💅 Walmart 'Mean Girls Reunion' hypes its early Black Friday deals, 📆 PS5 earbuds release date, 💻 New Apple Macs, 👀 CES 2024
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This week is an important one – so big that Walmart created a ‘Mean Girls Reunion’ with Lindsay Lohan in a time-bending promo 19 years after the movie. It’s a viral hit. Walmart’s Black Friday deals officially begin on Wednesday, November 8.
Good news: today, you can already save big on Apple AirTags 4-pack at $76.88 and other Walmart best-sellers. Likewise, Best Buy Black Friday deals began last week.
Bookending Walmart’s Wednesday deals, Apple’s new MacBook Pro and iMac launch tomorrow (Tuesday) and pre-orders for Sony’s PS5 earbuds and headset go live on Thursday. Ending the week, Call of Duty: MW3 launches on Friday.
Further out, The Shortcut team is gearing up for CES 2024 to preview all of the latest tech in Las Vegas in January. Stay tuned for much more from us in the coming weeks.
For now, the newsletter continues below ⤵️
📆 Your Calendar
🍎 Nov 7, Tues: Apple MacBook Pro & iMac release date
🌟 Nov 8, Wed: Walmart+ Black Friday deals begin
👂 Nov 9, Thurs: The PlayStation Earbuds pre-orders go live
🔫 Nov 10, Fri: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 release (pre-order at Walmart)
🎮 Nov 15, Wed: PlayStation Portal release date (pre-order at Walmart)
🐍 Nov 17, Fri: Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in theaters
🇫🇷 Nov 22, Wed: Napoleon releases in movie theaters
🦃 Nov 23, Thurs: Thanksgiving
💸 Nov 24, Fri: Black Friday begins!
🤖 Nov 27, Mon: Cyber Monday deals go live
1. See Walmart ‘Mean Girls Reunion’ with Lindsay Lohan hype its Black Friday deals
⭐️ 👍 Winner: That was so fetch
The best Walmart Black Friday deals are almost here, and if you pounce on that 50% off Walmart+ membership deal, you can get early access to the best offers before the best deals sell out.
To celebrate the start of the sales extravaganza, Walmart teamed up with the cast of the Mean Girls, which was released in 2004 – 19 years ago! Feel old yet? Yeah, us too.
📆 Walmart’s Black Friday deals begin on Wednesday, November 8
⏱️ Walmart+ members can get early access to the best deals
🏷️ Save 50% on an annual membership of Walmart+ today
👉 Don’t forget to check out…
📦 Our picks for the best Amazon Black Friday deals
🏷️ Ongoing early Best Buy Black Friday deals
2. PlayStation Earbuds finally have a release date, and it’s rather strange
🙄 👎 Loser: You’ll have to use a wired headset on PlayStation Portal for a few weeks
We’ve been waiting patiently for a PlayStation Earbuds release date, and now that we finally have it, we’re a bit… surprised.
Sony revealed its PS5 Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds will be released on December 6, which is almost a month after the PlayStation Portal comes out. With no Bluetooth support on the PS Portal, the PS5 Earbuds are one of the only ways you can enjoy wireless audio on Sony’s new handheld, it makes their release date strange, to say the least.
🔜 Pre-orders go live on Thursday, November 9, 2023
📆 PlayStation Earbuds will be released on December 6
😬 That’s 27 days after the PlayStation Portal release (these buds are the only way to get wireless audio from the handheld)
🎶 They’ll work with PS5, PlayStation Portal and Bluetooth devices
💰 PS5 Earbuds cost $199 and support lossless audio
🎧 The PS5 Pulse Elite headset launches later: February 31, 2024
3. Apple’s new Space Black MacBook Pro & M3 iMac release tomorrow
🍎 👍 Winner: The best MacBook just got faster
Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ launch event lived up to its promise: it introduced us to faster Macs that debut this week. Specifically, the MacBook Pro (available in Space Black) and a 24-inch iMac with Apple’s new M3 chip that’s speedy and more battery efficient. Strangely, despite Apple’s shift to USB-C, many of the iMac’s accessories like the Magic Mouse and keyboard will still use the old Lightning connector.
🍎 Refreshed MacBook Pro and iMac launch this week: November 7
💨 Faster & battery-efficient MacBook Pro 14-inch & 16-inch with Apple’s M3 chip
😲 The M3 chip is an improvement over the M2 models
🖥️ The company has also refreshed its 24-inch iMac line
🙃 Some Mac accessories are stuck using the old Lightning connector
4. Resident Evil Village is now on iPhone, but is this the future of gaming?
🧟 👍 Winner: iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max flex their console gaming muscles
Apple’s gaming push has officially begun now that Capcom’s excellent Resident Evil Village is now available on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. You can try the game out for free and experience what could be the future of gaming for yourself. Being able to play one of the best PS5 games on your phone is pretty compelling, so give it a try.
🙌 Resident Evil Village is now available on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
💰 It costs $60, the same price as the PS5 version (which is often discounted)
📺 You can hook up your iPhone 15 Pro to a TV and use a controller
🆓 You also can try the game for free before you buy
5. Lenovo Legion Go has launched – and we just got one
🎮 👍 Winner: Another PC gaming handheld is here to rival the Steam Deck
Lenovo’s so-far impressive Legion Go handheld is here, and we’ve got our hands on the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally rival. The Legion Go has a few clever tricks up its sleeve, like the detachable controllers, being able to use one as a mouse, and the option to pick up some AR gaming glasses separately.
🤴 The Lenovo Legion Go has now arrived
💪 It starts at $699 and is powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor
😍 The 8.8-inch QHD+ IPS screen is a highlight
👏 As is the 144Hz refresh rate screen and detachable controllers
6. CES 2024: here’s what to expect at the biggest tech event of the year
🎰 👍 Winner: Get ready to see the future of tech
It wouldn’t be a new year without the biggest technology show of the year to kick things off. CES 2024 takes place between January 9 and January 12, and we’ll be in attendance once again. We’re expecting to see new TVs, processors and GPUs, cars, and some quirky out-of-the-box inventions.
📆 CES 2024 kicks off on January 9, 2024
🥳 It’s a great time to see what companies are working on
🤔 Many products are unveiled during CES, but not everything makes it to production
🔜 We’ll be bringing you all the biggest announcements from next year’s show
7. Mint is shutting down, and it’s pushing users toward Credit Karma
💸 👎 Loser: The budget tracking app will soon be no more
Mint will cease to exist in the New Year, as the budgeting app is shutting down. Intuit, which owns Mint, announced the app will get absorbed into the company’s other service, Credit Karma. It remains to be seen whether Credit Karma will adopt many of Mint’s features, as it doesn’t support the same budgeting tools currently.
🥺 The Mint app is shutting down on January 1, 2024
✋ Users will be pushed towards Credit Karma instead
🤷♂️ Credit Karma doesn’t offer the same features as the Mint app, however
📈 Mint had 3.6 million monthly active users as of 2021
8. Disney buys the rest of Hulu from Comcast
🤔 🏰 Loser: The house of Mickey Mouse is splashing the cash once again
Disney is set to buy the remaining stake of Hulu for around $8.6bn, giving it full control of the streaming service. The company announced the deal on Wednesday, November 1, and it will close at the end of this month. Disney said: “The acquisition of Comcast’s stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney’s streaming objectives.”
It remains to be seen whether Hulu will be merged into Disney+, but Hulu currently has around 48.3 million subscribers while Disney+ has 146.1 million global subscribers.
9. FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried is guilty
🧑⚖️ 👎 What a loser: He could face more than 100 years in prison
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, has been found guilty of defrauding customers out of billions of dollars. He was arrested last December and extradited to the US, and could now be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and five of conspiracy, and admitted he made “mistakes” in running FTX but denied any wrongdoing.
😯 FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is facing life in prison
📉 FTX was the second-largest crypto exchange on the market before it went bankrupt
🤑 FTX was once valued at $32bn
😡 Bankman-Fried was accused of defrauding customers out of more than $10bn
10. The Beatles’ final song is now streaming thanks to AI
🎶 👍 Winner: Fans can enjoy an unexpected new release
No one could have predicted we’d get to listen to a new Beatles song in 2023, but thanks to the power of AI and The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, that’s exactly what we’ve got. Called “Now and Then”, the song features an old recording from John Lennon, which has now been turned into a new track. Previously, it was impossible to separate Lennon’s vocals from the piano, but that’s no longer the case.
🆕 The Beatles’ new song is called “Now and Then”
🥲 It’s probably the last Beatles song that will ever be made
😲 Advances in technology have finally made the song possible
🎹 It uses old recordings by John Lennon which never released
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Hey Matt! Let's not forget the highly anticipated (and long awaited remake of) Super Mario RPG on November 17th for the calendar! :D Lots of folks excited about that one (including me haha)!!!