The Morning After: Get ready for Black Friday

Black Friday is upon us once again, and the internet’s awash with gonzo deals on the world’s most sought after tech. Naturally, you’re too busy living your actual life to check if the deals on offer are as good as they’re made out to be. That’s why Engadget employs a crack team of spreadsheet nerds to comb through what’s hot and what’s not. If you’re in the market for a new device, keep your eyes on our guide of the real deals.

For instance, a big chunk of change has been knocked off the M3 MacBook Airs to clear room for the M4s. Given the M3 was already a superlative-exhausting piece of equipment, that you can now snag one for as little as $899 is staggering. If I was in the US and in the market for a new machine, I’d have whipped my credit card out before writing this newsletter. I’m asking the universe for Fujifilm to offer an even tastier discount for the X-T50 in the coming days.

— Dan Cooper

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News in Brief

• iFixit’s PS5 Pro teardown reveals an easily replaceable CMOS battery
  Finally.

• It might be time to say goodbye to Apple’s lightning to 3.5mm jack adapter
  Given how many iPhones still use lightning, it seems premature.

• Apple’s next AirTag is coming in 2025 with privacy improvements
  It’ll be harder to tamper with too.

• El Capitan ranked the most powerful supercomputer in the world
  It’ll help manage the nuclear stockpile.

Trump names commission member Brendan Carr as FCC chair

He’s a co-author of Project 2025.

President-elect Trump has named Brendan Carr as incoming head of the Federal Communications Commission. Carr is a Trump man through and through, having previously served as an aide to Ajit Pai, and Trump appointed him to the FCC board in his first tenure. He also drafted the FCC portion of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto, is against Net Neutrality and pushes the myth Big Tech suppresses conservative speech. All in all, a swell guy.

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America’s ‘news influencers’ skew conservative, Pew report finds

Shocker.

If anyone still believes the myth social media platforms suppress conservative speech, then this latest Pew report will… probably be dismissed as fake news. The thinktank has researched the state of “news influencers” who have stepped in to fill the void vacated by traditional news media. It found the most popular names online are more likely to skew right than left, and that a concerning number of people would rather get their news from individuals over publications with commitments to things like fact checking and proving what they claim.

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Two Baltic Sea communications cables have been knocked offline

Initial reports suspect sabotage.

A crucial but unseen part of our internet infrastructure is the network of undersea cables that carries data between countries. Two of those, one between Lithuania and Sweden and one between Finland and Germany, were cut during the weekend. Officials haven’t yet made their findings public, but the hints are of sabotage by a hostile foreign power.

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Roblox restricts DMs for kids under 13 and beefs up parental controls in safety push

A story from the pages of ‘What, you weren’t doing that already!?’ magazine.

Roblox is adding new restrictions to younger children’s accounts to beef up its nonexistent safety credentials. This includes plans to limit users under the age of 13 sending private messages to other users without parental permission. The company has also announced parents will be able to monitor their kids’ Roblox use from their phones.

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