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How to Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’
May 12, 20257 min readPhysicists Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’ in the LaboratoryAstronomical amounts of energy could be extracted from black holes—to build a gigantic bomb, for example.
Experts have now implemented this principle in the laboratoryBy Manon Bischoff edited by Lee BillingsAn artist’s rendition of a black hole surrounded by a glowing accretion disc of material, the light from which is warped by the strong gravity.
In principle, energy could be harvested from a spinning black hole—and lab-based demonstrations are beginning to show physicists how this could occur.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesA bomb from a black hole would probably be the most destructive weapon in the universe.
Hypothetically, it could be created by wrapping one of these cosmic monsters in mirrors and waiting for it to go “boom.” Now Hendrik Ulbricht of the University of Southampton in England and his colleagues have demonstrated this principle, called superradiance, in the lab using a rotating metal cylinder instead of a black hole.
They submitted their results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, to the preprint server arXiv.org in late March.“This work shows that a ‘black hole bomb’ can actually be built in the laboratory,” says physicist Vitor Cardoso of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, who was not involved in the study.
“It thus provides a solid basis for studying the entire physics of black holes.”Among the strangest objects in the universe, black holes pack so much mass into such a small space that they can radically warp spacetime.
A black hole’s gravitational pull is so strong that within a certain distance, nothing can escape it—not even light.
Theorist Roger Penrose is one of the pioneers who first studied black holes mathematically in detail—work for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.
And amid that early work, he realized something surprising.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing.
By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.As Penrose knew, nothing stands still in our cosmos, not even black holes.
These massive monsters can spin, distorting spacetime in the process to form a kind of vortex.
An approaching object can be caught up in this vortex and spiral around the spinning black hole.
Even before the object passes the event horizon, beyond which not even light can escape gravity’s clutches, it reaches an area that physicists call the “ergosphere.” There the object would have to move faster than light to escape the rotation around the black hole.This ergosphere is a strange place, as Penrose noted, because objects there can possess negative energy.
A particle, for example, could split into two equal-but-opposite parts: one with negative energy and another with positive energy.
The former would then crash into the black hole (thus reducing the black hole’s energy), allowing the latter to escape the cosmic behemoth’s mighty grip.
An external observer would see a particle with a certain energy falling toward the black hole, only to apparently rebound outward with higher energy.
The black hole loses part of its rotational energy in the process.Black Hole Mining and SuperradianceIn principle, this would allow black holes to serve as gigantic sources of energy.
The process could not only imbue massive objects with more energy but also amplify electromagnetic waves in a phenomenon called superradiance.
This realization spurred some physicists to even imagine how advanced alien civilizations might use superradiance to generate energy.
But despite how relatively simple it is to describe on paper, no one knew how the signal of superradiance could be observed in real black holes.
Thus, the concept initially remained mere speculation.In 1971, however, two years after Penrose first described this phenomenon, physicist Yakov Zel’dovich published research that suggested that black holes aren’t the only objects that can be tapped as superradiant energy sources.
Any rotating, axially symmetrical body that absorbs electromagnetic radiation—such as a metal cylinder—can also exhibit superradiance under certain circumstances.
“Roughly speaking, the rotating absorber must rotate faster than the phase rotation of the incident radiation,” explains physicist Maria Chiara Braidotti of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, who was involved in the latest work.
“If this condition is met, the absorption coefficient of the cylinder changes sign, thus amplifying the radiation.”Zel’dovich even went one step further by showing that superradiance could also take place in a vacuum and wouldn’t require an incoming electromagnetic wave.
That’s because on quantum scales the vacuum is anything but empty.
At any time, pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles can pop into existence, although they typically immediately annihilate each other again.
The phenomenon is known as vacuum fluctuation.
And these fluctuations could also be amplified in the vicinity of black holes —or a rotating metal cylinder.
“Stephen Hawking didn’t believe this idea and tried to refute it,” explains Marion Cromb, a researcher in Ulbricht’s group at the University of Southampton and a contributor to the new work.
“Not only did [Hawking] admit that Zel’dovich was right but he was also able to prove that even nonrotating black holes—without an ergosphere—spontaneously emit radiation.” This realization led to the discovery of Hawking radiation.According to the theoretical calculations, however, vacuum-based superradiance would be so faint that it could not be detected—unless, that is, it was somehow amplified.
As Zel’dovich described, the rotating body (black hole or metal cylinder) could be encased in mirrors to reflect the amplified radiation back to the rotating body, intensifying it over and over again.
As physicists William Press and Saul Teukolsky realized, so much energy could accumulate inside the mirrors that a gigantic explosion would occur.
Press and Teukolsky, therefore, referred to the setup as a black hole bomb.Depending on how much rotational energy the black hole or the metal cylinder has, a result other than a gigantic explosion is conceivable, though.
Cardoso and his colleagues described this possibility in a paper published in 2004 that showed how superradiance can cease if the black hole or metal cylinder loses too much angular momentum, thus defusing the explosion.Explosions in the LaboratoryUlbricht, Braidotti and their colleagues now wanted to test all these theoretical predictions in the laboratory.
“Originally, we thought it would be too difficult to observe the actual effect,” Braidotti says, nothing that a cylinder would have to rotate so fast that it would be destroyed in the process.
For this reason, she initially turned her attention to simpler systems in which superradiance can occur, including a setup with sound waves.
“The breakthrough was our noticing how to reduce the frequencies of electromagnetic fields in a very simple way so that they are smaller than the rotation frequencies of the metal cylinders,” Ulbricht explains.
The researchers only needed alternating current circuits for this.
“This finding opened up the possibility of conducting the experiment with electromagnetic waves,” Braidotti says.The team then turned its attention to electromagnetic superradiance.
“The experimental setup itself is quite simple: it consists of a rotating cylinder and the stator coils of a commercially available induction motor, combined with some capacitors and resistors,” Cromb says.
These devices were placed around the metal cylinder to generate a magnetic field inside it, which produced electromagnetic radiation.
At the same time, these devices also served as mirrors because they reflected the electromagnetic waves back toward the cylinder.“The biggest difficulty was that things were constantly exploding,” Cromb says.
“It was a balancing act between measuring a reasonable signal and overloading the system.
When the current through the coils became too high, the resistors in the circuit exceeded their rated voltage and burned out.
This interrupted the electrical circuit, thus destroying the ‘mirror.’”The researchers initially feared that these overloads would prevent any observation of superradiance.
But they were lucky.
“The reinforcement was large enough to overcome the loss and enter the area of instability,” Cromb says.
In fact, the team was able to show that the voltage in their structure increased exponentially, as predicted by Zel’dovich.
This underpins the researchers’ claim of the first-ever lab-based demonstration of an electromagnetic version of a black hole bomb.Note, however, that despite the martial connotations of the name, the “bomb” Ulbricht and his team built in their lab isn’t anything like a military-grade munition—or even a firecracker.
It would be quite useless as a weapon because its yield is only on the order of a millijoule of energy—that is, about the same amount involved in pressing a single key on a mechanical keyboard.Radiation-Free Superradiance?Next, Cromb and the team used their setup to study whether superradiance can also take place in a vacuum: Would an electromagnetic signal arise in their apparatus even without a magnetic field? Because the experiment took place at room temperature, thermal fluctuations overshadowed any vacuum fluctuations—meaning that the team could not directly detect the latter.
But that very same thermal background noise, the researchers realized, would spontaneously generate electromagnetic waves that could theoretically be amplified.And that is what they did manage to demonstrate: by choosing the appropriate rotation speed of the cylinder, they generated electromagnetic waves out of nowhere, so to speak.
Their work also confirmed the “defusing” scenario predicted by Cardoso: the metal cylinder was able to lose enough rotational energy to halt superradiance and stave off any explosion.According to Ulbricht, the most special thing about the work is its sheer simplicity.
“Many physicists think that all the simple experiments have already been done and that new insights into the fundamentals of physics can only come from very complex and very expensive projects,” he says.
“We proved the opposite.”“I didn’t expect that someone would be able to carry out such an experiment now,” Cardoso says.
On the day the new work was posted to arXiv.org, he recalls, he was giving a series of lectures at Bangalore University in India.
“I talked about superradiance and told the audience that no one had ever proven the electromagnetic superradiance or the bomb effect in the laboratory.
So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the paper shortly afterwards!”The new work could lead to deeper insights about black holes, Cardoso says.
“Superradiance is a little-known classical effect that plays an important role in the physics of black holes,” he explains.
For example, extremely light particles, such as axions or special types of photons considered candidates for dark matter, could absorb the rotational energy of black holes, amplifying their signals.
“This means that black holes can be used as gigantic particle detectors,” Cardoso explains.
With a lab-based black hole bomb, physicists could test such hypotheses more precisely than ever before.In the future, Ulbricht would like to carry out the quantum version of the experiment, which would entail observing the spontaneous generation of electromagnetic waves and their amplification from the vacuum.
Such direct experiments with vacuum fluctuations could open up completely new possibilities for the scientific community and the world, he says, potentially representing “a major breakthrough for physics.” Perhaps, Ulbricht muses, that work could allow researchers “in a few decades to understand whether it is possible in principle to generate energy from the vacuum—which would be an inexhaustible new source of energy.”
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-build-a-black-hole-bomb/" style="color: #0066cc;">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-build-a-black-hole-bomb/
#how #build #black #hole #bomb

How to Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’
May 12, 20257 min readPhysicists Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’ in the LaboratoryAstronomical amounts of energy could be extracted from black holes—to build a gigantic bomb, for example. Experts have now implemented this principle in the laboratoryBy Manon Bischoff edited by Lee BillingsAn artist’s rendition of a black hole surrounded by a glowing accretion disc of material, the light from which is warped by the strong gravity. In principle, energy could be harvested from a spinning black hole—and lab-based demonstrations are beginning to show physicists how this could occur. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesA bomb from a black hole would probably be the most destructive weapon in the universe. Hypothetically, it could be created by wrapping one of these cosmic monsters in mirrors and waiting for it to go “boom.” Now Hendrik Ulbricht of the University of Southampton in England and his colleagues have demonstrated this principle, called superradiance, in the lab using a rotating metal cylinder instead of a black hole. They submitted their results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, to the preprint server arXiv.org in late March.“This work shows that a ‘black hole bomb’ can actually be built in the laboratory,” says physicist Vitor Cardoso of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, who was not involved in the study. “It thus provides a solid basis for studying the entire physics of black holes.”Among the strangest objects in the universe, black holes pack so much mass into such a small space that they can radically warp spacetime. A black hole’s gravitational pull is so strong that within a certain distance, nothing can escape it—not even light. Theorist Roger Penrose is one of the pioneers who first studied black holes mathematically in detail—work for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. And amid that early work, he realized something surprising.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.As Penrose knew, nothing stands still in our cosmos, not even black holes. These massive monsters can spin, distorting spacetime in the process to form a kind of vortex. An approaching object can be caught up in this vortex and spiral around the spinning black hole. Even before the object passes the event horizon, beyond which not even light can escape gravity’s clutches, it reaches an area that physicists call the “ergosphere.” There the object would have to move faster than light to escape the rotation around the black hole.This ergosphere is a strange place, as Penrose noted, because objects there can possess negative energy. A particle, for example, could split into two equal-but-opposite parts: one with negative energy and another with positive energy. The former would then crash into the black hole (thus reducing the black hole’s energy), allowing the latter to escape the cosmic behemoth’s mighty grip. An external observer would see a particle with a certain energy falling toward the black hole, only to apparently rebound outward with higher energy. The black hole loses part of its rotational energy in the process.Black Hole Mining and SuperradianceIn principle, this would allow black holes to serve as gigantic sources of energy. The process could not only imbue massive objects with more energy but also amplify electromagnetic waves in a phenomenon called superradiance. This realization spurred some physicists to even imagine how advanced alien civilizations might use superradiance to generate energy. But despite how relatively simple it is to describe on paper, no one knew how the signal of superradiance could be observed in real black holes. Thus, the concept initially remained mere speculation.In 1971, however, two years after Penrose first described this phenomenon, physicist Yakov Zel’dovich published research that suggested that black holes aren’t the only objects that can be tapped as superradiant energy sources. Any rotating, axially symmetrical body that absorbs electromagnetic radiation—such as a metal cylinder—can also exhibit superradiance under certain circumstances. “Roughly speaking, the rotating absorber must rotate faster than the phase rotation of the incident radiation,” explains physicist Maria Chiara Braidotti of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, who was involved in the latest work. “If this condition is met, the absorption coefficient of the cylinder changes sign, thus amplifying the radiation.”Zel’dovich even went one step further by showing that superradiance could also take place in a vacuum and wouldn’t require an incoming electromagnetic wave. That’s because on quantum scales the vacuum is anything but empty. At any time, pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles can pop into existence, although they typically immediately annihilate each other again. The phenomenon is known as vacuum fluctuation. And these fluctuations could also be amplified in the vicinity of black holes —or a rotating metal cylinder. “Stephen Hawking didn’t believe this idea and tried to refute it,” explains Marion Cromb, a researcher in Ulbricht’s group at the University of Southampton and a contributor to the new work. “Not only did [Hawking] admit that Zel’dovich was right but he was also able to prove that even nonrotating black holes—without an ergosphere—spontaneously emit radiation.” This realization led to the discovery of Hawking radiation.According to the theoretical calculations, however, vacuum-based superradiance would be so faint that it could not be detected—unless, that is, it was somehow amplified. As Zel’dovich described, the rotating body (black hole or metal cylinder) could be encased in mirrors to reflect the amplified radiation back to the rotating body, intensifying it over and over again. As physicists William Press and Saul Teukolsky realized, so much energy could accumulate inside the mirrors that a gigantic explosion would occur. Press and Teukolsky, therefore, referred to the setup as a black hole bomb.Depending on how much rotational energy the black hole or the metal cylinder has, a result other than a gigantic explosion is conceivable, though. Cardoso and his colleagues described this possibility in a paper published in 2004 that showed how superradiance can cease if the black hole or metal cylinder loses too much angular momentum, thus defusing the explosion.Explosions in the LaboratoryUlbricht, Braidotti and their colleagues now wanted to test all these theoretical predictions in the laboratory. “Originally, we thought it would be too difficult to observe the actual effect,” Braidotti says, nothing that a cylinder would have to rotate so fast that it would be destroyed in the process. For this reason, she initially turned her attention to simpler systems in which superradiance can occur, including a setup with sound waves. “The breakthrough was our noticing how to reduce the frequencies of electromagnetic fields in a very simple way so that they are smaller than the rotation frequencies of the metal cylinders,” Ulbricht explains. The researchers only needed alternating current circuits for this. “This finding opened up the possibility of conducting the experiment with electromagnetic waves,” Braidotti says.The team then turned its attention to electromagnetic superradiance. “The experimental setup itself is quite simple: it consists of a rotating cylinder and the stator coils of a commercially available induction motor, combined with some capacitors and resistors,” Cromb says. These devices were placed around the metal cylinder to generate a magnetic field inside it, which produced electromagnetic radiation. At the same time, these devices also served as mirrors because they reflected the electromagnetic waves back toward the cylinder.“The biggest difficulty was that things were constantly exploding,” Cromb says. “It was a balancing act between measuring a reasonable signal and overloading the system. When the current through the coils became too high, the resistors in the circuit exceeded their rated voltage and burned out. This interrupted the electrical circuit, thus destroying the ‘mirror.’”The researchers initially feared that these overloads would prevent any observation of superradiance. But they were lucky. “The reinforcement was large enough to overcome the loss and enter the area of instability,” Cromb says. In fact, the team was able to show that the voltage in their structure increased exponentially, as predicted by Zel’dovich. This underpins the researchers’ claim of the first-ever lab-based demonstration of an electromagnetic version of a black hole bomb.Note, however, that despite the martial connotations of the name, the “bomb” Ulbricht and his team built in their lab isn’t anything like a military-grade munition—or even a firecracker. It would be quite useless as a weapon because its yield is only on the order of a millijoule of energy—that is, about the same amount involved in pressing a single key on a mechanical keyboard.Radiation-Free Superradiance?Next, Cromb and the team used their setup to study whether superradiance can also take place in a vacuum: Would an electromagnetic signal arise in their apparatus even without a magnetic field? Because the experiment took place at room temperature, thermal fluctuations overshadowed any vacuum fluctuations—meaning that the team could not directly detect the latter. But that very same thermal background noise, the researchers realized, would spontaneously generate electromagnetic waves that could theoretically be amplified.And that is what they did manage to demonstrate: by choosing the appropriate rotation speed of the cylinder, they generated electromagnetic waves out of nowhere, so to speak. Their work also confirmed the “defusing” scenario predicted by Cardoso: the metal cylinder was able to lose enough rotational energy to halt superradiance and stave off any explosion.According to Ulbricht, the most special thing about the work is its sheer simplicity. “Many physicists think that all the simple experiments have already been done and that new insights into the fundamentals of physics can only come from very complex and very expensive projects,” he says. “We proved the opposite.”“I didn’t expect that someone would be able to carry out such an experiment now,” Cardoso says. On the day the new work was posted to arXiv.org, he recalls, he was giving a series of lectures at Bangalore University in India. “I talked about superradiance and told the audience that no one had ever proven the electromagnetic superradiance or the bomb effect in the laboratory. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the paper shortly afterwards!”The new work could lead to deeper insights about black holes, Cardoso says. “Superradiance is a little-known classical effect that plays an important role in the physics of black holes,” he explains. For example, extremely light particles, such as axions or special types of photons considered candidates for dark matter, could absorb the rotational energy of black holes, amplifying their signals. “This means that black holes can be used as gigantic particle detectors,” Cardoso explains. With a lab-based black hole bomb, physicists could test such hypotheses more precisely than ever before.In the future, Ulbricht would like to carry out the quantum version of the experiment, which would entail observing the spontaneous generation of electromagnetic waves and their amplification from the vacuum. Such direct experiments with vacuum fluctuations could open up completely new possibilities for the scientific community and the world, he says, potentially representing “a major breakthrough for physics.” Perhaps, Ulbricht muses, that work could allow researchers “in a few decades to understand whether it is possible in principle to generate energy from the vacuum—which would be an inexhaustible new source of energy.” Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-build-a-black-hole-bomb/ #how #build #black #hole #bomb

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How to Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’

May 12, 20257 min readPhysicists Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’ in the LaboratoryAstronomical amounts of energy could be extracted from black holes—to build a gigantic bomb, for example. Experts have now implemented this principle in the laboratoryBy Manon Bischoff edited by Lee BillingsAn artist’s rendition of a black hole surrounded by a glowing accretion disc of material, the light from which is warped by the strong gravity. In principle, energy could be harvested from a spinning black hole—and lab-based demonstrations are beginning to show physicists how this could occur. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesA bomb from a black hole would probably be the most destructive weapon in the universe. Hypothetically, it could be created by wrapping one of these cosmic monsters in mirrors and waiting for it to go “boom.” Now Hendrik Ulbricht of the University of Southampton in England and his colleagues have demonstrated this principle, called superradiance, in the lab using a rotating metal cylinder instead of a black hole. They submitted their results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, to the preprint server arXiv.org in late March.“This work shows that a ‘black hole bomb’ can actually be built in the laboratory,” says physicist Vitor Cardoso of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, who was not involved in the study. “It thus provides a solid basis for studying the entire physics of black holes.”Among the strangest objects in the universe, black holes pack so much mass into such a small space that they can radically warp spacetime. A black hole’s gravitational pull is so strong that within a certain distance, nothing can escape it—not even light. Theorist Roger Penrose is one of the pioneers who first studied black holes mathematically in detail—work for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. And amid that early work, he realized something surprising.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.As Penrose knew, nothing stands still in our cosmos, not even black holes. These massive monsters can spin, distorting spacetime in the process to form a kind of vortex. An approaching object can be caught up in this vortex and spiral around the spinning black hole. Even before the object passes the event horizon, beyond which not even light can escape gravity’s clutches, it reaches an area that physicists call the “ergosphere.” There the object would have to move faster than light to escape the rotation around the black hole.This ergosphere is a strange place, as Penrose noted, because objects there can possess negative energy. A particle, for example, could split into two equal-but-opposite parts: one with negative energy and another with positive energy. The former would then crash into the black hole (thus reducing the black hole’s energy), allowing the latter to escape the cosmic behemoth’s mighty grip. An external observer would see a particle with a certain energy falling toward the black hole, only to apparently rebound outward with higher energy. The black hole loses part of its rotational energy in the process.Black Hole Mining and SuperradianceIn principle, this would allow black holes to serve as gigantic sources of energy. The process could not only imbue massive objects with more energy but also amplify electromagnetic waves in a phenomenon called superradiance. This realization spurred some physicists to even imagine how advanced alien civilizations might use superradiance to generate energy. But despite how relatively simple it is to describe on paper, no one knew how the signal of superradiance could be observed in real black holes. Thus, the concept initially remained mere speculation.In 1971, however, two years after Penrose first described this phenomenon, physicist Yakov Zel’dovich published research that suggested that black holes aren’t the only objects that can be tapped as superradiant energy sources. Any rotating, axially symmetrical body that absorbs electromagnetic radiation—such as a metal cylinder—can also exhibit superradiance under certain circumstances. “Roughly speaking, the rotating absorber must rotate faster than the phase rotation of the incident radiation,” explains physicist Maria Chiara Braidotti of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, who was involved in the latest work. “If this condition is met, the absorption coefficient of the cylinder changes sign, thus amplifying the radiation.”Zel’dovich even went one step further by showing that superradiance could also take place in a vacuum and wouldn’t require an incoming electromagnetic wave. That’s because on quantum scales the vacuum is anything but empty. At any time, pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles can pop into existence, although they typically immediately annihilate each other again. The phenomenon is known as vacuum fluctuation. And these fluctuations could also be amplified in the vicinity of black holes —or a rotating metal cylinder. “Stephen Hawking didn’t believe this idea and tried to refute it,” explains Marion Cromb, a researcher in Ulbricht’s group at the University of Southampton and a contributor to the new work. “Not only did [Hawking] admit that Zel’dovich was right but he was also able to prove that even nonrotating black holes—without an ergosphere—spontaneously emit radiation.” This realization led to the discovery of Hawking radiation.According to the theoretical calculations, however, vacuum-based superradiance would be so faint that it could not be detected—unless, that is, it was somehow amplified. As Zel’dovich described, the rotating body (black hole or metal cylinder) could be encased in mirrors to reflect the amplified radiation back to the rotating body, intensifying it over and over again. As physicists William Press and Saul Teukolsky realized, so much energy could accumulate inside the mirrors that a gigantic explosion would occur. Press and Teukolsky, therefore, referred to the setup as a black hole bomb.Depending on how much rotational energy the black hole or the metal cylinder has, a result other than a gigantic explosion is conceivable, though. Cardoso and his colleagues described this possibility in a paper published in 2004 that showed how superradiance can cease if the black hole or metal cylinder loses too much angular momentum, thus defusing the explosion.Explosions in the LaboratoryUlbricht, Braidotti and their colleagues now wanted to test all these theoretical predictions in the laboratory. “Originally, we thought it would be too difficult to observe the actual effect,” Braidotti says, nothing that a cylinder would have to rotate so fast that it would be destroyed in the process. For this reason, she initially turned her attention to simpler systems in which superradiance can occur, including a setup with sound waves. “The breakthrough was our noticing how to reduce the frequencies of electromagnetic fields in a very simple way so that they are smaller than the rotation frequencies of the metal cylinders,” Ulbricht explains. The researchers only needed alternating current circuits for this. “This finding opened up the possibility of conducting the experiment with electromagnetic waves,” Braidotti says.The team then turned its attention to electromagnetic superradiance. “The experimental setup itself is quite simple: it consists of a rotating cylinder and the stator coils of a commercially available induction motor, combined with some capacitors and resistors,” Cromb says. These devices were placed around the metal cylinder to generate a magnetic field inside it, which produced electromagnetic radiation. At the same time, these devices also served as mirrors because they reflected the electromagnetic waves back toward the cylinder.“The biggest difficulty was that things were constantly exploding,” Cromb says. “It was a balancing act between measuring a reasonable signal and overloading the system. When the current through the coils became too high, the resistors in the circuit exceeded their rated voltage and burned out. This interrupted the electrical circuit, thus destroying the ‘mirror.’”The researchers initially feared that these overloads would prevent any observation of superradiance. But they were lucky. “The reinforcement was large enough to overcome the loss and enter the area of instability,” Cromb says. In fact, the team was able to show that the voltage in their structure increased exponentially, as predicted by Zel’dovich. This underpins the researchers’ claim of the first-ever lab-based demonstration of an electromagnetic version of a black hole bomb.Note, however, that despite the martial connotations of the name, the “bomb” Ulbricht and his team built in their lab isn’t anything like a military-grade munition—or even a firecracker. It would be quite useless as a weapon because its yield is only on the order of a millijoule of energy—that is, about the same amount involved in pressing a single key on a mechanical keyboard.Radiation-Free Superradiance?Next, Cromb and the team used their setup to study whether superradiance can also take place in a vacuum: Would an electromagnetic signal arise in their apparatus even without a magnetic field? Because the experiment took place at room temperature, thermal fluctuations overshadowed any vacuum fluctuations—meaning that the team could not directly detect the latter. But that very same thermal background noise, the researchers realized, would spontaneously generate electromagnetic waves that could theoretically be amplified.And that is what they did manage to demonstrate: by choosing the appropriate rotation speed of the cylinder, they generated electromagnetic waves out of nowhere, so to speak. Their work also confirmed the “defusing” scenario predicted by Cardoso: the metal cylinder was able to lose enough rotational energy to halt superradiance and stave off any explosion.According to Ulbricht, the most special thing about the work is its sheer simplicity. “Many physicists think that all the simple experiments have already been done and that new insights into the fundamentals of physics can only come from very complex and very expensive projects,” he says. “We proved the opposite.”“I didn’t expect that someone would be able to carry out such an experiment now,” Cardoso says. On the day the new work was posted to arXiv.org, he recalls, he was giving a series of lectures at Bangalore University in India. “I talked about superradiance and told the audience that no one had ever proven the electromagnetic superradiance or the bomb effect in the laboratory. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw the paper shortly afterwards!”The new work could lead to deeper insights about black holes, Cardoso says. “Superradiance is a little-known classical effect that plays an important role in the physics of black holes,” he explains. For example, extremely light particles, such as axions or special types of photons considered candidates for dark matter, could absorb the rotational energy of black holes, amplifying their signals. “This means that black holes can be used as gigantic particle detectors,” Cardoso explains. With a lab-based black hole bomb, physicists could test such hypotheses more precisely than ever before.In the future, Ulbricht would like to carry out the quantum version of the experiment, which would entail observing the spontaneous generation of electromagnetic waves and their amplification from the vacuum. Such direct experiments with vacuum fluctuations could open up completely new possibilities for the scientific community and the world, he says, potentially representing “a major breakthrough for physics.” Perhaps, Ulbricht muses, that work could allow researchers “in a few decades to understand whether it is possible in principle to generate energy from the vacuum—which would be an inexhaustible new source of energy.”

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2025-05-13 22:26:46 ·

I Saw Ecovacs' New Self-Washing Robot Vacuums That Make Mopping Cleaner
Robot mops aren't really a new concept; they've existed for a few years now with mopping pad attachments and dispensers for cleaning solution and water.
However, many are just glorified Swiffers.
They smear dirty water around your floors and call it "cleaning." But Ecovacs' Deebot X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni try to fix that problem with a self-washing mop that, in theory, won't turn your floor into a petri dish. "With Ozmo Roller Mop technology, we're addressing the hygiene gaps traditional mops leave behind, while innovations like Blast suction and ZeroTangle 3.0 take performance and convenience to the next level," David Qian, CEO of Ecovacs Robotics, said in a news release.I got an early look at these robot mops in a Brooklyn coffee shop ahead of their launch.
While they're not cheap, starting at $1,200 for the T80 Omni and $1,600 for the X9 Pro Omni, they have a lot of mopping tech that should help make mopping your living space quicker and more hygienic. The X9 Pro Omni tackled a milk spill with ease.
Ajay KumarSelf-washing robotsThe headline feature here is Ecovacs Ozmmo Roller Mop, which first debuted in this year's X8 Pro Omni model.
Unlike older robot mops that drag a damp cloth around until it's disgusting, this one has separate clean and dirty water tanks and scrubs the mop pad clean mid-job.
It also applies 16 times more pressure than a typical robot mop, so it's closer to an actual hand-scrubbing than a Swiffer. The Ozmo mop roller on the robot vacuum can pop out to hit corners. Ajay KumarThis means your floors get cleaned with fresh water each time instead of reusing old, dirty water.
I watched this happen with both the X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni, where the two robots cleaned up spilled milk from the concrete floor of a coffee shop. I was impressed that, for the most part, they left no mess or streaks behind, though concrete flooring likely isn't the type of surface you have in your home, so the real test will be on tile, vinyl and other hard flooring.
I was also impressed by their ability to navigate the fairly crowded coffee shop.
I never saw them bump into people's feet or get caught on furniture or carpets. The Omni docking station comes with hot air drying. Ajay KumarX9 Pro Omni: The flagship robot mop The X9 Pro Omni is Ecovacs' new flagship and will set you back the most at $1,599.
Here are some of the key features: The X9 Pro Omni zeroed in on the milk spill. Ajay KumarBlast suction: Its 100-watt motor and redesigned airflow path give it more vacuuming power.
The motor has a high-torque, wider air inlet and more precise fan blades. SuperBoost battery: It comes with Ecovacs' proprietary SuperBoost battery, which the company says can deliver 50% higher discharge current, a 2.5 times longer battery lifespan, and reduced heat output. ZeroTangle 3.0 brushes: This self-maintaining brush system has a main brush and inward-curved side brush that's designed to eliminate pet hair and other debris from wrapping around it. The Deebot did a good job of making sure it didn't hit carpet with the mop by lifting the mopping pad. Ajay KumarTruEdge 2.0 3D navigation: Corners are usually a challenge for robot vacuums and mops, which TruEdge is designed to address.
It has edge sensing and an extending mop and side brush for cleaning corners and along walls. Mop lifting: The X9 Pro can detect carpets and automatically raise the mop to prevent your carpets from getting soggy.
That's a pretty common feature these days, but it's still nice to see it. Hot-air drying: The Omni docking station blasts the mop with 145-degree Fahrenheit air, drying it out between uses and preventing bacteria growth.Is all this necessary? Maybe not, unless you're doing frequent wet mopping at home.
(Personally, I usually just vacuum, and my floors are lucky if they get mopped more than once a month.) But if you want the closest thing to a "set it and forget it" robot cleaner -- one that vacuums and mops without you babysitting it -- the X9 Pro Omni might be a good option, though we'll need to put it through its paces at our Louisville vacuum testing lab to see how it performs. TruEdge 2.0 3D navigation is enhanced by AI to help tackle obstacles and corners. Ajay KumarT80 Omni: Less expensive, still feature-packedThe T80 Omni strips out some of the X9's features but keeps all the important ones.
This includes the Ozmo Roller self-washing mop and AI remopping (where it spots sticky spots and hits them twice).
According to Ecovacs, it has 16 times more downward pressure than traditional mops and self-washes with every pass, just like the X9 Omni.
There's also the ZeroTangle 3.0 brush, which minimizes tangling and picks up debris better. So what's missing? Well, the docking station uses slightly cooler 113 degrees Fahrenheit air to dry the mop, and the suction isn't quite as strong, but it's still way more capable than some of the more affordable robot vacuums we recommend.
Source: https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/ecovacs-new-self-washing-robot-vacuums-try-to-make-mopping-cleaner/#ftag=CAD590a51e" style="color: #0066cc;">https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/ecovacs-new-self-washing-robot-vacuums-try-to-make-mopping-cleaner/#ftag=CAD590a51e
#saw #ecovacs039 #new #selfwashing #robot #vacuums #that #make #mopping #cleaner

I Saw Ecovacs' New Self-Washing Robot Vacuums That Make Mopping Cleaner
Robot mops aren't really a new concept; they've existed for a few years now with mopping pad attachments and dispensers for cleaning solution and water. However, many are just glorified Swiffers. They smear dirty water around your floors and call it "cleaning." But Ecovacs' Deebot X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni try to fix that problem with a self-washing mop that, in theory, won't turn your floor into a petri dish. "With Ozmo Roller Mop technology, we're addressing the hygiene gaps traditional mops leave behind, while innovations like Blast suction and ZeroTangle 3.0 take performance and convenience to the next level," David Qian, CEO of Ecovacs Robotics, said in a news release.I got an early look at these robot mops in a Brooklyn coffee shop ahead of their launch. While they're not cheap, starting at $1,200 for the T80 Omni and $1,600 for the X9 Pro Omni, they have a lot of mopping tech that should help make mopping your living space quicker and more hygienic. The X9 Pro Omni tackled a milk spill with ease. Ajay KumarSelf-washing robotsThe headline feature here is Ecovacs Ozmmo Roller Mop, which first debuted in this year's X8 Pro Omni model. Unlike older robot mops that drag a damp cloth around until it's disgusting, this one has separate clean and dirty water tanks and scrubs the mop pad clean mid-job. It also applies 16 times more pressure than a typical robot mop, so it's closer to an actual hand-scrubbing than a Swiffer. The Ozmo mop roller on the robot vacuum can pop out to hit corners. Ajay KumarThis means your floors get cleaned with fresh water each time instead of reusing old, dirty water. I watched this happen with both the X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni, where the two robots cleaned up spilled milk from the concrete floor of a coffee shop. I was impressed that, for the most part, they left no mess or streaks behind, though concrete flooring likely isn't the type of surface you have in your home, so the real test will be on tile, vinyl and other hard flooring. I was also impressed by their ability to navigate the fairly crowded coffee shop. I never saw them bump into people's feet or get caught on furniture or carpets. The Omni docking station comes with hot air drying. Ajay KumarX9 Pro Omni: The flagship robot mop The X9 Pro Omni is Ecovacs' new flagship and will set you back the most at $1,599. Here are some of the key features: The X9 Pro Omni zeroed in on the milk spill. Ajay KumarBlast suction: Its 100-watt motor and redesigned airflow path give it more vacuuming power. The motor has a high-torque, wider air inlet and more precise fan blades. SuperBoost battery: It comes with Ecovacs' proprietary SuperBoost battery, which the company says can deliver 50% higher discharge current, a 2.5 times longer battery lifespan, and reduced heat output. ZeroTangle 3.0 brushes: This self-maintaining brush system has a main brush and inward-curved side brush that's designed to eliminate pet hair and other debris from wrapping around it. The Deebot did a good job of making sure it didn't hit carpet with the mop by lifting the mopping pad. Ajay KumarTruEdge 2.0 3D navigation: Corners are usually a challenge for robot vacuums and mops, which TruEdge is designed to address. It has edge sensing and an extending mop and side brush for cleaning corners and along walls. Mop lifting: The X9 Pro can detect carpets and automatically raise the mop to prevent your carpets from getting soggy. That's a pretty common feature these days, but it's still nice to see it. Hot-air drying: The Omni docking station blasts the mop with 145-degree Fahrenheit air, drying it out between uses and preventing bacteria growth.Is all this necessary? Maybe not, unless you're doing frequent wet mopping at home. (Personally, I usually just vacuum, and my floors are lucky if they get mopped more than once a month.) But if you want the closest thing to a "set it and forget it" robot cleaner -- one that vacuums and mops without you babysitting it -- the X9 Pro Omni might be a good option, though we'll need to put it through its paces at our Louisville vacuum testing lab to see how it performs. TruEdge 2.0 3D navigation is enhanced by AI to help tackle obstacles and corners. Ajay KumarT80 Omni: Less expensive, still feature-packedThe T80 Omni strips out some of the X9's features but keeps all the important ones. This includes the Ozmo Roller self-washing mop and AI remopping (where it spots sticky spots and hits them twice). According to Ecovacs, it has 16 times more downward pressure than traditional mops and self-washes with every pass, just like the X9 Omni. There's also the ZeroTangle 3.0 brush, which minimizes tangling and picks up debris better. So what's missing? Well, the docking station uses slightly cooler 113 degrees Fahrenheit air to dry the mop, and the suction isn't quite as strong, but it's still way more capable than some of the more affordable robot vacuums we recommend. Source: https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/ecovacs-new-self-washing-robot-vacuums-try-to-make-mopping-cleaner/#ftag=CAD590a51e #saw #ecovacs039 #new #selfwashing #robot #vacuums #that #make #mopping #cleaner

WWW.CNET.COM

I Saw Ecovacs' New Self-Washing Robot Vacuums That Make Mopping Cleaner

Robot mops aren't really a new concept; they've existed for a few years now with mopping pad attachments and dispensers for cleaning solution and water. However, many are just glorified Swiffers. They smear dirty water around your floors and call it "cleaning." But Ecovacs' Deebot X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni try to fix that problem with a self-washing mop that, in theory, won't turn your floor into a petri dish. "With Ozmo Roller Mop technology, we're addressing the hygiene gaps traditional mops leave behind, while innovations like Blast suction and ZeroTangle 3.0 take performance and convenience to the next level," David Qian, CEO of Ecovacs Robotics, said in a news release.I got an early look at these robot mops in a Brooklyn coffee shop ahead of their launch. While they're not cheap, starting at $1,200 for the T80 Omni and $1,600 for the X9 Pro Omni, they have a lot of mopping tech that should help make mopping your living space quicker and more hygienic. The X9 Pro Omni tackled a milk spill with ease. Ajay KumarSelf-washing robotsThe headline feature here is Ecovacs Ozmmo Roller Mop, which first debuted in this year's X8 Pro Omni model. Unlike older robot mops that drag a damp cloth around until it's disgusting, this one has separate clean and dirty water tanks and scrubs the mop pad clean mid-job. It also applies 16 times more pressure than a typical robot mop, so it's closer to an actual hand-scrubbing than a Swiffer. The Ozmo mop roller on the robot vacuum can pop out to hit corners. Ajay KumarThis means your floors get cleaned with fresh water each time instead of reusing old, dirty water. I watched this happen with both the X9 Pro Omni and T80 Omni, where the two robots cleaned up spilled milk from the concrete floor of a coffee shop. I was impressed that, for the most part, they left no mess or streaks behind, though concrete flooring likely isn't the type of surface you have in your home, so the real test will be on tile, vinyl and other hard flooring. I was also impressed by their ability to navigate the fairly crowded coffee shop. I never saw them bump into people's feet or get caught on furniture or carpets. The Omni docking station comes with hot air drying. Ajay KumarX9 Pro Omni: The flagship robot mop The X9 Pro Omni is Ecovacs' new flagship and will set you back the most at $1,599. Here are some of the key features: The X9 Pro Omni zeroed in on the milk spill. Ajay KumarBlast suction: Its 100-watt motor and redesigned airflow path give it more vacuuming power. The motor has a high-torque, wider air inlet and more precise fan blades. SuperBoost battery: It comes with Ecovacs' proprietary SuperBoost battery, which the company says can deliver 50% higher discharge current, a 2.5 times longer battery lifespan, and reduced heat output. ZeroTangle 3.0 brushes: This self-maintaining brush system has a main brush and inward-curved side brush that's designed to eliminate pet hair and other debris from wrapping around it. The Deebot did a good job of making sure it didn't hit carpet with the mop by lifting the mopping pad. Ajay KumarTruEdge 2.0 3D navigation: Corners are usually a challenge for robot vacuums and mops, which TruEdge is designed to address. It has edge sensing and an extending mop and side brush for cleaning corners and along walls. Mop lifting: The X9 Pro can detect carpets and automatically raise the mop to prevent your carpets from getting soggy. That's a pretty common feature these days, but it's still nice to see it. Hot-air drying: The Omni docking station blasts the mop with 145-degree Fahrenheit air, drying it out between uses and preventing bacteria growth.Is all this necessary? Maybe not, unless you're doing frequent wet mopping at home. (Personally, I usually just vacuum, and my floors are lucky if they get mopped more than once a month.) But if you want the closest thing to a "set it and forget it" robot cleaner -- one that vacuums and mops without you babysitting it -- the X9 Pro Omni might be a good option, though we'll need to put it through its paces at our Louisville vacuum testing lab to see how it performs. TruEdge 2.0 3D navigation is enhanced by AI to help tackle obstacles and corners. Ajay KumarT80 Omni: Less expensive, still feature-packedThe T80 Omni strips out some of the X9's features but keeps all the important ones. This includes the Ozmo Roller self-washing mop and AI remopping (where it spots sticky spots and hits them twice). According to Ecovacs, it has 16 times more downward pressure than traditional mops and self-washes with every pass, just like the X9 Omni. There's also the ZeroTangle 3.0 brush, which minimizes tangling and picks up debris better. So what's missing? Well, the docking station uses slightly cooler 113 degrees Fahrenheit air to dry the mop, and the suction isn't quite as strong, but it's still way more capable than some of the more affordable robot vacuums we recommend.

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2025-05-13 18:54:32 ·

Backbone Pro

If you want to play Android or iOS games with physical controls, the easiest and most portable way to do so is with a clamp-on phone controller.
You could also buy a regular Bluetooth gamepad, though it won't stay attached to your handset unless you add a clunky clip.
Or you could get both with the Backbone Pro, a $169.99 snap-on phone controller that's almost as compact as the Backbone One and has Bluetooth.
The Backbone Pro performs well in both roles and feels better in the hand than its predecessor.
However, it isn't quite as comfortable as the full-size Razer Kishi Ultra ($149.99), and it locks several useful companion app features behind a $39.99 yearly subscription.
Still, it's a good compromise if you want a single gamepad you can easily use with your phone or PC.Design and Controls: Not Quite a Full-Size GamepadThe Backbone Pro is slightly chunkier than the Backbone One at 4.1 by 7 by 1.4 inches (HWD).
It's still easy to slip it into a pocket, despite the plumper, rounded grips that are much more comfortable to hold.
Weighing 7.02 ounces without its rubber inserts installed (more on those in a bit), the Backbone Pro feels a little hollow since it doesn't have haptic motors.
Still, it doesn't feel remotely flimsy.
The Backbone Pro is a well-built, comfortable gamepad. (Credit: Will Greenwald)The controls consist of a standard Xbox-style gamepad layout with offset dual analog sticks on either grip.
There is also a plus-shaped direction pad below the left stick, A/B/X/Y face buttons above the right stick, and a pair of bumpers and analog trigger sets on the top.
Small system buttons for Start/Select, Capture, and Backbone/Guide sit below the direction pad and right analog stick.
The Backbone button lights up and doubles as a status indicator.The Backbone Pro's analog sticks are larger than the ones on the Backbone One and the same size as the sticks on an Xbox controller.
They don't use Hall effect sensors like the magnetic triggers.
Due to the controller's compact design, the triggers' pull distances are much shorter than the triggers on full-size gamepads.
Likewise, the face buttons are noticeably smaller than full-size gamepad buttons, though slightly larger than Nintendo Switch Joy-Con face buttons.
They're satisfyingly clicky, though.Like the Backbone One, the Backbone Pro has a USB-C port in the right grip and a headphone jack in the left grip.
They serve the same power and audio pass-through functions.
A new pairing button puts the controller into Bluetooth pairing mode.
Since the Backbone Pro functions as a standalone wireless controller, the USB-C port also charges its internal battery, not just the phone it's attached to.(Credit: Will Greenwald)The Backbone Pro works with almost any phone with a USB-C port.
That covers most Android phones and iPhone 15 (and later models).
The older Backbone One has an iPhone-friendly Lightning version if you have an iPhone 14 or earlier handset.
The Backbone Pro holds phones between approximately 3.4 and 7 inches long, so it can snap onto phablets like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
If you own an iPad mini or a small Android tablet, consider the larger Razer Kishi Ultra.
Two pairs of included rubber adapters (one narrow, one wide) let you get a snug fit.
They aren't designed for specific phone models, but they should accommodate your handset.
To use the Backbone Pro with your phone, just pull it open and slip the phone between the jaws with the USB-C plug lined up with the phone's port.
Your phone should automatically detect that it's connected to a Backbone controller and prompt you to download the Backbone app for configuration.
At that point, the Backbone Pro functions as a controller for any game that supports it.Recommended by Our EditorsWirelessly connecting the Backbone Pro to a compatible device is easy.
You press the pairing button and sync using a phone's standard process.
It works with anything that supports a generic XInput Bluetooth gamepad, including PCs, phones, tablets, and many media streamers and TVs with games or game streaming apps.
(Credit: Will Greenwald)If you wirelessly use the Backbone Pro with your phone, you can't access the Backbone app's features.
As mentioned, the Backbone Pro lacks haptic motors, so the only rumble you'll experience will potentially come from your handset.
According to Backbone, the Pro can function as a Bluetooth controller for up to 40 hours between charges.Software: Major Features Need a SubscriptionEven though the Pro's basic controls work without issue, you'll want to launch the Backbone app to update the firmware and add features.
For example, the app lets you remap the controller inputs and take screenshots with the Capture button.
Once it's all set up, the Backbone app opens whenever you insert your phone.
You can also launch it by pressing the orange Backbone button.(Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Out of the box, those functions are where the Backbone app starts and ends, but you can expand the feature set with a Backbone+ membership ($39.99 per year).
Backbone+ lets the app launch installed and streaming games, capture video at up to 1080p60 with cloud storage and Twitch streaming support, and use voice chat with other Backbone+ subscribers.
iPhone users also get beta access to an in-app emulator for retro games.Most of Backbone+'s features should be available by default with the Backbone Pro and are unnecessarily gated behind a subscription.
The emulator and voice chat are fun bonuses, but they are already well-supported on mobile devices with RetroArch and Discord, respectively.
It just doesn't feel necessary. (Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Playing Games With the Backbone ProI had no problem controlling PC games with the Backbone Pro thanks to Steam's gamepad support.
It also worked well with the Xbox app, albeit not quite as consistently.
I had several hiccups with Claire Obscur: Expedition 33; it occasionally wouldn't respond to controller inputs, though restarting it fixed the problem.
It seemed like an issue with the game rather than the Backbone Pro, because the controller worked reliably under all other circumstances.The full-size analog sticks were comfortable to use in testing, and they tracked movement consistently.
Likewise, the buttons, bumpers, and triggers had just the right amount of resistance.
Although the gamepad's face buttons are a bit small, I didn't accidentally press the wrong ones while playing.
Moving and aiming with the analog sticks were similarly accurate, which resulted in exciting Monster Hunter Wilds and Palworld sessions.
That said, the analog triggers' shallow pull required a bit more finesse than usual to accelerate and brake precisely in Forza Horizon 5.

Source: https://me.pcmag.com/en/game-controllers-accessories/29813/backbone-pro" style="color: #0066cc;">https://me.pcmag.com/en/game-controllers-accessories/29813/backbone-pro
#backbone #pro

Backbone Pro
If you want to play Android or iOS games with physical controls, the easiest and most portable way to do so is with a clamp-on phone controller. You could also buy a regular Bluetooth gamepad, though it won't stay attached to your handset unless you add a clunky clip. Or you could get both with the Backbone Pro, a $169.99 snap-on phone controller that's almost as compact as the Backbone One and has Bluetooth. The Backbone Pro performs well in both roles and feels better in the hand than its predecessor. However, it isn't quite as comfortable as the full-size Razer Kishi Ultra ($149.99), and it locks several useful companion app features behind a $39.99 yearly subscription. Still, it's a good compromise if you want a single gamepad you can easily use with your phone or PC.Design and Controls: Not Quite a Full-Size GamepadThe Backbone Pro is slightly chunkier than the Backbone One at 4.1 by 7 by 1.4 inches (HWD). It's still easy to slip it into a pocket, despite the plumper, rounded grips that are much more comfortable to hold. Weighing 7.02 ounces without its rubber inserts installed (more on those in a bit), the Backbone Pro feels a little hollow since it doesn't have haptic motors. Still, it doesn't feel remotely flimsy. The Backbone Pro is a well-built, comfortable gamepad. (Credit: Will Greenwald)The controls consist of a standard Xbox-style gamepad layout with offset dual analog sticks on either grip. There is also a plus-shaped direction pad below the left stick, A/B/X/Y face buttons above the right stick, and a pair of bumpers and analog trigger sets on the top. Small system buttons for Start/Select, Capture, and Backbone/Guide sit below the direction pad and right analog stick. The Backbone button lights up and doubles as a status indicator.The Backbone Pro's analog sticks are larger than the ones on the Backbone One and the same size as the sticks on an Xbox controller. They don't use Hall effect sensors like the magnetic triggers. Due to the controller's compact design, the triggers' pull distances are much shorter than the triggers on full-size gamepads. Likewise, the face buttons are noticeably smaller than full-size gamepad buttons, though slightly larger than Nintendo Switch Joy-Con face buttons. They're satisfyingly clicky, though.Like the Backbone One, the Backbone Pro has a USB-C port in the right grip and a headphone jack in the left grip. They serve the same power and audio pass-through functions. A new pairing button puts the controller into Bluetooth pairing mode. Since the Backbone Pro functions as a standalone wireless controller, the USB-C port also charges its internal battery, not just the phone it's attached to.(Credit: Will Greenwald)The Backbone Pro works with almost any phone with a USB-C port. That covers most Android phones and iPhone 15 (and later models). The older Backbone One has an iPhone-friendly Lightning version if you have an iPhone 14 or earlier handset. The Backbone Pro holds phones between approximately 3.4 and 7 inches long, so it can snap onto phablets like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. If you own an iPad mini or a small Android tablet, consider the larger Razer Kishi Ultra. Two pairs of included rubber adapters (one narrow, one wide) let you get a snug fit. They aren't designed for specific phone models, but they should accommodate your handset. To use the Backbone Pro with your phone, just pull it open and slip the phone between the jaws with the USB-C plug lined up with the phone's port. Your phone should automatically detect that it's connected to a Backbone controller and prompt you to download the Backbone app for configuration. At that point, the Backbone Pro functions as a controller for any game that supports it.Recommended by Our EditorsWirelessly connecting the Backbone Pro to a compatible device is easy. You press the pairing button and sync using a phone's standard process. It works with anything that supports a generic XInput Bluetooth gamepad, including PCs, phones, tablets, and many media streamers and TVs with games or game streaming apps. (Credit: Will Greenwald)If you wirelessly use the Backbone Pro with your phone, you can't access the Backbone app's features. As mentioned, the Backbone Pro lacks haptic motors, so the only rumble you'll experience will potentially come from your handset. According to Backbone, the Pro can function as a Bluetooth controller for up to 40 hours between charges.Software: Major Features Need a SubscriptionEven though the Pro's basic controls work without issue, you'll want to launch the Backbone app to update the firmware and add features. For example, the app lets you remap the controller inputs and take screenshots with the Capture button. Once it's all set up, the Backbone app opens whenever you insert your phone. You can also launch it by pressing the orange Backbone button.(Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Out of the box, those functions are where the Backbone app starts and ends, but you can expand the feature set with a Backbone+ membership ($39.99 per year). Backbone+ lets the app launch installed and streaming games, capture video at up to 1080p60 with cloud storage and Twitch streaming support, and use voice chat with other Backbone+ subscribers. iPhone users also get beta access to an in-app emulator for retro games.Most of Backbone+'s features should be available by default with the Backbone Pro and are unnecessarily gated behind a subscription. The emulator and voice chat are fun bonuses, but they are already well-supported on mobile devices with RetroArch and Discord, respectively. It just doesn't feel necessary. (Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Playing Games With the Backbone ProI had no problem controlling PC games with the Backbone Pro thanks to Steam's gamepad support. It also worked well with the Xbox app, albeit not quite as consistently. I had several hiccups with Claire Obscur: Expedition 33; it occasionally wouldn't respond to controller inputs, though restarting it fixed the problem. It seemed like an issue with the game rather than the Backbone Pro, because the controller worked reliably under all other circumstances.The full-size analog sticks were comfortable to use in testing, and they tracked movement consistently. Likewise, the buttons, bumpers, and triggers had just the right amount of resistance. Although the gamepad's face buttons are a bit small, I didn't accidentally press the wrong ones while playing. Moving and aiming with the analog sticks were similarly accurate, which resulted in exciting Monster Hunter Wilds and Palworld sessions. That said, the analog triggers' shallow pull required a bit more finesse than usual to accelerate and brake precisely in Forza Horizon 5. Source: https://me.pcmag.com/en/game-controllers-accessories/29813/backbone-pro #backbone #pro

ME.PCMAG.COM

Backbone Pro

If you want to play Android or iOS games with physical controls, the easiest and most portable way to do so is with a clamp-on phone controller. You could also buy a regular Bluetooth gamepad, though it won't stay attached to your handset unless you add a clunky clip. Or you could get both with the Backbone Pro, a $169.99 snap-on phone controller that's almost as compact as the Backbone One and has Bluetooth. The Backbone Pro performs well in both roles and feels better in the hand than its predecessor. However, it isn't quite as comfortable as the full-size Razer Kishi Ultra ($149.99), and it locks several useful companion app features behind a $39.99 yearly subscription. Still, it's a good compromise if you want a single gamepad you can easily use with your phone or PC.Design and Controls: Not Quite a Full-Size GamepadThe Backbone Pro is slightly chunkier than the Backbone One at 4.1 by 7 by 1.4 inches (HWD). It's still easy to slip it into a pocket, despite the plumper, rounded grips that are much more comfortable to hold. Weighing 7.02 ounces without its rubber inserts installed (more on those in a bit), the Backbone Pro feels a little hollow since it doesn't have haptic motors. Still, it doesn't feel remotely flimsy. The Backbone Pro is a well-built, comfortable gamepad. (Credit: Will Greenwald)The controls consist of a standard Xbox-style gamepad layout with offset dual analog sticks on either grip. There is also a plus-shaped direction pad below the left stick, A/B/X/Y face buttons above the right stick, and a pair of bumpers and analog trigger sets on the top. Small system buttons for Start/Select, Capture, and Backbone/Guide sit below the direction pad and right analog stick. The Backbone button lights up and doubles as a status indicator.The Backbone Pro's analog sticks are larger than the ones on the Backbone One and the same size as the sticks on an Xbox controller. They don't use Hall effect sensors like the magnetic triggers. Due to the controller's compact design, the triggers' pull distances are much shorter than the triggers on full-size gamepads. Likewise, the face buttons are noticeably smaller than full-size gamepad buttons, though slightly larger than Nintendo Switch Joy-Con face buttons. They're satisfyingly clicky, though.Like the Backbone One, the Backbone Pro has a USB-C port in the right grip and a headphone jack in the left grip. They serve the same power and audio pass-through functions. A new pairing button puts the controller into Bluetooth pairing mode. Since the Backbone Pro functions as a standalone wireless controller, the USB-C port also charges its internal battery, not just the phone it's attached to.(Credit: Will Greenwald)The Backbone Pro works with almost any phone with a USB-C port. That covers most Android phones and iPhone 15 (and later models). The older Backbone One has an iPhone-friendly Lightning version if you have an iPhone 14 or earlier handset. The Backbone Pro holds phones between approximately 3.4 and 7 inches long, so it can snap onto phablets like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. If you own an iPad mini or a small Android tablet, consider the larger Razer Kishi Ultra. Two pairs of included rubber adapters (one narrow, one wide) let you get a snug fit. They aren't designed for specific phone models, but they should accommodate your handset. To use the Backbone Pro with your phone, just pull it open and slip the phone between the jaws with the USB-C plug lined up with the phone's port. Your phone should automatically detect that it's connected to a Backbone controller and prompt you to download the Backbone app for configuration. At that point, the Backbone Pro functions as a controller for any game that supports it.Recommended by Our EditorsWirelessly connecting the Backbone Pro to a compatible device is easy. You press the pairing button and sync using a phone's standard process. It works with anything that supports a generic XInput Bluetooth gamepad, including PCs, phones, tablets, and many media streamers and TVs with games or game streaming apps. (Credit: Will Greenwald)If you wirelessly use the Backbone Pro with your phone, you can't access the Backbone app's features. As mentioned, the Backbone Pro lacks haptic motors, so the only rumble you'll experience will potentially come from your handset. According to Backbone, the Pro can function as a Bluetooth controller for up to 40 hours between charges.Software: Major Features Need a SubscriptionEven though the Pro's basic controls work without issue, you'll want to launch the Backbone app to update the firmware and add features. For example, the app lets you remap the controller inputs and take screenshots with the Capture button. Once it's all set up, the Backbone app opens whenever you insert your phone. You can also launch it by pressing the orange Backbone button.(Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Out of the box, those functions are where the Backbone app starts and ends, but you can expand the feature set with a Backbone+ membership ($39.99 per year). Backbone+ lets the app launch installed and streaming games, capture video at up to 1080p60 with cloud storage and Twitch streaming support, and use voice chat with other Backbone+ subscribers. iPhone users also get beta access to an in-app emulator for retro games.Most of Backbone+'s features should be available by default with the Backbone Pro and are unnecessarily gated behind a subscription. The emulator and voice chat are fun bonuses, but they are already well-supported on mobile devices with RetroArch and Discord, respectively. It just doesn't feel necessary. (Credit: Backbone/PCMag)Playing Games With the Backbone ProI had no problem controlling PC games with the Backbone Pro thanks to Steam's gamepad support. It also worked well with the Xbox app, albeit not quite as consistently. I had several hiccups with Claire Obscur: Expedition 33; it occasionally wouldn't respond to controller inputs, though restarting it fixed the problem. It seemed like an issue with the game rather than the Backbone Pro, because the controller worked reliably under all other circumstances.The full-size analog sticks were comfortable to use in testing, and they tracked movement consistently. Likewise, the buttons, bumpers, and triggers had just the right amount of resistance. Although the gamepad's face buttons are a bit small, I didn't accidentally press the wrong ones while playing. Moving and aiming with the analog sticks were similarly accurate, which resulted in exciting Monster Hunter Wilds and Palworld sessions. That said, the analog triggers' shallow pull required a bit more finesse than usual to accelerate and brake precisely in Forza Horizon 5.

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2025-05-13 14:01:22 ·

#333;">Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery

Persona!
Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery
The most likely outcome is a Western release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, which would certainly be nice!
News

by Connor Makar
Staff Writer

Published on May 13, 2025
Atlus has teased something Persona 5-related on social media, which as you've probably assumed has sent the fans' hearts aflutter.
While it's not explicitly stated what this is teasing (that being the standard tease protocol), there's a solid chance it's a hint towards a Western port of Persona 5: The Phantom X
The post itself, a simple image with the words "retake your desire" plastered across it beneath a top hat and distinct pair of shades, appears to keep things vague enough.
But those with their finger on the Persona pulse may recognise those glasses as being very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of PSX.
This, for many, is all the confirmation needed.
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

Though this is more evidence to support that theory.
In the Sega 2024 financial report, the company expressed a desire to expand its IP on mobile platforms as well as its presence in the Games as a Service (GaaS) space.
PSX, a free-to-play mobile game, fits this description perfectly, and an expansion to the West would certainly do wonders in expanding the SEGA's mobile output to more users.
Oh, and there's a big Persona 5: The Phantom X livestream taking place on the 15th (which you can watch here) that will likely reveal its version 1.0 release date, so when you step back and look at all the clues, it's fairly clear what this announcement will be.
Unless it's somehow Persona 5 Arena, in which case I'll scream.
For those who aren't aware, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a spinoff game created by Perfect World, released back in April 2024 in early access for players in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
There's been no word of a Western release since last year, but given the popularity of Persona 5 over here, it makes sense to bring that game over.
It's also worth noting that the game has been recieved positively! It managed to bring various Persona staples over to the mobile platform, including dungeon delving and social mechanics.
If this is Persona 5: The Phantom X, would you give it a try once it releases in the West? Let us know below!

#666;">المصدر: https://www.vg247.com/atlus-teases-persona-5-thing-the-phantom-x-western-release" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">www.vg247.com
#0066cc;">#atlus #teases #something #persona #5related #with #cryptic #social #media #post #though #what #actually #remains #mystery #personaatlus #mysterythe #most #likely #outcome #western #release #the #phantom #which #would #certainly #nice #news #connor #makar #staff #writer #published #may #has #teased #you039ve #probably #assumed #sent #fans039 #hearts #aflutterwhile #it039s #not #explicitly #stated #this #teasing #that #being #standard #tease #protocol #there039s #solid #chance #hint #towards #port #xthe #itself #simple #image #words #quotretake #your #desirequot #plastered #across #beneath #top #hat #and #distinct #pair #shades #appears #keep #things #vague #enoughbut #those #their #finger #pulse #recognise #glasses #very #similar #worn #protagonist #psxthis #for #many #all #confirmation #neededto #see #content #please #enable #targeting #cookies #more #evidence #support #theoryin #sega #financial #report #company #expressed #desire #expand #its #mobile #platforms #well #presence #games #service #gaas #spacepsx #freetoplay #game #fits #description #perfectly #expansion #west #wonders #expanding #sega039s #output #usersoh #big #livestream #taking #place #15th #you #can #watch #here #will #reveal #version #date #when #step #back #look #clues #fairly #clear #announcement #beunless #somehow #arena #case #i039ll #screamfor #who #aren039t #aware #spinoff #created #perfect #world #released #april #early #access #players #china #south #korea #hong #kongthere039s #been #word #since #last #year #but #given #popularity #over #makes #sense #bring #overit039s #also #worth #noting #recieved #positively #managed #various #staples #platform #including #dungeon #delving #mechanicsif #give #try #once #releases #let #know #below

Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery
Persona! Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery The most likely outcome is a Western release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, which would certainly be nice! News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 Atlus has teased something Persona 5-related on social media, which as you've probably assumed has sent the fans' hearts aflutter. While it's not explicitly stated what this is teasing (that being the standard tease protocol), there's a solid chance it's a hint towards a Western port of Persona 5: The Phantom X The post itself, a simple image with the words "retake your desire" plastered across it beneath a top hat and distinct pair of shades, appears to keep things vague enough. But those with their finger on the Persona pulse may recognise those glasses as being very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of PSX. This, for many, is all the confirmation needed. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Though this is more evidence to support that theory. In the Sega 2024 financial report, the company expressed a desire to expand its IP on mobile platforms as well as its presence in the Games as a Service (GaaS) space. PSX, a free-to-play mobile game, fits this description perfectly, and an expansion to the West would certainly do wonders in expanding the SEGA's mobile output to more users. Oh, and there's a big Persona 5: The Phantom X livestream taking place on the 15th (which you can watch here) that will likely reveal its version 1.0 release date, so when you step back and look at all the clues, it's fairly clear what this announcement will be. Unless it's somehow Persona 5 Arena, in which case I'll scream. For those who aren't aware, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a spinoff game created by Perfect World, released back in April 2024 in early access for players in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. There's been no word of a Western release since last year, but given the popularity of Persona 5 over here, it makes sense to bring that game over. It's also worth noting that the game has been recieved positively! It managed to bring various Persona staples over to the mobile platform, including dungeon delving and social mechanics. If this is Persona 5: The Phantom X, would you give it a try once it releases in the West? Let us know below!
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#atlus #teases #something #persona #5related #with #cryptic #social #media #post #though #what #actually #remains #mystery #personaatlus #mysterythe #most #likely #outcome #western #release #the #phantom #which #would #certainly #nice #news #connor #makar #staff #writer #published #may #has #teased #you039ve #probably #assumed #sent #fans039 #hearts #aflutterwhile #it039s #not #explicitly #stated #this #teasing #that #being #standard #tease #protocol #there039s #solid #chance #hint #towards #port #xthe #itself #simple #image #words #quotretake #your #desirequot #plastered #across #beneath #top #hat #and #distinct #pair #shades #appears #keep #things #vague #enoughbut #those #their #finger #pulse #recognise #glasses #very #similar #worn #protagonist #psxthis #for #many #all #confirmation #neededto #see #content #please #enable #targeting #cookies #more #evidence #support #theoryin #sega #financial #report #company #expressed #desire #expand #its #mobile #platforms #well #presence #games #service #gaas #spacepsx #freetoplay #game #fits #description #perfectly #expansion #west #wonders #expanding #sega039s #output #usersoh #big #livestream #taking #place #15th #you #can #watch #here #will #reveal #version #date #when #step #back #look #clues #fairly #clear #announcement #beunless #somehow #arena #case #i039ll #screamfor #who #aren039t #aware #spinoff #created #perfect #world #released #april #early #access #players #china #south #korea #hong #kongthere039s #been #word #since #last #year #but #given #popularity #over #makes #sense #bring #overit039s #also #worth #noting #recieved #positively #managed #various #staples #platform #including #dungeon #delving #mechanicsif #give #try #once #releases #let #know #below

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Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery

Persona! Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery The most likely outcome is a Western release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, which would certainly be nice! News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 Atlus has teased something Persona 5-related on social media, which as you've probably assumed has sent the fans' hearts aflutter. While it's not explicitly stated what this is teasing (that being the standard tease protocol), there's a solid chance it's a hint towards a Western port of Persona 5: The Phantom X The post itself, a simple image with the words "retake your desire" plastered across it beneath a top hat and distinct pair of shades, appears to keep things vague enough. But those with their finger on the Persona pulse may recognise those glasses as being very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of PSX. This, for many, is all the confirmation needed. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Though this is more evidence to support that theory. In the Sega 2024 financial report, the company expressed a desire to expand its IP on mobile platforms as well as its presence in the Games as a Service (GaaS) space. PSX, a free-to-play mobile game, fits this description perfectly, and an expansion to the West would certainly do wonders in expanding the SEGA's mobile output to more users. Oh, and there's a big Persona 5: The Phantom X livestream taking place on the 15th (which you can watch here) that will likely reveal its version 1.0 release date, so when you step back and look at all the clues, it's fairly clear what this announcement will be. Unless it's somehow Persona 5 Arena, in which case I'll scream. For those who aren't aware, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a spinoff game created by Perfect World, released back in April 2024 in early access for players in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. There's been no word of a Western release since last year, but given the popularity of Persona 5 over here, it makes sense to bring that game over. It's also worth noting that the game has been recieved positively! It managed to bring various Persona staples over to the mobile platform, including dungeon delving and social mechanics. If this is Persona 5: The Phantom X, would you give it a try once it releases in the West? Let us know below!

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2025-05-13 13:47:29 ·

#333;">Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire
If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer.
In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe.
MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency.
The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short.
I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint.
Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed.
But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic.
Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market.
The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family.
While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market.
If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe.
Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests.
Users can look up and find people they know in real life.
And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service.
It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point.
In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends.
The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram.
While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there.
And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it.
Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point.
Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated.
The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche.
In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic.
In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online.
To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users.
Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller.
“It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said.
“You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms.
Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other.
But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there.
The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified.
And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities.
When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing.
But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms.
Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing.
It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations.
It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level.
That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes.
They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way.
Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform.
Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said.
“That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said.
Companies can “sometimes make mistakes.
They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here.
Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead.
But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist.
The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic.
”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says.
“Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder.
In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention.
But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space.
In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment.
And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok.
But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize.
It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v.
Microsoft.
In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law.
“You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says.
“And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:
#666;">المصدر: https://www.theverge.com/antitrust/665308/meta-ftc-antitrust-trial-market-definition-tiktok-mewe-snap" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;">www.theverge.com
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Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire
If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer. In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe. MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency. The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short. I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint. Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed. But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic. Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market. The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family. While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market. If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe. Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests. Users can look up and find people they know in real life. And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service. It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point. In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends. The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram. While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there. And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it. Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point. Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated. The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche. In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic. In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online. To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users. Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller. “It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said. “You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms. Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other. But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there. The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified. And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities. When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing. But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms. Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing. It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations. It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level. That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way. Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform. Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said. “That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said. Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here. Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead. But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist. The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic. ”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says. “Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder. In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention. But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space. In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment. And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok. But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize. It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v. Microsoft. In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law. “You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says. “And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:
المصدر: www.theverge.com
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WWW.THEVERGE.COM

Why one obscure app could help crumble Meta’s empire

If the question, “Who is Meta’s biggest rival?” were on a Family Feud survey, TikTok would likely be the winning answer. In the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the Facebook and Instagram owner, the government’s response probably wouldn’t even make the top 10: a small blockchain-based platform called MeWe. MeWe looks a fair amount like Facebook at first glance, except that you make an account using the Frequency blockchain — which the company explains is a decentralized protocol that lets you move your social connections to other (mostly hypothetical at this point) apps that support Frequency. The company says 20 million users have joined, but when I make a MeWe account and log in, I scroll through my autopopulated feed and think, “Who are these people?” I search for a few of my Verge colleagues, figuring if anyone has tried this obscure app, it might be one of them, but I come up short. I try some public figures: Tim Cook? Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerberg? There are some accounts with these names, but it seems unlikely they’re the ones I have in mind.The claim that MeWe is a closer competitor to Facebook and Instagram than TikTok might be baffling if you’re not steeped in antitrust law or the specifics of the FTC’s complaint. Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified he hadn’t even heard of the app before this case was filed. But the FTC has spent the past three weeks laying out its logic. Using Meta’s own internal discussions about how it views itself and its competition, it says that Meta has historically, and to this day, competed in a market for connecting with friends and family online — and when it saw its dominance in that space threatened by the rise of Instagram and WhatsApp, it bought them to squash the competition.Whether Judge James Boasberg buys this could determine who wins the case — if the FTC can also show that Meta acted illegally through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to solidify its alleged monopoly power.Antitrust law is supposed to ensure fair competition, which usually means that people have options for a useful class of goods and services — what’s known as a relevant market. The FTC says that here, that market is “personal social networking services,” or PSNs: spaces where a core purpose is helping people connect with friends and family. While there are many online platforms that overlap with Meta’s services, the FTC argues that virtually none of them serve that market. If internet users want to find and hang out with people they know — as opposed to, say, watching influencers or making work connections — then it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s way or… in the government’s telling, Snapchat, BeReal, and MeWe. Beyond that core definition, PSNs have some other unique features and norms: The apps feature a social graph of users’ friends and family connections, as opposed to mapping users primarily based on their interests. Users can look up and find people they know in real life. And they come to the app to share personal updates with those people.Facebook and Instagram increasingly display videos and photos from influencers and celebrities, but the FTC argues personal social networking remains a core service. It used Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s testimony to most clearly make this point. In that testimony as well as posts to his own Instagram account, Mosseri said that it’s still important for the app to connect users with their friends. The FTC argues that even if that use case is a smaller portion of what Meta’s apps do these days, it’s still a significant need users have that can virtually only be fulfilled by Facebook and Instagram. While someone might connect with people they know in real life on LinkedIn, they likely won’t primarily share personal updates there. And while they also could follow and interact with people they know on TikTok or YouTube, they’re more likely to passively watch videos from people they don’t.Meta says this is an entirely wrong way to think about it. Social media platforms compete for users’ time and attention, so whether a particular app is squarely aimed at so-called friends and family sharing is beside the point. Facebook and Instagram have evolved to show more content from people like influencers, shifting further from the use case the FTC says Meta has illegally dominated. The company has already landed some important points that could help its case, and it will get more time to push back on the agency’s framing when it calls its own witnesses in the coming weeks.But as the FTC’s case-in-chief continues into its fifth week, its argument for Meta’s dominance is becoming a lot clearer.Why do people use Facebook?When defining a market, each side is trying to answer a key question: why are people choosing one particular company’s product? A lot of goods and services compete with each other in some sense, but this doesn’t mean they serve the same niche. In the case of sodas, for example, “you could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi,” says George Washington Law professor and former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic. In the tech world, Netflix has claimed its biggest competitors are Fortnite and sleep — but those comparisons probably wouldn’t stand up in court.The FTC says that outside of Facebook and Instagram, only apps like Snapchat and MeWe can fulfill a users’ desire to broadcast personal updates with friends and family online. To make its case, it brought in a string of executives from other social media companies to explain why their apps can’t quite scratch the same itch for users. Strava’s former VP of connected partnerships Mateo Ortega testified that sure, users of the fitness-tracking social media app could share baby photos on the platform, but they probably wouldn’t unless it was in a running stroller. “It’s all about fitness, and while you can post other stuff, it just doesn’t seem as relevant,” he said. “You could buy lemon-lime, but many people would never see that as a close substitute for buying Coke or Pepsi”Pinterest’s former head of user growth Julia Roberts testified that users who come to Pinterest “expecting it to be like other social media apps … tend to be confused about how to use the product.” That’s because the app is so much not about connecting with other people that it works much differently from other social media platforms. Pinterest is more about finding things users are interested in, she said, so “following is not a big part of the Pinterest experience.”TikTok has a tab where users can watch videos from their friends — identified as people who mutually follow each other. But head of operations Adam Presser testified only about 1 percent of videos watched on the platform are there. The company doesn’t think of itself as competing with Meta’s apps for personal social networking, he testified. And even though side-by-side screenshots of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts look identical, Presser said, “when you click out of this view for these other platforms, you would get to essentially what I think of as their core business,” which for Instagram, includes a feed and stories that often contain at least some content from family and friends.At times, Meta’s cross-examination of rival company executives showed the limits of apps’ similarities. When questioning Apple director of product marketing Ronak Shah, Meta sought to show that group chats in Apple’s messaging feature could serve as a social media feed for friends and family sharing. But Shah testified that feed would be limited to 32 people at most, and users can’t just look up each others’ profiles like they would on social platforms. Still, Meta pointed out, Apple’s messages app is listed under social media on its own app store.However, Meta also made important arguments about why the judge should question the FTC’s framing. It pointed out that some documents from TikTok and YouTube owner Google claiming their products are very different from Meta’s were submitted to foreign officials to try to avoid getting drafted into potentially frustrating regulations. It also pointed out when TikTok briefly went dark in the US ahead of a (now-aborted) ban, users flocked to Meta apps, showing consumers see it as a substitute on at least some level. That’s because, Meta argued, competition for users is really about winning their time and attention.Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are”But X VP of product Keith Coleman testified it’s not that useful to think about competition this way. Instead, “it’s much more helpful to understand what people are trying to accomplish in their lives and to try to help them accomplish that.” Under former CEO Jack Dorsey, then-Twitter leaned into focusing on news and users’ interests, Coleman testified, because that’s why people were coming to the platform. Coleman was later surprised at how his own website characterized the product in its help center as a “service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.” “I can’t believe that’s on the website,” he said. “That’s pretty wacky.”This point was “a caution that not everything a company writes down or says is necessarily decisive in establishing what the boundary of a market is,” Kovacic said. Companies can “sometimes make mistakes. They misjudge who their users are.”There are real ramifications for internet users here. Going back to Netflix’s comparisons, if the streaming video service went down, some people would probably be happy to play a video game or get a few hours of shut-eye instead. But others would be frustrated that they couldn’t watch a movie, which is why it’s good that Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime Video also exist. The FTC’s argument isn’t that Meta owns the only social apps on the internet, it’s that the company faces little competition for a service many people specifically want — so the fact that you probably don’t know anyone using MeWe is sort of the point.How will the judge decide?Ultimately, Boasberg’s market definition — whether it’s Meta’s, the FTC’s, or his own — will come down to a few things: how Meta views itself, how competitors see it, and his own intuition, says Kovacic. ”Notice how much the FTC has been questioning Meta witnesses on the basis of its own internal documents,” he says. “Does the story in the courtroom match the story of your own internal documents?” So far, the documents have shown that Meta has clocked that at least some portion of users come to its products to connect with family and friends, but also that the rise of TikTok has had it looking over its shoulder. In September 2020, Meta told its board that Instagram revenue would be “meaningfully lower” than planned in the second half of the fiscal year because TikTok was drawing users’ attention. But other internal documents have shown Meta’s well aware that at different points in time, users have come to its apps to connect with family and friends, and worriedly took note of other apps entering that space. In a 2018 presentation, Meta found that the highest percentage of surveyed users said they come to Facebook, Instagram, and Snap to “see daily casual moments” and “see special moments.” By contrast, users came to Twitter’s feed for news and YouTube’s for entertainment. And even as Instagram expands into entertainment, the FTC notes that it still advertises its sign-up page as a place to “see photos and videos from your friends.”“Instagram will always need to focus on friends”In a 2018 email, Zuckerberg told Mosseri that “Instagram will always need to focus on friends.” And even though a lot has changed in the social media landscape since then, Mosseri testified that to this day on the app, “friends are an important part of the experience.” Even though users may share fewer of their own updates on Facebook and Instagram, Mosseri admitted that two friends talking in the comments of a public figure’s post counts as an interaction between friends — and one that Instagram actively tries to facilitate.Meta has argued that this special focus on friends and family sharing makes up a shrinking portion of its offerings as it works to compete with fierce rivals like TikTok. But the FTC says it’s still significant enough to monopolize. It’s a scenario that came up in another major tech monopolization case, Kovacic says: the late-1990s lawsuit US v. Microsoft. In that case, Microsoft argued the Justice Department was ignoring how computing would soon move beyond the personal computer to the Internet of Things, meaning it couldn’t truly lock up the computing ecosystem as much as the government alleged.“Judge Jackson in the Microsoft case said, yeah, those things are happening, but not happening fast enough to deny you real market power in this PC and laptop-based market that the Justice Department is emphasizing,” Kovacic says.Still, he adds, a market niche can at some point become so small that it’s no longer significant in the eyes of antitrust law. “You can have a process of change that ultimately renders the market segment unimportant,” he says. “And the hard task of analysis for the judge is to say, has it already happened?”See More:

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2025-05-13 12:42:55 ·

Tim Cook’s Apple iToken Ad Is A Con, X Users Warned
Adverts for an Apple crpyto iToken, supposedly endorsed by Tim Cook, and appearing on X are not what they seem — unless they seem like a con, that is.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/05/13/tim-cooks-apple-itoken-ad--is-a-con-x-users-warned/" style="color: #0066cc;">https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/05/13/tim-cooks-apple-itoken-ad--is-a-con-x-users-warned/
#tim #cooks #apple #itoken #con #users #warned

Tim Cook’s Apple iToken Ad Is A Con, X Users Warned
Adverts for an Apple crpyto iToken, supposedly endorsed by Tim Cook, and appearing on X are not what they seem — unless they seem like a con, that is. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/05/13/tim-cooks-apple-itoken-ad--is-a-con-x-users-warned/ #tim #cooks #apple #itoken #con #users #warned

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Tim Cook’s Apple iToken Ad Is A Con, X Users Warned

Adverts for an Apple crpyto iToken, supposedly endorsed by Tim Cook, and appearing on X are not what they seem — unless they seem like a con, that is.

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2025-05-13 11:34:26 ·

How to watch Google’s Android Show: I/O Edition today

There’s still a week to go until Google I/O 2025 starts in earnest, but some of the developer conference’s biggest announcements are likely to arrive today in a one-off livestream called The Android Show: I/O Edition.When the Android Show will happen and where to watch itThe Android Show takes place today, Tuesday, May 13th, at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. You can watch it live on the Android site or its YouTube channel, and we’ve embedded the livestream at the top of this page too.Google’s main I/O keynotes tend to run for a couple of hours. Breaking Android out should mean this is a shorter show, though we don’t know for sure how long it’ll run.A new look for AndroidImage: Google / 9to5GoogleOne thing we’re pretty confident is coming is the launch of Android’s new design language, Material 3 Expressive. That’s because Google already published (and deleted) a blog post revealing the new look, and still has the name online in an I/O session listing that calls it “the future of Google’s UX design.”We haven’t seen Material 3 Expressive in Android 16’s beta releases yet, so the Android Show should be our first detailed look at how it works, and hopefully we’ll find out when it — and Android 16 — will arrive on our phones.Android XRGoogle first announced its Android-ified take on extended reality in December 2024, so we’re about due an update on it, especially with Samsung’s Project Moohan headset still slated to launch this year.Samsung’s Project Moohan headset will be one of the first to run Android XR. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeWe got to try the tech out last year, so we know the basics of what to expect, but Google needs to prove that its concept is ready to become reality. Is a boatload of XR updates the reason it broke out the Android Show into its own event?Don’t hold your breath for hardwareGoogle is inconsistent about announcing hardware at Google I/O, but an announcement today feels especially unlikely: we already have the Pixel 9A, it’s too early for the Pixel 10 phones, and by all accounts we’re never getting a Pixel Tablet 2.Unless Google decides to drop a sneaky I/O tease of the Pixel 10 line — like it did for the Pixel 7 series, but hasn’t done since — the focus will probably be firmly on software.When is the rest of Google I/O?The bulk of Google I/O will take place next week, on May 20th and 21st, with Google’s main keynote set for 10AM PT / 1PM ET on May 20th. That’s right in the midst of Microsoft’s Build conference, which takes place from May 19th through May 22nd. With today all about Android, expect next week’s I/O event to put Gemini center-stage.See More:

المصدر: https://www.theverge.com/news/665558/android-show-io-edition-google-how-to-watch

How to watch Google’s Android Show: I/O Edition today
There’s still a week to go until Google I/O 2025 starts in earnest, but some of the developer conference’s biggest announcements are likely to arrive today in a one-off livestream called The Android Show: I/O Edition.When the Android Show will happen and where to watch itThe Android Show takes place today, Tuesday, May 13th, at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. You can watch it live on the Android site or its YouTube channel, and we’ve embedded the livestream at the top of this page too.Google’s main I/O keynotes tend to run for a couple of hours. Breaking Android out should mean this is a shorter show, though we don’t know for sure how long it’ll run.A new look for AndroidImage: Google / 9to5GoogleOne thing we’re pretty confident is coming is the launch of Android’s new design language, Material 3 Expressive. That’s because Google already published (and deleted) a blog post revealing the new look, and still has the name online in an I/O session listing that calls it “the future of Google’s UX design.”We haven’t seen Material 3 Expressive in Android 16’s beta releases yet, so the Android Show should be our first detailed look at how it works, and hopefully we’ll find out when it — and Android 16 — will arrive on our phones.Android XRGoogle first announced its Android-ified take on extended reality in December 2024, so we’re about due an update on it, especially with Samsung’s Project Moohan headset still slated to launch this year.Samsung’s Project Moohan headset will be one of the first to run Android XR. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeWe got to try the tech out last year, so we know the basics of what to expect, but Google needs to prove that its concept is ready to become reality. Is a boatload of XR updates the reason it broke out the Android Show into its own event?Don’t hold your breath for hardwareGoogle is inconsistent about announcing hardware at Google I/O, but an announcement today feels especially unlikely: we already have the Pixel 9A, it’s too early for the Pixel 10 phones, and by all accounts we’re never getting a Pixel Tablet 2.Unless Google decides to drop a sneaky I/O tease of the Pixel 10 line — like it did for the Pixel 7 series, but hasn’t done since — the focus will probably be firmly on software.When is the rest of Google I/O?The bulk of Google I/O will take place next week, on May 20th and 21st, with Google’s main keynote set for 10AM PT / 1PM ET on May 20th. That’s right in the midst of Microsoft’s Build conference, which takes place from May 19th through May 22nd. With today all about Android, expect next week’s I/O event to put Gemini center-stage.See More: المصدر: https://www.theverge.com/news/665558/android-show-io-edition-google-how-to-watch

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How to watch Google’s Android Show: I/O Edition today

There’s still a week to go until Google I/O 2025 starts in earnest, but some of the developer conference’s biggest announcements are likely to arrive today in a one-off livestream called The Android Show: I/O Edition.When the Android Show will happen and where to watch itThe Android Show takes place today, Tuesday, May 13th, at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. You can watch it live on the Android site or its YouTube channel, and we’ve embedded the livestream at the top of this page too.Google’s main I/O keynotes tend to run for a couple of hours. Breaking Android out should mean this is a shorter show, though we don’t know for sure how long it’ll run.A new look for AndroidImage: Google / 9to5GoogleOne thing we’re pretty confident is coming is the launch of Android’s new design language, Material 3 Expressive. That’s because Google already published (and deleted) a blog post revealing the new look, and still has the name online in an I/O session listing that calls it “the future of Google’s UX design.”We haven’t seen Material 3 Expressive in Android 16’s beta releases yet, so the Android Show should be our first detailed look at how it works, and hopefully we’ll find out when it — and Android 16 — will arrive on our phones.Android XRGoogle first announced its Android-ified take on extended reality in December 2024, so we’re about due an update on it, especially with Samsung’s Project Moohan headset still slated to launch this year.Samsung’s Project Moohan headset will be one of the first to run Android XR. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeWe got to try the tech out last year, so we know the basics of what to expect, but Google needs to prove that its concept is ready to become reality. Is a boatload of XR updates the reason it broke out the Android Show into its own event?Don’t hold your breath for hardwareGoogle is inconsistent about announcing hardware at Google I/O, but an announcement today feels especially unlikely: we already have the Pixel 9A, it’s too early for the Pixel 10 phones, and by all accounts we’re never getting a Pixel Tablet 2.Unless Google decides to drop a sneaky I/O tease of the Pixel 10 line — like it did for the Pixel 7 series, but hasn’t done since — the focus will probably be firmly on software.When is the rest of Google I/O?The bulk of Google I/O will take place next week, on May 20th and 21st, with Google’s main keynote set for 10AM PT / 1PM ET on May 20th. That’s right in the midst of Microsoft’s Build conference, which takes place from May 19th through May 22nd. With today all about Android, expect next week’s I/O event to put Gemini center-stage.See More:

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2025-05-13 10:55:51 ·

Here's What I Learned After Six Months of Wearing Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Six months ago, I reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
If you’ve been off-grid, these specs pack a camera, open-ear speakers, microphones, and voice-activated Meta AI inside a pair of Wayfarer-style frames, so they're basically science fiction glasses that look normal.
I liked them so much, I had prescription lenses put in and made them part of my daily load out.
But it's easy to love a tech product when it’s new and shiny; the real test is how the Ray-Ban Metas fair after they've gone from novelty to another damn thing I have to remember to charge.
Bottom line: I still really like them after half a year of wearing them while working, sitting around, biking, running errands, and generally living my boring life.
But I like them in a more nuanced way.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses

$263.00
at Best Buy

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$263.00
at Best Buy

Not quite everyday glassesAfter the initial sugar rush wore off, I started noticing the weight of the Ray-Ban Metas.
They're around 49 grams out of the box, fairly heavy for sunglasses, but prescription lenses bumped the weight up to 54 grams.
My regular specs are pretty chunky and weigh 39 grams, and the difference is noticeable.
They're slightly uncomfortable for extended use.
I found myself wearing regular glasses when I didn’t expect to use smart features, and going back to the Ray-Bans if I wanted to take photos, record video, or go hands-free.
The main downside was forgetting which pair I was wearing and saying “Hey Meta” to my dumb glasses.
(But that’s a me problem.)Build quality, durability, and style: no complaintsI have to commend Ray-Ban, Meta, and whatever factory physically built these glasses, because they held up flawlessly.
The tech works just as well now as it did when I got them, and the frames themselves held up, too: no warping, bent arms, or other malfunctions.
(I didn't necessarily baby them or take special care of them.) They didn't go out of style in the last six months either, seeing as the Wayfarer design is timeless.
If they’re good enough for James Dean, they’re good enough for me.Battery life could be betterMeta says their smart glasses have a battery life of "up to four hours," which is mildly optimistic—these things need to be charged often.
The solution of having a charger built into the glasses' case is acceptable most of the time because the main function of eyeglasses (ensuring I can see things) works even when the batteries run out.
But longer outings where I wanted to take lots of photos or videos were a pain.
Your choices are to only have pictures of the first half of the graduation ceremony, or pack a back-up pair of glasses so you can charge on the fly.
Another battery related annoyance: You can’t disable the low battery notification without disabling all notifications.
While that's the case for many tech products, it would be great to have the option to disable it for these glasses.The social factor: being seen isn't always the bestWhen I first started wearing the Ray-Ban Metas daily, they pretty much flew under people's radars, but as popular awareness of the product grew, so did the people who noticed I was wearing them.
More than one person asked “are you taking pictures of me?" and I didn’t love having my glasses spark conversations about surveillance or Meta’s motives, but I get why some people are wary.
They blur the line between fashion and tech in a way that’s still new, and many people find them off-putting.Ray-Ban's many features, ranked and rated

Credit: Robyn Johnson

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have a ton of features, and they're not equally useful, so here's a quick feature list, organized from the ones I used most to ones I used least:The camera: Ray-Ban Metas' essential feature for me is the camera.
It's weird to think of a smart phone camera as being inconvenient, but reaching in your pocket, unlocking the screen, clicking an app, and putting it up to your face is a lot of steps compared to pinching the arm of your glasses.
The other way to turn on the camera, saying “Hey Meta, take a picture” or “Hey Meta, take video," can be incredibly useful too, as it lets you take videos while riding a bike and listening to Hawkwind, like so:

While I found the quality of the photos to be surprisingly good, these glasses are best for casual snaps.
There's no viewfinder, and if you're going for super high quality, or want to shoot in low-light situations, they won't replace a "real" camera.
Text and calls: Getting a text and replying by voice is great when your hands are full.
Initiating or responding to texts while driving is amazing and will probably save some people's lives.
Call quality is solid, and the voice recognition is excellent, even in traffic or crowds.
It's easy to use too, since you can just say "Hey Meta, how do I send a text?" if you forget.Music: Halfway down the list is the perfect time to talk about the Ray-Ban Meta's music and audio.
It is mid.
The sound quality isn’t terrible, but it's podcast-while-cooking level.
If you’re into music at all, you’ll quickly grow tired of the tinny sounds from the Ray-Ban meta glasses and throw in some ear buds.
On the plus side, the ability to control Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music with just your voice is great.
Saying “Hey Meta, play some funk” and having The Meters start playing is cool. Meta AI: Depending on your point of view, Meta’s AI is the either the killer app or the Trojan horse of these glasses, but I almost never use it.
When I first got the glasses, I was blown away by saying “Hey Meta, look” and having it describe what I was seeing accurately.
But that wears off after eight minutes.
Then, I started using it to clown on my friends by looking at their car or something and saying, “Hey, Meta, is this a nice car?” and relaying the answer.
(Sadly, it won't roast people.) That was fun for three minutes.
Then, I changed Meta's voice to Awkwafina.
That was fun for 38 seconds.
Then, I stopped using it altogether.
Maybe your life is different, but mine is fine without an AI assistant.
Translation: Meta recently rolled out the ability to translate from Spanish, French, and Italian to English, and vice-versa.
This is too new to really rate, but my initial reaction to testing it out with a Spanish speaking pal was "santa mierda!" It's really good, and was able to translate spoken words at a conversational rate in real time, with a surprisingly amount of accuracy.
It's like having a universal translator from Star Trek or something.
What I'd like to see from Ray-Ban Meta glasses

Credit: Stephen Johnson

These glasses are creeping toward being a true digital assistant, but they're not there.
I want to say “Hey, Meta, book me a cheap hotel in Yonkers next weekend” and have it just happen.
Right now, though, the glasses are limited to controlling music, sending messages, translating language in real time, and providing basic information—which is a lot for a pair of glasses.Privacy concerns (as if privacy still exists)Meta recently sent an email to Ray-Ban Meta users that said, in part, "Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,'” and “the option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available.” Basically, Meta is vowing to look at what I'm looking at and store whatever I say, so you could argue there are some pretty big privacy concerns.
It’s not great, but honestly, I’m too boring to care.
If Meta wants hours of footage of me folding laundry or playing Oblivion Remastered, that’s their problem.If you're someone that does prioritize your privacy though, these glasses are probably not the product for you.
Are they worth the price?Whether something is "worth it" really depends on the customer.
But $299 seems like a good deal for a camera, AI agent, Bluetooth headset, and sunglasses, and if you're going for prescription Ray-Ban Metas, it's amazing.
All told, these were actually cheaper than my regular glasses, and I can't ask my regular glasses to tell me a joke.
The bottom lineI’m not a Meta fanboy by any stretch, but credit where it’s due: these glasses are really good.
The novelty wears off, but the usefulness doesn’t.
Unlike most gadgets, they've earned their spot in my semi-daily rotation.
If they could shave a little more weight off, they'd be my everyday specs.

المصدر: https://lifehacker.com/tech/what-i-learned-after-six-months-of-wearing-ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses?utm_medium=RSS

#Here039s #What #Learned #After #Six #Months #Wearing #RayBan #Meta #Smart #Glasses

Here's What I Learned After Six Months of Wearing Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
We may earn a commission from links on this page.Six months ago, I reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. If you’ve been off-grid, these specs pack a camera, open-ear speakers, microphones, and voice-activated Meta AI inside a pair of Wayfarer-style frames, so they're basically science fiction glasses that look normal. I liked them so much, I had prescription lenses put in and made them part of my daily load out. But it's easy to love a tech product when it’s new and shiny; the real test is how the Ray-Ban Metas fair after they've gone from novelty to another damn thing I have to remember to charge. Bottom line: I still really like them after half a year of wearing them while working, sitting around, biking, running errands, and generally living my boring life. But I like them in a more nuanced way. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses $263.00 at Best Buy Learn More Learn More $263.00 at Best Buy Not quite everyday glassesAfter the initial sugar rush wore off, I started noticing the weight of the Ray-Ban Metas. They're around 49 grams out of the box, fairly heavy for sunglasses, but prescription lenses bumped the weight up to 54 grams. My regular specs are pretty chunky and weigh 39 grams, and the difference is noticeable. They're slightly uncomfortable for extended use. I found myself wearing regular glasses when I didn’t expect to use smart features, and going back to the Ray-Bans if I wanted to take photos, record video, or go hands-free. The main downside was forgetting which pair I was wearing and saying “Hey Meta” to my dumb glasses. (But that’s a me problem.)Build quality, durability, and style: no complaintsI have to commend Ray-Ban, Meta, and whatever factory physically built these glasses, because they held up flawlessly. The tech works just as well now as it did when I got them, and the frames themselves held up, too: no warping, bent arms, or other malfunctions. (I didn't necessarily baby them or take special care of them.) They didn't go out of style in the last six months either, seeing as the Wayfarer design is timeless. If they’re good enough for James Dean, they’re good enough for me.Battery life could be betterMeta says their smart glasses have a battery life of "up to four hours," which is mildly optimistic—these things need to be charged often. The solution of having a charger built into the glasses' case is acceptable most of the time because the main function of eyeglasses (ensuring I can see things) works even when the batteries run out. But longer outings where I wanted to take lots of photos or videos were a pain. Your choices are to only have pictures of the first half of the graduation ceremony, or pack a back-up pair of glasses so you can charge on the fly. Another battery related annoyance: You can’t disable the low battery notification without disabling all notifications. While that's the case for many tech products, it would be great to have the option to disable it for these glasses.The social factor: being seen isn't always the bestWhen I first started wearing the Ray-Ban Metas daily, they pretty much flew under people's radars, but as popular awareness of the product grew, so did the people who noticed I was wearing them. More than one person asked “are you taking pictures of me?" and I didn’t love having my glasses spark conversations about surveillance or Meta’s motives, but I get why some people are wary. They blur the line between fashion and tech in a way that’s still new, and many people find them off-putting.Ray-Ban's many features, ranked and rated Credit: Robyn Johnson The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have a ton of features, and they're not equally useful, so here's a quick feature list, organized from the ones I used most to ones I used least:The camera: Ray-Ban Metas' essential feature for me is the camera. It's weird to think of a smart phone camera as being inconvenient, but reaching in your pocket, unlocking the screen, clicking an app, and putting it up to your face is a lot of steps compared to pinching the arm of your glasses. The other way to turn on the camera, saying “Hey Meta, take a picture” or “Hey Meta, take video," can be incredibly useful too, as it lets you take videos while riding a bike and listening to Hawkwind, like so: While I found the quality of the photos to be surprisingly good, these glasses are best for casual snaps. There's no viewfinder, and if you're going for super high quality, or want to shoot in low-light situations, they won't replace a "real" camera. Text and calls: Getting a text and replying by voice is great when your hands are full. Initiating or responding to texts while driving is amazing and will probably save some people's lives. Call quality is solid, and the voice recognition is excellent, even in traffic or crowds. It's easy to use too, since you can just say "Hey Meta, how do I send a text?" if you forget.Music: Halfway down the list is the perfect time to talk about the Ray-Ban Meta's music and audio. It is mid. The sound quality isn’t terrible, but it's podcast-while-cooking level. If you’re into music at all, you’ll quickly grow tired of the tinny sounds from the Ray-Ban meta glasses and throw in some ear buds. On the plus side, the ability to control Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music with just your voice is great. Saying “Hey Meta, play some funk” and having The Meters start playing is cool. Meta AI: Depending on your point of view, Meta’s AI is the either the killer app or the Trojan horse of these glasses, but I almost never use it. When I first got the glasses, I was blown away by saying “Hey Meta, look” and having it describe what I was seeing accurately. But that wears off after eight minutes. Then, I started using it to clown on my friends by looking at their car or something and saying, “Hey, Meta, is this a nice car?” and relaying the answer. (Sadly, it won't roast people.) That was fun for three minutes. Then, I changed Meta's voice to Awkwafina. That was fun for 38 seconds. Then, I stopped using it altogether. Maybe your life is different, but mine is fine without an AI assistant. Translation: Meta recently rolled out the ability to translate from Spanish, French, and Italian to English, and vice-versa. This is too new to really rate, but my initial reaction to testing it out with a Spanish speaking pal was "santa mierda!" It's really good, and was able to translate spoken words at a conversational rate in real time, with a surprisingly amount of accuracy. It's like having a universal translator from Star Trek or something. What I'd like to see from Ray-Ban Meta glasses Credit: Stephen Johnson These glasses are creeping toward being a true digital assistant, but they're not there. I want to say “Hey, Meta, book me a cheap hotel in Yonkers next weekend” and have it just happen. Right now, though, the glasses are limited to controlling music, sending messages, translating language in real time, and providing basic information—which is a lot for a pair of glasses.Privacy concerns (as if privacy still exists)Meta recently sent an email to Ray-Ban Meta users that said, in part, "Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,'” and “the option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available.” Basically, Meta is vowing to look at what I'm looking at and store whatever I say, so you could argue there are some pretty big privacy concerns. It’s not great, but honestly, I’m too boring to care. If Meta wants hours of footage of me folding laundry or playing Oblivion Remastered, that’s their problem.If you're someone that does prioritize your privacy though, these glasses are probably not the product for you. Are they worth the price?Whether something is "worth it" really depends on the customer. But $299 seems like a good deal for a camera, AI agent, Bluetooth headset, and sunglasses, and if you're going for prescription Ray-Ban Metas, it's amazing. All told, these were actually cheaper than my regular glasses, and I can't ask my regular glasses to tell me a joke. The bottom lineI’m not a Meta fanboy by any stretch, but credit where it’s due: these glasses are really good. The novelty wears off, but the usefulness doesn’t. Unlike most gadgets, they've earned their spot in my semi-daily rotation. If they could shave a little more weight off, they'd be my everyday specs. المصدر: https://lifehacker.com/tech/what-i-learned-after-six-months-of-wearing-ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses?utm_medium=RSS #Here039s #What #Learned #After #Six #Months #Wearing #RayBan #Meta #Smart #Glasses

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Here's What I Learned After Six Months of Wearing Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Six months ago, I reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. If you’ve been off-grid, these specs pack a camera, open-ear speakers, microphones, and voice-activated Meta AI inside a pair of Wayfarer-style frames, so they're basically science fiction glasses that look normal. I liked them so much, I had prescription lenses put in and made them part of my daily load out. But it's easy to love a tech product when it’s new and shiny; the real test is how the Ray-Ban Metas fair after they've gone from novelty to another damn thing I have to remember to charge. Bottom line: I still really like them after half a year of wearing them while working, sitting around, biking, running errands, and generally living my boring life. But I like them in a more nuanced way. Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses $263.00 at Best Buy Learn More Learn More $263.00 at Best Buy Not quite everyday glassesAfter the initial sugar rush wore off, I started noticing the weight of the Ray-Ban Metas. They're around 49 grams out of the box, fairly heavy for sunglasses, but prescription lenses bumped the weight up to 54 grams. My regular specs are pretty chunky and weigh 39 grams, and the difference is noticeable. They're slightly uncomfortable for extended use. I found myself wearing regular glasses when I didn’t expect to use smart features, and going back to the Ray-Bans if I wanted to take photos, record video, or go hands-free. The main downside was forgetting which pair I was wearing and saying “Hey Meta” to my dumb glasses. (But that’s a me problem.)Build quality, durability, and style: no complaintsI have to commend Ray-Ban, Meta, and whatever factory physically built these glasses, because they held up flawlessly. The tech works just as well now as it did when I got them, and the frames themselves held up, too: no warping, bent arms, or other malfunctions. (I didn't necessarily baby them or take special care of them.) They didn't go out of style in the last six months either, seeing as the Wayfarer design is timeless. If they’re good enough for James Dean, they’re good enough for me.Battery life could be betterMeta says their smart glasses have a battery life of "up to four hours," which is mildly optimistic—these things need to be charged often. The solution of having a charger built into the glasses' case is acceptable most of the time because the main function of eyeglasses (ensuring I can see things) works even when the batteries run out. But longer outings where I wanted to take lots of photos or videos were a pain. Your choices are to only have pictures of the first half of the graduation ceremony, or pack a back-up pair of glasses so you can charge on the fly. Another battery related annoyance: You can’t disable the low battery notification without disabling all notifications. While that's the case for many tech products, it would be great to have the option to disable it for these glasses.The social factor: being seen isn't always the bestWhen I first started wearing the Ray-Ban Metas daily, they pretty much flew under people's radars, but as popular awareness of the product grew, so did the people who noticed I was wearing them. More than one person asked “are you taking pictures of me?" and I didn’t love having my glasses spark conversations about surveillance or Meta’s motives, but I get why some people are wary. They blur the line between fashion and tech in a way that’s still new, and many people find them off-putting.Ray-Ban's many features, ranked and rated Credit: Robyn Johnson The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have a ton of features, and they're not equally useful, so here's a quick feature list, organized from the ones I used most to ones I used least:The camera: Ray-Ban Metas' essential feature for me is the camera. It's weird to think of a smart phone camera as being inconvenient, but reaching in your pocket, unlocking the screen, clicking an app, and putting it up to your face is a lot of steps compared to pinching the arm of your glasses. The other way to turn on the camera, saying “Hey Meta, take a picture” or “Hey Meta, take video," can be incredibly useful too, as it lets you take videos while riding a bike and listening to Hawkwind, like so: While I found the quality of the photos to be surprisingly good, these glasses are best for casual snaps. There's no viewfinder, and if you're going for super high quality, or want to shoot in low-light situations, they won't replace a "real" camera. Text and calls: Getting a text and replying by voice is great when your hands are full. Initiating or responding to texts while driving is amazing and will probably save some people's lives. Call quality is solid, and the voice recognition is excellent, even in traffic or crowds. It's easy to use too, since you can just say "Hey Meta, how do I send a text?" if you forget.Music: Halfway down the list is the perfect time to talk about the Ray-Ban Meta's music and audio. It is mid. The sound quality isn’t terrible, but it's podcast-while-cooking level. If you’re into music at all, you’ll quickly grow tired of the tinny sounds from the Ray-Ban meta glasses and throw in some ear buds. On the plus side, the ability to control Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music with just your voice is great. Saying “Hey Meta, play some funk” and having The Meters start playing is cool. Meta AI: Depending on your point of view, Meta’s AI is the either the killer app or the Trojan horse of these glasses, but I almost never use it. When I first got the glasses, I was blown away by saying “Hey Meta, look” and having it describe what I was seeing accurately. But that wears off after eight minutes. Then, I started using it to clown on my friends by looking at their car or something and saying, “Hey, Meta, is this a nice car?” and relaying the answer. (Sadly, it won't roast people.) That was fun for three minutes. Then, I changed Meta's voice to Awkwafina. That was fun for 38 seconds. Then, I stopped using it altogether. Maybe your life is different, but mine is fine without an AI assistant. Translation: Meta recently rolled out the ability to translate from Spanish, French, and Italian to English, and vice-versa. This is too new to really rate, but my initial reaction to testing it out with a Spanish speaking pal was "santa mierda!" It's really good, and was able to translate spoken words at a conversational rate in real time, with a surprisingly amount of accuracy. It's like having a universal translator from Star Trek or something. What I'd like to see from Ray-Ban Meta glasses Credit: Stephen Johnson These glasses are creeping toward being a true digital assistant, but they're not there. I want to say “Hey, Meta, book me a cheap hotel in Yonkers next weekend” and have it just happen. Right now, though, the glasses are limited to controlling music, sending messages, translating language in real time, and providing basic information—which is a lot for a pair of glasses.Privacy concerns (as if privacy still exists)Meta recently sent an email to Ray-Ban Meta users that said, in part, "Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,'” and “the option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available.” Basically, Meta is vowing to look at what I'm looking at and store whatever I say, so you could argue there are some pretty big privacy concerns. It’s not great, but honestly, I’m too boring to care. If Meta wants hours of footage of me folding laundry or playing Oblivion Remastered, that’s their problem.If you're someone that does prioritize your privacy though, these glasses are probably not the product for you. Are they worth the price?Whether something is "worth it" really depends on the customer. But $299 seems like a good deal for a camera, AI agent, Bluetooth headset, and sunglasses, and if you're going for prescription Ray-Ban Metas, it's amazing. All told, these were actually cheaper than my regular glasses, and I can't ask my regular glasses to tell me a joke. The bottom lineI’m not a Meta fanboy by any stretch, but credit where it’s due: these glasses are really good. The novelty wears off, but the usefulness doesn’t. Unlike most gadgets, they've earned their spot in my semi-daily rotation. If they could shave a little more weight off, they'd be my everyday specs.

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Here's What I Learned After Six Months of Wearing Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses