February's Best Gear, from VR Headsets to Futuristic Phones
Quinn Russell BrownMicrosoft’s HoloLens 2 Puts a Full-Fledged Computer on Your Face
Forget, for a moment, that the HoloLens 2 is a headset. Microsoft wants you to see it as much more—a key tool in the future of work. The latest version of Microsoft's mixed-reality headset has been updated with more sophisticated gesture controls, a wider field-of-view, and a new kind of patented imaging technology. It's lighter and more comfortable, designed for someone to wear all day. And it has an AI processing unit that connects to the cloud. Microsoft wants it to be the most advanced mixed-reality computer out there—one you wear on your face. Read the full story.
Warby ParkerTry on Your Next Pair of Glasses Using Just Your iPhone
One of the best applications of augmented reality we've seen so far is the opportunity to try before you buy. Take Warby Parker's new "virtual try-on" feature (available in the Warby Parker app on iOS). It uses Apple's TrueDepth camera to map a pair of frames onto your face in augmented reality. The experience is surprisingly lifelike. The glasses stay fixed in place as you turn and tilt your head, and even show the way light filters through a pair of acetate frames or shines on metal details. Read the full story.
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesSamsung Reveals the Galaxy Fold, Its Futuristic Bendy Phone
The phone of the future will give you exactly the screen real estate you need, exactly when you need it. That, at least, is Samsung's vision with the new Galaxy Fold, the folding phone it introduced this month. The Fold has a 4.6-inch display when in smartphone mode, but opens up to reveals a 7.3-inch “Infinity Flex” display. Samsung thinks you'll use this kind of two-screen device to watch YouTube videos on the train to work, then snap it closed to text your friends and slip it into your back pocket. It's a big bet, and one that comes at a high price: The Galaxy Fold will cost $1,980 when it goes on sale this spring. Read the full story.
SamsungGalaxy S10 Shows Samsung’s Big, Flashy Smartphone Future
Not ready for folding phones? Samsung also revealed the next generation of its Galaxy flagship phones. These look like the smartphones you're used to, but don't be fooled—the Galaxy S10 line is some of Samsung's most innovative work yet. These phones feature an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, an "Infinity O" display, and a camera so powerful you might dump your DSLR. Read the full story.
Seth Wenig/APTidy Up Your Cluttered Twitter Feed With This KonMari Tool
Your Twitter feed is cluttered with forgotten friends, pity follow-backs, and other digital detritus. Clean it out with this KonMari-inspired Twitter plug-in. It uses the same deliberate and tedious method that Marie Kondo employs for cleaning out closets and bookshelves: review each account individually, ask if it “sparks joy,” and then unfollow it if it doesn’t. Read the full story.
VarjoWould You Pay $6,000 for Vision-Quality VR?
Looking through the VR-1 is like seeing with your own eyes, only clearer. But the world's “only professional VR headset with human-eye resolution” isn't for you. While its mirror-polished eyebox and unprecedented visual fidelity make it feel like an artifact from the future, its $5,995 price tag makes clear that this isn’t a device for everyone. Specifically, it’s not for consumers, but for Airbus, Audi, architecture firm Foster + Partners, and dozens of other enterprise customers. Its maker, the Finnish company Varjo, is betting that it will change the way those customers design buildings, build cars, and train workers—and maybe, it'll push what's possible in VR. Read the full story.
CasperIn Pursuit of the Perfect Snooze, Casper Shifts to Gadgets
Casper, the mattress-in-a-box company, has a new idea to lull you to sleep: the Glow, its take on a bedside light. It projects a warm, soft glow that gradually dims as you fall asleep, and then brightens like a sunrise when it's time to wake up. It looks like a miniaturized HomePod speaker, but one without the ability to stream music or talk to Siri over Wi-Fi. Actually, there's nothing connected about the Casper Glow at all. It's more like a remedy for our screen-addled world, a reminder of times when falling asleep was as simple as flicking off the light. Read the full story.
Alyssa FooteStrava's New Tool Builds Routes Based on Your Finger Swipes
Finding new places to ride or run can be such a pain that, even in their own neighborhoods, many athletes resort to traversing the same handful of routes over and over and over. Break the habit with Route Builder, a new tool in the Strava app, which makes finding new routes as simple as tracing your finger over a map on your phone's screen: Just draw where you want to go and it spits out an ideal path. Strava assembles that path from fragments of the billions of rides and runs stockpiled on its servers. Read the full story.
Photograph: MotorolaMotorola Bets on Budget Phones With Massive Batteries
The latest crop of Motorola hardware proves that you can have high-quality phones at a wallet-friendly price. The $299 Moto G7 and G7 Plus have 12-megapixel cameras with AI-powered features, like Google Lens and the ability to automatically capture photos when it detects a smiling person in the frame. Motorola says the G7 is 50 percent faster than last year's G6, thanks to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 system on a chip. Best of all? The new Moto G7 Power comes with all those features, plus a huge battery that's supposed to get 72 hours of juice. Read the full story.
Klaus Vedfelt/Getty ImagesThe Perfect Pair of Pants Is Just a 3D Body Scan Away
The retailer of the future won't sell clothes in standard sizes, but will fabricate made-to-measure items for each individual customer. That's the idea behind start-ups like Redthread, which makes bespoke clothing for anyone with a smartphone. Customers choose an item from Redthread’s website, fill out a “fit quiz,” and capture a series of full-body photos with their phone. Redthread pulls 3D measurement data from those photos and, combined with a customer's fit preferences, creates a made-to-order item. Read the full story.
Alyssa FooteGoogle Offers a Pair of Apps to Help the Deaf Community
Two new Google apps provide critical services to those who are deaf or hard of hearing. The Live Transcribe app uses Google’s cloud-based, speech-to-text intelligence to offer text representations of spoken conversations as they’re happening, while Sound Amplifier relies on an Android-based dynamic audio processing effect to make speech and other sounds easier to hear. Both will be available as free downloads from the Google Play app store. Read the full story.
