The best smart home accessory discounts on Prime Day

Smart homes continue to grow in popularity, but transforming your home to make it smarter can be quite expensive. Amazon has a bunch of popular accessories discounted right now as part of its Prime Day celebrations, making it easier to afford to outfit your home with the gear. From smart bulbs to outlets, garage door openers and more, you’ll want to check these out.

• LIFX Multicolor Smart Lightbulbs – $44.99
• TP-Link White Smart Lightbulbs – $27.98
• Philips Hue Color Smart Lightbulbs – $39.99
• Philips Hue Starter Kit – $149.99
• Sengled Smart Light Bulbs & more – 20% off
• TP-Link HS100 Smart Plug – $19.99
• TP-Link HS105 Smart Plug – $24.99
• Hunter Ceiling Fan – $261.75
• August Smart Lock – $159.99
• Chamberlain MyQ Smart Garage Door Opener – $79.20

There are likely to be more smart home deals available throughout Prime Day, so be sure to check back often for the most up-to-date list!

The best unlocked smartphone deals on Prime Day

Unlocked phones are becoming more popular, but the prices often prevent some from being able to afford the initial investment. Prime Day has brought some steep discounts to several unlocked Android phones, and you won’t want to miss these deals. From Samsung’s latest and greatest, the Galaxy S8, to Amazon’s Prime exclusive phones, there is likely a deal here for everyone in the market.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 w/ Gear VR & fast charge wireless stand – $624.99 (Normally $869.97)
• Alcatel Idol 5s – $199.99 (Normally $279.99
• Nokia 6 – $179.99 (Normally $229.99)
• Moto G5 – $184.99 (Normally $229.99)
• Moto e4 – $99.99 (Normally $129.99)
• Moto G4 – $129.99 (Normally $179.99)

There are likely to be more deals throughout the day, so be sure to check back frequently for the most up-to-date list!

See at Amazon

[custom:prime2017]

The Wirecutter’s Best Amazon Prime Day Deals

The Wirecutter’s Best Amazon Prime Day Deals

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, as well as their weekly deals. Today, we’ll also be publishing some of the best deals they’ve found on Prime Day.

Amazon Echo

Street Price: $180; MSRP: $180; Deal Price: $90

The best deal we’ve seen on the Amazon Echo at $90, easily beating our previous low of $130. This price even matches the best price we’ve seen on a refurbished model. If you’re seeking to break in to the Alexa ecosystem or add to your existing one, now is the time as this is likely as low as we’ll see the Echo at any point this year. This price is available for the Black or White color. Shipping is free.

The Amazon Echo is a speaker we recommend in our Alexa guide. Grant Clauser writes, “Echo, always listening via Amazon’s Alexa voice service, lets you play music, order pizza, and get questions answered, and can control popular smart-home devices and 1,000-plus other things.”

All-New Fire HD 8 Tablet

Street Price: $80; MSRP: $80; Deal Price: $50

An interesting deal on the next generation of our current budget tablet pick (released in May 2017). The two are likely to be essentially the same tablet, the more current generation very slightly updated if at all. The most notable update seems to be the addition of support for microSD cards up to 256 GB, a nice perk for those with a lot of media to store. At $50, this is a new low for this tablet and $30 off street price. Shipping is free.

The last gen Fire HD 8 is our budget pick in our Best Android Tablets guide. Of the newest gen Fire HD 8, Chris Heinonen and Ryan Whitwam write, “The new Fire HD 8 is nearly identical to its predecessor, our budget pick, but it supports microSD cards up to 256 GB and costs $10 more. It’s available now.”

Jackery Bolt 6000 mAh Battery Pack

Street Price: $27; MSRP: $35; Deal Price: $23 w/ code JACKERY6

Use the promo code JACKERY6 to save around $4 on our pick for best everyday USB battery. This brings the Bolt from the current street price of $27 down to just over $23. While we’ve posted cheaper, this is still a good price. The code can also be applied to the new orange color, knocking the price of that model from $28 down to $24, and silver color, knocking the price of that color down to $28. Shipping is free with Prime.

The Jackery Bolt 6,000 mAh USB battery pack is our everyday USB battery pack pick in out best USB battery packs guide. Mark Smirniotis writes, “Fast charging from an integrated Micro-USB cable, an integrated Lightning-connector cable, and a standard USB port. The size of a bar of soap, the Bolt charges a midsize smartphone twice. It is well made without costing much more than lesser models without cables.”

Anker PowerPort 2 Elite 24W USB Travel Wall Charger

Street Price: $13; MSRP: $30; Deal Price: $10

A nice deal on this Anker travel charger. While the price of this charger has been dropping steadily over the past few months, this is the lowest price we’ve seen for it. Shipping is free with Prime.

The Anker PowerPort 2 Elite 24W USB Travel Wall Charger is an upcoming pick in our Best Multiport USB Charger guide. Nick Guy writes, “Ankers’ PowerPort 2 Elite is our upcoming pick for the best small multiport USB charger for travel. Each of its ports puts out the promised 2.4 amps, there’s a convenient LED that shows when your devices are fully charged, and Anker’s 18-month warranty is great.”

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.

Google highlights pirate sites in search results

Google may have redoubled its efforts to downplay pirate sites in its search results, but it’s clear that there are some bugs to work out in its strategy. TorrentFreak discovered that the internet firm’s search results in the US are explicitly highlighting popular pirate outlets when you search for “best torrent sites,” while looking for “streaming sites” spotlights pirate services alongside legitimate providers like Crackle or Hulu. You’ll have to search from Google’s US site (international pages turn up different results), but they’re still visible as of this writing.

We’ve asked Google for comment on the highlights and will let you know what it says. However, it’s safe to say this is unintentional. The company relies on algorithms to automatically generate highlight cards, and it can’t realistically check every possible result. Still, it doesn’t look good when Google’s code sets pirates on a pedestal.

The findings aren’t going to help Google’s already contentious relationship with the music and video industries, both of which have spent years accusing Google of doing too little to prevent piracy. They’ve routinely argued that Google should outright remove pirate sites from its results, not just demote them — this only adds fuel to the fire, even if there’s an easy fix. The company may need to show that this is a one-off incident and not a common problem.

Update: A Google spokesperson tells us that the results “do not reflect what we had in mind,” and that the company is “looking into” the issue. You can read the full statement below.

“These results are generated algorithmically, but in this particular case, do not reflect what we had in mind for this feature, and we are looking into it.”

Via: The Verge

Source: TorrentFreak

What’s on TV: ‘Game of Thrones’

It’s been more than a year since the last time Game of Thrones aired a new episode, but finally, it’s back. HBO’s flagship series kicks off its seven-episode penultimate season Sunday night with Dragonstone, so hopefully you’re ready. Other shows making their return this week include The Strain and Suits, while Viceland tries out a run of its Funny How comedy documentary series. Fate of the Furious, The Fifth Element and Leon: The Professional are all available in 4K this week, while Netflix is releasing its new series Friends from College. For gamers, we have the first episode of a new season from Telltale’s Minecraft game, and Fantastic Contraption for PSVR. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• The Fate of the Furious (4K)
• The Lost City of Z
• The Fifth Element 4K (20th Anniversary Edition)
• King Kong (4K)
• Smokey and the Bandit (40th Anniversary Edition)
• Smurfs: The Lost Village (4K)
• Roberto Rosellini’s War Trilogy (Criterion)
• Leon The Professional (4K)
• Fantastic Contraption (PSVR)
• Hunting Simulator (PS4, Xbox One)
• Leap of Fate (PS4)
• MotoGP 17 (PS4, PC)
• Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (PS4)
• Death Squared (Switch)
• Day D Tower Rush (PS4)
• Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two Episode 1 (PS4, PC, Xbox One)
• Black The Fall (Xbox One, PS4)
• Deadcore (Xbox One, PC, PS4)
• The Bellows (PSVR)
• Derelict Fleet (PS4, Xbox One)

Monday

• American Ninja Warrior, NBC, 8PM
• So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
• WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
• Preacher, AMC, 9PM
• The Defiant Ones, HBO, 9PM
• Will (series premiere), TNT, 9PM
• Stitchers, Freeform, 9PM
• Superhuman, Fox, 9PM
• American Greed, CNBC, 10PM
• Teen Mum (series premiere), MTV, 10PM
• Spartan, NBC, 10PM
• The Therapist: Prodigy (season finale), Viceland, 10:30PM
• Funny How? (series premiere), Viceland, 11:30PM

Tuesday

• Casual, Hulu, 3AM
• 88th Annual MLB All-Star Game, Fox, 7:30PM
• WWE Smackdown, USA, 8PM
• America’s Got Talent, NBC, 8PM
• The Fosters, Freeform, 8PM
• Animal Kingdom, TNT, 9PM
• On Tour with: Meek Mill, BET, 9PM
• The Challenge: Dirty 30 Launch Special, MTV, 9PM
• The Defiant Ones, HBO, 9PM
• The Bold Type (series premiere), Freeform, 9PM
• Face Off, Syfy, 9PM
• Fantomworks, Velocity, 9PM
• American Ripper (series premiere), History, 10PM
• Fear Factor, MTV, 10PM
• Adam Ruins Everything (season premiere), TruTV, 10PM
• The Profit, CNBC, 10PM
• Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
• World of Dance, NBC, 10PM
• Wrecked, TBS, 10:30PM
• Funny How?, Viceland, 11PM

Wednesday

• The 2017 Espys, ABC, 8PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
• Little Big Shots, NBC, 8PM
• Kingdom, DirecTV Audience, 8PM
• Lucha Underground, El Rey, 8PM
• Suits (season premiere), USA, 9PM
• Salvation (series premiere), CBS, 9PM
• Hood Adjacent with James Davis, Comedy Central, 9PM
• The Defiant Ones (finale), HBO, 9PM
• The Carmichael Show, NBC, 9PM
• I’m Sorry (series premiere), TruTV, 10PM
• Snowfall, FX, 10PM
• The Auto Firm with Alex Vega, Velocity, 10PM
• Blood Drive, Syfy, 10PM
• To Tell the Truth, ABC, 10PM
• Lip Sync Battle, Spike TV, 9:30 & 10PM
• The Ultimate Fighter, FS1, 10PM
• Catfish, MTV, 10PM
• Younger, TV Land, 10PM
• Cleverman, Sundance, 10PM
• Broadchurch, BBC America, 10PM
• Funny How?, Viceland, 11PM

Thursday

• 30 for 30: Mike and the Mad Dog, ESPN, 8PM
• Penn & Teller: Fool Us (season premiere), CW, 8PM
• Boy Band, ABC, 8PM
• America’s Got Talent, NBC, 8PM
• Battle of the Network Stars, ABC, 9PM
• Hooten & the Lady, CW, 9PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 9PM
• The Wall, NBC, 9PM
• The Tunnel, PBS, 9PM
• Akil the Fugitive Hunter (series premiere), A&E, 10PM
• Zoo, CBS, 10PM
• The Mist, Spike TV, 10PM
• The Night Shift, NBC, 10PM
• The Gong Show, ABC, 10PM
• Queen of the South, USA, 10PM
• Party Legends, Viceland, 10:30PM
• Comedy Knockout, TruTV, 11PM
• Safeword (series premiere), MTV, 11:30PM

Friday

• Friends from College (S1), Netflix, 3AM
• Chasing Coral, Netflix, 3AM
• To the Bone, Netflix, 3AM
• Buddy Thunderstruck, Netflix, 3AM
• Killjoys, Syfy, 8PM
• Masters of Illusion, CW, 8PM
• Dark Matter, Syfy, 9PM
• Wynonna Earp, Syfy, 10PM
• Funny How? (season finale), Viceland, 11PM
• Playing House (season finale), USA, 11 & 11:30PM

Saturday

• Doubt, CBS, 8PM
• Premier Boxing Champions, Fox, 8PM
• In an Instant (season finale), ABC, 8PM
• Turn, AMC, 9PM
• Orphan Black, BBC America, 10PM
• Still Star-Crossed, ABC, 10PM

Sunday

• Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
• Celebrity Family Feud, ABC, 8PM
• Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN, 8PM
• Game of Thrones (season premiere), HBO, 9PM
• Candy Crush, CBS, 9PM
• Power, Starz, 9PM
• Claws, TNT, 9PM
• Grantchester, PBS, 9PM
• American Grit, Fox, 9PM
• The Nineties, CNN, 9PM
• Steve Harvey’s Funderdome, ABC, 9PM
• $100,000 Pyramid, ABC, 10PM
• The Strain (season premiere), FX, 10PM
• I’m Dying Up Here, Showtime, 10PM
• Unsung, TV One, 10PM
• Talking with Chris Hardwick (summer premiere), AMC, 11PM
• Kevin Hart Presents, Comedy Central, 11PM
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
• Legends of Chamberlain Heights, Comedy Central, 11:30PM

(All times listed are ET)

Amazon’s Annual Prime Day Kicks Off With Deals on Apple Products and Accessories

Amazon’s third annual “Prime Day” has just kicked off, with Amazon offering 30 hours of “epic ‘day of’ deals on everything you’re into.” Deals will change continually over the course of the next day, and Amazon is expected to offer discounts on a range of products, including Apple devices and accessories.

The products that are discounted will be a surprise until each “Lightning” sale kicks off, so it’s best to keep a close eye on Amazon’s site if you’re interested in a specific product. Some of the best deals can also sell out fast, so we won’t be able to share all of the available deals, but we’ll try to tweet some of the best discounts.

Amazon plans to organize deals around more than 20 themes, like pet lovers, gardeners, techies, artists, and more, which should make it easy to track down the products you’re looking for.

Prime Day will last from July 10 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time to July 11 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Prime Day deals will be available in 13 countries, including the United States, UK, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Japan, India, France, Germany, China, Canada, Belgium, and Austria. A Prime membership is required to take advantage of the deals.

Along with Amazon, many major retailers will be offering discounts on iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple accessories this week, including Best Buy, Adorama, and B&H Photo. For the best prices on Apple products, make sure to check out our Deals Roundup, which has comprehensive price charts available.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner of Amazon and the other above-listed sites. When you make a purchase using one of our links, we receive a small commission, which helps keep the site running.

Tag: Amazon
Discuss this article in our forums

The University of Arizona is using AI and drones to help guard the U.S. border

Why it matters to you

Smart technologies will likely be used for keeping the U.S. border more secure.

Whether or not President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico ever gets built, a new project coming out of the University of Arizona offers a new solution for surveilling national borders without necessarily having to invest in quite so many bricks: Use smart technologies instead.

What University of Arizona researchers have been working on is an autonomous artificial intelligence framework that uses real-time data to work out how best to deploy various high-tech resource — ranging from ground vehicles and drones to smart sensors, and other technologies — to surveil the 1,900-mile-long border with Mexico. From a computer science perspective, such an undertaking is enormously complex: Working out when to send a person out on foot, a truck, or an unmanned aerial vehicle depends on factors ranging from weather and terrain to the likelihood that a target might be armed.

To build the system, the university received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The project began in March and will run through 2020.

“The goal of our project is to firstly evaluate various combinations of existing border surveillance technologies, as well as newly available technologies, and secondly devise an optimal solution to coordinate them considering tradeoffs of multi-objectives that often conflict among one another,” Young Jun Son, professor and head of the UA Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and principal investigator of the project, told Digital Trends. “Those technologies that are considered in our work include UAVs with various sensors and intelligent onboard algorithms, other airborne vehicles and intelligent onboard algorithms, stationary ground sensors, ground patrol agents, and newly developed technologies which may not exist as of today.”

At present, the work is still being carried out through computer modeling and simulation to help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection unit gain a deeper understanding of how it will lead to swifter, better-coordinated border strategies. Having started with a relatively simple model, the researchers are now scaling up their simulations models to involve hundreds of drones and thousands of people.

“In the future, we will test them in a real-world environment,” Son said.

Spotify apparently testing a driving mode with voice control, larger buttons

Why it matters to you

You shouldn’t text while driving, nor should you fiddle with Spotify. Luckily, the music streaming service is looking to make it easier to interact with the app on the road.

Queuing up your tunes for a long drive on the wide open highway may be of paramount importance, but so too is your safety. Luckily for all of us, Spotify understands this and is reportedly testing a driving mode for some of its users. A few days ago, Reddit user Chris54721 noted, “It looks like Spotify is testing a new “driving mode” for the Android app. Still a bit buggy, but it’s pretty neat.”

Apparently, only a few users have access to the new feature (and really, it seems that it is actually only meant for Spotify employees, as the feedback form can only be accessed by folks with a Spotify email address), but those who do can enjoy a suite of driver-friendly tools. Driving mode involves an enlarged interface, in which buttons are bigger and therefore easier to touch; the added benefit of Spotify announcing songs; and voice control (though it seems that particular feature has yet to be activated).

You can check out the new look thanks to Chris54721’s screen capture posted to Reddit.

There is a car emblem on the bottom left-hand side of the “now playing” interface, and if you tap on it, you will go into Driving Mode, which makes both the forward and backward buttons bigger, and also comes with a microphone icon in the center which would, ostensibly, eventually allow you to use voice commands.

While this certainly seems like a feature users would welcome, it is still unclear as to whether or not Spotify will really move forward with rolling this out across the entirety of its platform. According to Reddit users, the test has actually been ongoing for quite some time. As one user posted, “I ran into this about 4 months ago on iOS. Not a big fan. It’s actually since updated with an even newer, album artwork driven interface that’s better but still not great. The controls disappear and display only the album art forcing you to tap the screen to bring up the controls before you can use them.”

A Spotify spokesperson noted of the rumored feature, “We test new products all the time and have no news to share.”

Twitter adds to list of mute options to help counter abusive behavior

Why it matters to you

To keep Twitter a safe space, the company is giving users more options for muting specific accounts to filter out abusive behavior.

In an effort to give users more control over their notifications, Twitter announced new advanced filter settings from specific types of accounts you want to avoid altogether. The platform — which released the new features on Monday — now allows you to mute anyone with a new account and people who do not follow you.

The option to mute on Twitter has been ongoing since 2015,  which initially gave users the option to no longer receive push notifications from a particular user without them knowing. It was basically the perfect solution to subtly removing someone from your timeline without taking greater measures like blocking or unfollowing them.

Muted users can still retweet, reply to your tweets, or favorite them but you do not receive a notification about the activity. In 2016, Twitter added the option to mute keywords, phrases, and conversations to help counter abuse that occurs over social media.

But it was in March that the company took muting to an entirely new level based heavily on safety, by using algorithms to identify abusive behavior. The options were the first batch of advanced filters that allow you to mute notifications from accounts that do not have a profile picture, ones that have not verified their email address or phone number, and people you don’t follow.

To alter all six of these settings on your Twitter app for both iOS and Android, simply go to the notifications tab, tap on the settings icon in the upper righthand corner, and select advanced filters. You will see the entire list of specific types of accounts along with a toggle control to turn the mute feature on or off. For a web browser, click on the notifications timeline, settings, and then click to turn on the preferred filters.

The company revealed it was using machine learning after the backlash Twitter received through placing temporary timeouts on particular accounts — which limited people outside of the offender’s followers from seeing their tweets. Some users complained the automated keyword filter the company used was not completely accurate and might have been prone to mishaps. Ultimately, flagging accounts that should not have been placed on hold in the first place.

However, the company made it clear that it is learning from its mistakes. In an effort to make Twitter a safe space where people can express themselves freely, the platform encourages user feedback to take into account for future updates.

W3C OKs extensions enabling web-based digital rights management for video

Why it matters to you

Although this standard enables web browsers to support viewing copyrighted video, there’s concern providers will have too much control over playback.

Last week, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) decided to officially recommend the use of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for protecting copyrighted video on the internet. This will enable web surfers to watch media in a browser that requires Digital Rights Management copy protection without the need for browser-based plugins.

“It moves the responsibility for interaction from plugins to the browser,” the consortium states. “As such, EME offers a better user experience, bringing greater interoperability, privacy, security, and accessibility to viewing encrypted video on the web.”

The W3C is an international organization that enforces standards for the internet. It develops protocols and guidelines to bring balance to the World Wide Web, and to reach the full potential of the latest technologies. Its stated mission is to push for a safe, open platform that can be used on all hardware scattered across the globe.

The W3C first introduced EME in 2013 as a specification for linking a web browser to a web-based software module that handles Digital Rights Management. It doesn’t include a specific type of content control, but instead provides means for web developers to insert scripts into web pages that can select the appropriate content management mechanism. Scripts can also control license and key exchanges between the browser and the protected content’s host server.

“It supports a wide range of use cases without requiring client-side modifications in each user agent for each use case,” the W3C states. “This enables content providers to develop a single application solution for all devices.”

Digital Rights Management is a necessary component for all consumable media. For instance, it thwarts the process of recording copyrighted video and selling the content for profit. Software developers use DRM to authorize the installation of their products on PCs, such as Microsoft’s Genuine Windows initiative. But Digital Rights Management can be problematic, eating up unnecessary resources and causing software-related issues.

Adding to that, browser-based plugins have proven to be insecure. That’s the big push behind HTML5: to move content management, playback control, games, video conferencing, and more into the internet itself so that hackers don’t have a specific software-based target. It eliminates the need for Microsoft’s Silverlight and Adobe Flash, the latter of which has proven to be a highly attractive attack vector for hackers.

However, the W3C’s recommendation of the EME standard doesn’t come without criticism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said last week that the standard has “no safeguards whatsoever for accessibility, security research or competition.” Even more, the standard enables content providers to control how web surfers will watch video in their browsers by enforcing specific “rules.”

Of course, the Electronic Frontier Foundation specifically states that it doesn’t support Digital Rights Management because it gives content owners the right to treat PC owners “as an adversary to be controlled.”

But even within the W3C itself, turmoil surrounds the EME, including the argument that it provides inadequate protection for end users. Regardless, the EME standard is now an official recommendation based on a decision made by the Director of the W3C, Tim Berners-Lee.