Amazon’s voice-ordering Dash Wand is now almost free for Prime users

If you live in the US and subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can now get the Dash Wand for free (or almost free, anyway).

Amazon in 2014 unveiled a Wi-Fi wand with a built-in microphone and barcode scanner. Called Dash, it looked like a Nintendo Wii remote, but it let you add items to your shopping list with your voice. All you had to do is press the mic button to say the name of an item, like “chocolate chip cookies. Dash would automatically add it. You could also go around house and scan things with the barcode scanner.

Whether it be an oatmeal container or a bottle of dish soap, you could add it to your Amazon cart. Amazon suggested you keep Dash in your kitchen or hang it on your refrigerator so you could grab it at anytime to restock household goods. Dash connected to your home’s Wi-Fi network and recognised millions of items available on AmazonFresh and Amazon. Now, you can get the new one for free.

Amazon

• Amazon’s Dash wand lets you scan and shop from home
• Amazon Alexa calling: How to block calls and messages to your Echo
• Amazon Echo gets cool new features, check out what Alexa can do now

Amazon has reduced its latest Dash Wand, which is an Alexa-enabled device, for all Prime subscribers in the US. The second-generation version originally had a $49.99 price, but now, it costs $20. And if Prime subscribers do get it, they will receive $20 credit back in their Amazon accounts, making the purchase free, basically. They will also get a free 90-day trial of AmazonFresh grocery service.

AmazonFresh costs $299 per year (or $14.99 per month). It includes all the benefits of Amazon Prime, but it uniquely offers access to fresh groceries for home delivery.

Microsoft Office is now available in the Windows Store for the first time

If you bought the new Surface Laptop, you can now grab Office 365 for free from Microsoft’s Windows Store.

When Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop recently, it glossed over a major announcement about Microsoft Office; You see, the Surface Laptop runs the Windows 10 S operating system, which can only install apps from the Windows Store. But Microsoft is pitching Surface Laptop as sort of a higher-end Chromebook for students, so the device needs to run software that students require and use.

Now that Surface Laptop is available in stores, Microsoft has made its Microsoft Office suite available in the Windows Store for the first time. That means students can go to Microsoft’s official storefront and load up on the productivity programs. Microsoft also offers web versions of the Office apps, which are powerful and work with the Surface Laptop. But the new desktop apps offer offline access. 

• Which Microsoft Surface device is best for you?
• Microsoft Surface Pro event: What was launched and how to watch
• Microsoft Build 2017: All the announcements that matter

Office in the Windows Store is technically in a “preview” (specifically, the install and update processes are in preview), so because of that early release status, Microsoft is doling out free one-year subscriptions to Office 365 personal if you have a Windows 10 S device. Those of you not using a Windows 10 S device can’t install this new 32-bit version of Office via the Windows Store until it’s out of preview.

One other caveat is that the OneNote 2016 desktop app isn’t ready yet. Check out Microsoft’s support article if you need more details.

• Windows 10 Fall Creators Update: Everything you need to know
• How to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 10 S

The key to better wireless charging lies in quantum mechanics

Wireless charging is a great idea in theory: You can just place your device on a charging mat without having to mess with any wires. But it still doesn’t solve the main hassle of charging in the first place, which is the requirement to leave your device in one place. But now, scientists may have found the answer to that problem using principles from quantum mechanics.

Currently, wireless, or inductive, charging uses an electromagnetic field to transmit energy over very short distances. That’s why your phone, or whatever device you’re charging wirelessly, must remain near a wireless pad in order to actually charge. But Shanhui Fan and his team at Stanford University have published an article in Nature that details a wireless charging system that works even when the charger and device are a meter apart. You can also move around the device while it’s being charged without interrupting the power transfer.

It works by using a principle of quantum mechanics called parity-time symmetry to create a charger with a self-adjusting power flow. A connected amplifier automatically controls the flow of power between the transmitter and receiver. As a device moves further away from the charger, the power levels adjust automatically to ensure an even and uninterrupted flow of current.

There’s a long road ahead before this technology will be viable for consumers. The research team’s experiments only involved powering an LED light bulb; it’s going to take some work to charge an actual phone or similar device. However, it’s an encouraging first step. Eventually this technology could be fine-tuned to work over broader distances. According to New Scientist, the team eventually hopes to use this technology in solar panels above the Earth’s atmosphere, increasing the amount and efficiency of solar power generation.

Via: New Scientist

Source: Nature

Engadget at E3: Why Konami has high hopes for ‘PES 2018’

Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 promises to be the franchise’s best title in years, thanks to a combination of smoother gameplay and improved life-like graphics. Then there’s the fact you’ll be able to play My Club matches as Usain Bolt, the eight-time Olympic gold medalist. Sure, it’s a pure marketing move, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun to have him play for your team. We had the game’s global brand product and manager, Adam Bhatti, join us on our E3 stage to talk more about these features, as well as whether or not Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 will be getting a Nintendo Switch version. Spoiler alert: That’s not a yes-or-no question.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

The Wirecutter’s best deals: The Apple Watch Series 1 (42mm) drops to $230

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Audioengine A2+ Speakers

Street price: $250; MSRP: $250; Deal price: $200

This is one of just a few sales we’ve seen on the the updated A2+ model of this small speaker set and drops the price a full $50 to $200 in cart. The $200 price is available on the Red, Black, and White models. Shipping is free.

The Audioengine A2+ speakers are our small stylish step-up pick for the best computer speakers. Brent Butterworth said, “At just 6 x 4 x 5.25 inches (HWD), it’s only one-third the size of the AV 40, so it’s more practical for the average desktop. The midrange and treble sounds at least as good as the AV 40’s, maybe slightly better. But it can’t play as loud or as deep as the AV 40, mostly because each A2+ has a 2.75-inch woofer. (The AV 40 has 4-inch woofers.) However, you have the option of adding a subwoofer if you like because it has the line outputs you need for connection to a powered subwoofer like Audioengine’s S8.”

Apple Watch Series 1 (Aluminum) 42mm

Street price: $300; MSRP: $300; Deal price: $230

We’ve seen more deals on the Series 1 Apple watches this year (as you might expect with the presence of the Series 2), but this still approaches some of lowest prices we’ve seen on both the 38mm version at $200 and the 42mm version at $230. That’s $70 off respectively, and you can save 5% more with REDcard. A variety of colors are available in each size. Shipping is free.

The Apple Watch Series 1 is our top pick in our guide to the best smartwatch for iPhone users. Kevin Purdy and Dan Frakes write, “If you want a smartwatch for managing your phone notifications, tracking activity and recreational exercise, and doing the gee-whiz things you can accomplish with apps (like texting, checking sports scores, and adjusting your smart thermostat), the Apple Watch Series 1 is your best bet. It has most of the same components as the Series 2, including the same stainless steel and ceramic body options—it only skips the newer model’s built-in GPS and swim-ready waterproofing—and it can use any of Apple’s many watchbands. We also think the base aluminum model is fine for most people, and especially those who want to try out a smartwatch: Unlike with most Apple products, buying the higher-priced models of the Apple Watch doesn’t get you more power or features—just different materials and style.”

Logitech Harmony Elite

Street price: $300; MSRP: $350; Deal price: $250

A new low on a remote for the hardcore home theater enthusiast. While we’ve seen recent bundle deals that get the Harmony Elite roughly this low when you break them down, until this point we hadn’t seen a standalone Elite selling new for quite this low. We’re unlikely to see this $250 price hang around for long. Shipping is free.

The Logitech Harmony Elite is our theater enthusiasts pick for the best universal remote control. Darryl Wilkinson and Grant Clauser write, “If the relative ease of programming, vast control database and smart activities of the Companion just isn’t enough for you, and what you really want is a cool touchscreen to let you tap your home theater into action, and you’d like to integrate even more of your smarthome devices into your system, then you’ll want to investigate the Harmony Elite, the top dog remote in the Logitech lineup.”

Wilkinson and Clauser continue, “The Elite is a pleasure to use, and has the responsiveness and polish of a professionally-installed control system, but it also costs around $200 more than the Companion. It’s the king of do-it-yourself remotes, but it comes with a kingly price.”

OXO On Barista Brain 9-Cup Coffee Maker

Street price: $200; MSRP: $200; Deal price: $160

Here’s another nice drop in price on our top coffee maker, matching last month’s deal. We’ve seen some pretty big sales on this coffee maker in the past, but unfortunately the last exceptional deal price we saw ended during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals last year. Since then, it’s been sitting at its $200 street price and has only recently started to see drops again, with the first coming last month around this time. This $40 drop makes for a pretty good deal price on the OXO On 9-Cup. Shipping is free.

The OXO On 9-cup Coffee Maker is our top pick in our Best Coffee Maker guide. Cale Guthrie Weissman writes, “In the past, you had to choose between a coffee maker that makes good coffee, or one that has all the features you might want. The OXO On 9-Cup Coffee Maker is the first machine that successfully combines the best of both worlds. Simply put, the OXO On makes it easy to brew a really good cup of coffee. If you grind your beans to the correct particle size (which is extremely important) and weigh the grounds so they extract just enough, the OXO will take the reins from there. Operation is very simple—just spin a dial to indicate the number of cups and press the button. Once that’s done, all you have to do is wait about 6 minutes and the coffee will be ready.”

Because great deals don’t just happen on Thursdays, sign up for our daily deals email and we’ll send you the best deals we find every weekday. Also, deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Spotify adds Eventbrite to its roster of concert listings

Spotify has had concert listing recommendations for awhile now thanks to a partnership with Songkick. You could purchase tickets from providers such as Ticketmaster, LiveNation and of course Songkick itself. Starting today, you can add yet another company to the list: Eventbrite. And unlike the other services, the beauty is that you can buy tickets in just a couple of taps.

As with the other concert listings, Eventbrite events will show up in your feed based on your listening habits. If you’re interested in going to one, you can just tap “Find Tickets,” and you’ll be kicked over to the concert page where you can buy tickets directly. According to Eventbrite, you’ll be able to buy them without having to login or enter in a captcha, which would make it a lot faster — and easier! — to get those tickets before they sell out.

Seeing as Eventbrite bought Ticketfly from Pandora a week or so ago, it wouldn’t be surprising if this new concert Spotify-integration came out of that deal. It would also fall in line with rumors that Spotify was trying to see if it can get into ticketing directly. After all, if Spotify already has your credit card info, it would make sense to just use that for concert sales as well.

Source: Eventbrite

‘Steven Universe: Save the Light’ has all of the show’s charm

Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe practically begs for the role-playing-game treatment, with its deep lore, unique characters and gorgeous hand-drawn art style. The show got its first video-game treatment a few years ago with the mobile game Steven Universe: Attack the Light. Now that game’s sequel, Save the Light, is finally giving the show’s fans the full-fledged RPG they’ve been waiting for. And after playing it for a bit at E3, I think they have plenty of reasons to be excited.

For one, the game simply looks amazing, with all the bright colors you’d expect from Steven Universe. It’s not an exact re-creation of the show because the world is rendered in 3D instead of hand-drawn 2D animation. But it still manages to make you feel like you’re walking through familiar environments from the series. The characters are also polygonal and don’t have as much detail as their traditionally animated versions. But at least the flat style they’re presented in — similar to Nintendo’s Paper Mario games — seems reminiscent of a 2D cartoon.

The game starts off by asking you to pick one of the Crystal Gems — the group of superpowered aliens mentoring and caring for Steven — for your party. I chose Garnet, and she was joined by Steven himself, his sword-wielding best friend Connie and his father, Greg Universe. Our quest: To figure out what happened to the Prism, the villain from the first game. And yes, you should probably play Attack the Light to keep track of what’s going on. Rebecca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe, was also involved with the development of the game, so it could eventually tie into events in the series.

This time around, developer GrumpyFace Studios implemented a more fully-realized battle system that’s reminiscent of Final Fantasy’s Active Time Battle method. Your actions are determined by a star meter, which slowly builds up over time. All the while, enemies can also attack you. You also have a chance at inflicting more damage or defending yourself, by hitting the action button during attacks. That’s yet another aspect that’s reminiscent of Nintendo’s Paper Mario games — it’s not a battle system where you just want to blindly hit the attack button.

There’s a definite strategy to every fight becaise every character has their own strengths and weaknesses. Just like in the mobile game, Steven plays more of a support role, while Connie and the Gems are on offense. Greg Universe is basically a band, playing songs that can heal the team or help in other ways (yes, the songs affect the game’s soundtrack). There’s also a major emphasis on characters working together and building their relationships, one of the show’s major themes. During a boss battle, Steven and Connie were so simpatico they fused into their more powerful form, Stevonnie.

The big takeaway from my short play session with Save the Light: Steven Universe is that fans will be pleased. But it also feels like a solid RPG that will also entice people who aren’t familiar with the series. You’ll be able to play Save the Light this fall on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Microsoft Pix Camera imitates Prisma with its AI-powered filters

Microsoft Pix Camera uses artificial intelligence to make your pictures of people better. It uses algorithms behind the scenes to analyze the 10 frames it snaps for every picture you take, looking for sharpness, exposure and even facial expressions to make sure you get the very best shot. It even takes good data from the pictures it doesn’t use to enhance the photos it chooses. The app, launched last summer and just updated, now offers new filters that can help you make your photos look like real works of art.

These artsy filters may sound a lot like what standalone app, Prisma, does, but Microsoft’s implementation was developed by Microsoft’s Asia research lab in collaboration with Skype. According to a company blog post, Pix Styles use texture, pattern, and tones learned by deep neural networks from famous works of art instead of altering the photo uniformly like other similar apps. Microsoft researcher Josh Weisberg told Engadget that the app uses two different techniques, run in tandem to save time, to produce these effects. “Our approach lends itself to styles based on source images (that are used to train the network) that are not paintings, such as the fire effect,” he said in an email.

The initial 11 Styles filters are named Glass, Petals, Bacau, Charcoal, Heart, Fire, Honolulu, Zing, Pop, Glitter and Ripples — more will be added in the coming weeks. Pix Paintings creates a timeline of your picture as if it were being painted in real time, giving you a short video of its creation. The Paintings feature is accessed with a button that shows up when you apply a new Style, and you can share or save the resulting short video (or GIF) it makes, too.

“These are meant to be fun features,” said Microsoft’s Josh Weisberg in a blog post. “In the past, a lot of our efforts were focused on using AI and deep learning to capture better moments and better image quality. This is more about fun. I want to do something cool and artistic with my photos.”

All this AI magic works right on your iPhone or iPad and won’t access the cloud, saving your data plan and decreasing your wait time. You can still use Pix’s other features with the new styles, adding frames and cropping your still photos. Microsoft Pix Camera is available now in the App Store and as a free update to existing owners, as well.

Source: Microsoft Blog, Microsoft/Twitter

I used E3 to take a very public crash course in ‘Arms’

In hindsight, this was a bad idea. I’m rubbish at almost every kind of competitive, multiplayer game, and motion controls are a waggling “am I doing this right?” nightmare. Still, at E3, I couldn’t resist the chance to try Arms, the spring-loaded boxing game for the Nintendo Switch. So I recruited my handsome colleague (and Arms player extraordinaire) Sean Buckley to give me a crash course on the Engadget E3 stage. The results were, well, mixed. The game is loads of fun, and I love its cast of colorful characters, but I have to accept a harsh truth: I am absolutely dreadful.

If you want to see an Arms master ridicule and pulverize a beginner, click on the video player above. I apologize in advance for the random mess of jabs and grabs that follow.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

‘Starlink’ blends gaming and toys in a genuinely intriguing way

Following the likes of Amiibo, Skylanders and the rest, Ubisoft’s latest take on the physical toy/videogame hybrid, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, already feels like an exciting proposition — even if we didn’t quite get to play the title itself. We saw a hands-off presentation of the spaceship-based gameplay (customizable load-outs, pilot-based superpowers and weird alien threats), as well as how easily the add-on guns and mods appear in-game. We then also got to handle the physical toys themselves. All told, it’s clear Ubisoft has done a good job.

To do this, the company apparently poached toy makers and designers from across the industry — Hasbro, to name just one example — and it’s resulted in toys that feel solid, fun and, well, nice. They feel like proper playthings that won’t suddenly break and crack. I also liked how the company has created different controller mounts across the PS4, Xbox One and Switch to ensure weight is distributed evenly when you’re playing with your ship attached to the game. (Naturally, you can still fly the spaceship around in your hand while making swooshing noises.)

Starlink remains over a year away, which means we’re likely to see it at next year’s E3, too, before it finally launches. For now, however, we know that Ubisoft is going in the right direction with the toys. Now it has to ensure that the game itself does them justice.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!