The Overwatch League (OWL) appears to be no more after six seasons. A Blizzard spokesperson told Engadget that “We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction.” That’s not to say the publisher is pulling out of Overwatch esports altogether. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program,” the statement read. “We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.”
In July, Activision Blizzard laid off around 50 esports staff and revealed that, after the 2023 season, OWL team owners would hold a vote to determine whether they’d continue with the league. Activision Blizzard said that if teams opted out, it would pay each of them a termination fee of $6 million. Blizzard has not said whether the vote has taken place and, if so, what the results were.
However, earlier on Wednesday, the owner of OWL team Toronto Defiant confirmed it was leaving the league. OverActive Media said it had ended its team participation agreement, and that it would receive a $6 million termination payment from Activision Blizzard. The company plans to stay involved in Overwatch esports.
“As we transition into the next phase of Overwatch esports, we look forward to the opportunities that lie ahead,” Adam Adamou, cofounder and CEO of OverActive Media, said in a statement. “We are eager to share more about our vision for Toronto Defiant and our plans to return to Overwatch esports. We expect more information to come on this front soon.”
OAM has confirmed its exit from the @overwatchleague. The Company is set for its next chapter with a strengthened financial position and continued commitment to esports. We expect more information to come re: our vision for @TorontoDefiant and our plans to return to Overwatch…
Several other teams have been releasing players and others have suspended operations entirely amid OWL’s uncertain future. All of the Florida Mayhem’s players and staff went into free agency just 19 days after winning the 2023 OWL championship. On October 2, the day after the Grand Finals, Blizzard said it was “focusing on building our vision of a revitalized esports program.”
The writing has been on the wall for OWL for some time as the original vision of a global home-and-away league format never panned out. The first two seasons of OWL matches were held almost exclusively in a studio in California. Weeks after Blizzard started on its grand plan to run matches in each team’s city every week, it was forced to shift to an online-only format due to COVID-19 lockdowns. That prevented teams from pulling in much-sought-after live event revenue.
Viewership struggles, sponsors dropping out and the sexual harassment and discrimination scandal at Activision Blizzard may have played a factor in OWL’s demise as well. Although OWL broadcasts and matches were polished and entertaining, there were just too many factors playing against it.
The future of the professional Overwatch scene is unclear, but reports suggest that a return to a more open format could be next. According to esports reporter Jacob Wolf, Activision Blizzard has been in talks with Saudi Arabian state-owned ESL FACEIT Group for the latter to run the 2024 pro Overwatch season. In the meantime, a Blizzard-backed Overwatch 2 tournament that features regional prize pools of $50,000 and veteran OWL players is getting underway this weekend.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-overwatch-league-appears-to-be-over-210054506.html?src=rss
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the first images from its Euclid space telescope — a spacecraft peering 10 billion years into the past to create the largest 3D map of the universe yet. From the distinctive Horsehead Nebula (pictured above) to a “hidden” spiral galaxy that looks much like the Milky Way, Euclid is giving us the clearest look yet at both known and previously unseen objects speckling enormous swathes of the sky.
Euclid is investigating the “dark” universe, searching for signs of how dark energy and dark matter have influenced the evolution of the cosmos. It’ll observe one-third of the sky over the next six years, studying billions of galaxies with its 4-foot-wide telescope, visible-wavelength camera and near-infrared camera/spectrometer. Euclid launched in July 2023, and while its official science mission doesn’t start until early 2024, it’s already blowing scientists away with its early observations.
ESA
Euclid’s observation of the Perseus Cluster (above), which sits 240 million light-years away, is the most detailed ever, showing not just the 1,000 galaxies in the cluster itself, but roughly 100,000 others that lay farther away, according to ESA. The space telescope also caught a look at a Milky-Way-like spiral galaxy dubbed IC 342 (below), or the “Hidden Galaxy,” nicknamed as such because it lies behind our own and is normally hard to see clearly.
ESA
Euclid is able to observe huge portions of the sky, and it’s the only telescope in operation able to image certain objects like globular clusters in their entirety in just one shot, according to ESA. Globular clusters like NGC 6397, pictured below, contain hundreds of thousands of gravity-bound stars. Euclid’s observation of the cluster is unmatched in its level of detail, ESA says.
The spacecraft is able to see objects that have been too faint for others to observe. Its detailed observation of the well-known Horsehead Nebula, a stellar nursery in the Orion constellation, for example, could reveal young stars and planets that have previously gone undetected.
ESA
ESA
Euclid also observed the dwarf galaxy, NGC 6822 (pictured above), which sits just 1.6 million light years away. This small, ancient galaxy could hold clues on how galaxies like our own came to be. It’s only the beginning for Euclid, but it’s already helping to unlock more information on the objects in our surrounding universe, both near and far.
“We have never seen astronomical images like this before, containing so much detail,” said René Laureijs, ESA’s Euclid Project Scientist, of the first batch of images. “They are even more beautiful and sharp than we could have hoped for, showing us many previously unseen features in well-known areas of the nearby universe.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/esa-releases-stunning-first-images-from-euclid-its-dark-universe-detective-203948971.html?src=rss
Microsoft allegedly plans to bring Copilot, its generative-AI-powered personal assistant, to late adopters. Windows Central’s Zac Bowden reports the Copilot button and sidebar from Windows 11 will “soon” arrive in Windows 10. The AI assistant for Windows 11 launched in beta in August and officially in September.
Bowden says the Windows 10 Copilot will include plugins that work across both operating systems. “I understand the experience and capabilities of Copilot across Windows 10 and Windows 11 will be roughly the same, including plugin compatibility across both versions of the OS,” the editor reported.
The move would add significant numbers to Copilot’s user base, as Windows 10 still runs on around one billion monthly active devices. Meanwhile, Windows 11, launched over two years ago, has around 400 million monthly active devices. Bowden suspects the move will also help Microsoft nudge developers into making Copilot plugins: “Microsoft will also have an easier time selling developers on the idea that they should build plugins for Copilot when they can say Copilot is available on 1.4 billion devices, compared to just 400 million on Windows 11.”
Engadget contacted Microsoft for comment but didn’t immediately receive a response. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
Bowden’s report also mentions that Microsoft is revisiting its strategy of moving on quickly from Windows 10. The company reportedly plans to add “select new features and services” previously exclusive to Windows 11 to the older OS. Windows 10 support is set to expire in October 2025, but Bowden’s sources say the company is having ongoing internal discussions about possibly extending that.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-reportedly-plans-to-bring-its-ai-powered-copilot-to-windows-10-202010100.html?src=rss
The Apple Watch Series 9 is only a few months old, but it’s already on sale. You can grab the smartwatch for $349 from Amazon or from Walmart as part of an early Black Friday deal. The standard price is $399, so that’s a savings of $50 or 13 percent. The discount only applies to the 41mm model but includes multiple band and color options. The larger 45mm model is also on sale, but for $379.
We admired the watch in our review, calling out many positive aspects. The newly-launched double tap feature is actually useful, the health and fitness tracking is as good as ever and the voice control options are on-point, thanks to having Siri on-board the actual watch. Previously, the watch interacted with your phone to call up Siri responses, so everything works much quicker now.
This opens up plenty of new use case scenarios for the watch. You can ask it all about various health metrics, fitness goals and even how long you slept. You can raise the watch to your mouth to activate the digital assistant or say “Hey Siri” as usual. We had a bit of trouble with the former, but a software update should patch that right up.
We dinged the battery life a bit, as the Series 9 peters out after around 12 to 18 hours of use, depending on what you’re doing with the watch. This is not a huge issue, but does impact the sleep-tracking features because when else are you supposed to charge it if it doesn’t last an entire day and night? Beyond that, the $400 price tag is a bit difficult to swallow, but this sale certainly puts a bandage on that issue.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-series-9-drops-to-349-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-200224064.html?src=rss
Cruise, General Motors’ driverless car subsidiary, will soon lay off employees. According to Forbes, the company’s CEO Kyle Vogt told staff of the decision in an all-hands meeting earlier this week. Cruise hasn’t yet decided who or how many people will lose their jobs, Vogt said, but promised to provide more details in the next three weeks. The company will also conduct internal “listening sessions”, and explore building websites detailing collisions Cruise cars are involved in, Forbes said.
The news comes on the heels of multiple crises facing the company since October after a Cruise robotaxi dragged a San Francisco pedestrian thrown into its path more than 20 feet before braking to a halt. That incident caused California’s DMV to revoke Cruise’s operating permit in the state. In a statement, the DMV said that Cruise’s vehicles “are not safe for the public’s operation”, and said that Cruise had “misrepresented” information relating to the safety of its autonomous vehicles.
Weeks after the incident, Cruise, which operated in San Francisco, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix, fully paused its driverless operations. This week, General Motors recalled Cruise’s entire fleet of 950 robotaxis.
Other reports, based on Cruise’s internal safety documents, showed that the car’s algorithms had trouble identifying children, something that Cruise employees knew about.
On Wednesday, Cruise published a blog post responding to the recent events. The company said that it was looking to hire a Chief Safety Officer who would report directly to Vogt. Cruise will also hire a third-party law firm to review its response to the October incident. The firm, Quinn Emmanuel, is known for its work for Tesla and Elon Musk, CNBCnoted.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cruise-is-reportedly-planning-to-lay-off-employees-after-weeks-of-crises-195546324.html?src=rss
Lego just unveiled another set based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and boy is it a doozy. The massive 5,200-piece Avengers Tower set measures nearly three feet tall and ships with 31 minifigures, including Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige. It also includes several dioramas that let you create many of the important scenes that took place in Avengers Tower, from the Chitauri battle of the original film to the party scene from Age of Ultron and beyond.
The set releases on November 24 and will cost an eye-watering $500. Still, this is the 17th-largest collection the company has ever made and the one with the most minifigures. Beyond Feige, other figures include Captain America, Thor, Loki, some Ultron drones and just about every other major character that appeared in Avengers Tower throughout the films. There’s even an appropriately-scaled Hulk.
In addition to the tower itself, which actually opens to allow for interior sequences, the set ships with a Quinjet and a Chitauri invasion ship. You also get plenty of accessories to help pose the minifigures in a variety of action-packed scenarios. About the only thing missing is the shawarma shop down the street.
As previously mentioned, this isn’t Lego’s first MCU-adjacent set. The company has released a giant Hulkbuster suit from Age of Ultron, a battle scene based on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Iron Man’s armory, among others. It has also shipped some sets based on other Marvel properties, like a Miles Morales figure and a Daily Bugle collection. Beyond superheroes, Lego launched a nifty Pac-Man arcade console set this year and one based on the Xbox 360.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/legos-5200-piece-avengers-tower-set-ships-with-31-minifigures-including-kevin-feige-193359347.html?src=rss
Winter is almost upon us and Airbnb has announced a new feature that could help folks avoid fumbling for keys while wearing a bunch of layers. Starting in the US and Canada later this year, Airbnb hosts who are in the invite-only Early Access program will be able to link compatible smart locks to their Airbnb account and generate a unique code for each reservation. Guests will then be able to input the code in the Airbnb app to open the lock. At the outset, Airbnb will support some models from Schlage, August and Yale.
That could make some Airbnb pain points much easier to deal with. Hosts won’t have to worry about bad actors sharing entry codes with other people after they check out, and guests should find it more straightforward to find and enter their code. They also won’t have to download a separate app if they’re staying at a place that uses a compatible smart lock.
Airbnb is making a string of other changes as part of its winter update. You’ll be able to access a collection of the 2 million most-loved homes on the platform. These Guest Favorites all have an average rating of above 4.9 with high marks for things like value, the check in process, cleanliness, listing accuracy, host communication and location. Hosts of Guest Favorites will all have strong track records of reliability and almost two-thirds of the listings are from Superhosts.
You’ll soon start seeing a badge denoting a listing as a Guest Favorite on the listing page and in search results. There’ll also be an option to filter results by Guest Favorites.
Elsewhere, you’ll be able to sort reviews by recency or rating, while a new chart should make the distribution of reviews on the five-star scale easier to grok. When you leave a review, you’ll be able to include more details that may be useful for context, such as where you’re from, how long you stayed and whether you traveled with family, another group or pets. Airbnb is starting to roll out the reviews and Guest Favorites updates this week.
Since last year, Airbnb has been making its pricing more transparent. To that end, service fees will now be included in the prices that hosts set. According to Airbnb, that will give hosts a better idea of how much guests are paying overall. It should be easier for hosts to compare their prices to similar listings through the calendar too.
Hosts will have access to other new listing tools, such as an Ai-powered photo tour. Airbnb says its AI engine can recognize photos and assign them to up to 19 rooms to help guests better understand the layouts of properties. Hosts will be able to edit the photo tour whenever they like and pinpoint amenities in each room.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/airbnb-will-soon-let-you-open-smart-locks-in-its-app-192753343.html?src=rss
In addition to music and podcasts, Spotify has recently been working to cement its presence in the audiobook space. Today, the company announced Premium users in the US will be able to stream 15 hours of free audiobook content monthly as a part of their subscription. This offering was previously only available to Premium users in the UK and Australia.
The company says there’s no need for users to do anything. Audiobooks that are available to stream will be marked as “Included in Premium” and users can hit play right away. Spotify notes that 15 hours is roughly two average audiobooks per month. If you end up hitting the limit, you can purchase a 10-hour top-up.
The company says its Spotify Premium audiobook catalog now has something for everyone. Users with a Premium subscription can access over 70 percent of today’s bestsellers, including Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me and Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend. There are also many classic pieces of literature, like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Spotify believes its listeners will “love exploring the depths of our 200,000-strong catalog, unearthing genres from ‘cozy mystery’ to ‘historical romance.'”
Books that aren’t eligible for free streaming will need to be purchased outright. Those books will have a lock on the play button, which means you’ll need to purchase the title. To make a purchase, you’ll follow a link to your browser. Once that’s completed, you’ll be taken back to the app to listen to your new book. All your purchased titles will show up in your library and be available for offline listening. Spotify also gives you the option to control playback speed so you can listen at your own pace.
It makes sense that Spotify has included audiobooks in its app, but there are a few things that may deter users from tapping in. Yes, having a single place to listen to your music, podcasts and books is convenient but unlike with music and podcasts, you have a streaming limit here. Additionally, only a limited number of books are free to stream with your $11 subscription. While Audible also charges a subscription fee, users get one book to own every month, which may make it the more appealing and affordable option for some.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-subscribers-in-the-us-now-get-15-hours-of-audiobooks-every-month-192000398.html?src=rss
Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motors, has issued a recall for 950 of its robotaxis following a collision with a pedestrian in San Francisco last month, as originally reported by NBC. This move comes after California revoked the company’s driverless permits, requiring a human on-board at all times.
The collision that started all of this occurred on October 2 when a pedestrian was thrown into the path of a Cruise robotaxi after being hit by a human driver. The robotaxi tried to brake aggressively and pull over to the side of the road, but ended up dragging the pedestrian 20 feet before finally stopping.
This triggered a federal probe and several independent investigations into the company, which dredged up some unsavory data. For instance, reports indicate that Cruise’s algorithm had real trouble identifying children. The data also suggests that Cruise knew about this incredibly dangerous blind spot but still kept its vehicles on the streets.
Internal safety documents acquired by The Intercept state that “Cruise AVs may not exercise additional care around children,” and that the robotaxis may “need the ability to distinguish children from adults so we can display additional caution around.” The company responded by touting its safety features, writing in a statement that it has “the lowest risk tolerance for contact with children.”
All of that’s moot now, as Cruise’s robotaxis are being recalled. GM and Cruise have not issued statements as to when and if the cars would return to the streets. GM did announce, however, that it has already lost $1.9 billion on the venture through September of this year, as reported by CNBC.
Rival companies like Google-owned Waymo are still operating driverless vehicles in California and beyond. As a matter of fact, the company just doubled the service area for its robotaxis in San Francisco and Phoenix.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gm-recalls-nearly-1000-cruise-robotaxis-after-pedestrian-collision-183049933.html?src=rss
A group of Google employees has published an open letter on Medium calling out an alleged double standard in the company related to freedom of expression surrounding the Israel-Palestine war. The essay condemns “hate, abuse and retaliation” within the company against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian workers. The employees who penned the letter, which doesn’t include specific names out of fear of retaliation, demand that CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and other senior leaders publicly condemn “the ongoing genocide in the strongest possible terms.” In addition, they urge the company to cancel Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal to supply AI and other advanced tech to the Israeli military.
“We are Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab Google employees joined by anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues,” the letter opens. “We cannot remain silent in the face of the hate, abuse, and retaliation that we are being subjected to in the workplace in this moment.”
The letter cites specific examples of emotionally charged and inappropriate workplace behavior. These include unnamed Googlers accusing Palestinians of supporting terrorism, committing “slander against the Prophet Muhammad,” and publicly calling Palestinians “animals” on official Google work platforms. The group describes leadership as “standing idly by” in the latter two cases, and it says Google managers have called employees “sick” and “a lost cause” for expressing empathy toward Gaza residents.
The employees say Google managers have publicly asked Arab and Muslim people in the company if they support Hamas as a response to their concern for Palestinian families. “There are even coordinated efforts to stalk the public lives of workers sympathetic to Palestine and to report them both to Google and law enforcement for ‘supporting terrorism,’” the letter reads.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Other examples cited include “heartfelt appeals” to donate to a charity for Gaza citizens being “met with multiple comments dehumanizing Gazans as being ‘animals,’ disregarding their plight and calling upon Googlers to boycott relief work for civilians due to the fact that Palestinian schools and hospitals were being used for ‘terrorism.’” The letter also accuses Google managers of using their rank to “question, report, and attempt to get fired Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers who express sympathy with the plight of the besieged Palestinian people.” It describes one manager endorsing “surveillance of Google employees on social media,” and then openly harassing them on Google work platforms.
“You have to be very, very, very careful, because any sort of criticism toward the Israeli state can be easily taken as antisemitism,” Sarmad Gilani, a Google software engineer who took part in the letter, said in an interview with The New York Times. “It feels like I have to condemn Hamas 10 times before saying one tiny, tiny thing criticizing Israel.”
Engadget contacted Google for a comment but didn’t immediately receive a response. We will update this article if we hear back.
The tensions inflamed in the last month by the Israel-Palestine war have resurfaced resentments about Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus. In 2021, Google and Amazon workers penned a similar open letter calling on their companies to pull out of the deal, which they said would enable surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians. Today’s letter echoes that sentiment. “We demand that Google stop providing material support to this genocide by canceling its Project Nimbus contract and immediately cease doing business with the Israeli apartheid government and military,” it reads.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-workers-publish-letter-criticizing-companys-israel-palestine-double-standard-181516404.html?src=rss
Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), which currently provides generative AI summaries at the top of the search results page for select users, is about to be much more available. Just six months after its debut at I/O 2023, the company announced Wednesday that SGE is expanding to Search Labs users in 120 countries and territories, gaining support for four additional languages and receiving a handful of helpful new features.
Unlike its frenetic rollout of the Bard chatbot in March, Google has taken a slightly more measured tone in distributing its AI search assistant. The company began with English language searches in the US in May, expanded to English-language users in India and Japan in August and on to teen users in September. As of Wednesday, users from Brazil to Bhutan can give the feature a try. In addition to English, SGE now supports Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Indonesian (in addition to the existing English, Hindi and Japanese) so you’ll be able to search and converse with the assistant in natural language, whichever form it might take. These features arrive on Chrome desktop Wednesday with the Search Labs for Android app versions slowly rolling out over the coming week.
Among SGE’s new features is an improved follow-up function where users can ask additional questions of the assistant directly on the search results page. Like a mini-Bard window tucked into the generated summary, the new feature enables users to drill down on a subject without leaving the results page or even needing to type their queries out. Google will reportedly restrict ads to specific, denoted, areas of the page so as to avoid confusion between them and the generated content. Users can expect follow-ups to start showing up in the coming weeks. They’re only for English language users in the US to start but will likely expand as Google continues to iterate the technology.
SGE will start helping with clarifying ambiguous translation terms as well. For example, if you’re trying to translate “Is there a tie?” into Spanish, both the output, the gender and speaker’s intention are going to change if you’re talking about a tie, as in a draw between two competitors (e.g. “un empate”) and for the tie you wear around your neck (“una corbata”). This new feature will automatically recognize such words and highlight them for you to click on, which pops up a window asking you to pick between the two versions. This is going to be super helpful with languages that, say, think of cars as boys but bicycles as girls, and you need to specify the version you’re intending. Luckily, Spanish is one of those languages and this capability is coming first to US users for English-to-Spanish translations.
Finally, Google plans to expand its interactive definitions normally found in the generated summaries for educational topics like science, history or economics to coding and health related searches as well. This update should arrive within the next month, again, first for English language users in the US before spreading to more territories in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-ai-powered-search-feature-goes-global-with-a-120-country-expansion-180028037.html?src=rss
Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), which currently provides generative AI summaries at the top of the search results page for select users, is about to be much more available. Just six months after its debut at I/O 2023, the company announced Wednesday that SGE is expanding to Search Labs users in 120 countries and territories, gaining support for four additional languages and receiving a handful of helpful new features.
Unlike its frenetic rollout of the Bard chatbot in March, Google has taken a slightly more measured tone in distributing its AI search assistant. The company began with English language searches in the US in May, expanded to English-language users in India and Japan in August and on to teen users in September. As of Wednesday, users from Brazil to Bhutan can give the feature a try. In addition to English, SGE now supports Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Indonesian (in addition to the existing English, Hindi and Japanese) so you’ll be able to search and converse with the assistant in natural language, whichever form it might take. These features arrive on Chrome desktop Wednesday with the Search Labs for Android app versions slowly rolling out over the coming week.
Among SGE’s new features is an improved follow-up function where users can ask additional questions of the assistant directly on the search results page. Like a mini-Bard window tucked into the generated summary, the new feature enables users to drill down on a subject without leaving the results page or even needing to type their queries out. Google will reportedly restrict ads to specific, denoted, areas of the page so as to avoid confusion between them and the generated content. Users can expect follow-ups to start showing up in the coming weeks. They’re only for English language users in the US to start but will likely expand as Google continues to iterate the technology.
SGE will start helping with clarifying ambiguous translation terms as well. For example, if you’re trying to translate “Is there a tie?” into Spanish, both the output, the gender and speaker’s intention are going to change if you’re talking about a tie, as in a draw between two competitors (e.g. “un empate”) and for the tie you wear around your neck (“una corbata”). This new feature will automatically recognize such words and highlight them for you to click on, which pops up a window asking you to pick between the two versions. This is going to be super helpful with languages that, say, think of cars as boys but bicycles as girls, and you need to specify the version you’re intending. Luckily, Spanish is one of those languages and this capability is coming first to US users for English-to-Spanish translations.
Finally, Google plans to expand its interactive definitions normally found in the generated summaries for educational topics like science, history or economics to coding and health related searches as well. This update should arrive within the next month, again, first for English language users in the US before spreading to more territories in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-ai-empowered-search-feature-goes-global-with-expansion-to-120-countries-180028084.html?src=rss
If you happen to open up a gift containing an iPhone 15 Pro, a iPad or even an M3-powered MacBook Pro this holiday season, you’ll be able to play one of this year’s biggest games on your new device pretty swiftly. Capcom has announced that the Resident Evil 4 remake will hit iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, as well as iPads and Macs powered by an M1 or later chipset, on December 20. The Separate Ways expansion will be available on the same day.
The remake of the 2005 survival horror classic will have Universal Purchase support, so you’ll only need to buy it once to play it across iPhone, iPad and Mac. There’s cross-progression too, so when you don’t feel like sitting in front of your iMac anymore, you can move to your couch and continue where you left off on your iPhone or iPad.
You can try a chunk of the game for free before you decide to take the plunge and buy it. That’ll give you a chance to see how well Resident Evil 4 runs on your device and figure out whether the touch controls on iPhone and iPad work for you, though there’s controller support as well. You’ll be able to play using a keyboard and mouse on Mac, if you prefer.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-resident-evil-4-remake-will-hit-iphone-15-pro-ipad-and-mac-on-december-20-172920550.html?src=rss
Apple’s 9th-gen entry-level iPad is on sale as part of an early Black Friday Amazon deal. You can snag the tablet for $249, instead of the usual price of $329. That’s a savings of $80 and constitutes a discount of nearly 25 percent. This is the best price we’ve seen all year for Apple’s tablet.
This is the standard 10.2-inch iPad design that’s been around since, well, forever. Despite lacking some of the more advanced features of the iPad Pro and some of the portability of the iPad Air, this model still offers plenty of bang for your buck. There’s a reason, after all, that it made our list of best tablets in 2023, even with stiff competition.
This model ships with 64GB of storage, an A13 Bionic chip and a decent battery that lasts a full day of use before requiring a trip to the outlet. The speakers are a bit janky but, wait for it, the 9th-gen iPad actually has a bona-fide headphone jack. The cameras are nothing spectacular, but tablets have never been on the cutting edge of image capturing tech, due to their increased size when compared to smartphones.
The A13 Bionic chip is capable but lacks some of the oomph of Apple’s newer chipsets, like the M1 and above. Even with the relatively ancient chipset, this iPad boasts more than enough speed for casual tasks. It also integrates with first-party accessories like Apple’s Smart Keyboard and the first-gen stylus. At $249, this is a great deal for those looking for a simple tablet to watch movies on and peruse the web.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-102-inch-ipad-drops-to-249-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-171501499.html?src=rss
Depending on the hardware you’re using, training a large language model of any significant size can take weeks, months, even years to complete. That’s no way to do business — nobody has the electricity and time to be waiting that long. On Wednesday, NVIDIA unveiled the newest iteration of its Eos supercomputer, one powered by more than 10,000 H100 Tensor Core GPUs and capable of training a 175 billion-parameter GPT-3 model on 1 billion tokens in under four minutes. That’s three times faster than the previous benchmark on the MLPerf AI industry standard, which NVIDIA set just six months ago.
Eos represents an enormous amount of compute. It leverages 10,752 GPUs strung together using NVIDIA’s Infiniband networking (moving a petabyte of data a second) and 860 terabytes of high bandwidth memory (36PB/sec aggregate bandwidth and 1.1PB sec interconnected) to deliver 40 exaflops of AI processing power. The entire cloud architecture is comprised of 1344 nodes — individual servers that companies can rent access to for around $37,000 a month to expand their AI capabilities without building out their own infrastructure.
In all, NVIDIA set six records in nine benchmark tests: the 3.9 minute notch for GPT-3, a 2.5 minute mark to to train a Stable Diffusion model using 1,024 Hopper GPUs, a minute even to train DLRM, 55.2 seconds for RetinaNet, 46 seconds for 3D U-Net and the BERT-Large model required just 7.2 seconds to train.
NVIDIA was quick to note that the 175 billion parameter version of GPT-3 used in the benchmarking is not the full-sized iteration of the model (neither was the Stable Diffusion model). The larger GPT-3 offers around 3.7 trillion parameters and is just flat out too big and unwieldy for use as a benchmarking test. For example, it’d take 18 months to train it on the older A100 system with 512 GPUs — though, Eos needs just eight days.
So instead, NVIDIA and MLCommons, which administers the MLPerf standard, leverage a more compact version that uses 1 billion tokens (the smallest denominator unit of data that generative AI systems understand). This test uses a GPT-3 version with the same number of potential switches to flip (s the full-size (those 175 billion parameters), just a much more manageable data set to use in it (a billion tokens vs 3.7 trillion).
The impressive improvement in performance, granted, came from the fact that this recent round of tests employed 10,752 H100 GPUs compared to the 3,584 Hopper GPUs the company used in June’s benchmarking trials. However NVIDIA explains that despite tripling the number of GPUs, it managed to maintain 2.8x scaling in performance — an 93 percent efficiency rate — through the generous use of software optimization.
“Scaling is a wonderful thing,” Salvator said.”But with scaling, you’re talking about more infrastructure, which can also mean things like more cost. An efficiently scaled increase means users are “making the best use of your of your infrastructure so that you can basically just get your work done as fast [as possible] and get the most value out of the investment that your organization has made.”
The chipmaker was not alone in its development efforts. Microsoft’s Azure team submitted a similar 10,752 H100 GPU system for this round of benchmarking, and achieved results within two percent of NVIDIA’s.
“[The Azure team have] been able to achieve a performance that’s on par with the Eos supercomputer,” Dave Salvator Director of Accelerated Computing Products at NVIDIA, told reporters during a Tuesday prebrief. What’s more “they are using Infiniband, but this is a commercially available instance. This isn’t some pristine laboratory system that will never have actual customers seeing the benefit of it. This is the actual instance that Azure makes available to its customers.”
NVIDIA plans to apply these expanded compute abilities to a variety of tasks, including the company’s ongoing work in foundational model development, AI-assisted GPU design, neural rendering, multimodal generative AI and autonomous driving systems.
“Any good benchmark looking to maintain its market relevance has to continually update the workloads it’s going to throw at the hardware to best reflect the market it’s looking to serve,” Salvator said, noting that MLCommons has recently added an additional benchmark for testing model performance on Stable Diffusion tasks. “This is another exciting area of generative AI where we’re seeing all sorts of things being created” — from programming code to discovering protein chains.
These benchmarks are important because, as Salvator points out, the current state of generative AI marketing can a bit of a “Wild West.” The lack of stringent oversight and regulation means, “we sometimes see with certain AI performance claims where you’re not quite sure about all the parameters that went into generating those particular claims.” MLPerf provides the professional assurance that the benchmark numbers companies generate using its tests “were reviewed, vetted, in some cases even challenged or questioned by other members of the consortium,” Salvator said. “It’s that sort of peer reviewing process that really brings credibility to these results.”
NVIDIA has been steadily focusing on its AI capabilities and applications in recent months. “We are at the iPhone moment for AI,” CEO Jensen Huang said during his GTC keynote in March. At that time the company announced its DGX cloud system which portions out slivers of the supercomputer’s processing power — specifically by either eight H100 or A100 chips running 60GB of VRAM (640 of memory in total). The company expanded its supercomputing portfolio with the release of DGX GH200 at Computex in May.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-eos-supercomputer-just-broke-its-own-ai-training-benchmark-record-170042546.html?src=rss
Walmart has already kicked of its Black Friday sale. That’s good news for anyone who wants to spend the day after Thanksgiving doing something other than shopping. The early Black Friday deals went live online today — Walmart+ members get a few hours of early access before everyone else — and will hit physical stores this Friday.
We’ve unearthed the best tech deals from this portion of Walmart’s Black Friday sale and gathered them here so you can start ticking gifts off your holiday list — or grab something for yourself at a discount. The highlights are probably the brand new Apple Watch Series 9 for $349 and the second-generation AirPods for $69 — both are all-time lows.
Apple Watch Series 9
If you’ve been waiting to get Apple’s brand new flagship smartwatch, your patience has paid off. The Apple Watch Series 9 is down to $349 for the 41mm, GPS-only model. That’s a $50 discount and the lowest price yet for the barely-two-month-old wearable. If you’d prefer a little more room on the screen, you can go for the 45mm case size for $379, also $50 and a new low price. The biggest improvement this time around is the S9 processor. It allows for a new Double Tap feature and onboard Siri processing for faster responses to your queries. It’s also got a brighter screen and, when paired with the Sport Loop, is carbon neutral. We gave the wearable a solid score of 92 in our review, praising the new features and the comprehensive fitness and health tracking.
Apple AirPods (second gen)
The second-generation AirPods are now on sale for $69, which is a $90 discount and their lowest price ever, thanks to Walmart’s sale. They are a little older at this point; we gave them a review score of 84 when they came out back in 2019. But they’re a good pick for someone who needs a knock-around pair of buds that pair seamlessly with an iPhone. Some people even prefer the smooth fit of the older model, which is more like Apple’s wired EarPods. To be sure, both the third-generation AirPods and the new, second-generation AirPods Pro have seen significant improvements in both sound quality and features like noise cancellation, Spatial Audio and Transparency mode. The newer buds may make more sense for audiophiles, but at this price, the second-generation AirPods will make a nice stocking stuffer for an iPhone user.
Canon EOS R50
We tested out the Canon EOS R50 mirrorless camera when it came out earlier this year and gave it an 87. During the early Black Friday sale, it’s $180 off, which is a new all-time low. We think this is a great camera for street photographers or travelers because it has a slim and light design and is capable of shooting 4K video. It offers fast shooting, has a reliable auto-focus and takes great images — particularly for the price point. And now that it’s on sale, you’ll be hard pressed to find a higher quality hybrid camera that can do pretty much everything vloggers and photographers need.
Sony WF-C500 earbuds
Sony’s WF-C500 earbuds are 70 percent off right now, which makes them $29 instead of $100. That’s a pretty great price, though the buds are about two years old at this point. Still, they’re our favorite budget pair of wireless headphones for working out. They were one of the lightest pair of earbuds we tested and though they have a more bulbous design, they were still comfortable. While they don’t have active noise cancellation, the shape does a good job of passively blocking out most sounds (but traffic noises still get through, which is important for outdoor workouts).
Roku Ultra LT
The Roku Ultra LT is 57 percent off thanks to the Walmart Black Friday sale. We’re fans of Roku streaming devices and recommend the Ultra set top box in our guide. The Ultra LT is a Walmart exclusive version that has a less-expensive starting price and a few tradeoffs over the regular Ultra. There’s a slightly different remote on the LT, that lacks to personalization buttons and there’s no Bluetooth connectivity and it lacks a USB port in the back of the set top box. But you still get one of the best smart TV interfaces plus support for 4K video and Dolby Vision. Plus at this price, it’s $65 cheaper than the other version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/walmart-black-friday-deals-2023-save-50-on-the-apple-watch-series-9-plus-up-to-70-percent-on-airpods-roku-devices-and-more-170010855.html?src=rss
We Met in Virtual Reality, a documentary shot entirely inside VRChat (now available to stream on Max), was one of the highlight’s of last year’s Sundance Film Festival. It deftly showed how people can form genuine friendships and romantic connections inside of virtual worlds — something Mark Zuckerberg could only dream of with his failed metaverse concept. Now the director of that film, Joe Hunting, is making an even bigger bet on virtual reality: He’s launching Painted Clouds, a production studio devoted to making films and series set within VR.
What’s most striking about We Met in Virtual Reality, aside from the Furries and scantily-clad anime avatars, is that it looks like a traditional documentary. Hunting used VRCLens, a tool developed by the developer Hirabiki, to perform cinematic techniques like pulling focus, deliberate camera movements and executing aerial drone shots. Hunting says he aims to “build upon VRCLens to give it more scope and make it even more accessible to new filmmakers,” as well as using it for his own productions.
Additionally, Hunting is launching “Painted Clouds Park,” a world in VRChat that can be used for production settings and events. It’s there that he also plans to run workshops and media events to teach people about the possibilities of virtual reality filmmaking.
His next project, which is set to begin pre-production next year, will be a dramedy focused on a group of online friends exploring an ongoing mystery. Notably, Hunting says it will also be shot with original avatars and production environments, not just cookie-cutter VRChat worlds. His aim is to make it look like a typical animated film — the only difference is that it’ll be shot inside of VR. It’s practically an evolution of the machinima concept, which involved shooting footage inside of game engines, using existing assets.
“Being present in a headset and being in the scene yourself, holding the camera and capturing the output, I find creates a much more immersive filmmaking experience for me, and a much more playful and joyful one, too,” Hunting said. “I can look up and everyone is their characters. They’re not wearing mo-cap [suits] to represent the characters. They just are embodying them. Obviously, that experience doesn’t translate completely on screen as an audience member. But in terms of directing and the kind of relationship I can build with my actors and the team around me, I find that so fun.”
Throughout all of his work, including We Met in Virtual Reality and earlier shorts, Hunting has been focused on capturing virtual worlds for playback on traditional 2D screens. But looking forward, he says he’s interested in exploring 360-degree immersive VR projects as well. It could end up being part of behind-the-scenes footage for his next VR film, as a part of an experimental project in the future. In addition to his dramedy project, Hunting is also working on a short VR documentary, as well as a music video.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-director-of-sundance-darling-we-met-in-virtual-reality-launches-a-vr-studio-164532412.html?src=rss
Samsung has joined the generative AI rat race by announcing its own model. Developed by Samsung Research, Gauss (named after mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss) will power several on-device AI technologies and could make its public debut in the next few months.
Samsung Gauss Language can handle tasks like translations and summarizing documents. The tech will be able to write emails for you too, Samsung says. Samsung Gauss Code is a coding assistant, while Samsung Gauss Image is a generative image model. The latter can whip up images based on prompts and handle edits like style changes and additions. It can upscale low-resolution images too.
Samsung employees are currently using Gauss in-house to bolster productivity, but the company plans to make it available to the public “in the near future.” According to The Korea Times, Samsung is likely to include it in Galaxy S24 devices, which should debut early next year.
Running generative AI features on-device could help give Samsung a leg up over the likes of ChatGPT, which requires cloud connectivity. Qualcomm recently announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which supports on-device GAI operations and is likely to be used in Galaxy S24 phones. Google’s Tensor 3, which is used in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, handles certain GAI tasks on-device too.
Meanwhile, Samsung says it is working on “various activities that ensure safe AI usage.” Its AI Red Team is bearing in mind “the principles of AI ethics” as it focuses on potential privacy and security issues including data collection and the GAI model’s output. The company also flagged AI model development and service deployment as possible pitfalls.
Still, this is another instance of Samsung attempting to forge its own path, despite alternatives being available. Bixby never really took off, and despite its users by and large wanting Google Assistant instead, Samsung insisted on making its voice assistant as prevalent as possible on its devices. The list goes on, with things like the Chromium-based Samsung Internet Browser when Chrome is right there.
In fairness, Samsung wants to make its devices distinct from other Android phones and tablets and give them a unique selling point. Its generative AI tech will largely run in the background too, so its not like users will see heavy Samsung branding when they ask Gauss to generate an image. But shareholders who might be feeling skittish about recent financialresults may have questions about why Samsung has been investing in its own GAI tech instead of using one of the many other available options.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-gauss-is-the-generative-ai-that-nobody-asked-for-163009407.html?src=rss
Amazon Prime subscribers now have access to a deeply discounted One Medical membership for primary care services. The company announced today that Prime members can sign up for just $99 a year, or $9 per month. A One Medical membership typically costs $199 annually. In addition to the individual plan, Prime members who sign up for One Medical can add up to five other people for $6 each.
Amazon announced its acquisition of One Medical in 2022 and finalized the $3.9 billion deal in February, when it began offering a temporary discount for One Medical memberships at $144 per year. It’s now slashed that even further. One Medical has offices in major cities across the US, all of which will be available to Prime members who sign up. It also offers round-the-clock virtual care and drop-in lab services. The membership doesn’t cover the cost of visits though; patients will still have to bill through their insurance or pay out of pocket.
Amazon has been pushing heavily into healthcare in recent years, with prescription services and even its own video- and text-based virtual clinic now among the perks of a Prime subscription. The company made its Amazon Clinic available to all states in the US over the summer, and began offering generic prescriptions for $5 a month with its RxPass at the beginning of the year. Amazon has also started offering drone deliveries for prescriptions in College Station, Texas.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-now-comes-with-discounted-access-to-one-medical-health-services-161500277.html?src=rss
Chances are your new laptop has fewer ports than you’d like. For years, companies have been prioritizing thinness and lightness to the detriment of connectivity options. Docking stations give you back some of that versatility — and then some — by combining monitor, Ethernet, USB and other ports into one package. Unlike simple USB hubs, docking stations tend to have more slots and usually incorporate a DC power supply, making them bigger and far less portable than small hubs. But that also means they can be the connective matrix of sorts that powers your home office setup. Ultimately, which dock works best for you depends on what you need to connect, but it’s safe to say the vast sea of choices out there can be overwhelming. We tested out 12 options from brands we trust to see which are worth your money.
What to look for in a docking station
First and foremost, consider what you need to plug in. This will likely be the deciding factor when you go to actually buy a docking station. Do you need three screens for an expanded work view? A quick way to upload photos from an SD card? Are you looking to plug in a webcam, mic and streaming light, while simultaneously taking advantage of faster Ethernet connections? Once you’ve settled on the type of ports you need, you may also want to consider the generation of those ports as well; even ports with the same shape can have different capabilities. Here’s a brief overview of the connectivity different docking stations offer.
Monitor ports
External monitors typically need one of three ports to connect to a PC: HDMI, DisplayPort or USB-C. HDMI connections are more common than DisplayPort and the cables and devices that use them are sometimes more affordable. The most popular version of the DisplayPort interface (v1.4) can handle higher resolutions and refresh rates than the most common HDMI version (2.0). All of the docking stations with HDMI sockets that we recommend here use version 2.0, which can handle 4K resolution at 60Hz or 1080p up to 240Hz. The DisplayPort-enabled docks support either version 1.2, which allows for 4K resolution at 60Hz, or version 1.4, which can handle 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz.
You can also use your dock’s downstream (non-host) Thunderbolt ports to hook up your monitors. If your external display has a USB-C socket, you can connect directly. If you have an HDMI or DisplayPort-only monitor, you can use an adapter or a conversion cable that has one of each type of connector.
Of course, the number of monitors you can connect and the resolutions/rates they’ll achieve depend on both your computer’s GPU and your monitors — and the more monitors you plug in can bring down those numbers as well. Be sure to also use cables that support the bandwidth you’re hoping for. MacOS users should keep in mind that the MacBook Air with the standard M1 chip supports just one external monitor. M2 MacBooks (the newer Airs and 13-inch Pro) can handle two external monitors, but each monitor needs its own onboard port (i.e., a dock plugged into a single port can’t power two monitors). M2 Pro and M2 Max Macs can run multiple displays from a single port.
USB ports
Most docking stations offer a few USB Type-A ports, which are great for peripherals like wired mice and keyboards, bus-powered ring lights and flash drives. For faster data transfer speeds to your flash drive, go for USB-A sockets labeled 3.1 or 3.2 — or better yet, use a USB-C Thunderbolt port.
Type-C USB ports come in many different flavors. The Thunderbolt 3, 4 and USB4 protocols are newer, more capable specifications that support power delivery of up to 100W, multiple 4K displays and data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. Other USB-C ports come in a range of versions, with some supporting video, data and power and some only able to manage data and power. Transfer rates and wattages can vary from port to port, but most docks list the wattage or GB/s on either the dock itself or on the product page. And again, achieving the fastest speeds will depend on factors like the cables you use and the devices you’re transferring data to.
Nearly every dock available today connects to a computer via USB-C, often Thunderbolt, and those host ports are nearly always labeled with a laptop icon. They also allow power delivery to your laptop: available wattage varies, but most docks are rated between 85 and 100 watts. That should be enough to keep most computers powered — and it also means you won’t have to take up an extra laptop connector for charging.
Other ports
None of our currently recommended laptops include an Ethernet jack; a docking station is a great way to get that connection back. We all know objectively that wired internet is faster than Wi-Fi, but it might take running a basic speed comparison test to really get it on a gut level. For reference, on Wi-Fi I get about a 45 megabit-per-second download speed. Over Ethernet, it’s 925 Mbps. If you pay for a high-speed plan, but only ever connect wirelessly, you’re probably leaving a lot of bandwidth on the table. Every docking station I tested includes an Ethernet port, and it could be the connector you end up getting the most use out of.
Just two of our favorite laptops have SD card readers, and if you need a quick way to upload files from cameras or audio recorders, you may want to get a dock with one of those slots. Of the docks we tested, about half had SD readers. For now, most (but not all) laptops still include a 3.5mm audio jack, but if you prefer wired headphones and want a more accessible place to plug them in, many docking stations will provide.
When you’re counting up the ports for your new dock, remember that most companies include the host port (the one that connects to your computer) in the total number. So if you’re looking for a dock with three Thunderbolt connections, be sure to check whether one of them will be used to plug in your laptop.
Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget
Design
Most docking stations have either a lay-flat or upright design. Most docks put the more “permanent” connections in back — such as Ethernet, DC power, monitor connections and a few USBs. Up-front USB ports can be used for flash drive transfers, or even plugging in your phone for a charge (just make sure the port can deliver the power you need). USBs in the rear are best for keyboards, mice, webcams and other things you’re likely to always use. Some docks position the host port up front, which might make it easier to plug in your laptop when you return to your desk, but a host port in back may look neater overall.
How we tested
We started out by looking at online reviews, spec sheets from various brands and docking stations that our fellow tech sites have covered. We considered brands we’ve tested before and have liked, and weeded out anything that didn’t have what we consider a modern suite of connections (such as a dock with no downstream USB-C ports). We narrowed it down to 12 contenders and I tested each dock on an M1 MacBook Pro, a Dell XPS 13 Plus and an Acer Chromebook Spin 514. I plugged in and evaluated the quality of the connections for 12 different peripherals including a 4K and an HD monitor, a 4K and an HD webcam, plus USB devices like a mouse, keyboard, streaming light and mic. I plugged in wired earbuds, and transferred data to a USB-C flash drive and an external SSD. I ran basic speed tests on the Ethernet connections as well as the file transfers. I judged how easy the docks were to use as well as the various design factors I described earlier. I made spreadsheets and had enough wires snaking around my work area that my cat stayed off my desk for three weeks (a new record).
Best for MacBook: Satechi Dual Dock Stand
The Satechi Dual Dock Stand is different from all the other docks we tested in two respects: it doesn’t require a power source and it goes beneath your MacBook instead of beside it. You could almost classify it as a hub, but I think the high number of ports earns it docking-station status. It also gets around the single-monitor limitation some Macs present by plugging into two USB-C ports at once. That means if you have a MacBook with a standard M2 chip (the 13-inch MacBook Pro or either size MacBook Air), you’ll be able to plug two external monitors into the back of the dock and enjoy an extended view, instead of just a mirrored third display.
Since the Dual Dock works without power, it’s a lot easier to set up than other docks with transformer boxes and DC cables. I found it made the most sense to just use the MagSafe connector on the laptop, but you can also supply power to the dock using the non-data USB-C port and it will pass 75 watts to your machine.
Both the 4K and HD monitors I tested looked great and worked well in extended mode. There are two USB-Cs for a webcam and mic, plus two USB-As which could be used for a dongle mouse and a streaming light — that’s likely enough ports for conferencing or even a basic video creator setup. The dock is ultimately limited by the fact that none of the USB-C connections are Thunderbolt and there are only two USB-A sockets to work with. But it’s a great choice for extending productivity in a way that tucks beneath a MacBook, neatly moving the cords to the back of the machine and out of the way.
Satechi Dual Dock Stand specs
Host connection: 2 x USB-C
Power delivery to host: 75W (USB-C)
USB-C: 1 x USB 3.0, 1 x 3.1
USB-A: 2
Monitor: 2 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
Aux 3.5mm: No
SD Card: No
Best Thunderbolt 4 dock: Kensington AD2010T4
For those who want the extra speed and connectivity of the latest Thunderbolt interface, I recommend Kensington’s AD2010T4 Thunderbolt 4 Dual 4K Docking Station. Of all the TB4 docking stations tested, the AD2010 is the only one under $300, yet it performed on par with and even offered a better selection of ports than some of the others I tested. It gives you two Thunderbolt 4 connections, one for the host and one for accessories, plus an additional 3.2 USB-C. Dual HDMI 2.0 sockets can handle two external screens with up to 4K resolution (at 60Hz). But if you need three additional monitors or have an 8K screen, you can tap into the Thunderbolt port.
There’s a total of four USB-As, which is enough for a wired mouse or keyboard and a couple other peripherals. It has an SD and a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm audio combo jack and an Ethernet jack. There are even two Kensington lock slots that let you physically secure your dock with a cable.
The device itself has a solid feel and an attractive metal design. My only gripe is with the lay-flat orientation and that nearly half of the ports are on the front edge — I think upright docks that keep most connections around back have an overall neater look on a desk. However, I should point out that Kensington sells mounts for its docks, which could help with aesthetics.
Kensington AD2010T4 specs
Host connection: Thunderbolt 4
Max power delivery to host: 96W (DC)
USB-C: 1 x TB4, 1 x 3.2
USB-A: 4
Monitor: 2 x HDMI 2.0
Aux 3.5mm: Yes
SD Card: SD and microSD
Best premium dock: CalDigit TS4
There’s a lot to appreciate about CalDigit’s TS4 docking station: It has a sturdy, upright design with a host connection at the rear and a whopping five downstream USB-C ports, two of which are Thunderbolt 4. Up front, you get an SD and a microSD card slot along with a headphone jack, two USB-C and a USB-A connector. In back, there’s room for four more USB-A devices and two 3.5mm jacks, one for audio in and one for audio out. One area where the dock may feel lacking is in display inputs. It only has one DisplayPort 1.4, but it has plenty of TB4 ports, which you can easily use to outfit a full command center (if you don’t have a USB-C monitor, there are plenty of adapters).
The multi-gig Ethernet jack can handle up to 2.5Gbps, so if you’re paying for a screaming-fast internet plan, this dock can help you take advantage of it. The TS4 can deliver up to 98W of power to your laptop, though like any docking station, the wattage goes down when other items are also drawing power.
The TS4 worked equally well with my MacBook Pro and the Dell XPS13 Plus and was even compatible with a Chromebook. I tested read/write speeds on a Samsung T7 SSD via a Thunderbolt port and got 734 MB/s read and 655 MB/s write speeds on the Mac and 1048/994 on the Dell. Compared to the other docks, that was in the lower-middle range for the Mac and the fastest overall for the PC. On PC, it also handled a 1GB folder transfer to a flash drive faster than any other dock and delivered the fastest connection speeds over the Ethernet. It’s the only unit that let me plug in every single peripheral I had on hand at once. If you’ve got lots of tech you want to use simultaneously (and money isn’t a concern), this is the one to get.
CalDigit TS4
Host connection: Thunderbolt 4
Power delivery to host: 98W (DC)
USB-C: 2 x TB4, 3 x 3.2
USB-A: 5
Monitor: 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
Aux 3.5mm: 1 x audio combo, 1 x audio in, 1 x audio out
SD Card: SD and microSD
Best for Chromebooks: Kensington SD4780P
The Kensington SD4780P Dual 4K typically requires a DisplayLink driver, but any Chromebook made after 2017 supports the connection from the jump. Finding a docking station that works with ChromeOS is tough; of the 12 units I tested, only four connected at all with the Acer Chromebook Spin 514, and one of those four couldn’t run two monitors. The SD4780P uses a USB-C host connection, through which it offers a maximum power delivery of 100W and was able to run both the 4K and HD screens cleanly.
It allows for a wide range of USB-A peripherals through five such ports, but there’s only a single downstream USB-C, so I wasn’t able to use both a webcam and mic at the same time. That means you’ll need to use your Chromebook’s built-in ports if you want more than one of those types of devices set up. The plastic build makes it look a little cheap and I’m not crazy about the lay-flat design, but the host port is in the back, which will make your setup neater. If all you’re looking for is a way to get a few extra monitors and use your wired USB accessories, this is a good pick for Chromebooks.
Kensington SD4780P specs
Host connection: USB-C
Power delivery to host: 100W (DC)
USB-C: 1 x 3.1
USB-A: 5
Monitor: 2 x HDMI 2.0, 2 x DisplayPort 1.2
Aux 3.5mm: 1 x audio combo
SD Card: No
Other docking stations we tested
Plugable TBT4-UDZ
When I pulled the Plugable TBT4-UDZ Thunderbolt 4 out of the box, I was convinced it would make the cut: It has a practical upright design, an attractive metal finish, and the host connection is TB4. While there are plenty of USB-A and monitor ports, there’s just one downstream USB-C. A modern dock, particularly one that costs $300, should let you run, say, a USB-C cam and mic at the same time. Otherwise, it’s pretty limiting.
Anker 575 USB-C
At $250 (and more often $235), the Anker 575 USB-C could make for a good budget pick for Windows. It performed well with the Dell XPS 13 Plus, but had trouble with the third screen, the 4K webcam and headphone jack when connected to the MacBook Pro. It’s quite compact, which means it can get wobbly when a bunch of cables are plugged in, but it has a good selection of ports and was able to handle my basic setup well.
Belkin Connect Pro Thunderbolt 4
Belkin’s Connect Pro Thunderbolt 4 Dock is a contender for a Thunderbolt 4 alternative. It has nearly the same ports as the AD2010 (minus the microSD slot) and an attractive rounded design — but it’s $90 more, so I’d only recommend getting it if you find it on sale.
Acer USB Type-C Dock
Acer’s USB Type-C Dock D501 costs $10 more than our Kensington pick for Chromebooks, but it performs similarly and is worth a mention. It has nearly the same ports (including the rather limiting single downstream USB-C) but both the Ethernet and data transfer speeds were faster.
FAQs
Are docking stations worth it?
Docking stations are worth it if you have more accessories to plug in than your laptop permits. Say you have a USB-C camera and mic, plus a USB-A mouse, keyboard and streaming light; very few modern laptops have enough connections to support all of that at once. A docking station can make that setup feasible while also giving you extra ports like an Ethernet connection, and supplying power to your laptop. However, if you just need a few extra USB sockets, you might be better off going with a hub, as those tend to be cheaper.
How much does a laptop dock cost?
Laptop docks range in price from around $150 to $450. Higher priced units tend to have more ports and more powerful connections, such as Thunderbolt 4.
Does a laptop charge on a docking station?
Nearly all docking stations allow you to charge your laptop through the host connection (the cable running from the dock to your computer). That capability, plus the higher number of ports is what separates a docking station from a hub. Docks can pass on between 65W and 100W of power to laptops, and nearly all include a DC adapter.
Are all docking stations compatible with all laptops?
No, not all docking stations are compatible with every laptop. In our tests, the Chromebook had the biggest compatibility issues, the Dell PC had the least, and the MacBook fell somewhere in between. All docks will list which brands and models they work with on the online product page — be sure to also check the generation of your laptop as some docks can’t support certain chips.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-docking-station-160041863.html?src=rss
