Новости за 11.10.2022

Meta has announced several updates to the avatars that it wants you to use in the metaverse and beyond. And hey, the avatars will have legs! At least in the virtual sense, if not the physical or metaphorical ones. 

You're probably hoping to cross off a few big items from your holiday shopping list during Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale. But don't forget about the little things, either. Sale events like this are a good opportunity to pick up affordable gadgets that make great stocking stuffers or gifts for people who are hard to shop for. Plus, you may be able to find things like charging cables, accessories and other tech items on discount that you've been meaning to buy for yourself. To make things easier for you... Читать дальше...

The next time an asteroid threatens Earth, humanity might have a chance of saving the planet. On Tuesday, NASA announced that its experimental Double Asteroid Redirection Test successfully altered the orbit of Dimorphos. Following two weeks of data collection and analysis, the agency found that DART's impact shortened the asteroid's orbit around its parent, Didymos, by 32 minutes. Before the September 26th collision, NASA estimated DART needed to change the orbital period of Dimorphos by 73 seconds or more to call the test a success. Читать дальше...

More than a year after it was first announced, Amazon has shared a trailer for Good Night Oppy. The upcoming documentary will recount the story of NASA’s Opportunity rover, or Oppy as it was lovingly known by its creators. The documentary was directed by Ryan White (Assassins), with Angela Bassett, best known for her roles in Black Panther and Contact, providing narration. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab helped with the project, sharing archival footage and knowledge of the rover’s mission.

You'll eventually have another way to access Xbox Cloud Gaming titles beyond consoles, PCs, tablets and phones. Microsoft is working with Meta to bring the service to the Meta Quest Store, which means it will be available on Meta Quest 2 headsets and perhaps even Meta Quest Pro.

After a bit of a wait, Among Us VR is nearly ready. Innersloth, Schell Games and Robot Teddy have confirmed the virtual reality betrayal game will be available November 10th on Meta Quest 2 and Steam. There's no mention of a PlayStation VR version in the announcement (we've asked Innersloth for comment), but this is still a big deal if you're hoping for a fresh take on the game's core concept.

Meta is making a big push to sell its new Quest Pro to office workers. At Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg showed off upcoming integrations with Zoom and Microsoft teams, along with a slew of other features meant to make the headset more appealing to businesses.

Following the demise of smartphone-based headsets like Samsung's Gear VR and Google’s Daydream, virtual reality headsets have generally fallen into two camps: lightweight standalone systems like the Quest 2 and more sophisticated PC-based systems like the Vive Pro 2 and Valve Index.

Maybe you have someone in your life who's an avid gamer or game streamer and you want to get them something to take their hobby to the next level. You're in luck — Amazon's October Prime Day has proven to be a boon for gaming deals, discounting everything from gaming laptops to keyboards to controllers and more. A bunch of brands are included, too, like Razer, Logitech, SteelSeries and more, so you may be able to find exactly what they've been asking for at a more affordable price. Here are the... Читать дальше...

The Department of Labor has issued a proposal that could make it more likely for millions of people to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. Should the proposal become a formal rule, gig workers (such as Uber and Lyft drivers) would likely gain benefits and protections afforded to employees if they're reclassified. Those may include a minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance contributions and their employer paying a share of Social Security taxes, as The New York Times notes. Читать дальше...

After 23 years in prison, Adnan Syed is a free man. Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday announced they were dropping charges against the 41-year-old and subject of the hit podcast Serial, reports The New York Times. Prior to his release in September, Syed had been serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee.

Netgear already offers one of the few mesh WiFi router systems that can fully support multi-gigabit internet access, but the minimum $1,500 outlay rules it out for most homes. Thankfully, there's now a much more affordable option. The brand has introduced Orbi 860 series mesh routers that offer the 10Gbps Ethernet of the 960 line, but with tri-band WiFi 6 instead of the higher-end model's quad-band WiFi 6E. You can also buy a stand-alone router if you don't need extensive coverage.

During the first Prime Day this year back in July, we saw a bunch of our favorite microSD cards, portable drives, internal SSDs and other storage devices drop to record-low prices. Now for Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale, many of those same items have been deeply discounted again. It's a good opportunity to pick up a new microSD card for your Nintendo Switch, a speedy drive for that PS5 you finally got your hands on or a pocket-sized SSD for that person in your life who wants to take all of their... Читать дальше...

Snapchat has launched a set of new lenses that you can use to find Halloween costumes for parties and events you're attending this month. These new AR lenses will give you a way to virtually try on costumes from some of the shows and movies in recent history that had helped define pop culture as we know it. And yes, you can purchase them from within the app. The selection includes characters and costumes from Harry Potter, Squid Game, Stranger Things, Hocus Pocus, Transformers, Power Rangers and other titles. Читать дальше...

It's not just Tesla that can offer games to play while you're waiting in your car. BMW is teaming up with AirConsole to deliver casual games in its cars starting in 2023. The technology downloads games to your infotainment system, and uses your phone as the controller. This is clearly meant to keep you distracted while you charge your EV, but the automaker sees this as helpful for any time you're waiting in the car — say, to pick someone up at the airport.

Google has announced a string of updates for Workspace, including one that may be especially useful for those tasked with recording meeting minutes. Users can already save Google Meet calls as video files and they'll soon get an automatic transcription of their meetings too. You'll be able to receive a transcript in a Google Doc. This feature will be available in English starting this week. Support for French, German, Spanish and Portuguese is coming next year. This follows an expansion of live translated captions for those languages. Читать дальше...

It's always a good idea to check out the laptops and tablets on sale during Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale. We saw a bunch of great deals for the first shopping event this year back in July, and now for October Prime Day, another swath of discounts has pop up. While buying a laptop from Amazon isn't as flexible as it is when you're buying one directly from the manufacturer, it's still a good way to get your hands on a new machine. You're mostly limited by the number of configurations Amazon has available at the time. Читать дальше...

Amazon's Prime Early Access sale may represent an ideal opportunity to snag a high-performance portable. The company is selling Razer's late 2021 Blade 14 gaming laptop for $2,000, or a whopping $800 off. That gets you an eight-core Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, a smooth 165Hz 1440p display, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and, crucially, GeForce RTX 3080 graphics. This is an easy-to-carry machine that can readily handle the latest games.

In an EV market increasingly populated by SUVs, trucks and the tiny SUVs we call crossovers, it’s refreshing to have another actual electric car option. But the 2022 BMW i4 M50 is more than just a sedan with an EV powertrain shoved inside. It’s a fine-tuning of suspension, chassis and power that should give those looking at future BMW EVs a reason to be excited.

If you're ready to upgrade your living room setup before the cold, winter months arrive, Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale has a bunch of deals you should consider. It's not often that most people upgrade their TVs, but this sales event has a number of good discounts on TV sets of all sizes from brands including LG, Samsung, Sony and others. For those that are already happy with their tube, Amazon has also discounted a bunch of home theater gadgets include streaming devices, soundbars and more... Читать дальше...

Flying taxi startup Joby Aviation just landed a deal that could make your ride to the airport much more enjoyable. Delta is investing a total of up to $200 million in Joby in exchange for a home-to-airport flight service. Instead of hailing a car or paying for parking, you can have an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft take you to the terminal without the usual traffic hassles.

If you have Apple devices on your shopping list for this holiday season, you may be able to save on some of them if you pick them up during Amazon's October Prime Day. The online retailer has knocked down the prices of many Apple gadgets, including AirPods, iPads, MacBooks and more. Since Apple stuff is always in high demand, it's not a bad idea to cross these items off your list early if you can so you're not left gift-less and searching for a last-minute replacement. Here are the best deals... Читать дальше...

One part of Google may have given up on cloud gaming, with Stadia set to be discontinued in a few months. But on the ChromeOS team, there’s a whole new initiative to try and push back on the whole “you can’t game on a Chromebook” thing. Today, Google — along with a handful of hardware and software partners — are announcing what it calls “the world’s first laptops built for cloud gaming.”

How do you go about reviewing something like NVIDIA's RTX 4090? Just looking at its specs alone, it's obviously the fastest consumer GPU we've ever seen. So sure, I can tell you that I can play just about anything in 4K with ray tracing and every graphical nicety turned on. Hell, it can even scale up to 8K if you're a masochist. For a $1,599 video card, it damn well better. But the real question is, who is this thing actually for?

If you've been eyeing those Instant Pots or Instant air fryers that everyone seems to have, they're on sale as part of Amazon's Prime Early Access Day with savings up to 50 percent. Some of the key products include the Instant Vortex 5.7-quart air fryer oven combo ($70 or 50 percent off), the Instant pot Duo Plus ($90 or 40 percent off) and the Instant Pot Crisp 11-in-1 Air Fryer ($170 or 37 percent off).