Tech

the-pixel-9-reportedly-gears-up-for-satellite-sos-support

The Pixel 9 reportedly gears up for satellite SOS support

Google, Tech / /

Android’s testbed, for better or worse —

No one wants to build an Android satellite phone, so Google is going to do it.

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The smaller Pixel 9, with three cameras?!

Enlarge / The smaller Pixel 9, with three cameras?!

Google has been doing a lot of work in Android to support satellite-based messaging, and it sure would be nice if someone actually shipped some hardware it could use. Despite the feature launching with the iPhone 14 in 2022, Android manufacturers haven’t been super receptive to copying the idea of satellite messaging. Qualcomm and satellite company Iridium built a working solution and incorporated it into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, only for zero Android manufacturers to support the feature, leading to the dissolution of the partnership. If Google wants an Android satellite SMS phone to play with, it seems like it will need to build the device itself.

Reliable leaker Kamila Wojciechowska over at Android Authority says Google is working on doing just that. It looks like the Pixel 9 will be getting emergency satellite SOS. Since the Pixel 6, Pixel phones have been the rare devices that don’t use Qualcomm modems. Google partners with Samsung and bases its Pixel Tensor chips on Samsung Exynos chips, and that means using Samsung’s (usually much maligned) modems, too. Citing a source, Wojciechowska says the Pixel 9 would use the new Exynos Modem 5400, along with its optional NTN (non-terrestrial network) capabilities, allowing the phone to be “the first to support Android’s native satellite implementation.” The initial service provider would be T-Mobile (just like the good old days).

The move would make sense. The whole original point of the Nexus/Pixel line was to give Google something to build Android on. By incorporating the latest hardware features into the next Pixel, Android gets a target to program for and test on. Otherwise, we’d have a chicken-and-egg problem where no one makes the hardware because there’s no software support, and no one makes software because there’s no hardware to program for. Google just does it all at once.

As for who would be powering T-Mobile’s satellite network, the company has a high-profile partnership with SpaceX, but those are LTE towers in space and work on regular devices with no special software (the recent demo was on a regular set of iPhones). The whole point of Android’s satellite implementation is dealing with traditional satellite problems like aiming at a far-away satellite, compressing the message a ton to actually make it to the satellite, and dealing with an unreliable connection. That’s not really relevant to the SpaceX partnership since that is trying to be a next-generation solution of “regular LTE in space,” designed around the world’s largest rocket and satellite network.

We’re just speculating here, but a better target for a “current-generation” system would be Skylo, which resells service from traditional satellite companies like Viasat and Inmarsat, so it would need all that aiming and unreliable connection software. In a wild coincidence, Skylo already has a press release out saying it has certified the Samsung Exynos Modem 5400 for use on its network. Skylo already has a relationship with T-Mobile, and the company powered the Motorola Satellite Link hotspot.

The Pixel 9 reportedly gears up for satellite SOS support Read More »

framework’s-software-and-firmware-have-been-a-mess,-but-it’s-working-on-them

Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s working on them

AMD, BIOS, Biz & IT, Features, framework laptop, framework laptop 13, framework laptop 16, intel, Security, Tech / /
The Framework Laptop 13.

Enlarge / The Framework Laptop 13.

Andrew Cunningham

Since Framework showed off its first prototypes in February 2021, we’ve generally been fans of the company’s modular, repairable, upgradeable laptops.

Not that the company’s hardware releases to date have been perfect—each Framework Laptop 13 model has had quirks and flaws that range from minor to quite significant, and the Laptop 16’s upsides struggle to balance its downsides. But the hardware mostly does a good job of functioning as a regular laptop while being much more tinkerer-friendly than your typical MacBook, XPS, or ThinkPad.

But even as it builds new upgrades for its systems, expands sales of refurbished and B-stock hardware as budget options, and promotes the re-use of its products via external enclosures, Framework has struggled with the other side of computing longevity and sustainability: providing up-to-date software.

Driver bundles remain un-updated for years after their initial release. BIOS updates go through long and confusing beta processes, keeping users from getting feature improvements, bug fixes, and security updates. In its community support forums, Framework employees, including founder and CEO Nirav Patel, have acknowledged these issues and promised fixes but have remained inconsistent and vague about actual timelines.

But according to Patel, the company is working on fixing these issues, and it has taken some steps to address them. We spoke to him about the causes of and the solutions to these issues, and the company’s approach to the software side of its efforts to promote repairability and upgradeability.

Promises made

Here’s a case in point: the 12th-generation Intel version of the Framework Laptop 13, which prompted me to start monitoring Framework’s software and firmware updates in the first place.

In November 2022, Patel announced that this model, then the latest version, was getting a nice, free-of-charge spec bump. All four of the laptop’s recessed USB-C ports would now become full-speed Thunderbolt ports. This wasn’t a dramatic functional change, especially for people who were mostly using those ports for basic Framework expansion modules like USB-A or HDMI, but the upgrade opened the door to high-speed external accessories, and all it would need was a BIOS update.

The recessed USB-C ports in the 12th-gen Intel version of the Framework Laptop 13 can be upgraded to fully certified Thunderbolt ports, but only if you're willing to install one in a long series of still-in-testing beta BIOSes.

Enlarge / The recessed USB-C ports in the 12th-gen Intel version of the Framework Laptop 13 can be upgraded to fully certified Thunderbolt ports, but only if you’re willing to install one in a long series of still-in-testing beta BIOSes.

Andrew Cunningham

A final version of this BIOS update finally showed up this week, nearly a year and a half later. Up until last week, Framework’s support page for that 12th-gen Intel laptop still said that there was “no new BIOS available” for a laptop that began shipping in the summer of 2022. This factory-installed BIOS, version 3.04, also didn’t include fixes for the LogoFAIL UEFI security vulnerability or any other firmware-based security patches that have cropped up in the last year and a half.

And it’s not just that the updates don’t come out in a timely way; the company has been bad about estimating when they might come out. That old12th-gen Framework BIOS also didn’t support the 61 WHr battery that the company released in early 2023 alongside the 13th-gen Intel refresh. Framework originally told me that BIOS update would be out in May of 2023. A battery-supporting update for the 11th-gen Intel version was also promised in May 2023; it came out this past January.

Framework has been trying, but it keeps running into issues. A beta 3.06 BIOS update with the promised improvements for the 12th-gen Intel Framework Laptop was posted back in December of 2022, but a final version was never released. The newer 3.08 BIOS beta entered testing in January 2024 but still gave users some problems. Users would go for weeks or months without any communication from anyone at Framework.

The result is multiple long forum threads of frustrated users asking for updates, interspersed with not-untrue but unsatisfying responses from Framework employees (some version of “we’re a small company” is one of the most common).

Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s working on them Read More »

tsmc’s-$65-billion-bet-still-leaves-us-missing-piece-of-chip-puzzle

TSMC’s $65 billion bet still leaves US missing piece of chip puzzle

semiconductors, syndication, Tech, TSMC / /
President Biden speaking at the official opening of TSMC’s first Arizona fabrication plant in December 2022. The Taiwanese chipmaker plans to start manufacturing 2-nanometer chips in the US in 2028.

Enlarge / President Biden speaking at the official opening of TSMC’s first Arizona fabrication plant in December 2022. The Taiwanese chipmaker plans to start manufacturing 2-nanometer chips in the US in 2028.

Caitlin O’Hara/Bloomberg via Getty

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s decision to bring its latest technology to America is a big step forward for US President Joe Biden’s quest for security in the vital tech supply chain—but still leaves Washington short of being able to completely produce the most complex chips in the US.

The world’s biggest chipmaker by sales must also pull off an intricate balancing act as it steps up its US presence, satisfying customers such as Nvidia without damaging its highly profitable business model, which has underpinned the development of the global semiconductor industry for more than 30 years.

TSMC’s planned $65 billion of investments in Arizona are part of a construction race in the US that involves other global chipmakers such as Samsung and Intel, which are also taking big subsidies from Washington.

But producing chips for purposes such as AI is still likely to involve plants in Asia, a reflection of the complexity involved in packaging various types of chip together to boost their performance and efficiency.

“It’s really not that simple to onshore everything. Having the logic [chip] foundry in the US and then a bit of the packaging there is not enough,” said Myron Xie, an analyst at boutique consultancy SemiAnalysis.

TSMC—which makes chips under contract at hugely complex and expensive fabrication plants, or fabs—plans to start manufacturing 2-nanometer chips in the US in 2028. This is an upgrade from the company’s previous plans. At that time 2 nm technology is expected to be the latest in mass production worldwide, whereas previously the company had intended each new US fab to start operating with process technology one generation behind Taiwan.

TSMC has also committed to offer a third plant using 2 nm or even newer technology by 2030.

Washington is paying a hefty price for the upgrade, with US$6.6 billion in grants and up to $5 billion in loans for TSMC. The money comes from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which aims to onshore advanced chipmaking for the US. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has said the US will be on track to make about 20 percent of the world’s most advanced chips by the end of the decade.

But while Washington’s money offers some incentive, TSMC’s most important motive for stepping up its commitment to the US was to bring its own US strategy in line with the needs of Nvidia and other vendors of the AI chips that have become the most potent driver of global semiconductor demand.

FT

While TSMC will kick off 2 nm volume production in Taiwan next year, its original plans would have offered less powerful 3 nm chips only from 2028 in the US, putting it years behind the AI chip cycle, analysts said.

TSMC’s $65 billion bet still leaves US missing piece of chip puzzle Read More »

sd-cards-finally-expected-to-hit-4tb-in-2025

SD cards finally expected to hit 4TB in 2025

microSD, SanDisk, SD cards, Tech, Western Digital / /

Not quite at 128TB yet —

For media pros’ cameras and laptops.

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Two SD cards on a wood surface

Enlarge / Generic, non-Western Digital SD cards.

Western Digital plans to release the first 4TB SD card next year. On Thursday, the storage firm announced plans to demo the product in person next week.

Western Digital will launch the SD card, which follows the SD Association’s Secure Digital Ultra Capacity (SDUC) standard, under its SanDisk brand and market it toward “complex media and entertainment workflows,” such as high-resolution video with high framerates, using cameras and laptops, the announcement said.

The spacious card will use the Ultra High Speed-1 (UHS-1) bus interface, supporting max theoretical transfer rates of up to 104 MB per second. It will support minimum write speeds of 10 MB/s, AnandTech reported. Minimum sequential write speeds are expected to reach 30 MB/s, the publication said.

With those specs, the upcoming SD card should be able to fit storage-hungry video formats, including 8K, although the card won’t be speedy enough to support raw 8K video recording. That helps explain why Western Digital is initially previewing the offering at The National Association of Broadcasters’ annual event for broadcast and media professionals, which starts tomorrow in Las Vegas.

“Attendees will get a preview of the 4TB SD card’s full capacity and learn more about how it will expand the creative possibilities for cameras and laptops,” Western Digital said.

Hopefully, Western Digital will provide more information about the SD card at the event, as this week’s announcement didn’t go into further details, such as the type of NAND the card will use or whether it will support the SanDisk-created DDR200/DDR208 mode, which could enable higher data transfer speeds of up to 170 MB/s (but only with a host that supports that mode).

Western Digital didn’t say what the SD card would cost, but with its advanced capabilities and targeted audience of professional creators, the offering will likely have premium pricing. The 1TB SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I Card currently has a $140 MSRP.

WD’s announcement comes six years after the SD Association, which writes SD standards, announced the SDUC standard that bumped the max possible capacity for SD cards from 2TB to 128TB. As with many releases of new standards, some were eager to believe that “SD cards could soon hold 128TB of storage.” But with 4TB not expected to arrive until 2025 (assuming there are no delays), “soon,” even today, is unrealistic. The 2018 standard only made such capacities a possibility. At the time, the max theoretical capacities for an SD card had been 2TB for about nine years, but the most spacious SD cards actually available for purchase at the time were 512GB.

Today, the highest capacity SD cards readily available are 1TB (Western Digital also this week announced plans to release a 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I memory card at an unspecified date), while 2TB microSD cards only became available this year.

With Western Digital’s announcement, the industry inches closer to SD cards’ maximum potential. For professionals with high-storage needs, that’s exciting news, as having more capable technology opens more possibiltiies, like working with high-res media.

However, Western Digital’s announcement also comes as SanDisk’s reputation for reliable storage is in serious question by professional and long-time customers. There are multiple lawsuits about SanDisk Extreme portable SSDs reportedly failing unexpectedly. These alleged failures, combined with frustration around Western Digital’s limited response to reported data losses, could have professionals with work-critical storage needs consider waiting for another brand to make the leap to 4TB.

SD cards finally expected to hit 4TB in 2025 Read More »

the-diskmantler-violently-shakes-hard-drives-for-better-rare-earth-recovery

The DiskMantler violently shakes hard drives for better rare-earth recovery

e-waste, electronics recycling, hard drives, hdd, hdds, rare earth, rare earth elements, rare earth magnets, rare earth metals, Tech / /

Rare-earth magnet recycling —

A nifty HDD disassembly tool, sure, but we also have a larger global need for magnets.

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From magnets we came, to magnets we return.

Enlarge / From magnets we came, to magnets we return.

Garner Products

There is the mental image that most people have of electronics recycling, and then there is the reality, which is shredding.

Less than 20 percent of e-waste even makes it to recycling. That which does is, if not acquired through IT asset disposition (ITAD) or spotted by a worker who sees some value, heads into the shredder for raw metals extraction. If you’ve ever toured an electronics recycling facility, you can see for yourself how much of your stuff eventually gets chewed into little bits, whether due to design, to unprofitable reuse markets, or sheer volume concerns.

Traditional hard drives have some valuable things inside them—case, cover, circuit boards, drive assemblies, actuators, and rare-earth magnets—but only if they avoid the gnashing teeth. That’s where the DiskMantler comes in. Garner Products, a data elimination firm, has a machine that it claims can process 500 hard drives (the HDD kind) per day in a way that leaves a drive separated into those useful components. And the DiskMantler does this by shaking the thing to death (video).

  • Insert the drive into the DiskMantler like you’re nostalgic for the VCR days.

    Garner Products

  • The DiskMantler shakes the drive until the screws fly out of the thing.

    Garner Products

  • The disassembled drive pops out or lands on a conveyor belt.

    Garner Products

  • The component parts that the DiskMantler breaks down to.

    Garner Products

  • The DiskMantler itself, which needs an air supply and power.

    Garner Products

The DiskMantler, using “shock, harmonics, and vibration,” vibrates most drives into pieces in between 8–90 seconds, depending on how much separation you want. Welded helium drives take about two minutes. The basic science for how this works came from Gerhard Junker, the perfectly named German scientist who fully explored the power of vibrations, or “shear loading perpendicular to the fastener axis,” to loosen screws and other fasteners.

As Garner’s chief global development officer, Michael Harstrick, told E-Scrap News, the device came about when a client needed a way to extract circuit boards from drives fastened with proprietary screw heads. Prying or other destruction would have been too disruptive and potentially damaging. After testing different power levels and durations, Garner arrived at a harmonic vibration device that can take apart pretty much any drive, even those with more welding than screws. “They still come apart,” Harstrick told E-Scrap News. “It just takes a little bit.”

Improving the recovery and sorting ease of hard drives is itself a useful thing, but the potential for rare-earth magnet recycling is particularly attractive. Most rare-earth magnet recycling involves “long-loop” recycling, or breaking them down into rare earth elements and then putting those back into the magnet production stream, which is energy-intensive and not very cost-effective. Electric vehicles and wind turbines have huge amounts of rare-earth magnets in them but rarely see recycling. Hard drives, while individually small, are massive in scale, with roughly 259 million shipped in 2021.

One Canadian firm, based on a University of Birmingham-patented process, wants to reuse drive magnets more directly, creating new sources that don’t require extraction and aren’t quite so globally concentrated. That Canadian firm, HyProMag, uses robotics to find and extract drives’ permanent magnets, then sends the rest of the disk off for recycling.

The technology is not all there yet, but soon enough, it looks like something interesting will shake out.

The DiskMantler violently shakes hard drives for better rare-earth recovery Read More »

google-kills-“one”-vpn-service,-says-“people-simply-weren’t-using-it”

Google kills “One” VPN service, says “people simply weren’t using it”

Google, google one, Tech / /

The Venn diagram of “I want a VPN” and “I trust Google” has no overlap —

Did anyone want a VPN from the Internet’s largest data collector?

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Google kills “One” VPN service, says “people simply weren’t using it”

Aurich Lawson

Another day, another dead Google product. The Google One VPN service we complained about last week is headed to the chopping block. Google’s support documents haven’t been updated yet, but Android Authority reported on an email going out to Google One users informing them of the shutdown. 9to5Google also got confirmation of the shutdown from Google.

The Google One VPN launched in 2020 as a bonus feature for paying Google One subscribers. Google One is Google’s cloud storage subscription plan that allows users to buy extra storage for Gmail, Drive, and Google Photos. In 2020, the plan was exclusive to the expensive 2TB tier for $10 a month, but later, it was brought down to all Google One tiers, including the entry-level $2-per-month option.

By our count, Google has three VPN products, though “products” might be too strong a word since they are all essentially the same thing—VPN market segments? There’s the general Google One VPN for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac—this is the one that’s dying. There’s also the “Pixel VPN by Google One,” which came with Pixel phones (the “Google One” branding here makes no sense since you didn’t have to subscribe to Google One) and the Google Fi VPN that’s exclusive to Google Fi Android and iOS customers.

The Google One VPN settings.

Enlarge / The Google One VPN settings.

Google

The Google One VPN that’s shutting down was by far the most flexible, with the widest platform support, and its shutdown represents Google ending VPN support for Windows and Mac. The Pixel and Fi VPNs will keep running, possibly with new branding.

A Google spokesperson told 9to5Google the Google One VPN is shutting down because “people simply weren’t using it.” The Windows client was also super buggy, and it’s probably easier to shut it down rather than fix it. There’s no shutdown date yet, but a message on this page says the VPN will be phased out “later in 2024.”

Google kills “One” VPN service, says “people simply weren’t using it” Read More »

amazon-virtually-kills-efforts-to-develop-alexa-skills,-disappointing-dozens

Amazon virtually kills efforts to develop Alexa Skills, disappointing dozens

alexa, Amazon, amazon alexa, developers, generative ai, Tech / /

disincentives —

Most devs would need to pay out of pocket to host Alexa apps after June.

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amazon echo dot gen 4

Enlarge / The 4th-gen Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker.

Amazon

Alexa hasn’t worked out the way Amazon originally planned.

There was a time when it thought that Alexa would yield a robust ecosystem of apps, or Alexa Skills, that would make the voice assistant an integral part of users’ lives. Amazon envisioned tens of thousands of software developers building valued abilities for Alexa that would grow the voice assistant’s popularity—and help Amazon make some money.

But about seven years after launching a rewards program to encourage developers to build Skills, Alexa’s most preferred abilities are the basic ones, like checking the weather. And on June 30, Amazon will stop giving out the monthly Amazon Web Services credits that have made it free for third-party developers to build and host Alexa Skills. The company also recently told devs that its Alexa Developer Rewards program was ending, virtually disincentivizing third-party devs to build for Alexa.

Death knell for third-party Alexa apps

The news has left dozens of Alexa Skills developers wondering if they have a future with Alexa, especially as Amazon preps a generative AI and subscription-based version of Alexa. “Dozens” may sound like a dig at Alexa’s ecosystem, but it’s an estimation based on a podcast from Skills developers Mark Tucker and Allen Firstenberg, who, in a recent podcast, agreed that “dozens” of third-party devs were contemplating if it’s still worthwhile to develop Alexa skills. The casual summary wasn’t stated as a hard fact or confirmed by Amazon but, rather, seemed like a rough and quick estimation based on the developers’ familiarity with the Skills community. But with such minimal interest and money associated with Skills, dozens isn’t an implausible figure either.

Amazon admitted that there’s little interest in its Skills incentives programs. Bloomberg reported that “fewer than 1 percent of developers were using the soon-to-end programs,” per Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild.

“Today, with over 160,000 skills available for customers and a well-established Alexa developer community, these programs have run their course, and we decided to sunset them,” she told the publication.

The writing on the wall, though, is that Amazon doesn’t have the incentive or money to grow the Alexa app ecosystem it once imagined. Voice assistants largely became money pits, and the Alexa division has endured recent layoffs as it fights for survival and relevance. Meanwhile, Google Assistant stopped using third-party apps in 2022.

“Many developers are now going to need to make some tough decisions about maintaining existing or creating future experiences on Alexa,” Tucker said via a LinkedIn post.

Alexa Skills criticized as “useless”

As of this writing, the top Alexa skills, in order, are: Jeopardy, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and Calm. That’s not exactly a futuristic list of must-have technological feats. For years, people have wondered when the “killer app” would come to catapult Alexa’s popularity. But now it seems like Alexa’s only hope at that killer use case is generative AI (a gamble filled with its own obstacles).

But like Amazon, third-party developers found it hard to make money off Skills, with a rare few pointing to making thousands of dollars at most and the vast majority not making anything.

“If you can’t make money off it, no one’s going to seriously engage,” Joseph “Jo” Jaquinta, a developer who had made over 12 Skills, told CNET in 2017.

By 2018, Amazon had paid developers millions to grow Alexa Skills. But by 2020, Amazon reduced the amount of money it paid out to third-party developers, an anonymous source told Bloomberg, The source noted that the apps made by paid developers weren’t making the company much money. Come 2024, the most desirable things you can make Alexa do remain basic tasks, like playing a song and apparently trivia games.

Amazon hasn’t said it’s ending Skills. That would seem premature considering that its Alexa chatbot isn’t expected until June. Developers can still make money off Skills with in-app purchases, but the incentive is minimal.

“Developers like you have and will play a critical role in the success of Alexa, and we appreciate your continued engagement,” Amazon’s notice to devs said, per Bloomberg.

We’ll see how “critical” Amazon treats those remaining developers once its generative AI chatbot is ready.

Amazon virtually kills efforts to develop Alexa Skills, disappointing dozens Read More »

google-cloud-rolls-out-self-designed-arm-chips-in-its-data-centers

Google Cloud rolls out self-designed Arm chips in its data centers

Google, Tech / /

This post hosted by AWS —

Google Axion-based VMs will be out in preview in the coming months.

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A Google Axion Processor.

Enlarge / A Google Axion Processor.

Google

Google is joining the custom Arm data center chip trend. Google Cloud, the cloud platform division that competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, is following in the footsteps of those companies and rolling out its own Arm-based chip designs. Google says its new “Google Axion Processors” are “custom Arm-based CPUs designed for the data center” and offer “industry-leading performance and energy efficiency.”

Google has been developing custom data center accelerators for things like AI and video transcoding, but this is the first time the company is making a CPU. Google says it’s seeing “50% better performance and up to 60% better energy-efficiency than comparable current-generation x86-based instances.“

Google’s “Axion” chip is based on the Arm Neoverse V2 CPU, so just like the ARM chips we see on mobile devices, by making “custom” chips, these companies are closely following a lot of blueprints that Arm makes available. Google says it did include a custom microcontroller called “Titanium,” which it says handles networking, security, and storage I/O.

This is Google Cloud, so you won’t be buying anything with an “Axion” chip in it. You can pay for cloud processing that uses the new CPU, with Google naming “Google Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Dataproc, Dataflow, Cloud Batch, and more” as services that will use the new chip. Some of these services bill by “vCPU” usage, so theoretically a faster CPU could lead to lower prices, but Google doesn’t spell that out in the post. Internally Google is also moving BigTable, Spanner, BigQuery, Blobstore, Pub/Sub, Google Earth Engine, and the YouTube Ads platform from its current Arm servers to this new custom one soon.

It’s a bit strange to tout a new cloud infrastructure CPU when the whole point of services like AWS and Google Cloud is that you don’t have to worry about the server. The services you were running will continue to run, while companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft can take care of all that complicated hardware and network data center stuff. Google says that Axion VMs will be available as a “preview” in “the coming months” and that Cloud customers can sign up for access.

Google Cloud rolls out self-designed Arm chips in its data centers Read More »

fairbuds-are-fairphone’s-proof-that-we-really-could-make-better-tiny-gadgets

Fairbuds are Fairphone’s proof that we really could make better tiny gadgets

airpods, Apple, e-waste, electronics recycling, fairbuds, fairphone, recycling, Tech, wireless earbuds / /

Wireless earbud repairability —

Swap the batteries, tips, charging case, shell, or even just individual buds.

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Fairbuds with all their components laid out on a blue background

Enlarge / The Fairbuds and their replaceable components, including the notably hand-friendly, non-soldered batteries.

Fairphone

Fairphone has spent years showing us that it could do what major phone manufacturers suggest is impossible: make a modern-looking phone, make it brazenly easy to open up, design it so battery swaps are something you could do on lunch break, and also provide software support for an unbelievable eight to 10 years.

Bluetooth headphones, specifically wireless earbuds, seemed destined to never receive this kind of eco-friendly, ownership-oriented upgrade, in large part because of how small they are. But the Fairbuds have arrived, and Fairphone has made them in its phones’ image. They’re only available in the EU at the moment, for 149 euro (or roughly $160 USD). Like the Fairphone 4, there’s a chance interest could bring them to the US.

The highlights include:

  • Seven replaceable parts from the buds and charging case, all sold by Fairphone
  • A two-year warranty, expanded to three if you register them
  • Batteries in both the case and buds that are replaceable
  • IP54 sweat and water resistance
  • Individual left or right buds and a charging case that Fairphone will sell to you
  • Made with “fair and recycled materials,” in “fair factories,” and “climate conscious and electronic waste neutral,” (as explained by Fairphone).

Of course, the buds also, you know, produce sound, with 11 mm titanium drivers. The Fairbuds sport active noise-canceling and ambient sound modes, Bluetooth 5.3 with “dual point connectivity” for quick-switching between devices, and a Fairbuds app for customizing EQ and preset settings. The buds’ 45 mAh batteries carry about six hours of listening per charge, and their 500 mAh case adds another 20 hours.

  • Fairbuds in exploded view.

    Fairphone

  • Fairbuds and their charging case, which also come in black.

    Fairphone

  • The battery removal process from a Fairbud.

    Fairphone

  • Closeup on the white Fairbuds.

    Fairphone

  • The back of the Fairbuds charging case and a battery you just… put into it. With your fingers. I’m sorry, it’s weird to type that now.

    Fairphone

It’s not Fairphone’s first foray into fair, repairable sound devices. The firm previously made the since-discontinued True Wireless Stereo Earbuds and still offers Fairbuds XL, which are not buds at all but full over-ear headphones (and also EU-only).

The best that major-brand earbuds have ever done in repairability is “maybe you can do it, if you’re careful, and you don’t mind losing water resistance.” Taylor Dixon took apart six buds for iFixit back in 2020, and only Sony’s WF-1000XM3 didn’t require soldering, cutting and re-applying glue, and a steady hand working in very small spaces.

AirPods? AirPods are something else. One firm, The Swap Club, has figured out some means of getting the battery out of AirPods and selling them refurbished. But they only accept regular AirPods, not AirPods Pro. Alternatively, Apple will send you a pre-paid label to send in your spent AirPods for recycling, though with no trade-in credit. Even if Apple gets some kind of material out of the AirPods, a lot of them (and nearly every other wireless earbud) end up as waste after 18 months or however long their batteries last.

Fairbuds may or may not take a big chunk out of the market for AirPods, Beats, Pixel Buds, or other use-and-toss airbuds. But at a minimum, they give people something to point to as proof this category could be a lot better.

Disclosure: Kevin Purdy used to work for iFixit. He has no financial ties to the company.

Listing image by Fairphone

Fairbuds are Fairphone’s proof that we really could make better tiny gadgets Read More »

“google-vids”-is-google’s-fourth-big-productivity-app-for-workspace

“Google Vids” is Google’s fourth big productivity app for Workspace

Google, Tech / /

Please don’t bore your co-workers —

Google’s “video editor” feels more like a souped-up version of Google Slides.

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  • Is that Google Slides? Nope it’s Google Vids, the new video editor that seems to just make souped-up slideshows.

    Google

  • Google’s demo starts with an existing slideshow and then generates an outline.

    Google

  • Choose a theme, which all look like PowerPoints.

    Google

  • Write a script, preferably with the help of Google Gemini.

    Google

  • You can record a voiceover, or pick from Google’s robot voices.

    Google

  • This is a Google Workspace app, so there’s lots of realtime collaboration features, like these live mouse cursors that were brought over from Slides.

    Google

  • Comments work too.

    Google

  • It’s interesting you get a “stock media” library while apps like Slides would use generative AI images here.

    Google

  • Record a talk from your webcam.

    Google

  • Embed your video in the slideshow.

    Google

If you had asked me before what Google’s video editor app was, I would say “YouTube Studio,” but now Google Workspace has a new productivity app called “Google Vids.” Normally a video editor is considered a secondary application in many productivity suites, but Google apparently imagines Vids as a major pillar of Workspace, saying Vids is an “all-in-one video creation app for work that will sit alongside Docs, Sheets and Slides.” So, that is an editor for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and videos?

Google’s demo of the new video editor pitches the product not for YouTube videos or films but more as a corporate super slideshow for things like training materials or product demos. Really, this “video editor” almost looks like it could completely replace Google Slides since the interface is just Slides but with a video timeline instead of a slideshow timeline.

Google’s example video creates a “sales training video” that starts with a Slides presentation as the basic outline. You start with an outline editor, where each slideshow page gets its own major section. Google then has video “styles” you can pick from, which all seem very Powerpoint-y with a big title, subheading, and a slot for some kind of video. Google then wants you to write a script and either read it yourself or have a text-to-speech voice read the script. A “stock media” library lets you fill in some of those video slots with generic corporate imagery like a video of a sunset, choose background music, and use a few pictures. You can also fire up your webcam and record something, sort of like a pre-canned Zoom meeting. After that it’s a lot of the usual Google productivity app features: real-time editing collaboration with visible mouse cursors from each participant and a stream of comments.

Like all Google products after the rise of OpenAI, Google pitches Vids as an “AI-powered” video editor, even though there didn’t seem to be many generative AI features in the presentation. The videos, images, and music were “stock” media, not AI-generated inventions (Slides can generate images, but that wasn’t in this demo). There’s nothing in here like OpenAI’s “Sora,” which generates new videos out of its training data. There’s probably a Gemini-powered “help me write” feature for the script, and Google describes the initial outline as “generated” from your starting Slides presentation, but that seemed to be it.

Google says Vids is being released to “Workspace Labs” in June, so you’ll be able to opt in to testing it.

Listing image by Google

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Intel is investigating game crashes on top-end Core i9 desktop CPUs

Alder Lake, CPU, desktop CPU, gaming, gaming PC, intel, intel core, raptor lake, Tech / /

i’m giving her all she’s got —

Crashes may be related to CPUs running above their specified power limits.

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Intel's high-end Core i9-13900K and 14900K are reportedly having crashing problems in some games.

Enlarge / Intel’s high-end Core i9-13900K and 14900K are reportedly having crashing problems in some games.

Andrew Cunningham

If you own a recent high-end Intel desktop CPU and you’ve been running into weird game crashes lately, you’re not alone.

Scattered reports from Core i9-13900K and i9-14900K users over the last couple of months have pointed to processor power usage as a possible source of crashes even in relatively undemanding games like Fortnite. Games like Hogwarts Legacy, Remnant 2, Alan Wake 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 1, and Outpost: Infinity Siege have also reportedly been affected; the problem primarily seems to affect titles made with Epic’s Unreal Engine. Intel said in a statement to ZDNet Korea (via The Verge) that it’s looking into the problems, escalating it from an “isolated issue” to something that may be more widespread and could require a more systemic fix.

Related CPUs like the i9-13900KF, i9-14900KF, i9-13900KS, and i9-14900KS may be affected, too, since they’re all the same basic silicon. Some user reports have also indicated that the i7-13700K and i7-14700K series may also be affected.

“Intel is aware of reports regarding Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen unlocked desktop processors experiencing issues with certain workloads,” an Intel spokesperson told Ars. “We’re engaged with our partners and are conducting analysis of the reported issues.”

While Intel hasn’t indicated what it thinks could be causing the issue, support documents from Epic Games and other developers have suggested that the processors’ power settings are to blame, recommending that users change their BIOS settings or manually restrict their processors’ speed with tools like Intel’s Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU). Most enthusiast motherboards will set the power limits on Intel’s processors to be essentially infinite, squeezing out a bit more performance (especially for i7 and i9 chips) at the expense of increased power use and heat.

Epic suggests using a BIOS power setting called “Intel Fail Safe” on Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte motherboards—its name makes it sound like some kind of low-power safe mode, but it’s most likely just setting the processors’ power limits to Intel’s specified defaults. This could result in somewhat reduced performance, particularly when all CPU cores are active at the same time. But we and other reviewers have seen sharply diminishing returns when letting these chips use more power. This can even be a problem with Intel’s stock settings—the recently announced i9-14900KS can use as much as 31 percent more power than the standard i9-14900K while delivering just 1 or 2 percent faster performance.

If power limits are to blame, the good news is that users can adjust these in the short term and that motherboard makers could fix the problem in the long run by tweaking their default settings in future BIOS updates.

Updated April 9, 2024, at 2: 12 pm to add Intel spokesperson statement.

Intel is investigating game crashes on top-end Core i9 desktop CPUs Read More »

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AI hardware company from Jony Ive, Sam Altman seeks $1 billion in funding

AI, Apple, Emerson Collective, Jonathan Ive, Jony Ive, Laurene Powell Jobs, openai, sam altman, Tech, vc / /

AI Boom —

A venture fund founded by Laurene Powell Jobs could finance the company.

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Jony Ive, the former Apple designer.

Jony Ive, the former Apple designer.

Former Apple design lead Jony Ive and current OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are seeking funding for a new company that will produce an “artificial intelligence-powered personal device,” according to The Information‘s sources, who are said to be familiar with the plans.

The exact nature of the device is unknown, but it will not look anything like a smartphone, according to the sources. We first heard tell of this venture in the fall of 2023, but The Information’s story reveals that talks are moving forward to get the company off the ground.

Ive and Altman hope to raise at least $1 billion for the new company. The complete list of potential funding sources they’ve spoken with is unknown, but The Information’s sources say they are in talks with frequent OpenAI investor Thrive Capital as well as Emerson Collective, a venture capital firm founded by Laurene Powell Jobs.

SoftBank CEO and super-investor Masayoshi Son is also said to have spoken with Altman and Ive about the venture. Financial Times previously reported that Son wanted Arm (another company he has backed) to be involved in the project.

Obviously, those are some of the well-established and famous names within today’s tech industry. Personal connections may play a role; for example, Jobs is said to have a friendship with both Ive and Altman. That might be critical because the pedigree involved could scare off smaller investors since the big names could drive up the initial cost of investment.

Although we don’t know anything about the device yet, it would likely put Ive in direct competition with his former employer, Apple. It has been reported elsewhere that Apple is working on bringing powerful new AI features to iOS 18 and later versions of the software for iPhones, iPads, and the company’s other devices.

Altman already has his hands in several other AI ventures besides OpenAI. The Information reports that there is no indication yet that OpenAI would be directly involved in the new hardware company.

AI hardware company from Jony Ive, Sam Altman seeks $1 billion in funding Read More »