Twitter is testing a new process for reporting tweets in what it says is a major overhaul intended to make it easier to flag harmful behavior on its platform. With the change, the company is changing how it allows users to flag tweets and significantly expanding the criteria that can be included in reports.

In a blog post, Twitter says it’s revamping the process to take a “people first” approach, in which the reporting process begins by asking users “what happened” rather than expecting them to figure out which of the company’s complex policies may have been violated. That’s a significant change from the current process, which requires users to navigate through a series of menus and identify specific rules that were broken by the tweet in question.

Instead, the new reporting flow allows users to specify who was targeted and then describe how it happened. For example, it includes much more detailed ways to report hate speech, including hate speech targeting groups of people. Then, once users have described the incident, Twitter will suggest which of its rules may apply.

Twitter

The company says this process is both simpler for users, and could help the company improve its policies and process further. “The more first-hand information they can gather about how people are experiencing certain content, the more precise Twitter can be when it comes to addressing it or ultimately removing it,” the company writes. “This rich pool of information, even if the Tweets in question don't technically violate any rules, still gives Twitter valuable input that they can use to improve people’s experience on the platform.”

Twitter is currently testing the new reporting flow with a “small group” of users in the US, and plans to expand it to more people in 2022.

The Federal Communications Commission now has its first permanent chairwoman. The Senate voted 68 to 31 to confirm President Biden’s nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel, converting her acting chair role into an official (and additional) five-year term. Her temporary position was due to expire within weeks.

Not surprisingly, Rosenworcel signalled plans to maintain her existing policies of making communictions accessible to “everyone, everywhere.” The chairwoman has been a proponent of net neutrality and other regulations meant to keep large technology companies in check, contrasting sharply with the anti-regulation stance of former chair Ajit Pai.

The move gives the FCC some extra stability. However, it might not be the most important nomination. The White House is still waiting on the confirmation of Gigi Sohn to fill an empty commissioner seat. If she’s accepted, the FCC will have a 3-2 Democrat majority that’s more likely to support Biden’s telecom-related priorities. Rosenworcel may have to temper her expectations if the Commission remains in its current stalemate.

Ashun Sound Machines, or ASM, came virtually out of nowhere to deliver one of the most hyped synths of 2020. The Hydrasynth is an unabashedly digital instrument with an impressive collection of sound design tools and a proprietary keyboard that has polyphonic aftertouch. For those looking to leave behind the warm but staid world of analog for the complex frontiers of digital, it’s pretty alluring. But, while its $1,299 list price isn’t absurd given the feature set, it’s also out range for many hobbyists. Even the desktop model, which ditches the keyboard in favor of 24 pads, is slightly pricey at $799.

The new Hydrasynth Explorer, however, is expressly designed to get ASM’s keyboard and synth engine in the hands of as many people as possible. And it’s “portable” to boot. (Although, as I’ll get to later, the company’s definition of portable is highly questionable.) Of course to reach the more attainable price of $599, some things had to be sacrificed. But the good news is, most of what’s missing amounts to minor conveniences.

Before we go any further, let’s set some expectations: I cannot possibly cover every feature of the Hydrasynth Explorer in detail. Even the 88-page manual feels like it’s just skimming the surface. If you’re looking for an exhaustive walkthrough, I highly recommend Loopop’s nearly hour-long tutorial on the original Hydrasynths and its half-hour long follow-up looking at what’s different on the Explorer and Deluxe.

The most important thing you need to know is that the core of the Hydrasynth — its wavemorphing engine — remains unchanged and it's running on the same hardware. So the Explorer still has eight-note polyphony, with three oscillators per voice, and over 200 waveforms to choose from. The first two oscillators can be static or in “wavescan” mode, which simply means you can choose up to eight waveforms at a time to morph between. While you can’t import your own custom wavetables, you can essentially build your own from the pre-approved ingredients.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

Those oscillators can be combined and manipulated using what ASM calls Mutators — two each for oscillators one and two. There are eight different Mutators to choose from, ranging from classic FM (frequency modulation) and hard sync, to the slightly more exotic PhazDiff, and even three different flavors of pulse width modulation.

The third oscillator is a much simpler affair. It’s a static wave and it can’t be sent through a Mutator, but it can still add depth to a sound. The most obvious use is as a sub-oscillator to add a little bass, but it can also be fed through the ring modulator. Which, by the way: Yes, there is a ring modulator and a noise source as well.

There are also two filters, which can be in series or parallel, and you can control how much of each oscillator goes to which filter. The first filter has 16 different modes, ranging from classic 12db low pass to a speech-like vowel filter, while the second sweep from low pass, through bandpass or notch, and into high pass.

To control all these various parts, you’ve got five six-stage envelopes and five LFOs that all feed into a 32-slot modulation matrix. In total there are 29 modulation sources and 155 destinations. It’s a lot of variables to contend with. Frankly, it can feel overwhelming, and that’s even before you start digging into the effects and voice options like “density.”

The good news is, to get started with the Hydrasynth you don’t need to master its sound design tools, you can just dig into the presets. The stock sounds are pretty solid and cover a wide range of styles, though it does especially excel at icy ambience, strings and plucky keys. But even navigating those can be daunting, especially as some of them start to sound indistinguishable. There’s a grand total of 640 presets spread over five banks of 128 patches. Scrolling through them one by one with the large patch knob can get tedious. But if you turn your attention to the small OLED to the right of the “Main Systems” section, you can use the encoders there to filter presets by category, such as brass, ambient or e-piano. There’s also a favorites menu, where you bookmark 32 of your most used patches.

(I do want to briefly pause here, to nitpick about the layout of the Hydrasynth Explorer, especially because this isn’t an issue on other models. The Keyboard, Desktop and Deluxe versions all have their displays in a single line. But the Explorer has them staggered, with the navigation display being below and to the left of the parameter display on the right. The right display is significantly smaller and more cramped on the Explorer, but that’s less of an issue than the alignment, which means your eyes have to move much further when going back and forth. It’s doubly frustrating since the solution is simple: move the large patch knob from above the left display, to below it. This would have the added benefit of making it easier to see the left OLED when browsing patches since your hand wouldn’t be blocking it.)

Now, while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with playing presets (I am mostly a tweak-a-preset guy myself), you would be underutilizing the Hydrasynth if you didn’t explore its depths. And while it’s an incredibly complex instrument no matter how you slice it, ASM deserves credit for making the interface as clear and intuitive as possible. The Hydrasynth is far from being knob-per-function, but a lot of work was done to minimize menu diving.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

The front panel is divided up into neatly labeled sections: arpeggiator, filer controls, main systems, master controls and module select. In each of these sections are easy-to-read buttons, often with just one function, plus some knobs. And, by the way, all of those buttons and knobs are a delight to use. This is an incredibly well made instrument and while some sacrifices were made to reach the $599 price, build quality was not one of them.

You’ll spend most of your time at the bottom of the Master Control and Module Select section where there are 26 buttons for the various parts of the signal chain. The leftmost buttons are where you select which oscillator to modify. When you press the OSC 1 button, the right screen brings up the options for that module and you change the parameters with the endless encoders at the four corners of the display. The up and down arrows to the right scroll through the pages of settings.

For the oscillators, there are only two pages and you’ll only really need to venture to the second one in Wavescan mode. That’s where you’ll find the “wavelist edit” option. Press that and you’ll open the menu to select the sounds for your wavetable. All you do is turn the knobs next to each parameter for Wav 1, Wav 2, etcetera until you’re happy with your selection. You can pick up to eight, but you’re not required to. What makes the Hydrasynth somewhat unique is that you’re not just picking a set of static wave shapes to switch between, but as you change the position of the Wavescan it will morph from to the other seamlessly. Which means if you move through those eight shapes slowly, you can get a lot of movement out of just a single oscillator.

To set the sound for the second and third oscillators, the process is the same.

As you move from left to right in the signal chain you’ll next encounter the Mutant 1-4 buttons. Press one and the OLED on the right brings up the parameters. (Noticing a trend?) Depending on what Mutator you select using the top left encoder you’ll see different options here to control. But at its most basic, you just turn one knob to choose, say PWM, then another set the wet/dry value you want.

There are eight different Mutators to choose from, but I want to focus briefly on PW-ASM, or Pulse Width ASM. There are two things that make pulse width modulation special on the Hydrasynth. One, you can use it on any waveshape — usually PWM is associated with square waves. And two: in ASM mode you can create your own custom pulse width patterns. PW-ASM breaks a wave into eight distinct sections and you dial in the amount of modulation around each of the slice points. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to explain, but suffice to say I don’t know of any other synths out there with this feature. (If you do, please tell me in the comments.)

Under the Mutants is the button to bring up the ring modulation and noise parameters, and then as you follow the line illustrating the signal chain to the right, you see they all feed into the mixer. Here you can dial in the volume of each oscillator, the ring mod and noise section, as well as panning for each. And this is also where you’ll decide how much of each to send to which filter and whether the filters are in series or parallel. This is one of the sections with the most pages of options to scroll through, but it’s still straightforward. Just press the up and down buttons next to the display until you see the parameter you want, then turn the knob next to it.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

After the mixer, you’ll see the signal chain branches off again with your envelopes (ENV) along the top, LFOs along the bottom and down the middle your audio signal, including filters, amp and effects.

By default ENV 1 and LFO 1 are connected to the filters, while ENV 2 and LFO 2 are connected to the amp. There’s no way to break the connection between ENV 2 and the amp, it will always define the total volume of your sound. That doesn’t mean you can’t control the volume of the oscillators separately; it just means you have to get creative.

So if you wanted OSC 2 to come in slightly after OSC 1 you could use ENV 3 to control it, just with a slightly longer attack time than ENV 2. To make the connection you could press the mod matrix button at the top and scroll through all the options. But the easier way is to hold the ENV 3 button, then press the mixer button. Then those two modules will be automatically connected and all you have to do is pick the parameter you want (OSC2CVol in this case) and dial in the depth. It’s also worth mentioning that the Hydrasynth’s envelopes have six stages — delay, attack, hold, decay, sustain and release — as opposed to the more common ADSR. That means you can actually delay the start of the envelope for a certain amount of time after a key press.

Even more interesting are the LFOs. While you can use them to create whooshing filter sounds and gentle pitch warbles, you can also use them as a sequencer. Step mode lets you create a customized modulation pattern of up to 64 steps.

On the fourth page of the LFO settings, though, you’ll find the SemiLock option — this is where the magic happens. See, Hydrasynth doesn’t have a proper sequencer, but you can use the LFOs locked to semitones thanks to the latest firmware. So, with fairly minimal work, OSC 2 could come in behind OSC 1 and play melody over a pad. This is just one example of how to use this power. You can sequence anything from filter cutoff to the wet/dry mix on the reverb to the detune or glide time, or even the parameters of the Mutators. This level of control opens a whole world of possibilities.

At the end of the signal chain you have four effects slots to work with: one pre-fx, one post-fx and sandwiched between them are dedicated delay and reverb modules. There are a few different varieties of the latter two. The reverse delay is excellent, and while the plate and hall reverbs are solid, cloud is my favorite setting.

The post- and pre-fx sections have the same options to choose from, including phaser, distortion, compression, rotary, tremolo and more. But my favorite to stick at the end of almost every patch is Lo-Fi. You can turn down the sample rate to get some crushed digital sounds and there are various filter types to choose from that give you the quality of something being played through a phone or over a radio. It’s just a nice touch to keep everything from getting too crisp and clean.

Here’s the thing: This is only just scratching the surface of what the Hydrasynth is capable of. There are a number of options in the Voice menu for adding depth and warmth, like the sort of vague Analog Feel. There’s an incredibly capable arpeggiator with eight different modes. There’s a macro section where you can assign multiple parameters to a single knob to dramatically transform sounds in a performance-friendly way. And I barely even mentioned the keyboard which has polyphonic aftertouch — something basically unheard of at this price point.

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

The Hydrasynth Explorer, at least under the hood, is virtually indistinguishable from it’s larger counterpart the Hydrasynth Keys, which costs almost twice as much. So what are you giving up here? Well, one the Explorer has mini keys instead of full-sized ones, but that might not be a con for some people like myself with small hands and limited piano skills. There’s also no proper pitch and mod wheels, instead you get touchstrips; they’re fine, but not nearly as accurate. The biggest loss is the reduced number of controls. The filter knobs have been reduced from five to three, and there’s only four macro / parameter knobs, versus eight on the larger models. But honestly, these are minor sacrifices to reach this price.

The one last thing to address is that ASM calls the Hydrasynth Explorer “portable,” but that’s only true in the most technical of senses. In addition to the included AC adapter you can power it with eight AA batteries — which is not a trivial amount — for three to four hours. Plus, the Explorer weighs 7.5 pounds and it’s nearly 22 inches long. Sure, that’s petite compared to the 22 pounds and 32 inches of the Hydrasynth Keys, but this is not something that you’re gonna toss in a backpack and bring to the park on a whim. While it’s easy enough to toss in the trunk and bring to a jam session, that ASM doesn’t include or sell a travel case for it, kind of undermines the portability pitch.

So no, the Explorer isn’t really what I’d call “portable,” but that doesn’t matter. Even if this thing never left your studio it would be worth the money. It sounds great (as long as you can accept that it sounds obviously digital), it’s solidly built, and it has an almost bottomless set of sound design tools to explore. It’s possible to just get lost building patches on the Hydrasynth — and not in an annoying menu-diving way. If you’ve got the money, the larger Keys with more hands-on controls will almost certainly save you some headaches, but the Hydrasynth Explorer might be the most synth you can get for under $600.

Employees and contractors at Activision Blizzard are walking out of work today in support of their colleagues at Raven Software. The protest, the third such work stoppage to hit the company since it was sued by California over sexual harassment allegations in July, comes after Raven, one of the studios that supports Activision’s incredibly popular Call of Duty franchise, laid off 12 quality assurance contractors. The action started on Monday when 60 workers at Raven Software, including both full-time employees and contractors, left work to protest the surprise terminations.

The protest has no planned end date, a first for the walkouts at Activision Blizzard. Those involved in the action are demanding the publisher hire all QA contractors, including those who lost their jobs on Friday, as full-time employees. “Those participating in this demonstration do so with the continued success of the studio at the forefront of their mind,” said Blizzard Activision worker advocacy group A Better ABK on Twitter. “The Raven QA department is essential to the day-to-day functioning of the studio as a whole. Terminating the contracts of high performing testers in a time of consistent work and profit puts the health of the studio at risk.”

Management at Raven told QA staff at the end of last week it would hold one-on-one meetings with everyone to decide if they would get the chance to stay at the studio as a full-time staff member. The developer told approximately 30 percent of the team their contracts would end on January 28th, with more still waiting to find if they’ll have a job beyond the start of the year. According to A Better ABK, every worker Raven decided not to keep was in “good standing,” which is to say they had not underperformed in their job or committed a fireable offense.

According to The Washington Post, Raven studio head Brian Raffel said during an all-hands meeting on Monday he didn’t consider the terminations as layoffs. Instead, he said the studio had merely decided not to renew the contracts of those who were let go. Raffel reportedly later apologized for his comments.

“We are converting approximately 500 temporary workers to full-time employees in the coming months,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier in response to the layoffs. “Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended.” The move comes after the publisher posted a net income of $639 million during its most recent fiscal quarter.

We’ve reached out to Activision Blizzard for additional comment.

This latest action isn’t directly related to the misconduct claims that have left Activision Blizzard in turmoil for months — though it’s likely safe to say frustrations across the company are at a boiling point. The first walkout occurred in July shortly after the company issued an “abhorrent and insulting” response to the harassment lawsuit from California's fair employment regulator. More recently, employees staged a second action after The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report on Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s handling of the crisis. That article implicated Kotick in the mistreatment that has characterized the company’s work culture for years. As part of that protest, thousands of Activision Blizzard employees called for Kotick’s resignation.

Users are reporting a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services, bringing down websites and backend services for organizations including the Associated Press, Disney+ and Vice. Details about the outage are scarce.

The AWS status page reported increased error rates for its Management Console on Tuesday morning. 

"We are experiencing API and console issues in the US-EAST-1 Region," the page said. "We have identified root cause and we are actively working towards recovery. This issue is affecting the global console landing page, which is also hosted in US-EAST-1."

AWS went down in June, taking out sites like Twitch, Reddit, Twitter, Hulu, HBO Max, Shopify and Amazon itself. That outage was resolved the same day. AWS has suffered outages prior to this year, too.

You won't have to wait too much longer to play (or replay) the last two Uncharted games on your PlayStation 5. Naughty Dog and Sony have confirmed that Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection will be available for PS5 on January 28th for $50, or $10 if you've bought the PS4 versions of either included game. The companies have also revealed just what audiovisual upgrades you can expect. These aren't complete overhauls (they're both mid-cycle PS4 releases, after all), but they might be worthwhile if you missed out on Uncharted 4 or Lost Legacy, or just want to make the most of a new TV.

As with some PS5 titles, you can prioritize the graphics for either resolution or speed. A "Fidelity Mode" jumps to native 4K while preserving a target frame rate of 30FPS. You can alternately use a "Performance Mode" if 60FPS matters more than crisp graphics, and there's even a "Performance+" option that caps the resolution at 1080p in return for an extra-smooth 120FPS.

Both games promise "near instant" load times thanks to the PS5's SSD, and Naughty Dog is taking advantage of improved DualSense haptic feedback as well as spatial audio for built-in TV speakers and headphones. It should be a more immersive experience, then, even if you can't justify an elaborate audio setup.

You'll have to be patient if you're jonesing for the PC version. You can add the Uncharted bundle to your wish lists on the Epic Games Store and Steam, but the developers haven't narrowed down the release date beyond a generic "2022." The system requirements aren't yet available, either. While that's not surprising given the extra challenges of porting a PS4 game to PCs, it could leave you waiting a bit longer than you might like.

Many Tesla vehicles allow drivers to play a selection of games on the infotainment system while the car is in motion, according to a report by The New York Times. The company rolled out an update in the summer that reportedly let drivers play Solitaire, jet fighter game Sky Force Reloaded and strategy title The Battle of Polytopia: Moonrise while on the road.

The touchscreen is said to display a warning before a game of Solitaire starts. “Solitaire is a game for everyone, but playing while the car is in motion is only for passengers," the message reads, according to the Times. That indicates Tesla knows the game is playable while the car's moving.

Although players have to acknowledge that they're a passenger, the driver can tap that button and play the game. Even if a passenger is playing something, it's possible that a driver will divert their attention to the screen to see what's happening anyway.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 3,142 people died in crashes involving distracted drivers in the US in 2019. A 2017 study suggested that many infotainment features absorbed drivers' attention too long for them to be safe. Researchers at the University of Utah found that, when drivers used voice-based and touchscreen systems, they "took their hands, eyes and mind off the road for more than 24 seconds to complete tasks."

Drivers are supposed to keep their hands on the steering wheel when Tesla's Autopilot is engaged, but a recent study suggested drivers become less attentive when the mode is active. In August, the NHTSA said it was investigating Autopilot following a number of crashes with parked first responder vehicles. Those resulted in one death and 17 injuries.

Other automakers lock many touchscreen and infotainment features when the car is in motion. Stellantis (fka Fiat Chrysler), for instance, lets drivers and passengers watch a DVD on the dashboard screen in some vehicles, though only when the car's parked. NHTSA guidelines urge automakers to ensure that cars with infotainment devices prevent drivers from carrying out "inherently distracting secondary tasks while driving.”

Tesla has addeda numberof games to its infotainment system over the last few years. Until a few months ago, they were only playable while the car was parked. The Times says Tesla and CEO Elon Musk didn't respond to requests for comment — the company no longer has a PR department. Engadget has contacted the NHTSA for comment.

Ron Swanson is coming to the world of The Last of Us. Yesterday, Murray Bartlett, a cast member on the upcoming HBO show based on the video game, said that he recently shot scenes with Nick Offerman, a person who hadn't yet been linked to the production. Now, Naughty Dog has confirmed a report from Variety that Offerman is playing the loner Bill in The Last of Us. Bill had a small but crucial role in the original game that was played by W. Earl Brown, who said earlier this year he wouldn't be reprising the role in the HBO show.

Offerman is not the first person to be cast as Bill. The role was originally offered to Con O’Neil, who previously had worked with show runner Craig Manzin on his Chernobyl series (also on HBO). According to Variety, O'Neil had to back out of the role due to scheduling conflicts.

In addition to filming scenes with Bartlett, Offerman should get plenty of screen time with series leads Pedro Pascal, who is playing Joel, and Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie. While there have been plenty of leaks from location shooting around Canada that shows this production is well underway, there's no word yet on when The Last of Us will arrive on HBO. It's expected sometime in 2022, though. 

While Facebook is still trying to explain what a metaverse is, Snap has been working toward a very different vision for an AR-enabled future. Over the last four years, the company has recruited a small army of artists, developers and other AR enthusiasts to help build out its massive library of in-app AR effects.

Now Snap is tapping lens creators — it has more than 250,000 — to help it make AR more useful. The company is releasing new tools that allow artists and developers to essentially make mini apps inside of their lenses. And it’s working on getting its latest AR innovation into more of their hands: its next-generation Spectacles, which have AR displays.

The goal, according to Sophia Dominguez, Snap’s head of AR platform partnerships, is to expand the ways AR can be used, while keeping those experiences firmly rooted in the real world — not the metaverse. “You don't want to escape into another world,” she says of Snap’s philosophy. “To us, the world around us is magical, and there's things to learn from it.” Instead, she says, the company is looking to enable experiences that can “bridge” digital spaces and physical ones, and create “more useful applications” for AR.

For now, Snap is leaving it up to creators to figure out exactly what a “useful” augmented reality lens is, but the company is introducing a number of new tools to help them build it. At its annual Lens Fest event, Snap is also introducing a new version of Lens Studio, the software that allows developers to create and publish lenses inside of Snapchat.

The latest version includes new APIs that allow AR creators to connect their effects to real-time information. The resulting lenses are almost like mini apps inside Snapchat lenses. For example, creators can build lenses with real-time translation capabilities via iTranslate. Or check on their preferred cryptocurrency with a lens powered by crypto platform FTX. Weather data (via Accuweather) and stock market info (from Alpaca) will also be available, and the company is planning to add more partners in the near future.

Snap

These kinds of lenses are even more intriguing in the context of Snapchat’s augmented reality glasses, its “next-gen” Spectacles. Snap first showed off the glasses earlier this year, saying that the device would only be available to a small number of AR creators and developers. Since then, the company has handed out its latest Specs to hundreds of creators, who have been helping Snap figure out how far they can push the tech, and what kinds of new experiences AR glasses can enable.

That’s because with Spectacles, a “lens” doesn’t just have to be something that goes on top of a selfie — it can add contextual information to the world around you. For example, one creator experimenting with Spectacles recently showed off a concept where staring out a train window can surface details about where you are and what the weather is.

Nike created a Spectacles lens that allows runners to follow an AR pigeon along their route, and view different animations along the way.

Creator Brielle Garcia, who has also been experimenting with Spectacles, recently previewed a concept for an AR menu that allows users to view 3D models of meals on a restaurant menu. Other creators are experimenting with interactive shopping and gaming lenses.

“When you think about what's gonna get people to put glasses on their face every single day, those are the things today you’re checking your apps for,” Dominguez said. “We’re really excited to see the different UIs that people can create in augmented reality with this kind of utility.”

Snap

All that comes with an important caveat: the reason why the AR Spectacles aren’t for sale and likely won’t be anytime soon is due to some pretty significant hardware limitations. Battery life is extremely limited (the charging case provides four extra charges) and the glasses themselves are, well, ugly.

While previous iterations of Spectacles look and feel like sunglasses, the next-gen Specs are comically large. Every time I see them, all I can think of is the chunky black frames worn by Roddy Piper in They Live. And, after spending some time wearing them, I can confirm that they are even more ridiculous looking when you put them on your face.

That said, Snap has been clear from the get-go that this version isn’t intended to look good, or even like something people will want to buy. Rather, the goal is to enable new types of AR development. 

And, despite the looks, their capabilities are impressive.The frames are equipped with “3D waveguides,” which power the AR displays; as well as dual cameras, speakers and microphones. On the left side is a capture button, so you can snap a photo or video of your surroundings, and on the right is a “scan” button. Much like the feature of the same name in the Snapchat app, scanning can help you find lenses based on your surroundings.

I only got to experiment with a handful of AR lenses while wearing the Specs, but the process was strikingly similar to using lenses in Snapchat’s app. I was able to scroll through a selection of lenses by swiping along a touchpad on the outside of the frames. Then, you can place the lens into your surroundings to see the AR effects around you. Like other AR headsets, the field of view is narrow enough that it’s not fully immersive, but I was impressed by the resolution and brightness of what I saw.

“'I’ve worked on each generation of Spectacles and this one is by far the most fun,” says David Meisenholder, a senior product designer at Snap, pointing to the company’s close collaboration with its creator community. “We're also learning how much we need to go to make those perfect for the consumer glasses of the future.”

You probably won't see Rocket League's flying cars in the real world any time soon, but BMW and esports brand LVL might offer the next best thing. They're teaming on Das Race Goal, a Rocket League-style esports platform that has remote-controlled cars play soccer for charity. Players worldwide will steer the vehicles in a real arena while grabbing virtual powerups and activating "special effects."

The initial event takes place December 12th at 1PM Eastern and will be streamed live on LVL's Twitch channel. This inaugural competition will have six three-player teams compete in Munich's BMW Welt stadium to raise awareness and funds for the United Nations Population Fund's Skills for Life programs, which aim to improve education and healthcare for youth in the Caribbean and Latin America. Each team will have an esports player (including members from Cloud9, Fnatic, G2 Esports and OG), a social media influencer and a young gamer involved in the UN's efforts.

Thomas Fellger, chief of Das Race Goal partner Icon Group, stressed this wasn't just a one-off tourney — it was part of a "long-term partnership" that could help the UN's long-term rights initiatives. At the least, this could add the thrill of real-world elements to a video game format that already has a loyal following.