Accessories

Microsoft launches the Surface Earbuds, its official AirPods competitor

Features Microsoft Office integration

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Microsoft has launched its official Apple AirPods competitors and it’s… uh, something. Announced along with a flurry of new products, the Surface Earbuds is Microsoft’s alternative to the controversial wireless earphones industry.

Most notably, the Surface Earbuds have a peculiar design. Unlike the AirPods’ dangling form factor, the Earbuds are perfectly circular and pearly white. The design stands out a lot more than the AirPods. According to Microsoft, the design — albeit loud — offers “all-day comfort.” Apparently, the buds touch your ears in only two places, whatever that means. Regardless, the Earbud’s design will be a point of contention for both AirPod fans and detractors.

As expected, the Earbuds come with a microphone and app integration. The large touch surface allows functionality with every press and swipe, allowing users to control playback through touch.

It can access Spotify with just the touch surface, rather than going through a screen. Besides music playback, they also integrate with the Microsoft Office suite of apps. It can take dictation from your voice. It can also control PowerPoint slides with its touch surface.

On their own, the Earbuds can last up to 8 hours of playtime. Like the AirPods, they come with a charging case with two full charges. Together, the Earbuds and charging case can last a full day.

The Microsoft Surface Earbuds will launch later this year at an undisclosed date. They will retail for US$ 249.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft launches a new generation of Surface devices

Accessories

CASETiFY revives Spider-Man collection for Brand New Day

Spider-Man returns to CASETiFY

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CASETiFY Spider-Man

CASETiFY has unveiled a new Marvel collaboration inspired by Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The collection marks the brand’s first Spider-Man release since 2023. It also arrives alongside Sony Pictures’ upcoming film, which opens later this month.

The lineup includes phone and tablet cases, MagSafe accessories, earbuds cases, watchbands, laptop sleeves, and wireless chargers. It is headlined by two premium phone cases. The Aluminium Spider-Man Mask Case costs US$84, while the 2.5D Silicone Case sells for US$78. Both are available for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Fans can also choose from five printed phone case designs: Spider-Man New Mask, Spider-Man Poster, Spider-Man Medley, Spider-Man Medley (Dark Version), and Spider-Man New Suit. CASETiFY also lets buyers personalize select phone cases and MagSafe wallets through its Custom Sticker feature.

More Spider-Man accessories

The collection goes beyond phone cases. It also includes MagSafe Grip Stands, Cardholder Stands, Wallets, a 2-in-1 Charging Stand, Earbuds Cases, Watchbands, Camera Lens Protectors, Laptop Cases and Sleeves, Tablet Cases, and Wireless Chargers. Prices start at US$24 for the Camera Lens Protector and go up to US$92 for the 2-in-1 Charging Stand.

The Marvel Spider-Man: Brand New Day x CASETiFY collection is now available through CASETiFY’s website, the Co-Lab app, and CASETiFY STUDiO stores worldwide.

 

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Going ‘back to school’ as an adult with the HP Smart Tank 580

Cost-efficient, high-performance printer for tangible memories

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Make memories, keep them

I’ll be completely honest: I can’t recall the last time I held art materials for a creative workshop. Living in a digital world today, it’s been quite a while for sure.

I do write greeting cards for my partner every month — a habit I’ve had from way back and a way of keeping the old school tradition alive at the same time.

So HP inviting us for a hands-on workshop proved to be a welcome “throwback” as it brought us “back to school” for an afternoon arts-and-crafts session.

The HP INKredible Learning Day collaborated with visual artist and storyteller Geloy Concepcion, a photographer known for expressing thoughts through the creative use of images and other elements.

HP Smart Tank 580

At the heart of the event is the HP Smart Tank 580 printer, which helped reproduce high-quality HP Printables made exclusively available for the participants during the day.

Think of these as activity sheets, as if I really went back to school for art class. Coincidentally, I was part of my elementary school’s art club about two decades ago. DIY-ing stuff for journals, diaries, or just for displaying on a desk has been my thing.

Funny enough, we were handed out these plastic envelopes with sheets of paper, crayons, and more materials. It’s like completely going back to the first day of school and making sure all your stuff is complete.

Anyway, the four sheets each had a theme: To-Do List, My Family, How Are You Feeling, and Concepcion’s “Bad Days Are Temporary” artwork.

The cost-efficient, high-performance printer quickly prints the sheets, and users are assured of high-quality detail. That’s as the Smart Tank 580 is designed for such purposes and even small businesses that require high-volume printing.

I personally think they’re a great fit for schools for reproducing quizzes or short activities especially for the lower levels.

With crayons and colored markers, participants all had their take on the sheets, adding life and their own personal identities on each.

Make memories, keep them

With the right devices at home, you can definitely turn digital memories and even just everyday creative ideas into tangible forms.

Especially in this era, it’s easy to overlook photos that we have on our phones. Ironically, our handsets’ storage spaces fill up fast, but after a few years or so, we usually either lose such media.

So what Concepcion is also trying to get across is if there is the opportunity to turn these moments into tangible print-outs we can always look back at, then that would be better. It’s how the world has been anyway since the invention of the camera.

We all brought home the sheets, some art materials, and even a personalized postcard only available for those in attendance.

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Samsung announces new 990 SSD with up to 2TB capacity

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Samsung has announced the availability of its new 990 SSD with powerful performance and improved power efficiency.

The 990 SD is available in the 1TB and 2TB capacities. It is designed as a balanced storage solution optimized for gaming, creative workloads, and daily PC use.

Samsung’s new SSD model has up to 38% improved performance compared to the previous 990 PRO model.

It has a sequential read/write speed of up to 7,250/6,450 MB/s for the 2TB model. Meanwhile, the 1TB variant has a 7,150/6,450 MB/s read/write speed.

This way, users can achieve high performance but with low power consumption, as well as customized performance optimization.

For random performance, the 2TB model delivers up to 850K read and 1,200K write IOPS, while the 1TB model reaches read and write speeds of up to 700K and 1,100K IOPS, respectively.

The expanded storage capacity also allows users to store large amounts of high-quality content, or the latest AAA games.

Particularly, the 2TB model can store up to 30 large-scale games based on an average size of 64GB, making it an ideal solution for both gamers and creators.

The latest storage solution will be available for US$ 529.99 and US$ 269.99 respectively for the two capacities.

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