With the launch of its latest smartphone today, ASUS finally bids farewell to its quirky "Flip Camera" feature, but it still believes that there's a market for compact flagships. The new Zenfone 9 only comes in one size, which has kept the same 5.9-inch screen and 169-gram weight as its predecessor, but packing a bigger processor, main camera, battery and thermal material.
The biggest upgrades are, as you'd expect, the processor and camera. Much like its very recent ROG Phone 6 series, the Zenfone 9 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is a notable jump from the Zenfone 8's Snapdragon 888. As for the camera, this time ASUS opted for a much larger 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor, which offers a pixel size of 1um instead of just 0.8um on the older IMX686.
Richard Lai/Engadget
The icing on the cake here is the new 6-axis hybrid gimbal stabilizer, which can apparently make corrections at up to plus/minus 3 degrees with no optical deteriorations. This should help capture steady stills and clips — the latter at up to 8K resolution. On a related note, there are only two microphones on the Zenfone 9, as ASUS has nixed the audio focus feature in video recording, hence the lack of a rear-facing mic.
Another significant change here is the overall design. With the return of flat edges (thanks to the iPhone 12), the Zenfone 9 is able to accommodate bigger internal parts, hence the larger 4,300mAh battery and more thermal material (as well as two big "eyes" instead of one boring camera island on the back). Said battery works with ASUS' 30W "HyperCharge" tech, which the company claims is "the most powerful charger of any phone below 6 inches." The phone also swapped out the metallic back with a new plastic material to not only reduce weight, but to also add a high-grip, anti-fingerprint coating. This comes in four colors: "midnight black," "starry blue," "sunset red" and "moonlight white" (which is more of a light beige).
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Unlike its recent phones, ASUS ditched the usual in-display fingerprint reader in favor of a capacitive sensor on the power button, dubbed "ZenTouch." This smart key allows for instant toggling of any assigned app with a double click, as this unlocks your phone at the same time. By default, you can also slide down this button to pull down the notification tray for a quick peek, and then slide up to hide the tray. Alternatively, you can set this to refresh webpages, jump to home or end of pages, or skip songs in music players. This is all part of ASUS' grand plan to optimize the one-handed operation on its latest phone.
Appearance and software changes (ZenUI 9 based on Android 12) aside, you'll find the rest of the Zenfone 9 rather familiar. It's exactly the same ultra-wide camera and selfie camera (both 12 megapixels) as before, with the latter punched out in the top-left corner of the 2,400 x 1,080 120Hz AMOLED screen. Both speakers are once again tuned by audio specialist, Dirac, which already delivered impressive results on ASUS' other recent phones; and you still have the option to plug in wired headphones via the 3.5mm jack. As for durability, there's still an IP68 rating for resistance against dust and liquids.
ASUS
To make the most out of this beefed-up camera stabilization, ASUS will offer a "Smart Backpack Mount" which lets you clip the Zenfone 9 onto your backpack's shoulder strap. With the main camera facing forward, you can wear the phone as an action cam. You can also single-handedly pop your phone in or out of its magnetic holder with ease, and with its retractable safety cord attached.
Another accessory option from ASUS is the "Connex" modular case system. Rather than using magnets like Apple's MagSafe design, this protection case has multiple built-in holes that let you snap either a kickstand or a silicone cardholder onto the back of your Zenfone 9. You can also assign an app — YouTube, by default — to auto-launch whenever the kickstand is flipped out.
Richard Lai/Engadget
The Zenfone 9 will be coming to the US, with prices starting from $699 (8GB RAM with 128GB storage), though actual availability will be announced at a later date, so stay tuned.
As to whether the "Flip Camera" will ever make a comeback, ASUS said it'll revisit this idea only if the tech makes it feasible. The company shared that globally, the two Zenfone 8 sizes actually sold similar numbers, with consumers in Japan and Europe preferring the smaller Zenfone 8. So for now, there will be no more Zenfone "Flip" variants in the foreseeable future.
Don't be surprised if you see an electric pickup truck assisting cops in the near future. Ford has introduced a version of the 2023 F-150 Lighting built for police, the Lightning Pro SSV (Special Service Vehicle). The new model is designed for tasks that don't involve pursuit, such as assisting at crime scenes or towing boats, and includes modifications to match. You'll find optional police lights for the roof, an instrument panel tray with easier equipment mounting, and toughened seating with steel intrusion plates in the front seatbacks. While this truck probably won't cart suspects to the station, it could in a pinch.
The Lighting Pro SSV is otherwise similar to other pro F-150 EVs, although that's not a bad thing. You can outfit the police version with the same regular or extended-range battery packs, with motors providing a respective 452HP and 580HP. You'll likewise get driver assists such as Co-Pilot360 and automatic emergency braking, and Ford Pro promises telematics and support you don't get with ordinary models. To no one's surprise, Ford is pitching the Lighting's design as officer-friendly — the slew of power outlets will help illuminate crash scenes, while the large frunk provides extra gear storage.
Ford doesn't expect to share full details of the 2023 F-150 Lightning until later this summer, so you'll have to wait a while for range estimates and other details. Still, this could be an important launch. The Lightning Pro SSV is the first US electric pickup designed for police, as Ford is keen to point out. While it's not a cruiser, it could still play a significant role in electrifying departments.
Daffodils flourishing in sidewalk cracks, pigeons and starlings congregating on overhead power lines, rats living in your apartment walls — no matter how urban humans strive to make our environments, nature’s flora and fauna will make themselves right at home next to us. Sometimes that’s cute, like Pizza Rat, sometimes it’s not, like Pescadero High’s recent feline transfer student. But if we’re going to be moving into their habitats and living alongside them anyway, we might as well get to know our furry new neighbors by going full Rear Window to surreptitiously observe their daily (and nightly) lives. And for that you’re going to need a trail camera. Here’s what to look for to get the most out of your backyard Big Brothering.
What the heck even is a trail camera?
Trail cameras are what you’ve got integrated into your smartphone but in a ruggedized (albeit largely immobile) casing — think, waterproof digital sensors outfitted with laser tripwires and IR vision. Like traditional cameras, trail cams come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and capabilities, all of which will determine how well the camera works in the environment you put it in.
“The human desire to observe wild animals without disturbing them goes back at least to hunter-gatherers who constructed blinds,” Kucera and Barrett write in A History of Camera Trapping. “Our ability to do so was greatly enhanced with the development of photography and other, even more recent, innovations such as small, portable batteries, electric lights, and digital equipment.”
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
Trail cameras already play an important role in field research, allowing scientists to remotely monitor habitats and herd movements, as well as in wildlife conservation and land management, for the same reasons. These devices can serve much the same purpose for citizen scientists and backyard photographers.
“The most common friction point [between people and wildlife] is the destruction of a yard or a garden, that's currently what we get the most calls about,” Denys Hemen, Hospital Manager at the California Wildlife Center in Malibu, told Engadget, noting that Koi ponds are particularly popular attractions for both people and raccoons in Southern California.
Placing camera traps won’t do much to stop the local coyotes and falcons from eating the neighborhood cats, but the devices can help expose urbanites to the natural world around them, ease suburbanites’ fears about what comes sniffing around the trash at night and help rural landowners monitor the movements of game herds on their properties.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
They’re also far preferable than the alternative, Hemen argues. “The worst case for animals is [homeowners] calling a trapper,” Heme said, explaining that in California, trapped animals cannot legally be relocated into the wild (to minimize disease transmission) and may be euthanized if they cannot be rereleased locally. So before you go calling animal control, maybe see what’s actually bustling in your hedgerow first.
Trail camera tests: Browning Strike Force Max HD vs Reolink Keen Ranger PT
There are as many trail camera brands on the market today as there are ways to fall out of a tree with iconic hunting names like Browning and Bushnell joined by OG trail cam maker Cuddeback and more recently established brands like StealthCam and SpyPoint. Cameras themselves run anywhere from the dozens to the hundreds of dollars and offer a huge variety of traits and accessories at every price point.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common features as they appear in our two test models: Browning’s mixed-modality Strike Force Max HD and the mid-range, solar-powered Keen Ranger PT from Reolink.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
The $99 Strike Force is a solid entry-level trail camera capable of capturing up to 18MP images — plus 2MP, 4MP, 8MP shots — and 1600x900 video up to 30fps at 900p during daylight hours (20 fps and 720p at night). You’ll need to balance the image and video quality against the storage capacity of the SD card they’re being stored on or the cellular data plan they’re being transmitted through. Compared to conventional cameras, the Strike Force user has very little control over what is actually being photographed, so if you’ve got the camera set up to take 5-shot bursts at 18MP or record 2 full minutes of HD video every time it triggers, you’re going to fill up your storage capacity in as little as a day.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
The Strike Force allows the user to dictate the quality and quantity of captured images — including the shutter and trigger speeds, the trigger distance and cooldown timing between shots — all through the camera’s onboard menu system. Alternately, because this stores its data to an onboard SD card, you can just as easily just slot in a higher capacity card. The downside to that is you’ll have to regularly check on the camera to empty the card once it’s filled — not a big deal in urban backyards but more so of one when you’re trying to monitor a two-acre homestead. The six AA batteries that power it will have to be occasionally renewed as well. The Strike Force can be affixed to a vertical surface either with a dedicated mounting plate or using the included nylon strap which lets you lash the camera to trees, branches, fence posts, or drainage pipes.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
The $350 Ranger PT takes a very different approach (and price) to wildlife photography than the Strike Force. Reolink was a security camera company before it began adapting its products to wildlife photography, the Keen brand actually came into being after Reolink discovered that some of its customers were using their outdoor security cameras as trail cams. As such, the company ran with the idea, incorporating features like infrared sensors and forest camo color schemes onto its existing security camera platforms.
So rather than a blocky, front-facing camera body and sensor, the Ranger uses a gimballed dome that can pan and shift. This gives users a nearly 360-degree view of the area around the camera, which can be mounted on both vertical surfaces and ceilings.
The Ranger’s placement options are only slightly limited — it works best in a high vantage spot so as to get maximum coverage and needs a broad field of view to maximize the utility of its pan and tilt feature. How high up you set the Ranger could make accessing it for maintenance — swapping out full SD cards or replacing the batteries — a real chore, which is why the Ranger doesn’t use either.
Instead the Ranger comes with a rechargeable lithium battery and solar panel for continuous charging, and a WCDMA or FDD LTE SIM card instead of an SD (though there is a microSD slot for backup). Rather than picking through reams of jpegs, users can send videos and stills from the Ranger directly to their smartphones using the Keen app as well as control the camera directly. The Ranger shouldn’t be employed to run continuously as a live streaming camera, the quick start guide warns, “it’s designed to record motion events and to live view remotely only when you need it.”
The Ranger’s camera 4MP resolution is only a fraction of that offered by the Strike Force but it can record video at 2K quality. What’s more, despite all of the helpful connectivity and live monitoring features, the Ranger cannot and does not work without a SIM card. The included microSD slot is only for occasional backup when cell service is unavailable and the unit has no WiFi connection so you’ll need a monthly 4G subscription from your local carrier — and the SIM card in hand — before this thing will even pair with the smartphone app.
It’s not that the Strike Force is inherently a better device than the Ranger, or vice versa, just that they’re built with different applications and use cases in mind. So, when you’re picking out a trail camera for yourself, go into the process with a solid idea of what you want to use it for in mind. That doesn’t mean you need a specific camera just for photographing deer, another for songbirds and a third for small mammals, but you will want to “change up the settings on the camera based on the particular type of animal you intend to capture images of,” a Browning rep told Engadget. That is, if you plan on photographing primarily birds and other fast moving wildlife, you’ll want a camera with faster shutter speed to minimize motion blur and a quicker trigger speed to more likely catch the animals unaware before they have a chance to flee. The Strike Force, for example, can snap its shutting in as little as .2 seconds but takes as much as .6 seconds to cycle between shots.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
If you plan to do a lot of nighttime surveillance, the type of infrared flash the camera uses becomes an important consideration. “Some believe that a standard IR flash camera may spook wildlife because the flash/red glow can be seen,” the Browning rep explained. “Others believe it doesn’t make a difference at all and some believe that it may scare them at first but then they get used to it. All of the above can be true and to some animals it won’t even be an issue at all. The best way to tell is to just try it for yourself and observe the animal’s behavior on your property to figure out the best option for you.”
Alternatively, if you expect to regularly get shots at both day and night, look for a camera with dual lenses — one dedicated to visible light, the other to IR. They’re more complicated and expensive than single lens cameras but deliver better quality photos regardless of the lighting. Additional accessories like a built-in viewing screen can prove useful when using the camera trap in a remote location (so you don’t have to lug your laptop out to the site with you), while lock boxes and secured mounting hardware will ensure that your gear is still there when you come back round to collect it.
Of course, if you squint real hard, most any run-of-the-mill outdoor security camera, smart or not, can be adapted for use as a video trail cam. So long as it has a power source, data storage or transmission, and is weatherproof/concealable — you know, all the aspects used to describe an outdoor security camera — there’s very little stopping you from pointing it at wildlife instead of potential burglars. Ring doorbell cameras are so adept at catching critters on people’s porches, in fact, that the company has dedicated an entire page to wildlife interaction videos on its site. Or you could just adapt an old DSLR into a makeshift camera trap using an inexpensive aftermarket Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor.
Setting the thing up
If you can tie a box to a post, you can set up a camera trap. Manufacturers offer a wide array of attachment systems in varying degrees of permanence so pick the option that best fits with how long and how securely you want it set. Just don’t go nailing your camera to a living tree, that’s what the straps are for.
Positioning the camera effectively is key to capturing the best shots. “Make sure the camera is the correct height off the ground,” a representative for Feradyne Outdoors told Engadget. “In most situations we recommend around three feet.” However, if you’re concerned that the IR camera flash might spook the wildlife, the rep added, try to position the camera above their line of sight.
But before you go burying your camera in the foliage to conceal it from wary wildlife, remember that it is triggered by movement — any movement — even and especially movement not made by animals. Would you like to see the 200-plus pictures of grass that it took to get the four shots you see in this post? Because those were the ones that I actually copied over to my laptop and didn’t just summarily delete. A branch bends in the wind, leaves rustle, sun glimmers off water, a butterfly in Cambodia flaps its wings — each and every one of these events will set off your camera so make sure that you point it away from as many of them as you can.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget
Many cameras have a trigger range option, set it to the shortest distance the space can accommodate and clear out any brush directly in front of the camera that might set it off. And, I say this from experience, before you walk away from the newly-installed camera, take a second to make sure the damn thing is turned on.
Interfacing SR04T/SR04M Waterproof UltraSonic Sensor with Arduino Uno
Adding cameras and vision algorithms to your projects and robots might sound cool but sometimes it becomes expensive in terms of both capital and time. When the task at hand is much simpler like obstacle detection, distance measurement, or depth monitoring, ultrasonic sensors are a great alternate to place your bets on. Not only are these sensors fast and accurate but some of their variants like the SR04T and the SR04M also come in waterproof packages making them durable in harsh weather conditions and even underwater applications.
The PlayStation 5now supports 1440p, at least for gamers with access to its beta software. While the console has supported 1080p and 4K output from the start, 1440p support is still a much-requested feature by players who use monitors instead of TVs. It provides a middle ground between full HD and 4K, after all, and is a popular choice for gamers who also play on their PCs. Testers who get the latest beta software for the PS5 will now see a 1440p HDMI video output option as an additional visual setting when they use the console with a compatible monitor.
Obviously, they can enjoy the full benefits of 1440p rendering if the game they're playing supports the resolution. But if they're playing a game that supports 4K, they could also benefit from the feature, because the option downsamples the visuals for 1440p output and that leads to sharper images. As VG247 notes, though, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), which rolled out for the console in April, is only available for 1080p and 2160p. VRR gives the screen the ability to sync its refresh rate with that of the game for a smoother experience, and it's not quite clear why it's not available for 1440p output.
In addition to 1440p support, the latest beta software also gives users a way to create gamelists in their Game Library so that they can better organize all the titles they own. Players can create up to 15 gamelists with 100 games each. Their in-progress activities will now be shown prominently at the top of the game hub when they resume a game, as well, and they can now request party members to share their screens so that they can watch their gameplay. Plus, when they enter a party and a member is playing game they can join, they'll now receive an alert and then join the game directly from that notification.
Sony has introduced more experimental features with the new beta and has listed them all on the PlayStation blog.
NASA has altered the Mars Sample Return Program meant to bring back the rock samples the Perseverance rover has been drilling and collecting from the Jezero crater in a big way. Instead of sending the Sample Fetch Rover to the red planet like originally planned, the program will make use of Perseverance itself and send over two helicopters based on the Ingenuity for backup.
NASA and the ESA have been working together on the Sample Return Program over the past few years. The original plan was to send over the ESA-made Sample Fetch Rover to retrieve the samples and drive them back to a rocket, which will fly them up to be snatched by the Earth Return Orbiter. As The New York Times notes, though, the rover's design became too big until it could no longer fit in one lander with the return rocket. NASA would have to use one lander for each of them.
But why do that when there are other, more affordable options? The Sample Return Lander isn't scheduled to arrive on Mars until 2030, but NASA is confident that Perseverance will still be operational by then — after all, the Curiosity rover is still up and running almost 11 years after it launched. Under their renewed plan, the Perseverance will drive up to the lander to deliver 30 rock samples that will be loaded onto the rocket.
If anything goes wrong with Perseverance before then, though, the lander would settle closer to the rover and then the backup helicopters will fly over to retrieve the samples. While the helicopters are modeled after the Ingenuity, they'll have small wheels at the bottom. These will allow them to drive up to the samples that are sealed inside tubes and pick them up from the ground where the rover has dropped them.
The Ingenuity helicopter completed its first test flight on Mars in April 2021. NASA wasn't expecting much from the helicopter, which was just supposed to prove that flight on Mars is possible. It was also only supposed to fly a handful of times during a one-month technology demonstration, but it has accomplished 29 successful flights so far, with more on the way. Ingenuity's success has given NASA another means to retrieve the precious samples Perseverance has been collecting.
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for NASA's science directorate, said during the press conference announcing the new Sample Return Program plans:
"We reached our decision based on new studies and recent achievements at Mars that allowed us to consider options that, frankly, weren’t available to us one year ago or before."
The Earth Return Orbiter and Sample Retrieval Lander will take off in the fall of 2027 and the summer of 2028, respectively. Their journey to and from the red planet will take years, so the samples aren't expected to arrive on Earth until 2033.
Ghosting can hurt, for sure. When someone suddenly cuts off contact, doesn’t show up at a date or just unmatches on one of those many dating apps, it sucks. One Filipino lawmaker is trying to make it stop, which could be a tall order. Arnolfo Teves Jr., a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, said ghosting was "a form of emotional cruelty and should be punished as an emotional offense."
The bill — yes there’s proposed legislation — doesn't offer specific penalties, but Teves suggested in an interview that community service might work. The bill tries to define a dating relationship as one where the parties live together without being married or are "romantically involved over time and on a continuing basis."
Teves said neither casual acquaintances nor “ordinary socialization” constitutes a dating relationship. But those are likely the connections that ghost the most. The bill doesn’t account for blocking someone without explanation if they're being creepy or threatening, which can often be the case. (Why am I coming across as a regular ghoster / ghostee?) Silently ditching a conversation is usually easier than being honest, sadly. It’s not cool, but I’m not sure it’s truly a criminal offense.
Google Photos is getting a significant update that has the distinction of first arriving on Chromebooks. Your photo and video library will get a new movie editor and video editing features this fall as part of a Chrome OS update. You’ll be able to make videos similar to the highlight clips the app already automatically makes, and select a theme, people or pets you want to feature in it; from there, Google Photos will pull together a movie using video clips and images from your library. Google isn’t saying yet if these video editing features will come to the mobile apps for iOS and Android, but Google Photos has usually had feature parity regardless of platform.
Generative Artificial Intelligences (GAIs) are systems that create pieces of work to equal the old masters in technique, if not in intent. But there’s a problem: These systems are trained on existing material, often using content pulled from the internet, from us.
DALL-E 2, Open AI’s system for creating “realistic images and art from a description in natural language” is the current star of GAIs. A user could enter the phrase “teddy bears shopping for groceries in the style of Ukiyo-e,” and the model will produce pictures in that style, often to a pretty high standard. But this all prompts several questions on ownership, data biases and the law of art. Engadget’s Daniel Cooper explores the future of AI-generated images.
Projectors have come a long way from the clunky, dim models of the past. The latest models are brighter, sharper, more discreet and easier to install than ever. There are a lot of different types of projectors, though, ranging from ultra short throw to portable to long throw. There are also a lot of technical terms, so it’s the perfect topic for our latest Engadget guide, which explains everything you need to know.
Overall user figures grew to 433 million, but the company lost $197 million in the quarter.
The music streaming company hasn’t yet felt the effects of a looming global recession. Unlike Netflix, which had to report a fall in its overall customer base, Spotify has seen both free and paying accounts grow. It now has 433 million users, up from the 422 million reported at the end of the first quarter. Of those, 188 million pay for Premium, a leap of six million from three months ago. Spotify’s plan to pivot toward cheaper forms of audio content, like podcasts and audiobooks, should help to keep new listeners streaming away.
You can also get a peek at your environment to avoid collisions.
Finally, some early details of PlayStation VR2's software experience, not just the hardware. Sony teased a few key features for its PS5 VR headset, including live streaming support. If you have a PS5 HD Camera, you can broadcast both gameplay and a view of yourself. As you might guess, that could be helpful for Twitch streamers and YouTubers. The company also explained how it will handle non-VR content, with a 1080p Cinematic Mode that displays the PS5 interface and conventional games on a virtual screen at refresh rates between 24Hz and 120Hz.
Logitech's Litra Glow is a glare-free soft light developed for streamers that flew off the shelves after it was first unveiled early this year. Now, it's on sale for the first time at Amazon for $50, or $10 off the regular $60 price — a significant 20 percent discount.
The Litra Glow is designed to be gentle on the eyes and safe for all-day streaming, while providing a "natural, radiant look across skin tones." It also promises cinematic color accuracy via Logitech's TrueSoft technology, while providing a soft, flattering light. Logitech also said at launch that it works well for people of different skin tones
It's ready to go out of the box thanks to five presets with different brightness levels and color temperatures, or you can use the G HUB software to create your own. As a bonus, any presets you create can be assigned to the G Keys on a Logitech G keyboard or mouse.
You can find other soft- and ring-style lights from Elgato and others, but most from any recognizable name brand are considerably more expensive. Now, with the discount on offer, it's a particularly sharp deal, especially considering Logitech's promised color accuracy.
New XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go Board Featuring an Integrated Prototyping Concept to Test System Behaviour
Infineon Technologies AG has launched the new XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board that is part of the Infineon Shield2Go portfolio featuring sensors, microcontrollers, and security ICs and is suitable for both air quality monitoring and demand-controlled ventilation for energy savings.
As expected, electric pickup manufacturer Rivian is laying off 6 percent of its 14,000-strong workforce in an effort to boost production without raising more funds, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The company has a 71,000 vehicle pre-order backlog for its R1T and R1S electric pickup and SUV, but had to slash its production forecast for 2022 in half to 25,000 vehicles.
Rivian is also concerned about raising cash in the current economic environment. "Over the last six months, the world has dramatically changed with inflation reaching record highs, interest rates rapidly rising and commodity prices continuing to climb — all of which have contributed to the global capital markets tightening," wrote chief executive RJ Scaringe in a note seen by the WSJ.
With investors like Ford and Amazon having helped it raise $12 billion, Rivian is one of the best funded EV startups out there. However, the company is at a delicate phase, trying to ramp up production enough to finally bring in revenue after building a factory in Illinois. It's also planning to accelerate development of a more budget-oriented EV called the R2 and build a second $5 billion factory for that model in Georgia.
Another EV startup struggling with production is Faraday Future, which delayed the launch of its first EV, the FF91, yet again. The company said it needs to raise another $325 million in cash to fund operations until the end of the year.
