A ton of new VIvo X200 Pro series information appeared online, including a benchmark, teaser videos, an official unboxing, and so on. The focus is on the Vivo X200 Pro and Vivo X200 Pro Mini here, by the way. So let’s take it one step at a time.

The Vivo X200 Pro series videos surface, along with benchmark, an unboxing & more

First and foremost, Vivo confirmed that the Vivo X200 series will be fueled by the all-new MediaTek Dimensity 9400 processor. That chip was announced very recently, and it’s the most powerful processor from MediaTek to date.

Two new official videos have appeared. The first one is showing us the unboxing of the Vivo X200 Pro. In this video, which is embedded below, you can see both colors of the Vivo X200 Pro, blue and white.

Unboxing #vivoX200Pro

I don’t know why but that background music remind me of our airline Finnair’s old cabin music. pic.twitter.com/50yw0TRdDq

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— Teme (特米)𝕏|🇫🇮🇨🇳 (@RODENT950) October 8, 2024

One of the videos gives us a good look at Vivo’s design language

The second video is more design-focused. It also gives us a good look at the devices in different colors options. The entire Vivo X200 series will have flat sides, along with a micro-curved display and backplate. They’ll also include a camera oreo on the back. The second video is shown below.

Vivo X200 teaser trailers continue, this time with design pic.twitter.com/3EduzGFo4f

— Teme (特米)𝕏|🇫🇮🇨🇳 (@RODENT950) October 9, 2024

The Vivo X200 Pro also got benchmarked by Geekbench. That listing revealed that the device will ship with Android 15, and that goes for the other two models too. Vivo’s Funtouch OS 15 will run on top of it.

The phone managed to score 2,755 points in the single-core test, and 8,519 points in the multi-core test. This model has 16GB of RAM, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 fuels it, of course.

A bunch of pictures appeared too

To top it all off, some additional images appeared too. You’ll find two galleries below. In the first gallery, all three phones are shown off, in several colors. The second gallery contains only real-life images of the Vivo X200 Pro Mini… in all of its colors.

Vivo X200 series images:

Vivo X200 Pro Mini real-life images:

All three Vivo X200 series smartphones will become official on October 14, by the way. That much has been confirmed by the company. They’re coming to China first, but we’re expecting a global launch to follow.

Whether it’s blocking the noises of your daily train ride, trying to be productive at a coffee shop or just needing to tune out the world for a while, noise-canceling earbuds can provide solace. But, as is the case with all audio gear, the effectiveness of active noise cancellation (ANC) can vary greatly from model to model, even with products from the same company. We test dozens of sets of wireless earbuds every year, and I’ve shortlisted a selection of the absolute best in terms of pure ANC performance. You might find better sound quality or all-around choices elsewhere, but if blocking out unwanted sounds is your primary concern, this list has everything from high-end to budget options, in addition to those with the best battery life.

Looking for new ANC headphones but don’t like the feeling or style of earbuds? Check out our picks for best noise-canceling headphones, which focuses on full-size models.

How to choose the best noise-canceling earbuds for you

Design

Most true wireless earbuds these days have a “traditional” design that’s a round bud that fits in your ear. However, there are some variations on the formula in terms of shape, size and additional fitting elements. Some companies include fins or fit wings to help hold their earbuds in place while others opt for an over-the-ear hook on more sporty models. You’ll want to pay attention to these things to make sure they align with how you plan to use them. Also consider overall size and weight since those two factors can impact the fit. A less-than-ideal seal due to a weird fit will affect the performance of active noise cancellation.

Type of noise cancellation

Next, you’ll want to look at the type of ANC a set of earbuds offer. You’ll see terms like “hybrid active noise cancellation” or “hybrid adaptive active noise cancellation,” and there are key differences between the two. A hybrid ANC setup uses microphones on the inside and the outside of the device to detect ambient noise. By analyzing input from both mics, a hybrid system can combat more sounds than “regular” ANC, but it’s at a constant level that doesn’t change.

Adaptive ANC takes the hybrid configuration a step further by continuously adjusting the noise cancellation for changes in your environment and any leakage around the padding of the ear cups. Adaptive ANC is also better at combating wind noise, which can really kill your vibe while using earbuds outdoors. For this best wireless earbuds list, I’m only considering products with hybrid ANC or adaptive ANC setups because those are the most effective at blocking noise.

Customization

You’ll also want to check to see if the ANC system on a prospective set of earbuds offers presets or adjustable levels of noise cancellation. These can help you dial in the amount of ANC you need for various environments, but it can also help save battery life. Master & Dynamic, for example, has ANC presets that either provide maximum noise-blocking or prioritize energy efficiency. Other companies may include a slider in their companion apps that let you adjust the ANC level.

How we test noise-canceling earbuds

The primary way we test earbuds is to wear them as much as possible. I prefer to do this over a one-to-two-week period, but sometimes deadlines don’t allow it. During this time, I listen to a mix of music and podcasts, while also using the earbuds to take both voice and video calls.

Since battery life for ANC earbuds is typically 6-10 hours, I drain the battery with looping music and the volume set at a comfortable level (usually around 75 percent). When necessary, I’ll power the headphones off during a review without putting them back in the case. This simulates real-world use and keeps me from having to wear them for an entire day.

To test ANC performance specifically, I use the earbuds in a variety of environments, from noisy coffee shops to quiet home offices. When my schedule allows, I also use them during air travel, since plane noise is a massive distraction to both work and relaxation. Even if I’m not slated to hop on a flight, I simulate a constant roar with white noise machines, bathroom fans, vacuums and more. I also make note of how well earbuds block human voices, which are a key stumbling block for a lot of ANC setups.

I also do a thorough review of companion apps, testing each feature as I work through the software. Any holdovers from previous models are double-checked for improvements or regression. If the earbuds I’m testing are an updated version of a previous model, I’ll spend time getting reacquainted with the older set, and revisit the closest competition as well.

Bose

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ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 6 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

Read our full Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review

Bose’s Immersive Audio feature may be the headline grabber on its QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, but these also come with the company’s stellar noise-canceling abilities. This model is especially adept at battling airplane noise during a flight, a task I typically rely on over-ear headphones for. The QC Ultra Earbuds are slightly less effective on human voices, but that’s true of many noise-canceling earbuds. But with any kind of constant hum, and many irregular sounds, these earbuds will serve you well. Plus, Bose’s CustomTune tool analyzes the shape of your ears and personalizes both sound and ANC.

While the QC Ultra Earbuds offer the best pure noise-blocking performance on this list, the extra audio features mean they have less battery life than the rest of our picks. It lasts six hours with ANC on and Immersive Audio off, but turn on the latter and that number dips to four hours. And although Bose’s take on spatial audio yields mixed results at times, the stock tuning is an improvement over the company’s last model.

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Pros

• Stellar ANC
• Spatial audio doesn’t require special content
• Upgrades with no price increase

Cons

• Earbuds are still big
• Immersive Audio significantly impacts battery life
• Wireless charging costs extra

$229 at Adorama

Sony

ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 8 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

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Read our full Sony WF-1000XM5 review

If I could pick two best options, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 would be the co-champion. Since its introduction, the company has improved the 1000X line of earbuds from model to model – especially in ANC performance. The gap between Sony and Bose in this respect is so slim, you’ll be happy with either set if noise-cancellation is your top priority. You’ll also get Sony’s DSEE Extreme upscaling to recover sound detail lost to compression and handy features like onboard volume controls and automatic pausing when you speak.

Like it does on its 1000X over-ear headphones, Sony uses two separate chips for audio and ANC processing on the M5 earbuds, which leads to more robust noise-blocking than on previous models. Six dual-feedback mics are better than the M4 at combating the low-frequency roar of airplanes, vehicles and transit scenarios and the ANC is adjustable in Sony’s app. What’s more, the company’s Adaptive Sound Control allows you to configure presets that can automatically change based on your activity or location. Even if you don’t want to give the software permission to track your whereabouts, there are plenty of options, including the ability to dial-in transparency mode when you need to hear more (or less) of your environment.

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Pros

• Excellent sound quality
• Improved design
• More comfortable fit
• Loads of handy features

Cons

• More expensive
• No battery life improvement
• Head tracking is Android only
• Some features still need fine-tuning

$228 at Adorama

Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget

ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 8 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

For years, Anker’s Soundcore line has consistently offered some of the best true wireless models at a more affordable price than a lot of the competition. The company typically doesn’t cut too many corners to achieve this, either. The best current Soundcore model in terms of pure ANC performance is the Space A40. During my tests, these earbuds were particularly adept at fighting low-to-mid-range noise during flights and other transit scenarios. There’s an adaptive ANC system at work here to automatically adjust based on your environmental sound, but you can also set it to strong, moderate or weak levels of intensity.

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While Anker rates the Space A40 at 10 hours on a charge, I got closer to eight during my tests with ANC on. Sound quality is also above average for this price, with a warm tone and noticeable bump to the bass. A solid but less-than-stellar transparency mode lends a hand and the companion app will let you assign up to six different gestures for various playback and call controls.

Pros

• Excellent ANC for the money
• Pleasant, warm sound
• Multi-device connectivity and wireless charging support
• Comfortable
• Good battery life

Cons

• No automatic wear detection
• Call quality isn’t great
• Audio performance isn’t as detailed as higher-end options (as expected)

$59 at Amazon

Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget

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ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 12 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

Read our full Master & Dynamic MW09 review

We’re well aware there are ANC earbuds that last much longer than 12 hours. But out of all of the models we’ve tested in the last two years, the MW09 offers the longest play time while still offering solid active noise cancellation. The ANC performance here isn’t as robust as the QC Ultra Earbuds’ or the WF-1000XM5’s, but Master & Dynamic offers three presets to help you adjust the noise blocking to your situation and to make your battery consumption more efficient.

The MW09 does, however, give both Bose and Sony a run for their money in the audio department. M&D’s trademark sound profile is on display, matching balanced, natural tuning with great clarity and detail. For example, you can hear every bit of texture in Chris Stapleton’s bluesy rock riffs, as well as things like the subtle decay in the snare drum rattle on Higher that are easily lost on other earbuds. ANC modes and volume will impact battery life, but even at their worst, the MW09 still consistently lasted 10 hours during my tests. That’s longer than both Bose and Sony manage with their flagship ANC buds.

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Pros

• Great clarity and detail
• Lots of fit options
• Solid ambient sound mode
• In-app customization

Cons

• Pricey
• Average ANC performance
• Overstated battery life

$349 at Master & Dynamic

Apple

ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 6 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

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Read our full Apple AirPods Pro (2nd-gen) review

The latest AirPods Pro aren’t higher on this list primarily because you need an iPhone to unlock their maximum potential. However, the combo of hardware and software tricks that they offer for ANC performance makes them a worthy consideration. Out of the box, the H2 chip powers noise-canceling processing that wasn’t previously possible on such a small device. When used with the drivers, vents and microphones, the AirPods Pro can block twice as much noise as the previous model.

Apple also includes a handy tool that automates noise-canceling and transparency mode so you’re not making adjustments on your phone throughout the day. Adaptive Audio blends ANC and ambient sound, using cues changes in environmental noise to gradually change device volume as background noise increases or decreases. The setup takes into account whether you’re stationary or in motion as well as if you’re listening to music or on a call when making the tweaks. Plus, the AirPods Pro offer the best, most natural-sounding transparency mode of any wireless earbuds – a feat that shouldn’t be overlooked during your decision-making process.

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Pros

• Improved sound
• Stellar transparency mode
• Solid ANC
• Seamless switching between Apple devices

Cons

• Same design
• New touch gesture takes practice
• Average battery life
• Personalized Spatial Audio results vary

$169 at Walmart

Bose

ANC type: Hybrid Adaptive | Customizable ANC: Yes | Max battery life with ANC: 8.5 hours | Transparency mode: Yes

Read our full Bose QuietComfort Earbuds (2024) review

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Before now, you had to pay around $300 if you wanted Bose-quality ANC on a set of earbuds. With the new QuietComfort Earbuds, the company packs in a lot of its best features for less money. You’ll get effective ANC, good sound quality, and features like voice controls.

The earbuds are smaller than typical Bose fare, which means they’re more comfortable and fit better. You’ll also enjoy well over eight hours of battery life with ANC on and an IPX4 rating that will be good enough for workouts. And if the product page is to be trusted, you can also look forward to Bose’s unique spatial audio (Immersive Audio) coming soon.

Pros

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• Great sound quality
• Effective ANC
• Lots of handy features
• Dependable battery life

Cons

• No Immersive Audio (yet)
• Audio and ANC sacrifices compared to the QC Ultra Earbuds
• No CustomTune feature
• Poor call quality

$179 at Adorama

Readyverse Studios, a publisher of games and digital worlds, has unveiled Promptopia as an AI-powered generative creation tool.

Aimed at players who want to build their own immersive environments, Promptopia lets players build digital assets and environments using text prompts. Readyverse made the announcement at the Blockworks tech conference Permissionless III, and I interviewed Readyverse CEO Aaron McDonald.

He said that Promptopia is an innovative sandbox experience where players can bring their imaginations to life by creating game-ready objects, environments, music, and more with the simplest of text prompts, fed into a generative AI model. McDonald showed me a demo of the working Promptopia.

The world of Readyverse is still in the works, and it’s based on the work of Ernest Cline, the best-selling novelist and renowned creator of the groundbreaking franchise Ready Player One, which came out as a novel in 2011 and was turned into a Steven Spielberg movie in 2018.

“We wanted to create this in a way that was leveraging the technology that we’ve been building in the generative AI space, but do it as a kind of gaming experience, as opposed to just like throwing tools out there for people to build stuff with,” McDonald said. “We wanted to make the tools part of the game. That’s how the idea of Promptopia came together.”

Promptopia is going to be built inside the world of Readyverse, which is a metaverse-like experience similar to the world of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. Your avatar can be dressed up like characters from the Ready Player One world, or they can be anything you want.

“If you think of Readyverse as a launcher that can launch something like [the upcoming game] Open, maybe you’re waiting for your buddies to come online so you can queue up. Or you’re you’re in the kind of discovery mode to see what’s out there. Other games can be launched from the launcher, or you just want to go have some casual fun,” McDonald said. “Promptopia is always there for you. It mixes some popular games, play styles, and the process of generating the environment, the music, the objects that exist inside of that world.”

Sneak peek

Promptopia combines multiplayer gameplay with real-time AI asset generation allowing users to build, share, and play in a world shaped by their own ideas. By harnessing the latest in AI technology, Promptopia shatters the boundaries between creators and players, transforming anyone into a game designer with ease, McDonald said.

In a sneak peek, McDonald showed more of the things you can collect in your personal lobby, in this case the Aech’s garage in Ready Player One. You can store things you’ve won during competitions or things you’ve created or bought. If you go up to an arcade machine you can go to a world dubbed Surreal Estate or a central land or a showroom.

You can jump into a world dubbed Promptopia. Things in this place are generated by the players. It’s also a space for a first-person shooter game. If you and your team capture the flag and control the console in the center of the map, you can change the environment. You can change the music and generate objects and play around with the creativity tools, resizing objects on the fly.

“These objects are exampes of what happens when you win the right to prompt the environment, like changing the sky,” McDonald said.

You can do something like generate a hoverboard and then enchant it so that you can ride it around the play space.

Promptopia provides players with creative freedom, integrating AI tools in real time to generate 3D assets and environments within the Readyverse platform, which already includes a variety of globally recognized IP, such as Reebok, Cool Cats, DeLorean and Ready Player One. From scenery to interactive objects, Promptopia opens a world of possibilities in a social, collaborative virtual environment.

“Promptopia is a new experimental game experience that allows us to see how generative AI and game mechanics can come together in interesting ways,” said Readyverse cofounders McDonald and Shara Senderoff, in a statement. “Promptopia builds the groundwork for the UGC experience in the Readyverse. We’re giving players the ability to make what’s in their mind an immediate reality, and have prompt engineering become part of a deeper immersive gameplay experience. We’ve prioritized creativity and fun at the core so the interactive user experience can be appreciated by every gamer as they bring their imaginations to life through gameplay. It’s a blank canvas waiting for your ideas to be incorporated.”

While many tech giants are exploring the possibilities of AI, Promptopia from Readyverse sets a new standard by offering a level of integration within gameplay. As part of the Readyverse ecosystem, and using the novel “Altered State” Generative 3D model developed by Futureverse and music AI platform JEN, players can generate real-time, game-ready assets, environments, and soundtracks through simple text prompts.

Promptopia is designed to democratize game creation, allowing anyone to become a creator regardless of their technical skill level.

Readyverse Studios is a next-gen technology and experience studio cofounded by Futureverse cofounders Shara Senderoff and Aaron McDonald, as well as Ernest Cline, the best-selling novelist and renowned creator of the groundbreaking franchise Ready Player One and Ready Player One film producer Dan Farah.

McDonald said that Promptopia has been the culmination of a couple of years of work. Some are behind the scenes creating AI models for Readyverse and Futureverse, which is the infrastructure company behind the Readyverse. The team has had to enable the models to boost creativity while remaining safe for users to experiment with. A few months of work have gone into the game that sits atop Promptopia, where you compete with other players in a social and creative experience.

“It has well-known game elements built into it like first-person shooter and capture the flag, where you capture the tower to control the environment,” he said.

McDonald said that players will be able to wishlist the Readyverse experience soon and it will likely have closed testing this year and open testing sometime next year. In this experience, some of the things will be built by the company’s teams and some built by the players and some by third parties. The tech will be built upon open metaverse technology, worked on by an expert staff, McDonald said.

All told, more than 200 people are working on Readyverse and Futureverse technologies. And there is support from brands like Reebok, Cool Cats and DeLorean.

Advances in DNA sequencing and the vast amounts of genomic data being produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology have created a startup opportunity to build software for biologists so they can more easily analyze this big data and take the next leap. It could help when it comes to developing new vaccines, cancer treatments and so on.

For the last four years, MiLaboratories, a San Francisco-based startup with an R&D facility in Bilbao, Spain, has been building a computational biology platform to make it easier for biologists to process, analyze and aggregate their data. It incorporates features like data visualization and generative AI to boost usability.

Its platform is also designed to be a marketplace for other scientists so that they can distribute more specialized computation tools in the form of apps to keep expanding the utility for the genomics research community. MiLaboratories target scientists whose skillsets span biology, computer science and math — so-called bioinformaticians.

“It’s a ‘no code’ style approach for biologists and we also release an [open source] SDK — software development kit — allowing bioinformaticians to build real applications,” CEO Stan Poslavsky tells TechCrunch.

“During my and our founders’ scientific career, we saw a huge inefficiency . . . in how modern therapies, how modern drugs, are developed,” he explains. “Because of this friction between the data — the big data, generated by the biologists, the sequencing data — and the data analysis which is not available for them.”

While there are “thousands” of software programs and tools that can do analysis of NGS data, he says most have been developed within academia, where the focus tends to be on utility rather than usability.

There’s also a need for biologists to aggregate and integrate results from multiple analyses, he says. “In a unified picture, allowing you to understand what’s going on. And that’s the place where our platform helps dramatically,” he suggests.

The startup hopes its platform will free up bioinformaticians from being called upon to deal with the grunt work of genomic data processing so these multidisciplinary scientists can apply their skillset to the more complex tasks of building algorithms that might help advance cutting-edge science.

“Bioinformaticians are actually spending a lot of time just doing a monkey job of running the software for biologists,” says Poslavsky. “To process this data, you need to have Linux machines, go over SSH, run complicated software tools to get the analysis done and get the insight from the data.”

“[A doctor] has no skills to do this on Linux, on HPC [high performance computing] cluster, because he has other things to do. And that’s what most bioinformaticians in the companies and academia are doing, actually, just this monthly job of running the tools.”

On Thursday, MiLaboratories officially took the wraps off its SDK, Platforma.bio, which lets third-party developers contribute apps — although it’s been in alpha and beta testing for several years. (Poslavsky says “around 300 labs” have been using the beta, and “around 20” apps have been made available through the platform, so far.)

“The first applications that are available in the platform are built around our biological and bioinformatic applications, which are very popular . . . [with] companies and people involved in immune therapy developments. But we already have . . . a good selection of collaborations and people willing to bring their applications on the platform, both from academia and from the industry,” he adds.

The 2021-founded startup is also announcing a $10 million Series A funding round to continue development, with a focus on investing in community building.

“The key reason for raising money is just to plug more hands into the development of our platform. We are hiring more engineers. We are hiring what is called developer advocates, who are propagating the technology around — primarily — the academic community, because most bioinformatics software is developed in academia.”

“For the upcoming year [we will] focus on the propagation of the technology around the community, and engaging community to build their apps, to wrap their existing software, to deliver them through the platform,” he adds.

MiLaboratories’ Series A is led by Madrid-based Kfund, with participation from Acrobator Ventures, EGB Capital, Courtyard Ventures, Somersault Ventures, Speedinvest and Ten13.

Commenting in a statement, Miguel Arias, general partner of Kfund, said: “Investing in platforms that bridge the gap between developers (in this case bioinformaticians) and business users (in this case biologists) is at the core of what we want to do in our fund. There is tremendous potential in democratizing access to complex data enabling the delivery of immunological insights.”

MiLaboratories offers its software for free to academics but it’s also taking revenue via a paid model for commercial users. Per Poslavsky the startup is approaching 100 paying customers at this stage.

“Many of the big pharma companies — like Moderna, Bristol-Myers Squibb — they are our customers,” he notes, adding: “We have revenue — good revenue — allowing us to not be so dependent on venture money.”

At the start of 2022, the startup raised a $2.5 million seed round. It also previously took in a small pre-seed from a few angels.

Discussing the challenges of developing the computational biology platform, Poslavsky says the staggering amount of data being generated by NGS meant startup had to pay very careful attention to ensuring processing efficiency to avoid generating “crazy costs”.

“The amount of data generated in the space are actually, well, crazy,” he emphasizes. “Big pharma companies, our customers . . . they have petabytes of genetic data generated so far. So that’s huge scale.”

MiLaboratories has developed what Poslavsky couches as a “very sophisticated” and “mathematically proven” technology which allows for many sorts of calculations to be performed in “a very optimized way.” He suggests this tech — which it has patented — enables the platform to reach 10x efficiency compared to some other types of computational workflow.

“That’s a very important thing. It’s hidden from the eyes of the biologist — because the valuable proposition for the biologist is ‘I want to click buttons and get insight’ — but it’s very important for the business owners.”

Competition wise, Poslavsky names Seqera (and its Nextflow software) as the closest rival — in terms of popularity and value proposition. There are also open source tools for NGS processing, such as Galaxy, but MiLaboratories reckons its platform offers researchers a more accessible route to data insights.