This week, Cherlynn is joined by guest co-host Terrence O’Brien and senior tech correspondent at Insider Lisa Eadicicco to discuss Google’s own mobile chip Tensor and the Pixel 6. We share more insight from having seen and used the phones in person, too. Plus, we go over some updates from the Activision Blizzard case and a handful of new gadgets.
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 podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Google announces Tensor, its own mobile chip, will debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro – 1:47
Activision/Blizzard hit with another lawsuit – 33:08
NLRB recommends a new union election for Amazon’s Alabama warehouse – 40:04
Google Nest launches new battery-powered doorbell and security cameras – 43:06
Amazon releases a soap dispenser that counts to 20 – 47:58
R2-D2 Tamagotchi is coming later this year – 49:26
Working on – 52:23
Pop culture picks – 56:40
Video livestream
Credits Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Terrence O'Brien Guest: Lisa Eadicicco Producer: Ben Ellman Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Owen Davidoff, Luke Brooks Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Kyle Maack Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Jabra's Elite 85h headphones are available for $150 on Amazon once again, giving you another chance to grab them at the price if you weren't able to last month. We praised the wireless headphones for offering active noise cancellation that rivals the technologies used by Bose and Sony and gave it a score of 84 in our review. The device was priced at $300 upon launch in 2019, which we felt was a bit too high for what it can do. Amazon has been selling it for $174 after its sale in July, but now it's back down to its lowest price on the website.
To be clear, only the Titanium Black version is on sale for $150 on Jabra's official store on Amazon, while the rest will cost you a bit more. If you don't mind the lack of color options, though, one of the best features we liked about the headphones is their insane battery life that can last up for to 41 hours with noise cancelation turned off. During our tests, we used the Elite 85h for around two to three hours a day for seven days and still had 85 percent of power left by the time we were done.
We also liked that it has EQ and noise-cancellation presets you can choose from based on your environment. You can have different settings for use in public and in private, and you don't even have to manually switch between them. The headphones have the ability to analyze noise, so they can detect your location and switch to the appropriate profile.
In addition, we praised the headphones for having simple controls and a better design than some of their rivals. We noted in our review that Sony's 1000XM3 has better sound quality, but that device will set you back $100 more on Amazon right now.
Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser is going to cost you. For two guests in a standard cabin for a two-night adventure, you’ll have to set aside just shy of $5,000.
Disney is promising it as "part live immersive theater, part themed environment, part culinary extravaganza, part real-life role-playing game." The company offers more details on how your story might unfold, with the ability to choose to side with the First Order (boo), or ally with the resistance.
Disney
There will also be lightsaber lessons, optional missions and the chance to interact with iconic SW characters who will, well, behave like video game NPCs. According to reports, each Starcruiser adventure is several months of salary one-of-a-kind, so if you can afford one journey on the cruiser, you can probably book a second, different, adventure.
The posit sounds very Westworld, and like that fictional theme park, it seems unashamedly aimed at only the wealthiest Star Wars fans. It also sounds like there will be no Star Wars experience like it. Temptation, however, might be outweighed by economic reality. Then again, it seems positively cheap compared to a ticket to actual space.
Google’s first battery-powered Nest Cam and Doorbell can be installed just about anywhere around your home, and you can even connect them to a wired power source, if you prefer. The battery life depends on how many recorded events the devices detect and factors like the temperature and settings. Google says the Doorbell’s battery will run for up to six months on a single charge, while the Nest Cam can run for up to seven months before you need to recharge it over USB. Continue reading.
The Messages, Photos and Siri features will also come to watchOS and macOS.
Apple has detailed new features focused on child safety. With the release of iOS 15, watchOS 8 and macOS Monterey later this year, the company says it will introduce a variety of child safety features across Messages, Photos and Siri.
To start, the Messages app will include new notifications to warn children, as well as their parents, when they either send or receive sexually explicit photos. When someone sends a child an inappropriate image, the app will blur it and display several warnings. Apple will also introduce new software tools in iOS and iPadOS that will allow the company to detect when someone uploads content to iCloud that shows children involved in sexually explicit acts. Rather than scanning photos when they're uploaded to the cloud, the system will use an on-device database of "known" images. These features and more will come to devices later this year. Continue reading.
Some carmakers and states want an even faster transition.
Leah Millis / reuters
President Biden’s latest executive order sets a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to have some form of zero-emissions driving, whether it's a pure EV, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The move is meant to not only promote clean transportation and limit climate change but help the US "outcompete" a Chinese car industry that's quickly shifting toward electrified vehicles. It could be an ambitious target: EVs have represented about 2 percent of US car sales for the past three years, according to the International Energy Agency and Pew Research. Continue reading.
The success of ‘Animal Crossing’ makes business as usual look worse by comparison.
In Nintendo’s latest financial report, it posted an operating profit of 119 billion yen, roughly $1.1 billion. That is, however, a 17.3 percent drop compared to the 144 billion yen ($1.3 billion) posted this time last year, when Switch consoles were consistently sold out and most of us were trapped indoors, isolating. Nintendo didn’t release a game that could match the success of Animal Crossing the year before. Amusingly, the company made a graph to show that, if you remove the Animal Crossing spike, its software sales have constantly increased since at least 2018. Continue reading.
Over the next 12 months, Microsoft is rolling out a series of updates for its OneNote apps on Windows with the intention of creating a single user experience. At the moment, there are two versions people can use: The OneNote app installed with Office and the OneNote for Windows 10 app available in the Microsoft Store. Microsoft will update the OneNote app with features currently exclusive to its counterpart pre-installed on Windows 10, though, and it will also give the program a visual refresh.
Microsoft originally intended to kill the OneNote app when the one for Windows 10 became available, but it changed its plans and revived the app in 2019. It upgraded the note-taking program with a bunch of new features and bundled it with Office installs a year later. Now, the tech giant says it will update OneNote with visual elements that it'll share with other Windows apps as part of Microsoft's efforts to give Windows 11 a more seamless look. The merged OneNote application will also gain access to the latest Microsoft pen and ink features, as well as a new navigational UI layout option.
Those already using the app installed with Office don't have to do anything but wait for the upcoming updates to roll out. As for those using OneNote for Windows 10, Microsoft will send them an in-app invite to upgrade to the other application once it's ready. The company says it expects to start sending out invitations in the second half of 2022, and it now advising organizations to make their personnel use the OneNote app, so they don't have to migrate next year.
The city of Detroit in partnership with both Ford and Bosch is about to open a new Smart Parking Lab, hosted in Detroit’s Bedrock Assembly Garage. It’s a real-world environment to test future autonomous technologies that could be used to refine autonomous valet parking into a product. Opening in September, the facility will also enable these companies to test if it’s possible to introduce automatic smart charging into the system.
The Detroit Smart Parking Lab is designed to continue work showcased last summer, when Ford and Bosch showed off a self-parking Ford Escape in that same building. The vehicle was able to drive through the car park without human assistance, find a space, and reverse park into it without any stress. It’s hoped that, in some far-flung future when climate change doesn’t kill us all, that this sort of automatic valet parking could free people up to spend more time doing anything other than fighting for a space in a multi-storey car park.
As well as Ford and Bosch, rental company Enterprise is going to test how this technology could streamline its own processes. It hopes that cars that drive themselves to a valet station, then recharge themselves before parking back on the lot ready for pickup will reduce dead time between rentals. At this stage, at least, the hope is to just get the cars to park themselves in a manner that’s cost-effective for the company.
You now have a chance to purchase a seat aboard one of Virgin Galactic's space tours — provided you can afford to pay $450,000 for it. The company has reopened ticket sales less than a month after Richard Branson, its founder, flew with other "mission specialists" for Virgin Galactic's first fully crewed spaceflight. It made the announcement alongside its financial results for the second quarter of the year, wherein it also said that the private space corporation "made meaningful progress towards commencing commercial service in 2022."
Virgin Galactic is giving you three consumer options to choose from. In addition to a single seat that costs almost half a million, it's also selling multi-seat packages for groups and offering full-flight buy outs. The current iteration of the company's VSS Unity spacecraft can seat four passengers in addition to two pilots, so selling full flights isn't out of the realm of possibility. Virgin Galactic will prioritize its "significant list of early hand-raisers," though it will create a follow-on priority list for customers interested in reserving future flights.
As CNBC notes, its next scheduled flight will have members of the Italian Air Force onboard. After that, the company will take a break until mid-2022 to refurbish VMS Eve, its jet-powered carrier aircraft. Since there will be one more scheduled test flight after that period, that means Virgin Galactic is delaying its first official flight for paying astronauts again. Earlier this year, the company was hoping to launch its first commercial flight in early 2022, but it now told CNBC that its new target is sometime in the late third quarter of 2022.
After previously announcing it expected corporate employees to return to the office on September 7th this year, Amazon has announced a further delay until January 3rd, 2022, Reutershas reported. The change of plans comes amid a surge of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant across the US. "As we continue to closely watch local conditions related to COVID-19, we are adjusting our guidance for corporate employees," the company said in a statement.
Shortly after the pandemic started, Amazon said it expected employees to return to the office in October of 2020. That date was pushed back to 2021 as multiple waves of the virus forced lockdowns and business closures across the US.
Google and Microsoft also recently announced that they'd be pushing back office returns until October 2021, later than the September date that Microsoft originally planned. However, while both Google and Microsoft require that any employees returning to the office be vaccinated, Amazon has said that unvaccinated employees may return as long as they wear masks.
Like other tech companies, Amazon has allowed for a hybrid office/home work structure due to the pandemic. However, in March this year, it seemed eager to get everyone back to the office. "Our plan is to return to an office-centric culture as our baseline. We believe it enables us to invent, collaborate, and learn together most effectively," the company said in its vaccination and testing blog. Now, that will be delayed for at least another five months.
Last year, Boss Team and Saber Interactive announced that Evil Dead: The Game with Bruce Campbell reprising his original movie role would arrive sometime in 2021. Now, the developers have tweeted out an update with a specific and slightly later release date: February 2022.
Evil Dead: The Game will be releasing in February 2022 Hey groovy gamers, we're targeting a new release date to give the team some extra time for polish and to ensure this is the ultimate Evil Dead experience you’re all waiting for! pic.twitter.com/c5I4OSQshA
The reason for the delay is to "give the team some extra time for polish and to ensure this is the ultimate Evil Dead experience you're all waiting for," the team tweeted. "This additional time is also allowing us to implement a single-player option that will let you enjoy the game when you are without your co-op compadres."
As we saw in the launch trailer in December, Campbell's Ash along with Kelly and crew have to work together to fight Deadites led by a powerful demon. You can think of it as a Dead by Daylight-style asymmetric title with a chainsaw hand and Bruce Campbell's clever catchphrases. It also comes with a big dollop of nostalgia with familiar characters, locales and plenty of gore in the form of blood-soaked zombies.
Evil Dead: The Game will offer "multiplayer co-op and PvP for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch," according to the developer's website. They advised that you stay tuned to their Twitter page "for more information about new character updates, pre-order availability, and the next gameplay video featuring Bruce Campbell."
Earlier this week, Facebook followed through on its threats to cut a group of New York University researchers off from its platform. The researchers were part of a project called the Ad Observatory, which recruited volunteers to study how Facebook targets political ads on its platform.
In it decision to ban the researchers, Facebook repeatedly referred to its obligations to the FTC saying it was acting against the researchers “in line with our privacy program under the FTC Order” — a reference to the company’s 2019 settlement with the agency over lax privacy practices. But the social network’s actions were roundly criticized by the research community and free speech advocates, who said the company was preventing legitimate research under the guise of “scraping.” As Wired pointed out, the company’s agreement with the FTC doesn’t even prohibit what the researchers were actually doing.
Now, the FTC has weighed in, calling the company’s explanation of its actions was “misleading” and “inaccurate.” In a sharply worded letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine, said that he was “disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter.”
“The FTC is committed to protecting the privacy of people, and efforts to shield targeted advertising practices from scrutiny run counter to that mission,” Levine wrote. “Had you honored your commitment to contact us in advance, we would have pointed out that the consent decree does not bar Facebook from creating exceptions for good-faith research in the public interest. Indeed, the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising. While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims.”
Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Apple is facing questions about its handling of sexism in the workplace after it placed a female employee on leave following tweets about her experiences at the company. Ashley Gjøvik, a senior engineering program manager with Apple, says she has spent months speaking with Apple about unsafe working conditions, sexism and a hostile work environment.
Her comments were first reported by The Verge, which notes the company closed a previous investigation into Gjøvik's claims — apparently without taking any action. Gjøvik said Apple initially responded to her complaints of sexism by suggesting she request “disability accommodations.”
On Wednesday, she was placed on “indefinite paid administrative leave” while Apple conducts a new investigation. In a statement to The Verge, she said the company “implied they did not want me on Slack where I had been vocal about my concerns with certain policies at the company.”
So, following raising concerns to #Apple about #sexism, #hostileworkenvironment, & #unsafeworkconditions, I'm now on indefinite paid administrative leave per #Apple employee relations, while they investigate my concerns. This seems to include me not using Apple's internal Slack.
In a series of tweets, Gjøvik provided several examples of interactions she brought to the attention of Apple’s employee relations, who allegedly told her the behavior was “ok.” In one exchange, a manager referred to her “tone” in presentations, and said “I didn’t hear you going up an octave at the end of your statements.” She added that comments about her tone were also included in a mid-year review at one point.
Y'all, I'm a senior engineering program manager with decades of professional experience & it was even in my mid-year review one year…
She also said that Apple employee relations told her it was “okay” after she received complaints that a diversity training she led was “too hard on the white man.” In another exchange, she said a “heartfelt email” asking leadership to show “support of women and condemn sexism and sexual assault” in 2018 was brushed off — an interaction the company’s employee relations also allegedly said was okay.
"We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. “We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”
Twitter’s experiment with ephemeral content may have ended earlier in the week, but its take on Clubhouse is going stronger than ever. Starting this week, Spaces hosts can invite other individuals to help them with moderation duties.
making it easier to manage your Space…introducing co-hosting!
– hosts have two co-host invites they can send – the table just got bigger: 1 host, 2 co-hosts, and 10 speakers – co-hosts can help invite speakers, manage requests, remove participants, pin Tweets and more! pic.twitter.com/s76JFbhTL2
With today’s announcement, a single Space can include one host, two co-hosts and up to 10 speakers. As a co-host, you can invite additional people to talk, mute and remove rowdy participants and pin tweets. However, you won’t be able to remove the original host or your counterpart, nor can you end a broadcast. Adding a co-host is done through an invite system that allows you to search for specific users.
Of course, Twitter isn’t the only company making audio broadcasts an integral part of what it offers users. Facebook and Discord quickly added Clubhouse-like features to their platforms following the app’s early post-release success. And if you believe Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, most online services are likely to add live audio as a way for their users to communicate, much like they did when it came to video and Stories.
Following a report on work the company was doing to create a tool that scans iPhones for child abuse images, Apple has published a post that provides more details on its efforts related to child safety. With the release of iOS 15, watchOS 8 and macOS Monterey later this year, the company says it will introduce a variety of child safety features across Messages, Photos and Siri.
To start, the Messages app will include new notifications that will warn children, as well as their parents, when they either send or receive sexually explicit photos. When someone sends a child an inappropriate image, the app will blur it and display several warnings. "It's not your fault, but sensitive photos and videos can be used to hurt you," says one of the notifications, per a screenshot Apple shared.
As an additional precaution, the company says Messages can also notify parents if their child decides to go ahead and view a sensitive image. "Similar protections are available if a child attempts to send sexually explicit photos," according to Apple. The company notes the feature uses on-device machine learning to determine whether a photo is explicit. Moreover, Apple does not have access to the messages themselves. This feature will be available to family iCloud accounts.
Apple will also introduce new software tools in iOS and iPadOS that will allow the company to detect when someone uploads content to iCloud that shows children involved in sexually explicit acts. The company says it will use the technology to notify the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which will in turn work with law enforcement agencies across the US. "Apple’s method of detecting known CSAM [Child Sexual Abuse Material] is designed with user privacy in mind," the company claims.
Rather than scanning photos when they're uploaded to the cloud, the system will use an on-device database of "known" images provided by NCMEC and other organizations. The company says that the database assigns a hash to the photos, which acts as a kind of digital fingerprint for them.
A cryptographic technology called private set intersection allows Apple to determine if there's a match without seeing the result of the process. In the event of a match, an iPhone or iPad will create a cryptographic safety voucher that will encrypt the upload, along with additional data about it. Another technology called threshold secret sharing makes it so that the company can't see the contents of those vouchers unless someone passes an unspecified threshold of CSAM content. "The threshold is set to provide an extremely high level of accuracy and ensures less than a one in one trillion chance per year of incorrectly flagging a given account," according to the company.
It's only when that line is passed that the technology Apple plans to implement will allow the company to review the contents of the vouchers. At that point, the tech giant says it will manually review each report to confirm there's a match. In cases where there is one, it will disable the individual's iCloud account and forward a report to NEMEC. Users can appeal a suspension if they believe their account has been mistakenly flagged.
Apple
Lastly, Siri, as well as the built-in search feature found in iOS and macOS, will point users to child safety resources. For instance, you'll be able to ask the company's digital assistant how to report child exploitation. Apple also plans to update Siri to intervene when someone tries to conduct any CSAM-related searches. The assistant will explain "that interest in this topic is harmful and problematic," as well as point the person to resources that offer help with the issue.
Apple's decision to effectively work with law enforcement agencies is likely to be seen as something of an about-face for the company. In 2016, it refused to help the FBI unlock the iPhone that had belonged to the man behind the San Bernardino terror attack. Although the government eventually turned to an outside firm to access the device, Tim Cook called the episode "chilling" and warned it could create a backdoor for more government surveillance down the road.
Until recently, there was only one smartphone on the market equipped with an under-screen camera: last year's ZTE Axon 20 5G. Other players such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi had also been testing this futuristic tech, but given the subpar image quality back then, it's no wonder that phone makers largely stuck with punch-hole cameras for selfies.
Despite much criticism of its first under-screen camera, ZTE worked what it claims to be an improved version into its new Axon 30 5G, which launched in China last week. Coincidentally, today Oppo unveiled its third-gen under-screen camera which, based on a sample shot it provided, appears to be surprisingly promising — no noticeable haziness nor glare. But that was just one photo, of course, so I'll obviously reserve my final judgement until I get to play with one. Even so, the AI tricks and display circuitry that made this possible are intriguing.
Oppo
In a nutshell, nothing has changed in terms of how the under-screen camera sees through the screen. Its performance is limited by how much light can travel through the gaps between each OLED pixel. Therefore, AI compensation is still a must. For its latest under-screen camera, Oppo says it trained its own AI engine "using tens of thousands of photos" in order to achieve more accurate corrections on diffraction, white balance and HDR. Hence the surprisingly natural-looking sample shot.
Oppo
Another noteworthy improvement here lies within the display panel's consistency. The earlier designs chose to lower the pixel density in the area above the camera, in order to let sufficient light into the sensor. This resulted in a noticeable patch above the camera, which would have been a major turn-off when you watched videos or read fine text on that screen.
But now, Oppo — or the display panel maker, which could be Samsung — figured out a way to boost light transmittance by slightly shrinking each pixel's geometry above the camera. In order words, we get to keep the same 400-ppi pixel density as the rest of the screen, thus creating a more consistent look.
Oppo
Oppo added that this is further enhanced by a transparent wiring material, as well as a one-to-one pixel-circuit-to-pixel architecture (instead of two-to-one like before) in the screen area above the camera. The latter promises more precise image control and greater sharpness, with the bonus being a 50-percent longer panel lifespan due to better burn-in prevention.
Oppo didn't say when or if consumers will get to use its next-gen under-screen camera, but given the timing, I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be the same solution on the ZTE Axon 30 5G. In any case, it would be nice if the industry eventually agreed to dump punch-hole cameras in favor of invisible ones.
Diablo Immortal may be a game for tiny screens, but that doesn't mean it's a small feat of development. For precisely this reason, Activision Blizzard has delayed the release of Diablo Immortal to early 2022.
The action RPG was originally supposed to hit iOS and Android devices this year, but developers need more time to fine-tune PvP content, improve PvE experiences and implement additional accessibility options, according to Blizzard. Here's how developers put it in their blog post:
Following feedback provided by test participants of the Closed Alpha, our team has been tuning core and endgame features. For example, we’re iterating on PvP content like the Cycle of Strife to make it more accessible, alongside late-game PvE content like the Helliquary to make it more engaging. We’re also working to provide controller support for those who want to play our game in a different way. However, these changes and additional opportunities to improve our gameplay experience will not be realized in the 2021 timeframe we had previously communicated. So, the game is now planned for release in the first half of 2022, which will allow us to add substantial improvements to the whole game.
Blizzard goes on to describe specific features it'll focus on, such as adding PvE Raids, adjusting Bounties and making Challenge Rifts more exciting. In terms of PvP adjustments, Blizzard will work on improving matchmaking, earning rankings, class balance, time to kill and other elements of the Battleground system, plus it'll spit-shine the Cycle of Strife endgame content. All of this joins a raft of changes to progression and XP caps.
It seems developers are still in the early stages when it comes to getting Diablo Immortal to play nice with gamepads.
"We're still working through the challenges of adapting the touch screen controls to a controller seamlessly," the blog reads. "Making our game more accessible is top of mind, and we’ll share more progress on this front as we approach the beta in the future."
Blizzard has other things on its plate right now, too. Activision Blizzard is facing a sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit from the state of California, and Blizzard president J. Allen Brack left the company today amid allegations that he overlooked abuse in the workplace for years. Blizzard's head of HR, Jesse Meschuk, also left the studio this week. A second lawsuit was filed by shareholders today, claiming Activision Blizzard failed to disclose potential regulatory issues related to the company's discriminatory, frat-house-style culture.
WhatsApp is adding disappearing photo messages to its app. Called “view once” photos, the new feature allows users to send photos and videos in chats that can only be viewed a single time before disappearing.
The Snapchat-like feature is similar to Instagram and Messenger’s disappearing photo features. When snapping a picture in WhatsApp, users can select the timer icon to set the photo to “view once.” Unlike regular photo or video messages, the “view once” images won’t preview in the chat and can’t be downloaded to your device.
Facebook is billing the feature as one for “private moments” or for sending potentially sensitive information like Wi-Fi passwords. As always, people should be wary of just how “private” these kinds of messages really are. In a help article, the company notes that the recipient can still take a screenshot or record their screen while opening a “view once” photo and, unlike Snapchat, WhatsApp won’t let the sender know when a screenshot has been taken. The company also points out that “view once” photos that are reported will be made visible to WhatsApp.