Month: February 2023
Best Headphone and Earbuds Deals – CNET
If you’re looking for the best deals on headphones or earbuds, these are our top picks for the best offers. We’ve also listed others to keep your eye out for.
If you’re looking for the best deals on headphones or earbuds, these are our top picks for the best offers. We’ve also listed others to keep your eye out for.
Coinbase To Halt Trading of Binance USD for Not Meeting Listing Standards
Coinbase will suspend trading of Binance USD (BUSD) on March 13 at around noon EST. From a report: The crypto exchange said the decision was based on its most recent review of the stablecoin, which Paxos recently stopped issuing following an order from a New York regulator. “Our determination to suspend trading for BUSD is based on our own internal monitoring and review processes,” a Coinbase spokesperson told The Block. “When reviewing BUSD, we determined that it no longer met our listing standards and will be suspended.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Coinbase will suspend trading of Binance USD (BUSD) on March 13 at around noon EST. From a report: The crypto exchange said the decision was based on its most recent review of the stablecoin, which Paxos recently stopped issuing following an order from a New York regulator. “Our determination to suspend trading for BUSD is based on our own internal monitoring and review processes,” a Coinbase spokesperson told The Block. “When reviewing BUSD, we determined that it no longer met our listing standards and will be suspended.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
You can now search comments within a Reddit post—even on desktop
New Reddit gets a basic, long-requested feature at last.
Enlarge / Reddit has expanded its search features. (credit: Reddit)
Today, Reddit announced a new feature that addresses one of the more frustrating limitations of the platform over the years: You can now type in a query to search all the comments within a single Reddit post.
On desktop, the search field appears alongside the sort options, nestled underneath the comment box for leaving a new comment and above the feed of all previous comments.
It might seem basic, but it hasn’t been possible on the modern desktop version of Reddit before. CTRL + F or CMD + F for browser search didn’t always work, either, as some comments had to be expanded to be exposed to the browser’s search feature. That meant that to search all the comments within a thread, you had to go and expand them all before starting your search—something that simply wasn’t practical for popular posts with numerous comments.
Warner Bros. Discovery sues Paramount over ‘South Park’ streaming rights
If the Paramount+ South Park movie deal seemed odd when HBO Max scored an exclusive for the series, you’re not alone. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has sued Paramount Global for allegedly breaching parts of the $500 million contract that gave HBO Max streaming rights for South Park in 2019. WBD claims Paramount “blatantly intended” to steer users toward its service by not only offering new specials, but by shortchanging the HBO service on promised regular season content.
HBO Max was reportedly promised three new seasons with 10 episodes each. However, the provider says it only got eight episodes across the two delivered seasons, and that the next season’s six episodes also fall short. On top of this, Paramount supposedly used “verbal trickery” to rebrand content as movies or events to avoid sending video to its competitor.
In a statement to Engadget, Paramount claims the lawsuit is “without merit.” It also maintains that it’s still honoring the contract despite Warner supposedly failing to pay licensing fees for already-delivered South Park episodes. We’ve asked WBD for comment.
The lawsuit isn’t shocking. WBD, previously WarnerMedia, was determined to amass as much content as possible for HBO Max ahead of its 2020 launch, including Friends and Doctor Who. Whether or not Paramount violated its contract, the South Park content on Paramount+ diminishes HBO Max’s content advantage — you no longer have to use that service if you want to stream the recent adventures of Cartman and crew.
Paramount, meanwhile, has multiple reasons to contest the lawsuit. Paramount+ is thriving even as rivals like Netflix run into trouble, having topped 43 million users as of last spring. While it’s unclear how much of a role South Park is playing in that growth, the company may not want to give up streaming rights for one of its best-known shows (Paramount owns Comedy Central, remember) without a fight.
If the Paramount+ South Park movie deal seemed odd when HBO Max scored an exclusive for the series, you’re not alone. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has sued Paramount Global for allegedly breaching parts of the $500 million contract that gave HBO Max streaming rights for South Park in 2019. WBD claims Paramount “blatantly intended” to steer users toward its service by not only offering new specials, but by shortchanging the HBO service on promised regular season content.
HBO Max was reportedly promised three new seasons with 10 episodes each. However, the provider says it only got eight episodes across the two delivered seasons, and that the next season’s six episodes also fall short. On top of this, Paramount supposedly used “verbal trickery” to rebrand content as movies or events to avoid sending video to its competitor.
In a statement to Engadget, Paramount claims the lawsuit is “without merit.” It also maintains that it’s still honoring the contract despite Warner supposedly failing to pay licensing fees for already-delivered South Park episodes. We’ve asked WBD for comment.
The lawsuit isn’t shocking. WBD, previously WarnerMedia, was determined to amass as much content as possible for HBO Max ahead of its 2020 launch, including Friends and Doctor Who. Whether or not Paramount violated its contract, the South Park content on Paramount+ diminishes HBO Max’s content advantage — you no longer have to use that service if you want to stream the recent adventures of Cartman and crew.
Paramount, meanwhile, has multiple reasons to contest the lawsuit. Paramount+ is thriving even as rivals like Netflix run into trouble, having topped 43 million users as of last spring. While it’s unclear how much of a role South Park is playing in that growth, the company may not want to give up streaming rights for one of its best-known shows (Paramount owns Comedy Central, remember) without a fight.
TCL’s NXTPAPER 11 could be a budget-friendly dream tablet – if you can get it
The tablet comes with an assortment of entertainment-enhancing features like NXTPAPER 2.0 and productivity tools.
In the midst of all the high-end gadgets shown off at MWC 2023, TCL Mobile went the opposite route by revealing a bunch of new budget-friendly devices.
Chief among these is the TCL NXTPAPER 11, a tablet whose features allow it to be a jack-of-all-trades for work and entertainment. It comes equipped with the company’s proprietary NXTPAPER 2.0 suite to improve screen quality. First, it bumps up the brightness level by 150 percent compared to the previous version allowing the 11-inch 2K display to output at 500 nits. If you use the device for an extended period of time, the integrated light sensor will “automatically [adjust the] color temperature” to protect your eyes. Anti-glare tech is also a part of the package by “incorporating multi-layer screen protection” to reduce eye strain. For the cherry on top, TCL added its AI Boost tech to further enhance video quality.
Work features
As for the productivity features, the NXTPAPER 11’s screen sports a “nano-chemical [coating]”. When used alongside the T-pen stylus, the device “offers a realistic and smooth feel,” like pen on paper, according to TCL. On the front is an 8MP front wide-angle camera that can capture video up to 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) at 30 FPS. Add in a quad speaker/dual microphone setup and you might have a pretty decent work tablet.
The NXTPAPER 11 will be available for purchase starting May 2023 for $249 in Dark Grey and Digital Lavender. It’ll first launch across Europe but there are plans to release the tablet elsewhere later in the year. If you don’t want to wait for the tablet to release in your country, there is the TAB 11 coming out that same month for $179 (LTE version available starting at $209). It’s very similar in terms of features and performance; however, it lacks NXTPAPER 2.0.
Growing smartphone line
Moving past the tablets, TCL also introduced three new 5G phones during MWC exclusive to North America. In total, you have the TCL 40 X 5G, 40 XE 5G, and the 40 XL with the first two being fairly similar. They have the same MediaTek Dimensity 700 model processor, 6.56-inch HD Plus (1600 x 900 pixels) display sporting “NXTURBO display enhancing software”, as well as 4GB of RAM. The main differences are that the 40 X 5G has a better camera system and biometric security installed. The TCL 40 XL, on the other hand, comes with the weaker MediaTek G37 processor, but makes up for it with a bigger 6.75-inch screen plus Dual Speakers for better audio.
Starting June 2023, both the 40 X 5G and 40 XE 5G models will be available for $199 and $169, respectively. The 40XL comes out a little earlier in May for $149.
Also, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best cheap tablets for 2023. It features more mainstream devices like the iPad 10.2 and Amazon’s Fire line.
Twitter Payments chief is out as layoffs cut 10% of Twitter staff, report says
Twitter now has fewer than 2,000 employees, The New York Times reported.
Enlarge (credit: Anadolu Agency / Contributor | Anadolu)
More engineers, product managers, and data scientists are out at Twitter, as another round of layoffs has slashed 10 percent of the remaining staff, The New York Times reported. Multiple sources familiar with the matter told the Times that 200 employees were affected.
On Saturday night—just as it happened during Twitter’s November layoffs—some employees discovered they were about to lose their jobs when they were abruptly logged out of corporate email accounts and laptops. Now there are fewer than 2,000 employees left, it’s estimated.
Among those impacted is Esther Crawford, who enthusiastically embraced Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s vision of Twitter 2.0 and proved to be so hardcore that she became the chief executive of Twitter Payments, Financial Times reported. In November, Musk told staff there were no plans for more layoffs and pointed to Twitter Payments—a product that would support peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce on the platform—as the product that would save Twitter from going broke. Now, the Twitter Payments team has dropped from a staff of 30 to fewer than eight, the Times reported, making it unclear if the product is still a top priority as Twitter’s money struggles drag on.
Microsoft is launching a big copy and paste update – but only for some users
“Paste as plain text” is coming to Windows PowerToys.
A major copy and paste shake-up is on the way for some Windows users that may have them breathing a major sigh of relief.
The company has announced that it will be bringing the “paste as plain text” option to Windows 11 and Windows 10 apps with PowerToys, giving users of the open source platform a much smoother experience when copying information over.
Previously, PowerToys users were slightly hampered by the lack of a full paste function, which would allow users to simply copy text as it is, without retaining any formatting such as size, color or other differences.
PowerToys copy and paste
The update was discovered in a Github post, where the developers responsible outlined how the feature, triggered by the familiar Ctrl+Win+V key presses (although users will be able to tweak and create their own custom shortcut), will work in any app where PowerToys works.
“This is heavily based on the work done for the “Text Extractor” module then ripping out anything that may be unnecessary. The same KeyboardMonitor is implemented and used,” the developers stated.
“The interesting logic really falls inside the KeyboardMonitor as that is where the clipboard is opened/read/modified, then a ctrl+v input sequence is injected.”
There’s no news on when the Paste as Plain Text tool will start rolling out, but given how many PowerToys users have requested it, the launch could well start soon.
PowerToys is an open source suite of tools for advanced Windows users, designed to help bypass certain settings and perform actions that are unavailable by default. It also offers a wider range of customization options.
Since its relaunch in 2019, Microsoft has regularly serviced PowerToys with new tools and features, a pattern extended with the latest release.
A further PowerToys update earlier in 2022 also included several useful additions, including an “Always on Top” utility that allows users to toggle a window in focus to be on top with a quick press of Win + Ctrl + T. Microsoft also changed the hotkey to mute your webcam and microphone from Win + N to Win + Shift + Q to avoid conflict with an existing Windows 11 keyboard shortcut.
The latest version of PowerToys is available via both the Microsoft Store and the GitHub page.
Also check out our list of the best business laptops
Via: Neowin
First Kindle Scribe software update begins closing the feature gap
Amazon hasn’t said exactly what it plans, but the first new updates drop today.
Enlarge / Different brush types, each with their own thickness settings, will let you make more varied-looking and true-to-life notes and illustrations on the Kindle Scribe. (credit: Amazon)
Update, 5:28pm: The story has been updated to reflect that the new brush types support pressure sensitivity.
Original story: Amazon’s Kindle Scribe is very nice hardware with a software problem—namely, that its operating system was designed with reading in mind, and the writing features feel underbaked compared to a writing-centric tablet like the reMarkable 2.
Amazon announced today that it would be “rolling out regular, free software updates” for the Scribe this year, starting with a small one today that expands on some of the Scribe’s existing features.