Hasta La Gadget!

Students using Google Classroom won’t have to wait until a test to know how well they understand a concept. Google has previewed an upcoming “practice sets” feature in Classroom that lets teachers gauge progress through automatically graded assignments. Pupils can see real-time feedback on their answers, and can ask for hints through explainers and videos. Teachers, meanwhile, will know which students are struggling with a given problem.

Google is currently testing Classroom practice sets with some schools, and plans a beta release sometime in the “coming months.” They’ll be available to both teachers using the Teaching and Learning Upgrade as well as schools using Google Workspace for Education Plus. The company is encouraging would-be early adopters to register their interest in joining the beta.

Classroom’s practice feature won’t always be useful. Not every exercise can fit into a web form, after all. When it is relevant, though, it could help teachers devote more attention to individual students or focus lesson time on concepts that stymie the class at large. Kids will ideally be well-prepared for tests, while educators can refine their courses.

Ever since their launch in mid-July 2019, Sony’s WF-1000XM3 wireless earbuds have remained as one of the best in-ear wireless buds you can buy. With impressive sound quality and excellent noise cancellation, the XM3s were great value at their regular $200 price, but right now you can pick up a pair at Amazon for just $118. That’s a whopping 40-percent discount and the lowest price we’ve seen yet.

Buy Sony WF-1000XM3 ANC Earbuds at Amazon – $118

The WF-1000XM3s scored an 89 in our Engadget review and placed number one in our 2019 wireless earbuds buyer’s guide. That’s down, in part, to the excellent sound quality with bass that’s powerful yet clear, bright highs and solid performance for all genres of music. The active noise cancellation is also seriously good, blocking out most background noise, while lasting around six hours on a charge with the feature enabled. The case, however, will provide you with roughly another 18 hours of juice for when you’re on the go.

There are some minor downsides, including the blocky design of the buds and case, which Sony did improve with the launch of the $248 WF-1000XM4 model — which have also topped our wireless earphone buyer’s guide. Those six hours of battery life are also two less than the eight hours offered by its successor.

If it’s over-ears you want, we should remind you that our current favorite pair of ANC headphones, Sony’s WH-1000XM4, are still discounted to $278 right now. That’s $72 off their usual price and close to an all-time low. They earned a score of 94 from us for their powerful ANC, immersive sound quality and multi-device connectivity.

Ever see recipe on TikTok and wish you could quickly buy all the necessary ingredients online? You just might. Instacart has introduced “Shoppable Recipes” that help you snap up ingredients when you see a meal on TikTok and supporting websites. Tap a button and Instacart will both find the needed in-stock items as well as help you arrange delivery. You could spot a dinner idea in the afternoon and have everything you require by the evening without planning a trip to the grocery store.

Support for TikTok recipes is “gradually” rolling out to creators using the Jump feature. Web access will initially launch as part of a team-up with Hearst, which will provide shopping buttons on sites like Country Living and Good Housekeeping. More tie-ins will be announced later in the year, Instacart said.

The strategy isn’t subtle. Instacart is clearly hoping the added convenience will persuade you to choose its service over rivals like Uber. To some extent, this is also about extending the brand — the recipe buttons will serve as Instacart ads that might prove influential even if you aren’t keen on a given recipe.

Slack has furnished its iPad app with a much-needed update. The highlight of the release is a redesigned interface that introduces a two-column layout to the app. If you’re already familiar with the desktop version of Slack, you know what to expect. You have access to a sidebar that allows you to quickly access different channels and direct messages, with the content of those conversations appearing in a separate right-hand pane. Slack suggests the layout makes it easier to multitask and stay productive.

Complementing the new layout are a handful of enhancements to the sidebar. For instance, you can now long-press on a channel to access a contextual menu that allows you to do things like copy a link to it. Slack has also made it so that your section preferences will sync between the desktop and iPad versions of the app, so your sidebar will stay consistent between devices. Lastly, the update features a few accessibility enhancements. As just one example, Slack has added improved support for Apple’s VoiceOver screen-reading feature.

The timing of the update could not have been better. This week, following a delay late last year, Apple released its new Universal Control feature. Once you installed iOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 on your devices, you can use a single keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) to control your Mac and iPad at the same time. In that way, you can use your iPad as a kind of secondary display. 

Only a month after revealing the Pro Cinema LS12000 laser projector, Epson is bringing much of the same tech to a cheaper model. The Home Cinema LS11000 4K PRO-UHD also uses multi-array laser diodes as the light source (which Epson says will last for up to 20,000 hours), as well as pixel-shifting technology and a three-chip LCD system.

The company claims its precision shift glass plate can refract light accurately to deliver an “exceptionally sharp and clear picture” with a 3,840 x 2,160, 8.29 million-pixel image at a display size of up to 300 inches. It says the Epson Picture Processor can handle resolution enhancement, frame interpolation, color, contrast and HDR imagery in real time. The projector supports HDR10, HLG and HDR10+, though there’s no mention of Dolby Vision.

The LS11000 can output 4K images at 120 fps with input lag times below 20 milliseconds, according to Epson. That could make it a solid choice for large-display gaming, though the lag might not quite cut it for high-performance players who need to minimize input latency. There are two HDMI 2.1 ports on the rear, one of which has eARC/ARC and Dolby Atmos support.

At 2,500 lumens, the LS11000 isn’t quite as bright as the 2,700-lumen LS12000. It has a lower contrast ratio of 1,200,000:1 compared with the LS12000’s 2,500,000:1. For those key tradeoffs, you’ll save $1,000 by opting for the LS11000. Epson’s latest laser projector costs $3,999 and it will ship later this month.