Category: Technology

The latest iteration of Meta’s smart glasses has arrived and, as rumored, they are more customizable, particularly for people who need prescription lenses. Meta and Ray-Ban parent company EssilorLuxottica revealed two new styles of frames: the Ray-Ban Meta Blayzer Optics and Scriber Optics, which will start at $499 a pair. 

The latest glasses are still considered to be part of the “Gen 2” Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but they do come with a few upgrades that make it easier to get a personalized fit. According to EssilorLuxottica, both styles have somewhat slimmer frames, swappable nosepads and adjustable temple tips so wearers can get a better fit. And, as the “optics” branding implies, the new frame styles are also compatible with a wider variety of prescription lenses, including progressive lenses and transition lenses. 

The Blayzer style frames are more square, similar to the existing Wayfarer glasses, while the Scriber version is a little more rounded, like the “Headliner” style frames. Both come in a variety of colors including some translucent styles and are available now for pre-order on Meta’s website and will be on sale April 14. The “optics” lineup will also be sold at more physical retail stores, including LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Salmoiraghi & Viganò, Apollo, Grand Vision Optical, Vision Express and other locations that are part of EssilorLuxottica’s distribution network.

The round, “Scriber” frames.

The new lineup of glasses is also more expensive, with a starting price of $499, compared with Meta’s standard Wayfarer Gen 2 model, which starts at $379. That price doesn’t include prescription lenses either, which can easily run $200-$300 or more, depending on your setup. 

One benefit of that investment, though, is that Meta has consistently added new features to its smart glasses. And with the latest frames, the company is bringing some additional capabilities to all users. These include new translation support for Japanese, Mandarin and Arabic; as well as Meta AI-enabled food and nutrition tracking. Meta AI can also summarize longer message threads rather than simply reciting a long string of messages in a given chat.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/the-latest-ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-are-more-customizable-and-expensive-130000553.html?src=rss 

We’ve written about the Swiss company Proton’s moves to take on Google and Microsoft with an expanding variety of privacy-focused internet services, and the company is announcing yet another new tool today. Proton Meet, as the name suggests, is a video-calling service that sounds comparable to Zoom, Microsoft Teams and, naturally, Google Meet.

As with everything Proton does, Meet is end-to-end encrypted, but the company is taking extra steps towards security and anonymity here. You don’t need a Proton account to join a Meet call, which should help service gain traction — you can use Proton and not totally throw off everyone else who’s still using other systems. Proton says that Meet can be used anonymously and no logs are kept. The company even says that a Proton account isn’t needed to host a meeting. If you visit the Proton Meet site, you can start an anonymous call with up to four participants for free.

Proton says that anyone with an account (even a free one) can start Meet call with up to 50 participants for up to one hour, but it is also offering a dedicated Meet Professional plan for $8 a month with fewer restrictions (though we don’t have the specifics yet).

Meet joins the other core Proton tools including Mail, Calendar, VPN, Drive and a password manager. Drive in particular has gotten some notable upgrades recently — it offers collaborative documents and spreadsheets, just like Google. With the addition of Meet, Proton has most of the core services that Google offers covered. There’s even a little AI bot if that’s your thing.

Proton is using this launch as an opportunity to rebrand its services, gathering them all under the new Proton Workspace (another name pulled directly from Google’s offerings). In addition to the dedicated Meet Professional plan, Proton is offering Workplace Standard for $13 per month (billed annually) or $15 a month (billed monthly). That includes the aforementioned tools and 500GB of space by default. There’s also a Premium plan ($20/month annually or $25/month billed monthly) that adds more storage, access to the Lumo chatbot, expanded Meet participant limits and a few other tidbits.

The company says it’ll continue offering its other plans, including a Mail-only option that costs $36 a year as well as other bundles for an individual, two users or a whole family. But Proton is obviously looking to expand its business client base with Meet in addition to growing its user base (currently more than 100 million). Proton says it has about 100,000 enterprise customers, and adding a tool like Meet to its portfolio should make it easier to court companies as well as individuals.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/proton-adds-a-secure-video-conferencing-service-called-meet-to-its-toolbox-121729143.html?src=rss 

Shark just introduced a new product called the BlastBoss that’s basically a leaf blower rated for both indoor and outdoor use. This means it can actually be used to blow leaves around in the yard, but is also handy for tidying up debris in the house.

It offers adjustable airflow up to 190 mph, making it a “versatile solution for the garage, patio, car, inside the home and beyond.” I imagine this would also make it the bane of every dog and cat in the neighborhood.

It’s pretty light, at under 1.5 pounds, and cordless. The BlastBoss ships with several attachments, including an extension wand and precision nozzle for getting into tight spots like under appliances or between couch seams. The adjustable airflow means that the power can be dialed down for dusting and other less-intensive cleaning tasks.

It also comes with an attachment called the BlastBroom, which is exactly what it sounds like. This is a broom attachment that blows out air, which can be used to “loosen, lift and clear debris in one pass.” The company says this is “ideal for patios, garages and walkways.”

The BlastBoss is available to purchase right now and costs $150. It’s available in a bunch of different colors, which is a bit odd for a leaf blower but cool for those who like to accessorize.

Shark has been pumping out some pretty wild products lately. There’s a personal cooling device called the ChillPill and a skin-care gadget that performs aqua peels.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/the-shark-blastboss-is-a-leaf-blower-that-can-be-used-indoors-123011878.html?src=rss 

Screenshots promoting “Instagram Plus” have been spotted by users in the Philippines and Mexico in recent days. According to social media consultant Matt Navarra, a subscription to Instagram Plus includes several Story-focused features not otherwise available to Instagram users. This includes the ability to create multiple audiences for Stories posts, search the list of people who have viewed your Story, extend Stories longer than 24 hours and create “spotlight” Stories. It also mentions something called “super hearts” for reacting to Stories.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the test to Engadget, saying that Instagram Plus is currently available in “a few countries.” The spokesperson added that “preview” would allow people to see some of another user’s Story without “showing up as a viewer”. There’s nothing quite like paying to be sneakier on social media.

The idea, as we’ve seen so far, seems closely modeled after Snapchat+, which also offers bonus features to the app’s power users. Launched in 2022, the service has now become a significant driver of non-advertising revenue for the company.

– Mat Smith

The other big stories (and deals) this morning

This Frankenstein PlayStation PCB reads games from microSD and has HDMI output

How to use Apple’s Playlist Playground to make AI-generated mixes

Beat-based dungeon crawlers, card-battling soccer sims and other new indie games worth checking out

Project Hail Mary is already Amazon MGM’s highest-grossing film ever

50 years of Apple: Pushing tech forward (for better or worse)

RIP headphone jack.

Apple has been around for fifty years. It reimagined personal computers, catalyzed the era of the smartphone, enlarged an iPhone and called it the iPad and garnered a strong position in wearable tech through its Watch series and its AirPods. It also popularized software and services like its App Store, FaceTime, iCloud, iMessages and many more.

However, Apple gives and it takes away. For the MacBook Air to exist, the disk drive had to go; ditching the home button led to edge-to-edge iPhone screens. The weight of Apple’s influence has led to entire product categories following suit. Or, more typically, there’s resistance, complaining and (eventually) following suit.

Continue reading.

Meta’s next AI glasses are reportedly designed for prescription lenses

Bloomberg says this isn’t the next generation of Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses, though.

Two new models of Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses are on the wayand they’re going to be catered to those who use prescription lenses, according to a Bloomberg report. While these are supposed to be announced next week, the report noted that these won’t be a “new generation” of Meta’s smart glasses.

You can already add prescription lenses to Meta Ray-Ban’s AI glasses, so who cares? Well, the upcoming models will come in rectangular and rounded styles and will be sold through traditional prescription eyewear channels. It seems like a way to get Meta’s wearables in front of a new group of prospective customers.

Continue reading.

The White House app is just weird

When you don’t want to escape from the chaotic news cycle.

Now available on the App Store and Google Play Store, the official White House App claims to give Americans “a direct line to the White House.” According to the press release, the app provides “unfiltered, real-time upgrades straight from the source.” The White House App’s News tab features a carousel of about 35 articles that seem suspiciously cherry-picked, favoring the Trump administration. As Engadget’s Jackson Chen notes, in the Affordability window, the app points out year-over-year price drops for items like eggs, milk and bread, but conveniently omits the recent surge in gas prices.

In the Social tab, there’s even a button to “Text President Trump,” which auto-populates a new text with “Greatest President Ever!”

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-111408830.html?src=rss 

AT&T just announced OneConnect, a new service that lets customers sign up for both wireless service and fiber home internet under a single subscription. Pricing starts at $90. This could end up saving some serious bucks, especially for those who are paying around $100 per month for each from separate providers.

These plans offer unlimited mobile data, which is great. The home internet speed caps at 1Gbps, which is a decent enough metric.

Pricing starts at $90 per month, which includes a single phone line, unlimited data. This plan also covers mobile data for three devices of the user’s choosing, like smartwatches and tablets.

Family plans shoot all the way up to $225 per month, but the pricier subscriptions increase the number of covered mobile devices to ten and allow up to ten concurrent phone lines. This could be a huge money-saving opportunity for large families. 

The company hasn’t said anything about throttling users once they reach a certain cap on mobile data, which should please customers. This is similar to how T-Mobile handles its Magenta Max plan. Taxes and fees are included in the quoted prices, which means there shouldn’t be any surprises when the bill comes around.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/att-now-offers-a-single-subscription-for-both-wireless-service-and-home-internet-091501503.html?src=rss 

Your game collection says a lot about you. With a cute new game, you can also give your collection a space that’s just as personalized. BOXROOM is a building sim where the whole purpose is creating a space to show off your game library. You can select furniture, paint and lighting, then you choose games from your Steam library to display on your virtual shelves. Titles appear in game boxes, giving it a throwback feel to the days where a game collection had to be physical. Once complete, the room serves as a launcher, allowing you to boot up a title from the game box. The demo is available now, and the team said that BOXROOM will launch in early access soon. 

This is a fun idea, although it’s unlikely that you’d fit your entire collection into even this virtual space if your Steam library starts to number in the hundreds, or even thousands, of games. As with an IRL space, you’d need a warehouse rather than a cute, cozy room. But if you wanted to have a curated selection of your go-to titles in a customized virtual space, this might be a fun addition to your already sizable collection. Or, if you want a virtual reality take on a similar idea, EmuVR might be worth a look.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/boxroom-lets-you-build-a-cozy-game-room-for-your-steam-library-215349560.html?src=rss 

Another day, another announcement of game industry job cuts. The latest restructuring is happening at Eidos Montreal, which stated that 124 people are being laid off. As with so many similar cuts, the studio’s LinkedIn post credited the downsizing to “a result of changing project needs and impacts across production and support teams.” The company is also parting ways with its studio head, David Anfossi. 

Eidos Montreal has worked on titles within the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider franchises, as well as Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel’s Avengers games. It is one of the many companies owned by Embracer Group, which snapped up a bunch of studios but has been stuck in a downsizing in a loop following an expensive restructuring of its own gaming empire during 2023 and 2024. That activity reportedly included axing a planned new Deus Ex game that Eidos Montreal was working on.

The post from Eidos Montreal didn’t specify what projects it is currently active on, although it has said it is involved with the upcoming Grounded 2 from Obsidian Entertainment and the reimagined Fable from Playground Games.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/deus-ex-game-studio-eidos-montreal-cuts-124-jobs-205057796.html?src=rss 

We’re living in the golden age of retro console modding. If you have an old Game Boy Advance lying around, it’s possible to give it a new lease on life with aftermarket parts like an IPS display and USB-C charging. But as amazing as those mods are, most still require an original GBA motherboard with a working processor and RAM. That’s what makes the PlayStation Hybrid from YouTuber Secret Hobbyist so cool. Over the past couple of months, they’ve been working to design, prototype and build the ultimate PlayStation PCB, one that incorporates the best parts of different model revisions while adding a couple of modern conveniences. 

The specific motherboards Secret Hobbyist’s PCB pulls parts from are the PM-41 v2 and the PU18, with the former being a PSOne board while the latter was sourced from a “phat” model. The decision to incorporate parts from different PlayStation variants makes a lot of sense if you know something about the history of the console. Between the release of the PlayStation in 1994 and the smaller PSOne in 2000, Sony made multiple revisions to the original design to address hardware issues and eke out cost savings. 

One component that you can find on older models, but not the PSOne, is an Asahi Kasei-made digital-to-analog audio converter (DAC). Over the years, this DAC has gained something of a cult following among audiophiles, with some of the earliest models like the SCPH-1000 and SCPH-3000 being particularly sought after as CD players because they also came with RCA outputs, a feature Sony later cut from subsequent revisions. As for the PU18, it has a part that makes it compatible with the X Station, a CD replacement that allows a modded PlayStation to read games from a microSD card.   

From the PSOne, Secret Hobbyist sourced the console’s GPU and CPU, which are more power efficient than the ones found on its older siblings. Lastly, they incorporated an FPGA chip from a Hispeedido mod kit to make their hybrid PlayStation capable of outputting video over HDMI.

The final result is a custom PCB that is even smaller than the PSOne’s PM-41 v2, draws less than two watts of power and works with modern displays. That power draw means the Hybrid PlayStation could be engineered to be a handheld. Secret Hobbyist still has yet to design an enclosure for their new Frankenstein console, but judging from the comments on their video, people are excited to see the final result. In the meantime, be sure to watch the full video to learn more about the project and see some incredible soldering work.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/this-frankenstein-playstation-pcb-reads-games-from-microsd-and-outputs-video-over-hdmi-211002114.html?src=rss 

Meta is testing a new subscription service for Instagram that offers users “exclusive” features like the ability to post Stories for longer than 24 hours. Screenshots promoting “Instagram Plus” have been spotted by users in the Philippines and Mexico in recent days. 

According to screenshots shared by social media consultant Matt Navarra, a subscription to Instagram Plus comes with a number of Story-focused features not otherwise available to Instagram users. This includes the ability to create multiple “audiences” for Stories posts, see info about who has rewatched your Story, search the list of people who have viewed your Story, preview Stories posts, extend Stories longer than 24 hours and create  “spotlight” Stories. It also mentions something called “super hearts” for reacting to Stories.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the test to Engadget, saying that Instagram Plus is currently available in “a few countries,” but didn’t say which. A dedicated help page on Meta’s website says that this feature is not available to everyone right now.”  The spokesperson confirmed the feature list shown below, and added that “preview” would allow people to see some of another user’s Story without “showing up as a viewer” and that Stories posts could be extended for an additional 24 hours. “Our hope from these tests is to understand what’s most valuable to people in a premium feature set,” the spokesperson said.

A list of features that come with Instagram Plus subscriptions.

It seems that early versions of the service are priced fairly cheaply, with the prices in the Philippines landing at 65 PHP (about $1.07 in USD) a month and in Mexico at $39 MXN (about $2.15 in USD) a month. Meta is also offering prospective users a free one-month trial of the service.

The idea seems to be closely modeled after Snapchat+, which also offers bonus features to the app’s power users. Launched in 2022, the service has racked up more millions of subscribers and has become a significant driver of non-advertising revenue for the company.

Now, Meta is looking to boost its subscription revenue too. The company said earlier this year it would test new types of subscriptions, including those focused on AI features. Elsewhere, Meta has also been pushing its Meta Verified subscriptions more aggressively. Over the last several weeks, I’ve repeatedly seen promotions for discounted Meta Verified plans with an initial one-month trial starting at $1 (the cheapest Meta Verified plans typically start at $14.99/month). The company has also recently tested link-sharing features in Instagram captions for subscribers and limits on link-sharing on Facebook for non-subscribers. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-testing-an-instagram-plus-subscription-service-with-exclusive-features-181215180.html?src=rss