If you’re getting error messages instead of media across your Apple devices and services then you’re not alone. The company’s status page notes an outage that’s affecting many of its connected services that bring music, video and pictures to you. Apple TV+, Apple Music, Photos and more are either running slowly or not at all for many people. Some are unaffected, but Apple confirmed the issue and said it’s investigating.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread in the spring and summer, Pokémon Gorolled out a series of changes that made it easier for players to keep participating. Now Niantic Labs has announced that while some of the temporary bonuses it added will remain active, several of them will go away as of October 1st.
In April the game added a feature where your buddy Pokémon would gather gifts from nearby PokéStops even if you didn’t leave your home, and now it will only do that if you’re running low. The distance walked to hatch eggs is going back up to where it was previously, and incense that attracts Pokémon will only have increased effectiveness while walking.
More than two years and multiple delays after its original announcement, the Atari VCS is finally making its way to people who helped crowdfund the console. In an update over on Medium, Atari says it’s putting the “finishing touches” on the first batch of production VCS units. The company is in the process of sending the consoles to the US, where they’ll be then shipped out to Indiegogo backers “very soon.” It also shared photos from the factory floor to prove manufacturing has been coming along.
Atari
If you backed the VCS, you might still have to wait a while before getting your unit. Almost 12,000 people supported the VCS Indiegogo campaign. In May, when Atari announced it hoped to ship the first production units in mid-June, it said 500 consoles were on their way. A caption of one of the photos Atari shared indicates “thousands” of systems are ready for shipping.
What makes injuries more likely to occur at Amazon’s automated warehouses is that the company has unrealistic expectations of the human employees that work there. Where workers called pickers previously had to scan about 100 items every hour, Amazon now expects them to scan up to 400 products in the same amount of time. Those employees can’t keep with the robots without hurting themselves.
What’s more, Reveal found Amazon has either been slow or shown no interest in listening to federal regulators when it comes to the issue. In 2015, the Occupational Saftey and Health Administration (OSHA) outlined policies Amazon could implement to keep employees safe at a robotic warehouse in New Jersey. For example, one suggestion was that the company rotates employees between different jobs throughout their shift to avoid repetitive stress injuries. Reveal found that Amazon has yet to implement those measures across its warehouses.
When asked about its automated warehouses, a spokesperson for Amazon told Reveal, “the use of robotics, automation and technology in our fulfillment centers is enhancing our workplace, making jobs safer and more efficient.” We’ve reached out to Amazon for additional comments. We’ll update this article when we hear back.
The report also found that injuries are more common at the company’s warehouses during the holiday shopping season and throughout its Prime Day event. In all, Reveal says in 2019 Amazon recorded 14,000 serious injuries at across 150 fulfillment centers, with injury rates increasing year-over-year.
Just one day before Google’s Pixel 5 reveal, Sonos has filed a new lawsuit against the search giant, alleging it has infringed five more patents. The patents cover technologies that form the basis of some of Sonos’ best-known features, including its Trueplay tuning tool.
The new lawsuit is the latest development in the ongoing legal spat between Sonos and Google. Sonos first sued Google at the start of 2020. It alleged at the time that the company had violated five of its speaker patents, including one that details a technology that allows wireless speakers to sync with one another. In June, Google countersued Sonos, claiming the speaker company had been using its search, software, networking and audio processing technologies without paying a licensing fee.“While Google rarely sues other companies for patent infringement, it must assert its intellectual property rights here,” Google wrote in the complaint.
Sufficient warnings could afford patients time to prepare for the onset of a seizure by taking medication. Those who don’t respond well enough to anti-epileptic drugs would also have the chance to minimize the risk of seizure-related injuries.
Epiness, according to the BGU researchers, minimizes the number of EEG electrodes that a wearer would need to use. They developed and tested algorithms using EEG data from epilepsy patients who were monitored for several days before surgery. The algorithm with the best prediction performance was 97 percent accurate, and it kept almost the same level of performance (95 percent) with fewer electrodes.
It’ll probably be some time yet before the device is available to epilepsy patients. A new startup called NeuroHelp has licensed the Epiness tech for further development and commercialization. Clinical trials for a prototype are scheduled for later this year.
The third-gen Owlet sock is much like its predecessors: A sensor shines light through the skin and, using the light that shines back, it then estimates the baby’s blood flow and oxygen level. The Owlet sensor fits inside a fabric “sock” that pairs to a WiFi connected base station, and the base station updates an app on your phone with readings. The wearable monitor uses a handful of color-coded alerts to update parents on their babies. Green means reading data; blue is low battery; white is charging; and orange is disconnected. Red means a dip in heart rate or pulse ox, which triggers an insistent alarm as well to clearly signify potential distress. The new Owlet model features a redesigned fabric sock, a smaller base station and wireless charging. These hardware upgrades are, for the most part, thoughtful and useful, with the exception of a few snags.
The sensors included with the Owlet Smart Sock 2 (left) and 3 (right).
Amber Bouman/Engadget
Let’s start with the sensor (one of the thoughtful bits). What had been a flat circular shape with a micro-USB dongle for charging is now a thicker, dongle-less, button which sits in a butterfly-shaped fabric base. The sensor is secured into place by fitting it through a hole in the sock, and then anchored using velcro. This makes it much easier to switch the sensor in and out of the four included socks. Of the two left-and-right pairs, one for children under 12 pounds and one for those over 12 pounds. (This is also an update from the second-gen, which included three sizes of sock for the right foot only.)
The sock is wrapped around the ball of the foot and secured behind the ankle with velcro straps like a tiny sports band. The sensor is located more on the side of the foot now, with the velcro underneath the foot. Owlet says many of these changes come from feedback from parents, but I found them problematic in practice. It is comically difficult to get the sock properly secured on a wriggling infant, but I generally managed okay with the second-gen model.
Our baby tester is wearing the Owlet Smart Sock 2 on their right foot and the Smart Sock 3 on the left.
Amber Bouman/Engadget
With the changes to the third-gen sock, I not only found it harder to properly align the sensor, but it was also too easy for my kids to slip the socks off. This had occurred randomly once or twice with the previous version, but with the new one it happened five times between the twins in a matter of a week. The way the sensor and velcro are located makes them easy to snag and rub. I also found it harder to get the sock set smoothly on the foot which in turn made it more difficult to properly secure both the ankle strap and the sensor. I referenced the Owlet manual and instructions for tips on how to do this better, but the ankle strap kept slipping off my son and the whole sock slipped off my daughter multiple times.
Because I couldn’t quite get the socks to lie flat, it was harder to figure out how to correct the fit when I got an orange “difficulty getting reading” alert. These orange ‘disconnected’ alerts are absolutely my least favorite part of the Owlet system. When a sock alerts, it rings both your phone and the base station with notifications (and by playing “Hush little baby” with a flashing orange light).
The Smart Sock 3 sensor and fabric sock.
Amber Bouman/Engadget
I got a some scary red alerts with the latest socks, which are every bit as alarming as they should be. However, during the “Low oxygen/low heart rate” red alerts my babies looked totally fine. I checked the guides in Owlet’s app which told me that, among other things, a disconnected sock could result in a partial reading, hence a red alert. This made the iffy fit on the socks all the more problematic (I did not enjoy leaping out of bed in the middle of the night for a red alert that was due to a misalligned sock). There are several other factors (elevation, circulation, periodic breathing) that could contribute to red alerts, and Owlet provides a guide on what to do if you receive one. I wound up talking to our pediatrician, who confirmed that I’d likely be able to easily identify a real emergency issue versus an error alert.
All told, I saw many more orange disconnection alerts. They occurred when my kids slipped out of their socks, but also sometimes for unknown reasons. This was particularly unwelcome in the middle of the night, when I didn’t want to risk waking sleeping babies with alert noises or sock readjustments. The second-gen sock at least had a way to minimize the sounds for these notifications, but this option is missing in the new version. This is the main challenge with the Owlet system: A baby can shift the sock enough to trigger an alert. Yes, it’s important to know when the sensor isn’t correctly seated, but I wish it didn’t happen so often. I also wish I better understood what activities and behavior caused the alerts when the sock seemed correctly fitted.
Owlet base stations: versions three (left) and two (right).
Amber Bouman/Engadget
I appreciated the other hardware changes a lot more. The new base station is almost half the size of the old base station, which makes it easier to fit on a nightstand. It’s significantly less bright than its predecessor, which makes it a lot less obtrusive in the middle of the night (something that really aggravated my colleague Daniel Cooper in his original hands-on).
Upgrading the socks to wireless charging feels like a genius move. This makes the device easier to put in a variety of places, with one less cable to keep track of. Owlet says the redesigned sock can grab an eight-hour charge in 20 minutes, and a full charge in an hour and a half. Unlike the second-gen model, the battery life here is measured in hours instead of a percentage, which was helpful but I seemed to get low battery warnings a lot earlier. Four hours of battery left doesn’t seem worthy of an alert, if you ask me.
Amber Bouman/Engadget
A few other notes: It was nice to see that the new socks automatically turn on the base station once your kid is wearing the sock; the old ones required you to manually turn on the station with a tap. If the socks get pushed off the base station while charging, it will trigger an orange disconnection alert. Though Owlet only connects to 2.4GHz WiFi, it will stay connected in the event of a WiFi disruption. While staying in a hotel during a recent wildfire evacuation, I had no luck trying to connect the second-gen socks, but they immediately reconnected to my home WiFi when we returned.
Software
As with the hardware, the software changes here feel well thought-out. Owlet replaced its physical manual with an app download, and the GIFs and videos included in the app were actually pretty helpful. Installation was straightforward for both versions, though there was always a step I had to attempt more than once. With the old version it was getting the WiFi connected; with the newer one it was registering a new device and assigning it to a child.
For some reason the app had me add the sock, then assign it — but I had to create a new profile instead of the one that I had created for the second-gen setup. Then I had to re-register the same device again under the child’s profile. None of this was particularly onerous, but it seemed unintuitive to register each gadget twice. And, while it’s nice that the app has an easy way to add multiple children and monitors, I now have four entries in the app: one for each child and each device. That’s a little cluttered, and I wish I was allowed to rearrange the cards or tiles here. However, I did appreciate how the app on my partner’s phone automatically updated after I added the new socks.
Owlet’s third-generation smart sock continues reading through motion, while the second-gen model displays “Wriggling” as it pauses tracking.
Owlet
Once installation is complete, all the information is available by tapping that child’s name/picture from the home screen. Your child’s data will refresh as updates are received from the sock. When your child moves it will show feet and say “wiggling,” though the updated sock now features “work through motion,” allowing the sensor to continue taking readings “during activity such as diaper changes, burping or nose cleanouts.” The previous sock would pause readings during these movements. You can also toggle the base station on or off from here, something I’ve found useful when trying to turn off those orange ‘disconnected’ alerts I mentioned earlier.
Owlet includes the child’s name on alert notifications in the app so you can tell whose sock needs your attention when an alert pops up. But there’s no such information in the notifications that appear on the app lock screen, so you have to open the app to find out which child’s sock is setting off the alarm. Because I’m on a satellite internet connection, that increases the time to find out what’s going on during red alerts. The app also measures sleep trends, which was informative to have on hand as I try to move the twins into cribs. Another nice touch: The information about babies on the ‘Guide’ page took prematurity into account and there’s also a corresponding NICU-stay option in the profile setup.
The interiors of the socks: versions two (left) and three (right).
Amber Bouman/Engadget
Wrap-up
Despite my irritation with the orange alerts in general, I really like my Owlet socks. They provide me with helpful information and peace of mind, which counts for a lot. I also generally appreciate the changes that have been made to the third-gen device, with the new sock design being an important outlier. The wireless charging, ‘work through motion’, sensor redesign and app changes are all features that make the system give faster and more accurate readings in the day-to-day. If you’re able to tolerate the disconnection alerts, and have the patience to strap a sensor onto a baby, the Owlet is a solid system to have for NICU, new or nerd parents alike.
The OnePlus 7T is quite similar to the OnePlus 7 Pro, a handset that made it into our list of favorite midrange handsets. The most consequential difference between the two is their displays. The 7T has a 6.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display and the Pro has a 6.7-inch 1440p AMOLED screen. Both support a 90Hz refresh rate, but there will be some who want the biggest and best possible display on their smartphones and the Pro is where you’ll find it in this pairing.
Otherwise, the OnePlus 7T takes some premium features from the Pro while downgrading others. The 7T has a smaller, lighter body that’s easier to hold, and it actually has a faster chipset, running on a Snapdragon 855+ processor. It’s only available with 8GB of RAM and this model that’s on sale has 128GB of internal storage. The Pro has the advantage of a larger battery, but the 7T still has a formidable battery life, lasting nearly two days on a single charge when we spent some hands-on time with it. The 7T also has OnePlus’ Warp Charge 30T feature that can fully charge the smartphone within an hour, which is as impressive as it is handy.
If you’re looking for the best deal on a recent OnePlus smartphone, B&H’s sale is worth considering. It may not have the same big, beautiful display that the Pro has, but it remains a sold Android handset that, at this sale price, provides a similar value to that of the €399/$475 OnePlus Nord in the UK and Europe.
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Earlier this year, we learned that Spotify was teaming up with DC Comics and Warner Bros. to create a lineup of exclusive, narrative audio podcasts featuring DC characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Today, Spotify announced the first series: Batman Unburied. The audio drama, led by David Goyer, will explore the darker side of Bruce Wayne’s psyche.
“We’ll be using the unique advantages of audio to dig into the more nightmarish members of the Dark Knight’s Rogues Gallery,” Goyer said in a statement. Goyer’s previous work includes The Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel, Sandman, Foundation and more.
Later this year, Facebook Pay will be added to the Accounts Center in the US. You’ll be able to enter your payment information once and use it to buy things or make donations on both Instagram and Facebook.
The company noted that connecting your accounts isn’t mandatory. If you do link Instagram and Facebook in Accounts Center, you can maintain distinct identities across both apps. However, you’ll have the option to sync your name and profile image. If you change one of them on Facebook, Instagram can automatically update your name or photo too.
“We use information across our apps to personalize your experience and show you more relevant content, including ads,” Facebook product manager Oren Hod wrote in an announcement post. “Setting up and using Accounts Center won’t change that. We also use information about activity on our apps to improve our services and keep them safe, for example, to help identify and remove accounts that violate our policies, and to keep your accounts secure.”
