Samsung's handy T7 Touch portable SSD is cheaper right now than it was during the holiday shopping season just a couple of months ago. The 1TB black model is down to a new low of $140, which is $50 off and the best price we've seen it. Most other versions are also discounted, including the 500GB model for $105, but you'll get the best deal if you go for the black 1TB drive.

Storage gadgets are some that are useful to keep around, but often expensive to get your hands on. That's why we recommend waiting for a sale like this one to pick up an extra drive, SD card and the like while you can get them for less. Samsung's T7 Touch is a palm-sized portable SSD with read speeds up to 1,050 MB/s and write speeds up to 1,000 MB/s, plus features like Dynamic Thermal Guard to control heat levels. While the drive supports optional password protection, the kicker here is its built-in fingerprint reader that you can use as an extra layer of security.

The T7 Touch's compact design helps it fit into nearly any bag you may be carrying, plus its shock- and drop-resistant aluminum unibody should protect it from too much damage if it accidentally takes a tumble. We also appreciate that it comes with both USB-C to C and USB-C to A cables, allowing you to use the drive with most laptops, smartphones, tablets and even some game consoles.

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After introducing S Pen support to the Galaxy S21 Ultra and not launching a new version of the Note series last year, Samsung's next Unpacked event would be a timely opportunity to address concerned fans. Though the company has yet to confirm an exact date beyond the month of February (rumors suggest it might take place Feb. 8th), president TM Roh has written a blog post on what we can expect at the launch. Samsung has also shared a teaser trailer.

"We know many of you were surprised when Samsung didn’t release a new Galaxy Note last year," he wrote. "At Unpacked in February 2022, we'll introduce to you the most noteworthy S series device we've ever created." The company is expected to unveil the Galaxy S22 series this year.

Roh also said "the next generation of Galaxy S... [brings] together the greatest experiences of our Samsung Galaxy into one ultimate device." He teased nighttime photography, power and performance as some areas to look out for, ending his post with "Get ready for the ultimate Ultra experience." That could mean the best upgrades could be limited to the Ultra model again, as in previous years.

The rest of Roh's post is mostly recap of its S and Note series, as well as vague allusions like "we haven't about these [Galaxy Note] experiences you love." There aren't any details on what exact Note-esque features we might see in the next S flagship, and our biggest clue is the use of the word "noteworthy" to describe the upcoming product.  

Finally, Samsung also announced today that tomorrow (Jan. 21st) at 10am ET, it'll open its Reserve Now offers ahead of time like it's done for previous launches. If you want to guarantee you can get whatever Samsung announces in February, you can reserve early and get perks like a $50 Samsung credit towards other Galaxy products during pre-order, as well as more deals when it's time to pre-order.

The view from your couch will look a little more like sitting courtside in the days to come, as Streamable reports on Thursday that YouTube TV will begin offering select NBA matchups in 4K. 

The only, ahem, hoop viewers will need to get through in order to watch is having a YouTube TV subscription with the 4K Plus add-on. YTTV on its own is $65 a month, the 4K add-on will set you back an additional $12/mo for the first year before nearly doubling, up to $20/month thereafter. Not every game will be made available in the high definition format though Saturday's game between the Cavs and Thunder will.

Sony has at last flipped the switch on its PlayStation 2021 Wrap-Up, allowing players to delve into their PlayStation 4 and PS5 stats for 2021. After you log into your PSN account, you'll be able to see how many hours you spent on PlayStation games last year, the five titles you played the most and how a breakdown of the trophies you scooped up.

The tool breaks down your playtime by PS4 and PS5 games, how long you spent playing on a console vs. Remote Play and how many hours you used PlayStation VR. You'll also see the number of games you played and get a code for four avatars as a bonus.

Sony took the opportunity to promote some of its games by highlighting some global community stats. In Death Stranding Director's Cut, for instance, players collectively traveled more than 45 million kilometers and delivered more than 9.4 million packages. They played more than 12 million hours of Returnal in total, while 34.6 percent of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart players unlocked all of the weapons.

Users need to be aged 18 or over and have played at least 10 hours of games on PS4 or PS5 to access their Wrap-Up. It may not work for PS5 players who haven't enabled full data collection and those who haven't consented to "Additional Data" collection on PS4 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia, India and Russia.

While the PlayStation's year-end wrap-up feature is emerging much later than ones for other platforms and services, at least it takes the entire year into account. Spotify Wrapped, for instance, only covers listening data from between January and October. The latest edition of PlayStation Wrap-Up is actually arriving a little earlier than the one for 2020, which arrived last February. The tool will be available until February 20th.

Two years after the game was initially supposed to debut, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will finally arrive on April 5th. The long-awaited title from TT Games adapts all nine movies in the Skywalker Saga, and you'll be able to choose which trilogy to start with (so you might want to get the prequels out of the way first).

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is coming to PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. It's said to be the biggest Lego game to date, and publisher Warner Bros. Games provided an in-depth look at what's in store with a gameplay trailer.

There are new combat mechanics, including ways to string attacks together and defend yourself with counter moves "in styles tailored to your favorite characters." Expect fresh blaster mechanics, with an over-the-shoulder perspective and third-person aiming reticle, and a cover system. Of course, there'll be a ton of lightsaber action, space dogfighting battles and many opportunities to use Force powers as well.

Many levels will have multiple paths to explore and you'll be able to take on side missions. Class-based abilities are upgradable and there are more than 300 playable characters to unlock. There's also a Mumble Mode, which will replace intelligible voice lines with mumbling, à la previous games in the series.

Based on the gameplay trailer alone, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga seems like a huge game. However, despite the lengthy delays, the development team was still required to work long hours (or "crunch"), according to Polygon. 

Several current and former employees told the publication that TT Games has had a "challenging work culture over the last decade and a half" and that, during crunch periods, work weeks of between 80 and 100 hours weren't rare (though overtime is said to have been limited in recent months). TT Games has also reportedly had a high level of staff turnover since work started on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga nearly five years ago.

Canon has revealed the EOS R5C, a new member of its cinema camera line that looks like a good choice for photos, too. It strongly resembles Canon's EOS R5 mirrorless camera, but has a big hump in back to accommodate an active cooling system. As such, it offers most of the benefits of the EOS R5 with none of the overheating issues when shooting 8K or high frame rate 4K video. 

On the video side, the EOS R5C can shoot 8K at up to 60fps in Canon's 12-bit RAW LT format using the entire width of the sensor, a big step up from the 8K 30p RAW available on the R5. Better still, it can work at that setting "indefinitely," while the R5 is limited to just 20 minutes at 8K 30p due to overheating issues. It can also handle RAW 6K/60p with a Super 35mm crop and shoot 4K at up to 120 fps with no crop and full AF capability. The latter could use line-skipping like the EOS R5, however.

It also supports ProRes RAW output to an external recorder via the HDMI port at up to 8K/30P. "Proxy data can also be simultaneously recorded to an SD card in-camera, helping to provide efficient post-production operations," Canon said. Unfortunately, it uses micro HDMI rather than a full-sized port — not ideal for a dedicated cinema camera. 

Unlike the R5, however, the R5C doesn't have in-body stabilization — so any optical shake reduction for stills or video will only be available via supported lenses. However, the optical lens stabilization can work in concert with Canon's electronic stabilization, with a 1.1x image crop.

On the photography side, the full-frame 45-megapixel sensor is a big plus, as is the 20 fps shooting speed in electronic shutter mode (12 fps with the mechanical shutter). It uses Canon's Dual Pixel autofocus system for both stills and video, along with eye/face detection and subject tracking, so it should offer the same excellent AF performance as the R5. When you flip the camera over to photo mode, all the menus and button settings change accordingly. 

It comes with a 3.2-inch variable-angle flip out LCD monitor and 5.76 million-dot viewfinder, the same as the EOS R5. While you get Canon Log 3 for improved dynamic range, the Log 2 option found on other Canon cinema cameras isn't available. Other features include dual card slots (one CFexpress and one SD UHS-II), animal eye detection (cats, dogs, or birds), vehicles detection, a multifunction shoe for microphones and other accessories, a timecode terminal for multi-cam shoots and a DC coupler to provide continuous power.

The EOS R5C will arrive in March for $4,499, a $600 premium over the R5. It's a pretty interesting model as it can do more than some Canon cinema camera models for a lot less money and is much smaller, to boot. At the same time, it might give photo/video hybrid shooters serious pause if they're looking to buy Sony's $6,500 A1 hybrid. 

With more automakers including driver assistance systems in their cars, Consumer Reports is changing how it grades those vehicles. Starting this year, the outlet will add an additional two points to a car’s overall score if its included driver assistance system encourages safe driving. Moving forward, it will also deduct points from a vehicle’s total score if it finds the opposite is true, starting with two points in 2024 and then four points in 2026 and beyond.

“We believe it's time to recognize vehicles that have found a safer way to deploy this technology,” said Jake Fisher, senior director of the publication’s Auto Test Center. By its own estimation, Consumer Reports says an adequate driver monitoring system is one that will “reliably” detect when the driver has become inattentive and alert them to that fact. It adds the system should escalate those warnings and eventually stop the car if it finds they’re not responding.

Consumer Reports said it would also take into account an automaker’s privacy policy when evaluating a driver monitoring system, and may not award additional points in some instances. The outlet reasons strong privacy protections are essential to convince drivers to use the feature.

The outlet will put the new ranking guidelines into action when reveals its 2022 Autos Top Picks on February 17th, but it gave an early preview of what to expect on Thursday, noting only cars from Ford and GM earned additional points for their driver assistance features. The outlet said BMW, Ford, GM, Tesla and Subaru all claim their systems can detect and prevent driver inattention, but notes it found some “serious flaws” in those systems through its testing.

Beyond mentioning the automaker, Consumer Reports didn’t call out Tesla specifically, but the two have an adversarial history. In 2020, Consumer Reports ranked Autopilot a “distant second” to GM’s Super Cruise. At the time, it said GM’s system was better at notifying drivers when it was about to disengage, and the automaker’s use of an infrared camera to monitor the driver led to a safer system overall.

Splitgate, the sci-fi portal shooter that transported me back to carefree Quake 3 Arena days, is getting a slew of updates on January 27th with its Beta Season One update. There's a map builder for constructing and sharing stages with friends, a 100 level battle pass, as well as new One Flag CTF and Evolution modes. (The latter gives the losing team of every round increasingly powerful weapons.) Developer 1047 Games also says the Foregone Destruction map is getting a major fidelity bump, which should be a sign of similar upgrades coming to other maps.

“Our custom map creator will continue to evolve alongside the rest of the game,” Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games, said in a statement. “We’re looking at the map creator as an evolutionary tool driven by the community — it’s a robust feature for fans to play with day one of our new season, and we’re really interested in hearing feedback from the community regarding the types of features and tools they want.”

All of this sounds like great news for Splitgate fans—at least, the few who've stuck around. According to SteamDB, the game is currently seeing 1,000 to 2,500 players per day, a far cry from its 67,000 player peak five months ago. I'd wager the launch of Halo Infinite's free multiplayer mode in December didn't help (that's where all my free time has been spent lately), but Splitgate's popularity has also steadily dropped since its open beta last August. 

Sure, it was impressive that Splitgate hit 10 million downloads in under 30 days, but with the plethora of free shooters out there, 1047 Games will need to do more to actually keep people interested for the game's full release. A hardcore fanbase isn't enough.

Even Airstream is getting in on electric vehicles. According to Autoblog, the Thor brand has introduced a pair of EV concepts that include the eStream, a self-propelled camper. The dual-motor trailer not only reduces the burden on the towing vehicle, but can be remote-controlled from your phone to help you hitch up, reverse or simply move your camp site. You can even use the motors to shift the weight distribution, so you might not need a special hitch to handle certain trailer loads.

The other concept, the Thor Vision Vehicle, is a Ford Transit-based electric RV. The design is conventional, but Thor teased a "best in class" 300-mile range along with a digital cockpit that includes extensive tools to find chargers along your route.

There's no mention of whether or not the eStream or TVV will lead to ready-to-buy models, let alone timeframes for production. However, it's easy to see both reaching customers. Campers and other trailers significantly limit the range of any towing vehicle, and often demand extra power. While an electric camper like the eStream would have its own challenges (the weight and wear of its batteries, for instance), it could limit the overall impact on range and make towing an option for vehicles that would normally struggle.

Ever since Impossible Foodsstole the show at 2019 with its White-Castle-burger-that-wasn't, Engadget has been following the science of plant-based foods. Nowadays, it's not just patties that can do a convincing impersonation of animal products, and it's not just Impossible Foods. Between Impossible and its biggest competitor, Beyond Meat, we've also seen plant-based chicken nuggets, sausage, pork, "KFC" and even taco meat. But you don't often hear about attempts to mimic a different animal-based product: milk.

And when you do hear of plant-based milks, it's more likely to be dairy alternatives like almond milk, soy milk or oat milk. Even then, it's rare for a dairy-free version to taste like the real thing. That’s exactly the selling point of Silk’s new line of plant-based milk, Nextmilk. It will be available in both full fat and reduced fat versions (MSRP is $4.99 for a 59-ounce carton). It’s going on sale today in grocery stores like Target, Kroger, Publix and HEB, among others.

I tried a sample of Silk’s Nextmilk last week and while it’s tasty, I wasn’t fooled into thinking it tastes like cow's milk. It tastes more like a richer, fattier version of oat milk. It does have a similar creamy mouthfeel to regular milk and the taste is a little closer to dairy than other plant-based milks I’ve tried, but it doesn’t quite replace dairy for me.

The ingredients list reflect what I tasted: It consists primarily of oat milk, plus smaller proportions of coconut milk, coconut oil, soy protein isolate, chicory root extract, cane sugar, sunflower oil, a vitamin and mineral blend, sea salt, locust bean gum, gellan gum, sunflower lecithin, soy lecithin and “natural flavor.”

Still, it’s quite delicious, and it might be close enough to dairy for some people. When eaten with cereal or as an accompaniment to cookies, for example, I thought Nextmilk was a more than acceptable substitute. It also mixes well in coffee and tea. “Silk Nextmilk was specially formulated to meet dairy-lovers’ taste expectations through a remarkably delicious blend of plants that are designed to deliver on key attributes of dairy milk, like taste and texture,'' a Danone (Silk’s parent company) spokesperson told Engadget.

Additionally, Danone says that Nextmilk can be used as a one-to-one alternative to traditional dairy milk in recipes. At the same time, however, the company is also working on another product called So Delicious Wondermilk, which arrives next month and was specifically developed for culinary purposes. 

“While Silk Nextmilk is meant for everyday dairy lovers and offers great versatility [...] Wondermilk beverages were developed with culinary-focused consumers in mind and taste great in recipes,” the spokesperson said. When it arrives, Wondermilk will only be available through natural food channels like Whole Foods and Sprouts. 

Danone is not the first to attempt a dairy-free alternative that tastes closer to real milk. Impossible Foods, the company behind the Impossible Burger, is also working on this, with a product tentatively called Impossible Milk. However, its availability is still unknown.