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Fitbit’s redesign is finally here. Google just announced that the comprehensive refresh starts rolling out today after existing as a beta build since August. The update simplifies the experience by splitting everything up into three tabs. There’s the Today tab, the Coach tab and the You tab, with each offering unique metrics and access to activities.

The Today tab boasts a fully customizable set of daily stats and metrics for easy perusal. Though called “Today,” it also provides access to health trends over the past month or year. The Coach tab is all about motivation, with curated lists of mindfulness sessions, workouts and more. The You tab is where you access achievement badges and related progress metrics. Google says that all of this information is kept private and won’t be leveraged for ads data.

The refresh doesn’t change what’s free and what’s only available to paying subscribers, so your basic fitness flow will remain the same, but the app’s visual language is markedly different, and there are some new features. Google encourages Fitbit users to use the new app to track physical activity with or without a dedicated device, as the update improves integration with smartphone sensors for more accurate step counts. The company also touts new privacy controls and increased customization options within the Today tab.

The update begins a global launch today for both iOS and Android platforms. This is a major release, however, so it could take a few days before the redesigned app hits your inbox. The redesign couldn’t arrive at a better time, as Fitbit sunsetted a number of features earlier this year, including open groups, adventures and challenges. While these features haven’t exactly returned with this refresh, the Coach tab will feature daily challenges and scenarios similar to what was previously available, and the You tab provides access to achievement badges.

If you thought we were done learning juicy details about the internal workings of Xbox after this summer's Federal Trade Commission-Microsoft trial wrapped up, hoo boy, you can guess again. A jaw-dropping court document leak has revealed a ton of information about recent goings on within the Microsoft Gaming division, as well as critical details about its future plans. Perhaps the biggest nugget concerned a major Xbox Series X refresh that Microsoft has lined up for next year.

All-digital Xbox Series X refresh

Microsoft via FTC

Over the last few console generations, we’ve seen the likes of Sony and Microsoft release updated hardware midway through the cycle (the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X spring to mind). And while there are always rumors in the lead up to those new versions, we’ve never seen legitimate leaks of this magnitude before.

Codenamed "Brooklin," a refreshed Series X will have double the internal storage at 2TB, lower power usage, Wi-Fi 6E connectivity and other tech updates, according to a leaked document. This model will have a cylindrical design, compared with the boxy original Series X.

Critically, Microsoft is planning to ditch the console's disc drive. It's not yet clear as to whether there will be an external disc drive available (as is rumored to be the case for a PlayStation 5 refresh). It would mark a significant shift for Xbox to no longer offer a disc drive as standard and perhaps accelerate the death of physical game discs. What's more, Microsoft plans to sell the updated Series X for $499, the same price as the current console.

Microsoft via FTC

Microsoft is planning to release an updated Xbox controller next year as well, per the unredacted filing. Codenamed "Sebile," the peripheral is slated to have "precision haptic feedback" (perhaps to better compete with Sony's DualSense), quieter inputs and, like some premium controllers, modular thumbsticks. There's said to be support for "seamless" pairing and switching between devices with the help of new mobile app features.

Intriguingly, a "direct-to-cloud" feature is mentioned in a slide. That suggests Microsoft is focusing on reducing input latency for games streamed from the cloud, like Google tried with the Stadia Controller (RIP).

Sebile is slated to arrive in May, according to the documents. Microsoft is then expected to announce the new Series X (and a Series S refresh) in June, likely at its annual summer showcase. The $299 Series S refresh is now expected to go on sale around August or September 2024, with the beefed-up Series X scheduled to land a couple months later. It seems Microsoft is planning a clearance sale on the current Series S too, as a slide mentions a $199 offer for Black Friday 2024.

The next-gen Xbox could be a 'cloud-hybrid' console

Xbox

It seems we're not yet midway through the current console generation, but of course Microsoft is thinking about what's ahead. The next-gen Xbox, slated to arrive in 2028, is expected to support "cloud hybrid games."

There's not much detail available on that, but it's clear the company has been moving in this direction for a while. Microsoft Flight Simulator, for instance, incorporates real-time weather data that it pulls from the cloud (that's not a pun, I swear). Xbox has been making a major push into cloud gaming over the last few years too.

There's an implication that the next-generation Xbox will have an always-online requirement for certain games. It's entirely plausible that there will still be a sizable digital divide by 2028, which could prevent some folks in rural areas or other regions with poor internet access from properly being able to play games on Microsoft's next major console.

Xbox head Phil Spencer really wants to buy Nintendo

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer thinks it would be, like, super cool if the company bought Nintendo. Spencer suggested in an internal 2020 email discussing acquisition targets that he saw Nintendo as a white whale for the company, and one that he was personally invested in snapping up. He saw that as a potential "career moment," per the email.

The document nods toward other possible acquisition targets, including another highly ambitious one in Valve. Spencer mentioned that his team was in active talks with Warner Bros. Interactive and Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media. Both of those were seemingly open to a deal and while the WB talks didn't work out in Microsoft's favor, the company did scoop up ZeniMax for $7.5 billion.

It seems highly unlikely that Microsoft would ever actually buy Nintendo. Antitrust regulators would surely have a lot to say about that, particularly after Microsoft’s ZeniMax purchase and its pending $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard (which could close any day now). It’s not hard to imagine that Japanese officials in particular would be none too happy about an American business buying one of the country’s best-known brands. Still, it’s nice to have dreams, eh, Phil?

Upcoming games

The leak also shed some light on Xbox's plans for upcoming games. It seems that new Doom and Dishonored games are in the pipeline. The latter would see Arkane returning to a successful series after Redfall — its most recent attempt to branch out into fresh IP — faceplanted this year. Fallout 3 Remaster, Oblivion Remaster and a Ghostwire: Tokyo sequel were also mentioned in the leaked documents.

It's worth noting, however, that this Bethesda roadmap ran from fiscal years 2020 through 2024. A lot has changed since then, including Microsoft buying the publisher. Games get canceled all the time, so it's unclear whether any of these unannounced projects will actually come to light. Still, it's hard to imagine that there isn't some kind of Doom title in development.

Aaron Souppouris/Engadget

This is all the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the leaked documents. There are details on everything from Game Pass revenue to Microsoft leaders' reactions to the PlayStation 5 announcement and Spencer revealing he bought his own PS5 (he had to plump for a bundle with Horizon Forbidden West included).

The timing of this leak could not have been worse for Microsoft, as we're going into the critical holiday period. The company was banking on Starfield being a must-have game (it isn’t, unfortunately) to help it shift consoles and Game Pass subscriptions in the last few months of the year. This news won’t help convince people who were on the fence to buy an Xbox soon either. Knowing that a revamped Series X is on the way next year will surely put some people off of buying one now (raises hand). That could result in Microsoft losing more ground against Sony and Nintendo, which appears set to debut a brand new console in 2024.

The FTC, which still has a lawsuit in the works in an attempt to block the Microsoft-Activision deal, has claimed it's not to blame for the leak. "Microsoft was responsible for the error in uploading these documents to the court," Douglas Farrar, director of the FTC's office of public affairs, told NBC News. However all of this information got out there, some heads are surely rolling at Microsoft HQ today.

“What are we willing to fight for? What do we deserve, morally speaking? What is our place, our relationship with the universe, with nature?”

During a preview of The Talos Principle 2 in August, series writer Jonas Kyratzes posed 19 questions about the essence of humanity in just 90 seconds. Between explanations of new mechanics and puzzle systems, he rattled off deep musings about society and the natural world as easily as if he were reading his weekly grocery list. It felt like these questions were constantly on his mind, poised at the tip of his tongue.

“What does society owe me?” he asked. “What do I owe society? What is our relationship with nature? What is our relationship with the universe? Is the universe kind? Is nature understanding or is it cruel and random? And if it is cruel and random, where do we fit in? What degree of control should we have?”

Croteam

He wasn’t craving answers. TheTalos Principle 2 is filled with provocations like these, and according to Kyratzes, they’re designed to generate conversation and debate, even if it’s all internal. The goal is to spawn deep thoughts about the future of humanity and the role technology can play in our evolution.

“They're statements that are intended to make you think,” Kyratzes told Engadget a few weeks after the initial preview. “Let's say the robots are human and they're capable of love. Like, that's our premise.… Hopefully that is also the sort of thing that will provoke some thought.”

This philosophical approach to the future is the heart of The Talos Principle, an award-winning sci-fi puzzle game that debuted in 2014, and its tender curiosity is baked into the sequel as well. The Talos Principle 2 is due out this year for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it directly follows the story of the original. It’s set in a burgeoning society built by sentient robots, and its main gameplay mechanic involves solving complex laser riddles, interspersed with conversations about the nature of consciousness, love and survival.

Croteam

Co-writer Verena Kyratzes didn’t work on the original game’s story, but she and the other developers at Croteam used its calm, question-asking approach as a blueprint for the sequel.

“It didn't only ask you a question, but once you gave the answer to the question, it kind of very politely asked you to just think about whether you're really sure about that,” she said. “It's a game that constantly tries to make you think, to interrogate yourself and your beliefs, and I really hope that we managed to do that in the second one, too. The gentleness of it is something that's very important to me because I think if you're talking down to somebody, if you're just telling them, ‘That was stupid,’ then they will immediately close off.”

The Talos Principle 2 represents an old-school brand of sci-fi that invites people to play around with the ideas it poses; warm, welcoming and slow. Even the series’ conclusions, when it offers any, are inherently optimistic, centering on humanity and the ability society has to thrive with nature in the future. It’s a return to a Carl Sagan era of forward thought, positioning people as the solution, not just the instigator, in problems like climate change, overpopulation, rogue AI, pandemics and space travel. This alone is a refreshing perspective in a sea of mainstream sci-fi media that only envisions the future as a miserable, sterile void manufactured by society's stubbornness and greed.

Croteam

“Consistently, science fiction presents itself as being original for taking a dystopian view, as if it was subverting a mainstream narrative of hopefulness,” Jonas Kyratzes said. “They'll be like, ‘In our story technology is bad.’ Oh really, you mean like every other story?”

As a series, The Talos Principle is more thematically aligned with the aspirational sci-fi of the original Star Trek or The Next Generation than it is with the gloom of today's Picard. This optimistic, human-first approach makes The Talos Principle 2 subversive as a work of contemporary sci-fi.

Here’s how Jonas Kyratzes and Verena Kyratzes discussed the modern glut of pessimistic sci-fi among themselves:

Jonas: “[Dystopia] is of course, on some level, a response to the conditions we live in. But it's also limiting our ability to imagine something else. And I think this kind of optimism, that's so crucial, it's so fundamental in a way that it's hard to talk about, because what are we without a future? I think that also reflects our alienation from our own humanity. The tendency to always go, ‘Humanity is a virus, humanity is bad, all humans are evil.’ Einstein once remarked that this is a very troubling thing, a sign of alienation, because it's such a fundamental thing to have a connection to humanity. Because you are human. … It's the most mainstream idea, it's the ruling ideology of our time: Nothing will get better and you shouldn't expect anything to get better.”

Verena: “Often we’ll watch something that is set 300, 400, 1,000 years in the future, but what they're actually talking about is something that is [current]. They're no longer imagining a future. They're just talking about what upsets them in the present.”

Jonas: “By taking it into a utopian future, it gives you different ways of thinking about it, and now a lot of science fiction doesn't. It's like, here's future racism, exactly like now racism. As if to say, nothing will change, nothing will get better, nor can it. And it’s like, OK, great — why are we telling this story?”

The Talos Principle 2 will present decidedly humanist ideas in conversations with NPCs and general story beats, but it also makes room for other conclusions. The game’s respect for the human race extends to individual players, and the story will unravel in various ways depending on the choices each person makes and the interpretations they choose to follow. Diversity is one humanity’s greatest strengths, after all.

There are varying levels of engagement with the narrative, too — completing the game’s incredibly challenging golden puzzles, for instance, will unlock a “significant story payoff,” according to Jonas Kyratzes.

The Talos Principle 2 isn’t necessarily a game about utopian sci-fi; it just uses this direction as a backbone. The sequel takes players from sterile, Myst-like testing grounds filled with wildly tricky spatial puzzles, to a clean, shining city built by robots that act like and call themselves human. Robots that feel human. Robots that feel, full-stop.

“All of these things that we're all thinking about and arguing about are going into this game, and hopefully are reflected in the conversations inside that game,” Jonas Kyratzes said. “I would hope it's expressed as a story through characters who have personalities. The game is all of these things, but it's also a love story, as much as anything else. Multiple love stories. It’s intertwined love stories in a lot of ways, that's an undercurrent that's very significant. The ability of sentient beings to love, even if they are robots.”

A multitude of questions spawn from this premise alone. The Talos Principle 2 will invite players to test their own theories about consciousness, AI, sustainability and love in a meditative space. It doesn’t promise answers, but maybe it’ll inspire players to ask different questions about humanity’s future, just like sci-fi is supposed to.

TikTok is rolling out a toolset that lets users label posts that have been created or enhanced by artificial intelligence. This move comes after the social media giant added a number of filters for video uploads that made heavy use of AI, and an image generator to help create unique backgrounds. The filters are being renamed to make it clearer which ones rely on generative AI to further assist with labeling. Moving forward, these filters will have “AI” in the name somewhere.

The new labels aren’t exclusive to TikTok-approved filters. You can slap the label on any content that’s been completely generated or significantly edited by AI, no matter where the content has been sourced from. Disney+ could have used these tools back when Secret Invasion premiered.

TikTok’s new labeling tools aren’t exactly optional. A recent company policy clearly states that any AI-generated content that contains “realistic images, audio or video” must be labeled as such to “help viewers contextualize” the situation and “prevent the potential spread of misleading content.” However, you can use other disclosures, like stickers or captions, to get the point across without violating any community guidelines.

When you place the onus on consumers to label their content, mistakes are gonna happen. To that end, TikTok’s developing its own algorithm that will label AI-generated posts automatically, though it hasn’t announced when these in-house tools will launch. All of the aforementioned tools were developed in tandem with the company’s safety advisory councils, with assistance from industry and scholastic experts.

Additionally, the platform has committed itself to abiding by the Partnership on AI’s Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media, a list of recommendations for increased transparency involving artificial intelligence. TikTok will also partner with the nonprofit Digital Moment to host roundtables to discuss the advancement of AI with “young community members.”

After years of rumors, Intel's "Meteor Lake" processors will finally be arriving in PCs on December 14th. Now dubbed "Core Ultra" as part of the company's new naming scheme, they'll be the first chips built on the "Intel 4" (7nm) architecture, as well as the first to include a built-in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to accelerate AI performance. In almost every way, the Core Ultra chips demonstrate where Intel is headed next: Building efficient-yet-powerful chips that can keep up with modern AI demands.

At this point, Intel appears to be squarely focused on laptops with Core Ultra chips. The company is rumored to be refreshing its Raptor Lake CPUs for desktops later this year. While it may be surprising to see a notebook chip taking the lead, the strategy makes a certain amount of sense. Meteor Lake's efficiency push is at odds with what desktop users actually want: As much freaking power as possible. So for now, at least, the company is better off splitting its 14th-gen CPU families.

Core Ultra is practically a showcase of Intel's latest innovations. It's built on the company's FOVEROS 3D packaging; it features entirely new P and E-cores, with a focus on being as power efficient as possible; graphics will be up to twice as fast when it comes to performance per watt; and in addition to sporting an NPU, it can also leverage its GPU and CPU for other AI tasks. Funny enough, it won't support the company's recently announced Thunderbolt 5 standard, instead Core Ultra will feature Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe Gen5.

We're still waiting for final details on Intel's final Core Ultra models, as well as the company's plans for 14th-gen desktop chips. But for now, at least, we've got plenty of reasons to be excited about next year's batch of laptops.

Amazon has rolled out a new Kindle Scribe sale for Prime members. Each configuration of the 10.2-inch ereader is up to 22 percent off, which brings the base version with 16GB of storage and Amazon's "Basic Pen" stylus down to $265. That's $75 off the device's usual price and only $10 more than the discount we saw during Amazon's Prime Day event last July. The 16GB variant with a "Premium Pen" stylus — which includes a dedicated eraser function and a customizable shortcut button — is down to $290, while the 32GB and 64GB models are $305 and $330, respectively. (The higher-capacity options come with the Premium Pen as standard.) You can get each with a three-month trial to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service too; just be aware that the subscription will auto-renew by default.

We gave the Kindle Scribe a review score of 85 last November, and we currently recommend it in our guide to the best e-ink tablets. The big hook is that it's the only Kindle with note-taking support. At its core, it works like any other Amazon ereader, but you can use the included stylus to jot things down in books and documents, create to-do lists, draw sketches and so on with minimal latency. The roomy, 300 ppi display and slim design are a delight, and you still get access to Amazon's giant ebook library.

Amazon has steadily improved the note-taking aspect of the Scribe since launch, but there are still some shortcomings. You can't mark up every book directly on the page — most have you write in windowed sticky notes — handwriting-to-text support is limited, and there's no easy way to sync handwritten notes with services like Google Drive or OneNote. The device isn't waterproof either. Generally speaking, we like the reMarkable 2 as a more flexible e-ink tablet for writing, while the Kindle Paperwhite is a better value purely for reading. But if you want some level of pen support without giving up the usual Kindle experience, the Scribe is worth considering, and this discount makes it a little more approachable.

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Microsoft is holding a 'special event' at 10 AM ET on Thursday, September 21. Details are scant but the timing certainly indicates a fall hardware event, likely prioritizing a new line of Surface products. There isn't a livestream but you can watch the whole thing at 1 PM ET via Microsoft. There should also be a stream on the official Microsoft Surface YouTube channel after the fact. If you don't want to wait three hours for some hot Microsoft news, check our liveblog that will run alongside the actual morning event. 

The company held its annual hardware event in October last year, but typically sticks to late September for these kinds of things. Microsoft hasn’t released any official confirmation as to what will be unveiled, but rumors indicate a refresh to the popular Surface Laptop Studio hybrid device, giving it a much-needed performance boost, and the follow-up to the Surface Laptop Go 2. The current model is fairly underpowered, with an aging 11th Gen Intel chipset, so this would be welcome news.

Of course, there’s likely to be a surprise or two, given this is Microsoft’s big annual event. Will we get a refresh to the Surface Pro 9 or the Surface Laptop 5? Watch to find out. The desktop Surface Studio 2+ is getting long in the tooth and could use some hardware-based TLC. There have also been some rumors indicating that the company’s prepping a follow-up to the Surface Duo dual-screen smartphone, though it's unlikely to get unveiled tomorrow. 

This is also the year 2023 on a planet called Earth, so expect some AI news. To that end, Surface product lead and Windows 11 guru Panos Panay just announced his exit from the company after nearly 20 years, who championed the use of AI in the operating system.

Last year, we got the aforementioned Surface Studio 2+ all-in-one desktop computer, the Surface Laptop 5, the Surface Pro 9 and plenty of software announcements. There was also some AI stuffed into Microsoft Teams.

The 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro's cost has finally dropped into the triple digits. The 128GB sixth-generation model is at an all-time low price of $999 (hey, $1 under $1,000 still counts) from $1,099 — a nine percent discount. The deal is only available in Space Gray, with the Silver model coming in at $1,049. 

Apple's sixth-gen iPad Pro 12.9-inch came on the scene in 2022, and — though it wasn't a major upgrade — it garnered an 87 in our review. The biggest change was a swap from the M1 to the M2 chip, which increased its GPU performance by 52 percent to a score of 32,834. The M2 chip also lets you record 4K resolution video in ProRes at 30 frames per second and introduces Hover, which lets you interact with some elements when your pencil is 12mm above the screen.

The 12.9-inch model's features are identical to the iPad Pro 11-inch, except for the size (obviously) and it having a Liquid Retina XDR display versus a standard one. It's quite a bit cheaper for such a small difference, with a nine percent discount cutting its price from $799 to $729. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple's 2024 iPad Pro might come with an M3 chip and have an OLED display, among other upgrades.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This spring Dyson launched the Zone, which pairs noise-canceling headphones with an air-purifying visor. It was swiftly met with backlash for its funky, bane-like aesthetic. Oh, and it's $949 price tag. What no one could have predicted is that, just a few months after Zone launched, a massive Canadian wildfire would billow enough smoke across the East Coast to turn New York City’s skyline into a surreal orange nightmare. The “orange scare” was a freakishly timely event that drew attention to the climate crisis. This, in tandem with the World Health Organization's (WHO), estimates that 9 in 10 people around the world are breathing in air that exceeds pollutant limits, should be enough to scare anyone – especially considering how quickly urbanization is growing, exacerbating those problems. Suddenly AQI entered everyone’s vocabulary and probably more than a few people started giving the Dyson Zone another look.

Dyson’s reputation as a maker of household air purifiers gives the company solid ground to build on; it’s just making the tech wearable. The company claims that the Zone’s two-stage, sealed filtration system can remove 99 percent of ultrafine particles and “city fumes.” Dyson’s engineering lead Vicky Gibson-Robinson told Engadget that the Zone uses an electrostatic filter to capture particulates as small as 0.1 microns. That, paired with an activated carbon filter that she claims can absorb fumes and gasses such as nitrogen dioxide (the main pollutant emitted by cars, trucks, and buses), is the bread and butter of the filter. Keep in mind, though, that the Zone will require electrostatic filter replacements, anywhere from every six to 12 months depending on the dirtiness of the city you are based in. The carbon filter, on the other hand, Dyson engineers said will not need to be replaced as often and should only be swapped out when “it starts smelling.”

The Zone has three air flow rates based on your level of activity: rest (level one), light (level two), and moderate (level three). Gibson-Robinson says the best way to get the most out of the Zone is by setting it to auto mode to preserve battery life (a big point of contention which we will get to later). “If you put it in auto mode, it will just ramp up and ramp down as it needs to,” she said, meaning the Zone is smart enough to know when to increase the filtration rate depending on the wearer’s movement and breathing rate. The more you strain and move, the more inhaling and exhaling, and the more filtration is needed.

Gibson-Robinson says that all the claims made about the Dyson Zone, such as its ability to remove fine particles like PM2.5 that can enter your respiratory tract, were made via testing each part of the filtration system individually. Meaning, the electrostatic filter, the activated carbon filter, and the impeller fan were tested alone. Gibson-Robinson claims that since we were not planning to disassemble the device during our tests, we might find that the Zone's ability to filter pollutants would be even greater than claimed.

Engadget Video

Engadget picked three locations to test how well the Zone performed, including a clean lab as a control, and a subway station in New York City, followed by a busy intersection. We reached out to experts at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine who work in partnership with the University’s Langone’s Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards to help us test the Dyson Zone's filtration system.

"The subway is a good substitute for a worst-case scenario," said Terry Gordon, NYU Professor at the Grossman School of Medicine, who helped Engadget run these tests. Gordon, who has researched the underground transit systems and its health effects on commuters, says that in a scenario where an air quality emergency is not taking place, the air quality inside a subway station is comparable. Meaning, how well the Zone does in the subway station would be a good indicator of how well it would perform during another acute air pollution crisis.

Once we agreed on a mission, our aim was simple: test how well the Zone removed pollutants from the air surrounding a wearer’s breathing zone, no pun intended. We primarily used two lab-grade devices: a portable particulate monitor and a particulate counter. The portable particulate monitor gave us real-time measurements of PM10 and PM2.5 particulates in the air, which are the two main types of pollutants scientists care about and differentiate based on size. Meanwhile, a particulate counter is used to measure the concentration of pollutants left in the air. In an ideal world, we would have liked to test the Zone's ability to filter out volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or toxic chemicals that come from home products and natural sources like benzene, formaldehyde or acetone, but these compounds were not easily detectable in the city streets or on the subway by our handheld VOC detector. This made sense since the subway tract is mostly run on electricity, not coal or gas.

Dyson

For each test, we collected data while the Dyson Zone's visor blew air in my face, instead of a dummy head. We did it this way for two reasons. For one, the lab-grade dummy head was not always detected by the Zone, so the filter would not run properly. Also, this allowed me to include real-world user experience in our assessment.

So first, in the NYU lab, while the visor blew fresh air into my face, Gordon's Ph.D. students David Luglio and Antonio Saporito held clear tubes connected to both the portable particulate monitor and the particulate counter in the path of the airflow. This happened in the small cramped space between the plastic visor and my lips. By doing this, we were able to gauge how the numbers recorded on the devices changed when the filter was turned on and off. Because it was a clean lab, the air quality was already pretty good. When we turned on the filter to rate three, the volume of PMs measured by the monitor dropped to zero. No surprise there.

Engadget Video

We applied the same method on the 14th Street-1st Avenue subway platform in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which is often flooded with college students taking the L train into Brooklyn. Using the particulate monitor and the particulate counter, we recounted how the filter did before and after being turned on. The results clearly demonstrated the Zone's effectiveness. The ambient particle monitor went from giving a reading of 200 micrograms of particle matter per cubic meter of air before it dropped close to 50. This meant the air quality went from dangerous to normal with the Zone running a level three.

Meanwhile, the particle counter went from measuring 20,000 particulates per cubic centimeter to under 1,000 at the level three. So instead of all those fine particles going up into my respiratory tract, they were wafted away through the filtration system.

NYU doctoral student David Luglio, whose thesis work has primarily focused on the health effects of long-term exposure to subway air quality in large metropolitan areas in cities like New York and D.C., was shocked by how well the Zone filtered the subway air. "Air quality in the subways in general, wildfire or not, is probably one of the worst environments to be in in New York City because concentrations are typically at least 100 micrograms per cubic meter, and outside on a typical day it is only 10 or less."

Engadget Video

In our final test, we used the same method on the busy street corner right across from the subway station. Again, the Zone did its thing. Readings from the two live monitors spiked and dropped again-proving that the Zone actually worked.

"It's Dyson and Dyson knows particles and filtrations, that's what they're famous for," Gordon said. The Dyson Zone proved it can remove ambient particles from the surrounding air, he continued. Those particles "are the main contributor to the adverse health effects of air pollution-more so than ozone, NO2, SO2," and ultimately wearing a device like the Zone will protect your lungs and your heart from the adverse health effects of long-term air pollution.

This is all great in theory. However, there almost always has to be a catch with experimental devices that explore new categories like the Zone does: the battery life. Unfortunately, while testing, the Zone would only last about an hour and a half. We had to keep a charger handy in case it decided to shut off. This, coupled with the fact that we weren't even using the audio feature while testing, told me that the device is still a long way from being practical for everyday use. Dyson is fully of this issue. "Although the audio system and the airflow system are two separate systems, they're sharing the battery," Gibson-Robinson said.

You only have to look at what Dyson has done with the vacuum cleaners, Gibson-Robinson explained. To draw a comparison, Gibson-Robinson brought up her first handheld vacuum. "[It] had a runtime of something like nine minutes, 15 minutes, something like that and now my newest one, which I got the other week, actually blew my mind. It's like 60 minutes of runtime," she continued.

It took the company a decade to make that leap. While Dyson's capacity to boost battery life in its handheld vacuums could be a good indicator that there are loads of gains to be made for the Zone, it’s nearly impossible to justify the $949 asking price. That, coupled with the fact that the climate crisis is worsening day by day, some consumers (myself included) might not be willing to wait for Dyson.

Still, Gibson-Robinson says the compromise on battery life "felt adequate" in order to offer a device that could double as a headphone and a filter. "We've obviously had to balance between because the batteries are housed in that headband... and we've had to balance comfort and weight with battery life and performance," she said. But ultimately, "It's engineered and designed to be worn primarily as a pair of headphones and then secondary, which pains me to say because I did all the filtration stuff, the secondary function is that it's a purifier," she added.

Besides the disappointing battery life, I wasn't a fan of the plastic visor itself. Although Dyson claims it's super durable (Gibson-Robinson even dropped the visor from a balcony once out of curiosity), the detachable plastic felt like an awkward appendage at times. You can pull the visor down to sit below your chin while you're wearing the headphones if you don't want to run the filter all the time. You can also flick it back up and have your face covered in a second if you are ready to turn on the filtration mode. But something about it hanging beneath my chin when the filter was off felt kind of gross after a while.

Engadget Video

If you’re a germaphobe like me, there's plenty of reason to worry about something being so close to your face all the time. For one, it bumps into your face when you put it on in a rush and do not adjust it properly. It also comes off pretty easily, making it easy to drop on, say, a gross subway station floor. On the plus side, although the material feels cheap and flimsy, it’s at least easy to clean since it’s removable and wipeable.

Still, there's a heaviness to the device overall. I don't feel like I can just brandish the headphones around my neck, especially with the visor up. Not only is it uncomfortable after a few hours of wear, but it’s sure to attract attention, which isn’t ideal when I just want to feel invisible on my commute home.

If I were really concerned with my respiratory health and wanted to limit my daily exposure to pollutants, I would choose something more practical and affordable. Is it nice to know the Zone does in fact work? Sure, but why would I drop $949 on this when I already have a pair of good noise-canceling headphones, and cheaper filtration alternatives exist. Besides the standard K-95 mask, a chemical respirator with filters used in construction and for painting, there are portable HEPA filters you can buy off of Amazon for under $50 bucks. They run for about 200 to 500 hours and have a filtration efficiency of 99.7%. It basically provides what the Zone offers in its level one filtration mode, but at a fraction of the cost and without any of the battery limitations.

Between its drone delivery attempts and its Just Walk Out tech removing the need for cashiers, Amazon is trying to make the buying experience as quick and minimally interactive with others as it can. Now, the tech company has announced that it's further expanding Just Walk Out's abilities to support softline merchandise like clothing — particularly fan gear. Amazon is making the jump with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) — a decades-old technology that utilizes radio waves for tracking (typically inventory). While Amazon might be getting into the RFID game late, clothing designers have used the technology for everything from preventing counterfeiting to quicker self-checkout. 

Like in other Just Walk Out stores, customers grab their items and pay with a card or using their palm on an Amazon One device. Each piece of merchandise has a unique tag that's read as customers pass through the exit gate — then charging them accordingly. 

Amazon tested RFID for Just Walk Out at the Seattle Kraken's Climate Pledge Arena during the last few games of the 2022-2023 NHL season. The tech company decided to expand RFID to the Seattle Seahawk's Lumen Field for the 2023 to 2024 NFL season after being "validated by positive feedback from the Kraken fans and arena officials." This opening marks the stadium's ninth Just Walk Out store — the highest number of any venue. Amazon claims that the first Just Walk Out store at Lumen Field (opened last September) had an 85 percent higher transaction rate and 112 percent better total sales per game during the 2022 to 2023 season, compared to the traditional retailer that previously existed in that storefront. 

Amazon launched its first Just Walk Out store in 2018 and has since expanded to 75 Amazon-owned and 85 third-party stores in sports stadiums, airports, college campuses and more. Currently, Just Walk Out tech is only available in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, but Amazon claims it has "new locations launching every month."