Jumat, 22 November 2019

Black Friday 2019 Amazon device deals: Kindle Paperwhite, Echo Show 8 and most Fire tablets are now on sale - CNET

This story is part of Holiday Gift Guide 2019, your source for the season's best gifts and deals, hand-picked by the experts at CNET.

Black Friday doesn't officially start until Nov. 29, but it's officially arrived early at Amazon. The online retailer has discounted nearly all its Fire tablets, the Kindle Paperwhite e-reader and the Echo Show 8 smart display to their lowest prices since Prime Day -- and more discounts are on the way soon. Want to know when the rest of Amazon's Echo speakers, Echo Show smart displays and Fire TV video streamers get their big holiday price cuts? Read on, because we've got the full details here.

Looking for more Amazon discounts? Be sure to check out our ongoing list of the best Amazon early Black Friday deals available right now.

Full details are available below. Just remember that the sale prices are not available until the dates indicated. 

Now on sale: Fire tablets, Kindle Paperwhite and more

Here's everything that went on sale starting today (Friday, Nov. 22) and earlier. 


Save $50 on the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition tablet. This is the same hardware as above, but with 32GB of storage built-in, a rubberized case, a year of FreeTime Unlimited (kid-friendly content) and a two-year no-questions-asked replacement warranty for any damage. See our Amazon Fire 8 Kids Edition Tablet review.

The Amazon Fire 7 Tablet, updated for 2019, usually costs $50. During this Black Friday sale, it will be just $30. That said, we highly recommend you upgrade to the 8-inch model below for just $20 more. See our Amazon Fire 7 Tablet review.

Amazon

It's not even released yet, but Amazon just trotted out its first-ever discount on the Echo Show 8. It's basically a larger version of the super-popular Echo Show 5 (which is currently on sale for $80, FYI), and therefore better suited to places like the kitchen, where the 8-inch screen makes it easier to view cooking videos and the like. Read our Echo Show 8 preview.

Amazon

If you're a newcomer to Amazon's music-streaming service, it's hard to beat a buck for four full months of service. After that, you'll pay the regular rate of $9.99 per month, though you can cancel if you like, without penalty. 

Starting Nov. 24: Fire TV products

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Amazon adds more devices to its sale list.

Starting Nov. 27: Blink cameras, Ring doorbells and $5 smart plugs

The day before Thanksgiving means even more stuff goes on sale.

Amazon

The Blink XT2 is a weatherproof security camera with a battery that can supposedly last for two years. Getting a two-pack for $100 is a good deal. (There was a two-pack offered during Prime Day at a lower price.) See our hands-on preview of the Blink XT2.

Starting Nov. 28: Echo speakers and smart displays

Happy Thanksgiving! While you're basting the turkey, you can buy a good chunk of Amazon's updated Echo line at some very discounted prices.

Back to its Prime Day low, the Echo Dot (without the clock) puts all of the smarts of Amazon's assistant Alexa into a small and affordable package. Even at its normal price of $50, it's a good deal, so the $22 price is still something to celebrate. With voice commands, you can control your smart home, check the weather, play music, search the internet and more. You lose some sound quality with the smaller size, but you can plug it into your own speakers to make up for the difference. See the Amazon Echo Dot 2018 review.

James Martin/CNET

But c'mon... you want the newer, cooler version with the clock built-in, right? It was just introduced in September at $60, but now it'll be at its lowest price yet: Just $35. Read our Echo Dot with Clock review.

Ben Fox Rubin/CNET

If you want a smart speaker with Alexa that has a little more oomph to its sound quality, the latest version of the original Echo might be the right choice for you. The older version of this puppy was selling for $50 at one point on Prime Day, but with a list price of $100, $60 isn't half bad.  See our Amazon Echo 2019 review.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

With a a 5.5-inch touchscreen and the ability to wake you up with a nifty sunrise animation, this is our favorite smart display with Alexa. And at this price, it's a no-brainer.  See our Amazon Echo Show 5 review.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The second gen Echo Show refined the design of the first model and offers better sound quality and a 10-inch HD screen. It combines the functionality of a smart speaker like the Echo Dot with a touchscreen you can use for video calls and controlling your smart home with a tap. We like the Echo Show 5 a little better, but at $150 for the full-sized Show -- $10 less than Prime Day, which looks to be its lowest ever -- is a tempting offer.  See our Amazon Echo Show review.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Do you need Alexa in your car? Probably not. But who are we to judge? If you always wanted Amazon's personal assistant on the road, now you can have it for half price. That's the lowest since it first became available to buy earlier this year. See our Echo Auto review.

Other Amazon devices sales coming Black Friday week

  • Get the eero mesh WiFi system for just $160
  • Get a free an Echo Dot with the purchase of select Fire TV Edition Smart TVs
  • Echo Dot 3-pack for $64.97
  • Echo Dot Kids Edition for $40 (save $30), or get a 3-pack for $120
  • Echo Input for $15 ($20 off)
  • Get a Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote and Echo Dot for just $47
  • Ring Video Doorbell Pro for $179 ($70 off)
  • Kindle Kids Edition is for $80 ($30 off)

Now playing: Watch this: How to win Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019

2:25

Originally published earlier.

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2019-11-22 09:00:01Z
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Kamis, 21 November 2019

Pokémon Sword and Shield is the ‘fastest-selling’ Nintendo Switch game ever - Polygon

Nintendo sold 6 million copies of Pokémon Sword and Shield, the company announced Thursday morning. It’s a number that’s broken Nintendo sales records, meaning Sword and Shield are “among the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch games of all time.” In the U.S., more than 2 million copies were sold “in the first two days” after its launch.

It’s the “highest-grossing launch of any Pokémon game,” Nintendo said.

Sword and Shield were released for Nintendo Switch on Nov. 15 after a tumultuous lead-up — game information started to leak in early November, first with evolutions for starters Grookey, Sobble, and Scorbunny, and then the full Pokédex.

Ahead of Sword and Shield’s release, a hashtag started to trend in America: #GameFreakLied. Pokémon fans upset about what they saw in the leaks — which evolved into full-on gameplay videos — said they’d boycott the games. Furor over a culled Pokédex continued to overwhelm the pre-release narrative of Sword and Shield.

Despite controversy, Sword and Shield made an impression with Pokémon fans as clips continue to go viral across the internet. The sales numbers tell a similar story.

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2019-11-21 14:17:20Z
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Black Friday 2019 Sales: Amazon’s Best Deals [Updated] - Forbes

This story was written in collaboration with Forbes Finds. Forbes Finds covers products we think you’ll love. Featured products are independently selected and linked to for your convenience. If you buy something using a link on this page, Forbes and the author may receive a small share of that sale.

Amazon’s Black Friday 2019 sales are now in full flow with massive savings across smartphones, tablets, laptops and TVs. But, for many, it is Amazon’s Black Friday deals on its own Echo, Fire and Kindle devices that take centre stage. So here is my pick of the best deals you need to know about right now as well as all the upcoming doorbusters. 

TIP: This article is updated daily, so bookmark it

Amazon Black Friday 2019: Here Are The Best Deals [Updated]
Forbes Gordon Kelly

Note: you can find my Black Friday 2019 guides to the best deals at Amazon (here), Apple (here), Best Buy (here), Costco (here), Kohl’s (here), Target (here), Sam’s Club (here), Samsung (here) and Walmart (here). The deals are updated daily. 

Best Black Friday Amazon Echo Deals

  • NEW - Echo Show 8 - HD 8-inch smart display with Alexa - $99.99 (save $30) - shock discount for a product not released until November 21- pre-order now
  • NEW - Fire TV Stick 4K bundle with Echo Dot (3rd Gen - Charcoal) - $46.99 (save $52.99) - a star buy - shop deal now
  • NEW - Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Sandstone Bundle with TP-Link simple set up smart plug - $34.99 (save $38) - - shop deal now
  • NEW - All-new Echo Dot (3rd Gen) - Smart speaker with clock and Alexa - Sandstone - $44.99 (save $15) - shop deal now (first discount on Amazon’s latest Echo)

Upcoming

This is the sale all Amazon fans have been waiting for. The Echo Dot will be the red hot seller here (with good reason), but don’t overlook the 3rd gen Echo and the Echo Show 5. 

Apple Black Friday 2019: Best New AirPods, AirPods Pro Deals
Forbes Gordon Kelly

Best Black Friday Amazon Fire TV Deals

Upcoming

The Fire TV Stick with 4K is the deal to buy here. It’s far superior to the standard stick and has much of the Fire TV Cube’s capabilities for a much lower price. 

Best Black Friday Amazon Fire Tablet Deals

  • Fire 7 Kids Tablet 7-inch display, 16GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case - $59.99 (save $40) - shop deal now (update: deal finished for now)
  • Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet, 8-inch HD display, 32 GB, Blue Kid-Proof Case - $98.99 (save $40) - shop deal now (update: deal finished for now)

Upcoming

The Ring bundles here offer outstanding value, though it’s hard to beat the entry-level Fire 7 deal for sheer bang for your buck. 

Apple Black Friday 2019: AirPods Pro, iPad, iPhone, New MacBook Pro Deals [Updated]
Forbes Gordon Kelly

Best Black Friday Amazon Kindle Deals

  • Certified Refurbished Kindle Paperwhite (Waterproof with 2x the Storage) - $69.99 (save $30) - shop deal now
  • Certified Refurbished Kindle Paperwhite - $109.99 (save $10) - shop deal now
  • Kindle E-reader (8th Generation - previous gen) - $49.99 (save $30) - shop deal now

Upcoming

I like the current Kindle Paperwhite refurb deal (waterproof option) and it may prove better value than the upcoming Paperwhite option because Amazon’s refurbishment program is excellent. Products are virtually indistinguishable from new. 

I will be extensively tracking Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019 deals and publishing the best offers daily, so be sure to bookmark my page.

___

Follow Gordon on Facebook 

More of my Black Friday Guides on Forbes

Apple Black Friday 2019: AirPods Pro, iPad, iPhone, New MacBook Pro Deals [Updated]

Apple Black Friday 2019: Best New AirPods, AirPods Pro Deals

Walmart Black Friday 2019: Here Are The Best New Deals [Updated]

For more Forbes Finds Black Friday Deals, check out our Black Friday home page. For more deals, check out the Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Nordstrom and Wayfair home pages

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2019-11-21 12:08:00Z
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This transforming drone can be fired straight out of a cannon - The Verge

Drones are incredibly useful machines in the air, but getting them up and flying can be tricky, especially in crowded, windy, or emergency scenarios when speed is a factor. But a group of researchers from Caltech university and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come up with an elegant and oh-so-fun solution: fire the damn thing out of a cannon.

The engineers’ creation is called SQUID, short for Streamlined Quick Unfolding Investigation Drone, and it looks rather like one of those whistling Nerf balls. It’s under a foot long (27 centimeters), weighs 18 ounces (530 grams), and has four spring-loaded rotor arms that snap into place in less than a tenth of a second after the drone is launched.

To get SQUID airborne, the researchers fire it out of a modified pneumatic baseball pitching machine, which gives it an initial speed of around 35 miles per hour. In a research paper, the team note that SQUID’s rotors start running around 200 milliseconds after launch and that the quadcopter is “stable and hovering” in less than a second. That’s fast.

Launching a drone ballistically is definitely quicker than doing it from a standstill, but the other big advantage SQUID has is flexibility. A ballistic launch means SQUID can be fired from moving objects, as the researchers demonstrate by firing it from the back of a pick-up truck at 50 miles per hour.

This sort of launch scenario has all sorts of useful applications. Emergency responders and military units could launch drones to surveil the area without stopping, for example. Ballistic drones could also be good for space exploration, with “daughter rotorcraft” launched from landers and airships. “A rotorcraft greatly expands the data collection range of a rover, and allows access to sites that a rover would find impassible,” write the researchers.

As noted by coverage in IEEE Spectrum (where we spotted SQUID), this isn’t the first ballistically launched drone ever made. But earlier examples, like this LOCUST unit from Raytheon, used fixed-wing instead of multi-rotor designs, which have a greater range and stability but are less maneuverable and can be harder to fly.

The SQUID design looks like a winner, though, and its creators say they are now exploring larger prototypes and “mission-specific versions for Mars and Titan.”

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/21/20975628/ballistic-drone-launch-caltech-nasa-jpl-squid-pneumatic

2019-11-21 11:24:52Z
CAIiEFWgDg7FelYkWrTYL-UXmJMqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3O8nMMqOBjD38Ak

SpaceX Starship prototype blows its top - BBC News

SpaceX's Starship rocket prototype experienced a major failure during pressurisation testing on Wednesday.

A video from the scene in Texas showed the top part of the vehicle rupture.

Cryogenic propellants that were being loaded at the time dispersed across the Boca Chica facility in a huge cloud.

The US company bills Starship as an all-purpose transportation system of the future. It will be used to ferry people and cargo off Earth, and to destinations around the globe.

The Mk-1 prototype was due to begin practice flights to an altitude of 20km in the coming weeks.

In a tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that could no longer happen and the ship would be retired.

Development work is already being directed at another prototype, labelled the Mk-3.

"[Mk-1] had some value as a manufacturing pathfinder, but flight design is quite different," Mr Musk told his legion of fans on social media.

A statement issued by SpaceX read: "The purpose of today's test was to pressurise systems to the max, so the outcome was not completely unexpected."

Video of the rupture event can be seen on the YouTube feed of LabPadre

Elon Musk has given regular updates on his plans for Starship, the most recent being in September when he spoke at length about the vehicle's engineering and its likely applications.

The Mk-3 vehicle, he said, could be built much more quickly than the Mk-1. It was also capable of going into orbit.

Like the SpaceX Falcon-9 rockets, Starship is designed to be reusable. More so, in fact.

On the Falcon-9, only the lower booster comes back to Earth after a flight; the upper-stage is expendable.

In the case of Starship, it and its booster, which is called the Super Heavy, will make a controlled landing following a mission.

Starship has been touted as a rival to the US space agency's (Nasa) big new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which will be used to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

So far, Nasa is only considering Starship as a potential freighter, to deliver cargo to the lunar surface.

SpaceX has experienced a number of very public hardware mishaps in recent times. In April, for example, its Dragon astronaut capsule suffered a dramatic explosion on a test stand.

But the company is not afraid of these failures. It believes in a rapid process of "build, test and iterate".

SpaceX's methods - and successes - have had the rest of the rocket industry racing to catch up.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50500980

2019-11-21 10:51:32Z
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Pokémon Sword and Shield is the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game yet - The Verge

Pokémon Sword and Shield are off to a great start, selling more than 6 million copies in the week since their release. That’s according to a tweet from The Pokémon Company, which notes that the figures make the latest mainline Pokémon instalment the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game of all time. (It’s worth caveating, of course, that Sword and Shield are technically separate releases, albeit ones that are almost identical in content.)

New Pokémon games are invariably strong performers. The last all-new releases, Sun and Moon for 3DS, have sold 16.17 million copies to date according to Nintendo, and they were the company’s fastest-selling games ever in the West upon release. It’s worth noting, though, that the 3DS had a larger install base at that point in time, and the games sold for a lower price point.

Last year’s Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! for Switch, meanwhile, have reached 11.28 million copies in total, which Sword and Shield are on pace to beat based on first-week sales. The Let’s Go games were based on the original Game Boy Pokémon games, however, and don’t represent a brand-new generational release.

Pokémon has historically been a portable-focused franchise, and Sword and Shield’s release has dovetailed with the launch of the new handheld-only Nintendo Switch Lite, including its special edition Pokémon version. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa noted during the company’s most recent earnings briefing that the Switch Lite was released alongside The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, another Game Boy remake that sold well to buyers of the new model.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/21/20975624/pokemon-sword-and-shield-sales-switch-record

2019-11-21 10:12:26Z
52780441158489

SpaceX Starship prototype blows its top - BBC News

SpaceX's Starship rocket prototype experienced a major failure during pressurisation testing on Wednesday.

A video from the scene in Texas showed the top part of the vehicle rupture.

Cryogenic propellants that were being loaded at the time dispersed across the Boca Chica facility in a huge cloud.

The US company bills Starship as an all-purpose transportation system of the future. It will be used to ferry people and cargo off Earth, and to destinations around the globe.

The Mk-1 prototype was due to begin practice flights to an altitude of 20km in the coming weeks.

In a tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that could no longer happen and the ship would be retired.

Development work is already being directed at another prototype, labelled the Mk-3.

"[Mk-1] had some value as a manufacturing pathfinder, but flight design is quite different," Mr Musk told his legion of fans on social media.

A statement issued by SpaceX read: "The purpose of today's test was to pressurise systems to the max, so the outcome was not completely unexpected."

Video of the rupture event can be seen on the YouTube feed of LabPadre

Elon Musk has given regular updates on his plans for Starship, the most recent being in September when he spoke at length about the vehicle's engineering and its likely applications.

The Mk-3 vehicle, he said, could be built much more quickly than the Mk-1. It was also capable of going into orbit.

Like the SpaceX Falcon-9 rockets, Starship is designed to be reusable. More so, in fact.

On the Falcon-9, only the lower booster comes back to Earth after a flight; the upper-stage is expendable.

In the case of Starship, it and its booster, which is called the Super Heavy, will make a controlled landing following a mission.

Starship has been touted as a rival to the US space agency's (Nasa) big new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which will be used to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

So far, Nasa is only considering Starship as a potential freighter, to deliver cargo to the lunar surface.

SpaceX has experienced a number of very public hardware mishaps in recent times. In April, for example, its Dragon astronaut capsule suffered a dramatic explosion on a test stand.

But the company is not afraid of these failures. It believes in a rapid process of "build, test and iterate".

SpaceX's methods - and successes - have had the rest of the rocket industry racing to catch up.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50500980

2019-11-21 10:49:36Z
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