This Month's Best Gear, From Superlight Laptops to Botvacs
Ian C. BatesSurface Go Is Microsoft’s Big Bet on a Tiny-Computer Future
The brand new Surface Go aims to bring Surface Pro’s premium features into an ultra-portable, more affordable form. You get the same Alcantara Type Cover keyboard, the same high-res touchscreen, the same speakers and camera, and on and on. But this thing is tiny. It measures just 9.6 by 6.9 by .33 inches and weighs a feather-light 1.15 pounds. The downside to portability? It has limited compatibility with apps that are optimized for a screen this small. Still, that's well worth it for the price: The Surface Go starts at just $399. Read the full story.
RokuRoku Is Making TV Speakers, but They Only Work With Roku TVs
Big news: Roku is moving into the audio market. A two-speaker bundle called the Roku TV Wireless Speakers is slated to ship in October. We don't know a whole lot yet about the physical build of the speakers, except that they weigh about four pounds each, and that each speaker has one .75-inch tweeter and one 3.5-inch woofer. They'll support stereo sound, dialogue enhancement, automatic volume leveling, and Bluetooth. One downside? You have to own a Roku TV to enjoy the benefits. Roku says if you try to pair them wirelessly with a non-Roku TV, they just won't work. Read the full story.
Beth HolzerBrava Hopes to Heat Up the 'Smart Kitchen' With a $995 Oven
Brava's Wi-Fi connected smart oven might remind you of an EasyBake—but it's so much more. It features a 5-inch LCD display, where home chefs swipe and tap to tell the Brava what’s being cooked. Inside its stainless steel interior, the oven uses a combination of a camera, internal sensors, and AI to produce perfectly cooked food. What Brava’s smart oven lacks in capacity (it can only fit up to four servings of a meal), it makes up for in extra-curricular features: You can send recipes from the Brava mobile app directly to the oven. Plus, with Brava’s launch this fall, the company plans to offer a food delivery service that drops ready-to-cook items onto your doorstep. Read the full story.
HotlittlepotatoReddit Reinvents the Chat Room With Community Chat
Soon, Redditors will have a medium to talk outside of the community-based posts and threads: chatrooms. The company is rolling out old-school, real-time, type-and-go community chat, organized by subreddit. The company imagines it becoming an integral part of the Reddit experience. The question is whether it can stick—and whether a throwback to a simpler time on the web can withstand the internet in 2018. Read the full story.
Casey ChinYour Next Smartphone's Display Will Be Much Tougher to Crack
Cue Etta James’s “At Last.” Gorilla Glass, the miracle material found in every iPhone and Android flagship display for over a decade, has announced its most resilient iteration yet. Designers revisited modifications the chemical composition and strengthening process of the glass. In its own testing, Gorilla Glass 6 held up over 15 drops from a height of 1 meter on rough surfaces—up to twice what Gorilla Glass 5, released two years ago, could manage. Smartphone owners who chronically suffer from shattered screens, rejoice. Read the full story.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesAll the Ways iOS 12 Will Make Your iPhone More Secure
While features such as winking 3-D emoji and screen-time limits for your apps might take much of the attention when the software arrives, iOS 12 is a major step forward in one other crucial area: smartphone security. Safari in iOS12 will more aggressively restrict ad tracking and prompt users to change passwords that are repeated across accounts. Users can also expect facilitated two-factor authentication, encrypted group video calling on FaceTime, stronger protections against unauthorized hacking, and instant and secure location sharing with a call center when the user dials 911. Read the full story.
MicrosoftThe Xbox Adaptive Controller Gets an Accessible Box Design
Microsoft unveiled the Xbox Adaptive Controller last May, which addressed the needs of gamers with disabilities. But the push toward more accessible gaming doesn’t stop at the product itself. Microsoft also designed a box that is accessible to users with a range of modes of mobility. Rings of plastic or ribbon, placed strategically around the package at key access points, can be used as levers to open a box or remove a device more easily than with traditional packaging. It's well worth noting when a prominent gaming hardware manufacturer addressing the needs of disabled gamers with innovative product design. Read the full story.
Photograph: iFixitWhat's Really Behind the New MacBook Pro Keyboard
The new MacBook Pro’s keyboard design has an unexpected perk: keeping out dust and other particles, so that the keyboard won’t break. Apple claims to have redesigned the keys for “quieter” typing, but a takedown from iFixit shows a much more likely catalyst. A thin layer of silicone now sits above the keyboard’s butterfly mechanism—a protective layer that, yes, might make typing a little quieter, but definitely keeps more debris out. Read the full story.
Casey Chin/Getty ImagesWhen in Nature, Google Lens Does What the Human Brain Can’t
Let's say you’re walking along a forest path, blissfully extricated from technology, when you spy flora you don’t recognize. You could scramble to Google it later, hoping that your recollection is accurate—or you could use Google Lens to identify it in the moment. That's the power of Google Lens. Simply point your phone’s camera at a tree or flower and Google Lens matches your camera input against a massive database to suggest what the object might be. It’s a surprisingly useful tech tool to deepen our engagement with nature. Read the full story.
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