Reviews

M4 iPad Pro review: Well, now you’re just showing off

11-inch iPad Pro, 13-inch iPad Pro, Apple, apple m4, Apple Magic Keyboard, apple pencil, Apple Pencil Pro, Features, ipad, ipad pro, oled, Reviews, tablet, Tech / Mike M. / May 14, 2024

Enlarge / The 2024, M4-equipped 13-inch iPad Pro.

Samuel Axon

The new iPad Pro is a technical marvel, with one of the best screens I’ve ever seen, performance that few other machines can touch, and a new, thinner design that no one expected.

It’s a prime example of Apple flexing its engineering and design muscles for all to see. Since it marks the company’s first foray into OLED beyond the iPhone or Watch, and the first time a new M-series chip has debuted on something other than a Mac, it comes across as a tech demo for where the company is headed beyond just tablets.

Still, it remains unclear why most people would spend one, two, or even three thousand dollars on a tablet that, despite its amazing hardware, does less than a comparably priced laptop—or at least does it a little more awkwardly, even if it’s impressively quick and has a gorgeous screen.

Specifications

There are some notable design changes in the 2024 iPad Pro, but really, it’s all about the specs—and it’s a more notable specs jump than usual in a couple of areas.

M4

First up, there’s the M4 chip. The previous iPad Pro had an M2 chip, and the latest Mac chip is the M3, so not only did the iPad Pro jump two whole generations, but this is the first time it has debuted the newest iteration of Apple Silicon. (Previously, new M-series chips launched on the Mac first and came to the iPad Pro a few months later.)

Using second-generation 3 nm tech, the M4’s top configuration has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core NPU. In that configuration, the 10-core CPU has four performance cores and six efficiency cores.

A lower configuration of the M4 has just nine CPU cores—three performance and six efficiency. Which one you get is tied to how much storage you buy. 256GB and 512GB models get nine CPU cores, while 1TB and 2TB get 10. Additionally, the two smaller storage sizes have 8GB of RAM to the larger ones’ 16GB.

This isn’t the first time Apple has tied RAM to storage configurations, but doing that with CPU cores is new for the iPad. Fortunately, the company is upfront about all this in its specs sheet, whereas the RAM differentiation wasn’t always clear to buyers in the past. (Both configurations claim 120GB/s memory bandwidth, though.)

Enlarge / Can the M4 help the iPad Pro bridge the gap between laptop and tablet? Mostly, it made me excited to see the M4 in a laptop.

Samuel Axon

Regardless of the specific configuration, the M4 promises substantially better CPU and GPU performance than the M2, and it supports hardware-accelerated ray-tracing via Metal, which some games and applications can take advantage of if developers put in the work to make it happen. (It looked great in a demo of Diablo Immortal I saw, but it’s unclear how often we’ll actually see it in the wild.)

Apple claims 1.5x faster CPU performance than the M2 and up to 4x faster graphics performance specifically on applications that involve new features like ray-tracing or hardware-accelerated mesh shading. It hasn’t made any specific GPU performance claims beyond those narrow cases.

A lot of both Apple’s attention and that of the media is focused on the Neural Engine, which is what Apple calls the NPU in the M-series chips. That’s because the company is expected to announce several large language model-based AI features in iOS, macOS, and iPadOS at its developer conference next month, and this is the chip that will power some of that on the iPad and Mac.

Some neat machine-learning features are already possible on the M4—you can generate audio tracks using certain instruments in your Logic Pro projects, apply tons of image optimizations to photos with just a click or two, and so on.

M4 iPad Pro review: Well, now you’re just showing off Read More »

Review: Pitch-perfect Renegade Nell is a gem of a series you won’t want to miss

culture, Disney Plus, Entertainment, Renegade Nell, Reviews, streaming television, TV reviews / Blake Jones / April 15, 2024

Don’t call her “Nelly” —

It’s a good old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Jennifer Ouellette – Apr 15, 2024 8: 34 pm UTC

A young prodigal tomboy returns home from war and finds herself framed for murder in <em>Renegade Nell</em>.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/nellTOP-800×536.jpg”></img><figcaption>
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Award-winning British TV writer Sally Wainwright is best known for the dramatic series Happy Valley (2014–2023) and Gentleman Jack (2019–2022), the latter produced jointly by BBC and HBO. Wainwright partnered with Disney+ for her latest series, the resolutely PG-13 Renegade Nell, which is a different beast altogether: a good old-fashioned, swashbuckling comic adventure with a supernatural twist, featuring a sassy cross-dressing heroine forced to turn to highway robbery to survive.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Set in 1705 during the reign of Queen Anne (Jodi May, Gentleman Jack), the series stars Louisa Harland (Derry Girls) as Nell Jackson. Nell is a headstrong young woman with tomboy flair and a taste for adventure who returns home to her village of Tottenham after running off five years before to marry one Captain Jackson against her father’s wishes. She’s now widowed and possessed of occasional supernatural skills whenever someone threatens her, courtesy of a fairy sprite named Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed, aka Nathan from Ted Lasso), who has been tasked to protect Nell. Nell’s family thought she’d been killed on the battlefield alongside her husband, so her homecoming is a bit of a shock.

Alas, Nell soon runs afoul of one Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn), the louche, drunken offspring of the town’s landlord, Lord Blancheford (Pip Torrens, Preacher). Let’s just say things escalate, and Nell soon finds herself on the run and framed for murder, along with her two sisters, Roxy (Bo Bragason) and George (Florence Keen), and the Blanchefords’ former groomsman, Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo, The Lazarus Project). The group gets further assistance from a charming aristocratic dandy/secret highwayman named Charles Devereaux (Frank Dillane, The Essex Serpent).

Nell just wants to evade capture long enough to find an honest magistrate to clear her name. In the process, she finds herself battling the formidable black magic of the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester, Euphoria) and his acolyte, Thomas’ sister, Lady Sofia (Alice Kremelberg, The Sinner), and stumbles upon a sinister plot to dethrone the queen.

Louisa Harland stars as Nelly Jackson, who finds herself framed for murder.

Disney+
Nick Mohammed plays a sprite named Billy Blind, charged with protecting Nell.

Disney+
Charles Devereaux (Frank Dillane) is an impoverished aristocrat who does highway robberies on the side.

Disney+
Nell returns home to her family: father Sam Trotter and sisters George and Roxy.

Disney+
Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn) is a drunken louche who torments the villagers.

Disney+
The Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester) dabbles in black magic and has sinister plans afoot.

Disney+
Lady Sofia Wilmot (Alice Kremelberg) chafes at the limitations imposed upon her by society.

Disney+
Nell and her sisters end up on the run.

Disney+
The Blanchefords’ former groom, Rasselas (Enyi Okoronkwo), helps the sisters.

Disney+
Rebellious young socialite Polly Honeycombe (Ashna Rabheru) is rather thrilled to be robbed by a dashing highwayman.

Disney+

The writing, pacing, and production values are top-notch, and the cast is terrific across the board. Lester brings a ruthless authority to Poynton’s spooky supernatural machinations, while Kremelberg is all seething bitter resentment and steely resolve as Lady Sofia, a brilliant, ambitious noblewoman (also widowed) who is far more qualified to run the family estate than her worthless brother, yet prohibited from inheriting by the laws of the time. Dillane’s Devereaux provides much of the witty repartee and comic relief, as does Joely Richardson’s (The Sandman) newspaper magnate, Lady Eularia Moggerhanger. And Ashna Rabheru (Red Rose) is delightful as a spoiled young aristocrat, Polly Honeycombe, with a lively romantic imagination who longs for something more in life than an arranged marriage.

But it’s Harland’s sensational portrayal of Nell that anchors it all. This is a role that requires her to be a tough rebellious tomboy in one scene and sport a posh accent and fancy dress in another; to balance action comedy with moments of genuine fear and heartbreaking tragedy. It’s also a highly physical role: Harland underwent several months of stunt training prior to filming. She does it all with refreshingly unpretentious aplomb.

Renegade Nell keeps the action flowing and wisely never takes itself too seriously. Sure, there is injustice, class warfare, and strong intelligent women chafing within the strict confines of traditional binary gender roles—and Polly Honeycombe definitely qualifies as bicurious. But Wainwright never lets the story get bogged down in heavy-handed symbolism or didacticism. Even Nell’s cross-dressing is handled with the lightest touch. Asked to comment on her character’s gender politics, Harland told the Guardian that there was no ulterior motive or agenda: “Why does she dress as a man? To pass as a man.” Simple as that.

Will we see more of feisty Nell and her delightfully eccentric compatriots? That’s up to Disney. There are plenty of questions left unanswered and definitely more stories to tell, both past and present. Series director Ben Taylor told Radio Times just after the premiere that a second season was currently being written and that it would likely involve some kind of time jump (given that some of the younger actors will visibly age), picking up with the various surviving characters from where they left off in the first season. But Disney has yet to confirm this. Here’s hoping this series finds the broader audience it so richly deserves. We’re rooting for you, Nelly… err, Nell.

Renegade Nell is now streaming on Disney+.

Trailer for Renegade Nell.

Review: Pitch-perfect Renegade Nell is a gem of a series you won’t want to miss Read More »

The Maven: A user-friendly, $2K Cargo e-bike perfect for families on the go

cargo bike, Cars, e-bike, Features, Reviews / Ryan Harris / April 6, 2024

family fun —

The $2K bike is aimed at smaller riders who want a manageable cargo e-bike. It delivers.

Beth Mole – Apr 5, 2024 11: 30 am UTC

The first thing I should say in this bike review is that I am not a bike enthusiast.

My preferred form of exercise is running, where no mechanical components are necessary. But I’m acting as reviewer here because what I lack in longstanding opinions on brand-name bike gearing and motor hubs, I make up for by being the exact target audience for the bike under review: the Maven Cargo E-bike by Integral Electrics. This is a cargo bike designed not for hardcore cyclists but for smaller riders, women specifically, who would happily swap out their family’s second car for a simpler e-bike—as long as it can handle the needs of family life: toting children, running errands, and making short commutes.

This is exactly what Integral CEO and co-founder Laura Belmar and her family were looking for amid the pandemic, she told me in an interview. But while her husband picked out e-bikes that were comfortably designed for him, who is taller than her, she consistently found herself top-heavy and struggling as soon as her two kids were loaded onto the bikes. “They were scared to ride with me,” she said of her kids. “One time, we were literally going down in the park and a jogger came by and grabbed the rack and pulled us back up.”

Belmar said she knew other families in the same situation. So she set out to design a bike that would essentially be a family station wagon on two wheels, one that would be easy to maneuver and control by smaller riders but still adjustable for taller cyclists—the Maven claims a size range of 5 feet, 0 inches to 6-foot-7. And, aside from ease of use, she sought ideal family-car features: comfort, safety, and affordability.

As a 5-foot-4 person with a 5-year-old, a taller husband, a need to run occasional errands, and an interest in ditching a second car, I’m the best person on Ars’ staff to see if the Maven lives up to its lofty goals. With the help of the cycling enthusiasts and experts on Ars’ staff, I’ll make sure this review hits all of the technical details cycling nerds will be looking for. But this will be an accessible review for families interested in an alternative to a second car and who, like me, may be cargo e-bike newbies. I’ll start with my general impressions and then dive into specifics.

The Maven at a glance

General impressions

As mentioned above, this is a cargo e-bike designed to never feel unwieldy to smaller riders while they’re hauling precious cargo. On this count, the Maven hits the mark. Straight out of the box, before I even dove into the manual, I easily rode around without even turning on the motor. It’s certainly a hefty bike, weighing in at 85 pounds on its own. But I never felt top-heavy on it or struggled to maneuver it. Integral boasts that it accomplishes this with a low center of gravity and fat, stable tires. Its two batteries sit low on the bike, and its 20-inch wheels allow the rear rack to sit just 24 inches off the ground. The tires are also 3 inches wide, giving them extra stability.

The Maven isn’t the only cargo e-bike on the market with these features; 20-inch tires are on several other bikes, including Aventon’s Abound and some others previously reviewed by Ars, like the Trek Fetch+2 and the RadWagon. So, whether the Maven is the best bike for your situation may depend on its other features.

The bike provides a fun, effortless ride—with and without groceries or my kid on the back. My review bike came with a rear railing/handlebar (a $99 add-on) and a seat pad ($69) that allowed my kid to help me test out the bike. He was not afraid to ride with me. In fact, he loved it. And in our many miles together, I found myself periodically forgetting he was back there. Going up hills and accelerating was effortless when the 750-watt motor kicked in. The adjustable front suspension was generously cushiony as we took the bike over gravel, dirt, asphalt, and sidewalks in various states of repair.

On a few occasions, my kid reminded me of his presence by shaking the bike from side to side, pretending we were sliding on ice. (He was having fun imagining us re-creating one of his favorite scenes from the animated movie Polar Express, when the train derails on a frozen lake.) But even with his best efforts to destabilize the bike, I never felt at risk of losing control or going down.

The Maven: A user-friendly, $2K Cargo e-bike perfect for families on the go Read More »

Getting a charge: An exercise bike that turns your pedaling into power

charging cycling, exercise bike, Hardware, Reviews / Ari B / March 28, 2024

I enjoy getting my exercise, but hate doing it indoors. I’d much rather get some fresh air and watch the world drift past me as I cycle or hike somewhere than watch a screen while sweating away on something stationary.

To get a bit more of what I like, I’ve invested in a variety of gear that has extended my cycling season deeper into the winter. But even with that, there are various conditions—near-freezing temperatures, heavy rains, Canada catching fire—that have kept me off the roads. So, a backup exercise plan has always been on my to-do list.

The company LifeSpan offers exercise equipment that fits well into a home office and gave me the chance to try its Ampera model. It’s a stationary bike that tucks nicely under a standing desk and has a distinct twist: You can pedal to power the laptop you’re working on. Overall, the hardware is well-designed, but some glitches, software issues, and design decisions keep it from living up to its potential.

Solid hardware

Many aspects of the Ampera are pretty well designed. Its hefty weight keeps it stable even when someone my size (~90 kg/200 lbs) is pedaling away on it. If it starts tilting, there’s a metal ring around the base that should keep it from falling over, although I’ve been fortunate enough not to test this. Despite its size, it’s still easy to move around since it tilts forward onto some wheels and rolls around easily.

That tilting is best managed by using a handle that attaches to the underside of the seat. That’s more of a mixed bag, as it limits how far back on the seat you can sit. It should be possible to install it upside-down so the handle tilts under the seat if this is a problem, though. The height of the seat is easily adjustable. It telescopes out of the base on a metal pole; pull up on a lever under the seat, and it will slide up or down to wherever you find comfortable.

Even with my relatively long legs, I had no problem finding a comfortable setting. However, to keep working while pedaling, I needed to set a standing desk at its maximum height. This is not something that you can expect to use while sitting at a more traditional desk.

As for the seat itself, it’s wide and cushy, so quite unlike a typical bike saddle. There are a few things about this that I’m not convinced by. To start with, the padding will eventually wear down if it’s heavily used, and the use of a non-cycling attachment—it bolts onto a flat metal plate—means it’s going to be harder to replace. The fabric might also be a problem if, as I do, you tend to sweat a lot while exercising. (More expensive stationary bikes, like Pelotons, can fit standard bicycle seats.)

The seat of the Ampera isn't typical cycling hardware, and incorporates a handled to move the base around. — Enlarge / The seat of the Ampera isn’t typical cycling hardware, and incorporates a handled to move the base around.

John Timmer

The pedals are fine. The texture of the polymer mostly kept my feet where I wanted them. The occasional slip was likely because I’m unused to thinking about how to keep my feet in place—the product of using clipless pedals on both my road and mountain bikes.

The two other notable features of the hardware are a ring of colored LEDs around the cranks, a USB-C port at the front of the base, and a Qi wireless charging pad in the center of the pedestal. There aren’t any controls on the hardware; everything is controlled via software.

Getting a charge: An exercise bike that turns your pedaling into power Read More »

I worked exclusively in Vision Pro for a week—here’s how it went

Apple, Features, Reviews, Tech, vision pro, visionOS / Ari B / March 4, 2024

A close-up look at the Vision Pro from the front.

Samuel Axon
There are two displays inside the Vision Pro, one for each eye. Each offers just under 4K resolution.

Samuel Axon
This is the infamous battery pack. It’s about the size of an iPhone (but a little thicker), and it has a USB-C port for external power sources.

Samuel Axon
There are two buttons for the Vision Pro, both on the top.

Samuel Axon
You can see the front-facing cameras that handle passthrough video just above the downward-facing cameras that read your hand gestures here.

Samuel Axon
Apple offers several variations of the light seal to fit different face shapes.

Samuel Axon

You can get a lot of work done while wearing Apple’s Vision Pro and have fun doing it—but it’s not yet at the stage where most of us will want to fully embrace spatial computing as the new way of working.

I spent more than a week working almost exclusively in the Vision Pro. I carried on Slack conversations, dialed into Zoom video calls, edited Google Docs, wrote articles, and did everything else I do within my day-to-day responsibilities as an editor at Ars Technica.

Throughout the experience, I never stopped thinking about how cool it was, like I was a character in a cyberpunk novel. The Vision Pro opens some new ways of approaching day-to-day work that could appeal to folks with certain sensibilities, and it offers access to some amenities that someone who hasn’t already invested a lot into their home office setup might not already have.

At the same time, though, I never quite zeroed in on a specific application or use case that made me think my normal habit of working on a MacBook Pro with three external monitors would be replaced. If you don’t already have a setup like that—that is to say, if you’ve just been working on a laptop on its own—then the Vision Pro can add a lot of value.

I plan to explore more use cases in the future, like gaming, but this is the last major piece in a series of sub-reviews of the Vision Pro that I’ve done on various applications, like entertainment or as an on-the-go mobile device.

My goal has been to see if the Vision Pro’s myriad use cases add up to $3,500 of value for today’s computing enthusiast. Productivity is front and center in how Apple markets the device, so this is an important one. Let’s see how it holds up.

The basics

Outside the realm of entertainment, visionOS and its apps are mostly about flat windows floating in 3D space. There are very few apps that make use of the device’s 3D capabilities in new ways that are relevant to productivity.

There are two types of visionOS apps: spatial apps and “Compatible Apps.” The former are apps designed to take advantage of the Vision Pro’s spatial computing capabilities, whereas Compatible Apps are simply iPad apps that work just fine as flat windows within the visionOS environment.

Let's find out if the Vision Pro can be an adequate replacement for this, my usual work space. — Enlarge / Let’s find out if the Vision Pro can be an adequate replacement for this, my usual work space.

Samuel Axon

In either case, though, you’re usually just getting the ability to put windows around you. For example, I started out by sitting at my kitchen table and putting my writing app in front of me, Slack and my email app off to the side, and a browser window with a YouTube video playing on the other side. This felt a bit like using several large computer monitors, each with an app maximized. It’s cool, and the ability to shift between your real environment and fully immersive virtual ones can help with focus, especially if you do intensive creative work like writing.

If there’s one thing Apple has nailed better than any of its predecessors in the mixed reality space, it’s the interface. Wherever your eyes are looking, a UI element will glow to let you know it’s the item you’ll interact with if you click. Clicking is done by simply tapping two of your fingers together almost anywhere around your body; the headset has cameras all over, so you don’t have to hold your hands up or in front of you to do this. There are also simple pinching-and-moving gestures for scrolling or zooming.

I worked exclusively in Vision Pro for a week—here’s how it went Read More »

Why walking around in public with Vision Pro makes no sense

Apple, augmented reality, Features, Mixed Reality, Reviews, spatial computing, Tech, vision pro, visionOS / Ari B / February 15, 2024

A close-up look at the Vision Pro from the front.

Samuel Axon
The Apple Vision Pro with AirPods Pro, Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and an Xbox Series X|S controller.

Samuel Axon
You can see the front-facing cameras that handle passthrough video just above the downward-facing cameras that read your hand gestures here.

Samuel Axon
There are two buttons for Vision Pro, both on the top.

Samuel Axon
This is the infamous battery pack. It’s about the size of an iPhone (but a little thicker) and has a USB-C port for external power sources.

Samuel Axon
There are two displays inside the Vision Pro, one for each eye. Each offers just under 4K resolution.

Samuel Axon
Apple offers several variations of the light seal to fit different face shapes.

Samuel Axon

If you’ve spent any time in the tech-enthusiast corners of Instagram of TikTok over the past few weeks, you’ve seen the videos: so-called tech bros strolling through public spaces with confidence, donning Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro headset on their faces while gesturing into the air.

Dive into the comments on those videos and you’ll see a consistent ratio: about 20 percent of the commenters herald this as the future, and the other 80 mock it with vehement derision. “I’ve never had as much desire to disconnect from reality as this guy does,” one reads.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going all-in on trying the Vision Pro in all sorts of situations to see which ones it suits. Last week, I talked about replacing a home theater system with it—at least when traveling away from home. Today, I’m going over my experience trying to find a use for it out on the streets of Chicago.

I’m setting out to answer a few questions here: Does it feel weird wearing it in public spaces? Will people judge you or react negatively when you wear it—and if so, will that become less common over time? Does it truly disconnect you from reality, and has Apple succeeded in solving virtual reality’s isolationist tendencies? Does it provide enough value to be worth wearing?

As it turns out, all these questions are closely related.

The potential of AR in the wild

I was excited about the Vision Pro in the lead-up to its launch. I was impressed by the demo I saw at WWDC 2023, even though I was aware that it was offered in an ideal setting: a private, well-lit room with lots of space to move around.

Part of my excitement was about things I didn’t see in that demo but that I’ve seen augmented reality developers explore in smartphone augmented reality (AR) and niche platforms like HoloLens and Xreal. Some smart folks have already produced a wide variety of neat tech demos showing what you can do with a good consumer AR headset, and many of the most exciting ideas work outside the home or office.

I’ve seen demonstrations of real-time directions provided with markers along the street while you walk around town, virtual assistant avatars guiding you through the airport, menus and Yelp reviews overlaid on the doors of every restaurant on a city strip, public art projects pieced together by multiple participants who each get to add an element to a virtual statue, and much more.

Of course, all those ideas—and most others for AR—make a lot more sense for unintrusive glasses than they do for something that is essentially a VR headset with passthrough. Nonetheless, I was hoping to get a glimpse at that eventuality with the Vision Pro.

Why walking around in public with Vision Pro makes no sense Read More »

Ryzen 8000G review: An integrated GPU that can beat a graphics card, for a price

AMD, CPU, GPU, integrated graphics, Radeon, rdna3, Reviews, Ryzen, Tech, Zen 4 / Ari B / January 29, 2024

The most interesting thing about AMD's Ryzen 7 8700G CPU is the Radeon 780M GPU that's attached to it. — Enlarge / The most interesting thing about AMD’s Ryzen 7 8700G CPU is the Radeon 780M GPU that’s attached to it.

Andrew Cunningham

Put me on the short list of people who can get excited about the humble, much-derided integrated GPU.

Yes, most of them are afterthoughts, designed for office desktops and laptops that will spend most of their lives rendering 2D images to a single monitor. But when integrated graphics push forward, it can open up possibilities for people who want to play games but can only afford a cheap desktop (or who have to make do with whatever their parents will pay for, which was the big limiter on my PC gaming experience as a kid).

That, plus an unrelated but accordant interest in building small mini-ITX-based desktops, has kept me interested in AMD’s G-series Ryzen desktop chips (which it sometimes calls “APUs,” to distinguish them from the Ryzen CPUs). And the Ryzen 8000G chips are a big upgrade from the 5000G series that immediately preceded them (this makes sense, because as we all know the number 8 immediately follows the number 5).

We’re jumping up an entire processor socket, one CPU architecture, three GPU architectures, and up to a new generation of much faster memory; especially for graphics, it’s a pretty dramatic leap. It’s an integrated GPU that can credibly beat the lowest tier of currently available graphics cards, replacing a $100–$200 part with something a lot more energy-efficient.

As with so many current-gen Ryzen chips, still-elevated pricing for the socket AM5 platform and the DDR5 memory it requires limit the 8000G series’ appeal, at least for now.

From laptop to desktop

AMD's first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors are what the company used to call — Enlarge / AMD’s first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors are what the company used to call “APUs,” a combination of a fast integrated GPU and a reasonably capable CPU.

AMD

The 8000G chips use the same Zen 4 CPU architecture as the Ryzen 7000 desktop chips, but the way the rest of the chip is put together is pretty different. Like past APUs, these are actually laptop silicon (in this case, the Ryzen 7040/8040 series, codenamed Phoenix and Phoenix 2) repackaged for a desktop processor socket.

Generally, the real-world impact of this is pretty mild; in most ways, the 8700G and 8600G will perform a lot like any other Zen 4 CPU with the same number of cores (our benchmarks mostly bear this out). But to the extent that there is a difference, the Phoenix silicon will consistently perform just a little worse, because it has half as much L3 cache. AMD’s Ryzen X3D chips revolve around the performance benefits of tons of cache, so you can see why having less would be detrimental.

The other missing feature from the Ryzen 7000 desktop chips is PCI Express 5.0 support—Ryzen 8000G tops out at PCIe 4.0. This might, maybe, one day in the distant future, eventually lead to some kind of user-observable performance difference. Some recent GPUs use an 8-lane PCIe 4.0 interface instead of the typical 16 lanes, which limits performance slightly. But PCIe 5.0 SSDs remain rare (and PCIe 4.0 peripherals remain extremely fast), so it probably shouldn’t top your list of concerns.

The Ryzen 5 8500G is a lot different from the 8700G and 8600G, since some of the CPU cores in the Phoenix 2 chips are based on Zen 4c rather than Zen 4. These cores have all the same capabilities as regular Zen 4 ones—unlike Intel’s E-cores—but they’re optimized to take up less space rather than hit high clock speeds. They were initially made for servers, where cramming lots of cores into a small amount of space is more important than having a smaller number of faster cores, but AMD is also using them to make some of its low-end consumer chips physically smaller and presumably cheaper to produce. AMD didn’t send us a Ryzen 8500G for review, so we can’t see exactly how Phoenix 2 stacks up in a desktop.

The 8700G and 8600G chips are also the only ones that come with AMD’s “Ryzen AI” feature, the brand AMD is using to refer to processors with a neural processing unit (NPU) included. Sort of like GPUs or video encoding/decoding blocks, these are additional bits built into the chip that handle things that CPUs can’t do very efficiently—in this case, machine learning and AI workloads.

Most PCs still don’t have NPUs, and as such they are only barely used in current versions of Windows (Windows 11 offers some webcam effects that will take advantage of NPU acceleration, but for now that’s mostly it). But expect this to change as they become more common and as more AI-accelerated text, image, and video creating and editing capabilities are built into modern operating systems.

The last major difference is the GPU. Ryzen 7000 includes a pair of RDNA2 compute units that perform more or less like Intel’s desktop integrated graphics: good enough to render your desktop on a monitor or two, but not much else. The Ryzen 8000G chips include up to 12 RDNA3 CUs, which—as we’ve already seen in laptops and portable gaming systems like the Asus ROG Ally that use the same silicon—is enough to run most games, if just barely in some cases.

That gives AMD’s desktop APUs a unique niche. You can use them in cases where you can’t afford a dedicated GPU—for a time during the big graphics card shortage in 2020 and 2021, a Ryzen 5700G was actually one of the only ways to build a budget gaming PC. Or you can use them in cases where a dedicated GPU won’t fit, like super-small mini ITX-based desktops.

The main argument that AMD makes is the affordability one, comparing the price of a Ryzen 8700G to the price of an Intel Core i5-13400F and a GeForce GTX 1650 GPU (this card is nearly five years old, but it remains Nvidia’s newest and best GPU available for less than $200).

Let’s check on performance first, and then we’ll revisit pricing.

Ryzen 8000G review: An integrated GPU that can beat a graphics card, for a price Read More »

Hands-On Review: YOGES Handle Attachments for Quest 2 Controllers

featured, Quest 2, Review, Reviews, virtual reality, VR accessories / Mike M. / August 10, 2023

There are a lot of possible interactions in virtual reality. The standard Quest 2 controllers just don’t always cut it anymore. Fortunately, there’s a large market of accessories manufacturers making adapters for different games and use cases. Not least among them is YOGES.

YOGES at It Again

YOGES specializes in accessories for the Meta Quest 2 headset and Quest 2 controllers. We’ve already reviewed one of their head strap alternatives for the device and found it to be comfortable and competitively priced. When they invited us to try out their “handle attachments” of course we were curious.

The adapters are designed for the Quest 2 controllers and are reported to work with games including Beat Saber, Gorilla Tag, Kayak VR: Mirage, Real VR Fishing, and others. In this writing, I used the grips to play Playin Pickleball, Bait!, and Kizuna AI – Touch the Beat! (That’s a Beat Saber clone with super-short sabers).

Before we jump into the playthroughs, let’s look at what’s in the box.

Unboxing

The minimal YOGES packaging for the handle attachments packs one handle for each controller, one detachable lanyard for each controller, and a connector piece turning the whole set into one two-headed controller. There are also two extra velcro ties to hold the controllers into the adapters – just in case. A set of directions is included as well, but it’s a simple setup.

Hands-On Review: YOGES Handle Attachments for Quest 2 Controllers

The standard Quest 2 controller sits into the adapters, which are each labeled “L” or “R”. Then, a velcro tab secures the controller into the adapter via the tracking ring – so, likely not compatible with the Quest Pro controllers. The bottoms of each adapter are threaded. Screw on a lanyard attachment or screw one of the adapters into either end of the connector piece.

The lightweight adapters are hollow core encased in durable-feeling molded foam. That hollow core keeps the weight and probably the cost down, but it also means that you can insert your Quest 2 controllers without removing the lanyards from them. That’s a handy feature because you might not want these adapters for everything that you do in VR.

The full rig measures in at almost exactly two feet. Each controller in a separate adapter with the lanyard attachment measures in at about ten inches – that’s some five-and-a-half inches longer than the Quest 2 controller by itself.

The adapters extend the Quest 2 controllers but don’t allow you to interact with them in any way. That is, you’ve still got to be holding the controller to press buttons and triggers. Fortunately, the lanyard on the end is long enough that you can put it around your wrist and still reach over the entire adapter to reach the controller.

Playtesting the Adapters for Quest 2 Controllers

I was worried that that length was going to throw off my game. It seems to me that if the adapter adds a few inches, that means that the Quest 2 thinks that my arm is a few inches longer than it is – right? This shouldn’t make much difference saber beating or gorilla tagging, but I was all set for playing pickleball to be a nightmare.

Playin Pickleball

But then, it wasn’t. I don’t know if the Quest 2 is smarter than I gave it credit for or if my brain was a lot more ready to accept the extended controller as a part of my arm, but I had no trouble hitting the ball reliably into targets in a practice mode.

layin Pickleball also might be the game that has seen the most flying Quest 2 controllers in my home – lanyards are a must. However, I didn’t use the lanyards to play with the YOGES adapter – the extra length and the molded foam made it significantly easier to hold onto a paddle.

Kizuna AI – Touch the Beat!

I had a bit more of a time getting used to the adapters when I played a round of Kizuna AI – Touch the Beat!. If you haven’t played the game, it’s very similar to Beat Saber but with smaller targets, smaller sabers, and different motion challenges.

Things took some more getting used to, possibly because the sabers are narrower than a pickleball paddle so my movements needed to be even more precise. I did also hit my overhead light at least once, though I’m not entirely sure that that was because of the adapter. Still, by the end of the first song, I had a pretty memorable streak going.

Bait!

From here, I really wanted to use the adapter as a sword handle in Battle Talent, but in Battle Talent you need to hold the trigger to hold the weapon, so that was a no-go. You also pump both arms and use the joysticks to run, so I couldn’t just leave a controller down and dedicate myself to two-handed weapons. I wondered about how the handle might work as a fishing rod in Bait!.

In Bait! you hold the rod and cast with one hand but use the trigger on the other controller to real it in. I let the left-hand controller (sans adapter) hang off of my left wrist as I used the right controller (with adapter) to do a double-handed cast. It was a little awkward because Bait! was still tracking the left-hand controller as it flopped through the air, but the cast was beautiful.

Is it Worth the Price?

Depending on where, when, and how you buy the YOGES Handle Attachments, they run between $18.58 (the price on Amazon at the time of writing) and $33.98 (the price currently listed on the YOGES website). That’s fairly competitive for adapters of this kind – and most adapter sets don’t include the connector piece.

YOGES adapters for Quest 2 Controllers velcro strap

As always, whether or not that’s worth the price depends on the games that you play. For as many games as I found improved by the adapters, I have at least as many that wouldn’t work. Maybe that’s not the case for you. Or maybe it is but you feel really passionate about improving your VR fishing cast or your virtual pickleball game.

I will say that on all of the games that were compatible with these adapters for Quest 2 controllers (and Bait!) my game was improved – or at least felt improved.

Parting Thoughts

So far, I continue to be pleased with YOGES. The Quest 2 Controller Handle Attachments, like the headset strap, are lightweight and low-cost comfortable adapters. While they may not be for all people or in all cases, they certainly have their place in the VR accessories ecosystem.

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Alien Invasion AR FPS Review

AR games, augmented reality, featured, Review, Reviews / Blake Jones / August 7, 2023

What better place to play a game about an alien invasion in your backyard than in your backyard? When a game studio offered to stage an alien invasion right here in my neck of the woods, I shelved my concerns about violent video games and picked up my mobile phone to see what Alien Invasion AR FPS is all about.

Resisting an Alien Invasion in Augmented Reality

Set in the not-too-distant future, Alien Invasion AR FPS by Stary, tells the story of an insidious and subtle alien foe. The aliens, nicknamed “Jackers” came in peace and even brought gifts. However, the gifts were sabotaged and the aliens quickly showed their true colors and effectively took over the planet.

Alien Invasion AR FPS ipad

In Alien Invasion AR FPS, you play the part of a resistance fighter in this sort of Sci-Fi “Red Dawn” situation. Use limited resources and unlimited resourcefulness to take back your home from the Jackers. But, how does it all play out?

Narrative and Gameplay

Alien Invasion AR FPS unlocks level-by-level in an unfolding linear narrative starring you and your “commanding officer” in the resistance. The introductory video as well as your mission brief at the beginning of each stage involves some compelling art but some humdrum voicework.

As you are a resistance fighter, most of the early missions involve tasks like planting explosives or setting up defensive positions. The mission brief at the beginning of each mission starts out by explaining how the success of the previous mission shifted the balance of the overarching conflict, which helps to give a sense of purpose to the gameplay, which can feel repetitive.

As the game progresses, your victories unlock more resources for the resistance, including new weapons. The beginning of many of the early levels has a brief tutorial on how to use any new equipment that you have unlocked. You have unlimited ammunition, but health and grenades are limited and need to be sourced from throughout the levels.

The game currently consists of four levels of four stages each plus the intro video. I haven’t beaten the whole game yet, but the names of the levels and material provided by the game’s publisher suggest that the resistance does eventually succeed in driving the Jackers from Earth.

Playing Alien Invasion AR FPS

Alien Invasion AR FPS is a free app download for iOS 12 and newer, and for Android 8.0 and newer, and it’s surprisingly agile. The app is still in its early days – maybe one day it will have a marketplace for buying extra supplies, or maybe it will use the AR ad formats Niantic is exploring. But for now, it’s really just free.

From the technical perspective, the game plays out in a series of digital sets that you place in your physical environment. The game recommends a play area of almost 50 square feet, so it recommends playing outside. Even outside, I don’t think that I ever played in an area that big, but my backyard was big enough.

Once your mobile device recognizes that you’re in a large enough space, you tap the ground to place the virtual elements. Getting the angle exactly right is tricky and if you don’t figure it out pretty well, those virtual elements can be too high or too low, which kind of ruins the effect and impacts playability.

Once the stage is set, you navigate through the space by physically moving through your environment. If the area isn’t large enough, you can pause the game, move to a new position, and resume the game. Typically, you perform some initial task, move to cover, and confirm that you’re in place. Then, the wave of Jackers comes for you.

Buttons on the screen manage your various healing kits, your weapons and firing, and additional equipment that you gradually unlock and use, like hand grenades.

Letdowns and Triumphs

Unfortunately, what the stage looks like doesn’t change based on your physical environment. My backyard has a shed and some stone retaining walls, so it would have been cool if the game had recognized these and incorporated them into the stage design – but I understand that that’s a huge ask for a free mobile app.

AR game Alien Invasion AR FPS

Ducking and moving from cover to cover is effective and feels right. You also have to explore each stage a little if you want to collect resources like health kits. And your health kits don’t replenish at the beginning of each stage, so at least taking a good look around before the first wave comes is highly recommended.

My general strategy was to hunker down wherever I started the level and fight in place. Although, at one point, the last Jacker in a stage refused to leave his cover, so I got up and charged through the map firing my SMG. There was definitely a moment of thinking “This is exactly the way that an AR FPS is supposed to feel.”

Speaking of “feel,” Alien Invasion AR FPS doesn’t have haptic support – the phone doesn’t vibrate when I fire a gun or get shot. This feels like a huge missed opportunity, but it can’t just be something that the developers never thought of, so I’m confident that it will come in an update at some point.

Compromises Paid Off Overall

We’ve already seen one area where the choice to make the AR FPS affordable and accessible might have meant going without some potentially more immersive features. There’s one more big thing about this app that I didn’t mention that likely fits in the same camp: it doesn’t require data or Wi-Fi. At least, not yet. The game’s roadmap includes multiplayer that probably will.

For me, this is a huge win – and it makes a lot of sense for a game that was designed to be played outdoors. As someone who’s seen too many Pokèmon trainers throwing balls into their bathtubs because they didn’t have connections outside of their homes, an AR game that doesn’t require connectivity feels like a breath of fresh air.

Again, that’s with the understanding that other AR games can do things that this one can’t. As a technical showpiece for AR, this game might not blow picky critics out of the water. But, as an artistic showcase for AR, this game elevates an enjoyable and well-executed first-person shooter onto a new level of play.

But How Did it Make Me Feel?

I mentioned at the top of this piece that I’m historically not a fan of violence in video games – particularly XR video games. It was something that I struggled with as I approached Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom. In my playthrough, I found that that game managed graphic content in such a way that it was able to be a part of the story without overwhelming the player.

I feel similarly about AR use in Alien Invasion AR FPS. It also helps that in Alien Invasion I’m killing aliens instead of Englishmen – that sits better with me. But, the aliens aren’t rendered in such quality that I have to intimately consider their death – they don’t even bleed like the gang members and political agitators that I virtually shot down in London and Birmingham.

Returning to Alien Invasion’s use of AR as an artistic medium rather than strictly as a game development tool, there’s a lot to be said for the way that AR tells this story about, well, an alien invasion.

Early in the game, I load an anti-aircraft gun that shoots down an alien ship – and it happens over my backyard. As I watched the airship go down behind my laundry line, I imagined it crashing down the road from my house and blocking traffic. It was another one of those moments that felt like a win for the development studio: this is what an AR FPS can do.

It’s Free

Are there things that I would like to see in updates to Alien Invasion AR FPS? Yes. Are there things that I can complain about from the game? Not really. As a lightweight, connection-optional mobile-based AR FPS that you can download and play for free, I really can’t think of any reason not to recommend that you at least give the game a try.

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Unveiling the Spacetop AR Laptop: AWE 2023 First Impressions

augmented reality, AWE, featured, Guest Post, Hardware, opinion, Review, Reviews / Ryan Harris / July 13, 2023

This year’s AWE 2023 was a remarkable testament to the accelerating pace of innovation in the field of augmented reality, hosting an unprecedented 6,000 guests and 300 exhibitors.

Amidst the sea of booths, one exhibit captured sustained attention—the Spacetop laptop by Sightful. Throughout the day, from early morning until the closing hours, its stand was constantly buzzing with activity.

Face-To-Face With The Spacetop

Spacetop’s uniqueness stems from its design—it shuns the traditional physical screen and employs a pair of AR glasses as the display medium. The glasses are not proprietary but are a product of Sightful’s collaboration with XREAL (formerly Nreal), who provided an existing AR solution tailored specifically for Spacetop.

Spacetop AR laptop — *Source: Sightful – Spacetop press kit*

Field of View

With its sleek and futuristic design, the laptop certainly looks promising at a glance. However, a set of issues quickly surfaced during my hands-on experience. The most significant one is the limited field of view that’s insufficient to accommodate the entire screen.

The glasses’ restricted field of view necessitates constant head tilting which undermines the entire purpose of having large virtual monitors and results in what is known as “windowing”—a term used in spatial computing when virtual objects fail to fully overlay and appear cut off.

Attempted solutions like moving the virtual monitor further away were not effective due to the glasses’ 1080p (1920×1080) resolution. Push the screen too far back and the text becomes difficult to read. Therefore, users are forced to deal with near-placed screens that, while clear and readable, outsize Spacetop’s field of view.

Input Solutions and Design

The laptop also lacks hand tracking, a disappointing omission considering the advancements in the field. Users are left with a trackpad, navigating a vast spatial spectrum with a traditional cursor, a process that can feel slow and inadequate. Monica Chin from The Verge has reported instances of losing the cursor among the screens, then struggling to locate it – a problem no doubt amplified by the limited FOV.

Low-precision tasks such as moving tabs or resizing that could be done in fractions of a second with either touchscreen or hand tracking, here took exponentially longer. It made the whole experience of using Spacetop feel frustrating.

There are also other less obvious quibbles. For example, no screen means the webcam must be positioned down on the keyboard. This suboptimal positioning creates an unflattering, spycam-like angle.

Although users can lower their virtual screen to align with the webcam, mitigating gaze-switching between the screen and camera, ultimately the very design of the Spacetop laptop necessitates certain compromises.

Sightful in It for the Long Haul

I asked a Sightful representative about the low field of view and was informed that the company is aware of these display limitations. They assured me that they are prepared to iterate in tandem with the industry.

It seems Sightful is conscious not to portray Spacetop as a purely AR device. More than anything else, Spacetop is a screen-less laptop with a proprietary operating system, Spacetop OS (based on Android), and a unique set of AR-specific features.

In the future, the team may design the laptop to work with any glasses they deem suitable for their purpose. This is their first product and instead of playing catch-up, Sightful is eager to start early and keep perfecting the experience as better, newer glasses come into the market.

However, as things stand today, it’s hard to avoid the obvious question: Why would one choose to splash $2,000 on a Spacetop when one could simply spend $379 on the XREAL glasses (or $488 bundled with the XREAL Beam) and use them to stream from any device? The Spacetop team attempts to answer this by emphasizing their AR-first design and focus.

For instance, executing a three-finger swipe on the touchpad moves screens spatially between closer and further planes. There is also a Reality Mode button that turns the AR off allowing for full pass-through, and a range of shortcuts that enable you to snap screens in place, re-center them, and more. While these improvements and enhancements are handy, they don’t quite seem to justify the substantial premium.

Mat at AWE using Spacetop — *Author believers that Spacetop’s form factor makes it socially acceptable.*

Potential Is There

Initially, I had planned to log into my Twitter account from within the Spacetop, take a screenshot with its webcam, and do a live tweet, heralding the dawn of a new era in spatial laptop computing.

However, the realization that the Spacetop still has some distance to cover before it can be deemed fully user-friendly made it challenging to compose a strictly positive and genuine tweet (time constraints and burdensome trackpad navigation played a role as well).

The potential is undoubtedly there. Large field-of-view, high-resolution AR displays, along with some ultralight tracking solutions, were already being showcased at this year’s AWE and might be integrated into the next generation of glasses.

During my brief encounter with the Spacetop, I could easily envision it becoming a preferred work tool for many, not just for those working from home, but also in cafes or co-working spaces. Moreover, there’s an inherent benefit of privacy. For stock traders, artists, or anyone who values personal workspace, the ability to work on non-public screens adds a lot of appeal.

Its form factor is among the most socially acceptable options available – there’s something about having AR glasses paired with a clearly visible laptop or tablet that makes the entire setup immediately understandable to onlookers. It doesn’t seem to invite confusion or ridicule; if anything, it might invite desirability.

Spacetop screens — *The author thinks that promotional materials feel misleading; Source: Spacetop press kit*

For now, however, Spacetop’s primary promise of being a superior alternative to traditional laptops falls short. Its promotional materials, which depict users encircled by screen panels, feel misleading.

The current iteration is hampered by a lack of hand-tracking, a limited field of view, and clunky user interface solutions. Moreover, the price point does not seem to correspond with the value provided. However, with improvements and upgrades coming, it’s worth keeping an eye on Sightful.

Guest Post

About the Guest Author(s)

Mat Pawluczuk

Mat Pawluczuk is an XR / VR writer and content creator.

Unveiling the Spacetop AR Laptop: AWE 2023 First Impressions Read More »

A Guided Demo of Nanome Came With a Free Chemistry Lesson From Founders

Education & Training, featured, Healthcare/Medicine, Review, Reviews, Science, VR app, VR Apps, VR medicine, VR platform / Blake Jones / May 25, 2023

Before my life as a technology journalist, I worked in a university’s biomedical engineering research lab. Every now and then, in my current career, I encounter something that I wish had been around 10 years ago. Nanome, an app for spatially visualizing molecules in MR and VR, is exactly such an experience.

Meet Nanome

Nanome is a visualization and collaboration platform available on all major VR headsets. It’s partially funded by Meta, but founders got in with Oculus co-founder Michael Antonov long before Facebook bought the company (and subsequently changed the name of both companies to “Meta”).

“Because we were part of Oculus for Business as an ISV [Independent Software Vendor], our relationship has deepened and we have co-authored multiple case studies together, including for Nimbus and Novartis,” Nanome co-founder and CEO Steve McCloskey told ARPost.

Nanome VR app Set of plugins

Nanome was a launch title on the Quest Pro, but it is also available on Viveport and Steam. The platform runs in VR on most headsets, but also makes full use of the full-color passthrough on the Quest Pro. The company is looking at the emerging AR glasses hardware market, but still needs controllers for the time being.

“Current hand tracking technology does not meet the needs that 6DoF controllers can provide, which consumer AR glasses don’t,” said McCloskey. “Additionally, the limited FOV makes it challenging to get a closer view of molecules in the context of a protein binding pocket which is essential for many of our users.”

If you don’t know what a “protein binding pocket” is, don’t feel like Nanome is too advanced for you. Just like chemistry in general, you can start wherever you are and go from there. You can also watch educational videos on chemistry’s big ideas directly within Nanome.

“Every user has unique needs and workflows, and we aim to provide a tool that can adapt to those needs, rather than forcing users to adapt their workflows to our tool,” said McCloskey. “This is why we continually work to improve and expand our features, to provide an ever-more intuitive, collaborative, and integrative experience for our users.”

Subscription Options

Nanome comes in a free version for personal use, as well as academic, research, and enterprise subscription tiers. Virtually all of the platform’s major functionalities work in the free version, though the academic subscription allows meeting in private rooms and saving workspaces. The benefits of the remaining tiers come largely from hosting and server options.

Insights From the In-App Demo

I met with McCloskey and fellow co-founder Sam Hessenauer within a free trial of the platform’s academic version. Creating an account is fast and easy, and automatically uses your Meta avatar, though you can join with a number of default avatars if you’re using a borrowed or communal headset.

Start Building Molecules – Even Impossible Ones

The virtual space is initially empty, inviting users to start building their own molecules from scratch, using common building blocks already in the app, or bringing in completed structures. The app supports a number of commonly used visualization tools, so work started on conventional software can be brought directly into VR.

Nanome VR app - periodic table

Molecules have specific shapes – something about the constituent atoms attracting and repelling each other – I’m pretty sure that my university chemistry textbook has a whole section on figuring out bond angles based on valence electrons. The point is, the app does that for you. And, when you create a molecule that couldn’t possibly exist, the app lets you know.

So, if you want to play comic book super genius and create fantastic chemical structures, you can! And the app will let you know which parts of the molecule break the laws of physics, and which laws they break. You can also view the models in several color-coded visualization methods.

“Because we’re on the VR app store and the basic version of the software can replace Intro-to-Chem ball and stick models, we’re very popular among universities and libraries as the go-to chemistry app in XR,” said McCloskey. “You never run out of chemistry kit parts in XR!”

Building new chemical structures in the app is huge. While you certainly can use Nanome to practice and learn chemistry within its established boundaries, there are people using the platform to design new chemicals, like groundbreaking prescription medications. In fact, early feedback from Novartis went into the first widely available iteration of the platform.

“For other major biopharma companies, we meet scientists and IT folks at various industry conferences,” said McCloskey. “We have landed some deals from scientists who bought a Quest for the holidays and wanted to use Nanome at their workplace.”

Everyone Gather Around the Giant Protein

Visualizing chemicals isn’t only important when designing new ones. One giant model that McCloskey, Hessenauer, and I viewed within the space was a large protein. At that massive scale, something that was just an idea before suddenly seemed tangible and understandable – a solid thing with its own charitable topography waiting to be explored.

Jon Nanome VR app demo

Prion proteins in the brain can fold incorrectly, leading to neurological disorders like dementia. I remember my middle school science teacher trying to communicate that by scribbling on the chalkboard, but how exactly a protein could be foldable never really made sense to me. Seeing that giant protein in VR, that fifteen-year-old lesson came back and clicked instantly.

McCloskey and Hessenauer were able to point out caves in the giant protein where part of another chemical – like a medication designed by one of the companies using the app – could fit into the protein and bind to it. I usually do demos like this to learn about XR, but this time I felt like I got a lesson in chemistry with XR in the margins – which is how it’s supposed to feel.

“As a design tool, we aim for Nanome to be as intuitive as possible. This is where XR and the user interface come into play,” said McCloskey. “We want our users to focus more on their scientific explorations and less on learning how to use the tool.”

Nanome VR app

Suppose I want to go back and watch our demo again. I can. But, not just a flat recording. Nanome allows spatial recordings that viewers can walk through later. If someone pointed at a point on the model and I missed it live, I can go back and watch it in VR standing right in their shoes as I relive the moment from their viewing angle.

At Least Take a Look

If you ever even think about chemistry, there’s literally no reason not to check out the free version of the app. If you’re a student, learning institution, or researcher, the platform can grow with you. The sheer number of things that Nanome can do are honestly overwhelming at first, but helpful explainer videos and easy-to-pick-up controls make it second nature in minutes.

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A Week of VR Meditation With Mindway

featured, Mental Health, Review, Reviews, virtual reality, VR Apps, well-being / Blake Jones / May 20, 2023

Mindfulness can exist in the virtual world. Mindway is a VR app that promotes mindfulness – both in virtual worlds of unearthly peace and through lessons that you can carry with you when you put the headset down. I gave the app a test run by incorporating it into my own stressful work week.

A Modular Subscription-Based App

A good first place to start an app review is talking about the specs, like the size of the app and how much it costs. That’s not really how Mindway works.

First, the app is free to download from the Quest App Lab, though a number of elements of the app require a monthly or annual subscription – or you can buy the whole package once and for all for $50.

Further, the initial app download is small but individual modules within the app come as independent downloads. That might make things complicated if you’re trying to decide whether you have space for the experience, but it also means that you can really effectively pick and choose which modules you want to keep on your device.

The app doesn’t currently have a comfort rating. That might be because the individual experiences are so different. Each module explains the position in which it works best. Some encourage you to be seated, while others that deal more with mindful movement require you to be standing. Still, none of the modules that I tried made me too uncomfortable.

The app is compatible with the whole Quest product line from the original Quest to the Quest Pro, but I used my Quest 2. Controllers are required to navigate menus and carry out simple interactions in some of the practices, but there aren’t any complex controls. The thumbsticks can be used for snap turns, but there’s no movement and head-tracking is sufficient.

Mindway’s Major Components

When you first enter Mindway, you find yourself in a calm virtual environment reminiscent of a Quest Home. In front of you are three main menu items: ASMR, Mindfulness, and Sleep.

Sleep, Mindfulness, ASMR - Mindway VR app

If you turn to your right, there’s also a room where you can join public or private sessions. This is used for scheduled group events, but you can also go in alone to sit by a calming VR campfire or use an invite code to share the space with friends.

If you aren’t familiar with mindfulness, it’s an approach to mind-body wellness that promotes active awareness of your physical state and thought-life in the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or being anxious about the future. A text explanation will never really do justice, so consider checking out the introductory journey in the app.

ASMR

I’ve become something of an ASMR aficionado over the years, and let me just say that I’m hoping for more from this selection in the future. The selection currently consists of soft-spoken stories and a marble-maze mini-game that plays with some audio effects. (Take out your Conquest VR if you’ve got one.)

ASMR - Mindway

While Sleep and Mindfulness sessions usually last between eight and 15 minutes, some of the ASMR sections go on until you exit the session, making them ideal if you want to use them as the base of longer meditations.

The marble game is fun and the soft-spoken stories are great, but I didn’t get big ASMR vibes. There’s a whole category of ASMR that uses visual cues but I haven’t really experimented with it because I usually listen to ASMR when I’m trying to sleep, so seeing more visually-based ASMR in this mindfulness VR app has a lot of potential.

Sleep

Speaking of sleep, you might have gotten curious at the idea of sleep modules in a VR app. I know I did. If you’re imagining drifting off with your headset on, that’s not what’s happening here.

These experiences might help make you a little drowsy, but what they’re really doing is stocking a mental toolbox with mindfulness tools that you can take with you to bed. This is actually one of my favorite recurring elements of Mindway as an app overall, so we’ll return to a larger discussion of this later.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the heart and soul of Mindway. As such, this is the most populated section with (in my opinion) the best content. This content is split into “Journeys”, “Practice”, and “Build Your Own”.

Mindfulness - Mindway

Practices are shorter sessions that you can do independently of one another, while each journey is a series of sessions on a related topic that build on one another. The Build Your Own section allows you to create a practice session by selecting a topic, a world, and a soundtrack. Whether part of a journey or an individual practice, sessions are between eight and 15 minutes.

Build Your Own - Mindway

On the other hand, if you are familiar with mindfulness as a practice, I hope that you won’t be too skeptical of a VR-based mindfulness application. Mindway uses VR very cleverly to facilitate common mindfulness exercises. You can even select the “Science” button in the home environment to learn about how Mindway develops their sessions.

During body scans, a sparkling mist gradually rises up around you. When focusing your attention on a fire, the fire begins to die down if you get distracted by the environment for too long. During breathing exercises, particles seem to flow into you when it’s time to inhale and flow out when it’s time to exhale. Reach high up to grab an apple from a tree during a stretch.

A Week of Mindfulness

I used Mindway for about a week during the course of writing this article. There were stretches where I used it every day, there were days that I didn’t use it at all, and there were days that I kept going back in for multiple sessions.

I discovered mindfulness in college and it was a big part of my life for a good couple of years but at some point, I really got away from it. The first thing that I noticed in Mindway was how deeply I’m still able to breathe. I can breathe pretty heavily in my headset when I’m boxing in VR, but that’s different from long, slow, deliberate breath – something I didn’t realize I missed.

I liked some sessions more than others, but there was nothing that I encountered in Mindway that I didn’t enjoy. My favorite content is the “Boost Your Energy” Journey. The three-part journey has practices for starting the day with focus without being overwhelmed, for regaining your energy as you go through your day, and for winding down when it’s time to relax.

Boost Your Energy Journey - Mindway

While I like knowing that I can pop on the headset for a reasonably short session whenever I want throughout my day, the narrations do often remind you that you can take things like breathing exercises and meditation models with you wherever you go. While the visualizations are nice and might be helpful for people newer to mindfulness, Mindway is very educational.

An Unanticipated Promotion

The child in my life doesn’t really understand what I do for a living, but she knows that sometimes we get to play with neat tech, like an AR narrative puzzle. Sometimes, I set up my headset for her to enjoy some supervised offline play. (I lock apps, so I know that she’s playing Bait!, not Peaky Blinders.)

The other day, she saw the new Mindway thumbnail in my apps library and asked about it. I told her that she could check it out if she wanted to, but I warned her that it wasn’t exactly a “game.”

It turns out that she loved it. She was able to navigate the simple menus by herself and tried out a number of experiences. Hearing the audio of the guided meditations through the Quest 2’s native off-ear speakers, I was able to watch – admittedly a little stunned – as the energetic eight-year-old sat through around a half-hour of various mindfulness exercises.

I’m not a doctor, and I’m never going to advocate that any VR headset become “an electronic babysitter”, but it seems to me a curious kid could do a lot worse things in VR than mindful breathing.

Peaceful Periods in VR

Hitting the mat in the third round, assassinating communist informants in the back of a bar, betraying your crewmates in space – VR experiences can be pretty intense. While those experiences can be a lot of fun, it’s nice to know that Mindway provides a corner of the immersive world where you can have a little peace and quiet before getting back to your day.

A Week of VR Meditation With Mindway Read More »