EnGadget

These days, we all could use a bit of quiet time away from the rise and grind. That’s where meditation comes in. This practice may not be the ultimate cure-all for everything that ails you like some claim, but it can still help with sleep, stress, mood and focus. I’ve been meditating most of my adult life, with varying degrees of regularity, and I’ve tried plenty of different techniques. I’ve done silent retreats. I’ve done transcendental meditation (RIP David Lynch.) I’ve followed along in crowded rooms. This is something well worth your time and effort.

This is where meditation apps can come into play. Of course, practicing mindfulness doesn’t require an app; people have been doing it for thousands of years, with nary a smartphone in sight. But mindfulness apps can be useful in a number of ways. They provide access to all kinds of guided meditations to suit different styles. Some even offer social connections, which can motivate you to keep up your practice via the magic of peer pressure. They are also particularly well-suited to beginners, with many of them offering a free trial. With all of this in mind, I downloaded some of the most popular meditation apps and set about sitting calmly on a comfortable chair to test them out. What follows is a comparison aimed at real people just looking to squeeze a bit more joy and relaxation out of daily life.

How we tested meditation apps

Every brain is different, so I did not rate these apps based on if they sync up with my preferred meditation style. First and foremost, I looked for apps that cater to various methods and those that offer guided meditations that go beyond what’s free on YouTube. All of the items on this list are available on both Android and iOS, so you won’t have to worry about something being only for iPhone owners.

Of course, there’s lots of free stuff out there, from podcasts and videos on YouTube to audio tracks on streaming services. You can even find guided breathing sessions on an Apple Watch or Fitbit, as well as meditations in Fitness+, Samsung Health or any number of workout video providers. For this guide, I focused on apps that stood out in some way. I liked apps with huge libraries of guided meditations and those that offer additional mindfulness activities, like yoga routines. I also looked for easy-to-use apps with well-designed layouts. You don’t want to start your meditation journey with a clunky app that actually increases anxiety.

The most important thing with meditation is to keep doing it, so I awarded points for clever gamification elements, simple social network integration and anything else that encourages repeat visits. Finally, I considered extra features that set an app apart from the glut of competitors out there. For example, some meditation apps offer novel ways to track your progress, access to yoga routines and a whole lot more.

At the end of the day, each of these apps has its strengths. But if installing an app or using a device is not how you prefer to meditate, you can always turn off your phone and find a quiet room or environment. For those of us who need a little help from a digital guru, though, here are our favorite apps for meditation.

Other meditation gear we tested

Brain-tracking wearables have been around for years, but there are some newer devices that have been tailor-made for meditators. These gadgets track the brain during meditations and offer real-time feedback. It’s a real boon for the data-obsessed, but also a real bank account drainer, with some gadgets costing thousands of dollars. I took two of the more-popular options for a spin to see what they’d make of my brain.

Sens.ai Neurofeedback System

Sens.ai is a weird contraption that not only claims to track brainwaves, but gives real-time feedback to “teach” people how to meditate and enter a flow state. The device involves a giant headset that’s stuffed with brainwave sensors that detect beta, alpha, theta and gamma waves, in addition to heart-rate sensors. It also comes with a truly bizarre companion gadget that uses light stimulation (transcranial photobiomodulation) to keep an eye on focus and attention levels. The whole thing is combined with an app that keeps track of dozens of data metrics and allows access to various guided meditations.

I’m as surprised as you to say that this thing appears to work, with some caveats. It’s uncanny how well it monitors the brain during meditations. If I got lost in a thought spiral about lasagna at six minutes in, sure enough, there would be a dip in analytics at the six-minute mark. It’s also fairly easy to use, despite a process that involves wetting a number of electrodes. As magical as the accurate brain-tracking seems to be, however, I wasn’t as keen on the actual training portion, which often involves staring at a screen throughout the entirety of the practice. It’s also not for the financial faint of heart, as the Sens.ai device costs $1,500.

NeoRhythm Omnipemf

NeoRhythm’s Omnipemf is another wearable to help people get into that ever-elusive flow state. It doesn’t track your brain, but rather floods it with electromagnetic fields at specific frequencies to make it more susceptible to meditation and focus. This is supposed to prime your brain for the meditative state and, in theory, make it easier to capture that zen. However, I didn’t get much from it, other than a placebo-esque buzzing in my head.

To use it, you simply pop on the wearable and go about your day. You aren’t tied to an app, so you can meditate in whatever way you like. There are multiple modes that go beyond meditation, as this thing is supposed to help with focus, pain relief and sleep. I’d wait for some peer-reviewed studies, however, before buying this.

Check out more from our spring cleaning guide.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/best-meditation-app-140047993.html?src=rss

When RCS messaging became available on the iPhone with the rollout of iOS 18, the technical director of the GSM Association teased that the next major milestone for the messaging standard is the addition of interoperable end-to-end encryption. Now, six months later, GSMA has released an updated set of specifications for RCS messaging, which includes end-to-end encryption (E2EE) based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol. The new RCS profile will ensure that messages and files remain safe and confidential when sent between iOS and Android devices. 

"...RCS will be the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers. Together with other unique security features such as SIM-based authentication, E2EE will provide RCS users with the highest level of privacy and security for stronger protection from scams, fraud and other security and privacy threats," said Tom Van Pelt, the Technical Director of GSMA. RCS, or Rich Communication Services, gives people a way to send images, videos and audio clips to each other through text across different platforms. Google’s implementation of RCS has had default end-to-end encryption for both one-on-one and group chats since early 2024, but only if all participants are using Google Messages with RCS chats turned on. Meanwhile, iMessages are already protected by E2EE.

In a statement sent to 9to5Mac, Apple said that it was "pleased to have helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA." It also vowed to add support to end-to-end encryption to iOS, iPadOS, macOS and watchOS "in future software updates." Without a definite timeframe, it's hard to say when Apple is rolling out an update to support the security feature, but when it does, it will prevent third parties from intercepting and accessing potentially sensitive and private messages. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/rcs-messaging-adds-end-to-end-encryption-between-android-and-ios-120020005.html?src=rss

It's both a great and bad week for Apple. In this episode, we dive into Devindra's review of the excellent M4-equipped MacBook Air (and briefly chat about the new Mac Studio). We also discuss Apple's surprise announcement that it's delaying its smarter, AI-infused Siri, which may not arrive until next year. Did Apple over-promise last year, or is it wise to hold off on advanced AI features until they're ready? After all, Apple doesn't want a fiasco like Microsoft's Recall announcement.

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!

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Topics

• The MacBook Air M4 refresh maintains Apple’s seat on the ultraportable throne – 1:40

• …but the delay on a Siri upgrade could spell trouble long-term – 15:32

• Xbox’s first handheld might not be made by Microsoft – 34:29

• The White House turns into a Tesla dealership – 41:30

• Meta attempts to block unflattering expose book already on sale – 45:52

• Around Engadget: Ninja Swirl and Eero Pro 7 router reviews – 46:38

• Working on – 49:21

• Pop culture picks – 50:26

Credits 

Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Transcript

Devindra: [00:00:00] What's up, Internet? Welcome back to Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar.

Cherlynn: I'm Managing Editor Cherlynn Low.

Devindra: Also joining us this week is podcast producer Ben Ellman. Hey, Ben.

Ben: Hello. I'm finally back from my dog sitting gig back in New York City.

Devindra: Dog sitting in San Francisco, which actually sounds like a pretty good gig.

Like just chilling out with a dog in that beautiful city this week, folks, we're going to be talking about the MacBook Air M4 once again Hey, I scrambled to review it really quickly at the beginning of this week. Also Steve Dent at Engadget reviewed the Mac studio. So we'll talk a bit about both of those systems, kind of what's working well, what isn't, and also not a great week for Apple in some respects too.

Cause they announced on Friday that they're going to be delaying the whole smarter Siri plan. That was the thing they showed off at WWDC. And that, I think. That was kind of like the linchpin. That was like the ultimate thing for Apple intelligence to get to. And at least Apple says it's come, it's coming in the coming year, which could be this year or it could be early next year for the fiscal year.

We'll talk [00:01:00] about what all of that means. And there's a bunch of news as well. If you're enjoying the show, folks please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcaster of choice. Leave us for you on iTunes actually makes a big difference. And drop us an email at podcastingadget. com. We're not seeing enough emails.

I would love to. Answer questions. I would love to have a regular segment where we just answer simple questions. I'm actually considering if I ever get free time of just like signing up for volunteer hours at the library, you know, and just be like, Hey, bring me your tech questions. I'm just bored.

And I could probably help with something tech in your life. Let us do that for you folks, podcast and gadget. com. All right. The MacBook air M four. It's a good computer. What else do you want folks? It's a good fast computer. It's a good, I don't know what else to say. We're done. I think for a lot of those reviews, that's kind of how I feel because it's like, yeah, man the 2022 revision of the air, which was the whole new redesign.

And then the following year they gave us the 15 inch version. Those are really good computers. This is iteratively [00:02:00] faster because the M4 chip is less than 20 percent faster than the M3. It has a Lowr starting price, which I think is great. It's back down to 9. 99. The error actually used to be at that pre the whole I think the whole M1 scene, right?

There was a point where Apple had gotten the price back down, but it jumped up for 12. 99 for the re It was the M2 MacBook Air, the one they redesigned it. Now it's fully back down. I think that's pretty great. And it's a 1199 for the 15 inch. Good prices, good machines, good hardware. That's really fast and does everything you want it to do.

And the battery life is really good too. So it's this is such a no brainer computer for me. Like as soon as we filed this review, we made this our. Top recommendation for you know, what you buy for a laptop. Sherilyn, do you disagree? Do you have any thoughts on this?

Cherlynn: No, I mean, I think your review is pretty straightforward.

Laid it out very clearly. I think that the fact that it's a Lowr starting price is really good. And I mean, people in the chat, by the way Dpro9 says it's a good time to buy a used M1 or like a referred or what, yeah, a referred M1 or [00:03:00] something.

Devindra: So Walmart is selling the M1 at this like weird secret discount where Apple doesn't advertise it.

But Walmart has those old units for 6. 99, sometimes 6. 50 and below, I believe. I hear they're only the 8GB RAM SKUs. Oh. And also, Those things have terrible screens, like the screens are old. If you just need like a cheap computer for somebody, sure, I guess, fine. But you pay a little more, and you can get the used or refurbished M2, which is a much, much better screen and everything.

Right, right, right.

Cherlynn: So there's a screen tech, and then I think the webcam is also an improvement on this, at least on this model, compared to the older M1 model. And then you know, again, another tip from the chat, which I thought was a Good one or a good reminder anyways that like, as always, apple provides an education discount so like students can get it for I think 8 99 the MacBook four that we just reviewed, which makes it even more appeal 100

Devindra: off.

Yeah. Yeah,

Cherlynn: right. $100 off of, so yeah, basically exactly the SKUs that you choose to get, if you upgrade to more storage or more RAM than used to get just like a hundred dollars off, which is. Not that's a [00:04:00] good deal.

Devindra: Yeah, this is a reminder to by the way Like yeah, if you're in college, I don't think it typically hits High schools or things like that, right?

if you're in college your IT department likely has like Equipment that they show like this is how you get a discount on this because when I was in IT like I had to like Shout at kids. Hey we can get you Microsoft Office cheaper. We were selling Microsoft Office for 10 and I had a whole pile in my box and I just had to like force kids to come get it.

You can get discounts. Keep an eye on those things. Yeah.

Cherlynn: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's like a lot to say about how much these things cost. And also the fact that's the main thing for me to say about the Mac book that just went out that way. Yeah it's. Not exciting, but that's not a problem, right?

If there's not a lot of changes.

Devindra: They're just so good. Like I get that. Yeah. It's not exciting because not much of it's new, but it's also man, I don't think everybody sees like what the PC makers are doing out there. And it's a, it is sometimes rough. It is

Cherlynn: snapdragon laptop. Oh, [00:05:00]

Devindra: well, I mean, you can spend 2, 000 on the low end.

That's what I mean. Yeah, but yeah, I just reviewed the Asus ZenBook A14, which is a really cool laptop that tried to be a MacBook killer, but you always see compromises whenever somebody comes at Apple, right? So right now the MacBook Air, the 13 inches is actually close to a 14 inch screen, weighs 2.

7 pounds. Has a pretty decent power prices, not bad for what it is. So Asus comes in and is okay, we can make this a half pound lighter. LG does it too with their gram machines. I don't like those because those have always been slow and cheap feeling. But for Asus to do that half pound, they had to put in a really low power chip and it just benchmarked really low.

So I don't know why you would get that versus just a MacBook Air. The only thing I think stopping people at this point is like, yeah, not everybody knows how to use Macs. That is still a thing. Speaking of.

Cherlynn: I mean, look, one of the cons you put in your review was like, it's still a challenge to learn Mac from Windows.

And I almost was like, when I was looking at that con, Davindra, I was like, should [00:06:00] we be listing that as a con? Isn't that kind of for granted? But there is something to be said about The fact that we're all moving to ARM based architecture, and Apple is a superior one in this case, and that might convince some Windows people to switch.

And in that case, it is a huge pain in the butt. But, remember last week when I was like complaining?

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Cherlynn: Okay, I am very sad to announce. That I have discovered two things I prefer on MacBooks than Windows PCs. One is not super surprising or new. I think the trackpads just, now that I've gotten used to it, is better.

I miss my three finger gestures and everything on Windows. At least, I miss how they work. I have those, but it depends on the Mac OS. It's full screen, then yes, three fingers. is swiping between the instances of an app, but if not, then you have to rely on command, whatever. I think

Devindra: you can actually find third party apps also remap some of those for you, Sherilyn.

Right. I meant I

Cherlynn: guess I meant baked in the OS without me having to do too much, right? Windows is really baked in. You don't need to think about it. It just all works across all the things. You are the only person I've heard, [00:07:00] Sherilyn,

Devindra: who has ever talked about multi finger gestures in Windows.

Listen, listen.

Cherlynn: That's how much of a power user I was, okay, or am still. Here's the thing, I use so many I'm the person I might be the only person I know who uses the right control key as a shortcut as part of my shortcuts in my workflow. That is

Devindra: madness. Yeah, it's so good when you're typing

Cherlynn: and you're like, just control backspace or control delete.

The right one works really well for a control backspace.

Devindra: Okay.

Cherlynn: All right. Okay. Anyway, the second thing I've discovered that I like on a MacBook, at least the MacBook I have versus my Windows PC experience, man, that fingerprint sensor. Sheesh. It's listen, I like I'm the sort of person that washes my hands about 17 times a day and they're often like just a little bit moist or like just lotioned up and like the windows pc will never recognize my finger in those instances but the macbook is like you a little wet i got fam it's all right i can handle a [00:08:00] little moisture

Devindra: it's a I mean, it's usability stuff.

It's like when you bring up the trackpad, I'm like, Apple has had the glass trackpad, the whole thing, like they've locked that down for, I think at least a decade now. Like these trackpads have been great. Everybody's been chasing it with what do they call it? The the precision windows, precision, like various companies are trying to do that.

You can get close to it, you can get close to it in Windows, but it always comes down to the fact that it is a third party company making the trackpad, it is Microsoft producing the software, it is a PC laptop maker who's implementing all these things together, and you, there's a discernible lag sometimes.

So I feel like it just never feels as smooth on Windows. The other thing, Sherilyn, like if you lean more on Macs, you'll learn is that I think the standby times. Or also rock solid, like when you close the lid, you can leave that thing in your bag for a while. Different.

Cherlynn: The ones I've been using. So that's one drawback of MacBook, at least the one I have, which I believe is an M1 MacBook Pro, by the way.

It [00:09:00] is a, it just go, it's sapping. while lid is closed. So the thing I don't,

Devindra: that is weird. That is weird, which

Cherlynn: might be like specific to this machine, which by the way, I love that we're like, okay, so for the last two weeks, like various Mac users on our team have had to be my tech support. I've been yelling into various voids on Slack, just being very angry.

And I've been like, why do I have to press three buttons to do one screenshot? Or like, why do I have to like, you know, so I've learned a few things along the way that have made me a lot less angry as a person. Number one, maybe.

Devindra: You, you learn things. Listen, my, and it's sometimes it's just what, you know, and it's hard to learn new things, which is why I listed that as a con.

Like I bought the MacBook Air, the one of the cheaper, the discounted ones over the holidays for my wife. And she is, she knows how to use computers, but she is. So hardcore Windows, right? So it's like I'm giving her a Mac and it's taking her time. I'm surprised she hasn't been

Cherlynn: like, you gave me a Mac.

You're sleeping on the couch.

Devindra: Well, there are some of that. I'm like, yeah, [00:10:00] well, this is so much faster than that Dell laptop that I got her a couple of years ago. That Dell laptop. Yeah, it's a, it was a, it is an XPS and you know, it's just, it is not like Dell laptops also don't last for that long. Like after two, three years, you will start to feel the build issues and stuff, but it's just one of those things.

I feel like this is the point where it's like somebody wants to buy a laptop. You really should consider jumping to Mac if you haven't yet, it's less a problem. I think for the younger generation, like for kids going in, a lot of people are exposed to Macs in many different scenarios. But yeah, I have a lot of people aren't as well.

I,

Cherlynn: one last thing that I will say that is like a bit off topic is that like I was chatting with a friend in the gym. And they're like young, like Gen Z, like 23. Right. And they were like, I was like, Oh, so what tips do you need to learn about tech, blah, blah, blah, trying to like source ideas for any stories we can write.

And they were like, I would love to learn how to create a folder on my Mac book. And I was like,

Devindra: yeah, [00:11:00] just basic stuff. So this is

Ben: wait, this is like getting to the idea of anyone younger than what? Like they don't know born, yeah. Born after 1997 can't use a file directory. All they know is,

Devindra: I have seen such bad and lie so many examples of this.

And I think there, there are a lot of tick talkers out there who are like, you know, life is hard for millennials. And I actually think some of it is just like whinging, but some of it is like, it is true. Like we kind of, you got to be tech support for your parents. You don't understand the technology and also tech support for the young kids.

We were

Ben: just talking about this like two episodes ago. We're stuck between the boomers and the iPad babies.

Devindra: Basically. So sorry if that is a repeat topic, but I keep seeing examples of this. Anyway, MacBook Air, good computer, learn Macs. I think you will be better off, especially if you have an iPhone.

If you have an iPad, I don't want to sound like an Apple shill. There are still so many. good uses of Windows. I'm sitting here in front of a Windows desktop. I love a PC. I spent the last day like jamming my fingers into motherboard [00:12:00] stuff and plugging in hardware because I love having that ability to build a computer.

And I showed it to my daughter. I was like, this is what an open computer looks like. And she's can you build me one? And also, can I play Minecraft on it? That was her first. Her first thing, I was like, yes, actually, you could play the best Minecraft. You could play realistic shaders. Like she, we see these videos sometimes where people are playing with like extremely hardcore shaders on Minecraft using like crazy video cards.

It looks like you're playing in real life. So she wants in on that. So we're going to, we're going to be gaming side by side. Not too long from now, but that's the MacBook Air M4. It's pretty good. But also if you want a cheaper MacBook Air, look out for deals. I would not go down to the M1 just because that design was basically a decade old when they stopped, when they like gave up on it, when they upgrade to the M2.

So the M2 one, the M3 one, you will see discounts on those. Look at refurbished sellers be careful on eBay and stuff, but yeah another good one for Apple. And we also see other upgrades that they [00:13:00] announced the max studio. Which now has the M4 Max chip and the M3 Ultra, which is a really interesting twist that they did there.

Steve Dent did that review for us, and I really wanted Steve to review it because he is a video guy. He produces his own videos. He was able to put 8K workflows on this thing and gave us some like really good insight into like how powerful it is versus his M3 Pro MacBooks and also some scores we had from the M2

Cherlynn: Ultra.

Devindra: It was the M2 Ultra, yeah, and I think the M3 Max.

Cherlynn: Oh, M3 Max, yeah, the M3 Ultra is the new chip. Yeah, from last year. Yeah,

Devindra: gotcha. Yes, also very confusing. And Nate Ingram reviewed the new iPad Air, which is, it's an iPad, guys.

Ben: We talked about that last week. Yeah, well, we

Cherlynn: talked about the news last week. The review went up on Monday, and the Avengers review went up Tuesday.

Steve's review went up yesterday, I believe. Did I get it up yesterday? I think so. It's all melting into one big fondue. That was yesterday. This week has been [00:14:00] apple fondue week for me, but this week we, there's one more Apple review that is coming from us. At least we're doing some longer term reviews.

And also recontextualizing some products. So today and the rest of this week, you'll see some like reviews of maybe some older Apple products, but with the lens of Now that I've spent a long time with this, is it better than the experience out of the box? Or now that it's 2025, is this still worth a good buy?

Like this two or three year old product that Apple is still selling? It's been a bit of an Apple mixture for me. Like I've been in an Apple jam, which is why if I get my dates of published wrong, I apologize. But Yeah.

Devindra: It was supposed to be all good news for Apple, but something weird did happen last week after we basically after we recorded on Friday, Apple sneakily, like just put out a little bit of a negative news.

They shared a statement with John Gruber at Daring Fireball. And I think a couple other places, I think Reuters got the statement to basically saying, Hey that Siri. We showed you all that [00:15:00] really cool Siri that could read your email and also give you contextualized information stuff.

They showed it off at WWDC. That's going to take a while. And the specific quote is, We have also been working on a more personalized Siri giving you more awareness of your personal contacts as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate them rolling out in the coming year.

And there have been a lot of discussions about this. First of all, Apple giving people an actual statement on the record, because normally when you talk to Apple, they're like, here is a gun to your head. You can't say that Apple told you this. You can't say the names of anybody. That's just how they work.

And it's it sucks. I hate talking to companies that way. They gave an on the record statement to Gruber, who is a very well known Apple fan, Apple commentator. You know, he has actually run podcasts at and meetings at Apple's campus during WWDC. He is fully working together with the company.

But he is also somebody that I've seen has [00:16:00] taken He seems really offended by this news. Almost like the fact that Apple seemingly lied to us, they showed us a shiny new version of Siri. They never actually demoed it at WWDC last year, Sherilyn. And that is notable that we only saw it on the video. We never, sometimes Apple brings us to rooms and here's somebody demoing this technology.

That's how we saw the initial Apple intelligence features showed off. They never did that for the Siri. That's probably a bad sign. If Apple can't do that at WWDC, there's probably, they're probably a long way off from actually shipping that. And yeah, is this a sign that Apple is failing?

Cherlynn: I don't know.

Right. Like I think. Siri has like historically been one of the, oh no, my, my phone just reacted, but thankfully didn't try to respond to me saying the hot word. Anyway Apple's assistant has historically been one of the like less smart ones, right? Between when I used to switch between Android and Apple more often, I would notice the Google version [00:17:00] was a lot smarter at least in the early days of the assistant wars.

And then now we're at a point where you know, Google's so far ahead with Gemini, right? And S the S assistant is barely there and can't even get off the ground. I don't know that. Apple is doomed per se. I think Apple is clearly going to have to tap the help of like open AI or Google S has done in the past with, which they've done with things like visual intelligence and so on.

But I mean, it's clear and I feel as if the visual intelligence thing, the fact that they've integrated chat, GPT and Gemini. Or Google search within the visual intelligence feature is actually a tacit like acknowledgement that we need to make this feature available. And yet we don't have the, you know, algorithms or software that the engineering behind it yet.

And so we're going to partner with these people who are obviously so much better at it than we are. And they haven't come out and said it, but it is like basically that I will point out. And one thing that I wanted to [00:18:00] say when I saw that this topic was one of our you know, on our list Alexa Plus, for example.

Oh, crap. Hey, everybody mute your speakers. It's fine. It's

Devindra: fine.

Cherlynn: Amazon's A Word Plus is Was announced last month. We talked about it and it's coming and it was Set that it would be available this month. I saw recently on my Amazon app that now I am able to waitlist, right? It's join the waitlist to test it out So to be clear though because someone in the chat this morning asked whether a word plus is that much better To be extremely clear again.

We never saw this new A word assistant Amazon assistant for ourselves. We watched a lot of canned rehearse demos. We saw a lot of

Devindra: but they at least demo live and Apple didn't even live.

Cherlynn: Right? And everything. It was going up on the stage, especially it seemed live and it was, you know, taking pictures of the audience and I saw myself in the picture and therefore it was able to still, you know, describe the audience [00:19:00] based on what appeared to be including me in it.

Right. Okay. So far, I don't know that there's that much better of a, an assistant out there that is not purely driven by. You know, something like an open AI, like a GPT O or like a chat GPT or a Gemini.

Devindra: There is nothing. There's Microsoft is trying to do that with Copilot, but Copilot is not even there either.

And I think so yeah, you're bringing up the fact that Siri has has had issues for a long time, Cherlynn. It's hard, it's actually easy to forget, like when Steve Jobs, I think, first announced Siri. This was like a big thing. It was a big thing because the iPhone is getting essentially a smart helper that could do all these things.

But that was really early days in terms of like conversational assistance. So it could do really basic things, but it could only do so much. And that was even before the very idea of transformer models was even discovered. Like we did not have that milestone that led to Gemini and a chat GPT and everything.

So what we're [00:20:00] talking about now. is a newer version of Siri that is based on all the stuff that's powering GPT and Gemini. And it just seems like Apple can't really do it yet. But also, I don't think, I don't think it's the worst news in the world. And I think a lot of these companies probably needed to do this as well.

Microsoft was so hardcore

Cherlynn: on

Devindra: teaming up with OpenAI. They brought you Yeah, they brought you to to Seattle, like you went there just to see them unveil. Let's be clear. They didn't bring me. They invited

Cherlynn: us and we paid our way. But yes,

Devindra: they pulled you there. They made you go there to go see it.

And then Copilot happened. And then like Copilot was in windows and it's everywhere. And they were like so gung ho because they invested tens of billions of dollars in OpenAI to make that thing happen. And I feel like they were just so relentless. And. What happened last year when they announced the whole Copilot Plus initiative, but also stuff like Recall.

We were so excited to announce Recall. It's look, we'll capture everything you're doing. The that one. We'll [00:21:00] remember everything. The instant backlash, the fact that they didn't fully think about it, the fact that these very obvious security flaws were not even really well considered at the company.

And I've had several conversations with Microsoft saying what the hell, what, how did you guys not see this? And they're like, we tested. No, in my recall we have done a lot of

Cherlynn: opinion. Microsoft has one of the worst cases of engineer brain with a lot of their products. Their testing is very tested on people who know how this works.

So know exactly what the limits might be and therefore have already like kind of restricted themselves based on that. So I think Microsoft is one of the the worst examples of that Google also does that to an extent. I think Google has learned in the past few years to broaden its testing, but. And also Apple has less of that, but Apple then actually doesn't have enough engineer brain in my opinion because it's not pushing far enough sometimes with the solving problems, right?

Either that or Apple is considering something that It's peers don't which is it might be trying to be as useful as [00:22:00] possible to as many people as possible Which is not a bad thing to do And that is why you and I think are in agreement that this delaying of the new smarter assistant It's not such a bad thing get it to a point where it works for 99 or 90 percent of the population.

The other thing that you're getting at, which like, by the way, I love that we're having this debate about assistants because clearly we're saying a lot and it's resonating also in chat. But the, one of the things that Amazon's executives said at that event about why, you know, they want to push towards this smarter assistant or this more natural language style with.

Talking and interacting with the assistants is this idea that like people have had to learn how to talk to their speaker, how to talk to their phone. Yes. And they didn't like that. And I'm like, well, now that I've spent 10 years learning how to talk to, you know, a word, it's, you are telling me how to like, relearn or unlearn that stuff.

It's a little bit annoying. Why not make [00:23:00] something that just. Works the way, I guess, I think that's the goal. They want to make it work the way you want it to, but it's not. We want to,

Devindra: we want you can finally

Ben: talk to it like a person. Yes. Like you wanted to. Def was about to say. Yes.

Devindra: Like you can talk to it like Star Trek.

Well, also it's a conversation where you're not like. constantly issuing commands. The thing with current assistance is that you have to, it's essentially programming, you're programming a computer, right? Do this for me. And you get a response. It's command response and not conversation. And I think we want the conversation when I've tested GPT stuff and even some copilot when you can actually talk to it and have a back and forth.

That's actually kind of nice. To what we were really getting at here, I think is that. So many people rushed out with all these AI features. Well, Google literally was caught flat footed. Like they rushed, they had a London event, right? To show off Gemini, like that was a disaster. All these companies have been pushing Wasn't Gemini

Ben: renamed from something?

It was

Devindra: BARD. It was BARD back then. Yeah, it

Ben: was BARD. That's right.

Devindra: But all these companies have essentially rushed everything out the [00:24:00] door to try to compete with whatever they assume OpenAI has already hit. And some of that stuff is impressive. It's cool that we can Talk to this thing and it can recall all this information.

It's cool. It can create documents and images and video and whatnot. Functionally, how it's actually making your life better. Sterling, when we were at WWDC, I think that was one thing we were saying, like Apple is focused on these features that will actually make your life. Maybe just a little easier.

Stuff like the writing assistant stuff within your apps. Technically the notification summaries were part of that too, which was kind of a mess for them, actually. Like they got in trouble. with bad summaries. They got in trouble with like them rewriting headlines and stuff. But when it's not terrible, I actually do appreciate the fact that it does compact a lot of different notifications into a small thing.

So yeah, if Apple takes a while, takes another year or so to make the Siri thing work good. I think that is ultimately a good thing, but. What happens is right now, the perceived problem is that oh, you're not hot, you're not [00:25:00] hot, like you're behind on AI, you're not as good as everybody, and I think that's all.

I'm gonna

Cherlynn: use Gen Z lingo here because I am so young.

Devindra: Let them

Cherlynn: cook! Let them cook! It's okay!

Devindra: That's not Gen Z lingo. Oh, not Gen Z lingo.

Cherlynn: So whatever lingo it is it's new to me. It is most often used by Gen Z. Let's be real. So it's okay to cook, right? I think the internet society agrees that it's okay to cook.

We just need to be patient.

Ben: Well, yeah, but in a lot of cases when they say that, it's like you're already doing something. You're already like showing the results of your work. So let them keep going on showing the results of their work. We have not seen. Sort of,

Devindra: I think the way let them cook is usually uses like somebody is going off, right?

And you don't know if it's gonna be good or bad. You're like, let's step back. Let's let them go I actually feel like that philosophy actually applies more to what OpenAI and Microsoft is, and it's let them, let's just go, let's go. The investor is yes, money. Here's AI, do AI. Oh [00:26:00] my gosh, Lucky Dog.

They're like, let them cook. Lucky Dog's podcast in the

Cherlynn: chat is let them Tim Cook.

Ben: I mean, and that gets to the idea of maybe let them cook in the sense of let them give themselves enough rope to hang themselves.

Devindra: I guess.

Ben: Because. I think the synopsis, if we were to boil all of this down with some AI brevity, the idea is that you only get one chance for your new assistant to be good, and if people can talk to it conversationally like they want to, especially if the most Average user can do that, then they will continue using it.

But, if you need to talk to it in a specific way, if you need to talk to it like you're programming a computer or something, you're gonna lose some large percentage, probably 60 percent or more, of your users who would eventually end up maybe loving this as it gets better. If you only get one chance for it to be good, then maybe [00:27:00] keep it under wraps for a while.

Devindra: I feel like that's it. Let's while we're in Generations, I'm gonna, let's quote Millennial icon, Eminem. Because it really comes down to this. If you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? Think about that.

Think about that. Now that's gonna be in your head all day. Mom's spaghetti. One shot. You got one shot, everybody. And I guess we'll see where this goes.

Ben: So I want to bring things back to the MacBook Air for just a second and kind of bring up like a audio flow chart or something for should you get a MacBook Air or should you get a MacBook Pro, especially if you're a student, because we talked about how MacBook Airs are great for students.

If you do not see yourself doing big computational work at all, ever, so I'm talking about you know, English literature, I'm talking about like studio art where most of the stuff you're [00:28:00] doing is you know, manipulating objects in the real world, absolutely go off and get a MacBook Air.

It's going to be everything you need and more. However, if you are an interdisciplinary sort of. Kind of interested in computer art, maybe using bigger AI models, or if you, for some reason, want to do some Beeple ass art, you know, very computer generated or something, you need the fans.

Devindra: You need fans. You need, yeah. So the MacBook air is fanless. It is just a little hot box basically.

Ben: Absolutely. Yes. So if you are an interdisciplinary artist, if you're doing anything in like blender or Maya or anything like that, you need. Like heat dissipation really badly. I think that's basically it. If you're going to be an engineering student, or if you're even kind of casually interested in eventually majoring in engineering, and you're going to be doing solid [00:29:00] works or something, MacBook Pro is where you want to go, not the MacBook Air.

Devindra: Yep. I feel like you would know it. You would know if you need these tools or not. This is more advice for like people going into college, people thinking about what to buy ahead. You don't know what, like what your workflow is actually going to be. Something we're thinking about. I'm thinking

Ben: about parents who don't quite know like everything, like all of the specs for these different machines.

They just know that like the MacBook Air is a bit cheaper, but it also has the top level chip right now.

Devindra: So I think your advice is pretty much right there, Ben. That's pretty much what we'd say. I will say though, like the thing about these M4 chips and Apple's chips in general is that they are really fast.

Like they are really fast. So if you are a visual arts student who does not need to do like hardcore rendering, but you just like drawing, like you just may want a 15 inch air plus a Wacom tablet or something. You will get faster processing with a pro for sure, but. If you're a college student, you may also want to prioritize just having a lighter machine to walk around with.

So I think that's where [00:30:00] some of that comes in. Some of the complaints I have from my review still hit the 60 Hertz screen looks good, but I would like a faster refresh rate. And that is something,

Ben: yeah, that's especially not good for art.

Devindra: I mean, it's yeah. Yeah. It's better to have something smoother for our, for artwork, but yeah, if you bump up to the 14 inch MacBook pro, which I've actually seen that thing is normally 1599, I believe, but I've seen it on sale for like close to 1400.

At that, if you bump up to that, you get more storage, I believe too, but you get more ports, you get a higher refresh rate display. And I think for a lot of people that will be a safer computer to last you your entire, like college career or professional career or whatever. That's the main thing to think about like the 14 inch MacBook Pro, don't be afraid of it, especially once you start adding hardware to the Air, that's where Apple gets you.

You know, you will spend 200 more to add more RAM or a harder, bigger hard drive or something like that. And also worth pointing out the 999 Air, the 13 inch has fewer GPU cores. I believe it's eight instead of 10. So that may also [00:31:00] be a downside for some people. For if you're just writing, if you're just doing productivity stuff.

You'll probably never even notice. So that's that good recommendations there, Ben, anything else you want to add to the show?

Cherlynn: No, I think we just have a lot of Apple products that we reviewed. We

Devindra: have a lot of Apple products. I mean, yeah. And also we talked about the series stuff. We will see where this lands.

Like we're going to follow this story, folks. I do feel like. This is one of those things, like it is a telling thing. I think Apple has lost a lot of trust, which is something John Gruber has been saying. Like typically we trust that if Apple says something at WWDC, we're like, okay, yeah, they will figure this out in time.

Right. And this was an example where they showed it on a video. They never demonstrated it live. And I think we never really had a sense that if they could actually do this. So I think after this, like there's justification to push Apple harder around this stuff. I really do hate sometimes talking to Apple reps because they are so media trained where like.

You ask them a question and what they give you is literally here is the copy from the thing you just read. [00:32:00] Yes, I will ask a specific question like, oh, how did you come up with this feature? They're like, this is the greatest feature in the world and everything I just told you I'm just gonna repeat back and It's not super helpful.

Ben: There is no war in Ba Sing Se.

Devindra: There's no war in Ba Sing Se tariffs are helping the economy. I mean, we just saw that today. So yeah, we will, we're going to push Apple harder. This is certainly, I think it's maybe troubling news, but also I don't mind if people delay AI features, get it good rather than, you know, announcing it and having it fail completely.

Let's move on to some other news. Briefly, we saw some rumors coming out of out of Microsoft and around Xbox stuff Windows Central reports that the Xbox handheld that has been talked about and discussed could come at the end of the year and it likely won't be built by [00:33:00] Microsoft, which is actually fine because we've spent the last few CESs looking at all the portable gaming hardware from Asus and everybody else.

It could be a company like Asus building whatever the Xbox handheld is actually don't think that's a bad idea. Like a handheld at a decent price. It has access to game pass is a really compelling product. The more interesting thing that Jez Corden over at windows central report is that their next generation consoles are targeted for 2027, which is only two years away.

Goddamn. 2027, new consoles that would feel I think the thing is they feel, they would feel more like Windows PCs. And if you remember what I said, I think it was last year, I think when Jess was on here and we were discussing whatever the future of the Xbox was, I was like just make it a Windows box, man.

Just make it to make up small Windows mini PC that you put to your TV and the people who don't need that can bring it to a monitor and play games on their [00:34:00] monitor. But it's just a Windows box. Let's stop overthinking all the Xbox stuff they had to do for consoles because they were never very good at it.

Microsoft has failed more than often, more often than not, when it comes to Xbox stuff. The original Xbox burned billions of dollars to get that thing. That was a failure. The Xbox 360 succeeded because they had a good strategy. They did a lot of things earlier. But the Xbox one, that whole platform the everything now the series X, it's the same problems over and over again, where Microsoft is facing against Sony and Nintendo Sony, who is so good at the closed console market and knows how to produce killer games.

Nintendo, who is just like off in la land doing whatever, like they don't need to even play this game at all. Nintendo can just survive selling Zelda and Mario with unique hardware all the time. And Microsoft, I think it's taken Microsoft a long time to realize we make. PC software. Maybe we should be selling people PCs and the consoles themselves right now are running AMD CPUs.

They're running AMD GPUs. They are [00:35:00] essentially computers. So I feel like the next logical step would be here's an Xbox handheld. That's great for a lot of people. And maybe you can dock it. Here's a powerful 500 to 600 mini desktop that can sit by your TV. You'll have an Xbox interface to play the games you're used to, but also.

It's a Windows box, so let it run Steam, let it give you full access to Game Pass. I wonder if Microsoft is brave enough to do something like that, because you give people an easy way to put Steam on their TVs. The hardcore players will love that. I'm actually thinking about, I have some spare PC hardware now.

I'm like, I should just put, rather than string a 100 foot HDMI cable from my office to my TV or projector. Should just build a little box because all I need is 4k at 60 hertz if that really to power a tv thing And I think that's going to be a compelling option for a lot of people. I don't know trillin ben any thoughts on this Just make yeah

Ben: Dev, can you give [00:36:00] me like a capsule history, like five sentences or less, about why we're seeing so many new Windows gaming handhelds now?

Devindra: I mean, the history is the hardware got good. The portable hardware got good enough that we could do this, and

Ben: But is it the batteries? Is it the video stuff? It's everything! Is it the processors? It's the GPUs. Okay.

Devindra: It's a chip, it's a GPUs. It's the fact that Nintendo has been writing switch hardware since 2017, like 2016 era switch hardware is ancient, but it can play a game like Zelda tears of the kingdom and it's selling, it's still selling a ton.

People are buying those games. I think we're at the point where the graphics rat race is just like. Not everybody needs it, right? I think few people can really see the difference between a PlayStation 5 game and a PlayStation 4 game. Okay, we're scaling back. Now you can do some pretty good gaming on a handheld form.

Maybe the games themselves are less demanding, but the hardware has gotten there. Nintendo kind of proved that. Even Sony themselves kind of proved that with the [00:37:00] PlayStation Vita, which was a great piece of hardware that they gave up on because the ecosystem wasn't fully there for it. But yeah, there are rumors that Sony's going to go back to it as well.

Handheld gaming hardware is great, and it's better than ever because of all the advancements we've made in CPUs and GPUs and display technology and everything. Yeah.

Cherlynn: I mean, we saw the Lenovo Legion Go at CES. That one's coming out with SteamOS later this year. And we've seen a proliferation of Windows gaming handhelds.

Ioneo is one of the makers of many of them. But there's others Pretty sure Ace, not Ace, is it the ROG Ally X that is a Windows one?

Devindra: Yeah. So lots of people are making

Cherlynn: these Windows handhelds, and I think And the

Devindra: experience isn't great. Exactly. I was gonna say, the

Cherlynn: problem is the software. The problem has always been, it's such a pain in the ass to use Windows OS on such a tiny little screen that's a touchscreen, which we've lamented for years that just Windows doesn't work as a touchscreen interface.

And that is the problem.

Devindra: This may be like, I feel like this is warning [00:38:00] signs, not just Microsoft go all in on AI. Hey, Microsoft, people want to play games while using your platform in this form factor. Do something about it. Like chase that. Make let's strip Windows down to the point where we can make it easier to work with.

Cherlynn: Yeah, make a version. I don't,

Devindra: I don't trust. I don't trust. I don't even when

Cherlynn: you ask me my thoughts. And yeah, when you ask me my thoughts about this is what I wanted to say, right? Which is that gaming handhelds, we've seen them. It's not like we haven't seen the windows gaming handhelds by third parties.

And for Microsoft to try to do this, it would need to see what valve is doing and try to do better. I think that's what's going to happen. Just make

Devindra: Windows itself I think just make Windows itself better. I don't trust Microsoft to make an offshoot thing, because whenever they've done Windows RT, or was it the, I think the 11X or 10X or whatever they were considering for foldables or something they were Whenever they start to offshoot windows, like it just becomes a mess.

Just give us a box, man. Consoles are just PCs now. Give us a box, let people do what they want with them. And I think that [00:39:00] would actually be a really compelling thing for a lot of people, especially if you just sell it. It's Hey here's a game pass box. You pay 30, 40 a month. We will give you a box that will sit by your TV and it just plays game pass things.

I don't know. That could be a solution there. I would love to know what you folks think. Podcasts and gadget. com. We've got a lot of news to run through. We're just going to blow through some of this stuff. Some of which is disheartening and some of which is just yeah. Interesting point out here.

There have been a couple things happening with Tesla. There have been widespread protests around the country. I love that Alex winter of Bill and Ted fame is now like one of the most visual, like most visible antagonists against Tesla. Like he has been leading the charge on protests, I think around Los Angeles.

There's like widespread consumer reaction to this protesting Tesla's because of what Elon Musk is doing to the American government to this cuts to his like chainsaw antics. As part of that, apparently like one way to counteract that [00:40:00] is Elon Musk and Donald Trump turned the White House into a Tesla dealership.

And Donald Trump's bought a Tesla and the one, the red one of the white house. I don't know. Sure. Whatever. He's not the red one, but he bought a Tesla. What was the quote? Everything's computer. He sits down, everything's computer. But I

Ben: pointed out that the European New Car Assessment Program actually wants things to be less computer if you want the maximum safety rating from them, and it totally makes sense.

I have never rented a Tesla. I've always kind of wanted to rent a EV. Actually, when I was in SF last week, I Happened to walk by a Rivian dealership. This is my first time ever really a Rivian dealership And I was like I need to go in I need to touch this car and It has the same problem big screen.

No, I hate it.

Devindra: I hate it. Give me buttons

Ben: there is a small margin for error if I want to [00:41:00] change a setting or something where In every other car on the market, all of the internal combustion cars, I can just kind of randomly feel around like on the console area and figure out what I need to press just by the shape of the button.

Devindra: You can build muscle memory based on button placement and shape and everything. And you cannot do that with the touchscreen. I think Volkswagen is saying now like they're going to go back to at least buttons for climate controls. And I think everyone's seeing the folly of just Hey, it's a big ass tablet.

It was cool when Tesla first did it in the early 2010s, because nobody was doing that. But I think the usability problems became evident. Anyway, I don't want to laugh too much at everything's computer. Like it has become a bit memish, but also that whole situation is such a disgusting, scenario where yeah, of course, Donald Trump is basically acting like a used car salesman right now, right down to having sales pitch notes on his notes. Just to refer back to

Ben: there was a [00:42:00] what was it? White House press pool photographer took a picture of the, I love everybody does papers he was holding and it was literally Just like a list of Tesla specs.

And

Devindra: it's easy to do that too. I feel like that's a photographer's duty now because we all know that Donald Trump needs large typeface notes, so it's very easy to zoom in and get a picture of exactly what he's holding. But I think that is, you know, that's him directly helping Elon Musk and trying to give Tesla a boost, but also signs that the protests are working.

There are so many other things too. You had brought up, Ben Doge reportedly has a chatbot that's going to automate some government tasks. And I feel like that is such, it cuts to the core of like how dumb and broken this whole efficiency seeking initiative is. Like they want to offload stuff to AI.

We've spent the last hour. Talking about how dog shit, a lot of AI is you can't do that. It's never going to work. So I feel like that's just never going to work out for them, but yeah, that's, so that's our check in into exactly what's happening here. We're going to keep an eye on this. Like the tariff stuff will [00:43:00] also directly involve the technology industry and consumers and what you can buy and how much it's going to cost.

So I would love to have a discussion with that with somebody who knows economics and somebody who can really explain a lot of this, but it is, I look not so great. Folks, so you know briefly mentioning researchers also are saying that Musk's been there was a story about X being down for, I think, a day or so.

Over the weekend, on Monday or something. Yeah. Researchers are not buying his explanation that it was a cyber attack, so there'll be more to see there. There is a book coming out from a former Facebook executive, Sarah Wynn Williams. She's been written up by the New York Times and elsewhere talking about like just how kind of disgusting Facebook is at the corporate level, at the executive level.

And

Cherlynn: the courting of China.

Devindra: Yeah. And now apparently Meta is trying to stop sales of that book. So that's a good look. That's a clear sign that you've done nothing wrong. And they scored a victory

Cherlynn: last night, right? Like yesterday. So that's what the development is. We, A, discovered that Meta was trying to stop them, but B, that this past, and it's just a funny story.

I've read the arbitration, it [00:44:00] was really funny to read. I would

Devindra: love Meta to look up the Streisand effect and to see what's going to happen now. Yup. Exactly. Like literally the people who are going to ignore this book. But now

Cherlynn: everyone's talking about it. It's great.

Devindra: Yeah. The book Meta doesn't want you to read.

That's great. Let's move on to some stuff from around and gadgets. Some great coverage this week Sam, Mr. Sam Rutherford got to play with the ninja swirl by creamy. He calls it the ultimate home ice cream maker. This thing looks beautiful. So the ice cream looks beautiful. Totally get that. The ice cream looks beautiful.

I have one of the ninja dual toaster reverence for Lynn. Let me tell you I, I hesitate to recommend. A gadget to Cherlynn that could potentially catch fire, or cause things to catch fire. But a toaster oven is key. Does this have a danger? If you want, this one, any of these things can catch fire. But the toaster oven is key.

I'm going to write that up at some point too. But it's two compartments. Like you can cook stuff on the top and cook stuff on the bottom. I've made whole dinners for our entire family just on that little device. So

Ben: that's

Devindra: great.

Ben: It's also really funny how the Ninja Creamy is [00:45:00] probably a really desired review among Engadget staff.

Like everybody outside of the tech journalism space is Oh wow, you get to touch like all the new tech, that's got to be so cool. People inside Engadget are like, you get to make ice cream for work. That's awesome.

Devindra: Ice cream. Sam also loves the kitchen gadget. So I love that he gets to play with those.

Mr. Daniel Cooper also loves routers. He likes playing with routers. So he reviewed the Eero Pro 7, which kind of, kind of middling. Like he says, good performance and everything, but Eero. Which is owned by Amazon, right? They are trying to keep a lot of basic features behind the monthly fire monthly subscription.

And to me, that seems like a bad thing for a router. It

Cherlynn: was hard for me when editing this to Hey, can you bring up a comparison that a company that doesn't do this, that doesn't charge for all these fairly basic features. And the tricky thing is that Wi Fi 7 routers aren't It's not like you can just pick up the same exact version or a counterpart from Google or [00:46:00] TP link or Netgear.

Right. But because wifi seven, again, is not something that, and if they have made a wifi seven router, it's a flagship router. So it's got bells and whistles that bring the cost all the way up to a thousand dollars maybe. So it was hard to be like, Oh, it does not justify it. But no matter what, I think we can all agree that asking you to pay a subscription for basic features like parental controls on your own network is ridiculous.

And so you'll see that in Dan's review.

Devindra: I hate it. I totally hate it. Do we want to do the question that came in, Cherlynnn, or do you want to save that for Let's

Cherlynn: save that for next week, Kevin. It was a very good question, though. Thank you. so

Devindra: much, Kevin. Thank you so much, Kevin. But we are running along.

Ben: Yeah.

Everybody else, send us more questions so we can do just a big, engaged mailbag. Ideally, not in the middle of recording. Yeah. You know, we do that sometimes, and we would really like it to happen, you know, at least every other week or so.

Devindra: Let's move on to what we're working on. Yeah, I'm testing the Ryzen 9950 X3D chip.

So that is fun running benchmarks and doing some more game testing on this thing. And hopefully that's not the [00:47:00] cause of like our stream hiccuping just now. And also I did a twit this week. I did this week in tech the episode is called chatting with Mr. Babyman. Which was just, that was a line from something we were talking about.

Mr. Babyman used to be the top dig user and I am currently in a group chat with him. So I remember that you remember him. So I talked to Mr. Babyman every day to chat with Mr. Babyman every day. And it's great. He's a good dude. Show in anything you want to mention.

Cherlynn: I mean, I'm digging myself out of the pile of Apple reviews and other types of coverage.

Next week, we've got some interesting events to look out for. DaVindra, I know you're on board to live vlog GTC for us, so that's exciting. And then, yeah, I'll be on another podcast this week as well. I don't know when it's coming out, so I'm not going to say what it is yet, but once I do know, I'll let y'all know.

Devindra: Keep keep an eye out on Trillian's socials, on PleaseGuy, and, you know, wherever's Any pop culture picks you want to talk about, Trillian?

Cherlynn: I don't know if it's pop culture, but I do want to shout out this app called Finch that our Cheyenne MacDonald has [00:48:00] Engadget. And I actually discovered this app when she filed her draft of it maybe about two weeks ago.

And I've been using it since. So it's been 15 days. I got my like 15 day streak of using the app notification today. It is a self care, like a mental health based app where basically by taking care of yourself, you are also taking care of this pet bird or whatever animal is really cute and it's helped me.

slowly regain some structure in my life and in a way that like feels non pressurizing. I love also that the subreddit of Finch users has got just the best vibes. Everyone's very supportive. It's no pressure. It's really it's designed for people who, you know, like tasks that you can complete are as simple as getting out of bed each day if you want to.

And you can reward yourself for getting out of bed. You can reward yourself for washing your face, brushing your teeth, drinking water. It's really nice and I actually recommend it to my friend for their kid a preteen kid. I think you need to be like age six and [00:49:00] up to be able to really reap any sort of use from this.

But it is such a great like thoughtful little app designed by two people who were like college buddies who really wanted to just help support each other. It's not very corporate and doesn't feel very money grabby which is nice too. A, check out Cheyenne's piece about it for more information on Engadget, and then B, Finch, an app.

I really quite enjoy it.

Ben: I saw that on the site and I was like, Cherlynn is going to love this. Nice to have some confirmation of that. It's

Devindra: like they've gamified to you, basically.

Ben: You are the Tamagotchi.

Devindra: It's, aren't we all? That's that life. That's the story of life, folks. Alright, thank you for that, Cherlynn.

I need to check that out, too. I want to shout out I am catching up on Severance. It is very good this season. And hoping, I'm hoping to have time to write something about it by the finale. Which I think is a couple of weeks from now or maybe next week, it's coming soon. So a lot is happening in that show.

I love how it's building on the themes of season one, but also not afraid to be weird, not afraid to be like the [00:50:00] very David Lynchian at times too, like we've lost David Lynch, but like his spirit will live on in projects like this. So kind of love that. Also want to shout out Mickey 17, the new film from Bong Joon Ho, who is one of my favorite working directors right now.

Robert Pattinson, multiple Robert Pattinson's dying over and over again. He's, I mean, he does funny voice, like everything he does now, it's like he's, if it's Batman or whatever, he will do funny voice. And I think you should check it out. It's definitely like zany sci fi stuff, but it's also in a very similar way to Severance.

It is ultimately about labor and the way that, you know, capital destroys the value of labor and the rich, will always take advantage of people. And I think it's a really fun, funny movie, maybe it runs a little too long, but it is, it's Bong Joon ho doing satire with sci fi in sci fi, and I just kind of love that.

I love him, love Snowpiercer as a host. Pretty much everything Bong Joon ho has done. But when he gets to be like full zany that's like my zone. I kind of love that. So I don't love this as much as Snowpiercer, but it's [00:51:00] still very good. If you could see it in theaters, definitely check it out. It's Mickey17, by Bong Joon ho.

Cherlynn: Well, that's it for this episode, 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 Davindra online

Devindra: at Davindra at Blue Sky and all those fun places, Mastodon, you know.

And I'll spodcast about movies and TV at TheFilmCast

Cherlynn: you want to send me your favorite macOS shortcuts for the keyboard or the trackpad, you can please send them to me at, via email shirlin at Engadget. com, or on threads, shirlinstagram, C H U R L Y N S T A G H U R E. And then email us your thoughts about the show at podcast at inkadget.

com. Leave us a review wherever you're listening or tuning in, because that will really help this show get discovered and then subscribe on your favorite.[00:52:00]

Ben: Mom's spaghetti.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/engadget-podcast-macbook-air-m4-review-apple-delays-smarter-siri-113018766.html?src=rss

Whether you’re a casual jogger or a serious trail runner, having the right GPS watch on your wrist can make all the difference. The best GPS running watches do more than just track your pace — they offer real-time metrics, advanced training features to help you hit your goals and, of course, GPS tracking for precise distance measurements. Some models go even further, with offline maps for navigation, sleep tracking for recovery insights and smart features like notifications and contactless payments.

For those who need extra durability and lasting battery life, higher-end sport watches — like some of the best Garmin watches — are built to handle intense workouts, harsh weather and long runs. If you're training for a marathon, triathlon or just want a multisport option that can keep up with your lifestyle, these watches have the tech to support you.

With so many options available, from entry-level models to the best running watches packed with advanced running metrics, it can be tricky to find the right fit. That’s why we’ve rounded up our top picks to help you choose the perfect GPS watch for your training needs.

Best GPS running watches for 2025

Other GPS running watches we tested Polar Pacer Pro

The Polar Pacer Pro looked and felt quite similar to our top pick, and it mapped my outdoor runs accurately. However, Polar’s companion app is leagues behind Garmin’s with a confusing interface and a design that feels very much stuck in the past. It’s also $100 more expensive than our top pick.

Amazfit Cheetah Pro

The Amazfit Cheetah Pro tracked my outdoor runs accurately and Zepp’s companion app has a coaching feature much like Garmin’s adaptive training plans that can outline a routine for you to complete in preparation for a race or to achieve a specific goal. My biggest issue with it was that its touchscreen wasn’t very responsive — it took multiple hard taps on the display to wake it, and often the raise-to-wake feature didn’t work, leaving me staring at a dark screen.

What to consider before buying a GPS running watch GPS speed and accuracy

The most important thing for a GPS running watch to have is fast, accurate GPS tracking. That might seem obvious, but it’s quite easy to get distracted by all of the other smart features most of these devices have. Since most of them can be worn all day long as standard sport watches, there’s a lot of (possibly unnecessary) fluff that looks good on paper but won’t mean much if the core purpose if the device is left unfulfilled. To that end, I paid particular attention to how long it took each device’s built-in GPS tracking to grab my location before a run, if it ever lost my spot and the accuracy of the generated maps. Also, the device should be smart enough to let you start tracking a run while the GPS looks for your location.

Workout profiles and trackable metrics

You may not be able to suss out GPS accuracy just by looking at a spec sheet (that’s where this guide can help), but you can check for features like supported workout profiles. That’s something you’ll want to look into, even if your one and only activity is running. Check to make sure the best running watches you’re considering support all the kinds of running activities you like to do (outdoor runs, treadmill runs, etc) and any other workouts you may want to track with it.

Most fitness wearables today aren’t one-trick ponies; you’ll find a healthy number of trackable exercise modes on any sport watch worth its salt. That said, the number of workout profiles can be directly proportional to a device’s price: the higher-end the product, chances are the more specific, precise workouts it can monitor.

In a similar vein, you’ll want to check the trackable metrics of any watch you’re considering before you buy. Since we’re talking about the best GPS running watches, most will be able to track the basics like distance, heart rate and pace, and those are bare minimums. Some watches can monitor additional stats like speed, cadence, stride length, advanced running dynamics, aerobic and anaerobic training effect, intensity minutes and more. If you’re already a serious runner who trains for multiple races each year, or if you're a trail runner who needs elevation and navigation features, you’ll want to dig into the spec sheet of the watch you’re considering to make sure it can track all of your most necessary metrics.

Size and weight

It’s worth checking out a watch’s case size and weight before going all-in on one. GPS running watches, and standard smartwatches as well, can have a few different sizes to choose from so you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the best fit for your wrist. I have a smaller wrist, so I tend to avoid extra-large cases (anything over 42mm or so), especially if I intend on wearing the device all day long as my main timepiece. Weight, on the other hand, is a little less controllable, but typically smaller case sizes will save you a few grams in overall weight.

For those who need durability, particularly trail runners or those tackling extreme conditions, devices like Garmin watches offer rugged builds that can handle rough terrain, impact, and extreme weather.

Battery life

Unlike regular smartwatches, GPS running watches have two types of battery life you’ll need to consider: with GPS turned on and in “smartwatch” mode. The former is more important than the latter because most GPS running watches have stellar battery life when used just as a smart timepiece. You can expect to get multiple days on a single charge, with some surviving more than two weeks (with all day and night wear) before they need a recharge.

Battery life with GPS turned on will be much shorter by comparison, but any GPS running watch worth its salt should give you at least 10-15 hours of life with the GPS being used continuously. The more you’re willing to spend, the higher that number typically gets, with some GPS running watches lasting for 40 hours while tracking your location.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/best-gps-running-watch-141513957.html?src=rss

Whether you’re working on an essay, doing research for a paper or just need some downtime streaming your favorite show — a good laptop is a sensible investment for every college student. The best laptop for college doesn’t have to push the envelope with the latest graphics card and processor, nor does it have to cost an arm and a leg. Sure, the best laptops come in all shapes and sizes and range in price, but college students don’t need a power-hungry machine to support their needs. The best laptop for college is ideally thin and lightweight, and provides enough battery to last all day without having to be tethered to the wall. No matter what you’re studying, we’ve researched and tested a range of laptops for you to consider as you decide which is the best laptop for college for you.

What to consider in your next laptop for college

It’s important to consider your major and what you need your laptop to do before deciding on the best laptop for college. For example, if you’re a liberal arts major and will mostly be writing or making presentations, you don’t need an expensive system with a discrete graphics card. Alternatively, if you’re a film major who might need to render videos on a regular basis, having a beefy PC can significantly reduce the time it takes to finish a project. You’ll also want to take a look at any guidelines provided by your college or your specific program, as you may need required software or apps that only run on a specific OS.

Some other things to consider are if you want a more portable 13 or 14-inch machine that’s easier to carry around, or if you prefer something with a larger screen. On top of that, if you are doing tasks like photo or video editing, you’ll probably want to go for a system with a high-resolution display (1440p or 4K), so it's easier to see details. As for other specs, ideally you’ll want 16GB of RAM (though you can go down to 8GB on a Chromebook) and at least 512GB or 1TB of storage. Most newer laptops now come with SSD storage, too, which means you can store and transfer data much faster.

Finally, while your budget ultimately will determine how powerful of a laptop you can get, well-equipped ultraportables will generally cost between $1,000 and $1,400, with prices going up from there for systems with discrete GPUs. Budget Windows laptops and Chromebooks can be affordable alternatives though, with many going for just $500 to $700. But again, remember to check your school’s requirements because it’s not worth saving a few bucks only to find out that your notebook can’t run the app you need for all your homework.

See Also:

• Best Laptops for 2024

• Best Gaming Laptops

• Best 2-in-1 Laptops for 2024

• Best Chromebooks

• Best Cheap Windows Laptops for 2024

The best laptops for college students

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-laptops-for-students-130054631.html?src=rss

The full trailer dropped today for Apple's F1 movie. The film is getting an international theatrical release starting June 25, and will be in theaters and IMAX domestically beginning June 27. F1 has received extensive involvement from the Formula 1 world, so it'll be fascinating to see how well it walks the line between being a good movie and feeling like a dramatic promo for the organization.

The movie is a star-studded affair, with Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies and Kim Bodnia in the cast. Joseph Kosinski, who helmed Top Gun: Maverick, is the director, Ehren Kruger wrote the screenplay and the legendary Hans Zimmer did the score. Every shot in the trailer promises that this is a luxe production, fitting for the huge piles of money that go into developing F1 cars and teams. 

F1 has the glossy sheen of a Hollywood sports drama to it. Even though it's a work of fiction, several personalities and teams from the actual Formula 1 teams will appear in the final cut. There's been a surge in filmmaking about this type of car racing, with Netflix also hosting its own documentary series about Formula 1.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/see-brad-pitt-behind-the-wheel-in-the-trailer-for-f1-224420723.html?src=rss

Meta is adding a new incentive to get people to create and share photos and videos on Facebook. The company announced today that creators in Facebook's Content Monetization program can now earn money off people viewing their Facebook Stories.

Since you can already easily share photos and videos you post to your Stories, this should be a low-effort way to earn a bit more money off the content you share on Facebook. The ability to earn money on Stories is available globally, according to Meta, though it is based on performance, and Stories need to be public to be monetized. Creators who aren't already in the Content Monetization program can apply to be considered right now on Meta's website. 

The new payment option is just Meta's latest attempt to get creators posting content to Facebook instead of Instagram or competing apps. In January, the company debuted a "breakthrough bonus program" that offered an extra $5,000 to creators with an existing presence on another social media platform for posting a certain amount of photos and videos to Instagram and Facebook. 

The timing of the program made it clear that Meta was interested in luring in creators who would soon lose access to TikTok. The app's temporary rescue by the Trump administration has made the need to leave slightly less urgent, but Meta obviously still wants to benefit from the chaos as much as it can.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/facebook-creators-can-now-monetize-their-stories-221139957.html?src=rss

Nintendo has set the date for its second US store to set up shop. Following the announcement last year, Nintendo's brick and mortar location in San Francisco will open its doors on May 15. The opening is happening almost exactly two decades after Nintendo launched its first US store, which is in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza.

The San Francisco business "will offer a unique shopping experience filled with Nintendo’s characters, worlds and exclusive products including accessories, apparel, home goods and souvenirs available only at this location," according to the press release. The jury's still out on whether the Switch 2 will be on the store's shelves when it opens.

In true Nintendo fashion, the company is hosting a sweepstakes for fans who want to attend the store's grand opening in grand style. One lucky person will win a four-day trip to San Francisco with up to two guests, including a tour of the store during the launch event.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendos-san-francisco-store-will-open-on-may-15-213532685.html?src=rss

AirPods are arguably Apple's most popular post-iPhone product, and it sounds like the company has plans to make them even more essential. Bloomberg reports that Apple is adding a live-translate feature to AirPods later this year as part of an upcoming software update.

The feature sounds like it would work in a similar way to the translation feature on the Pixel Buds, only without the need to ask Google Assistant or in this case, Siri, to start listening for a specific language first. Apple's feature would reportedly automatically detect that something other than your native language is being spoken, and start converting what you're hearing into a language you understand.

Pixel Buds have had live-translation since 2020, one of the few abilities that makes Google's earbuds superior to Apple's. With the addition of the Translate app in iOS 14, Apple took at least one major step towards offering something similar, but the company never expanded on it in the years that followed.

Assuming it's released, this update would follow another major upgrade to the AirPods: Apple's Hearing Health features. In 2024, the company gave the AirPods Pro the ability to perform hearing tests and act as over-the-counter hearing aids. Adding translation could give AirPods owners even more reason to never take their headphones out. When you add in rumors that Apple might add heart-rate tracking to the AirPods like it did on the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, its even easier to imagine how the headphones could go from wireless accessory to something you wear all the time, like an Apple Watch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/apple-reportedly-plans-to-add-a-live-translation-feature-to-airpods-211402313.html?src=rss

Jeff and Annie Strain, the owners of publisher Prytania Media, are suing NetEase over claims of "defamation, unfair trade practices and interference with business relations," Polygon reports. The new lawsuit runs counter to the couple's previous claim that leaks shared with Kotaku led to them shutting down their studios Crop Circle Games and Possibility Space, before Prytania Media itself closed.

Per Polygon's reporting, the Strains claim that NetEase "spread false and defamatory statements that caused the demise of Prytania Media," and specifically, that the Chinese company suggested Prytania Media was engaged in financial fraud, scaring away other investors.

Prytania Media shutdown Crop Circle Games without warning in March 2024, before closing Possibility Space a month later. Possibility Space was notable for the variety of talent it had working on its first AAA title, including former Waypoint editor-in-chief Austin Walker, Watch Dogs: Legion designer Liz England and Jane Ng, the lead environment artist on Firewatch. At the time, the Strains suggested that information shared with Kotaku about an in-development title called "Project Vonnegut" led to an unnamed investor backing away from offering further funding. If the new lawsuit is to be believed, that was not the case.

The lawsuit is headed to federal court. For more color on what the Strains claim NetEase did, read Polygon's report. However things play out, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people were laid off and Prytania Media did little to make things right. "Severance never materialized btw," Walker shared in a Bluesky thread going over the details of the lawsuit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/jeff-strain-is-suing-investor-netease-claiming-internal-gossip-caused-his-game-company-to-shut-down-202342126.html?src=rss

The Emperor protects! Warhammer 40K fans, it appears you won't have to wait nearly as long for a new Space Marine game as you did for a sequel to the 2011 original. Games Workshop announced today that Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment are working on a new installment in the series. 

"Specific details on gameplay, setting and factions are tightly under wraps, but we can confirm Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 will boast an all-new immersive campaign and multiplayer modes," Games Workshop said. 

The fact the miniature maker has been so quick to green light a sequel is not surprising. As of last fall, the game had sold more than 4.5 million copies across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, and I made sure to include it in Engadget's list of the best games of 2024. More broadly, Warhammer 40,000 is enjoying greater popularity than probably at any other point in its nearly 40-year history. The 40K episode of Amazon's Secret Level anthology, which follows directly after the events of Space Marine 2, was a highlight of the series and did a lot to bring the franchise to a broader audience.      

Games Workshop did not share a release date or trailer for the new game, so enjoy this teaser for Astartes II, another 40K project fans are excited about, instead.       

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/warhammer-40k-space-marine-2-is-unsurprisingly-getting-a-sequel-200055031.html?src=rss

Disco Elysium is a critically acclaimed RPG from 2019 that won many accolades for its smart storytelling and writing. Later this year, the game is getting reimagined exclusively for Android devices. This mobile version is slated for a summer 2025 launch.

The new format looks akin to what you'd find in a visual novel app rather than to a traditional RPG, based on the trailer and screenshots shared today. ZA/UM, the company behind the game, said that the first two chapters can be played for free, then the full, ad-free game will be a one-time paid unlock.

"We intend to captivate the TikTok user with quick hits of compelling story, art, and audio, ultimately creating an all new, deeply engaging form of entertainment," ZA/UM studio head Denis Havel said.

Many of the original Disco Elysium creators have left ZA/UM. Creator Robert Kurvitz, art director Aleksander Rostov and writer Helen Hindpere were all fired in 2022 by the company's new leaders, and all parties have been mired in lawsuits since the game's international success. Several new studios have sprung up from various former team members, and ZA/UM has announced work on a new game of its own.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/disco-elysium-is-coming-to-android-mobile-this-summer-194536643.html?src=rss

The seventh season of Black Mirror is headed to Netflix on April 10, and based on its first trailer, happily returning to concepts and episodes that have come to define the series.

You'll see plenty of the stars that were already announced to be in the new episodes in the trailer, like Paul Giamatti, Issa Rae and Peter Capaldi, along with clear evidence that Season 7 continues storylines showrunner Charlie Brooker has already promised to revisit — namely the episode "USS Callister," about a group of startup employees trapped in a Star Trek-inspired simulation by their boss. 

There's some surprises too — one of the six new episodes appears to return to the world of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, the interactive Black Mirror episode Netflix released in 2018, before abandoning interactive movies in 2024. If that doesn't pique your interest, rest assured, load-bearing Black Mirror concepts like "thinking of the human brain as a computer" definitely seem to be present, too.

Brooker describes this season as "a little bit OG Black Mirror" and "back to basics in many ways," which could be reassuring, depending on your belief that he can recapture the novelty and meanness of the show's UK run. The series last aired on Netflix in 2023, with a set of episodes that were all over the place in terms of quality. Season 7 could be different, but we'll have to wait until Black Mirror returns on April 10 to find out for sure.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/black-mirror-is-playing-the-hits-in-its-season-7-trailer-193015633.html?src=rss

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown will be released on May 22 for PC via Steam. As the name indicates, this is a turn-based strategy RPG. It also happens to be the first turn-based game in franchise history.

It’s being developed by Strange Scaffold, who made the fantastic El Paso, Elsewhere. There’s a new trailer with plenty of gameplay, which is always nice. One thing that sets this tactical RPG apart from rivals like Unicorn Overlord is that the battles take just a few minutes to complete. As a matter of fact, they look even zippier than the streamlined fights found in the Mario + Rabbids series.

The story sounds downright depressing for a TMNT game. “Splinter and Shredder are dead, and as the Turtles approach adulthood, they're not just growing up... they're growing apart,” a description reads. To that end, most of the levels are played solo with just a single turtle. Come on guys. Hash things out over a large pizza pie!

There’s no price yet, but preorders are open. Publisher Paramount Game Studios has yet to say anything about a potential console release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-tactical-takedown-comes-out-on-may-22-191533579.html?src=rss

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Thursday it's creating a new Council for National Security within the agency. The FCC's announcement doesn't go into much detail about what the group will do, but a list of its broader goals focuses on US competition with China, including in AI and other tech sectors.

The FCC's statement on the Council for National Security says its three-part agenda includes:

• "Reduce the American technology and telecommunications sectors’ trade and supply chain dependencies on foreign adversaries"

• "Mitigate America’s vulnerabilities to cyberattacks, espionage, and surveillance by foreign adversaries"

• "Ensure the US wins the strategic competition with China over critical technologies, such as 5G and 6G, AI, satellites and space, quantum computing, robotics and autonomous systems, and the Internet of Things"

Although the statement mentions foreign adversaries several times, it only calls out China specifically.

Council for National Security Director Adam ChanAmerica in the World Consortium

The Council will include representatives from eight Bureaus and Offices within the FCC, an arrangement the agency says will foster cross-agency collaboration and information sharing. Adam Chan, who serves as the FCC's security counsel, as the director of the Council on National Security.

"Today, the country faces a persistent and constant threat from foreign adversaries, particularly the CCP," FCC Chairman Carr wrote in the agency's press release. "These bad actors are always exploring ways to breach our networks, devices and technology ecosystem. It is more important than ever that the FCC remain vigilant and protect Americans and American companies from these threats. Because these threats now cut across a range of sectors that the FCC regulates, it is important that the FCC's national security efforts pull resources from a variety of FCC organizations."

In FCC Chair Carr's thus far brief tenure the agency, has been aggressive, controversial and aligned with President Donald Trump's goals — not surprising given Carr wrote Project 2025's chapter on the agency. His moves in the first (not yet) two months of the administration have included investigating media outlets, probing Comcast over its DEI practices and seeking public opinion on which regulations the agency should "delete, delete, delete."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-fcc-is-creating-a-new-council-for-national-security-within-the-agency-184417942.html?src=rss

Fortnite will be available on Arm-based Windows machines later this year. In a blog post, developer Epic Games said that it is working with Qualcomm to get the hugely popular game compatible with the new Windows architecture by offering Windows on Snapdragon support for Epic Online Services Anti-Cheat, also known as Easy Anti-Cheat.

Microsoft has making a big push to convert its computing ecosystem to Arm-based hardware with Windows 11, especially as it puts more resources behind its line of Copilot+ PCs. While Qualcomm said last year that most games should be compatible with its Snapdragon chips, titles with kernel-level anti-cheat tech would pose a problem. And that's the approach Epic takes to prevent cheating in Fortnite and with its Easy Anti-Cheat program.

Epic didn't offer any more specific timeline other than "later this year," but having support for the company's games and services will be important for getting gamers and game developers to convert to the Arm systems.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/epic-is-bringing-fortnite-to-arm-based-windows-systems-181528822.html?src=rss

Google is updating Android to support Auracast, a Bluetooth LE technology that makes it possible to create, listen to and switch between public broadcasts of Bluetooth audio on the devices you already own. At its simplest, Auracast could let you to tune your Bluetooth earbuds to a muted TV in a public space and hear its audio. For Google, though, it sounds like the company is primarily interested in using the feature to make hearing aids even more helpful.

Google plans to use Auracast as a way to get Bluetooth audio streaming to hearing aids paired to your phone or tablet. If a TV or streaming device supports Auracast, you'll be able to use your Android device to connect the hearing aids directly to the source and hear what's playing. The company says any presets you've tweaked to customize how your hearing aids sound will carry over to audio you hear through Auracast, too. On Pixel 9 devices, you can even skip diving into settings to switch to the broadcast and instead scan a QR code to immediately connect your hearing aids.

The feature is coming to the Pixel 9 via the third Android 16 beta, which is also getting released today. Besides Auracast, the pre-release software includes a new accessibility option that lets you outline text to make it easier to read and a "Local Network Protection" feature that will give anyone with an Android 16 device "more control over which apps can access devices on their local network," Google says.

The final version of Android 16 is still a ways off, but the developer beta is available to download today on supported devices. If you don't want to experiment with the beta, Google says you can try out Auracast with a Samsung Galaxy device running One UI 7 and compatible hearing aids from GN Hearing or Starkey.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/auracast-support-is-coming-to-android-180050425.html?src=rss

First announced back in 2023, NVIDIA is finally releasing a playable demo for Half-Life 2 RTX. If you own the original game on Steam (and if you don't, what's your excuse?), you can download the preview on March 18. The showcase will allow players to see how Orbifold Studios has reimagined Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt with ray tracing. NVIDIA says the full release will arrive "at a later date."

Ahead of the demo's release, NVIDIA is also releasing RTX Remix, the modding toolkit Orbifold used to remaster HL2, to the public. The suite is available to download today, and includes support for many of the company's latest technologies, including multi-frame generation via DLSS 4. Additionally, NVIDIA says RTX Remix features an “easily mastered” interface that allows modders to add fully ray-traced lighting and AI-enhanced textures to older games without fuss. For more dedicated teams, RTX Remix makes it possible to rebuild every asset in a game.

Beside the chance to see Half-Life 2 in a whole new light, there's another good reason to revisit the game next week. Viktor Antonov, Half-Life 2's visionary art director, passed away in February at the age of 52. All video games are a collaborative effort, but if there's one person who helped make Half-Life 2 so memorable, it's Antonov. He designed most of City 17 and the Combine technology that gives the game its unique visual identity.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/a-demo-of-half-life-2-rtx-arrives-next-week-on-steam-171908066.html?src=rss

A year-long subscription to the meditation app Headspace is on sale right now for just $42. The typical price is $70, so this represents a savings of 40 percent. It also breaks down to $3.50 per month. The sale is part of the app’s acknowledgement of Sleep Awareness Week, which is a thing that’s going on right now.

A subscription to Headspace gets you access to the app’s entire library of meditations, sleep sounds, yoga routines and fitness content. It also delivers curated meditations and inspirational videos each day.

Headspace topped our list of the best meditation apps, and with good reason. We loved how the meditation courses are organized, as each one builds on top of skills learned in the previous session. Each course also offers a variety of instructors, just in case you grow fond of a particular person.

The integrated search engine makes it easy to find what you’re looking for and members even get access to tangential stuff like wellness podcasts. The app’s colors are calming and neutral, with an aesthetically pleasing design running throughout. It’s just a simple and well-made meditation app that’s perfect for both experts and newcomers.

There's a free trial of 14 days, but the promotion ends on March 18. That means you really only have a few days to check things out and make a decision. If you do end up purchasing the year, remember that the price shoots up to $70 when it runs out. Make sure to cancel ahead of time, unless you’re fine with paying full price.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-one-year-of-headspace-for-40-percent-off-170017814.html?src=rss

A steady stream (sorry) of expansions has helped keep the terrific PowerWash Simulator in the zeitgeist over the last couple of years, but developer FuturLab has been beavering away on a sequel as well. You won't have to wait too long for it either, as PowerWash Simulator 2 is slated to debut later this year.

The follow-up has a fresh campaign mode that picks up from where the first game left off, new locations to make scum-free, enhanced soap(!) and the option to customize your home base, which your friends can visit. Also new is the ability to share campaign progress when you play online with your buds. Best of all, there will be a two-player split-screen mode this time around. It's always great to have more couch co-op games to play.

The supremely relaxing and satisfying PowerWash Simulator was a surprise hit. FuturLab says more than 17 million players have adjusted their nozzles to spray away virtual grime in a wide variety of locations.

PowerWash Simulator 2 is set to hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in late 2025 (sidenote: have you cleaned your system lately?). More details will be revealed next month. 

Eurogamer reports that the game is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 as well, but no Nintendo platforms were mentioned in FuturLab's press release. The studio told Engadget that "Whilst we would like to release on Switch 2, there are no current firm plans. We have no timeframe or news there." That said, Nintendo plans to reveal much more about its new console on April 2, so perhaps we'll hear about a Switch 2 edition of PowerWash Simulator 2 then.

Meanwhile, there are no plans for a VR version this time, FuturLab told Eurogamer. The studio ended support for PowerWash Simulator VR in January, with CEO Kirsty Rigden saying that version was running at a loss. FuturLab reassigned members of its VR team to other roles.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/powerwash-simulator-2-will-arrive-later-this-year-164534571.html?src=rss