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People frequently claim that the Blink Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) is the best value around, and recent reviews tend to support this. It’s available in a package with the Sync Module Core for around $35.99, which is almost half the original price of $69.99. Meanwhile, Google Nest and Arlo devices cost $100, $130, or more, and include an additional sensor or two, albeit at a hefty price.

Getting it up and running is rather simple, as the doorbell runs on batteries, or a pair of 3AA lithium batteries that may last up to two years, so there is no need to bother about wiring. Simply install the device on the wall using the provided mounting kit, and they’ll serve as the corner accessory for getting the angles correct, and you can have everything up and running in a matter of minutes using the app. Users frequently mention how easy it is, especially when contrasted to wired setups that require some actual electrical labor.

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Blink Video Doorbell (newest model) – Head-to-toe HD view, two-year battery life, and simple setup….

• Video Doorbell is our second-generation smart security doorbell with up to two years of battery life, an expanded field of view, and improved security…
• Last longer with two-year battery life — Experience up to two years of continuous security coverage with three AA Energizer lithium batteries and a…
• See more at your door — Greet guests and watch packages get delivered, day and night, with head-to-toe HD view and infrared night vision. Use…

The video quality is good enough for pretty much everyday use. The camera gives you a nice overhead shot in a square 1:1 aspect ratio, with a 150 degree view that captures people right up to their feet & spots packages on the ground pretty easily. The resolution is a decent 1080p HD, (although some tests suggest it’s actually got more like 1440p clarity when it counts) & infrared night vision works just fine in the dark. You can even have a two-way conversation with whoever is at the door, and the motion alerts are timely to say the least.

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One of the most notable features is the battery life, which may last up to two years, allowing you to avoid needing to twist and spin them every few months as you would with some other products. As an added plus, it’s fairly weather resistant, withstanding a bit of rain and dust in most locations without blinking.

You have storage and extras without breaking the bank. The included Sync Module Core allows you to save clips locally on a drive you add separately, eliminating the need for cloud fees for basic recording, but if you want a little more, the Blink subscription is only $3/month for one device or $12 for unlimited – which includes cloud storage, person detection, and all that other good stuff. Which is significantly less expensive than Ring’s $5+ plans or Nest’s higher-tiered options.

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The Apple Intelligence-powered Health+ service is reportedly being scaled back now that Eddy Cue is in charge, and will focus on getting features to users sooner with smaller releases.

Apple Health to get multiple smaller feature updates soon

Apple has never announced Health+ or plans for the initiative, but leaks surrounding the project suggested some kind of AI chat interface was going to be offered. Users would be able to discuss their health data and be directed to professional videos explaining certain topics.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Services chief Eddy Cue is now in charge of Apple Health after Jeff Williams retired, and he’s restructured the plans around its future. Instead of trying to release one big feature set under the umbrella of “Apple Health+” and a new subscription, Apple is allegedly planning on breaking up the planned features into smaller, incremental releases.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Steep discounts on Apple’s MacBook Air have driven prices down to as low as $389.99 heading into the weekend.

Grab a MacBook Air from just $389.

Walmart seller VIPOutlet has blowout inventory of Apple’s M1 MacBook Air 13-inch for $389 while supplies last. This seller has a 4-star rating with 23,495 total reviews at press time. While the system has 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage, the budget-friendly price makes it a viable system for casual use like web browsing and streaming content.
Buy M1 MacBook Air for $389
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Editor’s note: GeekWire publishes guest opinions to foster informed discussion and highlight a diversity of perspectives on issues shaping the tech and startup community. If you’re interested in submitting a guest column, email us at tips@geekwire.com. Submissions are reviewed by our editorial team for relevance and editorial standards.

I’m an attorney and advisor to many Pacific Northwest startups, investors, and social entrepreneurs, having spent the past two decades in the Washington innovation ecosystem — including as a higher education policy advocate and former co-chair of the WTIA Policy Committee. I love helping transform great ideas into job-creating companies in my community. 

Which is why I’m unmoved by the panic surrounding the proposed “millionaires tax.” Every time Olympia proposes that our wealthiest contribute more, we’re told that this is the final straw for our brightest risk-takers, an existential threat to our state’s economy. But the real threat to the startup community is losing focus on building up our strengths as this catastrophizing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

America is at a crossroads. In this defining moment, when our duties as citizens are gravely needed, a growing chorus of local startup luminaries are speaking up. Which issue galvanizes them? Civil liberties, or climate, or gilded age cronyism, or divestment from public interest research, or immigration, or the dignity of work amidst AI disruption, or freedom of speech…? 

Disappointingly, much of the startup community’s advocacy efforts have instead been singularly focused on preventing a few very wealthy folks from changing their primary residence to Las Vegas or Jackson Hole or Palm Beach. 

My oh my, what an uninspired civic imagination in this moment of peril. We can do better. 

So chill with the libertarian fever dream. Read the moment. And read the proposal’s fine print, including important small business tax cuts. And remember what’s made Seattle such a dynamic startup community in the first place. 

The tax proposal is (probably) not going to take your money 

This is a proposed tax on net income over $1 million in a single year. The first $1 million of income would be exempt. This point merits emphasis, as it’s often misunderstood: no one will pay a penny of tax on the first $0 to $999,999 of annual net income. There are additional carve outs and deductions to encourage charitable giving and avoid double taxation. The minimum threshold will be indexed upward with inflation. And the proposed tax would not begin collecting revenue until 2029, allowing plenty of time to work through rulemaking, legal challenges, and fine tuning.

If enacted as proposed, less than 0.5% of households would ever be impacted. Imagine 1,000 random Washingtonians in a room: you could count on one hand the number of people with enough luck, talent, and timing to ever pay this tax. 

What about founders and investors? Many will already benefit tremendously from federal tax advantages like QSBS, which can eliminate up to $10 million in federal capital gains taxes on a successful exit. (An unrelated proposal would apply the state’s capital gains tax on profits that are otherwise exempted from federal taxation; with only a handful of sponsors across both chambers, that proposal appears to have far less traction.) 

Further, the same tax avoidance strategies they already deploy, such as staggered sales, deferred compensation, trust and estate planning, and real estate tax shelter investments, will continue to reduce taxes for founders and investors. The idea that a modest state tax on seven-figure net income is going to make entrepreneurship suddenly “not pencil out” is fuzzy math. 

Fixing Washington’s regressive tax structure is good for business 

Washington consistently ranks among the most regressive tax systems in the country. Relative to other states, lower- and middle-income families pay a disproportionate share of their income in state and local taxes due to our heavy reliance on sales, excise, and business taxes. Addressing this problem is essential to building a resilient state, which matters more than ever in this moment of increasingly reckless and unstable federal governance. 

In announcing his initial support for this proposal, Gov. Bob Ferguson tied the tax explicitly to strengthening the Working Families Tax Credit, removing sales taxes on essential personal hygiene products, investing in K-12 education, and greatly reducing B&O taxes for early-stage businesses. In other words, this is a pro-entrepreneurship policy that argues that we’re all better off when we’re all better off. 

Of particular importance for startups, the proposal to provide B&O tax relief for small businesses would be a boon for early-stage companies in their earliest cash constrained years, i.e., when they need it most. The current draft legislation would provide a credit for B&O taxes on annual gross receipts less than $250,000, which would benefit thousands of local startups and small businesses every year. Meanwhile, Ferguson has called to go further by zeroing out B&O taxes up to $1 million on revenue. 

In responding to the initial proposal, the governor said his ultimate support for the proposal is contingent on a much more aggressive small business tax break — “we need to have the largest tax break for small business owners in state history,” he said this week.

Rather than fear-monger, startup advocates should redirect their efforts toward supporting that effort for targeted savings for early-stage companies. 

On the pro-millionaire advocates’ counterpoints

There are valid concerns about the proposal’s impact on the business climate and economic growth. 

• Some argue it “punishes success” by not maximizing exit proceeds. Yet this ignores how the proposal invests in conditions that allow startups to thrive in the first place as well as the urgency of addressing a broken tax system. 
• A frequent rebuttal to any tax proposal is that the state should cut spending instead. Absolutely, there must be accountability and responsible stewardship of our public resources. But this is not mutually exclusive; as in business, governments can manage their expenses and restructure revenue at the same time. 
• Critics warn that the income tax minimum threshold will expand in future years. Rep. Jeremie Dufault, R-Selah, calls it “kicking a budget snowball down a hillside. It’s small now, but it will grow as it rolls.” Maybe, but that’s not the proposal under consideration right now. In fact, the current proposal would raise the minimum threshold annually with inflation. 
• There are also legitimate legal hurdles to implementing the proposed policy. Fortunately, we have multiple branches of government. Jurisprudential ambiguity should not deter legislators from passing policies they deem in the best interest of the electorate. 
• Large tech companies are downsizing, particularly amongst software engineering teams. Our fizzling “prosperity bomb” is bad news for a local economy supported by so many coders, and those AI-disrupted jobs are not being replaced elsewhere. In this moment of disruption, creating policies that make it easier to be an entrepreneur and live comfortably in a community are more important than ever, regardless of whether a household brings in millions of dollars a year. 
• Many point to capital flight as the primary concern, though correlation and causation can be muddled on this point. A handful of large tech companies and wealthy individuals have moved operations out of Washington state, and there will likely be a few more (vocal) high net-worth households who will register their primary residence elsewhere to reduce their tax bill — and they may even shift the focus of their investments from local startups to their new neighbors. But the primary cause of capital flight risk is panic; most people do not move to escape tax increases. This tax on outsized annual incomes will not trigger economic ruin, but the outsized investor-class alarm could cause real harm. 

Rather than catastrophize, the startup community ought to celebrate the opportunities that would be unlocked by relieving early-stage businesses of B&O taxes, modestly rebalancing our regressive tax structure, and making targeted investments to keep Washington affordable and thriving. 

The bill is currently open for debate, and critical details remain to be finalized. The startup community should be in these negotiations, rather than adopting an out-of-touch absolutist approach that reduces their influence and credibility. 

Entrepreneurs will build here because we bet on ourselves 

Entrepreneurs want to build something from nothing, test ideas, prove their doubters wrong, and ultimately solve problems. And sure, they want to make loads of money. Their ambition to build, ideate, prove, and solve will not be quashed by a tax that only kicks in after annual net income over $1 million. 

Most creative, ambitious, and educated people are not primarily motivated by marginal tax rate optimization. They want to live in places with access to world-class universities, vibrant cultural and artistic ecosystems, reproductive health care, diverse neighbors, multimodal transportation, LGBTQ+ rights, respect for the natural environment, libraries that don’t ban books, and a basic sense that society has their back. 

The best places in the country to launch a startup include the Bay Area, Boston, New York, and the greater Seattle area. With apologies to the fine folks in Sioux Falls, Houston, and Anchorage (the least taxed large U.S. cities), it turns out startups thrive in communities that invest in themselves and their people. We’ve done that in the Pacific Northwest and are set up for success. Millionaires tax or no tax, the next generation of great companies and scrappy entrepreneurs are primed to emerge from AI House, CoMotion, Foundations, 9Zero, and across our great state. 

At the end of day, most of the loudest critics of this proposal — people I respect and work with daily — will almost certainly continue to live and work here in Washington state. So let’s cool it on the millionaires tax hysteria, recognize the criticality of the moment, and bet on ourselves. 

Disclaimer: Written in my personal capacity. I’m no startup Lorax — I do not speak for my clients.

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[GizmoThrill] shows off a design for an absolutely gorgeous, high-fidelity replica of the main character’s helmet from the video game Satisfactory. But the best part is the technique used to create the visor: just design around a cheap set of full-face “sunglasses” to completely avoid having to mold your own custom faceplate.

One of the most challenging parts of any custom helmet build is how to make a high-quality visor or faceplate. Most folks heat up a sheet of plastic and form it carefully around a mold, but [GizmoThrill] approached the problem from the other direction. After spotting a full-face sun visor online, they decided to design the helmet around the readily-accessible visor instead of the other way around.

The first thing to do with the visor is cover it with painter’s tape and 3D scan it. Once that’s done, the 3D model of the visor allows the rest of the helmet to be designed around it. In the case of the Satisfactory helmet, the design of the visor is a perfect match for the game’s helmet, but one could easily be designing their own custom headgear with this technique.

With the helmet 3D printed, [GizmoThrill] heads to the bandsaw to cut away any excess from the visor, and secure it in place. That’s all there is to it! Sure, you don’t have full control over the visor’s actual shape, but it sure beats the tons and tons of sanding involved otherwise.

There’s a video tour of the whole process that shows off a number of other design features we really like. For example, metal mesh in the cheek areas and in front of the mouth means a fan can circulate air easily, so the one doesn’t fog up the inside of the visor with one’s very first breath. The mesh itself is concealed with some greebles mounted on top. You can see all those details up close in the video, embedded just below.

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The helmet design is thanks to [Punished Props] and we’ve seen their work before. This trick for turning affordable and somewhat gimmicky sunglasses into something truly time-saving is definitely worth keeping in mind.

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Amazon posted record quarterly revenue and strong cloud growth in Q4 — but its stock sunk more than 10% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company missed Wall Street’s profit expectations and revealed plans to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in the upcoming year.

“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites, we expect to invest about $200 billion in capital expenditures across Amazon in 2026, and anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.

That’s well ahead of analyst expectations, and up from the $125 billion that Amazon had estimated for capex in 2025.

Investors are closely watching how much tech companies are spending on infrastructure amid the AI boom. Google said this week that its capex could double this year to as high as $185 billion, and Meta said its spend could reach $135 billion in 2026, almost double from last year. Microsoft’s capital spend reached $37.5 billion in its most recent quarter, up 66% from a year ago.

Amazon’s total capital spending also includes the buildout of its e-commerce fulfillment network, which means it’s not directly comparable to Microsoft, Google and others.

However, on the earnings call with analysts, Jassy said the projected capex is “predominately” in AWS. “Some of it is for our core workloads, which are non-AI workloads, because they’re growing at a faster rate than we anticipated,” he said. “But most of it is in AI, and we just have a lot of growth, a lot of demand.”

Jassy said AWS could be growing even faster if capacity were available, noting that Amazon added more data center capacity than any company globally in 2025 and still faces strong demand. “What we’re continuing to see is, as fast as we install this AI capacity, we are monetizing it,” he said. “So it’s just a very unusual opportunity.”

RELATED: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defends $200B spending plan: ‘This isn’t some sort of quixotic top-line grab’

Some key takeaways from the fourth quarter report:

• Amazon reported $213.4 billion in Q4 revenue, up 14% year-over-year and topping estimates of $211 billion. It’s first time the company has eclipsed $200 billion in quarterly revenue.
• The company just missed expectations with earnings per share of $1.95, up from $1.86 in the year-ago period. Net income was $21.2 billion, up from $20 billion last year.
• Amazon Web Services, the company’s closely watched cloud computing unit, reported $35.6 billion in Q4 sales, up 24% year-over-year — the fastest growth rate in three years. That topped analyst estimates of 21%.
• Amazon’s online store sales grew 10% to $83 billion during the holiday quarter, topping estimates of $82.1 billion. The company continues to face competition from Walmart, which is growing its e-commerce sales and just hit a $1 trillion market capitalization.

Amazon’s market cap is about $2.4 trillion. Its stock is down slightly in the past 12 months.

The company will host its call with analysts at 2 p.m. PT. We’ll be listening for any comments related to the company’s slashing of 16,000 corporate jobs announced last week. Update: Jassy did not comment on the layoffs.

Here are more details from Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report:

Advertising: The company’s ad business brought in $21.3 billion in revenue in the quarter, up 23% from the year-ago period. Advertising, along with AWS, is a major profit engine.

Third-party seller services: Revenue from third-party seller services was up 11% to $52.8 billion.

Shipping costs: Amazon spent $31.5 billion on shipping in Q4, up 10%.

Physical stores: The category, which includes Whole Foods and other Amazon grocery stores, posted revenue of $5.8 billion, up 5%. Amazon announced last week that it is closing all Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations, a total of 72 stores nationwide, concentrating its efforts instead on its Whole Foods Market locations and grocery delivery from Amazon.com.

Headcount: Amazon employs 1.58 million people, up 1% year-over-year, and down slightly from Q3. That figure does not include seasonal and contract workers, and does not reflect the latest job cuts, which took place after the end of the quarter.

Prime: Subscription services revenue, which includes Prime memberships, came in at $13.1 billion, up 14%. 

Guidance: The company forecasts Q1 sales between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion. Operating income is expected to range between $16.5 billion and $21.5 billion, compared with $18.4 billion in the year-ago quarter.

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