Best Buy is jumping on the e-bike bandwagon. Starting today, you can visit the retailer’s website to purchase powered bicycles, as well as electric scooters and mopeds from brands like Unagi, Bird, Segway and SWFT. In October, Best Buy will begin stocking those same EVs in select stores across the US, including Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The company’s Geek Squad contingent will also offer a $100 service where it will come to your house to adjust the brakes, seat height and handlebars on your new whip.

It’s not surprising to see Best Buy embrace e-bikes. Nearly all forms of electric transportation have done well during the pandemic, but e-bikes, in particular, have had a moment. Last summer, sales of powered bicycles outpaced all others by a significant margin. In most cases, you’re probably best off visiting your local bike shop to see what they have on offer, but with how difficult it's been to buy a new bicycle during the pandemic, it never hurts to have another place to shop for your next ride.

With NBA 2K22’s September 10th release date fast approaching, 2K has shared a first look at the game’s PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S version. The publisher calls this a gameplay reveal, but it's mostly a showcase of what developer Visual Concepts managed to do with the new hardware from Sony and Microsoft. Thankfully, the studio also published a new Courtside Report that details some of the gameplay enhancements players can look forward to when they pick the game up next month.

To start, Visual Concepts says it completely rebuilt the shot contest and blocking systems, as well as made a significant update to how the game handles defensive rotations. When it comes to moving a player up the court, the studio promises tighter controls that will allow you to put together new combos in creative ways.

But some of the most significant changes look like they’re coming to how the game handles shooting. NBA 2K22 will feature a new shot meter that will dynamically change depending on the abilities of the player you’re controlling and whether their shot is contested. According to Visual Concepts, NBA 2K22 will put a greater emphasis on Shot IQ. You’ll be more successful if you take the time to find an open teammate and take a smart shot. For players who like to drive to the basket, there’s a new dunk style creator that will allow you to customize their dunk repertoire.

Outside of those improvements, fans of women's basketball can look forward to much-improved WNBA mode. All told, it looks like NBA 2K's second PS5 and Xbox Series X outing should be a good one. 

Social fitness network Strava has made one of its most useful safety features available to all users. Starting today, anyone — not just those with a subscription — can use the app’s Beacon feature to share their location with friends and family members.

To enable the feature, tap the “You” tab at the bottom of the main interface and then the cog icon that appears near the top right corner. Once you’re in the settings menu, scroll down until you see the relevant section and toggle the feature on. With Beacon, you can share your location with up to three people. When you add a list of safety contacts to the app, Strava will automatically notify those individuals when you start recording an activity. Another option is to manually text a Beacon link to a friend or family if you don’t want to flood them with notifications each time you go out for a spin.

As a free user, you won’t be able to use the Beacon functionality through a connected device like a Wahoo bike computer or Apple Watch. Strava says that’s something that you will still need a subscription to access “due to the added complexity of supporting those integrations.” One other thing to keep in mind is the software will only share your location as long as you’re recording an activity. Either way, making a safety tool like Beacon free in most contexts is a good move for Strava, particularly after the company moved some previously free features behind a subscription.

Back in June, Spotify introduced Blend, a shared playlist that pulls together songs from your listening history and that of a friend’s. Today, that feature is not only rolling out to Spotify users globally, but it also comes with some new improvements.

To start, each time you create a Blend playlist with a friend, Spotify will generate a match score, telling the two of you how close you are on your musical tastes. Like with the company’s end-of-year Wrapped feature, it will now also create a shareable story that tells you some fun facts about the songs and artists that made their way into your playlist. Spotify says it has also tweaked the cover art to make it easier to identify each Blend playlist you create.

All users can try out the feature. However, if you’re a Premium subscriber, you’ll see whose music taste contributed to each song in a playlist. To make your first one, tap the “Create Blend” option in the For You hub in the Spotify mobile app, and then invite your friend. Once they accept, Spotify will handle the rest, and you can share the resulting story the company generates about your playlist.

EA’s Motive Studios will offer an early look at its upcoming Dead Space remake during a Twitch stream scheduled for 1PM ET, the developer announced on Monday. Fans of the classic survival horror game will get to see a prototype build that Motive said will showcase its vision for the remaster. The studio also promised senior producer Philippe Ducharme and creative director Roman Campos-Oriola will be on hand to speak to the work the team at Motive is doing to update the 2008 title for current generation consoles. Additionally, the stream will feature members from the Dead Space community who have been consulting on the project.

Following a series of tantalizing rumors, EA first teased it was working on a Dead Space remake during its recent Play Live event. The minute-long clip the publisher shared showed off an oppressive necromorph-infested environment and protagonist Isaac Clarke. Dead Space does not currently have a release date, but it’s heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

When you factor in cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the US. If we’re going to have any chance of addressing climate change, we’ll need to move away from burning fossil fuels in our cars. There’s just one problem with most electric vehicles: they depend on lithium-ion batteries made with heavy metals like cobalt. Not only is the material in short supply, but it’s mined in a way that involves child labor and the destruction of the environment. For those reasons, companies like IBM, Panasonic and Tesla have tried to make electric batteries without heavy metals.

So far, many of those efforts have yet to make it out of the lab, but a Chinese company called SVOLT claims it’s ready to start producing a cobalt-free battery at scale. At the Chengdu Motor Show, the firm showed off an 82.5KWh capacity power pack inside a vehicle from Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors. Under normal temperatures, SVOLT says its battery can deliver approximately 373 miles of range on a single charge and allow a car to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds.

SVOLT said the battery is “expected” to make its way to cars that go on sale in the Chinese market but didn’t offer a timeline of when that might happen, nor did it say just how many cobalt-free power packs it can manufacture at the moment. It's also worth pointing out other companies are making cobalt-free batteries at scale. As Electrek points out, most of the Model 3 units Tesla sells in China feature a lithium iron phosphate battery made by Contemporary Amperex Technology.

Twitch has lost one of its most popular and well-liked stars to rival YouTube. On Monday, Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo announced he recently signed a deal to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming. 

The deal comes nearly two years after Lupo signed an exclusive agreement with Amazon-owned Twitch, which was reportedly worth millions of dollars per year at the time. “We wish you nothing but the best in everything that comes next,” Twitch said after the streamer shared he was leaving the platform.

Loaded, the talent agency that represents Lupo, declined to share the details of his deal with YouTube, but the streamer told The Washington Post he’s now “secure for life.” He also told the outlet he plans to make more pre-recorded content. “Obviously, I’ll still be playing video games on YouTube,” he said. “But we have a chance now to do some new stuff.”

In moving from one platform to another, Lupo leaves behind the approximately 4.5 million followers he attracted to his Twitch channel. On YouTube Gaming, he has about 1.7 million followers, suggesting he may not, at least initially, attract the numbers he did previously. His first stream will air on August 31st.

PayPal is “exploring” the idea of allowing its users to trade individual stocks. Per CNBC, the company recently hired TradeKing co-founder Richard Hagen to head up a new unit at the company called Invest at PayPal. “Leading PayPal’s efforts to explore opportunities in the consumer investment business,” Hagan says of his new job on his LinkedIn profile. The outlet reports PayPal has also had discussions with potential brokerage partners.

Moving into retail trading wouldn’t be out of character for PayPal. The company has spent much of the last year expanding into the cryptocurrency market. It all started last October when PayPal announced it would let US users buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman also recently told investors the company could partner with different financial institutions to expand the number of services it offers. He even mentioned “investment capabilities” as one possibility. Either way, it’s a move that would make sense in the context of all the recent interest in retail trading that came out of the GameStop saga.

A PayPal spokesperson declined to comment on the report when we reached out.

Should PayPal decide to offer stock trading, it may take some time before it’s available to US users. CNBC reports PayPal is unlikely to roll out the service this year. And if the company decides it wants to operate as its own brokerage firm, it would need approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). That’s a process that can take more than eight months.

The City of Chicago has filed two separate lawsuits against DoorDash and GrubHub. While the complaints point to alleged misconduct specific to each company, they broadly accuse DoorDash and GrubHub of employing a similar set of unfair business practices.

Specifically, the city claims that both DoorDash and GrubHub have consistently advertised delivery services from restaurants that never consented to a listing on their platforms. The city also alleges they employ "bait-and-switch" tactics by using deceptively small delivery fees to lure customers before hitting them with various other expenses at the end of a transaction. Finally, it says they both hide the fact many restaurants charge less for the items on their menu when you order directly from them.

DoorDash called the lawsuit "baseless" and a "waste" of taxpayer money. "DoorDash has stood with the City of Chicago throughout the pandemic, waiving fees for restaurants, providing $500,000 in direct grants, creating strong earning opportunities and delivering food and other necessities to communities in need," a spokesperson for the company told Engadget.

GrubHub echoed the sentiments of its competitor. "Every single allegation is categorically wrong, and we will aggressively defend our business practices," a GrubHub spokesperson said. "We look forward to responding in court and are confident we will prevail."

In taking the two companies to court, the city says it seeks to mandate greater transparency from DoorDash and GrubHub, as well as financial restitution for restaurants and consumers hurt by their alleged actions.

Separately, the DoorDash lawsuit alleges the company misled customers about how it was using tips to pay its delivery workers. If that sounds familiar, it's because DoorDash agreed to pay a $2.5 million settlement toward the end of 2020 to settle allegations related to that exact same issue.

For Chicago, this is the latest effort by the city to impose additional regulations on food delivery apps. In May 2020, it implemented a policy that saw both DoorDash and GrubHub required to include an itemized breakdown that lists how much restaurants pay when you order from them using an app.

How do you market an affordable and capable, but somewhat boring phone? That’s the question Google had to ask itself before releasing the Pixel 5a in the US and Japan on Thursday. The answer the company settled on was to hire a soft-spoken actor to do their best Jony Ive impersonation and wax poetic about the humble headphone jack.

It’s a usual approach, but one that highlights a feature that’s missing in most modern phones, and in a way that’s funny and memorable. “The circle: perfect, simple. Some might say simply perfect,” the actor declares in the opening moments of the clip, reciting a script that perfectly apes the overwrought writing that Ive’s videos at Apple became known for in his later years at the company. When the ad shortly thereafter turns to materials, you know exactly where it's going.

“Forged and machined from the finest premium-grade copper and iron. Housed in a unibody of diecast aluminium,” the actor says of the component, a voice in the background softly whispering, “fancy pronunciation.” Make sure to stay for the end of the clip to hear a fun bonus on that front.

But my favorite part of the clip involves how the Pixel 5a’s headphone jack is “designed to welcome both three-pole TRS and TRRS connections.” Translation: you can plug a headset with an in-line microphone into the phone and it will work without issue. It all culminates with the actor stating, “Yes, it’s a headphone jack. With the Google Pixel 5a with 5G, the circle has finally come full circle.” While the ad is mostly in good fun, it's worth pointing out Google's high-end phones haven't had headphone jacks in years, nor will the Pixel 6 include one when it comes out later this year.