Sony promised to update its Xperia 10 II and Xperia 10 III phones to Android 12 and after finishing the with the latter it’s now serving the first batch of updates to the Mark II.
The OTA update seems to be limited to just South East Asia, at least for now. The update package itself is 900MB big and has a build number 59.2.A.0.422. The security patch is from March 2022 instead of February 2022, which the Xperia 10 III got.
This is clearly just a soak test, but we are pretty sure that the global distribution of Android 12 is just around the corner.
Nike CryptoKicks NFT sneakers are for the metaverse fashion conscious
If you are a sneakerhead, you should be prepared for the coolest sneakers in your virtual world. The Nike CryptoKicks are the perfect shoes for your metaverse. And yes, don’t forget to lace them up while strolling in VR!
Nike previously filed seven trademark applications related to metaverse, which clearly shows their love for virtual assets and the current pop culture. In line with this future vision, the American multinational acquired RTFKT Studios, a digital fashion and 3D creation studio in December 2021. Now the first nectar of their creation is out for all to see. Yes, you know where this going, right?
Nike and RTFKT’s first digital sneakers have been released and they call them the Nike CryptoKicks. This design is based on Nike Dunk Genesis’ sneaker and represents Nike’s first foray into NFTs and the metaverse. RTFKT calls this the “Future of Sneakers”, and we agree with that description. Nike did hint at their interest in crafting digital sneakers and wearables back in November 2021, so after all this reveal isn’t a major surprise for keen followers.
People with the RTFKT’s MNLTH digital box, NFT. It was given away for free to Clone-X users. A mystery surrounded the MNLTH cube’s contents, but now we have a clue. You can show off the digital wearables in metaverse worlds by switching their looks via collectible Skin Vials. For starters, the EVO X collection will kick off with eight different skins which can be beefed up with drip upgrades and special powers.
This virtual dunk silhouette gets an uber-futuristic bump-up with the metallic parts, a noticeably modified sole unit, and the paneling to match the swapping around of the screens for customization. The CryptoKicks sneaker will be among the future releases. We can also expect that the skins library will grow rapidly.
As Nike said at the launch of the CryptoKicks, “Nike is focused on potential ways to use blockchain technology to serve our consumers in the athletic footwear, apparel and equipment space. The MNLTH is just the start to a future of serving athletes in this space.”
Poco is finally ready to unveil its F4 GT flagship today via an online event that will be live-streamed on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter starting from 8PM Beijing time (12PM UTC). The smartphone is expected to be a rebranded Redmi K50 Gaming and it will be joined by the Poco Watch and Poco Buds Pro Genshin Impact Edition.
Poco F4 GT will carry over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and 120W fast charging from the K50 Gaming as well as its overall design with physical shoulder triggers. Poco Watch is expected to be a rebranded Redmi Watch 2 while the Poco Buds Pro Genshin Impact Edition look like the Redmi Buds 3 Pro. After the event, we will have the latest details on the devices available at our website.
Latest CAD schematics show narrower side bezel on iPhone 14 Pro
The iPhone 14 Pro will have narrower bezels all-round, compared to the current generation. This is evidenced by a side-by-side look at CAD schematics of the rumored iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro. The difference isn’t huge, but coupled with the move from a full-sized notch to a pill-shaped cutout for the Face ID elements, the iPhone 14 Pro will have an effectively bigger display viewing area.
These CAD drawings weren’t the only ones we have seen. We saw very detailed CAD-based renders of the iPhone 14 Pro, which reveals a slightly thicker body and a mostly unchanged width and height, compared to the iPhone 13 Pro.
In terms of size, the iPhone 14 series will offer a 6. 1-inch and a 6. 7-inch display, both in regular and Pro form. The new pill-shaped notch could be Pro-exclusive. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says all 14 models will get autofocusing selfie cameras (yes, the iPhone’s selfie is fixed-focus and always has been) but no Touch ID or a periscope zoom camera.
Best indoor garden designs for plant lovers everywhere
Gardening is an extremely therapeutic activity, and though I may not engage in it all the time, the few times that I have, I found it really delightful and soothing. Growing, tending to, and being surrounded by plants is intensely satisfying, all your worries slowly fade away, and you are simply enthralled by nature. Indoor gardening works well in modern homes. From LG’s latest indoor gardening appliance that is 3 feet tall to an air purifier that doubles up as a plant caretaker – we have a myriad range of options when it comes to growing plants within the comfort of your home! These unique, innovative, and thoughtful designs promise to take care of all your indoor gardening needs. You may be interested in trying them, and I would love to add indoor gardening into my everyday routine.
1. LG’s tiiun
Sure, a refrigerator can keep your veggies fresh… but LG’s tiiun can keep it fresher! Designed as a unique home appliance that lets you grow your own herbs and veggies the LG tiiun was announced in the run-up to CES 2022. The indoor gardening appliance is roughly the size of a dorm refrigerator, standing at approximately 3 feet tall, and features two shelves that can accommodate up to 6 all-in-one seed packages and various seed kits.
Why is it noteworthy?
The term “tiiun” comes from Korean and means “to sprout”. This is LG’s way to say that the appliance can be used as a self-sufficient, all-in-one garden. It creates the perfect microclimate for plants and mimics light cycles, so that you can keep them anywhere without having to worry about sunlight. LG’s Flexible Weather Control System creates the ideal situations for organic growth while also keeping pests at bay. An internal watering system also delivers water to the plants (8 times a day) to keep them hydrated. You just need to install the tiiun, and then let your plants take care of themselves.
What we like
A foolproof way to grow your own veggies and herbs in the comfort of your home
Fun and simple even for those with no gardening experience
What we dislike
The form is a bit too bulky for homes with space constraints
2. Plant Light No1
Drawing the fine line between a functional piece of plant-growing hardware and an elegant tabletop lighting accessory, Plant Light No1 turns your interior space into an ideal set of conditions for growing plants.
Why is it noteworthy?
The light comes with a neo-industrial design aesthetic, and sports a surface to rest your planter on. Above it sits a height-adjustable lamp that comes equipped with full-spectrum LEDs that mimic the light quality (color), light intensity (brightness), and photoperiod (duration) of the sun, allowing any plant to grow indoors.
What we like
Comes with a matrix of full-spectrum 90+ CRI LEDs that mimic the sun in a way that sets PL1 apart
A built-in timer allows PL1 to intuitively switch on or off, providing the right duration of light for your plants
What we dislike
It’s not available yet!
3. Paradise
Designed to reduce domestic waste, Paradise is an automated plant cultivator and compost bin that uses integrated technology to prompt users when the compost or plants need tending. Paradise, which is conceived as a rolling cart and consists of modular parts that can be combined to create optimal growing conditions. Paradise starts at its top with an LED strip. This strips artificial sunlight to integrated planters on the top of Paradise’s first module.
Why is it noteworthy?
While spending more time in our homes has helped to rejuvenate interior design, there has been a rise in household waste. Robin Akira, a designer, created Paradise to address this problem. It is a houseplant cultivator that has integrated compost bins, and an odor-sealing cover. This allows us to reduce domestic waste.
What we like
Integrates greenery into our interior spaces
An odor-sealing lid
What we dislike
Could be messy to have such a design in our indoor living space
4. CURA
CURA is an all-encompassing plant-growth apparatus that takes care of the light and water requirements for any plant. The automated system can be set up to meet the needs of flowering, air-purifying, ornamental, or herbaceous plants.
Why is it noteworthy?
Available in 3 sizes and across floor-standing, tabletop, and wall-mounted varieties, CURA is a halo-shaped horticultural light that’s designed to activate and promote plant growth. Powered by OSRAM LEDs, the lamp can output different wavelengths of light that help create the right growth conditions for different types of plants. CURA has presets that can be used to control the growth of herbs and fruits, flowers and fruit, indoor gardening plants, germination, and other stages.
What we like
The lamp can either be programmed to work automatically or can be configured using CURA’s smartphone app, allowing you to effectively play horticulturist with your indoor plants
The lamp in Ambient Mode can also be configured to dynamically respond to music
What we dislike
No complaints!
5. The 4RESTPLANT
Rather aptly named the 4RESTPLANT (pronounced Forest Plant), this quirky little planter comes made from a porous clay, in the shape of a tree trunk – a design detail that makes immediate sense when you realize how the planter functions. Unlike traditional planters that act simply as vessels for soil and the plant, the 4RESTPLANT works quite like how nature does.
Why is it noteworthy?
Plants can find their own surface to grow on. They often hold on to the stump or root of trees for support and structure, but rely on soil already loosened/aerated by tree roots. The 4RESTPLANT works in a similar fashion – the tree-shaped planter comes with a hollow design that holds water on the inside (with a nano-silver coating to prevent the water from blooming) and features four ‘seed pads’ that are arranged on the outside, around the base of the planter. The planter’s porous design ends up wicking water outside to the seed pads, allowing them to grow by holding onto the trunk’s rough surface for structure. This basically recreates what happens in nature on a smaller scale, creating a planter that literally brings a slice of the beautiful outdoors into your home!
What we like
Grows microgreens and other small ferns and plants in your home with little to no effort
Basically recreates how plants grow in nature
What we dislike
There are similar designs on the market
6. The Blow design
This concept design has turned this device into part of your room decoration and also into a “planterior” air purifier.
Why is it noteworthy?
Blow’s design is similar to a window or venetian blinds, but it opens from the left and goes backwards. When you slide the handle, the cover on the front slowly opens and in turn, also turns on the air purifier. The degree you use the handle will determine how strong the airflow becomes. So it mimics the natural wind that we feel when opening a window and how much wind comes in depending on how much that window is opened. The air is purified through a filter and then discharged through that window frame.
What we like
The carbon and HEPA filters are easily replaceable to ensure that you’re really breathing in purified air.
You can place this air purifier in three different ways in your room
What we dislike
No complaints!
7. The Ocean Sun
Designed to be more than just your average USB-powered work light, the Ocean Sun Plant Light, as its name quite aptly suggests, features a calibrated set of LEDs that emit light similar to the light from the sun. Made primarily for indoor plants that don’t receive too much natural light, the Ocean Sun Plant Light provides them with the right spectrum of light to enable photosynthesis and foster growth… and unlike the sun, it can fit in your palm.
Why is it noteworthy?
The Ocean Sun features a compact, sleek design. It has a precision machined aluminum shell with flicker-free LEDs and draws power from the USB-C port on its back. Each lamp comes along with its own adjustable USB-C stand cable that lets you position and angle the lamp however you want, although the Ocean Sun works with any third-party cable too, giving you the freedom to hook it up to your laptop, a power bank, or even a set of solar panels with a USB output!
What we like
Compact form that fits in your palm
High-end flicker-free LEDs
What we dislike
Not too sure how well plants would grow with this light
8. Jungle
Most commonly in homes across the world, indoor gardens are a form of biophilic design. Interpreting biophilia in a similar way, Jungle, designed by Poland-based KABO & PYDO design studio, is a planter that can hang from the ceiling and also function as a semi-flush mount light fixture.
Why is it noteworthy?
Comprised of only a few parts, the beauty of Jungle lies in the design’s simplicity. Jungle, a hybrid planter/light fixture, is defined by its bulbous and capsule-shaped central piece. The capsule-shaped planter emanates a warm, golden light that’s diffused with an opaque body. An opaque body diffuses light, softens it and enhances plant life. It also provides a canvas on which to hang teeming greenery.
What we like
The simple form emphasizes the beauty of the plants
The lamp emits a soft and soothing light
What we dislike
You need to stand on a stool or a little ladder to water the plants
9. Burmistrova’s smart planter
This smart planter can monitor the condition of the air, soil, and plant to ensure it receives the right amount of water and light to grow healthier. Designed with the working population in mind (who have less time to care for their plants, but love to have them in their indoors), the plant pot can artificially control humidity, air temperature, and more to ensure plants do not die during the user’s long absence. This endeavor can be further beneficial for the users, who can through a mobile app, control, monitor, and see the plant’s performance from anywhere.
Why is it noteworthy?
Smart planters are available dime a dozen. Some options require artificial lighting to grow plants in the shaded areas of your house. Others keep them happy and healthy on their own. In the already crowded, but high-demand segment, designer Evgeniya Burmistrova has introduced a smart flower system with climate control that takes care of the plants independently and leaves you with a green, inviting environment at home.
What we like
The plant pot can artificially control humidity, air temperature, and more to ensure plants do not die during the user’s long absence
What we dislike
The aesthetics are unexciting and quite similar to other planters on the market
10. Vista
Vista is a smart gardening system that uses hydroponics to cultivate lush greenery in a growth tray that mimics the natural terrain of a mountainous landscape.
Why is it noteworthy?
Too often, smart gardens today place more emphasis on function than aesthetics. This results in cold vertical farms which look better in research centers’ greenhouses than in living rooms. That’s why designer Juhyuck Han created Vista, a smart garden appliance that mimics a landscape’s natural terrain and scales it down to fit in our homes.
What we like
Vista’s grow tray mimics the terrain of a natural landscape to bring users closer to nature
Equipped with GPS technology, the glass container reveals various pieces of daily information such as the weather, temperature, date, and time
Apple @ Work Podcast: Google Workspace integration will drive the use of Managed Apple IDs
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In this episode of Apple @ Work, I go solo for the first time and talk about Apple’s upcoming integration with Google Workspace for Managed Apple IDs.
Diablo Immortal is arriving on June 2 for iOS, Android, and PC
Blizzard just announced a new Diablo game – it is called Diablo Immortal and will be available for Android, iOS, and PC. It will support cross-play and cross-progression, meaning there will be a character that can be played both on mobile and a desktop computer.
The game will be free-to-play and online-only, and according to the Diablo team, it will have new characters, storylines and additional content for a “constantly evolving experience”. Pre-registrations ahead of the June 2 launch are already open, and we’ve provided a link at the end of this article.
The Diablo Immortal is set between Diablo II: Lord of Destruction and Diablo III, and players have to find all the Fragments of the Worldstone – the pieces remaining after the stone was shattered by Tyrael and scattered all over the Sanctuary.
Diablo Immortal will keep some classic fan-favorite characters like Barbarian, Wizard, and Necromancer, as well as the idea of sets of weapons and armor and some unique items. Looting will also offer further customization of the character.
Playing on iOS and Android will be pretty much straightforward – one side of the bottom screen will be for movement, the other for attacks, using potions, magic, etc. However, controls on PC are evolving – moving and attacking with the mouse will remain, but Diablo Immortal will also have WASD movement.
There are also four pre-selected actions with the 1, 2, 3, 4 keys used as a shortcut, and potions will be utilized with the Q key.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 Pokemon Edition sells out in minutes
Last week, Samsung announced its Galaxy Z Flip3 Pokemon Edition phone and the phone now went on open sale in South Korea. Sure enough, several minutes after the device was made available, all units priced at KRW 1,284,000 ($1,024) were sold out over the company’s Galaxy Campus Store in Seoul as well as the Samsung online store.
The retail package contained a Pokemon-themed box and pouch with stickers. It also included additional stickers for Pokemon, Pikachu, Pokeball pop sockets, and key chains. Samsung also included a free one-year Samsung Care+ plan on the house with all orders placed via its online store. There’s no word if the Pokemon Galaxy Z Flip3 will make its way to other markets at this point.
vivo launched the 5G-ready T1x last October with the Dimensity 900 SoC and now the company delivers its 4G-only version, powered by the Snapdragon 680 chip.
The vivo T1x 4G comes with two RAM options (4GB and 8GB) and as many storage choices (64GB and 128GB). You can expand storage with the dedicated microSD card slot. The smartphone runs Funtouch OS 12 out of the box, based on Android 12.
The vivo T1x 4G is built around a 6. 58″ FullHD+ LCD with a 90Hz refresh rate and a notch for the 8MP selfie camera. Its fingerprint-resistant back panel has a “frosted curtain coating” for a “silky feel” and sports a rectangular island housing flash and three cameras – 50MP primary, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth.
The Snapdragon 680-powered smartphone features a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and a 5,000 mAh battery charged through a USB-C port at up to 18W.
The vivo T1x 4G is 8mm thick, weighs 182 grams, and has two color options – Gravity Black and Space Blue. Its 4GB/64GB version is priced at RM699 ($160/EUR150), and the 8GB/128GB model is at RM899 ($205/EUR190). Both are available for purchase in Malaysia through the company’s official website and online retailers with a limited-time discount – 4GB/64GB variant at RM649 ($150/EUR140) and 8GB/128GB variant at RM799 ($185/EUR170).
vivo T1x 4G
Alongside the T1x 4G, vivo also announced a new T1 5G. We say “new” because there are already two 5G-ready vivo T1 phones in the market – one with 5G in the name and the other without it. The former was launched in February, whereas the latter was unveiled last October. You can check out their detailed specs here.
vivo T1 (SD 778G) * vivo T1 5G (SD 695) * vivo T1 5G (SD 778G)
The new vivo T1 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 778G SoC, boots Funtouch OS 12, and comes in a single 8GB/128GB memory configuration. It packs a 6. 44″ 90Hz FullHD+ AMOLED with 1,300 nits peak brightness and HDR10+ certification.
The camera department consists of a 16MP selfie shooter inside the notch, and a 64MP primary camera on the phone’s rear joined by 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro units.
The rest of the new vivo T1 5G’s highlights include an in-display fingerprint reader, USB-C, Hi-Res Audio support, vapor chamber cooling, and a 4,700 mAh battery with 66W charging.
The new vivo T1 5G is offered in Turbo Black and Turbo Cyan colors. It’s priced at RM1,299 ($300/EUR280) in Malaysia and is available through vivo’s official website with a limited-time discount of RM50 ($12/EUR10).
Honor introduced new midrange X smartphones for the global market, and two of them finally reached the United Kingdom. Thanks to a friendly anonymous tip in our email, we were able to locate the Honor X7 and Honor X8 on the company website, where they both are up for pre-order.
The Honor X7 is an LTE-only phone with a Snapdragon 680 chipset, 48 MP quad camera and a 5,000 mAh battery with 22.5W fast-charging capabilities. It has only one memory option – 4 GB RAM + 128 GB storage.
Honor UK is offering the X7 in Black, Silver, or Blue colors for the price of £169.99, and is throwing a pair of Earbuds 2 Lite, which have a £70 MSRP if purchased separately. The bundle deal is valid until May 15. Shipping of the Honor X7 is expected to start next Friday, May 6.
The Honor X8 has the same Qualcomm chipset, as well as a similar 6.7” screen, but this one has 1080p resolution. It also has a better 64 MP main camera and a 16 MP selfie shooter, as well as 6 GB RAM. However, it is an extremely thin and light device, which means the battery took the hit and is just 4,000 mAh in capacity.
The price of this 6/128 GB phone is £219.99. Once again early birds can get a pair of Earbuds 2 Lite for free, and deliveries of the Honor X8, offered in Black, Silver, and Blue, are expected to begin today, April 26.
