Category: Technologies

It’s OK to be confused about the metaverse. Pessimists can point to Meta’s difficulties over the last year convincing us we’ll all inhabit this immersive 3D realm. Optimists can point to Meta’s new $499 Quest 3 virtual and mixed reality headset, announced Thursday, and a competing headset Apple is expected to reveal in just a few days as evidence that tech giants are still backing the idea of an immersive digital realm.

Put Neal Stephenson, whose 1992 dystopian sci-fi novel Snow Crash introduced the term “metaverse,” in the optimist camp.

“Just in the last couple of years, it feels like a bunch of things have snapped into place — the prerequisites that we need to have on hand in order to really start building a metaverse,” Stephenson said Wednesday in a talk at Augmented Reality Expo.

Stephenson’s vested interest just isn’t from his novel. He’s worked at several startups since the 1990s, including augmented reality headset maker Magic Leap, but his current effort, Lamina1, is working on metaverse plumbing it hopes will lead to an open foundation easy for developers to build upon and for people to visit.

It’ll be a tough sell. The 2021 metaverse buzz has diminished greatly. Facebook renamed itself Meta, but investors have slammed its ambition to capitalize on the metaverse. And Web3 movement, which aimed to build “decentralized” metaverse tools that would reward those creating salable goods in the metaverse, has suffered persistent problems. That includes scams, security vulnerabilities and “rug pulls” in which project organizers hype a cryptocurrency then cash out, leaving investors with valueless assets.

Creative Strategies analyst Olivier Blanchard is a skeptic and the mainstream adoption of computer-generated virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) that blends computer imagery with the real world, and the umbrella term encompassing both, mixed reality (XR).

“Once the AI gold rush cools off and Apple has finally given it some sense of direction, it is going to need to decide what it wants to be when it grows up if it has any hope of ever attracting mainstream consumers,” Blanchard said. “Metaverse and XR companies are going to have to clearly communicate to users how their solutions will actually make their lives better rather than just more expensive and complicated.”

But maybe the metaverse won’t be as tough a sell soon.

Apple’s expected headset, years in the works and likely to emerge at the company’s WWDC developer conference, could help convince developers to build mixed reality apps. Apple successfully wooed mobile developers to write millions of apps for iPhones and iPads. And Meta’s Quest 3 XR headset has video pass-through mode that will give it AR abilities.

The metaverse has a long way to go before matching the widespread adoption of today’s web or the metaverse in Snow Crash.

Snow Crash is a rollicking novel that uses humor and adventure to take the edge off its dystopian vision. The metaverse plays a central role in the book, but Stephenson places the blame for the dystopia on human society more broadly. With the metaverse, Stephenson wanted to present a technology realm that accommodated a broad span of human activity.

“Our initial exposure to the metaverse is a kind of very vast market, a lowest common denominator to include … the worst of television,” Stephenson said. “But later on, as we get farther into the book, we see that people have used it to make beautiful works of art. There are some people … who lavished a lot of time and attention on making homes in the metaverse that are exquisite works of art, both visually and in this sonic environment.”

That metaverse was all about VR, but Stephenson takes a broader definition today, “a three-dimensional, virtual, shared environment,” which includes AR, too. Although Snow Crash is famous for its metaverse, there also are “gargoyle” characters in the book’s real world, uber-techies hidden behind AR goggles who are constantly tapped into data feeds.

Stephenson said he was impressed with progress with VR, AR and XR, in particular with game engine tools like Unity and Unreal Engine that are widely used for 3D graphics and gaming. But so far, there’s not enough reason to hang out in the metaverse.

“If we’re going to have a metaverse that’s being used all the time by millions or billions of people, then there have to be experiences in the metaverse that are worth having,” Stephenson said. Lamina1’s goal is to improve the metaverse tooling so developers and other creators can build those experiences. That includes the blockchain and NFT technology that’s lost much of its luster as cryptocurrencies lost much of their value since peaking in 2021.

Lamina1 is working on partnerships to flesh out the metaverse. One is with Mira, which is scanning the real world to create a virtual version, but several others are with game developers.

Stephenson helped to co-found Lumina1 in 2022, but he’s pulled back some. He still serves as chairman, but in 2023, he resumed novel writing, too, he said.

At the Augmented World Expo, AR fans are abundant, including show organizer and AugmentedReality.org Chief Executive Ori Inbar, who shared the stage with a virtual, nearly life-size version of himself appearing in a telepresence box built by ARHT Media. Inbar spent much of his 20 minutes on stage at the show defending the technology, arguing that it’s thriving despite the tech world’s attention moving to AI.

“We won’t rest until everyone uses XR, everywhere, all the time.”

Amazon will pay two separate penalties for privacy violations, the Federal Trade Commission has announced: $25 million for allegedly not deleting children’s data and $5.8 million for failing to restrict employee and contractor access to Ring security videos.

Amazon prevented parents from deleting their children’s voice and geolocation data acquired through the Alexa voice assistant, and stored and used the data for several years to improve the Alexa algorithm to better understand children’s speech patterns and accents, the FTC alleged Wednesday.

This put the data “at risk of harm from unnecessary access,” according to the FTC.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule “does not allow companies to keep children’s data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

Amazon said in a blog post that it disagrees with the FTC’s claims and denies violating the law.

“We take our responsibilities to our customers and their families very seriously,” Amazon said. “We work hard to protect children’s privacy, and we have built robust privacy protections into our children’s products and services.”

Read more: These 6 Tips Will Help Keep Your Personal Data Private

The FTC on Wednesday also leveled a $5.8 million penalty against Amazon’s Ring. Ring, which was acquired by Amazon in 2018, sells video doorbells, indoor and outdoor cameras and home security services. It has long been criticized for its privacy practices, including sharing doorbell footage with police departments across the US. The settlement announced Wednesday related to allegedly failing to restrict access to customers’ videos across its employees and contractors, and using those videos to train its algorithms without consent.

“One employee over several months viewed thousands of video recordings belonging to female users of Ring cameras that surveilled intimate spaces in their homes such as their bathrooms or bedrooms. The employee wasn’t stopped until another employee discovered the misconduct,” the FTC alleges.

Ring’s failure to “implement basic measures to monitor and detect employees’ video access” meant the company also didn’t know who or how many employees accessed private videos inappropriately.

Read more: Home Security Cheat Sheet: Our Best Tips for Keeping Your Home Safe

Ring didn’t seek customer consent for human review of their videos until January 2018, the FTC alleged.

Ring’s lack of security, including not offering multifactor authentication until 2019, meant hackers exploited account vulnerabilities to compromise 55,000 customers’ accounts in the US, the complaint says. Of those 55,000 customers, 910 accounts across 1,250 devices saw the hacker take “additional invasive actions, such as accessing a stored video, accessing a live stream video or viewing a customer’s profile,” the complaint details. In 20 instances, the hackers maintained access to customer devices for over a month.

“In many instances, the bad actors were not just passively viewing customers’ sensitive video data. Rather, the bad actors took advantage of the camera’s two-way communication functionality to harass, threaten, and insult individuals — including elderly individuals and children — whose rooms were monitored by Ring cameras, and to set off alarms and change important device settings,” the FTC’s complaint says.

The $5.8 million penalty will be used to refund customers, and Ring is required to delete data and videos if obtained prior to 2018 and “delete any work products it derived from these videos.”

Ring’s statement likewise disagreed with the FTC’s claims. “We want our customers to know that the FTC complaint draws on matters that Ring promptly addressed on its own, well before the FTC began its inquiry; mischaracterizes our security practices; and ignores the many protections we have in place for our customers,” Ring said.

How to protect your private data

Bad actors are a threat to your security, and there are a number of steps you can take to help yourself. Here’s how to make sure your home Wi-Fi is secure, how to protect your home security against hacks and the best home security systems of 2023 — including the best cheap home security systems and the best DIY home security systems. You could also look at getting a password manager so your accounts are safer, and here’s CNET’s smart home privacy guide on how to delete your voice recordings across Amazon, Apple and Google.

As companies are keeping more and more of your personal data, here are CNET’s tips on how to keep Facebook from tracking you, how to prevent yourself from being tracked via your Apple AirTags and how to get Google to remove your personal data from search results.

Google on Thursday announced seven new features and updates to Android phones, tablets and Wear OS smartwatches. The offerings aim to help people learn new skills, stay productive on the go and protect their information, according to a blog post from Google.

The updates and features rolling out as of June 1 for phones and tablets include Reading Practice, which helps new readers improve their vocabulary and comprehension skills using thousands of compatible children’s ebooks on Google Play Books. There are also new widgets that bring Google TV, Google Finance and Google News to a user’s home screen and fresh emoji combinations in the Emoji Kitchen on Gboard.

These new options come shortly after Google I/O, where the tech giant revealed some of the new features coming to its Android 14 software. Android 14 is available in public beta and will officially arrive later this year.

This feature drop for Android and Wear OS comes just days ahead of Apple’s WWDC event, when it’s expected to show off iOS 17. The update is part of Google’s attempts to keep Android fresh and helpful in between major operating system releases.

New features coming to Wear OS smartwatches include new tiles and watch face complications for Spotify and an option for commuters in Washington, DC and the San Francisco Bay Area to use their watch to ride with their SmarTrip and Clipper cards in Google Wallet. (Google on Thursday announced even more features for Google Wallet.) Additionally, Google Keep for Wear OS users will be able to add a tile for fast access to a to-do list or selected note.

The tech giant said most people in the US with Google accounts can now try dark web report on the Google One website and app. It lets users run scans to see if their Gmail address has been exposed on the dark web. Google One subscribers can also scan for more personal information like their social security number.

See Also: Best Android Phone of 2023

From Samsung to Motorola and Google, just about every major Android phone maker has released a foldable phone. But there’s one big, non-Android outlier: Apple. And according to Motorola, that’s prompting some iPhone users to make the switch.

Specifically, Motorola has seen 20% of new Razr users coming from Apple products. That data point is from 2021 following the launch of the previous-generation Razr.

“This is definitely the family that we have the most amount of iPhone users switching to us,” Allison Yi, Motorola’s head of North America product operations, said to CNET ahead of the company’s Razr Plus launch.

Foldable phones still account for a fragment of the global smartphone market, but the category is growing quickly as tech giants search for the next major evolution of the mobile phone. Market research firm International Data Corporation estimates that worldwide shipments of foldables will increase more than 50% in 2023 compared to 2022. Motorola’s Razr line faces the most competition from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series, although Samsung hasn’t broken out its sales numbers to specify its percentage of iPhone converts.

This year is shaping up to be a milestone moment for foldables with the arrival of newcomers including Google and OnePlus, giving Motorola and other early entrants like Samsung more competition. Apple, however, is still noticeably absent from the foldable phone race, and that isn’t likely to change anytime too soon.

Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with TF International Securities known for his Apple product predictions, tweeted in April 2022 that he doesn’t expect Apple to release its first foldable gadget until 2025. A study from Counterpoint Research suggests there’s certainly demand for a foldable iPhone, at least in the US. Among the respondents, 39% named Apple as their preferred brand for a foldable phone, while 46% named Samsung — one of the earliest and most dominant players in foldable phones. Only 6% said Motorola.

The new Razr Plus and 2023 Razr are the company’s latest attempts to change that. The $1,000 Razr Plus, announced on Thursday and launching on June 23, has a giant cover screen that the company is betting will set it apart from rivals like the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Motorola is also launching a cheaper version of the Razr later this year for an undisclosed price that will be less expensive than the Plus model.

But whether it’s competition from Samsung or eventually the long-rumored iPhone Flip, Motorola isn’t fixated on its rivals.

“It’s not about what our competition is doing,” Yi said. “It’s more of what the consumer needs are, what consumers are wanting, rather than really focusing on competition.”

As first-timers like Google are just getting into foldable phones in 2023, companies like Motorola and Samsung are already brainstorming what could be next. Both companies earlier this year showcased concept devices with rollable or slidable screens that can expand as needed earlier. Motorola’s take involves a smartphone-sized device that can unroll to extend its display with the press of a button. It’s still a concept, and Motorola hasn’t said when or if this rollable phone will graduate to becoming a real product.

But Jeff Snow, Motorola’s product manager for premium and flagship devices, said he could eventually see it becoming an “offshoot” of the Razr we know today. While both the Razr and the rollable concept aim to make phones more portable, they execute that goal through different means. The Razr’s clamshell shape enables it to fold shut, function as a regular phone when opened or serve as something in between when propped open halfway. The rollable concept changes its shape in a different way by expanding and contracting its screen.

“It’s a little bit of a different experience,” said Snow. “But we see it becoming part of the same category.”

Motorola is also evaluating larger book-style foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold, although Yi said she couldn’t comment on future products. Snow also said there’s “merit to that form factor,” but the company would have to make sure it’s not compromising the regular phone experience while also providing improved productivity and content consumption.

“That space is taking off,” he said. “It’s something we’ll pay attention to.”

For now, the Razr Plus is Motorola’s biggest attempt at standing out in a crowded market, especially as Samsung and Apple continue to command the global smartphone market. The combination of technology improving and broader awareness around foldables makes now the right time for a new Razr, according to Yi.

“Sometimes you see the technology is ready, but the market is not ready to accept it,” she said. “And consumers are not willing to adapt or adopt. But in this case, we really feel that this is the right time.”

Motorola has just introduced two new additions to its well-known Razr lineup: the Motorola Razr 2023 and the Motorola Razr Plus 2023, aimed at rivaling Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 4.

Out of the two phones, the higher-end Razr Plus is the one that’ll draw double takes. Its signature feature is virtually unmissable: a front cover that’s basically all screen. In fact, it’s probably the largest cover screen on any commercially available flip phone right now, even bigger than the one on Oppo’s Find N2 Flip, which has a vertical orientation.

The cover screen on the Razr Plus is “meant for much more than just checking the time or reading notifications,” according to CNET’s Lisa Eadicicco, who nabbed hands-on time with the Razr Plus ahead of the launch. “You can interact with apps and even type using a full keyboard.”

By comparison, the cover screen on the Galaxy Z Fold, located on the lower half of the phone, is distinctly smaller. It’s closer in size to the display on the regular Razr. For specific numbers, scroll down to the bottom of the page for a side-by-side specs chart.

As for the camera, the regular Razr seems to have a more advanced setup than its pricier sibling, the Razr Plus, as well as the Galaxy Z Flip 4, at least on paper. The regular Razr’s trio of cameras is headlined by a 64-megapixel main shooter, which is accompanied by a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 13-megapixel front-facing camera.

Under the hood, the Razr Plus is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 Mobile chipset that’s backed up by 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 comes equipped with that same chipset, paired with 8GB of RAM and storage options ranging from 128GB to 512GB.

Both Razrs support 30W wired charging and 5W wireless charging, although the regular Razr has a larger 4,200 mAh battery compared to the 3,800 mAh battery inside the Razr Plus. You also get three years of operating system upgrades with both Razrs, which is one year less than what you get with Samsung.

The Razr Plus launches on June 23 for $1,000, while the regular Razr is set to arrive later this year for an undisclosed price. The standard Razr will cost significantly less than the Razr Plus, according to Motorola executives.

For more details on how Motorola’s Razr Plus and regular Razr compare with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, check out our specs chart below.

The best current VR headset, the Quest 2, is getting a price drop down to $299 on June 4. But its replacement, the Quest 3, is arriving in the fall.

Meta announced the news this morning alongside details of the company’s upcoming improved Quest 3 VR headset, which will start at $499 and have a smaller size, a faster processor, improved controllers, and added color cameras that can add better mixed reality experiences to VR games and apps.

The new $299 price is for the version with 128GB of storage, while the 256GB storage option is getting a price drop to $349.

All indications suggest the Quest 3 will be worth waiting for, but Meta also announced an interesting performance update coming to the Quest 2 and Quest Pro that will add up to a 26% CPU speed improvement and 19% GPU improvement to the Quest 2, and an 11% improvement to the Quest Pro. The Quest 2 already has a lot of great games and apps, all of which are expected to also run on the Quest 3.

It’s surprising that Meta would find a way to unlock more performance out of the Quest 2 this late in its life cycle, but Meta has had Quest 2 updates in the past that have improved a number of hardware and software features.