Two of Sonos' newest whole-home audio products are arriving on shelves, with the Sonos One SL and Sonos Port both available from today. Announced last week alongside the new Sonos Move - the company's first battery-powered and Bluetooth-compatible speaker - the two new models eschew integrated assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Today the folks at LEGO introduced a thick-with-pieces new brick set for their Winter Village product range. This is the LEGO Creator Expert Gingerbread House, the 10th individual set in the modern Winter Village LEGO universe. This set looks both modern and retro at the same time - it seems to roll with classic North Pole furnishings, but stays general enough to be a holiday release any individual get on board with later this year.
Amazon's Alexa Answers was made public today after an invite-only period that started back in December of 2018. Alexa Answers implores Amazon users to contribute to the Alexa knowledge database "by responding to questions Alexa doesn't know the answer to yet." Amazon users are given "points" for their work in this program and put on leaderboards for the most-shared responses to questions through Alexa.
Throughout the years, various companies have made attempts at turning exercise into games, with one of the most notable examples being Nintendo's Wii Fit. Nintendo is back on the exergaming train with the Nintendo Switch, officially revealing a new game called Ring Fit Adventure today. Like Wii Fit did, Ring Fit Adventure uses its own peripherals, but unlike Wii Fit, it's more of an actual game.
Scientists from the Eindhoven University of Technology have created an artificial leaf that uses the power of the sun to create cheap medicines. The team says that their tech is a "mini-reactor" that is similar to real leaves in nature that can absorb sunlight to drive chemical reactions. The team has been able to get the artificial leaves to create two types of medicine.
GM has issued a recall on several of its popular trucks and SUVs due to a potential braking issue that could lead to an accident. The recall was issued on 2014-2018 model year vehicles that include some Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Silverado, Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, GMC Sierra, and GMC Yukon vehicles. GM recalled 310,000 vehicles in Canada for the same issue in June; it's not clear why it took so long to recall the vehicles in the States.
Scientists at EPFL have been working on a new robotic hand that could be a life-changing device for amputees. The new robotic hand combines tech from two different fields - neuroengineering and robotics. The team created a new robotic hand that was tested on three amputees and seven healthy subjects.
Despite and in spite of its struggles in the smartphone market, HTC has found some light at the end of its dark tunnel thanks to its Vive VR reality platform. It rivals Oculus in the tight VR market and is now trying to gain a lead with the new Cosmos system. Instead of aiming for a standalone headset like the previous Vive Focus, HTC is now envisioning a future-proof platform thanks to a modular system that HTC promises will grow with the user.
Despite what naysayers have proclaimed in the past, smartphones have not completely wiped out even the entry-level cameras. In fact, it has only pushed camera makers to step up their game even with its amateur-oriented shooters, endowing them with features not even the highest end smartphone can ever get. In that vein, Fujifilm is annoucing the new X-A7 mirrorless digital camera that boasts an image sensor with high megapixels and a relatively rare feature to boot.
Today's technologies, both software and hardware, have made it easier to do work almost anywhere and everywhere and in almost any condition. Of course, when it comes to extreme conditions, you will need equipment that won't easily break under pressure or even under water. That's where rugged devices come in and LaCie's three new SSDs make the perfect partners for equally rugged laptops and smartphones used for crafting the next YouTube hit.
You know that battle royale is THE thing in gaming when even games that you'd least expect adds a battle royale mode. That's the head-scratching revelation that game developers Firaxis made in its September 2019 update for Sid Meier's Civilization VI. More than just the usual fixes and balancing changes, the update's new Red Death feature turns the normally peaceful and relaxing game into a massive battle for survival.
If you're looking for new Windows 10 features to get excited about, you might want to look past this year's second major update. Currently dubbed the 19H2 update based on when it's expected to roll out, the next Windows 10 feature release will be a more somber affair, focusing on polish and stability to address the growing number of complaints users have about the OS. That does also means that next year's first major release, a.k.a. Windows 10 20H1, might have more exciting news, including a new Cortana that isn't just more conversational but also more available to users.