Google just announced the third generation of Wear OS-powered devices since its return to the smartwatch domain. We say devices because this time around, there are two variants — a standard 41mm model and a larger 45mm version.
Apart from the additional bigger size option, the Pixel Watch 3 looks nearly identical to last year’s Pixel Watch 2. So, if you bought the latter in 2023, does upgrading make sense? Or, if you’ve been eyeing the Pixel Watch, you could get a discounted price on the previous generation, so should you buy the Pixel Watch 2 instead?
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These are two very important questions. Let us answer them for you in the comparison below.
The Google Pixel Watch 3 comes in a circular outer body without many visible changes from last year’s model. The addition of a bigger 45mm is perhaps the biggest change in hardware we see this year. Despite the wider landscape, the 45mm is as thick as the smaller 41mm variant, which remains largely unchanged from last year. We found that the underside of the Pixel Watch 3 does pick up a lot of scratches very easily, so it’s worth keeping this in mind.
The watch has a rotating crown/button combo placed almost flush with the body, which is made of 100% recycled aluminum, and comes in clear silver, champagne gold, or matte black finishes paired to the same band colors last year — except for a new “Rose Quartz” that is limited to the smaller 41mm variant. The Bay Blue band option will no longer be an option in the default set but you can purchase other blue bands — besides chains, metal links, fabrics, and a whole range of options — separately.
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While the design lacks any radical changes over the previous generation, the display gets a major upgrade. Both the 41mm and the 45mm models get a newer variant of Google’s “Actua” displays with a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. That’s twice as bright as the 1,000-nit display on the Pixel Watch 2. In addition to getting brighter, the display can also get as low as 1 nit on the always-on display (AOD), so it doesn’t scorch your eyes in the dark.
The new display also gets variable refresh rate that reaches as low as 1Hz when needed. The primary objective here is to reduce battery consumption, especially with an AOD.
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In addition, the displays feature slimmer bezels. Google says the 41mm’s display is now 10% bigger than last year despite any changes to the overall dimensions. Irrespective of their sizes, both displays get the same level of sharpness at 320 ppi (pixels per inch), so you shouldn’t have any trouble reading text, though interacting with the watch, and especially typing on a full-sized keyboard, is likely to be better on the 45mm variant. The bigger variant’s screen is 40% larger than that of the previous models, and this makes for a much better viewing experience, including seeing more information in notifications.
Other than the display, there aren’t any noticeable changes to the hardware on the Pixel Watch 3. Google doesn’t explicitly list any upgrades to the set of sensors on the Pixel Watch 3 over the last generation, and we can take this silence as a sign of no reasonable upgrades.
That said, the Pixel Watch 2 already had a versatile set of sensors. In addition to the standard heart rate and blood-oxygen monitor sensors, the Pixel Watch 2 — and now the Watch 3 — features sensors to monitor skin temperature and ECG. Meanwhile, another dedicated sensor to measure electrical conductance in the skin can detect changes in mood and alert you in moments of stress. Though being reminded of your worries may not be useful for everyone, it may be helpful for people who suffer physiological conditions with stress as a sign of worsening symptoms.
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Inside, the Pixel Watch 3 still uses a Snapdragon Wear 5100 chip with an M33 co-processor for low-level tasks such as AOD. The two-chip configuration helps limit the load on the main chip, thereby reducing the battery consumption. It’s backed up by a 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage, the same as the previous generation.
Although the Pixel Watch 3 lacks any notable changes to sensors for fitness tracking, Google advertises a wide range of improvements using AI. Google claims the improved training algorithms, part of the Fitbit Premium experience, now offer more precise recommendations and insight so you can adjust the intensity of your training. The Pixel Watch 3 will also give you a rundown of your condition at the start of the day with Fitbit’s Morning Brief functionality. This includes insights about your sleep quality, any overnight changes to your vitals, and the weather.
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Additionally, you will now be able to create routines with the Pixel Watch 3, including a sequence of difference workouts and buffers in between for rest or cooldown. You can also desired targets for distance, heart rate, and similar metrics, and the Pixel Watch 3 ensures you keep up or slow down accordingly by using audio-based and haptic reminders. For running-related activities, the Pixel Watch 3 is gaining additional metrics such as vertical oscillation and duration of contact with the ground.
Furthermore, the Pixel Watch 3 now shows a Readiness score with an improved AI while Cardio Load tells you the ideal amount of activity you should pursue on any specific day based on various metrics, including recovery from sleep and similar workouts in the past.
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There are also new running recommendations powered by AI that use your Readiness Score, Target Load and running preference to provide a daily recommended run plan. As we found in our Pixel Watch 3 review, having your watch tell you precisely the kind of run to undertake is incredibly helpful in improving the variety of your running, making warm-ups more consistent, and ensuring you can enjoy running more. Like detailed sleep tracking, mindfulness sessions, guided workouts and recipes, this feature is locked behind Fitbit Premium — which costs $10 per month or $80 per year — although you will get six months for free when you buy the Pixel Watch 3.
The Pixel Watch 3 runs the newest version of Wear OS 5, although you may not notice many visual differences from the older Wear OS 4. In addition to the already existing Google Home controls on the Pixel Watch 2, the Watch 3 also gain controls to your TVs and dongles running Google TV, which presumably also includes the new Streamer box Google announced last week. In addition, you can also view and control your Nest cameras, including being able to talk to people through a Nest doorbell.
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Since all of these features are available through software, Google might roll them out to the Pixel Watch 2 or even the older first-gen Watch when they receive the Wear OS 5.0 update.
The smaller 41mm Pixel Watch 3 gets the same 309mAh battery as the older Pixel Watch 2, which can last over a day of usage with the AOD enabled. The larger 45mm variant comes with a bigger 420mAh battery adjusted for the higher power requirements of the larger display. For both of these sizes, Google claims a 24-hour battery life with an AOD and 36 hours with the battery saver.
In our testing, we’ve found that the Pixel Watch 3 regularly exceeds its stated claims, a surprise given this rarely happens. The Pixel Watch 3 lasts around a day and a half between charges with the always-on-display enabled, multiple tracked workouts, sleep tracking overnight, and notifications being delivered all day. This is a definite improvement over the Pixel Watch 2.
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The Pixel Watch 3 comes the same magnetic puck with physical pogo pin connectors for charging. Without disclosing the exact charging speeds, Google says charging is 20% faster than last year. As per official claims, the 41mm variant charges 80% in 35 minutes (compared to 43 minutes earlier) while a full charge takes an hour. The larger variant will take slightly longer, owing to the larger battery. Google says the bigger Pixel Watch 3 can charge 80% in 50 minutes, while a full charge takes 80 minutes.
Once again, we will test these claims in real-life scenarios during our review.
The Pixel Watch 3 is available now. The smaller 41mm Pixel Watch 3 is priced at $349 without cellular connectivity and $449 with it. The larger 45mm variant is available for $399 and $449 without and with LTE, respectively.
In comparison, the Pixel Watch 2 launched originally for $350 and $400 for Wi-Fi only and cellular variants. However, over the course of the months since its launch, the prices have dipped, and even reached as low as $270 for the sale events such as the recent Amazon Prime Day in July.
The Pixel Watch 3 barely picks up any new features over the Watch 2, apart from a variant with a larger display. That means if you already own a Pixel Watch 2, upgrading makes little sense.
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However, if you want to buy one and are deciding between the Pixel Watch 3 and the Watch 2, we recommend going for the former. In addition to a new version of Wear OS and improved health metrics and AI-based recommendations, the Pixel Watch 3 will also get an additional year of software support from Google. And if you haven’t bought the Pixel Watch previously due to its smaller size, the new 45mm variant solves that too. Other reasons to choose the Pixel Watch 3 over the Watch 2 include the slightly faster battery backup and the brighter screen.
As we covered in the review, Google has undeniably refined the experience with the Pixel Watch 3. It fixes a few lingering issues from the second-gen model while adding useful features. The result is one of the best smartwatches you can buy right now.
An AI-generated recreation of the classic computer game Doom can be played normally despite having no computer code or graphics. Researchers behind the project say similar AI models could be used to create games from scratch in the future, just as they create text and images today.
The model, called GameNGen, was made by Dani Valevski at Google Research and his colleagues, who declined to speak to New Scientist. According to their paper on the research, the AI can be played for up to 20 seconds while retaining all the features of the original, such as scores, ammunition levels and map layouts. Players can attack enemies, open doors and interact with the environment as usual.
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After this period, the model begins to run out of memory and the illusion falls apart.
The original Doom was released in 1993 and has become a popular subject for computer science projects in the years since, including attempts to get it running on unusual and limited hardware such as toasters, treadmills and espresso machines.
But in all those cases, the hardware is simply running the original game’s code. What GameNGen does is fundamentally different: a type of AI called a neural network has learned by observation how to recreate the game without seeing any of its code.
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The researchers first created an AI model that learned to interact with Doom as a human would. That model was then tasked with playing the game over and over again while a second AI model, based on the Stable Diffusion image generator, learned how hundreds of millions of inputs resulted in changes in the game state.
That second model essentially then became a copy of the game, with all of the knowledge, rules and instructions from the original code encoded in the mysterious network of artificial neurons in its own architecture. In tests, human players were only slightly better than random chance at distinguishing short clips of the game from clips of the AI simulation.
GameNGen’s creators claim in their paper that it is a proof-of-concept for games being created by a neural network rather than lines of code. They suggest that games could be generated from text descriptions or concept art, which would make production less costly than using human programmers.
Andrew Rogoyski at the University of Surrey, UK, says the idea of getting a neural network to hallucinate a game environment, and the interactions a human has with it, is an interesting step forward, but not one that will replace human game designers.
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“I don’t think it’s the end of those game studios. I think what the game studios have is the imagination, the skills, to actually create these worlds, to understand gameplay, to understand engagement, understand how to draw us into a story. It’s not just the nuts and bolts, the bits and bytes,” he says. “There’s something very human about creating engaging experiences that we as human beings enjoy that, at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, will largely come from other human beings.”
With so many streaming services available these days, keeping which shows and movies are on which streaming platforms can be a true hassle. Options like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video deliver top tier programming, but it comes at a cost, one that has continued to rise as major streamers keep raising prices. If you’re looking for a different option, then checking out advertising video on demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services may be just the ticket.
Pluto TV, is one of those AVOD/FAST(we’ll refer to it as free streaming going forward) services that comes at the low, low price of free.
Pluto TV combines live TV with on-demand programming. With more than 250 live channels, and thousands of shows and movies to pick from, there is plenty here to veg out with. It’s also the source of content for Vizio’s WatchFree Plus.
So let’s dive into everything Pluto TV has to offer.
TV is a live-TV streaming service, not entirely unlike Sling TV and competitors such as DirecTV Stream and Hulu + Live TV. Unlike those services, which offer streaming access to channels you’d find on cable TV, Pluto TV offers free content mainly curated from what’s already available online. Pluto TV launched in 2013 and picked up steam fairly quickly. The service has more than 80 million active users as of April 2023, making it one of the largest free TV streaming service in the U.S. While not available worldwide, it is available in Latin America, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Canada.
With Pluto TV, you’ll find content from channels you recognize, as well as some you’ve likely never heard of. Even those who already subscribe to a live TV streaming service may find it useful thanks to its curated layout, though this will depend on your personal preferences.
Pluto TV has a user interface that streamlines the entire process of content discovery and playback. The chief theme in navigation is linearity. The service makes it possible to jump into any of its main live TV categories — sports, movies, news, entertainment, kids, local news etc. — with just one or two clicks. This philosophy extends to the On Demand tab, which offers genre-based categories like while retaining the traditional TV guide’s spirit. Pluto TV is constantly adding new channels, and it also frequently adds new categories. At current count there are 22 to choose from including Classic TV, The Black Collective, History + Science, and Kids, among others.
You’ll now be able to specify your favorite channels, saving you from having to weed through its 1,000-plus channel list. You can also save individual shows, clips, and movies from more than 150,000 hours of unique programming to a watch list. Once you finally decide what you’re watching, you can also access a preview panel that shows more information, such as the cast list, directors, and trailers.
You’d expect to chew through the content library of a free service quickly. Still, there’s a lot to explore on Pluto TV, especially with more than 400 global content partners on board providing entertainment across 1,000-plus channels. Looking through the Pluto TV guide, channels are separated into groups by similarity. You’ll find some relatively standard categories like news, sports, movies, entertainment, and comedy.
News
For the most part, you’re not going to find standard TV channels, though some are represented via their web counterparts, especially news outlets. Those include familiar names like Bloomberg, Cheddar, CNBC, MSNBC, CBSN, and many others. As of 2019, this also includes CNN, though not the full, live CNN you get on cable. Instead, the CNN channel features a curated playlist of short-form digital content from CNN’s anchors and reporters. Featured clips are oriented toward lifestyle and culture, climate change, the environment, and original CNN investigations and interviews. A similar channel for NBC called NBC News Now is also available. Other additions to Pluto TV include CMT, Kevin Hart’s Laugh out Loud, and Red Bull TV, plus a handful of new themed channels in Celebrity, Reality, and Lives, the perfect cocktail for pop culture and reality TV enthusiasts.
Sports
Sports coverage is less conventional — you’re not going to find the likes of ESPN here. Instead, you’ll find choices like Fight, World Poker Tour, Impact Wrestling, a dedicated Sports News Network, Glory Kickboxing, and the Big Sky Network. DAZN recently signed a deal to provide an original weekly series for Pluto TV, and there’s potential for that partnership to expand down the line. Pluto has recently added an official PGA Tour channel with 24/7 coverage of one of golf’s biggest tournaments.
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Entertainment
There are reruns of reality and documentary shows alongside episodes of Thunderbirds, Criminal Minds and other older TV shows available in the Entertainment section. Among those various channels, you’ll also find Wipeout, a network that only shows reruns of popular game show and various iterations from different countries, as well as Nosey, which shows reruns of The Jerry Springer Show and The Maury Show, among others. Meanwhile, the Curiosity section features Science TV, Docu TV, Xive TV, and even a NASA livestream. Pluto TV also has a Sitcoms channel, which offers a selection of older comedies like 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Lucy Show, and a Spanish-language channel called Pluto TV Cine.
Comedy, travel, and more
That type of hyper-focused network is par for the course with Pluto TV, which also features Anime All Day and Stand Up, a channel dedicated to stand-up comedy. Similar channels include Slow TV, which shows relaxing imagery, Pluto TV Travel, and Cats 24/7, which is pretty self-explanatory. Check back during notable seasons like Christmas, and you’re likely to see new temporary channels or a festive explosion of holiday-themed content to enjoy, which is all the more reason to keep checking back for what’s new.
Internet radio
Several internet radio stations are also available via Dash Radio, which is available as a standalone service. Modern genres like hip-hop, electronic music, and pop are the most prevalent, though stations are also available that offer classic rock, soul, and jazz.
International flavor
In the last several years, Pluto TV has been ramping up its international presence. It’s now available in more than 30 countries and territories including the U.S., U.K., Latin America, and Canada, amongst others.
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They’ve ensured that each time they move into a new region, they have the programming to back it up too. In the first year of its U.K. operations, the service added two British-specific channels to its lineup, including a permanent 24/7 Made in Britain lineup that airs British-centric films and shows. The other is Brit-pocalypse, a temporary themed channel that highlights apocalypse and destruction films in British settings. In the Nordics, they partnered with local broadcaster Nordic Entertainment Group. This allowed for 70 unique, locally-focused channels in these locations.
Pluto TV’s on-demand catalog has tons of great movies and TV shows to choose from with thousands of hours of movies and TV. There are classics like I Love Lucy, Matlock, and The Andy Griffith Show, alongside more recent faves like Criminal Minds, and S.W.A.T. to marathon.
The available content changes frequently, with the service promising new movies every week. The rotating selection makes it hard to predict what’s available, and it’s not on par with services like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video by any stretch.Overall, Pluto TV doesn’t match Netflix’s vast expanse of cinematographic excellence. Still, there are enough notable titles to catch your attention, and you may find a hidden gem among the fringe offerings.
On-demand content may not be available on every platform, or at least not all of it may not be available. In our testing, both shows and movies were available on-demand via most of the platforms we tested, including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, iOS, Roku, and Playstation 4 and 5.
Chances are that you own at least one streaming device capable of streaming Pluto TV. The service can be streamed via a web browser and offers desktop apps for both Windows and MacOS. However, they can only be used in the U.S. Mobile apps are also available for iOS and Android devices, with separate U.S. and international versions, which offer different channels due to streaming rights issues.
If you’d rather watch on your TV, several devices including Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Android TV devices, and the PlayStation 5 offer Pluto TV apps. Smart TVs from Samsung, Hisense, Roku, and Vizio are also supported, with the company’s website saying that more are on the way. Not all Pluto TV channels are available on all platforms, however.
Pluto TV celebrated it’s 10th anniversary this year, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere. Unlike previous projects that aimed to provide shows you would otherwise need an antenna for, Pluto TV isn’t stepping on any toes that could irk either government agencies or pay TV companies.
Free though it may be, Pluto TV sells advertising on every channel, judging from our experience. It seems like advertisers are buying. With Paramount’s team significantly boosting the platform’s marketing efforts, we expect even greater interest among advertisers as Paramount uses Pluto TV to help bolster its other properties, such as Paramount+.
The easiest way to decide whether Pluto TV is right for you is to download one of the apps on your platform of choice or head to the company’s website and watch there. It won’t cost anything but your time, and you’ll most likely find something you enjoy, given the breadth of programming. Just don’t expect to find any of the latest content found on other networks.
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Our list of the best streaming devices is a great starting point if you need something to stream Pluto TV on. If you’re more interested in a traditional TV experience than watching your favorite shows over the internet, check out our comparison of the best live TV services.
A vulnerability discovered inside the MediaTek chipsets can allow attackers to take over a victim’s device. The “zero-click” bug opens the door to Remote Code Execution (RCE) without user interaction.
Vulnerability in MediaTek Wi-Fi chipsets can compromise devices
Some of the most dangerous attacks on electronic devices need no action from the victims. These attacks can compromise the security of a device and take over control without the user needing to click or tap on anything. Such a vulnerability exists in MediaTek chipsets, particularly those that handle wireless communication. Several device makers embed MediaTek chipsets, which makes multiple electronics vulnerable.
Security researchers have indicated the vulnerability is an out-of-bounds write issue that resides in “wappd”. In simple words, a “network daemon”, which is an always-active service, can be targeted and compromised. Wappd is responsible for configuring and managing wireless interfaces and access points, indicated the researchers.
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“The architecture of wappd is complex, comprising the network service itself, a set of local services that interact with the device’s wireless interfaces, and communication channels between components via Unix domain sockets.”
How to stay protected from the latest MediaTek security exploit?
The vulnerability impacts MediaTek SDK versions 7.4.0.1, and earlier. Attackers can also target devices that run older versions of OpenWrt, a custom router firmware, and even couple it with other recently discovered vulnerabilities.
End-users with MediaTek Wi-Fi chipsets can tweak their Wi-Fi settings to mitigate the risks. Smartphone users should avoid public Wi-Fi hotpots as the backend networking hardware could be vulnerable.
Attackers could also target smartphones with the latest MediaTek chipsets as a public proof-of-concept exploit (PoC) recently became available. Hence, it is wise to stay connected to reliable Wi-Fi routers. When outside, switch to “Airplane” mode when in public places or use mobile data. Additionally, users must keep their devices updated.
Apple introduced some major lineup, but nothing stands out as much as the new battery removal process for the base iPhone 16. Doing away with the usual pull tabs, Apple is using an adhesive that debonds in response to a low electrical current. It only takes about a minute and a half for it to come unstuck, per Apple’s . A teardown by shows the process in action, and it sure looks easier than ever. iFixit tech Shahram Mokhtari said, “I’m not sure we’ve ever had a battery removal process go so cleanly and smoothly.”
Only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus have the new adhesive, and they’ve earned a 7/10 on iFixit’s repairability scale. “Apple definitely seems to be leveling up on repairability,” Mokhtari, adding Apple has “landed another repairability win” with this year’s base iPhones thanks to the new battery removal procedure.
This week we saw the arrival of new Snap Spectacles, and based on what’s been announced they sound like beefy AR glasses that inch closer than ever to our expectations based on sci-fi depictions of the tech. But while they might be in the running for the best smart glasses, man, do they look goofy.
They look like those massive 3D glasses you wear at the cinema, and definitely not something I’d like to be seen wearing in public. That’s a sharp contrast to the Ray-Ban and Meta collaboration smart glasses, which have utterly triumphed in the fashion department. Those ooze cool – right down to their slick charging case – and all summer they were my shades of choice even when powered off, largely because of their aesthetics.
Based on design alone, I know which glasses I’d rather wear day-to-day, and even though the Snap Spectacles are clearly more feature-packed, a large part of me would still rather slip on the Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses.
Because in our wearable tech era, fashion is at least as important as function.
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Fashion is more than design
I want to make a quick distinction between a design feature and tech being fashionable.
In the smart glasses world, a design feature is something like electro-chromic dimming lenses – lenses that you can make clearer or more shaded at the push of a button via electrical stimulation. This is a design feature I’ve tested in specs like the Chamelo glasses, which helps make the smart glasses wearable in a variety of weather conditions – a feature lacking in the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses which are permanently shaded, meaning I can only use them about a quarter of the year here in the UK.
Fashion, on the other hand, doesn’t need to offer a benefit that’s anything more substantial than looking good, a factor such as the frame shape or color. Smart glasses brands like Lucyd and Ray-Ban have shown a clear understanding of this aspect of design, boasting a selection of frame shapes that are otherwise functionally identical to each other. Letting you customize your experience with no sacrifices to the tech capabilities.
Sometimes fashion and design features are intertwined. Look at smart rings. Their biggest design feature – reducing clutter by removing the smartwatch or fitness tracker’s usual screen – offers functional differences between it and other health wearables. At the same time, it enables a different design profile that supports people who prefer a more minimalist aesthetic or want to wear a classic dumb watch without losing out on wellness tracking – or needing to wear two watches (something that looks super weird, and you know it).
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Even without being linked to function, however, fashion cannot and should not be dismissed.
Work good, look better
In other areas of tech, it’s understandable why fashionable perks could be dismissed as unnecessary. My PC’s RAM sticks won’t run faster because they glow with RGB lighting, a gold-plated iPhone is still just an iPhone. But wearables – smart accessories that replace our classic choice of jewelry – are more than just how useful they are.
Our fashion is an extension of who we are, it’s a way for us to outwardly express ourselves, putting a stamp on our visual identity. So even if the smart accessory offers a useful benefit to our health, fitness, or safety, why should that gadget expect us to compromise our identity for it?
Part of this is being in the early stages of smart glasses and wearables in general. There’s only so much style variation you can account for if the gadget has to cram in a lot of tech, or you’re not expecting to sell many (every variant adds complexity and cost).
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That said, I think it’s equally important for wearables makers to devote effort to ensuring something is fashionable as well as functional and useful. This means introducing variants so we can find a design that matches our vibe or making a singular product’s design look fantastic rather than chunky and dopey.
Because just like it doesn’t matter if a clothing item is from a designer brand if you don’t like the style, it doesn’t matter how great a wearable is if you think it looks ugly. If we don’t like how it looks, we’re not going to wear it often – and how useful is a smart wearable really if it sits in your drawer all day?
The US military is planning to launch balloons that are capable of providing high-altitude surveillance. It comes after the nation scrambled fighter jets to shoot down a Chinese balloon as it drifted through North American airspace last year.
Modern balloons can use artificial intelligence to predict and ride wind currents while operating at altitudes around 18 kilometres, or even higher, in Earth’s stratosphere for commercial and military purposes. Those heights make them hard to…
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