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The best graduation gifts you can buy in 2020

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Buy iPad Air at B&H Photo – $500

Apple Watch Series 5/Fossil Hybrid Smartwatch HR Charter

apple watch 5 and fossil HR charter

Will Lipman Photography / Apple / Fossil

A smartwatch could be a great gift for the most connected graduate in your life. Without a doubt, the Apple Watch Series 5 is the best smartwatch you can get (if you have an iPhone), thanks to its stunning, always-on Retina display and a compass that comes in handy with hiking or referring to on-watch walking directions. It’s also useful for fitness enthusiasts, with features such as automatic workout detection, a heart rate monitor and a built-in ECG measurement app that can detect an irregular heartbeat. It comes in either a 40mm or 44mm size, and you can opt for either a GPS model or one with LTE, which lets your grad make calls without a paired phone. A 40mm, GPS-only aluminum-cased model starts at $400, and you can opt for a variety of different straps and colors as well. 

If the Apple Watch isn’t your grad’s style, then we recommend the Fossil Hybrid Smartwatch HR Charter. It’s great for those who want something that still looks like a “real” timepiece. As a hybrid watch, the HR Charter combines the best of both worlds: It’s a stylish analog watch with a customizable e-ink display that can show step count, alternative time zones and notifications. Plus it has a built-in heart rate monitor and an impressive battery life of around two weeks on a single charge. The Fossil Hybrid Smartwatch HR Charter comes in a variety of finishes and colors, though we’re particularly fond of the one with the rose gold chassis and the blush silicone strap.

Buy Series 5 at Amazon – $384

Buy Fossil HR Charter at Amazon – $195

Away Carry-On (battery)

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography / Away

Even if your grad might not be doing a lot of traveling right now, a piece of luggage is still a good investment. This hard-sided carry-on by Away is a perfect choice for those future long trips as well as shorter road trips (the latter of which might be more likely in our current environment). It has an interior compression system so you can fit in at least a week’s worth of clothes, a durable polycarbonate shell and 360-degree wheels plus a TSA-approved lock. If you can spare the space, we recommend the model with the ejectable battery pack that your grad can use to charge their phone.

Buy Away Carry-On at Away – $225

Kroser laptop backpack/Everlane Modern Snap backpack

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography / Kroser / Everlane

A great gift for a new grad heading out into the working world is a backpack to store all of their essentials. We recommend the Kroser laptop bag, which is made out of durable water-repellent fabric and has plenty of space not only for a computer but also a tablet, files and folders, a wallet, an extra coat, and more. It also has a handy, built-in USB port that you can use to charge your phone via a power bank (sold separately). An alternative that has more style but less space is Everlane’s Modern Snap backpack. It has a padded compartment that can fit an up-to-15-inch laptop and a couple of side pockets for a water bottle and other small items. 

Buy Kroser laptop backpack at Amazon – $30

Buy Modern Snap backpack at Everlane – $78

HP Spectre x360 (2020, 13-inch)

13-inch laptop for new grads

Will Lipman Photography

Now that your graduate is moving on from college, they’ll probably want to upgrade that laptop they’ve been using for the past four or five years. We particularly like the HP Spectre x360, a convertible Windows notebook with a gorgeous jewel-like design. It has a travel-friendly body that weights just 2.9 pounds, and being a 2-in-1, it can go from laptop to tablet swiftly.

What’s more, it comes with an optional HP stylus, which they can use to draw diagrams and scribble notes. Plus, the HP Spectre x360 has a stunning touchscreen display (you can choose from a 1080p or an AMOLED option), an excellent keyboard, a compact form factor and plenty of power. We recommend getting the one with an Intel 10th Gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and 32GB of Optane Memory, which comes in at around $1,350.

Buy Spectre x360 at HP – $1,350

Nintendo Switch

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography / Nintendo

If your grad doesn’t have a Nintendo Switch already, then why not reward their years of hard work with one? It’s not only considered one of the best gaming consoles on the market but is also perfect for the new grad, thanks to its transforming capabilities. It can be used on the go while sitting on the bus or laid-back on the couch while it’s hooked up to a TV, making it a handy two-in-one gadget. There’s even Netflix on it, so you can watch movies in between gaming sessions. Plus, it’s a great party console, as you can easily detach the controllers — or get additional ones — to play local multiplayer games. Of course, it also has a vast library of excellent games: Some of our favorites include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Bros and Animal Crossing. 

Buy Nintendo Switch at Best Buy – $300

Samsung T5 Portable SSD 1TB

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography

An external drive is useful for grads and non-grads alike — not only as backup but also for storing photos and videos. The Samsung T5 is a great value for the money. It’s a portable SSD that is so light and compact you could slip it in your pocket before you head out the door for the day. It has one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port that supports 10Gbps transfer speeds, and it’s bundled with AES 256-bit hardware encryption for extra data protection. It comes in four different colors and in different storage capacities, but we like the 1TB model for $180. There is a newer T7 Touch model that adds a fingerprint reader for extra security, but we still think the T5 is the better value for money. 

Buy Samsung T5 at Amazon – $180

Sony WF-1000XM3

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography

Sure, you could give your new grad a pair of AirPods, but why not give them an even better pair of wireless earbuds? The Sony WF-1000XM3s is our favorite AirPods alternative, and we we think it offers better sound quality and more-powerful noise cancellation than Apple’s. Plus, its battery life is superior at around an hour and a half longer. The WF-1000XM3 comes in a handsome black-and-gold package as well, which is a touch more luxe than the Apple version. 

Buy WF-1000XM3s at Best Buy – $230

ZMI USB PD backup battery and hub

Gifts for new grads

Will Lipman Photography

Even phones and laptops with amazing battery life don’t last forever, and that’s where an external battery pack comes in handy. The ZMI PowerPack 20000 is a good option. It has a massive 20,000mAh capacity — enough to charge your grad’s smartphone several times over. Plus it has Quick Charge 2.0/3.0 fast-charging support so you can do so lickety-split. What we especially love about it is that it features USB Power Delivery 2.0, which is capable of charging laptops like the MacBook Pro, the Pixelbook and other gadgets that are PD compatible. Another bonus is that it can be used as a USB hub for other devices like a mouse or keyboard. 

Buy ZMI PowerPack at Amazon – $69

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Scientists find the universe’s ‘missing matter’ using mysterious cosmic bursts

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As such, it’s been a challenge to detect this matter using traditional techniques and telescopes. However, the research team was finally able to locate the missing matter by leveraging the phenomenon of FRBs — brief flashes of energy that come from random directions in the sky and last for milliseconds. Scientists don’t yet know what causes them, and their randomness makes them difficult to detect.

But as Professor Macquart explained, by using these FRBs as “cosmic weigh stations” the team was able to detect the missing matter. “The radiation from fast radio bursts gets spread out by the missing matter in the same way that you see the colours of sunlight being separated in a prism,” he said. “We’ve now been able to measure the distances to enough fast radio bursts to determine the density of the universe.” Amazingly, the team only needed to observe six of these to account for all the missing matter, yielding a measured density close to pre-existing estimates for how much there should be floating around the universe — and giving astrophysicists answers to a frustrating mystery they’ve been pursuing for decades.

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SpaceX’s pioneering astronauts board the International Space Station

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The astronauts’ primary mission, called Demo-2, is a final test of the Crew Dragon’s performance before NASA certifies it for ISS crewed transport missions. However, NASA decided to extend their stay so that Cassidy wouldn’t be the lone US astronaut aboard the ISS.

“The SpaceX crew, with Chris Cassidy already on-board the International Space Station, will be doing experiments on physiology, cardiovascular experiments, physical and life sciences, testing out life support systems … and testing out habitation experiments for our future human space exploration,” NASA’s Kirk Shireman said last month. Behnken might also assist Cassidy on a spacewalk to replace batteries on the ISS’s solar power trusses.

The astronauts are expected to remain on the ISS from one to three months, “based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch,” NASA said earlier in May. The maximum stay will be will be 110 days due to concerns about how the Crew Dragon’s solar panels will hold up in the challenging conditions of space.

Crew Dragon’s mission will only be complete once the astronaut’s safely arrive back on Earth. That reentry is expected to be a particularly tense phase of the mission, despite extensive testing by SpaceX. “I think it was an argument that the return is more dangerous in some ways than the ascent, so in order to declare victory yet, we need to bring them home safely [and] make sure that we’re doing everything we can to minimize that risk of reentry and return,” Musk said.

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The first Atari VCS units should be ready by mid-June

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Atari’s repeatedly delayed VCS console is nearly ready two years after its announcement. The team has revealed that the first 500 (or so) Atari VCS production models should leave the factory by mid-June. That will still leave the majority of Atari’s 11,597 crowdfunding backers waiting, but the team “cautiously” expects that production for those will get underway this summer now that the parts are available.

Things are still falling into place. Atari has yet to detail the full software lineup for the VCS even with a game subscription deal locked in. Nonetheless, this is good news for backers worried that multiple delays, changing specs and behind-the-scenes drama might prevent the system from shipping.

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Image bricks some Android phones when used as wallpaper

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Never mind a text character crashing your phone — if you’re on Android, your choice of wallpaper could be a larger problem. Users have discovered (via Android Authority and 9to5Google) that an innocuous landscape photo is “soft-bricking” some Android phones when it’s used as a background. Your phone isn’t completely dead if it happens, but it’ll get stuck in a loop that turn the lock screen on and off, even after a reboot. Your recourses are to either use safe mode to delete the photo file or use the bootloader to reset the device entirely.

The issue may come down to the color spaces your phone supports and how they’re handled. Dylan Roussel from 9to5 discovered that the source image uses the RGB color space instead of Android’s preferred sRGB, and Android 10 doesn’t convert it where the Android 11 preview does — that causes problems any time an incompatible phone has to display the picture, which is a problem if you’ve just set the photo as your wallpaper. Other images will likely lead to the same issue.



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Arlo Video Doorbell now takes commands from Google Assistant

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You no longer have to live in an Amazon-focused household for Arlo’s Video Doorbell to make the most sense. Arlo has introduced Google Assistant support to deliver notifications and send commands. If you’re worried about the ruckus outside, you can ask Google to “show me the front door” and get a video feed sent to a smart display like the Nest Hub Max.

The Video Doorbell normally sells for $150. That’s more than rivals like Ring’s new starter doorbell, but it gives you the choice of both Alexa and Google Assistant. Whether or not you like Arlo perks like the square aspect ratio or HDR video, it could be worth the premium if you don’t want to be locked into a single ecosystem for your smart home.

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Grab a Google Nest WiFi 3-pack with a Home speaker for $300 at HSN

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Buy Nest WiFi 2-pack on Best Buy – $200

Google’s past WiFi routers have had difficulty standing out, but the Nest WiFi’s inclusion of smart speaker functionality gives it an edge over some models. So long as you’re close to an access point, you can talk to Google Assistant. The system is also easy to set up, and the design is sleek enough that you might not feel compelled to hide it in a corner.

There are some limitations. There’s no Ethernet on the mesh points, so this won’t work if you need the bandwidth or low latency of a wired link. You also won’t get WiFi 6 speeds. This is for all-households where wireless convenience matters more than raw performance. If that sounds like your home, though, this might be just what you need.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.



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Amazon pulls racist images from AirPods listings

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Online shoppers in the UK got an ugly dose of racism this weekend. Amazon has removed images in listings for AirPods and similar products that contained repeated use of racist language. It’s not certain how the images got there, how long they’ve been present or who was responsible. However, a spokesperson told Reuters that it had “taken action on the bad actor” behind the images. The product listings themselves had disappeared by mid-day on May 31st.

The entries surfaced on listings from new sellers who’d had little feedback. You weren’t going to find these images on listings from major vendors, in other words.

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Modified Cessna is the ‘largest’ electric aircraft to take flight

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Electric aircraft are ever so slightly closer to becoming a practical reality for travel. Magnix and AeroTEC have flown what they say is the world’s largest all-electric aircraft. Their modified Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, the “eCaravan,” flew for 30 minutes around Washington state’s Grand County International Airport using Magnix’s 750HP Magni500 motor instead of the usual turboprop engine. The flight was “flawless,” Magnix chief Roei Ganzarski said in a statement to FlightGlobal.

There are compromises. Batteries consume massive amounts of space and weight, and the current eCaravan could haul just four to five passengers (instead of as many as 14) for a distance of 100 miles. Magnix and AeroTEC hope to eventually carry nine people 100 miles once the technology has advanced, but that won’t happen until after the initial aircraft’s expected certification in 2021.

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Apple Watch Series 5 is on sale for $300 at Amazon

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The Series 5’s only major upgrade over its predecessor is the always-on display, but it’s a dramatic one — it fundamentally changes how you use the Apple Watch, making it easy to glimpse the time or your workout progress without flicking your wrist. It gives your watch more character when you’re not using it, too. And apart from that, this is still a highlight capable watch with good fitness tracking (if not as robust as more dedicated watches), brisk performance, a rich app ecosystem and clever features like Apple Pay and noise level detection.

It’s not flawless. The always-on screen doesn’t hurt battery life as much as you might think, but you’ll likely want to charge every day (thankfully, this is very easy). There’s a wide array of highly customizable watch faces built-in, you can’t officially add your own. And of course, you need an iPhone just to use this in the first place — you’ll need to turn elsewhere if you have an Android phone. At $300, though, the Series 5 is an easy sell if you’re firmly in the iPhone camp and want a quality all-purpose wearable.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.



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