Intel’s Vaunt smart glasses are important. They’re probably the most important AR wearable we’ve ever seen, and there’s a simple reason for that: They’re wearable. These glasses aren’t packed to the gills with the most impressive AR hardware on the market, they’re not going to conjure up an immersive mixed-reality experience like Microsoft’s Hololens, or the Magic Leap. No, those devices are for recreation. They’re high tech toys. The Intel glasses are for everyday use, and that’s an important step.
The use-cases Intel outlined in the video over at The Verge don’t exactly sound like groundbreaking features. Getting directions, viewing restaurant ratings, maybe getting the occasional email notification. These are things your current devices do, but the interesting angle here is how they will translate when they move to a different platform.
How will we respond to notifications when they appear in our peripheral vision? Will we want them to be smaller, shorter, less frequent? What about directions? How will those change when we receive them in a completely different way? These are exciting, if mundane, questions that the Vaunt will answer once people start getting their hands on it.
Just like the first smartphones carried over the basic features of standard cell phones before they started creating new and exciting features of their own, the Vaunt as a platform echoes what your current devices do as a tentative first step.
Intel knows this, that’s why their first priority with the Vaunt was creating a device you’d actually want to have with you all the time. Not some weird thing hanging off of your glasses, or some big blocky cell phone. Something that fits seamlessly into your everyday life with just a couple interesting features.
Think about the first smartphones. Not the iPhone, the other ones. The Blackberries, the Palms, the products that aren’t really around anymore. Intel’s Vaunt could end up being one of those, an influential trailblazer that ends up paving the way for better products. It might not be what Intel would like us to see in this product, but it’s an important step nonetheless. In that way, the Vaunt is an appetizer, and personally I can’t wait to see what the main course looks like.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.