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 If you've been online since the mid-90s, you'll remember the chaos of pre-Google search, which is probably best exemplified by Dogpile, a search engine that literally searched all the other search engines for you, to give you some hope of finding what you wanted.
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Technology
Google I/O, Google,
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 Starting today, Apple's new M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro models are available for same-day or next-day pickup at Apple Stores, with no pre-order required. Online orders are also beginning to arrive to customers today.
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One of the best things about the Android ecosystem is the availability of truly affordable phones for as little as $150. By comparison, the cheapest iPhone is based on a dated design and starts at $429. However, picking the right cheap Android phone can be a bit tricky, as reducing the price of a phone can sometimes result in too many trade-offs. So to give you a hand, we tested a bunch of the most popular options and put together a list of the best budget Android phones you can buy.
How low should you go?
We tend to define a budget phone as costing between $150 and $350. Any lower and the device runs the risk of suffering from too many compromises, and above that, you cross over to pricier midrange handsets (if you're open to spending more, we shouted out a couple of our favorites at the very end of this guide).
But for those with a little wiggle room, there are some things to consider. For example, a child may be better off with a cheaper device, especially if it's intended mainly for emergencies or texting parents (and not social media). On the higher end of this price spectrum, sub-$350 phones have come a long way thanks to improved performance, better cameras and nicer displays. This makes them a viable alternative to premium flagships, even if you have the freedom to spend more.
What to look for in a budget Android phone
When it comes to cheap phones, you get what you pay for. Most smartphones in this pric
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 At I/O 2024, Google's teaser for Project Astra gave us a glimpse at where AI assistants are going in the future. It's a multi-modal feature that combines the smarts of Gemini with the kind of image recognition abilities you get in Google Lens, as well as powerful natural language responses. However, while the promo video was slick, after getting to try it out in person, it's clear there's a long way to go before something like Astra lands on your phone. So here are three takeaways from our first experience with Google's next-gen AI.
Sam's take:
Currently, most people interact with digital assistants using their voice, so right away Astra's multi-modality (i.e. using sight and sound in addition to text/speech) to communicate with an AI is relatively novel. In theory, it allows computer-based entities to work and behave more like a real assistant or agent - which was one of Google's big buzzwords for the show - instead of something more robotic that simply responds to spoken commands.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
In our demo, we had the option of asking Astra to tell a story based on some objects we placed in front of camera, after which it told us a lovely tale about a dinosaur and its trusty baguette trying to escape an ominous red light. It was fun and the tale was cute, and the AI worked about as well as you would expect. But at the sam
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 It's already Wednesday, May 15 in Australia and New Zealand, so customers who pre-ordered one of the new M4 iPad Pro or M2 iPad Air models are starting to receive their devices.
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No, not bus or arcade-game tokens. This form of token refers to the building blocks used by artificial intelligence systems.
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 Google today announced several new AI features that it is building into the Android 15 operating system, giving us some insight into what Apple's iPhone operating system will be competing with later this year.
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At Google I/O 2024, CNET's Lexy Savvides gets a first look at Project Astra, a new AI assistant that is able to see, hear and identify objects using your phone's camera or a pair of AR glasses.
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Microsoft said this week that the most recent Windows security update for Windows 10 and Windows 11 may break VPN connections.
According to Microsoft (via Bleeping Computer), "Windows devices might face VPN connection failures after installing the April 2024 security update, or KB5036893."
Microsoft has no fix at the current time, the company said. "We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release," the company said.
Unfortunately, the list of affected clients is rather lengthy: Windows 11 (23H2, 22H2, and 21H2) as well as Windows 10 (22H2 and 21H2). If you're a consumer and run into this issue, Microsoft advises that you first launch the Windows "Get Help" app to inform Microsoft of the problem and possibly work through a solution.
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The United States is taking additional measures to quash China's influence on its economy. The White House has announced a tremendous increase in tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports, including semiconductors, steel, aluminum and EVs. The latter's tariff is set to increase fourfold, from 25 percent to 100 percent—a move that the White House claims "will protect American manufacturers." The announcement further reported that China's EV exports grew 70 percent between 2022 and 2023.
Other tariff increases, such as the jumps from 25 percent to 50 percent for semiconductors and solar cells, are also significant. Then there are batteries, which are getting a tariff raise from 7.5 percent to 25 percent. Medical products are also a part of this hike, with tariffs on needles and syringes increasing from zero percent to 50 percent.
The Biden administration stresses that American companies need a real shot at competing against Chinese imports. "China's unfair trade practices concerning technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are threatening American businesses and workers. China is also flooding global markets with artificially low-priced exports," the White House stated in a release. Biden's decision builds on tariffs implemented by his predecessor and current election opponent, Don
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 iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 include 15 security patches for the iPhone and iPad, according to a recently-published Apple support document, but unfortunately one of the patches has led to a software bug affecting alternative app marketplaces.
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Price When Reviewed$50.28 / 5 devices I $69.48 / 30 devices
Best Prices Today: Avast One
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 Google's latest I/O conference was an absolute slurry of AI promises. The company took so many stabs with new AI models, showing off new AI capabilities that integrate Gemini into every single Google product or service under the sun. But take enough shots, and the law of averages says at least one will hit the mark.…
Read more...
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Google revealed a slew of Gemini AI software updates at its developers conference and introduced Project Astra and Project Veo.
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 At the end of I/O, Google's annual developer conference at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company had said "AI" 121 times. That, essentially, was the crux of Google's two-hour keynote — stuffing AI into every Google app and service used by more than two billion people around the world. Here are all the major updates that Google announced at the event.
Gemini 1.5 Flash and updates to Gemini 1.5 Pro
Google
Google announced a brand new AI model called Gemini 1.5 Flash, which it says is optimised for speed and efficiency. Flash sits between Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Nano, which its the company's smallest model that runs locally on device. Google said that it created Flash because developers wanted a lighter and less expensive model than Gemini Pro to build AI-powered apps and services while keeping some of the things like a long context window of one million tokens that differentiates Gemini Pro from competing models. Later this year, Google will double Gemini's context window to two million tokens, which means that it will be able to process two hours of video, 22 hours of audio, more than 60,000 lines of code or more than 1.4 million words at the same time.
Project Astra
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 Some new OLED iPad Pro models appear to have an issue with HDR content in select shades of blue, according to a review from iMore. The site found that some blue colors cause HDR highlights to blow out and appear nearly white, a defect that can be spotted in the form of compression artifacts in sample images.
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WhatsApp has reportedly started rolling out the first beta feature of 2022 for iOS users. According to a report by WABetaInfo, with the new feature, iPhone users will also be able to see the sender's profile photos as well as message notifications.
According to the screenshot shared with the report, the new feature will allow you to see small photos of the sender in the notification when you receive a new message from a single user or group.
The report also reveals that the feature is only available to a few beta testers running the iOS 15 operating system because the feature uses iOS 15 APIs.
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