Engadget

Samsung's largest workers' organization, the National Samsung Electronics Union, has announced that it's planning to stage a walkout next week as part of its fight for fair compensation. Members are threatening to skip work for a day, on June 7, in hopes that the company would listen to their demands after their wage negotiations over the past months had come to a standstill.

Engadget

Japan’s hit virtual pet, Punirunes, will be released in the US this summer and I can almost guarantee most of you have never seen a toy quite like this before. A play on the Japanese mimetic word for “squishy” (punipuni), Punirunes has a design quirk that sets it apart from other gadgets of its ilk: a doughy button at the center of the device that serves to simulate physical contact with your pet. How do you get to that button? By sticking your finger into the quarter-sized hole in the side of the plastic shell.

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I hope you had a quiet Memorial Day. It was a quiet one tech-wise, and I briefly fought the urge to copy and paste yesterday’s TMA into today’s newsletter hopper.

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Here’s an open secret: Every cheap streaming stick kind of sucks. Yes, it’s great that people can access so many shows and movies with devices that cost less than $50. It’s great that the best of them no longer force you to suffer through constant lag and performance hiccups, too.

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I’m a big fan of the British comedy game show Taskmaster. Each season, five comedians compete against each other to complete ridiculous objectives. The competitors are often rewarded for lateral thinking, as long as they stick within each task's rules.

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If you’ve been craving some help with cleaning, this Memorial Day Roomba sale may be up your alley.

Engadget

Manufacturers may hate independent repair stores, but Samsung and Apple appeared to accept the direction the political wind was blowing in. Sadly, Samsung’s warm-hearted embrace of third party repair may not have been as loving as had originally been suggested. Details of the contract the Korean giant asks repair stores to sign include some pretty user-unfriendly rules.