engadget-rss

Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on October 31. The BioWare action RPG is the first installment in the franchise since 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. That’s right. We’ve been waiting ten long years for this game and now it’s almost here. Check out the release date trailer below.

This is the fourth major game in the franchise and there’s a lot of hype around it, despite the (relatively) lukewarm response to Inquisition. We had a chance to see the game in action back in June and came away impressed, though cautious. The character creation tool is, as expected, robust and the various landscapes are easy on the eyes.
We actually watched a playthrough of the entire opening chapter of the game and immediately noticed a more cartoonish style when compared to its predecessors. It’s not quite Fable, but it’s getting there. The game does, however, bring back fan favorite characters like Varric and Solas. The latter looks to be the primary antagonist this time around.
It also looks to play a bit faster than the earlier titles, though you can still pause the game to consider tactics. There’s a quick launch menu for activating hotkeys and, of course, a decision wheel for making narrative and dialogue choices that will no doubt come back to bite you in the butt at a later part of the game.

Like previous entries, this is an action RPG. Parries seem to make up the core defense mechanic and party members will work to strip away armor and magical protections before going in to do actual damage. There will be a diverse array of accessibility options, including standard difficulty modes but also custom settings to make select aspects of the game more forgiving.
As for the “caution” mentioned above, we only got a brief look at the game in action, so there are still plenty of unknowns. In any event, we don’t have long to find out. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Preorders are available right now. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-comes-out-on-october-31-161317701.html?src=rss

Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on October 31. The BioWare action RPG is the first installment in the franchise since 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. That’s right. We’ve been waiting ten long years for this game and now it’s almost here. Check out the release date trailer below.

This is the fourth major game in the franchise and there’s a lot of hype around it, despite the (relatively) lukewarm response to Inquisition. We had a chance to see the game in action back in June and came away impressed, though cautious. The character creation tool is, as expected, robust and the various landscapes are easy on the eyes.

We actually watched a playthrough of the entire opening chapter of the game and immediately noticed a more cartoonish style when compared to its predecessors. It’s not quite Fable, but it’s getting there. The game does, however, bring back fan favorite characters like Varric and Solas. The latter looks to be the primary antagonist this time around.

It also looks to play a bit faster than the earlier titles, though you can still pause the game to consider tactics. There’s a quick launch menu for activating hotkeys and, of course, a decision wheel for making narrative and dialogue choices that will no doubt come back to bite you in the butt at a later part of the game.

Like previous entries, this is an action RPG. Parries seem to make up the core defense mechanic and party members will work to strip away armor and magical protections before going in to do actual damage. There will be a diverse array of accessibility options, including standard difficulty modes but also custom settings to make select aspects of the game more forgiving.

As for the “caution” mentioned above, we only got a brief look at the game in action, so there are still plenty of unknowns. In any event, we don’t have long to find out. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Preorders are available right now. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-comes-out-on-october-31-161317701.html?src=rss

Read More 

A good soundbar is one of the easiest ways to improve the audio quality of your home theater set up. As it happens the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), which is one of our favorite mid-range soundbars, is currently available for its best price to date (at least for a new and not refurbished model). It has dropped by $110 to $389 at Woot. That’s 22 percent off the regular price, but bear in mind that the offer only applies to the white version.
The Sonos Beam does a bang-up job of delivering solid audio from your TV (or music or podcast service). It delivers impressive sound for its size, even if it lacks upward-firing speakers. While the first Beam lacked Dolby Atmos support, Sonos made sure to include it this time around. That makes a world of difference, even if Sony is relying on audio processing tech to simulate the Dolby Atmos experience, which traditionally requires upward-firing speakers.

We gave the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) a score of 88 in our review. One of the main downsides is that it only has one HDMI port. That means you won’t be able to connect a games console or set-top box to the soundbar directly. You’ll also need an adapter to use it with an older TV that has an optical jack.
Otherwise, the Beam is a great soundbar option. It’s a cinch to set up and, as you might imagine, it connects to other Sonos speakers to easily help you build out a whole-home audio setup.
The soundbar works with many major music streaming services too, such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. It also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. Annoyingly, the latter doesn’t play nicely with Apple Music on the soundbar, but Sonos’ own voice assistant supports the streaming service. Despite the trade-offs, you should be able to find some kind of voice assistant and music streaming service that works.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-sonos-beam-gen-2-is-over-100-off-152909480.html?src=rss

A good soundbar is one of the easiest ways to improve the audio quality of your home theater set up. As it happens the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), which is one of our favorite mid-range soundbars, is currently available for its best price to date (at least for a new and not refurbished model). It has dropped by $110 to $389 at Woot. That’s 22 percent off the regular price, but bear in mind that the offer only applies to the white version.

The Sonos Beam does a bang-up job of delivering solid audio from your TV (or music or podcast service). It delivers impressive sound for its size, even if it lacks upward-firing speakers. While the first Beam lacked Dolby Atmos support, Sonos made sure to include it this time around. That makes a world of difference, even if Sony is relying on audio processing tech to simulate the Dolby Atmos experience, which traditionally requires upward-firing speakers.

We gave the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) a score of 88 in our review. One of the main downsides is that it only has one HDMI port. That means you won’t be able to connect a games console or set-top box to the soundbar directly. You’ll also need an adapter to use it with an older TV that has an optical jack.

Otherwise, the Beam is a great soundbar option. It’s a cinch to set up and, as you might imagine, it connects to other Sonos speakers to easily help you build out a whole-home audio setup.

The soundbar works with many major music streaming services too, such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. It also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. Annoyingly, the latter doesn’t play nicely with Apple Music on the soundbar, but Sonos’ own voice assistant supports the streaming service. Despite the trade-offs, you should be able to find some kind of voice assistant and music streaming service that works.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-sonos-beam-gen-2-is-over-100-off-152909480.html?src=rss

Read More 

When you hear the words “Dyson headphones,” the first thing that comes to mind is likely the Bane-like Zone. The company debuted its air-purifying wearable in 2022, but woefully short battery life kept the product from being useful on a daily basis. Now Dyson is back with another version, and its sole purpose is to provide audio and active noise cancellation (ANC) for “normal” use. The OnTrac headphones ($500) have a classic Dyson color scheme and build with long battery life, but the lack of advanced features keep this premium set of cans from competing with the best.

Design
I’d wager if you fed an AI image generator the prompt “Dyson headphones” you’d get something similar to the OnTrac. There’s no doubt what company made these cans, with clear nods to things like vacuums, air purifiers and hair care devices. That’s especially true of the copper, navy and silver color combo on my review unit, a trio of hues that has appeared on previous products from Dyson.
To maintain the premium look for these very high-end headphones, the company used a combination of metals and ceramics for the outer shells of the ear cups. Depending on your color preference, the options include copper, aluminum, black nickel, blue, green, gray or red. Then there are the micro-suede, cloth-wrapped ear pads in another seven hues. Dyson says it will sell additional sets of the outer caps and cushions with over 2,000 possible combinations across all of the components. That is a high degree of customization, if you’re willing to pay even more than the initial $500.
Those interchangeable materials accompany a segmented headband and rotating, gimbal-esque construction that once again recalls previous Dyson gear. The company says it put the two battery cells in the headband for better weight distribution, which is why the two side sections of that component are rigid and only the center one is plush and cushiony. Along the back edges of the ear cups are controls for power/pairing on the left with a playback “joystick” on the right. That latter option allows you to play/pause, skip tracks and adjust volume, in addition to activating a voice assistant.

Billy Steele for Engadget

While I praise Dyson for using mostly physical controls here, the joystick does take some getting used to. You have to be very precise, so you don’t press down whatsoever when you’re actually trying to move up, down or to the side. I still regularly pause the music when I’m trying to change the volume, even after a few weeks of use. The outside of both ear cups are touch-enabled, allowing you to cycle through ANC and transparency mode with a double tap. This works well, reliably accepting inputs even when I only get the edge of the panel.
Dyson’s decision to stick the battery in the headband does help with overall comfort. The OnTrac headphones remained plenty cozy for hours at a time and never felt heavy despite their size. My only gripe here is that the ear cups are round instead of oval. I don’t mind them from an aesthetic standpoint, but when I go to put them on my oval-shaped ears, I have to adjust the headphones with a few wiggles for a good fit. It’s not like most sets where I just put them on and my ears are in the sweet spot. Plus, the OnTrac is big and bulky. So even if they are comfortable, you’ll want to take that into account if you plan to use these for travel.
Features and software
The OnTrac headphones work with the MyDyson app, but there aren’t a lot of features there. You get the usual battery percentage, noise controls, EQ options and on-board control tutorial right up front. The EQ menu is limited to three presets – Enhanced, Bass Boost and Neutral – with the first being the default (and the best). Diving into the settings menu via the gear icon lets you disable automatic head detection and keep listening volume under 80dB.
One unique thing that Dyson puts in the main app interface for OnTrac is a real-time sound exposure graph. This displays both in-ear sound level and external noise over the last 30 seconds. Staying below 85dB for in-ear measurements will keep you out of the red here. That corresponds with about 75 percent volume, which is almost painfully loud on these headphones.
The OnTrac doesn’t have any advanced features like automatic speech detection or adaptive ANC, both of which you’ll find on Sony’s 1000XM5. There’s also no spatial audio option, which has become a core element of most flagship headphones and earbuds in recent years. Not only does Dyson lag behind the competition in this area, but it’s also significantly pricier than most alternatives. The basics are well-covered in terms of features, but that’s about it.
Sound quality

Billy Steele for Engadget

The real measure of headphones, after all, is sound quality. Dyson packs in 40mm drivers capable of a frequency range of 6Hz to 21kHz. And while this provides great clarity, the OnTrac headphones lack the immersiveness most high-end models offer these days.
The OnTrac headphones are pleasant to listen to in terms of overall detail, but the stock tuning is void of the depth that a lot of flagship models offer. The likes of Sony, Bose, Sennheiser and Bowers & Wilkins all provide a deeper, richer sound that tends to envelope you, even if you aren’t listening to spatial audio.
Killer Mike’s Songs For Sinners & Saints lack the low-end thump that the album provides on other headphones like the 1000XM5. There is nice detail for some genres though, like you’ll hear with Koe Wetzel’s 9 Lives. With the OnTrac, I could pick up clear texture in the song’s drums and guitars, while the country singer’s vocals cut through the mix. Billy Strings’ recent bluegrass live album also sounds nice on the OnTrac, but when you venture to something like Jack White’s No Name, there’s an airy-ness that’s missing from the overall sound profile. Things that would soar on other sets, like White’s guitar riffs, are a bit muted, and the overall sonic effect is subdued, when it would blanket you with sound on a competing device.
ANC performance
Dyson says the OnTrac’s ANC setup uses eight mics to detect unwanted sounds 384,000 times per second. Combined with the passive noise isolation from the ear pads, the headphones can block up to 40dB of distracting sounds. That looks pretty good on paper, but in the end, the OnTrac does only an average job with constant rumbles from fans and white noise machines. It struggles mightily with human voices and TV sounds. These headphones will be OK in certain situations, but the one-size-fits-all approach to noise-blocking doesn’t silence the world the way Sony, Bose and others can.
Call quality
The OnTrac headphones do a solid job of blocking background noise on calls, but the overall voice quality falls behind comparable flagship headphones. My voice sounded compressed and lacked any energy you’d want on a call. Dyson may have dedicated eight microphones to ANC, but only one is afforded to calls. And, well, you can certainly tell.
Battery life

Billy Steele for Engadget

Dyson promises up to 55 hours of listening with ANC on, a figure that’s only surpassed by Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 (60 hours) among headphones I’ve reviewed. What’s more, that’s 25 hours longer than Sony’s WH-1000XM5, which is our current top pick for best wireless headphones. I managed 48 hours of use with noise cancellation on at a comfortable 50 percent volume. If you need it, a quick-charge option gives you two and a half hours of ANC-enabled playback in 10 minutes or nine and a half hours in 30 minutes .
The competition
At $500, Dyson is competing with the likes of Apple and Master & Dynamic, which both sell premium over-ear headphones for more than the OnTrac. However, only M&D’s MW75 made our best wireless headphones list, mostly due to the company’s premium design and natural sound profile. Unlike Dyson, Master & Dynamic combines metal and leather finishes in a way that looks like headphones and less like a piece of machinery.
If you’re looking for a better value, my advice is to save yourself a lot of money and go for Sony’s WH-1000XM5. For significantly less, you’ll get excellent sound quality, powerful ANC and a host of advanced features that will make your life easier. Those include automatic speech detection that will pause your music when you need to have a quick chat and the ability to switch sound settings based on activity or location without having to futz with an app. They’re more comfortable and are a better travel companion, plus you’ll get 360 Reality Audio where supported and DSEE Extreme upscaling to reclaim detail in songs that’s otherwise lost to compression.
Wrap-up
If you’re a fan of Dyson’s design, you might be inclined to spend big on the OnTrac headphones. With a less-than-stellar audio profile and average ANC performance, the lack of advanced features means you’re settling for a decent set of headphones when better options are available for much less. The customizable design is a plus, as is the impressive battery life and hearing health feature, but you can get the long runtime elsewhere. At the end of the day, I’m not sure the design is enough to make these headphones stand out from the crowd.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/dyson-ontrac-headphones-review-when-the-basics-arent-enough-151518312.html?src=rss

When you hear the words “Dyson headphones,” the first thing that comes to mind is likely the Bane-like Zone. The company debuted its air-purifying wearable in 2022, but woefully short battery life kept the product from being useful on a daily basis. Now Dyson is back with another version, and its sole purpose is to provide audio and active noise cancellation (ANC) for “normal” use. The OnTrac headphones ($500) have a classic Dyson color scheme and build with long battery life, but the lack of advanced features keep this premium set of cans from competing with the best.

Design

I’d wager if you fed an AI image generator the prompt “Dyson headphones” you’d get something similar to the OnTrac. There’s no doubt what company made these cans, with clear nods to things like vacuums, air purifiers and hair care devices. That’s especially true of the copper, navy and silver color combo on my review unit, a trio of hues that has appeared on previous products from Dyson.

To maintain the premium look for these very high-end headphones, the company used a combination of metals and ceramics for the outer shells of the ear cups. Depending on your color preference, the options include copper, aluminum, black nickel, blue, green, gray or red. Then there are the micro-suede, cloth-wrapped ear pads in another seven hues. Dyson says it will sell additional sets of the outer caps and cushions with over 2,000 possible combinations across all of the components. That is a high degree of customization, if you’re willing to pay even more than the initial $500.

Those interchangeable materials accompany a segmented headband and rotating, gimbal-esque construction that once again recalls previous Dyson gear. The company says it put the two battery cells in the headband for better weight distribution, which is why the two side sections of that component are rigid and only the center one is plush and cushiony. Along the back edges of the ear cups are controls for power/pairing on the left with a playback “joystick” on the right. That latter option allows you to play/pause, skip tracks and adjust volume, in addition to activating a voice assistant.

While I praise Dyson for using mostly physical controls here, the joystick does take some getting used to. You have to be very precise, so you don’t press down whatsoever when you’re actually trying to move up, down or to the side. I still regularly pause the music when I’m trying to change the volume, even after a few weeks of use. The outside of both ear cups are touch-enabled, allowing you to cycle through ANC and transparency mode with a double tap. This works well, reliably accepting inputs even when I only get the edge of the panel.

Dyson’s decision to stick the battery in the headband does help with overall comfort. The OnTrac headphones remained plenty cozy for hours at a time and never felt heavy despite their size. My only gripe here is that the ear cups are round instead of oval. I don’t mind them from an aesthetic standpoint, but when I go to put them on my oval-shaped ears, I have to adjust the headphones with a few wiggles for a good fit. It’s not like most sets where I just put them on and my ears are in the sweet spot. Plus, the OnTrac is big and bulky. So even if they are comfortable, you’ll want to take that into account if you plan to use these for travel.

Features and software

The OnTrac headphones work with the MyDyson app, but there aren’t a lot of features there. You get the usual battery percentage, noise controls, EQ options and on-board control tutorial right up front. The EQ menu is limited to three presets – Enhanced, Bass Boost and Neutral – with the first being the default (and the best). Diving into the settings menu via the gear icon lets you disable automatic head detection and keep listening volume under 80dB.

One unique thing that Dyson puts in the main app interface for OnTrac is a real-time sound exposure graph. This displays both in-ear sound level and external noise over the last 30 seconds. Staying below 85dB for in-ear measurements will keep you out of the red here. That corresponds with about 75 percent volume, which is almost painfully loud on these headphones.

The OnTrac doesn’t have any advanced features like automatic speech detection or adaptive ANC, both of which you’ll find on Sony’s 1000XM5. There’s also no spatial audio option, which has become a core element of most flagship headphones and earbuds in recent years. Not only does Dyson lag behind the competition in this area, but it’s also significantly pricier than most alternatives. The basics are well-covered in terms of features, but that’s about it.

Sound quality

The real measure of headphones, after all, is sound quality. Dyson packs in 40mm drivers capable of a frequency range of 6Hz to 21kHz. And while this provides great clarity, the OnTrac headphones lack the immersiveness most high-end models offer these days.

The OnTrac headphones are pleasant to listen to in terms of overall detail, but the stock tuning is void of the depth that a lot of flagship models offer. The likes of Sony, Bose, Sennheiser and Bowers & Wilkins all provide a deeper, richer sound that tends to envelope you, even if you aren’t listening to spatial audio.

Killer Mike’s Songs For Sinners & Saints lack the low-end thump that the album provides on other headphones like the 1000XM5. There is nice detail for some genres though, like you’ll hear with Koe Wetzel’s 9 Lives. With the OnTrac, I could pick up clear texture in the song’s drums and guitars, while the country singer’s vocals cut through the mix. Billy Strings’ recent bluegrass live album also sounds nice on the OnTrac, but when you venture to something like Jack White’s No Name, there’s an airy-ness that’s missing from the overall sound profile. Things that would soar on other sets, like White’s guitar riffs, are a bit muted, and the overall sonic effect is subdued, when it would blanket you with sound on a competing device.

ANC performance

Dyson says the OnTrac’s ANC setup uses eight mics to detect unwanted sounds 384,000 times per second. Combined with the passive noise isolation from the ear pads, the headphones can block up to 40dB of distracting sounds. That looks pretty good on paper, but in the end, the OnTrac does only an average job with constant rumbles from fans and white noise machines. It struggles mightily with human voices and TV sounds. These headphones will be OK in certain situations, but the one-size-fits-all approach to noise-blocking doesn’t silence the world the way Sony, Bose and others can.

Call quality

The OnTrac headphones do a solid job of blocking background noise on calls, but the overall voice quality falls behind comparable flagship headphones. My voice sounded compressed and lacked any energy you’d want on a call. Dyson may have dedicated eight microphones to ANC, but only one is afforded to calls. And, well, you can certainly tell.

Battery life

Dyson promises up to 55 hours of listening with ANC on, a figure that’s only surpassed by Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 (60 hours) among headphones I’ve reviewed. What’s more, that’s 25 hours longer than Sony’s WH-1000XM5, which is our current top pick for best wireless headphones. I managed 48 hours of use with noise cancellation on at a comfortable 50 percent volume. If you need it, a quick-charge option gives you two and a half hours of ANC-enabled playback in 10 minutes or nine and a half hours in 30 minutes .

The competition

At $500, Dyson is competing with the likes of Apple and Master & Dynamic, which both sell premium over-ear headphones for more than the OnTrac. However, only M&D’s MW75 made our best wireless headphones list, mostly due to the company’s premium design and natural sound profile. Unlike Dyson, Master & Dynamic combines metal and leather finishes in a way that looks like headphones and less like a piece of machinery.

If you’re looking for a better value, my advice is to save yourself a lot of money and go for Sony’s WH-1000XM5. For significantly less, you’ll get excellent sound quality, powerful ANC and a host of advanced features that will make your life easier. Those include automatic speech detection that will pause your music when you need to have a quick chat and the ability to switch sound settings based on activity or location without having to futz with an app. They’re more comfortable and are a better travel companion, plus you’ll get 360 Reality Audio where supported and DSEE Extreme upscaling to reclaim detail in songs that’s otherwise lost to compression.

Wrap-up

If you’re a fan of Dyson’s design, you might be inclined to spend big on the OnTrac headphones. With a less-than-stellar audio profile and average ANC performance, the lack of advanced features means you’re settling for a decent set of headphones when better options are available for much less. The customizable design is a plus, as is the impressive battery life and hearing health feature, but you can get the long runtime elsewhere. At the end of the day, I’m not sure the design is enough to make these headphones stand out from the crowd.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/dyson-ontrac-headphones-review-when-the-basics-arent-enough-151518312.html?src=rss

Read More 

Meta’s latest round of account takedowns includes a fake political group that ran dozens of dummy accounts in an attempt to recruit Americans to run for office. The social network detailed the scheme in its latest report on coordinated inauthentic behavior on its platform.
According to Meta, the fake accounts, pages and Facebook groups were trying to prop up a fictitious political group called “Patriots Run Project,” that encouraged people to challenge Republican and Democratic “elites” by running for office. In all, Meta uncovered 124 Facebook accounts, pages and groups as well as three Instagram accounts. The group primarily targeted people in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and spent $50,000 in Facebook ads.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit that researches disinformation and extremism previously shared details about the Patriots Run Project and their Facebook presence. The group, they said, “called for followers to run for office on a pro-Trump, anti-establishment platform focused on many of the same issues that motivate the right-wing movement: gun rights, border security, ‘traditional values’ and combatting election fraud.”
It’s not clear exactly who was behind the bizarre campaign. Meta said in its report they “found links to individuals associated with a US-based on-platform entity called RT Group,” but didn’t elaborate. The company’s researchers noted the group was relatively adept at disguising themselves. They used fake accounts they “acquired” from Bangladesh, and relied on proxies to make it appear as if they lived in the states they targeted.
While Meta’s researchers said they were able to disrupt the group before it was able to establish a large audience on its platform, Politico has reported that the group was successful in recruiting one Montana man to run for Congress, though it’s unclear if he interacted with the group on Facebook. During a briefing with reporters, Meta noted that Patriots Run Project was also active on X and that its websites are still online.
The company’s researchers also shared more about what they are tracking ahead of the US presidential election. As with other recent elections, Russia-based groups are likely to target US audiences on Facebook, according to David Agranovich, Meta’s security policy director for threat disruption. “I think we should expect to see Russian attempts to target election-related debates, particularly when they touch on support for Ukraine,” Agranovich said. “We expect Russia-based campaigns to promote supportive commentary about candidates opposing aid to Ukraine, and criticize those who advocate for aiding Ukraine’s defenses.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-fake-political-group-that-recruited-a-real-candidate-in-montana-got-banned-on-facebook-150048558.html?src=rss

Meta’s latest round of account takedowns includes a fake political group that ran dozens of dummy accounts in an attempt to recruit Americans to run for office. The social network detailed the scheme in its latest report on coordinated inauthentic behavior on its platform.

According to Meta, the fake accounts, pages and Facebook groups were trying to prop up a fictitious political group called “Patriots Run Project,” that encouraged people to challenge Republican and Democratic “elites” by running for office. In all, Meta uncovered 124 Facebook accounts, pages and groups as well as three Instagram accounts. The group primarily targeted people in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and spent $50,000 in Facebook ads.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit that researches disinformation and extremism previously shared details about the Patriots Run Project and their Facebook presence. The group, they said, “called for followers to run for office on a pro-Trump, anti-establishment platform focused on many of the same issues that motivate the right-wing movement: gun rights, border security, ‘traditional values’ and combatting election fraud.”

It’s not clear exactly who was behind the bizarre campaign. Meta said in its report they “found links to individuals associated with a US-based on-platform entity called RT Group,” but didn’t elaborate. The company’s researchers noted the group was relatively adept at disguising themselves. They used fake accounts they “acquired” from Bangladesh, and relied on proxies to make it appear as if they lived in the states they targeted.

While Meta’s researchers said they were able to disrupt the group before it was able to establish a large audience on its platform, Politico has reported that the group was successful in recruiting one Montana man to run for Congress, though it’s unclear if he interacted with the group on Facebook. During a briefing with reporters, Meta noted that Patriots Run Project was also active on X and that its websites are still online.

The company’s researchers also shared more about what they are tracking ahead of the US presidential election. As with other recent elections, Russia-based groups are likely to target US audiences on Facebook, according to David Agranovich, Meta’s security policy director for threat disruption. “I think we should expect to see Russian attempts to target election-related debates, particularly when they touch on support for Ukraine,” Agranovich said. “We expect Russia-based campaigns to promote supportive commentary about candidates opposing aid to Ukraine, and criticize those who advocate for aiding Ukraine’s defenses.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-fake-political-group-that-recruited-a-real-candidate-in-montana-got-banned-on-facebook-150048558.html?src=rss

Read More 

Google is expanding AI Overviews, the feature that summarizes answers to complex questions from the web and presents them at the top of traditional search results, to six more countries — India, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and the United Kingdom — from Thursday with support for local languages as well as English.
That’s less than three months after AI Overviews launched in the United States and promptly told people to eat rocks and put glue on their pizzas. Bringing them to millions more people begs the question: How do you prevent another glue pizza fiasco in a foreign country?
“It’s a challenging space,” senior director of product management for Search at Google told Engadget in an interview. “Understanding quality at the scale of the web across all these languages is a hard problem, and integrating LLMs (large language models) is not easy to do. Using AI to better understand languages is pretty critical.”
To prevent a glue pizza situation in, say, Hindi or Japanese, Google plans to do language-specific testing of AI Overviews as well as red-teaming, a technique used by the tech industry to stress-test how their systems might behave under attack from bad actors. “We are focused on addressing potential issues and we are committed to listening and acting quickly,” Budaraju said. In May, Google put additional guardrails on AI Overviews after its outlandish responses, such as limiting the inclusion of satire and humor content and restricting the types of queries that triggered the feature to begin with.
In addition to expanding the feature to more countries, Google is also making one more big change to AI Overviews: it will now prominently display links to sources on the right-hand side of each AI-generated answer, making it easier for people to click through to the actual website where the answer came from. 
It’s also testing adding links directly within the text of AI Overviews, although the feature is currently limited to people who sign up for Search Labs, the company’s platform for trying out upcoming features ahead of their general release.
“This experiment has shown early positive results and we are able to drive more traffic with links directly in the text,” Budaraju said. Making this feature available more broadly could allay concerns from publishers about losing traffic to AI that reads the internet for people, reducing the need to click through to actual web pages.
Search Labs users also get to play with a couple of additional features — the ability to “save” a specific AI Overview for future reference, as well as an option to simplify the language of an AI-generated answer, something that Google previewed earlier this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-brings-the-ai-feature-that-told-americans-to-eat-rocks-to-six-more-countries-160025221.html?src=rss

Google is expanding AI Overviews, the feature that summarizes answers to complex questions from the web and presents them at the top of traditional search results, to six more countries — India, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and the United Kingdom — from Thursday with support for local languages as well as English.

That’s less than three months after AI Overviews launched in the United States and promptly told people to eat rocks and put glue on their pizzas. Bringing them to millions more people begs the question: How do you prevent another glue pizza fiasco in a foreign country?

“It’s a challenging space,” senior director of product management for Search at Google told Engadget in an interview. “Understanding quality at the scale of the web across all these languages is a hard problem, and integrating LLMs (large language models) is not easy to do. Using AI to better understand languages is pretty critical.”

To prevent a glue pizza situation in, say, Hindi or Japanese, Google plans to do language-specific testing of AI Overviews as well as red-teaming, a technique used by the tech industry to stress-test how their systems might behave under attack from bad actors. “We are focused on addressing potential issues and we are committed to listening and acting quickly,” Budaraju said. In May, Google put additional guardrails on AI Overviews after its outlandish responses, such as limiting the inclusion of satire and humor content and restricting the types of queries that triggered the feature to begin with.

In addition to expanding the feature to more countries, Google is also making one more big change to AI Overviews: it will now prominently display links to sources on the right-hand side of each AI-generated answer, making it easier for people to click through to the actual website where the answer came from. 

It’s also testing adding links directly within the text of AI Overviews, although the feature is currently limited to people who sign up for Search Labs, the company’s platform for trying out upcoming features ahead of their general release.

“This experiment has shown early positive results and we are able to drive more traffic with links directly in the text,” Budaraju said. Making this feature available more broadly could allay concerns from publishers about losing traffic to AI that reads the internet for people, reducing the need to click through to actual web pages.

Search Labs users also get to play with a couple of additional features — the ability to “save” a specific AI Overview for future reference, as well as an option to simplify the language of an AI-generated answer, something that Google previewed earlier this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-brings-the-ai-feature-that-told-americans-to-eat-rocks-to-six-more-countries-160025221.html?src=rss

Read More 

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is just around the corner. If you haven’t watched the first batch of episodes or want to refresh your memory and have let your Prime subscription lapse, there’s a way you can do that for free. From today until August 28, you can stream season one at no cost on Samsung TVs and other devices where the Samsung TV Plus app is available.
It’s the first time that the show has legally been available to stream for free (unless you had access to Prime Video gratis). Samsung is offering the show to its users in the US, UK, Canada, Brazil and Germany on Samsung TVs and Galaxy devices. The company says that the eight-episode season “will also be available within Samsung TV Plus’ channel offering in select regions globally.”
It’s worth noting that Samsung TV Plus is ad-supported, so if you opt to watch The Rings of Power there, the episodes will include commercials. And, along with Samsung TVs and mobile devices, the Samsung TV Plus app is available on some of the company’s refrigerators, so that could be an interesting way to catch up on or rewatch the first season.
Meanwhile, Amazon has dropped the final trailer for season two of The Rings of Power. “War has come to Middle-Earth,” says one character (who I might recognize if I had watched the first season) before we briefly see an army of orcs march on what looks like Minas Tirith as Sauron exerts his authority. There are plenty of eye-popping visuals in the trailer, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering this is slated to be the most expensive TV show of all time. Season two will debut on Prime Video on August 29.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-season-one-is-streaming-for-free-on-samsung-devices-142930211.html?src=rss

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is just around the corner. If you haven’t watched the first batch of episodes or want to refresh your memory and have let your Prime subscription lapse, there’s a way you can do that for free. From today until August 28, you can stream season one at no cost on Samsung TVs and other devices where the Samsung TV Plus app is available.

It’s the first time that the show has legally been available to stream for free (unless you had access to Prime Video gratis). Samsung is offering the show to its users in the US, UK, Canada, Brazil and Germany on Samsung TVs and Galaxy devices. The company says that the eight-episode season “will also be available within Samsung TV Plus’ channel offering in select regions globally.”

It’s worth noting that Samsung TV Plus is ad-supported, so if you opt to watch The Rings of Power there, the episodes will include commercials. And, along with Samsung TVs and mobile devices, the Samsung TV Plus app is available on some of the company’s refrigerators, so that could be an interesting way to catch up on or rewatch the first season.

Meanwhile, Amazon has dropped the final trailer for season two of The Rings of Power. “War has come to Middle-Earth,” says one character (who I might recognize if I had watched the first season) before we briefly see an army of orcs march on what looks like Minas Tirith as Sauron exerts his authority. There are plenty of eye-popping visuals in the trailer, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering this is slated to be the most expensive TV show of all time. Season two will debut on Prime Video on August 29.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-season-one-is-streaming-for-free-on-samsung-devices-142930211.html?src=rss

Read More 

Hollowbody was one of the standouts from Steam Next Fest earlier this year, and it’s coming out real soon.
At a time when everyone is extremely nervous about the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, Hollowbody feels like a total throwback to that PlayStation era of survival horror. Set in a near-future dystopia, you play as a black market runner who crashes their flying car into a grim UK housing estate full of weird things going on.
The game is presented in a semi-retro style — ’90s vibes on modern tech — and makes smart use of fixed camera angles to build tension. It has its own twists on classic survival-horror gameplay like logic puzzles and sporadic save points. There’s not a ton in the way of combat, and apparently there will be options to dial back the action further to focus on creepy exploration instead.
Hollowbody is a new project from Nathan Hamley, who aimed to create an entire game — story, art, code and even music — solo. He raised over $35,000 on Kickstarter on the strength of his previous game, Chasing Static, and a pretty compelling trailer and pitch. Fom the Next Fest demo I played after reading a very positive writeup on VG247, his singular focus on this project has kinda worked? Hopefully those backers are happy.
I’m intrigued to see how the full game pans out — and there’s not too long to wait. It’ll be available on PC (Steam or GOG) on September 12.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/throwback-survival-horror-game-hollowbody-is-coming-on-september-12-140029101.html?src=rss

Hollowbody was one of the standouts from Steam Next Fest earlier this year, and it’s coming out real soon.

At a time when everyone is extremely nervous about the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, Hollowbody feels like a total throwback to that PlayStation era of survival horror. Set in a near-future dystopia, you play as a black market runner who crashes their flying car into a grim UK housing estate full of weird things going on.

The game is presented in a semi-retro style — ’90s vibes on modern tech — and makes smart use of fixed camera angles to build tension. It has its own twists on classic survival-horror gameplay like logic puzzles and sporadic save points. There’s not a ton in the way of combat, and apparently there will be options to dial back the action further to focus on creepy exploration instead.

Hollowbody is a new project from Nathan Hamley, who aimed to create an entire game — story, art, code and even music — solo. He raised over $35,000 on Kickstarter on the strength of his previous game, Chasing Static, and a pretty compelling trailer and pitch. Fom the Next Fest demo I played after reading a very positive writeup on VG247, his singular focus on this project has kinda worked? Hopefully those backers are happy.

I’m intrigued to see how the full game pans out — and there’s not too long to wait. It’ll be available on PC (Steam or GOG) on September 12.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/throwback-survival-horror-game-hollowbody-is-coming-on-september-12-140029101.html?src=rss

Read More 

Don’t rock the boat. That’s Lenovo’s strategy for its 12th iteration of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Instead of messing with a winning formula, the company employed small tweaks throughout the laptop, delivering a system that’s even thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The keyboard has undergone a few updates with a larger touchpad.
However, the biggest changes are under the hood with the X1 Carbon rocking the latest 14th Gen Intel processors and integrated graphics. The notebook also offers expanded display options. The changes, in short, are pretty incremental. But sometimes a few tweaks and refinements are all that’s needed to get the job done.
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s design 
The 12th-gen X1 Carbon looks pretty similar to its predecessor. It’s got a black matte finish that to my chagrin is very susceptible to fingerprints. If you’re familiar with the line, you know that the laptop is made of carbon fiber, but this time around there is recycled aluminum and magnesium in the mix along with some post-consumer materials. Honestly, the biggest design change you’ll notice is the brushed aluminum console at the top of the lid that houses an infrared (IR) camera with a physical shutter.

Weighing 2.4 pounds with a 0.6-inch profile, the X1 is thinner and lighter than previous models, which for a 14-inch system is always a good thing. The 2.6-pound ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED is just a tad lighter at 0.58 inches. And despite its slight form, the X1 Carbon is seriously durable, able to withstand drops, spills, dust and extreme temperatures as designated by its MIL-STD-810H certification.
Another good thing is the 14-inch display. The 1,920 x 1,200, 16:10 panel is a matte touchscreen, so unlike its chassis, it actually resists fingerprints. The finish virtually eliminates any glare and doesn’t wash out the color like I’ve seen on some similar displays. Is the color as vibrant as you’d get on a glossy screen? Not necessarily, but it’s far from a deal breaker.
Lenovo made the trackpad larger, increasing the glass touchpad’s size to 4.7 inches. Outside of a few minor tweaks to the spill-proof keyboard, this is your typical Lenovo Chiclet keyboard down to its iconic bright red pointing stick. I’m not a big fan of Lenovo moving the power key to the right side of the keyboard. It makes sense for a 2-in-1, but is unnecessary on a regular clamshell, and I’d prefer it on one of the company’s many Yoga series notebooks.
While we’re talking about the X1’s sides, there’s a healthy number of ports here, including two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, two Thunderbolt 4, an HDMI 2.1 port, a headset jack and a Kensington lock slot.

Sherri L. Smith for Engadget

Sitting above the display, the ThinkPad X1’s 1080p webcam takes solid still photos and will do fine in video conferencing sessions. It delivered really clear images on the Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls I took, so much so I got a few compliments on my new hair color and style. As expected, things got overexposed when I sat in my yard at high noon. But I was pleasantly surprised at how well the camera adjusted to a low-light environment, maintaining color vibrancy and good detail.
The pair of speakers cleverly hidden beneath the keyboard did a good job conveying the voices of my meeting mates. You’ll want to grab a pair of headphones if you’re listening to music or watching a movie, though, as the low-end isn’t very strong despite the pre-installed Dolby Access software.
In use
Next-gen laptops means next-gen chips. For the 12th-gen X1 Carbon, that chip is a 14th-generation 1.7-GHz Intel Core Ultra 7 165U processor with 12 cores and 14 threads. According to Intel, it’s faster than last year’s silicon. In action, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is pretty fast and powerful. I threw my usual workload at it, which means approximately 70 open Google Chrome tabs with a mix of G-Suite apps, social media, news and tech sites with a couple of YouTube videos for good measure. I even edited a video and played a few rounds of Hades II, but the notebook never slowed down.
The Lenovo notebook didn’t perform as well against similarly specced laptops. My review unit, with its Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, bested the Zenbook OLED 14 and XPS 14 on the PCMark 10 benchmark, but couldn’t topple this year’s model of the 14-inch HP Spectre x360 nor the Surface Laptop 6. The forecast wasn’t as rosy on the Cinebench R23 test, though, which saw the X1 Carbon fall short against every system.

Sherri L. Smith for Engadget

The X1 Carbon’s integrated Intel GPU isn’t really made for gaming, but if you can find older or indie games that aren’t as taxing as current AAA titles, you can squeeze in some playtime. For example, I got 30 frames per second as I played Hades II, which is a smooth enough rate to run most titles.
The X1 Carbon’s 3,777 result on 3DMark Wild Life Extreme is no match for any of the competing systems. Keep in mind that those laptops have more powerful chips under the hood with the XPS 14, Zenbook OLED 14, and Surface Laptop 6 having Intel Arc Graphics. The XPS 14 also has a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU onboard.
Like most laptops this year, the X1 Carbon has an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) which is there to take the load off your CPU and GPU when it comes to AI apps and tasks. For example, Windows Studio Effects during my video calls seamlessly blurred my background, keeping me in frame and ensuring it looked like I held eye contact, all without any hiccup.
When it comes to keyboards, Lenovo ThinkPads are the gold standard, delivering firm, springy feedback. The 12th-gen X1 Carbon continues the tradition. I spent hours using this super comfortable keyboard and throughout that time, my fingers never bottomed out. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the new tactile markings on specific keys (Fn, F, H, Insert, down arrow, Enter and volume down/up) to act as a guide. And of course, there’s the Copilot button if you want to give Microsoft’s AI a try. The white backlighting is bright enough to use in darkened environments, like when I used it in bed while my boyfriend slept.

Sherri L. Smith for Engadget

The trackpad, which is 9.1 percent bigger than last year’s, has excellent palm rejection and didn’t send the cursor launching into the stratosphere. The glass surface was responsive and smooth to the touch, with near-instant results whether I was navigating a web page or pinch-zooming on a picture.
The best thing by far about the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is its battery life. The laptop lasted 13 hours and 2 minutes on the PCMark Modern Office battery test. That time was more than enough to outlast the Zenbook OLED 14 (12:43). During my regular use, I squeezed almost 10 hours out of the X1 Carbon before I needed to plug it in.
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s price and competition
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 12th starts at $1,449, which is about what you’d expect from a premium business laptop. That configuration gets you an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor with 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and Intel’s integrated graphics. You’ll need an extra $474 to upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD. If you want a similar setup to my review model, it’ll cost you $2,285 as it has Intel’s vPro technology, which is more for IT admins and businesses.
For almost $500 cheaper, the ASUS Zenbook OLED 14 bested the ThinkPad X1 Carbon on performance, while offering comparable battery life and a stunning OLED display. But the Zenbook lacks the deep well of security features you’ll find on the business-centric X1 Carbon.
Consumers looking for more power, including a discrete GPU, should check out the Dell XPS 14. However, the laptop’s starting price is $250 higher than the X1 Carbon, and it only gets more exorbitant as you start adding more features such as the Nvidia GPU, vPro, RAM and storage.
Wrap-up
The 12th-gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon continues its reign as the king of business laptops for now. But the gap is definitely narrowing. While there are definitely more powerful alternatives out there, the X1 is one of the few to offer the same level of security, durability and longevity for a relatively reasonable price.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-12-review-still-the-king-of-business-laptops-140029764.html?src=rss

Don’t rock the boat. That’s Lenovo’s strategy for its 12th iteration of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Instead of messing with a winning formula, the company employed small tweaks throughout the laptop, delivering a system that’s even thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The keyboard has undergone a few updates with a larger touchpad.

However, the biggest changes are under the hood with the X1 Carbon rocking the latest 14th Gen Intel processors and integrated graphics. The notebook also offers expanded display options. The changes, in short, are pretty incremental. But sometimes a few tweaks and refinements are all that’s needed to get the job done.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s design 

The 12th-gen X1 Carbon looks pretty similar to its predecessor. It’s got a black matte finish that to my chagrin is very susceptible to fingerprints. If you’re familiar with the line, you know that the laptop is made of carbon fiber, but this time around there is recycled aluminum and magnesium in the mix along with some post-consumer materials. Honestly, the biggest design change you’ll notice is the brushed aluminum console at the top of the lid that houses an infrared (IR) camera with a physical shutter.

Weighing 2.4 pounds with a 0.6-inch profile, the X1 is thinner and lighter than previous models, which for a 14-inch system is always a good thing. The 2.6-pound ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED is just a tad lighter at 0.58 inches. And despite its slight form, the X1 Carbon is seriously durable, able to withstand drops, spills, dust and extreme temperatures as designated by its MIL-STD-810H certification.

Another good thing is the 14-inch display. The 1,920 x 1,200, 16:10 panel is a matte touchscreen, so unlike its chassis, it actually resists fingerprints. The finish virtually eliminates any glare and doesn’t wash out the color like I’ve seen on some similar displays. Is the color as vibrant as you’d get on a glossy screen? Not necessarily, but it’s far from a deal breaker.

Lenovo made the trackpad larger, increasing the glass touchpad’s size to 4.7 inches. Outside of a few minor tweaks to the spill-proof keyboard, this is your typical Lenovo Chiclet keyboard down to its iconic bright red pointing stick. I’m not a big fan of Lenovo moving the power key to the right side of the keyboard. It makes sense for a 2-in-1, but is unnecessary on a regular clamshell, and I’d prefer it on one of the company’s many Yoga series notebooks.

While we’re talking about the X1’s sides, there’s a healthy number of ports here, including two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, two Thunderbolt 4, an HDMI 2.1 port, a headset jack and a Kensington lock slot.

Sitting above the display, the ThinkPad X1’s 1080p webcam takes solid still photos and will do fine in video conferencing sessions. It delivered really clear images on the Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls I took, so much so I got a few compliments on my new hair color and style. As expected, things got overexposed when I sat in my yard at high noon. But I was pleasantly surprised at how well the camera adjusted to a low-light environment, maintaining color vibrancy and good detail.

The pair of speakers cleverly hidden beneath the keyboard did a good job conveying the voices of my meeting mates. You’ll want to grab a pair of headphones if you’re listening to music or watching a movie, though, as the low-end isn’t very strong despite the pre-installed Dolby Access software.

In use

Next-gen laptops means next-gen chips. For the 12th-gen X1 Carbon, that chip is a 14th-generation 1.7-GHz Intel Core Ultra 7 165U processor with 12 cores and 14 threads. According to Intel, it’s faster than last year’s silicon. In action, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is pretty fast and powerful. I threw my usual workload at it, which means approximately 70 open Google Chrome tabs with a mix of G-Suite apps, social media, news and tech sites with a couple of YouTube videos for good measure. I even edited a video and played a few rounds of Hades II, but the notebook never slowed down.

The Lenovo notebook didn’t perform as well against similarly specced laptops. My review unit, with its Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, bested the Zenbook OLED 14 and XPS 14 on the PCMark 10 benchmark, but couldn’t topple this year’s model of the 14-inch HP Spectre x360 nor the Surface Laptop 6. The forecast wasn’t as rosy on the Cinebench R23 test, though, which saw the X1 Carbon fall short against every system.

The X1 Carbon’s integrated Intel GPU isn’t really made for gaming, but if you can find older or indie games that aren’t as taxing as current AAA titles, you can squeeze in some playtime. For example, I got 30 frames per second as I played Hades II, which is a smooth enough rate to run most titles.

The X1 Carbon’s 3,777 result on 3DMark Wild Life Extreme is no match for any of the competing systems. Keep in mind that those laptops have more powerful chips under the hood with the XPS 14, Zenbook OLED 14, and Surface Laptop 6 having Intel Arc Graphics. The XPS 14 also has a discrete Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU onboard.

Like most laptops this year, the X1 Carbon has an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) which is there to take the load off your CPU and GPU when it comes to AI apps and tasks. For example, Windows Studio Effects during my video calls seamlessly blurred my background, keeping me in frame and ensuring it looked like I held eye contact, all without any hiccup.

When it comes to keyboards, Lenovo ThinkPads are the gold standard, delivering firm, springy feedback. The 12th-gen X1 Carbon continues the tradition. I spent hours using this super comfortable keyboard and throughout that time, my fingers never bottomed out. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the new tactile markings on specific keys (Fn, F, H, Insert, down arrow, Enter and volume down/up) to act as a guide. And of course, there’s the Copilot button if you want to give Microsoft’s AI a try. The white backlighting is bright enough to use in darkened environments, like when I used it in bed while my boyfriend slept.

The trackpad, which is 9.1 percent bigger than last year’s, has excellent palm rejection and didn’t send the cursor launching into the stratosphere. The glass surface was responsive and smooth to the touch, with near-instant results whether I was navigating a web page or pinch-zooming on a picture.

The best thing by far about the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is its battery life. The laptop lasted 13 hours and 2 minutes on the PCMark Modern Office battery test. That time was more than enough to outlast the Zenbook OLED 14 (12:43). During my regular use, I squeezed almost 10 hours out of the X1 Carbon before I needed to plug it in.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s price and competition

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 12th starts at $1,449, which is about what you’d expect from a premium business laptop. That configuration gets you an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor with 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and Intel’s integrated graphics. You’ll need an extra $474 to upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD. If you want a similar setup to my review model, it’ll cost you $2,285 as it has Intel’s vPro technology, which is more for IT admins and businesses.

For almost $500 cheaper, the ASUS Zenbook OLED 14 bested the ThinkPad X1 Carbon on performance, while offering comparable battery life and a stunning OLED display. But the Zenbook lacks the deep well of security features you’ll find on the business-centric X1 Carbon.

Consumers looking for more power, including a discrete GPU, should check out the Dell XPS 14. However, the laptop’s starting price is $250 higher than the X1 Carbon, and it only gets more exorbitant as you start adding more features such as the Nvidia GPU, vPro, RAM and storage.

Wrap-up

The 12th-gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon continues its reign as the king of business laptops for now. But the gap is definitely narrowing. While there are definitely more powerful alternatives out there, the X1 is one of the few to offer the same level of security, durability and longevity for a relatively reasonable price.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-12-review-still-the-king-of-business-laptops-140029764.html?src=rss

Read More 

Kim Kardashian is lending her name and image to a second collaboration with Apple’s Beats line of headphones. The latest entry to the Beats x Kim line brings three neutral colors – Moon, Dune, and Earth – to the Beats Studio Pro headphones. The limited collection is available now from Apple and Amazon, and even with the celebrity backing, the headsets retail for their usual price of $350.
Apple refreshed the Beats Studio Pro last year, including a new version of the brand’s audio chip and improving active noise cancellation capabilities. The headphones also got an aesthetic refresh to couple with the updated sound quality.
This marks the second time the reality television star has worked with Apple on audio gear. In 2022, the pair launched the Beats x Kim line with the same three skin tone hues for the Beats Fit Pro earbuds. Apple said that release was its best-selling collaboration to date. Kardashian’s Skims clothing company also focuses on items with skin tone colors, so the neutral appearance of her Apple gear seems on brand.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/kim-kardashian-is-back-with-a-new-beats-headphone-collab-140029761.html?src=rss

Kim Kardashian is lending her name and image to a second collaboration with Apple’s Beats line of headphones. The latest entry to the Beats x Kim line brings three neutral colors – Moon, Dune, and Earth – to the Beats Studio Pro headphones. The limited collection is available now from Apple and Amazon, and even with the celebrity backing, the headsets retail for their usual price of $350.

Apple refreshed the Beats Studio Pro last year, including a new version of the brand’s audio chip and improving active noise cancellation capabilities. The headphones also got an aesthetic refresh to couple with the updated sound quality.

This marks the second time the reality television star has worked with Apple on audio gear. In 2022, the pair launched the Beats x Kim line with the same three skin tone hues for the Beats Fit Pro earbuds. Apple said that release was its best-selling collaboration to date. Kardashian’s Skims clothing company also focuses on items with skin tone colors, so the neutral appearance of her Apple gear seems on brand.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/kim-kardashian-is-back-with-a-new-beats-headphone-collab-140029761.html?src=rss

Read More 

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is looking to improve its facial recognition algorithms, is reportedly planning to use the facial data of migrant children entering the country for training. According to MIT Technology Review, the agency intends to collect and analyze facial captures of kids younger than 14. John Boyd, the assistant director of Homeland Security’s Office of Biometric Identity Management who’s involved in the development of biometric services for the government, told the publication that the collection will include children “down to the infant.”
Programs that collect biometric information and even DNA samples from migrants entering the country typically only apply to people between 14 and 79 years old. Boyd said Homeland Security’s plan was likely made possible by some of its sub-offices’ decision to remove age restrictions for the collection of biometric data. Since the information is also supposed to be used for research purposes and not for the agency’s actual operations, Homeland’s restrictions for biometric collection also don’t apply to the program. 
Boyd told MIT Technology Review that the agency hasn’t started collecting biometric information under the program yet, at least to the best of his knowledge, but that he can confirm that his office is funding it. He added that his office takes privacy seriously and that it doesn’t share data with commercial industries. Data collected by the program could help improve facial recognition technologies’ understanding of how faces change as humans age. The program could ultimately help authorities find missing children even after years have passed. 
However, critics and expects have raised concerns about collecting data from migrants, a lot of whom are entering the country in hopes of a better life and may feel like they have no choice but to agree to getting their facial and fingerprint information taken. It’s even more concerning in this case, because children can’t give their informed consent.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/us-homeland-security-will-reportedly-collect-face-scans-of-migrant-kids-133042516.html?src=rss

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is looking to improve its facial recognition algorithms, is reportedly planning to use the facial data of migrant children entering the country for training. According to MIT Technology Review, the agency intends to collect and analyze facial captures of kids younger than 14. John Boyd, the assistant director of Homeland Security’s Office of Biometric Identity Management who’s involved in the development of biometric services for the government, told the publication that the collection will include children “down to the infant.”

Programs that collect biometric information and even DNA samples from migrants entering the country typically only apply to people between 14 and 79 years old. Boyd said Homeland Security’s plan was likely made possible by some of its sub-offices’ decision to remove age restrictions for the collection of biometric data. Since the information is also supposed to be used for research purposes and not for the agency’s actual operations, Homeland’s restrictions for biometric collection also don’t apply to the program. 

Boyd told MIT Technology Review that the agency hasn’t started collecting biometric information under the program yet, at least to the best of his knowledge, but that he can confirm that his office is funding it. He added that his office takes privacy seriously and that it doesn’t share data with commercial industries. Data collected by the program could help improve facial recognition technologies’ understanding of how faces change as humans age. The program could ultimately help authorities find missing children even after years have passed. 

However, critics and expects have raised concerns about collecting data from migrants, a lot of whom are entering the country in hopes of a better life and may feel like they have no choice but to agree to getting their facial and fingerprint information taken. It’s even more concerning in this case, because children can’t give their informed consent.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/us-homeland-security-will-reportedly-collect-face-scans-of-migrant-kids-133042516.html?src=rss

Read More