The MicroFreak already had a wavetable engine built in, so this isn't a huge stretch. But being able to import your own wavetables opens up a the ability to really build your own unique sounds. There are countless sources fo free wavetables out there ranging from classic analog tones, to icy atmospheres, to blasts of noise. But you can basically use any sound file you want. Hum into your phone, or capture audio of the stray cats in your neighborhood fighting, then upload it to the MicroFreak and turn it into a synthesizer.
Adding custom wavetables is easy enough using Arturia's MIDI Control Center desktop app. There's a dedicated tab for them at the top of the interface once you connect your Microfreak. You can only have 16 custom tables at a time, and the format can be a little tricky to nail if you're concerned about perfectly smooth sounding waves — 32 cycles consisting of 256 samples per cycle. But, if you just embrace its quirks, the WaveUser engine is capable of strange, wild and abrasive sounds that speak to the MicroFreak's strengths.
To show off the new WaveUser engine, of course there are 64 new presets. But, let's be honest, factory presets with Arturia provided wavetables kinda defeats the whole purpose here.
The new 4.0 firmware has a few other minor improvements as well. Including a faster scrolling speed option for the oscillator controls and the ability to use Unison and Chord modes can now be applied to every note, wether they're being played live, coming from sequencer or an external source.
MicroFreak 4.0 is available as a free update now on Arturia's website and through MIDI Control Centre.
Amazon is said to be working on a live audio app that sounds like it will let anyone be the DJ of their own radio show — including music. Project Mic, as the app is currently known, will reportedly focus on the US market at first, though the launch timeline is not clear.
Creators will be able to play songs from the vast Amazon Music library, according to The Verge. Along with music, it seems programming will include pop culture, sports and comedy. Amazon is said to be looking at bringing in celebrities and influencers to host shows. You’ll be able to search for shows by name, topic or music, and it appears Amazon will highlight live content, including trending topics and certain creators.
The presentation showed that in addition to the app, creators will be able to broadcast shows on Amazon Music, Twitch, Audible and Alexa-enabled devices. With the latter, listeners will reportedly get to interact with the shows, even from their car.
The report doesn’t mention whether listeners will need to be Amazon Music subscribers, but given the breadth of platforms on which the shows will be available, that seems unlikely. Engadget has contacted Amazon for more details.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard about Amazon working on such an app. Axiosreported on its existence this summer, but this latest report provides more details about what Project Mic entails.
Twitter, Facebook, Spotify and Discord have all joined the live audio space over the last year after Clubhouse exploded in popularity. Those apps tend to focus on live conversations, though, rather than songs.
Spotify does have a morning show called The Get Up that blends chat and personalized music, and it seems the most likely contender to offer a similar feature to what Amazon has in mind. Elsewhere, Clubhouse recently started offering musicians a high-quality audio option for better livestreamed concerts.
Amazon's internet satellites will be put to work expanding rural broadband coverage. CNBCreports Verizon is teaming with Amazon to improve fixed wireless internet access in rural areas in the US. The alliance will initially concentrate on expanding Verizon's LTE and 5G service using Amazon's Project Kuiper for "backhaul," boosting coverage in areas with little or no high-speed data.
Amazon and Verizon later hope to offer unified internet access for industries worldwide, including smart farms and transportation. For now, they're establishing technical requirements for rural broadband using Project Kuiper antenna tech already in development.
The two didn't provide a timeline for this satellite-augmented service. Amazon recently lined up rocket launches for Project Kuiper, but it doesn't expect to have half its satellites in low Earth orbit until 2026. The full constellation is expected no later than July 2029.
There's an enemy-of-my-enemy aspect to this deal. Amazon and Verizon are racing to compete with SpaceX's rapidly developing Starlink service — they both risk losing customers if Starlink claims too strong a foothold, including corporate clients like Google. All the same, Americans might not mind if this brings fast internet access to more parts of the country. Rural internet coverage is still far from complete, even with the FCC investing billions in 5G — this could fill in the gaps without having to wire as much of the countryside as before.
Adobe has announced that it's taken "a major step forward for collaboration" by bringing its Photoshop and Illustrator apps to the web. The idea is not to do let you do complex work from a web page, but allow collaborators to open and view your work from a browser to provide comments and feedback — much as you can with a Google Doc.
It's currently possible to store your work in Adobe's Creative Cloud and let anyone open it from anywhere, but they need to have the desktop or iPad app. Now with Photoshop or Illustrator, your colleagues "can review and add comments right in the browser without having to download apps or have a Creative Cloud subscription," Adobe notes. That means you could show your work directly to ad agency or other clients who don't need or want Adobe's products.
Adobe
On top of the basic collaboration tools, Adobe is preview some basic browser editing tools that would allow you to make "minor tweaks and quick edits" without having to launch the full Illustrator or Photoshop apps. Those include things like selection, minor color correction and more.
Taking a page from Microsoft Teams, Klaxoon and similar apps, Adobe is also launching "Creative Cloud Spaces" that allows creative teams to bring "content, context and people together to one place," according to Adobe. That's essentially a whiteboard available to project members, showing documents, images and whatever else is required.
You can start sharing Photoshop and Illustrator work via the web, for the purpose of commenting and feedback, simply by updating the latest versions of the apps dropping today. If you want to try the basic editing capabilities, they're available via beta for Photoshop (within the Creative Cloud app) or as a private beta for Illustrator. You can request access for the latter here.
One thing you can definitely say about Amazon’s Kindle: it’s not the kind of device you need to upgrade often, even if you’re an avid reader. I’ve been using the same one since late 2015, and it’s still going strong. But Amazon caught my attention with the 5th-generation Paperwhite. For the first time since the original Paperwhite, Amazon increased the display size to 6.8 inches, from six, and it has narrower bezels than ever before. It also now uses 17 LED backlights (up from only five) and an adjustable “warm light” to reduce eye strain at night. Amazon has also finally switched to USB-C for charging.
Those are some notable new features, but Amazon is also offering a “Signature Edition” (SE) this year, which has 32GB of storage (the standard model only has 8GB), an automatically adjusting backlight, wireless charging and no ads on the lock screen. And it's still waterproof, can play back Audible audiobooks over Bluetooth and has tremendous battery life. At $190, it’s not cheap; nor, at $140, is the standard Paperwhite. But, if you’ve been using yours for as long (or longer) than me, there’s a lot to like here. It doesn’t radically change the Kindle experience, but does make it a lot nicer.
If you’ve used a Kindle at all in the last decade, you’ll be familiar with the new Paperwhite’s design. Like other e-readers, the Paperwhite is dominated by an E Ink touchscreen that has gentle backlights you can turn on or off and adjust to fit your reading conditions. Like earlier Kindles, the rest of the device is soft-touch plastic that picks up fingerprint grease a little too easily.
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Also, like the 2018 Paperwhite, the screen here is flush with the front of the device, rather than being slightly recessed, like it was on previous models. Coming from an older device, I loved this change. It makes swiping the touchscreen to turn pages much more pleasant, and having the display a little bit closer to your eyes feels better too. It’s simply a higher-quality experience – but if you have a 2018 Paperwhite, or the more expensive Kindle Oasis, you know this already.
More significant is the larger screen size. Amazon kept the same 300 pixel-per-inch density here, so the display looks as nice as ever. There’s just more room for your books and navigating the Kindle UI. Between the extra screen space and some changes to the interface, using the device is much more comfortable than it used to be. It is worth knowing that the new Paperwhite is ever so slightly wider and taller – so if you have small hands or already found the Kindle to be a little too large, this might be an issue. But, for me, the larger screen is a massive improvement, and isn’t diminished in the least by the slightly bigger body.
The screen bezels are also significantly smaller, as well. The bottom bezel is on the large side, presumably so you can rest your thumb on it while reading, but the ones on the top, left, and right are all very thin. The smaller bezels, larger display, and lack of a recessed screen all combine to make this hardware feel far more premium than previous Kindle Paperwhite models.
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
A less impactful change is the new LED front lighting system. There are 17 individual LEDs that give the Paperwhite its gentle glow that lets you read in poor light, up from five that were in the previous model. That sounds like a big improvement, but I can’t say I notice a major difference. The Old Paperwhite already had a very smooth front lighting system, and it looks great on the new model, too, just not dramatically better.
These LEDs do have a new trick, though: “adjustable warm lighting.” It’s similar to the Night Shift feature Apple added to its products a few years ago; it adjusts the color temperature of the display lighting to a more amber hue. The Kindle’s blighting system never felt too blue to me, and since we’re not dealing with a glowing LCD, they’ve always been less likely to disrupt sleep. But being able to adjust the screen’s color temperature is still handy.
Like with other devices, you can set two different color temperatures, one for during the day and a warmer setting for after the sun has gone down. There’s also an automatic schedule that uses location services to automatically and gradually change the color temperature based on sunrise and sunset in your current location.
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
I appreciate the multiple ways you can customize the warmth of the Paperwhite’s screen, but it’s also a little confusing. When you pull down the settings shade, you’ll see sliders for both brightness and screen warmth. Then, when you dive into the section where you can set a schedule, there’s another slider to set the warmth for the scheduled time. It took me a bit to realize that one slider covered the warmth outside of the scheduled time and another was only in effect during the schedule.I eventually I got everything sorted out, though. And if you don’t care about scheduling the screen’s color temperature, you can just pick a setting that looks best to you and forget about it.
You’ve been able to set different brightness levels on the Kindle for years now, but the Paperwhite Signature Edition can automatically adjust to the ambient light. Smartphones have had this feature for years, and the more expensive Kindle Oasis has had it for a while, too. Here, it works pretty quickly and reliably. I first manually set the brightness to a comfortable level for the room I was reading in, and then put my trust in the auto brightness feature. I could definitely notice it kicking on in brighter rooms and turning things down in my dimly lit bedroom when I was getting ready to crash for the night. It’s not an essential feature, but it is nice to have.
Come to think of it, “nice to have” describes most of the difference between the standard Kindle Paperwhite and the Signature Edition. The standard version comes with 8GB of storage, versus 32GB in the SE. The SE also has wireless charging, which works quite well – I dropped the Paperwhite on a few Anker chargers I have around the house, and it charged up quickly and reliably. But given how long the device’s battery lasts, most people will be fine charging it with any old USB-C cable once a month or so. (I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the Paperwhite has a battery that lasts weeks, just like all the other Kindles.)
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
The SE also has an ad-free lock screen. The fact that Amazon has long charged a premium to get a device without ads on it that try to sell you more stuff from Amazon is about the most Amazon thing ever. And my desire to not have ads shoved in my face makes the Signature Edition pretty appealing. A $50 price difference is significant – but given the fact that I generally use a Kindle for five years or more, why not get rid of those ads and get a few extra features while I’m at it? Given that the standard Paperwhite without ads is only $30 cheaper than the Signature Edition, this is an upsell that I’d probably go for.
Things like storage capacity, the number of LEDs, wireless charging and so on only really matter in service of one thing: reading. Fortunately, the new Kindle Paperwhite is the best e-reader I’ve ever used. I’ve never had a big issue with how E Ink screens need to refresh when you turn the page, but the Paperwhite refreshes so quickly and smoothly that this device feels a lot nicer to use than my 2015 model.
Beyond the refresh rate, the touchscreen is extremely responsive; I rarely had my taps or swipes go unrecognized. When I use the keyboard to search for books, I just plow ahead and don’t get caught up waiting for a key press to register. There are still times where you need to wait for the screen to catch up, though. That’s mostly when you’re navigating more complex layouts, like the Kindle Store.
In some regards, the new Kindle Paperwhite changes nothing; Amazon has had a stranglehold on the e-reader market for years, and the previous Paperwhite was the device to get. The new Paperwhite is still Amazon’s best e-reader. It’s not as expensive and fancy as the Kindle Oasis, but it offers a far better experience than the basic $90 Kindle. The bigger screen and higher resolution are reasons enough to choose the Paperwhite if you’re anything more than the most casual of reader.
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
The other question is whether the $190 “Signature Edition” is worth the $50 premium over the standard model. For most people, the answer is probably no — the two devices are essentially the same in every significant way. Wireless charging is nice to have, but given how infrequently the Paperwhite needs to be charged, it’s not a huge upgrade in convenience. More storage is never a bad thing, but 8GB can still hold literally thousands of books. The extra space is really only important if you use Audible on the Kindle, because audiobooks can quickly eat through your storage.
The auto-adjusting light is probably my favorite of these Signature Edition features. Almost every other display in your life can do that, And having it here makes sense, especially if you power up your Paperwhite in the middle of the night. Plus, it’s hard to overstate how nice it is to not have to look at an ad every time you pick the device up.
Ultimately, if I was buying the Kindle Paperwhite for someone as a gift, I’d probably get the standard edition. If I was buying for myself, I’d get the Signature. But either way, I’d be buying a Kindle Paperwhite — it remains the best e-reader on the market.
At its annual Max conference, Adobe detailed some enhancements that are coming to its Lightroom and Lightroom Classic software suites. To start, the company is introducing a “re-envisioned” set of selective adjustment tools. Set to make their way to all devices where you can access Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, the tools are accessible via a newly added masking button. Much like you can do in Photoshop, they allow you to create multiple masks, including color and luminance ones. In turn, those will allow you to make precise adjustments to specific parts of a photo.
Adobe
Of course, individually masking elements of an image can be time-consuming, and so Adobe is also introducing an AI-powered tool that can automatically detect the select the subject and sky in your photos. In addition to rolling out to Lightroom Classic and Lightroom on Mac and PC, this is coming to select Android and iOS devices. And that’s where Adobe envisions it being the most useful since it should help with editing on a smaller screen.
If you like to start your edits with a preset, a new recommendation engine in Lightroom for Mac, Windows and mobile will suggest ones based on the subject of your photos. The presets will come from the Lightroom community, so you can expect to find “hundreds of thousands,” according to the company. Additionally, Adobe is introducing eight new premium presets, adding to the seven it released previously. Those are available to use in all versions of Lightroom.
Adobe
To make cropping easier on Lightroom for Mac and Windows, Adobe has added the option to select a variety of overlays for different aspect ratios. Some of the options on this front include thirds, golden ratio and diagonal.
Lastly, the company is introducing a new feature in Lightroom for Mac and Windows called Community Remix. It allows you to upload a photo edit and invite other photographers to take it in a different direction. Adobe says it plans to bring Community Remix to other versions of Lightroom in the future.
Adobe says it will begin rolling out all of the above updates starting today. They should become available to everyone by the end of the week. At its Adobe Max conference, the company also detailed updates for Fresco, Photoshop and other apps.
Adobe Fresco has given artists and designers the ability to draw and paint with lifelike digital materials for two years now. Last fall, the company expanded the app to iPhone, but this year the updates are much more robust. With the additions announced today at its annual Adobe Max design conference, the company gives its free-to-use drawing and painting app handy tools that expand how and what artists are able to create.
First, Adobe is adding motion to Fresco. This gives artists and designers the option to add timelines and motion frames to individual layers. The company explains that this allows you to assign specific movement to each element. Adobe says you can also draw paths for objects to follow and the goal is to keep things simple so the concept of motion is approachable for all skill levels.
Next, the company is adding reference layers to Fresco. This should help speed up the process when you need to add color to line art. Once you set the reference layer, you can begin working on a separate layer for fills. Fresco will still recognize the lines on the original layer without applying edits to it. This will work if your reference layer is vector or pixels and keeps your original drawing intact.
Adobe/Kyle Webster
Vector brushes are already available in Fresco, but Adobe is expanding that library to include a new set with "jitter." Basically, these brushes will help you quickly give drawings texture. Lines are still sharp, but there's variation in the stroke for a more naturally drawn look. As always, vector brushes are infinitely scalable and can be combined with pixel brushes in the same Fresco file.
Lastly, Adobe is helping you keep your perspective correct with new guides. Perspective grids will help you keep illustrations looking realistic when it's time to add depth. You can set vanishing points anywhere, even off the the artboard, and lines will snap to the grids as you work. Adobe says this should allow artists and designers to focus more on art and less on the heavy lifting.
Adobe Fresco is free for anyone to use on iPhone, iPad and Windows without a Creative Cloud subscription. There are more tools available if you do pay for Adobe's apps, like access to an expanded library of brushes.
Master & Dynamic has staked its name on its mix of refined design, premium materials and crisp, clear audio quality. The company has a number of models under its belt, including wired, wireless and noise-cancelling headphones, in addition to true wireless earbuds and a concrete speaker. Now M&D is venturing into uncharted sonic territory: gaming headsets. With the MG20, the company has built a set of "wireless gaming headphones" with its trademark design and a range of handy features for a whopping $449 (€449/£429).
The MG20 has a familiar look to the company's over-ear headphones, with some simplified design choices. This gaming headset doesn't have quite as many varying textures as some of M&D's other products, for example. This time around, the company opted for a combo of aluminum, magnesium, lambskin leather and Alcantara. There's a detachable boom mic for gaming sessions and the MG20 also has microphones for calls when you're using them as a set of headphones. The headphones also have a semi-open back design for a wider sound stage and more natural audio quality.
Inside, 50mm drivers power 7.1 surround sound with support for aptX HD for music and aptX Low-Latency for mobile gaming. With the debut of the MG20, M&D has added EQ presets to it's headphone app for the first time, allowing users to select a sound profile to fit their needs. What's more, independent volume controls for game audio offer another degree of customization. A low-latency USB adapter is compatible with both PlayStation and PC and offers easy switching between devices. Master & Dynamic says the MG20 will last for up to 22 hours on a charge, and thanks to wear detection, the headphones can save battery life when you're not wearing them.
The MG20 will be available in black and white color options starting November 16th.
Three years after releasing a teensy phone designed to act as a companion for your primary device, the latest incarnation of Palm is back with a new product: a set of true wireless earbuds. Former designers from Beats by Dre and Samsung created the Palm Buds Pro.
Palm says it researched which features consumers want most from wireless earbuds, and it seems to have checked off a lot of the right boxes here. Buds Pro has active noise cancellation, bass-heavy audio with 10mm dynamic drivers and an array of six microphones that can tamp down background noise on calls. When the passthrough Ambient Mode is enabled, you'll be able to hear both audio playback and sounds from the world around you.
Palm
The battery will run for up to 5.5 hours or, if ANC is enabled, 4.5 hours, Palm says. The earbuds should be good for three hours of talk time. The charging case has a 400 mAh battery, which should provide the earbuds with over 24 hours of playback time before you have to recharge the case, according to Palm.
There's also fast pairing and syncing with devices, IPX4 sweat and water resistance and support for Siri and Google Assistant. In addition, the earbuds come with three sets of tips to help you find the best fit.
Palm
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Palm Buds Pro at the outset is how much they cost. The earbuds will be $129 at retail, which is a solid price for a set of ANC earbuds. If you pre-order by November 9th (when general availability starts), you can get a $30 discount.
Pre-orders are now open in the US, Canada and Mexico on Palm's website. Palm will ship the earbuds internationally to select markets. There's also a silicone case accessory in Shadow Black, Rose Pink and Navy Blue. The case is $15 during the pre-order period. It'll typically cost $25.
It remains to be seen how good Palm Buds Pro are in practice. Even though we weren't huge fans of the Palm Phone, there's a strong design pedigree behind the earbuds, so they might very well be worth checking out.
Sony’s smartphones have never quite set the world on fire. It’s one of the last storied tech companies still willing to try to sell phones, despite the dominance of Apple and Samsung.
The company seemed to turn a corner with its Xperia 1 series — phones that leaned into Sony’s camera knowledge, both when it came to sensors it’s made for years and software smarts.
We’ve got a review incoming for the Xperia 1 III, but that’s now been elbowed aside by the Xperia Pro-1, announced last night.
The big feature of the Xperia Pro-I is a 1-inch sensor last seen from the company's wonderful RX100 VII point-and-shoot camera. It’s a much larger sensor than you'll find on most phones (although Sony says the lens only actually covers a portion of the sensor). For comparison, the primary sensor on the just-released Google Pixel 6 Pro features a pixel pitch of 1.2µm. The Pro-I has 2.4µm-sized pixels. The device can capture RAW stills, 4K 120 fps video, and (like the last few Xperia 1 models) shoot images at 20 fps as well.
The phone will also arrive with all kinds of dongles and add-ons, including support for Sony’s “dead-cat” muffler to cut wind noise, a shooting grip and its very own add-on display, for self-recording and vlogging with the primary camera sensor.
As tradition dictates, Sony is demanding a premium, yet again. In the US, the Xperia Pro-I will cost $1,800.The company reasons that you’re getting a flagship phone and RX100 VII point-and-shoot all in one device, for less.
While we balk at that Sony phone price, Google’s Pixel phones have landed. A true blend of premium hardware and tempting prices. Yep, for hundreds less than the competition, the Pixel 6 Pro offers everything you’d expect from a flagship and more. It has a lovely 120Hz screen, excellent cameras and a beautiful UI. Plus, Google’s clever AI touches add some intriguing photography tricks and makes voice typing easier.
Torn between the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro? Given the similarity of specs (and size) that decision this year boils down to one key factor: price. Choose the Pixel 6 instead of the Pro and you’ll save $300. You'll only be missing out on the 120Hz screen and a telephoto camera. And the Pixel 6 has cooler color options anyhow...
Apple’s overhauled AirPods bring major changes to design and audio quality. The company expanded availability of key features from the AirPods Pro like spatial audio and Adaptive EQ to a more affordable set of earbuds, all while keeping all of the convenience of AirPods intact.
100,000 Teslas would be the largest EV purchase ever.
Hertz has ordered 100,000 Tesla EVs for its fleet, with plans to rent them out in major US markets and parts of Europe starting in November, according to Bloomberg. That would mark the largest electric vehicle order of all time and represent a major move by Hertz into electric car rentals.
It would be a pretty sharp turnaround for Hertz, considering that it filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
Apple has announced that Group Workouts are available starting today, so you can get up to 32 friends together to follow along with the company's exercise or meditation videos.
To use the new features, you'll need to update to iOS 15.1 or iPadOS 15.1, as well as watchOS 8.1, all of which are available today. Those who plan on watching the videos on their Apple TV will also need tvOS 15.1. SharePlay wasn't available when iOS 15 launched earlier this year, and during the iOS 15 beta it was buggy and unstable.
With Halo Infinite’s release date fast approaching, Microsoft has shared a new six-minute trailer that offers an in-depth look at the game’s single-player component. It’s another attempt after the divisive Xbox showcase appearance from 2020.
