Robotics

When is Amazon’s Spring Sale 2025? Amazon’s Spring Sale kicks off on March 25 and will run through March 31. That gives you six days to snag great discounts on tech like TVs, sound bars, and more.Are TVs really cheaper during Amazon sales? They can be! Many brands will often mark down popular models and screen sizes during Amazon sales to help move inventory ahead of new releases. And if you’re very lucky, you may be able to find an older model at a steep discount or a combination of coupons that help you save even more on a new TV.How did we choose these Spring Sale deals?While there are plenty of TVs discounted for the Amazon Spring Sale, not all TVs and discounts are created equal. I focused on reputable brands like Samsung, TCL, and Hisense as well as TV models that I and other ZDNET experts have reviewed and had hands-on testing experience with. I also made sure that each TV featured on this list had plenty of features that customers have come to expect as-standard like built-in voice controls, preloaded streaming apps, and enhanced HDR.Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends. More

Lance Whitney/ZDNETIn the past, I’d never been a big user of the Apple Pencil or other stylus devices. I just didn’t see much need for them. But after snagging the latest iPad Pro last year, I added the Apple Pencil Pro More

ZDNETGoogle Wallet is introducing a new way for parents to help their kids manage money.Also: Google Wallet now alerts you to loyalty card benefits you’re missing out onRolling out over the next few weeks, Google says, your kids can use Google Wallet on Android to securely tap to pay at stores and access supported passes like event tickets, library cards, and gift cards. This means your child can have access to the money they need through their phone or watch without having to worry about carrying (and losing) a debit or credit card. Parents can see spending and manage cardsFor parents, it adds the ability to easily see where your child is spending money and to avoid the hassle of sending cash with your child — which is quickly becoming obsolete anyway, with many theme parks, movie theaters, and other kid-friendly places only accepting cards. Using the Google Family Link app, parents can manage available cards, track purchases, and even receive email alerts for transactions. Also: Google Family Link now limits who can contact your child’s deviceCards can only be added with parental consent (the process takes just a few minutes), Google says, and parents can easily track recent purchases. Children will only be able to make purchases in-store, not online or across any other Google service. Like the standard Google Wallet, authentication methods such as fingerprint, facial recognition, PIN, or passwords apply. More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The RingConn Gen 2 is a subscription-free smart ring that retails for $300. It monitors your sleep, activity, stress, and vitals, and it’s got a marathon battery life. The only downside is the user interface feels underdeveloped. more buying choices Most smart rings these days claim to offer marathon battery lives […] More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is available in two sizes and four color variations for $399 (45mm) and $499 (50mm). The unlimited battery life, brilliant integrated flashlight, rugged build, and accurate tracking make this a perfect watch for adventurists. Unfortunately, the display is still monochrome, mapping remains limited, and the watch […] More

Pebble/ZDNETI have the two Pebble smartwatches I purchased starting in 2013 and also backed the Pebble Time 2 watch that was later canceled when Fitbit purchased Pebble’s software assets. In January, I wrote an article on the TechCrunch report that CEO Eric Migicovsky was planning to bring back Pebble in 2025, but I thought that was likely just wishful thinking — I was wrong.Preorder available nowIt turns out that Mr. Migicovsky was serious, and just six weeks later we have the introduction of two new PebbleOS watches that should hopefully be available in July and December 2025. Interested consumers can preorder More

ZDNETLinkedIn is an interesting company. Since the early 2000s, it’s been the home of everyone’s resume-of-record on the internet. It’s a social network with feeds and followers. It’s a learning hub. And it offers a wide variety of job-hunting and job-filling services.Also: Want a programming job? Learning any language helps, but only one is essentialIn fact, when I last looked at programming language popularity based on job openings, LinkedIn vastly exceeded Dice and Indeed, offering 2.3 million programming jobs compared to 34K on Dice and 56K on Indeed. On its About page, the company proclaims itself to be “the world’s largest professional network with more than 1 billion members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.” Since 2016, LinkedIn has been a subsidiary of Microsoft. As you might imagine, with so many members, so many job listings, and being a subsidiary of Microsoft, LinkedIn has both the job-related data to crunch and the predilection to do data analysis. In January, the company released its Jobs on the Rise report, which listed the 25 fastest-growing jobs in the US. In today’s AI-centric world, it’s no surprise that AI engineer and AI consultant filled the top two slots. But the top 10 list also included physical therapist, travel advisor, and security guard, indicating the cross-sectional nature of LinkedIn’s source data. Today, the company is drilling down past job titles to skills. If you’ve ever been on LinkedIn, you know the company catalogs skills for each individual member — not only those the member chooses but also those suggested by each member’s professional contacts. Also: LinkedIn’s new AI tool could be your dream job matchmakerThankfully, a few of my contacts think I’m skilled at writing, for example. Oddly enough, sarcasm hasn’t been listed as one of my skills on LinkedIn. In any case, today LinkedIn is releasing its Skills on the Rise report. This report derives its conclusions based on three factors culled from LinkedIn’s vast pool of job-related data: skill acquisition, hiring success, and emerging demand. Skill acquisition reflects how often LinkedIn members add a given skill to their profiles. Hiring success reflects the skills attributed to members who have been hired in the past year. Emerging skills is a measure of how many new job listings incorporate the skill. Lies, damned lies, and statistics All of these factors measure growth rate, which is the percentage increase year-over-year. It’s important to note that the methodology described by LinkedIn for their rankings does not mention weighting the growth rate. This is a concern because unweighted growth rates can skew the interpretation of overall growth. For example, let’s say that Python programming went from 500,000 to 750,000 listings. That’s a 50% growth rate. Now, let’s say that Fortran (a very old and mostly obsolete programming language) went from 20 listings to 40 listings. That would be a 100% growth rate. Also: AI roles take top 2 spots on LinkedIn’s list of the 25 fastest-growing jobs in the USDisplayed without weighting, you’d list the 100% growth rate item (Fortran) as much more popular than the 50% growth rate item (Python). But obviously, there’s vastly more demand for Python programmers than Fortran programmers. Engineering skills on the rise All this is to say that the job skills I’m about to discuss make some sense, but don’t make major career or educational changes solely based on this one list. Do your research, study what’s going on in your field, and keep reading ZDNET. With that caveat, here are LinkedIn’s 2025 Engineering Skills on the Rise in the US. More

abzee/Getty Images Open-source code has become a malware vector. For example, by the closest of shaves, an open-source developer discovered that Jia Tan, a chief programmer and maintainer of the Linux xz data compression library, was also a hacker who’d put a backdoor in the code to enable attackers to take over Linux systems. One […] More