Go Here to Read this Fast! How to set up a print server on your home network with Linux
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How to set up a print server on your home network with Linux
Go Here to Read this Fast! The one feature Bluesky really needs
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The one feature Bluesky really needs
Go Here to Read this Fast! 5 browser extension rules to keep your system safe in 2025
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5 browser extension rules to keep your system safe in 2025
In a sea of smartphone gaming controllers with chunky grips, obtrusive analog sticks and rigid backplates, the MCON by Ohsnap stands out. It’s a gamepad that essentially turns any phone into a supercharged Xperia Play, complete with Hall effect joysticks, silent buttons and handles that can extend out of its base. It also has bumper-style triggers and actual bumpers. When it’s attached to the back of a phone, the MCON creates a slightly chunky but uniform profile that slides into a pocket without fuss. When you’re ready to start playing, the phone pops up from the gamepad with a satisfying flick.
The MCON communicates with your smartphone via Bluetooth, no cables or plugging in required. It uses MagSafe to connect to iPhones, and for Androids, there will be a MagSafe adapter included in the box — this is simply a disc 2 millimeters thick that sticks to the back of your phone or case. That covers essentially every smartphone out there, and it’s possible to stack multiple connecting pucks to create space for awkward camera bumps. Ohsnap’s goal is to support iOS, Android, Xbox, PC and Mac, with PlayStation as a platform pipe dream.
Ohsnap and MCON creator Josh King showed off the gamepad at CES 2025 with a nearly finalized prototype. The final version will have silicone tops on the analogue sticks, a cover for the spring mechanism and more finesse all around. King said he wasn’t quite satisfied with the D-pad yet, either. But even in its current form, the MCON is a sweet little peripheral. It feels nice — lightweight but sturdy enough to support and fling a full-size smartphone — and it folds into a compact rectangle that’s satisfying to hold.
Snapping it open involves pressing two buttons on the top of the controller, behind the attached phone, and it requires just the right amount of finger strength and angling. It took a few tries for me to successfully deploy the pop, largely because I have long manicured nails, but I was able to use my actual nail tips to make the magic happen.
When King spotted my Samsung Z Flip 6, he immediately started troubleshooting ways to make the foldable work with the MCON. You’d just have to move the attaching puck over slightly, so it could connect to the lower back quadrant of the phone rather than on the central hinge, he explained. He was confident he could make it work, and said he’d already ensured the Galaxy Z Fold was compatible with the MCON. King’s goal is for the MCON to support absolutely every smartphone.
The MCON Kickstarter went live on January 2 and, four days later, it’s collected more than $740,000 of a $25,000 goal. King’s concept has enjoyed a bit of viral fame over the years, and he eventually took the idea to Ohsnap, an established MagSafe-focused accessory manufacturer. By their powers combined, the MCON is on track to ship in August at a price of $150.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/i-adore-this-clever-mobile-gamepad-with-hall-effect-sticks-and-a-snap-up-design-110007990.html?src=rss
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I adore this clever mobile gamepad with Hall effect sticks and a snap-up design
Qualcomm has launched a new platform that will put Copilot+ PCs in reach of more people. Snapdragon X, the latest addition the brand’s Snapdragon X Series that also include the X Elite and the X Plus, comes with Qualcomm’s 8-core Oryon CPU and an integrated Adreno GPU. The company says it can run up to 163 percent faster than its competitors’ comparable platforms, that its neural processing unit can run AI tasks on device more efficiently and that it enables a lengthy (even multi-day) battery life.
There are apparently over 60 computer models powered by the platform in development and in production at various manufacturers already, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo. These companies are expected to launch the first batch of Snapdragon X products early this year, with more than 100 models coming by 2026.
The devices will be priced in the $600 range, making them a viable option for a lot of people looking to buy a new computer. They won’t be just laptops either — Qualcomm says buyers can expect Snapdragon X-powered mini PCs, as well, and will announce more details soon. The company believes Snapdragon X devices will be a “good solution for students, freelance workers and budget-conscious consumers who need a reliable and powerful laptop.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/qualcomms-snapdragon-x-chip-will-power-more-affordable-copilot-pcs-104029263.html?src=rss
Valentina Palladino,Cherlynn Low
Smartwatches do more than just track your steps and deliver phone alerts to your wrist. The best smartwatches go even further, giving you the ability to pay for a cup of coffee, take calls and connect to apps like Spotify all without whipping out your smartphone.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you already know all of the benefits of a smartwatch. You’re ready to invest, or upgrade from an aging accessory, but we wouldn’t blame you if you if you didn’t know where to start. There are dozens of smartwatches available now, including GPS running watches, fitness trackers that look like smartwatches and multi-purpose devices. Plus, you’ll want to consider factors like durability, battery life and operating system before you spend a lot of money on a new wearable. We’ve tested and reviewed most major smartwatches available today and these are our top picks.
Yes, there are still companies out there trying to make “fashionable” hybrid smartwatches. Back when wearables were novel and generally ugly, brands like Fossil, Michael Kors and Skagen found their niche in stylish smartwatches that took cues from analog timepieces. You also have the option to pick up a “hybrid” smartwatch from companies like Withings and Garmin – these devices look like classic wrist watches but incorporate some limited functionality like activity tracking and heart rate monitoring. They remain good options if you prefer that look, but thankfully, wearables made by Apple, Samsung, Fitbit and others have gotten much more attractive over the past few years.
Ultimately, the only thing you can’t change after you buy a smartwatch is its case design. If you’re not into the Apple Watch’s squared-off corners, all of Samsung’s smartwatches have round cases that look a little more like a traditional watch. Most wearables are offered in a choice of colors and you can pay extra for premium materials like stainless steel for extra durability. Once you decide on a case, your band options are endless – there are dozens of first- and third-party watch straps available for most major smartwatches, and for both larger and smaller wrists, allowing you to change up your look whenever you please.
Apple Watches only work with iPhones, while Wear OS devices play nice with both iOS and Android phones. Smartwatches made by Samsung, Garmin, Fitbit and others are also compatible with Android and iOS, but you’ll need to install a companion app on your smartphone.
The smartwatch OS will also dictate the type and number of third-party apps you’ll have access to. Many of these aren’t useful, though, making this factor a fairly minor one in the grand scheme of things.
The best smartwatches generally cost between $300 and $400. Compared to budget smartwatches, which cost between $100 and $250, these pricier devices have advanced operating systems, communications, music and fitness features. They also often include perks like onboard GPS tracking, music storage and NFC, AMOLED displays, and long battery life, things that budget devices generally don’t have.
Some companies make specialized fitness watches: Those can easily run north of $500, and we’d only recommend them to serious athletes. Luxury smartwatches from brands like TAG Heuer and Hublot can also reach sky-high prices, but we wouldn’t endorse any of them. These devices can cost more than $1,000, and you’re usually paying for little more than a brand name and some needlessly exotic selection of build materials.
Battery life remains one of our biggest complaints about smartwatches, but there’s hope as of late. You can expect two full days from Apple Watches and most Wear OS devices. Watches using the Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor support extended battery modes that promise up to five days of battery life on a charge — if you’re willing to shut off most features aside from, you know, displaying the time. Other models can last five to seven days, but they usually have fewer features and lower-quality displays. Meanwhile, some fitness watches can last weeks on a single charge. If long battery life is a priority for you, it’s worth checking out the watch’s specs beforehand to see what the manufacturer estimates.
Any smartwatch worth considering delivers call, text and app notifications to your wrist. Call and text alerts are self explanatory, but if those mean a lot to you, consider a watch with LTE. They’re more expensive than their WiFi-only counterparts, but cellular connectivity allows the smartwatch to take and receive phone calls, and do the same with text messages, without your device nearby. As far as app alerts go, getting them delivered to your wrist will let you glance down to the watch face and see if you absolutely need to check your phone right now.
Activity tracking is a big reason why people turn to smartwatches. An all-purpose timepiece should function as a fitness tracker, logging your steps, calories and workouts, and most of today’s wearables have a heart rate monitor as well.
Many smartwatches’ fitness features include a built-in GPS, which is useful for tracking distance for runs and bike rides. Swimmers will want something water resistant, and thankfully most all-purpose devices now can withstand at least a dunk in the pool. Some smartwatches from companies like Garmin are more fitness focused than others and tend to offer more advanced features like heart-rate-variance tracking, recovery time estimation, onboard maps and more.
Health tracking on smartwatches has also seen advances over the years. Both Apple and Fitbit devices can estimate blood oxygen levels and measure ECGs. But the more affordable the smartwatch, the less likely it is that it has these kinds of advanced health tracking features; if collecting those kinds of wellness metrics is important to you, you’ll have to pay for the privilege.
Your watch can not only track your morning runs but also play music while you’re exercising. Many smartwatches let you save your music locally, so you can connect wireless earbuds via Bluetooth and listen to tunes without bringing your phone. Those that don’t have onboard storage for music usually have on-watch music controls, so you can control playback without whipping out your phone. And if your watch has LTE, local saving isn’t required — you’ll be able to stream music directly from the watch to your paired earbuds.
Most wearables have touchscreens and we recommend getting one that has a full-color touchscreen. Some flagships like the Apple Watch have LTPO displays, which stands for low-temperature polycrystalline oxide. These panels have faster response times and are more power efficient, resulting in a smoother experience when one interacts with the touchscreen and, in some cases, longer battery lives.
You won’t see significant gains with the latter, though, because the extra battery essentially gets used up when these devices have always-on displays, as most flagship wearables do today. Some smartwatches have this feature on by default while others let you enable it via tweaked settings. This smart feature allows you to glance down at your watch to check the time, health stats or any other information you’ve set it to show on its watchface without lifting your wrist. This will no doubt affect your device’s battery life, but thankfully most always-on modes dim the display’s brightness so it’s not running at its peak unnecessarily. Cheaper devices won’t have this feature; instead, their touchscreens will automatically turn off to conserve battery life and you’ll have to intentionally check your watch to turn on the display again.
Many new smartwatches have NFC, letting you pay for things without your wallet using contactless payments. After saving your credit or debit card information, you can hold your smartwatch up to an NFC reader to pay for a cup of coffee on your way home from a run. Keep in mind that different watches use different payment systems: Apple Watches use Apple Pay, Wear OS devices use Google Pay, Samsung devices use Samsung Pay and so forth.
Apple Pay is one of the most popular NFC payment systems, with support for multiple banks and credit cards in 72 different countries, while Samsung and Google Pay work in fewer regions. It’s also important to note that both NFC payment support varies by device as well for both Samsung and Google’s systems.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is probably overkill for most people, but it has a ton of extra features like extra waterproofing to track diving, an even more accurate GPS and the biggest battery of any Apple Watch to date. Apple designed it for the most rugged among us, but for your average person, it likely has more features than they’d ever need. If you’re particularly clumsy, however, its high level of durability could be a great reason to consider the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
The Apple Watch SE is less feature-rich than the flagship model, but it will probably suffice for most people. We actually regard the Watch SE as the best smartwatch option for first-time buyers, or people on stricter budgets. You’ll get all the core Apple Watch features as well as things like fall and crash detection, noise monitoring and Emergency SOS, but you’ll have to do without more advanced hardware perks like an always-on display, a blood oxygen sensor, an ECG monitor and a skin temperature sensor.
Garmin watches in general can be great options for the most active among us. The Garmin Forerunner 745 is an excellent GPS running watch for serious athletes or those who prize battery life above all else. When we tested it, we found it to provide accurate distance tracking, a killer 16-hour battery life with GPS turned on (up to seven days without it) and support for onboard music storage and Garmin Pay.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/best-smartwatches-153013118.html?src=rss
Go Here to Read this Fast! The best smartwatches for 2025
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The best smartwatches for 2025
Even Realities has turned up at CES 2025 in Las Vegas to show off its smart glasses, the G1, which have been out for a few months now. The company also wanted to use its trip to the desert to show off the G1B, which puts the same technology in a different body. And after just ten minutes playing around with them, I’m already a fan of the way they bring digital smarts into the real world.
The G1 is a pair of smart glasses that either come in a Philip Johnson-esque round body or, if you opt for the new G1B, in a more rectangular frame. Both are equipped with a 160mAh battery the company promises will last for around one and a half days on a single charge. Inside are a pair of waveguide displays with a 25-degree field of view and a resolution of 640 x 200 displaying basic text and graphics in old-school green. The glasses have their own charging case, itself equipped with a 2,000mAh battery that’ll keep them re-juiced at least two and a half times before you need to find a cable.
The company opted not to throw too many features at the G1, focusing instead on where it could make a real impact while respecting the battery. For instance, activate your phone’s navigation and you’ll get turn by turn directions showing up in your field of vision. Similarly, you should be able to use the glasses as a prompter, with the system’s built-in microphone following along as you speak. That microphone can also be used for real time translation in a number of foreign languages, as well as transcribing your dictations. Plus, you’ll get the option to have your smartphone notifications dropping in front of your eyes, sparing you the indignity of looking at your phone or watch.
Most pleasingly, there are plenty of customization options, including the ability to set it so the waveguide displays only activate when you tilt your head up. From there, you can set the reading distance of the on-screen text, and you even have some limited control of the height of the text. The features on show all work as advertised, and the real-time directions will even let you switch from turn by turn guidance to a progress map of your route if you look up. The real-time translation and captioning is useful and elegant, as is the teleprompter that’ll scroll the words as you say them — even in a noisy Las Vegas ballroom. The company’s CSO Nikolaj Schnoor even said some early customers who have hearing loss are now using captioning to aid them in day to day conversations. There are two hardware buttons hidden behind the temple tips, too, letting you set it into dictation mode without having to touch your phone.
As smitten as I am with the features, I’m also impressed at how comfortable they are to wear, with the design putting the bulk of the (surprisingly) light weight on the hinges and temple tips. You could easily wear these for a whole day, and look and act a lot more like real glasses than gadget-y ones.
The company has even said all the right things about repairability, saying the system is modular enough that an optician can replace your lenses should they get damaged or your prescription changes. In addition, you should be able to send the hardware back to the company to replace the batteries when they wear out a few years down the road. Given the high price, that should be expected but it’s pleasing to see it’s been addressed.
The Even Realities G1 and G1B are available to order now, with prices starting at $599, although that figure will climb once you’ve included your options, including prescription lenses. Depending on where you are in the world, you can also order them through your local optician.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/even-realities-g1-smart-glasses-are-useful-and-elegant-100041452.html?src=rss
NVIDIA is launching a native GeForce NOW app on the Steam Deck and browser versions on major mixed reality headsets including the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 and 3S, the company said at CES 2025. That will bring NVIDIA’s 2,100-plus titles to those devices, including two AAA Microsoft games arriving later in 2025.
Valve’s Steam Deck already had limited beta support for GeForce NOW via the Chrome browser and an automated script. The native version should improve performance, with up to 4K 60p resolution with HDR when connected to a TV, powered by cloud-based GeForce RTX gaming rigs. Users will get the same benefits as RTX GPU owners, including DLSS 3 technology to improve frame rates. NVIDIA didn’t provide an exact launch date other than “later this year.”
GeForce NOW is also coming to VR headsets and much sooner. The company will support the Apple Vision Pro and Meta quest 3 and 3S, along with Byte Dance’s Pico VR and MR headsets. If you own one of those headsets, you’ll just need to open the browser to play.geforcenow.com when the version 2.0.70 app update arrives later this month.
On top of the existing GeForce Now game library, owners of those devices will gain access to Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed and DOOM: The Dark Ages from id Software when they’re launched on PC later this year. All of that could make GeForce NOW temping for users on the fence, though as a reminder, you have to buy any games you want to play on top of paying up to $20 per month for the service itself.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidias-native-geforce-now-app-is-coming-to-the-steam-deck-093030989.html?src=rss
As power outages get more frequent, people who’d never much thought about residential home battery backup systems are probably starting to give it some consideration. Plenty of companies are happy to address that need and this week at CES, I got to check out Biolite’s solution. Unlike something that needs a pro to install, using the Backup is almost as easy as plugging it in (you also need to mount it somewhere in your home).
In person, the battery is remarkably thin and the matte silver finish is about as unobtrusive as you can get. That’s all part of the design — BioLite says it’s designed to fade into “forgotten places” in your home. Behind the fridge, under a counter top, on the wall beneath a desk.
Personally, I’d love one so I’d never have to worry about the pickles going bad in the fridge again when a storm knocks out the the power at my house, as it did recently. (I ate the pickles. I should not have eaten the pickles.)
The concept will be familiar to anyone who’s ever used an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) — something gamers have been using for years to ensure uninterrupted play. In essence, it’s a large battery plus inverter that plugs into your wall. You then plug in any appliance or device you don’t want to ever lose power — a fridge is a good example. When the power inevitably goes out, the battery senses the lack and flips the output to feed from the stored charge. When power is restored, the cells refill themselves, ready for next time.
It’s app-connected so you’ll have a log of when and for how long your power goes out, and of course get notifications when things happen. You can also use Backup on-demand when your power is perfectly fine, or even schedule it to come online at certain times, something you may want to do when you’re dealing with higher electricity prices for peak usage periods.
Positioned at one edge towards the corner are three ports, one that connects to an outlet and two AC connections. One of those is intended for the included BioLite power strip, which packs three more AC ports and two each of USB-C and Type A connections. A vertical mounting kit is provided, but if you want to mount it horizontally, you’ll need to purchase a separate mount from Biolite.
It ships in two configurations, Backup Complete, a two-unit set with a 3 kWh total capacity that can deliver 30 to 60 hours of power (for reference, an average house in the US eats up around 30 kWh per day). The Backup Core holds 1.5 kWh of juice and is probably better suited to something like a home office setup. The larger Complete version is eligible for a 30 percent tax rebate, as it meets federal requirements that stipulate a backup system be at least 3 kWh and be physically installed in the home.
Pricing is $3,000 for the Complete model and $2,000 for the core. The Biolite rep pointed out that, should you get the rebate, the larger set works out to just $2,100 so really it’s a popcorn at the movie theater situation — just get the large for a little bit more. The Backup by Biolite is available for pre-order now and units are expected to ship in May.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/backup-by-biolite-is-a-giant-but-sleek-battery-that-keeps-your-fridge-running-during-outages-090041209.html?src=rss
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Backup by Biolite is a giant (but sleek!) battery that keeps your fridge running during outages