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Clubhouse has started testing an in-room gaming feature, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch, and its debut game could help users get to know each other better. The feature's launch title called "Wild Cards" presents users a series of icebreaker questions and challenges. It could ask you to "pitch an idea for a movie in 60 seconds," for instance, or to "share five things from your search history." To play, you'll have to choose the "Games" option under +Rooms. It'll open a social room for you where you can invite friends to play. 

As TechCrunch notes, launching a feature not offered by other audio services such as Twitter Spaces could be part of Clubhouse's efforts to get new users to stay. The audio chat app shot up in popularity in the early days of the pandemic when full lockdowns were implemented and people were looking to connect with friends and strangers in new ways. Its success led to the development and launch of other audio products by more well-known companies, including Facebook's audio rooms, Spotify's Greenroom (that's been rebranded as Spotify Live) and Amazon's Amp. 

Clubhouse's popularity and download numbers took a hit when those rival services emerged, especially after pandemic restrictions started lifting. A lot of users chose to move to more established social networks offering similar audio services, because they already have an existing network on those platforms. Still, Clubhouse told The New York Times back in December that it's still growing and that the company is confident it's not just a pandemic fad. Over the past few months, the service has released a handful of new and experimental features in an effort to get users to stay. One of them is the chat function in voice rooms for those who'd rather text, and the other is support for web listening in the US.

Polar is today launching a new pair of watches designed to encourage you to get your sneakers on and start running. The Pacer and Pacer Pro are back-to-basics devices with an emphasis on high-quality data to help you train, run and recover. Both devices use lightweight bodies and round cases, with color Memory In Pixel displays sat below a Gorilla Glass 3.0 crystal. And both use the same custom system-on-chip which the company says will run much faster than many of its older devices.

If the Pacer name rings a bell, it’s because it was the name Polar used for a wrist-worn heart-rate monitor at the turn of the millennium. Back then, the data was being pushed from the chest monitor, but the point of reusing the name is to let customers know this is a very light weight running watch first and foremost. They’re both pretty lightweight, too, with the Pacer / Pro clocking in at just 40 / 41 grams, or 1.4/1.44 ounces.

Both promise advanced optical heart-rate sensing technologies, as well as analysis to measure your training load and rest. But the Pacer Pro gets several features its cheaper sibling does not, including a barometer for more accurate power tracking and gradient counting, as well as turn-by-turn guidance. It’s worth mentioning, however, that while you’ll be able to get push notifications and share data with third-party running apps, neither device can be classed as a proper smartwatch.

The Polar Pacer Pro is available today in gray, white, blue and maroon, priced at $299.90 / €299.90, while a green version will begin shipping later in the year. The Pacer, meanwhile, will set you back $199.90 / €199.90 in black, white, teal and purple, and will begin shipping in May.

If you don't need all the fancy features of Google's Nest thermostat, Amazon's smart thermostat is a solid, budget-friendly option. Now, it's an even better deal thanks to a 20 percent discount that has dropped it down (again) to an all-time low price of $48. 

The smart thermostat has a discreet, squarish design that shouldn't detract in any way from your décor. It uses Honeywell's Home Thermostat tech and is Energy Star certified, meaning you could see up to $50 savings per year on energy costs — a nice restaurant meal or two.

It works with Alexa using voice commands or the Alexa mobile app, letting you set schedules or change settings while you're away so that the house is cozy when you get back. There are some tradeoffs for the much lower price, though. It doesn't have features found on Google Nest, like automatically turning down the temperature when you leave the house. It's obviously not as ideal as a Nest product in a Google Home-centric house, either.

Google

Luckily if you do want those features, Google Nest products are still on sale at Amazon, as well. The standard Google Nest Thermostat (above) is on sale for $115 ($15 off) and the Nest Learning Thermostat is priced at $199, down $50 from the regular $249 price. Both work with Google Home and will automatically turn the temperature down when you leave, and the Nest Learning Thermostat will automatically learn from you and program itself. The latter also works with Alexa, if you're more partial to that voice assistant.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Spotify hasn't been just a music streaming service for quite some time now. Over the past few years, it has acquired exclusive shows and inked massive deals as part of its push to become a power player in the world of podcasts. One of the company executives that helped make that happen was Courtney Holt, who played a key role in bringing on the Obamas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as well as controversial host Joe Rogan to the platform. Now, The Ankler reports that Holt is leaving the company after almost five years. 

Holt is reportedly stepping down in the coming weeks but will stay on as an advisor for a year. Spotify will divide his work and team between Max Cutler, the head of new content initiatives, and Julie McNamara, head of its US studios. As The Ankler notes, Holt's departure comes shortly after Lydia Polgreen stepped down as the managing director of Gimlet, one of the podcast studios Spotify purchased in 2019 along with Anchor and Parcast. Holt also helped Spotify clinch those deals. 

The executive didn't say why he's leaving the company and posted a simple thanks to Spotify on Twitter:

Apparently, there's growing unrest within the company regarding massive podcast acquisitions that haven't been delivering the kind of results and audiences Spotify expects. If you need an example of the scale of the company's acquisitions: Its deal with Rogan reportedly cost it at least $200 million. The Joe Rogan Experience isn't one of the shows that hasn't lived up to Spotify's expectations, seeing as it's the top podcast on the service. However, it did demonstrate that the company wasn't quite prepared to deal with the issues original content might bring.

Rogan and Spotify came under fire earlier this year after the host guested Dr. Robert Malone, who's known for spreading unfounded claims about COVID-19 and its vaccines. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek also apologized to the company's employees after it was brought to light that Rogan used racist language in some of the show's episodes, which have since been removed. Ek remained steadfast in his stance not to remove episodes with misinformation, though, claiming that preserving them fostered "critical thinking and open debate."

Elon Musk has only been Twitter’s largest shareholder for a few weeks, but he’s already facing a class action lawsuit over his handling of the investment. A Twitter shareholder has filed a class action lawsuit against Musk over his 11-day delay in officially disclosing his investment in Twitter to the SEC.

Under securities law, Musk was required to file paperwork with the SEC by March 24th — 10 days after his stake in Twitter grew to 5 percent — but he didn’t do so until April 4th. That delay might not sound particularly significant, but it may have netted him as much as $156 million. According to the lawsuit, those gains came at the expense of other shareholders, who were not able to similarly profit.

“Investors who sold shares of Twitter stock between March 24, 2022, when Musk was required to have disclosed his Twitter ownership, and before the actual April 4, 2022 disclosure, missed the resulting share price increase as the market reacted to Musk’s purchases and were damaged thereby,” the lawsuit states.

According to the shareholder who brought the suit, he and other investors sold shares at “artificially deflated” prices as a result of Musk’s actions. The suit also alleges that Musk made “materially false and misleading statements and omissions by failing to disclose to investors that he had acquired a 5% ownership stake in Twitter as required.”

The lawsuit comes after a chaotic few days for Twitter and Musk. The Tesla CEO and noted Twitter troll had initially agreed to join Twitter’s board of directors, much to the dismay of some employees. But the decision was abruptly reversed following several days of characteristically bizarre tweets from Musk, who polled his Twitter followers whether the company should change its name, and speculated on whether the service was “dying.”

In an email to employees, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal noted that as a board member Musk would have been a "fiduciary of the company, where he, like all board members has to act in the best interest of the company and all our shareholders.” He added that he believed it was “for the best” that Musk ultimately wouldn’t take the position.

On a rush hour train in Brooklyn's Sunset Park Tuesday morning, an individual described as wearing a gas mask and construction vest opened fire inside a subway car, hitting 10 passengers and critically injuring five. Some commuters in the area however, discovered that in the wake of the shooting, fare prices quoted by rideshare companies had skyrocketed due to understandably increased demand. 

Some apparently contemporaneous tweets show users being quoted $70 or more to leave the neighborhood. 

“Our hearts go out to the victims of this morning’s terrible shooting in Sunset Park," Josh Gold, a spokesperson for Uber told Engadget. "Following the incident, Uber disabled surge pricing in the vicinity and capped pricing citywide." Similarly, Lyft has responded to one user on Twitter to state that it has "suspended prime-time pricing for riders in the area," thought the company has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

Neither company would say for how long they intend to keep surge pricing disabled. However, both have stated they'll refund customers in some capacity. "If anyone on our platform experienced unintended charges during this emergency, we will work to get them refunded," Gold told Engadget, clarifying that customers would still be charged the normal, non-surged price, rather than receive a complete refund for the trip. Lyft likewise in the same tweet stated it is "working to adjust fares for certain riders who paid prime-time prices when the situation first unfolded" though it did which overcharged passengers would be eligible. 

The appearance of price gauging during a tragic event is obviously not the kind of attention either company would prefer to get — and is an inherent danger to automated systems that are unable to account for the context of a localized increase in demand. Still, this is far rideshare companies have managed to bungle similar circumstances. Surge pricing spiked after a bomb in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan injured dozens in 2016; in Sydney, Australia during a 16-hour hostage crisis in 2014; in London after a vehicle was deliberately driven into a crowd of pedestrians in 2017; and in 2020 after eight people were shot in downtown Seattle, leaving one dead. 

The perpetrator of this morning's shooting remains at large some 12 hours later, though authorities have since released information on a person of interest.

If you’re in the market for a lightweight gaming mouse, you have plenty of options if first-person shooters are what you play most often. Between products like the Logitech G Pro X Superlight and Razer Viper Ultimate, there’s no shortage of mice designed to give you an edge when trying to line up the perfect headshot in Valorant or Overwatch. But if you’re more of a World of Warcraft or Dota 2 player, your options are more limited. Enter SteelSeries with its new Aerox 5 and Aerox 9 mice.

SteelSeries

Announced today, they borrow the design of the company’s existing Aerox 3 line. That means they feature a perforated honeycomb-like pattern of square holes to reduce weight. With its new wired Aerox 5 mouse, SteelSeries says it has produced the lightest “multi-genre” mouse on the market. Coming in at a claimed 66-grams, it features nine programmable buttons and the company’s TrueMove Air sensor. It also comes with PTFE skates and its PrismSync RGB lighting system. As with the company's existing Aerox mice, it’s also IP54-certified against water and dust. So it’s splash-resistant despite being riddled with holes.

SteelSeries will also offer a wireless variant of the Aerox 5 that weighs approximately 74-grams. It features a battery capable of powering the mouse for 180 hours on a single charge and fast charging that allows you to get about 40 hours of use after 15 minutes connected to your computer. It includes both Bluetooth connectivity and the company’s Quantum 2.0 wireless protocol.

And if nine programmable buttons isn’t enough for you, then there’s the Aerox 9. It comes with 12 such buttons. It has a claimed weight of 89-grams. All three mice feature Golden Micro IP54 switches, which SteelSeries says are rated for 80 million clicks. The Aerox 5, Aerox 5 Wireless and Aerox 9 Wireless are available to buy today for $80, $140 and $150, respectively.

DuckDuckGo has revealed something it says its users have been requesting for years: a desktop browser. It will be available on Mac first, and a Windows version is coming in the near future. Until now, the only browser DuckDuckGo offered was on mobile.

As you might expect from a DuckDuckGo product, privacy is at the forefront. The browser uses DuckDuckGo's search engine by default, and the Smarter Encryption feature will make sure you use the encrypted HTTPS version of websites more often. There's a tracker blocker, email protection and the company's famed Fire Button, which closes all tabs and wipes your browser data with a single click.

In-app data such as your history, bookmarks and passwords are by default only stored on your system. You can import your bookmarks and passwords from some other browsers and password managers.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo says the browser will do away with many of those annoying cookie consent popups as well. It can clear them for you on certain sites by automatically rejecting as much cookie tracking as possible. This feature will be available for around half of all websites at the outset. DuckDuckGo says that figure will grow during the beta period.

In the privacy feed, you'll be able to see which sites tried to track you. There's the option to clear stored data from certain websites and to return to recently viewed pages, albeit with some extra privacy protection. DuckDuckGo claims its Mac browser is fast, too. It uses the same built-in rendering engine as Safari and blocks trackers before they load.

The Mac browser is in an invite-only beta. To sign up for the waitlist, either download the DuckDuckGo mobile app or update it to the latest version. From the "More from DuckDuckGo" menu in settings, select DuckDuckGo for Desktop and tap "Join the Private Waitlist." You'll eventually receive a notification with an invite code and link to snag the browser on your Mac. The process is a little unusual, but, appropriately enough, you won't have to provide any personal details.

Google’s new model of the Pixel A-series budget phones is likely to be released in May, according to FCC listings first spotted by MySmartPrice. The documents described features we’ll likely see in future Pixel phones, including the Pixel 6a, the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro. At least one of the 6a models will support mmWave 5G (also known as high-band 5G), which would likely make it one of the more affordable options for 5G phones in the market.

The timing of the documents — as DroidLifepointed out — suggests that Google will release the 6a at its I/O developer conference this year, which starts on May 11th. FCC rules require certain kinds of equipment to be tested and approved before they can be released in the US market. Given that Google filed its equipment authorization documents for the 5a in July 2021 (a month before its release), we can expect similar timing with the 6a. The new phone (unlike the 5a, which was only available in the US and Japan) is also likely to be released in multiple countries. Since different countries use different network bands, smartphone makers usually submit documents for multiple models in such cases. 

For those who are unfamiliar with the Pixel 5a, the $449 phone had a quiet release in August 2021 due to the pandemic. Google then released the Pixel 6 later that year, which in our review we praised for its clever AI improvements and excellent camera. The 6a will likely contain the same AI features, thanks to Google’s new Tensor mobile chip. According to renders viewed by 9to5Google, the 6a will contain the same camera as the 5a. If you were looking forward to more advanced photography modes, this is worth keeping in mind. But if you’re looking for a fast, AI-enabled 5G smartphone in an affordable package, the upcoming Pixel 6a seems like a solid choice.

Do you miss Google Photos' unlimited storage? You now have a chance to get it back, but it will cost you. Droid Lifenotes T-Mobile is introducing an exclusive, $15 per month Google One plan that includes both 2TB of shareable space as well as unlimited "full resolution" photo and video storage. You can upload as many shots as you'd like from your phone without cutting into your allotments for Drive and Gmail.

The plan will be available starting April 26th. It includes all the perks of the $10 per month 2TB plan, including VPN access, advanced photo editing and extended trials for services like Stadia and YouTube Premium.

This offering won't be appealing to everyone when you'll have to tie yourself to two services. It's also expensive if you're only looking for the unlimited photo storage — $15 per month (plus any carrier switching costs) is a lot to pay if you didn't need the other benefits. If you don't see yourself leaving T-Mobile or Google any time soon, though, this may be a welcome blast of nostalgia.