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Walmart’s early Black Friday sale just kicked off, offering no shortage of worthy tech deals, and one home audio deal in particular has our attention.  If you’re looking to level up your home theater audio setup for less, the Vizio 4.1 Pro SV410YW-10 Soundbar and wireless surround speakers setup with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support is on sale for $79 (originally $148), a nearly 50% discount.

The two pre-paired wireless surround speakers can be positioned behind or beside your seating area, while two bass drivers built into the 32-inch soundbar mean you don’t need a separate subwoofer.  The system maxes out at 95 dB, with bass extending to 50 Hz. 

The SV410YW-1 connects to your television through HDMI eARC and supports CEC, so you can adjust the volume with your TV remote. While its integrated subwoofers won’t give you the same impressive low end as a dedicated unit, this system still delivers robust, bassy sound that goes far beyond built-in TV speakers. There’s an added perk for Vizio TV owners—it can be attached directly beneath the screen using the QuickFit feature.

Along with the deal are additional promos, like up to two free months of Apple Music and up to a free month of Apple TV. If your current TV sound setup is lacking some oomph and you want an under-$100 upgrade with a subwoofer and soundbar, the Vizio 4.1 Pro SV410YW-10 Soundbar and wireless surround speaker combo is a good choice for the money.

Reuters reports that former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an intimate relationship with a third woman (source paywalled; alternative source ), an unnamed Nvidia employee. The revelation follows reports of two other extramarital affairs: one with Nvidia VP Kimberly Powell and another with Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence reportedly suspects of being a Chinese spy. The latter relationship has also prompted a shareholder lawsuit alleging Nvidia misled investors about its ties to a company suspected of circumventing U.S. chip export restrictions. Jensen Huang has since resigned as Nvidia’s CEO and stepped down from its board on Thursday. CFO Colette Kress has been appointed interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent successor.

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The US government has expanded the use of an AI tool for advising air traffic controllers to assist in managing air traffic across the entire national airspace system. Airline executives have voiced support for the rollout, but the US labor union representing air traffic controllers has said it was not involved in designing or testing the AI-driven system.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the $875 million SMART system has helped reroute 180 flights since being implemented in airspace over Washington, DC, on September 21. The agency claims that this saved an average of 10 minutes per flight and almost 80 gallons of fuel per flight—and it is apparently hoping such results can be replicated nationwide through the expanded deployment.

“After a successful initial rollout to the National Capital Region in September, the FAA will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” according to the agency statement posted on November 10.

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Singapore says U.S. authorities provided limited assistance in its investigation of Megaspeed, the company run by Alice Huang, the Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence suspects is a Chinese spy and whose relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has drawn scrutiny. According to Singapore, authorities held Alice Huang’s passport from June 2025 until February while investigating “potential false declarations,” but ultimately released her with a “stern warning” and barred her from re-entering the country. The New York Times reports: The statement raises new questions about the response of the Trump administration to the case and why the U.S. government did not more forcefully intervene. According to the timeline in the statement, Singaporean authorities had been holding Ms. Huang’s passport well after President Trump was briefed last fall about her relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive and the belief that she was a Chinese intelligence asset. The New York Times has reported that Taiwan began monitoring Ms. Huang in 2024 at the guidance of the U.S. government.

In its statement, Singapore said that it had sought information from an American server maker and close Nvidia business partner, Supermicro, but that the company had provided “limited cooperation.” Supermicro, a firm that packages Nvidia’s A.I. chips onto servers that can be used in data centers, has been at the center of a number of chip smuggling investigations across the globe. Supermicro was a supplier to Megaspeed, a company incorporated in Singapore and run by Ms. Huang, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Singapore said in the statement its authorities raised Supermicro’s “limited cooperation” with the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2025 and “requested their assistance in securing the company’s cooperation.” “Despite these repeated requests, Singapore has to date received limited information or assistance in respect of the company,” the statement said.

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Microsoft is suffering a major Microsoft 365 outage that’s disrupting Outlook, Teams, Copilot and SharePoint for users across the Americas, with more than 129,000 problem reports logged on Downdetector shortly after the disruption began. Microsoft blames the connectivity problems on an unexpectedly large number of unavailable servers that overloaded the remaining infrastructure. The company says it’s redistributing traffic and restarting affected systems. From a report: Microsoft was not providing an estimated time by which it expects service to return. Both individual Outlook users and those on enterprise accounts experienced problems logging in to the service. The outage also affected other Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams, the Copilot 365 AI service and SharePoint Online. “Users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services,” the company said on its Service Health Status page.
UPDATE 11/12/26, 19:50 UTC: From Microsoft 365 Status: “We’re testing a configuration change to address a problem that’s causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable. In parallel, we’ve initiated a restart of all affected servers and are monitoring health as they return to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you.”
UPDATE 11/12/26, 20:19 UTC: From Microsoft 365 Status: “We’ve not identified any recent change correlated with the start of impact; however, our investigation indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that’s responsible for processing server health. We’ve taken steps to prevent additional servers from being impacted while we work to return the affected servers to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you.

UPDATE 11/12/26, 20:29 UTC: “According to https://downdetector.com/, much of the major services are down,” writes Slashdot reader xocmot2. “AWS, Microsoft, Meta, on and on. Clearly not a Microsoft thing.”

Developing…

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Drone and missile strikes have inflicted unprecedented damage on data centers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East this year, disrupting cloud services for millions of people and permanently deleting some Amazon Web Services customer data. This trend represents a new concern for Big Tech companies—but also for governments and everyone else who depends on common digital services in modern life.

To explore what this all means for modern society’s reliance on cloud resilience, I will be hosting a live conversation titled “Drone attacks and data centers: New Risks for Big Tech” on Tuesday, November 17 at 1 pm ET with Joseph Jarnecki, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defense and security think tank. He leads RUSI’s work on how cloud services factor into national security and defense, along with tech sovereignty efforts.

Jarnecki has done extensive research on how Ukraine strengthened its cloud resilience with Western partners despite facing both cyberattacks and kinetic attacks at the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, and explored what that means for NATO and European governments’ cloud adoption plans.

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Beats has a long history of making on-ear headphones that stand with the plushest and best-sounding cans on the market. As early Black Friday deals get underway, it’s a great time to upgrade: Walmart has discounted the Beats Solo 4 by more than 65%, to $69 (originally $199.99); the sale applies to the Gray and Sandstone variants.

These headphones don’t have ANC, just passive isolation, but they still deliver solid sound, comfort, and strong battery life. They use physical controls and support one-touch pairing with most Apple devices, as well as hands-free Siri.A The Solo 4 headphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.3 and work with the AAC and SBC codecs. They also support wired audio via 3.5mm or USB-C.

The headphones last around 50 hours per charge (about 10 hours longer than their predecessor), and 10 minutes of charging gives you around five hours of playback, with a full recharge taking approximately two hours. In its review, PCMag describes the sound as “sculpted with accentuated bass and highs.”

Although they lack ANC and adjustable EQ, these headphones still have plenty of extra features for Apple users, and those shortcomings are much easier to forgive at almost 66% off. For $69, the Beats Solo 4 headphones are a compact and well-equipped option for casual listening, with long battery life and that classic Beats aesthetic.

If you’re having trouble accessing certain services like Microsoft Teams or Outlook, you’re not alone. As of early Thursday afternoon, many of Microsoft’s biggest apps and services were experiencing downtime. According to Downdetector, which tracks user reports of issues with websites and platforms, Microsoft 365, Teams, Copilot, Teams, and OneDrive were all experiencing issues.

Looking specifically at Outlook, Microsoft’s email service currently has hundreds of thousands of user reports, signaling a major issue somewhere in Microsoft’s pipeline. It’s not clear, however, what’s causing the problems with Microsoft’s services. When I first published this article, I couldn’t even load Microsoft 365’s status page. Now, as of 2:17 p.m., the page loads. (I’ve reported on many service outages, but I can’t recall a time when a service’s status page was also down.)

The page now says “Service degradation on Microsoft 365 (Business or Enterprise),” and Microsoft says the following services may be affected: Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, Microsoft Defender XDR.

It’s possible the issue goes beyond Microsoft, too. Downdetector is showing user reports with Google services like Gmail, Amazon Web Services, and Cloudflare. While we could be looking at something more widespread, those reports pale in comparison to users complaining of Microsoft issues, so, for the time being, it seems more likely to be a Microsoft-specific issue. I’ll keep this article updated with the latest news.

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The iPhone Duo might be the highest profile foldable phone to date, but it’s by no means the first. Personally, I’ve had my eye on the Google variant, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold—and recently I finally took the plunge. I thought I’d done my research to know how different having a foldable phone would be, but I still had a bit to learn. Here are some of the things I wish I’ve learned along the way after making the jump to foldables.

The aspect ratio matters a lot

One of the most notable aspects of the iPhone Duo is how wide its screen is, even while closed. And there’s a good reason for that: The larger screen while open has exactly the same 1.41:1 aspect ratio as the smaller screen while closed. This has a ripple effect on how every app you use looks and feels—and whether you like Apple’s approach is largely a matter of personal preference.

Compare with my Pixel 11 Pro Fold, which features an extremely tall 2.17:1 aspect ratio when closed, but a nearly square 1:04:1 aspect ratio when open. On the outer screen, apps are a little less wide than on my old phone, but there’s plenty of space for reading books or articles on the inner screen.

I like the tall, thin display personally because it feels easier to reach buttons with my thumb, and the wider display is better for reading. However, this approach can occasionally result in some odd app layouts. Not every app is designed for tablets, especially on Android, and shifting the aspect ratio between the inner and outer display sometimes means re-rendering or even restarting an app entirely to load properly.

The iPhone Duo has a more consistent aspect ratio and general feel between the inner and outer display, but it comes at the cost of a really wide phone. Neither approach is better or worse on its own, but it might be worth going to a local store to get your hands on the phone you’re thinking about before buying.

The inside screen scratches more easily

For years, the screens on most smartphones have been made of increasingly tough and scratch-resistant glass. So tough that you might not even need a screen protector anymore. On a foldable phone, that can be true of the outside display, but it’s very much not when it comes to the inner, foldable display.

Screens might be foldable, but the strong, durable glass that makes your phone so scratch-resistant isn’t. No matter what foldable phone you use, the covering on the inner display will be more flexible, and thus softer. Apple uses a nano-texture polymer film that can be replaced, but the film on most foldable phones cannot. That means if they get damaged or scratched, those marks will be there for the life of your phone.

If you (like me) haven’t considered a screen protector in a while, it might be time to try one again, at least for the inner display. It’s also worth keeping in mind how rough you plan to be with your phone. Construction sites or factories might not be the best home for a foldable phone you plan to open a lot, but an office job should be a bit safer.

The case situation can be weird

Similar to the screen protector issue, cases can be more of a headache. Most rigid cases will come in two pieces, and the piece that covers the outer display can be shockingly minimal—barely more than a frame, for some of the cases I looked at. A poorly made case can be brittle or pop off more easily, so it’s more important to get a high-quality one.

If you like to use your phone case as your wallet, it’s also important to be wary of cases that aren’t specifically designed for your model of phone (and maybe some that are). A lot of wallet cases are built to unfold to reveal your phone’s screen on one side, and your cards and ID on the other. But depending on how your foldable phone unfolds, it could be awkward to reach the inner screen.

The hinge also introduces more spaces for dust and debris to get into your phone. Despite the extra moving parts and gaps, most foldable phones still offer the now-standard IP68 dust and water resistance rating. That mainly applies to what can get inside and damage the components inside your phone. It’s still possible for hair and dirt to get gummed up in any pinchable spaces, so look out for any case that might provide even more nooks for dust to collect in.

Give all your apps’ settings a second look

I’ve set up most of my apps how I like them by now, but when I first got my foldable phone, I had to revisit some settings I thought I was done messing with. One of the most notable examples was my ebook apps: I was previously using a single-column, medium-font layout, but it looked ridiculous on the inner display. After switching to a two-column layout, it not only felt more natural, but a lot like reading a regular book.

Similarly, there were some uses for my calendar app that got a whole lot more useful. I’ve never really been able to use anything other than either the one-day or Schedule view if I want to make out anything, but on the inner screen, I can finally look at my week at a glance. But that meant tweaking some things—like showing reminders, which fit naturally amid my events in Schedule view, but become a cluttered mess when I saw 14 different reminders to take my meds at once in the Week view.

Most apps do a decent job of automatically adjusting to different screen sizes, but I found a few outliers that I had to figure out myself. As an example, Google Docs would default to a view with extremely tiny text when I first started using it. It took me a bit to figure out that this was due to a “Print layout” toggle in the document’s settings. This is, for some reason, enabled by default when opening a document on the larger inner screen. It can take some time to learn the eccentricities of all your apps, but it’s worth poking around when you can.

Don’t forget about the outer screen

I know, it sounds so obvious, right? The outer screen is the one you’ll use most often, so how could you forget about it? But when you unfold the inner screen, the outer one is still useful in some surprising ways that I hadn’t even considered until I went poking around in some of my apps.

One of the most adorable examples is the Made You Look feature in the Pixel’s Camera app. When unfolded, you can take a picture using the rear camera and see a preview like normal, while the outer screen shows silly animations to capture the attention of a baby or toddler that you want to look into the camera. Admittedly, this is an older feature, but it’s a clever one. For adults, you can also use the outer display to get a selfie preview while using the rear-facing camera.

The outer screen is also just better for some things. YouTube is one of the few apps that has a unique layout designed for a partially folded screen, with the video playing on the tilted-up portion of the screen, and video controls on the bottom portion. 

However, in my experience, it was a lot nicer to watch a YouTube video by just propping up the outer screen by unfolding the phone a bit, like a kickstand. My Pixel even detected when YouTube was in full-screen mode on the outer display and would be more forgiving of unfolding the phone without switching to the inner screen. The phone anticipated I might just want to prop up the smaller screen, which I thought was a nice touch.

Google is launching its first Gemini-powered smart glasses, with Samsung supplying the computing hardware. Given their built-in 12-megapixel camera, Google is emphasizing privacy protections, including a tamper-resistant recording light, automatic face redaction, and restrictions on real-time facial recognition and livestreaming. The company also promises not to use captured photos or videos for AI training or targeted advertising. Ars Technica reports: Google says the frames all weigh about 41 grams, which is not terrible but is definitely near the top for glasses generally. They will, naturally, weigh much more when you account for lenses. That will also determine the final pricing. So far, we only have the starting prices for these devices, including non-prescription lenses.

The setup here is similar to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses we’ve seen for a few years. There are no screens in the lenses, but you can interact with the AI system via voice or by activating the integrated camera. The experience should be similar to using Gemini Live on your phone, but it will be a lot easier to fire up the AI. You can say “Hey Gemini” or tap a touch-sensitive area of the frame to start interacting with the robot.

Since this is the same chatbot that operates across the Google ecosystem, it has access to your data and preferences. You can ask questions and get personalized answers, have Google Maps guide you by voice, or just talk with the AI to kill time. The glasses use custom open-ear speakers to limit distractions for those around you. Google notes the directional microphones should not pick up speech from other people, either.

Adding the camera feed is where things get interesting. When the AI can see what you see, it has the potential to do more work on your behalf. Google suggests asking Gemini for recommendations when looking at a bookshelf or glancing at an event poster to have the AI add it to your calendar. The glasses will also support Gemini Guided Vision, which provides conversational audio descriptions for people who are visually impaired. The new frames are available for preorder today starting at $395.

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What started as De Verraders way back in 2021 has become a global reality phenomenon: Peacock in the U.S. hosts the American version with the sartorially supreme Alan Cumming, and also the earlier UK take as well as iterations from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand—but there are spin-offs in France, India, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, and more. Basically, throw a dart at a map and you’re likely to hit a country with its own take on The Traitors. And yet! The addictive nature of reality TV means that we can’t really ever get enough. In that spirit, here’s more backbiting reality TV, and a couple of dramas that offer up similarly duplicitous thrills.

The Mole (2001 – 2008, 2022 – 2024)

A reality show with a complex history as relates to The Traitors, the premise being so similar that it may well have served as an inspiration. Here, players participate in collaborative missions in order to build a prize fund. But it’s not all fun and games: There’s a secret double agent among the group (the mole, obviously) whose sole task is to undermine the ability of the rest of the group to earn money. Eliminations are done via quiz: The group is grilled on the information they’ve collected about the mole, and whoever knows the least gets the boot. Originally airing in the aughts, Netflix brought it back for a couple of seasons more recently, with the potential for more to come. Stream the most recent seasons of The Mole on Netflix.

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The Devil’s Plan (2023 – )

If there were a prize for dramatic title (and set design), you could do a lot worse than this one. In this South Korean reality show, 12 celebrity contestants are challenged to build a prize pot through strategy games. Sometimes they’re collaborative, sometimes entirely competitive, and sometimes a blend, but prizes come in the form of “Pieces” that can be won or lost (and that eventually combine to create their own final puzzle). Anyone who finds themselves without a single Piece is out. Pieces can be spent to buy advantages, and also traded, so the show turns on players forming alliances in order to build the prize pot and survive as long as possible. Stream The Devil’s Plan on Netflix.

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The Circle (2020 – )

Here, a bunch of strangers are holed up in an apartment building, cut off from the outside world—and each other. Players can only interact via a custom app, and, thus, can portray themselves however they want, whether that means being 100% genuine (unlikely!) or creating a whole new persona. Players judge the competition based on their interactions, determining the “Influencers” who will get to decide on the eliminations. The show ran for seven seasons on Netflix, and is moving to Hulu for the forthcoming eighth. Stream The Circle on Hulu.

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Million Dollar Secret (2025 – )

You show up at a fancy hotel, and someone hands you a suitcase containing one million dollars. It’s yours to keep—as long as you can keep it a secret. In this one, all the contestants get a suitcase, and only one contains the money. Much as with The Traitors, the goal is to figure out who’s keeping the secret, with challenges designed to help flush that person out. If the truth is discovered via a vote, that former millionaire is ousted and the money is concealed in another suitcase until the final contestants are given the opportunity to swap bags with someone who they think has the money. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Stream Million Dollar Secret on Netflix.

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House of Villains (2023 – )

I’m a little more into the normies on Traitors myself, but there’s no question that a big part of the appeal (for most seasons) is watching reality-show celebs go at it with cash on the line. So it is with House of Villains, a Big Brother-style competition with Joel McHale as ringmaster. The core premise is pretty simple: villains (Richard Hatch, Tom Sandoval, Jonny Fairplay, one-time Trump bestie Omarosa Newman, etc.) compete in challenges for rewards and for safety from the inevitable banishment. It’s all mostly an excuse to watch some of TV’s biggest personalities go for each other’s jugulars. Stream House of Villains on Peacock.

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The 8 Show (2024)

This is not a reality show, but rather a drama about a reality show that may well slake your thirst for treachery while offering up consequences a bit more dramatic than the bruised egos and hurt feelings of The Traitors. Here, eight strangers are selected to compete in a game in which they’re locked together in a building and sequestered on different floors each night. They earn money for each minute they last in the game, but all their provisions must be purchased with money they’ve won, at an extreme markup. At first, the contestants pool their resources so that everyone gets more money—until they learn that people on higher floors are getting more. Then things get nasty Stream The 8 Show on Netflix.

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The Trust: A Game of Greed (2024)

This one plays a bit like The Traitors in reverse: A $250,000 prize pot is, right off the bat, allocated to all 11 contestants who get to hang out in a luxurious villa. So the game isn’t about winning money so much as it is about how much you’ll keep and how much you’re willing to share. Eliminations offer the opportunity to remove those who the others don’t want to share with—though contestants don’t have to actually ever vote anyone out. They can just keep their portion of the money and hang out, something that obviously does not happen. Challenges along the way force contestants to reveal embarrassing and sometimes ugly truths about themselves that may well put them on the outs with the others. There’s only one season at present, though there’s potential for more. Stream The Trust on Netflix.

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Outlast (2023 – )

Blending the Big Brother-esque social aspects of Traitors with Survivor‘s love of the great outdoors, this one drops four teams of four into the Alaskan wilderness (moving to Panama for season three). The contestants are all, by inclination, loners, but the game has only one core rule: Only a team (of at least two) can win, so while the game has the typical reality show eliminations, these wilderness enthusiasts must work together in order to take the money. In the same way that The Traitors creates a tension between competition and cooperation via its communal prize pot, Outlast sees its contestants forced to maintain relationships whether they like it or not. Stream Outlast on Netflix.

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007: Road to a Million (2023 – )

The tasks on Traitors aren’t typically the most thrilling part of the show, which makes this James Bond-branded competition a solid match if you want more complicated and better developed challenges. In this one, nine teams of two visit exotic locations in each episode and compete in spy-themed activities with the ultimate goal of winning £1 million by making it to the end. It leaves out the bits where people sit around a castle strategizing, but it includes, like Traitors, a dapper Scotsman not afraid to camp it up—in this case, Brian Cox, serving as the spymaster who directs the teams in their missions. Stream 007: Road to a Million on Prime Video.

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Squid Game (2021 – 2025)

Squid Game: The Challenge would probably be a more reasonable choice for this list—given that it’s a proper reality show and not a blood-chilling thriller. But I’m sticking with the original drama here since, as perfectly entertaining as that spin-off is, it feels like it misses the point. In the original (surprise smash hit) drama, 454 needy contestants are recruited for a new reality competition in which they’re tasked to play rather simple children’s games—with deadly consequences that are cheered on by the wealthy financiers who are willing to pay good money to watch both the poors go at each other, as people turn on each other to survive and to win the rather shockingly large prize. A bit like The Traitors if all of Alan’s murder schtick were literally true. Stream Squid Game on Netflix.