That said, the Series X has a few features that deserve extra attention before launch day on November 10th. The Series X is priced at $499, while its all-digital counterpart, the Xbox Series S, will cost $299.

Before diving in too deep, let’s lay the ground rules. There are limitations on the scope of the initial preview, with specific features we’re allowed to discuss. Fortunately, this round covers the console’s most obvious improvements: the performance of the backward compatible library, the quick resume feature and the look and feel of the hardware itself, including the new Xbox Wireless Controller.

First up, backward compatible games on Xbox Series X.

Engadget

Back compat 

On day one, both of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles will support more than 500 games from the original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. On Series X, all backward compatible games receive automatic HDR support, and some will even play at double their original framerates, bumping 30FPS titles to 60FPS, and 60FPS to 120FPS. This library will run natively on the console, meaning each game can take advantage of the Series X’s faster CPU, GPU and SSD, and even hit 4K. 

Series S games will receive similar treatment, though they’re upgraded from their Xbox One S versions, meaning they won’t be playable in 4K.

Resolution aside, players on both consoles will have immediate access to a library 19 years deep. Alongside selling Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, this is a huge part of Microsoft’s pitch for the next generation: the fact that the Series X will have plenty of content at launch, and these titles will perform better than ever. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s main console competitor, Sony, hasn’t outlined how backward compatibility will work on the PlayStation 5. Many PS4 games will be playable on PS5, but it’s still unclear which ones, how they’ll take advantage of the new hardware, or if they’ll be accessible outside of a PlayStation Plus subscription. There’s no word on games from before the PS4 era, either.

On Xbox Series X, Microsoft’s commitment to spit-shining its old and classic games has resulted in one massive improvement: Faster load times.

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In my experience, backward compatible games on Xbox Series X load three to four times faster than their Xbox One counterparts. Take Remedy’s Control, for example — booting up a scene on Xbox One takes 30 to 38 seconds, while the same scene on Series X consistently takes just 9 seconds, 10 at the most. This ratio rings true for most games I’ve tested, and it’s significantly changed the way I interact with the new console overall.

Whenever I die or fast travel in most console-bound AAA games, I automatically drop the controller while waiting for the new scene to load, knowing it’ll take enough time to give my fingers a break. Or I’ll grab a fresh drink, or reach for my phone and scroll through Reddit while the loading bar creeps across the bottom of the screen.

With Series X, there’s no time for this nonsense. When a fail state pops up, my hands will instinctually fall to my lap, but almost immediately, the game is ready for another round. I’ve had to become more proactive with my drink breaks.

Not only are Series X backward compatible games faster to load, but many of them take advantage of another speedy new console function — quick resume.

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Elon “Im going to put a chip in your head” Musk has never been one to shy away from making grandiose forward looking statements but if he can keep his word from this year’s battery day — the one about being able to build batteries at half the current cost per kWh and usher in the era of $25,000 electric cars within tree years. That’s going to revolutionize the EV market far more than the Roadster ever did. Maybe even more than the Model S Plaid will.

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If a social video platform’s success is measured by the amount of hate-filled garbage rhetoric moderators have to continually pull down, then TikTok is killing it. The site yanked more than 100 million videos found in violation of its community guidelines. Even more impressive is that the videos it did pull constituted just 1 percent of total uploads for the year.

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It wouldn’t be so bad if the department hadn’t simultaneously spent those years constantly, gleefully, lying to journalists and the public that they’re supposed to serve about whether or not they were using the technology. Makes you wonder what else the LAPD has been lying about.

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It only took 3.6 million scorched acres and 26 deaths this year to finally spur California Governor Gavin Newson into taking more than performative climate action. This week he announced the issuance of an executive order requiring all new vehicles sold in the state come 2035 to be zero emission — effectively banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state. Expect this to be heavily litigated in the coming decade and a half until the new rules kick in.

Workman

Excerpted from How to Astronaut: An Insider’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth by Terry Virts (Workman). © 2020.

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For all the emergency training I went through as an astronaut, I never expected to be holed up in the Russian segment of the ISS, the hatch to the US segment sealed, with my crew waiting and wondering—would the space station be destroyed? Was this the end? As we floated there and pondered our predicament, I felt a bit like the guy in the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic,” who was going down in an airplane crash, thinking to himself, “Now isn’t this ironic?” This is how we ended up in that situation.

Every space station crew trains for all types of emergencies—computer failures, electrical shorts, equipment malfunctions, and more serious fire and air leak scenarios. However, on the International Space Station, the most dangerous of all is an ammonia leak. In fact, our NASA trainers used to tell us, “If you smell ammonia, don’t worry about running the procedure, because you’re going to die anyway.” That sure instilled confidence.

A few months after arriving in space, we were having a typical day. My crewmate Samantha Cristoforetti and I were each in our own crew quarters, going through email and catching up with administrative work, when the alarm went off. The sound of the ISS alarm is exactly what you would think a proper space alarm should sound like—a cross between a Star Trek alarm and a sci-fi B-movie klaxon. When it goes off, there is no doubt that something significant is happening. Sam and I both popped our heads out of our respective quarters and glanced at the alarm panel.

When I saw the ATM alarm lit up, my first thought was, “Atmosphere— there must be an atmosphere leak.” The ISS had occasionally had an air leak false alarm over its fifteen-year history, and I thought it must be one of those. However, that is not what ATM means—it stands for toxic atmosphere, most probably from an ammonia leak. Significantly, this alarm was going off for the first time in ISS history. My brain couldn’t believe it, so I said to Samantha, “This is an air leak, right?” To which she immediately responded “NO—ammonia leak!”

Jolted back to reality, we jumped into action. Gas masks on. Account for everyone; we didn’t want anyone left behind. Float down to the Russian segment ASAP and close the hatch between the US and Russian segments. The US segment uses ammonia as a coolant, but the Russian segment doesn’t, so the air should be safe there. Remove all clothes in case they’re contaminated. Nobody smelled ammonia, so we skipped this step! Close a second hatch to

keep any residual ammonia vapors on the American segment. Get out the ammonia “sniffer” device to make sure there isn’t any of that deadly chemical in the atmosphere on the Russian segment. All clear. Then, await word from Houston. . . .

Fifteen long, suspense-filled minutes later, we got the news—it was a false alarm. We let out a collective sigh of relief; the station wouldn’t be dying today! Whew. Similar to frequent fire alarms and rare air leaks, ammonia leak was just added to the collection of ISS false alarms. We put away the ammonia detector, floated back to the US segment, and started to clean up the mess that we had left floating in midair when that alarm went off.

Then we received an urgent call. “Station, Houston, execute ammonia leak emergency response, I say again, execute emergency response, ammonia leak, this is not a drill!” Pretty unambiguous. Only this time the warning had come via a radio call, not via electronic alarm. After the false alarm I knew that an army of NASA engineers were in mission control, poring over every piece of data they had, trying to determine if this had been a false alarm or the real thing. Now that mission control had confirmed that it was an actual leak, there was no doubt in my mind that this thing was real. No way all those NASA engineers got this call wrong. Having worked in mission control for nearly a decade myself, I had complete confidence in our flight director and flight control team. When they said, “Execute ammonia response,” I put the mask on, shut the hatch, and asked questions later.

It was like a scene out of European Vacation—“Look kids! Big Ben!”—or maybe Groundhog Day. Oxygen masks activated—check. US segment evacuated with nobody left behind—check. Hatch between US and Russian segments closed and sealed—check. Get naked—nope. No ammonia in the Russian atmosphere—check.

By this point, we had run the ISS ammonia leak procedures twice within an hour of each other. We had a quick debrief as a crew to discuss how we handled the emergency, what checklist steps were missed, what could have been done better, and what we needed to report to Houston. By this point, it was very obvious that there would be a lot of meetings happening in Houston and Moscow and that everybody in the NASA chain of command would be aware of our predicament.

Very quickly the gravity (pun intended) of the situation hit us. Using ammonia as the coolant for the American half of the ISS had worked well for decades, but we were acutely aware of its danger. Thankfully, the engineers who designed the station did a great job making a leak extremely unlikely, but the possibility was always there. On the other hand, the Russian glycol-based coolant is not dangerous, which is why the whole station crew would safe haven there in the event of an ammonia leak.

Besides the danger of the crew breathing in toxic fumes, there was a risk to equipment. The ISS has two ammonia loops, a series of tanks and pipes that carry heat from the station’s internal water loops to the external radiators. If one leaked out to space, there would still be a second available to cool equipment. It would be a serious loss of redundancy for the station, especially given that there is no longer a space shuttle to restock the station with the massive ammonia tanks needed to fill a loop. It would be ugly, but survivable.

What is not survivable, however, is having that ammonia leak to the inside of the American segment. First of all, if the entire contents of an ammonia loop came inside the station, it would probably overpressurize and pop the aluminum structure of one or more of the modules, like a balloon being overfilled with air. Mission control could avert this problem by venting the ammonia to space—we would lose the cooling loop, but it would prevent the station from popping. Months after returning to Earth, I learned that Houston had been seriously considering that option during our emergency, and it was only averted because of a tough—and ultimately correct—call by our flight director. That’s why those guys get paid the big bucks—they are some of the smartest and most competent people I have ever worked with. However, even if you averted a catastrophic “popping” of structure, there would still be the problem of ammonia in the US segment.

If even a small amount of ammonia were present in the atmosphere, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove. The only scrubber we had was our ammonia masks, so theoretically you could have an astronaut sit in a contaminated module, breathing the contaminant out of the air and into the mask filter, and over time enough of this scrubbing would lower the ammonia concentration, but as the poor astronaut sat there cleaning the air he would also be covered in ammonia, and convincing his fellow crewmates on the Russian segment to allow him back to their clean air would be problematic, to say the least. There would need to be some sort of shower and cleaning system to completely clean him up, which of course doesn’t exist in space. It would be a similar situation to soldiers in a chemical warfare environment, or the Soviet soldiers in the recent miniseries Chernobyl. Dealing with a toxic environment on Earth is difficult enough, but in space it would be nearly impossible. The reality is that an actual leak into the American segment would make a significant portion of the ISS uninhabitable, and if there were no crew there when the equipment broke down, there would be nobody to fix it.

A real ammonia leak would eventually lead to the slow death of the US half of the ISS, which would then lead to the end of the entire station. We knew this and spent our afternoon staring at each other, wondering out loud how long it would be before they sent us home, leaving the space station uninhabited and awaiting an untimely death.

Later that evening, we received a call from Houston. “Just kidding, it was a false alarm.” That was a huge false alarm. It turned out that some cosmic radiation had hit a computer, causing it to kick out bad data regarding the cooling system, and it took Houston hours to sort out what was really happening. Because that call from Houston had told us that it was a real leak, we all believed it—we knew that the folks in mission control were some of the best engineers in the world and that they would be 100 percent sure before making a call like that. So we were very relieved to get that call.

Cherlynn Low/Engadget

Henry also mentioned the S20’s build quality, saying it “didn’t feel as premium as past phones” and that it “would have been nice to get a proper black color” for the handset. Jun Jie was likewise disappointed with the colors on the Ultra: “You went from Aura-ish colors on the Note10+ to Cosmic Grey on the S20 Ultra that’s more dull than my future. Why?” And both Henry and Steve wanted a headphone jack on the S20 and S20 Ultra, respectively. 

Screen

The screens on all three handsets hit big with users. Sneak said the S20’s display is amazing, Ryan found the screen on the S20+ beautiful, adding that he can use the 120Hz with no noticeable difference in resolution. However, he did say that the “screen glass is easily susceptible to scratching,” and that “after a month of careful use, there are three or four small scratches noticeable when the screen is off. The notion that Gorilla Glass is somehow impervious to scratching is clearly a myth.” 

Cherlynn Low/Engadget

When it came to the 120Hz refresh rate on her S20+, Brianna was enthusiastic, saying she “loves the buttery smooth refresh rate” and that she “never knew I needed 120Hz in my life until I saw it in person! Never going back!” Charlie called the screen on the S20 Ultra beautiful, Jun Jie found it glorious and Steve admitted the large screen was one of his “killer apps” on the Ultra, but he skips using the 120Hz mode because it drains the battery.

Camera

There was very little negative feedback about the camera features of the S20 lineup. The S20 and S20+ both have a 3x optical zoom system, while the S20 Ultra boasts a 100x Space Zoom with a 4x optical zoom. Sneak liked the camera on their S20, but Nick was disappointed that his S20+ didn’t feature a real telephoto camera and will instead crop a 64MP frame. 

Cherlynn Low/Engadget

S20 Ultra users were more detailed about their experiences. Derek called the camera cool, despite having to return his initial handset because of an issue with it. Steve said he “uses the Pro mode all the time and I love the level of control. I have used the 100x zoom, and while it’s not perfect, it’s better than not having the option at all.” And Charlie found the camera to be amazing, adding that “it has focus issues sometimes but I expect that to be fixed with software updates in the near future. The zoom capability is incredible and very helpful in my job.” 

Battery

The battery life of the phones was only briefly mentioned by the reviewers. David and Nick felt let down by the battery life of their respective S20 and a S20+. David said he was “disappointed with my phone’s battery life compared to my previous phones, and the phones of others in my family.” 

Cherlynn Low/Engadget

Meanwhile, Ryan and Jun Jie had the opposite experience. Jun Jie listed battery life as one of the many advantages of going with an S20 Ultra, and Ryan said the battery on his S20+ lasts “considerably longer than my S7, and I can use the phone all day without worrying about recharging.” 

Comparisons

Our users were fairly critical with regards to comparing their handsets to other phone models. David said “one of my biggest frustrations with the S20 is the tediously slow on-screen fingerprint unlock, to the point that I am considering switching back to an LG V series.” He felt that “overall, the S20 is a satisfactory phone but … my previous flagship, the LG V30+, gave a better ownership experience.” Ryan, who upgraded to the S20+ from an S7, said it took him a few weeks to adjust to the size of the newer phone. Nick, who also owns an S20+, felt it was a bad thing that the handset “is so similar to all other A-series Samsungs that you cannot easily tell the difference. It’s not a very shiny flagship, as previous models were. I was twice as excited when I bought my S7 Edge, which it replaced.” Steve was pragmatic about his S20 Ultra, saying “this phone is good for a while but next time I’ll probably look at the ‘A’ series. Better bang for the buck.” Derek was less matter-of-fact about his S20 Ultra: “I’ve learned my lesson and this is the last S series phone I will buy. I’m going back to the Note phones I was buying. This phone was not worth the price.” 

Cherlynn Low/Engadget

However, a few users of each handset were more pleased with their purchases. Sneak was “extremely glad that the Bixby button is gone, and I’m also glad that Samsung didn’t put the power and volume buttons on the ‘wrong’ side like they did with the Note 10 and 10+.” And Jun Jie and Charlie were both happy with their S20 Ultras, with Jun Jie stating there are “many praises to be sung about this phone,” and Charlie finding it an “incredible phone in many ways.” 

First up, this whole “Android coming soon” business.

Amazon

Android availability

Initially, Luna will launch in early access on Fire TV, PC, Mac and iOS devices, including iPhones and iPads. Notably, it won’t be available on Android right away. The Android version should go live within “weeks” of the early access launch, according to Luna head Marc Whitten.

Whitten and other Luna executives don’t attribute the temporary iOS exclusivity to Amazon’s mysterious sweetheart deal with Apple, which allows Prime Video to sell media directly on the App Store without giving Apple 30 percent of its sales. The 30 percent cut is standard for essentially every other paid program on the iOS marketplace, and it’s one of the main reasons Epic Games is suing Apple this year. 

Executives also don’t attribute the iOS-first launch to xCloud’s provisional exclusivity on Android platforms. Microsoft’s game-streaming platform, xCloud, isn’t available on iOS because of that 30 percent fee and the fact that Apple “consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps,” according to Microsoft.

With Luna, Amazon has discovered another way to circumvent Apple’s App Store fees. Luna is a progressive web application (PWA), which means it’s actually a browser-based program masquerading as a native iOS app. You’ll download the PWA from the Luna website, and the resulting icon on your iPhone’s home screen will function like a shortcut to Amazon’s cloud gaming portal on the web. 

As a PWA, Luna is not involved in the App Store at all. 

“Just to be super transparent, on iOS, it is through the browser,” Whitten said. “So it’s not a native app in the App Store.”

Epic tried something similar when it sold Fortnite outside of Google Play starting in 2018. For 18 months, the only way for Android users to play Fortnite was to visit the game’s website and download a proprietary launcher from there, or get it through the Samsung-only app store. It was an inelegant solution, and in April of this year, Epic reluctantly added Fortnite to Google Play, accepting the 30 percent fee on all transactions. 

At the time, Epic told The Verge, “Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.”

Epic didn’t even attempt to launch Fortnite outside of the App Store ecosystem, citing Apple’s ulta-restrictive policies on third-party marketplaces and its monopolistic control of the iOS platform. Both Epic and Microsoft are aware of the existence of PWA — Microsoft and Google are even collaborating on a project to improve PWA experiences on the Play Store — but they’ve been unwilling or unable to take this route for their mobile gaming services. 

And honestly, that’s not surprising. As the Fortnite experiment demonstrated, both Epic and Microsoft have faced regular roadblocks from Apple and Google, even when attempting to operate outside of the App or Play stores. On September 11th, Apple revised its App Store guidelines in a show of deference to game-streaming services like xCloud, but even these new rules are impractical. They require users to download a container for each game they want to play individually from the App Store, even when attempting to access them through a streaming service like xCloud. This mandate doesn’t apply to Luna.

Microsoft responded to the rule change that same day, saying, “This remains a bad experience for customers.” xCloud still isn’t on iOS, and Fortnite is no longer available on the App Store or Google Play as Epic is embroiled in lawsuits with Apple and Google. 

With the Luna PWA, Amazon is once again sidestepping a hurdle that has proven insurmountable for companies like Microsoft and Epic.

“We worked with the Safari team to ensure that some of the things that weren’t there are there, and that allowed us to kind of get to where we are today,” Luna head of engineering and technology George Tsipolitis said.

It’s unclear if Luna will remain a PWA after its stint in early access, or if it will eventually join the app stores under the standard 30 percent fee.

“We’ll continue working with Apple,” Whitten said. “We’d love to do a native experience. They’re evaluating what their policies are there, they keep talking about them. And when we can come up with a good experience there, we’ll ship that one, too.”

Amazon

Pricing

Luna will cost $5.99 — at least — in early access. That price unlocks access to Luna+, the baseline channel that will feature a mix of games, including Resident Evil 7, Control, Tacoma, Rez Infinite, Metro Exodus, The Sexy Brutale, Overcooked! 2 and others. Not all of the titles listed up there will be available on day one, but they’re all on the early access docket.

Luna will have more channels with curated content, each available at an additional, as-yet-unknown cost. The first confirmed channel comes from Ubisoft, and will include a broad selection of games from the publisher’s catalog, plus same-day releases of upcoming titles including Far Cry 6, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Immortals Fenyx Rising. 

Amazon is aiming to have about 100 games available during the early beta period, spread between Luna+ and the Ubisoft channel.

“So more than Stadia, less than Game Pass,” Luna business development manager Lisa Schwenke said. Microsoft recently integrated xCloud into its Game Pass Ultimate subscription service and offers more than 150 streamable titles, while Stadia has about 50, some of which are purchased individually. Schwenke continued, “The goal is to continue to have something for everyone, see what customers are enjoying and try to bring more of that. So definitely starting out a little bit smaller during early access, I think there’ll be about 50 titles in our Luna Plus channel and about 50 in the Ubisoft channel, and just growing that over time consistently.”

The channeled approach to game streaming was borrowed from Amazon’s Prime Video experience, which offers certain stations as paid additions. That said, Luna will evolve as early access carries on and the feedback rolls in.

“You may even see other types of channels like a genre-based channel,” said Marc Whitten, Amazon’s head of Luna. “Or other ways to think about specific pieces of content that might be very attractive to a certain set of customers.”

Amazon specifies that $5.99 a month is the price of a Luna+ subscription during early access, so this base price is likely to change with the launch of Luna 1.0.

Engadget

While most folks were reveling in the news that Harley Quinn is returning for a third season of animated antics, Ridley Scott’s dystopian sci-fi series Raised by Wolves, has quietly been re-upped for its sophomore season. Wolves follows the exploits of a pair of superhuman androids raising the last remnants of humanity of a distant planet after the fall of Earth.

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If you and seven friends have find yourselves in the enviable position of still having you economic recovery checks burning holes in your collective pockets, hoo boy has Aston Martin got the ludicrous luxury item for your to blow them on. Get a load of this limited edition racing chair, only 150 of which will ever be produced. Of course, figuring out whose living room it will reside in will be your next major challenge.

Engadget

In an era where streaming services are fragmenting and offering increasingly niche content selections, ViacomCBS is taking the opposite tact. The two formerly rival platforms — with Viacom offering BET+, Showtime and Pluto TV while CBS has its popular All Access — joined forces in 2019 after $30 billion in corporate wrangling. Starting Tuesday All Access will reboot as Paramount+ with a slew of newly additional Viacom shows.

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Seems like the longer you live the more expensive life gets, even if only incrementally. While we’ve apparently been spoiled by the current generation of games costing a measly $60 brand new, Sony announced this week that some titles for its upcoming console will get a next-gen $10 price bump. On top of likely needing a new 4K television to get the most out of the system’s juiced graphics card, upgrading to PS5 is quickly proving to be a pricey proposition.

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Your Brain on Social Media 

So our brains are wired to process social signals. What then happens to our brains on social media? 

Neuroscientists at UCLA wanted to know, so they created an Instagram-style app to study how the brain reacts when we scroll through photos in our Instagram feed. The app displayed a series of photos in a row, just like on Instagram. The researchers then studied adolescents using fMRI machines and recorded which regions of their brains lit up as they used the researchers’ version of Instagram. They also experimentally manipulated the number of likes a photo got as well as what types of photos the participants saw, including whether they saw their own photos or others’ photos and whether the photos depicted risky behaviors (like drinking alcohol) or neutral behaviors. They’ve since corroborated their results in young adults and for giving as well as receiving likes. As a scientist and the father of a six-year-old, I found what they discovered intriguing and worrisome. 

First, seeing photographs with more likes was associated with more activity in brain regions responsible for social cognition, rewards (the dopamine system), and attention (the visual cortex). When participants saw photos with more likes, they experienced greater overall brain activity, and their visual cortex lit up. When the visual cortex lights up, we are concentrating more on what we are looking at, paying more attention to it, and zooming in to look at it in greater detail. To ensure that differences in the images were not driving the results, the researchers randomized the number of likes across images and controlled for photographs’ luminosity and content. The results held true whether participants were looking at their own photos or others’ photos. In short, when we see social media images with more likes, we zoom in and inspect them in greater detail. We pay more attention to online information when it is valued more highly by others. You might think, Well, the photos that get more likes are probably more interesting. But the researchers randomly assigned the likes, which means it was the likes themselves, not the photos, that were triggering the activation of the visual cortex. 

Second, having more likes on one’s own photos stimulated the mentalizing network—the social brain. When participants were looking at photos of themselves, they responded to those with more (randomly assigned) likes with significantly greater brain activity in regions associated with social skills. They also recorded greater neural activity in the inferior frontal gyrus, which is associated with imitation. When we view photos of ourselves, our brains activate regions responsible for thinking about how people view us and our similarities and differences with them. In other words, when we think about our own photos, we perceive them in their social context—we think about how other people are thinking about them. 

Last, more likes on one’s own photos activated the dopamine reward system, which controls pleasure, motivation, and Pavlovian responses. The dopamine system makes us crave rewards by stimulating feelings of joy, euphoria, and ecstasy. When psychologists James Olds and Peter Milner gave rats the ability to stimulate their own reward system by pushing a lever, they found the rats would drop everything, stop eating and sleeping, and push that little lever again and again until they died from exhaustion. 

Ivan Pavlov extended our understanding of rewards by proving he could condition dogs to associate a reward (like food) with an unrelated stimulus (like a bell) so that the stimulus alone would make the dogs salivate. This cognitive binding of stimulus and reward enabled Pavlov to stimulate the brain’s reward system with a symbol (a bell)—in the same way likes stimulate and reward us with social acceptance and digital praise. Seeing likes stimulates our dopamine system and encourages us to seek social approval online for the same basic reason that Olds and Milner’s rats kept pushing their levers, and Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell. 

So our brains are wired to process and be moved by the social signals that the Hype Machine curates. But was the Hype Machine really designed with that in mind? Sean Parker answered that question about Facebook’s design in an interview with Mike Allen in 2017: “The thought process was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ ” he said. “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever, and that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments. It’s a social validation feedback loop. . . . You’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” 

Social media is designed to be habitual. Not only do those “little dopamine hits” keep us coming back, but they are delivered to us on a “variable reinforcement schedule,” meaning they can happen at any time. That’s why we’re always checking our phones, to see if we received any social dopamine. Random reward delivery keeps us constantly engaged. And the rewards are tied to sounds, vibrations, and notification lights that make us salivate for social approval as Pavlov’s dogs salivated for food. These designs activate our desires for connection, competition, and avoidance of a “fear of missing out” (FOMO). When you put it all together, it’s a recipe for a habit. 

The neuroscientific evidence suggests that our habitual use of social media is driven by the rewards and reputational signals we receive from it. One study showed, for example, that brain responses to increases in reputation relative to others’ reputations predicted Facebook use, while increases in wealth did not. 

But when Dean Eckles, Christos Nicolaides, and I studied running, we found that social media’s influence on our habits could also be healthy. It depends which habits are supported. When we analyzed millions of people’s running behavior over many years, we found people’s social media connections and solidarity with their running peers over social media helped them stick with their running regimens and made their running habits resilient to disruption. The notifications and social signals played a key role in solidifying these good habits. 

Our research reminded us that social media holds the potential for promise and peril, but it also taught us that we should care about how the Hype Machine stimulates our brains because, by doing so, it changes our behavior. How does the Hype Machine’s cognitive design affect our behavior? That is the next crucial question in the quest to understand the Hype Machine’s impact on our world. And my friend and colleague Emily Falk set out to answer it. She studies the neural basis of social influence—the relationship between the social signals the Hype Machine curates, the brain functions those signals activate, and the behaviors those brain functions relate to.

Buy Jabra Elite 75t at Amazon – $150

Runner up: Sony WF-1000XM3

Billy Steele/Engadget

Sony’s stellar WF-1000XM3 are still near the top of our list, but the true wireless earbud industry has changed a lot since their introduction. The M3s offer powerful ANC that automatically adjusts based on your activity, or thanks to a recent update, your location. The sound is also excellent and touch controls work reliably. Heck you can even find these on sale for well under $200 if you keep an eye out. However, they are big and bulky — sticking out of your ears like antennae. They lack the comfort of some of our other picks. While Sony packed in a ton of features here, the M3 has a lot more competition now.

Buy WF-1000XM3 at Best Buy – $230

Best budget: Anker Soundcore Spirit Dot 2

Billy Steele/Engadget

Sure, there are cheaper options, but for $80, it’s hard to beat the Anker Soundcore Spirit Dot 2. These true wireless earbuds are smaller than a lot of the competition which makes them more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. Anker also delivers ample bass here, which means they can handle hip-hop, electronic and other genres that rely on low-end. They’re also IXP7 rated, so they’ll easily double as your new workout partner.

Buy Soundcore Spirit Dot 2 at Amazon – $80

Best for iOS: AirPods Pro

Billy Steele/Engadget

There’s no denying that AirPods are extremely popular among iPhone owners. And there’s a good reason. The earbuds integrate seamlessly with iOS. Plus, the more recent models offer hands-free access to Siri, on top of core features like quick pairing. In addition to active noise cancellation, the AirPods Pro have one very important thing the “regular” AirPods don’t: comfort. And when you factor in the spatial audio improvements in iOS 14, the Pro model is well worth the extra investment at this point.

Buy AirPods Pro at Amazon – $250

Best for Android: Pixel Buds (2020)

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Google’s first set of Pixel Buds were largely a bust. They weren’t true wireless, and overall, they felt incomplete. The company went back to the drawing board for its 2020 model — ditching the cord entirely and further integrating with Google Assistant. The Adaptive Sound feature that’s meant to be a stand-in for ANC isn’t great and you can find several options with better battery life. However, for the price, Pixel Buds offer solid sound quality, a comfy fit and direct access to Assistant the Android faithful will find useful.

Buy Pixel Buds at Best Buy – $180

Best overall sound quality: Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2

Billy Steele/Engadget

Sennheiser made quite the leap from its first true wireless earbuds to version 2.0. The company figured out the touch controls, extended the battery life and added active noise cancellation. The Momentum True Wireless 2 is also the best sounding set of true wireless earbuds we’ve tested. As we noted during our review, Sennheiser consistently creates an audio profile that highlights minute details of songs, from the subtle attack of acoustic guitar strumming to the deep sub of synths and drum machines. The company’s trademark tone is warm, pleasant and inviting. The downside is these are pricey at around $300 and you can find better battery life (and wireless charging) elsewhere. In terms of pure audio quality though, this is the clear top pick.

Buy Momentum True Wireless 2 at Best Buy – $300

Honorable mention: Samsung Galaxy Buds+

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The Galaxy Buds Live might be the hot new thing, but the Galaxy Buds+ are actually Samsung’s best option. The company went all-in with iOS integration this time around, which means iPhone owners are privy to the many of the same features and customization options as users with Galaxy devices or Android phones. The tiny size of the Galaxy Buds+ makes them comfy to wear for hours, and the affordable price won’t break the bank.

Buy Galaxy Buds+ at Amazon – $130

At $400, the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition offers everything the regular PlayStation 5 does, except the disc drive. With AAA games looking likely to cost around $70, the price you pay for this one is locking yourself into the often-more-expensive digital versions of games you want for an entire generation.

At $500, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X go toe to toe. The Xbox looks to be more powerful, and also has an additional 175GB of listed storage, although neither manufacturer has confirmed how much space will be available for game installs on their console yet. On the other hand, the PS5 seems to have the stronger set of exclusive titles right now.

If you have any doubts about which console is right for you, perhaps the answer right now is that none of them are.

The Xbox Series S and X currently have no truly exclusive titles scheduled for launch. Apart from Yakuza: Like a Dragon, every confirmed game so far will be available the same day on another console. And even Like a Dragon will only be an Xbox Series S and X exclusive in the US for three days, as the Xbox One and PS4 version arrives on November 13th. (The title is already available in Japan on PlayStation 4, and a PlayStation 5 release will arrive at some point.) There are, of course, a huge number of exclusive titles which will be available via backward compatibility, so if you skipped Xbox this generation there’ll be plenty to play on Game Pass.

Looking further down the line, Forza Motorsport, Fable and Avowed are among the confirmed Xbox Series S and X “console exclusives,” but none of these titles are anticipated to arrive any time soon. The console port of Microsoft Flight Simulator also seems likely to be exclusive to Microsoft’s next-gen machines, given how difficult it is to run smoothly on a gaming PC. 

Then there’s PlayStation 5. Twenty-four hours ago, the best reason to get the console in the short term was Spider-Man Miles Morales. That was, until it was confirmed for a same-day (November 12th) launch on PlayStation 4. That leaves two confirmed launch exclusives for PlayStation 5. Demon’s Souls, the Bluepoint remake of the title that started the Souls franchise, is the big hitter, while Destruction AllStars is also a video game. Sackboy: A Big Adventure similarly arrives on launch day, but will be available on PS4 as well.

Looking forward to 2021, Horizon Forbidden West was probably the most anticipated PlayStation 5 release, although it’s yet another title that’s now confirmed for PS4. Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo are probably the biggest PS5 console exclusives confirmed for next year. Final Fantasy XVI and Gran Turismo 7 are also on the way, but given Square Enix and Polyphony’s respective track records for timely releases it’s probably safer to put them to the back of your mind for now.

One selling point for PlayStation 5, much like Xbox Series S and X, is that you can play last-gen titles on it, so if you skipped PlayStation 4 you’ll have plenty to dig into. These last-gen titles should play just as well, if not better, than they do on PlayStation 4 Pro. Sony also announced a perk for PS Plus that effectively makes many of the best PS4 exclusives free, with confirmed titles including God of War, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Ratchet & Clank, Days Gone, Until Dawn, Detroit: Become Human, The Last Guardian, The Last of Us Remastered and Persona 5. Notably missing are more recent exclusives like The Last of Us Part II, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ghosts of Tsushima.

The common theme between both consoles is that, right now, the best reason for buying one is if you don’t own its predecessor. There are of course, benefits to jumping in now. Ambitious games like Cyberpunk 2077 are going to look and/or run better on next-gen, while competitive titles like Rainbow Six Siege will support 120 frames-per-second gameplay, if your TV can handle it.

There will be truly compelling reasons to buy in. We’ll start to see cross-platform titles like Resident Evil Village coming exclusively to next-gen consoles next year, and at the same time it’s likely the 2021 editions of popular series such as Call of Duty, FIFA and Assassin’s Creed will offer a cut-down or otherwise hampered version of the game for PS4 and Xbox One. Until that happens, until you have your reason for joining the next-gen, the best thing you can do is wait. 

Disclaimer: The author of this article has already ordered three next-gen consoles.