Author: Valentina Palladino

Enlarge (credit: Best Buy)

Best Buy's 50th anniversary is just around the corner on August 22, 2016, and the company is giving its customers a bunch of exclusive deals to celebrate. The electronics retailer will have 50 deals available in store and online that will last for just 50 hours: the Black Friday-like shopping event starts today, August 18, at 10pm Central Time and ends at 11:59pm on Saturday, August 20.

Discounts include $180 off Beats wireless headphones, $400 off a 65-inch Samsung 4K UHD TV, and $150 off select MacBook Pro notebooks, with additional savings for students. Customers who shop online will also get free two-day shipping on almost everything included in the sale.

Here are some of the other deals included in the anniversary celebration:

Amazon is pushing its Original Series shows out to more outlets, this time for free. The company announced it will upload full pilot episodes of ten original shows on social media sites including YouTube and Facebook, free for anyone to watch.

According to a Broadcasting and Cable report, Amazon will share the pilots for five primetime shows (including Bosch, The Man in the High Castle, and Transparent) and five kids shows (including Tumble Leaf and Wishenpoof!) on its YouTube channel and Facebook page. Currently only Amazon Prime members have access to these shows in their entirety, so this its the first time non-Prime customers can watch these episodes for free. All ten episodes have already been uploaded to Amazon's YouTube channel.

Until now, these social media accounts have been used to show teasers and trailers for new Original Series content. It's likely that Amazon is trying to encourage new customers to sign up for Prime by giving them a sneak peek into its Video service. In addition to free two-day shipping, one of the perks of Amazon Prime is free, full access to Amazon Prime Video, which includes original content from Amazon as well as many other movies and TV shows.

Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

If you wander around the streets of New York City, you'll eventually run into rectangular structures the size of small trees in areas filled with pedestrians. Aside from being gigantic billboards, these kiosks are part of the new Link NYC initiative to replace payphones in the city with high-tech information centers. Each Link NYC kiosk has a tablet on its edge that you can use to browse the web, look up local information, make free phone calls, and finddirections to your next destination. There are also a couple USB ports that you can use to charge your devices and even a headphone jack so you can make calls with a little more privacy.

If you don't like the idea of standing in front of this kiosk to do your web searching, they also have free Wi-Fi networks you can connect to with your own smartphone or tablet. However, since the program is still in beta, only certain Apple products can connect to a private Wi-Fi network with a key; Android devices are limited to the free Wi-Fi network.

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

There are a number of perks to having a robot vacuum, the biggest being you can clean your home without actually having to do anything yourself. You do pay for that convenience, though, as most robo-vacs cost just as much as elite handheld ones do. iRobot decided to try something different with the Braava Jet: it's half the size of its other Roomba vacuums, it costs just $199, and it doesn't actually vacuum—it mops.

The company made the Braava Jet with a certain kind of user in mind, one that likely doesn't live in a huge home, has primarily hardwood or tile floors, and doesn't want to dig deep into their wallets for an automatic vacuum. Though it's ideal for those living in small apartments, others should carefully consider their options before investing in this mopping robot.

Design: A cute, compact cleaner

The Braava Jet might be the cutest robot that iRobot has ever made. Measuring 6.7" × 7.0" × 3.3" and weighing 2.7 pounds, the tiny square mopping robot is slightly smaller than a lunchbox and it even has a handle like one, too. The device is mostly white with a few accents of ocean blue, particularly on the backlit "clean" button that sits prominently on its top. Blue also highlights the precision spray hole, on the side of the robot, where water shoots out to dampen the floor ahead of the Braava Jet's path.

Sling TV announced a much-anticipated pair of new channels to its TV streaming lineup. The company has added the NFL Network and NFL RedZone to its offerings; Sling Blue customers will automatically receive the NFL Network and those who want NFL RedZone can pay an extra $5 per month for the add-on "Sports Extra" package.

Those who have Sling Blue pay $25 per month, and there's no doubt that adding the NFL Network as standard in that lineup will make some existing customers very happy and likely entice new customers. In addition to watching on Sling TV, the press release states customers will also have access to NFL content on Watch NFL Network through NFL.com and the NFL app.

During the regular season, the NFL Network on Sling TV will show exclusive Thursday Night Football games, and other shows including NFL GameDay Morning, A Football Life, TIMELINE, and a new weekday morning show called Good Morning Football. NFL RedZone jumps around each game all Sunday afternoon, showing each touchdown and every important play so fans don't miss a thing.

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

Name a home appliance or product, and there's probably a smart version of it today. But for the renters among us, it can be tricky to navigate the aisles of smart light bulbs, thermostats, air conditioners, and vacuums to pick out devices that won't jeopardize your security deposit. When you don't own your home, there’s different set of rules dictating modifications, and some smart home products don't take that into account.

Luckily, these days an increasing number of smart home devices can cater to apartment dwellers that want to avoid ripping open walls and trussing up wires. And as an NYC-based Ars staffer, I had a particularly perfect rental laboratory to recently test and explore what kinds of smart home devices fit renters' needs.

Twitch has been expanding its content horizons beyond games for a while now (did you marathon Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting?), but now the Amazon-owned site will be hosting some of its parent company's content. According to a report from Deadline, Amazon will stream the pilots of new shows including a reboot of superhero show The Tick and a comedy titled I Love Dick on Twitch for 24 hours on August 31.

Prime Video subscribers will have access to the new shows on Amazon on August 19, but the pilots will also be available on Twitch for one day at the end of this month. Amazon has tested original content with Prime Video subscribers in the past, tracking how well the shows are received. It's likely Amazon wants to do the same with this Twitch integration, seeing how much interest that community has for new shows. However, it's currently unclear if the Twitch community's reaction to the pilots will have any effect on the fate of the shows.

It's also just another way for Amazon to test out non-gaming content on Twitch. In October 2015, Twitch launched its Creative channel, where artists can show off their work by airing episodes of classic shows including Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting and Julia Child's The French Chef. Twitch has a very established community that, until recently, only used the platform for gaming content. Finding out what strikes a chord with these users could help Amazon create more Twitch-only content that's not solely focused on gaming.

Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

There's no shortage of devices that track workouts, but a new crop of gadgets that help you make your workouts better is slowly growing. One of the newest is the $99 Lumo Run, which is a scaled-down version of the company's smart clothing. It's a super-small sensor that monitors running, analyzes form in real-time, and provides feedback on how to run better.

In some ways, that might seem limiting: unlike so many activity tracking wearables that are great for people looking to exercise more, Lumo Run doesn't track daily steps, sleep, or nutrition. Devices like Lumo Run are meant to be used during workouts by people who already have an exercise routine and are looking to improve it. The device might not have as wide an audience as a more basic fitness tracker, but once you're in a routine, the Lumo Run may actually be more helpful.

(credit: Basis)

The Intel-owned company Basis announced yesterday that it would recall all of its Peak smart watches after a portion of customers complained of the device overheating. The issue first came about back in June of this year, when Basis halted the production and sales of its Peak devices due to the risk of burns or blistering because of the device becoming too hot during use. The company did issue a software update that it hoped would fix the issue, but it failed to eliminate the problem. Now Basis is recalling all Peak devices and issuing refunds to customers.

Initially, Basis claimed the problem only affected 0.2 percent of all watches sold. That estimate hasn't changed; however the issue is serious enough for Basis to recall every Peak it has ever sold. The company is asking all users to stop using their Basis Peaks immediately, and warns that the Basis Peak service where data is stored will be shut down next year. Users will have access to all their activity information until December 31, 2016, but after that, you won't be able to log on, access your data, or sync the device to Peak online services.

A recall is bad, but could be survivable. Fitbit voluntarily recalled its Force fitness band in 2014 due to complaints from some customers that they had developed skin irritation and rashes from wearing the device. Even now, Fitbit urges customers to wear its bands properly to avoid irritated skin, which means not wearing a band too tightly around your wrist and avoiding device contact with soap and water.

(credit: Strava)

It's no secret that apps and programs on your smartphone have a lot of information about you, and now some of them are letting you broadcast some of that information to the world. Facebook Live is a good example of this friendly, social intrusion, but is wasn't the first example of this, and it certainly won't be the last. But rather than just exploiting the social aspect of these features, some companies are figuring out how to make broadcasting personal information work for the broadcaster. Strava is the latest company to do this with a new feature called Strava Beacon, which lets athletes share their real-time location with anyone they want.

This is mostly a safety feature—when Beacon is activated, users can go into the Strava app and select three contacts they want to send a notification text to with their location. The contacts can be anyone in their smartphone, so you’re not limited to just Strava user friends. Once selected, a text message will form, either with Strava’s default language or your own custom message, with a link to a real-time map of your location. The link leads to a page on Strava’s website where the people you sent the link to can see where you are as you move throughout your run or ride.

The link will always open in a browser, so your recipients don’t need to have the Strava app—or even be a Strava user—to see your location. This will come in handy for those parents and relatives who aren’t into fitness or who aren’t too tech savvy. The link also isn’t limited to the three contacts you choose within the Strava Beacon feature. You can copy and paste the link anywhere you want, but Strava advises caution when doing this. Common sense is key—if you don’t want strangers seeing where you are, maybe don’t post the link to Facebook or Twitter.