Apple's Mac Mini M2 computers are the cheapest way to get the company's latest processors, and now Amazon is offering them at the lowest prices we've ever seen. You can buy the 256GB version for just $500 ($100 off the regular price) and the 512GB model for $690, or $110 off — both all-time lows. 

In our Engadget 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 processor 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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Google will soon start rolling out WebGPU, a new feature that will allow Chrome browsers to use your graphics card to accelerate games, graphics and AI, the company announced. It'll be enabled by default in Chrome 113 set to arrive in a few weeks for Windows PCs (via Direct3D 12), MacOS (Metal) and ChromeOS (Vulkan).

WebGPU will give web apps better access to your graphics card, Google said, allowing developers to achieve the same level of graphics with far less code. That could make for new and interesting Chrome browser-based 3D apps, and without a doubt, better games. 

At the same time, it will power over "three times improvements in machine learning model inferences," the company added. That could pave the way for machine learning apps that run locally, like NVIDIA Broadcast's strange "eye contact" feature. 

Google calls the initial release a "building block for future updates and enhancements," as developers begin to dig into it and create new applications. The API has been in development for over six years, and should be available to Firefox and Safari down the road (Edge often gets features at the same time as Chrome), and expand to more operating systems like Android. You can try the feature for yourself if you're on the Chrome Beta track using a demo called Babylon.js, which already offers full WebGPU support. 

A Cornell University researcher has developed sonar glasses that “hear” you without speaking. The eyeglass attachment uses tiny microphones and speakers to read the words you mouth as you silently command it to pause or skip a music track, enter a passcode without touching your phone or work on CAD models without a keyboard.

Cornell Ph.D. student Ruidong Zhang developed the system, which builds off a similar project the team created using a wireless earbud — and models before that which relied on cameras. The glasses form factor removes the need to face a camera or put something in your ear. “Most technology in silent-speech recognition is limited to a select set of predetermined commands and requires the user to face or wear a camera, which is neither practical nor feasible,” said Cheng Zhang, Cornell assistant professor of information science. “We’re moving sonar onto the body.”

The researchers say the system only requires a few minutes of training data (for example, reading a series of numbers) to learn a user’s speech patterns. Then, once it’s ready to work, it sends and receives sound waves across your face, sensing mouth movements while using a deep learning algorithm to analyze echo profiles in real time “with about 95 percent accuracy.”

Ruidong Zhang / Cornell University

The system does this while offloading data processing (wirelessly) to your smartphone, allowing the accessory to remain small and unobtrusive. The current version offers around 10 hours of battery life for acoustic sensing. Additionally, no data leaves your phone, eliminating privacy concerns. “We’re very excited about this system because it really pushes the field forward on performance and privacy,” said Cheng Zhang. “It’s small, low-power and privacy-sensitive, which are all important features for deploying new, wearable technologies in the real world.”

Privacy also comes into play when looking at potential real-world uses. For example, Ruidong Zhang suggests using it to control music playback controls (hands- and eyes-free) in a quiet library or dictating a message at a loud concert where standard options would fail. Perhaps its most exciting prospect is people with some types of speech disabilities using it to silently feed dialogue into a voice synthesizer, which would then speak the words aloud.

If things go as planned, you can get your hands on one someday. The team at Cornell’s Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interactions (SciFi) Lab is exploring commercializing the tech using a Cornell funding program. They’re also looking into smart-glasses applications to track facial, eye and upper body movements. “We think glass will be an important personal computing platform to understand human activities in everyday settings,” said Cheng Zhang.

After getting beat to the punch by its primary rival, Google plans to add conversational AI to its flagship Search product, CEO Sundar Pichai told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. "Will people be able to ask questions to Google and engage with LLMs [large language models] in the context of search? Absolutely," he said. Google has already said it would integrate LLMs into search, but this is the first time the company has announced plans for conversational features.

The move isn't unexpected, particularly after Microsoft released a version of its own Bing search engine that used OpenAI's ChatGPT AI engine. However, Google's implementation would potentially have more impact, considering its 93.4 percent worldwide share of the search market. Pichai added that he saw AI chat as a way to expand its search business, rather than a threat. "The opportunity space, if anything, is bigger than before," he told the WSJ.

Pichai didn't reveal a timeline for chat AI search, but it's clear that Google lags behind Microsoft. OpenAI's release of ChatGPT prompted Google to declare a "code red" as it saw the AI as an existential threat to its core business. That proved to be warranted, as Microsoft (which owns a large chunk of OpenAI), soon released a version of Bing Search powered by OpenAI's latest GPT 4 model that gave it some uncanny abilities.  

Google released its own conversational AI called Bard strictly as a chat product on a standalone site and not in Search. However, it was clearly lagging behind ChatGPT, displaying incorrect answers in a Twitter ad. Pichai recently said Google would soon switch to a more "capable" language model in an effort to close the gap. 

While Google is cutting jobs in an effort to achieve Pichai's goal of becoming 20 percent more productive, the company is accelerating work on new AI products. To be more efficient, it plans to allow more collaboration between divisions like Google Brain and DeepMind, its two primary AI units. "Expect a lot more, stronger collaboration, because some of these efforts will be more compute-intensive, so it makes sense to do it at a certain scale together," he said. 

Apple's latest Mac Mini has dropped to $549 at Amazon and B&H. Outside of special discounts for education customers, this matches the lowest price we've seen for the entry-level model with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and Apple's M2 chip. For reference, Apple normally sells this variant for $599.

We gave the Mac Mini with the beefier M2 Pro chip a review score of 86 earlier this year. This model won't be as powerful for video editing or software development, but the hardware is just as compact, and the base M2 is still plenty fast and quiet for web browsing, less hardcore work and general use. Just make sure that's all you want out of the device first, as, like most Macs, you can't upgrade the Mini's internals over time. And while the Mini's lack of front-facing ports is annoying, on the back it has two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an Ethernet jack and a headphone jack.

As with other recent Macs, this entry-level Mac Mini technically has slower SSD performance than its predecessor, but the drop-off shouldn't be significant in real-world use, especially if you stick to the less intense tasks at which this model is aimed. If you think you'll need more storage and don't want to use an external drive, a variant with a 512GB SSD is available for $749. If you plan on using the desktop daily for the next several years, buying a model with at least 16GB of RAM may be a better value; those options start at $799. But if you just want the cheapest Mac desktop possible, the base model is still a great compact PC for the essentials, and this discount makes it a little more affordable.

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You might not want to rely on Apple's built-in Weather app to see if you need a jacket today. As Apple's status page confirms, many users are reporting that the app isn't loading information on all of the company's platforms, including iOS and macOS. We've asked Apple for comment, but the alert pins the issue (initially limited to Alaska) on a "data provider outage."

The company noted the problem late Monday, but it's still ongoing as of this writing. Apple hasn't provided an estimated time for restoring weather data. MacRumors says some users have had intermittent problems with the Weather app since the release of iOS 16.4 last week.

The outage comes a few months after Apple shut down Dark Sky for iOS, but years after the company started integrating Dark Sky's info into its Weather app. The transition and the glitch aren't necessarily connected, but this isn't great news for Dark Sky users who've had to use Apple's software to get the fine-grained forecasts they're used to. For now, you'll have to rely on third-party apps or the web to know if you should carry your umbrella.

You no longer have to fret about missing an act during YouTube's live Coachella streams. The company has confirmed that, for the first time, it will stream all six stages during both weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which kicks off April 14th, 2023 at 7PM Eastern and resumes April 21st at the same time. Previously, you had to make do with three streams. Replays will be available until the next day kicks off.

To no one's surprise, YouTube is using Coachella to pitch its services. Premium subscribers will have access to backstage "pre-parties," while Shorts creators can use their videos to influence the set lists of Calvin Harris, Becky G and Burna Boy. You can also expect special merch drops during the streams, and you can watch through the YouTube Music app in addition to YouTube itself.

Coachella 2023 has a packed lineup. The headliners include artists like Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Frank Ocean. There's also a mix of up-to-the-minute and legendary stars, including Bjork, Underworld, Yaeji and Wet Leg. YouTube's expanded coverage lets you indulge your personal preferences instead of having to 'settle' for some musicians. We'd add that tickets for the first weekend are already sold out as of this writing — this may be the only way you can attend some gigs this year.

There's no mystery behind YouTube's strategy. This is less about direct revenue and more about getting YouTube's name into the spotlight. In theory, you may drift away from TikTok and other video apps competing for your free time.

The Apple Watch SE is back on sale for $219 at Amazon and Best Buy, bringing what was already one of the better values on the wearable market within $10 of the lowest price we've tracked. Though we've seen this deal a few times since the SE launched last September, it's still $30 off Apple's MSRP and about $20 off the device's usual street price. Note that this offer is for the 40mm model; if you want the larger 44mm case size, that variant is down to $249, which is a slightly less significant discount. 

We gave the second-generation Apple Watch SE a review score of 89 last year, and we currently note it as the top pick for first-time or budget-sensitive buyers in our guide to the best smartwatches. Compared to the flagship Apple Watch Series 8, the SE lacks more advanced health-tracking features like a skin temperature sensor, ECG monitor and blood oxygen sensor, and its slightly smaller display doesn't have an always-on mode, so it's more cumbersome for checking the time. It also charges slower than the Series 8 or higher-end Apple Watch Ultra. For the most part, though, it provides the usual Apple Watch feature set at a lower price, with notifications, heart-rate monitoring, crash detection and a similar-looking, water-resistant design. This second-gen model runs on the same S8 processor as its pricier siblings, too, so it's just as fast in day-to-day use.

That processor bump is the biggest upgrade from the first-gen Apple Watch SE, but most people with that device shouldn't feel the need to upgrade here. Instead, this model is best for folks upgrading from an older Apple Watch (say, a Series 4 or older) or iPhone owners looking to buy an Apple wearable for the first time without spending more than $300. If that describes you, this deal should make the device a bit more approachable.

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Activision Blizzard is facing yet another complaint by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The labor agency has “found merit with several elements of the unfair labor practice charges filed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA)” on behalf of the company’s workers, the union has told Engadget. This particular case pertains to the CWA’s accusations that the game developer illegally surveilled workers when they walked out in July last year to protest the lack of gender equality in the company, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, as well as Activision Blizzard’s alleged union-busting practices. 

The NLRB found after an investigation that the company broke labor laws by using managers and security staff to monitor workers during the walkout. In addition, the labor board found merit in the CWA’s accusation that the developer threatened to cut off workers’ access to an internal chatroom where they discussed their pay, hours and overall working conditions. According to IGN, though, NLRB has dismissed one charge regarding the company cutting off people’s chat access to an all-hands meeting. The publication says Activision Blizzard‘s chief administrative officer Brian Bulatao has informed workers that chat was shut down for future all-hands because that particular meeting turned toxic. Attendees used it as a chance to “disparage the work of the Diablo Immoral team and others,” he explained.

An NLRB spokesperson told Reuters that it will move forward and prosecute Blizzard if the company doesn’t settle.

The company’s labor practices were thrust into the spotlight after California filed a lawsuit against it in 2021 for fostering a “frat boy” workplace. After a two-year investigation, the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing had determined that the developer discriminated against female employees. It’s one labor issue after another for Activision Blizzard after that, mostly related to workers’ organizing efforts. To note, the company is also facing another NLRB complaint, accusing it of violating labor laws by implementing an overbroad social media policy that prevented workers from talking about their working conditions and threatening employees who were exercising their right to join a union. Activision Blizzard told Engadget that those allegations were “false.”

DirecTV users can now watch Ted Lasso without buying extra hardware. The television provider announced today that the Apple TV+ app is now available to install on the company’s DirecTV Stream box.

This is the first time Apple’s streaming network has been available on DirecTV Stream, a multipurpose device for subscribers that supports live TV, streaming apps, on-demand content and DVR recordings. The satellite provider launched the device in 2020; subscribers can rent it for $20 per month, and it’s bundled with some premium plans. In addition, it includes a remote control with access to Google Assistant.

The Apple TV+ app will include the iPhone maker’s original content like Ted Lasso, Severance and CODA, and access to Apple’s broader library of rentals / purchases for television series and movie rentals. Additionally, it includes in-app support for premium add-ons like AMC+, Paramount+ and Starz. The app is widely available on other streaming devices, including PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, Roku, Fire TV, Google TV and smart TVs from Samsung, LG and others.