Dealmaster: New lows on Apple MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch, Samsung T7 SSD, and more

These are the lowest prices we’ve seen on a handful of devices.

Dealmaster: New lows on Apple MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch, Samsung T7 SSD, and more

Enlarge (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Today's best deals in tech include the newest MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch models at their lowest prices yet. Google's Pixel 7 is also available at the lowest price we’ve seen: $250 below MSRP and $100 off the typical street price. We also have the lowest price to date on Samsung's T7 Shield ruggedized portable SSD, sales on several of Samsung's microSD cards, and a cute set of Lego succulents to keep your hands busy and add some unkillable foliage to your home or office. As always, we use tracking sites like CamelCamelCamel and Keepa to compare current sale prices to the typical street price to ensure the sales we find are good deals.

Google Pixel 7 (128GB, unlocked) for $349 ($599)

Our Android reviewer Ron Amadeo determined that the Pixel 7 Pro is the best Android phone you can buy. The Pixel 7 uses the same SoC as seen in the $900 Pixel 7 Pro, so it's every bit as fast, and it's currently selling for less than half that price. The 90 Hz, 6.3-inch display is smooth and pleasing to use, while the 50 MP main camera and 12 MP ultra-wide-angle camera deliver solid, creative shots and AI-assisted features like Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur. We didn't have much success with Google's Unblur in our testing, but Magic Eraser has worked well and is generally adept at its job. The current price is the lowest we've seen on the Pixel 7—$200 off MSRP and $100 off the typical street price.

(credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (2023) M2 Pro, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $1,850 ($1,999)

When we reviewed the 2023 MacBook Pro, we called it "the best laptop you can buy today by almost any measure." Aimed at power users who demand muscular performance and varied, built-in port selection, the 2023 MacBook Pro only improved on an already impressive laptop. Those improvements include better performance and efficiency from the M2 Pro or M2 Max chip and an HDMI port that Apple says can handle 4K at higher refresh rates than 60 Hz—or pushing 8K at 60 Hz.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Daily Deals (4-13-2023)

The Epic Games Store is giving away two new PC games for free this week. StoryBundle is offering 10 sci-fi eBooks for $20 (or more). And Newegg is selling a 14 inch MSI laptop with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and an AMD Ryzen 5 processor for $549. …

The Epic Games Store is giving away two new PC games for free this week. StoryBundle is offering 10 sci-fi eBooks for $20 (or more). And Newegg is selling a 14 inch MSI laptop with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and an AMD Ryzen 5 processor for $549. Here are some of the day’s […]

The post Daily Deals (4-13-2023) appeared first on Liliputing.

Eco-friendly tires: Bridgestone goes green in new tire test

The tire uses recycled plastics and natural guayule rubber from Arizona.

Guayule grows at farm in Casa Grande, Arizona

Enlarge / This woody desert shrub called guayule could be coming to a tire near you before too long. (credit: Cassidy Araiza/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In 2022, the tire company Bridgestone used the IndyCar racing series to debut a new sustainable natural rubber that it has been testing as a replacement for less environmentally friendly rubber. The new tires used rubber from a desert shrub called guayule (Parthenium argentatum). Now, Bridgestone is ready to try the rubber in a more practical application and has produced a demonstration run of road-going tires using guayule rubber and a high percentage of recycled materials. The company will conduct tests with automakers to prove the concept.

The world produces about 2 billion tires each year, and while synthetic rubbers are used in modest amounts, most road tires use a lot of natural rubber from the para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). But 90 percent of para rubber is grown in Southeast Asia and has to be shipped around the world to reach tire factories.

Bridgestone has been looking at guayule as an alternative for a little over a decade now. The guayule plant is a short, woody shrub that grows easily in the deserts of the American southwest and requires much less water than crops such as alfalfa or cotton, which are grown in places like Arizona, where Bridgestone has been breeding guayule and conducting research and development on its use in tire-making.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Eco-friendly tires: Bridgestone goes green in new tire test

The tire uses recycled plastics and natural guayule rubber from Arizona.

Guayule grows at farm in Casa Grande, Arizona

Enlarge / This woody desert shrub called guayule could be coming to a tire near you before too long. (credit: Cassidy Araiza/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In 2022, the tire company Bridgestone used the IndyCar racing series to debut a new sustainable natural rubber that it has been testing as a replacement for less environmentally friendly rubber. The new tires used rubber from a desert shrub called guayule (Parthenium argentatum). Now, Bridgestone is ready to try the rubber in a more practical application and has produced a demonstration run of road-going tires using guayule rubber and a high percentage of recycled materials. The company will conduct tests with automakers to prove the concept.

The world produces about 2 billion tires each year, and while synthetic rubbers are used in modest amounts, most road tires use a lot of natural rubber from the para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). But 90 percent of para rubber is grown in Southeast Asia and has to be shipped around the world to reach tire factories.

Bridgestone has been looking at guayule as an alternative for a little over a decade now. The guayule plant is a short, woody shrub that grows easily in the deserts of the American southwest and requires much less water than crops such as alfalfa or cotton, which are grown in places like Arizona, where Bridgestone has been breeding guayule and conducting research and development on its use in tire-making.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

PineTab2 and PineTab-V tablets available for pre-order for $159 and up with a choice of ARM or RISC-V chips

The PineTab2 is a tablet with a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor, a 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen display, and a detachable keyboard. Unlike most tablets with those kind of specs though, it’s not designed to run Andro…

The PineTab2 is a tablet with a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor, a 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen display, and a detachable keyboard. Unlike most tablets with those kind of specs though, it’s not designed to run Android. Instead it will ship with a custom build of Arch Linux, and users are […]

The post PineTab2 and PineTab-V tablets available for pre-order for $159 and up with a choice of ARM or RISC-V chips appeared first on Liliputing.

Asus ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate gaming phones offer bleeding edge specs

You don’t need a gaming phone to play games on a phone. Most modern flagships (and many mid-range models) can handle the vast majority of games designed for Android. And you can even use a budget device to stream games over the internet. But we&…

You don’t need a gaming phone to play games on a phone. Most modern flagships (and many mid-range models) can handle the vast majority of games designed for Android. And you can even use a budget device to stream games over the internet. But we’ve seen a growing number of phones aimed at gamers in recent […]

The post Asus ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate gaming phones offer bleeding edge specs appeared first on Liliputing.

Unternehmen im Wandel: Intel möchte keine Behörde werden

Hinter dem Verkauf von Unternehmenssparten steckt manchmal mehr als nur die Bilanz. Auch große Unternehmen können nicht beliebig komplex werden. Ein IMHO von Martin Böckmann (Intel, Computer)

Hinter dem Verkauf von Unternehmenssparten steckt manchmal mehr als nur die Bilanz. Auch große Unternehmen können nicht beliebig komplex werden. Ein IMHO von Martin Böckmann (Intel, Computer)