When I first pulled the Nothing Phone 1 from its slender retail box, I just stared at it, flipped it over in my hand and scrutinized the see-through bits and pieces. Nothing’s attention to detail was noticeable everywhere. I’ll admit it outright: I love how it looks.

The company may be pushing a narrative of epoch-defining design, but its first phone also comes with decent, if not groundbreaking, specifications and, gasp, a competitive price point. While the aesthetics scream flagship device (and there’s definitely some iPhone DNA here), the price tag, around $476 (£399 here in the UK, no availability in the US), puts it in the arguably more competitive midrange weight class. That puts it up against the iPhone SE, Samsung’s Galaxy A series and Google’s Pixel A devices – don’t forget, the Pixel 6a is just around the corner. Can a literally flashy phone steal your attention away from all these heavy hitters?

Hardware

Mat Smith / Engadget

Both colors of the Nothing Phone 1 are eye-catching. And, while the white version looks cooler, the black really emphasizes the unique glyph lights. Gorilla Glass covers the front and back, and Nothing has curated what components you can see and smoothed out some of the lines.

Let’s talk about the Glyph interface, as Nothing has coined it. It uses over 900 LEDS to create four different light-up elements across the back of the phone. Some have extra features, which I’ll come back to, but collectively they light and flash to signify phone calls or notifications… and prompt strangers to ask, “what’s going on with your iPhone?” The only thing it attracts more than onlookers is fingerprints. You’ll buff this phone a lot to ensure the transparent design can be properly shown off.

Yeah, it’s eye-catching to all humans within 10 feet, but fortunately, you can reduce the brightness and, well, the severity of a phone call or text from someone. There’s also a thoughtful warning that the Glyph Interface may not be safe for anyone with epilepsy or other light-sensitivity conditions. As I have a history of seizures myself, it’s a nice consideration, but as someone noted, what about the people around me?

Nothing has made 10 unique ringtones with dedicated Glyph patterns that light up in sync to the lo-fi chippy noises – one of several signs that the Teenage Engineering DNA runs deep here. Most of the ringtones and patterns are somehow... just plain cool? I think it’s something to do with the perfect synchronization or the fact that it’s not the hollow, orchestral stirrings of a corporate audio sting.

A light strip at the bottom of the Phone 1 doubles up as a charging gauge when the device is plugged in. You will have to enable the feature within the phone’s Glyph Interface settings. I wish the battery gauge also worked on the power strip even when it wasn’t plugged in. Perhaps we’ll get more Glyph functionality in the future.

Now, for all those claims of a unique smartphone paradigm, besides the back, the phone looks and feels like an iPhone – especially the edges of the recycled aluminum frame. Unlike Apple’s phone, there’s no mute switch, and that might be an intentional design choice to put some distance between Nothing and OnePlus. (Nothing boss Carl Pei co-founded the latter and I’ve made my feelings on the OnePlus alert slider known for some time.)

Like the iPhone, the power button is on the right side, while the volume buttons are along the left. At the bottom edge, you have a single-firing (but loud!) speaker, SIM card slot and USB-C port.

There’s a red LED on the back of the phone to indicate when Phone 1 is recording video, like a camcorder from the ‘90s. It’s equal parts privacy feature and intentional retro nod. Another cute touch: The SIM card remover handle is resin-tipped, and looks like a little transistor.

The Phone 1 is a big phone. It dwarfs my iPhone 13 Pro. Its 6.55-inch 1080p screen puts it closer to the iPhone 13 Pro Max and the Pixel 6 Pro. Though, at 8.3mm thick, it’s more substantial than Apple’s biggest iPhone.

The midrange spec creep starts at the display, which has a relatively substantial bezel similar to the Galaxy A53 but it’s unlikely to be a dealbreaker for many. There’s a holepunch camera, (16-megapixel) and the display itself is vivid and bright (up to 1200 nits), while refresh rates can reach 120Hz. Adaptive refresh rates are one of the modern touches that help devices feel (and, well, look) premium.

Mat Smith / Engadget

The Phone 1 feels premium then, despite the next compromise: the mid-range Snapdragon processor ticking away inside. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G+ chip has been lightly customized for Nothing, meaning the Phone 1 can offer wireless charging (and reverse wireless charging) capabilities, unlike phones using the standard Snapdragon 778G. The Phone 1 was still able to handle some battles and exploration in Genshin Impact, though it did get rather warm in the process.

Nothing says you can 33-watt fast-charge the Phone 1 to 50 percent battery capacity in 30 minutes, and my testing pretty much replicated this. Wireless charging tops out at 15W, while you can reverse charge at up to 5W from the Phone 1 itself. I wonder if wireless charging is all that desirable? Or was it an issue of having something nice to show off on the transparent back? Something to frame a Glyph around? Perhaps I’m just a cynic. (Ok, definitely.)

In our battery rundown tests, the Phone 1 was able to play a video on loop for just over 16 hours, which is better than several Android phones we’ve tested in the last year, including the OnePlus 10 Pro, although it’s worth noting that Nothing’s has a lower-resolution display.

In typical use, I managed to get a day and half out of a full charge. With more video recording, or gaming or streaming, this would mean I’d be under 10 percent by 9PM. This is ameliorated a little with the fast charging, but a bit more battery life would have been nice.

Software

The dot-matrix ‘Nothing’ font that arrived with the company’s debut earbuds, is peppered around the company’s take on Android 12. There isn’t much different about this “bespoke” interpretation of Google’s mobile OS, though. There are those Glyph-connected ringtones, some monochromatic wallpapers, and unique widgets in the drop-down menu, but otherwise, it’s mostly the Android you know.

A Nothing spokesperson told me that they’re working on expanding features through third-party APIs — one example currently live is the ability to unlock your Tesla from this dropdown menu. You can turn on the AC in advance, flash the lights and a few more lightweight features. But that’s an incredibly tiny slice of Venn diagram overlap: Tesla driver and Nothing Phone 1 owner.

Mat Smith / Engadget

Another obvious display of the company’s partnership with Teenage Engineering, is its voice memo app, which has a minimalist tape deck aesthetic. You can rewind and fast-forward, and there are several noise-canceling options to better isolate voices. It’s not podcast-ready but if you’re recording a meeting or leaving a note for yourself from a loud pub they should at least help.

If there’s one thing I can’t get on board with, it’s Nothing’s addition of a native NFT Gallery. I don’t have any NFTs, but if I did, I’d be able to track their prices and “show them off” in five different sizes on the Phone 1. Let’s move on.

As it’s a new phone from a very new company, I had my reservations about stability. But so far, I’ve had no major issues. Resource-intensive apps may take slightly longer to load compared to flagship phones, but that’s about it. The company has also vowed to bring three years of Android updates to the Phone 1, which should help keep things secure and stable.

Cameras

Mat Smith / Engadget

If you‘ve been checking out many of our phone reviews over recent years, you’ll have noticed that multi-camera setups often include a dud – a monochrome sensor here, a 2-megapixel macro camera there. There’s a reason why the Pixel 6 and iPhone 13 are still capable of decent photography, despite “only” having two cameras – diminishing returns. This phone also has a dual-camera system. At this mid-range price, this is where things often go awry. But, thankfully, that’s not the case with the Nothing Phone 1.

Nothing has gone for Sony’s IMX766 sensor and combined it with f/1.9 lens with optical image stabilization. If you’re a smartphone obsessive, that might sound familiar, because that’s what you got on Oppo’s Find X3 Pro, a flagship Android phone from last year that was double the price of the Phone 1.

The secondary ultrawide camera uses a 50MP Samsung JN1 sensor with an f/2.2 lens. This doubles as a macro camera, but don’t expect incredible macro photography from a phone.

You can expect crisp images in good lighting, though. I’ve been impressed with the still quality from the Phone 1. There seem to be some image software tweaks here, but they’re relatively light. Comparing daylight shots from the Phone 1 against the Pixel 4a, Google’s seemed to offer more contrast, but it’s hard to call a winner between the two. Both offered up 12-megapixel images, so detail levels were generally a match, Nothing just seems to have gone for slightly more muted colors.

With brighter parts of the image, you will notice some chromatic aberrations: a purplish hue around those bright spots. Night-time photography is decent enough, with the usual night shooting mode in attendance. It didn’t best the top smartphones, but it was able to rescue a few lowlight shots that would have otherwise been a dark patchy mess. Despite the algorithms at work, results were a little noisy.

The Glyph Interface can also be used as a sort-of ring light, to illuminate nearby subjects without the oomph of a standard flash. It added a gentle, slightly blueish hue to photos when enabled. It’s a clever idea but the execution is a little lacking. If Nothing could offer finer color temperature controls, like many ring lights do, this could be genuinely useful.

Mat Smith / Engadget

The camera app offers all the usual imaging features of a phone in 2022: HDR, Portrait mode, timelapse and even an expert mode for finer controls over white balance, ISO and more. I found the basic photo mode more than versatile enough. The biggest limitation was the 2x zoom, which crops part of the image sensor. There’s some digital zoom thrown in if you’re desperate. I started to miss the more expansive telephoto options on other – usually more expensive – smartphones.

The Phone 1 can capture 4K video at 30FPS or 1080p at 60FPS. Video quality was smooth and serviceable. There’s a little bit of rolling shutter wobble when you’re panning around, and in lower light I noticed it hunting for focus if I was moving while recording. It also struggles to balance exposure between a pinkish sky at dusk and a darker street.

Wrap-up

Brian Oh / Engadget

At the Nothing Phone 1’s launch event, Carl Pei said that “stability [was] way more important than a ton of flashy features.” It was an odd choice of words when the biggest differentiator of your company’s new phone is literally a flashing feature.

The good news is that all this effort into how the phone looks – and it’s certainly eye-catching when the Glyphs light up – hasn’t been undone by wobbly software, mediocre cameras or disappointing build quality. It’s a competent Android phone.

The price, the style and the attention to detail are all impressive. Nothing is walking a fine line between gimmick and feature at times, but as a new company, it gets to do that. There’s no predecessor phone to replicate, and this goes in Nothing’s favor. Having said that, its biggest rival could be Google’s Pixel 6a, with a similar price point, and its own unique look.

This is a new phone from a new company, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this phone longer term. But, Nothing has made an impressive debut. Don’t believe all the hype, but the Phone makes a compelling argument for mid-range shoppers and anyone that wants a phone that looks different but does things pretty much the same.

Over the past few days, NASA has released stunning photos of nebulae, groups of galaxies and even the "deepest" view of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the agency has released images of something much closer to home that everyone's new favorite telescope — sorry, Hubble! — has captured. When the James Webb team was calibrating the instrument, members took photos of Jupiter to see if it can be used to observe nearby celestial objects like moons and asteroids, as well other elements like planet rings and satellites. The answer, it turns out, is yes.

A photo taken by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument’s short-wavelength filter (above) clearly shows the gas giant's distinct bands and its moon Europa. The Great Red Spot is also perfectly visible, even though it looks white due to the way the image was processed. When the NIRCam instrument's 2.12 micron filter was used, the resulting image showed the Jovian moons Europa, Thebe, Metis and even Europa's shadow near the Great Red Spot. And when the team used NIRCam's 3.23 micron filter, the resulting image captured some of Jupiter's rings, as you can see below:

NASA, ESA, CSA, and B. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)

Bryan Holler, one of the scientists who helped plan these observations, said:

"Combined with the deep field images released the other day, these images of Jupiter demonstrate the full grasp of what Webb can observe, from the faintest, most distant observable galaxies to planets in our own cosmic backyard that you can see with the naked eye from your actual backyard."

It's worth noting that James Webb captured these images moving across its field of view in three separate observations, proving that it's capable of finding and tracking stars in the vicinity of a celestial body as bright as Jupiter. That means it can be used to study moons in our solar system and could give us the first images of the plumes of material known to spew out of natural satellites like Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus.

The team also tracked asteroids in the asteroid belt to figure out the fastest objects it can observe. They found that it can still get gather data from objects moving up to 67 milliarcseconds per second across its field of view. NASA says that's equivalent to tracking a turtle moving from a mile away. As Stefanie Milam, James Webb's deputy project scientist, said, these images show that "everything worked brilliantly." We can expect not just more impressively detailed images of space in the future, but also information that could shed more light on how the first galaxies had formed.

The world’s largest NFT platform, Opensea, is cutting 20 percent of its workforce. The information comes directly from CEO Devin, who tweeted a screenshot of a Slack message he'd sent to the entire company staff Thursday. Finzer blamed the economic instability around both crypto specifically and the economy broadly for the layoffs. The cuts, he wrote, would prepare the company in the event of a prolonged downturn.

“The changes we’re making today put us in a position to maintain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios (5 years at the current volume), and give us high confidence that we only have to go through this process once."

Since Opensea doesn’t disclose the number of its employees, it’s unclear exactly how many people are impacted by the cuts. TechCrunchnoted that the company’s LinkedIn page indicates it has 769 employees, which would mean roughly 150 people lost their jobs. In the same Slack message, Finzer states the impacted staffers will get "generous severance" and healthcare coverage into 2023.

In January the company raised $300 million in venture capital funding, which Finzer said it would use to hire 90 new employees and establish a fund for creators. Finzer made no mention of the new investor dollars in his memo to employees.

Opensea joins a growing group of prominent crypto giants who have undergone layoffs this summer. Coinbase cut more than 1,100 jobs last month, also citing the crypto winter and tough economy. Also in June, BlockFi laid off roughly 20 percent of its staff (or around 200 people) and Crypto.com laid off 260 workers — only months after it signed a $700 million deal for naming rights to the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Wordle players who can’t resist posting their scores on social media to show off their verbal smarts can now subject friends to this behavior in-person. Hasbro and New York Times Games announced a physical adaptation of the online word game phenomenon to be called Wordle: The Party Game, designed to be played with multiple players or teams.

Each round of Wordle: The Party Game begins with one player (the so-called “Wordle Host”) who writes down a secret word. The rest of the players will be given six tries to guess it, much like the online version. Players who take fewer attempts to guess the secret word will earn less points, and the player with the least points at the end of the game wins. The game comes with three Wordle boards, a secret word board for the host and dry-erase markers There’s also a set of physical green and yellow tiles that mimic the ones used in the game.

The board game will cost $19.99, and is available to pre-order today at Amazon, Target and Hasbro’s online store. Wordle: The Party Game is expected to hit stores in October, which will also be the one-year anniversary of the online game's release to the public. Since its debut, the strangely addictive word game has been purchased by the New York Times and inspired a number of spin-offs, including Tradle, which has players identify countries by their exports and Heardle, a guessing game for popular songs. Earlier this week, Spotify purchased Heardle for an undisclosed sum.

It's been just over two years since we learned that EA was working on the first entry in the Skate series since 2010's Skate 3. Although the publisher isn't quite ready to announce the release window, it revealed some more details, including the fact the game is just called Skate.

It's a free-to-play live service title with microtransactions, though there will not be any pay-to-win elements or loot boxes. You won't need to fork over cash to unlock areas of the map (the action is set in a new location called San Vansterdam) and there are no paid gameplay advantages. "We are taking inspiration from games like Apex Legends or other popular titles that are free to play, where spending money is totally optional, and it’s mostly about cosmetics and convenience," Isabelle Mocquard, head of product management at EA, said in a video update. 

EA plans to support Skate for years to come with additional gameplay features, balance changes, more content and seasonal events. "We're in this for the long haul. That means we’re not an iterative title," creative director Chris “Cuz” Parry said. "There won’t be a Skate 5 through 10. We won’t be pumping them out all the time."

The publisher invited fans to playtest "pre-, pre-, pre-alpha software" and provide feedback to help make the game as good as it possibly can be. It will soon welcome more players to try early versions of the game through an insider program.

EA opened a new studio in Vancouver called Full Circle to take the reins on Skate, though it's a mostly remote team with developers based all over North America. Some veterans of the Skate franchise are on board too, including Parry.

Skate will be available on PlayStation and Xbox (including the last-gen consoles), and the series will make its debut on PC. Full Circle is also working on a mobile version, which is in the early stages of development. There will be cross-play and cross-progression across all platforms as well.

Facebook is testing giving users the ability to create up to five profiles on the platform, a major change to its longstanding policy that only allows people to have a single account and identity on the service. The upcoming test was reported byBloomberg, which notes that it’s Facebook’s latest ploy to stave off declining engagement, particularly among younger users.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the test. “To help people tailor their experience based on interests and relationships, we’re testing a way for people to have more than one profile tied to a single Facebook account,” the spokesperson said. “Anyone who uses Facebook must continue to follow our rules.”

It’s not clear how big the initial test will be, or if Facebook plans to eventually make it available more widely. If it does, it could significantly alter the dynamics of how people interact on the social network. For one, it would make it easier for people to maintain different personas on the platform, or create separate pages targeted for different friend groups or interests. It’s also a major shift from Facebook’s longtime policy of requiring “real names.” 

Unlike Instagram, which allows users to create multiple accounts and doesn’t require them to use their real names, Facebook has had strict — and oftencontroversial — rules about users’ identities, regularly suspending users it catches using multiple accounts. In some cases, the service will even ask users to verify the name on their profile by providing a copy of an official I.D.

But users who have access to multiple profiles will now only need to use their real name on their main profile. Additional profiles will be able to use nicknames or other identities as long as they don’t break other rules, like those barring impersonation.

That the company is now changing its approach to users’ names and identities is a sign of just how important it is for Facebook to reverse recent declines in engagement. Mark Zuckerberg had said the platform will reorient itself to be more appealing to younger users in an effort to better compete with TikTok and other rivals. The app is also planning a significant redesign that will emphasize recommendations more than posts from friends.

Social networks still aren't doing much to safeguard LGBTQ people against abuse, according to GLAAD. Bloombergnotes the media monitoring organization has published its second-ever Social Media Safety Index, and has given failing scores to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube after examining their LGBTQ-oriented features and policies. While GLAAD found that all the platforms had strong policy commitments and barred hateful ads, their actions generally didn't live up to those goals.

None of the five platforms did enough to restrict anti-LGBTQ content, the watchdog said. They also fell short on offering gender pronoun options, providing adequate moderator training, minimizing takedowns of legitimate content, banning non-consensual ad targeting and protecting the privacy of gender identity and sexual orientation data. Only TikTok and Twitter adequately barred targeted deadnaming and misgendering (maliciously using a trans or non-binary person's pre-transition name or gender), while Facebook and Instagram were the only ones making sufficient promises to shield LGBTQ users from harm.

GLAAD made recommendations in the wake of the findings. It called for more policies against practices like deadnaming and unwanted ad targeting. The organization also wanted Facebook to outline how it enforces its LGBTQ policies, and YouTube to disclose how it minimized wrongful demonetization and content bans. There was also pressure on TikTok to publicly promise to diversify its workforce.

All five social networks defended their current approaches in statements to Bloomberg. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta said it barred dehumanizing and violent anti-LGBTQ material, and will pull misgendering content upon request. Twitter said it already worked with GLAAD and was discussing the new recommendations. YouTube parent Google stressed that it made "significant progress" in pulling harmful videos, while TikTok highlighted both its anti-hate policies and recent tools to promote kinder comments.

As Bloomberg pointed out, though, there are still significant gaps in these protections. GLAAD is hoping the Safety Index will pressure companies to act, and that regulators will step in to demand greater accountability.

Hulu has ordered a docuseries inspired by the influential hip-hop playlist RapCaviar from Spotify and Sony’s IPC studio, reportedThe Hollywood Reporter. RapCaviar Presents will feature the perspectives of artists like Tyler, the Creator, Jack Harlow, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat and Saweetie. The show has no official release date yet, but is expected to debut on Hulu sometime later this year.

For those who are unfamiliar with RapCaviar, both the 14-million follower strong playlist and companion podcast are known for launching the careers of once unknown artists such as Migos, Lil Uzi Vert and Kyle. For emerging hip-hop artists, getting a track featured on RapCaviar can quickly result in millions of streams and draw the attention of record labels. The creator of the playlist is Tuma Basa, Spotify’s global head of hip hop programming, who hand-picks the music himself.

Filmmaker Karam Gill (Supervillain: The Making of Tekashi 6ix9ine) will serve as executive producer and creative director of the docuseries. The co-EPs are Av Accius and Marcus A. Clarke. The showrunner is Steve Rivo, the writer of the Showtime film about the world’s longest-running music video, You’re Watching Video Music Box.

If the appetite for original programming about music is strong enough, we could possibly see even more documentaries and shows in other genres from Spotify in the future. There’s even a fictionalized series about Spotify in the works. The Playlist, a scripted series about the music streaming service's origin story, will debut on Netflix later this year.

Many creators use a control pad like Elgato's Stream Deck to help them manage livestreams and create art. Razer is looking to make moves in the space with its own control pad, the Stream Controller.

The company is working with Loupedeck on the device, which seems to be a rebadged version of the Loupedeck Live with Razer's marketing muscle behind it. The Stream Controller has 12 haptic switchblade keys, six analog dials and eight physical buttons, all of which you can customize using Loupedeck's software on Windows or macOS. You can use the controls to change all kinds of settings (such as layouts and scenes) on the fly, launch apps and even manage smart home devices.

Razer

The dials help the Stream Controller stand out from similar devices. They allow for fine adjustment of certain settings, such as lighting and volume, so you might use it as an audio mixer to balance out your microphone, gameplay and background music. You can find plugins, profiles and icon packs on the marketplace and create your own actions and macros.

You'll be able to set up multiple control layouts (called workspaces) for dedicated purposes and map those to the eight physical buttons or swipe between them. Digital artists who stream on Twitch for fun could use the Stream Controller for both work and pleasure, since they can switch to a separate workspace with completely different functions. Or you might use the Stream Controller to control music playback during the day and help you edit YouTube or TikTok videos at night.

You'll pay a premium for the extra utility of the dials and other functions, though. At $270, the Stream Controller is more expensive than the $150 Stream Deck. Razer will start shipping the device this fall.

Meta has released its first yearly human rights report, and you might not be shocked by the angle the company is taking. As CNBCnotes, the 83-page document outlines the Facebook parent's handling of human rights issues during 2020 and 2021, with a strong focus on justifying the company's strategies for combatting misinformation and harassment. Meta said that its approaches to fighting health misinformation (in light of COVID-19), implicit threats and similar problems reflected a "balance" between freedom of expression and other rights, such as life, security and elections.

The report also outlined Meta's bid to prevent rights abuses with its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. The company said studied both the privacy risks and potential harms to vulnerable groups, such as women, children and minorities. Meta touted its privacy protections elsewhere, including end-to-end WhatsApp message encryption that now includes chat backups.

The text won't satisfy critics of Meta's responses to misinformation and violence in India, however. The social media giant only provided a summary of an independent human rights impact assessment for India, noting that law firm Foley Hoag found the "potential" for Facebook, WhatsApp and other platforms to be linked to incendiary speech and safety threats. Meta made changes that included stronger local moderation teams and crackdowns against coordinated harm and hate speech. The company didn't provide the full report, though, and didn't commit to implementing Foley Hoag's recommendations.

There are other holes. The India study didn't touch on allegations of biased content moderation. You also won't find any meaningful discussion of the metaverse — Meta didn't announce its pivot until October 2021, leaving little opportunity for AR and VR to make an impact on the human rights report. Any substantial update will have to wait until 2023. Even so, it's notable that Meta is acknowledging rights concerns more directly than it has in the past.