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Fighting fires was always dangerous. But with climate change, there have been more wildfires, which means even more risky rescue missions for local firefighting squads. That’s why multiple different companies and teams of scientists are working to develop robots that can scope out burning buildings before human firefighters have to enter. The latest entrant is FireBot, a remote-controlled robot that can withstand temperatures as high as 650 degrees Celsius. At that scalding temperature, a firefighter wearing a protective suit can only withstand about 15 minutes of exposure.

FireBot, which can be operated for four hours at a time, looks like an object straight out of a sci-fi film. With its saw-like “arms” that help the metallic boxy device move, the bot can climb obstacles in its path using tracks that allow it to climb stairs and debris – a requirement for navigating raging fires. According to TechCrunch, which hosted FireBot’s parent company at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this week, the bot uses MIMO wireless technology that can transfer data to a receiver as far as 0.9 miles away. That way, a crew can safely examine the inside of a burning building while using a joystick and display to maneuver the bot.

The device has built-in sensors that include HD optical and thermal imagers, as well as various mechanisms to detect dangerous gasses. In addition, it can check for the presence of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, which are the two deadliest fumes that can injure or kill humans in a fire. Also importantly, the device is seemingly fast despite its boxy appearance. The FireBot can move twice as fast as a firefighter wearing full personal protective equipment that can, on average, be as heavy as 45 pounds.

Paradigm Robotics

The robot is expected to cost at least $90,000 when it goes on sale in the third quarter of 2024. Alternatively, fire departments could lease it. Although this device isn’t exactly cheap, it can help alleviate the annual fees associated with firefighter injuries, which is estimated to cost fire departments up to $197,860 a year, according to a paper the National Fire Protection Association published in late 2019.

The FireBot is not the first device that uses robotics to make firefighting safer. Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory are developing what’s known as SAFFiR, or the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot. The bi-pedal humanoid robot is being engineered to navigate ships, interact with people, and use thermal imaging to identify and handle a hose to put out small fires.

When Engadget covered the Navy’s robot back in 2019, SAFFiR was still not water- and fire-proof, which may be why the Navy said its more advanced prototypes are still in the experimental stages of R&D. Similarly, there’s DARPA's Atlas, a disaster-response robot that hosts an infrared and a rotating light detection and ranging (LIDAR) laser that allows it to navigate dense smoke. Still, nothing is as seemingly advanced as Paradigm’s FireBot in terms of being able to withstand and navigate heat at fire scenes.

In a similar vein, the Los Angeles Fire Department even experimented with specialized drones that can aid in scope and rescue missions as well as a ridiculously large 3,500-pound “Thermite RS3” robot. That robot costs $272,000, making the FireBot seem almost reasonable by comparison.

YouTube has new AI features for creators on the way. AI-powered features the company announced at its Made on YouTube event on Thursday include a green screen feature, insights to stimulate ideas, automatic dubbing to other languages and a soundtrack search.

Dream Screen gives YouTube Shorts creators an AI-powered green screen, similar to a popular feature on TikTok. YouTube’s tool will automatically remove backgrounds from your videos, replacing them with AI-generated images or videos based on your prompts.

Although it’s yet to be seen how professional and convincing the generated content appears in practice, the idea is for Dream Screen to make it easier to illustrate fantasy scenarios or simply liven up otherwise ho-hum backdrops. YouTube suggests trekking through an enchanted forest or riding shotgun as your pug drives you to school as two oddball scenes Dream Screen can craft. The company says it will start to test the tool with “select creators” later this year before a broader rollout in 2024.

YouTube

YouTube Studio will get a new feature that brainstorms for you. Similar to asking ChatGPT for video ideas, the “insight recommendations” feature can draft outlines and help creators conceptualize projects. Similarly, assistive search in Creator Music will make it easier to find background tunes for your videos. “Simply type in a description of your content and AI will suggest the right music at the right price,” YouTube VP Toni Reid wrote today. Both Insights and assistive music search will be available for creators next year.

YouTube also showcased the AI-powered dubbing feature it began testing earlier this year. Developed at Google’s Area 120 incubator, it can generate a text-based translation into the selected target language. The company says it gives you a chance to double-check the output before choosing from different virtual narrators to read your content. The feature is currently being tested with select creators in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

The company is also launching a YouTube Create app to help video makers produce content on their mobile devices. It includes standard features like editing, trimming, automatic captioning, voiceovers, filters, effects and royalty-free music with beat matching. The free app is currently in beta for Android in select markets.

Apple’s watchOS 10 officially became available on September 18, and it brings a new feature in the Mindfulness app that gives you the option of logging your feelings and moods directly on your watch face. These updates will be available if you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or newer model. Here’s how to navigate that new feature.

Malak Saleh

How to log your mood

When you open the Mindfulness app, tap “State of Mind” and then “Get Started” to begin the logging process. From there, you can either log a “momentary emotion” to input how you feel at that instant, or a “daily mood” to report how you felt overall that day.

Malak Saleh

Using the watch’s Digital Crown, you can scroll through seven abstract images with corresponding emotional valences ranging from "very pleasant" to "very unpleasant." Once you select an emotion, you can opt for more logging and go into greater detail about the feelings you’re experiencing (including what's having the biggest effect on you) by selecting options from a drop-down menu.

Malak Saleh

How to view your mood logs

Over time you can keep tabs on your daily logging activity in the Health app under the “Mental Wellbeing” tab. Using a paired iPhone, click “State of Mind” and then open “Show in Charts.” From this page, you can view the type of entries for daily moods or momentary emotions. You also have the option to view lifestyle factors associated with these entries to learn how your moods may correlate with variables like time spent in the sun, sleep trends, and exercise habits.

Malak Saleh

Additionally, specific assessments for depression and anxiety are now accessible in the Health app. You can also export PDFs of personal health reports if you ever need to share logs with a medical professional. You’ll need to open the Health app and click the “Sharing tab” at the bottom of the screen. From there you can choose to “Share with someone,” such as a contact, or “Share with your doctor.” 

If you want to share with your doctor, you can search for specific hospital systems to connect your health data and keep tabs on clinical records. For example, if you were a client at “Green Primary Care” in Huntsville, Alabama, you could directly connect to the patient portal, get secure access to health records, and also share your personal health data with a care team – this is where building a habit of logging daily moods may be helpful for a provider to get a fuller picture on the state of your mental health.

Ubisoft just confirmed that Tom Clancy’s The Division 3 is headed toward active development. We have a long time to wait before we get our hands on the franchise sequel, despite it being over four years since The Division 2 graced consoles and PCs back in 2019. The company also named Julian Gerighty as Executive Director for the entire The Division brand.

If that name sounds familiar it’s because Gerighty is often credited as being the modern architect of the franchise after coming aboard in 2014 as Associate Creative Director ahead of the original game’s launch. He moved up to Creative Director just in time for The Division 2 and its DLC releases.

So just how long do we have to wait? Settle in folks and grab your hibernation pajamas, as it’s gonna be awhile. Gerighty is currently the Creative Director for a little open-world game called Star Wars Outlaws. He won’t transition to The Division 3 until that game has shipped. Ubisoft says Gerighty’s first task will be to assemble the development team, so that hasn’t happened yet. Star Wars Outlaws doesn’t release until sometime next year so, well, you do the development math.

Despite the forthcoming sequel, Ubisoft says The Division 2 will still be supported, though the company didn’t detail future plans for DLC content. Concrete information regarding The Division 3 is basically non-existent, but Gerighty did say that the development process will be “about refinement, it's about pushing the quality bar consistently forward.”

Outside of that, Gerighty will use his Executive Director role to solidify “brand identity.” That means he’ll be actively involved with spin-off titles, mobile releases and the like. There are a “plethora” of upcoming projects set in the franchise’s universe, like the mobile game The Division Resurgence and the spin-off shooter The Division Heartland.

Rockstar announced on Thursday that GTA+ subscribers will now get access to a rotating selection of Rockstar Games. At launch, members can download and play Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, the 2021 remaster of early 21st-century classics GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas.

The games will only be available for the console platform your GTA+ membership is tied to. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition typically costs $60, so this could be a cheap and easy way to revisit the trio of open-world pioneers. The remastered trilogy polishes the original’s dated graphics with new lighting and environmental upgrades, high-res textures, greater draw distances, modern controls and refined targeting.

The 2021 remake starts with the highly influential Grand Theft Auto III (2001), which dazzled turn-of-the-millennium gamers with its vast (for its day) open-world sandbox of Liberty City. 2002’s GTA: Vice City built on that formula while adding a voiced protagonist, Tommy Vercetti (the late Ray Liotta), along with an abundance of 1980s nostalgia and satire. GTA: San Andreas capped off the trilogy in 2004 with a broader scope (it spans three cities) and a memorable 1990s hip-hop soundtrack; you walk in the shoes of Carl “CJ” Johnson (Christopher Bellard) as he returns to his Grove Street home after five years away.

GTA+ launched in 2022 for GTA Online players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. In addition to the revolving assortment of games, the $6-per-month program offers perks like a monthly deposit of $500,000 in virtual currency, and rotating rewards like in-game vehicles, clothes, properties, weapons and bonus mission rewards.

Snapchat’s subscription service for its most dedicated users continues to grow. Snapchat+, the premium service that offers fans exclusive features, has more than 5 million paying subscribers, Snap announced Thursday.

The milestone comes after the service, which launched last June, crossed 3 million sign-ups in April. That’s still just a fraction of the 750 million people who use Snapchat each month, but it’s a significant number for the company, which has been looking to boost non-advertising sources of revenue. As Bloomberg points out, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has said his “medium-term goal” is to reach 10 million paying users.

Snapchat has used generative AI tools and other exclusive features to lure users to signing up for the $4-a-month service. When the company first introduced its MyAI chatbot and, more recently, its generative AI selfie feature, the tools were initially limited to paying subscribers. Other perks, like the ability to check how many times friends view your Story and exclusive Bitmoji customizations, are meant to appeal to power users.

The relative success of Snapchat+ stands in contrast to X Premium (formerly known as Twitter Blue), which Elon Musk has made a centerpiece of his strategy to revitalize the embattled social media company’s business. X has not formally released subscriber counts, but one researcher, speaking to Mashable, recently estimated the number to be less than one million.

It's not only Microsoft that had a notable hardware event on Thursday. Razercon took place on the same day. As ever, Razer took the opportunity to reveal its latest gaming gear, accessories and software updates. Among the announcements was a new line of smart light bulbs, lamps and light strips called Aether to help you kit out your home in delicious RGB.

The range includes the $80 Aether Lamp, $130 Lamp Pro (which offers multi-zone lighting), $50 Light Bulb, $130 Light Strip and $30 Light Strip Extender. The devices will be available by the end of the year. They support Razer's Chroma tech along with Alexa, Google Assistant and Matter.

Razer is expanding its range of gaming chairs as well with a new line called Fujin. These chairs have a breathable mesh back and lumbar support. The Pro model has a 3D contoured headrest (which you can buy separately for the base model for $129) and an aluminum alloy frame. The Fujin chairs start at $649 in the US and $599 in the rest of the world. The Pro model will run you $1,049 Stateside and $999 elsewhere. The base model is available now, while the Fujin Pro and headrest will ship in November.

Razer

Keyboard enthusiasts might be tempted by the Huntsman V3 Pro. The performance-focused keyboard for competitive gamers features what Razer is calling its most advanced switches yet. They have an adjustable actuation range of between 0.1mm and 4mm, along with a 100-million keystroke lifespan. Other features include a multifunction digital dial, dedicated control buttons, textured keycaps and a leatherette wrist rest.

There are three Huntsman V3 Pro variants, all of which will arrive in October. The standard model is $250. You can save a few bucks by ditching the number pad with the $220 tenkeyless version. The Huntsman V3 Pro Mini, meanwhile, is $180.

Razer

On the software side, you'll now be able to use generative AI to create PC desktop wallpapers that hook into Razer Chroma. The company's tech will detect the dominant colors in the wallpapers and reflect those in RGB lighting. There's also a new dedicated Chroma app for managing lighting on Razer devices.

Meanwhile, the Razer Synapse app is getting an update. The aim is to reduce the system resource requirements and make it easier and faster to update Razer devices. You'll still be able to manage RGB lighting in this app too.

Google has been trying to publicly pressure Apple into adopting the GSMA’s RCS (Rich Communications Service) messaging protocol for a long time now, with nothing to show for it. As a matter of fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to completely dismiss the idea when he answered a question on the subject by saying that consumers should buy their moms an iPhone. Google and its Android platform aren’t giving up that easily and they’ve just released a snarky ad to continue criticizing Apple's preferred messaging platform. 

The ad’s called “iPager” and mimics Apple’s marketing language to reveal a retro-styled beeper, indicating that Apple’s behind the curve with its chosen messaging platform. The spot states that the iPager uses “outdated messaging tech” to “text with Android,” citing many of the perceived disadvantages of sticking with SMS technology when communicating with Android phones. Google didn’t invent this comparison whole-cloth, as the 30-year-old SMS tech actually dates back to old-school pagers.

Apple’s continued use of SMS messaging does hobble Android integration in a few ways, but the reverse is also true. Most famously, there’s the dreaded green bubble when texting an Android user from an iPhone. There are some feature-breaking bugs inherent to group chats between iOS and Android users and images sent from Android phones to iPhones tend to be rather pixelated. This is yet another side effect of those interoperability issues.

One-on-one RCS messages have been end-to-end encrypted since 2021, with group chats following suit just last month. iMessage texts have long been encrypted too, but only from iPhone to iPhone. Google’s latest ad shines an (admittedly slanted) light on the vulnerability consumers face when texting across operating systems, as those SMS texts aren't encrypted. Additionally, RCS text messages lose encryption when making the leap to iOS devices. It's anyone's guess why Apple should make this change and not Google, despite RCS being a more globally adopted standard.

This ad's unlikely to convince Apple to change anything, as it's only the latest salvo in Google’s snark campaign. Back in 2022, the company spoofed Drake to pile on Apple and there have been plenty of other minor jabs at Cupertino’s expense at events like I/O 2022 and on social media. We all know Apple is notoriously stubborn when it comes to adopting non-proprietary technology, especially if it views the change as unnecessary. No matter who's to blame, these interoperability issues are annoying for consumers and bad for data privacy. Maybe an antitrust case will get this sorted one day.

This year’s Razercon event held a couple of surprises for those who love the computer accessory company and luxury lifestyle brands. Razer has partnered up with Lamborghini to create a beefed up Blade 16 laptop that draws plenty of aesthetic inspiration from the sports car maker. It boasts a customized chassis with orange highlights that’s “infused with the spirit of Lamborghini.” The price tag is also infused with the spirit of Lamborghini, as this thing costs $5,000.

It looks pretty cool, but the actual components also got some Lambo love. The CNC-milled chassis is made from a single block of aluminum, adding durability, with a finish inspired by Lamborghini’s signature orange and matte black. The design on the lid echoes the headlights of the recently-announced Lamborghini Revuelto hybrid vehicle. So now you can race down the information superhighway in your Lambo computer as you race down the actual highway in your Lambo car. It’s an ouroboros of unnecessary speed.

The specs here are on-point, as there are some significant improvements over the base-level Blade 16 laptop. This is a highly-souped up edition, with a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 HX processor that boasts 24 cores and 32 threads. It also features a GeForce 4090 GPU, a 4TB SSD, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a dual-mode mini-LED 4K 16” display. This thing is a beast, but remember that $5K price tag. Despite the cost, the Razer Blade 16 x Automobili Lamborghini Edition could become a collector’s item some day, as the company is only making 150 units.

Razer

Razer has also teamed up with fashion icons Dolce & Gabbana to create a gold-emblazoned edition of its popular Barracuda wireless headphones. The fashion brand’s signature design has even been applied to a Razer Enki gaming chair and a bunch of clothing items to celebrate the partnership, like hoodies and t-shirts. Let’s hear it for corporate synergy!

Microsoft continues to build inclusive accessories and features for its mainstream products and the company showed off more at its New York event on Thursday. It unveiled an Adaptive Touch feature that works on the “precision haptic trackpad” of the Surface Laptop Studio 2. During its keynote, the company called this the “most inclusive touchpad on any laptop,” and based on my early impressions, that claim might just be true.

Not a lot is currently known about how the feature will work, but I was able to spend some time with Microsoft’s accessibility program manager Solomon Romney to get a deeper understanding. Romney was born without fingers on his left hand and struggles to use standard touchpads on most laptops. Adaptive Touch allows him to drag his left hand on the glass-covered surface and not have the cursor jump around the screen.

The first thing to point out is that the adaptive touch feature currently requires a haptic trackpad to work, meaning at the moment it’s only available on the Surface Laptop Studio 2. You’ll have to go into the computer’s touchpad settings and enable Adaptive Touch, which throws up an alert that you won’t be able to use multitouch gestures like pinch to zoom.

That’s because the system is looking for multiple points of contact with the trackpad and noticing if they’re moving in the same general direction, to determine where to move the mouse. It’s in part based on the technology that Microsoft uses for palm rejection, but reconfigured for Adaptive Touch.

Microsoft barely mentions this feature in its materials announcing the Surface Laptop Studio 2, and Google searches for terms like “Microsoft inclusive trackpad” or “Surface Laptop Studio 2 accessibility touchpad” yield unrelated results. It’s clear there’s still a lot to understand about how Adaptive Touch works and what its limits are. For now, though, I’m encouraged to see Microsoft continue to design for inclusivity, and I’m excited for what might be to come.

Follow all of the news live from Microsoft’s 2023 Surface event right here.