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Roku has begun running video ads that automatically play before loading the home screen, as reported by Ars Technica. This is impacting owners of Roku-branded smart TVs and streaming sticks, so long as the device runs the company’s proprietary OS. It’s worth noting that Roku users already see commercials on the home screen itself, so folks have to suffer through an ad to get to the ads.

Multiple users have reported seeing commercials for the movie Moana 2, though there does seem to be an option to close the video. A Roku spokesperson shared a company statement that confirmed the new ad placement but said it's just a test. The company declined to comment on whether or not this would become a permanent fixture within the OS.

Our business “has and will always require continuous testing and innovation across design, navigation, content, and our first-rate advertising products,” the statement read. “Our recent test is just the latest example, as we explore new ways to showcase brands and programming while still providing a delightful and simple user experience.”

Roku is trying pushing how far to enshittify by introducing ad autoplay before the home screen. "I just turned on my Roku and got an unskippable ad for a movie, before I got to the regular Roku home screen."

Speak up before experiment turns into reality. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/NUkmHoemts

— Techlore (@TechloreInc) March 18, 2025

As expected, Roku users aren’t exactly pumped about this new ad-delivery method. Some have suggested that they would get rid of their devices if the company keeps the test going. Many consumers have expressed that they are fine with the static ads seen on the home screen, but that a loud video is simply a bridge too far.

As a whole, Smart TVs have become a serious growth market for advertisements. These TVs are high-tech and, as such, they track our viewing habits at nearly every turn. Some companies actually lose money on the hardware and make most of their profits via our eyeballs. Roku, as an example, lost $44 million on its physical devices in 2023, but made nearly $1.6 billion with its ads and services products.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/roku-testing-auto-play-video-ads-before-loading-the-home-screen-171517685.html?src=rss

It's unlikely that the fate of a company as large as Ubisoft will hinge on the success of one tentpole single-player game. But the company cannot afford another major error anytime soon after the likes of Star Wars: Outlaws and XDefiant failed to set the world alight. Ubisoft desperately needs a big hit (and for the Rainbow Six Siege X overhaul to go well). The good news for the company is that Assassin's Creed Shadows is poised to deliver on that.

On the surface, it's exactly what you'd expect: a massive Assassin's Creed game that takes dozens of hours to beat. There's so much to do beyond the core story, given all the missions and sidequests that the game constantly points you towards. I was rarely bored during my time with the game — not even during the lengthy flashbacks — which says a lot about the care and consideration Ubisoft's developers have put into this giant world and the story that ties it together.

Ubisoft could not risk having the game run poorly from the jump and then spend months fixing it à la Cyberpunk 2077. Thankfully, for the most part, Assassin's Creed Shadows runs well across my consoles (base PS5 and Xbox Series X) and PC.

It looks sumptuous on my high-end gaming rig, which has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, 14th-gen i9 Intel CPU and 32GB of RAM. I had zero issues while running everything at very high settings. The action hovered in the 55-59 fps range with no considerable framerate drops — save for the slightly jarring switch to cutscenes, which play out at 30 fps. It's worth noting that Assassin's Creed Shadows is verified for Steam Deck, but I wasn't able to test it out there.

There were no noticeable slowdowns even in the heat of chaotic combat on the three platforms I played on. However, I did spot some small visual aberrations on PS5. Early on, while strolling through puddles in performance mode, water pooling on a dirt track shimmered in an unnatural way. It distracted me from the conversation I was having with an ally.

Ubisoft

Once I was in winter, textures on the grass that poked through the snow faded out and in while I tore through the countryside on horseback. For the record, that happened in balanced mode, which attempts to split the difference between the quality and performance modes in terms of visual fidelity versus framerate. These are minor complaints, in fairness, but they momentarily broke the immersion for me.

The main other weird quirk is that my horse often got stuck when I whistled for it. If, say, I was on a narrow bridge when I called the steed, it might spawn into the river below. A slight annoyance that's more to do with how the horse is programmed to catch up to you by your side, but one that's forgivable considering some of the many narrow paths you'll venture along.

Two heroes with their own stories

The big hook this time around is that you can swap between two characters almost whenever you like. Naoe, a shinobi, is a more traditional Assassin's Creed protagonist, while the warrior Yasuke is a hulking samurai who can bust through doors and carry bodies to hiding spots more easily than his counterpart. There are missions and character interactions that require you to specifically play as one character, but for the most part, you can play as either in the open world.

I stuck to Naoe as much as I could. She's far more nimble and capable at clambering around strongholds — her grappling hook is such a handy tool — and carrying out stealthy assassinations. After all, she’s the only one of the two who has the fabled hidden blade. Her movement is extremely fluid, an aspect of the game that's said to have benefited from the extra time developers had amid its delays.

Unlike Yasuke, Naoe can use the classic eagle vision ability to reveal enemies, hiding spots and goodies through walls. She's plenty capable in hand-to-hand combat as well, more so as you unlock abilities like the very useful double assassination. Her kusarigama, which consists of a sickle-like implement and heavy weight linked by a chain, is a great part of her arsenal.

That's not to say Yasuke isn't a fun character as well. Silently thinning out enemy numbers with his bow or loudly with a teppō firearm before charging in to eliminate the remainder with a long katana, crushing club and special moves like booting a grunt into a wall never got old.

Both protagonists are well-written and performed, at least while playing with English audio. However, the lip syncing didn't always neatly match up with what the characters were saying, a distraction in cutscenes. While I didn't get around to playing the game in immersive mode, with characters speaking in their native tongues of Japanese and Portuguese, I'd be interested to see if the lip sync issue is as prominent there.

Personal stakes with a broader goal

Nevertheless, the story was strong enough to hold my attention during the cutscenes and the rest of the game. It's a tale that starts with very personal stakes for both heroes but expands to involve safeguarding the future of Japan. The writers have crafted a narrative with plenty of intrigue and intricacy, and I enjoyed how they weaved the broader Assassin's Creed lore into Shadows.

I would say the story and structure are rich and intricate enough to justify the 40-60 hours it'll take many people to finish this game. (The new scouting system — which you'll use to narrow down the location of an objective after learning that, for instance, a target is in a specific area — works well.) Still, I preferred the tighter 20-hour approach Ubisoft took with Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Ubisoft

I enjoyed playing in canon mode, which removed dialogue choices and let narrative beats play out as the designers intended. It's too much of a spoiler to reveal how Naoe and Yasuke come to be allies, but the interactions between them and other characters, particularly the flirty relationship Naoe has with one firearm-wielding figure, are for the most part captivating enough.

The performers (and, my goodness, are there a lot of speaking parts here) by and large do a great job with the material. But it's a bit jarring to hear a character speak in a plain North American accent when most of the cast bring Japanese and Portuguese inflections to their delivery.

As solid as the tale being told is overall, the structure is a little odd in places. The main story includes flashback sequences, including one with a combat tutorial that takes place right after the action-packed prologue, that disrupt the flow even if they add some color to the protagonists' backstories.

Skill tree frustrations

I'm not a big fan of the way Ubisoft has structured the progression systems. Naoe and Yasuke each have six skill trees, all of which are broken down into levels. To unlock the next level, the player has to accumulate enough experience points by completing various side activities, including horse archery and finding hidden items dotted around temples. In a vacuum, these can be fun, but it gets a little frustrating when you have a lot of spare mastery points to spend on skills and you have to run around to honor some shrines or find meditation spots before you're able to acquire some of Naoe's and Yasuke's cooler moves.

There are some other antiquated systems in the game. Defeating a rōnin — a samurai who has been hired to take out the heroes — in a fun fight earned me decent loot, including some legendary light armor. But I couldn't equip it, because my character hadn't quite reached a high enough level to simply put on some new rags. This doesn't make any logical sense.

Scaling enemy difficulty from region to region, a trope that Ubisoft eschewed in Mirage, feels very tired here too. It's an artificial way of ramping up the difficulty and progression when other approaches like more creative level design, new enemy types and the player manually making the game harder in their settings can do the trick. Given the historical nature of the series, it does follow to a degree that some of Ubisoft’s gameplay ideas are stuck in the past.

In general, I don't really care to spend my time scouring for gear upgrades just so I can stand a chance in a new area. That said, perks on certain equipment can come in handy. Skulking around castles to take out a few key enemies to unlock a chest with some valuable equipment felt rewarding — even just as a little something extra to do while I tried to make my way to a viewpoint on enemy turf. Castles are valuable strongholds and offer a defensive advantage against attackers, so it's only logical that the bad guys would be stationed around viewpoints, which reveal new points of interest visible to our heroes after they scale up to a specific perch.

Ubisoft

Even without that gameplay aspect, scaling up to a viewpoint is always worth it, as has long been the case in the Assassin's Creed series. The minimum reward is a sweeping shot of the surrounding area, and since Shadows is such a stunner, I made it a point to claim every viewpoint along my path.

The aforementioned puddle and grass anomalies aside, it’s a joy to roam around this gorgeous game, with its abundant foliage, carefully assembled settlements and dynamic weather system combining to form a rich, lived-in world that I won't soon forget. The lighting systems allowing for Naoe and Yaskue to snuff out candles and lanterns to help them hide in the shadows at night were a smart addition here too.

There are plenty of other fun aspects to Assassin's Creed Shadows. In one moment that reminded me of a beat in The Last of Us Part II, I was just starting a peaceful side activity when an assassin tried to take me out. That was an enjoyably unexpected twist. Meanwhile, an optional fight against a high-level enemy at the foot of a blazing tower in the middle of the night felt deeply cinematic.

There's a lot riding on Assassin's Creed Shadows. Ubisoft will absolutely be hoping that it's a success out of the gates and that not too many players wait for the price to drop. There's plenty of competition to be concerned about too, particularly as Sucker Punch Productions' sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei, is slated to arrive at some point this year.

It does feel like there's enough here to draw in both Assassin's Creed diehards and newcomers who may be entranced by the 16th-century Japan setting but don’t know their Animus from their elbow. Assassin's Creed Shadows has impressive technical work, great performances and an expansive, well-drawn story but it's unfortunately weighed down by some frustrating decisions and antiquated gameplay systems. Still, I'm eager to keep exploring.

Assassin's Creed Shadows will hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PC, Mac, Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+ on March 20. It will be available for iPad in the future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/assassins-creed-shadows-review-an-ambitious-and-captivating-world-thats-stuck-in-the-past-170008367.html?src=rss

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky just unveiled two new smartwatches that will be instantly familiar for long-time fans of the brand. The Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2 boast always-on e-paper displays, long-lasting batteries, physical buttons and simple designs that recall the company’s heyday.

This is happening after Google open-sourced PebbleOS, which led Migicovsky to announce his plans to make watches for the platform he helped build. That was just six weeks ago and the units are already ready for pre-orders. He works fast, with a stated reasoning that “no one else has made a perfect smartwatch for people like us, so I’m going to make the exact smartwatch we want.”

Eric Migicovsky

To that end, the Core 2 Duo looks nearly identical to the iconic Pebble 2, though it has been upgraded with “modern chips and new tricks.” It features a 1.26-inch black and white e-paper display, a microphone, a lightweight polycarbonate frame and an impressive 30-day battery life. It tracks both sleep and steps, and includes a barometer and compass.

Pre-orders are open right now, with shipments going out in July. The Core 2 Duo costs $149 and is available in black and white colorways.

Eric Migicovsky

Migicovsky calls the Core Time 2 his “dream watch” and that it’s the natural evolution from the well-reviewed Pebble Time and the unreleased Pebble Time 2. It boasts a 64-color 1.5-inch e-paper display, a metal frame and buttons, a flat glass lens for better visibility and a battery that goes for around 30 days.

The Core Time 2 also includes a touchscreen, heart rate monitor, microphone and speaker. It boasts IPX8 water-resistance and, of course, access to thousands upon thousands of pre-existing PebbleOS apps. Pre-orders are available now, though shipments won’t go out until December. It’s available in black or white, with a potential third color to be announced in the future, and costs $225.

Being as PebbleOS is open-source, both watches are fully hackable. This allows for the potential introduction of custom firmware.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/pebble-founder-eric-migicovsky-just-introduced-two-new-e-paper-smartwatches-160008363.html?src=rss

Brick-building and monster-catching are about to converge, and parents' wallets aren't ready. The Lego Group and The Pokémon Company said on Tuesday that their collaboration will bear (plastic) fruit starting next year. It sounds like the ideal companion for the upcoming Lego Game Boy.

The companies haven't yet announced any Lego Pokémon sets — or, for that matter, anything beyond the fact that there is now a partnership and that they're targeting a 2026 release date. But the tease will likely give countless young (and old!) imaginations plenty to chew on until we know more. Children love building Legos and training Pokémon, so it's easy to imagine the collab shooting to the top of countless wishlists.

While video games based on licensed Lego toy sets have been around for ages, licensed Lego sets based on video games are a newer phenomenon. Lego Minecraft has been around for over a decade, but recent years have also brought sets of Super Mario, Zelda, Overwatch and Sonic the Hedgehog in brick form.

"The LEGO Group and Pokémon have strong shared values of imagination, creativity and fun, making this the perfect partnership to deliver unique, meaningful and engaging ways for Trainers to experience the Pokémon brand," Gaku Susai, Chief Product and Experience Officer at The Pokémon Company International, wrote in a press release. "Working with the best-in-class team at the LEGO Group and seeing their dedication and passion for the project has culminated in an innovative and groundbreaking collaboration that will surprise and delight fans. We cannot wait to see both LEGO fans and the Pokémon community's reactions in 2026."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lego-pokemon-are-coming-in-2026-154206963.html?src=rss

Apple just brought its Tap to Pay technology for iPhones to a host of new European countries, including Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Hungary, Portugal and several others. This allows for contactless payments. It works with credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and a number of third-party payment platforms.

That last one was once a contentious issue for Apple. The company only allowed third-party developers access to its NFC technology, which powers Tap to Pay, after EU regulators threatened it with a massive antitrust fine. Apple has even agreed to allow users to make third-party wallets their default app.

This means that many European customers will now be able to access third-party payment platforms without jumping through any hoops. For instance, iPhone users in Finland will be able to use Tap to Pay with Stripe, SumUp, Viva and many more. Hungarians will be able to use Adyen, Global Payment, myPOS and others. It’s a veritable cornucopia of NFC payment options.

Thanks to the EU’s stiff regulations and the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), America has also gotten in on the act. The company recently opened up its NFC tech for third-party developers in the US and Canada. This functionality came in a software update as part of iOS 18.1.

This feature works in today’s announced European countries so long as the customer has an iPhone Xs or newer and that they are running a recent iOS version. Merchants don’t need any additional hardware to complete transactions. Third-party payment platforms can also integrate Tap to Pay directly into their iOS apps.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-brings-tap-to-pay-to-more-european-countries-152350220.html?src=rss

Just ahead of the Amazon Spring Sale getting underway on March 25, you can sign up for an Audible subscription on the cheap. You can get access to the Premium Plus plan for three months for just $3, or a dollar per month.

We've seen this deal a few times before. Amazon's now bringing it back in the lead up to its latest major shopping event, though you'll have until April 30 to take up the deal. You can cancel the subscription at any time. That's worth bearing in mind, as after the three months are up, the price will rise to the usual Premium Plus cost of $15 per month.

The Premium Plus plan grants you one credit per month. You can use a credit to claim any audiobook you like and you'll retain access to it even after your subscription expires. In other words, you can permanently add three audiobooks to your collection for $3.

The Premium Plus plan also includes access to thousands of other audiobooks. You'll also be able to listen to Audible Originals as well as podcasts through the service. All of that for a dollar a month is not a bad deal at all.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazon-spring-sale-deal-get-three-months-of-audible-for-only-3-145456026.html?src=rss

Since the start of March, Google has been aggressively expanding the availability of AI Overviews, dropping the requirement that you need to be logged into your Google account to access the feature. Now the company is bringing yet another AI tool to Search. The next time you go online to find medical information on your phone, you may see a new "What People Suggest" panel at the top of Google.

Using AI, the feature will organize "different perspectives from online discussions into easy-to-understand themes," explains Google. For instance, say you or one of your family members suffers from arthritis, the panel will curate "real insights from people who also have the condition," with links so you can dig deeper. The feature is currently only available on mobile devices in the US.

Google doesn't say how it plans to prevent the panel from surfacing misinformation. Instead, it mentions that it has worked to improve AI Overviews related to health topics so they "continue to meet a high bar for clinical factuality." However, even after Google implemented additional safeguards to prevent AI Overviews from generating inaccurate summaries, and began using Gemini 2.0 to tackle more complicated questions, the feature can still return bizarre answers. For instance, an AI Overview recently told my colleague Kris Holt that the first day Canadians can start contributing toward their RRSP for 2026 starts on March 61.

At the same event where Google debuted the What People Suggest panel, the company had other health-related announcements. The search giant said it was releasing a series of new Medical Records APIs through its Health Connect platform. With the update, Google says it will be easier to connect your health data with data from your doctor's office. Google also provided an update on the Pixel Watch 3's loss of pulse detection feature. After announcing it was coming soon with the latest Pixel feature drop, Google now says it will roll out at end of the month.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-is-using-ai-to-display-crowdsourced-medical-information-144525853.html?src=rss

We call ourselves Marketplace, so part of our job is exploring how marketplaces work, in all their forms. David Brancaccio and the “Marketplace Morning Report” team are setting out to visit in-person places of commerce, in a world where so much buying and selling has gone remote and digital. None are financial markets in a formal sense, but all markets are financial markets in a way, right? The goal is to learn the right and the wrong moves with experts.

This week: “A Business Reporter Goes to the Rodeo.” Today, we explore the food and culture of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

When you hear “rodeo,” you might think … “yeehaw.” And you wouldn’t be wrong.

But what we find here is not just one, single vibe. Houston rapper of legend, Bun B, celebrated his birthday with 75,000 of his closest friends on the fourth night of the rodeo.

Bun B performs at the Houston Rodeo on March 7. (Courtesy Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo)

And he’s not just one of the Houston Rodeo’s biggest musical acts. He’s also co-founder and co-owner of Trill Burgers, one of its food destinations. It’s set up a special outpost at the rodeo called Trill Town for this year’s festivities.

“People always think of, you know, cowboys, country music, this and that. It blends every crowd that’s out here in Houston. You see all sorts of crowds in Houston that come out here to the rodeo,” said Fernando Valladares, executive chef and another of Trill Burgers’ owners.

This is not Chef Nando’s first rodeo: He’s an entrepreneur with a lot of experience delivering celebrity-driven dining concepts into the world. Among his tricks of the trade is a focus on taste over marketing — “how we develop the flavors of the burger as a whole. Every single layer of it,” he said.

The Trill Burgers operation is also keeping a close eye on money in and money out. “Everything is ran through numbers. Everything is ran through margins,” Valladares said.

Fernando Valladares (right), executive chef and co-owner of Trill Burgers, speaks with David Brancaccio at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. (Alex Schroeder/Marketplace)

And, of course, there’s logistics. With an expected 2.5 million people walking in over the three weeks here at Houston’s NRG Park, Trill Burgers has surged from one to now seven kitchens at the rodeo. Last year, Valladares had to pull everyone from one of his normal locations to meet demand. This time, labor supply equals labor demand.

“Growing pains, right? So this year, we definitely pivoted, and we knew exactly what was needed,” Valladares said.

Trill Burgers’ Truth Burger Combo (left) and Truth BBQ Brisket Fries. (Marco Torres for The Scurfield Group)

A few hundred yards east, it’s a carnival raised to maybe the 11th power. Midway? More like a runway at George Bush International. If I had the courage, I’d get a smoked turkey leg the size of my forearm. But I did get the half-a-pineapple stuffed with fried shrimp and sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles. All the fault of Dominic Palmieri with RCS Carnival Midway.

“I say, throw on your stretchy pants, and start on one end of Circle Drive on the midway, and work your way right around the corner.”

Palmieri curates everything to eat in the carnival section here. His tagline is “Midway Gourmet” but “carny economics“ is also his game.

“The people that visit us at the rodeo are struggling and working paycheck to paycheck. So as we’re trying to figure out pricing, and design and create new menu items, we try and create as much value as possible,” he said.

Hence the Texas-sized portions that are doable if you share them “family style.”

“While that may be a $16 or $17 item, when you have four or five people that can share that, that’s where you really start to save some money to feed everybody at one time,” Palmieri said.

He said that when his banker needs a state-of-the-economy check, he doesn’t wait for the government data; he calls the carny. For instance, so many of the temps Palmieri hires already have other jobs.

“People are — they’re looking for work. The biggest section that we have right now is, believe it or not, people that are employed full time that are coming to saying, ‘I need an extra 15 to 20 hours a week. I’ll work Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. Can I come in at six and work to close?'”

On the innovation front, he’s just done the U.S. launch of something that’s been going over big in Britain: “It’s a beautiful, big, tall, clear plastic cup, filled with the most delicious, ripe red strawberries,” he explained. “And then we have this cascading fountain of neverending, silky, warm chocolate.”

Palmieri (left) shows David Brancaccio the chocolate strawberry cup. (Alex Schroeder/Marketplace)

The confection came with two hard business lessons. No. 1: That syrupy silky chocolate can’t be shipped the cheaper way. Surprise: It needs to be cool, not frozen.

“When you talk about a pallet that might have been $300, or $400, or $500 a ship, is now $900 to $1,000 a ship.”

Lesson No. 2 is about the never-ending chocolate fountain that’s part of the flair. They make the fancy ones in Italy, but those units got stalled at the border this month because U.S. customs couldn’t figure out U.S. trade policy.

“Nobody knew. ‘Is there a tariff? Is there not a tariff? We don’t know what to do.’ And it took forever to clear,” Palmieri said.

Dominic is a pro with a Plan B: a less flashy spigot until the Ferrari of fountains made it through.

“It’s chocolate fountains, right? Little things that upset the market once in a while that you’ve got to work through,” he said.

Find all of our Tricks of the Trade stories here.

Now that we know the Amazon Spring Sale is on the horizon, we're on the lookout for the best tech deals to grab from it. In typical Amazon fashion, Blink security cameras are some of the first to be discounted for the shopping event. The Blink Mini 2 is available for $20, which is half off its regular price and the best discount we've seen. You can pick up two of the wired security cameras for $38, which represents a 46 percent discount.

We reckon the Blink Mini 2 is the best budget security camera around. You can adjust the webcam-style camera to a variety of angles. It's weather-resistant, so you can place it outside if you have a special power adapter. The camera picks up decent (but not great) images, particularly those captured in the infrared nighttime view. It also has a built-in LED spotlight.

Since Blink is an Amazon company, of course the Mini 2 ties into the Alexa ecosystem. You'll just need to have a Blink account before you can actually use it. As you might expect, you'll be able to view images captured by the Mini 2 via the Alexa app on an Echo Show, Fire Tablet or Fire TV but, curiously, not iOS or Android. To see the captures on your phone or tablet, you'll instead need to use the Blink app. You'll get some extra features — such as cloud storage and people and pet detection — if you sign up for the Blink Subscription ($3 per month for one camera, $10 per month for any number).

Elsewhere in the sale, a five-pack of the Blink Outdoor 4 cameras is half off at $200. This is our recommendation for the best security camera for Alexa users. Having five of them should be enough for many folks to keep an eye on everything that's going on around their property.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-blink-mini-2-security-camera-drops-to-only-20-for-the-amazon-spring-sale-171417440.html?src=rss

Several Department of Commerce bureaus are said to have told staff not to use DeepSeek's AI chatbot on government devices. "To help keep Department of Commerce information systems safe, access to the new Chinese based AI DeepSeek is broadly prohibited on all [government-furnished equipment]," one bureau told staff in an email, Reuters reports. "Do not download, view, access any applications, desktop apps or websites related to DeepSeek."

The extent of any DeepSeek ban within the government as a whole is not yet known. Several states — including New York, Texas and Virginia — have banned DeepSeek from government devices. Some members of Congress and state attorneys general have pushed for legislation to prohibit the generative AI app on federal devices amid concerns over privacy and the security of government data.

The emergence of DeepSeek in January as a lower-cost and open-source AI model that can compete with those from the likes of OpenAI and Google saw US tech stocks take a significant hit. The DeekSeek app soared to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings at that time.

OpenAI accused Chinese startups of cribbing from its AI models’ copybook and said that it was looking into DeepSeek, among others. The company this month claimed DeepSeek was "state-subsidized" and "state-controlled," and called for its ban on US government, military and intelligence devices.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/commerce-department-divisions-reportedly-ban-deepseek-from-government-devices-140916241.html?src=rss

If you’re looking for a great deal on a premium pair of wireless headphones, you can take advantage of a massive $100 saving on the Bose QuietComfort headphones in the Amazon Spring Sale. For a limited time, these can be yours for $249, reduced from their usual price of $349, and this deal applies to all seven colorways. Although we have seen the price drop to $199 previously, this is still an excellent deal.

This feature-rich headset combines active noise cancellation (ANC) with high-fidelity audio, and multipoint connectivity for seamlessly switching between connected devices. A fully customizable EQ puts you in control of your music, with layers of additional customization available via the Bose app. Enjoy up to 24 hours of battery life when fully charged, or grab up to 2.5 hours from just a 15 minute charge if you’re in a hurry. 

Designed to provide all-day comfort, the Bose QuietComfort headphones feature plush, padded earcups and an adjustable padded band for long-play sessions. Experience immersive audio wherever you are — whether that’s at the gym, on your daily commute, or simply unwinding at home at the end of a long day.  

If your pockets run a little deeper, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra has also received a sizable price drop. Currently down from $429 to $349 in the Amazon Spring Sale, this premium headset won the best noise-canceling category in our recent best wireless headphones guide. Boasting three different ANC modes, spatial audio and intuitive touch controls, we scored the QuietComfort Ultra a whopping 86 out of 100 in our review.

The Amazon Big Spring Sale ends on March 31; so if you want to grab the Bose QuietComfort or QuietComfort Ultra at this discounted rate, now’s the time to do it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-100-off-the-bose-quietcomfort-headphones-in-the-amazon-spring-sale-140002812.html?src=rss

Sales at restaurants and bars fell 1.5% from January to February, according to preliminary numbers out Monday from the Census Bureau. 

While it’s not a huge drop, the decline may be a sign that consumers are feeling a bit more cautious about their discretionary spending.

When you feel uncertain about the direction of the economy, dining out less is an easy way to cut back on spending, per Jonathan Parker, the Robert C. Merton professor of financial economics at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

“You might scale back and go to less nice restaurants. You might cook in a little more,” he said.

But customers pulling back could hit a restaurant industry that’s had a pretty tumultuous few years with COVID shutdowns, supply chain issues, rising prices and staff shortages.

Emily Williams Knight, president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, said the places that have survived all that are now wondering, “‘If that consumer does retreat, am I going to make it?’ And I think we’ll see some restaurants close, for sure, if traffic doesn’t pick up again,” she said.

To attract customers, restaurants need to market the contrast between another night in “Versus, ‘hey, you can come out to our restaurant, be in a fun environment,'” said Rick Miller at the consumer analytics company Big Chalk. “There’s games on TVs, the beer is flowing.'”

It’d benefit restaurants to communicate that prices are reasonable too, Miller added. After all, consumers are responding well right now if they feel like they’re getting a deal.

It’s time to write the obituary for a star of the fast fashion world. Retailer Forever 21 declared bankruptcy this week — the second time in six years. This time, the company blamed competition from foreign fast fashion companies.

After its first bankruptcy filing, we could still keep going to Forever 21 stores, because sometimes companies file for bankruptcy, they fix some problems, and they survive. 

But “the problems that brought it to the brink in 2019 didn’t really go away,” said James Gellert, who co-founded the business analytics company RapidRatings. 

Forever 21 is not bouncing back this time, he said. The company’s financial health is low, its debt is high, and customers have started shopping elsewhere.

“Many of the companies that have had all three of those problems, it then becomes a bit of a death knell,” Gellert said.

And a lot has changed in the past six years. Temu didn’t exist until 2022; Shein took off around the same time. Now, they’re both a primary reason for Forever 21’s downfall, according to John Mercer with the research company Coresight.

“Companies like Shein and Temu who are grabbing tens of billions of dollars of sales, most of that is coming from incumbent, legacy retailers,” he noted. 

That includes retailers like Forever 21. Those other places are winning out because — simply — their clothes are cheaper, Mercer said. 

Right now, demand for cheap clothes is pretty high “because Americans are feeling the pressure from higher inflation, and then they’ve offered extremely competitive prices,” he said. 

Thing is, similar companies — like Zara, H&M and Uniqlo — are still in business. While the market has been tough, some of Forever 21’s are unique.

Santiago Gallino, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, said these other brands were nimbler and more responsive to changing customer preferences.

“Versus this approach where you make a big bet on a design or a style, and then you place a huge order, bring it to the market, hoping for the best, and then it doesn’t work,” he said.

Forever 21 grew really fast when it first started and bought up too much retail space all at once, Gallino added. “And that is sometimes evident on hindsight. But when you’re growing and you’re growing fast, it’s not so easy to detect when you have break the point of overinvesting and overexpansion.”

Forever 21 might not be the last brick-and-mortar chain to close this year; Coresight’s John Mercer says there are more to come because of the unbeatable prices of online, overseas competition.

Levoit's Core 400S air purifier is down to $187 from its usual $220 price, thanks to the Amazon Spring Sale. While it’s not the lowest price we’ve seen — the air purifier briefly hit $177 last year — it’s still a solid discount on one of the most convenient air purifiers for large spaces.

We’ve featured Levoit in our list of the best air purifiers for its strong performance and smart features. The Core 400S can cover rooms up to 1,980 square feet using a three-stage filtration system to capture allergens, dust, pet dander and smoke. It also includes a smart sensor that adjusts fan speed based on air quality, so you’re not running it at full blast when you don’t need to.

One of the Levoit Core 400S’ biggest selling points is its low noise output, which makes it a good fit for bedrooms or home offices. If you need to knuckle down and get some work done without distraction whilst keeping your room’s air clean and fresh, even at higher speeds, it stays relatively quiet compared to bulkier purifiers. It also supports smart controls via the VeSync app, allowing you to tweak settings, set schedules or monitor air quality from your phone. If you have a smart home ecosystem in place, you can connect the purifier to third-party voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant — an added layer of convenience that allows you to control the Core 400S with simple voice commands.

Its 360-degree filtration system uses activated carbon to remove gases and odors, while an efficient middle filter captures 99.97 percent of pollutants as small as 0.3 microns. The built-in air quality sensor continuously monitors pollution levels, automatically adjusting performance as needed. You can track real-time air quality data on the LCD screen or through the VeSync app, which is handy (and interesting) to have access to at all times. At night, sleep mode keeps things extra quiet and subtle, dimming the display and operating at the lowest settings — or you can turn off the display completely for total darkness.

If you’ve been looking for an air purifier that can handle larger spaces without taking up too much room, this deal is worth considering, saving you over $30 on its usual price thanks to the Amazon Spring Sale.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/levoits-core-400s-air-purifier-is-33-off-for-the-amazon-spring-sale-133052543.html?src=rss

We're still a few months out from the big Amazon Prime Day that typically happens in July, but the online retail giant is having yet another big sale to usher in spring. The Amazon Spring Sale is officially on the books for 2025, starting on March 25 and running through March 31. Considering the time of year, it's not surprising to see that Amazon is billing this as a sale for all things spring cleaning, home and fashion.

We don't expect the Amazon Spring Sale to be as fruitful for tech deals as, say, standard Prime Day. But there are always some gadgets that pop up among the sales, and we'll cover all of the best tech deals we can find. For now, here are the best early Amazon Spring Sale deals you can shop right now.

Best Amazon Spring Sale deals so far

Apple AirTags (four-pack) for $70 ($29 off): These are the best Bluetooth trackers for iPhone users thanks to their vast finding network and accurate ultra wideband features for locating your things when they’re close by. Just attach them to your keys, wallet or bag with the right AirTag holder and keep track of everything in the Find My app.

AirPods Max (USB-C) for $480 ($70 off): If you’re looking for over-ear headphones with all of the conveniences of in-ear AirPods, the AirPods Max are one of your only options (with the others being Beats devices). The latest models have the same design as the originals, but now charge up via USB-C instead of Lightning.

Apple Watch Series 10 for $329 ($70 off): Apple’s flagship wearable is the best smartwatch you can buy, period. While the Series 10 was an iterative update, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It sports a slightly longer battery life, a slimmer design and wide-angle OLED screen for better viewing angles. It tracks workouts accurately and delivers alerts to your wrist efficiently.

Apple Watch SE for $199 ($50 off): Those on tighter budgets can opt for the Apple Watch SE and know they’re getting the core Apple wearable experience with few compromises. We consider it to be the best smartwatch for newbies.

Mac mini M4 for $529 ($70 off): If you prefer desktops, the upgraded M4 Mac mini is one that won’t take up too much space, but will provide a ton of power at the same time. Not only does it come with an M4 chipset, but it also includes 16GB of RAM in the base model, plus front-facing USB-C and headphone ports for easier access.

Audible (three months) for $3 ($42 off): This deal gives you access to Audible Premium Plus, which includes one credit each month that you can spend on any book you'd like, along with listening access to thousands of other books, podcasts and Audible Originals. You also get to take part in Audible's exclusive member sales.

Bose QuietComfort headphones for $249 ($100 off): These Bose over-ear headphones provide excellent noise cancellation, a comfortable fit and up to 24 hours of listening time on a single charge. A quick-charge feature will net you 2.5 hours of battery life in just 15 minutes of charging, so you'll rarely have to go without them, too.

Beats Fit Pro for $169 (15 percent off): These are the best wireless earbuds for working out thanks to their comfortable, secure fit, good sound quality with thumping bass and handful of convenient features provided by Apple's H1 chipset. It provides quick-pairing and switching between Apple devices (and quick pairing with Android phones), Find My compatibility and hands-free Siri.

Sonos Ray for $179 ($100 off): This is our favorite midrange soundbar thanks to its compact, attractive design and easy setup. It's best for those who have a smaller living room or den they want to outfit with better TV sound. Also available at Sonos in their March Madness sale.

TP-Link Deco XE75 Pro mesh Wi-Fi system for $280 (30 percent off): Our current pick for the best mesh Wi-Fi system you can get, this TP-Link bundle may be no-frills, but it gets the job done nicely. It's easy to set up and provides excellent Wi-Fi 6E performance, plus the three included nodes can cover up to 7,200 square feet.

Dyson AM09 heater and fan for $300 (36 percent off): The AM09 has been around for ages, and for good reason. It's an excellent heater during cold months and fan during warm months, so you can use it all year round. Jet Focus control lets you choose from Focused or Diffused for personal or whole-room heating or cooling, and the handy sleep timer lets you set when the device turns off in intervals from 15 minutes up to nine hours.

Dyson V15s Detect Submarine for $798 ($152 off): This Dyson cordless stick vacuum and mop is a top pick in our best cordless vacuums guide thanks to its sleek design and included mop attachment that easily swap in so you can clean tile, hardwood and other flooring with liquid solution. Yes, it's expensive, but you're essentially getting two cleaning machines in one — plus, when used as a vacuum, it has excellent suction power and great battery life.

iRobot Roomba Combo Vac and Mop for $169 (39 percent off): This "essential" Roomba is relatively no-frills, but it has the added benefit of being a mopping robot in addition to a vacuum. It includes a washable mopping pad and a water reservoir so you can clean hard floors, and it will autonomously vacuum just like all of iRobot's other basic robovacs.

Samsung Evo Select microSD card (512GB) for $35 ($5 off): A value pick in our best microSD cards guide, this Evo Select card provides respectable read and write speeds, and it comes with a full-sized adapter.

Samsung T7 portable SSD (2TB) for $140 (48 percent off): We're on the T9 series now, but if you're looking to save a bit of cash, the T7 remains a great option for on-the-go storage. It supports read and write speeds up to 1,050/1,000 MB/s and sports a pocket-friendly design.

Blink Mini 2 security camera for $20 (50 percent off): Blink's latest wired, indoor security camera is one of our favorites, particularly if you're just starting out building a security camera system. It's easy to set up and use, and it works seamlessly with Amazon's Alexa. Plus, if you want a local storage option, you can buy the Blink Sync Module 2 and a thumb drive to store video clips locally.

Amazon Spring Sale FAQs When is the Amazon Spring Sale?

The Amazon Spring Sale 2025 runs from March 25 through March 31.

What is Amazon's Spring Sale?

The Amazon Spring Sale is a multi-day sale event that has taken place at the end of March since 2024.

Do I have to be a Prime Member to shop the Amazon Spring Sale?

No, Amazon Spring Sale deals are available to all, including those who do not subscribe to Prime.

What types of deals can I expect to find during the Amazon Spring Sale?

In the past, we've seen a lot of spring cleaning and fashion items in sale during the Big Spring Sale. We expect this year to be no different. We at Engadget in particular will be on the lookout for discounts on our favorite spring cleaning tech, including robot vacuums, cordless vacuums and air purifiers, along with deals on kitchen and smart home gear.

Are there deals I can shop now ahead of the Amazon Spring Sale?

Yes, check out our list of the best Amazon Spring Sale deals you can get right now above.

How long does the Amazon Spring Sale last?

The Amazon Spring Sale lasts seven days this year, running from March 25 through March 31.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazon-spring-sale-2025-early-deals-from-apple-bose-sonos-and-others-plus-everything-we-know-so-far-130607836.html?src=rss

Apple’s iPads get all the headlines, and with good reason: They’ve long been considered the best tablets for most people. But none of them come cheap. For folks on a tighter budget, I’ve spent the last few weeks testing a couple of 8-inch slates on the dirt-cheap end of the price spectrum: the $100 (but frequently discounted) Amazon Fire HD 8 and the $79 Walmart Onn 8”. They aren’t the only tablets available in this price range, but they’re pushed directly by the world’s two largest retailers, so there’s a good chance casual shoppers may buy them without knowing exactly what they’re getting. We pitted the two slates head-to-head not only to figure out which one is better, but also to diagnose the state of ultra-budget tablets as a whole.

Balancing cheapness and utility

You’ll never get truly “premium” hardware when you shop in this price range, but the Onn makes a nicer first impression than Amazon’s Fire tab. Squint hard enough and it sort of resembles a budget iPad mini, with a chilly aluminum back, squared-off edges and firm side buttons. Most people I handed it to over the course of this review were immediately surprised at how decent it felt for something so cheap.

The Fire HD 8 wears its price more clearly. It’s mostly made from a hard textured plastic, with slightly thicker yet more rounded sides, thicker bezels and flimsier buttons. The front facing camera and dual speakers sit on the long edge, so it’s mainly designed to be held horizontally for streaming video or playing games. The Onn has a more traditional setup, with its selfie camera at the top and two speakers firing out the bottom edge, so it’s not as accommodating for media consumption or video calls.

Despite the cheaper-feeling materials, I find the Fire HD 8 easier to hold for longer stretches. The gently curved sides don’t dig into your palms as much as the Onn’s flat edges, and while the larger bezels aren’t pretty, they give your thumbs a more natural place to sit. The Onn in particular can be prone to accidental inputs, something its thinner bezels exacerbate. That said, the Onn isn’t uncomfortable, it’s just more generic. In fact, it’s actually a half-inch narrower than Amazon’s tablet. With either device, you’re getting a tablet that’s just under 0.8 pounds — lightweight, highly portable and easy to hold with one hand.

The $100 Amazon Fire HD 8 (left) and $79 Walmart Onn 8" tablet. Jeff Dunn for Engadget The different perils of cheap tablet displays

You won’t write home about either tablet’s 8-inch IPS LCD display, but the Onn’s panel is the surprisingly clear winner when you put the two side-by-side. Colors are noticeably less muted, black tones are deeper and the whole thing can get a bit brighter at its peak. White tones are too blue for me to call this screen accurate, but the Fire HD 8 tilts even farther in the other direction — it runs much warmer, which layers everything with an orange-ish hue. This makes it easier on the eyes at night, but it dulls colors, washes out black tones and generally looks dimmer by comparison.

Beyond the tuning, both screens have similar drawbacks. Both are saddled with a low 1,280 x 800 resolution, which is sharp enough for displays this small but still makes text and images fuzzier than they’d appear on an iPad or pricier Android slate. Both have a basic 60Hz refresh rate. Neither is fully laminated, so there’s an air gap between the LCD and the display cover that makes scrolling feel less natural. This is especially noticeable on the Fire HD 8. (Apple’s base iPad has this same issue, but it’s an issue nonetheless.) Amazon’s tablet is also a major smudge and fingerprint magnet, plus it’s more difficult to read outdoors. The Onn doesn’t exactly excel in these areas either, but it’s better.

And yet, much of the Onn’s advantage is negated by its lack of Widevine L1 support. Android Authority has a good explainer, but to simplify, Widevine is the Google-owned DRM platform used by many of the most popular video streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Paramount+ and Max. It has two security levels Android devices can support: L1 (the highest) or L3 (the lowest). If a device is only L3-compliant, like the Onn, video from these services is capped at a 480p resolution. Sure enough, shows and movies from those services are visibly less sharp on the Onn than they are on the Fire HD 8, which supports Widevine L1 and has no issues playing in 720p.

This sucks. Netflix, Disney+ and the like are the apps many people buy a tablet to use, and while the Onn’s display is generally more vibrant, the difference isn’t nearly large enough to overcome video streams that look like they were ripped in 2010. A dimmer and overly warm image is still preferred if it’s the only one that supports HD across the board. Google doesn’t charge a license fee to implement its DRM tech, so there’s little excuse for Walmart — a $700 billion company — to ship a tablet that isn’t fully certified, even if it’s a cheapo model. Yet the Onn isn’t the only cheap Android tablet without full Widevine compliance. Consider it another way those on a tighter budget are let down by corporate laziness.

The Onn has a slightly thinner but more boxy shape, while the Fire HD 8 has more rounded edges. Jeff Dunn for Engadget The other expected sacrifices

There are several other hardware benefits you give up when you dive into the bargain bin, most of which are annoying but not terribly surprising. The cameras on both tablets are horrid, for one, blurring details and washing out colors even in full daylight. Neither tablet has a fingerprint reader for unlocking the device faster. Nor do they have formal water-resistance ratings, so you’ll want to be careful using either around the sink or tub.

Both devices are equipped with a basic USB-C 2.0 port, and neither supports true fast charging. The Fire HD 8 can top up slightly quicker, as it supports up to a 15W charge compared to the Onn’s 10W, but even then Amazon only includes a 5W adapter in the box.

The Fire HD 8 also has the edge when it comes to audio. It’s far from impressive: It can’t get very loud and it struggles to cleanly separate the different parts of tracks. But it’s decidedly fuller, warmer and more balanced than Walmart’s shrill speakers, which make vocalists sound like they’re shouting through a tin can. The Fire HD 8 can at least imply some level of bass too, whereas the Onn is pretty much devoid of it. The Onn also lacks a headphone jack, so you’re out of luck if you still like to keep a wired pair handy (like me).

The side profiles of the two tablets. Jeff Dunn for Engadget Fast enough — barely

Both the Onn and the Fire HD 8 are about as cheap as Android tablets get, and their performance follows suit. On paper, the former wins by a hair: Both come with 3GB of RAM, but Walmart’s slate runs on a 2 GHz eight-core chip (Mediatek MT8786), while Amazon’s uses a 2 GHz six-core processor (MediaTek MT8169). Along those lines, the Onn’s single- and multi-core performance was better than that of the Fire HD 8 in the Geekbench 5 benchmark (331 to 194 and 1317 to 950, respectively).

In practice, however, there isn’t much difference. Both processors are as entry-level as it gets in 2025, and 3GB of RAM is the absolute minimum for passable performance. Geekbench 5 is an older version of that particular benchmark, but we had to use it because the latest Geekbench 6 straight-up doesn’t work on devices with less than 4GB of memory.

With either tablet, you’re looking at light media consumption and little more. Apps, videos and ebooks load quickly enough to not completely annoy you. Web browsing is adequate so long as you don’t open more than a few tabs at a time. Casual card and match-three games play well enough, and you can run at least some more involved games like Diablo Immortal and PUBG Mobile if you knock them down to their lowest graphical settings. Streaming games over services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna works about as well as it does on any other device. (But we did notice that some games were capped at a lower resolution on Walmart’s tablet than they were on the Fire HD 8.) These are the kind of tasks ultra-cheap tablets are designed for, so this is what they can do.

Even still, there will be hitches along the way. Pulling up the app drawer on the Onn sometimes took a second more than it should. There’s a slight but noticeable lag when you scroll down the home screen on the Fire HD 8. Multitasking or doing any serious work on either device is out of the question. Many graphically demanding mobile games won’t start at all. Some sites take frustratingly long to load, because the modern web simply isn’t designed for affordable devices like these — there are too many resource-hungry ads, images and auto-playing videos for them to truly keep up.

The Amazon Fire HD 8. Jeff Dunn for Engadget

If you want to keep score, the Fire HD 8 usually took just over 25 seconds to boot up. That’s slow, but still eight to 10 seconds faster than Walmart’s tablet on average. (For reference, an iPad Air M2 I had on hand took about 12 seconds to boot up.) Load times for individual apps were more of a toss-up: Some loaded a second or two faster on the Fire HD 8, some on the Onn, while others were effectively even. Ultimately, both let you do the basics without overwhelming trouble, but they always feel like they’re skirting the edge. I wouldn’t expect either to hold up well two or three years from now.

One benefit of having a lower-spec device is that it won’t chew through battery life. Walmart says the Onn can last up to 15 hours, while Amazon rates the Fire HD 8 at up to 13 hours. Those are generous estimates, but both devices should last more than 10 or 11 hours on a charge with typical mixed use. The Onn survives a pinch longer between the two, but the difference is minimal. Both have enough juice to get you through a long flight.

Both tablets also come with a paltry 32GB of storage, and the portion of that space that’s actually usable out of the box is even smaller: 25GB for the Fire HD 8 and just 18GB for the Onn. This means you likely won’t be able to install more than a few games to either device at any given time. Thankfully, you can add up to 1TB of room with a microSD card — a feature that is not available on any iPad — and that will be a must if you want to download a bunch of movies or songs to play offline.

One caveat to all of this is that Amazon sells an upgraded version of the Fire HD 8 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for $129. That puts it over the $100 threshold we set for this exercise, but the extra gig of memory should make everything run slightly smoother.

The Walmart Onn 8" tablet. Jeff Dunn for Engadget Good Android, bad Android

The biggest distinction between the Onn and the Fire HD 8 comes down to their radically different takes on Android. With the former, it’s essentially a stock version of the OS. It’s Android 14, so it’s about to be two major updates behind, but the only app Walmart pre-installs is its own (natch) and even that is removable. Otherwise, all of Google’s core services are right there, swiping left on the home screen takes you to the Discover news feed and you can download just about any other app from the Play Store. If you’ve used an Android device in recent memory, you should be able to get around without a sweat.

The tablet defaults to the Google Assistant out of the box, but you can download the company’s Gemini AI app and make that your default assistant in settings. While the chatbot isn’t as tightly integrated here as it is on Pixel devices, you can still use it to answer queries, summarize emails and webpages, generate text, create (terrible) images and so on. The Gemini 2.0 Flash model picks up voices well and runs without any serious lag to boot.

For the most part, the Onn runs stock Android 14. Left to right: the home screen after installing and activating Google's Gemini AI bot, the personalized Google Discover news feed you see when you swipe left on the home screen and the front page of the Google Play Store. Jeff Dunn for Engadget

Amazon, meanwhile, is still shipping its tablets with Fire OS, a heavily skinned fork of Android 11 with a custom app store and an extreme emphasis on the company’s own services. Years later, it remains obnoxious to the point of hostility. Omitting the Play Store means it doesn’t officially support any Google app, so there’s no Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Maps and the like. (While there is a YouTube “app,” it’s really just a dinky web shortcut.)

Amazon’s own email and calendar apps are far less robust by comparison. Many of the major streaming and social media services are still available, but plenty of other big-name apps are not, including Reddit, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Slack, any browser besides Amazon’s extremely-basic Silk and tons of popular games.

It’s still possible to install the Play Store onto a Fire tablet and sideload most of the apps you want from there, but setting that up is a pain and not every app will continue to work perfectly. More importantly, that’s not the experience Amazon is selling. Fire OS remains a platform that works best when you go behind its back. I can’t say that about stock Android.

Much of Fire OS feels like it was explicitly designed to nickel-and-dime you, to sell you on everything Amazon. I’m not being hyperbolic: The first app you see upon unlocking the device is literally called “Shop Amazon,” and there’s a dedicated shortcut to the company’s storefront on the Silk browser’s home page. So many of the Amazon apps that come pre-loaded are based on a subscription — Kindle, Amazon Music, Amazon Photos, Audible, Freevee (which no longer exists), etc. — and almost none of them can be uninstalled. Swiping left from the home screen brings you to a “For You” page of content suggestions that constantly promotes those Amazon services and includes a row of sponsored apps toward the top of the page. The home screen itself has an unremovable “Discover” tab rife with similarly aimless suggestions and paid sponsorships.

Most obnoxious are the lock screen ads. Every time you turn Fire HD 8 on, a full-screen ad for BetMGM, Verizon, a personalized Amazon listing or some other brand is there to greet you. Rarely do I feel like a gadget respects me less than when I see stuff like this. Sure, $100 isn’t a ton for a tablet, but it’s not nothing. When I see the same ad for my local Tri Honda Dealer for the 12th time that day, I can’t help but question who the actual product is. You can turn these ads off, but only if you pony up another $15.

A few snapshots from Amazon's Fire OS. Left to right: a lock screen ad for Verizon, the "For You" page of content suggestions and the home page of Amazon's custom app store. Jeff Dunn for Engadget

Even if you do, it’s hard to shake the sense that Fire OS only really cares about getting you to funnel more cash into the Amazon machine. Google certainly pushes its own stuff too, but many of its services are proven and widely-used. Amazon’s platform is even louder with its self-promotion yet much more locked-down. In that sense, it isn’t consumer-friendly. People who really love Amazon apps could always just download them from the Play Store on any other Android tablet.

No matter which platform you use, you’ll have to put up with the usual issue with Android on tablets: Many apps look like blown-up versions of the ones you’d see on phones more than experiences designed with a larger screen in mind. This is less of an issue on an 8-inch tablet than an 11-inch one, but any iPad will be better optimized for its size.

I spent a long while ripping on Fire OS, but it does have some redeeming qualities. The Alexa voice assistant is baked into the device and runs quickly enough; if you have Alexa-compatible smart home devices, you can control them here hands-free. (At some point it should also work with the souped-up Alexa+, though for now the Onn has the edge when it comes to AI support.)

It’s good if you’re buying for a child too, as it lets you create a separate kid profile populated with age-appropriate apps, websites and videos. The Onn offers similar features through Google’s Kids Space mode, and both let you manage your child’s screen time and app library. But the Fire HD 8 makes those parental controls a bit easier to access, and it’s generally more proactive about locking down the rest of the device. You can also make it so your kid has to spend a set amount of time reading or using other educational material before they can play games.

Looking forward, Amazon promises to supply the Fire HD 8 with security updates through 2029. It doesn’t mention anything about OS upgrades, but that’s still a decent level of support for the price. Walmart, on the other hand, hasn’t issued any software roadmap for Onn tablets, though we were able to apply a March security update earlier this month. We’ve reached out to the company for more details and will amend this review if we hear back.

Jeff Dunn for Engadget Wrap-up

After poring over the Fire HD 8 and Onn 8 for the past few weeks, my main takeaway has become clear: You should really try to pay for something better. Get an iPad, buy an older refurbished one if you have to, pay even a little bit extra for a more powerful tablet from Samsung, Lenovo or another name brand — it shouldn’t really matter. It’ll run better, both today and into the future. And any iPad will still make better use of its screen space.

But that’s not an option for most people looking to buy one of these things. If you absolutely cannot spend more than $100, I’d wait for a sale on the Fire HD 8. Yes, I loathe much of what Fire OS represents, but you can at least paper over some of its annoyances by sideloading. The design is generally comfier to hold, and while its display is subpar, the Onn’s inability to stream many popular apps above 480p makes it almost impossible for me to recommend in 2025. If you want a cheap screen for some pet project that doesn’t involve streaming, the Onn may still work: Its display quality and aluminum finish are surprisingly decent for $79, and its version of Android is far less obnoxious than Fire OS. But that seems like a smaller niche.

Both of these tablets serve to highlight just how much junk cash-strapped buyers are forced to eat simply for being on a budget. In the Fire tablet’s case, you have to let Amazon seed a miniature ad box in your home, one that promotes the company and its partners every single time you turn it on. In the Onn’s case, you get what feels like a lazy rebrand of a white-label device, one that the world’s richest retailer couldn’t bother to put through all of the necessary certification processes.

I know what you’re thinking: “They’re cheap tablets, what do you expect?” And yeah, if you want the good stuff, you have to pay for it. More at 11. It’s just that we’ve been saying that for a long time now. These companies have lots of money. Maybe it’s time to expect a little better.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/battle-of-the-dirt-cheap-tablets-amazon-fire-hd-8-vs-walmart-onn-8-130031544.html?src=rss

Playing 33 Immortals for the first time is like going to a party at a coworker’s friend’s house. The first few minutes are marked by curiosity, light suspicion and a constant hum of awkwardness, but as you mingle, the strangers become less intimidating and you start to feel like you’re a part of the flow of the night. You might even make some friends of your own. The main difference is that, with 33 Immortals, you never have to take off your fuzzy slippers.

I’m not kidding about flow when it comes to 33 Immortals. I fell into the game’s rhythm about 15 minutes into my three-hour preview, and by the end, I was shepherding small groups of lost souls across Inferno like I worked for Satan himself. In its simplest terms, 33 Immortals is like a multiplayer Hades, though its world is based on the lore of Dante’s Divine Comedy rather than Greek myth. Its vibe is also a tad more wholesome than Hades — maybe more crowd-pleasing, which makes sense considering the focus on large-scale multiplayer maps in 33 Immortals.

I played the preview solo because I was feeling particularly antisocial that day, but of course that doesn’t mean I was alone. Other players occupy the hub world and the main maps in 33 Immortals, and though I initially tried to fade into the pixels and treat it as a single-player game, I quickly found myself emoting and seeking groups of warriors to join. With so many random players on the map at any time, it’s easy to feel like your small mistakes aren’t spotted, while your successes are clear for all to see, and even participate in.

You start a run by picking a weapon — justice sword, sloth staff or greed daggers — and each has a special ability that only works when three players stand together and activate it. It’s different for each weapon, but the effect is consistently grand. I stuck with the Staff of Sloth, a weapon that flings purple balls of magic and whose special ability slows enemies across a large swath of the battlefield. In the heat of combat, with swarms of demons flooding the immediate area, it’s actually tricky to get three people to stand in the proper spots, but it takes just a moment of synchrony for the special ability to activate, and it’s a palpable relief every time. And then everyone immediately gets back to hurling spells, shooting arrows, flinging daggers and reviving allies, eyes peeled for the next special ability.

Teamwork is an essential mechanic in 33 Immortals, and it’s not an intimidating one, even on an extra-introverted day. Amid all the chaos of combat, I never lost sight of my character for more than a split-second, and my dashes, interactions and attacks felt crisp and responsive. With dozens of enemies and allies on-screen at any given time, this alone is a notable achievement by developer Thunder Lotus.

Thunder Lotus

The game begins with a 33-player map, Inferno, which is an arid wasteland of roaming demons, 12 Torture Chambers and one big ascension battle to complete. The minions running around Inferno are easy enough to dispatch for practice and extra bones (the game’s currency), or you can run right by them without punishment. Torture Chambers are miniboss rooms designed for six players to tackle at once, but you can enter them with fewer than six, even alone. However, you’re unlikely to get far solo. The minibosses are hulking skeletons and big, flopping demon worms with plenty of health, and they always have hordes of minions as backup. Luckily, allies can join the chamber any time after a fight starts, up to six total, and no one can voluntarily leave until two swarms have been cleared. Each Torture Chamber rewards successful teams with two relic chests containing useful items and bones. One chest is always locked, requiring a key to spill its goods. You can carry up to eight relics at a time, buffing your stats in various ways, and you’re able to reroll chest items for a fairly low price.

I had good luck defeating Torture Chambers with just three or four fighters total, but six was always welcome, hence my eventual shepherding. I also ended up prioritizing keys when shopping at the Bone Shrines scattered around Inferno because, dang it, I love unlocking chests.

Once all of the Torture Chambers are defeated, holy fire spreads across Inferno, pushing players into one of three ascension spots designed for 11 fighters each. Here, enemies flood the fire-ringed circle and it’s a Thunderdome situation. If you live, you get a legendary relic and ascend alongside other surviving players to Inferno’s three-headed, bat-winged boss, Lucifer. This is where 33 Immortals’ art style really shines: Lucifer is a big blue beast who feels ripped straight out of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and there are pleasant touches of 1980s cartoons all over the game.

Thunder Lotus

Though I battled Lucifer three times with varying team sizes, I never beat that first overworld. I’m eager to try again and unlock the next map, Purgatorio, which maxes out at 22 players.

Like in Hades, 33 Immortals has a hub world, The Dark Woods, that players return to after each loop. This is where you’re able to apply upgrades, equip new weapons, alter your appearance and get some training in. I didn’t find any of the characters in the hub world particularly intriguing, but they serve their purpose just fine. Besides, it’s not about them — the main focus in 33 Immortals is all of the other actual people.

As Engadget’s UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith prophesied in June 2023, 33 Immortals only gets better with more players. 33 Immortals is available today in Early Access on Xbox Series X/S and PC (via the Xbox app and Epic Games Store). It’s also included in Game Pass.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/33-immortals-preview-a-multiplayer-game-that-feels-great-to-play-solo-130029157.html?src=rss

It hasn’t happened yet, but if rumors are to be believed, Microsoft may be finally working on an Xbox-branded gaming handheld. In a lot of ways, portable PCs represent a perfect evolution to the company’s consoles. But with Microsoft arriving late to the party, there are a few things this device needs to get right.

Between Microsoft’s 20-plus year history making consoles and the Surface division’s expertise in engineering laptops and other mobile devices, you’d think creating a portable PC with a built-in screen and attached controllers would be as easy as sticking an AFK opponent with a ‘nade in Halo. And after the Steam Deck built a fort on Valve’s top sellers list since its release in 2022, there’s an obvious financial incentive for Microsoft as well. Hell, we’ve even heard about how much Xbox CEO Phil Spencer likes traveling with his Legion Go, so it’s not like this is a foreign concept to the folks in Redmond.

Regardless, aside from the Xbox-branded gaming laptop that we’ll probably never get (MSFT please?), a handheld console makes so much sense. The Nintendo Switch has already proven that there’s a massive appetite for a device you can easily connect to a TV but still take on the go. But more importantly, Spencer has been out there for years saying “I don’t want my team’s focus on console sales. The primary outcome of all the work that we do is how many players we see, and how often they play. That is what drives Xbox.” And right now, there’s no better way for the company to grow its user base than by making its first handheld console. Not only could a portable Xbox play games locally, it could also stream titles from the cloud (via Game Pass Ultimate), serve as another home for social features like the friends list, activity feed and so much more.

According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, the device — codenamed Project Kennan — will feature a design similar to existing handhelds like the ROG Ally or Lenovo Legion Go (though it probably won’t have detachable controllers). While it appears Microsoft won’t be making the device itself, the company is said to be tapping ASUS (or possibly another OEM) to build it instead, which makes a lot of sense given the latter’s experience with the Ally and Ally X. From there, Microsoft is expected to add some “Xbox-y twists” like support for the Xbox Game Bar, Play Anywhere functionality and of course Game Pass Ultimate.

Unfortunately, there isn’t concrete pricing or a specific release date, but it’s possible that this device could come out before the end of the year for between $499 and $599. But again, those numbers are mostly speculation, and there’s not much info regarding its screen size, processor or any other special features it might have.

But let’s be real, the specs for this rumored portable Xbox aren’t all that important. Right now, there are a seemingly endless number of handhelds available from companies like ASUS, Lenovo, MSI, Ayaneo and GPD, with even more on the way. So if Microsoft comes out yet with another option that doesn’t address the flaws of current devices, it won’t make that big of an impact. That’s because, for my money, the Steam Deck still feels like the best portable gaming machine on the market.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

While the Deck’s performance is often eclipsed by its Windows-based rivals, Valve’s machine offers a more polished and intuitive experience, thanks in large part to its purpose-built OS. When I use it, I don’t have to deal with annoying notifications or pop-ups that force me to awkwardly switch between various control schemes just to get into a game. On the Deck, I never have to use desktop apps (unless I want to), as Steam’s Big Picture mode (unlike Windows) was designed around a simple UI that can be navigated using joysticks instead of a mouse.

The most important thing Microsoft can do for its upcoming handheld is to remove or sidestep the clunkiness you run into on practically every Windows-based device. This is something the company has tried to do before via improvements to the Windows Game Bar and may revisit again with its rumored Project Bayside, which could provide a standardized framework that would allow for a more streamlined UI. But what does this actually look like in the real world?

When it’s all said and done, Microsoft’s goal should be to make it so that gamers can boot up the system, log in and install or launch a title without ever needing to move their hands away from the joysticks and face buttons. That means no shifting your fingers to tap a prompt on its touchscreen or needing to pull up a virtual keyboard/touchpad. And no add-on apps like ASUS’ Armoury Crate or Lenovo’s Legion Space, either. Those are simply Band-Aids that cover up the core issue of Windows 11 not being properly optimized for portable gaming PCs. If the company can do that, everything else will fall into place. Only then does it need to worry about specs and features.

That said, I would like to see a portable Xbox include an OLED display with support for variable refresh rates that go up to either 120Hz or 144Hz. A microSD card slot is also a must, as it has become a standard component across gaming handhelds (especially as the size of AAA games continues to balloon). I’d also like to see Hall Effect sensors powering its joysticks (and triggers) for increased responsiveness and durability. A dock for connecting it to a TV or monitor would be a nice accessory too. And while it’s not an absolute necessity, I think some sort of built-in touchpad (or two, like on the Steam Deck), would go a long way toward making traditional mouse-and-keyboard games much more enjoyable on a handheld device.

Honestly, the case for an Xbox handheld seems so obvious it’s kind of surprising Microsoft didn’t announce one years ago. Granted, it’s possible that the company has been waiting for the next version of its OS (i.e. Windows 12) to make a major concerted push on both traditional PCs and handhelds. But every month that goes by without a true first-party streamlined portable Xbox gaming machine feels like a wasted opportunity.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/its-about-damn-time-microsoft-made-an-xbox-gaming-handheld-130046591.html?src=rss

The iPhone 17 Air (even the name is a rumor) is reportedly arriving this fall. As that Air suffix suggests, it could be Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever.

However, while thin is all good, an arguably more intriguing change didn’t quite make it through the design process. In the latest Power On newsletter (we love a newsletter), Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Apple had planned to ditch the USB-C port, making “Apple’s first completely port-free iPhone.” The notion was ditched in the face of more EU regulator issues, but it could appear in subsequent iPhones.

Don’t worry, though, Apple has plenty of incoming phones to distract you. We’re expecting Apple to release another four iPhones this year, with the one currently nicknamed the iPhone 17 Air roughly 2 millimeters thinner than the rest. It could replace the Plus iPhone, with the family running from an entry-level iPhone 17 through to two higher-end Pro models. The new iPhone Air would nestle somewhere in the middle, for around $900.

Rumors about the iPhone Air’s specs are still coalescing and shifting, but many reports suggest a single-camera system, the Dynamic Island and the Camera Control button.

Alas, no iPhone mini. Thinner, not smaller.

— Mat Smith

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What to expect at NVIDIA’s annual GTC conference with CEO Jensen Huang Quantum computing, AI, AI and AI.

NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference has kicked off, with CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote due in a few hours, at 1PM ET.

Last year, NVIDIA used the event to unveil its Blackwell line of GPUs for faster and less demanding computations. We’re guessing Huang will introduce another iteration of Blackwell GPUs with even better specs. Many observers are looking for a strong showing, following the emergence of DeepSeek’s cheaper, lighter AI models, which shook up NVIDIA’s share price.

Meanwhile, there have been many issues related to its latest RTX product launches — so will the company have a solution?

Continue reading.

The Pixel 9a has leaked so hard that YouTubers are reviewing it We don’t have our own review models yet. The Mobile Central

At least two YouTubers have reviewed Google’s next entry-level Pixel phone. Both The Mobile Central and Sahil Karoul have Google’s new phone, confirming a lot of the stuff we knew about the Pixel 9a already. Seriously, there are few surprises — and at this point, it looks like leaking everything to do with its phones is part of Google’s PR strategy. Prove me wrong!

After all that thin iPhone chat, the Pixel 9a doesn’t have Google’s trademark camera bump. Instead, the cameras are almost flush with the plastic back of the phone. The Pixel 9a also has a Google-made Tensor G4 chip, with a 48-megapixel wide and 13-megapixel ultrawide for photos and video.

Continue reading.

Boeing Starliner astronauts finally head home, nine months later The President and Elon Musk turned a routine mission into a political circus.

Boeing Starliner’s mission — its first flight test with crew aboard — was supposed to take only eight days. However, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have, instead, spent the past nine and a half months aboard the International Space Station.

Finally, they’re heading home, later today, according to NASA. We unravel why it took this long and what went wrong.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-112230540.html?src=rss

Samsung device owners will start getting notifications to install One UI 7 on April 7. The company will roll out its new interface gradually, starting with the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 devices before making it available on its other smartphones and tablets. Samsung says the new interface was built specifically for AI and will help users interact with their devices more naturally. The new Now Bar will provide users with real-time updates on the lock screen, such as what song is playing on their earbuds, without having to unlock their phones or tablets. 

One UI 7 comes with a number of Galaxy AI features, including AI Select that lets users interact with parts of their screen. It will allow them to copy text by drawing a circle on an element on the screen or to easily create a GIF of a video they're watching. There's Writing Assist that can automatically summarize or format text the user highlights and Drawing Assist the creates illustrations based on text prompts, rough sketches or images. Audio Eraser will make it easier to isolate sounds and remove unwanted noise from videos. 

In addition to AI features, the One UI 7 comes with a bunch of security features, including a theft protection tool called Identity Check. It will force the user to prove their identity if their PIN gets compromised. In settings, users will also be able to block USB connections to prevent access through the USB port while the device is locked, except for battery charging. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsungs-one-ui-7-is-arriving-on-april-7-123004993.html?src=rss