That sweet ride you found online could cost you $2,000 more than advertised when you actually get to the dealership.
I just bought a used car, which required a lot of research on car-shopping sites such as AutoTrader, Cars.com, CarGurus, Edmunds, and TrueCar. Before I settled on a vehicle and a dealer, though, I got excited about several promising listings. Until I read the fine print.
I discovered a deceptive advertising practice you should be aware of before you go to a dealer: the promotional “internet price” (after down payment), which can inflate the asking price of…
While you’re preparing to shop, scammers are preparing to capture your credit card info.
Prime Day (June 21 and 22) is so named because it’s an Amazon event. But in the minds of consumers, it’s a prime day to pick up bargains. It’s also a day to watch out for scams. Bolster Research says that those getting ready to make purchases should expect seven times the usual number of unscrupulous sellers looking to pull in some extra profit.
Phishing and scam sites have proliferated in the lead-up to Prime Day. While Amazon is advertising early deals, fake…
Why would you want high-speed 5G at the beach? We headed down to the Jersey Shore to try out Verizon’s ‘ultra-wideband’ 5G to see if UWBeach can cut it with the summer crowds.
By Sascha Segan
Verizon’s “ultra-wideband”—also known as millimeter-wave, mmWave, or UWB (not the same as the UWB found in AirTags)—is the fastest form of 5G in the world. With speeds up to 3Gbps and latencies sometimes under 10 milliseconds, it could host genuine new applications that are beyond the capabilities of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s “nationwide” low-band 5G, which has performance very similar to 4G.
Something was very off with Best Buy’s purported launch of Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti on June 10. Despite the product ‘selling out,’ almost no one is reselling the card.
By Michael Kan
On Thursday, June 10, Best Buy was supposed to start selling Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti. But like every PC graphics card, it sold out immediately. Or at least, that’s what it looked like.
The people who run bots and computer scripts that monitor GPU sales say the launch never occurred. …
It’s the first time Amazon has offered Just Walk Out tech alongside traditional shopping in a supermarket.
This week, Amazon Fresh customers in Bellevue, Washington, will have the option to pay in-store or skip the checkouts at a new full-size supermarket. Whether you’re doing the weekly shop or grabbing a pastry on the go, you can easily bypass the store’s registers via Just Walk Out technology.
Using a combination of computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, Just Walk Out “adds convenience to customers’ grocery shopping experience by giving them the option to come in, pick up…
The company has taken some laudable steps toward protecting its customers’ privacy, but recently revealed DOJ data seizures remind us that Apple needs to work harder.
By Max Eddy
On June 10, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration Department of Justice (DOJ) sought information from Apple regarding two of the then-president’s most prominent critics, who also happened to be members of Congress. Days later, the Times reported that the DOJ also sought information from Apple regarding former White House counsel Donald McGahn. …
OnePlus’s new phone has a 90Hz display and 5G for only $239.99.
By Sascha Segan
The OnePlus Nord N200 5G, the company’s follow-up to its successful Nord N10 and Nord N100 phones, is the lowest-cost 5G phone available in the US, and it arrives on June 25 for $239.99.
The N200 splits the difference between the 4G, $179.99 N100 and the 5G, $299.99 N10. Like the N10, it has a 90Hz, 1080p screen and 5G. It has a slower processor than the N10 does: a Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 versus the better 690. (The N100 has an even slower Snapdragon 460.)…
Tech products will fly off the warehouse shelves when Prime Day kicks off next week.
It’s not even summer yet. But it’s still a good time to think about buying for—yes—back to school. That’s because next week, on June 21 and 22, it’s Amazon Prime Day: the online mega-retailer’s summer answer to Black Friday for big savings that drive big sales. …
An internet meme has become real.
By Michael Kan
During E3 2021, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox mini fridge is going to be sold as an actual product later this year during the holiday shopping season.
The company made the announcement with a teaser fit for a AAA video game. “For the first time in Xbox history… a new system that leaves others cold,” the clip says.
The resulting product looks exactly like an Xbox Series X console. Only now, it’s a literal icebox you can open up. …
Some tasks that might otherwise be performed by machines, like picking lettuce, still require a human touch. At the University of Cambridge, Dr. Fumiya Iida is helping robots embrace their softer sides.
By S.C. Stuart
“Soft” is not usually a word you'd associate with robots, but Dr. Fumiya Iida wants to change that. His work helps robots embrace their gentler sides in order to tackle tasks that usually require a human touch—say, picking lettuce.
Ahead of a speech at the IEEE SofTech event this week, we spoke to Dr. Iida, Director of the Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory at the University of…
