Technology

dimanche 17 septembre 2023

How to reinvent your phone without buying a new one

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 6, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, first of all, hi, hello, welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been watching the wacky sci-fi series Command Z from Steven Soderbergh, updating all my browsers to fix a scary security issue, reading and listening to Cory Doctorow rage against Big Tech, cackling at this video about the state of the Hyperloop, trying the Endel app as work music instead of my all-day movie soundtracks playlist, and slowly cleaning up my camera roll with some help from Swipewipe.

Also this week, I have for you a bunch of new Apple gear (shocking, I know), two books worth reading, an app for keeping your family on schedule, some fun AI, and Graham MacAree’s seriously minimalist homescreen.

(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 want to get every issue of Installer a day early in your email inbox you can subscribe here.)

The Drop

The iPhones 15. It’s been a few days since the Apple event, and I’m still not sure whether I’m excited about the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro. I like the titanium on the Pro, the camera, and that it’s lighter! And yay, USB-C! But that’s… kinda it. I think my 14 will do me just fine for another year, but if you do upgrade, know that I’ll be at least slightly jealous.
Apple’s USB-C EarPods. Now these, I am unequivocally into. I’ve spent years telling everyone to just buy a pair of EarPods and keep them in your bag — they’re $19, their sound quality is meh, but their mic quality is fantastic, and they’re super useful for phone calls / voice dictation / whenever your wireless headphones’ battery dies. The new ones will work with your phone, laptop, work computer, and basically everything else. I already bought two pairs.
A Million Miles Away. Amazon’s latest original movie is based on the story of José Hernández, a migrant farmworker who became a NASA flight engineer and went to the International Space Station. (He was also apparently the first person to tweet in Spanish from space, which is a very cool and very specific thing to track.) A feel-good movie for the weekend if that’s what you’re looking for.
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts. Speaking of great space stories, Bloomberg reporter (and Verge alum!) Loren Grush wrote a great book about the six women who helped expand and change the American space program and the huge amount of sexism and pushback they received in the process. Grush was also on our Decoder podcast this week, too — it’s a good listen.
Elon Musk. Big week for tech books, apparently! I confess I have not yet cracked Walter Isaacson’s 688-page tome, but I’ve been devouring excerpts and reviews, many of which say the same thing: Elon Musk is a deeply complicated person, definitely a smart person, maybe not a very good person, and it’s definitely worth asking hard questions about our present and future.
Spotify’s Daylist. The most interesting question in the music business right now is this: how do you differentiate yourself when everybody has all the same content? The thing Spotify does best is ultra-personalized playlists, and Daylist is an ever-changing, AI-curated one that supposedly matches your mood all day and night. So far, mine have been deeply weird — I woke up the other day to “mountain music indie folk thursday morning,” which, sure — but I really dig the idea.
Stable Audio. I’m currently deep down the rabbit hole of AI music-making tools (for a Vergecast episode coming Monday!), and Stable Audio is one of the more impressive tools I’ve seen. It comes from Stability AI, which also makes the image-generating Stable Diffusion, and works basically the same way: describe the music you want to hear, and a few seconds later, it appears. Nothing I’ve made so far is going to top charts anytime soon, but it’s an incredibly fun thing to play with.
Monster Hunter Now. This is definitely not a full-on Monster Hunter game for your phone. And The Verge’s Andrew Webster found it a little lacking in depth and strategy. But what it is — a real-world game like Pokemon Go in which you fight monsters and collect gear while you wait in line at the grocery store — is still pretty compelling.
Artifact Links. A very important genre of app to me is the Puttering App, the one I can just open and scroll through for a few minutes at a time in the hopes of finding something fun / interesting / useful. Twitter was kinda that, Instagram and Reddit are still kinda that, and Artifact wants to be exactly that. The news-reading app now lets you post any URL on the web, and already, I’m finding tons of good stuff following a few smart people.

Pro tips

It’s the time of year when suddenly I find myself hating my phone. There are new phones coming out, new versions of Android and iOS to be had, cool new features and apps and just so much new stuff to play with! But this year, rather than buy a new phone to satiate that urge, I’m going to try giving my phone a makeover.

For advice, I turned to Isaac Mosna, who you might know better as Canoopsy on YouTube and around the web. He makes great tech videos but also creates wallpapers, icons, and more cool phone stuff. I asked him to share a few tips on how to better customize your phone so that mine might look as cool as his does:

Start fresh. “Take everything off your homescreen, put it in the app library, and then start dragging things over. It’s a great way to start fresh without really starting fresh if you’ve had the same phone for a while.”
Have just one way to do things. “Try going with a very minimal setup. Don’t have your camera in the dock since you can use the Control Center. Android and iOS both can make your phone simpler, easier to use, and more enjoyable. No one likes to see 1,000 things when they turn their phone on.”
Keep it changing. “Find ways to cycle through different wallpapers, like by setting an album instead of a single picture. Whether it’s something that changes every hour or every time you turn your phone on, it’s a great way to have a new phone every time.”
Embrace space. “On Android, it’s really easy to leave empty spots on the screen. On iOS, you can use things like Clear Spaces to have blank spaces or put everything on one side of your phone where your hand naturally rests.”
Hide your widgets. “With Clear Spaces, you can also make widget stacks where you have the blank widget on your homescreen and then swipe to something else — it’s like a hidden drawer of widgets. It’s pretty fun.”
One homescreen. One. “I can’t think with multiple homescreens. Either put everything else in the app library or drawer or categorize things into folders on your homescreen.”

Screen share

Last week, when I asked Jennifer Pattison Tuohy to share her homescreen, it sparked a whole discussion in the Verge newsroom about how many apps we all had. Most people, not surprisingly, had a lot!

Graham MacAree, a senior storytelling engineer here at The Verge, did not have a lot. He had 22. And even that, he decided, was too many. So I figured, in a time of new phones and new software and general technological maximalism, I’d see what life was like alllllll the way on the other side.

Here’s Graham’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

An iPhone homescreen showing just 16 apps — *Now that is a truly minimalist homescreen.*

The Phone: An iPhone 13 Pro. This is the first phone I’ve owned that I actually enjoy using ... ish.

The Apps: Everyone’s on WhatsApp in England, so I only really need one chat app. Gmail, Messages, and Authenticator are all fairly standard. I’ve found Citymapper to be better than Maps at helping me navigate London’s various transit outages, and I reluctantly use Uber when said outages inconvenience me too much.

Monzo is a British bank, and it’s on my phone because it’s app-only. My Roomba helps keep my house “free” of dog hair, and then Pokémon Home lets me continue my extremely low-key quest for a living Pokédex. MLB is for when the Seattle Mariners are playing while I’m out and about (live sports are basically the only things I’ll watch on a phone screen). Spotify gets used a lot, as does Chrome. Having quit Twitter and Facebook, I don’t have any social media apps at the moment, but I’m sometimes briefly tempted by Bluesky.

In general, I’m exactly the right age to have learned to do everything on my computer instead of my phone, and I’ve never updated my habits in light of the fact that I live in the 21st century. If I use something more than once a month or so, it lives on the homescreen.

The Wallpaper: Normally, this would be a photograph of my children, but I’d rather they not be online. I temporarily switched my wallpaper to a cool picture of Sharpless 132, which is about 10,000 light-years away. It’s basically an enormous gas cloud, which hides some incredibly massive/bright stars. Also, my dad took the photograph, so that’s neat, too.

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

Dancing! I have begun choreography for an Argentine Tango recital in November, so that’ll occupy quite a lot of my life over the near future. I’ve been dancing seriously for almost three years now and do performances about twice a year. It’s nerve-wracking but fun.
Painting videos. I’m playing around with the idea of getting back into Warhammer 40,000 because painting tiny people / monsters / tanks seems potentially relaxing. Right now, that idea manifests itself as watching other people paint tiny people / monsters / tanks, which is definitely relaxing. Will I ever progress to doing this myself? Who can say.

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.

“A lot of my life, online and offline, is captured on Futureland — a journal / routine organizer / tracker hybrid that can be a little hard to explain but feels wonderfully organic in practice. One of the few quiet, satisfying places on the internet, and the only app on my phone that consistently gets me looking up from the screen and moving toward what I want to be doing.” — Min-Taec

“Currently addicted to playing Finity on Apple Arcade.” — Scott

“Calculator apps are boring and haven’t seen any innovation, until Numbr! It’s a notepad mixed with a calculator, and I’ve used it exclusively as my calculator for several years. It’s primarily a web app, but there’s also a handy Chrome extension, and all the syntax is explained on their Github.” — Ross

“I have been OBSESSED with Usagi Shima, a little bunny-collecting chill island game with vibes reminiscent of Neko Atsume and a bit of Animal Crossing relaxation.” — Evelyn

“Subscribed to Tessie. Allows my Apple Watch to be used as a Tesla key similar to my phone. Not sure how to feel about it, but it’s been super convenient!” — Chris

“My wife found the app FamilyWall — it is our common app for recipes, meal planning, contacts, budgets, and bucket lists. What I like is that the app connects things: when I enter a recipe, I can plan the meal for a specific day and add the ingredients to the grocery list. I can also connect the calendar with other Outlook calendars so I have private and work calendars in sight. Additionally, we can share notes and pictures and make individual timetables.” — Chris

“One Sec. This app primarily allows you to set up a delay (referred to as an intervention) when opening specified apps. As an example, I have a 20-second breathing exercise intervention setup when opening up social media apps on my phone, and it won’t let me access the app until that exercise is complete. I have found it very useful in getting my attention when I mindlessly open up social apps during the day or during small waiting periods like waiting for a coffee. It’s a subscription app for iOS and Android (Android is a beta), but it’s pretty cheap, and they have a one-time license if you don’t want the constant subscription.” – Andrew

“The new Camera app from Blackmagic, plus their cloud integration so that multiple cameras can all upload to Davinci at the same time.” — Iestyn

“Instead of relying on Rotten Tomatoes for questionable movie ratings, use Letterboxd. As a bonus, some of the reviews for the really bad movies are super fun. The Flash, with 2.7 stars out of 5: ‘the cgi in this movie makes superman’s mustache removal look like a work of art.’ Honesty and humor. Chefs kiss. ” — Brandon

“Flight Radar 24 is wonderful. Want to know where that jet overhead is headed? Pop open the app and turn on AR for a live overlay. I also have all emergency alerts as silent notifications. Occasionally, you get military jets or big flight diversions. This week, I found out the SIN-JFK longest flight in the world goes over my parent’s house.” — Sean

“I’m actively listening and changing my ringtone and notification sounds with the ones introduced by iOS 17. They’re so good!” — Gabriel

Signing off

I am obsessed with scooters. Scooters you buy, scooters you rent, scooters you pay for by the minute and then throw into the river when you’re done — I love them all. And I can’t remember the last time I fell for a scooter like the new Honda Motocompacto. It is utterly impractical in every way — only 12 miles of range, weighs over 40 pounds, looks like a giant floppy disk on two wheels, costs $995 — but I want to toodle around my neighborhood on this thing in a way you would not believe. More weird scooter design, please!

See you next week!

samedi 16 septembre 2023

Everything you need to know about switching to USB-C

iphone 15 pro usb c port — Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

Are you an iPhone user looking to upgrade to... the iPhone? Well, you’ll have more to consider this time around since the new iPhone 15 comes with a USB-C port, ending an 11-year run for the company’s proprietary Lightning charging plug.

USB Type-C (or just USB-C) is the universal charging and data-transferring connector, and it’s now on pretty much every modern gadget, including Apple’s iPads and MacBooks. It might just be the last cable we’ll ever need.

Do I need to buy new chargers?

Apple has made us buy new cables before, but this time, you probably already have the things you need to charge your new iPhone. Apple stopped including charging bricks with the iPhone 12 in 2020, but the 15 and 15 Pro do at least come with a short C-to-C cable in the box.

To get the fastest charging speeds on an iPhone 15, you’ll want at least a 20W USB-C charger. If you’ve bought a MacBook since 2015 or an iPad Pro since 2018, their bundled USB-C chargers work splendidly, though they’re bulkier than you really need. You can pick up a tiny 20W GaN charger for under $15. Lots of Verge staffers like this Anker one.

Just about any USB charger will work in a pinch. If the charger has a USB-A port, you’ll need a USB-A-to-C cable to connect to your phone and probably a magnifying glass to try to read its power output settings. USB-A chargers can top out at about 18W, which is close enough, but those are relatively rare. Chargers for lower-powered devices like headphones or older phone chargers — like the little white cubes Apple used to bundle with the iPhone 11 and below — are more likely to be 5W or 10W at best, and they’ll take a long time to charge your phone. Spend the $15 on a good USB-C charger.

As an iPhone user, you may already have multiple charging setups with Lightning cables in each room. In that case, it’s just a matter of replacing the cables. If you don’t already have a bunch of USB-C cables lying around — or you do, but you don’t know what kind of USB-C cables they are — it’s time to get some. But before you jump on Amazon and toss the first discount cable that’s winning on the site’s search results into your cart, you should know that USB-C cables aren’t something you necessarily want to buy cheap.

*I have found this Apple 5W USB charger in drawer A and a Samsung Galaxy pack-in USB-A-to-USB-C cable in drawer B.*

As an iPhone user, you might already have Lightning cables set up in each room and would need just to replace the cable while keeping the power adapter where it is. But if you only have the wall warts and somehow have no USB-C cables to use with them (except for the one that will come in the iPhone 15 box), then it's time to go shopping.

But before you jump on Amazon and toss the first discount cable that’s winning on the site’s search results into your cart, you should know that USB-C cables aren’t something you necessarily want to buy too cheap.

Okay, what kind of USB-C cables should I buy?

USB-C is a mess. Some cables can fast-charge a MacBook Pro but transfer data at a glacial pace. Others can do fast data transfer but are too short and inflexible to really use for daily charging. Despite some efforts at labeling, it’s nearly impossible to tell at a glance which cables do what.

Anyone can slap a USB-C plug on a cable and sell it online. From time to time, this causes problems. It’s rare nowadays to find a cable that will fry your device, but there’s no reason not to look for USB-IF compliance. The USB Implementers Forum (or USB-IF) invites USB-C cable manufacturers to put their power noodles through compliance testing. Those who do the testing earn themselves a cool logo for their packaging that also lets customers know what kind of charging power and data transfer speeds to expect. When shopping for a cable, try and see if the manufacturer uses a logo or at least states that the cable is certified by USB-IF (and if true, their cable should show up on the USB product search site).

As far as the specific types of cables to look for, here’s the incredibly short version: for charging, you should get a USB-C-to-C cable, USB 2.0, six or 10 feet long, ideally USB-IF-certified. There’s no real reason to get something rated for more than 60W charging, but there’s not much price difference between cables rated for 60W, 100W, or 240W, and a higher-rated cable will work just fine for a phone. Don’t bother with data transfer speed for this cable; you’re not transferring data with it.

Yes, the cable that comes in the box is just fine for charging. It’s just short. A six- or 10-foot cable is much nicer to charge with. A 6.6-foot USB-IF 100W charging cable is under $15.

If you’re planning on copying data from your new iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, specifically to get your video footage onto a computer quicker than AirDrop, you’ll need a cable that can transfer data at high speed. The iPhone 15 Pro models support USB 3 at up to 10Gbps, so you’ll need a cable that’s rated for at least 10Gbps. In the newest, simplified USB-IF branding, that’s USB 10Gbps. Older cables might say USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 or USB 3.2 Gen 2. A three-foot USB-IF-certified 10Gbps and 100W cable is also under $15.

Unless you’re an ultra-minimalist or you’re buying a cable for your travel kit, get separate cables for your daily charging and data transfer, preferably in different colors.

Speaking of travel: you might be tempted to look for a power-only charging cable, but that’s outside the USB-C spec; any power-only cable is improperly wired by definition and not worth the risk. Better to carry your own charger and never plug your phone into someone else’s USB port.

What about those MagSafe chargers?

You could totally sidestep USB-C and just charge your iPhone 15 wirelessly instead.

Apple kicked off a whole new accessory ecosystem with MagSafe when it launched the iPhone 12. It uses magnets to align a Qi-based charging coil on the back, which opens up fun new charging options like floating iPhone docks. Apple even added a cool StandBy software feature in iOS 17 that turns the iPhone’s screen into a fancy clock with widgets when placed on a MagSafe dock.

*There’s a whole lot of MagSafe charging options out there.*

If you buy Apple’s MagSafe charging puck, you’ll still need to have a USB-C power adapter capable of at least 20W of charging to make it work. Certified MagSafe options will, at best, charge iPhones at 15W. And non-Apple-blessed “MagSafe-compatible” options will only provide 7.5W of power to iPhones. However, Apple announced iPhone 15 will support the magnet-based Qi2 charging standard, which means it’ll likely open the phone up to faster and cheaper options that probably won’t destroy your iPhone like a bad USB-C cable could.

Sounds nice. Should I MagSafe all the things?

Wireless charging has its conveniences, but USB-C is still better most of the time.

MagSafe chargers that are placed neatly in thoughtful places in your home, like on your work desk or side table, are a great supplement to charging and using your iPhone — especially when hands-free. However, wired charging with USB-C is faster and is less likely to heat up your iPhone compared to the inefficiencies of wireless charging in general.

What else should I know?

It’s prime time for a mass of Lightning to USB-C dongles to flood the market, but don’t buy them. Those adapters are less convenient for plugging in, and non-MFi-certified ones could damage your iPhone 15 or the Lightning cable you’re using. Just buy a USB-C cable — unless you have a special Lightning accessory, like a microphone or other adapter, you can’t live without, in which case you can buy Apple’s kinda pricey $29 Lightning to USB-C dongle.

That said, if your special Lightning accessories aren’t mission-critical to you, USB-C has been around for a decade, which means that a whole world of dongles, adapters, hubs, and docks just opened up in front of you, including stuff you may already have if you’ve been living the dongle life for a while.

Apple sells its own USB-C cables, too, but you’re going to pay a high price of $69 for the data-capable one. That’s because it's designed to operate USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 equipment, docks, multiple 4K displays, high-speed data transfers, and more simultaneously while also delivering 100W of charging. It’s overkill for the iPhone 15 and isn’t very flexible, so you should skip it. But if you do want the extra abilities Apple’s option offers, there are cheaper options like this Cable Matters one.

For Apple CarPlay users: unless your vehicle already supports wireless CarPlay, you’re going to need a USB-C cable, either USB-C-to-C or A-to-C, depending on the age of your car. Otherwise, MagSafe mounts could make operating your iPhone in your car cleaner and safer.

Changing to the universal standard is good, right?

USB-C can feel a bit more fragile than Lightning since the plug has more complexity (and has space to get lint stuck in both the port and the plug). However, the new connector is a huge upgrade otherwise. Lightning can’t transfer data at high speeds and, most importantly, doesn’t work with other devices.

With Lightning on its way out, there could be a sudden influx of e-waste as Apple users swap out their devices for the new iPhone 15. It was one of Apple’s biggest arguments while hesitating on the European Union’s mandate that all smartphones must switch to USB-C.

If you don’t need your Lighting cable anymore, look to see if you can either sell or donate them to someone who could. Otherwise, Apple, Best Buy, and others will take them for free recycling.

Switching to USB-C won’t be a walk in the park, and you’re going to encounter choice fatigue when it comes to selecting new cables, power adapters, and accessories. But the most important thing to remember is that USB-C is here to stay. And as long as Apple is on board with universal standards, you may never have to do this again.

Lightning was great, actually

Two Lightning connectors. — Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The world is rightfully celebrating the iPhone’s switch from Lightning to USB-C this week. People love to hate on Lightning — and they have good reasons to. Many of the world’s most popular devices now use USB-C ports, including Apple’s own iPads, meaning iPhone owners have been stuck toting around an extra cable just for their phone and its accessories.

But if you’ve been living in the Lightning world for the past decade like I have, things have been great anyway. I’m not ashamed to say it: I’m sad that Lightning is finally going away.

The Lightning Life, at least if you have an iPhone, has been convenient. Using a Lightning cable hardly requires any thought — its biggest revelation, at first, was that it could charge your phone no matter which way you plugged it in, a huge improvement over Apple’s old 30-pin connector. Plugging it into my iPhone when I’m sleepy before bed never feels like a hassle.

The connector’s small size has kept everything Lightning-related small and portable, too. Back in 2012, when Apple debuted the Lightning port on the iPhone 5, this compact size was a huge part of what made the announcement so exciting. Lightning was 80 percent smaller than the comparatively huge 30-pin connector the iPhone had used before. That meant that Apple’s products — and the cables themselves — could look that much nicer. I can’t prove this, but I have to imagine that the iPhone 5’s sleek look was due in part to the switch to the smaller Lightning connector, and those tiny changes add up to saved space in a bag or pocket.

Not only are the cords themselves easy to travel with but the Lightning standard also created a generation of reliable and portable travel accessories. It powers one of my favorite Apple devices ever: the MagSafe Duo. In spite of Dieter Bohn’s middling impressions, I picked one up on sale and, frankly, I adore it. It’s a low-profile way for me to charge my iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods whenever I’m at my desk. When I travel, I can just fold up the MagSafe Duo and slip it into a small pocket in my backpack so that I can easily charge my devices at my final destination.

And even at home, the Lightning Life has been reliable. I never worry that Apple’s Lightning cables will randomly stop charging my devices (though I’ve been lucky to avoid some of the durability issues Lightning cables are sometimes known for). Apple’s solid magnets and the MagSafe Duo mean that my iPhone and Apple Watch almost always start charging as soon as I drop them on their charging spots — there’s no fussing around to make sure they’re aligned correctly.

Picture of Magsafe Duo charger with phone and Apple watch on it. — *The MagSafe Duo — powered by Lightning.*

With Lightning, I’ve built up an extremely trustworthy system for charging many of my Apple devices that I’m very happy with. Yes, Apple designed it that way thanks to its MFi program that gives Apple a cut of every MFi-certified charger or cable sold. And yes, because device makers have to go through Apple for MFi certification, that probably meant that some interesting charging accessories didn’t get made. But the MFi system meant that accessories worked and lacked the confusion of USB-C. Saying goodbye to Lightning doesn’t just mean losing a port and a connector; it means saying goodbye to a great collection of cables and products that I’ve come to depend on as part of my daily life and travel routines.

With all that said: I do understand where the Lightning haters are coming from. These days, basically every other device I own charges over USB-C. The iPhone has been the lone holdout, meaning that I have to toss both a USB-C power brick and my iPhone charging gear (including the MagSafe Duo!) in my bag before heading out the door.

USB-C offers the tantalizing promise of an extremely dependable system for charging all of my gadgets. And it will be a worthwhile switch once I have to make it — I’m in no rush to upgrade from my beloved iPhone 12 Mini — though there will be some friction. I’m already grumbling over the fact that Apple unceremoniously dumped the MagSafe Duo instead of releasing one with a USB-C port (though there are USB-C-based alternatives I can consider).

But those are minor quibbles. USB-C ports on the iPhone 15 lineup are obviously the better choice in 2023. USB-C does everything Lightning can do, and it often does those things better. Whatever my gripes about buying new charging gear, the transition won’t be nearly as painful as the switch from the 30-pin connector to Lightning; I already have a bunch of USB-C charging cables and bricks that I can use with a USB-C-equipped iPhone.

Still, I’ll look back on my 11 years (and counting) of Lightning Life fondly. They have been years of easy charging and lighter backpacks.

When Apple executive Phil Schiller introduced Lightning in 2012, he called it a “modern connector for the next decade.” He was more than right.

Battle Over Electric Vehicles Is Central to Auto Strike

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vendredi 15 septembre 2023

Meta’s next smart glasses may have just shown up in FCC filings

Meta’s next pair of smart glasses made in partnership with Ray-Ban owner Luxottica might be released sometime soon. As spotted by Lowpass’ Janko Roettgers, a listing for a pair of smart glasses by Luxottica Group has surfaced in the FCC’s database. Given that the original Ray-Ban Stories are listed under Luxottica and recent reports on a second-generation pair of the smart glasses, I’m inclined to believe that these filings are for the new specs.

The original Ray-Ban Stories let you capture photos and videos using the cameras next to the lenses and look through what you capture on a companion app. They also have microphones and speakers to capture and play audio. They haven’t been a hit; The Wall Street Journal reported in August that less than 10 percent of the people that bought the smart glasses use them on a monthly basis.

Despite the low usage, it seems Meta is soldiering forward with generation two. The new smart glasses will let you live stream video to Facebook and Instagram and even hear comments from the people watching your stream, Roettgers said in August: “Live streamers will be able to directly communicate with their audience, with the glasses relaying comments via audio over the built-in headphones.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the new smart glasses will have “improved battery life and better cameras” and are scheduled to be released in the fall or spring 2024.

Meta didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The company is hosting its Connect conference on September 27th and 28th, so perhaps we’ll hear more about these new smart glasses at the show. At that event, we already know that Meta plans to share more about the Meta Quest 3, which is scheduled to come out this fall. That device recently crossed the FCC, too, so I’m guessing Meta is going to meet that deadline.

X will now tell you if someone deletes a post you annotated with a Community Note

Illustration: The Verge

If you add a Community Post to a post on X (formerly Twitter), X will tell you if the person who wrote the post deletes it, the company said on Friday.

“Contributors consistently say their goal is to keep others well-informed,” X wrote on the Community Notes account. “This can happen when a helpful note appears on a post, and also when an erroneous post gets deleted. Starting today, writers will be notified when a post on which they wrote a note gets deleted.”

Contributors consistently say their goal is to keep others well-informed. This can happen when a helpful note appears on a post, and also when an erroneous post gets deleted. Starting today, writers will be notified when a post on which they wrote a note gets deleted. pic.twitter.com/EOyO0RR2YA
— Community Notes (@CommunityNotes) September 15, 2023

The idea here seems to be to give people with the ability to add Community Notes another tool to keep other users accountable. On one hand, I think this could be really useful; writing about deleted posts is a key aspect of my job. But on the other, given the generally-bad vibes on X, I worry this tool may be abused to shame people who delete their posts over minor errors or factual inaccuracies.

This new Community Notes feature is the second that X has added this week. On Tuesday, X announced that people rating a note will see more note proposals so they can “consider other notes before submitting their rating.” X owner Elon Musk is a big advocate for Community Notes, and the feature has gotten some notable updates, including expansions to images and videos, since he took over the company.

The newest Steam Deck preview tests VRR, HDR, and improvements for Starfield

The Valve Steam Deck gaming handheld sits on a reflective table, with an orange background. — Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Valve’s next major SteamOS update brings some significant new display settings as well as some new performance improvements to Steam Deck. You can read all about the SteamOS 3.5 update in a blog post on the Steam website.

Two major new features are support for variable refresh rates (VRR) and HDR if you’re using your Steam Deck with an external display that supports them. Valve says that HDR can be enabled if you have a compatible display while VRR can be enabled if you have a compatible USB-C adapter.

The company has also changed the Steam Deck’s default color rendering to “emulate the sRGB color gamut,” which Valve says will result in “a slightly warmer and more vibrant color appearance.” If you don’t like the change, or want to try one of your own, Valve has also added settings that let you tweak the display’s color vibrancy and color temperature.

Hello! We've just shipped SteamOS 3.5 to the Preview channel of Steam Deck. This update has a ton of changes, including improvements to the default color rendering on Steam Deck, new display color settings, automounted external drives, and a slew of other improvements and fixes.… pic.twitter.com/e6EoAMiphy
— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) September 15, 2023

There are some welcome changes that aren’t related to display settings, too. The update includes “updated graphics drivers, with many performance and functionality improvements.” Valve says the update brings “improved performance for Starfield;” Bethesda’s excellent space RPG isn’t verified for Steam Deck, but that hasn’t stopped people from playing the game on the handheld gaming PC anyway.

Valve also promises that the new update adds “slightly improved sleep resume speed.” Every second helps!

And for Linux desktop mode users of the Steam Deck, the underlying Arch Linux has been updated, complete with a new version of the Plasma desktop interface with an updated Discover app store, widgets, and a new window tiling system.

The BIOS also has “voltage offset settings” now, which we take to mean you can more easily undervolt or overclock the Steam Deck but we’ll have to check to be sure.

If you want to try the SteamOS 3.5 preview, go to Settings > System > System Update Channel > Preview. If the preview is too unstable for you, you can always switch back to the Stable channel.

Update, 7:51PM ET: Added mention of a few more features, and clarified that VRR and HDR are for external monitors, not the Steam Deck’s own 40-60Hz fixed-refresh rate screen.

The iPhone 15 Pro’s 5G modem reportedly boosts speeds by up to 24 percent

A photo of the iPhone 15 Pro — Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

The iPhone 15 Pro could come with better 5G connectivity. That’s according to data from SpeedSmart (via 9to5Mac), which indicates that the iPhone 15 Pro will offer up to 24 percent faster download 5G speeds when compared to its iPhone 14 Pro predecessor.

As shown by the data from SpeedSmart, the biggest jump occurred on Verizon’s network, which showed an average download speed of 195.83Mbps on the iPhone 14 Pro, as opposed to 243.06Mbps on the iPhone 15 Pro. Meanwhile, the iPhone 15 Pro on T-Mobile had the fastest average 5G download speeds at 300.92Mbps, as opposed to 204.34Mbps on AT&T.

*T-Mobile showed the fastest 5G speeds with an iPhone 15 Pro.*

Despite this sizeable change, upload speeds only went up a smidge across all three major carriers. The reason for the improvement likely has to do with an upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max’s modem.

While Apple hasn’t mentioned which kind of modem the devices come with, SpeedSmart says the Pro models feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X70 modem, which the company advertises as offering “unmatched data speeds, coverage, and latency.” The modem also comes with an integrated AI processor that’s supposed to improve its connection across 5G frequencies, including short-wave mmWave signals. The Snapdragon X70 modem comes in Samsung’s Galaxy S23 lineup as well.

Although there are rumors that Apple is working on its own in-house 5G modems, the company recently extended its modem supply agreement until 2026, so we may have to wait a few more generations to see what Apple has in store. Preorders for the iPhone 15 are live now, with availability starting September 22nd.

TikTok fined $367 million for how it handled children’s data

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Today, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced a €345 million (around $367 million) fine on TikTok for how the company processes the data of children. The fine follows an investigation by the DPC announced in 2021 that looked at TikTok’s compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. Politico reported in August that the DPC was preparing to issue its penalty.

The probe focused on a few TikTok features: default account settings; “Family Pairing” settings; and age verification. After consulting with the European Data Protection Board, the DPC found that TikTok set children’s accounts to public by default when they signed up on the platform. That meant that kids’ videos were publicly viewable by default and that comments, duets, and Stitch features were also enabled by default.

Family Pairing, a feature introduced by TikTok in 2020, allows children’s accounts to be linked with a separate adult account, in theory to manage app settings like limiting screen time and restricting direct messages and content that may not be appropriate. The DPC found that children’s TikTok accounts could be linked to profiles that the company hadn’t verified belonged to a parent or guardian. Once linked, the child’s profile settings could be loosened by the adult user to allow DMs.

One sticking point is whether TikTok did enough to keep kids below its 13-year minimum age off the platform through age verification. Though the decision found TikTok’s age verification methods weren’t in violation of GDPR laws, it determined the company hadn’t sufficiently protected the privacy of children under 13 who were able to sign up for an account.

In 2021, TikTok tightened privacy settings on accounts belonging to users aged 13 to 15, making them more private by default. TikTok will have three months to bring its practices into compliance.

Other social media platforms have been fined by the DPC for similar infractions related to young users. Meta was fined more than $400 million in 2022 because it allowed teen Instagram users to sign up for business profiles, making their contact information public, among other things.

Apple to issue iPhone 12 software update in France to address radiation concerns

The iPhone 12, in blue. — Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple says it will release a software update for iPhone 12 owners in France, after regulators ordered a halt of sales of the phone over concerns the device was breaching strict radiation exposure limits.

“We will issue a software update for users in France to accommodate the protocol used by French regulators,” says Apple in a statement to Reuters. “We look forward to iPhone 12 continuing to be available in France.”

French regulators ordered a ban of iPhone 12 models earlier this week after testing the handset and finding that its Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) — how much radio frequency is absorbed into a body from a device — exceeded European radiation exposure limits. Belgium said it would review the French findings, with Germany, Italy, and more countries saying they’d be monitoring the situation.

The iPhone 12 first went on sale in late 2020, but France’s ANFR regulator has been carrying out tests on more than 140 phones recently to ensure radiation standards are being adhered to.

Apple has dismissed the claims and says “this is related to a specific testing protocol used by French regulators and not a safety concern” with the iPhone 12 itself. “The ANFR is preparing to quickly test this update,” says Jean Noel Barrot, France’s digital affairs minister, in a statement to Reuters.

The concerns over iPhone 12 radiation levels and a French sales ban emerged on the same day that Apple announced its new iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro handsets that are due to launch on September 22nd.

Today I learned this weird Windows keyboard shortcut that opens LinkedIn

A user types on the Surface Pro 8 from behind. The screen displays the Windows 11 Start menu on a white and blue background. — Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Windows never ceases to amaze me. Last month I discovered for the first time that you could pause the Windows Task Manager by holding down the CTRL key and today I’ve stumbled on a special keyboard shortcut that lets you launch LinkedIn, Word, and a bunch of other Office apps.

If you’re running Windows try holding down CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + L. Then watch in bemusement as LinkedIn opens in your default browser. Windows watcher Paul Thurrott posted this bizarre keyboard shortcut on X (Twitter), noting that it’s an operating system hotkey.

So why does Windows even have this? It’s all part of the Office key that Microsoft introduced on some of its own keyboards a few years ago. The Office key replaced the usual right-hand Windows key, offering up the ability to hold the key in combination with another one to quickly open Office apps. Here’s the full list:

LinkedIn - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + L
Word - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + W
Excel - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + X
PowerPoint - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + P
Outlook - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + O
Microsoft Teams - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + T
OneDrive - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + D
OneNote - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + N
Yammer - CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + WIN + Y

*The Office key on Microsoft’s keyboards.*

If you don’t have these Office apps installed then the shortcuts will open Office.com in your browser instead. It seems like a complicated shortcut, but all the keys are grouped together in the corner of your keyboard so in reality it feels like you’re button mashing in a game to pull off these Office shortcuts.

While Thurrott says this is an operating system hotkey that “cannot be turned off,” there is actually a method to disable these Office key shortcuts in the Windows registry. If like me you had no idea these keyboard shortcuts existed for people with an Office key then they’re probably not worth disabling, but if you love digging around in the registry Microsoft posted the method right here.

I’m sure I’ll discover some other hidden part of Windows in the coming weeks or months, so stay tuned for the next installment of Today I learned... this weird Windows thing.

jeudi 14 septembre 2023

Google won’t repair cracked Pixel Watch screens

A photo of a small thin crack on the right side of Google’s Pixel Watch display glass. — Google currently offers no repairs for broken Pixel Watches. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you crack the screen on the Pixel Watch, getting it officially repaired by Google isn’t in the cards.

Several Pixel Watch owners have vented their frustrations about the inability to replace cracked screens, both on Reddit and in Google support forums. The Verge has also reviewed an official Google support chat from a reader who broke their Pixel Watch display after dropping the wearable. In it, a support representative states that Google “doesn’t have any repair centers or service centers” for the device.

“At this moment, we don’t have any repair option for the Google Pixel Watch. If your watch is damaged, you can contact the Google Pixel Watch Customer Support Team to check your replacement options,” Google spokesperson Bridget Starkey confirmed to The Verge.

Starkey also pointed me to Google’s hardware warranty policy, which states:

This Limited Warranty does not apply to damage caused by: (1) normal wear and tear; (2) accidents; (3) misuse (including failure to follow product documentation); (4) neglect; (5) disassembly; (6) alterations; (7) servicing other than by Google-authorized technicians; and (8) external causes such as, but not limited to: liquid damage, exposure to sharp objects, exposure to excessive force, anomalies in the electrical current supplied to the Google product, and extreme thermal or environmental conditions.

That warranty leaves owners on their own to deal with damage caused by drops or accidental strikes, and according to Google’s Store, there is no option for an extended warranty to go with a Pixel Watch. If your Pixel Watch is accidentally damaged, that’s it.

This is despite the fact that a repair would technically be possible. iFixit notes in its Pixel Watch teardown that while the screen isn’t easily accessible, the watch itself holds promise for future repairability. The site also has a detailed how-to for replacing a cracked, broken, or dead screen. However, it’s unclear where the average person would source a replacement part, especially as Google does not offer repair options for the device. One commenter on the iFixit guide suggests buying an intact Pixel Watch off eBay, but that only seems mildly cheaper (and perhaps more wasteful) than buying a used or new Pixel Watch replacement.

This is troubling, considering the Pixel Watch features a circular domed glass display. While it’s an attractive design, it can be easily cracked if you’re not careful. During our review period last year, my colleague Chris Welch cracked his within a few days — even though he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary or banged the device against hard surfaces. I have not experienced a crack despite dropping mine multiple times, but our differing experiences are more likely due to luck than anything else.

Google is not the only one guilty of making smartwatch repairs difficult. Repairing an Apple Watch has historically been an expensive and difficult endeavor. For example, without AppleCare Plus, Apple cites a flat $299 estimate for a Series 8 and $499 for an Apple Watch Ultra. With AppleCare Plus, that price drops to $69 for the Series 8 and $79 for the Ultra, not including the cost of AppleCare itself. That said, at least you can send in an Apple Watch for repair, even if buying a new one might be more cost-effective in the long run.

This isn’t great, considering that Google is expected to launch a new Pixel Watch 2 in October with what appears to be a nearly identical design. The good news is that Google may not have much choice about this practice going forward. Earlier this week, California passed a right-to-repair bill that requires companies to make replacement parts for electronics available for three years if they cost $50 and up, and seven years for devices costing $100 or more.

In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, you can’t use your old Remake save

A screenshot from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. — Image: Square Enix

If you’ve poured dozens of hours into Final Fantasy VII Remake, that unfortunately won’t give you much of a leg up in the game’s sequel, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. As part of an interview about the new game posted on the PlayStation Blog, game director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed that you won’t be able to port over your Remake save or character builds into Rebirth.

Here’s the full question and answer:

Given this is a direct continuation Final Fantasy VII Remake, can players port over their save file and their character builds to continue their journey into Final Fantasy VII VII Rebirth?

Hamaguchi: We have announced that the Final Fantasy VII remake project will be a trilogy and that each entry will be a standalone game in its own right. Because of this, each game’s balancing is done independently and a player’s levels and abilities will not carry over from one game to the next. However, we have created some special bonuses for fans who played the previous game, allowing them to start with a little something extra.

Those bonuses, according to Square Enix’s listing for Rebirth on its website, will be summon materia. If you have PS4 or PS5 save data from Remake on your PS5, you’ll get Leviathan. If you have save data from Remake’s DLC expansion, Episode Intermission, you’ll get Ramuh.

The PlayStation Blog post has a few other interesting details.

There will be new materia that weren’t included in the first game.
Red XIII will be playable and has a new “revenge gauge” mechanic.
Vincent Valentine may not be, however; while Rebirth’s new trailer gives us a glimpse of the mysterious character, creative director Tetsuya Nomura doesn’t explicitly say you’ll be able to directly control him in battle. (“There are characters who are accompanying members in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth that will become official party members in the next title.”)
There are a “huge number” of mini-games, so I bet the Gold Saucer will be a blast.

And it sounds like Rebirth will end right around where, in the original PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII (**spoiler warning... from 1997**), Aerith is killed by Sephiroth. “Although there are some changes in the order of the locations, the locations depicted in [Rebirth] extend up to ‘The Forgotten Capital,’ where the greatest fate of Final Fantasy VII awaits you,” Nomura said. It seems like we’ll have to get through the entire journey to find out if that moment will play out as it did before; I have a hunch that it won’t.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be released on PS5 on February 29th, 2024 (that’s Leap Day!), and you can watch a new trailer for it right now. Rebirth is the second game in a trilogy, and thanks to the new Rebirth trailer, I have a guess at what the third game might be called.

The Stock Market Hopes Arm’s IPO Is a Hit

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Google Pixel Tablet parts and repair guides now available from iFixit

A picture of someone removing a Google Pixel tablet battery. — *It’s now easier for Pixel Tablet owners to replace their device's battery, screens, and other components.* | Image: iFixit

It’s now easier for Google Pixel Tablet owners to repair their own device, thanks to the partnership between Google and right-to-repair champions iFixit. As spotted by 9to5Google, genuine Pixel Tablet parts are now available to purchase on iFixit’s website, alongside user repair guides that walk you through how to install various components.

A rear case replacement is available for $199.99, which includes the Pixel Tablet’s volume controls, antennas, power button (including fingerprint unlock), and three microphones. There’s no option to select a color preference, however, so users may be limited to the off-white “porcelain” option displayed on the webpage. iFixit is also selling a replacement USB-C charging port for $24.99, a battery for $59.99, and a 10.9-inch LCD screen for $199.99 — which includes the device’s 8MP front-facing camera.

A picture of the Google Pixel Tablet alongside an iFixit repair kit. — *iFixit also offers some components as a bundle alongside its own-branded repair tools, providing everything you need to fix the device.*

There are also in-depth repair guides explaining how to install almost all of the components iFixit has to offer for the Google Pixel tablet, featuring step-by-step instructions and detailed images that should make it much easier (or at the very least, less intimidating) to fix your own device. Most of these feature additional iFixit-branded repair equipment like suction cup handles and an Anti-Clamp tool, which will need to be purchased separately (or bundled with the required parts) if you want to follow these guides word-for-word.

iFixit has provided genuine components and repair guides for various Pixel phone models since Google agreed to partner with the self-repair specialist back in 2022, from the Pixel 2 right through to the Pixel 7A. It’s nice to see the Pixel tablet joining them, giving consumers the freedom to fix their own devices without having to pay for a repair service.

How Strikes Reflect Longstanding Battles for Control in Hollywood

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mercredi 13 septembre 2023

Starfield on GeForce Now is among the best and worst ways to play

A screenshot of Starfield’s New Atlantis. — Starfield’s New Atlantis. | Image: Bethesda

I’m not ready to upgrade my PC. Would I pay $20 a month to rent one that lives in the cloud? Starfield is the first game that’s actually making me consider the possibility.

Today, Starfield arrived on Nvidia’s GeForce Now, a service that lets you tap into an RTX 4080-equivalent GPU, and I spent a little time benchmarking the hard-to-run game. It absolutely looks and plays better than it did on my aging 1440p desktop, and looks great handheld.

*This reads 56 fps, but I saw as low as 47 fps when turning around at this spot.* *Click for larger image*.

It’s not a silver bullet. I currently have wired gigabit fiber optic internet and live only a few towns over from Nvidia’s west coast servers. Even then, the game doesn’t currently run as smoothly as it does on the highest-end gaming PCs. In the city of New Atlantis, I saw dips down to 47 and 48 frames per second no matter my graphics settings or resolution, because many worlds are fundamentally limited by your CPU speeds.

But in the cyberpunk core of Neon, I never saw a dip below 60fps at 4K resolution and Ultra spec, regardless of whether I simply walked through town or provoked a battle. It’s so much smoother than my 5600X / 3060 Ti desktop machine.

(By default, GeForce Now sets the game to Ultra with FSR2 enabled, at 75 percent render resolution. I got 70-80fps in Neon’s core that way — consistently 10fps higher than native resolution.)

*Yes,* *you can see the sun* *with GeForce Now.*

On other worlds, and in lighter firefights, my cloud gaming framerate was far north of 60fps at Ultra spec. I do still need to test on Masada III, though.

Right now, you’re probably wondering about my headline. If it’s so great, why’s it also a “worst way to play”? How can it be “best” if high-end PCs run the game better? Well, some people might prefer to play this game handheld, and I’d take this experience over Starfield on a Steam Deck or ROG Ally:

*Don’t get me started on the Razer Edge’s pricing or 5G, though.*

With GeForce Now, you can stream to most any system you’ve got, and it’s wild to see

But the minor tragedy of Nvidia’s GeForce Now is that you won’t experience any of what I’m talking about unless you cough up cash first.

I decided to give GeForce Now’s free tier a try, too, and Starfield is basically unplayable that way. After sitting nearly half an hour waiting for the game to load, sync my cloud saves, and compile its shaders, I was greeted with graphics like this:

*The gun is still loading in. Wait for it... wait for it...* *full-size image here*.

*Appropriate caption.* *Full-size image here*.

Not to mention scary error messages:

It’s an embarrassment. I would be ashamed to put this free trial out into the world as a sample of cloud gaming. Nvidia, do you really think this will convince anyone to pay?

If you’re interested and have good internet, I highly recommend you try the Ultimate tier for a month — and make sure to manually set your GeForce Now resolution to 4K even if your monitor is only capable of 1440p.

*I must have bumped the mouse between these shots, but you can get the idea if you* *look closely*.

Nvidia’s streaming quality is noticeably better when it’s got more render resolution to work with; I saw all kinds of muddiness and jaggies at 1440p that utterly vanished at 4K.

WhatsApp is widely rolling out its Telegram-like Channels feature

A photo showing Channels on WhatsApp — *Olivia Rodrigo, Mark Zuckerberg, and the MLB now have their own Channels as well.* | Image: WhatsApp

WhatsApp is rolling out its new Channels feature to more users. The messaging app announced on Wednesday that it’s expanding the one-to-many broadcasting feature to over 150 countries.

While WhatsApp first introduced Channels in June, it was only available to select organizations in Colombia and Singapore. Just like on the messaging app Telegram, WhatsApp’s Channels feature lets you receive updates from creators, organizations, and brands from a single channel. Instagram rolled out a similar feature earlier this year, called broadcast channels.

Along with the wider rollout, WhatsApp also announced a few new enhancements coming to the feature. That includes an improved directory that lets you filter channels based on countries, while also allowing you to sort through channels that are new, most active, and popular. You can also now use emoji to react to posts within channels. Meanwhile, the admins who run channels will now be able to edit their updates for up to 30 days before the platform deletes the post from its servers.

The messaging app is also welcoming “thousands” of new channels to the platform, including those run by Olivia Rodrigo, the MLB, and Mark Zuckerberg. WhatsApp says it will continue to add more features to Channels as it receives feedback from users. The platform also notes that it will make it possible for anyone to create a channel “over the coming months.” If you don’t see the Channels feature on your app just yet, WhatsApp notes that you can join its waitlist on mobile to get notified when it’s available.

Adobe Premiere Pro can now automatically remove your ‘ums’ and background noise

A screenshot of Adobe Premiere Pro. — *Adobe is making it easier to improve and clean up the audio quality of your recorded footage in Premiere Pro.* | Image: Adobe

Adobe is introducing some new AI and 3D features in beta for Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Frame.io — its popular suite of video and audio editing applications that are designed to improve workflow and speed up time-intensive tasks.

To start, Premiere Pro is adding an AI-powered Enhance Speech feature that Adobe claims can make poorly recorded dialogue sound like “it was recorded in a professional studio.” Enhance Speech automatically removes background noise and provides Premiere Pro users with a mix slider to customize how much of it they’d like to incorporate in their projects. A new Audio Category Tagging feature is also available that automatically flags clips that contain dialogue, music, and sound effects or ambient noise.

A snapshot of Adobe Premiere Pro’s new filler word detection feature. — *The new filler word detection tool in Adobe Premiere Pro will automatically flag and remove unnecessary fluff words from your recordings.*

Meanwhile, Premier Pro’s Text-Based Editing tool, which was added earlier this year, now includes filler word detection to automatically identify and remove unnecessary pauses, “ums,” and “uhs” from both the dialogue and transcription. Other updates for Premiere Pro include a faster timeline for more responsive editing, improvements to automatic tone mapping, and new project templates to help creatives quickly start new tasks.

After Effects is adding a true 3D workspace for VFX and motion graphics projects that supports native 3D model imports. Image-based lighting places models into a scene with realistic lighting and shadows, and editing effects that reference other layers like displacement map, vector blur, or calculations can use a 3D model layer as a source. The popular Roto Brush tool that automatically selects moving objects has also been upgraded to more easily separate hard-to-isolate objects like overlapping limbs and hair.

A screenshot of Adobe Frame.IO. — *Need help deciding which shot to go with? Frame.io’s comparison viewer supports annotations for group feedback.*

Finally, Frame.io has updated its comparison viewer to enable users to view video, audio, photo, design file, and PDF assets side by side, allowing users to compare and comment on any two matching asset types. The video review software is also introducing Frame.io Storage Connect later this year — a new way for enterprise customers to reduce storage costs by directly connecting to AWS S3 storage that they already own.

All of these features are available to try now in beta, with general availability expected later this year. If you want to give them a whirl, you can find out more information about Adobe’s various beta applications over on its website.

Sony’s new PS5 update includes Dolby Atmos and the ability to mute the startup beep

A PlayStation 5 DualSense controller rests on a PlayStation 5 console. — Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony is rolling out a big new PS5 update today, just over a month after it first started testing the changes in a beta. The update adds Dolby Atmos, lets you mute that annoying bootup beep, and even supports pairing a second controller as an assist one to let you help friends or family complete a game. Sony is also expanding its PS Remote Play app to Google’s Chromecast with Google TV (4K), allowing you to stream games from a PS5 or PS4 to Android TV OS 12 devices.

The Dolby Atmos support comes in the form of Sony’s 3D Audio implementation (Tempest 3D AudioTech). It’s compatible with Dolby Atmos devices like sound bars, TVs, or home theater systems. Media apps like Netflix can also update their apps on PS5 soon to support Dolby Atmos audio.

You can now mute the PS5 beep sound that chirps when you turn the console on or off, or even when it goes into rest mode after being idle. If you just want to adjust the volume of the beep there’s now an option for that, too.

One of the most useful additions is the ability to use a second DualSense controller for assistance. “You can now assign a second controller to one account as an assist controller, and use two controllers to operate your PS5 console as if you were using a single controller,” explains Hideaki Nishino, senior vice president of platform experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment. “This feature introduces a new way for you to enjoy games collaboratively with others or help a friend or child navigate a particularly challenging section of a game.”

Sony is also improving its expandable M.2 SSD storage support to an 8TB limit on drives. You’ll still need an M.2 SSD that meets the minimum requirements, but there are now more options for PS5 owners who want a lot more storage.

Sony is also adding a number of UI improvements and some general navigation changes with this latest PS5 software update. You can now enable haptic feedback from a DualSense controller while navigating around the PS5 user interface. Moving the focus from one section to another will trigger haptics with this option enabled, alongside haptic feedback for when you reach the end of a scrollable section.

Voice commands have also been improved, with the ability to use “Hey PlayStation, help” to find support pages and “Hey PlayStation, what’s new?” to find out all the new PS5 features in updates just like this one.

*You can now see a preview of someone’s screen share before you join a party.*

Some of the PS5 social aspects are getting some welcome changes. You’ll now be able to invite players into a closed party without adding them to a group, and also send open or closed party invites to groups instead of just a single friend. You can also now see a preview of someone sharing their screen before you join a party, and it’s now easier to see which friends are in parties in the friends tab. Sony is also adding emoji reactions for messages.

PS Remote Play support is also being expanded to additional Android TV devices. The PS Remote Play app is now available on Android TV OS 12 devices, including the Chromecast with Google TV (4K) and Sony’s Bravia XR A95L.

A Who’s Who of Silicon Valley Will Convene With Lawmakers on A.I.

A Who’s Who of Silicon Valley Will Convene With Lawmakers on A.I. Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and others are set to discuss artificial intelligence with lawmakers, in one of the tech industry’s most proactive shows of force in Washington.