco C85 5G holds a 6,000 mAh battery along with a 33W charger inside the box

OnePlus Pad Go 2 processor, battery and display revealed

OnePlus Pad Go 2 will go on sale on December 18, and will be launched along with the OnePlus 15R on December 17

Samsung announces One UI 8.5 beta program for Galaxy S25 series users

Quick Share will recognise people in photos and proactively suggests sending them directly

Congress removes right to repair language from 2026 defense bill

According to a statement from the Public Interest Research Group, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 has removed language that would have granted the US military the right to repair its own equipment rather than requiring it to use official defense contractors for maintenance. This bill is still being considered by Congress, but it is uncertain whether the right to repair language is likely to be re-introduced once it has been removed. Despite support from Republicans, Democrats, the White House and key military leaders, troops will keep waiting for repairs they could perform themselves, US PIRG Legislative Associate Charlie Schuyler said in a statement from the organization. Taxpayers will keep paying inflated costs. And in some cases, soldiers might not get the equipment they need when they need it most. A bipartisan bill from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tom Sheedy was introduced earlier this year to allow the military right to repair access. The topic has been a more piecemeal affair for laypeople in the US, with some states enacting their own laws and federal regulators sometimes intervening to offer consumers more choice in how they seek repairs. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/congress-removes-right-to-repair-language-from-2026-defense-bill-231708835.html?src=rss

Katsuhiro Harada is leaving Bandai Namco after 30 years

Katsuhiro Harada is departing Bandai Namco at the end of 2025. He announced the news both with a farewell note shared on X and, in possibly the coolest exit ever, with an hour-long DJ mix. Harada's 30-year career has most closely been involved with Tekken and he's a familiar face in the fighting game community. He began as a voice actor in the original Tekken game and continued to do so even as he became a director for the series. He has worked on other Bandai Namco titles as a producer, both in and out of the fighting genre. Each project was full of new discoveries and learning, and every one of them became an irreplaceable experience for me, Harada wrote on X. To everyone who has supported me, to communities around the world, and to all the colleagues who have walked alongside me for so many years, I offer my deepest gratitude. He closed by saying that over his career, he never DJed at a tournament event. So to mark his departure, Harada posted a full set titled TEKKEN: A 30-Year Journey Haradas Final Mix to SoundCloud. Which is just the most swag move I can think of and a fun way to close out this chapter for fans of the franchise. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/katsuhiro-harada-is-leaving-bandai-namco-after-30-years-223156258.html?src=rss

An AI copycat of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard went unnoticed on Spotify for weeks

Despite making some moves to address the proliferation of AI-generated audio on its platform, Spotify failed to catch a copycat making imitations of music by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. The long-running experimental rock band from Australia, has been a vocal critic of Spotify and was one of several artists that took their music off the platform in the summer. The move was in response to the discovery that outgoing CEO Daniel Ek was a leading investor in an AI-focused weapons and military company. Today, a poster on Reddit was recommended what appeared to be an AI-generated copy of one of the band's songs in Spotifys Release Radar playlist. The phony artist was called King Lizard Wizard and it had an album of tracks all sharing titles with songs by the original band and using their original lyrics. Futurism grabbed screenshots of the imposter, although it appears to have since been taken down; only the band's original page appears in searches for both their name and the AI name. However, the phony King Gizzard band's album went unnoticed by the company for weeks before today's social post surfaced it. The Reddit thread points to several other anecdotal cases where someone attempted to trick listeners with AI-generated versions of popular bands. In September, Spotify unveiled a spam filter for catching AI slop, as well as policies for disclosing AI use in the content it hosts and how it would tackle AI impersonations. An instance like this, particularly when it features an artist that had left the platform in protest, creates a pretty big question mark about how well those policies are working. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/an-ai-copycat-of-king-gizzard--the-lizard-wizard-went-unnoticed-on-spotify-for-weeks-220018144.html?src=rss

Google and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switching

Google and Apple have long existed as polar opposites, each ruling over their tech kingdoms with little interest in cooperation. But the latest build of Android's Canary operating system hints at an unusual instance of collaboration between the brands, with a new feature that seems aimed at making data transfer simpler between Android and iOS mobile device during the setup phase. It is expected to also be available in a future developer beta of iOS 26. A representative for Google confirmed that the report from 9to5Google on this development is accurate, but didn't provide any additional details on how the transfer will work. Each brand already has their own dedicated Switch to Android and Switch to iOS apps for making the swap between ecosystems, but making the transition easier at the operating system level and adding support for moving more types of data certainly sounds promising. That said, features can go through a fair bit of iteration between the dev betas and the final launch, and Android Canary is a very early stage of development, so we'll be curious to see what actually arrives on our smartphones. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-and-apple-partner-on-better-android-iphone-switching-204738960.html?src=rss

TikTok announces shared feed and collections features

TikTok just announced a couple of updates that that should make the app a bit more social. There's something called Shared Feed, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a feed that friends and family can watch together, though at different times. This feed is shared via direct messaging and pulls up relevant content to everyone involved in the chat. TikTok says this is a new way to discover content together. It consists of a daily curated selection of 15 videos that are generated by TikTok activity. These feeds are shared via invitation and the participants can leave the chat at any time. There's also a new dashboard that lets viewers check out their Shared Like history and other metrics. The Shared Feed tool rolls out globally in the coming months. It sounds similar to something Instagram began offering earlier this year . Instagram is typically the one copying TikTok , so this is a nice change of pace. TikTok TikTok has also announced something called Shared Collections. This is like the aforementioned Shared Feed, but for saved content. The tool lets users collect, organize and share groups of videos, with TikTok citing that people could use it to share reading lists, local restaurants to try and, of course, products to buy. All you have to do is save a video, create a Shared Collection and send that list to someone else via direct message. Users must follow one another to access one of these lists. The tool is available globally right now to folks over the age of 16. Finally, TikTok is rolling out themed holiday cards that can be sent in direct messages. They will be available globally later this month. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-announces-shared-feed-and-collections-features-193857725.html?src=rss

Meta will let Facebook and Instagram users in the EU share less data

Meta will soon allow Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union to choose to share less data and see less personalized ads on the platform, the European Commission announced . The change will begin to roll out in January, according to the regulator. This is the first time that such a choice is offered on Meta's social networks, the commission said in a statement. Meta will give users the effective choice between: consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalised advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalised advertising. The move from Meta comes after the European Commission had fined the company 200 million over its ad-free subscription plans in the EU, which the regulator deemed consent or pay . Meta began offering ad-free subscriptions to EU users in 2023 , and later lowered the price of the plans in response to criticism from the commission. Those plans haven't been very popular, however, with one Meta executive admitting earlier this year that there's been very little interest from users. In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said that we acknowledge the European Commission's statement. Personalized ads are vital for Europes economy last year, Metas ads were linked to 213 billion in economic activity and supported 1.44 million jobs across the EU. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-let-facebook-and-instagram-users-in-the-eu-share-less-data-183535897.html?src=rss

Analogue is weaponizing your nostalgia with these translucent versions of its 3D console

Analogue just announced new colorways for its recently-launched Analogue 3D console. The appropriately-named Funtastic limited-edition consoles are heavily inspired by Nintendo's translucent N64 models from the late 1990s. Analogue even borrowed the Funtastic branding . In other words, these are going for the nostalgic jugular for gamers of a certain age. There's even a see-through green colorway that calls to mind the Nintendo 64 variant that shipped as a bundle with Donkey Kong 64 . Just imagine booting up that bad boy as you roam around the house spouting the lyrics of the DK rap song . Analogue 3D - Funtastic - Limited Editions. Available in highly limited quantities. Perfectly color matched to the originals N64 models. $299.99 On Sale: Dec 10, 8am PST. Shipping: Dec 10 with Guaranteed delivery before Christmas. pic.twitter.com/PPYgIw0vxU Analogue (@analogue) December 8, 2025 There are eight translucent colors to choose from and accompanying 8BitDo controllers available as a separate purchase. The consoles cost $300 and the controllers are priced out at $45. The Analogue 3D Funtastic consoles go on sale on December 10 at 11AM ET, with the company promising they'll ship within 48 hours to ensure delivery by Christmas. The company is also restocking the traditional colors, which will be available for purchase at the same time but won't ship until January. Tim Stevens for Engadget We praised the Analogue 3D in our official review . It's a fantastic way to play N64 cartridges, even if the original games don't always hold up. The 4K CRT emulation is top-notch and the overall hardware design is solid. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/analogue-is-weaponizing-your-nostalgia-with-these-translucent-versions-of-its-3d-console-181105740.html?src=rss

Tech's biggest winners of 2025

Every December, the Engadget staff compiles a list of the years biggest winners . We scour over articles from the previous 12 months to determine the people, companies, products and trends that made the most impact over the course of the year. Not all of that influence is positive, however, and some selections may also appear on our list of biggest losers. Still, sit back and enjoy our picks for the biggest winners of 2025. Nintendo Switch 2 Playing Mario Kart World on the Switch 2 in handheld mode. Sam Rutherford for Engadget Aside from a big bump in battery life that many were hoping for, Nintendo took just about everything that made its last console such a phenomenon and upgraded it on the Switch 2. A sleeker design with magnetic Joy-Cons that are less likely to break, a larger (albeit LCD) 1080p display with HDR, much stronger performance, mouse controls and a boost to the base storage were all very welcome. Of course, the vast majority of Switch games run on the Switch 2 (often with visual improvements or other upgrades), so the new console had a vast library right from the jump. Nintendo is building out its slate of first-party games with treats like Donkey Kong Bananza and Metroid Prime 4 , and the third-party support is seriously impressive too. Cyberpunk 2077 , Street Fighter 6 and Hitman: World of Assassination are already available, and the likes of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade and FromSoftware's Switch 2 exclusive The Duskbloods are on the way. The Switch 2 is an iteration, not a revolution, but Nintendo didn't need to reinvent the wheel to make another great system. It's little surprise, then, that we gave the Switch 2 a score of 93 in our review. The console is surpassing Nintendo's sales expectations as well. The company said in November that it believes it will sell 19 million units (up from 15 million) by the time its current fiscal year ends in March. Kris Holt, Contributing reporter NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce 5070 Ti Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Could things be any rosier for NVIDIA? Once just a video card company for gamers, NVIDIA's GPU hardware is now directly tied to the rise of the AI industry . Its stock has jumped a whopping 1,235 percent over the past five years, going from $13.56 per share in 2020 to a peak of $202.49 this past October. NVIDIA's server-grade cards are being used en masse to train AI models, as well as to power AI inferencing. At home, its GeForce GPUs are enabling local AI development and they're still the gaming cards to beat, despite AMD's steadily improving competition. Clearly, the company's bet on parallel processing has paid off enormously. Its GPUs can handle tons of computations simultaneously, making them ideally suited for the demands of the AI industry. They're not exactly efficient that's why neural processing units, or NPUs have sprung up to power consumer AI features but it's hard to deny NVIDIA's raw computational power. NVIDIA's AI success may not last forever, though. Companies like Google and Microsoft are already working on their own AI chips, and it's still unclear if consumers actually want widespread AI features as much as tech companies think. If the AI industry crashes, NVIDIA will be one of the first victims. Devindra Hardawar, Senior reporter Tech billionaires US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Elon Musk (L) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 30, 2025. ALLISON ROBBERT via Getty Images There's no doubt that tech billionaires, especially those that lean conservatively, have benefitted tremendously from the Trump administration over the past year. Elon Musk's DOGE team of tech loyalists chainsawed their way through the budgets and staff of several federal agencies, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which regulates Tesla. (That hasn't stopped the NHTSA from launching a new investigation into Tesla's full self-driving tech, though.) According to a recent report by Oxfam , the 10 richest US billionaires (who are all tech leaders, save for Warren Buffet) increased their wealth by $698 billion of the past year. Of course, it took plenty of wining and dining to get there. Elon Musk reportedly donated nearly $300 million to Trump and Republican allies , and several tech companies have pitched in to build the president's lavish White House ballroom. But the result for the tech elite is increased access to the president, less scrutiny when it comes to acquisitions and other deals , and the potential for massive corporate and elite tax cuts . D.H. AI video A silhouetted individual is seen holding a mobile phone with a Sora of ChatGPT OpenAI logo displayed in the background SOPA Images via Getty Images AI slop didn't start in 2025, but it reached new heights thanks to updates from Meta, Google, OpenAI and others that made it easier than ever to create a real-ish (emphasis on the ish) looking clips from nothing but your most unhinged mad libs. Now, AI-generated videos are just about impossible to avoid. Some platforms, like Pinterest and TikTok , have even begun offering people the ability to ask their algorithms to show less AI content in their feeds. Unfortunately, there's no way to stuff Shrimp Jesus back into the bottle. AI video is everywhere and it's here to stay. It's not only overtaken Facebook and Instagram's recommendations, Meta created an entirely separate feed just for users' AI-generated fever dreams. OpenAI's Sora, which lets you make AI videos of real people, was downloaded a million times in just a few days. Google's Veo, which generated more than 40 million videos in a matter of weeks, is now built-in to YouTube Shorts . It's now trivially easy for creators to churn out fake movie trailers , cute animal videos that never happened or viral clips of made up ICE raids . Hell, the president of the United States regularly shares bizarre, sometimes poop-themed , AI videos on his official social media channels. During the government shutdown, the official X account for Senate Republicans shared a deepfake of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. AI video is winning not just because it's everywhere, but because so many are unable, or unwilling, to understand what's real and what isn't. More than half of Americans say they are not confident in their ability to distinguish between human and AI-generated content, according to Pew Research. Similar numbers of people report being more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. But those concerns have done little to stop AI slop from dominating all of our feeds, and there's no sign it will ever slow down. Karissa Bell, Senior reporter Galaxy Z Fold 7 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Sam Rutherford for Engadget After seven generations, Samsung reached an important milestone this year with its Galaxy Z Fold line: It made a foldable phone thats the same size as a regular handset. In fact, weighing 7.58 ounces and measuring 72.8mm wide, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is actually lighter and narrower than an S25 Ultra , while being practically just as thin at 8.9mm (folded). Its a real marvel of engineering, especially when you consider the phone also features a 200MP main camera, an IPX8 rating for water resistance and a 5,000 mAh battery with 45-watt wired charging. And of course, there's that huge 8-inch main screen hiding inside, which makes the Z Fold 7 both a phone and a tablet in one device. The only thing it's really missing is the improved dust resistance Google gave to the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. But perhaps more importantly, the Z Fold 7's reduced size and weight have created a device with wider appeal. This has propelled sales of Samsung's latest flagship foldable up 50 percent compared to the previous generation while pushing shipments of foldables as a whole to record highs. Who knew that when Samsung focuses on creating world-class hardware instead of overindexing on AI, good things happen? Okay, maybe thats a bit harsh. Regardless, for a phone category that has struggled with excess weight and bulk since its inception, the Z Fold 7 feels like a revelation and the beginning of a new era for handsets with flexible displays. Now, can we just bring their prices down, please? Sam Rutherford, Senior reporter Smart glasses Senior reporter Karissa Bell wearing a pair of Ray Ban Display glasses. Karissa Bell for Engadget Like it or not, smart glasses are having a moment. Propelled by new devices like the Meta Ray-Ban Display and upcoming models like Xreals Project Aura , the idea of wearing specs with built-in screens suddenly became an attractive proposition. And that means a lot for a category of gadgets thats often best remembered by the fashion tragedy that was Google Glass in 2013. However, this development isnt purely by chance. The latest generation of smart glasses has only just now become a reality due to the convergence of several branches of tech including improved optics, lightweight batteries and, of course, AI. Now that last one might sound silly considering how many big companies seem to be betting the farm on machine learning being the next big thing, but AI will be a critical feature for enabling the hands-free experience that you need to make smartglasses work when you cant rely on touch input. While this category is still in its early stages of development, the increased momentum we've seen from smart glasses this year seems poised to carry them towards being a future pillar of people's core tech kits. S.R. Fast charging Fast charging on the Pixel Watch 4 is one implementation that impressed us this year. Cherlynn Low for Engadget Devices like tablets and smartwatches have matured to the point where each generation mostly sees iterative upgrades, making covering them seem boring. But this year, as the hardware review season came to a close, I noticed an interesting trend. One feature, across various product categories, genuinely excited myself and other reviewers at Engadget and around the internet : impressively fast charging. By itself, high-speed charging isnt new. But when I reviewed the Pixel Watch 4 in October, I was shocked that one seemingly little update changed how I went about my day. The new power system on Googles smartwatch was so efficient that after about ten minutes on a cradle, the wearable went from below 20 percent to past 50 percent. With that boost, I stopped having to remind myself to plug the watch in any time I ran low or was about to run out the door, I just plopped it on the charger and would have enough juice for hours. Google wasnt the only company to make fast-charging a meaningful addition to one of its 2025 products. Apples iPad Pro M5 is the first iPad to support the feature, and while in our testing it fell a little short of the 50 percent charge in 30 minutes that the company promised, our reviewer Nate Ingraham still found it a meaningful improvement. Observers of the smartphone industry will likely point out two things. First, battery technology can be volatile, and larger, faster-charging cells might lead to exploding phones. So my optimism about this development is not without caution. Secondly, weve already seen all this come to handsets, especially in phones that launched outside the US first. OnePlus is known for its SUPERVOOC fast charging system, for example, and were seeing even more novel battery tech show up abroad. Calling fast charging a winner of 2025 may feel untimely to some. But when you consider the spread of speedier charging to other types of products, especially in electric vehicles that till now take forever to top up, the benefits are clear. This year, we saw Formula E (finally) debut its fast-charging pit stops , Honda announce its first full-size electric motorcycle with fast charging and Chinese EV maker BYD unveiling new tech that delivers peak EV charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts . That should about halve the time it currently takes to top up your electric car. Sure, its not the most eye-catching or novel technological development. But when counted in terms of precious time saved, fast charging coming to more types of devices certainly amounts to a greater good in gadgets in 2025. Cherlynn Low, Managing editor Magnets The Pixel 10 Pro Fold and the Pixel Ring Stand Sam Rutherford for Engadget Two years after the announcement of the Qi 2 wireless charging standard and its support of magnetic attachment accessories (a la Apples MagSafe), were finally seeing one of the more mainstream Android devices adopt it. In 2025, Google became the first Android phone maker thats not HMD to do so, bringing such magnetic capabilities to the Pixel 10 series. It also introduced Pixelsnap its own version of a MagSafe accessory ecosystem, including a slim puck with a fold-out kickstand that you can snap onto a phone. I love the Pixel Ring Stand and make sure to bring it with me whenever I can. It works perfectly with my iPhone 17 Pro, and has a compact footprint that makes it easy to take anywhere. Of course, its not the first of its kind Case-Mate and PopSocket, among others, already make similar products but theyre either pricier or rated poorly. But its not just Google that made a magnetic accessory I unexpectedly adored. When reports of Apples Crossbody Strap first trickled out, I was underwhelmed. Who cares about a crossbody strap for an iPhone? But when I was presented with one to try at the iPhone 17 launch event, my cynicism quickly melted into desire. Setting aside the convenience of having your phone on your person when you dont have pockets or a purse, the way magnets play a part here also won me over. To adjust the length of the straps, you just separate the two overlapping pieces that stick together magnetically, move them along each other till youre satisfied with the length and let them snap back in place. Im sure Apple isnt the first to make a crossbody strap accessory for iPhones, nor is it the first to use magnets to adjust such straps. But like many Redditors , Ive slowly come to realize the differences between those products and the Crossbody Strap for iPhone 17. Its far from perfect, but in 2025 it was another implementation of magnets in tech that caught my attention and brought convenience to my life. C.L. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/techs-biggest-winners-of-2025-180000177.html?src=rss

Uber will start selling trip and takeout data to marketers

Uber will begin selling customer data to marketers, according to a report by Business Insider . The company's ad division just launched a new insights platform called Uber Intelligence that's tasked with hoovering up and selling trip and delivery data. The data will technically be anonymous, via the use of a platform called LiveRamp. This will let advertisers securely combine their customer data with Uber's to help surface insights about their audiences, based on what they eat and where they travel. Basically, it'll provide a broad view of local consumer trends based on collected data. Uber gives an example of a hotel brand using the technology to identify which restaurants or venues to partner with according to rideshare information. The company also says it's planning on using this tech to directly advertise to consumers, saying it could be used to identify customers who are heavy business travelers and then plague them with ads in the app or in vehicles during their next trip to the airport. Fun times. That seamlessness is why we're so excited, Edwin Wong, global head of measurement at Uber Advertising, told Business Insider. Uber has stated that its ad business is already on track to generate $1.5 billion in revenue this year, and that's before implementing these changes. As for Uber in totality, the company made $44 billion in 2024 , which was a jump from $37 billion in 2023. It's also notorious for raising fares. Uber has raised prices for consumers by around 18 percent each year since 2018, which has outpaced inflation by up to four times in some markets. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/uber-will-start-selling-trip-and-takeout-data-to-marketers-171011769.html?src=rss

Best Guess Live is Netflix's take on HQ Trivia

Netflix has already committed to reviving Star Search for its streaming service, and now the company is turning its attention to a different type of live show: HQ Trivia . Netflix's Best Guess Live is an attempt to revive the late 2010s app-based show with what the company is calling its first weekday mobile game show. Best Guess Live will be hosted by Howie Mandel ( Deal or No Deal , America's Got Talent ) and Hunter March ( Sugar Rush ) and will broadcast Monday through Friday at 8PM ET / 5PM PT. The game seems like it will lean on multiple choice questions much like HQ Trivia did, and will reward players who answer the fastest and play multiple times per week. Netflix's announcement doesn't have any specifics as to how much money will be up for grabs, but the company does promise to give away thousands of dollars in prize money. HQ Trivia, started by Vine co-founders Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll, was a surprise hit when it debuted in 2017, thanks in part to its host Scott Rogowsky and the appointment-viewing nature of a daily game show you could watch on your phone. The later slow collapse of HQ was rocky enough to warrant a CNN documentary , but clearly the concept of the app fits nicely with Netflix's growing interest in live shows and casual games. Netflix has experimented with a growing number of live shows, including talk shows and sports programming . The company has also recently abandoned its aspirations to develop AAA games and ambitious indie titles to focus on casual experiences and games based on Netflix IP. Best Guess Live seems like a nice fusion of casual interactive experience and lightweight live content. Many people already open the Netflix app daily to find something to watch. It makes sense they'd be willing to do it for money, too. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/best-guess-live-is-netflixs-take-on-hq-trivia-170000030.html?src=rss

The developer behind ICEBlock is suing the federal government

The makers of ICEBlock , the community-based reporting app for ICE sightings and activity, are suing the federal government, alleging unlawful threats made by Trump administration officials led to the app's removal from app stores. The suit centers on free speech violations and accuses the administration of coercing Apple into taking down the app in October. Google began taking down similar apps around the same time. Josh Aaron developed ICEBlock in response to the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. The app allowed users to pin ICE agent locations on a map as well as add notes such as what agents were wearing or the kind of vehicle they were driving. The app would then alert users within a five-mile radius of the sighting. The White House called the app an incitement of further violence against ICE officers and sought its removal. A lesson we should all take from this is when we see our government is doing something wrong, it is our duty to stand up, Aaron told the New York Times . This isn't the first time Apple has faced controversy for an app takedown. In 2019, the company removed an app that protesters in Hong Kong were using to track police after facing pressure from the Chinese government. Apple, for its part, said it took the app down in response to information we've received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock. Federal officials said the gunman who attacked an ICE facility in Dallas had used tracking apps, including ICEBlock. Fundamentally, ICEBlock neither enables nor encourages confrontation it simply delivers time-limited location information to help users stay aware of their surroundings in a responsible and nonviolent way, Aaron's suit reads. Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment and will update if we hear back. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-developer-behind-iceblock-is-suing-the-federal-government-165111674.html?src=rss

The 22 best gift ideas for the remote worker in your life

Its 2025, so chances are you have at least one person who works remotely on your gift list. While the work-from-home life has its perks nobody likes a long commute it certainly comes with its own set of challenges, from missing out on pro-level equipment to dealing with annoyances around the house. If youre looking to buy a gift for someone who spends much of their time in their home office, weve rounded up a few techy ideas that should make their days a little more delightful or at least easier to manage. Best gifts for remote workers Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/the-22-best-gift-ideas-for-the-remote-worker-in-your-life-140037336.html?src=rss

Paramount makes a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount has been none too pleased about Netflix striking an $82.7 billion deal to buy much of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Now, Paramount is making a hostile takeover bid for WBD. It's making its pitch directly to WBD shareholders with an all-cash offer of $30 per share that expires on January 8. Late last week, the WBD board unanimously accepted Netflix's offer of $27.75 per share. That breaks down to $23.25 per share in cash and another $4.50 per share in Netflix stock. Netflix's overall bid is valued at $82.7 billion, while Paramount's totals $108.4 billion. There's a key difference when it comes to the Paramount offer, as its for all of WBD. The latter is scheduled to split into two companies next year . Netflix only wants the Streaming and Studios side of WBD's business, which includes HBO Max and the Warner Bros. film, TV and game studios. Paramount is after the whole shebang, including WBD's cable channels (Global Networks). WBD's Board of Directors recommendation of the Netflix transaction over Paramount's offer is based on an illusory prospective valuation of Global Networks that is unsupported by the business fundamentals and encumbered by high levels of financial leverage assigned to the entity, Paramount said in a press release on Monday . As of the end of September, WBD was carrying $34.5 billion of gross debt. It planned to saddle the Global Networks company (aka Discovery Global ) with most of that. The Paramount offer includes financing from the Ellison family and RedBird Capital, but it would be taking on more debt to secure a deal for WBD. The bid includes $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo (Engadget's parent company). In a letter sent to WBD CEO David Zazlav before the company accepted Netflix's offer, Paramount questioned the fairness and adequacy of the sale process. It asked whether WBD was acting in the best interest of shareholders after the management team allegedly appeared to favor the Netflix offer. Despite Paramount submitting six proposals over the course of 12 weeks, WBD never engaged meaningfully with these proposals which we believe deliver the best outcome for WBD shareholders, Paramount said. Paramount has now taken its offer directly to WBD shareholders and its Board of Directors to ensure they have the opportunity to pursue this clearly superior alternative. Paramount which Skydance bought for $8 billion this year also claims that its offer is likely to face less regulatory scrutiny than the Netflix offer, which wouldn't close until sometime after WBD splits in two later in 2026. According to CNBC , Paramount executives believe that the company's smaller size and cozy relationship with the Trump administration will help streamline the regulatory process. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said that Netflix's bid for WBD has got to go through a process, and well see what happens. But it is a big market share. It could be a problem. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/paramount-makes-a-108-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery-152248473.html?src=rss

Blink budget security cameras will support AI-powered video descriptions

Amazon's budget Blink smart home brand is adding AI-generated video descriptions as a new benefit for subscribers. Blink Video Descriptions are text descriptions of the motion doorbells and cameras capture, and theyll be available in beta starting today, November 17. Not unlike Ring Video Descriptions , a feature offered on Amazon's other smart home brand, Blink's AI-generated descriptions are supposed to be a concise way to check out what's happening in and around your home. Any kind of motion can produce a video clip and a notification in the Blink app, but video descriptions should help weed out which ones are worth watching and worrying about. Blink says Video Descriptions will be supported on all existing Blink doorbells and cameras, provided you're paying to be a Blink subscriber for at least $4 a month or $40 a year. That means if you've scooped up one of the new Blink 2K+, Blink Outdoor 2K+ or Blink Arc cameras, you'll be able to take advantage of the feature. Blink Video Descriptions start rolling out to subscribers today in beta, though not in Illinois, possibly due to the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/blink-budget-security-cameras-will-support-ai-powered-video-descriptions-143000725.html?src=rss

The Google Pixel Watch 4 is cheaper than ever right now

Cyber Monday has come and gone, but you can still get a great deal on a smartwatch with the Google Pixel Watch 4 marked down to $300 from $350. At almost 15 percent off, this is the lowest we've ever seen it. The Pixel Watch 4 was just released in October and is our smartwatch of choice for users with Pixel phones. In our hands-on review we scored it 86 out of 100, taking note of its fast recharge time, health and fitness tracking, repairable design and gorgeous display. The curved display sits under a domed glass cover and sports an impressive 3,000 nits of peak brightness, well beyond the 2,000 nits max of the Apple Watch Series 11 . This makes the Pixel Watch 4 about 50 percent brighter than the previous generation, and thanks to smaller bezels the display is about 10 percent bigger. The new generation also adds dual-frequency GPS, updated processors and a custom haptic engine. It also boasts a more repairable design thanks to a case that can be easily unscrewed to replace the display or battery. We did find the gesture based raise-to-talk Gemini feature a little gimmicky, and users should note that the watch must be connected to the internet for Gemini to work. Thanks to all this, we named the Pixel Watch 4 the best smartwatch for Android users . It's as good a workout companion as a daily watch and offers peace of mind with emergency SOS via satellite. If you're an Android user in the market for a smartwatch, this is one of the best deals available now. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/the-google-pixel-watch-4-is-cheaper-than-ever-right-now-141715083.html?src=rss

Apple Watch Series 11 drops $100 to an all-time low price

Sure, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but you can still find a last-minute deal on the best tech gifts . Take the Apple Watch Series 11 , which has dropped to an all-time low of $299, from $399. The 25 percent discount is an even better deal than we saw on either of those sale holidays. We gave the Apple Watch Series 11 a score of 90 when it came out in September. That's thanks, in part, to an upgraded 24 hours of battery life which lasted closer to a day and a half compared to the 18 hours promised by the Series 10. It also features a thin, light design and a wrist flick gesture for everything from dismissing a notification to ending calls. Plus, it has Apple's new hypertension tracker and comprehensive health monitoring. This deal is available for the Apple Watch Series 11 with a 42mm case and a small to medium band. It also comes with just GPS capabilities and in three colorways: Jet Black aluminum case with Black sport band, Space Gray aluminum cause with Black sport band and Rose Gold aluminum case with Light Blush sport band. Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apple-watch-series-11-drops-100-to-an-all-time-low-price-130006591.html?src=rss

Apple's AirPods Pro 3 are back to an all-time low price

If you haven't yet upgraded to Apple's AirPods Pro 3 , you can pick up the company's latest model at a discount through a deal on Amazon right now. The AirPods Pro 3, which came out in September, are currently down from $249 to $220 their Cyber Monday all-time low price. With the new AirPods Pro, Apple made some big improvements, including better battery life and sound quality, and introduced useful new features, such as Live Translation. The AirPods Pro 3 are the best AirPods available today, with Apple's H2 chip, and earned a score of 90 out of 100 in Engadget's review this fall. Active noise cancellation (ANC) is one of the biggest selling points of the AirPods Pro, and Apple has made the experience even better with the AirPods Pro 3. They sport new foam-infused ear tips that create a better seal to improve passive noise isolation, and as Engadget's Billy Steele wrote in his review, Ultra-low-noise microphones combine with advanced computational audio to silence even more background noise. In testing, they had no problem blocking out the chatter of people nearby or otherwise noisy environments. With the AirPods Pro 3, Apple introduced heart-rate sensing, so you'll be able to see your heart rate data from the earbuds in the Fitness app and other workout apps. The AirPods Pro 3 also boast Live Translation, which you can activate via controls on the earbuds themselves. As long as you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device, you'll be able to translate in-person conversations in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin). Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-airpods-pro-3-are-back-to-an-all-time-low-price-222806220.html?src=rss

Trends that dominated YouTube in 2025

YouTube says that creators are using tools like the Inspiration Tab, Edit with AI, and Auto Dubbing to simplify complex edits, and reach new audiences

The 5 best Mint alternatives to replace the budgeting app that shut down

It's been over one year since Intuit shut down the popular budgeting app Mint. I was a Mint user for many years; millions of other users like me enjoyed how easily Mint allowed us to track all accounts in one place and monitor credit scores. I also used it regularly to help me track spending, set goals like pay my mortgage down faster and with general money management. Ahead of Mints demise, I gave Credit Karma , Intuits other financial app, a try but found it to be a poor Mint alternative. So I set out to find a true replacement in another budgeting app. The following guide lays out my experience testing some of the most popular Mint replacement apps available today. Our pick for best Mint alternative remains Quicken Simplifi , even this long after Mint being shut down, thanks to its easy to use app, good income and bill detection and its affordable price. But there are plenty of other solid options out there for those with different needs. If youre also on the hunt for a budgeting app to replace Mint, we hope these details can empower you to choose which of the best budgeting apps out there will be right for you. Table of contents Best Mint alternatives in 2025 Other Mint alternatives we tested What is Plaid and how does it work? How to import your financial data from the Mint app How we tested Mint alternatives What about Rocket Money? Best Mint alternatives in 2025 No pun intended, but what I like about Quicken Simplifi is its simplicity. Whereas other budgeting apps try to distinguish themselves with dark themes and customizable emoji, Simplifi has a clean user interface, with a landing page that you just keep scrolling through to get a detailed overview of all your stats. These include your top-line balances; net worth; recent spending; upcoming recurring payments; a snapshot of your spending plan; top spending categories; achievements; and any watchlists youve set up. Another one of the key features I appreciate is the ability to set up savings goals elsewhere in the app. I also appreciate how it offers neat, almost playful visualizations without ever looking cluttered. I felt at home in the mobile and web dashboards after a day or so, which is faster than I adapted to some competing services (Im looking at you, YNAB and Monarch). Getting set up with Simplifi was mostly painless. I was particularly impressed at how easily it connected to Fidelity; not all budget trackers do, for whatever reason. This is also one of the only services I tested that gives you the option of inviting a spouse or financial advisor to co-manage your account. One thing I would add to my initial assessment of the app, having used it for a few months now: I wish Simplifi offered Zillow integration for easily tracking your home value (or at least a rough estimate of it). Various competitors including Monarch Money and Copilot Money work with Zillow, so clearly there's a Zillow API available for use. As it stands, Simplifi users must add real estate manually like any other asset. Dana Wollman / Engadget In practice, Simplifi miscategorized some of my expenses, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to any of these budget trackers. As youre reviewing transactions, you can also mark if youre expecting a refund, which is a unique feature among the services I tested. Simplifi also estimated my regular income better than some other apps I tested. Most of all, I appreciated the option of being able to categorize some, but not all, purchases from a merchant as recurring. For instance, I can add my two Amazon subscribe-and-saves as recurring payments, without having to create a broad-strokes rule for every Amazon purchase. The budgeting feature is also self-explanatory and can likely accommodate your preferred budgeting method. Just check that your regular income is accurate and be sure to set up recurring payments, making note of which are bills and which are subscriptions. This is important because Simplifi shows you your total take-home income as well as an income after bills figure. That number includes, well, bills but not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you can add spending targets by category in the planned spending bucket. Planned spending can also include one-time expenditures, not just monthly budgets. When you create a budget, Simplifi will suggest a number based on a six-month average. Not dealbreakers, but two things to keep in mind as you get started: Simplifi is notable in that you cant set up an account through Apple or Google. There is also no option for a free trial, though Quicken promises a 30-day money back guarantee. Monarch Money grew on me. My first impression of the budgeting app, which was founded by a former Mint product manager, was that it's more difficult to use than others on this list, including Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it is. Editing expense categories, adding recurring transactions and creating rules, for example, is a little more complicated than it needs to be, especially in the mobile app. (My advice: Use the web app for fine-tuning details.) Monarch also didnt get my income right; I had to edit it. Once youre set up, though, Monarch offers an impressive level of granularity. In the budgets section, you can see a bona fide balance sheet showing budgets and actuals for each category. You'll also find a forecast, for the year or by month. And recurring expenses can be set not just by merchant, but other parameters as well. For instance, while most Amazon purchases might be marked as shopping, those for the amounts of $54.18 or $34.18 are definitely baby supplies, and can be automatically marked as such each time, not to mention programmed as recurring payments. Weirdly, though, theres no way to mark certain recurring payments as bills, specifically. Dana Wollman / Engadget Not long after I first published this story in December 2023, Monarch introduced a detailed reporting section where you can create on-demand graphs based on things like accounts, categories and tags. That feature is available just on the web version of the app for now. As part of this same update, Monarch added support for an aggregator that makes it possible to automatically update the value of your car. This, combined with the existing Zillow integration for tracking your home value, makes it easy to quickly add a non-liquid asset like a vehicle or real estate, and have it show up in your net worth graph. The mobile app is mostly self-explanatory. The main dashboard shows your net worth; your four most recent transactions; a month-over-month spending comparison; income month-to-date; upcoming bills; an investments snapshot; a list of any goals youve set; and, finally, a link to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is more detailed than most, delving into cash flow; top income and expense categories; cash flow trends; changes to your net worth, assets and liabilities; plus asset and liability breakdowns. In February 2024, Monarch expanded on the net worth graph , so that if you click on the Accounts tab you can see how your net worth changed over different periods of time, including one month, three months, six months, a year or all time. On the main screen, youll also find tabs for savings and checking accounts (and all others as well), transactions, cash flow, budget and recurring. Like many of the other apps featured here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring expenses and income, even if it gets the category wrong. (They all do to an extent.) Expense categories are marked by emoji, which you can customize if youre so inclined. Monarch Money uses a combination of networks to connect with banks, including Plaid, MX and Finicity, a competing network owned by Mastercard. (I have a quick explainer on Plaid, the industry standard in this space, toward the end of this guide.) As part of an update in late December, Monarch has also made it easier to connect through those other two networks, if for some reason Plaid fails. Similar to NerdWallet, I found myself completing two-factor authentication every time I wanted to get past the Plaid screen to add another account. Notably, Monarch is the only other app I tested that allows you to grant access to someone else in your family likely a spouse or financial advisor. Monarch also has a Chrome extension for importing from Mint, though really this is just a shortcut for downloading a CSV file, which youll have to do regardless of where you choose to take your Mint data. Additionally, Monarch just added the ability to track Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Savings accounts, thanks to new functionality brought with the iOS 17.4 update. It's not the only one either; currently, Copilot and YNAB have also added similar functionality that will be available to anyone with the latest versions of their respective apps on a device running iOS 17.4. Instead of manually uploading statements, the new functionality allows apps like Monarch's to automatically pull in transactions and balance history. That should make it easier to account for spending on Apple cards and accounts throughout the month. Monarch also recently launched investment transactions in beta. It also says bill tracking and an overhauled goals system are coming soon. Monarch hasn't provided a timeline for that last one, except to say that the improved goals feature is coming soon. Copilot Money might be the best-looking budgeting app I tested. It also has the distinction of being exclusive to iOS and Macs at least for now. Andres Ugarte, the companys CEO, has publicly promised that Android and web apps are coming soon. But until it follows through, I cant recommend Copilot for most people with so many good competitors out there. Copilot Money for Web and Android! Thanks to the support from our users, and the overwhelming positive reception we're seeing from folks migrating from Mint, we can now say that we'll be building @copilotmoney for Web and Android with a goal to launch in 2024. We'll continue to Andres Ugarte (@chuga) November 15, 2023 There are other features that Copilot is missing, which Ill get into. But it is promising, and one to keep an eye on. Its just a fast, efficient, well designed app, and Android users will be in for a treat when theyll finally be able to download it. It makes good use of colors, emoji and graphs to help you understand at a glance how youre doing on everything from your budgets to your investment performance to your credit card debt over time. In particular, Copilot does a better job than almost any other app of visualizing your recurring monthly expenses. Behind those punchy colors and cutesy emoji, though, is some sophisticated performance. Copilots AI-powered Intelligence gets smarter as you go at categorizing your expenses. (You can also add your own categories, complete with your choice of emoji.) Its not perfect. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (they all do), but it makes it easier to edit than most. On top of that, the internal search feature is very fast; it starts whittling down results in your transaction history as soon as you begin typing. Dana Wollman / Engadget Copilot is also unique in offering Amazon and Venmo integrations, allowing you to see transaction details. With Amazon, this requires just signing into your Amazon account via an in-app browser. For Venmo, you have to set up fwd@copilot.money as a forwarding address and then create a filter, wherein emails from venmo@venmo.com are automatically forwarded to fwd@copilot.money. Like Monarch Money, you can also add any property you own and track its value through Zillow, which is integrated with the app. While the app is heavily automated, I still appreciate that Copilot marks new transactions for review. Its a good way to both weed out fraudulent charges, and also be somewhat intentional about your spending habits. Like Monarch Money, Copilot updated its app to make it easier to connect to banks through networks other than Plaid. As part of the same update, Copilot said it has improved its connections to both American Express and Fidelity which, again, can be a bugbear for some budget tracking apps. In an even more recent update, Copilot added a Mint import option, which other budgeting apps have begun to offer as well. Because the app is relatively new (it launched in early 2020), the company is still catching up to the competition on some table-stakes features. Ugarte told me that his team is almost done building out a detailed cash flow section as well. On its website , Copilot also promises a raft of AI-powered features that build on its current Intelligence platform, the one that powers its smart expense categorization. These include smart financial goals, natural language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is meant to give people a sense of how theyre doing compared to other Copilot users, on both spending and investment performance. Most of these features should arrive in the new year. Copilot does a couple interesting things for new customers that distinguish it from the competition. Theres a demo mode that feels like a game simulator; no need to add your own accounts. The company is also offering two free months with RIPMINT a more generous introductory offer than most. When it finally does come time to pony up, the $7.92 monthly plan is cheaper than some competing apps, although the $95-a-year-option is in the same ballpark. You may know NerdWallet as a site that offers a mix of personal finance news, explainers and guides. I see it often when I google a financial term I dont know and sure enough, its one of the sites Im most likely to click on. As it happens, NerdWallet also has the distinction of offering one of the only free budgeting apps I tested. In fact, there is no paid version; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The main catch: There are ads everywhere. To be fair, the free version of Mint was like this, too. Even with the inescapable credit card offers, NerdWallet has a clean, easy-to-understand user interface, which includes both a web and a mobile app. The key metrics that it highlights most prominently are your cash flow, net worth and credit score. (Of note, although Mint itself offered credit score monitoring, most of its rivals do not.) I particularly enjoyed the weekly insights, which delve into things like where you spent the most money or how much you paid in fees and how that compares to the previous month. Because this is NerdWallet, an encyclopedia of financial info, you get some particularly specific category options when setting up your accounts (think: a Roth or non-Roth IRA). Dana Wollman / Engadget As a budgeting app, NerdWallet is more than serviceable, if a bit basic. Like other apps I tested, you can set up recurring bills. Importantly, it follows the popular 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you putting 50% of your budget toward things you need, 30% toward things you want, and the remaining 20% into savings or debt repayments. If this works for you, great just know that you cant customize your budget to the same degree as some competing apps. You cant currently create custom spending categories, though a note inside the dashboard section of the app says youll be able to customize them in the future. You also cant move items from the wants column to needs or vice versa but In the future, you'll be able to move specific transactions to actively manage what falls into each group. A NerdWallet spokesperson declined to provide an ETA, though. Lastly, its worth noting that NerdWallet had one of the most onerous setup processes of any app I tested. I dont think this is a dealbreaker, as youll only have to do it once and, hopefully, you arent setting up six or seven apps in tandem as I was. What made NerdWallets onboarding especially tedious is that every time I wanted to add an account, I had to go through a two-factor authentication process to even get past the Plaid splash screen, and thats not including the 2FA I had set up at each of my banks. This is a security policy on NerdWallets end, not Plaids, a Plaid spokesperson says. Precisely because NerdWallet is one of the only budget trackers to offer credit score monitoring, it also needs more of your personal info during setup, including your birthday, address, phone number and the last four digits of your social security number. Its the same with Credit Karma, which also does credit score monitoring. Related to the setup process, I found that NerdWallet was less adept than other apps at automatically detecting my regular income. In my case, it counted a large one-time wire transfer as income, at which point my only other option was to enter my income manually (which is slightly annoying because I would have needed my pay stub handy to double-check my take-home pay). YNAB is, by its own admission , different from anything youve tried before. The app, whose name is short for You Need a Budget, promotes a so-called zero-based budgeting system, which forces you to assign a purpose for every dollar you earn. A frequently used analogy is to put each dollar in an envelope; you can always move money from one envelope to another in a pinch. These envelopes can include rent and utilities, along with unforeseen expenses like holiday gifts and the inevitable car repair. The idea is that if you budget a certain amount for the unknowns each month, they wont feel like theyre sneaking up on you. Importantly, YNAB is only concerned with the money you have in your accounts now. The app does not ask you to provide your take-home income or set up recurring income payments (although there is a way to do this). The money you will make later in the month through your salaried job is not relevant, because YNAB does not engage in forecasting. The app is harder to learn than any other here, and it requires more ongoing effort from the user. And YNAB knows that. Inside both the mobile and web apps are links to videos and other tutorials. Although I never quite got comfortable with the user interface, I did come to appreciate YNABs insistence on intentionality. Forcing users to draft a new budget each month and to review each transaction is not necessarily a bad thing. As YNAB says on its website, Sure, youve got pie charts showing that you spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants but youve still spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants. I can see this approach being useful for people who dont tend to have a lot of cash in reserve at a given time, or who have spending habits they want to correct (to riff off of YNABs own example, ordering Seamless four times a week). My colleague Valentina Palladino, knowing I was working on this guide, penned a respectful rebuttal , explaining why shes been using YNAB for years. Perhaps, like her, you have major savings goals you want to achieve, whether its paying for a wedding or buying a house. I suggest you give her column a read. For me, though, YNABs approach feels like overkill. Other Mint alternatives we tested PocketGuard PocketGuard used to be a solid free budget tracker, but the company has since limited its free version to just a free seven-day trial. Now, youll have to choose between two plans once the trial is over: a $13 monthly plan or a $75 annual plan. When I first tested it, I found it to be more restricted than NerdWallet, but still a decent option. The main overview screen shows you your net worth, total assets and debts; net income and total spending for the month; upcoming bills; a handy reminder of when your next paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you have; and any goals. Like some other apps, including Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an after bills approach, where you enter all of your recurring bills, and then PocketGuard shows you whats left, and thats what youre supposed to be budgeting: your disposable income. Although PocketGuards UI is easy enough to understand, it lacks polish. The accounts tab is a little busy, and doesnt show totals for categories like cash or investments. Seemingly small details like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy occasionally make the app feel janky. More than once, it prompted me to update the app when no updates were available. The web version, meanwhile, feels like the mobile app blown up to a larger format and doesnt take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Ultimately, now that the free tier is gone, it just doesnt present the same value proposition as it once did. What is Plaid and how does it work? Each of the apps I tested uses the same underlying network, called Plaid, to pull in financial data, so its worth explaining in its own section what it is and how it works. Plaid was founded as a fintech startup in 2013 and is today the industry standard in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. Additionally, more than 8,000 third-party apps and services rely on Plaid, the company claims . To be clear, you dont need a dedicated Plaid app to use it; the technology is baked into a wide array of apps, including the budget trackers I tested for this guide. Once you find the add an account option in whichever one youre using, youll see a menu of commonly used banks. Theres also a search field you can use to look yours up directly. Once you find yours, youll be prompted to enter your login credentials. If you have two-factor authentication set up, youll need to enter a one-time passcode as well. As the middleman, Plaid is a passthrough for information that may include your account balances, transaction history, account type and routing or account number. Plaid uses encryption, and says it has a policy of not selling or renting customer data to other companies. However, I would not be doing my job if I didnt note that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for collecting more financial data than was needed. As part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to change some of its business practices. In a statement provided to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson said the company continues to deny the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that the crux of the non-financial terms in the settlement are focused on us accelerating workstreams already underway related to giving people more transparency into Plaids role in connecting their accounts, and ensuring that our workstreams around data minimization remain on track. How to import your financial data from the Mint app Mint users should consider getting their data ready to migrate to their new budgeting app of choice soon. Unfortunately, importing data from Mint is not as easy as entering your credentials from inside your new app and hitting import. In fact, any app that advertises the ability to port over your stats from Mint is just going to have you upload a CSV file of transactions and other data. To download a CSV file from Mint, do the following: Sign into Mint.com and hit Transactions in the menu on the left side of the screen. Select an account, or all accounts . Scroll down and look for export [number] transactions in smaller print. Your CSV file should begin downloading. Note: Downloading on a per-account basis might seem more annoying, but could help you get set up on the other side, if the app youre using has you importing transactions one-for-one into their corresponding accounts. How we tested Mint alternatives Before I dove into the world of budgeting apps, I had to do some research. To find a list of apps to test, I consulted trusty ol Google (and even trustier Reddit); read reviews of popular apps on the App Store; and also asked friends and colleagues what budget tracking apps they might be using. Some of the apps I found were free, just like Mint. These, of course, show loads of ads (excuse me, offers) to stay in business. But most of the available apps require paid subscriptions, with prices typically topping out around $100 a year, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My top pick is cheaper than that.) Since this guide is meant to help Mint users find a permanent replacement, any services I chose to test needed to do several things: import all of your account data into one place; offer budgeting tools; and track your spending, net worth and credit score. Except where noted, all of these apps are available for iOS, Android and on the web. Once I had my shortlist of six apps, I got to work setting them up. For the sake of thoroughly testing these apps (and remember, I really was looking for a Mint alternative myself), I made a point of adding every account to every budgeting app, no matter how small or immaterial the balance. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Just hours of entering passwords and one-time passcodes, for the same banks half a dozen times over. Hopefully, you only have to do this once. What about Rocket Money? Rocket Money is another free financial app that tracks spending and supports things like balance alerts and account linking. If you pay for the premium tier, the service can also help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. We did not test it for this guide, but we'll consider it in future updates. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-best-budgeting-apps-to-replace-mint-143047346.html?src=rss

Nothing Phone 3a Lite Review | Decent smartphone with solid strengths

The Phone 3a Lite is easy to recommend to users who want the Nothing aesthetic on a budget

Apple's AirPods Pro 3 drop to $230 on Amazon

If you haven't yet upgraded to Apple's AirPods Pro 3 , you can pick up the company's latest model at a discount through a deal on Amazon right now. The AirPods Pro 3, which came out in September, are currently $20 off, bringing their price down to $230. With the new AirPods Pro, Apple made some big improvements, including better battery life and sound quality, and introduced useful new features, such as Live Translation. The AirPods Pro 3 are the best AirPods available today, with Apple's H2 chip, and earned a score of 90 out of 100 in Engadget's review this fall. Active noise cancellation (ANC) is one of the biggest selling points of the AirPods Pro, and Apple has made the experience even better with the AirPods Pro 3. They sport new foam-infused ear tips that create a better seal to improve passive noise isolation, and as Engadget's Billy Steele wrote in his review, Ultra-low-noise microphones combine with advanced computational audio to silence even more background noise. In testing, they had no problem blocking out the chatter of people nearby or otherwise noisy environments. With the AirPods Pro 3, Apple introduced heart-rate sensing, so you'll be able to see your heart rate data from the earbuds in the Fitness app and other workout apps. The AirPods Pro 3 also boast Live Translation, which you can activate via controls on the earbuds themselves. As long as you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device, you'll be able to translate in-person conversations in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin). Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-airpods-pro-3-drop-to-230-on-amazon-222806114.html?src=rss

The Lord of the Rings trilogy returns to theaters in January for 25th anniversary

One does not simply spend more than 11 hours watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single weekend at home when the opportunity to do so in theaters arises. As The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring turns 25, Fathom Entertainment and Warner Bros. announced theatrical screenings of the Peter Jackson trilogy in their extended editions, according to an exclusive report from Variety . The re-releases will be available in DBOX presentations from January 16 to 19, complete with movements and vibrations to make you feel like you're making the journey to Mordor with Frodo and his entourage. If you prefer a traditional experience, the trilogy will be available in standard format from January 23 to 25. Fathom Entertainment Fathom Entertainment For the collectors out there, the screenings will also feature limited-edition themed concession items. Fans can purchase popcorn buckets that showcase maps of Middle-earth at AMC locations, while Regal venues and other local cinemas will have buckets with designs of the One Ring. Tickets are already on sale at Fathom's website . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-returns-to-theaters-in-january-for-25th-anniversary-202433217.html?src=rss

OpenAIs head of ChatGPT says posts appearing to show in-app ads are not real or not ads

Those might not exactly be ads you're seeing on ChatGPT, at least according to OpenAI. Nick Turley, OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, clarified the confusion around potential ads appearing with the AI chatbot. In a post on X , Turley said there are no live tests for ads and that any screenshots you've seen are either not real or not ads. The OpenAI exec's explanation comes after another post from former xAI employee Benjamin De Kraker on X that has gained traction, which featured a screenshot showing an option to shop at Target within a ChatGPT conversation. OpenAI's Daniel McAuley responded to the post, arguing that it's not an ad but rather an example of app integration that the company announced in October. However, the company's chief research officer, Mark Chen, also replied on X that they fell short in this case, adding that anything that feels like an ad needs to be handled with care. Weve turned off this kind of suggestion while we improve the models precision, Chen wrote on X. Were also looking at better controls so you can dial this down or off if you dont find it helpful. There's still a lot of uncertainty about whether OpenAI will introduce ads to ChatGPT, but in November, someone discovered code in a beta version of the ChatGPT app on Android that made several mentions of ads. Even in Turley's post debunking the inclusion of live ads, the OpenAI exec added that if we do pursue ads, well take a thoughtful approach. Turley also posted that people trust ChatGPT and anything we do will be designed to respect that. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-head-of-chatgpt-says-posts-appearing-to-show-in-app-ads-are-not-real-or-not-ads-190454584.html?src=rss

X shuts down the European Commissions ad account the day after major fine

Just a day after receiving a roughly $140 million fine , X has terminated the ad account of the European Commission. Nikita Bier , X's head of product, accused the European Commission of using an exploit to artificially boost the reach of its post announcing the major fine. In the post, Bier said that the commission logged into [their] dormant ad account to take advantage of an exploit in our Ad Composer and posted a link that deceives users into thinking its a video and to artificially increase its reach. Bier explained in a separate post that the exploit has never been abused like this and is now patched. However, X still revoked the European Commission's ability to buy and track ads on its platform. While X decided to remove the European Commission's ad account, it still needs to submit specific measures and an action plan to address the concerns associated with the $140 million fine. The European Commission's spokesperson for Tech Sovereignty, Defence, Space and Research, Thomas Regnier, said that this is the first-ever fine under the Digital Services Act . The European legislative body claimed that X has a deceptive system when it comes to verified accounts, lacks transparency with its advertising repository and doesn't provide effective data for researchers. In response, X's owner, Elon Musk, replied to the European Commission's post, calling it bullshit . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-shuts-down-the-european-commissions-ad-account-the-day-after-major-fine-173553267.html?src=rss

Judge puts a one-year limit on Google's contracts for default search placement

A federal judge has expanded on the remedies decided for the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google, ruling in favor of putting a one-year limit on the contracts that make Google's search and AI services the default on devices, Bloomberg reports. Judge Amit Mehta's ruling on Friday means Google will have to renegotiate these contacts every year, which would create a fairer playing field for its competitors. The new details come after Mehta ruled in September that Google would not have to sell off Chrome, as the DOJ proposed at the end of 2024. This all follows the ruling last fall that Google illegally maintained an internet search monopoly through actions including paying companies such as Apple to make its search engine the default on their devices and making exclusive deals around the distribution of services such as Search, Chrome and Gemini. Mehta's September ruling put an end to these exclusive agreements and stipulates that Google will have to share some of its search data with rivals to narrow the scale gap its actions have created. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/judge-puts-a-one-year-limit-on-googles-contracts-for-default-search-placement-215549614.html?src=rss

Apple's Johny Srouji could continue the company's executive exodus, according to report

Apple's Johny Srouji may be the latest company executive to seek greener pastures, according to a report from Bloomberg . The report said that Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies, told Tim Cook that he is seriously considering leaving in the near future. While the report didn't mention if Srouji has another job lined up, Bloomberg 's sources claimed that he wants to join another company if he leaves Apple. Srouji joined the company in 2008 to develop Apple's first in-house system-on-a-chip and eventually led the transition to Apple silicon. If Srouji leaves Apple, he would be the latest in a string of departures of longtime execs. At the start of the month, Apple announced that John Giannandrea , the company's senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy, would be retiring from his role in spring 2026. A couple of days later, Bloomberg reported that the company's head of interface design, Alan Dye, would be leaving for a role at Meta. Adding to those exits, Apple also revealed that Kate Adams, who has been Apple's general counsel since 2017, and Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, will both be leaving in early 2026. The shakeup at the executive level comes after Bloomberg 's Mark Gurman previously reported that Cook may not be preparing for his own departure as CEO next year. Gurman's prediction counters a report from the Financial Times that claimed that Apple was accelerating succession plans for Cook with an expected stepping down sometime next year. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apples-johny-srouji-could-continue-the-companys-executive-exodus-according-to-report-200750252.html?src=rss

Waymo's robotaxi fleet is being recalled again, this time for failing to stop for school buses

To prevent its robotaxi fleet from passing stopped school buses, Waymo is issuing another software recall in 2025. While it's not a traditional recall that pulls vehicles from the road, Waymo is voluntarily updating software for its autonomous fleet in response to an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to Waymo, the recall will be filed with the federal agency early next week. Mauricio Pea, Waymo's chief safety officer, said in a statement that Waymo sees far fewer crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers, but that the company knows when our behavior should be better. As a result, we have made the decision to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios, Pea said in a statement to multiple news outlets . We will continue analyzing our vehicles performance and making necessary fixes as part of our commitment to continuous improvement. According to the NHTSA investigation, some Waymo autonomous vehicles were seen failing to stop for school buses that had their stop signs and flashing lights deployed. The federal agency said in the report that there were instances of Waymo cars driving past stopped school buses in Atlanta and Austin, Texas. Earlier this year, Waymo issued another software recall after some of its robotaxi fleet were seen hitting gates, chains, and similar objects. Last year, Waymo also filed two other software recalls, one of which addressed a fleet vehicle crashing into a telephone pole and another correcting how two separate robotaxis hit the same exact pickup truck that was being towed. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymos-robotaxi-fleet-is-being-recalled-again-this-time-for-failing-to-stop-for-school-buses-190222243.html?src=rss

Meta plans to push back the debut of its next mixed reality glasses to 2027

The big reveal for Meta's next mixed reality glasses is being postponed until the first half of 2027, according to a report from Business Insider . Based on an internal memo from Maher Saba, the vice president of Meta's Reality Labs Foundation, the report said that the company's project, which is codenamed Phoenix, will no longer be scheduled for a 2026 debut. In a separate memo, Meta execs explained that the delay would help deliver a more polished and reliable experience. According to BI , a memo from Meta's Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns said this new release window is going to give us a lot more breathing room to get this right. Meta hasn't publicly revealed many details about its Phoenix project, but The Information previously reported that it would feature a goggle-like form factor with an external power source, similar to how the Apple Vision Pro is attached to a battery pack. In the memo from Saba, BI reported that Meta is also working on a limited edition wearable with the codename Malibu 2. Yesterday, Meta announced its acquisition of Limitless , a startup that recently developed an AI wearable called Pendant. Even though Meta's current product portfolio is dominated by smart glasses and VR headsets , the Limitless acquisition and Malibu 2 project could hint at the company's plans to expand its offerings. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-plans-to-push-back-the-debut-of-its-next-mixed-reality-glasses-to-2027-172437374.html?src=rss

Engadget review recap: Dell 16 Premium, Nikon ZR, Ooni Volt 2 and more

Weve slept off our collective turkey coma and returned to the review lab here at Engadget. Our team may also be in full CES prep mode , but weve got a few more devices to get off or our desks before 2025 is over. Catch up on all of the reviews you might have missed over the last few weeks a perfect activity for a lazy December weekend. Dell 16 Premium Theres no denying the design of the Dell 16 Premium makes the laptop live up to its name. Unfortunately, all of that polish leads to some issues: a high price and hampered usability. The more I looked at the Dell 16 Premium's beautiful facade, the more I wanted something... more, senior reporter Devindra Hardawar wrote . It needs more usable ports, like HDMI and a full-sized SD card reader. It needs more useful function keys that are visible in bright light and also stay in one place so I can touch type more easily. And for the love of god, just give up on the invisible trackpad. DJI Osmo Action 6 DJIs drone business in the US faces an uncertain future, and the companys action cams could be swept up in the ordeal as well. Thankfully, our contributing reporter Steve Dent resides in the EU where he observed first hand the Osmo Action 6s superior low light performance and battery life. With a bigger sensor and larger aperture than the competition, DJIs Action 6 is now the best action cam on the market for night shooting, delivering clean, sharp video with better stabilization than rivals, he said . Its also ideal for users who output to both YouTube and TikTok. Nikon ZR In keeping with the video theme, Steve also spent time testing the Nikon ZR. While this is primarily a model for shooting video, it benefits from the addition of RED RAW, excellent autofocus and more. With the ZR, Nikon has shown that its finally catching up to and even surpassing its rivals for content creation, he explained . Whether youre doing social media, YouTube, documentaries or even film production, this camera is versatile and powerful with few compromises. Ooni Volt 2 The Ooni Volt brought the companys popular brand of pizza making indoors for the first time, but that model wasnt without it faults. Now Ooni is back with the Volt 2, and the completely overhauled design is a big upgrade over the original. Its easier to use for all skill levels thanks to its clearer controls and large display, I explained . Presets work well, but they can also serve as a starting point for further recipe refinement for experienced users. And the pizza my goodness, the pizza is consistently restaurant quality (or better) across a range of styles. Antigravity A1 Insta360s spin-off Antigravity is now shipping its first drone and our UK bureau chief Mat Smith has already flown it. The A1 comes with a controller and FPV headset to assist with the piloting, but the mix of unique features and crisp video (in good conditions) is also laudable. The intuitive controls and ability to look all around you make it unlike anything else currently available, he said . Its a delightful introduction to drones, FPV or otherwise, but a shame that software issues marred my tests. Other recent reviews On the gaming front, Mat spent some time with Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles while deputy editor Nathan Ingraham put Metroid Prime 4 through its paces. Contributor Tim Stevens stepped back in time with the Analogue 3D to revisit some Nintendo 64 classics after getting behind the wheel of the 2025 Porsche Macan Electric . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-dell-16-premium-nikon-zr-ooni-volt-2-and-more-130000527.html?src=rss

A Marvel beat-'em-up, long-awaited survival horror and other new indie games worth checking out

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. A bunch of titles that are arriving very late to make it into game of the year conversations debuted this week, and we learned some new details about upcoming projects, such as a release date for a rad-looking arena shooter called Don't Stop, Girlypop. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is one of the higher-profile indies to hit consoles and PC this week. It's from Tribute Games and publisher Dotemu, the same pair that brought us Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge . Cosmic Invasion largely draws from the same playbook: it's also a retro-style side-scrolling beat-'em-up with a look that apes the Marvel animated shows from the '90s . It's an enjoyable enough game, largely thanks to the variety of characters and how differently they play. Captain America is one of my favorites. Each character has a secondary move (often a ranged attack) to go with their basic melee strikes, and Cap's one has no ammo or cooldown.I never grew tired of spamming his shield projectile attack and knocking enemies off the screen. I really enjoyed playing as She-Hulk too. Her secondary move involves grabbing an enemy and throwing them around. She-Hulk can also toss them into the air then leap with McTominay-esque athleticism to deliver a kick and send the baddie crashing into its cohorts. The character swap system (each player chooses two and can switch between them any time) evokes tag fighting games and the co-op features work well too. There isn't a ton of depth to Marvel Cosmic Invasion , unfortunately, but the presentation is spot on. It's out now on Steam , Nintendo Switch , Nintendo Switch 2 , PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for $30. It's also on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. New releases It only took 13 years from announcement to release but survival horror title Routine (from Lunar Software and publisher Raw Fury) has emerged on Steam , the Xbox PC app, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox Cloud . It's available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Routine offers up a slice of liminal space terror with a dash of retro-futurism. Lunar Software based the aesthetic on how people from the 1980s might envision a believable moon base with analogue technology. Your mission is to explore the base and try to determine how it got to this state. Lunar wanted Routine to feel as immersive as possible, so there are no waypoint markers and you won't see a heads-up display. Instead, you have a personal data assistant that connects to wireless access points throughout the base and provides you with information about your current goals. Here's another horror title we've been looking forward to for several years . Sleep Awake deals with things that go bump in the night. It's a first-person psychedelic horror game in which a force called The HUSH makes anyone who falls asleep vanish. So, our hero Katja and other residents of the last-known city on Earth try various ways to stay awake, but theyll inevitably have to deal with the effects of sleep derivation. Sleep Awake is from Eyes Out a studio formed by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck and publisher Blumhouse Games. It's out now on Steam , PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for $30. How about another horror game? It's the last one we have this week, I promise. Tingus Goose has been on my radar for a while because it just looks so deeply strange. This is billed as a cozy body horror idle game in which you plant seeds in patients, bounce babies for profit and ascend through surreal worlds toward riches. I'm glad for that description from the game's PR team, because I don't fully know what to make of the trailer. A goose emerges from a human being's torso and grows a giant neck and human fingers stick out of it and it's all just so strange. But I kinda dig it? Tingus Goose is from SweatyChair and co-publishers Playsaurus and UltraPlayers. It's on Steam for $5.94 until December 8, and it will cost $7 after that. I haven't seen anything that looks quite like Effulgence RPG before. It's a party-based RPG with a 3D ASCII art style. Here, you'll need to take out enemies to acquire better gear. Andrei Fomin released Effulgence RPG in early access on Steam this week for $10. The solo developer is aiming to release the full version of the game in June and to add more content and quality-of-life updates in the meantime. It's not usually the kind of game that I'd normally be drawn toward, but that art style alone is cool enough to make me want to try it. Looking for something a little more relaxing? Log Away is a cozy cabin builder fromThe-Mark Entertainment. There are several environments to choose from and a variety of decorations at your disposal depending on your interests. You can have a pet too, so that qualifies Log Away as this week's dog game. I've played it a bit and found it to be quite relaxing, a soothing counter punch to the non-stop action of Cosmic Invasion . It's out now on Steam for $10, but if you buy it by December 11 you'll save a dollar and get a Christmas-themed DLC at no extra cost. I adore Sayonara Wild Hearts with every fiber of my being and I appreciated what Simogo did with Lorelai and the Laser Eyes , even if I never stuck with it for long . I haven't played any of the studio's earlier games, though. That's something I'm planning to fix very soon now that the Simogo Legacy Collection is here. The studio reworked all of its first seven mobile games including Year Walk and Device 6 and combined them into a collection that's available on Steam , Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 . It costs $15 though there's a 15 percent discount until December 12. I'm very much looking forward to digging into this over the holidays. Upcoming I've been very much looking forward to Dont Stop, Girlypop! for a while. It's a movement-focused arena shooter with a Y2K aesthetic. Think of it as an anti-capitalist, hyperpop riff on games like Doom Eternal . The demo is a lot of fun and I'm glad there's finally a release date for this game from Funny Fintan Softworks and publisher Kwalee. It's coming to Steam on January 29. Limbot seems like it could be a fun party game. You can play it by yourself, but having three friends join you seems like the optimal way to go. In that case, each of you will take control of one of a cardboard robot's limbs. So you'll have to coordinate to move around this papercraft world effectively and complete precision-based objectives. It sounds like a recipe for an Overcooked -style tiff between friends. This physics-based game from Ionized Studios is coming to Steam , Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It's slated to arrive between April and June next year. Polyperfect's Zlin City: Arch Moderna is a diorama city builder inspired by historical events of the 1930s and '40s and the architecture of Zlin, a town in Czechia (Czech Republic). The developers used 3D printing, photogrammetry and 3D scanning to capture the objects that are used in the game. The result is something that at least at first glance looks beautifully textured. There's no confirmed release window for Zlin City: Arch Moderna as yet. It'll be available on Steam . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-marvel-beat-em-up-long-awaited-survival-horror-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-120000228.html?src=rss

The 1977 cut of Star Wars will return to theaters in 2027

Here's some good news for the Han shot first crowd. The original cut of Star Wars (1977), the film known today as A New Hope , is coming back to theaters. We first learned in August that some version of the film would be screened again in 2027 for its 50th anniversary. But we know now this will indeed be the version everyone saw before George Lucas made those questionable, CGI-heavy changes in the 1997 Special Editions. The re-release arrives in theaters on February 19, 2027. In a short update posted Friday on the official Star Wars website, Lucasfilm all but clarified that this will be the original cut. It described it as a newly restored version of the classic Star Wars (1977) theatrical release. Gizmodo reported that it received further clarification that this will indeed be the OG one, before those improvements in the Special Edition (and subsequent re-releases). Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in a scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. Disney Plus Those mid-'90s edits included early CGI effects that essentially served as a testing ground before Lucas moved on to the Prequel Trilogy . It also added a CG Jabba the Hutt / Han Solo scene (originally shot with actor Thomas Declan Mulholland as Jabba) that was cut from the original version. Perhaps most infamously, Lucas made Greedo shoot first at Han in the canteen scene. Hardcore fans hated the change. It smoothed some of the rough edges of Han's start. It gave him a shorter, less dramatic journey into the reluctant hero he grew into as the story progressed. It's as if Lucas was signaling, Okay, Han may have started as kind of a jerk, but he wouldn't shoot a bounty hunter in cold blood! Think of the children watching! But in my view, Return of the Jedi had the worst changes in 1997 and later. Although I didn't mind the new celebration music and location montage at the end (others disagree), it also added that cringey and out-of-place musical number in Jabba's palace. But I despised the change Lucas made for the films 2011 Blu-ray release: Darth Vader's overly telegraphed Nooooooo as he makes the climactic decision to chuck the Emperor into the Death Star's reactor shaft. Cmon, George: Its so more powerful for the audience to project Vaders thought process onto his silent helmet. But if Disney sticks with the 50th Anniversary scheme, we'll have to wait until 2033 to see the untainted version of that movie in theaters again. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-1977-cut-of-star-wars-will-return-to-theaters-in-2027-221113091.html?src=rss

Pixel owners: You can now use your phone as a Switch 2 webcam

The Switch 2's lack of a built-in camera means you need an external one for GameChat video calls . But now, if your phone is a Google Pixel , you don't even need one of those. Android Authority reported on Friday that the two now work nicely together (without needing third-party apps), and our tests confirm that. Google has technically supported the use of Android devices as external webcams for two years: The company added it in a quarterly update for Android 14. (Specifically, it added the ability for devices to use USB Video Class mode, or UVC.) But that functionality didn't work with the Switch 2 before the November Pixel Drop . How do we know it was that version? Well, before our Editor-in-Chief, Aaron Souppouris, installed Novembers update on a Pixel, the Switch 2 webcam feature didn't work. After updating to that one today (but before installing the December update), it worked. If that wasn't enough, the November firmware's release notes listed a fix for an issue where webcam mode does not work properly with connected devices under certain conditions. That pretty much cinches it. Regardless, we reached out to Google for official confirmation, and we'll update this story if we hear back. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/pixel-owners-you-can-now-use-your-phone-as-a-switch-2-webcam-203407555.html?src=rss

Get three months of Apple Music for only $1 right now

Looking to switch music streaming platforms for no real reason ? Apple Music is holding one heck of a sale right now. You can get three months of use for just $1 . There are some caveats, as this is only for new users on the individual plan. Students and family plans don't count for this. Also, this has to be redeemed on iPhone, iPad or Mac. When you click the link it'll open up the Apple Music app, so click it from an Apple product to get the deal. Finally, it auto-renews after 90 days at $11 per month. Make sure to cancel ahead of time if you aren't enjoying the service. As for Apple Music, it's one of the best music streaming platforms out there and certainly a perfect choice for those already tied to the Apple ecosystem. It lets you import your own files, which is great for anyone still hanging on to an iTunes library. Otherwise, it offers streaming access to millions upon millions songs like all the rest. It does, however, include some live radio stations staffed by actual people, which is cool. The app works with Android devices, but it's really designed for Apple products. We also found the spatial audio to sound unnatural at times, but that's partly a limitation of the tech. Check out our coverage of the best streaming deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-three-months-of-apple-music-for-only-1-right-now-180536582.html?src=rss

More Studio Ghibli 4K restorations are coming to IMAX in 2026

IMAX and animation distributor GKids are bringing more 4K Studio Ghibli restorations to the largest screens in 2026. The announcement follows the IMAX release of Princess Mononoke this year, with the ongoing restorations being directly supervised by Studio Ghiblis Atsushi Okui, whos been with the company since 1993. Okui was the Director of Digital Imaging on 2023s The Boy and the Heron , which was also the first Ghibli picture to get the IMAX treatment. The likes of My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away have also had theatrical re-releases in recent years. GKids heads up distribution in North America for the Japanese animation giants films across all platforms, and has been working with IMAX on various projects since 2021. It sounds like the remaining Ghibli titles set for theatrical IMAX releases in the US will arrive one at a time, and GKids is not saying how many we can expect, or what its following Princess Mononoke with next year. I did a quick check for notable upcoming anniversaries, and 2026 does mark 40 years of Castle in the Sky , but one of the studios newer films might be a more obvious guess for a 4K refurb. Time will tell. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/more-studio-ghibli-4k-restorations-are-coming-to-imax-in-2026-174508476.html?src=rss

India is reportedly considering another draconian smartphone surveillance plan

You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed at mass government surveillance, try, try again. Only two days after India backpedaled on its plan to force smartphone makers to preinstall a state-run cybersecurity app , Reuters reports that the country is back at it. Its said to be considering a telecom industry proposal with another draconian requirement. This one would require smartphone makers to enable always-on satellite-based location tracking (Assisted GPS). The measure would require location services to remain on at all times, with no option to switch them off. The telecom industry also wants phone makers to disable notifications that alert users when their carriers have accessed their location. According to Reuters , India's home ministry was set to meet with smartphone industry executives on Friday, but the meeting was postponed. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on a screen to deliver a speech remotely as other leaders attend the 22nd ASEAN - India Summit during the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur on October 26, 2025. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool / POOL / AFP) (Photo by RAFIQ MAQBOOL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) RAFIQ MAQBOOL via Getty Images Predictably, proponents claim the plan is about helping law enforcement keep you safe from the bad guys. (See also: Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four .) The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long been concerned that law enforcement agencies cant obtain precise enough locations during investigations. Cell tower data alone can be off by several meters. And hey, what's the privacy of 1.4 billion people next to tracking criminals with an extra 10 ft. or so of accuracy, right? Apple, Google and Samsung are said to oppose the move and have urged the Modi government to reject it. The lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents them, reportedly wrote in a confidential letter this summer that the proposal has no precedent anywhere in the world. The group's letter described the measure as a regulatory overreach, which is probably putting it mildly. They warned that it could compromise military personnel, judges, corporate executives and journalists. In a statement sent to Engadget, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sounded the alarm on the proposal. Requiring phones to have A-GPS enabled all the time would be a horrifying decision by the Indian government with significant impacts on the privacy of everyone in the country, EFF Senior Staff Technologist Cooper Quintin said. With this change, the phone company and law enforcement get your exact location at any time, potentially even without legal due process. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/india-is-reportedly-considering-another-draconian-smartphone-surveillance-plan-173500327.html?src=rss

New Philo subscribers can get their first month of access for $25

Philo has a decent discount for newcomers who are looking for a solid bundle of live TV channels and on-demand streaming services. New subscribers can get their first month of access to the Core plan for $25. That's a discount of $8. For your 25 bucks, you'll gain access to more than 70 channels, including AMC, BBC America, Comedy Central, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, several MTV stations, Nickelodeon and TLC. AMC+, HBO Max basic with ads and Discovery+ are included at no extra cost. Philo is our pick for the best cheap live TV streaming service . Having unlimited DVR is welcome and recordings expire after one year, which is three months longer than many competing platforms. There's no contract either, so you can cancel at any time. The platform also offers more than 110 free channels, but unfortunately there are no local channels and there's not much in the way of sports programming. Other notable channels, such as Bravo and Freeform are missing too. However, if the lineup of channels and streaming services covers all your needs, Philo is a solid streaming option, especially with the discount. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/new-philo-subscribers-can-get-their-first-month-of-access-for-25-171033925.html?src=rss

The best iPad deals this week include $100 off the iPad Air M3

We generally think iPads are the best tablets for most people, but they usually dont come cheap. To help those looking to grab one today get the most value possible, were keeping an eye on sale prices and rounding up the best iPad deals we can find each week. Hopefully you were able to snag whatever iPad youve been eyeing at some point in the last couple of weeks, as most of the all-time lows we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday have expired. If you were late to the party, though, there are still some savings to be had, including $100 off both iPad Air models and an all-time low for the 13-inch iPad Pro . Beyond tablets, other Apple devices like the AirPods 4 with ANC , Apple Watch SE 3 and Apple Pencil Pro are still on sale at their Black Friday prices. Here are all of the top deals on Apple gear we could find this week. Best iPad deals Apple iPad Air (13-inch, M3) for $699 ($100 off MSRP) : The 13-inch iPad Air is exactly the same as its smaller counterpart, only it has a larger and slightly brighter display. We gave it a review score of 89 earlier this year. This deal is $50 above the discount we saw on Black Friday but still $100 cheaper than buying from Apple directly. Also at B&H . Apple iPad Pro (11-inch, M5) for $927 ($72 off) : The latest iPad Pro is still far more tablet than most people need, but its class-leading OLED display, impressively thin design and super-powerful M5 chip make it a luxury experience for those who can afford it. This 11-inch model sold for $899 during Black Friday, but the device was only released in October, so any sort of savings is still noteworthy. Also at Best Buy for $949. Apple iPad Pro (13-inch, M5) for $1,199 ($100 off) : Its not a massive discount, but this matches the lowest price so far for the larger iPad Pro, which may be worthwhile if youve got cash to burn and want to use an iPad as your main computer. We gave it a score of 85 in our review. Also at B&H . Best Apple deals Apple Watch SE 3 for $199 ($50 off) : This discount has been around for a few weeks, but its the lowest price to date for Apples newest entry-level smartwatch. We gave this device a score of 90 in our review last month: The big upgrade is an always-on display, which makes it so you no longer have to wake the watch to check the time or notifications. It still includes most of the essential health and fitness features beyond that, plus it now runs on the same chipset as the higher-end Apple Watch Series 11. Also at Walmart . Apple Watch Series 11 for $329 ($70 off) : The SE 3 may be a better raw value, but the Apple Watch Series 11 remains our preferred smartwatch overall for iPhone owners. Compared to its cheaper sibling, it has a bigger, brighter and more scratch-resistant display, longer battery life and a few advanced health features like an ECG app and hypertension alerts. It also earned a score of 90 in our review. This is an all-time low for the standard 42mm model, but keep in mind that theres no pressing need to upgrade if you already own a Series 10. Also at Walmart . Apple Pencil Pro for $95 ($34 off) : The Pencil Pro is Apples most feature-rich stylus, offering pressure sensitivity, wireless charging, haptic feedback and unique gesture controls compared to the standard USB-C model (which isnt significantly discounted). Just note that its not compatible with the entry-level iPad and other older models. While this discount is only $5 below the devices usual street price, its still the largest discount weve seen this year. Also at Walmart . Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5) for $1,349 ($250 off) : The newest MacBook Pro is the best high-end pick in our laptop buying guide and a fine choice for creative types who need something more powerful than the MacBook Air. The latter is still a much better value for most people, but the Pro gets you a superior mini-LED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, more ports and improved performance, especially with GPU-intensive tasks. It can even hold its own with certain games, though its noticeably thicker and heavier than the Air. We gave it a score of 92 in our review. This deal matches the lowest price to date for a configuration with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Also at Walmart . Apple Mac mini (M4) for $679 ($100 off) : The latest iteration of Apples tiny desktop PC has a smaller footprint, a faster M4 chip, 16GB of RAM by default, two front-facing USB-C ports and an extra Thunderbolt 4 port. It can also drive three external displays, though it lacks USB-A ports entirely. We gave a higher-end model with Apples M4 Pro chip a score of 90 in our review. This deal marks the lowest price we could find for a configuration with the base M4 chip, 24GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Read more Apple coverage : The best AirPods The best Apple Watches The best MacBooks The best iPhones The best iPads Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-best-ipad-deals-this-week-include-100-off-the-ipad-air-m3-150020616.html?src=rss

Meta cuts deals with several news publishers for AI use

Meta has cut several deals with news publishers to help provide real-time data for its AI chatbot services, as reported by Axios . The commercial agreements will allow its Meta AI chatbots to better answer user queries about news and current events. These are multiyear deals where publishers will be compensated for the use of their content, but we don't have any monetary specifics. The contracts do stipulate that Meta's chatbots will link out to articles when answering news queries, potentially offering a slight traffic boost to publishers. The news partners include USA Today , People , Le Monde and CNN . However, there are also a whole lot of conservative outlets included in today's announcement, such as Fox News , The Daily Caller and Washington Examiner . It's a good thing Meta's AI will provide the aforementioned links, just in case a chatbot says something crazy about whatever nonsense culture war topic is going on that day. Meta has announced that this is just a first step and that it will be adding more news partners to cover more topics in the future. This is an interesting move because Meta has long-been averse to paying news companies for access to content . It stopped paying US publishers for access to news in 2022 and the Facebook news tab went away entirely last year . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-cuts-deals-with-several-news-publishers-for-ai-use-163404107.html?src=rss

X hit with $140 million fine from the EU

The European Commission has fined Elon Musks X 120 million (around $140 million) for breaching its transparency rules under the Digital Services Act . The European Unions executive arm announced that it was investigating the social media companys blue checkmarking verification system first introduced when it was still known as Twitter last year, along with other alleged DSA violations. Todays verdict concerns the deceptive design of the checkmark, as well as the lack of transparency of [X's] advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers. The Commission's issue with Xs verification system is that where blue checkmarks were once something that Twitter that Twitter vetted, they can now be bough by anyone. According to the EU, this puts users at risk of scams and impersonation fraud, as they cant tell if the accounts theyre engaging with are authentic. While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place, it wrote in a statement. The EU has also ruled that Xs advertisement repository employs design features and access barriers that make it difficult for good faith actors and the general public to determine the source of online ads and spot scams or threat campaigns. It says that X fails to provide information pertaining to both the content of an ad and the entity paying for its placement. The third alleged infringement concerns the public data that companies are required by the DSA to make available to qualifying researchers. The European Commission claims that Xs practices in this area are unnecessarily prohibitive, therefore effectively undermining research into several systemic risks in the European Union. X has 60 working days to respond to the EUs non-compliance decision the first of its nature on blue checkmarks, and 90 days to submit an action plan of how it will address the alleged breaches relating to its advertising repository and access to public data. Failure to comply could result in financial penalties. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/x-hit-with-140-million-fine-from-the-eu-161259324.html?src=rss

The best stocking stuffers you can get for $50 or less

The big ticket tech gifts may get the lion's share of attention during the holidays, but it's surprising how much people appreciate small and thoughtful accessories and gadgets. We picked out a dozen such stocking stuffers for under $50 perfect for a little something extra for a loved one or a welcome gift for a coworker. Just be sure to check the shipping windows to make sure these handy gizmos will arrive in time. Here are some of our favorite techie gift ideas that come in at $50 or less. Best stocking stuffers for $50 or less Check out the rest of our gift ideas here. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/the-best-stocking-stuffers-you-can-get-for-50-or-less-130049325.html?src=rss

Where the hell is Samsung's Ballie robot?

Another CES is nearly upon us , another year where well see new gadgets aplenty from giant companies and tiny ones youve never heard of. And the not-so-secret secret of CES is that many of these things never make it to market but usually it isnt things companies like Samsung show off. But here we are, nearly six years since Samsung first showed off its Ballie personal robot and it is nowhere to be found. For those who may not recall, Ballie is an adorable circular robot that can putter around your house and project things onto the floor and wall. Its kind of a virtual assistant on the go. Samsung first revealed this tiny robot at CES 2020, but it was more of a prototype than something anyone expected to purchase. And then there was a global pandemic and we all sort of forgot about weird ball-shaped robots for a few. But Samsung triumphantly unveiled a larger and more refined Ballie at CES 2024, saying it would be on sale that year! Well, that didnt happen, but a year later Ballie was back at CES again . Samsung promised it would go on sale in 2025, and followed up with a press release this past April saying it was on track for a summer launch in Korea and the US. As far as I can tell, thats the last weve heard of it. But with CES looming again, I cant help but feel like Samsung will roll Ballie out once more, trying to sell the dream of a cute robotic companion who just gets you. I spent some time watching Ballie do its thing in a carefully controlled demo at CES 2024, and I cant say I was overwhelmed by its purported usefulness or thought thered be much of a market for this thing. I now cant help but wonder if Samsung has data backs up my intuition. If this thing was going to sell like gangbusters, it likely wouldnt be subjected to such a long and public gestation period. It reminds me a little of one of my favorite Samsung gaffes, the Galaxy Home smart speaker. It was announced at a time when Apple and Google were challenging Sonos and Amazon with voice-activated speakers of their own, moving Siri or the Google Assistant from your phone to a more omnipresent place in your home. The first rumor of the Galaxy Home happened way back in 2017 , and the speaker was officially revealed and briefly shown off by Samsung in August of 2018. My immediate reaction was that this product made very little sense for both Samsung and potential customers Bibxy sucked, and there were plenty of speakers with better voice assistants. Apparently, Samsung agreed. After multiple years of vague commitments and references to the Galaxy Home, Samsung just stopped talking about it. Oddly enough, a Galaxy Home Mini speaker was briefly released in South Korea, part of a promotion for people who pre-ordered the Galaxy S20. But I dont think you could ever just walk into a store and buy one, and the larger Galaxy Home never materialized at all. Ballie isnt quite the abandonware situation that the Galaxy Home was, at least not yet. After all, its only been about eight months since Samsung dropped that press release claiming it would arrive soon. The company has definitely pushed Ballie in a more public way than the Galaxy Home, making it a little harder to just drop entirely. Maybe well see a revamped Ballie with even more weird tricks next month, or maybe well just get another vague promise that itll arrive in 2026. After failing to deliver two years in a row, though, Im not going to expect Ballie to show up as a real product until I can punch in my credit card and pre-order it... not that Id do that anyway. Ballie needs to show that its a lot more than a cute rolling robot before Samsung gets my cash. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/where-the-hell-is-samsungs-ballie-robot-151112829.html?src=rss

Engadget Podcast: WTF is up with RAM? (With Will Smith from The Tech Pod)

RAM prices have gone wild, mostly thanks to AI. In this episode, Devindra chats with Will Smith (Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod) about the state of the RAM industry, as well as other hardware we expect to get more expensive. (SSD prices are definitely creeping up too!). Also, we discuss Meta poaching Alan Dye, one of Apple's design executives, and what this could mean for Meta's upcoming devices. And yes, whatever they have next will likely revolve around AI. Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, plans deep cuts to his companys metaverse development 1:09 Longtime Apple UI designer Alan Dye to join Metas AI division 7:08 US DOT cuts fuel efficiency standards, doubles down on gas cars 25:40 Waymo autonomous cars recently started driving more aggressively 31:30 Amazon halts its anime dub beta because it sounded terrible 38:00 WTF, RAM?? Will Smith joins to talk about why RAM prices are spiraling upward 44:05 Around Engadget: Metroid Prime 4 is a return to form after 18 years on ice 1:04:42 Working on 1:07:36 Pop culture picks 1:08:32 Credits Host: Devindra Hardawar Guest: Will Smith Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/engadget-podcast-wtf-is-up-with-ram-with-will-smith-from-the-tech-pod-141442002.html?src=rss

Chinese hackers reportedly targeting government entities using 'Brickstorm' malware

Hackers with links to China reportedly successfully infiltrated a number of unnamed government and tech entities using advanced malware. As reported by Reuters , cybersecurity agencies from the US and Canada confirmed the attack, which used a backdoor known as Brickstorm to target organizations using the VMware vSphere cloud computing platform. As detailed in a report published by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security on December 4, PRC state-sponsored hackers maintained long-term persistent access to an unnamed victims internal network. After compromising the affected platform, the cybercriminals were able to steal credentials, manipulate sensitive files and create rogue, hidden VMs (virtual machines), effectively seizing control unnoticed. The attack could have begun as far back as April 2024 and lasted until at least September of this year. The malware analysis report published by the Canadian Cyber Centre, with assistance from The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), cites eight different Brickstorm malware samples. It is not clear exactly how many organizations in total were either targeted or successfully penetrated. In an email to Reuters , a spokesperson for VMware vSphere owner Broadcom said it was aware of the alleged hack, and encouraged its customers to download up-to-date security patches whenever possible. In September, the Google Threat Intelligence Group published its own report on Brickstorm, in which it urged organizations to reevaluate their threat model for appliances and conduct hunt exercises against specified threat actors. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/chinese-hackers-reportedly-targeting-government-entities-using-brickstorm-malware-133501894.html?src=rss

Splitgate: Arena Reloaded tries to fix what Splitgate 2 broke

Portal shooter Splitgate 2 is coming back with a new name and rebuilt experience after being pulled back to beta earlier this year, developer 1047 Games announced . The free-to-play Splitgate: Arena Reloaded will relaunch on December 17th across platforms including Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. After months of community feedback, testing and rebuilding the entire experience, this is Splitgate refocused on what made it special in the first place: classic arena combat without factions, abilities, or extra noise, the developer shared in a blog post, along with a gameplay video. Splitgate 2 originally launched in June, but 1047 Games pulled it back to beta after deciding that the release had been rushed. For the new version, the company said, we took the best of Splitgate 1 and Splitgate 2 and cut the parts that didn't fit, while refining the ones that did. in the process, we not only rebuilt the game, we reconnected with the magic of the genre that built this studio in the first place: a return to the Arena. Here are some key changes made: Removed Splitgate 2's factions, abilities, and select equipment so the focus is back on classic arena combat without the extra noise. Rebuilt progression from the ground up so your time in game feels rewarding, with weapon and character cosmetics you can earn simply by playing. We've added a true Classic Arena mode with even starts and new map pickups, recapturing the feel of the original. Fine tuned combat to better match expectations for a modern arena shooter, with more meaningful gunfights and fewer what just happened moments. Completely overhauled the ranked system so your rank reflects your actual skill for players who love to climb and compete. Added key systems you have been asking for: Mode Select, Player Stats, Ranked Leaderboards, and Account Levels. Introduced five brand new maps and six fully reworked arenas, bringing the total map pool to 20. Added three new LMG primary weapons and the iconic Power Weapon, the Railgun. 1047 Games was savaged earlier this year by Splitgate players after co-founder Ian Proulx wore a hat at Summer Games Fest stating Make FPS Great Again. Later, he posted to the studio's X account on Splitgate 2's release date that he was not here to apologize and that the hat was not a political statement, finally admitting that it was all basically a publicity stunt . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/splitgate-arena-reloaded-tries-to-fix-what-splitgate-2-broke-130027714.html?src=rss

Microsoft's Copilot+ AI PC plan fizzled, but it still served a purpose

Microsoft's Copilot+ initiative launched last year with a clear goal: To produce capable laptops for people eagerly anticipating AI-powered features. Read that sentence again, and it's glaringly obvious that Microsoft's plan was flawed from the start. Most consumers aren't nearly as hyped for AI features as the companies eager to foist artificial intelligence upon us. And those features aren't exactly compelling, either. Microsoft's Recall which snaps screenshots of your PC to create a database of everything youve done was dogged by privacy concerns from the start. And to be honest, I haven't found its ability to remember the files and websites I've opened to be that useful. Without any sort of killer AI app, most consumers weren't going to pay a premium for Copilot+ systems either. Not in this precarious economy, anyway. So it wasn't a huge surprise to see sales of Copilot+ systems going practically nowhere over the last year. In the third quarter of 2024, they accounted for less than 10 percent of systems shipped, according to data from Mercury Research ( via Toms Hardware ). The research firm IDC ( via PCWorld ) also found that Copilot+ systems made up just 2.3 percent of Windows machines sold in the first quarter of 2025 (and a mere 1.9 percent of the entire PC market). Instead of continuing to promote Copilot+, Microsoft now wants to make every Windows 11 computer an AI PC . The new Hey Copilot voice commands and Copilot Vision , a feature that lets the AI assistant see what's on your screen, are both cloud-powered. That means you won't need the beefy 40 TOPS neural processing units (NPU) found on Copilot+ systems to use them. Microsoft spent the past few years touting NPUs as the gateway to useful AI features, like Recall and Windows Studio webcam effects, but only one of its new AI capabilities actually requires an NPU. (And even that is just a slight update to Click to Do , allowing you to send Zoom invitations by right-clicking on e-mail addresses.) It's easy to view the whole Copilot+ initiative as a cynical way to ramp up AI hype and push people towards expensive new laptops, especially as the October 14 Windows 10 end of support date loomed . But it also led to some genuinely useful changes: Microsoft made 16GB of RAM a standard for Copilot+ systems, along with 256GB of storage and the aforementioned 40 TOPS NPUs. The launch of Copilot was also the kick in the pants Microsoft needed to revamp Windows for mobile Arm processors . I never thought I'd love a Surface with a Snapdragon chip, but the improved Arm support on the Surface Pro and this year's smaller model finally won me over. The Dell 16 Premium sitting on a ledge. I wouldnt call the Copilot+ program a huge swing, but its still the sort of industry-wide cat herding thats rare to see in the PC space. Microsoft couldnt just snap its fingers and shift all PCs to efficient mobile chips with powerful NPUs, like Apple did with its own jump to M-series chips years ago. Microsoft had to wait for new NPU-equipped hardware from Qualcomm (and eventually Intel and AMD). It had to finally fix the Windows on Arm problem. And it also had to double-down on AI features that felt truly transformative. Its just a shame that consumers didnt seem to care. Microsoft said that Copilot+ systems accounted for 15 percent of premium PCs sold during last years holiday season, but the company hasnt released any new sales figures since then. This is the fastest adoption I've seen of a new category of hardware, and we've done it faster than the normal generational shift of silicon, James Howell, Microsofts VP of Windows marketing, said in a conversation with Engadget. Copilot+ PCs continue to be a transition that we are pushing for and prioritizing. But I can't give you the exact numbers beyond that Just for the last two or three months, we've been doing pretty well with year-on-year growth in the Windows business. Surface Pro Copilot+ Devindra Hardawar for Engadget While Microsoft ultimately doesnt have much to show for the Copilot+ initiative, the steady progression of hardware will lead to AI PCs dominating over the next five years. The research firm Omdia predicts that AI PCs will account for 55 percent of computers shipped in all of 2026, up from 42.5 percent of systems in Q3 2025. By 2029, Omdia predicts AI PCs will make up 75 percent of all systems shipped, giving Windows 80 percent of the AI PC market. Omdia AI PC shipment predictions Omdia Its important to note that this steep adoption curve [for AI PCs] is driven more by the product roadmaps of the PC market, rather than consumers and businesses seeking PCs specifically for AI, according to Omdia research analyst Kieren Jessop. For businesses, and consumers especially, AI-capable PC adoption is more a function of a customer going to purchase a device and that device just so happens to have an NPU. Microsoft was basically right: AI PCs are the future. But it turns out the AI features people actually want to use like ChatGPT, Sora and Microsofts own Copilot are mostly powered by the cloud, making onboard NPUs superfluous. That wont be true forever. There are tangible security, speed and convenience benefits for onboard AI processing, like transcribing sensitive audio instead of sending it to the cloud. But for now, those AI workloads are relatively niche, and theyre not enough to make the Copilot+ a true success by any measure. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/microsofts-copilot-ai-pc-plan-fizzled-but-it-still-served-a-purpose-130000239.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Flying Antigravitys A1 drone is unlike anything else

Spinning off from the action-camera company Insta360, Antigravity now has its debut drone on sale. With 360-degree cameras that capture 8K and offer you a truly unconstrained view of the skies, the A1 is a different drone from everything else out there. Sorry, DJI. Instead of typical drone joysticks, you get a motion controller that lets you point and shoot like video game gesture controls, while crisp FPV goggles put you right inside the cockpit. Engadget Its easy to fly after takeoff, but the A1s myriad parts are often tricky to sync together and pulling video down to the companion app is even trickier. Going on specs alone, like speed and camera sensor size, it doesnt stand up to cinematic drones from the likes of DJI. Still, its not meant to be a cinematic drone. Its a hybrid mix of flight experience, FPV drone and a not-miss-a-thing camera drone. Its truly unique and fun. Mat Smith The other big stories (and deals) this morning The best Christmas gifts to give everyone on your 2025 holiday shopping list A shaky year for American EVs could set the tone for 2026 Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review Amazon Lunas December lineup includes Hollow Knight, Lego 2K Drive and a few Fallout games Amazon halts its incredibly poor AI anime dubbing beta Ridiculed by all. Amazon has quietly removed its terrible AI-generated English dubs for several anime shows on Prime Video, following widespread ridicule from viewers and the industry. AI dubs were recently added to Banana Fish , No Game , No Life and Vinland Saga , where they were labeled AI beta in the Languages section of the app. For shows lacking an English-language dub, it was a seemingly cheap way to consume anime for Amazon. However, it quickly became clear that the dubs were really quite bad. Baaaad. Voice actor Daman Mills called the AI-generated dub for Banana Fish a massive insult to us as performers in a post on X. Continue reading. Amazon thinks about ending ties with the US Postal Service The company continues to invest heavily in its own shipping network. An Amazon double today. According to The Washington Post , Amazon is considering discontinuing use of the US Postal Service and building its own shipping network to rival it. The e-commerce behemoth spends more than $6 billion a year on the public mail carrier almost 8 percent of the services total revenue. Thats up from just under $4 billion in 2019. That split might be due to a breakdown in negotiations between Amazon and the USPS rather than Amazon proactively pulling its business. Amazon has invested heavily in all kinds of delivery methods, including shipping logistics, buying its own Boeing planes, launching its own electric delivery vans and slowly building a drone delivery network. Continue reading. Amazons Kindle Scribe Colorsoft finally has a release date December 10, just in time for the holidays. Engadget A triple? Sorry. Amazon didnt have a specific release date to share beyond later this year for its latest Scribe slates. And talk about brinkmanship! Here we are in December. The company says the devices will be available on December 10. This is the third generation of the Kindle Scribe line of E Ink writing tablets the first time Amazon has three versions of the Scribe. At the entry level, the Scribe without a front light starts at $430, while the model with a light starts at $480. The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft will start at $630. You always have to pay more for color. Continue reading. Nikon ZR camera review A highly capable cinema camera at a reasonable price. The Nikon ZR could be a breakthrough for content creators, largely because it incorporates technology from RED a company now owned by Nikon. The combination of professional-grade video quality (specifically RED RAW) and autofocus comes at a fraction of the cost of dedicated cinema rigs. There are some compromises on battery life and the lack of a viewfinder, but the ZR arguably offers the best video quality for the money. Continue reading. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121538076.html?src=rss

Netflix to buy Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion

Shortly after rumors of a deal between the two media giants broke, Netflix has announced it is buying Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max for approximately $82.7 billion. If approved, the deal will take place after Warner Bros. has disentangled itself from both its legacy cable and Discovery assets as part of the already-announced de-merger . That's likely to take place in the third quarter of 2026, with this new tie-up taking place at some point after that. In a statement, Netflix said it expects to maintain Warner Bros. current operations, as well as its policy of theatrical releases for its films. But the deal may spell the end for HBO Max as its own product in the longer term, as the statement also says by adding the deep film and TV libraries and HBO and HBO Max programming, Netflix members will have even more high-quality titles from which to choose. Naturally, the deal will see Netflix become one of the biggest players in global media, combining its global reach with some of the most recognizable names in entertainment. That includes HBO, DC Studios, Cartoon Network and TCM, as well as the chunks of TNT not cast adrift with Discovery. It's likely the deal will not go ahead without a lot of objections from other buyers, as well as the government itself. Yesterday, Paramount Skydance said (via the Hollywood Reporter) any deal between WB and Netflix would be the result of an unfair process. Given the close ties between Paramount's new owners and the administration, it's likely any deal will be subject to scrutiny as well as the usual questions around the size of the combined operation. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/netflix-to-buy-warner-bros-for-827-billion-120836295.html?src=rss

How to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw live today

The 2026 FIFA World Cup draw is this Friday. (Hector Vivas - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images) Hector Vivas - FIFA via Getty Images The draw for the 2026 World Cup is this Friday at 12 PM ET, where well learn which group the 39 qualified countries and three host nations will land in for the international soccer tournament. The 2026 World Cup draw will air live on Fox. Pre-show coverage of the draw begins at 11:30 a.m. The venues and kickoff times for the World Cup group stage games be announced the following day. Tickets for the World Cup are already available. Here's how to watch the 2026 World Cup draw live, plus what you need to know about buying World Cup tickets, before or after the groupings are announced. How to watch the 2026 World Cup draw: Date: Friday, Dec. 5 Time: 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT Location: Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. TV channel: Fox Streaming: Fox One , DirecTV , YouTube via VPN and more When is the 2026 World Cup draw? The World Cup draw will take place on Friday, Dec. 5. All the group stage venues and kickoff times will then be announced the following day, on Saturday, Dec. 6 2026 World Cup draw start time: The World Cup draw will officially kick off at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT, though there will be pre-show coverage of the event as early as 11:30 a.m. ET. What channel is the World Cup draw on? The World Cup draw will air across Fox networks, including Fox and via the Fox Sports app. Coverage will also likely air on FS1. How to watch the World Cup draw: For those with live TV access, you may be able to watch Fox totally free over the air. But if not, here's how we recommend tuning in. How to watch the World Cup draw for free: In the U.S., the draw will air on Fox, but globally in many regions, a livestream of the draw will be available to watch via YouTube livestream, totally free. If you dont have access to Fox, you might want to consider trying a VPN, so you can tune into the World Cup draw free livestream. Dont want to navigate a VPN? Many live TV streaming services offer free trials, so you can also tune into the 2026 World Cup draw for free via a free trial. When is the 2026 World Cup? The 2026 World Cup begins on June 11, 2026 and runs through July 19, 2026. Where will 2026 World Cup games be held? There will be 15 host cities for the 2026 World Cup throughout the U.S., Mexico and Canada. They are: United States Atlanta Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA Boston Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA Dallas At&T Stadium, Arlington TX Houston NRG Stadium, Houston, TX Kansas City GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO Los Angeles Sofi Stadium, Inglewood, CA Miami Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL New York/New Jersey MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ Philadelphia Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA San Francisco Bay Area Levis Stadium, Santa Clara, CA Seattle Lumen Field, Seattle, WA Mexico Mexico City Estadio Azteca, Coyoacan, Mexico City Monterrey Estadio BBVA, Gudalupe, Nuevo Leon Guadalajara Estadio Akron, Guadalajara Canada Toronto BMO Field, Toronto, ON Vancouver BC Place, Vancouver BC How to get 2026 World Cup tickets: Individual match tickets are now available to purchase through the FIFA website . To purchase tickets that are part of a multi-game or hospitality package, you can sign up here to receive more information. In addition, there will also be a final ticket lottery held after this week's draw; fans will be able to submit applications for specific matches once the group-stage matchups have been revealed to try and grab a limited number of lower-priced tickets at select matches. (An exact date for this lottery has not yet been revealed but you can sign-up to receive up-to-date information on the FIFA site .) When do 2026 World Cup tickets go on sale? Tickets for the 2026 World Cup are now on sale, though the match schedule doesn't specify team groupings (yet). Find tickets on FIFA's website Find tickets on StubHub How much are 2026 World Cup tickets? Currently, individual tickets for the 2026 World Cup run anywhere from $1,400 to $3,500 (if you're searching for tickets for matches in Mexico or Canada, don't be scared off by their higher price tags they're all in the same price range after adjusting for conversion rates). Tickets for the group stage, knockout rounds, and the bronze final are currently available. It's important to note that FIFA is employing a dynamic pricing strategy, so prices may fluctuate as we get closer to the tournament, depending on demand. For those lucky enough to enter and be selected in the ticketing lottery, prices are significantly less they're broken out into four categories based on seating, and range from $60 to $620, but these prices are not available to the general public. Hospitality packages, which guarantee entry to multiple matches are also on sale now and start at $5,300. (Note that depending on the venue and package you select, some of these packages can cost up to $68,000 per person, and while that price includes food, drinks and premium seating, it doesn't include travel expenses or accommodations.) Tickets are also available through FIFA's own resale marketplace and on third-party resale sites like StubHub already have single-game matches available, with some starting around $275 per seat and going up from there, depending on the game and venue. Find tickets on StubHub Find tickets on FIFA's Ticket Resale Marketplace 2026 World Cup Schedule ( All times Eastern) The 2026 World Cup will begin on Thursday, June 11, 2026, and the final is scheduled for Sunday, July 19, 2026. You can take a look at the existing schedule here. Group Stage June 11 June 27, 2026 Knockout stage matches Round of 32: June 28 July 3, 2026 Round of 16: July 4 July 7, 2026 Quarterfinals: July 9 July 11, 2026 Semifinals: July 14 15, 2026 Bronze Final (3rd Place Match): July 18, 2026 Final: July 19, 2026 This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-to-watch-the-2026-fifa-world-cup-draw-live-today-120501930.html?src=rss

The best laptops for gaming and schoolwork in 2025

Balancing schoolwork with gaming usually means finding a laptop that can do a little bit of everything. The best gaming laptops arent just built for high frame rates. They also need to handle long days of writing papers, running productivity apps and streaming lectures without slowing down. A good machine should feel reliable during class and powerful enough to jump into your favorite games once homework is out of the way. Theres a wide range of options depending on how much performance you need. Some students prefer a slim, lightweight model thats easy to carry to school, while others want a new gaming laptop with enough GPU power to handle AAA titles. If youre watching your budget, there are plenty of solid choices that qualify as a budget gaming laptop without cutting too many corners. Its also worth looking at features that help with everyday use. A bright display makes long study sessions easier on the eyes, and a comfortable keyboard is essential if you type a lot. USB-C ports, decent battery life and a responsive trackpad can make a big difference during the school day. Weve rounded up the best laptops that strike the right mix of performance, portability and value for both gaming and schoolwork. Table of contents Best laptops for gaming and school in 2025 Best laptop for gaming and schoolwork FAQs Best laptops for gaming and school in 2025 Best laptop for gaming and schoolwork FAQs Are gaming laptops good for school? As weve mentioned, gaming laptops are especially helpful if you're doing any demanding work. Their big promise is powerful graphics performance, which isn't just limited to PC gaming. Video editing and 3D rendering programs can also tap into their GPUs to handle laborious tasks. While you can find decent GPUs on some productivity machines, like Dell's XPS 15, you can sometimes find better deals on gaming laptops. My general advice for any new workhorse: Pay attention to the specs; get at least 16GB of RAM and the largest solid state drive you can find (ideally 1TB or more). Those components are both typically hard to upgrade down the line, so its worth investing what you can up front to get the most out of your PC gaming experience long term. Also, dont forget the basics like a webcam, which will likely be necessary for the schoolwork portion of your activities. The one big downside to choosing a gaming notebook is portability. For the most part, we'd recommend 15-inch models to get the best balance of size and price. Those typically weigh in around 4.5 pounds, which is significantly more than a three-pound ultraportable. Today's gaming notebooks are still far lighter than older models, though, so at least you won't be lugging around a 10-pound brick. If youre looking for something lighter, there are plenty of 14-inch options these days. And if you're not into LED lights and other gamer-centric bling, keep an eye out for more understated models that still feature essentials like a webcam (or make sure you know how to turn those lights off). Do gaming laptops last longer than standard laptops? Not necessarily it really depends on how you define last longer. In terms of raw performance, gaming laptops tend to pack more powerful components than standard laptops, which means they can stay relevant for longer when it comes to handling demanding software or modern games. That makes them a solid choice if you need a system that wont feel outdated in a couple of years, especially for students or creators who also game in their downtime. But theres a trade-off. All that power generates heat, and gaming laptops often run hotter and put more strain on internal components than typical ultraportables. If theyre not properly cooled or regularly maintained (think dust buildup and thermal paste), that wear and tear can shorten their lifespan. Theyre also usually bulkier and have shorter battery life, which can impact long-term usability depending on your daily needs. Gaming laptops can last longer performance-wise, but only if you take good care of them. If your needs are light browsing, writing papers and streaming a standard laptop may actually last longer simply because its under less stress day-to-day. What is the role of GPU in a computer for gaming and school? The GPU plays a big role in how your laptop handles visuals and its especially important if youre using your computer for both gaming and school. For gaming, the GPU is essential. Its responsible for rendering graphics, textures, lighting and all the visual effects that make your favorite titles look smooth and realistic. A more powerful GPU means better frame rates, higher resolutions and the ability to play modern games without lag or stuttering. For schoolwork, the GPU matters too but its importance depends on what you're doing. If your school tasks mostly involve writing papers, browsing the web or using productivity tools like Google Docs or Microsoft Office, you dont need a high-end GPU. But if youre working with graphic design, video editing, 3D modeling or anything else thats visually demanding, a good GPU can speed things up significantly and improve your workflow. Georgie Peru contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-laptops-for-gaming-and-school-132207352.html?src=rss

Netflix is reportedly in exclusive talks to acquire Warner Bros. and HBO

Netflix is in exclusive talks to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's film and TV studios and HBO Max streaming service, according to sources from Bloomberg . That suggests Netflix submitted a superior offer to rivals including Paramount Skydance Corp (owned by billionaire Larry Ellison) and Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal. The deal could be consummated within days and, if approved, would change the landscape of Hollywood and the streaming market. Warner Bros. Discovery's cable channels including CNN, TBS and TNT, valued at more than $60 billion, would not be part of the deal and spun off prior to the closing. However, Netflix would become the owner of the HBO network and its library of series ( The Sopranos , Game of Thrones , etc.), along with its Burbank studios and massive film and TV archive consisting of 12,500 feature films and 2,400 TV series, including properties like Batman, Lord of the Rings and Friends . A big sweetener offered by Netflix was a $5 billion breakup fee if the deal isn't approved by regulators, according to people familiar with the discussions. That's a considerable risk on Netflix's part, as the acquisition is likely to be closely scrutinized by the FCC and even President Trump himself, who reportedly has close ties to Ellison . It would also need to pass muster with regulators from other nations, considering the wide reach of WBD and Netflix. After multiple suitors, including Paramount Skydance expressed interest in buying Warner Bros. Discovery, CEO David Zaslav put the company up for sale in October. The bidding process has been heated, with Paramount's lawyers complaining that WBD embarked on a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder, namely Netflix. Paramount argued that its deal would be more palatable to regulators around the world. However, Zaslav's camp has said that it would achieve the best value in a sale by splitting off its cable assets and doing two separate deals, CNN reported. Both Paramount Skydance and Comcast submitted deals to buy all of WBD's assets. Netflix offered around $28 a share for WBD minus the cable assets, according to Deadline . Shares were as low as $7.50 earlier this year. The acquisition would be far and away the largest for Netflix, which has historically favored organic growth. An acquisition could have a huge impact on streaming customers and filmgoers. Would Netflix merge its catalog with HBO Max or continue to run the latter as a separate service? It's also not clear if Netflix would honor Warner Bros.' commitment to theatrical releases, considering that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has called movie theatres an outdated concept . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/netflix-is-reportedly-in-exclusive-talks-to-acquire-warner-bros-and-hbo-082233278.html?src=rss

Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 AI glasses launch in India

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