Intel’s tick-tock development cadence will not return. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during the company’s Q3 2025 earnings call that the 18A process node will be a “long-lived node” powering at least three generations of client and server products. Intel reported its first profit in nearly two years, aided by financial support from Nvidia, Softbank, and the US government.
The company faces chip shortages that will peak in the first quarter of next year. CFO David Zinsner said Intel is prioritizing AI server chips over consumer processors. Intel will launch only one Panther Lake SKU this year and roll out others in 2026. Zinsner called Panther Lake “pretty expensive” and said Intel will push Lunar Lake chips “in at least the first half of the year.”
In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte led a disastrous military campaign into Moscow. The death toll was devastating: Out of some 615,000 men, only about 110,000 survivors returned. (Napoleon abandoned his army in early December to return home on a sled.) Roughly 100,000 of the casualties died in battle, while as many as 300,000 perished from a combination of the bitter cold of Russia’s notoriously harsh winter, starvation, and disease.
Scholars have debated precisely what kinds of diseases ravaged Napoleon’s troops. New DNA analysis of some soldiers’ remains has revealed the presence of two pathogens in particular, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The first is Salmonella enterica, which causes paratyphoid fever; the second is Borrelia recurrentis, which is transmitted by body lice and causes relapsing fever. (A preprint of the paper appeared on bioaRxiv in July.)
“It’s very exciting to use a technology we have today to detect and diagnose something that was buried for 200 years,” said co-author Nicolás Rascovan of the Institut Pasteur. “Accessing the genomic data of the pathogens that circulated in historical populations helps us to understand how infectious diseases evolved, spread, and disappeared over time and to identify the social or environmental contexts that played a part in these developments. This information provides us with valuable insights to better understand and tackle infectious diseases today.”
Netflix is reportedly closing its Boss Fight Entertainment game development studio, according to variousLinkedIn posts by staffers. The streaming giant bought the company back in 2022 and it has been responsible for games like Squid Game: Unleashed and the interactive narrative Netflix Stories.
This is relatively surprising, as Squid Game: Unleashed was something of a hit. It launched alongside season two of the show and has amassed over ten million downloads on the Google Play Store alone, according to reporting by Mobilegamer. It recently received a major software update coinciding with season three of the show.
Boss Fight Entertainment has around 80 staffers. It’s unclear if they’ll be laid off or shuffled somewhere else within Netflix’s gaming division. Engadget has reached out to Netflix and will update this post when we hear back.
Several designers at the company have expressed regret that we won’t see what it had planned for the future. “It’s infuriating that the world will never see some of the stuff that was shuffled away behind the scenes,” wrote design director Damion Schubert on LinkedIn.
This is the second studio that Netflix has chased out the door in the past year. It shut down its AAA game studio Team Blue, which had attracted developers from Blizzard, Bungie and Sony Santa Monica. We never even got to find out what the team was working on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/netflix-reportedly-shutters-studio-behind-squid-game-mobile-spinoff-151156987.html?src=rss
An international team of researches has announced the discovery of a super-Earth exoplanet (designated GJ 251 c) situated in its host star’s habitable zone less than 20 light-years from our own. What makes this detection exciting is that the planet’s relatively short distance makes it one of the best targets bookmarked for future telescopic
A good reason to invest in a video doorbell is to stave off package thieves, though it’s not the only compelling selling point. Halloween is right around the corner, and while that means costumed kids (and adults) stopping by for free candy, it also presents an opportunity for shenanigans by the local riffraff. They might be less inclined
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Investing in a smart thermostat won’t just keep your home comfortable — it also can help you save money on energy bills and reduce your carbon footprint. By automating scheduling and learning preferred temperatures, smart thermostats conserve energy and make your home more comfortable. The 2022 Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium might not be the newest option on the market, but to this day, it receives consistently excellent ratings, and right now, it’s $198.99 (originally $249.99) on Walmart, marking its lowest price ever according to price trackers.
Ecobee is known for having one of the strongest privacy policies in the smart-home space. The company doesn’t sell personal information, collects minimal data, prioritizes user ownership of data, and supports 2FA for added protection. When paired with Ecobee SmartSensors and an Ecobee SmartCamera, it can also double as a home security hub.
This model, which earned a PCMag Editor’s Choice award, comes with a smart sensor that balances temperatures in your home using occupancy detection. While the thermostat is smaller than its predecessor, it has a larger four-inch full-color touchscreen that’s bright enough to read from across the room.
It has a built-in speaker and mic that’s compatible with a wide variety of smart-home ecosystems, letting you listen to music, get news or weather updates, change thermostat settings, and check the temperature in rooms with sensors. You can even monitor air quality with alerts and tips on indoor humidity levels and whether the air quality is clean or poor. All of this is accessible from the Ecobee mobile app.
While the price is higher than a basic smart thermostat, if you want lower energy costs while benefitting from features like measuring air quality, an integrated voice assistant that doubles as a speaker, and remote sensors, the eco-friendly Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium is a strong choice that can help you save money in the long-run and make your home more comfortable.
High-resolution audio on the go isn’t very convenient. It typically involves wired headphones and a DAC (digital-to-analog converter) of some kind, plus your phone or another device to access files or a streaming service. All of this is necessary since Bluetooth compresses an audio signal by design, to allow for low-latency transmission and minimize battery draw. Simply put, wireless headphones haven’t been able to meet the demands of lossless audio, but Sennheiser has come the closest to fulfilling the dream with its HDB 630 ($500).
Thanks to redesigned drivers, a new acoustic platform and a dongle, the company offers up to 24-bit/96kHz audio on the HDB 630 — depending on your configuration. You also get above average active noise cancellation (ANC), a highly customizable EQ, shockingly long battery life and advanced features to fine-tune the headphones to your liking. For some, the best possible sound is still only found on pricey setups and open-back headphones. For everyone else, Sennheiser has provided a taste of the audiophile life in a much more portable package.
Design
Sennheiser says the HDB 630 “inherited” the same chassis from its Momentum 4 headphones. That’s unfortunate because my biggest complaint with that older model’s redesign is how cheap it looked compared to previous entries in the Momentum line. The HDB 630 suffers the same fate, although the splash of silver on the headband and yokes helps things a bit. Simply put, these don’t look like a set of $500 headphones, and since they’re $150 more than their predecessor was at launch, they really should have a more premium appearance.
The outside of the right ear cup is still a touch panel where you can swipe, tap and even pinch to control the HDB 630. I don’t recall another set of headphones with a pinch gesture, and I’m still not convinced it’s warranted. The action is used to enable an Adaptive ANC adjustment that allows you to dial in the amount of noise blocking you need. After the pinch, sliding a single finger forwards and backwards fine tunes the mix of ANC and transparency mode. It’s a nice option to have on the headphones themselves, I just think a triple tap to activate it would be easier to master — and remember.
The only other button on the HDB 630 is for power and Bluetooth pairing. Unless you’re frequently connecting these headphones to a new device, you might not be reaching for this control very often. That’s because the HDB 630 goes into standby mode when you take them off before powering down completely after 15 minutes of inactivity. You can extend that window to 30 or 60 minutes if you prefer. And if the headphones still have battery left, you can return to active mode by simply putting them back on your head.
Sennheiser is betting you’ll use the HDB 630 for long listening sessions, so it outfitted these headphones with soft ear pads and a well-cushioned headband. The clamping force is adequate for a proper ANC seal, but never becomes a burden. And despite being around 20 grams heavier than the Momentum 4, this model still feels balanced and doesn’t weigh you down.
Sound quality
The HDB 630 features new drivers and a specially designed acoustic system.
Billy Steele for Engadget
While the overall design may be familiar, the sound platform for the HDB 630 is completely new. 42mm drivers offer what Sennheiser says is “neutral sound with lifelike mids, stunning detail and a wide soundstage.” In order to deliver sound quality that’s as close to open-back headphones as possible, the company overhauled the entire acoustic system, from the drivers to the baffle’s transparent mesh, in the name of balance and clarity. And since audiophile headphones typically require a dedicated external amplifier to achieve their full potential, Sennheiser included a BTD 700 USB-C dongle for high-resolution wireless audio transmission.
When I first put the HDB 630 on, I thought the audio quality was good but not great. Listening over the standard definition SBC codec produced decent results, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. Once I connected to the BTD 700 dongle and unlocked 16-bit/48kHz tunes from Apple Music, though, these headphones really started to impress.
As good as they are, the HDB 630 may not be for everyone. That “neutral” stock tuning places high emphasis on the midrange, so you’ll likely need to make some adjustments to get the bass performance you crave from rock, electronic, hip-hop and other genres driven by low-end tone. While I concede the neutral base is a great starting point, and the HDB 630 does indeed showcase “stunning detail,” I’d argue Sennheiser’s promise of “a wide soundstage” doesn’t always hold true.
These headphones are at their best with more immersive content, like the TRON: Ares soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails. After a slight adjustment, the electronic score had the booming bass it needed, offering driving beats that nearly rattled my brain. All that was layered with rich synths and Trent Reznor’s iconic vocals. The texture and distortion in the instruments came through in greater detail too, something that’s not as apparent on other headphones and earbuds.
Switch over to Thrice’s Horizons/West and the HDB 630 is a different story. Transitioning from synth-heavy electronic music to a genre like rock causes these headphones to lose some of the immersive character they are capable of delivering. You still get absurd clarity and detail, particularly in Teppei Teranishi’s guitar riffs, but the music sounds slightly flatter and a little less energetic. It’s not bad by any means, but some genres won’t envelope you as much as others do.
You can also use the HDB 630 wired over USB-C for lossless-quality audio. Since a number of competitors also do this, I dedicated the bulk of my testing to see if Sennheiser’s wireless dongle is meaningfully different. Of course, I did my due diligence and tested the wired configuration a few times, and it should come as no surprise that the HDB 630 sounds just as good in that setup.
Software, features and accessories
There’s only one button on the HDB 630.
Billy Steele for Engadget
As I mentioned, the HDB 630 comes with Sennheiser’s BTD 700 Bluetooth USB dongle. This enables higher quality streaming than you’ll natively get from most devices. With the BTD 700, you can expect aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless listening up at rates to 24-bit/96kHz. The dongle also has a 30ms low-latency gaming mode, (supposedly) enhanced call performance and Auracast support for streaming to multiple headphones or speakers. The BTD 700 has a USB-C connector, but it comes with a USB-A adapter if you need it. This typically costs $60 if you buy it on its own, and since you need it to unlock the HDB 630’s full potential, it’s great to see it included in the box.
The HDB 630’s settings and features are accessible in the Sennheiser Smart Control Plus app. And for this model, the company is offering a lot more customization than it does on the Accentum or Momentum headphones. First, the EQ editing options are more robust thanks to a parametric equalizer, which allows you to get a lot more detailed with your custom presets. For example, I was able to add the low-end tone I feel is missing from the stock tuning for those metal, rock and hip-hop tracks I mentioned before. And unlike a lot of headphone apps, adjusting the EQ actually improves the sound instead of just muddying things further.
Another sound-related addition for the HDB 630 is Crossfeed. This allows you to blend the left and right channels so that it seems like you’re listening to speakers instead of headphones. Unfortunately, you only get two options here — Low and High — but the effect certainly enhances the sonic profile of the HDB 630 at both settings.
Despite the BTD 700 dongle’s Mac and Windows compatibility, there’s no desktop version of the Smart Control Plus app. This means you’ll have to change all of your settings with the HDB 630 through your phone before you pair it with both the dongle and your computer. It would be nice if you could make EQ adjustments, create new presets and even change Crossfeed levels without having to reconnect to another device. This also means you can’t be connected to the BTD 700 and both your phone and your computer, since the dongle takes one of the two available multipoint Bluetooth slots.
Active noise cancellation and call quality
The HDB 630 has a very basic design with lots of plastic.
Billy Steele for Engadget
When it comes to ANC performance, I’m not entirely sure that the HDB 630 is better than the Momentum 4. But that’s okay. That previous model brought a significant improvement compared to Sennheiser’s older wireless headphones and the ANC is still quite good here. In fact, it was robust enough to block my family’s voices during their calls while I worked from home, and since most headphones struggle with this, that’s no mean feat.
Sennheiser says the BTD 700 dongle will give you improved voice performance over the headphones alone. Specifically, the accessory should provide extended range, clearer voice pickup and, according to the company, “uninterrupted” calls. In my recorded samples, I think the headphones themselves sounded slightly better than when I captured my voice while connected to the BTD 700. However, I noticed a distinct lack of background noise in both clips, which is helpful in busier environments. I’ll also note the overall voice quality isn’t pristine, but it’s clear enough to use for work calls — even if you’re the main presenter.
Battery life
Sennheiser promises that you’ll get up to 60 hours of battery life on a charge with the HDB 630. That’s the same staggering figure the company claims on the Momentum 4. And yes, that’s with ANC enabled, but you’ll only achieve that if you’re listening to standard resolution tunes. Based on my testing with a mix of noise cancellation and transparency mode while I was listening to music and taking work calls, I have no reason to believe the company’s numbers don’t hold true. If you choose to listen entirely via the BTD 700’s higher quality output, you can expect up to 45 hours of use on a charge. That’s still quite a long time considering a lot of the competition runs out at around 30 hours — and that’s without high-res music.
Due to all of the signal processing that helps with the acoustic performance on the HDB 630, they can only be used when they’re turned on. Unlike some wireless models, you can’t use these as wired headphones when the battery is spent. However, if you find yourself with a completely depleted battery, a 10-minute charge will give you up to seven hours of use. The company doesn’t specify streaming resolution for that number, but I assume it’s at standard definition. Still, you’ll get a few hours of higher-res music in that time, which should be enough to get you through a work session, evening commute or that new album you’re dying to play for the first time.
The competition
Incredible sound awaits, if you’re okay to carry a dongle around with your headphones.
Billy Steele for Engadget
In the realm of flagship headphones, any company’s top-of-the-line model will set you back $500 these days. I look back fondly on the time when $300-$350 got you the best Sony had to offer. While the HDB 630 is expensive, it’s also in the same ballpark of what you’ll pay for the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones ($450), the Sony WH-1000XM6 ($458 currently) and the AirPods Max ($549). Each of those have their advantages over the rest of the competition, with the 1000XM6 offering the most complete package overall. However, when it comes to pure sound quality, neither of those three are at the top of the heap.
Up until now, that title belonged to the Noble Audio FoKus Apollo. At $650, those headphones are even more expensive than the HDB 630, but their stock tuning will appeal to more listeners and the soundstage is wider and more immersive. There’s also Bowers & Wilkins’ Px7 S3 for a slightly cheaper $479. It delivers the company’s warm, inviting sound and attention to finer details. After spending time with the HDB 630 though, these alternatives are just that — alternatives — as the new Sennheiser headphones are now my pick for best overall sound quality.
Wrap-up
I get it: in the current financial climate, $500 is a lot to pay for headphones (or anything else, for that matter). You can find a number of perfectly capable sets of ANC headphones for much less given how frequently things go on sale these days. However, what you won’t find is an option that gives you anything close to the performance of audiophile-grade, open-back headphones. That’s really what Sennheiser is doing here, and the HDB 630 slots nicely into the company’s HD 600 series of high-end cans.
As good as the HDB 630 is sound-wise, I can also appreciate that these aren’t the best headphones for everyone. The company’s Momentum 4 is still a very capable set of headphones and it’s now available for about $250. If you crave the best sound quality that still offers the convenience of wireless headphones — and you’re okay with a few extra steps — the HDB 630 is a worthy investment. Just don’t leave home without that dongle.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/sennheiser-hdb-630-review-a-sonic-marvel-with-room-for-improvement-150000295.html?src=rss
With Amazon recently launching their M8a AWS instances powered by 5th Gen AMD EPYC “Turin”, for their M8 class instance types there now are all the latest-generation CPU options with AMD EPYC Turin (M8a), Intel Xeon 6 Granite Rapids (M8i), and their in-house Graviton4 processors (M8g). After recently looking at the M7a vs. M8a performance with Amazon EC2, many Phoronix readers expressed interest in seeing an M8a vs. M8i vs. M8g performance showdown so here are those benchmarks.
How do you teach AI in a way that resonates with 11- to 14-year-olds long after the lesson ends? In two recent Experience AI webinars, we explored that question with collaborators from Google Research, Google DeepMind, and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. During the webinars, we also showcased AI Quests, a gamified, classroom-first experience where learners use AI concepts to solve real problems.
“The AI technology you’ll experience is amazing, but it’s not magic. Success depends on the decisions you make.”
That line, delivered by Professor Sky, the in-game mentor, captures the core message of AI Quests: AI systems are built by people and shaped by human judgment at every step.
What is AI Quests?
We’ve embedded AI Quests into the Foundations of AI unit in Experience AI, our free AI literacy programme created with Google DeepMind.
As Google Research’s Liat Ben Rafael explained, “AI Quests is a gamified experience… where students discover firsthand how AI is used in the real world to create positive impact.” Each quest is grounded in a real research programme and mirrors the AI project lifecycle you’ll recognise from our Experience AI lessons: define the problem, prepare data, train, test, deploy.
The first quest, Market Marshes, asks students to help Luna, one of the central characters, to protect a riverside market from flooding. Players roam, gather candidate data (from rainfall stats to town gossip), clean it, choose relevant features, and train a model. If the model underperforms, they iterate, exactly as real AI developers would.
Emma Staves, Learning Manager at the Foundation, notes that a key moment is when learners test their model: “It’s made really clear that the data that’s being used to test the model is historic data.” That simple design choice can help you to unlock rich discussions with your learners about validation, reliability, and what counts as “accurate enough” for real decisions.
Designed around how students actually learn
Developed in collaboration with learning scientists at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, the quests reflect what Victor Lee, Faculty Lead for AI and Education at Stanford, describes as “enduring understanding”:
“The enduring understanding is about how humans can initiate and design AI applications that can address some of humanity’s biggest unsolved challenges.”
To keep that focus, the team blends:
Situated learning – for example, a concrete flood scenario rather than abstract exercises
Pedagogical agents – characters who nudge, model, and explain
Embedded feedback and productive failure – learn by trying, revising, and trying again
Self-explanation prompts – ‘learning tickets’ that ask students to articulate what they’re doing and why
In other words, the quests are all about playing with purpose.
What teachers are seeing in the classroom
We piloted AI Quests with some teachers, including Dave Cross, Curriculum Leader for Computer Science at North Liverpool Academy, who tested the quests with his Year 7 students, before extending it to his GCSE classes:
“We see it moving forward as a really solid foundation… for that further learning.”
He also saw strong cross-curricular ties: geography colleagues spotted “massive opportunities” to use the flood quest in their own units, while broader staff discussions turned to digital citizenship, data literacy, and fairness. The cross-disciplinary nature of AI is increasingly apparent, and so AI literacy shouldn’t be limited to computing — students need to encounter AI across multiple subjects and in everyday life.
Where the research comes in: Forecasting floods days in advance
The second webinar connected the classroom experience to the real project it’s modelled on: Google Research Flood Forecasting. Gila Loike, Product Manager, set the scene:
“Our research team develops AI models that predict flooding all over the world, five to seven days before the flood occurs.”
Deborah Cohen, the Research Scientist leading the team at Google Research focused on flooding, also explained that traditional models can’t easily predict floods in places with little data. However, AI can fill those gaps by combining information from rivers, weather forecasts, and satellites, to give accurate warnings around the world:
“With AI we were able to expand our coverage to the entire world.”
The results are real and practical. Accurate predictions help:
People stay safe by receiving flood alerts through familiar apps
Emergency teams plan routes and close roads in time
Farmers decide whether to move animals or harvest early
Aid organisations act sooner, delivering supplies or financial support before the flood hits
To make sure their models work well, the team compares predictions with real river data, where available, and with satellite images showing flooded areas. Students explore these same ideas in the AI Quest game, cleaning messy data, testing their models, and checking how accurate their results are.
“Students are really engaged by the real-world challenge,” said Emma Staves about the Market Marshes quest. “That authenticity makes learning come alive.” It helps students see how classroom ideas, like features, accuracy, bias, and model cards, connect directly to real decisions and their consequences.
Coming soon: Health quests and more languages
Liat also gave a sneak peek at the next quest, a health-focused story on blindness prevention. It introduces new layers — privacy, diverse data, field testing — while following the same lifecycle. More quests are in development, with additional languages planned from early 2026.
Why this matters now
The key message from both webinars is clear: AI literacy isn’t just about using technology — it’s about understanding our role in shaping it. As one Stanford researcher put it, “AI isn’t this magic thing that just happens to us. Humans decide how to use it, and how choices around data affect accuracy and fairness.”
Our goal with Experience AI is to help young people become thoughtful, creative problem-solvers who can navigate an AI-powered world with confidence and integrity — and AI Quests fits perfectly with that.
Find out more
You can watch both webinars anytime on our YouTube and LinkedIn channels
Explore our Experience AI resources — already used by nearly two million learners and educators to understand, question, and create with AI — to bring them and AI Quests into your classroom. You’ll find the Foundations of AI unit, alongside materials on large language models, ecosystems and AI, and AI safety, at rpf.io/experienceai-resources
The Delhi regional government is trialling a cloud-seeding experiment to induce artificial rain, in an effort to clean the air in the world’s most polluted city. From a report: The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has been proposing the use of cloud seeding as a way to bring Delhi’s air pollution under control since it was elected to lead the regional government this year.
Cloud seeding involves using aircraft or drones to add to clouds particles of silver iodide, which have a structure similar to ice. Water droplets cluster around the particles, modifying the structure of the clouds and increasing the chance of precipitation. Months of unpredictable weather over India’s capital had put the BJP’s cloud-seeding plans on pause. But days after Delhi’s air quality once again fell into the hazardous range after Diwali festival, and a thick brown haze settled over the city, the government said the scheme would finally be rolled out.
The Universe Browser makes some big promises to its potential users. Its online advertisements claim it’s the “fastest browser,” that people using it will “avoid privacy leaks” and that the software will help “keep you away from danger.” However, everything likely isn’t as it seems.
The browser, which is linked to Chinese online gambling websites and is thought to have been downloaded millions of times, actually routes all Internet traffic through servers in China and “covertly installs several programs that run silently in the background,” according to new findings from network security company Infoblox. The researchers say the “hidden” elements include features similar to malware—including “key logging, surreptitious connections,” and changing a device’s network connections.
Perhaps most significantly, the Infoblox researchers who collaborated with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the work, found links between the browser’s operation and Southeast Asia’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar cybercrime ecosystem, which has connections to money-laundering, illegal online gambling, human trafficking, and scam operations that use forced labor. The browser itself, the researchers says, is directly linked to a network around major online gambling company BBIN, which the researchers have labeled a threat group they call Vault Viper.
So far, common shoemaker practice in helping runners go faster is to make footwear lighter without compromising rigidity and grip. Now, Nike has unveiled Project Amplify, the world’s first powered shoe system for running and walking, designed not necessarily for elite marathon runners, but for everyday athletes who just want to go a little
Owlchemy Labs, the Google-owned XR studio, released a new mixed reality title exclusively for Android XR which expands the Job Simulator universe.
The News
Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind VR games Job Simulator (2016) and Vacation Simulator (2019), released both games on Android XR’s first officially supported headset, Samsung Galaxy XR.
Alongside it comes a free mixed reality experience, called Inside[JOB], which the studio says in a blogpost offers up the “same blend of chaos, humor, and hands-on interaction that helped define modern VR, as well as a first look at our next evolution in spatial experiences.”
As an Android XR platform exclusive, Inside Job isn’t a full title as such, but rather what Owlchemy calls an “interactive XR playground,” which puts the series robotic protagonist ‘JobBot’ in the spotlight as he discovers your reality.
In Inside Job, users tweak system settings, fish for data, and repair PCs in VR, blending passthrough MR with full VR segments set in the Job Simulator universe. The studio says Inside Job isn’t a sequel as such, but rather “a chance to experiment with our latest hand-tracking tech while solving a series of lighthearted repairs.”
The game launched alongside Samsung Galaxy XR this week, priced at $1,800, which is currently the only Android XR headset on the market. You can find Inside Job for free over on the Playstore here.
My Take
I think it’s pretty clear that Galaxy XR’s high price tag basically excludes it from being a viable outlet for large-format, system-selling exclusives, which is why gamers probably shouldn’t wring their hands and yell into the heavens with full-on FOMO just yet. Basically, it’s a Vision Pro, but cheaper, and with access to Android apps and maybe a few Quest ports. That’s very cool for XR obsessed people like you and me, and also companies looking to build enterprise apps, but not many others right now.
The real question on my mind is “what’s really next for Owlchemy Labs?” I suspect the answer to that question won’t materialize so quickly. As a reminder, Owlchemy Labs has developed some of the best-selling games in the medium, so they’re probably hoping to jump in at the right moment—but it’s difficult to intuit when that might be.
Image courtesy Owlchemy Labs
Olwchemy Labs says in a recent blogpost that porting their games to Android XR has allowed them to “experiment with new layers of immersion through native support for hand, eye, and face tracking.” I can bet other established XR studios are interested in mobilizing those hardware features too, if only in service of deepening user immersion, but I’m skeptical of whether will be enough.
I’ll admit it: the next XR headset wave may well come when consumers can eventually choose between a cheap and cheerful Android XR headset, a next-gen Quest, and possibly even Valve’s rumored Steam Frame (aka ‘Deckard’). But I have a hard time believing face and eye-tracking alone will be additive enough to the glut of consumers. Yes, future headsets will probably have higher resolutions, more processing power, and hopefully be lighter and more comfortable than they are now. But at risk of belaboring the point, all of it needs to hit a real consumer price point to move the needle.
Notably, there are a few consumer headsets on the market with face and eye-tracking currently: VIVE XR Elite, Pico 4 Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, the latter of which just launched its M5 hardware refresh for $3,500. None of those have garnered the incumbent consumer support to make them de facto competitors to Meta’s Quest 3/3S platform though. As an aside, Quest 3 is essentially a Quest Pro without face and eye-tracking—or the $1,500 price tag—which was eventually reduced to $1,000 to flush stock before it was discontinued earlier this year. Meta learned that lesson early on, it seems.
Assuming the studio wants to continue pushing the boundaries of immersive design at scale like it did with Job Simulator in 2016, I’d imagine they’re doing what most developers are at this point: i.e. using these prosumer headsets as ad hoc developer kits in preparation for the next big consumer headset generation yet to come. When that will be, I just can’t say.
You need to go up—way up—to fully appreciate the changes underway at the White House this week.
Demolition crews starting tearing down the East Wing of the presidential mansion Tuesday to clear room for the construction of a new $300 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a recent priority of President Donald Trump. The teardown drew criticism and surprise from Democratic lawmakers, former White House staffers, and members of the public.
It was, after all, just three months ago that President Donald Trump defended his ballroom plan by saying it wouldn’t affect the existing structure at the White House. “It won’t interfere with the current building,” he said in July. “It’ll be near it but not touching it—and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
A ‘bike bait’ unit should be set up in the National Crime Agency to carry out “bike bait” operations to catch bicycle thieves, the Liberal Democrats have said.
The party has suggested the unit would work with local police forces to carry out targeted operations, planting bicycles fitted with trackers in theft hotspots so officers can catch offenders and uncover criminal networks.
‘Operation Bike Bait’ would also coordinate the collection and sharing of intelligence and best practice across police forces, “helping to build a national picture of bike theft and improve the policing response.”
It has cited Home Office data which shows that across England and Wales, 86 per cent of bike theft cases are unsolved.
Bristol Liberal Democrat councillor Nicholas Coombes said: “Like thousands of other cyclists, I am always worried to leave my bike around the city because of the danger posed by bike thieves. It shouldn’t have to be like this.
“I know local people are furious about the effective decriminalisation of bike theft in our city. Hundreds are denied the justice they deserve after their property is stolen, letting criminals get away scot-free. Our police do fantastic work in our community, but they need support and resource.”
Cycling UK supports the proposal. Kyle Dewick / Our Media
The Liberal Democrats proposal is not without precedent. In 2024, ITV News reported that City of London police were able to follow a ‘bait bike’ through London, which led officers to a haul of around £130,000 worth of stolen bicycles.
Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK, said: “The idea to target bike theft and the wider criminal networks that treat it like a business is a strong one. With so many stolen bikes being resold through online platforms, we know full well that targeting these groups can significantly reduce theft.
“People rely on their bikes as one of the most affordable ways to get around. It is simply not acceptable that the British Transport Police will not review the evidence of these crimes, when they relate to larger issues around organised crime. It’s time we treat this issue seriously.”
The ‘Operation Bike Bait’ proposal comes as part of the Liberal Democrats renewed calls for the Government to implement “proper community policing”.
The British Transport Police refuted the claim that bicycle thefts have been decriminalised, stating: “Bicycle thefts have not been de-criminalised as some headlines have suggested. When we do not have a clear time or location for the offence, or if there is a lack of CCTV, witnesses or other evidence, it can be very difficult to solve a crime.
“If it is available, we will review around two hours of CCTV footage to try to identify the incident, but it is not proportionate to review longer periods.”
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