After nearly four decades in space, NASA’s retried Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is about to fall from the sky. On Friday, the agency said the likelihood of wreckage from ERBS harming anyone on Earth is “very low.” NASA expects most of the 5,400-pound satellite will burn upon re-entry. Earlier this week, the Defense Department predicted ERBS would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday at approximately 6:40PM ET, give or take 17 hours.

While it may be a household name, the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite had anything but a dull history. Per Phys.org, the Space Shuttle Challenger carried the satellite to space in 1984, a little more than a year before Challenger's heartbreaking demise in early 1986. Astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly to space, released ERBS from Challenger’s cargo hold using the spacecraft’s robotic arm. During that same mission, Ride’s crewmate, Kathryn Sullivan, became the first American woman to perform a space walk. It was also the first mission to see two female astronauts fly to space together. As for ERBS, it went on to collect ozone and atmospheric measurements until 2005. Scientists used that data to study how Earth absorbs and radiates solar energy. ERBS's contribution to science is even more impressive when you consider NASA initially expected it would only stay functional for two years.

Singaporean inventor and tech pioneer Sim Wong Hoo passed away on January 4th at the age of 67. Sim may not be a household name these days, but he founded Creative Technology (or Creative Labs in the US), the company behind the Sound Blaster brand of sound cards, back in 1981. Sound Blasters were some of the first sound cards available to consumers, and there was a time when you had to make sure your system worked with them if you wanted to listen to music and play games.

Sim established his business in the US and started selling Sound Blasters a few years later, after which Creative became the first Singaporean company to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange. The integration of sound boards into the motherboard ended Sound Blaster's popularity, but Bloomberg says the cards provided audio for more than 400 million PCs. 

Under his leadership, Creative also launched a range of MP3 players, and Sim once tried to take on Apple by spending $100 million on advertising and marketing in its bid to dethrone the iPod. In 2006, Creative sued Apple for violating its patent for portable media system menus. The companies filed more lawsuits against each other after that before Apple settled with Creative and paid the company $100 million for the technology outlined in its patent. 

Creative confirmed Sim's passing on its website, calling him "a visionary, inventor, and entrepreneur who gave the PC a voice." In a press release published by the company, interim CEO Song Siow Hui said in a statement:

"I have known and worked with Mr. Sim for over 30 years. This is a sad and sudden development and we feel a great loss especially since Mr. Sim and I recently had extensive discussions on the future direction of the Company. During those discussions, Mr. Sim was full of fresh vision. Even on the night before, he had a long discussion with the Engineering team and was scheduled to meet with the Online Sales team the next day. The best thing to do now is to ensure the continued smooth running of the Company, and also to execute and realise the vision and strategy that Mr. Sim had for the Company."

One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and I’m not sure if you can count four instances of a product as a trend, but it’s certainly an interesting thread at this year’s CES. At this year’s show, a quartet of companies are showing off urine analysis tools designed to be used at home by the general public. These are positioned as a natural evolution of the fitness tracker, a device you can use to keep an even closer eye on your health and fitness. Most of them are built for your toilet, testing your pee for any number of easy-to-identify maladies. But is this the next great frontier of consumer health tracking? That rather depends on the public’s desire to delve deep into their own bladders.

My cynical take: I suspect the reason we’re seeing these pop up is because the wearables world is now played out. Back in 2019, I wrote that we’d reached the point where there were no new features that could be fitted to a smartwatch, fitness tracker or ring. Or, at least, none that were as valid, effective or accurate as what you now expect every device on the market to offer. Once it was possible to put a single lead ECG in a watch, there were no new health-tracking worlds left to conquer that didn’t involve breaking the skin.

Dr. Audrey Bowden is Dorothy J. Wingfield Philips Chancellor Faculty Fellow, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, and head of the Bowden Biomedical Optics Laboratory. Dr. Bowden tells Engadget that clinical urinalysis is used as a “first line screening for many diseases and conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease,” but added that it can “also play a role in ordinary, routine checkups, such as during pregnancy.”

You may have seen your physician ask you for a urine sample and then stir a dipstick dotted with colored squares of reaction paper into the liquid you’ve just produced. In addition to visually checking urine for cloudiness (an obvious sign of a problem), these squares can run a wide variety of tests as part of this first-line screening process.

Each square corresponds to a different test, looking for factors like pH as well as the presence of blood, or white blood cells. Blood, for instance, can indicate kidney stones or cancer, while white blood cells are a clue your body is fighting an infection. If there’s excess glucose in the urine, it’s likely that diabetes is the culprit. Ketones would indicate ketosis, nitrites could indicate bacteria in the urinary tract, and so on.

Dr. Bowden added that for many conditions, urinalysis is not a “definitive diagnostic, but rather serves as an initial prompt to perform a more complete investigation.” And that since the clinical procedure has been to test for urine when there’s already evidence of a problem, it’s not clear how effective daily testing can really be.

A medical professional I interviewed, who requested anonymity for fear of compromising their professional standing, expressed skepticism both about the accuracy of these tests as well as their utility. They said that if people were running tests at home on a regular basis, it runs the risk of providing hypochondriacs with another reason to clog up care centers.

Dr. Shubha K. De (MD) is a Urologic surgeon who is presently working on a PhD in biomedical engineering. He raised a concern that, in primary care facilities, medical staff know how to validate the data they’re presented with, and to screen out false positives. This may not be the case in an at-home setting, and added that the accuracy of some tests vary wildly — a dipstick test to identify a bladder infection is roughly 80-percent accurate, but to diagnose bladder cancer, it falls to just 3 percent.

The most talked-about gadget at CES is surely Withings’ U-Scan, which even Jimmy Kimmel joked about in his opening monologue on Thursday. Given that Withings is already such a big name in the health-tracking world, it’s little surprise that it’s hogged the attention. The company showed off a device that sits on the dry part of your toilet bowl, and samples some of your trickle as you pee. Once that fluid is captured inside the device, it runs a sample through a microfluidic cartridge (with reaction paper) and uses a reader to look at the result. Once completed, the results are sent to your phone, with suggestions on what you might do to improve your health.

When it’s eventually released, U-Scan will offer a cartridge for menstrual cycle tracking, as well as one to monitor your hydration and nutrition levels. It’s this latter cartridge I tried during my time in Vegas this week, and it looked at the pH of my urine as well as the specific gravity (relative density) of my pee. But the company promises that it will eventually be able to identify nutrient levels, fat metabolism, ketones and quantities of vitamin C.

Both of these have raised red flags with professionals who are concerned that these analyses don’t suit a one-size-fits-all model. Dr. Bowden said that menstrual cycle tracking based on “‘normalization’ curves may have been developed with too narrow a demographic to capture all interested users.”

Dr. Bowden was also resistant to the idea that nutritional information can be extracted given clinical urinalysis doesn’t offer data about those markers. She said urine samples don’t really “provide reliable information over a given time window,” and added that a “daily analysis of food nutritional content may be a stretch.” Although she did say that it may be possible to detect “accumulated nutritional deficits.”

Dr. De, however, says that it may be possible to extrapolate nutritional information back to a person’s diet using urine analysis. They said that physicians currently ask patients to run 24-hour urine collections, and that fluid is then examined for specific substances — like uric acid — to make inferences on dietary intake. “This is not always perfect, and currently needs some correlation with one’s diet history,” but added that it’s plausible to imagine that, with a “user friendly app and some AI” that it could work well.

Withings is looking to develop more clinical tests, and has said that it’s already working on a way to screen for bladder cancer markers. It’s here that my source who asked not to be named feels would offer real value to groups who are at risk of the disease. They said that a targeted monitoring program may help identify instances of the cancer early, which should dramatically increase survival rates.

Daniel Cooper

Korean company Yellosis graduated from Samsung’s startup incubator some years ago, and already produces the Cym Boat personal urine testing kit. Cym Boat offers a small stick with reaction paper squares, which you then stand in a boat-shaped piece of card lined with color-calibration squares. Take a picture on your smartphone, and you’ll be able to look at the blood, protein, ketones, pH and glucose levels within your urine.

At the show, it also showed off its next-generation product, Cym Seat, which uses a metal arm to hold a paper stick under a person as they pee. Once completed, it slides the strip in front of an optical scanner, and after a minute, the results are pushed to your phone. But this device, which is expected to launch by the end of 2023 and cost around $1,000, automates the existing process rather than adding anything new.

Daniel Cooper

Similarly, Vivoo, which also offers a reaction-paper stick which can be analyzed by a smartphone app, is building its own toilet-mounted hardware, which pushes a pee stick into the toilet bowl and then pulls it back in once it’s collected a urine sample. An optical scanner then reads the reaction squares before depositing the stick in a collection bin for disposal later.

Daniel Cooper

Rounding out the group is Olive, which is taking a dramatically different tack. The device harnesses spectroscopy rather than reaction paper, with hardware that sits under your toilet seat, and a bank of LEDs flashing toward rear-mounted photodiodes. The potential for such a technology is far greater than reaction paper, and there are some studies that have pointed to being able to identify infection with it.

Olive is presently being used in a handful of locations in the Netherlands, including an assisted living facility. Co-founder Corey Katz told Engadget that one of the most surprising uses for the technology was for personnel to keep accurate records of patient bathroom visits. Katz added that work is presently under way to find a way to measure levels of protein in urine to identify instances of preeclampsia.

The company says that there’s a broad number of conditions that spectroscopy could be used to test for. This includes hydration and ketosis all the way through to stress, creatinine levels and electrolyte balances. The hope is that a finished version of the hardware will be ready to go by the end of 2023, although it’ll only be sold to business customers.

There are issues, including around data security, especially for menstrual cycle tracking in countries like the US. Companies that could expose fertility data will need to be mindful of the legal context that is presently in place post-Roe.

If Dr. De has a final concern, it’s a worry that these at-home devices will encourage patients to take medical matters into their own hands without the supervision of a physician. “If [urine analysis systems] direct you to take supplements which jeopardize pre-existing medical conditions,” for instance, “then it could be quite dangerous.”

Of course, there are other things that independent experts (and journalists) will need to test when these devices make it out into the real world. Dr. Bowden raised concerns that urinalysis tests can be “impacted by a number of external factors,” which clinical settings make an effort to control for. Will these devices be accurate enough for the jobs they’ve been bought to do? And will the conclusions they provide be worthwhile? There’s a lot to work through before these products become ubiquitous in bathrooms around the world.

Samsung may have inadvertently confirmed that it will unveil its next flagship phones early next month. According to 9to5Google, the company's Colombian website has published a page revealing that its next Galaxy Unpacked event is scheduled for February 1st, 2023. "Epic moments are approaching," it read, based on the publication's screenshot of the page, which is now no longer viewable on the website. While the announcement didn't explicitly say that the event will officially introduce the Galaxy S23, it shows the flagship series' expected triple-camera setup. 

As the publication notes, the leaves and flowers in the borders of the teaser reflect the colors of the leaked renders that seemed to show Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra units in green and lilac. Previous reports also suggested that we'll get to see the upcoming phones in the first week of February at an Unpacked event, which is likely to take place in San Francisco. In addition, an early February Unpacked for the flagship series is consistent with previous unveilings: For the Galaxy S22 series, Samsung held an event on February 9th, 2022.

Samsung is reportedly ditching its Exynos chips and using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC to power all the Galaxy S23 units sold worldwide. The Korean tech giant typically equips its Asian and European releases with Exynos chipsets, while units sold in the US come with Qualcomm processors. Other reports suggested that the Galaxy S23 will have a 200-megapixel main camera, while the base S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus models will come with a 50-megapixel main shooter. If the leaked Unpacked page is accurate, we won't have to wait long to know for sure.

There are certain things you can’t really demonstrate in the same way as other pieces of consumer electronics. A WiFi-connected urine analyzer that sits in your toilet and samples your pee for analysis is one such gadget. That’s why I had to go to a behind-closed-doors event in a private suite here at CES in Las Vegas to test out this prototype version of Withings’ U-Scan.

U-Scan is Withings first attempt at a body fluid-analysis device, albeit one with the weight of such a well-regarded brand in the health tech space. The shell-shaped hardware sits on the edge of your bowl like a scent block, and catches a small sample of fluid while you’re micturating. After around a minute, users will find conclusions about their menstrual cycle or nutrition, depending on what cartridge is installed, pushed to their phone.

Regardless of biology, you’ll need to sit down on the toilet to use this thing, and that it’s a little surprising when the hardware lights up when it starts working. You’ll certainly know when it is as well, since it makes a fairly noticeable whirring noise while your sample is processed. At this early stage, I was able to receive information about two stats: The pH of my urine as well as its specific gravity.

Now, I could reveal what my stats were, but I’d much rather not spoil the video where you can learn a little bit more about how it all works.

Citizen, the provocative crime-reporting app formerly known as Vigilante, is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. On Thursday evening, it doxxed singer Billie Eilish, publishing her address to thousands of people after an alleged burglary at her home.

Shortly after the break-in, the app notified users of a break-in in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood — including the home’s address. As reported by Vice, Citizen’s message was updated at 9:41 PM to state that the house belonged to Eilish. According to Citizen’s metrics, the alert was sent to 178,000 people and viewed by nearly 78,000. On Friday morning, Citizen updated the app’s description of the incident, replacing the precise address with a nearby cross-street.

Although celebrity home addresses are often publicly available (usually on seedy websites specializing in such invasive nonsense), a popular app pushing the home address of one of pop music’s biggest stars to thousands of users is... new. Unfortunately, it’s also just the latest potentially destructive move from Citizen.

When Citizen launched as Vigilante in 2016, Apple quickly pulled the title from the App Store based on concerns about its encouraging users to thrust themselves into dangerous situations. So it rebranded as Citizen with a new focus on safety, and Apple re-opened its gates. The app began advising users to avoid incidents in progress while providing tools to help those caught in a dangerous situation. Although that sounds reasonable, at least one episode reveals an overzealousness company prioritizing attention and profit over social responsibility.

Citizen

In May 2021, CEO Andrew Frame ordered the launch of a live stream, encouraging the app’s users to hunt down a suspected wildfire arsonist (based on a tip from an LAPD sergeant and emails from residents questioned by police). He offered a $10,000 bounty for finding the suspect, which grew to $30,000 later in the evening. As the hunt continued, the CEO reportedly grew more frantic, with one of his internal Slack conversations encouraging the team to “get this guy before midnight” in an ecstatic, all-caps message.

A staffer was ignored in a Slack chat when they warned the team about breaking the app’s terms of service, which prohibit “posting of specific information that could identify parties involved in an incident.” When police announced that night that they had made an arrest, the team celebrated, believing their feverish hunt for notability had led to the capture. The only problem? Citizen had the wrong guy. In Frame’s apparent eagerness to legitimize his app’s purpose with a high-profile citizen arrest, he placed a public bounty on a wrongfully accused suspect.

And we're back. After canceling our CES plans in 2022 (and not even having the option of attending in person in 2021), the Engadget team sent a dozen staffers to CES 2023 this week, including reporters, editors and videographers. It's too soon to say how many stories and videos we've published — in fact, we have more good stuff coming — but suffice to say, it was a lot. Though our team swears the show still wasn't as busy as pre-pandemic years, they were kept busy enough that it felt like a true return to form, not just for us, but for the tech industry at large.

One thing that never stopped was Engadget's annual Best of CES Awards program, although this year marks the first time in three years we've been able to base our judgments off of a full slate of in-person hands-on experiences. All told, we're handing out a dozen awards this year, including the most prestigious: Best of the Best. As always, our awards attempt to capture what we think people will still be talking about weeks, or even months, after the show concludes, from wireless TVs to an electric Ram concept truck to a $1,000 stand mixer that should make dough blending almost foolproof.

As ever, too, we endeavored to weed out the vaporware, not to mention the things that got attention solely for being dumb. (Hello, multiplesmart pee gadgets and a $3,800 "self-driving" stroller that only works when the baby isn't on board!) If you're curious about all the frivolity anyway — and who can blame you? — you'll find all of our coverage, serious and irreverent, right here. But for just the good stuff, you're in the right place. – Dana Wollman, Editor-in-Chief

Best Accessibility Tech: L’Oréal Hapta

L'oreal

Rather than showing up to CES with a viral beauty gadget, L’Oréal debuted an assistive lipstick applicator that will be useful to millions. The cosmetics company worked with utensil maker Verily, which produces stabilizing and leveling cutlery for people with limited hand and arm mobility, to create Hapta. The result is a sturdy grip-and-gimbal system that lets those with limited finger dexterity or strength more independently apply lipstick. Though there are some quirks the company needs to iron out before releasing the Hapta in December, it’s impressive that this is both a finished product and has a relatively affordable suggested retail price of $150 to $200. It’s also a device that caters to an often overlooked segment of consumers, and can be expanded to work with more makeup applications. Of all the accessibility-related products we saw this CES, the Hapta is the most unique, while being actually helpful. — Cherlynn Low, Deputy Editor, Reviews

Best Gaming Product: Sony Project Leonardo

Sony

Project Leonardo is Sony’s first piece of gaming hardware designed specifically for people with limited motor control, and it happens to look pretty neat at the same time. Project Leonardo is a controller kit that’ll work out of the box with the PlayStation 5, offering two circular gamepads lined with swappable buttons, third-party accessory ports and other customizable inputs. The controllers lie flat on a table or they can be mounted on a standard tripod, and they can be paired with a DualSense to turn all three devices into a single gamepad, offering plenty of flexibility for players.

To build its new PS5 accessory, Sony partnered with advocacy organizations including AbleGamers and SpecialEffect, just like Microsoft did with the (wildly successful) Xbox Adaptive Controller. Project Leonardo represents another positive step for accessibility tech in video games, a market that’s filled with surprises and primed for growth in 2023. — Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Best Heath & Fitness Product: Valencell blood pressure monitoring prototype 

Valencell

Valencell has been making optical heart-rate sensors for years, but at CES 2023 it unveiled a new fingertip monitor that offers “cuffless” blood pressure monitoring. Instead of an unwieldy inflating sleeve, this fingertip clip uses photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors to measure blood flow patterns. This information is combined with algorithms and the user’s age, weight, gender and height to create a blood pressure measurement, without the need for calibration. We might have seen similar technology in earlier stages of development, but Valencell’s technique of combining data makes for the most compelling device yet. Valencell plans to eventually offer the blood pressure monitor to clinics and hospitals, alongside an over-the-counter version for personal use, pending FDA approval. — Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief

Best Home Theater Tech: LG Signature OLED M3

Engadget

LG unveiled several new OLED TVs at CES this year, but the standout was the Signature OLED M3, a 97-inch 4K giant. What’s most interesting about the M3, however, isn’t its screen – it’s the tech inside of it. More specifically, the M3 is designed to receive video and audio wirelessly, through a separate box that LG says you can place up to 30 feet away from the TV. Outside of a power cord, the M3 itself is cable-free; instead you plug your media streamers, cable box or game consoles into the breakout box, and all of it is beamed over a wireless link.

The company dubs this wireless transmission tech “Zero Connect” and claims this proprietary standard can provide three times the speed of WiFi 6. Among other connections, the Zero Connect box includes three HDMI ports that can play in 4K at 120Hz, including one eARC port. While it does require line-of-sight to work – there’s a rotatable antenna built into the box – in our brief experience with the set, we found the signal quality remained steady even in a crowded room. If Zero Connect can eventually make its way down to LG’s more reasonably priced TVs, it could provide an exciting new level of versatility. — Jeff Dunn, Senior Commerce Writer

Best Laptop: Lenovo Yoga Book 9i

Lenovo

By axing the traditional, physical keyboard and putting two 13.3-inch OLED screens on the Yoga Book 9i, Lenovo could potentially shake up modern laptop design in a way we haven’t seen since the original Surface Pro a decade ago. And while there are some issues that will need to be ironed out, the potential this new design offers is undeniable. When you prop up the Yoga Book on its kickstand, it becomes much more than a standard clamshell. You can have two screens stacked on top of each other or side-by-side depending on your needs. Meanwhile in standard laptop mode, you have the freedom to choose between a virtual or detachable Bluetooth keyboard – both with customizable widgets, not to mention built-in stylus support. It’s a level of flexibility and adaptability that traditional laptops simply can’t match. And unlike overly ambitious concepts in the past, this dual-screen notebook is actually coming out (sometime this spring for around $2,000) so we can see how it will truly fare in the real world. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Writer

Best Mobile or Tablet Tech: WPC Qi2 charging standard

Engadget

When Apple added MagSafe charging to the iPhone back in 2020, it created an incredibly simple and convenient way of juicing up its phones. And now, at CES 2023, the WPC (Wireless Power Consortium) has released details on the Qi2 charging standard that will finally bring similar functionality to the rest of the handset market. Not only does the new spec include support for Magnetic Power Profiles which will pave the way for handy charging disks that can snap onto the back of your phone, it will also allow for important features such as foreign object detection and up to 15-watt charging with the potential to raise power output even further in the future. And perhaps most importantly, because Apple is a member of the WPC, Qi2 shouldn’t be a weak MagSafe knock-off when it arrives on retail devices later this year in Q4 2023. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Writer

Best Robot or Drone: KEYi Loona

Loona

Historically, robot pets tend to be lacking in the cutesy department. Loona, the futuristic companion from KEYi, with its big puppy dog eyes and wiggling ears has the adorable thing locked down. Loona is smart enough to scurry around your living space without running into walls or off of countertops, but the real magic is in its expressiveness. It’s impressive what you can do with a small display, four wheels and two “ears.”

Beyond her charms, Loona also comes loaded with sensors for responding to your voice, gestures and touch and a collection of games that turn the virtual pet into quite the clever companion. These same sensors also make her a capable home security bot and something of a STEM tool for kids via a graphical programming option to teach Loona new “interactions.”

Put all this together and you have a capable home robot that just happens to love having its ears tickled. What’s not to love about that? — James Trew, Editor-at-Large

Best Smart Home Product: GE Profile Smart Mixer

GE

Baking requires precision and, depending on the recipe, can often feel like a juggling act. So it impressed us to see GE Profile's Smart Mixer, which has a built-in scale to accurately weigh ingredients, plus voice control so you don’t have to push buttons when your hands are otherwise occupied. The Smart Mixer is a high-end stand mixer in its own right, with a motor that’s speedy enough to whip up emulsions. But it gets its smart home edge from that integrated scale, app connectivity and voice control.

Indeed, the app component will probably be particularly useful for novice bakers, offering over a dozen step-by-step recipes. App guidance for cooking is nothing new, but here, the mixer knows what you’re making and will adjust mixing speeds as needed to ensure nothing is over- or under-worked.

For experienced bakers, the scale, timer and voice control are likely to have greater appeal. Scale and timer readouts appear on the front-facing digital display, which also shows you the mixer’s current speed setting. Changing that setting is as easy as asking Alexa or the Google Assistant to do it for you, provided you have a smart speaker linked. With a starting price of $999, it’s by no means a cheap appliance, but the suite of innovative smart features made this one of the more memorable smart home gadgets we saw at the show this year. — Amy Skorheim, Commerce Writer

Best Transportation Tech: Ram 1500 BEV Concept

Stellantis

The Ram 1500, one of America’s most iconic trucks, is charging into the 21st century with a “revolutionary” battery electric pickup concept. The eponymously named Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept shown off at Stellantis’ CES 2023 keynote packs high tech everything into a sleek and aggressive body design. The BEV concept features dual-motor AWD, four-wheel steering, animated grille emblems, taillights and badging. Additionally, it has an integrated movie projector, AI assistants that respond to voice commands from both inside and outside the vehicle, as well as a Shadow Mode that trains the truck to follow along behind its dismounted driver from a safe distance.

Ram envisions this feature being used on job sites where workers would otherwise have to repeatedly get in and out of the truck between short drives. The BEV Concept itself won’t be entering production — ditto for most concept vehicles — but it will directly inform the design decisions going into the 2024 Ram 1500 EV, which will launch next year alongside Stellantis’ fully electric Jeep. — Andrew Tarantola, Senior Reporter

Best TV Tech: Samsung Micro LED

Samsung

CES has long been a show where tier-one manufacturers show off the latest and greatest in TV technology, giving us a preview of how normal people will be able to deck out their home theater setups once the tech goes mainstream. This year was no exception, even though Sony surprisingly didn't show off any new televisions. What felt most significant in 2023 was Samsung's continued advancements in its MicroLED TVs. The technology first debuted in 2018 with the company's gigantic 146-inch TV dubbed "The Wall" that cost as much as a house, but now we're seeing Samsung bring it to 50- and 63-inch TVs that will actually fit in people's living rooms. Sure, the cost will likely still be prohibitive for all but the wealthy, but hopefully in a few years we'll see these stunning screens available at a price more households can afford. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor, News

Best Wearable: German Bionic Apogee

German Bionic

Our favorite wearable this year takes technology beyond the wrist-bound devices we’re used to seeing and puts it on your hips and over your shoulders. German Bionic’s new Apogee exosuit builds upon the company’s Cray X exoskeleton that it showed off at CES last year, resulting in a lighter, smarter wearable. Designed for commercial use, the Apogee exosuit helps workers complete physical tasks without inflicting as much strain on their bodies. The suit can offset up to 66 pounds of load to the lower back per lifting motion, plus it helps reduce fatigue overall with walking assistance.

The Apogee is German Bionic’s lightest exosuit to date and it’s designed to be worn for long periods of time, assisting workers without getting in the way. Plus, the company’s IO architecture constantly collects and analyzes data about workers’ activity while they’re wearing the suit, so it can then provide feedback via the onboard display or audio alerts when unsafe movements are detected. We’re almost disappointed that the Apogee will only be available in warehouses and other commercial settings – various Engadget staffers suffering from chronic back pain are eager to give it a go. — Valentina Palladino, Senior Commerce Editor

Best in Show: Sony Project Leonardo

Sony

Project Leonardo is Sony’s first piece of gaming hardware designed specifically for people with disabilities, and it represents another positive step in the world of accessibility tech. Project Leonardo is a controller kit that will be plug-and-play with the PlayStation 5, working in conjunction with existing Sony hardware and popular third-party accessibility accessories. The controller kit includes two circular gamepads lined with swappable buttons, four 3.5mm AUX accessory ports and other customizable inputs. 

The controllers were designed so that they don't need to be held – instead, they lie flat on a table, or they can be mounted on a tripod or stand. Both controllers can be paired with a DualSense to turn all three devices into a single gamepad, offering plenty of flexibility for players. 

To build its new PS5 accessory, Sony partnered with advocacy organizations including AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and Stack Up, much like Microsoft did with the revolutionary Xbox Adaptive Controller. Though there's no release date or price for Project Leonardo quite yet, Sony is seizing on an opportunity to expand the PS5 playerbase while making its hardware more inclusive, and we're likely to hear much more about the controller kit in the coming months. 

The market for accessibility tech in video games is filled with surprises and primed for growth in 2023, and Project Leonardo is at the forefront this year. — Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Howlin' Wolf would have hated this motorcycle. It is not built for comfort. It is built to accelerate the human body from a standstill to freeways speeds in less time than it has taken you to read this lede.

This is the $44,900 TS Ultra, the new flagship motorcycle, from venerated electric bike maker Verge. It joins the existing entry level 4.5-second TS (MSRP $26,900) and 3.5 second, $29,000 TS Pro in Verge's lineup. The TS Ultra features a hubless rear wheel housing a 1200 nm (~885 ft-lb torque) e-motor — larger than both the 1000 nm Pro and 700 nm TS — which delivers 201 horsepower, a 124 MPH top speed and a range 233 miles. 

Not only does the hubless drive wheel look cool, the space and weight savings coming from that design decision allowed Verge to increase the size of its battery and reposition it to lower the bike's center of gravity. That's handy when you're on a single-seater crotch rocket attempting to extract the fillings in your teeth exclusively via acceleration force. Riders will have their choice of five color choices (in both matte and glossy alternates), three seat materials (basic leather, perforated leather and alcantara), and either a Wilbers or Ohlins suspension. 

Preorders are open on the Verge product page and $1000 will reserve you a bike for delivery in Q4, 2023. Availability in the US is currently limited to a dozen or so states, depending on the local regulations regarding EV sales and imports.         

A court has blocked a rate hike that would have increased pay for New York City Uber and Lyft drivers. Uber sued the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) in December, claiming it used a flawed methodology to determine the per-minute and per-mile rate increases. Manhattan state court Justice Arthur Engoron agreed. “It’s just not enough to say there’s inflation and 100 drivers said gas prices shot up,” Engoron, a former taxi driver in his college days, said, according to Bloomberg.

In November, the TLC unanimously approved the city's first metered fare increases in a decade, including for ridesharing trips. Per-minute rates were slated to go up by 7.4 percent and per-mile rates by 24 percent. Under those planned hikes, a trip of 7.5 miles that took 30 minutes would have earned a ridesharing driver at least $27.15, an increase of more than $2.50 compared with current rates.

Uber argued that the rate increases would result in higher fares for customers while harming its reputation. A judge granted a temporary restraining order to pause the rate hikes a few days after Uber filed suit and before they came into effect on December 19th.

“Drivers do critical work and deserve to be paid fairly, but rates should be calculated in a way that is transparent, consistent and predictable,” Uber spokesperson Josh Gold told Bloomberg. “Existing TLC rules continue to provide for an annual review tied to the rate of inflation, which will take place in March.”

The company said implementing the pay raise would cost it between $21 million and $23 million per month. For the July to September quarter, Uber reported a net loss of $1.2 billion.

"We call on the Taxi and Limousine Commission to immediately redo the rules so drivers do not have to wait one day longer for their raise. A few missing words in a Statement of Basis and Purpose does not justify denying a raise meant to help thousands of drivers pay their rent and put food on the table for their families," Bhairavi Desai, executive director of The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told Engadget in a statement. "Shame on Uber for spending millions on this heartless lawsuit only to deny drivers an increase of $1.66 more on an average trip. Uber woke a sleeping giant. This raise belongs to the drivers and we will not rest until it's back in our hands."

The most dangerous aspect of a water rescue for first responders isn't the treacherous environmental conditions, it's the terrified and panicked victim capable of pulling their rescuer under the waves along with them. Rather than risk national treasures like David Hasselhoff, the U-Safe self-propelled buoy from Portugal's Noras Performance will brave the waves in their stead.

Andrew Tarantola / Engadget

The U-Safe is an aquatic robot designed to drive out to a swimmer in distress using a pair of turbines mounted in its "legs." The turbines are omnidirectional and operate regardless of the U-Safe's orientation in the water. It can reach a top speed of 15km/h and range out to 3.2 nautical miles so long as the first responders can maintain a line of sight. The entire unit weighs just over 30 pounds with induction-charged lithium-ion battery providing power. 

Andrew Tarantola / Engadget

It's controlled using a one-handed bluetooth remote, itself both buyant and waterproof so there's little risk of a rescue going sideways because you've dropped the control unit overboard. First introduced in 2017, and since adopted by both the Italian and Portuguese coast guards, the U-Safe is being readied for US release later this year.