As we wrap up our Cooking Week on Engadget, my purchase of a milk frother is just one part of the Engadget team’s surprisingly broad selection of essential small kitchen gadgets — big spenders can scroll down to Breville’s bonkers induction cooker.
But back to me: Nespresso’s Barista Recipe Maker heats and froths your milk (or milk alternative) simply to upgrade your espressos or moka coffees into flat whites, cappuccinos and more. I’ve owned mine for a couple of years, and I love how easy it is to clean. The spin mechanism is magnet-based, too, so it’s less likely to break and should last plenty of summers filled with iced macchiatos.
We’re also cheerleading digital scales, a not-so-digital Microplane and some other coffee-making upgrades. For all the other kitchen-centric stories this week, you can find them here.
— Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
Engadget’s Cooking Week
Melvin Capital couldn’t survive the meme stock wars.
Melvin Capital, the hedge fund considered the nemesis of the meme stock affair encompassing GameStop, Blackberry and several others, is shutting down. Investors were told the “appropriate next step” after steep losses was to liquidate assets and return cash to investors. Its public bet against GameStop and other struggling companies made it one of the largest victims of a GameStop-centric investing spree by people coordinating across Reddit and social networks. As a result, the fund reported a 53 percent loss in January 2021.
The 55-inch Element Roku TV is coming to Walmart.com for $1,300.
Roku has joined forces with Element to create a 55-inch outdoor TV, the companies announced. The Element Roku TV looks next-on identical to Element’s existing 55-inch Patio TV, just with a different OS. It offers a good but not spectacular 700 nits of brightness, along with 4K streaming and HDR. More importantly, though, it has tempered anti-glare glass to combat reflections and IP55 weather protection.
US safety regulators are now probing more than 30 incidents.
Another Federal probe into Tesla’s Autopilot system is underway. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is looking into more than 30 incidents involving Tesla’s Autopilot.
This follows an accident with a Model S, which occurred on May 12th in Newport Beach’s Mariners Mile strip. The EV reportedly struck a curb and ran into construction equipment, killing all three occupants. Three construction workers were also sent to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police declined to say whether Tesla’s Autopilot was involved.
Most Envy and Specter notebooks are getting refreshed specs and features
Engadget
HP is bringing upgrades and updates across practically all of its premium notebooks, including clamshells and 2-in-1s. The two stars of the updated Envy line are the Envy x360 13.3-inch and the Envy 16-inch. There are OLED display options for both, and all of the new Envy laptops are also getting upgraded 5-megapixel webcams with head tracking and beamforming mics to help you look and sound your best during video calls. You even get native handwriting recognition and a hidden magnetic stylus mount on the side of the system.
So, it’s $1,500.
Engadget
Whether it’s a single burner or a full cooktop, induction tops heat faster than regular stovetops and offer more precise temperature control. Yes, yes, you can get a standalone burner for under $100, but there’s also Breville’s PolyScience Control Freak: a $1,500 induction device that reaches exact temps quickly and holds them there. The burner has a temperature range of 86 to 482 degrees Fahrenheit (30 to 250 Celsius). This gives you the option of everything from low-heat slow cooking to high-temp searing. We had to try it.
After many delays on what is a pretty old game.
The long-awaited PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt once again has a release window. The new edition, which is also coming to PC, is expected to arrive in the last three months of the year, according to CD Projekt Red. It will be a free upgrade if you own the respective last-gen version on PC, PS4 or Xbox One.
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