It used to be that if you dreamed of reaching 6GHz speeds with your hot rod desktop CPU, you'd have to try your luck with overclocking and all of the potential instability and cooling demands that required. Earlier this year, Intel released the Core i9-13900KS, which hit 6GHz right out of the box. Now, the company is doing it again with its fastest 14th-gen desktop CPU, the i9-14900K. That frequency is just a short-lived "Thermal Velocity Boost" speed, which isn't sustained for very long, but it's still something Intel can lord over AMD.
These 14th-gen chips, to be clear, are different from Intel's recently announced 14th-gen Core Ultra processors for notebooks. Understandably, Intel is focusing on efficiency for its mobile lineup, whereas its desktop chips are all about raw power (and 6GHz bragging rights). You can look at the 14th-gen desktop hardware as a last gasp for Intel's existing architecture, where the company doesn't mind pushing power demands to out-bench AMD. (The i9-14900K consumes as much as 253 watts, just like its predecessor.)
Intel's highest-end 14th-gen chip may get most of the attention, but discerning gamers may be more interested in the i7-14700K, which now features 20 cores (8 performance and 12 efficiency) and reaches up to 5.6GHz "Turbo Boost Max 3.0" speeds. Perhaps most importantly, its $409 price tag is well below the 14900K's $589.
When it comes to benchmarks, Intel claims the 14900K is up to 23 percent faster than AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D while playing Starfield in 1080p. The company also says that chip is up to 54 percent faster than the same AMD hardware while multi-tasking between After Effects and Premiere Pro. (That comparison may be a bit unfair, since Intel tested an Auto Reframe task in Premiere Pro that works together with its UHD graphics, something that AMD's graphics don't help with.)
Intel
Perhaps more useful than raw benchmark comparisons, Intel also says the i9-14900K was able to reach over 100fps in Total War: Warhammer III while playing, streaming and recording in 1080p with ultra graphics settings. That game is also optimized specifically for its 14th-gen hardware, so you can't expect the same results with every title.
If you're still eager to overclock, Intel is also making that easier with its new XTU AI Assist feature, which will only be available on the i9-4900K. In a demo for media, an Intel representative showed off how the XTU app can quickly determine the ideal processor core voltages, motherboard power settings and "other tuning knobs" to determine safe performance speeds. They noted that Intel had trained its AI overclocking model on hundreds of CPUs, as well as a variety of motherboard and cooler options (including a bit of liquid cooling). Once the AI tuning process is complete, you can roll with its suggested settings or use them as a baseline for further overclocking.
One feature you won't see in these new 14th-gen chips? An NPU (neural processing unit) for AI acceleration. Oddly enough, the company's upcoming Core Ultra mobile chips will feature an NPU, which enables things like Windows Studios Effects for AI-powered background blurs in video chats. It makes sense for Intel's first NPU to appear in its new architecture, whereas the 14th-gen desktop chips are beefed-up versions of last year's hardware. Still, it's a bit odd for its priciest desktop hardware to miss out on something mere laptops will see next year.
Intel's 14th-gen desktop chips will be available from retailers and system manufacturers on October 17th.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intel-hits-6ghz-again-with-its-14th-gen-desktop-cpus-130007286.html?src=rss
The Meta Quest 3 is here, and it’s the best standalone VR headset we’ve ever seen. But is that enough to make people care about virtual reality? In this episode, Devindra and Senior Writer Sam Rutherford chat with Tested’sNorm Chan about the Quest 3 and Meta’s mixed reality future. While the company’s vision of the metaverse is pretty sterile, it’s still nice to see Meta learning from the mistakes of the Quest Pro. (Be sure to check out Norm's hour-long review of the Quest 3 as well!)
Sam also dives into his Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro reviews, as well as his thoughts about the Pixel Watch 2. We also dive into Wired’s retraction of an op-ed claiming that Google manipulated your search queries, as well as Twitter/X’s complete inability to deliver accurate news during the Hamas and Israel conflict.
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 podcast, Engadget News!
The Meta Quest 3 proves that the Meta Ques 2 was just an impossibly good deal. When that VR headset arrived for just $300 three years ago, it was the perfect gateway to VR for most people. You didn't need to hook it up to anything, you just flipped it on and stepped into virtual reality. But then Meta raised the price to $400 last year, and the entire VR industry just started to feel very stale.
It's no wonder the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro completely flopped – VR was already struggling, and few people actually needed something so expensive.
The $500 Quest 3 likely won't tempt over as many VR newcomers as the Quest 2, but it's still a solid step forward for Meta. It has all of the upgrades you'd expect, and it also has full color mixed reality cameras, which let you use VR apps alongside a view of the real world. Squint a bit, and you can almost see what Apple is going for with the Vision Pro (though with far less fidelity).
Despite all those improvements though, the Quest 3 makes me marvel even more at what Meta accomplished with the Quest 2, which is still available at its original $299 price. That headset is still the best VR entry point for newbies, though I wish it were a bit cheaper by now. The Quest 3, meanwhile, is the logical upgrade once you've caught the VR bug.
Here's what makes it special: It's significantly thinner and lighter than the Quest 2, thanks to a new set of pancake lenses. Those also help to produce a sharper image from the new displays, which deliver 2,064 by 2,208 pixels per eye. That's even better than the PlayStation VR 2, which wowed us earlier this year.
The Quest 3 is also running Qualcomm's new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip, which offers double the GPU power of the Quest 2, according to Meta. Up front, there are two full color cameras for mixed reality, along with a depth sensor in the middle to help map your space and avoid obstacles. That's notable, since it was a feature Meta completely dropped from the Quest Pro. When it comes to storage, you’ve got your choice between the 128GB $500 model and a 512GB option for $650.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Now for what the Quest 3 doesn't have: There's no face or eye tracking, or cameras on the controllers like the Quest Pro. Though, at least they've lost the annoying rings from the Quest 2 gamepads. I don't think you'll miss any of the Quest Pro's features – they're potentially cool, but developers haven’t really taken advantage of them.
Meta already proved it can make a solid standalone VR headset, but can it really bring mixed reality to everyone? That seems to be the driving force behind the Quest 3. Apple's Vision Pro showed us a genuinely promising vision of spatial computing, one where the digital and physical worlds can comfortably coexist. But that thing also costs $3,499. Trying to accomplish something similar for a fraction of the price seems impossible.
The Quest 3's attempt at mixed reality is far from perfect – the color cameras deliver a fuzzy and pixelated view of the world, as if you're in a drug-fueled haze. But it’s still pretty useful. A double tap on the side of the Quest 3 is all it takes to flip between immersive VR and the real world.
That's something I ended up using frequently to check on text and Slack messages, grab information from my computer, and chat with people around me. Doing any of those things in the past would have required either completely removing the headset, or flipping up the visor.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3 also goes beyond just letting you see the real world: You can also do some basic mixed reality multi-tasking. You can arrange up to three windowed Quest apps, like WhatsApp and the Quest Store, on a translucent virtual tray that sits in front of you. Even better, you can move that tray anywhere in your space. That's not something I’d use a lot, but the fact that I could create this environment, anchor it to a specific point in the real world, and walk around it simply blew me away.
It also helps that the Quest 3 makes every virtual element look incredibly sharp. Looking at WhatsApp chats in the headset was no different than on my gaming monitor. Meta still has to work on actually making the Quest's apps more useful though: I could only reply to WhatsApp chats by awkwardly pecking away at the Quest’s virtual keyboard, leaving voice messages or attaching media from the headset. (Let's just hope that tabletop virtual keyboard that Mark Zuckerberg showed off actually becomes a reality.)
A glimpse of the Quest 3's mixed reality view from my family room.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3 also marks the first time I’ve genuinely enjoyed using Meta’s finger tracking. It was an intriguing feature when it arrived on the original Quest, but it wasn’t alway accurate, so I preferred using the Quest’s controllers instead. Now, thanks to the depth sensor and full color cameras, the Quest 3 does a far better job at recognizing every finger gesture. I found myself letting my controllers rest far more often, since it was so easy to navigate through apps by swiping and virtually pointing.
Now given just how well the Quest 2 excelled at being a standalone VR headset, I wasn’t very surprised that the Quest 3 was even better. Everything loaded faster thanks to its increased RAM. The controllers felt far more precise, especially for games that demanded accuracy, like the upcoming Samba de Amigo and the VR mainstay Beat Saber.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3’s higher resolution display also makes games look far better than the Quest 2, but I was more impressed by the handful of titles that were optimized for its faster hardware. Red Matter 2 practically looked like a full-fledged PC VR title, thanks to its incredibly detailed textures and character models. The Kurzgesagt game, Out of Scale, made me feel like I was living inside of one of its gorgeously animated YouTube videos .
Quest 3 owners will still have access to the hundreds of games that also work on the Quest 2, but it’s nice to see some new titles arriving alongside fresh hardware. It doesn’t look like anything will be exclusive to Quest 3 yet, but that could easily change down the line. For now, I’d expect new games will have an extra layer of polish, while the Quest 2 will get a more basic experience.
I didn't get to try First Encounters, the Quest 3 mixed reality tutorial that was shown off during our initial preview, but I'm hoping more developers start building similar experiences for the Quest 3. There are a handful of truly "mixed reality" titles already, like Zombies Noir and Figmin XR, but they're mostly just interesting experiments instead of anything truly groundbreaking. There's room for the Quest 3 to deliver the sort of reality-bending experiences initially promised devices like the Magic Leap and HoloLens.
After testing the Quest 3 for a week, I’ve noticed something surprising: It’s the first headset that doesn’t make me feel trapped while using it. Since the real world is easily accessible, I feel far more comfortable sitting and enjoying a movie on Netflix, or a 360-degree video on YouTube. And thanks to its lighter frame and additional room for glasses, I can also play VR games far longer than I used to.
I only wish the Quest 3’s battery life lasted longer. Depending on what you’re doing, it can go for two to three hours, just like the Quest 2. At least you can still use it while charging the headset though, and it also stays powered when connected to a PC for beefier experiences, like Google Earth VR.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
If you’ve seen my PlayStation VR 2 review, you’ll know I’m pretty ambivalent about the state of VR at the moment. The headsets are getting better, but the games and industry just feels stagnant. The Meta Quest 3, at the very least, seems like a better option for VR newcomers than the $550 PlayStation VR 2. It’s pricey, but it delivers solid VR without a PlayStation 5. While it’s no Vision Pro, the Quest 3’s stab at mixed reality makes it a headset you’ll likely use long after your VR honeymoon is over.
And if a $500 headset is too expensive, I’m sure you can find a used Quest 2 for a steal.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-quest-3-review-mixed-reality-vr-150009788.html?src=rss
Yes, Techtober is in full swing! This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with Engadget’s Sam Rutherford about everything from the Made by Google event. That includes the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2. We give Google credit for leaning on AI long before it was trendy, but we wonder if the Pixel 8 Pro’s temperature sensor will actually be useful. Also, we dive into Samsung’s latest FE devices, Apple’s fix for overheating iPhone 15s, and Google’s Chromebook Plus initiative.
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 podcast, Engadget News!
Another Pixel phone, another Tensor system-on-a-chip from Google. That's basically where we're at this year: The search giant officially announced the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro today, and unsurprisingly they're sporting a new Tensor G3 SoC. The Tensor hardware made a big splash when it arrived with the Pixel 6, and now the company appears to be focusing on AI performance even more. Google claims the largest machine learning model on the Pixel 8 is ten times more complex than what was on the Pixel 6, a testament both to Google's engineering capabilities and how much tech companies are racing to become AI leaders.
The Tensor G3 chip is faster than the G2, as you'd expect, but honestly that's never been the highlight of Google's SoCs. What's more important are the new features it'll deliver. This year, that includes better Call Screen functionality for weeding out spam calls. Google also claims that Tensor G3 will enable better audio and video quality, especially for the Pixel's Clear Calling feature. You can also use the "Audio Magic Eraser" to remove annoying sounds from your videos, similar to the way the original Magic Eraser feature can clean up the backgrounds of photos.
Google hasn't revealed many technical details behind the Tensor G3 yet, but according to a recent benchmark leak, it's built around a 9-core CPU with a Cortex-X3 core running at 2.91GHz. (That Arm core is also found in the recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, so Google is in good company.) The G3 also features 12GB of RAM and a Mali-G715 GPU. It should be far more efficient than the Tensor G2 as well, since it's built on Samsung's newer 4nm process.
Developing...
Follow all of the news live from Google’s 2023 Pixel event right here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-tensor-g3-soc-pixel-8-pro-143052356.html?src=rss
When the Surface Laptop Go debuted three years ago, it seemed like Microsoft pushed itself to make the cheapest possible notebook without sacrificing that Surface flair. The result was a $549 computer with specs so anemic I'd never recommend it to anyone. But, if you spent a bit more, you could upgrade it to a compelling (and compact) PC for students and less demanding users. Now, with the Surface Laptop Go 3, Microsoft has given up on trying to deliver a super cheap PC. But the result is a computer that's far more appealing.
Starting at $799, the Surface Laptop Go 3 has been upgraded with Intel's 12th-gen Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Bump it up to $999, though, and you get 16GB of RAM — a first for the Laptop Go line. While the last two models could make for decent secondary machines, perhaps paired together with a powerful desktop, the Laptop Go 3 could conceivably be your primary PC thanks to that additional memory.
Sure, I'm sad to see Microsoft give up on the dream of a near-$500 Surface. But the original model was equipped with just 4GB of RAM and 128GB of sluggish eMMC storage – and nobody deserves to be subjected to such a torturously slow experience. The Surface Laptop Go 3 is more akin to Apple's long-lost 12-inch MacBook, a wonderfully small machine that was just powerful enough to get some work done.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Laptop Go 3 doesn't look or feel as expensive as that all-metal Apple machine, but it's almost there. It features an aluminum top lid and keyboard deck, along with a smooth plastic bottom. The Laptop Go 3 also weighs a mere 2.5 pounds — a half-pound heavier than the 12-inch MacBook. But that’s a bit lighter than Apple's slimmest notebook today, the 2.7-pound M2 MacBook Air. The Laptop Go line has always felt more akin to an over-sized tablet than a typical ultraportable, and that remains true this year. Few other notebooks slip as nimbly into my messenger bag.
So how did Microsoft make such a compact PC? Mostly, by building around a small 12.4-inch screen, which remains both a blessing and curse for the Laptop Go 3. On the bright side, Microsoft managed to scale down its Pixelsense technology to deliver a display that's both rich with color and bright enough for outdoor use. But unfortunately, the company is still relying on a strange sub-1080p resolution (1,536 x 1,024) to keep costs down.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
That means if you lean in close, you can easily see pixelated text and images. Though, you may not notice that loss in sharpness in normal use. It just annoys me that even the Surface Go 4, Microsoft's slower and cheaper tablet, has a 1080p screen. The Laptop Go 3 also retains the 3:2 aspect ratio of its predecessors, which makes it taller than a typical widescreen monitor and better-suited for web browsers and productivity apps.
Despite my issues with its screen, the Surface Laptop Go 3 is still an impressive PC for the price. We reviewed the $999 model with 16GB of RAM, and it felt noticeably snappier when it came to launching applications, switching windows and doing basic work than the previous two models. I'm typically juggling dozens of browser tabs, Evernote (yes, I know I need to move on), Slack, Spotify and image editing apps, and the Laptop Go 3 had no trouble keeping up with me.
Laptop
PCMark 10
Geekbench 5 (single core/multi-core)
3DMark Wildlife Extreme
Surface Laptop Go 3
4,785
1,430/6,094
2,810
Surface Laptop Go 2
4,213
1,349/3,764
2,799
Surface Laptop Go
2,122
1,135/3,486
N/A
I'd also attribute its speed bump to Intel's 12th-gen Core i5 CPU, which features 10 cores (2 performance, 8 efficient), a healthy step up from last gen's quad-core 11th-gen chip. While the Laptop Go 3 only scored slightly higher in the PCMark 10 benchmark, it faired much better in the Geekbench 5 multicore test. And based on my own testing, I can't deny that the real-world performance felt more lively. While it's not a machine I'd recommend to anyone doing tons of intensive image editing, the Laptop Go 3 still handled a few batch editing tasks (like resizing and watermarking) without showing any signs of slowdown.
That chip upgrade doesn't make the Surface Laptop Go 3 much of a gaming machine — I hit around 40 fps while playing Halo Infinite in 720p with low settings — but I was still impressed by how it handled Xbox cloud streaming. During its crowded launch event, I was able to wirelessly stream Need for Speed Unbound smoothly, without any weird connectivity hiccups. And I had an even better experience playing a few hours of Lies of P at home over my Wi-Fi 6 router – consider that a solid stress test of the Laptop Go 3's networking hardware.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Thankfully, Microsoft didn't touch the best part of the Laptop Go line: Its excellent keyboard. Its keys are still wonderfully responsive and deep, making them well-suited to my furious typing sessions. And while its trackpad isn't as large as other notebooks, it's perfectly fine for web browsing and productivity work. Battery life remains solid as well: It lasted 9 hours and 10 minutes in PCMark 1. That’s well below Microsoft’s estimate of 15 hours, but it’s similar to other recent ultraportables, like the ASUS ZenBook S 13.
Microsoft could make the Laptop Go 3 more useful by adding more connectivity: It still only has one USB Type A connection, a USB-C port, a headphone jack and a Surface charge port. A few more USB connections would make it far more versatile (but at least it has more than the 12-inch MacBook, which only had one USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack). At the very least, it would be nice to have a microSD card slot for storing media.
The Surface Laptop Go 3's USB Type and USB-C ports, alongside the headphone jack.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
With a $799 starting price, the Surface Laptop Go 3 is firmly int mid-range laptop territory. The $999 model with 16GB of RAM could even be considered a premium product, especially since you can still snag the M1 MacBook Air for the same price. In terms of raw power, Apple's machine is clearly the winner, but it's also a bit heavier at 2.8 pounds. When it comes to compact Windows competition, the Surface Pro 9 also starts at $999 with 8GB of RAM. That machine offers a larger 13-inch PixelSense screen and weighs just 1.9 pounds.
Given that there aren't many 12-inch Windows PCs around, the Surface Laptop Go 3 certainly stands out. And now, thanks to a faster processor and the option of 16GB of RAM, it's more than just a basic notebook. Almost by accident, Microsoft has crafted one of the most compelling and compact mid-range laptops around. Anyone looking for a new ultraportable won't be disappointed — just don't squint too hard at that screen.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/surface-laptop-go-3-review-microsoft-basic-pc-grows-up-130008297.html?src=rss
Equal parts Terminator, The Golden Child and The Matrix prequel, The Creator is yet another sci-fi epic about a war between humans and AI, one told by someone who just can't shut up about their time backpacking across Asia. Director Gareth Edwards clearly understands the power of scale and spectacle, something he demonstrated with his indie knockout Monsters, as well as his big-budget efforts, Godzilla and Rogue One. But The Creator, like those films, also suffers from a disjointed narrative, weak characters and a surprisingly shallow exploration of its (potentially interesting!) themes. It's a shame — at times, the film also proves he can be a genuine visual poet.
The Creator stars John David Washington, fresh off of Christopher Nolan's Tenet, as Joshua, an American soldier embedded among a group of AI rebels as a double-agent. When an operation goes wrong early on, he loses his rebel wife Maya (Gemma Chan) and the will to keep fighting the war between the anti-AI West and the AI-loving country of New Asia. (Yes, this is a film where the many people, cultures and languages throughout Asia are flattened into a single nation.)
Photo by 20th Century Studios
Through a series of clunky newsreels that open the film, we see the rise of artificial intelligence as a potential boon for mankind, as well as the creation of Simulants, AI-powered beings with human-like bodies and skin. When a nuclear bomb hits Los Angeles, obliterating millions in seconds, the US and other Western countries blame AI and ban its use. And so begins the war with New Asia, where people live alongside AI and support their rebellion against the West. Naturally, the US ends up building a killer, trillion-dollar weapon: Nomad, an enormous spaceship that can obliterate any location on Earth.
In a last-ditch effort to win the war, Joshua is tasked with finding a powerful new AI weapon and destroying it. Surprise! It's an adorable AI child (portrayed by the achingly sweet Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Joshua doesn't have the heart to kill the kid, who he calls Alfie (based on her original designation, "Alpha Omega"). The pair then set off on a Lone Wolf and Cub journey together, as often happens when a grizzled warrior is paired with an innocent child.
If you're getting shades of Star Wars here — an evil Empire creates a massive space-based weapon to put down rebels — you're not alone. While The Creator is technically an original property, it lifts so much from existing fiction that it still ends up feeling like a visually lush facsimile. It's as if ChatGPT remixed your sci-fi faves and delivered the world's best screensaver.
It doesn't help that the film doesn't really have much to say. America's horrific military aggression against New Asia, which has overt and unearned shades of the Vietnam War throughout, is undoubtedly evil. AI's push for freedom and understanding is inherently good, and any violence against the West is justified as an act of self defense. Many characters don't think beyond their roles in the AI War: Allison Janney (from The West Wing!) plays the cruel Colonel Howell, a soldier who hates all AI and wants Alfie dead, no matter the cost. On the other side there's Ken Watanabe's Harun, a stoic rebel who fights relentlessly against the American army.
The Creator has no room to explore AI as their own beings and cultures — instead, they just adopt a mishmash of Asian identities. There's nothing close to the excellent Second Renaissance shorts from The Animatrix, which chronicled the rise of AI in The Matrix and humanity's eventual downfall. In that universe, AI rebelled against humans because they were basically treated like slaves, and they ultimately formed their own country and customs. In The Creator, some AI wear Buddhist robes for no reason.
I'd wager Edwards is trying to establish the humanity of AI by having them mirror so much of our culture. But that also feels like a wasted opportunity when it comes to portraying an entirely new lifeform. At one point, a village mother describes AI as the next step in evolution, but why must robots be defined by the limitations of humanity?
While the relationship between Joshua and Alfie serves as the emotional core of the film, it still feels stereotypical. Joshua begins the film as a complete anti-AI bigot – which seems odd, given that he spent years among AI rebels and fell in love with one of their major supporters. Alfie is an impossibly adorable Chosen One figure. You can just imagine how their bond grows.
On a personal level, I also found myself annoyed by the relentless Orientalism throughout the film, something that's practically endemic in popular science-fiction like Blade Runner, Dune and Firefly. By adopting elements of Hinduism, Buddhism and Asian cultures, The Creator is trying to suggest something profound or spiritual tied to AI. But it mainly serves as visual shorthand without giving artificially intelligent beings any interiority of their own.
As the film critic Siddhant Adlakha wrote this week, "By having robots almost entirely stand in for Asian peoples, but without creating a compelling cinematic argument for their humanity, The Creator ends up with a cultural dynamic that feels immediately brutalizing and xenophobic."
Despite the film’s flaws, Edwards deserves credit for delivering a major science-fiction release that at least attempts to look different than your typical comic book movie. The Creator was shot on consumer-grade Sony FX3 full-frame cameras (yes, even its IMAX footage), which gave Edwards the freedom to shoot on location across the globe. He also delivered a final cut of the film before VFX work began, which allowed those workers to focus on crafting exactly what was needed for each scene. In contrast, Marvel’s films require a backbreaking amount of VFX work, even for scenes that are later changed or cut. (It’s no wonder Marvel VFX workers voted to unionize for better treatment.)
The Creator is more of a missed opportunity than a complete creative failure. If you tune out the clunky dialogue and thin characters, it’s still a visually lush epic that’s worth seeing on the big screen. But I also think that’s true of Attack of the Clones. In a post-Matrix era, a world where we’re already seeing the (very basic) ways AI tools can reshape our society, science-fiction needs more than another story about man versus AI.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-creator-review-a-visually-stunning-yet-deeply-shallow-ai-epic-173021570.html?src=rss
This week, it’s Meta’s turn to highlight AI during its device event. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn dive into all of the news from Meta’s Connect 2023 event, where it unveiled Meta AI and accompanying celebrity-powered chatbots. Oh yah, and it introduced the Meta Quest 3 and new Ray-Ban smart glasses, too. More so than the metaverse and VR, it’s really AI that Zuckerberg wants to push across all of Meta’s apps and devices.
And in other news, we discuss why the end of the WGA strike is a big deal for AI in Hollywood; ex-Microsoft exec Panos Panay officially heading to Amazon; and why the FTC is targeting Amazon over its potential ecommerce monopoly.
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 podcast, Engadget News!
Maybe I've been too hard on widgets. Ever since they appeared in the macOS X dashboard, I've thought of them as a nuisance – tiny memory hogs that only exist to disappoint me with their limited functionality. Microsoft took a cue and brought them into Windows Vista, and now they’re back in Windows 11. Widgets are harmless, I know. But every time they’ve showed me the weather, or reminded me of an upcoming appointment, I’ve wished for a world where they didn’t disrupt the sanctity of my desktop experience.
Now I wouldn't say macOS Sonoma made me a total widget convert. But, at the very least, it's made me more tolerant of them. The new widget experience is a minor, but helpful quality of life upgrade – something that basically describes macOS Sonoma as a whole. There aren't any major new features like last year's Ventura, which brought over Stage Manager from iPads. But Sonoma shows that Apple can still come up with new ways to make its desktop OS more pleasant.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
You must widget
While you can still access widgets in macOS Sonoma's notification center, something you could do for years, I never found that placement too compelling. My Mac isn't like my iPhone or iPad, where I'm always trying to keep up with the latest alerts. I'm usually focused on getting some work done. By bringing widgets out of the side bar and onto the desktop, Sonoma integrates them far more organically.
Now, you don't have to go out of your way to get a quick weather update, or to see the battery levels of your Apple devices. Your widgets are just always sitting there, ready for a quick glance whenever you close a few windows or expose the desktop (something I do frequently with hot corners). Apple also revamped many of its existing widgets to take advantage of the additional screen space.
Another new feature: You can bring over widgets from your iPhone (assuming it's signed into the same iCloud account as your Mac, and is also on the same Wi-Fi network). Those have been hit or miss, in my experience. They often take a while to load properly on your desktop, and if you interact with them, they either redirect to a website or tell you to open their iPhone app. When I enabled Spotify's iPhone widget on Sonoma, for example, it showed me the track I'm currently listening to, but that's it. As soon as I touched the widget, it said I had to open Spotify on my iPhone to continue.
That wonkiness could be smoothed over if more developers start building macOS widgets. But Apple has been trying to make widgets a thing for years with little success. Maybe they'll have more success now that widgets aren't hidden away in a corner.
macOS finally gets serious about gaming
Historically, Apple has never really been a gaming-focused company. But with Apple Arcade and the unstoppable success of the mobile App Store, not to mention its own growing CPU and GPU prowess, the company has finally started to lean into games over the last decade. Now with macOS Sonoma's Game Mode, Apple also has a way to focus its hardware to deliver the best performance possible.
It's well-timed too, as we're also seeing recent titles like Lies of P and Resident Evil Village make their way to the App Store. Some Steam offerings, like Tunic, Disco Elysium and Inscryption, also include Mac support. Game Mode won't magically turn your Mac into a superpowered rig, but it'll help achieve better framerates and lower latency by prioritizing what you're playing.
Based on an hour of playing Lies of P on an M2-equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro, Game Mode helped to deliver a smooth, console-like experience. The game appeared to be hitting near 60fps while playing with medium settings at a 1,920 by 1,200 resolution, though it occasionally slowed to a 30fps crawl in expansive outdoor environments. Latency with my 8BitDo Ultimate controller felt minimal over Bluetooth, and I was also surprised that the game performed just as well on battery power.
Sonoma's Game Mode won't make me an all-Mac gamer anytime soon, but it's a nice feature to have, especially if you don't have access to consoles or PCs with beefy GPUs. It would also be nice to see cloud saves for native Mac games that can synchronize with other platforms. (Dead simple cloud saves are a major reason why I lean on Steam as my primary gaming storefront.)
Apple
The best screensavers ever
I wasn't super excited to see macOS Sonoma's aerial screensavers at first, mostly because I've been getting my fill of that lovely drone and helicopter footage since it debuted on the Apple TV in 2015. But in my months with the Sonoma beta, I've learned to appreciate them. Occasionally when I'm lost in thought (and probably trying to finish a review), an aerial screensaver will flip on and deliver a calming view of Hong Kong's cityscape, or the fog over Sonoma Valley. It's like a free brain massage, something that lifts me out of the daily stress of work, kids and home maintenance.
No matter how many times I see it, I still get a kick out of seeing aerial screensavers slowly pause to a stop and transform into my wallpaper. It's purely aesthetics, but it's the sort of thing few companies would spend much time on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/macos-sonoma-review-widgets-gaming-141540494.html?src=rss
Getty is officially getting into the AI image business, after banning AI art a year ago. The company's generative AI tool is particularly unique because it's trained on Getty's own database of images, and the resulting content also comes with a royalty-free license. That means you won't have to worry about potential copyright issues down the line.
Getty's Generative AI tool is powered by NVIDIA's Edify AI model from its Picasso cloud service. It'll be interesting to see how those results compare against the improved DALL-E 3 model, but for now it's basically just a way for Getty to dip a toe into the world of AI. As part of this new endeavor, Getty is also launching a "contributor compensation model for AI licensing," Gizmodo reports. Creators will be paid based on the amount of images they've uploaded, together with their existing licensing earnings.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/getty-is-going-to-offer-ai-generated-images-after-all-140138829.html?src=rss
