Guidemaster: Ars picks its favorite tech gifts you can buy for under $50

Good tech can get really expensive really quickly—here are some affordable gems.

Guidemaster: Ars picks its favorite tech gifts you can buy for under $50

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Finding a gift for your most tech-savvy friends and family can be tough, especially with electronics getting more expensive as the years go by. While it may seem like the only electronics worth getting are those that exist outside of your budget, that's not actually the case. Plenty of tech gifts are available at affordable prices—the struggle is sorting through the junk to find the devices worth shelling out any amount of money for.

This is where we at Ars come in: we spend all year testing electronics, with prices spanning everything from "luxury" to "dirt-cheap." So recently, we poured through our notes to find some of the best tech gifts you can buy that are under $50. All of the devices listed below have been tested and verified for excellence or for personal use on a regular basis. Instead of shooting in the dark or overspending when it comes to tech gifts this year, consider the following devices that we know will make any recipient happy.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

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Living with range anxiety: Two weeks with the Jaguar I-Pace

We tested the I-Pace in the dead of winter and the heat of summer.

Living with range anxiety: Two weeks with the Jaguar I-Pace

Enlarge (credit: Marlowe Bangeman)

The Jaguar I-Pace is a brilliant car. The first battery electric vehicle from Jaguar-Land Rover, the I-Pace starts at about $70,000 and goes up from there.

My colleague, Ars Automotive Editor Jonathan Gitlin, drove the I-Pace when it launched and came away raving about it—and for good reason. Not only did it win the World Green Car award, but it also won World Car of the Year.

Jonathan covered the I-Pace in great detail, so I won't spend much time talking about the driving experience. Suffice it to say, the I-Pace is blast to drive. It accelerates briskly, it's incredibly comfortable, sight lines are good, handling is impeccable, it's roomy for its size, it has some modest off-road skills, and Jaguar-Land Rover's infotainment system, Touch Duo Pro, is well-thought-out, even if slightly laggy at times. Beyond that, JLR fixed one of the major complaints Jonathan had about the I-Pace as it entered production: the regenerative-braking settings are no longer buried under layers of menus.

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A “mouse-deer,” seen once in the last century, has now been caught on film

No sightings of the silver-backed chevrotain for most of the last century.

Camera-trap photo of silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor).

Enlarge / Camera-trap photo of silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor). (credit: SIE/GWC/Leibniz-IZW/NCNP)

Every time field biologist An Nguyen finds a mammal in the wild that he's never seen before, he adds a line to the tally count tattoo on his left wrist.

The silver-backed chevrotain, a tiny "mouse-deer" native to Vietnam, is a sighting significant for more than just Nguyen's personal tally. There has been only one confirmed record of the elusive mammal since 1910—a specimen obtained from a hunter in 1990—until Nguyen and his team set camera traps that recorded 280 sightings within nine months.

The news, reported this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is more than just confirmation that the silver-backed chevrotain is not yet extinct. It means that researchers can start studying it more comprehensively, trying to get a sense of how many are left and what kinds of protections it needs. And protecting the chevrotain also means protecting the less cute, but equally essential, species that share its habitat.

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TPM-Fail: Schlüssel aus TPM-Chips lassen sich extrahieren

Mit einem Timing-Angriff lassen sich Signaturschlüssel auf Basis elliptischer Kurven aus TPM-Chips extrahieren. Mal wieder scheiterten Zertifizierungen daran, diese Fehler frühzeitig zu finden. (Verschlüsselung, Prozessor)

Mit einem Timing-Angriff lassen sich Signaturschlüssel auf Basis elliptischer Kurven aus TPM-Chips extrahieren. Mal wieder scheiterten Zertifizierungen daran, diese Fehler frühzeitig zu finden. (Verschlüsselung, Prozessor)

Elektromobilität: Die Regierung hat endlich einen Plan

Mit ihrem Masterplan Ladeinfrastruktur will die Bundesregierung die Errichtung privater und öffentlicher Ladepunkte beschleunigen. Das Papier erkennt zumindest viele Probleme der Elektroauto-Fahrer. Doch es gibt auch einige Lücken. Eine Analyse von Fri…

Mit ihrem Masterplan Ladeinfrastruktur will die Bundesregierung die Errichtung privater und öffentlicher Ladepunkte beschleunigen. Das Papier erkennt zumindest viele Probleme der Elektroauto-Fahrer. Doch es gibt auch einige Lücken. Eine Analyse von Friedhelm Greis (Elektroauto, Auto)

IPTV Supplier Omniverse Agrees to Pay $50 Million in Piracy Damages

Omniverse, a now-defunct supplier of IPTV streams, has agreed to pay $50 million in piracy damages to several Hollywood studios. Omniverse initially described the piracy allegations as “scandalous” but has since stepped back from its claim. Anti-piracy group ACE, which was a driving force behind the lawsuit, is pleased with yet another legal victory.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

In February, several major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit against Omniverse One World Television.

Under the flag of anti-piracy group ACE, the companies accused Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo of supplying of pirate streaming channels to various IPTV services.

Omniverse sold live-streaming services to third-party distributors, such as Dragon Box and HDHomerun, which in turn offered live TV streaming packages to customers. According to ACE, the company was a pirate streaming TV supplier, offering these channels without permission from its members.

Omniverse disagreed with this characterization and countered that it did everything by the book. It relied on a deal from the licensed cable company Hovsat, which has a long-standing agreement with DirecTV to distribute a broad range of TV-channels with few restrictions.

Omniverse

As time went on, however, it transpired that the streaming provider was clearly worried about the legal threat. After several of its distributors distanced themselves from the service, Omniverse decided to wind down its business.

The streaming provider also filed a third-party complaint (pdf) against Hovsat for indemnification and breach of contract, among other things. Omniverse believed that it was properly licensed and wants Hovsat to pay the damages for any alleged infringements if that was not the case.

That there are damages became crystal clear yesterday, when ACE announced that it had obtained a consent judgment against Omniverse. Both parties have agreed to settle the matter with the streaming provider committing to pay a $50 million settlement.

“Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendants,
jointly and severally, in the total amount of fifty million dollars,” the proposed judgment reads.

The agreement also includes a permanent injunction that prevents Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo from operating the service and being involved in supplying or offering pirate streaming channels in any other way.

The damages amount of $50 million is a substantial figure. In the past, however, we have seen that the public figure can be substantially higher than what’s agreed in private. In any case, Omniverse may hold Hovsat accountable, as previously suggested.

Karen Thorland, Senior Vice President at the Motion Picture Association, which has a leading role in the ACE coalition, is pleased with the outcome.

“This judgment and injunction are a major win for creators, audiences, and the legitimate streaming market, which has been undermined by Omniverse and its ‘back office’ piracy infrastructure for years,” Thorland, says

Over the past years, ACE has built a steady track record of successful cases against IPTV providers and services. In addition to Omniverse, it also helped to shut down SetTV, Dragon Box, TickBox, Vader Streams, and many third-party Kodi addons.

The consent judgment and permanent injunction (pdf) have yet to be signed off by the court but since both parties are in agreement, that’s mostly a formality.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Aufklärung gefordert: Setzten deutsche Behörden die Spionagesoftware Pegasus ein?

Der Deutsche Journalistenverband fordert Aufklärung von Innenminister Horst Seehofer. Bisher habe sich dieser nicht zu der Frage geäußert, ob auch deutsche Sicherheitsbehörden die NSO-Spionage-Software Pegasus eingesetzt haben. Es gehe um mögliche Vers…

Der Deutsche Journalistenverband fordert Aufklärung von Innenminister Horst Seehofer. Bisher habe sich dieser nicht zu der Frage geäußert, ob auch deutsche Sicherheitsbehörden die NSO-Spionage-Software Pegasus eingesetzt haben. Es gehe um mögliche Verstöße gegen die Grundrechte. (Trojaner, Instant Messenger)

Raumfahrt: Hayabusa 2 verlässt den Asteroiden Ryugu

Bisher war die Mission ein großer Erfolg: Die japanische Sonde Hayabusa 2 hat zwei Mal Proben auf dem Asteroiden Ryugu genommen. Jetzt muss sie diese nur noch heil zur Erde zurückbringen. Seit dem 13. November ist sie auf dem Heimweg. (Internet, DLR)

Bisher war die Mission ein großer Erfolg: Die japanische Sonde Hayabusa 2 hat zwei Mal Proben auf dem Asteroiden Ryugu genommen. Jetzt muss sie diese nur noch heil zur Erde zurückbringen. Seit dem 13. November ist sie auf dem Heimweg. (Internet, DLR)