Microsoft is no stranger to making elaborate laptop docks, but its latest may be particularly appealing if you need a genuinely robust hub for work. The company has unveiled a Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock that, as the name implies, uses speedy Thunderbolt 4 (and hence USB 4) to connect your laptop or tablet to all your peripherals. There's enough bandwidth to connect two 4K monitors at 60Hz, as well as 96W of power that's enough to recharge some demanding portable PCs.

The dock offers a healthy mix of modern and legacy ports, plus a few helpful design touches. You'll find two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack and 2.5Gbps Ethernet on the back, but you'll also find one USB-C and one USB-A port on the front — it shouldn't be awkward to plug in a thumb drive or phone. Tactile indicators on the back make it easier for people of various abilities to find ports by feel, while the 20 percent ocean-bound plastic reduces the environmental impact.

Before you ask: while the dock is designed with the Surface Laptop 5, Surface Laptop Studio and Intel-based Surface Pro 9 in mind, that's not a strict requirement. Any computer with Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports should work. You could attach a MacBook Pro, if you're feeling ironic. 

The Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock is available today on Microsoft's store for $300. That's considerably more expensive than many laptop docks, and you may wish it had features like a full-size SD card reader. The price is on par with similarly powerful docks, though, and it may be worthwhile if you'd rather not spend valuable minutes plugging in peripherals when you sit at your desk.

There's an abundance of streaming devices out there to serve your TV, movie and live sports needs, but if you're looking for a solid model that can deliver 4K video without making too much of a dent in your bank account, it's definitely worth checking out Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max. As part of a Fire TV device sale, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped back down to its lowest price to date. You can pick one up for $35, which is $20 off the regular price.

This is a souped-up version of the Fire TV Stick 4K. Amazon says the higher-end model is 40 percent more powerful and offers more fluid navigation while it can start apps more swiftly. There's support for WiFi 6, Dolby Vision, HDR, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max comes with the Alexa Voice Remote, and with the help of the 750Mhz GPU, you can play some games (such as Amazon Luna cloud gaming titles).

If you're looking for a streaming stick but don't need 4K video, it's worth considering the Fire TV Stick Lite. It's our pick for the best budget streaming stick. As part of Amazon's Fire TV device sale, it's currently $20, which is $10 off the usual price.

At the other end of the scale is the latest Fire TV Cube. That's currently down from $140 to $125. This device is twice as powerful as the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, Amazon says. It has an octa-core 2.0 GHz processor and WiFi 6E support. You'll have the option to control a compatible cable and satellite set top box with your voice and manage your smart home from your TV.

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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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Sony just made it decidedly easier to find games that accommodate people with disabilities. As of this week, the company is rolling out accessibility tags on the PlayStation Store for PS5 users. Press the triangle button when looking at game's hub and you'll see whether a title has features to support those with visual, audio and motor needs. You'll know if a game has alternative colors, a screen reader or controller adjustments, for instance.

The tags will be generally available this week. Most of the initial support revolves around marquee games like Death Stranding Director's Cut, God of War Ragnarök and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Sony says it's working with a "wide range of developers" to deploy tags going forward, so you can expect to see them from smaller studios.

The option comes roughly a year and a half after Microsoft unveiled similar tags for Xbox gamers. Not that PlayStation developers have been waiting for Sony to act. The Last of Us creator Naughty Dog has made a point of prioritizing accessibility in its games, such as a feature that plays dialogue through the PS5's DualSense controller as haptic feedback. In that regard, the store upgrade helps expose and promote these efforts.

Sony hasn't been standing still. The firm is developing an accessible PS5 controller that, like Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller, helps people with limited motor control play games that might otherwise be unusable. The tags are just part of a broader strategy to make gaming viable for many more people — provided they can find a PS5 in the first place, of course.

A UK privacy watchdog has fined TikTok £12.7 million ($15.8 million) for what it says are several breaches of data protection laws, including how the app handled children's personal information. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says that, in 2020, TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million kids aged under 13 to use the app in breach of its own rules.

The ICO states that companies offering "information society services" to under-13s need to obtain consent from the kids' parents or guardians. TikTok didn't do that, according to the regulator, which noted the company "ought to have been aware that under-13s were using its platform." Moreover, the ICO (an independent public body) said TikTok didn't do enough to find and remove underage users from the app — despite some senior employees raising concerns about the issue.

The office determined that, between May 2018 and July 2020, TikTok breached the UK General Data Protection Regulation in several ways. Among other things, the ICO says TikTok failed to properly inform users in an easy-to-understand way how it handles and shares their data. As such, TikTok users, including kids, "were unlikely to be able to make informed choices about whether and how to engage" with the app. The office added that TikTok failed to make sure that it was processing the data it held on UK users "lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner."

“We invest heavily to help keep under-13s off the platform and our 40,000-strong safety team works around the clock to help keep the platform safe for our community,” TikTok told ABC News. “We will continue to review the decision and are considering next steps.”

The fine is not as steep as previously expected. After publishing the preliminary findings of its TikTok investigation, which started in February 2019, the ICO warned the company in September that it faced a fine of as much as £27 million ($33.7 million). The probe started around the time the Federal Trade Commission fined TikTok $5.7 million over child privacy violations.

More recently, TikTok has faced deeper scrutiny from regulators around the globe over privacy and security worries. Some governments have raised concerns that the platform's parent company ByteDance (which is based in Beijing) may be compelled to share data on their countries' residents with Chinese officials. Last month, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told a House committee that "ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country."

Nevertheless, the app has been banned from government devices in several territories, including the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Norway and the European Parliament. Dozens of US states have prohibited TikTok on devices they own as well. Severalbills have been introduced that would give the US the power to ban the platform completely, while TikTok has claimed the White House is trying to force ByteDance to sell the app.

Hyundai has built itself a reputation for delivering vehicles that offer a luxury feel at regular person prices. The latest EV from the automaker takes that up a notch by not just competing with the Tesla Model 3 but also the more high-end Polestar 2. The 2023 Ioniq 6 starts at $41,600 with two battery and drivetrain options. The various combinations of battery packs and either rear-wheel or all-wheel drive result in range numbers from 240 miles to 361 miles. It gives potential buyers the ability to determine which electric sedan works best for their situation.

Beyond the range numbers, the vehicle ships with a new and improved version of Hyundai’s driver assistance system, incredibly smooth acceleration mapping and a suspension system that – while not built as a sports sedan – is far more capable than anticipated while hitting the hills above Phoenix, Arizona. The biggest issue with the vehicle is headroom for tall drivers and passengers. The desire to reduce drag has brought the roof down that could be an issue for basketball players.

For more details, check out our first drive video below, where we found the Ioniq 6 to be one of our favorite EVs on the road.

Peloton owners with a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 (including the Watch 5 Pro) or Galaxy Watch 4 can now monitor their heart rate on their exercise equipment. The Peloton Wear OS app update that enables the feature begins rolling out today.

The pairing process is similar to that of the Apple Watch, which launched its Peloton app in 2019 and added direct heart rate support in March 2022. Once you’ve installed the Peloton app update on your Galaxy Watch, choose a workout on your exercise equipment, open the app on your wearable and follow the “Connect” prompt. You should see your heart rate synced in real-time on your exercise machine. Peloton launched its Wear OS app last October, but it only showed users’ heart rates on the watch, not the workout equipment.

The update arrives as Samsung and Peloton (the latter especially) could use the strategic partnership. After years of being one of the only big-name Android smartwatches, Samsung’s flagship wearable has new competition in the Pixel Watch, which launched last October. Meanwhile, Peloton has struggled financially after a lockdown-era boom, leading to four rounds of layoffs last year that cut over half its workforce.

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.

OnePlus launched a second generation of its budget earbuds today. The Nord Buds 2 cost 50 percent more than last year’s original, but they offer several upgrades in return.

The Nord Buds 2 still have 12.4mm titanium drivers, but they add active noise cancelation — up to 25dB, according to OnePlus — to help shut out the world around you. Like most ANC earphones, they also offer a transparency mode, and you can quickly switch between the two. Additionally, the company says the Buds 2 use AI (Big Tech’s favorite 2023 buzzword) to accentuate bass without losing clarity or adding distortion.

Call clarity was one of our criticisms of the 2022 Nord Buds, and OnePlus claims it addressed that in the new model. The company says “an AI algorithm” pairs with its dual-mic system to amplify your voice, blur background voices and improve call quality. Like their predecessors, the Nord Buds 2 use the AAC codec and support Dolby Atmos, and you can tune their sound with the earbuds’ pre-defined equalizer profiles. In addition, they include IP55 water and dust resistance and have customizable touch controls.

OnePlus

The company says the earbuds' battery will provide up to seven hours per charge and 36 hours total (with ANC off) with its charging-case reserve. You can also allegedly add five hours of battery life (also with ANC off) with only 10 minutes of charging.

The OnePlus Nord Buds 2 are available today in white and gray for $60. You can order them from the OnePlus website or Amazon.

Now that spring is making outdoor walks more of a pleasure, you might want some wireless earbuds — and thankfully, Amazon is making them more affordable. The retailer is again selling Apple's third-generation AirPods for $150, or $20 off. That's a record-low price, and may make the decision easy if you're looking for a reliable option. If that's still pricey, the second-gen AirPods are also on sale for just $99.

The third-gen AirPods are considered an iPhone user's 'default' wireless earbuds for good reason. They don't have active noise cancellation (ANC), but they sound better than their predecessors while offering a more comfortable fit and longer battery life. They're sweat-resistant for moderate workouts, and the tight integration with Apple gear may be appealing if you also have an Apple Watch, iPad or Mac.

You can sometimes find ANC-equipped earbuds for less, such as Jabra's Elite 4 Active. And if you want to stick to Apple buds, you may want to keep an eye out for sales on the second-gen AirPods Pro. They sometimes drop to $199, and pack ANC as well as better sound and a workout-ready fit. The standard AirPods represent a safe pick at this price, though, and their lack of ANC might even be preferable if you want to hear more of the outside world.

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