Anova’s Precision Cooker Nano drops to $99 at Amazon

If you’re looking to experiment more in the kitchen, sous vide cooking could be a way to do that. Anova makes a couple of WiFi-connected sous vide machines that we like, and our favorite, the Precision Cooker Nano, is back on sale for $99. That’s 34 percent off and one of the best prices we’ve seen it, making it a good time to grab the entry-level device.

Buy Precision Cooker Nano at Amazon – $99

You’ll need a couple of things to give sous vide a try, but the one that you probably don’t already have at home is a machine like the Nano. This method of cooking involves putting food in a sealable bag and then cooking it in a water bath. Devices like the Nano constantly circulate that water while keeping it at a precise temperature so your food comes out perfectly done, not over- or undercooked.

Anova’s Precision Cooker Nano earned a spot on our list of favorite kitchen gadgets because it combines affordability and precision in a compact device. Normally priced at $149, the Nano comes in at only 1.7 pounds and its small enough to fit in your kitchen’s utensil drawer. It uses 750 watts of power to heat water for up to 3,000 hours before you’ll need to recharge it, so you’ll be able to conduct a number of sous vide tests before it needs more juice.

The Nano has onboard controls that you can use to adjust temperature and timing, or you can connect it via Bluetooth to your phone and do so via its companion mobile app. Unlike more expensive Anova machines, the Nano doesn’t connect via WiFi, and it also has a fixed clamp that attaches to your cooking pot, rather than an adjustable one. Aside from those features, the biggest differences between the Nano and Anova’s standard Precision Cooker lie in wattage and size. But we think the Nano is a great option for all home cooks, and sous vide newbies will find it especially easy to use.

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NVIDIA’s new Shield update can stop late-night movies waking up the entire house

NVIDIA has rolled out Experience Upgrade v9.1 for all Shield TV and TV Pro units, and one of the features it brings will make watching action movies without earphones more feasible for night owls. The new Night Listening mode can optimize sounds when it’s switched on so that loud explosions are subdued while quiet dialogue gets emphasized even while the volume is on low. “Enjoy watching movies or playing games at night without disturbing your family,” the company said in its announcement. To note, the new model is available while using HDMI audio only. 

In addition to Night Listening, the latest update also enables Shield TVs to automatically switch to low latency game mode on all supported television and display models. So long as a display has Automatic Low Latency Mode (ALLM), the streaming media device will be able to ensure that it’s activated while a user is playing, whether it’s a local game or something from the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service. By reducing latency, ALLM reduces lag and allows a smoother, more responsive gaming experience. Upgrade 9.1 comes with a few more features that include the ability to disable displaying HDR/Dolby Vision content and to get notifications when the microphone is turned on. 

Shield TV’s previous update brought Android 11 to all models and added access to a new Google Keyboard with support for voice searches. It also fixed a a vulnerability that allowed remote attackers to cause a permanent denial of service. While 9.1 doesn’t come with a big security fix, it does include a bunch of bug fixes for both Shield TV app and devices.

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Instagram test turns all video posts into Reels

It looks like Meta truly is making a big push for Reels. Social media consultant Matt Navarra has posted a screenshot on Twitter showing a notice for an experimental Instagram feature that says all video posts would be shared as Reels on the app. If your account is public, that means anyone can discover your video and use your original audio to create their own Reel. Only friends would see your video if your profile is private, but other users can still create a remix with your Reel and download it as part of their remix. The only way to ensure nobody uses your Reel for remixes is to turn the option off in Settings or to disable it for each video you post.

As TechCrunch notes, this move doesn’t come as a surprise when the TikTok-style videos have quickly become a popular format on both Instagram and Facebook. When he revealed the company’s fourth quarterly earnings report for 2021, Mark Zuckerberg said that Reels is now Meta’s fastest growing content format. Meta chief product officer Chris Cox called Reels a “bright point” for the company, as well, in a recent memo shared with employees warning them about “serious times” ahead due to slowing growth. He also said that one of the projects Meta intends to focus on for the second half of 2022 is monetizing Reels as quickly as possible. 

Apparently, time spent viewing the short-form videos has more than doubled since last year, with 80 percent of that growth coming from Facebook. That’s why the company will go as far as to redesign Instagram’s and Facebook’s home pages to better incorporate the short videos. Turning all video posts into Reels would give the company more content to circulate, which in turn would translate to more time viewing videos on the platform and bigger potential ad earnings for when the format is finally monetized. That said, not all experimental Instagram features make it to wide release, and it remains to be seen whether this one will survive the testing phase.

The EU introduces new crypto rules to protect against fraud and climate impact

Europe and its member states have provisionally agreed on new crypto regulations that aim to protect consumers and service providers, the European Parliament announced. Called “MiCA” (markets in crypto-assets), it’s designed to guard against things like fraud, criminal activity, climate impact and more. 

“In the Wild West of the crypto-world, MiCA will be a global standard setter,” said Germany’s MEP Stefan Berger in a statement. “MiCA will ensure a harmonised market, provide legal certainty for crypto-asset issuers, guarantee a level playing field for service providers and ensure high standards for consumer protection.” 

A new legal framework is designed to protect market integrating by regulating public crypto offerings. A key provision is a public register administered by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to address money laundering concerns. Major crypto-asset service provider (CASPs) will also have to disclose energy consumption and declare environmental and climate impact data to their national authority, which will in turn inform ESMA. 

This new regulation strengthens the European framework to fight money-laundering, reduces the risks of fraud and makes crypto-asset transactions more secure. The EU travel rule will ensure that CASPs can prevent and detect sanctioned addresses and that transfers of crypto-assets are fully traceable.

The law covers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, but NFTs (nonfungible tokens) including “cinema tickets, digital collectibles from clothing brands or in-game items in computer games” will be exempt. However, those could later be re-classified as financial instruments or crytpo assets subject to MiCA, according to the rules. 

The law is still provisional, with key details like whether CASPs will need to be located in the EU still being debated, according to Bloomberg. Earlier version of the draft, first proposed in 2020, included a provision to ban Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that used energy-intensive mining processes. However, those were subsequently removed following industry complaints. 

The news follows a a bad run for crypto, with the collapse of TerraUSD and other tokens, the freezing of withdrawals at Celsius and a general decline in the market. The US has yet to implement its own rules on crypto, but US senators recently introduced a bipartisan bill designed to do just that. 

Meta cuts hiring plans as it prepares for ‘serious times’

In a weekly employee Q&A session, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said the company is experiencing “one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history.” According to Reuters, the executive has revealed that Meta has slashed its target number for new engineers hires this year by about 30 percent. Meta previously said that it’s slowing its hiring plans due to weak revenue forecasts, but now Zuckerberg has announced more details with exact figures. Apparently, from plans to hire 10,000 new engineers this year, Meta will only hire between 6,000 and 7,000.

Further, the CEO said that Meta is raising expectations on current employees and giving them more aggressive goals so that they can decide on their own if the company isn’t for them. “[S]elf-selection is OK with me,” he said. In a memo to employees, chief product officer Chris Cox has stressed that the company “is in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce.” He also listed the company’s six investment priorities for the second half of the year, starting with its metaverse initiatives Avatars and its virtual world Horizon Worlds. 

According to the memo, published in full by The Verge, Meta is also aiming to monetize Reels as quickly as possible. Time spent on Reels has more than doubled around the world since last year, the memo reads, with 80 percent of that growth coming from Facebook. Cox called Reels, its short-form video format created as an answer to TikTok, a “bright point” for the company in the first half of 2022. Meta plans to continue improving the experience, including making changes to the home screen on Instagram and Facebook to incorporate the videos more natively.

In addition, Meta plans to focus on its AI initiatives, as well as on WhatsApp and Messenger in the second half of the year. It plans to test WhatApp communities before the feature launches around the world by the end of 2022. The company is also going to develop Instagram Creator channels and joinable chats, which are slated for rollout in the coming months.

Cox wrote in the memo:

“I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce. We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets. We must prioritize more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better exciting teams.”