In NBA 2K23, 2K Sports is bringing the Jordan Challenge mode from NBA 2K11 back with some serious upgrades. The publisher has revealed more details about the game mode, which features 15 key moments from Michael Jordan’s career. It includes the 1982 NCAA National Championship, the "Flu Game" and (spoiler) Jordan's game-winning shot at the 1998 NBA Finals.
Developer Visual Concepts seems to have gone all out to make the mode (which it rebuilt from scratch) as authentic as possible. “Our team took everything into consideration when constructing this game mode; the arenas, the players, the uniforms, the broadcast, and the play style of the era have been accounted for in an effort to give fans a truly authentic and unique playable Jordan experience,” Visual Concepts VP of NBA development Erick Boenisch said in a statement.
That goes right down to making sure the on-screen graphics were accurate to the era and including filters that try to replicate what it was like to watch these moments (many of which were featured in The Last Dance) on TV in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Each of the challenges has a pre-game interview with someone who was part of that moment, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson. In addition, 2K brought in analyst Mike Fratello to join the commentary team and former Chicago Bulls announcer Ray Clay to make the introductions. Of course, 2K had to make sure The Alan Parsons Project's "Sirius" was part of the soundtrack too.
Perhaps even more importantly, Visual Concepts sought to match the gameplay to how things were like in the NBA when Jordan was in his pomp. 2K says the mode puts more emphasis on the post and mid-range game and aligning transitions with how they were commonly used in the ‘80s. Certain players, such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, have signature play styles and moves (including Johnson's no-look passes). The action should have an extra layer of physicality, with the Detroit Pistons defense in particular trying to muscle Jordan out of taking shots.
The Jordan Challenge mode will be available on all the many versions of NBA 2K23. PC and current-gen console players will likely get the best experience, if the mode's impressive trailer is anything to judge by.
Google's merger of Meet and Duo may be confusing, but it should deliver some useful upgrades in the bargain. The company has added a live sharing beta feature that lets users of the revamped Meet share Spotify and YouTube streams during chats. You can play games like Uno Mobile and Kahoot, too. The functionality will sound familiar if you've tried SharePlay, but you can't use Spotify or YouTube with Apple's media feature.
The Meet upgrades include scheduled recurring meetings, virtual backgrounds and in-meeting chats. As with the Meet features coming to Duo, live sharing has been rolling out over recent weeks. The rebranding of Duo as Meet will take place throughout August for mobile devices, and is coming later for everyone else.
Google has pitched the Meet-and-Duo union as an adaptation to the modern realities of video calls. Live sharing clearly reflects this. I's an acknowledgment that many people use video chats as social spaces, particularly when remote hangouts are more common than they were before the pandemic.
Some folks who are in the market for a robot vacuum might be looking beyond Roomba after it emerged Amazon is buying parent company iRobot. Anker's budget brand Eufy has been around for a few years and is a solid option. Right now, many Eufy models are on sale for up to 47 percent off, including the RoboVac G30 Edge. That's down from $340 to $180 on Amazon, the lowest price we've seen for it to date.
Anker says the vacuum uses logical route planning to navigate your home. It supports Alexa voice commands and you can control it though an accompanying app. Other features include 2,000Pa suction levels and scheduled cleanings, while you can use the included boundary strip to set off-limits areas. On the down side, the G30 Edge does not support the 5GHz WiFi frequency band — you'll need a 2.4GHz router or a dual-band router that's compatible with that frequency.
The same connectivity limitation applies to the RoboVac G30 Hybrid, which is also on sale for an all-time low price. At $220, that model is currently 40 percent off. Along with a vacuum, the G30 Hybrid has a robot mop. It also has 2,000Pa of suction power. Anker claims the G30 Hybrid can operate without making too much of a racket, with noise levels as low as 55 dB.
Several other Eufy models are available for a notable discount too. The higher-end RoboVac X8 Hybrid, which has dual turbines and uses LiDAR for navigation, is 15 percent off at $550. At the lower end of the scale, the BoostIQ RoboVac 11S is $136 at the moment, down by a third from the usual price of $200. It has 1,300Pa suction levels but no WiFi connectivity, and it uses a random cleaning path. In other words, the Eufy sale includes a wide range of robot vacuums for a variety of budgets.
Forget about that crazy-thin foldable phone from earlier. Xiaomi just beat Tesla to unveiling a working humanoid robot prototype at a live event earlier today, and yes, it looks awfully familiar. The Xiaomi CyberOne is 177cm (5.8 feet) tall, weighs 52kg (115 pounds), is nicknamed "Metal Bro" and is also somehow given a zodiac sign, Leo. After a short walk to the middle of the stage, the CyberOne gave CEO Lei Jun a flower (for some reason), before it politely accepted a selfie with the man responsible for its very own existence. The bot was able to walk off the stage without any drama.
The CyberOne is the second product coming out of the Xiaomi's very own robotics lab, after the CyberDog from August 2021. The humanoid machine has a face in the form of a curved OLED panel, it can hear with two microphones, see the world in 3D and identify 45 types of emotions from human vocal expressions. Its body has a total of 21 degrees of freedom, which are enabled by 13 joints. Its upper limb motors can operate with a precision of up to 1Nm, and its legs are powered by motors of up to 300Nm.
I was both nervous and thrilled to interact with him on stage. What did you think of his performance tonight? #CyberOnepic.twitter.com/Je1eXDYEGR
Despite the impressive live demo, Lei said that for now, each CyberOne would cost somewhere in the range of 600,000 to 700,000 yuan (about $89,100 to $104,000), so it'll be a while before his company can mass produce this machine, if ever. It'll be interesting to see how Elon Musk responds to this lookalike of his own big boy.
Twitter is both reviving and improving its election misinformation strategy ahead of the 2022 US midterms. The social network has reactivated enforcement of its Civic Integrity Policy to prepare for the vote, and there are a handful of upgrades in store this year. To begin, it will avoid recommending misleading tweets through notifications — falsehoods might not spread as much as in the past. The company is considering this approach for "other surfaces," too.
You should also see redesigned fact-check labels that are better at prompting people to read. Twitter first tested these labels in late 2021.
Other efforts will be more familiar. You already see candidate labels for any Governor, House or Senate hopeful who qualified for the general election ballot. You can expect "prebunks" that counter bogus claims before they become hot topics. You'll find a dedicated US Elections tab in Explore, along with state-specific hubs. Twitter plans to ramp up protection for candidates as well, with "more sophisticated" detection of suspicious activity as well as more login safeguards and speedier account recovery should the worst happen.
These aren't dramatic changes to Twitter's methods from previous elections, including those outside the US. However, it's clear the firm is bracing for trouble in light of the fallout from 2020. The question is whether or not this will be enough. Critics warned of shortcomings in social media companies' anti-misinformation efforts during the previous elections, and tweaks to recommendations and labels aren't guaranteed to address those issues.
Meta has long been working on end-to-end encryption for its messaging products, but so far, only WhatsApp has switched on the privacy feature by default. In its latest update about its efforts, Meta said it will start testing default end-to-end encrypted chats for select users on Messenger. Those chosen to be part of the test will find that some of their most frequent chats have been automatically end-to-end encrypted. That means there's no reason to start "Secret Conversations" with those friends anymore.
The company is also testing secure storage for encrypted chats, which gives users access to their conversation history in case they lose their phone or want to restore it on a new device. To be able to access their backups through security storage, users will have to create a PIN or generate codes that they'll then have to save. Those two are end-to-end encrypted options and provide another layer of protection. That said, users can also opt to use cloud services to restore conversations — those with iOS devices, for instance, can use iCloud to store the secret key needed to access their backups. Meta will also begin testing secure storage this week, but only on Android and iOS. It's still not available for Messenger on the web or for unencrypted chats.
Meta
The other tests Meta is rolling out in the coming weeks include bringing regular Messenger features to end-to-end encrypted chats. It will test the ability to unsend messages and to send replies to Facebook Stories as encrypted chats, and it's also planning to bring end-to-end encrypted calls to the Calls Tab on Messenger. Ray-Ban Stories users will be able to send encrypted hands-free messages through Messenger, as well.
In addition, Meta is launching a new security feature called Code Verify, which is an open-source browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. As its name implies, it can verify the authenticity of the Messenger website's web code and ensure that it hasn't been tampered with. As for Instagram, the company is retiring the app's vanish mode chats, which aren't encrypted, while also expanding ongoing tests for opt-in end-to-end encrypted messages and calls on the service.
All of these are part of Meta's preparations as it works its way towards the global rollout of default end-to-end encryption for messages and calls on its services. It plans to launch even more tests and updates before its target rollout sometime in 2023.
Apple is no stranger to basing TV shows on podcasts, but it now appears eager to snap up that content as quickly as possible. Bloombergsources claim Apple has signed a deal with Suave producer Futuro Studios that will fund podcasts in return for the first chance to turn any series into a TV+ movie or show. The tech company has also been negotiating comparable deals and spent as much as $10 million so far, according to the tipsters.
Past adaptations have focused on already popular shows like WeCrashed and The Shrink Next Door. The claimed Futuro agreement would go one step further by effectively granting Apple the rights to a series as soon as the company sees potential. It wouldn't have to risk losing a hit show or spending a fortune in bidding wars.
Apple's TV wing is reportedly leading the initiative, not the podcast team. That's not surprising, however. The firm has historically treated its podcast platform as a neutral ground where studios don't have to compete against Apple itself. First-party podcasts have typically been linked to TV+ productions like The Problem With Jon Stewart.
Both Apple and Futuro declined to comment. If the rumor is accurate, this is less about competing with podcast originals from Spotify and Wondery and more about beating streaming TV rivals like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Apple TV+ could land more hits without paying a premium for the rights.
We’re living in an age of micromobility, where city dwellers are given more options to get around than ever before. Bike-sharing schemes, which quickly swelled to include e-scooters, are big deals in major areas where the commuting distances are just that bit too long to walk. But scooters have yet to achieve the same legitimacy as the bicycle with mainstream users. In part, this is because it’s still a relatively emerging technology, but also because the scooter has the whiff of a toy about it. After all, the Segway was meant to revolutionize transportation, as it headed on its one-way journey toward the novelty store. Similarly, hoverboards never had any real shot at making its way across the rubicon that separates useless from utility. E-scooters are already on the other side of the water, but will they stay there long term?
It’s something that the team at Bo Mobility believes is entirely possible, so long as there’s some serious, grown-up effort put in today. The UK-based company was founded by Oscar Morgan, Harry Wills and Luke Robus, who met while working at Williams Advanced Engineering, part of the F1 team. They’ve spent the last three years working on Bo M, a serious e-scooter that’s been conceived from the ground up to be exactly that. It’s promised to be better designed, run better, and have a longer lifespan than any of the quasi-toy products that litter our streets today. I’ve ridden the prototype (two, in fact) and I already feel confident that it’s a quantum leap compared to what we currently have.
Daniel Cooper
The first thing you’ll notice about Bo is its shape, with a swan neck that arches gracefully from the steering column to the deck. There’s no hinge or fixing joint between the two, as it’s not built to fold or compress down in any way – you park it in its upright position. Ditching the fold means that you can massively increase strength, and gives its creators room to add in some extra features that you won’t find on your typical $399 scooter. “People say ‘you guys made a pretty scooter,’” says Oscar Morgan, co-founder, “but it’s really important to appreciate that it has a fundamentally different architecture … When you move from a tubular frame to a proper monocoque construction, you move all the stresses. It makes it stronger, but it also means that we can start to package stuff.”
And the most important thing in the package – nestled inside that beefy curved cowl, is a product called Safesteer. It is, for now, a series of prototypes, each being refined before the scooter’s launch next year. And it’s top secret, beyond the fact that it’s a hybrid analog / digital device that’s designed to improve balance and maneuverability. (What I have been able to get out of Morgan: It’s not a gyroscope, which was how something like the Segway managed to stay upright.) After all, most e-scooters require a little bit of a learning curve, especially the cheaply-made ones. It’s not for nothing that most e-scooters require you to keep both hands on the bars, unlike a bike which can be ridden one (or, if you’re brave, no) handed.
Daniel Cooper
“Going from a big bike wheel to a [small] scooter wheel,” said Morgan, “you lose all of your gyroscopic stability.” Safesteer will hopefully redress the balance, enabling you to ride around with the same level of indifference as you would with a bike. And, similarly, Morgan and Wills’ team has sweated the details in terms of weight distribution, wheel dynamics and suspension. Or, in this case, a lack of it. The pair found that replacing the 8-inch tyres seen on most scooters with bigger, 10-inch models offers far greater balance and grip. That enabled them to leave out the mechanical suspension, massively reducing weight, which improved maneuverability. You may think that the ride quality suffers, but the company is working on AirDeck, adding an elastomer to the footplate which will act as a shock absorber, similar to that you’d find on a pricey running shoe. Then again, you’re not going to be riding your e-scooter into too many potholes no matter how comfortable the ride is (and Bo’s is nicer and smoother than some I’ve tried).
And then there’s the load hook – which is such a small addition but one that the team, again, sweated over. Morgan explained that as part of the idea to pull people out of their cars and onto scooters, that they’d need some secure way to hold luggage. “You see lots of people riding with bags,” said Wills, “hanging them from the handlebars, and it's really dangerous when you’re riding around.” “[The load] unbalances and swings, and then you get a bit of tank slap when you hit a bend or corner,” he added. Instead, a centrally-mounted pair of hooks buried inside the monocoque will electrically roll out, letting you hook your bag onto the scooter’s center of weight.
Daniel Cooper
Naturally, users will be paying for the privilege of riding Bo when it makes it debut in the spring of 2023. The price for the M is £1,995 (roughly $2,400), or as a subscription product for £69 ($83) per month. Despite the fact that the product isn’t going to be available for more than half a year, there’s been a surprising amount of people pre-ordering a model. And we can expect to see plenty more models from the company if the M becomes a big seller. “Tesla didn’t launch with the Model Three,” said CTO Harry Wills, and like most companies, plans to start with a high-end offering before producing increasingly more affordable models. “Starting right, with a group of customers that adore the product, and then bringing it out to more accessible price points is what’s really important to us,” said Wills.
Of course, the economics of buying (or subscribing) to a scooter for upward of two grand is different compared to a £399 Xiaomi. It’s a serious, long term investment, and something that the pair are determined to ensure they can justify. “No-one trusts Bo yet,” said Morgan, “we’re a new company, and so we have to give [our customers] a great experience.” That means a generous warranty scheme, at least for the earliest adopters, and plenty of contact with the team to help iron out any kinks.
Daniel Cooper
And plenty of effort has been dedicated to making sure that M will run for years and years. Wills explained that “someone with very basic tools – an Allen key and the ability to plug and unplug – should be able to swap the battery if they so choose.” He added that nobody should expect to need to make such a drastic repair for many years, but that when the time comes, it’ll be easy for anyone to achieve. Wills said that the team has sweated the fine details to ensure that “all of the cables are in the right place and the connectors are in the right place.” Not to mention that a product that’s easier to maintain is also often easier to build, which should reduce costs on the manufacturing side.
Neither Morgan nor Wills are new to the world of scooter manufacture, and both worked for British e-mobility retailer and manufacturer Pure Electric. This is not their first scooter product, and they’re taking lessons they’ve already learned. Wills said that early buyers have signed up to the “ride quality, the safety and the overall aesthetics of the product.” In fact, Wills said that people have walked over to them and offered cash just to own the prototypes.
Daniel Cooper
I spent longer than I’d planned riding the two Bo M units up and down a private track in London. (Scooters which aren’t part of a licensed scooter-sharing trial remain illegal to ride on public roads in the UK, although that’s expected to change in 2023.) The first thing to say is that the benefits of Safesteer are obvious from the second you step onto the deck and push off. Unlike most regular scooters, which always feel like they are seconds from disaster, this felt solidly planted on the road. The grip and ability to turn at very low speeds is useful for weaving through narrow spaces (and sliding through some tightly-packed anti-traffic bollards).
One of my bad habits when riding most standard e-scooters is that I’ll bend my knees to try and lower my center of gravity. I’m sufficiently paranoid about taking a tumble that I never want to just stand up and ride the thing as you’re meant to. But it took me about half a minute before I realized that I didn’t just have to stand up on Bo M, but I could actually relax, stop gripping the handles so tightly and enjoy the ride, and the scenery. It’s an experience that is sufficiently car- like that I have to agree with the claim that it’s the sort of scooter only a group of “serious car guys” could build.
Morgan said that the other thing that they liked doing was building-in surprises for its would-be user base. The seamless body and flat, unmarked top exudes class, even in this early, 3D-printed-component state. Wills asked me to identify the power on / off switch, something that I proceeded to work my way through the scooter’s body, and down towards its deck, without much success. After a minute or so of fruitless hunting, Wills reached over and powered the unit down in a way I wouldn’t have spotted if I’d been there an hour (I’m sworn to secrecy as to where the switch is). If the company can offer the same level of surprise and delight to all of its users next year, then it’ll be off to a very strong start.
Merely a day after Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 launch, Xiaomi was quick to follow with a surprising punch. The Mix Fold 2 is the Chinese brand's second foldable phone, featuring a surprising thickness of just 5.4mm when opened — barely enough to house a USB-C port — and 11.2mm thick when folded. While Huawei's Mate Xs 2 is also 5.4mm thick when opened, bear in mind that it folds outwards instead and therefore lacks a secondary display, not to mention its 11.1mm-thick camera "column."
One of the features that enables the Mix Fold 2's thickness is Xiaomi's third-gen "micro water drop hinge," which allows for a tighter fold on the flexible display panel within the 8.8mm-tall hinge structure. To put things into perspective, Xiaomi pointed out that the current "water drop hinge" structure on a competitor's foldable — with an obvious image reference to Huawei's Mate X2 — is 11.25mm tall, as illustrated in the second gallery image below. The company added that with this new hinge and panel, the crease is even less visible — narrower space over all, with an average depth of less than 0.15mm.
Interestingly, Xiaomi was willing to sacrifice a bit of battery juice to reach this thickness, going from the original Mix Fold's 5,020mAh to 4,500mAh. It's as if Xiaomi is betting big on the efficiency of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor here. There's still support for 67W rapid charging, which goes from zero to 100 percent in just 40 minutes. Together with the smaller hinge and slimmer body parts, these contribute to a lighter overall weight — 262 grams (about 9.24 ounces) instead of the old 317 grams (about 11.2 ounces). Other goodies include larger heat dissipation components, dual Harman Kardon speakers, NFC and IR remote.
Some adjustments have been made on the two displays. For one, both have adopted a slightly wider aspect ratio. The exterior Samsung panel now comes in a 6.56-inch size with a 2,520 x 1,080 resolution, shielded by Gorilla Glass Victus. The interior foldable screen is a supposedly more efficient 8.02-inch Samsung Eco² OLED panel with a 2,016 x 1,914 resolution, and it's covered by a flexible piece of ultra-thin glass (30um). Both screens support up to 120Hz refresh rate and 1,000-nit brightness, along with Dolby Vision and HDR10+. There are also three ambient sensors around the phone for a more accurate auto brightness for both screens.
Xiaomi
On the photography side, there's no more "liquid lens" gimmick this time. The Mix Fold 2 shares a near-identical 50-megapixel main camera (with optical stabilization) and 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera as the Xiaomi 12, but this time with a Leica Summicron certification — much like the Xiaomi 12S Ultra which kick-started this partnership. You also get an 8-megapixel 2x portrait camera (45mm equivalent), as well as a 20-megapixel selfie camera on the other side. But of course, you can also unfold the phone and switch to the rear cameras for selfies instead, in which case you'll be using the secondary screen as a viewfinder.
Given the phone's thickness, a camera bump was inevitable, so Xiaomi could only attempt to minimize the camera module height, and it did so by switching to the less common SMA (shape memory alloy) actuator to power the main camera's optical stabilization. It's unclear whether there are any performance disadvantage with this solution, though.
Xiaomi's Mix Fold 2 alongside Buds 4 Pro and Watch S1 Pro.
Xiaomi
With the Leica partnership, the Mix Fold 2's camera app gained a "Leica Authentic" mode for those prefer natural-looking shots, as well as a self-explanatory "Leica Vibrant" mode for everyone else. Regardless of the photography mode, this foldable phone produces the classic Leica M3's shutter sound when shooting, and you'll find various Leica-inspired filters, lens effects and interface elements throughout the camera app. If you often take photos of fast-moving kids or pets, you'll apparently appreciate Xiaomi's AI-assisted "CyberFocus" AI tech here, which was ported over from the company's CyberDog and already featured on the Xiaomi 12 series.
Much like the 12S Ultra and the original Mix Fold, the Mix Fold 2 is China-only for now, so good luck finding an importer in your area. That said, Xiaomi added that it worked with Google on optimizing Android 12L (but rebadged as "MIUI Fold") for the Mix Fold 2, so there may still be hope for an eventual international rollout.
The Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 starts from 8,999 yuan (about $1,340) for the 12GB RAM + 256GB storage version, then it jumps to 9,999 yuan (about $1,480) for double the storage, then to 11,999 yuan (about $1,780) for a whopping 1TB. All three flavors come with a vegan leather case with a built-in kickstand, and folks in China can already pre-order today.
Google Fiber's expansion activities have always been deliberately slow, but there was a time when it was announcing new coverage areas on a more regular basis. Now, Dinni Jain, the Alphabet subsidiary's CEO, has announced Fiber's first expansion plans in years. The company has been working on connecting West Des Moines to its network, making Iowa its first new state in five years, and will soon start building infrastructure in Des Moines. In July, it announced that it's building a network in Mesa, Arizona, and now it has revealed that the service is also making its way to Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Idaho.
According to Reuters, the company decided on its new locations based on its findings on where internet speeds lag the most. These new locations will be Fiber's main focus over the next several years, though it will continue expanding availability in cities where it already has a network, as well. Jain told the news organization in his first interview since he took on the role of Fiber's CEO: "There was an impression 10 years ago that Google Fiber was trying to build the entire country. What we are gesturing here is, 'No, we are not trying to build the entire country.'"
Since some Alphabet subsidiaries have had to raise funding outside of its parent company, Jain was asked where Fiber would get the money for its planned expansion. He declined to talk about the company's financial results or funding sources, though he said: Alphabet's "intent is to build businesses that will be successful in and of their own right and that is what we are trying to do at Google Fiber for sure." As Reuters notes, Fiber had to pare down activities to lower its usual hundreds of millions of dollars in annual losses due to construction, experimentation and subsidizing home service over the past few years. It even minimized its West Des Moines expansion and stuck to making its service more available in metropolitan areas where it already has a network.
Jain's blog post about Fiber's upcoming locations, however, sounds optimistic. He says the company is "thrilled to be expanding [its] geographic reach once again." Also, while Fiber's focus is on the states it has already announced, he said the company would still love to talk to and support communities that want to build their own fiber networks.
