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Ember’s Travel Mug 2+ with Find My support drops to a record-low price

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Ember’s highly-esteemed Travel Mug 2+ has of $128, which is a discount of $72. The actual sale price is $160, but there’s a clippable coupon for the remaining $32. This is a pretty great deal for those in the market for a tech-heavy travel mug.

Ember

Make sure to clip the coupon for that extra 20 percent. 

$128 at Amazon

To that end, the Travel Mug 2+ , so you’ll always know exactly where your beverage is. It even has a built-in speaker that’ll ping when you’re looking for it. Anything can happen while traveling, so it’s good to have a little peace of mind, particularly because the usual price of this mug is $200.

Otherwise, this is a fantastic mug that keeps beverages hot for up to three hours and boasts a 12-ounce capacity. The battery’s on point, allowing for three hours of use on its own and a full day while resting on the included charging coaster. You also get access to the Ember’s proprietary app for setting the temperature, customizing presets and more. The mug does feature a little touchscreen for this, so the app’s not always necessary.

Ember makes great products, which is why we often . However, the Travel Mug 2+ isn’t perfect. You can hand wash it, but don’t put it in the dishwasher, unless you want to turn it into an expensive mug-shaped thing that doesn’t actually work. There’s also the price. At $200, it’s very hard to recommend this product because, well, it’s a mug for drinking tea and coffee. It’s easier to recommend at $128, and it makes a great gift, but at the end of the day it’s still just a container for liquids.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.



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Business Industry

Matter 1.3 could bring support for more devices to Samsung’s SmartThings

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The latest version of Matter (v1.3) has arrived. It supports more smart home device types and routines, and that support could come to SmartThings in the future.

Matter is a smart home device standard jointly developed by Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and other consumer electronics brands.

Matter 1.3 brings support for ten new device types, energy management, and scenes

Matter 1.3 Release

Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has released the Matter 1.3 standard today. It now supports the several smart kitchen appliances, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, sensors, and valves. All the newly supported smart devices are listed below.

  • Cooktops
  • Dryers
  • Electric Vehicle Chargers
  • Extractor Hoods
  • Freeze detectors
  • Microwave Ovens
  • Ovens
  • Leak Detectors
  • Rain Sensors
  • Water Valves

With these additions, Matter now supports almost all types of commonly found smart home devices. Remember, Matter 1.2 already brought support for a host of device types in December 2023, including air purifiers, air quality sensors, dishwashers, fans, refrigerators, robotic vacuum cleaners, room air conditioners, and smoke detecting alarms.

In addition to support for new device types, Matter 1.3 also supports energy tracking and scenes. Energy tracking allows users to track energy usage of the device throughout the day. Scenes allow users to batch several actions together. For example, you can create a scene in which an AC turns on when the room temperature reaches a particular level.

Improved Matter Cast

Matter Casting Amazon Prime Video Fire TV CES 2024

Moreover, TVs that support Matter can now display notifications about other Matter devices. For example, your smart TV can display when the washing machine finishes a laundry load. Matter 1.3 now supports improved Matter Cast, a protocol similar to AirPlay and Google Cast, allowing audio, images, and videos to be casted to a compatible smart display or TV. It now allows multiple clients to be connected, and the experience can be different for each user, depending on the usecase.

This makes Matter Cast a great, open alternative to AirPlay and Google Cast. However, Amazon is the only adding support for Matter Cast. Fire TV devices and the Echo Show 15 are now getting support for Matter Cast. The Prime Video app for smartphones and tablets is also getting Matter Cast support. No other brand is supporting Matter Cast as of now, and it would be great if Samsung adds support for this new casting protocol to all its laptops, phones, tablets, and TVs.

One disappointment is that Matter still doesn’t support security cameras and video door bells. In the next release, Matter will support heat pumps, water heaters, and solar panels. Another disappointment is that none of the brands have added support for Matter 1.2, let along Matter 1.3, even six months after its release.

Samsung may add Matter 1.3 support to SmartThings

Samsung Bixby SmartThings Integration CES 2024 AI

Samsung is among the important contributors to Matter, and its SmartThings platform supports Matter. However, it still doesn’t support Matter 1.2, and the company might need months more to add the new version of Matter to its smart home device platform. Samsung’s smart home devices don’t support Matter, though, which is worrying.

Home Assistant and SmartThings are the two platforms that are ahead of the others (Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Home) in supporting Matter, but Samsung itself isn’t adding Matter support to its own home appliances. If Matter is to be successful, all its primary promoters need to make sure that all their new devices support Matter.

Watch our hands-on video of Samsung’s new smart TVs below. These TVs act as SmartThings Hub (and Matter Hub) and can control compatible smart home devices.

Matter can be extremely helpful to Samsung. For example, Samsung TVs currently don’t support Google Cast, so casting audio and video to its TVs from non-Samsung Android devices is unreliable. If Samsung adds support for Matter Cast to all its audio and video products, it could help improve the sales of its devices.

Hopefully, Samsung will add support for Matter 1.3 to SmartThings in the coming months. This could potentially push other brands to improve Matter support, which will in turn expand the reach of Matter and help consumers worldwide.

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Apple Releases iTunes for Windows 12.13.2 With Support for New iPads

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Apple today released an iTunes 12.13.2 update for Windows users, with the software introducing support for the new iPad Air and iPad Pro models.

itunes for windows
iTunes for Windows is typically updated every few months, and this update follows a December release that added security fixes.

iTunes has been phased out on the Mac for several years now and it has been replaced with Finder and the TV app, but Apple has continued to keep the Windows version available.

iTunes for Windows can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store or from Apple’s website.

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Apple Announces New iPad Pro With M4 Chip, OLED Display, and More

Apple today unveiled redesigned iPad Pro models featuring the M4 chip, Ultra Retina XDR OLED displays, a nano-texture display option, and more. The new iPad Pro offers a considerably thinner design and slightly larger 11- and 13-inch display size options. The 11-inch model is 5.3mm thick and weighs less than a pound, while the 13-inch model is just 5.1mm thick and weighs a quarter pound less …

Apple Event Live Blog: New iPad Pro, iPad Air, and More

Apple’s “Let Loose” event kicks off today at the unusual time of 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and we’re expecting to see an iPad-focused event with new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, updated Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard accessories, and perhaps some other announcements. Apple is providing a live video stream on its website, on YouTube, and in the company’s TV app across various platforms. We…

Apple Says iOS 17.5 Coming ‘Soon’ With These New Features for iPhones

Apple today announced that iOS 17.5 will be released to the public “soon,” following over a month of beta testing. While the software update is relatively minor, it does have a few new features and changes, as outlined in the list below. “The new Pride Radiance watch face and iPhone and iPad wallpapers will be available soon with watchOS 10.5, iOS 17.5, and iPadOS 17.5,” said Apple, in its…

Apple Announces Redesigned Magic Keyboard for New iPad Pro Starting at $299

Apple at its “Let Loose” event today announced a new Magic Keyboard for the latest iPad Pro models, with a thinner, lighter design. Apple says the Magic Keyboard has been redesigned to be thinner and lighter, while maintaing the same floating design. Two colors are available that match the new iPad Pro. New features include a function row with screen brightness controls, an aluminum…

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‘iPhone 17 Slim’ With Smaller Display Rumored to Launch Next Year

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Matter 1.3 Specification Adds Energy Reporting, Electric Vehicle Charging, Water Management Support and More

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The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) today announced the debut of a new Matter 1.3 specification that’s available for device makers and platforms. Matter is a smart home protocol that allows smart devices to work across multiple platforms, including HomeKit.

matter iot standard
Matter 1.3 adds support for a range of new device types and features, including water management devices, electric vehicle chargers, kitchen and laundry appliances, and TVs.

For smart plugs and other devices, the update includes energy management reporting, allowing users to see actual and estimated measurements of power, voltage, and current, both in-real time and over time. EV Charging manufacturers are able to include Matter-based features such as manually starting and stopping charging, adjusting charging rate, and optimizing charging times.

Water management devices like leak and freeze detectors, rain sensors, and controllable water valves are supported in Matter 1.3, as are several new appliance types including microwave ovens, ovens, cooktops, extractor hoods, and dryers.

For TVs, Matter 1.3 improves casting initialization and search, plus it adds support for push messages and dialog for ambient experiences, expanded interactivity for TV apps, and better interaction with other home devices.

Scenes are supported with the new specification, allowing product makers and platforms to set, read, and activate scenes on devices. Scenes for Matter work like ‌HomeKit‌ scenes, letting users set a desired state for rooms and devices with one command. Matter controllers are also now able to batch multiple commands into a single message when communicating with Matter devices for less delay between command execution.

Matter 1.3 devices and improvements will likely be available on the market later this year, with more information available on the CSA website.

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New iPad Pros Support Lower Refresh Rate, But Lack Always-On Display

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The new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models are equipped with OLED displays that support a refresh rate as low as 10Hz, but the devices still lack an always-on display option like the iPhone and Apple Watch have, according to Apple’s tech specs.

f 7ba5b5b668dd68b7179a599305cff6b117ef35d1
While the iPad Pro has supported ProMotion since 2017, the device only supported refresh rates between 24Hz and 120Hz until now. The new iPad Pro models use low-power LTPO technology, according to display industry expert Ross Young, allowing the display to ramp down to 10Hz for static content. This change will contribute to lower power consumption, but advertised battery life is unchanged overall compared to the previous iPad Pro generation.

The same situation happened a few years ago with the iPhone 13 Pro models, which also support ProMotion down to 10Hz, but lack an always-on display option. The feature finally arrived on the iPhone with the iPhone 14 Pro models, which can ramp down to 1Hz, and Apple Watch models with an always-on display also reach 1Hz.

All in all, the iPad Pro is unlikely to get an always-on display option until if and when it too supports a 1Hz refresh rate.

Apple says the iPad Pro now features “state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology that uses two OLED panels and combines the light from both to provide phenomenal full-screen brightness.” The new iPad Pro models can achieve up to 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR content, compared to 600 nits for the previous-generation models.

The new iPad Pro models are available to order starting today and launch on Wednesday, May 15.

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Apple Event This Week Expected to Last ‘About 35 Minutes’

Apple will be holding its first event of the year this Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time, with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube. How long will the event be? In his newsletter today, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said the video will have a runtime of “around 35 minutes.” Apple is expected to announce new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, along with updated Apple Pencil…

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Entertainment

Final Cut Pro for iPad gets support for external drives and live multicam recording

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Apple is all over the place today on the hardware side of things, having just . However, some of Apple’s most beloved software is also getting some love. There’s a Final Cut Pro for tablets that brings plenty of long-requested features.

The big news for video editors? Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 (actual name) now supports external drives. Video editing projects are typically gigantic when you consider all of that raw footage. It’s easy to fill up all of the available space of an iPad with footage from one or two scenes, let alone an entire project. This fixes a major barrier of entry for those curious about editing on a tablet. It also makes it easier to hand off footage to another editor or import footage to Final Cut Pro for Mac.

The software is even bringing live multicam recording to iPads. This lets creators capture up to four different angles of a single scene spread across multiple devices. Everything connects wirelessly via a new app called Final Cut Camera, which gives a real-time “director’s view” on four iPhones or iPads. Each feed has its own settings that can be adjusted, like focus, zoom and more. Editable preview clips immediately get passed on to Final Cut Pro for editing.

As for customization options, Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 brings 12 new color-grading presets, eight basic text tiles, 20 new soundtracks and more dynamic backgrounds. These will be especially useful when creating title sequences and the like.

The software in action.The software in action.

Apple

The Mac version of Final Cut Pro is also getting a fairly substantial update, with a focus on AI. The software leverages Apple silicon’s Neural Engine to bring a bit of AI flourish to basic editing tasks. The update allows users to change up colors, color balance, contrast and brightness all at the same time. There’s also something called Smooth Slo-Mo that pairs with AI, in which “frames of video are intelligently generated and blended together, providing the highest-quality movement.” The timeline has also been refreshed and looks a bit more intuitive.

Finally, there’s an update to , with a new session player feature and a stem splitter tool. The updates for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad are available for free to current users and cost $5 per month for new users, which is the same pricing model as last year when . Final Cut Pro for Mac costs $300 for new users, but the update is free for pre-existing users. All of these updates drop later this spring.

This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.

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New Intel Arrow Lake leak alleges no Thunderbolt 5 support for Z890 motherboards

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A prominent hardware leaker has alleged that while Thunderbolt 4 will come as standard for Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs on Z890, that the upcoming CPU generation will miss out on Thunderbolt 5. 

As spotted by Videocardz, hardware leaker Golden Pig Upgrade has claimed that Intel Arrow Lake will miss out on Thunderbolt 5 support for Z890 motherboards after all, despite its unveiling last year. If true, it’s disappointing news considering that Intel 14th Gen missed out on Thunderbolt 5 at release, too. 

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Can Steam Deck get even better? Nvidia’s expanded GeForce NOW support is a resounding yes

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Despite some stiff competition from the likes of Lenovo, Asus, MSI, and more, Valve’s Steam Deck has made its position as one of the best PC gaming handhelds in the market known time and again. And with the announcement that Nvidia’s GeForce NOW will introduce wider support for the Steam Deck, its dominance is even more assured.

There are two particularly excellent updates geared towards Steam Deck users. The first is a new beta installation method for GeForce NOW on the Steam Deck, which will automatically install Google Chrome to the device and add all necessary settings so users can immediately start playing after booting up for the first time. 

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LG TVs Gain Support for Dolby Atmos With Apple Music

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LG has updated its Apple Music app to support Dolby Atmos, making it the first smart TV manufacturer to do so (via FlatpanelsHD).

apple music lg tv
The change allows users to experience immersive audio that enhances the spatial perception of sound, previously achievable only with external hardware. The feature was confirmed to be operational on the LG GX OLED TV from the 2020 lineup, with expectations that it will work on all LG TVs that are compatible with Dolby Atmos from 2020 onwards.

While the TV’s built-in speakers can utilize this new capability, LG suggests that the best audio experience is achieved with a compatible surround sound system, which can take advantage of the Dolby Atmos technology more effectively.

The update to the ‌Apple Music‌ app on LG TVs circumvents the necessity for additional Apple hardware. Before this update, ‌Apple Music‌’s Dolby Atmos support was available on TVs singularly through the Apple TV 4K, paired with either Apple’s HomePods or Sonos speakers connected through the Sonos app. Other smart TV manufacturers are likely to follow suit and add support for Dolby Atmos in their own ‌Apple Music‌ apps.

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Life Style

Support communities that will lose out in the energy transition

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Windmill from Mesquite Creek Wind O&M with an oil derrick, Lamesa, TX, USA.

With many places around the world heavily reliant on fossil-fuel production for jobs, there is a need for more global studies to assess the impact of decarbonization on affected communities.Credit: Madeleine Jettre/Alamy

Thirty million new jobs. According to the International Energy Agency, that’s what the clean-energy sector will need by 2030 if the world follows a path towards net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. It compares with the 13 million jobs at risk in the fossil-fuel sector under the same scenario. On the basis of the bare numbers, it’s a trade-off worth making. But every job lost affects someone, and new jobs won’t necessarily be located where the old ones are lost.

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, communities, states and countries that rely on fossil energy could see their economies falter and their tax bases shrink. Public discontent and backlash from climate policies is increasing in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. Political leaders are rightly moving to protect the world from the effects of global warming, but more must be done to ensure that those who depend on fossil fuels for their livelihoods are not casualties of the clean-energy transition.

The United States is showing signs of understanding the problem on, or close to, the required scale. The administration of President Joe Biden, working with Congress, has secured around US$1 trillion in climate spending for the decade to 2032. Billions of these dollars will flow to communities that are dependent on coal, oil and gas for jobs and tax revenues. The spending will cover areas such as environmental remediation and worker reskilling, as well as incentives for businesses to invest in hydrogen energy and carbon capture.

But as such programmes are rolled out, there’s an increasing need to assess whether they are achieving the desired objective of bringing about an equitable transition to clean energy. The US-based Resilient Energy Economies (REE) initiative is one project trying to do just that. With a modest sum of almost $2 million in seed money from the Bezos Earth Fund, it is seeking to better understand the economic risks and opportunities for fossil-fuel-dependent communities. Projects already funded include evaluations of recent federal programmes intended to help at-risk communities; efforts to understand the risks and opportunities of decarbonization for members of Indigenous American communities who have worked in the oil and gas industries; and schemes to assess the impact of closure or threatened closure of fossil-fuel power plants on various communities. The REE is also looking to fund new proposals. It is US-focused, but this type of research is in fact needed globally.

There is a precedent for understanding such large-scale economic transitions: researchers have previously studied the loss of industrial jobs in high-income countries as a result of the manufacturing boom in low- and middle-income countries. Work led by David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, has shown how US factory closures associated with a rise in imports from China, particularly after China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, led to economic stagnation in communities across the United States. Between 1999 and 2011, the United States is estimated to have lost up to 2.4 million jobs to this ‘China shock’ (see go.nature.com/3uhk5cs). By mapping out where these jobs were lost, and comparing this information with district-by-district voting trends, the authors suggest that this shock is associated with the increased political polarization the country is seeing1.

At the same time, there’s evidence that appropriate, targeted support for those affected by the clean-energy transition could build popular support for climate action. A polling study2 published earlier this year by political scientist Alexander Gazmararian at Princeton University in New Jersey, for instance, found that most people in coal-dependent communities in the Appalachian region of the United States would be more likely to support climate policies if these were coupled with economic assistance to make the transition less painful. This also holds in Spain, according to a study by Diane Bolet at the University of Essex in Colchester, UK, and her colleagues3.

Environmental economists, pro-climate politicians and campaigners have understandably focused their research and policymaking on the positive aspects of the clean-energy transition, making the case that a green transition creates benefits such as new jobs, cleaner air and more secure food supplies. But there must also be a focus on those who will bear the economic burden of decarbonization.

At last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai, world leaders pledged to transition energy systems away from fossil fuels. They also committed to doing so in a “just, orderly and equitable manner”. This is not just the right thing to do; it might also be our only hope of building the viable political coalition that is needed to get the work done, for the good of people and communities everywhere.

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