September 27, 2023

IN THIS ISSUE

🥽 Meta launches the Quest 3 VR headset today

💻 Microsoft starts rolling out its AI-focused Windows 11 update

🟠 A tiny helicopter just beat its own speed record on Mars

📱 4 things that Android does better than the iPhone

UP FIRST

Meta launches the Quest 3 headset today

The pricier Quest Pro struggled to gain popularity, so how will the $500 Quest 3 fare?

Meta is launching its Quest 3 virtual reality (VR) headset at a special event at its Menlo Park headquarters in Silicon Valley today.

The company unveiled the VR headset earlier this year. The technology has improved since the Quest 2's release three years ago, enabling a smaller, lighter, and considerably more powerful device.

The $499 Quest 3 also offers depth sensing, improved haptics, and more robust controllers.

Competition in the field is still fairly light, but soon Meta will have to contend with another big beast in the form of Apple when it enters the market with the Vision Pro.

While Apple's first offering in the space will be seven – yes, seven – times the price of the Quest 3, it might not be too long before it comes up with something more basic that sports an attractive price tag.

Watch Meta officially launch the new headset at 10 a.m. PT today ...

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Microsoft starts rolling out major update for Windows 11

The first wave of new features is available now, with more coming soon

Microsoft’s major update for Windows 11 is starting to roll out in multiple markets, allowing users to try out many of the new features unveiled by the computer giant at its special event last week.

A lot of the new tools are powered by artificial intelligence (AI), and of these, the Copilot intelligent-assistant feature has been grabbing the most attention.

Microsoft says Copilot will make PC-based tasks “easier, faster, and effortless.” It can do things like help summarize a web page, compose an email, generate images from text prompts, and perform various tasks like grabbing screenshots or connecting a new pair of headphones.

If Copilot isn't immediately available after the update, be patient, as Microsoft says it's rolling out the feature gradually.

The Windows 11 update also brings more editing tools to Paint, text extraction in Snipping Tool, autosave for Notepad, and much more ...

DEEP SPACE

A tiny helicopter just beat its own speed record on Mars

Aerial images captured by NASA's flying machine are also helping the Perseverance rover to find safe routes across the Martian surface

Just a week after achieving a new altitude record on Mars, NASA’s impressive Ingenuity helicopter has just flown faster than ever before, reaching a speed of 17.9 mph (8 meters per second) during its 60th flight.

Its previous record was 15 mph (6.5 m/s) in a flight earlier this year.

Ingenuity also covered 1,116 feet (340 meters) in 133 seconds at an altitude of 53 feet (16 meters) during its speediest flight across the Martian surface.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is overseeing the Ingenuity mission, shared news of the flight record on Tuesday in a post on social media.

It’s been a great month for the JPL team as it seeks to push its valiant Ingenuity helicopter to its limits. Just a week ago, the 4-pound, 19-inch-tall helicopter set another record when it reached an altitude of 20 meters, beating its previous record by 6 meters ...

SMARTPHONES

4 things Android phones still do better than the iPhone 15

Apple's newest iPhone has been getting plenty of attention over the last few days, but don't forget about Android

The Apple iPhone 15 lineup is here, which includes the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The Dynamic Island and USB-C are now available across the lineup, the standard models get a big camera boost to 48MP, the Pros get the new Action button, and the top-end Pro Max even has a fancy new tetraprism telephoto lens for 5x optical zoom.

The Pro models also come with a titanium frame, making them noticeably lighter than their predecessors.

While all of this sounds impressive, Apple’s iPhone lineup is still behind the competition. Android phones have had some of these features for a while now, and even do some things a lot better.

Here are four things that come to mind, though we could cheekily make that five if we add “regulating their internal temperature” to the list ...

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