This morning, at the company's virtual hardware event, Google is finally showing us what it means to pick up and start over again. From a report: In many ways, the Pixel 6 marks the most radical departure in the history of Google's flagship devices -- and its most serious attempt to take the fight to Samsung and Apple. The company gave us our first glimpse of the device back in August. It was a surprisingly complete look at a device it would take another three and a half months to announce. Hardware head Rick Osterloh primarily focused on chips, design and the fact that Google was becoming the latest company to buck its reliance on Qualcomm by building its own in-house chip, Tensor. And now it is. The Tensor had landed, alongside the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro it powers. I have the latter in my possession, and it's immediately clear that this is a radically new direction for the Pixel line. Google's clearly gone in a premium direction with the new device, which shares more common DNA with the likes of Samsung's devices than any of the Pixels we've seen to date.

The Pixel 6 sports a 6.4-inch FHD+ OLED at 411 ppi -- that bit, at least, is keeping with mid-range specs. The Pro bumps it up to a 6.7-inch QHD+ at 512 ppi. Those displays have refresh rates of 90 and 120 Hz, respectively, protected by a Gorilla Glass Victus cover, which curves on the edges. [...] The 6 supports two lenses: a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera and 12-megapixel on the 6, plus a 48 megapixel telephoto on the 6 Pro. That last one does 4x optical or up to 20x Super Res, though even with computational photography, things are going to degrade pretty quickly. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, is eight megapixels on the 6 and 11 megapixels on the 6 Pro, with 84- and 94-degree fields of view, respectively. [...] The company has addressed some of the battery issues that plagued earlier models. The 6 and 6 Pro feature 4,614 and 5,003mAh batteries, respectively -- that's a nice jump from the Pixel 5's 4,080mAh (which, in turn, was a nice jump from the Pixel 4). The Pixel 6 starts at $599 and the Pixel 6 Pro starts at $899.

Framework, makers of the modular 13.5-inch Framework laptop that's designed to be easily repaired and upgraded, has launched a dedicated marketplace filled with replacement parts and upgrades for its portable computer. The Verge reports: Writing in a blog post, the company said the marketplace is currently focused on replacement parts and expansion cards, but that it hopes to add more customization modules like additional language keyboards later this year, as well as third-party and community developed modules in 2022.

The marketplace already includes a range of expansion cards for the laptop, which are designed to slot into its four modular compartments to add everything from extra storage to features like MicroSD card slots or more USB ports. There's also user upgradeable RAM and storage for sale. But the store is clearly a work in progress, and lists a host of other items like replacement CPU-equipped mainboards, keyboards, and spare parts like batteries and displays as "coming soon."

According to new job listings, Google is looking to expand the Fuchsia operating system from its current home on the Nest Hub to âoeadditional smart devices and other form factors." 9to5Google reports: The first listing, for "Staff Software Engineer, Fuchsia Devices," celebrates Fuchsia's recent milestone and points clearly to Google wanting Fuchsia to run on more "real world products" than just smart displays: "In 2021 we shipped Fuchsia to millions of Google smart displays, now it's time to expand to additional smart devices and other form factors. Come join us and work on the next-generation Google operating system! Although the first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays, we are working on expanding to additional form factors and use cases. The Fuchsia Devices team is responsible for making sure we can successfully apply the Fuchsia platform to real world products that make a difference to Google and our users."

So what types of devices should we expect Fuchsia to come to next? Well for one, we may look at the plural phrasing of "first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays," which suggests the Nest Hub Max and Nest Hub (2nd Gen) may be getting their chance to switch to Fuchsia soon. Of course, Google has made it abundantly clear here that smart displays are just the beginning. In another listing, for "Engineering Manager, Fuchsia Devices," the company explains that the Fuchsia Devices team is aiming to "[expand] the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors" through "real consumer devices." [From the listing:] "The Fuchsia Devices Smart Products team is part of the larger Fuchsia organization and is responsible for productionizing various types of Fuchsia Devices. Our team delivers real consumer devices to end users and enables you to have a large impact at Google by expanding the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors."

This could suggest entirely new device categories for Google's Nest lineup, powered by Fuchsia. In another section, we get some hints at what those proposed devices would be capable of: "Chromecast, Video Conferencing and Machine Learning are core parts of many of the upcoming smart products." It's important to note that "Chromecast" here is probably not referring to the lineup of Chromecast hardware for TVs switching to Fuchsia. Instead, it's more likely referring to how Google's speakers and displays can receive a "Cast" from your phone. This is somewhat clarified in the job listing's responsibilities section, which lists a handful of features that squarely line up with features of the camera-equipped Nest Hub Max, including "Face Match." The Nest Hub Max's store listing also references "Chromecast built-in" as a feature: "Plan, scope, and execute of features like Video Casting, Actions on Google, Video Calling, Face Match, and on device ML."

It also looks like Made by Google devices may soon not be the only ones shipping with Fuchsia. According to another listing, Google is looking for someone on Fuchsia's "platform graphics and media" team to, among other things, "influence hardware decisions made by partners." [From the listing:] "As a Staff Software Engineer on the Fuchsia team, you'll drive the technical direction for Graphics and Media and ensure that Fuchsia is bringing maximum value to partners and Fuchsia-based products. You also will influence hardware decisions made by partners to improve Fuchsia and Google's ability to deliver efficient software solutions for critical Graphics and Media workloads." Fuchsia debuted on the first-generation Nest Hub earlier this year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, Nintendo of Europe announced a very region-specific -- and era-specific -- tweak for its upcoming collection of N64 games on Switch: an option to switch between the video standards PAL and NTSC. While the announcement may sound ho-hum to outsiders, anyone in Europe with a vested interest in classic gaming will appreciate what the toggle affords. The issue boils down to differences between NTSC and PAL, the leading video broadcast standards on CRT TVs during Nintendo's '80s and '90s heyday. North American and Japanese TV sets were configured for NTSC, which has a refresh rate standard of 60 Hz, while PAL sets dominated Europe with a slightly higher pixel resolution and a lower refresh rate standard of 50 Hz.

Should you merely watch TV series or films on both NTSC and PAL sets, the difference between each is noticeable yet mild. But for much of the '80s and '90s, many TV video games, especially the ones made by the largely Japanese console industry, suffered in PAL because they were coded specifically for NTSC standards. In order to port them to PAL, developers generally didn't go back and reconfigure all of the timings, especially in the case of early 3D games. Instead, their internal clock speeds were often slowed down to 83.3 percent to match European TV refresh rates. This meant both slower gameplay than originally coded and slower playback of music and sound effects. (These also often shipped with NTSC's pixel maximums in mind in such a way that they were squished to fit on PAL displays, as opposed to being optimized for them.)

Sure enough, last month's announcement of N64 games on Nintendo Switch Online put fear into European classic-gamer hearts. That region's reveal video included slightly slower timings of classic N64 games compared to videos posted by Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan, since they were emulating the original European retail releases. At that time, Nintendo of Europe did not immediately reply to social media questions about whether European Switch owners would get an option for 60 Hz N64 gameplay -- especially in an LCD TV era, where such CRT-related restrictions no longer technically apply to most EU and UK TV owners. Monday's announcement confirms that European players will get a 60 Hz option by default for every N64 game in the Nintendo Switch Online "Expansion Pack" collection, along with the option to access a game's original 50 Hz version if it launched with multi-language support. Reading between the lines, we believe this means that if a European N64 game only had English language support, its Switch Online version will be the North American NTSC ROM.

At Microsoft's Surface event today, the company announced its Surface Duo 2 dual-screen Android smartphone, featuring a trio of new cameras, a faster processor, larger displays, and support for 5G. The company also unveiled a successor to the Surface Book line of laptops, the Surface Laptop Studio, as well as the Surface Pro 8. From a report: The first-generation of the Duo made a splash thanks to its unique design. While the original Duo had no exterior screen at all, the Duo 2 now has a sliver of screen called the Glance Bar that peeks out from where its displays come together and provides you with the time and notifications when the Duo is closed. Microsoft has seemingly addressed a number of the original Duo's shortcomings with its Duo 2. One of the biggest issues with the first-generation version was its lack of any truly capable camera. [...] This time around, Microsoft has outfitted the Surface Duo 2 with a trio of external cameras. Like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line of smartphones, the Duo 2 gets a wide-angle camera, an ultra-wide angle camera, and a telephoto camera. There's also a dedicated night photography mode, 2x optical zoom with the telephoto lens, and the ability to record 4K video at 60 frames per second.

As for the occasionally sluggish performance, the Duo 2 should have that sorted out. This time around, Microsoft has dropped Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 processor into the Duo 2, which means the phone should run as smoothly and quickly as any of the leading smartphones on the market. What's more, the Duo 2 gets 8GB of RAM and 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage. On top of that, the Surface Duo 2 gets 5G connectivity, something that was conspicuously absent from the first-generation Duo.

The Duo 2 also gets two larger displays this time around. Rather than two 5.1-inch panels, the Duo 2 gets two 5.3-inch screens that open up to an 8.3-inch display that you can use to move your apps across or as a single canvas for more expansive apps. [...] The gist of the Surface Duo 2 is that two screens are better than one. To that end, Microsoft has combined two panels with a hinge to make an Android-powered device that lets you not only use both displays at the same time, but also seamlessly move apps and content between them. That capability will cost you a pricey $1,499 when the Duo 2 hits store shelves. It's available for pre-order today.

em1ly shares a report from Motherboard, which obtained leaked training videos Apple made for its authorized repair partners, showing how the company trains repair technicians to undermine third party companies and talk customers into buying more expensive first party repairs. From the report: "I cracked the glass on my phone and I'm comparing costs. How much for just that part?" One man acting the part of the customer asks in one of the videos.
"I can show you the cost for just the part before we begin," another man, playing the part of repair technician says.
"Whoa," the customer says, holding out his hands. "That's way more than the shop down the street. Why is it so expensive here?"
"This quote's for a genuine Apple part," the technician says.
"What do you mean by genuine?" the customer asks, his hands making scare quotes. "I'd like to save some money. Aren't they really the same part?"

After this, the technician launches into an explanation of why it's best for people to replace broken iPhone parts with genuine Apple products. "A genuine Apple part has to pass AppleCare engineering criteria," the technician says, explaining that a screen from Apple will be tested as if it had just come off the factory floor. "With a genuine Apple display, all the features you've come to rely on behave seamlessly...that's not the case with third party displays."

Six of the eight videos are dedicated to training repair techs on how to deal with customers worried about the huge costs of repairing an Apple device. One three-minute video is dedicated to helping customers understand why a genuine Apple screen is often better than one from a third party.

Apple introduced eSIM support on iPhone with iPhone XR and iPhone XS in 2018. However, while you can use a regular SIM and an eSIM simultaneously, there was no way to use two eSIMs simultaneously -- until now. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro feature dual eSIM support for the first time. From a report: The new capability was confirmed by Apple on the iPhone 13 specs webpage. There, Apple says that iPhone 13 models support Dual SIM using both regular SIM and eSIM and "Dual eSIM," as the company calls it. If you check the webpage of the iPhone 12 or previous generations, only combined Dual SIM support is mentioned. These are the SIM support specifications for iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max: Dual SIM (nanoâ'SIM and eSIM), and dual eSIM support. During the event, Apple also mentioned that iPhone 13 models have support for more 5G bands, which should enable the new faster network in more countries.

Earlier today at Apple's iPhone 13 launch event, Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 7 with a new, more seamless design with larger 41mm and 45mm cases that include larger, brighter and more durable screens. There's also a variety of new colors to choose from. Engadget reports: The update takes advantage of the bigger displays, with more information and new watch faces like Contour, Modular Duo and World Timer. As for durability? Series 7 is the first Apple Watch with a dust resistance rating (IP6X), making it better-suited to mountain climbing or the beach. The screen itself is more crack-resistant thanks to a thicker new geometry, and you'll still get swim-friendly WR50 (that is, 50-meter) water resistance. You won't confuse this with a rugged watch, but you might not panic quite so much after a fall.

The updates aren't quite so aggressive under the hood. You can anticipate 33 percent faster charging and fall detection during workouts. Most of the updates come through watchOS 8, which now includes detection of cycling workouts, better tracking for e-bikes and help if you fall off. You'll also get a full swipe-based keyboard, support for more workouts (Pilates and Tai Chi) and respiratory rate tracking while you sleep. Apple Watch Series 7 will arrive sometime this fall starting at $399. The Apple Watch SE and Watch Series 3 will hang around at respective prices of $299 and $199, and you can expect refreshed Nike and Hermes variants for the Series 7.

Apple has officially announced the high-end part of the iPhone 13 lineup: the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. It's got a faster A15 Bionic chip, three all-new cameras, and an improved display with up to a 120Hz ProMotion high refresh rate display that can go as bright as 1,000 nits. The iPhone 13 Pro will start at $999, while the iPhone 13 Pro Max will start at $1099. Both will be available to order on Friday, shipping on September 24th. From a report: The OLED screens on both models are the same sizes as last year at 6.1 and 6.7 inches but with slightly smaller notches that should allow for more space in the iOS status bar. Apple says the phones have an all-new three-camera system. The ultrawide should offer better low-light photography, and the telephoto now goes up to 3x zoom, enabling 6x optical zoom across the three cameras. All three cameras now have night mode, and there's a new macro mode for photographing subjects at just 2cm.

Today, Apple announced that it has acquired Primephonic, a service that specializes in streaming the classical genre, and will incorporate the app's functionality and playlists into Apple Music. The result will be "a significantly improved classical music experience," Apple said in a press release. There will also be a standalone Apple Music classical app coming sometime in 2022. The Verge reports: Effective immediately, Primephonic is no longer accepting new customers, and the service as it exists today will shut down on September 7th. Apple says Primephonic's playlists and "exclusive audio content" will be first to be integrated into Apple Music. Down the line, it'll add "the best features of Primephonic, including better browsing and search capabilities by composer and by repertoire, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits." In a show of how serious Apple is about appealing to classical fans, the company says "a dedicated classical music app" will launch next year that will use Primephonic's "classical user interface that fans have grown to love."

Apple's Mac has long been an afterthought for the video game industry, and few think of Google as a games company -- despite running Android, one of the biggest game platforms in the world. But Google had a plan to change those things in October 2020, according to an explicitly confidential 70-page vision document dubbed "Games Futures." From a report: The "need-to-know" document, which was caught up in the discovery process when Epic Games hauled Apple into court, reveals a tentative five-year plan to create what Google dubbed "the world's largest games platform." Google imagined presenting game developers with a single place they can target gamers across multiple screens including Windows and Mac, as well as smart displays -- all tied together by Google services and a "low-cost universal portable game controller" that gamers can pair with any device, even a TV.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple is planning to hold multiple events this fall, which will collectively include the launch of new iPhones, Apple Watches, updated AirPods, revamped iPad mini, and the redesigned MacBook Pros, according to respected Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman. In his latest weekly Power On newsletter, Gurman says that much like last year, Apple will hold multiple events this coming fall, with the first likely being in September for the iPhone 13. Last year, due to the global health crisis and production constraints, the iPhone 12 lineup was not announced until October. The 2020 September event, rather than focusing on new iPhones, showcased new Apple Watches, iPads, and services.

This year, Apple is expected to return to its tradition of announcing its flagship yearly iPhone update in September, according to multiple reports. In today's newsletter, Gurman reiterated his reporting from earlier last week, setting expectations for the iPhone 13 to include updates to the camera focused towards professional users, more advanced displays, and a smaller notch. Alongside the new iPhones, Gurman, as previously reported, says that Apple can be expected to launch the third-generation AirPods featuring an updated design, an updated iPad mini with a larger display, thinner borders, and improved performance, as well as the Apple Watch Series 7 with flatter and improved displays, and performance.

As for the highly anticipated MacBook Pros featuring mini-LED displays, updated designs, and the M1X Apple silicon chip, Gurman says they will be available by the time the current 16-inch MacBook Pro, powered by Intel, will celebrate its second anniversary. The 16-inch MacBook Pro was last updated in November of 2019. The first event of the fall in September will likely include the new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods, while the new iPads and possible updates to some of the company's services could be reserved for a second event, with the final event of the season being focused on Apple silicon Macs.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from Wired, written by Lauren Goode: Samsung's newest foldables are even more impressive than the folding models that came before them. (The company first started shipping foldable phones in 2019, after years of development.) And yet, folding phones are still the 3D TVs of the smartphone world: birthed with the intention of swiveling your head toward a product at a time when the market for that product has softened. They're technically complicated. They're expensive. And their usability depends a whole lot on the way content is displayed on them, which means manufacturers could nail all the tech specs and still must wait on software makers (or entertainment companies) to create stuff to fill these space-age screens. All this does not bode well for the future of foldable phones, though some analysts are more optimistic.

Back in the early 2010's, global TV shipments started slipping, as developed markets became saturated with flat-screen TVs. And as prices for LCD TVs sank, so did profits. So TV manufacturers like Sony, LG, and Samsung began hyping the next expensive upgrade: 3D televisions. We tech journalists marched around the annual CES in 3D glasses, hoping to catch a glimpse of a 3D TV that would change our minds about this gimmicky technology. We grew mildly nauseous. We waited for more content. Five years later, 3D TV was dead. At the end of the last decade, WIRED's Brian Barrett summed up the great 3D TV pitch as "what happens when smart people run out of ideas, the last gasp before aspiration gives way to commoditization."

I know: TVs and mobile phones are different beasts. Mobile phones have fundamentally altered the way we live. Billions of handsets have been sold. But about four years ago, global smartphone sales slowed. By 2019, consumers were holding on to their phones for a few extra months before splurging on an upgrade. As smartphones became more secure and reliable, running on desktop-grade chip systems and featuring cameras good enough to decimate the digital camera market, each new iteration of a phone seemed, well, iterative. Enter foldable displays, which are either a desperate gimmick or a genuine leap forward, depending on whom you ask. Or, like 3D TVs, maybe they're both.

Foldables were also supposed to be the ultimate on-the-go device, for road warriors and jet-setters and productivity gurus who want to "stay in the flow" at all times. As I've written before, it's not exactly the best time to beta test this concept, while some of our movements are limited. The context for foldables has changed in the short time since they became commercially available. Of course, that context could always change again. Foldables may be the next frontier in phones, or in tablets, or laptops, or all of the above. They could become commonplace, assumed, as boring as a solid inflexible brick. Maybe we'll manage our decentralized bank accounts on a creaky screen as we shoot into sub-orbital space. Or maybe we'll stare into the screens, two parts fused into one, and hope that the future is something more than this. The biggest argument for foldables not being 3D TVs, as mentioned by research manager for IDC, Jitesh Ubrani, is the potential utility of foldables.

"Most people in the industry, and even many consumers, believe that ultimately there is just going to be one device you use, you know?" Ubrani says. "And this device will have the ability to function as a phone, as a PC, as a tablet. So where foldables can really drive the technology is by replacing three devices with one."

The European Union is pushing for clarity from Google about how the company processes flight and hotel searches. From a report: The tech giant must explain why it ranks certain flights and hotels above others and provide more clarity about how it calculates prices, European Union regulators demanded Monday, accusing the company of having "misled" consumers. The final prices that Google displays should include all fees and taxes that can be calculated in advance, regulators said in a statement. "EU consumers cannot be misled when using search engines to plan their holidays," EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said. "We need to empower consumers to make their choices based on transparent and unbiased information." The regulators are giving Google two months to propose a fix to the issues or face possible unspecified sanctions.

Search Atlas makes it easy to see how Google offers different responses to the same query on versions of its search engine offered in different parts of the world. From a report: The research project reveals how Google's service can reflect or amplify cultural differences or government preferences -- such as whether Beijing's Tiananmen Square should be seen first as a sunny tourist attraction or the site of a lethal military crackdown on protesters. Divergent results like that show how the idea of search engines as neutral is a myth, says Rodrigo Ochigame, a PhD student in science, technology, and society at MIT and cocreator of Search Atlas. "Any attempt to quantify relevance necessarily encodes moral and political priorities," Ochigame says. Ochigame built Search Atlas with Katherine Ye, a computer science PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University and a research fellow at the nonprofit Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research.

Just like Google's homepage, the main feature of Search Atlas is a blank box. But instead of returning a single column of results, the site displays three lists of links, from different geographic versions of Google Search selected from the more than 100 the company offers. Search Atlas automatically translates a query to the default languages of each localized edition using Google Translate. Ochigame and Ye say the design reveals "information borders" created by the way Google's search technology ranks web pages, presenting different slices of reality to people in different locations or using different languages.

Motherboard bought an FBI "Anom" phone that the agency secretly sells to criminals to monitor their communications. Joseph Cox reports: The sleek, black phone seems perfectly normal. Unlocking the Google Pixel 4a with a PIN code reveals some common apps: Tinder, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, and even Candy Crush. But none of those apps work, and tapping their icons doesn't do anything. Resetting the phone and typing in another PIN opens up an entirely different section of the device, with a new background and new apps. Now in place of the old apps sit a clock, a calculator, and the device's settings. Clicking the calculator doesn't open a calculator -- it opens a login screen.

"Enter Anom ID" and a password, the screen reads. Hidden in the calculator is a concealed messaging app called Anom, which last month we learned was an FBI honeypot. On Anom, criminals believed they could communicate securely, with the app encrypting their messages. They were wrong: an international group of law enforcement agencies including the FBI were monitoring their messages and announced hundreds of arrests last month. International authorities have held press conferences to tout the operation's success, but have provided few details on how the phones actually functioned.

Motherboard has obtained and analyzed an Anom phone from a source who unknowingly bought one on a classified ads site. On that site, the phone was advertised as just a cheap Android device. But when the person received it, they realized it wasn't an ordinary phone, and after being contacted by Motherboard, found that it contained the secret Anom app. When booting up the phone, it displays a logo for an operating system called "ArcaneOS." Very little information is publicly available on ArcaneOS. It's this detail that has helped lead several people who have ended up with Anom phones to realize something was unusual about their device. Most posts online discussing the operating system appear to be written by people who have recently inadvertently bought an Anom device, and found it doesn't work like an ordinary phone. After the FBI announced the Anom operation, some Anom users have scrambled to get rid of their device, including selling it to unsuspecting people online. The person Motherboard obtained the phone from was in Australia, where authorities initially spread the Anom devices as a pilot before expanding into other countries.

A British right to repair law comes into force today, requiring manufacturers to make spares available to both consumers and third-party repair companies. However, despite claiming to cover "televisions and other electronic displays," the law somehow excludes smartphones and laptops. 9to5Mac reports: The European Union introduced a right to repair law back in March, and the UK agreed prior to Brexit that it would introduce its own version. BBC News reports: "From Thursday, manufacturers will have to make spares available to consumers, with the aim of extending the lifespan of products by up to 10 years, it said [...] The right to repair rules are designed to tackle 'built-in obsolescence' where manufacturers deliberately build appliances to break down after a certain period to encourage consumers to buy new ones. Manufacturers will now be legally obliged to make spare parts available to consumers so appliances can be fixed."

Which? notes that the UK law ensures spares are available for either 7 or 10 years after the discontinuation of a product, but that it only covers four specific consumer product categories (plus some commercial/industrial ones). From the report: "Spare parts will have to be available within two years of an appliance going on sale, and up until either seven or 10 years after the product has been discontinued, depending on the part. Some parts will only be available to professional repairers, while others will be available to everyone, so you can fix it yourself. For now, the right to repair laws only cover: Dishwashers, Washing machines and washer-dryers, Refrigeration appliances, and Televisions and other electronic displays. They also cover non-consumer electronics, such as light sources, electric motors, refrigerators with a direct sales function (eg fridges in supermarkets, vending machines for cold drinks), power transformers and welding equipment. Cookers, hobs, tumble dryers, microwaves or tech such as laptops or smartphones aren't covered."

Patrick Klepek writes via Motherboard: Few role-playing experiences are as beloved as the original Final Fantasy games, which is why Square Enix announcing a new brand it's calling Pixel Remasters for the first six games was greeted with equal parts shock and horror. For every brilliant reinvention, like last year's Final Fantasy 7 Remake, you have these nightmarish updates to classics like Final Fantasy 6 that are so abjectly awful to look at that fans created mods to try and replace the visuals. It's not really clear what Square Enix wants to accomplish with these Pixel Remasters, but what's abundantly clear is that Square Enix intends to revisit the visuals across each 2D game. The new sprites aren't massive departures from the originals, but they're different, and it's led to speculation about whether the company is going to address a longstanding issue with older games being released on fancy new televisions and computer monitors.

I've always loved the way video games looked -- fuzzy and crunchy -- on those humorously heavy and bulky older cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs that used to populate family rooms. What I didn't know until earlier this year, however, was the science behind it all. It's not just that high-definition displays provide a crisper look at art made in earlier eras of video games, but that art was specifically drawn knowing it would ultimately pipe through a CRT, and when that art is viewed on a modern, non-CRT display, you're actually losing some intended detail. [...] The problem is many people will never experience it in real-life, and so filters and similar technologies are essentially forms of emulation for television tech. More than 705 million CRT TVs have been sold in the United States since 1980, and the vast majority of these environmentally unfriendly devices are in the process of being broken down and recycled. That process will take years. But more practically, nobody is making CRT TVs anymore, and as the existing supply naturally breaks down, it falls to hobbyists to keep them ticking. No great shock to learn that Starkweather isn't a huge fan of Square Enix's approach for the Pixel Remasters, partially because it risks erasing the work of the original artists. One solution that Starkweather proposes is Square Enix spending time on a refined CRT filter.

"Filters are simply filters and they change visuals without having any artistic intention behind," said renowned pixel artist Thomas Feichtmeir. "I have not yet seen any CRT filter implemented in a game which truly simulated a realistic CRT experience." While naive folks like myself learned about CRT through a Twitter account, Feichtmeir had a similar realization years ago. At home, Feichtmeir had a CRT monitor next to an LCD laptop, and as he transferred his dawn pixels from one to the other, it dawned upon him that they looked different. He noticed a similar issue playing games re-released on modern displays. "If you make a piece of pixel art on a LCD and you put it on a CRT," he said, "it's the equivalent of taking one of your articles, putting it through Google Translate and to expect that the other language it comes out [with] will have perfect meaning and grammar. A whole field of 'localization' exists for writing and in the game industry to address those issues." Though Feichtmeir has no specific insight into what Square Enix is or isn't planning for its Pixel Remasters series, watching what's been released gave him pause on the CRT theory. "Considering the couple of screenshots and snippets we saw in the presentation, I would not say any of it really accounts for the gap between CRT and LCDs," he said. "We still can see a lot of techniques which theoretically should stay on a CRT -- like overly dithered textures or just color optimized battle backgrounds. The biggest change are the characters, where they basically removed the volumetric shading in exchange for a dark outlined flat style. In my eyes this just changes the style to something which does not feel close to the original. And I think what a remaster should deliver on is to recreate the feeling how the original game felt."

Big under-the-hood changes are coming to Google's original Nest Hub, even if most users won't ever be aware of what's happening. From a report: Starting today, the open-source Fuchsia OS will start rolling out to first-gen Nest Hub displays, according to 9to5Google. In the works since 2016, Fuchsia will land first on Nest Hub devices enrolled in Google's Preview Program, before arriving more widely on non-Preview Program displays. Don't expect the user experience to change much, though. 9to5Google notes that the look and feel of Fuchsia OS-powered Nest Hubs will be "essentially identical" to what it was before.

OK, so what's the big deal about Fuchsia, then? It's a new, open-source OS that's decidedly not based on the Linux kernel, as Android and Chrome OS are. Instead, Fuchsia is based on Magneta, which (as we described it back in 2016) is "combination microkernel and set of user-space services and hardware drivers" with a "physics based renderer" that can power graphical user interfaces. Because it's an open-source project, Fuchsia's existence has been well publicized over the years, although its purpose has been harder to fathom; "out in the open" yet "shrouded in mystery" is how we aptly put it. With its arrival on the original Nest Hub, Fuchsia is taking its first tentative steps out of the lab and into the hands of actual users, even if those users aren't aware of the new OS.

Snap's new Spectacles glasses are its most ambitious yet. But there's a big catch: you can't buy them. From a report: On Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel unveiled the company's first true augmented reality glasses, technology that he and rivals like Facebook think will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A demo showed virtual butterflies fluttering over colorful plants and landing in Spiegel's extended hand. The new Spectacles have dual waveguide displays capable of superimposing AR effects made with Snapchat's software tools. The frame features four built-in microphones, two stereo speakers, and a built-in touchpad. Front-facing cameras help the glasses detect objects and surfaces you're looking at so that graphics more naturally interact with the world around you.

[...] The idea is to encourage a small portion of the 200,000 people who already make AR effects in Snapchat to experiment with creating experiences for the new Spectacles, according to Spiegel. Like the bright yellow vending machines Snap used to sell the first version of Spectacles several years ago, the approach could end up being a clever way to build buzz for the glasses ahead of their wide release. Spiegel has said that AR glasses will take roughly a decade to reach mainstream adoption. "I don't believe the phone is going away," he told The Verge in an interview this week. "I just think that the next generation of Spectacles can help unlock a new way to use AR hands-free, and the ability to really roam around with your eyes looking up at the horizon, out at the world."