Chinese gadget manufacturer Honor just teased its forthcoming flagship smartphone, the Magic 6, at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit. While many details of the phone remain mysterious, the company did announce that it would include built-in eye-tracking and an on-board artificial intelligence powered by a large language model (LLM.)

One of the phone’s key features is something called Magic Capsule, an “eye-tracking based multimodal interaction.” Eye-tracking has some potential real world uses when it comes to smartphones, as the sensors and cameras can perform actions based on where you’re looking. So you can open up an app or engage with content on the phone simply by staring at the right spot.

This could be a game-changer for those with disabilities, allowing near-total access to the device via minute eye movements. However, some folks may get a bit queasy with the idea of our phones tracking every single thing we stare at.

While the actual specs of the Magic 6 are still under wraps, Honor did announce the presence of an on-board LLM. This built-in chatbot is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset.

It’s important to note the distinction here. This is an on-board LLM. Typically when you engage with an AI chatbot or service on your phone, you’re fiddling with a cloud-based LLM that exists on a server somewhere. With the Magic 6, every piece of data that the chatbot will access is already on the phone. 

This should drastically increase the speed and reliability of results, potentially turning the phone into one heck of a personal assistant, as it’ll have access to everything on the device, including your photos, contacts, videos and more. Despite this unfettered access, the Magic 6 should actually be more private than competing smartphones, as everything stays on the device and isn't shuffled off to the cloud.

The company showed off some nifty features that take advantage of this technology. The smart assistant, nicknamed YOYO, can create short videos based on footage stored on the phone via a simple chat prompt. You can also adjust templates, themes and music with similar prompts. The bot will also collect images and videos stored on your phone that match a specific search criteria, with more use case scenarios to be revealed at a later date.

Honor’s Magic 6 flagship smartphone was just announced and the company didn’t provide a release date or cost information. However, Qualcomm says that phones featuring its new chipset will begin shipping in the coming weeks, so the Magic 6 could be one of them. In the meantime, Honor has made quite the name for itself in the folding phone space.

Linksys just released its first-ever mesh Wi-Fi 7 router, the Velop Pro 7. It’s powered by the latest Qualcomm Networking Pro 620 platform, which the company says helps it achieve “wire-like stability.” The mesh system can connect up to 200 devices per node and each node offers approximately 3,000 square feet of coverage.

Linksys says these routers use a proprietary technology called Continuous Mesh that continually optimizes the system to match connected devices and increase speed. The company says this makes the Velop Pro 7 particularly useful for gadgets equipped with AR/VR technology, like the recently-released Meta Quest 3 headset.

Mesh router systems can be frustrating to install, particularly when you’re working with multiple nodes, but Linksys claims its newest release can be fully incorporated into your home in just ten minutes. The company says its new setup technology hastens the process by nearly 70 percent when compared to other Linksys router systems.

This is a tri-band system, so it’ll connect to just about anything, which is always nice. It also integrates with the Linksys app, so you can keep an eye on what devices are connected to suss out anything that doesn’t quite belong. This app even lets you pause your wireless connection so you can focus on homework or, cough, writing about routers for the internet.

The Velop Pro 7 is available today straight from the company or via Best Buy. The bare-bones pack, featuring a single node, costs $400, with two nodes costing $750 and three nodes ramping up to $1,000. UK residents will have to wait until mid-November for the launch, with global availability coming at a later date.

This may be the first mesh Wi-Fi 7 system for Linksys, but the industry is adopting this modern wireless standard at a rapid clip. Netgear, for instance, has gone all-in on the concept with the release of its Nighthawk RS700S router and the ultra-expensive flagship Orbi 970 system.

Back in May, Google announced it was working on a feature called “about this image” that gives users verified data regarding any photo on the internet. Well, it just rolled out as part of search, so you won’t be able to get away with passing off somebody else’s photo of a 1988 Burger King Alf plushie as your own.

Here’s how it works. Just use Google Search, select an image and click on the three dots on the right-hand corner to access the tool. You’ll receive a whole gob of useful information, including when the image was originally published, if it’s been published since then and where it’s popped up throughout the years. A veritable cornucopia of metadata.

Google

The obvious use case scenario for this is verifying whether or not an image used to accompany a news event is legit, or if it’s been taken out of context from something that happened in 2007 to drum up misinformation. To that end, the tool also shows you how other sites use and describe the image, similar to how search already handles factual information via the “perspectives” filter and the “about this result” tab. Google says you can also access the feature by clicking on the “more about this page” link, with more options to come.

Of course, there’s a little thing sweeping the world right now called artificial intelligence. The images generated by AI platforms can be tough to distinguish from the genuine article, so Google’s tool also lets you know if an image has been AI-generated or not. However, this depends on the metadata including this information, so the original image creators would have to opt-in. Google says its own AI-generated images will always feature the appropriate metadata.

That’s not the only tool Google’s rolling out to provide increased nuance for image searches. Fact Check Explorer, a handy app for journalists, will soon expand to include images. As for non-image based searches, the tech giant also announced software that creates AI-generated descriptions of websites, helping users research lesser-known entities.

We knew Netflix had snagged the iconic roguelike/metroidvania Dead Cells for its ever-growing games library, and now we know when it’ll release. Dead Cells: Netflix Edition will be available on October 31. That’s Halloween, to those who don’t mess with the dark pagan arts. This is the full game, along with every paid DLC release, including the Castlevania crossover.

A standard Netflix subscription gives you access to the game on both iOS and Android devices, so you can finally see what all the Dead Cells fuss is about without spending any extra cash. As for that Halloween release date, this launch is part of the streamer’s “Netflix and Thrills” promotional event. Dead Cells isn’t a scary game, but it is steeped in a certain kind of classic gothic horror, like its forebear Castlevania.

Here’s a quick run down. You play as a headless blob/human hybrid, attempting to escape an island prison. It’s a sidescrolling action platformer. Every time you die, you start over and the world’s layout changes, which makes it a roguelike. However, you do get permanent upgrades that carry over from run to run and power ups that let you access new areas, which is where the Metroidvania part comes in. It’s extremely addictive, like calling in sick to work addictive.

In other words, there’s a reason Dead Cells has sold more than 10 million copies across numerous platforms and has even inspired a forthcoming animated series. If you’ve been on the fence for the, uh, past five years and have a Netflix account, this is a no brainer.

The streamer’s “Netflix and Thrills” event also sees the release of a brand-new sequel to the indie hit Slayaway Camp, which drops today. As for TV and movies, the company’s traditional bread and butter, “Netflix and Thrills” features the release of Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher, UFO docuseries Encounters and the survival thriller Nowhere, among many others.

Universal Audio has gone all-in on the amp-in-a-pedal concept and just announced its latest entry, the UAFX Lion '68 Super Lead. This pedal digitally recreates a trio of classic 100-watt Marshall Plexi setups from the 1960s. You get the titular Super Lead based on the classic tube amp, the Super Bass inspired by the 1967 low-end icon and the Brown, which emulates the sound of a 100-watt Marshall Plexi heading into a Variac to recreate Eddie Van Halen’s infamous guitar tone.

This is a modern pedal with high-tech features, however, so it goes well beyond simple amp recreations. The onboard IR includes recreations of different classic microphones and speaker cabinets to adjust the sound. There’s also built-in reverb, volume boost, presence and a variety of assignable preset switches that are customized by using a smartphone app. There are also plenty of artist presets to select from if you’ve grown weary of fiddling with knobs.

All of the speaker models derive from the company’s OX Stomp pedal. There’s six in total at launch, with more to be added at a later date. Updating is easy, as there’s a USB-C port on the back, in addition to mono/stereo jack connectors.

You can even bypass the cabinet and mic emulations entirely if you would rather rely on your actual amp. UA says these features combine to create “the most authentic late ‘60s British 100-watt tube sound ever placed into a stompbox.” The UAFX Lion '68 Super Lead is available now for the usual high-end price tag of $400.

Accompanying today’s release is a new tremolo pedal, a chorus/vibrato pedal and a compressor pedal based on the classic Teletronix LA-2A. This is not the company’s first foray of amp recreations. Universal Audio cut its teeth making plugins, including many based on classic amps. More recently, it released a trio of amp emulation pedals based on the Fender Deluxe Reverb, the Fender Tweed Deluxe and the Vox AC30. We reviewed all three and said that they sounded amazing, despite the hefty $400 price tag.

The crowded field of Twitter clones has just winnowed a bit, as Pebble has officially exited the game, announced via an email to Engadget. The social media site, formerly called T2 Social, was actually created by ex-Twitter employees and this announcement occurs just five weeks after the rebrand to Pebble.

The company is transparent when it comes to the reasoning behind the closure, saying “we were not growing quickly enough for investors to believe that we will break out.” Pebble also noted the crowded field of competitors and the “uphill climb” to garner traffic and sustained use. It simply needed more time to “build out a complete Pebble”, but investors put the kibosh on that idea.

Though the app’s going the way of the dodo, current users will be given some time to login and download their personal archives. Just head to account settings on the web version and look for an option marked “wrap it up please.” Additionally, the company says this might not be the absolute end for Pebble, suggesting that folks “stay tuned” for a potential reinvention of the platform at some point in the future.

Pebble was committed to Twitter’s original mission of becoming a “public town square” and even tried to lure verified Twitter users by allowing them to keep their checkmarks. The app’s shutdown suggests this strategy didn’t work. Good night, sweet prince.

In the meantime, there are still plenty of Twit-alikes out there for those looking to escape endless porn bot scam accounts commenting on every single post you make and blue check bozos bloviating about nonsense. There are the big apps, like Threads and Bluesky, but also Mastodon, Post, Spoutible, Spill, Hive Social, CounterSocial and that Trump one, among others. The last day to post on Pebble is November 1. 

Apple just confirmed another streaming event for October 30 at, wait for it, 8PM ET. Tis the spooky season, so why not hold a presentation at night? The tagline for the event is “Scary Fast” so it certainly sounds like there will be some hardware announcements. We already had the big iPhone 15 event, so that leaves the company’s desktop and laptop computers.

To that end, it’s been a surprisingly long time since there’s been a new iMac. Analyst Mark Gurman suggested that this event will feature a refresh of the aging iMac line, and his track record is pretty good when it comes to Apple. Gurman also suggested that it’s likely we’ll see an update to the MacBook Pro.

Apple

This analysis is based on current retail supplies and shipping dates for forthcoming models, with retail stores noting they have short supply of the current iMacs and the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The colorful 24-inch M1 iMac came out all the way back in April 2021, which is a lifetime in tech circles, and hasn’t been updated since. The MacBook Pro M2 is newer, releasing in 2022, but still due for an upgrade.

With that said, there are also rumors that the event will reveal the followup chip, the M3. It’s also possible we’ll get an iPad reveal, as the company’s flagship tablet is also due for a refresh.

In the past, Apple has typically reserved its October press event for computers, which is another mark in the “new iMac” column. In any event, we don’t have that long to wait, as October 30 is just around the corner. Here’s hoping Tim Cook will be dressed as a mummy or Barbenheimer or something.

Crunchyroll, a subsidiary of Sony, reached an agreement with Amazon to launch on Prime Video Channels, giving anime-niacs a new way to stream their favorite content, as originally reported by Deadline. Amazon’s Prime Video Channels is a hub that offers access to Amazon’s stable of original content, but also lets users sign up for third-party streamers like Max, Starz, Paramount+ and others.

This agreement brings two tiers of Crunchyroll to Prime Video customers in the US, Canada, Sweden and the UK. The Fan subscription gives you full access to the entire catalog of anime, which includes over 1,000 titles and 30,000 episodes. You also get brand-new series at the same time they air in Japan and the streamer’s full collection of digital manga. The Mega Fan subscription includes all of the above, plus offline viewing and access to four concurrent streams, which is great for those who play fast and loose with their passwords.

Terry Li, EVP of emerging business at Crunchyroll, says this move will allow even the “anime-curious” to “get immersed in our library.” Crunchyroll already has plenty of subscribers, 11 million as of earlier this year, and this should push that count even higher. Sony purchased Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2021 for $1.2 billion, combining it with Funimation to create an absolute behemoth of cartoonery.

Of course, just like Max, Starz and the rest, Prime Video isn’t the only way to access Crunchyroll. You can still download the app and sign up as normal. No matter which way you choose to consume Crunchyroll content, you’ll pay $8 a month for the Fan tier and $10 a month for the Mega Fan tier.

Prime Video Channels is in direct competition with the other streaming hub, Apple TV Channels. As the two continue to gobble up content partners, it seems like consumers will end up with something that looks and feels a whole lot like cable.

Xbox is presenting a showcase on Wednesday to highlight the various third-party titles coming to Microsoft’s gaming consoles, Windows computers and Game Pass. The festivities kick off on Wednesday, October 25 at 1PM EST. You can watch via the official YouTube channel or on Twitch.

The stream promises a “fresh mix of indie games and familiar favorites” from third-party companies like Remedy, Studio Wildcard, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and more, with 20 minutes of trailers and gameplay footage on the docket. Consider this Xbox’s version of those Nintendo Indie World showcase events.

So what should you expect during the stream? Microsoft hasn’t released a list of games that’ll take center stage, but did drop some teases. The company says it’ll reveal the “latest information” about Yakuza-adjacent RPG Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Dungeons of Hinterberg. It also promised a launch trailer for the long-awaited Alan Wake II, which releases at the end of this week, and the first gameplay footage of Ark: Survival Ascended. There should also be some surprises, so can we have a little Hollow Knight: Silksong trailer… as a treat?

The stream will be available in 30 languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL.) Additionally, Xbox says that YouTube streams will be in 4K at 60fps, which should be a good way to suss out real-world graphical performance.

The Biden administration and the US Commerce Department just named 31 regions as "tech hubs", drawn from nearly 400 applicants. These hub areas are spread across the country, in addition to territories like Puerto Rico, and each spot could share in $500 million of funding as originally detailed in the CHIPS and Science Act that was signed into law back in 2022.

The administration hopes to use these hubs to “catalyze investment in technologies critical to economic growth, national security and job creation” with an end goal of helping “communities across the country become centers of innovation critical to American competitiveness.” Additionally, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters that the program seeks to diversify the country’s tech interests, moving away from traditional hubs like Silicon Valley, Seattle and Boston, as reported by Yahoo.

To that end, these hubs will focus on everything under the sun, from artificial intelligence, biotech, clean energy, semiconductors, quantum computing and more. Examples include a hub in Washington state that’s developing new materials for next-gen fuel-efficient aircraft, a Wisconsin program seeking to make advancements in personalized medicine and a New York organization researching new battery technologies, among 28 others. It’s worth noting that many of these hubs are in small or medium-sized cities, with Raimondo saying that “people shouldn't have to move to get a good job.”

There’s one caveat. Snagging one of these coveted hub designations doesn’t guarantee federal funding. The Commerce Department will follow each program throughout the next year, with funding to follow. Raimondo says that five to 10 hubs will receive up to $75 million. With 31 hub areas and just $500 million to disperse, that could leave many locations in the financial cold.

Additionally, the CHIPS and Science Act is a robust piece of legislation that drops more than $280 billion into various sectors, so these hubs represent less than 1/500th of the allocated funding set aside by the bill. There’s $52 billion in tax credits and funding for US chipmakers to expand domestic production, $7 billion for clean hydrogen and $1.5 billion to “boost US leadership in wireless technologies and their supply chains.” The bill also sets aside $10 billion to “invest in regional innovation and technology” which is the exact point of these hubs, so maybe more money is coming down the line.

Biden has asked Congress for an additional $4 billion to fund even more regional tech hubs, but, well, that would be part of the full-year budget and you may have noticed that the House still lacks a speaker with a government shutdown on the horizon.