You only have a bit over a week left to get Nothing’s Ear 1 wireless earbuds for $100. Carl Pei, the company’s founder and CEO, has announced on Twitter that Nothing is raising the Ear 1’s price to $149 on October 26th due to increased costs. In follow-up tweets, Pei talked about how Nothing has expanded since it started developing the device. He revealed that the company had three engineers during the initial stages of the earbuds’ development and had 185 a year later. Pei also said that Nothing has sold almost 600,000 Ear 1 units so far and that it had paved the way for the company’s first smartphone, the Phone 1. The executive didn’t say whether the company has any plan to raise the Phone 1’s prices.
When we started developing it, we only had 3 engineers. A year later, we have 185. During this time, the Ear (1) has received 15 firmware and tuning updates, and is a completely different product to when we launched it.
Nothing is but one of the tech companies raising the prices of its products due to inflation and the rising costs of components. Meta added $101 on top the Quest 2 VR headset’s original price and is now selling the standalone device for $400. We praised it for being a steal at $299 in our review, but Meta explained in a blog post that the “costs to make and ship [its] products have been on the rise.” Apple raised App Store prices across Europe and Asia, as well, and one possible reason is that the Euro is weak against the dollar. The tech giant is also selling its devices like the iPhone 14 Pro at much higher price points in Europe, most likely due to the same reason.
West was locked out of his Twitter and Instagram accounts following a weekend of antisemitic posts. “In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” West was quoted in the announcement.
“The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome,” said Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer.
Parler was recently reinstated to the Google Play app store after being banned in January 2021, following the US Capitol insurrection. A Google spokesperson said at the time the removal was down to the app’s lack of “moderation policies and enforcement that remove egregious content like posts that incite violence.” Apple removed the app for similar reasons but restored it in May. Will a new controversial owner tempt new users to the controversial social network?
– Mat Smith
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We’ll also see a new entry-level iPad and Macs later in the year.
The next-generation iPad Pro with Apple’s latest M2 processor will arrive in “a matter of days,” according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. It will be the first new model since May 2021 and will reportedly offer a 20 percent speed boost over the M1 version. Apple will also introduce an iPad dock with an integrated speaker in 2023. The idea is that users could attach an iPad to the device and get a full home hub/smart speaker experience – very similar to the Pixel speaker dock Google revealed alongside its Pixel Tablet.
You probably don’t think of cheap Windows laptops when you think of daily drivers. But it would be a big mistake to ignore these devices. There’s a reason companies like Acer, ASUS, Dell and the like make Windows devices under $500. Affordable Windows notebooks are great options for people that only use a computer to check email, shop online or post on Facebook. They’re also suitable for kids who have no business putting their sticky little hands on a $2,000 gaming rig. We’ve highlighted the best devices out there.
It’s been a decade since the last game if you don’t count ‘P.T.’
Konami
Almost a decade to the day since it released the last Silent Hill game (as long as you don’t include P.T.), Konami is finally ready to reveal what’s next for the franchise. The company will divulge the “latest updates” for the series during a stream that starts at 5 PM ET on October 19th. We’re expecting an actual game: Composer Akira Yamaoka and art director on the first three games, Masahiro Ito, shared news of the upcoming stream. Both have previously hinted they’re working on a new Silent Hill title.
Amazon churns through workers at an astonishing rate, well above industry averages. According to leaked documents seen by Engadget, that attrition rate now has an associated cost. “[Worldwide] Consumer Field Operations is experiencing high levels of attrition (regretted and unregretted) across all levels, totaling an estimated $8 billion annually for Amazon and its shareholders,” one document stated. The company’s net profit for its 2021 fiscal year was $33.36 billion. “Regretted attrition” – workers choosing to leave the company – “occurs twice as often as unregretted attrition” – people being laid off or fired – “across all levels and businesses,” according to the company’s internal research.
Adults in the US with mild-to-moderate hearing loss can now buy hearing aids online or from a store without a prescription, medical exam or audiologist fitting. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final rule in August that allows stores and online retailers to sell over-the-counter (OTC) devices starting today. The move could save consumers thousands of dollars on hearing aids, according to the White House. Taking Walmart’s options as an example, they cost between $199 and $999 per pair. The company claimed comparable prescription hearing aids cost between $4,400 and $5,500.
Google has made Family Link’s most used tools easier to find and use in the new interface it designed for the parental controls application. The new experience’s Controls tab contains the tools parents can use to set screen time for each device and app, set content restrictions and to manage app data permissions. Google has also added a “Today Only” option, which lets parents set a screen time limit for one day without having to change the general setting. That way, they can easily allow kids to spend more time online if they’re still doing their homework or are just a few minutes away from finishing the show they’re watching.
In the Location tab, they’ll see their children’s linked devices on a map and those devices’ battery life. They can ring their kids’ phones from there, as well, in case they get misplaced. And as a new feature, the app will now notify guardians when their kids arrive at or leave a specific location, such as their school, sports field or swimming pool. If they want to know how their kids have been using their apps and to see their current screen time usage or their latest app downloads, parents only need to navigate to the Highlights tab.
Finally, tapping on the notification bell at the top of the app will show parents not just the latest updates, but also all the requests they get from their kids for app downloads and purchases. That’s also where they can find their kids’ request for access to websites they’d previously blocked. And to make Family Link more accessible, Google has made it available on the web, allowing guardians to use all those features even if they don’t have their phone with them.
Google
The tech giant has also rolled out parent-managed watchlists for kid profiles on Google TV, which guardians can use to create a list for their kids right from their own profiles. Young viewers will now also get Google-powered recommendations when they’re done with what they’re watching. Parents worried that Google’s algorithm would recommend titles they don’t approve of can use the new “hide” button to hide anything they want in the Popular movies or TV shows lists. They simply have to hold the Select button on their remote and choose “hide.” As for families with older kids, Google TV now has a supervised experience on the YouTube app that offers content settings for pre-teens and older children. All these features are coming to Chromecast with Google TV and Google TV-powered devices over the coming weeks.
Microsoft has laid off off employees across multiple divisions, according to Axios, making it the latest big player in the tech space to cut jobs in the face of an economic downturn. A spokesperson told the publication: “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.” While the tech giant didn’t say which divisions were affected and how many people had been let go, Axios said there were under 1,000 layoffs.
The Verge Senior Editor Tom Warren added that the job cuts included people in the Experiences and Devices, Xbox and legal groups. Some of them were apparently veteran workers in the company. As Axios notes, the job cuts occurred across levels and regions, which means workers outside the US had also been laid off.
Microsoft showed signs that it was looking to operate with a leaner workforce this year when it slowed down hiring for its Windows, Office and Teams groups, citing the need to realign staffing priorities. In July, it laid off less than one percent (around 1,800) of its 180,000 workforce and then removed open job listings for its Azure cloud and security groups. Other tech companies have made similar moves over the past few months. Google also slowed its hiring due to what CEO Sundar Pichai called an “uncertain global economic outlook.” Meanwhile, Meta reportedly started cutting staff and reorganizing teams to cut costs after Mark Zuckerberg warned employees that the company was facing “serious times.”
We’ve seen rollable device concepts from companies like Oppo and TCL, and LG was even working on a commercial rollable smartphone until it quit making mobile devices last year. Now, Lenovo is showing off a laptop with a rollout display, while its mobile division Motorola has a roll-out smartphone — and they look like some of the more practical efforts yet.
The phone starts out at a very pocketable 4 inches high, but with the click of a button, the OLED panel extends to a normal-sized 6.5 inches. Another click retracts the phone back to its original form. It’s usable at both sizes, and the content on the screen adapts to the size, including the home screen, videos and more, as shown below.
Lenovo also showed off a rollable laptop that starts with a typical landscape display and then rolls up to a square shape, making it better for documents or vertical TikTok style videos. Lenovo VP of design Brian Leonard explained in the video that it’s part of Lenovo’s research into novel form factors that started with the ThinkPad 360P laptop/tablet. “It can expand into a much larger screen real estate as the content dynamically adjusts to the screen, offering people an unprecedented way of hyper-tasking for productivity, browsing, and more,” he explained.
Motorola already makes a folding device, the Razr, that’s unfortunately only available in China, but rollable devices are even more complex. People seem to love them, though — for instance, LG’s rollable OLED TV was a popular item at CES 2019. And in some ways, a rolling screen is more elegant than a folding one, as there’s no hinge or crease to worry about. While it remains squarely in the concept realm for now, we’d love to see Lenovo take a shot at commercializing it.
Ever had a great idea for a riff rattling around your head while you ride the bus or wait in line? Well, if you use Ableton Live, there’s now a way to capture those busts of inspiration wherever you are thanks to the new Note iOS app.The name here is i…
Those who were worried that YouTube would completely limit access to 4K content to Premium subscribers can breath easily. For now. YouTube has revealed on Twitter that it has “fully turned off” the experiment that requires Premium subscription to be able to play videos in 4K resolution. Earlier this month, users started reporting on social networks like Reddit and Twitter that when they accessed the drop-down menu for resolution options, the word “Premium” was right next to 4K/2160p. Not everyone was required to have a Premium subscription to play 4K videos, though, indicating that it was an experimental feature rolled out to a limited number of users.
we’ve fully turned off this experiment. viewers should now be able to access 4K quality resolutions without Premium membership. we’re here if you have other q’s
It’s unclear why YouTube has decided to cancel the experiment, but as 9to5Google notes, it was met with a significant amount of negative feedback. Users were understandably far from happy being asked to pay $12 a month or $120 a year to be able to play videos in the highest resolution available on the website. And those who weren’t part of the experiment were concerned that it would make its way to wide release and be a permanent “perk” for Premium subscribers.
YouTube didn’t say whether it’s permanently shelving the idea of locking 4K videos behind a Premium subscription. In a tweet written in Japanese, YouTube invited users to leave a feedback about the experiment, which could help it ultimately decide how to move forward.
