The first Neuralink clinical trials outside the US will take place in Canada. Neuralink has secured Health Canada's approval to launch human trials in the country, with the Toronto Western Hospital being the "first and exclusive surgical site" for the procedure. The company first opened its Canadian patient registry in March this year, but now it's actively looking for potential participants. "Recruitment is now open," it has announced on X. Under the CAN-PRIME study, Neuralink will embed its implant in the brain of the participant so that it can interpret their neural activity.

SAVE 70: As of Nov. 21, Amazon Echo Show 8 is discounted to 79.99 as part of Amazon's Black Friday sale. This is 47% off its list price of 149.99. Amazon's Black Friday sale has started and it's chock-full of exciting deals for shoppers. In particular, when it comes to smart devices, the retailer is offering some steep discounts on some of its most popular picks. If you've had your eye on the Amazon Echo Show 8, it's currently marked down by almost 50% in their Black Friday sale. The Amazon Echo Show 8 is down to just 79.99 right now, a whopping 47% off its list price of 149.99.

While we wait for Apple to launch its smart home display, Amazon is already delivering the goods. On Wednesday, the company launched two new versions of its Echo Show smart display, one with a 15-inch, and the other with a 21-inch, display. Just like the previous Echo Shows, these are smart, Alexa-enabled devices which can display your photos, the weather, a calendar, and the latest news. Amazon's previous Echo Shows vary from bulky little standalone displays and displays perched upon an oval or circular base, to the flat 15-inch version that's meant to be mounted on a wall. And while the 15-incher has been upgraded, the star of the show is the new, equally flat, 21-inch version. It has a 21-inch display with a 1080p resolution, a built-in, 13-megapixel wide angle camera with auto-framing, and four speakers (two woofers and two tweeters).

SAVE 27: As of Nov. 21, Amazon's Echo Dot is on sale for 22.99 for Black Friday. This is 54% off its list price of 49.99. Black Friday is a great time to invest in high-quality tech you've had your eye on over the course of the year. Amazon is already offering some great discounts on tech for the first day of its Black Friday sale event, including quite a few deals on its smart speakers. One of our favorite deals is on the Amazon Echo Dot, which is currently enjoying a massive discount of over 50% on list price.

Aside from Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday is the best time of year to pick up an Echo speaker, a Fire tablet or a Kindle ereader from Amazon. While the online retailer typically saves all of the best discounts on its devices for the members-only sale events, it's a safe bet that those deals will come back around for Black Friday. This year is no different: we're seeing record-low prices (or close to them) on all of Amazon's gadgets. These are the best Amazon Black Friday deals you can get right now. Kindle (2024) for 85 ( 25 off): The 2024 base Kindle is lighter than ever before, and it has a 6-inch, glare-free screen with an adjustable front light, 16GB of storage, speedier performance and six weeks of battery life.

SAVE 150: As of Nov. 21, the iRobot Roomba Vac 2 is on sale at Amazon for 249.99. If a robot vacuum is on your wishlist, you'll know all about Roomba. One of the top robot vacuum manufacturers on the market, these devices are a great way to cut down your chore list. And with Amazon's Black Friday sales officially kicking off on Nov. 21, there couldn't be a better time to treat yourself. And it really is a treat, because as of Nov. 21, the iRobot Roomba Vac 2 is at its lowest-ever price at Amazon. Saving you 150, you can now pick up this vacuum for just 249.99.

Yes, Black Friday is basically here and, though we're not sure where this year went, all the sales are softening the blow. Amazon, sure to be the home of a lot of shopping this year, has already marked down some of its most wanted products. Included in the sales is our choice for best smart speaker under 50, the fifth generation Amazon Echo Dot. Right now, you can pick up the speaker for just 23 -- an all-time low price. The fifth-gen Amazon Echo Dot came out in 2022 and has great features, including exceptionally loud and clear audio for its sticker price (let alone the discounted one).

You probably didn't know it, but if you played or are still playing Pokémon Go (there are more than half a million active players), you were helping train an AI-powered geospatial model that aims to map the world. A blog post from Niantic, the software developer behind the popular game, explains how it's working on "a large geospatial model to achieve spatial intelligence" and trying to build a "visual positioning system" to understand the world around us -- and it's using data from Pokémon Go. Also: AI transformation is the new digital transformation. To clarify, Niantic is saying that just like data on the web trains AI models, the AI model it's building needs to understand 3D spaces. An immense amount of data and photographs of 3D spaces are available thanks to Pokémon Go players creeping around the world.

It will take six months to a year to analyze a tiny sample of radioactive debris retrieved by a robot from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, its operator said Thursday. The analysis could shed light on radioactivity levels and the chemical structure of the fuel debris -- a key part of preparation for the decadeslong decommissioning process. Around 880 tons of hazardous material remain at the Fukushima plant, more than 13 years after a tsunami caused by an earthquake triggered one of the world's worst nuclear incidents. Last week, the sample, weighing just below 0.7 gram -- equivalent to about one raisin -- was delivered to a research lab near Tokyo for analysis. It had been removed from a reactor by an extendible robotic device in a tricky operation suspended several times by technical problems.

Alphabet's Google must sell its Chrome browser, share data and search results with competitors and take a range of other measures to end its monopoly on searching the internet, US prosecutors have argued to a judge. Such changes would essentially result in Google being highly regulated for 10 years, subjecting it to oversight by the same Washington federal court that ruled the company maintained an illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising. "Google's unlawful behaviour has deprived rivals not only of critical distribution channels but also distribution partners who could otherwise enable entry into these markets by competitors in new and innovative ways," the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a court filing. The court papers filed on Wednesday night expand on an earlier outline on how the US wants to end Google's monopoly. Google called the proposals radical at the time, saying they would harm US consumers and businesses and shake American competitiveness in artificial intelligence.