ArduinoMania

You now have a fresh alternative to Rode's mixing desks, particularly if you're a budding music streamer. Boss has introduced Gigcaster 5 and Gigcaster 8 USB mixers built with livestreaming performances in mind. The touchscreen and physical controls are built to handle common streaming tasks, such as fading a source or playing effects (like delays and voice transformation), using only hardware. They support hands-free control through pedals and similar devices, too. Multiple inputs help you connect instruments and XLR mics, and Bluetooth is available if you're performing through a phone or tablet.

You aren't forced to go live. While the Gigcasters were designed for services like Facebook Live, Twitch and YouTube, you can also use them for podcasting, pre-recorded videos and similar offline content. This is primarily intended to streamline setups that would otherwise require multiple boxes to achieve the same results.

The Gigcaster 5 is the 'entry' model with a direct guitar input, two XLR ports, stereo line in, eight virtual pads and a 16x12 USB interface. Move to the Gigcaster 8 and you get the guitar input as well as four XLR/TRS combo inputs, an onboard stereo mic, eight physical effect pads, a 20x14 USB interface and multitrack recording to microSD cards.

Both mixers ship to the US in May. The Gigcaster 5 costs $479, while the Gigcaster 8 is priced at $699. These aren't casual purchases if you're just starting out, and they don't include a video capture card like Rode's Streamer X. Boss' hardware offers much more advanced audio control than that device, however, and the outlay may be justified if it adds polish to your livestreamed concerts or DJ sets.

Multipurpose cooking devices that can more or less do it all can be incredibly handy to have in the kitchen. A single product that can pressure cook, air fry, bake, slow cook and even sous vide can save you lots of money and counter real estate. Ninja's Foodi pressure cookers are among the best options for multipurpose kitchen devices and many of them are on sale on Amazon right now. A 14-in-1 model that has an eight-quart capacity is currently 52 percent off at $160. That's just $10 more than the lowest price we've ever seen for it and $170 less than the usual price.

The Ninja OL601 Foodi XL's 14 programmable functions are pressure cook, steam and crisp, steam and bake, air fryer, broil, bake/roast, dehydrate, sear/sauté, steam, sous vide, slow cook, yogurt, keep warm and proof. That should be enough to handle most folks' kitchen needs (though it probably wouldn't be easy to make ice cream in this thing). The multicooker comes with a five-quart cook and crisp basket and it has a three-layer capacity, so you'll be able to cook multiple items at once.

Elsewhere in the sale, there's an 11-in-1 model with a smaller 6.5-quart capacity for those who don't need quite as many bells and whistles. It foregoes the steam and crisp, steam and bake and proof options of the 14-in-1 version. During the sale, it's down to $130, which is $70 off the regular price. The Ninja FD302 Foodi 11-in-1 Pro comes with a 4.6-quart cook and crisp plate, a stainless steel nesting broil rack and a cookbook with 45 recipes to give you some inspiration and guidance.

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While some of us will invariably make the local news with our stoney hijinks this Thursday, countless more will celebrate the High Holiest of Herbal Holidaze the right way: quietly, responsibly, baked out of our gourds watching Shaw Brothers movies while housing hoagies. Here’s the gear you need to avoid having your mugshot run alongside a graphic reading, “Marijanhuh?” but still thoroughly enjoy this year’s 4/20.

Herbalize It

While the popularity of flower has waned in recent years in favor of more easily-handled edibles and pre-rolled smokables, loose leaf bud remains a cornerstone of the modern cannabis market. If you want to go the traditionalist route, pick up a Santa Cruz Shredder 3-piece grinder and some rolling papers. The Santa Cruz is spacious enough to hold multiple J’s worth of shredded flower, have deeply textured grips to ease strain on your wrists and feature a curved collection bowl that can be cleared with just your fingertip, rather than a straightened paper clip and cursing. Even if you prefer dry herb vaping, that grinder will invariably come in handy as the weed you pack into the chamber will need to be shredded if you want it to heat up evenly and not scorch.

In terms of tabletop dry herb vapes, you really can’t go wrong with the Storz and Bickel Volcano. They’re definitely on the pricey side, with the newest Hybrid model running $700, but Storz and Bickel’s reputation is well earned and a Volcano is the sort of vape that you don’t get rid of so much as pass down to your kids. Heck, the one I bought in 2010 is still going strong even after multiple bag and whip replacements. The most recent versions offer a slew of enticing features including the ability to heat a bowl to its vaporization point in under two minutes — a significant upgrade from the days counting to 100 and back as the bag inflated — as well as iOS and Android apps.

For handheld or portable dry herb vapes, you’ve got a lot more options, both in terms of choices between makes and models and desired feature sets. Basically though, you’re looking for something easy to charge (preferably USB-C) with a robust battery life, something that’s easy to load, use and clean.

The $209 Storz and Bickel Crafty+ takes everything we love about the Volcano — the quality of construction and its ease of use, for example — and shrinks it down into a form factor that fits in your skinny jeans. With a generously proportioned heating chamber, rapid USB-C charging, an associated Android app and one button heating controls, the Crafty+ is a solid vaporizer choice for serious stoners.

The Tera from Boundless is a $250 alternative to the Crafty+ that uses convection air flow to help ensure even heating. It also uses standard 3.7V 18650 Li-ion batteries so picking up spare and replacement parts in the future won’t be a hassle. With a temperature range of 140 - 500 degrees F, the Tera can handle both dry herb and concentrates. You can even swap out the mouthpiece to use the device as a blower for your water pipe to further filter the vapor before inhaling it.

A more refined vaping experience can be had, at a price, with the TinyMight 2. Ranging from 349€ for the basic package to 449€ (~ $380 - $490) for all accessories included, the TM2 is highly customizable with options for everything from the length of the draw tube to the length of the power cable. It’s constructed from stainless steel and aluminum with a solid oak wrapping that not only makes it look nice but acts as a thermal insulator. The TinyMight2 charges via USB-C and, like the Tera, uses 18650 batteries. The TM2 takes 2-5 seconds to fully heat up and can be used either in on-demand or session mode — meaning the device will either heat up only when you draw or it’ll heat up and stay hot for a set amount of time (aka a “session”).

For those of you not looking to spend multiple hundreds of dollars on what essentially amounts to a very fancy hot plate, I suggest the XMAX V3 Pro. It’s always around $90, depending on what vape site you visit and what sales are happening that day (Planet of the Vapes and Vapospy are both generally trustworthy resources). Rather than a block, it’s wand-shaped! Like the Tera, the V3 Pro uses both convection airflows for heating, and can handle both dry herb and concentrate. It uses 18650 batteries and USB-C charging for power. However, the V3 is significantly slower in heating the chamber (around 15-25 seconds) than its alternative but, again, is less than half the price. It’s an expensive 10 seconds.

Speaking of hot plates, the Bowle from Taffee combines two of the five best things you can do with your mouth: drinking and vaping! This unique gadget combines a puck shaped vaporizer for heating loose leaf buds with a 250 or 400mL cup seated on top. With it, you can take rips and sips alternately or simultaneously to meld the flavors and experiences. A one-hour charge is enough to power eight sessions with the convection heater needing just one second at a time to fully heat. They even sell a specialty grinder (for $70, yikes) that will load the ground flower into individual ceramic heating cups.

Vaporize It

Flower is abundant, relatively ubiquitous even, but sometimes you want a little extra punch in your pipe, or maybe you just want to get high without smelling like it. For those instances, we invented concentrates. Whereas flower tops out at around 35 percent THC content, concentrates range anywhere from the mid seventies up to 98 percent THC, so a little goes a long way. As such, the devices vaporizing them are going to be smaller, lightweight, and longer lasting than their dry herb kiln kin but you’re still going to want to look for many of the same amenities — 510 threading, a common charging port style, generous battery capacity, and a straightforward user interface.

The Uni Pro 2.0 from Yocan ticks all those boxes. Full disclosure, this model is my everyday vape and I am rather partial to it. At $50, the Uni Pro 2.0 runs about double than the generic stick batteries you buy at the dispensary, but you get a lot of features for that added expense. Its 650 mAh battery is recharged via USB-C and sufficient to power through a full gram oil cartridge without needing to recharge. The power output runs 1.8 - 4.2V and can be controlled in .1V increments, which the OLED screen displays, along with the battery life, ohm rate and draw duration.

I’m not a huge fan of the magnetic screw-on cartridge adapters that Uni Pro 2 relies on, mostly because I have a habit of absentmindedly throwing them out with the exhausted cart and replacements are $7 a pop. It’s available in a variety of colors (when they’re not sold out) and can accommodate a wide range of cartridge sizes — whether tall and narrow or short and squat. Best of all, the Uni Pro 2 is small enough, heavy enough and blocky enough to not immediately get lost in my pants pocket amidst my keys and loose change.

If you’re looking for something similarly shaped but a bit less blocky and a bit more stylish, you can’t go wrong with the $59 Compass from Vessel. It’s about the same size as an AirPods case and comes in six accent colors. It’s got a 550mAh battery and charges via USB-C. The commands to lock/unlock the device, change the temperature settings or activate the heater unit are all controlled through a single pushbutton on the front of it. It’s discrete, even when there’s a cartridge mouthpiece sticking up like a Nokia antenna, and easily palmable — the kind of classy vape you bring along on a night out on the town.

Vessel also makes a pair of stick vapes, the Core and the ”ruggedized” Expedition Trail Edition. The $39 Core sports a USB-C compatible 260mAh lithium-ion battery and is available in a half dozen colors. You’re going to want to keep the charger nearby if you plan on sessioning with it and you’ll also need to be quick with the five unlock taps, but once the Core gets going, it’s a far and away a superior option to what the dispensaries sell.

Hybridize It

For those of you looking to really stick it to The Man and launch your own self-sustaining backyard grow op, your very first course of action needs to be sitting down and reading through the Marijuana Grower's Handbook by Ed Rosenthal. It contains — and I say this without hyperbole — literally everything you need to know about growing cannabis. In the latest edition of the long-running handbook, Rosenthal has recruited luminaries from across the industry to explain, in almost too much detail (like, down to "the Daily Light Integral equation" levels of detail), every aspect of how cannabis grows, the environmental factors that limit that growth; and the tools, materials, and resources needed to produce weed on either a hobby or commercial scale.

The Blade 18 is Razer's largest and most powerful laptop yet. It's got a big, gorgeous 240Hz display, a slick unibody frame and practically every port you might need. It can also be configured with the fastest silicon you can get on a laptop today, including an Intel Core i9 CPU and an NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPU. There's just one problem: a fully loaded config costs $5,000.

To put that into perspective, that’s 10 times more expensive than the average price of a new laptop or tablet in the US, which is around $495 according to Indexbox. That basically makes the Blade 18 the Rolls Royce of gaming notebooks. Suffice it to say, unless you’re the offspring of an oil baron, you’re probably not going to buy one. So in an attempt to figure out who the Blade 18 is really for, I asked Razer to send over a base model of the laptop, which goes for a slightly more affordable price of $2,900 to see how much you're really getting for all that money.

Design and display

If you can look past its price, there's very little dislike about the Blade 18's design. Razer's aluminum body is super sturdy, with almost no flex on its lid and deck. Its keyboard also feels great and comes with per-key RGB lighting, though some may be a bit dismayed that Razer couldn't find room for a numpad even on a laptop this big. And thanks to support for tons of ports including an HDMI 2.1 jack, Ethernet, a full-size SD card reader and multiple USB Type-A and Type-C connectors, you'll never have to worry about carrying a dongle or dock around — which is a good thing because at 6.8 pounds the Blade 18 is heavy enough on its own.  

While it's not that much larger than the Blade 17, Razer’s biggest laptop ever definitely doesn’t fit in my normal messenger bag, and it damn near bursts the seams on my everyday backpack too. So if I want to carry it around (not that I really want to), I have to break out my big travel backpack, which is probably for the best because its padded straps are kind of a must if you plan on carrying around the Blade 18 and its 1.7-pound power brick for any length of time. That said, for a desktop replacement, actually using the Blade 18 on your lap isn't as awkward as you might imagine. Despite its size, the notebook is balanced well and it tends to keep thermals in check during regular use, though if you're gaming you're still going to want to find a table or desk. 

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

My one gripe with the Blade 18 is the lack of additional display options. On the old Blade 17, Razer provided a choice between a 240Hz QHD panel or a 144Hz UHD screen, the latter of which would be great for content creators who want a mobile workstation for editing 4K videos. Plus, when you factor in that an SD card reader comes standard, transitioning from shooting footage to editing is as simple as yanking a card out of your camera and slamming it in the Blade. And unlike the Blade 15, there’s no option for an OLED panel either. Now it’s quite possible that Razer is saving some of these upgrades for a forthcoming Studio version of the Blade 18 designed expressly for content creators, but that’s not much of a consolation to people looking for a new machine today.

Performance

A base Blade 19 definitely isn't a slouch with an Intel Core i9-13950HX chip and an RTX 4060 GPU. But once again, it's really the value proposition I'm questioning. That's because if you do want a laptop with big performance but in a slightly smaller package, ASUS’ Zephryous M16 can be configured with an i9 CPU and an RTX 4090 for $1,000 less than the Blade 18, while the base version of the M16 features an RTX 4070 GPU starting at just $1,950.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The one small issue is that if you're pairing an RTX 4060 with a 240Hz display, you can't really take full advantage of that fast refresh rate unless you're playing lower-spec esports games like CS:GO or League of Legends. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077, the Blade 18 posted an average frame rate of just 62 fps at 1920 x 1080 on Ultra. And when I tweaked the game’s settings to try to get the best out of that 240Hz display, the Razer only managed 122 fps with high textures and NVIDIA’s DLSS set to Ultra Performance mode. That said, even with the base model, there isn't really any title the Blade 18 can't handle, so you can easily take your games on the road.

Battery Life

Speaking of traveling, while it would be nice to be able to just grab the laptop and go, leaving the Blade 18’s power adapter at home is basically never an option. On PCMark 10’s Modern Office battery test, it lasted just two hours and 57 minutes, which is a full hour and a half less than ASUS’ ROG Zephyrus M16. And while it shouldn’t be a big surprise, if you’re playing games without being plugged into the wall, you can expect runtimes of two hours or less.

Wrap-up

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Ok, so back to my original question: Who is this thing really for? If you’re coming from a smaller system, moving to the Blade 18 is almost like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry nearly blunders his way into a menage a trois before backing out. Living with a laptop this big isn’t merely upgrading your machine. You have to change the way you travel, you need to buy more expensive peripherals that won’t look shabby next to your fancy laptop, and you’ll probably want to get some rich friends who don’t mind sending a driver to pick you up when you want to have a LAN session. It’s not just a more powerful way to game, it’s a whole new lifestyle choice.

Alternatively, if you like playing games and making videos, the Blade 18 certainly has the size and the performance to do both well, though its screen isn’t ideal for content creation. Honestly, the main use case for the Blade 18 is if you’re on the road a lot or if you’re someone like a game developer and you want a portable workstation that you can lug around to show off your upcoming title. Back in the day, that honor often went to systems like MSI’s huge 17-inch Dragon and Dominator laptops, which were even thicker and heavier, regularly weighing in at over 10 pounds. But as part of a new breed of desktop replacements, the Blade 18 offers support for the fastest laptop components out right now, but in a relatively less bulky, though still big chassis.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That said, the reality is that for most people, the Blade 18 doesn’t make a ton of sense. There are a number of other desktop replacements that aren’t quite as fancy for hundreds (or even thousands) less. And if you still want a machine with serious performance that’s easier to carry around, there are rivals like the Zephyrus M16 too. Ok, so what’s left? Luxury and prestige, because if you have a sky-high budget and want a super premium gaming laptop, there isn't much that can top a fully loaded Blade 18. But for everyone else thinking about getting in on the ground level with a base model, your money would go a lot further elsewhere.

SpaceX has finally completed its first fully integrated Starship flight test after months of delays and a scrubbed launch earlier in the week, albeit not as smoothly as it would have like. The combination of Starship and a Super Heavy booster lifted off from SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas facility at 9:34AM Eastern after a brief hold, but failed to separate and tumbled down in a botched flip maneuver before exploding.

CEO Elon Musk previously told enthusiasts to temper their expectations. The Starship flight was meant to collect data for future boosted trips. As SpaceX explained during its livestream, clearing the launchpad was the only objective — anything beyond that was just a bonus. The company scrubbed the first attempt due to a frozen pressurant valve.

SpaceX hasn't yet said when it expects to conduct its next flight attempt. The outfit says it can produce more than one Starship at a time, so the delay won't necessarily be lengthy.

Starship and Super Heavy together are 394 feet tall, or taller than the Saturn V rocket. The 39 total Raptor engines (33 in the booster, six in Starship) are powerful enough to haul payloads up to 330,000lbs to low Earth orbit when fully reusable, and 550,000lbs when expendable. For context, even Falcon Heavy can bring 'just' 141,000lbs to that orbit. The new rocketry allows missions that simply weren't possible before, including eventual trips to the Moon and Mars that require extensive fuel and supplies.

Success with the next test is vital given the timing for both SpaceX's own plans and NASA's exploration efforts. SpaceX is counting on Starship for lunar tourism and other commercial flights. NASA's Artemis Moon landings, currently slated to start in December 2025, will depend on the rocket for reaching the surface and returning astronauts to the Orion capsule for the trip home. The sooner SpaceX can prove Starship is viable, the better its chances of minimizing further delays.

Acer reliably makes some of the best Chromebooks on the market, and today it's announcing an update to the Chromebook Spin 714 as part of a slew of PC news. Like last year's model, the Chromebook Spin 714 is a premium laptop that's thin (0.7 inches), light (about three pounds) and powerful. 

Unsurprisingly, the new model users Intel's 13th-generation Core processors — either the i3-1315U, i5-1335U or i7-1355U. Acer also offers a high-end model geared at enterprise use with Intel's vPro platform with an i7-1365U processor. Combine that with up to 32GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD and you're looking at far more power than most ChromeOS tasks need, but that's kind of the point when you're looking at a premium Chromebook.

Another notable change is the webcam — Acer put a "QHD 2K" camera in the Spin 714. It feels like companies are finally adjusting to the realities of work-from-home life and giving us webcams that offer notable improvements, so I'm glad to see that here. 

Otherwise, the Spin 714 sticks to the usual premium Chomebook script that we know from Acer, not that that's a bad thing. As usual, Acer is using a durable anodized aluminum chassis which the company says meets the US MIL-STD 810 durability spec. As the name suggests, the 14-inch 1,920 x 1,200 touchscreen has a 360-degree hinge so you can prop the laptop up in tent mode or use it as a tablet. I say this every year: this trick means nothing to me. 

Acer

But Acer and plenty of other companies are still keen on convertible laptops, so I'm sure someone out there appreciates it. The touchscreen does work well with a USI stylus, offering 4,096 levels of pressure and tilt sensitivity — so if you're interested in drawing on the relatively large canvas this screen afford you, it should work pretty well. There's nothing new about the keyboard or trackpad this year, though Acer once again thoughtfully includes an optional fingerprint sensor for security. And past keyboards and trackpads on the high-end Spin models have been very good.

Finally, Acer says the battery on this laptop will last for about 10 hours. Unfortunately, most high-end Chromebooks I've used lately seem to max out in the six-to-seven hour range. Not terrible, but not ideal for a relatively expensive device. Hopefully the new Spin 714 will get closer to matching its promised battery life than last year's model. 

The Chromebook Spin 714 starts at $699 and will be available in North America in May. It'll then come to Europe, Middle East and African markets in July. As usual, Acer says it'll offer a wide variety of configurations, with prices differing by spec and region. 

It’s been possible for a while to snap up a 14-inch version of Acer’s Swift X flagship laptop that’s toting AMD’s silicon instead of Intel’s. But either I’m getting more forgetful, or this might be the first time that AMD’s hardware is coming to the 16-inch version of the Swift X. Today, Acer has announced that its biggest ultrabook is getting AMD’s new 7040-series processors. Those can be paired with either one of NVIDIA’s 30 or 40-series RTX GPUs, with the machine aimed at creative professionals who need something a little more muscular when they’re on the go.

We might as well discuss those new internals first, since would-be buyers get a whole raft of build-to-order options. There’s the new Ryzens, running from the Ryzen 5 7535HS all the way to the Ryzen 9 7940H, paired with 16GB RAM and either a 512GB, 1TB or 2TB SSD. That will sit beside your pick of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3050 with GB RAM, or an RTX 4050 with 6GB RAM.

Given the focus on creative and power users, there are two options for displays, a 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600 (WQXGA), 165Hz IPS LCD display with a peak brightness of 500 nits. Those in the market for something easier on the eye can instead opt for a 16-inch 3,200 x 2,000 (WQXGA+) 120Hz OLED with support for 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

Acer also wants to talk about the redesigned aluminum chassis, which it says offers better thermal performance, a lighter weight and a “more confident look and feel.” That extends to the harder, straighter lines on the side on the deck and a taller top lid that, when open, stretches down to the table. The redesigned internals have made room for a bigger, 76Wh battery, offering a battery life of anything up to 10 hours on a charge.

Rounding out the spec list is two USB-A, two USB-C ports, one of which can be used to charge the machine, a HDMI 2.1 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card reader.

As for how much it’ll set you back, the Acer Swift X 16 will land in North America in July, with the base model priced at $1,250. But, as with all of these machines, you can expect that figure to climb once you start adding in some of those fancier build-to-order perks.

At the start of a new chip generation, manufacturers are forced to start the slow yet vital process of updating their existing hardware. Today, it’s Acer’s turn to show off a quartet of gaming units that, in the near future, will be permitted to run Intel and NVIDIA’s latest silicon. For instance, the range-topping Predator Triton 17 X, with its austere, Razor Book-esque design, is only available with NVIDIA's RTX 4090 GPU and Intel’s Core i9-13900HX. You can pair those with up to 64GB RAM and anything up to 4TB of SSD storage, and if you’ve still got cash left over after all that, you can also snap up a version with a 250Hz mini-LED display with 1,000 nits peak brightness. Those antsy to get their hands on it will only need to wait until next month for it to arrive, with the base model priced at $3,799.

Daniel Cooper

The Predator Helios Neo 16, meanwhile, can be specced with either a Core i5-13500HX or a Core i7-13700HX. You get three options on the GPU side, an RTX 4050 with 6GB RAM, or the pick of a 4060 or 4070, both of which come with 8GB of dedicated RAM. Further down the options list, you can choose up to 32GB RAM, up to 2TB of SSD storage and either a 1,920 x 1,200 or 2,560 x 1,600 IPS display with a 165Hz refresh rate. There's a new chassis design on display here, and Acer says that its new heat pipe design will pull away between six and nine percent more heat than its immediate predecessor. That machine will land on these shores in May, with the base model price setting you back $1,199.

Daniel Cooper

Those wanting a similarly outrageous amount of power in a smaller body, meanwhile, can turn to the Triton 14. That model is able to take up to a Core i7-13700H and the pick of an RTX 4050 with 6GB RAM or a 4070 with 8GB RAM. Much like the Neo 16, RAM tops out at 32GB, but you will get the option for a 2,560 x 1,600, 250Hz mini-LED display with a peak brightness of 600 nits. I'll be honest, I've always had a soft spot for the throwback charms of some of Acer's demure gaming laptops, and the Triton 14 has that in spades. Unfortunately, limited I/O and slightly less-than-you-might-expect-for-this-money material quality means I'm less enthused about this machine after seeing it up close and personal. You can already guess that this is debuting in the US in May, but you need to have at least $1,499 in your pocket before you can think about buying one.

And finally there’s the Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition which you get no prizes for guessing comes with Acer’s glasses-free 3D display. This model can be ordered with Intel’s Core i9-13900HX, an RTX 4080 GPU and 32GB RAM when it makes its US bow in June for a minimum spend of $3,499. It’s worth saying any potential buyers of this model are well advised to check out my colleague Devindra Hardawar’s review of the Helios 300 SpatialLabs edition. He said the glasses-free display isn’t good enough to compensate for the headaches, or the compromised visual quality you get compared to other, better, gaming machines.

As much as we all love our gadgets, they all contribute to a growing e-waste problem. Knowing where to recycle your used electronics can help mitigate that — but if you want to take it a step further, you could seek out more sustainable products like Acer's Vero line of "eco-friendly" laptops. Not only is the latest model of Acer's Aspire Vero 15 more powerful, but the company says it's built with more sustainable materials than ever, too.

Boiled down to the specs, the new Acer Aspire Vero 15 is a pretty standard spec upgrade — outfitting the notebook with an 13th generation Intel Core processor available in i3, i5 and i7 configurations, up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and as much as 1TB of storage. The latest revision also has an upgraded 1440p QHD webcam with AI noise reduction and voice enhancement features, two thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, as well as two typical USB connectors, HDMI out and an audio jack.

The product line's eco-friendly credentials stem from a chassis built partially from post-consumer recycled plastics all cardboard packaging — and Acer says it's upgraded that aspect of the machine too. The new Aspire 15 Vero is now built from 40 percent PCR plastics (up from 30). The company also says the production process used 30% less CO2 than previous models. The laptop's circuit board is smaller too.

If that sounds like the machine for you, it won't be long before you can get your hands on it. The Acer Aspire Vero 15 launches in June, starting at $699.99.

For years, Imgur has made sharing photos and GIFs on the internet as easy as uploading a file — you don't even need an account to use it. Now the website has announced a change to its Terms of Service that could potentially erase years of internet history. Starting on May 15th, Imgur will be deleting "old, unused, and inactive content" that's not tied to a user account, so plenty of images posted on random websites online could disappear overnight. In addition, the service will be removing "nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content" even if they were uploaded by someone with an account. 

Imgur has long been the go-to service for people uploading explicit content meant for sharing on NSFW subreddits, since Reddit itself prohibits direct uploads of explicit images. Back in 2019, the photo-sharing website stopped displaying NSFW Imgur subsections associated with subreddits. However, it didn't delete any images and still allowed users to upload pornographic content, as long as they choose the "hidden" privacy status. Apparently, this has caused confusion and frustration on what is and isn't allowed on the hosting service. By banning explicit images completely, Imgur said it could address the risks they pose to its business and protect the company's future. 

The website will use automated detection alongside human moderators to find content to be deleted under the new rules. It will not be issuing warnings or suspensions for automated flags, but it will warn users if they try to upload anything that violates its updated Terms of Service. "Artistic nudity" is still allowed under the new rules, but they might get flagged by the website's automated detection tool that's still being calibrated. Bottom line is that, those who want to save viral images and other pieces of internet history may want to download them before they disappear. And those using Imgur to post photos on /r/gonewild may want to find an alternative service soon.