This week’s best deal is a ‘kids’ Kindle Paperwhite that’s better than the adult version
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days may bring some great Kindle deals, but if you can’t wait, you don’t have to. Right now, the Kindle Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) and Kindle Colorsoft Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) are down to their lowest prices ever, but my favorite deal is on the Kindle Paperwhite […]
Daniel Ek stepping down changes nothing for Spotify
Spotify has found itself the target of artists' ire for many reasons over the years: poor audio quality, terrible payouts, giving Joe Rogan millions of dollars… the list goes on. But recently it's been CEO and founder Daniel Ek's extracurricular activities that have been cause for consternation. Over the past few months his funding of […]
Ecovacs’ Deebot X8 and X9 Pro Omni robovacs have hit a new low price
Robot vacuums that mop well rarely come cheap, but thankfully, some of our favorite models are receiving a significant discount ahead of Amazon’s next Prime Day event next week. Right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni and the newer Deebot X9 Pro Omni are on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $799.99 ($300 off) and […]
Instagram wants me to make content — I just want to post a photo
Have you tried simply uploading a photo to Instagram lately? It's a minefield. Is that a Story, a Post, or a Reel? Do you want to add music? A caption? A prompt, which is… different than a caption, somehow? How about a poll? A fundraiser? More text, but this time on top of the image? […]
Tilly Norwood is a gen AI psyop
Last week at the Zurich Film Festival, Eline Van der Velden - founder and CEO of AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia - said that a number of talent agents had expressed interest in working with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated "actress" created by the companies. Van der Velden has not gone […]
Consume Me is a raw and funny memoir in video game form
There's a lot of math in diet culture. It's all numbers - calories in, calories burned - and a constant tally running in one's head. In some ways, disordered eating can be considered a disturbed sort of strategy game, which is precisely why Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson's Consume Me works so well. The […]
Breaking up (Google) is hard to do
Breaking up Google's ad tech monopoly is, apparently, like going to Mars or trying to replace Michael Jordan - dubiously possible and a huge amount of work. Those were some of the analogies witnesses testifying in Google's defense told a federal judge this week as the company mounts its second attempt to stave off a […]
Acer’s latest Spin 514 is so close to Chromebook greatness
I was cautiously optimistic about Acer's Chromebook Plus Spin 514 when I tested a preproduction model last month, but the final unit is here now and it sticks the landing. Well, mostly. Acer's latest convertible Chromebook has zippy performance and oodles of battery life, along with a good touchscreen with stylus support. But crappy speakers […]
Oregon’s National Guard lawsuit hinges on Trump’s Truth Social posts
After getting off the phone with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Saturday, the president mused over something that had baffled him about the call. Kotek had been "very nice," said Trump. But she was trying hard to convince him not to send in the National Guard, and that just didn't make any sense to him. […]
Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs
One of Discord’s third-party customer service providers was compromised by an “unauthorized party,” the company says. The unauthorized party gained access to “information from a limited number of users who had contacted Discord through our Customer Support and/or Trust & Safety teams” and aimed to “extort a financial ransom from Discord.” The unauthorized party “did […]