Month: February 2023

Preview: Final Fantasy XVI is a bold new direction for the series

From action-RPG combat to narrative design, Final Fantasy XVI marks a new era.

Enlarge / Get ready for a darker story than you might expect from the Final Fantasy franchise. (credit: Square Enix)

In so many ways, Final Fantasy XVI wants you to abandon everything you know about the franchise. It’s an action RPG with a heavy emphasis on the “action” part, built around only one playable character. It’s a darker, more violent story that, by the developers’ own admission, draws more from fantasy blockbusters in the West. And it’s seemingly trying to deliver the type of game a modern audience expects. While each entry in the series has tried something new, Final Fantasy XVI is arguably the biggest departure thus far.

After getting a hands-on with a preview demo—and talking to the creative business Unit III development team about the story, structure, and content of the game—the series diehard in me is starting to make out the vision being constructed here. Final Fantasy XVI is a bombastic, aggressive spectacle with prestige-level production values and a striking, self-serious vibe. But more than anything, the playable demo has me largely convinced that this new gameplay formula is actually the right move for the franchise.

[Disclaimer: Square Enix asked us to specify that this preview demo was a special version made for the media to experience and content may differ from the final version.]

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Apple Watch’s Track Detection Feature Expands to Five Additional Countries

Apple Watch’s Track Detection feature launched in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom last week, according to the fitness blog DC Rainmaker. The feature is available on all Apple Watch models running watchOS 9.2 and later.

With Track Detection, the Apple Watch uses an Apple Maps database and GPS to automatically detect when you step on to an outdoor running track. In the Workout app, you can select which lane of the track you are running in and receive more accurate distance measurements and a more precise route map. There is also an option to receive lap alerts that show distance, time, and pace as you complete each lap.

Track Detection first became available in the United States last year. watchOS 9.2 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer.Related Roundup: Apple Watch Series 8

Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

Related Forum: Apple Watch

This article, “Apple Watch’s Track Detection Feature Expands to Five Additional Countries” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

Apple Watch’s Track Detection feature launched in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom last week, according to the fitness blog DC Rainmaker. The feature is available on all Apple Watch models running watchOS 9.2 and later.

With Track Detection, the Apple Watch uses an Apple Maps database and GPS to automatically detect when you step on to an outdoor running track. In the Workout app, you can select which lane of the track you are running in and receive more accurate distance measurements and a more precise route map. There is also an option to receive lap alerts that show distance, time, and pace as you complete each lap.

Track Detection first became available in the United States last year. watchOS 9.2 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch Series 8
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)
Related Forum: Apple Watch

This article, “Apple Watch’s Track Detection Feature Expands to Five Additional Countries” first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

Read More 

Bellabeat Ivy review: wellness in a pretty package

The casual wearable is great for those who find trackers anxiety-inducing but could, ironically, be better at reproductive health tracking. I get suspicious whenever I see a gadget “for women.” I can’t help it. Femtech is a minefield of promising ideas, concepts with borderline insulting execution, privacy concerns, and cheesy marketing. The worst is when a product leans too heavily on a stereotypically feminine design without addressing any of the health concerns specific to people with uteruses. I’d write off femtech completely if it weren’t for the fact that every once in a while I find a product I genuinely like. The $249 Bellabeat Ivy is one of them.
Bellabeat isn’t a newcomer to the wearable space. Its Leaf line of health trackers has been around for close to a decade, but when I dabbled with the Leaf Urban many moons ago, I wasn’t impressed. It was an alright tracker. I just didn’t have the best time with it. The app and features were overly simplistic, I kept losing it because it’d fall off my wrist or clothing, and by 2020, every mainstream wearable maker had finally added period tracking — the one thing that had set Bellabeat apart until then. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I strapped on the Ivy and had a drastically different experience.
This, my friends, is the rare instance where a wellness wearable For Women doesn’t feel like a total gimmick.

Is that a bracelet?
My friends and family had no idea I was testing the Ivy. It wasn’t because they couldn’t see it on my wrist. They did. I even got a few compliments. It’s that the Ivy looks and wears more like a piece of jewelry than a gadget.
You can see from the pictures, but the Ivy is the polar opposite of most trackers on the market. It is tiny, measuring roughly 38mm long and 28mm wide. For reference, the smaller of the Apple Watch Series 8 models is 41mm long and 35mm wide. That might not seem like a big difference, but the superthin strap, stainless steel casing, and diamond shape make it appear smaller than it is. It’s also incredibly lightweight, weighing a mere 9.9 grams. Of all the wearables I’ve tested, only the Oura Ring is lighter at between four and six grams depending on the size. Most days, I forgot I was even wearing anything on my wrist — which I loved during runs.

My wrist is small, but the Ivy doesn’t look overpowering.

One thing I didn’t love? How the strap kept slipping out of the keeper and flopped around my wrist. This kept happening and drove me bananas.

But while the Ivy looks chic at a distance, it’s less impressive up close. The “stone” is actually plastic, and you can tell when you touch it or give it a good look. Get close enough, and you can see some pixelation in the marbled areas on my review unit. It’s not a deal-breaker, just something to be aware of in case you’re expecting an actual stone.
Visually, I liked how thin the strap was. Thinner straps don’t get a lot of love, but in my experience, they help smartwatches look less bulky on more petite wrists. (RIP this leather strap I used to use with the Apple Watch Series 5.) As for material, silicone straps often irritate my skin, but that wasn’t a problem here.

Size-wise, the strap fits wrists measuring from 132mm to 258mm — that’s a good range and typical for fitness tracker and smartwatch bands. But there was one thing I ended up hating. The keeper, the lil’ loop that’s supposed to stop your strap from flopping around, is useless. Feckless keepers are a common problem with buckle-style straps, but it was worse than usual. The Bellabeat app advises that you trim any extra length during setup. I, a foolhardy reviewer, initially didn’t listen. The floppiness made me cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I hoped trimming it would fix the issue, but alas. The shorter strap would slip out of the keeper and continue to flop around like one of those inflatable tube people you see outside of car dealerships.

You can see some pixelation super close up. There are several other color options, however, if you’d prefer a solid black, white, or violet “stone.”

A kinder approach to wellness
Ever since the pandemic, wearable makers have scrambled to bolster their stress, mindfulness, and holistic health tracking features. But wellness is a loaded term in health tech. I see a lot of gadgets with dubious marketing, single-minded features, and occasionally, tacked-on gimmicks that might actually do more harm than good. The Ivy has a lot in common with this newer class of gadgets, but as with period tracking, Bellabeat incorporated wellness into its platform well before it went mainstream.
It shows.
Like the Oura Ring, Whoop, and Nowatch, the Ivy doesn’t have a screen or support push notifications. There aren’t any timers, alarms, or stopwatches. It’ll never tell you when you’re getting a text or a call. There will be no vibrating, anxiety-inducing distractions here. Without any of those battery-draining features, I got seven to eight days on a single charge.
For fitness tracking, the Ivy isn’t concerned with pushing you to your limit. It sets reasonable goals. My default was 6,000 steps a day — which is around what studies say delivers the most health benefits. (Surprise — 10,000 steps is a made-up number! Benefits plateau around 7,500–8,000 steps.) For activity, the app suggested 20 minutes per day. That would get me the 140 out of 150 minutes of moderate activity the American Heart Association recommends per week. The Ivy also tracks meditation minutes, lets you log hydration, and records sleep duration. As far as health metrics go, the Ivy measures heart rate, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and cardiac coherence. That last one is a combination of heart rate variability and breathing to gauge how well your body’s various systems sync up.

You get a daily Wellness and Stress Sensitivity score in the Bellabeat app.

These are then tallied up into three scores: a Wellness score, a Stress Sensitivity score, and a Readiness score. Your Wellness score is on a scale of 1–100 and updates as you make progress through the day on your daily step, activity, meditation, hydration, and sleep goals. That feeds into your Stress Sensitivity score, which is graded on a scale of 1–10; the higher the number, the more likely you are to get stressed out. It’s based on how consistently you hit your goals, so one bad day isn’t going to make a huge impact, but a few bad days might. Lastly, after three days, you get a Readiness Score, which is based on your resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and cardiac coherence. The higher the number, the easier it is to take on demanding activities or tasks. All of these algorithms are calibrated to female bodies as well, which is rare, as the foundational data gap for Team Uterus is large enough to fit 200 Hummer H1s.
This is typical for the category, but what sets Bellabeat apart is how the information is presented. Nowhere will you find food logging or calorie counts. Instead, the Coach tab suggests foods and workouts to include that day based on your cycle, aka cycle syncing. The meditation tab has several guided programs and white noise sounds of varying lengths. You can log specific activities, but you don’t have to. Even if you do, you won’t find metrics like pace, distance, or time. It’s solely about the time spent being active.

You’re not getting a crap ton of sensors here, so don’t expect super in-depth data like you might find on a lifestyle Garmin.

This isn’t the tracker for data nerds or athletes looking to optimize performance. It’s meant for people who’d like to protect their mental health while pursuing their health goals. That’s relevant to people of any gender. That said, women are 1.75 to 3 times more likely to develop disordered eating during their lifetime. The percentage of female college athletes with eating disorders is anywhere between 25 and 41.5 percent, depending on the sport, and can start in girls as young as five years old. Calorie counting, excessive exercise, and obsessive fitness goals can exacerbate all of that.
That’s why wellness devices that truly aim to serve women need to take extra care in how their users receive data about their bodies. The Bellabeat app does a better than average job at that, and maybe one day, wearable companies will give everyone the option of a kinder, more holistic approach — not just a specific subgroup.
Ironically, period tracking could be better
Given my spiel, you might be surprised that I found Bellabeat’s period tracking features lacking, but I’m not. Ask any menstruating person — most period tracking apps have so-so interfaces, dubious privacy policies, or are missing things you’d like to track. Bellabeat does better in some of these areas, but it was also less comprehensive than I’d thought it’d be.

First off, I couldn’t import my 10-plus years of cycle data. I could enter past cycle data manually, but the software bugged out on me any time I tried to enter two or more cycles. Unless your period comes like clockwork, that means your predictions might not be all that accurate for a few cycles. I also couldn’t include factors or conditions that might impact my cycle, like endometriosis or birth control. Nor was there a way to schedule reminders for hormonal birth control like the pill or ring, which require you to keep an eye on the calendar. Another missing feature: the ability to log my moods, symptoms, basal body temperature, and flow rate — most cycle trackers include these now.
What you do get is educational reading material about various menstrual topics, and a pretty illustration showing what stage you’re in — follicular, luteal, etc. There’s also text that tells you your likelihood of conceiving on a given day. (You should absolutely not use that as birth control, however.) Essentially, you’re just getting the most basic date-based cycle tracking.
The Bellabeat app does, however, allow you to track pregnancy and tailors Coach content to better suit pregnant people. I can’t really comment on how good Bellabeat’s pregnancy tracking is, as I have the parental instinct of a panda (i.e., none). What I can say is most mainstream wearable devices allow you to mark that you’re pregnant but don’t provide pregnancy-specific insights, content, or advice unless they’re fertility trackers. Once you start pregnancy tracking, Bellabeat will tell you which foods are best to eat while expecting, show you prenatal exercise classes first, and tailor the app’s educational material to topics most relevant to pregnant people.

The Ivy doesn’t have a display and doesn’t give notifications of any sort. That’s an intentional choice to promote distraction-free health tracking.

Wellness don’t come cheap
At $250, the Bellabeat Ivy is significantly more expensive than the company’s other trackers. (The Leaf Chakra and Leaf Urban cost $89 and $99, respectively.) I’d say that’s kind of overkill given you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere. A second-gen Apple Watch SE is the same price. Apple’s period tracking is also more customizable and rated well in Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included report for reproductive health data. It does a hell of a lot more, and at this point, the Apple Watch’s design isn’t quite as polarizing as it was eight years ago. For Android users, Garmin also includes pregnancy and menstrual health tracking on its stylish hybrid smartwatches like the $179.99 Vivomove Sport and $269.99 Vivomove Trend. There’s also the $200 Garmin Lily, another “for women” tracker that was created by an all-female design team. (Though, I have thoughts about that.)
Then again, slapping “wellness” anywhere in your marketing automatically incurs a wellness markup. Adding “women” to the mix subjects you to the pink tax. So really, the Ivy isn’t outrageous when you look at similar devices. The Oura Ring costs $299 with a $6 monthly membership fee. The Nowatch also starts at $299 and has various membership fees. Whoop recently lowered its prices, but you’ll still pay a minimum of $239 for an annual membership. (The hardware is “free.”) The Ivy, which also offers an optional Coach membership for $9.99 a month with a six-month trial, is par for the course.

This is a wellness tracker best suited to casual activity and for folks who prefer a holistic and simple approach to health data.

Of all these options, the person who should get the Ivy is someone who prioritizes privacy, style, and reproductive health but has little desire for a data deluge or distractions. It’s best for people who find fitness trackers and smartwatches bad for their focus or mental health — for folks who hate charging their devices and would honestly rather feel like they’re not wearing a piece of technology at all. The ideal Bellabeat Ivy user just wants to get credit for making healthy choices and look good in the process. For what it’s worth, it feels like I get an instant migraine anytime I see a wellness gadget these days, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Ivy.
I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to “women-first” marketing until such a term no longer needs to exist. Considering wearables started taking off in 2014 and it took until 2020 for all the major smartwatch platforms to add period tracking, I’ll probably be waiting a while. Bellabeat’s products aren’t perfect, but in the meantime, it’s a much-needed player in this space.
Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge

The casual wearable is great for those who find trackers anxiety-inducing but could, ironically, be better at reproductive health tracking.

I get suspicious whenever I see a gadget “for women.” I can’t help it. Femtech is a minefield of promising ideas, concepts with borderline insulting execution, privacy concerns, and cheesy marketing. The worst is when a product leans too heavily on a stereotypically feminine design without addressing any of the health concerns specific to people with uteruses. I’d write off femtech completely if it weren’t for the fact that every once in a while I find a product I genuinely like. The $249 Bellabeat Ivy is one of them.

Bellabeat isn’t a newcomer to the wearable space. Its Leaf line of health trackers has been around for close to a decade, but when I dabbled with the Leaf Urban many moons ago, I wasn’t impressed. It was an alright tracker. I just didn’t have the best time with it. The app and features were overly simplistic, I kept losing it because it’d fall off my wrist or clothing, and by 2020, every mainstream wearable maker had finally added period tracking — the one thing that had set Bellabeat apart until then. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I strapped on the Ivy and had a drastically different experience.

This, my friends, is the rare instance where a wellness wearable For Women doesn’t feel like a total gimmick.

Is that a bracelet?

My friends and family had no idea I was testing the Ivy. It wasn’t because they couldn’t see it on my wrist. They did. I even got a few compliments. It’s that the Ivy looks and wears more like a piece of jewelry than a gadget.

You can see from the pictures, but the Ivy is the polar opposite of most trackers on the market. It is tiny, measuring roughly 38mm long and 28mm wide. For reference, the smaller of the Apple Watch Series 8 models is 41mm long and 35mm wide. That might not seem like a big difference, but the superthin strap, stainless steel casing, and diamond shape make it appear smaller than it is. It’s also incredibly lightweight, weighing a mere 9.9 grams. Of all the wearables I’ve tested, only the Oura Ring is lighter at between four and six grams depending on the size. Most days, I forgot I was even wearing anything on my wrist — which I loved during runs.

My wrist is small, but the Ivy doesn’t look overpowering.

One thing I didn’t love? How the strap kept slipping out of the keeper and flopped around my wrist. This kept happening and drove me bananas.

But while the Ivy looks chic at a distance, it’s less impressive up close. The “stone” is actually plastic, and you can tell when you touch it or give it a good look. Get close enough, and you can see some pixelation in the marbled areas on my review unit. It’s not a deal-breaker, just something to be aware of in case you’re expecting an actual stone.

Visually, I liked how thin the strap was. Thinner straps don’t get a lot of love, but in my experience, they help smartwatches look less bulky on more petite wrists. (RIP this leather strap I used to use with the Apple Watch Series 5.) As for material, silicone straps often irritate my skin, but that wasn’t a problem here.

Size-wise, the strap fits wrists measuring from 132mm to 258mm — that’s a good range and typical for fitness tracker and smartwatch bands. But there was one thing I ended up hating. The keeper, the lil’ loop that’s supposed to stop your strap from flopping around, is useless. Feckless keepers are a common problem with buckle-style straps, but it was worse than usual. The Bellabeat app advises that you trim any extra length during setup. I, a foolhardy reviewer, initially didn’t listen. The floppiness made me cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I hoped trimming it would fix the issue, but alas. The shorter strap would slip out of the keeper and continue to flop around like one of those inflatable tube people you see outside of car dealerships.

You can see some pixelation super close up. There are several other color options, however, if you’d prefer a solid black, white, or violet “stone.”

A kinder approach to wellness

Ever since the pandemic, wearable makers have scrambled to bolster their stress, mindfulness, and holistic health tracking features. But wellness is a loaded term in health tech. I see a lot of gadgets with dubious marketing, single-minded features, and occasionally, tacked-on gimmicks that might actually do more harm than good. The Ivy has a lot in common with this newer class of gadgets, but as with period tracking, Bellabeat incorporated wellness into its platform well before it went mainstream.

It shows.

Like the Oura Ring, Whoop, and Nowatch, the Ivy doesn’t have a screen or support push notifications. There aren’t any timers, alarms, or stopwatches. It’ll never tell you when you’re getting a text or a call. There will be no vibrating, anxiety-inducing distractions here. Without any of those battery-draining features, I got seven to eight days on a single charge.

For fitness tracking, the Ivy isn’t concerned with pushing you to your limit. It sets reasonable goals. My default was 6,000 steps a day — which is around what studies say delivers the most health benefits. (Surprise — 10,000 steps is a made-up number! Benefits plateau around 7,500–8,000 steps.) For activity, the app suggested 20 minutes per day. That would get me the 140 out of 150 minutes of moderate activity the American Heart Association recommends per week. The Ivy also tracks meditation minutes, lets you log hydration, and records sleep duration. As far as health metrics go, the Ivy measures heart rate, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and cardiac coherence. That last one is a combination of heart rate variability and breathing to gauge how well your body’s various systems sync up.

You get a daily Wellness and Stress Sensitivity score in the Bellabeat app.

These are then tallied up into three scores: a Wellness score, a Stress Sensitivity score, and a Readiness score. Your Wellness score is on a scale of 1–100 and updates as you make progress through the day on your daily step, activity, meditation, hydration, and sleep goals. That feeds into your Stress Sensitivity score, which is graded on a scale of 1–10; the higher the number, the more likely you are to get stressed out. It’s based on how consistently you hit your goals, so one bad day isn’t going to make a huge impact, but a few bad days might. Lastly, after three days, you get a Readiness Score, which is based on your resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and cardiac coherence. The higher the number, the easier it is to take on demanding activities or tasks. All of these algorithms are calibrated to female bodies as well, which is rare, as the foundational data gap for Team Uterus is large enough to fit 200 Hummer H1s.

This is typical for the category, but what sets Bellabeat apart is how the information is presented. Nowhere will you find food logging or calorie counts. Instead, the Coach tab suggests foods and workouts to include that day based on your cycle, aka cycle syncing. The meditation tab has several guided programs and white noise sounds of varying lengths. You can log specific activities, but you don’t have to. Even if you do, you won’t find metrics like pace, distance, or time. It’s solely about the time spent being active.

You’re not getting a crap ton of sensors here, so don’t expect super in-depth data like you might find on a lifestyle Garmin.

This isn’t the tracker for data nerds or athletes looking to optimize performance. It’s meant for people who’d like to protect their mental health while pursuing their health goals. That’s relevant to people of any gender. That said, women are 1.75 to 3 times more likely to develop disordered eating during their lifetime. The percentage of female college athletes with eating disorders is anywhere between 25 and 41.5 percent, depending on the sport, and can start in girls as young as five years old. Calorie counting, excessive exercise, and obsessive fitness goals can exacerbate all of that.

That’s why wellness devices that truly aim to serve women need to take extra care in how their users receive data about their bodies. The Bellabeat app does a better than average job at that, and maybe one day, wearable companies will give everyone the option of a kinder, more holistic approach — not just a specific subgroup.

Ironically, period tracking could be better

Given my spiel, you might be surprised that I found Bellabeat’s period tracking features lacking, but I’m not. Ask any menstruating person — most period tracking apps have so-so interfaces, dubious privacy policies, or are missing things you’d like to track. Bellabeat does better in some of these areas, but it was also less comprehensive than I’d thought it’d be.

First off, I couldn’t import my 10-plus years of cycle data. I could enter past cycle data manually, but the software bugged out on me any time I tried to enter two or more cycles. Unless your period comes like clockwork, that means your predictions might not be all that accurate for a few cycles. I also couldn’t include factors or conditions that might impact my cycle, like endometriosis or birth control. Nor was there a way to schedule reminders for hormonal birth control like the pill or ring, which require you to keep an eye on the calendar. Another missing feature: the ability to log my moods, symptoms, basal body temperature, and flow rate — most cycle trackers include these now.

What you do get is educational reading material about various menstrual topics, and a pretty illustration showing what stage you’re in — follicular, luteal, etc. There’s also text that tells you your likelihood of conceiving on a given day. (You should absolutely not use that as birth control, however.) Essentially, you’re just getting the most basic date-based cycle tracking.

The Bellabeat app does, however, allow you to track pregnancy and tailors Coach content to better suit pregnant people. I can’t really comment on how good Bellabeat’s pregnancy tracking is, as I have the parental instinct of a panda (i.e., none). What I can say is most mainstream wearable devices allow you to mark that you’re pregnant but don’t provide pregnancy-specific insights, content, or advice unless they’re fertility trackers. Once you start pregnancy tracking, Bellabeat will tell you which foods are best to eat while expecting, show you prenatal exercise classes first, and tailor the app’s educational material to topics most relevant to pregnant people.

The Ivy doesn’t have a display and doesn’t give notifications of any sort. That’s an intentional choice to promote distraction-free health tracking.

Wellness don’t come cheap

At $250, the Bellabeat Ivy is significantly more expensive than the company’s other trackers. (The Leaf Chakra and Leaf Urban cost $89 and $99, respectively.) I’d say that’s kind of overkill given you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere. A second-gen Apple Watch SE is the same price. Apple’s period tracking is also more customizable and rated well in Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included report for reproductive health data. It does a hell of a lot more, and at this point, the Apple Watch’s design isn’t quite as polarizing as it was eight years ago. For Android users, Garmin also includes pregnancy and menstrual health tracking on its stylish hybrid smartwatches like the $179.99 Vivomove Sport and $269.99 Vivomove Trend. There’s also the $200 Garmin Lily, another “for women” tracker that was created by an all-female design team. (Though, I have thoughts about that.)

Then again, slapping “wellness” anywhere in your marketing automatically incurs a wellness markup. Adding “women” to the mix subjects you to the pink tax. So really, the Ivy isn’t outrageous when you look at similar devices. The Oura Ring costs $299 with a $6 monthly membership fee. The Nowatch also starts at $299 and has various membership fees. Whoop recently lowered its prices, but you’ll still pay a minimum of $239 for an annual membership. (The hardware is “free.”) The Ivy, which also offers an optional Coach membership for $9.99 a month with a six-month trial, is par for the course.

This is a wellness tracker best suited to casual activity and for folks who prefer a holistic and simple approach to health data.

Of all these options, the person who should get the Ivy is someone who prioritizes privacy, style, and reproductive health but has little desire for a data deluge or distractions. It’s best for people who find fitness trackers and smartwatches bad for their focus or mental health — for folks who hate charging their devices and would honestly rather feel like they’re not wearing a piece of technology at all. The ideal Bellabeat Ivy user just wants to get credit for making healthy choices and look good in the process. For what it’s worth, it feels like I get an instant migraine anytime I see a wellness gadget these days, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Ivy.

I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to “women-first” marketing until such a term no longer needs to exist. Considering wearables started taking off in 2014 and it took until 2020 for all the major smartwatch platforms to add period tracking, I’ll probably be waiting a while. Bellabeat’s products aren’t perfect, but in the meantime, it’s a much-needed player in this space.

Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge

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Wakweli raises $1.1 million to certify the authenticity of NFTs and eliminate NFT scams in web3

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have surged in popularity in recent years. In just two years, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have grown from under $100 million in 2020 to a whopping $40 billion in 2021. Unfortunately, the NFT boom has also attracted a

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have surged in popularity in recent years. In just two years, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have grown from under $100 million in 2020 to a whopping $40 billion in 2021. Unfortunately, the NFT boom has also attracted a […]

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Halo Infinite update: season 3 release date, new content and patch notes

With each Halo Infinite update, 343 Industries is adding more and more to the sci-fi FPS experience.

The latest Halo Infinite update is coming soon, but that doesn’t mean that season 2 is finished just yet. Halo Infinite is a first-person shooter from 343 Industries. Taking place in a far-flung sci-fi setting, the title offers a story-driven campaign with open-world elements as well as a broad and well-developed, free-to-play multiplayer experience. 

Available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One, Halo Infinite has enjoyed numerous quality-of-life updates, tweaks, and additions since its release. This has been especially true of Season 2, which began May 2022. New maps, balance tweaks and even entirely new game modes have been added to the Halo Infinite melting pot since the season began. With Season 3 just around the corner, it looks like fans are due for even more goodies in the days to come.   

Though the Halo Infinite multiplayer is free-to-play, each of the game’s seasons includes its own Battle Pass, which is easily the most efficient way to acquire cosmetics and armor variants for your Spartan. However, 343 often puts out special events which allow anyone to unlock unique armor sets and other special rewards. Read on to find out more.      

Halo Infinite Update: cut to the chase

What is it? Season 2 of Halo Infinite multiplayer

When can I play it? Available now

What Can I play it on? Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC

Halo Infinite update: Release date and platforms

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Halo Infinite Season 2 went live on May 3, 2022, and it’s available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 

The official name and theme for the season is ‘Lone Wolves’. Season 1 wrapped up on May 2 after a lengthy six-month run, but season 2 has stuck around for far longer. It looks as though season 3, Echoes Within, will be dropping on March 7. That said, season 2 has enjoyed a season 2.5 of sorts in the form of the Winter Update. 

The Winter Update, released November 8, came with two new maps: Detachment and Argyle, as well as a free mini-battle pass, and the introduction of network co-op for the main campaign. On top of all that, the Winter Update also saw the return of fan-favorite Forge Mode, which allows players to build and customize their own versions of the game’s maps.

Halo Infinite Update: Trailers

Latest trailer

The latest Halo Infinite update is coming soon, in the form of Season 3: Echoes Within. Coming March 7, the trailer shows off new maps, equipment, and cosmetics for players to sink their teeth into.

New maps Oasis, Chasm and Cliffhanger have been unveiled along with the new M392 Bandit and the Shroud Screen. The trailer also shows off a special Community Collection Playlist which is chocked full of player-created maps and content. 

More trailers

The official Halo YouTube channel is the best place to go for the latest trailers and updates for Halo Infinite. There you can find the Winter Update launch trailer as well as numerous audio-visual offerings for past events and releases. In a special treat for lore fans, the channel also boasts a selection of free audiobooks, often themed around new Halo Infinite events.  

Halo Infinite Update: Maps

Latest maps

The Winter Update brought with it two fresh maps. Here’s what to expect from Argyle and Detachment, the latest additions to Halo Infinite‘s map roster. Both of these maps were made in the new Forge Mode by members of 343 Industries – more on that later. 

(Image credit: 343 Industries)

Set within the simulated interior of the UNSC starship Argyle Gift, Argyle is a symmetrical map with a long wide hallway down the middle, connecting two bases. It’s full of sightlines and also has an enclosed lower level. The map also includes a walkway over a classic Halo bottomless pit. You love to see it. 

(Image credit: 343 Industries)

Detachment is situated in the R9 Schuldt Complex, a UNSC facility in an unknown location. It’s a symmetrical map with a small island in the middle accessible by man cannon which is cut off from the rest of the environment. You can also access the center by climbing a building or via a courtyard. With all routes leading to the central island, this map makes for some excellent games of Capture the Flag. 

Halo Infinite Update: Modes

Latest Modes

(Image credit: 343 Industries)

Forge mode is a much-anticipated set of tools that lets players build their own maps, game modes, and objects. This highly creative game mode was first released with Halo 3 and has been a staple of the Halo series ever since. You can use Forge mode to design your own maps from the ground up, creating a custom Halo experience that is truly your own. 

Though Halo Infinite‘s Forge Mode is currently in beta, players are able to enjoy a huge amount of creative freedom when it comes to their creations. Thanks to technical improvements, players can place roughly 7,000 objects per map, a big improvement on the 1,600 hard limit in Halo 5: Guardians. The canvasses themselves are roughly twice the size of those available in Halo 5 as well. 

On top of these impressive technical milestones, the new mode also allows players to design their own custom objects, and then share and publish them in the form of Prefabs.  

Halo Infinite Update: Patch notes

If you’re interested in more details about Halo Infinitei’s Winter Update, including balance changes and adjustments to weapon spawn locations, all the info can be found in the official patch notes. We’ve also linked the official overview video above, if you’d prefer the abridged version.  

Halo Infinite Update: Battle Pass

Given that Halo Infinite‘s Season 2 is rather long in the tooth, there’s more than one battle pass for players to work their way through. In addition to the season’s premium 100-tier battle pass, there is also a complimentary 30-tier battle pass themed around the Winter Update available for free. 

In Season 2’s premium battle pass there are up to 180 rewards available. This time around, there’s a Rakshasa Armor Core up for grabs, alongside armor for the Mark VII Armor Core. However, you will need a premium pass for Halo Infinite Season 2 to get all these rewards.

The complimentary Winter Update battle pass is themed around Halo Reach’s classic cosmetics, offering old favorites like the CQB and SAP armor sets. If you want to learn more about these unlockables, check out the video above. 

Uniquely, Halo Infinite also features a swappable Battle Pass system. For instance: if you’ve not yet completed Halo Infinite Season 1’s Premium Battle Pass, Heroes of Reach, you can re-equip it – which disables Lone Wolves progression until you swap back – and work towards any previously locked tiers throughout Halo Infinite Season 2. If you didn’t buy Heroes of Reach, that’s still available from the shop menu, meaning you won’t miss any season-exclusive items.

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