A couple months back I reviewed Sony’s entry-level CH-720N noise-canceling headphones. They’re quite good, but if you can’t afford them — they list for $150 but are currently discounted to $128 — the company’s new budget on-ear CH-520 headphones are an intriguing option, as they’re selling for as low as $38, or 37% less than their list price of $60. Previously the deal was only the black version but now the blue and white versions are $38, too. This is the CH-520’s lowest price to date.
I initially had low expectations for the CH-520. They look and feel a bit cheap, lack noise canceling and are pretty no-frills. However, it turns out they feature good sound for their price, are lightweight and pretty comfortable for on-ear headphones, and also have excellent battery life (they’re rated for up to 50 hours at moderate volume levels). Additionally, they’re equipped with multipoint Bluetooth pairing, so you can pair them with two devices simultaneously (such as a smartphone and computer) and easily switch audio between those devices. Voice-calling performance is decent, though not up to the level of what you get with the CH-720N.
Note that there’s no wired option — this is a wireless Bluetooth-only headphone. The CH-520 offer overall balanced sound with decent clarity. The bass has some punch to it but doesn’t pack a wallop, and you aren’t going to get quite as wide a soundstage as you get from Sony’s more expensive over-ear headphones. But these definitely sound better than Sony’s previous entry-level on-ear headphones, and they sound better than I thought they would.
I tried the white color but they also come in blue and black (alas, no protective carrying pouch is included). It’s also worth noting that they link with Sony’s Headphones Connect app for iOS and Android, which allows for upgrading the firmware and accessing an equalizer to tweak the sound, as well as activate multipoint Bluetooth pairing.
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The CH-520 headphones are comfortable for on-ear ‘phones.
Jetsetters, get ready for your next global adventure with this loaded travel bundle from StackSocial. For just $200 you’ll get lifetime access to Rosetta Stone language learning software, Dollar Flight Club airfare deals and much more. The entire bundle costs less than the regular list price for Rosetta Stone alone, making this a great deal for travel enthusiasts. There is no set expiration date for this deal, so we recommend making your purchase sooner rather than later.
Rosetta Stone is one of our favorite language learning apps due to its speech recognition technology and immersive content. Whether you’re looking to become fluent or just want enough conversational skills to get by when you travel, Rosetta Stone can help. It offers reading, writing and speaking practice for 24 languages including Spanish, French, German and Mandarin.
You’ll also get a Premium lifetime subscription to Dollar Flight Club. Once you set up your preferences, you’ll receive low-fare deal alerts in your inbox so you can save some cash on your next trip.
And the bundle includes a lifetime subscription to RealVPN, a virtual private network that uses high-grade AES-256 encryption to help you browse the web more privately when away from home — ideal for travelers regularly on public Wi-Fi. And you’ll get the Complete 2023 Travel Hacker Bundle course from SkillSuccess. It features 79 hours of content around travel hacks, budget travel, travel photography, moving abroad and more.
Your Friday post-work Uber Eats order is going to get a whole lot greener – and we don’t necessarily mean in the healthy food sense. Uber on Thursday announced a slew of product updates, all designed to help the company meet its climate commitments while helping Uber users make more planet-friendly choices.
The convenience and fun of ordering food through a delivery app make Uber Eats and its competitors an attractive proposition for those nights you fancy something different for dinner, or just don’t have the energy to cook. But those deliveries have an environmental cost. The carbon footprint of households that spend 50 (roughly $63) per week on food delivery services is 450% higher on average than those that don’t, according to research from CNET’s sister site USwitch in 2021.
Now Uber is committing to slashing the carbon emissions of those deliveries, so you can keep enjoying your takeout without putting pressure on the climate. The company promises that, by 2040, 100% of couriers will use zero-emissions vehicles and that, by 2030, 100% of restaurants on its app will use sustainable packaging. Bringing in this change will be a major challenge, said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi at Uber’s sustainability event in London, but one the company hopes other services and restaurants will join in with.
Uber Eats’ new filter.
Uber
“Tackling plastics and waste is a whole new ballgame for us,” he said. “We’re the first global delivery platform to set this kind of goal to go green, but we certainly should not be the last.”
Recognizing that the cost of sustainable packaging can still be prohibitively expensive for restaurants, the company is also partnering with the World Wildlife Fund, among others, to research how it can work with restaurants to make green packaging options more affordable.
To make it easier for you to do your part, Uber will provide a new option in the Uber Eats app that will allow you to filter restaurants by those that offer green packaging options – whether that be recyclable, reusable or compostable.
Greener rides
As a company that relies heavily on car use, Uber acknowledges it’s only right that it set ambitious sustainability goals for itself. With the impacts of human-caused climate change being felt all over the world in the form of wildfires, droughts and extreme weather events, the company is committed to switching its fleet to electric vehicles in order to reduce the amount of carbon its service pumps out.
More than 60,000 Uber drivers were in electric vehicles as of last month, said Khosrowshahi – three times as many as a year ago. The company wants all of its drivers to make the transition to EVs, but this is another huge challenge for Uber, given that many drivers find the cost of electric cars prohibitively expensive.
Some drivers want Uber to pay for EVs.
Katie Collins/CNET
Outside of the London event on Thursday, a small group of Uber drivers, numbering fewer than 10, were protesting the company’s “greed” and its policies, which they claimed center profits over driver income. If Uber wants drivers to buy electric vehicles, it should shoulder the costs itself, said Abdurzak Hadi, who has been driving for Uber since 2014.
“If I have to pay for it, the fares should rise up,” he said. “There’s inflation in the country and everything has gone up, but our fares have gone down.”
On stage, Khosrowshahi addressed the difficulties around switching to electric vehicles. “EVs are still too expensive, charging is still too confusing,” he said. “What we need to accomplish is to make it absolutely effortless.”
Uber says it’s expanding partnerships designed to bring down those costs for drivers, as well as educating them on the total cost efficiency through a hub on the driver app. It’s also providing drivers with a suite of new tools to help ensure charging is as efficient and convenient as possible for them.
On the rider side, Uber is making it easier for you to understand and reduce your environmental impact. Starting this week you’ll be notified when you’re on an eco-friendly route, and from later this year you’ll be able to see in your Uber app any carbon emissions savings you’ve made by using the Uber Green service to travel in an electric vehicle.
The company has just expanded Uber X Share to 18 new cities and has rebranded Car Next Door, an Australian car-sharing platform it owns, as Uber Car Share, with an imminent North America launch planned for Boston and Toronto.
Coming to an airport near you soon.
Uber
In recognition of the fact that around 15% of all Uber rides are trips to and from an airport (making them longer than the average Uber ride, with higher emissions), the company also plans to incentivize you to pick Uber Green over Uber X with a number of perks. These include lower fares and exclusive access to curbside pickup zones and other preferred areas. In some locations, drivers on these routes will also have access to discounted or free fast chargers to juice up their electric vehicles.
Initially, Uber’s airport partners will include Portland (PDX), Phoenix (PHX), London Heathrow (LHR) and Madrid (MAD), although it eventually hopes that green perks will be available at all airports it provides rides to and from.
Uber is also hoping its policies will feed into the electric vehicle revolution more broadly, said Khosrowshahi. The company is responsible for providing many people with their first experience of riding in an EV, he said. “And the first time that you try electric, you become much more likely to try an electric vehicle in your personal life, whether it’s buying an electric vehicle, or electing to use Uber Green whenever you use the service.”
Apple makes some of our favorite wearables on the market right now, claiming multiple spots on our list of the best smartwatches for 2023. And while its most advanced model, the Apple Watch Ultra, has an intimidating $799 starting price, you don’t have to spend that much to get your hands on one of these sleek devices. There’s also the budget-friendly Apple Watch SE, which starts at just $249. And right now, you can snag it for $30 off at Amazon and Best Buy, dropping it back down to the all-time low price of $219.
The second-gen Apple Watch SE is already designed to be an affordable alternative to Apple’s flagship watches, but today’s price makes it an ideal entry point to the WatchOS ecosystem. The device has many of the same features as its pricier siblings, including wrist-based notifications and calls, workout tracking, heart-rate monitoring and sleep tracking. It also works with Apple Pay for convenient contactless payments.
The device lacks some premium features, like an always-on display or the ability to take an ECG, but the Apple Watch SE is still the best value smartwatch from Apple. It would be a solid upgrade for anyone still rocking a Series 3 (or older), with a larger display, much speedier processor and support for the upcoming WatchOS 10 software. You can also check out our full roundup of all the best Apple Watch deals for even more bargains on the SE and other models.
Looking for a solid pair of everyday headphones that won’t break the bank? The Beats Flex sound great, have a long battery life and are one of the more affordable models out there. But right now you can save even more — Amazon has slashed the price by 57%, bringing it down to just $30. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen. We don’t know how long this offer will last, so we recommend making your purchase sooner rather than later.
The Beats Flex come equipped with an Apple W1 chip, which means they will seamlessly integrate with your Apple products. They also have simple on-device controls so you can adjust volume, control content and more with ease — and if you connect the magnetic earbuds around your neck, your music will automatically pause. There’s even an audio sharing feature that will let you wirelessly share audio between your Beats Flex and another pair of Beats headphones.
The Beats Flex let you listen all day, too. A full charge will get you up to 12 hours of playtime and when your battery is low, 10 minutes of fast charging should get you a boost of up to an hour and a half of battery life. If you are an Apple user, you can use the Find My app to locate your headphones if you misplace them. They are compatible with both Apple and Android devices.
These headphones are not true wireless, meaning they connect to each other with a wire. They also lack the noise-canceling technology some other models offer. However, if you’re a budget-conscious shopper looking for good sound quality and a comfortable fit, this deal is hard to beat.
And if you’re not sold on this pair, be sure to check out our roundup of all the best headphone and earbuds deals currently available to see other great options.
Have you ever wanted to know how well your friend slept last night? Not just by their own word of mouth, but with the receipt to prove it? Now you can with Circles, a new feature Oura announced Thursday for its app that lets you share different health data with up to 10 “circles” of people.
Circles will share Readiness, Sleep and Activity with people you allow in your circle — up to 20 per circle. You’ll be able to choose which kind of data you share with each group, so one circle can get more of your wellness information than another.
The three scores are summaries of the health data the ring collects, including temperature, heart rate and blood oxygen readings. Oura said it plans on expanding the type of information able to be shared in the future.
To start a circle, open the Oura app, scroll down the main menu and select “Circles.” Then you can name a circle, decide what scores you want to share and also decide whether you want that data to be daily or weekly averages. To invite people into the circle (they have to be fellow Oura users), you’ll send them a one-time link.
Once you’ve started your circle, you can view their scores and “react” with emojis, if you choose. Everyone has to sync their rings to keep the scores visible.
What it looks like to react to your friend in Circles.
Oura
For people who enjoy collecting health data (and maybe boasting about a good health week), Oura’s Circles features is a good way to do that with other Oura wearers. According to a press release, though, the company is positioning Circles as another way to check in and connect with each other, which is becoming an increasingly important public health goal amid a loneliness epidemic, which has impacts on sleep, mental health and physical illness.
“Our mission at ŌURA has always been to improve the lives of our members by taking a compassionate approach to health, and this new feature is just the next step in delivering a personalized experience that allows our members to connect with not only their bodies, but also their friends and family,” Oura CEO Tom Hale said in a statement.
Oura’s Circles announcements comes as the company is advancing its sleep staging algorithm out of beta mode, which means everyone tracking sleep stages with Oura will get data from the new algorithm, which Shyamal Patel, the company’s head of science, calls “massive improvements of accuracy” in sleep data. The new algorithm has 79% agreement with polysomnography sleep tests done in a clinic, Patel told CNET.
Compared to Oura’s older sleep-tracking algorithm, ring wearers might experience slight changes in the amount of time Oura tells you you’re spending in deep sleep versus light sleep versus REM sleep.
“Those numbers are likely to shift a little bit,” Patel said.
The Sony WF-1000XM5 are among the most anticipated new wireless earbuds of 2023. They’re the successor to the XM4, which earned a CNET Editors’ Choice award when they were released in 2021 (and not to be confused with the WH-1000XM5 full-size headphones). Back in March, the Walkman Blog uncovered an image of the new buds in their preproduction state as they made their way through the Federal Communications Commission’s certification process. Now, the Walkman Blog has shared additional info and images, with WinFuture posting what appear to be images of the final product. A release seems imminent.
According to the Walkman Blog’s report, the XM5 are smaller than the XM4 and are shaped differently, which may help them fit more ears comfortably (the XM4 could be a little big for some ears). Leaks reveal that each bud will weigh 5.9 grams, or 1.4 grams less than the XM4 buds. The case for the XM5s is said to be two grams lighter.
The buds are equipped with Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint pairing and should support Bluetooth LE Audio, according to the Walkman Blog. Bluetooth LE Audio supports such features as Auracast (broadcast audio) and the LC3 audio codec.
The XM4 have a matte finish, but the XM5 appear to have a mostly glossy finish, although the touch surface on the outer face of the bud seems to be matte. Many people aren’t fans of glossy finishes as they tend to be fingerprint magnets.
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Some leaked comparison specs that also include a reference to the Sony WF-700CN, a new entry-level model.
Walkman Blog
The XM4 carries a list price of $280, but if the WF-1000XM5 follows the same path as the full-size WH-10000XM5, we could very well see a price hike to $300 or more.
The XM4 earbuds were released on June 8, 2021, so a lot of folks, including me, have been expecting the XM5 to be announced this month. Typically, Sony updates its flagship headphones every two years.
Separately, reports — and that leaked image above — suggest Sony will also soon unveil the WF-700CN earbuds, but that’s a more entry-level model.
Apple’s popular MacBook Air received one of its biggest redesigns ever last year, and CNET quickly named it the best laptop for most people. Despite being among Apple’s newest Macs, we’ve already seen several solid MacBook Air M2 deals and B&H has slashed the price on the entry-level model down to a new low of $999, saving you $200 on the 256GB configuration. With the recently unveiled 15-inch model‘s imminent release, the MacBook Air M2 saw an official price drop of $100 — and this deal save an additional $100 on top of that. This offer is available now through Saturday, June 10.
The MacBook Air M2 features a larger and brighter 13.6-inch Liquid Retina Display and thinner overall profile than previous models. Inside, it’s powered by Apple’s M2 chip, which allows for a performance bump of up to 40% and battery life as long as 18 hours, according to Apple. Other notable improvements include a 1080p FaceTime camera, a four-speaker sound system with support for Spatial Audio and support for Apple’s helpful MagSafe charging cable. The base model on sale at B&H features a 256GB SSD, M2 chip with an eight-core GPU and 8GB of RAM. This deal is available on the silver, space gray and midnight color variants.
And be sure to check out our roundups of deals on MacBooks and laptops if you want to see other models that are currently on sale.
New features are coming to Apple’s Messages thanks to the iOS 17 software update the company announced Monday. With iOS 17, you’ll be able to turn pictures into stickers, transcribe voice memos, keep your friends and family notified on your way home, and more.
News about the iOS 17 Messages update came during the keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple traditionally uses the annual event to give developers a preview of updates to its desktop and mobile software, and sometimes it introduces new hardware too. On Monday, the company unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Vision Pro.
The update to Messages will be part of iOS 17, which will arrive this fall. With the new features, people will be able to take their photos and turn them into stickers they use in text conversations, alongside standard emoji, which can also be used as stickers. People can customize their stickers with effects — like shiny, puffy, comic and outline — and keep them in a new drawer in the keyboard for streamlined access, Apple said in a press release. Stickers will be available systemwide, including in third-party apps.
To make a photo into a sticker, you’ll touch and hold an object in a photo. Then you can style your object with various effects, outline it or create animated Live Stickers with Live Photos. To use the sticker in Messages, you’ll add them in the bubble from the Tapback menu.
Watch this: Apple Reveals iOS 17
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Search in Messages, Check In and more
Also coming is a refined search feature. People will be able to apply additional filters to their Messages search to more quickly find the exact conversation they’re looking for. Plus, when you’ve received lots of texts in a group chat, you’ll be able to use the catch-up arrow to locate where the conversation left off last.
iOS 17 Messages will also transcribe voice memos you receive, if you don’t have the time to listen to them. Apple also announced a new feature that will let you keep track of your friends by viewing their location in your text conversation.
Apple’s Check In feature through iOS 17.
Screenshot by CNET
Another new location sharing feature is Check In. If you want to keep a friend or family member updated on your journey home, for example, you’ll be able to use Check In, which notifies the person of your whereabouts and lets them know if you’re having trouble getting home. “If they are not making progress toward their destination, useful information will be temporarily shared with the selected contact, such as the device’s location, battery level, and cell service status,” Apple said in the press release. Check In will be end-to-end encrypted, so only you and the person you’re sharing this information with is privy to your location.
The iOS 17 updates don’t stop at Messages. Apple also introduced Live Voicemail, which will give people the ability to see the message a person is leaving you as it is being recorded. This could help with deciphering between important calls that unknown numbers leave and spam.
The iOS 17 update for FaceTime includes audio and video messages, so people can leave their friends and families a FaceTime voicemail of sorts.
Also, if people want to share a contact with one another, they can use the new feature NameDrop. By bringing two iPhones or one iPhone and one Apple Watch close together, contact information can be transferred from one device to the next.
