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Google Maps is expanding the Immersive View format it revealed last year to an important part of the app: routes. When you look for directions in Google Maps on iOS and Android in select cities, you'll see a more detailed view of the route.

The feature isn't just about making your journey look nicer than a bold line tracing the steps from point A to B (and maybe C). The idea is to bring all of the key information that you may need about the trip into a single place. You'll see details on traffic, weather, air quality, bike lanes and where to find nearby parking.

If you're planning a journey ahead of time and the weather is expected to be foggy or rainy, you'll see that in the visualization. Google is also using a blend of AI, real-time data and long-term trends to give you a sense of how busy traffic might be by displaying a certain number of vehicles on the virtual roads.

Ahead of Google I/O, Miriam Daniel, the vice-president of Google Maps Experiences, told Engadget that the team was focusing on the above-ground parts of the journey for now. So, don't expect the visualizations to include your subway trips quite yet. Still, given that Google Maps users look up around 20 billion kilometers' worth of directions per day, Immersive View for Routes could come in handy for many folks.

Google plans to roll out Immersive View for Routes in 15 cities by the end of the year. In the coming months, you'll be able to check it out in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo and Venice.

Immersive View uses AI and computer vision to blend together billions of aerial and Street View images to create 3D models of spaces. Google announced the feature at I/O last year and started rolling it out more broadly in February.

Elsewhere, Google has some Maps-related updates for developers (I/O is the company's annual developer conference, after all). The Google Maps Platform is offering a preview of an Aerial View API for locations in the US starting today. Developers can use this to add "a pre-packaged, birds-eye view video" of a location to their apps or websites. Some of Google's partners are testing out the API, including Rent, which is using it to offer potential renters a more expansive look at a property and the surrounding area. That could give folks a clearer idea of the location where they may end up living before they visit an apartment in person.

Meanwhile, Google is adding Photorealistic 3D Tiles to the Map Tiles API on an experimental basis starting today. This grants developers access to the high-resolution 3D imagery that powers Google Earth. It could make it easier for folks to create their own 3D maps. Google suggests that a tourism company might use the tiles to build interactive maps for guided tours or to show off the most striking features of a national park.

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2023 right here.

Hollow Knight: Silksong, the long-awaited sequel to 2017’s indie blockbuster Hollow Knight, has been delayed, as announced by Team Cherry developer Matthew Griffin on Twitter. The sidescrolling metroidvania platformer was scheduled for release in the first half of 2023, but, well, it’s May, so that isn’t happening. Additionally, the company hasn’t provided an updated release window.

“Development is still continuing. We're excited by how the game is shaping up, and it's gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can,” wrote Matthew Griffin.

Silksong was originally announced in early 2019 and hands-on gameplay demos followed in June, so folks naturally assumed that the game was close to launch. Time marched on with no real updates until last year when it was announced that Silksong would launch on Xbox Game Pass, in addition to just about every other platform. At that time, Xbox corporate vice president Sarah Bond said that the sequel would release by June of this year.

Like another long-delayed sequel, Silksong was originally conceived as a simple expansion to Hollow Knight with the game’s occasional antagonist Hornet acting as the main character. Since then, the game has apparently gotten much more ambitious. Team Cherry says it’ll release more details as we get closer to release.

Whenever it finally graces us with its presence, Hollow Knight: Silksong will launch on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X, with Game Pass availability from day one. In the meantime, there is no shortage of metroidvania games out there to hold you over.

Google is hosting its first full-on in-person I/O developer conference since the pandemic and we expect the company to announce a biblical amount of news at breakneck pace. Engadget is here at the show and will bring you a liveblog of what's happening at the keynote as it happens. The show kicks off at 1pm ET today and we'll be starting our commentary as early as noon. Keep your browser open here for our coverage of everything from Mountain View, CA today!

It’s Google I/O time, which means the company is about to host a keynote that will likely be packed with announcements and updates. We’ll be covering all the news on our liveblog and Google I/O 2023 hub, but you can watch the event in full below. The livestream starts at 1PM ET.

In terms of what to expect from the keynote, one thing that's for certain is we'll get more official details on Google's first foldable phone. The company finally announced the Pixel Fold last week after months of leaks and rumors. More information on Android 14 is also a dead cert. Get ready to hear the term "AI" a lot too, as Google is widely expected to make a ton of announcements on that front, perhaps including updates on its Bard AI chatbot.

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2023 right here.

If your charging gear is in need of a refresh, now might be a decent time to upgrade, as Anker has once again discounted a range of wall chargers, cables and power banks on Amazon. For more heavy-duty needs, a number of the company's portable power stations are also on sale.

Among the noteworthy deals here, the Anker 735 Charger is down to $38.41, which is within a dollar of its all-time low. We've seen this discount a few times before, but normally, the wall charger retails closer to $50. This is a slightly older version of the "best 65-watt charger" pick in our guide to the best fast chargers. The newer device is also called the 735 Charger, confusingly, and features smarter temperature monitoring and power distribution, but the old model delivers the same 65W of power in a similarly travel-friendly frame. Generally speaking, that's enough power to charge many smartphones and tablets around full speed and refill some smaller laptops. 

Both of the charger's USB-C ports can reach that max charging rate, plus there's a USB-A port for topping up lower-power devices. Just note that the each port will output less power if you use multiple ports at once. The updated model is also on sale for $48 with an on-page coupon. 

A couple of hybrid chargers are discounted as well, with the 45W, 5,000 mAh Anker 521 Power Bank down to $42 and the 65W, 10,000 mAh Anker 733 Power Bank down to $70. (Clip the on-page coupon in both cases to see the discount.) These devices are on the larger side, but they can serve as both a portable power bank and a wall charger with fold-up plugs. The 733's discount matches the lowest price we've seen, while the 521 is about $18 below its usual street price.

Beyond that, the company's six-foot PowerLine II USB-C to Lightning cable is down to a low of $9, while the ultracompact 20W Anker 511 Charger is within a dollar of its best price $12. Anker runs these kind of discounts fairly often, but we've found their charging gear to provide good value in severalbuyingguides, so this is a good chance to save. 

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

I routinely state that the Arturia MicroFreak is one of my favorite budget synths. But honestly, I’m doing it a disservice. I think the MicroFreak is one of the best synths out there at any price. That has as much to do with the versatility of its sound engine as it does with Arturia’s relentless updates. Since being introduced in 2019 this little synth has seen countless updates, most of them adding fairly significant new features.

The forthcoming update to firmware version 5.0 is arguably one of the biggest. It adds a sample playback engine and three different granular engines. That brings the total number of synth engines on the MicroFreak to a frankly absurd 22. Sure, not all of the engines are as usable as the others, and some are relatively similar to each other. But still, it’s a lot of versatility in a small $350 package.

When the new firmware drops around May 30th (unfortunately there are still some kinks being ironed out) there will also be an update to MIDI Control Center that will enable users to upload their own samples (up to 24 seconds in length) for playback through the four new engines. The total number of preset slots on the MicroFreak will expand to 512, and there will be two new modulation options added to the utility menu – random per-key and snap.

Since the MicroFreak had a wavetable engine to start, and in 2021 Arturia added support for custom user wavetables, sample playback should be simple enough since the wavetables are just .wav files. And if there’s sample playback and wavetable support, then granular isn’t too much of a stretch since that’s just chopping up a .wav file and playing it back in little rearranged bits. Still, granular synthesis is pretty hard to come by in a hardware instrument so it’s worth celebrating here. (Side note: I would expect to see more in the near future as granular seems to be gaining popularity and processors are powerful enough now to make building them trivial.)

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

The sample engine is relatively rudimentary. You can change the start and end point and set a loop point, but that’s it. There’s no time stretching or anything (that I’m aware of), pitch changes are achieved simply by speeding up and slowing down playback. But there’s something about the way that is handled on the MicroFreak that sounds incredible. It’s got an almost late ‘70s, early ‘80s digital vibe that speaks to my love of grit. And many of the included samples at least remain usable over a wide number of octaves. In fact, I’d say that at the lower extreme’s they’re not just usable, but fantastic sounding – especially that PGTS Keys sample. And then, obviously, you’ve got the rest of the synth at your disposal to add filtering and modulation.

One trick I quickly fell in love with was using the new per-key random setting to slightly alter the pitch. Combining that with the lo-fi piano sample gets you something that’s never quite in tune, but never so far out that it sounds bad. It does require some minor menu diving, but it’s worth it. And then the key/arp row in the mod matrix becomes another source of randomization. And honestly, I didn’t really think I needed more randomization on a synth that has both sample-and-hold and random options for the LFO, plus the Spice and Dice parameters for injecting chaos into your arps and sequences, but here we are.

I assume that instead of one granular engine, it’s broken down into three separate engines in part because of the limited controls on the front. Scan plays a sample from start to finish (mostly), but it allows you to control the speed at which the grain moves through the file so you can get really lo-fi time stretching effects. But if you modulate the speed at which it scans and set the density (number of grains) reasonably low and the chaos reasonably high, you get this sort of warped vinyl tremolo sound. I especially love the way it sounds on the Braam brass sample. The biggest con here is that samples won’t loop in the scan engine, so you can't get good drones out of it.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

Cloud, on the other hand, is built for drones. It plays back multiple overlapping grains, looping around the file to create alien textures perfect for scoring a retro sci-fi point and click adventure. This is the sort of thing that people immediately associate with granular synthesis. It has a strange character that can’t be mistaken for anything else.

Lastly, the Hit engine is all about percussion. This is where you go to create clicky sound effects and stuttering glitchy rhythm tracks, even if the source material isn’t a drum sample. In fact, I’d say the results are often more interesting when working with what was originally a melodic sample. Though, I won’t pretend it’s not loads of fun to pop an 808 kick in there and just let it create relentless, skull-crushing avalanches of bass.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

It’s rare to see a company continue to add this many features to a product years after its release. Whether we’re talking about a synth, a phone or a camera. But Arturia deserves credit (Novation too, just for the record) for continuing to devote time and resources to even its entry level products. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the MicroFreak 5.0 update is that we haven’t seen its big brother, the MiniFreak, receive a single significant update. Despite costing nearly twice the price, it now has six fewer synth engine options, at least by my count.

While you wait for the free update to drop on May 30th, take a few moments to ogle the new MicroFreak Stellar limited edition pictured at the top of this post. It swaps the original's birds and floral flourishes for a space themed design and swaps out the white keys for a monochromatic all black deck. The MicroFreak Stellar is available now for $399.

Nikon has announced the 45.7-megapixel Z8, a powerful full-frame mirrorless camera with up to 8K60p RAW video, 20fps RAW burst speeds and more. It's effectively a slimmed-down version of Nikon's Z9, and shares the latter's stacked, backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor and complete lack of a mechanical shutter. The main thing the Z8 lacks next to the Z9 is unlimited video recording, but it's also $1,500 cheaper.

Nikon is best known for photography, but the Z8's headline feature is the 8K60p N-RAW video. There's an interesting story there, as the cinema camera company RED has used its patents to stop other camera companies from using RAW video in the past. However, RED's lawsuit against Nikon was dismissed late last month, allowing Nikon to use N-RAW (a compressed 12-bit RAW codec developed in conjunction with a company called intoPIX) in any of its cameras. It can also capture 12-bit ProRes RAW video. 

Nikon

Along with 8K60p, the Z8 supports 4K capture at up to 120fps and 10-bit ProRes, H.264 and H.265 formats. It also offers exposure tools like waveforms, customizable autofocus and more. As mentioned, the smaller body means it can't record all video formats for an unlimited time like the Z9. Rather, you're limited to 90 minutes for 8K30p and two hours for 4K60p without overheating. With the stacked sensor, rolling shutter should be very well controlled, just like on the Z9.

In terms of photography, the Z9's burst speeds aren't restrained by a mechanical shutter, because there isn't one. As such, you can capture 14-bit RAW+JPEG images at up to 20 fps, mighty impressive for such a high-resolution camera. It comes with settings designed for portrait photographers like skin softening and human-friendly white balance. 

Nikon

It offers face, eye, vehicle and animal detection autofocus, promising AF speeds at the same level as the (excellent) Z9. It can recognize nine types of subjects automatically, including eyes, faces, heads and upper bodies for both animals and people, along with vehicles and more. 

The Z8's magnesium-allow body may be smaller than the Z9, but it's equally as dust- and weather-resistant. It's also much the same in terms of controls, with a generous array of dials and buttons to change settings. Battery life is good at 700 shots max (CIPA) and two-plus hours of 4K video shooting, but if you need more, you can get the optional MB-N12 battery grip ($350). 

Other features include 6.0 stops of in-body stabilization with compatible lenses, which is good but not as good as recent Sony, Canon and Panasonic models. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) has a relatively low 3.69 million dots of resolution, but also very low lag and a high 120Hz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the 3.2-inch, 2,100K dot rear display only tilts up and doesn't flip out, so the camera won't be suitable for many vloggers — a poor decision on Nikon's part, in my opinion. 

It has one SD UHS-II and one CFexpress card slot that supports speeds up to 1,500 MB/s required for internal 8K RAW recording. That differs from the Z9, which has two CFexpress card slots. On top of the usual USB-C charging port, it has a super-speed USB communication terminal for rapid data transfers. It also comes with a full-sized HDMI connector for external video recording and monitoring, along with 3.5mm headphone and microphone parts. 

The Nikon Z8 goes on sale on May 25th, 2023 for $4,000. That's $1,500 less than the $5,500 Z9, $2,500 less than the Sony A1 and $700 more than Canon's R5 — with far less serious overheating issues. 

Nikon

Another company is racing to launch the first commercial space station. Vast is partnering with SpaceX to launch its Haven-1 station as soon as August 2025. A Falcon 9 rocket will carry the platform to low Earth orbit, with a follow-up Vast-1 mission using Crew Dragon to bring four people to Haven-1 for up to 30 days. Vast is taking bookings for crew aiming to participate in scientific or philanthropic work. The company has the option of a second crewed SpaceX mission.

Haven-1 is relatively small. It isn't much larger than SpaceX's capsule, and is mainly intended for science and small-scale orbital manufacturing for the four people who dock. Vast hopes to make Haven-1 just one module in a larger station, though, and it can simulate the Moon's gravity by spinning.

As TechCrunchnotes, the 2025 target is ambitious and might see Vast beat well-known rivals to deploying a private space station. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin doesn't expect to launch its Orbital Reef until the second half of the decade. Voyager, Lockheed Martin and Nanoracks don't expect to operate their Starlab facility before 2027. Axiom stands the best chance of upstaging Vast with a planned late 2025 liftoff.

There's no guarantee any of these timelines will hold given the challenges and costs of building an orbital habitat — this has to be a safe vehicle that comfortably supports humans for extended periods, not just the duration of a rocket launch. However, this suggests that stations represent the next major phase of private spaceflight after tourism and lunar missions.

Roku is diving further into smart home equipment, and the price is once again a major draw. The company has unveiled a Home Monitoring System SE kit that includes two entry sensors, a motion sensor, a hub (with siren) and a keypad for $99. You might pay less for a whole monitor setup than you do individual parts from rival bundles.

As with earlier products, Wyze co-developed the hardware. You can monitor activity on your phone, but Roku unsurprisingly touts integration with its media players and compatible TVs. You can get an entry alert while you're watching a show. You can expand the system as needed, and an optional $100 per year professional monitoring option uses Noonlight to provide immediate help from agents.

The Home Monitoring System SE is available today through Roku and Walmart, and will reach Walmart stores in the US on May 19th alongside a currently-unpriced light strip and outdoor-oriented solar panel. A Roku OS update enabling TV monitoring notifications (plus camera history and voice control) is due in the "coming weeks."

The expansion may seem odd for a company that's closely associated with streaming devices, but it comes at a critical moment for the company. It's still laying off workers as it grapples with a rough economy, and is concentrating on projects that it believes are more likely to pay off. Smart home products could help Roku supplement its core business while competing against Amazon and others that already have a wide range of home-oriented gear.

After selling 23 million Switches two years ago and 18 million in the last year, Nintendo expects demand for the aging console to continue to fall. It's forecasting sales of 15 million for next year and isn't even confident of that figure, according to its latest earnings report. "Sustaining the Switch’s sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year," said president Shuntaro Furukawa in a call. "Our goal of selling 15 million units this fiscal year is a bit of a stretch." To achieve that, he added: "We try to not only put one system in every home but several in every home.” Well, at least the new Zelda game is just around the corner…

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Spotify has reportedly removed tens of thousands of AI-generated songs

Universal Music claimed bots inflated the number of streams.

Spotify has reportedly pulled tens of thousands of tracks from generative AI company Boomy. It's said to have removed seven percent of the songs created by the startup's systems, which underscores the swift proliferation of AI-generated content on music streaming platforms. Universal Music reportedly told Spotify and other major services that it detected suspicious streaming activity on Boomy's songs, to glean more money from Spotify, which pays out on a per-listen basis.

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VanMoof simplifies things for its new, cheaper S4 and X4 e-bikes

Pick from a typical and step-through frame.

VanMoof

VanMoof is trying to deliver premium e-bike features and build quality for substantially less money. At $2,498, that’s $1,000 less than the company’s top-of-the-range S5 and X5 bikes, but that doesn’t make them exactly cheap. VanMoof co-founder Ties Carlier said in a press release this was an attempt at a “more simple, more accessible and more reliable” e-bike. One major simplification is the transition to adaptive motor support and a two-speed gear hub. The SX5 series had a three-speed gear system, and while it had a torque sensor to assist, adaptive motor support is new for these cheaper e-bikes. The company expects the range to be equivalent to both the SA5 and older SX3 e-bikes, 37-62 miles (60-150 km), depending on conditions and rider. Both the VanMoof S4 and X4 are available to pre-order now.

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Apple Watch Series 9 may finally get a new processor

The watches have used the same one since 2020.

The Apple Watch has effectively used the same processor since 2020's Series 6, but it's poised for a long-due upgrade. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claims the Apple Watch Series 9 will use a truly "new processor." He believes the CPU in the S9 system-on-chip will be based on the A15 chip, which first appeared in the iPhone 13 family. Apple has historically introduced new Apple Watches in September, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait.

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Twitter is going to purge and archive inactive accounts

Elon Musk says it's important to 'free up abandoned handles.'

Twitter owner Elon Musk has warned the social network’s users they may see a drop in followers because the company is purging accounts that have "had no activity at all" for several years. Musk's announcement was quite vague, so we'll have to wait for Twitter to announce more specific rules, such as how long "several years" actually is. At the moment, though, the website has yet to update its inactive account policy page, which only states users need to log in every 30 days to keep their account active.

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WhatsApp begins testing Wear OS support

The beta lets you record voice messages or chat on Google-powered wearables.

WhatsApp is now testing an app for Wear OS 3 on devices like the Galaxy Watch 5, Pixel Watch and others. It has much of the functionality of the mobile versions, showing recent chats and contacts, while allowing you to send voice and text messages. WhatsApp offers a circular complication that shows unread messages on your watch's home page. There are also two tiles for contacts and voice messages to let you quickly access people or start a voice message recording. It's a significant release for Wear OS 3, with an ultra-popular app that most people have on their phones, in turn fulfilling Google's aim of getting more developers on the platform.

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A robot puppet rolled through San Francisco singing Vanessa Carlton hits

Only 951 miles to go!

YouTube

Twenty-one years after Vanessa Carlton released her debut single, ‘A Thousand Miles,’ a team of hobbyist roboticists has brought Carlton’s music back to the public ear — this time, to the streets of San Francisco, with an animatronic performer and, thankfully, a disco ball.

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