Of the three new data sources the chip has access to, the UWB radio is the most interesting. According to a recent leak, the company’s upcoming Tile-like tracking device will also feature the technology. Working in conjunction with a tracking device, UWB allows a phone to narrow the location of a lost item down to about a third of a foot, instead of approximately 16 feet like current Bluetooth LE trackers.
Lost item tracking is a small way to differentiate a phone in 2019, but it’s something that the new iPhones should be able to do significantly better than any other device out in the wild currently. In the future, Rose is likely to play a role in the company’s augmented reality ambitions. We know from multiple recent Bloomberg reports that Apple plans a significant augmented reality push starting with the new iPad Pro. Rose’s role in that push is made clear by code that suggests the chip will enhance one aspect of ARKit’s functionality. The usual caveats apply here: just because some internal code suggests a feature is possible doesn’t mean we’ll see Apple announce it at tomorrow’s iPhone launch event. That said, we won’t have to wait long to find out what the company’s new A13 chip can do.
Called, delightfully enough, [Cell]ivization, the game runs in a spreadsheet and has the basic features of the original game like support for two players, the ability to move units or the camera around, and the option to build multiple types of units with their own statistics. And it wouldn’t be Civilization without the fog of war, so that’s included too.
Developer s0lly says they created the game in “just around a week” as part of the OLC CodeJam 2019 which recently wrapped up. The theme for the jam was “destruction” which s0lly said “is apt for this game’s v1.0 iteration, given that the only way to win is to destroy the opposing team.”
If you want to relive the glory days of early 90s strategy gaming in spreadsheet form, you can download it from s0lly’s website.
Users were fond of the Dreamcast hardware — specifically the plethora of peripherals, along with the onboard LAN and CD playback. Jarcoz said that “the keyboard, mouse and VGA box — and the easy online access — made this console a huge step ahead and bridged the gap between PC and console gamers.” Mooney felt the “fusion of advanced graphics, network connectivity and revolutionary controllers” put the system “ahead of its time.”
Mooney also pointed out that “one of the best features of the Dreamcast was how easy it was to use homebrew content,” though “this may also be partially responsible for its demise since it made it easy for users to pirate games over P2P networks.” Pashpaw saw it as a positive, saying that “the console’s firmware supports CD playback too and later Dreamcasts can load in homebrew games for Windows NT with ease.”
Visual Memory Unit (VMU)
One of the Dreamcast features fans mentioned the most was the Visual Memory Unit (VMU) which, as Tatsumaki explains, “gave Dreamcast owners the ability to view game data on their controllers as well as carry mini-games along with them that tied into the console parent game.” Nathan said the VMU’s “ability to be played once removed from the controller was very interesting, though very few games actually took full advantage of this feature.” A different user named Nathan pointed out that they “made a huge [difference] for a game like NFL2K as the memory cards allowed you the ability to view and pick your play on them.” Jeremy said the “cool features like the VMU save carts, complete with built-in screen minigames” was one of the things that distinguished the Dreamcast as a gaming system. Brett was more skeptical, saying he found the memory card system “a little bit odd and the cards were kind of chunky.”
Controllers
When it comes to those distinct, spaceship-shaped controllers the majority of readers were surprisingly in favor of them. Pashpaw said the gamepads “were innovative for the time with the two slots in the controller for expansion,” Kasper called them epic and Kenshin11 said they were “something else.” Joe thought the “controllers were dope, especially certain games that utilized the touchscreen type thing you could attach to the controller,” and Nathan found them “unique and surprisingly nice in the hand.” Kenvan19 called themselves “one of the insane people who absolutely loved the Dreamcast controller enough that when the Xbox Duke came out, it was my favorite due to its similarity.”
There was one dissenter: fourfour44. They felt it “continues Sega’s tradition of horrendous design and the Dreamcast controller is the worst of the worst, the parallel grips on the back immediately strain your wrists and the face buttons have their letters etched into them, making them rough and awkward to press.”
Graphics
When it came to the game play, many users had positive things to say about the graphics — Nathan called the system “next level for its time,” and said that even today the visuals hold up. Brett found “the action to be always smooth, and the physics seemed better on this console than in games on the PS2.” And CLIFFosakaJAPAN was “awed with the graphics and performance of the Dreamcast upon playing my first batch of games.” He adds that he “thinks it was the first time that I felt I would never have to plunk down quarters (or 100 yen coins) at the game arcade ever again.”
Games
Everyone, and I mean, everyone wanted to rave about their most cherished Dreamcast titles — users agreed here was where console really excelled in gaining life-long fans. Bradley said he “really enjoyed the variety of games on the console despite its short life span,” PashPaw said that the system “came out with a bevy of first-party games that I still appreciate to this day,” and Jeremy called the Dreamcast lineup “incredibly creative and ambitious.”
Games that users fondly remembered included Chu Chu Rocket, which Bradley said was one of his favorites and Idlemind said is “surprisingly very fun to play as a group.” Shenmue was mentioned by no fewer than five users (edex67 called the game “utterly brilliant”), and Power Stone was one of Kenshin11’s favorites, with Nathan also praising it as a “really unique take on the genre.” Other titles frequently mentioned were Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Marvel vs Capcom, Sonic Adventure, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Quake and Toy Commander amongst many, many others.
The user consensus is that the games hold up as well as the system has; Andrew said they’re still fun today, given the number of exclusive games and new games still being released for the console. Kasper was hoping for re-releases of Power Stone 2 and Jet Set Radio while Lodmot pointed out that the Dreamcast library continues to grow “thanks to the homebrew scene and the dedicated fanbase that it has.” Joe, who still owns his Dreamcast, will still break it out to play when friends come over.
Many users also had thoughts on why the console didn’t, or couldn’t, succeed in the end. Bradley, who felt the Dreamcast never reached its full potential, thought that “Sega could have advertised more, worked out a new controller design and supported the varying peripherals available.” Kenvan19 said the only thing they could ding the system for was that it “was already dying at the time I got it so the games library was nowhere near what Playstation or Nintendo had at the time.”
This was echoed by Mooney who said “failure to deliver exclusive releases on any must-have games quickly doomed it to obscurity,” and Lunarcloud who said their only issues with the Dreamcast were the lack of a second analog stick and “the short lifespan of the system limiting the game library. Some really interesting games stopped development because the system was cancelled.”
Regardless, many users felt fondness and nostalgia for their Dreamcast: Kasper called it the “last legendary console,” Dorian said it was “the last video game console I really loved,” and Michael scored it an 11 out of 10, as he’d “let this console define my childhood again, no matter how sad that sounds.” Joe called it “one of the more underrated systems ever made,” and Pashpaw said that not only is it their favorite Sega console it “deserves all the love and nostalgia that I give it.”
Idlemind said that not only do they still enjoy their Dreamcast console, but when his friends’ kids come over “they usually ask to play it over the Xbox.” Jarcoz said it was “leaps and bounds ahead of everything else,” a sentiment that was shared by edex67 who declared it a “must own console for anyone, regardless of current console loyalties.” And Lunarcloud summed it up nicely by calling the Dreamcast “the last great home console from Sega, and the fans just won’t let it die because it’s aged extremely well.”
The visual refresh, meanwhile, is more colorful and includes more personalization options such as custom backgrounds for each list. Microsoft is even making a not-so-subtle grab for Wunderlist users by offering the Berlin TV tower background from their app. You’ll also find the seemingly inescapable dark mode option in the Android, Mac and Windows apps right now, with iOS adding the feature soon (presumably alongside iOS 13 and iPadOS).
Microsoft also promises better syncing that shares your lists across every platform, including Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and the web. Android and Windows users also have the option to switch between personal and work lists to change priorities when they leave the office. You can also expect multi-factor authentication to prevent someone from hijacking your agenda.
The redesign is available today. It’s not certain that these features will be enough to make To Do a must-have — in the past, we’ve recommended Wunderlist, Todoist and other apps instead. It does make the software more compelling, at least, and helps close the feature gap. The timing might not thrill everyone, though. The upgrade comes just two days after 6 Wunderkinder founder Christian Reber offered to buy Wunderlist from Microsoft to avoid the planned shutdown once To Do reaches feature parity. With the redesign, Microsoft is one step closer to that shutdown.
The simplest way a wearable can track your activity is by using a gyroscope (or similar) to track the position of your hand in three-dimensional space. It can then, algorithmically, infer where your body is, and what it — and you — are doing, using what is essentially very smart guesswork. Pedometers that count your steps and know when you’ve broken into a run work on this principle, and to judge how many calories it thinks you’ve burned.
Second, there’s a PPG, or optical heart-rate sensor that uses pulse oximetry to measure the volume of oxygen in your blood. That data can be used to make conclusions about your heart rate, respiration and how healthy you are at any given time. It can be used to determine your VO2 Max, which is the maximum amount of oxygen your blood can carry (the more, the better).
Finally, the ECG records the electrical activity in your heart as a periodic measure of your heart’s electrical activity. It can detect heart disease with blocked arteries, arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy and help identify people at higher risk of heart attacks.
When these elements are used in tandem, you can learn some pretty amazing things about the human body. You can even draw useful conclusions, like being able to determine if a person is about to have a cardiac incident or is suffering from atrial fibrillation.
For a while, the only major device that offered all three in the same package was the Apple Watch Series 4, which made a big deal about adding ECG in September 2018. Much more recently, ASUS has added both PPG and ECG to its new VivoWatch SP. Withings makes a heart-rate tracking watch and another one with an ECG, it wouldn’t take a genius to expect them to be combined in future.
Another major wearable company, Fitbit, has a long-stated goal of improving its heart health system to the point that its gear can be used in hospitals. Nobody would be surprised if a next-generation Iconic had an ECG alongside its existing heart-rate tracker. But, at that point, we’ll have a whole host of devices offering the same thing as all of the others. It doesn’t help that we’ll also reach a point where the divisions between smartwatches and fitness trackers will soon dissolve for all but bare-bones models, like Fitbit’s Charge and the MiBand.
The prices and packaging will differ, and those that don’t buy their gear from a third party will have tweaks to the idea. But otherwise, they’ll fundamentally be the same, and that’s likely to lead to homogeneity. On one hand, it means that high-quality fitness tech will be available to everyone, but it’ll come at the expense of any sustained innovation. Even the Apple Watch is likely to fill in some of its more obvious holes, like sleep and menstrual cycle tracking.
It’s hard to see where the next big thing will come from. Galvanic Skin Response, which measures how well our skin conducts electricity the more we sweat as a response to triggers, judges skin hydration. But the only device to try to use it in a smartwatch was HealBe’s much-derided food-tracking device. If you wanted to do more in-depth blood analysis, you’d need to break the skin, a hard sell for customers (aside from diabetics) and a legal minefield for manufacturers.
Without new, and compelling, ways of looking after our bodies, there’s little reason to spend another $400 on a timepiece. If the industry can’t come up with something new, it’s likely they’re going to be in trouble.
That modularity assists with running time, too. You can hot-swap a second battery without shutting off the computer, giving you up to 40 hours of battery life. This might be ideal for field workers who don’t know when they’ll be near a power outlet.
This is also a much-needed modernization of Toughbook hardware. While the 8th-generation Core i5 and i7 chips aren’t cutting-edge, this is the first laptop in the range with USB-C, HDMI 2.0 and Bluetooth 5.0. It’s also the first laptop in the category with a four-mic array to help with voice recognition. You can also expect a very bright 1,000-nit touchscreen, up to 64GB of RAM and a maximum 2TB of storage. Not surprisingly, wireless data is important between access to worldwide P.180 data service and AT&T’s FirstNet platform for emergency responders.
The Toughbook 55 is available now for a starting price of $2,099, although module prices hadn’t been mentioned as we wrote this. That’s not a trivial price for a PC with slightly behind-the-times performance, but that’s not really the focus here. This is more about ensuring that engineers and other staff will always have a system that meets their needs, even in extreme situations.
Samsung may finally be ready to launch the Galaxy Fold, but other smartphone makers seem to be collectively experiencing commitment phobia. At IFA 2019, companies like Huawei, LG and TCL cooled their efforts in the foldable flagship race in various ways. While Samsung saw IFA as the venue to show the world how it’s attempted to mitigate the problems with a folding screen, most other players are sitting out the hype. According to Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low, it should give them some time to reassess their foldable-phone ambitions.
Nintendo is apparently concerned that the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers might not be flexible enough — in a literal sense. The console maker recently applied for a US patent on Joy-Cons with hinges that would let the top half “bend” to provide a more ergonomic grip. This would work whether or not the controllers are attached — side sections would let you slide them on to the Switch’s rails.
Our final report from IFA in Berlin last week? A killer pair of true wireless earbuds for under $100 — and from a respected audio company. Audio-Technica seems to have nailed the most vital features of wireless buds. Oh, and there’s a $150 pair, too, but they’re just not quite as interesting.
The BBC has partnered with Facebook, Google and Twitter on a strategy to fight fake news and other disinformation campaigns. The effort will include an “early warning system” that lets organizations tell each other when they find false content that “threatens human life or disrupts democracy.” Ideally, this helps companies quickly neuter disinformation before it has much of a chance to spread. The timing of the collaboration likely isn’t a coincidence. Internet giants know that the 2020 US presidential election is fast approaching, and they’re trying to address lessons learned from 2016.
Google Assistant’s ability to handle phone calls may extend beyond booking your appointments with a robo-voice. A 9to5Google source claims Assistant on the upcoming Pixel 4 will have the option of taking over when you’re on hold, bringing you back when another human answers. You’d only have to tap a button to ignore the hold music and get things done. It’s not clear if this will also skip the canned “your call is very important to us” messages, but that’s certainly the dream — you wouldn’t be jolted back into the call until an actual service rep was there to help.
This might not be available the moment the Pixel 4 is ready, however. The on-hold feature is relatively young, according to the source, and might only appear at an announcement as a teaser of what’s in the pipeline. It would be similar to how Google teased its Duplex service — it didn’t show up on devices for a while.
But wait, there’s more…
The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t Subscribe.
The public tests fulfill a promise to start testing in 2019, and come right as Daimler is solidifying its strategy. It recently created an Autonomous Technology Group to handle the roadmap for self-driving trucks, starting with narrowly defined uses like this.
Don’t expect to see these machines regularly hauling cargo, however. While testing is underway, Daimler expects a lot of work over the next decade. The challenge now is to refine the technology and make it truly road-ready. These machines have to be intelligent enough to handle rough weather and complex environments without fail, and it could take years before they’re up to the job.
In its latest round of funding, Volocopter has been backed by Geely, the Chinese automotive group which manufactures Volvo and Lexus cars as well as London’s electric black cabs. It has also secured the support of German automotive giant Daimler, which is looking to invest in back ride-sharing, autonomous vehicle and taxi services.
Volocopter raised a total of 50 million Euros (about $55 million) with an aim to bring its air taxi service to China. The company says it can use this money to launch a commercial flying taxi within three years. Given its reveal last month of its fourth-generation eVTOL, or electric take-off and landing aircraft, it may well be able to meet its goal and begin trials in Singapore later this year.
Many of those workers were student interns, but even discounting that, temporary workers still made up to 30 percent of the workforce. Apple confirmed to Bloomberg that “the percentage of dispatch workers exceeded our standards,” adding that it’s “working closely with Foxconn to resolve this issue.” Foxconn also affirmed that it was violating laws by hiring too many temporary workers.
Dispatch workers hired by third party firms can make higher base wages than full-time hires, but don’t receive benefits like paid sick leave, vacations, medical benefits, unemployment insurance and pension contributions, according to CLW.
The organization also found a number of other violations, saying that resignations often weren’t approved during peak periods, student interns were working overtime during peak production in violation of laws, workers were putting in up to 100 hours of overtime per month (36 is the maximum allowed) and that some workers never received promised overtime bonuses. However, Apple denied many of the claims.
“Most of the allegations are false,” the company said. “We have confirmed all workers are being compensated appropriately, including any overtime wages and bonuses, all overtime work was voluntary and there was no evidence of forced labor.” Apple added that less than one percent of its workforce was student workers, and that only a small percentage had worked overtime in violation of laws. Those issues have now been corrected, it said.
Apple’s latest iPhone XS smartphones are reportedly more complex to produce than the iPhone X, requiring more workers. Apple and Foxconn aim to produce around 12,000 devices per shift, according to CLW. Recently, Amazon also admitted to hiring more temporary workers than allowed following another investigation by the labor rights group.
