It's almost time for another Microsoft livestream event, the first since September of last year. The festivities start at 12PM ET on Thursday, March 21. The best way to watch everything unfold is via the official Microsoft stream; it doesn't look like they'll have a stream on YouTube this time. This is the first Microsoft live event without former chief product officer and longtime keynote presenter Panos Panay, who departed for Amazon last year.

What to expect from Microsoft

The event is being advertised as a “new era of work”, so there’s going to be a major focus on the commercial space. There are plenty of rumors that Microsoft will take the opportunity to unveil a spate of new Surface devices. Windows Central claims that an OLED Surface Pro 10 and a Surface Laptop 6 will headline the event.

The Verge suggests that both devices will only feature minor spec bumps compared to the previous generation. There’s also conflicting reports as to whether or not these Surface devices will get a more comprehensive redesign later in the spring to suit non-business consumers. We won’t know until Thursday.

Microsoft

There’s one safe bet. Microsoft will continue its commitment to AI. Rumors swirl that the Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 will be powered by Intel Core Ultra and Snapdragon X Elite silicon CPUs with next-generation neural processing units (NPUs) that have been designed specifically for advanced AI tasks. To that end, there are reports that these devices will be called “AI PCs” and will include a dedicated button to bring up the company’s Copilot digital assistant. The Intel variants are expected to launch in April, while the Arm-based Snapdragon ones will reportedly show up this June.

AI, AI and more AI 

The rumor mill has been grinding overtime for this event. Reports also suggest that Microsoft will unveil a suite of new AI features that could be coming to Windows computers, including real-time captioning and translating, upscaling and frame-rate smoothing for games and upgraded Windows Studio Effects.

There’s also likely to be something called AI Explorer announced at the event. This is rumored to be a built-in timeline feature that is searchable via natural language. It’ll reportedly live on your device and log everything you do and see. So, you could ask AI Explorer to “find that thing I looked at earlier about dinosaurs” and it would search through every moment in your PC’s history to find the relevant content. This could be a privacy nightmare, but it could also finally make digital assistants actually useful. We fully expect Microsoft to offer security assurances when it comes to AI Explorer.

These AI features won’t be exclusive to the Surface Pro Pro and Surface Laptop 6, as reports indicate they will be part of the company’s annual feature update for Windows 11, which is expected this fall. Engadget will offer full coverage of the event and will spotlight all of the interesting tidbits.

Rivian owners can now use Tesla Supercharger stations to juice up their electric trucks and SUVs, after a software update issued during the weekend. The company first announced the integration last year, along with plans to include Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports in forthcoming vehicles. These ports won’t start showing up until 2025, so Rivian has also started a program to send Tesla-made NACS adapters to current customers.

The adapters will be free of charge, which calls to mind the move Ford made last month as it continues to transition to the NACS charging standard. Rivian will send out one free adapter per customer, based on the vehicle’s VIN number. The company hasn’t announced whether this is a limited time offering or how much additional adapters will cost. As a comparison, Ford will begin charging $230 for these adapters in July.

Rivian owners can select Tesla Superchargers as a charging option via the vehicle’s infotainment system or the manufacturer’s smartphone app. Everything is handled by Rivian, so there’s no need to download or use the Tesla app to pay for charging. Rivian’s chief software officer, Wassym Bensaid, told The Verge that this will give customers access to over 15,000 more DC fast chargers across the country.

The move to incorporate NACS charging into its vehicles will not impact Rivian’s proprietary network. The company still plans on installing thousands of DC fast chargers at hundreds of locations throughout the next few years, as part of its growing Adventure Network.

Tesla’s charging standard is widely considered to be the best available option for EV owners, as these chargers are known to be more reliable than CCS and CHAdeMO chargers. Tesla’s standard is also more readily available, with more than 55,000 Supercharger stations worldwide.

It wasn’t so long ago that Tesla’s Supercharger network was exclusive to the company’s vehicles. Those days are gone. Just about every major automobile manufacturer has announced plans to join the NACS party, including Subaru, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota and Lexus, among many others.

As for Rivian, the company says customers can access most V3 Tesla Superchargers using the adapter, but only some V2 chargers. The just-announced Rivian R2, R3 and R3X vehicles will all come with factory-installed NACS ports.

YouTube sensation Dunkey, aka videogamedunkey or Jason Gastrow, has added game publishing to his resume. Last year, he started a company called Big Mode which is releasing its first title on May 9. Animal Well is a sidescrolling Metroidvania platformer that will show up on the PS5, the Nintendo Switch and PCs. There’s a trailer that’s absolutely oozing with retro-gaming goodness.

Now, Dunkey didn’t make this game. Big Mode is a publisher and not a developer. A company called Shared Memory is behind Animal Well, which is just a solo dev named Billy Basso. He’s been working on the game for seven years and his hard work show from the trailer. 

Animal Well looks to lean a bit into psychedelia. There’s a blistering color palette, a synth-heavy soundtrack and, of course, a giant white cat that takes up the whole screen. There also looks to be tough platforming sections and the kinds of power ups that populate the Metroidvania genre. In any event, this looks like yet another delicious appetizer before Hollow Knight: Silksong eventually releases in the year 2087.

While Basso hasn’t released any games on his own yet, the developer did work on Octodad: Deadliest Catch and Bugsnax, among others. As for Dunkey, he’s a YouTuber, but one with pretty good taste. He knows his stuff and loves trashing bad games. If you’ve ever seen a meme taking the piss out of the beleaguered PlayStation mascot Knack, Dunkey probably had something to do with it.

Animal Well is the first game published by Big Mode, but not the last. The company has major plans for the future, including a bullet hell shooter called Star of Providence. Big Mode is also accepting submissions from developers, though not if the game includes “NFTs, crypto or blockchain.” If only Starbucks had such discerning taste.

The M1 MacBook Air has dropped to its lowest price ever, thanks to a sale at Walmart. You can pick one up for just $700, which is $50 cheaper than the previous low and a whopping $300 discount from the original asking price. If you’re looking for an entry-level Apple laptop, this is a mighty fine option.

Now, the M1 Air is over three years old and a full two generations behind the newly-released M3-equipped laptops. Despite getting a bit long in the tooth, the M1 chip is still no slouch, so this MacBook Air is plenty capable. It’s a solid machine that excels with basic everyday computing tasks, like streaming content and surfing the web. It’ll even do fine with light video editing and music production. We called it “faster than most PCs” in our official review back in 2020.

That doesn’t exactly track anymore (the march of progress and all) but the M1 Air features a gorgeous Retina display and no fan noise to speak of, in addition to an excellent keyboard and trackpad. The battery life is great, going for over 16 hours before having to hit the outlet. That’s only an hour or two shorter than the new M3 MacBook Air computers.

Apple Silicon chips are pretty dang impressive, but the M1 will struggle when you go beyond everyday computing tasks and into the worlds of serious video editing and AAA gaming. Also, the M1 laptop still has that wedge-shaped design, whereas the newer models feature a uniformly flat design. Some people actually prefer the wedge, but I’m not one of them.

This is the bare-bones standard M1 Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The 720p webcam isn't going to win any visual clarity awards, but it’ll get the job done. This isn’t the most future-proof computer around, as Apple recently discontinued it, but it’s also $700. The M3 MacBook Air starts at $1,100 and the M2 starts at $1,000. 

Best Buy has the M1 Air on sale for even cheaper, at $650. This is one heck of a deal but it looks to be tied to specific locations. The retailer's also offering open box models.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are now $250 on Amazon. This is a discount of 17 percent, as they typically cost $300. It also happens to be a record-low price for the wireless earbuds, though they’ve only been on the market since September of last year.

The earbuds boast some of the best active noise cancellation around, rivaling many over-ear headphones. That’s the primary reason why the Bose QuietComfort Ultra line made our list of the best wireless earbuds.

However, there’s plenty more to like here. We called out the spatial audio capabilities in our official review, which doesn’t require specially-made content, thanks to virtualization software that works to put the listener right in the middle of the acoustic sweet spot. The battery life is on point, the sound quality is great and the touch controls let users easily change the volume, skip songs and answer calls. These are dang good earbuds.

They aren’t, however, perfect earbuds. As mentioned, the battery life is great, getting anywhere from 16 to 24 hours before needing juice, when you factor in a few trips to the charging case. However, using the spatial audio feature drastically reduces the battery life, so be cautious when enabling different modes. There’s no wireless charging out of the box, as this feature requires a $50 silicone cover for the charging case. Still, today’s discount saves $50, if wireless charging is an absolute must.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Intel just broke another speed record when it comes to desktop CPUs. The company just introduced the Core i9-14900K CPU, which can reach up to 6.2GHz without overclocking, making it the fastest desktop processor available to consumers. The company did the same thing last year, but that chip maxed out at 6GHz. 

In addition to the record-breaking CPU speed, the i9-14900KS boasts a 24 cores/32 threads architecture and 36 megabytes of Intel’s proprietary Smart Cache technology, which shares the cache memory between the various cores. Intel says this will allow for “powerful performance in gaming and content creation workloads.”

The chip also makes use of Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost tool, which is a feature in 11th Gen and later Intel Core chips that ups the clock frequency by 100 MHz when the temperature is below a threshold of 70 degrees C, or 158 degrees F. In other words, make sure your cooling system is on point.

As for metrics, the company promises that gamers will experience up to 15 percent better performance and that content creators should enjoy a 73 percent performance uptick when engaging in compute-intensive workflows. The i9-14900KS is compatible with Z790 and Z690 motherboards, but Intel recommends the latest BIOS to ensure the best results.

The Core i9-14900KS is available right now and starts at $700. It’s available at traditional retailers as a boxed product and will be integrated into systems from original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners in the near future. Intel continues to focus on raw speed, rather than AI, which has been noticeable throughout this year’s product announcements.

There are plenty of portable headphone amps out there that plug directly into instruments like electric guitars and basses, but Boss just kicked things up a notch. The company has announced the Katana:GO headphone amp and it’s a doozy, with a combination of features I’ve never seen together in one little box.

Just like rival products, this thing plugs into the input jack of a preferred instrument and includes a headphone jack to hear what’s going on. Guitar players can choose from ten amp models and bassists get three amp models, each pulled from the pre-existing Katana line of modeling amplifiers. Boss Katana amps are known primarily for their surprisingly great selection of tones, and it looks like the company managed to squeeze those same models into a headphone amp. Rival products are certainly convenient, but don’t always sound that great.

There are 60 effects to choose from, with all of the reverbs, delays and, of course, choruses musicians have come to expect from Boss. These are also the same effects featured in the larger and pricier combo amps.

So, there are good amp tones and a robust lineup of effects. What sets the Katana:Go apart from, say, the Mustang Micro? First of all, there’s a built-in tuner, which is always a welcome addition. The Katana:GO also includes spatial audio tech to mimic a live setup, further enhancing its usefulness as a practice amp. It remains to be seen how realistic this sounds, but Boss says it lets users position a virtual amp in different locations to give the impression of playing on stage or “jamming in a room with friends.” I’ve used many of these amps before and have found the “in your face” nature of the headphone signal rather off-putting, so I’m intrigued by this feature.

The amp has 30 preset slots, for creating and saving unique tones, and integrates with the company’s Tone Exchange service. This allows users to trade presets like Pokémon. Okay, not quite like Pokémon, but you get the gist.

Boss

The Katana:GO even doubles as an actual USB audio interface. Just plug it into a computer, smartphone or tablet and record straight into a DAW. Finally, there’s a dedicated mobile app, with the ability to jam along to songs from streaming sites or a personal library. This is especially handy for getting that daily practice session in, and there’s a looping feature for nailing down difficult segments.

Just like the other headphone amps on the market, it folds up neatly and easily fits into a standard gig bag. The Boss Katana:GO costs $120 and, incidentally, is the same price as the Mustang Micro, which doesn’t double as an audio interface or include a built-in tuner. It’s available to purchase right now.

Anker USB-C chargers are up to 43 percent off on Amazon, with prices ranging from $16 to $68. There are a bunch of chargers available, from entry-level devices to the company’s premium models.

Perhaps the most notable discount is for the Nano 2. This is one of the company’s mid-range chargers and costs $32 as part of this sale, which is a whopping 43 percent off. This 65W charger boasts three ports, with power distributed efficiently between each connected device. It’s tiny, roughly the size of a charging case for earbuds, and features two USB-C connections and one standard USB-A connection.

The budget-friendly Nano 3 is also on sale for $16, which is a discount of 20 percent. This model offers a similar experience to the Nano 2, but with just a single USB-C port. The baddest Anker charger of them all, the Prime, is part of this promotion. It’s on sale for $68, instead of $87. This 100W charger will make short work out of depleted devices. It features a trio of ports, two USB-C and a single USB-A, and includes the company’s ActiveShield 2.0 system to ensure safe charging. It also happens to be much smaller than a standard MacBook charger, which is nice.

The sale extends beyond traditional chargers. There are power stations here with numerous inputs, hubs and, of course, cables to get everything connected. Some of the discounts are pretty steep, up to 50 percent in a couple of cases. Chargers and cables may not be exciting, but they sure are necessary. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Solo Stove’s well-regarded Pi Prime pizza oven is on sale for $50 off the asking price, bringing the total cost down to $300. This is part of a larger sitewide sale on Solo Stove products to celebrate Pi Day, a holiday that has everything to do with a famous mathematical constant and nothing to do with pizza. 

Just head to Solo Stove and type “pizza” into the discount code box. This sale applies to every available product on the site, including fire pits, and the discounts increase as you spend more. For instance, purchasing two Pi Prime ovens will drop $120 off the final price.

As for the Pi Prime, it’s a fantastic gas-powered outdoor pizza oven. The original Pi made our list of the best pizza ovens and the Prime features a near-identical design. It’s made out of stainless steel and features a round form factor that's just screaming to get stuffed with dough, cheese and sauce. The Pi Prime can hit a maximum cooking temperature of 950 degrees Fahrenheit and can fully cook a pizza in under 90 seconds.

The oven ships with a reversible pizza stone made from cordierite, which is the gold standard of pizza stone materials. It also comes with a cover to protect the oven from the elements. The Pi Prime features an open-air design, so there’s no door. This won’t impact the temperature inside of the oven, but will make it more difficult to accurately track that temperature. Of course, you’ll also need your own propane tank.

The rest of the sale breaks down as follows. Spending at least $150 provides a discount of $20. This shoots up to $50 when you spend $300. Spending $600 nets you a discount of $120 and spending $800 knocks $160 off the final price. Again, this is a sitewide sale that also applies to the company's fire pits and accessories. The deals end on March 18. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

The newly-released Sonos Move 2 speaker is on sale for 20 percent off the regular price. This is the very first discount on the speaker and brings the price down to $360 from $450. This is part of a larger Sonos sale on select products to celebrate the NCAA March Madness tournament.

The Move 2 is considered a massive improvement over the original, with a jump in price to match. We called out the excellent battery life and quick-charging capabilities in our official review. Our reviewer noted that the speaker “seemed to blow past” the advertised 24 hours of battery life. There’s also a nifty charging “ring” contraption. Just plop the speaker in the middle of the ring and it’ll juice up, though USB-C charging is also an option.

Of course, this is a speaker so the sound is a primary consideration. Luckily, the Move 2 offers improved clarity over the original, with a “clear, well-balanced” sound that offers a prominent bass frequency and a detailed high end. It’s also very loud and can easily handle outdoor spaces.

There are only two downsides here. It’s technically a portable speaker, but it’s fairly large and weighs nearly seven pounds. Also, the original asking price is much higher than the first-gen Move, which has been somewhat alleviated by this sale.

The sale also includes the massively popular Beam 2 soundbar. It’s $100 off, bringing the price down to $399. The Beam snagged a place on our list of the best soundbars, due to its easy setup, compact design and fantastic sound. The aforementioned discounts are good until March 25.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.