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From monsters to kittens to strategy games, these sets will liven things up on nights when everyone is tired of screens. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. Learn more. Featured in this article Show more 4 / 33 It’s good to take a break from screens every now and then. The great outdoors has plenty to offer, but there are times when you’re stuck inside for one reason or another. Board games are a fun way to gather everyone around the table to engage in some group escapism. My family has […]

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Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget When Apple put its new M4 chip in the iPad Pro before adding it to a MacBook , that was a pretty clear sign that tablets are more than just idle couch companions. But with just one or two ports, you’ll need a hub if you want to maximize that potential. The same goes for laptops: they can be more powerful than desktops, but they almost always have fewer ports. USB-C hubs give you some combo of extra USB, HDMI, memory card, Ethernet and/or 3.5 mm ports so you can connect peripherals like […]

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Evan Blass It looks like Lenovo’s next ThinkBook Plus laptop is going to have a rolling screen. According to images shared by prolific leaker Evan Blass , Lenovo’s sixth-generation ThinkBook Plus will have an extendable, rolling display that builds on the “rollable” laptop concept the company first introduced in 2022. The leaked images show a laptop with a traditional, if slightly taller than average display, that can extend and unroll until you effectively have two screens stacked on top of each other. Lenovo’s images show a video call open on the top part of the display, and what looks […]

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The Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition is the first hardware from the open-source smart home platform that’s designed for voice control. There’s a new voice assistant in town, and this one can work locally in your home without phoning home to its corporate overloads. This week, the popular hobbyist smart home platform Home Assistant officially launched its first voice assistant hardware — Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition . Built for the open-source smart home platform, Voice PE costs $59 and brings a locally controlled, privacy-focused voice assistant to Home Assistant in a plug-and-play package. Once connected to Home Assistant […]

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Steam It’s here! The Steam Winter Sale is underway now and runs through January 2. That leaves you plenty of time to internally debate whether you really need to buy yet more games and ultimately convince yourself that yes, in fact, you do. Several notable titles from the Summer Sale are once again seeing similar discounts this season. Baldur’s Gate 3 is 20 percent off and you can buy it for $48. At $27, Cyberpunk 2077 is half off and Elden Ring is $36, which is 40 percent off. If you’ve already had your fill of Elden Ring , […]

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Jeff Carlson/CNET 2024 has been the year of AI on smartphones, from Gemini on Android to Apple Intelligence on iPhones in iOS 18.1 and later. And yet despite massive amounts of AI development and marketing on the part of Apple and Google, not everyone wants to deal with artificially smart features: CNET found that 25% of smartphone owners are not interested at all , and a new survey by SellCell indicates that 73% of Apple users think AI adds little to no value to the phone experience. Remember that Apple Intelligence works only on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone […]

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Google Google may have only recently begun rolling out its Veo generative AI to enterprise customers , but the company is not wasting any time getting a new version of the video tool out to early testers. On Monday, Google announced a preview of Veo 2 . According to the company, Veo 2 “understands the language of cinematography.” In practice, that means you can reference a specific genre of film, cinematic effect or lens when prompting the model. Additionally, Google says the new model has a better understanding of real-world physics and human movement. Correctly modeling humans in motion […]

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Devindra Hardawar for Engadget In perhaps the least surprising news of the past six weeks, President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to roll back President Biden’s electric vehicle and emissions policies. Reuters reports that the incoming president’s transition team has recommended cutting off support for EVs and charging stations while boosting measures to block cars, components and battery materials from China. The transition team’s other reported plans include new tariffs on all battery materials globally, boosting US production of battery materials and negotiations with allies for exemptions. They’re also said to plan on taking money allocated for building charging stations […]

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On subreddits dedicated to Luigi Mangione , tens of thousands of followers pore over the links between the man who allegedly shot the CEO of United Healthcare and the number 286. On Discord servers, dedicated groups obsess over individual eyebrow hairs. On X, accounts share the Monopoly-linked trail of clues that could prove Mangione’s innocence. And on TikTok, all of these conspiracy theories and more are shared in videos viewed tens of millions of times and set to songs like Britney Spears’ Criminal . This is the online world of conspiracy theories dedicated to Mangione, which have exploded in […]

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Framework’s double SSD caddy for its Framework 16 expansion bay. The most ambitious laptop ever made just got a long-promised modular upgrade. Starting today, you can pay $39 to add two extra M.2 slots to the Framework Laptop 16 — letting you potentially carry around an AI accelerator, an eGPU adapter, or a grand total of four solid state storage sticks for ludicrous capacity. Related Framework Laptop 16, six months later Framework Laptop 16 review Our modular hardware StoryStream As Framework’s blog post points out, the new “Dual M.2 Adapter” is Framework’s first new modular component since launch that […]

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