‘There’s endless choice, but you’re not listening’: fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music
Former streaming service subscribers on why they have ditched mod cons for MP3s, CDs and other DIY music formats
Meg Lethem was working at her bakery job one morning in Boston when she had an epiphany. Tasked with choosing the day’s soundtrack, she opened Spotify, then flicked and flicked, endlessly searching for something to play. Nothing was perfect for the moment. She looked some more, through playlist after playlist. An uncomfortably familiar loop, it made her realise: she hated how music was being used in her life. “That was the problem,” she says. “Using music, rather than having it be its own experience … What kind of music am I going to use to set a mood for the day? What am I going to use to enjoy my walk? I started not really liking what that meant.”
It wasn’t just passive listening, but a utilitarian approach to music that felt like a creation of the streaming environment. “I decided that having music be this tool to [create] an experience instead of an experience itself was not something I was into,” she reflects. So she cut off her Spotify service, and later, Apple Music too, to focus on making her listening more “home-based” and less of a background experience.
Roomba’s latest robot vacuum has a robot mop on top
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus is iRobot’s first combination robot vacuum and mop. | Image: iRobot
Robot vacuums that can also mop have been around for a while, but most make you remove the mop before they can vacuum your carpets — unless you like slightly damp carpets. iRobot’s newest bot looks to solve this problem with a retractable robot mop arm that can lift itself up and under the vacuum to mop when it’s needed and stow itself up top when it’s not.
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus costs $1,099 and is available to preorder today. It will ship on October 4th, and is only being sold with the auto-emptying Clean Base at launch. The two-in-one vacuum mop uses a new combination of acoustic sensors to detect the different types of flooring in a home and “decide” when to lift its pad to avoid thread counts and when to lower it to clean hard floor types like wood and tile.
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus automatically lifts its mopping pad up and over the robot when it detects carpet.
iRobot CEO Colin Angle told The Verge in an interview that it’s the first “hands-free” two-in-one vacuum and mop robot — because, while other companies have mopping pads on their robot vacuums in most other cases, the user has to manually attach the mop to clean the floors. They then have to remove it when they want it to vacuum carpets.
This is largely true. The $950 Roborock S7 Plus is one competitor bot that can also lift its pad up when it goes over carpet. However, it only rises by a few millimeters. By contrast, the Roomba Combo j7 Plus lifts the mopping pad up completely, so there’s no chance of a damp rug.
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus is essentially the Roomba j7 Plus robot vacuum with an integrated mopping pad. It has a slightly smaller bin to make room for a 210 ml water tank and a larger 4,400 mAh battery to help power the mop. In most other respects, it’s identical. It has smart room mapping, scheduling, and virtual no-go zones controlled in the app, and it works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Shortcuts for voice control. It also comes with iRobot’s Clean Base to automatically empty the bin, but users do have to refill the water tank manually.
A few manufacturers, such as Roborock and Ecovacs, have robot vacuum / mops with bases that can empty the bin and refill the robot’s water tank. But users may have to remove and attach the mopping pads on those robots, especially if they have thicker carpets.
Image: iRobot
The reusable mopping pad attaches with velcro and sits under the robot when it’s in use.
Cleaning jobs for the new Roomba can be customized in the iRobot app, so it can be sent to vacuum the living room and then mop and vacuum the kitchen. Water levels can be adjusted, too, for a deeper clean, and it can be set to clean an area twice. Angle said in their testing this was as effective as an oscillating motion, which some other robot vacuum mops use to simulate scrubbing the floor.
It’s interesting that iRobot chose just to add a pad to its flagship robot vacuum rather than produce a whole new vacuum and mopping bot. The design appears quite simple — using aluminum alloy arms to raise and lower the pad and then tuck it on the robot — and doesn’t alter the overall look of the vacuum much at all.
Image: iRobot
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus can go from vacuuming carpet to mopping hardwood floors without any user intervention.
And while it’s hard to see how it can clean as well as iRobot’s dedicated mopping robot, the Braava Jet m6, Angle said the Combo was as effective as the Braava Jet in their testing. However, he did say they still consider the Braava Jet combined with a Roomba robot vacuum to be the “ultimate cleaning experience” as the two robots can work at the same time.
The simplicity of the Combo design means it could be easily incorporated into iRobot’s other models — such as the more budget-friendly Roomba i3 Plus Evo. Presumably, iRobot started with the j7 as it is iRobot’s “smartest” robot.
I reviewed it earlier this year, and it does a good job of avoiding most common household items — including pet waste — thanks to an AI-powered brain. This means it’s less likely to get derailed during a clean and more likely to actually get the job done.
The intelligence is partly powered by iRobot OS, an AI platform that helps the robot’s navigation system recognize more than 80 common objects, according to iRobot. Along with the new robot vac, iRobot is releasing an update to the OS that adds the ability to identify more items.
The company says iRobot OS 5 brings recognition of pet toys, pet bowls, litter boxes, and backpacks, as well as the shoes / slippers, socks, cords, headphones, clothing, towels, and solid pet waste it was already able to spot and avoid.
Image: iRobot
The new robot vacuum and mop works with iRobot’s Clean Base to automatically empty the bin.
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus is putting that intelligence to use with a new ability to automatically detect and recommend areas that might need more cleaning. The mopping and vacuuming bot can autonomously suggest new “Clean Zones” around dishwashers, toilets, ovens / stoves, litter boxes, and pet bowls. The user can then send the robot to clean the zone using the app or an Alexa or Google Assistant voice command. This ability also comes to the Braava Jet m6 and other smart-mapping Roombas.
Another new feature coming to compatible Roombas with OS 5 is the ability to skip a room during a cleaning job. Now, rather than shutting down the whole job because the family is trying to watch TV, you can just tell the robot to skip this room in the app or with a voice command.
iRobot was recently purchased by Amazon, although the deal has not closed and is currently being investigated by the FTC, partly due to concerns around how the company's data on consumers’ homes might be used by Amazon to gain an unfair advantage in the space. iRobot recently gained the TÜV SÜD Cyber Security Mark for the Roomba j7 robot vacuum, which goes beyond industry standards for protecting customer data from cyber security threats (but not from its owners).
Eight states sue crypto lender Nexo over security sales and misleading marketing
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing crypto company Nexo, alleging that the company misled customers by saying it was registered to sell securities and commodities and that it wasn’t approved to offer services like its “Earn Interest Product” that promised returns on deposited crypto. It’s the latest legal move in a fight between regulators and crypto companies looking to offer interest-earning accounts, often insisting that they shouldn’t be classified as securities.
Seven other states — California, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington, and Vermont — are also filing “administrative actions” against the company, according to a press release from the New York AG. The release also quotes James as saying: “Nexo violated the law and investors’ trust by falsely claiming that it is a licensed and registered platform. Nexo must stop its unlawful operations and take necessary action to protect its investors.”
I'm suing crypto platform @Nexo for illegally failing to register with my office and lying about it to investors.
Instead of misleading New Yorkers about its compliance with the law, crypto platforms must register to operate just like other investment platforms.
Last year, James sent a letter to Nexo and the now-in-bankruptcy Celsius, ordering the exchanges to stop offering services they weren’t authorized to offer in New York. At the time, Nexo responded by claiming it was already blocking New York citizens from accessing its service. The lawsuit, which you can read in full below, alleges that wasn’t true. According to the suit, Nexo told the attorney general’s office it was notifying its New York customers that their accounts would be made inaccessible and that it shut down all of its services in the state by November 11, 2021. However, the AG alleges that Nexo actually still had over “5,000 EIP accounts funded by New York investors” in July 2022, according to data it provided regulators.
The lawsuit also alleges that Nexo’s claims of being a “Licensed & Regulated Digital Assets Institution” are misleading. At the time of writing, the company’s site claims to be in “full compliance with all applicable global and local regulations and standards” for the areas it operates in and lists the licenses it has to operate. Entries on that list include licenses from Maryland, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, states that are also filing complaints against the company, according to the New York AG.
A statement emailed to The Verge by Nexo spokesperson Magdalena Hristova says that the company is “working with US federal and state regulators and understand their urge, given the current market turmoil and bankruptcies of companies offering similar products, to fulfill their mandates of investor protection by examining past behavior of providers of earn interest products.”
According to the statement, Nexo voluntarily stopped letting new US customers access its Earn Interest Product after the Securities and Exchange Commission released its guidance on crypto products offering interest in February 2022. The statement continues, saying that “Nexo is committed to finding a clear path forward for the regulated provision of products and services in the US, ideally on a federal level.” The statement doesn’t address the accusations that it misstated and omitted information about the “legal compliance” of its products, as the lawsuit puts it.
Earlier this year, crypto exchange BlockFi had to pay the SEC $100 million in penalties after the regulator ruled that its BlockFi Interest Accounts were unregistered securities and that the company wasn’t properly registered to provide investment services. The agency also threatened to sue Coinbase if it launched a similar program in 2021.
The chief executive of Optus, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, says federal police are “all over” a post on an online forum which purported to have released 10,000 customer records from the recent data breach and threatened to release more until a $1m ransom is paid.
The post was later deleted, along with a claim the writer had deleted the data and would not sell it to anyone.
Ministers need to push through legislative efforts to clamp down on online hate, Angela Rayner and Sadiq Khan have argued, as they said abuse and prejudice had become “monetised”.
Speaking at a Labour conference fringe event in Liverpool, Khan, the mayor of London, said analysis had uncovered 230,000 racist tweets about him sent since he took the role in 2016, and that barely any were removed.
Dall-E 2 users to be allowed to upload faces for first time
Feature marks latest relaxation of rules around how image-generating AI tool can be used
Users of the image generating artificial intelligence Dall-E 2 will be allowed to upload faces to the system for the first time, creators OpenAI have said, as competition in the sector heats up.
The feature marks the latest relaxation of the company’s rules around how its tool, which can generate high-quality images from a text prompt, can be used. When it first launched in a public beta, OpenAI banned users from generating any images with a realistic face.
Let's talk about what's really involved with switching to electric cars. Then we'll close with the product of the week, a laptop from Vaio that showcases just how much you can get for under $700 -- at least for now. The post The World Is Not Yet Ready for Electric Cars appeared first on TechNewsWorld.
Fitbit users will be forced to migrate to Google accounts by 2025
A Google account will be required for Fitbit by 2025, following the search giants acquisition of the health tech brand. | The Verge
Following Google’s acquisition of Fitbit and its rebranding of the health tech company as ‘Fitbit by Google,’ the search giant is moving to tightly integrate its services with Fitbit’s own. A Google account will be required for “some uses” of Fitbit devices and features from 2023, with plans to have all existing Fitbit accounts migrated to Google accounts by 2025.
An updated support page says that creating a new Fitbit account and activating new Fitbit devices and features will require a Google account from 2023. Existing Fitbit account holders will be able to move over to a Google account or remain with their existing Fitbit login until “at least early 2025,” at which point support for Fitbit accounts will be terminated. The FAQ states that the company will be “transparent with our customers about the timeline for ending Fitbit accounts through notices within the Fitbit app, by email, and in help articles.”
As of the time of writing, Fitbit users can access their desktop accounts via a dedicated Fitbit login or the option to “continue with Google.” This differs from using your Google account to log into Fitbit as they are two separate accounts that do not share data between them. As a condition of the Fitbit acquisition, Google made binding commitments with the European Commission in 2020 to keep Fitbit user data separated from Google systems, in addition to not using said data to target Fitbit users within the European Economic Area with advertisements for at least 10 years.
Image: Fitbit / Google
You can currently use ‘continue with Google’ to access desktop Fitbit accounts, however, this differs from the planned changes for account migrations.
When we asked how the upcoming change to account access would impact these commitments, a Fitbit spokesperson said “Google accounts on Fitbit will remain in full compliance with our commitments to global regulators. After a user signs up for or moves to a Google account, we will continue to keep Fitbit users’ health and wellness data separated from Google Ads data and this data won’t be used for Google Ads.”
Google is pushing this as a positive move for Fitbit users. The support page says benefits for the change include having “a single login for Fitbit and other Google services, industry-leading account security, centralized privacy controls for Fitbit user data, and more features from Google on Fitbit.” Given Google’s previous history with forced account migrations and customer privacy, however, (*cough*Nest*cough*) some skepticism is understandable.
‘It’s a joke first and a game second’: how the delightful Trombone Champ went viral
Dan and Jackie Vecchitto created the internet’s latest obsession, with real-life trombonists’ firm approval
Trombone Champ, the musical computer game, has received more than 20,000 downloads since it was released last week, and gameplay videos have rippled through social media, featuring beloved songs ruined by terrible trombone playing.
The game is like Guitar Hero, but with your mouse acting as a trombone. You move it up and down to simulate the slide, and click to blow the horn. Your goal is to play along with such trombone classics as Beethoven’s Fifth, Hava Nagila, and Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
Football claims another Microsoft Surface tablet
That poor Surface tablet.
Microsoft Surface tablets have been taking a beating at football events these past two weekends. During the Buffalo Bills game against the Miami Dolphins this afternoon, Bills offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey took his frustration out on his tablet as the Dolphins secured a win during the final moments of the game.
Dorsey’s reaction may have been warranted, although he probably could’ve chosen another outlet for his anger (like a stress ball perhaps?). The Bills had a chance to run one more play to win the game, but the team ultimately ran out of time, losing to the Dolphins 19-21. When cameras turned to the booth where he was watching the game, Dorsey ripped off his headset and tossed his hat before he picked up the tablet and started violently slamming it against his desk.
Last weekend, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady spiked a Surface tablet into the ground after his team made an incomplete pass when they faced off against the Saints. This temper tantrum even caught the eye of Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay, who responded by saying “Rest assured the Surface should be just fine.”
DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket is having some issues again
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket hasn’t had a very good start to the football season. For the past twoweekends in a row, subscribers have struggled to get their streams to work, and this weekend is no exception.
Even before today’s games started, users began complaining about numerous issues, with many saying that they can’t log into their accounts on the Sunday Ticket website or app and others having problemsloading the streams. Those who are able to access the stream are reportingquality issues.
Somehow Sunday Ticket is acting worse than last week. Truly depressing. @DIRECTV
DirecTV hasn’t issued any statement about whether it’s working to fix the stream, and the company didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. In a response to one user’s issue on Twitter, DirecTV said “we know some customers can’t access NFL Sunday Ticket online or through the app” and that its “teams are working to resolve this.” Aside from DirecTV, users trying to stream football through CBS on Paramount Plus are alsoreportingproblems.
In what will probably come as a relief to football fans, DirecTV’s rights to NFL Sunday Ticket expire at the end of this football season. This leaves room for another company to snap up the rights to Sunday Ticket, with Apple, Amazon, Disney, and Google reportedly looking to air Sunday Ticket on each of their respective streaming services.
The iPhone 15 ‘Ultra’ could replace the Pro Max
The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple could introduce a new naming scheme when it releases the iPhone 15 next year, replacing the current “Pro Max” branding with “Ultra.” This is according to Apple tracker Mark Gurman, who also expects the iPhone 15 to come with some “bigger changes,” including USB-C.
The Pro Max name first appeared with the iPhone 11 in 2019, and adding Ultra branding to the iPhone lineup wouldn’t be all that surprising. Apple already launched the new Watch Ultra with the moniker earlier this month, and added the name to its M1 Ultra processor. Apple also introduced a minor change to its naming scheme with the iPhone 14, bringing back the seemingly retired “Plus” name to the iPhone 14 Plus.
I, for one, am in favor of Apple replacing Pro Max with Ultra — Pro Max is a bit of a mouthful and Ultra just sounds better. I’m just wondering whether Apple is getting rid of the Max branding altogether, or if it plans on reserving the name for tech that falls between the Pro and Ultra tiers. Apple also has the AirPods Max, and it’ll be interesting to see if Apple makes any changes to the name whenever a second generation comes around.
With the iPhone 14 launch out of the way, Apple’s set to round out the year with a slew of new Macs, including upgraded M2 and M2 Pro Mac Minis, M2 Pro and M2 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, and M2 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros. The company may not even hold a keynote next month to announce these devices as previously expected. Gurman believes Apple may release its products in much less exciting formats instead, including in press releases, website updates, and media briefings.
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE review: I expected more
The Triton 500 SE is an expensive gaming laptop that doesn’t flex its hardware enough
Spending a grip on a gaming laptop isn’t difficult; a cursory search on gaming laptops will net you several options that cost more than $4,000. But finding a laptop that’s giving you the greatest return on your investment is more of a challenge. If you’re spending around $3,000 on a gaming laptop like the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE, you want it to bury the competition, not just scrape by. Unfortunately, the Triton 500 SE is a bit disappointing and doesn’t flex its hardware enough to set it apart in a crowded market.
Housed in its all-silver chassis, the $2,999.99 configuration of the Triton 500 SE we tested includes a 12th Gen Core i9-12900H processor, RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of PCIe NVME storage. This hardware is more than enough to take full advantage of its 16-inch 240Hz 2560 x 1600 display. Acer has less expensive models of the Triton 500 SE available, too; the base model, with an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU, RTX 3070 Ti, and 16GB of RAM, costs $2,099.99, about as much as a Lenovo Legion 5i Pro with twice the RAM and storage.
The Triton 500 SE has enough ports that it doesn’t need an external dock or a mess of dongles. Along the left side, you’ll find an ethernet port, DC connector, a 3.5mm audio jack, a single USB-A port, and a USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 hookup. The right side features another Thunderbolt port and USB-A port plus an HDMI output and SDXC card reader.
On the right side: an SDXC card reader, USB-A, USB-C / Thunderbolt 4, and HDMI 2.1 ports.And on the left, DC-IN, ethernet, USB-A, USB-C / Thunderbolt 4, and combo audio jacks.
If you’re sticking to the area around the WASD keys, the keyboard is fine, but trying to get actual work done on the keyboard can be a challenge. The switches have good tactile feedback and a small amount of travel, and they don’t feel mushy, but they’re smaller than average, and the gaps between them make me wish this space were used a little more efficiently. Too often, I missed a key or had to pause what I was doing to search for a function that had been relocated. In a few cases, I hit the key that summons the Acer Predator software instead of the backspace key. I made far fewer errors with the keyboard on the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 thanks to its slightly larger keys and more familiar layout.
The trackpad is sizable, at roughly 5 x 3 inches, and has a satisfying tactile response with a nice click. It’s accurate and responsive and didn’t randomly register my palms when using it. It’ll get you by if you’re playing Civilization 6, but you’re going to want a dedicated mouse for your Valorant ladder matches. It’s a bit disappointing that the fingerprint sensor takes up part of the upper-left portion of the trackpad. It doesn’t get in the way very often, but I’d rather have a bigger trackpad surface with a fingerprint sensor on another part of the chassis.
At just over five pounds, it might be tempting to call the Triton portable, but the battery life prevents it from going far without an available outlet. The Triton lasts a couple of hours when gaming on battery power, which isn’t spectacular but is slightly more impressive when you consider that it offers roughly the same gaming experience you would get when it’s plugged in. The motherboard is equipped with a multiplexer, or MUX switch, that boosts battery life by dynamically switching between the integrated and dedicated GPUs depending on the task. By leaning on the integrated GPU instead of the RTX 3080 Ti, it managed to get almost three hours of YouTube streaming / working. You can’t expect too much from a laptop this size that uses such a demanding graphics card, but if you need longevity from your gaming laptop, the MSI GS77 Stealth lasts about as long as the Triton but charges you less for the privilege.
The hinge on the display is firm and won’t wobble as long as you use the laptop on a flat surface. However, I would’ve appreciated a material on the lid and chassis that did a better job of resisting fingerprints and other visible markings. One of our big complaints from the previous Triton model has resurfaced: the slim lid has a surprising amount of flex. Just about any amount of pressure causes the display to bow, which isn’t something I want to see in a laptop that costs over $3,000.
The speakers, housed between the hinge and the keyboard, are uncommonly good for a laptop — at least, I didn’t immediately want to reach for the closest pair of headphones. They’re not far enough apart to provide the spatial audio you’d get from a pair of headphones, but they’re competent enough to provide a high and low end that doesn’t sound tinny or washed-out. The Acer software has a few different EQ presets that are intended to provide a better listening experience for different game genres, but “Music” provided the most balanced sound of the bunch.
The hinge produces a noticeable gap between the keyboard and screen.
The 2650 x 1600 IPS display has a 16:10 aspect ratio, and Acer says it can hit 500 nits of brightness. It also supports G-Sync, with a maximum refresh rate of 240Hz. The hardware in the Triton 500 SE is remarkably powerful, but even an RTX 3080 Ti can’t hit 240fps in modern titles. Only Counter-Strike: Global Offensive got close, maintaining around 200fps at max settings and up to 333fps when I dropped the resolution to 1080p. It’s nice to have a screen with plenty of overhead, but the fact that it has adaptive sync is more important to most people than the refresh rate.
The lid doesn’t have much wobble but can flex under too much pressure.
It wasn’t easy to challenge the Triton 500 SE with our current benchmarks. The Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti in our review unit is the current top-of-the-line gaming GPU, and it’s powerful — it hit around 60fps or better at native resolution with ultra settings and ultra ray tracing in almost every game we tested it with.
In our Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark with ultra presets, ray tracing enabled, and DLSS off, it averaged 79fps. The $4,000 Razer Blade 17, another RTX 3080 Ti laptop with a 2560 x 1600 screen, got 70fps at the same settings, while the $2,800 MSI GS77 Stealth, with an RTX 3070 Ti, only managed 58fps.
The Triton 500 SE also hit 67fps in Red Dead Redemption 2 at ultra settings with DLSS off, compared to 72fps for the Razer Blade 17 and 59 for the GS77 Stealth.
In the more demanding Cyberpunk 2077, the Predator Triton 500 SE hit 61fps at ultra settings with ray tracing set to ultra and 48fps with ray tracing set to “psycho,” both with DLSS off. Even games like Doom Eternal put out a relatively steady 60fps with ultra presets and ray tracing enabled and hit a consistent 120fps when using DLSS performance mode.
Like the other laptops we’ve tested with RTX 3080 Ti GPUs, it blazed through our video export test, managing to complete the run in two minutes and 20 seconds.
The Predator logo is the only branding on the Triton.
All of the benchmarks were performed while using the highest performance presets available through the Acer control software, which yielded excellent results, but I did most of my gaming in the aptly named “whisper mode,” which thankfully lives up to its name. I’m not sure you’d be able to market the Triton 500 SE without this feature, as the fans can be loud enough to be distracting if the system is under even a modest level of strain. This mode has the fans operating at their minimum, so some throttling would be expected here, but in testing, the 500SE still managed to provide solid performance when placed under these constraints. Playing Doom Eternal with the same settings, for instance, didn’t change much, still managing up to 120fps when using DLSS performance mode. However, the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark took some pretty serious hits, managing an average of just 50fps using the same settings.
Switching between performance profiles is done through the Acer control software, which is simple and unobtrusive. You can summon this software via the desktop or by using its own dedicated macro key. The software lets you adjust fan speeds, performance profiles, and RGB lighting. But unlike some other gaming laptops, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus series, you can only change the performance profile while the laptop is plugged into an outlet. Even while at a nearly full charge, I found that unplugging the laptop causes the hardware profile to revert to its default balanced power state.
The Predator Triton 500 SE is in a tough spot. On one hand, it’s the least expensive gaming laptop we’ve tested with specs like these. Of the RTX 3080 Ti models we’ve tested, the Razer Blade 17 has better build quality but a less powerful CPU and costs $1,000 more. The MSI GE76 Raider costs more and has a lower-resolution screen. But the Gigabyte Aero 16, which cost $5,000 when we reviewed it, is now only a few hundred bucks more than the Triton 500 SE. It’s hot and loud and has bad battery life, too, but it also has a 4K AMOLED screen.
The RTX 3080 Ti is Nvidia’s current top-of-the-line mobile graphics card (for now, at least), and 2560 x 1600 seems like the right resolution for it right now. You’ll have to drop ray tracing and quality settings to hit 60fps on a 4K display, and 1080p is just too low-resolution for a 16-inch screen. Springing for a 3080 Ti instead of a 3070 Ti means you’ll have playable frame rates for longer, which means you’ll get more life out of your laptop before you have to upgrade.
On the other hand, the fans on my test unit were so loud that I spent most of my gaming time in quiet mode and got lower frame rates than a 3070 Ti. So why spend the extra money unless you have really good noise-canceling headphones?
With a 3080Ti under the hood, the Triton 500 SE needs some seriously loud fans to compensate.
That’s the RTX 3080 Ti. But the sweet spot GPU in Nvidia’s lineup right now is the RTX 3070 Ti, which can still hit close to 60fps at ultra settings in many games, though usually not with ray tracing all the way up. And it costs a lot less. The Triton 500 SE has a $2,099.99 model with a Core i7-12700H CPU, RTX 3070 TI, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. That’s much more compelling, especially because you can easily upgrade the RAM. We haven’t reviewed that model, but unless its performance is wildly different from laptops with similar specs we’ve tested, you’ll still get most of the performance of the $3,000 model for around $800 less.
But for the same price or even less, you can get a Lenovo Legion 5i Pro on sale with the same CPU, GPU, and RAM, virtually the same port selection, and a similar 2560 x 1600 G-Sync panel. (Though it tops out at 165Hz instead of 240Hz.) In his review, my colleague Cam Faulkner found that the Legion 5i Pro had better build quality and quieter fans than the Triton 500 SE I tested. Even if you can’t get the exact same RAM and SSD configuration, both of those are easily user upgradeable, unlike build quality and fan noise.
The Acer Predator Triton 500 SE isn’t a bad gaming laptop, and the RTX 3080 Ti model I tested has powerful hardware for the price. But it’s still not worth the price premium, especially with how loud the fans are, especially with new graphics cards coming soon, and especially when the RTX 3070 Ti laptops get you 80 percent of the performance for almost $1,000 less. However, with Nvidia’s new 40-series GPUs on the horizon, the pricing for many gaming laptops equipped with 30-series GPUs may cool down significantly.
Yes, you should monitor your remote workers – but not because you don’t trust them
Cybercrime attacks are increasing. That’s one good reason to keep track of employees who work from home
Should you be monitoring your work-from-home employees? Yes, but not for the reasons you might suspect.
According to a recent report in the New York Times, eight of the 10 largest private US employers are using software and other technologies to track the productivity of their employees in the office and at home.
Adobe can’t Photoshop out the fact its $20bn purchase of Figma is a land grab | John Naughtom
The software giant paying vastly over the odds for a small but strategically threatening company should alarm US regulators
The big tech news in a slow week was that the software giant Adobe is planning to pay the unconscionable sum of $20bn (£18bn) to acquire a small company called Figma. Why is this news? Well, first of all, there’s the price – way above any rational valuation of Figma. Second, there’s the question that we have finally learned to ask about tech mergers and acquisitions: is there a competition or antitrust issue here somewhere?
We’ll come to the price later, but at first sight, the answer to the second question would seem to be no: the two companies are not direct competitors. Adobe dominates the market in software for creating and publishing digital and printed material – graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures and print. If you’ve ever used Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Reader or opened a pdf (portable document format), then you’ve used an Adobe product.
TikTok tightens policies around political issues in run-up to US midterms
Politicians will be banned from using social media platform for campaign fundraising
Politicians on TikTok will no longer be able to use the app tipping tools, nor access advertising features on the social network, as the company tightens its policies around political issues in the run-up to the US midterm elections in six weeks’ time.
Political advertising is already banned on the platform, alongside “harmful misinformation”, but as TikTok has grown over the past two years, new features such as gifting, tipping and ecommerce have been embraced by some politicians on the site.
‘I would rather eat an actual burger’: why plant-based meat’s sizzle fizzled
McDonald’s has shelved its meat-free burger trial and stock in one of the major manufacturers has dipped nearly 70%
At the start of the year, McDonald’s launched a plant-based burger “sizzled on a flat-iron grill, then topped with slivered onions, tangy pickles, crisp shredded lettuce, Roma tomato slices, ketchup, mustard, mayo and a slice of melty American cheese”. For a while, it looked like a glimpse of the future.
The US test run of the McPlant burger was quietly shelved last month (it is still available in some markets, including the UK) in one of a series of setbacks for a meatless-meat industry that only a year ago was claiming it could change the great American menu for ever.
Runners and Cyclists Use GPS Mapping to Make Art Fitness apps and the power of live satellite tracking have allowed runners, cyclists and others to draw hearts, animals, birthday wishes — and even homages to Vermeer — across their local landscapes.
‘It’s only their silhouettes, but you can see how bored they were’: Sarah Lee’s best phone picture
The photographer was on holiday with friends and their twin boys when she spotted a chance to capture teenage ennui
Identical twin teenagers Joe and Duke were fed up. Walking to a local supermarket in the midday sun with their parents and photographer Sarah Lee, a family friend, was not their preferred choice of activity while on holiday in Ibiza, yet here they were.
Lee had known the boys since they were very small. In 2019 they were 17, right on the brink of adulthood. “They weren’t able to get into the clubs at night; they were still being cajoled into doing something dull in the day. It’s only their silhouettes, but you can see how bored they were. The epitome of pissed-off teenagers!”
LinkedIn Ran Social Experiments On 20 Million Users Over Five Years A study that looked back at those tests found that relatively weak social connections were more helpful in finding jobs than stronger social ties.
Programming a computer is, if you squint, a bit like magic. You have to learn the words to the spell to convince a carefully crafted lump of sand to do what you want. If you understand the rules deeply enough, you can chain together the spells to force the sand to do ever more complicated tasks. If your spell is long and well-crafted enough, you can even give the sand the illusion of sentience.
That illusion of sentience is nowhere more strong than in the world of machine learning, where text generation engines like GPT-3 and LaMDA are able to hold convincing conversations, answer detailed questions, and perform moderately complex tasks based on just a written request.
NY AG tries to explain how Apple’s free Yankees stream is worse than cable TV
Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images
Yankees star Aaron Judge could break a home run record at Friday’s game against the Boston Red Sox, and you’ll be able to watch the game for free through Apple TV’s Friday Night Baseball broadcast. But in tweets ahead of the game, New York Attorney General Letitia James confusingly called for the game to be brought over to New York’s local Yankee Entertainment and Sports (YES) cable network, and after slightly walking that back, called the steps to watch Apple’s broadcast “burdens.”
Millions of New Yorkers paid their cable bills expecting to see live sports programming. Denying them the chance to watch Aaron Judge step up to the plate to make history tonight is wrong and unfair.
The replies to this tweet are pretty rough, with people rightly pointing out that James is advocating for paid cable when Apple is streaming the game for free inside the Apple TV app or via a browser on most any device as long as you have an Apple ID.
Nearly two hours later, James took a softer tone, though still stood some ground.
Earlier, I expressed concerns about how New Yorkers could watch tonight’s potentially historic Yankees game.
While there is a way to watch the game without paying more, it creates requirements including an Apple ID, a smart TV or streaming device, or Wi-Fi or cellular service.
In 2022, when cell phones are ubiquitous, and everyone is watching video via Netflix, YouTube, or TikTok, those “requirements” don’t seem especially hard to meet. While there are edge cases, and not every viewer has plugged their TV into the network (or maybe their local sports bar can’t work out how to plug in a dongle and change the input), the game should be viewable to people on screens they have around them.
With free access via a web browser, it just doesn’t seem like there are significant “burdens” to being able to watch the game. Neither Apple nor the MLB replied to requests for comments from The Verge.
Unfortunately, this probably won’t be the last time we see policymakers frustrated about where they can watch a sports game. As big tech companies like Apple and Amazon continue to invest more in sports broadcasting rights, knowing exactly where you can see the next big game is going to become as confusing as figuring out where you can stream Harry Potter. And this is all happening before we know where the lucrative NFL Sunday Ticket package will end up next — for which Apple is reportedly a frontrunner.
The New York Yankees’ game against the Boston Red Sox begins at 7:05PM ET.
Google’s new adventure game takes a top-down trip through ancient Mesoamerica
I love the cute characters in the game. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Google’s Arts & Culture division has released a charming new educational game all about ancient Mesoamerica. The game, The Descent of the Serpent, is available to play right now in your browser or via the Google Arts & Culture iOS and Android apps.
There’s a light plot to Descent of the Serpent, shown in a short video that plays at the beginning of the game. While exploring a museum, a large artifact is stolen by Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Smoking Mirror, and a living statue asks for your help to recover 20 icons included on the artifact to prevent floods from taking over the world. You, naturally, agree, and the statue says they’ll send you back in time to ancient Mesoamerica.
You’ll be able to pick from one of four adorable animal “disguises” for your characters that all have roots in Mesoamerican culture. I picked Huitzilopochtli, represented by the wolf, but you can also play as Xolotl (the dog), Xbalanque (the jaguar), and Mictlantecuhtli (the owl).
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
It’s tough to pick which is the best one, but it’s definitely the wolf.
The game, which was made in partnership with Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, plays kind of like a simplified top-down The Legend of Zelda title. You’ll roam lush (though small) environments to collect the missing icons, which show up as gold coins. When you pick up one of the icons, the game will present a little bit of history about what it is and point you to an exhibit on the Google Arts & Culture website if you want to learn more.
While exploring the world in Descent of the Serpent, you’ll also have to dodge simple obstacles like roaming crocodiles and monkeys throwing things at you. On the game’s easier difficulty, getting hit just stuns you for a short while. But on the “challenge” mode, you’re on a timer and get sent back to the beginning of the level after taking five hits, so you’ll have to be careful. I’d recommend most people just stick with the standard difficulty — I don’t know if this is a game that is much better by being any tougher.
I’m only partway through TheDescent of the Serpent, but I very well may finish the game on my own sometime soon. It’s been a fun way to learn more about a culture I’m not very familiar with, and I really want to spend some more time with my wolf buddy. After I’m done, I might have to play a round of Google’s pétanque — or make a song with the blob opera.
Valve overhauls Steam’s stats page with new real-time charts
Valve’s stats page for its Steam storefront now has real-time charts showing both the top-selling and most played games at any given moment. You can look at the new stats page right here.
As I write this, the top-selling title is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II — which perhaps isn’t too shocking given that preordering the game gets you early access to the open beta — but the next best-selling game is, to my surprise, Slime Rancher 2.
According to a blog post from Valve, the top-selling lists are ranked based on total revenue, including DLC and in-game purchases, which is intended to provide a “more complete picture of which games players are excited about getting into and continuing to play.” And Valve has added metrics like number of weeks on the chart and weekly change in rank to give you a more granular idea of how games might be trending.
The most-played games list is topped by some perennially popular free-to-play games like CS:GO, Dota 2, and Apex Legends, but this chart also shows that Cyberpunk 2077 is in the top 10, likely buoyed by a new update and the Netflix anime. You can sort the most played list by current players, which will show you what’s being played the most right at that moment, and daily players, which ranks games based on peak daily players.
This new stats page is already a robust source of information, and I think it will be an interesting one to keep an eye on, especially as we enter the holiday buying season. I also think I’ll also be using it to discover games that a lot of people are paying attention to — like Slime Rancher 2, apparently.
This new turntable can play music directly to a Sonos system
No wires necessary to get this turntable on your Sonos system. | Image: Victrola
Getting your vinyl playing on a Sonos system has never been necessarily hard; it just takes the right gear. You can plug a turntable into something like the Sonos Five, Amp, or Connect. Or if you’ve got a Bluetooth-enabled turntable, the Sonos Roam can beam that audio to the rest of your system. But obviously the ideal solution would be a turntable that transmits audio directly to a Sonos system with no extra hardware required. That’s exactly what the new Victrola Stream Carbon turntable offers.
Priced at $799, the Stream Carbon “requires no additional equipment for connecting to a Sonos ecosystem, allowing effortless setup and easy control with the Sonos app,” according to Victrola’s press release. Initial setup is done through the company’s mobile app, and after that, listeners will be able to “send (and control the volume of) the music from a record to any Sonos speaker in their home.” The illuminated control knob on the turntable can also control volume for your Sonos system.
Image: Victrola
That’s a sleek piece of kit.
The Stream Carbon turntable has official Works With Sonos certification. Victrola CEO Scott Hagen said his team has collaborated with Sonos on a “multi-year journey” that’s resulted in the new product being announced today. “We are proud of how easy to set up and use the Victrola Stream Carbon is, but we are even more proud of the reaction we see when someone listens to records with friends or family through their Sonos system.”
As for the turntable hardware itself, it sounds like quite a step up from the all-in-one turntable/speaker combos that Victrola is mostly known for these days. The Stream Carbon is now the most expensive turntable that the company makes, and it’s described as such:
Carbon utilizes the highest quality materials that include a low-resonance veneer plinth with premium metal turntable components, and a carbon fiber tonearm with a custom-designed removable headshell. To further elevate the wireless vinyl listening experience, Victrola Stream Carbon will ship with a premium Ortofon Red 2M moving magnetic cartridge that will deliver optimized sound reproduction and a high level of sonic accuracy through listeners’ Sonos speaker systems.
The Stream Carbon goes up for preorder starting today from Victrola, Best Buy’s Magnolia brand, Crutchfield, and other retailers. It’s expected to ship in late October.
How to use Focus modes in iOS 16
iOS 16 makes programming Focus modes less tedious. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Apple added Focus modes last year in iOS 15 to help you stay on task. The idea was to keep you “in the moment” by filtering out apps or notifications that you don’t want popping up during specific times. In iOS 16, Apple has also added some new options to streamline the process. That includes the ability to silence notifications from specific apps or people, as well as link Focus modes with lock screens and watchfaces.
When you first start to set Focus up, it can seem a little daunting. There are a lot of choices and a lot of ways you can tweak it. In fact, it may take a while before you get the combination of settings that works best for your lifestyle. But in the end, it will be worth it — it will mean that you won’t be sidelined during times you need to concentrate, and you won’t be bothered by irrelevant notifications when you’ve got other activities in hand.
You’ll find your new Focus button in the Control Center.
Tap on Focus, and you’ll see all your various profiles.
Begin to focus
You access Focus mode via your Control Center (swipe down from the upper right corner). You’ll see the Focus button with an icon next to it. By default, it’ll be the moon icon. When tapped, it’ll activate your primary Do Not Disturb profile. If you tap anywhere else in the button, you’ll see a selection of other profiles that you can activate. Once you start using Focus modes more often, the displayed icon will default to the last Focus mode you’ve used.
Tap on the three dots to the right of each button, and you can set the length of time you want that Focus profile to be active. Or you can tap the Settings button to tweak the settings for that Focus.
But perhaps the best way to start is to go to Settings > Focus, where you can set up all the various Focus profiles you are planning to use.
You can choose from a list of presets or create your own custom Focus modes.
Set up your profiles
When you first open the Focus page in your settings, you’ll see a list of several profiles, starting with the basic Do Not Disturb and then going on to others, such as Personal, Sleep, and Work. If you tap on the plus sign in the upper right corner of the screen, you’ll find more, including Driving, Fitness, Gaming, Mindfulness, and Reading. If none of those suits you, you can create a custom profile.
In addition, there is a toggle that lets you can share the profiles across your various Apple devices.
Setting up Focus modes can seem a little confusing, but it’s really not once you get into it. Let’s start by tapping on Do Not Disturb — which was the first Focus mode that Apple ever made — and using it as an example in order to explain how these work. After that, we’ll take a look at a couple of the modes that work a little differently.
Do Not Disturb
The first thing you see atop the Do Not Disturb focus page are several submenus designed to help you figure out the people and apps allowed to send notifications when the mode is enabled. After that, you’ll see options to customize screens, an option to automatically turn the mode on and off at certain times, and Focus Filters that let you customize how apps work in a specific Focus.
The new Do Not Disturb focus mode options include the ability to customize screens
The new options also include Focus filters.
Allow notifications
Focus lets you specify people or apps that can continue to notify you even if you have Do Not Disturb active. For example, you may want to allow calls to come in from family members or notifications from your work Slack. In iOS 16, you also now have the option to silence notifications from specific people or apps. Keep in mind: if you want to use this method across all your devices, they’ll all need to be running the most recent software.
To make these exceptions, tap on the People or Apps boxes to get to the Notifications page. Unlike in iOS 15, this will bring you to two separate menus. That’s because you can now mix and match. For example, you could choose to allow notifications from people but silence notifications from apps. (Note that the Notifications page could differ slightly depending on your phone.)
iOS 16 now lets you silence notifications from apps and people, too.
Silence or allow notifications from people
Tap on the People box. You should see two options up top: Silence Notifications From or Allow Notifications From.
To add people to the list, tap the plus button. From there, you should see your contacts list. Check off the contacts you want to add to your list, and when you go back to the Notifications page, they’ll appear in the box. If you want to remove someone, you can tap the minus button in the top left of their contact photo.
You can also choose who you want to allow calls from in the Phone Calls box (which is just below the box showing your contacts). Tap the drop-down box to select Everybody, Allowed People Only, Favorites, or Contacts Only. If you’ve set up specific contact groups, those should appear here as well.
Silence or allow notifications from apps
If you’re choosing one or more apps in Do Not Disturb, then tap the Apps tab and then the plus button.
You’ll get a list of your installed apps. Check off those you want to add to the Allowed Notifications From or the Silence Notifications From list, and select Done at the top right of the page. You’ll now see your chosen apps listed in the box next to the plus sign.
If you change your mind about any of your apps, you can just tap the minus sign next to each icon.
You can also allow Time Sensitive notifications to come through by toggling it on. Time Sensitive notifications are from apps you’ve individually tagged as important enough to break through any filter, no matter what. To select which apps are that important to you, you have to leave Focus and go to Settings > Notifications; select the app or apps you want to qualify — say, Calendar — and make sure Time Sensitive notifications is toggled on for that app.
Customize screens
In iOS 16, you can do more than just customize which homescreens show up in a specific Focus mode. You can also link a Focus to a specific lock screen — and to a watchface if you have an Apple Watch.
To do this, just scroll down to the Customize Screens menu for Do Not Disturb (or whatever profile you’re setting up). You should see two or three icons: a lock screen, a homescreen, and (if you have a Watch) a watchface. Tap the blue Choose link under each to select from your existing lock screens, homescreens, and watchfaces.
If you’re feeling creative, you can also create new lock screens, homescreens, or watchfaces for each mode. This is a bit more time-consuming but probably offers you the greatest customization.
When you’re selecting homescreen pages, Apple now offers suggestions based on the Focus you’re programming. You also can also create your own Focus homescreens, but it’s more time-consuming. It entails creating your own homescreens and hiding them when you’re not in a Focus. Apple’s suggestions are pretty good, but this is a viable workaround if you don’t like any of them.
Turn on automatically
Focus modes work best when they’re seamless. Some Focus modes you’ll want to turn on manually. But for others, Apple gives you the option to program when they’ll activate.
You can automate Focus modes to activate at a set time or location or when you open a particular app. Under the Turn On Automatically menu in the Do Not Disturb (or other profile) page, hit Add Schedule to access one of these options. You’re not locked into any one setting, either. For example, you can have the Do Not Disturb focus activate at a set time, when you arrive at the office, and whenever you open the Netflix app.
And if this is something that happens often — for example, when you go to read in the evenings — activate Smart Activation, which will (hopefully) learn your habits and turn on Do Not Disturb when you need it. (If it gets things wrong, you can always turn it off.)
You can automate when a Focus mode activates.
Screenshot by Victoria Song / The Verge
Focus filters are new as well but a little limited.
Focus filters
iOS 16 also adds the ability to apply app or system filters with a specific mode. You’re a bit limited in choices as of this moment, but the ones that are available are helpful. To find these filters, scroll down on the main Do Not Disturb page.
For example, you can set a Calendar Filter so that only a specific calendar shows up. Or you can filter Messages so that you only see messages from people you want to. In Safari, you can choose to limit yourself to viewing a specific tab group. As far as system filters go, you can opt to switch to Dark or Light mode or turn on Low Power mode.
It may not be apparent why you should opt for a filter. And not every mode will need them. But, for example, you may decide that in your Sleep focus, you want to switch to Dark Mode automatically. Or, if you’re in Fitness mode and worried about battery life on a five-hour hike, you can flip on Low Power Mode.
Other options
There are also a variety of other options.
In the Options menu under the Allowed/Silenced People and Apps, you can choose whether to show Silenced Notifications on your lock screen, dim your lock screen, or hide notification badges.
You can choose to share your focus status — so if somebody texts you, they will get a display saying that you have notifications silenced. On the main Focus page, scroll down until you see the Focus Status menu. Then toggle on Share Focus Status. You can also customize from which modes you share your status. For example, you can toggle it on for Driving and turn it off for Sleep.
Focus profiles
One of the reasons that Focus modes can be a little confusing to set up is that some of them can be very different from each other. Let’s look at two more: Personal and Driving.
When you tap on a profile that has not yet been set up, you are presented with a set of screens that walk you through the initial processing, including which people and apps should be allowed to notify you when the Focus is active.
The Driving Focus profile has different options.
Your automation options also differ.
After that, you are dropped into the Focus page for that profile, which will be similar to the Do Not Disturb setup described above. In Personal, you can not only tweak the allowed notifications but decide whether you want to share your Focus status, choose how you want to customize your screens or create an automation that will turn it on and off at a certain time, in a certain place, or with a certain app.
Some of the other presets are more specific. For example, when I created a Focus for driving, the opening page of the wizard told me that it was silencing alerts and notifications while I was driving, that it would turn on automatically when I was driving, and that it would arrange auto-reply to let people know why I wasn’t responding to notifications.
And the Driving Focus page had a few differences as well. Allowed notifications include people but not apps (under the assumption that you’re not playing with apps while you’re at the wheel). There is an auto-reply option that lets you edit the message that will be sent to people who try to contact you while the Focus is on. In the Customize Screens menu, you won’t have the option to select homescreens as... you shouldn’t be looking at your phone! And you can choose how the app will know you’re driving: automatically (based on detected motion), if the CarPlay app is activated, if the phone is connected to a car’s Bluetooth, or when you turn it on manually.
Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
You can always create a custom Focus mode, like a “This is Fine” mode for when the internet news is too much.
If none of the presets work for you, you can create a custom profile by tapping on the plus sign in the upper right corner of the main Focus screen and choosing Custom. You will be asked to name your new profile and to choose a color and icon to represent it. After that, the process is pretty much the same as for Personal, except that you can also tweak the name and appearance of the Focus in the profile’s screen.
So what next?
Now, when you tap the Focus icon in your Control Center, it will activate all the various features you’ve created for your profile. Note that the last profile that was active will be the one that is featured: for example, if you last used your Driving profile, the Focus button will have the car icon. Touch the icon to activate it, or touch the word Focus to switch to a different profile.
The Focus app can be very useful by helping you concentrate when you need to by letting you relax when you want to, keeping unwanted calls and texts from waking you at night, and keeping you safe from distractions when driving. It may take a while to figure out which profiles you want to set up and to discover what combination of factors works for you. But once you’ve got it working, Focus can really make things easier for you.
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Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
