Category: Technology

French high-end audio company Devialet has a reputation for making powerful, interesting and eye-wateringly expensive speakers. Today, the company has announced its first portable smart speaker with an eye-watering price tag. Looking like a cannonball with its own carrying strap, the Devialet Mania is designed to calibrate its sound to the area it’s in. So, if near to a wall, it’ll tweak where its speakers are pumping to give you “expansive” and “powerful” audio while on the go.

Nestled inside the Mania’s 170mm (6.7-inch) tall body is a quartet of full-range drivers teamed up with a pair of Speaker Active Matching sub-woofers. Four microphones are used for that stereo calibration, but can also be used to communicate with Amazon’s smart assistant, Alexa. The speaker can also connect to your favorite music service over WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. The company promises that Mania will travel well, too, with IPX4 water resistance and 10 hours of battery life, when used at moderate volumes, at least.

The Mania is available to order from today, priced at $790 online or via a number of retail stores.

 

Amazon is having a sale on its latest Watches, with a particularly good deal on the Series 8 cellular model. You can grab one of those in multiple colors for just $389, for a savings of $110 off the regular $499 price (22 percent off). If its a Watch LE model you’re after instead, those are on sale too in both cellular and GPS versions for as little as $290 ($39 off) and $220 ($29 off) respectively.

Shop Apple Watch Series 8 and SE models on Amazon

The Series 8 isn’t a huge update over the Series 7, but it does carry some useful new features. The main one is a temperature sensor tied to women’s health, giving female users an estimate on when they may be ovulating. It’s meant to be used overnight, sampling your wrist temperature every five seconds so you can see shifts from your baseline

The other is Crash Detection. Much as current watches can detect a fall, the Series 8 can detect car crashes via a pair of new accelerometers. It works in concert with other sensors to detect four different types of crashes, including rollovers, front impact, back impact and side impact. And of course, all of these Series 8 models have a cellular function, giving you internet connectivity, calls and texts for running, hiking and other activities that don’t require a smartphone. The Series 8 cell models are fairly pricey at $499, but $389 is much more palatable. 

Meanwhile, the Watch SE 2nd generation offers a performance boost of up to 20 percent and the same crash detection feature as the series 8. It also has a lower starting price, so taking an additional $39 and $29 off the cellular and GPS models brings the prices down to a very affordable $290 and $220, respectively. 

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Netflix and developer Tender Claws are releasing a Stranger Things VR game set to arrive in Winter 2023 on major VR platforms, the companies announced at Stranger Things Day 2022. The game will let you play as the fearsome Season 4 villain Vecna, with the goal to “enact revenge on Eleven and Hawkins,” according to the press release. 

“Play as Vecna in this new Stranger Things adventure in VR,” the video description reads. “Become an explorer of unknown realities as you form the hive mind and tame the void. Invade minds and conjure nightmares in your quest to enact revenge on Eleven and Hawkins. Stranger Things VR is a psychological horror/action game developed by Tender Claws and coming to major VR platforms in winter 2023.”

Tender Claws previously developed the VR games Virtual Virtual Reality 1 and 2, along with the “mobile AR virtual pet Tendar, and immersive theatrical adventures The Under Presents and Tempest,” according to its about page. Meanwhile, Netflix has previously released multiple games around its flagship series, including Stranger Things: The VR Experience, along with the mobile and console game Stranger Things 3: The Game. 

 

Before acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk said he was against lifetime suspensions, promising to reinstate banned users like Donald Trump. Now, Musk wrote that Twitter will permanently suspend account impersonators if they are not clearly labeled as parody. The move comes after several verified “blue-check” users changed their accounts to impersonal Musk himself. 

Twitter appears to have just banned comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating Musk, at least temporarily, after she used his name and image in her own verified Twitter account. Other verified accounts impersonating Musk, including Jeph Jacques, also appear to have been kicked off the site.

Prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitters rules already stated that users “may not impersonate individuals, groups or organizations to mislead, confuse or deceive others, nor use a fake identity in a manner that disrupts the experience of users on Twitter.” Parody accounts were required to say so in both their accounts and bio. Consequences included profile moderation, temporary suspension or permanent suspension — though the latter was rarely imposed.

Twitter has been awash in drama over the last few days. Early in Musk’s tenure, trolls and racists flooded the site with epithets and other hate speech, presumably to test the new limits of the site. This week, a flood of advertisers put a hold on spending on the site. In reply to a user who suggested a boycott on those companies, Musk tweeted a “a thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues.”

 

COVID-19 restrictions at Foxconn’s primary iPhone 14 factory in Zhengzhou, China means shipments will be lower than anticipated, Apple said in a short press release. That means in turn that customers who’ve ordered one will experience “longer wait times to receive their new products,” it added.

COVID-19 restrictions have temporarily impacted the primary iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max assembly facility located in Zhengzhou, China. The facility is currently operating at significantly reduced capacity. As we have done throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prioritizing the health and safety of the workers in our supply chain.We continue to see strong demand for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models. However, we now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products.We are working closely with our supplier to return to normal production levels while ensuring the health and safety of every worker.

A slowdown in shipments was widely anticipated after the Chinese government ordered a week-long lockdown in the area where the Foxconn factory is located following the outbreak. The action, part of the government’s “Covid Zero” approach, affects the factory that manufactures four out of five Apple’s new smartphones. Overall, iPhone production could be reduced by 30 percent, according to previous reports.

Launched in September, the iPhone 14 is a relatively minor upgrade over the the previous model, with the main change being the elimination of the SIM tray, and the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro. The shipping time is currently listed as 3-4 weeks in the US.

 

Facebook parent company Meta could announce large-scale layoffs as early as next week, according to The Wall Street Journal. The outlet reports the company is planning to cut “many thousands” of employees, with an announcement coming as soon as Wednesday. Meta currently employs more than 87,000 individuals. The cuts could be the largest workforce reduction conducted by a tech company this year, surpassing the layoffs made by Twitter on Friday. The cuts would also represent the first broad restructuring in Meta’s history.

Meta declined to comment. A spokesperson pointed Engadget to a statement CEO Mark Zuckerberg made during the company’s recent Q3 earnings call. “In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” he said. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”

As The Journal points out, Meta grew significantly during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, adding more than 27,000 employees in 2020 and 2021. The company’s hiring spree continued through the first nine months of 2022, a period during which it brought on an additional 15,344 employees. While the company was a major beneficiary of the pandemic, its fortunes have changed in recent months. In July, the company reported its first-ever revenue drop. The company has blamed its recent hardships on tough competition from TikTok and the release of Apple’s contentious App Tracking Transparency feature.

At the same time, Mark Zuckerberg’s bid on the Metaverse has so far failed to create new revenue opportunities for the company while costing it dearly. Since the start of 2021, Meta has spent $15 billion to make virtual and augmented reality mainstream with little success. The company expects to lose even more money on the project in 2023.

 

Mere days after cutting its workforce in half, Twitter is asking some employees to return, according to Bloomberg. Citing two sources within the company, the outlet reports management at Twitter has come to the realization it either let some workers off by accident or without realizing their experience was essential to building the features Elon Musk wants to bring to the platform.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. Platformer’s Casey Newton was the first to report on the company’s plan, sharing messages from one of its internal Slack channels. One post suggests the company is in need of Android and iOS developers.

A decision to bring back some employees would cap off a chaotic weekend at Twitter. The company began Friday by laying off approximately 3,800 employees, a move that gutted teams across the company, including those responsible for developing new accessibility features. On Saturday, the company began briefly rolling out its new paid verification system. One day later, the company reportedly made the decision to delay the release of that feature until after the US midterm elections.

 

Twitter has delayed the rollout of paid account verification until after the end of the US midterm elections, according to The New York Times. The company reportedly made the decision on Saturday after it briefly began rolling out its $8 per month Twitter Blue service. In the hours after the company released an iOS app update that gave people a preview of its new verification system, both employees and users raised concerns that paid badges could lead to confusion ahead of a pivotal election.

According to The Times, one Twitter employee, writing in an internal company Slack channel, asked management why the social network was “making such a risky change” with the “potential of causing election interference.” A day later, a manager on the project said “we’ve made the decision to move the launch of this release to November 9th, after the election.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. The majority of the company’s public relations team was let go on Friday. Before Elon Musk announced Twitter’s revamped subscription service on Tuesday, the company had reserved blue badges for the accounts of notable politicians, celebrities, journalists and other prominent figures. While the system the company used for handling verification requests was often a mess, it was at least designed to limit impersonation. It’s unclear how the company plans to prevent that kind of behavior moving forward.

The November 9th release date is likely to come with a sigh of relief for the engineers working on paid verifications. Before Sunday, Elon Musk had reportedly told employees they had until November 7th to ship the feature or else they would be fired.

 

If you’ve been waiting for Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro to go on sale, now is your chance to pick them up. Amazon has discounted the earbuds for a limited time. After a six percent price cut, the 2022 AirPods Pro are $234, down from $249. The $15 discount marks the best reduction we’ve seen on Apple’s latest earbuds since they went on sale back in September.

Buy Apple AirPods Pro at Amazon – $234

While they don’t look dramatically different from their predecessor, the second-generation AirPods Pro feature some meaningful upgrades. With the inclusion of its new H2 chip, Apple claims the 2022 model is better at canceling out ambient noise and comes with improved battery life. The company also found a way to add touch controls to the new model. Engadget Senior Editor Billy Steele gave the earbuds a score of 88, praising the 2022 AirPods Pro for their improved audio quality and deep integration with the broader Apple ecosystem. In regards to the new touch controls, he said they take some practice to master. He also found battery life could be better. Despite those issues, the 2022 AirPods Pro are among the best wireless earbuds you can buy right now, especially if you use an iPhone as your daily driver.

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For the second time this year, the uncontrolled remnants of a Chinese Long March 5B came crashing to Earth. On Friday morning, US Space Command confirmed pieces of the rocket that carried the third and final piece of China’s Tiangong space station to orbit had re-entered the planet’s atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean, reports The New York Times. The debris eventually plunged into the body of water, leaving no one harmed.

The episode marked the fourth uncontrolled re-entry for China’s most powerful heavy-lift rocket following its debut in 2020. Unlike many of its modern counterparts, including the SpaceX Falcon 9, the Long March 5B can’t reignite its engine to complete a predictable descent back to Earth. The rocket has yet to harm anyone (and probably won’t in the future). Still, each time China has sent a Long March 5B into space, astronomers and onlookers have anxiously followed its path back to the surface, worrying it might land somewhere people live. On Friday, Spain briefly closed parts of its airspace over risks posed by the debris from Monday’s mission, leading to hundreds of flight delays.

As he did earlier this year following China’s Wentian mission, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized the country for not taking the appropriate precautions to prevent an out-of-control re-entry. “It is critical that all spacefaring nations are responsible and transparent in their space activities, and follow established best practices, especially, for the uncontrolled re-entry of a large rocket body debris — debris that could very well result in major damage or loss of life,” he said.

Space debris landing on Earth isn’t a problem unique to China. In August, for instance, a farmer in rural Australia found a piece of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that landed on his farm. However, many experts stress that those incidents differ from the one that occured on Friday. “The thing I want to point out about this is that we, the world, don’t deliberately launch things this big intending them to fall wherever,” Ted Muelhaupt, an Aerospace Corporation consultant, told The Times. “We haven’t done that for 50 years.” China will launch another Long March 5B rocket next year when it attempts to put its Xuntian space telescope into orbit.