Vision Pro will get the Apple Intelligence treatment
If you genuinely believed Apple Intelligence, the Big Fruit company’s take on artificial intelligence, would be confined to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac for the rest of its days when the Vision Pro is right there… you’ve not dealt with Apple before. Despite, Apple’s promises to only bring AI to those products, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and his ‘Power On’ newsletter disagree, suggesting that Apple will stick the software into the mixed reality headset.
If you’re one of the few to have a Vision Pro on hand (head?) as you wallow in regret over not picking up the Meta Quest 3 (no kidney sale required), you’ll need to wait until at least next year for these features. The wait, apparently, doesn’t have to do with difficulties in porting over the software into VisionOS – which is simply a variant of iPadOS. It’s all about making those features work, and look good, within mixed reality.
There’s also a worry that it could put Apple’s cloud-computing infrastructure under even more strain, which is reportedly the main reason Apple is so keen to limit its new AI to only its newest devices. It’s just a bonus that it gets them a few more doubloons in the process. It shouldn’t be an issue for the Vision Pro, however. As Gurman puts it, “Given that the Vision Pro hasn’t sold in large quantities, that may not be a big concern.”
Do your AirPods need cameras in them? Apple seems to think so
If you thought Apple’s decision to place an even larger emphasis on software upgrades nobody asked for (see: Apple Intelligence) to mask its distinct lack of hardware upgrades, fear not! A new report from Ming-Chi Kuo reckons that Apple is indeed looking at bolstering its hardware line-up. How does a new pair of AirPods with a “camera module” sound?
Look, it’s not quite as stupid as it sounds from the outset. Apple isn’t expecting customers to start snapping selfies from their AirPods when their phone’s battery runs low, though that does sound exceptionally… Apple. It’s looking to hook the new AirPods up with an infrared (IR) camera, all in the hopes of upping the Vision Pro’s spatial audio dreams.
“For example, when a user is watching a video with Vision Pro and wearing [these] new AirPods, if users turn their heads to look in a specific direction, the sound source in that direction can be emphasized to enhance the spatial audio/computing experience,” Kuo writes.
A couple of cameras embedded in your AirPods could also make a vast improvement to gestures, possibly enabling “in-air gesture control to enhance human-device interaction.” Production is expected to be near the 10-million figure, with Foxconn supplying between 18-20 million sets of IR cameras annually. Again, seeing as these are mostly aimed at Vision Pro customers, supply may not be that big of a deal in the long run.
Finally! Ezio Auditore da Firenze in 4K
“Remember when Assassin’s Creed was good” is essentially asking if you can recall what playing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag felt like all those years ago (AKA 2013). If you, like many, have given up on the Assassin’s franchise thanks to the recent entries, Ubisoft is hoping that remaking a bunch of the older titles can bring in the sort of dough it became used to in the glory days.
Ubisoft’s CEO, Yves Guillemot has confirmed as much through an interview on the company’s website when he was asked about the future of AC following the release of Shadows later this year. “Firstly, players can be excited about some remakes, which will allow us to revisit some of the games we’ve created in the past and modernize them,” he said, before gushing about how those older worlds are still worth exploring.
Unfortunately, that’s all he had to say on the subject. He didn’t go into specifics about which titles would get the remaster treatment, but we’re hoping it starts right at the beginning to modernise Altair’s story with new mechanics and better graphics. There’s been talk of a Black Flag remaster for quite some time now, meaning Ubisoft might be starting strong to potentially regain some of that old faith back in the series.
The rarest Lego brick out there is made out of *checks notes* meteorite dust?
If you thought Lego’s collaborations led to some of the more expensive sets being produced (we’re still not over that $300 Legend of Zelda set, Nintendo), you’re not going to like what it’s done with the European Space Agency (ESA). The two have come together to build something so unique, so rare, that it’ll never be sold. At least, not right now. See that brick above? Yeah, it’s made from genuine meteorite dust.
As, for lack of a better word, ‘rad’ as the brick is, the ESA hasn’t wasted time and resources just to make a set of Lego bricks to be shown off at various Lego stores around the world. They’ll have a real use. One day. The ESA has grand ideas of space construction on the Moon, and would preferably like to use the materials already up there to do so. Regolith – Moon material – doesn’t just grow on trees, though.
It’s instead using the next best thing – meteorite dust (and a bit of polylactide and regolith simulant) to bring forth this Lego-fied proof-of-concept. It 3D-printed the things to get that brick shape – allowing the pieces to be easily clicked together. “Nobody has built a structure on the Moon, so it was great to have the flexibility to try out all kinds of designs and building techniques with our space bricks,” said Aidan Cowley, ESA science officer.