Apple isn't slowing down when it comes to new features for Fitness+. It announced several more that will be added on January 10th, including Time to Run. That's a spin on the Time to Walk experience, in which celebrity guests provide narration and a playlist to accompany walks.

The aim of Time to Run is to help folks "become more consistent and better runners." It taps into some popular running routes from various cities, and features playlists designed to evoke the spirit of those locations and match the intensity and coaching of each run. The first three episodes that drop on Monday are based on London, Brooklyn and Miami Beach. A new episode will debut each week.

Rather than celebrity guests, familiar Fitness+ trainers will lead Time to Run sessions. On your Apple Watch, you'll be able to see photos taken by the trainer along their route. You can view these images in the workout summary and save them to your photo library. For those who use a wheelchair, the feature will be renamed Time to Run or Push, and they'll be able to select either a run or an Outdoor Push Running Pace workout.

Apple told Engadget that Time to Run episodes each last around 30 or 60 minutes, which is longer than the typical Time to Walk runtime of 25 to 40 minutes. Other fitness apps offer audio-guided running features, such as Aaptiv, Nike+Run Club and Runtastic. Apple isn't exactly breaking new ground here, but Fitness+ users will have another option for working up a sweat.

Apple

Also on January 10th, Apple will roll out Collections. It's a curated series of workouts and guided meditations pulled from the Fitness+ library. The feature will suggest plans to help folks make intentional training choices in the following days and weeks. Six Collections will be available at the outset, including Run Your First 5K, Perfect Your Yoga Balance Poses and Wind Down for a Better Bedtime.

On the same day, the third season of Time to Walk will premiere. The latest batch of guests include Rebel Wilson, Bernice A. King, Chris Meloni and Hasan Minhaj. Episodes will be added on a weekly basis. More Artist Spotlight workouts will be available on Monday too, featuring music from Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams, Shakira and an upcoming group named The Beatles.

Health tech company Abbott is working on “biowearable” devices to track certain elements of one’s body, with the idea that they’ll provide users with more insights about their general health and help them take action. The Lingo devices will measure glucose, ketones and lactate, and eventually they may be able to monitor alcohol levels.

"This will be like having a window into your body," Abbott CEO Robert B. Ford said at CES. "It's science that you will be able to access any time so you can understand what your body is telling you and what it needs."

Abbott is a name you may already be familiar with. It’s the maker of the highly sought-after BinaxNOW rapid COVID-19 tests. It’s also behind the Freestyle Livre, one of the more popular continuous glucose monitors that negates the need for finger stick blood testing.

The upcoming biowearables, which aren't intended for medical use, build on the sensing tech Abbott developed for Freestyle Livre. Athletes are using a version of the device to help optimize their food intake for their training and competition. With Lingo, the company is planning to expand glucose monitoring use cases to help the public manage things like sleep, weight and energy levels.

The aim of the ketone biowearable is to offer continuous tracking of ketones so that wearers can see how quickly they get into ketosis. That's a state in which a body doesn't have enough carbohydrates to turn into energy and instead burns fat (and generates ketones). With the lactate wearable, Abbott's goal is to continuously measure lactate build up while working out. It says that can provide insights on athletic performance.

It'll be some time before Abbott can bring this tech to the consumer market. If and when the biowearables do arrive and they work as promised, they should help those interested in keeping close tabs on the condition of their body to do so.

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

Stephen Hawking would've turned 80 on January 8th, 2022 had he still been alive. While he's no longer with us, his contribution to our understanding of the universe remains immense and shouldn't be forgotten. To pay tribute to the celebrated physicist and cosmologist on what would've been his 80th birthday, Google worked with his family to create a video Doodle that gives us a condensed version of his life. Moreover, the tech giant used Hawking's famous computer-generated voice to narrate his work and experiences from the time he graduated. 

Hawking was born in 1942 in Oxford, England and has always been fascinated with the universe. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease, when he was 21. In the years after that, he lost his mobility and his ability to speak, but he was able to communicate through a computer using a voice created in the 1980s by MIT engineer Dennis Klatt. In the Doodle, you'll hear Hawking's voice talk about his work on black holes — one of the scientific works he's most known for is the Hawking radiation, which is the theory that black holes emit radiation. 

You'll also hear his voice say how he's free in his mind even though he cannot move. "I have spent my life traveling across the universe inside my mind," his voice narrates.

In a statement, his daughter Lucy and sons, Robert and Tim Hawking, said:

"We also believe he would have found it important to show that he never allowed the challenges of his physical condition to limit his power of expression nor his determination to make an impact on the world in which he lived. We hope that his example offers inspiration and hope globally to all who face great challenges at this difficult time. Our father would have been 80 years old today and we thank everyone who has joined in the celebration of his extraordinary life and the legacy he gave to us all."

You can watch the whole Doodle below.

It’s that time of the year again! Cherlynn and Devindra break down some of the best tech they’ve seen at CES 2022, as well as a bunch of weird and awful products. Get ready for notebooks with hybrid Intel chips and better NVIDIA graphics! And how about a foldable laptop or two? Our big takeaway: it’s going to be an interesting year for Windows laptops. Also, we dive into Razer’s crazy gaming table and Samsung’s wild, rotating 55-inch gaming monitor.

Listen above, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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• Chipmakers at CES: Intel, AMD, and more – 1:19

• Laptopapolooza: Lenovo’s Thinkbook Plus Gen 3, Dell’s XPS 13 Plus sans headphone jack – 10:40.322

• Google announces Fast Pair and Android Auto improvements – 37:51

• A couple of phones from CES: Samsung Galaxy S21 FE and OnePlus 10 Pro – 43:11

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• Other News – 1:05:04

• Pop Culture Picks – 1:08:59

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Hosts: Cherlynn Low, Devindra Hardawar
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After announcing that it would accept cryptocurrency donations last week, the Mozilla Foundation has put them on hold following critical comments from a Mozilla founder and numerous others, TechCrunch reported. "Starting today we are reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals," the company tweeted." And as we conduct our review, we will pause the ability to donate cryptocurrency."

Mozilla announced the new policy with a jokey tweet, saying folks who "dabble in @dogecoin" or are "HODLing some #Bitcoin & Ethereum" can donate their crypto directly to the foundation. That was met by a caustic reply from Mozilla co-founder Jamie Zawinski. "F*** you and f*** this," he tweeted. "Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters." Peter Linss, the designer of the Gecko engine that powers Firefox, chimed in as well, telling Mozilla that "you were meant to be better than this." 

Yesterday, Mozilla backpedaled on the idea, saying in a tweet that the comments "led to an important discussion about cryptocurrency's environmental impact." It added that "decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore, but a lot has changed since we started accepting crypto donations."

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are created by solving complex math problems and by design, become harder to "mine" over time. They also have to be stored in a public ledger, something that also consumes energy. As a result, Bitcoin uses more energy than many countries, and much of that comes from dirty sources like coal. 

Last year Tesla announced that it would accept Bitcoin payment for its EVs, and even bought up $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin to smooth the process. However, many folks pointed out that the environmental benefits of an EV could heavily reduced by the staggering amount of electricity required to mine a single Bitcoin. 

Mozilla said it will continue to explore the cryptocurrency donation idea but keep folks in the loop this time. "In the spirit of open-source, this will be a transparent process and we'll share regular updates," the Foundation tweeted. "We look forward to having this conversation and appreciate our community for bringing this to our attention."

As CES wraps up, we’re still pulling together our favorite picks of the show. That includes finger-nibbling robots, smart beds and all kinds of TVs, laptops and gadgets. Yes, we’ve been able to see some of the products while not attending the show, but it has meant a lot of spec-sheet perusing and a fair dose of skepticism without getting a lot of the announcements in the flesh.

For things like TVs, that’s usually months later, but for tablets, phones and wearables, you can expect Engadget to be reviewing and stress-testing many of them sooner rather than later. We’re already trying out the Galaxy S21 FE.

Have a great weekend and see you back here Monday.

— Mat Smith

Nikola Motors drops its $2 billion lawsuit against Tesla

All claims and counterclaims have been dropped.

Nikola Corp. is reportedly dropping its $2 billion patent infringement lawsuit against Tesla Inc. as Nikola company founder, Trevor Milton, faces a criminal indictment on fraud charges. Both companies have agreed to withdraw all claims and counterclaims against each other. Nikola accused Tesla of copying several patented designs for a windshield, fuselage and side door. Tesla denied this and countersued.

Nikola unveiled the hydrogen-powered Nikola One semi-truck in 2016. However, it was accused by the SEC of deceiving investors, in one instance via a video that appeared to show the truck moving under power when it was simply rolling down a hill.

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David Bowie's later albums have been remixed in 360 Reality Audio

They’ll be available to stream on January 21st.

Timed to coincide with what would have been David Bowie’s 75th birthday, all of his post-2000 studio albums (Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and Blackstar) and a live album (A Reality Tour) have been remixed in Sony's 360 Reality Audio for release on Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer and Tidal on January 21st. 

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Nike sues Lululemon over its Mirror home gym product and apps

The company is accusing Lululemon of patent infringement.

Back in June 2020, Lululemon bought home fitness startup Mirror for $500 million. Now, Nike has filed a lawsuit against the company over Mirror, accusing it of patent infringement. Nike's lawsuit alleges that Mirror uses technologies that it invented.

Nike sent Lululemon a list of patents it allegedly infringed back on November 3rd. As you'd expect, the company more known for making yoga pants and other types of gym clothes disagreed with Nike's assessment. A spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal in a statement that the patents "in question are overly broad and invalid." They also said Lululemon is confident in its position and "look forward to defending it in court."

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Snap sues US Patent Office to claim a trademark for ‘Spectacles’

The agency says the term is too generic to trademark.

Snap has sued the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for rejecting an application the company had filed to trademark the word “spectacles” in relation to its wearable of the same name. The USPTO said Snap’s use of Spectacles had failed to acquire the “distinctiveness” necessary for a trademark. 

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Sleep Number’s latest smart bed will adapt to your needs as you get older

The bed may eventually alert you to potential health conditions.

Sleep Number

Sleep Number’s newest bed adapts to your changing needs. You can raise or lower it if you are pregnant, have an injury or simply need a hand getting in and out of bed as you get older. This comes on top of existing features like temperature controls and snoring detection. The company also announced some smart furniture designed to complement the bed. Features include mobility aids, individual noise reduction tech, ambient lighting and a built-in charging and storage pocket. The company will start shipping the new bed and furniture next year.

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E3 will be online-only again this year

The ESA cited concerns over COVID-19.

For the third straight year, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted E3. The event will once again be an online-only affair amid the Omicron surge.

“Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022,” the Entertainment Software Association told GamesBeat. The ESA canceled the 2020 edition of E3 shortly after the pandemic took hold in the US, and last year a virtual version of the event took place.

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Illegal movie streaming service Popcorn Time shuts down

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'Prodigy' is becoming a headache for Star Trek's chronology

Apple's iPad Air is back on sale for $539

VW will reveal its production ID.Buzz microbus EV on March 9th

Apple's pink AirPods Max are just $400 at Woot for Amazon Prime members

A group of hackers is trading a database of stolen information from FlexBooker, a cloud-based tool for scheduling appointments, containing sensitive customer data. According to BleepingComputer, the company suffered a security breach before the holidays and notified its customers about the attack in an email, where it revealed that its Amazon AWS servers were compromised on December 23rd. It also admitted that its system data storage was accessed and downloaded.

Based on information from Have I Been Pwned, the breach compromised 3.7 million accounts containing email addresses, names, passwords, phone numbers and partial credit card numbers. BleepingComputer says a group called Uawrongteam took credit for the attack and shared links to archives with the stolen data, which the group claimed also include users' drivers' licenses, other IDs, password salt and hashed passwords. FlexBooker's typical customers are people who need to be able to quickly schedule appointments with clients, such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, gyms, mechanics, salons, trainers, therapists, so and and so forth. 

In Flexbooker's email to users, it said the infiltrators failed to get "any credit card or other payment card information." We're guessing the company didn't take the stolen partial credit card numbers into account. Before Flexbooker, Uawrongteam previously claimed other data breaches and also traded databases with stolen information from its previous targets. They include data from Racing.com, a digital TV network that broadcasts horse racing, and from rediCASE Case Management Software solution for health services and other businesses. 

Tinder is working on a new feature called Swipe Party that will let you invite friends online to help you vet dates, TechCrunch has reported. The feature was first spotted in the app's code by the Dutch site Gratisdatingtips and has yet to be announced, but Tinder confirmed that it's in in the works.

The feature would be not unlike Apple's SharePlay, which lets you do watch parties with friends via FaceTime on supported apps like Disney+ and Hulu. With Tinder, you could similarly invite friends to your swiping sessions so they could help you pick a match. A lot of folks already do that in person, so the new feature bring that online — handy in the time of COVID-19. 

Code snippets show that Swipe Party would let you invite friends to join a session by providing their phone number, confirming it with a code, then entering their name and date of birth. If you want their help, however, you'd need to give them access to your phone's camera and microphone.

Tinder recently let users add videos to their dating profiles, and parent Match recently promised to introduce other audio and chat features to its dating apps. While Tinder confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature was in development, it didn't provide any additional details. 

The Fallout streaming TV series based on the Bethesda's post-apocalyptic game from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's Kilter Films is moving along smartly, Deadline has reported. Production is set to start this year with Nolan directing the series premiere. Amazon Studios also revealed that Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel) and Graham Wagner (Silicon Valley) have been hired as showrunners.

"Fallout is one of the greatest game series of all time," Joy and Nolan said last year. "Each chapter of this insanely imaginative story has cost us countless hours we could have spent with family and friends. So we’re incredibly excited to partner with Todd Howard and the rest of the brilliant lunatics at Bethesda to bring this massive, subversive, and darkly funny universe to life with Amazon Studios."

Fallout (the game) takes place in a wasteland caused by a 2077 nuclear war. While that has the makings of a pretty grim series, it'll reportedly feature plenty of ironic humor and callbacks to B-movie nuclear fantasies as well. The series is part of a big overall deal inked by Nolan and Joy with Amazon Studios, which licensed the rights to Fallout back in 2020. So far, there are no details on the plot or who might star in the series.

OrCam, a company that makes products to aid accessibility for the visually impaired, has won a CES innovation award for its glasses-mounted MyEye Pro device. It aids the blind and visually impaired by reading out printed and digital text, recognizing people, identifying products, and more. OrCam took the prize in both the CES innovation accessibility and health and wellness categories. 

"We are living in uncertain times, yet... our users’ challenges related to access have not stopped during the pandemic. If anything, they have intensified,” said OrCam co-founder and co-chairman Prof. Amnon Shashua in OrCam's blog post.

MyEye Pro mounts on a pair of eyeglasses and communicates visual information audibly. A key new feature is "Smart Reading" that works much like the Crtl-F/CMD-F (Find) functions on a PC or Mac, allowing users to get specific information — something that helped sway the CES panel "The interactive smart reading capability allows users an experience tailored specifically for them," the judges wrote.

Another recent feature that arrived last year is the OrCam voice assistant. Users can speak to MyEye Pro (or the company's handheld OrCam Read) to activate facial recognition, or tell the device to read pages in books, newspapers, and restaurant menus. "Newly released 'Hey OrCam' enables control of all device features and settings hands-free, using voice commands," as the CES judges noted. 

As for the hardware itself, the OrCam Eye Pro is an update over the previous OrCam Eye product with a faster processor, two microphones instead of one, longer battery life, improved eyeglass attachment and more. Thanks to the processor improvements, it powers on quicker and "responds faster and with heightened accuracy [for] pointing gesture responsiveness, bar code and banknote identification, and face recognition," OrCam wrote.

Just ahead of CES 2021 last year, we noted that accessibility in tech had improved but that more had to be done. Adding functionality to existing products and software is an important part of that, but purpose-built devices play a role as well. "Both OrCam MyEye and OrCam Read have been instrumental devices in ensuring our users have been able to continue their academic, professional and personal pursuits and remain connected to family, friends and society at large," Shashua said.