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A public preview of Muse Spark 1.1 is now available to developers.

Amazon raised $25 billion through a bond sale as AI infrastructure spending accelerates, highlighting the growing cost of competing in the AI race.

The post Amazon Raises $25 Billion in Bond Sale as AI Spending Accelerates appeared first on TechRepublic.

A Pixel 11 pricing leak suggests Google may drop 128GB storage and start all models at 256GB, potentially raising entry prices.

The post Google Pixel 11: Pricing Leak Reveals Bigger Storage, Higher Costs appeared first on TechRepublic.

• Apex Recordhunter drone unofficially set a new air speed record of 434 mph
• High-speed demonstrator will help develop next-gen military drones
• Company targets further records with interceptor drones soon

Germany’s Quantum Systems Group has broken the world airspeed record for an electric drone, hitting speeds of 699km/h (434mph) during internal testing on June 26, 2026.

Though the company is yet to carry out a formal, independently verified attempt at setting a record under the official measurement rules to be recognized by both Guinness World Records and Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the speed far exceeds that of the current record holder – 657.59km/h (409mph).

The latest, unverified record was set in straight and level flight, and would represent a 6.3% increase over the current record. Official testing is expected within the coming weeks, the company said in a press release.

Record-breaker is merely a technology demonstrator

Quantum Systems explained that the Apex Recordhunter drone was developed over the past year, but “serves as a technology demonstrator for next-generation high-speed systems” rather than being a commercially viable product. “Several innovations from the project are expected to support future interceptor drone programs,” the company added.

It is a battery-electric, fixed-wing aircraft developed by the firm’s N3XT advanced development team, benefiting from Porsche-subsidiary-supplied V4Smart battery cells.

Of course, the drone and its successors would not target consumer photographer and hobby markets, instead focusing on high-speed interceptors for modern warfare. Quantum Systems says lessons learned from Apex will directly influence future interceptor platforms for real-world defense scenarios.

“Super proud of the Quantum Systems team, showing our engineering ambition across our Group and reinforcing our commitment to developing world leading technologies,” co-CEO Florian Seibel wrote.

Engineers from Quantum’s Ukrainian WIY Drones division also contributed to the program – a noteworthy inclusion because Russia has increasingly deployed high-speed, jet-powered one-way attack drones. Deploying high-speed drones like the one Quantum Systems has developed could be much cheaper and more accessible than sending off expensive air-defense missiles.

Records continue to be broken as rapid development continues

By mid-July, the company also hopes to have set two other records. The first – the highest speed achieved by an FPV interceptor drone carrying a 500g payload – by its STRILA Interceptor. Second, its SPYS drone, gunning for the highest speed achieved by an anti-aircraft class FPV interceptor drone.

These achievements and potential records reflect an ongoing global race to develop faster military drones, but they also underscore the growing relevance of airborne, remote and autonomous weapons in modern warfare.

That said, other electric drones have technically achieved even higher speeds. Tom’s Hardware recently reported of a New Zealand duo who recorded high speeds of 730km/h (453mph) – that Blackbird drone uses sawtooth carbon fiber prop blades.

Despite lacking official recognition, the duo had previously set a record of 626km/h (388mph) in December 2025 with a separate drone, before quickly being overtaken by another record-holder which achieved a higher 659km/h (408mph). Regardless, an 11.7% increase from December’s first record to today’s unofficial record confirms there’s plenty of scope to continue pushing the boundary.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for July 10, No. 1,847.

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for July 10, No. 1,125.

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for July 10, No. 859.

The memo from the Smithsonian's secretary, Lonnie Bunch, responded to a White House report that calls the National Museum of American History driven by "a radical, activist ideology."

(Image credit: J. Scott Applewhite)

• The Mac mini has emerged as an affordable system for agentic workloads
• Apple has seen "incredible demand" for the Mac mini and Mac Studio
• Apple silicon can handle an agentic AI while other architectures use a GPU and CPU

If you’re looking for the best way to explore and deploy agentic AI without breaking the budget, the Mac mini might be just what you’re looking for.

Apple’s Doug Brooks has expressed enthusiasm for how the Mac mini and Mac Studio desktop computers are capable of handling agentic AI tasks, thanks to Apple silicon, the ARM-based SoC that the company has introduced over the past half decade.

Success with local AI on these machines has been attributed to design choices made before the arrival of advanced LLMs, with the evolution of Apple’s Neural Engine highlighted as a key factor.

How the Mac mini is ideal for agentic AI

The Mac Studio is also suited to agentic AI (Image credit: Future)

Brooks is the senior product manager of Apple silicon, and referred to the “incredible demand” for Mac minis and Mac Studios when speaking to The Deep View before WWDC 2026.

Describing the Mac mini as an “amazing system” that can “tap into the strengths of Apple silicon and unified memory in a very power-efficient way, and increasingly they're delivering compelling price-performance as well.”

The price point of a Mac mini – compared to the more expensive Mac Studio – makes it particularly suited to teams exploring agentic AI but without the budget to pay for tokens and larger systems.

Neural Engine technology dates back to the A11 chip, and its evolution and inclusion within the current generation of Apple chips, and its high-performance, power-efficient compute processes are pivotal in delivering machine learning to the desktop.

As many AI tools were available first on the Mac (or released exclusively for macOS), it seems that upgrading to the latest Mac mini or switching from Windows has been instrumental in demand.

Mac mini: amazing for AI

Apple’s work on AI has seen deployment in everyday use across computers, tablets, and smartphones, and the company has been a leading exponent of hybrid AI, where an agent can “decide what needs to happen locally and what needs to happen in the cloud based on the workload.”

“For agentic workloads, people often want a system that's under their control, isolated from their primary machine, and capable of running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

But it is the strength of the Apple Mac mini and Apple Studio – as well Apple’s notebooks – in handling AI that seems to have enthused Brooks the most. He cites security and economics as concerns for developers and creators who are now realising that they can handle AI workloads sitting at their desk – whether using a Mac mini or something more powerful.

Gas prices have fluctuated since the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran, which disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and left consumers unsure of what they'll pay at the pump.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)

The Trump EPA calls Biden-era rules for cutting pollution from heavy trucks "unworkable." The proposed changes have been celebrated by trucking groups and denounced by environmental groups.

(Image credit: Brandon Bell)

I test a lot of espresso machines here at TechRadar — over a dozen a year — and so far 2026 has delivered a particularly impressive crop. Whether you're looking for your first ever coffee maker or are a seasoned pro hunting for the perfect premium brewer, there's an option for you.

There are so many new espresso machines, in fact, that you might be spoilt for choice, which is where I come in. To help make your decision easier, I've rounded up this collection of the three best machines we've tested this year. Each one has been through our rigorous review process, and received a score of at least four and a half stars out of five.

If you can't see something that quite suits your needs, take a look at our complete roundup of the best espresso machines you can buy today, and the best Nespresso machines if you prefer your morning brew in pod form.

Philips Café AromisFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Release date: March 2026

Score: 5/5

This espresso machine (the Philips Café Aromis 8000 Series, to give it its full name) is a premium coffee maker that looks stunning, makes sublime coffee, and is fun to use as well. It has a menu of 50 drinks — hot and cold — and is astonishingly quiet in use too thanks to cleverly designed noise shielding.

Its milk system is particularly impressive, producing different textures to suit the type of drink you're making, and because the milk never enters the body of the machine itself, it's a piece of cake to keep clean. Just detach the carafe, disassemble it into its three hard plastic components, and wash them in the top drawer of your dishwasher. There are separate carafes for hot and cold milk, and they both work equally well with dairy or plant-based equivalents.

Espresso machines with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity are quite common, but after connecting your phone, usually all you get is a simple instruction manual. Not here. The Philips Home app is styled like an AI chatbot, and asks you a series of questions about your beans and taste preferences to help tailor the brew setting to your liking. It's certainly not cheap, but it's a superb espresso machine that earned a full five stars.

Read our full Philips Café Aromis review

Philips BaristinaFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Release date: February 2026

Score: 5/5

Philips has been really nailing it when it comes to espresso machines this year. The Baristina is very different to the Café Aromis, but if you're new to the world of speciality coffee, or just want something reasonably affordable, it's the better choice.

This is the smallest and cheapest bean-to-cup coffee maker I've ever tested, and it's so easy to use, it's a great option for anyone thinking of making the switch from coffee capsules. Just load your beans in the top, fill the water tank, push in the empty portafilter handle, and slide it to the right. The Baristina will grind the perfect dose of coffee into the basket, tamp it down, then slide the whole handle to the left and pull the shot for you.

It's a piece of cake, and much easier to clean than a typical automatic espresso machine because there's no moisture or debris building up inside an enclosed case. The only drawback is that it can't steam milk (unless you pick up a bundle with the standalone milk frother), but Philips has just launched an updated version — the Baristina Latte — that solves that particular issue. I'm very much looking forward to testing it

Read our full Philips Baristina review

Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2FutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

Release date: March 2026

Score: 4.5/5

The Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2 (available direct from Meraki in the US, and from Bella Barista in the UK) is the most stylish coffee maker we've tested so far this year, with its satin finish, chrome and wood accents, pivoting touchscreen display, and separate 'towers' for its twin boilers, water tank, and bean hopper. It's huge, but if you've got the space, it's worth every centimeter.

This is a manual espresso machine, but is packed with thoughtful features that make achieving a delicious brew that little bit easier. For example, there are built-in scales beneath the grinder and grouphead to help you grind exactly the right dose of beans, then weigh your extracted coffee and stop the pump at precisely the right time. There's a temperature sensor to help you avoid scalding your milk, and if you really want a helping hand, you can scan a code on a bag of Meraki's own coffee beans, and the machine will adjust its own settings accordingly.

The standout feature, though, is its dual boiler, which is something we rarely see in a home espresso machine. "Not only does it produce exceedingly well-extracted espresso over and over again, it easily froths a range of milks without losing pressure or cooling down," said our reviewer Josh Russell.

Read our full Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2 review

A year and a half after its rebranding, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) ranks near the very top in our books thanks to its automation-friendly workflows and more than 125 million IPs across 195 locations.

With the public data access platform (as Decodo labels itself), users gain access to residential (dynamic and static), data center, and mobile proxies to level up their browsing security. There’s also a handy Site Unblocker feature that facilitates bypassing CAPTCHA and IP bans, and enables entry to restricted sites.

Besides the ethically sourced proxy pool, Decodo offers APIs for scraping, providing users with a wide array of options to automate the extraction of publicly available information from websites. These include several types of APIs for different levels of expertise and various objectives.

Plans and pricing

Decodo’s pricing is based on how many IPs you require, the volume of traffic, the type of IPs, and the volume of requests. At first glance, the pricing structure is complex, though the gist of it is that it scales directly with your data consumption. So, the more bandwidth or IPs you buy, the cheaper your rate becomes.

Decodo promotes its residential IPs starting from $2 per GB per month under enterprise pricing (excludes individuals and small businesses). However, you need to take the 1000 GB plan, which means you’ll be charged $2000 per month plus VAT (all the prices are VAT-less).

For $150 per month, you get 50 GB ($3 per GB) of traffic for residential IPs; $275 monthly equals 100 GB ($2.75 per GB), while you’d need to set aside $11.25 each month if you want 3 GB ($3.75 per GB) of traffic for the lowest plan.

Static residential proxies, priced by the number of IPs, monthly traffic, or the number of dedicated IPs required, start from $0.27 monthly per IP (that’s if you require 8,000 IPs and 50 GB of traffic). Furthermore, 500 IPs cost $165 monthly ($0.33 per IP), but 10 IPs cost $4.7 (that’s $0.47 per IP). In other words, the greater the number of IPs, the lower the unit cost of each IP.

The pricing for mobile proxies begins at $4.50 per IP with the 500 GB plan, and the price goes up per IP with the lower traffic requirement. Similar to static proxies, datacenter plans are also offered on a GB, IP, and dedicated IP basis. They start at $3,800 for the 10,000 GB plan, or $0.026 per IP if you go with the 4,000 IP option.

If you decide to go with the pay-as-you-go option for residential proxies, it’s priced by 1 GB, each costing $4. For mobile proxies, the price is $8 per 1 GB, while the static dedicated ISP and datacenter proxies don’t have the pay-as-you-go option available.

There’s a 14-day money-back guarantee if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service, although it’s not offered for every pricing plan. That said, you can first take it out for a spin during the rather short three-day free trial with 100MB of traffic before making a final decision.

All things considered, Decodo runs a pricing model that favors bulk users over individual ones and small businesses. So, if you run a large organization that needs many IPs and gigabytes, you’ll find the platform cost-effective due to the significant discounts. Otherwise, it might be expensive.

Features

Of course, registration is the first step, which you can complete with an email address, a Google account, or a GitHub account. Your account dashboard conveniently has all features located on the left, which you can easily sift through. Whether you need residential proxies, ISP proxies, or scraping, you can select the option on the left menu.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Once you settle on a plan, you can add users either as proxy users or team members. And with administrative privileges, Decodo provides you with full control over the IP resources you’ll allocate to each proxy user. For example, you can give a user 1 GB of data and another 10 GB. Each user from your organization has unique credentials to access Decodo.

You can create and customize proxy connections from your dashboard. Your first order of business will be to choose a sticky or rotating proxy. Sticky proxies change at set intervals (up to 24 hours), while rotating proxies change with every connection request. Then, you can choose an IP from a specific country/city or a random one as your proxy. With these options set, you can start utilizing Decodo’s online protection.

Let’s dive deeper into the features of this app:

Residential proxies

Residential proxies route your web requests through real home internet connections rather than anonymous server hubs. This setup is ideal for evading localized geo-blocks or checking out regional search results.

Decodo heavily emphasizes that its proxy fleet is entirely "ethically sourced," meaning home users explicitly consent and are compensated for sharing their bandwidth. You can target traffic across 195+ global locations, with the largest concentration of active nodes located in India, the US, Germany, and the UK.

Our testing confirmed that their residential pool boasts exceptional connection uptime and swift, hitch-free speeds.

Static residential (ISP) proxies

Combining the speed of a datacenter proxy with the legitimacy of a home connection, static residential proxies solve the issue of long web automation sequences or managing multiple social media accounts. Whereas standard rotating IPs would get you flagged, Decodo's ISP proxies from premium internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon, Orange, and Tele2 lower block rates via permanent IPs.

They deliver an impressive 99.99% uptime, latency reaction times under 0.2 seconds, and full HTTP(S) / SOCKS5 protocol integration. Decodo offers them as shared ISP proxies for flexible scaling and dedicated ISP proxies for an exclusive single-user IP per project.

Mobile proxies

To mimic smartphone traffic, Decodo gives you access to a dedicated (and ethically sourced) mobile proxy pool of over 10 million real 4G/5G mobile carrier IPs covering 160+ locations and 700+ network providers. The bulk of this mobile network is concentrated across the United States (3.9 million IPs), Germany (1.2 million), the UK (940,000), and India (720,000).

Mobile proxies are highly resilient against blocks because web platforms are naturally hesitant to ban cellular IPs, which frequently rotate among hundreds of real users. Decodo boasts a 99.75% success rate with its mobile proxies, which makes them a key asset for mobile application testing, localized ad verification, bypassing content geo-restrictions, and heavy web scraping.

Datacenter proxies

When sheer speed and high-bandwidth processing matter more than stealth, Decodo's datacenter proxies are a good bet. These are offered as shared versions (aimed at projects with tight budgets for data collection) and dedicated versions (exclusive IPs for consistent identity), and count half a million IPs with a <0.3s response time and 99.94% success rate.

While Decodo’s shared datacenter servers span a wide array of global regions, its 100% dedicated datacenter servers remain strictly limited to US locations. For those engaging in data-driven scaling, the platform supplies real-time stats to keep track of your effort.

Site Unblocker

Described by Decodo as a proxy-like solution, Site Unblocker is an advanced web extraction tool built to act as an all-in-one scraper. Instead of writing complex custom scripts to manage connection retries or bypass security walls, the Site Unblocker automates the hard work.

It uses browser fingerprinting to forge unique browser identities for each request and handles dynamic JavaScript rendering without requiring resource-heavy headless browsers. The tool also features automated IP rotation to make sure you bypass target anti-bot blocks.

Scraping

Arguably, the biggest advantage of having Decodo in your software lineup is its automation-oriented approach. The service provides APIs and scraping templates that let you automate website data collection instead of doing it manually by yourself for every site.

This includes search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google (fully updated to cleanly parse the latest AI Overviews layouts), eCommerce websites, and social media. As of late, you can also effortlessly extract real-time responses from public AI tools, as well as YouTube video transcripts and channel metadata.

All of the above fall under the umbrella of Web Scraping API. It automatically handles all the infrastructure knicks and knacks, from IP switching to CAPTCHA bypassing, courtesy of machine-learning fingerprint rotation. It uses a flexible credit system to keep costs optimized, as developers can configure request complexity on the fly. That way, teams only pay for advanced residential pools and scraping power when targeting a highly locked-down website.

Beyond traditional HTML and JSON payloads, the API delivers diverse data outputs like screenshots, tables, CSVs, XHR, and clean Markdown tailored specifically for AI integrations.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

When it comes to social media scraping, users can choose between real-time synchronous queries or asynchronous callbacks, paying exclusively for successful results via automated retries. The API does a commendable job of transforming dynamic social streams into cleanly parsed, structured JSON or HTML payloads.

For instance, you’ll be able to track the engagement rates of influencers working with your brand, monitor your competitors’ follower numbers, or discover trending content in real time or at a specific time. The YouTube scraping engine allows efficient extraction of raw video transcripts, backend schema metadata, and engagement metrics without getting throttled.

Those eyeing eCommerce scraping will get the option to extract product data from over 50 major marketplaces, including Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. Doing so allows businesses to securely pull real-time data on pricing, full product listings, images, and customer reviews.

Developers can instantly deploy over 100 ready-made scraping templates to monitor dynamic pricing shifts, track localized stock levels, detect counterfeit items, or aggregate clean AI training datasets. Scraping tasks can be scheduled in advance, and you’ll receive an email notification once they’re done.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Last but not least, the SERP scraping API provides an automated pipeline designed specifically to extract structured data from major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu. This allows businesses to scrape localized search engine results pages down to the city or zip-code level with 100% successful data delivery guaranteed through automated retries.

AI workflows

Decodo recently introduced a free, prompt-based AI Parser alongside a rapid Fast Search API. The system uses simple, natural language prompts to instantly translate unstructured web data into clean JSON or LLM-friendly markdown. This native formatting greatly contributes to development speed, as it strips out layout noise and drastically lowers token consumption when feeding live web data directly into an AI context window.

The ultimate evolution here is Decodo’s transition into an autonomous data-enablement platform natively integrated with AI ecosystems like LangChain, n8n, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). For example, by supporting an MCP server, Decodo enables AI agents running inside environments like Claude or ChatGPT to autonomously navigate the web, switch proxy nodes, and handle scraping blocks completely on their own via natural language commands

(Image credit: Decodo)Ease of Use

Decodo’s user interface is easy to navigate. On the desktop, all features are arranged on the left side, and you can easily access your desired feature with a single click. With a white background, black text, and colorful buttons, the whole setup is pleasing to the eye.

Along with the website interface, Decodo offers a Proxy Checker that lets you test up to 10,000 proxies after uploading them with one click.

There are also browser extensions for Google Chrome and Firefox, which give you access to features like one-click IP rotation, customizable session length, and seamless switching between proxies. Additionally, they include WebRTC Leak Prevent to stop WebRTC from bypassing your proxy, masking both your real IP address and location.

Like the main Decodo interface, the extensions are easy to navigate.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Decodo makes it easy to integrate its proxies with various third-party tools, such as eCommerce purchase bots, scraping software, SEO tools, and external proxy managers like MuLogin and AdsPower. The backend is all covered, so you just need to carry out a few steps to kickstart the integration from the intuitive dashboard.

Customer Support

Excellent customer support is one of Decodo’s strengths. This support begins with extensive technical documentation for its features. You can find tutorials and user guides concerning all features, with detailed screenshots illustrating the instructions. You can learn everything about the app in the Help Center, from a basic introduction until you reach more complex aspects.

Decodo has a YouTube channel with video tutorials about its features. This channel allows users to learn about the platform more interactively and has dozens of illustrative and engaging videos.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Of course, customer support can’t be left to the customer alone. If you need help, Decodo's support team is available via live chat. You can contact the support team 24/7 and get speedy answers, although the response time varies depending on your time zone. You can also reach Decodo’s support team via email (for non-urgent inquiries) and expect a response within 24 to 48 hours.

Other complementary support resources include Decodo’s GitHub repository with code samples and a Discord channel where you can connect with other users and share solutions to common issues. Decodo also holds frequent webinars to help users learn the ins and outs of this platform and general trends in the proxy software market.

The Competition

There’s no shortage of competition in the proxy software sector. Decodo has robust competitors like IPRoyal, OxyLabs, and WebShare. It outshines many competitors by providing a broader range of global IP addresses and complementary features like the AI workflows and scraping APIs. However, our main issue is with Decodo’s pricing– it’s significantly more expensive than many rivals, especially for low-volume users.

If you’re a bulk user needing hundreds of proxy IPs, Decodo is an ideal tool. However, it’s too costly for individuals or small enterprises needing a few dozen IPs at most.

Final verdict

There are solid reasons why Decodo gets tagged as one of the better proxy networks in the game. It’s fast and reliable, offers a rather sizable IP pool, and the dashboard is clean enough that you won't pull your hair out setting it up. Plus, the company throws in a ton of great built-in tools to help you smash through aggressive anti-bot blocks and handle heavy scraping workflows.

The only real catch is Decodo’s focus on bigger dev teams and enterprise-level scaling. In case you're running a small operation or just tinkering with a solo project, some of the price tags will likely make you flinch.

We've also highlighted the best proxy and best VPN

• Meta is crossing the border to build a data center in Alberta, Canada
• The data center will have a 1GW capacity and cost $9 billion to build
• It will eventually lead to 300 operational jobs, Meta says

Meta has announced its ambition to build a $9 billion datacenter in Alberta, Canada, with a 1GW capacity.

The project, which was announced in a Meta blog post, is set to be built just outside of Edmonton in Sturgeon County, with the construction expected to take two to three years.

Meta says the data center will support around 3,000 jobs during construction, and then 300 operation jobs when the data center is up and running.

1GW AI-optimized data center

Alongside the data center, Meta has announced that it will improve local infrastructure with a CAD $60 million in roads and water services. The project will also see its electricity usage matched with “100% clean and renewable energy,” with the full costs of the data centers’ energy use covered by Meta.

“This specific location met the factors we typically look for: good access to infrastructure, a robust electric grid and access to energy, a strong pool of talent, and a great set of community partners that helped us move this project forward,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC.

The project marks Meta’s first data center venture in Canada, and will join a fleet of 32 other Meta campuses across the globe. Alberta was also chosen because of its lenient regulatory environment, allowing the construction to be approved with a comparatively small amount of legwork.

Meta also hopes “to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of this data center coming online” by working with Canadian energy services such as Greenlight Limited Partnership, Altalink, Capitol Power and the Alberta Electric System Operator.

The AI capacity offerings from Meta come relatively late in the game compared to industry leaders such as Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, prompting it to undertake an aggressive buildout across the US and elsewhere.

Meta is also reportedly venturing into the cloud computing industry by selling excess capacity at some of its completed AI data centers in order to offset the costs of construction. Meta predicted that it would spend between $125-145 billion on AI and data centers in 2026.

If you're looking for a cheap portable power station this summer for camping, festivals, or just a little home backup unit for charging essential devices, the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 is our top pick.

Right now, Bluetti's Elite 30 V2 portable power station is down to $219 (was $299) at Amazon. And after putting this device through its paces, we found it a spectacular option for anyone who needs to top up and recharge smaller devices without spending too much.

Calling it a "spectacular option", we scored this one 4.5 stars after testing, and awarded it a Highly Recommended badge. For an all-rounder designed for power backup when you need it, there's not much to dislike, especially at this price. In the UK, the 288Wh unit also has a modest discount, dropping to £230 (was £239) at Amazon, too.

Today's top portable power station deal

288Wh | 600W

There's a lot we liked about the Bluetti Elite 30 V2, which scored 4.5 stars and earned a Highly Recommended badge in our review. We found it ultra-compact, and does very well everything a power station of this size and capacity needs to do.

In the UK: now £230 (was £239)View Deal

In our final verdict during our review of this unit, we said "The Bluetti E30 V2 is a compact, easy-to-use jack-of-all-trades power station. An all-rounder for general usage with spectacular port options, impressive output, and even more impressive lift." Bonus points, too, for including a built-in handle for extra portability.

The battery here uses LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry rather than the NMC lithium-ion found in older compact power stations. It's a meaningful upgrade for longevity: BLUETTI rates the Elite 30 V2 for 3,000+ charge cycles, which works out to roughly a decade of regular use, backed by a 5-year warranty.

At 600W of continuous rated power and 1500W in "Power Lifting" mode for resistive loads, it can run laptops, mini fridges, and CPAP machines comfortably, and briefly handle higher-draw appliances like kettles or hair dryers. The 288Wh capacity keeps things compact, but it's worth sizing that against what you actually plan to run — this isn't built for multi-day off-grid power, more for day trips, emergencies, and topping up devices.

Charging is fast for the category: 0-80% in around 45 minutes on AC power via Turbo mode, or a full charge in about 2 hours on standard. It also accepts up to 200W of solar input if you pair it with a compatible panel, though the solar charging cable is sold separately.

Port selection is generous for something this size: two USB-C outputs (140W and 100W), two USB-A ports, two AC outlets, two DC5521 ports, and a 12V car port — nine outputs in total. The built-in UPS function switches over in under 10 milliseconds, so it can sit between your wall outlet and sensitive electronics as automatic backup during outages.

Also consider: More portable power station deals

1070Wh | 1500W

We recommend this one for camping this summer - it's practically built for the job. In our review, it also earned top marks, making it one of the best of its class.

In the UK: now £379 (was £549)View Deal

1024Wh | 1800W

Earning top marks in our tests, we awarded this portable power station an Editor's Choice badge thanks to its compact design, versatile charging options, and robust performance.

In the UK: now £579 (was £699)View Deal

• US: Shop all the portable power stations at Amazon
• UK: See all portable power stations at Amazon.co.uk

Inspired by diving birds, roboticists built the lightweight machines to move from water to air. The design may one day lead to robots that can monitor and sample the coastal ocean.

(Image credit: Raphael Zufferey)

Moving home is such a pain, and that's doubly true when half of your possessions are tech gadgets. I just spent weeks moving my belongings between two flats on opposite sides of London, and it would've taken half the time if I didn't have to shift countless large boxes that were 10% gadget and 90% packaging to keep said gadget from breaking.

Eventually I finished moving to The Ladder, as the area is called (not funny, since most tenants still aren't on it), and as soon as I had my foot on the rung, as it were, my turntable and hi-fi kit was the first thing I set up. The deposit had barely gone through before my Sony PS-LX310BT was on the cabinet and some Edifier M90s were either side.

That's right, the very first thing. Before I unpacked my clothes. I still haven't unpacked my books or computer. Getting some tunes going was the most important task.

This wasn't just because I wanted to enjoy some music while I unpacked, though, or because I wanted to claim the good speaker spots in the living room before my flatmate moved his own turntable in (OK actually, that was part of it). No: it's because getting your hi-fi set up in a new flat can save you loads of faff later on down the line.

Pride of place

(Image credit: Future)

Speakers aren't something you can just dump anywhere in your living room and get a good experience. A lot of thought needs to go into where they're placed.

Stereo speakers like mine need to be placed so they're spread evenly across a room, to put the listener in the sweet spot betwixt the two, not hidden together in a corner. You want to make sure they're placed on a surface that won't offer unwanted resonance, aren't too close to a wall and are, ideally, at ear level.

If you set up a living room and then bring your hi-fi kit into it, the ideal placement for all of this may already be taken up by other things. Books or DVDs or fancy liqueurs can hog the shelf space on which a speaker would ideally do best.

In my old apartment, the only convenient space for a turntable was on a shelf in the corner of the room. Reaching it to swap a record was a chore, and so I didn't bother using the player as much as I otherwise would.

That's why I thought it important to give my hi-fi set-up priority space in the room. Now, everything else can be place around it.

I'll admit, it wasn't perfect. As you can see in the pictures, I put my speakers on the same cabinet as the turntable. Great for taking pictures, not so great for music, because vibration interference might affect record playback. Unfortunately, it's the only place in the room where I could equally space the speakers, so it's something I'll have to make do with.

A mess of cables

(Image credit: Future)

"There's nothing as fun and sexy as cable management" is what I would say if I wanted to say something totally wrong. I hate the whole process of cleaning up wires and cables, and so often ignore it, leaving trails and black snakes and wire rat kings running like veins around my house.

(I know some people find great satisfaction in cable management and maintenance, with some cables ties and so on, and that's fair enough. It's just not my cup of tea. You can try and help me with mine, if you want though).

Unfortunately, this can quickly become a problem with a hi-fi set-up, when players and speakers need cables for power, cables for music, cables for the sake of it sometimes. I've created some pretty hideous messes in the past.

Sometimes, that makes moving house quite a pain, because you're left tangling or untangling countless wires. It's why I thought it important to set up everything quickly when I moved: I could refresh my cable situation, making sure I had all my audio cables in position before any annoying extras needed to be added.

I'm glad I did, because in the week I've moved here, the behind-the-cabinet area has turned into a nest of vipers. If I had to add my turntable now, it'd give me a migraine trying to work out what goes where.

That's especially true of power plugs, which are few and far between in any rental flat. Where I've plugged in the turntable and speakers, I also have to find space for a refrigerator, internet router, separate internet box (yeah, my ISP really likes taking up power points apparently), and various other things.

Since I've yet to buy a splitter, I'm constantly playing musical chairs with the plugs, removing and replacing them to find space for my laptop charger or projector. Thankfully, since the turntable and speakers were there first, they're too embedded to remove.

Where do the records go?

(Image credit: Future)

When I first set up my turntable and speaker, I thought those pieces of kit getting central spots would be the end of my space issue. I was wrong. And I'm not just talking about the fact that my flatmate and I have far more UK pint glasses than our kitchen storage can cope with.

Records. I'm talking about records. They're pretty big, aren't they? A lot bigger than my Spotify collection, that's for sure, because that takes up zero space.

Partly, I'm talking about how tall and wide records are. They just don't stack on all shelves, so you need to be smart about where you place them.

But the biggest problem for my flatmate and I soon became just how many records we have between us. We must have far north of 50 collectively, which makes them hard to fit on any kind of shelf.

Unfortunately, I didn't think of this ahead of time, and we only realized the issue when we'd already settled in the living room. Where were our records going to go? We'd already filled the crevices in the cabinet with bowls and plates, and reaching the shelves required a stretch, so that was no cigar.

It took some reorganization to carve out a space for them in one of the cabinet's areas, and that's only a half measure, because I had to sacrifice about three-fifths of my collection to the black void that is my unpacked room. But our favorite records are within reach, at least.

If I'd have thought this far in advance, I'd have saved some more cabinet space for records. But it just goes to prove the point: a hi-fi system takes thought, and if you don't bring it into your home before anything else (yes, including bowls and cutlery and little ramekins of the sort I have far too many of), you end up having to totally reorganize when it's too late.

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If you just need a reliable Windows laptop for everyday use, this Lenovo deal is a genuinely good price - it's an easy recommendation for remote and hybrid workers, and for my money, it ticks all the boxes for general business work.

So, right now, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i has dropped to £499 (was £599) at Argos. For an all-rounder business laptop, this one of the best budget picks around for under £500.

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Today's top Lenovo laptop deal

This ultra-portable work laptop features all the core specs I'd expect from a business-centric or home laptop, making it the ideal companion for anyone running office apps, web browsing, and video calls with the team.View Deal

This is a budget-friendly configuration built around Intel's Core i5-13420H, an 8-core, 12-thread chip from the 13th-gen Raptor Lake-H family, with four performance cores boosting up to 4.6GHz and four efficiency cores.

The 15.3in WUXGA (1920x1200) IPS panel uses a 16:10 aspect ratio, which gives you a bit more vertical space for documents and browsing than the more common 16:9 laptops in this price range. It's rated at 300 nits with an anti-glare coating, with decent contrast and color accuracy (provided you calibrate it). That makes it ideal for creating images for, say, your work's social media pages, though I wouldn't recommend it for colour-critical tasks required by creative professionals.

16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is a sensible balance for this price point — enough headroom for normal multitasking across browser tabs, office apps, and streaming without feeling cramped. The laptop weighs 1.59kg and measures 17.9mm thick, with Lenovo quoting up to 14.5 hours of battery life, though real-world use — especially on the Intel variant — will likely fall short of that figure.

Connectivity is fairly standard for the budget class: two USB-A ports and one USB-C port, all capped at 5Gbps, plus HDMI 1.4 (so no native 4K60 output — you'll need the USB-C port's DisplayPort Alt Mode for that), a full-size SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth round out the wireless side.

Also consider

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• See all laptop deals at Argos.