Both Samsung and other retailers have offered a few ways to save when picking up one of the latest Galaxy smartphones, including offering a discount on higher storage models during the pre-order window. But Amazon’s back now with a new discount — $100 off the Samsung Galaxy S22, bringing the 128GB model down to $700. The same discount applies to the 256GB versions, which are on sale for $750.
While the Galaxy S22 isn’t a huge departure from last year’s flagship phones, Samsung made some useful changes and welcomed upgrades this year. The handset’s design remains attractive and now has Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus+ for added protection against drops and scratches. The S22 sports a lovely 6.1-inch 2,340 x 1,080 resolution touchscreen with a 120Hz variable refresh rate and an ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint reader, too. The panel is impressive, reaching up to 1,300 nits of brightness, and the new Vision Booster feature automatically ups things like color saturation and contrast depending on your environment. Plus, the fingerprint reader is really fast, so you’ll never have to wait long for the device to unlock.
The S22’s triple rear camera array takes sharp photos and much-improved images in low-light conditions. Even though we think Samsung’s new Adaptive Pixel feature, which uses multi-frame image capture to combine high-quality pics with lower-res pixel-binned shots to create a final composite image, is a bit overhyped, the S22 still has some of the best cameras you can get on a smartphone at this price.
General performance is stellar as well thanks to the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip inside the handset. You’re also getting 5G support and a decent battery life. In our testing, the Galaxy S22 lasted just under 15 hours (if battery life is your biggest concern, you’re better off going for the S22+, which lasted about 2.5 hours longer). Overall, if you’re looking to upgrade to a new Android phone, the Galaxy S22 is one of the best out there right now — and it’s even better at this sale price.
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If you’ve hesitated in getting a PC stylus because it’s one more thing to lose, Dell has a possible solution. The company’s latest Premiere Rechargeable Active Pen has Tile tracking built in, so you can use the Tile app to make it emit sound and LED light. If it’s not close enough to hear or see, the app will show the pen’s last known location and track it down via the Tile network.
The $110 Premiere Rechargeable Active Pen works with compatible Dell 2-in-1 laptops and offers a 40-day battery life with 80 percent charging in just 20 minutes. The programmable top and side buttons give easy access to commands and it attaches to laptops via a magnet tether.
Tile also announced that it has added its tracking tech to several new Intel-powered laptops. The latest to include it are Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 and latest ThinkPad T Series, making for a total of seven Lenovo laptops with the tech. MSI’s new Intel 12th-gen Summit and Prestige series laptops are also equipped with Tile tracking, along with Fujitsu’s FMV Loox PCs in Japan. To activate tracking, you just need to install the Tile Windows App and activate your PC as a Tile. The Android or iOS app will then “ring” your laptop to help you find it nearby.
The original Angry Birdsgame is back. Sure, there are other, newer entries in the Angry Birds franchise out there — and even a couple of movies — but this one’s for those who have a special place in their hearts for the game that started it all. In a letter to fans published last year, Rovio explained that it had to take its older titles out of circulation, because they used outdated game engines and design. “Today’s mobile technology and games landscape has evolved to a place where supporting them was untenable,” the company wrote. The developer also couldn’t leave them up without updating them, because they’ll soon be incompatible with the latest mobile operating systems.
Apparently, there was a “big outcry” for Rovio to bring back the older games, especially the original, so it decided to work on bringing the classic experiences back. The company said at the time that it has to figure out “what is possible and for which games,” so it’s unclear if other older titles will also get remakes. Rovio rebuilt the original Angry Birds from the ground up using Unity, which allowed the company to recreate the feel of the classic for newer devices. That’s a much more involved process than simply touching up older graphics or updating game mechanics.
The new version of the game called Rovio Classics: Angry Birds, is now available from the Apple App Store and from Google Play. It will set you back 99 cents to download, but it doesn’t have in-app purchases and even makes the Mighty Eagle (an old in-app purchase) available at no extra cost.
The latest WiFi-only iPad mini in space gray has been on sale for $459 at Amazon since the beginning of March, but if you’d rather get one of the tablet’s other color options, here’s your chance to grab it at a discount. For the first time ever, the iPad mini in Starlight is now also available for $459, which is an all-time low for the device on the e-commerce website. The purple version is now also back on sale for the same price, or $40 lower than retail.
We gave the 2021 iPad mini a score of 89 in our review, praising it for its fresh “all-screen” design without the home button its predecessors have. It has a Liquid Retina 326ppi panel with a 2,266 x 1,488 resolution. The tablet’s edges are flat, and it features a TouchID-capable power button and a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port. We felt like we were using a smaller version of the iPad Air when we tested it out.
We also praised the device for its improved cameras, including its new 12-megapixel ultra wide front camera with Center Stage support. That’s the Apple feature that automatically pans a device’s camera and zooms it as needed to keep the user on screen during video calls. The tablet’s 12-megapixel rear wide camera is better than its predecessor’s, as well.
Thanks to the A15 Bionic chip powering the tablet, it was also able to handle everything we tried during our test, running games, videos and other types of apps quickly and smoothly. We also appreciated that the tablet lasted for 12 hours during our testing before it needed to be plugged in. And, yes, it works with the second-gen Apple Pencil so you can use it for your art or your note-taking needs.
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For GoPro cameras, battery life has never been a strong feature — in fact, the Hero 9 outlasted the Hero 10 by almost half an hour when we tested out the newer camera. Now, the company has launched a new battery grip, called Volta. Combined with the GoPro’s own battery, the Volta grip can deliver up to four hours of 5.3K recording at 30 fps. It also comes with integrated camera buttons to give you access to one-handed controls while the GoPro is mounted. You can even use it as a remote control up to 98 feet away, and if you need a tripod for your shoot, you can flip out its built-in legs. The versatility goes further: You can use it to charge, well, anything from its USB-C port.
If you’re in deep with GoPro’s camera series, this could very well replace half of your existing peripherals. You might also like the new Creator Edition package, which includes two mods that feature a built-in directional microphone, 3.5mm mic-in, HDMI-out ports and LED lighting.
The standalone Volta grip will set you back $130, and it’s available now.
The vulnerability let intruders access your stored videos.
Bitdefender says it informed Wyze of a major security vulnerability in the Wyze Cam v1 in March 2019, but that the device maker didn’t inform customers, recall the product or fully patch the problem in the three years since. In fact, Wyze couldn’t completely fix the issue — while it did mitigate the problem with patches, the company appeared to discontinue the camera in January as “hardware limitations” prevented a proper update.
The vulnerability let attackers remotely control the camera without having the value normally needed to authenticate. While they couldn’t watch live video as it was encrypted, they could steer the camera, switch it off and access videos saved on the SD card.
OnePlus’ latest flagship phone is a stylish device with a powerful processor and the ability to recharge incredibly quickly thanks to 65W (and in some regions 80W) SuperVOOC tech, courtesy of Oppo. However, the OnePlus 10 Pro can’t quite stand up against the best phones out there, with a sometimes middling camera performance. At least it’s cheaper than last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro.
The Human Genome Project ‘only’ sequenced 92 percent.
If you’re thinking “Wait a minute — didn’t scientists produce the complete human genome sequence almost two decades ago?” Well, you wouldn’t be wrong. The Human Genome Project finished sequencing 92 percent of the human genome back in 2003, but the techniques available at the time left the remaining eight percent out of reach until recent years.
In a series of papers published in Science, the T2T Consortium has reported how it managed to fill in almost all of the missing spots except for five, leaving only 10 million and the Y chromosome only vaguely understood.
Stretch is not quite as exciting or as terrifyingly adorable as the Hyundai-owned company’s Spot robotic dog, but it can make loading, unloading and moving boxes in warehouses a lot easier. Boston Dynamics is now accepting reservations for deliveries in 2023 and 2024, because it’s already sold out this year due to strong pre-order demand. DHL is one of the early Stretch customers, signing a $15 million deal with Boston Dynamics to equip its warehouses in North America with the robots over the coming years. TechCrunch reports both Gap and H&M will have the robot in their warehouses, as well.
In January, the ESA announced E3 would be an online-only event, citing concerns over “COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees.” According to a statement yesterday, even that isn’t happening. The ESA said “E3 will return in 2023.” The association added it “will devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer.”
Up to five players could share a subscription at a special rate.
Unlike Netflix, Spotify and many other subscription services, the Xbox Game Pass currently has no option for multiple users to share one account. This has been a common frustration among Xbox players over the years, particularly those who live with other Xbox gamers. Game Pass subscriptions are tied to specific Xbox profiles, allowing players to sign-in from anywhere. The family plan will reportedly allow up to five players on a single subscription and should debut later this year. A family plan could give Microsoft an extra edge over Sony’s Playstation, which recently announced its revamped set of subscription plans.
Apple has rolled out updates for its mobile, tablet and desktop operating systems, and they come with a fix for two zero-day vulnerabilities. As Ars Technica notes, the bugs can give bad actors access to the internals of the operating systems if exploited. Apple said in its patch notes that it’s aware “of a report that [the issues] may have been actively exploited,” but it didn’t expound on whether it has detected instances of the bugs being used to gain entry to customers’ devices. The tech giant attributes the vulnerabilities’ discovery to “an anonymous researcher.”
One of the vulnerabilities called CVE-2022-22675 affects all three operating systems and gives hackers a way to execute malicious code with kernel privileges. That means they can get complete access to their target’s system and hardware. The other vulnerability, CVE-2022-22674, affects macOS and could lead to the “disclosure of kernel memory” or the the memory used by an operating system. They’re the fourth and fifth zero-days Apple has fixed this year so far, which includes one that can be exploited to track sensitive user information.
In addition to fixing the zero-day vulnerability affecting iPhones, iOS 15.4.1 also remedies an issue caused by the update before it. Apparently, iOS 15.4 went out with a bug that could cause an iPhone’s battery to drain more quickly than expected. The update fixes an issue that could render Braille devices unresponsive, as well.
Back in 2021, engineer Ken Pillonel did what Apple refuses to do when he made the world’s first iPhone with a working USB-C port. Now, Pillonel has flipped the script with his latest project: the first Android phone with a Lightning connector.
Admittedly, an Android phone with a Lightning port doesn’t have nearly the same sort of cross-over appeal as a USB-C iPhone, but that’s OK. In his initial video, Pillonel says the device was meant to be more of a fun project created to “balance the chaos” unleashed by his previous device, with the release deliberately timed for April Fools’ Day.
However, putting this thing together was no joke, because while the concept might be silly, the Lightning port on the Android phone (in this case a Samsung Galaxy A51) is fully functional for both charging and data transfer. “[This] was a complex modification that required some out-of-the-box thinking,” said Pillonel. And when I got the chance to ask about the project’s biggest challenges, Pillonel told Engadget the hardest part was figuring out how to make everything actually work together.
“The Lightning cables sold by Apple are not ‘dumb,’” he said. “They will only charge Apple devices. So I had to find a way to trick the cable into thinking it was plugged into an Apple device. And the whole thing needs to fit inside the phone, which is another challenge in itself.”
Thankfully, Pillonel has learned a thing or two since his previous project, which helped lay the groundwork for his latest device. “I would say it was easier to do than the first USB-C iPhone for two reasons,” he said. “The first is that I’m getting better at it because I’m learning new things every day, so hopefully I can finish these mods faster and faster. The second reason is that the quality of the finished product is nowhere near what it was for the iPhone.”
And while I would posit that an Android phone with a Lightning port is a definite downgrade in terms of usability compared to a standard USB-C port, that doesn’t seem to bother Pillonel. “I don’t expect anyone in their right mind wanting to do this to their device,” he said. “It was for fun, I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
So what’s the next move for this unique gadget? For those looking for more details about what went into the project, Pillonel says he’s working on a full-length explanation video coming soon to his YouTube channel. As for the phone itself, Pillonel says he’ll probably just keep it after running into issues when he put the original USB-C iPhone up for auction on eBay, which ended up garnering fake bids in excess of $100,000.
“I didn’t want to force trying to sell it because that’s not really who I am. I want to focus on my engineering and science projects,” Pillonel said. And while these custom mods might not be everyone’s dream device, they’re a great example of what can be done even without the help of the companies that originally made them.
You no longer have to copy-paste or otherwise contort yourself to share a YouTube clip through Snapchat. As of today, Android and iOS users can share YouTube videos directly through the Snapchat Camera, whether it’s to Stories or individual Snaps. You can apply creative layers like text, and automated stickers will take Snapchat viewers directly to a video in either the YouTube app or a web browser.
You just need to tap “share” in the YouTube app and choose Snapchat when it’s an option. This is the first time you can visually share YouTube links, Snap said.
This won’t be as alluring as sharing vertical videos from common alternatives like TikTok and Instagram. It should save you some hassle if you find a must-see YouTube video, though, and it should be particularly helpful for sharing Shorts that are well-suited to Snapchat’s app.
