iPhones could soon detect car crashes and auto-dial 911Blu-rays are so done. Using high-speed lasers, researchers have created new data storage tech that could write and keep 500TB of data on a CD-sized glass disc. The 5D storage tech has higher writing speeds that might make it feasible to large-scale archiving projects. Each file uses three layers of nanoscale dots. The dots' size, orientation and position within the three standard dimensions make up the five "dimensions."
This kind of optical storage isn’t new, but there were problems in the past, particularly slow writing speeds. The new technique has sped this process up substantially, to around 230 KB per second. And, yes, that sounds pretty slow, but it could provide a way to backup data, essentially forever. It's been estimated the storage medium could withstand temperatures up to 1,000 degrees C and last 13.8 billion years at room temperature without degrading.
So what is it? Well, it’s basically a tiny puck-shaped computer dedicated to remixing Kanye’s latest album. Using it, you can change the volume of different stems, or tracks, in the songs on Donda. For instance, if you’re wondering what “Off the Grid” would sound like as an instrumental, you can simply turn down the vocals. Terrence O’Brien begrudgingly tested it out.
Thanks to some early hints in iOS 15.1, Beats’ latest earbuds are hardly a surprise. The company officially debuted its latest model: the $200 Beats Fit Pro. With a similar design to the Studio Buds that arrived earlier this year, this new pair offers active noise cancellation (ANC) alongside almost all of the features from Apple’s third-generation AirPods. Its shape seals off your ear, so ANC and transparency mode are available. Bass levels are ample without overpowering for a sound profile that’s noticeably better than Beats’ previous model. Our headphones expert Billy Steele seems to like them.
Even though Black Friday is over three weeks away, some major retailers are getting in on the action early. Among them is Amazon, which has slashed prices on its own devices. One of the products you can save on at the minute is the Kindle, which is $40 off at $50. Kindle Kids, meanwhile, is on sale for $60 (usually $110).
Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) is now the crime lord of Tatooine. The trailer shows Fett and his partner, Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen, reprising her role from The Mandalorian), ruling the desert planet's underworld. The show is set to arrive at the end of December.
And you don't have to spend a fortune to buy a good one.
If you’re thinking of getting a laptop or tablet as a gift, you’ve got a wealth of options. In the latest round of hardware from Intel, Apple, AMD and NVIDIA, all of our portable devices have gotten steadily faster and more efficient. We’ve got wildcards, too, like the cheapest iPad or gaming laptops now have almost all of the power of their desktop siblings. And with the arrival of Windows 11, it's a perfect time to give someone a nifty PC upgrade. Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar, our go-to laptop guy, lays out the best options.
Apple is working on the same feature for its Watch, too.
Apple plans to unveil a feature called crash detection for both iPhones and Watches, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The feature would supposedly use sensors like the accelerometer built into Apple devices. Apple has reportedly been working on this for several years and testing it using real-world data.
Years ago, Google introduced a similar feature for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 4 via its Personal Safety app that can detect when you've been in a car crash and alert emergency services. Even GM has been offering it for years in its cars with OnStar and recently introduced crash detection to smartphones via the OnStar Guardian app.
Sega is partnering with Microsoft to use the company’s Azure cloud platform to produce “large-scale, global games” as part of its recently announced Super Game project. The publisher first teased the initiative this past May during an investor event. At the time, the company said it would become available sometime during its fiscal 2026 year. In this latest announcement, Sega said the project is integral to its mid to long-term strategy and will see it creating games with a global online component.
“This proposed alliance represents SEGA looking ahead, and by working with Microsoft to anticipate such trends as they accelerate further in future, the goal is to optimise development processes and continue to bring high-quality experiences to players using Azure cloud technologies,” the company said. At this point, we wouldn’t read too much into the fact that Sega and Microsoft are partnering on the project. Plenty of companies, including ones like Sony, depend on Microsoft for their cloud infrastructure, in part because they want to avoid building an online backend from scratch.
“We look forward to working together as they explore new ways to create unique gaming experiences for the future using Microsoft cloud technologies,” Microsoft’s Sarah Bond said of the alliance. “Together we will reimagine how games get built, hosted, and operated, with a goal of adding more value to players and Sega alike.”
Beats latest earbuds are official. After some early hints in iOS 15.1, the company has formally announced the Beats Fit Pro. This set of true wireless earbuds has a similar look to the Studio Buds that debuted earlier this year with an added fit wing, or "wingtip" as the company calls it. Combined with an IPX4 rating, the $200 Fit Pro are well-suited for workouts but are also packed with the best features from Apple's new AirPods for all-day use.
Thanks to Apple's H1 chip, the Beats Fit Pro offers hands-free access to Siri, one-touch pairing, the latest Find My features in iOS, automatic device switching and audio sharing. Apple's fancy new skin detection sensor that improves the accuracy of automatic pausing is also on board. Beats says H1 also powers the ear tip fit test that's built into the earbuds' settings through iOS. The Beats Fit Pro also have Adaptive EQ like the latest AirPods, a feature that continuously scans and adjusts low- and mid-range frequencies using computational audio and in-ward facing mics. Spatial audio and dynamic head tracking, also key elements of Apple's new earbuds, are available on the Beats Fit Pro as well. This gives you the option of Dolby Atmos in both Apple Music or while you're watching movies and shows.
Beats
The Beats Fit Pro go beyond the new AirPods with active noise cancellation (ANC). The company says its ANC setup "continuously adapts in real time," scanning and adjusting up to 200 times per second to counter any changes "in fit and movement." There's also a transparency mode that allows you to hear what's going on around you when needed. With both ANC and transparency turned off, Adaptive EQ takes over to keep things sounding as good as possible.
Beats says new custom transducer and vent system have helped improve overall audio quality. There's also a new acoustic design that delivers what the company describes as "impressive dynamic range and clarity across the frequency curve." On the outside, on-board controls give you the ability to play music and take calls without reaching for your phone. Beats gives you the option to customize the long press action for on-board volume control if you'd prefer that to easy access to noise control (ANC, transparency and off). During calls, the company says beamforming microphones focus on your voice while internal mics and an accelerometer work to filter out environmental noise. Spatial audio in Group FaceTime won't be available on the Beats Fit Pro at launch, but the feature will come in a future update.
Beats
Beats is promising up to six hours of listening time with ANC or transparency mode active, plus another 21 hours in the charging case. When you turn those off and use the Fit Pro in Adaptive EQ mode you can expect up to seven hours on the buds with 27 more in the case. The case doesn't support wireless charging but it does offer a Fast Fuel feature that gives you an hour of play time in five minutes. While everything iOS users need for the Beats Fit Pro is built into that software, Android users will need to download the Beats app. The app offers one-touch pairing, the fit test, the ability to change listening modes and customization of the long press action.
The Beats Fit Pro are available for pre-order today for $200 from Apple's website and other retailers in the US. Color options include black, white, grey and purple. The earbuds will begin shipping on November 5th with availability in China in early December. Beats says the Fit Pro will be available "in additional regions" next year. New subscribers also get six months of Apple Music with the purchase of Beats Fit Pro.
Read our full review of the Beats Fit Pro right here.
Thanks to some early hints in iOS 15.1, Beats’ latest earbuds are hardly a surprise. Today the company officially debuted its latest model: the $200 Beats Fit Pro. With a similar design to the Studio Buds that arrived earlier this year, this new pair offers active noise cancellation (ANC) alongside almost all of the features from Apple’s third-generation AirPods. That includes hands-free Siri, Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and more. Beats has also added a wing for a more secure fit during workouts and kept the IPX4 rating from the Studio Buds. All of those features, combined with a more attractive design, gives the company an alternative to the Powerbeats Pro in its lineup.
Design
If you’re thinking the Beats Fit Pro look almost exactly like the Beats Studio Buds, you’re not wrong. This new model is a smidge larger and the angle of the tab that holds the on-board controls is slightly different. The overall aesthetic and shape are pretty much identical, though. The biggest design difference is the fit wing, or wingtip as Beats calls it. Unlike a lot of sporty earbuds, this element is very flexible so it can bend to fit a greater range of ear shapes. That also makes it more comfortable. Even though the wing is helping keep the buds in place, you hardly know it’s there.
Like the Studio Buds, the on-board controls for the Beats Fit Pro are on the lowercase ‘b’ logo on the outside of each earbud. They’re still physical buttons you have to press rather than touch controls built for tapping. Controls are mirrored on each side by default, with options for play/pause and answering calls (single press) in addition to skipping tracks (twice for forward, three times for back) and cycling between ANC on and transparency mode (long press). The long press can be reconfigured for volume control, allowing you to turn it up on one side and down on the other. If you do this, you lose the ability to access noise cancellation or ambient sound mode. Bummer.
Beats says it strategically positioned the button for the on-board controls at the bottom of the hump on each earbud “to avoid accidental presses.” Just like I encountered on the Studio Buds, I frequently activated the controls when trying to adjust the fit of the earbuds. With the wingtip I had to do this less often than the previous model, but it was still annoying to want to secure the buds in my ear only to errantly pause the audio or change the noise control mode. And due to the positioning of the microphones, any fit adjustment usually meant touching the external mics and creating extra noise.
Apple’s new wear detection sensor sits around back. Like the tech on the new AirPods, the Beats Fit Pro have an optical sensor outfitted with wavelength LEDs that can determine if an object is skin in addition to proximity. Both Apple and Beats explain that this makes the automatic pausing more accurate, avoiding accidental activation when you don’t actually have them in your ear. Of course, this also helps save battery life when you’re less likely to erroneously turn them on.
Software and features
Billy Steele/Engadget
Thanks to Apple’s H1 chip, the Beats Fit Pro have a lot of the same features as the new AirPods. Those include one-touch pairing, where even the first time you open the case, all you have to do is tap a pop-up on your iPhone and the earbuds are connected. Messing with a Bluetooth menu and putting a device in pairing mode are both relics of a bygone era. H1 also powers hands-free Siri and Apple’s enhanced Find My features. Lastly, you get Audio Sharing too, so you can listen to music or watch a movie with someone who has a set of earbuds or headphones made by Apple or Beats.
In terms of software, everything you need for Beats Fit Pro is built into iOS 15 for iPhone users. From Control Center, you can easily access noise control and spatial audio settings with a long press on the volume slider. You can reassign the press-and-hold on-board control from the ‘i’ icon next to the device name in the Bluetooth menu. An ear tip fit test resides there too, just like it does for the AirPods Pro, and you can disable automatic ear detection as well. Noise and spatial audio controls are located on this menu too if you’d prefer to access them here. On Android devices, Beats has a dedicated app that handles fast pairing and includes the ear tip fit test, control customization and battery status features available on iOS.
Sound quality
Billy Steele/Engadget
Beats says it completely redesigned its proprietary transducer for the Fit Pro, creating “an entirely custom acoustic architecture” and promising balanced and powerful sound. That last bit is immediately apparent the first time you fire up these earbuds. There’s much more low-end tone on this model than what the Studio Buds offer. The punchier bass establishes more depth as well, so there’s more room for vocals, instruments and other elements to come through without sounding compressed or boring.
Indeed, guitars ring out in the chaotic metal of Every Time I Die, with bombastic drums booming underneath. The bass is ample and never overpowers, even with genres where things can get out of hand quickly when the tuning is the slightest bit off. There’s a clarity on the Fit Pro that’s well suited for genres like blues, bluegrass, ambient, electronic and more. Across all of those genres, the crisp details highlight Beats’ full range of tones. Bass, fiddle, guitar and mandolin all stand on their own for acts like Nickel Creek, giving space for each to shine. There’s no doubt the sound profile here is an improvement over the Studio Buds, but it’s not on the level of pricer sets like the MW08, Momentum True Wireless 2 or WF-1000XM4.
Thanks to the H1 chip, Beats Fit Pro work with Apple’s spatial audio. This gives you the ability to listen to Dolby Atmos Music content in Apple Music — with or without dynamic head tracking enabled. Spatial audio is also available for these earbuds on Apple TV or movies and TV shows streamed iPhone or iPad. Like the latest AirPods, the Fit Pro are equipped with Apple’s Adaptive EQ. This feature is active when you disable both ANC and transparency mode, continuously monitoring sound with internal microphones and adjusting the low- and mid-range frequencies to keep the audio quality consistent. The feature also takes into account the shape of your ear when making its tweaks.
As I’ve already mentioned, the Beats Fit Pro have active noise cancellation on board. It’s another feature powered by Apple’s H1 chip and it, too, adapts to both ambient noise and how the earbuds fit in your ears. Like previous Beats headphones, this tech continuously monitors and automatically adjusts based on the environmental clamor. Beats says the system is powered by an algorithm that can adapt the signal 200 times per second. That looks nice on paper, but at the end of the day, all you need to know is the ANC system on the Fit Pro does a solid job of blocking distractions when you need it to. It’s not as powerful as Bose or Sony, but it counters distractions well enough to come in handy.
As is typically the case with noise-cancelling earbuds these days, the Fit Pro also offer a transparency mode for tuning into your surroundings. There’s no denying this tool is helpful in certain scenarios when you need to pay some attention to what’s going on around you. However, like the Studio Buds, these don’t feed your voice back into the earbuds when you talk, so you have to speak up to hear yourself. Still, transparency mode will help you keep an ear out for your name at a coffee shop.
Call quality
Billy Steele/Engadget
For calls, Beats equipped the Fit Pro with six microphones: three on each side. External beamforming mics focus on your voice while the internal units for ANC, transparency mode and Adaptive EQ pull double duty to help improve calls. The company says the feed-forward microphones are recessed to avoid wind issues and a voice accelerometer counters external noise with the help of “an advanced algorithm.”
All earbud companies make some version of this pitch with a mix of mics, algorithms and strategic placement. Mileage varies greatly with these promises and more often than not they don’t hold up. With the Fit Pro, your voice sounds better than speakerphone, but it comes across muffled on the other end. The person you’re speaking to will also get ample background noise if it’s loud enough. At the end of the day, these will work fine if you’re in a decently quiet space, but don’t expect them to block out a noisy office when you have a phone or video call.
When they first arrive, the Beats Fit Pro won’t support Apple’s new Group FaceTime spatial audio. The feature employs immersive sound so that participants sound like they’re speaking from the location they are on your screen. Apple says this makes FaceTime calls more natural, and it does to a degree. It definitely enhances the experience of a meeting or group chat, but it’s still far from real life. Beats says it plans to add this feature to the Fit Pro as part of a future software update.
Battery life
Beats is promising up to six hours of use on the earbuds with ANC or transparency mode active. When you factor in the additional 21 hours in the case, that’s 27 hours of listening time with the most attractive features turned on. If you opt to skip those and go with Adaptive EQ mode, you can expect an extra hour on the Beats Fit Pro and three more in the case for a total of 30. As always, the company has included its Fast Fuel feature that offers an hour of noise-cancelling playback with a five-minute charge.
Battery life claims are rarely an issue with Beats gear and that holds true here. Using a mix of active noise cancellation and transparency mode throughout the day, I managed nearly seven hours before completely depleting the power. I missed it by about 10 minutes. That’s enough to get you through a full day at the office, and if you can dock the buds at some point, you’ll have no trouble wearing them during your commute either. All of these figures are on par with the new AirPods, but Apple’s latest don’t have ANC. Our current top pick for best earbuds, Sony’s WF-1000XM4, lasted seven and a half hours during my tests with noise cancellation active.
The competition
Billy Steele/Engadget
Beats has a more affordable alternative to the Fit Pro in its lineup. The Studio Buds will save you $50, but you’ll have to make some sacrifices. First, and perhaps most importantly, the sound quality isn’t nearly as good. It lacks the punchy bass and overall depth the Fit Pro exhibits. The Studio Buds don’t have Apple’s H1 chip, but you still get quick pairing and hands-free Siri in addition to the ability to listen to Dolby Atmos tunes in Apple Music. What you won’t find is Adaptive EQ or the new skin-activated wear detection sensor.
The absolute best true wireless earbuds you can buy right now are still the Sony WF-1000XM4. As feature-packed as the Fit Pro are, the handy features are most useful for iOS. Sony goes beyond ANC to include automatic pausing when you speak and quick attention mode for short conversations. You can also fully automate your noise-cancelling or transparency levels on the WF-1000XM4 based on your activity or location. Of course, that’s if you’re willing to trade some privacy for convenience.
Wrap-up
If you’re looking for the best of what AirPods has to offer in earbuds that don’t have the polarizing stick apparatus, the Beats Fit Pro should do the trick. They offer a nice blend of features, sound and noise-cancelling performance for the price. Sure, there are better options but they also cost significantly more, especially if you’re looking for the absolute best audio quality. For now, Beats is giving the masses an AirPods alternative that’s actually still packed with Apple tech. And that’s an interesting proposition for iPhone owners.
Your iPhone might have a new capability as soon as next year: detecting a car accident and automatically dialing 911. Apple plans to unveil a feature called "crash detection" for both iPhones and Watches, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The feature would supposedly use sensors like the accelerometer built into Apple devices.
Apple has reportedly been working on the feature for several years and testing it using real world data. According to documents seen by the WSJ, Apple has been collecting data shared anonymously from iPhone and Watch users. It has detected more than 10 million suspected vehicle impacts, with more than 50,000 of those accompanied by a call to 911. Apple has been using that data to improve the accuracy of its crash-detection algorithm, since a 911 emergency call is pretty solid confirmation of a serious crash.
It's certainly not first to the gate with this. Google introduced a similar feature for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 4 via its Personal Safety app that can detect when you've been in a car crash and alert emergency services. GM has been offering it for years in its cars with OnStar, and recently introduced crash detection to smartphones via the OnStar Guardian app. OnStar's in-vehicle service reportedly responds to over 6,000 crash notifications a month, as the WSJ noted.
Apple introduced fall-detection to the Apple Watch 4 series, and it can automatically call emergency services and contact your loved ones if you don't respond to a prompt in a certain amount of time. The crash-detection feature is supposed to come out for iPhone and Apple Watches in 2022, provided everything goes to plan.
If you’re thinking of getting a laptop or tablet as a gift, you’ve got a wealth of options. Thanks to the latest round of hardware from Intel, Apple, AMD and NVIDIA, all of our portable devices have gotten steadily faster and more efficient. Even the cheapest iPad can be a decent productivity machine, while gaming laptops now have almost all of the power of their desktop siblings. And with the arrival of Windows 11, it's a perfect time to give someone a nifty PC upgrade, especially since very old computers won’t be able to step up.
Dell XPS 13
Dell
Not to sound like a broken record, but the XPS 13 is still the best Windows ultraportable you can buy. The design hasn't changed much, but that's not a huge problem: It's still incredibly light and features extraordinarily thin screen bezels. And now you can also take advantage of Intel's latest 11th-generation processors. The XPS 13 can also be configured with an OLED screen, an ideal gift for someone who could use a bright and color accurate display. And if you’ve got someone in mind who could use even more power, the new XPS 15 has the same sleek design, but it has more room for a bigger display and better hardware.
Apple's MacBook Air hasn't been upgraded since last year's miraculous model — which gave it the winning combination of Apple's M1 processor, a fan-less design, and incredible battery life — but it's still one of the best laptops on the market. It's powerful enough to handle most productivity tasks and a few games, and whoever’s lucky enough to get it won’t have to worry about any fans spinning up, since it’s completely passively cooled. You can also find the M1-equipped MacBook Air on sale occasionally, making it one of the smarter gift purchases this season.
Kudos to Apple for continually improving its entry-level iPad. Once again, it's one of the best tablet gift options on the market. It's faster than ever, thanks to Apple's A13 Bionic processor, and it includes more storage. The $329 model now comes with 64GB, or you could bump up to 256GB for $479. That's more than enough space to save every episode of Bluey and several seasons of Sesame Street to survive long car trips. Sure, the design hasn't changed much since last year, but that doesn't matter much — it’s still a more than capable tablet.
Amazon's Fire tablets are basically just video-first Android slates, but they also prove you don’t have to pay a ton to buy a useful tablet for someone. This year, the Fire HD 10 is a bit faster, has 50 percent more memory and features a slightly brighter screen. And, as a bonus, there's a Bluetooth keyboard accessory that can turn it into a cheap productivity tablet. But its core selling point is the same as always: it can tackle most tablet tasks easily, and it won’t cost too much. (There are also kid-centric Fire tablets worth considering, which come with a more durable case and two years worth of free replacements.)
You can take all of the praise we've given Razer's Blade 15 over the years and apply it to the latest model. Razer's flagship gaming notebook still has a sleek unibody aluminum case, and it packs in the latest CPUs and GPUs, including NVIDIA's top-end RTX 3080. And thanks to improved screen choices, you can also gift models with fast 1,440p displays, which are sharper than 1080p screens, and easier to run natively than 4K displays. If portability is a greater concern, take a look at the new Razer Blade 14, a sub-four-pound notebook sporting AMD's latest processors.
If the gamer in your life wants something more flashy and a bit lighter than the Razer Blade, consider the Zephyrus G15. With the combined power of AMD's latest processors and NVIDIA's latest graphics cards, it'll handle practically any game thrown at it. And if you're on a budget, you can find lower-end models cheaper than the equivalent Razer's. Mostly, though, we love this laptop because it has pretty much everything we'd want in a mobile gaming rig — that includes an excellent keyboard, a speedy 165Hz 1440p screen and excellent battery life. The only downside is that there's no webcam, but any aspiring streamer would rather have a separate external camera anyway.
The best Chromebooks are cheap, sturdy and powerful enough to handle basic school and office work. Acer's Chromebook 512 is one of the best current options, especially if you're looking for something for a child. It has a spill resistant keyboard, a sturdy impact-resistant case, and anchored keys that are harder for kids to pull off. Its Intel Celeron N4000 chip isn't the fastest, but it's enough to work on Google Docs, Sheets and Presentations without breaking too much of a sweat.
Sometimes it seems like there are just too many PC ultraportables to choose from, but Microsoft's Surface Laptop line are always a solid option. They feature some of the best keyboards on the market, excellent displays and support for all of Microsoft's notebook accessories, like the Surface Stylus. But mostly, we appreciate them for their design simplicity. They're sturdy, attractive and built for productivity. The latest 15-inch model also packs in speedy AMD processors that are powerful enough to play a few rounds of Overwatch.
Google's Pixel launches have been often been marred by hardware and other problems, with some more serious than others. The Pixel 6 has avoided that trend so far, but it still has a few minor issues around the display, 9to5Google has reported. Users noticed that when the Pixel 6 Pro is off, pressing the power button with slight pressure (not enough to turn it on) seems to activate a strange display "flicker." This doesn't affect the device when it's on.
In a support document, Google acknowledged the issue and said it will be fixed in the December software update. In the meantime, it gave the following instructions: "To avoid seeing this, when the power is off, do not cycle the power button. When you want to use the phone, hold the power button down long enough to turn it on." Google added that it's not "an issue with the phone hardware," meaning a software update will handle the problem.
The November patch has just been released today, with the main fix being a tweak to the Internet Quick Settings panel. As such, it'll take another month or so to fix the flickering issues. With the Pixel 6 being Google's first smartphone with its own Tensor processor, hopefully we won't see any major hardware issues.
Apple only rolled out the MagSafe charging case option for the AirPods Pro wireless earbuds just two weeks ago, but they've already going on sale for a second time. Today, they're available for at Best Buy for just $190, down $60 (24 percent) from the regular $250 price. We expect Amazon will match this price soon, but for now, the online retailer has the earbuds for $200, just $10 more.
The AirPods Pro earned a solid Engadget score of 87, thanks to the improved sound quality, good active noise cancellation, IPX4 water resistance, improved fit for more ear sizes and always-on Siri access. They also offer touch controls that let you easily switch modes between, say, noise cancellation and "Transparency" mode that lets you hear conversations, street noise and more.
However, Apple device compatibility is the most attractive feature compared to, say, Sony's WF-1000XM4 wireless earphones. That allows you to rapidly switch between an iPhone, iPad and MacBook computer. Battery life is as high as 5 hours without ANC or Transparency modes, or 4.5 hours of listening time (3.5 hours of talk time) with ANC turned on.
As part of its new AirPods and MacBook Pro launch, Apple gave the AirPods Pro a MagSafe charging case. As before, the case has a built-in battery that allows you to go up to 24 hours without needing access to a wall plug. MagSafe makes charging a bit more convenient, though, as the case will magnetically stick to compatible chargers like Apple's own MagSafe puck.
The $190 Best Buy price makes the AirPods Pro with MagSafe nearly as cheap as we've ever seen the older AirPods Pro without MagSafe. They'll probably keep going on sale fairly often as they've been out now since late 2019 and a new model could be coming down the pipe fairly soon.
Without a sense of touch, Frankenstein’s monster would never have realized that “fire bad” and we would have had an unstoppable reanimated killing machine on our hands. So be thankful for the most underappreciated of your five senses, one that robots may soon themselves enjoy. Facebook announced on Monday that it has developed a suite of tactile technologies that will impart a sense of touch into robots that the mad doctor could never imagine.
But why is Facebook even bothering to look into robotics research at all? “Before I joined Facebook, I was chatting with Mark Zuckerberg, and I asked him, ‘Is there any area related to AI that you think we shouldn't be working on?’ Yann LeCun, Facebook’s chief AI scientist recalled during a recent press call. “And he said, ‘I can't find any good reason for us to work on robotics,’ so that was the start of our FAIR [Facebook AI Research] research, that we're not going to work on robotics.”
“Then, after a few years,” he continued, “it became clear that a lot of interesting progress in AI work is happening in the context of robotics because this is the nexus of where people in AI research are trying to get to; the full loop of perception, reasoning, planning and action, and then getting feedback from the from the environment.”
As such, FAIR has centered its tactile technology research on four main areas of study — hardware, simulation, processing and perception. We’ve already seen FAIR’s hardware efforts: the DIGIT, a “low-cost, compact high-resolution tactile sensor” that Facebook first announced in 2020. Unlike conventional tactile sensors, which typically rely on capacitive or resistive methods, DIGIT is actually vision-based.
FAIR
“Inside the sensors there is a camera, there are RGB LEDs placed around the silicon, and then there is a silicon gel,” Facebook AI Research Scientist, Roberto Calandra, explained. “Whenever we touch the silicone on an object, this is going to create shadows or changes in color cues that are then recorded by the collar. These allow [DIGIT] to have extremely high resolution and extremely high spectral sensitivity while having a device which is mechanically very robust, and very easy and cheap to produce.”
Calandra noted that DIGIT costs about $15 to produce and, being open source hardware, its production schematics are available to universities and research institutions with fabrication capabilities. It’s also available for sale, thanks to a partnership with GelSight, to researchers (and even members of the public) who can’t build their own.
FAIR
In terms of simulation, which allows ML systems to train in a virtual environment without the need to collect heaps of real-world hardware data (much the same way Waymo has refined its self-driving vehicle systems over the course of 10 billion computer generated miles), FAIR has developed TACTO. This system can generate hundreds of frames of realistic high-resolution touch readings per second as well as simulate vision-based tactile sensors like DIGIT so that researchers don’t have to spend hours upon hours tapping on sensors to create a compendium of real-world training data.
“Today if you want to use reinforcement learning, for example, to train a car to drive itself,” LeCun pointed out, “it would have to it would have to be done in your turn environment because it would have to drive for millions of hours, cause you know countless thousands of accidents and destroy itself multiple times before it burns its way around and even then it probably wouldn't be very reliable. So how is it that humans are capable of learning to drive a car with 10 to 20 hours of practice with hardly any supervision?”
“It's because, by the time we turn 16 or 17, we have a pretty good model of the world,” he continued. We inherently understand the implications of what would happen if we drove a car off a cliff because we’ve had nearly two decades of experience with the concept of gravity as well as that of fucking around and finding out. “So ‘how to get machines to learn that model of the world that allows them to predict events and plan what's going to happen as a consequence of their actions’ is really the crux of the problem here.”
Sensors and simulators are all well and good, assuming you’ve got an advanced Comp Sci degree and a deep understanding of ML training procedure. But many aspiring roboticists don’t have those sorts of qualifications so, in order to broaden the availability of DIGIT and TACTO, FAIR has developed PyTouch — not to be confused with PyTorch. While Torch is a machine learning library focusing primarily on vision-based and NLP libraries, PyTouch centers on touch sensing applications.
“Researchers can simply connect their DIGIT, download a pretrained model and use this as a building block in their robotic application,” Calandra and Facebook AI Hardware Engineer, Mike Lambeta, wrote in a blog published Monday. “For example, to build a controller that grasps objects, researchers could detect whether the controller’s fingers are in contact by downloading a module from PyTouch.”
Most recently, FAIR (in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University) has developed ReSkin, a touch-sensitive “skin” for robots and wearables alike. “This deformable elastomer has micro-magnetic particles in it,” Facebook AI Research Manager, Abhinav Gupta, said. “And then we have electronics — a thin flexible PCB, which is essentially a grid of magnetometers. The sensing technology behind the skin is very simple: if you apply force into it, the elastomer will deform and, as it deforms, it changes the magnetic flux which is read [by] magnetometers.”
“A generalized tactile sensing skin like ReSkin will provide a source of rich contact data that could be helpful in advancing AI in a wide range of touch-based tasks including object classification, proprioception, and robotic grasping,” Gupta wrote in a recent FAIR blog. “AI models trained with learned tactile sensing skills will be capable of many types of tasks, including those that require higher sensitivity, such as working in health care settings, or greater dexterity, such as maneuvering small, soft, or sensitive objects.”
Despite being relatively inexpensive to produce — 100 units cost about $6 to make — ReSkin is surprisingly durable. The 2-3mm thick material lasts for up to 50,000 touches while generating high-frequency, 3-axis tactile signals and while retaining a temporal resolution of up to 400Hz and a spatial resolution of 1mm with 90 percent accuracy. Once a swath of ReSkin reaches its usable limits, replacing “the skin is as easy as taking a bandaid off and putting a new bandaid on,” Gupta quipped.
FAIR
Given these properties, FAIR researchers foresee ReSkin being used in a number of applications including in-hand manipulation, ie making sure that robot gripper doesn’t crush the egg it’s picking up; measuring tactile forces in the field, measuring how much force the human hand exerts on objects it is manipulating, and contact localization, essentially teaching robots to recognize what they’re reaching for and how much pressure to apply once they touch upon it.
As with virtually all of its earlier research, FAIR has open-sourced DIGIT, TACTO, PyTouch and ReSkin in an effort to advance the state of tactile art across the entire field.
Using high-speed lasers, researchers have created "5D" data storage technology that could allow 500 TB of data to be written to a CD-sized glass disc, according to the Optica society. The technique uses higher writing speeds that might finally make it feasible to use the technology for archival and other purposes.
With 5D optical storage, each file is uses three layers of nanoscale dots. The dots' size, orientation and position within the three standard dimensions, make up the five "dimensions." The dots change the polarization of light travelling through the disc which is read using a microscope and polarizer.
We've seen 5D optical storage before, but there were a number of problems — particularly the slow writing speeds that made the technology impractical. It has huge upsides for (extremely) long-term storage, though. It's been estimated that the storage medium could withstand temperatures up to 1,000 degrees C and last 13.8 billion years at room temperature without degrading.
To overcome the speed problem, researchers used a femtosecond laser with a high repetition rate. Rather than writing directly in the glass, they used the laser to produce a phenomenon called near-field enhancement, that creates tiny structures using a few weak light pulses. Those can be used to enhance the circular voids generated by a more powerful, single-pulse "micro-explosion." This technique "minimized the thermal damage that has been problematic for other approaches that use high-repetition-rate lasers," according to the paper.
Using the new technique, the team was able to write 5GB of text data ono a silica glass disc the size of a conventional CD with nearly 100 percent readout accuracy. "With the writing density available from the method, the disc would be able to hold 500 terabytes of data," the researchers said. They were also able to write at speeds or around a million voxels per second, or about 230 KB per second.
That might sound slow, but by introducing parallel writing, you could feasibly fill a 500TB disc in about 60 days. That could provide a way to backup reams of valuable data, essentially forever. "With the current system, we have the ability to preserve terabytes of data, which could be used, for example, to preserve information from a person’s DNA," said research team leader Peter G. Kazansky.
