Week in Review: Is it really worth getting worked up about Wordle?
Plus: Meta's Foo Fighters fail, and our definitive verdict on the S22 Ultra | The Galaxy S22 Ultra is a (slightly) flawed genius | Don't fall in love with earbuds – they'll just break your heart
Created for techradar.com@quicklydone.com | Web Version
Good morning, afternoon or evening… having readers on multiple continents makes greetings hard, but it's also amazing, so thank you to each and every one of you who's signed up and continues to read my sometimes confused gadget musings.
So what's been happening? A lot, it seems. I keep a mental note of all the things I want to talk to you lovely readers about, and it's always a challenge when we've published hundreds of articles across dozens of subject areas, but it's been especially hard deciding what to include and what to leave out this week.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is packing some seriously impressive cameras (Future)
Our US Editor-in-Chief, Lance Ulanoff, has had one of those 'good' weeks in tech journalism – when your job is trying out a phone that everyone's talking about and many are desperate to buy.
Lance has now filed his full review of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and it has many brilliant elements, along with some that suggest Samsung is still focusing on power over ease-of-use in some areas.
A case in point: in a separate feature, Lance highlights that Apple's Cinematic Mode is far better than Samsung's Portrait Video mode for recording your friends and family's hijinks, with the focus switching seamlessly between different subjects depending on who's speaking.
Samsung might think that its Portrait Video is as good, but Lance is clear that it's not. The Galaxy S22 Ultra is a great phone for sure, but it requires a lot of work to deliver a similar level of performance to that of the iPhone while matching its simplicity.
But the S22 Ultra gets it right in lots of other areas. It's big, bold, packed with mostly amazing cameras – and it's packing the S Pen. It's the Galaxy Note but even better.
Love at first listen: the new Sony LinkBuds (Sony)
Our Audio & Music Editor Olivia Tambini is a fascinating individual. She loves music (and her dog), and she’s tested so many pairs of headphones that she’s given up counting, so she knows what she’s talking about.
So I know that her sadness over the fact that Sony’s new LinkBuds don’t fit her ears properly is genuine and heartfelt – and her sorrow-tinged love letter to the buds tells you that in all other respects they’re fantastic earphones.
They have a small hole in them that allows you hear the world around you even as music is being pumped into your ears. And you don’t tap the buds to play or pause your tunes, or to skip tracks, you tap your head, as they can sense that movement.
In short, they’re little miracles in the world of audio – but sadly Olivia can’t use them, because her ears are too small. Don’t read this piece if you cry easily.
The first trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power aired during the Super Bowl (Amazon)
This is a quick one: one of my favorite articles of the year is our Super Bowl commercials round-up, where we share videos of the weird and wonderful creations that were screened during the event's hallowed advertising slots.
There are so many good ones in here that I'm just going to tell you to go and take a look (a great distraction for when you're having lunch or sneaking a break) and then vote for your favorite below.
POLL QUESTION:
Which was the best Super Bowl commercial this year?
Meta's much-hyped VR Foo Fighters concert didn't go entirely to plan (Shutterstock / Antonio Scorza)
Look, I can’t make VR into a ‘thing’. I want to be able to, but I can’t do it alone. So I need the maker of one of the most popular VR headsets in the world to help me out by getting its content right – but nope, Meta screwed it up again.
Despite having 60,000 people interested in attending its (probably very expensive) post-Super Bowl Foo Fighters VR concert, Meta decided to not operate the traditional lobby system to enable its servers cope with the traffic load.
No, instead it let everyone in at once, which meant the servers failed, and only a quarter of the intended audience got to see the show. And what those who did get in did see was far from polished, with things like members of the sound crew being in shot marring the performance.
This could have been such a win for VR – but instead it made the whole idea of mass-participation virtual reality events look ridiculous.
The next HomePod could be sporting a screen if an apparent slip by Siri is to be believed (Apple)
What appears to be slip of the tongue by Siri suggests that Apple is bringing a screen to its HomePod range. It's something we've heard rumored before, and with Apple heavily tipped to be staging another launch event next month, this latest leak suggests the rumor could have some legs.
The leak took the form of some HomePod owners reportedly (note the emphasis there) being told by Siri that information they'd requested was "displayed on [their] HomePod". That's difficult without a screen, right?
However, as much as I think this would make sense, and the timing works, this could also just be a glitch. It could also be a hoax, which wouldn't be hard to create using custom Siri commands. And if Siri was talking about information displayed on your HomePod, wouldn't it just say 'Check your screen' or something similar?
Either way though, I do think Apple needs to really lean into the HomePod ecosystem if it's going to keep up with Google and Amazon's smart displays – so here's hoping there's more to come.
I do love it when the aforementioned Lance Ulanoff gets annoyed. And there's no finer example of Lance losing it than this article, which begins: "Firstly, stop whining."
Like many people I'm obsessed with Wordle, and my streak, and playing against my family to see who can get each day's word quickest. And I was surprised when people started claiming that Wordle was getting harder since it was bought by the NYT, given that all those five-letter words are apparently already loaded into the system.
But Lance makes the case that things are actually getting easier, as NYT is removing words that might seem 'obscure' to make it more accessible… but surely the obscurity is the point? You have to head to Google, or – whisper it – a dictionary to see if other words exist. You try 'words' that you're not sure are real, and when they are, you go and see what they mean.
Wordle is a word game. It's supposed to improve you and challenge you, and frustrate you. I'm with Lance – we don't need to make it any easier.
Is the Romans' concrete recipe the reason buildings like the Colosseum are still standing? (Getty Images)
You probably know the Romans were good at lots of things. Building straight roads. Conquering people. Inexplicably burying coins and broken pieces of pottery.
They're also responsible for sewers (as anyone who's watched Monty Python's Life of Brian knows), surgery and book-binding. LiveScience has a fascinating feature on the subject – and the thing I found most fascinating is that Roman concrete was actually more robust than today's version.
Apparently, when Roman builders put mortar in saltwater it activated chemical components that strengthened the mix. How did they know that much about science? Was it luck? Trial and error? Or am I just that ignorant about human ingenuity?
This is from the editor
Well, that's me done for another Week in Review. I've had a fun time writing this one, and I hope that comes across in my sunny prose.
I've had some great questions this week, with my favorite asking me for my thoughts on whether a product advertised in our latest missive was a good buy (it was), so do email me with your observations and queries, remembering to include 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line.
And of course, do please encourage your friends, family, work colleagues and pets to sign up for this newsletter – the more readers we get, the more fun we can have.
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week.
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