Microplastics have been found everywhere from the oceans’ depths to the Antarctic ice, and now new research has detected it in an alarming new location — clouds hanging atop two Japanese mountains. From a report: The clouds around Japan’s Mount Fuji and Mount Oyama contain concerning levels of the tiny plastic bits, and highlight how the pollution can be spread long distances, contaminating the planet’s crops and water via “plastic rainfall.” The plastic was so concentrated in the samples researchers collected that it is thought to be causing clouds to form while giving off greenhouse gasses.
“If the issue of ‘plastic air pollution’ is not addressed proactively, climate change and ecological risks may become a reality, causing irreversible and serious environmental damage in the future,” the study’s lead author, Hiroshi Okochi, a professor at Waseda University, said in a statement. The peer-reviewed paper was published in Environmental Chemistry Letters, and the authors believe it is the first to check clouds for microplastics. The pollution is made up of plastic particles smaller than five millimeters that are released from larger pieces of plastic during degradation. They are also intentionally added to some products, or discharged in industrial effluent. Tires are thought to be among the main sources, as are plastic beads used in personal care products. Recent research has found them to be widely accumulating across the globe — as much as 10m tons are estimated to end up in the oceans annually.
Meta’s Threads app, the social media platform that rivals X (formerly Twitter), may get a trending topics section. The potential new feature has come to light after an app developer reposted screenshots of the feature in use that were originally shared by a Meta employee.
The developer that reposted the screenshots, William Max, said that, “Just to be clear: I’m not a “leaker” or anything like that,” in a post. He continued, “I simply follow many engineers and employees working at Meta, and one of them accidentally posted a screenshot that was meant to be private. Fortunately for us, I happened to see it at the right moment. I will not disclose who posted the screenshot for obvious reasons.”
One user, @eddygraphic1, commented, “Is this a concept or real screenshot?” The employee, @willianmax, replied, “It’s real. An employee just posted by accident. 🤫” Another, @brian.g.holm said, “Please god, let this be real, AND SOON.” Max responded, “It’s real. I just don’t know if it’s coming soon (probably not).”
In the screenshots, the feature appears to list trending topics according to the number of threads it received. However, the topics don’t appear to necessarily rank from most popular to least. For example, Drake’s new hit “For All the Dogs” ranked first with 59.4K threads while “Loki Season 2” which had 91K threads, got slotted in fourth. So it’s not exactly clear how the rankings are listed.
According to the screenshots, the trending topics were showcased near the search tab. A trending tool seems like a straightforward embed for any social media app that thrives off of user-generated content. However, it’s for that very reason that trending topics can be a bit problematic. In the past, similar tools have been a place for messy contention on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. In 2018, Facebook killed its trending topics feature due to controversy over it repeatedly resurfacing conspiracy theories and misinformation. Meanwhile, X notoriously had to deal with bots that spammed the trending section with specific agendas.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/trending-topics-feature-may-be-coming-to-the-threads-app-183412664.html?src=rss
In the nearly 25 years since the release of Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant, the film’s history has become legend. Though it’s now considered a classic, when it came out the film bombed at the box office largely because the studio releasing it, Warner Bros., didn’t quite know what it had. That narrative has changed in…
Venture capitalists have been under fresh scrutiny for their role hyping up the crypto industry during the criminal trial of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, but new data shows that those investors have pulled back sharply from the industry they once helped build and promote. From a report: Global venture funding for crypto startups plunged to its lowest level since 2020 during the third quarter, tumbling 63% from the same period last year, according to data from research firm PitchBook. VCs invested just $2 billion in crypto worldwide during the quarter, a fraction of the funds they invested during happier times in the crypto world. “We aren’t seeing the big deals anymore,” PitchBook analyst Robert Le said. “That’s one of the drivers of the decline — deals are smaller.”
Mega fundraises during the crypto bull market once benefited companies like exchange FTX, nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea and NFT creator Yuga Labs. Now, the VC pullback could force difficult choices for companies already cutting costs and enacting layoffs. “If they’re not able to raise a round, even a down round, they’re either going to go out of business or get acquired at a valuation that’s much, much lower,” Le said. While crypto deals might still be happening for early-stage companies, Le said, many late-stage tech investors have exited the space completely.
Just one day before Amazon kicks off its October Prime Day, Walmart has launched a Holiday Kickoff sale. We’ve seen retailers host “anti-Prime” sales before, offering their own discounts that go live on or just before the big Amazon sales. We dove in to the deals and searched for the tech savings that are worth your time. One notable plus is that Walmart carries some devices that Amazon doesn’t, like the Google Nest Hub. Other worthwhile deals include the 9th generation iPad for $1 less than it sold for during Amazon’s July Prime Day and an Xbox Elite Series 2 core controller for just $88.
Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi, 64GB, 9th gen)
Apple’s 9th-generation iPad dropped down to $250 in July for Amazon’s first Prime Day of 2023, and it was one of the top sellers. Now Walmart’s sale has dropped that price by a dollar, which makes it the new lowest prices o far. This is the budget pick in our guide to the best iPads and while it doesn’t have the thin bezels and as much accessory support as our favorite, the iPad Air, it’s excellent for light gaming, streaming and browsing the web — and it’s the most affordable way to snag an iPad.
iRobot Roomba j7+
iRobot’s Roomba j7+ is down to $300, which is a huge, $400 discount over the regular price. We named this the runner up model in our robot vacuum tests, though the version we recommended didn’t have a clean base, this one does. It has strong suction power and utilizes advanced obstacle avoidance, which helps it steer clear of furniture and other objects while it’s cleaning.
Google Nest Hub (2nd gen)
The second-generation Google Nest Hub is down to $60, which is about $5 more than Walmart sold it for last time it did a Prime-adjacent sale. This is the top pick for a Google smart display in Engadget’s Engadget’s guide The seven-inch screen lives in an unobtrusive exterior and through it you can watch YouTube, access the Google Assistant, control your smart home devices, and even check in on your cameras around the house. But it doesn’t have a built-in camera itself, so you won’t be able to make video calls from it.
Microsoft Xbox Elite Series 2 Core
The Xbox Elite Series 2 Core wireless controller is down to $88. That beats the low price we saw a few months ago by a healthy $12 and is a $42 discount overall. The Core version of this gamepad is just like the regular Elite Series 2, except without the additional accessories (like extra joysticks and triggers). Both are designed for competitive gamers with a wrap-around grip, 40 hours of rechargeable battery life, adjustable tension sticks and hair-trigger locks.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
If you haven’t bought Nintendo’s acclaimed 2023 Zelda game, TOTK for your Switch yet, here’s a good opportunity. It’s a game we thought unlocked “a ton of creative potential” and is now 31 percent off, bringing it down to $48 which is just $2 more than the lowest price we’ve tracked. This is the standard, physical copy of the game.
Apple iPad (Wi-Fi, 64GB, 10th gen)
The 10th generation standard iPad is down to $399. While that’s a $40 savings, it’s still about $20 more than the all time low price we’ve tracked for this model. This one didn’t make the cut in our list of the best iPads. Though it has a bigger screen and a newer chip than the 9th generation, it’s still not Apple’s own M-series silicon and it does away with the home button and headphone jack, which the earlier version retains.
New iPhones tend to be rather boring. Not the pricey Pro models that get most of the fancy new features — I’m talking about the regular versions that are ideal for most of us. Apple has historically taken a trickle-down approach to its mainline phone, adding components and features from the previous year’s Pros as part of the annual update. That’s primarily what we’re dealing with on the iPhone 15, which starts at $799. However, the combination of those hand-me-downs, a revamped camera and the switch to USB-C make this year’s regular iPhone a worthy upgrade.
Design
Apple hasn’t made sweeping changes to the “regular” iPhone design in years, opting instead for subtle tweaks that only a careful observer will notice. For the iPhone 15, the company kept the aircraft-grade aluminum frame but gave it a more contoured edge. For this reason, the new model is more pleasant to hold, but you’ll only enjoy that if you aren’t using a case.
Apple also made a significant tweak to the back of the iPhone 15, choosing “color-infused” glass with a matte finish that it says is a first for smartphones. The issue for me here is the colors. Apple’s selection of black, blue, green, yellow and pink lack the pop of previous iPhone generations and are quite pastel in real life.
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
This isn’t a problem if you’re a fan of those shades, but they’re not for me. They’re muted to the point I thought I still had a protective covering on the back of the phone. There’s no white, gold or silver option, so you’re only left with the black – that’s really more of a dark gray – if you want something less Easter-y. The iPhone 15 is just as durable and water-resistant as its predecessor, so there’s no upgrades there. You’ll still get a Ceramic Shield display up front for added protection and an overall IP68 rating.
If a distinguishing factor on the iPhone 14 was the lack of a SIM tray, this year you’ll want to venture to the bottom edge. Apple has finally made the change to USB-C, a slightly larger and more pill-shaped port than its Lightning jack. Of course, there’s still no SIM tray as last year’s model ushered in the era of the eSIM, making transferring your number to a new phone much easier and giving you the option for multiple lines on the same device.
Display
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
Apple’s decision to not upgrade the iPhone 14’s display last year was disappointing, and while the company didn’t go as far as I’d like on the iPhone 15, there are some worthwhile changes. There’s a new Super Retina XDR display that offers 2,556 x 1,179 at 460 ppi on the iPhone 15 (2,796 x 1,290 on the 15 Plus). That’s not much different from the iPhone 14, which also had a Super Retina XDR panel. But, Apple now offers 2,000 nits of peak brightness and 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness – both increases over the previous model. Colors continue to be rich and you’ll get plenty of crisp detail, none of which is surprising.
Unfortunately, we’re still saddled with a 60Hz refresh rate on the iPhone 15s; the higher refresh rate is once again reserved for the Pros. Unless you’ve used a phone with a 120Hz display, you can probably live without it, but it’s worth noting that other companies have given their base model phones a higher rate. The Pixel 8, for example, has a 120Hz display, as does the Galaxy S23. And as my colleague Cherlynn Low pointed out last year, when you go from a Pro model iPhone to the “regular” version, the choppiness of the display becomes apparent when scrolling. Of course, the always-on display is limited to the iPhone 15 Pros, too, so you don’t get ever-present time, widgets and wallpapers on the iPhone 15.
The biggest change to the display is the Dynamic Island. This particular feature debuted on the iPhone 14 Pro last year, when Apple replaced the notch with the handy, informative area around the front-facing camera. Just like it does on the Pro models, Dynamic Island on the iPhone 15 provides easy access to alerts, Live Activities and apps that are running in the background.
When music is playing, you’ll see tiny album art and either an audio waveform or an icon for where the audio is broadcast (HomePod, speaker, etc.). Press and hold and you’ll get playback controls similar to what you typically see on the lock screen – only docked at the top of the display. Live Activities can show you things like flight statuses or Lyft arrival times, and Apple says its dedicated API will allow developers to expand how their apps harness the Dynamic Island. Coming from my iPhone 14 I’ve enjoyed having the extra info or controls always just a long press away. It’s one of this year’s trickle-down features that makes life easier.
Cameras
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
One of the biggest changes on the iPhone 15 is the new camera. Apple has replaced the 12-megapixel dual-camera with a 48-megapixel setup and quad-pixel sensor. The company said that its photonic engine combines the low-light performance of 12MP images with large quad pixels with the detail of a 48MP version composed of individual pixels. The result, and the default setting, is a 24MP image with increased clarity and better shots in dim lighting. There’s also a new 2x optical-quality telephoto preset, so the iPhone 15 now has three preselected zoom options.
The headline feature of the new camera is portraits in regular photo mode. The iPhone 15 now captures depth information whenever it detects humans, cats or dogs “prominently” in the frame. This allows you to apply the portrait mode effect afterwards with the editing tools in the Photos app. You no longer have to select it before shooting. An “f” icon will appear whenever the camera is capturing depth and tapping it will allow you to preview and activate portrait mode before you shoot. For photos you’ve already taken, opening the editor will show you an obvious portrait button for all shots where depth info is stored. There’s also a shortcut to activate portrait mode for compatible images when you’re viewing a single photo, so you don’t have to jump into the full edit view.
It’s nice to be able to apply or remove the portrait effect later on from certain shots. Whether you add the effect in edits or while shooting, the results are pretty consistent. Apple’s portrait mode struggles at times with the edges of faces, so there were some pictures where my ears or my beard were blurry. But overall, photos taken with the effect enabled and those with it applied afterward look the same.
Most photos from the iPhone 15 weren’t obviously different from those taken with the iPhone 14. Low-light shots from this year’s model are slightly warmer and more detailed as it handles things like the glare from street lights better. That’s likely due to the way the iPhone 15 combines 12MP and 48MP images. On well-lit or outdoor photos though, it’s hard to distinguish between stills from the two phones without peeking at the metadata or zooming in to see that the iPhone 15 is better with things like hair and textures.
You’ll want to use those new 48MP shots via the HEIF MAX mode sparingly though, opting for these means increased file size and will quickly eat up your phone’s storage. 12MP low-light images are around 1MB each, 24MP stills clock in at about 2.5MB and the 48MP photos are around 5.5MB. So, when shooting at maximum quality, your snaps will be just over double that of the default setting. Thankfully, Apple gives you one-tap access to HEIF MAX on the main camera UI, but you’ll have to enable resolution control in the camera settings to see it in the top right corner.
Performance and battery life
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
Another hand-me-down the iPhone 15 received from last year’s Pro is the A16 Bionic. The chip powers all of the “advanced features,” including Dynamic Island, increased outdoor display brightness and the 48MP main camera. Additionally, the A16 Bionic packs a six-core CPU that uses 20 percent less power than the A15 Bionic on the iPhone 14 and a five-core GPU with 50-percent more memory bandwidth than the previous combo. Lastly, the A16 Bionic’s 16-core neural engine is the extra oomph behind features like the updated portrait mode, live voicemail and better autocorrect.
During everyday use, the iPhone 15 performed quickly and smoothly, handling all of the tasks I threw at it without a stutter. That’s doing a mix of Instagram, Gmail, Apple Music, calls, texts and some YouTube TV streaming – all with an Apple Watch connected. The only time I noticed the phone running warm was whenever I was multitasking while streaming video or live TV via picture-in-picture. Even then, the iPhone 15 never got too hot to handle.
Apple has given the iPhone 15 a second-gen Ultra Wideband chip that powers Precision Finding. What’s more, the company has expanded it to Find My friends, so you can get pinpoint directions to someone for the times you might be in a dense crowd. You’ll have to share your location with each other, which can be disabled at any time, and Find My can notify the friend you’re looking for them. I haven’t been able to test this with a fellow iPhone 15 user yet, but having just been to a music festival I can see it replacing the constant barrage of “Where are you?” texts.
In addition to Find My, Apple continues to offer safety features like satellite-powered roadside assistance and emergency SOS, which it introduced last year. The company is making those services free for two years with iPhone 15 so you can still contact AAA via text when you’re out of reach of a cellular signal. Like the previous models, theiPhone 15 also features car crash detection and can also notify your emergency contacts from the Health app. Crash detection also works with emergency SOS via satellite, so it will still contact first responders if there’s no cellular or Wi-Fi connection available. Thankfully, I haven’t had the opportunity to try these. They’re items I’m happy to have, but hope I never use.
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
The change to USB-C is a welcome one, albeit long overdue. In addition to giving you a more universal connection consistent with iPad and Mac, you can charge your Apple Watch, AirPods and other compatible devices with the iPhone 15. This came in handy a few times when my Apple Watch Series 7 was running on fumes. It has also been nice to top up my AirPods Pro while in transit if I forgot to charge them before leaving the house. Plus, it’s been nice to remove one cable from my travel stash.
The disappointing thing about USB-C is that Apple has limited data transfers to USB 2.0 speeds of 480 Mbps. I can’t see a scenario where you would use your phone for transporting lots of files, but the low speed does hamper things like transferring data to a new phone. As expensive as the base iPhone is, a faster connection here would be nice.
In terms of battery life, Apple’s claims of “all day” use still hold true. After a day that started at 7AM, the iPhone 15 still had 28 percent left when I plugged it in just before 1AM, with some moderately heavy Instagram scrolling between 8PM and midnight. Even at a music festival where I was constantly using the phone, I never went below 25-30 percent. That’s over three days of running low-power mode for more than 15 hours while shooting a mix of Instagram Stories, photos and video. And in both scenarios, I had an Apple Watch and a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor connected and constantly in use.
Apple says a 20W power adapter can charge the iPhone 15 in about 30 minutes. The phone also supports MagSafe wireless charging with compatible accessories. Despite the shift to USB-C, nothing has changed from the iPhone 14, so if you were hoping for faster charging, that’s not happening (yet, anyway).
Wrap-up
With the iPhone 15, Apple offers enough to make this year’s device a worthwhile upgrade. That’s not always the case, and it certainly wasn’t last year. However, the revamped camera works well, offering higher-quality shots when you need them, and Dynamic Island is genuinely useful. USB-C, even though it’s limited, is a welcome addition too. And since you’re likely going to slap a case on the thing anyway, you can probably live with Apple’s color chemistry experiment if those hues don’t quite excite you. And while it’s nice that the iPhone 15 is a more significant upgrade than we’ve gotten in years, here’s hoping that a complete overhaul is coming soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-iphone-15-review-the-most-substantial-update-to-the-regular-iphone-in-years-173204712.html?src=rss
EU antitrust regulators are asking Microsoft’s users and rivals whether Bing should comply with new tough tech rules and also whether that should be the case for Apple’s iMessage, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Commission in September opened investigations to assess whether Microsoft’s Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising as well as Apple’s iMessage should be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The probes came after the companies contested the EU competition regulator labelling these services as core platform services under the DMA.
The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations. The Commission sent out questionnaires earlier this month, asking rivals and users to rate the importance of Microsoft’s three services and Apple’s iMessage versus competing services.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and DALL-E 3 generative AI products, is exploring the possibility of manufacturing its own AI accelerator chips, according to Reuters. Citing anonymous sources, the Reuters report indicates that OpenAI is considering the option due to a shortage of specialized AI GPU chips and the high costs associated with running them.
OpenAI has been evaluating various options to address this issue, including potentially acquiring a chipmaking company and working more closely with other chip manufacturers like Nvidia. Currently, the AI firm has not made a final decision, but the discussions have been ongoing since at least last year. Nvidia dominates the AI chip market, holding more than 80 percent of the global share for processors best suited for AI applications. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly expressed his concerns over the scarcity and cost of these chips.
The hardware situation is said to be a top priority for OpenAI, as the company currently relies on a massive supercomputer built by Microsoft, one of its largest backers. The supercomputer uses 10,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), according to Reuters. Running ChatGPT comes with significant costs, with each query costing approximately 4 cents, according to Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. If queries grow to even a tenth of the scale of Google search, the initial investment in GPUs would be around $48.1 billion, with annual maintenance costs at about $16 billion.
Enlarge/ UAW members and workers at the Mopar Parts Center Line, a Stellantis Parts Distribution Center in Center Line, Michigan, hold signs after walking off their jobs at noon on September 22, 2023, and picketing outside the facility. (credit: MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images)
On Friday, the United Auto Workers gained a key concession from General Motors in its ongoing strike. Workers at GM battery manufacturing plants will be allowed to unionize, as revealed by UAW President Shawn Fain in a livestream.
“We were about to shut down GM’s largest money-maker, in Arlington, Texas. The company knew those members were about to walk immediately. And just that threat has provided a transformative win,” Fain said. Our plan is winning at GM, and we expect it to win at Ford and Stellantis as well.”
The autoworker strike began when around 13,000 workers walked off their jobs at three factories in Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio after the UAW’s previous contract with Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors expired without a new contract in place in mid-September. A week later, another 5,600 workers joined the strike at 38 locations across 20 states.
Microsoft, Google and others experiment with how to produce, market and charge for new tools. From a report: Microsoft has lost money on one of its first generative AI products, said a person with knowledge of the figures. It and Google are now launching AI-backed upgrades to their software with higher price tags. Zoom has tried to mitigate costs by sometimes using a simpler AI it developed in-house. Adobe and others are putting caps on monthly usage and charging based on consumption. “A lot of the customers I’ve talked to are unhappy about the cost that they are seeing for running some of these models,” said Adam Selipsky, the chief executive of Amazon.com’s cloud division, Amazon Web Services, speaking of the industry broadly. It will take time for companies and consumers to understand how they want to use AI and what they are willing to pay for it, said Chris Young, Microsoft’s head of corporate strategy.
“We’re clearly at a place where now we’ve got to translate the excitement and the interest level into true adoption,” he said. Building and training AI products can take years and hundreds of millions of dollars, more than with other types of software. AI often doesn’t have the economies of scale of standard software because it can require intense new calculations for each query. The more customers use the products, the more expensive it is to cover the infrastructure bills. These running costs expose companies charging flat fees for AI to potential losses.
Microsoft used AI from its partner OpenAI to launch GitHub Copilot, a service that helps programmers create, fix and translate code. It has been popular with coders — more than 1.5 million people have used it and it is helping build nearly half of Copilot users’ code — because it slashes the time and effort needed to program. It has also been a money loser because it is so expensive to run. Individuals pay $10 a month for the AI assistant. In the first few months of this year, the company was losing on average more than $20 a month per user, according to a person familiar with the figures, who said some users were costing the company as much as $80 a month.
Aberrance is the first Mongolian horror feature to get a theatrical release in the U.S.—a landmark moment for director and co-writer Baatar Batsukh, especially since this is his first feature. The film runs just 75 minutes, but fills that slender space with a suspenseful mystery that changes shape more than once.
Enlarge/ The Miura 1 rocket takes flight from Southern Spain. (credit: PLD Space)
A Spanish launch company claimed success on Saturday after its suborbital Miura 1 rocket lifted off and achieved an altitude of 46 km before plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean.
Saturday’s launch from Southern Spain is exciting for several reasons, but most notably because PLD Space is the first of Europe’s new space launch companies to have some credible success. To that end, Saturday’s modest flight represented the dawn of the European commercial space age.
“This launch culminates over 12 years of relentless effort, yet it marks just the start of our journey,” said PLD Space Launch director and co-founder Raúl Torres in a statement after the launch. “This test flight has yielded valuable data, enabling us to validate crucial design elements and technologies that will underpin the development of our Miura 5 orbital launcher.”
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna appears to be in a state of damage control following recent controversial comments on AI-related job losses. From a report: Speaking at an event in the US this week, Krishna said IBM has no intention of laying off tech staff, such as developers or programmers, and instead plans to ramp up hiring for roles in these areas. “I don’t intend to get rid of a single one,” he said. “I’ll get more.” Krishna added that the company aims to increase the number of software engineering and sales staff over the next four years to accommodate for its heightened focus on generative AI. Instead, the hammer will fall largely on staff working in back-office operations, aligning closely with what we’ve heard previously from the exec.
Earlier this year, IBM announced plans to cut nearly 8,000 staff working in positions spanning human resources in a bid to automate roles. The move means that anywhere up to 7,800 jobs at the tech giant’s HR division could be cut, equivalent to around 30% of the overall workforce in the unit. IBM also said at the time that it would halt hiring for roles in the division on account of positions being automated.
Krishna has been among the most outspoken big tech executives on the topic of AI job losses in recent months. While industry figureheads have repeatedly shirked the topic, Krishna, to his credit, has been candid on the subject. In an interview with CNBC in August, Krishna suggested “we should all feel better” about the influx of generative AI tools, much to the ire of critics worried about its impact on the labor market. Krishna also told the broadcaster that organizations can deliver marked improvements to productivity through generative AI, but that will come at the expense of human roles.
The Meta Quest 3 proves that the Meta Ques 2 was just an impossibly good deal. When that VR headset arrived for just $300 three years ago, it was the perfect gateway to VR for most people. You didn’t need to hook it up to anything, you just flipped it on and stepped into virtual reality. But then Meta raised the price to $400 last year, and the entire VR industry just started to feel very stale.
It’s no wonder the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro completely flopped – VR was already struggling, and few people actually needed something so expensive.
The $500 Quest 3 likely won’t tempt over as many VR newcomers as the Quest 2, but it’s still a solid step forward for Meta. It has all of the upgrades you’d expect, and it also has full color mixed reality cameras, which let you use VR apps alongside a view of the real world. Squint a bit, and you can almost see what Apple is going for with the Vision Pro (though with far less fidelity).
Despite all those improvements though, the Quest 3 makes me marvel even more at what Meta accomplished with the Quest 2, which is still available at its original $299 price. That headset is still the best VR entry point for newbies, though I wish it were a bit cheaper by now. The Quest 3, meanwhile, is the logical upgrade once you’ve caught the VR bug.
Here’s what makes it special: It’s significantly thinner and lighter than the Quest 2, thanks to a new set of pancake lenses. Those also help to produce a sharper image from the new displays, which deliver 2,064 by 2,208 pixels per eye. That’s even better than the PlayStation VR 2, which wowed us earlier this year.
The Quest 3 is also running Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip, which offers double the GPU power of the Quest 2, according to Meta. Up front, there are two full color cameras for mixed reality, along with a depth sensor in the middle to help map your space and avoid obstacles. That’s notable, since it was a feature Meta completely dropped from the Quest Pro. When it comes to storage, you’ve got your choice between the 128GB $500 model and a 512GB option for $650.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Now for what the Quest 3 doesn’t have: There’s no face or eye tracking, or cameras on the controllers like the Quest Pro. Though, at least they’ve lost the annoying rings from the Quest 2 gamepads. I don’t think you’ll miss any of the Quest Pro’s features – they’re potentially cool, but developers haven’t really taken advantage of them.
Meta already proved it can make a solid standalone VR headset, but can it really bring mixed reality to everyone? That seems to be the driving force behind the Quest 3. Apple’s Vision Pro showed us a genuinely promising vision of spatial computing, one where the digital and physical worlds can comfortably coexist. But that thing also costs $3,499. Trying to accomplish something similar for a fraction of the price seems impossible.
The Quest 3’s attempt at mixed reality is far from perfect – the color cameras deliver a fuzzy and pixelated view of the world, as if you’re in a drug-fueled haze. But it’s still pretty useful. A double tap on the side of the Quest 3 is all it takes to flip between immersive VR and the real world.
That’s something I ended up using frequently to check on text and Slack messages, grab information from my computer, and chat with people around me. Doing any of those things in the past would have required either completely removing the headset, or flipping up the visor.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3 also goes beyond just letting you see the real world: You can also do some basic mixed reality multi-tasking. You can arrange up to three windowed Quest apps, like WhatsApp and the Quest Store, on a translucent virtual tray that sits in front of you. Even better, you can move that tray anywhere in your space. That’s not something I’d use a lot, but the fact that I could create this environment, anchor it to a specific point in the real world, and walk around it simply blew me away.
It also helps that the Quest 3 makes every virtual element look incredibly sharp. Looking at WhatsApp chats in the headset was no different than on my gaming monitor. Meta still has to work on actually making the Quest’s apps more useful though: I could only reply to WhatsApp chats by awkwardly pecking away at the Quest’s virtual keyboard, leaving voice messages or attaching media from the headset. (Let’s just hope that tabletop virtual keyboard that Mark Zuckerberg showed off actually becomes a reality.)
A glimpse of the Quest 3’s mixed reality view from my family room.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3 also marks the first time I’ve genuinely enjoyed using Meta’s finger tracking. It was an intriguing feature when it arrived on the original Quest, but it wasn’t alway accurate, so I preferred using the Quest’s controllers instead. Now, thanks to the depth sensor and full color cameras, the Quest 3 does a far better job at recognizing every finger gesture. I found myself letting my controllers rest far more often, since it was so easy to navigate through apps by swiping and virtually pointing.
Now given just how well the Quest 2 excelled at being a standalone VR headset, I wasn’t very surprised that the Quest 3 was even better. Everything loaded faster thanks to its increased RAM. The controllers felt far more precise, especially for games that demanded accuracy, like the upcoming Samba de Amigo and the VR mainstay Beat Saber.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The Quest 3’s higher resolution display also makes games look far better than the Quest 2, but I was more impressed by the handful of titles that were optimized for its faster hardware. Red Matter 2 practically looked like a full-fledged PC VR title, thanks to its incredibly detailed textures and character models. The Kurzgesagt game, Out of Scale, made me feel like I was living inside of one of its gorgeously animated YouTube videos .
Quest 3 owners will still have access to the hundreds of games that also work on the Quest 2, but it’s nice to see some new titles arriving alongside fresh hardware. It doesn’t look like anything will be exclusive to Quest 3 yet, but that could easily change down the line. For now, I’d expect new games will have an extra layer of polish, while the Quest 2 will get a more basic experience.
I didn’t get to try First Encounters, the Quest 3 mixed reality tutorial that was shown off during our initial preview, but I’m hoping more developers start building similar experiences for the Quest 3. There are a handful of truly “mixed reality” titles already, like Zombies Noir and Figmin XR, but they’re mostly just interesting experiments instead of anything truly groundbreaking. There’s room for the Quest 3 to deliver the sort of reality-bending experiences initially promised devices like the Magic Leap and HoloLens.
After testing the Quest 3 for a week, I’ve noticed something surprising: It’s the first headset that doesn’t make me feel trapped while using it. Since the real world is easily accessible, I feel far more comfortable sitting and enjoying a movie on Netflix, or a 360-degree video on YouTube. And thanks to its lighter frame and additional room for glasses, I can also play VR games far longer than I used to.
I only wish the Quest 3’s battery life lasted longer. Depending on what you’re doing, it can go for two to three hours, just like the Quest 2. At least you can still use it while charging the headset though, and it also stays powered when connected to a PC for beefier experiences, like Google Earth VR.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
If you’ve seen my PlayStation VR 2 review, you’ll know I’m pretty ambivalent about the state of VR at the moment. The headsets are getting better, but the games and industry just feels stagnant. The Meta Quest 3, at the very least, seems like a better option for VR newcomers than the $550 PlayStation VR 2. It’s pricey, but it delivers solid VR without a PlayStation 5. While it’s no Vision Pro, the Quest 3’s stab at mixed reality makes it a headset you’ll likely use long after your VR honeymoon is over.
And if a $500 headset is too expensive, I’m sure you can find a used Quest 2 for a steal.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-quest-3-review-mixed-reality-vr-150009788.html?src=rss
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As the FCC leans towards reinstating net neutrality and regulating ISPs under Title II, the broadband sector is set to challenge the move. Previously, courts have upheld FCC’s decisions. However, legal experts believe the Supreme Court’s current stance may hinder the FCC’s authority to classify broadband as a telecommunications service. ArsTechnica: The major question here is whether the FCC has authority to decide that broadband is a telecommunications service, which is important because only telecommunications services can be regulated under Title II’s common-carrier framework. “A Commission decision reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecommunications service will not survive a Supreme Court encounter with the major questions doctrine. It would be folly for the Commission and Congress to assume otherwise,” two former Obama administration solicitors general, Donald Verrilli, Jr. and Ian Heath Gershengorn, argued in a white paper last month. According to Verrilli and Gershengorn, “There is every reason to think that a majority of the Supreme Court” would vote against the FCC.
Verrilli and Gershengorn express their view with a striking level of certainty given how difficult it usually is to predict a Supreme Court outcome — particularly in a case like this, where the agency decision isn’t even finalized. While litigation in lower courts is to be expected, it’s not even clear that the Supreme Court will take up the case at all. The certainty expressed by Verrilli and Gershengorn is less surprising when you consider that their white paper was funded by USTelecom and NCTA — The Internet & Television Association, two broadband industry trade groups that sued the Obama-era FCC in a failed attempt to overturn the net neutrality rules. The groups — which represent firms like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter — eventually got their way when then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a repeal of the rules in 2017. But the industry-funded white paper has gotten plenty of attention, and the FCC is keenly aware of the so-called “major questions doctrine” that it describes. The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is pending a commission vote, will seek public comment on how the major questions doctrine might affect Title II regulation and net neutrality rules that would prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
Enlarge/ FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel speaks during the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Aerospace Summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)
With the Federal Communications Commission preparing to reimpose net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation on Internet service providers, the broadband industry is almost certain to sue the FCC once the decision is made.
The Democratic-majority FCC is expected to define broadband as a telecommunications service, which means it would face common-carrier regulations under Title II of the Communications Act. Industry trade groups that represent Internet service providers will likely argue, as they have unsuccessfully argued before, that the FCC does not have authority to classify broadband as a telecommunications service.
Federal appeals courts upheld previous FCC decisions on whether to apply common carrier rules to broadband, a fact that current agency officials point to in their plan to revive Obama-era regulation of ISPs under Title II. But some legal commentators claim the FCC is doomed to fail this time because of the Supreme Court’s evolving approach on whether federal agencies can decide “major questions” without explicit instructions from Congress.
