The Wirecutter’s best deals: The Nexus 6P, a GoPro, and more!

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals at TheWirecutter.com.

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.

GoPro Hero 4 Silver Action Camera

Street price: $330; MSRP: $400; deal price: $300

While we saw a bunch of deals hit the $310 mark around Black Friday, we only saw it drop to $300 at one other retailer. If you’re interested in this deal, it expires today at 10pm EST.

The GoPro Hero 4 Silver is our pick for the best action camera. Brent Rose writes, “The GoPro Hero4 Silver takes everything we loved about the GoPro Hero3+ Black and makes it easier to use, thanks to a touchscreen and overhauled menu system. Throw in more low-light shooting options and the same price tag, and you have a clear pick for best action camera.”

VIZIO SB3821-C6 38-Inch 2.1 Channel Soundbar

Street price: $139; MSRP: $160; deal price: $119 with Prime

Amazon Prime members can save a quick $20 on this Vizio soundbar. That brings it down to $119, which is the best price we’ve seen on this model. You can also save $20 on the more expensive Vizio SB3851-C0, which is a smaller version of our favorite budget soundbar.

The Vizio SB3821-C6 is the non-surround sound pick in our guide on the best budget soundbar. Chris Heinonen said, “It sounds significantly better than our previous budget top pick; in fact, aside from the more expensive Vizio models, it sounds better than any of the other budget soundbars we’ve tested thus far. As with Vizio’s other 2015 model soundbars, it’s also a giant leap forward in terms of styling over last year’s models.”

Google Nexus 6P 32GB Smartphone

Street price: $500; MSRP: $500; deal price: $450

This matches the best price we’ve seen on the 6P, although this time around it’s only on the matte gold color. However, if you do buy it through Google, there’s an additional $50 off of a Huawei smartwatch. There’s also a $50 off sale running on the 5x 32gb model, which brings it down to $350.

The Nexus 6P is the phablet pick in our guide on the best Android phones. Ryan Whitwam said, “If you like big phones and don’t mind paying $500 up front, you should get the Google Nexus 6P. It’s our favorite Android phone of any we’ve used this year. The 6P runs pure Android 6.0 Marshmallow, sports a top-of-the-line 1440p Super AMOLED screen, and has an attractive unibody aluminum frame. On the back is one of the best cameras available on a smartphone, along with a Nexus Imprint fingerprint scanner that’s even faster and more accurate than the one on the Galaxy S6.”

Refurb Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens

Street price: $125 (new); MSRP: $125 (new); deal price: $91

Not quite the best price we’ve seen on a refurbished version of this lens, but close. There was a brief sale where you could drop it down to about $87. This deal is $91 with free shipping. Canon’s refurbished lenses are excellent and come with a full year of warranty service.

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens is the newer version of our fast prime lens pick in our first Canon lenses you should buy guide. The older one was one of the best values in lenses but didn’t have the best build quality. The newer ones has a quiet focusing motor, which is better for video, superior build quality, and even better image quality.

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.

Patent filing reveals possible workings of Google’s upcoming drone delivery

A patent filed by Google gives some new insight into its upcoming drone delivery service — known at the moment as Project Wing — might deliver your packages.

The patent was actually filed in 2014 but only recently was granted. In it, Google details plans for mobile delivery receptacles — effectively mailboxes on wheels — that communicate with the drones and when they sync up, the drone delivers the package to the receptacle, which then takes it to a holding facility.

Though the filing didn’t say for sure, the likely next step is that the customer will either pick up the package or it will be delivered to their address by local ground service.

Dave Vos, the head of Project Wing, said recently that the drone delivery service is still on track to launch sometime in 2017, assuming all regulatory obstacles are cleared.

Via: Fastcompany

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Google to Feds: Project Loon is totally safe, despite outcry

Google asserted in a report filed to the Federal Communications Commission that the company’s upcoming high-altitude, wireless signal tests (likely part of Google’s Project Loon) pose no threat to the citizenry or the environment. The internet giant argued that experimental the tests, which will use radio transmitters at altitudes of 75,000 feet, fall within existing test regulations.

The filing comes in response to a number of complaints from members of the public who, being luddites, worried about radiation exposure, microwave beams, and all sorts of other vaguely quasi-scientific worst case scenarios. “The proposed experimental operations in fact present vastly less risk from RF exposure than other transmissions the Commission routinely authorizes,” Google countered in its filing. “Thus, although we respect that the commenters’ concerns are genuinely held, there is no factual basis for them.”

Via: Business Insider

Source: FCC

Google’s VirusTotal can tell if your firmware is infected

BIOS firmware is the root of your electronic devices, dictating communication between a computer’s hardware and operating system from the boot-up process. It’s an insulated layer in most devices, and organizations including the National Security Agency have focused on infecting firmware because it’s not covered in standard virus-detection scans. Google’s latest VirusTotal tool changes that — in a blog post, VirusTotal security engineer Francisco Santos outlines the dangers of firmware malware and how the company can now pinpoint that bad code.

“Since the BIOS boots a computer and helps load the operating system, by infecting it attackers can deploy malware that survives reboots, system wiping and reinstallations, and since antiviruses are not scanning this layer, the compromise can fly under the radar,” Santos writes. “As of today VirusTotal is characterizing in detail firmware images, legit or malicious.”

Researchers can upload malware to VirusTotal to see which antivirus products detect malicious code. On top of labeling firmware images, the new tool can extract certificates from the firmware and its executable files, and it can extract portable executables inside the image. PEs are a high-profile source of malicious software, Santos says.

“What’s probably most interesting is the extraction of the UEFI Portable Executables that make up the image, since it is precisely executable code that could potentially be a source of badness,” Santos writes. “These executables are extracted and submitted individually to VirusTotal, such that the user can eventually see a report for each one of them and perhaps get a notion of whether there is something fishy in their BIOS image.”

The “next interesting step” for VirusTotal’s firmware tool is the ability to dump your own BIOS firmware into its scanning service, Santos says.

Via: PC World

Source: VirusTotal

Google erases memory of Glass

Looks like Google might be trying to wipe the memory of Google Glass from the popular consciousness.

Google seems to have wiped all the content from the social media channels associated with Google Glass. The Glass Explorers group on Google+ has been completely erased, while Glass’ Facebook and Twitter have been deleted completely.

Though there was a lot of hype surrounding Google Glass, concerns over the ability to use the smart glasses to take surreptitious photos and video, as well as concerns about hacking, kept it from ever taking off. The product was also banned from many movie theaters over piracy concerns.

While Glass never achieved any semblance of mainstream success, Google is known to be working on a new version of its smart glasses, though it likely won’t bear the Glass name.

Via: CNET

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Watch tonight’s Republican debate with Engadget

Tonight, the field of Republican candidates for president will face off again on the debate stage. This is the last time the whole band will get together before the Iowa caucuses on February 1st. Well… almost the whole band. Professional blowhard Donald Trump will not be in attendance because Fox News refused to remove Megyn Kelly as one of the moderators. (Presumably he’s somewhere hiding and wondering why the mean lady asked him so many questions.) Of course, with Trump out, there should be more time for the other candidates to make their voices heard. And ideological, libertarian favorite Rand Paul has regained his seat at the big boy table this evening.

If you want to watch the undercard, featuring Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore tune in to Fox News or to FoxNews.com at 7pm ET. But the main event will kick off at 9pm ET, with Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul.

In addition to the televised feed and livestream, you can also enjoy additional online content brought you by Fox News and Google. Candidates will be given the opportunity to publish more fleshed out answers to questions and rebuttles as the debates are still on going.

But, before the festivities kick off, you should catch up on the candidate’s positions by checking out our guide to the 2016 election, including our guide to the issues. Of course, follow @engadget and its editors for our take on the candidate’s tech and science positions.

Don’t forget to use the hashtag #engadgetelectionguide to join the conversations. And let us know if there’s any questions you have about the candidates positions on science and tech issues.

Google’s latest partnership could make smartphones smarter

Google has signed a deal with Movidius to include its Myriad 2 MA2450 processor in future devices. The search giant first worked with Movidius back in 2014 for its Project Tango devices, and it’s now licensing the company’s latest tech to “accelerate the adoption of deep learning within mobile devices.”

“Deep learning” refers to a complex neural network — a computer program that mimics the human brain. Neural networks have been the driving force behind rapidly improving image and speech recognition tools, but mostly these tasks require an internet connection. When you talk to your Android phone, for example, your voice is actually processed by a server farm somewhere, which does all the heavy lifting.

More recently, Google managed to cram a network into its Translate app, allowing users to convert the text in images on the fly. And SwiftKey also runs a small-scale network for word predictions in its SwiftKey Neural application. But all these applications require a large amount of processing power for what are relatively inane tasks. That’s where Movidius’ chip comes in.

The Myriad 2 MA2450 is referred to as a “vision processing unit.” It’s really got a single purpose: image recognition. The architecture has very little in common with a traditional CPU, and it’s designed specifically to handle the myriad (get it) simultaneous processes involved in neural networks. As such, its power draw when, for example, recognising a face or an image, is much, much lower than doing the same task with a Snapdragon processor. As for how exactly will Google utilize the chips, that’s something we’re unlikely to know until it’s ready to announce devices.

Source: Movidius

Google My Tracks app reaches end of route on April 30th

Google has announced that their My Tracks platform will no longer be available after April 30, 2016 for users who were hoping to use it to track their journeys. My Tracks is a mapping and logging app that could be used to record data like path, speed, distance and elevation changes for users who were engaged in outdoor activities like walking, running, or biking. According to Google’s support page for My Tracks, where the announcement was made, Google plans “to invest our efforts into other, more wide-reaching, mapping projects.”

One of the features of My Tracks that some users liked was the ability to export data to Google Drive for later analysis or even import into other applications. The app is able to produce the following types of data files:

• KML: Contains locations, markers, photos, and sensor data
• GPX: Contains locations and markers, but no sensor data like heart rate, cadence for biking, cadence for running, and power
• CSV: Contains locations, markers, and sensor data
• TCX :Contains locations, no markers, and some sensor data

Google also points users to a variety of other solutions for tracking routes and data, often in conjunction with fitness apps and devices. Some of the recommendations include:

• Google Fit
• Strava
• Endomondo
• Map My Run
• Map My Hike
• GPS Logger for Android
• GPX Viewer

Notable on that list is Google Fit and it will be interesting to see if any of the My Tracks capabilities make their way over to that fitness solution from Google.

source: Google

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