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Fun Amazon Finds Under $50 (July 2022)

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The holidays have snuck up on us again, and that means many of us will be traveling to see friends and family or just to get away. Whether you’re headed to far-flung locales or taking a well-earned staycation, there are plenty of gadgets out there that can make your journey much more comfortable. I’ve found some of the best budget-friendly finds on Amazon, designed for all sorts of travelers. I’ve personally tested and vetted all these items to make sure they are worth your hard-earned cash.

You gotta take some photos when you’re traveling. Comes with a super wide angle and macro lens that screw into the same holder. It’s ideal for single lens phones if you’re not ready to spend big bucks to upgrade just for more cameras. You can use it with Apple or Android phones with more than one camera, you just need to position it over the main wide camera.

And it comes with a clip-on LED light, lanyard and polishing cloth? Magic! I can’t believe this is only $40.

What’s a vacation without music? This is a teensy tiny 6.2-ounce Bluetooth speaker that you absolutely need to find space for in your carry on because it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It’s only $18 and the sound is pretty impressive with rounded bass. Bonus points: It gets loud enough to fill a small room with music.

But it

Apple’s looking to change Siri’s trigger phrase from “Hey Siri,” to just “Siri,” according to a report from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. This means you would just need to say “Siri” followed by a command to activate the smart assistant.

As noted by Gurman, Apple’s been working on this feature for the past several months and is expected to roll it out next year or in 2024. But Apple will have to put in a “significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work,” to get the feature to function properly, as the smart assistant will need to understand the single wake word in multiple accents and dialects. The current, two-word trigger phrase, “Hey Siri,” increases the chance of Siri picking up on it.

Switching to a single wake word could help Siri keep up with Amazon’s Alexa, as it already lets users activate the smart assistant using just “Alexa” instead of “Hey Alexa.” It would also put Siri one step ahead of Google Assistant, which requires the “Ok Google” or “Hey Google” phrases to activate it (although you don’t have to repeat the wake word when saying back-to-back commands). Even Microsoft made the shift from “Hey Cortana” to “Cortana” on smart speakers before shutting down the voice assistant last year.

There are too many monitors out there. It’s just the truth. It’s hard to tell which ones are worth using and which ones are just taking up a spot in stores, hoping you’ll pay its price without checking its features. That’s why we’re here. We’ve tested a suite of monitors to find the very best ones. All of the monitors on this list are worth your time and money.

If you need some more budget monitors, you can also check out our list of best monitor under $200. And because shopping for a monitor can be a confusing endeavor, we’ve got some guidance that should help you make some sense of it all in our monitor-buying guide and gaming monitor buying guide.

Read more: The Best Monitors According to the CNET Staff Who Use Theme

MOBILE PHONE

Although it’s part of HP’s Omen gaming line, this has become one of my favorite overall monitors of the past 12 months. HP’s 27-inch 2,560×1,440 27i features a wide color gamut (98% P3), a gaming-friendly 165Hz refresh rate with Nvidia G-Sync (over DisplayPort) and an elegant design that should pass muster with less gaming-oriented family members; it’s got some simple gaming lighting, but also a useful task light shining down beneath the bottom bezel.

And because of the unique port arrangement — on the sides of a diamond in the back — it’s a lot easier to maneuver cables than the typical recessed, bottom-accessed design. I’ve been using it for

Billionaire Elon Musk has reportedly completed a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter, capping off a tumultuous transition period for the influential social media company.

The Washington Post, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported on Thursday evening that Musk’s takeover had begun. He also fired key executives such as Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety, The Post reported. CNBC and Insiders also reported that Musk is now in charge of Twitter.

Twitter, Agrawal, Segal and Gadde didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk appeared to herald his new ownership situation late Thursday with a characteristically brief tweet saying, “the bird is freed.”

By closing the deal, Musk avoided what could have been a messy public trial between him and Twitter. The social media company and Musk were initially scheduled to go head to head in a five-day trial on Oct. 17. A Delaware judge delayed the trial and gave Twitter and Musk until Friday to close the deal.

Twitter sued Musk in July after the Tesla and SpaceX leader said he wanted to back away from purchasing the company for $54.20 per share. Musk alleged that Twitter misrepresented information about the number of fake and spam accounts on its platform. Twitter, on the other hand, accused Musk of trying to end the deal because his personal wealth had fallen and the acquisition became more expensive for him.

Musk’s plan to acquire Twitter and