Google has revealed some minor, albeit handy, updates for Workspace. Soon, when you join a Google Meet call or start presenting on one from a Docs, Sheets or Slides file, you’ll have an easier way to share that file with other attendees through the meeting’s chat panel. You can grant everyone on the call access to the file or limit it to select attendees. You’ll all be able to collaborate on the document, spreadsheet or presentation while you’re on the call.
Elsewhere, Google says it will take your recent Gmail search activity into account to improve search results when you use the email service on the web. The company says this will make your Gmail search results more relevant and contextual. Lastly for now, there’s a requested feature on the way to Sheets that will enable users to resize the pivot table editor side panel. This should come in useful when the names of some pivot table columns or fields are too long and you’d like to see all of the text.
Google says these updates will be available to all Workspace and G Suite users within the next 15 business days. The company recently announced a welcome upgrade to the Workspace individual plan by increasing the amount of storage from 15GB to 1TB at no extra cost to users.
Galvin, who succeeded Platt in the title role of Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen,” said he “cried for like 7 hours” after his longtime boyfriend popped the question.
Today’s the day that the uncrewed Orion capsule reaches its ultimate destination, a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. For that to happen, however, the spacecraft must successfully execute a trajectory correction burn, which you can watch live right here.
That tablet supports a “hover” feature. It can detect when the Pencil is within 12mm of the screen. You’ll be able to see a preview of any mark you plan to make on a sketch or design before you apply it. Apple says this feature will allow for greater precision. If you hold the peripheral over an app on your homescreen or dock, the screen will zoom in slightly, as though you’re aiming a mouse pointer at the app.
The second-gen Apple Pencil pairs with your iPad automatically, so you won’t need to futz around with Bluetooth to connect them. The peripheral can also magnetically attach to the side of certain models, which will charge the Pencil too.
It’s definitely worth making sure your iPad is compatible with this device before you snap it up. It works with the sixth-gen iPad mini, iPad Air (5th and 4th-gen), 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd, 4th, and 5th generations) and 11-inch iPad Pro (3rd, 2nd, and 1st generations). The second-gen pencil is not compatible with the entry-level iPad, not even the redesigned model that Apple released last month.
Black Friday is usually a good time to pick up some new gaming gear at lower-than-usual price, and generally speaking, that’s the case again this year. Today we’re seeing strong discounts on a number of the year’s highest-profile games, special offers for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S and a wide range of discounts on gaming accessories we like. To help you figure out what’s worth your time, we’ve picked through the avalanche of offers at Amazon, Walmart, GameStop and other retailers and rounded up a few of the highlights below. Here are the best Black Friday gaming deals we could find.
Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Switch Online
Engadget
Nintendo’s chief Black Friday deal bundles the standard Switch console with a digital copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a three-month subscription to the company’s Switch Online service at no extra cost. Nintendo has offered this exact same promotion for the past few years, and given that the newer Switch OLED is a pretty firm upgrade over the base model, it’s hard to call this a great deal. Still, if you’re gifting someone their first Switch and you don’t think they’ll need the Switch OLED’s bigger and more vibrant display, there’s some value here. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still a great time and normally retails around $50, while three months of Switch Online typically cost another $8.
The Xbox Series S is down to $250 with a $50 store gift card at Target, which is effectively a $100 discount. At Woot, the diminutive console is available for $220 outright, while Amazon has it for $240 and several other retailers have it for $250. Normally, the Series S retails for $300. Either way, this is a good value for PlayStation or Switch users who want a cheaper way into the Xbox ecosystem. We gave the Series S a review score of 85 at launch: It isn’t powerful enough for 4K gaming, lacks a disc drive and only has 512GB of built-in storage, but it can still play all the same games as the pricier Xbox Series X.
If you need a spare gamepad for your Xbox or PC, Microsoft’s wireless Xbox Series X/S controller is currently available from $39 at several retailers. While that’s not the absolute lowest price we’ve seen, it’s still about $10 below the controller’s usual going rate. The sale applies to multiple finishes, though some colors are priced $5 higher. Just note that these pads still rely on AA batteries by default; if you want one rechargeable battery, that’ll cost you another $25.
Sony’s DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5, meanwhile, are down to $49 in several finishes. That matches the lowest price we’ve seen, and depending on what color you choose, comes in either $20 or $25 below the pad’s usual price. In general, the DualSense is harder to hook up with a PC than its Xbox counterpart, but its D-pad isn’t as clicky, it doesn’t rely on AA batteries and its haptic feedback system is much more nuanced.
One of the most acclaimed and popular games of 2022, Elden Ringis a mammoth, haunting and challenging open-world game from the developers behind the Souls series of action-RPGs. It’s currently on sale for $35, which is the lowest price we’ve tracked and $15 below its usual going rate. Like its spiritual predecessors, Elden Ring can sometimes feel punishing, overwhelming and overly cryptic, but its dark-fantasy world is refreshingly honest, letting you discover — or completely miss — its many secrets at your own pace.
If you’re need something new to play on your Switch, a handful of well-regarded first-party Nintendo games are discounted deeper than usual. The colorful multiplayer shooter Splatoon 3, for one, is down to a new low of $45, and the tense adventure game Metroid Dreadis available for a new low of $40. The cutesy strategy game Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is still priced at $60, meanwhile, but it includes a $10 store gift card at various retailers.
Most of these deals are only available at third-party retailers like Amazon — and some aren’t visible until checkout — but if you’re not interested, Nintendo has several other titles discounted at its online eShop.
If you’re looking to build out your PS5 library, meanwhile, several exclusives for Sony’s console are also down to new lows. There are no discounts on God of War: Ragnarok, sadly, but one of our other favorite sequels of the year, the robot-fighting open-world game Horizon Forbidden West, is down to a new low of $35 (or $29 for PS4).
If you need to top up your PlayStation Plus subscription, Sony has dropped the price of 12-month memberships to that service by 25 percent. The deal applies to all three PS Plus tiers, so the basic “Essential” tier is down to $45, the “Extra” tier is down to $75, and the “Premium” tier is down to $90.
As a refresher, the Essential tier should be enough for most: It gets you broad access to online multiplayer, an allotment of cloud storage for backing up game saves and a handful of free game downloads each month. The Extra tier adds an on-demand library with a few hundred games, while the Premium tier provides cloud game streaming and an additional selection of “classic” PlayStation games on top of that.
The Backbone One is a clever and well-built mobile game controller that we’ve recommend in previous buying guides. The PlayStation-branded, iPhone version of the device is currently down to a new low of $64, which is $36 off its normal going rate. If you don’t like the look of that model, the standard version is also down to $75, though the two are functionally identical.
Either way, the One should make playing gamepad-compatible iOS games — or cloud-streamed console and PC games — feel much more natural than a touchscreen. The main complaints are that its face buttons are on the clicky side and that you’ll need an adapter to get it to work with certain iPhones.
Meta’s Quest 2 headset is a couple years old at this point, but its standalone design, competent performance and relative comfort have kept it the best option for most people looking to give virtual reality a try. For Black Friday, Meta is selling a bundle that pairs the 128GB Quest 2 with two of its better games, the classic horror game Resident Evil 4and the energetic rhythm game Beat Saber, for $350. That’s a roughly $50 discount. If you need more storage, a bundle with the 256GB variant is on sale for $429.
Now, we’re using the term “discount” with some caveats here, since the Quest 2 used to start at $299 until Meta jacked the price up by another $100 earlier this year. Still, this is the best deal we’ve seen since that price hike — and if nothing else, it’s a much better value than the Meta Quest Pro. We gave the device formerly known as the Oculus Quest 2 a review score of 89 when it launched back in 2020.
The HyperX Cloud Alpha is down to $55 at Amazon, which is about $15 below its usual going rate and one of the best prices we’ve tracked. This is a sturdy, no-frills gaming headset that’s comfortable to wear for hours at a time. A good set of non-gaming headphones will sound better for the price, but what’s here is still relatively well-balanced, and the included mic is perfectly fine for everyday party chats.
Logitech G Pro X Superlight, plus more gaming accessories
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
Logitech’s G Pro X Superlight is a high-performing gaming mouse we like for both work and play, and right now it’s back down to its all-time low of $110, or about $25 off its usual street price. That’s still not cheap, but the G Pro X Superlight stands out for being exceptionally light (at about 63 grams), quick to glide, and consistently responsive in faster-paced games. Just note that you only get a couple of customizable shortcut buttons, and that the whole thing connects over a USB dongle, not Bluetooth.
This is just one of a plethora of low or near-low prices on gaming accessories we like, though. If you want a high-performing gaming mouse for less and don’t mind going wired, Razer’s Viper 8KHz is a good value at its current deal price of $40, which is an all-time low. We’ve previously recommendedRazer’s Huntsman Mini for those who want a fast gaming keyboard in an ultracompact form factor; it’s currently within $5 of its all-time low at $70. Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite is a great buy for MMO gaming at $49, while Logitech’s G29 remains a fine value for those looking to get their first racing wheel at $200. 8BitDo’s excellent Pro 2 gamepad for Switch and PC, meanwhile, is down to a joint-low of $40 as of this writing, but only in a limited-time Lightning sale.
A configuration of Razer’s Blade 14 with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX chip, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an RTX 3080 GPU is currently down to $2,000 at Amazon. That’s about $300 off its typical street price and tied for the best price we’ve tracked. We gave the Blade 14 a review score of 84 last year, and we’ve recommended the similar Blade 15 in recent buying guides and gift guides. It can run a bit hot, and you can still get similarly powerful gaming laptops for less, but it still puts enough power to play demanding games at higher settings in a slim and slick-feeling design that weighs less than four pounds.
Since Elon Musk took over, Twitter has been a rollercoaster, particularly when it comes to the verification process. Here’s what Musk’s latest solution is.
Viruses are a common concern for internet users. Adding additional security to your phone may be a helpful solution, but only if you know exactly how they work.
When I first received my DROP x Lord of the Rings keyboard, it was one of those packages that you come home to after a trip: a delightful surprise, and one I had been looking forward to since I had first agreed to write a review of the new Lord of the Rings special edition. I debated between the Elvish and the Dwarvish
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