At least year's CES, Shure presented its first true wireless earbuds called Aonic 215 — it even released the model's second-gen version this September. Both pairs, however, comes with earhooks. Now, the company has launched a new true wireless earbud model with a more "traditional" design you'd now associate with the product category. It's called the Aionic Free, and while it may be larger than its rivals on the market, it is indeed hook-free. 

The Aionic Free blocks noise from entering your ears with its foam buds and its angled design. It can last for up to seven hours of listening, while its carrying case can provide up to two full charges for a total of 21 hours of battery life. The earbuds also have a fast charge feature that enables an hour of playback within 15 minutes in the case.

You can control volume and playback, as well as take calls with a single press on either earbud. If you want to customize button functions, you can do so using the company's app. The app will also let you personalize how much noise you want to let in when Environment Mode is switched on, customize notifications and let you play standard and hires music files. Shure's Aionic Free is now available from retailers and the company's website for $199.

Facebook is bringing monetization features into yet another part of its service: groups. The social network is testing new tools that allow group admins to make money, with new shopping, fundraising and subscription features.

The company announced the updates at its annual Communities Summit event, where it said the new features will help people who run groups “sustain” the communities they have built. With the changes, Facebook is group admins three ways to monetize their communities. The first two, community shops and fundraisers, mirror features elsewhere on the platform. Community shops is an extension of Facebook’s existing features, and allows group admins to sell themed merch or other goods. Likewise, fundraisers will enable admins to crowdfund specific projects or otherwise “offset the costs of running the group.”

But the third feature is entirely new: paid subgroups. Subgroups are essentially smaller groups-within-a-group where members pay a monthly fee to participate. While Facebook is also allowing group admins to set up free subgroups, the paid version of the feature is the company’s latest effort to create subscription-based products. Elsewhere, Facebook has been hyping subscriptions as a way for creators to make money, either via newsletters or fan subscriptions for streamers. In the context of groups, subscriptions are meant to enable access to exclusive or specialized content like “coaching or networking or deeper conversations.”

Facebook

Maria Smith, Facebook’s VP of Communities says that Facebook doesn’t expect all groups will want or need paid features, but that many groups already sell their own merch or organize fundraisers. So bringing the tools directly to them could be useful. On the other hand, groups have also been home to Facebook’s most toxic and divisive content, and the company has at times struggled to keep problematic groups in check.

Given Facebook’s track record here, it feels almost inevitable that some groups will find a way to misuse these tools (Facebook is planning a slow rollout, so most groups won’t have access to these features right away.) Smith notes that subgroups will have the same moderation tools as the wider group and that it could in some cases make it easier for admin to handle. “It’s going to classify the discussions in the different subgroups and then they can manage them more efficiently,” she said. She added that groups and subgroups will also be required to follow the company’s commerce guidelines and fundraising rules.

As much as groups have been maligned, the feature is also the one that Facebook frequently points to as proof that its platform can bring people together and be a force for good. Facebook has also indicated that groups will play an important role in its plan to build a metaverse. “We're focused on building bridges from our apps on 2D screens into more immersive virtual experiences,” Mark Zuckerberg said at the start of Thursday’s event. “Facebook, and your groups, are going to be central to this.”

Zuckerberg is still explaining what a Metaverse means for the social network and the company now known as Meta. But it’s not hard to imagine that today’s Facebook groups could one day inhabit virtual spaces within the metaverse, though that vision is still “a ways off,” says Smith.

In addition to the new monetization features, Facebook announced several other updates for groups, including:

• New customization features that allow admins to change background colors, font styles and other aspects of the way groups look

• Community chats to make it easier for admins and group moderators to reach each other

• A new “featured” section so group admins can pin content that stays at the top of the group

• Facebook also plans to start testing a new set of features that will streamline the groups and Pages experience for admins who manage both a group and a corresponding page. It’s still not totally clear exactly how this will work, but Facebook says the goal is to bring some group-specific features, like moderation tools, into Pages while also giving admins the ability to “use an official voice when interacting with their community.”

T-Mobile is offering its customers another perk. Folks with a new or existing T-Mobile or Sprint postpaid cell or home internet plan can snag a year of access to Paramount+ Essential at no extra cost starting on November 9th. T-Mobile also offers subscribers on eligible plans free access to Apple TV+ and Netflix.

Paramount+ Essential is the lower tier of the streaming service and it typically costs $5/month or $50/year. There are some ads and although you won't be able to stream your local CBS station, you can catch live NFL on CBS and UEFA Champions League games. The offer is also open to current Paramount+ subscribers.

Even though it won't cost T-Mobile subscribers anything extra for a year, they'll still need a credit card to sign up for Paramount+. If you don't cancel your plan before the year is up, Paramount+ will start charging for a monthly subscription. So it's probably worth setting a reminder to cancel if you don't plan to keep using the service after 12 months — Paramount+ won't send you a reminder that your free access is running out. 

Along with live sports, Paramount+ offers a wide selection of shows from CBS, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and other Viacom networks, as well as Paramount movies such as A Quiet Place Part II and PAW Patrol: The Movie. Paramount+ has originals as well, of course, including severalStar Trek shows, Evil, South Park movies and the terrific The Good Fight. 

You no longer have to tap an Instagram link in Twitter to see what you'll get. Twitter has started rolling out preview cards for Instagram links in its official apps and the web. If someone shares an Insta post, you'll see a thumbnail of the imagery you can expect when you tap that link. You may know if a photo is like-worthy without leaving your Twitter timeline.

The move puts an end to a long-running feud. Instagram's Twitter photo integration vanished in 2012, and neither social network has had a strong incentive to use preview cards in the years since. Twitter would rather you post photos directly on its service, while Instagram clearly has motivations to keep you using its platform whenever possible. Those issues apparently aren't much of a problem at this stage.

It's not clear what prompted the decision. We've asked Instagram for comment. Either way, it's good news if you're a social media fan — there should be less guesswork and more attention for your posts.

HBO Max has released the first teaser video and images for its adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel's post-apocalyptic novel, Station Eleven. In the short video, you'll get glimpses of Jeevan (Himesh Patel), Kirsten (Matilda Lawler as her younger version and Mackenzie Davis as her older version) and the other main characters of the story, as they face a pandemic that ravaged most of the planet. 

The teaser trailer starts off with Jeevan and young Kirsten purchasing carts upon carts of food from a nearly empty supermarket, as well as a a lone cashier who didn't know where to go. From there, we see a montage of bleak landscapes, a ferris wheel and a building on fire, a theater performance (which is a central element to the story), a mysterious figure, people panicking and then trying to rebuild what they lost.

Mandel's novel is set in the Great Lakes region before and after a fictional swine flu pandemic killed most of the world's population. According to Polygon, it started shooting in Chicago in January 2020, but because of the real-life pandemic still affecting us right now, production had to be moved to Mississauga, Ontario and concluded in July. The 10-episode limited series was directed by Hiro Murai (Atlanta), while Patrick Somerville (Made for Love) served as writer and showrunner. It will be available to stream on HBO Max, starting on December 16th.

A cryptocurrency inspired by Squid Game successfully enticed enough investors to see its value soar to over $2,800... before its creators cashed out and vanished. The cryptocurrency called $SQUID, which wasn't officially sanctioned by Netflix, launched in late October and rose up to 310,000 percent in value within just a few days. It was sold supposedly as a way to play an upcoming online game based on the South Korean series, in which people buried in debt are forced to play a deadly game. 

At 5:40AM on Monday morning, however, the coin's value plummeted to $0, its website disappeared (you can view an archive here) and its Twitter account got blocked. As Gizmodo explained, its creators staged what's called in the crypto world as a "rug pull," wherein the coin's creators cash out for real money and disappear. The scammers may have made off with as much as $3.38 million. 

There were multiple signs that the cryptocurrency was a scam from the start — people merely missed or ignored them, perhaps due to the promise of a game based on the popular Netflix show. Its website was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and as Gizmodo pointed out, people were able to buy coins but weren't allowed to sell them. 

This isn't the first time a coin based on a pop culture phenomenon was launched, and it won't be the last. While some may be legit, those interested to invest in them will have to keep an eye out for signs of fraud. Just earlier this year, a cryptocurrency based on The Mandalorian turned out to be a scam, as well.

Despite Facebook’s attempts at verifying suspiciously popular accounts, it isn’t perfect (to say the least). The Verge has reported that the company has mistakenly verified a Facebook fan page for Elon Musk as Musk’s own official account. On top of that, it appears to be run by a Bitcoin scammer.

The page, which has 153,000 followers as of this writing, actually acknowledges it isn't Musk... at least in the About section. It says there: “This is a fanpage, uploading tweets etc from him.” But then the URL ends in "ElonMuskoffici", which indicates they're certainly pretending as if it's official. In the Page Transparency section, it says that the people who manage the page are “based in Egypt,” not in the US, which is where Musk resides.

Engadget

The account currently has 11 posts, and while most of them are just reposts of Musk’s tweets, the most recent one is clearly a phony Bitcoin giveaway (the post has since been removed). The earliest is on October 21st, but as The Verge pointed out, the page was actually created on July 28th 2019 under the name “Kizito Gavin” with several name changes since then. It changed its name to Elon Musk on October 17th.

Facebook verification requires account owners to submit proof of their identity, such as driver's license or passport, but scammers have at times found ways around the official process.

We’ve reached out to Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, for comment, but have not received a response just yet. 

The most famous bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe is taking center stage in his own show. Disney+ has offered a taste of what’s in store in The Book of Boba Fett with the first trailer for the series.

Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) is now the crime lord of Tatooine. Fett was presumed dead after falling into the sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi, but he returned in The Mandalorian.

The trailer shows Fett and his partner Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen, also reprising her role from The Mandalorian) ruling over the desert planet's underworld. They attempt to maintain order among criminals, while fending off the threat of a coup. Fett seems more magnanimous than his former boss Jabba the Hutt, who'd have fed someone to one of his creatures over the smallest perceived slight. Fett, however, allows his critics to speak freely.

We'll get to learn more about this new era of crime on Tatooine when The Book of Boba Fett premieres on Disney+ on December 29th. Meanwhile, season three of The Mandalorian is in production, but it's not clear when that show will return to the streaming service.

I want to get one thing out of the way at the top. I wish that anyone — anyone — other than Kanye West had released the Stem Player. At this point he’s more than 10 years past the creative zenith of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and five years removed from the uneven, but decent Life of Pablo. These days, his cultural relevance is driven more by spectacle and controversy than artistic output.

Still, I can’t help but be drawn to the Donda Stem Player: It’s a fascinating and unique device. But my interest is in spite of, not because of Kanye West.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

So what is it? Well, it’s basically a tiny puck-shaped computer dedicated specifically to remixing Kanye’s latest album. Using it you can change the volume of different stems, or tracks, in the songs on Donda. For instance, if you’re wondering what “Off the Grid” would sound like as an instrumental you can simply turn down the vocals. Or if you find the sonar ping synth in “Jonah” unbearable, just turn it off. You can also create loops of little song chunks, reverse them, speed them up, slow them down and even add effects.

It looks kinda like a sex toy, though, and is covered in what I assume are surplus Fleshlights. It doesn’t feel unpleasant, exactly, but it is slightly unnerving. And the vaguely fleshy hue doesn’t help matters. The main controls on the front are four touch-sensitive strips that light up to tell you what volume a track is at or what effect you’ve selected, for instance. The whole thing vibrates, too, with haptic feedback every time you touch a button or a strip, though it can lag behind your actual touch quite a bit.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

One of the limitations here is that it tops out at four stems. This often means all the melodic content is one track. I’ll also say that the effect selection leaves something to be desired. There are two different speeds of tremolo, a few different echo options and “feedback” which is basically just an out of control echo.

Being able to quickly loop a chunk of music, reverse and slap some reverb on it is kinda fun. It allows you to transform a song into something completely unrecognizable, but it’s not super useful as a practical remix tool.

I was somewhat disappointed by the Stem Player’s ability to handle non-Donda tracks. The site promises that you can upload any song to the player. You can even drop in a YouTube link and it will parse out the audio. Then it will automatically split the song into stems so you can remix it. This is no easy task, even for pro-grade software on a high-powered PC. Predictably, it's hit or miss here.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

The Stem Player handled “DIRTY!” from JPEGMAFIA and “Stonefruit” by Armand Hammer reasonably well, though there was some slight bleed through of the synth line into the vocal stem on “Stonefruit.” Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” fared a little worse. Half the bass line was on its own track, while the other half was lumped in with the drums. It even bled into the vocals. There was also a decent amount of digital artifacts in the stems.

It would seem that fairly stripped-down hip hop productions will do ok, but as the complexity of a song increases the Stem Player starts to struggle parsing the different parts. The Armed’s “An Iteration,” for example, was broken down into drums, vocals and a single track of everything else. Then the fourth stem, which is supposed to be for bass, was basically silent. In fact, I often encountered this issue with music I uploaded to the Stem Player myself. Badbadnotgood’s “Love Proceeding” was reduced to just two stems: drums and not drums.

I have concerns about what happens to the Stem Player in a few years or even months time, too. The only way to upload new songs to it is through the Stem Player website. So if that ever goes offline you might be stuck. I also can’t figure out how to get mixes and songs off the player. The instructions both included with the player and on the site are pretty barebones and at times, slightly confusing. In the FAQ it says you can save what you’re mixing by pressing the volume up button then it explains that “four recordings can be saved, play back from the final, red track.” The only problem is, I have no idea what the hell that means.

Perhaps the biggest knock against the Stem Player is the price. $200 is a lot to throw at a musical curiosity. Especially when that money mostly serves to feed the ego of one of the most megalomaniacal celebrities in the world.

Facebook made it pretty clear that it's focusing on the metaverse when it rebranded itself as Meta, and its latest acquisition is part of that effort. Jason Rubin, the company's VP of Metaverse Content has revealed that Meta is acquiring Within, the creator of immersive virtual reality workout app Supernatural for Oculus Quest headsets. A rep for Within previously described Supernatural to Engadget as "part Beat Saber, part Dance Dance Revolution, part Guitar Hero with your whole body.

In a separate announcement (via TechCrunch), Within CEO Chris Milk and Head of fitness Leanne Pedante said that its coaches, choreographers and managers will continue being part of the team. They'll work on VR fitness experiences for Supernatural independently under Meta's Reality Labs. While Within will have to answer to its new parent company going forward, Milk's and Pedante's statement says the the acquisition will give them access to more resources, including more music, more features and more social experiences.

In Supernatural, you'll have to hit colored orbs flying at you from its various VR environments using your controllers. The balls will shatter if you hit them with enough force, but they'll only float away if you don't — you'll get scored at the end based on how you do. Supernatural has a 30-day free trial period, after which it'll cost you $19 a month for continued access.