Amazon is launching a new fitness wearable, Amazon Halo Band, designed to track not only movement and sleep, but analyze "positivity" from the tone of your voice. The Halo Band itself is screen-free and only communicates via an LED indicator, with Amazon using its AI-powered Halo app to do the heavy-lifting and feedback.
In the past couple of weeks, we've experienced the unraveling of a delicately-spun web of support that's required to keep the game Fortnite afloat. In the time since Apple and Epic Games started having a bit of a war about in-game purchases, it's become abundantly clear that the power does not rest with the people, but with the companies: the companies that make the game, and the companies that create the hardware on which the game is played.
The Galaxy Note 20 has barely had its time in the market but, unsurprisingly, rumors around the Galaxy S21 are already starting to swirl. Also unsurprisingly, it starts off with the sibling rivalry between two of Samsung's premium smartphone brands. It almost seems like the stage is set for the Galaxy Note's exit but the harsh reality, at least for Samsung, is that it's too early to cut it out of the scene.
There's a new smartwatch in town, and the Fitbit Sense is aiming to coax the Apple Watch off your wrist so that a new, stress-monitoring alternative can take its place. Sharing Fitbit's new style language with the Fitbit Versa 3 - also being freshly announced today - the new Sense packs an EDA sensor with which the company says it can track the body's stress response, along with ECG, SpO2, and skin temperature sensors.
Vivo made a big splash when it launched its new Vivo X50 Pro to global markets, giving particular attention to its unique gimbal system, a first in smartphones. That, however, wasn't Vivo's top of the line phone, a distinction that belongs to the Vivo X50 Pro+. It had none of the non-Plus model's compromises but also none of its special tricks. How does that make the Vivo X50 Pro+ fare in the end? We take a deep dive to bring you that answer.
While the audio world might be obsessing over noise-canceling earbuds, Phonak just unveiled what could well be one of the most advanced medical hearables so far. The next-generation Paradise hearing technology is the heart of the company's new Audéo Paradise hearing aids, complete with a whole new chipset, motion sensor, speech enhancer, tap control, personalization, and last but by no means least, true multi-device connection to any Bluetooth enabled devices. These are about as far from your grandparents' hearing aids as you can imagine.
All this week, I’ve been writing a series of articles about my favorite game of all time, Chrono Trigger, as it reaches its 25th anniversary. I've held up the game's story, characters, and music all as examples of what makes this game great, but there's one thing I've yet to touch on that I feel deserves a special mention: the twist.
Spending four figures on a new smartphone never feels exactly sensible, but in 2020 it seems positively profligate. Enter, then, the Pixel 4a, long overdue by all rights and intents, but still turning heads by virtue of Google's camera chops and a $349 price tag. Like the second-gen iPhone SE, that's not much money for a brand new phone, and with budgets tight yet expectations high it sets the Pixel 4a up nicely.
Active noise canceling headphones like Sony's new WH-1000XM4 have quickly gone from a luxury to a must-have, as our homes evolve into remote offices and schoolrooms. At the same time, with most travel on hold, what we expect from a set of isolating headphones has changed dramatically. In some ways that fits the WH-1000XM4 just right, as Sony tries to refine its already well-esteemed flagship.
I might not, had it been my $108,050, have opted for the bright Lava Orange paintwork on the 2020 Porsche Cayenne S Coupe. Some cars require help standing out, while others get all the attention they need without resorting to eyeball-searing trickery. Porsche's more shapely SUV falls firmly into the latter category.
Oculus announced that Facebook accounts will be required for all Oculus devices in the future. There'll be two waves of requirement, starting this year for NEW users - all will need to work with a Facebook account right out the gate, starting in October. The second wave comes in 2023 when all Oculus users accounts will be merged with Facebook.
There's a sense of deja-vu around the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung's stylus-toting smartphone won't get to be its 2020 flagship - that honor is reserved for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 2 - but with its combination of S Pen, big screen, big spec sheet, and big price tag, the newest Note is a familiar formula. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," goes the old adage, but I don't know how well that holds up in today's cutthroat mobile world.