July, 2020

• 7 July

  This 24

  

  Need a TV for a den, bedroom or dorm room? The deals don’t get much better than this: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Best Buy has an Insignia 24-inch Fire TV for $99.99, a price that includes a free Amazon Echo Dot (third-gen). The latter will automatically appear in your cart when …

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• 7 July

  Marantz unwraps first 2020 AV receivers with 8K upscaling

  

  CES 2020 may have seen the introduction of actual 8K TVs but sadly the content is still nonexistent. Yet that doesn’t stop companies from announcing support for 8K: First it was Denon, and now it’s fellow Sound United brand Marantz. Marantz has revealed its 2020 line of AV receivers at prices between $1,099 and $3,199. The cheapest is roughly twice …

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• 7 July

  HBO Max: 5 things to know about how the new streaming service works

  

  HBO Max, HBO’s hot new streaming service, launched in May with 10,000 hours of content. For $14.99 a month, subscribers can find almost every Studio Ghibli film, the Harry Potter movies, classics like Casablanca, all 10 seasons of Friends (and a promised reunion episode) and cult favorites such as Rick and Morty — along with all the HBO movies and series …

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• 7 July

  Peacock without Roku and Amazon Fire TV? Top exec is OK with that

  

  Comcast’s Peacock is the latest entrant into the “streaming wars” and like AT&T’s HBO Max before it, the new service could very well launch nationwide next week without apps on the two most popular streaming device platforms, Roku or Amazon Fire TV. And in an interview with CNET, the executive in charge of the Peacock says that’s fine. “When it …

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• 7 July

  Samsung’s Galaxy A71 5G UW heads to Verizon on July 16 for $650

  

  Samsung’s Galaxy A71 5G has another home at a US wireless carrier: Verizon’s joins AT&T and T-Mobile in bringing Samsung’s midrange 5G phone to its shelves. The new phone, available for preorder July 9 before being released on July 16, will be Verizon’s most affordable 5G phone yet at $650.  Like the AT&T and T-Mobile variants, Verizon’s A71 5G (which it calls …

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• 7 July

  Apple Music now shows real

  

  Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new feature with Apple Music that displays real-time synced lyrics that appear on screen as music plays. The feature is available on Samsung Smart TV models from 2018 to 2020 through the Apple Music app. To access the time-synced lyrics, Samsung Smart TV owners can download Apple Music from the Samsung Smart TV App Store …

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• 7 July

  Apple’s new spatial audio headphone feature should have Bose and Sony worried

  

  This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference. In case you missed it, Apple announced last month at its Worldwide Developers Conference that the AirPods Pro will get a big upgrade this fall with the release of iOS 14 (and the update of iPadOS, too): a “spatial audio” feature that simulates surround sound.  While Apple …

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• 7 July

  Magic Leap brings in Microsoft exec as CEO

  

  Peggy Johnson will become virtual reality start-up Magic Leap‘s new CEO, the company said in a release Tuesday, taking the position co-founder Rony Abovitz vacated in May. She’ll step into the role Aug. 1 Johnson was executive vice president of business development at Microsoft, having joined the company in 2014. Before that, she held various leadership positions at chipmaker Qualcomm. …

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• 7 July

  Walmart Plus subscription service will reportedly launch this month

  

  Walmart will reportedly launch its own paid membership service, called Walmart Plus, later this month. The service, which aims to take on Amazon Prime, will cost $98 a year and include perks like same-day delivery of groceries, discounts at Walmart gas stations and early access to some deals, according to a report Tuesday from Recode. Walmart reportedly planned to launch …

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• 7 July

  OnePlus Nord will be unveiled in AR on July 21

  

  Update, July 27: The OnePlus Nord is here. Read our in-depth review. Original story follows. OnePlus’s new smartphone, the OnePlus Nord, will be revealed on July 21. The phone, previously dubbed the “OnePlus Z Thing,” is already available for preorder.  The Chinese phone-maker said it will let people watch the phone’s launch from the safety of their own homes by holding …

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