Apple : How to watch Love Island USA online: stream from the US or abroad |
- How to watch Love Island USA online: stream from the US or abroad
- AMD graphics cards: the best AMD GPUs you can buy today
- OpenText: Prepare for the age of EIM
- Best laptops for kids 2019: the top laptops for kids in elementary school and beyond
- The best 13-inch laptop 2019: the top 13-inch laptops we've reviewed
- Amazon Prime Day 2019: the best deals that have already launched
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news
- Best laptop for programming in 2019: top picks for coders, developers and sysadmins
- Pokémon Go updates: all the news and rumors for what's coming next
- Best laptops for photographers in 2019: Photo editing in Photoshop
- YouTube is finally available on Fire TVs again
- Ricoh Imaging launches HD-Pentax DA Fisheye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED lens
- AMD Navi release date, news and rumors
- Dr. Mario World: release date, trailer and first impressions
- AMD Radeon RX 5700 graphics cards will come from partners next month
- HostGator is now offering free domains with its web hosting packages
- Amazon Prime Day 2019: UK deals live now ahead of the 48-hour event
- Pokémon Sword and Shield: release date, trailers, news and features
- Japanese report paints a bleak picture of the digital camera market
- Get up to 60% off Bitdefender's antivirus packages with this exclusive offer
| How to watch Love Island USA online: stream from the US or abroad Posted: 09 Jul 2019 02:15 PM PDT Following in the drama-fuelled footsteps of the UK, tonight marks the launch of the much-anticipated Love Island USA, and your new TV obsession as you watch Love Island USA online for the next month or so. Now, that news will either fill you with euphoria or leave you perplexed, asking yourself 'what's a Love Island?'. And if you fall into the latter of those groups, you are in for a treat. A show that dumps a group of singletons into a remote villa, leaving them to couple up, complete challenges and fight (metaphorically) for a big cash prize, Love Island UK has been winning over the British public for half a decade. And now - after a cult following has formed in the States - there is finally a US version, meaning you can watch Love Island USA online and root for your favorite couples. So, of course, the question you're here for - where and when can I watch this dating phenomenon take place? Well the first episode airs tonight (July 9) at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 8pm PT with a special pilot 90 minute episode. From then on, you can tune in nightly, Monday to Friday (yes, this is a daily occurrence) at that same time to see what the islanders have been up to. With no internet access and very little to do, that tends to involve some odd interactions. Ready to begin your brand new TV obsession? You can find all of the details of how to watch Love Island USA online below. Badly timed your summer vacation and will be out of the US while the show airs? You can find out how to catch the show abroad below as well.
How to watch Love Island USA online in the US:Luckily for all of those keen Love Island fans in the US, the show is easy to watch. It will be aired on a nightly basis (Monday-Friday) on CBS at 8pm ET, 5pm PT. That means you simply have to gather around your TV each evening for drama soaked TV. If you want to live stream the show to your mobile, tablet or computer you can do so via CBS all access. That will cost you $5.99 a month or you can get a week free with a trial. It currently looks like CBS will have exclusive access to the show so your options do come down to watching the show on CBS or CBS All Access. How to watch Love Island online USA from outside the countryIf you’re from the US and will be missing all of the drama due to a poorly-timed holiday then don't worry, as you can still watch Love Island USA online, even on your holiday. Don't expect it to show much around the world, it doesn't even look like the UK is showing the US counterpart on domestic television. By using a VPN, you can change your IP address to one back in the US which will allow you to stream the event using your CBS account. Keep reading and we’ll show you how. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| AMD graphics cards: the best AMD GPUs you can buy today Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:59 PM PDT AMD Navi is here, and that only means that there are more incredible AMD graphics cards to choose from. Unfortunately, you still won’t find something that’s going to dethrone the beastly Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. The good news is that there are so many AMD graphics cards out there that will let you turn up all the dials in your favorite PC games. Over the years, AMD has made a name for itself in the budget and mid-range markets, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT continues that tradition while also raising the bar. If you’re just looking for a great GPU without spending a fortune, picking up an AMD graphics card may make a lot of sense – especially if you’re still on a 1440p or 1080p gaming monitor. However, because AMD graphics cards aren't quite as ubiquitous as Nvidia, it can be hard to nail down which AMD graphics card is best for your needs. Don’t worry, though – we’ve gathered up the best AMD graphics cards you can buy today, from across Team Red’s lineup. We even included our exclusive price comparison tool, so you know you’re getting the best deal. Image credit: TechRadar This absolute powerhouse of a graphics card has barely hit the streets, and it’s already topping our list of the best AMD graphics card, knocking reigning champion, the AMD Radeon RX 590, off the top spot. At $349, this mighty mid-range machine brings 1440p gaming at Ultra or Max settings to the mainstream market, making it accessible to the general masses. At that price point, it was never going to be perfect – those hoping for ray tracing will have to wait – but it’s already pretty incredible for how much it will set you back. Read the full review: AMD Radeon RX 5700 Image credit: XFX Right now, the AMD Radeon RX 590 offers the best bang for your buck when it comes to price to performance. You’re getting 8GB of VRAM, though it's still at GDDR5, and enough graphical horsepower to max out pretty much any game at 1080p. You’re not going to be able to play in 4K, but if you just want a killer gaming experience without paying a fortune, the AMD Radeon RX 590 is the best AMD graphics card. Image credit: TechRadar If you’ve got a more cash to spare, you might want to consider splurging a little on the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, which directly rivals the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 in terms of performance. Like the cheaper Radeon RX 5700, this one is a total powerhouse, delivering excellent 1440p gaming at the highest settings. The only reason that it’s not higher on our AMD graphics cards list is because it could be cheaper, especially considering the Super RTX cards that Nvidia just rolled out. Read the full review: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Image credit: MSI Billed as AMD’s first 7nm graphics card, the AMD Radeon VII marks a significant shift in GPU technology. This is an incredibly powerful graphics card squarely aimed at taking the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 on. This GPU is packed with 16GB of HBM2 VRAM, double the frame buffer of Team Green’s competition. If you’re looking for 4K gaming on an AMD graphics card, the AMD Radeon VII is the obvious choice.
Image credit: AMD While this AMD graphics card is a few years old at this point, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 is still an excellent choice when it comes to 1440p gaming. It’s going to draw a lot of power, and it’ll get toasty, but the AMD Vega 64 certainly delivers when it comes to performance. You’ll be able to max out pretty much any game at 1440p and still get 60 fps. As a bonus, you should be able to find plenty of killer Vega 64 deals now that the AMD Radeon VII is the hot new AMD graphics card. Read the full review: AMD Vega 64 Image credit: AMD The mid-range is traditionally where AMD really shines, and the Radeon RX 570 is a perfect example of why. This is an extremely affordable AMD graphics card, but it’s still able to run a lot of AAA PC games at high settings while still reaching 60 fps. It’s not quite as powerful as the AMD Radeon RX 590, but you’re saving quite a bit of cash. A bit of advice though – go for an 8GB model, rather than the 4GB. Image credit: MSI If you don’t have a lot of cash to spare, picking up an expensive graphics card really doesn’t make a lot of sense – especially when you can pick up a budget AMD graphics card like the AMD Radeon RX 560. We’ll be straight up – this is not the most powerful GPU you’re going to find out there, but when you’re spending as little as a hundred bucks in the US, it’s hard to complain.
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| OpenText: Prepare for the age of EIM Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:45 PM PDT The world of business is set for major changes as companies pivot towards ensuring their data and information is stored and protected properly, one of the world’s leading ERP companies has predicted. Speaking at the opening keynote of the company’s Enterprise World event in Toronto today, OpenText CEO and CTO Mark Barrenechea revealed that the company is looking to move away from ERP towards EIM (enterprise information management) platforms instead. “There’s never been a better time to reimagine business,” he told attendees.“Shift has happened, and it's an exciting time. We have transitioned...we're not in the digital era any more in my opinion - we are beyond it, beyond digital and in a post-ERP era.”
All change“We are in an information era,” Barrenechea added, “automation is not enough today...we must be able to make everything machine-readable, and we at OpenText are on a path to do this, gain insight and make better business decisions" “Everything we do is to make everything readable (in EIM)...ERP ain't gonna provide the information advantage, EIM is.” OpenText boasts an impressive customer list, claiming that 85 of the world’s largest 100 companies use its products, and brought representatives from Coca-Cola MasterCard and Google Cloud on stage during the keynote to demonstrate this. "There is an unprecedented opportunity to re-imagine business at the nexus of cloud, digital, and AI. This is the new agenda for business leaders, that requires new talent and new business models, while keeping customer experience as job #1," Barrenechea said. "For the last 20 years, automation has provided a process advantage. We are now in the post-ERP era, and businesses need to gain the information advantage. We are excited to introduce our next generation product line, OpenText Cloud Edition, to help business compete and win in Industry 4.0."
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| Best laptops for kids 2019: the top laptops for kids in elementary school and beyond Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:27 PM PDT Whether it’s for school or for play, you’ll need to invest in the best laptop for kids. After all, having a good laptop is completely necessary not only for grown-ups, but for the kids as well. The best laptop for kids will usually take the form of a rugged, cheap tablet. Eventually though, there will come a time when your child will have to graduate to a proper laptop, especially since they need one for schoolwork.
If your kids don’t know their way around a Windows 10 or a macOS environment just yet, the best Chromebooks are extremely easy to use, making them the ideal laptops for kids. They have large, durable displays that are great for getting schoolwork done. Many of them are also able to run Android apps and games, so the kids can squeeze in a bit of downtime between assignments. And, finally, they’re also affordable.
So, what’s makes the best laptop for kids? How do you decide? Luckily, we’re here to help you answer those questions. We put together a list of the best laptops for kids, all of which we tested and reviewed ourselves. With this list, we’ll go through all the best laptops for kids – affordable devices with rugged frames and even rigid parental controls. On it, you should be able to find the best laptop for kids your budget can afford. Image Credit: Dell Chromebooks make for some of the best laptops for kids because they’re virtually mistake proof, and the Dell Chromebook 11 2-in-1 is no different. Drop it, and it’s fine. Download any malicious software? Well, you can’t! It’s one of the safest environments for your kids to use a computer, made better by its parental controls. If your kid needs a cheap laptop to get some schoolwork done, you won’t want to miss out on this excellent device – it even transforms into a tablet for a bit of light gaming after homework. Read the full review: Dell Chromebook Inspiron 11 3181 2-in-1 Image Credit: Lenovo Is your kid accustomed to Windows 10? If so, you’ll find the Lenovo IdeaPad 120S to be the best laptop for kids – especially at this bargain price. The laptop is mildly ruggedized to survive slips and drops, and boasts a USB-C port for some future-proofing. You can also trust that this device will be free of bloatware that can distract your child. That’s more than enough in our book to recommend this laptop to pretty much every parent – especially for families who are Windows 10 fans. Image Credit: Acer If your kids have finally graduated to needing to write up papers for class, and you want to get them something that won’t break the first time it gets dropped, then you might just agree that the Acer Chromebook Spin 11 is the best laptop for kids. It’s powerful enough to get through the kids’ daily schoolwork, and it’s also a 2-in-1 so they can flip its comfy keyboard around to turn it into tablet mode for playing some Android games or watching their favorite shows in their downtime. The display is a bit dim, and it’s unlikely to blow you away as far as performance, but it’s cheap, durable and functional. Read the full review: Acer Chromebook Spin 11 Image Credit: Acer When your kids approach or enter double-digit years, they’re definitely going to require something a bit more robust to support them through more demanding projects (and sharper streaming). Acer’s latest 15-inch Chromebook is, therefore, the best laptop for kids – or yours, at least – bringing serious sophistication to your kids’ computing experience and needs, from its design to features like a full HD display, fast USB 3.0 connections and an HDR webcam. Bear in mind, however, that this laptop is ideal for adolescents, as you’re swapping its lack of kid-proof features for a larger size and a more luxury experience, which you will be paying a great price for. Read the full review: Acer Chromebook 15 Image Credit: Asus If your kid wants a tablet, but you want them to get used to a traditional computer setup, the Asus Transformer Mini is the perfect compromise. This tablet brings plenty of power and ports to the table – not to mention a fingerprint sensor, stylus and keyboard cover – all in the box. Rounding it out is a whopping 11 hours of battery life, so they can get through all their schoolwork and squeeze in some Netflix before bed. If your kids are just too used to tablets to unceremoniously jump to a traditional laptop, this is the one of the best Asus laptops for your kids, especially for the price. Read the full review: Asus Transformer Mini T102HA
Image Credit: Apple The 2015 MacBook Air might not be the newest kid on the block, but it’s still the best laptop for kids who love the macOS environment – unlike the 2018 model. We know that parents aren’t made of cash, but the 2015 MacBook Air has plenty of deals out there, not to mention, it’s the cheapest Apple laptop out there. It also has great battery life, an operating system that’s smooth and easy to navigate, and a form factor that’s light and thin. The best Macs are famous for outlasting Windows laptops – and this one should last your kid for years. Read the full review: MacBook Air
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| The best 13-inch laptop 2019: the top 13-inch laptops we've reviewed Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:21 PM PDT Shopping around for the best 13-inch laptop? It’s hard to get by without one of the best laptops these days, as they’re essential for so many reasons. To go for one of the best 13-inch laptops, however, there’s only one real reason: they’re just the perfect size. 15-inch laptops are too large, while anything less than 12-inches will leave you squinting.
The best 13-inch laptops, on the other hand, hit that sweet, space-saving spot. They’re perfect for getting your work done, as well as watching movies on Netflix at the end of the day. We still love the Dell XPS 13, but it’s not the only choice out there. It wouldn’t be surprising that some folks would take to the new MacBook Air, or prefer the Huawei MateBook 13. Sure, the XPS is beautiful, but the other options are more than appealing as well. The best 13-inch laptops all excel in different ways.
Ultimately, the best 13-inch laptop for you will depend on your individual preference and needs. Do you just want a simple and straightforward laptop, or are you partial to one with all the fancy bells and whistles? Do you need a 2-in-1 laptop that can switch to one of the best Windows tablets with just a flip of the display? Or maybe you want to skip Windows 10 entirely, and opt for one of the best Macs, backed up by macOS Mojave (or soon, macOS Catalina). There are many excellent 13-inch laptops to choose from, but no matter what your needs are, you’ll find the ideal match on this list. Image Credit: TechRadar It’s not often that we find a 13-inch laptop that ticks all the right boxes, one that doesn’t compromise on anything. The Huawei MateBook 13 is one of the very few that does exactly that. Fitted with the latest Intel Whiskey Lake processors and Nvidia MX150 graphics in a chassis that really should be too small to handle them, the Huawei MateBook 13 is a powerhouse that can easily slip into most backpacks or a medium-sized tote bag. Even better for budget users, it’s affordable – what more could you ask for? Read the full review: Huawei MateBook 13 Image Credit: TechRadar While its changes over last year’s model are subtle, there’s still no doubt that the Dell XPS 13 is still one of the best 13-inch laptops. On the high end, the 4K display offers a sharper picture across the board. Even if you can’t afford the top end model, the dashing design, lengthy battery life and SD card slot aren’t going anywhere. More importantly, you’ve got a quad-core processor regardless of what poison you pick. No matter which configuration you go for, the Dell XPS 13 is, without a doubt, one of the best 13-inch laptops right now. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 Image credit: TechRadar Calling a laptop beautiful might seem like a cliche, but one look at the HP Spectre x360, and you’ll be hard-pressed to argue. That gem-cut build means it’ll get your work done in style. This stunning 13-inch laptop is packed with the latest Intel hardware as well, so you know it can get your work done. And, if that’s not enough, it can also be flipped around into tablet mode – it really is one of the best 13-inch laptops out there. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 Image Credit: TechRadar While the 13-inch version isn’t the most powerful Surface Book 2 right now, it still makes for one of the best 13-inch laptops on the market. Whether you’re a professional or a creative, the Surface Book 2 will handle your daily workload in style. What’s more, the dynamic fulcrum hinge is much improved this time around, which complements the robust quad-core processor. That’s not all – unlike many other 2-in-1 laptops, the keyboard is removable to make it much more manageable, as well as thinner, when in tablet mode. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 Image Credit: TechRadar You may be expecting a gaming laptop, especially given Razer’s reputation, but the Razer Blade Stealth just happens to be one of the best 13-inch laptops you can buy today. It’s thin, light, and packed with the latest Ultrabook-class hardware – including dedicated MX150 graphics, which means you can play your favorite titles on the go. The 8th-generation Intel Whiskey Lake Processor makes this laptop a force to be reckoned with. Of course, that comes at a cost, but the sheer style and build quality might be worth it. Read the full review: Razer Blade Stealth Image Credit: TechRadar If you’re looking for a speedy and svelte 13-inch laptop to schlep around with you – and you don’t mind giving up some premium features, then you’ll love the Asus ZenBook 13. Coming in at just half an inch thick and weighing just 2.5 pounds, this is the ideal laptop to take with you when traveling. Don’t think you have to give up on power with all this portability, either. The Asus ZenBook 13 has quad-core Intel processors, 8GB of RAM and up to 1TB SSD. Its combination of power, portability and style easily makes it one of the best Asus laptops around. The only thing you’re missing here is a USB-C port, but it’s easy to overlook especially on a laptop as stylish as this. Read the full review: Asus Zenbook 13 Image Credit: TechRadar We get it; no one likes change. Still, the 15.6-inch frame of the Samsung Notebook 7 Spin we once knew will soon be erased from our memories forever. On a positive note, the new 13.3-inch model doesn’t seem like an awful upgrade. It’s bounced two generations into the future in terms of processing power. And while there are no discrete graphics, we’re happy to see a keyboard that can compete with some of the heavy hitters. It’s not going to blow your mind, yet as far as hybrid notebooks go, this one ain’t shabby. Did we mention that it’s cheaper than a mid-range MacBook Pro? Read the full review: Samsung Notebook 7 Spin
Image Credit: TechRadar The early Surface Laptop had our vote for one of the best 13-inch laptops, thanks to its gorgeous screen, competent internals and fantastic build quality. And we’re happy to find its sequel, the Surface Laptop 2, doing everything better and taking things to a new level. You won’t find any radical changes, but the faster 8th-generation CPUs, 8GB of RAM and most importantly, the removal of Windows 10 S all add up to making the Surface Laptop 2 one of the best 13-inch laptops right now. Read the full review: Surface Laptop 2 Image credit: TechRadar Though a tad bigger than your typical 13-inch laptop, this nearly 14-inch 2-in-1 contender boasts several aces up its sleeve – namely, longevity, power and durability. This means that the newest Lenovo Yoga C930 will last users long enough to get through their day-to-day workload and some entertainment at the end of the day. To round it all out, this device also has a lovely display with deep colors, a solid keyboard and a decent trackpad. It may not have the best graphics performance, but it definitely more than makes up for that, making it one of the best 13-inch laptops 2019 has to offer. Read the full review: Lenovo Yoga C930 Image Credit: TechRadar The MacBook Pro 2018 feels like the final form of Apple’s pro series laptop since its 2016 redesign. It still touts that thin and light design, while also bringing a wealth of improvements both to the hardware within and the Butterfly keyboard outside to making it quieter and more reliable. With this redesigned keyboard, you won’t need to worry about it breaking all because a piece of dust appeared under the spacebar. If you need an ultra-portable workhorse running macOS Mojave and can justify the cost, the 2018 MacBook Pro won’t let you down. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid-2018) Bill Thomas, Gabe Carey and Michelle Rae Uy have also contributed to this article
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| Amazon Prime Day 2019: the best deals that have already launched Posted: 09 Jul 2019 01:05 PM PDT Finding Amazon Prime Day 2019 deals isn't very difficult, even though the official Prime Day date is July 15 (next week). A lot of early deals have already launched in the US ahead of the Amazon.com 48-hour mega-sale. But seeking the best deals Amazon Prime Day deals? That's taken us a lot of work, pouring over the cheapest prices and separating what's a real discount and what's just masquerading as one. We're seeing good deals on video games, 4K TVs, phones, and, of course, Amazon's own Echo smart speakers and Fire TV set-top boxes. We're giving our Amazon Prime Day 2019 guide live updates, as we report on where and when to get the biggest discounts. You have a lot of choices that we lay out: do you want an Echo Dot at $24.99 (50% off MSRP) or are you in the market for a Ring Doorbell? It comes with a free Echo Dot for just $273.99 ($80 off MSRP). Our Prime Day deals list is below, highlighting the best prices for Fitbit, Roomba and Ring (another Amazon-owned company in the smart home business). In fact, the 48-hour is so big that even Apple is getting in on the discounts, with iPad and iPad Pro on sale, along with the ever-popular AirPods a fe bucks cheaper. It's going to get a bit chaotic leading up to the July 15 start date and time, so let's begin there to see when the bulk of the savings take place. Amazon Prime Day 2019: Fast facts
Taylor Swift Amazon Prime Day concertYou're going to need a free trial for Amazon Prime at the very least to tap into this Taylor Swift concert, which is designed to promote Prime membership sign-ups and remind people that Amazon Music still exists. The Jeff Bezos company is being tactful with its pre-Prime Day strategy. Officially known as the Prime Day Concert 2019, it starts tomorrow, July 10.at 9pm EDT. In addition to Taylor Swift, tomorrow's live streaming concert will also include live performances from Dua Lipa, SZA, Becky G, and host Jane Lynch. Amazon Prime Day deals: our best deals list (so far)This is our curated Amazon Prime Day 2019 deals list – at least among the discounts that have launched early. We're going to feature the very best things on sale first in our guide, noting the original MSRP and the discount to tell you how to cheap things are during Prime Day. The best advice, according to our team of deals experts, is to buy early and make any returns if you find a better price later on. That way you're guaranteed to save. Some of the deals can be fleeting, especially Amazon Prime Lightning deals. When is Amazon Prime Day 2019?Amazon Prime Day starts early next week, on Monday, July 15 right at midnight PDT. Prime Day ends on Tuesday, July 16 at 11:59pm PDT. That means from Sunday night onward, we'll be up curating the deals list below. Keep in mind the official Prime Day start time is based on where the retail company is located: on the West coast. So, many deals may come online at 3am EDT. Is Amazon Prime Day only for Prime members?Yes. Keep in mind that you must be a member of Amazon Prime to partake in the deals 48-hour event. It's Amazon's way of pushing its membership program that costs $119/year. Prime Day tip: If you're not a member you can sign up for a free 30-day trial today, that will last you right through the sale. It comes with all of the Prime Day perks, like two-day free shipping and Amazon Video streaming, including access to Amazon Originals. What were last year's best-selling Prime Day dealsPrime members around the world purchased more than 100 million products during the last Prime Day event. The top-selling items from last year's Prime Day included a mixture of home goods, electronics, and Amazon devices. In fact, it was the biggest event ever for Amazon devices with the Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot leading the pack of best-selling items worldwide. The top selling products consisted of the 6-Qt Instant Pot, Fire TV stick, Echo Dot, 23andMe DNA Test, and the LifeStraw personal water filter. The Prime deals you may have missed last timeAs ever, some of the best deals on Prime Day were on Amazon’s own devices. Smart speakers are a big hit every year with the Amazon Echo leading the pack with the below price drops. • Echo Show dropped from $229.99 to $129.99 There were good deals on TVs too. In the US, the excellent TCL TVs were massively discounted and better known brands such as Hisense were chopped too: for example Hisense’s 43-inch 4K TV dropped from $349.99 to $239.99. The best phone deal we spotted in the US was a big drop on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, which went from $799 to a much more affordable $549. Image credit: Shutterstock How can I sign up for Amazon Prime?To participate in the big shopping event, you must be an Amazon Prime Member. Your membership will not only let you partake in Prime Day, but you'll also have access to Amazon Prime movies, books, music, photos, and more. You can sign up here for a 30-day trial and cancel at any time. All you need is an Amazon account with a valid credit card tied to the account. Once you sign up for your free trial, you'll have access to all the Prime benefits, receive free two-day shipping and partake in the biggest shopping event of the year. What other retailers participate in Prime Day?Every year more and more retailers are trying to compete with the tech giant by participating in their own version of Prime Day. You'll find discounts on clothing, tech, home goods and more from a variety of online and local retailers. Last year Walmart joined in on Prime Day by offering free two-day shipping without membership fees and free same-day pickup on qualifying items. They also discounted a wide array of products that included TVs, Google Home devices, kitchen appliances, laptops and much more. Other big retailers like Target, Best Buy, Macy's and eBay also promoted their own one-day sale with discounts on best-selling items throughout their site. Amazon Prime 1-day deliveryAmazon just recently announced plans to offer free one-day shipping for Prime members on most orders. Amazon's CFO Brian Olsavky revealed the ambitious project during Amazon's first-quarter earnings call. To achieve this, the tech giant says they plan to invest $800 million in the second quarter of 2019 and continue its expansion of their fulfillment and logistics network. Amazon currently offers free 2-day shipping for all Prime members and offers free one-day and same-day delivery on certain items in eligible zip codes. Amazon's future plans include increasing the locations and available items so free one-day delivery replaces the standard two-day Prime delivery window. While we don't think the new one-day delivery will be rolled out in time for Prime Day, we do believe there will be more items available for one-day and same-day delivery in eligible zip codes for the big shopping day. Prime Day and Whole FoodsLast year Prime Day extended its sale from devices and electronics to discounts on groceries at the Whole Foods Market chain which the company also own. Savings included price cuts on popular food items and discounts for first time users of the grocery delivery service Prime Now. Amazon also offered $10 back in Amazon credits to use on Prime Day for members that spent $10 at Whole Foods. Amazon credit card users also received double the rewards when they used their card at Whole Foods during the week leading up to the big sale. We expect this year to feature more discounts on groceries in-store as well as promotions with the Amazon Rewards Card and Prime Now. How much money did Amazon make on Prime Day?Amazon was predicted to gross $3.4 billion on Prime Day last year, although we don’t know if that prediction is accurate as Amazon doesn’t release such information. However, it did announce that third party sellers shifted a billion dollars of product in just one day. As for its own sales, Amazon was content to say that “sales this Prime Day surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday and the previous Prime Day, when comparing 36-hour periods, making this once again the biggest shopping event in Amazon history.” That’s a little sneaky, mind you: as the 2017 sale only ran for 24 hours, not 36. A brief history of PrimePrime Day first launched four years ago and has grown into the biggest shopping day of the year with last year's even surpassing Cyber Monday and Black Friday with 89 million visitors logging on to the site with 100 million products purchased during the sale event. Globally it was the biggest day of sales in Amazon’s history, and Amazon Prime Day 2019 is going to be even bigger. It didn't just increase in terms of territories or numbers, but the sale itself lasted longer too. Where 2017's Prime Day ran for only one day (well, 30 hours), 2018 ran for a day and a half (36 hours). And now we're looking at 48, so Prime members will have even more time to snag the hottest deals of the year. Image credit: Amazon Why did Amazon crash on Prime Day? Did the crash cost it money?Amazon struggled to cope with traffic on Prime Day, an issue that affected not just the Amazon site but services such as Prime Video and Twitch. Customers found their shopping carts would suddenly empty, or links simply wouldn’t work, or they couldn’t access the site at all. The issues were largely confined to the US website and customers, although problems with Prime Video lasted well into the evening in the UK. Some sites got their calculators out and concluded that the worst outage, which lasted for 63 minutes, cost Jeff Bezos' company just under $100 million in lost sales. Amazon disagrees, saying that the effect on sales was “minimal”. Or maybe $100 million just isn't that much to the retail giant nowadays. CNBC has seen internal documents that describe what happened. First, it didn’t secure enough servers to cope with the demand; secondly, that shortage caused a “cascading series of failures” that knocked out key services; and thirdly, Amazon temporarily killed all international traffic to reduce the load. All of those things happened within the first 15 minutes of Prime Day. The outage wasn’t the only issue Amazon faced during the sale though... Why were workers striking and supporters urging Amazon boycotts on Prime Day?Prime Day wasn’t the first time Amazon has been accused of terrible working practices, but it was a great day to get the issue into the papers. Workers in Spain and Germany went on strike over working hours and conditions while activists urged people to send Amazon a message by boycotting the sale altogether over its treatment of workers and its tax arrangements. It was also marked by a surge in health and safety complaints from UK workers. As you’d expect, Amazon denies the allegations, with a spokesperson telling us: "These allegations and the data are just not accurate — safety incidents in our fulfillment centers did not increase around Prime Day, they actually decreased from the previous week. We’re proud of our team and our workplace, and invite anyone to come see for themselves – we offer public tours of our buildings and you can learn more at amazonfctours.com." Amazon also told Wired that the Organise campaign behind the publicity was indulging in fake news. “To our knowledge, Organise doesn’t verify that respondents actually work for the company they claim to work for.” Image credit: Amazon What could Amazon have done better on Prime Day?It should have anticipated and been able to cope with the load not just on its ecommerce site but on its cloud services too: we weren’t the only ones irritated because we couldn’t get our Preacher fix on Amazon Prime Video. It’s all the more embarrassing when you remember that Amazon provides the cloud infrastructure for many high-profile sites and services: Prime Day wasn’t a great ad for that side of its business. Our main criticisms aren’t technological, though. Navigating the deals was hopeless and many of the deals were laughable, especially in gaming: we frequently found much better console bundles on AO.com’s eBay page than we did on Amazon. Here’s a great example. On Prime Day, one of the flagship deals we identified was $50 off a set of Bose QuietComfort 25 headphones. That brought the price down from $299 to $249. Just three weeks later, Amazon US was listing the same headphones for $169. Will Amazon Prime Day 2019 do things differently?Yes. CNBC reports that Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO of worldwide retail, has already demanded improvements to prevent a repeat the previous Prime Day’s capacity problems: “tech teams are already working to improve our architecture”. We’d like to think that Amazon will also improve the navigation and discoverability of its deals, although we aren’t holding our collective breath: both factors’ general rubbishness didn’t stop it breaking all records. But that's why we're here to show you the best Prime Day deals! Image credit: Amazon What does all this mean for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?It’s clear that Amazon is prioritising Prime Day over Super Black Friday Deals Month or whatever convoluted name it’s going to give its Black Friday sales period in 2019: according to Digitalcommerce360.com, 67% of this year's Prime Day deals were lower than comparable deals on the preceding Black Friday. That’s not to say Amazon won’t take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It will, and it’ll offer the same kind of discounting that we’ve seen in recent years. But Prime Day is more important to the firm, and we’d expect its discounts to be deeper, especially on its own devices. Prime Day: why does it matter more to Amazon?There are some crucial differences between Prime Day and Black Friday. The first is that the former is Amazon’s own day. It’s right there in the name, which of course refers to Amazon’s Prime membership programme and associated services. Amazon doesn’t own Black Friday, and that means ultimately it’s just another retailer shouting for attention – a massive retailer with a really loud voice, of course, but Black Friday is a sales event for the entire retail sector. It’s much harder for rivals to muscle in on something that Amazon has effectively created from thin air. The second and more important difference is that Black Friday doesn’t create new spending. It just moves it slightly. As we’ve discovered in recent years, the money people spend over the Black Friday period is money they were probably going to spend anyway: all Black Friday really does is concentrates pre-Christmas shopping in the last week of November. Prime Day spending is different in two ways. First of all, people aren’t spending the money they’d already planned to spend on Christmas presents. And secondly, they’re buying mainly for themselves, not for others. If you go back to the list of bestsellers there’s an awful lot of impulse buying in there: Instant Pots and Hue Lightstrips, frying pans and dishwasher tablets. This is new spending, not merely moving pre-planned spending. There’s another key benefit for Amazon. Its best-sellers on Prime Day weren’t just Amazon devices; they were Amazon devices that connect to Amazon services. Fire TVs, Kindle Fires, Echo devices, Alexa remotes. Each one of them connecting to Amazon Prime, and each one of them requiring an Amazon membership to buy in the first place. So when Black Friday rolls around, Amazon will have a whole bunch of members for whom shopping there is the default option, and who might want to enhance their Amazon-powered smart homes with more of the company's branded Black Friday deals. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: gameplay, release date, trailers and news Posted: 09 Jul 2019 12:55 PM PDT Hold on to your lightsabers: there's a new Star Wars game on the way, and it's called Jedi: Fallen Order. And we've now got the first concrete details about it, thanks to E3 2019 and an extended gameplay trailer that dropped in June. In development by Respawn Entertainment (the studio behind Apex Legends and Titanfall), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was announced during E3 2018 but we didn't get a proper look at the game until early in 2019, during a special panel at the annual Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, before EA lifted the covers completely at E3 2019. While the official reveal only gave us a glimpse at a story trailer, it was more than enough to get us hyped for the upcoming game. E3 2019 gave us a far more meaty look at the game - including some lightsaber-fueled gameplay - before the developer dropped an extended demo at the end of the month. While fans of the galactic franchise have seen official tie-ins in the form of Star Wars Battlefront I and II, the new entry takes on a different tack, focusing on a single-player experience more in line with 2008's The Force Unleashed – and we have all the concrete news and wild speculation you could want below. [Update: In a recent interview, game director Stig Asmussen revealed some of the thought process behind Cal Kestis being chosen as a protagonist. Read on to find out more.] Cut to the chase
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order release dateEA has now confirmed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will release on November 15, 2019, just in time for Christmas and the long-awaited release of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. If you pre-order the Deluxe Edition ahead of the game's launch, you'll get two exclusive in-game lightsaber colors plus an exclusive hilt, in addition to skins for your droid and star ship. EA and Respawn will also include a digital art book in the Deluxe Edition and a few behind-the-scenes videos. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order trailers and storyYou'll take the role of Cal Kestis, a former Jedi padawan (AKA, a student of the Force). The game is set in the period following Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – the fateful time when the evil Emperor Palpatine executed Order 66, which saw the Jedi ambushed and killed by their own supporting Clone Trooper soldiers. Few survived and were forced into hiding. And that seems to include Cal! A youngster only partially through his training, Cal has been forced into hiding, working construction sites and trying to keep a low-profile as the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisition continues to track down any remaining survivors. The story trailer shows Cal having to use his Force powers to defend himself against rogue troopers, and to save a friend from falling from an accident. The trailer suggests the game will have some lavish set-pieces and environments, and hinted at a very-story-driven experience to enjoy. Check it out below: You can also watch the EA Play 2019 gameplay reveal for the game below, but note that you're going to have to jump into around the 30 minute mark to skip the build up portion, that's basically just 30 minutes of an EA logo! If you just want to see the game in-action, there's a brand-new official gameplay trailer that should provide everything you need to know about the game - including a few surprises. (Spoiler warning!) This is the same demo that journalists and attendees saw at the EA Play event. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order gameplayEA Play 2019 showed us a 15 minute slice of gameplay from the game, roughly 3 hours into the game. We were shown Chewbacca's homeland Kashyyyk, where Jedi Cal is trying to kickstart the rebirth of the Jedi order. But the poor Wookies are enslaved by the Empire! So Cal has to try to help them out. Walking through a tech-filled jungle corridor, gameplay at first doesn't look unlike Uncharted 4, with a tool that lets you swing from beams, and some wall-running ala Respawn's other game, Titanfall. Cal's pretty nimble, able to clamber up walls and climb as if he was Assassin's Creed's Ezio. He moves weightily. After meeting up with some resistance fighters, he carves his way through a door and comes across a burning refinery, using his lightsaber as a torch in the darkness. A battle ensues below and Cal needs to reach a troop of Stormtroopers , so force-pushes a tree below to make a path to them. Here we see our first glimpse of lightsaber action. Cal can force pull and push troops, as well as throwing his lightsaber at them for a ranged attack. Combat is lock-on focussed, not unlike Dark Souls for one-on-one combat, but seems massively more forgiving. There also seems to be finishing animations that trigger when you've took a baddie to low health. Lightsaber combat, thankfully, looks weighty and measured – this will be a tactical fighting game, rather than a hack and slash, with the classic ability to slash blaster bolts back at an enemy. Cal also seems to have the ability to focus the force and slow time, letting him take on dangerous foes, like flamethrower stormtroopers with a little more ease, as well as avoiding environmental hazards like spinning blades. One cool moment had him slow time, and force pull a stormtrooper towards him in time to use it as a human-shield against the very same blaster bolt it had fired at Cal moments earlier. The same technique can be used to halt a foe momentarily in its tracks – very Kylo Ren. So far, levels, though expansive, seem fairly linear – you're very much set along a path from one action scene to another, although the densely-designed levels prevent it from appearing too much like a series of corridors, back to back. Each scene has lots of AI interactions between NPCs, too – you'll see stormtroopers battling the native, giant-beetle-like creatures of Kashyyyk, and timing your attack against them could help to swing the odds in your favor. Cal acquires upgrade points as he defeats enemies, and also seems to be able to complete side missions if he goes off the beaten path and explores levels in detail. C The timing of the story, set after Revenge of the Sith, also means there was a familiar face or two turning up. Rogue One's Saw Gerrera, aka actor Forest Whitaker, was present, as was a bot that looked like K2SO. You'll have to fight this one, though. Skill points will go into your force abilities, letting you upgrade force pulls and push, double jumps and force slowing tricks. You'll get a droid, too, BD1, to help you on your way, offering the ability to hack terminals, heal your player and manage your hologram map, as well as being your buddy. You won't be able to turn to the Dark Side though – Cal's good to the core. So far then, so good. This is a classic-era Star Wars game, giving you a taste of the most-loved period in Star Wars history. Rather than the original reveal's suggestion that Cal will be a weak newbie Jedi, he's going to be fairly advanced in his training. And, it's all cannon – these characters are going to turn up in the wider Star Wars universe. It looks visually impressive... except for the Wookies. They looked like the plastic figures from the 70s. A bit more free-flowing, walking-carpet Wookie hair please, EA! Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order news and rumorsProtagonist potential In a recent interview with Game Informer, game director Stig Asmussen offered some insight into the decision making process behind Cal Kestis being chosen as the game’s protagonist. There was a point early on in the game’s development, Asmussen revealed, when an alien protagonist was considered but was soon discounted “because we felt like—no pun intended—that would alienate a lot of people.” While Asmussen admitted that he would be interested in an alien protagonist, he said the team wanted to make sure that “there was a real human connection to the character”. Having an alien protagonist in a Star Wars title certainly has the potential to offer a new and interesting perspective on the universe so it seems a shame that the opportunity was passed by. Fingers crossed it’s something that will be re-explored in the future. That said, Fallen Order has made a good impression thus far and hopes are high ahead of the game’s November launch. Retail box art Here's what the Standard edition look like: Standard Edition (Image credit: EA) And the Deluxe edition: Deluxe Edition (Image credit: EA) EA doesn't plan to release Fallen Order on Switch You can check out Ingram's reply to a fan tweet below: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was livestreamed – check it out But luckily for fans that couldn't make the trek to the event, EA livestreamed it. Check out EA's announcement tweet below for a chance to replay it: The galaxy-wide premiere saw the head of Respawn Entertainment, Vince Zampella, and game director, Stig Asmussen (whose previous work includes God of War 3), revealing the much-anticipated details of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order toys -confirmed Development is well underway A Padawan called Cal? Confirmed It's set after Revenge of the Sith This places it after the Galactic Empire hunted the 10,000-strong Jedi Order practically to extinction, leaving only a small fraction of Jedi alive (aka Order 66). With the promise that the game will be set 'in the dark times', it sounds like our Jedi protagonist may be more the hunted than the hunter. Star Wars: Battlefront II. (Image credit: EA) Could famous Jedi appear? The single-player mode comes first – and there will be no microtransactions It looks like a multiplayer component won't be available at all in the game – surprising given EA's focus in recent years on games that extend beyond a single play session. Even more surprising is the fact that there will be no microtransactions at all, ever, in Fallen Jedi. It's great news considering the industry falls over itself to offer chunks of games piecemeal these days – but don't be surprised if that means there will be an aggressive DLC system instead. I find your lack of faith disturbing Jedi: Fallen Order has been handed to a different studio, albeit one that's still a subsidiary of EA. But Respawn has garnered a lot of respect as the studio behind Titanfall and Titanfall 2, two critically acclaimed sci-fi action games that pit players against each other in giant mechanized suits, and which both came with strong single-player and multiplayer offerings. (Image credits: Respawn Entertainment) Keep checking back here for all the latest Jedi: Fallen Order news This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best laptop for programming in 2019: top picks for coders, developers and sysadmins Posted: 09 Jul 2019 12:36 PM PDT If you’re looking for the best laptop for programming, you’ve come to the right page. We found all the best laptops for software developers like you, whether you’re trying your hand at HTML, CSS, JavaScript or VB.
Before you go through are list, bear in mind that are a few things you need to think about before you buy the best laptop for programming. First, you’re going to need one of the best processors, as that horsepower goes a long way when you’re compiling code. Most modern laptops will feature plenty of cores, threads and high clock speeds, but you should focus on getting the fastest processor you can afford. Then there’s the memory. You absolutely need at least 8GB, and it needs to be fast. Think about storage as well: one of the best SSDs is essential, as it will shave minutes off your project with all the files and apps you’ll use. You won’t necessarily need the fastest graphics chip on the market, as modern Intel hardware comes with integrated graphics that are more than good enough for anything you’ll encounter while programming. However, if you want to do some gaming in your down time, go for it. Oh, and do yourself a favor and make sure you’re getting one of the best keyboards. As programming involves a lot of typing, you need a keyboard with excellent travel and superior comfort. And, a high resolution display will help make sure that it's easy on the eyes, as you’ll be spending a lot of hours and then some staring at it. Taking all that in consideration, find the best laptop for programming that suits you best in our list below.
Image credit: TechRadar The HP Spectre line has always consisted of stunning devices. So, when we say that the 2019 Spectre x360 takes things to another level, that should mean something. Not only is this one of the most beautiful laptops on the market right now – with its gem cut design and sleek profile, but it’s tough on the inside. HP fitted this with powerful Intel Whiskey Lake processors and long battery life, which means that you’re getting one of the best laptops on the market, hands down. As such, it’s also the best laptop for programming right now. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 (2019) Image credit: Lenovo If you have the funds for an unstoppable workhorse, then Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme mobile workstation is the best laptop for programming for you. It has several configurations on hand, depending on your needs and budget, but at its most basic, it’s already pretty powerful, packed with a solid graphics card in a robust carbon-fiber and aluminum package that will survive any office or field. Read the full review: ThinkPad X1 Extreme Mobile Workstation Image credit: TechRadar The EliteBook x360 1040 G5 is, without a doubt, the “apex predator of the business world.” It’s not the perfect machine, but it’s got plenty of features that make up for its flaws. It boasts many excellent features in its handsome-looking chassis, as well as plenty of ports, a port that works wonders and impressively audio. Simply put, it’s fit for the professional who demands seamlessness and power at work, making it the best laptop for programming in 2019. Read the full review: HP EliteBook x360 1040 G5 We’ve been waiting years for a new MacBook Air, and it’s finally here. Now thinner, lighter and with a Retina display for the first time, it’s easily the best MacBook Air we’ve ever used. Thanks to improved hardware for better performance (including 8th-generation processors, more RAM and faster SSDs) and an affordable price, the 2018 MacBook Air is a brilliant laptop for programming on. It keeps that same light and slim design which means it's easy to sling into a bag and carry around with you, but it also has enough oomph to make programming on it a joy. The improved screen and higher resolution makes it far more comfortable to work on as well. Read the full review: MacBook Air 13-inch Image credit: Matt Hanson When you’re looking for the best laptop for programming, especially if you’re developing software for macOS, you’re eventually going to find yourself looking at the MacBook Pro. And, the new MacBook Pro, with its hexa-core processor and heaps of RAM, is the most powerful MacBook that the Cupertino tech behemoth has ever birthed. No matter how extraneous your workload is, no matter what you’re trying to develop, you’re going to be able to get it done on the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and we’d recommend it to any software developer – as long as they had the budget for it. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid-2018)
Image Credit: Microsoft Sometimes you just have to work on the go, and in those situations, you’ll be thankful for the Microsoft Surface Pro 6. With its quad-core processors and plentitude of RAM, you’ll be able to compile code quickly and efficiently, even when you’re on the move. Just keep in mind that you’ll have to pay extra for the Type Cover – you’re not going to want to get any coding done on a touch screen, trust us. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Pro 6 Image Credit: TechRadar Yes, a Chromebook (or two) has made our best laptop for programming list. That’s because Google Pixelbook is powerful (and beautiful) enough to contend with the Surfaces and MacBooks of the world. Admittedly, the ChromeOS is not as good a place to program as Windows or macOS. However, the Pixelbook’s support of Android makes it a must-own laptop for any Android developer. The fact that this laptop succeeds the now discontinued Google Chromebook Pixel, which was designed by and for Google’s own developers, should give it some street cred in the eyes of coders. Read the full review: Google Pixelbook
Image Credit: Asus Another Chromebook that’s made our best laptop for programming list? The Asus Chromebook Flip, which is one of the best Chromebooks out there, solely because it offers a premium build, a great touchscreen and reasonably powerful components for the price. And, while Chrome OS doesn’t feature many robust programming tools, the Asus Chromebook Flip is one of the best Asus laptops for programming if you’re deep into web development. Read the full review: Asus Chromebook Flip C302 Image Credit: Microsoft The Surface Book 2 is an excellent choice for any coders out there, as Microsoft has crafted one of the most powerful 2-in-1 laptops on the planet. After all, it boasts components powerful enough to handle pretty much everything you could throw at it – including some light gaming in your down time. If you’re looking for a larger display, there’s a 15-inch model, which also features beefier components – albeit at a higher price tag. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) Image Credit: TechRadar If you need a macOS device that’s fast, but also light enough to carry around with you wherever you go, you’re going to love the MacBook Pro 13-inch. This isn’t just a best laptop for programming; this is one of the best Macs that we’ve ever used. If you need to code on the go, the quad-core processors and up to 16GB of RAM mean you’ll work fast, while the thin and light design means you won’t be held back. We can’t recommend it enough. Read the full review: MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018) Check out our laptop buying guide video below.
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| Pokémon Go updates: all the news and rumors for what's coming next Posted: 09 Jul 2019 12:29 PM PDT Pokémon Go: the world's first augmented reality app to become a household name. Niantic's mobile AR game is still going strong two years after it first released, with a constant drip of events and updates keeping budding trainers glued to their phones and pounding the streets. And while it hasn't managed to top the peak of its popularity in 2016, it's still going strong and finding plenty of new ways to improve its player experience. So what's the latest news for Pokémon Go? As you'd expect, brand new features are being added all the time and community events are still going strong. Plus we have another summer of Pokémon Go Fest events to look forward to. But without further ado, here's our guide to all the latest Pokémon Go news and updates.
Pokémon Go news and Pokémon Go updates
Third Anniversary Celebrations Three is the magic number in the Pokémon universe and Niantic is celebration Pokémon Go's third anniversary with some new features and events. New Features From June 28 shiny Alolan Pokémon will appear in the game. Players will have the chance to encounter and catch Rattata, Sandshrew, Vulpix, Diglett, Meowth, Geodude, Grimer, Exeggutor in their Alolan forms. There will also be items featuring the styles of the three team leaders available in the in-game Style Shop with which players can customize their own avatars. Armored Mew Two Mew Two has a brand new look for its return to Pokémon Go. From July 10 until July 31, players will have the chance to encounter an armored Mew Two in five star Raids. Limited Time Events From June 28 until September 2, players will be able to take advantage of the fact that trading Pokémon will cost 1/4 less Stardust and faster take downs when it comes to Raid Bosses. Finally, for this period players of level 10 and above will see "Jump-Start Research" tasks, the rewards for which will allow lapsed, or friends of lapsed, players get back into the game and continue playing on a more level field. When's the next Pokémon Go event?Pokémon Go Fest Pokémon Go Fest gatherings have been taking place around the world this summer and we’re now approaching the final one. While these gatherings take place in specific cities, even if you can't make it it's worth keeping an eye out for the ways you can participate from a distance.
Global Challenge Alongside Pokémon Go Fest Professor Willow has set some challenges on a global scale this summer for each of the team leaders - Spark, Blanche and Candela - and their followers so that everyone can take part no matter where they are. When a team successfully completes their task, they'll get special rewards. Spark and Candela’s challenge periods in tandem with Chicago and Dortmund events have already taken place. The final challenge is for Blanche, revolving around Stardust. This challenge ties in with the Fest in Yokohama and runs from August 5 to August 12. This time around players must complete 25 million research tasks globally (there's a little more time, after all). On successful completion, Team Instinct will 3000 Stardust per Raid, Team Valor will get triple Hatch Stardust and Team Mystic will unlock 1-hour Star Pieces. Any unlocked bonus will then run from August 13 until August 20. Unlock all of the bonuses? Then you can look forward to Suicune Raids on August 13. When's the next Pokémon Go Community Day?
Now that Slakoth has had its day, the next Pokémon Go Community Day takes place on July 21. The featured Pokémon for the event has been confirmed as Mudkip. While the exclusive move for the event is still to be confirmed, bonuses for the day will be 3x catch XP and 3 hour lures. Pokémon Go update: what's next?Niantic hasn't revealed any more plans for what's coming next in Pokémon Go in terms of the big picture but there are always new creatures and new events happening in the game. Big reveals can happen at any time, though, and we'll report them right here if and when any announcement happens. As far as rumors are concerned, there have been rumblings following a recent datamine that Team Rocket and Shadow Pokémon could be making an appearance in the game sometime soon. Posted to Twitter, the datamines suggest that Team Rocket grunts may make appearances at Pokéstops where players will have the chance to battle them. If defeated, they’ll drop the Pokémon they’re carrying which will be a Shadow Pokémon. This will then have to be purified through some unknown method. It’s a similar set up to Pokémon Coliseum released on GameCube all the way back in 2004, where players would have to catch and purify Shadow Pokémon. While no details have been officially confirmed just yet, the rumors that Team Rocket will be blasting their way into the mobile game have only increased since Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago and Dortmund where Team Rocket were spotted photobombing AR photos.
Pokémon Go Plus dealsWant to buy yourself a Pokémon Go Plus wearable? Check some of today's best deals down below. (Image credits: Niantic/Pokémon Company) This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best laptops for photographers in 2019: Photo editing in Photoshop Posted: 09 Jul 2019 12:05 PM PDT Trying to figure out which are the best laptops for photographers? Photo editing software can be pretty demanding, especially if you're working on high resolution raw files and utilizing advanced effects, so you'll want to make sure that you’re investing in a laptop that has all the makings of a powerful photo editing tool.
At the end of the day, the best laptops for photographers can rival traditional desktop hardware when it comes to raw horsepower. Additionally, unlike laptops of old, many boast pixel-perfect displays with stunning color, as well as wide contrast to keep highlight and shadow detail consistently visible. We put together a list of the best laptops for photographers and photo editing for you. In this guide, we’ll go through all the best laptops and Ultrabooks that can help photographers, no matter which photo editors you’re using – whether it’s Adobe Photoshop or GIMP. Image credit: Apple If you're after the latest and greatest laptop from Apple, then this year's 13-inch Macbook Pro with touchbar is a brilliant choice if you're looking for a laptop to edit photos on. It's the best laptop Apple has ever made, and builds new features into the classic design. Of course the headline feature is the Touch Bar - it's a thin OLED display at the top of the keyboard which can be used for any number of things, whether that be auto-suggesting words as you type or offering Touch ID so you can log in with just your fingerprint. This makes it an excellent laptop for photographers using Photoshop, as it has a number of Photoshop shortcuts, such as being able to quickly select a color or change the opacity of a layer by swiping your finger, features that all the other laptops on this list lack. Read the full review: Apple Macbook with touchbar (13-inch 2018)
Image credit: Matt Hanson With Apple having recently fitted its MacBook Pro 15-inch with Intel’s latest 9th-generation processors, these laptops are better and more powerful than ever, which means it’s just the ticket for demanding post-processing tasks. Of course, the fact that it boasts Touch ID and an improved Touch Bar, and is upgradeable to 4TB of SSD storage means that you can have a more seamless experience doing so. Although you will have to adjust to not having an SD card port and only two Thunderbolt 3, this is still one of the best laptops for photographers. Read the full review: MacBook Pro 15-inch Image credit: TechRadar Combining elegance with performance, the HP Spectre x360 15T boasts the same great features inherent to the Spectre line, but also takes things to a whole new level. Touting an 8th-generation Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics and 8GB of RAM in its base configuration, this 2-in-1 can handle anything your daily workload throws at it – and then some (like a bit of light gaming like playing Anno 2070, for example). The fact that it’s a 2-in-1 and HP Pen compatible means that you can use Lightroom and Photoshop in tablet mode, if that’s more convenient for your workflow. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 15T (2019) Image credit: TechRadar The Huawei MateBook X Pro has proved to be a truly brilliant contender to more established brands like Apple and Dell. This is a gorgeously-designed laptop with a stunning screen (albeit with a rather odd aspect ratio). Better yet, it comes packed with cutting edge components that allow it to perform brilliantly, and a battery life that runs rings around many of its rivals. It’s also competitively priced, giving you excellent features, design and performance for less. The combination of brilliant screen, powerful components and (relatively) affordable price makes this one of the best laptops for photographers in 2019. Read the full review: Huawei MateBook X Pro Image credit: TechRadar The Surface Book 2 is Microsoft's followup to its popular 2-in-1 device, and it’s definitely one of the best laptops for photographers. With a full version of Windows 10 installed, it can run Photoshop with any issues. It comes with boosted components, and its screen remains gorgeous. Only Apple's marginally better colour calibration gives the MacBook's image quality the edge, but Microsoft fights back with a superior 3,000 x 2,000 resolution and an ideal aspect ratio for viewing APS-C and full-frame images. The screen's touch-sensitive, but its real party trick is its ability to detach from the rest of the laptop to become a tablet. It's a shame that the Surface Pen stylus doesn't come included, as we'd definitely recommend buying for your photo editing sessions. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13.5-inch) Image credit: Dell Packing the same InfinityEdge technology as the smaller XPS 13, the 15-inch screen extends right to the edge of the machine which means it's as small as it's possible for a 15-inch laptop. It's quite expensive, depending on which version you get, but the very top end version has a 4K color-accurate display, which makes it one of the best laptops for photographers. You'll be able to see your photos in crisp detail as you edit them, and the impressive specifications mean it will keep up with all the edits you make to the largest photos in your collection. Read the full review: Dell XPS 15 Image credit: TechRadar This laptop's claim to fame is being the smallest 13.3-inch laptop on the market. It's slim screen bezel helps contribute to a svelte 304mm x 200mm x 15mm form that needs to be held to be truly appreciated. But it’s also among the best laptops for photographers. The XPS 13's screen is touch-sensitive, and it boasts a similar resolution and pixel density to the MacBook and Surface Book. Image quality is more in line with the ZenBook though, falling slightly short on colour and contrast intensity compared to Apple and Microsoft's displays. A highly portable package with little compromise other than battery life. Read the full review: Dell XPS 13 Image credit: TechRadar Sartorially-conscious photographers will love the look of this 13-inch stunner, sure. But the 2019 Spectre x360 also takes things to another level, power-wise. With its gem cut design and sleek profile, it’s this one of the most beautiful laptops on the market right now. However, HP also fitted this with powerful Intel Whiskey Lake processors and long battery life, which means that you’re getting one of the best laptops for photographers. Read the full review: HP Spectre x360 (2019) Image credit: TechRadar Sleek, slim and with solid specs to boot, the new Lenovo Yoga C930 not only deserves to be voted one of the best 2-in-1 laptops to date, but it’s also a worthy addition in our best laptops for photographers list. That’s without mentioning the fact that it now touts a 4K display model, which is just excellent for editing those high resolution full-frame shots. This 2-in-1 is a strong contender for photographers on the budget, but if you do decide to go for gold, you might have to break the bank. Read the full review: Lenovo Yoga C930 Image credit: TechRadar While it doesn't represent a huge improvement of the original Surface Laptop, the Surface Laptop 2 offers enhancements in all the areas we were hoping for, including updated hardware that brings solid performance upgrades. This is a laptop that finally delivers on what Microsoft set out to do with the original: a pure, powerful Windows 10 laptop experience. If you're not sold on the 2-in-1 nature of the Surface Book 2, but love Microsoft's premium build quality and design, then the Surface Laptop 2 is the laptop for you, especially if you’re looking for the best laptops for photographers. Read the full review: Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 Key things to look out forWatch the video above for the top 7 things to consider when buying a laptop. It's easy to get bogged down in the tech and spec soup of computer terminology, but there are a couple of key areas photographers need to think about. The first is the quality of the screen. This used to be more eye-sore than eye-candy, with appalling contrast and viewing angles, but thankfully IPS display tech fixes this and you shouldn't settle for anything less. An SSD (solid state drive) is a must as your primary storage in any new laptop. A conventional hard disk drive will bottleneck performance like flat tires on a Ferrari, and while dedicated graphics cards are great for gaming, they're not a necessity here. Today's processors can fill in for them, and they pack enough pixel-pushing punch for photo editing. The MacBook is favoured by many photographers, and for good reason. But don't rule out comparably priced laptop PCs, which can offer more bang per buck with better upgradability.
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| YouTube is finally available on Fire TVs again Posted: 09 Jul 2019 11:56 AM PDT The feud is finally over: Amazon Fire TV owners can once again access YouTube via a native app, while Chromecast owners can Cast the Amazon Prime Video app from their mobile phones or tablets to their TVs for the very first time. Both services will be available starting today, according to the announcement post on Google’s blog, and will be followed by closer collaboration in the future. Google and Amazon announced their intentions to bring their services to one another’s platforms back in April, but the updates to the apps didn’t roll out until today. According to a similar blog post on Amazon's blog, you'll be able to watch YouTube in 4K if you have a TV that supports it and use Alexa to open YouTube and search for videos. Even better, all your playlists and subscriptions will carry over once you sign into your YouTube account on Fire TV. The *start* of a beautiful friendshipThat being said, however, there are a few caveats. The first is that it’s just the YouTube app on Amazon Fire TV - YouTube TV and YouTube Kids won't launch until later this year. The second is that not every Fire TV device will get the update. At launch, only the Fire TV Stick (2nd Gen), Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Cube, Fire TV Stick Basic Edition, and Toshiba, Insignia, Element, and Westinghouse Fire TV Edition smart TVs will be able to access YouTube. The last caveat here is that, to cast Amazon Prime Video on Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra, you’ll need the latest Prime Video app and Android 5.0 or higher or iOS 10.1 or higher on your phone or tablet to receive the update. Once you've got all your apps updated, you can watch Prime Video on your Android TV device or kick back and watch the latest cat videos on YouTube via your Fire TV.
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| Ricoh Imaging launches HD-Pentax DA Fisheye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED lens Posted: 09 Jul 2019 11:47 AM PDT Ricoh Imaging might not have a shiny new mirrorless camera range to focus on like many of its rivals, but that's allowed it to finesse its existing, much-loved lines, from its Pentax-branded DSLRs through to its GR-series compact cameras. And now it's sought to better an older fisheye lens developed for Pentax DSLRs, namely the smc Pentax-DA Fisheye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5ED (IF), which has been transformed into the new HD-Pentax DA Fisheye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 ED.
The new lens differs from its older sibling in two ways. First, Ricoh has applied the same multi-layered HD coatings that feature across its most recent lenses. These are claimed to help deliver high-contrast images with edge-to-edge sharpness and minimal flare and ghosting, and they're joined by a Super Protect (SP) coating on the front element to help repel water, grease and dirt. The second change is a reworking of the lens barrel, which now matches the barrels of other modern Pentax lenses. The zoom and focusing rings now bear the familiar square dimpled pattern rather than the grooves of the previous lens's rings, while the lens hood can also be removed from the front of the optic when required. Ricoh Imaging states that while the lens is designed for APS-C-based bodies such as the most recent KP and K-70 DSLRs, it can also be used on its full-frame K-1 and K-1 Mark II bodies with the lens hood removed to produce nearly circular images. Otherwise, the lens produces diagonal fisheye results – i.e. those that occupy the whole frame without any borders. Otherwise the lens has much the same specs as the previous model, which includes a 14cm minimum focusing distance, six diaphragm blades and a Quick Shift Focus system that allows for focus to be adjusted manually once autofocus has been achieved. The lens will go on sale from the end of July with an RRP of $499.95 in the US and £499.99 in the UK. Pricing for Australia has not been confirmed as of yet. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| AMD Navi release date, news and rumors Posted: 09 Jul 2019 11:41 AM PDT After releasing the AMD Radeon VII earlier this year, Team Red finally dropped its AMD Navi graphics cards shortly after their reveal. And so far, things are promising. Based on our very positive reviews of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, it’s looking like these GPUs were crafted to take the PC components world – not to mention, the best gaming PCs – by storm. AMD first showcased these two cards at E3 2019 as mid-range GPUs designed to compete with Nvidia's highly popular Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2060, revealing their specs and how they measure up against their rivals. Alongside the AMD Navi updates, AMD also announced their new game-developer toolkit, Fidelity FX, which is officially available for free as of June 10. Fidelity FX enables game developers get more detail and crispness in low contrast textures, allowing them to fully take advantage of what these AMD Navi cards are capable of. Be sure to keep this page bookmarked, and we’ll keep it updated with all the latest AMD Navi information that surfaces. Cut to the Chase
AMD Navi release dateBoth the AMD Radeon RX 5700 and Radeon RX 5700 XT hit the streets on July 7, alongside the Ryzen 3rd generation processors. These cards are now available at the AMD store, and each comes with an 3-month subscription Xbox Game Pass for PC free with purchase. As for Navi 20, the rumored lineup for 2020, it's still anyone's guess. However, we do know that the Xbox Project Scarlett, powered by Navi, will be out Holiday 2020, so we could see the more powerful Navi chips out by then. AMD Navi priceAt Computex 2019, AMD took the stage and showed an unnamed Radeon RX 5000 graphics card going head to head against an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 in Strange Brigade, where it performed about 10% faster. It turns out, that was the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT. But, with E3 2019, AMD proved it’s still king when it comes to components for the masses. AMD revealed its two new graphics cards to be considerably cheaper than their rivals. The Radeon 5700 is currently priced at $349 (about £TK, AU$TK), touting a price tag that’s $50 cheaper than the RTX 2060 when it was released in January 2019. The Radeon 5700 XT, on the other hand, has a price tag of $399 (about £TK, AU$TK). And, that’s with offering comparable performance at 1440p to the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super at Ultra settings. AMD Navi specsRight off the bat, we know that AMD Navi is based on the new 7nm RDNA graphics architecture, making it the first mainstream AMD graphics card to break away from the aging GCN architecture. At Computex 2019, AMD stated that we’re going to see 1.25X faster performance per clock and 1.5X performance per watt over GCN. This not only means better performance in the best PC games, but also better power efficiency. Plus, AMD Navi is using faster GDDR6 memory, compared to the GDDR5 in the Radeon RX 500 series. In addition, the lower-end AMD Radeon RX 5700 features 36 compute units, 2,304 stream processors and a boost clock of 1,725 MHz, not to mention 8GB of 14Gbps GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, with 65 render output units (ROPs) and 256 texture units. The mid-range AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, on the other hand, boasts 40 compute units, with 2,560 stream processors and a boost clock of 1,905MHz. This GPU also has 8GB of GDDR6 video memory (VRAM), 14Gbps GDDR6 VRAM, 64 ROPs and 256 texture units. But while that’s all good on paper, but what about the actual real-world performance? Well, AMD showed the Radeon RX 5700 XT in a demo against the RTX 2070, where it bested Nvidia's mid-range card in World War Z by about 10% at 1440p on Ultra. The Radeon RX 5700, on the other hand, fared better against the RTX 2060 by 21% in Battlefield V and by 9% in The Division 2, also at 1440p on Ultra. Plus, we tested both cards a few days before they were released, and they definitely offer a premium 1440p gaming experience. Rather than taking on the RTX 2080 Ti at the high end however, it looks like AMD is comfortable inhabiting the mid-range where it has traditionally excelled. That is, until the PS5 launches. Back in April, Sony Lead System Architect Mark Cerny revealed that the PS5 would be using a custom AMD Navi GPU, and that it would be capable of some pretty impressive things. For instance, the PS5 will likely support ray tracing, along with 8K resolutions. We think that’s a little pie-in-the-sky, and we’d take it with a grain of salt. But, AMD Navi could theoretically mark a true generational shift when the next generation of consoles hits the streets. AMD Navi GPUs will also be behind Project Scarlett – the next Xbox. We don't know the exact specs, but Microsoft made a point to talk up its capabilities, mentioning things like "real time ray tracing", 8K capabilities and up to 120 fps gameplay. Beyond that, we have heard rumors about another generation of Navi graphics cards on the high-end hitting the streets in 2020. These high end graphics cards are rumored to be code-named Navi 20, and should feature improved performance that takes on Nvidia’s flagship. We could see AMD graphics cards capable of 2020 in the future if these rumors are to be believed. Until then, keep this page bookmarked for all the latest news, rumors and speculation. Images Credit: TechRadar This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Dr. Mario World: release date, trailer and first impressions Posted: 09 Jul 2019 10:18 AM PDT Like bad medicine, we've been served a lot of mediocre puzzle games on mobile in recent years – mostly an endless parade of poor Candy Crush clones. Good news: Nintendo is trying to put a change that by calling in its head doctor. Dr. Mario World for iOS and Android has brought its nearly 30-year-old brand of color-matching, virus-defeating puzzle gameplay to everyone today, July 9 ( a day early), and we got to test the new game ahead of its official release date. Our first surprise was how Nintendo is changing up the dosage from its 1990 original to adapt to today's smartphones. It makes sense: the colorful capsules are now 'tossed' upward into the playing field. Why the change? That makes it a lot easier to fling in these pills while holding on to modern phones, which have such big and tall touchscreens that they're typically gripped at the bottom. There's also a lot more variety to the gameplay and several new doctors on staff – all of them familiar faces in the Mario universe. Another big change: Dr. Mario World is free, but there are monetization options for continuing to play and obtaining extra doctors and power-ups, which we'll explain. Here's what you need to know before you get addicted to Dr. Mario World and bump to its classic 'Fever' and 'Chill' music remixes. Image credit: Nintendo Dr. Mario World release date and priceThe Dr. Mario World release date ended up being Tuesday, July 9, even though it was scheduled for Wednesday , July 10. It's now available for both iOS and Android. Nintendo is launching the game in nearly 60 countries. The Dr. Mario World price? Free. Nintendo has inserted monetization options into this game, though. You can either earn in-game coins or spend real money on diamonds. Both are designed to be spent to keep playing levels when you run out of 'hearts' (your play-limiting energy), to recruit new doctors, and to gain special power-ups. The core Dr. Mario World gameplay involves using as few capsules as possible to rid the playing field of colorful viruses. Running out of capsules triggers a game over and that's when you'll either have to wait to jump back into the solo game – or spend coins or diamonds to get back in right away. Good news: playing multiplayer games never has a wait attached to it, so you don't really need to spend coins or diamonds to continue playing in PvP match-ups. Image credit: Nintendo Dr. Mario World trailerThere have been two Dr. Mario World trailers released so far from Nintendo, one going over the core concept of the game, and the other the multiplayer gameplay. The first trailer is nearly three-and-a-half-minutes long and explores how the game is played. There's almost as much depth to the Dr. Mario World multiplayer trailer, which you can watch below. You can send lines of viruses over to your opponent by filling up an attack meter. There's a handy mini playing field on the right side of the screen to keep track of how your opponent is doing. Dr. Mario World charactersMario isn't the only doctor in the house – he has to attend to his plumbing duties some times, you know. You always have Peach, Luigi, Bowser and even Yoshi on hand, among others. On-boarding a new doctor or assistant requires either 4,000 coins or 40 diamonds. Each Dr. Mario World comes with special attributes to help you solve puzzles, too. Here are all the available doctors so far: Image credit: Nintendo
There are even more assistants that can be called in – and you can use two at a time. They offer smaller perks, like increasing your score by 1%, or a 10% chance of getting extra capsules at the start of a stage.
Dr. Mario World impressionsGames, like the 1990 original Dr. Mario, need a lot more depth in 2019 to appeal to mobile gamers – we have a seemingly endless number of choices in today's app stores. And yet the gameplay has to remain easy to pick up and play in spurts. The core concept in Dr. Mario World counts your usage of two-colored capsules and encourages you to use as few as possible, but there's a lot more to it than that. Yes, you can think of the gameplay as closer to Candy Crush, but one of the knocks to the many Dr. Mario sequels over the years has been it didn't advance the formula enough. Of the 200 stages at launch, we found several variations to the gameplay. Sometimes matching Koopa shells colors triggered a satisfying row-clearing effect, other times frozen viruses need to be color-matched twice (once to break the ice and another to eliminate them). You'll also find viruses in jail which need to be freed by eliminating a keyhole first, and classic-looking bombs that take out every virus around it. There's a lot more nuance to Dr. Mario World than the NES original in 1990s and the parade of capsules moves up the playing field, not down. Both changes are a direct result of today's smartphone environment and, thankfully, don't break the gameplay flow we know and love. They only enhance it. Dr. Mario World achieved this, at least during our 20-minute play sessions, and we were digging the "Fever" and "Chill" remixed music while eliminating viruses. It's Nintendo's best mobile addiction yet – and it's available today.
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| AMD Radeon RX 5700 graphics cards will come from partners next month Posted: 09 Jul 2019 10:09 AM PDT The new AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards are here and have plenty to offer at a modest price point. But, one thing the new graphics cards don't offer is alternative cooling options. AMD's Radeon Business Unit Vice President and General Manager Scott Herkelman posted on Reddit to announce add-in-board (AIB) partners will release new designs in mid-August.
The RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT both have a blower-style cooler, which is a negative in our books. In the case of the RX 5700 XT, we saw the card heat up to 81 degrees Celsius during our testing. AIBs can bring all sorts of different designs that may better fit a wide variety of possible PC builds. The perks of board partnersWe expect to see board partners releasing custom coolers with two- and three-fan designs, plus any number of water-cooled options. Beyond the ability to make the graphics card potentially run cooler, they could run quieter as well. One other thing board partners often manage is new value propositions. With higher-end cooling options, board partners can push graphics processors further in overclocking. This means you may see board partners offering RX 5700 models with higher performance than the reference models from AMD. Another angle is that board partners can release cheaper cooling shroud designs that bring the price of the graphics card down. Of course, AMD's new graphics cards are already on the affordable side, and the company may have minimum price restrictions for partners in place this early on, but that could loosen up over time. So, if you're looking for a new AMD graphics card but want it to run cooler, clock higher, cost less, or potentially be smaller than AMD's reference designs, there may be a card in mid-August that does the job. AMD fans not have to worry about the blower limitation as much in the future either. Herkelman responded to feedback, saying he liked the idea of launching dual- and tri-axial cooling options alongside blower designs. Via HotHardware This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| HostGator is now offering free domains with its web hosting packages Posted: 09 Jul 2019 10:03 AM PDT In the ever-competitive world of web hosting services, companies are constantly introducing new features to get the upper-hand on the competition to help you build your website. The latest attempt to up its game comes from HostGator. The award-winning web hosting giant is now offering up the incentive of a free domain for the first year. Considering we currently rank HostGator in the top three of our best web hosting guide, this is an excellent addition to one of the best options out there. However, there are a few catches when it comes to this free domain offer. Firstly, you must be a new customer with HostGator and it is only valid on packages that last 12 months or longer. You also must claim your free domain (including .com, .net and .org) during the purchase otherwise it will no longer be valid. And, as we say, this is only the case for your first year with HostGator. We've listed HostGator's three web hosting packages below with a brief idea of what features they include. All come with the added incentive of the free domain so you can decide which fits your needs best. Note that the offer is also valid on managed WordPress and Cloud Hosting packages HostGator's web hosting services:
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| Amazon Prime Day 2019: UK deals live now ahead of the 48-hour event Posted: 09 Jul 2019 09:13 AM PDT Amazon Prime Day is held once a year and offers exclusive discounts to Amazon Prime members around the world. And this is year is set to be the biggest event yet and it kicks off in just six day's time. Amazon Prime Day 2019 will take place July 15th-16th. That's right, we're getting an epic 48-hour sale this year - a significant upgrade over the 36 hours last year. So get ready for a huge number of Prime Day deals - some of which have already begun. Given summer can be a bit dry for deals, unless you want items for the garden at least, Prime Day is a fantastic opportunity for tech fans to pick up discounted bargains from their wish-list and enjoy them sooner rather than later. Black Friday is a long time away after all and sometimes the Prime Day deals are actually even better. You're in the right place to learn everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2019. We'll tell you what deals to expect, what the best deals were last time and even what brilliant offers you can take advantage of right now as there are some early Amazon Prime Day deals appearing already. And if you want to get involved, we'll tell you how to sign up for Amazon Prime membership for free. What is Amazon Prime DayAmazon Prime Day is a summer sales event on Amazon websites around the world where members of Amazon Prime get exclusive discounts on a huge range of items. It's not just Amazon-branded items either (although they're amongst the best deals for sure), lots of other manufacturers and third-party merchants save their best deals for Prime Day too, knowing millions of extra shoppers will be hitting the online store. Why does Amazon have Prime Day? Sure, it's a neat "thank you" for all it's paying members. A thank you that involves giving Amazon more money. It's a smart model to be honest. You need to either sign up for a free trial or be an existing member of Amazon Prime and people that keep the service either pay Amazon a monthly or annual fee giving Amazon a regular income source from them. And it's no co-incidence the best deals are found on Amazon's items. Buy a Kindle and you're going to keep buying ebooks from Amazon. Buy a Fire TV Stick you're going to watch Prime Video (a great perk of membership) and maybe pay for the odd rental. Buy an Echo smart speaker and you're into the Alexa family and helping Amazon fight off competition from Google's rival Home devices. How should I prepare for Amazon Prime Day?Want to enjoy the best Prime Day deals? Then you have to be a member of Amazon Prime. If you've not been a member before, then our best advise is to sign up for a free 30-day trial. Given Prime Day is happening July 15th-16th, that free trial will last you right through the sale. You can totally cancel it anytime before the 30-day are up free of charge if you're not bothered about the other perks of membership like free access to loads of TV show and movie content on Prime Video, free Kindle books/magazines, member-only discounts and super fast delivery options. We'd also advise setting yourself a sensible budget aside and doing your research on what sort of items you'd like to keep an eye out for. If you have been thinking of getting an Amazon product, TV, set of headphones, bluetooth speakers, robot vacuum cleaner or any sort of tech really, holding on for a Prime Day deal is a solid shout as we see great deals on these items every year. We're really not that far off now too. Image credit: Amazon What deals are live right now?Just because those Prime Day deals are a while off yet we're not waiting to bring you the best discounts. We've been able to dig out a few crackers already, it's what we do here every day after all. So here's a selection of the best deals we've seen at Amazon today. Stay tuned as we'll keep updating this page with the best discounts all the way until Prime big day itself. Amazon even gave us an early Prime members-only deal to get us going when it officially announced the Prime Day dates. The original Echo Show is down to £79.99 from £179.99. It's for a refurbished model though. That's....not a particularly great start to be honest, Amazon. We think you're better off waiting for a Prime Day deal on the newer 2nd-gen Echo Show or maybe the smaller Echo Show 5 which we can see getting a tasty discount in the sale. We've had a look around on Amazon though, which of course has some super competitive deals going on throughout the year if you know where to look. These are our favourite pre-Prime Day deals you can buy right now. When is Amazon Prime Day 2019?Amazon Prime Day is July 15 and July 16, which makes the name a bit of a misnomer. No one is complaining about having a whole 48 hours to save money, though. Amazon has steadily increased the time of its Prime Day sales year after year: it was 24 hours the first year, then 30 hours, and last year it was 36 hours. Now we're in for a whole 48 hours, starting from July 15th next month. And let's face it with the Amazon Black Friday deals event now lasting about a week, anything's possible. Except sleep apparently if you're a Deals Editor. We'll be front and centre for the entire thing to ensure you can see the best deals as navigating the messy array of deals and discounts that can be a bit exhausting directly on Amazon's site. Fortunately, we're used to trawling for deals there every day and we usually learn of the best deals way in advance, giving us plenty of time to prepare coverage for you. Image credit: Amazon What were the best-selling Prime Day items last year?The online behemoth's sales event of the summer was the biggest day of sales in its history last year, with over 89 million visits logged (10% more than in 2017). We can only see 2019 being even bigger. Amazon sold over 100 million products around the world and over one million smart home devices – not just Amazon ones but Philips Hue lights, Hive thermostats and various manufacturers’ smart plugs. Prime Day was the biggest day ever for Echo devices, Fire tablets for kids, Kindle e-readers and Fire TV products. Amazon said the two best-sellers worldwide were the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote and the Echo Dot. Both of those items have actually been replaced with newer versions since - thankfully without a bump in RRP. So we totally expect the newer Amazon Echo Dot (3rd gen) and Fire TV Stick with the all-new Alexa voice remote (it now has extra buttons for volume control and gaming) to get similar discounts for the best prices of the year. Other best-sellers included:
What were the best Prime Day deals last time?As ever, some of the best Prime Day deals were on Amazon’s own devices, some of which have since been discontinued and replaced with new and improved models. The ever-popular Echo speakers were big hits with the following price drops:
Kindles and Fire Sticks and tablets received mouth-watering discounts too. The biggest surprise though was the never-previously-discounted Kindle Oasis dropping from £50 and the Paperwhite getting its lowest price yet. It just goes to show that the Prime Day deals on Amazon's devices is the absolute best time to buy. Amazon has knocked £30 off since the slightly newer version arrived, but there's room for a bigger price-cut on Prime Day itself. The Fire TV Stick dropped to its lowest ever price while the already cheap Fire Tablets dropped significantly with the Fire 7 getting reduced to just £29.99. So yes, these are the deals to look out for again this year.
There were some cracking deals on TVs too, some of which are now even cheaper given TV deals in general are seriously competitive here in the UK. We saw 55-inch Ambilight OLED screens go from £1499 to £1199 (or just £999 today!). On the other end of the scale a 55-inch Hisense dropped to just £369, an all-time low at the time. Mobile phone deals on Amazon Prime Day don't make too many headlines, but if you're willing to pay the upfront cost of a phone rather than go for a contract, there were certainly deals to be had last year. The then year-old Samsung Galaxy S8 dropped to £439. The Honor View 10 was just £338.99. And the already very budget-friendly Moto G6 Play dropped to £135.99. So not the most modern or premium selection of handsets, but don't bet against a wider range this year as more brands are keen to get involved each year Here in the UK we saw plenty of other deals across multiple products. The biggest discounts were on coffee machines: many of them got 50% price cuts. Hive smart thermostats were 44% off, selected home security kits were 45% off and everything in the Amazon Warehouse section was 20% off. Chromebook fans got to snap up the excellent but terribly named Asus C202SA-GJ0027 for £99.99 instead of the usual £199.99. Image credit: ebuyer Will other retailers take part in Amazon Prime Day?We have seen other stores in the UK try and cash in on the Amazon Prime Day fever by hosting their own deals. But in all honesty, they've regularly disappointed. However, if retailers do sell the same item that's getting a great deal on Amazon, expect to see a lot of price-matching. This can be especially handy if you have a store-specific gift card burning a hole in you pocket. We see retailers price match Amazon on items like Fire sticks and Echo speakers throughout the year and some even go 99p cheaper to gain an advantage. John Lewis is worth a look as the store usually offer a minimum two-year guarantee on all electricals while most rivals stick with the standard one year. Currys, Argos and AO.com will be hoping to entice buyers to their sites too. Hopefully electricals and computing specialists ebuyer will launch its Optimus Day again to rival Prime, which was a nice bit of Transformers humour for us last time around. Will Argos go for Megatron deals? We also expect to see rivals to Amazon's own devices go on sale. In particular, expect to see multiple discounts on the Google Home deals to match the equivalent Echo products.We see this sort of price-matching happen a lot during even basic sales during the year. Chances are, you'll be able to get the best prices yet on Google's smart speakers. Image credit: Amazon What could Amazon have done better on Prime Day?It should have anticipated and been able to cope with the load not just on its ecommerce site but on its cloud services too: we weren’t the only ones irritated because we couldn’t get our Preacher fix on Amazon Prime Video. It’s all the more embarrassing when you remember that Amazon provides the cloud infrastructure for many high-profile sites and services: Prime Day wasn’t a great ad for that side of its business. Our main criticisms aren’t technological, though. Navigating the deals was hopeless and many of the deals were laughable, especially in gaming: we frequently found much better console bundles on AO.com’s eBay page than we did on Amazon. Here’s a great example. On Prime Day, one of the flagship deals we identified was $50 off a set of Bose QuietComfort 25 headphones. That brought the price down from $299 to $249. Just three weeks later, Amazon US was listing the same headphones for $169. Will Amazon Prime Day 2019 do things differently?Yes. CNBC reports that Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s CEO of worldwide retail, has already demanded improvements to prevent a repeat the previous Prime Day’s capacity problems: “tech teams are already working to improve our architecture”. We’d like to think that Amazon will also improve the navigation and discoverability of its deals for Prime Day 2019, although we aren’t holding our collective breath: both factors’ general rubbishness didn’t stop Prime Day breaking all records, so there’s not much incentive for Amazon to change it unless it decides better navigation will drive significantly higher sales. But that's why we're here to show you the best Prime Day deals! It’s a safe bet that Prime Day 2019 will be longer. It’s already grown from one day to one and a half; further inflation seems inevitable. Image credit: Amazon What does all this mean for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?It’s clear that Amazon is prioritising Prime Day over Super Black Friday Deals Month or whatever convoluted name it’s going to give its Black Friday sales period in 2019: according to Digitalcommerce360.com, 67% of this year's Prime Day deals were lower than comparable deals on the preceding Black Friday. That’s not to say Amazon won’t take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It will, and it’ll offer the same kind of discounting that we’ve seen in recent years. But Prime Day is more important to the firm, and we’d expect its discounts to be deeper, especially on its own devices. Image credit: Amazon Prime Day: why does it matter more to Amazon?There are some crucial differences between Prime Day and Black Friday. The first is that Prime Day is Amazon’s own day. It’s right there in the name, which of course refers to Amazon’s Prime membership programme and associated services. Amazon doesn’t own Black Friday, and that means ultimately it’s just another retailer shouting for attention – a massive retailer with a really loud voice, of course, but Black Friday is a sales event for the entire retail sector. It’s much harder for rivals to muscle in on something that Amazon has effectively created from thin air. The second and more important difference is that Black Friday doesn’t create new spending. It just moves it slightly. As we’ve discovered in recent years, the money people spend over the Black Friday period is money they were probably going to spend anyway: all Black Friday really does is concentrates pre-Christmas shopping in the last week of November. Prime Day spending is different in two ways. First of all, people aren’t spending the money they’d already planned to spend on Christmas presents. And secondly, they’re buying mainly for themselves, not for others. If you go back to the list of bestsellers there’s an awful lot of impulse buying in there: Instant Pots and Hue Lightstrips, frying pans and dishwasher tablets. This is new spending, not merely moving pre-planned spending. There’s another key benefit for Amazon. Its best-sellers on Prime Day weren’t just Amazon devices; they were Amazon devices that connect to Amazon services. Fire TVs, Kindle Fires, Echo devices, Alexa remotes. Each one of them connecting to Amazon Prime, and each one of them requiring a Prime membership to buy in the first place. So when Black Friday rolls around, Amazon will have a whole bunch of Prime members for whom shopping on Prime is the default, and who might want to enhance their Amazon-powered smart homes with Amazon-branded Black Friday deals. Prime Day means that for Amazon, Christmas now comes twice a year. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Pokémon Sword and Shield: release date, trailers, news and features Posted: 09 Jul 2019 08:56 AM PDT After releasing some of the best games in franchise history on the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo and Game Freak are finally ready to bring the main Pokémon games to the Nintendo Switch – the first of which are called Pokémon Sword and Shield. The games will release globally on Nintendo Switch this November and will bring with them a brand-new region, features and Pokémon for trainers to swoon over. The key points Nintendo has announced so far are that the games are set in the Galar Region (basically, a Pokémon-ified version of the UK) and will include a number of new creatures including three new starting Pokémon, Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey. We'll also see a new mechanic called Dynamaxing that will replace Z-Moves and Mega-Evolutions, and more intense gym battles. How does Sword and Shield stack up to Pokémon Let's Go: Pikachu and Eevee? Those games acted as a sort of reboot of the original Red and Blue titles for the Nintendo Gameboy, and for many didn't count as a 'core' Pokémon experience. Since Pokémon Sword and Shield are the first mainline Pokémon games to come to Nintendo Switch, and expectations are much, much higher. So what do we know, and what are we hoping to see when Pokémon Sword and Shield launch this year? Read on to find out. [Update: Nintendo has released details on Sword and Shield's Gigantamaxing battle mechanic. Read on to find out more.]
Cut to the chase
Image credit: Nintendo Pokémon Sword and Shield: release dateDuring a special Pokémon Sword and Shield focused Nintendo Direct on June 5, Nintendo revealed that Pokémon Sword and Shield will release globally on November 15, 2019. In addition, Nintendo announced pre-orders for a double-pack edition of the games will be available soon. Pokémon Sword and Shield: trailersThe most recent Pokémon Sword and Shield trailer gave us a closer look at Gigantaxing, new Pokémon and the Galar Pokémon League. Check it out below: The best glimpse we've had of Pokémon Sword and Shield was during a special Nintendo Direct in June. The Nintendo Direct shed a lot of light on what new features we can expect alongside some new Pokémon pals. Check out the video below: The first Pokémon Sword and Shield trailer didn't give too much away, but you can see the first glimpse of the environments and art style. You also get a first look at three new starter Pokémon: the fire-rabbit Scorbunny, twig-monkey Grookey, and a sad-looking tadpole (sadpole?) called Sobble. Check the trailer out below: The last video, released right around the time of E3 2019, highlighted some of the geographical features of the Galar Region and introduced us to raid battles – a mechanic taken from the Pokémon Go mobile game. Pokémon Sword and Shield screenshotsPokémon Sword and Shield news and featuresVersion-exclusive Gym Leaders Pokémon Sword and Shield will have version-exclusive Gym Leaders. In Pokémon Sword you will battle karate prodigy Bea, while in Pokémon Shield, you take on emo king Allister. Gigantamaxing Previously we had heard of the Dynamax feature that allows Pokémon to become super-sized during battles, however Nintendo has now revealed the "phenomenon" of Gigantamaxing. While Dynamaxing can only occur in specific areas of the Galar region, and is a common occurrence for Pokémon from the region, Gigantaxmaxing is only specific to certain species of Pokémon and kicks things up a notch by not only increasing a Pokémon's size but also its appearance. In addition, Gigantamaxing boosts the power of the Pokémon and allows it to use a unique move known as a G-Max Move - each G-Max Move is particular to a specific species of Gigantamax Pokémon. More new Pokémon In a recent trailer Nintendo introduced us to some more new Pokémon we'll be encountering in Galar, including the walking ice-cream sundae Alcremie, adorable puppy Yamper, coal chunk Rolycoly and steel dragon Duraludon. Image credit: Nintendo Doubling Down Pokémon producer Junichi Masuda has reiterated the news that not all Pokémon would be available to catch in Sword and Shield in a statement to fans on the official Pokémon site. In the statement, Masuda thanked fans for their love of the Pokémon series but reaffirmed the decision to limit Pokémon in the game to those within the Galar region. He did, however, add that "even if a specific Pokémon is not available in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games." Fan backlash against the news has been severe but it seems that Game Freak is sticking to its guns. Masuda added in his statement that the Galar region will see “the world of Pokémon continues to evolve. The Galar region offers new Pokémon to encounter, Trainers to battle, and adventures to embark on. We are pouring our hearts into these games, and we hope you will look forward to joining us on this new journey.“ Can't catch 'em all It's been confirmed that Pokémon Sword and Shield will not feature every Pokémon from the franchise so far, making them the first mainline games to do so. Given there are now more than 800 species of Pokémon this is, perhaps, not all that surprising. The reason, according to Game Freak producer Junichi Masuda (via Famitsu), is that on reaching generation eight there will be more than a thousand Pokémon in the Pokédex. Such a large number means "it has become extremely difficult to make Pokémon with a new personality play an active part and to balance their compatibility" as well as to make sure they'll all be balanced in battle. Not only that, it would be too difficult to have so many in-game models with a high enough graphical quality. Though the choice saddens Masuda, he says that it's a decision he "had to make some day" and that he's opting to "choose the quality". Pokémon Ball Plus We didn't hear much about Pokémon Sword and Shield during Nintendo Direct at E3 2019, but it was teased that the Pokémon Ball Plus can be used to take your in-game Pokémon for "a stroll". However, the ball cannot be used as a controller. In addition, it was teased that "good things" will happen if you build up a strong connection to one Pokémon in particular. Release date revealed Nintendo held a special Pokémon Sword and Shield focused Nintendo Direct on June 5 that revealed both games will release globally on November 15, 2019. Max Raid Battles Much like Pokémon Go, Sword and Shield has a feature which allows trainers to team up with up to three others online to take on more powerful Pokémon. Legendaries Pokémon Sword and Shield's wolf-like Legendary Pokémon are Zacian (sword) and Zamazenta (shield). Dynamax Mode This new mode allows trainers to make their Pokémon giant and super-powered. This mode can only be activated once during a battle and lasts three turns before a Pokémon reverts to normal size. Image credit: Nintendo More new Pokémon Alongside the starter Pokémon, Nintendo has also revealed a few more new Pokémon joining Sword and Shield: Wooloo (sheep Pokémon), Gossifleur (a fancy lady Pokémon that evolves into Eldegoss), Drednaw (who resembles a snapping turtle) and Corviknight (a raven and glorified taxi service for the Galar region). Wild Area Galar features a Wild Area where trainers can explore, battle and capture Pokémon. Which Pokémon appear depends on the environment and weather. Stadiums Trainers will battle Pokémon leaders in Stadiums rather than the usual gyms. These stadiums are huge and packed with a cheering audience. New characters Nintendo revealed your new rival is Hop, whose older brother is the Pokémon champion of Galar. Meanwhile Professor Magnolia and her assistant Sonia will act as your guides. Image credit: Nintendo Trainer outfit customization will be a feature While it's not a brand new feature, trainer outfit customization has been popular with Pokémon players since it was introduced in X and Y. And it's a feature which a recent Uniqlo competition has confirmed will be in Pokémon Sword and Shield. In a collaboration with The Pokémon Company, the clothing brand asked fans to design a top which would then be sold in stores. Now that the winning entry has been chosen (a design featuring Magikarp and Gyrados) it's been revealed that the top will also be wearable in Pokémon Sword and Shield as a trainer outfit. Just how many more outfit options there'll be in the games isn't known yet, but we're hoping to catch a glimpse of some more if Nintendo shows us some new Sword and Shield footage during its E3 conference this year. Made for handheld While the Pokémon Let's Go games were developed with TV mode in mind, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has stated that Pokémon Sword and Shield will "emphasize the fun of playing Nintendo Switch in handheld mode." Furukawa made the comments during Nintendo's March 2019 Financial Results Briefing (via Nintendo Life). Image credit: Nintendo A whole new world We know the game is set in a brand new region of Galar, rather than a rehash of Kanto or a previously visited territory. Galar seems to be loosely inspired by England's cities and countryside, with rolling hills and brickwork cities to explore. The trailer also showed glimpses of jewel-encrusted mines and what might even be a football stadium (see the kit below), though we're waiting to see whether competing in a Pokémon-themed Football World Cup will be possible for players. Brand new Pokémon Yup, this is a new generation of Pokémon, meaning you'll be seeing a lot of new faces – as well as a lot of old ones. The trailer gave us a mix of familiar Pokémon like Pikachu and Hoothoot along the new starters, and we're hoping Game Freak manage to keep the new designs interesting (no ice cream or candelabra Pokémon, please.) Modern to the core Sword and Shield look to retain the look and 3D animation style of the Pokeémon Let's Go games that launched on Nintendo Switch last year. Pokémon games haven't been flat 2D games in years, and has increasingly been moving towards full-size avatars and 3D environments. Some may miss the old-school pixel charm of the earlier games – and find the 3D creature models a bit bland – but for better or worse this is what we're getting. Pokémon Stars what? What still confuses us is that we've been waiting for the long-rumored Pokémon Stars game for over two years now, Eurogamer. published a report in late 2016 that said multiple sources had confirmed a new version of Pokémon Sun and Moon was being developed for the Switch under the code named Pokémon Stars. While it never materialized, 'Stars' could well have been a code-name for what eventually became the Let's Go games, or could still prove a Switch port for the Sun and Moon games.
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| Japanese report paints a bleak picture of the digital camera market Posted: 09 Jul 2019 08:49 AM PDT With smartphones continuing to eat away at the consumer end of the camera market, it probably won't come as a surprise to many that things have been tough for the big photography players in recent years. But a recent report from Japanese business publication Nikkei highlights just how each of the big players fared last year - and while they've shuffled around a bit of their market share, overall sales have markedly dropped.
Digicame Info has highlighted a report in Japanese business publication Nikkei that states that 20.29m Digital Stills Camera (DSC) units were shipped last year, which represents a 22% decrease on 2017. Image credit: CIPA Canon emerged as the victor here, with its 40.5% share of the market representing a 3.5% increase on its 2017 numbers. Rival Nikon saw its share contract by 2.7% to 19.1% overall, while Sony's 17.7% share dropped by 0.7% from where it was in 2017. Fujifilm and Olympus may have much smaller shares than the above brands, but a 1.3% increase helped Fujifilm to increase its portion to 5.1% while Olympus's share crept up by a teeny 0.1% to 2.8% overall. Between them, these five manufacturers hold 85.2% of the market share, with the remainder split between Panasonic, Ricoh Imaging and others. As concerning as it is to see that unit shipments dropped by so much last year, it's arguably more worrying that this trend appears set to continue throughout 2019. Figures provided up until May of this year show a consecutive year-on-year decline in shipments of interchangeable-lens cameras for every month so far (below), despite the fact that the past twelve months have welcomed a number of new models in fresh mirrorless systems. Image credit: CIPA These include Canon's EOS R and Nikon Z6 and Z7 cameras, through to the more recent Panasonic S1R and S1 series models, in addition to fresh cameras from Fujifilm, Olympus and others. We'll have to wait some time before we know whether the rest of the year pans out the same way, but, at least right now, it's not looking too rosy. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Get up to 60% off Bitdefender's antivirus packages with this exclusive offer Posted: 09 Jul 2019 08:44 AM PDT Amazon Prime Day might now be almost upon us. But if you're holding out to see what antivirus packages come down in price we can tell you now there is no need. The best antivirus software on the market is currently at a price we can't see being beaten anytime soon. Offering discounts of up to 60%, Bitdefender is currently available at an incredibly affordable price. There's two reasons this offer is especially eyecatching. Firstly, TechRadar ranks Bitdefender as the best antivirus software currently available, especially its - Antivirus Plus 2019 software. - Click here to head to Bitdefender's website and get 60% off You can find more details below about these offers, and see the differences between each of the packages (including how much you'll be saving with these discounts).
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