Despite claims to the contrary as recently as July, Google is shutting down its Stadia games streaming service after all. The company says players will have access to their games library and be able to play them until January 18, 2023. Sadly, Stadia will join the long, long list of products that have been killed by Google.
Those who have invested money into Stadia will be fully reimbursed. "We will be refunding all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store," Google wrote in a blog post. "We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023. We have more details for players on this process on our Help Center."
NASA made history this week after an attempt to slam its DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft into an asteroid nearly 7 million miles away proved successful. While NASA shared some close-up images of the impact, it observed the planetary defense test from afar as well, thanks to the help of the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. On the surface, the images aren't exactly the most striking things we've seen from either telescope, but they could help reveal a lot of valuable information.
This was the first time that Hubble and JSWT have observed the same celestial target simultaneously. While that was a milestone for the telescopes in itself, NASA suggests the data they captured will help researchers learn more about the history and makeup of the solar system. They'll be able to use the information to learn about the surface of Dimorphos (the asteroid in question), how much material was ejected after DART crashed into it and how fast that material was traveling.
.@NASAWebb & @NASAHubble caught the DART impact on camera – the 1st time that Webb & Hubble were used to simultaneously observe the same celestial target.
JWST and Hubble picked up different wavelengths of light (infrared and visible, respectively). NASA says that being able to observe data from multiple wavelengths will help scientists figure out if big chunks of material left Dimorphos' surface or if it was mostly fine dust. This is an important aspect of the test, as the data can help researchers figure out if crashing spacecraft into an asteroid can change its orbit. The ultimate aim is to develop a system that can divert incoming asteroids away from Earth.
NASA says that JWST picked up images of "a tight, compact core, with plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the center of where the impact took place." JWST, which captured 10 images over five hours, will continue to collect spectroscopic data from the asteroid system in the coming months to help researchers better understand the chemical composition of Dimorphos. NASA shared a timelapse GIF of the images that JWST captured.
NASA/ESA/CSA/Cristina Thomas (Northern Arizona University)/Ian Wong (NASA-GSFC)/Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
At around 14,000 MPH, Dimorphos was traveling at a speed over three times faster than JWST was originally designed to track. However, the telescope's flight operations, planning and science teams were able to develop a way to capture the impact.
As for Hubble, the 32-year-old telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 captured its own images of the collision. "Ejecta from the impact appear as rays stretching out from the body of the asteroid," according to NASA. The agency noted that some of the rays appear curved, and astronomers will have to examine the data to gain a better understanding of what that may mean.
NASA/ESA/Jian-Yang Li (PSI)/Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
According to their initial findings, though, the brightness of the asteroid system increased threefold after impact. That level of brightness stayed the same for at least eight hours. Hubble captured 45 images immediately before and after DART's impact. It will observe the asteroid system 10 additional times over the next few weeks.
It took 10 months for DART, which is about the size of a vending machine, to reach Dimorphos. The football stadium-sized asteroid was around 6.8 million miles away from Earth when DART rammed into it. Pulling off an experiment like that is no mean feat. The learnings scientists gain from the test may prove invaluable.
Teenage Engineering is best known these days for its electronic music-making gear, but now it has an option for creating physical copies of those tunes. The Swedish brand has released a PO-80 Record Factory that, as the name implies, lets you cut vinyl records at home in addition to playing them back. The extra-cute orange and white design is part of the draw, but the real appeal is the simplicity — you just need to plug an audio device into the 3.5mm jack and start recording.
You're limited to monophonic sound, and you won't be cutting more than a single with a B-side. The included five-inch blank records (complete with sleeves) allow for about four minutes of audio per side at 33RPM, and three minutes at 45RPM. There's an adapter for playing seven-inch records, and all power comes over USB.
If the concept looks a bit familiar, it should. Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki initially explored the idea with a record-cutting machine he built in tandem with the magazine publisher Gakken. Suzuki is a friend of Teenage Engineering, and teamed up with the company to develop a new version with the "Pocket Operator mentality" and a revised design.
The Record Factory is available for $149. While that's not trivial, it's not a lot to spend if you want to produce tangible copies of your lo-fi music. Just be prepared to look elsewhere if you intend to release whole albums.
It's been a turbulent year for Peloton to say the least. Part of the company's plan to right the ship is to offer its connected fitness gear through third-party retailers. It started selling equipment through Amazon in August and now Peloton has an exclusive deal with a brick-and-mortar retailer. So, you soon may be able to walk into a Dick's Sporting Goods location and pick up a Bike, Tread or Guide after seeing it in person. It seems Dick's won't carry Peloton's new rowing machine for now, though.
The fitness gear and some accessories will be available in more than 100 Dick's retail locations in the US (there are more than 700 in total, as CNBC points out) and through the company's online sales channels in the coming weeks. The physical locations will have Peloton-branded fitness shops where the gear will be displayed and Dick's employees will be trained to help shoppers with the equipment.
Peloton says Dick's will be the only retailer that offers this selection of its hardware outside of its own online and physical stores. However, Peloton plans to start closing at least some of its showrooms next year.
At least to begin with, Peloton will handle delivery and setup if you order a Bike or Tread from Dick's. That may not last for long as the company announced plans in August to lay off members of its distribution team and rely entirely on third-party companies for deliveries and setting up equipment.
Add more brands to the list of those hopping aboard the "+" service bandwagon. To begin, MGM is relaunching its movie-oriented Epix streaming service and TV channel as MGM+ on January 15th, 2023. It will continue Epix's blend of originals and "curated" movies from various studios. You'll also find it in the familiar places, including through Prime Video (Amazon owns MGM, after all), other digital services and conventional TV providers.
Simultaneously, Starz has just rebranded its international streaming service Starzplay as Lionsgate+ for 35 of the 63 countries where it operates. North Americans will still see the usual Starz name, while Lionsgate Play (in parts of Asia) and Starzplay Arabia will also remain unchanged. As with MGM+, the actual service will remain intact. This is more about capitalizing on the "valuable" nature of the Lionsgate name and trying to stand out (by tacking on the same "+" as everyone else), according to Starz chief Jeffrey Hirsch.
TechCrunchnotes Lionsgate plans to separate Starz from its studio business, and hoped for the spinoff to complete the move this summer. That clearly didn't happen, but the rebrand is a step in that direction.
In either case, the strategy is familiar. As with CBS All Access' revival as Paramount+, it's a bid to make the most of a well-known brand while nodding to a streaming-first reality. Whether or not this helps is another story. Their streaming businesses are relatively small (Starz has 35.8 million subscribers, for example) compared to heavyweights like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Netflix. They're not in trouble, but name changes by themselves aren't likely to boost demand.
Ahead of its annual MAX event next month, Adobe has unveiled the 2023 version of its non-subscription Elements products. As with yearspast, the highlights are new AI features like animation for Photoshop Elements images and AI-applied art styles for Premiere.
For Photoshop Elements 2023, the most dramatic update is the ability to add motion to still photos. To do so, you just need to select the part of the image you want to move and indicate the direction of movement using the arrow tool. The AI will then do the rest, adding appropriate movement to water, fabrics, sand and so on. A bit cheesy, sure, but it could work in some situations.
Adobe
Another key tool for Photoshop Elements is guided edits. That lets you do things like "peek-throughs" or putting foreground objects in a photo, along with "perfect portrait" that lets you smooth blemishes, whiten teeth, adjust face tilt or make the subjects smile wider (or even change a blink to open their eyes). Another guided lets you replace an ugly background with, say, a sunset.
The perfect portrait feature adds a touch of uncanny valley to subjects if overused, and the background replacement work can be a bit wonky, depending on how well the AI isolates your subject. Still, it could be fun for certain uses. Other features include new collage and slideshow templates, faster performance, Apple M1 chip support and a new Android companion app to upload mobile photos and videos to Elements on desktop (English-only beta).
Adobe
The key feature for Premiere Elements also revolves around Adobe's Sensei AI. The "artistic effects" tool lets you add painterly styles to video including Van Gogh, DaVinci, Monet and so on. The effect takes motion into account for a consistent look, though again, this can get very tacky if overused.
Adobe also added over 100 new audio tracks to give you some free music for videos, while boosting performance and stability and adding Apple M1 chips support. The Android companion app can also be used with Premiere Elements to make it easier to upload videos from your phone (again, only for the English-only beta). Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements are now available for $100 new or $80 as upgrades, or $150 for both products ($120 as an upgrade).
Meta unveiled its Make-a-Scene text-to-image generation AI in July, which like Dall-E and Midjourney, utilizes machine learning algorithms (and massive databases of scraped online artwork) to create fantastical depictions of written prompts. On Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed Make-a-Scene's more animated contemporary, Make-a-Video.
As its name implies, Make-a-Video is, "a new AI system that lets people turn text prompts into brief, high-quality video clips," Zuckerberg wrote in a Meta blog Thursday. Functionally, Video works the same way that Scene does — relying on a mix of natural language processing and generative neural networks to convert non-visual prompts into images — it's just pulling content in a different format.
"Our intuition is simple: learn what the world looks like and how it is described from paired text-image data, and learn how the world moves from unsupervised video footage," a team of Meta researchers wrote in a research paper published Thursday morning. Doing so enabled the team to reduce the amount of time needed to train the Video model and eliminate the need for paired text-video data, while preserving "the vastness (diversity in aesthetic, fantastical depictions, etc.) of today’s image generation models."
As with most all of Meta's AI research, Make-a-Video is being released as an open-source project. "We want to be thoughtful about how we build new generative AI systems like this," Zuckerberg noted. "We are openly sharing this generative AI research and results with the community for their feedback, and will continue to use our responsible AI framework to refine and evolve our approach to this emerging technology."
As with seemingly every generative AI that is released, the opportunity for misuse of Make-a-Video is not a small one. To get ahead of any potential nefarious shenanigans, the research team preemptively scrubbed the Make-a-Video training dataset of any NSFW imagery as well as toxic phrasing.
Finally, Sonos has a subwoofer that's more affordable and practical for smaller spaces, the Sub Mini. It only took 10 years to get here. Sonos' original wireless Sub, which debuted in 2012, has always been targeted at its most hardcore users. With a launch price of $699, it was just as expensive as the company's flagship Playbar, and its enormous size made it overkill for apartments. (It's now $50 more after Sonos' recent price hikes.)
Casual Sonos fans were basically out of luck, especially as the company released more affordable soundbars, like the Beam and Ray. You probably wouldn't want to pair a $699 subwoofer with a speaker that costs $400 or less. Simply put, the $429 Sub Mini fills a huge gap in Sonos's lineup. But is it actually any good?
If I could, I'd show you my cat's shocked reaction as I blasted Baby Driver's opening car chase on the Sonos Arc in my family room. Sonos may not be the most price-conscious company around, but it's always made reliably great speakers. The Sub Mini is no exception.
Now I know, if you own an Arc, you'd most likely opt for the beefier Sonos Sub. But I was still impressed by how much the smaller subwoofer helped, especially for a soundbar that already delivered some fabulous low-end sound on its own. Muffled shotgun firing at the beginning of Baby Driver shook my walls (and made one cat leap into the air). I could viscerally feel the rumble of engines, the impact of car crashes and the weight shift every time Baby used the emergency brake for a sharp turn. The Sub Mini transformed the movie from something I was just watching to something I was experiencing.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
I was genuinely surprised by how big the Sub Mini sounded, especially since it's a relatively small cylinder. It weighs 14 pounds — 22 pounds lighter than the big Sonos Sub — and features dual six-inch woofers that face inward. Its sealed design means it doesn't push out a ton of air like ported subs, but that also ensures a tighter bass response. The Sub Mini can reach down to 25Hz – more than enough to make the opening of Blade Runner 2049 hit me right in the gut.
While I wouldn't call it portable, I appreciated how easy it was to move the Sub Mini around my home to test in different rooms. (Trust me, that was a lot less fun with the massive Sonos Sub.) You can pair the new sub with Sonos’ powered speakers, like the Beam, Ray and Play:5. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Sonos's portable offerings.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
That makes sense for the tiny Roam speaker, but I was genuinely disappointed to learn the Sub Mini doesn't support the larger Move. That's a speaker I've grown to love recently, since it lets me easily bring music into my backyard. It's a shame Sonos couldn't make the Sub Mini work while the Move was sitting on its charging base. (At that point, how is it different from a speaker with a plug?)
Despite that annoyance, the Sub Mini seems well-suited to homes with plenty of Sonos speakers. Moving it over to a Play:5 in my living room took around 30 seconds. And once it got going, it instantly added an impressive amount of depth to some of my usual test tracks. Tan Dun's "Night Fight" from the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack sounded like I was hosting a traditional drumming concert in my home. Flying Lotus's "Zodiac Shit," a go-to track for low-end testing, sent another one of my cats cowering into another room.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
As great as it is for music, I'd best most Sub Mini buyers would end up pairing it with one of Sonos's soundbar for better movie and TV sound. It certainly made a huge difference on the first-gen Beam in my bedroom, which sounded twice as large during that Baby Driver chase sequence. Obviously, that's not a room where I would want to have thumping bass all the time, but it sure is nice to have the option.
That's my biggest takeaway. After a decade of waiting, Sonos fans finally have a viable option for beefing up their sound that isn’t obscenely expensive. And if you're lucky enough to have multiple Sonos devices, you can easily move that bass magic all over your home. It may be called the Sub Mini, but really it’s all about maximizing sound where it matters.
Square has publicly launched its Tap to Pay solution for the iPhone after running an early access program these past few months. That means sellers across the US can now use the company's Point of Sale app to receive payments from customers using just their iPhones anywhere they are. Sure, they need to have a newer iPhone — the oldest model that can run the feature is the iPhone 11 — but they don't need to buy additional hardware to access the feature.
Like with any other point-of-sale system, sellers only have to ring up the sale on Square's app and then have the customer pay using contactless credit and debit cards or Apple Pay and other digital wallets. Square is hoping that the solution could provide even small merchants an easy way to conduct in-person business. In its announcement, the company also addressed a potential security concern and said that Apple doesn't store card numbers on the sellers' device or on its servers.
Square first announced that it was going to support Apple's Tap to Pay on iPhones, which the tech giant was seen testing at its visitor center in May, back in June. It opened its early access program at the same time to give select sellers and retailers the chance to try it out. One of the participants said it allowed their business to better accommodate younger customers who preferred paying with their digital wallets and contactless cards.
The case for heating homes with hydrogen rather than natural gas appears to be dead. In the UK, hydrogen has become an important part of the debate around decarbonizing home heating. 85 percent of all homes use natural gas to heat space and water, with the oil and gas industry pushing hydrogen as something that can leverage the existing gas pipelines. And lawmakers with close ties to the industry have claimed that hydrogen is a “silver bullet” to help the UK reach its climate targets.
According to a new study from the Regulatory Assistance Project, an NGO, such claims are a big pile of old nonsense. The project ran an extensive meta-analysis of research into hydrogen technology overall, finding that the promises of easy retrofit don’t add up. It said that it wasn’t clear if the existing infrastructure was actually suitable to take hydrogen without major adaptation. That was, after all, one of the major selling points of using hydrogen over switching to heat pumps and other low-carbon methods.
It’s something that Engadget already covered in its extensive report on the UK’s home heating situation back in 2021. The suitability of infrastructure is only one part of the problem, however, since many experts also asked where all of this hydrogen was coming from. Supplying the UK with enough hydrogen to heat 85 percent of its homes, without any work to reduce demand, would require around 10 million tons of hydrogen.
In that report, Tim Lord, who was previously responsible for the UK’s decarbonization strategy, said that to generate that much hydrogen cleanly, you would need around 75 gigawatts of offshore wind. The UK Government’s most recent figures say that the country’s total installed offshore wind capacity is just 10 gigawatts. It’s hard to see the economic case for installing seven-and-a-half times the total offshore wind capacity just to generate hydrogen.
The Regulatory Assistance Project’s report also found that trying to use hydrogen for space and hot water heating is a waste of a vital material. Green hydrogen could be put to better use in agricultural processes, like making fertilizer or in heavy industry. And we’ve already seen that green hydrogen has a part to play in decarbonizing industrial transport, like shipping, and in the railways where mass-electrification isn’t viable.
In its conclusions, the report adds that greater emphasis on hydrogen will only serve to delay the take up of better technologies, like heat pumps. There’s a political dimension to this, too, with The Guardian reporting that hydrogen lobbyists were out in force at the recent Labour Party conference, and are expected to attend next week’s Conservative Party conference as well.
Another study, from the MCS Charitable Foundation in partnership with energy analysts Cornwall Insight, found that hydrogen’s cost to consumers would be nightmarish. It found that switching from natural gas to hydrogen would likely see the cost increase by between 70 to 90 percent on average. It also warned that, unlike electricity, hydrogen would be subject to the same market volatility as other fossil fuels.
As before, this study raises the question about how much we can rely upon hydrogen given that many of its key needs are still untested. For instance, steam reformation of methane would still require carbon capture and storage at a vastly larger scale than present. (Not to mention the fact that methane is a far deadlier climate gas than carbon dioxide, so any leaks or accidents would be significantly more damaging for the planet.)
Fundamentally, on this and all of the other evidence, it would seem like legislators should avoid the expensive distraction of hydrogen in favor of full-scale electrification. That, as we’ve already covered, would provide a significant, and swift, reduction in emissions (and a timely boost to the economy).
