Sep 30
“66% of people who’ve had abortions plan on having a baby when they’re older, financially stable, and in a relationship.
Sep 30
The 2022 Infiniti Q60 is finally getting a wireless Apple CarPlay upgrade across all trim levels. The new Q60 is also getting slightly higher base prices for 2022, and it remains available in three trim levels. The base Q60 Pure RWD starts at $41,750 (not including $1,025 destination) and has 19-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone climate control, dual USB ports, leatherette … Continue reading
Sep 30
Nreal has taken the wraps off its new smartglasses, Nreal Air, promising a seemingly futuristic experience combined with the privacy of personal shades. Nreal Air is a pair of sunglasses with built-in augmented reality tech that, the company says, enable wearers to stay entertained with everything from YouTube videos to mobile games and socializing with friends. The Nreal Air smartglasses … Continue reading
Sep 30
We’re all familiar with identical twins. Despite significant progress into most areas of science, exactly what causes identical (monozygotic or MZ) twins is unknown. MZ twins appear randomly in families at a rate of about four per 1000 births. Scientists have investigated genetic predispositions and environmental exposures as a cause for MZ twins, but the studies have yet to determine … Continue reading
Sep 30
After introducing cross-messaging between Messenger and Instagram last year, Facebook has made it more useful with the addition of cross-app group chats. With the new feature, you’ll be able to start a group chats and loop in both Messenger and Instagram contacts. In addition, you’ll be able to run Messenger-style polls in both Instagram DMs and cross-app group chats if your group needs to decide whether to get pizza, tacos or both, for instance (both, obviously).
Meanwhile, Instagram gets an exclusive new feature called “Watch Together.” To use it, you just start a video chat within Instagram, scroll to the post you want to share then click on the share button and “Watch Together.” Instagram has added some new content from Steve Aoki, Travis Barker and Cardi B.
Other new additions include group typing indicators available in cross-app group chats for both Messenger and in Instagram DMs. Facebook also brought in new chat themes for Messenger and Instagram DMs, including “Cottagecore” and a theme centered around Columbian singer J Balvin. There’s also a new Astrology art suite, with an Astrology group chat theme, AR effect and sticker pack. The new features roll out for Messenger and Instagram today.
Sep 30
I didn’t expect much from the second-generation Sonos Beam. It has the same exact speaker components as the original, a device we already loved. The main difference is that the new Beam also has more processing power to handle Dolby Atmos surround sound. I tend to want more in a sequel, especially since in this case Gen 2 costs $50 more at $450. But even though it’s more of a revision, the new Beam still manages to deliver a wider, more immersive soundscape than before. It proves that having a dollop of Dolby Atmos can go a long way.
The original Sonos Beam was a predictable hit. Consumers were hungry for soundbars to beef up their flatscreen TVs, and it turned out that many people also wanted a cheaper alternative to Sonos’s two TV solutions at the time , the aging Playbar and the awkwardly shaped PlayBase, both priced at $699. Enter the $400 Beam: it was compact enough to fit in small living rooms; featured Amazon Alexa built in; and, most importantly, it sounded great. It was an accessible entry point into Sonos’s family of connected speakers, pluss an easy upgrade for existing customers.
The new Beam looks almost the same as before; the only difference is that it has a perforated plastic grille around its curved exterior, a departure from the thin cloth covering on the previous-gen model. It’s still surprisingly small, measuring just 25.6 inches wide and weighing a mere six pounds. It has the same rear ports, too: Ethernet, HDMI and power. You’ll need to plug it into an HDMI ARC/eARC socket on your TV to tap into the power of Dolby Atmos and TrueHD. (But if you’ve got an older set, you can get basic Dolby Digital decoding with the bundled HDMI to optical adapter.)
Speaking of Atmos, that was a major deficiency on the earlier Beam. When that speaker was released in 2018, soundbar makers like Vizio were already exploring what was possible with Dolby’s new technology. Typically, that involved using upward-firing speakers to bounce sound off of your ceiling. And, despite seeming like a bit of an audio hack, in my experience those speakers do a decent job of replicating what you get from Atmos-equipped cinemas, which have dedicated hardware built into their ceilings. There are limits, though: Upward-firing Atmos speakers tend to max out with 15-foot ceilings, and they work best with flat surfaces.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Given the additional hardware and room requirements, why go through the trouble of getting Atmos hardware at all? Simply put, it makes for more room-filling surround sound than traditional 5.1 solutions like Dolby Digital and DTS. Those earlier technologies sent sound to specific channels — left, right, center, two rears and a subwoofer. Atmos is different: It’s object based, allowing engineers to map sounds in 3D (XYZ) space coordinates. That lets an Atmos mix automatically scale up anywhere from two speakers (or basic stereo support) to 64 in cinemas.
Sonos is no stranger to Atmos soundbars: It’s the defining feature on the $899 Arc. But what makes the second-generation Beam unique is that it doesn’t even have upward-firing speakers. It has the same basic hardware as before: a center tweeter, four mid-woofers for mid-range sound, and three passive radiators to handle the low-end. Instead, it’s relying entirely on audio processing to simulate the Dolby Atmos experience. The additional CPU speed allows it to power two additional channels: height and surround for both the left and right speakers.
When Sonos first announced the second-gen Beam, I immediately wondered how the heck it could provide any height channels without adding more speakers. It turns out, the company leaned even more heavily into psychoacoustics, or the science of how we perceive sound. According to Scott Fink, the product manager behind all of Sonos’s home theater gear, the company can tweak the audio timing and frequency to make it seem as if sound is coming from the side, or slightly above you. It’s no replacement for having actual speakers dedicated to blasting height channels, but it worked surprisingly well in my testing.
During the opening chase in Baby Driver, for example, I could hear cars whizzing by my ears, the roar of powerful engines and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms” filling my family room. That same scene on the original Beam sounded fine, but there was no sense of enveloping surround sound. The second-generation model just sounded like a richer experience, as if cotton balls were removed from my ears.
The same was true while revisiting 2015’s (seriously underrated) The Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the epic car-turned-motorcycle chase in MIssion Impossible: Rogue Nation. The new Beam is a tiny speaker meant to make a meal of bombastic action sequences, and it does so without distorting or breaking a sweat. Sonos also focused on making dialog clearer too, something I appreciated when conversations were happening amid those huge set pieces.
Mostly, though, I was impressed by what Sonos was able to do with such a small device. You can find soundbars and wireless surround sound systems for less than $450, and many will deliver bigger sound. But Sonos offers things other systems don’t. For one, it’s easy to set up: You just plug it into the appropriate ports and step through the process on Sonos’s app. With competing products, you may also have to find spots to hold rear speakers, which still need to plug into power. As great as the new Beam sounds, though, it’s no match for the Atmos capabilities of the Arc. But for half the price, I wouldn’t expect it to.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
When it comes to synchronized audio throughout your home, Sonos is still the connected speaker company to beat. There’s no easier way to program music for house parties (and outdoor shindigs with the portable Roam and Move speakers). The second-gen Beam is a solid addition to the family when it comes to music, though it’s less of an immediate upgrade compared to movies. It’ll support Dolby Atmos on Amazon Music later this year, but that service currently doesn’t have a huge number of Atmos tracks. Sonos isn’t saying when it’ll support Atmos on Apple Music, but there’s technically nothing stopping that from happening down the line.
The new Beam sounded fine while playing back some of my favorite albums, like Bjork’s Homogenic and Janelle Monae’s The Electric Lady, with a decent sense of presence and some thumping low-end. But it didn’t sound dramatically different like it did with action movies. Amazon Music’s Ultra HD mix of Marvin Gayes’ “What’s Going On” sounded very crisp and clear, but I’ll be more interested in hearing what the Atmos version of that song sounds like eventually. On my Echo Studio, that Atmos mix almost sounds like Gaye is performing a live concert right in front of you.
And speaking of Echo devices, the Beam’s Alexa integration still works well. Its far-field microphones can hear me from the other side of my large family room, and it supports all of the same commands as Amazon’s own devices. It could easily replace an Echo in the same room, but you can also just mute the microphone and keep your Amazon account unlinked if you don’t want to have it listening in.
The Sonos Beam excels at being a simple and compact soundbar that’ll give you a large soundstage for movies. But I’d recommend sitting back and thinking about what’s really important to you. Do you care more about having a clean TV setup without many wires? Or do you want a soundbar system with more realistic surround sound? (Actual rears, a subwoofer and upward-firing Atmos speakers.) If so, you’ve also got great options like Vizio’s M-series 5.1.2 for around $500.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
You could eventually build a Sonos surround sound system around the Beam by adding two One speakers as rears, as well as the company’s wireless subwoofer. But those two pieces of hardware alone would run you another $1,150 (or you could buy them all bundled together for $1,499). If you’re going that route, you might as well jump straight to the $899 Arc to have the best possible Sonos system.
The second-generation Sonos Beam isn’t a huge leap ahead of the original, but it’s still a better soundbar overall thanks to the addition of Atmos. If you already own a Beam, you don’t need to run out and grab one. But it’s a solid sub-$500 soundbar if you want to take your movie watching up a notch.
Note: Sonos is a former sponsor of my movie podcast, The Filmcast, but that hasn’t stopped me from being critical of the company.
Sep 30
Chinese company Nreal has launched a new model of augmented reality glasses called Air, which was designed with streaming shows and playing mobile games in mind. Nreal released its first model, the Light mixed reality glasses, to consumers a year ago after fending off Magic Leap’s accusation that its founder stole trade secrets to build his own company. Air still needs to be tethered to a phone like the Light, but it it’s a lot lighter (77 grams to Light’s 106 grams) and looks more like an ordinary pair of sunglasses than its predecessor does. Nreal says it also has a better display, which has the capability to project a massive virtual screen up to 201 inches in size.
The device’s display has a 46-degree Field of View and is powered by a micro-OLED chip for AR devices. It has a high density of colors, with up to 49 Pixels Per Degree, and a refresh rate of up to 90Hz. In comparison, the Light has a 52-degree FOV and a 60Hz refresh rate. One significant feature the Light has and the Air doesn’t is inside-out tracking. The new model has no motion tracking at all, and a company spokesperson told us that based on Light’s usage, Nreal expects most owners to use the Air simply to watch shows on Youtube. They said:
“People we know will use Nreal Air (a large number of them) for simply watching shows on YouTube, streaming content on local streaming platforms (like Magenta by Deutsche Telekom) based on Nreal Light’s usage, which is why the tradeoff makes sense. The other bulk of users are using it for actual development. With that said, one of the biggest demands we saw was for using Nreal Light for a longer period of time (meaning lighter weight), and a more brilliant display. Those two would be the key features that were of paramount importance and the basis for how Nreal decided to strike a balance.”
A feature the Light doesn’t have, however, is Air’s “Adjustable 3-Step Rake System” that allows users to adjust the viewing angle by tilting the lens and the elastic temples. In addition, the Nreal Air can pair with Apple’s iPhones and iPads and not just with Android devices. That could increase the possibility of users finding others with the model, so they could take advantage of its new shared digital space that allows multiple people to watch shows at the same time on a single AR screen.
Nreal Air will initially be available in Japan, China and South Korea in December 2021 in partnership with leading carriers. It will roll out to other markets in 2022, though the company didn’t specify the additional regions where the device will be available. The firm recently raised $100 million to fund its international expansion, though, so the new model will likely be easier to purchase than the Light, which is only shipping in a handful of countries. Those interested will have to wait for the company to reveal how much the device will cost, though it did say that the Air will “retail at a fraction of the price of Nreal Light.”
Nreal
Sep 30
Spotify’s quest to make podcasts more interactive is expanding. Today, the streaming service announced the polls and Q&A features that it has been testing will be available to all creators through Anchor, the podcast production service it also owns. Though the tools are open to everyone, Spotify explains podcast producers and listeners will see them in 160 countries.
On the listener side, questions will appear at the bottom of episode pages in the Spotify app on both Android and iOS. From there, you’ll be able to respond directly in the app to any prompts related to the show. As you might expect, you’ll see on-going results of polls, but Q&A responses will only be seen by the show’s creator. Producers and hosts will have the option of pinning certain responses below the question alongside the corresponding username in a stories-like format.
Spotify has been testing polls for a year and it added a Q&A option to the trial in January. At the time, the company said 90 percent of users would see polls even though the number of shows on which they appeared was very limited.
Sep 30
The following contains minor spoilers for season two, episode eight of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks.’
The subject of “canon” has come up a lot recently. Marvel’s What If…? is a show that plays around but still mostly adheres to it, while Star Wars Visions disregards it almost completely. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Lower Decks is a humorous show that wasn’t expected to follow canon and yet, the writers seem to have made it their mission to fill out the gaps in Star Trek continuity. And this might be the cartoon’s greatest strength.
CBS
The show’s willingness to reference past adventures is on full display this week, as the USS Cerritos is tasked with running drills to test crew efficiency. Seeing a Starfleet crew put through its paces is something we’ve seen many times before, though this time around it’s for a particularly non-Starfleet-like reason: Captain Freeman accidentally leaves our core four cast members behind when jetting off on a rescue mission. To be fair, the quartet of ensigns did forget to sign their magnet boots out, which would have let their senior officers know they weren’t on the ship. But still, it’s a screw-up we don’t often see on Star Trek.
In response, the entire crew is gathered in a cargo bay to be tested by a Pandronian instructor — a species never seen in any live-action Star Trek productions, but familiar to anyone who’s watched the 1973 animated series. Pandronians are colony creatures that can split into three pieces, something that was harder to create when special effects were far less sophisticated. Animation has fewer limitations, and Lower Decks has taken advantage of that plenty in its two seasons to showcase species like the Caitians, Ariolo and Kzinti.
CBS
Though it utilized many of the cast and crew of the original series, the canonized status of the animated Star Trek was always a nebulous thing, with some writers saying that episodes like “Yesteryear” were in continuity, but no real on-screen confirmation of the show’s place in the timeline. One of show creator Mike McMahan’s stipulations for Lower Decks was that it take place in-canon, and he’s used that status to cement the 1973 cartoon in as well.
However, Lower Decks also has plenty to offer live-action fans, and this week’s episode is heavy on the references, with the Cerritos crew taking on simulations with names like “Natural Selection,” “Chain of Command” and “Naked Time.” These aren’t just generic descriptions but also the names of episodes, and long-time fans will delight in seeing Mariner take on the Mirror Universe or Boimler face off against the Borg. We might be familiar with the scenarios, but seeing how these particular characters handle them adds a new twist.
CBS
While the whole drill plot might seem like a cheap way to pander to old-school fans, it’s also similar to how the military works in real life, with students often asked to study historical tactics and run tests based on real events. We’ve seen the holosuites used to recreate battles at the Alamo, Thermopylae and the Battle of Britain on Deep Space Nine, while Riker even used the holodeck to observe the Enterprise NX-01’s final mission. (And let’s not forget the time Troi had to kill Geordi to earn a promotion to commander.) From the beginning, Lower Decks has been a show that embraces Starfleet’s naval trappings more fully than we’ve ever seen, and putting the crew to the test here seems to be the logical endpoint of that.
But where Lower Decks shines brightest of all is when it chooses to glue the disparate parts of the Star Trek franchise together. The Star Trek universe is extremely weird and complex but, instead of rebooting the entire franchise (DC Comics) or throwing out huge swathes of past story (Star Wars), Star Trek has embraced the mess. The universe is weird, so it’s okay if everything doesn’t neatly fit together. It’s just funnier this way.
Sep 30
It’s really simple. If you were a fan of the original Venom, you are probably going to enjoy Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Everything that worked about the first Sony/Marvel movie—the offbeat humor, the sultry special effects, the intense characters—is all back in full force in the sequel. However, for the most part, …
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