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TCL’s 2018 65-inch 6-Series 4K TV drops to $500

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If you missed out on Black Friday discounts for massive TVs, you still have some time to pick up the TCL 65R615 at Best Buy. The 65-inch 6-Series Roku TV was consistently one of the best-reviewed models available last year at its starting $900 price, and $500 is the cheapest price we’ve seen for it since then. The sale price is valid through 1 AM ET tonight in-store or online, and while the platform does have some drawbacks, it’s still a sharp, Dolby Vision HDR-ready 4K display that will impressively dominate your living room.

Buy TCL 65R615 on Best Buy – $499.99

If you’re willing to spend a big more, CNET editor David Katzmaier points out you can use the CNET600 code at Best Buy to grab this year’s 65-inch TCL 8 Series TV — that adds even more precise miniLED lighting — for $600 off of the retail price, dropping it to just $1,000.



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The $1,399 Pixelbook Go with 4K display is now available

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Aside from having a 4K display, the laptop has 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It’s also powered by a Core i7 processor. Unfortunately, those who’ve been wanting the pretty Not Pink version will have to wait a bit longer: only the Just Black model is available at the moment.

Those who can’t justify dropping $1,399 for a Chromebook can still go for Pixelbook Go’s more affordable configurations. Its prices start at $649 for the basic model, which is powered by an eighth-generation Intel Core m3 processor and has 8GB of RAM, as well as 64GB of storage. The bad news? None of the configurations are available in Not Pink just yet.

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US cancels plans for new penalty tariffs on Chinese-made products

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The Wall Street Journal reports that while 25 percent US tariffs on some Chinese products will remain in place, a tariff that took effect on September 1st will now be cut in half to 7.5 percent. The Office of the US Trade Representative released a fact sheet (PDF) stating the deal included commitment by China to purchase more US goods in the coming years and “requires structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange.”

Donald Trump had originally announced a “Phase one” agreement back in October, and the deal is not yet signed. According to CNBC, China’s Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs confirmed the deal included plans to increase purchases, but did not specify by how much, and neither government has released a full text or detailed summary of the arrangement.

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Tesla Cybertruck will likely get medium-duty truck classification like Ford Super Duty and others

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The reason is the Cybertruck will probably be quite heavy. Vehicle classes are based on gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWR). This is basically the absolute maximum a vehicle can weigh, comprising the car’s weight plus whatever is in it. The 2b-3 medium-duty class consists of vehicles with gross vehicle weight ratings over 8,500 pounds, while the light-duty group is under 8,500 pounds. The Tesla probably goes over that 8,500-pound mark not just because of its payload, which is a claimed 3,500 pounds for the base model, but because electric cars with all their batteries weigh a lot.

Take for instance the Porsche Taycan Turbo. It’s not a very big sports sedan, but it has a curb weight of a whopping 5,132 pounds, which is heavier than any F-150 except the diesel model and the Raptor. And even with all those batteries and an aerodynamic shape, it only manages an EPA range of 201 miles. Put a bunch of batteries in a vehicle with the size and heavy build of an F-150, but with worse aerodynamics than a Taycan or Model S, and hit at least 250 miles of range, and you’re going to have an elephant of a vehicle, no matter who’s building it.

Tesla Cybertruck

There are some interesting consequences to the classification of the Tesla and the likely heavy weight of all electric pickup trucks. As the author of the Automotive News article pointed out on Twitter, medium-duty vehicles don’t get an EPA fuel economy rating, so Tesla probably wouldn’t have to have an official EPA range and electricity usage rating.

Also, if the Cybertruck ends up in the medium-duty class, there’s a strong possibility the upcoming electric F-150, and even the Rivian R1T, will, too, depending on its capabilities. The 2020 F-150 has a GVWR range from 6,070 pounds to 7,850 pounds. Ford could potentially reduce the payload capacity of an electric F-150 to try and stay under the 8,500-pound GVWR mark, but we expect Ford won’t want to sacrifice any capability, as it wants the electric F-150 to be just as usable as the internal-combustion versions.



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Connected sous vide company Nomiku is shutting down

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“While we still believe in the concept, we simply weren’t able to get to a place of sustainability to keep the business going,” co-founder Lisa Fetterman said in a tweet.

Nomiku started back in 2012 when the company launched a successful Kickstarter in which it raised more than $500,000 for its first immersion circulator. At the time, most sous vide cookers cost between $500 and $2000. At $299, Nomiku’s kitchen gadget was a lot more accessible to home chefs. In 2016, the company released a second-generation cooker that added WiFi and a companion mobile app. However, what was an innovative concept in 2012 has since become commonplace. Visit Amazon, and you’ll find a variety of affordable immersion cookers from companies like Breville and Anova that cost $100 or less. Nomiku tried to diversify its business in 2017 by offering subscription meals that you made in conjunction with its sous vide cooker, but that pivot doesn’t seem to have helped the company avoid falling to its bigger competitors.



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Roland’s Alexa-powered keyboard is available for $500

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The keyboard is semi-portable at 8.8 pounds and supports battery power, although you’ll lose Alexa support when you aren’t plugged in. Roland offers a Piano Partner 2 app for Android and iOS to help you master the instrument on your own terms. This isn’t a trivial purchase by any means, but it might be worthwhile if you like practicing with recorded music, hate cryptic menus, or just want to ask about the weather without leaving your seat.

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Citizen has a fancier alternative to Amazon’s Alexa wall clock

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The Citizen clock is considerably more expensive than the Echo Wall Clock at $80, and that’s for the standard metal frame. The price climbs to $90 if you want a wooden frame, and that’s not including the four C batteries you’ll need (and aren’t included) to keep either model powered for roughly a year. Nonetheless, it’s good to have another major option in the (frankly rather small) smart wall clock market.

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Billboard 200 charts will include online music videos

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Billboard has included streaming music in its top 200 chart for years, but now it’s ready to consider music videos as well. The industry publication has revealed that it will count official online music video plays from YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify and other services in the Billboard 200, starting with the charts for January 18th, 2020 (covering the first full week of January). The reasoning is quite straightforward — this is meant to “accurately reflect the changing landscape” of music listening, Billboard’s Deanna Brown said.

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THQ Nordic drops a playable trailer for a potential ‘Gothic’ remake

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Once you’ve explored the mining colony of Khorinis in the two-hour teaser, you can send THQ Nordic your thoughts on whether it should move forward with the project, and if so, how. Pirhana Bytes, which THQ bought this year and is developing a different project, isn’t working on the reboot. THQ Nordic’s Barcelona studio is taking the reins.

If there’s enough demand from players and the full Gothic remake does get the green light, it’ll be “quite some time” before it’s available — THQ will need to expand the development team and rebuild the game from scratch. It’ll use Unreal Engine 4 to power the Gothic reboot, only retaining the story, setting, atmosphere, music and world of the original game. Everything else will be new, including the sound and visuals.

A playable teaser is perhaps a more compelling way to gauge interest for a game than a regular trailer or a Kickstarter project. In 2014, Konami released PT by Hideo Kojima and Gullermo del Toro. It was a playable trailer for a planned Silent Hill game from the directors, but Konami canceled that project.

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A thief took Facebook hard drives with payroll data from a worker’s car

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The theft took place on November 17th and Facebook noticed that the drives were missing three days later, according to Bloomberg. The company is said to have determined on November 29th that the hard drives had payroll data on them, and today began informing affected employees.

The data reportedly includes employee names, banking details, salaries, bonus figures, stock information and the last four digits of social security numbers. The drives contained records for US employees who worked at Facebook in 2018, but didn’t have any user data on them, a spokesperson confirmed to Engadget. The company is providing identity theft and credit monitoring to affected employees.

Facebook has been working with law enforcement, and while the drives haven’t been recovered as yet, it has seen “no evidence of abuse.” However, it’s possible that the data may end up online somewhere. The employee whose car was broken into wasn’t supposed to remove the hard drives from Facebook’s office, and the company says it has “taken appropriate disciplinary action.”

Here’s Facebook’s full statement on the matter, via a spokesperson:

“We are working with law enforcement as they investigate a recent car break-in and theft of an employee’s bag containing company equipment with employee payroll information stored on it. We have seen no evidence of abuse and believe this was a smash and grab crime rather than an attempt to steal employee information.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have notified the current and former employees whose information we believe was stored on the equipment – people who were on our U.S. payroll in 2018 – and are offering them free identity theft and credit monitoring services. This theft impacts current and former Facebook employees only and no Facebook user data was involved.”

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