It's easy to drop a lot of money on a sound system for your home, especially if you want to go all in on Sonos devices. But you can save a significant amount by going the refurbished route, and now Sonos has a bunch of refurbished speakers and soundbars on sale. Key among them is the Arc soundbar — the refurbished version is $180 cheaper than a new model, bringing it down to $719. You'll also save $110 on a refurbished Sonos Five, paying $439 for one instead of $549 for a new unit. If you want to start off with something more basic, both the refurbished Sonos One and One SL are under $200.

Buying refurbished can be tricky business, but Sonos' program tests every device to ensure it's as good as new. These gadgets come with all of the necessary accessories, manuals and replacement parts as well as the same one-year warranty as the company's brand new products. If you're set on outfitting your home with Sonos speakers but want to do so on a budget, opting for a few refurbished devices is a good way to get the system you want.

Unsurprisingly, the deepest discounts in Sonos' sale are on its higher-end products. The Arc soundbar earned a score of 85 from us when it first came out thanks to its excellent sound quality, Dolby Atmos support and modern design. It was a much needed update to the Playbar that came before it, and we appreciated its touch controls, Alexa and Google Assistant support and AirPlay 2 compatibility. Aside from its scant port selection (it only has an HDMI port, an Ethernet jack and a power port), our biggest complaint was that expansion gets expensive quickly. Adding a brand new Sonos Sub alone will set you back $749 (although the refurbished models cost only $599), and each new Sonos One speaker costs $219.

The Sonos Five remains one of our favorite music-focused speakers. It also has stellar sound quality and we appreciate its simple setup process and the fact that it can be easily added to an existing Sonos setup. There's no Bluetooth connectivity, but it has a 3.5mm audio jack for a hardwired connection and it supports WiFi, AirPlay 2 and Alexa and Google Assistant commands.

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You can now reportedly pay for your burritos and tacos with Bitcoin and other digital currencies, in case you don't mind spending your coins directly instead of going through exchanges first. Flexa has announced that the Mexican fast food chain can now accept digital payments through its platform. The option is apparently available at all Chipotle locations in the US, and you can use it so long as you have a Flexa-enabled wallet app, such as Gemini and SPEDN. You simply have to fire up your app, choose Chipotle and show your phone at the cashier.

With this update, Chipotle joins the list of famous food chains that accept cryptocurrency as payment, including Starbucks and Subway. Other retailers and stores, such as Nordstrom have also started taking digital coin payments in recent years. For a while, you could even buy a Tesla with Bitcoin in the US, though the automaker ended up suspending the method, citing environmental concerns. One of the biggest issues surrounding digital currencies is how much energy they consume and how big their impact is on the environment. 

Chipotle has yet to issue an official statement about the payment option — we've reached out to the company for confirmation — but Flexa says it's giving everyone 10 percent off their next purchase at the restaurant until June 30th. There's a one transaction limit, though, and the max discount you can get is $10.

One of the myriad issues with hydrogen as a clean energy source is infrastructure, as it's very expensive to move around and store an extremely explosive gas. Toyota and its subsidiary Woven Planet believe they may have a solution with a new portable hydrogen cartridge prototype. The idea is that they can be filled up at a dedicated facility, transported where needed, then returned when you receive your next shipment. 

The cartridges would be relatively small at 16 inches long, 7 inches in diameter and about 11 pounds in weight. Toyota calls them "portable, affordable, and convenient energy that makes it possible to bring hydrogen to where people live, work, and play without the use of pipes.. [and] swappable for easy replacement and quick charging." 

They could be useful for "mobility [i.e. hydrogen cars], household applications, and many future possibilities we have yet to imagine," Toyota said. It didn't mention any specific uses, but it said that "one hydrogen cartridge is assumed to generate enough electricity to operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours."

In its press release, Toyota acknowledges that most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels and so not exactly green. But it thinks that it'll be generated with low carbon emissions in the future, and that the cartridges could help with some of the infrastructure issues. 

Toyota plans to test that theory by conducting proof of concept trials in various places, including its "human-centered smart city of the future," Woven City in Susono City, Zhizuoka Prefecture in Japan. The company is also "working to build a comprehensive hydrogen-based supply chain aimed at expediting and simplifying production, transport, and daily usage," it said. 

Hydrogen is an impractical fuel for automobiles, mainly due to the expense and lack of places to refuel. It's more viable for things like trains and semi trucks, where electrification can be more of a challenge. It also holds promise for air transportation, as batteries are too heavy to be practical in that situation. However, Toyota seems to be pitching the cartridges for personal and home use, but it's not yet clear what you'd use them for. 

As long as you don’t live in certain countries, you’ll be able to play Blizzard’s latest Diablo game across mobile, console and PC starting today. Diablo Immortal actually snuck on to smartphone a day early and offers the waves of monsters and skill refinements fans will love. However, this is tempered by loot box mechanics, which means you’ll probably have to pay up to ensure your barbarian or magic-wielder can make it to the end-game.

Like many loot box systems, it’s intentionally messy: You’ll pay for crests for the opportunity (at varying probabilities) to pick up powerful gem add-ons — with differing degrees of power. Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic has played Immortal for a week and thinks there’s a good game here — especially for Diablo die-hard fans. But, ugh, loot boxes.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

• Focusrite Vocaster hands-on: Streamlined audio interfaces built for podcasters

• Buick's Wildcat concept shows how the brand is approaching EVs

• Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go 2 offers more speed and storage capacity

• Loupedeck's Live S gives creators an alternative to the Stream Deck

• Google is merging Duo and Meet into a single video calling platform

• Logitech's new MX Mechanical Mini and MX Master 3S are already on sale

Porsche pours more cash into EV supercar company Rimac

Part of $500 million in total investments.

Porsche is strengthening its relationship with EV supercar company Rimac, investing "eight figures" for a total ownership stake of 20 percent. The company has become a key supplier and collaborator on EVs built by Hyundai, Porsche and other mainstream automakers.

Last year, Rimac set up a joint venture with Porsche to run Bugatti after Volkswagen ceded ownership. The new entity, called Bugatti Rimac, recently unveiled the 1,914HP Rimac Nevera EV hypercar. Price TBC, but probably heart-attack inducing.

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The largest plant in the world is an ancient self-cloning seagrass

It covers 180 kilometers of Shark Bay in Australia.

Shark Bay, an Australian World Heritage Area, serves as home to animals that feed on its thriving seagrass. It turns out, that seagrass, called Poseidon's ribbon weed, or Posidonia australis, is a single ancient plant that's been cloning itself for 4,500 years.

Researchers from the University of Western Australia and Flinders University have found the seagrass stretching across 180 kilometers (112 miles) — the size of Cincinnati, as The New York Times notes — of Shark Bay is just a single plant.

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Mercedes debuts the final version of its F1-inspired 1,000HP hybrid hypercar

But you're more likely to drive the new hybrid-only GLC.

Mercedes

Mercedes is finally ready to show the finished version of its hybrid hypercar. The production Mercedes-AMG One now packs a Formula 1-derived, 1,063HP hybrid powertrain with a turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 engine and four electric motors. The first customers should get their Mercedes-AMG One cars in the second half of 2022. Not that you're going to buy one — all of the production models have been spoken for despite the $2.7 million price tag.

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'Pokémon Scarlet' and 'Violet' are coming to Switch on November 18th

The new games will feature four-player co-op.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the next mainline entries in Game Freak’s long-running RPG series, will come to Nintendo Switch on November 18th, The Pokémon Company announced today. In addition to including new creatures to catch, the two games will feature four-player multiplayer, allowing you and your friends to experience the game’s new region together. Game Freak promises Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will represent its first true open-world experience after the spin-off title Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

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For people who know it exists, the ability to set location-based reminders is one of Google Assistant's most useful features. It lets them specify a location, so that they can get an alert when they arrive wherever it is — for instance, a user can say "Remind me to call [name of their friend] in NYC," and Assistant will send them a notification when they step foot in the city. The bad news for those who rely on the feature to remind them to get certain things from the grocery store or to fill up their car tanks when they pass by a gas station is that it'll soon no longer exist. In the Assistant Help page, Google added a line that says: "The option to create reminders for a certain location is going away soon."

The company trailed behind Apple and Amazon in introducing the feature and first announced the ability to set location-based reminders via Google Home devices in 2018. As 9to5Google notes, Google has only just started notifying users who set reminders with a location attached that the feature is getting axed. It didn't say why, though, and only recommended setting reminders at a certain time or setting routines for a location instead. For the latter, users will be able to prompt Assistant to perform a series of tasks triggered based on where they are. 

Google doesn't have a concrete date for the feature's removal, but 9to5Google says it could be part of the company's efforts to make way for the long-awaited "Memory" upgrade for Assistant. It's meant to transform the voice assistant into a handy organizer, letting users save content, images, reminders and other items in one place that has a smart search function. 

In 2021, a handful of Amazon employees quit the company over its decision to sell books that suggest kids who identify as transgender are mentally ill. Now, a group of employees is protesting its continued sale of those books by disrupting a Pride event at its headquarters in Seattle. According to The Washington Post, around 30 members of the organization No Hate at Amazon laid on the ground wrapped in trans flags to stop the company's annual Pride flag-raising tradition. An organizer said: "Amazon does have standing policies against hate speech in its content and technically they say we don't sell it." But in truth, those contentious books are still listed on its website.

In a petition the group previously circulated to get Amazon to stop selling anti-trans books, it specifically named two titles: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier and Johnny the Walrus by American conservative political commentator Matt Walsh. "By continuing to sell and promote anti-trans books and repeating the rhetoric of the anti-trans hate movement, Amazon upper management has allowed the store that we build and operate to be complicit in [the anti-trans] hate movement," the petition reads.

At least one employee who participated in the event quit the company this week. Senior software engineer Lina Jodoin explained that it's more than just about the sale of those books, but also about the response they've gotten from management when they tried to escalate their concerns. And based on the company's response to the protest, it will keep on selling those titles.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told The Post in a statement:

"As a company, we believe strongly in diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a bookseller, we’ve chosen to offer a very broad range of viewpoints, including books that conflict with our company values and corporate positions. We believe that it’s possible to do both – to offer a broad range of viewpoints in our bookstore, and support diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Meta’s Messenger app has become an incredibly popular way to make free voice and video calls. Now, a new design tweak will make the call button (slightly) easier to find. Meta is adding a dedicated tab for audio and video calls to the function bar at the bottom of the app. The new tab will appear alongside “Chats”, “Stories” and “People”, and open up to a list of the user’s contacts, along with separate buttons for voice and video calls. It’s a subtle change, but likely a move to make Messenger seem more like a messaging and calling app in the style of Whatsapp. Prior to the change, users had to open up a separate chat thread with a friend in order to call them. The new feature allows users to dial friends directly,and may also serve as an introduction to those less familiar with Messenger’s calling features.

According to Meta, audio and video calling on Messenger has increased by 40 percent since early 2020. The company expanded the features available to its encrypted messaging earlier this year, adding reactions, stickers, message-specific replies and forwarding. Meta’s plan is to eventually make end-to-end encryption the default for Facebook and Instagram in 2023. It’s added a number of AR effects to its video calls, letting users experiment with filters, masks and animations.

As far as free messaging apps go, Messenger has a long list of competitors, including Google Voice, Viber, Signal and WhatsApp, which Meta bought in 2014. While emphasizing the audio and video functions doesn't do much to make Messenger stand out from the pack, it remains one of the few major apps in this crowded field, other than FaceTime, that doesn't require a phone number to use.

Elon Musk delivered an ultimatum to Tesla and Space X’s corporate workforces: Spend a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office, or leave the company. Musk today confirmed in a tweet that screenshots of an email sent to workers was real. According to The New York Times, workers at both companies received similar memos from Musk that made clear that all workers must report to a main office for 40 hours a week. Musk also wrote that employees would no longer be allowed to work from “remote branch” offices not related to their job duties, giving the example of an HR worker for the Fremont factory who works out-of-state.

“The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence,” Musk said in a memo to SpaceX employees obtained by NYT. “That is why I spent so much time in the factory — so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, SpaceX would long ago have gone bankrupt.”

Musk taking a hardline stance on remote work is in stark contrast to a number of other major tech companies that have allowed all or most workers to request to work-from-home permanently, including Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce and Slack. Apple recently suspended a requirement that workers return to the office at least three days a week.

As Bloombergreported today, Twitter employees — who are likely to be reporting to Musk once his acquisition of the company is complete — have internally expressed some concern the SpaceX and Tesla remote work policies (or lack thereof) herald unwelcome changes for their own workplace.

Tesla’s career website still lists a number of salaried and hourly remote positions. It’s unclear whether the new policy will apply to those positions. Engadget has reached out to Tesla for comment, though we are unlikely to hear back: the company dissolved its corporate communications department in 2020.

NFL Madden 23 will prominently feature the legendary Oakland Raiders coach and Hall of Famer, John Madden. It will mark the first time Madden has appeared on the cover of the eponymous game series since Madden 2000 in 1999. EA Sports revealed the news in a tweet today, adding that it will release a trailer with a full reveal of the game tomorrow. The three covers released today each pay homage to a different era in Madden's career: as a coach, a broadcaster and "a video game icon."

The new title will also pay tribute to the beloved coach within the game itself. The game will feature two versions of Coach Madden leading opposing teams of “All Madden” athletes facing off in the Oakland Coliseum. We’ll also hear from Madden through a series of remastered audio clips that hail from his days as a broadcaster.

Other than that, there’s still a lot that we don’t know about Madden 23, which is expected to release sometime in August. EA hasn’t hinted at any of its new features. Similar to older editions of Madden, there will be three different versions of the game. Most likely there will be a basic version that is priced the lowest, along with two premium bundles with added extras and perks for hardcore Madden fans. For more details, be sure to tune in to EA’s preview of the game, which will air on YouTube tomorrow at 7 am PT/10 am ET.

Discord's audio chat has sometimes been a confusing experience — as you can't type in a voice channel, you often have to switch between channels just to share a link or funny GIF. Clarity is coming at last, though. The service has enabled text chat in voice channels across all platforms. Each channel now includes a dedicated section where you can type to your heart's content. You don't have to join the call to participate, either, so you can pop in to offer help without too much disruption.

Voice channels now have the same permissions as regular text chats, so moderators can limit the ability to send messages, stickers and other content. Perks from 'boosted' servers, like larger file uploads, will carry over to voice channels.

The feature is free for all servers. It's available now for servers that haven't been set to "Community" status (that is, only private-use servers), but managers can opt in if they're comfortable. All servers will have text enabled by June 29th.

Discord's move could help reduce confusion, not to mention the proliferation of channels created solely to handle text chat for voice users. To some degree, it's surprising the hybrid of voice and text wasn't available before. However, it's likely to be a welcome change of pace. Critics have accused Discord of focusing too much on Clubhouse-like broadcasts, Premium channel memberships and other features that go beyond the company's original gaming focus. With text chat in voice channels, Discord is going back to basics with a feature users have wanted for a long time.