Acer has made many Spin-series Chromebooks before, and despite flaws, this is one of its best yet. I was cautiously optimistic about Acer’s Chromebook Plus Spin 514 when I tested a preproduction model last month, but the final unit is here now and it sticks the landing. Well, mostly.
Acer’s latest convertible Chromebook has zippy performance and oodles of battery life, along with a good touchscreen with stylus support. But crappy speakers and no fingerprint sensor make its $700 price tougher to swallow, and prevents it from dethroning the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, our current favorite Chromebook.
Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2025)Score: 7ProsConsExcellent battery lifeSpeedy performanceStylus supportCrummy, muffled-sounding speakersN …Read the full story at The Verge.

Breaking up Google’s ad tech monopoly is, apparently, like going to Mars or trying to replace Michael Jordan – dubiously possible and a huge amount of work.
Those were some of the analogies witnesses testifying in Google’s defense told a federal judge this week as the company mounts its second attempt to stave off a break up. After successfully beating that fate in the Justice Department’s Search case, Google made its case to Virginia-based District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema to let it keep its ad tech business intact too. Along the way, Google witnesses argued it need not give up monopoly power to restore the competition it damaged, and t …
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There’s a lot of math in diet culture. It’s all numbers – calories in, calories burned – and a constant tally running in one’s head. In some ways, disordered eating can be considered a disturbed sort of strategy game, which is precisely why Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson’s Consume Me works so well. The autobiographical game detailing Hsia’s teenage years is a darkly funny, honest peek into the desire to shape one’s life and body through food.
Food in Consume Me – tomatoes, kale, and pasta rendered as Tetris blocks – are assigned “bites,” a stand-in for calories. Jenny’s (the character, not the developer, who we’ll refer to using her last na …
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Last week at the Zurich Film Festival, Eline Van der Velden – founder and CEO of AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia – said that a number of talent agents had expressed interest in working with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated “actress” created by the companies. Van der Velden has not gone into detail about which agencies might be contemplating whether they should bring Norwood (and by extension, Xicoia) on as clients. But simply saying that agents have come knocking was enough to get the entertainment industry trades buzzing and posting stories about how Norwood came to be.
Norwood is the first of many lifel …
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Why just post a photo when you can encourage all your friends and followers to engage with it? Have you tried simply uploading a photo to Instagram lately? It’s a minefield. Is that a Story, a Post, or a Reel? Do you want to add music? A caption? A prompt, which is… different than a caption, somehow? How about a poll? A fundraiser? More text, but this time on top of the image? Share it to Facebook? On and on and on. I have a simple request to anyone at Meta who is listening: please, just give us our photo sharing app back.
The current Instagram app is more like three or four apps in a trenchcoat. There’s the grid, which is probably what anyone over the age of 35 thinks of as Instagram. Then there’s Stories – shamelessly copied from S …
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The robovac comes with a dock that can refill itself using its built-in water tank. Robot vacuums that mop well rarely come cheap, but thankfully, some of our favorite models are receiving a significant discount ahead of Amazon’s next Prime Day event next week. Right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni and the newer Deebot X9 Pro Omni are on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $799.99 ($300 off) and $899.99 ($400 off), respectively, which is the lowest price we’ve seen on either model.
The Deebot X8 Pro Omniis an excellent robot vacuum and mop hybrid, with an extendable roller mop that can apply up to 4,000Pa of pressure and reach into tricky spots, including corners. The nifty roller mop can also clean itself while tidying up your home, and the vac comes with a compact multifunction dock, one that can refill the robovac using an integrated water tank and move dirty water into a separate waste tank to prevent it from dragging stains across your home.
As for vacuuming, the X8 Pro Omni ..

Spotify has found itself the target of artists’ ire for many reasons over the years: poor audio quality, terriblepayouts, giving Joe Rogan millions of dollars… the list goes on. But recently it’s been CEO and founder Daniel Ek’s extracurricular activities that have been cause for consternation. Over the past few months his funding of German defense company Helsing through his investment firm Prima Materia has been the final straw for many acts, including Hotline TNT, Massive Attack, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Deerhoof, and more.
Then, on Tuesday, Ek announced that he would be stepping down as CEO. Neither Ek nor Spotify gave any indicat …
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Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days may bring some great Kindle deals, but if you can’t wait, you don’t have to. Right now, the Kindle Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) and Kindle Colorsoft Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) are down to their lowest prices ever, but my favorite deal is on the Kindle Paperwhite Kids, which sits nicely between the two. Normally $179.99, right now it’s on sale for $134.99 ($45 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.
Although marketed as a kid-friendly e-reader, the Paperwhite Kids is actually a great value for adults, too. The 7-inch slate is nearly identical to the standard model, which is our favorite Amazon e-reader, with all the features we loved, like an IPX8 waterproof design and sharp 300ppi display. It’s got an adjustable warm white frontlight, which makes reading at night easier, too, along with a battery life that should last you a few months on a single charge.
The only real difference is the addition of kid-oriented features like parental controls, ..