LG’s latest Gram ultraportables feature 12th-gen Intel CPUs and screen privacy tech

As with many other PC manufacturers, LG is gradually updating its laptop lineup with the latest processors from Intel and AMD. On Monday, the same day Apple announced its new M2 MacBook Air, the company refreshed its ultraportable Gram lineup with Inte…

Amazon knocks $80 off Anova’s Precision Cooker sous vide machine

Father’s Day is right around the corner, so you might be sniffing around for the perfect gift for dear ol’ dad. If he likes fiddling around the kitchen, then consider giving him a sous vide machine, which helps ensure the perfect medium-rare steak or chicken breasts that are never dry or overcooked. Sous vide machines can be pretty pricey, but thankfully the Anova Precision Cooker is on sale right now; it has dropped to a new price of $139 from its original $220.

Buy Anova Precision Cooker Nano at Amazon – $139

Cooking via sous vide really just means cooking foods in a water bath. You’d typically place food inside a sealed bag and submerge it in a water-filled vessel. A sous vide machine attached to it essentially regulates the temperature of the water so that the food is cooked low and slow to the desired doneness.

Anova’s Precision Cooker lets you do that easily right out of the box thanks to its on-board controls. It also has WiFi so you can connect it to Anova’s companion app, which comes with a plethora of recipes and a handy tutorial in case you need some guidance.

The Precision Cooker is usually pricier than the Nano, which is what we normally recommend, but it does have a few advantages. It has an adjustable clamp compared to a fixed-position model, and it can fit on thicker vessels (up to 1.2 inches). Plus, it has 1,000 watts instead of the Nano’s 750 watts, which means it can heat the water faster as well. Since this deal drops the price of the Precision Cooker down to nearly the same price as the Nano, we think it’s absolutely worth the upgrade.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

‘The Sandman’ Netflix series will arrive on August 5th

Netflix dropped a trailer for its upcoming series The Sandman, which is set to debut on August 5th. The highly anticipated show is based on the popular graphic novels by Neil Gaiman from the nineties, and features the likes of Tom Sturridge, Gwendolyn Christie, Stephen Fry and Patton Oswalt. Netflix also announced today that Mark Hamill will be voicing the kingdom’s resident handyman Merv Pumpkinhead.

The new trailer is less than two minutes long, but gives us a good glimpse at how the show will recreate the mystical realms in which the story is set. The Sandman follows the King of Dreams, also known as Morpheus (played by Sturridge) after he escapes captivity and returns to his now suffering kingdom, the Dreaming. But a number of people aren’t happy about that, including the occult detective Johanna Constantine (played by Jenna Coleman) and The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), a former inhabitant of the Dreaming who went rogue.

The decision to adapt Gaiman’s best-selling graphic novel series may seem like a no-brainer for studio execs, but it took a lot of effort to actually make happen. A planned film adaptation by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Batman Begins screenwriter David Goyer fell apart after disagreements with the studio. Admittedly, the show’s source material is a tricky one to adapt and spans multiple timelines. Gaiman has previously stated, “I’d rather see no Sandman movie made than a bad Sandman movie.” Hopefully, the Netflix treatment will do the story justice.

Texas AG investigates Twitter over bot counts

Texas’s Attorney General, Ken Paxton, has launched an investigation of Twitter over concerns of “potentially false” reports related to the number of bots and other fake accounts on the social network. In a press release Monday, Paxton claims inauthentic accounts may be helping to “inflate the value” of Twitter — thus he intends to pursue the investigation under the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects against misleading advertisers, businesses and everyday users. 

Paxton’s office is pursuing the case just as Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seemingly attempting to scuttle his own bid to purchase Twitter. Musk has, for several weeks, been suggesting the platform’s bot numbers may be far greater than its current leadership are reporting. It’s interesting timing for Musk and Paxton’s interests to align: Tesla just opened a Gigafactory in Texas, and is moving its headquarters to the region. That’s a lot of potential business, and it comes as the state has offered tax breaks to companies building local facilities. For whatever it’s worth, Paxton has previously been accused of abuse of office over allegations of bribery, but was eventually cleared by his own office.

Twitter has been ordered to provide unredacted documents detailing the company’s active user counts since 2017, the volume of “inauthentic” accounts over that period and the methods used to calculate the ratio of fake accounts. It also has to outline its advertising model, including the revenue it generates in Texas.

It’s also notable that Musk’s hopes of boosting free speech on Twitter sync with Republic aims to reverse alleged censorship of conservative viewpoints on the site. Twitter has long rejected claims of ideological bias, and sued Paxton over claims of political retaliation that infringed its First Amendment rights. 

We’ve asked Twitter for comment. The company has previously maintained that fake accounts represent less than five percent of users, but Paxton echoed Musk’s currently unsupported concerns that fakes might represent 20 percent or more of all Twitter accounts.

The Attorney General has sued multiple tech companies over their practices, including Google (for its ad business) and Meta (over facial recognition). It’s not clear yet if Paxton intends to pursue a lawsuit against Twitter as well.

iOS 16 allows Face ID on iPhones to work in landscape orientation

With a revamped lock screen, redesigned notifications and an enhanced Focus mode, iOS 16 promises to bring a lot of useful new features to Apple’s iPhone later this year. But as is always the case with keynotes like WWDC, there’s not enough time to cover every enhancement. And one such feature Apple didn’t mention is that iOS will allow you to use Face ID even when your iPhone is oriented horizontally.  

The quality of life improvement was spotted by Vox Media product manager Parker Ortolani on Apple’s iOS 16 preview webpage. As The Verge points out, Apple has allowed iPad owners to use Face ID in this way for a while now, so it’s not exactly a new feature. Still, it’s one of those changes iPhone users, particularly those who use devices like the Razer Kishi and Backbone One, will appreciate. On its preview page, Apple says the feature will work with supported models without specifying the exact ones included in that list. We’ve reached out to the company for more information.      

Follow all of the news from WWDC right here!