Technology - Google News |
- Google Maps has a wild new feature that will guide you through indoor spaces like airports - CNBC
- Review: Nest Hub (2nd gen) sleep tracking ushers in a radically more pervasive Google Assistant - 9to5Google
- Intel Core i9-11900K review: a boost to Microsoft Flight Simulator - The Verge
| Google Maps has a wild new feature that will guide you through indoor spaces like airports - CNBC Posted: 30 Mar 2021 06:29 AM PDT  Google Maps Live View AR indoors Google Google on Tuesday announced several new features that are coming to the Google Maps app. The coolest one will help you find your way through indoor spaces like airports, malls and train stations using augmented reality. The updated Live View AR feature, which overlays digital guides on top of the real world to provide directions as you look through your phone's display, now works indoors. So, say you're in an airport and need to find your gate or an ATM. You search for what you're looking for in Google Maps and markers will guide you with arrows and other digital indicators. Here's an example: Google Maps Live View indoors Google Live View for Google Maps first launched for Android and iPhone in 2019, but it initially only provided these sorts of directions outdoors. You can access Live View by searching for something in Google maps on your phone, tapping "Directions" and then, when available, tapping the "Live View" option next to "Start." Google said it's first rolling out in some malls in Chicago, Long Island, New York, Los Angeles, Newark, New Jersey, San Francisco, San Jose, California, and Seattle. In the coming months, it will also launch in airports, malls and transit stations in Tokyo and Zurich. Other cities and locations will eventually support the feature, too. Google's big maps update also includes other features that will roll out in the coming months, like air quality information, integration with grocery stores for curbside pickup, and an option to select the most eco-friendly route when driving. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 Mar 2021 06:00 AM PDT Technology today is already quite assistive, from location-aware reminders to notifications telling you when to leave, factoring in live traffic conditions. In fact, that's now the base level of usefulness we expect from our gadgets. After using Google's 2nd-gen Nest Hub for the past week, I experienced the next level of computers passively suggesting what improvements can be made in your life, and it will take some time to get used to.
Design of the PastAt a glance, the Nest Hub (2nd gen), as it's officially called, looks exactly like the 2018 Home Hub. Google carried over the "floating screen attached to an oblong fabric-covered base" aesthetic. The only physical change is a flat display that sees glass sit atop the rear plastic backing. While minor, this makes the screen much easier to clean as there is no longer a raised lip that dust can be wedged into. It's minor but much appreciated when wiping. Another change is how edge-to-edge Smart Display gestures are no longer encumbered by that perimeter, which prevented flat, smooth swiping. Hardware-wise, the other big change is something that you can't see. Following the Pixel 4 and new Nest Thermostat, Google has brought its Soli sensor to the Nest Hub. We're told the radar component is located in the top-right, but it's not at all visible. In Settings, you can disable "Motion Sense" entirely, while you also have the option to turn on/off "Quick Gestures."  At launch, you're able to play/pause media by "air-tapping in front of your display." This gesture is absolutely delightful and works much better than the camera-based feature on the Nest Hub Max. It's been wonderful for listening to music while resting in bed with your eyes closed and just vaguely gesturing over the Smart Display to end playback. The convenience and fact that you don't have to be very precise — taps can start ~18 inches away in our experience — when gesturing makes it all the more frustrating that you can't yet skip or go back to the last track with a wave. This action is available on the Pixel 4 but is currently only used to snooze alarms by the Nest Hub. In terms of performance, the only change I observed is that the 2nd-gen Nest Hub boots faster than the original or even the Hub Max. The quad-core 64-bit 1.9 GHz ARM CPU is clocked higher than the Nest Mini (1.4 GHz) or Audio (1.8 GHz) and is paired with a "high-performance ML hardware engine" that processes your most frequently commands on-device. In practice, animation performance and loading speeds are mostly unchanged. Sensing the PresentThe other big feature made possible by Soli is "Sleep Sensing." This new Hub marks Nest's entrance into health, though that fact is overshadowed by Google's broader hardware division buying a whole other company to do basically the same thing. The brand started with thermostats and later expanded to cameras, smoke detectors, and a security system, while "Google Nest" added speakers and Smart Displays to the lineup. Wellness is a natural extension of providing assistance in the home as most users in the Google ecosystem already get help from Assistant when they're out in the world. I am certainly one of those people and have been wearing sleep trackers for much longer. Despite that history and experience, using Sleep Sensing on the Nest Hub was new and unexpected. The setup process involves agreeing to a "preview of Sleep Sensing" in the Google Home app. Right off the bat, it's emphasized how "your Nest Hub does not have a camera" so "no distinguishable images of your body or face are generated." Rather, the low-power radar monitors the movement of your limbs and body, while also being precise enough to track the rising and falling of your chest during breathing. There is the optional ability to track "sound events," like coughing and snoring. This is meant to "better understand what might be disturbing your rest." For example, frequent coughs might mean it's time to clean or replace your old mattress. However, sleep tracking will continue to work without the microphone active. Users have to also agree to connecting the sleep feature with Google Assistant and Fit for personalized insights. After the in-app setup, you're asked to position the Nest Hub next to you so that it's 1-2 feet away from your resting position. For consistent results, it's recommended that the Smart Display remains in the same spot every night. You're finally asked to lay down for a minute as part of calibration. Google will tell you with an icon in the top-right corner when Sleep Sensing is active, as well as with a banner on the always-on clock above the time. Users are able to disable it for whatever reason by sliding up quick settings and tapping a new sleep button; Quick Gestures continue to work.  In all, very little effort on your part is needed to have the Nest Hub track sleep. Compared to the fitness tracker I wear daily, there's no charging or remembering to wear it. While I don't mind something on my wrist overnight, I'm still always aware of it, even after having done it for so long. In fact, I have historically not worn it over the weekend out of a sense of wanting Friday-Saturday freedom and unencumbered wrists. The Nest Hub removes any thought needed as you start slumbering. After using it for over a week, I've found radar-based sleep tracking to be mostly in line with the Fitbit Sense that I wear, though the Nest Hub could be better at recognizing when you're awake but still in bed. Results are shown on the homescreen or by asking Hey Google: how did I sleep, did I snore last night, how was my breathing, etc.
If you use a dedicated sleep tracker (and like it), you're missing sleep stages that tell you about REM, Light, and Deep. But at the end of the day, most people will suffice with simply knowing how long they slept. That "Duration" (7-9 hours recommended) is one of Google's core sleep tenets, with "Schedule" and "Quality" being the others. The former is meant to encourage you to keep consistent hours, while the latter factors in snoring, coughing, light change, and temperature — which is a new sensor in the 2nd-gen Nest Hub but only for sleep tracking and not other purposes today. This forms a delightful graphic where each of those three elements is represented as circles. A good night of sleep sees the three shapes become one. It's a very nice way to visualize sleep data and one of the most user-friendly and — frankly — human in the field. It's not just scores or very dense line graphs with a multitude of colors and spikes. The friendliness is an easy win for Google and nothing about the other data collected, including breaths per minute, is surprising. Previewing the FutureWhat was entirely unexpected to me, even after years of wearing similar devices, were the sleep suggestions offered by Nest Hub. They appear as 2×1 cards on the homescreen, with last October's redesign a clear precursor to being able to surface passive amounts of information throughout your day, including a countdown closer to bedtime. One I have received several times over the past few days is an information panel about "The effects of sleeping in."
My initial reaction, and one that I still have today, was "excuse me." On analysis, it's a very irrational response that speaks to how human thinking (and wants) can be so short term, but being told by a computer that the luxury of sleeping in on a weekend is bad was somewhat annoying. I've found other snippets of information like "How morning light sets up your body clock" to be interesting, but I cannot get over that card I saw after the first night of having a Nest Hub track my sleep. I fully admit that most people do not have deep thoughts about sleep — compared to exercise or diet — but it deserves equal attention and thoughtfulness. At the very least, it requires a more introductory tone. That said, those kinds of suggestions and subsequent feelings are inevitable as technology becomes bigger parts of our lives. People want and like the idea of having help in their lives. So far, the help has been rather non-personalized and generic (but still useful). The next generation of these assistants will be more pervasive as they extend into the remaining parts of our lives. Meanwhile, after a week, you get a "Sleep report" with insights and personalized tips in the new Wellness tab. It highlights an area of concern and why you should care, with "education" videos and a corrective "Sleep suggestion" offered. In my case, the Nest Hub recognized an inconsistent sleep pattern and recommended setting a schedule. After two weeks of use, Sleep Sensing will start directly offering personalized sleep and wake-up times. Speaking of the future, the immediate one for the Nest Hub sees Sleep Sensing becomes a paid feature. Google is giving all users a preview until next year to experience how it works for them and to give the company time to integrate Fitbit and its Premium subscription. People's willingness to pay for sleep tracking will come down to how useful and impactful suggestions are to their lives. This will require a few weeks — if not months — to properly determine, and I'm not convinced yet. That said, I believe Assistant only needs to deliver one very good suggestion/schedule change to hook people in. Regardless, a better solution might be giving users basic information (like what time they slept and woke up) for free and letting them pay for more advanced stats and help. Final ThoughtsThe Nest Hub (2nd gen) sets Google Assistant down the path of having an all-encompassing look at your day and wellbeing. As much as my initial reaction to that aspect was quite visceral, it's exciting to get a glimpse of the future in a $99 package that is already useful in so many other ways. The speaker and alarm — enhanced by Soli gestures, photo frame, mini TV, and smart home control center you want is now also an entirely optional sleep tracker that more than works and is — mostly — friendly about it. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Intel Core i9-11900K review: a boost to Microsoft Flight Simulator - The Verge Posted: 30 Mar 2021 06:32 AM PDT /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69047971/intelcorei9_11900K_1.0.jpg) I built a new gaming PC in September to play new games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. I figured that picking Intel's Core i9-10900K and Nvidia's RTX 3090 would make this machine last for years and offer top tier performance in demanding titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator. I was wrong. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a notorious beast of a game and is quickly becoming the new Crysis test for PCs. It has struggled to run smoothly above 30fps with all settings maxed out at 1440p on my PC, and even AMD's Intel-beating Ryzen 9 5950X only improved the situation slightly for some. Intel's latest 11th Gen processor arrives with a big promise of up to 19 percent IPC (instructions per cycle) improvements over the existing i9-10900K, and more specifically the lure of 14 percent more performance at 1080p in Microsoft Flight Simulator with high settings. This piqued my curiosity, so I've been testing the i9-11900K over the past few days to see what it can offer for Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically. It's less than a year after the i9-10900K release, and I'm already considering upgrading to Intel's new i9-11900K because I've found it boosts Microsoft Flight Simulator by 20 percent. :format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22407556/intelcorei9_11900K_2_2.jpg) The Verge doesn't typically review processors, so we don't own dedicated hardware testing rigs or multiple CPUs and systems to offer all of the benchmarks and comparisons you'd typically find in CPU reviews. For those, we're going to recommend you visit the excellent folks at Tom's Hardware, KitGuru, or Eurogamer's Digital Foundry. Intel's new Core i9-11900K ships with eight cores, 16 threads, and boosted clock speeds up to 5.3GHz. On paper, that sounds like it would be less powerful than the 10900K with its 10 cores, 20 threads, and boosted clock speeds up to 5.3GHz, but the reality is far more complicated thanks to how games and apps are designed. Most of Flight Simulator currently runs in a main thread that's often limited by how well your CPU can run single-threaded applications and games. So in recent years Intel has managed to stay on top with its single-threaded performance, despite AMD offering more cores. That was until AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X managed to beat the final Intel performance advantage late last year. Intel's new 11th Gen chips are trying to reclaim its traditional advantage. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a good example of where Intel typically has an advantage. It's also an increasingly rare example of a game that's very sensitive to your entire system components and not just how good your GPU is at rendering games. :format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22407557/705ff7fe_2f40_4e85_a2fd_b17a854aee38.jpg) Intel's Core i9-11900K does its job well enough here to boost performance by around 20 percent depending on resolution. I've tested a variety of flights taking off from different airports and flying over some of the world's most beautiful locations and the most demanding cities the game has to offer. Everything feels smoother with Intel's latest chips, but the results aren't dramatic enough to get me beyond 60fps without stepping some settings down. A flight over Seattle with all the settings maxed out shows a 24-percent performance improvement with the new 11th Gen Core i9 at 1080p and an 18-percent increase at 1440p. On my i9-10900K PC, I saw average frame rates of 38fps at 1440p and 33fps at 1080p. The Core i9-11900K managed to bump these to 45fps average at 1440p and 41fps average at 1080p. Averages during a particular benchmark don't always tell the whole story, though. Over the hours I've been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, I've noticed the game dip and stutter less than before. It's still not perfect, but it's certainly smoother overall. If I dial the game back to high settings, it immediately jumps to a 66fps average at 1440p — demonstrating just how much the ultra settings hit frame rates. I can personally barely notice the difference between high and ultra settings in Microsoft Flight Simulator, so the boost here is noticeable thanks to the smoother gameplay. I also tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the Cinebench R23 and Geekbench 5 benchmarks. Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw a tiny bump of around 3 percent at both 1080p and 1440p, while the i9-11900K managed some impressive single core performance gains in both Cinebench and Geekbench. Intel Core i9-11900K benchmarks
I should note I was also hoping to do most of my testing with my existing Z490 motherboard, but that didn't go to plan. I swapped the chip in with the latest BIOS update for 11th Gen processors and found that the system rebooted a few minutes into games without even a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). I wasn't able to troubleshoot it fully in time for review, but the Asus Maximus XIII Hero (Z590) board supplied by Intel worked just fine. You should be able to easily use 11th Gen processors with Z490 motherboards, as most manufacturers have already issued BIOS updates to support Intel's latest processors. Some will even support M.2 NVMe storage using PCIe 4.0 with these latest chips, while others like Asus only support PCIe 4.0 on the Primary PCIe x16 slot with 11th Gen processors. Intel's 11th Gen processors finally deliver PCIe 4.0 support, and that's good news for storage. Manufacturers have started to fully support PCIe 4.0 drives in recent months, with Western Digital, Samsung, GigaByte, and MSI all launching high-speed drives. If you have a compatible PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, the upgrade to 11th Gen processors will certainly be worth it. I've managed read speeds of 6729MB/s and write speeds of 5206MB/s using Western Digital's new SN850 1TB drive. Corsair's MP600 also manages 4987MB/s read and 4259MB/s write speeds. Using Intel's older 10th Gen chip, the Corsair drive managed 3484MB/s reads and 3235MB/s writes, so an 11th Gen upgrade improved speeds by more than 40 percent. If you work with a lot of files every day, the upgrade to 11th Gen processors will be worth it for PCIe 4.0 alone. :format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22407569/xF0EPe6.png) I don't think the Core i9-11900K does enough for me personally to upgrade from a 10900K, but the PCIe 4.0 support would tempt me more if I needed the speeds there. At $550 (if you can find it at this retail price), the Core i9-11900K sits in between AMD's offerings, being less expensive than the top 5950X and 5900X Ryzen 9 chips and $90 more than the 5800X. There's some solid single-thread performance here, and the 11900K and AMD's 5900X and 5950X all trade blows depending on the games. Intel's performance improvement will come at a cost of energy efficiency, though. Tom's Hardware found that the 11900K "sets the new high power mark" in several of its power tests, drawing over 200 watts in the same test that AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X drew 116 watts. If you even need a new CPU, it's worth considering just how much Intel's latest chips will influence your energy bills and the games you play. Whether you decide to upgrade to Intel's 11th Gen or one of AMD's chips will probably depend on the games you play and stock availability. A lot of games do a bad job of utilizing multiple cores on CPUs, mostly because console gaming hardware hasn't offered solid CPU performance and spreading multiple rendering and physics threads across different cores can complicate game design. Intel's new chips do a better job of handling these single threads to improve performance, but it's very game-dependent. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the general consensus is that the game desperately needs to be moved to DirectX 12 for improvements to multi-core CPU performance. But Intel's IPC improvements have managed to help until the Direct X 12 update arrives with the Xbox Series X release this summer. Where Intel might have an advantage over AMD here is availability of chips. It has been increasingly difficult to find AMD's latest Ryzen processors in recent months, thanks to a global chip shortage. Intel partners have already been accidentally selling some 11th Gen desktop CPUs, which may indicate it will have a steadier supply in the coming weeks. The winner between Intel and AMD will be the company that can get these chips into the hands of PC gamers eager to upgrade. Much like the GPU market right now, benchmarks don't matter when the best chip is often the only one you can actually buy. |
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