Magic Leap's second take on augmented reality eyewear is available. The company has started selling Magic Leap 2 in 19 countries, including the US, UK and EU nations. The glasses are still aimed at developers and pros, but they include a number of design upgrades that make them considerably more practical — and point to where AR might be headed.
The design is 50 percent smaller and 20 percent lighter than the original. It should be more comfortable to wear over long periods, then. Magic Leap also promises better visibility for AR in bright light (think a well-lit office) thanks to "dynamic dimming" that makes virtual content appear more solid. Lens optics supposedly deliver higher quality imagery with easier-to-read text, and the company touts a wider field of view (70 degrees diagonal) than comparable wearables.
You can expect decent power that includes a quad-core AMD Zen 2-based processor in the "compute pack," a 12.6MP camera (plus a host of cameras for depth, eye tracking and field-of-view) and 60FPS hand tracking for gestures. You'll only get 3.5 hours of non-stop use, but the 256GB of storage (the most in any dedicated AR device, Magic Leap claims) provides room for more sophisticated apps.
As you might guess, this won't be a casual purchase. The Magic Leap 2 Base model costs $3,299, while developers who want extra tools, enterprise features and early access for internal use will want to pay $4,099 for the Developer Pro edition. Corporate buyers will want to buy a $4,999 Enterprise model that includes regular, managed updates and two years of business features.
You won't buy this for personal use as a result. This is more for healthcare, industry, retail and other spaces where the price could easily be offset by profits. However, it joins projects from Qualcomm, Google and others in showing where AR technology is going. Where early tech tended to be bulky and only ideal for a narrow set of circumstances, hardware like Magic Leap 2 appears to be considerably more usable in the real world.
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When SuperSpeed USB was announced in 2007, the branding was a logical differentiator. The term launched with USB 3.0, which brought max data transfer rates from USB 2.0's measly 0.48Gbps all the way to 5Gbps. But by 2022, there were three versions of SuperSpeed USB in various connector types facing consumers, plus the potentially faster USB4. Looking ahead, USB products will continue to offer different performance capabilities while looking the same, but there's at least one thing we can all agree on: The word "SuperSpeed" isn't a helpful differentiator anymore.
SuperSpeed branding already felt pretty unremarkable by 2019, when the USB-IF, which makes USB standards, renamed USB 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen 1; USB 3.1 to USB 3.1 Gen 2, and then USB 3.2 Gen 2; and USB 3.2 to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. The group sought to make things easier for consumers by recommending to vendors that they label products not by specification name but by "SuperSpeed USB" followed by max speed (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, for example, would be SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps).
Per updated guidelines and logos that started coming out this quarter and that you may see before 2022 ends, as reported by The Verge today, the USB-IF now recommends vendors label products as, simply, USB 20Gbps (for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2), USB 10Gbps (for USB 3.2 Gen 2), etc. No SuperSpeed necessary.
USB4, meanwhile, gets the same treatment, with the USB-IF recommending USB 40Gbps and USB 20Gbps branding for the spec. When it comes out, USB4 Version 2.0 should be called USB 80Gbps.
"USB4 Version 1.0, USB Version 2.0, USB 3.2, SuperSpeed Plus, Enhanced SuperSpeed, and SuperSpeed+ are defined in the USB specifications; however, these terms are not intended to be used in product names, messaging, packaging, or any other consumer-facing content," the USB-IF's language usage guidelines updated in September read [PDF].
The USB-IF still recommends vendors label USB 2.0, which can take the form of USB-C, USB-A, USB-B, and more, as "Hi-Speed USB" with no performance indicator. Most products using the USB 2.0 spec are peripherals, like keyboards and printers, Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and COO, told Ars Technica, so the industry group doesn't think consumers will mistake the tech for being faster than, say, USB 5Gbps. The USB-IF also feared people confusing "USB 480Mbps" as being faster than USB 5Gbps, due to the larger number (we guess "USB 0.48Gbps" doesn't look so pretty).
"Hi-Speed USB has been around for over 20 years and is well established in the marketplace, so we focused our rebranding efforts to 5Gbps and up," the USB-IF spokesperson said.
Recommended USB 1.0 branding, meanwhile, is untouched.
For USB-C cables, the USB-IF now recommends packaging and logos show both max data transfer rate and power delivery.
The changed recommendations align with what many vendors had already been doing: listing speeds alone without any spec name or the term SuperSpeed. Some vendors list USB spec names only. With all this in mind, it's not surprising to see the official demise of SuperSpeed branding, especially with the USB-IF revealing its optional, SuperSpeed-free USB-C logos a year ago.
The primary issue at the heart of USB confusion remains. Even as USB-C becomes more ubiquitous and, in some places, eventually required by law, USB-C products can have a range of capabilities, including data transfer rates of 0.48–40Gbps.
The USB-IF's guidelines also don't specify other capabilities, like Intel Thunderbolt support, whether a cable's active or passive, and PCIe tunneling.
Enlarge/ SuperSpeed labels like this (under the USB-A and USB-C ports) should be no more.
Scharon Harding
But according to Ravencraft, the typical person doesn't really care about any of those things. The exec told The Verge that consumer study groups showed that most consumers only care about "the highest data performance level the product can achieve" and "the highest power level I can get or drive from this product."
Most people don't understand USB branding, messaging, revision control, or spec names, he told The Verge.
Everything’s optional
Despite its efforts to simplify what consumers see, the USB-IF also can't ensure widespread usage of its optional logos and certification. The USB-IF-certified products list contains 2,500 items when there are countless devices, cables, and products using USB.
Ravencraft admitted to Ars that some companies may view the costs associated with getting USB-IF-certified, including passing USB-IF compliance testing and acquiring a USB-IF trademark license agreement, as "prohibitive." There are discounts for USB-IF members.
Ravencraft also suggested that some companies may forego certification if they know they cut corners to save costs and, thus, wouldn't pass compliance testing.
So, the Wild West of USB labeling will probably continue to some degree, but customers have options, too. Products with USB-IF logos, if available, immediately tell you how much power delivery and speed to expect. Whether or not that rate should be considered a super speed is up to you.
After months of waiting, Intel has finally delivers review kits to the media around the world. The kits feature Arc A770 and A750 Limited Edition models, considered Intel’s reference design. It’s the same design that go on sale next month.
The distribution of the Arc media kit happens just a day after the first 13th Gen Core “Raptor Lake” desktop CPU media kits were sent out as well. So, there is definitely a lot of work ahead for all these media outlets, who are getting both.
Intel Arc A7 Review Media Kit, Source: HardwareLuxx, ComputerBase
All review kits come with A770 and A750 GPUs hidden in a large outer boxes, but the actual product was delivered in retail form, just as it will ship to all gamers next month. Furthermore, Intel has bundled with some cool Arc swag, such as a screwdriver set and even an Arc neon/LED lamp. Those will obviously not be available with the product, but there is a chance that Intel will later sell it separately.
Intel Arc A7 Review Media Kit, Source: PCWatch, MyNavi
Just as we leaked last week, Intel A7 embargoes are as follows:
Arc A770/A750 embargo:
Unboxing : Sep 30, 09:00 (EDT)
Review : Oct 5, 09:00 (EDT)
Launch: Oct 12, 09:00 (EDT)
We are not aware of any changes to the review embargo, so you should expect first independent test results as soon as next week.
Intel Arc A7 Review Media Kit, Source: MyNavi
There are many more photos available here, but just in case you prefer video unboxing, check the ones below.
Combine the dramatic story of Dark Souls (if it had baboons in it), the gameplay of Guitar Hero (if Guitar Hero was drunk, and played with a single button), the card collecting of The Witcher 3 (if the cards were chiefly of dead composers), and you might get a game akin to Trombone Champ. What began as just a single, funny idea from husband-and-wife development team Holy Wow Studios has become 2022’s most hilarious game, created with a simple philosophy: 'If it’s funny, it goes in.'
Trombone Champ is a rhythm game that has players – in its own words – “honk, blow, and toot” their way through more than 20 songs as they attempt to solve the mysteries of the Trombiverse and collect Tromboner Cards as they go. It’s ridiculous, and creator Dan Vecchitto knows it.
“My ethos for this game was: if it's a funny idea, do it,” Vecchitto told IGN. “I didn't let standard rules of game design or common sense inhibit the comedy. I let the game gradually grow into a big sloppy pile of jokes: lots of poop jokes, lots of inexplicable baboon references, and lots of parodies of other games.”
But where did the idea for a trombone-based rhythm game come from? Again, a joke. “I originally imagined Trombone Champ as an arcade game, where the player used a huge, rubber trombone controller and attempted to desperately play along with squiggly note lines,” Vecchitto said, but “at that point, it was nothing more than a funny mental image.”
It wasn’t until later he imagined using a mouse to emulate the motion of playing a trombone, and from there Vecchitto created a prototype that was almost as funny as he imagined. “I decided that it was a solid idea and worth developing into a full game,” he said.
Holy Wow had made games before, but these were all smaller, browser-based titles. The Curse of the Chocolate Fountain is a sidescroller about chronic diarrhoea and dodging birds. Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing is a typing game with fun facts such as: “Typing was invented by Steve Jobs in January, 1984”. World of Typing is an episodic, Twin Peaks inspired sequel, followed by Typing Party, a two player local multiplayer spin-off.
"My ethos for this game was: if it's a funny idea, do it. I didn't let standard rules of game design or common sense inhibit the comedy."
“
Trombone Champ is the team’s first game that’s being sold as an actual product, however - despite Vecchitto expecting it to be a relatively quick and easy game to make. “I thought the project could be completed in under six months but, as is often the case, it proved to be much more work than expected,” he said.
It ended up taking four years to develop in total, with a few starts and stops along the way. Holy Wow isn’t a full-time game studio, with the work done during evenings and weekends, outside of Vecchitto's day job as a web designer.
One thing that extended Trombone Champ’s development was the need for an additional hook that would keep people playing beyond the few hours of songs. The first thing to be added was the Tromboner Cards mechanic, where players can open packs and collect cards with famous trombone players like J. J. Johnson, Al Grey, and more. These are also a parody of lootbox systems in other games like FIFA, as players unlock the packs in a variety of over the top ways.
Inspiration from other games was taken too. “The storyline is a direct parody of the Dark Souls series, which I found funny because those games are intensely dark and serious, the exact opposite of a goofy trombone game,” Vecchitto said.
While Trombone Champ has blown up now – with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam – the game only had a small following throughout its development: fans of the comedy in Holy Wow’s previous games. An open playtesting period one month before launch caused the first stir of wider interest, though, with Holy Wow receiving a completely unexpected and overwhelming 600 feedback forms. Things really exploded at launch though, which came as a complete surprise to Holy Wow.
“I've always thought the game concept was fundamentally solid, and knew it would have some viral appeal,” Vecchitto said. “But realistically, what I expected was for a handful of people to share funny videos, and for those videos to go viral.
“I really didn't expect the virality to lead to an explosion of interest in the game itself. It's been nice, but is also overwhelming — it's too much demand for us to keep up with. We're currently trying to strategize how to deal with it.”
"[The success has] been nice, but is also overwhelming — it's too much demand for us to keep up with. We're currently trying to strategize how to deal with it."
“
While the future is still a little unclear, Holy Wow is committing to work on Trombone Champ for a while instead of moving onto other games. “I have a ton of game ideas, and my initial idea was to update Trombone Champ for a while and then move on,” Vecchito said, “but given the intense response, we'll probably stick with Trombone Champ for a while.”
A console version may also be released eventually. “I can't say for certain that Trombone Champ will come to consoles, but I can say for certain that we'll start pursuing it soon,” he added. Holy Wow will explore other ways to expand its audience too, such as localising Trombone Champ into different languages, but there’s still a lot of different things for the duo to figure out.
Vecchito puts it in terms worthy of the game itself: “The challenge for us will be navigating this without losing our minds."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
After nearly three years, Google has decided to winnow its video game ambitions because Stadia was less popular than it had anticipated.
Google said it would shutter the video game streaming service Stadia, its answer to Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation video game consoles, in another sign of Google’s drive to be leaner amid fears of an economic slowdown.
Stadia, which has streamed games over the internet rather than requiring expensive consoles, will shut down on Jan. 18, Phil Harrison, Stadia’s vice president and general manager, wrote on Thursday in a blog post. The product debuted nearly three years ago, promising to revolutionize how people play video games. But it failed to catch on with enough gamers.
“It hasn’t gained the traction with users that we expected, so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service,” Mr. Harrison wrote.
Google will refund all game hardware purchases made through the Google Store, as well as game purchases made in the Stadia Store, Mr. Harrison wrote. He said the company expected to complete most refunds by the middle of January.
The company had already begun selling Stadia’s underlying streaming technology to other businesses, and said it expected that many Stadia team members would be “carrying this work forward in other parts of the company.” In February 2021, Google shut down Stadia’s in-house game studio, which had been formed to create new titles, prompting fears that the entire service might one day disappear.
Stadia is just the latest product to be killed by Google. The company is set to shutter Hangouts, its messaging app, in November. And YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, announced in January that it would stop making original content.
Amid rising inflation and concerns about economic instability, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, has begun what he calls a “Simplicity Sprint,” an effort to improve business efficiencies and trim unnecessary expenses. The company recently cut funding and jobs at its in-house tech incubator, Area 120, and it has canceled unnecessary business travel.
Marc Rodriguez, the chief operating officer of VoxPop Games, said in an interview that he had mixed emotions about Google’s decision to end the service because his company had shared Stadia’s challenges, including competing with the gaming giants Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, and with the fixed habits of gamers.
Charles Yu, VoxPop’s chief executive, added, “Hardcore gamers are saying, ‘Well, I already have the hardware, and I’m used to using this service,’ so they don’t adopt, even if there’s a new technology.”
The planned shutdown was disappointing to those who used Stadia frequently.
“A lot of people like myself feel very betrayed,” said Jon Jameson, 36, of Lyman, S.C., adding that he felt “every emotion from anger to just feeling bad for the staff” who worked there.
Mr. Jameson, who has lived on long-term disability insurance since being in a car accident 10 years ago, said he had played games like Assassin’s Creed on Stadia every day, “looking for escapes when I’m not doing exercises.”
For Gabe Maier, 37, of Linthicum, Md., Stadia was a family affair. He has spent $1,000 on games and controllers since the service’s inception, and said he loved Stadia because his children could play on his phone or tablet while the adults watched television. He said that his young daughters enjoyed the game Pikuniku and that he had his own weekly playing sessions.
Mr. Maier, who owns an Android phone and uses many of Google’s products, said in an interview that Stadia’s looming expiration was “super disappointing.”
“It leans into the worst perceptions of Google, which is that they’re quick to innovate and quick to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “The people they hurt the most are the people most committed to the brand.”
Today, Meta announced Make-A-Video, an AI-powered video generator that can create novel video content from text or image prompts, similar to existing image synthesis tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. It can also make variations of existing videos, though it's not yet available for public use.
On Make-A-Video's announcement page, Meta shows example videos generated from text, including "a young couple walking in heavy rain" and "a teddy bear painting a portrait." It also showcases Make-A-Video's ability to take a static source image and animate it. For example, a still photo of a sea turtle, once processed through the AI model, can appear to be swimming.
The key technology behind Make-A-Video—and why it has arrived sooner than some experts anticipated—is that it builds off existing work with text-to-image synthesis used with image generators like OpenAI's DALL-E. In July, Meta announced its own text-to-image AI model called Make-A-Scene.
Instead of training the Make-A-Video model on labeled video data (for example, captioned descriptions of the actions depicted), Meta instead took image synthesis data (still images trained with captions) and applied unlabeled video training data so the model learns a sense of where a text or image prompt might exist in time and space. Then it can predict what comes after the image and display the scene in motion for a short period.
A video of a teddy bear painting a portrait, created with Meta's Make-A-Video AI model (converted to GIF for display here).
"Using function-preserving transformations, we extend the spatial layers at the model initialization stage to include temporal information," Meta wrote in a white paper. "The extended spatial-temporal network includes new attention modules that learn temporal world dynamics from a collection of videos."
Meta has not made an announcement about how or when Make-A-Video might become available to the public or who would have access to it. Meta provides a sign-up form people can fill out if they are interested in trying it in the future.
Meta acknowledges that the ability to create photorealistic videos on demand presents certain social hazards. At the bottom of the announcement page, Meta says that all AI-generated video content from Make-A-Video contains a watermark to "help ensure viewers know the video was generated with AI and is not a captured video."
If history is any guide, competitive open source text-to-video models may follow (some, like CogVideo, already exist), which could make Meta's watermark safeguard irrelevant.
The long-awaited $429 Sub Mini doesn’t disappoint, but there are still reasons to opt for the standard Sub
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Sonos customers have been anticipating a product like the Sub Mini for years. Until now, the only way to fully realize a “complete” Sonos home theater system meant coughing up $749 for the Sub subwoofer — on top of whatever you paid for a Sonos soundbar and rear surrounds. That total can quickly balloon to just shy of $2,000 depending on the soundbar you want. For many consumers with Sonos’ step-down products like the Beam and Ray, the Sub was impractically expensive and out of reach.
That’s why there’s now the Sub Mini. First revealed by The Verge back in May, Sonos originally intended to ship the $429 subwoofer well before the October 6th release date it ultimately settled on. But a rough financial quarter and underwhelming demand for the entry-level Ray soundbar led the company to push back the Sub Mini’s release by several weeks.
Now, the smaller, more affordable subwoofer is nearly here. I’ve been testing it for over a week, sampling the Sub Mini’s low-end performance across TV, movies, video games, and music. If you’ve been counting down the days until you can get your hands on one, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. There are still circumstances and use cases where the larger, pricier Sub is the better choice. But so long as you plan to use the Sub Mini in a small- to mid-size room, it has all the kick necessary for movie night. And in my opinion, its design looks much nicer than the glossy, boxy Sub — even if, on the inside, they’re both based on similar acoustic principles.
Standing 12 inches high and weighing 14 pounds, the Sub Mini isn’t as “mini” as its name might suggest. But a subwoofer can only get so small if you still want it to pack some wallop. The Sub Mini is significantly larger than the Sonos Move, itself a fairly big “portable” speaker, and finding a hiding place for it near your TV might take some creativity. I’ve been testing the white Sub Mini, and I’m very happy Sonos moved away from a glossy finish in favor of a matte look. The “center tunnel” section of the product — the cutout in the middle — is black, which creates a classy two-tone look reminiscent of the second-generation Play:5.
The Sub Mini’s dual six-inch woofers face each other for a force-canceling effect.
Image: Sonos
Like the Sub, the Sub Mini’s dual woofers face inward (one on each side of the tunnel) for a force-canceling effect to mitigate floor rumble and keep your downstairs neighbors happy. Those relatively small six-inch woofers are encased in an acoustically sealed cabinet structure that Sonos says “neutralizes distortion” and should improve bass response and extension. Both the Sub and Sub Mini are designed to reach as low as 25Hz, but the Sub’s larger woofers let it hit output levels two to three times louder than the Sub Mini. It’s really that resonance that separates them.
The Sub Mini isn’t all that “mini,” but then again, no subwoofer really is.
Setting up the Sub Mini was a breeze. You just plug in the power cord, open the Sonos app, and the software will prompt you to set up the new device. You’re then asked to hold your smartphone near the top of the Sub Mini to transfer your Wi-Fi and other Sonos system details over NFC. For the last step, Sonos asks which existing soundbar or speaker you want to pair the Sub Mini with. Obviously most people will link it to a Beam or Ray (I tested with both), but you can also combine it with Sonos’ music speakers like the Play:5 / Sonos Five to bring more low-frequency energy and clarity to your tunes.
Once setup is done, Sonos offloads low frequencies to the Sub Mini while letting the original device handle the mids and treble. This divvying up of sound frequencies happens automatically. If you disable the Sub or unplug it, your soundbar simply returns to its normal full-range output. Like always, it’s best to tune your Sonos home theater setup with the help of the Sonos app’s Trueplay feature, which remains exclusive to iOS devices.
Sonos says the Sub Mini is best suited for small- to mid-sized rooms.
Outside of Trueplay, there aren’t many settings to adjust for the Sub Mini in Sonos’ app. You can toggle it off or adjust the “sub level” slider anywhere from -15 to +15 if you really want to explore what the subwoofer can do. I left it at the default of zero for most of my testing. If you activate Night mode while watching TV or a movie, that will also apply to the Sub Mini to keep its intensity and rumble in check.
It’s worth noting that the Sub Mini does not suffer from a bug that, at the time of publication, affects the Sub (Gen 3). Owners of that product have complained about reduced performance after a recent software update. Here’s a statement on the situation, courtesy of Sonos spokesperson Olivia Singer:
“Last month, we made a change to Arc’s audio profile to improve dialogue clarity and the overall sound experience. The change was based on feedback from our listeners in the field and brings Arc in line with our other Home Theater products. We have identified an issue for some users whose configuration includes a Sub (with or without surrounds), who find their Sub output is lower than desired after performing a new Trueplay tuning. Users with Beam or Ray bonded with Sub can increase the Sub level for a more powerful low-end response, however this won’t have the same impact for Arc users. Customers using Arc bonded with a Sub (and/or surrounds) who find their Sub output is lower than desired following performing a new Trueplay tuning, should temporarily disable Trueplay on Arc until this is addressed by an upcoming software update.”
So, does the Sub Mini deliver on the company’s “bold bass” promises? For movies and TV, I’d give a solid thumbs-up. I watched plenty of flicks while testing the Sub Mini in combination with both a second-gen Beam and Ray, and performance is largely what I hoped it would be. In this lounge fight scene from The Batman, the Sub Mini brought an impressive thump to the music playing in the club throughout the scuffle. I’m a big Edge of Tomorrow fan, and the first scenes of that film are a good workout for any subwoofer. The Sub Mini proved itself ready for the challenge and never distorted. This remained true throughout the entirety of Blade Runner 2049 as well. Movies and shows alike sounded fuller and more dynamic.
For music, I bounced around tracks like Genesis’ “Follow You Follow Me” and Ray LaMontagne’s album Trouble. The Sub Mini noticeably lent more bottom end to whatever I played and made the whole experience more dynamic than listening to music through the soundbar alone. Synths and standup bass sound richer with the Sub Mini there to give lower frequencies more power and presence. I can imagine that the full-fledged Sub offers more nuance and variation in the bass tones, but I didn’t have one at hand for a direct comparison. Depending on volume level or content, it’s not always obvious that the Sub Mini is putting in work. There’s minimal floor vibration due to those force-canceling woofers. But just reach your hand into the center tunnel and you’ll feel constant movement.
There aren’t many settings to worry about.
I didn’t encounter any playback issues or dropouts over the course of my testing. Only one Sub Mini can be connected to a soundbar, whereas you can include up to three units of the normal Sub (Gen 3) in a system. Sonos is positioning the Sub Mini as the ideal companion for all of its midrange gear, like the Ray, Beam, One, and Ikea Symfonisk hardware. The company’s top-level speakers (like the Arc and Five) and bigger viewing spaces are better served by the full-size Sub. It felt just right for my apartment, but I could see how the Sub Mini might strain itself in large living rooms or basements due to its reduced footprint. Also, it’s not compatible with either of Sonos’ portable speakers, so you can’t use it with the aforementioned Move.
AGREE TO CONTINUE: SONOS SUB MINI
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
Sonos also collects what it refers to as “additional usage data,” and this covers a lot, including:
The temperature of your product
Wi-Fi information like signal strength
How often you use music services connected to your Sonos system
Information about how often you use the Sonos app versus other control mechanisms
Flow of interactions within the Sonos app
How often you use the physical controls on the unit
Duration of Sonos product use
Duration of music service use
Product or room grouping information
Command information (such as play, pause, change volume, or skip tracks)
Sonos playlist or Sonos favorites information
You can opt out of additional usage collection from the Sonos mobile app, but Sonos warns that doing so will disable functionality like personalization services (e.g., Recently Played), Sonos Radio, voice control, and more.
The final tally is two mandatory agreements and one optional agreement.
I think the Sub Mini will be a welcome addition to many Sonos living room setups, and even if $429 is nowhere near “cheap” — that’s more than some home-theater-in-a-box 5.1 systems and the Ray soundbar itself — it’s still considerably less than investing $749 into the Sub. You’re paying extra for Sonos’ meticulous design and engineering along with the stylish aesthetic, but it’s not for nothing.
The Sub Mini isn’t technically or acoustically as powerful as the standard Sub, but it succeeds in providing an immersive, full-bodied audio experience that’s only possible with a “complete” Sonos home theater system. And it deals less damage to your bank account.
Well, a Redditor was able to download the update with firmware version S90xUSQS2AVI1, as mentioned on Verizon’s website. However, it’s not Android 13-based One UI 5.0, as claimed by Verizon. The changelog on the carrier’s website also mentions the October 2022 security patch, which Samsung released earlier today. We know that Samsung is currently testing Android 13 on its high-end phones and is yet to release a stable build.
So, it is possible that Verizon has published the wrong changelog by mistake. This also points towards a possibility of an earlier-than-usual release of the next major Android OS update for Samsung’s phones. The company might release the Android 13-based One UI 5.0 stable update to the Galaxy S22 series sometime next month.
Article From & Read More ( Has Verizon really released stable Android 13 update to the Galaxy S22? - SamMobile - Samsung news )
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Amazon is expanding its presence in the wellness market with the $140 Halo Rise, a new bedside sleep tracker shipping later this year that doubles as a sunrise alarm clock. The launch comes after Amazon released its first Halo fitness tracker back in 2020 and its sequel, called the Halo View, in 2021. It's also another sign that Amazon and other tech giants are trying to fix the way we sleep.
The Halo Rise is designed to be an alternative to its Halo Band for those who prefer not to wear a wristband or smartwatch overnight but still want to monitor their sleep. Since it sits on your nightstand instead of on your body, it can also gather information about environmental factors that could be affecting your sleep, according to Amazon.
The Halo Rise doesn't have cameras or microphones. Instead, it uses low-energy sensors to detect micro-movements that occur while breathing. Amazon then uses machine learning to translate those movements into sleep stages and surfaces these insights in the Halo app. The company says the Halo Rise's sleep algorithm has been trained and validated against polysomnography, the test that doctors typically use to observe sleep patterns.
The Alexa Voice Remote Pro's secret weapon is the ability locate the device with a voice command. It also has a motion-activated backlight and buttons you can program to open specific apps or execute Alexa commands.
Price: $140 Release Date: Q4 2022
Designed to be an alternative to Amazon's Halo Band for those who prefer not to wear a wristband or smartwatch overnight, but still want to monitor their sleep, the Rise is a sunrise alarm clock with sensors that capture information about your movement and environment.
The Halo Rise's launch comes as sleep tracking has become a bigger area of focus for tech companies. Apple, for example, brought the ability to monitor different stages of sleep to the Apple Watch with its WatchOS 9 software update, which launched on Sept. 12. Fitbit and Samsung both launched sleep analysis features over the past year that examine long-term patterns and issue an animal mascot to symbolize the user's sleep.
And Google, which owns Fitbit, built sleep tracking into its second-generation Nest Hub from 2021. That device similarly uses contactless radar to observe stages of sleep, but it's meant to be a multifunctional smart home device too. That's unlike the Halo Rise, which was only designed with sleep in mind. While the lack of a microphone is comforting from a privacy standpoint, it also means the Halo Rise can't detect snoring or coughing like the Nest Hub.
Amazon's sleep-sensing gadget is debuting at a time when the tech industry has come under scrutiny over the amount of personal data companies collect and how that information is protected. Amazon says the Halo Rise sends breathing patterns and micro-movements to the cloud where they're translated into sleep stages, but that data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud and is automatically deleted after 10 days. Amazon also says the data always stays on the device until a sleep session is initiated, and that it won't sell health data or use such information for marketing, product recommendations or advertising.
Halo Rise owners will also be able to download and delete their health data just like with the Halo Band. Amazon says the device is trained to only analyze the person nearest to it and not other people or pets in the same bed. The Halo Rise's algorithms are only trained to detect sleep and won't detect any other activity in the bedroom, according to Amazon.
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In terms of the sleep-related metrics the Halo Rise can gather, there isn't much that sets it apart from Amazon's Halo Bands. Like Amazon's wearables, it can tell how much time you've spent in certain stages of sleep and provide a sleep score assessing sleep quality. It also comes with a six-month membership to Amazon Halo, which typically costs $4 per month.
Among the biggest benefits of using the Halo Rise over the Halo band, according to Amazon, is that you don't have to wear anything to sleep to get that data. Unlike the bands, the Halo Rise can also detect certain elements of your surroundings, like humidity, temperature and light, that could make it difficult to get a good night's sleep. Amazon hasn't said whether it plans to create new metrics or insights based on data from both the Halo Rise and the Halo band.
The Halo Rise can monitor sleep stages as well as environmental factors like light and humidity.
Amazon
Since the Halo Rise is meant to be placed on your nightstand, it also serves as an alarm clock and wakeup light. Amazon says it should wake you up at the optimal time based on your sleep stages. In addition to the previously mentioned environmental sensors, the Halo Rise also includes a digital clock with physical buttons and a small speaker for the alarm. The wake-up light consists of 300-lux LEDs in the shape of a semicircle.
There isn't built-in Alexa functionality since the Halo Rise was designed specifically for sleep. But if you own an Echo, you can pair it with the Halo Rise so that you can ask Alexa how you slept, or incorporate the Rise into a bedtime routine.
Launching a device like the Halo Rise not only helps Amazon compete more closely with rivals like Google and Apple, but it also could give the company an even stronger foothold in the home. Amazon accounted for 28.2% of the global smart speaker and smart display market as of the first quarter of 2022, according to Strategy Analytics. Google is Amazon's closest competitor, claiming 17.2% of the market during the same time period.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
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