At Just $54, Our Favorite Budget ANC Earbuds Have Never Been Cheaper
Choosing a pair of wireless earbuds can be difficult, especially if you don't want to spend the big sums needed for some of the most popular models. But you don't have to spend a lot to get some top-tier features, and the EarFun Air Pro 4 earbuds prove it. They were already our favorite budget earbuds, but we can help make them even more affordable. Enter our special discount code (EAP4CNET) and you'll pick them up for just $54. That's a new low, but keep in mind that it's only available on the black earbuds.
Despite the bargain price, these wireless earbuds support advanced features, including active noise cancellation tech. But that isn't all, and you'll find many of the features that you might expect to be reserved for earbuds from Apple, Sony and others.
CNET's David Katzmaier says that the EarFun Air Pro 4 earbuds "have every other feature I'd expect, including the ability to connect to two devices simultaneously and programmable touch-sensitive controls on the buds." There's more, too, with Katzmaier pointing out that "battery life has been more than ample for me" even when using the ANC feature to block out a noisy household.
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EarFun says that these earbuds can block up to 50 decibels of noise thanks to adaptive ANC technology, while support for aptX lossless audio and up to 52 hours of battery life round out the most notable features. Need to stretch those batteries a little further? A 10-minute charge will get you an additional two hours of listening time.
Why this deal matters
Whether you're commuting through a busy city or work in a noisy office, a pair of noise-canceling earbuds can be a real lifesaver. Enjoying music, audiobooks and podcasts is much easier when you don't have to crank the volume just to be able to hear them. At just $54. you really can't argue with the value proposition on offer here. But if you are looking for savings on other models, we've rounded up all the best deals on earbuds and headphones.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Why this key chip technology is crucial to the AI race between the US and China
In the largest single foreign investment in US history, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has unveiled a $100 billion investment, drawing global attention and prompting concern in Taiwan. TSMC, which produces more than 90% of the world's advanced semiconductor chips that power everything from smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) applications to weapons, will build two new advanced packaging facilities in Arizona, among others. Here's everything you need to know about advanced packaging technology, which has seen exponential demand growth along with the global AI frenzy, and what that means for the struggle between the US and China for AI dominance. While the two countries have announced a temporary truce that rolled back disruptive three-digit tariffs for 90 days, the relationship remains tense because of ongoing feuding over chip restrictions imposed by the US and other issues. Last month at Computex, an annual trade show in Taipei that has been thrust under the limelight because of the AI boom, the CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, told reporters that 'the importance of advanced packaging for AI is very high,' proclaiming that 'no one has pushed advanced packaging harder than me.' Packaging generally refers to one of the manufacturing processes of semiconductor chips, which means sealing a chip inside a protective casing and mounting it to the motherboard that goes into an electronic device. Advanced packaging, specifically, refers to techniques that allow more chips — such as graphic processing units (GPU), central processing units (CPU) or high bandwidth memory (HBM) — to be placed closer together, leading to better overall performance, faster transmission of data and lower energy consumption. Think of these chips as different departments within a company. The closer these departments are to each other, the easier it is, and less time it takes, for people to travel between them and exchange ideas, and the more efficient the operation becomes. 'You're trying to put the chips as close together as possible, and you're also putting in different solutions to make the connection between the chips very easy,' Dan Nystedt, vice president of Asia-based private investment firm TrioOrient, told CNN. In a way, advanced packaging keeps afloat Moore's Law, the idea that the number of transistors on microchips would double every two years, as breakthroughs in the chip fabrication process become increasingly costly and more difficult. While there are many types of advanced packaging technologies, CoWoS, short for Chips-on-Wafer-on-Substrate and invented by TSMC, is arguably the best known that was thrown under the limelight since the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which sparked the AI frenzy. It has even become a household name in Taiwan, prompting Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), to say that the island is the 'only place that you can say CoWoS and everybody would understand.' Advanced packaging has become a big deal in the tech world because it ensures AI applications, which require a lot of complex computing, run without delays or glitches. CoWoS is indispensable to producing AI processors, such as the GPUs produced by Nvidia and AMD that are used in AI servers or data centers. 'You could call it the Nvidia packaging process if you want to. Almost anyone making AI chips is using the CoWoS process,' said Nystedt. That is why demand for CoWoS technology has skyrocketed. As a result, TSMC is scrambling to ramp up production capacity. In a visit to Taiwan in January, Huang told reporters that the amount of advanced packaging capacity currently available was 'probably four times' what it was less than two years ago. 'The technology of packaging is very important to the future of computing,' he said. 'We now need to have very complicated advanced packaging to put many chips together into one giant chip.' If advanced fabrication is one piece of the puzzle in terms of chip manufacturing, advanced packaging is another. Analysts say having both pieces of that jigsaw in Arizona means the US will have a 'one-stop shop' for chip production and a strengthened position for its AI arsenal, benefitting Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom, some of TSMC's top clients. 'It ensures that the US has a complete supply chain from advanced manufacturing to advanced packaging, which would benefit the US' competitiveness in AI chips,' Eric Chen, an analyst with market research firm Digitimes Research, told CNN. Because advanced packaging technologies key to AI are currently only produced in Taiwan, having it in Arizona also reduces potential supply chain risks. 'Instead of having all eggs in one basket, CoWoS would be in Taiwan and also the US, and that makes you feel more safe and secure,' said Nystedt. While CoWoS got its moment recently, the technology has actually existed for at least 15 years. It was the brainchild of a team of engineers led by Chiang Shang-yi, who served two stints at TSMC and retired from the company as its co-chief operating officer. Chiang first proposed developing the technology in 2009 in an attempt to fit more transistors into chips and solve bottlenecks in performance. But when it was developed, few companies took up the technology because of the high cost associated with it. 'I only had one customer … I really became a joke (in the company), and there was so much pressure on me,' he recalled in a 2022 oral history project recorded for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. But the AI boom turned CoWoS around, making it one of the most popular technologies. 'The result was beyond our original expectation,' Chiang said. In the global semiconductor supply chain, companies that specialize in packaging and testing services are referred to as outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) firms. In addition to TSMC, South Korea's Samsung and America's Intel, as well as OSAT firms including China's JCET Group, America's Amkor and Taiwan's ASE Group and SPIL are all key players in advanced packaging technologies.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Why this key chip technology is crucial to the AI race between the US and China
In the largest single foreign investment in US history, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has unveiled a $100 billion investment, drawing global attention and prompting concern in Taiwan. TSMC, which produces more than 90% of the world's advanced semiconductor chips that power everything from smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) applications to weapons, will build two new advanced packaging facilities in Arizona, among others. Here's everything you need to know about advanced packaging technology, which has seen exponential demand growth along with the global AI frenzy, and what that means for the struggle between the US and China for AI dominance. While the two countries have announced a temporary truce that rolled back disruptive three-digit tariffs for 90 days, the relationship remains tense because of ongoing feuding over chip restrictions imposed by the US and other issues. Last month at Computex, an annual trade show in Taipei that has been thrust under the limelight because of the AI boom, the CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, told reporters that 'the importance of advanced packaging for AI is very high,' proclaiming that 'no one has pushed advanced packaging harder than me.' Packaging generally refers to one of the manufacturing processes of semiconductor chips, which means sealing a chip inside a protective casing and mounting it to the motherboard that goes into an electronic device. Advanced packaging, specifically, refers to techniques that allow more chips — such as graphic processing units (GPU), central processing units (CPU) or high bandwidth memory (HBM) — to be placed closer together, leading to better overall performance, faster transmission of data and lower energy consumption. Think of these chips as different departments within a company. The closer these departments are to each other, the easier it is, and less time it takes, for people to travel between them and exchange ideas, and the more efficient the operation becomes. 'You're trying to put the chips as close together as possible, and you're also putting in different solutions to make the connection between the chips very easy,' Dan Nystedt, vice president of Asia-based private investment firm TrioOrient, told CNN. In a way, advanced packaging keeps afloat Moore's Law, the idea that the number of transistors on microchips would double every two years, as breakthroughs in the chip fabrication process become increasingly costly and more difficult. While there are many types of advanced packaging technologies, CoWoS, short for Chips-on-Wafer-on-Substrate and invented by TSMC, is arguably the best known that was thrown under the limelight since the debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which sparked the AI frenzy. It has even become a household name in Taiwan, prompting Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), to say that the island is the 'only place that you can say CoWoS and everybody would understand.' Advanced packaging has become a big deal in the tech world because it ensures AI applications, which require a lot of complex computing, run without delays or glitches. CoWoS is indispensable to producing AI processors, such as the GPUs produced by Nvidia and AMD that are used in AI servers or data centers. 'You could call it the Nvidia packaging process if you want to. Almost anyone making AI chips is using the CoWoS process,' said Nystedt. That is why demand for CoWoS technology has skyrocketed. As a result, TSMC is scrambling to ramp up production capacity. In a visit to Taiwan in January, Huang told reporters that the amount of advanced packaging capacity currently available was 'probably four times' what it was less than two years ago. 'The technology of packaging is very important to the future of computing,' he said. 'We now need to have very complicated advanced packaging to put many chips together into one giant chip.' If advanced fabrication is one piece of the puzzle in terms of chip manufacturing, advanced packaging is another. Analysts say having both pieces of that jigsaw in Arizona means the US will have a 'one-stop shop' for chip production and a strengthened position for its AI arsenal, benefitting Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom, some of TSMC's top clients. 'It ensures that the US has a complete supply chain from advanced manufacturing to advanced packaging, which would benefit the US' competitiveness in AI chips,' Eric Chen, an analyst with market research firm Digitimes Research, told CNN. Because advanced packaging technologies key to AI are currently only produced in Taiwan, having it in Arizona also reduces potential supply chain risks. 'Instead of having all eggs in one basket, CoWoS would be in Taiwan and also the US, and that makes you feel more safe and secure,' said Nystedt. While CoWoS got its moment recently, the technology has actually existed for at least 15 years. It was the brainchild of a team of engineers led by Chiang Shang-yi, who served two stints at TSMC and retired from the company as its co-chief operating officer. Chiang first proposed developing the technology in 2009 in an attempt to fit more transistors into chips and solve bottlenecks in performance. But when it was developed, few companies took up the technology because of the high cost associated with it. 'I only had one customer … I really became a joke (in the company), and there was so much pressure on me,' he recalled in a 2022 oral history project recorded for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. But the AI boom turned CoWoS around, making it one of the most popular technologies. 'The result was beyond our original expectation,' Chiang said. In the global semiconductor supply chain, companies that specialize in packaging and testing services are referred to as outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) firms. In addition to TSMC, South Korea's Samsung and America's Intel, as well as OSAT firms including China's JCET Group, America's Amkor and Taiwan's ASE Group and SPIL are all key players in advanced packaging technologies.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
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The nuclear energy sector is experiencing a resurgence unseen in decades, driven largely by its potential to power the burgeoning AI revolution. Major technology companies such as Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOGL) are competing to secure reliable energy sources for their expanding data centers, and nuclear power's clean, consistent output has positioned it as a key player in this race. Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Leading this revival are three companies—Constellation Energy (CEG), Oklo (OKLO), and NuScale Power (SMR)—each bringing a distinct approach to the nuclear landscape. Over the past year, all three have outperformed the market, capturing investor attention amid rising energy demand. Constellation Energy is the 800-pound gorilla of U.S. nuclear power, and it's just landed a deal that's got everyone's attention. Just two days ago, CEG signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Meta to deliver 1.1 gigawatts from its Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois, starting in 2027. This isn't an ordinary contract, but rather a lifeline for a plant that was on the verge of closure when its zero-emissions credits expire. The deal, which also boosts Clinton's output by 30 megawatts, underscores CEG's ability to secure tech giants. Microsoft is already on board with a Three Mile Island restart. What makes CEG a one-of-a-kind destination for tech titans is its scale. With 94 reactors across the U.S., they're a one-stop shop for tech companies chasing net-zero goals while powering AI workloads. Their shift away from co-located data center plans to grid-connected projects, as noted in last month's update, indicates they're adapting to regulatory hurdles, such as FERC's rejection of expanded co-location deals. Moreover, the Meta deal demonstrates that CEG can pivot and still secure massive contracts. Sure, their stock's run-up makes it a bit daunting to be bullish on today, but with AI data centers projected to eat up 9% of U.S. electricity by 2030, CEG's infrastructure could be a cash cow in waiting. Currently, most analysts are bullish on CEG stock. The stock features a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on eight Buy and five Hold ratings assigned in the past three months. No analyst rates the stock a sell. CEG's average stock price target of $319.45 implies ~10% upside over the next twelve months, despite shares having already rallied 30% year-to-date. Oklo, the newest entrant in the nuclear energy space and backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman, is focused on small modular reactors (SMRs)—compact, flexible power plants ideally suited for data centers. The company's stock has surged 440% over the past year, fueled by high-profile agreements such as its December deal with Switch to supply 12 gigawatts through 2044. Additionally, a recent memorandum with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power to advance their 75-megawatt Aurora Powerhouse fast reactor has further accelerated momentum. While Oklo remains pre-revenue and is currently investing heavily in technology development, with commercial operations still several years away, its 'power-as-a-service' model—where the company builds, owns, and operates reactors—could revolutionize how data centers secure reliable power without significant upfront costs. Recent executive orders easing nuclear regulations have also provided a regulatory boost. However, significant risks remain, including ongoing R&D challenges and the high costs of scaling production. For investors who believe SMRs are key to powering the AI revolution, Oklo's long-term vision holds considerable promise. On Wall Street, Oklo stock carries a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on six Buy and three Hold ratings. No analyst rates the stock a sell. Oklo's average stock price target of $54.40 implies about 15% upside potential over the next twelve months. NuScale Power holds a distinct advantage as the first U.S. company to secure Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval for its small modular reactor (SMR) design—the 77-megawatt VOYGR module. But the company isn't resting on this milestone; it is rapidly advancing a 2-gigawatt agreement with Standard Power to supply data centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Despite posting losses as it invests in expanding its supply chain, NuScale's Q1 report revealed an impressive 857% year-over-year revenue increase. The recent Meta-Constellation Energy deal also boosted NuScale's stock, signaling strong market confidence in its role in nuclear's resurgence. What distinguishes NuScale from its competitors is its pragmatic approach. Its light-water reactor technology is more established and less experimental than Oklo's fast reactors, making it a safer candidate for near-term deployment. However, supply chain constraints and complex project coordination remain significant challenges that could delay progress. Still, with tech giants like Google and Amazon entering SMR agreements, NuScale's first-mover advantage positions it well to meet growing energy demands. Its factory-built, modular design aligns perfectly with data centers' requirements for scalable, reliable power. NuScale Power is currently covered by eight Wall Street analysts, who generally hold a bullish outlook. The stock carries a Moderate Buy consensus rating, reflecting five Buy ratings, two Holds, and one Sell over the past three months. However, SMR's average price target of $27.42 suggests approximately 12% downside potential over the next twelve months. The resurgence of the nuclear sector is no coincidence, as the soaring energy demands of AI are reshaping the industry landscape. Constellation Energy (CEG) brings scale, Oklo (OKLO) leads with innovation, and NuScale Power (SMR) holds a regulatory advantage. Each faces its own challenges—CEG's stock trades at a premium valuation, Oklo is still managing significant cash burn, and NuScale navigates operational risks. Nevertheless, the potential upside is substantial. With tech giants committing to multi-gigawatt agreements and nuclear capacity projected to quadruple by 2050, these companies are at the forefront of a transformative energy revolution and merit close attention. 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