If you weren't able to snag an e-reader last month during Prime Day, Amazon has a standalone sale on its base Kindle and Paperwhite models that could get you onboard for almost the same price. The biggest discount is on the Kindle Paperwhite (ad-supported), Amazon's waterproof e-reader with a better-contrast display. You can now pick up the 8GB model for $85 (35 percent off the regular $130 price), or $105 for the 32GB model, a savings of $55 or 34 percent. 

Buy Kindle Paperwhite 8GB at Amazon - $85Buy Kindle Paperwhite 32GB at Amazon - $105

The latest Paperwhite is waterproof with an IPX8 rating, so it can tolerate being immersed in up to two meters of water for as long as an hour — making bathtub or beach reading stress free. We also noted in our review that it has a better-contrast display than previous models and offers both Audible and Bluetooth support. The drawbacks are the lack of MP3 and text-to-speech support, along with a high price — but this sale takes some sting off the latter. 

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If it's a standard Kindle you're after (above), we have good news there, too. The regular ad-supported model is on sale for $60, a discount of $30 from the regular $90 price. If you need one for the younger set, you can pick up the Kindle Kids Edition for $70, for a savings of 36 percent or $40. 

Buy Kindle at Amazon - $60Buy Kindle Kids Edition at Amazon - $70

The latest Kindle models offer a lot for that price, including an LED-lit screen, weeks of reading time and a touch interface. The Kids Edition adds some perks, like one of four colorful cases, a two-year worry-free guarantee and a year of complimentary access to the company's FreeTime Unlimited service. 

Unlike the Paperwhite, the Kindle isn't water-resistant and offers a lower-density 167ppi (rather than 300ppi) display. If you're not fussy about those things, however, you can put the extra money saved toward your library of books. 

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With its 360 by Deezer app, Deezer decided to adopt Sony's 360 Reality audio format rather than Dolby Atmos. That format delivers surround sound not just on headphones but Chromecast-enabled speakers like, say, Sony's 360-enabled SRS-RA5000 and RA3000 models. Now, Deezer has announced that it is supporting those two very models with its new casting feature. 

If you subscribe to Deezer's premium HiFi tier and own either the Sony RA5000 or RA3000, you'll just need to get the latest 360 by Deezer app, pick a track and select the "cast" button in the top right hand corner. Though it's just a single speaker, you'll here different parts of the song as different independent sound "objects," Deezer said, with vocals and instruments "placed in positions in a virtual auditorium to create a truly immersive experience for the listener." 

Deezer originally launched the app in 2019 with 1,000 tracks, and said that library is growing with new albums from David Bowie, Doja Cat and Alicia Keyes. You can now find dedicated 360 editorial playlists in the app's recommendation page, including Deezer's "360 Sessions" playlist with live performances from Dua Lipa, Anne-Marie, Circa Waves and others. 

Sony's 360 Reality Audio was already available on the RA5000 and RA3000 speakers via Chromecast on Amazon Music and Tidal. Now that it's on Deezer as well, Sony has a pretty solid base of streaming services using its surround sound tech.

NVIDIA recently said that it was working with MediaTek to bring RTX graphics to ARM-based laptops, and now it has shown what that might look like for gamers. At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), it unveiled a technical demo with an RTX-powered MediaTek ARM processor running Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

NVIDIA showed off real time ray-traced reflections and DLSS on the game using an ARM-based platform for the first time. It also showed off a demo called Bistro (from Amazon's Lumberyard game engine) running real-time ray-tracing on ARM, with RTX direct illumination (RTXDI) and NVIDIA Optix AI-acceleration denoiser (NRD) features turned on. The demos ran on a MediaTek Kompanio 1200 ARM-based platform combined with a GeForce RTX 3060 GPU.

NVIDIA made the tech work by porting several RTX SDKs to ARM devices. Those include deep learning super sampling (DLSS) to boost sharpness, RTX direct illumination, NVIDIA Optix AI-acceleration denoiser, the RTX memory utility (RTXMU) and RTX global illumination. NVIDIA said that the RTXDI, NRD and RTXMU SDKs for ARM with Linux are now available for developers, with RTXGI and DLSS coming soon.

Of course, you won't get to see any of this until manufacturers add RTX hardware to their ARM-based laptops, Chromebooks or other devices. Game manufacturers will also need to implement the tech for ARM-based games. However, both the Wolfenstein: Youngblood developer and game engine company seem bullish. 

“RTX support for ARM and Linux opens up new opportunities for game developers to provide more immersive experiences on a wider variety of platforms,” said Unity's senior technical product manager Mathieu Muller. "An iD Tech-based game running on an ARM CPU with ray tracing enabled is a significant step in a journey that will result in many more gaming platforms being available to all game developers," added Machinegames CTO Jim Kjellin.

Of course, NVIDIA's relationship with ARM is set to get a whole lot closer as it bought the company last year for $40 billion. However, the deal is subject to regulatory approval and NVIDIA rival (and ARM customer) Qualcomm has objected to the deal. On top of that, ARM employees 3,000 people in the UK and that country's regulator is currently investigating the sale. 

After experiencing enormous growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom has made its first major acquisition by purchasing cloud contact center company Five9 for $14.7 billion, it announced. The move will allow Zoom to expand into call center technology worth up to $24 billion, diversifying its products once employees start returning to the office after the pandemic. 

Five9 will become an operating unit of Zoom when the deal is closed, likely in the first half of 2022. "We are continuously looking for ways to enhance our platform and the addition of Five9 is a natural fit that will deliver even more... value to our customers,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a statement.

Five9 is a 20-year-old firm with 2,000 customers worldwide, including SalesForce and Under Armour, and processes over 7 billion minutes of calls annually. Zoom notes that it was already a "long-term" customer of Five9 and said the partnership will give Five9's business clients access to Zoom products like the multi-platform Zoom Phone app.

The acquisition won't have much of an impact on consumers, as Five9 is largely a business-to-business company. However, Zoom's recent growth has been fueled in part by employees needing to work and communicate from home due to the pandemic. Once that crisis eases, Five9's contact center business will provide another revenue stream.

While most of its products are aimed at businesses, Zoom has also embraced the consumer side of things. Last year, the company released a new category of products called Zoom for Home, with both software and a line of hardware devices. While those products are aimed at employees working from home, they can also be used by consumers looking for a reliable video calling system. 

Nintendo has taken the unusual step of denying a report that it's making more profits from its new OLED Switch model. Last week, a report from Bloomberg citing industry analysts claimed that the new model only cost Nintendo about $10 more per unit to produce, while the $350 price is $50 more than the previous model. 

"A news report on July 15, 2021 (JST) claimed that the profit margin of the Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) would increase compared to the Nintendo Switch. To ensure correct understanding among our investors and customers, we want to make clear that the claim is incorrect," the company said in a tweet. 

Nintendo doesn't often react to rumors, so it's notable that it has refuted this one. However, the report involves potential profits and Nintendo specifically mentions "investors," so it may have wanted to head this one off for fiduciary reasons. If Bloomberg's report was accurate, Nintendo would be making $40 more per Switch, a pretty notable boost. The OLED Switch replaces the LED display on the original Switch with a 7-inch 720p OLED screen and doubles the storage to 64GB, while adding an ethernet port and improved kickstand. 

Multiple reports also pointed to the possibility of Nintendo launching another console, the Switch Pro, with higher-end components and NVIDIA's DLSS technology. However, Nintendo also shot down that rumor. "We also want to clarify that we just announced that Nintendo Switch (OLED Model) will launch in October, 2021, and have no plans for launching any other model at this time," Nintendo added in a follow-up tweet. 

With the US back in the Paris climate accord, President Joe Biden has the lofty goal of decarbonizing the US power grid by 2035. As part of that plan, the Department of Energy (DoE) has announced that it's rolling out a new tool that will make it much easier and faster to get a permit for a rooftop solar installation. 

The cost of solar has plunged 90 percent over past decade, but permit-related costs can take up to a third of the price of a rooftop installation. On top of that, with solar permitting varying widely around the US, some customers must wait months to get approval, the DoE wrote. 

The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP+) platform will supposedly solve those issues, becoming the standard portal for local governments to process permit applications. It automatically checks codes to ensure safety while generating a standardized inspection checklist that installers and inspectors can use to verify compliance in the field. 

We have 3 million households today that have solar on their roofs, but the potential is so much greater.

The government piloted the SolarAPP+ program in four communities around Arizona and California: Tucson and Pima County in Arizona, and Menifee and Pleasant Valley in the California. "In Tucson, for example, SolarAPP+ reduced permitting reviews from approximately 20 business days to zero," according to the DoE. 

"We have 3 million households today that have solar on their roofs, but the potential is so much greater," DoE's solar energy director told Reuters. "Having streamlined processes and an automated permitting platform that can make it faster, easier and cheaper for homeowners to go solar promises to really help expand the residential solar sector."

Local governments and installers can now sign up to get started with the app, or attend webinars listed on the DoE's blog. All of that is part of the DoE's Summer of Solar campaign which includes research by the agency aimed at lowering soft costs (design, siting, permitting, installation, etc.) associated with rooftop solar power. 

Twitter rolled out voice tweets over a year ago now and has taken a lot of heat for the lack of accessibility features. Now, it's finally rolling out automatically generated captions that appear when you click on the "CC" button. The new feature is only available on iOS, as voice tweets have yet to arrive on Android. 

Captions are available in English, Japanese, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, French, Indonesian, korean and Italian. They will only appear on new voice tweets, as they need to be generated when the tweet is created, Twitter told The Verge. 

When voice tweets were first being tested last June, critics immediately pointed out that they should have had captions from the start as required in the US by Federal Law. Twitter then admitted that it didn't have a dedicated accessibility team and relied on employees to donate additional time for those features. Since then, however, the company has launched teams dedicated to accessibility. The company originally promised to add automated captions by early 2021, but that date obviously slipped a bit. 

Twitter promised to improve and expand the service across its products. “Though it’s still early and we know it won’t be perfect at first, it’s one of many steps we’re taking to expand and strengthen accessibility across our service, and we look forward to continuing our journey to create a truly inclusive service," said Twitter's global accessibility head Gurpreet Kaur. 

YouTube has boosted its features for gamers and live-streamers with three more features borrowed from Twitch, The Verge has reported. Going forward, all streamers will be able to limit chats to subscribers only, and create polls inside of chats. On top of that, streamers with 1,000 subscribers or more will be able to allow viewers to share clips. 

Subscriber-only chat has been available to popular streamers since May, but has now come to all users. It can be useful for streamers (particularly smaller ones) as a way to moderate and control a chat, while providing some motivation for viewers to pay. And as with other platforms, polls provide a way to engage with and get input from users. 

Google

Meanwhile, clips are a useful tool for discovery, allowing viewers to catch the gist of a streamer's content before tuning in. At the same time, it allows fans to share highlights to attract potential new viewers. While it's currently limited to streamers with 1,000+ followers, YouTube said it will eventually roll out to all streamers. 

All of these features have been available for some time on Twitch, which has even experimented with subscriber-only streams. While that platform still dominates livestreaming with two thirds of all viewers, YouTube owned about a quarter of the market by the end of 2020, as The Verge noted. 

A severely paralyzed man has been able to communicate using a new type of technology that translates signals from his brain to his vocal tract directly into words that appear on a screen. Developed by researchers at UC San Francisco, the technique is a more natural way for people with speech loss to communicate than other methods we've seen to date. 

So far, neuroprosthetic technology has only allowed paralyzed users to type out just one letter at a time, a process that can be slow and laborious. It also tapped parts of the brain that control the arm or hand, a system that's not necessarily intuitive for the subject. 

The USCF system, however, uses an implant that's placed directly on the part of the brain dedicated to speech. That way, the subject can mentally activate the brain patterns they would normally use to say a word, and the system can translate the entire word, rather than single letters, to the screen. 

To make it work, patients with normal speech volunteered to have their brain recordings analyzed for speech related activities. Researchers were then able to analyze those patterns and develop new methods to decode them in real time, using statistical language models to improve accuracy. 

However, the team still wasn't sure if brain signals controlling the vocal tract would still be intact in patients paralyzed for many years. To that end, they enlisted an anonymous participant (known as Bravo1) who worked with researchers to create a 50-word vocabulary that the team could decipher using advanced computer algorithms. That included words like "water," "family" and "good," enough to allow the patient to create hundreds of sentences applicable to their daily life. The team also used an "auto-correct" function similar to those found on consumer speech recognition apps. 

To test the system, the team asked patient Bravo1 to reply to questions like "How are you today?" and "Would you like some water?" The patient's attempted speech then appeared on the screen as "I am very good," and "No, I am not thirsty." 

The system was able to decode their speech at up to 18 words per minute with 93 percent accuracy, with a 75 percent median accuracy. That might not sound great compared to the 200 words per minute possible with normal speech, but it's much better than the speeds seen on previous neuroprosthetic systems. 

“To our knowledge, this is the first successful demonstration of direct decoding of full words from the brain activity of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak,” said Edward Chang, MD, Chair of Neurological Surgery at UCSF and senior author on the study. “It shows strong promise to restore communication by tapping into the brain's natural speech machinery.”

The team said the trial represents a proof of principal for this new type of "speech neuroprosthesis." Next up, they plan to expand the trial to include more participants, while also working to increase the number of words in the vocabulary and improve the rate of speech.  

Boss has unveiled a new electric guitar that adds some modern technology so you can easily program it with a wide range of synthesized sounds. The EURUS GS-1 has a built in polyphonic Boss synth engine that allows players to "access a stunning range of analog-flavored sounds" at the flip of a switch, the company said in a press release. 

The synth engine delivers high sonic quality and natural touch response, and comes with six onboard memories with ready-to-play sounds, along with a synth control knob for hands-on adjustments. All the synth sounds respond to normal guitar techniques, "with no latency or triggering issues to disturb the musical flow," according to Boss. 

BOSS

On top of the built-in synth sounds, you can program your own via Bluetooth using Boss's GS-1 Editor app for iOS and Android devices. It offers "many different synth types and variations," along with the ability to adjust tone, resonance and other parameters. You can also target a range of parameters to the guitar's synth control know and save favorite sound combinations prior to performances.

It can also be paired with the new EV-1-WL wireless midi pedal that operates over Bluetooth, with the ability to change parameters like pitch bend, hold, filter depth and more via the toe switch and up to two external footswitches. 

Built in Japan, the guitar itself has an offset body design with a slim profile, 24-fret neck with a compound radius fretboard. It features Gotoh hardware for "smooth tremolo action and solid tuning stability with a two-point fulcrum and staggered-height locking machine heads." The EURUS GS-1 guitar will be available in the US in October 2021 for $2,200.