Category: Technology

Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack is exactly what it says on the tin: a portable battery that snaps to the back of an iPhone through Apple’s MagSafe magnetic charging tech and charges the handset wirelessly. The battery is a tougher sell at full price, but today it’s available for $71, which marks the lowest price we’ve seen to date. For reference, Apple typically sells the device for $99, though its average price online has sat closer to $90 in recent months.

The MagSafe Battery Pack works with any iPhone 12, 13, or 14 model, and using it is as simple as slapping it on the back of one of those devices and letting it do its thing. You don’t have to press any additional buttons to start the charge, unlike many third-party competitors. Design wise, it’s a slim, matte plastic rectangle that’s designed to match the dimensions of an iPhone 12 or 13 mini, so it’ll fit entirely within the back of a larger device like the iPhone 14 Pro Max. 

Because this is an Apple-made product, it’s also able to integrate with an iPhone in ways competing MagSafe batteries can not. You can see the pack’s charge level through iOS’s Control Center and Batteries widget, for instance, and you can reverse-charge the battery itself from your iPhone when the latter is plugged in. By default, the pack will only charge your phone to around 90 percent to better preserve its efficiency, though you can turn that off if you wish.

If you have a 20W or higher charger and a USB-C to Lightning cable, you can also turn the MagSafe Battery Pack into a 15W wireless charging puck, which gives it a bit of utility when you aren’t out of the house. Unfortunately, and perhaps expectedly, Apple doesn’t include a cable or power brick in the box, but that’s less of a problem if you already own both of those for your iPhone. (If you don’t, our guide to the best fast chargers may be of interest.) 

When it comes to actually charging your iPhone, the MagSafe Battery Pack is a bit more compromised. Part of that is just due to the nature of wireless charging; the tech has improved over the years, but if you want the fastest charge possible, a cable with a traditional battery pack can still be much quicker to top things off. But the capacity of the MagSafe Battery Pack itself is fairly small at 1,460mAh (or 11.13Wh), so it can only charge a standard iPhone 14 to about 60-65 percent from zero. 

We’ve recommended Anker’s 622 Magnetic Battery as a good alternative to the MagSafe Battery Pack in the past; that one has a larger 5,000mAh (19.25Wh) capacity that can get closer to an 80-85 percent charge on the same phone. It also costs less than Apple’s pack even with the latter on sale, has a built-in kickstand, and comes in a wider variety of colors. (The MagSafe Battery Pack is only available in white.) It’s not designed as neatly for iPhones and lacks the extras noted above, but it’s a better value if you just want more juice from a compact MagSafe pack. Anker’s 633 Magnetic Battery, meanwhile, has an even greater capacity, albeit in a thicker frame.

Still, since their charging abilities are all somewhat limited, MagSafe packs like these are best thought of as battery extenders, things can use to keep your phone going in a pinch, more than full-on power banks. For that, the MagSafe Battery Pack is fine, particularly since Apple released a firmware update earlier this year that boosted the device’s charging rate from 5W to 7.5W, which is still slower than an optimal wired connection but matches the Anker models above. If you can live with the lesser capacity and know you’ll value some of its more iPhone-friendly features, it should be easier to justify at this deal price.

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My first “adult” TV was a 200-pound CRT monstrosity that lived inside an even more monstrous, 300-pound cabinet with doors. After that, I upgraded to a monitor-and-laptop setup that stowed in the hidey compartment of my coffee table. The thing is, I loathe black mirrors; the blank void that stares out when a TV is off creeps me out. (I blame The Ring.) I decided all screens had to stay hidden if I wasn’t actively watching them and just avoided a wall-mounted TV altogether – until the market came up with one that looks like art when it’s off.

Samsung’s The Frame came out in 2017. I bought a 43-inch model back in 2019 and have been a big fan ever since. On the inside, it’s a thoroughly serviceable smart TV with a QLED panel and Samsung’s Tizen OS (which the company just licensed for use with non-Samsung TVs). The picture is bright, the sound is clear, and Tizen is easy to figure out – but I forked over $800 for the namesake feature.

The Frame does a great job of looking like art hanging on my wall. The thin panel has picture-frame edges and mounts flat against the wall, like a giant photo. The panel connects via a thin wire to an external receiver/port hub/tuner box combo, which means you can actually drop the wire behind the drywall and have it pop out elsewhere, furthering the illusion that there’s nothing electronic going on here. The brick walls of my old house aren’t letting that happen, so I hide the wire behind a plant.

As for the effect, I’ve had people come over who asked me whether we had a TV at all, standing just a couple feet from The Frame. It’s fun to turn it on and witness their total surprise. I will say I’m jealous of the latest models, which have an anti-reflective matte finish that I wish my older model had. I think it enhances the effect.

The Frame’s elegant hardware is a perk, but the other important factor in the art-not-TV illusion comes from Samsung’s Art Store, an $8 monthly subscription that grants access to a ton of art to display. There are collections from the Louvre (though picking a Vermeer to hang on your wall might stretch credulity) as well as the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, Etsy, Life Picture Collection, Saatchi Art, van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, BBC Earth, Magnum photos and lots more. I tend to go with abstracts and modern photography, and my kid likes the illustrations and wildlife photos.

But if you (understandably) have subscription fatigue from the 25 different services you pay for and don’t want to add another to the list, the included “Samsung collection” offers 10 artworks for free. You can also use your own images if you prefer (just make sure they’re large format or they’ll look pixelated). Personally, I’ve never tried using my own images; I leave art to the professionals.

I like to swap out the image a couple times a month, and can easily kill an hour picking the next piece of art to grace my walls. There’s an option that’ll rotate through all images in a collection, automatically switching at regular intervals, from every 10 minutes to once a week. I firmly believe adding a mat to the image makes it look more real. After you pick the image you want to display, you have the option of selecting no mat, a modern mat or a shadowbox mat. Both mats come in ten different colors, but I’ve never found anything that beats the antique white color in the modern mat option.

Considering the Frame is technically always-on, you may have reservations about the TV’s energy usage. In art mode, Samsung says a 65-inch Frame consumes about 50 watts of power. I’ve personally made a series of changes in life – downsizing square footage, trading a car for an e-bike, cutting out meat, etc. – to ease my carbon footprint, and I allow myself this minor indulgence. But if that aspect weighs on you, you could even consider the same carbon offsets people buy when they fly.

Plus, there are a couple of features that make sure the Frame isn’t always on. With Night Mode, the TV shuts itself off when the lights go out. Then in the morning, after sensing light again, it turns the art back on. You can also set it to detect when there’s motion in the room, turning off when no one’s around. When I tried this, my model kept turning off and never sensing motion again, despite me doing jumping jacks right in front of it, so I opted to disable that feature. The same sensors that detect darkness and (theoretically) movement also adjust the brightness of the image, so it never looks too intense, a trait that keeps things looking more like a framed oil painting and less like a TV. Which, for me, is the whole point.

 

Microsoft hasn’t been shy about wanting to improve the repairability of Surface devices, and that now includes the availability of spare parts. In a statement to iFixit, Microsoft says it plans “broad availability” of parts for individuals and independent repair shops in the first half of 2023. You can also expect complete repair manuals for the Surface Pro 9 by the end of this year. A wider repair network will be available in early 2023 with the help of a “major US retailer.”

That improved stance is reflected in the company’s latest designs. Microsoft says repairability was a “major focus” in the Surface Pro 9’s construction, and iFixit has confirmed as much in its independently run teardown of the Windows tablet. The user-accessible SSD is just the start. The battery is screwed in rather than glued, and the display is easier to remove when you’re digging into the internals. This is the “most repairable” Surface yet, according to iFixit, and a sharp contrast with the notoriously difficult-to-fix builds of the past.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has made nods toward do-it-yourself repair. The Surface Laptop 3 was easier to open, and even the extra-slim Surface Pro X had a user-replaceable SSD. iFixit also warns that it can’t truly judge the Surface Pro 9’s repairability until the manuals and parts are available. The RAM is still soldered on, too, even if it might offer added performance and energy savings as a result. This is a large step in the right direction, but not the definitive solution.

As with similar efforts by Apple, Google, Samsung and others, Microsoft isn’t acting strictly out of kindness. The tech industry is facing pressure from federal and state governments to improve repairability, including through “Right to Repair” legislation that requires access to components, documents and diagnostics. If Microsoft didn’t make the Surface lineup easier to fix on its own, governments might have stepped in.

 

Twitter isn’t the only notable tech company to bandy around the word “bankruptcy” this week. After a stunningly rapid collapse, crypto exchange FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, while founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

The bankruptcy filing covers FTX Trading, FTX US, Alameda Research and around 130 other companies under the umbrella of the FTX Group, according to a press release. Some others, such as FTX Australia and FTX Express Pay, are not involved in the bankruptcy proceedings. Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean that a company is dead in the water — it allows a business to keep trading while it figures out a plan to pay back creditors. However, it’s a tough position to come back from.

“The immediate relief of Chapter 11 is to provide the FTX Group the opportunity to assess its situation and develop a process to maximize recoveries for stakeholders,” new CEO John J. Ray III (a former Enron chairman who came in to oversee that company’s liquidation) said in a statement. “The FTX Group has valuable assets that can only be administered in an organized, joint process. I want to [assure] every employee, customer, creditor, contract party, stockholder, investor, governmental authority and other stakeholder that we are going to conduct this effort with diligence, thoroughness and transparency.” Ray suggested that stakeholders should remain patient, noting that “events have been fast-moving and the new team is engaged only recently.”

The company swiftly found itself in dire straits after the price of its native FTT token nosedived and many users withdrew their cryptocurrency. Following reports that FTX was facing a liquidity crisis, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of rival crypto giant Binance, said his company would sell off around $529 million worth of FTT. That all but wiped out the token’s value.

Binance then agreed to bail out FTX by taking over the company. However, it backed out of the deal a day later, citing concerns that emerged while conducting due diligence. Bankman-Fried went on to apologize for the mess and said on Thursday he was doing everything he could to raise funds and do “right by users.” He stepped down just a day later. 

“This doesn’t necessarily have to mean the end for the companies or their ability to provide value and funds to their customers chiefly, and can be consistent with other routes,” Bankman-Fried wrote on Twitter after the bankruptcy filing. “I’m going to work on giving clarity on where things are in terms of user recovery ASAP.” Bankman-Fried added that he will soon publish a more complete, play-by-play account of what happened to FTX.

Meanwhile, reports have suggested that the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating FTX. It’s not clear when the DOJ started looking into the company’s dealings, but the SEC’s investigation has reportedly been ongoing for several months.

 

If you’ve been waiting for the holiday shopping season to grow your smart home ecosystem without dropping unnecessary amounts of money, you’re in luck. Ahead of Black Friday, Amazon has already knocked down the price of the standard Ring Video Doorbell to $60. That’s $15 cheaper than it was during Prime Day in July earlier this year and the best price we’ve seen it. There are a couple of compelling bundles you could get, too: pair the Video Doorbell with an Echo Show 5 for only $10 more, or get it with a battery-operated Ring Stick Up Camera for a total of $160.

While Ring has come out with multiple new versions of its signature doorbell, the standard model likely has everything most people would need from such a smart home device. It records 1080p video and will send alerts to your smartphone when it detects motion outside your door. It also supports two-way audio, so you can talk to visitors, delivery drivers and others when they ring the bell. This updated version of the original video doorbell has crisper night vision, along with support for privacy zones.

Installing the video doorbell is pretty easy, and you have two power options: hardwire the device to your home for constant power, or keep it running using the built-in rechargeable battery. Just keep in mind that the battery in this model isn’t removeable, so you’ll need to take the whole device off its perch to power it up every once in a while. If that seems like a hassle to you, you’ll have to spring for either the Video Doorbell 3 or Video Doorbell 4 to get a detachable battery. You’ll also get advanced features like 5GHz WiFi and an included corner kit with both of those, too.

Both another thing all Ring Video Doorbells have in common is the ability to sync with Alexa devices. If you have an Echo Show device in your home, or even a more advanced Fire TV streamer, you can use those displays or your TV to check your doorbell’s camera feed.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

Google’s Nest Learning Thermostat is broadly regarded as one of the best smart thermostats you can buy, and right now Wellbots is running a sale that brings the device down to $179 when you use the code THERMOENG at checkout. That isn’t the absolute best price we’ve tracked; this third-generation model launched in 2015, and it’s fallen as low as $140 in the seven years since. But this is still a bit lower than most deal prices we see, coming in $70 under Google’s MSRP and about $35 below the device’s average street price in recent months.

Buy Nest Learning Thermostat at Wellbots – $179

Smart thermostats in general can still be a worthwhile investment for those who want to manage their home’s temperature remotely or cut down on their energy usage (usually). The Nest Learning Thermostat makes doing that relatively straightforward, as it’s able to gradually learn your heating and cooling preferences over a typical day, then automate future climate adjustments for your home with minimal input. It’s still easy enough to make changes manually through Nest’s app, but the device is usually able to create an accurate automatic heating or cooling schedule after a week or so of use. It can also use built-in sensors and your phone to tell when nobody is home, then set temperatures to an appropriate energy-saving range until someone returns. Helpfully, it’ll give a visual indicator whenever it’s set in that range.

If your place has distinct cool or hot spots, or if you prefer to keep certain rooms at specific temperatures, you can also pair the Learning Thermostat with optional temperature sensors to more granularly balance the climate throughout your home. Provided your heating and cooling system is compatible, actually setting up the Learning Thermostat is largely straightforward, and the hardware itself still looks rather clean, with a well-sized display and smooth steel adjustment dial.

The Learning Thermostat is still on the expensive side even with this discount, so it’s worth noting that Google still sells a lower-end model called the Nest Thermostat for $130. That one has similar energy-saving and HVAC monitoring features, though it can’t learn your temperature habits or work with remote sensors, and it has a cheaper-feeling frame based on touch controls. 

The newest high-end thermostats from Ecobee, meanwhile, look to be worthy alternatives if you need support for more smart home platforms (including Apple’s HomeKit) or smarter remote sensors that don’t have to be programmed individually, a la Nest’s. They also have built-in smart speakers. The platform support may be particularly relevant given that Google hasn’t committed to the Learning Thermostat supporting the recently launched Matter smart home standard, which is intended to make smart home devices universally compatible. (The cheaper Nest Thermostat will support this, however.) Still, the Learning Thermostat is the better way to go if you want a more “set-and-forget” option, and at this deal price it’s a fine value.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

While not everyone’s convinced that AI art is actual art, the generators used to whip them up are likely here to stay. DeviantArt is now getting into the space with a generator of its own called DreamUp, promising “safe and fair” generation for creators. The website says one of artists’ main concerns about AI art is that their work may be used to train artificial intelligence models, which means the generator could spit out pieces in their style without their consent. In an attempt to give artists control over their work, DeviantArt is giving them the ability to choose whether or not the tool can use their style for direct inspiration. 

Further, the website is giving them the power to declare whether or not to allow their work to be used in datasets used to train third-party AI models. If they choose not to be included in those datasets, their content pages’ HTML files will contain a “noimageai” directive. Also a “noai” directive protects their artwork when media files are directly downloaded from DeviantArt’s servers. 

“DeviantArt encourages other creator platforms to adopt this approach in order to ensure artists remain able to share their work with online audiences while retaining control over non-human usage,” the website wrote in its announcement. 

Those directives, of course, won’t be added to their pages’ HTML files if they’re cool with their work being used to train AI models. And if they choose to allow DreamUp to use their style as a direct inspiration, they will be “clearly credited” on the output when it’s published on DeviantArt. The website has anticipated that some users wouldn’t be happy seeing even more AI art, though, especially since Midjourney-generated pieces are already a very common sight on the platform. That’s why all DreamUp submissions will be automatically tagged as #AIArt, and users will be able to choose to see or to hide posts under the topic. 

DreamUp is now one of the perks for DeviantArt’s paid Core subscription plans, but all users can sample the tool with up to five free prompts. 

 

To me, cooking nirvana is when you have a recipe in mind, your mise en place all set, and you can focus on getting that perfect sear or saute. But before you get there, having the right equipment for the job goes a really long way. So for the adventurous cook in your life, here are some of our favorite kitchen gadgets that would make excellent gifts this holiday season.

KitchenAid Cordless Variable Speed Hand Blender

While KitchenAid’s cordless hand blender isn’t as powerful as some of its wired rivals or countertop models, what it lacks in oomph it makes up for with convenience. There are no speed dials to adjust, just squeeze harder on the trigger to make it go faster. Meanwhile, the lack of wires gives you one less thing to worry about when you’re making sauces or smoothies (especially if you’re doing it on the stovetop). And with a battery life that can blend up to 25 bowls of soup on a single charge, your loved one will probably run out of energy before this thing does. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Reporter

Buy KitchenAid hand blender at Amazon – $100

Kyocera Ceramic kitchen knife

Everyone has their preference when it comes to cutting tools, but I think everyone could use a ceramic knife in their arsenal. Starting at under $50, they’re relatively affordable. But more importantly, they are much sharper,hold an edge up to 10 times longer and are lighter than traditional steel blades. That makes them less tiring to use, and you don’t ever have to worry about them rusting either. Just remember, ceramic is more brittle than metal, so tell your giftee to stick to slicing fruits, veggies and boneless meats – leave hacking through bones to other knives. — S.R.

Buy Kyocera knife at Amazon – $60

Mise En Non-stick pans

After being disappointed with a bunch of non-stick pans from big names like All-Clad to smaller brands plastered across social media, I went on a quest to find something I could trust. And after trying out Mise En’s options, I found a winner. Not only are Mise En’s pans significantly cheaper than premium legacy brands, but I’ve also found they maintain their non-stick coating (which is also PFOA-free) much better over time. So if you know someone who would appreciate a good, affordable no-nonsense pan for cooking eggs, crepes or anything else that can get a little gummy, look no further. — S.R.

Buy Mise En pan at Amazon – $81

Instant Vortex Plus air fryer

Air fryers might seem like just a fad. After all, they’re just compact convection ovens, right? That’s true, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work. In our experience, pod-shaped air fryers are able to produce crispier foods than their convection oven counterparts and they’re much easier to clean too. If you have someone in your life who loves the idea of “frying” foods without the oily mess, an air fryer could potentially be a fantastic gift.

Our favorite air fryer is the 6-quart Instant Vortex Plus with ClearCook and OdorErase. It has a display window so your giftee can check how the food looks. It also uses odor-eliminating filters that help reduce cooking smells – a feature that many air fryers lack. The six-quart size in particular is what we recommend; it’s large enough to fit four large chicken thighs or a whole pound of wings. The basket internals are nonstick so it’s easy to clean, plus the inner rack is dishwasher safe. — Nicole Lee, Commerce Writer

Buy Instant Vortex Plus at Amazon – $133

Hedley & Bennett Essential apron

Any home cook will tell you cooking is a messy affair. No matter how neat and tidy you think you are, you’ll inevitably encounter oil spitting at you as you’re frying potstickers or perhaps an accidental splash of tomato sauce as you mix in meatballs. If you have a loved one who cooks often enough, they’ll certainly appreciate an apron to avoid getting any of that mess on their clothes. Hedley & Bennett makes perhaps the best commercially-available apron on the market. The Essential Apron is made from 100 percent cotton twill fabric that’s durable enough to withstand frequent use, and it comes with pockets – one breast pocket for a perhaps pen or a clip-on timer and two large front pockets big enough for a phone or a small tablet each. These aprons are also sold in a wide variety of colors and patterns, so you’re sure to find at least one that’ll fit your loved ones’ taste. — N.L.

Shop Hedley & Bennet aprons

Anova Precision Cooker

An immersion circulator (aka a sous vide machine) isn’t for everyone. But it can do things that no other gadget can. It can take the guesswork out of nailing the temp on a steak before finishing it off with a quick sear in a cast iron skillet. A sous vide machine can also create the perfect jammy center on a soft-boiled ramen egg or simply add a range of aromatics to various types of meat while they cook. This is the kind of thing that a lot of home cooks dream about but can’t quite justify buying, which is precisely what makes it a perfect gift. — S.R.

Buy Anova Precision Cooker at Amazon – $219

Microplane classic grater

A good grater is a must-have in the kitchen, and just like Band-Aid is to adhesive bandages and Kleenex is to tissues, Microplane has become synonymous when it comes to zesting and grating. The classic model comes with a no-slip plastic handle and an included protective cover and it can handle anything from parmesan cheese to garlic to nutmeg. And priced at $16, it’s an ideal kitchen gadget gift even if you don’t have a ton to spend. — S.R.

Buy microplane at Amazon – $16

ThermoWorks ThermoPop

There’s no shortage of instant-read thermometers out there, but ThermoWorks’ ThermoPop has been a staple in my kitchen for a long time. Yes, it’s cute, but that’s only one reason to buy it over others. I like that it’s quite accurate and provides temperature readings in just a couple of seconds, plus it’s splash resistant and pretty easy to clean. It also has a screen that you can rotate to show you the temperature in different orientations, making it easy to use in all kinds of positions. Plus, you can’t beat its $35 price tag, which is a steal for an accurate thermometer like this that also has an attractive, pocketable design. If you want the latest and great, spring for the ThermoPop 2 that just came out, which is even more accurate than the previous generation, faster and can read temperatures up to 572 degrees Fahrenheit. — Valentina Palladino, Senior Commerce Editor

Buy ThermoPop 2 at ThermoWorks – $35

John Boos cutting board

Anyone who has watched even a handful of cooking shows or videos has probably seen this cutting board in the background. And the reason is that they’re just great products that deliver everything you need and nothing more. Boos blocks are available in a huge range of shapes, sizes and woods, from small circular boards to huge maple slabs with juice grooves. That said, if you’re planning on gifting a cutting board this nice, don’t forget to include proper care instructions, which at the very minimum include oiling it once a month. — S.R.

Buy Boos board at Amazon – $95

The Good Shears by Material

Everyone needs a good pair of scissors, and it doesn’t hurt if they look good too. The Good Shears sport soft silicone handles and sharp micro-serrated blades that should make quick work of anything short of beef bones. And unlike a lot of cheaper competitors, the Good Shears are dishwasher safe and can be taken apart for sharpening or cleaning. — S.R.

Buy Good Shears at Material – $35

Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker

Those who eat rice regularly know that rice cookers are a much easier way to prepare the popular grain than using the stovetop alone, especially if you’re cooking for a crowd. Our favorite model is the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy thanks to its “fuzzy logic” tech (yes, that’s a technical term), which ensures perfectly cooked rice even if your water and rice measurements aren’t exact. It has settings for different sorts of rice: white, mixed, porridge, sweet, semi-brown, brown, rinse-free and quick-cooking. Other features include a timer and a keep-warm setting. The Zojirushi rice cooker also makes fantastic polenta, not to mention oatmeal from steel-cut oats.

There’s also an updated (and pricier) option called the Zojirushi Induction Heating System Rice Cooker. In addition to the fuzzy logic tech mentioned above, it features an induction heating tech that heats the inner cooking pan. According to the company, this allows the device to make precise temperature adjustments to cook exceptional rice. This also means the food will heat evenly, as the bottom, side and lid will all generate heat. — N.L.

Buy Zojirushi rice cooker at Amazon – $231

Vitamix Low-Profile blender

The Vitamix 5200 is often cited as the premium blender of choice among experienced cooks and professional chefs. But the default 64-ounce container is often much too tall to fit under most cabinets. Enter the Vitamix Low-Profile blender, which still has a 64-ounce container but has a much shorter stature so it easily fits in most kitchens. Aside from looks, it’s just as capable and powerful as the original. It can crush ice, make quick work out of frozen fruit and tough vegetables and puree soups with ease. — N.L.

Buy Vitamix Low-Profile blender at Amazon – $375

OXO Good Grips Precision scale

A good kitchen scale is an essential kitchen gadget, especially in times when loose volumetric measurements just don’t cut it (like baking). Not only does OXO’s Precision Scale support both metric and imperial measurements, it also features accurate 0.1-gram measurements that go up to six pounds. There’s also an easy-to-read digital display with a built-in timer, and its minimalist design will look good in practically anyone’s kitchen. — S.R.

Buy OXO scale at Amazon – $55

Sodastream Terra

Admittedly, this might not strictly be a gift for a cook, but it’s definitely handy to have around the kitchen and great for creating a custom sodas or cocktails. The Soda Stream Terra, is the company’s most affordable sparkling water maker. For just $100, the starter kit includes the device itself, a reusable 1L bottle and a CO2 cylinder. You can also spring for the $130 hydration pack if you’re shopping for an avid cocktail maker or seltzer addict. That tacks on two more 1L bottles, two 0.5 liter dishwasher-safe bottles and 40ml lemon flavor drops. The whole setup is super easy to use too, and doesn’t even need to be plugged in. Just attach the CO2 tank, fill up the bottle with water and then tap to add bubbles. From there your giftee can mix and match flavor packs to suit their taste while also cutting down on waste from packaging and transporting heavy cans or bottles. — S.R.

Buy Terra at Sodastream – $120

ButcherBox Favorites

If you have a meat lover in your life, ButcherBox’s Favorites is quite possibly the best gift they’ll ever get. Each shipment will have all of the company’s bestsellers lovingly vacuum-packed and frozen for their enjoyment. The contents include two pounds of ground beef, four eight-ounce boneless pork chops, three one-pound packs of boneless chicken breasts, two six-ounce filet mignons, one pound of sirloin tips, a 12-ounce pack of apple gouda sausage and a 10-ounce pack of bacon. That’s more than enough to keep them satisfied for at least a month, perhaps even longer. At least, if they don’t gorge it all in one go. — N.L.

Buy favorites box at ButcherBox – $159

 

Remedy has yet to show its co-op Control spinoff, but that isn’t stopping the developer from unveiling a true follow-up. The company and its publisher 505 Games have announced joint development of Control 2 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. This isn’t exactly a shock when the two teased a “bigger-budget” title (now known to be the sequel) last year, but it’s good news for anyone who misses exploring the Oldest House.

The creators haven’t shared any details of the plot, game mechanics or release date. Even the teaser image shares little besides what’s likely a Control Point. Control 2 will still use Remedy’s Northlight engine, however, and that budget is a sizeable $51.5 million. Work is still in the “concept stage,” Remedy says.

The commitment to a sequel makes sense given the performance of the original, and despite the lack of news about the spinoff. Control has sold 3 million copies since its 2019 debut, and 1 million of those reached gamers’ hands since June of last year. The third-person action game has also received critical praise that includes 20 “game of the year” awards. Simply speaking, the franchise already has enduring success — Remedy and 505 are just capitalizing on that sizeable fan base.

 

Magic Leap’s glasses were supposed to lead us into the augmented reality era, a world beyond screens where we could interact with digital objects as if they were standing right next to us. Too bad they failed spectacularly. By early 2020, the company had raised nearly $2 billion. But aside from a few flashy demos and wild art projects, there wasn’t much of a reason for anyone to buy a $2,295 headset (it reportedly only sold around 6,000 units). Like Google Glass before it, Magic Leap felt like a false start for AR, a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.

But the company isn’t dead yet. With a new CEO onboard — former Microsoft executive Peggy Johnson — it’s aiming for something far more practical: AR for the enterprise. That may seem like a retread of the HoloLens playbook, which has focused on business customers for years, but Magic Leap has a shot at giving Microsoft some serious competition with its second-generation AR glasses.

The $3,299 Magic Leap 2 (ML2), which launched in September, is easier to wear, far more powerful and it offers a dramatically larger (and taller) AR field of view than any headset we’ve seen before. It has the unique ability to dim its display, allowing you to block out light and focus more on virtual objects. And it should be easier for developers to work with, thanks to a new Android-based OS. While it’s still unclear if the company’s new business plan will pay off, ML2 is still a significant achievement, especially now that Meta is also pushing into similar AR-like territory with the $1,500 Quest Pro.

“It’s been a long struggle,” Magic Leap SVP and head of hardware Kevin Curtis said in an interview with Engadget. “When we came out of ML1, we learned a tremendous amount… Not just technically, but also from a market point of view. So that really was used to set the goals for ML2.”

Some of those goals seemed impossible at the time. The company wanted to double the field of view (FOV) — the amount of screen area where you can actually see AR objects — as well cut the device’s volume in half. Those moves would make its sequel headset even more immersive, while also being more comfortable for extended wear. According to Curtis, bumping up the field of view from 50 degrees to 70 degrees with ML1’s projector and eyepiece technology would have required wearing something as large as an open hand. That’s not exactly doable all day.

Magic Leap spent years exploring existing forms of projection, including laser-scan based systems, uLED arrays and LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon), but found them all lacking. Instead, it developed its own custom architecture, which uses LCoS together with LED RGB light modules and a complex system of concentrators and polarizers to bring images to your eyes. That works together with a new eyepiece design to achieve its lofty 70 degree field of view.

But what does that actually mean? The Magic Leap 1 headset featured a FOV of 50 degrees, which made it seem as if you were viewing AR through a car’s cramped rear window. (That was comparable to HoloLens 2’s 52 degrees of viewing.) With Magic Leap 2, the company hit a 70 degree FOV by increasing the vertical viewing area, allowing you to see taller objects without moving your head up and down. During my brief demo, it felt more like standing in front of an open doorway.

That’s more akin to how you view things in real life, according to Curtis, and it goes a long way towards convincing you the AR objects you’re seeing are real. I’ve tried a wide variety of headsets over the years (including the defunct entry from the startup Meta, which existed long before Facebook’s name change), and the Magic Leap 2 is the first one that’s delivered a genuine sense of presence. Whether I was viewing a large piece of medical equipment, or an expansive 3D model of downtown San Diego, I had to try hard to see the edges. It was almost aggressively immersive.

The new projection technology also helped Magic Leap achieve its goal of reducing ML2’s volume by more than half, leading to a 20 percent weight drop (it clocks in at just 260 grams, slightly more than half a pound). The result is a pair of AR glasses that feel more like, well, glasses. While the original headset looked like a pair of enormous ski goggles, ML2 has flatter lenses and slimmer arms, making you seem less like a bug-eyed dork and more like an engineer or surgeon gearing up for a big project. (It’s no wonder Magic Leap gave health startups a headstart with access to its new hardware and software.)

All of this custom development will also help Magic Leap deliver better headsets down the line. The company claims its eventual Magic Leap 3 glasses, which have no release date yet, will lose another 50 percent in volume and deliver a larger field of view. The technology can potentially be scaled beyond 80 degrees, allowing you to view a building-sized object unencumbered by any AR boundaries.

As I started demoing the Magic Leap 2 in a brightly lit hotel meeting room, it was mostly what I expected: A more comfortable and higher quality version of its predecessor. But at one point, I hit a button and the screen started to go dark, as if a shadowy cloud was blotting out the sickly fluorescent lights above me. I had flipped on the headset’s global dimmer, which darkens the real world to better highlight virtual objects. The result is an almost VR-like experience. The virtual map I was viewing, which showed how first responders were dealing with wildfires in Colorado, all of a sudden looked sharper and more colorful. I wasn’t distracted by the boring meeting desk in front of me, or the occasional bystander walking by.

Every AR solution adds light, Curtis explained, what’s unique about ML2 is that it’s able to add the color black. The dimmer module is another display that sits in front of the headset’s eyepiece, allowing it to reduce light across the entire screen, or into specific areas, by a factor of 100. That’ll let you use ML2 in brightly lit rooms, or even outside on a sunny day, without making the AR images seem washed out. Developers can also use the dimmer to add shadows to their objects, giving you an added layer of depth in AR.

As Magic Leap was working on making AR more VR-like, Meta was also doubling down on bringing the real world into VR with the Quest Pro. Thanks to new cameras and upgraded hardware, Meta is pitching that headset as a way to bring VR elements into your typical workflow (just imagine viewing VR windows dancing above your laptop’s screen). Based on my time with the Quest Pro so far, that’s not something I’d actually want much of. The cameras just aren’t good enough yet. But it’s funny to see Meta tackling a similar problem as Magic Leap from another angle. Somewhere between these two headsets is the ideal balance between the immersion of VR, and the real world integration of AR.

I was so distracted by Magic Leap 2’s expanded field of view and dimming capabilities, I barely noticed that its controller felt more ergonomic. And I didn’t think much of the headset’s computing pack, which can now be worn across your body like a messenger bag. Naturally, it has faster hardware inside (specifically, a quad-core AMD Zen 2 processor and RDNA 2 graphics). But my main takeaway, after years of AR and VR testing, and the seemingly endless drumbeat of metaverse hype from an increasingly desperate Mark Zuckerberg, is that it’s nice to be genuinely surprised by a new headset.

But of course, tech alone won’t make a successful product. Magic Leap isn’t targeting ML2 towards consumers at all, instead it’s being pitched to doctors who may want a bit of AR assistance during surgery, or engineers who would like to pull up schematics when they’re standing in front of complex machinery.

“I think it’s improved a lot, [Magic Leap is a] different company,” said Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Diez, when I asked about the state of Magic Leap today. Amid dismal sales of its first headset, and increasingly dire financials, founder and CEO Rony Abovitz left in 2020. But now, thanks to more than $1 billion in additional funding and a new leader in Peggy Johnson, it has another shot at the AR market.

At the very least, it’s clear the metaverse isn’t a problem Meta can solve on its own. Magic Leap is one of the few established competitors out there, making it a company that’s still worth watching. And if the enterprise play doesn’t work out, there’s a chance a large company like Google (one of its original investors) may have some use for all of this AR tech.