Microsoft delays Surface Earbuds until spring 2020

Product-making is about the relentless pursuit to get all the details right, which takes time...sometimes more than we planned on. To ensure we deliver the best possible experience for you, our fans & customers, Surface Earbuds will now launch worldwide in Spring 2020 #Surface— Panos Panay (@panos_panay) November 21, 2019Microsoft had planned to release the…

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‘Half-Life: Alyx’ is a VR prequel set before the events of ‘Half-Life 2’

The screenshots Valve shared show a familiar look at a ruined, occupied city that is probably City 17 from Half-Life 2 -- but we've never seen it rendered in this fidelity, and that's without the extra immersion VR will provide. Also, gravity gloves! Can't wait to put those to work.Valve released a trailer as well,…

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MacBook Pro 16-inch review: The ultimate Apple laptop

Our review unit, which featured an eight-core i9 CPU and AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics, tore through whatever I put in front of it. It's clearly more than I needed for my typical workflow, which mostly involves juggling a ton of browsers, light image editing, Evernote, Slack and Spotify. When I gave it a serious…

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The movies and books we’d give as gifts

Die Hard 4K Blu-rayDie Hard is a Christmas movie. You know this in your heart to be true. Buy it in 4K and give it to every John, Hans and Holly on your holiday shopping list. -- Andrew Tarantola, Senior EditorUncanny Valley (Anna Wiener)A millennial young woman's true coming-of-age story, set in Silicon Valley startups,…

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Tesla Cybertruck: Elon Musk’s Pickup Truck Has Arrived

The Cybertruck, Tesla’s all-new electric pickup truck, is here, looking like a triangle from the future, and it can take a sledgehammer to the door with nary a dent. And while that might not be a day-to-day use case for many prospective buyers, it’s very handy if you’re showing off the prowess of your latest…

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Researchers Want Guardrails to Help Prevent Bias in AI

Artificial intelligence has given us algorithms capable of recognizing faces, diagnosing disease, and, of course, crushing computer games. But even the smartest algorithms can sometimes behave in unexpected and unwanted ways, for example picking up gender bias from the text or images they are fed.A new framework for building AI programs suggests a way to…

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Alphabet’s Dream of an ‘Everyday Robot’ Is Just Out of Reach

During a recent visit to Alphabet’s X lab, I drained my coffee and left the compostable cup on a tray marked “Cans & Bottles.” The transgression was soon mended. Twenty minutes later, a wheeled, one-armed, chest-high robot whirred along and inspected the cup with the 3D cameras inside its flattened head. Its arm reached out…

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Meet the Elite Shot Putter Chasing a World Record

If you’ve ever tried your hand at shot put, you know it’s tougher than it looks. The metal ball, called a shot, is deceptively heavy for its size. At 16 pounds, it’s the weight of a bowling ball crammed into a package about the size of a softball. To throw it effectively you have to…

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Fans May or May Not Get a Joker Sequel

Greetings, welcome to another edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s culture news roundup. Today we have news from many corners of the galaxy — from Netflix, to the Grammys, to the DC Extended Universe. Time to dive in.Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Lil Nas X Top the Grammy NominationsThe Recording Academy announced the nominees for this year’s…

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Russia’s ‘Sandworm’ Hackers Also Targeted Android Phones

The Russian state-sponsored hackers known as Sandworm have launched some of the most aggressive and disruptive cyberattacks in history: intrusions that planted malware inside US electric utilities in 2014, operations that triggered blackouts in Ukraine—not once, but twice—and ultimately NotPetya, the most costly cyberattack ever. But according to Google, several of Sandworm's quieter operations have…

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