In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the global supply chain and US coastal infrastructure collided in the worst possible way. An enormous container ship, the Dali, slammed into a support of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, crumpling its central span into the Patapsco River and cutting off the city’s port from the Atlantic Ocean. Eighteen hours later, at approximately 7:30 pm Tuesday evening, rescuers called off a search, with six missing people presumed dead.
With the wreckage yet to be cleared, the Port of Baltimore—a critical shipping hub—has suspended all water traffic, according to the Maryland Port Administration, though trucks are still moving goods in and out of the area. Baltimore is the ninth busiest port in the US for international trade, meaning the effects of the crash will ripple across the regional, US, and even global economy for however long the 47-year-old bridge takes to fix—a timeline, experts say, that’s still unclear.
This will be a special pain for the auto, farm equipment, and construction industries, because on the US East Coast, Baltimore handles the most “roll on, roll off” ships—an industry term for those designed to handle wheeled cargo. The port has the special equipment to move these products, workers trained in how to use it, and, critically, a location within an overnight driving distance of the densely populated Eastern Seaboard and heavily farmed Midwest.
Almost 850,000 cars and light trucks came through the port last year. So did 1.3 million tons of farm and construction machinery.
Fortunately for the logistics industry, there are some alternative routes both for ships coming into port and trucks crossing the river. Two tunnels traverse the Patapsco and could take some of the goods and people that once traveled across the Key Bridge, which was also part of Maryland Route 695. Nearby ports, including Norfolk in Virginia, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, and Savannah in Georgia, should be able to accept many of the goods usually handled by Baltimore’s port.
But the shipping picture will get more complicated the longer the disaster takes to resolve. Ships haul big, heavy goods in large quantities across oceans, albeit relatively slowly—meaning changes to their routes and destinations can add a lot of time to a journey. If a ship is hauling a bunch of different cargoes for a bunch of different industries, a holdup along the way causes a lot of people to be screaming for their supplies.
“Everybody right now is saying, ‘We’re just going to reroute, it’s going to be fine,’” says Nada Sanders, an expert in supply chain management at Northeastern University. “If this lasts a while, it’s not going to be fine. It’s going to impact prices.”
Bigger Ships, Same Bridge
The destruction of the bridge also underlines that boats are getting bigger. Trade transport volume across the seas has tripled in the past three decades. At nearly 1,000 feet long, the Dali is emblematic of the ballooning shipping industry.
The growth of boats is down to simple economics: The more goods you can cram onto a ship, the more you save on costs. “The amount of cargo has increased tremendously,” says Zal Phiroz, a supply chain analyst at UC San Diego. “This has been impacted to a great degree by Covid, and after Covid as well. The prices of cargo skyrocketed, the prices of containers skyrocketed. Everything just went through the roof.”
Bloom, a non-player character with a face like a potato and a black beanie pulled tight around his ears, wants to know about my strategy and how I fare in combat. “I follow a map and I punch hard,” I reply into the microphone. Text of our conversation flashes across the bottom of my screen. The NPC thinks I’m bragging. He continues to drone on about our place in the resistance and how we need to fight back, his AI-driven voice tinny enough to sound mechanical but not grating.
What Bloom doesn’t tell me, at least not directly, is that he’s a “neo NPC”—a generative AI creation from French video game publisher Ubisoft designed to enable players to hold conversations with characters. Bloom is still very much in his R&D era, but his creation represents one of the many ways that game companies are looking to integrate machine learning into their offerings.
At last week’s Game Developers Conference, where I got my chance to socialize with Bloom, the industry’s AI boom was in full swing. In addition to Ubisoft’s demo, there were panels on everything from bot basketball players to the “transformative applications” of gen AI. But there were also talks from the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union (SAG-AFTRA) about deepfakes and the impacts that AI could have on the careers of gamemakers. Prior to the event, a poll conducted by GDC organizers found that 49 percent of surveyed devs are using generative AI at their companies; four in five developers surveyed, however, said they’re concerned about the ethics of doing so.
Amid these talks, the notion of using AI for NPCs came to the fore. In addition to Ubisoft’s demo, Nvidia—the company behind many of the GPUs powering much of the AI revolution—brandished a suite of tools that enable “developers to build digital humans capable of AI-powered natural language interactions.” The company showed off those tools by releasing a clip of Covert Protocol, a tech demo it made with AI character company Inworld.
Ubisoft demonstrated its neo NPCs, which also use Nvidia tech, in three ways. First, I talked to Bloom to achieve a few game-given goals: Get closer to Bloom, find out about the megacorps ruling the world, learn about the resistance, and so on. Bloom is effortless to fire questions off to, and he’s generally good natured. He’s been designed to be easy to handle, Ubisoft senior data scientist Mélanie López Malet tells me, though there are other NPCs they’ve created that are more standoffish, if not downright aggressive. The team decided to add goals to his interactions, she explains, because in the company’s early testing they found players can get a little … shy.
“There are people that have a bit of social anxiety,” Malet says. They don’t want to bother NPCs who seem busy, or they’re taken aback by characters that appear angry. They don’t always know what to say. “[Players] were like, ‘It’s like I’m at party where I know nobody, oh my God,’” Malet says. But she sees this as a good thing: It means the NPCs are inspiring people to use their social instincts. Players are also far more likely to open up and get personal when it’s a text conversation. “There are some things you don’t say out loud, you know?” Malet says.
Last week, the Biden administration made it official: American cars are really going electric.
The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule, long in the works, that will require automakers selling in the United States to dramatically boost the number of battery-powered vehicles sold this decade, putting a serious dent in the country’s carbon emissions in the process. By 2032, more than half of new cars sold must be electric.
Automakers will have more leeway in choosing how to reach the government’s new tailpipe emissions goals, thanks to changes made between when the rules were first introduced in draft form nearly a year ago and now. One big, important shift: Plug-in hybrids are part of the picture.
In the draft of the rule, auto companies could only meet the gradually ratcheting zero-emissions goals by selling more battery-electric cars. But after lobbying from automakers and unions, which both argued that the EPA’s proposals were unrealistic, manufacturers will now be allowed to use plug-in hybrids to meet the standards.
This means that now carmakers can satisfy federal rules by ensuring that two-thirds of their 2032 sales are battery electric—or that battery-electric vehicles are just over half of their sales, and plug-in hybrids account for 13 percent.
Expect automakers to take advantage of these types of hybrid vehicles—which are powered primarily by electric batteries but supplemented by a gas-powered engine once the batteries deplete—as they race to meet the nation’s most ambitious climate goals yet.
There will be a lot of these things on the road. But the technology has a climate hitch: It’s only as emission-free as its drivers choose to be.
Gateway EV Drug
In recent months, executives for manufacturers including Audi, BMW, the Chinese EV-maker BYD, General Motors, Mercedes, and Volvo have suggested that the “compromise” cars could be a springboard that launches more cars and customers into the electric transition. And the policy shift could be vindication for Toyota, which has bet that customers will flock to gas-electric hybrids and plug-in hybrids rather than following Tesla down a fully electric path.
Globally, sales of plug-in hybrids are growing faster than battery-electrics (though this is partly because the hybrids have further to climb). Sales of plug-in hybrids jumped by 43 percent between 2022 and 2023, to almost 4.2 million, according to figures provided by BloombergNEF, a market research firm. Sales of battery-electric vehicles increased by 28 percent in the same period, to nearly 9.6 million.
The tech has some powerful upsides. The average US driver only puts in about 30 miles of driving each day, meaning most could get by most days using only a plug-in hybrid’s electric battery, and only using gas on longer trips.
Plug-in hybrids also make some automakers less nervous, manufacturing-wise: They’re more expensive to build than pure battery electrics (the whole two-motor thing), but the tech can sometimes be retrofitted into existing, gas-powered cars. This means less work, short-term, an exciting prospect for an industry that has to rejigger both how it builds its cars and how it sources the materials that will make their batteries go in the next few decades, as they move towards electrics.
We really like physical photos around these parts. Our guide to the Best Instant Cameras has a collection of modern gadgets that print out pictures that you can stick on your fridge or pin on your walls. But what about the ones that started it all? Polaroid cameras have been fumbling around attics, garages, and storage closets for decades. And if you found one or just bought a cheap used one, there’s good news: You just need some film.
The better news is that, despite huge difficulty in the past, it’s now easier than ever to get film for your old Polaroid cameras. However, despite it being easy to find cheap film on Amazon, there’s a bit more nuance to choosing film than randomly picking whatever shows up first. If you’re not sure what kind of film your camera uses, read on.
A Brief History Lesson
Finding film for older Polaroid cameras can be simple and tricky at the same time. Today, if you come across a vintage camera manufactured by Polaroid—which went bankrupt and shut down in 2001—you can still buy film for that camera from a newer, mostly unrelated company: Polaroid.
Confused yet? Stick with me and it’ll make sense.
When the Polaroid Corporation went out of business, its assets, including the production line for its film and cameras, were sold off or licensed to various investors over the next several years. Film was still produced using the Polaroid brand, until the companies that owned Polaroid’s assets decided to abandon the instant camera business entirely in 2008. Not coincidentally this happened less than a year after the original iPhone came out.
That same year, a company called the Impossible Project was founded to take up the mantle Polaroid was leaving behind. The company bought some of Polaroid’s old equipment and developed new instant film modules that could be used in existing Polaroid cameras. Throughout the following decade, Impossible often worked with whatever company currently owned Polaroid’s assets to manufacture cameras, film modules, and other accessories.
That is, until 2017, when the Impossible Project’s largest shareholder bought the entirety of Polaroid’s assets and intellectual property. Like reforging a sword that had been broken, Polaroid had become whole once again, and in 2020, Impossible rebranded itself as Polaroid.
Which brings us to the situation we have today: Polaroid once again makes Polaroid cameras and film for Polaroid cameras. If you search Amazon for “polaroid film,” you’ll find film made by Polaroid for Polaroid cameras. Convenient, right? However, there are still a few details about the various types of film you need to know.
What Type of Film Do I Need?
Polaroid cameras use a few different types of film, and they’re not generally interchangeable. The first step is to look up what model of camera you have. For example, I have a Polaroid Spirit 600 which takes (surprise) 600 film. Below we’ll go over each type of film, and the special considerations you should keep in mind for each.
If you have a picture in your mind of what “a Polaroid” looks like, this is probably what you’re thinking of. Early Polaroid cameras had low sensitivity to light, and thus were only really good for outdoor photography—unless you had a really bright flash. Polaroid 600 film was created to be more sensitive than previous film types, so you could take photos indoors or in low light and still get a usable photo.
These modules also had a small battery in them to power the camera, which didn’t have power on its own. This means, among other things, that any film manufactured by the original Polaroid Corporation prior to 2008 is probably dead by now. If you hunt for vintage film on sites like eBay, there’s a good chance that the film cartridge won’t work in your older camera. Fortunately, the new Polaroid makes 600 film manufactured this decade that will work just fine.
The Polaroid 600 cameras were popular in the ’90s, but if you have a Polaroid camera from the ’70s or ’80s, it’s more likely to use Polaroid SX-70 film. These have a square shape similar to the 600 film, but they’re much less sensitive to light. Most cameras that use this type of film will struggle to take a good picture indoors unless you have a flash—which many models didn’t come with.
When Impossible Project started making its own cameras in 2016, it made a small change to the film cartridges traditional Polaroid cameras use. Rather than putting a tiny battery in each and every film cartridge, the cameras would provide power themselves. This not only made it possible for film cartridges to last longer, it was better for the environment overall. This new format is the I-Type film.
A comparable pack of I-Type film is sometimes slightly cheaper than more traditional 600 film. However, you’ll need one of Polaroid’s new I-Type cameras to use it. These newer cameras can accept both 600 film and I-Type film, but you’ll usually be better off with the I-Type film, since it doesn’t require a built-in battery like the 600 film does.
By the time you read this story, my pumping journey will be over. I spent over a year nursing and pumping breast milk for my child, and that time of my life was dictated by either the demands of my hungry infant or my proximity to an electric breast pump. It made me wonder—what makes a good breast pump? Are wearables worth it? Why are some pumps $500?!
After trying nearly a dozen popular pumps, these are the best breast pumps I tested. If you’re not sure what type of pump you want, or what you should keep in mind when buying one, check out our guide to shopping for a breast pump. And don’t miss our guides to baby carriers, baby monitors, and strollers.
Updated March 2024: We added the Haakaa as our manual breast pump recommendation, and details about Willow’s new pump, the Willow 360. We’ve also added new sections on how we test pumps and whether you need a breast pump.
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Retailers love make-believe shopping holidays, and the latest is the Amazon Big Spring Sale. Running now through March 25, Amazon is promising the usual: oodles of deals on everything your heart could ever want, with some exclusive deals for Amazon Prime members. We at WIRED are expert deal sleuths, and we’re hunting through the chaos to find deals on WIRED-tested gadgets that we like—you won’t find any fake discounts here. We’ve rounded up the best deals below, and we’ll continue to update this story with more.
Updated March 22, 2024: We’ve adjusted pricing where necessary and added new deals on Backbone mobile gaming controllers, our favorite Dyson vacuum, and a great indoor security camera.
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Amazon Device Deals
Our favorite Amazon Fire Tablet drops to this price pretty regularly, but it’s rare to see it dip down any lower. It has a faster processor than previous versions did, plus a larger display that has been upgraded to 1080p. You can also upgrade the storage capacity with a microSD card. Note that you’ll need to spend $110 to get the version without lockscreen advertisements, but that’s still a $45 savings. Our Best Amazon Fire Tablets guide has additional recommendations.
This is the best kids’ tablet. It comes with a rugged case, plus a two-year worry-free guarantee. If your kiddo runs the tablet over on their baby four-wheeler or spills an entire gallon of juice on the device, you’ll be covered. It also includes a free year of Amazon Kids+, which provides access to age-appropriate games, books, shows, and more, all with parental controls. Other versions of Amazon’s Kid Edition Fire Tablets are also on sale; You can read more about their differences in our Kids Tablets buying guide.
This is the best streaming device for folks embedded in Amazon’s ecosystem. It obviously favors Amazon’s own content, whether that’s Prime Video or Freevee. You can still stream from the usual services, like Netflix or Hulu, but the software really wants viewers to consume Amazon content. If you don’t mind, this is a fine streaming device, with Alexa built in and a fun “Ambient Experience” mode that can display art and photos on your TV when you’re not watching something.
The Echo Dot with Clock makes a really good alarm clock. We say as much in our Amazon Speakers buying guide. Aside from the built-in clock display, this speaker is pretty close to other Echo Dot models. It’s the right size to play your favorite playlists when falling asleep or getting ready, but it’s not going to give you room-filling sound—which is why it’s perfect for a nightstand. It has been cheaper during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, but $10 off is still alright if you don’t want to wait. If you don’t care about the built-in clock, you can get the fifth-gen Echo Dot for $35 ($15 off).
Smartphone, Tablet, and Laptop Deals
We’ve seen this deal many times, but it’s still the best price we’ve seen for our favorite Android phone. The Pixel 7A (8/10, WIRED Recommends) has just about every feature you could ever want in a phone, and the value offered for the price is incredible. We have some complaints about the battery life, and you should note that it doesn’t have a headphone jack or a microSD card slot. But for the money, it’s difficult to find a better device that checks off nearly all of the boxes.
This is the best deal we’ve seen so far for the Google Pixel 8 (7/10, WIRED Review). The Pixel 8 is the latest flagship from Google, and it maintains the excellent camera system Pixels are known for. The Pixel 8 Pro is also on sale at $749 ($250 off), and it has some additional perks, such as the 5X optical zoom camera. You can read more about these phones in our Pixel Buying Guide.
The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of our favorite budget phones. It goes on sale relatively frequently, but if you’re in the market, this is a safe buy. It has a bright display with a 120-Hz screen refresh rate, solid performance, decent battery life, and upgradeable storage. The cameras are OK too.
This deal has been around for a bit, but the price is still a match of the best we’ve tracked. The flagship Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup (8/10, WIRED Recommends) was released in January. This phone has great performance, great battery life, and a stunning 6.7-inch display. There are fun, smart software features, and the phones are available in neat colors. This is the middle sibling in the lineup. Aside from the larger screen, it has a better battery, beefier RAM, and a larger base storage capacity. Protect your new purchase with one of these reviewer-approved Galaxy S24 Cases and Accessories.
The Google Pixel Tablet (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite tablet and smart display combo. With the included charging speaker dock, this tablet can convert into a great smart display quickly and easily. It can display photos or a clock, and you can use it to control compatible smart home devices via the screen or with your voice and Google Assistant. The 11-inch LCD is sharp, and the tablet has multiuser support, so the whole family can use it. Today’s price matches the best we have tracked.
This is a match of the best price we’ve seen for the Galaxy Tab S9 FE Plus, which earned an honorable mention spot in our list of the best tablets. The “Fan Edition” designation means this tablet is like a pared-down version of the flagship, more expensive Tab S9 series. It includes a stylus, and the 12.4-inch screen is great—though a bit awkward to hold comfortably. Performance is solid as well.
This is a must-have accessory, and we say as much in our Best iPad Accessories guide. This 30-watt adapter is good for phones and tablets, but if you need more juice, there’s a 65-watt option that’s also on sale for $28 ($25 off).
This didn’t make our list of the Best Portable Chargers, but we generally like Anker’s gear. It has enough juice to charge your phone a few times over, and the slim design makes it easy to stash in a bag.
If OtterBox makes it, it’s probably on sale right now. More than 200 of the brand’s protective cases are on sale, for all sorts of devices and in all sorts of styles. We’ve recommended OtterBox cases many times before. If you’re in the market for a case of any kind, this sale is worth browsing—while OtterBox cases go on sale quite often, the prices here are pretty good.
This is a solid deal for the Anker MagGo 633, which is featured in our Best Portable Chargers and Best MagSafe Power Banks guides. It’s a wireless charging stand that includes a spot on the base for wirelessly topping off headphones. But the fun part is that you can slide the power bank out of the stand and take it on the go. The 5,000-mAh capacity isn’t the biggest, but it’ll add at least half a charge to most phones, and it’s small enough that you can probably fit it in your pocket.
Headphone and Speaker Deals
This is an excellent deal for some of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy. We’ve seen the price drop down a bit more, to $300, but this is still a great discount. The Sony WH-1000XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) have fantastic sound quality. They look great, they’re comfortable to wear, and Sony improved the microphones in these, so they’re OK for phone calls too.
These have fallen to $25 less during Cyber Monday promotions, but $100 off is still a nice price. The Sony WH-1000XM4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) aren’t the latest (see above), but they’re still some of our favorite noise-canceling headphones. They do a top-tier job of quieting the world around you, and they offer remarkable battery life and comfort. The mics aren’t as nice on these.
This discount is small, but we haven’t seen a better price for the absolute best noise-canceling headphones. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra (9/10, WIRED Recommends) have clear sound, class-leading noise cancellation, and luxurious style and comfort. The control options are intuitive as well. We wish the battery life was better, but if you want the best of the best, you can save $50.
The discount will show up in your shopping cart. This price is an absolute steal for a great pair of cheap noise-canceling headphones. They don’t have the most modern design, but their sound quality is fantastic, the battery life is great, and they’re durable. If you’re on a strict budget, these cans are great.
These are already our favorite noise-canceling headphones under $100. Snagging them for $56 is an excellent score, especially since we’ve never seen them fall lower in price. They’re a little fragile, but they’ve got a 40-hour run time and decent hybrid noise canceling.
These were $20 cheaper recently, but this deal is still a good one. The Samsung Galaxy Buds2 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are some of the best headphones for Samsung users. They’re comfortable and have active noise canceling, plus workout-ready water resistance, cute color options, and five hours of battery life per charge.
This is a price match of what we saw during Cyber Monday last year. The Google Pixel Buds Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are excellent earbuds for Android users looking for a simple user experience. And with features like noise canceling, transparency mode, seven hours of battery life, and a wireless charging case, you’ll get the most bang for your buck. These buds are also super comfortable to wear and come in fun colors.
These are our favorite workout headphones. They’ve got robust IP68 water resistance, a great, comfortable fit, and they have good onboard button controls. Perhaps most important, they stay secure when you’re working out.
In our Workout Headphones buying guide, the Jabra Elite 4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are listed as a solid alternative to the Jabra Elite 8. This less expensive pair is still great. They don’t have as much water resistance, and they aren’t the most modern—they don’t support wireless charging and they lack an auto-pause function. But if you just want a good pair of headphones that’ll stay comfortable and sound great while you’re working out, these are a safe bet.
Smart Home and Gaming Deals
The Roku Express is a bare-bones streaming device that doesn’t support 4K content—but it’s a fine option if you’re streaming standard HD quality. It does have the same operating system as other Roku devices, but otherwise, the gadget is pretty basic. But it’s fine if “basic” is all you need.
The runner-up in our Best Video Doorbells guide, this Arlo video doorbell fluctuates between $80 and $50 frequently. This deal still comes within $5 of the best price we’ve tracked. It has a wide 180-degree viewing angle, and it’ll alert you to activity on your porch with few false positives. It also records detailed video. Just keep in mind that the best features are locked behind an $8-per-month subscription.
I know that $5 off a Nintendo Switch is like, the saddest deal ever, but these rarely go on sale, especially from first-party merchants. So I’m including it here, because the Nintendo Switch OLED (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is the best model in the lineup so far, and because if you’re shopping for one, you might as well save whatever money you can (especially now that Mario Day deals have expired). The Nintendo Switch Lite (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is also $10 off at checkout if you don’t mind being locked to handheld gaming mode.
The Canon EOS-R series is our top mirrorless camera recommendation for Canon fans. The EOS-R5 is the beefiest of the bunch, and often it’s extremely expensive. We haven’t seen it go for cheaper before. It has a 45-megapixel full-frame sensor and can shoot 8K video at 30 frames per second.
The discount will show up in your shopping cart. Nearly every iteration and generation of the Backbone One Controller (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is on sale. We reviewed the first generation, but there are models available now that support USB-C, as well as PlayStation Editions that support Remote Play. The second-generation models are compatible with more phone cases. Both versions made our list of the Best Mobile Gaming Controllers, and their prices have rarely (if ever) dipped lower. The Backbone software is excellent, and playing supported mobile games is a blast. (I logged more than 100 hours in Stardew Valley with mine.)
If your kiddos are constantly asking for premium currency in Roblox, this sale will help you save some extra cash. Discounts range from a $25 gift card for $20 to a $500 gift card for $400. We take a deeper dive into the realm of Roblox here.
Deals on Everything Else
This is a match of the best deal we’ve seen for the Roborock Q5+ (9/10, WIRED Recommends), which is a slight variation on our top pick. It’s similar, except this version doesn’t have a built-in mop. This robot vacuum runs reliably and accurately, and the app is easy to use. We wish it would empty its own bin, but for the price, it’s hard to find a better robot cleaner.
We haven’t seen a better price yet for our favorite Dyson vacuum. It’s a fantastic cordless vacuum cleaner for Dyson loyalists, so long as you can stomach the price. It has a neat laser light that illuminates the dust bunnies in your cleaning path, and it automatically adjusts suction as needed while you’re cleaning. The vacuum comes with a wide variety of accessories, and it can be converted to a hand vac for trickier areas.
This matches the best deal we’ve seen for the Eufy Indoor Cam S350, which made our list of the best indoor security cameras. This gadget has two lenses, so you’ll get a 130-degree field of view with up to 4K resolution, plus 3X optical zoom so you can see close-ups of everything that’s going on. It can pan and tilt, and software features like AI tracking provide smart coverage. You’ll also get two-way audio. Note that if you want non-cloud storage, you’ll need to supply a microSD card. Here’s one on sale.
If you know an Easter Bunny with baskets to fill, this sale is worth checking out. There are 11 pages of candy to choose from, all at a discount. (There’s also a random mix of other Easter essentials, like egg dye and seasoning for your cheesy potatoes.)