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Michigan drivers now have the option of adorning their cars with digital license plates, which can locate lost vehicles and receive public safety alerts — for a fee. Reviver, the maker of the connected plates, announced that Michigan residents and businesses can now purchase the device (known as the RPlate) online. Consumers can choose between two models: a battery-powered plate and a hard-wired plate that includes GPS. The plates have been available for sale in California and Arizona, and the company is aiming to make them available nationwide.

But what exactly is a digital license plate? The RPlate is essentially a license plate with an HD display and LTE connectivity (as well as GPS for the hard-wired model) that includes a number of security and personalization features. Drivers can switch between dark and light modes and select personalized messages to appear at the bottom. The GPS-enabled plate also includes telematic transponders, so it can locate a lost or stolen vehicle and send alerts to your smartphone if it detects suspicious movement. There’s a companion mobile app that allows drivers to track mileage and renew their vehicle registration online. 

Reviver's digital plate also includes a couple of security features that could be overkill for some. For example, there’s a “Valet Parking” mode that lets you monitor your car remotely while it is being parked by a valet attendant and a geofencing option for family members or employees who drive the car that sends alerts if they violate the travel boundaries.

The digital license plates don’t come cheap. Both models require a subscription ($19.95 per month for battery-powered and $24.95 per month for hard-wired) and cost an additional $150 if you elect to have a professional install the plate. The company is also working on a number of new features, including integration with toll roads, parking meters and additional DMV services.

The $7,500 federal EV tax credit has been used for several years to entice consumers to make greener car purchasing decisions, but it has expired for some automakers — and they feel the government needs to remove limits on that incentive. Reuters has learned the CEOs of Ford, GM, Stellantis and Toyota sent a letter to congressional leadership asking them to eliminate the sales-based tax credit cap. The move would help counter economic factors and supply shortages that have raised the costs of producing EVs, according to the companies.

The credit currently applies to the first 200,000 cars sold by any given brand. GM and Tesla have already reached the 200,000-unit mark, while both Ford and Toyota could hit the cap this year. This doesn't affect state-level discounts. The companies hope Congress will replace the unit-based cap with a sunset date that would end the credit once the EV marketplace is "more mature."

It's not certain that enough politicians will warm up to the idea. Senator Joe Manchin, for instance, recently questioned the need for extended credits when EV demand regularly outstrips supply. And when the current Senate frequently shoots down bills without clear bipartisan support, any attempt to legislate the credit could fall apart.

The companies have strong motivations to act now, though. Republicans may regain control of one or both sides of Congress during this fall's midterm elections, and car industry execs are concerned the shift in power could kill chances of extending tax credits. Former President Trump tried to axe the credit in his proposed 2020 budget, and had the support of Republicans — the chances aren't high that the GOP will back an extension.

The customer tax breaks might not be as necessary as they once were, mind you. GM plans to sell a Chevy Equinox EV around $30,000, while Tesla has long-term plans for a $25,000 car. Although these models are years away and won't compete with the lowest-priced conventional cars, they hint at a future where EVs are genuinely affordable without government subsidies.

Diablo IV will feature a different set of monetization systems than those found in Diablo Immortal, according to Blizzard. “To be clear, D4 is a full-price game built for PC/PS/Xbox audiences,” said Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson following the game’s latest showing during Microsoft’s Summer Game Fest presentation on Sunday. “We are committed to delivering an incredible breadth of content after launch, for years to come, anchored around optional cosmetic items and full story-driven expansions.”

Blizzard has similarly promised to support the recently released Immortal for a while but is doing so through an in-game marketplace where players can purchase optional cosmetics, an “empowered” battle pass and “eternal orbs,” a premium currency that can be exchanged for the game’s controversial “legendary” crests. The consensus among the gaming community is that Immortal features some of the most aggressive and predatory monetization systems found in a Blizzard game to date. One estimate suggests it would take someone 10 years or $110,000 to acquire enough “legendary gems” to equip their character with the best possible gear. Since the release of Immortal, Diablo fans have been worried that Blizzard would employ a similar set of monetization systems in Diablo 4 when that game comes out in 2023.

However, Fergusson’s statement suggests Diablo IV will be closer to Diablo III than Immortal. The former did not feature microtransactions – though it launched with a controversial in-game auction house – and Blizzard went on to support the title with a $40 expansion in 2014 and a $15 DLC in 2017 that added Diablo 2’s necromancer class to the game. Still, reading through Fergusson’s Twitter replies, you see a lot of fans expressing concern that even the mention of cosmetics could imply more microtransactions than Blizzard is suggesting. Neither Fergusson nor Diablo community lead Adam Fletcher mentioned a paid battle pass, but that’s one way Blizzard could make some cosmetics obtainable since many games, including Immortal, incorporate them as a completion reward.

Despite what Dunkin’ Donuts would have you believe, America runs on gasoline. We are a nation of drivers with a transit infrastructure geared overwhelmingly towards automobile travel (with fewer than one percent of those on US roads today being of the electric variety). We’re awash in cars (276 million were registered in the US as of 2020) with around 14 million new light duty trucks and passenger vehicles being sold annually, and nearly three times that amount (~40 million) in used cars.

Those figures slumped noticeably during the COVID lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, but now that travel restrictions have eased and life returns to a semblance of the old “normal,” demand for vehicles has spiked dramatically since the industry’s massive nosedive in April 2020. Combine that with low supplies of new vehicles due to the ongoing global processor chip shortage, and compounded by rising interest rates brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the price for used vehicles has skyrocketed.

For used cars up to ten years old, the average price in March stood at $33,653, 40 percent higher than the year before. Newer used cars, those 1 to 3 years old, the average price was $41,000, up 37 percent year-over-year. “With nearly empty new car lots across the country, dealers have been holding prices of newer used cars high,” CoPilot CEO and founder Pat Ryan, told CNBC in April.

People are looking longer for used cars — around 171 days on average, up from 89 before the lockdowns, according to car shopping site, CoPilot — and paying top dollar for what they find. It’s not quite as bad as the new vehicle market where paying over MSRP has become the rule, rather than the exception. Prices for used vehicles have declined slightly in recent months, down 6.4 percent from January, but remain well above the pre-pandemic average.

“It’s potentially becoming a bit deflationary in that regard,” Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive told CNBC in May, though he doubts it will immediately lead to a strong price correction. “This is not a commodity market that people are speculating, and used vehicles are assets that actually provide utility to folks.”

“We had an unusual circumstance over the last two years that stimulated demand, and we have limited supply,” he said.

Between the stiff competition, a short supply of available autos and a rapidly evolving market that takes place as much online as it does dealer lots, today’s car buyer faces some daunting prospects in their pursuit of a freshly used car. But there are still plenty of deals to be found, you just need to know where and how to look. But first, you need to decide what you’re looking for and how much you’re willing to spend for it.

What kind of car you need depends on what you plan to do with it. If you’re being unfairly forced back to the office and are looking for a daily commuter, you’re obviously going to want to look more towards smaller hatchbacks and sedans rather than commercial duty pickups — the reverse being true if you own a landscaping business. If you’ve got “$7-a-gallon-doesn’t-phase-me” money, maybe you’re better served commuting in an SUV instead. I don’t know, you do you.

Point is, you want to start with a nebulous idea of what you’ll generally use the vehicle for, then drill down through body type, drivetrain and engine types, into specific makes and models, options and model years until you’ve gotten a solid idea of what you want in a car and which cars will provide that (an excel sheet with all of this information — make, model, years to avoid or specifically look for, average price used, etc — can help you organize the process.) Then you get to take a looooong look at your bank balance and adjust your expectations accordingly.

While you’re doing your initial research, make sure to familiarize yourself with your local consumer protection laws, such as California’s Lemon Law. Doing so will help you spot any seller shenanigans before money changes hands.

Cox Automotive

As you can see in the chart above from the March 2022 Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index report, which follows the wholesale price of used vehicle sales, valuations have risen rapidly over the past two years. Before you start actively looking at vehicle listings, take a look around reputable car valuation sites like Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, Consumer Reports or JD Power’s NADA guide to get a sense of what the vehicles on your list will likely set you back. Similarly, CarFax can provide vehicle history reports indicating a vehicle’s mileage, whether it’s been in any severe accidents, its previous owner and whether it was used in a fleet like a rental car or taxi.

“When dealing with a reputable dealer, you can ask for those kinds of reports,” Todd Ingersoll, CEO and President of Ingersoll Automotive, a GM dealership group out of Danbury, CT, told Engadget. “Another good indicator is what kind of work has the dealership done to the vehicle. So you can and should ask for the repair order of what was done to the car. If it's a reputable store, and they've done great work to get the car up to snuff for sale, they want to put that on display.”

While competition for used cars is currently fierce, prospective buyers have more ways than ever to search for their next vehicle. We’re no longer limited to the selection of whatever the local dealerships and used lots have available. The traditional car buying experience is not going away.

“Most consumers, when they're buying a very expensive item, they want to see it, they want to put their hands on it, want to drive it,” Ingersoll said, but it has been augmented in recent years by the rise of online listing aggregators like CarGurus, Shift, Autotrader, Vroom, and Carvana as well as hybrid companies like CarMax, which operates both an online showroom and a network of physical car lots throughout the country.

Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

The modern car buying process has become a mixture of in-person and online channels, CarMax EVP of Strategy, Marketing and Product, Jim Lyski, told Engadget. Customers are going to “want to do some things in the store, and a retailer can provide a way to allow them to personalize their journey where they can leverage any channel that they want, and those channels are tied together in a really seamless way.”

We can already see evidence of this in the new car market, where online sales made up 30 percent of the total in 2020, up from 2 percent the year before, Alan Haig, president of automotive retail consultant group Haig Partners, told ABC News in 2021. What’s more, a Cox Automotive study from the same period found that customer satisfaction had reached record highs in 2020, with the overall process being more efficient with less time spent in physical dealerships.

Aggregators like Cavana and Vroom pull the vehicle listings of local dealer inventories and assemble them in a centralized, searchable database so you’ll be able to see what’s available both locally and in the wider region. There are going to be a lot more used cars for sale in San Francisco, CA than there will be in Sonora, CA — and there’ll be even more in the Los Angeles metroplex — so if you can’t find what you’re looking for locally, you’re going to need to expand your search area and be prepared to go to where the cars are. These sites are built to do just that. They’re also typically outfitted with handy loan and down payment calculators as well as quotes for the car you already own. You’ll want to check these listings regularly and be ready to make an offer quickly when you find what you’re looking for because the good deals on these sites go fast.

Brian Snyder / reuters

But even those don’t list every vehicle for sale in the area. Public boards like Craigslist or NextDoor are a treasure trove of highly affordable used cars that you won’t find on the larger aggregators. Of course, these are going to be private transactions so you’ll want to take the standard precautions. Meet in a public area, insist on a presale mechanic’s inspection, don’t with a big wad of cash and bring your most imposing friend along for “moral” support because seriously, this is Craigslist.

Speak to your family, friends and co-workers as well, as word of mouth is still a great way to find a used car and evaluate a dealership. “We always say the second, third and 12th cars are sold through the service department,” Ingersoll said. “How you take care of people long term, that determines how many people they refer to you.”

So, once you’ve found the car of your dreams, realized you can’t afford it, lowered your expectations and purchased something more sensible, now comes the paperwork! Depending on what state you live in you’ll have to do more than transfer title. In California for example, the DMV is going to want the bill of sale, vehicle registration, vehicle title and application and a smog certificate. You’ll also have to include the various fees like $15 for title transfer, $58 for the registration, $6 to the air quality management district and another $23 for the California Highway Patrol fee. Check with your state DMV to get a complete list of government fees and instructions for paying them online.

Lucy Nicholson / reuters

Dealership fees are another matter. In California, at least, rolling a dealership’s advertising costs into the price of a vehicle is illegal. If you’re buying a car from a dealership, be sure to ask for a comprehensive list of their fees and set about chipping off every extraneous one you can get the salesperson to accept.

So now comes the fun part wherein this reporter, one in desperate need of a car and no patience to wait for the next Maverick model year, puts his money where his keyboard is and attempts to follow his own advice in purchasing a car online. Will he find the 4Runner of his dreams? Will he get ripped off because Craisglist? Stay tuned to Engadget and find out later this summer!

Are you the sort of music listener who'll happily pay more for a set of earphones than you would on a nice computer? If so, Sony has the MP3 players for you. The company has released two ultra-high-end Walkman MP3 players aimed squarely at audiophiles. The headliner, the $3,700 NW-WM1ZM2 (pictured at left), mates an S-Master HX digital amp with "fine-tuned" capacitors, thick Kimber Kable (to link the amp to the headphone jack) and a 99.99 percent pure gold-plated, oxygen-free copper chassis — all of which supposedly contribute to "clear, expansive" output. Even the reflow soldering includes gold that purportedly boosts sound localization and widens the sound stage.

You can also expect more practical improvements from the Android-based player, including a larger five-inch (and finally 720p) display, a larger power supply and an improved upscaling algorithm for CD-quality (16-bit, 44/48kHz) audio. You'll get 256GB of expandable storage for your tunes, WiFi streaming, a USB-C port and 40 hours of battery life when playing 96kHz FLAC audio. The ZM2 supports up to 32-bit, 384kHz audio in formats like MQA and WAV, so you're more likely to be limited by your source material than your hardware.

Don't worry if that feels excessive, as there's also a lower-cost model... relatively speaking. The $1,400 NW-WM1AM2 (shown at right) offers much of the core functionality of the ZM2, but in an aluminum alloy body with 'just' a low-resistance oxygen-free copper cable. You'll also have to make do with 128GB of expandable space.

Both Walkman models are available now. As with many devices aimed at audiophiles, there's a question of whether or not the exotic components and materials will be noticeable in your listening experience. Moreover, you're limited by the lowest common denominator in your setup. Even if you listen to songs that can take advantage of the design (Apple Music's 24-bit, 192kHz hi-res lossless suddenly seems modest), you'll have to find headphones or speakers that are up to the job. Both players are mainly aimed at wealthy music fans determined to maximize audio fidelity, even if they might not hear the difference.

Turns out the Apple Watch’s motion sensors can be a useful tool for Parkinson’s patients and their physicians. The FDA has granted approval to Rune Labs to use their software paired with the Apple Watch to track symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, Reutersreported today. The San Francisco-based digital health startup has created software for watchOS that can detect common Parkinson’s symptoms such as tremors, involuntary or slow movement, rigidity and poor balance. Smartphone and other remote forms of monitoring Parkinson’s have been around for a while, but this is the first software designed for the Apple Watch that the FDA has cleared for motion disorders.

Since the Apple Watch Series 4 was first released in 2018, the wearable has been able to detect hard falls and offer advanced activity metrics. The company that same year added a Movement Disorder API to its open-source ResearchKit, opening the door for developers to create watchOS apps to track Parkinson’s and other diseases. As Rune Lab notes, the company is the first to make use of the API for commercial purposes.

The watchOS app by Rune Labs will give physicians access to patient movement data over time, which can further supplement the information they get from an in-person physical exam. Rune Labs also notes the Apple Watch’s tools aren’t capable of giving patients a complete picture of their disorder. “Of course, there are limitations to Apple's Movement Disorder kit: tremor and dyskinesia are only two symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease, and the classifiers themselves are not yet perfect,” wrote Rune Labs founder Brian Pepin last year in a blog post.

Apple has focused a lot of time and money on expanding and updating the Watch's health and fitness tracking capabilities, with many more to come in future updates. Earlier this month the FDA also cleared watchOS's AFib History feature — which monitors irregular and extremely rapid heartbeat — and will be released in the upcoming watchOS 9 update. 

Have you ever wished you could keep a work meeting going as you leave for home? No? Too bad, you're getting that option regardless. Cisco has introduced seamless transition features that 'help' you continue Webex meetings on your iPhone and through CarPlay. Move to Mobile lets you move a call from the desktop to your iPhone by scanning a QR code, while CarPlay can now continue a meeting the moment you plug your iPhone into your ride.

An update due in August will give you the option to listen to historical Webex recordings. You can catch up on a meeting you missed while you're stuck in traffic, in other words. No matter what meeting you're listening to, you'll see your schedule after the call is over. You can join a meeting directly from CarPlay if you're running late.

There are practical advantages to these updates. If you're a remote worker, you can run errands instead of being locked to your computer. And if you're back to working in the office, you can still leave early when the team holds a last-minute chat. Still, it's difficult to imagine many people getting excited about seamless Webex calls. After all, there's a good chance you consider your car a refuge — you probably don't want work following you on the road.

Microsoft made a lot of western JRPG fans happy on Sunday when it shared it was working with Atlus to bring the Persona series to Xbox Game Pass. Outside of Persona 4 Golden, the franchise’s main entries have been exclusive to PlayStation consoles, limiting their accessibility. The good news is that expansion isn’t limited to Game Pass.

On Monday, Atlus said it would bring Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden andPersona 5 Royal to PlayStation 5. Additionally, P3P and P5R will join P4G on Steam, according to a press release the company shared with Eurogamer. Atlus didn’t announce a release window for the PS5 and Steam versions of those games. P5R heads to Xbox Game Pass on October 21st, with the other two games to follow sometime in 2023.

The expanded availability means a lot more people will have the chance to experience the Persona series. Before Sunday’s announcement, you had to go out of your way to play most of the games in the franchise. For instance, it was previously only possible to play Persona 3 Portable, which originally came out on the PSP in 2009, on PlayStation Vita. Persona 4 Golden, meanwhile, was only available on Vita before its PC release in 2020. As such, a lot of people turned to emulation to check out those games after the mainstream success of Persona 5.

Thank you, Street Fighter 6. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t embarrassed to play a fighting game in front of strangers on the show floor of a video game convention, and it was all because of the updated control scheme in Street Fighter 6. The modern control type adds simplified inputs to Capcom’s storied fighting game franchise, turning button mashing into an effective art. I’ve never felt so capable playing Street Fighter, at home or on a large screen in front of a bunch of gaming nerds.

The modern control type unleashes special moves by pressing a direction and a face button, and simplifies behaviors like throws and the game’s new Drive moves (more on that in a moment), activating them with a single button press. When playing Ryu, it’s possible to Hadoken with just one button. This is the Smash Bros.-style gameplay I’ve personally been trying to shoehorn into Street Fighter titles for years, and man, it feels good.

I tried out Chun-Li, Jamie, Luke and Ryu with the modern control scheme, and threw out special moves and parried attacks so smoothly that at one point, I actually turned up the difficulty settings for my PC counterpart (impressed gasp). I was promptly beaten, but it took three rounds and I put up an actual fight.

Chun-Li is my favorite Street Fighter character – which usually doesn’t end well for her – and in 6 with the modern control type, she feels faster and more powerful than ever. I ended up using her Tensho Kicks move often, charging toward my opponents and pressing triangle to lift them up with a series of spinning feet to the face, but all of her specials came easily and hit hard.

The Drive Gauge is new to Street Fighter 6 and it’s responsible for all of the graffiti-style visuals you see in trailers. In action, Drive abilities feel just as explosive as they look, and the bursts of color they add to fights are eye-catching without being distracting. The Drive Gauge steadily charges while fighting and players can use it to parry, counter, rush into and absorb attacks, and add extra spice to their special moves. That last ability is called Overdrive Art and is a direct replacement for the EX Special Moves from previous Street Fighter games.

Capcom

Not that I could tell you how to access EX Special Moves in previous Street Fighter games off the top of my head – but playing Street Fighter 6 made me feel like, maybe, I’d be able to figure all of it out. The modern control layout is a fantastic entry point for newcomers to the franchise and folks like me, who have historically relied mainly on button mashing and luck. The modern controls helped me slow down and appreciate each move, and made it easier to connect my inputs with the actions on-screen. I feel like I understand Street Fighter a little better now. I might even try out the classic control type when I pick up Street Fighter 6 – in my living room, not a show floor.

Street Fighter 6 is due to come out in 2023 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox Series consoles and PC via Steam.

Google will allow other advertising intermediaries to run ads on YouTube, according to Reuters. The company currently requires advertisers to use its Ad Manager to place ads on YouTube, which has caught the attention of European Union antitrust officials.

The European Commission opened a probe into Google's ad tech in 2021 after two years of informal consultations. Competition officials also cited concerns about potential restrictions on how rival ad platforms can run YouTube ads and the fact advertisers need to use the Display & Video 360 and Google Ads services. The investigation centers around whether Google, a division of Alphabet, gave itself an unfair advantage in the digital advertising space by limiting the user data that advertisers and rival ad platforms can access.

Reuters reports that Google's concession could help allow it to settle the case and avoid a fine of as much as 10 percent of its global turnover. Alphabet generated revenue of $257 billion in 2021. However, it's believed that Google will need to address other concerns to resolve the investigation.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is also looking into the company's ad tech practices. In the US, senators last month filed a bill with bipartisan support that would break up Google's ad business were it to become law. Engadget has contacted Google for comment.