The latest version of Apple’s long-rumored mixed reality headset features the company’s recently announced M2 system-on-a-chip and 16GB of RAM, according to Mark Gurman. The Bloomberg reporter shared the tidbit of information in his latest Power On newsletter – along with details on a “deluge” of devices Apple plans to release over the next year, including a new HomePod speaker.
As The Verge points out, most recent reports, including those from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and The Information, have suggested the augmented and virtual reality headset would feature two processors. According to Kuo, one of the SoCs would have the same capabilities as the company’s M1 chip, while the other would be a lower-end chip designed to handle data from the device’s sensors.
After years of rumors, there’s been increasing evidence Apple is getting closer to the day when it will finally announce its mixed reality headset. In May, a Twitter user found evidence Apple likely used a shell company to obtain trademarks for “RealityOS.” Earlier in the year, developers also found references to the operating system in App Store upload logs. More recently, Tim Cook told China Daily he “couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities” presented by augmented and virtual reality, and told the publication to “stay tuned and you will see what we have to offer” on that front.
Google is warning of a sophisticated new spyware campaign that has seen malicious actors steal sensitive data from Android and iOS users in Italy and Kazakhstan. On Thursday, the company’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) shared its findings on RCS Labs, a commercial spyware vendor based out of Italy.
On June 16th, security researchers at Lookout linked the firm to Hermit, a spyware program believed to have been first deployed in 2019 by Italian authorities as part of an anti-corruption operation. Lookout describes RCS Labs as an NSO Group-like entity. The firm markets itself as a “lawful intercept” business and claims it only works with government agencies. However, commercial spyware vendors have come under intense scrutiny in recent years, largely thanks to governments using the Pegasus spyware to target activists and journalists.
According to Google, Hermit can infect both Android and iOS devices. In some instances, the company’s researchers observed malicious actors work with their target’s internet service provider to disable their data connection. They would then send the target an SMS message with a prompt to download the linked software to restore their internet connection. If that wasn’t an option, the bad actors attempted to disguise the spyware as a legitimate messaging app like WhatsApp or Instagram.
What makes Hermit particularly dangerous is that it can gain additional capabilities by downloading modules from a command and control server. Some of the addons Lookout observed allowed the program to steal data from the target’s calendar and address book apps, as well as take pictures with their phone’s camera. One module even gave the spyware the capability to root an Android device.
Google believes Hermit never made its way to the Play or App stores. However, the company found evidence that bad actors were able to distribute the spyware on iOS by enrolling in Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program. Apple told The Verge that it has since blocked any accounts or certificates associated with the threat. Meanwhile, Google has notified affected users and rolled out an update to Google Play Protect.
The company ends its post by noting the growth of the commercial spyware industry should concern everyone. “These vendors are enabling the proliferation of dangerous hacking tools and arming governments that would not be able to develop these capabilities in-house,” the company said. “While use of surveillance technologies may be legal under national or international laws, they are often found to be used by governments for purposes antithetical to democratic values: targeting dissidents, journalists, human rights workers and opposition party politicians.”
Apple plans to release a “deluge” of new products this fall and in the first half of 2023, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. And while many of the devices the company is reportedly working on won’t come won’t come as much of a surprise, one is interesting.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman reports Apple is readying a new HomePod speaker that will look and sound similar to the original 2018 model. As you may recall, the company discontinued the HomePod in 2021 without announcing a direct replacement. If you want a smart speaker with Siri built-in, your only option at the moment is the $99 HomePod mini.
According to Gurman, the new model will feature Apple’s forthcoming S8 chip and an updated display on the top of the speaker that may include multi-touch functionality. For context, the HomePod mini features an S5 chip, suggesting the new model will come with more processing power. Presumably, Apple also plans to price the speaker more competitively than it did the 2018 model. At $349, the HomePod was one of the more expensive smart speakers you could buy at the time, and it never felt like it lived up to that price.
Outside of an updated HomePod, Gurman says Apple is working on at least four new Mac models and an AirPods Pro refresh, among other devices. You can find the full details of Apple’s near-term product roadmap, “one of the most ambitious” in the company’s recent history, on Bloomberg.
A group of Democratic senators is urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Apple and Google over their collection of mobile users' information. In a letter addressed to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the lawmakers — Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory A. Booker and Sara Jacobs — accuse the tech giants of "engaging in unfair and deceptive practices by enabling the collection and sale of hundreds of millions of mobile phone users' personal data." They added that the companies "facilitated these harmful practices by building advertising-specific tracking IDs into their mobile operating systems."
The senators specifically mentioned in their letter how individuals seeking abortions will become particularly vulnerable if their data, especially their location information, is collected and shared. They wrote the letter shortly before the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, making abortion immediately illegal in states with trigger laws. They explained that data brokers are already selling location information of people visiting abortion providers. The senators also stressed how that information can now be used by private citizens incentivized by "bounty hunter" laws targeting individuals seeking an abortion.
Android and Google were built with tracking identifiers that are used for advertising purposes. While the identifiers are supposed to be anonymous, the senators said data brokers are selling databases linking them to consumer names, email addresses and telephone numbers. Apple rolled out an update for iOS last year to implement stricter app tracking privacy measures, requiring apps to ask for permission before collecting users' unique Identification for Advertisers device code.
Google, they said, still enables that tracking identifier by default. The company previously introduced features to make it harder to track users across apps, though, and it recently vowed to refine Privacy Sandbox on Android, "with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions." The tech giant told Ars Technica: "Google never sells user data, and Google Play strictly prohibits the sale of user data by developers... Any claims that advertising ID was created to facilitate data sale are simply false."
Despite the solutions the companies had introduced, the lawmakers said they'd already caused harm. They're now asking the FTC to look into the role Apple and Google played in "transforming online advertising into an intense system of surveillance that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestrained collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data."
Wyden and 41 other Democratic lawmakers also urged Google last month to stop collecting and keeping location data that could be used against people who've had or are seeking abortions. More recently, another group of lawmakers led by Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Elissa Slotkin asked the company to "crack down on manipulative search results" that lead people seeking abortions to anti-abortion clinics" instead.
Flo, one of the most widely used period tracking apps, says it intends to launch a new "anonymous mode" in an effort to address privacy concerns in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “We will soon be launching an ‘Anonymous Mode’ that removes your personal identity from your Flo account, so that no one can identify you,” the company said in a statement shared on Twitter.
It’s not clear how this will work or when it might launch. We’ve reached out to Flo for more details on "anonymous mode."
Period tracking apps have come under particular scrutiny ever since a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked last month. Privacy advocates and legal experts have warned that data collected by period tracking apps, which is often shared with other entities, could be used to fuel investigations into people seeking abortion services. News of the Supreme Court’s decision led to renewed calls on social media for people to delete period tracking apps from their phones and remove their personal details from the services.
Notably, Flo itself has a messy history when it comes to protecting users’ privacy. The app came under fire in 2019 after The Wall Street Journal reported the app was sharing users’ sensitive information, including details about their menstrual cycles and if they were trying to get pregnant, with Facebook, Google and other third-parties.
The company reached a settlement with the FTC in 2021 over allegations it misled users about how their data was handled. Flo said at the time that the settlement “was not an admission of any wrongdoing.” The company said in an update in May that it had “successfully completed” an independent privacy audit that was a requirement of the settlement.
We may be a few weeks out from Amazon Prime Day, but early deals are already starting to roll in. If you're in need of a new smart TV, Amazon has discounted a bunch of Fire TVs and Prime members can pick up a 55-inch Omni Series set for only $300. Elsewhere, Apple's second-generation AirPods are back on sale for $100, Sony's new Linkbuds S received their first discount and Samsung's latest Discover sales event has slashed prices of appliances, wearables and storage gadgets. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
AirPods (2nd gen)
Chris Velazco / Engadget
The second-generation AirPods are down to $100 right now, or 37 percent off their original price. While they don't have all the bells and whistles of the new, third-gen models, these are still decent earbuds that we liked for their improved wireless performance and good battery life.
Apple's Mac Mini M1 has returned to a record-low price of $570. It's the most affordable M1 machine you can get and we like its sleek design and good array of ports.
The 44mm blue Apple Watch SE has dropped to a new low of $209 at Walmart. This is a great deal on the already affordable smartwatch and we gave it a score of 88 for its solid performance, comfortable design and handy watchOS features.
The MacBook Air M1 is $100 off and down to $899. We gave the laptop a score of 94 for its blazing fast performance, excellent battery life and lack of fan noise.
Dozens of Amazon Fire TVs are on sale ahead of Prime Day, including the new Omni Series sets. The Omni 4K smart TVs came out last September and they support HDR10, HLG and Dolby Digital Plus, and the larger TVs in the range also support Dolby Vision. Prime members can pick up the 55-inch model for only $300, while anyone can get up to 40 percent off the other sizes.
Razer's Kishi controller for iOS devices is $45 off right now and down to a new low of $55. It's a good accessory to have if you like to play games on the go. It has a wired connection, which means lower latency than Bluetooth controllers, plus an ergonomic design and a USB-C port for passthrough charging.
Sony's new Linkbuds S are 11 percent off and down to $178. This is their first real discount since launching earlier this year, and they have a small, IPX4 rated design, decent ANC and Auto Play support.
We've long been fans of Crucial's MX500 internal drive and now you can pick up the big one with 4TB of space for $320. That's 11 percent off and the best price we've seen. We like this drive for its standard design, solid read and write speeds and integrated power loss immunity feature.
Samsung's T7 SSD in 1TB is on sale for $115 right now, or only $5 more than its all-time-low price. We like this portable drive for its compact, shock-resistant body, fast read and write speeds and its multi-device compatibility.
Prime members can get the Luna game controller for only $40, which is $10 cheaper than its previous all-time low. It's designed to be used with Prime Gaming and Amazon's cloud gaming service, which costs $10 per month, but you can use Bluetooth or USB to connect it to Windows, Mac and Android devices to play other titles, too.
Through July 6th, you can get up to 60 percent off Nintendo Switch games if you buy them through the eShop. Some of the titles on sale include Super Mario Odyssey for $42, Skyrim for $30, Pikmin 3 Deluxe for $42 and Just Dance 2022 for $20.
Steam's summer sale runs through July 7th and knocks up to 90 percent off titles. Some of the standout games you'll find in this sale include Hollow Knight, Forza Horizon 5, No Man's Sky and God of War.
Wellbots has knocked up to $90 off Arlo Pro 4 security camera bundles. You can get a three-camera kit for $550 with the code ARLO90, a two-camera bundle for $380 with the code ARLO70 or a one-camera set for $200 with the code ARLO25.
Sony's tiny SRS-XB13 is 20 percent off and down to only $48. Not only does it come in a bunch of fun colors, but this compact Bluetooth speaker also has a waterproof IP67 rated design, punchy bass and a 16-hour battery life.
The previous edition of the Kindle Paperwhite is on sale for $70 right now, or nearly half off its normal price. We gave this model a score of 95 for its improved, waterproof design, higher-contrast display and Audible support.
Satechi's summer sale knocks up to 75 percent off accessories, so you can grab discounted docks, hubs, chargers and more for less through June 30th. Some standout deals include the iMac USB-C monitor stand and hub for $50 and the USB-C mobile pro hub for $30.
The Metaverse, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions it, will be a fully immersive virtual experience that rivals reality, at least from the waist up. But the visuals are only part of the overall Metaverse experience.
“Getting spatial audio right is key to delivering a realistic sense of presence in the metaverse,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Friday blog post. “If you're at a concert, or just talking with friends around a virtual table, a realistic sense of where sound is coming from makes you feel like you're actually there.”
That concert, the blog post notes, will sound very different if performed in a full-sized concert hall than in a middle school auditorium on account of the differences between their physical spaces and acoustics. As such, Meta’s AI and Reality Lab (MAIR, formerly FAIR) is collaborating with researchers from UT Austin to develop a trio of open source audio “understanding tasks” that will help developers build more immersive AR and VR experiences with more lifelike audio.
The first is MAIR’s Visual Acoustic Matching model, which can adapt a sample audio clip to any given environment using just a picture of the space. Want to hear what the NY Philharmonic would sound like inside San Francisco’s Boom Boom Room? Now you can. Previous simulation models were able to recreate a room’s acoustics based on its layout — but only if the precise geometry and material properties were already known — or from audio sampled within the space, neither of which produced particularly accurate results.
MAIR’s solution is the Visual Acoustic Matching model, called AViTAR, which “learns acoustic matching from in-the-wild web videos, despite their lack of acoustically mismatched audio and unlabeled data,” according to the post.
“One future use case we are interested in involves reliving past memories,” Zuckerberg wrote, betting on nostalgia. “Imagine being able to put on a pair of AR glasses and see an object with the option to play a memory associated with it, such as picking up a tutu and seeing a hologram of your child’s ballet recital. The audio strips away reverberation and makes the memory sound just like the time you experienced it, sitting in your exact seat in the audience.”
MAIR’s Visually-Informed Dereverberation mode (VIDA), on the other hand, will strip the echoey effect from playing an instrument in a large, open space like a subway station or cathedral. You’ll hear just the violin, not the reverberation of it bouncing off distant surfaces. Specifically, it “learns to remove reverberation based on both the observed sounds and the visual stream, which reveals cues about room geometry, materials, and speaker locations,” the post explained. This technology could be used to more effectively isolate vocals and spoken commands, making them easier for both humans and machines to understand.
VisualVoice does the same as VIDA but for voices. It uses both visual and audio cues to learn how to separate voices from background noises during its self-supervised training sessions. Meta anticipates this model getting a lot of work in the machine understanding applications and to improve accessibility. Think, more accurate subtitles, Siri understanding your request even when the room isn't dead silent or having the acoustics in a virtual chat room shift as people speaking move around the digital room. Again, just ignore the lack of legs.
“We envision a future where people can put on AR glasses and relive a holographic memory that looks and sounds the exact way they experienced it from their vantage point, or feel immersed by not just the graphics but also the sounds as they play games in a virtual world,” Zuckerberg wrote, noting that AViTAR and VIDA can only apply their tasks to the one picture they were trained for and will need a lot more development before public release. “These models are bringing us even closer to the multimodal, immersive experiences we want to build in the future.”
What’s so “Pro” about the new 13-inch MacBook Pro? Devindra and Cherlynn chat with Laptop Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Sherri L. Smith, about Apple’s confusing new ultraportable. Sure, the M2 chip makes it faster, but why does it have a worse screen and fewer features than the new MacBook Air? Are real professionals better off with the faster (but more expensive) 14-inch MacBook Pro? Also, they dive into the wild new VR headset prototypes from Meta, as well as Twitter’s reinvention of blogging.
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!
Carl Pei’s Nothing phone won’t be coming to the US – 42:22
Working on – 43:28
Pop culture picks – 46:03
Livestream
Credits Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar Guest: Sherri L. Smith, Editor-in-Chief, Laptop Magazine Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos Graphic artists: Luke Brooks and Brian Oh
Carl Pei thinks there’s something wrong with the smartphone industry. That’s not to say the handsets on sale today are bad. Across the board, modern mobiles are faster, more sophisticated and take better photos than previous generations. But like a growing number of tech enthusiasts, Pei has started feeling like new phones just aren’t as special as the devices that came out five or 10 years ago. So ahead of the launch of the Phone 1 on July 12th, I sat down with the founder and CEO of Nothing to learn how the mobile startup is trying to bring some innovation, quirkiness, and maybe even a bit of fun back to the smartphone market.
Now there’s a very logical explanation for why recent phones don’t possess the same kind of wow factor. Back when the iPhone made its debut, it felt like a revelation. “I used to watch all the launches. I was in Sweden, so I stayed up until midnight or 4AM to see what was coming out,” said Pei. But in recent years, that excitement has waned, with Pei often skipping big keynotes and relying on condensed recaps to stay informed. And it’s not just Pei that feels this way.
Nothing
“When I talk to consumers, they are also quite indifferent,” says Pei. “When doing focus groups, some consumers said they believe smartphone brands are holding features back intentionally just so they have something to launch for the next iteration, which is not the truth. But if consumers feel that way, it's a sign that they're kind of bored.”
The big issue for Pei is one of stagnation. With major players like LG and HTC having exited the market or becoming irrelevant, the smartphone industry is dominated by a handful of huge corporations like Apple, Samsung, and Google. “You have a few big companies and the way they work is more structured and systematic,” said Pei. “They have technology roadmaps from partners like Qualcomm, Sony or Samsung Display, so they know what's coming. They do a lot of consumer research, they get their feedback and they look at their competitors and the overall market landscape.”
However, Pei feels that approach leads to a lot of sameness. “So they have this information, they analyze it, and then they create a very rational product that is going to do well on paper because they used all this great data,” said Pei. “But the problem is everybody's using the same data and everybody's using the same analysis. So if the input is the same and the method is the same, the output is more or less the same as well.”
Nothing
That’s one thing Pei is trying to change with Nothing’s upcoming handset, the Phone 1. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel – or in this case, the phone – Pei wants to bring some originality back to mobile tech design. “Maybe we can turn down the brain a little bit and turn up the intuition,” said Pei, which is a mantra that has resulted in some of the Phone 1’s more unique features including its design, embedded lighting and glyph interface.
Pei says the inspiration behind the Phone 1’s design comes from a concept the team describes as “raw technology meets human warmth,” or technical warmth for short. “It's got this machine-like nature to it, but also has quirky and very human elements as well.” That’s why instead of hiding the inside of the device behind an opaque back, like you see on so many other phones, Nothing uses transparent glass that exposes components like the Phone 1’s wireless charging coil, heat pipes, and more. In a lot of ways, it feels like a modern industrialist take on the Game Boys and iMacs with see-through plastic shells we got in the 90s and early 2000s.
“I think one thing we’re trying to accomplish is to bring people back in time to when they felt more optimistic about gadgets,” said Pei. This desire to make tech fun again is actually something Nothing carried throughout its entire design process, right down to Phone 1’s codename Arceus, which is a reference to the legendary Pokemon of the same name. (For the record, Pei says his favorite ‘Mon is Squirtle.) There are other quirks too, like the heat pipe at the bottom of the phone that looks like an elephant and the red indicator light in back that lets people know when a video is being recorded.
See if you can spot the elephant hidden in the Phone 1's design.
Nothing
However, while Pei wants to bring fun back to gadgets, Nothing always falls back on the core design principle of form following function. Pei said “We don't do ornaments. We can design different things and unique things, but they always have to be functional.” The best example of this is the Phone 1’s glyph interface, which uses 900 LEDs arranged across the back of the device to create a sophisticated notification system unlike anything out right now.
By allowing owners to assign unique combinations of lights and sounds to different contacts, the idea is that people will be able to see who is calling or texting without looking at the screen. Even the Phone 1’s ringtones evoke old-school analog synths combined with the noise of a dial-up modem, it’s both fresh and retro at the same time. On top of that, the lights glow when the phone is wireless or reverse wireless charging, while the small strip of LEDs next to the charging port can show how much juice the phone has – once again, without ever seeing the screen.
That said, having big ideas about phone design and actually making them a reality are very different things. Making phones is hard, and trying to break into the market as a startup is damn near impossible. If you look at the industry today, the only company that has really broken through in the last decade is OnePlus, which was co-founded by Pei and received significant backing as part of BBK Electronics’ tech umbrella. Meanwhile, the junkheap of failed smartphone startups is littered with ambitious companies like Essential (whose branding and IP are actually now owned by Nothing) that teased similarly big ideas, but went belly up before ever making a second-gen device. Or consider more mainstream companies like Motorola, who failed to make modular phones more than a novelty with its Z-series devices. And ever since, Moto has largely played it safe by shelling out endless rehashes of its G-series line.
Nothing
“The reason why this industry is very hard is because it requires end-to-end capability,” Pei said. “If you're going to create a smartphone company, every single team has to be at least seven out of 10. And some of them have to be even better if your product is going to stand out in some way.”
“Your supply chain team has to be great. Your mechanical engineering, your software, engineering, your industrial design, your sales, your marketing, your customer support,” said Pei. And if we look back at the PH-1 which had an innovative design and a team with serious pedigree, in the end, a handful of issues like its high price and weak camera quality at launch ultimately spelled doom for Essential.
On the flipside, despite Pei claiming that Nothing has already sold more than 560,000 pairs of its Ear 1 buds, there are concerns about the Phone 1 being overhyped. Some commenters online have even compared Nothing’s community forums to a cult based on early reactions to what remains an unreleased device. But when it comes to hype, Pei feels like there’s only one road that leads to success.
“One is the path we currently are taking. We try and create the maximum interest for a product at launch. That sets really high expectations for the product to deliver. And if it does, things go really well. If it doesn’t, maybe it fizzles out.”
However, the challenge is that if a company tries to reign in the hype, the product may never take off regardless of quality. Pei said “In this path, we at least have a chance to try and deliver a great product. The second option is being a small company with no marketing budget is that no one will know about your device. So even if the product is good, the result is still that nobody cares. You don't even have a chance to prove yourself. This is actually our only logical option.”
Nothing
So while the design of the Phone 1 is quite unique and eye-catching, Pei preaches a pragmatic approach. Instead of taking a huge swing right out the gate, Pei is looking to gradually grow Nothing’s business and ecosystem, starting with its first earbuds and soon, its first phone.
“We’re a fast follower. We didn't invent smartphones. We didn't invent Android, but we have experience in this market. We see ways in which we could do it better and some gaps in the market.” But Pei knows Nothing needs to take it one step at a time. “We need to gradually build to a position of strength. Then when you’re strong, you can go and do something really, really innovative, because you’ll have a business that’s stable enough to take a lot of shots.”
However, while the success (or failure) of the Phone 1 is still to be determined, I appreciate that not only is Pei challenging billion-dollar giants with a new smartphone startup, Nothing is also trying to shake things up in the process. “I think this device is the beginning of something different, but it’s also a gift to our industry,” said Pei. “We're not saying this is a revolutionary product that's going to change the entire industry overnight. But maybe it's going to plant a germ in people's minds.” In a sea of similar-looking glass bricks, Pei hopes the Phone 1 will encourage customers to ask for more creative devices while also sparking larger companies to take more risks. “Some of it will fail. But ultimately, the smartphone market is going to be much more dynamic and we'll improve faster as an industry.”
Google is rolling out Chrome OS version 103, which includes features that will make it easier for users to share things between Chromebooks and Android devices. For one thing, as the company announced at CES, Phone Hub is getting an upgrade. From your Chromebook, you'll instantly be able to access the latest photos you took with your phone, even when you're offline.
When you take a picture with your phone, it will automatically show up in the Recent Photos section of Phone Hub (which allows you to control some of your mobile device's features from your laptop). You'll need to click on the image to download it, though it's a more elegant option than going to the Google Photos website or emailing yourself a photo.
Google
Also new is a way to get a Chromebook connected to the internet more quickly. If you're trying to link your laptop to a WiFi network that's already saved on your Android phone, you can use Nearby Share. Go to the WiFi network tab in the internet settings on your phone. After you select the Share option, you can tap the Nearby button and choose the Chromebook you want to get online. The Chromebook should then automatically gain access to the internet and save the login credentials.
In addition, Google revealed the Chrome OS Screencast app it announced earlier this month will start rolling out this week. You can use that to record, trim and transcribe video.
Later this summer, Chromebooks will gain fast pairing support for hundreds of Bluetooth headphone models including, of course, Pixel Buds. Fast Pair will save the headphones to your Google account, so both your Chromebook and Android phone can connect to them swiftly.
Google said it will roll out more features to make Chromebooks and Android devices play more nicely with each other later this year. The company is looking to take a page out of Apple's playbook with updates like these. Apple has long offered deep integration between its devices, including features such as WiFi password sharing and iCloud photo syncing, which helps it get people more invested in its ecosystem.
