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We now know that the 2025 edition of Amazon's blockbuster Prime Day sales event will start on July 8, and it's set to be bigger than ever as it will run for four days. But you don't need to wait until then for tasty deals. There will be plenty in the lead up to the event, including this one for the Levoit Core 400S air purifier. At $183, the device is $37 off. It's not quite the lowest price we've seen for this model. However, it's not too far off that mark of $176.

The Levoit Core 400S is our current pick for the best air purifier overall. Sure, it might not have the prettiest design of all the options we have tested and the companion app might have a little too much going on. But the Core 400S does its job and does it well.

This smart air purifier is slated to clean the atmosphere in spaces of up to 1,733 square feet in as little as one hour. The Core 400S has a cylindrical shape with vents at the top and a touch display that shows air quality readings. You'll be able to get a sense of the current air quality in your space at a glance with a color-changing ring that will light up in blue, green, orange or red. The 360-degree filtration system is said to be capable of capturing over 99.9 percent of pollutants as small as 0.3 microns, such as dust, pet dander and pollen.

There is an auto mode that should suffice for maintaining air quality, but the Core 400S is compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls too. The fan isn't too loud, even when it's operating at maximum speed — the volume topped out at 62dB in our testing.

Meanwhile, at $50 each, the air filter replacements aren't too expensive compared with those from many of Levoit's competitors. You can also find other Levoit Prime Day deals on Amazon right now that include more air purifiers, cordless vacuums and more.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/our-favorite-air-purifier-is-37-off-for-prime-day-143224984.html?src=rss

Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to settle its lawsuit with Donald Trump filed during the 2020 presidential campaign, according toThe Washington Post. The deal is controversial as legal experts said Paramount had a strong chance of prevailing in court and may have settled to smooth the path for its $2.4 billion Skydance merger.

Paramount said the $16 million would be allocated to Trump's future presidential library and not paid to him "directly or indirectly." In addition, it "does not include a statement of apology or regret," according to the media company.

Trump filed the lawsuit over a CBS interview with Kamala Harris that aired in October, initially demanding $10 billion. The network said it edited one of her answers for time (about Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanhau), but Trump's attorney alleged that CBS intended to "confuse, deceive and mislead the public" by leaving out her full comments. Several legal experts called the lawsuit "frivolous and dangerous," as CBS didn't report any factual inaccuracies and the First Amendment gives media companies wide leeway in presenting information.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reviewing the Skydance merger has said that its approval wasn't linked to Trump's lawsuit. However, some Paramount executives saw the complaint as an obstacle to completing the deal, according to The New York Times, and the settlement was championed by Paramount's board chair, Shari Redstone. Inside CBS's newsroom, it was seen by some employees as a low point for a network with a storied history in news and investigative reporting.

Paramount has struggled financially after investing billions into its streaming service, Paramount+, which has yet to turn a profit. Under Skydance owner and new CEO David Ellison, the company plans to rebuild its streaming technology while reducing costs and improving efficiency. That won't happen until the merger is final, though, and the delay is reportedly also holding back the development of key franchises like Star Trek.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/paramount-pays-trump-16-million-to-settle-harris-lawsuit-124505902.html?src=rss

It's that time of year again when Amazon is hosting deals on everything from wireless earbuds to air fryers. Starting July 8, Prime Day will run for four days with deep price cuts on smart home gadgets, including the Roomba Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo from iRobot that drops down to an all-time low of $140 from its original $275 price tag. While this Roomba was marked down to $149 earlier this year, the Prime Day deal is the first time we're seeing a 49 percent discount. Just note that this deal is only for Prime members at the moment.

We ranked iRobot's Roomba Robot Vacuum as our overall favorite budget option, but this Prime Day deal features a version that can both vacuum and mop. With the Prime Day price drop, the vacuum and mop combo is cheaper than the vacuum-only model, but it does double the work. The combo Roomba can even be set to only vacuum if you prefer to mop yourself, but you'd be missing out on the four-stage cleaning system that vacuums and mops in the same pass.

Since it's a Roomba, it's a straightforward setup process that takes a few minutes before you can set it and forget it. The robot vacuum can navigate through your house or apartment, avoiding furniture and stairs, thanks to onboard sensors. Once it drains through its battery, which can last up to 120 hours, the Roomba knows to return to its charging dock to recharge itself. You can even customize this combo Roomba with three levels of both suction power for vacuuming and water levels for mopping. For more control, you can program it to spot clean a single spot in your home or schedule cleaning times through the companion iRobot Home app.

A number of other iRobot machines are on sale for Prime Day as well. That includes the Roomba 104 with auto-empty dock for 44 percent off, down to $250, and the premium Roomba j9+ for 36 percent off, down to $579.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/this-roomba-combo-robot-vacuum-and-mop-is-nearly-half-off-for-prime-day-141013068.html?src=rss

MethaneSAT, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) methane-tracking satellite backed by the Bezos Earth Fund, is lost in space. Its ground team lost contact with the spacecraft on June 20 but tried to reestablish a connection until it learned in the morning of July 1 that MethaneSAT had lost power altogether. The team believes that the satellite is likely not recoverable. MethaneSAT collected data on methane emissions that have previously been untrackable in an effort to combat climate change. Methane is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, with agriculture, fossil fuels and waste decomposition being the largest sources.

In its announcement, the MethaneSAT team said that the spacecraft's observations have given us critical insight about the distribution and volume of methane being released from oil and gas production regions. Thanks to the satellite, scientists have also developed the capability to "interpret the measurements from space and translate them into volumes of methane released." That knowledge can be used in future missions.

EDF developed the mission, which launched in March 2024, to hold the countries who previously pledged to slash their methane emissions accountable. It created Google Cloud-powered algorithms to calculate and monitor methane emitted in certain regions with held from Harvard and Smithsonian scientists. While the satellite itself is gone, the MethaneSAT team vowed to work with other scientists to leverage the algorithms and software developed for the project. The team will also continue processing the data the satellite had sent back. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/bezos-funded-satellite-tracking-methane-emissions-loses-power-in-space-130034666.html?src=rss

Cloudflare is introducing a way to charge AI web scrapersContent creators can protect their sites from unwanted scrapersSpecific crawlers can be granted free access, charged, or blockedOnline creators often have very little control over the types of crawlers that can access their content, but Cloudflare may have a solution.The company has revived HTTP response code 402 as a neat way to block or charge AI crawlers to access your site in a new feature it calls ‘pay per crawl’.The best part is, it’s not a block or charge all control - users will be able to allow specific crawlers to access their site for free, charge others for access, and block the ones you don’t want trawling your content.Charging AI crawlers for accessHTTP response code 402, otherwise known as the 402 Payment Required status code, indicates to crawlers payment is needed to access the content. As a result, the crawler can either respond with intent to pay, or is blocked from accessing the content.As an added bonus, content creators with a block on their site can effectively ‘tell’ AI crawlers that they are open to potential payments in the future.(Image credit: Cloudflare)For those thinking that someone could simply spoof a crawler that has access to the site, Cloudflare is one step ahead. An authentic crawler will use the ‘signature-agent’, ‘signature-input’, and ‘signature’ headers to authenticate themselves with Cloudflare.Cloudflare will then compare a public key from a Ed25519 key pair that is stored in a hosted directory with the URL of the key directory and user agent information that is registered with Cloudflare, thus allowing the authentic crawler through and blocking any spoofed crawlers.(Image credit: Cloudflare)Crawlers will also be able to crawl the web with a set budget for accessing protected sites using the ‘crawler-exact-price’ header to accept the proposed price listed by the ‘crawler-price’ header on the desired site, or preemptively use the ‘crawler-max-price’ when accessing a site which will grant access if the price is equal to or less than the crawler’s budget.Cloudflare also has some theories for the potential of pay per crawl in the future. An AI agent can be given a budget to crawl the web when responding to a prompt, allowing the user to access high-quality and relevant content when entering a prompt.Pay per crawl is currently only available in private beta, but interested parties can reach out to Cloudflare via the link at the bottom of the blog.You might also likeThese are the best web scraping APIsThis mega DDoS attack broke all recordsWe've reviewed all the best cloud storage