Fitbit says it's working on enhancing the app experience to focus on providing its users with the best fitness tools, and its efforts to do so apparently include sunsetting a handful of features. Starting on March 27th, open groups, as well as all Fitbit challenges and adventures, will no longer be available on the Google-owned fitness company's app. The company said these features "have limited use," which likely means people haven't been using them enough to warrant their continued development and update.
Unlike closed groups that are invite-only, open groups allow anybody in the community to join by sending in a request. Users can find them by going to Groups in the Community tab within the app and then finding ones that seem like a good match. People were asking the company to make open groups easier to create when the pandemic lockdowns started — apparently, groups created through the app are automatically made private — and the Fitbit team said they'd consider adding the functionality. But it looks like they chose to remove open groups altogether instead.
Meanwhile, Fitbit challenges are events users can participate in, such as races to determine who can get the most steps within a day. Adventures incentivize people to walk by unlocking virtual trails like the Valley Loop in Yosemite Park and 180-degree views of landmarks that can be found along them based on their step count. Users will lose any trophy or award they earned from these challenges when they leave the app, but they can download their data before March 27th. Finally, the company will also be killing Fitbit Studio, its tool for creating apps and watchfaces, and will only continue supporting its command-line interface tools for app creation in the near future.
PlayStation’s next-gen VR headset is here. It’s high-spec and, boy, high priced. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says it’s a massive step forward from the original PSVR, thanks to its high-resolution screens and innovative features like headset haptics.
Back in 2016, when the original launched, VR was making another push into the mainstream, which kicked off with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The tech has evolved at an incredible pace, so seven years later, this sequel headset feels more comfortable and comes with far more advanced controllers. (The first PSVR used Move controller wands originally launched for the PS3 back in 2010!) The new Sense controllers are actually purpose-built for virtual reality, with a large tracking ring, analog sticks, two face buttons, triggers and haptic feedback.
Hardawar adds that Horizon VR, one of few marquee launch titles, taps into the headset's eye-tracking sensors for foveated rendering, concentrating the PS5's power on what you're looking at. However, that $550 price and a potentially limited library could limit its impact – the same old story of what’s wrong with VR.
– Mat Smith
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It can get confused during long chat sessions or when used for 'entertainment.'
Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat for the Edge browser last week, and it's been in the news ever since – but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. However, users started noticing Bing's bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited “unhinged” behavior, calling users "unreasonable and stubborn" (among other things) when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong. Those “long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions" can send things off the rails,” Microsoft explained.
"Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone," the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to "forget" what it was trying to answer in the first place.
The chatbot 'learns best by example,' a company exec said.
In a video ad for Google’s AI chatbot, Bard, the AI confidently spouted misinformation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the tech giant is looking to improve Bard's accuracy, and according to CNBC, it's asking employees for help.
Google's VP for search, Prabhakar Raghavan, reportedly emailed staff members, asking them to rewrite Bard responses on topics they know well. The chatbot "learns best by example," Raghavan said, and training it with factual answers will help improve its accuracy. This memo came after Google CEO Sundar Pichai emailed employees, asking them to spend a few hours each week testing the AI chatbot. Google employees have reportedly criticized Pichai for a "rushed" and "botched" Bard rollout.
The story behind how Tetris became a global phenomenon is the basis of an upcoming Apple TV+ movie. Instead of shoehorning the blockbusting antics of the game into a movie – we see you, Pixels – the fast-paced trailer (soundtracked by "The Final Countdown") highlights some of the inherent tension between Soviet Russia, US capitalist forces and everyone stuck between the two. Henk Rogers, played by Taron Egerton, encounters resistance from a British media mogul who wants the game, KGB agents and even Mikhail Gorbachev.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Thursday that Tesla is recalling nearly 363,000 of its vehicles because the Full Self-Driving software may cause a crash. Specifically, the NHTSA cites a risk to "exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash." Tesla will release an OTA update, free of charge, to its customers to rectify the issue, Reuters reports. The recall impacts over 362,000 vehicles.
Microsoft has formally approved a way to run Windows 11 on ARM-based Macs, if not in the way you might hope. In a new support article, the company has "authorized" using Parallels Desktop 18 to run the ARM versions of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise on M1- and M2-based Macs. If you need Windows for work, you can theoretically use the virtual machine without angering your IT manager.
As you might guess, there are limitations. You can't run 32-bit ARM apps, in part because Microsoft is deprecating 32-bit software for all ARM Windows builds. Devices won't work unless they have Windows 11 ARM drivers. You can't use anything that depends on another layer of virtualization, such as Android apps, the Linux sybsystem and Windows Sandbox. Don't expect to run some games, either, as anything that requires at least DirectX 12 or OpenGL 3.3 won't work.
It's been possible to run Windows 11 in Parallels on ARM Macs since 2021, and it even ran reasonably well. You needed to use an Insider preview of the OS at the time, though, and Microsoft said at the time that it didn't plan to support new Macs. The sanctioned approach clears up licensing headaches, and Parallels Desktop 18 now lets you download and install Windows 11 with little effort.
As The Vergeexplains, it's not certain how Microsoft has changed the licensing — until now, it only licensed ARM versions of Windows directly to PC vendors. We've asked the company for comment. Parallels says you can buy either an individual Windows 11 Pro license or go through your employer's usual purchasing process.
This won't satisfy users who want native Windows support like they had with Intel-based Macs running Apple's Boot Camp. You won't get the performance or compatibility you would on a PC built for Windows on ARM. It may be the closest you get short of a collaboration between Apple and Microsoft, though, and it might do the trick if there's a must-run Windows productivity app.
T-Mobile has quite the offer for subscribers who are also soccer fans. The carrier will offer its customers a year of Major League Soccer Season Pass to watch in the Apple TV app. Usually $99 annually, the service broadcasts “every live regular-season match, all MLS Cup playoff matches and the Leagues Cup.” Additionally, there are no blackouts — a concept that fans of the three most popular American sports leagues may have trouble processing.
The offer will be available in the T-Mobile Tuesdays app starting February 21. Once the deal is live, T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile subscribers can download the app and sign in with their phone numbers to claim the offer.
T-Mobile has offered some enticing deals through the years in its Tuesdays app, but this one stands out from much of the typical fare (like a free Frosty from Wendy’s). In addition, it’s an opportunity for MLS and Apple TV+ to expand their reach while giving T-Mobile a carrot to lure subscribers from competing cellular providers.
The Apple TV app isn’t limited to Apple devices; you can also install it on Roku, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Chromecast, Amazon Fire devices, Android TV, cable streaming boxes (including Comcast, Cox and Verizon) and smart TVs from Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG and Panasonic. You can also tune in using a browser at the Apple TV+ website.
YouTube Kids is finally available on more than a handful of devices in your living room, if not quite in the way you'd expect. As 9to5Googlereports, Google is rolling out the YouTube Kids experience on game consoles, Roku devices and more smart TVs through an update to the main YouTube app. If you switch to a YouTube Kids profile, you'll get the child-friendly experience without having to jump to a different app. This also makes it easier to return to the full app once your kid has finished watching.
You'll see the new approach sometime in the "next few weeks," Google says. You can delete kids' profiles through families.youtube.com when they're ready for grown-up access, although the company warns this will scrub profiles on all platforms.
The dedicated YouTube Kids app is available for Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV devices as well as LG and Samsung smart TVs. This move makes the walled-off experience available to considerably more people — important if you're concerned your young one might view mature content or thinly-veiled sales pitches. You'll still want to keep an eye on your child's viewing habits, but you might not have to steer them toward a computer or tablet.
The PlayStation VR 2 is the virtual reality upgrade console gamers have been waiting for — but is it really worth $550? That depends on how much you need high quality VR.
The virtual reality landscape looks completely different today than it did in 2016. The original PlayStation VR arrived amid the peak of the VR hype, which kicked off with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. While they weren't perfect, wearing any of those devices was like shoving your eyeballs right into the next major leap for computing. And if VR took off, it was only a matter of time until we were all wearing augmented reality glasses. Clearly, that hasn't happened.
Now that much of the initial excitement around VR has fizzled out, the PlayStation VR2 is more of a curiosity than a must-have gadget. It has all of the specs you'd want from a next-generation headset, but it also costs more than the PlayStation 5 itself. Sony says more than 30 games will be available during the PS VR2's launch window, but who knows how well it'll be supported over the next few years.
And really, what's the point of a pricey tethered headset when the Meta Quest 2 gets you completely wireless VR (albeit of much lower quality) for $399? No matter how you look at it, the PSVR2 is a tough sell. And yet, I can't help but be impressed by it. The PS VR 2 packs in the best of high-end PC VR, including innovative features like eye tracking, as well as something we've never seen before: Haptics for your head!
Before we get to that though, let's take a look at the PS VR2 itself. At first glance, it seems like an evolved form of the original, with a design that's more reminiscent of the PS5. Instead of a bulbous Fisher Price-esque toy, the PS VR2 actually looks like something built with artistic ambition. (Get ready to roll your eyes when it's highlighted at MOMA.) Sure, it's still made of plastic, but at least it's good plastic, the same stuff used for the PS5's exterior shell and the DualSense controllers.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
I also didn't mind the plastic much since the PS VR2's internal hardware is such a massive upgrade. It features dual 2K OLED screens, which effectively deliver a 4K image. The field of view has also been bumped up to 110 degrees, putting it on-par with most other high-end VR headsets. While the displays still offer 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rates, in my experience everything just looks smoother thanks to the PS5's additional horsepower.
Up front, you'll find four sensors that track the headset and its new Sense controllers. Thanks to these "inside out" sensors, which are also found on the Meta Quest and many other headsets, the PS VR2 doesn't require a PlayStation camera to track its movement like before. Along the top, there's a button to extend the front half of the headset, as well as a dial to adjust the pupillary distance. It does so by physically moving the lenses to match the distance between your eyes, something that was sorely missing from Sony's first headset.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
At the bottom of the PS VR2 there's a small microphone, power button and selection button. To get audio, you'll have to plug in the bundled earbuds along the back of the headset. There's nothing stopping you from using your own headphones or earbuds, but the cable situation would likely be a mess.
As for securing the PS VR2 to your head, I was happy to find that Sony didn't really change much from the incredibly comfortable first model. The PS VR2 features plush cushioning for your forehead, as well as a thicker cushion that sits behind your skull. Clicking the dial on the rear extends the arms of the headset, and like before, you secure it by twisting the dial. Together with its impeccably balanced design and light weight, the PS VR2 is a dream to wear. I only wish the headset flipped up like those forgotten Windows Mixed Reality devices – that would have made it far easier to slip on and off.
Still, I'm happy that Sony listened to the many criticisms of the Move wand controllers on the original PS VR. The new Sense controllers are actually purpose built for virtual reality – they're practically a carbon copy of Meta's Quest controllers, with a large tracking ring, analog sticks, two face buttons, triggers and grip buttons. Both remotes have haptic feedback, PlayStation buttons, and they also split the sharing and option buttons found on the DualSense. Overall they're a huge step up, though it would be nice if they were easier to put on when you're stuck in VR. It's hard to tell which controller is which, and their elaborate design makes it tough to get your fingers in the right places.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Every time I was frustrated with those controllers, though, I took a breath and appreciated what Sony got right. The setup process for the PS VR2, for example, is vastly simpler than the previous model. Now all you need to do is plug in a single USB-C cable into the front of your PS5 to get the headset going. You're still dealing with a nearly 15-foot cable, but at least it doesn't involve an additional breakout box and camera.
After pairing my Sense controllers with my PS5, I stepped through the familiar process of scanning my space and measuring the floor by lowering my controllers down. The PS VR2 did an impressive job of recognizing the safe play space I had in my basement, but I also appreciated being able to tweak specific sections to my liking. As with every other VR headset, you can choose to play games while sitting or standing up. I enjoyed both positions, but intensive games like Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain benefit from having more room. It's easier to feel like a post-apocalyptic warrior when you're actually breaking a sweat.
Horizon VR ended up being the perfect game to show off everything the new headset could do. From the start, the PS VR2's screens astounded me with rich color and a wonderful level of contrast. You can chalk that up to the power of OLED displays. I'm no stranger to the elaborately detailed environments of the Horizon games, but scaling cliff sides and peering down mountains in VR is another matter entirely. Horizon VR taps into the headset's eye tracking sensors for choosing menu options, and it also uses that feature for foveated rendering, which concentrates the PS5's power on the things you're looking at.
As I ogled the game's robotic wildlife, I was also surprised to find the PS VR2 rumbling around my head. I forgot that Sony was actually bringing haptics to the headset, and my first experience with that practically had me jumping out of my seat. Now I've tested tons of VR headsets, many with far better screens than the PS VR2. But none of them shook me to my core in the same way. Headset haptics could be abused down the line, but right now many developers are trying to use it tastefully.
The opening scenes of Jurassic World Aftermath, for example, hit a lot differently with a vibrating headset. Within the first few minutes, you encounter a pterodactyl attack, plane crash and a hungry T-Rex. And every time a dinosaur roared, it vibrated through my skull. You can, of course, turn off headset haptics if you want. But personally, I can't wait to see how new games take advantage of it. It's almost like feeling the DualSense controllers for the first time – we've all experienced haptics before, but Sony is doing it in entirely new ways.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The company's tracking technology also feels more mature than what I've seen from the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro. It rarely runs into hiccups, something I saw frequently with the first PS VR. The new inside out tracking system handled fast-paced games like Rez Infinite without any issues, and it also proved to be great with titles that required fine movement, like Tentacular. That game puts you in the role of a giant tentacle monster tasked with odd jobs like demolishing buildings or collecting enormous shipping containers. Having tentacle arms is tough – trying to manage them with glitchy motion tracking would be even tougher.
Sony knows how to make a good controller, so it's no surprise that the new Sense VR devices both feel great, even for lengthy play sessions. They typically lasted for around four hours, so I'd recommend investing in the $50 charging bay to keep the topped up. Otherwise, you'll have to remember to plug them into USB-C cables.
When you're not gaming, the PS VR2 also makes for a great personal cinema, something that could be useful if you're forced to share a living room TV. The headset makes video appear as if you're a few feet away from a 100-inch screen, so it's far more immersive than most televisions. I was able to kick back and comfortably enjoy some YouTube videos, Netflix shows and Blu-rays. This wouldn't be my first choice for binge watching anything (it's tough to eat or drink while plugged into VR) but it's great if you don't have space for a projector screen.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
As much as I enjoyed my time with the PS VR2, playing many of these games felt like being thrown back in time. Seriously, I'll play Rez Infinite at every given opportunity, and it looks dramatically better on the new headset. But fundamentally, it's the same game that was released back in 2016 on the PS4 (itself a remake of the original 2001 title). And really, that's the story of many games coming to the PS VR2. Tentacular is a blast, but it arrived on the Quest 2 last year, and the Jurassic World game is even older. Perhaps upcoming VR releases, like Grand Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village, will make a better case for Sony's new headset. Right now, though, it feels like it's arriving several years too late.
And then there's the price. Asking gamers to spend $550 on an accessory just feels like punishment after they shelled out almost the same amount on the PS5 itself. The original PS VR cost $500 if you bought the camera and controller bundle, but its base price was $400 if you already had those accessories. If Sony actually wanted to push VR adoption to new heights, rather than extract every cent of profit possible, the PS VR2 should have been $400 or less. It's particularly tough to stomach now with the $400 Meta Quest 2 around (and don't forget it used to be $300 before Meta bumped its price up). But hey, at least the PS VR2 feels like a better deal than the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
I'm sure the PlayStation VR2 will come down in price eventually, but it seems like Sony is bungling what should be an important launch. Right now, it feels more like the PlayStation Vita than any other Sony product — an innovative device that the company just doesn't know how to handle. I'm also hoping Sony considers PC compatibility eventually, as that could help to justify its higher price. (I won't be surprised if third-party drivers arrive soon, though pairing the controllers may be an issue.)
If you're a PS5 owner that's been dying to see what PC VR enthusiasts have been enjoying for the past few years, the PSVR2 is exactly what you've been waiting for. Everyone else should just sit tight until the price drops and more new games arrive. And if the VR industry continues its current downward trajectory, that discount may happen sooner than you think.
Apple may be narrowing down the launch window for its fabled mixed reality headset. Bloombergsources say the headset is now set to premiere at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. The device, possibly called Reality Pro, was unofficially slated to arrive in April but reportedly needed extra development time to address hardware and software issues. The company has already declined to comment, but the hardware might ship later in the year.
The headset is believed to carry a steep price tag, possibly as high as $3,000, but may also include capabilities not found even on alternatives like the Meta Quest Pro. Rumors suggest it could include dual 4K displays and a wide range of cameras that allow advanced tracking and controller-free input. You'd have to wear the battery in an external pack, but you'd also get an M2 processor that outperforms the mobile chips in other stand-alone AR and VR wearables.
The underlying platform, xrOS, is said to include an iOS-style interface that relies on finger pinches and voice commands for interaction. There would be an emphasis on health as well as upgraded versions of familiar experiences, such as full-body avatars during FaceTime calls. You might even have an easy way to create apps using Siri.
This initial model is supposedly aimed at creators and enthusiasts, and a WWDC debut would help developers understand the technology just as it becomes public. However, rumors also suggest Apple is working on a more affordable headset that's nearer to the Quest Pro's $1,500 price. That more accessible design might not surface before 2024, but it hints at a long-term strategy to make the company's mixed reality tech more accessible.
Great news everyone, we’re pivoting to chatbots! Little did OpenAI realize when it released ChatGPT last November that the advanced LLM (large language model) designed to uncannily mimic human writing would become the fastest growing app to date with more than 100 million users signing up over the past three months. Its success — helped along by a $10 billion, multi-year investment from Microsoft — largely caught the company’s competition flat-footed, in turn spurring a frenetic and frantic response from Google, Baidu and Alibaba. But as these enhanced search engines come online in the coming days, the ways and whys of how we search are sure to evolve alongside them.
“I'm pretty excited about the technology. You know, we've been building NLP systems for a while and we've been looking every year at incremental growth,” Dr. Sameer Singh, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), told Engadget. “For the public, it seems like suddenly out of the blue, that's where we are. I've seen things getting better over the years and it's good for all of this stuff to be available everywhere and for people to be using it.”
As to the recent public success of large language models, “I think it's partly that technology has gotten to a place where it's not completely embarrassing to put the output of these models in front of people — and it does look really good most of the time,” Singh continued. “I think that that’s good enough.”
JASON REDMOND via Getty Images
“I think it has less to do with technology but more to do with the public perception,” he continued. “If GPT hadn't been released publicly… Once something like that is out there and it's really resonating with so many people, the usage is off the charts.”
Search providers have big, big ideas for how the artificial intelligence-enhanced web crawlers and search engines might work and damned if they aren’t going to break stuff and move fast to get there. Microsoft envisions its Bing AI to serve as the user’s “copilot” in their web browsing, following them from page to page answering questions and even writing social media posts on their behalf.
This is a fundamental change from the process we use today. Depending on the complexity of the question users may have to visit multiple websites, then sift through that collected information and stitch it together into a cohesive idea before evaluating it.
“That's more work than having a model that hopefully has read these pages already and can synthesize this into something that doesn't currently exist on the web,” Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at NYU Tandon, told Engadget. “The information is still out there. It's still verifiable, and hopefully correct. But it's not all in place.”
For its part, Google’s vision of the AI-powered future has users hanging around its search page rather than clicking through to destination sites. Information relevant to the user’s query would be collected from the web, stitched together by the language model, then regurgitated as an answer with reference to the originating website displayed as footnotes.
This all sounds great, and was all going great, right up to the very first opportunity for something to go wrong. When it did. In its inaugural Twitter ad — less than 24 hours after debuting — Bard, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, confidently declared, “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.” You will be shocked to learn that the James Webb Space Telescope did not, in fact, discover the first exoplanet in history. The ESO’s Very Large Telescope holds that honor from 2004. Bard just sorta made it up. Hallucinated it out of the digital ether.
Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA. Built using our large language models and drawing on information from the web, it’s a launchpad for curiosity and can help simplify complex topics → https://t.co/fSp531xKy3pic.twitter.com/JecHXVmt8l
Of course this isn’t the first time that we’ve been lied to by machines. Search has always been a bit of a crapshoot, ever since the early days of Lycos and Altavista. “When search was released, we thought it was ‘good enough’ though it wasn't perfect,” Singh recalled. “It would give all kinds of results. Over time, those have improved a lot. We played with it, and we realized when we should trust it and when we shouldn’t — when we should go to the second page of results, and when we shouldn't.”
The subsequent generation of voice AI assistants evolved through the same base issues that their text-based predecessors did. “When Siri and Google Assistant and all of these came out and Alexa,” Singh said, “they were not the assistants that they were being sold to us as.”
The performance of today’s LLMs like Bard and ChatGPT, are likely to improve along similar paths through their public use, as well as through further specialization into specific technical and knowledge-based roles such as medicine, business analysis and law. “I think there are definitely reasons it becomes much better once you start specializing it. I don't think Google and Microsoft specifically are going to be specializing it too much — their market is as general as possible,” Singh noted.
In many ways, what Google and Bing are offering by interposing their services in front of the wider internet — much as AOL did with the America Online service in the ‘90s — is a logical conclusion to the challenges facing today’s internet users.
The Washington Post via Getty Images
“Nobody's doing the search as the end goal. We are seeking some information, eventually to act on that information,” Singh argues. “If we think about that as the role of search, and not just search in the literal sense of literally searching for something, you can imagine something that actually acts on top of search results can be very useful.”
Singh characterizes this centralization of power as, “a very valid concern. Simply put, if you have these chat capabilities, you are much less inclined to actually go to the websites where this information resides,” he said.
It’s bad enough that chatbots have a habit of making broad intellectual leaps in their summarizations, but the practice may also “incentivize users not go to the website, not read the whole source, to just get the version that the chat interface gives you and sort of start relying on it more and more,” Singh warned.
In this, Singh and Dolan-Gavitt agree. “If you’re cannibalizing from the visits that a site would have gotten, and are no longer directing people there, but using the same information, there's an argument that these sites won't have much incentive to keep posting new content.” Dolan-Gavitt told Engadget. “On the other hand the need for clicks also is one of the reasons we get lots of spam and is one of the reasons why search has sort of become less useful recently. I think [the shortcomings of search are] a big part of why people are responding more positively to these chatbot products.”
That demand, combined with a nascent marketplace, is resulting in a scramble among the industry’s major players to get their products out yesterday, ready or not, underwhelming or not. That rush for market share is decidedly hazardous for consumers. Microsoft’s previous foray into AI chatbots, 2014’s Taye, ended poorly (to put it without the white hoods and goose stepping). Today, Redditors are already jailbreaking OpenAI to generate racist content. These are two of the more innocuous challenges we will face as LLMs expand in use but even they have proven difficult to stamp out in part, because they require coordination amongst an industry of viscous competitors.
“The kinds of things that I tend to worry about are, on the software side, whether this puts malicious capabilities into more hands, makes it easier for people to write malware and viruses,” Dolan-Gavitt said. “This is not as extreme as things like misinformation but certainly, I think it'll make it a lot easier for people to make spam.”
“A lot of the thinking around safety so far has been predicated on this idea that there would be just a couple kinds of central companies that, if you could get them all to agree, we could have some safety standards.” Dolan-Gavitt continued. “I think the more competition there is, the more you get this open environment where you can download an unrestricted model, set it up on your server and have it generate whatever you want. The kinds of approaches that relied on this more centralized model will start to fall apart.”
Microsoft has begun rolling out a new update for Xbox consoles. Among the more notable features the February release adds is the “carbon aware” functionality the company began testing last month. When your Xbox has access to the internet, you can set it to schedule game, app and operating system updates based on local carbon intensity data. According to Microsoft, doing so may lead to your console producing fewer carbon emissions because it’s programmed to download files when more renewable energy is likely available. It may also save you money on your electricity bill.
Starting today, Xbox is the first console to offer carbon aware game downloads and updates. Choose the energy settings that work best for you.
Additionally, all Xbox users now have access to the company’s new “Shutdown (energy saving)” option. If you don’t mind longer startup times and missing out on the Xbox’s remote wake functionality, Microsoft says the feature can cut your console’s power consumption by up to 20 times compared to if you were to leave it in sleep mode. “For every two consoles that switch to Shutdown (energy saving) for one year, we will save the equivalent amount of carbon removed by one tree planted and grown for a decade,” says Microsoft.
Separately, the February update adds a feature that allows you to prevent games from changing the background of your Xbox’s home screen. You can now set a solid color of your choice. You can do so by navigating to the Personalization menu within the Settings app. Microsoft has also partnered with Google to allow Xbox owners to use the company’s Home app as a touch remote for their console. “Now, when you add your Xbox console to your Google Home app, you’ll be able to easily turn your console on and off, navigate on-screen, control media playback and more,” Microsoft notes. Once you have access to the February update, open the Google Home app on your phone and pull down on the interface to refresh the list of available devices. Then tap on your Xbox to get started.
Verizon says its Fios 2 Gig plan, its fastest broadband service, is now available across New York City’s five boroughs. However, your mileage may vary since the company hasn’t clarified what portion of the areas are covered. A year ago, it began rolling out the service in “select areas” of NYC.
The Fios 2 Gig plan is part of Verizon’s fiber-optic network, which can be faster and more reliable than cable internet. The plan technically starts at $95 per month, but depending on your setup, your monthly fee could be as high as $120. That’s because the lower price is only available for existing Verizon Wireless customers on specific plans (5G Do More, 5G Play More, 5G Get More or One Unlimited for iPhone plans) who sign up for autopay. (Skipping autopay will add another $10 to your bill.) There’s also a $99 setup fee.
In addition, the company says the advertised pricing is only valid through April 12. However, it does promise a four-year price guarantee if you’re a new customer who hasn’t subscribed to Verizon Home Internet in the last 180 days.
The service’s wired download and upload speeds are symmetrical, and Verizon says you can typically expect between 1.5Gbps and 2.3Gbps for a wired connection. (As always, wireless streaming will be lower.) In addition, the Fios 2 Gig plan includes a router rental with up to three WiFi extenders, although you’ll have to request those — and self-setup customers only get up to two extenders. However, the company will let you rent or purchase additional ones.
In short, there is fine print aplenty, so read carefully before signing up.
