Earlier this year, Microsoft signed deals with a number of game streaming services to bring Xbox-exclusive titles to its rivals. Today we see the first fruits from the relationship ‘twixt Microsoft and NVIDIA as Gears 5 makes its bow on GeForce Now. The PC version of the title is available to play right now, with NVIDIA reminding users that it’s offering discounted signups between now and May 21st. And that higher-paying GeForce Now users can play the title in 1080p at 60fps, or in 4K 120fps if they’ve signed up to Ultimate. NVIDIA added that we should expect to see Deathloop, Grounded and Pentiment — three more Microsoft-owned titles — added to the service on May 25th.

All of this is part of Microsoft’s work to convince regulators to approve its mega-bucks purchase of Activision Blizzard. In order to convince officials that the vast trove of titles it’ll control should it be permitted to control the Call of Duty maker, it’s signed 10-year deals with rival platforms. That includes Nware, Boosteroid and NVIDIA, as well as a pledge to put Call of Duty on Nintendo’s consoles for a decade with a guarantee of full feature and content parity. That’s satisfied some bodies, like the EU, but not the UK, which feels that Microsoft’s potential control of the cloud gaming market could kill it before it flourishes.

Technics is updating its range of true wireless earbuds with two new models, one of which bears the weighty promise of carrying the company’s “greatest sound quality ever.” That’s the slogan tied to the flagship EAH-AZ80, which packs new 10mm, free-edge aluminum diaphragms. That kit, so we’re told, will extend its high and low-frequency response while, at the same time, cutting out unwanted resonance and distortion.

The new diaphragm is the one major difference between the new flagship AZ80 and its junior sibling, the romantically-named EAH-AZ60M2. Technics says that both units come with a unique “acoustic box design” optimizing airflow for more natural-sounding vocals, better bass and smoother trebles. You’ll also get three-point Bluetooth connectivity to save you the effort of unpairing your phone to listen to your laptop. Oh, and as usual for Technics' earbuds, you'll find support for both Bluetooth and LDAC to get your hi-res audio fill.

Both new models ship with ANC, ambient sound mode and a new, improved version of Technics’ JustMyVoice technology, which reduces background noise during calls. The Panasonic-owned company says the new version deals better with wind noise and the variable sound you get in, for instance, a busy coffee shop. In addition, the system will now adjust the volume levels of your voice to make sure you’re understandable by whoever you’re speaking to.

Naturally, all of those features will impact the buds’ battery life, with Technics saying there’s a maximum capacity of around 25 hours’ worth of playback in the buds and cradle. Expect to lose an hour from that time if you have ANC activated, and for that figure to slice in half if you’re using both ANC and JustMyVoice at the same time. Thankfully, both units now have Qi support for wireless charging, and you’ll get battery information inside the companion app, too.

Both units are available to buy today from Technics’ own website and Amazon, with the AZ80 costing you $299, and the AZ60M2 $250.

It’s been ten years since Fairphone launched with the laudable goal of making a better phone than its competitors. Not better in the spec-list sense, but by building it with greener materials and ensuring that they are easily and comprehensively repairable. More importantly, the company has sought to improve the working conditions of the people building the devices in the first place. That’s by paying fairer wages or offering workplace training and other benefits that major manufacturers might be unwilling to do. All the while attempting to produce gear that can at least stand proud alongside brand-name devices costing two or three times as much.

Now, Fairphone is launching its first pair of over-ear headphones, Fairbuds XL, with the same focus on utility and repairability. The company says they’re the “most sustainable headphones on the market,” with almost all of the parts user-replaceable and available to buy. They can’t just be repairable and last a long while, however, they also have to sound good enough that you’ll genuinely want to use these over what else is in the market. Specs-wise, you won’t just get the basics, but active noise cancellation (ANC), multiple audio modes, two-point Bluetooth connection and a two-year warranty that’s likely to include hardware support for a lot longer.

The Fairbuds XL are available either in speckled black or speckled green. I was loaned the green model for two weeks, and while the black looks like every other dull-ass pair of cans on the market, the green is utterly gorgeous. I love the orange contrast cabling and the lovely pop of copper on the four-way joystick, and enjoyed walking around in public with these on.

The design, with its visible wire connections and fold-in arms, is a generation or two behind the cutting edge. You know, your Sony XM5s and B&W Px7s and Bose QC45s, with hidden wires, hinged earcups and an overall more elegant setup. I don’t think it’s an issue unless you’re suffering from a serious case of status anxiety, but if you are, you’re probably not thinking about buying these.

As for the hardware, there’s the aforementioned four-way joystick, a dedicated ANC lozenge button and a USB-C port, and that’s it. This minimalism carries across to what else is in the box: A recycled polyester / nylon carry bag and a little paper manual. There’s no USB-C charging cable, audio adapter or anything else, since Fairphone assumes you already have this stuff, or can just as easily buy it from its store.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

Fairbuds XL comes with 40mm dynamic drivers, Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and an Ambient Sound Mode. It has an 800mAh battery which the company says will last for 26 hours with ANC or for more than 30 hours with it switched off. You’ll get around 320 hours of standby time and, once that’s exhausted, charging from cold is pegged at three hours. Supporting Bluetooth 5.1, Fairbuds XL offers dual-point connectivity, letting you hook up and switch between two paired devices. This switching was mostly reliable, although I found there were some device combinations – like an Android smartphone and my mac OS laptop, that it simply refused to play nicely with. Weighing 330 grams (11.6oz), the cans don’t outstay their welcome on your head, or your ears. The earcups are soft enough that I’m not forced to take them off because they’re uncomfortable.

Inside, those 40mm diameter drivers have a frequency response running from 20Hz to 20KHz. That puts it in the same bracket as a number of low and mid-budget sets on the market, of which this probably sits at the higher end, price-wise. Since it lacks any real background in sound, Fairphone sought out help from Sonarworks, a sound calibration company that works with a number of pro audio companies and artists. Its SoundID software will let users calibrate their audio profile to tweak how sound comes out of their headphones for a more personalized experience.

Now on the whole, I do rather like the sound that comes out of the Fairbuds XL. I’m not a massive fan of some of the genres which modern audio tests calibrate for, preferring instead something calmer, cleaner and more atmospheric. One thing I’ve always used to test a headphone’s quality is to see how well you can hear the breaths of the horn players during Finale from the Tron Legacy soundtrack, which are really clear here. Or how alive Max Haymer’s piano feels when playing his jazz reworking of Optimistic that you think you’re in the room. London Grammar’s Stay Awake feels urgent, more meaningful here than in some headphones I’ve tried.

The ANC, meanwhile, was very reliable at drowning out a lot of the ambient noise in my office, inside and out. It totally eliminated the sound of my own typing, the sound of a vacuum cleaner, the building work a nearby neighbor was doing and a crying baby out in public. The one time I had an issue with it was taking a stroll around my local area and getting a face full of wind, but there’s no strong wind setting in the mobile companion app like you’ll find on other products.

In order to offer a greater level of customization, Fairphone is also launching a Fairbuds App for iOS and Android. This will allow you to change the EQ presents – tuned by Sonarworks – for a similar level of tweaking as you could find in SoundID. The app also offers the usual bunch of guides, tutorials and access to customer service, as well as the promise of future software updates. You’ll also be able to order replacement parts directly from the app, which should help prompt you to seek out a fix if things start to go wrong.

There are four sound profiles: Amsterdam (standard), Copenhagen (more treble), Tokyo (more bass) and Boston (heavy bass). I’ll be honest, I found that only really Amsterdam and Boston offered much real difference, and even then, the changes weren’t massive. In fact, I’d say that I’d opt for Amsterdam over Boston even if I was listening to something pretty bassy like Low’s More, with its wonderfully teeth-rattling glitchcore overdriven bass. Suffice to say, I feel like the sound profiles need to be more distinct here, but it’s something that Fairphone should be able to improve upon in the coming months.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

Of course, Fairphone’s obligation stretches beyond the idea of simply making the hardware modular and repairable. The company says Fairbuds XL uses 100 percent recycled aluminum, 100 percent recycled tin in its solder paste and 80 percent recycled plastic. It added that it has integrated Fairtrade Gold into its supply chain, and uses 100 vegan leather for both the ear cushions and headband.

In terms of working conditions for the people who made them, the company will pay 0.55 USD per headphone made to “fill the living wage gap of production line workers.” And that it is “working with the supplier on improving working conditions based on workers’ needs.” It will also back carbon-reduction projects to help reduce CO2 emissions to ensure the headphones are essentially climate-neutral.

These are all laudable, but even Fairphone serially admits that the effort it makes can only make a small difference in the grand scheme of things. Its work is limited both by its size and relatively small market share, which means that it can’t do everything that it would like to. As much as it can say it’s producing the fairest device on the market, it can’t claim ownership of a halo that it doesn’t deserve. The best it can hope for, however, is to try and push the technology world toward approaching a more sustainable approach for its products.

(This is a good moment to share a gripe about the company’s True Wireless Earbuds, which it launched alongside the Fairphone 4. These are made with fair and recycled materials, and were dubbed as “e-waste neutral,” but weren’t modular or repairable. Given most TWS earbuds have sealed-in batteries, they become effectively unsalvageable when they break. Fairphone offered replacement cases, tips and buds, but it seemed to join the tide as opposed to swimming against it. With the Fairbuds XL, the focus has moved back toward an audio product that sails closer to Fairphone’s true ethos)

Fairphone’s overall ethos is that its products are – with the above exception – user-repairable, and easy enough that anyone should be able to take them apart and keep them going for years to come. The company has already shared a list of parts you can buy from its online store, which includes a new battery, left and right speaker modules, headband assembly and cover, as well as the ear cushions. Prices range from €19.95 (around $22) for the battery all the way to €79.95 (around $88) for a new speaker module, which connects to the setup with an integrated USB-C cable.

As for the ANC selection button, four-way joystick and the specific PCBs inside the earcups, those can be repaired, but right now, only at the company’s repair center. This, to me, seems pretty fair, since users probably won’t be comfortable taking a soldering iron to their cans. The deal is that you can swap in modules to keep this thing going for as long as possible, but if you want to keep it going with completely-original parts, you’ll need more expert help.

Fairphone customarily ships out its loan units for review with an iFixit #00-size Phillips-head screwdriver in the package. This is because it wants reviewers, and by extension potential buyers, to know how easy it is to take apart its products and put them back together. Imagine if Apple, Samsung, John Deere or any of the other companies that are regularly behind anti right to repair legislation had a similar attitude. As usual, I didn’t start disassembling the Fairbuds XL until I’d spent enough time listening to them, just in case something broke, but I needn't have worried.

The easiest repair to make is swapping out the battery, which requires you to pop off the outside cap on the left earcup. If you’ve got strong fingernails, you can lever out the battery and swap in a replacement in half a minute if you’re on the slow side. Removing the ear cushions to replace them is similarly a matter of just twisting them a quarter-turn to unlock them from their mounts. This is easy stuff, which makes it all the more frustrating that most companies won’t let users make these sort of common repairs.

Feeling braver, I then opted to detach the speaker modules from the headband in their entirety to mimic the process of replacing one. You just need to pop out the battery, twist off the ear cushions and then you can slide out the USB-C cable sticking up top. After that, you need to unscrew just two small screws which hold the whole assembly to the headband. The process took all of two minutes, and that was probably because I was going slow to avoid messing up.

Fundamentally, the Fairbuds XL follow through on the usual Fairphone promise of a modular, almost infinitely-repairable device. It has many of the necessary fundamentals to make them a worthwhile purchase for many people, including good ANC, long life and a comfortable design. What it lacks, for now, is a certain dynamism in its sound profiles that would give users more choice in how tunes are presented. Thankfully, that’s something that could be fixed in a later update, which is something that Fairphone has historically been very good at doing. In fact, if you’re happy with very good sound, and want to help make the world a slightly better place in doing so, then I’d say these are a very solid bet.

The name is a bit silly, however.

Fairbuds XL will be available to buy in Europe from tomorrow, May 11th 2023, on Fairphone’s website, priced at €249 (around $275).

Google says Wear OS’ time in the doldrums is over and, two years after it approached Samsung to help bail out the platform, it’s now the world’s “fastest-growing” wearable ecosystem. At its I/O 2023 keynote on Wednesday, the company laid out the roadmap for several improvements arriving in the coming months. That includes tighter integrations with Google Home and Nest, the long-awaited launch of a full Gmail and Calendar app, and the first news about the next-generation of Wear OS.

Probably the most asked-for feature coming to Wear OS is access to Gmail and Calendar from the wrist. At some point “later this year,” users will be able to access key features on their watch including triaging and offering quick responses to the missives in their inbox. Similarly, in Calendar you can check your schedule, RSVP to invites and update tasks and to-do list items. And if you’re ensconced within Google’s smart home ecosystem, you’ll soon be able to use your watch to see who rang your Nest doorbell, and remotely unlock your door.

As part of today’s keynote, Google also wanted to highlight the big-name third parties that have thrown their weight behind Wear OS. That includes WhatsApp, which recently started beta testing its app for the platform which will offer standalone messaging support. Similarly, Spotify is launching new tiles to trigger a new podcast episode or start a DJ session, while Peloton has recently updated its own Wear OS app to enhance tracking support and let users view their weekly workout progress from their wrist.

Google also wanted to show off its Watch Face Format, built with Samsung, in order to make it easier for developers to create watch faces for Wear OS devices. The key selling point is that the system itself will handle the hard work, making it easier for less-experienced users to use. That includes optimizing the face for rendering and battery performance, letting designers focus on the actual design part of the job.

Of more interest, however, is the news that Google is launching the emulator and developer preview for Wear OS 4. The company says that, when it launches “later this year,” users should expect to see improved battery life and performance. In addition, there’s a promise of new accessibility features including a faster and more reliable text-to-speech engine. There’s also new backup and restore support to make it easier to swap their watch (or phone) without a lot of awkward fiddling. We can expect to learn more about this, and everything else Google is showing off, in the coming months.

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

E-scooter company Unagi, founded by former Beats Music CEO David Hyman, has inserted itself into a corner of pop culture. Its stylish scooters are often found in the hands of celebrities and musicians, setting themselves apart from the generic rental models found on street corners. Now, the company has unveiled the Model One Voyager, a second-generation version of its existing Model One, which the company will either sell to you outright, or rent to you for $55 a month. Given the plaudits afforded to that device, it should come as no surprise that the Voyager opts not to fix what wasn’t broken, but focuses on addressing its predecessor’s (relatively few) flaws.

Long-time Unagi followers may recall the company had been working on the Model Eleven, a wildly ultra-premium scooter to top off its lineup. Priced at $2,440, the Eleven would have offered GPS tracking, turn-by-turn directions and an ADAS collision sensor. Unagi killed the product, saying that the market was turning away from pricey, one-off purchases toward a service model. The majority of its customers presently pay $55 a month to rent a Model One, with the company taking care of the maintenance and insurance. And that switch in focus is likely to produce more models that look to evolve the existing concept, rather than offering something more dramatic.

To avoid all of the cliches, let’s get them all out of the way in a single paragraph and be done with it. The Voyager is a polish, an evolution, a refinement on the existing Model One template, and you’ll struggle to tell them apart looking at them from a distance. It uses the same industrial design, and the same high-end materials, although the neck and fork angles have been tweaked for better stability. It remains one of the best-looking e-scooters on the market today, with a clean, elegant design and color choices which straddle the line between transport and fashion statement.

Instead, the big changes are all on the inside, with a specific focus on addressing issues around range and power that existing Model One renters have grappled with. For instance, while the Model One’s quoted range tops out at a less-than-ideal 12 miles, the Voyager stretches to 25, which should be enough to get you where you need to go and back without anxiety. Now, real-world mileage will be wildly different based on your use (and your weight), but the hope is that the Voyager will eliminate range anxiety for most people.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

The second new feature, Distance To Empty, is a system that calculates your remaining range. It’s not hugely sophisticated, since it uses a dynamic look-up table checking your weight, speed profile and hill profile against the existing battery level. But a better-educated guess about how much further you can go is likely to be a better deal than just letting you see the percentage of battery that’s still there and letting you hope for the best.

As well as the attention paid to make sure you’ve got enough power in your Voyager, there’s a lot of focus on getting it back out again. The Model One could produce 26 newton meters of torque, but the Voyager will knock out 32, with both motors offering a combined peak power of 1,000W. Unagi said that you can expect to see a 25 percent improvement in acceleration and deceleration out of the motors, and that you’ll see charging times fall in half compared to the Model One. That’s before we get to the promised improvements in hill climbing, where Unagi said that riders should “prepare to magically clobber hills that seem insurmountable.”

Disclaimer: I’m based in the UK, and it is presently illegal to ride an e-scooter on public roads and pavements. There is a generous exception for a series of government-approved e-scooter trials currently in place, but private scooters are all but banned. For this review, I primarily used private roads and other private spaces, where the laws do not apply, rather than in public. While the target audience for this review is primarily American, our lawyers have reminded us to say that Engadget does not condone breaking the law, and would-be UK users risk having their scooters seized, or facing criminal penalties including points on your driving license and a fine. That said, Unagi does sell the Model One to UK customers for £899, if you’re prepared to bear the risk for yourself.

You won’t need to spend a lot of time inside Voyager’s companion app, which connects to the scooter over Bluetooth. You’ll see your Odometer and Distance to Empty figures, and can toggle between single- and dual-motor modes. (You’ll really mostly stick in dual-motor mode which offers better range and performance unless you’re on a flat surface and don’t need to speed up or slow down too often.) You can also activate the front light and, crucially, lock the scooter’s wheels to make it harder for a nefarious type to steal it.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

If there’s one thing Unagi should have, but didn’t, improve upon from the original, it was the ride quality. Specifically, making an effort to help the Voyager smooth out the sometimes less than pristine asphalt on our streets. Voyager comes with the same small, hard rubber tyres as the Model One, without much in the way of suspension or shock absorption. When I can feel every bump and crack in the road, it dents my confidence as to how far I want to ride this thing.

Admittedly, this is a common problem with a lot of e-scooters, but it’s one worth examining if you’re charging two or three times the cost of a run-of-the-mill Xiaomi. Sure, the monthly rent cost covers maintenance, insurance and everything else, but it’s still a premium product. It all depends if you’re living somewhere with flat, well-maintained roads, because none of this will concern you. But if your streets have more than a few cracks in them, be prepared to feel all of them in your knees.

I will say, Unagi shared with me both a confidence in its puncture-proof tyres and a belief that more can be done. A representative said that improvements to both the tyres and deckpad are in the pipeline, although neither will be ready for some time. It’s not yet clear if these tweaks will be available on a future version of the Voyager, or if they’ll be held back for the next new model, the Model Two, pegged to arrive at some point in 2024.

This is perhaps the one demerit I can offer, however, as everything else has seen the details sweated, and for a good cause. There’s the same set of electronic throttle and brake as found on the previous model, the latter of which I found very easy to trust. It’s a personal preference I know, but I’ve often preferred the comfort of a mechanical brake on cheaper e-scooters to give me a sense of security when it comes to stopping. Oh, I can also gripe about the milquetoast horn, which I’m sure wouldn’t send a group of slow-moving pedestrians scattering out of your way, but that really is it.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

If you’re unfamiliar with the Model One, and you’ve been using an e-scooter with a smartphone mount, then the Voyager’s display may feel a bit minimal. There’s an old-school feel to the data on show, with a brightly-backlit speedometer that’s easily visible in strong light. That’s key, since you’ll have to take your eyes off the road to check your speed – although I will admit that I find my gut tells me how much speed I can handle based on the surrounding areas rather than trying to stick to a solid figure.

Below that figure, you’ll find either the odometer or trip computer, based on your preference, and below that, the battery display. At the bottom, you’ll also be able to see which speed profile the scooter is set in, and icons telling you if you’re in single or dual-motor mode. To be honest, I don’t know how much extra data you might need on a scooter display, and I like the neat and tidy way that all of this information has been laid out.

On flat, straight roads and gentle inclines, I found the Voyager to offer rather excellent balance. With some practice, I was able to get my turning circle down to the bare minimum, and it’s easy to ride at slow speeds. It’s even pretty easy to ride when you open up the throttle and try to get close to that top speed, even if I was too chicken to get it to max out. Similarly, the headlights are bright enough, although if I was riding this on roads at night, I’d be tempted to get a head or shirt-worn rear light since the deck-height brake light is a bit low.

The Voyager weighs the better part of 30 pounds, and it’s a significant lump to haul around in your hands. 30 pounds may not sound like a lot, but with the scooter folded down it’s quite an unwieldy thing to carry in your hand. I pulled my back one night and, the following day, tried to carry this to a private road for testing before bailing out and throwing it in the car instead. That solidity may make it prohibitive for you to carry up every flight of stairs in your building, but it also gives you confidence that it won’t fall apart after a few weeks of use.

Daniel Cooper / Engadget

If you’re already sold on the idea of toting one of these around with you, you’ll now need to look at the figures. The Unagi Model One Voyager costs $1,190 to buy, but the company doesn’t expect many people to buy it outright. Instead, it hopes they will opt to rent their scooter via the Unagi All-Access program which includes service and, for an extra fee, theft insurance.

The basic payment is $69 a month for a no-commitment rental, with theft insurance an extra $5 per month. You can also request a “guaranteed brand new scooter” for an additional $10 monthly premium. As the name implies, this will guarantee that you will get brand-new hardware both when you sign up, and also if you need a replacement. Plus, of course, you’ll need to pony up a one-time sign-up fee of $50. Adding that all up and dividing by twelve means that to have one of these in your life, your monthly outgoing will be $89 a month.

Now, you’ll have to decide if you’ll get that paid back compared to, say, using the local Lime or Bird scooters in your area. The obvious benefit is that you’ll be able to ride your own scooter and you’ll never have to scrub around looking for a working model when you’re out and about. The downside is that it’s a fairly significant outlay each month so you’d better be sure that you will get your money’s worth by using the scooter as your primary mode of transportation.

Meanwhile, if you’re already living inside Unagi’s scooter rental ecosystem and paying for a Model One, then you can upgrade to Voyager by switching your plan to the more expensive option and paying the one-off charge of $50.

If you’ve been looking for a scooter that will hopefully last you a long while, get you to and from wherever you need to go, and look good while doing it, then this is probably a decent bet.

I’ve developed an odd fascination with body-measuring technology, especially as it relates to the fashion world. Many companies are working on infrastructure that will hopefully one day let us buy clothes custom-tailored for the exact contours of our bodies. That should make people like me, who feel very under-served by the traditional fashion industry, a lot happier. It should also help to reduce the waste generated by the overproduction of clothes nobody wants to buy, which is a problem both for businesses and the planet. So, when Zozofit, makers of the Zozosuit, asked if I wanted to try its skin-tight body-measuring outfit, which has now been repurposed as a fitness tool, I agreed, albeit with my usual degree of trepidation.

The Zozosuit isn’t new, but its makers are using this year as a form of soft relaunch, with a new focus on breaking into the US. It was actually set up back in 2018 by Japanese high-end fashion retailer Zozo as a way of launching a custom-clothing line. Users bought the suit, scanned their bodies and then could order clothes that, on paper, were tailored to better suit their bodies. And while the clothes weren’t custom-made, the idea was that the outfits would be a better fit for them than the usual mass-produced stuff. But that idea, great in theory, didn’t necessarily shake out that well in practice.

Fashion Network said that the cost and complexity involved in launching the suit ate away at the company’s otherwise healthy profits. QZ reported that while people bought the suits, which were sold at a deep discount, few went on to purchase the custom threads as Zozo had planned. It got worse, as many reporters who tested the system found the clothes they had ordered, like Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum and the Economist’s Charlie Wells, didn’t actually fit. A better suit with higher-resolution dots for imaging was developed, but the project was subsequently put on ice.

Since then, Zozo has tried to open up its technology to third parties, but has now pivoted the technology toward something more fitness-focused. Since it already had the tech to make a body-measuring suit, it might as well be put to good use, or so the thinking goes. A number of health and fitness professionals advocate that, for people looking to get fitter, measure their bodies instead of stepping on the scale. So it makes sense for this to be offered as an elegant alternative to wrestling with a tape measure on a weekly basis.

Buying a Zozosuit is easy enough, just give it your weight in pounds, as well as your height in feet and inches, and cough up $98 plus tax. Not long after, you’ll get a slender package which contains a skinsuit made out of polyester and spandex. It looks very much like a motion capture suit commonly used in the production of visual effects, and functionally does the same job. Coming in two parts, the app will give you guidance on how to wear it, making sure that the waistband is pulled up high and covered by the top. You’ll need to try and keep everything as flat as you can, since visible creases will prevent you from taking an accurate scan.

Zozofit

As a 5’11”, 231-pound man, I did wonder if Zozo would have a suit large enough to cater for my body shape. The website has images of much more athletically-adept models wearing its clothing and you may be concerned there’s no option for bigger-sized folks. The suit I tried on was tight, as intended, but didn’t feel restrictive, and I don’t think you should be nervous that the company can’t accommodate your needs. Other users in a similar situation have documented a similar experience, including YouTuber The Fabric Ninja, who produced a “Plus-Size Review” in 2020. That said, I don’t think I could pull this off as some form of athleisure fashion statement, for all of the reasons you can probably presume.

Inside the package is a cardboard phone stand, which you’ll need to pop out and fold into place to prop your smartphone onto. The Zozofit uses your handset’s primary camera, and so you’ll need to stand it on a table and then stand six feet or so away from it. Once activated, you’ll get voice guidance talking you through the setup and measurement process, and you’ll be asked to hold your arms slightly away from your body. The coach will then ask you to turn to every position on the clock, taking 12 images as you shuffle around in a circle. Once completed, you’ll be notified that you can pick up your phone and then wait 30 seconds-or-so for the model to process.

And you’ll get a headless 3D-mesh model of your body with various measurements labeled off the sides. These include measurements for your upper arms, chest, waist and hips, upper thigh and your calves. After you’ve pawed at your vital statistics, you’ll be invited to set some fitness goals based on those initial measurements. Interestingly, these are capped, I suspect to keep you picking smaller, more sustainable goals and avoid becoming disappointed. It measured my waist at 46.6-inches, and you can only set the goal at inch-wide increments down to 41.6-inches or up to 51.6-inches. This will change in a later update, but I appreciated the more realistic form of goal-setting it promises.

You’ll also get the app’s rough calculation of your body fat percentage, which it clocked at 35.6 percent. Not long after, I jumped on my smart scale and it registered me as having 31.6 percent, and I suspect, too, the imaging might struggle to be as accurate when you’re dealing with such big figures. I’d wager, too, that body fat percentages might not be so easily calculated by sight alone, and perhaps Zozo could look to remove those measurements which aren’t as reliable. It may also dent the PR braggadocio the company is putting out, claiming that this setup is the “world’s most accurate at-home 3D body scanner.” (It says it has compared its results to several rivals on the market, as well as professional hand-measurements.)

Zozofit / Daniel Cooper

Now, the company says that its body fat measurements use the US Navy Body Fat system, which calculates your body fat based on a series of body measurements. That method was developed to create a quick-and-dirty measurement to determine if someone was fit for service. (In the process of researching this, I learned that personnel describe it as the “rope and choke,” which isn’t relevant, but thought you’d appreciate the slang.) The company’s representatives added, to me, that it has found that curvier bodies are more likely to see less accurate results than thinner ones, and that it is working on its algorithms to improve this situation.

With any health-and-fitness technology, there’s a question of how much you can rely upon the accuracy of its measurements. Few consumer-level devices offer the same level of data quality you can get from a much more expensive clinical tool. Straight after my first scan, I ran a second, to see the sort of variation you can expect from an imaging-based measurement. The margin is fairly small, only a few tenths of an inch difference between each scan, which seems fair to me. I’d say, too, that what matters more with these sorts of tools is the trend and direction of travel, rather than obsessing over the pinpoint accuracy of each individual measurement.

And, to test that, as soon as I’d run my second scan (and changed back into normal clothes), I asked a friend to help measure me with a tailor’s tape. And there was a wider delta than I think some people might expect, especially if they’re in need of millimeter-perfect measurements. For instance, the app measured my chest at 43.4-inches, while the tape clocked it in at 44. My upper arms measured 14.5-inches, compared to 14.2 and 14.3-inches inside the app. With my waist and hips, the app said they were 44.6 and 45.3-inches, respectively, while the tape measure clocked them in at 44.5-inches and 47-inches.

Partially, I think these divergences are because computer imaging, even with help, isn’t going to hit as perfectly as a tape measure. Not to mention that the suit pulls you in a little compared to normal clothes, which are far baggier by comparison. I’m sure, too, that the garb sits less well on a larger body compared to a smaller one, where there are fewer issues with terrain. Maybe I’m grading on a curve, but it’ll depend on what exactly users want to get out of this system.

The other question, and a likely more relevant one, is if squeezing into a Zozosuit is easier and less time-consuming than using a tape measure. It’s nice to have an automated process, and to have that data tracked over time, but nothing the app does could qualify as essential. That’s a fairly neat way to sum this up – if you’re a dedicated gym-goer looking for a more elegant way to monitor your vital statistics, then you may find some value here. I’m not sure how compelling this would be, however, if you’re expecting this to be the sum total of your fitness universe.

The UK’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, has announced it will block Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. In a statement, the body said the deal risks harming the nascent cloud-gaming market by creating a monopoly player. It said that Microsoft would have a market share of between 60 and 70 percent, giving it an “incentive to withhold [Activision Blizzard] games from competitors and substantially weaken competition in this important growing market.”

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There are a number of e-bike conversion kits on the market, all offering ways to electrify your existing wheels. Boost has emerged as an option with a more elegant and easier way of doing things than some of its rivals. Rather than wire in controllers, battery hardware and a hall effect sensor, almost all of the necessary gear is built into a custom-made rear-hub motor. Everything else, meanwhile, is included in a circular battery pack that sits inside a bottle cage, or something that looks a lot like it, which is mounted to your downtube.

Whereas with, say, Swytch, which sells you a custom front wheel for you to attach to your bike, Boost goes on the back. That means the initial installation is a little more intensive, since you’ll need to add your cassette, string-in the chain and get the analog stuff all set up nicely. Or, you know, ask the technicians at your local bike repair store to do it for you if you’re a ten-thumbed menace to engineering like me. But, after that point, all you’ll need to do is screw in the bottle cage and ziptie a wire that runs from the rear wheel the downtube and you’re pretty much set.

It’s screenless, and part of this is because all of the torque sensors are included within the motor, and also to help keep costs down. Users can, if they need, connect to the companion app where they can set the power assist in either Eco or Boost modes. You’ll also get a short speed-boost option to help you get away from traffic, which maxes out the motor for a very brief period of time. The app also has a dashboard mode so, if you mount your phone on the handlebars, you can keep an eye on your speed, distance and battery level.

And the battery itself has a USB-A port hidden under a dust cover, enabling you to charge your device, or run a USB-powered light set, while riding.

Since the Boost was set up at the UK’s Cycle Show today, I was able to give it a go while hooked up to a turbo trainer. I found that it didn’t take very long at all before the level of boost the eco mode offered felt like it would be more than enough to get me across town each day. When the boost mode was activated, it quickly felt like too much power, an option you’d only ever need when you’re tackling steep hills and little else.

In terms of pricing, Boost is presently available in the UK and costs £695 when installed by a local cycling store. If you fancy tackling the installation yourself, you can also pick up the kit for £645, although the company also offers the motor and battery set for people to build their own wheels. It’s certainly an interesting twist on e-bike conversion kits, and one I’d be very interested in trying for myself in future.

I’m no cyclist, but I’ve always had a soft spot for retro-style cafe racer bikes with clean lines and a lack of unnecessary engineering. A lovely triangular frame, two narrow wheels, caliper brakes and a lovely paint job make the perfect bike for tootling around town. Years ago one company — Faraday — made an early hit on Kickstarter with its version of the old-school bike that, sadly, I never got to ride. Today at the UK’s Cycle Show, however, I stumbled across Quella’s range of retro e-bikes and already I’m in love.

Its Varsity collection has been around for a while, but the addition of electric options is relatively new. Rather than screw on a whole bunch of tech to the existing frame, all of the electronics are contained within the Zehus-made rear hub. That includes the battery, torque sensor, a GPS tracker, Bluetooth and, of course, the motor itself, with a peak output of 250W. The idea being you should just start pedaling and let the bike work out how much power you need at any given time.

There’s a lack of gears, both to add a greater level of mechanical simplicity and also because that’s just how these bikes usually roll. And while it ships as a single-speed, it’s packing a flip-flop hub, so you can convert it into a fixie if you’re, you know, a fixie rider (it’s okay, I won’t judge). Of more interest to me, however, is that if you pedal backwards when coasting, you can trigger the bike’s energy-recovery system to re-charge the battery. It’s a great feature given the lack of obvious tech here, and also ideal for a low-stakes bike like this.

This sense of low-stakes carries on through to the fact it’s really only designed for commutes on flat ground. The pedal assist will only push you to speeds of 15 miles per hour, and with 40Nm of torque and the lack of gearing, it probably won’t help you on a serious hill climb. But you can edit your speed profile with the companion app, letting you switch from low to high-power when you need that little bit more oopmh. The company says you should hope to get close to 40 miles of range from a single charge, and more if you’re particularly judicious about its use.

If there’s a downside, it’s that you’ll be spending the better part of £2,000 (around $2,475) on one, which is a serious chunk of change. But if you’re in the market for something that offers style first, practicality second and a lightweight frame third, this is something it’d be worth checking out.

The following discusses Star Trek: Picard, Series Three, Episode Ten, “The Last Generation.”

Let’s not pretend the final episode of Star Trek: Picard was a modern classic, or at least free of its usual flaws. It had the usual mix of rough dialog, clunky plotting and pandered to its audience with a mix of nostalgia and continuity porn in place of saying anything of note. But what it, and the previous episode, did do was offer up a breezy hour of action that, above all else, was fun. After choking down on eight hours of stodgy, high-school-level melodrama, this was a vital and necessary corrective.

“The Last Generation” opens with a plea from President Anton Chekov* (Walter Koenig) saying Earth is about to fall to the Bio Borg fleet. The Enterprise races to the (hopefully) last Borg Cube hiding in Jupiter’s eye, where the Borg Queen has ensnared Jack as her transmitter. How do we know this? Well, it was obvious that Jack, as the Queen’s “voice,” would be key to activating the drones, but also because this series can’t help but remind us what’s going on.

Remember the last episode, when the fleet was taken over by the Borg and was about to launch an offensive on Earth? This show doesn’t think you did, which is why we have Patrick Stewart say lines like “the fleet is being controlled by the collective,” and “that cube is projecting a signal across the solar system” and “the only way to save Earth is to sever that connection, no matter the cost” You know, stuff you saw at least once last week and then again in the “Previously On.”

It’s a similar problem when we watch the surprisingly-small Federation fleet point toward Earth. On the Titan’s bridge, we see a map of the world’s major locations quickly engulfed by a series of red dots, which was a neatly elegant way of communicating what was going on. Unfortunately Raffi, so often relegated to exposition dispenser, has to restate what we’ve literally just seen. “The fleet is targeting every city,” – yup, we saw, thanks – “every major population center on the planet,” – yup, still with you. Given how often this crops up, I wonder if Paramount did research that found most people scroll their phones while watching so need their hands holding with some nice radio-style narration.

The Enterprise shows up at Jupiter and is utterly dwarfed by the cube lurking in the storm, and I love the sense of scale afforded here. Picard, Riker and Worf – Michael Dorn given yet another goofy gracenote as he pledges to make the away team a threesome – set off. They give their milky-eyed farewells and then beam over to the cube with a mission to both stop the signal and rescue Jack. The pace at which the narrative moves here, again, makes the preceding eight episodes feel like more of a punishment. Here, things happen, there’s no paddling around in circles trying to stretch the runtime, in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Titan manage to fight their way to the bridge and beam the Bio Borg to a locked transporter room. Severed from the fleet, it’s up to Seven, Raffi and some low-ranking crew to mount a single-handed defense of Earth. Sadly, the Titan doesn’t have a regular crew, full of competent professionals who crack on with the job at hand, but a movie crew. You know, who have almost no prior experience but after a (not very) rousing pep-talk, will rise to the occasion and save the day.

On the cube, the gang find the Borg are a shadow of their former shelves, with a handful of drones still alive. The rest have withered away courtesy of Captain… Janeway, who doesn’t even get an honorable mention for her trouble. The Queen (Alice Krige), meanwhile, looms in the darkness over Jack, who is now wearing the Locutus outfit and controlling the fleet. If you’re waiting for me to make the obvious comparison to The Rise of Skywalker, you’ll have to wait – I'm saving my one Star Wars reference for the next paragraph. We even get time for one more goofy joke featuring Riker trying, and failing, to pick up a Mek’leth, too.

Over on the Enterprise, the crew quickly work out that they’ll need to physically destroy the wireless transmitter that is beaming instructions to the Bio Borg drones. And this wireless transmitter is, for some reason, lurking at the heart of the cube accessible only through an impossible route. And so Data’s gracenote is to ask the gang to trust his gut while he drives the Enterprise on an homage through the half-completed Death Star from Return of the Jedi. Whoops, wrong Star franchise, Terry! But if they do destroy the transmitter, it’ll also burn out the whole cube (pesky WiFi radios, with their explosive power and all), with Geordi and Beverly locking eyes knowing that to act now will condemn Jack to death, but to delay won’t just condemn Sidney and Alandra to death, but everyone else as well.

The Queen, who I’m fairly sure didn’t have her own arms in any of her appearances before and yet now has grown a pair, has Jack under her control. After repeating several of the same lines from their confrontation in First Contact, Picard decides to plug himself back into the collective to save his son. The only way he can do so, of course, is by opening up to Jack, admitting that this need for connection while also keeping people away is what drove him to Starfleet. But, because we’ve got plenty more stuff to get through, all it takes is Picard to hug Jack and his Hedgehog’s Dilemma is resolved. There’s even a montage of shots from earlier in the series which, if you weren’t paying attention, might suggest this thread was properly developed, but it’s hard not to be carried away – again, mostly on the vibes.

With Jack free, the Enterprise opens fire to destroy the cube and then makes a last-second run to rescue the gang. It’s all very, uh, triumphant, isn’t it, and I reckon that if we’d seen this happen in 1993 or so, it would have blown our tiny minds. With the cube destroyed, the Bio Borgs all return to normality, and we can crack on with our happy ending. Data overstays his welcome in a therapy session with Deanna, Worf leaks details of Raffi’s heroism so her family respects her again, Crusher finds a way to fix the Borg mutation (and catch changelings in the process) and Tuvok hands Seven command of the Titan, as recommended by Shaw. Now, we could rightly ask why Shaw privately praised Seven, even using her chosen name in his annual review, and yet serially belittled and humiliated her in front of the crew. But you knew from the get go his arc would be redemptive, and the groundwork has already been laid for his potential resurrection.

A year later, the Enterprise D is in the fleet museum, and Jack Crusher has been nepo-baby fast-tracked through the academy and is now ready for his first posting. We know we’re going to get a hero ship reveal, because the Picard theme suddenly includes the bells used so well in Leonard Rosenman’s Voyage Home score. At the rebuilt spacedock, we see the Titan A – already an awkward re-brand from the original Titan – has now been re-rechristened as the Enterprise G. Why? Because, uh, heroism, or something, and not as part of a shameless attempt to use this entire third season as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff.

The new Enterprise heads off, back to the M’Talas system, with Seven, Raffi and Jack all now on the bridge. Jack may be an ensign, but he’s been posted as “counselor to the captain” to keep Ed Speelers on the bridge. Who’d have thought that Starfleet would have given command of the Federation’s flagship to a “thief, a pirate and a spy,” well, not this dude. But then this is new Star Trek, where narrative gravity will pull everything into a structure that closely resembles what went before.

There’s a new Enterprise with a Crusher in one chair and a LaForge in another, because a family name and the inherited genes that come along with it are far more important than anything else these days. There’s even a mid-credits stinger featuring John deLancie’s Q, who you might recall very prominently died in season two. He’s back in full asshole mode, and is ready to put Jack through the same paces he did with his father back in the late ‘80s. Meet the new villain, quite literally the same as the old one.

You know, I’m sure we’ll hear the news that Terry Matalas’ Star Trek: Legacy, featuring the Enterprise G’s adventures in the M’talas system, has been commissioned in the next week. Paramount needs to capitalize on Picard’s outgoing hype and popularity, and I’m interested to see which flavor of show we get – one with the tone of the first eight episodes, or the last two. And to see how many elements of Golden-Era Trek history will get strip-mined for inspiration to keep fans onside. I wish it well, though, because this has worked for some sections of the fans, and I’m happy that they liked it, even if it left an often sour taste for me.

And while the next next generation, or what’s left of it, heads off, our crew go to Ten Forward to get hammered together. If you know your Next Generation history, you’ll know this gang went through a fairly rough time together and bonded in that early adversity. The chemistry, warmth and love exhibited by these characters isn’t fake, as anyone who has seen this bunch on the convention circuit will tell you. Their history is our history and I can’t begrudge anyone who opted to point a camera on these seven and let it play out. Of course they have to wind up playing poker, because that’s what these characters did. It was a sign of Picard’s growth the first time around that he opted to join the weekly poker game, and now they’ve all not just grown old, but grown old together, off-screen at least. And as, by my ear, the Final Frontier mix of the Goldsmith theme starts to play, we roll credits. At least that last bit was fun, wasn’t it?

* Much as it reinforces the hateful shrinking of the Trek narrative universe, because of course Chekov’s kid winds up as Earth President, it was a nice nod to the late Anton Yelchin.