Category: Technology

ASUS is taking a stab at glasses-free 3D in 2023, starting with its new ProArt StudioBook laptop. It sports a 16-inch, 3.2K OLED panel that has the ability to flip into 3D at the touch of a button. This feature, which ASUS calls Spatial Vision, uses eye-tracking and a lenticular lens to deliver two separate images to your eyes. That lets you view things like 3D models and movies with the same amount of depth that you’d expect from a typical 3D screen with glasses.

Now this isn’t exactly new — Acer has been hyping up its SpatialLabs technology for years, which was most recently featured in a gaming notebook. ASUS appears to be following a similar path by focusing on professional users first. Aside from the ProArt StudioBook 16 3D OLED, Spatial Vision will also make its way to a slightly less premium VivoBook Pro mode, which will hopefully cost less. Pricing details aren’t available just yet, but you can expect to pay a great deal more than a typical 2D laptop.

Based on a brief demo with ASUS, Spatial Vision looked impressive on the StudioBook 16, though it took a few tries to get it working properly. It turns out ASUS’s eye-tracking technology couldn’t deal with a face mask easily, which makes me concerned about using this tech in a crowded office. Once I removed my mask though, I was able to view a variety of 3D models up close. When I moved my head side to side, the eye-tracking sensors rotated the models, almost as if they were physically in the room with me. I didn’t get to try out any 3D gaming with the StudioBook, but it’ll be interesting to see how shooters work with Spatial Vision.

Personally, I’m excited about the possibilities of glasses-free 3D while watching movies. I was able to see 3D cinema-like depth while viewing the trailer from Avatar: The Way of Water. It was a reminder that 3D can be more than a gimmick when done correctly. Unfortunately, Spatial Vision only supports one viewer at a time, but that’s true of every glasses-free 3D solution. It’s hard enough to track one person’s eyes to keep perspective — adding more people is exponentially more difficult.

Beyond its 3D capabilities, the ASUS ProArt StudioBook 16 3D OLED looks like a premium workhorse laptop. It’s powered by Intel’s new 13th-gen HX CPUs, as well as NVIDIA’s RTX 4000 graphics. It can fit up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 8TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and thankfully there are two user-replaceable slots for memory and storage. The ProArt’s OLED screen can also reach up to 120Hz, which makes it useful for late-night gaming together with its NVIDIA hardware.

Even though Spatial Vision looks cool, it’s still unclear if people actually want glasses-free 3D. I’ve talked to 3D artists who prefer having a VR headset nearby to fully explore their models, they don’t see much value in getting a bit of depth right on their screens. But I don’t blame ASUS, Acer and other companies for exploring the possibilities of this technology — when it works well, it looks absolutely magical.

Put away the Little Trees air freshener, Panasonic has a more advanced solution the next time you want to make your car smell its best. At this year’s CES, the company showed off a portable air purifier that can fit in the cupholder of nearly any car, and filter out odors and even some pathogenic viruses and bacteria. The device uses Panasonic’s Nanoe X technology, which employs hydroxyl radicals, a diatomic molecule that’s known to act as a “detergent” when it comes into contact with pollutants, to clean the air. Panasonic says it takes about two hours for the device to freshen up the cabin of a car, and it does so while only producing about 36 decibels of sound. All you need to do is plug the Nanoe X Portable Air Purifier plugs into one of your car’s USB ports.

Panasonic is not the first company to announce a portable in-car purifier, but with the exception of Philips, it’s not exactly a market crowded by big brands. The company also went out of its way to certify the Nanoe X Purifer with the California Air Resource Board (CARB). Panasonic did not announce pricing and availability information for the device. Expect those to arrive at a later date.

LG unwrapped its 2023 soundbars right after Christmas, but the company is showing the duo off here at CES. The SC9 and SE6 are both equipped with Dolby Atmos, but while the former is a more premium-level device, the SE6 is compact all-in-one unit more akin to Sonos’ Beam. We got out first look at both at CES along with some more info on each unit.

First, the SC9 is designed to work best with LG’s OLED TVs — specifically the C series. The company has even designed a custom mounting bracket for its TVs so that the soundbar is attached to the display and not the wall. This means that if your television is on a swivel bracket itself, the speaker rotates with it pointing the sound in the same direction as the TV. And speaking of directional audio, LG has equipped the SC9 with three upfiring speakers — one more than a lot of soundbars offer. That should boost the speaker’s Dolby Atmos and DTS:X capabilities. 

A few features for the SC9 are exclusive to LG TVs. Wow Orchestra syncs the display’s speakers with the soundbar for the best audio experience and Wow Interface puts all of the SC9’s sound settings on the TV for easy access. The company’s Wowcast technology will let you connect to its TVs over Wifi, allowing you to ditch the wired connection if you see fit. In terms of wired connectivity, there are two HDMI ports: an HDMI/ARC for linking with the TV and one additional jack. 

The LG SE6 is another proposition entirely. This compact unit still offers Dolby Atmos in a frame that’s cloth wrapped and has softer, rounded edges. As you might expect, LG built the SE6 for people who have smaller spaces or simply want a smaller soundbar in front of their TV. It still offers HDMI/ARC connectivity with your TV with one additional HDMI port alongside. To further reduce any clutter, the SE6 doesn’t come with a subwoofer like the SC9 does. However, it does support Wow Orchestra, Wowcast and most of the new features the company added to the more robust SC9.

LG hasn’t announced pricing and availability yet, but we’re likely to get that info sometime this spring. 

MSI has announced its 2023 gaming laptop lineup at CES, including new Intel and NVIDIA components. The updated models also have redesigned cooling that MSI says can help kick up performance.

As with most new gaming laptops unveiled this week, MSI’s upgraded models use 13th-gen Intel Core series processors with GeForce RTX 40 series laptop graphics. In addition, the new models include the company’s latest thermal setup, now organized into shared, dedicated and VRAM-exclusive pipes.

The Titan GT and Raider GE series are the most spec-intensive models, using the Intel i9-13980HX with MSU Overboost tech that can push processing and graphics to a 250W power draw (or support 5.2GHz frequency across 8 P-cores). The Titan GE also adds what MSI describes as the “world’s first 4K 144Hz Mini LED display.” The 17.3-inch panel can hit an impressive 1,000 nits peak brightness with over 1,000 local dimming zones. The Raider GE’s display is a step down from it but still offers a respectable QHD+ resolution at 240Hz. That model also has a new chassis with an upgraded light bar.

MSI also has new editions of its Stealth Series gaming notebooks, which have a slimmer profile than the Titan and Raider lines while sacrificing as little power as possible. That lineup includes models with 14-, 15-, 16- and 17-inch displays. In addition to the new Intel and NVIDIA hardware inside, the Stealth 14 Studio and Stealth 16 Studio use a magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis that helps keep their weight down. (The 16-inch model weighs 4.39 lbs, while the 14-inch one is 3.75 lbs.) In addition, the 15-inch variant has a 240Hz OLED display with a 0.2ms response time while covering 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

The Prestige series pushes the light and thin boundaries further, with the 13-inch variant standing as MSI’s lightest gaming laptop at 2.18 lbs. Like the Stealth line, the Prestige models also use a magnesium-alloy construction. Despite the light and thin build, the Prestige 13 Eco has a 75W-h battery lasting up to 15 hours.

Engadget will try MSI’s new gaming machines later this week, but you’ll still have over a month to decide if they’re right for you. Although the company hasn’t released a full release schedule, it tells us the Titan and Raider series will launch mid-February, while the Stealth and Cyborg lines will arrive later that month.

At CES 2023, MSI is announcing updates to nearly every family of laptops it makes, but some of the coolest changes are arriving on the new Raider GE and Stealth Studio lines.

Starting with the 2023 Raider GE78, not only are you getting faster 13th-gen Intel chips and up to an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU, you’re also getting new IPS displays with taller 16:10 aspect ratios. Thanks to refreshed components, MSI says there are some serious jumps in performance, with gains of up 45 percent or more for both general computing and graphics compared to last year’s systems.

On top of that, MSI also updated the Raider’s chassis with a new matrix lightbar that’s brighter and more colorful. And the best part is that when you want to hide your power level, because of the smoky plastic in front, the lightbar almost completely disappears when you turn off the LEDs. Thankfully, MSI hasn’t messed around too much as you still get a huge 99.9-watt hour battery (the biggest power pack that you can bring on a plane), a physical webcam shutter and a new IR sensor that works with Windows Hello.

There’s a healthy selection of ports too, including a full-size SD card reader, one Thunderbolt 4 jack, two USB 3.2 Type-C ports (one of which also supports USB-PD charging) and one USB 3.2 Type-A connector. As for the keyboard, you still get per-key RGB lighting made in collaboration with Steelseries and a dedicated MUX switch for quickly swapping between integrated and discrete graphics.

That said, my favorite new systems might be the two additions to the Stealth family. After reviewing the old Stealth 15 last year, I felt like the whole line needed a big revamp, and that’s pretty much exactly what we’re getting with the Stealth 14 Studio and Stealth 16 Studio. MSI designed a brand new chassis made from a magnesium-aluminum alloy, so it’s both strong and light. Then MSI finished it off with two sweet new paint jobs: pure white and star blue.

On the inside, in addition to a range of 13th-gen Intel CPU and NVIDIA 40-series graphics, MSI added new vapor chambers to keep thermals in check. Meanwhile, just like the Raider, the new Stealth Studios also feature six-speaker audio, 16:10 displays and trackpads that are 33 percent larger than before. And despite their super slim dimensions — the Stealth 14 studio is just 9mm thick – MSI still found room to include a microSD card slot, which is great for quickly transferring photos or videos from your camera.

As someone who likes laptops that can do a bit of everything without sacrificing portability, the Stealth 14 Studio looks like a really interesting addition to the growing number of 14-inch thin-and-light gaming notebooks. My one small disappointment is that while MSI is also refreshing the old Stealth 15 with new silicon from Intel and Nvidia, the company sadly isn’t doing anything to revamp its chassis.

Unfortunately, we’re still waiting on pricing for MSI’s upcoming gaming laptops. But with the Raider line set for a release sometime in mid-February and the Stealth Studio arriving just a couple weeks after that, it shouldn’t be too long before we have some firm numbers.

Walter Cunningham, an astronaut who was the last surviving member of the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, died on Tuesday at 90. The Iowa-born Cunningham served in the US Navy and Marine Corps before joining NASA in 1963 and eventually taking part in the Apollo program’s first crewed (and first televised) flight.

NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death and added that he was “instrumental to our Moon landing’s program success.” According to the Houston Chronicle, Cunningham died in a local hospital of complications from a fall.

Apollo 7 was NASA’s first spaceflight after the 1967 Apollo 1 tragedy, where a fire killed three astronauts during a rehearsal test. This led to a longer-than-usual training period, as NASA shelved human-crewed spaceflight for 21 months following Apollo 1. The crew spent many long hours studying the spacecraft’s design and construction of the Apollo command and service modules (CSM) to help avoid a repeat tragedy, which could have been perilous for the astronauts and the program. Finally, the crew splashed down on Earth on October 22, 1968, after nearly 11 days in space. Apollo 7 further tested NASA’s equipment and helped pave the way for Apollo 11, where the first humans walked on the moon.

Left to right: Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham, Dr. Donald E. Stullken

Cunningham retired from NASA in 1971 and tried his hand at public speaking, radio hosting, offshore engineering, commercial real estate and venture capital investing. Unfortunately, he also became an outspoken climate change denier. Speaking to Forbes in 2013, Cunningham went through a laundry list of fossil-fuel industry talking points, framing modern NASA as an organization controlled by the media while claiming climate-change science was closer to demagoguery than fact. (For the record, climate change is real, and we’re running out of time to avoid catastrophe.)

“I definitely believe that we lived in the good old days,” Cunningham said in a 1999 NASA interview. “We lived in the golden age of manned spaceflight. We’ve been in space now for over 40 years. The first 40 years of aviation, we went from just barely flying to jet transport, you know. And now, we haven’t moved that far since we went into space. The days through Apollo will be remembered; there’ll never be another time like that again. Even when we go to Mars, it will be different. And I feel just fortunate that I was a small part of this particular time in spaceflight.”

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has agreed a $100 million settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), which accused it of violating regulations related to virtual currency, money transmitting, transaction monitoring and cybersecurity. “These failures made the Coinbase platform vulnerable to serious criminal conduct, including, among other things, examples of fraud, possible money laundering, suspected child sexual abuse material-related activity and potential narcotics trafficking,” the agency said. The company will pay the state a $50 million fine and invest $50 million to address the issues flagged by the regulator and comply with a DFS-approved plan.

The agency claimed that Coinbase’s practices concerning due diligence, transaction monitoring and sanctions compliance (among others) were “inadequate for a financial services provider of Coinbase’s size and complexity.” It accused the company of failing to carry out sufficient background checks on customers before they opened accounts and being unable to keep up with transaction monitoring system (TMS) alerts. The DFS added that Coinbase had a months-long TMS backlog that meant the company “routinely failed to timely investigate and report suspicious activity as required by law.”

By late 2021, the DFS said, Coinbase had a backlog of more than 100,000 transaction monitoring alerts it had not reviewed. It also noted that by that time, the backlog of customers who required “enhanced due diligence exceeded 14,000.” Coinbase’s approach to background checks amounted to a “simple check-the-box exercise,” regulators claimed. 

The DFS granted Coinbase a license to operate in New York in 2017. Compliance issues first emerged during a safety and soundness examination that the agency conducted in 2020. Following that probe, the DFS ordered Coinbase to hire an independent consultant to review the compliance program and offer recommendations on how to improve in areas in which the agency felt the company was falling short. As a result, Coinbase adopted a plan to bolster its compliance program. However, following an investigation it began in 2021, the DFS determined that the program could not “keep up with the dramatic and unexpected growth of Coinbase’s business.” Coinbase now has more than 100 million users worldwide.

The agency brought in an independent monitor in early 2022 to evaluate the state of the compliance program and work with Coinbase to address the issues — all while the investigation was ongoing. As part of the settlement, the monitor will work with Coinbase for another year. The DFS can extend that timeframe at its discretion. The agency pointed out that Coinbase has started to address many of the issues and develop “a more effective and robust compliance program” under the eyes of the DFS and the monitor, though it noted that the company still isn’t moving quickly enough to review older suspicious accounts.

Other crypto firms have faced penalties in recent months for allegedly violating financial regulations. The DFS fined Robinhood $30 million in August, while the Treasury Department reached a settlement with Kraken over claims that the exchange provided services to customers in Iran in violation of US sanctions. According to The New York Times, regulators are investigating Binance over possible money laundering violations. Before its collapse in November, FTX was said to have been under investigation too — the company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, pled not guilty to federal fraud charges this week. It was also reported last summer that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating Coinbase over possible securities violations.

LG isn’t quite done revealing its 2023 OLED TV lineup. The company has unveiled the 97-inch Signature OLED M3, a TV LG says is the first to support Zero Connect wireless video and audio transmissions. Plug your devices into a large external box and you can send a 4K 120Hz picture to the TV from up to 30 feet away without running ugly cables directly into the set. While the approach isn’t completely wireless, it does let you tuck your media players and game consoles out of sight.

The tech should hold up under real world use. LG claims its algorithm minimizes disruptions by people and pets moving through the room, and that appeared to hold up in our brief experience at CES. People were walking between the M3 and the Zero Connect box with no apparent impact on the signal quality. You can rotate the antenna to face the TV and use voice commands to manage it, so you shouldn’t have to worry much about placement.

As for other details? LG didn’t share much else, but the M3 has an integrated bracket that lets the TV sit virtually flush against the wall. As a 4K set, it won’t offer the same bragging rights as the 8K-ready Z3 line. However, that’s not entirely the point — this is more about creating an elegant living room setup than having the best specs.

Like LG’s other CES TV announcements, there’s no word on price or availability for the M3. Given the size and wireless video tech, though, we’d expect it to be a significant expense. This is supposed to be the centerpiece of a luxurious home theater, and it will likely be priced accordingly.

Drop might be best known for its mechanical keyboards, but the company has also built out an impressive portfolio of audio gear as well. Usually those take the form of headphones and headsets made in partnership with other brands like Sennheiser and HiFiMAN. But the new BMR1s are an entirely in-house designed set of desktop near field monitors. 

The BMR1s rely on balanced mode radiators (hence the BMR tag) instead of traditional conical drivers. This means that they can deliver a wider frequency response from a single driver and are less prone to breakup. The trade off is that bass response suffers a little bit. Though, Drop is quick to point out that you can connect a subwoofer for increased low end. Force cancelling radiators built in also help further limit distortions. 

Flexibility is a key part of the pitch here. They can be arranged vertically or horizontally, depending on your needs with minimal change to the acoustic response. And Drop is also offering customize magnetic grills for users to personalize their audio setup. The target audience here is clearly gamers and those looking to step up their PC audio setup. 

They’re reasonably small and so ideal for someone that wants to upgrade from the builtin speakers on their laptop, but they’re probably not ideal as your primary music listening device or as studio monitors. The frequency range of 80Hz to 24kHz leaves an obvious hole at the bottom end, even if the mids and highs are natural and balanced sounding. The total harmonic distortion rating of 0.40% at 1kHz seems to back up the claims of limiting distortion as well.

Still, at only $129 they’re pretty reasonably priced, especially considering that, in addition to the 3.5mm audio jack they can be connected via Bluetooth, and there’s a headphone out jack for when you need to keep things quiet. The Drop BMR1s are available now for preorder, with an expected delivery of late February or early March. 

Meta is facing yet another European Union fine. As hinted last month, EU authorities are fining Meta €390 million (about $414 million) after determining that the company illegally required that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users accept personalized ads. The social media giant allegedly violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by asking for permission to collect ad targeting data in its terms of service — you have to either allow personalized ads or stop using the platforms altogether, according to regulators.

The EU didn’t say how it expected Meta to obey the decision. However, the wording suggests Meta will have to let users choose whether or not they accept personalized ads. In a statement, Meta said it was “disappointed” by the ruling and felt its existing approach “respects” the GDPR. The firm plans to appeal the findings.

The resistance isn’t surprising. Meta has historically opposed attempts to decline personalized ads, and predicted that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (which lets you ask apps not to track you) could cost it $10 billion in lost ad revenue last year. Users behind proposed class action lawsuits have even accused Meta of trying to dodge Apple’s privacy feature by inserting tracking code through the in-app web browser. If Meta loses its appeal, it risks losing a significant amount of revenue as people see fewer ads they’re likely to click.

It’s doubtful the EU will back down, however. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta’s EU activity, has repeatedly fined the company in the past year and a half. The DPC slapped Meta with a €405 million ($402 million) fine over Instagram’s child privacy settings in September, and in November issued a €265 million ($277 million) penalty for reportedly failing to protect users against data scraping. Officials want Meta to change its ways, and this latest ruling only adds to the pressure.