Otter has a solution for that pile-up of virtual meetings in your calendar. The AI transcription tool essentially attends the gathering or conference in your place and jots down what was said. After launching with Zoom support in May, Otter is now expanding to include Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Cisco Webex. According to the company, the update means it will now reach a potential audience of 500 million users. 

The setup is the same: Otter Assistant connects to your calendar, allowing you to choose which meetings you want it to join. You can access all of your notes on the web or through Otter.ai's mobile apps. Like Zoom's transcription tool, Otter's assistant is a premium feature, too. It's included in the company's business subscription plans, which start from $20 per month.

Of course, it's more than just a convenient way to skip meetings. You can also use it to take the hassle out of transcribing the video calls you do attend or to take your place when you're running late. The expansion, meanwhile, brings it to most of the major video conferencing platforms — barring Facebook's Workplace and Slack. Maybe one day it will end up transcribing VR meetings, too.

In the hopes that Spaces don't go the way of Fleets, Twitter has largelyfocused on discovery efforts around the audio chat rooms. It's latest stab at making the feature easier to find is all about eliciting FOMO. Twitter is experimenting with a new "listening activity" mode that shows you the Spaces the people you follow are tuning in to. For now, the feature is limited to some users on iOS and Android.

Of course, not everyone wants their interests to be highlighted atop other's timelines, so Twitter is allowing you to toggle the option on or off via settings. Bear in mind that Spaces are public anyway, which means your activity is visible to others including those you follow and those browsing the rooms. Though, Twitter does note that it's possible for you to listen to a Space without being listed as a guest.

Instagram is introducing ads to the Shop tab it introduced last November as part of a divisive app redesign. The Facebook-owned company's push to bring ads to more parts of its app has upset some users, but at least the move makes sense in this context. 

Moreso than on Reels or the Explore feed, ads seem like a natural fit for Instagram's shopping section, where you go to peruse products from brands and creators. They'll look like the other tiles on the Shop home page, but with a little "sponsored" label that tells you someone paid to show you them. 

As a rep for luggage brand Away explains in their spiel, ads tend to be more successful "in an environment where the consumer is already in a shopping mindset which the Shop tab naturally attracts."

Clicking on a Shop ad will show you more details about the product, including any additional images, and let you browse more items from the brand. You can also save products to your wishlist or share them with friends. As is the norm, you can hide or report ads, too. Unlike Instagram's video ads in Stories and Reels, you can't skip photo ads.

Spotify is expanding paid podcast subscriptions to all US creators as a means of monetizing more content. Since its launch with a dozen indie publishers in the Spring, the premium option has been activated on 100 podcasts, according to the Sweden-based streaming service. On September 15th, subscriber-only content will be made available to international listeners. While overseas creators will have to wait a tad bit longer to get their hands on the monetization tools.

The program itself is available through Anchor, the podcast creation platform Spotify acquired alongside podcast network Gimlet for just shy of $340 million in 2019. The company has billed the service as a win-win for its entire user base, giving publishers the chance to reap subscription fees with no commission (for the first two years) from avid listeners. Spotify will start taking a cut of 5 percent in 2023. Comparatively, Apple charges a $20 annual fee for its program and takes a 30 percent cut of subscriptions for the first year and 15 percent thereafter.

Based on learnings from its test period, Spotify is introducing 20 new pricing options for podcasts to offer creators more flexibility. It's also allowing publishers to download a list of contact addresses for their subscribers so they can better engage with them. That should help creators to further promote their content using email marketing and notifications.

Yamaha is releasing high-end headphones with adaptive audio tech and an eye-catching design to help them stand out in a crowded marketplace. The $499.95 YH-L700A are the latest over-ears to join the exclusive head tracking audio club. Like the Dolby Dimension before them, Yamaha says its new headphones can identify where sound is coming from and re-orientate what you hear on the fly. 

Working in tandem with the 3D audio, the tech aims to deliver an immersive experience that lets you track individual sounds. It all sounds similar to Apple's Spatial Audio or Samsung's rival 360 Audio. Yamaha's feature is called "3D Sound Field" and essentially leans upon its Cinema DSP processing to convert stereo sound into multi-channel audio.

Yamaha

Overall, the headphones tick a number of boxes. There's "advanced" active noise cancelation (ANC) that can be switched on and off. Here, the system uses an algorithm and internal mics to adaptively remove ambient noise from the playback music signal. 

Plus, there are a range of audio modes that you can enable via an accompanying mobile app, which (along with the advanced ANC) are also available on the $350 YH-E700A headphones. They include a "listening optimizer" that can adjust the sound based on how you wear the headphones; "listening care" that promises a fuller range of audio at lower volumes; and "ambient sound" that uses the mics to capture external sounds and present them in the background of your audio. Yamaha claims you'll get an ambitious 34 hours of listening time per charge, though the jury's out on whether that will withstand rigorous testing.

While they retain some features from Yamaha's other headphones, they don't look like company's prior efforts. Yamaha has switched from round to rectangular earcups that can swivel and fold. Like the headband, they're covered in a foamy fabric. The new headphones are out now at select retailers and on the Yamaha store.

Oculus is rolling out an update to its Quest VR headsets that includes several tweaks and improvements. The highlight is the ability to auto sync your saved photos and video files directly to the Oculus mobile app. That way, you can manage and share those in-game captures when you're outside of the headset. 

The feature can be activated by opening the Files App from your Quest app library and selecting the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the panel. Your saved files will then be available in the the “Synced Media” section under the Devices tab in the mobile app. Oculus says that media will be unsynced and automatically removed from the app after 14 days.

The improvement is the latest aimed at saved media. In the v29 update earlier this year, Oculus introduced a Browser app that let you download and upload files to websites, making the task more seamless than plugging the headset into a PC.

Additional features include the option to gift games directly from the headset — a process that was previously limited to browsers or the Oculus mobile app. You can now also interact with your Facebook and Oculus friends from the People tab in Messenger.

Finally, Oculus is changing up its fitness-oriented Move feature. It's moving to weekly workout goals instead of daily ones, which will be viewable on the redesigned calendar. Keeping the focus on long-term targets, you'll now see revised suggested calorie goals and move minutes. Plus, you'll be able to share your workout stats to Facebook, including Groups, Messenger, and your timeline. 

If streaming the Neon Genesis Evangelion saga on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video has made you an acolyte of the hit anime, then we have good news. The original series is coming to Blu-Ray for the first time in North America. 

But, this isn't just a regular physical release. Billed as "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ultimate Edition," the box set is spread across 11 discs, contains over 7 hours of bonus features, along with extras that span a 156 page book, art boards and limited edition artwork, a Sachiel resin paperweight and a NERV ID Card with lanyard. 

The release includes the official and classic dubs and subtitled versions, plus the follow-up films, Evangelion: Death (True)² and The End of Evangelion. All of that will cost you $275 during the current pre-order period, which ends December 7th. Afterwards, you'll have to fork out $350 for the special release. As of now, the Blu-Ray is listed as sold out in the US, probably because fans quickly snapped up the 5,000 copies that were available. Though it still appears to be in stock in the UK, where it's limited to just 2,500 copies.

GKIDS Films

Despite all the riches on offer, what you won't get here is the series' "Fly me to the Moon" ending theme, likely due to licensing issues. As fans will know, the song was also missing from Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix. The streamer opted to replace it with "Hostility Restrained" from the show's score. Those feeling wistful can listen to it in the video below. 

Just days after a hacker pulled off an audacious crypto heist, another major public breach has occured. Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid is the latest victim of a cyberattack that has seen hackers make off with an estimated $97 million in stolen assets. The funds include $45 million in Ethereum tokens, which the culprit is converting into Ether using decentralised exchanges to avoid them being frozen, according to Elliptic, a crypto tracking firm that is assisting Liquid in its investigation. 

Liquid revealed on Thursday morning, Singapore time, that it had detected unauthorized access of some customers' crypto wallets. The breach prompted it to halt all crypto withdrawals, though other services including fiat withdrawals and deposits were kept open. In its most recent update on Twitter, the company said it was tracking the movement of the stolen assets and working with other exchanges to freeze and recover the funds. 

The incident is the second major crypto heist to take place this month. Earlier, a hacker stole — and quickly returned — about $611 million in in Ethereum, Shiba Inu and other digital currencies from the decentralized Poly Network finance platform. The company later offered the as-yet unidentified perpetrator a bug bounty of $500,000 for helping to identify security vulnerabilities in its systems. However, it's unclear whether the reward was used as a bargaining tool or just a means of putting a positive spin on an otherwise damaging series of events. 

Neither is this the first time a Japanese exchange has been targeted. Back in 2018, Tokyo-based Coincheck lost roughly $534 million worth of lesser-known crypto tokens in a hack. Earlier still, in 2014, its Japanese peer Mt. Gox lost between $400 million and $480 million in a crypto heist, which resulted in Japan's legislators passing a law to regulate bitcoin exchanges.

Apple has again pushed back its planned return to the office for US workers due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Bloomberg reports that the company has shifted its October date to January, though the schedule remains tentative for now. 

Apple reportedly told employees in a memo that it would confirm the re-opening deadline one month before staff are expected to return to corporate workplaces. Like many employers, the iPhone maker is also preparing for a hybrid work routine. Apple apparently expects staff to attend the office at least three days a week — Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays — with the option to work remotely on Wednesday and Friday.

The delay is the latest bout of disruption to Apple's business. Its previous return to work deadline of September was met with resistance by some employees, who claimed their voices were being ignored. The same subset of workers also demanded a full-time remote work option. 

On the retail side, Apple has repeatedly been forced to shutter its stores alongside the rise and fall of the virus. Just this week, it closed its store in Charleston, South Carolina, after more than 20 staff members were exposed to COVID-19. The decision reflected the risks Apple is facing in resuming normal operations. 

Apple re-opened its retail stores earlier this year and has not indicated whether it plans to close them again, despite the spread of COVID-19 fueled by the Delta variant. Though, it quickly backtracked on its plan to restore in-store educational classes. Apple also recently reinstated its mask mandate for staff and store visitors in July after dropping the requirement in June for vaccinated customers. While its hardware business is facing the same chip shortage problem that has entangled the rest of the tech industry.

Dell is back with a variety of new monitors that range from its first 14-inch portable to a trio of 27-inch displays. At its thinnest, the former is just 4.95mm thick — making it slimmer than an iPad Air, but slightly heavier at 1.3 pounds. The portable display is essentially a second screen that you can slot in your bag or purse when you leave your home office to go to work. In terms of design, the $350 monitor is attached to a tilt stand that beefs up its overall dimensions and weight. But, it also allows you to bend the display up to 90 degrees. It will be available worldwide on August 31st.

Dell

The 27-inch monitors include a 4K model with a 60Hz refresh rate that is the priciest of the lot at $620. There's also AMD FreeSync for tear-free, low-latency gaming. Like several of the other newcomers, the S2722QC comes with a USB-C port that can receive a display and data signal plus deliver enough power (up to 65W) to charge your laptop. 

Dell

If you're on a tighter budget, there's also a $500 27-inch display dubbed the S2722DC, which essentially swaps 4K for QHD visuals with a higher 75Hz refresh rate. Both screens arrive August 19th. For $100 more, you can grab some neat extras for video calls on the 27-inch S2722DZ, including a pop-up 5-megapixel camera, noise-cancelling mics and dual 5W speakers. If you don't mind settling with full HD instead of QHD, then the 24-inch S2422HZ offers similar specs for $440. The two displays will come to North America first on September 7th followed by the rest of the world from October 12th.

Dell