Google has revealed a string of accessibility updates it's rolling out for Maps, Search and Assistant, as well as greater availability of some camera-based Pixel features. One of the main focus areas this time around is wheelchair accessibility. A new option that's gradually becoming available on iOS and Android will allow Maps users to request stair-free walking routes. This feature — which Google says will benefit those traveling with luggage and strollers as well — will be available globally, as long as the company has sufficient data for the region.

Google notes that if you have the wheelchair-accessible option enabled in your transit preferences, this will automatically be applied to walking routes too. Otherwise, when you request a walking route, you can access stair-free directions by tapping the three dots at the top of the screen and enabling the "wheelchair-accessible" option.

On a related note, wheelchair-accessible information will be available across more Google products, namely on Maps for Android Auto and cars with Google built in. When you search for a place and tap on it, a wheelchair icon will appear if the location has a step-free entrance, accessible restrooms, parking or seating.

It should be easier to find and support businesses owned by people with disabilities in Maps and Search too. If a business chooses to identify itself as "disabled-owned," this will be mentioned in Maps and Search listings. Google previously rolled out similar Asian-owned, Black-owned, Latino-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, veteran-owned and women-owned business labels.

Elsewhere, Google is enabling screen reader capabilities in Lens in Maps (which was previously called Search with Live View), an augmented reality tool that's designed to help you find things like ATMs, restrooms and restaurants with the help of your handset's camera. When you're in a perhaps unfamiliar place, you can tap the camera icon in the search bar and point your phone at the world around you.

"If your screen reader is enabled, you’ll receive auditory feedback of the places around you with helpful information like the name and category of a place and how far away it is," Eve Andersson, senior director on Google's Products for All team, wrote in a blog post. This Lens in Maps feature, which is geared toward blind and low-vision folks, will be available on iOS starting today and Android later this year.

On Pixel devices, the Magnifier app uses your camera to help you zoom in on real-world details from afar or to make text on menus and documents easier to read with the help of color filters, brightness and contrast settings. The app is available for Pixel 5 and later devices, but not the Pixel Fold.

Google also notes that the latest version of Guided Frame that arrived on Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro earlier this month recognizes pets, dishes and documents in addition to faces to help people who are blind or have low-vision take good-quality photos. The Guided Frame update is coming to Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 devices later this year.

Meanwhile, Google is offering more customizable Assistant Routines. The company says you'll be able to add a Routine to your home screen as a shortcut, determine the size of it and customize it with your own images. "Research has shown that this personalization can be particularly helpful for people with cognitive differences and disabilities and we hope it will bring the helpfulness of Assistant Routines to even more people," Andersson wrote. Google developers took inspiration from Action Blocks for this feature.

Last but not least, Google earlier this year added a feature to the desktop Chrome address bar to detect typos and suggest websites based on what the app reckons you meant. The feature will be available on Chrome on iOS and Android starting today. The idea is to help folks with dyslexia, language learners and those who make typos more easily find what they're seeking.

Netflix is getting into live sports streaming, but it's not shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars on NFL games, Formula 1 races or the English Premier League quite yet. The company's first live sports event is a pro-am golf tournament that features athletes from its Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing docuseries.

The Netflix Cup will see four pairs of Formula 1 drivers and PGA Tour golfers pairing up in a match play tournament that will take place in Las Vegas. You'll be able to watch the event starting at 6PM ET on Tuesday, November 14 — just a few days before F1's inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.

As things stand, The Netflix Cup is set to feature F1 drivers Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. The golf pros who have lined up to take part are Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas. The tournament will see the pro-am pairs play an eight-hole match. The top two teams will duke it out on a final hole to try and win the Netflix Cup.

“The continued success of Drive to Survive has played a significant role in the growth of Formula 1 in the US, which has ultimately led to the addition of a third American race,” Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer of Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc, said in a statement. “It’s only fitting that we kick off our inaugural race weekend with a fun event that can be streamed by F1 and PGA Tour fans around the globe.”

This is a logical way for Netflix to dip its toes into live sports streaming. It means that the company doesn't have to immediately snap up expensive rights to high-profile leagues (many of which have deals with rival streaming services anyway) or to showcase lower-tier sports.

It's also another example of Netflix's cross-branding coming to the forefront. The company is placing more focus on its own properties with things like a Squid Game reality competition series and branded retail stores that will feature an obstacle course based on its biggest hit to date. Netflix is also said to be developing more video game adaptations of its shows and movies, such as Extraction and Black Mirror.

Netflix's first livestreamed event was a Chris Rock standup special. However, the company ran into technical problems with its second planned livestream, a Love is Blind cast reunion. The company instead filmed the reunion and uploaded it to the platform as quickly as it could. Netflix will be hoping things go more smoothly this time around.

Apple has unveiled a new Apple Pencil. The latest model costs $79 ($69 for education) and it pairs and charges via a USB-C cable. It’ll be available in early November and it’s compatible with every iPad that has a USB-C port.

This is the company’s most budget-friendly Apple Pencil yet. It’s $20 less than the original model and $40 cheaper than the second-gen Apple Pencil. Apple says features of the new version include pixel-perfect accuracy, low latency and tilt sensitivity.

There's no pressure sensitivity this time around, though, so if you want that feature, you'll need to stick with either of the previous iterations. While you can attach the USB-C Apple Pencil magnetically to the side of your iPad for storage (in which case it will go into a sleep state to prolong the battery life), there's no wireless charging support either. To top up the Pencil's battery, you'll need to slide back a cap to expose a USB-C port and plug in a charging cable.

Apple

Unlike the second-gen Pencil, you won't be able to double tap the latest version to change drawing tools. Apple has also declined to offer free engraving this time around. However, if you have an M2-powered iPad, you'll be able to take advantage of the hover feature that's supported on the second-gen Pencil. That enables you to preview any mark you intend to make before it's actually applied to your note, sketch, annotation and so on.

This is Apple's latest step in its transition away from the Lightning port, which was largely prompted by European Union rules. The company started embracing USB-C on iPads several years ago, while it ditched the Lightning port in all iPhone 15 models. It'll take Apple a while longer to move away from Lightning entirely. Several devices it sells — such as older iPhones, AirPods Max, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad and the first-gen Apple Pencil — still use that charging port. But this is another step toward an all-USB-C future, and one fewer charging cable you'll need to carry around.

Goldman Sachs, Apple's banking partner for its credit card and high-yield savings account, is seemingly having doubts about those products. According to The Wall Street Journal, Goldman is looking to get out of the consumer lending business, which could have implications for Apple Card and the associated savings account.

The report suggests that several senior Goldman executives want the company to ditch its remaining consumer lending products — those it offers with Apple as well as the General Motors credit card. No final decision is said to have been made, though the future of Goldman's consumer products may become a little clearer when the finance company reports its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

Consumer lending efforts such as Apple Card may have been a mistake for Goldman. The business unit that oversees those and GreenSky (a "buy now, pay later" company Goldman bought for around $2.2 billion last year and is selling at a loss) has lost billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Goldman has run afoul of regulators. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has investigated Goldman's handling of credit card billing errors and refunds. Unlike with other card programs, Apple Card bills go out at the beginning of each month. That's said to put more pressure on Goldman customer service workers who deal with complaints and billing issues. Issuing bills on a rolling basis may alleviate that strain. However, Goldman has reportedly been unsuccessful in convincing Apple to move to a more typical billing cycle.

If Goldman isn't able to reduce expenses for its credit cards, it may try to sell the Apple and GM partnerships, according to the report. That may prove a difficult prospect, given that customers have deposited billions of dollars into Apple savings accounts. If Goldman manages to get another bank to take over the Apple partnership (including those hefty savings accounts), the Journal noted that the finance company may have to raise expensive emergency funding to cover any shortfall.

Goldman is said to have had talks with American Express about taking over its consumer products. However, Amex reportedly has concerns regarding the Apple Card’s loss rates and other factors Goldman has been attempting to remedy. Amex leaders are also said to have bristled at the fact the Apple Card operates on the Mastercard network.

LinkedIn has announced its second round of layoffs this year. The Microsoft division is shedding around 668 workers from across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams.

"While we are adapting our organizational structures and streamlining our decision making, we are continuing to invest in strategic priorities for our future and to ensure we continue to deliver value for our members and customers," LinkedIn said in its announcement. "We are committed to providing our full support to all impacted employees during this transition and ensuring that they are treated with care and respect."

In May, LinkedIn revealed plans to lay off 716 people and close its job search app in China. As such, LinkedIn will have cut nearly 1,400 jobs this year amid widespread layoffs across the tech industry in 2023. Microsoft, which just bought Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, laid off around 10,000 workers in the first few months of 2023.

In Microsoft's most recent earnings report (which covers April to June), the company said that LinkedIn's earnings had increased by five percent year-over-year. It noted that membership growth had "accelerated for eight quarters in a row" and that the platform had more than 950 million users. Microsoft is set to announce financial results for the July-September period, the first quarter of its fiscal year, on October 24.

Google had a fairly generous offer for those who pre-ordered a Pixel 8 device: the company tossed in a Pixel Watch 2 or Pixel Buds Pro for free. While the new handsets are now on the market and that offer is no longer available, you haven’t necessarily missed out.

A bundle of the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2 has dropped from $1,349 to $999 at Amazon. Given that the Pixel Watch 2 costs $349, you’ll effectively be getting the wearable for free.

Along with the Tensor G3 chip and new displays, the Pixel 8 lineup offers genuinely useful AI features. Intuitive photo editing, the ability to generate a custom wallpaper and being able to remove distracting ambient noises using Audio Magic Eraser are all major plus points. We gave the Pixel 8 Pro a score of 93 in our review thanks to these factors along with others such as a major improvement to battery life, the addition of a temperature sensor and a very welcome extension of software support to seven years.

As for the Pixel Watch 2, we feel that it's a worthy improvement over the original model that's helping Google catch up to rival smartwatches. We gave it a score of 79 in our review, highlighting aspects such as far better battery life (which was the major drawback of the original Pixel Watch), a great heart-rate sensor and the slick design. We took issue with some of the software quirks though, along with the lack of wireless charging and the fact you need to connect to Wi-Fi to sync the device.

That’s not the only bundle Amazon has on sale. You can effectively get a set of Pixel Buds Pro for free when you buy a Pixel 8 bundle, which is currently $200 off at $699.

We gave the Pixel 8 a score of 90. Storage tops out at 256GB (you can deck out the Pixel 8 Pro with up to 1TB of storage, by comparison), the lack of mmWave 5G support and no pro camera controls were our major negatives. That said, while it doesn't have quite as many bells and whistles as the Pixel 8 Pro, it's still a great smartphone.

Meanwhile, we feel that the Pixel Buds Pro are Google's best earbuds to date. In our review last year, we gave them a score of 87. They deliver solid bass and good active noise cancellation performance, but at the time of our review we felt that the call quality and transparency mode were lacking.

Google has been improving the earbuds over time with software updates. It recently upgraded them with call quality enhancements and a feature that pauses music and activates transparency mode when the Pixel Buds Pro detect that you're speaking.

These bundles should help to offset the $100 Google tacked onto the price of each phone compared with the Pixel 7 lineup. You can check out the full Pixel 8 sale at Amazon, but you'll need to act quickly if you're interested in either of bundle we've highlighted here. The deals are only available until 11:59PM PT on October 16 or while stocks last.

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We’re not quite done with the busy fall season of tech events. It’s Baidu’s turn to reveal what it has been cooking up. The company will host its Baidu World showcase on October 16th at 10PM ET.

After several years of holding the event entirely virtually, Baidu is returning to an in-person format with "real-world demos and experiences" for the first time since 2019. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the direction almost every major tech company has gone in recent times, there will be a significant focus on artificial intelligence.

Baidu says it will discuss “a range of AI-native applications and the latest advances in foundation models.” That suggests we’ll learn more about what’s next for ERNIE Bot, its large language model and generative AI chatbot. The company may also have more to share about the impact of artificial intelligence on its self-driving initiatives.

The two-hour event will open with a keynote address from Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li. You can watch a live stream of Baidu World 2023 below.

Several weeks after Nintendo revealed Charles Martinet will no longer voice Mario, the company has confirmed the identity of the actor who'll play its most famous character for the foreseeable future. Kevin Afghani is the new voice of Mario Mario and Luigi Mario in Nintendo's games.

"Incredibly proud to have voiced Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder," Afghani, who was perhaps best known until now as the voice of Arnold in Genshin Impact, wrote on X. "Thanks to Nintendo for inviting me into the Flower Kingdom!" Nintendo confirmed to Polygon that Afghani is voicing the characters and will have the honor of being the first actor to portray Elephant Mario.

Fans noticed something different with Mario's voice when the first trailer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which arrives on October 20, emerged over the summer. They noticed a difference in Wario's voice in a WarioWare: Move It! clip too. It's not yet clear who's playing Mario's arch-rival in that game.

Martinet, who is 67, was the man behind Mario's "wahoo!" and "here we go!" exclamations for well over two decades in games and since 1991 at trade shows. He's played several other characters in the Mario-verse during that time, including Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Luigi and Baby Mario.

But whether it was Martinet's decision or Nintendo's, it was evidently time for a change. Martinet will continue to work with Nintendo as a “Mario Ambassador,” which will see him "continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario."

One of the biggest unanswered questions regarding Microsoft's $67.8 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard concerned the role of Bobby Kotick at the company. Now that the deal is finally complete and the publisher is officially a part of Microsoft, the future of the Activision Blizzard CEO is a little clearer.

In a memo to employees, Kotick wrote that he is "fully committed to helping with the transition." He'll remain at the helm "through the end of 2023" and he'll report to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. "We both look forward to working together on a smooth integration for our teams and players," Kotick wrote.

Kotick is widely expected to step down from the role he has held for over three decades as soon as January 1, though Activision Blizzard has declined to confirm an exact date for his departure. In any case, his contract runs until April.

Other changes are expected at the top of Activision Blizzard. In his own memo to the publisher's staff, Spencer wrote that "we will share more updates on our new organizational structure in the coming months."

Kotick shaped his company into a financially successful enterprise after leading a group of investors to buy Mediagenic for a bargain-basement price in 1991. He restructured the company and restored its previous name of Activision. In 2008, following a string of successful games, acquisitions and investments, Kotick engineered a merger with the games division of Vivendi, which owned Blizzard.

However, Kotick's stewardship of the company has long been a controversial one. As far back as 2010, Kotaku called him "the most hated man in video games," partly because of the perception that Kotick places a heavy focus on monetizing Activision Blizzard's games as much as possible. That's not to mention his reported treatment of employees at his various companies.

Over the last few years, observers have been paying more attention to Activision Blizzard's culture under Kotick. In 2021, the California Civil Rights Department, sued the company, alleging that it fostered a culture where discrimination and widespread harassment were rife. Later that year, a report by The Wall Street Journal indicated that Kotick had long been aware of sexual misconduct and assault allegations at Activision Blizzard, and that he neglected to share some of those (or details about settlements that were agreed with alleged victims) with the board.

The report led to many Activision Blizzard workers walking out and demanding Kotick's resignation. The following year, months after Microsoft made its blockbuster bid for Activision Blizzard, the publisher's shareholders voted to let Kotick keep his board seat.

In fact, the turmoil over Activision Blizzard's toxic workplace culture (and resulting pressure on the company that sent its stock tumbling) was what prompted Microsoft to buy the company. Kotick had claimed that Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV delays resulted in a fall of the stock price. But workers pushed back on those assertions.

Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy claimed in early 2022 that Kotick pushed "random projects" onto the development team. Kennedy said the team worked overtime only to see those projects canceled and that "entire teams are turning over" and blaming Kotick.

It's not only at Activision where Kotick has spurred controversy. In 2007, the flight attendant of a private jet he was co-owner of sued him. The attendant alleged that, after she informed the plane's other owner that the pilot had sexually harassed her, Kotick fired her. The case resulted in a $200,000 settlement for the flight attendant.

Kotick has long been one of the highest-paid CEOs in North America and he's not exactly going to be retiring with only a nice watch to show for his time at Activision Blizzard. A report last year suggested that he stood to make $375.3 million from the sale to Microsoft. He's also expected to receive a golden parachute payment of $14.6 million when he departs.

While most Apple chatter tends to concern the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Macbook lines, the company is hardly neglecting those who prefer a desktop Mac. The Mac mini is a capable piece of kit, especially now that the company is shoving its Apple Silicon chips into them. Those interested in picking up a Mac mini may be interested to learn that an M2-powered model is currently on sale at B&H. It has dropped by $100 to $499 to match a solid deal that popped up in August.

This model includes an M2 chipset with an eight-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 16-core neural engine, along with 8GB of unified RAM and 256GB of SSD storage. It has a pair of Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports, two USB-A slots and one each for Ethernet and HDMI. The M2 Mac mini supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack too.

We gave the M2 Mac mini a score of 86 in our review back in January. We appreciated the machine's performance and variety of ports, as well as its quiet operation. We liked the design too. While it largely looks similar to earlier models, this Mac mini has a slightly elevated base to improve airflow.

We didn't have any major reservations with this version specifically, though upgrades are expensive and the more advanced M2 Pro model is too pricey. Our main quibble was not having any front-facing ports. Ultimately, there's not a ton to dislike about the M2 Mac mini.

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