You can add Zoom to the long list of major tech companies that have laid off employees in recent times. It's letting go around 1,300 employees, which equates to 15 percent of the workforce.
In a note to staff, CEO Eric Yuan indicated that the company expanded its headcount too quickly after Zoom's pandemic-driven boom — it tripled in size in the space of two years. "We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities," Yuan wrote.
He noted that even though many folks have returned to the office, people and companies are still relying on Zoom. That said, Yuan said that amid a rocky economic climate, "we need to take a hard — yet important — look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision."
Yuan said he was taking accountability for the layoffs. He's reducing his salary for the upcoming fiscal year by 98 percent and the executive team will forego 20 percent of their base salaries. All will forfeit their corporate bonuses for fiscal year 2023 (i.e., the 2022 calendar year).
Zoom employees in the US who are being let go will receive up to 16 weeks' salary and healthcare coverage, their earned fiscal year 2023 bonus, stock option vesting for six months and help to find a new job. The company said laid-off workers outside the US will get similar support based on local laws.
Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell and Spotify are among the other major tech companies that have this year announced sweeping layoffs or plans to let go more staff than they originally planned. We're keeping a running tally of the big tech layoffs of 2023, which is becoming an increasingly sobering list.
If you've been thinking about adding Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to your home office, this may be a good day to sign up. Today only, Amazon is offering a 12-month subscription to Microsoft 365 Family bundled with a $50 Amazon gift card for $100. The price of the yearly subscription is usually $100, so you're essentially getting a free gift card for signing up. The deal is only good through the end of the day and the subscription will auto-renew at the end of the year, so set a reminder if you want to cancel before that kicks in.
The year-long subscription will come as a digital download and runs on PCs or Macs as well as smartphones and tablets running Apple's iOS or Android OS. It covers up to six people and can run on five devices at the same time, with offline access included. Microsoft 365 is the new branding for the well-known Office software and the Family subscription includes access to Word, Excel, Outlook email and PowerPoint. It also comes with the Microsoft Teams video calling app, which updated last year to include a Live Share feature enabling easier real-time collaboration. You also get Clipchamp video editor, which Microsoft acquired in 2021. Included security add-ons like Microsoft Defender and ransomeware protection will help protect your data and devices.
Each person gets 1TB of OneDrive personal cloud storage, which not only lets you store a large amount of files in the cloud, it lets you share photos and files with other OneDrive users, across pretty much any device.
The Microsoft 365 family subscription is activated as a digital download, but the $50 gift card will arrive as a physical card in the mail. And as we said, the deal ends today, so take advantage if you want to add Microsoft's productivity apps to your setup.
Poker Face isn’t the sort of show that can be spoiled, but have a warning anyway.
I always think there’s been a gulf between production-line TV and its prestige brethren, but that the internet helped demarcate its edges. NCIS was the most-watched drama series in the US from 2009 onwards, but you don’t see The Ringer giving an essay-length breakdown to every episode. These days, prestige drama in the peak-TV mold is pored over and chewed around by the internet sausage machine. Everything else is deemed disposable, despite the obvious and sustained success of the stuff most people are actually watching on broadcast networks. There’s a lot of snobbery there, but also I suspect the The Rookie audience isn’t too fussed about reading a 2,000-word breakdown by an underemployed Yale grad about last night’s Nathan Fillion fights crime action.
Poker Face, then, is an attempt by what I’ll only-slightly-sarcastically call “prestige TV people” into making production-line TV. Like when a stuffy gourmet chef wants to burnish their “down with the kids” credentials by making the sort of dirty burger you can only appreciate at 3am. Interesting then that, despite the fact its co-creator and star are both poster children for Netflix’s revolution, that the show was set up at Peacock. Created by Rian Johnson, fresh from the success of Glass Onion: A Benoit Blanc Mystery, and Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face is an unashamed homage to a lost age of TV. Or, you know, lost if you’re not paying attention to whatever CBS is showing on Thursday and Sunday nights.
Lyonne stars as Charlie Cale, a woman with a troubled past who has developed the miraculous ability to tell when someone is lying. After attempting to use her talent to get rich quickly on a lazy poker tour across the US, she’s caught by a Reno casino magnate. He offers her a hostess job, in exchange for not murdering her to death, making her promise not to use her talent again. When he retires, and his grabby son takes over, he opts to use her talent rather than keep it hidden, embroiling both of them in a murder mystery. Which eventually leads her taking a road trip in her Plymouth Barracuda, solving murders wherever she goes.
And, certainly, the show has leant into the idea that Poker Face is probably the closest thing we’re going to get to a millennial Columbo remake. Certainly, the creative team haven’t been shy about drawing the parallels between the ‘70s classic (and, uh 80/90s less classic) and this. It uses the same Inverted Detective Story structure, with the lead character absent in the first act while we see how the murder was committed and the attempts to build a watertight alibi. Not to mention the choice to title the show with boldface yellow text, complete with copyright date under the title card, and its overall ethos. You’ve got a streetwise, rough-around-the-edges New Yorker with a knack for solving crimes and a classic car. And, much like in its inspiration, Lyonne is going up against a series of A- and B-list guest stars, since the most famous guest star (or stars) is the one that did the murder.
NBC Universal
The differences are mostly down to packaging, since Columbo was conceived as a series of movies-of-the-month. (Columbo was originally 90 minutes, but many episodes were “supersized” to two full hours, very commonly to their detriment.) Poker Face is set up as an “episodic” case-of-the-week show, with streaming’s runtime freedom meaning that some episodes run between 80 minutes and just 50 minutes, when the plot is slender enough to justify the trim. That’s good, because it rarely feels like any episode overstays its welcome, and they often skip along at a breezy old clip.
But this efficiency also robs us of one of the highlights that made classic Columbo as it could often be. Watching a short, scrappy, working-class cop square off against higher status opposition was always a delight. And the show would build up to these confrontations, parceling them out along the way toward the eventual denouement. Star Peter Falk was a great, if difficult, actor, and he would often be squaring off against one of his real-life friends, each one a superstar. And they would load each confrontation with depth, nuance and tension as Lt. Columbo sliced apart their “watertight” alibi with a razor blade. Watching Falk against John Cassavetes, Patrick McGoohan, Robert Culp or the amazing Jack Cassidy was electrifying television. And all of this is cast aside, because Charlie is apparently a human lie detector that knows whenever the guest star lies in her presence. (This is rather unsubtly demonstrated most of the time by Charlie reflexively coughing a naughty word describing male cow poops that we’re no longer allowed to write here.)
In its place, is the recurring twist (if it can be called that) that Charlie was actually present or somehow involved with the situation leading up to the murder. So while Lyonne is absent for the first act of the show, you then see an abbreviated version of those same events showing how Charlie came to be inveigled with the events (and has an emotional stake in solving the crime). In a way, you’ll start wondering how exactly we’ll see Charlie pop up and which scenes that we just saw was she lurking in the periphery of. It’s an elegant way of tying the character and the murder together without making her a shabby police officer in a beige raincoat.
But you don’t need to be a Columbo fan to enjoy Poker Face, and the ultimate litmus test was making my aggressively-Columbo-indifferent wife watch the screeners with me. She said that the show was fun, and it gives you the “joy of seeing how Charlie was there all along.” And that, much like another of her favorite detective shows, Jonathan Creek, you can play along at home, looking for the clues that will eventually point Charlie to solving the case. (The show does play fair, too, and gives you the chance to spot a clue that our hero won’t clock for another few minutes.)
NBC Universal
The benefit of the episodic nature of the series is that you can dip in and out of it as you feel like it. I watched the six (of ten) episodes Peacock made available for review in dribs and drabs, watching one, then taking a day off, then the next, in a way that felt similar to how it’s intended to be seen. The only issue for would-be dippers is that you may not quite understand why, at the end of half the episodes, a character I won’t name pops up to glower at Lyonne. This is something the show has borrowed from older shows, where our hero was always on the move in order to stay out of the clutches of the overarching villain and keep the story going. But you’d be a fool not to at least watch the pilot episode, which was written and directed by Johnson. (The second episode, where he just directs, sags a little as it opts to restate its premise for anyone who decided to watch TV like a psychopath and not just start at the beginning.)
Tonally, Poker Face is breezy, despite its rough-around-the-edges world, and there’s often one killer joke in every episode. As much as some episodes might draw from a darker palette, none are even close to being described as “heavy.” It’s not afraid to be a little silly, either, but I’d spoil the fun in explaining how or why it is, so you’ll have to discover that bit for yourself. In fact, most of the fun of the show is just in the watching, so I can’t imagine anyone will be racing to write 2,000-word essay-length breakdowns about how each episode unfolded. Just repeat to yourself: It’s just a show, I should really just relax.
Poker Face debuts on Peacock on January 26th, 2023, with the first four episodes streaming at launch. A new episode will debut every following Thursday for the next six weeks.
Amazon is selling the 2022 Kindle Kids at a discount for the first time since it was released in September last year. The e-reader is currently on sale for $85 or $35 less than its retail price of $120. If your child wants a device with a bigger screen, though, the Kindle Paperwhite for Kids is also on sale for $110, which isn't quite an all-time low for it but is still $50 less than its usual price. Like Amazon's other kid-focused e-readers and tablets, these Kindles come with a Parent Dashboard you can use to set age filters and device bedtime. They also ship with a year-long subscription to Amazon Kids+ that will give your children access to a library of age-appropriate books and audiobooks.
The e-commerce giant introduced its first ever Kindle Kids Edition back in 2019. This newer version comes with the specs the refreshed regular e-reader has, so it's pretty much the same device without the kid-focused features. It has a 300 ppi display, unlike its predecessors that had 167 ppi screens, which is the same resolution as the Paperwhite's. That enables text and graphics to appear crisper and more defined. It can last up to six weeks on a single charge, and its onboard has been doubled to 16GB from 8GB, allowing your child to store more books.
In addition, the all new Kindle Kids has adjustable front lights and a dark mode for night reading, as well as a USB-C port, so you can finally put that old microUSB charger to rest. With its 6-inch display, though, it is smaller than the Kindle Paperwhite Kids that comes with a a 6.8-inch screen. Both devices ship with covers and a two-year worry-free guarantee that gives you a way to easily get a replacement if it breaks within that period.
Samsung expanded its self-repair program for Galaxy devices today, adding the latest flagship smartphones and, for the first time, PCs. As you may remember, the initiative is a team-up with iFixit, which provides tools and online self-repair guides.
Starting today, you can order repair kits for the 15-inch models of the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360. Supported PC repairs include the display, battery, touchpad, case (front and rear), power key with fingerprint reader, and rubber foot. Additionally, Samsung added the Galaxy S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra kits. It supports repairs for the display assemblies, rear glass and charging ports for those phones.
The newly supported models join the program’s initial lineup of the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S21 and Galaxy Tab S7+. The new kits still include a free return label to help you send used parts to Samsung for recycling. All the new kits are available starting today.
Apple’s Self Service Repair program
Apple
While Apple's program covers more components (including cameras and SIM trays), it also requires you to rent or buy a separate toolkit and talk with someone on the phone to complete the process. With Samsung's kit, you only need to buy the part and follow the instructions.
Samsung frames its self-repair program as being about convenience and the environment — and it can be beneficial for both of those things. But the elephant in the room is Right to Repair legislation on federal and state levels. New York and Massachusetts have passed laws mandating self-repair programs, while the White House has also pushed for it. In 2021, President Biden ordered the FTC to tackle “unfair anti-competitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items” in the farming and technology industries. So although Samsung’s and Apple’s programs are good for consumers, it’s a stretch to think this would happen without the threat of government legislation.
“We are now at the dawn of the age of infinitely connected music,” the data alchemist announced from beneath the Space Needle. Glenn McDonald had chosen his title himself, preferring “alchemy,” with its esoteric associations, over the now-ordinary “data science.” His job, as he described it from the stage, was “to use math and typing and computers to help people understand and discover music.”
McDonald practiced his alchemy for the music streaming service Spotify, where he worked to transmute the base stuff of big data — logs of listener interactions, bits of digital audio files, and whatever else he could get his hands on — into valuable gold: products that might attract and retain paying customers. The mysterious power of McDonald’s alchemy lay in the way that ordinary data, if processed correctly, appeared to transform from thin interactional traces into thick cultural significance.
It was 2014, and McDonald was presenting at the Pop Conference, an annual gathering of music critics and academics held in a crumpled, Frank Gehry–designed heap of a building in the center of Seattle. I was on the other side of the country, and I followed along online. That year, the conference’s theme was “Music and Mobility,” and Mc Donald started his talk by narrating his personal musical journey, playing samples as he went. “When I was a kid,” he began, “you discovered music by holding still and waiting.” As a child at home, he listened to the folk music his parents played on the stereo. But as he grew up, his listening expanded: the car radio offered heavy metal and new wave; the internet revealed a world of new and obscure genres to explore. Where once he had been stuck in place, a passive observer of music that happened to go by, he would eventually measure the progress of his life by his ever broadening musical horizons. McDonald had managed to turn this passion into a profession, working to help others explore what he called “the world of music,” which on-demand streaming services had made more accessible than ever before.
Elsewhere, McDonald (2013) would describe the world of music as though it were a landscape: “Follow any path, no matter how unlikely and untrodden it appears, and you’ll find a hidden valley with a hundred bands who’ve lived there for years, reconstructing the music world in methodically- and idiosyncratically-altered miniature, as in Australian hip hop, Hungarian pop, microhouse or Viking metal.”
Travelers through the world of music would find familiarity and surprise — sounds they never would have imagined and songs they adored. McDonald marveled at this new ability to hear music from around the world, from Scotland, Australia, or Malawi. “The perfect music for you may come from the other side of the planet,” he said, but this was not a problem: “in music, we have the teleporter.” On-demand streaming provided a kind of musical mobility, which allowed listeners to travel across the world of music instantaneously.
However, he suggested, repeating the common refrain, the scale of this world could be overwhelming and hard to navigate. “For this new world to actually be appreciable,” McDonald said, “we have to find ways to map this space and then build machines to take you through it along interesting paths.” The recommender systems offered by companies like Spotify were the machines. McDonald’s recent work had focused on the maps, or as he described them in another talk: a “kind of thin layer of vaguely intelligible order over the writhing, surging, insatiably expanding information-space-beast of all the world’s music.”
Although his language may have been unusually poetic, McDonald was expressing an understanding of musical variety that is widely shared among the makers of music recommendation: Music exists in a kind of space. That space is, in one sense, fairly ordinary — like a landscape that you might walk through, encountering new things as you go. But in another sense, this space is deeply weird: behind the valleys and hills, there is a writhing, surging beast, constantly growing and tying points in the space together, infinitely connected. The music space can seem as natural as the mountains visible from the top of the Space Needle; but it can also seem like the man-made topological jumble at its base. It is organic and intuitive; it is technological and chaotic.
Spatial metaphors provide a dominant language for thinking about differences among the makers of music recommendation, as they do in machine learning and among Euro-American cultures more generally. Within these contexts, it is easy to imagine certain, similar things as gathered over here, while other, different things cluster over there. In conversations with engineers, it is very common to find the music space summoned into existence through gestures, which envelop the speakers in an imaginary environment populated by brief pinches in the air and organized by waves of the hand. One genre is on your left, another on your right. On whiteboards and windows scattered around the office, you might find the music space rendered in two dimensions, containing an array of points that cluster and spread across the plane.
In the music space, music that is similar is nearby. If you find yourself within such a space, you should be surrounded by music that you like. To find more of it, you need only to look around you and move. In the music space, genres are like regions, playlists are like pathways, and tastes are like drifting, archipelagic territories. Your new favorite song may lie just over the horizon.
But despite their familiarity, spaces like these are strange: similarities can be found anywhere, and points that seemed far apart might suddenly become adjacent. If you ask, you will learn that all of these spatial representations are mere reductions of something much more complex, of a space comprising not two or three dimensions but potentially thousands of them. This is McDonald’s information-space-beast, a mathematical abstraction that stretches human spatial intuitions past their breaking point.
Spaces like these, generically called “similarity spaces,” are the symbolic terrain on which most machine learning works. To classify data points or recommend items, machine-learning systems typically locate them in spaces, gather them into clusters, measure distances among them, and draw boundaries between them. Machine learning, as the cultural theorist Adrian Mackenzie (2017, 63) has argued, “renders all differences as distances and directions of movement.” So while the music space is in one sense an informal metaphor (the landscape of musical variation) in another sense it is a highly technical formal object (the mathematical substrate of algorithmic recommendation).
Spatial understandings of data travel through technical infrastructures and everyday conversation; they are at once a form of metaphorical expression and a concrete computational practice. In other words, “space” here is both a formalism — a restricted, technical concept that facilitates precision through abstraction — and what the anthropologist Stefan Helmreich (2016, 468) calls an informalism — a less disciplined metaphor that travels alongside formal techniques. In practice, it is often hard or impossible to separate technical specificity from its metaphorical accompaniment. When the makers of music recommendation speak of space, they speak at once figuratively and technically.
For many critics, this “geometric rationality” (Blanke 2018) of machine learning makes it anathema to “culture” per se: it quantifies qualities, rationalizes passions, and plucks cultural objects from their everyday social contexts to relocate them in the sterile isolation of a computational grid. Mainstream cultural anthropology, for instance, has long defined itself in opposition to formalisms like these, which seem to lack the thickness, sensitivity, or adequacy to lived experience that we seek through ethnography. As the political theorists Louise Amoore and Volha Piotukh (2015, 361) suggest, such analytics “reduce heterogeneous forms of life and data to homogeneous spaces of calculation.”
To use the geographer Henri Lefebvre’s (1992) terms, similarity spaces are clear examples of “abstract space” — a kind of representational space in which everything is measurable and quantified, controlled by central authorities in the service of capital. The media theorist Robert Prey (2015, 16), applying Lefebvre’s framework to streaming music, suggests that people like McDonald — “data analysts, programmers and engineers” — are primarily concerned with the abstract, conceived space of calculation and measurement. Conceived space, in Lefebvrian thought, is parasitic on social, lived space, which Prey associates with the listeners who resist and reinterpret the work of technologists. The spread of abstract space under capitalism portends, in this framework, “the devastating conquest of the lived by the conceived” (Wilson 2013).
But for the people who work with it, the music space does not feel like a sterile grid, even at its most mathematical. The makers of music recommendation do not limit themselves to the refined abstractions of conceived space. Over the course of their training, they learn to experience the music space as ordinary and inhabitable, despite its underlying strangeness. The music space is as intuitive as a landscape to be walked across and as alien as a complex, highly dimensional object of engineering. To use an often- problematized distinction from cultural geography, they treat “space” like “place,” as though the abstract, homogeneous grid were a kind of livable local environment.
Similarity spaces are the result of many decisions; they are by no means ``natural,” and people like McDonald are aware that the choices they make can profoundly rearrange them. Yet spatial metaphorizing, moving across speech, gesture, illustration, and computation, helps make the patterns in cultural data feel real. A confusion between maps and territories— between malleable representations and objective terrains— is productive for people who are at once interested in creating objective knowledge and concerned with accounting for their own subjective influence on the process. These spatial understandings alter the meaning of musical concepts like genre or social phenomena like taste, rendering them as forms of clustering.
Specifically a team of astronomers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, first spotted evidence of the candidate exoplanet while digging through data generated from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). However it was Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) that confirmed the planets existence by observing two transits in front of its parent star. “There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger declared in a NASA press release.
A whole new world!
41 light-years away is the small, rocky planet LHS 475 b. At 99% of Earth’s diameter, it’s almost exactly the same size as our home world. This marks the first time researchers have used Webb to confirm an exoplanet. https://t.co/hX8UGXplq2#AAS241pic.twitter.com/SDhuZRfcko
As the space agency notes, among telescopes in operation today (both terrestrial and orbital), only the JWST possesses the resolving capabilities to accurately characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets. The research team is still working to determine what, if any, sort of atmosphere is sitting atop the rocky mass using by analyzing its transmission spectrum.
There is a chance that the planet will be devoid of its critical gaseous insulation but at these distances, it could simply be hiding a very small atmo close to the surface. "Counterintuitively, a 100% carbon dioxide atmosphere is so much more compact that it becomes very challenging to detect,” said Lustig-Yaeger.
They are confident that it does not possess an oppressive atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, however. “There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” he said. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere.”
That said, the surface of the planet does appear to be several hundred degrees warmer than here on Earth which, if cloud cover is discovered in subsequent studies, it could suggest a greenhouse world climate closer to Venus. The researchers have also confirmed that LHS 475 b orbits its star in just two days — far too close to attempt with Sol but, because LHS circles a red dwarf that's producing less than half of our sun's energy, can theoretically maintain an atmosphere.
Kano Computing is back with another oddball puck device with a creative but somewhat hazy premise. The Stem Projector is a spin-off of the Stem Player, the audio remixing gadget launched in 2021 in collaboration with the artist formerly known as Kanye West. With its new product, the company ditches the problematic Ye collaboration and shifts its focus from music to video.
Practically speaking, the new product is a battery-powered projector for movies or art. The Stem Projector lets you watch regular videos, remix preloaded clips and create visual landscapes. It looks similar to (but is slightly larger than) the Stem Player, as this model is also a fleshy puck with swirling lights and buttons. It has a mini-HDMI port to plug in other devices, and it supports AirPlay and Chromecast. However, it only has a reported maximum brightness of 300 lumens or 150 ANSI lumens, making it a hard sell as a standard projector.
Kano Computing
But the Stem Projector also builds on the company’s creative focus, encouraging you to play and remix. For example, you can slide your finger along its haptic, touch-sensitive ring array to channel surf in the machine-learning-powered “Galaxy View,” a dreamlike collection of preloaded and live content. Additional controls let you change the size and shape of the images and trigger similar thematic content. In addition, Kano says it allows you to rotoscope characters and apply filters like splicing together clips with related color themes.
If that description still leaves you confused, this marketing video from Kano’s Twitter account may help:
The WiFi-enabled projector has 256GB of internal storage, and you can add more by inserting a microSD card. In addition, the device includes a built-in kickstand, allowing you to prop it up at various angles. (You can project video onto higher walls or a ceiling by placing the device upright in its opened carrying case.) The company says its battery can last four to five hours of continuous use.
It sounds like a gadget you would need to play with to fully understand — and determine whether it’s worth its steep asking price. However, without access to that, we’re left with a somewhat intriguing marketing tease that suggests a “what” but hasn’t yet offered a compelling “why.”
Kano is taking pre-orders now for the Stem Projector. The first 1,000 devices, available in a limited-edition “sediment” color, will cost $1,000 and begin shipping in the spring. After that, the company says its price will drop to $600 at an unannounced date.
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
There are few things that piss me off more than having a spotty Wi-Fi connection at home, and it seems MSI agrees because the company brought a rather clever router to CES 2023 featuring antennas that dynamically follow specific devices as you walk around your house.
Dubbed the RadiX BE22000 Turbo, MSI's top-spec Wi-Fi router is packed with pretty much every feature you can think of (and probably some you haven't) to ensure you get the fastest wireless speeds possible. That's because while the standard is still being finalized, not only is the RadiX designed to support Wi-Fi 7 it also includes MSI's AI QoS tech which can reduce your ping while gaming or prioritize different types of content like streaming video at the touch of a button. And with channel bandwidths of 320MHz, MSI claims the BE22000 delivers 4x faster throughput when compared to a typical Wi-Fi 6 router.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
But clearly, the RadiX's standout party trick is its antennas, which unlike pretty much every other router out there (aside from TP-Link's Archer AXE200 Omni), have the ability to automatically adjust their position to follow a specific device as it moves around your home to deliver optimal wireless coverage at all times. And I can tell you, after seeing the router in person, it's kind of mesmerizing.
Unfortunately, before anyone gets too excited, it's important to note that even MSI doesn't expect the BE22000 Turbo to go on sale until sometime in 2024. That's because there are a couple important hurdles like waiting for the Wi-Fi spec to be finalized, along with other challenges like ensuring the motors for the router's antennas can handle months and years of constant operation. Even during the short time the RadiX was on display at CES, I noticed the speed at which its antennas moved became a bit sluggish due to increased heat.
For people who still care about wired internet connections, the RadiX BE22000 Turbo also includes two 10 gigabit Ethernet ports along with four 2.5 gigabit jacks.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
On top of that, I still have other questions like how does the router know which device (or devices) to prioritize in a home filled with multiple gadgets. And what's the repair process like if one of its antenna motors dies? After all, under ideal conditions, routers should be something you can set and forget. And at this point, I'm sure some of you are wondering what kind of person this robo router is really for?
Is the BE22000 Turbo over-designed? Sure. And while MSI hasn't announced pricing for it either, you can bet this thing won't be cheap. But you can't say MSI isn't trying, and when compared to rival products, a router with automatically adjustable antennas is exactly the type of thing I like to see at CES.
