ASUS has unveiled what it calls the "world's first" 500Hz G-Sync gaming display, the 1080p ROG Swift 500Hz. Designed for competitive gaming, it uses an "E-TN" (eSports TN) panel and incorporates NVIDIA's G-Sync eSports to maximize motion it clarity. It also uses NVIDIA's Reflex Analyzer technology that delivers real-time stats to help you reduce end-to-end latency if you're using a Reflex-optimized mouse and NVIDIA GPU.

The key highlight is the 500Hz refresh rate that draws eight times faster than typical 60Hz displays, ASUS notes. The company is also promising 60 percent better response times than standard TN panels, thanks to the new eSports TN tech. It also uses something ASUS calls an enhanced Vibrance mode that's built right into the monitor's firmware. It's supposed to let more light through the LCD crystals, boosting color vibrancy and "allowing you to pick out details and highlights that might give away an enemy's position," it said.

500Hz G-Sync eSports displays are specifically tuned for competitive games like CS:GO, Valorant, Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege. NVIDIA also announced four new Reflex-supported games: Icarus, My Time at Sandrock, Soda Crisis and Warstride Challenges.

NVIDIA also released a video (below) showing the benefits of higher refresh rates including animation smoothness for easier target tracking, minimal ghosting and improved system latency. It "benefits every game and gamer, not just competitive games and eSports games," NVIDIA wrote in its own press release. 

Canon has launched its first EOS R APS-C crop sensor cameras, the 32-megapixel EOS R7 and 24-megapixel EOS R10. The new models bring Canon's APS-C and full-frame RF series in alignment, so you can finally use lenses interchangeably, much as you can with its EF and EF-S DSLR cameras. More importantly, they carry impressive specs like 15 fps mechanical shutter shooting speeds, 4K video at up to 60fps and Canon's impressive Dual Pixel autofocus. Both are reasonably priced, as well. 

Canon EOS R7

Canon

The R7 is the higher-end option and has an all-new body with some design features we've not seen on any camera before. Rather than the typical two dials on top and one on back, it has just two. The second dial sits on back but at the top, wrapping around the focus point joystick. It looks like it could work, but Canon has had mixed success when messing with its camera layouts — the touch bar on the EOS R was not a popular feature, for instance.

It has a decent sized grip and weighs in at 612 grams (21.6 ounces), quite a bit more than Sony's 503 gram A6600. Vloggers get a fully articulating 3-inch 1.62 million dot display and a 2.36-million dot OLED EVF, which is sub-par compared to the 3.69 million dot EVF on Fujifilm's rival X-T4. The R7 offers 5-axis in-body stabilization rated up to 7 stops, the best in its category. Other key features include dual UHS-II card slots and both microphone and headphone ports. It uses the same LP-E6NH batteries as the R6 and R5, with Canon promising an excellent 660 shots per charge with the EVF enabled.

Canon

The R7 has a 32-megapixel sensor that's neither stacked nor backside illuminated. However, it is new and not the same as found on other Canon APS-C cameras like the M6 Mark II. Much like that model, it allows for some seriously fast shooting, with 30 fps in electronic shutter mode and a superb 15 fps in mechanical shutter mode — all with continuous autofocus and auto-exposure enabled. You can capture compressed RAW photos for about six seconds (100 shots) before the buffer fills in mechanical shutter mode, or 65 shots at 30 fps in electronic mode.

Autofocus is powered by Canon's excellent Dual Pixel system for both photos and videos. Canon says it inherited the system from its flagship R3, including the new subject-, eye- and face-tracking features (it doesn't have the eye-tracking Eye AF option, though). That means you should see AF performance on par with what Sony offers and superior to Nikon and Fujifilm's systems. 

As for video, you can shoot 4K at up to 30p using the full 7K sensor area, which should allow for extremely sharp video, though recording time is limited to 30 minutes due to thermal limits. It can also handle sub-sampled (line-skipped) 4K at 60 fps, or do the same with a considerable 1.81x crop, with no overheating time issues. It can shoot 1080p at up to 120 fps. 

You can shoot HDR PQ video if you want to create HDR content, or capture 10-bit footage in the C-Log 3 profile for extra editing and color correction flexibility. That feature, combined with the flip-out display, in-body stabilization and 4K modes, makes the R7 is one of the most capable APS-C cameras out there for video or vlogging.

Canon EOS R10

Canon

The EOS R10 dials the feature set back a bit from the R7, but it's still a very capable mirrorless camera. The biggest difference is in the resolution, with the R10 offering 24 megapixels rather than 32. It also lacks in-body stabilization, so you'll need to rely on stabilized lenses for that. And while it has a flip-out display like the R7, the resolution is lower at 1.04 million dots (the 2.36 million dot OLED EVF is the same). 

As with the R7, it can shoot continuous bursts at up to 15 fps with the mechanical shutter, or 23 fps in silent electronic mode. However, the buffer will fill quicker, allowing for only about 30 shots in mechanical mode or about 26 shots in silent mode. 

Canon

The body design is different, with a more typical two-dial layout on top. It's considerably smaller than the R7, weighing just 426 grams (15 ounces). The grip is slightly smaller, and there's less space for your hand between the grip and lens. 

On the video side, you're not giving up too much. It can also shoot oversampled 4K video at 30fps using the full sensor width, or 4K 60p video with a 1.56x crop. It can capture 10-bit video in HDR PQ mode, but doesn't offer any log settings. It comes with a microphone port, but no headphone jack. 

Pricing, lenses, availability

Canon

By using the superior RF mount, the new cameras make Canon's lineup less confusing and should help it better compete against APS-C models from Nikon and Sony. However, it begs the question of what Canon plans to do with its current EF-M APS-C mirrorless cameras. Given the more versatile and future-proof EOS R system, it's hard to imagine that Canon will keep both around.

Canon launched its first RF-S lenses along with the new cameras, optimized for the smaller APS-C sensor sizes. They're pretty basic kit-style lenses that won't exactly set the camera world on fire, but you can use RF full-frame lenses as well. The two models are the $300 RF-S18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM and $480 RF-S18-150mm IS STM, with a 35mm field of view of 29-72mm and 29-240mm, respectively. Both can be used on full-frame EOS R models, albeit with a 1.5x crop. 

The EOS R10 will cost $980 for the body only, or $1,100 with the RF-S18-45mm lens and $1,380 with the RF-S18-150mm lens. The R7, meanwhile, will sell for $1,500 for the body only, or $1,900 with the S18-150mm lens. Both cameras and the lenses will arrive in "late 2022." 

Last year, it was reported that Amazon planned to use AI-equipped cameras to surveil delivery drivers on their routes. Now, the company has started installing such cameras on its vans in the UK, according to The Telegraph. The action has created concern from privacy groups who called it "excessive" and "creepy." 

Amazon will use a pair of cameras to record footage from inside vans and out to the road. They're designed to detect road violations or poor driver practices and give an audio alert, while collecting data Amazon can use later to evaluate drivers. 

They don't allow drivers to be monitored in real time and won't capture sound, but can supposedly upload footage to a dedicated safety team in certain circumstances. Some of the actions monitored include illegal road behavior like failure to stop or speeding, along with actions like hard braking or seatbelt violations. 

A privacy group called Big Brother Watch said the system is "excessive, intrusive and creepy worker surveillance" and called for it to be paused. "This kind of directed surveillance could actually risk distracting drivers, let alone demoralizing them," director Silkie Carlo told The Telegraph. "It is bad for workers’ rights and awful for privacy in our country."

The GMB union that represents Amazon workers said the cameras inside the cabins aren't necessary and create a major distraction. "We are against cameras being pointed in the face of the drivers every second of every day that they are working. This is surveillance, it does not aid driver safety," a spokesperson said.

In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson told The Telegraph that "the purpose of introducing this technology is to keep drivers and communities safe, there is no other reason behind that. We have carried out a comprehensive data privacy assessment in line with applicable laws."

Clearview AI has been fined £7.55 million ($9.5 million) by the UK's privacy watchdog for illegally scraping the facial images of UK residents from social media and the web. It was also ordered to stop obtaining the data of UK residents and to delete any it has already collected. "The company not only enables identification of those people, but effectively monitors their behavior and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable," said UK information commissioner John Edwards in a statement. 

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) opened a joint investigation with Australia into Clearview AI back in 2020, and issued a preliminary fine of £17 million ($21.4 million) against the company late last year. At the time, the office noted that "Clearview AI Inc’s database are likely to include the data of a substantial number of people from the UK and may have been gathered without people’s knowledge from publicly available information online, including social media platforms."

In issuing a final injunction, the ICO noted that globally, the company illegally collected more than 20 billion facial images for its database. "Although Clearview AI no longer offers its services to UK organizations, the company has customers in other countries, so the company is still using personal data of UK residents," it said. 

Clearview AI sells an app that can be used to upload a photo of someone, then try to identify them by check its database. The data has been used by thousands of public law enforcement agencies, despite the technology being in a legal grey area. 

Twitter, Google and YouTube have all sent cease-and-desist letters to the company, alleging that it violates their terms of service. Facebook has also demanded that Clearview stop scraping its data. The company has received complaints from privacy groups in Europe, and was hit with a €20 million fine in Italy.

In the US, the ACLU sued Clearview for violating Illinois state laws. The company recently settled that lawsuit by agreeing to restrict the use of its database in Illinois, though it will still supply it to federal agencies and other states.

PC accessory manufacturer Corsair has unveiled its first laptop, the 16-inch Voyager AMD Advantage Edition, that's unabashedly designed for gamers and streamers. It's an all-AMD affair, packing both Ryzen 6000-series processors and an AMD Radeon RX 6800M GPU. It appears to be some of the first fruit from its 2019 purchase of gaming PC manufacturer Origin. 

The highlight feature is a 10-key LCD macro bar above the keyboard that's powered by Elgato, allowing streamers to customize controls using Stream Deck software. At the same time, you don't have a MacBook Pro touch bar situation where the function keys have been replaced, as it has those, too. And because of the laptop's unusual clamshell design, you can access the macro bar even when the laptop is closed.

Corsair

You'll be able to customize the keys to different live streaming controls like switching scenes, adjusting audio and loading videos or photos. That way, you could presumably control streaming from your laptop, and the keys could also be used with video conferencing apps like Zoom. 

The 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600 240Hz display (16:10) looks ideal for gaming with a good blend of resolution and speed. Other features aimed at gamers and streamers include a full-sized keyboard with Cherry MX ultra-low profile mechanical switches (in conjunction with membrane for half-height keys), and a 1080p30 webcam with a physical privacy shutter. 

Corsair

Corsair is offering two versions with either a Ryzen 7 6800HS or Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, along with a Radeon RX 6800M GPU for both. Both versions are well-equipped for gaming or creative work, with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD on the Ryzen 7 version, and 64GB GB of DDR RAM and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD on the Ryzen 9 model. Both include a pair of Thunderbolt 3-enabled USB 4.0 ports, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port and a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port, along with an SDXC 7.0 card reader, 3.5mm combo audio jack, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.

The design is certainly different from other gaming laptops, but it looks sleek with a 19.9mm tapered design and thin display section. It weighs in at 2.4kg (5.3 pounds), a bit heavier than the 16-inch HP Omen 16 gaming laptop (5.03 pounds). The bottom bezel is fairly chunky, likely to accommodate the extra space required for the touch bar. 

With the Voyager AMD Advantage Edition, Corsair appears to be taking on Razer in the enthusiast gaming segment. Corsair's press release shows $2,700 and $3,000 price tags for the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 models, respectively, though the company also said that "availability and pricing will be announced at a later date." 

After entering into a partnership with Zynga last year, TikTok has been testing a pair of mobile minigames on its platform in Vietnam, Reuters has reported. The move could soon allow users to play games directly on the app in what Reuter's sources called a "major push" into gaming. 

TikTok confirmed that it has been testing HTML5 games on its app via partnerships with Zynga and other third-party developers. it reportedly plans to release ad-supported games drawing from TikTok parent ByteDance's library to boost revenue and engagement. "We're always looking at ways to enrich our platform and regularly test new features and integrations that bring value to our community," a representative told Reuters via email. 

Last year, TikTok announced a partnership with Zynga on an app called Disco Loco 3D (above), an HTML5 app that could work inside the app. The company also created Garden of Good, a FarmVille-style minigame that allows players to earn points to make donations. 

While ByteDance is starting with minigames, it supposedly plans to go beyond that, presumably into more advanced types of games. The Chinese version of the game, Douyin, already offers games, and TikTok has also tested streaming via its Live Studio PC app. The company counts over a billion users worldwide and has projected $11 billion in ad revenue this year, more than the Twitter and Snap combined. 

LG, which helped kickstart the Ultra Short Throw (UST) laser projector craze with the original CineBeam, has just unveiled a new high-end model. The CineBeam HU915QE can project a 120-inch image from just 7-inches away as before, but it now does so with a scorching 3,700 ANSI lumens of brightness — well beyond rivals like the Optoma CinemaX P2. That should be enough for good picture quality in daytime with the blinds up, so it could replace a TV while offering a much bigger screen size. 

It also supposedly delivers a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, though I'd take that number with a humongous grain of salt as it depends on the type of screen, room brightness and more. You also get 4K HDR video via the three channel laser (likely with a TI DLP chip) that should eliminate any rainbow effect. Since LG doesn't mention Dolby Vision or HDR10+, we can safely assume it's limited to HDR10. 

LG/Yi Cheol

It automatically adjusts brightness based on ambient light conditions, and uses HDR dynamic tone mapping to change brightness on a frame-by-frame basis. Another feature, adaptive contrast, supposedly delivers the optimal contrast for each individual scene. 

It's equipped with LG's webOS that trumps other smart platforms used by other brands like Optoma. That'll let you stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YouTube and Apple TV without the need for a Chromecast or other device. LG also promises stylish looks thanks to the 45 percent recycled wool texture from Danish textile company Kvadrat. 

The HU915QE CineBeam 4K laser UST projector will arrive in the first half of 2022, meaning in less than 40 days or so. LG didn't mention the price, but it is listed on pre-order at B&H Photo Video for around $6,000. 

Canada is banning 4G and 5G telecom equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, joining its "Five Eyes" allies in doing so. The decision follows a three-year review that was delayed by political tensions with China after Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US warrant. 

"Our government will always protect the safety and security of Canadians and will take any actions necessary to safeguard our critical telecommunications infrastructure," said Canada's innovation minister, François-Philippe Champagne, in a press release.

"We’re disappointed but not surprised. We’re surprised it took the government so long to make a decision," Huawei spokesperson Alykhan Velshi told The Guardian. "We see this as a political decision, one born of political pressure primarily from the United States."

Two of Canada's largest wireless providers, Bell and Telus, switched to Ericsson and Nokia equipment in 2020 to build their next-generation 5G networks. However, both operators have some Huawei 5G equipment in place as part of so-called non-standalone 5G networks integrated with previous 4G networks. Those 4G networks were also built using Huawei equipment. Huawei has sold over $700 million in equipment to Canadian operators since 2018, mostly to Bell and Telus. 

Both operators reportedly approached the federal government in the past to ask about compensation from taxpayers for potential removal Huawei or ZTE gear. The CEO of a smaller Northern operator, Iristel, previously said that a requirement to remove existing equipment would be "catastrophic." 

However, Champagne said that operators will be required to remove any Huawei or ZTE gear at their own expense. Existing 5G equipment must be removed or terminated by June 28, 2024 and any 4G equipment by December 31, 2027, according to the policy statement.

Canada's Five Eyes intelligence allies, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, have already banned Huawei and ZTE wireless equipment. Canada has faced growing pressure to do the same, over fears it could compromise the security of all five nations, given that China's laws require state companies to cooperate with intelligence services. 

Roku has joined forces with Element to create a 55-inch outdoor TV, the companies announced. The Element Roku TV looks like a version of Element's Patio Series TVs that offer anti-glare and weather protection, with Roku's smart TV operating system built in. 

In fact, the Element Roku TV looks nigh-on identical to the 55-inch Patio TV, apart from the OS. It offers a good but not spectacular 700 nits of brightness, along with 4K streaming and HDR that's limited to HDR 10. More importantly, though, it has tempered anti-glare glass to combat reflections and IP55 weather protection that withstands water, dust and humidity. You also get "powerful built-in speakers, designed to cut through outdoor noise," Element said.

It's powered by Roku OS, one of the more powerful Smart TV platforms out there. You get all the streaming platforms you'd expect like Netflix, Apple TV+ and yes, YouTube TV. It also offers a customizable home screen, mobile remote, search capabilities via voice or keyboard and the ability to save shows for later. It's all conceived to let you watch sports, movies and more during barbecues, hot-tubbing, outdoor movie nights and other activities. It'll be "available starting shortly" for $1,300 at Walmart.com.

If you've got a bunch of items you need to protect from theft or loss, you can now pick up a four-pack of Apple's AirTags at Amazon and Best Buy for $89, or $10 (10 percent) off. We've seen them a little bit cheaper recently, but it's still a good time to act if you missed the last deal. 

For Apple users, AirTags deliver significant advantages over Tile and other trackers. The ultra-wideband feature offers precise tracking with iPhone 11 or later devices when you're reasonably close, so you can narrow your search between a bed and night table in the same bedroom. Over wider distances, the Apple device AirTag networks lets you track down an object you might have misplaced in a bar, for instance.

AirTags use a simple coin-sized design and offer a seamless experience via the Find My app. You can also force an AirTag to emit a chime to help you pinpoint an object's location, and that chime is now loader than ever thanks to a recent update.

It does lack a built-in keyring like rival trackers, so you'll need to pay extra for that. And it only works with Apple devices, so Android users will need to look elsewhere. However, if you're in Apple's ecosystem, you can pick up four at a discount — just remember that the deal ends today.

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