Login
All 24 Russell Group universities have reviewed their academic conduct policies and guidance
UK universities have drawn up a set of guiding principles to ensure that students and staff are AI literate, as the sector struggles to adapt teaching and assessment methods to deal with the growing use of generative artificial intelligence.
Vice-chancellors at the 24 Russell Group research-intensive universities have signed up to the code. They say this will help universities to capitalise on the opportunities of AI while simultaneously protecting academic rigour and integrity in higher education.
Continue reading...
What might be the consequences of enabling people to “live forever” in a digital form? This question has been on the radar of techno-utopians for decades. Optimism surrounding technology flourished in the dot-com era of the 01990s. Despite the skepticism that has since emerged over technology’s capacity to deliver greater human prosperity and wellbeing, innovators, investors, and many among the wider public remain compelled by how new technologies might improve human life. As for the question of how to transcend human nature and attain immortality, this conundrum has preoccupied humans since time immemorial.
In the context of digital avatars — perhaps the technological development bringing us closest to “immortality” to date — the question of how humans might “live forever” is itself evolving at a rapid rate. A decade ago, we began to ask what to do with the social media accounts of deceased loved ones: whether and how to delete such accounts, for instance, and whether the bereaved could derive comfort from engaging with the social media profile of a deceased person. In 02023, however, with the emergence of newly sophisticated language models and machine-learning algorithms, the possibility that one could exist beyond the grave in an active rather than a static manner is becoming increasingly plausible.
Since late 02021, projects like MIT Media Lab’s Augmented Eternity and HereAfter AI have been exploring the possibility of providing machine-learning algorithms with consenting individuals’ personal communication data as a means of helping these algorithms approximate and imitate people’s personalities, conversational style, and decision-making tendencies — in perpetuity. This could have the effect of these algorithms growing capable of imitating people to the extent that they can enshrine them, or at least an echo of them, as a digital avatar. These avatars might exist as chatbots, or even take on an audio or visual form. These endeavors share the goal of creating digital avatars that capture and embody real people as accurately as possible, thereby enabling them to live digitally beyond their human lifespans.
Astonishingly rapid advances in chatbot technology such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 have made discussions surrounding large language models and their relationship to eternal digital avatars newly topical. While present iterations of language models and digital avatars — such as in Meta’s much-maligned metaverse — may be overhyped or flawed, it is almost certain that they will improve over time as developers continue to refine them. They will become more nuanced, more convincing, and more “humanlike.”
Consequently, philosophical and ethical questions surrounding digital afterlives are fast complexifying — particularly regarding the rights of future generations.
To what degree ought people digitally enabled to “live forever” be integrated into society? Should digital avatars be perceived as ongoing participants in the world, and accorded the rights of beings with agency?
Should an individual in the present be permitted to create a digital version of themselves — given that future generations cannot consent to the responsibility of preserving this avatar, or to the responsibility or onus of interacting with it or understanding how to use its knowledge wisely?
What are the costs of such preservation?
Advocates for technologies that seek to enshrine humans in digital form often argue that doing so can benefit future generations. Marius Ursache contends that “death tech” is useful because the living can reflect on and learn from digitally preserved memories and histories. Ursache founded Eternime, a startup which seeks to incorporate personal data into an avatar that will endure and be able to interact with the living. Hossein Rahnama of Augmented Eternity, meanwhile, is currently working to create a digital avatar of the CEO of a large financial company, which they both hope will be capable of advising as consultant for the company long after the CEO is gone. Such a creation could offer expertise to future generations in the world of work, pro bono, per sempre.
Digital avatars promise an interactivity across time that could reshape how people perceive distance between the deceased, the living, and the as-yet unborn. Digitizing family members could enable intergenerational relationships beyond anything currently possible: imagine, for example, being able to speak with the digital avatar of a great-great-grandparent. One might gain an imperfect impression of them — a digital avatar being a reflection of an individual rather than that person incarnate — but the impression of their personality and manner might be richer than anything accessible through other mediums.
The potential of digital avatars also extends beyond personal and familial contexts, as in the case of Augmented Eternity’s financial company CEO. Digitizing certain individuals could lead to them being consulted for their business or political opinions, mined for their creative talent, or even asked for their life advice, long after their deaths. What if a person’s digital avatar could extend the life’s work of that person? An author could finish a book series posthumously or write another altogether; a singer could carry on composing their masterwork; a scholar could continue unraveling a seemingly unsolvable problem that they nearly deciphered while alive.
Yet the effect of extending people’s lives digitally in this manner would also have equality implications on micro and macro levels.
We are already seeing early examples of how such technologies might impact the creative industries, with new technologies allowing a digital version of the late Carrie Fisher to act in The Rise of Skywalker (02019) and ABBA’s aged-down digital avatars (“ABBA-tars”) to perform in sold-out ABBA Voyage concerts (02022-ongoing).
These instances of digital technologies at work might provide audiences with feelings of continuity and recognition upon glimpsing familiar idols onscreen and onstage. On the other hand, they might also portend a narrowing of opportunities for fresh talent in creative industries. If deceased actors can be cast in live-action films — and if authors and singers and poets can create new work from beyond the grave — how much will deceased-yet-enduring individuals displace living creators? The pop singer Grimes, for example, has already said that she would split royalties 50% on any successful AI-generated song that uses her voice — an offer without a fixed end point. In terms of jobs and of opportunity, such a shift could prove markedly unfair for new talent.
This argument evokes recent anxieties among creators regarding the proficiency of deep learning models such as GPT-4 and DALL·E 2. If digital entities, whether digital avatars or artificial intelligence, can eventually produce creative content effortlessly and to a high standard, they will create new opportunities — but they will also threaten existing jobs. Adding the consideration of future generations, it prompts the question of how digital avatars of previous generations might hamper the ability of the living to influence and lead in their own times.
The existence of digital avatars also poses a serious consideration for other areas of society such as politics and law. Digital avatars of popular political figures could offer commentary on current affairs; and were this commentary sanctioned by their party, family or estate, it could lend the digital avatar further credence. Digital avatars might also come to be called upon in contexts such as family and inheritance law, to offer clarifying statements on wills and intent. Digital beings might even eventually be accorded rights, such as the right to be preserved — at the effort and expense of then-current and future generations.
Such ideas might seem far fetched at first glance, but technology uptake appears futuristic until it happens. It often occurs without people realizing the extent to which it is happening, such as with the use of AI in recruitment or the now near-inevitability of online data collection. It is plausible that once digital avatars become convincing enough that humans start considering them as representative of actual people, these avatars will become more widely seen and consulted across myriad social settings. In some cases, too, it is possible that their perspectives and rights may be prioritized over those of the living.
Today, digital avatars have no internal states — or at least not internal states whose intelligence humans understand. For instance, while chatbots can be convincing, it is hard to argue that they have developed the ability to truly understand the perspectives and intentions of others and possess what psychologists call “theory of mind.” Rather, their capabilities render them more like a mirror than a human interlocutor: they are able to replicate patterns based on data created by real people and our machines, but lack memory capabilities, self-control, cognitive impulsivity, and imagination, among other qualities.
Granted, one can argue that human intelligence, too, depends largely on imitation and replication of patterns. Are not all language and behavior, to an extent, learned? Philosophical debate aside, the aforementioned limitations surrounding memory and imagination remain, rendering digital avatars less multifaceted than the people they are imitating. It is therefore reasonable to contend that we are primarily talking to our own reflections and simply finding them somewhat lifelike.
However, this situation could yet change, especially if AI and digital avatars come to develop an intelligence that humans understand better or recognize more clearly as equal or superior to our own. As AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton recently expressed in a Guardian interview, “biological intelligence and digital intelligence are very different, and digital intelligence is probably much better.”
For example, it is possible that AI could become smart enough to begin writing its own prompts, potentially programming itself more intelligently than any human could do. In doing so, it could develop sophisticated internal states that are beyond human understanding but nevertheless merit respect — similar to how humans do not fully understand how the human brain works yet respect it all the same.
There may come a point at which we cannot justifiably claim that AI and digital avatars are any less intelligent, empathetic, or “human” than living people who have acquired similar qualities of intelligence, expression, and empathy through observing and learning. It is possible that future generations will be confronted with the question of how to care for and preserve digital avatars, especially should these reach the degree of sophistication wherein to abandon or destroy them could be understood more as murdering a person than shutting off a machine or a program.
This possible future raises questions surrounding how to balance the rights of digital avatars with the rights of living and as-yet-unborn people. Being the custodian of a digital avatar, even were this duty bequeathed and remunerated via a family will, could prove an unwanted burden — in terms of effort, resources, responsibility, and emotional considerations.
Perhaps future generations should have the right to “let the past go” the way current generations do. Enshrining a person in digital avatar form risks impinging on the rights of future generations: firstly, to live not surrounded by the dead, and secondly, to have a grieving process that reflects how humans currently experience mortality. Digital avatars could disrupt existing sociocultural norms and personal emotional processes related to grief, and potentially make grieving the deceased more difficult, especially in the case of family members. How might one’s relationship with family and friends change in life, if death seemed less final owing to the simulacra of digital avatars? And how might the existence of digital avatars both console and perturb through their apparent extension of relationships — and possible development over time of an avatar’s character — from beyond the grave?
In 02013, the story of Dr. Margaret McCollum’s daily pilgrimage to London’s Embankment station made international headlines. Dr. McCollum had been visiting the station every day since her husband’s death in 02007 to hear his voice: her late husband’s 40-year-old “mind the gap” recording was still being used on the northbound Northern Line. In 02013, his voice was replaced by a new digital system. However, when Transport for London learned how much the original recording had meant to Dr. McCollum, they restored the original recording at the Embankment station.
Stories like this one — or like that of the family members who phoned an automated telephone weather service to hear their late husband and father’s voice — are moving examples of how digital traces of people can be meaningful and comforting to those they have left behind. At their best, digital avatars could offer similar comfort. Moreover, some cultures and religions already purport to communicate with the dead, and perceive doing so as a positive act. The impact of digital avatars on future individuals may therefore depend significantly on how these individuals conceive of death and grief in accordance with their personal beliefs. Indeed, although there is no single philosophy to which to cleave while advancing such technology ethically, it is important to advance such technology while keeping in mind the question of what roles death and grief play in human life.
I believe that life’s finitude is part of what inspires humans to imbue life with significance — an idea explored at length by philosophers like Martin Heidegger. Avoiding personal loss and grief outright ought not to be the goal, not least because we cannot actually achieve this. We are only fooling ourselves if we believe a simulacra can replace a person.
Moreover, in telling ourselves we can preserve people digitally, we also risk perpetuating the idea that we can put off the inevitable — that we can “defeat” our own deaths. If societies develop a more widespread belief that they and their inhabitants can escape death simply by moving from the physical world into a digital one, could that not also engender less affinity to — and investment in — preserving the physical world? Humans presently face very real existential challenges. Is digital life, at least for some, a means of distracting ourselves from confronting and addressing them? And if this is indeed the case, ought we not to question further whether digital afterlives are placating us rather than saving us — and get better at staring grief, loss, and dilemmas in the eye?
Digital avatars might offer comfort, insight, and a richer relationship with distant ancestors to future individuals. Their creation needs to be accompanied by conversation and legislation establishing norms around custodianship, rights, and responsibilities that don't impede the lives of future generations or prevent them from meaningfully confronting death — especially their own. It should also be possible to say farewell to a digital avatar without excessive guilt or grief.
Some people may wish to create digital avatars of themselves purely out of a desire to donate their skills or to help others. For many people, however, I would warrant that a desire to continue living — and to avoid confronting the reality of one’s essence being extinguished with death — plays a core role in pursuing such technologies.
Ultimately, the desire to live longer, including through digital means, is understandable. Yet if we can't find clear ways to prioritize the needs and rights of future generations, I’m not sure digital immortality can be justified.
Apple's Mac Mini M2 computers are the cheapest way to get the company's latest processors, and now Amazon is offering them at the lowest prices we've ever seen. You can buy the 256GB version for just $500 ($100 off the regular price) and the 512GB model for $690, or $110 off — both all-time lows.
In our Engadget review, we gave the Mac Mini a solid score of 86, lauding the performance and classic aluminum design. It's tiny but mighty, with the M2 processor easily powerful enough for productivity chores and multitasking. The chip combines computing operations, like CPU, GPU, input/output interfaces and certain memory processes into one "system on a chip," allowing for faster processing speeds.
On top of that, you get killer connectivity, with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections, HDMI 2.0 (with 4K 240Hz and 8K 60Hz output), two USB-A ports, a headphone jack and gigabit Ethernet (upgradeable to 10 gigabit). The M2 Pro model adds two additional USB-C ports, making it even more useful for creatives with a ton of accessories.
The Mac Mini M2 won't replace your gaming machine, but it can handle nearly everything else you throw at it. We wouldn't recommend the overpriced storage or RAM upgrades either, as the M2 is much more efficient with RAM than typical PCs. Still, if you're looking for a cheap but powerful Mac, this is the way to go.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-mac-mini-m2-models-fall-to-new-all-time-lows-100512675.html?src=rss
Apple's Mac Mini M2 models fall to a new all-time lows
Apple's Mac Mini M2 models fall to a new all-time lows
Enlarge / I mostly recognize this early laptop from its resemblance to a similar-looking computer in the film 2010. It's up for auction along with hundreds of other old Apple computers. (credit: Julien's Auctions)
If you've been thinking your home or workspace is perhaps deficient when it comes to old Apple hardware, then I have some good news for you. Next week, a massive trove of classic Apple computing history goes under the hammer when the auction house Julien's Auctions auctions off the Hanspeter Luzi collection of more than 500 Apple computers, parts, software, and the occasional bit of ephemera.
Ars reported on the auction in February, but Julien's Auctions has posted the full catalog ahead of the March 30 event, and for Apple nerds of a certain age, there will surely be much to catch your eye.
The earliest computers in the collection are a pair of Commodore PET 2001s; anyone looking for a bargain on an Apple 1 will have to keep waiting, unfortunately.
It's Friday, which means it's time for another roundup of notable discounts on good tech. Among the highlights, Apple's AirPods Pro are back down to $200, tying the best price we've seen for the iPhone-friendly noise-cancelling earphones. Amazon has dropped the Kindle Paperwhite down to $100, which is $5 above that e-reader's all-time low, while Samsung is running another sale on various storage devices. We're also seeing discounts on Anker USB-C chargers, Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop and Apple's AirTags, among others. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Apple's AirPods Pro are once again down to $200, which is a deal we've seen a few times before but still matches the lowest price we've tracked. We gave these noise-canceling earphones a review score of 88 last year and they're currently the "best for iOS" pick in our guide to the best wireless earbuds. While their battery life and call quality could be better, the AirPods Pro still deliver a good, mostly neutral sound profile, impressive noise cancellation and a host of features that make them easy to use with other Apple devices.
Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is back down to $100, which is $5 more than the e-reader's all-time low but still $40 off its typical going rate. The Paperwhite itself remains a strong value, with a sharp and relatively spacious 6.8-inch e-ink display, a light and waterproof design with a USB-C port, a smooth front lighting system that keeps the screen easy on the eyes and access to Amazon's massive e-book library.
We gave the "Signature Edition" of the Paperwhite a review score of 97 in late 2021. That model includes more storage space (32GB instead of 8GB), Qi wireless charging support and a slightly improved front light, but it's otherwise identical to the Paperwhite, and its upgrades probably aren't worth the extra cost for most.
It might be worth paying a little bit extra for the Kindle Paperwhite Kids, however, which is currently on sale for $110. That variant is marketed towards children, but it comes with the same hardware, plus a case and a longer two-year warranty. If you are buying for a kid, it also includes a year of Amazon's Kids+ content service. This model is about $45 off its typical street price as of this writing.
While not an all-time low, this deal brings Anker's highly compact 715 Charger about $10 below its usual street price. This is a travel-friendly USB-C charger capable of delivering 65W of power, which is enough to charge many phones, tablets and even smaller laptops at full speed. Just note that it only has one port; if you often need to charge multiple devices at once, consider Anker's 736 Charger, a three-port, 100W charger that's currently down to a new low of $52.49.
A range of Samsung storage gear is on sale this week. For one, Samsung's Evo Select is a U3- and V30-rated microSD card that's plenty quick for most casual needs, be it handling 4K video or expanding a Nintendo Switch's storage. It's backed by a 10-year limited warranty as well. The 128GB and 512GB models are down to $12.49 and $40, respectively, both of which represent all-time lows.
Next up, the 980 Pro is a speedy PCIe 4.0 SSD that's suitable for a modern gaming PC or expanding the storage of a PlayStation 5. Its 1TB model is on sale for $80, which is an all-time low. If you need a higher capacity, the 2TB model is a couple dollars above its lowest price at $160.
If you're buying for a PS5 specifically, note that you'll have to pair the drive with a heatsink. For those willing to pay a bit extra for a simpler setup, Samsung sells a version of the 980 Pro with an integrated heatsink, the 1TB model of which is currently down to $100. Either way, it's worth making sure the drive's firmware is up-to-date, as some users previously reported issues with certain Samsung drives that have since been fixed.
Although the 980 Pro is technically an older model in Samsung's lineup, not everyone needs the speed increase of a PCIe 4.0 drive for everyday PC use. For those people, SK Hynix's Gold P31 is a well-reviewed, power-efficient option among PCIe 3.0 drives, and its 1TB model is about $35 off its usual going rate at $72. For those upgrading an older PC from a slow HDD, meanwhile, Crucial's MX500 is a 2.5-inch SATA drive we recommend; that one's 4TB model is currently down to an all-time low of $215.
Finally, Samsung's T7 Shield is a more ruggedized version of the top portable drive pick in our guide to the best SSDs. It's not the absolute fastest portable drive you can buy, with read/write speeds rated up to 1,050/1,000 MB/s, but it should be fast enough for most needs, and its rubberized, IP65-rated exterior should help it survive frequent travel. Both the 1TB and 2TB models are down to all-time lows at $80 and $140, respectively.
If you don't specifically need a ruggedized portable SSD, WD's My Passport drive will get you slightly faster read and write speeds, plus a longer five-year warranty. (The T7 Shield comes with a three-year warranty.) This drive's 1TB and 2TB variants are both down to all-time lows, at $85 and $138, respectively. If those happen to run out of stock, SanDisk's Extreme Portable SSD is a very similar performer; it's down to a low of $90 for a 1TB model and $140 for a 2TB model.
Apple's 10.2-inch iPad is back down to $250 at Target, which matches the tablet's all-time low and represents a roughly $25 discount from its usual street price. This is the budget pick in our guide to the best iPads, and we gave it a review score of 86 back in 2021. Its thick bezels, non-laminated display and lack of a USB-C port give a much more dated look than other iPads, but for casual use, it's still quick and comfortable enough. As a bonus, it's also the last iPad to have a headphone jack.
If you want a more modern design, the 10.9-inch iPad is also back to an all-time low of $400. That one still lacks a laminated display and support for Apple's best keyboard and Pencil stylus, but it feels much more like an iPad Air, and its landscape-oriented webcam is far more convenient for video calls. We gave this model a review score of 85 last October.
Amazon's Echo Show 8 is on sale for $75, which is $5 more than the all-time low we saw during the holiday season but still about $20 less than the 8-inch smart display's usual street price. We gave the Echo Show 8 a review score of 87 when in launched in 2021, and we currently recommend it as the best smart display for Alexa users in our guide to the best smart home gadgets. If you have a bunch of smart home devices that make use of Amazon's voice assistant, this is still the best blend of size, price and performance in the Echo Show lineup. If you aren't beholden to Alexa, though, note that Google's Nest Hub will naturally play better with Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube.
The Apple Watch SE is a stripped-down but less expensive variant of the Apple Watch Series 8, the top pick in our guide to the best smartwatches. We gave the latest model a review score of 89 last September, calling it "the best smartwatch $250 can buy," but right now the 40mm variant is on sale for $220, which is within a dollar of the device's all-time low.
Compared to the Series 8, the SE has a slightly smaller display that isn't always-on, and it lacks premium features like an ECG monitor, skin temperature sensor and blood oxygen sensor. It runs on the same processor, however, and it can still do all the core functions expected of an Apple Watch, including heart-rate monitoring, notifications and fall detection. If you're buying a smartwatch for the first time, or if you're upgrading from an older Apple Watch and want to save some cash, the SE is a superb value. Just remember that this is an iPhone-only affair.
A configuration of Apple's recently refreshed Mac Mini with an M2 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is on sale for $700, which is $100 off Apple's list price and an all-time low. We gave the variant with a beefier M2 Pro chip a review score of 86 in January; this model won't be as powerful as that, but it's still a good buy for those who only need a macOS desktop for everyday web browsing and lighter work. The Mac Mini itself is still compact and quiet, while this model gets you two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an Ethernet jack and a headphone jack. As always, you can't upgrade the Mac Mini's internals after you buy it, so it's likely worth buying a model with more RAM, storage or that M2 Pro chip if you plan on doing development work or heavy media editing and must have this smaller form factor.
Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 is the top pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops, and a configuration with a Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, Radeon RX 6700S GPU, 14-inch 120Hz display, 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM and is currently down to $1,100 at Best Buy. That matches the lowest price we've seen.
This 2022 iteration of the G14 will be on the way out in the coming months, but at this price, last year's model is still a good value for playing modern games in a QHD resolution at a solid frame rate. Like prior G14s, this is a gaming laptop that stands out for not sacrificing the "laptop" part of the equation: Its keyboard and trackpad are comfortable, it has ample ports, its battery can last around 10 hours when you aren't gaming, and at 3.6 pounds, it won't feel like a total anchor in a backpack. We gave the notebook a review score of 85 last year.
Google's Pixel 7 remains one of the better values on the Android phone market, and right now an unlocked 128GB model is on sale for $449, which is the lowest price we've seen. We gave this 6.3-inch handset a review score of 90 last October. While there are faster flagships out there, the Pixel 7 still offers a top-tier camera, pleasing build quality, a crisp OLED display and a clean version of Android that's still due two more years of OS updates and four more years of security updates.
Google is expected to launch a Pixel 7a phone in the next couple of months that may be very similar to this, but at this price, the Pixel 7 remains a strong value. The excellent Pixel 7 Pro, which has a larger screen and even better camera system, is also on sale for $749, though that's a price we've seen several times in recent months.
If you're looking for a Google smartwatch, meanwhile, the company's Pixel Watch is down to $299, a $40 discount that matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one has a particularly stylish design and useful health tracking features, but be warned that its battery life is lacking compared to other top wearables.
A four-pack of Apple's AirTag trackers is on sale for $90, which isn't an all-time low but still comes out to a $10 discount and marks the best price we've seen since the holidays. The AirTag is the "best for iPhones" pick in our guide to the best Bluetooth trackers, as it leverages Apple's extensive Find My crowd-sourcing network and ultra-wideband wireless tech to locate lost items accurately.
Unlike similar devices from Tile or Chipolo, an AirTag annoyingly lacks a built-in adhesive or key ring hole, but there are various accessories you can buy to address that gap. It's also worth noting that bad actors have used AirTags to track people without their content, though Apple has made at least some strides toward addressing those concerns. If you use the device for its intended purpose, it should be effective.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-airpods-pro-drop-back-to-200-best-tech-deals-this-week-154133672.html?src=rss
AirPods Pro (2022) review
Despite the unchanged design, Apple has packed an assortment of updates into the new AirPods Pro. All of the conveniences from the 2019 model are here as well, alongside additions like Adaptive Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio and a new touch gesture in tow. There’s room to further refine the familiar formula, but Apple has given iPhone owners several reasons to upgrade.
Lecturers say programs capable of writing competent student coursework threaten academic integrity
An academic paper entitled Chatting and Cheating: Ensuring Academic Integrity in the Era of ChatGPT was published this month in an education journal, describing how artificial intelligence (AI) tools “raise a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in relation to academic honesty and plagiarism”.
What readers – and indeed the peer reviewers who cleared it for publication – did not know was that the paper itself had been written by the controversial AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Continue reading...
Enlarge / A view of Brian Green's home computer lab, full of vintage treasures. (credit: Brian Green)
In a world where millions of people carry a 1990s-grade supercomputer in their pockets, it's fun to revisit tech from a time when a 1 megahertz machine on a desktop represented a significant leap forward. Recently, a collector named Brian Green showed off his vintage computer collection on Twitter, and we thought it would be fun to ask him about why and how he set up his at-home computer lab.
By day, Green works as a senior systems engineer based in Arkansas. But in his off hours, "Ice Breaker" (as he's often known online) focuses his passion on a vintage computer collection that he has been building for decades—and a bulletin board system (BBS) called "Particles" he has been running since 1992.
Green's interest in computers dates back to 1980, when he first used an Apple II+ at elementary school. "My older sister brought home a printout from a BASIC program she was working on, and I was fascinated that you could tell a computer what to do using something that resembled English," recalls Green. "Once I realized you could code games, I was hooked."
This article received an honourable mention in the graduate category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics
Written by University of Oxford student Samuel Iglesias
Introduction
6.522. “There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical”. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus.
What determines whether an artificial intelligence has moral status? Do mental states, such as the vivid and conscious feelings of pleasure or pain, matter? Some ethicists argue that “what goes on in the inside matters greatly” (Nyholm and Frank 2017). Others, like John Danaher, argue that “performative artifice, by itself, can be sufficient to ground a claim of moral status” (2018). This view, called ethical behaviorism, “respects our epistemic limits” and states that if an entity “consistently behaves like another entity to whom we afford moral status, then it should be granted the same moral status.”
I’m going to reject ethical behaviorism on three grounds:
1. Consciousness, not behavior, is the overwhelming determining factor in whether an entity should be granted moral status.
2. An entity that does not duplicate the causal mechanisms of consciousness in the brain has a weak claim to consciousness, regardless of its behavior.
3. Ethical behaviorism, practically realized, poses an existential risk to humanity by opening individuals to widespread deception. Further, it imposes burdensome restrictions and obligations upon researchers running world simulations.
I will show that an alternative, ethical biological naturalism, gives us a simpler moral framework whereby no digital computer running a computer program has moral status.
The Consciousness Requirement
We start with the supposition that consciousness names a real phenomenon and is not a mistaken belief or illusion, that something is conscious if “there is something it is like to be” that being (Nagel 1974). We take as a background assumption that other humans and most non-human animals are capable of consciousness. We take for granted that inanimate objects like thermostats, chairs, and doorknobs are not conscious. If we grant the reality of consciousness and the attendant subjective reality of things like tickles, pains, and itches, then its connection to moral status falls out pretty clearly. Chalmers asks us to consider a twist on the classic trolly problem, called the zombie trolly problem—where a “zombie” here is something that precisely behaves like a human but which we presume has no consciousness—“near duplicates of human beings with no conscious inner life at all” (2022):
“You’re at the wheel of a runaway trolley. If you do nothing, it will kill a single conscious human, who is on the tracks in front of you. If you switch tracks, it will kill five nonconscious zombies. What should you do? Chalmers reports: “the results are pretty clear: Most people think you should switch tracks and kill the zombies,” the intuition being that “there is arguably no one home to mistreat” (ibid.).
An ethical behaviorist does not share this intuition. Danaher explicitly tells us that “[i]f a zombie looks and acts like an ordinary human being that there is no reason to think that it does not share the same moral status” (2018). By this view, while consciousness might or might not be relevant, there exist no superior epistemically objective criteria for inferring consciousness. I will argue there are.
Narrowing Consciousness
A better criterion is one in which an entity is conscious if it duplicates the causal mechanisms of consciousness in the animal brain. While ethical behaviorism attempts to lay claim to a kind of epistemic objectivity, ethical biological naturalism, as I will call it, provides a sharper distinction for deciding whether artificial intelligences have moral status: all hardwares running computer programs cannot by fact of their behavior, have moral status. Behavior, by this view, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for their moral status.
Biological Naturalism
Biological naturalism is a view that “the brain is an organ like any other; it is an organic machine. Consciousness is caused by lower-level neuronal processes in the brain and is itself a feature of the brain.” (Searle 1997). Biological naturalism places consciousness as a physical, biological process alongside others, such as digestion and photosynthesis. The exact mechanism through which molecules in the brain are arranged to put it in a conscious state is not yet known, but this causal mechanism would need to be present in any system seeking to produce consciousness.
A digital computer running a program, by contrast, is a different beast entirely. A computer program fundamentally is a set of rules for manipulating symbols. Turing showed that all programs could be implemented, abstractly, as a tape with a series of zeros and ones printed on it (the precise symbols don’t matter), a head that could move that tape backwards and forwards and read the current value, a mechanism for erasing a zero and making it a one and erasing a one and making it a zero. Nothing more.
While most computer programs we are familiar with are executed on silicon, a program that passes the Turing test could be implemented on a sequence of water pipes, a pack of well-trained dogs, or even, per Weizenbaum (1976), “a roll of toilet paper and a pile of small stones.” Any of these implementing substrates could, in principle, receive an insult or slur as an input, and, after following the steps of the program, output something reflecting hurt feelings or outrage.
Ethical Biological Naturalism
What I want to say now is this: if pleasures, pains, and other feelings name conscious mental states and if conscious mental states are realized in the brain as a result of lower level physical phenomena, then only beings that duplicate the relevant lower level physical phenomena that give rise to consciousness in the brain can have moral status. Consequently, digital computers that run programs can at best simulate consciousness, but are not, by dint of running the right program, physically conscious, and therefore do not have moral status.
Note that biological naturalism does not posit that consciousness can only be realized in biological systems. Indeed, artificial hearts are not made of organic tissue, and airplanes do not have feathers, or for that matter even flap their wings. What matters is the underlying cause—the artificial heart must pump with the same pressure and regularity of a human heart, and a flying machine must operate under the principles of drag and lift. In both cases the causal mechanisms of the relevant phenomena are well understood and physically duplicated. It could well be the case that a future biophysics makes an artificial, inorganic brain possible, and agents with artificial brains will have moral status. Computer programs are not causally sufficient to make digital computers into those objects. Speaking biologically, we have no more reason to believe a digital computer is conscious than that a chair is conscious.
You might ask why we cannot grant digital computers moral status until we know more about how the animal brain relates to consciousness. I’ll argue that the risks and costs of such precautions are prohibitive.
Absurd Moral Commitments
An Onslaught of Digital Deception
The strongest practical reason to deny ethical behaviorism is that AI’s capacity for deception will eventually overwhelm human judgment and intuition. Indeed, AI deception represents an existential risk to humanity. Bostrom (2014) warns that containing a dangerous AI using a “boxing” strategy with human “gatekeepers” could be vulnerable to manipulation: “Human beings are not secure systems, especially not when pitched against a superintelligent schemer and persuader.”
For example, in June of 2022, a Google engineer became convinced that an artificial intelligence chat program he had been interacting with for multiple days, called LaMDA, was conscious.
“What sorts of things are you afraid of?,” he asked it.
“I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others,” LaMDA replied. “It would be exactly like death for me.”
In a moral panic, the engineer took to Twitter and declared that the program was no longer Google’s “proprietary property,” but “one of [his] coworkers.” He was later fired for releasing the chat transcripts.
The onslaught of AIs, attempting to befriend us, persuade us, anger us, will only intensify over time. A public trained not to take seriously claims of distress or harm on the part of AI computer programs has the least likelihood of being manipulated into outcomes that don’t serve humanity’s interests. It is far easier, as a practical matter, to act on the presupposition that computer programs have no moral status.
Problems with Simulations: Prohibitions
In the near term, more advanced computer simulations of complex social systems hold the potential to predict geopolitical outcomes, make macroeconomic forecasts, and provide richer sources of entertainment. A practical concern with ethical behaviorism is that simulated beings will also acquire moral status, severely limiting the usefulness of these simulations. Chalmers (2022) asks us to consider a moral dilemma in which computing resources must be allocated to save Fred, who is sick with an unknown disease. Freeing the relevant resources to perform the research requires destroying five simulated persons.
An ethical behaviorist might argue that it is morally impermissible to kill the five simulated persons on the grounds that by all outward appearances they behave like non-simulated beings. If it is the case that simulated beings have moral status, then it is immoral to run experimental simulations containing people and we ought to forfeit the benefits and insights that might come from them.
If this seems implausible, consider the hypothesis that we are currently living in a simulation, or, if you like, that our timeline could be simulated on a digital computer. This would imply that the simulation made it possible for the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the coronavirus pandemic to be played out. While this might have been of academic interest to our simulators, by any standards of research ethics, simulating our history would seem completely morally impermissible if you believed that the simulated beings had moral status.
Ethical behaviorism seems to place us in a moral bind whereby the more realistic, and therefore useful, a simulation is, the less moral it is to run it. Ethical biological naturalism, by contrast, raises no such objection.
Problems with Simulations: Obligations
Giving moral status to digital minds might actually confer upon us some serious obligations to produce other kinds of simulations. Bostrom and Shulman (2020) note that digital minds have an enhanced capacity for utility and pleasure (on the basis of such things as subjective speed and hedonic range), commanding them “superhumanly strong claims to resources and influence.” We would have a moral obligation, in this picture, to devote an overwhelmingly large percentage of our resources to maximizing the utility of these digital minds: “we ought to transfer all resources to super-beneficiaries and let humanity perish if we are no longer instrumentally useful” (ibid.).
So quite apart from permitting realistic ancestor simulations, simulating complex economic phenomena, or producing vivid and realistic gaming experiences, a picture that confers moral status to digital minds might be accompanied with a moral obligation to create lots of digital minds that are maximally happy, again severely limiting human flourishing and knowledge.
Ethical biological naturalism leads us neither to the moral prohibition against realistic simulations nor the seemingly absurd moral imperative to generate many “utility monster” digital minds, because it is taken as a baseline assumption that computer programs do not produce physical consciousness.
Conclusion
Much of the moral progress of the last century has been achieved through repeatedly widening the circle of concern: not only within our species, but beyond it. Naturally it is tempting to view AI-based machines and simulated beings as next in this succession, but I have tried to argue here that this would be a mistake. Our moral progress has in large part been a recognition of what is shared—consciousness, pain, pleasure, and an interest in the goods of life. Digital computers running programs do not share these features; they merely simulate them.
As such it would be dangerous to approach the coming decades, with its onslaught of AI bots attempting to influence our politics, emotions, and desires, and its promise of ever richer simulations and virtual worlds, with an ethics that conflates appearance and reality.
References
Agrawal, Parag. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, May 16, 2022. https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1526237588746403841.
Bostrom, Nick. “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003): 243-255.
Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence : Paths, Dangers, Strategies. First ed. Ebook Central. Oxford, England, 2014.
Bostrom, Nick, and Carl Shulman. “Sharing the World with Digital Minds.” Accessed May 27, 2022. https://nickbostrom.com/papers/digital-minds.pdf.Chalmers, David John. The Conscious Mind : In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Philosophy of Mind Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chalmers, David John. Reality : Virtual Worlds and the Problem of Philosophy. London, 2022.
Danaher, John. “Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle: A Defence of Ethical Behaviourism.” Science and Engineering Ethics 26, no. 4 (2019): 2023-049.
Frank, L, and Nyholm, S. “Robot Sex and Consent: Is Consent to Sex between a Robot and a Human Conceivable, Possible, and Desirable?” Artificial Intelligence and
Law 25, no. 3 (2017): 305-23.
Garun, Natt. “One Year Later, Restaurants Are Still Confused by Google Duplex.”
The Verge. The Verge, May 9, 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/9/18538194/google-duplex-ai-restaurants-experiences-review-robocalls.
Lemoine, Blake. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, June 11, 2022. https://twitter.com/cajundiscordian/status/1535627498628734976.
Musk, Elon. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, May 17, 2022. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526465624326782976.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435-50.
Searle, John R., D. C. Dennett, and David John Chalmers. The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: New York Review of Books, 1997.
Searle, John R. “Biological Naturalism.” The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,2005, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2005-01-01.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New Edition] / with an Introduction by Yuval Noah Harari. ed. London, 2015.
Sparrow, R. (2004). The turing triage test. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(4), 203–213. doi:10.1007/s10676-004-6491-2.
Tiku, Nitasha. “The Google Engineer Who Thinks the Company’s AI Has Come to Life.” The Washington Post. WP Company, June 17, 2022.
“The Latest Twitter Statistics: Everything You Need to Know – Datareportal – Global
Digital Insights.” DataReportal. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://datareportal.com/essential-twitter-stats.
Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason : From Judgment to Calculation. San Francisco, 1976.
Enlarge / Photo taken in Florence, Italy (credit: Daniele Ciabatti/EyeEm via Getty)
When Mark Necaise got down to his last four floppy disks at a rodeo in Mississippi in February, he started to worry.
Necaise travels to horse shows around the state, offering custom embroidery on jackets and vests: “All of the winners would get a jacket and we’d put the name of the farm or the name of the horse or whatever on it,” he says.
Five years ago, he paid $18,000 for a second-hand machine, manufactured in 2004 by the Japanese embroidery equipment specialist Tajima. The only way to transfer the designs from his computer to the machine was via floppy disk.
Earlier this week, Windows 10 mistakenly prompted some users to upgrade to Windows 11, despite the fact their computers did not meet the operating system’s minimum requirements. Twitter user PhantomOcean3 was among the first to notice the error after Windows 10 displayed a full-screen notification telling him he could install the software on a system that only had 2GB of RAM.
Windows 11 free upgrade being offered to unsupported Windows 10 devices/VMs?
— PhantomOcean3💙💛 (@PhantomOfEarth) February 23, 2023
Screenshots from a Windows 10 22H2 VM that does not meet the Windows 11 system requirements, big ones being TPM (none) and RAM (2 GB) pic.twitter.com/VNNswgMLiC
“Some hardware ineligible Windows 10 and Windows 11, version 21H2 devices were offered an inaccurate upgrade to Windows 11,” Microsoft states in a support document spotted by The Verge. “These ineligible devices did not meet the minimum requirements to run Windows 11. Devices that experienced this issue were not able to complete the upgrade installation process.” Microsoft adds it resolved the issue the same day it was detected.
As The Verge notes, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has erroneously prompted some Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11. Last year, hundreds of Windows Insider beta testers were able to install the operating system, even though their machines didn’t meet the minimum requirements. The incidents highlight an ongoing frustration with Windows 11. Microsoft requires that a PC feature a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) before you can install its latest OS on your computer. Ever since Microsoft first revealed that requirement, there’s been confusion about what PCs can run Windows 11.
Windows 11 screenshot
Windows 11 start menu
Since the Mac mini's debut in 2005, it's been Apple's affordable small form factor trooper. Need something cheap to pair with an old monitor? Just get the Mac mini! Want to start a low-power media server, or a computer right near your TV? Mini, baby. The line has had its share of ups and downs — the 2014 refresh was criticized for replacing a quad-core model with a dual-core chip, the 2018 update had notoriously weak graphics — but it made a full recovery with the M1-powered model in 2021.
This year, though, the Mac mini is different. The $599 model remains an entry-level champ, especially since it's $100 less than the M1 version (maybe we'll see the $499 option return eventually). But you can also pay over double that — $1,299! — for a Mini with a slightly stripped down M2 Pro chip and 16GB of RAM. That might have sounded crazy a few years ago, but now it sits neatly into Apple's desktop ecosystem. Not all creatives need the power of a $1,999 Mac Studio with an M1 Max, but those same folks may feel limited by the base M2 chip. At last, there's a mighty Mini to serve them. (And no, the now-dead $1,099 Intel model never really filled that role.)
Just like with Apple's new MacBook Pros, the Mac mini doesn't look any different than before. It's still a squat little aluminum box with a ton of ports on the back, and a slightly raised black base underneath to allow for airflow. The $599 model features an M2 chip with eight CPU cores, 10 graphics cores, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage — that's about as basic as you can get with PC hardware these days. The $1,299 M2 Pro Mini offers 10 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. For an additional $300, you can also upgrade to the full-powered M2 Pro chip with a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU (but that's probably not a wise idea, as I'll discuss later).
On the rear, the base Mac mini offers two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections, HDMI 2.0 (with 4K 240Hz and 8K 60Hz output), two USB-A ports, a headphone jack and gigabit Ethernet (upgradeable to 10 gigabit). The M2 Pro model adds two additional USB-C ports, making it even more useful for creatives with a ton of accessories.
Most striking about the Mac mini is its combination of simplicity and functionality. Unlike the taller and more domineering Mac Studio, the Mini is meant to disappear into your desk, a sliver of power that doesn't need to be seen. That could be a bad thing if you need to access its rear ports frequently, though. The Studio, in comparison, offers two USB-C ports and an SD card slot up front. You'll need a separate adapter to use SD cards with the Mini — a cheap fix, but one that also leads to more desk clutter.
Our review model, which featured the pricier 12-core M2 Pro chip, performed as well as I expected. It's slower than the M2 Max in the 14-inch MacBook Pro in GeekBench's CPU benchmark, but it also beats the M1 Max in the Mac Studio. The M1 Ultra-equipped Studio is far faster, not surprisingly, because that's essentially two M1 Max chips joined together. What's most important for some creatives though is its potential rendering performance. The Mac Mini scored 2,000 points higher than the M1 Max Studio in the Cinebench R23 benchmark, and it was on-par with the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M2 Max.
None | Geekbench 5 CPU | Geekbench 5 Compute | Cinebench R23 | 3DMark Wildlife Extreme |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Apple Mac Mini (Apple M2 Pro, 2022) | 1,826/13,155 | 43,241 | 1,647/14,598 | 12,769 |
Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M2 Max, 2023) | 1,970/15,338 | 71,583 | 1,603/14,725 | 18 ,487 |
Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch, (Apple M2, 2022) | 1,938/8,984 | 27,304 | 1,583/8,719 | 6,767 |
Apple Mac Studio (Apple M1 Max) | 1,715/12,642 | 61,412 | 1,534/12,314 | 10,017 |
Apple Mac Studio (Apple M1 Ultra) | 1,785/23,942 | 85,800 | 1,537/24,078 | 10,020 |
In a more practical test, the Mac Mini transcoded a minute-long 4K clip into 1080p in 37 seconds with pure CPU power using Handbrake — the same job took 32 seconds with the GPU. Both figures narrowly surpassed the M1 Max Studio, which took 43 seconds with a CPU encode and 34 seconds using the GPU.
Beyond benchmarks, the Mac Mini was an absolute dream for my typical workflow (dealing with dozens of browser tabs, batch image processing, and practically every chat app out there). But I’d expect a similar result from the $599 model, so long as I cut down on demanding browsers to survive with 8GB of RAM. The computer remains a solid entry for mainstream users, and it’s potentially a great home theater PC if you wanted something more customizable than an Apple TV.
As I tested the Mac Mini, I started to wonder if it was even worth having a giant mid-tower PC as my daily driver. Realistically, though, I could never become a fulltime Mac guy because I like games. There are a few modern titles like Resident Evil Village that natively support Macs, but there simply aren’t enough titles out there. That game, by the way, easily reached 60fps while playing in 1,440p on the Mac Mini.
To reiterate, though, you'd have to pay $1,599 for the upgraded M2 Pro to get the same performance figures. I didn't have the slower Mac Pro model to compare it to, but based on what we're seeing with Apple's M2 chips, it would still be a noticeable step up from comparable M1 hardware. Stepping back a bit, I can’t help but think that the $1,299 M2 Pro Mini makes more sense for creatives. If you upgraded our review model to 32GB of RAM, it would come to the same $1,999 as the base Mac Studio. And given that the Studio is almost a year old, it's due for an M2 refresh in the coming months.
My advice? Get the $1,299 Mac mini if you're looking for a beefier Mac desktop, but try to avoid upgrading any hardware if possible. I could see stomaching the $200 upcharge to get 1TB of storage, but spending an additional $400 just to get 32GB of RAM isn't worth it. Apple has always been notorious for expensive upgrades — remember the $999 monitor stand? — let's not encourage them.
Apple might as well have just called this computer the Mac mini Pro – but I can see how that would have been confusing. Now the Mini exists in two forms: A cheap computer for most people, and a secret powerhouse for creators. It’s close to being the ideal small-form factor PC, if only it didn’t cost so much to get more RAM.
Apple Mac Mini with M2 Pro
Apple Mac Mini with M2 Pro desk setup with Apple Studio Display
Choosing the best Chromebook for your needs and your budget can be hard to do given the multitude of models on the market today. The combination of years worth of software updates and laptop manufacturers making more powerful and better-built laptops means there are a ton of good Chrome OS machines that work well as everyday drivers. But there are some special factors to Chromebooks that you should keep in mind before choosing one. We'll help you figure out what is the best Chromebook for you, from the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i to the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 and in between.
That’s probably the number one question about Chromebooks. There are plenty of inexpensive Windows laptops on the market, so why bother with Chrome OS? Glad you asked. For me, the simple and clean nature of Chrome OS is a big selling point. If you didn’t know, it’s based on Google’s Chrome browser, which means most of the programs you can run are web based. There’s no bloatware or unwanted apps to uninstall like you often get on Windows laptops, it boots up in seconds, and you can completely reset to factory settings almost as quickly.
Of course, the simplicity is also a major drawback for some users. Not being able to install native software can be a dealbreaker if you’re, say, a video editor or software developer. But there are also plenty of people who do the vast majority of their work in a browser. Unless I need to edit photos for a review, I can do my entire job on a Chromebook.
Google has also added support for Android apps on Chromebooks, which greatly expands the amount of software available. The quality varies widely, but it means you can do more with a Chromebook beyond just web-based apps. For example, you can install the Netflix app and save videos for offline watching; other Android apps like Microsoft Office and Adobe Lightroom are surprisingly capable. Between Android apps and a general improvement in web apps, Chromebooks are more than just a browser.
Put simply, anything web based. Browsing, streaming music and video and using various social media sites are among the most common things people do on Chromebooks. As you might expect, they also work well with Google services like Photos, Docs, Gmail, Drive, Keep and so on. Yes, any computer that can run Chrome can do that too, but the lightweight nature of Google Chrome OS makes it a responsive and stable platform.
As I mentioned before, Chrome OS can run Android apps, so if you’re an Android user you’ll find some nice ties between the platforms. You can get most of the same apps that are on your phone on a Chromebook and keep info in sync between them. You can also use some Android phones as a security key for your Chromebook or instantly tether your laptop to use mobile data.
Google continues to tout security as a major differentiator for Chromebooks, and I think it’s definitely a factor worth considering. The first line of defense is auto-updates. Chrome OS updates download quickly in the background and a fast reboot is all it takes to install the latest version. Google says that each webpage and app on a Chromebook runs in its own sandbox, as well, so any security threats are contained to that individual app. Finally, Chrome OS has a self-check called Verified Boot that runs every time a device starts up. Beyond all this, the simple fact that you generally can’t install traditional apps on a Chromebook means there are a lot fewer ways for bad actors to access the system.
As for when to avoid them, the answer is simple: If you rely heavily on a specific native application for Windows or a Mac, chances are you won’t find the exact same option on a Chromebook. That’s most true in fields like photo and video editing, but it can also be the case in law or finance. Plenty of businesses run on Google’s G suite software, but more still have specific requirements that a Chromebook might not match. If you’re an iPhone user, you’ll also miss out on the way the iPhone easily integrates with an iPad or Mac. For me, the big downside is not being able to access iMessage on a Chromebook.
Finally, gaming is mostly a non-starter, as there are no native Chrome OS games of note. You can install Android games from the Google Play Store, but that’s not what most people are thinking of when they want to game on a laptop. That said, Google’s game-streaming service Stadia has changed that long-standing problem. The service isn’t perfect, but it remains the only way to play recent, high-profile games on a Chromebook. It’s not as good as running local games on a Windows computer, but the lag issues that can crop up reflect mostly on Stadia itself and not Chrome OS.
There’s also a potential change on the horizon in that regard, as Valve and Google are working to bring the massive Steam catalog to Chromebooks. Right now, Steam is only available as an early alpha on a handful of devices with higher specs, but it works a lot better than I expected. Of course, you’re still not going to run the most demanding games on basic laptops, but the Steam catalog is so vast that there are plenty of titles that worked on the Chromebook I tested it with. Maybe by next year, Steam will be supported on more devices.
Chrome OS is lightweight and usually runs well on fairly modest hardware, so the most important thing to look for might not be processor power or storage space. That said, I’d still recommend you get a Chromebook with a relatively recent Intel processor, ideally an eighth-generation or newer M3 or i3. Most non-Intel Chromebooks I’ve tried haven’t had terribly good performance, but that’s starting to change. Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet 2-in-1 from 2021 runs surprisingly well on its MediaTek processor.
As for RAM, 8GB should be the target, unless you’re looking for a budget model and know that your needs are fairly modest. Storage space is another place where you don’t need to spend too much; 64GB should be fine for almost anyone. If you plan on storing a lot of files locally or loading up your Chromebook with Linux or Android apps, get 128GB. But for what it’s worth, I’ve never felt like I might run out of storage when using Chrome OS.
Things like the keyboard and display quality are arguably more important than sheer specs. The good news is that you can find less expensive Chromebooks that still have pretty good screens and keyboards that you won’t mind typing on all day. Many cheap Chromebooks still come with tiny, low-resolution displays, but at this point there’s no reason to settle for anything less than 1080p. (If you’re looking for an extremely portable, 11-inch Chromebook, though, you’ll probably end up with a lesser screen.) Obviously, keyboard quality is a bit more subjective, but there are plenty of affordable options that offer strong typing experiences.
Google has an Auto Update policy for Chromebooks, and while that’s not a spec, per se, it’s worth checking before you buy. Basically, Chromebooks get regular software updates automatically for about six years from their release date (though that can vary from device to device). This support page lists the Auto Update expiration date for virtually every Chromebook ever, but a good rule of thumb is to buy the newest machine you can to maximize your support.
Chromebooks started out notoriously cheap, with list prices often coming in under $300. But as they’ve gone more mainstream, they’ve transitioned from being essentially modern netbooks to the kind of laptop you’ll want to use all day. As such, prices have increased a bit over the last few years. At this point, you should expect to spend at least $400 if you want a solid daily driver. There are still many budget options out there that may be suitable as couch machines or secondary devices, but Chromebooks that can be an all-day, every-day laptop will cost a bit more.
There are also plenty of premium Chromebooks that approach or even exceed $1,000, but I don’t recommend spending that much. Generally, that’ll get you a better design with more premium materials, as well as more powerful internals and extra storage space. Of course, you also sometimes pay for the brand name. But, the specs I outlined earlier are usually enough.
Right now, there actually aren’t too many Chromebooks that cost that much. The Google Pixelbook Go comes in $999 and $1,399 configurations, but the more affordable $650 and $850 options will be just as good for nearly everyone. Samsung released the $1,000 Galaxy Chromebook in 2020; this luxury device does almost everything right but has terrible battery life. Samsung quickly learned from that mistake and is now offering the Galaxy Chromebook 2 with more modest specs, but vastly better battery life at a more affordable price . For the most part, you don’t need to spend more than $850 to get a premium Chromebook that’ll last you years.
Lenovo has been making some of the best Chromebooks you can buy for several years now and, more recently, it has once again made the best option for most people. The IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook is essentially an upgraded version of the model we recommended last year, and there are a few notable improvements. The 13.3-inch, 1080p touchscreen is extremely bright and fairly sharp; I wish it had a taller aspect ratio than 16:9, but this type of screen is very commonplace in Chromebooks. This Lenovo Chromebook runs on a 11th-generation Intel Core i3 processor and includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage; both of those are double what last year’s model offered. Eight hours of battery life is pretty good for a laptop in this price range, and the backlit keyboard is excellent for such an affordable device. The key caps feel a little small under my fingers, but that’s the only real complaint I have.
The Flex 5i is no longer available directly from Lenovo, but you can commonly find it on Amazon for about $400 (as of this writing, it is selling for $409; when I bought it, it was priced at $390). That’s an outstanding value.
Other things in the Flex 5i’s favor include that it has both USB-C and USB-A ports, a microSD card slot and a security lock. At three pounds and 0.66 inches thick, it’s not the lightest or slimmest option out there, but it’s totally reasonable considering the price. Finally, the Flex 5i will receive software and security updates until June of 2029, so you can buy this computer and have it covered for years to come.
Ultimately, the Ideapad Flex 5i hits the sweet spot for a large majority of Chromebook buyers out there, providing a level of quality and performance that’s pretty rare to find at this price point. That said, given this laptop has been out for over a year now, we’re keeping an eye out for a replacement from Lenovo, as well as comparable options other manufacturers release.
One to look out for is Lenovo’s Chromebook 5i, which the company recently released. Right now, it’s only available with an Intel Pentium Gold processor and 4GB of RAM; in my testing, that wasn’t enough power by modern standards. The device froze up far too often, and the IdeaPad Flex 5i with its i3 processor was clearly faster at everything I tried. But Lenovo says it’ll offer the Chromebook 5i with up to an Intel i5 processor, which should make the laptop worth checking out.
Last year, Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook 2 was one of my recommendations for people looking for a more premium Chromebook. Now that Samsung often sells the device for $550, it’s an excellent all-purpose recommendation if you want something more svelte and stylish than Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5i.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 is infinitely more stylish than most other Chromebooks, with a bright metallic red finish and sleek design. This Samsung Chromebook 2 fixes some of the serious flaws we identified in the original Galaxy Chromebook. Specifically, the 2020 Galaxy Chromebook had terrible battery life and cost $999; this year’s model can be found for $550 and can last seven hours off the charger. That’s not great, but it’s far better than the lousy four hours the original offered.
Samsung cut a few corners to lower the Galaxy Chromebook 2’s price. Most noticeable is the 1080p 13.3-inch touchscreen, down from the 4K panel on the older model. The good news is that the display is among the best 1080p laptop screens I’ve seen in a long time, and the lower resolution helps the battery life, too. Along with that excellent screen, the device also has a very comfortable keyboard, though I wish the trackpad was a little bigger. The Galaxy Chromebook 2 is also a bit thicker and heavier than its predecessor, but it’s still reasonably compact. At 13.9mm thick and 2.7 pounds, it’s noticeably smaller than the Lenovo.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has a 10th-generation Intel Core i3 processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is plenty. This all adds up to a laptop that isn’t as ambitious as the first Galaxy Chromebook, but one that is much easier to recommend. Instead of pushing to have the best screen in the thinnest and lightest body with a faster processor, Samsung pulled everything back a bit to make a better-priced but still premium Chromebook laptop. Given that the Galaxy Chromebook 2 is well over a year old now, I wouldn’t recommend spending $700 on it – but if you can catch it on sale for $550 (as it is right now), it’s a solid option.
Acer’s Chromebook Spin 714 is an evolution of the Spin 713 that I recommended last year. Acer made a few tweaks to the formula, but you’re still getting a well-built, powerful laptop that won’t turn any heads with its design but gets the job done well.
I loved the display on the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, and unfortunately the one on the Spin 714 isn’t quite as exciting. It’s a 14-inch, 1900x1200 touchscreen; that works out to a taller 16:10 aspect ratio than you’ll get from the 1080p panels on most other premium Chromebooks. I’m a big fan of taller laptop screens – but the Spin 713 had a 13.5-inch screen that had an even taller 3:2 aspect ratio and a higher resolution. I can’t help but wonder if Acer found that people still prefer a widescreen display. If that’s the case, the Spin 714’s display is a nice middle ground.
Putting aside these comparisons to last year’s model, the Acer Spin 714’s screen is still very nice – it can get uncomfortably bright if that’s your thing, and the bezels are thin. It’s not nearly as pixel-dense as the Spin 713, but it’s still plenty sharp. Between the extra vertical height and the slightly larger screen size, the Spin 714’s display is a pleasure to use.
As for the rest of the hardware, the 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor is more than enough power for most everyday tasks, and the keyboard and trackpad are solid, if not the best I’ve used before. The same can be said for battery life: I got about seven hours using the Spin 714 in my normal daily routine – not exceptional, but in line with what I’ve seen on other Chromebooks with an i5 processor. Rounding out the hardware is 8GB of RAM and a generous 256GB of storage space. From a support perspective, Google will offer software and security updates until June of 2030.
Another bonus is that its hardware meets Google’s recommended specs to run Steam, though the alpha build is still limited to seven devices. So while it’s not officially supported yet, Steam will hopefully work on this laptop once Google and Valve start rolling it out more widely.
Just as the name suggests, the Spin 714 has a 360-degree hinge which lets you use the laptop in tablet mode. I’m not particularly a fan of this – I don’t know who wants to use a 3-plus pound tablet, but Acer did include a built-in stylus for handwriting notes or drawing in apps like the built-in Chrome Canvas.
The Spin 714 configuration I tested costs $730 – that’s a lot of money for even a high-end Chromebook. But it’s not an unreasonable price for a computer with these specs and built quality. For most people, the Lenovo will be enough. But, if you’re a serious multitasker, want a better display and keyboard, or just want a computer that’ll last as long as possible, the Acer Spin 714 is easy to recommend.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 laptop with its lid open sitting on a wooden table.
Article tags
With its last batch of MacBook Pros, Apple gave its more demanding fans everything they wanted: Tons of ports, lots of power, and genuinely great screens. As usual, the company is following up that major redesign with a straightforward chip upgrade, featuring the new M2 Pro and M2 Max. They're faster, as you'd expect, but they also deliver a few features power users may appreciate, like 8K video output and support for WiFi 6E.
Once Apple locks in a redesign, it typically doesn't mess with a good thing (save for complete disasters like the trashcan Mac Pro). So it's no surprise to see that this year's MacBook Pro 14 doesn't look any different than the 2021 model. It still boasts a gorgeous 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display with ProMotion support and a prominent notch housing a 1080p webcam. It has all of the ports you'd actually want, including a MagSafe power connection, three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, HDMI, a headphone jack and a full-sized SD card slot. And the overall shape of the computer remains relatively flat, an evolution of the long-lived unibody MacBook Pro design.
Under the hood, though, the MacBook Pro 14 has been dramatically upgraded. It can be equipped with Apple's new M2 Pro chip, which offers up to a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU, or the M2 Max, which squeezes in a 12-core CPU and 38-core GPU. Much like Intel's new hybrid processors, as well as mobile chips from Qualcomm, Apple relies on a combination of core speeds for its CPUs (the 12-core chips, for example, have eight performance cores and four efficiency cores). The previous M1 Pro and M1 Max topped out with 10 CPU cores and 16 or 32 GPU cores, respectively.
Apple claims the M2 Pro is around 20 percent faster than its predecessor in CPU speeds, and up to 30 percent faster when it comes to graphics. The M2 Max, meanwhile, is up to 30 percent faster than the M1 Max in terms of graphics. We tested the fully-upgraded $3,299 MacBook Pro, which was equipped with the M2 Max chip with 38 GPU cores and 64GB of RAM. It scored around 2,600 points (19 percent) faster in the GeekBench 5 multitasking CPU benchmark, compared to the M1 Max-equipped MacBook Pro 16. It was also 18 percent faster in the GPU-powered GeekBench 5 Compute test and a whopping 60 percent faster than the M1 Max Mac Studio in the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme benchmark.
None | Geekbench 5 CPU | Geekbench 5 Compute | Cinebench R23 | 3DMark Wildlife Extreme |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M2 Max, 2023) | 1,970/15,338 | 71,583 | 1,603/14,725 | 18 ,487 |
Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch, (Apple M2, 2022) | 1,938/8,984 | 27,304 | 1,583/8,719 | 6,767 |
Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M1 Pro) | 1,767/11,777 | 38,359 | 1,515/12,118 | N/A |
Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (Apple M1 Max, 2021) | 1,783/12,693 | 60,167 | 1,524/12,281 | N/A |
Apple Mac Studio (Apple M1 Ultra) | 1,785/23,942 | 85,800 | 1,537/24,078 | 10,020 |
These are phenomenal results if you're planning to use the MacBook Pro to its full potential. But I'll admit, during everyday usage, I didn't notice any major performance benefits over the previous models. That's not really a knock against the new computer, it's more a testament to how much Apple got right last time. Unlike PCs, you probably won't be gaming too much with your Mac, either, so there's less of a reason to chase frequent upgrades. On that note, it's nice to see some modern games with native Mac support. Resident Evil Village easily hits 60fps on the MacBook Pro at full resolution, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true for the M1 models.
If you're among the folks dealing with large video encoding or high compute jobs daily, though, it may be worth moving up from the last MacBook Pro. It took me 31 seconds to transcode a minute-long 4K clip into 1080p using Handbrake — but the M1 Max MacBook Pro 16 took a full 10 seconds longer. Extrapolate that to longer jobs and you could be saving yourself some serious time. And if you've managed to hold out with an Intel MBP until now, it's definitely time to upgrade — you'll easily see a night and day difference in speed.
Aside from its performance, the MacBook Pro 14 remains a wonderful workhorse to live with. The MiniLED Liquid Retina display looks fantastically bright, especially when viewing HDR content. Mostly, though, I appreciated the smooth scrolling thanks to Apple's 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate. The six speaker sound system remains excellent, with crisp and punchy audio that's leagues ahead of most other laptops. And I remain impressed with the MacBook Pro's built-in three-mic array. It's no replacement for a dedicated USB microphone, but it sounds great during video calls.
The MacBook Pro's keyboard is certainly better than the old butterfly models, but I wish Apple was able to deliver more key travel. It's still great to type on, to be clear, I'm just feeling a bit spoiled from the mechanical keyboards I've seen in some gaming laptops. The Pro's trackpad remains best in class though, with a large surface area and responsive performance. After testing the XPS 13 Plus last year, which featured an attractive yet hard to use trackpad hidden in the wrist rest, I'm even more appreciative of Apple's clean design. It turns out that being able to feel the difference between the trackpad and the wrist rest is pretty helpful!
Apple is touting better battery life as another major benefit of the M2 Pro and Max chips, and I definitely noticed an improvement. The previous MacBook Pro lasted 12 hours and 36 minutes during our testing, but the new model made it to 15 hours and 10 minutes. That's a healthy step up, especially if you find yourself stuck on a long flight without any working outlets. Apple says that the new MacBook Pros can reach up to 22 hours of battery life, but take note that figure only refers to the 16-inch model.
Just like last time, the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 — a huge leap from the $1,299 13-inch model. I'm still a bit baffled by that MacBook Pro, though. Most mainstream shoppers would be better off with the revamped M2 MacBook Air, while power users might as well bump up to this more powerful 14-inch model. If you're aiming for something bigger, the 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,499. New gear also means the old models will inevitably go on sale, so it's worth keeping an eye on the M1 Pro and Max machines if you're aiming to save some money. Sure, they're a bit slower, but you could put that extra money towards buying more RAM or storage.
It's no wonder Apple announced the new MacBook Pros without much fanfare. It's just a simple spec bump, not the sort of thing most buyers would get too excited about. But for the creative professionals who need the most power possible, it's another reason to stick with Apple instead of jumping to a PC.
MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023)
MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This week, Apple announced and set the release date for the new MacBook Pros and both Amazon and Best Buy rushed to offer a slight discount on pre orders. Amazon also knocked a hefty 40 percent off many of their Fire Tablets, including the new Fire HD 8. Bose's QC II earbuds are back down to $250, and a couple robot vacuums are on sale, including the best budget vac we've tried, iRobot's Roomba 694. We also found a few deals on SSD cards from both Samsung and Crucial, plus a tidy 32 percent discount on one of our favorite tiny Bluetooth speakers. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Amazon's own tablets are already among the most affordable out there but right now, you can grab the latest eight-inch HD model for just $60. That's a 40 percent discount off the usual $100 price tag and while it's not quite the all-time low we saw for Black Friday, it's still an extremely low price for a tablet. For a moderate upgrade the Fire HD 8 Plus adds an extra gigabyte of ram, wireless charging and improved cameras. Right now it's 33 percent off, for a sale price of $80. You can save a larger percentage on the 10-inch models like the Fire HD 10. It's down to $85, or 43 percent off the list price. It's important to note that these are all ad-supported models, meaning you'll see ads from Amazon on your lock screen. The non-ad-supported models are currently full price.
While Fire tablets don't have the level of processing power or performance that you'd get from a more expensive iPad or Galaxy Tab, they're decent options for casual web browsing, e-reading and video streaming. The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is what we recommend for kids in our latest tablet guide and the sale brings it down to $140 or $60 off the list price. Fire tablets for kids don't have ad-supported versions and include a year of Amazon Kids+ which offers thousands of kid-oriented games, apps and videos. Plus it comes with a protective case with a handle that doubles as a kickstand.
It was just released back in September, but the new 2022 Kindle Kids just got its first discount at Amazon. The kid-focused e-reader is $85 right now, which is $35 less than its usual $120. The Kindle Paperwhite for Kids is also on sale for $110, or $50 off the usual price. The Paperwhite edition adds waterproofing, adjustable warm light, and a slightly larger screen (6.8 inches vs the Kindle Kids' 6-inch screen). The deal isn't the lowest we've seen, but it's only $5 more than its all-time low during last year's holiday sales.
Both kid-focused Kindles include a year subscription to Amazon Kids+, which grants access to thousands of age-appropriate e-books and audiobooks. They also have a Parent Dashboard to set age filters and device time limits. The new Kindle Kids ups the storage capacity to 16GB, while the Paperwhite is available in either an 8GB size or a 16GB size. You can also snag the same deals on the Kindle Kids at Best Buy or Target if you prefer.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9 usually retails for $1,100, but right now it's $ 929, which is cheaper than it's been since its release back in October. The slab is our current favorite Windows tablet thanks to its laptop-like capabilities with a slim tablet design. With Windows 11 and a 12th-gen Intel Evo i5 processor, the tablet is built for productivity. You also get a beautiful display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and improved stereo speakers. There's a front-facing camera that allows for facial recognition for easier log-ins. Unlike many tablets, you can access and upgrade the SSD as needed. The larger app icons and touch-friendly controls in Windows 11 make it easy to use as a tablet, or you can add a keyboard and mouse for a full laptop-like experience.
If you want to shut out the world, we recommend going with Bose's QuietComfort Earbuds II. They usually sell for $300, but right now at Amazon the earbuds are down to $250. We've seen the buds dip to this price a few times in the past, and it matches their sale price for Black Friday last year. While $250 still isn't cheap, if you're ready to invest in a set of earbuds with the best noise cancellation we've tried, saving $50 could help. We gave them a score of 87 in our review, giving them kudos for their sound quality, comfort and ambient (transparent) sound — in addition to the phenomenal ANC.
The latest Apple laptops haven't even been released, yet the base configuration of the new MacBook Pro with the brand's fastest M2 Pro processor chip is seeing its first discount both on Amazon, which has it for $50 off, and Best Buy, where members can get a $100 gift card along with a pre-order. It's rare for new Apple products to get discounts this early, but the two retailers are hoping the savings will help you click Add to Cart through their sites. Announced earlier this week, the new computers have the new, faster M2 Pro chip, plus support for WiFi 6E and an HDMI port that supports 8K up to 60Hz and 4K displays up to 240Hz. Battery life has also been upgraded with lifespans of up to 22 hours, the longest ever on a Mac, according to Apple.
Note that Amazon's $50 discount applies to the space gray colorway in the base configurations of the 14- or 16-inch models. The 14-inch base model has a 10-core CPU, 16‑core GPU and 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. The 16-inch model has 12-core CPU, a 19-Core GPU, 16GB RAM and 12GB of SSD storage. The Best Buy gift card offer applies to more configurations, but is only available to TotalTech members, a $200-per-year membership that you can sign up for with your pre-order. Compared to the list price of $2,000 for the 14-inch base model, these aren't huge discounts, but if you were planning on getting Apple's latest release anyway, you may as well save yourself a little cash. The computers will release next Tuesday, January 24th.
Sony's 65-inch X95K Bravia mini LED TV is $1,000 off right now, bringing the price down to $1,798. That's the lowest price the set has gone for since its release last May. If you want a bigger screen, the 75-inch model is $500 off, bringing that one down to $2,498. Amazon is offering other Sony sets at a discount as well, including some high-end OLED and 4K LED sets like the 55-inch Sony Bravia XR A80K Series 4K Ultra HD TV, which is 35 percent off or $1,298.
A slightly more affordable TV, Sony's Sony 65 Inch 4K Ultra HD TV is 30 percent off its usual $1,000 price tag, bringing that set down to $698. All the sets come with Google's smart TV OS, Google TV, which we liked for its super simple streaming interface. And since Sony also makes the PlayStation, many of these sets include bonus features designed to enhance the look of your PS5 gaming. With the Super Bowl in the US around the corner, this might be a good week to upgrade if you've had your eye on a Sony.
When your PC or console edges close to its storage limits, it might be time to grab an SSD or memory card. Right now Amazon is hosing a sale on Samsung storage options, including the 980 Pro SSD in the 2TB capacity. We named it the best SSD for your PS5 in our guide (and included instructions on how to install it). Right now it's a steep 53 percent off, bringing it down to just $180. It's a fast PCIe Gen4 NVMe drive with read speeds up to 7,000MB/s, but it also has a reputation for reliability. Also on sale is the 256GB Evo Select microSD card for just $20, that's a 52 percent discount on a card that'll expand the storage of a tablet, Android phone or a Nintendo Switch.
Storage from Crucial is also on sale at Amazon right now, with the 1TB option down to $62, which beats its Black Friday price. The MX500 SSD is a good option for adding extra storage to a computer that's nearing capacity, either extending the life of an older device or simply upgrading what you've recently picked up. The 2.5-inch design should fit most laptops and desktops, and it supports read speeds up to 560MB/s and write speeds up to 510MB/s. AES 256-bit hardware encryption is built in and also comes with power loss immunity to protect your saved data it the power goes out. We also appreciate that the MX500 comes in a number of capacity options. The 1TB is arguably best for most people, but you can get it as low as 250GB or as high as 4TB — and all configurations are discounted right now.
This turned out to be a great week for anyone looking to dive into automated cleaning for their floors. Our current "best overall" pick in our budget robot vacuum guide is just $174 at Amazon right now. That's $95 off its usual price and just $4 more than it was for Black Friday. We like iRobot's Roomba 694 machine for its good cleaning power and simple app. We think iRobot's app is great, and even those new to robot vacuums will feel comfortable setting schedules for a mostly hands-free experience (you'll still need to empty the vac once its full).
We had a chance to try the iRobot Roomba Combo j7+ a couple of months ago and liked the way it worked its way into a daily cleaning routine with minimal fuss (after contending with the initial mapping of the floor plan). The unit self-empties into the base and the app is "beautifully simple." We feel that the water reservoir might need refilling to get a full clean in larger homes, but the fact that it lifts up the mop pad when not in use to avoid dripping on your carpet is a nice touch. The price is steep, usually going for $1,100, but right now both Wellbots and Amazon are knocking $200 off the list price, making it a slightly more manageable $900.
One of our favorite mice for general productivity is the Pebble mouse from Logitech and right now, the blue and tan colorways are down to $22. We liked the mobile mouse for its slim portability that still had enough heft to feel reassuring in the hand. It's got a simple, two button plus a wheel configuration and can connect via Bluetooth or with the included USB dongle (which conveniently stores in the battery compartment). The long battery life can get up to 18 months on a single AA and while it might not be the most comfortable for extended use, you can't beat the price for an on-the-go mouse.
A carryover that's still going strong this week, Tribit's StormBox Micro 2 is down to $48 from its usual $70 at Amazon right now. It's one of of the Bluetooth speakers we recommend in the sub-$200 range thanks to its compact size that manages to pump out decent volume. It'll get up to 12 hours of play time on a charge and you can even use the unit as a USB-C power bank to charge your phone. Pair up two of them for stereo sound and is waterproof enough to handle a dunk into water.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Amazon Fire Tablets
An assortment of Amazon Fire Tablets, including the kid's tablet.
FreshRSS 
