Shure just revealed the MoveMic 88+ wireless direct-to-phone microphone with four selectable polar patterns. The company says this is the first-ever microphone of its type to offer this feature. For the uninitiated, polar patterns dictate where a microphone picks up sound. Most of the mics in this category offer just an omnidirectional polar pattern, which records equally from all sides. Some companies swap that out for a cardioid pattern, which picks up audio from a single direction.
The MoveMic 88+ offers access to both of the aforementioned polar patterns, in addition to bi-directional and raw mid-side. Why does any of this matter? It increases the versatility of the microphone. The cardioid pattern is perfect for, say, a TikTok video or an acoustic performance. The bi-directional pattern would be the go-to choice for a two-person interview and the omnidirectional pattern is the one to select for a field recording.
The microphone also offers a bevy of mounting options. It attaches to most popular tripods and mic stands with included mic clips and can be used as a handheld microphone. It pairs directly with a mobile phone via Shure’s MOTIV app, without the need for the company’s MoveMic Receiver. It can, however, integrate with the receiver if you want to use it with a regular camera or a computer.
The app also gives users controls over the audio signal, with settings like gain, EQ, high pass filter and more. The wireless range maxes out at 100 feet and the battery lasts around eight hours per charge. The MoveMic 88+ is available right now for $299 and comes with a cold shoe mic clip, 5/8” mic clip and USB-C charging cable.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/shures-movemic-88-is-the-first-wireless-direct-to-phone-microphone-with-selectable-polar-patterns-164052767.html?src=rss
EmagGeek shares a report: Scientists have genetically engineered mice with some key characteristics of an extinct animal that was far larger — the woolly mammoth. This “woolly mouse” marks an important step toward achieving the researchers’ ultimate goal — bringing a woolly mammoth-like creature back from extinction, they say.
“For us, it’s an incredibly big deal,” says Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other extinct species. The company announced the creation of the woolly mice Tuesday in a news release and posted a scientific paper online detailing the achievement. Scientists implanted genetically modified embryos in female lab mice that gave birth to the first of the woolly pups in October.
My editorial: One has to wonder why it is necessary or even a great idea to bring back species that nature long ago determined were a failure.
Late last year, Australia passed a law banning social media for all people under 16 years old. Now, some of those companies — namely Meta, TikTok and Snap — are not happy at one exception: YouTube. Australia has deemed YouTube as a critical education tool and is allowing use, despite an original assumption that the Google-owned platform would be included, Reuters and The Guardian reports.
This follows last month’s report from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, which found that YouTube is the most popular platform with 13 to 15-year-olds — with just under three-fourths of that age range using it in 2024. Notably, anyone under 16 needs to be part of a family account that offers parental supervision rights to use YouTube.
Remarks from big tech were pointed. “It is illogical to restrict two platforms while exempting the third. It would be akin to banning the sale of soft drinks to minors but exempting Coca-Cola,” said TikTok’s director of public policy in Australia and New Zealand, Ella Woods-Joyce. Meanwhile, Meta called out the Australian government for failed transparency and making “a mockery of the government’s stated intention, when passing the age ban law, to protect young people.”
Snap reiterated its fellow platforms’ concerns, stating, “There must be a fair and impartial application of exclusions and all services should be held to the same standard.” At the same time, Snap is arguing that it’s a messaging service and thus shouldn’t be part of the ban.
Australia’s ban on social media for under 16-year-olds should go into effect towards the end of this year. Time will tell whether big tech’s outrage will change its impact on YouTube.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-tiktok-argue-youtube-should-be-included-in-australias-under-16-social-media-ban-160220248.html?src=rss
Apple today announced a significant update to its iPad Air lineup, integrating the M3 chip previously reserved for higher-end devices. The new tablets, available in both 11-inch ($599) and 13-inch ($799) configurations, deliver substantial performance gains: nearly 2x faster than M1-equipped models and 3.5x faster than A14 Bionic versions.
The M3 brings Apple’s advanced graphics architecture to the Air for the first time, featuring dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray tracing. The chip includes an 8-core CPU delivering 35% faster multithreaded performance over M1, paired with a 9-core GPU offering 40% faster graphics. The Neural Engine processes AI workloads 60% faster than M1, the company said. Apple also introduced a redesigned Magic Keyboard ($269/$319) with function row and larger trackpad.
The iPad Air moves up from an M2 in last year’s Air refresh to an M3 chip, which is capable of Apple Intelligence and more graphics rendering. The Magic Keyboard gets a new layout with a larger trackpad and a physical function key row.
iPad Air and its Magic Keyboard.
Credit:
Apple
That’s a notable upgrade for anybody doing real, portable-minded work with an iPad, but there’s even better news: The new Magic Keyboard with those physical keys is backward-compatible with previous iPad Airs: 4th and 5th generation, 11-inch M2 and M3, and 13-inch M2 and M3 models (better news, that is, if you’re good with the $270 price).
Federal health policies and decisions are quickly becoming less transparent under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—despite him telling Health Department employees just last month that he would work with them to “launch a new era of radical transparency.”
Since then, Kennedy has axed a public meeting on vaccines—leaving lingering questions about the future of those transparent proceedings. He has also revoked a broad transparency policy for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that required public notice for certain new rules and a comment period to allow for the public to be involved with the rulemaking process. Revoking the policy could have sweeping effects. For instance, HHS could now change Medicaid requirements with no notice or change federal research grants without input from the research community—something the Trump administration has already tried to do before it was put on hold by a federal judge.
Rolling back public participation
On Monday, Kennedy published the new policy in the Federal Register, which specifically revoked a transparency rule adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1971. The rule—called the Richardson Waiver, after then-health secretary Elliot Richardson—required HHS to have public notice-and-comment periods for proposed rules and policies regarding certain matters, namely public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts. These five categories would otherwise have been exempt from public notice-and-comment requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA also says that public notice-and-comment periods can be waived for “good cause.”
AmiMoJo shares a report: Europe’s biggest battery storage project has entered commercial operation in Scotland [alternative source], promising to soak up surplus wind power and prevent turbines being paid to switch off.
Zenobe said the first phase of its project at Blackhillock, between Inverness and Aberdeen, was now live with capacity to store enough power to supply 200 megawatts of electricity for two hours. It is due to be expanded to 300 megawatts by next year, enough to supply 3.1 million homes, more than every household in Scotland.
The government’s Clean Power 2030 action plan sets a target capacity of up to 27 gigawatts of batteries by 2030, a sixfold increase from the 4.5 gigawatts installed today. This huge expansion is seen as critical as Britain builds more renewable wind and solar power, since batteries can store surplus generation for use when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
Repairing your iPhone without shelling out lots of money to Apple has long felt impossible. But, with recent Right to Repair laws in the likes of Colorado and Oregon, the new iPhones are a bit easier to repair without ever setting foot in an Apple store. This shift includes Apple’s latest product, the iPhone 16e, which debuted last month. It received a provisional 7/10 rating from iFixit thanks to features like a new repair guide for the USB-C port and its easy-release battery adhesive.
The charging port repair guide is a big deal and something even the other iPhone 16s don’t offer. However, that’s not to say it’s a simple process. First, you have to remove the back glass, selfie camera, top earpiece speaker, battery, Taptic Engine and the list goes on. Then you have to lift up the logic board to access the port replacement bit. So, it’s still a bit of a mess, but at least you now know you’re taking the right steps as you go along it.
The iPhone also offers the same electrically released battery adhesive as its fellow iPhone 16 models. It replaces the stretch-release adhesive which never worked as well as you’d hope. This is also the first time an iPhone has Apple’s C1 modem after a decade of rumored development. iFixit got down and dirty with the logic board to explore the C1 modem. The team went so far as to run the C1 through a CT scanner, which revealed that there’s not a trace of Qualcomm tech in the package.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/ifixit-tears-down-the-iphone-16e-now-with-repairable-usb-c-charging-port-151558784.html?src=rss
The Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro 6E is now 50 percent off at $99. That’s a whole $100 off, and if you’ve been eyeing a Wi-Fi upgrade, now might be the time.
Google claims this mesh router can provide coverage up to 2,200 square feet, and the signal won’t lose strength even at the edge of that area. You also have lower latency than Wi-Fi 6, so your internet usage will be smoother overall. Because Wi-Fi 6E offers three bands compared to the two Wi-Fi 6 and older has, the network can divide the burden across more bands and reduce interference.
This sounds complicated, but Google designed the Nest Wi-Fi Pro to be a more straightforward device you can set up and then forget. Besides receiving regular security and software updates, the router can adjust the network’s performance and fix simple problems. Plus, it integrates well with Google services and smart home devices. Just make sure you’re using the latest Nest Wi-Fi and Google Wi-Fi devices.
The Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro 6E is on our best mesh Wi-Fi systems list due to its ease of use. It’s admittedly lacking in the customization department, but the simplicity makes up for it if the former isn’t a concern.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/pick-up-the-nest-wi-fi-pro-6e-while-its-50-percent-off-150954369.html?src=rss
Early on Monday morning, a bank of Tesla Superchargers went up in flames in Littleton, Massachusetts. While the cause of the fire is unknown, Tesla’s Superchargers are not known for bursting into flames, and a $5,000 reward is being offered by the authorities, who believe the fire was “intentionally set.” Assuming that arson is to blame, this may well be one more attack against a brand that’s becoming more and more toxic.
Elon Musk’s involvement with US President Donald Trump has changed the nature of the spotlight on the Tesla CEO. Instead of cute cameos in Marvel movies and being name-checked by Star Trek, Musk now makes headlines for boosting far-right politics in Europe and suggesting cuts to Social Security. This has made him some new friends, but it has lost many more in the process. And the consequences for Tesla’s core business—selling electric cars—have been disastrous.
2024 was already a not-good year for the automaker. A decade ago, it was basically the only game in town if you wanted an electric car that could go more than 200 miles between charges, and celebrities and tastemakers flocked to the brand in droves. Now, customers are spoiled for choice, and Tesla’s model range—effectively just two cars—has to compete against all the established OEMs that are increasingly working out how to build great EVs, plus all those Chinese startups that appear to have cracked that market in terms of what customers want and how to make it cheap.
In the past decade, Americans have become increasingly aware that climate change is harming the health of people in the US, according to a new survey.
The survey, which was conducted in December and released Friday, also shows increased trust in physicians, climate scientists, federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency, local public health departments and the World Health Organization for providing information about the health harms of global warming.
These sources of information are under threat: President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed cutting most of the EPA’s budget and initiated mass firings at the CDC, taken down climate and health information from government websites, frozen or revoked funding for some climate research and interventions, stalled environmental justice initiatives, and proposed rescinding a 16-year-old federal finding that mandates government action on greenhouse gases. Trump also withdrew the US from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord.
China’s highest court has called for a crack down on the activities of paper mills, businesses that churn out fraudulent or poor-quality manuscripts and sell authorships. Nature: Some researchers are cautiously optimistic that the court’s guidance will help curb the use of these services, while others think the impact will be minimal. “This is the first time the supreme court has issued guidance on paper mills and on scientific fraud,” says Wang Fei, who studies research-integrity policy at Dalian University of Technology in China.
Paper mills sell suspect research and authorships to researchers who want journal articles to burnish their CVs. They are a significant contributor to overall research misconduct, particularly in China. Last month, the Supreme People’s Court published a set of guiding opinions on technology innovation. Among the list of 25 articles, one called for lower courts to crack down on ‘paper industry chains,’ and for research fraud to be severely punished. Further reading:
Research Reveals Data on Which Institutions Are Retraction Hotspots;
Paper Mills Have Flooded Science With 400,000 Fake Studies, Experts Warn.
A couple of iPads are getting upgrades: Apple just announced new iPad Air models powered by the M3 chipset, in addition to a new base iPad with the A16 processor. The iPad Air models still come in 11- and 13-inch sizes, while the base iPad is now considered an 11-inch tablet (an ever so slight difference from the previous version). If you’ve been keen on updating your old iPad or other tablet, you can pre-order both the new iPad Air and base iPad starting today, with wider availability beginning on March 12. Here’s everything you need to know about the new iPad and the iPad Air M3.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/how-to-pre-order-the-new-apple-ipad-and-ipad-air-m3-143643723.html?src=rss
More than a month after their reveal at CES 2025, I think it’s fair to say NVIDIA’s 50 series RTX GPUs are a disappointment. Between manufacturing issues, the company’s misleading marketing around the 5070 and minimal performance gains over the 40 series, this might be one of NVIDIA’s worst releases in recent memory. But the worst part of it all has been watching history repeat itself.
Looking back at the last few weeks, I’m reminded of an article I wrote in 2022. The short of it was I bought an RTX 3070 in August of that year, or little more than two years before NVIDIA announced the GeForce 40 series. Plenty of readers rightfully pointed out that I was wrong about the effect the crypto market would have on future pricing, but I think my underlying reasoning was sound. I bought the 3070 when I did because I had a feeling NVIDIA’s new GPUs would cost more than their 30 series counterparts and that finding a new card at release for a reasonable price would be nearly impossible. And I was right: 40 series cards were difficult to find at launch.
Here we are two years later at the start of a new GPU generation, and we’re doing this all over again. If you’re just a regular person looking to upgrade your gaming PC, not only is it impossible to find a 50 series GPU in stock anywhere, but nearly every single model is priced far above NVIDIA’s suggested price. There’s no pandemic to blame this time, so what gives?
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
The problem is that trends during COVID set a precedent. Since 2020, some people have been willing to pay whatever it costs to buy NVIDIA new cards at launch. The difference now is that rather than give scalpers the chance to profit on that behavior, NVIDIA’s partners have decided to take that money for themselves. The end result is that the company’s GPUs are now marked up as high as the market will tolerate, and they will continue to carry outrageous prices as long as supply is limited.
It’s time we admit the business model at the heart of the GPU industry is broken. For the uninitiated, AIBs (or add-in board partners) like ASUS, Gigabyte, XFX, and Zotac produce the majority of GPUs you can buy from NVIDIA and AMD. In the past, this model led to differentiation between cards in the same tier. For instance, there was a time in the mid-aughts where you could spend extra to buy a GeForce 8800 GT with 1GB of VRAM instead of the 512GB specified by NVIDIA. However, those days are long gone.
Modern AIB GPUs can feature slight overclocks or an extra fan but fundamentally they’re all the same product. Whether you buy a 5070 directly from NVIDIA or one of its partners, it will still be a 5070. At best, you might see a few percentage point difference in performance if you pick a model with an overclock or additional cooling, and yet pricing can vary dramatically between different AIBs and even within one company’s lineup.
Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia said it best in one of the outlet’s recent DF Direct episodes. “The AIB model seems, for a lot of cards, like some weird middle man that purely exists to extract more value from the consumer, and doesn’t offer valid differentiation for the price increase.”
Just look at the 5070 Ti. According to NVIDIA’s website, pricing starts at $749. However, retailer websites tell a different story. If you visit Newegg, for instance, there’s not a single 5070 Ti listed for $749. The most affordable one comes in at $799, with every other option priced above $830. There’s even one listed at $920. Needless to say, the 5070 Ti is a very different (and worse) value proposition at $900 than it is at $750.
Newegg briefly blamed the Trump administration’s recent tariffs on Chinese imports for the inflated price of NVIDIA’s new 50 series GPU, and that would have been a plausible explanation if the cost of those cards went up by only 10 percent.
NVIDIA seems uninterested in tackling the problem in a meaningful way. So far, the best solution it has offered is a program that gives an unspecified number of US customers the chance to buy a 5090 or 5080 directly from the company. Provided they deliver the performance the company is promising, AMD’s new $549 Radeon 9070 and 9070 XT cards will put pressure on NVIDIA to price the 5070 and 5070 Ti more aggressively, but it remains to be seen if AMD will manage to keep the cards in stock and at their suggested retail price.
Pricing for this generation’s GPUs will normalize eventually, but unless there’s a fundamental change to how the industry does business, you can bet all of this will happen again. Just because the industry has always done things this way doesn’t mean we should settle for business as usual — especially as the status quo gets worse every launch cycle.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/the-gpu-market-is-built-on-a-broken-foundation-143100986.html?src=rss
