The trend of major version increments for what may or may not be considered major updates continues for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, with software Version 9.0 available for the platform that’s barely a year old. And this comes about a month after the glasses hit Version 8.0.
In addition to the usual “bug fixes and performance enhancements,” there are a trio of new features of note.
The biggest of the three arguably is the ability to record and send a voice message (or memo, if you prefer) right from the glasses. They can be up to 1 minute long, and you can send them to WhatsApp and Messenger — the two major messaging platforms owned by Meta. You also can tell your glasses to play any voice messages you’ve received by saying, “Hey, Meta, play message,” after you get an announcement that one has been received.
The second big(ish) addition is that you can now set timers hands-free from your glasses. And when a timer’s up, you’ll be notified through the glasses, which makes sense.
None of that is anywhere near as exciting as what Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg showed off at Meta Connect in late September — so we still have plenty more major updates coming at some point.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.