Buyers that paid at least $93,990 to be among the first to own (and beta test) Tesla's Cybertruck are finally getting a key, promised feature: Full Self-Driving (FSD). Several people on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum — including an Angeleno who posted a video — say that it has finally arrived in early access to select users, Electrek reported.
After Tesla promised that FSD would arrive to Cybertrucks in September, the supervised version 12.5.5 v12 (the latest available) is shipping, but only to users in the early access program. That means the feature (included in the Tesla Cybertruck Foundation package) won't be available to most buyers for at least another month, based on Tesla's previous FSD history.
FSD worked smoothly for the short amount of time it was shown, according to the video above from Cybertruck Owner's Club forum user espresso-drumbeat. It guided the vehicle through an urban area then onto a freeway ramp before arriving on the I5 toward LA, all in relatively light evening traffic.
According to the update description, FSD (Supervised) v12 includes vision-based attention monitoring with sunglasses and merges city and highway into a single software stack. In other words, it's the first version to fully manage driving using end-to-end AI.
Cybertruck deliveries first started 10 months ago, so FSD has been a long time coming. Recent testing by the independent automotive testing group AMCI determined that Tesla's FSD can only go 13 miles on average before requiring human intervention.
Elon Musk recently promised unsupervised self-driving by the end of 2025, but he has been making that same claim for nearly 10 years and it's still not here. There's more pressure now than ever, though, as the company is set to reveal its FSD-dependent robotaxi product on October 10th.
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The UK's last coal plant will sigh out its final pollutants Monday before shutting down for good and officially ending the country's century and a half of coal production. Nottinghamshire's Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant was the last of its kind following Britain's 2015 commitment to close all coal power plants by 2025. Ratcliffe was originally scheduled to shut down in 2022 but stayed open after Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe entered a gas crisis.
The Ratcliffe plant once had 3,000 engineers but only employs 170 staff now. That group will gather to watch a livestream of the plant being turned off, and over 100 of them are set to work on decommissioning the plant over the next two years. Many of the other employees will enter new jobs at different power plants owned by Uniper, Raticliffe's German owner, while others will enter training programs to work on other aspects of the industry.
Britain opened the world's first coal power plant in 1882, London's Holborn Viaduct, with the help of Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company. Coal has played a major part in the UK until very recently. According to a report from energy think tank Ember, coal was responsible for 39 percent of the UK's energy supply in 2012 but shrunk to just two percent in 2019. The decrease in coal production was reportedly equal to double the amount of all greenhouse gases used in the UK in 2023. Between 2012 and 2023, wind and solar generation also increased from six percent to a 34 percent share of the UK's energy. Britain still has a long way to go, but this step has made it the first G7 country to remove all coal power production.
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Remember those rumors of an Apple smart display suspended on a robot arm? According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to debut the first device as soon as 2025, alongside a new operating system called homeOS.
It could be a device with a robotic arm or a simpler HomePod-with-screen affair. Gurman elaborated on this, claiming two versions are in the works: a low-end display for the basics, like FaceTime and smart home controls, and a high-end robotic variant that’ll cost upwards of $1,000. According to the report, Apple Intelligence will be a key part of the experience for both devices. I’m intrigued to see how Apple’s flavor of AI can help me run my home. I literally have no idea how it would.
Old-school upright vacuums left a lot to be desired, and cordless models right many of those wrongs. They’re thinner, lighter and easier to maneuver, and you don’t really have to sacrifice suction power anymore. Dyson isn’t your only option these days either — there are dozens of cordless vacuums. After testing a bunch of the best cordless stick vacuums, we’ve come up with our top picks, including our best budget pick at $300.
Fujifilm’s original GFX100S was a popular alternative to the GFX100, offering the same picture quality in a slimmer body at a much lower price. It did have some flaws, though. Now, the company has released the $5,000 GFX100S II as a smaller, cheaper alternative to the $7,500 flagship GFX100 II. It’s a big improvement on the original and offers the same picture quality as the GFX100 II for $2,500 less. It lacks all the video talents of the pricier camera, though.
A Minecraft Movie is slated for release in April 2025 and will star Jack Black as Steve, alongside Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks and Emma Myers. The team behind it shared a new clip during Minecraft Live, which expands on the brief crafting moment seen in the first trailer. The segment also gives us our first look at the movie’s interpretation of a Minecraft bee. I’ll let you form your own opinions — the teaser starts at 4:51.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed bill SB 1047, which aims to prevent bad actors from using AI to cause "critical harm" to humans. The California state assembly passed the legislation by a margin of 41-9 on August 28, but several organizations including the Chamber of Commerce had urged Newsom to veto the bill. In his veto message on Sept. 29, Newsom said the bill is "well-intentioned" but "does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions - so long as a large system deploys it."
SB 1047 would have made the developers of AI models liable for adopting safety protocols that would stop catastrophic uses of their technology. That includes preventive measures such as testing and outside risk assessment, as well as an "emergency stop" that would completely shut down the AI model. A first violation would cost a minimum of $10 million and $30 million for subsequent infractions. However, the bill was revised to eliminate the state attorney general's ability to sue AI companies with negligent practices if a catastrophic event does not occur. Companies would only be subject to injunctive relief and could be sued if their model caused critical harm.
This law would apply to AI models that cost at least $100 million to use and 10^26 FLOPS for training. It also would have covered derivative projects in instances where a third party has invested $10 million or more in developing or modifying the original model. Any company doing business in California would be subject to the rules if it meets the other requirements. Addressing the bill's focus on large-scale systems, Newsom said, "I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology." The veto message adds:
By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology. Smaller, specialized models may emerge as equally or even more dangerous than the models targeted by SB 1047 - at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good.
The earlier version of SB 1047 would have created a new department called the Frontier Model Division to oversee and enforce the rules. Instead, the bill was altered ahead of a committee vote to place governance at the hands of a Board of Frontier Models within the Government Operations Agency. The nine members would be appointed by the state's governor and legislature.
The bill faced a complicated path to the final vote. SB 1047 was authored by California State Sen. Scott Wiener, who told TechCrunch: "We have a history with technology of waiting for harms to happen, and then wringing our hands. Let’s not wait for something bad to happen. Let’s just get out ahead of it." Notable AI researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio backed the legislation, as did the Center for AI Safety, which has been raising the alarm about AI's risks over the past year.
"Let me be clear - I agree with the author - we cannot afford to wait for a major catastrophe to occur before taking action to protect the public," Newsom said in the veto message. The statement continues:
California will not abandon its responsibility. Safety protocols must be adopted. Proactive guardrails should be implemented, and severe consequences for bad actors must be clear and enforceable. I do not agree, however, that to keep the public safe, we must settle for a solution that is not informed by an empirical trajectory analysis of AI systems and capabilities. Ultimately, any framework for effectively regulating AI needs to keep pace with the technology itself.
SB 1047 drew heavy-hitting opposition from across the tech space. Researcher Fei-Fei Li critiqued the bill, as did Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, for limiting the potential to explore new uses of AI. The trade group repping tech giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google said SB 1047 would limit new developments in the state's tech sector. Venture capital firm Andreeson Horowitz and several startups also questioned whether the bill placed unnecessary financial burdens on AI innovators. Anthropic and other opponents of the original bill pushed for amendments that were adopted in the version of SB 1047 that passed California's Appropriations Committee on August 15.
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Apple is planning to debut a new operating system called homeOS with its long-rumored smart displays, the first of which is expected to arrive as soon as 2025, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Reports of a HomePod-like device with a display have been swirling for over a year, and Gurman said just this summer that Apple is working on a tabletop smart display equipped with a robotic arm that can tilt and rotate the screen for better viewing. In his latest report, Gurman says there are two versions in the works: a low-end display that will offer the basics, like FaceTime and smart home controls, and the high-end robotic variant that’ll cost upwards of $1,000.
We’ll reportedly see the cheaper version first — possibly next year — followed by the high-end display. Gurman previously said the robotic smart display could be released in 2026 at the earliest. You won’t have to wait for the premium model to get a taste of Apple’s vision for home AI, though. According to Gurman, Apple Intelligence will be a key part of the experience for both devices. The new homeOS will be based on Apple TV’s tvOS, he notes.
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It’s not just you — Spotify has confirmed it’s experiencing problems that have made the app and web player temporarily unusable for some people starting late Sunday morning. “We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!” the Spotify Status account posted on X. Spotify users on social media have reported a variety of issues, from songs repeatedly pausing on them to being locked out of the streaming platform entirely.
We’re aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!
Songs from popular artists have begun to disappear from YouTube as the platform’s deal with the performing rights organization SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) approaches its expiration date. As reported by Variety, certain songs by Adele, Green Day, Bob Dylan, R.E.M., Burna Boy and other artists have been blocked in the US, though their entire catalogs aren’t necessarily affected. Videos that have been pulled, like Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” now just show a black screen with the message: “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.”
In a statement to Engadget, a YouTube spokesperson said the platform has been in talks with SESAC to renew the deal, but “despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.” According to a source that spoke to Variety, however, the deal hasn’t even expired yet — it’ll reportedly terminate sometime next week — and the move on YouTube’s part may be a negotiation tactic. SESAC has not yet released a statement.
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Apple tried at the last second to get out of producing a trove of documents by Monday as it was ordered to in its ongoing dispute with Epic, and Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson is not having it. In early August, the company was given a deadline of September 30 to produce documents relating to the changes it made to its App Store rules this year, which was its attempt to satisfy an injunction. Apple initially told the court that the task would entail reviewing roughly 650,000 documents — but in a status report on Thursday, it said the number had ballooned to over 1.3 million, and asked for a two-week extension. Hixson denied the request on Friday in a strongly worded order spotted by The Verge, and called out Apple’s move as “bad behavior.”
Apple and Epic have been submitting joint status reports to the court every two weeks, and the issue of Apple’s documents exceeding its earlier estimate never previously came up, the judge noted. “This information would have been apparent to Apple weeks ago,” Hixson said in the order. “It is simply not believable that Apple learned of this information only in the two weeks following the last status report.” The judge said the request raises other concerns, calling into question the quality of Apple’s reports and its intentions around complying in a timely manner. Apple has “nearly infinite resources” that it could have tapped to get the task done in the allotted time, according to Hixson.
“This is a classic moral hazard,” Hixson said in the order, “and the way Apple announced out of the blue four days before the substantial completion deadline that it would not make that deadline because of a document count that it had surely been aware of for weeks hardly creates the impression that Apple is behaving responsibly.”
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X only has to pay one last fine in Brazil to get its services reinstated, according to Bloomberg and CNBC. Supreme Court R has ordered the company to pay 10 million Reais, or around $1.9 million, for its non-compliance with Brazil's court order for two days. Moraes added that the company's return "depends solely on the full compliance with Brazilian legislation and the absolute observance of the court orders in respect of national sovereignty." Specifically, Moraes fined X on September 19 for restoring its services in the country for some people despite a ban on the website. The judge also fined the company after X disregarded the ban for a second time on September 23 through Starlink.
X's owner, Elon Musk, previously resisted Moraes' order to take down and freeze several accounts that were allegedly spreading disinformation on the platform. Musk saw it as censorship and opted to close its operations in the country instead of complying. In response, Moraes ordered the nation's internet providers to block the social media platform and to issue a new rule that anybody found to be accessing X through a VPN could face a daily fine of 50,000 Reais ($8,900). The court froze the Brazilian bank account of SpaceX’s Starlink internet service provider, as well. It ultimately withdrew 18.35 million Reais ($3.4 million) from Starlink's and X's account to settle previous penalties the Supreme Court had imposed on the social network.
A few days ago, however, X's lawyers reportedly filed a document in court naming the company's legal representative in Brazil, as Moraes had demanded. The website also removed the accounts the judge named in its initial directives and which he had identified as a threat to democracy, showing that it's now willing to comply with the court's orders. The New York Times reported back then that X had failed to submit all the necessary paperwork to get Brazil to lift its ban. Moraes' statement that the company can "immediately return to its activities" after it pays this fine suggests that X got that squared away, and Brazilian users may be able to access the website soon.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has officially issued its full recommended fine against political consultant Steve Kramer. This is after he initiated a series of robocalls to New Hampshire residents with pre-recorded audio of President Biden’s voice, using deepfake AI technology. The fake Biden told voters not to vote in the upcoming primary, saying “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.” Kramer must pay $6 million in fines in the next 30 days or the Department of Justice will handle collection, according to a FCC statement.
Kramer doesn’t just face a fine; he also has criminal charges against him. New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella announced that he’ll face multiple counts of voter suppression and impersonation of a political candidate.
It wasn’t a hugely difficult process, either. Kramer hired New Orleans magician (an actual magician) Paul Carpenter to make the phony recordings. Carpenter showed NBC News how he made the deepfake audio files using ElevenLabs. He said it only took around 20 minutes.
In a surprise short-notice (and short!) event yesterday, Samsung unveiled new additions to its portfolio of devices, including the Galaxy S24 FE and the Galaxy Watch FE LTE. The highlight had to be the new Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet. With the Tab S10 series, the company is adding to its flagship S24 phones features like Circle to Search and Sketch to Image. Those features that work with the S Pen on the S24 Ultra, like Handwriting Assist and Note Assist, are here too. While software is the main draw this year, the Tab S10 Ultra has a 120Hz 14.6-inch screen with an anti-reflective finish and a MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ processor, instead of the usual Qualcomm chip. The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra will be available starting at $1,200 for the 256GB model — pre-orders are open now and the tablet will launch October 3.
Cheap picks for noise canceling, workouts and more.
It’s now very possible to find a clean-sounding, richly featured pair for well under $100, but there are, unsurprisingly, a lot of bad earbuds too. We’ve pulled in the best buds, including some that even manage to pack in noise cancellation. Expect capable buds from Anker, Jlab and even Amazon.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has slapped Meta with a $101.5 million (€91 million) fine after wrapping up an investigation into a security breach in 2019, wherein the company mistakenly stored users' passwords in plain text. Meta's original announcement only talked about how it found some user passwords stored in plain text on its servers in January that year. But a month later, it updated its announcement to reveal that millions of Instagram passwords were also stored in easily readable format.
While Meta didn't say how many accounts were affected, a senior employee told Krebs on Security back then that the incident involved up to 600 million passwords. Some of the passwords had been stored in easily readable format in the company's servers since 2012. They were also reportedly searchable by over 20,000 Facebook employees, though the DPC has clarified in its decision that they were at least not made available to external parties.
The DPC found that Meta violated several GDPR rules related to the breach. It determined that the company failed to "notify the DPC of a personal data breach concerning storage of user passwords in plaintext" without undue delay and failed to "document personal data breaches concerning the storage of user passwords in plaintext." It also said that Meta violated the GDPR by not using appropriate technical measures to ensure the security of users' passwords against unauthorized processing.
"It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data. It must be borne in mind, that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users’ social media accounts," DPC's Deputy Commissioner, Graham Doyle, said in a statement.
The DPC has also given the company a reprimand in addition to the penalty. We may know more about what that means for Meta exactly when the commission publishes its full final decision and other related information in the future.
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Intel says it has determined four scenarios that could lead to voltage stability issues in its Core 13th and 14th-gen processors, and it has released another new update to address the issue. Its customers have been having issues with those processors since 2022, but it was only in July this year that the company figured out that their instability problems were caused by elevated operating voltage. The company explained back then that microcode algorithms have been sending incorrect voltage requests to its processors. Microcodes, or machine codes, are sets of hardware-level instructions. Intel promised in the same announcement to release microcode patches to address the "root cause of exposure to elevated voltages."
In its new post on its community page, Intel enumerated the four scenarios that could cause voltage instability, starting with the motherboard's power delivery settings exceeding its power guidance. Another scenario is that a microcode algorithm had been allowing its processors to operate at higher performance states even at high temperatures. The company already released a microcode patch for this back in June. The third scenario involves another microcode algorithm requesting high voltages at a frequency and duration which can trigger the issue. Intel had also released a patch for this in August.
The latest microcode patch it has released, codenamed 0x12B, addresses the fourth scenario. Apparently, the processors could make elevated core voltage requests during light activity or while the computer is idle. Intel has distributed this patch to motherboard manufacturers, since it has to be loaded as a BIOS update. The company is already working with its partners, but it could still take several weeks for the manufacturers to roll out the fix to its products.
The voltage stability issues plaguing Intel's Core 13th and 14th-gen processors have been causing computers to crash and fail completely. And based on previous reports, installing the patches Intel has released will not fix PCs that have already started showing symptoms of the problem. Shortly after announcing that it had determined why its processors were failing, Intel extended their warranties by two years so that customers can get theirs replaced. That was very much welcome, seeing as even PCs that work well at first could start showing issues and give out in the end.
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The 3S seems like a smart idea, since cost remains the second biggest barrier to getting VR/AR gear into people’s homes. The first, of course, being there’s still not a truly killer use case to convince the vast majority of people.
The other big news to come out of the show is the announcement of the Orion Smart Glasses, Meta’s new prototype AR wearable. These, the company admits, aren’t ready to go on sale yet, but it’s working with developers to refine the technology for some unspecified future release.
I’ll be honest: I’m forever skeptical about the potential for AR to be as smart and useful as I’d need it to be. I’m not going to invest until it’s at least as useful as Jeeves — from PG Wodehouse, not the search engine — even if it’s never going to be able to fold my laundry.
Nathan Ingraham was lucky enough to play The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and is happy to share his thoughts. It’s a throwback top-down Zelda title, albeit with you playing as the title character for the first time. Rather than engaging in combat directly, Zelda must use her magic to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. Nathan’s a fan but, much like Tears of the Kingdom, found the sheer breadth and depth of tools available to be frustrating to marshal and organize.
Meta’s annual VR / AR shindig kicks off a few hours after this newsletter hits your inboxes. As usual, it’ll lay down the direction of travel for the next year of strapping stuff to your face. So, before the awkward stage banter begins, it’s worth reading up on what’s to come. We’ve prepared our usual roundup of all the rumors, scuttlebutt and leaks about what we’ll see.
That includes Orion, a pair of Buddy Holly glasses offering augmented reality in a more user friendly package. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already hinted about its potential, but he added we’ll only see the prototype today. We can also expect a cheaper version of the Quest 3 and some more AI doodads to come to the Ray-Ban smart glasses.
TikTok has announced TikTok Music, the company’s streaming service to rival Spotify and Apple Music, is closing down. The platform announced it’ll cease operations on November 28 and delete all user data and login information soon after. It has advised subscribers to reach out to their payment platforms of choice to get refunds before that date. Don’t worry though, I’m a technology journalist and even I didn’t know TikTok had its own standalone streaming service.
X has published its most detailed accounting of its content moderation practices since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The report, X’s first in more than a year, provides new insight into how X is enforcing its rules as it struggles to hang on to advertisers who have raised concerns about toxicity on the platform.
The report, which details content takedowns and account suspensions from the first half of 2024, shows that suspensions have more than tripled since the last time the company shared data. X suspended just under 5.3 million accounts during the period, compared with 1.6 million suspensions during the first six months of 2022.
In addition to the suspensions, X says it “removed or labeled” more than 10.6 million posts for violating its rules. Violations of the company’s hateful conduct policy accounted for nearly half of that number, with X taking action on 4.9 million such posts. Posts containing abuse and harassment (2.6 million) and violent content (2.2 million) also accounted for a significant percentage of the takedowns and labels.
While these numbers don’t tell a complete story about the state of content on X — the company doesn’t distinguish between posts it removes and those that it labels, for example — it shows that hateful, abusive and violent content are among the biggest issues facing the platform. Those are also the same issues numerous advertisers and civil rights groups have raised concerns about since Musk’s takeover of the company. In the report, X claims that rule-breaking content accounted for less than 1 percent of all posts shared on the platform.
X
The numbers also suggest there have been significant increases in this type of content since Twitter last shared numbers prior to Musk’s takeover. For example, in the last half of 2021, the last time Twitter shared such data, the company reported it suspended about 1.3 million accounts for terms of service violations and “actioned” about 4.3 million.
X previously published an abbreviated report in a 383-word blog post last April, which shared some stats on content takedowns, but offered almost no details on government requests for information or post removals. The new report is a significant improvement on that front. It says that X received 18,737 government requests for information, with the majority of the requests coming from within the EU and a reported disclosure rate of 53 percent. X also received 72,703 requests from governments to remove content from its platform. The company says it took action in just over 70 percent of cases. Japan accounted for the vast majority of those requests (46,648), followed by Turkey (9,364).
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At some point, we’ve all encountered someone who just doesn’t get boundaries. They get too deep into our personal space, oblivious — or all too aware — of our discomfort. This problem is magnified online where there’s instant access to someone’s broader digital footprint, which can be a vector for abuse. It’s why most platforms have some sort of block feature, enabling people to limit some user’s access to their lives.
Elon Musk announced a change to X’s policies to enable users you’ve blocked to see your posts. They won’t be able to interact with you, but they will see what you’re posting to the platform. Musk has railed against the block feature before, saying users could already get around this by switching to a non-blocked account. Which is true, in the sort of tell-on-yourself way that suggests he’s got form not respecting someone’s boundaries.
Obviously, the reasons this is a terrible, dreadful, no-good and generally bad idea are so long we’d be here forever trying to list them. But it’s a good reminder that X is a place that thinks trust and safety are four-letter words.
If events in the last few years have felt like a higher power playing Mad Libs with our lives, then it looks as if it’s running out of options. “SpaceX,” you imagine it pulling out “gets sued by…” and then the sounds of paper rustling until it says, “Cards Against Humanity.” Turns out the silly game jokesters own an acre of land near to SpaceX’s facility in Texas, which the latter has been using for its own purposes.
If the higher power in question wants some help with some suggestions, it could do worse than suggesting Engadget’s humble newsletter writers win a billion pounds each on the same day in completely different competitions.
Now, I’m not mad the plant is being reactivated, since nuclear offers safe, clean and abundant energy. TMI reactor one remained in operation from 1985 until 2019, so it’s got a healthy track record too. But I am mad at the reason Microsoft’s cutting the check: to power its AI data centers!
Apple introduced some major repairability improvements with the iPhone 16 lineup, but nothing stands out as much as the new battery removal process for the base iPhone 16. Doing away with the usual pull tabs, Apple is using an adhesive that debonds in response to a low electrical current. It only takes about a minute and a half for it to come unstuck, per Apple’s repair guide. A teardown by iFixit shows the process in action, and it sure looks easier than ever. iFixit tech Shahram Mokhtari said, “I’m not sure we’ve ever had a battery removal process go so cleanly and smoothly.”
Only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus have the new adhesive, and they’ve earned a 7/10 on iFixit’s repairability scale. “Apple definitely seems to be leveling up on repairability,” Mokhtari, adding Apple has “landed another repairability win” with this year’s base iPhones thanks to the new battery removal procedure.
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Rumors emerged last year of a collaboration between former Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, but the two have until now kept quiet about it. In a profile by The New York Times that was published this weekend, though, Ive confirms his company LoveFrom is leading the design on an AI product being built with Altman. Also on board are Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, both of whom held big design roles at Apple.
There’s so far a team of about 10 employees involved with the project, based in a San Francisco office building that’s one of several properties Ive has purchased on a single city block, according to the Times. But we still don’t know much about the product they’re working on. The report describes Tan and Hankey wheeling chairs between the LoveFrom properties that were “topped by papers and cardboard boxes with the earliest ideas for a product that uses A.I. to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone.”
Since Ive left Apple in 2019 to start LoveFrom, the design firm has worked on a typeface and even a red clown nose, but we haven’t seen much in the way of hardware — just that $60,000 turntable. While an AI product seems to be on the horizon, there’s currently no timeline for when it’ll make its debut.
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X is reportedly reversing course after weeks of refusing to comply with conditions set by the Brazilian Supreme Court that would allow it to operate in the country again. According to The New York Times, the company’s lawyers said in a Friday court filing that X has named a legal representative in Brazil as demanded by justice Alexandre de Moraes and removed accounts that the judge had identified as a threat to democracy, along with paying the fines it owed. But, the publication also reports that the Brazil Supreme Court has said X did not submit all the necessary paperwork, and now has five days to do so.
The paperwork X failed to submit is that which would prove it formally appointed a legal representative in Brazil, as required by Brazilian law, according to Reuters. X named Rachel de Oliveira Conceicao as its new legal representative in the filing on Friday. The company has been working to restore service to users in Brazil after it was blocked at the end of August, and briefly came back online earlier this week using Cloudflare’s DNS. But, it said that this was “inadvertent and temporary.” In a statement, an X spokesperson said at the time, “While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil.”
Brazil has threatened X and Starlink with daily fines of nearly $1 million if they do not comply with the ban in the country. Justice Moraes also made it so users in Brazil could be fined roughly $8,900 if caught using a VPN to access X. The company’s latest move is a step toward resolving the issue and potentially bringing X back to Brazil legally.
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OpenAI could undergo massive changes next year, which include getting a brand new logo. According to Fortune, though, staff members were less than enthused when they got a sneak peek of its supposed new logo at a recent company-wide meeting. The company's hexagonal flower symbol, which has become pretty recognizable thanks to ChatGPT's popularity, is gone. Instead, it's replaced by a large black "O" or a simple ring or circle that staffers reportedly found to be devoid of creativity — ominous, even.
Based on how the publication's sources described it, the new logo sounds like the complete opposite of OpenAI's current one, which was designed to represent "precision, potential and optimism." The company apparently started its redesign efforts a year ago after hiring new people for its internal creative and design team. Fortune says one of the reasons OpenAI is going for a brand new look is because it doesn't own the typefaces used for its logo and its website. The company is, perhaps, looking to solidify its identity as it becomes more of a household name.
Fortune also previously reported that OpenAI is changing its convoluted non-profit corporate structure next year. The company started as a non-profit, and a non-profit entity still controls its for-profit arm. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, reportedly told employees that the company is moving away from its non-profit structure and is becoming a more traditional for-profit company. If OpenAI's leaders listen to employee feedback, though, then the new OpenAI will debut with another logo and not one that even its own people find sinister.
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One of the feature that separates the Arc browser from its competitors is the ability to customize websites. The feature called "Boosts" allows users to change a website's background color, switch to a font they like or one that makes it easier for them to read and even remove an unwanted elements from the page completely. Their alterations aren't supposed to be be visible to anyone else, but they can share them across devices. Now, Arc's creator, the Browser Company, has admitted that a security researcher found a serious flaw that would've allowed attackers to use Boosts to compromise their targets' systems.
The company used Firebase, which the security researcher known as "xyzeva" described as a "database-as-a-backend service" in their post about the vulnerability, to support several Arc features. For Boosts, in particular, it's used to share and sync customizations across devices. In xyzeva's post, they showed how the browser relies on a creator's identification (creatorID) to load Boosts on a device. They also shared how someone could change that element to their target's identification tag and assign that target Boosts that they had created.
If a bad actor makes a Boost with a malicious payload, for instance, they can just change their creatorID to the creatorID of their intended target. When the intended victim then visits the website on Arc, they could unknowingly download the hacker's malware. And as the researcher explained, it's pretty easy to get user IDs for the browser. A user who refer someone to Arc will share their ID to the recipient, and if they also created an account from a referral, the person who sent it will also get their ID. Users can also share their Boosts with others, and Arc has a page with public Boosts that contain the creatorIDs of the people who made them.
In its post, the Browser Company said xyzeva notified it about the security issue on August 25 and that it issued a fix a day later with the researcher's help. It also assured users that nobody got to exploit the vulnerability, no user was affected. The company has also implemented several security measures to prevent a similar situation, including moving off Firebase, disabling Javascript on synced Boosts by default, establishing a bug bounty program and hiring a new senior security engineer.
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Our reviews of the iPhone 16 Pro and Apple Watch Series 10 are up, thanks to one very tired Cherlynn Low. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn discuss her final thoughts on Apple's new hardware, including why the iPhone 16 Pro’s photo processing is particularly interesting. In other news, we also chat about Snap's fifth-generation AR Spectacles, as well as HTC Vive's new Focus Vision headset.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max reviews: great cameras, but incomplete without Apple Intelligence – 0:59
Israel linked to coordinated pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon – 42:29
Snap’s 5th generation glasses with AR look chunky in a bad way – 48:17
HTC’s Vive Focus Vision: an intriguing VR headset at a price between the Quest 3 and Vision Pro – 51:35
Lionsgate films made a deal with the AI devil – 52:40
Pop culture picks – 55:48
Livestream
Credits
Hosts:Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low Producer:Ben Ellman Music:Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Transcript
(Note: This transcript was produced with help from Descript's AI.)
Devindra: [00:00:00] What's up, Internet? And welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar.
Cherlynn: I'm Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low.
Devindra: This week we'll be talking about the iPhone 16 Pro reviews from Cherlynn. And also, also the Apple Watch Series 10 review. And you're just so busy, Cherlynn. I'm so sorry.
Cherlynn: Yeah.
Devindra: Cherlynn slowly dying. Also joining us is podcast producer Ben Ellman. Hey, Ben.
Ben: Good morning, everyone. Usually we're trying to sell Cherlynn on video games. I think now you're going to have to sell me on the iPhone 16.
Devindra: You know? We will, we will do that. As always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcatcher of choice.
Leave us a review on iTunes. Drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. Also, if you could join us Thursday mornings on our YouTube channel, typically around 10:45 AM Eastern for our live stream. You can see our, our faces. You can see us do some Q and a, and you know, we'll show off some devices too.
So check that out. Cherlynn, I was really excited to see what you thought of the iPhone 16 pro [00:01:00]because based on our previous conversations.
Cherlynn: are you trying to upgrade?
Devindra: No, I'm not. I'm not actually, I am very firmly. I'm like, I actually don't need to do this at all. It's great. It's a good year for anybody who has a 15 pro because just not much of a reason beyond the button.
But I also know. You had conflicting feelings about the camera button. And also, Hey, we can't really judge. It's we can't fully judge this device because so much of it is going to depend on Apple intelligence, which will not start rolling out until next month. The new Siri won't fully arrive until early next year.
So what do you think of it so far? This is just the pro and pro max.
Cherlynn: Yeah. I mean, we, I also, I personally also have been testing and spending time with the iPhone plus. I can talk about them. Our, our, our review may be coming later. Right. It's coming. Nobody can blame you.
Devindra: You just shipped an Apple watch review and an iPhone review.
And last week you had the pixel watch review. So yes. To give everyone
Cherlynn: a sense of the cadence here. So Apple's event was Monday. Tuesday I was there for meetings where I've then left with devices which [00:02:00]to disclosure, they're all owners. We returned them at the end of the review period. Okay. And then there was, then we had Monday morning, the, at 8 AM Eastern, the AirPods for review.
Was published was the embargo and then Tuesday 8 a. m. Eastern was the Apple watch series 10 review embargo. And then Wednesday, yesterday 8 a. m. Eastern, the Apple iPhone 16, all of them, the review embargo lifted. So it's been, it's been wild because it involves a lot of weekend work for some of us.
And, so pardon me if in this episode, I get some names and words and numbers mixed up because it's bound to happen. It happened in our video review a couple times, which sorry, but my brain is, is there. Anyway so I really adore the iPhone 16, the base iPhone 16, because we got the cutest colors. We got the pink and the teal the teal iPhone 16 plus and the pink one.
Now. The, the reason I was actually, I'm going to start with the iPhone 16 because we, we haven't really put out our [00:03:00] formal thoughts out there yet, but I, I, I have spent some time thinking about them. This is the first time you've basically for a while now that you've got the iPhone 16s that are basically close to parody with the pros.
I mean, these are not, not pro phones by any means. But, you know, Apple didn't skimp on like bringing the camera button over to the base iPhone 16 for once. Right. And they're getting new chips, like
Devindra: all the fun stuff. Yeah, exactly.
Cherlynn: They're getting 18, a 18 instead of the last year's a 17, for example. And then, you know, yes, the pros get the 18 pro, but that makes sense.
You're paying quite a lot more money. Those are more powerful phones. And then you've got also the camera button this time brought down to the. The action button might be brought down to the iPhone.
Devindra: The plain iPhone, the base iPhone. Yeah.
Cherlynn: Plus, yeah. So these names are not great. And then you've, one of the things holding back, I guess, the base iPhones is the screen, right?
I mean, okay. They don't have the like same big 6. 3, 6. 9 inch screens as the pros do, but they also don't have [00:04:00]promotion. You're just getting like their retina XDR, I think super retina. So they're good in terms of color and resolution, but you're missing a high refresh rate, some differences in size.
And then of course the cameras aren't as powerful, but you will get spatial audio recording, which means you will get access to features like audio mix in the video recording tool set. So, or the video editing tool set. So I
Devindra: just want to point out here, Sherilyn, as you were holding up those iPhones, it seems like the big difference is.
iPhone 16 pro party in the front, good screen, iPhone 16 party in the back. I
Cherlynn: quite like that. They're so
Devindra: bright and the color is like everything
Cherlynn: you, when I talk about these at some point on our website later, but yes, this, the iPhone 16 keeps the party in the back while the iPhone 16 pro keeps the party up front.
I guess you know where the party isn't
Devindra: the
Cherlynn: party isn't on the sides. It's so sad. I really liked the idea of camera control, which I think we'll just dive right [00:05:00] into camera control. I mentioned already last week that it's, you know, a real like button that you hopefully heard me clicking into the mic just now.
It is awkwardly positioned in my opinion. When I try to hold it up Depending on the size of the phone I mean, I think i've already learned how to grip this so that my thumb sits right on the camera control when i'm holding It up In portrait mode with one hand. In landscape mode, the way that I used to grip my camera to take photos or my phone to take photos is to place my index finger kind of lightly hugging the bottom corner.
And then my little finger at the bottom to kind of brace it. And in this way, You had to
Devindra: Relearn the way you were holding a phone, basically. Absolutely.
Cherlynn: You had to relearn that camera grip that everyone was talking about maybe three years ago. It's Oh God, our camera grip. You know, that's a, that's a thing we learned to cope with this, Modern day technology things.
And now you kind of had to relearn it again. If you're, if you have an iPhone 16, because now too, if you want to press the camera control and you want to swipe on the thing, you have to [00:06:00]hold the phone differently. Your thumb's going to be on the bottom. If you're holding in landscape mode, you have to have your three fingers on the right side to kind of like balance the thing to hold it stably.
And then put your index finger on the sensor to be able to move it without Completely dropping the phone. It is in my opinion, a little clunky. However, I do love that Apple's finally brought Hardaware based shortcut access to the camera app. Let me fix my. Sure, let's pour a microphone.
Devindra: It's okay. I mean, I think the more I hear about the camera button and everything, it does seem compelling.
Like I do kind of feel Oh, that would be kind of nice to have that control, but also, yeah, yeah. I invested, I also invested in the 512 gigabyte 15 pro last year. So it's it's, it's just not worth it. I am interested in what people think of the base model. And I guess once consumers like start getting their hands on it, because yeah, as you were saying, and as we talked about, like you're missing [00:07:00]the zoom camera, you're missing the, you know, faster promotion screen, but beyond that, like that's a pretty capable, it's a pretty good phone for 800 bucks.
I guess as it should be, but then compared to most Android ones, you know, you'll get faster refresh rates on the Samsung's and the pixels. So I don't know how long Apple can justify that. Here's my other thing. Mm hmm
Cherlynn: One of the biggest selling points that I guess Apple made about the iPhone 16 is that they're purpose built for Apple Intelligence, and there's none of that in here yet.
I mean, we could and can run a developer beta to get our A taste for Apple intelligence, but I I'm sorry to announce that we don't review devices based on developer slash whatever beta shouldn't.
Devindra: It's not real. It's not
Cherlynn: stable. It's not the same. It could be very similar to the experience that finally ships.
But it's just not, I'm not, I'm not testing a beta and telling you, yeah, buy this thing. No, I, there's just, it's not no, even [00:08:00] though I think that the line between beta and like public release is quite like gray right now, it's just not very clear because sometimes they release so many software updates after the fact that the one that they released initially might as well be the beta.
But anyway I, I do think that for now there's a lot but the base iPhone 16s are still, they still seem like really solid upgrades for anyone on the base iPhone 15. Now the pros are a different matter altogether. Okay, so I almost immediately switched over to the base iPhone. iPhone 16 pro as my main.
And the smaller,
Devindra: the smaller, the
Cherlynn: smaller one by base. I mean the smaller one, not the max. And before that I had been meaning the gray, the magnesium, the natural titanium, not magnesium, the titanium 15 pro max, and like my hand is a lot happier. For having switched over to the smaller one, even though I didn't, I got like the white iPhone 16 pro and I have the desert iPhone 16 pro max.
[00:09:00] So honestly, the nicer color is in the bigger phone from, from me.
Devindra: I
Cherlynn: don't mind it. And they gave me this like bright yellow case to use with it. I was just like, all right, I don't want to look like. But the, the sad news is that like my main takeaway with the iPhone 16 pro, other than all that camera control stuff I talked about the battery life is quite disappointing.
Devindra: You're going from the big, the big boy battery. Sure. Yeah.
Cherlynn: But when you consider that the pixel nine pro. Made like 25 hours on our battery test and basically generally last two days I would say in real more realistic use probably closer to one and a half days because two days with this thing was more like I Didn't use it as much as my iPhone that I would use my phone.
It's more of a secondary device I you can't you just can't Say, yeah, barely last a day and that's fine. That looks bigger
Devindra: though. The Pixel put them side by side. The iPhone 16 Pro and the Pixel 9 Pro. Okay It's a little bit
Cherlynn: [00:10:00] bigger. It's a little thicker. I
Devindra: feel like they could fit in a bigger, a bigger battery in the Pixel.
Cherlynn: So the, the, the Pixel 9 Pro, to be clear, is only maybe less than an inch taller. Yeah, and then, a bit ever so, nope, ever so, look, it's about, they're really
Devindra: going the harder, the trying to replicate that. Yeah.
Cherlynn: So, yeah, no. So, so here's the thing I, I wrote this in my review too, and I'll mention it on this podcast, which is that I've been surrounded by phones these last few days on my couch And it has been very difficult to figure out to reach for the correct phone, I have to do a big like game of which phone am I holding up?
I, I sort of got, these are,
Devindra: I really do sometimes.
Cherlynn: And then hang on, hang on. That's just one hand. So for the audio version of the podcast. These, these are all on my couch right now. There's about, I don't want to say, how many is that? Seven? Ten? I don't know. [00:11:00] There's a pixel fold here. That is a
Ben: lot of phones.
Devindra: This is the version of fanning you know, a big stack of bills. You're fanning a stack of phones right now.
Cherlynn: So anyway,
Ben: I mean, and it is kind of a big stack of bills, monetary value.
Cherlynn: I will say instead of going to the gym, I've been just lifting these phones. No the, the, by feel, I cannot tell which one is which.
They all feel roughly the same to me, especially when I touch the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro. They all feel the same. By touch. In fact, sometimes when I'm using the 16 pro, I start to try to use Android gestures because I'm like, Oh, I'm using the pixel nine pro. Aren't I? So I swipe in from the side to go back and it's ridiculous.
But yeah, it's, they're very similar in terms of build and it's not a bad thing for anyone, but I do think that. Maybe now is the time to start pushing companies to do a bit more with design or their camera bumps. I think I saw somewhere that I think MKBHD did a bit of a wobble test, which is something that Sam Rutherford on our team has been pitching as a [00:12:00]series for like years, but I feel bad we never got around to doing it.
The Pixel 9 Pro, because of its camera bar, doesn't wobble as much, but iPhone 16 Pro certainly does. It's modules. We're going to
Devindra: make an excuse to bring the wobble dance into an iPhone video. Now, is that, that's what's happening here, I guess. Yeah. So
Cherlynn: anyway, I'm sorry, iPhone 16 Pro held back a little bit by its battery life.
I will also point out that I've had some issues with some, what seems like buggy software. I wonder if that has to do with the, in the setup process when I ported my Phone from the 15 pro max over to the 16 pro that like I don't know something is not complete in the setup just yet But I definitely noticed certain glitches here and there I've mentioned To someone that can do something about it that my lock screen just refuses to save the crop aspect ratio sometimes
Devindra: That's interesting.
This is more of a
Cherlynn: [00:13:00] telegram app issue, but the telegram app, which yes, sadly, I still do use every now and then will still resurface the one notification badge on this icon. I'm just like, there's no unreads. There are no unreads. And that's apparently a known issue. You gotta,
Devindra: you gotta go Zen, Sherilyn. You gotta go just ignore all the badges.
Numbers, there will always be numbers.
Cherlynn: Well, yeah, so there's, but there are other And you can
Devindra: just turn the badges off too,
Ben: right? You can turn
Devindra: the badge off completely. Yeah.
Cherlynn: There are other glitches like, When sometimes when I press the camera control and then I flip over to landscape, it just blinks and then just half the screen's gone.
But I've, I've certainly had that with older iPhones before. So it's not like unique to the iPhone 16 pro and which is why I didn't make a big deal of it in my review.
Devindra: Yeah. How do you like the 5X zoom on the base? I love smaller 16 pro. Cause that is a nice upgrade. That's why I went max last year too.
It was like. It's nice to have a 5x zoom. Yeah.
Cherlynn: I love having the 5x zoom on the smaller phone. And that's one of the things I'm like really happy about with the lineup this year, because yeah, that's the reason I upgraded to the 15 [00:14:00] pro max upgraded, sacrifice my hands for the 15 pro max last year, because I wanted that 5x telephoto zoom.
This year I did most of my testing with the 16 pro and yeah, I mean, it compares pretty well with Google's, but I did a lot of my photography comparison and again, it's a pixel nine pro because. To me, that's the gold standard. Google is really a lot better at cleaning up mess at the higher level zoom and also Google just gives you a little bit more digital zoom.
So you can go up to 30 X with a combined telephoto and digital. Whereas on iPhone 16 pro or pro max, you go up to only 25 X. Google's image
Devindra: processing, I think it's a little better. The computational image processing.
Cherlynn: Yeah. If you,
Devindra: okay.
Ben: But let's talk about that for a second, because Devindra and I were talking like during the show planning meeting yesterday, that I'm looking at.
the side by side iPhone 16 and Pixel 9 Pro pictures in Cherlynn's review. [00:15:00] It's the image of the tree and the LED strip. It looks like it's in some kind of transit hub. And I know everyone says the Pixel 9 photos are so much better all the time, but to me, the picture from the 16 Pro looks so much more vibrant.
Is that just A me thing? Is that how I perceive colors versus other people? What's going on here?
Cherlynn: It could be. I will say that I did notice, in general, in general, right, and this has been for years now, I've noticed that pixel photography tends to be a little bit more muted compared to something from iPhone or Samsung phones.
Especially compared to Samsung phones. They tend to oversaturate a little bit. What Apple has tended to do in the past is I don't, I think this is just their color preference, but they give what they call, but I don't say they call it. It's just warmer, right? It looks warmer sometimes to the point of looking almost yellowish.
But yeah, their colors are a bit warmer and I think you can compare this to this. [00:16:00] this to the difference between a Nikon and a camera, a Canon camera in terms of the processing. Just like a
Devindra: tasteful aesthetic difference. Exactly.
Cherlynn: I think that's a preference or tasting, Ben. So I don't know that you're necessarily seeing it differently, but it could be a tasting, right?
The, the thing I do want to point out in that picture and also back to your point, Ben, one the picture on the left of the tree in, by the way, Moynihan train station, which is Penn station in Manhattan. Yeah. Okay. Is the, the one on the left, iPhone 16 pros picture is a little bit blurry. Right. And I think that's because I have been so focused on testing camera control that every single photo I took with it was with the button push.
Whereas like on the pixel pro, sometimes I would use the volume key trigger. Sometimes I would use the onscreen button. That's the way I normally use it in daily life anyway. So I think that some of that,
Ben: they would compensate for that. You would think,
Cherlynn: but I do, I don't think they did. So I think that the button push.
Definitely introduce shake. Deepak Murthy in the chat also asked a really good question. Is the 48 [00:17:00]megapixel Ultra wide. A big upgrade from last year. I don't know that I've been pixel peeping the ultra wide pictures, but I will say this reminds me of a fact that the 48 megapixel fusion camera on the iPhone 16 pro and pro max is wild.
Like I at first was like, they keep saying zero shutter lag, right? Apple has used this Phrase a lot. And this time it said zero shutter lag and said, it was like faster. So my dumb ass brain was like, Oh, does this mean I can take like photos of people, like moving around and then freeze motion and just take, right.
So I just doing that for a while. And I was like, none of them seem very like what I thought they were going to be. So I got our video producer for this review video, Brino. I was like, can you throw something at me? I'll, you know, catch it in midair. And then. All the photos that I was trying to take with the zero shutter lag environment, it was a cushion, something's off.
Devindra: That's what zero shutter lag is supposed to be. So, so hang on. So then I was like, okay,
Cherlynn: let's do that. And then I was like, why is it not working? So I, then I told Brian to do me throwing things around. So he took photos of me and [00:18:00]we were both like, All our pictures came out of us holding on to the thing and not of us throwing the things.
When I finally figured out what was happening, I was like, Oh, that's how fast the fusion camera is now. It's actually taking the photo when you press the camera on shutter button or trigger now, not, you know, a slight fraction of a second lag before the movement happens. So you actually don't have to like, the reason we were so like, Like catching not the movement we want it and so confused is because as people who have a lot of experience with cameras, Brian and I have trained ourselves to become like sensitive with the camera trigger timing, right?
If I know if something I want to capture is going to happen in the split second after I press the button, that's when I trigger it. That's how I time myself to press the button. And that's why our pictures were coming out a little too early. We were like, we were hitting the button, but instead we should have just waited till the thing was in midair to then press the button because that's how fast the camera
Devindra: is now.
Cherlynn: I didn't know, finally [00:19:00] figured it out. Felt really smart for a moment there.
Devindra: I think due to Deepak Murthy's question, the big upgrade is that before it was a 12 megapixel ultrawide, now it's a 48 megapixel ultrawide. So,
Cherlynn: and that enables. Yeah. Even more of that 2x zoom croppy situation that they talk about.
Devindra: It's also the thing where if you lean too much into a subject, like last year, it would just like shift to the, to like almost macro mode. Right. Right. Lose so much detail. If you want a high resolution photo, like then you have to fight that automatic process. That was annoying last year or so.
Cherlynn: Yeah.
Devindra: Yeah, less of a problem this year.
Cherlynn: And then my final note about colors here is, oh my God, how awesome our photographic style, photographic styles, photographic, photographic styles. Photographic
Devindra: styles. So
Cherlynn: awesome. So those let
Devindra: you choose different like color profiles and give you more finely tuned.
Stuff like just more tweaking on your photos. I, I want to point out like a couple of reviews also noted that they like the image processing of the 16 pros compared to the 15 pros. And I think this is kind of a common [00:20:00] complaint that a lot of iPhone users have been having is just that pictures look kind of flat sometimes because Apple's processing.
Tends to crush shadows and kind of like the depth of an image kind of goes away. So I noticed the Verge's review, they pointed this out a lot and I, a couple other folks did too, like you get, you can get better shadow control, better skin tone control, and you can leave
Cherlynn: it there, right? Like you can leave it, set it to your preferred and leave it.
So every photo you take then doesn't have to be edited. It comes out with your preferred shadow and contrast settings. Yeah. So here's, here's. To add my thoughts on that. When I discovered in my testing that photographic styles is freaking awesome. I was like, what happened? Your depth, your depth map just seems wildly improved.
And so what Apple does in general is every year. And I heard this last year too, actually, which is they, they, they work on their algorithm every year. They refine their depth map sensitivity, accuracy, this sort of stuff every year. This year, there seems to be a noted, marked. Improvement. And so in every single [00:21:00] photo even with last year with the 15 pros, when you take a photo that has a face inside Apple automatically takes like captures depth information.
So you might've seen that I've noticed this before when I'm like taking photos of myself and it suddenly switches to portrait mode. I'm like, I don't need a portrait mode picture. I just wanted a flat one, but then they want to capture depth information. And in using, in doing that this year with photographic styles, they're able to like, Maintain a person's face, skin tone, whatever.
Keep that a natural looking, as natural looking as possible, and then apply color changes and contrast changes and whatnot to the background. And it is wildly effective this year. And then the fact that you can. Set it, leave it, every single one of your photos will turn out that way. Or you can go in and post process and post and change it up.
There's just so many more controls and customizability options now that to me, that is actually the low key highlight this year. Things that like they've introduced, like photographic styles, you can leave alone and do nothing with, right? Action button, you can leave as your mute slider. The camera control.
If you don't like it, turn it off. [00:22:00]You have all these controls. I Apple doesn't make a big deal because I don't think it wants to market that you can turn off camera controls. But the fact that you can, and the fact that you can tweak its sensitivity as part of accessibility controls, is it's all adding to the idea that Apple is understanding that it needs to let users be able to change and choose what they want.
And to me, that's the most important thing with the iPhone 16s or just iPhones in general. I
Devindra: kind of wish some of that came down to the earlier phones. Like I know part of that is the image processing pipeline that there's a whole lot of new Hardaware in the 16s. scenes, but also you, you've got, you still got MPUs on these older phones.
Like there, there's some stuff you could still do. It sort of reminds me of the way people complain about like the way MCU movies look, right? The Marvel movies tend to look flat, don't really have much depth. You can almost feel the artificiality of like when they're on the the giant led screens, you know, when something doesn't feel real and then.
You shoot something in real life with real color depth and everything and shadow depth, and it [00:23:00]looks dramatically different. I guess that's sort of what people are noticing. So any, anything else you want to shout out about the, the iPhone pros or, or the base ones, Rowan?
Cherlynn: I mean, I agree with you that especially on photographic styles, they introduced it on the thirteens, right?
That's the first time it came out. And so it, it's not. But then the idea back then, I don't think was as fully fleshed out. So I don't think that back then they were capturing as much information. And I also had to wonder about storage size, right? Which brings me to the 4k 120 support on these pros with shooting 4k 120 content, you can slow things down a lot more for like way more dramatically slowed down and cinematic loading content as well as like HDR support in those.
situations. Of course, if you keep recording in those sort of high quality situations, you're going to run out of storage soon. And then speaking of video recording, I am, I was so excited for audio mix. I really was very excited for the ability to use that spatial [00:24:00]audio file that's recorded in all your videos now, and then kind of like drown out environmental noise or isolate and highlight the.
Voices of people speaking in the scene and frame in my admittedly limited testing so far, like the switch between standard and studio is the best. So you really just kind of get rid of a lot of ambient noise and make your, you know, subjects sound like they're talking in a podcast, like we are now.
Like my microphone is now Yeah,
Devindra: your microphone sounds great when trillin's like you're there in front of microphones turned on we're all we're all golden this week I do feel like um, yeah, you can certainly fill up even if you have a terabyte iphone I feel like If you're shooting 4k 120, you're going to be sucking up some space, but they are making it more so that you can record and shoot directly to storage devices.
So I can imagine I see so many of those like little rigs that people are putting together. Like you put your iPhone in there. It's also stabilizing rig. You could attach a microphone up top. But you could put a small SSD [00:25:00] there too. Like it is making the sort of Hey, you can have a little production studio built entirely around your iPhone and it'll cost a lot of money, but there are some users, certainly pro users that would be into that, you know?
So it's kind of, it's cool to have that. That's how they shot this. That that weekend video, right? Like with a rig a whole special thing, making him sing the song extra fast to slow down. That was fun.
Cherlynn: I think the idea of the iPhone 16 pros as like a, yeah, portable creator rig is a good way to think about them because a lot of the upgrades that at least drew my attention were for multimedia content creation.
Another thing that I was intrigued by, but that isn't available yet is the multi. Layer or multitrack recording on voice memos. And then speaking of features that are still not yet here that half step sort of lock focus feature on camera control isn't available yet. And then, of course, everything with Apple intelligence isn't fully available yet.
I think that. It is not the first time Apple's held back some marquee features at launch, but it is like, [00:26:00]it, it makes reviewing these things right now, the week that they go on sale a little trickier than usual. You will see the note on our review cards with about the score that we had to review them as is, and as is they, They seem to score lower than last year which I think is very fair.
I think especially, I actually had to flip the position of the pro and the pro max this year, just because the battery life to me was that much significantly lower. I, I actually almost dinged it quite a few more points and then was convinced to be like, okay, A bit more, a bit less angry about battery life.
I mean, it's a
Devindra: fair comparison, but I do, I do want to know, like people like me who used to hate the Pro Max phones, like the titanium change last year was a huge difference. Like 10 to 15 percent change is noticeable. And if you care that much about battery life, it is still probably worth going for the big phone.
I also find myself. I don't know about you Cherlynn, but I also I'm watching stuff like often in picture in picture mode at night while I'm cleaning up the kitchen and stuff like, or [00:27:00]while I'm just like browsing Twitter at night to like the ability to multifunction more on a bigger screen phone.
I see it. I see the point of that. You can't do that as much on the smaller 16 pro.
Cherlynn: Yeah, I, I like being able to reach across the screen and hit something all the way on the other side anyways, as a person cursed with smaller hands, I think the smaller one is the ideal size for me. However, I might, I, I, I have this odd luxury of being able to carry two phones, right?
So maybe I'll just Carry both the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro. Now, a lot of people have asked me this, actually. Am I tempted to go back to Pixel? I am. I am very tempted by the Pixel 9 Pro. We did score it as of right now, a little higher than the iPhone 16 Pro. And trust me that that factored into my scoring decision.
I think. The competition from Google is stiffer than ever, is extremely stiff this year. I am in love with pixel UI, I've been for a very long [00:28:00] time. Especially on the call screening, especially on some of the call assist features. For some reason Google really understands how to do that stuff. I think, like I wrote in my review, it's not that Apple is not considering these things, it's that Apple is extremely cautious.
Apple's more sensitive to being caught with egg on its face, perhaps, whereas Google's probably we can just say, sorry, and Apple's more, let's not. Nobody's buying these
Devindra: phones anyway. Nobody will notice. That's what Google's thinking. Nobody's buying these Pixel phones. I don't
Cherlynn: know. I, I think it's, I think Google is a bit more a bit less risk averse.
And I, I get that vibe from the like Silicon Valley area in general.
Devindra: It does, it does come down to there, there were reports people are pointing to the flight tracker. You know, site is now tracking like the, the planes filled with iPhones coming to employee to, to customers, those planes have billions of dollars worth a single plane has billions of dollars of phones worth on them.
And it's that is the function. That's why Apple has to be safe. Whereas [00:29:00] for Google. How much of a percentage of Google's revenue are Pixel phones?
Cherlynn: I get that. I get, I get that like it's not a huge part of their revenue. Yeah, it's definitely not as significant. I will say to, to Apple's credit though, that like I said in my review, it's more careful.
And its approach tends to be more well rounded. So when it comes to things like call screening or call related, anything that's a little bit to do with personal private context things, Apple is slow. And I think reasonably so I think it's okay to like. Take your time before you sick your AI on restaurants, calling them about opening hours.
That sort of thing. Apple is not going to do that ever. I think it's wild that Google is able to, and I think there is helpful executions there too, but I don't know that every single person would be as happy to embrace that. So it's fine that they have two very different approaches. I just think that And that's why maybe I have to have two phones, right?
One company is
Devindra: afraid of actively [00:30:00] harming society with new features that call, that have robots calling, you know, restaurants and the others just taking it slow. But I
Cherlynn: will say that, I will say that my, my desire to carry both of them nowadays has less to do with camera. Because it used to be I carried a pixel phone around because it was just so much better for for my photos and now it's It's it's actually battery life and a little bit on like pixel call UI.
Oh, yeah I chatted with a friend on RCS for the first time yesterday and that was cool. Shout out to my friend who knows who they are who was on Android and we were texting and it was, it said text message RCS. You know how if you send green bubble messages, it says text message SMS. And now it says, Text message RCS, and now it's freaking out, and then we could have back messages.
Devindra: It should be a rainbow bubble, like RCS, the thing unifying all the, all the different platforms. I
Cherlynn: think that would be a bit too ally for Apple to do.
Devindra: Allyship?
Cherlynn: Yeah,
Devindra: [00:31:00] it would be, it would be nice
Cherlynn: if they did, but no, I don't think they would, it would, the implication is kind of weird Also hate that, because of that, we
Devindra: can't use rainbows anymore in certain things.
That's dumb.
Cherlynn: You can still use rainbows. I don't think it matters. It just, I'm glad,
Devindra: I'm glad you're able to do an RCS chat because we have talked about that for years. There was also the news that the RCS the group is now considering a way to make encryption happening, so that's cool. Can I,
Cherlynn: can I just explain this a little bit?
So, when we, when this came out and made the rounds this week that RCS the GSMA was working on our end to end encryption for RCS. the universal profile, which is what Apple said it would adopt for iOS 18. And to be clear, there's different profiles of RCS. The base one was the one that like Apple resisted forever because it was just not very secure.
It allowed businesses to text you with no reason. And there's just a lot of issues with it. Universal profile comes closer. When Apple announced it would support RCS, it did make a It's very clear that like end to end [00:32:00] encryption, it would work with the GSMA to bring end to end encryption to RCSUP before it fully embraced iOS 18 RCS and iOS 18.
So it's not completely new, like you said, Devindra, that like we knew end to end encryption was coming and that's why we were Apple
Devindra: says that they were going to work on it and now, now they, GSMA had to put out an announcement. Hey, we're doing it. We're doing it, baby. I
Cherlynn: mean, they're working on it, but is it news?
Not really. I mean, it's, it's, it has to come.
Devindra: They're doing it also Google
Cherlynn: messages. Yeah. But also Google messages had already, like Google had already implemented E2EE in its own Google message version of RCS UP, which is like a UP with a number, I believe So anyway come at me with
all your RCS nerdery, because apparently this is how much I know about it.
Devindra: Yeah. RCS message Cherlynn if you can find her. How about that? Anything else you want to mention about the phones? Cause I do want to talk a little bit about the Apple Watch Series 10. Yeah. That is the thing. That got all the big changes this year. And we just spent half an hour talking about a fricking camera button.
So come on, I
Cherlynn: mean, I feel like there's more on the phone that I'm forgetting. Just go read [00:33:00] my review. It's like very
Devindra: long, very nice reviews.
Cherlynn: Yeah. And, and the video on our YouTube channel as well. What's up? What's about okay. When you say the watch got all the big changes this year, what are you referring?
It
Devindra: has a new, it has a new design. It is much bigger. Like it is fundamentally a bigger TV. different feeling device. You noted that in your review, you know,
Cherlynn: it does feel different. It feels thinner every time I pick it up when it's not on my wrist, when I pick it up to enter the password or look at the charge level, I feel it in my, in between my fingers, it feels thinner and different.
But the, and especially compared to the series nine, which I've been using since it was launched last year, the screens a little bit wider angle viewing. wider viewing angle. And, and, and, and, and that's about it, right? I mean, what else is like the, the, the battery life for being thinner is very similar still to the Series 9.
In fact, sometimes I actually got a lot more battery life out of the Series 10. It, [00:34:00] I still couldn't replicate that on a consistent, in a consistent way. So I don't know Absolutely true that the Apple Watch Series 10 lasts longer than the Series 9. But yeah, I think it's impressive that the technology they were able to come up with to reach that thinner frame.
And the wider angle. I didn't notice the huge Here's the thing, right? When you're testing two watches side by side, y'all come to the Engadget Podcast for this sort of great interview. You're just deadened
Devindra: to all the changes moving forward, right? Well, a little bit,
Cherlynn: but here's what I was trying to do, right?
I had both watches on each of my wrists, and I was putting them down sort of on my lap to kind of see whether that wider viewing angle makes that huge of a difference. And I'm like, yeah, the one on the left, which is the Series 10, certainly looks like I can see it. Like the clock digits are brighter from that angle and, and more easy to see, whereas the right hand, which was the Series 9 was harder to read.
But you know what the difference was? Partly, yes, brightness. But the other part of it was the locks, the watch face. [00:35:00] Somehow when your AOD is dimmed in on both watches, you're always on display is dimmed. The watch. digits on the Series 9, which to be clear was on watchOS 10, not 11 went into this outline instead of a solid font.
So the font was just, and of course that's going to be harder to read, whereas like on the Series 10, which was running watchOS 11, when the AOD dimmed, the clock digits maintained their solid structure. So the font basically went from a fully filled solid digits situation to stroke only that sort of thing.
So if you know, graphic design, maybe you understand what I'm saying. And that contributes to it. Right. And then I'm not able to then confidently say that, you know, This is certainly a brighter screen at an off angle. I, I have to be like part of the visibility has to do with the fact that the font's different.
So I don't know. I, I, I didn't get into the detail there. But you're here, you're, you're here, you are privy to my inner most fonts. Okay. Okay. Podcast.
Devindra: Even, [00:36:00] even like the, the minimal design changes to the series 10 is more than the, than the phones got. Is the thing. Slightly thinner, slightly bigger.
I mean a whole
Cherlynn: new button. Look, the whole new button.
Devindra: Plus
Cherlynn: the fact that the screens are bigger, plus the fact that therefore the iPhone 15 Pros are just a little bit bigger than their predecessors means you have to get a whole new case, by the way. Yeah,
Devindra: it's mainly the buttons. You have to get the whole new case.
Cherlynn: Well, no, the cases won't fit. I asked and it was like, no, you need new cases even without the buttons. Of course.
Ben: Every year you need a new case. And that difference, the Oh, this is a little bit bigger so you need to get a whole new case and the fact that we spent so much time talking about a button is why all the other kids make fun of us.
Cherlynn: Who's us and who's the other kids? Sorry.
Ben: All of the Android people make fun of us. I consider
Cherlynn: myself an Android kid too,
Devindra: don't us and them, me. I [00:37:00] am a bother. From one phone generation to the next like that is just like a given because things change button placements change camera Modules change, so I'm not gonna knock Apple too much on that.
But you know,
Ben: meanwhile What was Apple talking about so much during that event? We're gonna be carbon neutral by this time. What is it? 2030 not that long. They are by not
Devindra: including the wired buds anymore
Cherlynn: Fiber Kate packaging
Devindra: fiber you can eat that box Yeah,
Cherlynn: if you're having digestive issues if you
Devindra: want to, so it doesn't sound like you're super hot on the, the watch series.
It
Cherlynn: was hard for me to be excited because again, a lot of the marquee features are things you have to wait a little longer to figure out sleep, but we're not waiting
Devindra: for apple intelligence on that. We're not waiting for no, several months. Like we were watch. Yeah,
Cherlynn: we were during the review process waiting on the sleep apnea thing to be FDA green lit, but it did during the [00:38:00] review process.
And so it was like the day or two before that was like, Oh yeah, you can set up sleep apnea now. And to be clear, like we, we had more than a few days with sleep apnea, but, but it was like, Two days before the watch or the day before the watch review was supposed to go up, that sleep apnea came out with watchOS 11.
Did
Devindra: you, so did you do your sleep apnea test? No, because
Cherlynn: not only, I did, I did set it up. I set it up for the alerts. Right. And then, and I did that on the Monday that iOS 18 was pushed out because even though the FDA Greenlight announcement was on Friday. The iOS 18, watchOS 11, blah, blah, blah, update all came out to the public on Monday with the sleep apnea thing.
And then on watchOS 11, that's when you can get it right. And you can get the sleep apnea tracking on watch series nine as well as watch ultra two. So even if I had tested was like a big deal, it was not going to super affect my score because you can get it on an older watch. Like it's not, a huge part of the upgrade [00:39:00] equation, but also I had one night to put this thing on and you need to like sleep with it for
Devindra: 30 nights.
We're gonna need an update on how much you snore and what your sleep breathing is like. Yeah.
Cherlynn: That's what, that's what has to
Devindra: happen. Yeah.
Cherlynn: So basically I think this sort of device and this sort of feature is something we want to spend more time with anyway. So yeah, just come back. Twingadget. com to see if I'm still alive and testing sleep apnea and breathing at night.
Devindra: It is hard to review something that is also meant to track data for several days, like to do that with under a week, you know, so you did, you did what you could. And also given the restrictions Apple placed on us by not having everything fully approved. So anyway, it sounds, it sounds cool. Go check out Shroen's review.
Do you have a video of the Apple watch as well?
Cherlynn: We do not because that would have required shooting on Sunday when I was editing the AirPods review, so no. I mean,
Devindra: you're, it never ends. It never ends. And we're still waiting on the iPhone review. So, you know, that's another thing. They're coming!
Cherlynn: You can consider this my iPhone review, whatever the early [00:40:00]part of this episode was.
That was mine. There is a proper written version. So we know
Devindra: nobody reads anymore. Sherilyn like this is the future of all of our content. And anyway, folks, thank you so much, Sherilyn. If you got any thoughts or questions about the new iPhones and the new Apple watch, drop us an email at podcast and engadget.
com.
Let's move on to some other news and sorry folks that we're running through these stories kind of quickly. We're just, we're just so gadget heavy. We've got so many reviews to talk about. Is that time of
Cherlynn: year?
Devindra: Yeah. One thing I want to bring up is just a wild occurrence that happened on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I started seeing news reports Tuesday morning that pagers were exploding throughout Lebanon and that seemed weird. Like we saw the earlier reports were like, huh. That's, that's strange. Pagers are exploding. Then more reports, thousands of pagers are exploding. Then more and more reports. Basically I think by maybe not by the end of Tuesday, but there were [00:41:00] several waves of pager attacks, or at least one, that first major wave of pager attacks.
What we ended up learning is that likely it was Israel targeting members of the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon by their pagers. And I'm not going to get too deep into the politics of this all, but just that idea, I don't know what you thought of the Sherwin, but I was thinking like, Oh my God, we've reached like enemy of the state level, weird attack vectors that would sound like science fiction just a couple of years ago.
So that is, that is where we're at. This is like a live, ongoing story on Wednesday, another wave of attacks happened on walkie talkies. because I guess the plan was not to just hit pagers again because people stopped using their pagers. There are reports that solar panel you know, installations throughout Lebanon were attacked as well.
This is all in response to like other attacks that were happening from Hezbollah towards you know, people living in Israel and and like areas throughout that country too. So wild. I don't [00:42:00]know. What did you think, Sherilyn, like when you heard of this?
Cherlynn: I mean, I'll give you 10 to guess what my immediate thought was it was the same as what CF 542 is saying in our chat.
I was shocked that pagers were still being used. I think
Devindra: Listen, if you are if you are currently a member of a militant group and you know Your opponent is like highly technically capable. You're like I can't have a smartphone
Cherlynn: I can't have things that they
Devindra: can hack, you know,
Cherlynn: right. So when you were recapping that, I, I, I, my brain made the connection.
Well, I mean, I kind of knew this, which is like you said. Yeah. A lot of people use lower technology devices to avoid surveillance or detection. Things like burner phones tend to be a little more simple pagers. And you mentioned walkie talkies and solar panels. It was interesting to me how it is. These would appear to be like less sophisticated, more analog devices that were being targeted.
And things not connected to the internet. Right, exactly. You would, right. It's even harder. So it's you would think that internet is the more hackable sort of technology because [00:43:00]it's more communication availability. But no, it's these things that are just chilling along on, I guess, radio waves for a lot of them especially walkie talkies and what, pagers.
Devindra: Yeah. And the, the actual we're still like, this is an ongoing story. The full extent to like how the explosive devices got into the pagers and into the walkie talkies, Is the whole thing because the company behind the pagers is apparently a Taiwan based thing, but they were like, we did not manufacture those.
And then people tracked it to a company in in Turkey that was building devices. And they were like, Oh, we didn't build those either. So it's like, where did these come from? How did these get into the supply chain? But also I think it was also like subcontractors
Ben: on subcontractors
Devindra: upon. So, so, but how do you, how do you get to people outside of hacking a good internet connected device?
We have heard stories like I am. I. Like to read the stories about like how real life spies do their work. And there's a lot of stories about what Russia has done and what Russian spies have done, like the poisoning of people in broad daylight throughout throughout England. That's something Russia is known for.
This is just like wild and I [00:44:00]guess there are two arguments. It's, it's a little more targeted than like missile attacks, but also these things were exploding in public spaces. Children were killed. Thousands of people were injured. The latest total I saw is 25 people were killed, 600 injured. This is just like one of those things where it's I don't.
You don't know what's safe anymore when these devices, these devices that you think are just dumb and silly can just explode at any moment. So, terrifying.
Ben: Yeah, and the politics of this situation is really difficult to get into, so we'll mostly try to sidestep that. I'm feeling for the Lebanese population right now.
This is like pure stochastic
Devindra: terrorism, basically, but yeah.
Ben: From the perspective of gadget people, we love our devices. We use our devices to relax. The idea that you are afraid to touch your device now, because you don't know what's been tampered with and what hasn't been tampered with. The idea that there are families who are completely unaffected and, you know, not Affiliated with Hezbollah at all are maybe putting all of their [00:45:00]devices out in the yard a good distance away from the house because they're afraid of them now, that
Devindra: sucks.
People are afraid to use their computers, any of their other devices, like it's just, this is a weird situation.
Cherlynn: Do y'all see how many phones I held up just now?
Devindra: Yeah, you are, you are quite the, the attack vector right now, Cherlynn. I mean, listen, I have like right behind me, people who can see me on camera.
Like I have a lot of old devices that I need to certainly electronically recycle because I'm worried about what happens to old lithium batteries. And so that's not even worrying about an attack like this. We will be keeping an eye on the story. This is like all ongoing stuff, but I wanted to mention it because this is directly.
I've never seen a military or I've never seen like a specific attack against a military opponents like this. And philosophically, like as somebody who thinks about like how we wage war and how innocents are touched and all this stuff, it is deeply, deeply troubling. We're going to move on to just some strange, like straight up gadget [00:46:00]stuff.
So let's just laugh at snaps. Fifth generation spectacles. How about that? Look at poor Chrisabelle, who did this coverage for us, has had to take pictures of herself wearing these God awful looking augmented reality glasses. These are standalone AR glasses. They're going to be sold to developers who commit to a yearlong 99 a month subscription to start working on AR apps, I guess, similar to what Apple did with Vision Pro, except it's not being sold to normal people at all.
Because I think if people saw the real cost of these things if you had to put a dollar to it, you would probably laugh Snapchat off the face of the planet. Like these would probably cost four to 5, 000 a pair, given the level of technology in them. Thoughts on these Cherlynn?
Cherlynn: I mean, I think they looked weird AF until I watched the Emmys last night.
And I was like, wow, I guess Eugene Levy is wearing the same sort of glasses. The same style glasses, right? They were these very thick black frames that are extremely boxy, especially [00:47:00]near the temples. And I think Carissa got a little roasted on the threads.
Ben: But those actually
Cherlynn: looked good. What?
Ben: But they actually looked good.
The older ones look better. These just look chunky.
Cherlynn: So, okay. To be clear though, the new, the ones now are AR glasses. They have a display in them. I believe the older Snap Spectacles are just camera toting glasses. No, the ones so the
Ben: last picture And I'm also talking about Eugene Levy's glasses.
Eugene Levy's
Cherlynn: ones are great. They're the Prada or Dior ones, so
Ben: Yeah, they were fashion glasses. I was thinking, okay, these look very chunky. Fashion glasses tend to look chunky. I literally just looked up. Glasses designed by like Terry Mugler or, you know, house of Mugler, like very high fashion sort of stuff.
Mugler is known specifically for kind of sci fi looking outfits. Zendaya actually wore a like whole suit of armor designed by Mugler. This is a really
Cherlynn: strange tangent. We're going down. Like I am here for it,
Devindra: but
Ben: these glasses, yeah. [00:48:00] These. The Mugler glasses actually look good. They are chunky.
They take up so much of your face. Go look them up on your own. These just look bad. I mean,
Devindra: I'm specifically comparing them to the last pair Carissa tested Trillin. So I think that was the fourth one. And those did have AR display. She did do a test of that. So this is not just the camera ones that they were selling.
But,
Cherlynn: yeah.
Devindra: My point was
Cherlynn: just going to be that like, we're not going to review this thing obviously. They're not selling it. But I can't wait for us to take a look. A deeper dive into them. We will be doing that. We just won't be reviewing, reviewing. We will be reviewing it. I
Devindra: think we are fully well within our rights to point and laugh at how silly this all looks.
And next week we're going to hear about Meta's you know, concept AR glasses. So that's Orion and the sort of like tease photo. We saw those things, which was in the background of one of Zuckerberg's photos earlier this year. Those just look like chunky hipster frames. And maybe those aren't like fully the things, but at least those look more like glasses than whatever the [00:49:00] hell is happening here.
Like I couldn't, I couldn't help it laugh, but Chris has done some great coverage for us to go check out her story on this stuff briefly. I also want to point out, I wrote about the Vive Focus Vision. HTC Vive is still making VR headsets and this is their latest standalone headset. It's 9. 99. It's interesting because they're, they have better cameras for mixed reality.
And also they have a cool. An accessory, a display port accessory that you can buy. It's like 150. It gives you a direct connection to your computer for connected wired VR. And that is different compared to what Oculus link did or the metal link does on Meta's headsets. When you plug into a PC, you're basically seeing a video feed of what a VR window is seeing on your computer.
By going directly to the graphics card, you're not getting any of that distortion or anything. So this functions more like a traditional VR headset. It looks cool, feels cool. Hope to do a fuller review of this thing, but I also don't, no one's going to buy this. This is 9. is selling these headsets [00:50:00] to businesses and they are doing a good job of that.
But, you know, they're not competing with the meta quest at, you know, 400 and 500. These things are just so much more expensive. We also saw the news that Lionsgate, the movie studio has signed a deal with runway, the AI startup. So that the, let me see here. It will allow runway access to Lionsgate content their library in exchange for a fresh custom AI model that the studio can use in production and editing.
That can mean all sorts of things, but I know among Hollywood, among artists, actors, and directors, like this is the AI encroachment in movie making. is something that people are afraid of. Maybe there's a way that they could use it. That is like a non harmful way, like a simpler way. Hey, listen, I've used AI to plug in one word into a podcast episode where it's I don't, I can't match the voice to retake it.
But if I type the word here and I train this thing on my voice, and it's a local model that I fully control it can replicate a word for me. That makes my life a little easier. Maybe they can [00:51:00]do that, but it's tough for artists. Tough to manage that.
Cherlynn: Yeah. I will say that as of six or seven years ago at 1MWC, there was a tool like that online somewhere that allowed you to create like voice models for of people.
And so me, Matt Smith, and I think Aaron Supor is playing with this. We created voice models of each other. And so I made Matt Smith's fake voice say, Japan, Japan, Japan. And I really recall this very strongly. Here's the thing, though. I will also mention that it's not specific or unique to AI, right? To be able to do this, because I will give you another behind the scenes tidbit that our iPhone 16 review video, there was a moment where I made the mistake and said, the iPhone 15 pros battery life sucks or something along those lines.
And I was like, crap, I meant the iPhone 16 pro and our video editor, Ryan Oh, was able to cook up some magic and find a bit where I said the word. Yeah. And just replace it correctly. So that's
Devindra: normal editing using your normal [00:52:00] voice. It's normal
Cherlynn: editing. Editing, but you're also able to like, you know, being able to get a model of my voice to say the correct words Seems useful to me in in situations like that for post processing, but I can see how it raises concerns of who has control Like you said over who has control i'm
Devindra: sure actors are worried writers are worried about what words they can inject in things we will be keeping an eye on the story for sure.
Ben: I have one kind of easy prediction to make about this. That Runway will develop some kind of internal tool for Lionsgate. Lionsgate will push this very much on their editors and all of their workers. They'll be like, use the internal tool, use the internal tool. They will make a big deal about how one movie used the internal tool and then we'll never hear about it again.
Devindra: I hope so. I hope, I hope that's what it is. But I also know like executives and a lot of basically studio executives cannot wait to stop paying money to actors and writers. Like they just want to like, get [00:53:00]stuff out there to start selling movie tickets or whatever. So yeah, we will see the, the, all these tools can be useful in the right hands.
We are worried about the right hands. Let's Cherlynn?
Cherlynn: I, this weekend. So, and I was very excited to share this on this podcast. I was like telling the team, I have to be here for this. Have you heard of the film Speak No Evil?
Devindra: Yes. Oh, you saw the new one.
Cherlynn: I saw the new one. The, the one with James McAvoy, who is just so menacing in it.
The reviews. said that he's perfected the art of being menacing and they are so right. He is horrifying and such a scary and like the, the way, okay, so this film is about this family meeting or running into another family consisting of James McAvoy, his parents. wife and their child in italy somewhere and then that they hit it off the james mcavoy invites them over to stay at their countryside place For a weekend [00:54:00]and again some of their you know, better instincts They they do do it and then it turns out this is the like strangest family ever No spoilers, but I think you can see where it's headed.
I think Though that the entire experience was really illuminating for me because some of the, the altercations they get into are so reminiscent of like my real life where you do interact with people who just say shit for no reason sometimes, right? on the internet, in the real world. Like people sometimes say shit and then they go, Oh, sorry.
Sorry that you misunderstood what I said, or, Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it that way. Oh, PC. Oh, woke. Like people who use that sort of like labels to defend bad behavior. And you have a lot of that. And so I spent a lot of the movie because I didn't guess the ending. I spent a lot of the movie wondering if.
They were actually like bad, bad, or if they were just unintentional bad, right? And that's me because I'm, I'm the sort of person that gaslights myself. But that's, that's what happens. I think that the [00:55:00] way the actors played it was really nuanced and that's why I was led to that belief. But also the, the, just the whole telling of the story was so like masterful.
The tension never lets up. It's just, it's great. It's really cool. I'm glad I really enjoyed it.
Devindra: I would recommend Trillin. That you watch the original movie, which is mostly in English too, but it's more about the difference. I believe it's like the difference between like Danish culture and Finnish culture and how they can be like slightly different, but also that original movie.
is horrifying. It is so bleak. It is one of the bleakest things I've ever seen. And what I've heard is that the American version, this one's
Cherlynn: pretty bleak too, but yeah, I've
Devindra: heard it doesn't go as far as the original does. And I don't, I don't like the ending of the original. I think it's a deeply disturbing movie, but that was a movie about.
our society of politeness, right? Where somebody says something weird and you're like, Oh, okay. Well, I'm a guest. So I'm just gonna roll with it. Right. It's the same thing. It's the same [00:56:00]story. Yeah. It's also about like how hard it is to make friends as adults because that original movie was just like this like yuppie couple with the kid is I, how do we, how do we hang out with people?
Oh, this, this couple seems nice. I think both these movies sound like the in why you do not make friends on vacation. You meet somebody you meet a couple you meet you meet people on vacation. They're not last let it go. Yeah Yeah, they're temporary friends. Yeah, let it go. Do not visit their houses. Do not do anything I'm looking forward to seeing this movie Cherlynn.
I can't
Cherlynn: wait till you see it. Tell me how you think it
Devindra: is It is fun to see Scoot McNary and Mackenzie Davis. Yes, like normal couple. This is a this is a halting catchfire reunion A show I've told all of you who've been listening to watch forever. They both co star in that show. That's an amazing show for techies.
It's about the sort of like PC building world in Texas in the eighties. It's a lot of fun. It's like mad men, but also far, far geekier. So check that out. Well, I'm glad you like anything else you want to try out Cherlynn.
Cherlynn: I cancelled my Hulu subscription, [00:57:00] so, there you go. They, they, I, I thought I was being scammed when I got an email from Hulu at HuluMail.
com, which just sounded like the worst email in the world. But they were like, price is increasing soon, like 20 basically for a no ad subscription. I was like, what the hell, I'm not doing that. Plus, I also have Disney Plus. So I'm like, I get quite a lot of the same library with that.
Devindra: Yeah, it's, it's so very confusing, what is, is, It is still very
Cherlynn: confusing, yeah.
So for me, I'm like, let's cancel it and see what's gonna happen. But yeah, I mean, I, I, my, my Disney Plus subscription is annual, and my Hulu one is monthly. So I just canceled the monthly one first and see how that goes. All right. Since I can't cancel Disney Plus. Good luck. And then, well, yeah my, my recommendation is if it works out, I'll tell you that to go with Disney Plus instead of Hulu and Disney.
Devindra: Gotcha. Have you checked out Agatha all along yet? I feel like that's in your I have not. I
Cherlynn: saw it on yeah, I haven't seen it yet, but it's on my list.
Devindra: I saw the first few episodes. It's, it's fun. It's fun more mostly because Aubrey Plaza gets to be fun. Oh, yeah! I saw that. Give me a witchy Aubrey Plaza, please.
She is [00:58:00] fantastic in that show. And
Cherlynn: the gay splosion I heard,
Devindra: I want to recommend you folks, I've talked about Pachinko before, which is the Apple TV plus show based on the novel about this sort of sweeping tale of a Korean family from leaving Korea to immigrating to Japan throughout the 1900s.
And also it occurs across different time periods. I started watching season two. This show is still incredible. It looks fantastic. Just incredibly well written. It's just like deeply emotional. I love seeing very, very complex, very far reaching immigrant tales. And this is one of those, Sherilyn, I think you really got to watch this show because it will destroy you.
It is just so fascinating. So yeah. Loving Pachinko Season 2. Also Season 2 has a new opening dance sequence, which became a big hit. with the first season. Still good. I don't think it hits the same highs for me as the Pachinko season one opening, but still very good. Also quickly want to shout out Lego Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy, which is a Lego Star Wars thing.
My daughter saw a picture of this and she was like, we got to watch this. I don't know what's happening [00:59:00]here. I have not fully gotten her into any Star Wars stuff. We've tried the Clone Wars cartoons and They're really slow. Like it's really tough for her to get into. I'm not going to do the movies.
The original movies just take forever to get started. Maybe when she was like eight or 10, she can survive those things, but she loved Lego Star Wars, rebuilt the galaxy. It's a funny, you know, Lego variant of this thing, but also does something that I don't think Star Wars will ever be able to do, which is completely break and rebuild the entire mythology.
Like at the, you know, In the first episode, they just completely rework it's sort of like a what if thing. They just rework who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? What happened here? How did key events happen? It's just completely different and they're going to run with this timeline. A lot of good guys become bad.
You may see this in the poster, but a Darth Jar Jar Binks. Is a thing and he is hilarious. Like he's not, he's, he's a dark, he's a sip. But he's also silly and bumbling. And my daughter thinks he's hilarious every time he falls on his face. So it's just, it has a lot of fun with star Wars mythology, a lot of deep cuts in there.
And I think it's fun if you've got [01:00:00]kids who cannot. really pay attention to the little, the, the Star Wars stuff that takes a little, you know, more to get into. I think this is like perfect. Okay. So check it out. Lego Star Wars rebuild the galaxy.
Cherlynn: Well, that's it for the episode this week, everyone.
Thank you as always for listening. Our theme music is by game composer Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Elman. You can find the Vindro. At
Devindra: Davindra on Twitter, Mastodon, Blue Sky, all over the place. And I podcast about movies and TV at The Filmcast, thefilmcast.
com. Oh, also I did a Twit. I did This Week in Tech this week. So go check out the latest episode at twit. tv.
Cherlynn: If you want to tell me what your favorite photographic style is. So I can use it on more selfies of me send them to me. I am at Cherlynn low on X or at Cherlynn, Instagram, C H E R L Y N N S T A G R A M on threads, email us your thoughts at podcast at engadget.
com. Leave us a [01:01:00]review, please, on whatever podcast platform you're listening on and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
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