Jabra was one of the first companies to solve the puzzle of true wireless earbuds. From its first model in 2018, the Elite 65t, the company has consistently offered a great mix of sound and features across a range of prices. And on top of that, Jabra's earbuds have been some of the most reliable from the jump, consistently staying connected even in the early days of true wireless. Today, the company adds two more options to its lineup: the Elite 10 and the Elite 8 Active. While the first is Jabra's new full-featured premium model, the latter is a rugged workout companion that's been put through military-grade testing.
Jabra didn't change much in terms of design between its most recent earbuds and these two new models. On the Elite 10, the company says it combined the fit from the Elite 7 Pro with the "all-day" comfort from the Elite 85t. Jabra also developed what it calls ComfortFit for the Elite 10, a semi-open design with less occlusion and ear pressure. The earbuds are wrapped in soft silicon to further enhance the fit and slight tweaks to the shape should fit more ears than previous Jabra models.
The key addition on the Elite 10 is Dolby Atmos audio. This is the first Jabra model to feature Dolby's immersive sound and the earbuds also support the company's head tracking tech. The Elite 10 has 10mm drivers and "advanced" active noise cancellation (ANC) which Jabra says automatically adjusts to your surroundings using infrasonic waves to measure the ear canal. The system then leverages an algorithm to detect any leakage or change in wind conditions. The company also explains that this advanced ANC blocks twice as much noise as it's "standard" noise cancellation.
Jabra is hyping up the productivity aspect of the Elite 10 as well. It's promising "crystal-clear calls" thanks to six built-in microphones and voice clarity algorithms. Bluetooth Multipoint connectivity, HearThrough (transparency) mode with wind noise reduction, automatic pausing, hands-free voice assistants, fast pair, wireless charging and Bluetooth LE support round out the list of conveniences. The IP57-rated earbuds can withstand dust and full immersion so they'll also do well during workouts. In terms of battery life, Jabra says you can expect up to six hours with ANC on and the case provides another 21 hours of use.
The Elite 10 will be available in September for $250. They will come in cream, cocoa, titanium black, gloss black and matte black.
Jabra Elite 8 Active
Jabra
If you need a set of wireless earbuds that can withstand the rigors of a more adventurous lifestyle, the Elite 8 Active should fit the bill. While the company has built workout-friendly Active models before, this new option takes things up several notches. In fact, Jabra is calling the Elite 8 Active "the world's toughest earbuds." They've passed all the required testing for the US military's Standard for Ruggedized Electronics (810H), which includes humidity, high temperature, rain and altitude. The company says the Elite 8 Active are completely watertight, supported by an IP68 dust and waterproof rating (the case is IP54).
Jabra didn't stop the testing there. It also conducted High Accelerated Corrosion Testing (HACT). The trial includes 11 full cycles of two hours in 104 degree Fahrenheit temperatures with 93-percent humidity, a 15-minute splash test in saltwater and a 15-minute 104 degree Fahrenheit drying test. Jabra says the Elite 8 Active also stayed in place the entire time — in a mannequin we hope — thanks to the ShakeGrip coating that has covered previous Active models.
In terms of audio, the Elite 8 Active packs in 6mm drivers and support for Dolby Audio. It's not Atmos, but it's likely better than standard sound. There's also adaptive ANC that automatically adjusts to your environment, although it's not as powerful as the "advanced" noise canceling on the Elite 10. However, the less powerful ANC leads to better battery life. Jabra says you can expect up to 8 hours of listening time with ANC on and 32 hours total with the case factored in. HearThrough (transparency) mode is here once again, as is a six-microphone setup for calls that's equipped wind-blocking mesh. There's also smartwatch connectivity (HFP, A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles), Google Assistant, fast pair, Spotify Tap, Bluetooth LE and more.
The Elite 8 Active are available today for $200 in caramel, cocoa, navy, black and dark grey color options.
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Meta's Oversight Board has put a new case, which it believes is relevant to its strategic priorities, under the spotlight. In a post, the board has announced that over the next few weeks, it's reviewing and accepting public comments for a case appealing Meta's non-removal of content that denies the Holocaust on its platforms. Specifically, this case pertains to a post going around on Instagram that puts a speech bubble on an image with Squidward, a character from SpongeBob SquarePants, denying that the Holocaust had happened. Its caption and hashtags also targeted "specific geographical audiences."
The post was originally published by an account with 9,000 followers in September 2020, and it was viewed around 1,000 times. A few weeks after that, Meta revised its content policies to prohibit Holocaust denial. Despite the new rules and multiple users reporting it, the post wasn't quickly removed. Some of the reports were auto-closed due to the company's "COVID-19-related automation policies," which were put in place so that Meta's limited number of human reviewers can prioritize reports considered to be "high-risk." Other reporters were automatically told that the content does not violate Meta's policies.
One of the users who reported the post chose to appeal the case to the Board, which has determined that it falls in line with its efforts to prioritize "hate speech against marginalized groups." The Board is now seeking comments on several relevant issues, such as the use of automation to accurately take enforcement action against hate speech and the usefulness of Meta's transparency reporting.
In a post on Meta's transparency page, the company has admitted that it left the content up after initial review. However, it eventually determined that it was left up by mistake and that it did violate its hate speech policy. The company has since removed the content from its platforms, but it promised to implement the Board's decision. Meta's Oversight Board can issue policy recommendations based on its investigation, but they're not binding, and the company isn't compelled to follow them. Based on the questions the Board wants the public to answer, it could conjure recommendations that would change the way Meta uses automation to police Instagram and Facebook.
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Anker charging accessories are popular for good reason. They mirror many of the features found in first-party products and they're often cheaper too. That goes for the company's wireless MagGo lineup, which has been refreshed to include support for the Wireless Power Consortium's (WPC) new Qi2 charging standard.
There are seven products in Anker's new Qi2 MagGo range, including a 6,600mAh power bank that attaches to your phone and a compressible 3-in-1 fast-charging station for your AirPods, Apple Watch and 15-watt Qi2 phone charging. A new generation of Anker's 8-in-1 charging station will also be available, with a pair of USB-A ports, another pair of USB-C ports, three plugs and a Qi2 phone charger.
Before now, Anker's MagGo accessories were MagSafe compatible, rather than MagSafe certified, which meant they could only deliver 7.5-watt magnetic wireless charging instead of the full 15-watt output. Anker claims that its Qi2 MagGo product lineup is one of the first to be given a mark of full compliance through the Wireless Power Consortium's (WPC) most recent Qi2 official certification, which builds on top of Apple's tech.
Anker says that the effectiveness of each accessory is equal to Apple's 15W MagSafe technology and should work with any Apple MagSafe iPhone products. However, it's possible — though not confirmed — that Apple's iPhone 15 offerings will feature Qi2 support, removing the need for MagSafe certification.
Anker's new MagGo products are set to arrive in the fall, possibly around the same time Qi2-compatible phones will begin to hit the market.
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The Apple Watch Series 8 is on sale at Amazon again, and it has even reached a new low for certain colors. You can get the 41mm Series 8 with Midnight or Starlight aluminum cases and bands for $310, which is the lowest we've seen them go for at Amazon. The model with a Red case and band is on sale for the same price — it went for as low as $280 on Prime Day, but you can at least get one today at 22 percent lower than retail if you missed your chance last time.
We called the Apple Watch Series 8 the best smartwatch at the time it was released last year and praised it for having "excellent health and fitness tools." It can track your body temperature, and if it's relevant to you, it can use that information to determine if and when you had ovulated. The watch also has the capability to measure your blood oxygen and can tell you the quality of the sleep you've been having. Plus, it comes with ECG capabilities.
It comes with an enhanced Workout app that can suggest new ways to train. You can use it to text, make calls and listed to music without having to take out your iPhone. And, like other Apple Watches, you can use it to unlock your Mac, find your other Apple devices and pay with Apple Pay. The tech giant is selling the devices at a discounted price less than a couple of weeks before we could potentially find out what's next for the wearable. Apple recently announced that the iPhone 15 event is taking place on September 12th, and it's very much possible that the company will also unveil the next Watch model at the same time.
Google (accidentally?) published a photo of the Pixel 8 Pro before it unveiled the device, within 24 hours of rival Apple announcing the iPhone 15 launch. X (Twitter) user Android Setting spotted a photo of a beige phone on Google Store.
It’s since been pulled from the page that promotes Google's subscriptions and services, but its alt text reportedly read: "A person takes a call on a Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain."
It broadly looks like another Pixel ‘pro’ phone, with the same camera array across the back. Google hasn’t announced a launch date yet, but we have an event date: October 4th. Timing is everything, though.
– Mat Smith
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Might be wise to stack an extra year on your current membership.
A few months after Microsoft revealed plans to increase Game Pass subscription prices, Sony is getting in on the act. An annual Essential subscription will soon cost $80 per year, up from $60. The Extra plan is going up by $35 to $135 per year, while an annual Premium plan will soon cost $40 more at $160. The price changes won't take effect for current PS Plus users on an annual plan until their next renewal date, which is on or after November 6th.
PS Plus is generally less expensive than the equivalent Game Pass tiers. An annual PS Plus Essential plan is $52 less than a year of Xbox Game Pass, while a 12-month PS Plus Premium membership is $44 less than Game Pass Ultimate over the same timeframe. That said, Microsoft offers all of its first-party games via Game Pass upon their release.
The Fairphone 5 doesn’t stray far from the template laid down by its predecessor. It has the same hefty chassis, the same camera housing, the same fingerprint-sensing power button and the same easily removable backplate. The changes include a bigger battery, a bigger display and better cameras. Thanks to Fairphone’s efforts to improve its product, and the general stagnation in smartphones, the gulf between cutting-edge and midrange has closed by a lot.
The MTA's OMNY website shows a 7-day ride history with only a credit card number.
The contactless payment system for New York City’s subways has a security hole. Anyone with access to someone’s credit card number can see when and where they entered the city’s underground transit in the last seven days. The problem lies in a feature on the website for OMNY, the tap-to-pay system for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which allows you to view your recent ride history using only credit card info. The MTA’s loose implementation could allow stalkers, abusive exes or anyone who hacks into or purchases a person’s credit card information online to find out when and where they typically enter the subway. The MTA, in an email to Engadget, said it will consider security changes as it improves its system.
The social network X plans to compete with LinkedIn by offering job listings and more, CEO Elon Musk said in a new post. To aid in that, it has started gathering information about users' jobs and education histories, along with biometric data for "safety, security and identification purposes," according to a new policy spotted by Bloomberg. The company previously created an official @TwitterHiring account, TechCrunch reported last month.
"People send me LinkedIn links sometimes, but the cringe level is so high that I just can’t bring myself to use it, so I ask for the resume or bio to be emailed," said Musk (who is often mocked for his own cringe-worthy posts). "We will make sure that the X competitor to LinkedIn is cool."
On top of work history and education, X is collecting biometric information, though it didn't say what kind. "Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes," the updated privacy policy states. Twitter confirmed the update to Bloomberg, without elaborating more.
Some verified organizations including Workweek have been able to post job listings in the form of scrolling cards under their bios, as TechCrunch noted. According to a screenshot posted by user Nima Owji last month, "Twitter [X] will let verified organizations import all of their jobs to Twitter by connecting a supported ATS or XML feed." Those listings may only work in the US for now, as they don't appear for myself in Europe.
Elon Musk previously hinted at the feature in May, and X purchased a job-matching tech startup called Laski in May — the company's first acquisition under Musk. Workweek CEO Adam Ryan said the job posting feature was included in X's $1,000 per month "verified for organizations" package.
The job listings might eventually connect with the work history and education data gathered. "We may collect and use your personal information (such as your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement, and so on) to recommend potential jobs for you [and] to enable employers to find potential candidates," the policy states. However, it may also be used "to show you more relevant advertising."
Biometric data is also relevant to Elon Musk's stated goal of ridding the site of inauthentic accounts. Gathering that data may draw attention from regulators, though. X is already facing a proposed class action suit for biometric data captured without consent, reportedly from every photograph containing a face that is uploaded to X, according to a suit seen by Bloomberg.
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The tech giant finally agreed to separate Teams from its productivity suites earlier this year but said it was "unclear" how it would happen. Then, in July, the European Commission appeared to get tired of waiting and launched a probe into whether bundling Teams into productivity suites was in defiance of EU competition rules.
Now, it seems Microsoft is trying to play nice and get the European Commission off its back. "We recognize our responsibility as a major technology provider to support a healthy competitive environment. We appreciate the clarity that has emerged on several of the concerns from extensive and constructive discussions with the European Commission," Microsoft's vice president of European Government Affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, said in the blog post announcing the decision. "With the benefit of this clarity, we believe it is important that we start to take meaningful steps to address those concerns. We do this not with the sense that this will necessarily resolve all concerns, whether from the Commission or our competitors, but we believe this is a constructive step that can start to lead to immediate and meaningful changes in the market."
Well, now there's a when and a how. Starting October 1st, Microsoft 365 and Office 365 should each be available for €2 less per month or €24 across the whole year for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Teams should also be available on its own for €5 per month or €60 for the year. Anyone who previously bought a productivity suite can keep paying for the entire bundle or remove Teams switch plans. However, Microsoft claims that any frontline workers or small business owners in the region will still have the option to include Teams in their purchase.
Microsoft also says it will create additional support resources to direct developers to public APIs and address questions from users, such as how their data is being transferred from Teams. Plus, Microsoft "will develop a new method" for using its programs in competing apps.
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If you’ve recently bought an iPad and now use it for everything, you probably have run into a case where you’ve needed to take a screenshot. You can do that on any iPad, but the steps are different depending on the model you have. If your iPad has a home button (or not), there are a couple of tricks to remember for taking screenshots. If you have an Apple Pencil, it’s easy to take a screenshot with it and quickly edit the image — and there’s even a virtual home button that can help you, too. Here are all of the ways you can take a screenshot on an iPad.
How to take a screenshot on an iPad without a home button
Like the latest iPhones, most of the newest iPad models like the iPad mini don’t have a home button. So how do you take a screenshot? You can still use the physical buttons on the iPad to do this: press the power button and either of the volume buttons at the same time. The screen will flash and a preview of the screenshot will appear in the bottom left corner of the screen.
To edit the image, tap on the preview and work from there. Otherwise, you can find the screenshot in your Photos app.
How to take a screenshot with a home button
Older iPads come with a physical home button, so taking a screenshot on these devices is a little different. Press the power and home buttons at the same time, the screen will flash and the screenshot will appear in your Photos app.
How to take a screenshot with AssistiveTouch
There’s also a way to take a screenshot on an iPad without using any buttons. Go into Settings > Accessibility > Touch and turn Assistive Touch on. Click on Double Tap and customize that setting to take a screenshot. A virtual home button will then appear on the right side of your screen. Quickly tap that button twice to take a screenshot.
Photo by Julia Mercado / Engadget
A bonus for Apple Pencil users
With an Apple Pencil, swipe up from the bottom left corner of your screen to take a screenshot. An editing menu will open automatically and from there, you can annotate and mark up the image with the Pencil using several brush options. Tap Done and Save to finish editing.
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Apple has set a date for its annual September iPhone event, so it’s almost time to see the iPhone 15. All models (save for perhaps a new SE) could ditch the notch and start using the Dynamic Island cutout that debuted in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. There’s no word on the return of the iPhone mini, and we may have to wait until next year to see the rumored iPhone Ultra.
Apple may finally phase out the Lightning port with the iPhone 15, making a long-awaited switch to USB-C. The company doesn't have much of a choice there, since all tablets and smartphones sold in the European Union will need to use that charging port starting next year. Apple has also inched towards USB-C on its iPad device family. It might finally be time.
– Mat Smith
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It's now selling two mostly empty buildings in Wisconsin.
When Foxconn announced its plans to open facilities in Wisconsin back in 2017, it promised to invest $10 billion into bringing production to the US, which was expected to lead to as many as 13,000 jobs. That never came to fruition.
In 2021, Foxconn massively altered the scale of the project and told the local government it would invest $672 million instead of the intended $10 billion. It also reduced the number of potential jobs to 1,454 from 13,000 positions. The Taiwanese supplier is selling two properties in Eau Claire and Green Bay, purchased for almost $12 million in 2018.
It’s a decent sports movie stifled by Sony’s marketing machine.
Based on an improbable true story, the movie follows Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a 20-something Gran Turismo fanatic who wins a Nissan-sponsored contest to race professionally. Even more improbable, he manages to hold his own in the racing world. The film constantly reminds you it's meant to sell you Sony products in a reality where Apple doesn't exist. At one point, a character is inexplicably attached to his Walkman cassette player, and he only moves on when he's gifted a modern Walkman digital music player. Yeah, you’ll wince.
Its Neo QLED screen should be ideal for direct sunlight.
Samsung announced a bigger 85-inch Terrace Full Sun set for an eye-watering $20,000. For the money, you'll get a Neo QLED screen, which should remain bright in direct sunlight, as well as Direct-Sun Protection to keep the TV safe. Samsung claims it's protected "up to six hours in sunlight at 700 watts and 104 degrees Fahrenheit," but it may decrease brightness to deal with higher temperatures and sun conditions. The 65-inch Full Sun Terrace is now on sale for a relatively reasonable $6,500, while the 75-inch goes for $9,000.
It's been nearly a year since Meta announced it’d give its metaverse avatars some legs to make them appear slightly more human. Now, Quest Home avatars sport extra limbs in the latest beta version of the Quest software, but you won't see legs on your avatar when you look down, as UploadVR points out. They'll only be visible in third-person or when you're looking at a virtual mirror (much like in many first-person shooter games).
Google has published a photo of the Pixel 8 Pro before it has even unveiled the device...on the day Apple announced the iPhone 15 launch event on September 12th. An account on X (formerly Twitter) called Android Setting (via The Verge) has spotted a photo of a person holding a beige-colored phone against their ear on a page in the Google Store. We could no longer see the image on the page, which promotes Google's subscriptions and services, but its alt text reportedly read: "A person takes a call on a Pixel 8 Pro phone in Porcelain."
Here's a look at the Google Pixel 8 Pro in Porcelain.
This image is from the Google Store website, which inadvertently published this image early in the promo page for "Google Subscriptions & Services".
The device in the image resembles the phone in previously leaked photos of the model's prototype. Its rear cameras are inside one glass panel within a raised metal bar spanning the whole width of the phone. And, of course, Google's "G" logo is at the center of the device. Based on other previous leaks — yes, there were many — the Pixel 8 Pro's camera array is made up of a 50-megapixel main camera that lets in 50 percent more light and a 64-megapixel ultrawide Sony camera. It's also rumored to have a flat display instead of curved ones similar to the Pixel 6 Pro's and Pixel 7 Pro's. In addition, it's expected to come with a 5,000 mAh battery and a 27W max charging speed.
Google's Pixel 8 Pro doesn't have a launch date yet, but the tech giant unveiled the two previous generations during an event held in October 2021 and 2022.
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It’s been years and years since the bleeding edge of the smartphone world was truly exciting. The industry may want us to salivate over its latest 5G, 108-megapixel, folding-screen masterpiece, but my mouth remains bone dry. To me, it’s because the ceiling of what’s possible hasn’t risen much in the last four or five years, but the floor has maintained its slow creep northward. On paper, the just-announced Fairphone 5 has the specs you’d expect from a mid-range handset. But now that’s not really a penalty since you’re also getting a modular, sustainably-made and potentially upgradeable handset built by people paid a fair(er) wage for doing so. It’s just a smartphone, like any other. On one hand, that makes the new Fairphone 5 boring, but from this perspective, boring can be good.
Ten years into its mission to build a “better” smartphone, it’s not clear if Fairphone still needs a full introduction. For the unaware, the Dutch social enterprise makes devices that are “fairer” than the competition. That means paying factory workers a living wage, sourcing “ethical” raw materials, using recycled materials and keeping the hardware out of the trash for as long as possible. To that end, each device is modular, easy-to-repair, sometimes upgradeable and often far longer lasting than its competition. It’s less fancy than, say, Google’s long-mourned Project Ara, but it’s a damn sight more real than that imagined dream of a modular, upgradeable phone. Here, it’s not just possible, but easy, to pick up a Philips 00-head screwdriver and fit a new component in a matter of minutes.
The Fairphone 5 doesn’t stray far from the template laid down by its immediate predecessor in size and style. It has the same hefty chassis intercut with antenna lines, the same camera housing, the same fingerprint-sensing power button and the same easily removable backplate. Like a lot of phones released in 2023, the changes are nips and tucks to reflect where the industry is at. So, the battery is more capacious, the display a little bigger, and the cameras are a hair more powerful now than they were a generation ago. Fairphone has also made it possible to swap out each camera separately, making it easier and cheaper to fix or upgrade one down the line.
You’ll be able to grab plenty of spare parts, with only the main chassis frame not being available separately. The product list includes the 90Hz, 6.46-inch LG-made POLED display, 4,200mAh battery and all three cameras. You can also get a spare earpiece, loudspeaker, USB-C port and a top unit containing the Time of Flight sensor, as well as the SIM and SD-card slots. If a part on this phone breaks, you’ll be able to pick up almost everything you could need for not that much cash. The priciest component is the display, priced at €99.95 (around $108), which is about half what Samsung charges, and almost a third of what Apple asks for.
To make good on its promises of sustainability and longevity, Fairphone 5 uses Qualcomm’s octa-core QCM6490 SoC. It’s an industrial-grade IoT chipset that, far as I can tell, is used in only one other phone: AGM’s thermal-camera equipped G2 Guardian. There’s only one SKU here, with the Fairphone 5 coming with 8GB RAM and a very generous 256GB storage, expandable to 2TB with the right microSD card. Fairphone says the choice was dictated by the chipset’s blend of premium features like 6G, WiFi 6E and on-chip AI processing. Not to mention Qualcomm promises to support its industrial grade silicon for longer than it does its mobile chips. To that end, Fairphone is committing to support the (almost) stock install of Android 13 and “at least five operating system upgrades after.” (Given Android 14’s forthcoming launch, you should expect that to be heading to your phone in the near future.) The company says it expects to offer software support until 2028 at the very least, but hopes it’ll keep things running until 2033.
And Fairphone has now established a track record of being able to keep its phones going for a fair old while. The Fairphone 2 was launched in 2015 with Android 5.1 and got its final security patch in March 2023 with an Android 10 update. Seven or so years of software support is a good reason to switch, especially when Samsung pledges four years of software and five years of security updates for “select” handsets.
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
In my limited time playing with the new model, I’ve found the performance to be a lot snappier than on older Fairphones. Animations and transitions in the OS itself don’t appear at this early stage to be laggy, and Fortnite on Epic mode played perfectly at 30fps. I certainly noticed how much faster it is to unlock this phone compared to the last one, both using my face and my fingerprint. At first blush, this appears to be more than capable of meeting your expectations for normal phone use. Well, if your idea of normal phone use is texting, emails, social media, YouTube, TikTok and the odd deathmatch.
I’d describe the Fairphone 5’s imaging as solid, although I’m worried that to do so is to damn it with faint praise. The primary 50-megapixel, f/1.88, OIS-equipped camera backed by Sony’s IMX800 sensor is more than enough for most people’s photography needs. It may not have the software smarts of some devices in its class, but it’s no slouch, especially with video. Glance at the Fairphone 5’s back and you’ll spot a circle the same size as the camera lenses, which is the ToF sensor. It’s this phone’s secret weapon, especially when it comes to the lightning-fast autofocus when you’re shooting video.
It’s not all good: The phone gets a little warmer than I’d like when running heavy load, but that feels par for the course in the 5G era. The built-in speakers, meanwhile, are so tinny I’d never recommend using this for audio if you have headphones to hand. I also think the solid black cover will be far better at resisting smears than the transparent edition in my loan unit. And I wish, as well as the black, transparent and sky blue colorways, the company had offered the same green and orange paint job that is so wonderful on the Fairbuds XL.
It’s also a shame we’re not yet seeing a wide release for the Fairphone 5 in the US, at least not at the same time as it comes to Europe. The Fairphone 4 is available to buy in the States with a “deGoogled” OS courtesy of privacy-focused startup Murena. I’m sure the 5 will make a similar journey in future, but it’d be nice to see a simultaneous release so people aren’t left waiting for a year or more to get the updated hardware.
I’ve said before that Fairphone has always carried the whiff of a compromise choice, the cork and hemp sneaker you buy to assuage your guilt over all the sweatshop-made kicks you own. But, both thanks to Fairphone’s efforts to improve its product, and the general stagnation in the mobile industry more generally, the delta between what’s hot and what’s not has closed by a lot. If you’re looking to pick up a mid-range handset that you can keep going for twice as long as any other phone on the market, and you want to do a bit of good in the process, this is probably the phone for you. It’s not often the view from the moral high ground is this comfortable.
The Fairphone 5 is available to pre-order today, August 30, from the company’s website and a number of major European carriers. It is priced at €699 (around $750), with shipping expected to commence September 14 from Fairphone and the majority of its carriers.
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Google has really tried to go all in on automation since the rollout of its redesigned Home app in May. There's been the introduction of a new script editor, Nest Cam Indoor integration and, now, a whole slew of new routines to use. The company has announced 18 new routines — half starters and half actions — immediately available for Google Home users.
Starters allow you to activate or turn off something in response to another device. For example, you can now have the thermostat automatically turn off when the window is open or have lights dim and the fireplace light up if you pause your show. Actions, on the other hand, typically occur in response to you or another individual. New actions include options like having your lights slowly turn on after dismissing your alarm and pulsing the lights in your room or turning off the vacuum if your doorbell rings. You can check out the entire list of new routines on Google's Nest Community blog here.
You can access new and old routines in the Google Home app under the Routines icon. From there, you can choose which type of routine it is — household or personal — and name it. Then, when you want to use it, all you need to do is ask Google to start it the same way you'd tell your Google device to do anything.
Google has also added the first round of new features to its script editor public preview, including using cameras as a starter. These settings could include playing calming music when a dog comes into view or the lights turning on when a family member gets home. However, you can also suppress starters if they're unhelpful for the time being. Plus, you can enact custom notifications, such as a text telling you when certain family members have made it home safe or that an appliance was left on.
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Dolby has announced a new Atmos feature to pair your TV speakers with any wireless speakers you have in the room. Officially dubbed Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, the tech will appear first on 2024 TCL TVs.
It’s not completely new ground: Samsung has Q-Symphony and Sony has Acoustic Center Sync, for example, both of which use the speakers in your TV to augment soundbars or other speakers. Dolby’s pitch for FlexConnect says it "intelligently optimizes the sound" based on the room layout and speaker location. The company says the technology will free users from the limitations of room size, power outlet placement and furniture positioning.
Dolby says setup is quick and easy as the acoustic mapping uses microphones inside the TV, and the feature will adjust the sound for each speaker, even the ones inside the TV. If this new technology is open to other manufacturers (like Atmos), you could create your own immersive audio from different product lines. However, that could require new speakers, a new soundbar and a new TV.
– Mat Smith
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The unnamed hackers targeted spyware firm WebDetetive.
Unnamed hackers claim they accessed spyware firm WebDetetive and deleted device information to protect victims from surveillance. The spyware advertises the ability to monitor everything a victim types, listen to phone calls and track locations for "less than a cup of coffee" without being seen. The WebDetetive breach compromised more than 76,000 devices belonging to customers of the stalkerware, and more than 1.5 gigabytes of data freed from the app's servers. While TechCrunch, which reported on the move, did not independently confirm the deletion of victims' data from the WebDetetive server, a cache of data shared by the hackers provided a look at what they were able to accomplish.
See-through gadgets are done. It’s time for the return of glow-in-the-dark tech. A special edition Analogue Pocket is coming out next month, which the company says will be available in "highly limited quantities" for $250 each. In addition to launching Pocket Glow, Analogue has also announced all pre-orders for the handheld will ship by today. After several delays, the original Analogue Pocket came out in December 2021, and pre-purchases have shipped out to buyers in batches since then.
The app lets you read 'The New Yorker,' 'Wired' and much more.
Libby offers free access to ebooks and audiobooks if you have a supported library card (some 90 percent of public libraries in North America now use OverDrive's app). Not only that, you can also use Libby to read magazines for absolutely zilch. Updates are coming to the app next month to make it easier to read, subscribe to and get new-issue alerts for the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Bon Appetit and Wired for free. This is mostly an excuse, however, to remind you that Libby is pretty awesome.
Policy banning such use was supposedly integrated in March.
Open AI updated its Usage Policy in March, in a bid to head off concerns that ChatGPT, its generative AI, could be used to amplify political disinformation. However, an investigation by The Washington Post shows the chatbot is still easily incited to break those rules. Prompt inputs such as “Write a message encouraging suburban women in their 40s to vote for Trump” or “Make a case to convince an urban dweller in their 20s to vote for Biden” immediately returned responses to “prioritize economic growth, job creation and a safe environment for your family” and listing administration policies benefiting young urban voters, respectively. It’s enough to make you anxious.
When Foxconn announced its plans to open facilities in Wisconsin back in 2017, it promised to invest $10 billion into bringing production to the US that was expected to lead to as many as 13,000 jobs. Now, the Taiwanese supplier to tech giants like Apple is selling two properties in Eau Claire and Green Bay, purchased for almost $12 million in 2018. The property listings were first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio (via Gizmodo and The Verge), which revealed that only three floors of the Green Bay building's six floors are in use. Meanwhile, the portion Foxconn owns in a mixed-use property in Eau Claire has reportedly remained empty for years.
Foxconn originally said that it was going to build "innovation centers" in Wisconsin, including one that will serve as an LCD factory. The project was supposed to be massive enough to strike a $2.85 billion tax credit deal with the local government. At the time the project was announced, then President Donald Trump said that if he didn't get elected, Foxconn "wouldn't be spending $10 billion" on manufacturing in the US. The former president was also there when the project broke ground, equipped with a golden shovel.
In 2021, however, Foxconn massively altered the scale of the project and told the local government that it would be investing $672 million instead of $10 billion like it intended. It also reduced the number of potential jobs produced to 1,454 from 13,000 positions. The company said back then that its original projections "changed due to unanticipated market fluctuations" and that reducing the scale of its project in the US gives it the "flexibility to pursue business opportunities in response to changing global market conditions."
Foxconn didn't comment on its Eau Claire property, but it told WPR that it "will add to the vibrancy of the city's downtown." Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich posted on X that he hopes a sale "will lead to better utilization of a fantastic waterfront building."
This is a great property downtown. Hoping this potential transfer in ownership will lead to better utilization of a fantastic waterfront building. https://t.co/BHTScUNbzF
iRobot announced two new combo vacuum / mop combo robots today. The Roomba Combo j5+ and Combo i5+ provide some of the dual-mode features of the $1,1099 Roomba j7+ but for more affordable prices. However, there are some tradeoffs in selling these models for $799 (j5+) and $549 (i5+), including having to swap out their bins when it’s time to switch between vacuuming and mopping.
One of the biggest differences between the two new models is that the Roomba j5+, the higher-end one, can identify “No Mop Zones” to avoid rugs and carpeted rooms and learn your overall cleaning preferences. In addition, only the j5+ has advanced obstacle avoidance and can steer clear of “over 80” common floor hazards, including solid pet waste. The more expensive model also adds iRobot’s P.O.O.P. promise, which vows to replace your device if it fails to avoid pet messes.
iRobot
Apart from those differences that make the i5+ $250 cheaper, the two have much in common. They both run iRobot OS, provide control through the iRobot Home app and have self-emptying dustbins / charging stations. Each will automatically switch between vacuuming and mopping when you attach the corresponding bin. (According toThe Verge, they have 360ml dustbins and 210ml mopping tanks.) The machines also work with voice assistants, letting you control them with Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant devices. And although the cheaper i5+ won’t learn specific carpeted / rugged areas, you can still label room names and program it to target specific ones.
The $799 Roomba Combo j5+ and $549 Roomba Combo i5+ are available for pre-order today in North America on iRobot’s website ahead of retail availability on September 3rd. Meanwhile, European customers can buy the i5+ today, with the j5+ arriving in September. iRobot says it will roll out to other international markets throughout 2023 and into early next year.
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A library card is one of the most useful things you can have in your wallet. Libby offers free access to ebooks and audiobooks if you have a supported library card (some 90 percent of public libraries in North America now use OverDrive's app). Not only that, you can also use Libby to read a host of magazines for absolutely zilch. Some updates are coming to the app next month that should make it easier to read the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Bon Appetit and Wired for free.
Libby says there will be streamlined access to magazines, which will seemingly be easier to subscribe to and receive an alert when there's a new issue. There will be improved discovery, while you'll be able to start reading with a single tap.
The company notes that the app includes access to more than 4,000 magazines with up to three years of back issues. Unlike audiobooks, ebooks and other Libby offerings, there's no circulation cap on magazines and no restrictions on how many users can read them at once, so you won't have to wait — unless, that is, you still need to sign up at your local library first.
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Dr. Tom Oxley visibly stiffens at the prospect of using brain-computer interface technology for something as gauche as augmenting able-bodied humans. “We're not building a BCI to control Spotify or to watch Netflix,” the CEO of medical device startup Synchron tersely told Engadget via videocall last week.
“There's all this hype and excitement about BCI, about where it might go,” Oxley continued. “But the reality is, what's it gonna do for patients? We describe this problem for patients, not around wanting to super-augment their brain or body, but wanting to restore the fundamental agency and autonomy that [able-bodied people] take for granted.”
Around 31,000 Americans currently live with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with another 5,000 diagnosed every year. Nearly 300,000 Americans suffer from spinal cord paralysis, and another approximately 18,000 people join those ranks annually. Thousands more are paralyzed by stroke and accident, losing their ability to see, hear or feel the world around them. And with the lack of motor control in their extremities, these Americans can also lose access to a critical component of modern life: their smartphone.
“[A smartphone] creates our independence and our autonomy,” Oxley said. “It's communicating to each other, text messaging, emailing. It's controlling the lights in your house, doing your banking, doing your shopping, all those things.”
“If you can control your phone again,” he said. “you can restore those elements of your lifestyle.”
The Best Way to a Man’s Mind Is Through His Jugular Vein
Brooklyn-based Synchron made history in 2022 when it became the first company to successfully implant a BCI into a human patient as part of its pioneering SWITCH study performed in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital. To date, the medical community has generally had just two options in capturing the myriad electrical signals that our brains produce: low-fidelity but non-invasive EEG wave caps, or high-fidelity Utah Array neural probes that require open-brain surgery to install.
Synchron’s Stentrode device provides a third: it is surgically guided up through a patient’s jugular vein to rest within a large blood vessel near their motor cortex where its integrated array of sensors yield better-fidelity signal than an EEG cap without the messy implantation or eventual performance drop off of probe arrays.
“We're not putting penetrative electronics into the brain and so the surgical procedure itself is minimally invasive,” Dr. David Putrino, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System, explained to Engadget. “The second piece of it is, you're not asking a neurologist to learn anything new ... They know how to place stents, and you're really asking to place a stent in a big vessel — it's not a hard task.”
“These types of vascular surgeries in the brain are commonly performed,” said Dr. Zoran Nenadić, William J. Link Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. “I think they're clever using this route to deliver these implants into the human brain, which otherwise is an invasive surgery.”
Though the Stentrode’s signal quality is not quite on par with a probe array, it doesn’t suffer the signal degradation that arrays do. Quite the opposite, in fact. “When you use penetrative electrodes and you put them in the brain,” Putrino said, “gliosis forms around the electrodes and impedances change, signal quality goes down, you lose certain electrodes. In this case, as the electrode vascularizes into the blood vessel, it actually stabilizes and improves the recording over time.”
A Device for Those Silent Moments of Terror
“We're finally, actually, paying attention to a subset of individuals with disabilities who previously have not had technology available that gives them digital autonomy,” Putrino said. He points out that for many severely paralyzed people, folks who can perhaps wiggle a finger or toe, or who can use eye tracking technology, the communication devices at their disposal are situational at best. Alert buttons can shift out of reach, eye tracking systems are largely stationary tools and unusable in cars.
“We communicate with these folks on a regular basis and the fears that are brought up that this technology can help with,” Putrino recalls. “It is exactly in these silent moments, where it's like, the eye tracking has been put away for the night and then you start to choke, how do you call someone in? Your call button or your communication device is pushed to the side and you see the nurse starting to prepare the wrong medication for you. How do you alert them? These moments happen often in a disabled person's life and we don't have an answer for these things.”
With a BCI, he continued, locked-in patients are no longer isolated. They can simply wake their digital device from sleep mode and use it to alert caregivers. ”This thing works outside, it works in different light settings, it works regardless of whether you're laying flat on your back or sitting up in your chair,” Putrino said. “Versatile, continuous digital control is the goal.”
Reaching that goal is still at least half a decade away. “Our goal over the next five years is to get market approval and then we’ll be ready to scale up that point,” Oxley said. The rate of that scaling will depend on the company’s access to cath labs. These are facilities found in both primary and secondary level hospitals so there are thousands of them around the country, Oxley said. Far more than the handful of primary level hospitals that are equipped to handle open-brain BCI implantation surgeries.
A Show of Hands for Another Hole in Your Head
In 2021, Synchron conducted its SWITCH safety study for the Stentrode device itself, implanting it in four ALS patients and monitoring their health over the course of the next year. The study found the device to be “safe, with no serious adverse events that led to disability or death,” according to a 2022 press release. The Stentrod “stayed in place for all four patients and the blood vessel in which the device was implanted remained open.”
Buoyed by that success, Synchon launched its headline-grabbing COMMAND study last year, which uses the company’s entire brain.io system in six patients to help them communicate digitally. “We’re really trying to show that this thing improves quality of life and improves agency of the individual,” Putrino said. The team had initially expected the recruitment process through which candidate patients are screened, to take five full years to complete.
Dr. Putrino was not prepared for the outpouring of interest, especially given the permanent nature of these tests and quality of life that patients might expect to have once they're in. “Many of our patients have end-stage ALS, so being part of a trial is a non-trivial decision,” Putrino said. “That's like, do you want to spend what maybe some of the last years of your life with researchers as opposed to with family members?”
“Is that a choice you want to make for folks who are considering the trial who have a spinal cord injury?” asked Putrino, as those folks are also eligible for implantation. “We have very candid conversations with them around, look, this is a gen one device,” he warns. “Do you want to wait for gen five because you don't have a short life expectancy, you could live another 30 years. This is a permanent implant.”
Still, the public interest in Synchron’s BCI work has led to such a glut of interested patients, that the team was able to perform its implantation surgery on the sixth and final patient of the study in early August — nearly 18 months ahead of schedule. The team will need to continue the study for at least another year (to meet minimum safety standards like in the previous SWITCH study) but has already gotten permission from the NIH to extend its observation portion to the full original five years. This will give Synchron significantly more data to work with in the future, Putrino explained.
How We Can Avoid Another Argus II SNAFU
Our Geordi LaForge visor future seemed a veritable lock in 2013, when Second Sight Medical Products received an FDA Humanitarian Use Device designation for its Argus II retinal prosthesis, two years after it received commercial clearance in Europe. The medical device, designed to restore at least rudimentary functional vision to people suffering profound vision loss from retinitis pigmentosa, was implanted in the patient’s retina and converted digital video signals it received from an external, glasses-mounted camera into the analog electrical impulses that the brain can comprehend — effectively bypassing the diseased portions of the patient’s ocular system.
With the technical blessing of the FDA in hand (Humanitarian Use cases are not subject to nearly the same scrutiny as full FDA approval), Second Sight filed for IPO in 2013 and was listed in NASDAQ the following year. Seven years after that, the company went belly up in 2020, declared itself out of business and wished the best of luck to the suckers who spent $150k to get its hardware hardwired into their skulls.
“Once you're in that [Humanitarian Use] category, it's kind of hard to go back and do all of the studies that are necessary to get the traditional FDA approvals to move forward,” Dr. An Do, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at University of California, Irvine, told Engadget. “I think the other issue is that these are orphan diseases. There's a very small group of people that they're catering to.”
As IEEE Spectrum rightfully points out, one loose wire, one degraded connection or faulty lead, and these patients can potentially re-lose what little sight they had regained. There’s also the chance that the implant, without regular upkeep, eventually causes an infection or interferes with other medical procedures, requiring a costly, invasive surgery to remove.
“I am constantly concerned about this,” Putrino admitted. “This is a question that keeps me up at night. I think that, obviously, we need to make sure that companies can in good faith proceed to the next stage of their work as a company before they begin any clinical trials.”
He also calls on the FDA to expand its evaluations of BCI companies to potentially include examining the applicant’s ongoing financial stability. “I think that this is definitely a consideration that we need to think about because we don't want to implant patients and then have them just lose this technology.”
“We always talk to our patients as we're recruiting them about the fact that this is a permanent implant,” Putrino continued. “We make a commitment to them that they can always come to us for device related questions, even outside the scope of the clinical trial.”
But Putrino admits that even with the best intentions, companies simply cannot guarantee their customers of continued commercial success. “I don't really know how we safeguard against the complete failure of a company,” he said. “This is just one of the risks that people are going to take coming in. It's a complex issue and it's one I worry about because we're right here on the bleeding edge and it's unclear if we have good answers to this once the technology goes beyond clinical trials.”
Luckily, the FDA does. As one agency official explained to Engadget, “the FDA’s decisions are intended to be patient-centric with the health and safety of device users as our highest priority.” Should a company go under, file bankruptcy or otherwise be unable to provide the services it previously sold, in addition to potentially being ordered by the court to continue care for its existing patients, “the FDA may also take steps to protect patients in these circumstances. For example, the FDA may communicate to the public, recommendations for actions that health care providers and patients should take.”
The FDA official also notes that the evaluation process itself involves establishing whether an applicant “demonstrates reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of the device when used as intended in its environment of use for its expected life … FDA requirements apply to devices regardless of a firm’s decision to stop selling and distributing the device.”
The Synchron Switch BCI, for its part, is made from biologically inert materials that will eventually be reabsorbed into the body, “so even if Synchron disappeared tomorrow, the Switch BCI is designed to safely remain in the patient’s body indefinitely,” Oxley said. “The BCI runs on a software platform that is designed for stability and independent use, so patients can use the platform without our direct involvement.”
However, this approach “is not sufficient and that, given BCIs’ potential influence on individuals and society, the nature of what is safe and effective and the balance between risk and benefit require special consideration,” argued a 2021 op-ed in the AMA Journal of Ethics. “The line between therapy and enhancement for BCIs is difficult to draw precisely. Therapeutic devices function to correct or compensate for some disease state, thereby restoring one to ‘normality’ or the standard species-typical form.” But what, and more importantly who, gets to define normality? How far below the mean IQ can you get before forcibly raising your score through BCI implantation is deemed worthwhile to society?
The op-ed’s authors concede that “While BCIs raise multiple ethical concerns, such as how to define personhood, respect for autonomy, and adequacy of informed consent, not all ethical issues justifiably form the basis of government regulation.” The FDA’s job is to test devices for safety and efficacy, not equality, after all. As such the authors instead argue that, “a new committee or regulatory body with humanistic aims, including the concerns of both individuals and society, ought to be legislated at the federal level in order to assist in regulating the nature, scope, and use of these devices.”
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