Apple made a bunch of improvements to its latest AirPods last year, and now you can grab a pair for $35 less than usual. Woot has the third-generation AirPods for $145 right now, which is 19 percent off and close to their record low. The sale will last for 12 days or until sold out, and we expect them to sell out at this price fairly quickly. While anyone can get this deal, Amazon Prime members can get free shipping, too.
These buds mark the first true departure from the original AirPods design since the earbuds first came out. While the AirPods Pro have the best fit out of all of Apple's wireless earbuds, the third-gen AirPods are a big improvement from their predecessors. They have a new contoured design and a shorter stem, both of which help make the buds more comfortable and aid in sound quality. They're also IPX4-rated, so they should be able to withstand sweaty workouts and a quick, accidental splash.
The latest AirPods sound much better than the previous models thanks in part to a new custom driver and a high-dynamic-range amplifier. They work together to produce rich bass and crisp, clean sound overall. You won't find ANC on these buds, but they do have Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and dynamic head tracking.
The H1 chip inside of the buds helps power those features, along with hands-free Siri access and quick pairing. If you use a lot of Apple products the quick pairing and switching feature will come in handy, as it allows you to seamlessly go from listening to music on your Mac to taking a call from your iPhone. As far as battery life goes, you should get up to six hours with the buds and up to a total of 30 hours when using their charging case to power up in between sessions. As usual, be sure to check out Woot's return policy before deciding if you want to pick these up during this sale.
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SpaceX chief Elon Musk has warned Starlink users in Ukraine that there's a high probability of the service being targeted, as it's the only working non-Russian communications system in some parts of the country. On Twitter, Musk advised people to use Starlink with caution by turning it on only when needed and placing it as far away from other people as possible. He also told users to place light camouflage over the antenna to avoid visual detection.
Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution.
As Reuters reports, Musk's warning comes after John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at University of Toronto's Citizen Lab project, said Russia could use Starlink's uplink transmissions in Ukraine as beacons for airstrikes. In a lengthy Twitter thread, he explained Russia's extensive experience when it comes to targeting people while they're using satphones and other kinds of satellite technologies.
Internet connection has become spotty in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. The intense combat and explosions in major cities like Kyiv had disrupted the operations of GigaTrans, the country's main internet provider that also supplies connectivity to other networks. SpaceX activated the Starlink broadband internet service in Ukraine following a plea from Mykhailo Fedorov, who serves as the country's Minister of Digital Transformation. The company also quickly sent terminals to the country, which arrived just a couple of days after the service's activation.
Days after receiving SpaceX's shipment, Fedorov tweeted a photo of a Starlink dish installed and in use on a rooftop. He also asked for ideas on how to keep the antenna powered in the middle of Russia's ongoing attacks. Musk responded that SpaceX is updating the terminal's software to reduce its peak power consumption and so that it can be powered from a car's cigarette lighter socket. He also said the company enabled mobile roaming so that a Starlink antenna can maintain its signal even on a moving vehicle.
A consultant in satellite communications told Reuters that Starlink terminals weren't designed to be used while in motion, so it's not quite clear what Musk meant. One user in California stuck a Starlink antenna to the hood of his car for internet connectivity, though — they even got a ticket for it. SpaceX has also long been planning to connect moving vehicles to the Starlink network and previewed a ruggedized version of the service's dish meant for ships, aircraft and bigger land vehicles like RVs last year.
Bowers & Wilkins is no stranger to soundbars, but the company's lineup over the years was missing one key feature: Dolby Atmos. Across two Panorama models and the Formation Bar, the immersive audio format wasn't yet supported by the company's soundbars. It's changing that today with the Panorama 3: a $999 all-in-one model that features up-firing drivers for Atmos alongside a host of other handy features for music and movies.
Inside the low-profile angular design, a collection of 13 drivers harness 400 watts of total output in 3.1.2-channel configuration. That includes three tweeters, six mid-range, two subwoofers and two up-firing units. The company says that this combination allows the Panorama 3 to function as a standalone setup with "room-filling sound." In other words, Bowers & Wilkins doesn't think you'll need a dedicated wireless subwoofer parked adjacent to the soundbar, similarly to how Sennheiser designed its pricey Ambeo model.
Bowers & Wilkins
The Panorama 3 connects to your TV via a single HDMI eARC jack, or for older displays, there's an optical port as well. An Ethernet connection provides wired internet while AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect offer wireless control for music via your phone or other devices. The Panorama 3 supports aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC codecs when it comes to Bluetooth audio and the company's app pipes in tunes from Deezer, Last.fm, Qobuz, Soundcloud, Tidal and TuneIn. Support for more streaming services is on the way, according to Bowers & Wilkins.
The company also says multi-room audio will arrive "shortly after launch" which will allow you to use the Panorama 3 in unison with other Bowers & Wilkins speakers around your home. This soundbar has Alexa built-in for voice control or you can reach for the "hidden until lit" capacitive touch buttons on the top of the speaker itself if the remote (or your phone) isn't nearby.
The Panorama 3 is available starting today for $999. That may seem like a lot, and it is certainly a big investment, but that price is a few hundred less than the current flagship Atmos soundbar from Sony.
Unless you religiously follow Android blogs, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of OSOM Privacy. It’s a startup made up of former Essential employees who worked on the PH-1 before the company became mired in controversy on account of founder Andy Rubin. OSOM was founded in 2020, the same year that Essential went out of business, by its former head of R&D, Jason Keats.
When Keats first shared details on the OV1 late last year in an interview with Android Police, he said it would stand out from other Android phones thanks to its focus on privacy. At the time, he also had a few things to say about the phone’s specs – noting, for instance, it would ship with a Qualcomm chipset. Today, OSOM shared more information about the OV1 before its release later this year.
OSOM Privacy
In an email to Engadget, the company said the phone would ship with a Snapdragon 8 series chipset. Notably, OSOM didn’t say the OV1 would include Qualcomm’s current flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Take that as you will.
If you had a chance to use an Essential Phone, you know it didn’t have a great camera. It didn’t take great photos in less than ideal light, and its camera app was slow to fire up. OSOM claims the OV1 won’t suffer from similar issues. The phone will feature a dual-camera system consisting of 48-megapixel and 12-megapixel sensors. “Unlike at Essential, OSOM has enlisted the help of the best teams in the world to bring a truly flagship camera experience to our users,” the company told us.
As you can see from the photos OSOM sent over, the design of the device is reminiscent of the Essential Phone. The company says the OV1 is “noticeably” bigger than its predecessor to allow for better antenna performance and the inclusion of a bigger battery. The housing is made from stainless steel and titanium, while the back of the phone is made from zirconia and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Like the iPhone, it will include a UWB antenna, though OSOM didn’t say what kind of functionality it plans to build out around that feature. The phone will also come with a dual SIM slot and a secure data cable.
OSOM Privacy
The company didn’t say what the cable does, but if we had to take a guess, you can flip the built-in switch to prevent it from transferring data. That’s something that could help you protect your phone if you ever need to plug it in to charge at a public USB port, such as the ones you’ll find in a plane. That’s all we know for now. But we’ll likely find out more about the OV1 when it ships sometime in the fourth quarter of 2022.
It’s another cryptic graphic from Apple for fans to obsess over. Yep, it’s time for more new products from Apple, and rumors suggest an updated iPhone SE could be on the horizon. The text accompanying the invite, “Peek performance,” could mean more news from Apple’s silicon arm. Maybe we’ll get a glimpse at its M2 processor for future Macs.
The iPhone SE deserves a refresh to bring it in line with the rest of Apple’s phone lineup. It still has a home button! In 2022! This year's model may get Face ID and 5G support, with a design similar to 2018's iPhone XR. As Apple’s cheapest iPhone, the most interesting part will be where the price lands. How much cheaper than the iPhone mini?
Following economic sanctions and financial constraints from the US, EU and the UK, Russia issued retaliatory sanctions of its own against Western companies. On Wednesday, Roscosmos announced it will not launch the next round of 36 OneWeb internet satellites scheduled for liftoff on March 4th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, NASA remains optimistic the sanctions will not adversely impact ongoing collaborative space programs, like the running of the ISS, which has been a joint US–Russian effort from the start. But that could change.
'It’s time to demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children.'
In his first State of the Union address, President Biden asked Congress to implement new laws to increase child safety on Facebook, TikTok and other social media platforms. Much of the motivation for change appears to have come from the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who attended the address as a guest of Jill Biden. Haugen recently testified before Congress, accusing Facebook parent, Meta, of disregarding child safety on the platform. The White House will ask for funding to study the question of child safety on social media.
The treaty could end up being as important as the Paris Climate Accord.
After a week of negotiations in Nairobi, the United Nations has agreed to start working on the first-ever global plastic pollution treaty. It's not likely to be ready before 2024, but according to the UN, it could end up being as important as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. In 2019, the organization found plastic pollution is 10 times worse than it was in 1980.
Capturing the spirit of ‘80s and ‘90s kids' toys, Polestar’s new concept car is the O2. “Polestar O2 is our vision of a new era for sports cars," Polestar’s Head of Design, Maximilian Missoni, said in a press statement. "By mixing the joy of open-top driving with the purity of electric mobility, it unlocks a new mix of emotions in a car."
Drivers will also be able to film their top-down adventures with the O2's integrated cinematography drone. Developed in collaboration with Hoco Flow, this autonomous camera drone rides in an area of negative pressure generated from an airfoil. The drone can follow along at speeds up to 56MPH, and owners can edit and share the captured footage from the central infotainment system.
The Galaxy Tab S8+ has a brilliant OLED display, class-leading performance, a speedy fingerprint sensor and a premium design. Throw in an S-Pen and Samsung’s recipe makes for a high-end Android tablet that's hard to beat. And there aren’t many rivals around to beat it. In his review, Sam Rutherford puts it best: “There are two kinds of Android tablets: Samsung's Galaxy Tab S line and everything else.”
The EV part is getting increasingly more important.
Ford is splitting its car manufacturing business into separate EV-only and internal combustion engine (ICE) divisions to help it fight both "new EV competitors" and conventional challengers. Its electric part, Model e, is meant to speed up large-scale development of EVs while producing connected vehicle technology for all of Ford’s vehicles.
The latest patch is here to save a bit of your sanity.
Guerrilla Games’ new patch for Horizon Forbidden West addresses a number of issues that have been part of the game since launch. This includes a major bug that prevented players from completing the “Reach for the Stars” main quest. For instance, Aloy’s ally Varl won’t get stuck swimming anymore. But perhaps the best improvement is Aloy won’t mention her stash as frequently. Until now, any time she picked up resources she couldn’t carry, they’d be spirited away to her stash box, and she would let you know. Almost. Every. Darn. Time.
Samsung is looking into reports that it has been limiting the performance of a large number of apps on some Galaxy smartphones, Android Authority has reported. It has reportedly been using something called the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) to throttle up to 10,000 apps (likely to save battery life), including many that have nothing to do with gaming like Netflix, TikTok and Microsoft Office.
Making the optics worse is the fact that it's not throttling benchmark apps like 3DMark, GeekBench 5 and PCMark, so you'd see no problem with your device if you ran one of those. Samsung is apparently aware of the issue and is investigating it, according to Android Authority, although it hasn't officially confirmed that yet.
The throttling was spotted by Korean users who posted a list of 10,000 apps that are apparently affected. Since the problem was revealed, Samsung's Korean forums have exploded with complaints from users about the GOS issue. "I paid a lot of money to buy a sports car that can go up to 300 km/h, but for safety reasons, I put a speed limit on it so that it can run only 150 km/h," noted one user sarcastically.
In one case, a user took the popular 3DMark benchmark app and renamed it to an app called Genshin Impact that's on the throttled list. After renaming, 3DMark ran with a score less than half of what it ran with the correct name. The GOS app was present on some smartphones like the Galaxy S21 Plus and could not be disabled, but not others like the new Galaxy S22 series, according to Android Authority.
OnePlus recently admitted throttling apps with its latest smartphones in order to save battery life, prompting Geekbench to delist the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro from its Android Benchmark chart. After being called out, it tweaked the settings in order to match each app's performance requirements with the appropriate power required.
Twitter is reportedly working on a podcasts tab. The feature was unearthed by developer Jane Manchun Wong who shared a screenshot of the new UI element on Wednesday. Based on the image, you’ll access the tab from the bottom of Twitter’s mobile interface. What’s interesting about the screenshot is that there’s no dedicated tab for Spaces, which is something that exists in the current iteration of the app.
It’s hard to imagine Twitter pivoting away from live audio in such a way, particularly after investing so much into the format. As such, we wouldn’t read too much into the screenshot just yet. That said, we’ve reached out to Twitter to see if the company has anything to say about the matter. If the company is about to add a podcasts tab, it wouldn’t be surprising. Podcasts have become big business in recent years, particularly for companies like Spotify that have invested heavily in original content.
Chiplets (blocks of integrated circuits) are increasingly common in chip design, and some of the tech world's biggest companies want to make them more ubiquitous. Tom's Hardwarereports a coalition including AMD, ARM and Intel has launched a Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) standard meant to ease "die-to-die" connections in hardware and software. If all goes well, a designer could "mix and match" chiplets from different companies to create an ideal system-on-chip.
The alliance has already ratified a UCIe 1.0 specification. The partners include a mix of chip and cloud heavyweights like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung and TSMC.
It could take a long while before you see chips built using the new standard. The UCIe group still has to work on defining the form factor, protocols and other details.
The appeal for the companies involved is clear, though. Companies could speed up development of CPUs and SoCs by using ready-made chiplet designs instead of crafting their own from scratch. They could also sell chiplets to other companies and increase the reach of their technology. Chips might become more homogenous, but they might show up sooner or deliver more consistent performance. That could be helpful in a whole host of devices, ranging from phones through to the servers that power cloud services.
In what should come as a surprise to no one, Carl Pei’s Nothing has reportedly been busy at work developing a smartphone. According to TechCrunch, the startup plans to announce the device by sometime next month. Details on the phone are sparse, but it’s said to borrow design cues from the company’s Ear 1 wireless earbuds. Specifically, it will reportedly incorporate the “elements of transparency” found on Nothing’s first product. TechCrunch reports Nothing showed off the device to industry executives at Mobile World Congress, currently underway in Barcelona, Spain.
Beyond those details, the outlet doesn’t say much about the phone itself. But given Pei’s past involvement in OnePlus, that might be enough to get smartphone enthusiasts excited. After all, for the seven years that he was involved with the company, OnePlus released some of its most talked-about phones, including the OnePlus One, 3T and 6, and built a devoted fanbase on the back of its design and software philosophies.
It's official: Apple just sent out invitations for its first event in 2022 and it will happen on March 8th at 10am PT. The invite, which usually offers subtle hints as to what we can expect, features the words "Peek performance." That's right — "peek" not "peak." The company is expected to launch the next-gen iPhone SE and iPad Air, along with new Macs. According to a Bloomberg report, an M2 chip may also be coming as part of the transition to Apple Silicon.
Considering the last iPhone SE was launched in 2020, it does seem like an updated model is overdue. Apple's compact, sub-$400 handset is one of the last remaining to still have a home button on the front below the display. It also has a single rear camera, and generally feels like a throwback to phones from five years ago. This year's model may bring Face ID and 5G support, with a design that could be similar to 2018's iPhone XR.
Whatever Apple is announcing, we will be covering the news and will also have a livestream following the company's keynote to discuss what was unveiled. Be sure to join us on the Engadget YouTube channel then to get your burning questions answered.
