Don't forget — Apple's Spring Loaded event is today, and we'll cover everything that's announced starting at 1 PM ET. And if you miss the event? Don't worry, our live recap starts at 2 PM ET right here.
It's 2021, so of course college athletes can't just turn pro — they have to mint an NFT. That's what Gonzaga's Jalen Suggs did, announcing he'll enter the NBA draft and launching an auction for a crypto token commemorating his iconic game-winning shot from the men's basketball tournament last month.
The NFT manages to navigate the odd landscape of college athletics, where Suggs couldn't directly profit from his own highlight, but instead points to an artwork inspired by the pose he struck after the shot. The animated artwork will also reward its new owner with a signed pair of the shoes Suggs wore that day, so even if NFTs crash and burn, there will be a physical collectible to remember the moment. At last check, the high bid was over $1,200 with two days left in the auction.
Fitbit is back again, with another bid to make a classier, more luxurious fitness tracker, elevated from the plastic rubberized bands of yesteryear. With the $150 Luxe, the clue is in the name. There are metallic finishes, subtler color palettes and, alas, no GPS. It's compatible with both iOS and Android devices and will also work with Google's Fast Pair to make syncing with your phone much less of a pain. This, however, appears to be the only new feature from Google since it completed its acquisition of Fitbit in January. Continue reading.
This weekend, two men aged 59 and 69 died when the Tesla Model S they were in left the road, hit a tree and caught fire. As KHOU 11 reported, investigators say their bodies were found in the front passenger seat and back seat, and Constable Mark Herman told reporters that investigators are "100 percent certain that no one was in the driver seat driving that vehicle at the time of impact."
This raises the question of whether this is an example of someone (mis)using Tesla's Autopilot or beta Full Self Driving Mode, a level two driver assistant that isn't supposed to drive the car on its own without someone at the wheel.
While Tesla has not commented publicly on the crash, Elon Musk sent one tweet on Monday directly addressing it, telling a supporter "Your research as a private individual is better than professionals...Data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled & this car did not purchase FSD." Despite Musk's tweet, there have been examples of Tesla owners with Autopilot enabled while either incapacitated, inattentive or out of the driver's seat. The investigation continues. Continue reading.
NASA has confirmed that the Ingenuity Mars helicopter completed its initial test flight, making it the first aircraft to fly on another planet. The machine climbed to an altitude of 10 feet at 3:34 AM ET, hovering in place for 30 seconds before touching back down on the surface of Mars.
Mars' gravity is about a third of Earth's, and because the planet has a very thin atmosphere with just 1 percent of our planet's surface-level pressure, the basic rules of flight are different. NASA hopes to arrange a second flight as soon as April 22nd. Continue reading.
On Monday, Respawn offered the first look at what it calls one of the biggest updates yet for Apex Legends. A new trailer gives a peek at what appears to be the next character to join the roster, Valkyrie, who will be arriving alongside the new Legacy season.
They also announced Apex Legends Mobile, a battle royale game designed specifically for touchscreens. There will be streamlined controls and, according to Apex Game Director Chad Grenier, "thoughtful optimizations that result in the most advanced battle royale combat available on a phone." The first regional beta tests take place later this month on Android in India and the Philippines with a few thousand players. Continue reading.
Plus the season finales of 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' and 'For All Mankind.'
This week, HBO Max pulls another feature film from the Warner catalog on the same day it hits theaters, but this isn't just any old movie — it's Mortal Kombat. Even if this game adaptation doesn't have the impact of the first movie in 1995, it should be interesting at least. Other key releases this week include MLB The Show 21 (now available on Xbox and to Xbox Game Pass subscribers) or a trio of high-profile Netflix launches: Stowaway, Shadow and Bone and Life in Color with David Attenborough. Continue reading.
Their largest model, Crown, stands 30 inches and may retailer six gallons. Their most portable model, Go, stands 14 inches and can hold a quart of water. All of their filters use the same Black Berkey Purification Parts, which are custom-made carbon filters. You possibly can owe this effectiveness to Berkey's purification system, which contains more than six several types of filters. Berkey water filter's micropores matrix is small enough to forestall bacteria, viruses, and even meals coloring from passing through. This system includes a layer of activated carbon made from excessive-grade coconut shells and a layer that's a compact matrix that houses millions of microscopic pores. Berkey Water Filters are available in seven completely different sizes. What can Berkey Gravity Water filters take away? As the leading model in gravity water filters, Berkey filters have been confirmed to remove up to 99.9% of lead, arsenic, iron, mercury, chlorine, and an extended listing of other contaminants.
For somebody with weaker hands, the system could be primed by stepping very fastidiously on the middle of the bottle till water got here out the straw. This, in turn, reduces the amount of suction needed to drink from the straw. The bottle must first be "primed" before utilizing, which quantities to squeezing the bottle till water comes out the highest. The Berkey is straightforward for me to make use of. When the bottle was full, it was attainable to squeeze filtered water out of the straw. The bottle is mushy and flexible. The excellent news is: You might filter water for younger youngsters or previous individuals who couldn't muster enough suction power to function other filter bottles. The bottle is well secured, because of the ring constructed into the highest, to virtually something. You might fill different bottles with filtered water in this fashion, however it would be a long, laborious process. This enables the consumer to squeeze and produce extra inner pressure. It might be carried by the top, or have a carabineer or piece of cord threaded by means of it. I had no hassle performing this operation.
Amazon told Bloomberg thatit has canned its Lord of the Rings, developed with the help of China's Leyou, after being "unable to secure terms" to continue its development. However, sources claim that Tencent's recent acquisition of Leyou led to a contract dispute that ultimately killed the project.
Amazon Game Studios is struggling to get games out there and keep them on sale. It canceled Breakaway in 2018 after lack of progress, and it dropped Crucible after poor feedback during testing. Another MMO, New World, has faced multiple delays and isn't expected to launch until the end of August. While Amazon remains committed to its Game Studios efforts — its incoming CEO has stated his support — they clearly haven't delivered results quickly.
If it's the Lord of the Rings part you're more upset about missing out on, don't worry — there's still Amazon's Prime TV series incoming. Two seasons of it.
Two men have died after a 2019 Model S collided with a tree north of Houston, with no one in the driver's seat. One was in the front passenger seat, police officer Mark Herman told the media, while the other was in the back.
If the Model S was unmanned, the occupants might have misunderstood Autopilot, Full Self-Driving (FSD) or both. Concerns persist that some customers overestimate the tech, assuming they can take their hands off the steering wheel or even leave the driver's seat entirely. However, even the FSD beta doesn't offer complete autonomy, and you have to be ready to take control at any given moment — the car will ask you to grab the wheel if you leave it alone for long enough.
The large lithium batteries of EVs like the Model S present a different kind of fire to deal with, too. It apparently took first responders about four hours to put out the Model S fire, and the team even contacted Tesla for help. Continue reading.
At Auto Shanghai 2021 expo, which kicks off this week, Audi offered a peek at its new A6 e-tron, a luxury sedan with EV bones. It follows the hybrid A6 that we saw back in 2011. According to the company, the A6 EV could offer driving ranges up to 700 KM (434 miles) and hit 100KMPH (62MPH) from a standstill in less than four seconds. But for now, there are no prices or launch windows being announced. Continue reading.
Nintendo has sued Gary Bowser, a leader of the Switch hacking group Team Xecuter, for allegedly violating copyright by making and selling hacks. Law enforcement had already arrested Bowser in the fall, but the company hoped the suit would punish the leader for both the copyright violation and two counts of trafficking.
A lot of the lawsuit focuses on Bowser reportedly running an "international pirate ring," distributing hacking tools SX Core, SX Lite and SX Pro for use with Nintendo's Switch. While some critics have argued that bootlegs are helpful for preserving games, Team Xecuter has been selling the SX suite for profit, which probably ruin that defense in court. Continue reading.
Users will pay $15 for 25 Mbps internet and $20 for broadband over 200 Mbps.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill requiring all internet service providers to offer $15 per month broadband for low-income users, in a state where the average monthly bill is $50. Service providers must provide at least 25 Mbps download speeds or their current low-income internet speeds if those are greater. Continue reading.
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There are still funding hurdles for NASA to clear if it plans to fly as scheduled, but those missions are still years away at best. In the nearer future, Apple's Spring Loaded event is scheduled to take place on Tuesday and Chris Velazco has reminders of the rumors you should know about before it starts. New iPads and iMacs seem like safe bets, but we'll see if there are any big surprises in a few days.
A pair of $500 Sonos Five speakers will work for music lovers, but there are cheaper options.
As the market exploded, the downsides of having a device that's always listening for a wake word have become increasingly apparent. They can get activated unintentionally, sending private recordings back to monolithic companies to analyze. And even at the best of times, giving more personal information to Amazon, Apple and Google can be a questionable decision. That said, all these companies have made it easier to manage how your data is used — you can opt out of humans reviewing some of your voice queries, and it's also less complicated to manage and erase your history with various digital assistants, too.
The good news is that there's never been a better time to get a smart speaker, particularly if you're a music fan. For all their benefits, the original Amazon Echo and Google Home devices did not sound good. Sonos, on the other hand, made great sounding WiFi-connected speakers, but they lacked any voice-controlled smarts.
That's all changed now. Sonos is including both Alexa and Google Assistant support in its latest speakers. Google and Amazon, meanwhile, made massive improvements in sound quality with recent speakers. Even lower-end models like the Echo Dot and Nest Mini sound much better than earlier iterations. With the growing popularity of these speakers, there are now more options than ever. Nathan Ingraham can walk you through the best choices at different price points and for different uses. Continue reading.
This week brought a bunch of deals on new gadgets, including Amazon's rotating Echo Show 10 and Google's Nest Hub. The former dropped to a new all-time low of $200 while the latter remains 20 percent off at various retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. AirPods Pro are more than $50 off right now at $197, and Amazon Prime members can snag the Fire TV Stick Lite for only $20.
Here are all the best deals from the week that you can still snag today, and remember to follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for more updates. Continue reading.
Two years after its CES debut, LG's OLED R TV is finally available in the US — or, at least, there's now an Inquire to Buy button to the OLED R product page for US residents. There's no mention of US pricing on the website, but in South Korea, it costs 100 million KRW. At the current exchange rate, that's about $89,000. Continue reading.
The new shortcut makes it easier to refine your search results.
Google's new Search shortcut helps to speed up your search process. Now, when you're on a results page, you can simply press "/" to expand the search field and add more words or modifiers. This feature joins the tab accessibility shortcut, which highlights links so you can open websites without relying on a mouse or a trackpad. Continue reading.
According to Devindra Hardawar, "The Zephyrus G15 has practically everything I'd want in a solid gaming notebook, without breaking the bank. It's relatively lightweight, powerful and far cheaper than other premium notebooks."
The Zephyrus G15 currently starts at $1,499 with an RTX 3060 and 16GB of RAM, which isn't too bad considering it still has the Ryzen 9 and the speedy 1,440p display. Our review unit sells for $2,500 with the RTX 3080 Max-Q and 32GB of RAM. Continue reading.
