Technology

Time to upgrade your vacuum? Some of our favorite Dyson models are currently on sale.

From humanely raised whole chickens to organic chicken breasts, here's where to buy chicken online.

After over 10 years of wearing my natural curls, I've gone straight again, and this viral gadget is the reason.

These Cable Matters USB-C charging cords are 6 feet long, extremely durable and you can pick them up for 30% off right now.

Snatch this truly dynamic duo of kitchen gadgets that fits snugly in a stocking.

Apple's first stylus is available at a discount, which might be appealing to legacy iPad owners.

The Baseus Magnetic Mini is one of the best portable iPhone chargers of 2024 -- and it's even better at 50% off.

The Anker charging pad charges your phone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time and is deeply discounted for Black Friday.

Massive savings can be found all over Eyebuydirect's Black Friday sale, including new lenses and all kinds of frames.

Black Friday 2024 is looking a little different this year, and it’s all thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence. Forget aimlessly scrolling through endless deals or juggling ten tabs to find the best price when you can turn to AI tools to make shopping more effective and less stressful. Many people are embracing tools like ChatGPT and other AI assistants to streamline the chaos and score serious savings. A report from Boston Consulting Group found that 38% of people either have used or plan to use AI for Black Friday shopping this year. And 44% of shoppers will rely on AI assistants for their holiday shopping, according to a survey by Attest.

The appeal is obvious. Instead of spending hours comparing prices or digging through reviews, you can let AI handle the heavy lifting. Need to find the lowest price on a new laptop? AI can scan dozens of retailers in seconds. Wondering if that fancy espresso machine is worth it? AI can summarize reviews and highlight what people love – or hate – about it. It’s like having a super-savvy shopping buddy who never gets tired.

This year, more shoppers than ever are leaning into AI for their Black Friday strategies. A growing number of people are using AI tools specifically to navigate holiday deals, especially those familiar with the technology. The Attest report found that 56% of AI users leverage the tools to find bargains. AI is also helpful in getting personalized recommendations for gifts and finding items on sale for yourself that you might have missed.

AI Shopping Pals

Retailers are certain to be as happy about AI as the customers if it can boost sales. And, so far, people seem to like using AI tools this way, with 70% of consumers reporting that generative AI tools enhance their shopping experience, according to a WHOP report. Some already have internal AI shopping helpers. Both Amazon and Google use AI to aid shoppers (and encourage more sales) within their own shopping ecosystems, and you'll likely see a growing number of retailers implement AI directly in a similar fashion.

Of course, AI's failings don't vanish at the holidays, so there are plenty of scams that either use AI or that your AI shopping companion might fall for. Watch out for any fake deal site your AI pal directs you towards. With that caveat, you can mostly rely on AI to at least direct you to some good products and bargains. And maybe you won't have to deal with any holiday FOMO over an amazing sale you missed amid the flurry.

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Every kitchen should have an organic waste processor to turn discarded food into plant fuel. With this Black Friday banger, every kitchen just may.

Looking to upgrade your skincare routine with a little LED light? Score these fantastic masks (and other LED gadgets) while they're on sale.

• Raspberry Pi has launched its 5-based Compute Module 5 (CM5)
• Users can get an upgraded I/O board and other accessories for it
• Available to buy from just $45, with multiple configurations

Raspberry Pi has unveiled its latest modular variant of its single-board computer.

Essentially a stripped-back version of the Raspberry Pi 5, the Compute Module 5 (CM5) comes a decade after the first Compute Module, launched in 2014.

CEO Eben Upton said he recognized not all applications are suited to the Pi 5’s design and peripherals, plus users want more control over how and where they set up their SBCs, hence the stripped-down Compute Module.

Raspberry Pi CM5

The simplified design and abundance of configuration options, both in terms of components and hardware accessories, are designed to cater to the needs of Raspberry Pi commercial customers.

The CM5's compact form factor and lack of traditional ports make it ideal for the industrial and embedded sectors, which accounted for around three-quarters (70-80%) of Raspberry Pi sales in 2023.

It uses a 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU with 2GB, 4GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM – Upton suggested that a 16GB variant could become available in 2025. It’s also configurable with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of MLC eMMC non-volatile memory, and includes Gigabit Ethernet and PCIe 2.0 support.

The CEO also confirmed that CM5 is mechanically compatible with its predecessor, CM4, which means that users can upgrade their single-board computers without having to upgrade other parts of their infrastructure. It fits M2.5 screws in each corner of the board for mounting the device.

CM5 is configurable thanks to a new range of accessories, including an upgraded USB-C powered I/O board with a standard 40-pin GPIO connector, two HDMI 2.0 connectors, two USB 3.0 connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet jack with PoE+ support, a microSD card socket and more.

The I/O board is also available with an enclosed case, which positions the ports all on one side of the neat box. It’s sold with an integrated fan, which connects to the board’s four-pin fan connector.

Other equipment includes a cooler, an antenna kit and a development kit, which bundles together a pre-configured CM5, the I/O board, the case, the cooler, the antenna and more.

Priced alone, the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 is available to buy from $45.

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You never forget your first (price drop). The biggest Echo Show smart display is down to $360 for Black Friday.

Whether you're new to the grill or a seasoned vet, Meater smart probes will ensure you get the perfect cook every time.

DJI, the maker the world's best drones, has launched a powerful new add-on battery for its Power 1000 portable power station.

Those pieces of kit are, of course, designed to provide you with a beefy source of power to charge your various devices when you’re out in the wilds somewhere. And the twist with the Power 1000 is that it offers a special port for charging drones (DJI models, or otherwise with the appropriate cable).

The new DJI Power Expansion Battery 2000 is exactly what its name suggests, an expansion battery that you can hook up to the Power 1000 via a cable, stacking neatly on top of the original unit.

The expansion module gives you 2,048Wh of capacity on top of the 1,024Wh from the Power 1000, considerably ramping it up to 3,072Wh. That’s not enough for you?

Well, you can chain up to five of these expansion batteries together with the Power 1000, to get a maximum capacity of 11,264Wh.

Of course, having a giant power bank boasting that kind of capacity with you when you’re out and about will go a long way to keeping whatever you’re carrying charged up, a drone included.

DJI notes that the expansion batteries are easy to stack and store, and the Power 1000 and Expansion Battery 2000 units have the ports all on the same side. The expansion unit has two SDC ports only, for attaching to the Power 1000, and a second expansion battery if you’re daisy-chaining an extra unit (and you can chain up to five in this way as mentioned).

Coffee and a parasol

Because everybody needs a good supply of steaming hot drinks when you’re on a steaming hot beach, naturally. (Image credit: DJI)

DJI tells us that in combination with the Power 1000, the Power Expansion Battery 2000 can deliver a continuous power supply of 2,400W (and it can be pushed to 2,600W for 15 minutes), meaning it can power 99% of everyday electrical appliances.

So, as the above press photo clearly illustrates, if you want to run your coffee machine on the beach, you can do so with these DJI batteries. Because everybody needs a good supply of steaming hot drinks when you’re on a steaming hot beach, naturally.

When charging the Power 1000 plus an expansion battery, DJI’s own figures indicate you can fast charge to 1,024Wh in approximately 36 minutes, if you need a dollop of power quickly.

The DJI Power Expansion Battery 2000 is going to be available soon, and retails at $1,169 or £1,049 – so the catch, if you want five of them for a whopping setup, is that you’re looking at over five grand.

In our DJI Power 500 portable power station review we found it to be an impressive device, with that very useful trick of being able to charge your drones. Although if you don’t need the latter functionality, we observed that there are better options out there among the best portable power stations.

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• Microsoft introduces Azure Boost DPU to handle data-centric workloads
• Specifically for Azure, integrates compute, storage, and networking
• Custom hardware-software design boosts efficiency, lowers power needs

Traditional CPUs excel at general-purpose tasks but struggle to manage multiplexed streams from millions of network connections. GPUs, while effective for AI computations, are similarly not well-suited to these specialized workloads. To address this, the Data Processing Unit (DPU) was developed as a new class of silicon to complement CPUs and GPUs in large-scale data centers and efficiently handle high-volume processes.

At its recent Ignite event, Microsoft announced the Azure Boost DPU, a new SoC created in-house specifically for Azure.

The company’s new DPU is designed to tackle challenges in cloud and AI environments, improve security, and efficiently manage large-scale workloads across networks. Its introduction marks a key step toward the disaggregation of the data center, a growing trend that separates compute, storage, and networking functions into specialized hardware to improve efficiency and scalability.

Hardware and software co-design

“As part of our comprehensive approach to optimizing Azure infrastructure, we are working hard to remove infrastructure constraints that stand in the way of delivering customer value - whether from performance bottlenecks or resource limitations,” said Pradeep Sindhu, Corporate VP Silicon at Microsoft.

"We are innovating at every layer of the stack, from silicon to systems to software, to enhance the security, efficiency, performance, agility, and scale of our infrastructure."

Azure Boost DPU integrates high-speed Ethernet, PCIe interfaces, storage engines, and security features into a single, fully programmable SoC. Its custom hardware-software co-design delivers higher performance and lower power consumption, enabling the DPU to handle cloud storage workloads with three times less power and four times the performance of traditional CPUs, according to Microsoft.

By addressing key bottlenecks, Azure Boost DPU can meet the evolving demands of cloud and AI applications, while improving security through its tightly integrated data protection, and cryptography engines.

“Azure Boost DPU is the newest addition to our family of infrastructure enhancements through hardware innovation. As we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible, we remain committed to delivering innovations that make our infrastructure more capable, efficient, and scalable to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” Sindhu said.

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• Netflix has released a new trailer for Virgin River season 6
• The trailer teases drama and romance as Mel and Jack tie the knot
• Virgin River was renewed for season 7 before season 6 has aired

Netflix has released the official trailer for Virgin River season 6 and I'm already swooning at Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge) and Jack's (Martin Henderson) dreamy wedding.

After the best streaming service announced that Virgin River season 6 would be released on December, 19, Netflix released a first teaser trailer that recapped Mel and Jack's most romantic moments across the five seasons. Now, Netflix has released the full official Virgin River season 6 trailer that takes the (wedding) cake when it comes to drama and romance – hey, it wouldn't be Virgin River without it, right?

In the official trailer (see below) Mel and Jack get ready to say yes to forever at their spring wedding, meanwhile Brie (Zibby Allen) and Mike's (Marco Grazzini) relationship gets more serious, but there could be a potential love triangle forming as it looks like she might still have feelings for her ex Brady (Ben Hollingsworth). While it's oh-so-romantic, it's also dramatic as someone is airlifted in a helicopter and Denny (Kai Bradbury) and Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale) come to terms with having a baby while he manages his Huntington's diagnosis.

We also get a glimpse at Mel with her biological father Everett (John Allen Nelson), who she reunited with on Christmas Day and all of our other favorite Virgin River residents as they go through their own personal hardships in season 6. The trailer also features a younger version of Mel's parents, Sarah (Jessica Rothe) and Everett (Callum Kerr), as Virgin River season 6 flashes back to how they met and fell in love in the 1970s.

There's more celebrations in store

“You ready for this?” Mel asks Jack at the start of the trailer, while we won't hear his answer until December 19 (I'm sure it's a yes), there's even more good news in store as the best Netflix show has been renewed for season 7 with filming set to begin in 2025.

Netflix officially confirmed the news, posting a video on social media with the cast announcing that Virgin River is coming back for another installment.

Good news, VIRGIN RIVER is confirmed to come back for Season 7! More love, drama, and small-town charm coming your way. You're very welcome ❤️ pic.twitter.com/WcJYNko3HTOctober 23, 2024

This means that Virgin River season 7 could be released in late 2025 or early 2026 where we'll potentially see the couple happily married and maybe even a baby on the way following Mel's heartbreaking miscarriage.

For now though, I'll be getting the tissues ready for Mel and Jack's wedding long-awaited nuptials this festive season.

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Podcasts can be a great way to learn complex subjects, but not everything you're reading has been discussed in an episode. AI audio maker ElevenLabs is solving that with a new feature that reshapes documents you upload into an audio show with virtual hosts discussing the subject matter. The newGenFM feature is part of the ElevenLabs Reader App and will turn any mix of PDFs, articles, and digital books into your own personal podcast episodes.

The new feature shares many similarities with Google NotebookLM, which uses Google Gemini AI models to turn documents into podcast-style shows where synthetic personalities discuss whatever you've uploaded to each other. As with Google's feature, GenFM analyzes the information you upload and produces a synthetic podcast with two AI co-hosts discussing the material. GenFM even attempts to match the voices to the topic under discussion.

If you're an auditory learner or need to absorb information while doing other things, GenFM is likely to appeal to you. That said, while GenFM restricts itself to the documents you upload, you'll likely still want to be wary of any accidental hallucinations or misunderstood data. You can see and hear some examples in the demo video below.

AI podcast future

Though GenFM and Google NotebookLM are pursuing the same kind of product, ElevenLabs' AI-generated podcast efforts are a step beyond Google's. NotebookLM is currently limited to the web and can only make shows in English. In contrast, GenFM's AI hosts can converse in 32 languages. Still, both tools cater to more diverse ways of learning and lifestyles.

The potential demand from students alone will likely justify the work behind GenFM. And, unlike some other ways AI composition tools are used in academia, this doesn't raise ethical questions about cheating or plagiarism. They also increase accessibility to those with impaired vision who don't want to hear a long document read out when they could hear a podcast about it. They also democratize access to information, enabling individuals with visual impairments or reading difficulties to engage with content more easily.

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• Push-to-talk app Zello warns users to change their passwords immediately
• It also told them to change the passwords for any other online service where they use the same one
• The company did not explain what happened

Push-to-talk communications app Zello has warned users to change their passwords - and although it did not state why it was asking them to do so, the wording of the message suggests that the company suffered a data breach.

“Zello Security Notice - As a precaution, we are asking that you reset your Zello app password for any account created before November 2nd, 2024,” the warning reads, reported BleepingComputer.

This would suggest that login information for all accounts created before this date were exposed with unauthorized third parties. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean that the company was hacked.

Trust, but verify

Furthermore, information about such databases could have been shared with third-party partners, or other unauthorized entities, by mistake.

In any case, Zello is urging users to lock down their accounts: “We also recommend that you change passwords for any other online service where you may have used the same password.”

When storing passwords and other sensitive data, most organizations would encrypt them in a way that makes it almost impossible to read. Given the stark warning in this announcement, we could speculate that the Zello passwords were stored in plaintext, or in other easily readable format.

Zello is a push-to-talk communication app that functions like a walkie-talkie, enabling real-time voice messaging over Wi-Fi or mobile data. It is widely used for team collaboration, emergency response, and social interactions, offering private and public channels with low latency and high audio quality. Notably, it suffered a cyberattack in 2020, when it also asked all users to reset their passwords - raising fears this could have happened again.

The app is available for Android, iOS, and desktop devices, and reportedly has roughly around 140 million users.

Companies often keep large databases with sensitive data exposed on the internet, inadvertently. However, white hat hackers and security researchers often beat criminals to the punch with these discoveries, alerting the firms before significant harm can be done.

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