Sonos apparently believes its mobile app has reached a good enough place to resume product launches: today the company has announced the Arc Ultra and Sub 4. The $999 Arc Ultra is a more powerful take on the original Arc, and it’s the first Sonos product to feature unique transducer technology from Mayht, a startup that Sonos acquired in 2022. Sonos refers to this as “Sound Motion” and says it allows the Arc Ultra to produce richer, even more immersive sound than the original. The company is touting Sound Motion as “one of the most significant breakthroughs in audio engineering in nearly 100 years” and says it “unlocks greater clarity, depth, and balance than ever before possible from a soundbar this sleek.” The Arc Ultra has fourteen... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google plans to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors. It announced the deal yesterday, which it says is the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) that are still under development. Google inked the deal with engineering company Kairos Power, which plans to get its first SMR up and running by 2030. Google agreed to purchase electricity from “multiple” reactors that would be built through 2035. Google needs a lot more clean energy to meet its climate goals while pursuing its AI ambitions. New nuclear technologies are still unproven at scale, but the hope is that they can provide carbon pollution-free electricity while solving some of the problems that come... Continue reading…

An eBay listing that’s no longer active included packaging photos of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. | Image: Reddit A handful of specs for the 12th-gen Amazon Kindle Paperwhite have leaked via an eBay listing, which shared images of the new e-reader’s packaging before it was pulled, reports Good e-Reader. Those images, still available on Reddit, reveal a slightly larger seven-inch E Ink screen, up from 6.8 inches on the previous model. Other features of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite include screen lighting that can be adjusted between warm and cool color temperatures, an IPX8 waterproof rating allowing the e-reader to survive a dunking to depths of two meters for a full hour, screensaver ads that can be removed for a fee, and “weeks of battery life.” Details on what processor the e-reader is using, how much memory is included, and its wireless... Continue reading…

Ahead of a possible October event, Apple unveiled its long-rumored iPad mini 7. This new tablet brings the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro chip, Apple Intelligence support, and Apple Pencil Pro compatibility. This new tablet has an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display and is available in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray. According to Apple, the A17 Pro delivers a huge performance boost for even the most demanding tasks, with a faster CPU and GPU and a 2x faster Neural Engine than the previous-generation iPad mini. In addition to Apple Pencil Pro support, Apple has also updated the 12MP wide back camera with Smart HDR 4 support and improved machine learning to detect and scan documents right in the Camera app. “There is no other device in the world like iPad mini, beloved for its combination of powerful performance and versatility in our most ultraportable design. iPad mini appeals to a wide range of users and has been built for Apple Intelligence, delivering intelligent new features that are powerful, personal, and private,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the powerful A17 Pro chip, faster connectivity, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, the new iPad mini delivers the full iPad experience in our most portable design at an incredible value.” With this announcement, the iPad mini 7 joins the latest iPad Air and iPad Pro models to support Apple Intelligence. These are some of the AI features coming to this tablet: With Writing Tools, users can refine their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on iPad. In Photos, the Memories feature now enables users to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description, and with the new Clean Up tool, they can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo — without accidentally altering the subject. The new iPad mini 7 features an all-day battery life. Starting at $499 with 128GB—double the storage of the previous generation—the new iPad mini delivers incredible value and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design. Customers can pre-order the new iPad mini today, and it will be available beginning Wednesday, October 23. Don't Miss: Apple Intelligence: AI, features, research, and supported devices The post iPad mini 7 announced with Apple Intelligence and A17 Pro chip appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $60 Insignia smart TV, $735 black Apple Watch Ultra 2, $120 Ninja food processor, more Best Sony headphones deals of Prime Big Deal Days 2024 Best Dyson vacuum deals of Prime Big Deals Days 2024 Today’s deals: $40 in Amazon credit, Nintendo Switch games, $20 waterproof Bluetooth speaker, more

The lives of ancient Egyptians were inextricably intertwined with magic. It was present in everything from religion to politics, and from birth to death. Magic was such a prevalent force that in the early third century AD, the Christian theologian and philosopher Titus Flavius Clemens, better known as Clement of Alexandria, declared that: “Egypt was the mother of magicians.” Up until the Roman period, Heka was the ancient Egyptian word for magic, but that word was not so clearly defined for the ancient Egyptians, and it could be seen as a force of nature which could also assimilate the attributes of a divine being in human form. As a being, Heka was believed to have been created by Atum at the beginning of time, he was also said to be the son of Khnum, who also created individuals’ souls. Legends say that Heka battled and conquered two serpents, and he was usually depicted as a man choking two giant entwined serpents. While the practice of magic was hailed for its life-giving and enhancing properties by some – for example it was linked with remedies in medicine, it was also vilified by others as a dark art. This concept is examined further in the following presentation ‘Magic and Demonology in Ancient Egypt’ with Rita Lucarelli, Associate Professor of Egyptology, Department of Near Eastern Studies; Faculty Curator of Egyptology, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. In the video, Lucarelli reveals how the concepts of ‘magic’ and ‘demons’ were defined and used in ancient Egypt, with a special focus on the roles that demons played in magical practices and spells. Read moreSection: Ancient WritingsNewsHistoryAncient TraditionsPreviewRead Later 

The owner of a group of Aurora, Colorado apartment buildings says the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang is controlling its properties and claims that local police and the FBI are doing nothing to help the situation.

Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans trust the media to report the news fairly, a Gallup poll found.

Donald Trump's lawyers pushed on Monday to transfer to federal court the case in which he was convicted in a New York state court on charges involving covering up a payment paid to an adult film star, a move that would give him the ability to end the prosecution if he regains the presidency.

The Kremlin on Tuesday said that a planned treaty with North Korea will provide for "strategic cooperation" in all areas. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would share further details of the agreement once it was completed. Tensions have been rising on the peninsula...

Lawyers representing 100 survivors and family members of victims of the deadliest shooting in Maine history began the formal process of suing the Army and an Army hospital for failing to act to stop the reservist responsible for the tragedy, attorneys said Tuesday.