Kalakshar US

I’m not sure when I found myself expecting disappointment from Microsoft’s PC hardware. Maybe it was when the Surface Pro X arrived with a gorgeous design, but a woefully undercooked Windows-on-Arm experience. Or perhaps it was when the company gave up on the intriguing dual-screen Surface Neo, following the underwhleming launch of the Surface Duo (effectively killing the Courier concept twice). I do know that last year’s Surface Pro 9 5G — an Arm-based PC that had no business wearing the “Pro” badge — was the last straw.

Even though Microsoft managed to make the dream of a hybrid tablet PC come true, the company’s Surface business has been in a rut for years. And, really, there’s not much hope in sight.

Perhaps that’ll change once we see Microsoft’s latest batch of devices during its New York City event on Thursday. But given that this week kicked off with Surface mastermind Panos Panay leaving the company, there’s a good chance there won’t be much to get excited about. The most recent batch of rumors, via DigitalTrends, suggest we’ll see a (much-needed) Surface Laptop Studio 2, Surface Laptop Go 3 and Surface Go 4 unveiled this week. We’d also expect to see the requisite Surface Pro updates with Intel’s most recent hardware, without much of a design refresh.

Former Microsoft executive Panos Panay demonstrating the Surface Pro 3.

Microsoft kicked off 2023 by admitting that Surface sales had tanked during the 2022 holiday quarter, which dovetailed with a massive decline in the broader PC market. Since then, the company has been noticeably quiet about its device plans. In contrast, Apple has been steadily refreshing its computers with its latest M-series chips, and it made a huge splash with the Vision Pro, a bid for spatial computing and mixed reality that’s far ahead of what the HoloLens 2 offers.

Part of Microsoft’s problem is that the initial pitch for the Surface — a tablet that can be your laptop! — just seems tired now. In 2012, it was honestly exciting to see Microsoft kick off an entirely new PC form factor. The company managed to turn the Surface Pro tablets into devices we could recommend, and it spurred on PC makers to develop their own hybrids. But at the same time, ultraportable laptops got lighter and more powerful. Why bother juggling a flimsy keyboard and kickstand on your lap when you could be far more productive on an XPS 13?

It didn’t help that Windows never became a truly tablet-friendly operating system. The Surface was developed with Windows 8 in mind, but users hated the Start page and the shift away from the traditional desktop. Windows 10 was a hasty apology for all of Windows 8’s mistakes. Since then, Microsoft has treated touchscreens as an afterthought, always secondary to the holy keyboard and mouse/trackpad.

While I enjoy the flexibility of using touchscreens for scrolling and doodling on Windows laptops today, I wouldn’t be caught dead using the Surface Pro 9 without its keyboard. Windows tablets also don’t make much sense when the iPad and cheaper Android tablets exist. Both Apple and Google are also pushing to make their platforms better for general computing and multitasking. That’s effectively taking the opposite approach from Microsoft: Turning tablet platforms into PCs, rather than trying to shove Windows into slates.

Industry observers agree that Microsoft may have to reconsider its PC strategy. “I think Surface needs to get back to its roots and consider what is the ultimate Windows experience for hardware and software on a PC,” said Anshel Sag, Principal Analyst at Moore Insights and Strategies. “I think that definition has changed with the growth of AI.”

For Microsoft, going back to its roots might involve a stronger push into Windows on Arm compatibility. The company has made significant progress since the disastrous Surface with Windows RT, but using last year’s Surface Pro 9 5G made it clear the experience could be better. Emulated apps like Chrome were noticeably slower than typical Windows PCs. “It doesn’t really feel like Microsoft has taken this [Windows on Arm] challenge seriously until maybe a year or two ago,” Sag said. “Now it has, but it’s undoubtedly behind, and I think that’s going to cost its OEM partners and growth potential.”

It’s also hard for Microsoft to generate much excitement around its devices when it consistently stumbles with new releases. The Surface Laptop Studio was a genuinely cool attempt at crafting a more powerful Surface with a tilting screen, but it was underpowered due to its quad-core CPU. (It was also meant to replace the Surface Book, another concept that died because Microsoft became trapped by its design decisions.) The Surface Duo was a potentially more sturdy dual-screen concept than a true foldable phone, but software and performance issues held it back. (Its sequel wasn’t much better.) Samsung, meanwhile, managed to transform its Galaxy Fold from a nearly unusable beta to something we actually like.

Instead of expecting to be delighted by Microsoft’s PC and mobile hardware, I’ve learned to expect compromise and heartbreak. To its credit, Microsoft has churned out some hardware that can appeal to mainstream shoppers. The Surface Laptop is still a fetching ultraportable, and the Laptop Go was a noble attempt at crafting an inexpensive-yet-premium laptop. But the whole point of the Surface was to change the face of computing. Microsoft can’t manage that if it keeps getting in its own way.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/can-microsofts-surface-pcs-get-out-of-their-rut-175518777.html?src=rss 

Logitech is updating its line of desktop microphones and lighting today with the Yeti GX microphone, Yeti Orb microphone and the G Litra Beam LX light. The products mark a break from the Blue brand, which Logitech acquired in 2018, as it drops the old naming and incorporates more gamer-focused RGB lighting into the series.

The $150 Logitech G Yeti GX is the company’s latest take on a “premium, broadcast-style gaming microphone” somewhat reminiscent of the Yeti Blue X. The GX uses a supercardioid pickup pattern, which focuses on sound in front of the microphone while reducing ambient noises from the sides and behind. It includes RGB lighting, customizable with the company’s LightSync, which synchronizes color and lighting across devices. It also has a scroll wheel for one-handed volume control; pressing it activates Smart Audio Lock, which the company says prevents clipping and reduces background noise.

Logitech G Yeti GX

The Yeti GX is a USB-C to USB-A plug-and-play mic and is compatible with the Blue Compass boom arm and a (not yet available) updated Logitech Compass arm the company teased.

Meanwhile, the $60 Logitech G Yeti Orb is a ball-shaped mic similar to the company’s Snowball Ice model. The company pitches it as an entry-level microphone (“designed for gamers new to streaming”); it’s built with a custom condenser capsule and uses a cardioid pickup pattern. Like the more expensive Yeti GX, the Orb is compatible with the company’s Blue Voice software, which can apply voice filters and let you tweak levels.

Finally, the $150 Logitech G Litra Beam LX is a new desktop light similar to the company’s Litra Beam. The new model still includes TrueSoft adjustable LED lighting (ranging from “warm candlelight to cool blue”) for streaming / video calls but also adds RGB lighting to the mix in sticking with the day’s theme.

All three models are available for pre-order today from Logitech’s website and Amazon, which lists them as available as soon as September 21.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/logitechs-latest-yeti-mics-are-all-in-on-rgb-183025435.html?src=rss 

“What are we willing to fight for? What do we deserve, morally speaking? What is our place, our relationship with the universe, with nature?”

During a preview of The Talos Principle 2 in August, series writer Jonas Kyratzes posed 19 questions about the essence of humanity in just 90 seconds. Between explanations of new mechanics and puzzle systems, he rattled off deep musings about society and the natural world as easily as if he were reading his weekly grocery list. It felt like these questions were constantly on his mind, poised at the tip of his tongue.

“What does society owe me?” he asked. “What do I owe society? What is our relationship with nature? What is our relationship with the universe? Is the universe kind? Is nature understanding or is it cruel and random? And if it is cruel and random, where do we fit in? What degree of control should we have?”

He wasn’t craving answers. TheTalos Principle 2 is filled with provocations like these, and according to Kyratzes, they’re designed to generate conversation and debate, even if it’s all internal. The goal is to spawn deep thoughts about the future of humanity and the role technology can play in our evolution.

“They’re statements that are intended to make you think,” Kyratzes told Engadget a few weeks after the initial preview. “Let’s say the robots are human and they’re capable of love. Like, that’s our premise.… Hopefully that is also the sort of thing that will provoke some thought.”

This philosophical approach to the future is the heart of The Talos Principle, an award-winning sci-fi puzzle game that debuted in 2014, and its tender curiosity is baked into the sequel as well. The Talos Principle 2 is due out this year for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it directly follows the story of the original. It’s set in a burgeoning society built by sentient robots, and its main gameplay mechanic involves solving complex laser riddles, interspersed with conversations about the nature of consciousness, love and survival.

Co-writer Verena Kyratzes didn’t work on the original game’s story, but she and the other developers at Croteam used its calm, question-asking approach as a blueprint for the sequel.

“It didn’t only ask you a question, but once you gave the answer to the question, it kind of very politely asked you to just think about whether you’re really sure about that,” she said. “It’s a game that constantly tries to make you think, to interrogate yourself and your beliefs, and I really hope that we managed to do that in the second one, too. The gentleness of it is something that’s very important to me because I think if you’re talking down to somebody, if you’re just telling them, ‘That was stupid,’ then they will immediately close off.”

The Talos Principle 2 represents an old-school brand of sci-fi that invites people to play around with the ideas it poses; warm, welcoming and slow. Even the series’ conclusions, when it offers any, are inherently optimistic, centering on humanity and the ability society has to thrive with nature in the future. It’s a return to a Carl Sagan era of forward thought, positioning people as the solution, not just the instigator, in problems like climate change, overpopulation, rogue AI, pandemics and space travel. This alone is a refreshing perspective in a sea of mainstream sci-fi media that only envisions the future as a miserable, sterile void manufactured by society’s stubbornness and greed.

“Consistently, science fiction presents itself as being original for taking a dystopian view, as if it was subverting a mainstream narrative of hopefulness,” Jonas Kyratzes said. “They’ll be like, ‘In our story technology is bad.’ Oh really, you mean like every other story?”

As a series, The Talos Principle is more thematically aligned with the aspirational sci-fi of the original Star Trek or The Next Generation than it is with the gloom of today’s Picard. This optimistic, human-first approach makes The Talos Principle 2 subversive as a work of contemporary sci-fi.

Here’s how Jonas Kyratzes and Verena Kyratzes discussed the modern glut of pessimistic sci-fi among themselves:

Jonas: “[Dystopia] is of course, on some level, a response to the conditions we live in. But it’s also limiting our ability to imagine something else. And I think this kind of optimism, that’s so crucial, it’s so fundamental in a way that it’s hard to talk about, because what are we without a future? I think that also reflects our alienation from our own humanity. The tendency to always go, ‘Humanity is a virus, humanity is bad, all humans are evil.’ Einstein once remarked that this is a very troubling thing, a sign of alienation, because it’s such a fundamental thing to have a connection to humanity. Because you are human. … It’s the most mainstream idea, it’s the ruling ideology of our time: Nothing will get better and you shouldn’t expect anything to get better.”

Verena: “Often we’ll watch something that is set 300, 400, 1,000 years in the future, but what they’re actually talking about is something that is [current]. They’re no longer imagining a future. They’re just talking about what upsets them in the present.”

Jonas: “By taking it into a utopian future, it gives you different ways of thinking about it, and now a lot of science fiction doesn’t. It’s like, here’s future racism, exactly like now racism. As if to say, nothing will change, nothing will get better, nor can it. And it’s like, OK, great — why are we telling this story?”

The Talos Principle 2 will present decidedly humanist ideas in conversations with NPCs and general story beats, but it also makes room for other conclusions. The game’s respect for the human race extends to individual players, and the story will unravel in various ways depending on the choices each person makes and the interpretations they choose to follow. Diversity is one humanity’s greatest strengths, after all.

There are varying levels of engagement with the narrative, too — completing the game’s incredibly challenging golden puzzles, for instance, will unlock a “significant story payoff,” according to Jonas Kyratzes.

The Talos Principle 2 isn’t necessarily a game about utopian sci-fi; it just uses this direction as a backbone. The sequel takes players from sterile, Myst-like testing grounds filled with wildly tricky spatial puzzles, to a clean, shining city built by robots that act like and call themselves human. Robots that feel human. Robots that feel, full-stop.

“All of these things that we’re all thinking about and arguing about are going into this game, and hopefully are reflected in the conversations inside that game,” Jonas Kyratzes said. “I would hope it’s expressed as a story through characters who have personalities. The game is all of these things, but it’s also a love story, as much as anything else. Multiple love stories. It’s intertwined love stories in a lot of ways, that’s an undercurrent that’s very significant. The ability of sentient beings to love, even if they are robots.”

A multitude of questions spawn from this premise alone. The Talos Principle 2 will invite players to test their own theories about consciousness, AI, sustainability and love in a meditative space. It doesn’t promise answers, but maybe it’ll inspire players to ask different questions about humanity’s future, just like sci-fi is supposed to.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/talos-principle-2-and-the-quiet-subversion-of-optimistic-sci-fi-160014360.html?src=rss