We've already seen DJI's Osmo Action 4 and GoPro's Hero 12 representing the rugged action cams of 2023, and now, it's Insta360's turn to unveil its take on this category — one that focuses more on video quality than, say, its Go series' versatility. In a nutshell, Insta360's brand new Ace Pro can be described as a GoPro on steroids, thanks to its handy 2.4-inch flip touchscreen, 1/1.3-inch sensor, Leica tuning and, most notably, 5nm AI neural processor. You'll also get the usual "FlowState Stabilization," IPX8 waterproof rating (down to 33ft or 10m) and swappable battery (up to 100 minutes in 4K@30fps Active HDR; fast charging at up to 80 percent in 22 minutes, or to 100 percent in 46 minutes).

Insta360 claims that combining its AI denoising feature with its new image sensor, the Ace Pro produces clearer and more stable low-light results for both videos (up to 4K@30fps in "PureVideo" mode) and stills (up to 48 megapixels). There's also an "Active HDR Video" mode which turns on automatically when lighting conditions are met, with the company emphasizing on improved color accuracy here — we'll take a closer look at this in our review later. The camera is also capable of recording at up to 4K@60fps, 4K@120fps (slow motion) or even 8K@24fps, but none of these can take advantage of the AI enhancement nor Active HDR.

The dedicated AI chip isn't just for enhancing image quality. Over the years, Insta360 has been finding ways to make video editing easier and quicker, and this time, it's doing so by letting the camera itself do some auto-editing first. Dubbed "AI Highlights Assistant," this feature analyzes your video while picking out the best bits in real time, then you can review the AI edit on the camera first (and also delete the bits you don't need to save space). When you next connect your Insta360 mobile app to your Ace Pro, the new AI-generated clip will be automatically pushed to your phone. 

Aside from having to test out this feature myself, Insta360 also warned that "AI Highlights Assistant" does require extra power (the company promises to continue optimizing power consumption here), so be mindful of your camera's battery life when using this feature.

Another fun new feature for making editing easier — though not necessarily limited to the Ace Pro — is "AI Warp," which can be found in the "Shot Lab" template section in the mobile app. It's basically Insta360's first take on generative AI: you can pick a template or type in your own prompt, in order to get the app to transform either the entire video or just the highlighted subject into your desired style — be it cyberpunk, anime, space, superhero costumes or more. The company added that you can look out for even more AI-related effects in its mobile app in 2024.

Insta360

The Insta360 Ace Pro is already available for ordering, with the $450 standard bundle including a standard mount and a flexible adhesive mount. There's also a slightly more affordable Ace priced at $380, and while it comes with the same accessories, it has to make do with a smaller 1/2-inch sensor, a max video resolution of just 6K@30fps, no fast charging and no love from Leica. The rest of the feature list is the same, otherwise. 

Optional accessories include a dive case (for down to 197ft or 60m), a quick release mount, a multi mount, a GPS preview remote, a "Vertical-Horizontal Mount" and a mic adapter plus cold shoe module (for use with the quick release mount).

Talks over reinstating co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI have apparently broken down. According to The Information and Bloomberg, the board has now hired Altman's fellow Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as OpenAI's new interim CEO. This appointment was apparently announced internally by co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.

Altman was originally fired from OpenAI over "a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board," according to an oddly blunt internal staff memo published by Axios earlier. The news was subsequently followed by resignations from several key members, including co-founder Greg Brockman (who was ousted as the chairman of the board), along with a few senior researchers.

Developing...

Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt has resigned. In his announcement on X, the 38-year-old exec expressed that "the last 10 years have been amazing," while reminding us that "the startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities." As to what Vogt is doing next, he plans on taking a break first to "explore some new ideas." Vogt had previously co-founded video platforms Justin.tv, Twitch and Socialcam.

According to TechCrunch, General Motors has since promoted Mo Elshenawy, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Cruise, to President and CTO of its robotaxi subsidiary. No replacement has been named for the vacant CEO spot.

Vogt's resignation comes after General Motors installed its very own Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy (and already a Cruise board member), Craig Glidden, as Chief Administrative Officer of the autonomous vehicle firm last week. Cruise's legal, communications and finance teams now report to Glidden.

General Motors has yet to appoint a permanent Chief Safety Officer, though with the help of an independent engineering consulting firm, it continues to conduct an expanded safety probe on the infamous freak accident. The collision on October 2 involved a female pedestrian being hit by a human driver and landed in the path of a Cruise robotaxi, which ended up running her over and dragging her 20 feet. Both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise continue to be suspended, affecting a fleet of 950 robotaxis.

Good news for hardcore Neon Genesis Evangelion fans who spent $700 (or more) on ASUS' special edition motherboard! The PC maker announced that it will be offering a free fix for the embarrassing typo — "EVANGENLION" instead of "EVANGELION" — on the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition. This will come in the form of a replacement part printed with the correct spelling, so users can directly swap out the original decorative piece. To show that the company understands "the significance of this matter," it's also extending the warranty by one year, even though "the misprint is purely aesthetic and does not affect any functionality or performance."

Meanwhile, the offending typo has already disappeared from ASUS' website, but you can still spot the extra "n" in the original product shots on Amazon and Micro Center.

Following the pedestrian collision on October 2nd, Cruise had its driverless vehicle permit revoked in California, but the company is now also voluntarily pausing its supervised and manual robotaxi operation in the US "in the coming days." This will be part of an expanded safety probe conducted by independent engineering consulting firm, Exponent, which originally came on board to focus on "a technical root cause analysis" of the aforementioned accident. The suspended manual operation will apparently affect around 70 vehicles — a fraction of Cruise's fleet of 950 robotaxis, which were recalled following the freak accident instigated by a separate hit-and-run.

The same announcement shared that Craig Glidden, General Motors' Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy and Cruise board member, will be joining the subsidiary as Chief Administrative Officer. The exec will oversee Cruise's legal, communications and finance teams, on top of his current role at GM. The company is also continuing its search for a permanent Chief Safety Officer, while retaining "a third-party safety expert in the coming weeks to perform a full assessment of Cruise’s safety operations and culture."

It'll be an uphill battle for Cruise from here on out. Recent reports discovered that these robotaxis struggled to detect children, not to mention the firm's seeming lack of data around child-specific situations on the streets. Despite this known flaw, Cruise continued to operate its autonomous vehicles on the streets. It is also reported that Cruise employees will face layoffs over the next two weeks, as the company struggles to regain trust from the public and authorities — not just for itself, but also for the entire robotaxi industry.

If you've ever wondered what would make Neon Genesis Evangelion fans go berserk, look no further than ASUS. The PC maker brought its $700 ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition motherboard to the US in September, and over time, eagle-eyed users finally started noticing a small typo in the anime brand: you get "EVANGENLION" instead of "EVANGELION." In other words, someone at ASUS was probably watching dubs while accidentally adding the extra "n" here.

This mistake can be spotted alongside the "Polymo lighting" I/O cover panel, which has a display that switches between the iconic red mecha and its stubborn pilot, Asuka. As pointed out by Digital Trends, the official product shots also contained said typo at the time of publishing this article. Interestingly though, this wasn't the case with the press images received by Engadget back in July — as per the above comparison image. We've reached out to ASUS regarding this amusing error, but there's probably not much point in rectifying it at this point — much like the anime's original abrupt ending.

Having said that, sometimes it's typos like this that turn products into collectibles, but good luck finding one. This limited edition motherboard was once listed for above $1,000 by third-party sellers on Amazon, but it has since sold out. You may still find stock in some Micro Center stores, according to its website.

We've already seen Google's "Live Translate" working its magic on phones calls, but to date, this feature is still exclusive to Pixel devices. If you happen to be a Samsung fan, though, chances are you may get to use a similar feature — without having to install third-party apps — early next year. 

According to the Korean giant, its next phone — our money's on the "Galaxy S24" family — will come with "Galaxy AI," which is "powered by both on-device AI developed at Samsung and cloud-based AI" from providers. Part of this package will include "AI Live Translate Call," which will show real-time translations in the form of a chat log during phone calls — as is the case in the demo screenshot showcasing a dialog between a New York-based English speaker and a Seoul-based Korean speaker. As a bonus, the tool throws up an "add event" button whenever there's a mention of a time and a date, to let you instantly mark the calendar for your foreign acquaintance.

There's not much else here about Galaxy AI, except that "it will change how we think about our phones forever," said Wonjoon Choi, EVP and Head of R&D, Mobile eXperience Business. There's no word on whether Galaxy AI will also include Samsung's Gauss generative AI capability, but given the exec's wording and the recent similar offerings from Google, we wouldn't be surprised if we're getting the whole shebang in the Galaxy S24 lineup next year.

Following the recent launch of the new M3-equipped MacBook Pros, Apple will soon be releasing an update for its Final Cut Pro to make further use of its own silicon. According to the company, its updated video editing suite will leverage a new machine learning model for improved results with object and face tracking. Additionally, H.264 and HEVC encoding will apparently be faster, thanks to enhanced simultaneous processing by Apple silicon's media engines.

On the user experience side, the new Final Cut Pro comes with automatic timeline scrolling, as well as the option to simplify a selected group of overlapping connected clips into a single storyline, and the ability to combine connected clips with existing connected storylines. As for Final Cut Pro for iPad, users can take advantage of the new voiceover recording tool, added color-grading presets, new titles, general workflow improvements and stabilization tool in the pro camera mode. Both the Mac and iPad versions of Final Cut Pro will receive their updates later this month.

Apple

For those who need to focus on music creation, Apple has also updated Logic Pro with some handy new tools. For both the Mac and iPad versions, there's a new Mastering Assistant which claims to help polish your audio mix, by analyzing and tweaking "the dynamics, frequency balance, timbre, and loudness." You can use this tool to refine your mix at any point throughout the creation process. Another good news is that to avoid digital clipping and to boost low-level sensitivity, both flavors of Logic Pro now supports 32-bit float recording when used with compatible audio interfaces.

If you're a fan of "Sample Alchemy" — a sample-to-instrument tool — and "Beat Breaker" — an audio multi-effect plug-in — on Logic Pro for iPad, you'll be pleased to know that both features have been ported over to Logic Pro for Mac. Similarly, the Mac app has gained two free sound packs, "Hybrid Textures" and "Vox Melodics," which can be found in the Sound Library. Some may also find the new "Slip" and "Rotate" tools in the "Tool" menu handy.

Meanwhile, the updated Logic Pro for iPad offers a better multi-tasking experience. The app now supports iPadOS' "Split View" and "Stage Manager," thus letting you quickly drag and drop audio samples from another app — such as Voice Memos, Files or a browser — into Logic Pro. There's also a new "Quick Sampler" recorder plug-in for easily creating sampler instruments from any sound, via the iPad's built-in microphone or a connected audio input. This update, along with a handful of related in-app lessons, are available immediately.

It's only been a month since Xiaomi introduced the 13T series to the international market, and the company is already pushing out more flagship phones back in China. The freshly-announced Xiaomi 14 series is the first device to run the company's supposedly more efficient and more interoperable HyperOS, which aims to bridge the gap between "human, cars, and home." Naturally, these phones also feature Qualcomm's AI-centric Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor launched earlier this week, with the bonus being a faster Leica Summilux lens and a floating telephoto lens for both the 14 and 14 Pro, along with a tough "Xiaomi Ceramic Glass" plus a titanium edition — literally the "one more thing" at the launch event — reserved for the Pro model.

Starting with the Xiaomi 14, its 6.36-inch screen boasts a new C8 AMOLED display panel co-developed by the phone maker and TCL CSOT. This offers an industry-leading peak brightness of 3,000 nits, as well as the common pixel density of 460 ppi and variable refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz. The phone also packs a 4,610mAh battery with 90W wired fast charging and 50W wireless fast charging. Audio-wise, you get a 4-mic array — great on paper when it comes to noise cancellation for phone calls — and stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos. If waterproof (and dustproof) is a must, don't worry, as the phones in this series are all rated with IP68.

Xiaomi

The higher-end Xiaomi 14 Pro looks very similar, except for its larger size — it's a 6.73-inch screen here, and there's a bigger 4,880mAh battery tucked inside (with faster 120W wired charging; same 50W wireless charging though). You won't see it, but it's also worth noting that the 14 Pro's USB 3.2 port offers a whopping 10Gbps data transfer speed, which is twice as fast as the one on the 14.

If you place both models side by side, you'll see how all four sides of both glass panels are curved on the Pro, with the top panel retaining a flat screen look to avoid distortion. The display packs a 2K (WGHD+) resolution, which equates to an impressive pixel density of 522ppi. For the first time, Xiaomi took a page out of Huawei's book and created its own tough glass, which is aptly dubbed "Xiaomi Ceramic Glass." This supposedly features "10 times higher drop resistance and 1.25 times higher scratch resistance." In fact, the 14 Pro's titanium edition even has both sides shielded by this special glass, hence its 7g (0.25oz) of extra weight when compared to the regular model's 223g (7.87oz). 

Xiaomi

Both models come with a set of similar cameras, with the main Summilux lens featuring a new "Light Fusion 900" image sensor (50-megapixel, 1/1.3-inch, 1.2um, OIS) with a supposedly high dynamic range. While the Xiaomi 14's main camera has an f/1.6 aperture, the Pro has a variable aperture ranging from f/1.42 to f/4.0 for more the sake of versatility. For the first time, you get the same floating telephoto lens (3.2x zoom, f/2.0, OIS) on both models (instead of just on the Pro), which lets you easily toggle between telephoto mode and close-up mode. For ultra-wide capture, it's a 50-megapixel f/2.2 camera with a 115-degree viewing angle. For those who are nerdy enough to care, both the telephoto camera and the ultra-wide camera use a Samsung JN1 sensor.

Xiaomi is currently taking pre-orders for both models in China. The 14 Pro starts from 4,999 yuan (around $680) for the 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, and it maxes out at 5,999 yuan (about $820) with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. If you want the titanium edition, it's the same top specs, but it'll cost you 6,499 yuan (around $890). As for the more affordable Xiaomi 14, it starts from 3,999 yuan ($550) with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, then it goes all the way up to 4,999 yuan — matching that of the 14 Pro's base model — with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage. There's no word on when to expect international availability yet, but given the pattern of Xiaomi's recent flagships, it's probably just a matter of time.

Oppo's first two horizontally folding phones caught our attention with their shorter 9:8.4 "golden" aspect ratio, but with the brand new Find N3, the company sided with a more conventional design, which is backed by some new software tricks to boost the multitasking experience. Not to mention an upgraded set of Hasselblad-branded rear cameras, a vastly improved folding durability, and the alert slider inherited from OnePlus — as we've already seen on the recent Find N3 Flip.

The new foldable AMOLED display on the Oppo Find N3 comes in at 7.8 inches wide, with a resolution set at 2,240 x 2,268, which ends up being a pixel density of 426 ppi. As far as crease goes, it's even less visible than before, so it's definitely fair to call it "virtually crease-free" this time round. The more interesting feature here is the new self-healing coating, which can apparently smooth out scuffs to keep the panel in pristine condition for a little longer.

With the increased body height, the Find N3's cover display features a more familiar — and arguably more practical — 20:9 aspect ratio (though it's still shorter than, say, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3). Here we have a flat 6.3-inch, 2,484 x 1,116 AMOLED panel (431 ppi), and much like the flexible screen, it supports 1,440Hz PWM dimming for less eye fatigue, 1-120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, up to 1,400 nits in High Brightness Mode and up to 2,800 nits peak. This is noteworthy, considering that many earlier foldable phones have weaker display properties on the inner screen.

Oppo

The Find N3 is built with Oppo's third-generation Flexion hinge, which consists of zirconium-based liquid metal for compactness, as well as the company's self-developed aircraft-grade steel for strength. The flexible screen is also backed by carbon fiber support plates for structural strength, making the device "36-percent more resistant to warping than past-generation foldables." Better yet, Oppo got TÜV Rheinland to certify the Find N3's 1,000,000-fold durability, which is more than double that of the Find N2's "mere" 400,000 folds, let alone the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5's 200,000 folds. The fold counts remain at 100,000 for both the 50ºC (122°F ) and -20ºC (-4°F) tests. While there's no Ingress Protection Rating here, Oppo has applied a weather-sealing process to make the Find N3 splash-proof.

Photography is also a significant upgrade here. Find N3 is the first smartphone to pack Sony's 48-megapixel (4:3), 1/1.43-inch LYTIA-T808 sensor (it's actually 52 megapixels, 1/1.35 inches in full — 20-percent larger than the main rival's). This is apparently the first sensor to feature a two-layer transistor pixel structure, which is a cunning trick to let each pixel receive more light, thus more image detail. Sony goes as far as claiming that this chip "rivals the high-quality 1-inch type sensor." Additionally, this f/1.7, 24mm-equivalent main camera comes with optical image stabilization.

There's also a 64-megapixel, f/2.6 periscope telephoto camera with an unnamed 1/2-inch sensor — one that's apparently three times larger than what you'd get on a main competitor's foldable. With this 70mm-equivalent lens, you get 3x optical zoom and 6x "lossless" zoom (by cropping), both of which are assisted by optical stabilization via a floating prism structure. You can use the same camera in Hasselblad Portrait mode.

Last but not least, the 48-megapixel, 14mm equivalent ultra-wide camera packs a Sony IMX5811/2-inch sensor, which Oppo claims to be 130-percent larger than key rival’s. It comes with an f/2.2 lens, a 114-degree field of view and macro shot support down to 4cm.

Oppo

To complement the photography hardware upgrade, the Find N3 packs a new Oppo Computational Photography (OCP) feature, which captures the original brightness information for fine-tuning each HDR shot "pixel by pixel." The result is supposedly "a more natural image with rich highlights and shadows." This sounds somewhat like what the now-retired MariSilicon X imaging neural processor would have handled in the past, but Oppo has yet to dive into the technical details on OCP. On a related note, the ProXDR display mode in the gallery app leverages OCP details to optimize the screen’s peak brightness, in order to make the photos pop; but you can also long-press the ProXDR button to see the photos as-is.

For video calls, you also have the option to use either the external 32-megapixel f/2.4 selfie camera (1/3.14-inch, 22mm equivalent), or the internal 20-megapixel f/2.2 counterpart (1/4-inch, 20mm equivalent).

As for the remaining core phone specs, the Find N3 is unsurprisingly packing Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, a dual SIM tray, NFC, a triple-speaker system (with spatial audio support) and a larger 4,800mAh battery. With 67W SuperVOOC charging support, the device reaches over 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 42 minutes. You'll find the new alert slider (silent, vibrate and ring) located right next to the volume rocker, which is above the side-mounted fingerprint reader. The whole package comes in at 239 grams heavy and 5.8mm thick when opened — not record-breaking numbers but still impressive in this category.

On the software side, Oppo justified its shift in aspect ratio by adding some handy multitasking features. In this ColorOS 13.2 (based on Android 13), the new "Global Taskbar" offers an "App Library" button on the far left, which toggles a pop-up menu for quickly launching an app or even dragging it into a split-screen view. There's also a "File Pocket" button next to that, which is another pop-up menu showing your recent files, images and clipboard items, so that you can easily drag and drop into an active app.

Oppo

Another powerful multitasking feature is "Boundless View," which is basically split-screen on steroids. By tapping the top bar above your desired app in split-screen mode, you can click on "Expand View" which then automatically widens said app, but still leaving a small portion of the other app in view, thus letting you quickly swipe between apps. Similarly, you can also have up to three apps in this horizontal split-screen view — just drag the third app from the dock to the center of the screen. By expanding all three apps in this split screen, you'll be creating a "15-inch Boundless View" layout, and you can get an interactive overview with a four-finger pinch at any time. Much like the usual split-screen mode, you can save these Boundless View app combos for quick access on the home screen.

My favorite handy features from before, namely two-finger split screen (swiping down the middle of the screen) and "FlexForm Capture" (partly open the phone while in the camera app), are here to stay. As a bonus, Oppo promises four years of software updates and five years of security updates for the Find N3.

Oppo

The Oppo Find N3, available in "champagne gold" and "classic black," will be rolling out to global markets soon, with pre-orders starting in Singapore on October 20th. The damage is S$2,399 (around US$1,745) which, to our surprise, is a big jump from the Find N2's price for the same 16GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration. The China version is offered as a premium kit, which is asking for 12,999 yuan or about US$1,777, and it comes with a kickstand case, a car charger and other accessories. Luckily for folks over there, they also have a more affordable 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant for just 9,999 yuan (about US$1,367), but this is still a lot pricier than last year's base model. It'll be interesting to see how the supposedly near-identical OnePlus Open foldable — launching later today — will differentiate itself from its Oppo twin, be it pricing or software.