Category: Technology

Professional runners and endurance athletes often rely on Garmin products for their training and competitions and the Garmin Enduro 2 is the latest high-end offering from the brand. The watch brings solar charging, a 150-hour rated battery life with GPS on and a $1,100 price tag.

Garmin Enduro 2 snapshot

Enduro 2 features a fiber-reinforced polymer casing with a titanium rear cover and titanium bezel. The 1.4-inch AMOLED color touch screen brings a 280 x 280 px resolution and is covered with sapphire crystal for added durability. Enduro 2 comes bundled with a nylon sport loop band though it is compatible with Garmin’s silicone bands as well. There’s onboard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity.

The watch is 10ATM water resistant 32GB onboard storage which can store up to 2,000 songs. There’s even a LED flashlight for nighttime training.

Enduro 2 brings heart rate (Garmin Elevate v4 heart rate sensor), SpO2, sleep and stress monitoring alongside a plethora of fitness tracking features including a visual race predictor, topographical maps, grade-adjusted pace, running dynamics and more.

Garmin Enduro 2

Garmin claims battery life in smartwatch-only mode is rated at up to 46 days which factors in the Enduro 2’s solar charging panel. The battery saver mode extends those values ​​up to 550 days. The watch comes with multiband GNSS with SatIQ – a useful feature that only selects the most power-efficient GPS signal in a bid to extend battery life. The watch also supports Garmin Pay.

Pricing is set at $1,100 and the watch is already available on Garmin’s website.

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OtterBox is stepping up the benefits it offers with its screen protectors today. Going beyond the lifetime warranty of replacing broken iPhone screen protectors and cases, the company will now additionally cover up to $150 for replacing your iPhone screen if it breaks while using Amplify or Alpha OtterBox screen protectors.

The updated OtterBox Protection Program launched today with the valuable new addition being coverage for iPhone display replacements. OtterBox shared details in a press release:

“We know a cracked phone screen can be more than a small setback,” said OtterBox CEO Jim Parke. “OtterBox seeks to keep you connected to people, places and moments that matter most. Our robust limited lifetime warranty program already covers your case and screen protector, and the OtterBox Protection Program extends that protection to your device screen as well.”

The new iPhone screen replacement coverage is available for most models and comes with the Amplify and Alpha screen protectors.

OtterBox Protection Program details

• Reimbursement up to $150 for screen repairs/replacements
• Valid up to 12 months after purchase
• Easily activate and track coverage, and file a claim through the OtterProtect app
• Eligible Amplify and Alpha screen protectors with the new coverage range from $39.95-$54.95
  • Make sure to pick “Antimicrobial + OtterBox Protection Program” for the product option when checking out

Pricing depends on your iPhone and the screen protector features (standard, blue light, privacy, glare guard, or antimicrobial).

9to5Mac’sTake

This is a great addition to OtterBox’s screen protectors and I think it definitely makes them a more compelling choice in a crowded market of cheap accessories.

However, one thing to keep in mind, with modern iPhone screen replacements running $199-$329 at full cost, the $150 coverage from OtterBox won’t cover the whole bill. So you may not want to skip AppleCare or other insurance.

But for those who don’t mind being on the hook for a bit of the cost, the OtterBox Protection Program is definitely a more affordable option to have both physical protection and partial insurance for less than the cost of traditional insurance or AppleCare.

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Google is firing back at Sonos Inc., filing two lawsuits against the audio products company that claim that its voice control technology infringes on a number of Google patents.

The lawsuits were filed in California federal court on Monday, claiming that Sonos infringed on seven Google patents related to its smart assistant technology. The two companies have been locked in a patent war for more than two years when Sonos first sued Google for allegedly stealing its smart speaker technology in January 2020. The recent escalation on Google’s part comes after Sonos’ recent victory in January of this year when the the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google was in violation of five Sonos patents.

“Rather than compete on the basis of innovation and product quality, Sonos has decided to compete in the courtroom, and started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” José Castañeda, Google Spokesperson, told Gizmodo in an email. “Their actions leave us no choice but to defend our technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of our patents.”

In the lawsuit, Google claims that Sonos infringed patents related to “enabling voice assistant technology and providing improvements to the efficiency, reliability, and durability of voice-controlled and battery-powered devices,” according to Reuters.

Google and Sonos first partnered together to integrate Google Play into the Sonos platform, but things soon took a left turn when Sonos claimed that Google had copied its connected home speaker technology to create Google Home and other devices. January’s ruling found that Google had infringed on Sonos’ intellectual property, forcing Google to adjust the features of some of its products. But Google claims that Sonos needed Google’s company resources to integrate its voice assistant with its speakers, which included hours of work from Google employees.

It’s not clear how long these two former allies will continue to exchange allegations in the courtroom, but we wish we could command the Google Assistant to make it stop.

Nothing beats the smell and look of a shiny, brand-new car. But as we all know, this pristine state doesn’t last very long and if Murphy’s Law is any indication, the more you’re excited about your new purchase, the likelier it is you’ll see the first scratches the same day you leave the dealership. It is a simple fact of life. But fret not, because researchers in South Korea have got you covered with a new chemical coating that contains a special dye that absorbs infrared light and triggers a chemical reaction that causes the coating to self-repair. Parking for just 30 minutes in the open sun could be enough to restore the paint job of your car.

just add light

New cars often come with various paint coatings. Some popular options include nano-ceramic coating, which is supposed to offer protection from weathering and give the paint a wax-like finish, as well as paint protection films that provide a more comprehensive form of protection. But while such coatings offer initial protection against scratches and minor physical impacts, once they actually become scratched, it is very difficult or impossible to repair the damage.

The researchers at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) wanted to develop a new coating that offers both decent protection and self-healing properties when damaged. They started with a protective resin coating, onto which they added a polymer network material based on acryl polyol and a photothermal dye. This last ingredient is the secret sauce that makes this self-healing coating shine.

When the dye absorbs infrared light from the sun, it raises the surface temperature of the entire polymer coating, whose chemical bonds then break and recombine multiple times. This process essentially reorders the damaged polymer structure and restores the paint to its original condition, thereby getting rid of scratches.

To put the coating to the test, the researchers applied the material to a small model car. After intentionally producing some superficial damage to the coating, the researchers then used a magnifying glass to concentrate light onto the damaged area, patching it up in less than 30 seconds. In another test, the scratched model car was left in the sun for 30 minutes at noon, producing the same self-repair effect.

The photothermal dye is transparent, so it does not affect the paint’s actual color. It’s not just for cars either. Boats, plans, and any number of surfaces that require paint maintenance could employ the solar-activated self-repairing coating. This may also include smartphones, though it remains to be tested whether the touchscreen still works properly after applying the coating.

“The developed technology is a platform technology that synthesizes self-healing coating materials using both inexpensive commercial polymer materials and photothermal dyes. It is expected to be widely used not only in automotive clearcoats but also in various applications,” said lead author Dr. Jin Chul Kim from KRICT.

The self-healing coating was described in a new study that appeared in the journal ACS Applied Polymer Materials.

What you need to know

• Fitbit will soon remove the ability to sync music to devices through the Fitbit Connect app for PCs.
• The Fitbit Connect app will be deactivated on October 13, 2022.
• Users will still have the option to transfer music to Fitbit watches through the Pandora or Deezer apps, but both of those require paid subscriptions.

Fitbit devices will soon lose a feature. The Fitbit Connect app for Windows will be deactivated on October 13, 2022. As a result, Fitbit owners will no longer be able to sync downloaded music from their PCs onto their watches. The move pushes people toward paid services, such as Pandora or Deezer, if they want to maintain similar functionality (via 9to5Google).

“On October 13, 2022 we’re removing the option to sync your Fitbit device with the Fitbit Connect app on your computer. Download and use the Fitbit app on your phone to sync your device,” says a Fitbit support page (opens in new tab).

It’s come back with a vengeance. And it is, Shadow of Mordor‘s brilliant Nemesis system has languished for half a decade. But one enterprising modder recently resurrected the tech (kinda) by adding it to The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimBethesda’s decade-old fantasy RPG.

The Nemesis system is a set of AI behavioral guidelines first introduced in Monolith’s 2014 open-world action game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its 2017 follow-up, Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Both games are set in Lord of the Rings canon, casting you as a ranger named Talion. Dwelling in Mordor, you fight against Sauron’s army of procedurally generated orcs. Any who killed you would remember you, gain enhanced abilities, and openly taunt you the next time you crossed paths.

It absolutely ruled, the sort of genius feature that should’ve been implemented into every similar game. But there’s a reason such a feature hasn’t shown up elsewhere: Last year, following years of efforts, publisher WB Games successfully secured a patent for the Nemesis system.

hindsight, Skyrim seems an obvious fit. The mod, aptly titled “Shadow of Skyrim,” is developed by Syclonix, an Elder Scrolls modder. Syclonix is ​​quick to note that it’s a “nod” to Shadow of Mordor, however, and differs from WB’s patent in key ways. There’s no dialogue, for instance, and it doesn’t add any power levels or NPC hierarchies. But there are some notable similarities.

If an enemy kills you, they’ll get a unique name and also take your stuff. Meanwhile, you’ll get a quest giving directions as to where they’re located; defeating the enemy will give you your stuff back. That said, if you’re defeated by one of Skyrim‘s random encounters — cannon fodder who spawns out of the blue and disappears from the game after beating you — you’ll lose all of your stuff, and have no enemy to seek out and defeat to recover it. (Until the issue is addressed, Syclonix recommends deactivating the “Nemesis use and take items” aspect of the mod.) You’ll also be saddled with a random debuff, which can only be removed upon defeating the enemy who killed you. You can have up to five nemeses at a time. By default, none of them can be over level 25, to ensure you don’t have to go up against foes you can’t beat.

It’s terrific to see the Nemesis system get a second wind via modding, but it will rise again, eventually and officially. WB plans on implementing it in a forthcoming wonder-woman game.

Google is kicking off a new publicity campaign today to pressure Apple into adopting RCS, the cross-platform messaging protocol that’s meant to be a successor to the aging SMS and MMS standards.

The search giant has a new “Get The Message” website that lays out a familiar set of arguments for why Apple should support the standard, revolving around smoother messaging between iPhone and Android devices. Naturally, there’s also a #GetTheMessage hashtag to really get those viral juices flowing.

For most people, the problems Google describes are most familiar in the form of the green bubbles that signify messages to Android users in Apple’s Messages app. While the iPhone app uses Apple’s own iMessage service to send texts between iPhones (complete with modern features like encryption, support for group chats, and high-quality image and video transfers), they revert to old-fashioned SMS and MMS when texting an Android user. Not only are these messages shown in a color-clashing green bubble but also they break many of the modern messaging features people have come to rely on.

To fix this, Google has been dropping a series of not-so-subtle hints in recent months for Apple to support RCS, which offers most (though not all) of the features of iMessage in a protocol that’s usable across both iOS and Android. The company said it hoped “every mobile operating system… upgrades to RCS” onstage at its annual developer conference this year as well as in various tweet over the months.

The iPhone maker has everything to gain from the current situation, which has a lock-in effect for customers. It provides seamless communication (but only between iMessage users) and turns Android’s green bubbles into subtle class markers. It’s why Apple execs admitted in internal emails that bringing iMessage to Android would “hurt [Apple] more than help us.”

Google’s arguments for RCS haven’t been helped by the standard’s sluggish and piecemeal rollout, which was initially reliant on carriers to add support. But the situation has improved since Google effectively took charge in 2019, meaning that RCS is now easily available almost everywhere worldwide. This year even saw the world’s largest Android manufacturer, Samsung, switch to using Google’s own RCS-compatible Messages app by default in its flagship Galaxy S22 range.

RCS has also slowly been gaining feature parity with iMessage’s encryption. It now supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in one-on-one chats, and E2EE in group chats is due later this year.

So, will Google’s new publicity campaign finally be the thing that pushes Apple to see the light and roll out RCS support on its phones? Given the huge incentives Apple has for not playing ball, I have to say the search giant’s chances don’t look good. At this point, Apple adopting RCS feels about as likely as the US collectively ditching iMessage and moving to an encrypted cross-platform messaging service like WhatsApp or Signal.

Playing games by yourself isn’t always fun, especially with a game as big as Tower of Fantasy that has a lot to explore and complete with others by your side.

That’s why it’s a good thing that there is an option to play with friends in the game, even if it might not be spelled out from the get-go. The process to play with friends is simple if you know what to do, but newcomers might find it tricky to find the right menus or things needed to access it.

As such, here is how you can play co-op with friends online in Tower of Fantasy so you can jump into each other’s world and fight the magnitude of bosses on offer.

How to play with friends online in Tower of Fantasy

1. First, make sure you have the player you want to co-op with added to your friends list. You can find out how to do that here.

2. Bring up the friends list and find the person you want to play with. Double click on the character’s face to open up a separate menu.

3. As long as the person is online, click on the “Team Invitations” option. This will bring up the “My Team” menu.

3b. Alternatively if you are already on a Team, you can click one of the empty plus icons and select the friend you want to join from there.

4. Once all the friends you want to play with have joined, click the “Go” button to start the session. Just be sure to set an objective, among anything else the system asks you to do, beforehand.

You can also add players to your team that you have come across in the world or add randoms without needing to have them on your friends list if you know their character name.