Exactly one week after the release of iOS 14.7, Apple has pushed out a new update to iPhone and iPad owners. Coming in at approximately 900MB, iOS 14.7.1 doesn't include new features but does address a bug that made its way into 14.7. The glitch broke Apple's Unlock with iPhone integration, preventing Touch ID-equipped phones from unlocking Apple Watch devices. So if you use an older iPhone with your Apple wearable, you'll want to download the update as soon as possible.

Apple says iOS 14.7.1 also addresses a security vulnerability that someone may have exploited. In a support document spotted by 9to5Mac, the company notes the oversight had allowed an application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. Apple's latest macOS software, which you can also download today, addresses that same issue with the release of Big Sur 11.5.1. As usual, the company says the updates are "recommended for all users."

If you don't see a prompt to download iOS 14.7.1 on your iPhone or iPad, you can manually check for the software by opening the Settings app on your device, tapping "General" and then "Software Update." On macOS, meanwhile, open the System Preferences menu and then click on "Software Update."

First developed more than 100,000 years ago, clothing is one of humanity’s earliest — and most culturally significant — inventions, providing wearers not just protection from the environment and elements but also signifying social status, membership in a community and their role within that group. As robots increasingly move out of labs, off of factory floors and into our everyday lives, a similar garment revolution could soon be upon us once again, according to a new research study out of New York’s Cornell University.

“We believe that robot clothes present an underutilized opportunity for the field of designing interactive systems,” the team argues in What Robots Need From Clothing, which was submitted to the In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021. “Clothes can help robots become better robots — by helping them be useful in a new, wider array of contexts, or better adapt and function in the contexts they are already in.”

“I started by looking at how different materials would move on robots and thinking about the readability of that motion — like, what is the robot's intention based on the way materials move on the robot,” Natalie Friedman, a PhD student at Cornell Tech and lead author on the paper, explained to Engadget. “From there, I started thinking about all the different social functions that clothes have for people and how that could influence how the robot is viewed.”

While tomorrow’s robots may wear white button down dress shirts and black bow ties while serving hors d'oeuvres to party guests or wear candy stripes while working as nurses, it’s not simply a matter of tossing human clothing onto a robotic chassis. “What robot clothes are is integrally tied to what robots need from clothing. Robot clothing should analogously fulfill needs robots have, rather than just being human clothes on a robot,” the researchers wrote.

Robo-clothes could take any number of forms, depending on their wearer’s specific function. Robotic firefighters, such as the Thermite from Howe and Howe, might theoretically be issued heat-resistant overcoats akin to what humans wear but embedded with thermochromic ink to provide the robot’s operator an easy visual reference to the area’s ambient temperature or indicate that the robot is in danger of overheating. Conversely, search-and-rescue bots could wear waterproof garments when conducting oceanic operations and then strap on extra-grippy boots when searching for lost hikers in mountainous terrain or survivors of a building collapse.

"I think this work is important to helping engineers and technologists understand the functional importance of aesthetics and signaling in design,” Cornell Tech professor and co-author Wendy Ju, said in a recent blog. “It's not ‘just fashion’ - what the robot wears helps people understand how to interact with it in ways that are critical to safety and task execution."

Overall, the use of swappable attire could lead to more generalized robot designs as the specific capabilities the clothing provides don't have to be baked into the robot’s construction. “It is more difficult to build a new robot than to build new clothes,” Friedman said. “I think that clothes are going to influence robot design and robot designs are going to influence clothes. Maybe it'll start in one direction — clothes made to fit robots — but, in the future, I think that robots might be built to better fit in clothes.” She notes that Pepper, though recently discontinued by SoftBank, offers an online merch store with a wide variety of costumes and outfits for the robot to wear including outfits designating cultural, national, professional and religious affiliations.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

But clothing on robots isn’t just for their own benefit, it also serves to demystify and humanize these cutting-edge machines in the eyes of the people they’re working with. For example, clothing could help protect a robot’s sense of shame — or rather that of its user.

“The need for wire modesty — to cover up nudity — stems from anthropomorphic priggishness, since robots do not get embarrassed about wires poking out of them,” the researchers wrote. “However, both humanoid and non-humanoid robots have pragmatic reasons to maintain a clean and covered aesthetic, because exposed wires present a real risk to function. Any wire that is pulled out or cut will remove power or signal to a subsystem, and that can be risky to the robot and any people or objects in the environment.”

“I definitely see a future where [when robots] aren't wearing clothes, it might look a little funny,” Friedman added. “I mean we are just mapping our ideas onto robots, right? Robots don’t have consciousness, so they don't feel shame.”

However, putting clothes on robots could also prove problematic especially if the apparel style has been culturally appropriated. You can bet your bottom dollar that the first cannabis dispensary to dress an automated budtender in rastafarian garb is going to make headlines — and not the kind that are good for business — same as if you outfitted a Roomba with a Native American headdress. “Hawaiian shirts, for example, used to be a marker of ‘casual Friday’ office attire, but more recently are affiliated with the extremist ‘Boogaloo Boys,’” the researchers wrote.

Despite the potential drawbacks to putting pants on robots, doing so could help make the entire field of research more attractive to a new generation of roboticists. “I like to think about girls in robotics,” Friedman said. “When they're young, I think robotics seems like a really intimidating thing but I see clothes as kind of a way to welcome, you know, the stereotypically feminine... skills that women have. I see clothes as a way to welcome girls into [robotics].”

Microsoft's Surface Duo drew flak for delivering outdated specs at top-tier prices (among other missteps), but that might not be true for the sequel. Windows Central has shared a Tech Rat leak purporting to show images of the Surface Duo 2, and they suggest Microsoft is dragging its dual-screen Android phone into the modern era. Most notably, there's a conspicuous rear camera bump with three sensors — you wouldn't have to use a single camera for everything. WC understood these were standard, telephoto and ultra-wide shooters.

The leak also shows the Surface Duo 2 in a stealthier black color, and suggests Microsoft has pulled the fingerprint reader from its original spot and moved it to the power button.

There's little to see of the two screens or the internals, although WC and previous leaks point to a much-needed jump to modern hardware. Microsoft will reportedly outfit the Surface Duo 2 with a Snapdragon 888 chip, 5G and NFC. No more using year-old parts with glaring omissions, to put it another way.

WC claimed Microsoft will launch the Duo 2 sometime in September or October. It's not certain what the price would be, but Microsoft lowered the original's price from $1,399 to $999 just a few months after release, and it's available for $650 as we write this. The company is clearly aware that the first Surface Duo's steep price scared would-be buyers, and it likely won't want to make that mistake again.

Spotify is introducing a feature to notify people when their favorite artists and podcast producers have a new release to check out. Taking the form of a bell icon you’ll find at the top of the app’s home interface, the What’s New panel collects new releases from bands, musicians and shows you follow on the platform. Spotify says the feature will update in real-time, with a blue dot overlaid on top of the bell icon indicating when the panel has been refreshed with new content. Spotify plans to roll out the feature to all Android and iOS users over the coming weeks.

Spotify

In intent, What’s New is similar to Spotify’s existing Release Radar playlist. They’re both designed to surface new content for you to add to your Spotify library, but the way they go about that task is different. Like Discover Weekly, Release Radar uses a mix of human curation and software to highlight the songs you’re most likely to enjoy from a new album, EP or single. What’s New, by contrast, forgoes curation in favor of comprehensiveness. It also has the advantage of a dedicated interface element. As a playlist, it’s easy for Release Radar to get lost among all the other playlists you can add to your Spotify library.

The emergence of virtual productions like those popularized by Disney's The Mandalorian have given display giants a new niche for their massive screens. Sony, which boasts a movie production arm, is already using its modular crystal LEDs to provide backgrounds for shoots. Now, Samsung is getting in on the act through a new partnership with Korea's CJ ENM, the entertainment group best known for the Oscar-winning social satire Parasite. 

The pact will see Samsung provide its massive MicroLED TVs, known as The Wall, to the studio's virtual production facility when it opens in Paju, Gyeonggi Province later this year. CJ ENM previously struck a deal with Fortnite maker Epic Games to use its Unreal Engine game engine — which also provided the digital backdrops for The Mandalorian — for future projects. 

Virtual productions are gaining traction in global filmmaking. The technique involves the use of LED stages, game engines and VR to create and control computer-generated backdrops. Currently, the massive investment has limited the tools to blockbuster shoots, but industry insiders believe that could change as people realize the savings they bring on crew travel and physical sets and infrastructure. As a result, virtual production is expected to become the norm in filmmaking within five years, according to an industry report by the Göteborg Film Festival. 

Samsung says its latest screens will deliver improved visuals thanks to their support for HDR 10+ and optimized frame rates such as 23.976Hz, 29.97Hz and 59.94Hz. The company will install an oval-shaped main display at CJ ENM's new complex with a diameter of 20 metres and a height of seven metres or more. Samsung says its massive screen measures over 1,000 inches and supports up to 16K high-resolution content.

But, the Korean company hasn't embraced virtual production quite like Sony. The Japanese conglomerate previously paid $250 million to acquire a minority stake in Epic Games. It also bought virtual production software maker Nurulize in 2019 and integrated it into Sony Innovation Studios, the state-of-the-art facility located on the Sony Pictures Studios lot.

LG may be through with smartphones, but it's still making gear you can use with your mobile. The Korean company has unveiled its new range of LG Tone Free wireless earbuds, and this time the germ-killing UV tech isn't the highlight. Of the three newcomers, the high-end FP9 model has a charging case that plugs into a headphone jack to work as a Bluetooth dongle. The feature could be handy during flights and in other wired environments. 

The trio, including the mid-range FP8 and low-end FP9, also come with active noise-canceling and two new spatial audio upgrades. That means you should hear musical elements as if they're positioned in different spaces in a 3D soundstage. The results are supposed to be more "lifelike," according to LG, but we'll have to test them before offering a verdict. 

LG

In fact, spatial audio is becoming a more common feature in general. It recently arrived on Apple Music and has long been available through Sony's 360 Reality Audio format. While Verizon claims that its spatial audio format, Adaptive Sound, doesn't even require specific headphones, earbuds or speakers.

The big departure in the Tone Free's design is the shorter stem, which LG reduced by 4.4 millimeters. All three also pack a trio of microphones and a new voice calling feature, dubbed Whispering Mode, that lets you hold the right earbud close to your mouth as a dedicated mic. 

UV auto-cleaning is back, too, but limited to the FP8 and FP9. It can get rid of 99.9 percent of germs in five minutes when the buds are placed inside the case, which features wireless charging on the FP8. Both the mid- and high-end earbuds also pack more battery life than the low-end- FP5: 10 hours of playback time compared to 8 hours between charges, and 24 hours with the case compared to 22 hours. 

LG says the LG Tone Free FP series will be available starting this month in colors including charcoal black and pearl white, with the FP8 and FP9 also offered in haze gold. We've reached out for pricing info and will update this article accordingly.

Motorola might soon release a sequel to its flagship Edge phones — albeit without their signature feature. OnLeaks and Pricebaba have shared what they say are CAD-based renders of the standard Edge 20, and Motorola appears to have dropped the highly curved "endless" display in favor of a 6.7-inch flat screen. It would be just another phone on the outside, even if the 120Hz,1080p panel could make it feel extra-responsive.

You'd also get a triple rear camera system that reportedly includes a 108MP primary sensor, a 16MB secondary cam and an 8MP tertiary sensor (likely for telephoto and wide-angle shots). This regular Edge 20 model would be an upper mid-tier device on the inside between a Snapdragon 778G chip, up to 8GB of RAM, a peak 256GB of storage and a 4,000mAh battery.

There is a chance the rumored Edge 20 Pro would keep the curved screen, and it might offer improved performance from the Snapdragon 870. An Edge 20 Lite is supposedly in the works as well. If Motorola does use this design for the mainstream Edge 20, though, it signals a change of tack. Rather than relying on an eye-catching (if somewhat impractical) design for the entire Edge line, it would focus on delivering value for the money. It's just a question of whether or not the price will be low enough to draw you away from rivals.

Expect to see more mixed reality apps in the future, at least for the Oculus Quest 2. WinFuturenotes that Oculus has unveiled a toolkit, Passthrough API Experimental, that will make it relatively easy to "seamlessly" merge VR with the real world view from the Quest 2's cameras.

You can project images on flat surfaces, create composite layers that float in space, and even apply visual styles (akin to social media filters) to real scenes. You could give yourself a virtual monitor to use with your real-world keyboard, for instance, or turn your home into a psychedelic dreamscape by flicking a virtual switch.

Privacy shouldn't be an issue, Oculus claimed. The API only processes raw camera footage on-device, and apps can't access, store or view imagery of the world around you. A rogue app shouldn't transmit video of your home, to put it another way.

Oculus expects to deliver the framework to Unity engine developers with its next software development kit release. It will take a while for finished apps to surface, but don't be surprised if mixed reality games and productivity tools become relatively commonplace as a result of Oculus' new tools.

Xbox's Ultimate Game Sale has returned. Microsoft is offering deals on hundreds of Xbox and PC games and accessories over the next two weeks. Among the console titles you can save on are FIFA 21 Ultimate Edition and NBA 2K21 (75 percent off at $25 and $15, respectively), Battlefield 1 Revolution ($8, down 80 percent) and Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition ($45, 55 percent off).

MLB The Show 21's standard Xbox One edition and Series X/S bundle have both been discounted by 35 percent to $39 and $55.24 respectively. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is half off at $30, as is Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Other Xbox game deals include Mass Effect Legendary Edition (25 percent off, $45), Far Cry 5 (down 85 percent to $9), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Game of the Year Edition (discounted from $50 to $10) and Watch Dogs: Legion ($20, usually $60).

There are discounts on dozens of PC games as well. Gears 5, for instance, is down from $40 to $16. You can also save on Yakuza: Like a Dragon ($36, 40 percent off), Control (half off at $15) and Halo: The Master Chief Collection (down from $40 to $20).

There are many more deals to check out on the Ultimate Game Sale pages for Xbox and PC. The sale runs until August 5th. Still, before you snap up any of the games on offer, it's worth checking whether you already have access to them through Xbox Game Pass or EA Play. There are details about that on each game's product page.

You'll also be able to save on PCs and accessories as part of the sale. Microsoft has cut the prices of several gaming PCs and laptops by up to $500. You can save up to $300 on the Razer Blade 15, which starts at a sale price of $2,700. There are solid deals on VR headsets too, including the HTC Vive Cosmos and Vive Cosmos Elite, which have been discounted by $250 to $449 and $649 respectively.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Facebook has become the latest company to offer a cloud gaming service on iOS, only once again you won't access it through the App Store. Starting today, you can visit the Facebook Gaming website to add a Progressive Web App (PWA) that acts as a shortcut to the service on your iPhone or iPad. To do so, visit the platform's website and tap the "Add to Home Screen" option from the Safari share sheet.

It's not an elegant solution, but it's the same one employed by Amazon and Microsoft. When Apple tweaked its guidelines last September to allow for cloud gaming clients on iOS, it said games offered in a streaming service had to be individually downloaded from the App Store. That's a requirement both Microsoft and Facebook said was not congruent with how every other platform treats cloud gaming services.

"We've come to the same conclusion as others: web apps are the only option for streaming cloud games on iOS at the moment," Vivek Sharma, Facebook's vice-president of gaming, told The Verge of today's launch. "As many have pointed out, Apple's policy to 'allow' cloud games on the App Store doesn't allow for much at all. Apple's requirement for each cloud game to have its own page, go through review and appear in search listings defeats the purpose of cloud gaming."

The process of adding the web app is complicated enough that Facebook includes a short how-to when you first visit its Gaming website on Safari. You also have to know to navigate to the company's website in the first place. The reason for that is the App Store guidelines prohibit developers from using their applications to direct individuals to websites that feature alternative payment systems to those offered by Apple, and you pay for the in-game purchases offered in Facebook Gaming titles through Facebook's Pay platform.