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Xiaomi's new upgraded smart security camera is here – and it's impressive

Xiaomi's new upgraded smart security camera is here – and it's impressive

Yahooa day ago
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QUICK SUMMARY
Xiaomi has launched its new Smart Camera 4C, which builds on its predecessor with a sharper 6 MP sensor and upgraded dual-band WiFi 6.
Available now for pre-order in China at about £20/$28, it's a budget-friendly option packed with solid features. Whilst there's no global release date yet, a launch event next month could reveal when it'll hit other markets.
After rolling out a bunch of smart gadgets lately, Xiaomi is back with its latest security camera just a few months after the last one dropped. The new Xiaomi Smart Camera 4C is the follow-up to the Smart Camera 4 that launched back in April, but it's now stepping things up with an upgraded 6 MP sensor for sharper, clearer footage.
Xiaomi has also given the wireless side of things a boost, packing the camera with an advanced dual-band WiFi 6 chip. This allows for better coverage and smoother live previews on your phone compared to its predecessor.
Right now, the Smart Camera 4C is up for pre-order in China at around 199 CNY, which is roughly $28 or £20. Xiaomi hasn't said when it'll hit global markets, but there's a launch event planned for next month, so fingers crossed we get all the details then.
The new camera shoots video at 3200 x 1800 pixels and thanks to AI-powered enhancements, it promises bright, clear night vision too. It's powered by the MJA1 security chip that keeps your footage safe with cloud transmission encryption, and there's a handy physical lens cover built in.
Other features include 3.5K resolution, a full 360-degree horizontal viewing angle, and 116 degrees vertical coverage. It supports both cloud and NAS storage, has a physical microSD card slot, and even 940 nm infrared fill lights, putting it right up there with some of the best security cameras out there.
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The End of Ford as We Know It
The End of Ford as We Know It

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The End of Ford as We Know It

Last year, Ford CEO Jim Farley commuted in a car that wasn't made by his own company. In an effort to scope out the competition, Farley spent six months driving around in a Xiaomi SU7. The Chinese-made electric sedan is one of the world's most impressive cars: It can accelerate faster than many Porsches, has a giant touch screen that lets you turn off the lights at your house, and comes with a built-in AI assistant —all for roughly $30,000 in China. 'It's fantastic,' Farley said about the Xiaomi SU7 on a podcast last fall. 'I don't want to give it up.' Farley has openly feared what might happen to Ford if more Americans can get behind the wheel of the Xiaomi SU7. Ford was able to import a Xiaomi from Shanghai for testing purposes, but for now, regular Americans cannot buy the SU7 or another one of the many affordable and highly advanced EVs made in China. Stiff tariffs and restrictions on Chinese technology have kept them out of the U.S. If things changed, Ford—along with all other automakers in the U.S.—would be in serious danger. Chinese EVs can be so cheap and high tech that they risk outcompeting all cars, not just electric ones. In the rest of the world, traditional automakers are already struggling as Chinese cars hit the market. In Europe, Chinese brands now have roughly as much share of the market as Mercedes-Benz. 'We are in a global competition with China,' Farley said earlier this year. 'And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.' It might sound a bit overblown. American auto executives delivered similar warnings about Japan in the '80s —and Ford's still standing today. But this week, Ford signaled in unusually clear terms for the auto industry, that it sees China as an existential threat. At a Ford factory in Louisville, Kentucky, Farley announced a series of drastic countermeasures to begin making cheaper electric cars that can compete with Xiaomi and other Chinese companies. The changes are so fundamental that Ford is retooling the assembly line itself—the very thing Henry Ford used to get the world motoring a century ago. Ford's answer to China starts with—what else?—a pickup truck. In 2027, the Louisville plant will produce a new electric truck starting at $30,000. By today's standards, this would be one of the cheapest new EVs you can buy in America. It will cost far less than Ford's current electric truck, the F-150 Lightning Pro, which starts around $55,000. Plenty of Americans might get excited about a decent, affordable electric truck. But what's more important than the price is how it'll be made. Ford's other EVs, like the F-150 Lightning and electric Mustang Mach-E, were heavily adapted from existing gas-powered models. Those vehicles are built by cobbling together a hodgepodge of individual components that evolved independently of one another over time, like a house that's been slowly renovated several times across decades. Retrofitting a design for a big, expensive EV battery comes with all kinds of compromises, including high costs. Ford realized early on that it was spending billions of dollars on wiring, among other things, that its competitors such as Tesla didn't need to deal with, because their electric cars are purpose-built from the ground up. No wonder, then, that Ford's electric division has racked up $2 billion in losses in just the first half of this year alone. Ford's approach with its new truck is more like bulldozing the entire house and starting from scratch. A small team full of former Tesla and Apple engineers, working out of California, designed the process. The new truck will be made with 20 percent fewer parts than a traditional gas vehicle, Ford has said, and half as many cooling hoses. The company has 'no illusion that we have one whiz-bang idea' to keep costs down, Alan Clarke, Ford's head of advanced EV development, who spent a dozen years as a top Tesla engineer, told me. 'We've had to do hundreds of things to be able to meet this price point.' For Ford, a single $30,000 electric truck is hardly a sufficient answer to China's inexpensive EVs. The bigger development might be the factory itself. Besides adding robots, the company's assembly line hadn't changed much since the days of Henry Ford. At the revamped Louisville plant, Ford is using what it's calling an 'assembly tree' system: three 'branches' where the vehicle's battery and major body parts converge to make the car with fewer parts. By doing so, Ford says, it'll crank out trucks up to 15 percent more quickly than the plant's current vehicles. It's one factory and one vehicle for now, Clarke said, but if successful, this approach could spread throughout Ford. 'It is certainly the future of EV-making, one way or another,' he said. In some ways, Ford is simply catching up to what China has already been doing. 'Broadly, what Ford announced this week is already being done—just not by them,' Tu Le, the founder of Sino Auto Insights, a research firm, told me. With EVs, the battery became the most expensive part of a vehicle—so carmakers, starting with Tesla, began to rethink how body parts and other components were made and come together to cut costs. China ran with many of those ideas. Ford's plans will be challenging to pull off. China has immense government subsidies, a huge pool of engineering talent, the world's best battery technology, and ultra-low labor costs. (A Reuters analysis of BYD, the Chinese EV giant, indicates that its workers are paid roughly $850 per month.) 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A lot is riding on a $30,000 truck. As Chinese EVs take over the world, keeping them out of the U.S. becomes a tougher and tougher sell. It's not hard to imagine a company like BYD eventually getting the go-ahead to build a factory in the U.S. 'I see a Chinese EV being built in the U.S. within Trump's current term,' Le predicted. Those cars won't be as dirt cheap as they are in China when built with American labor, but they would still be considerably more advanced. Henry Ford's company once reinvented how cars were built. The most alarming possibility for Ford is that it could do so all over again—and somehow, even that might not be enough.

Walmart just ripped and tore $25 off the price of the DOOM: The Dark Ages Xbox controller
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time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Walmart just ripped and tore $25 off the price of the DOOM: The Dark Ages Xbox controller

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. I'm not going to beat around the bush with this one because, by the looks of it, you don't have a lot of time. The special edition Xbox Series X Core controller that's been decorated with the DOOM Slayer's armor has dropped by $25 at Walmart. Since it's more expensive than a lot of the other Core controller colorways, now is the time to grab one of the best Xbox Series X controller designs going. The reason I say that it doesn't look like you have much time is that the Walmart listing says there are only 7 left at the time of writing. These warnings on retail pages aren't always trustworthy, but seeing as this particular product is out of stock at Amazon, I'm inclined to believe that this one might be running out. Elsewhere, at Best Buy, you can grab it for its full $79.99 price, but Walmart is the only retailer currently stocking it for $54. DOOM The Dark Ages Limited Edition Xbox Series X Wireless Controller | $79.99 $54 at WalmartSave $25.99 - It usually takes a while for brand new Xbox controller limited editions to see deals like this, and in fact, most of them are out of stock by the time they would get price cuts. If you're a fan of DOOM and want an Xbox controller that celebrates the franchise, don't wait around for this deal to disappear. Buy it if: ✅ You're a big DOOM fan✅ You want a new Xbox controller Don't buy it if: ❌ You want a pro controller UK: £54.66 at AmazonView Deal What I admire about this controller design is that it isn't afraid to go all out. A lot of DualSense and Xbox controller limited editions don't exactly commit very hard to their franchise or game. This usually means that the controller just looks sort of ordinary, with a custom color scheme and a few tiny details that represent a certain game. This DOOM Slayer livery isn't afraid to be bold, complete with some 3D textures on it that really set it apart from the rest of the Wireless controller designs. As a result, it actually does look like an authentic recreation of DOOM guy's armor, which I'm sure many people will appreciate having played the new DOOM: The Dark Ages. Alongside the more obvious parts, this controller also has the finer details a true fan would want. The glyphs on the buttons aren't your standard ABXY, and there's even a beautiful blood splatter - because DOOM Slayer's armor has never been clean. If I were you, I wouldn't wait around on this one. If you fancy the look of this controller but have been put off by the price, now is the time to sling your grapple hook at it and reel it in. The only thing I'd advise is that if you want anything more than a standard Xbox controller, maybe look elsewhere. There are plenty of officially licensed Xbox gamepads that will also work as PC controllers and will grant you a lot more functionality. Rather spend your money elsewhere? View all Xbox controllers at Amazon Best value: Grab the new GameSir G7 Pro The best deal right now: PowerA Fusion Pro for $127 If you're buying for another platform, check out the best PS5 controllers, the best Nintendo Switch controllers, and the best racing wheels for PC.

Google just added AI-powered phone calls to Search — here's how it works
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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Google is rolling out a fresh set of AI-powered upgrades to Search, including access to its most advanced Gemini model yet, a deeper research tool, and a surprisingly useful new feature that can call local businesses on your behalf. These updates, available first to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, are part of a broader effort to make Search feel less like a search box and more like a smart assistant that actually gets things done. Gemini 2.5 Pro now available in AI Mode Starting today (July 16), subscribers can switch to Gemini 2.5 Pro inside AI Mode in Search. It's Google's most capable model to date, offering stronger performance on reasoning, coding and math-related tasks. You'll find it in a new drop-down menu under the AI tab, though the default model is still available for everyday queries. Alongside that, Deep Search is making its debut; a feature designed to handle heavier research requests by issuing hundreds of background searches, pulling from across the web and summarizing the findings in a fully cited report. Google says it's ideal for anything from major life decisions (like buying a home) to detailed work or school projects. Both tools are rolling out to Labs users in the U.S. who have opted into AI Mode with a Pro or Ultra subscription. AI-powered phone calls come to Search One of the more interesting features now hitting Search is an agent-like experience that lets Google's AI call businesses for you. If you search for something like 'pet groomers near me,' you might see a new option: 'Have AI check for availability.' Submit your request, and Google's assistant will call around to gather availability and pricing info, then summarize what it finds, no phone call required on your end. The feature is starting to roll out to all U.S. users, though subscribers will get higher usage limits. Businesses, meanwhile, stay in control through their Business Profile settings. Looking ahead These upgrades continue Google's trend of shifting Search from a static tool to something much more proactive, and now even agentic. Search now goes beyond answering questions to giving users the option for AI to handle full tasks, from research to real-world interactions. While most of these features are paywalled for now, they offer a clear look at where Google thinks AI is headed: deeply personalized, action-driven and built right into your everyday search experience. More from Tom's Guide Unless ChatGPT-5 gets these upgrades, I'm sticking with Claude — here's why Google claims AI models are highly likely to lie when under pressure AI chatbots are changing how we access paywalled news — here's how that affects you

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