Month: December 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers)

Elon Musk has offloaded another tranche of Tesla stock, worth almost $3.6 billion, in a move that risks further irritating already frustrated shareholders in the electric vehicle group.

The billionaire, who took over the social media company in October, has sold four tranches of shares worth a total of almost $23 billion since announcing his takeover of Twitter.

It is the third sale since declaring in April there would be “no further TSLA sales” to support the deal.

Enlarge / Concept Luna taken apart. (credit: Scharon Harding)

Dell continues tinkering with what it hopes to be a repairable laptop like the Framework Laptop. Last year, it showed off Concept Luna, a clamshell designed to easily disassemble for easy repairs, upgrades, and harvested components. This year, Dell showed the press an updated Concept Luna that could support more power while being even simpler to dismantle. The vendor is also exploring how to automate the process, from disassembly to parts diagnostics, on a broad scale.

Now more repairable (still unavailable)

Dell's Concept Luna laptop is comparable in size to a Latitude with some Dell XPS 13 Plus-like stylings. In person, it looked similar to the Concept Luna demoed last year, including appearing to be a functioning PC. But Dell's representative was able to open this year's version up and pull out internal parts much more rapidly—well under 60 seconds.

The computer was easier to take apart because it doesn't have screws (last year's Concept Luna had four). Dell's rep simply stuck a pin (it could be anything that fits, they said) into a hole in the security lock slot on the right side of the system's deck.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's the last couple weeks of the year, and that means holiday deals on some of our favorite tech are still rolling. This week we're seeing Google's Black Friday sale back in effect, bringing the Pixel 7 and Pixel 6 series down to prices that match their all-time lows. The same is true for Google's Nest Hub smart displays and Nest Audio smart speakers, as well.

The Pixel 6a may represent one of the best deals you can get for any smartphone on the market, even at the typical $450 retail price. At $299 it's an even more tantalizing proposition, offering flagship-level speed and processing power and an impressive camera for less than half the cost of similarly spec'd phones. If having a screen with a 90 Hz refresh rate sounds enticing to you, the Pixel 7 is also on sale for $499, and the 7 Pro is discounted to $749 with its 120 Hz refresh rate.

Apple's latest iPad and iPad Air have also received discounts that match their record lows. A 64 GB, 10.9-inch iPad is currently going for $399 ($447), while the iPad Air is on sale for $499 ($550). In our review, we dubbed the iPad Air the best iPad for most people, thanks to its blazing-fast M1 processor and Goldilocks-zone price point. Especially at this record-low $499 price, it's hard to beat the value of the latest iPad Air.