Historically, Amazon Prime Day has been a boon for storage deals. For the past few years, we’ve seen the online retailer knock hundreds off of flash drives, microSD cards, internal and portable SSDs and more for its members-only shopping event. It’s no…
Spotify is buying daily music trivia game ‘Heardle’
Heardle, a music trivia game that popped up following the massive success of Wordle, has a new owner. Spotify has announced it’s buying the game. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As The Verge notes, Heardle is Spotify’s first game acquisition.
Heardle is a straightforward game of name that tune. Players are given six attempts to guess a popular song. They hear one second of the intro at first. Heardle lets them hear a little more after each incorrect guess (they can also skip turns). There’s only one song each day for everyone to guess.
Whether or not you correctly identify the song, you can click through to hear the full track after finishing a round. That caught the attention of Spotify, which is pegging Heardle as a music discovery tool. Until now, the game has been using music hosted on Soundcloud.
“We are always looking for innovative and playful ways to enhance music discovery and help artists reach new fans,” Spotify’s global head of music Jeremy Erlich said. “Heardle has proven to be a really fun way to connect millions of fans with songs they know and love and with new songs… and a way to compete with their friends as to who has the best musical knowledge. Since its debut, the game has quickly built a loyal following, and it aligns with our plans to deepen interactivity across the Spotify ecosystem.”
New font. Sounds just as good. #Heardle is now powered by Spotify 💚 pic.twitter.com/rbuE3dleTU
— Spotify (@Spotify) July 12, 2022
As The New York Times did with Wordle after it bought that game, Spotify says it will keep Heardle free to play for everyone and retain the existing look and feel. The font Heardle uses has been updated to align with Spotify’s branding, however.
The integration between Heardle and Spotify has already started in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Players in those countries can listen to each day’s song on Spotify instead of Soundcloud. The game is now hosted on Spotify’s website too. Players who want to keep their stats will need to visit the old site to transfer them over.
Spotify says players in other countries will soon be able to play Heardle in other languages. It plans to eventually “integrate Heardle and other interactive experiences more fully into Spotify to allow music lovers to connect more deeply with artists and challenge friends.”
However, the transition doesn’t seem to be going entirely smoothly. Some players have claimed they can’t accessHeardle in their location. Conversely, some say they can now play for the first time as Soundcloud isn’t available where they are.
The best anti-Prime Day tech deals you can get
It may be Prime Day, but that doesn’t mean you can only save some money if you shop at Amazon. For the past few years, other retailers have used Prime Day as a catalyst for their own sales events. That’s good news for all of us because it means that yo…
The Ninja Foodi Dual-Zone air fryer is on sale for $160 for Prime Day
If you’ve been looking to join the legions of air fryer owners, this might be the deal for you. This Prime Day, you can snag a Ninja Foodi Dual-Zone air fryer for $160 on Amazon. That’s $70 off the regular price and a record low for the larger 10-quart model (there’s an eight-quart option as well).
Buy Ninja Foodi Dual-Zone air fryer at Amazon – $160
This might be the best dual-zone air fryer you can buy right now. The device has dual baskets, which means it can cook two foods simultaneously with different cooking methods. It can handle your protein and vegetables at the same time, for instance. Each zone has its own basket, cyclonic fan and rapid heater. Ninja Foodi Dual-Zone can adjust the cooking times so that the food in each drawer is ready to eat at the same time.
If you only want to cook one thing, there is the option to heat a single compartment. You can also double the quantity of an item across the two baskets and cook them with the same settings, thanks to the Match Cook function.
There are six cooking methods: air fry, air broil, roast, bake, reheat and dehydrate. There’s almost no preheating time required. In some cases, you won’t have to wait at all for it to reach the right temperature. Ninja Foodi Dual-Zone may be a healthier cooking option as well — Ninja says the food it cooks has up to 75 percent less fat than traditional air frying methods.
Get the latest Amazon Prime Day offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.
The best gadgets for students under $50
The little things can get you when you’re in college. You arrive on campus, fresh and ready to go, but before you know it, you’re a few weeks into the new semester and you have a long list of small things you forgot to pack. You may also think of unass…
iRobot’s Roomba i7+ is half off and down to $500 for Prime Day
Amazon Prime Day can be a great time to pick up a robot vacuum for much less than usual. This year, you can pick up iRobot’s Roomba i7+ for only $500, which is 50 percent off its normal price and the cheapest we’ve seen it. It’s not the newest robo-vac in iRobot’s lineup, but it remains one of the most powerful. Also on sale are the entry-level Roomba 692, which you can pick up for $180, and the midrange Shark AV2501AE AI robot vacuum, which is on sale for $380.
Buy Roomba i7+ at Amazon – $500Buy Roomba 692 at Amazon – $180Buy Shark AI robot vacuum at Amazon – $380
The Roomba i7+ impressed us when it first came out for its strong cleaning abilities, accurate home mapping and handy clean base. It has 10x the suction power of more basic Roombas, plus dual multi-surface brushes that do a good job capturing dirt, debris and pet hair. After one or two cleaning jobs, the machine builds a map of your home that you can then edit and label in iRobot’s companion mobile app. This will let you send the i7+ to specific rooms for targeted cleaning jobs and set “keep out zones” if you have spaces of your home that you don’t want to robot to clean.
But the machine’s clean base is what sets it apart from other robot vacuums. After each job, the i7+ will automatically return to its base to recharge, and it will also empty its dustbin into the clean base. That means you don’t have to empty the dustbin every time, rather you’ll only have to change the bag in the clean base about once every two months. If you’re someone who wants a robot vacuum that takes almost all of the work out of the chore, the Roomba i7+, or a machine like it with a clean base, is the best option.
Shark’s AV2501AE robo-vac is similar in that it also comes with a clean base, and some may prefer it because it’s a bagless system. You’ll simply pop part of the base off every time you need to empty it, and it snaps back into place when you’re finished. This Shark device is actually our favorite robot vacuum right now because it combines good suction power with a clean base and an easy to use mobile app.
On the budget end of things, the Roomba 692 is a solid option. You won’t get a clean base, as those are reserved for more expensive machines, but you will get good cleaning capabilities thanks to dual multi-surface brushes, adaptive navigation for better obstacle avoidance and Alexa and Google Assistant support.
Get the latest Amazon Prime Day offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.
The best Amazon Prime Day TV and home entertainment deals
It’s not often that you upgrade your TV, but Amazon Prime Day is a good time to consider doing so. Prime members can get steep discounts right now on Fire TVs and sets from other companies like Sony, Samsung and others. And not every sale on Prime Day …
The best Amazon Prime Day 2022 headphone and earbud deals
Amazon Prime Day brings a great opportunity to grab a new pair of cans or wireless earbuds for yourself or someone you love. A plethora of audio gadgets are on sale for a members-only shopping event, including some of the best models from Sony, Bose, B…
The best Amazon Prime Day 2022 deals still available
Update 7/13/2022: We’ve refreshed our list with the best deals you can get for day two of Amazon Prime Day.Amazon Prime Day is officially here and a number of our favorite gadgets are on sale. If you’re a Prime member, you can save hundreds on devices …
Samsung’s Galaxy S22 lineup is cheaper than ever for Prime Day
Samsung’s latest smartphones are some of the best Android devices you can get, and they’ve been made even better thanks to Prime Day deals. The entire Galaxy S22 lineup has never been cheaper — right now, you can get the Galaxy S22 Ultra for $840, or 30 percent off its normal price. Also, the Galaxy S22+ and the standard S22 are down to $700 and $600, respectively. Those are all the starting prices for the models with the base amount of storage, but you’ll find discounts on all versions, including those with higher amounts of storage.
Buy Galaxy S22 Ultra at Amazon – $840Buy Galaxy S22+ at Amazon – $700Buy Galaxy S22 at Amazon – $600
The Galaxy S22 Ultra has dropped below $1,000 before, but this is the best price we’ve seen on the flagship. If you want all of the latest features a Samsung phone has to offer, this is the handset to get. The S22 Ultra runs on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, 12GB of RAM and at least 128GB of storage. Its rear camera setup includes a 108-megapixel main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide shooter and two 10MP telephoto lenses, which work together to take excellent shots. The phone’s overall performance is top-notch, and we appreciated Samsung’s new photography features like Adaptive Pixel, better auto-framing and improved video stabilization.
Samsung married its S- and Note-families to create the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It has a 6.8-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,750 nits, plus a built-in S Pen. The display is big and bold and we like the fact that Note lovers have not been forgotten. You can use the S Pen to take notes and doodle on the screen with more precision and less latency than ever before.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is arguably the best phone Samsung makes at the moment, and there isn’t much we found to complain about. It has a slightly lackluster battery life, but it’s not so short as to take away from all of the other great things about the handset. But if you’re looking to spend a bit less without sacrificing too much when it comes to quality, the S22+ or the S22 are both great choices. Each of them earned a score of 87 from us for their slick designs, lovely displays and solid performance. With the S22+, you’ll get a few extra perks not found on the standard S22, namely a longer battery life, UWB and WiFi 6E support, plus fast WiFi speeds overall.
Get the latest Amazon Prime Day offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.