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I wonder how often technology journalism is aspirational rather than useful, like when you watch car reviewers testing million dollar rides. I comfort myself knowing that while flagship laptops are pricey, there are few gadgets so eye-wateringly expensive that they’re just for one percenters. What then to make of Withings’ newest smart scale, the Body Scan Connected Health Station, which is priced at four hundred British pounds (around $479)? That’s mad money to pay for any smart scale, especially when you can get a great scale from Withings for a quarter of that price.

Withings’ Body Scan was actually announced back at the start of 2022, but the usual gamut of regulatory hurdles means it’s only now making its debut in Europe. It’ll arrive in the US at some point in the future, but given the FDA’s sausage machine it’s hard to get anyone to commit to a firm date. The intervening year has also dented the price, which was originally set at $300 before costs and the semiconductor crisis pushed things ever northward.

Withings is, and was, selling this on the basis that it’s not just a smart scale but a bigger suite of comprehensive body analysis tools. It’s supposed to be the equal of sort of gear you might find at a high-end gym or a low-end clinical setting. It analyzes your segmented body composition, runs a six-lead ECG, measures your nerve activity and monitors your vascular age. It’ll also use Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) to monitor the sweat levels in your feet to look for signs of neuropathy.

My first impression is that it looks like someone glued Withings’ cheaper Body Comp scale to its own weighted base and it feels wonderfully solid. So too does the grip, which you’ll need to do any of the fancy body-analysis tests during your morning weigh-in. It’s held in place with a thin but sturdy-looking braided tension-reel cable that I’m sure will survive a lot but, that said, I’m not going to leave it in the vicinity of my children.

Withings has the setup process down to a fine art: Wake the scale, open its Health Mate app, give it your WiFi password and sit back. The mandatory software update took all of two minutes and then you can set a weight loss goal inside the app. Weigh in for five days in a row, and it’ll then be set and ready to give you suggestions on how better to improve your lifestyle. You’ll also be shown a series of how-to guides teaching you how to get the best out of your new hardware.

Not that there’s much to learn: Get on the scale, hold the grab at pelvis height and wait 90 seconds for it to do its thang. It’ll run the gamut of tests measuring your weight, body fat, muscle mass, visceral fat, ECG, Pulse Wave Velocity, vascular age and nerve health. It’ll then relay those data points to you in a big, bright, bold and easy-to read manner, followed by the day’s weather and an indicator about the local air quality (pulled from an online service).

Daniel Cooper

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at scales, and some scales like to put a lot of data on a very small screen to the point where it’s unreadable. Withings has nailed the UI here, and despite the full color display, the layout is clean and everything is super easy to read. Especially at 7am when you’ve just staggered out of the shower and you don’t yet have your glasses on. Fonts are clear, trend lines are chunky and cleanly differentiated from the background. It seems simple, but you’d be surprised how many companies don’t get this stuff right. The sense of details being sweated extends to the fact the scale has a vibration motor, telling you when the process has started and finished.

I’ve always praised Health Mate as Withings’ secret weapon in the health-tech wars, with its clean UI and depth of data. I was concerned that, as its devices get more powerful, it’d start to feel flabby or cluttered, but the card layout on its home screen remains easy to digest. Each lozenge presents a small graph that just shows the trend rather than stuffing it full of individual data points. And it’s only when you press into each sub menu that you can see the information in its more precise glory.

It’s early days, but there’s been nothing on the analysis that feels like it’s wrong, although it’ll need a lot of calibration testing to prove that definitively. The segmented body composition is certainly spot on, highlighting the areas of my body that are carrying the most timber. And it’s nice, easy to understand, and sobering (delete as appropriate) to see the healthy and unhealthy parts of my body. Having all of this laid out with Withings’ new Health+ coaching system, too, which will start offering suggestions about how I can improve, is also a benefit.

I know people will disagree with me, but I like the fact that the Body Scan has an integral, USB-C charged battery with a rated life of a year. Some folks prefer having AAA batteries instead, but I always feel that when you’re spending this much on a scale, being tasked with buying batteries on top makes me feel like I’m being nickel-and-dimed. I’m also of the opinion that any recurring revenue service has to work pretty hard to justify my cash, but I’ve not yet had enough time with Health+ to say if it does or not.

There is the problem that all of this data may not be taken very seriously by your physician if you rush in asking for help. A medical practitioner in the UK, who asked not to be named, said that while the inclusion of a six-lead ECG in a bathroom scale was impressive, they wouldn’t be swayed by the results it produced. Instead, they would look at the symptoms the patient was presenting, their medical history, and would run their own ECG before making any judgment. And that there was a risk of data being misinterpreted by novice users and using it to make poor decisions.

So, on one hand, I’ve got nothing but praise for Withings’ Body Scan Connected Health Station, which is the pinnacle of what a smart scale can be right now. And I’m certainly thrilled at the idea that you can have this wealth of data all collated in a single place for better monitoring of your health. But, and it’s the most obvious but in the world, I’m not sure anyone really needs to spend this much money on one. Especially if you already have a smart scale and a smartwatch that can do some sort of heart health analysis with an ECG.

In many ways, it’s like one of those car reviewers showing you what you could have if you had a spare million in your checking account. Yes, it’s well made, does everything you could ask for, and does it all within one of the best health tech ecosystems on the market. But for this money? You can get to work just as well in a Toyota as you can in a Maybach.

The PlayStation VR2 is here, and it’s mostly great! But its high price and limited library make it hard to recommend for many gamers. This week, Devindra and Nathan Ingraham dive into our review of the PS VR2, and why our feelings about it are sort of complicated. Also, we discuss why Bing’s AI search is catching a bad attitude, and what Microsoft has to say about it. And be sure to stay tuned for our thoughts on HBO’s The Last of Us as we reach the middle of its first season.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

• Playstation VR2 review: a great headset that should be cheaper – 1:30

• Microsoft apologizes for strange problems with Bing’s ChatGPT service – 23:43

• This week in Twitter mess: Elon takes over your main feed – 41:47

• Around Engadget: Oppo Find M2 foldable review – 44:35

• Pop culture picks (with minor spoilers for The Last of Us) – 50:47

• Last of Us spoilers end – 1:01:15

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Credits
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Nathan Ingraham
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos
Graphic artists: Luke Brooks

PlayStation’s next-gen VR headset is here. It’s high-spec and, boy, high priced. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says it’s a massive step forward from the original PSVR, thanks to its high-resolution screens and innovative features like headset haptics.

Engadget

Back in 2016, when the original launched, VR was making another push into the mainstream, which kicked off with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The tech has evolved at an incredible pace, so seven years later, this sequel headset feels more comfortable and comes with far more advanced controllers. (The first PSVR used Move controller wands originally launched for the PS3 back in 2010!) The new Sense controllers are actually purpose-built for virtual reality, with a large tracking ring, analog sticks, two face buttons, triggers and haptic feedback.

Hardawar adds that Horizon VR, one of few marquee launch titles, taps into the headset's eye-tracking sensors for foveated rendering, concentrating the PS5's power on what you're looking at. However, that $550 price and a potentially limited library could limit its impact – the same old story of what’s wrong with VR.

– 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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Microsoft explains Bing's bizarre AI chat behavior

It can get confused during long chat sessions or when used for 'entertainment.'

Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat for the Edge browser last week, and it's been in the news ever since – but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. However, users started noticing Bing's bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited “unhinged” behavior, calling users "unreasonable and stubborn" (among other things) when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong. Those “long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions" can send things off the rails,” Microsoft explained.

"Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone," the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to "forget" what it was trying to answer in the first place.

Continue reading.

Google relies on human employees to improve Bard chatbot responses

The chatbot 'learns best by example,' a company exec said.

In a video ad for Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, the AI confidently spouted misinformation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the tech giant is looking to improve Bard's accuracy, and according to CNBC, it's asking employees for help.

Google's VP for search, Prabhakar Raghavan, reportedly emailed staff members, asking them to rewrite Bard responses on topics they know well. The chatbot "learns best by example," Raghavan said, and training it with factual answers will help improve its accuracy. This memo came after Google CEO Sundar Pichai emailed employees, asking them to spend a few hours each week testing the AI chatbot. Google employees have reportedly criticized Pichai for a "rushed" and "botched" Bard rollout.

Continue reading.

Watch the trailer for Apple's 'Tetris' movie set during the Cold War

You could say it's a blockbuster.

Apple

The story behind how Tetris became a global phenomenon is the basis of an upcoming Apple TV+ movie. Instead of shoehorning the blockbusting antics of the game into a movie – we see you, Pixels – the fast-paced trailer (soundtracked by "The Final Countdown") highlights some of the inherent tension between Soviet Russia, US capitalist forces and everyone stuck between the two. Henk Rogers, played by Taron Egerton, encounters resistance from a British media mogul who wants the game, KGB agents and even Mikhail Gorbachev.

Continue reading.

Tesla admits its Full Self-Driving beta may cause crashes

It is recalling 363,000 vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Thursday that Tesla is recalling nearly 363,000 of its vehicles because the Full Self-Driving software may cause a crash. Specifically, the NHTSA cites a risk to "exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash." Tesla will release an OTA update, free of charge, to its customers to rectify the issue, Reuters reports. The recall impacts over 362,000 vehicles.

Continue reading.

Octopath Traveler 2 is a retro-styled RPG, set in another steampunk-esque fantasy world. Square Enix isn’t reinventing the turn-based RPG for this sequel, instead expanding and (mildly) correcting some of the weaker parts of the original. There are new battle dynamics and moves, a well-utilized day-and-night game mechanism, and shared stories that attempt to convey a connection between the eight narratives. But it’s still a casual one. If Final Fantasy XV was about four best buddies going on a road-trip, then Octopath Traveler 2 is more like an Uber Pool rideshare. There might be friendly small talk, but there’s still not enough of a meaningful connection between the eight protagonists.

Nintendo

Octopath Traveler 2 doesn’t offer any technical graphical upgrades I need to explain, although there seems to be a little more detail to both the sprites and environments. It’s still a pretty game. Half of the appeal is how games like this coax my memories of 16- and 32-bit games.

Having said that, the team behind this series has realized they can play with the scale a bit more: this is the Nintendo Switch, not a SNES. In some of the opening scenes for Hikari the warrior, characters rush past a crowd of 40 or so fighting in a desert. Developers Acquire and Team Asano have amped up the cinematic cutscenes a little more, too. Cameras will pan out and around your characters, as they brood on cliff faces, or as they’re forced to kill their abusive parents.

OP2 tries, only ever so slightly, to convey the idea that you’re on a collective journey. Once you’ve chosen your main character (who will be ‘locked’ into your party until you complete all five chapters of their story), you’ll bump into other travelers. Then you’ll be given the option to play through their origin story, or circle back to it at the local tavern at a time that’s suitable for you.

Nintendo

Occasionally there will be some minor banter elements, called “shared stories” where two characters will share a few scenes together. These often connect stories and offer up some rewards. Still, it’s a little too infrequent – and not enough to get the impression this is a team of heroes helping each other to save the world from various calamities – or become a global dance superstar. (Yes, that’s someone’s aim.)

Osvald, the scholar, starts his journey in prison, accused of killing his wife and child. He’s this game’s defacto black mag,e with an array of elemental attacks. Still, this time, given his gritty backstory, his path actions (abilities and interactions you can make with non-playable characters in towns, and generally any time outside of battles) aren’t your typical black mage traits. One is scrutinize, a risky way of gleaning information from characters, while the other is mug, where you can duel pretty much any NPC you come across, and steal their possessions if you win.

However, with eight characters, many path actions overlap. Castti, an item expert and apothecary, can inquire for the same information you can get from scrutinizing, without any risk – she just has to be a high enough level. Meanwhile, Throné, the thief, can steal during daylight hours, giving the same results of a mugging without the fight.

Alongside those skills, each character also starts with a unique talent, offering battle abilities or passive skills that others won’t be able to use, even after unlocking secondary classes.

Nintendo

Like the original, the battle system comes into its own once you can switch around job roles. To do so, however, you’ll need to find the guild for each job to unlock it. Some are easy enough to find – I came across two of the ‘secret’ jobs entirely by accident – while others are eluding me even now, 60 hours into the game, at roughly level 60 across my party. Where are you, hunter guild!?

More effort has been made to tonally differentiate the eight tales of Octopath Traveler 2 compared to its predecessor. With Temenos the cleric, who works as some sort of blasphemy hunter/mystery solver, gets a few scenes where he’s trying to solve crime scene mysteries. It’s not exactly Phoenix Wright, with all the clues there, twinkling away, waiting for you to walk up to them, but it helps to make the chapters feel different to the others.

Partitio, the merchant, likewise, has a story that feels like some whimsical K-drama, as this entrepreneur makes friends of enemies and travels the world striking deals. He gets an oddly bizarre montage of his final deal striking, hopping on ships and visiting a few secondary characters you probably already forgot. The aforementioned Castii starts the game with amnesia (ah that video game classic), and if there’s anything shared across most of the characters, it’s the sense that most of them are unreliable narrators. Rounding out the cast you have Agnea, the dancer, and Ochette, the hunter. (Not all eight will resonate with everyone, will they?)

Even the final chapters for each of the eight characters only results in a few extra banter scenes. I’m playing through the final chapters for each character, and if it's anything like OP1, this will probably unlock a true final area, dungeon and boss. At this point, I doubt all the themes and story will coalesce into a satisfying conclusion — there’s been some allusions to a ‘shadow’, but that’s true of 90 percent of all RPGs. /I’ll be happy with another challenging boss.

Nintendo

The battle dynamics follow the same formula of the last game: you aim to break the enemies’ defenses through applying elemental and weapon weaknesses. Break them, and they’ll stop attacking — or reset the charge-up to their high damage abilities – allowing you to do increased damage, or carefully heal and prepare for the next part of the fight. Once again, you’ll be able to boost attacks as a battle continues, augmenting damage or extending the length of strengthening spells and other boons.

The sequel adds latent powers, a limit-break styled super attack unique to each character. For some, this allows them to handily perform two actions at once, while others will deal augmented damage or supercharge spells and physical attacks. This was how I found my favorite characters and they seemed to stick around the squad longer. (Thank you for your service, Throné.)

Day and night affect the entire game, and thankfully it’s an easy trigger button that you can tap at any time outside of a battle. There are benefits to fighting during night, depending on the characters. Throné and Temenos offer debuffs and buffs at the start of nighttime fights, although it seems like fights are generally tougher than during the day. You will also come across different enemies depending on the time of day. This transition will also move NPCs around the town, or make them disappear entirely. The music also thoughtfully segues between the two states, which is a nice touch. Yet again, OP2 has a polished soundtrack, filled with orchestral bangers and several battle-theme earworms.

OP2 builds on the strengths of the first game, with lots of non-linear options to the story, with enough of a difference between chapters to break it all up. However, there still isn’t quite enough cohesion between the travelers and the tales they weave.

Octopath Traveler 2 launches on Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and Steam on February 24th.

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Tesla has denied that it terminated employees at its Buffalo, New York Autopilot facility in response to a new union campaign. Days after workers at the facility sent a letter to company chief Elon Musk stating their intention to unionize, the campaign's organizers accused the automaker of illegally terminating employees in retaliation. In a blog post, Tesla called their accusation a "false allegation" and said that those who were let go lost their jobs because of their own doing. 

The company explained that it conducts performance reviews every six months and that workers are graded 1 to 5 for each cycle. It "helps them calibrate their work," Tesla wrote, and they will be let go if they fail to meet their performance expectations. These reviews are apparently conducted everywhere Tesla has a facility, with the most recent cycle covering July 2022 through December 2022. Tesla said it identified the people who will be let go on February 3rd, over a week before organizers sent their letter to Musk, and that managers were told way back in December that low performers will start exiting the company on the week of February 12th.

Moreover, the company explicitly stated that 4 percent of the employees on the Autopilot labeling team was let go due to their poor performance reviews. (Tesla said it only learned in hindsight that one out of the 27 impacted employees is part of the union campaign.) They received prior feedback, Tesla said, but "they did not demonstrate sufficient improvement." If you'll recall, the union organizers in Buffalo are in charge of labeling data for Autopilot. They previously told Bloomberg that they're fighting for better pay and working conditions that reduce production pressures. 

The workers said Tesla monitors their keystrokes to determine how much time they spend on each task and how many hours they spend working in a day. They've reportedly been skipping bathroom breaks, as a result. But in Tesla's response, it said that time monitoring is only there "to calculate how long it takes to label an image," so "there is nothing to be gained by delaying bathroom breaks." The report that Tesla pressures its employees is "categorically false," it added. Tesla didn't mention anything regarding the employees' complaint about not having a voice in the company's though: Workers previously said that talks of forming a union began after management shut down an internal chatroom where they can air their grievances. 

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Microsoft has formally approved a way to run Windows 11 on ARM-based Macs, if not in the way you might hope. In a new support article, the company has "authorized" using Parallels Desktop 18 to run the ARM versions of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise on M1- and M2-based Macs. If you need Windows for work, you can theoretically use the virtual machine without angering your IT manager.

As you might guess, there are limitations. You can't run 32-bit ARM apps, in part because Microsoft is deprecating 32-bit software for all ARM Windows builds. Devices won't work unless they have Windows 11 ARM drivers. You can't use anything that depends on another layer of virtualization, such as Android apps, the Linux sybsystem and Windows Sandbox. Don't expect to run some games, either, as anything that requires at least DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 won't work.

It's been possible to run Windows 11 in Parallels on ARM Macs since 2021, and it even ran reasonably well. You needed to use an Insider preview of the OS at the time, though, and Microsoft said at the time that it didn't plan to support new Macs. The sanctioned approach clears up licensing headaches, and Parallels Desktop 18 now lets you download and install Windows 11 with little effort.

As The Vergeexplains, it's not certain how Microsoft has changed the licensing — until now, it only licensed ARM versions of Windows directly to PC vendors. We've asked the company for comment. Parallels says you can buy either an individual Windows 11 Pro license or go through your employer's usual purchasing process.

This won't satisfy users who want native Windows support like they had with Intel-based Macs running Apple's Boot Camp. You won't get the performance or compatibility you would on a PC built for Windows on ARM. It may be the closest you get short of a collaboration between Apple and Microsoft, though, and it might do the trick if there's a must-run Windows productivity app.

T-Mobile has quite the offer for subscribers who are also soccer fans. The carrier will offer its customers a year of Major League Soccer Season Pass to watch in the Apple TV app. Usually $99 annually, the service broadcasts “every live regular-season match, all MLS Cup playoff matches and the Leagues Cup.” Additionally, there are no blackouts — a concept that fans of the three most popular American sports leagues may have trouble processing.

The offer will be available in the T-Mobile Tuesdays app starting February 21. Once the deal is live, T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile subscribers can download the app and sign in with their phone numbers to claim the offer.

T-Mobile has offered some enticing deals through the years in its Tuesdays app, but this one stands out from much of the typical fare (like a free Frosty from Wendy’s). In addition, it’s an opportunity for MLS and Apple TV+ to expand their reach while giving T-Mobile a carrot to lure subscribers from competing cellular providers.

The Apple TV app isn’t limited to Apple devices; you can also install it on Roku, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Chromecast, Amazon Fire devices, Android TV, cable streaming boxes (including Comcast, Cox and Verizon) and smart TVs from Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG and Panasonic. You can also tune in using a browser at the Apple TV+ website.

Snap says it has hit a new milestone, as Snapchat now has more than 750 million monthly active users. The company also noted recently that 375 million users hop into the app every day. While that's a far cry from the 2.96 billion monthly and 2 billion daily active users Facebook has, Snapchat's audience numbers are trending upwards. Snap said at an investor day event that it sees "a path for Snapchat to reach over 1 billion people in the next two to three years."

Breaking those figures down a little, most of Snapchat's audience is outside of North America, where it now has more than 150 million monthly active users. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the app reaches more than three-quarters of 13- to 34-year-olds in more than 20 countries and users post more than 5 billion snaps every day. The Snapchat+ subscription service, meanwhile, has more than 2.5 million members just over seven months after it went live. More than 300 million people use the Snap Map every month too.

These are much-needed signs of positivity for Snap after a rough 2022. The company's stock plummeted by over 80 percent between late 2021 and middle of last year, when it laid off around 1,300 employees. It also ditched its Pixy selfie drone after four months.