Amazon's Fire TV Cube has always been a bit of a curiosity. Clearly, the company wanted to combine an Echo Dot with a Fire TV streaming player, but it took a few tries before we genuinely liked it. Now with the third-generation Fire TV Cube, Amazon is giving it a more premium sheen with a cloth-covered design, a more powerful 2GHz octa-core processor, and an HDMI input connection for plugging in your cable box. Doing so will let you tune the Fire TV Cube to specific channels with voice commands—you know, for those of you who can't let your local sports go.
Given that new hardware, Amazon says the Fire TV Cube will feel much faster than before. It's also the first streamer on the market to include support for WiFi 6E, which should help when you're dealing with huge 4K streams. When it comes to older content, Amazon has also included Super Resolution support for upscaling HD video into 4K. It's unclear if that will actually help older content look better, but we're looking forward to testing it out.
In addition to the $140 Fire TV Cube, Amazon also announced the $35 Alexa Voice Remote Pro, which is unfortunately sold separately. It features a backlight and programmable buttons for launching your favorite streaming apps. Perhaps most useful though? There's a Remote Finder feature, which allows you to ask Alexa to trigger a noise in case the Remote Pro gets stuck in your couch. That's one big advantage it has over Apple's easy-to-lose Apple TV remote.
Amazon
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Amazon wants to help you get better understanding of your sleep, but knows that many of us hate wearing something to bed just to track our rest. That's why it made the Halo Rise — a bedside lamp and sleep tracker that works without a camera or microphone to track the person resting closest to it. It'll also use machine learning to detect what sleep zones you're in and will cost $140 when it's available later this year.
It uses a "no-contact, low-energy sensor" to sense movement and respiratory patterns. Together with machine learning, Amazon can tell from the rising and falling or expanding and contracting of your body to determine your sleep stages throughout the night. Amazon says it "trained and validated the device's sleep algorithm against the clinical gold standard for sleep analysis called... overnight polysomnography."
If there's another person or animal sharing your bed, Amazon said its algorithm can detect and exclude their activity and only include your data in your sleep summary, which you'll see every day. The company will then offer you tips on how to sleep better, including suggestions on how to optimize your environment.
The Rise also has sensors to gauge the temperature, humidity and brightness of your room, and is also a lamp. It'll glow in accordance with sunrise times so you can wake up to a gradually brightening grow instead of having your retinas scorched off when you open your curtains. You can also set a smart alarm that will monitor your sleep stages and wake you at an ideal time instead of disrupting you in the middle of deep sleep.
The Rise will also work with Alexa and you can set a compatible Alexa device to start playing your favorite song as you're waking up, based on the Rise's insights. If you have personalized sleep routines, the Rise can also trigger them when you get in bed, turning off your lights and other devices for you.
Those concerned about privacy can turn off the sleep-tracking sensor whenever they want, and Amazon said that all Halo health data is encrypted in transit and at rest in the cloud. You'll also be able to download your health data, limit access to it or delete it altogether.
Though Amazon describes this as a "first of its kind bedside sleep tracker," Google already introduced something similar last year with the second-generation Nest Hub. That device uses the company's Soli radar sensor to monitor your breathing and is designed to be used by your bed, too. It doesn't offer the alarm and lights that the Halo Rise does, but is based on the same principle.
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Wacom has unveiled one of its most advanced drawing tablets yet for creatives, the $3,500 Cintiq Pro 27. It has an all-new compact design, a 26.9-inch, 120Hz 4K reference touch display and all-new Pro Pen 3 that's adjustable for weight, balance, button layout and thickness.
The Cintiq Pro 27 is actually smaller than the Cintiq Pro 24, thanks to the significantly slimmer bezels. Wacom also moved the ExpressKey buttons to the back left and right sides, but they're located on the grips to make them easy to find and use.
While previous models effectively required an external monitor to view accurate colors, the new multi-touch display is effectively a reference monitor itself. It uses a true 10-bit and not a dithered 8-bit 4K panel, delivering 99 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut and 98 percent of the DCI-P3 (HDR) gamut. It also runs at 120Hz for smooth and responsive drawing and has a peak brightness of 400 nits, just enough to display HDR content. It's even Pantone SkinTone validated, meeting the Pantone standard for the full range of human skin tones.
The faster refresh allows the new Pro Pen 3 to track twice as quickly as previous models. And the pen itself is customizable, giving users the ability to change the size, weight, center of gravity and even the button layout via swappable parts. The battery-free electro-magnetic resonance tech offers 8,192 levels of pressure and ships with five standard and five felt-tip nibs.
The Ergo Stand supports 20 degrees of screen rotation along with tilting functions, but it's not included in the price and costs $500. However, the display also supports VESA mounts if you prefer to go that route. The Cintiq Pro 27 is now available for $3,500 from Wacom and select retailers — a lot of money to be sure, but more reasonable as a professional tool.
A few years ago, Samsung had major battery issues when several faulty Galaxy Note 7 phones had exploding batteries. The devices were recalled, and the company spent a lot of time over the following years outlining all the rigorous battery tests it did to ensure it didn’t happen again.
Now, YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss, as well as others, have noticed batteries in Samsung phones are swelling up at a disproportionately high rate. This usually affects older devices, but some are only a couple of years old – the 2020-era Galaxy Z Fold 2, for instance.
Samsung hasn’t formally responded yet, but battery swelling isn't a new problem, nor one unique to Galaxy phones. As lithium batteries age, their increasingly flawed chemical reactions can produce gas that inflates battery cells. Many companies suggest you keep device batteries at a roughly 50 percent charge if you won't use it for extended periods.
$1.5 billion is available to fund charging stations along highways.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law earmarked $5 billion in funding over five years to help states install chargers along highways, and that process just took an important step forward. The Department of Transportation has approved EV charging plans for all 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico. The proposals cover 75,000 miles of highways.
The biggest change with iPadOS 16 may be Stage Manager, a totally new multitasking system that adds overlapping, resizable windows to the iPad. The latest iPadOS 16 developer beta can run Stage Manager on several older devices: It'll work on the 11-inch iPad Pro (first generation and later) and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (third generation and later). However, there is one notable missing feature for the older iPad Pro models – Stage Manager will only work on the iPad's built-in display. You won't be able to extend your display to an external monitor.
Intel's 13th-gen Core chips, AKA Raptor Lake, have landed. The company's new top-end chip, the Core i9-13900K, sports 24 cores (eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores) and can reach up to a 5.8GHz Max Turbo frequency. Last year's i9-12900K offered 16 cores and a maximum speed of 5.2 GHz. Intel claims the new 13900K is 41 percent better for multi-threaded work, like video encoding. If you skipped last year's chips or are running even older Intel hardware, the 13th-gen CPUs look like the update you've been waiting for.
Set to debut on its upcoming flagship EX90 electric SUV, Volvo's new radar system monitors both the cabin and trunk, to prevent a car from being locked while anyone is inside. The idea is to guard against situations where pets or children may be inadvertently trapped inside a car on a hot day, with the car surfacing reminders if it recognizes there are occupants inside when being locked. Volvo says the multiple radars in the trunk, in the car's overhead console and in roof-mounted reading lamps can detect "sub-millimeter" movements.
Apple, of all companies, delivering the most competitively priced smartwatch you can buy in 2022? Apple’s starter smartwatch offers a comprehensive suite of health and fitness tracking tools, emergency features and snappy performance. As long as you’re not extremely clumsy or impatient, you won’t miss features like the hardier screen, dust resistance or the always-on display found on the more expensive models.
The chain is also piloting AI that tells kitchen staff what to cook.
Chipotle's tortilla-making robot is moving to a real restaurant. In October, the machine will start cooking tortilla chips in Fountain Valley, California. Feedback from customers and workers will help the company decide on a national rollout. Artificial intelligence will influence some human cooks, too. Chipotle is piloting a demand-based cooking system that uses AI to tell staff what and when to cook based on forecasts for how much they'll need.
With the X-H2S, Fujifilm has a new flagship camera. It features a new 26.2-megapixel stacked sensor that delivers shooting speeds up to 40 fps in electronic shutter mode. At the same time, it has the most advanced video features of any APS-C camera, with up to 6.2K video. It also offers in-body stabilization, a high-resolution EVF, CFexpress support and more. The main drawback: The autofocus still isn’t quite as fast as rival cameras.
One of Shark's higher-end robot vacuums is on sale at Amazon, and you may want to check it out if you're looking for a model with a clean base. The Shark IQ RV1001AE robot vacuum is currently listed for $300, and the deal is only available today. That's half off the model's original retail price of $600 and just a dollar more than its all-time low on the website. The RV1001AE vacuum features powerful suction that can clean both bare floors and carpets, as well as a self-cleaning brush roll that can remove pet and human hair on its own. No more balls of tangled hair getting stuck and preventing the vacuum from being able to clean efficiently.
The machine cleans the floor row by row, and its IQ navigation capability means it can map your whole home so that you can select specific rooms to clean. If it runs out of battery, it can even go back to its dock, recharge and pick up from where it left off. When you want to the robot to start cleaning, you can get it to move by controlling it with your voice through Alexa and Google Assistant. And yes, the vacuum is also connected to the company's app, which you can use to schedule cleanings for your whole house or for certain rooms at specific hours of the day. The robot empties its bin into the clean base once it's done, and that bagless base can hold up to 45 days' worth of dirt.
In case you'd rather get a model you can manually use — maybe your pet is deathly afraid of robot vacuums or maybe you personally want to make sure no corner gets missed — Shark has another two models on sale at Amazon. The Shark IZ363HT has a self-cleaning brush roll, as well, and is listed for $230 at 34 percent off. Meanwhile, the Shark IZ483H is currently on sale for $300, or $200 off its regular price. It has a self-cleaning brush roll, a removable hand vacuum and a 120-minute battery life on a single charge.
Russia has removed all iOS apps from VK, the second largest tech company in Russia, The Verge has reported. That includes not just the VK social media app that's the fifth most popular in Russia, but others like Mail.ru and VK Music. The move was made in response to UK sanctions against the Russian government.
VK confirmed that "some VK applications are blocked by Apple, so they are not available for download and update in the App Store," according to a (Google translated) press release. "Their core functionality will be familiar and stable... [but] there may be difficulties with notifications and payments. VK will continue to develop and support applications for iOS."
These apps are being distributed by developers majority-owned or majority-controlled by one or more parties sanctioned by the UK government. In order to comply with these sanctions, Apple terminated the developer accounts associated with these apps, and the apps cannot be downloaded from any App Store, regardless of location.
Apple confirmed that it removed the apps and shut down VK's developer accounts. "These apps are being distributed by developers majority-owned or majority-controlled by one or more parties sanctioned by the UK government," a spokesperson told The Verge. "In order to comply with these sanctions, Apple terminated the developer accounts associated with these apps, and the apps cannot be downloaded from any App Store, regardless of location. Users who have already downloaded these apps may continue to use them."
Earlier this week, the UK government imposed sanctions on Russian oligarchs over the sham referendums held in Ukraine. Included in the list are executives from Gazprombank, a Russian bank with ties to VK. "Today’s sanctions will target those behind these sham votes, as well as the individuals that continue to prop up the Russian regime’s war of aggression," said UK foreign secretary James Cleverly in a statement.
Russia's Ministry of Digital Affairs told state media site RT that it's investigating the reasons for the removal. The apps are still available on Google Play — Engadget has reached out to Google to see if it plans to follow Apple's lead.
Earlier this year, Apple halted sales of all its products in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion, while also limiting Apple Pay and pulling apps from outlets like RT and Sputnik. Last year, a Russian law went into effect that required Samsung, Apple and other manufacturers to pre-install Russian apps like VK and Yandex on devices sold there.
Logitech is today announcing a quartet of products in its Designed for Mac series of wireless accessories. The first headline item is the MX Mechanical Mini (for Mac), an Apple-favoring variation on the existing MX Mini which launched earlier this year. Fundamentally, it’s the same product as before, offering a refined twist on the mechanical tenkeyless keyboards currently en vogue. Naturally, you’ll get macOS-specific keycaps, and it’s available in a pair of more Mac-friendly colors: Space Gray or Pale Gray.
Next up is a Mac-specific version of the company’s flagship MX Master 3S mouse, again in Space Gray or Pale Gray. That carries over all of the same features as the existing 3S, and if we’re being honest, there’s little reason for this to exist as a separate model. After all, the standard 3S is a universal model, and it can already be customized with Mac-specific shortcuts in the macOS version of Options+, Logitech’s app for accessory tweaking. But if you’re looking for consistency in your color choices, then if the prices are the same, then there’s also little option not to choose this one.
Logitech
The other major launch is for the Lift for Mac which, like the above, is a Mac-hued version of its existing vertical mouse. Logitech says that the 57-degree angle of attack places your mitt in a natural handshake position for better comfort. At the same time, the company is rolling out a new color for its K380 wireless keyboard, this time in Blueberry. You can also pick up the accompanying mouse in that same hue, should you wish to go all matchy matchy with your purple M1 iMac.
All four products are available to buy this month from Logitech’s official website and, most likely, your retailer of choice. The MX Mechanical Mini will set you back $150, while the MX Master 3S is marked up at $100, with the Lift costing $70, and the blueberry K380 is $40.
Bowers & Wilkins promised its next flagship headphones would debut later this year when it revealed the redesigned Px7 S2 model over the summer. Today, the company sticks to its word by officially unveiling the Px8. While Bowers & Wilkins retains much of it's signature look for this new version, there are some notable updates — especially on the inside. The premium looks and what the company calls "the best sound quality" it has ever offered in a set of wireless headphones will cost you $699.
Inside, new 40mm carbon cone drivers power the "new reference standard for sound," as Bowers & Wilkins describes it. The company says these components offer improved detail, resolution and "spaciousness" over the Px7 S2. As it has on previous models, Bowers & Wilkins angled those new drive units for consistent distance to the listener's ear across their surface. The company explains that this creates a "more immersive and highly accurate soundstage," edging ever closer to "the artist's intent." It certainly worked well on the Px7 S2.
The Px8 supports aptX Adaptive and thanks to Bowers & Wilkins' digital signal processing (DSP), these headphones can handle 24-bit streaming from the applicable services. Plus, you can now play tunes from Deezer, Qobuz and TIDAL directly from the company's Music app, the same software that's used to configure the headphones.
The other big change on the Px8 is Bowers & Wilkins' choice of materials. The arm construction is now made out of cast aluminum, shaped to meet the company's signature look. Memory foam cushions line the inside of the earcups, wrapped in Nappa leather and coming in black or tan color options. All of that certainly combines for a more refined look than the Px7 S2.
Bowers & Wilkins
The company says the Px8 packs the same active noise cancellation (ANC) platform as the Px7 S2. That's good, because the ANC setup on that more affordable model did an admirable job during our review. Six microphones total are on board: two to monitor driver output, two to keep tabs on ambient noise and two for voice. On the Px8, Bowers & Wilkins says it moved those last two mics closer together and adjusted their angles to improve voice quality and reduce wind noise.
Bowers & Wilkins is promising up to 30 hours of battery life on the Px8, same as the Px7 S2. The company doesn't specify whether that's with ANC on or off. However, during our review of the previous model I blew past the stated time using active noise cancellation. I still had 33 percent in the tank at the 30-hour mark. On the Px8, a 15-minute quick charge session will give you up to seven hours of listening time if you find yourself in a pinch.
The Px8 is available starting today from Bowers & Wilkins and select retailers for $699. If that's too much for you, that's certainly understandable. However, the Px7 S2 is $399 and it's one of our favorite headphones of 2022.
Intel's long-promised desktop GPUs are finally close to reaching gamers worldwide. As part of its flurry of announcements, Intel has confirmed the Arc A770 GPU will be available in a range of models on October 12th starting at $329. As the price suggests, this is aimed squarely at the GeForce RTX 3060, Radeon RX 6650 XT and other mid-tier video cards — Intel claims both "1440p gaming performance" and up to 65 percent stronger "peak" ray tracing performance than rivals, although it didn't name specific hardware.
Like competitors, Intel is counting as much on AI as it is raw computing power. The Arc A770 supports Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) that, like NVIDIA's DLSS or AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution, uses AI upscaling to boost frame rates at higher resolutions. It supports Intel's dedicated and integrated GPUs, and should be available in over 20 games by the end of 2022.
Tom's Hardwarenotes the Intel's first mainstream desktop GPU, the Arc A380, was exclusive to China. This is the first chance many outside of that country will have to buy a discrete Intel graphics card.
Intel is delivering the A770 later than expected, having promised the GPU for this summer. Even so, the timing might be apt. NVIDIA is currently focusing its attention on the high-end with the RTX 40 series, while AMD hasn't done much more than speed-bump the RX 6000 line. The A770 may stand out as a viable option for budget-conscious gamers, particularly when GPUs like the RTX 3060 still have higher official prices.
In between a few expected annoucements, Intel found time to share a surprise at its Innovation 2022 conference. After Samsung Display CEO JS Choi joined him on stage, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger showed off a concept “slidable” PC that featured an extendable OLED screen. By pulling on the edge of the prototype, Gelsinger made its 13-inch display turn into a 17-inch one. Put another way, the prototype went from being about the size of a large tablet like the iPad Pro to a small monitor.
“We’re announcing the world’s first 17-inch slidable display for PCs,” Choi told the audience. “This device will satisfy various needs for a larger screen and portability as well.” Samsung Display has been working on slidable OLED displays for a few years. The company showed off a prototype last year. Gelsinger called the concept PC a demonstration of what is possible to do with OLED display technology and a flexible plastic substrate. However, don’t expect the device he showed off to make it to market anytime soon, if at all.
