mercredi 30 août 2023

The Garmin Venu 3 series will finally give you credit for naps

The Garmin Venu 3 series will finally give you credit for naps
Renders of entire Venu 3S and Venu 3 lineup.
The Garmin Venu 3S (left five models) and Venu 3 will both retail for $449.99. | Image: Garmin

Garmin is launching the Venu 3 and 3S today, and there’s good news for nap lovers. The company is debuting a new Sleep Coach feature that includes both personalized coaching and automatic nap detection.

Nap tracking is a timely addition. Sleep is increasingly a popular focus among wearables companies. Samsung, for example, has been working hard the last two years to build out its native sleep tracking offerings, and Google also added Fitbit’s Sleep Profile feature to the Pixel Watch. So it’s been admittedly odd that Garmin devices haven’t been able to automatically detect naps. (You’ll also be able to manually log naps as well.) This is especially true since sleep — and therefore naps — is a factor when calculating recovery and readiness metrics. At a press briefing, Garmin noted that Sleep Coach and nap detection will eventually roll out to other Garmin devices but declined to specify which ones.

The Venu 3 series will be the first Garmin watches to include a wheelchair mode. The mode will replace steps with pushes and movement reminders with weight shift reminders. Garmin says there will also be wheelchair-specific sports apps and workouts. Existing algorithms in this mode will also be adapted to be more useful to wheelchair users.

According to Garmin, the new mode was developed and beta tested with wheelchair users. At the briefing, it also clarified that, for now, this will remain exclusive to Venu 3 watches. As for why, the company said it’s to get extra feedback on what works before extending it to other models.

Rounding out the new features are bigger font sizes for those of us with terrible eyesight and audio-based guided meditation sessions. For meditations, users will be able to follow voice prompts, set intentions, and listen to white noise like ocean sounds. You’ll be able to choose from preset sessions or customize your own.

Close up of the new Body Battery feature identifying a stressful moment Image: Garmin
The Body Battery feature will now display more tidbits about what activities drain or recharge your energy levels.

The Venu 3 is also getting some features that are typically seen on Garmin’s higher-end multisport watches. That includes Morning Report and metrics like recovery time, workout benefits (i.e., how training impacts your body), and perceived rate of exertion. Users will also be able to create interval workouts straight from the wrist. Body Battery — a Garmin metric that visualizes your energy levels — will also give more detailed insights with regard to restful and stressful moments in your day.

While it’s nice to see Garmin debut new software, the hardware itself is only a minor improvement from its predecessor. The Venu 3 gets a slight bump in battery life at an estimated 14 days (five days if you enable the always-on display) compared to the Venu 2’s 11 days. The 3S’s battery life remains the same at 10 days (five with AOD). Both smartwatches also get the new optical heart rate sensor that Garmin debuted on the Epix Pro and Fenix 7 Pro.

Otherwise, design and size are similar to the Venu 2, at 45mm for the regular Venu 3 and 41mm for the 3S. Since these are also meant to be lifestyle watches, they’re not quite as heavy or rugged as other Garmin devices. The Venu 3 weighs in at 46g, while the 3S is 40g. The watches also sport OLED displays, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 lenses, and 5ATM of water resistance.

The Garmin Venu 3 series is available starting today. Both watches will retail for $449.99. The Venu 3 comes in black and white, while the 3S will come in black, french gray, sage, pink, and ivory.

The Fairphone 5 is a little more repairable and much more modern

The Fairphone 5 is a little more repairable and much more modern
Fairphone 5 disassembled.
The Fairphone 5 with its repairable guts on show for all to see. | Image: Fairphone

The Fairphone 5 is the latest sustainably produced and repairable handset from Dutch smartphone company Fairphone. Like its previous devices, the Fairphone 5 is made with ethically sourced materials by workers who are given a living wage bonus and is designed to be easy to repair with a lengthy software support period. But this year’s model is specced-out much more like a modern midrange smartphone, with an OLED display, fast 30W charging, and dual 50-megapixel cameras at the rear.

Fairphone is taking preorders for the Fairphone 5 starting today, and the smartphone ships on September 14th in Europe. Prices start at €699 in the eurozone or £619 in the UK. That translates to roughly $758, though Fairphone has no plans for a US release for the Fairphone 5 at this time. (The Fairphone 4 did eventually release stateside earlier this year, though it did so through a partnership with Murena.)

Fairphone 5 from the front and back. Image: Fairphone
You get an OLED screen this time around, a first for Fairphone.

In terms of specs, the Fairphone 5 is the first Fairphone to ship with an OLED display. It’s 6.46 inches in size with a refresh rate of 90Hz and a resolution of 1224 x 2770. Around back, you’ll find a pair of 50-megapixel cameras — one main and one ultrawide — and the selfie camera contained within a hole-punch cutout is also 50 megapixels in resolution. If that sounds normal or even a little pedestrian, then that’s kind of the point — Fairphone has never been a company on the bleeding edge of smartphone specs.

Instead, Fairphone aims to compete on sustainability. One aspect of this is how easy the Fairphone 5 is to repair, with the aim of keeping it usable for longer and, hence, out of landfill. Fairphone has upped the number of repair modules in this phone to 10 because it now allows you to replace the rear cameras individually or replace the module containing the SIM and SD Card slots. Of course, the battery is still user-replaceable but is also bigger this time around at 4,200mAh, supports faster 30W charging, and is rated to survive 1,000 charging cycles.

The other important aspect of a smartphone’s longevity is software support. Fairphone is promising to update the Fairphone 5 with at least five major Android updates beyond the Android 12 it ships with as well as eight years of security patches. That should keep the phone usable from a software perspective until 2031, though Fairphone’s press release says it’s aiming for 2033 as a stretch goal. For reference, the company released its last software update for the 2015 Fairphone 2 earlier this year, bringing to an end seven years of software support, handily beating Android competitors like Samsung and Google (which both currently offer up to five years of security updates). The Fairphone 5 also ships with a five-year warranty.

The length of software support being promised for the Fairphone 5 is at least partially due to Fairphone’s use of an enterprise-focused chipset from Qualcomm, the QCM6490, which is roughly equivalent in specs to the midrange Snapdragon 778G. It’s joined by 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, expandable with up to 2TB via microSD.

Transparent fairphone 5 held next to blue fairphone 5. Image: Fairphone
The excellent transparent Fairphone 5 next to the objectively less good blue model.

A commonly cited concern with repairable handsets is that they’re not able to offer the same kind of waterproofing as other modern phones, whose glue-assisted construction is great for IP ratings at the expense of repairability. The good news is that the Fairphone 5 has an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance, which is a slight improvement over the IP54 rating of the Fairphone 4. The bad news is that, despite this improvement, the phone still isn’t protected against full submersion. Effectively, you’re getting protection against more powerful jets of water, which is better but still not perfect.

Like the Fairphone 4, there’s once again no headphone jack here, and the handset is available in three colors; black, blue, and (the correct option) transparent.

Transparent Fairphone 5 held up to camera. Image: Fairphone
The transparent back shows off the user-replaceable battery inside.

Finally, as well as being designed to survive for as long as possible, Fairphone has attempted to produce the Fairphone 5 in an ethical way. It lists over a dozen materials that it’s attempted to sustainably source and says that 70 percent of these materials are either recycled or ethically mined. So there’s recycled aluminum, tin, nickel, zinc, copper, magnesium, indium, and plastics, and Fairphone has worked with the Alliance for Responsible Mining, the Fair Cobalt Alliance, and the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance in an attempt to improve the mining of other materials like tungsten and lithium. A living wage bonus is paid to the 2,000 people who assemble the phone and components like its battery, PCB, and vibration motor.

For as long as I’ve been reviewing Fairphones, my takeaway has been that they’re good entry-level phones priced like more expensive midrange phones. But as smartphones have started changing less and less with each passing year, there are fewer and fewer benefits to being on the bleeding edge of technology. With its more modern looks and specs, that could make the Fairphone 5 a much more appealing prospect. Stay tuned for our full review, coming soon.

Falsehoods Follow Close Behind This Summer’s Natural Disasters

Falsehoods Follow Close Behind This Summer’s Natural Disasters Misattributed videos, recycled lies and warped fears are fueling unfounded claims about the recent record-breaking heat, floods and wildfires.

mardi 29 août 2023

Google leaked Google’s flagship Pixel 8 Pro, again

Google leaked Google’s flagship Pixel 8 Pro, again
An illustration of the Google logo.
Illustration: The Verge

Continuing the storied tradition of Google’s Pixel devices being some of the most-leaked hardware ever, the as-yet-unannounced Pixel 8 Pro has popped up on a Google Store page. @Android_Setting on Twitter / X pointed out the image on a page promoting Google’s subscriptions and services (Pixel Pass is not among them), showing a man taking a call on a Pixel 8 Pro in Porcelain.

Sure, the device looks like the renders and images that have already leaked, including from a supposed internal Google video, but how can we be sure it’s that phone in that color? In a win for accessibility, the tipster notes that the image’s alt-text description removes all doubt, reading, “A person takes a call on a Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain.”

We’ll zoom in so you can get a good look.

A man in glasses an a knit cap talks on a cellular phone, described by Google as the Pixel 8 Pro in Porcelain. Image: Google
Pixel 8 Pro in Porcelain

The design in the image matches the leaks, with a glass oval covering the rear cameras that are still protruding in a bar design similar to other recent Pixel phones. The leak doesn’t tell us anything about what’s inside the phone. Still, we’ve heard plenty about those already, covering the specs, screen and RAM, camera hardware, and some potential new software features like Video Unblur.

As for Google’s leaky history when it comes to hardware, my colleague Sean Hollister already broke it down while covering a Pixel 7A leak ahead of this year’s I/O event:

Seriously: we called the Pixel 4 the most-leaked phone ever — and that was after multiple Russian-speaking bloggers obtained the Pixel 3 XL. The Nexus 4 was fully reviewed before it was ever announced. The Pixel 4A and Pixel 5 leaked like a sieve, and Google itself tipped the 6A in a coloring book, not unlike how it accidentally revealed the Nexus 5 in a YouTube video. The Pixel 6 got unboxed, and the Pixel 6 Pro even got a teardown before the phone launched. It’s not hard to see why Google tends to tease its gadgets early now.

Now all we need is a video of Giannis Antetokounmpo using one and we’ll be ready for the Pixel 8 launch event.

Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro headset

Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro headset
Illustration depicting several Apple logos on a lime green background.
Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Apple announced Vision Pro, its long-rumored virtual and augmented reality headset, at WWDC 2023. Here’s a timeline of all the details that have emerged about the device over the years and what we know so far.

People have been speculating about Apple’s entry into the world of virtual and augmented reality headsets for the better part of a decade, and at WWDC 2023, it finally revealed Vision Pro.

The new headset runs visionOS, uses two Apple Silicon chips (M2 Ultra and R1), and can be used for up to two hours with a tethered battery pack or for as long as you want if it’s plugged in. It also uses “natural control” with hand and eye tracking as well as voice commands. The Vision Pro headset will arrive “early next year” in the US, and Apple is pricing it at $3,499 to start.

Apple had never officially confirmed that it was working on the headset, but over the years, there were all kinds of rumors about what it might make. Now we know the truth about Vision Pro, a mixed reality device capable of both virtual and augmented reality experiences. Just like the rumors said, users can switch between AR and VR using a digital crown-style dial, and depending on what they’re viewing, it displays their eyes on the front so that others know the person wearing it can see them.

Read on for all our coverage so far on Apple’s Vision Pro headset.

The Ayaneo Kun nearly doubles the Steam Deck’s battery for nearly twice the price

The Ayaneo Kun nearly doubles the Steam Deck’s battery for nearly twice the price

The Steam Deck’s biggest weakness is battery life — and yet somehow, every challenger has failed to raise that bar. The Ayaneo 2 showed us that AMD’s Ryzen 6800U wasn’t ready to compete; the Asus ROG Ally revealed that AMD’s Z1 Extreme couldn’t pull ahead if Asus insisted on matching the Steam Deck’s 40 watt-hour battery pack.

But Ayaneo may has an answer: it’s stuffing a 75 watt-hour pack into a larger, heavier handheld called the Ayaneo Kun that — it now claims — can last nearly three and a quarter hours at 15W TDP. That’s nearly double the battery and runtime you’d expect from a Steam Deck at that wattage, though it appears it wasn’t captured while playing a game, exactly.

 Image: Ayaneo
Ayaneo Kun battery life, according to its manufacturer.

We’ve mentioned the Ayaneo Kun on The Verge a couple of times before, but today the company revealed its full array of features, price, expected ship window, and that you’ll be able to crowdfund it on September 5th if you’re willing to pay with no guarantees.

Personally, I’d wait. But there’s no question that this handheld has the strongest spec sheet yet — starting with a comparatively large 8.4-inch, 2560 x 1600, 500-nit, 90 percent DCI-P3 color IPS screen.

 Images: Ayaneo, Valve
Top: Ayaneo Kun. Bottom: Steam Deck.

Ayaneo seems to have heard how some people prefer the Steam Deck’s ergonomics and loads of buttons to its own previous handhelds, too — so the Kun adds bigger grips, dual touchpads (each with four distinct buttons underneath), quad back buttons, beefier triggers, and even a little kickstand reminiscent of the original Nintendo Switch.

There’s also a little Windows Hello front-facing camera underneath the back/select button for face login and streaming, something most handhelds have entirely omitted — as well as Hall Effect joysticks and triggers to avoid drift, HD linear motors for rumble (like the Switch and DualSense), and an optional 4G module for cellular connectivity. There’s a nano-SIM slot hidden underneath the kickstand.

 Image: Ayaneo

And while houses the same AMD Ryzen 7840U chip you’ll find in many boutique PC gaming handhelds this year (the ROG Ally’s Z1 Extreme is a close cousin, too), the company claims its massive cooling system can crank that APU all the way up to 54 watts in its turbo mode — far higher than the 30-watt turbo on the Asus ROG Ally.

 Image: Ayaneo

Is that practical? Perhaps not, as it looks like largely a 7 percent to 10 percent boost in framerates over the 30-watt mode in the company’s own tests. (Do, however, check the jump from 34fps to 43fps in The Witcher 3.) Ayaneo straight up says “54W is not recommended for daily use as the main TDP.”

But the Kun also houses a full-length M.2 2280 SSD slot for up to 8TB of internal storage, whereas the Deck and many competitors top out at 2TB because you can only fit one chip on their single-sided M.2 2230 SSDs.

 Image: Ayaneo

Ayaneo is pricing the Kun starting at $1,209 retail for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, stretching all the way to $1,949 for 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD. Early bird prices start around $200 less.

 Image: Ayaneo

If you’re interested in the Ayaneo Kun, I would suggest three things:

First, understand that aside from battery, the biggest issue with Steam Deck competitors is that they run Windows. It’s a little counterintuitive (isn’t Windows where the games are?) but Windows is seriously unoptimized for a handheld gaming PC, trackpads or no, and I run into all sorts of annoyances that the Steam Deck has already solved.

Second, watch Taki Udon’s video embedded below. He’s a very experienced handheld reviewer who goes over the ergonomic tradeoffs in great detail.

Third, know that while Ayaneo has a pretty good track record of shipping slick hardware, the company tends to be fire-and-forget. It has a habit of very quickly moving onto its next handheld gaming PC before the previous customers are satisfied. Its software generally needs a lot of work, is not well localized for English speakers, and I’ve run into all sorts of weird bugs across the three Ayaneo handhelds I’ve tried.

Each Ayaneo handheld I’ve tried has been better than the last, though, and their new Ayaspace 2.0 isn’t bad. I bet they nail it one day.

Meta’s ‘Biggest Single Takedown’ Removes Chinese Influence Campaign

Meta’s ‘Biggest Single Takedown’ Removes Chinese Influence Campaign The campaign began at least four years ago and spanned thousands of accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Substack and Chinese websites, Meta said.

lundi 28 août 2023

Police won’t fine Elon Musk for illegally livestreaming while driving

Police won’t fine Elon Musk for illegally livestreaming while driving
An image of Elon Musk in a tuxedo making an odd face. The background is red with weight scales on it.
Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

When Elon Musk livestreamed a drive through Palo Alto, California on Friday afternoon, he was holding his phone — which is plainly and clearly illegal under California law. But the Palo Alto Police Department won’t be issuing a fine, it tells The Verge, because police didn’t witness the crime themselves.

“Had an officer observed the driver with the phone in their hand, they could have issued the driver an infraction ticket for violating California’s handsfree law,” writes Palo Alto PD Captain James Reifschneider.

“As no officer witnessed it happening in person at the time of occurrence, though, no ticket is forthcoming,” he told me via email.

There’s no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle: he was forced to stop his “Full Self Driving” system from running a red light partway through the livestream, and he reveals that he’s in the drivers seat by turning the camera on himself near the 30-minute mark.

 Image: Elon Musk
Musk’s livestream selfie.

Let me be clear: I’m pretty sure Palo Alto Police have better things to do than chase down the world’s richest man for a $20 fine. (That’s the only punishment for a first offense — you can get a point against your driving record for a second offense, but only if it happens within three years of the first violation.)

But Musk has been known to repeatedly flout the law — see my linkbox — and some are beginning to question his power. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow recently published “Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule” at The New Yorker, a piece of reporting that shows, among other things, how SpaceX’s Starlink satellites became so important to the war in Ukraine that the US government was forced to treat him with kid gloves.

“He is more like a nation-state than an individual in terms of the implications of his power,” Farrow told Fresh Air.

As my colleague Andrew Hawkins points out, the US government may be about to make a major decision regarding Musk — whether or not to force a recall of Tesla’s autopilot software following the NHTSA investigation into over a dozen crashes where Autopilot cars hit stationary emergency vehicles.

Reifschneider, the police captain, says that there are practical reasons why the department doesn’t ticket without personally observing a driver — they need to be able to tell a judge what they saw, verify the driver’s identity and driver’s license, and collect a license plate or VIN number for the vehicle to support the citation.

“The officer needs to be prepared to testify in court about what they personally observed (namely, that they saw the phone in the driver’s hand),” he writes.

Tech Chiefs to Gather in Washington Next Month on A.I. Regulations

Tech Chiefs to Gather in Washington Next Month on A.I. Regulations The leaders of Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and others are meeting with lawmakers on Sept. 13 to kick off listening sessions that may shape A.I. rules in the United States.

Microsoft Edge’s latest feature is removing features

Microsoft Edge’s latest feature is removing features
An image showing the Edge logo
Image: The Verge

The next version of Microsoft’s Edge web browser might end up with fewer features than before. The new Edge version 117, which is currently in beta and expected to turn stable on September 14th, according to Neowin and 9to5Google, has five features slated for removal. Those features include Math Solver, Picture Dictionary, Citations, Grammar Tools, and Kids Mode.

Microsoft previously mentioned the “deprecation” of these features in its last beta channel release notes on August 25th. The company said the reason is to “improve end user experience and simplify the More tools menu.”

 Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge
The More Tools menu on a stable release of Microsoft Edge.

As Microsoft tries to get more people using its Edge browser instead of the more popular Google Chrome browser, it has to find a way to differentiate itself. Sometimes, extra features just read as clutter; if you’ve never heard of the features listed above, they likely only further bloated the browser. For Microsoft, it’s probably looking to lighten the load in other areas around Edge, like tools for parents and academics, as it continues to sink in key AI features and shopping tools.

In a bid to build buzz, a whole lot of AMC shows are coming to Max ad-free

In a bid to build buzz, a whole lot of AMC shows are coming to Max ad-free
A screenshot of the AMC logo next to the AMC Plus logo on a dark background.
AMC’s logos as seen in the trailer for the second season of Dark Winds. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

A handful of AMC Plus shows, including Fear the Walking Dead and Killing Eve, will have a temporary home on Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service, starting September 1st and going through October 31st. Statements provided to multiple outlets by executives from both services’ parent companies make it clear the goal of the deal is to help AMC Plus while adding more content to Max, which is good because, with the strikes in Hollywood bringing productions to a halt and the challenges AMC is facing in the cable space, both companies probably need it.

“This promotional arrangement with Warner Bros. Discovery is a terrific opportunity to serve up some of our most popular and critically acclaimed programming to millions of Max subscribers in the U.S. for two full months,” Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks, said in a statement.

Max will feature the AMC Plus series in a branded “AMC+ Picks on Max” rail, and crucially, they won’t have ads — whether you’re subscribed to the ad-free or ad-lite versions of Max.

It's not clear if the shows announced so far are the only ones coming to Max (we’ve reached out for clarification), as the excellent Kevin Can F*** Himself, for example, does not appear to be making the trip, but Fear of the Walking Dead and the first season of the Tony Hillerman adaptation Dark Winds are. Dark Winds is currently airing its second season on AMC Plus and AMC.

Here’s the list of shows announced so far for the promotion:

  • Fear the Walking Dead (Seasons 1-7)
  • Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire (Season 1)
  • Dark Winds (Season 1)
  • Gangs of London (Seasons 1-2)
  • Ride with Norman Reedus (Seasons 1-5)
  • A Discovery of Witches (Seasons 1-3)
  • Killing Eve (Seasons 1-4)

AMC Plus has struggled to grow a subscriber base in a deeply saturated streaming environment, and the slow-motion death of AMC’s ancestral homeland of cable TV isn’t doing it any favors. Earlier this month, the company posted poor second quarter financial results and revealed that, rather than inching closer to its goal of hitting 20-25 million streaming subscriptions in 2025, its subscriber count had fallen by 300,000 to just 11 million paying streamers.

That’s despite having streaming rights for several high-profile, award-winning shows like The Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Hell on Wheels. The service also has several original shows, while parent company AMC Networks also owns multiple legacy cable channels, like BBC America and IFC, as well as the horror streaming service Shudder.

AMC also announced it would launch an ad-supported tier in October, and other partnerships have seen it featured on The Roku Channel (as a paid add-on), and it’s long been available as a subscription channel in both Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.

The stakes are high for AMC Plus, as featuring some of its best shows on Max — and in front of its nearly 100 million subscribers — could put more eyeballs on AMC Plus content. Whether it will help the streaming service pick up subscribers remains to be seen.

Google might recreate Apple’s satellite SOS on Android

Google might recreate Apple’s satellite SOS on Android
A photo of Google’s Pixel Fold smartphone.
A Pixel Fold. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Google appears to be working on a satellite SOS feature for Google Messages that would let users text emergency services from remote areas without a conventional cell signal. As spotted by developer Neïl Rahmouni, early code in the Google Messages app shows work on an integration with Garmin and its emergency Garmin Response service. Google also appears to have started work on a UI for messaging emergency responders.

Garmin’s emergency service uses the Iridium satellite network, which Iridium says is capable of delivering a signal “anywhere on Earth.” There is a big catch, though, when it comes to using satellite SOS services from Garmin: it requires a $15 per month subscription on Garmin’s own devices. So while this would be a great feature to have on your phone, you’d likely have to continually pay for access if you’re concerned you’ll ever need it.

Apple launched emergency SOS messaging on the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro last year. The feature directs users to point their phone in the direction of a satellite to get a connection, then lets them send a series of prewritten emergency responses, like that they have a vehicle issue or are trapped. Apple has made the service free for two years, with the implication being that users will eventually have to pay. The company hasn’t yet announced what the price will be, and there’s still more than a year to go before the first free trials will have ended.

Rahmouni speculates that Google’s service could be available in more than 150 countries. While that’s possible based on the reach of Iridium’s network, Apple’s service is currently only offered in 14 countries and not every location that its satellite provider, Globalstar, is able to reach. So it’s not a sure thing that Google’s version would launch globally.

Google isn’t alone in bringing satellite services to Android. Qualcomm is also working on adding support for SOS messaging via Iridium with a service it’s calling Snapdragon Satellite. Qualcomm’s service also works with Garmin Response. The company said in February that Honor, Motorola, Nothing, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are all currently working on phones with hardware that supports the feature.

It’s possible that what we’re seeing in Google Messages is just the UI for phones that support Snapdragon Satellite. But Google has separately said that it’s working on supporting satellite internet service in Android 14. And if satellite SOS services are going to be offered across Pixel or Samsung phones, which don’t all use Qualcomm processors, it’ll be necessary for Google to develop its own infrastructure to support this emergency tech — so we might just be seeing the early signs of that.

Dolby might have found a way to make built-in TV speakers sound much better

Dolby might have found a way to make built-in TV speakers sound much better
A graphic demonstrating Dolby Atmos FlexConnect.
Image: Dolby

Dolby Atmos is about to get a whole lot more adaptable. Today, Dolby is announcing Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, which it describes as “a new feature that seamlessly pairs together a TV’s sound system with accessory wireless speakers to deliver a more extensive and immersive Dolby Atmos sound experience.” Since it factors your TV speakers into the equation, FlexConnect doesn’t necessarily require a soundbar at the center of everything. TCL will become the first TV manufacturer to offer FlexConnect with its upcoming 2024 TV lineup, and it also plans to release a line of wireless speakers optimized to support the feature.

Dolby says that FlexConnect “intelligently optimizes the sound for any room layout and speaker setup, offering the freedom to place one or more wireless speakers anywhere in a room without having to worry about whether they are placed perfectly.” There’s no long setup required; Dolby will use the TV’s built-in microphones to locate and calibrate each wireless speaker in the room.

According to the company, “audio is intelligently spread from the TV speakers to each wireless speaker, dynamically optimizing the sound signal based on the capabilities and location of all available speakers.” So if your TV’s speakers aren’t all that capable when it comes to bass — and most aren’t — Dolby Atmos FlexConnect will know to leave those frequencies to the wireless speakers instead of pushing the integrated drivers too hard. At least, that’s the impression I get; Dolby plans to demo the new feature at IFA this week, so hopefully one of my colleagues traveling to Berlin will be able to preview it firsthand.

A marketing image of TCL’s QM8 TV. Image: TCL
TCL will be the first TV maker to support Dolby Atmos FlexConnect.

The whole point of FlexConnect is to let people “make the best use of room dimensions, power outlet locations, and furniture arrangements as desired without compromising audio quality.​” I’ve obviously got some questions about how all of this comes together in practice. Will there be any potential latency or audio dropout issues? Won’t this dissuade some people from investing in an Atmos soundbar to put front and center beneath their TV? I’ve yet to come across a TV that produces convincing height effects with its own speakers, so I feel like that’s where I’d notice the soundbar’s absence. But you’ll likely be able to position some of those wireless speakers at the front of the room, so all sorts of configurations are possible.

We’ve seen companies like Samsung, LG, and Sony try to blend and sync audio from their respective soundbars and TVs for a fuller listening experience. Samsung calls the feature Q-Symphony. Sony’s flagship HT-A9 7.1 Atmos system also provides customers more flexibility with speaker placement. It seems as though Dolby is trying to address both points with Dolby Atmos FlexConnect.

That said, we’re talking about a feature that’s going to require a completely new TV (and of course some new wireless speakers), so that will immediately limit the appeal of Dolby’s latest innovation for anyone who has purchased a 4K HDR television over the last few years. But by the time your next TV upgrade comes around, hopefully Atmos and wireless surround sound in general will have grown much more convenient.

Electric Vehicle Charging Can Be Confusing. Here’s What to Know.

Electric Vehicle Charging Can Be Confusing. Here’s What to Know. Many carmakers and charging companies are switching to the Tesla plug for electric vehicles. Why are they doing that and what will it mean?

dimanche 27 août 2023

The iPad Pro could get bigger screens and OLED next year, but it should do more

The iPad Pro could get bigger screens and OLED next year, but it should do more
A picture of an iPad Pro 11-inch sitting on a desktop.
My 2021 iPad Pro 11-inch. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge

As the third tier of Apple’s connected personal computing devices, the iPad sits in an awkward place in 2023. It’s a supremely capable product, there’s no doubt about that. It’s powerful and responsive; most of the models have beautiful screens; and its interface is friendly. But it’s also incomplete and insistent on doing things the Apple-prescribed way. And even as it dominates the tablet landscape, sales of iPads have withered since 2020, as Mark Gurman noted in Bloomberg today. In short: it needs more.

To be clear, I like my 2021 iPad Pro a lot. It’s a nice device for reading and solid for watching TV in bed. It’s also indispensable for following recipes while I’m cooking. But when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad in 2010, saying it had to be better at certain tasks — email, web browsing, videos, games — than the iPhone or a laptop, I wonder if he had a glorified recipe book in mind.

It just feels like there should be more to Apple’s tablet, 13 years on. It’s an inviting device, but when I use it I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something I’m missing; I can almost always do what I want to do better and faster on another device.

Part of the issue to me is that Apple behaves as though the iPad is a fully mature product, but still doesn’t know what it actually is. Jason Snell wrote a couple of days ago on his Six Colors blog that he had given up on the iPad-only travel dream. He points at the iPad’s lacking flexibility, weird, hampered iPad versions of apps, or altogether missing software. It’s all very familiar to me, a person who normally brings an iPad on trips, but on two recent jaunts, brought my M2 MacBook Air instead and didn’t miss my tablet even a little bit.

Apple has done things over the decade-plus arc of iPad history to make it more capable, but they come up short. It can multitask like a laptop! Well, sort of, but despite improvements promised soon by iPadOS 17, Stage Manager soldiers on with weird, restrictive limitations like how many apps can live in a “stage.” Apple started putting its M-series laptop chips in some iPads, but nothing about them seems to justify the added power. Other changes over the years have felt iterative at best.

Maybe that will change soon. Apple will release a slightly bigger 13-inch iPad Pro with OLED screens and M3 chips, along with a revised Magic Keyboard with a bigger trackpad next year, writes Gurman in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today.

Maybe that hints at a Greater Purpose for the iPad — the iPhone Pro and the Apple Watch, which both use OLED screens, both have always-on displays. And the iPhone Pro StandBy feature that turns it into sort of a smart display or alarm clock sounds remarkably similar to rumors that Apple would debut a similar feature for the iPad that would turn it into a touchscreen control center for the Apple Home ecosystem.

But it’s not totally clear from the Bloomberg article that the new iPad Pro models will be what Gurman calls the “first major overhaul” of the iPads since the introduction of the 2018 iPad Pro. But hopefully, there’s more to it, because right now, the rest of Apple’s devices are sort of leaving the iPad behind.

Threads for web, AI for bookmarks, and the best new car tech

Threads for web, AI for bookmarks, and the best new car tech
An all-black version of the Installer logo.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 3, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. Thanks to everyone who sent stuff in this week — we’re starting to get the hang of how this all works, and I really hope it’s fun and useful! I know I’ve already downloaded a terrifying number of new apps thanks to y’all.

Only one housekeeping thing today: Installer now has an RSS feed! You can add this link to any RSS reader, and it should work (let me know if you run into issues). Also, Installer’s new homepage has every edition ever — all two of them so far. We’re still working on some cool new ways you can subscribe and contribute to Installer, but hopefully, we’ve got all the basics covered now.

This week, I’ve been watching season 3 of Only Murders in the Building, poring over those huge New Yorker profiles of David Zaslav and Elon Musk, testing the new Google NotebookLM note-taking app, horrifying myself by training a Voicify.AI model with my singing voice, redesigning all my homescreens with these Ruffsnap icons, and rediscovering The Earliest Show on YouTube for about the 868th time.

Oh, and before I forget: I just got five invites to the all-in-one messaging app Beeper, which I love, so the first five people to click the link can have at it. This week, I also have a new organizing app to tell you about, an infuriating but fascinating new doc you should watch, a better way to plan parties, and the new desk of your battlestation dreams. Let’s go.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)


The Drop

  • Fabric. I’ve been keeping an eye on this AI bookmarking / highlighting / stuff-saving app for a while, and this week was its big public debut. (The website says there’s still a waitlist, but I was able to log right in.) I’m digging taking notes on a webpage — right on the page — and having them all indexed and easily retrievable later.
  • Telemarketers. It’s not exactly shocking that a sketchy call center might have some sketchy stuff going on, but this Max miniseries is still pretty eye-opening about how it all works. Plus, there’s a good story in here about why Congress can’t figure out what to do about these scams. The third and final episode of the series is on Sunday night, so you’ve got time to catch up.
  • Threads for web. It took a few days, but I think the Threads web app is actually available for everybody, finally. I only had to try it like 150 times. The app’s not exactly full-featured, but at least you can post from a computer now!
  • “New Car Technology We Really Love,” with Doug DeMuro and Alanis King. If you ever listen to The Vergecast, you know we have… feelings about car infotainment systems. This is a really fun, really helpful breeze through those and a lot of other in-car tech, from cool Lexus mirrors to Kia’s truly genius blind spot camera. Still hate most of the UIs, though.
  • Ahsoka. I confess I am deeply tired of mediocre Star Wars stuff, to the point where I didn’t even bother with Obi-Wan Kenobi or The Book of Boba Fett. Ahsoka doesn’t seem to break the formula entirely, but by all accounts is mysterious and exciting and fun. I’m gonna give it a shot this weekend.
  • 404 Media. A bunch of former Motherboard reporters started their own thing, and it’s an instant subscribe if you like wild stories about hackers, surveillance, AI, and what it means to be a person online in 2023.
  • Partiful for iOS. It remains a mystery to me how Partiful turned “a page for planning a party” into, like, a super-rad lifestyle product, but here we are! Now, the app’s out on iOS, and honestly, I’m in favor of anything that means fewer plans via email and Facebook pages.
  • The Corsair Platform:6 desk. This desk is like if you took the entirety of r/battlestations, fed it into an image-generating AI, and then asked it to design you the most gamer-y, streamer-y desk on the planet. And I kind of mean that as a compliment! No idea what this thing is going to cost, but I do love a good pegboard.
  • Backflip. This is a weird, mesmerizing mini-documentary about a man teaching his avatar to do the backflip he’s too nervous to do in real life. It’s funny, and I learned a lot! I also really like the idea that “machine learning” is just “practice.” There’s no magic to the process — just a lot of failing and tweaking and trying again.

Pro tips

Way back when, Clear was my favorite to-do list app for the iPhone. Maybe my favorite app, period. It had such a fun design, used gestures in really clever ways, and made making and checking off lists fun. Clear eventually sort of petered out, but now, it’s making a comeback — the app is in beta testing for iOS users now, and I’ve been using it and digging it for a while. And it’s actually about way more than to-do lists this time.

If you want in the beta, by the way, here’s a Clear TestFlight link. Tell ’em I sent ya.

Anyway, I asked Phill Ryu, one of the brains behind Clear (and other apps like Heads Up!), to give us some tips both on how to use Clear and how to make better lists in general. Here’s what he sent back:

  • Get out of your head and into lists. Would you believe me if I promised listing can be meaningfully life-changing, especially when you have a cozy daily listing ritual? Once you get things organized and into lists, your mind is free to let them go for now and focus on what matters. Once you experience this, you might start listing a lot more. And for me at least, once I made a daily listing habit, it’s like life’s difficulty was taken down a half notch.
  • Plan the next day’s list the night before. If you’re keeping a daily to-do list, I recommend making a “Tomorrow” list. (And a “Next Day,” if you’re ambitious.) I find it really satisfying and almost therapeutic to plan my next day ahead of time. Plus, it’s an effective way to quiet those loose threads in your head before bed.
  • Keep an “Inspired” list instead of a “Soon” list. Throw stuff in there that you think you’ll feel inspired to do later on. And if things stick around there too long, swipe left to delete! (True story, the original Clear introduced iPhones to the modern “swipe left to delete” interaction before iOS itself, inspired by Tweetie’s pull to refresh.)
  • Archive ruthlessly. One issue with prolific listing is the way plans can accumulate, become stale, and eventually become a kind of nightmare closet you don’t want to open over time. Maybe that’s not the best analogy because I guess Clear’s new archive feature is, in a way, a kind of virtual closet. But it’s out of sight and out of mind and always there when you need an older list again. So it’s a great way to keep your current lists very focused on what matters to you now.
  • Treat yourself. There’s a crucial part of the loop of making a list of plans and checking them off that Clear pays special attention to: the dopamine you’ve earned when you get something done — that surge of satisfaction as you check off a tougher task with an extra flourish because you earned it. So we reward our listers with very satisfying sounds, haptics and animations, and even a chance to unlock some fun cosmetic or theme for the app by checking something off or achievements to unlock along the way.

Screen share

Mishaal Rahman is one of my absolute favorite people to follow around the internet. Nobody does a better job of unearthing cool new features of Android, explaining how the platform works, and turning even teeny-tiny point updates into actual information that helps you use your phone better.

I figured there can’t be many people who have thought about their phone setup more than Mishaal, so I hit him up and asked him to share his homescreen with us. He’s the first person in Installer history to have a two-screenshot homescreen! Big day. Here it is, folded and then unfolded, plus some info on which apps he uses and why:

The phone: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

The widget(s): When unfolded, I have four widgets placed in a widget stack at the top of the homescreen. I swipe left or right to change widgets. (Samsung’s launcher also contextually changes the widget shown here, though you can only see one of the four widgets in this screenshot anyway.) The widgets are: Weather, Battery (of the phone and connected accessories), App Timers (gotta limit my Reddit / Twitter [X] usage!), and YouTube Music. And of course, at the bottom is a Google Search widget with shortcuts for Assistant / Lens.

When folded, my homescreen doesn’t show any apps but, rather, a widget stack up top with two instead of four widgets (this time, only Weather and Alarms), a Direct Dial widget to quickly call my family members, and a dedicated Google Maps widget. The reason being that the Z Fold 5’s cover screen is so narrow that I prefer to use it only for quick actions or glanceable information.

The apps: (When unfolded) I organize nearly every app I install into pertinent folders. It’s a pain to set up, but it helps me keep track of what apps I actually use and also find them more quickly.

The apps I find most useful on mobile include Elisi (a digital bullet journal), Feedly, and Rview (a Gerrit client app to view / track contributions to the Android Open Source Project and Chromium Gerrits). I’m also terminally online, so of course, I also use Reddit and Twitter / X a bunch as well as... Lemmy, Hacker News (via the Materialistic app), Mastodon, Threads. I also swap between a bunch of different messaging apps like Google Chat (mainly family), Discord, Element (for Matrix), Signal, Slack, Telegram, WeChat, and WhatsApp. Please send help.

The wallpaper: It’s the default live wallpaper on the Z Fold 5. I stuck with it because it reacts to me folding / unfolding the device. I’m personally hoping Google’s AI wallpaper (whenever that’s out) generator can save me from my boring wallpaper choices.

As always, I also asked Mishaal to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he picked:

  • Season 1 and 2 of Vinland Saga, an anime that dramatizes the life of Thorfinn Karlsefni. I found its treatment of violence / pacifism, the tragedy of war / slavery, and religion to be very compelling and am looking forward to continuing the story through its original manga!
  • Speaking of manga, I’ve been really, really enjoying Dungeon Meshi and am sad that it’s about to be finished! The premise sounds (and is) very silly: a group of dungeon explorers sustain themselves by eating the monsters they find as they go deeper. It might seem at first glance that the entire series is centered around this gag and it’s used only for jokes, but the series takes a more serious turn while still (somehow) remaining true to its premise. Plus, the characters are very fun!
  • I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and play through a full game since I beat The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but when I’m scrolling through Reddit and YouTube out of boredom, I’ll often watch TOTK-related content because of how varied and interesting it is! I’m a big fan of /r/HyruleEngineering, which showcases the insane feats of (in-game) engineering that the game engine allows for. I’ve seen no-hit runs, runeless runs, lockout bingo races, and of course, speedruns of the game. I guess I just really love this game!

Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.

“I think I’m kind of a weather app guy, so I wanted to suggest my favorite weather app, Flux. 1) It looks gorgeous, and the animations are nice. 2) There are a lot of useful settings. For example, you can add, remove, and reorder all the info cards, and it lets you choose from about 10 weather data sources. 3) The widgets are extremely customizable: you can change the icons, colors, text size, and even what to do when you click the widget!” – FaviFake

“One of my favorite installs lately has been Petey, a ChatGPT companion for Apple Watch. It’s thoughtfully designed, easy to use, and surprisingly useful — being able to submit a query that pops into your head without having to go grab your phone or open a laptop is awesome.” – Nick

Memorigi: the best to-do list app I’ve ever used. The interface is both beautiful and highly functional, it leans on gestures which make it quick and easy to move through the app. The free version is really full-featured, but I paid for the upgrade simply to support the developers because it’s become a crucial part of my daily workflow. – Jacob

“The best iOS (and other Apple devices) app anyone can download for the kitchen is Crouton. It’s an app from a single dev team (support small developers). You can organize recipes into folders and tag groups, add recipe ingredients to a connected Groceries list in Reminders, scale your recipe servings up or down (and it saves that recipe’s scaling even if the app is closed), set multiple native timers (we truly live in an age of wonders), and share your recipes in a household or once as a PDF / text / Crouton recipe.” – JB

“I’d like to recommend Raindrop. I use multiple browsers on both my phone and laptop, I use Raindrop to manage bookmarks across these devices. It has folders and tags for organization. It’s also cross-platform.” – Chethan

“You mentioned that Keen knife, and while it does look appealing, I can’t imagine ever parting with my $10 Screwpop keychain utility knife. Magnetic, no-tool blade swap, bottle opener, and it’s keychain-able. These days, my keychain has two house keys, a mustache comb, and the Screwpop knife. You also forgot to mention one of my favorite selling points for “utility knife as a pocket knife,” which is cheap, disposable blades. Security checkpoint > dispose of blade > keep spares in the car.” – Andrew

“I’ve been using this awesome little web app (this is the future!) developed by this one dude Prijan, and I love it. It’s called Kinopio (pronounced like Pinocchio but with a k). I love using this web app to take notes, make mood boards, or jot stuff down. Using it is just fun and playful and exploratory. I can’t believe people like Milanote better than this bad boy.” – Garrett

“My recommendation: TidyCal. Been loving using this. It’s like a simpler, more affordable Calendly. Pay $29 one time and get access forever. No more monthly fees. Really enjoying it.” – Dave


Signing off

A few days ago, for no particular reason, my TikTok feed became overrun by the TV show Taskmaster. It’s totally possible that I’m the last person on earth to know about Taskmaster — in which a very funny host gives a bunch of very funny people a series of very funny tasks to accomplish, and it’s all very funny — but I’ve been watching it nonstop all week. There are full seasons of the show on YouTube, but I especially love the Taskmaster TikTok page that is just an endless stream of the show’s funniest moments. I’ve never subscribed or followed so fast.

See you next week!

A.I. Brings the Robot Wingman to Aerial Combat

A.I. Brings the Robot Wingman to Aerial Combat An Air Force program shows how the Pentagon is starting to embrace the potential of a rapidly emerging technology, with far-reaching implications for war-fighting tactics, military culture and the defense industry.

samedi 26 août 2023

SpaceX’s delayed Falcon 9 has launched four astronauts into orbit

SpaceX’s delayed Falcon 9 has launched four astronauts into orbit
A screenshot of the Falcon-9 rocket lifting off.
The Falcon-9 launches NASA’s Crew-7 mission into space. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center this morning at 3:27AM ET, NASA announced today. The rocket pushed four astronauts on NASA’s Crew-7 mission into orbit before a scheduled Sunday morning dock with the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission brings astronauts from four countries to the ISS — Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA, the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furakawa, and Konstantin Borisov, a Russian cosmonaut. When the Dragon spacecraft — named Endurance — autonomously docks with the ISS, it will bring the station’s crew number up to 11 for a few days until board the capsule and return to Earth in a few days.

“Aboard station,” says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, “the crew will conduct more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations to prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, all while benefitting humanity on Earth.”

The launch was previously scheduled for Friday but NASA announced Friday it was pushed back so mission managers could confirm environmental control and life support systems were properly functioning. The mission was already delayed multiple times, including on two occasions to make way for a separate mission to send up the massive Jupiter 3 communications satellite.

Judge dismisses Republican lawsuit against Google over Gmail’s spam filtering

Judge dismisses Republican lawsuit against Google over Gmail’s spam filtering
The Gmail logo on a red and white background
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A federal judge in California’s eastern district has dismissed the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) lawsuit against Google over the company’s alleged “discriminatory” spam filtering, according to The Washington Post.

The suit complained Google intentionally sent RNC political emails to Gmail users’ spam folders, and the RNC sought restitution for “donations it allegedly lost as a result” of those lost emails. The RNC cited a North Carolina State University study that found Gmail was more likely to mark emails from Republican campaigns as spam. One of the study’s authors spoke to the Post in May last year, saying its findings had been misrepresented. Muhammad Shahzad noted that it only tested default email settings — in tests on accounts where users indicated their preferences by marking some messages as spam, “the biases in Gmail almost disappeared.”

While US District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta described the RNC’s suit as a “close case,” he dismissed the Committee’s claims, writing that it had “failed to plausibly allege its claims” that Google’s filtering was done in bad faith. Google claimed that many of the filtered emails were likely picked up by its spam algorithms because of user complaints and pointed to problems with the RNC’s domain authentication and frequent emails as other culprits.

The judge also said Republican emails could be considered “objectionable” content based on the definition in the CAN-SPAM Act and said that Google designating them spam is protected by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The decision left Republicans with partial “leave to amend to establish a lack of good faith” on Google’s part.

Last year, Google built a backdoor for political emailers that the RNC reportedly didn’t bother using. The company said in January it would shutter its backdoor program in January as it requested dismissal of the RNC lawsuit. Earlier that month, the Federal Elections Commission rejected Republicans’ complaint to it about Google’s email filtering practices.

Linus Sebastian addresses error handling and ethics in a new video

Linus Sebastian addresses error handling and ethics in a new video
A screenshot of Linus Sebastian from the new YouTube video
Linus Sebastian discusses changes coming to Linus Tech Tips. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Linus Media Group (LMG) founder Linus Sebastian explained LMG’s HR policies and how it will improve accuracy and ethics in a video posted to YouTube last night.

Following a 10-day pause to evaluate its processes, Sebastian said the company held meetings with team members to “dig through every misstep” and identify “communication and ... teamwork challenges” that resulted in accusations of LMG’s quality issues. He added that the company will no longer insist on uploading videos daily and will slow down to verify its content is accurate.

Sebastian did not directly address sexual harassment allegations recently levied by a former employee, Madison Reeve. Sebastian detailed changes to its HR structure over the year, including hiring outside consultants to review its policies in 2018, later contracting with an independent firm to handle HR issues, and eventually adding an in-house HR department. In a statement at the beginning of its production pause, Sebastian told us, “Our HR team will be conducting a more thorough assessment of the allegations, and when we are ready, we will release a more complete statement.”

Sebastian said Linus Tech Tips (LTT) now has “a clear rubric,” which he posted on the LTT forums, “that defines error severity and prescribes the appropriate fix,” which could range from pinned comments to full reshoots or even total cancellation of a project if necessary. LMG will, he said, use a newly formed error-checking community group, currently consisting of “fewer than 10 extremely knowledgeable” Linus Tech Tips community members, to verify the accuracy of the company’s videos.

Other changes are intended to improve business transparency, including publicly publishing the media group’s sponsorship guidelines and improving item tracking for products LMG has been sent for testing. He says the company now has a system for tracking the status of products provided to LMG to avoid future confusion regarding “items that start out as we don’t need it back and then turn into a loan later on.”

Later in the video, Sebastian talked about the company’s benefits, highlighting team outings, holiday parties, and internal giveaways. He discussed the company’s HR policies and department structure, saying the company will double its mental health counseling contribution later this year in response to recent online harassment experienced by LMG employees.

We’ve reached out to Linus Media Group for additional comment but did not receive a response by press time.

The last-gen Blink Outdoor security camera is half off today

The last-gen Blink Outdoor security camera is half off today
The third-gen Blink Outdoor hung outside with drops of water on it.
It may not feature person detection like the new model, but the third-gen Blink Outdoor is still a good security camera.for the price. | Image: Amazon

As we enter the last week of August, it’s time to prepare for a jam-packed fall gadget season. Many companies, including Apple, will likely release new gadgets. Shopping events like Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday are set to take place, and of course, we can’t forget the holidays. Altogether, it amounts to a very busy season, particularly for the mail carriers who’ll be delivering all your purchases – and for the porch pirates, who’ll try to steal all of them.

If you want to keep your packages secure, the third-gen Blink Outdoor security camera with the Sync Module 2 included is on sale starting at $49.99 ($50 off) from Amazon and Best Buy. The last-gen budget-friendly camera will help you keep tabs on your goods even when it’s dark, thanks to support for night vision. Like the newer Blink 4, which was just announced yesterday, it also offers 1080p video and lasts a long time despite the fact it runs on two AA batteries. The camera admittedly lacks person detection like its successor and its field of view isn’t as wide, but comes with the essentials like motion detection support. So long as you don’t mind paying extra to store clips and photos, this is a good camera to buy at this price.

We’ve been seeing a ton of good deals drop on headphones this past month, and this week was no exception. Despite being released just last month, Beats Studio Pro are already $100 off at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, selling for just $249.99 instead.

Compared to their predecessor, the Studio 3, the latest headphones from the Apple-owned Beats sound better with new features like support for lossless audio over USB-C. They also feature improved noise cancellation along with a good transparency mode for when you need to let noise in. They can’t quite drown out noise or as effectively as some of their rivals, like, Sony’s WH-1000XM5, but they’re a good pair of over-ear headphones with support for iOS and Android features like Fast Pair.

If you’re looking for a portable speaker instead of a new pair of headphones, right now the Bose Soundlink Flex is on sale in all colors for $129 ($20 off) at Bose through September 4th. You can also buy it for the same price at Amazon. While the speaker dropped to as low as $105 during Prime Day, this is still one of the best prices we’ve seen.

Despite its slim size, the portable Bluetooth speaker offers a rich, clear sound with a surprising amount of bass, which is why it is one of our favorites. The Bose SoundLink Flex also offers IP67 weather resistance so you can party by the pool – and all day, too, thanks to a 12-hour battery life. Plus, the speaker comes with voice control support and a built-in mic, so you can make and receive calls via Google Assistant or Apple Siri.

Don’t you just love it when a good deal gets even better? Earlier this week, we mentioned Dell was throwing in a $75 gift card when you buy the Xbox Series X at full price. Now Dell’s sweetening the deal even more by taking $25 off the console. That means not only will you get a $75 gift card you can use to apply towards games such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor or controllers like Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, but you’ll be also able to buy the Xbox Series X for $474.99.

The Xbox Series X is larger, faster, and more powerful than the less expensive Xbox Series S with support for 4K gaming. It also offers more storage along with a disc drive for playing both digital and physical games.

Read our Xbox Series X review.

A few more goodies before we bid you farewell

  • As a part of its back-to-school sale, Zagg is discounting a range of accessories including the Mophie 3-in-1 15W MagSafe Travel Charger, which drops to $119.99 ($30 off) at checkout. If you travel a lot, this is the best MagSafe charger you can buy. It’s small and foldable for easy storage, but it’s also capable of quickly topping up your phone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously.
  • The Amazfit GTR 4 is amongst our favorite Android smartwatches, and right now is on sale for $169.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The Amazfit GTR 4 is a platform-agnostic wearable that comes with all the standard health and fitness features, as well as support for Amazon Alexa and 14 days of battery life. Read our review.
  • The Black Diamond Spot 400 is on sale for about $37 ($13 off) at REI and Backcountry. Along with 400 lumens of brightness, the headlamp features an IPX8 water and dust resistance rating as well as proximity and red light modes.
  • Just in case you prefer wireless earbuds over headphones, right now the Beats Studio Buds Plus is on sale in multiple colors for $129.95 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The lineup offers a unique transparent style that makes the buds stand out from the rest, in addition to good sound, noise cancellation, and long battery life. Read our review.

Hundreds More Nazca Lines Emerge in Peru’s Desert

Hundreds More Nazca Lines Emerge in Peru’s Desert With drones and A.I., researchers managed to double the number of mysterious geoglyphs in ...