Digital audio workstations (DAWs) are the key to making music or other productions on a computer, and Ableton's Live 11 is one of the most popular apps around. If you’ve been waiting for a decent discount to pick up the music production suite, now might be the time. The company has slashed the price of all the versions of Ableton Live 11, including upgrades and packs, by 20 percent. The sale runs for a week until March 28th.

The base Live 11 Intro option is down from $99 to $79, offering what you need to get started, including more than 1,500 sounds, 21 audio effects and 11 MIDI effects. For something more full-featured, consider the Live 11 Standard package, now available for $359 instead of $449. The bundle includes unlimited audio and MIDI tracks, as well as unlimited scenes and more than 1,800 sounds.

At the top end is the Live 11 Suite, which is down from $749 to $599. You'll get access to more than 5,000 sounds, along with more audio and MIDI effects and extra software instruments. Current Live users can get 20 percent off upgrades too. In addition, Ableton is offering packs with the Push hardware instrument, letting you save up to $299 with the Live 11 Suite. 

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To have any hope of making its Horizon Worlds VR social network catch on, Meta has to give potential users a reason to go (and stay) there. Its latest attempt to do that is something called quests that lets users complete in-game missions to earn (virtual) swag like clothing, the company announced in an update spotted by The Verge. 

The feature (which doesn't appear related to the Quest headset branding) is in beta testing via a game called Giant Mini Paddle Golf. "Those in the test group will see a new 'Quests' icon in their Identity Panel, which will open the new quests board to show 6 quests (e.g. Get a Hole-in-one) and the rewards to be earned (e.g. Sea Captain Costume). With one click, travel to the world to get started," according to the description. Meta plans to roll it out to more users over time. 

While limited to just a single experience for now, it's easy to imagine Meta offering quests in other corners of Horizon World as a way to give Quest VR headset users more to do. Last month, the company said it planned to release 20 new Horizon experiences built by third-party studios, so perhaps the quests feature will be part of these. 

The Horizon Worlds user base was reportedly around 200,000 at the end of 2022, well short of the goal it originally set. Meta recently announced plans to open Horizon World up to children between 13-17 years old, prompting criticism from two US senators concerned over Meta's track record on protecting younger users. 

Apple's 10.9-inch 2022 iPads are improved in almost every way, including the design, performance, battery life, front facing camera and more. One of the biggest knocks is the price, so if you've been holding out for a deal, Amazon now has them on sale at prices matching all-time lows. You can grab the 64GB model in silver for just $399 and the 256GB version in multiple colors for $549, saving $50 on both. 

Despite a few caveats, the 2022 iPad scored a solid 85 score in our Engadget review. Apple redesigned its entry-level tablet to give it thinner bezels, a bigger display and USB-C charging. It’s also the first iPad to include a landscape-oriented front-facing camera, a feature that makes the tablet more useful for video chatting. The 2022 model’s A14 Bionic processor is also a highlight. Other notable features include USB-C charging and a keyboard folio with function keys.

The main downsides revolve around the price, as this tablet is a full $120 more expensive than its 9th-generation predecessor, the keyboard folio is also expensive and it only supports the first-generation Apple Pencil. However, Amazon's sale helps ease the pricing issues, making this a very solid buy.  

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Apple's Mac Mini M2 is the cheapest way to get the company's latest processors, and now Amazon is offering the more desirable model at the best price we've seen. You can buy the 512MB Mini M2 for $700, or $100 (12 percent) off the regular price. The one caveat is that the shipping date is set for April 12th, but if you're not in a huge hurry, it's the best deal to date. 

In our review, we gave the Mac Mini a solid score of 86, lauding the performance and classic aluminum design. It's tiny but mighty, with the M2 model easily powerful enough for productivity chores and multitasking. The chip combines computing operations, like CPU, GPU, input/output interfaces and certain memory processes into one "system on a chip," allowing for faster processing speeds.

On top of that, you get killer connectivity, with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections, HDMI 2.0 (with 4K 240Hz and 8K 60Hz output), two USB-A ports, a headphone jack and gigabit Ethernet (upgradeable to 10 gigabit). The M2 Pro model adds two additional USB-C ports, making it even more useful for creatives with a ton of accessories.

The Mac Mini M2 won't replace your gaming machine, but it can handle nearly everything else you throw at it. We wouldn't recommend the overpriced storage or RAM upgrades either, as the M2 is much more efficient with RAM than typical PCs. Still, if you're looking for a cheap but powerful Mac, this is the way to go.

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Nearly two decades before Facebook and others were talking about the metaverse, Second Life was letting millions of users partake in virtual worlds. Now, all this time later, developer Linden Labs has announced that it's developing a mobile version of the game, Ars Technica has reported. A beta version is expected to launch later this year. 

In a YouTube video posted to Second Life's community forum, the publisher detailed some details about the mobile app. It's being built using Unity, mainly so it'll be easy to build and distribute the game on both iOS and Android phones/tablets. It also shows some footage of characters and environments, and how Linden Labs will try to make it as much like the desktop game as possible. 

Facebook has struggled to get the metaverse off the ground, but over 73 million accounts have been created for Second Life to date, and the number of active users hit 900,000 during the pandemic — 17 years after the game launched. Typical virtual events include "live music performances, shopping fairs, fan fiction conventions, book and poetry readings, academic lectures, fashion shows, and art exhibitions," the company told Vice in 2020. 

Linden Labs had been working on a VR version of the game called Sansar, but ended up stopping development and selling off the rights in 2020. The company said it did so to become "cash-positive," while noting that VR headset adoption didn't come as fast as it hoped. To that end, a pivot to mobile makes sense, but it remains to be seen if people will still be interested in Second Life after all this time. 

Now is a good time to purchase a 2022 Apple M1-equipped iPad Air, as they've dropped back down to all-time low prices. The 64GB WiFi model is now on sale for just $500, or $99 (17 percent) off, while the 256GB model is available for $650, also $99 off the regular $749 price. Note that the savings are applied via voucher that activates when you check out.

The M1 chip gives the 2022 iPad Air a substantial performance boost over the previous model, so it's a solid choice for content creation, gaming and other demanding apps. Throughput is also boosted thanks to the 10Gbps USB-C ports that have double the bandwidth of the last model. At the same time, battery life remains unchanged at an excellent 10 hours. All of those things make the 2022 iPad Air future-proof and helped it garner a top-notch 90 score in our Engadget review.

It has more than speed going for it. You get a 10.9-inch liquid Retina LCD display with Apple’s True Tone feature for optimizing the screen’s color temperature based on ambient light, to start with. It also comes with an improved 12-megapixel ultra wide front camera and supports the same accessories as the last model (keyboard cases, Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil). The main downside is a lack of Face ID. 

The 64GB iPad Air hits that $500 price (in all colors but blue) thanks to a 7 percent discount and $59 checkout voucher (applied when you click through to checkout). Meanwhile, the 256GB model is marked down to $650 thanks to different combinations of checkout vouchers and discounts. 

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IKEA's Vappeby lineup continues to grow with a new waterproof Bluetooth speaker designed for the shower and priced at just $15 — undercutting all but the cheapest no-name products. "The fundamental goal with the new product was to offer quality sound in a versatile product that can really be used anywhere," said product design developer Stjepan Begic in a press release. 

The silicone speakers are just three inches square and two inches thick, small enough to bring pretty much anywhere. They come with a lanyard-style card, letting you hang them in the shower or carry around. They come in yellow, black or red and can be used as a stereo pair if you splurge another $15 for a second one. They offer an amazing 80 hours of battery life at 50 percent volume, and are IP67 rated for water and dust resistance.

IKEA launched its Vappeby lineup with an outdoor LED lamp that doubles as a Spotify-enabled Bluetooth speaker. That model has an IP65 dust and splash rating and delivers 360 sound. The Swedish retail giant also offers the Symfonisk lineup of Sonos speakers, with a bookshelf speaker, floor lamp/speaker and a wall art/speaker combo. 

The only thing lacking on the new Vappeby waterproof model is a USB-C charger, but I imagine you have a few of those lying around. Given the ridiculously low price, shower-friendly design and crazy-long battery life, they should fly off the shelves — though I wouldn't expect great sound quality. They're set to arrive in April for $15. 

Microsoft launched its ChatGPT-powered version of Bing last month in a limited beta, and it promptly brought a bunch of new viewers and some respect to the beleaguered search engine. Now, it appears that Microsoft has opened up the new Bing to nearly everyone who wants to use it, as Windows Central has noticed. While the signup page still says "join the waiting list," all you have to do is sign in to get instant access — a trick that worked for myself and a colleague. 

Microsoft has yet to confirm the change, but we may learn more at an event it's holding today called "Reinventing productivity with AI," as spotted by TechCrunch. The company is supposed to be introducing AI-powered tools for its Microsoft 365 suite and SalesForce rival Dynamic 365, but it may announce Bing changes as well.

Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that the new Bing has been powered by the GPT-4 engine for the last five weeks, well before OpenAI unveiled it two days ago. OpenAI's latest language model (LLM) has taken the tech world by storm with its ability to handle both text and images. Some of its feats include passing simulated exams like the Bar and LSAT with a score "around the top 10 percent of test takers," and outperforming other LLMs in a variety of benchmark tests. 

Bing gives users a taste of GPT-4 without the need to pay for it or be a developer. The new search engine got off to be a bit of a shaky start, though, as up to 10 million users signed up to test it. Some were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot, making it spew false information and essentially gaslight users. That forced Microsoft to limit conversations, but it has subsequently removed some of those limits after strengthening the search engine's "guardrails."

Microsoft was an early backer of the company behind ChatGPT, Open AI, and strengthened that commitment in 2021 with $2 billion dollar investment. Early this year, it expanded the pact further with a "multibillion dollar" investment that includes new supercomputers to accelerate OpenAI's research. 

Microsoft has announced that Minecraft is coming to Chromebooks and is available to try right away via an Early Access version. The game will include "cross-device play with friends, access to Minecraft Marketplace, and the ability to play on Realms," according to developer Mojang.

It will require a decently equipped Chromebook with specific processors, 4GB of RAM and 1GB of storage, as detailed here. Those requirements may frustrate some potential users, considering that Chromebooks are widely used in schools and that Minecraft is played by a lot of kids.

"Early access means that in this first stage, only selected Chromebook devices that meet the minimum requirements will get the option to buy Minecraft, so you’ll have to check the Google Play Store to see if Minecraft is available for you," according to the blog post. "This isn’t because we want to single out some of our players as special (we love you all equally!) – it’s so we can test the game’s performance before we make it available to more players."

The "early access" part also means that users will have to put up with some bugs, even though they'll be paying for it. "We still expect that there may be some bugs, and that’s where we’ll need your help," the company wrote. "If you come across any goat-eating frogs, milkable squids, or disco dancing Ender dragons, then please let us know!"

Until now, it's only been possible to play Minecraft on Chromebooks using the Education Edition or a java version. The Chromebook + Android bundle us $20 USD, the Android-only version is $7, and an upgrade from Android the Chromebook is $13. Existing Minecraft worlds won't transfer to the Chromebook version, and you'll need a Microsoft account to play. 

There's no word on when the final version will arrive, or if the minimum requirements will change. In any case, if you don't see the Early Access version the Google Play store, it likely means your Chromebook isn't compatible. 

Satellite launching company Virgin Orbit is starting an "operational pause" and furloughing most employees except for a skeleton crew, CNBC has reported. The company is reportedly seeking new investors to relieve financial pressure and plans to give "an update on go-forward operations in the coming weeks," a spokesperson said in a statement. 

Companies like SpaceX launch heavy rockets from the ground to get satellite payloads in orbit. However, Virgin Orbit carries smaller rockets to a height of about 35,000 feet on the wing of a Boeing 747, reducing fuel required. Earlier this year, it attempted to launch nine satellites into low-Earth orbit from its UK base for the time. Unfortunately, the mission failed — reportedly due to a dislodged fuel filter. 

That setback came on top of existing financial problems, as the company has seen its stock drop precipitously from its debut in December of 2021. It reported a loss of $49.2 million in its last fiscal quarter, as it burned money with taking in any revenue. 

Despite those issues, Virgin Orbit seemed to be making progress toward its next launch. "Our investigation is nearly complete and our next production rocket with the needed modification incorporated is in final stages of integration and test," a spokesperson said last month.