It seems like Microsoft just can’t stop confirming Xbox partnerships this week. On Tuesday, Xbox Cloud Gaming support for Meta Quest 2 and some new Chromebooks was announced. Now, Microsoft has linked up with Apple to finally offer an Apple Music app on Xbox consoles.
As spotted by Eurogamer, you can snag the app on an Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S console by searching for it on consoles, or download it remotely from the Microsoft Store. As with other music apps on Xbox, such as Spotify and Pandora, you can listen to Apple Music in the background while you’re gaming. In the Apple Music app, you can watch music videos, follow time-synced lyrics while you listen and create playlists. You’ll be able to access curated gaming-focused playlists too.
Although Apple Music has been available on PlayStation 5 for the last year, Xbox users have had to wait until almost two years into the Xbox Series X/S lifecycle for the app. Apple TV, on the other hand, has been available on Xbox consoles since the Series X/S debuted in 2020.
The timing of Apple Music’s arrival on Xbox is definitely interesting. It comes just ahead of Microsoft’s big Surface event. Perhaps there will be a little more Xbox news to come out of that showcase.
“About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage — but there’s a good chance this number is even higher when you take into account the people like me.”
Netflix ranks shows on its platform to give you an idea of what people have been watching recently — and sometimes, it releases hours viewed data for its most popular titles — but it’s been keeping its viewership numbers close to the vest. Starting in November, though, it will finally reveal how many people stream its shows, at least in the UK. The streaming giant has teamed up with BARB, a non-profit organization that measures TV ratings in the region, to give us a look at concrete streaming numbers. “BARB is the first industry-owned audience currency in the world that Netflix has joined,” the organization said in its announcement.
While Netflix shows regularly make an appearance in Nielsen’s streaming rankings, the two entities aren’t officially working together. In fact, Nielsen’s list doesn’t seem to match Netflix’s own Top 10 rankings at times. Reed Hastings, Netflix co-CEO said: “Back in 2019, at the RTS conference in Cambridge, I welcomed the idea of Netflix audiences being measured independently. We’ve kept in touch with BARB since then and are pleased to make a commitment to its trusted measurement of how people watch television in the UK.”
BARB will publish viewing figures for Netflix that can be compared to traditional broadcasters starting in the second week of November. The organization will report the service’s monthly reach and its share of total identified viewing. In addition to showing how the service is doing compared to traditional TV, BARB will also include shows across all the traditional channels and the streaming service providers that it works with in its weekly report of top 50 shows starting in November.
As The Guardian notes, this move suggests that Netflix believes being more forthcoming with its viewer numbers will show the company in a good light. People have long criticized the service for not publishing any viewership metric for flops. The secrecy surrounding its viewership numbers also means program creators (and fans) aren’t always sure if their shows are being watched or are in danger of being canceled.
Based on BARB’s preliminary figures from September, Netflix isn’t doing poorly in the UK at all. It’s the most accessed streaming service in the region. And while it’s nowhere near as watched as the BBC, it accounts for 8 percent of all TV viewing in UK, which is higher than some linear channels’, including Channel 4 and Sky.
Researchers have determined that the country is dotted with tens of thousands of locations that may be contaminated by PFAS, which are per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances—aka forever chemicals that do not disintegrate over time in nature or in the human body. Now, they’re mapping those sites to help regulators better…
Meta’s next-gen VR headset is here. With the Quest Pro, Meta is trying to combine the best things about both PC and standalone headsets to create a powerful, comfortable self-contained unit. With a per-eye resolution of 1,800 x 1,920, the Quest Pro has a higher pixel density than the Valve Index (1,440 x 1,600 per eye) and Meta’s own Quest 2. Meta has almost completely eliminated the usual visual artifacts of standalone VR displays. Engadget’s Sam Rutherford has tested it out, and he’s impressed. You can pre-order the Quest Pro now.
Engadget
The price might give you pause, though. At $1,500, it’s five times the price of a Quest 2. If you currently own a Quest 2, Meta has announced you’ll be able to play Xbox Cloud Gaming on your VR headset, displayed on a huge virtual screen. You won’t need to use the Quest controllers – your Xbox controller will work just fine.
Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale is on. This Prime Day “part two” is the second members-only sale of the year, and Prime subscribers will find thousands of items at record-low prices. Sure, there’s the usual barrage of Amazon hardware, but some of our top-rated tech is also heavily discounted. For example, Sony’s incredible noise-canceling headphones, the WH-1000XM5, are currently $348, the cheapest we’ve seen them so far. Click through for our curated highlights.
You probably don’t need all this power, but you will covet it.
Engadget
The RTX 4090 is a beast of a GPU, delivering the fastest performance we’ve ever seen in a consumer graphics card. In fact, it’s kind of hard to push it to its limits in 2022. But you’ll pay dearly for the privilege of owning one. If you’re looking for a good deal, it may be worth waiting to see the rest of NVIDIA’s 40-series lineup.
‘NASA has proven we are serious as a defender of the planet.’
NASA announced its experimental Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully altered the orbit of Dimorphos, a distant asteroid. The agency said DART’s impact shortened the asteroid’s orbit by 32 minutes. Before the September 26th collision, NASA estimated DART needed to change the orbital period of Dimorphos by 73 seconds or more to call the test a success. The spacecraft beat that benchmark by more than 25 times.
GM Energy will encompass home and office battery systems.
GM announced yesterday it’s expanding its battery portfolio into energy management services — think big stationary batteries to store rooftop-generated solar power on a home or business. The new venture will comprise three smaller ones: Ultium Home, Ultium Commercial and Ultium Charge 360. GM will work with companies like SunPower to develop and market an integrated home energy storage system that incorporates EVs with solar panels and battery banks to enable easy Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) power transfers.
Overwatch 2‘s launch was riddled with bugs, DDoS attacks and other issues. While the company has made progress to make the game playable — a lot of players couldn’t even log in at first — its work is far from done. It will hold several Double Match XP weekends to give players the chance to rack up points and rank up to unlock skins and other gear. It will also give players who log in from October 25th until season one ends a Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm. Both items will automatically be added to people’s collections when they log in.
Amazon’s October Prime Day on today is a good opportunity to grab deals ahead of Christmas, and Samsung products are particularly well represented. The company has a raft of products on sale ranging from smartphones to Watches to robovacs, along with monitors, TVs, appliances any other gadget you can think of. Highlights include all-time-lows on the Galaxy Flip 4 and Watch 5/Buds 2 bundles, a great sale on the Smart Monitor M8 and the cheapest prices we’ve seen yet on the 2TB 980 Pro SSD with heatsink.
Samsung’s arguably nicest foldable smartphone is the Galaxy Z Flip 4, and it’s on sale at some of the lowest prices we’ve seen yet. You can grab the 128GB unlocked version for just $800, or 20 percent off, an all-time low price. And if more storage is needed, the 256GB version is on sale at $860, also the lowest price we’ve seen so far.
Samsung’s other folding smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold 4, is its best Fold model yet thanks to upgraded cameras, a brighter screen and a sleeker hinge. It’s also on sale for $1,390 for a very nice $410 (23 percent) discount.
Samsung’s Watch 5 is one of the best Android smartwatches available, while the Buds 2 are a solid upgrade over the previous model. You can grab both of those items in a bundle at an all-time low price of $300, for a savings of $130 or 30 percent.
If it’s more the Watch 5 Pro your looking for, with its extra battery life and chunky design, that’s also on sale in a bundle with the Galaxy Buds 2. Those two items are also on sale in a bundle at the lowest prices we’ve seen, just $470, for a savings of $130 or 22 percent.
Moving over the display products, Samsung’s popular Smart Monitor M8 offers not only high 4K HDR10+ quality, but works as a smart TV and smart home hub. It’s discounted $230 (32 percent) to $500.
Switching to storage, we have a number of interesting deals. Samsung’s 2TB 980 Pro SSD with Heatsink is discounted 48 percent to $210, tying its all-time-low price. And the 1TB model is marked at $122 or 47 percent off if you’re needs are more modest.
Meanwhile, there are several T7 portable SSD sales of note. The T7 Touch Portable SSD 500GB (1,050 MB/s) is available for just $70, for a savings of 33 percent. And the more rugged T7 Shield 2TB (also 1,050 MB/s) is priced at $171, for a savings of $119 or 41 percent. Finally, for microSD storage for phones, drones or action cams, the Samsung Pro Plus 128GB microSDXC card with 160MB/s read speeds is on sale for only $18, or 49 percent off the retail price.
TVs
Engadget
Last but not least, Samsung’s got a pair of solid deals on TVs. The 32-inch Class Frame QLED model with HDR and Alexa has dropped to $398 (17 percent off), to start with. And numerous other models, including Neo QLED QN series models from 55-75 inches, are seeing discounts up to 30 percent. And finally, Samsung’s Premiere Ultra Short Throw 2020 has dropped 29 percent to $2,498 for a savings of a cool $1,000.
Intel had long been expecting a decline in PC sales after a period of heightened demand due to work-and-study-from-home arrangements brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In July, it admitted to Nikkei that it was going to raise the prices of its processors and other chips due to “inflationary pressures” later this year. Turns out that may not be the only move Intel is making to weather the declining PC market. According to Bloomberg, Intel is planning to cut thousands of jobs and could make the announcement around the same time it’s releasing its third quarter earnings report on October 27th.
The company slashed its sales and profit forecasts for 2022 back in July, when it said that it expects revenue for the year to be $11 billion less than previously projected. Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said during its earnings call for the second quarter that the company “will look to take additional actions in the second half of the year” to improve profits. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh said the layoffs could reduce the costs Intel incurs to keep the company running by around 10 to 15 percent. Singh also said that those costs could be worth at least $25 to $30 billion.
Mobileye, the the self-driving tech firm that Intel had purchased for $15.3 billion back in 2017, recently filed for an IPO. Intel intends to keep most of what it earns from the IPO for itself and to help finance the chip factories it’s planning to build. But projected earnings from the offering may not be enough to prevent the mass layoffs, which will affect various divisions within the company. Certain groups, such as the sale and marketing department, will reportedly see their numbers reduced by up to 20 percent.
Over the past year, Intel took steps to achieve its goal of expanding its foundry business. It earmarked $20 billion to build a massive chip-making facility in Ohio, which it intends to turn into the biggest “silicon manufacturing location on the planet.” The company also purchased Tower Semiconductor, a chipmaker catering to clients across industries, for $5.4 billion. There seems to be no indication that those expansion plans are changing, and Bloomberg said that Intel intends to pursue the goals it set for itself as a leaner company.
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