Earlier this past week Epic dropped a ten minute demo of the upcoming game The Matrix Awakens. This uses the latest Unreal engine to render the gameplay on Xbox Series X and PS5. I could keep talking about it, but you need to see just how incredible this game looks.

Epic says, and it all looks incredibly real – there will be moments in which you won't be able to discern whether you're watching a real-life movie or a game. The environment in which the action is happening is an open-world city, full of AI-controlled characters and vehicles which make different decisions based on what's happening around them, making the entire world more believable.

Mashable

Mashable covers it here. That article includes the trailer. It's a fun time and is better than any game trailer I've seen in a long time. The Matrix is getting (rightly) a lot of hype as the upcoming film releases soon. I am excited to see this new chapter in Neo's story.

Palm was a trailblazer in the late 90's and 2000's with great hardware. They were THE company with their Pilot line of PDAs and the Pre will forever live in nerds hearts (I'm looking at you Dieter Bohn). Palm's last gasp of air came not long before the calendar flipped to 2010. It exists in name only.

And that's where the Palm Buds Pro come in. Like Kodak, RCA, and Polaroid, Palm is a dead brand but continues to produce stuff crap that is simply tech products with the brand slapped on them. Samuel Polay over at InputMag reviewed Palm's $120 headphones.

Fundamentally, the Palm Buds Pro are cheap generic wireless earbuds with the Palm name slapped on, resold at a ridiculous markup. They feel cheap, sound cheap, and lack so many of the quality-of-life features that are commonplace for wireless earbuds at this price.

Palm Ventures, a company that licenses the Palm name from TCL, is not trying to sell a great product here. I honestly don’t know what the company wants other than to make money in exchange for almost nothing.

Samuel Polay at InputMag

If I had to venture a guess, I think Polay is saying these are a hard pass. AirPods they are not.

Storytelling for movies have come a long way over the decades. Specifically when you see movie trailers, you can tell how a studio's methods change when enticing you to see a film. Some movies that stand the test of time would benefit from a modern take on their trailer.

That's exactly what Michael Edwards has done with Terminator 2: Judgement Day. He's taken this classic sci-fi action-drama and cut a trailer worthy of the modern era. It's gorgeous and looks pro AF.

Have a look for yourself:

Two things strike me as excellent attention to detail. First, the omission of the theme. It's everywhere in the trailer and throughout the movie. Edwards omits it completely. Second, he cuts it to keep the plot twist of the movie intact.

I've seen T2 more times than I can count. I saw it in the theaters as a kid and numerous times as an adult. I've said forever that T2 is one of the rare movies where the sequel is better than the first film. Don't get me wrong, Terminator is a fantastic action 80's movie. It's dark and gritty and thrilling. But it does not have the gravity of T2. James Cameron outdid himself with T2.

Edwards did fantastic work on this and I applaud him. Maybe he will cut a modern Back to the Future trailer, given how bland the real one was. You can keep an eye on his work via his YouTube, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

SONOS makes really good speakers. They hook into a number of music services, come in a few different configurations, and (to me) sound great. They've had their ups and downs, especially after a short-lived policy of bricking perfectly-good speakers when customers were upgrading. They've now announced that speakers coming in 2023 will be more repairable and use less energy. They call it their “Design for Disassembly” program.

This includes changes like swapping out adhesives for fasteners, which can make it easier for consumers to take apart Sonos products for repair. But the program is intended to “make it easier to repair, refurbish and, eventually, recycle future Sonos products.”

By 2023, Sonos says that all of its products will include “sleep mode,” a feature that cuts down on power consumption while the device is idle. The goal is for Sonos products to ultimately use less than 2 watts while idle. According to Sonos, about 75 percent of the company’s carbon footprint comes from the energy its products’ use over their lifetime. 

The Verge

Given how technology always marches on, it is nice to see SONOS moving toward repairable products. This is something Apple has recently embraced (though their motives are suspect). Either way, less power usage and the ability to repair your stuff is always a good move. I look forward to seeing what SONOS releases as their first wave in this line.