Plus: Bungie jumping the gaming buyout queue, while Philips OLEDs get something EXtra special | Bungie buyout to buoy booming PS5 | AirPods Pro 2 could get a lossless boost
Created for techradar.com@quicklydone.com | Web Version
Hey folks! It’s Gerald here, dusting off my newsletter cap and filling in once again for the Big G, Gareth, our Editor in Chief, while he has a nice long January lie down.
It’s been a bit of a quiet week in the world of tech compared to the usual – we're in that annual lull as the dust settles on the big CES launches, and the big mobile brands hunker down for their Mobile World Congress unveilings in the coming weeks.
But there’s still some big news to get our heads around: the gaming industry ‘let’s-splash-the-cash-and-buy-a-studio’ arms race continues with Sony’s planned acquisition of Bungie, Apple’s AirPods might finally be getting the hi-res boost they deserve, and there’s much, much more…
Destiny 2: Forsaken is one of Bungie's key properties (Bungie)
Gaming buyouts are like buses – you wait years for one, then two come along at once. No sooner had we come to terms with the prospect of Crash Bandicoot becoming an Xbox gaming mascot thanks to the pending Activision / Blizzard purchase by Microsoft than Sony announced that it’s set to buy Bungie, the (original) creators of Halo, and the developers behind the Destiny franchise.
The electronics giant is set to nab the company for a cool $3.6 billion, with Bungie retaining its independence and ability to self-publish as a subsidiary of Sony, with its own board of directors and management team. On the surface – and at least initially – this deal isn’t about making Destiny 2, or its predecessor and successors, PlayStation platform exclusives, either: "Philosophically, this isn't about pulling things into the PlayStation world," said Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.
So what's the appeal for either company? Well, Sony gets to buy-in a huge amount of expertise in making lucrative games-as-a-service titles, of which Destiny and Destiny 2 are two of the biggest. And looking further ahead, it will, presumably, have first dibs on whatever Bungie cooks up next.
But it's arguably an even more interesting move for Bungie, which is looking to expand the multimedia universe of its properties, Destiny chief among them. And so, given Sony's Hollywood expertize, don’t be surprised if a Destiny TV show or movie is announced at some point in the future.
For early-doors fans of the first Destiny game, let's just hope they keep poor old Peter 'That wizard came from the moon' Dinklage away from it all!
Here’s a head scratcher – Apple’s Apple Music streaming service offers lossless audio, the sort of digital audio tracks that retain every detail of an original recording, which would otherwise be lost in compressed audio formats.
However, the company’s super-popular true wireless earphones, the AirPods and AirPods Pro, don’t support lossless audio formats, using low-bandwidth Bluetooth instead of a wired connection – so to get the most out of Apple’s own music platform you have to use another company’s headphones.
It’s a strange oversight for a company that usually specializes in joined-up thinking across its product lines.
Things may soon change though. A newly-uncovered patent points to Apple working on a new optical audio transmission technology that would allow it to wirelessly beam lossless audio, which would rival Qualcomm’s recently announced aptX Lossless Bluetooth format.
In the patent, Apple describes the technology being used with a headset – perhaps the long-awaited Apple AR glasses – which transmit audio to a pair of earbuds via optical transmission. There’s nothing to stop it being adapted to send music from a smartphone to earbuds either, allowing Apple to sidestep Qualcomm’s technology and tariffs.
Optical-over-wireless does have a big drawback though – it requires line of sight between the transmitter and receiver, which may interfere with a playback gadget that you keep tucked away. So future AirPods may end up needing some form of Bluetooth as an alternative regardless, but this is an interesting potential approach to bringing lossless audio to Apple’s devices.
A word of warning for our US readers – we’re talking about the European Philips TV range here, not the inferior sets you poor guys in the States have to put up with thanks to the weird licensing agreement Philips has with a budget TV manufacturer for its US wares.
Nope, we’re talking about the superb Philips / TP Vision sets that sell across the UK and EU, and which are set to level up significantly for 2022.
Skipping on the US-centric CES 2022 showcase, Philips has now revealed its TV lineup for the first part of the year, and there are some stunners in there. As well as the MiniLED 9507 and latest Philips ‘The One’ 8807 sets, sitting in the upper and mid ranges of the range respectively, the company’s big release for the year will be its OLED807.
As with the rest of the high-end of the range, you get the usual color-coordinated AmbiLight backlight system, as well as HDMI 2.1 support for 120Hz refresh rates and, variable refresh rate systems like Nvidia G-Sync and AMD Freesync, plus a whole host of gaming-centric interface options.
But when it comes to image quality, it’s the inclusion of a new OLED EX panel that will bring the biggest change. It’ll lift image brightness by up to 30% over conventional OLED displays, with brightness issues being pretty much the only drawback of the otherwise excellent OLED technology.
Definitely one to watch then – literally. There’s no word yet on an exact release date or pricing, but expect to pay a pretty penny.
Realme is going all-in on heart rate sensors (Realme)
Need a little more than just GPS and run-tracking apps from your next fitness-focused smartphone? You might want to turn your attention to the upcoming Realme 9 Pro.
According to the company’s Vice President Madhav Sheth, the upcoming Android smartphone from Realme will have a heart rate sensor that’s built into the same zone of the phone as the fingerprint scanner. It’s not quite a stethoscope strapped to your chest, but it should give an indication of how hard your body is working during a workout (even if we wouldn’t quite trust it to monitor heart-health problems).
Now, in-phone heart rate monitoring can’t be expected to be as accurate as a dedicated heart-rate tracker, and as our own phones writer Tom Bedford says, "a heart rate sensor isn't a cool enough feature in itself to draw someone to the Realme over another phone". So Realme still has some work to do to lure us in.
But with phones coming in such cookie-cutter designs these days, anything that can make yours stand out from the crowd, and the domineering presence of Samsung and Apple on the market, can’t hurt.
The consumer tech world has been rocked the past couple of years by chip shortages and shipping issues, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Canon. This year, it’s rumored to be launching not one, not two, but three new affordable mirrorless cameras as part of its EOS R range.
Sitting alongside the EOS R5 and EOS R6 models, two are expected to have full-frame sensors, with one (thought to be the EOS R7) built around a smaller APS-C sensor. The EOS R7, arguably the most exciting of the bunch, is expected to be a true hybrid cross between the Canon EOS M50 Mark II and Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR.
One of the full-frame models is expected to be a successor to the EOS RP, with the other sitting in between the EOS R5 and R6 models. The latter is expected to bring a new image sensor, but have a lower pixel count than the 45MP EOS R5.
With an 'internal' solution to the ongoing chip problem apparently having been found at Canon, those currently struggling to pick up a pricey EOS R5 may soon have some cheaper alternatives to choose from.
We've discovered the secret to making perfect French toast (Shutterstock)
Ah, French toast. Good old eggy bread. It's one of those love-it or hate-it foods – it'll either set you gagging or restore and revive your soul, there's no middle ground.
One way to make sure you fall into the latter camp of breakfast enjoyment is to cook the morning staple just right. Not too soggy, not too burnt; the Goldilocks zone of dairy/bread hybrids. And our own Carrie-Ann Skinner has cracked the code for making the perfect French toast every time.
The key? Using an air fryer, the safe-to-use, healthier-cooking kitchen appliances that are becoming ubiquitous in the modern kitchen.
"Using an air fryer really did improve the quality of my French toast," says Carrie.
"It ensured it was evenly browned and crisp all over, while remaining soft and fluffy inside. It's far easier than having to watch French toast like a hawk as it cooks in a frying pan on the stove."
Click through for the complete guide to the perfect breakfast treat.
POLL QUESTION:
You can only have one kitchen appliance from the following list – which do you go for?
There are plenty of strange new worlds to explore (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Growing up, I was terrified of space. Not the vastness of it, but I’d been exposed to Ridley Scott’s Alien films at far too young an age, and that place where no one can hear you scream still gives me the willies.
But now I’m older, with more grey hairs than I care to count, the whole infinite endless stuff really hits me in my ‘existential dread’ weak spot. And it doesn’t help when I learn a little bit more about just how wild the universe can be. Take WASP-189b, for instance.
To quote the much-smarter-than-me John Loeffler: “WASP-189b is an exoplanet orbiting a star about 322 light-years away from us, and it's what astronomers call a ‘hot Jupiter’. Unlike our own gas giants, which orbit the sun on the outer part of our solar system, hot Jupiters are gas giants that orbit closely to their host stars. WASP-189b, for example, is about 20 times closer to its star as we are to the sun.
“This produces very hot atmospheric temperatures on the daytime side of the planet, upward of 3,200 degrees Celsius. This is hot enough to boil metals like iron, chromium, and magnesium, which brings these elements into their gaseous states and allows them to create a layered atmosphere around the planet.”
In other words, the lovely breathable atmosphere that we take for granted here on Earth is replaced by a totally toxic mix of iron, chromium, vanadium, magnesium, and manganese, as well as titanium oxide. Ozzy Osborne would probably be right at home – everyone else would be dead.
This is from the editor
So with the year now in full swing, what’s next on the tech horizon? Well, we’re just a couple of weeks out from the MWC phones expo, which takes place in Barcelona from February 28 through March 3, and is usually the place for some big mobile-related launches – it’s around then that we’re expecting to get the lowdown on the eagerly-awaited Samsung Galaxy S22.
And how about a little closer to home? We’re happy to reveal that TRG, our new TechRadar Gaming channel, finally has an editor-in-chief! We’d love for you to help us welcome aboard Julian Benson, formerly of Kotaku, PC GamesN and GamingBible, as he settles into the driver's seat to oversee our gaming coverage – he's got great things planned
That’s me signing off for this week – have a lovely weekend, and as ever please email us with your thoughts, including 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line, and do subscribe to this newsletter if you haven't already, and pass the word along.
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