Scientists at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have smashed the internet transfer record by shifting data at 319Tbps, almost double the last speed test attempted in August 2020. At that speed, you could download over 7,000 high-definition movies in a second.
It involved addressing every part of the pipeline, upgrading the fiber optic line with four cores over the usual single core in typical lines, while the laser was amplified at its source. It also wasn’t shooting under any oceans or anything: The scientists used coiled cabling to simulate a 1,864-mile distance.
As you might expect at the cutting edge of high-speed internet, upgrading to this capability could be mightily expensive — though the four-core fiber optic cable should work with existing infrastructure.
I wasn’t sure which was the most important story of the weekend for me: incredible internet speeds or meat-free ‘chicken nuggets.’ Impossible Foods’ plant-based chicken nuggets are coming this fall. As with its past launches, the startup plans to sell the food to restaurants first, with supermarket availability to follow later.
What’s notable here is the absence of heme, a molecule the company says is what makes “meat taste like meat,” in the nuggets. Because Impossible makes heme with genetically engineered yeast, which has stopped the company from selling its burgers and sausages in China and throughout Europe. Chicken doesn’t particularly need the taste that heme offers, so instead the company is leaning into soy protein and sunflower oil — ingredients typically found in other non-meat nuggets.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claimed over the weekend that the 2021 iPhone will potentially have an "Apple Watch-like" always-on display with better battery life in addition to a 120Hz refresh rate and a smaller screen notch. Another rumor from Max Weinbach suggested that Apple would use an LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) panel that, like on the Apple Watch and a few Android phones, could drop to lower refresh rates to show you what you want to see without denting battery life too hard. Continue reading.
It outgrew virtually everyone else, including Apple.
Canalys estimates that Xiaomi became the world's second-largest phone brand in the second quarter of 2021, surging 83 percent year-over-yer to claim 17 percent of the market. It overtook Apple (14 percent) to claim the second spot and also blew past Chinese rivals Oppo and Vivo.
Caltech researchers have identified six locations for methane "burps" (that is, emissions blips) on the planet, including one just a few dozen miles west-southwest from the Curiosity rover’s location. The research hasn't yet been peer reviewed, but it’s possible the gas has non-organic origins. Continue reading.
Valve just surprised us all with a handheld console. The $399 Steam Deck will arrive in December, with availability expanding to more regions later.
Looking like some unholy alliance of Sega’s Game Gear and the Nintendo Switch, the hardware includes a seven-inch touchscreen at 1,280 x 800 resolution at 60Hz refresh rate. There is no shortage of control options either, with dual thumbsticks, two pretty large square trackpads, an old-school directional pad, four main face buttons, triggers and a quartet of grip buttons.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s just shy of a foot long. Eesh. Valve has ensured there’s enough power inside to tempt PC gamers that already have an expansive Steam library. There’s an AMD 2.4-3.5GHz processor and a 1.0 to 1.6GHz GPU with eight RDNA 2 compute units. There’s 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM inside, too. Valve promises a battery life of between two and eight hours on a single charge, depending on how much power you need for your games. Given the power many AAA PC games require, you can probably expect a lot of experiences to hover around the lower estimates.
While the Steam Deck might not be as powerful as your gaming PC, Valve is using Proton, a compatibility layer that lets games run without developers having to do any work porting titles across — you'll apparently have access to your full library of games. This price point makes it slightly more expensive than the Switch, and the same price as the digital-only PS5. Due to its Steam hooks, however, it’s a very different proposition. How well will PC games play on a seven-inch handheld?
Elgato’s first $200 web camera isn’t all that unique. It’s a chunky rectangular box you can easily clip on top of a monitor, and it lacks a mic or anything approaching 4K resolution. It shoots 1080p at 60 fps, which should be enough for streamers who use the camera output as picture-in-picture. Continue reading.
The film features three quotes that Bourdain never recorded.
Today, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain opens in US theatres. Like many documentaries, the film pieces together archival footage, including interviews and show outtakes, to tell the story of its subject in their own words. It also includes words Bourdain never spoke to a camera before his suicide in 2018, and yet you’ll hear his voice saying them. The film’s director, Morgan Neville, explained to The New Yorker that there were three quotes he wanted Bourdain to narrate, and to do so, Neville recreated them with software instead, making an AI model of Bourdain’s voice from existing audio. The system was apparently fed about a dozen hours of audio to an AI model. Continue reading.
Tomorrow is World Emoji Day, and it’s the cut-off for new draft emoji options. The list includes a melting smiley face (thanks global warming), a saluting emoji, a disco ball, beans and new pointing fingers, and there are more diverse skin tone options for existing hand emojis. That’s notable as, due to technical limitations, it was one of the few characters you couldn’t modify with a skin tone in previous versions of Unicode. Continue reading.
Twenty years after being retired from Microsoft Office, Clippy is back to ruin your day. As part of Microsoft’s update to 1,800 emoji, the one-time assistant will replace the paperclip emoji in Office, Teams and Windows. Microsoft is updating its emoji library to make the characters 3D and add animation to around 900 of the icons. The company said it plans to roll out the new characters to Windows and Teams sometime in the upcoming holiday season. Continue reading.
US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has issued an advisory warning of the dangers posed by health misinformation, calling it an “urgent threat” that social media companies and technology platforms need to do more to address. The advisory includes a 22-page report on steps that individuals, health organizations, researchers and journalists can take to help mitigate the spread of misinformation. Continue reading.
Windows 365, announced today at the Microsoft Inspire conference, is a version of the OS that lives in the cloud. It's an easy-to-use virtual machine that lets you hop into your own Windows 10 (and eventually Windows 11) installation on any device, whether that’s a Mac, iPad, Linux device or Android tablet.
This isn’t an entirely new premise for Microsoft, with its Azure efforts offering virtual machines for businesses for a while. This, however, should make the entire process of managing a Windows installation on a far-off server far simpler. You just need to head to Windows365.com when it launches on August 2nd (it isn't yet live), choose a virtual machine configuration and you'll be up and running. That is, of course, once we know what it costs. Final pricing will be revealed the day before the service launches.
The latest macOS and iOS betas address a common complaint about the new Safari.
The third developer betas for iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey started rolling out today, and key among the changes is a set of updates to Apple's browser. One of the changes in the macOS Monterey beta we didn't like was the removal of the tabs bar, which made sorting through your tabs messy and tedious. With today's beta release, though, Apple's brought back the standalone tab bar, which will be enabled by default. Continue reading.
While Oculus has played to mainstream consumers, especially with last year’s Quest 2, HTC’s Vive targeted businesses and the tech-savvy. That strategy hasn't always worked in Vive's favor — see the disappointing Cosmos headset.
So here’s a $1,300 standalone headset that's really only meant for businesses. Because it costs $1,000 more than the Oculus Quest 2, the Focus 3 unsurprisingly offers better, well, almost everything. Apart from software. The Focus 3 has a far more limited software library than the Oculus Quest. While Oculus has pushed for high-profile exclusives and popular games, like Vader Immortal and Beat Saber, the HTC VivePort store feels rather empty and uninspired. It's almost as if it's not made for you. Continue reading.
It’s been a long time coming, but finally, LG has priced its fantastical rollable OLED for the US, and it hits six figures: $100,000 according to the company’s US website. In case you forgot — it was announced years ago — the set uses advanced OLED technology to roll itself up into a self-contained box. But hey, at least it makes LG’s very capable static OLEDs look affordable by comparison. The company’s 2021 lineup starts at a much more approachable $1,299. Continue reading.
Ready to up your iPad game? Or at least save that fancy Retina screen from scratches and disaster? Valentina Palladino walks through all the options, testing out keyboards, styli, cases and more. Continue reading.
The company says it's due to policy changes it made throughout last year.
Twitter says it’s getting better at moderating its platform. That’s one of the main takeaways from the company’s most recent transparency report, which it shared on Wednesday. Between July 1st and December 31st, 2020, Twitter says it took action against 964,459 accounts for abusive behavior. Compared to the first six months of 2020, that’s a 142 percent increase.
The company’s increased action is apparently due to policy changes enacted last year. Specifically, it says it began taking action on "content that incites fear and/or fearful stereotypes about protected categories." Continue reading.
It’s been a while since anyone could really say the iPhone’s battery life was too darn short to get you through the day. But despite the better staying power of the last few generations of phones, Apple is still throwing a bone to the folks who need more. The company has unveiled its first MagSafe-compatible battery pack for the iPhones 12, which gloms on to the back of your device with the power of love magnetism.
The MagSafe Battery Pack costs $99 from Apple’s store and features a 1,460mAh battery — not even enough to charge the iPhone 12 Mini to full from cold. But Apple says that what it lacks in grunt, it’ll make up for in being an Apple-branded battery pack compatible with a Lightning charger. And it’s slimmer than some of those chonky battery cases that Apple has previously sold, even if sticking a white lump to the back of your phone will never not look weird.
Maybe you’ve had that dream about becoming Iron Man and flying around the sky without a care in the world. The reality, as Engadget’s Mat Smith found out, is a lot less romantic than you might have imagined. Before you’re even allowed to strap on Gravity Industries’ real-world jet suit, you’ve got to make sure you’re not over the weight limit of 210 pounds. Then there’s the ban on sportswear fabrics, which are flammable, and you can’t wear sneakers or jewelry while in flight.
Mat did, however, get through those hurdles and was wired up and ready to float like a real-world Tony Stark. As well as the terror of being hoisted into the air with nothing more than several enormous engines strapped to your body, the heat these things kicked out was immense. Plus, it seemed that for every foot or so you actually lift from the ground, you felt as if you’ve rocketed over a tall building. Continue Reading.
It’s in response to protests over the handling of the pandemic.
Protests in Cuba, which began Sunday, have led to the Cuban government restricting access to social media and messaging platforms through its state-run internet provider. According to NetBlocks, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram have all been at least partially blocked on the Caribbean island since Monday. Reuters reports people in Havana also don’t have access to mobile data at the moment — infrastructure only introduced in 2018. Continue Reading.
Zero Motorcycles has been around for over a decade, constantly improving its family of electric bikes. With the new FXE, the company is transforming its well-regarded (and fun!) FXS supermoto, making it something a bit more futuristic looking. Roberto Baldwin went for a ride. Continue Reading.
Payload sees two 20-player teams fighting over a fleet of trucks.
Activision's latest effort to keep the players playing its take on Battle Royale is an objective-based mode called Payload coming to Call of Duty: Warzone. In a first for the game, the mission will be added to the rotating playlists as part of Season Four Reloaded.
The new mode goes live with the update at 12 AM ET on Thursday July 15th and splits players in two teams of 20, tasked with either escorting or attacking vehicles transporting satellite parts. There’s a time limit, and you’ll be able to buy (or build) obstacles to disrupt the vehicles’ path. Continue Reading.
Amazfit’s PowerBuds Pro. They're true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC) that can nix up to 40dB of sound, alongside some new health monitoring features. The PowerBuds Pro utilize an accelerometer to detect the sitting angle of your cervical spine and if your neck has been in the same position for too long, the earbuds can remind you to make an adjustment and improve your posture. Yes, I arched my head back as I wrote this. Pre-orders for $150 PowerBuds Pro open on July 15th. Continue Reading.
There were some rules before I even arrived to test out Gravity Industries’ jetpack: Don’t wear sportswear fabrics as they could set alight, come with “robust footwear” and ensure your ankles are covered. No loose jewelry. Sign this waiver form. Don’t weigh more than 210 pounds. I was close to failing that last requirement after a year of pandemic and not much moving.
But I passed and after a brief series of elbow-bump greetings, I was soon being strapped into a hefty backpack that housed the main jet thruster and gasoline. Two engineers slipped two hefty jet outlets, also connected to the gear on my back, onto my wrists. It all felt heavy and I was now a little scared.
They guided me up onto the stage, and the crew, most of which pull double-duty as both test pilots and engineers, set up a stand to rest the arm jets on, before explaining how to control the jetpack. While the rear rocket seems tasked chiefly with getting your body off the ground, controlling the arm rockets —There were some rules before I even arrived to test out Gravity Industries’ jetpack: Don’t wear sportswear fabrics as they could set alight, come with “robust footwear” and ensure your ankles are covered. No loose jewelry. Sign this waiver form. Don’t weigh more than 210 pounds. I was close to failing that last requirement after a year of pandemic and not much moving.
Mat Smith/ Engadget
But I passed and after a brief series of elbow-bump greetings, I was soon being strapped into a hefty backpack that housed the main jet thruster and gasoline. Two engineers slipped two hefty jet outlets, also connected to the gear on my back, onto my wrists. It all felt heavy and I was now a little scared.
They guided me up onto the stage, and the crew, most of which pull double-duty as both test pilots and engineers, set up a stand to rest the arm jets on, before explaining how to control the jetpack. While the rear rocket seems tasked chiefly with getting your body off the ground, controlling the arm rockets — and keeping your own arms rigid — is what moves you, stabilizes you and generally stops you from spiraling out of control in front of a crowd of intrigued onlookers.
As part of BP’s Future Lab at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a long-running car show held in one of the leafier parts of southern England, Gravity Industries was showing off its latest jetpack to spectators and letting the occasional journalist and VIP, including Olympic athletes, influencers and musicians take to the air.. for a few seconds.
While we’ve written about Gravity Industries and its founder Richard Browning a few times, covering world record attempts and other experiments. All of these demanded the same miniature jet engines Browning’s been refining for years. And gasoline.
Stood on stage, with the two arm jets resting on a frame in front of me, the team has finished teaching me the fundamentals of movement: Use your right-hand trigger to adjust thrust, spread uniformly across the three jets; raise your hands to go back, bring them behind you to go forward; raise just one to rotate in that direction. Someone tapped my back and I realized I was now attached to a safety wire that ran across the very top of the stage.
And that was it. An engineer put a pair of ear protectors on me — I had a big heavy engine on each wrist — and withdrew to a safe distance. Then the engines kicked in, and I immediately realized why I had ear protectors.
These engines can roar. Collectively, they have enough power to lift up to 210 pounds, but the Gravity Industries team gently increased the engine power, meaning I could literally find my feet, moonhopping from side to side, feeling the effects of different angles on the arm thrusters.
Mat Smith/ Engadget
Keeping my arms straight not only kept these roaring engines away from me, but made it easy to stay rigid and adjust the shape of my body. Finally, my brief dalliance with gymnastic rings was paying off. As the power was stepped up, Browning (who was apparently commentating on my efforts to a crowd of spectators — I couldn’t hear him) flagged me and I powered down the motors. I hadn’t quite got off the ground for more than a few seconds at a time. He explained that I could guide where I went by looking (and turning my head) in that direction, like how you control the direction of your snowboard. I followed his hand as he walked from one side of the stage to the other, and the jetsuit was doing what I wanted it to.
Gravity Industries’ jetsuit is designed so that intuition kicks in pretty soon. We naturally raise our hands when we fall. Feel like you’re falling here, and the same gesture will keep you upright. At the same time, intuition can also mess you up. With a powerful engine strapped to your back, pointing at the floor, you should not kick your legs back. Or flail them when you panic. The stream isn’t going to flambé your legs, but you’ll feel a wave of heat that doesn’t exactly help to calm you down.
After the flailing, I’d run out of fuel, and it was time for a refill. Once topped up, and with a little more confidence, I stepped onto the stage. The engineers cranked up the power a little bit more, and I tried to hold my nerve. The engines were roaring louder than ever, and I managed to, finally, lift myself off the stage. I turned, I wobbled, I moved backwards, forwards and landed when I felt like landing. Did I feel like I was six feet off the ground? Yes. Was it really only a foot and change? Yes.
Earlier this month, on Independence Day, Mark Zuckerberg published a video of him atop an electric surfboard — if not jetpack — holding the United States flag as he was propelled across the water’s surface. The very, very weird clip raises the question with a lot of these bleeding-edge transport concepts: are they simply play-things of the rich-and-famous?
Gravity Industries, as well as US rivals like Jetpack Aviation offer “experience days” for groups that include training with the jetsuit and a tour of the company’s research facilities. These cost a few thousand dollars. You can also register for dedicated flight training, which is even more money. Tapping into enthusiastic early adopters does offer the funding needed to evolve these projects, and fuel is expensive — so are these jetsuits. But beyond day trips for the rich and showing off the suit to Tom Cruise, what are they for?
The immediate example might be military uses. The military is often the first to adopt new technologies, willingly funding many innovations that have dripped down to civilian life. Browning mentions how helicopters once subverted military strategy when first introduced, with the ability to drop off fully-equipped soldiers into packed jungles changing the assumptions of modern warfare.
Jetpacks are, for now, noisy, fuel-hungry and vulnerable, however. But the posit is that they could offer an entirely different paradigm in warfare — one not yet imagined (or perhaps affordable) just yet.
The British Royal Marines have already tested out Gravity Industries’ suit as an alternative to rappelling from helicopters. In the test, one soldier launched from a boat, landed on a larger vessel and lowered the ladder to the rest of his squadron, cutting out the need for a bigger helicopter.
It’s not all warfare, however. In a recent experiment with the UK’s Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), Browning flew to a simulated casualty in a mountainous area in just 90 seconds, far faster than the 25 minutes it took air ambulance medics to make it on foot. The time reduction could literally save lives, if a solution to the high-cost and learning curve can be found. The suit is also limited by how far it can fly before needing more fuel. It can typically run for around 5-10 minutes, depending on the pilot’s weight and other factors. Like drone deliveries, for now, jetsuits can only offer last-mile movement — and it has to be less than a mile.
Before the pandemic locked down travel pretty much everywhere, Gravity Industries was also mere weeks away from holding its first race event in Bermuda. It would involve two racers flying around a circuit mixed with an obstacle course built over water, competing for the fastest time. It sounds like something out of The Running Man.
I’ve watched most of the clips of Gravity Industries’ YouTube channel, and Browning’s other appearances on TV shows. But seeing someone with skill put the jetsuit through its paces, that’s when I got the appeal of someone flying around that wasn’t me.
Mat Smith/ Engadget
He finishes addressing the crowd at Goodwood and drops his mic behind a couple of loudspeakers. He steps to the middle of the stage, no safety line, and blasts upwards about three feet. He glides off the stage to the grass between it and the crowd. He punches the thrust harder, going even higher, and takes a tour around the perimeter of the stage. Blades of grass fly around, the engines roaring so loud that it’s hard for the audience to choose between Instagramming this spectacle or plugging their ears with their fingers. He makes another loop, then gingerly lands, center stage.
Everyone around claps, passersby ask Gravity Industries staff if there’s any chance of them trying the jetsuit at the show. They’re politely told that the slots are fully booked, and nudged towards the test flight sessions they offer online.
At the event, Gravity Industries also revealed what could be the future of something that’s already a near-future concept: a prototype electric jetpack. It was a surprise, given that Future Lab is sponsored by BP, the multinational oil and gas company, or perhaps that’s exactly why there was a non-fossil fuel project to show off.
This bigger model, with rougher edges, is more prototype than the gasoline models. Following the reveal, Richard Browning tells me that it was really to prove that “we can get someone off the ground.”
The challenges of an electric jetpack make gasoline versions seem easy. Gravity Industries’ electric proof-of-concept weighs twice that of the fuel iteration, yet it can only last for 10 to 15 seconds of “getting one of the lightest team members off the ground,” notes Browning.
The big challenge is the same faced by electric cars, or even smartphones: the limits of lithium batteries. Fortunately, this small company isn’t the only one chasing smaller, lighter, more potent batteries. With electric vehicles now mainstream, the progress in high-capacity batteries will almost certainly continue, if not accelerate.
There’s the design of the electric jetsuit itself, with almost oversized arm funnels in comparison to the gasoline originals. Browning explains that the electric version is effectively “blowing with fans” and so to get the thrust necessary, you need more air expelled and bigger fans to do so.
Browning explains that with fuel-powered engines, you benefit from explosively expanding gases — it’s easier to get the thrust needed. With electrics, you have to make all of that thrust yourself. “The bigger the fan you get, the less power needed.” It’s why helicopters have those huge rotor blades. “The smaller you make it, the more work it needs to do and the less efficient it gets,” he added. Still, even at this early stage, an electric setup could work well for training future jetsuit pilots. First-timers like myself were attached to a safety wire above ourselves — this could also be a power tether. For now, though, it’s a glimpse at a possible future for jetpacks — one that doesn’t demand fossil fuels.
Mat Smith/ Engadget
Gravity Industries’ jetsuits are exciting, whether you’re in one or watching someone pilot one. They’re also real, with several paths that could offer a more significant impact. It’s hard to tell which one though, which may be why, for now, the company is letting journalists flail in the air rather than signing deals with the US Army.
A pretty comprehensive leak laid out what could be everything Samsung has planned for its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event. Other leaks suggested folding phones, a couple of Wear OS smartwatches and new earbuds, but now we can see more of the new products, what they’re called and the color options we might get.
The latest leak from Evan Blass on Twitter include animated tours of all the devices. That includes the foldable Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3, the Galaxy S21 FE, the Galaxy Watch 4, Galaxy Watch 4 Classic smartwatches and the Galaxy Buds 2. The lineup suggests an aggressive push on its foldable devices, as Samsung remains the biggest phone maker dabbling in the new (still expensive) form factor. It’s still a key differentiator between the Galaxy family and pretty much every other phone series. This is especially true in the West, where foldables from Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi and the rest don’t garner the same attention (or ad spend) as the Galaxy Fold.
Will Samsung offer a more competitively priced foldable? We don’t know just yet. The leaks share no prices and no launch dates, so Samsung will have something to reveal when Unpacked kicks off, which will, presumably, be very soon.
Caught because it stole electricity from the nation's grid.
The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, has discovered and raided a cryptocurrency mining farm that allegedly stole electricity from the country's power grid. But instead of finding computers, the agency found racks with thousands of PS4 Pros stacked vertically side-by-side. Kotakureports the Ukrainian authorities confiscated over 5,000 gaming-related devices — 3,800 of which were consoles. Continue reading.
Musk and Branson aren't the bitter rivals you might expect.
Fresh off the back of its successful flight at the weekend, Virgin Galactic scored itself a notable passenger when its public flights kick off next year: Mr. SpaceX himself, Elon Musk.
Virgin Galactic told the Wall Street Journal in a statement that Musk bought a ticket aboard the company's air-launched rockets. It's not certain just where the SpaceX founder is in the queue. Continue reading.
Tag Heuer has been making premium smartwatches for a few years, but its latest model has an unusual star. No athlete or model, but a plumber. It announced it's collaborating with Nintendo to make a Super Mario edition of its Connected smartwatch, featuring "the intrepid, iconic hero" in various watch faces and animations.
It’ll still be a premium, limited-run smartwatch, priced at £2,150 and running Google’s Wear OS. The most notable use of Mario seems to tie in with getting you moving. The watch's dial will become "livelier and more animated the more the wearer is active." As you move around each day, you'll get different animations as you hit 25, 50, 75 and 100 percent of your steps target. Hit the 100 percent mark and Mario will leap to the top of a flagpole, just like some of the games. Continue reading.
Sony has revealed a cheaper model of its stylish speaker that looks like a lamp. Style-conscious audiophiles can order the LSPX-S3 glass sound speaker starting in August.
The Bluetooth-enabled device features an organic glass tweeter with three actuators to emit sound in all directions. According to Sony, the speaker isn’t meant to illuminate a room, it’s more of an ambiance thing when it comes to lighting, offering a candle-light flicker to your evenings. Continue reading.
Both annual and monthly payment plans are going up.
That didn’t take long. For the second time in less than a year, the price of ESPN+ is increasing to $69.99 per year, up from $59.99. The price of a monthly plan is going up as well. Come August 13th, ESPN+ will cost $6.99 per month, up from the $5.99 of last year.
After oh so many delays, training up its founder, Sir Richard Branson, and some delightful, sometimes petty, banter with Blue Origin (love those “largest windows in space” claims), Virgin Galactic has made it into space.
Or at least, it did, depending on who you ask. Blue Origin’s first crewed spaceflight is just days away, and it’s pointed out that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo didn't’ really fly in space. The craft reached an altitude of 'just' 53.4 miles. However, the Kármán line (the formal demarcation for space) is 62 miles.
It’s a fair point, even if it comes across a little like sour grapes. While not quite crossing over that line, the mission was to evaluate the SpaceShipTwo’s cabin environment, seat comfort and the overall experience it will offer customers. Presumably, this was where Sir Branson’s expertise in astrophysics with his myriad companies came to the fore. Two additional test flights are set to launch before Virgin Galactic begins offering paid flights next year.
Watch Virgin Galactic’s successful flight right here.
The phones the FBI sold to crooks for a sting operation weren't just running a custom messaging app — it appears the operating system itself was customized for the sting. Motherboardobtained one of the "Anom" phones — a modified Pixel 4a underneath it all — and its mysterious ArcaneOS has a number of customizations you wouldn't necessarily expect, even for a privacy-oriented phone.
There’s no app store, and you can't toggle location tracking. You can’t flash the device with third-party firmware to make it behave more like normal phones, either — the bootloader is locked, even though the startup screen tells you the device has been “modified.”
For nefarious types you’d expect to see in Mission Impossible movies, less real-life, there’s a hidden chat app (accessed through the "calculator" when it worked) and PIN scrambling. There’s also a wipe code feature that lets you erase a phone from the lock screen — although it won’t explode. Continue reading.
You’ll only see shared media a single time before it vanishes.
After releasing the feature on Android last month, WhatsApp is debuting self-erasing media and texts on iOS, via a new beta release. If you sign up for the beta version 2.21.140.9 on Testflight, you'll be able to send photos and videos that self-destruct as soon as they're viewed and dismissed. Users with access to the "view once" feature will see a dedicated button resembling a timer in the caption input field.
Unlike WhatsApp's disappearing messages, which delete after seven days, photos and videos sent using view-once mode vanish immediately after you close them. That said, there's nothing stopping users from taking screenshots of media, and you won't be notified if a recipient has done so. Some apps, like Snapchat, make this harder to do or inform the user when screenshots are snapped. Continue reading.
While English fans might not want to think about football for a bit, FIFA 22 is, predictably, on its way, and its centerpiece is a new HyperMotion system. This will apparently offer more realistic animation and gameplay when you game on a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S or Google Stadia. The technology uses machine learning to produce animations in real-time, leading to more "organic" movement.
The game is also coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC (via Origin and Steam), while FIFA 22 Legacy Edition is coming to the Nintendo Switch, although EA didn't outline differences. Presumably, it’ll be a less graphically intense version of the game. EA has hinted at a "complete" revamp of the goalkeeper system, a new club creation experience in Career Mode and "reimagined" Volta Football. Continue reading.
The semi-autonomous upgrade has been in the works for years.
Tesla is rolling out FSD beta version 9 to Early Access Program users, and while it's still not full autonomy, it does enable numerous Autopilot driver assists, including lane changes and turns. You'll also get revamped visualizations that offer "additional surrounding information."
The update also references a recently activated feature that uses the cabin camera to make sure you're paying attention while Autopilot is engaged. Musk also urged beta testers to be "paranoid" and stay prepared to take the wheel at a moment's notice. Continue reading.
As studios and streaming services continue to strike deals, jump ship and generally settle with preferred partners, it’s getting harder to figure out which movies will be available where — and when. Amazon’s latest deal with Universal is case in point.
Amazon has struck a multi-year deal for exclusive Prime Video streaming rights for Universal's live-action theatrical releases, which will kick in next year. According to a report from Deadline, it will cover blockbusters such as Jurassic World: Dominion, Get Out director Jordan Peele's next horror film and Halloween Ends.
However, the deal is for a chunk of the pay-one window, which is the 18-month period after a movie's theatrical run. Just days ago, Universal struck an agreement with its NBCUniversal sibling, Peacock, for the first four and last four months of the window.
So, that should mean that within four months of their theatrical release date, Universal's live-action movies will start streaming on Peacock. Four months after that, they'll move over to Prime Video for a 10-month run, before going back to Peacock for at least another four months.
Universal’s plan seems to be shuffling the release schedule around different streaming platforms to ensure its movies get to more audiences across different services — while keeping said platforms satisfied with what they get. The trouble is you might struggle to find the film you want to watch — or miss the chance to see it — unless you’re paying a lot of attention to movie release dates.
ASUS and Qualcomm have teamed up to make a smartphone that shows off some of the latter's mobile tech. Although the phone is ostensibly for the 1.6 million members of the Snapdragon Insiders program, it'll be more broadly available by August.
Oddly, it won’t pack the very highest-end Qualcomm mobile processor (Snapdragon 888+), but a Snapdragon 888 5G chipset, with what’s described as "the most comprehensive support for all key 5G sub-6 and mmWave bands" of any device, along with WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E. There’s also 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
The screen, too, is specced out: It’s a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate and up to 1,200 nits of brightness. The rear 64-megapixel camera will also be capable of recording 8K video.
It’ll be one of the first phones to support Snapdragon Sound, which features low Bluetooth latency, listening profiles, active noise cancellation (ANC) and high-resolution audio support up to 24-bit 96kHz. Along with stereo speakers, the phone comes with Master & Dynamic true wireless ANC earbuds, which is a nice touch. The ASUS-designed Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders will initially be available in a few countries, including the US, UK, Japan and South Korea. It will cost a heady $1,499 when it arrives later this summer. Continue reading.
The most eye-catching feature of Harley-Davidson’s new LiveWire One is its price tag. The electric motorcycle will cost $21,999. That’s almost $8,000 less than the $29,799 the original LiveWire sold for when it came out in 2019. With federal subsidies, Harley-Davidson expects most US buyers will be able to get the LiveWire One for less than $20,000.
Harley-Davidson has also improved the motorcycle’s range. Driving on slower city streets, the LiveWire One can travel 146 miles on a single charge, the company claims. By comparison, its predecessor was limited to a maximum of about 110 city miles. Using a DC fast charger, the company says you can get the LiveWire One’s battery from dead to a full charge in about an hour.
The second electric motorcycle from Harley-Davidson will initially be limited to customers who live in California, New York and Texas since only 12 dealerships in those states are authorized to sell the LiveWire One at the moment. However, the bike will be available at more dealers come this fall. Continue reading.
Square is building a bitcoin hardware wallet and service, a month after company CEO Jack Dorsey announced it's considering the move. Jesse Dorogusker, Square's Hardware Lead, revealed on Twitter that the company came upon the decision "to make bitcoin custody more mainstream.” At this point, the company at least knows it wants to make the product available globally and prioritize mobile use. Continue reading.
Paramount has greenlit a “full restoration” of Robert Wise’s 2001 Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The project will apparently take between six and eight months to finish, be formatted in 4K, with Dolby Vision HDR, and have a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack.
The film, which was the first time Kirk, Spock et al. hit the big screen, was a slower affair than you might expect from a sci-fi series, taking some inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And no, this isn’t the one where Kirk shouts “Khan!” Continue reading.
When it comes to dealing with a newborn baby, you need all the help you can get. While tech can’t help with everything — where’s our diaper-changing robot of the future? — you can upgrade your nursery with some reliable, simple to use and effective kit. We pick out our favorite baby monitors, smart breast pumps and more. Continue reading.
More than two months since Facebook's Oversight Board said its suspension of the former president was "appropriate,” Donald Trump announced yesterday he plans to file lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The move was teased earlier yesterday by Axios. Trump announced the legal bid at a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, promising the case would lead to an "end of the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing and the canceling that you know so well." He says the tech giants violated his First Amendment rights. Trump and his lawyers are planning to file the lawsuits in the Southern District of Florida.
During his presidency, Trump battled big tech pretty frequently. His executive order in 2020 tried to limit the legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for what users posted online.
While it was billed as an attempt to prevent online censorship of political ideas, it came shortly after Twitter fact-checked a Trump tweet that claimed mail-in ballots were guaranteed to be "substantially" fraudulent. President Biden revoked this just over a month ago.
When we saw BMW's CE 04 electric scooter concept last year, it looked like something pulled straight out of a science fiction film — as concepts often do. Now the company has unveiled the final consumer version of the CE 04, and while it's lost a little bit of sci-fi sparkle, it still looks more than futuristic enough. The CE 04 features a 10.25-inch LCD screen (that's bigger than what's in most cars), up to 81 miles of range and a top speed of 75MPH. It'll be available in 2022 for around $16,000. And yes, that’s definitely more than the top Vespa. Continue reading.
Bloomberg sources claim Ubisoft is developing Assassin's Creed Infinity, a project that turns the alternate history (and assassination) series into a live online service more like Grand Theft Auto Online or Fallout 76 — hopefully more the former than the latter. Instead of playing solo in one historical period, you would join other players across "multiple settings" that would grow and evolve over time. You'd have a reason to keep playing (and keep paying) for a longer time, compared to current AC entries, which rely heavily on DLC. Continue reading.
The same tech that stopped COVID cold could save us from seasonal sniffles.
Moderna has injected its mRNA-derived vaccine for the seasonal flu into a human volunteer for the first time as part of a Phase 1/2 clinical study, the company announced on Wednesday. According to the World Health Organization, the flu strains that this vaccine could treat cause between 3 and 5 million severe cases of flu every year.
This is a very early test for the new vaccine technology, geared primarily towards building a baseline understanding of the treatment's "safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity," according to a Moderna release. Continue reading.
Not learning the lessons of the past, OnePlus is apparently throttling the capabilities of its Snapdragon 888 processors. The company admitted it limits the power of the processor when it’s used by apps like Chrome, Twitter and WhatsApp, following an in-depth report from Anandtech. However, neither the OnePlus 9 Pro nor the OnePlus 9 throttle any benchmarking tools. GeekBench, one of the more popular tools for benchmarking, has subsequently delisted both phones.
Back in 2017, with the OnePlus 3T, the company included code that artificially boosted the clock speeds of the phone's Snapdragon processor when running certain benchmark apps. And then, XDA caught the company doing something similar with the OnePlus 5. Continue reading.
Nintendo’s new, long-rumored Switch has arrived — and it’s not what many of us were hoping for. Still, the OLED Switch is the most grown-up-looking Switch so far, with smaller bezels, a new off-white dock and matching Joy-Cons. The core upgrade is — shockingly — the screen: a new seven-inch OLED panel that should offer crisper graphics when played as a handheld. However, the resolution hasn’t changed, so it’s been stretched a little wider than the original 6.2-inch LCD Switch.
I can run through the rest of the changes, as there aren’t all that many. There’s now 64GB of internal storage — another grown-up upgrade — while a wider, more solid-looking kickstand replaces the flimsy plastic tab on the original Switch. You can adjust this to multiple angles for more comfortable table-top / airplane-tray-table gaming. The new off-white dock also has an Ethernet port built-in, while the core OLED Switch has improved speakers. Otherwise, there’s no newer processor and, seemingly, no battery-life improvements. (The company hasn’t offered any battery estimates yet on its official site.)
The OLED Switch is not for current Switch owners looking to upgrade — although I don’t doubt some of us will buy one. It’s a refined version of the original (or maybe I’m easily tricked by monochrome color schemes), but seems expressly aimed at handheld players, who are the ones that’ll benefit from the bigger OLED screen. That’s odd when the cheaper, non-hybrid Switch Lite was geared at the same crowd.
Nintendo could have squashed the more aggressive rumors of a powerful version capable of 4K and upscaled gaming, but it didn’t. Because it’s Nintendo, meaning it has a mercurial vision for hybrid consoles, iconic games, detachable controls and, at the same time, ignores Bluetooth audio support and in-game chat functionality. And there was no mention of any changes to fix Joy-Con drift.
If you’re looking for a comparison from console history, consider this a Gameboy Pocket-style twist on the GameBoy, rather than a more powerful PS4 Pro to replace the PS4.
And will we ever see the 4K-capable Switch Pro? Does it even exist? Only Nintendo knows.
The policy will probably target farmers more than phone companies.
The right to repair movement in the US could soon see a significant breakthrough. According to Bloomberg, President Joe Biden will “in the coming days” direct the Federal Trade Commission to draft new regulations to empower consumers to repair their devices.
While there aren’t many details on the executive order just yet, it will reportedly mention phone companies as a possible target of regulation. However, farmers are expected to be the primary beneficiary. During Tuesday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the order would give them "the right to repair their own equipment how they like.” Continue reading.
Roblox is rushing to strike official music deals in the wake of a $200 million lawsuit over alleged copyright violations. Roblox has announced a team-up with Sony Music that will bring more of the label's artists to the game platform. The company reached a similar agreement with BMG in June, and Warner before that. It does represent Roblox's largest music pact to date, however. The one music giant left is Universal.
The music industry sued Roblox for allegedly not doing enough to stop gamers from making virtual boomboxes that stream copyrighted music. Continue reading.
Building on Sony’s neck speakers of the past, like the SRS-WS1, the company announced a new $150 model, the SRS-NB10. It's a neckband speaker that Sony says is designed for remote workers, “optimized for your ears alone” with drivers angled upward.
This should mean you’ll be the primary target of your podcasts and embarrassing playlists, but others in the same space might still catch whatever you’re listening to. You’ll be able to take calls on them, and the device can switch between two Bluetooth connections so it can perform double duty with your phone and PC. The band lands in September. Continue reading.
Verizon (Engadget’s parent company for now) has revealed the Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response, THOR — a modified Ford F650 truck. The front of the vehicle has seats for a driver and five passengers, while the “command center” you see at the back has room for three individuals. THOR can bring 5G and satellite connectivity to an area where a natural disaster may have knocked network access out or there wasn’t any connectivity in the first place.
When Texas was hit by an extreme cold snap earlier this year and the state’s independent power grid failed, many people couldn’t use their phones to access the internet and get information about the situation as it developed. Verizon envisions THOR assisting first responders and the military “under nearly any conditions,” whether that’s severe cold that Texas recently experienced or wildfires out in California. Continue reading.
Yesterday, Twitter shared four concept features that could give users more control over who can see, read and find their accounts, and it wants feedback from the public.
“If you have a protected account and reply to someone who isn’t following you, you may not know they can’t see your reply,” Lena Emara, Twitter People Experience Designer, wrote in a thread. These features could help streamline and clarify exactly who can see your interactions. Regardless of feedback, these concepts may never mature into features that Twitter adopts. Continue reading.
