Apple Vision Pro might be lacking some features at launch, says leak

Apple's Vision Pro headset hasn't even gone on sale yet, and it might not do for another year yet. But that was never going to stop Apple from working on what will follow it and now a recent report suggests that isn't just one, but two new headsets.

Unfortunately for Vision Pro hopefuls, that same report also suggests that Apple will hold back some visionOS features for when those successors are shared with the public – and worst of all, they're features that were originally penciled in for the Vision Pro's launch instead.

However, Apple appears to have chosen to delay those software features until the next found of hardware is ready, and that, among other things, could be enough to give potential buyers a reason to consider hanging fire – not that we imagine people are lining up to buy this insanely expensive device, even if it does turn out to be the best VR headset ever made.

Two is better than one

Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that  Apple has not one, but two new versions of the Vision Pro headset in development already – one of which will be a lot cheaper. Apple only announced the Vision Pro at WWDC on June 5, but it's already moved some employees from that project and onto teams that are working on what comes next in Apple's AR/VR lineup.

We noted the two new Vision Pro models previously, but the latest report from Gurman suggests that new software features will debut with those updated models, rather than the first headset – even though that one isn't even releasing until 2024.

Gurman says that Apple is working on “The ability to show multiple Mac desktop screens when connected wirelessly to a Vision Pro,” whereas the first Vision Pro will only connect to a single desktop at launch. There's also the suggestion that Apple Fitness Plus will be integrated somehow, allowing headsets wearers to work out while in an AR/VR world.

Finally, Gurman says that Apple also wants to offer “the ability for multiple Vision Pro users in a several-person FaceTime conference to use Personas.” The Vision Pro due to go on sale in the first half of 2024 will only allow one-on-one calls with Apple's haunting 3D avatars.

It's still too early to know when Apple will announce these new headsets of course, nor do we know how much that cheaper model will cost. We can hopefully expect to learn more as the leaks roll out in the coming months.

It's a bit disappointing that Apple will apparently be holding back some features – it's particularly odd to be hearing about it now, when the first iteration of the headset is still more than six months away from release. We'd imagine there probably is enough time for Apple to implement those features, in fact, which makes the whole thing all the more disheartening.

In other words, we're probably going to hold off on dropping $ 3,499 on the Vision Pro next year – at least, unless Apple confirms these features will be backward-compatible when they finally do arrive.

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Apple might have already ruined the Vision Pro for VR gaming

Apple claims to have broken the mold with its new Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which promises to revolutionize everything from video calls to general laptop use. But there’s one area the shiny new headset could fall down: VR gaming.

Although Apple’s WWDC 2023 showcase did highlight VR gaming experiences as a core part of the Vision Pro’s capabilities, new information reported by Mixed has revealed that there might be some design choices within the visionOS software that could seriously impact the VR gaming experience.

Recently-released Apple documentation explains that “the system defines an invisible zone that extends 1.5 meters from the initial position of the wearer’s head”, during ‘immersive experiences’ in VR. It goes on to say that “if their head moves outside of that zone, the experience automatically stops and passthrough returns to help people avoid colliding with objects in their physical surroundings.”

This sort of safety feature is commonplace in the best VR headsets, like the Meta Quest 2. However, Meta’s system allows users to define a set space around themselves for the purposes of spatial safety; while it looks like standard VR apps on the Vision Pro – as opposed to Apple’s ‘immersive experiences’ – will switch to transparent mode if you move just a meter from your starting point.

Locked in a (virtual) box

While the Vision Pro does boast a lot of great features, a one-meter limit could prove problematic for some VR apps – especially games. I own a VR headset (the excellent HP Reverb G2) which I use for gaming, and I definitely move my head more than a meter while playing most games, like dodging an oncoming slow-motion bullet in Superhot VR.

Immersion is king when it comes to gaming in VR; you don’t want to be pulled out of the experience, and the Reverb G2’s system – similar to the Meta Quest series – allows me to ‘draw’ the exact boundaries of my space, which is much larger than a meter. If I get too close to a physical object, the entire game doesn’t become transparent. Instead, I see a blueish outline of the closest objects that bleeds into the game to warn me I might be moving too much.

However, with just a single meter of space to move around before your in-game surroundings become transparent, it’s not hard to see how in-game immersion could easily be interrupted.

The Vision Pro also relies on hand gesture controls rather than the physical handsets used by most VR headsets, which could prove to be a significant barrier to developers porting their VR games to Apple’s product. Obviously, neither of these stumbling blocks is a concern for playing non-VR titles, where the Vision Pro simply 'projects' a gameplay screen in front of you.

I can only hope that this is merely the default setting and that Apple will allow Vision Pro users to tweak the boundaries of their ‘safe zone’ for VR gaming. All reports do point towards this being the greatest VR device ever made, and it would be a real shame to see Apple drop the ball here – especially since the tech giant seems to finally be getting serious about gaming.

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New Windows 11 users might be confused by this full-screen pop-up

Windows 11 and Windows 10 users might be faced with a rather odd-seeming full-screen pop-up after they’ve upgraded, pertaining to Windows Hello logins using facial recognition or a fingerprint.

Neowin spotted a Microsoft support document explaining that after June 13 – the day the most recent cumulative update was released for Windows 11 (and 10) – you might see the aforementioned pop-up panel if you’ve recently updated to a later version of Windows.

And it can also appear if you haven’t signed into your Windows device using Windows Hello in over a year, and you’ve just installed an update.

The prompt reads, “Choose if you want to keep signing in with your face or fingerprint,” then poses the question: “Do you want to keep storing your face or fingerprint data on this PC?”

If you choose ‘yes’ then nothing more needs to be done. If you decide you don’t want to use these biometric login methods any longer, when you click ‘no’ Windows will take you to the Settings app, where you can change your sign-in method.


Analysis: Permission to be confused, Captain

This is a strange one because we’re not told why Microsoft has decided this prompt is necessary. Has the software giant just spontaneously decided to check if users still want to continue with Windows Hello?

Well, if they haven’t used their biometric login for over a year, that seems like a fair enough helpful check to implement. However, that’s clearly not the full story, as folks who’ve used Windows Hello recently and regularly are seeing this panel too, if they’ve recently upgraded to a newer version of Windows 11 or 10. So why quiz them on the matter?

We’re not told, and that’s a bit confusing – it’d be nice to be given a reason. Could it be something to do with issues around login data permissions? Well, we’re just guessing here.

Whatever the case, it would really make sense to clarify the reason on the actual pop-up screen in Windows, or at least provide a link to that clarification for the curious. Just so people aren’t potentially confused about why they’re seeing the prompt on their PC.

Granted, plenty of folks may not care, and in the bigger picture, this is a very minor inconvenience, but still, the whole episode just seems a bit odd to us – the support document is all well and good, but doesn’t tell the full story.

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YouTube Premium’s best video feature might no longer be iPhone-exclusive

It looks like YouTube’s 1080p Premium video quality is finally rolling out to Android devices for paying subscribers, after a brief period of iOS exclusivity.

If you're an active YouTube Premium member – it costs $ 11.99 / £11.99 / AU$ 14.99 per month – and use an iOS device like an iPhone 14, you can currently watch videos in ‘1080p Premium’ quality. These are like regular HD videos, but are streamed using a higher bitrate, which means the video is less compressed, and so should look crisper and more detailed.

It looks like this upgrade won’t be exclusive to the best iPhones for much longer, as Android phone and Google TV users who pay for YouTube Premium are reporting that they can see the 1080p Premium video option (via 9to5Google). Right now the feature doesn’t appear to be widespread, and reportedly the users don’t see the option all the time, but this seemingly inadvertent rollout suggests that 1080p Premium will soon be available for more YouTube users.

Google has yet to say when 1080p Premium will officially roll out for Android, but be on the lookout for an update to the app in the coming days and weeks. If you want to take advantage of the upgrade, remember that you’ll also have to sign up for YouTube Premium.

As for those of you who want to keep using YouTube for free, you’ll still have access to the same 1080p HD-quality videos you had before – just without the added benefits of the higher bitrate.

Should you subscribe to YouTube Premium?

Poeple watching a YouTube video together while in a Google Meet video call.

(Image credit: YouTube)

If you use YouTube a lot then you've probably thought about signing up for Premium, especially as the company has steadily introduced more reasons for you to subscribe.

Higher-bitrate videos, the ability to download videos for offline viewing, and Google Meet group watch-alongs are a few of the upgrades to the YouTube service that await Premium members. You’ll also be able to watch YouTube ad-free (ignoring any ads that the creator bakes into the video).

The ad-free feature is getting better too – although for the wrong reasons. Earlier this year YouTube announced that unskippable ads will be getting longer (they can now be up to 30s) on your Google TV, and it’s playing around with “pause experiences” – adverts that appear around the video whenever you pause it. As ads become more annoying, the ability to switch them off becomes more appealing.

That said, YouTube Premium is pretty darn pricey; $ 11.99 / £11.99 / AU$ 14.99 is more than you’d pay for a number of the best streaming services, so it’ll only be worth it if you use YouTube a lot.

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Ready to be interviewed by AI for your next job? You might have to be

In the near future, it’s seemingly a fair bet that coming on for half of all job interviews will be conducted by AI rather than a person.

We’ve been hearing plenty of stories about how job seekers are using AI to hone their applications and even to create resumes, but a ZDNet report takes a different perspective: that of employers, and how they’ll be leveraging artificial intelligence on their side.

The article highlights a survey carried out by Resume Builder which offered up a rather staggering figure – namely that 40% of corporate recruiters will use AI to conduct job interviews by 2024.

On top of that, according to expert estimates, 15% of recruiters will rely entirely on AI for all hiring decisions “from start to finish”, we’re told.

The survey also found that 46% of job hunters were now using ChatGPT to write their resumes and cover letters. Furthermore, a very high percentage – 78% – indicated that they got a higher level of response from companies (and secured an interview) when using AI to do their job applications (at least in part, though to what extent isn’t clarified by the report).


Analysis: Flirting with disaster?

We find this pretty scary, to be honest. The indication – and mind, it is just that – that one in seven recruiters (actually a touch more) feel confident that by next year, AI could seemingly handle the entire hiring process, seems like a recipe for, well, if not disaster, then something skirting close to calamitous.

We get that a first round of short interviews that are AI-powered might serve as a useful wheat-from-chaff elimination process, but to go much further than that, as suggested, and have an entirely AI-driven recruitment selection (more or less), well, that’s a different ballgame.

Sometimes these kinds of surveys can be rather overblown with their findings, of course, but the way AI is being developed, and the pace it’s being pushed out in general, does not make this seem like an entirely unrealistic prospect.

It’s certainly something that could unnerve job candidates. How would you feel about your future (or at least, future employment) being judged by AI, and maybe even AI alone in some cases? We think that if we were being interviewed by an AI, then we’d be prone to thinking more in terms of covering key words or phrases, rather than acting naturally – and be less relaxed as a result (and likely perform worse).

On the other hand, there may be folks out there who’d be more comfortable being interviewed by an AI rather than a human, perhaps feeling that the former would be less prone to judge them (or at least be more likely to judge them based on their skills and abilities, rather than anything else)? Or maybe that AI would be easier to pull the wool over the eyes of, in some respect, even? We’re not sure either of those things would be true, mind, but still…

Whatever your thoughts on having a job interview with a chatbot rather than an actual person, it seems like that from next year, this is a reality we’re going to have to deal with more and more. Meaning that interview preparation could be quite different in some cases, though the experts recommend you simply regard a bot as a human, and don’t act any differently in an interview – and we can see the wisdom there.

Alternatively, you could ask your preferred flavor of chatbot – Bing, Bard, ChatGPT – how best to prepare for an interview with AI, and get the inside track, as it were. This further raises the prospect of getting an AI to answer the interviewing AI (at which point, our head explodes).

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Google Sheets thinks it might finally be smart enough to topple Microsoft Excel

Google Workspace has announced an upgrade to its spreadsheet software that could make the tool more useful than ever before.

In its battle to take on great rival Microsoft Excel, the company's Google Sheets platform has enjoyed a number of recent updates to help users get more from their data.

This includes so-called “smart chip” technology, which lets users quickly access information or data from other Google Workspace files, bringing the likes of Slides, Docs and Gmail even closer together for the ultimate collaboration tool.

Google Sheets smart chip metadata

Following an initial rollout in February 2023, Google Sheets has already seen an initial smart chips upgrade, taking the form of richer experiences, including extra functionality when posting YouTube clips in a spreadsheet, further expansions have now been announced.

Going forward, the company says users will be able to quickly extract information from smart chips to give your work extra detail or analysis, pulling in information from people, file and event chips. It will also allow users you to pull out metadata associated with specific smart chips into its own cell, all whilst maintaining a connection with the chip it was extracted from. 

Google Sheets smart chips metadata

(Image credit: Google Workspace)

The company gave the example of making it easier to keep track of a set of documents, as well as who owns them and details such as creation time or who last modified the file, which can now be done by extracting those fields from the relevant file chips.

“Smart chip data extraction allows you to track and organize data more easily, and also perform deeper analyses using data that is derived from smart chips,” a Google Workspace update blog post announcing the change read.

“Useful actions include using file chips to understand when a document was last updated or using people chips to sort and filter employees based on job location to best delegate region specific tasks.”

The feature is rolling out now for users on Rapid Release domains, with a wider release scheduled for June 14. 

The ability to extract data already stored in chips will be available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts, but some limits on extracting all available data will be placed on the latter, along with users with Google Workspace Essentials Starter, Business Starter, Frontline Starter, Frontline Standard, and Nonprofits accounts.

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Matter’s first update won’t light up your smart home, but the next one might

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) is rolling out the first major update to the Matter standard. Well, it's supposed to be a major update, but it's more like a minor patch.

Matter 1.1, as it’s called, won't add any new new device types to the support list, nor will there be any major changes to the individual platforms like Apple HomeKit. The CSA, instead, is making three relatively small changes affecting both companies and users alike, and those changes mostly affect the former. 

Change number one is it is now easier for smart home manufacturers to get started with Matter. The standard’s specifications reportedly have been made clearer allowing for “better guidance” in growing “support for new device types.” The CSA has also made it easier for developers to certify their products so they can get into the hands of customers faster. 

Finally, Matter 1.1 will be fixing a bug affecting Intermittently Connected Devices or ICD, which are “typically battery-powered” gadgets like motion sensors and door locks. Moving forward, it will be less likely an ICD “will be reported as offline” whenever a user or platform interacts with it. But, as far we understand the CSA, the bug isn’t completely gone. The error can still happen.

And that’s pretty much it for Matter 1.1. Two developer-centric changes and one for the users that doesn’t solve the problem at all. It just lowers the chance of the error occurring.

Analysis: the hype is gone

This update is disappointing, to say the least. It’s been seven months since Matter officially launched, and it’s pretty safe to say the hype surrounding the standard has effectively died. Roll out, too, has been slow. Google, for example, has only recently added Matter support to its Google Home app on iOS. And it took Amazon nearly four months to finally roll out Matter to its Echo lineup

Plus, multi-admin control is still a problem, according to The Verge. It isn’t easy to switch your gadget from one platform to another if it’s already connected to one, for instance. And that's something that doesn’t make any sense because the whole point of Matter – its reason for existence – is to have better interoperability between smart home platforms.

It appears the CSA is allowing smart home brands to update their individual platforms at their own discretion. The question is: when are they going to be updating? In all honesty, who knows?

The CSA states it’s going to remain committed to its goal of a “twice-yearly release cycle” for future updates. It’s currently working on “the next version of Matter”, bringing in “new features and device type support.” We contacted the CSA for more information on Matter 1.2, as we’ll call it. This story will be updated at a later time.

If you want to know what works with the standard, check out TechRadar’s list of the smart home devices that play nice with Matter.

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Google Meet thinks it might finally be able to topple Microsoft Teams at last

Google is looking to up its game in the video conferencing space with the launch of several new AI-powered tools and services.

The company has revealed that Google Meet is getting some new AI boosts, aimed at making it a core part of your everyday working life, but also one that reflects you.

Revealed at Google I/O 2023, the tools use the newly-announced Duet AI for Google Workspace platform to allow users to generate their own customized virtual backgrounds based on text descriptions, opening up a whole world of possibilities.

Google Meet Duet AI

Google had hinted at plans for generative AI backgrounds in Meet earlier this year as part of its big Workspace AI push, but this marks the first time we've seen the technology in action.

In a demo at Google I/O, the company was able to demonstrate how just a few words could generate detailed backgrounds that let users show off a bit more personality whilst on a call. The company also mentioned potential examples such as a salesperson tailoring their background depending on which prospective client they are meeting with, or a manager celebrating the employee of the month with a personalized background of their favorite things in a team call.

Google Meet duet ai

(Image credit: Google)

“It's a subtle, personal touch to show you care about the people you're connecting with and what's important to them,” a Google blog post announcing the changes noted.

Duet AI is already a central background presence across Google Workspace, working in the background to assist on tasks such as writing Gmail messages or giving you prompts in Google Docs.

Along with Meet, the system is also be geared up for use across other key Google Workspace services such as Slides and Sheets as the company looks to make all your working tools smarter and more intuitive.

Opinion – enough to triumph over Microsoft Teams?

AI is everywhere in the software world right now, as companies of all sizes scramble to include the technology in their processes and platforms.

Video conferencing should be an ideal place for AI to make a real impact, boosting signal strength and call quality. But personalization is also another way for this new era of technology to make a difference. Now we're all used to video calls, making them more bearable is the next step, and customized backgrounds could be a small step towards that.

Just days after Microsoft Teams announced a whole host of new virtual backgrounds aimed at enhancing collaboration and productivity, including collections aimed at boosting mental health, Google Meet will be hoping its generative AI offering will be enough to capture user's attention.

In the end, it remains to be seen – do you want your workplace calls to be unique, special and customized – or keeping to some veneer of professionalism?

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Google Drive has suddenly decided to introduce a file cap – but you might never hit it

It’s official – cloud storage provider Google Drive has decided to add an official cap on the amount of files that can be stored on a single account.

Per Ars Technica, the limit, set at five million files, started cropping up for some Google Drive users in February 2023, despite Google offering no warning that the cap was being introduced, and offering a notification that wasn't all that clear at explaining what the problem was: “The limit for the number of items, whether trashed or not, created by this account has been exceeded.”

Said notification has evolved since then, and now reportedly reads: “Error 403: This account has exceeded the creation limit of 5 million items. To create more items, move items to the trash and delete them forever.”

Google Drive file cap

As of last week, the notification for one Reddit user read “Please delete 2 million files to continue using your Google Drive account.”

The new policy (which remains undocumented across all pricing pages) means Google Drive customers are being prevented from accessing the full extent of the storage they’ve paid for. However, it’s worth noting that 5 million files, in real terms, is a pretty big allowance.

For Google Drive’s 2TB offering – the highest personal plan available – the average file size across an account would have to be 400 kilobytes (KB). There are certainly instances where that may be the case – the storage of large amounts of record data, for example. But in the vast majority of cases, users shouldn’t run up against the limit.

Business users are even less likely to face issues with the limit. A spokesperson for Google told Ars Technica that the limit applied to “how many items one user can create in any Drive,” rather than a blanket cap.

Details were thin on the ground, but they also noted that the new limit is “a safeguard to prevent misuse of our system in a way that might impact the stability and safety of the system.” 

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Windows 11 hidden feature hints that Microsoft might be messing with the Start menu

Windows 11 just got a new preview build in the Beta channel that brings a bunch of changes with it, some of which are hidden.

As flagged up by @PhantomOfEarth on Twitter, beta build 2262x.1465 introduces a new name for the ‘Recommended’ section at the bottom of the Start menu panel, where recently used apps and files that you might want to quickly access again are flagged up.

It’s called the ‘For you’ section in the beta, but note that this remains hidden in testing, and the leaker only found it by hunting around with a Windows configuration tool (ViVeTool).

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Elsewhere in the beta build, Microsoft has made the new Voice Access commands help page fully accurate and functional, and it now works properly when in Dark Mode. Also hidden away in this preview build are presence sensing privacy settings (to automatically turn your PC off or on when you leave it or come back).

Other bits have been tacked on to File Explorer, too, and @PhantomOfEarth believes these might pertain to the depth effects we’ve recently heard about, using AI to give the desktop background a ‘3D’ kind of effect. That could be pretty cool to see (despite our misgivings about letting AI loose on the desktop in general).

With this fresh beta release, Windows 11 has also got live captions in many more languages, updated touch keyboard settings, and a VPN status icon for the system tray (which will allow you to tell if you’re connected to your VPN at a glance, a nifty touch).


Analysis: More than meets the eye?

It’s interesting to see the ‘For you’ name change is apparently inbound, moving forward to beta testing – albeit still hidden. Given that the new name hints at further personalization for the Start menu, might we see more targeted bits and pieces appear here?

Well, Microsoft has experimented with this idea in previous test builds, showing recommended websites at one point, but that feature was ditched. (Likely in part due to fears against the obvious potential misuse here in terms of this effectively being advertising – for example, recommending the new Bing would surely be a shoo-in, something that’s already happened in the search box on the taskbar).

It doesn’t appear that this will be anything but a name change, at least not for now, although we still get the feeling it’s a sign that more tailored suggestions might be coming down the line. With AI inevitably being brought more into the mix with Windows 11, this will surely be an avenue for future exploration…

What’s also interesting to note is that only a beta build came out this week, with Microsoft not providing Dev or Canary releases. The hope, then, is that some decent changes could be in the pipeline for these earlier test builds when the next preview release rolls around (perhaps next week).

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