The best Black Friday 2022 subscription and digital subscription deals we could find

Subscriptions and memberships make excellent gifts, but they’re also great to give yourself — especially when they’re on sale for Black Friday. We found a slew of services running discounts, with deals on streaming services, learning programs, fitness …

Introducing Engadget’s 2022 holiday gift guide!

Even if you live for the holiday season, the shopping portion of it can be daunting for us all. Maybe you made a resolution last year to be better prepared this time around, but it’s easy to get sidetracked by all the other demands of everyday life. Ho…

Samsung Wallet payments and passes are coming to 13 more countries this year

Samsung’s unified Wallet app will soon be available to many more people. The company says it will roll out Wallet to 13 more countries by the end of 2022. Most are in Europe, Scandinavia and western Asia, including Denmark, Finland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The functionality will also be available in key parts of the Middle East (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE) as well as South Africa and Vietnam.

Wallet initially launched in just six countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. While the expansion still leaves much of the planet untouched, it makes Wallet considerably more commonplace and brings it to new continents.

As elsewhere, Wallet effectively merges Samsung’s Pay and Pass apps. You can use it to make payments with bank cards, of course, but it can also store content like IDs, boarding passes and digital car keys. On top of the usual data protection, the software stores the most sensitive data in “isolated” conditions to prevent hacks. It’s not much different than Apple’s equivalent in that regard, but that still makes it very helpful if you want a do-it-all wallet on your Galaxy phone.

Apple Card users can soon sign up for a ‘high-yield’ savings account

Your Apple Card is now more of a full-fledged banking service. Apple has introduced a “high-yield” savings account from Goldman Sachs that will soon let you grow your funds. You can have your card’s Daily Cash automatically deposited if you like, but you can also transfer money from a linked bank account or your Apple Cash balance. You can withdraw at any time, and there are no fees, balance requirements or minimum deposit amounts.

The savings account will be available to Americans sometime in the “coming months,” Apple said. We’ve asked the company about the exact yield rate and will let you know if we hear back — needless to say, this could play a major role in your decision to sign up.

If this sounds somewhat familiar, it should. Goldman Sachs already offers a “Marcus” savings account that you can quickly open online and link to other banks. It’s built for mobile users with a dedicated app, touts a relatively high 2.15 percent annual yield and doesn’t carry any fees or minimum deposits. Apple’s offering mainly stands out through its daily reward deposits and, of course, tight integration with iPhones and other Apple products.

The Apple Card savings account isn’t quite the company’s answer to Google’s defunct Plex banking service, though. Where that was ultimately a bid to modernize banking for companies that didn’t have their own apps, Apple is providing a savings account dedicated to its cardholders. This is an incentive to use your card and stick to the Apple ecosystem.

Instacart teams with retailers to create grocery stores powered by its tech

Instacart may have thrived on deliveries at the height of the pandemic, but it’s adapting to an era when many people are once again comfortable with in-person grocery shopping. The company is introducing a Connected Store “experience” that uses new and existing technology to theoretically blend the advantages of delivery apps and retail.

To start, the platform will let you pay for items by scanning them with your phone. It’s not as convenient as Amazon’s automated Just Walk Out tech, but it could save you the hassle of using a self-checkout terminal. Instacart is also rolling out a new model of its smart Caper shopping cart (pictured) with a 65 percent larger capacity and a slimmer, lighter design. You can even sync your Instacart-compatible shopping list to help find items and mark them as purchased the moment you put them in the cart. Carrot Tags light up electronic shelf labels to help you find items, while links between departments let you pick up orders from the bakery and deli without having to wait in line.

Behind the scenes, the Connected Store system will alert staff the moment an item is running low or goes out of stock. You could see fewer empty shelves, or at least fewer inventory checks.

Instacart has already been testing the related technologies with some stores, but is now making them available to retailers in the US and Canada. Outlets like Joseph’s Classic Market, Schnuck’s and Wakefern Food Corp. will use parts of the Connected Store system going forward, while Instacart is working with Bristol Farms to build a store in Irvine, California that will use the full package in the “coming months.”

The company isn’t shy about its goals. Instacart is clearly hoping to entice grocery stores that can’t (or just don’t want to) use Amazon’s platform. Retailers won’t need to install costly camera arrays or otherwise revamp whole locations, Instacart notes. This might not lure you back to the store if you prefer home deliveries, but it could deliver a meaningful upgrade to retail shopping — particularly for anyone who doesn’t shop at Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods.

What we bought: The Cosori 0165 dehydrator mummifies meat for $70

I’m a big fan of beef jerky. Not so much eye-watering retail price, mind you, or the untraceable nature of the commercial product’s precursors — like when you get that one bag that’s nothing but scraps, unidentifiable knuckles and strands of desiccated…