LG just unveiled a portable projector for those who are willing to give up battery power in the name of image quality and features. The new PF510Q Smart Portable Projector is small and light enough to be carried one-handed at 5.8 inches across and 2.2lbs, but still throws a 1080p picture on your wall at sizes between 30 and 120 inches. More importantly, you won't need to plug in other devices. WebOS provides access to the usual streaming media apps, while AirPlay 2 and Screenshare support lets iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android users cast media. You can pair two Bluetooth devices to either share listening or connect to multiple wireless speakers.
This isn't LG's brightest portable projector at 450 lumens. It does offer a solid 150,000:1 contrast ratio, though, and the 30,000-hour light source life might spare you a costly replacement. A built-in 5W mono speaker is on hand if you can't connect your own audio setup. Automatic keystone correction, meanwhile, will save you from fussing with vertical angle adjustments.
The Smart Portable Projector is available now for $600. This won't compete with LG's flagship 4K CineBeam line or even many mid-range projectors, but that's not the point. The PF510Q is meant more to bring a smart TV experience to other parts of your home, or for dorms and other places where a large-screen TV just wouldn't be practical.
Keychon has been an ascending name in the mechanical keyboard world for a while now. The company strikes a good balance between features and price and it’s also not shy about releasing new models meaning whatever you’re after it likely has a solution. Unless you wanted a premium aluminum deck with a wireless option that is. Finally, that gap has been filled by the Q1 Pro - a flagship, fully customizable 75% keyboard complete with Bluetooth connectivity.
Surprising as it may seem, higher end, customizable keyboards often don’t offer wireless thanks to their tendency for metal housings. Keychron’s Q1 Pro, then, will be of great interest to those who want to fully configure their own keyboard but also want the convenience of Bluetooth.
As the name suggests, the Q1 Pro is heavily based on the original Q1 model which Keychron launched in late 2021. Like its predecessor, the Pro model features a gasket design (a double gasket in fact), hot-swappable switches and QMK/VIA compatibility (open source software for easy remapping of any key). There’s also the option of an aluminum rotary knob for things like volume control (or zoom, or brightness or whatever else you might want it for) and the obligatory RGB. As with all Keychron models, it’s also compatible with Mac, Windows and Android - or all three at the same time thanks to the option to connect to multiple Bluetooth devices.
We were big fans of the original Q1 which offered a relatively affordable entry point into the fully customizable keyboard world. And it’s a bit of a weird world at that, with configurations, price and availability varying wildly. Perhaps two of the higher profile competitors for the Q1 are the GMMK Pro (starting at $170 barebones, or $350 pre-built) and the recently released Sense75 from Drop (starting at $249 barebones, or $350 pre-built).
James Trew / Engadget
In a slight break from tradition, the Q1 Pro is being launched via Kickstarter. The benefit here being the chance to grab one at an early bird price. The barebones model is available for $174 if you already have your own switches and keycaps. Or, for $194 you can get the pre-assembled kit. Given that a set of keycaps or switches often cost more than $20 on their own, the complete kit does represent a pretty decent value.
Once you have everything setup, or out of the box if you go fully-assembled, Bluetooth pairing is merely a key-combo away. As noted earlier, you can connect the Q1 Pro to up to three devices of any type thanks to the switch around the back for Windows/Android and MacOS. There are even spare key caps in the box for the differing keys on Microsoft vs Apple layouts. Of course, if you want to connect over USB-C instead, that’s still an option.
Battery life will largely depend on how ham you go with the RGB. With no backlighting at all, Keychron claims you can expect about 300 hours of use on a full charge. If you’re demure with it, that number drops to 90. Keychron doesn’t give an estimate for hardcore full-power RGB but expect it to be less.
With the model Keychron sent for testing, the gasket design appears to have a bit more flex in it than the original Q1, but that doesn’t translate to a softer typing experience thankfully. The supplied red switches are comparable to Cherry reds in resistance, but of course you can choose whatever you want, in fact it’s encouraged. It’s hard to make a like-for-like comparison without having a rival product with the same switches and keycaps, but, overall, the Drop Sense75 and GMMK Pro feel a little stiffer on the gasket side of things resulting in a snappier type. As always, your mileage and preferences will vary.
Regardless, if you wanted a premium aluminum, customizable keyboard with Bluetooth connectivity, the Keychron Q1 Pro is likely your best (if not only) choice right now.
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.
While Google shuttered Stadia for good this week, other cloud gaming services are expanding their offerings. NVIDIA is upgrading its GeForce Now service with a bunch of features, thanks to the addition of new SuperPODs equipped with RTX 4080 GPUs. This seems to be the first truly high-end cloud gaming experience. The renamed Ultimate plan now includes support for refresh rates of up to 240Hz at full HD or 4K at 120 fps and an expanded set of usable widescreen resolutions (3,840x1,600, 3,440x1,440 and 2,560x1,080).
NVIDIA is also adding better support for HDR on both Macs and PCs, along with the ability to use full ray tracing with DLSS3 in supported games. This elevates GeForce Now above rivals like Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is capped at 1080p/60 fps. There are the usual cloud gaming caveats: NVIDIA’s recommended minimum bandwidth for gaming at 1080p at 240 fps is 35 Mbps.
If you want to max out at 4K/120 fps, Engadget’s Sam Rutherford notes you’ll need at least a 45 Mbps connection. These new SuperPODs have limited availability, too. At launch, new servers with 4080 GPUs will be in four places: San Jose, Los Angeles, Dallas and Frankfurt, Germany. That means only people in the US and Central Europe will experience NVIDIA’s best cloud gaming experience, for now.
– Mat Smith
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It requested an investigation into third-party OLED display imports.
Samsung may have a way to strike a hefty blow to the United States’ burgeoning right-to-repair movement. If the ITC (International Trade Commission) finds in the company’s favor, it would, in the words of Louis Rossmann (who published the text of the complaint), “fire a kill shot on the entire repair industry.” Samsung says several patents cover its AMOLED displays. But factories in China (and elsewhere) are, according to the company, churning out similar screens that infringe on those patents. Several businesses named in Samsung’s complaint include MobileSentrix, Injured Gadgets and DFW Cellphone & Parts. Many offer wholesale parts and equipment to other repair companies, as well as their own repair services. If Samsung’s request is successful, it could prevent large volumes of third-party OLED displays from being imported to the US, curtailing the repair ecosystem for one of the most crucial to your smartphone: the screen.
The company quietly updated its terms a week after cutting off prominent app makers.
In case there was any doubt about Twitter’s intentions in cutting off the developers of third-party apps, the company has quietly updated its developer agreement to make clear that app makers may not create their own clients. The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access to the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” The company's suggestion that the rule was "longstanding" doesn't line up with its history. Twitter clients have long been a part of Twitter. Twitterrific, one of the most prominent apps affected by the API shut-off last week, was created before Twitter had its own native iOS app. Twitterific is even credited with coining the word “tweet.”
It's been over 12 years since Tron: Legacy debuted, and those who've been longing for a third entry in the classic sci-fi series may get what they asked for. Tron: Ares, as the film may be called,could start filming this August with Jared Leto, ol' Morbius himself, reportedly set to star, with Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) is in talks to direct, according to Deadline. Leto first signed on back in 2017, but Disney had a third movie on the backburner long before then. Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski said in 2015 that he wrote and storyboarded a sequel "that takes place on the internet with Yahoo and Google and all those sites."
Reed Hastings will still serve as executive chair.
Netflix co-creator Reed Hastings is stepping down as the company's co-CEO. Ted Sarandos, who has been co-CEO since July 2020, will share the reins with newly promoted operations chief Greg Peters. Hastings' departure comes as Netflix slowly recovers from a grim 2022. It lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade and blamed a combination of fiercer competition and widespread account sharing. In its recent earnings report, it announced adding 7.66 million new customers, reaching 230.75 million subscribers.
Now that Stadia is gone, Bungie is steering players toward NVIDIA's GeForce Now. The developer has offered Destiny 2 users a free month on the game streaming service, sending unique codes to each user, according to an email seen by 9to5Google. "We managed to snag some free codes for NVIDIA's high-performance cloud gaming platform," Bungie wrote. "Redeem your one-month code of a GeForce Now priority membership, for free."
Destiny 2 featured prominently in Stadia's marketing up until the end, but also figured in GeForce Now promotion for various devices, as shown in the image above. Of the remaining cloud services, Destiny 2 is available on GeForce Now but not Xbox Cloud, Amazon's Luna or PlayStation Now.
Google announced in September that it would shut down Stadia for good as the service failed to gain traction with users. It refunded all game and hardware sales, and some game studios stepped in to help port games over to other services. If you have a Stadia controller, you can enable Bluetooth support via an online tool so it can be used with PC, iOS or Android devices.
Bungie's offer was sent to each Destiny 2 user, so check your inbox for the invitation and unique code, then be sure to redeem it before February 19th. That will give you a free month of GeForce Now Priority, which offers 1080p gaming, 6-hour session lengths and up to 60fps refresh rates (it'll cost $10 per month or $50 for six months after that). The service just introduced a new Ultimate membership tier with a new RTX 4080 boost that offers 4K resolutions, 8-hour sessions and up to 120 fps for $20 per month, or $100 for six months.
T-Mobile has admitted that hackers were able to steal the information of around 37 million postpaid and prepaid customers in another major data breach. The carrier said in a regulatory filing that it discovered the issue on January 5th, but that it believes the bad actors had been taking data from the company since November 25th. In a post announcing the breach, T-Mobile revealed that the hackers used an API to steal customer information.
While the company was able to contain the issue 24 hours after discovering the malicious activity, the bad actors have had access to its data long enough to have stolen people's names, billing addresses, emails, phone numbers and birthdays. They were also able to obtain users' account numbers and information about their plans, such as the number of lines they have. T-Mobile said, however, that it didn't find evidence that its network or systems had been breached or compromised. "No passwords, payment card information, social security numbers, government ID numbers or other financial account information" were stolen, the company said.
The carrier is still investigating the incident to get a more detailed view of what happened, but it has already warned investors that it would likely incur significant costs due to the incident. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Federal Communications Commission has also opened an investigation into T-Mobile, because as a spokesperson told the publication, "this incident is the latest in a string of data breaches at the company."
If you'll recall, the carrier confirmed in August 2021 that tens of millions of customers had been impacted by a data breach that exposed their sensitive information, including their social security numbers and driver's licenses. T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said back then that the hacker used "specialized" tools and knowledge of its infrastructure in order to gain access to its testing environment. While the initial number of affected customers for that breach was around 30 million, it ultimately ballooned to 76.6 million customers.
Almost a year later, the carrier agreed to pay $350 million to settle a consolidated class action lawsuit and pledged to spend $150 million to update its data security technologies. As The New York Times reports, the company said it has "made substantial progress to date" on those updates, but it clearly wasn't enough to prevent this incident. In its announcement, though, T-Mobile vowed to continue making "substantial, multi-year investments in strengthening [its] cybersecurity program."
Epic Games and Match Group now have a court date for their antitrust case against Google. A Northern District of California judge has set the start of a jury trial for November 6th. Both Epic and Match accuse Google of abusing its control of Android app distribution through the Play Store by establishing unfair fees and requirements for in-app purchases. This comes alongside a lawsuit from 39 attorneys general as well as a customer class action suit demanding $4.7 billion in damages.
Epic sued Google in 2020 after the Android creator kicked Fortnite out of the Play Store for letting customers use an alternative in-app payment system. Match sued Google last year over the "exorbitant" store fee. Epic and Match consolidated their case and a filed motion last fall to expand their allegations, accusing Google of further antitrust violations by paying major developers hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their apps in the Play Store.
Unlike Epic's partially successful lawsuit against Apple, this case has to acknowledge that customers do have a choice. Where Apple requires that all regular app downloads go through the App Store, Android's sideloading option lets customers install software without downloading it from Google. The issue, as you might imagine, is that those apps are both harder to install and less likely to be noticed when the Play Store is included by default on many Android phones.
Google denies misusing its power, and argues that the fees are necessary to maintain and invest in the Play Store. It maintains that the incentive program doesn't forbid developers from launching third-party stores, and that its portal competes fairly. In December, Google called on the court to deny the expanded requests over timing and other issues.
Google has made some concessions, including a test program for Play Store billing alternatives. That pilot still gives Google a cut of each transaction, though, and it remains to be seen if moves like that will satisfy the court and regulators. As it is, the internet pioneer is facing a raft of other antitrust cases that include a Justice Department lawsuit from 2020. Even if Google prevails against Epic and Match, it may not escape unscathed.
In case there was any doubt about Twitter’s intentions in cutting off the developers of third-party apps, the company has quietly updated its developer agreement to make clear that app makers are no longer permitted to create their own clients.
The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement.
The change confirms what the makers of many popular Twitter clients have suspected in recent days: that third-party Twitter services are no longer permitted under Elon Musk’s leadership.
Twitter previously said it was “enforcing long-standing API rules,” but hadn’t cited which rules developers were violating. The company no longer has a communications team, and most members working on its developer platform were also cut during the company’s mass layoffs last year.
Twitter clients have long been a part of Twitter. Twitterrific, one of the most prominent apps affected by the API shut-off last week, was created before Twitter had a native iOS app of its own, and is credited with coining the word “tweet,” as well as other features now commonly associated with Twitter’s app.
We’re already seeing the first discounts on the new 14-inch MacBook Pro, which Apple announced earlier this week. Amazon has the entry-level MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip for $50 off ($1,950). Meanwhile, Best Buy is tying pre-order discounts to its TotalTech program, offering a $100 voucher for members buying any of the new laptops (including the 16-inch model). Compared to its 2021 counterpart, the updated MacBook Pro has faster speeds and networking with longer battery life. It launches on February 24th.
Amazon’s sale only covers the entry-level (512GB, M2 Pro) 14-inch MacBook Pro in Space Gray. Meanwhile, Best Buy’s deal requires a $200 (annual fee) TotalTech membership to receive the $100 e-gift card on any new model. So that deal only makes sense if you’re already a subscriber or plan to enjoy the membership’s perks (unlimited tech support, discounted installation and 20 percent off AppleCare+) throughout the year.
Despite using the same design, the 2023 MacBook Pro has better processing speed and battery life than its 2021 predecessor. The M2 Pro chip in the entry-level model has 10- or 12-core CPUs with eight high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, leading to a 20 percent performance boost over its 2021 equivalent. The new laptops can also last up to 22 hours, the longest-ever battery life on a Mac, according to Apple.
Additionally, the updated MacBook Pro supports Wi-Fi 6E with up to twice the connection speeds of the previous generation. (Remember, you’ll need a compatible router to enjoy those speeds at home.)
Samsung says it's bringing more smart home features to Galaxy Watch devices. It will enable users to view live feeds from home and doorbell Ring and Nest cameras on their smartwatch. Ring camera owners can also use the two-way intercom feature from their Galaxy Watch. Samsung first brought Nest integration to the SmartThings ecosystem in early 2021.
Users will soon be able to control a broader selection of devices from their wrist as well, including smart air purifiers, thermostats and blinds. This builds on existing Galaxy Watch support for TVs, air conditioners, lights and other devices.
Samsung says users won't need to open the SmartThings app to control their smart home devices. They can swipe right from the watch face to access those functions. The company didn't reveal exactly when the update will be available, but we could learn more details at Unpacked on February 1st.
