Interesting articles from the web…
It was a heart-wrenching incident just waiting to happen.
During a circus performance in Moscow, Russia, late last month, a tiger and a lion shocked the audience when they started attacking one another in the ring.
A video of the performance shows a trainer leading a young lion across the ring past a tiger, who was seated at the sidelines. As the lion passes, the tiger suddenly leaps across and pounces on top of the lion, knocking him over onto the ground and going for his throat.
Sunny and Georgia could not be more different if they tried. While 7-year-old Sunny, an American Staffordshire terrier, is incredibly adventurous and always excited to greet any new people who cross her path, 8-year-old Georgia, a Chihuahua, is much more cautious and reserved, and tends to follow behind her sister, letting her take the lead in most situations. Despite their differences, the pair could not love each other more, and get incredibly upset any time they’re apart.
“They are very sweet,” Lavenda Denney, executive director of the SPCA of Winchester, Frederick and Clarke Counties, told The Dodo. “They give kisses and are very expressive. When you walk to their kennels they quit barking and tilt their heads to the side to check you out. Big happy puppies.”
Country and Zeus are handling shelter life fairly well due to their sweet and goofy personalities, and they rarely have any problems — unless someone tries to separate them. As soon as the brothers are apart, even if it’s just for a little while, they whine and cry endlessly until they’re finally reunited. They love each other so much, and they’re not afraid to let everyone know it.
While corn snakes are common pets, in the wild they’re native to the southeastern U.S., which means the snake would struggle to survive on her own in the colder Indiana climate. The man then noticed another corn snake nearby who had already passed away, and that’s when he knew that he had to take her with him.
The man took the snake and transferred her into the care of his son and his son’s girlfriend, Avery Cook, who both have experience caring for reptiles. As soon as they saw her and heard her rescue story, they immediately agreed to take her in.
What would it take for you to delete all of your tweets? What would it take to delete your social media accounts?
These are the questions Arielle Pardes and Lauren Goode grapple with on this week’s Gadget Lab podcast (Mike is out this week; he lost his voice, undoubtedly from shouting into the void). Earlier this week Arielle visited Instagram, where the Facebook-owned company unveiled new tools for “digital wellness”; essentially, tools that let you keep tabs on how long you’ve been on social media, so you can cut back if it’s making you feel bad. And our WIRED colleague Emily Dreyfuss wrote about her tweet-deleting experiment – as well as the immediate sadness she felt upon deleting all of her tweets. Social media: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Some notes: You can read Arielle’s story here about Facebook and Instagram’s efforts around “digital wellness,” a term about as meaningful as moon juice. Emily Dreyfuss’s latest story about deleting her tweets can be found here.
Recommendations this week: Arielle recommends WIRED’s multi-part package on how to read. Yes, you read that right. It’s a series of stories about the joy of reading, in all forms. Check out Arielle’s story on audiobooks here. Speaking of books, Lauren’s been reading “Paradise of the Blind,” a novel published in the late 1980’s about post-war Vietnam (the book has been banned in Vietnam). And as a bonus recommendation, she suggests you check out the very last episode of “Too Embarrassed to Ask,” her previous podcast with Recode’s Kara Swisher.
Send the Gadget Lab hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds. Arielle Pardes is @pardesoteric and will be back next week. Lauren Goode is @laurengoode. Michael Calore will be back next week, and can be found in the meantime at @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme song is by Solar Keys.
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Since the advent of the consumer drone (not so long ago, really), making a purchasing decision around new flying machine has involved weighing a list of compromises. Want high quality images? You’re going to have a big drone that’s tough to maneuver. Want something portable? Your footage will look like garbage. Want something easy to fly? You’re getting a glorified toy that will fall apart in a light breeze.
DJI, the world’s leading manufacturer of consumer drones, tried to solve this last year with the Mavic Pro. While that easy-to-fly, foldable drone did check many of the boxes, the camera wasn’t stellar. With this year’s Mavic Air, however, DJI has finally arrived at a product design with just the right mix of flyability, portability, and image quality. In other words, the DJI Mavic Air is where all drone-shopping quests should begin, and it’s also where most of them should end.
The Mavic Air is smaller than the Mavic Pro—at 6.6 inches long, 3.2 inches wide, and 1.9 inches tall, it’s about an inch more compact in both length and height. Given the name, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that it also weighs significantly less; just over 15 ounces, versus the Mavic Pro’s near-26 ounces. The result is a drone that slips into a jacket pocket and doesn’t feel weird to keep there. The remote control, which uses your smartphone as its screen, is svelte, too; complete with joysticks that can be removed and stowed within the remote’s body.
But don’t let the name fool you. Unlike the MacBook universe where Pro is the top of the line and Air is code for “underpowered,” in Mavic Air is the machine with more professional utility. Both drones have cameras that shoot 4K video, but if you zoom in on the Mavic Pro footage, the image doesn’t hold up. The drone tries to compensate for this lack of detail by digitally oversharpening the image. With the Mavic Pro, you also have to tap-to-focus on the screen, or you’re liable to get blurry images. You may not want to do that while you’re trying to keep both hands on the wheel, so to speak.
The Mavic Air footage, however, looks great without you really having to do anything. It has a slightly wider angle lens (24mm versus the Pro’s 28mm) which is better for capturing sweeping landscapes. You don’t have to tap to focus. And oh yeah, it shoots 4K video at 100Mbps versus the Mavic Pro’s 60Mbps, so you get more image data and more overall detail. It seemed to have better dynamic range, as well, though I wasn’t able to do a one-to-one comparison.
The Mavic Air also beats the Pro in terms of sensors and smart features. While the Mavic Pro has forward-looking obstacle avoidance, the Air’s obstacle-sensing eyes look forward and backward. The anti-collision system generally works really well. I tried crashing the drone into myself going forward and backward, and it refused to fly too close to me. Instead, it went up and over me, or around me. (Obstacle avoidance doesn’t work in Sport Mode. Try it there and you will lose a nipple.) The obstacle-sensing tech is especially important for some of the smart features the drone has, such as active tracking, where it can follow you, or lead you from the front. If you’re trusting it to fly itself, then you really want to know that it’s not going to slam into anything.
The Air can also obey hand gestures. You can tell it to lift off by extending your hand straight toward it with your palm perpendicular to the ground. Move that same flat hand up, down, and side-to-side to change its position. Move your two hands apart, and the drone pulls back for a wider shot. Make a frame with your index fingers and thumbs to have it start shooting video. It’s neat in that it makes you feel kind of like a Jedi, but I think the gesture stuff is largely a gimmick. You still need to have the remote control handy to put it into gesture mode, and you also need to keep it within in case something goes wrong.
The Mavic Air has a whole suite of camera tricks it can do, but I had mixed results when trying to use them. While kayaking in the middle of a lake I was able to get it to follow me, lead me, and even keep me in profile, which made for some awesome looking video. Once, despite only being 20 yards away from me, the drone lost radio contact and attempted to land itself at the point where the flight started—which was now in the middle of the water. Luckily it reacquired the signal and I was able to abort the return-to-home function before the Mavic Air drowned itself.
Some test footage shot by the author.
Other smart features like the Orbit mode (which makes the drone fly in a circle around you) refused to engage at all, and I could never figure out why. I also had to recalibrate the compass almost every time I turned the drone back on, which requires you to hold the drone and move it around in a series of spirals. Not a big deal, but if you’re chasing a sunset or a humpback whale and are trying to get the drone into the air now, have to pause to recalibrate it can be very frustrating. I’m hoping these bugs will be ironed out in future software updates.
Those caveats aside, I love this drone. I’ve been reviewing these things for more than five years, and of the dozens I’ve tested, I found myself pulling this one out far more often than any other. The portability is a win; tossing it into a small hiking bag is no big deal. You’ll probably forget it’s even there. Now, DJI’s Phantom 4 Pro certainly shoots better images—they’re incredibly cinematic and clear, thanks to its larger image sensor—but that drone was so big and cumbersome by comparison to the Mavic Air that I rarely brought the larger one on hikes. To paraphrase Chase Jarvis: The best drone is the one that’s with you. And I’m more likely to have the Mavic Air with me than any other drone I’ve used. It already has a suite of accessories available from third-party companies, like the excellent neutral density filters made by PolarPro. Screwing one of those onto the camera lets you slow the shutter speed down and get an even more film-like look.
While the Air has a slightly shorter flying time than the Pro (it maxes out at 21 minutes versus the Pro’s 27 minutes), it can fly just as fast and just as far. The Air also has better slow-motion capabilities (120 frames per second instead of the Pro’s 96fps). The improved obstacle avoidance makes it a lot safer for beginners to fly it too, though I’m looking forward to the next Mavic to offer obstacle avoidance in all four lateral directions.
Factor in that the Air is still somehow $200 cheaper than the Pro, and the purchasing decision becomes a no-brainer. Honestly, I’d probably recommend the Air even if it were $200 more than the Pro. $800 is still a lot of money, and the price only goes up when you buy one or two spare batteries, which you definitely should. But if you’re looking at getting into aerial photography, or if you’re a serious backpacker and space and weight are at a premium in your pack, the Mavic Air is definitely the way to go. It’s the balance point I’ve been looking for this whole time.
“Melon-headed whales have a very rounded head, and rough-toothed dolphins have a very long, gently sloping rostrum, or beak,” Robin Baird, a researcher for Cascadia Research Collective, told The Dodo. “Instead of having a rounded head like a melon-headed whale or the long, sloping rostrum of a rough-toothed dolphin, it had something in between. So it had a sloping rostrum, but a relatively short one.”
Eager to figure out what this animal was, they used a humane method to obtain a skin biopsy sample, and then got it tested in the lab.
“We would love it if someone would adopt him outright and take on his medical bills because then we could save more animals, but we know that that’s not likely,” McKelvey said. “So now we’d like to get him a lifetime foster … somebody who will give him security and shelter and love and attention, and bring him in for his vet appointments with us. Essentially, it would be their dog, and they would help make all the decisions with us and everything, but we would just pay for the medical bills.”
Henry actually has a foster mom right now — but she travels a lot, and Henry goes back to the shelter while she’s away.
“He was afraid at first but eventually he came out after about 10 hours of waiting,” Vielsack said. “I was really scared that I would have to watch him die in there.”
Fortunately, Jimmy did make it out — and a trip to the vet confirmed that he’d survived the ordeal relatively unscathed; he had lost quite a bit of weight, however.
But he still looks regal as ever, as you can see.
Baloo had dragged the sprinkler out of the backyard and through the doggy door. He had been playing with the sprinkler inside for at least a few minutes, and water was everywhere — soaking Wohr’s lamp, ceiling fan, TV, leather chair, coffee table and photo albums.
It took a combination of elbow grease and Mother Nature to get things back to normal in the household. “After about five big towels and leaving the back door open for an hour and a half with temperatures at 107 outside, things started drying up,” Wohr noted.
Baloo has been obsessed with sprinklers ever since temperatures started spiking in June, and since then Wohr has had trouble separating her playful dog from his favorite water toy.
The large kangaroo standing inside his house then provided an immediate explanation. “I haven’t even seen a kangaroo in my life,” Ahokavo told local news.
The kangaroo was, understandably, just as freaked out as Ahokavo. And the blood splattered around was actually the animal’s own, from some scratches he got when he hurled himself through the window.
At a loss, Ahokavo contacted the police, who then contacted Five Freedoms Animal Rescue, a local organization run by Manfred and Helen Zabinskas. They rushed over to help.
The park, known for its local elk, buffalo, grizzly bears and coyote, can be a dangerous place to visit if proper safety precautions are ignored — as can any area where wild animals are common.
“Never approach animals or block traffic to view them. The animals in Yellowstone are wild and unpredictable, no matter how calm they appear to be,” the National Park Service cautions. “Always stay at least 100 yards (91 m) away from bears and wolves, and at least 25 yards (23 m) away from all other animals, including bison and elk.”
Jones posted the tense video on her Facebook page, along with the caption, “#dontdrinkandbuffalo.” While it’s unknown if the shoeless man was actually inebriated or not, provoking a bison into a face-off certainly isn’t a decision made soberly.
Some foxes followed the tourists around the enclosure, pulling at their clothes and begging for treats. These aggressive begging and fighting behaviors are a symptom of overcrowding, and living in a mid-to-high-stress environment, Rob Laidlaw, executive director of Zoocheck, a wildlife protection agency, told The Dodo.
In Japan, foxes primarily inhabit sparsely populated mountainous areas, or the outskirts of villages. They do not naturally come into contact with humans or, for the most part, other foxes, he said.
In singularly unsurprising news, Brookstone has filed for bankruptcy. The company will shutter its remaining 101 mall storefronts, officially closing out an era that began its fade years ago. Even if you won’t mourn its disappearance—even if you haven’t stepped inside a mall since the Mallrats era—it’s worth a moment of appreciation, and a full accounting of what’s been lost.
Brookstone debuted in 1965, a year after the Beatles first came to the United States, and a year before Star Trek boldly took it where no TV show had gone before. It was born as a catalog, a sort of proto-Amazon, promising “hard to find tools” within its pages. The stores came later, in the early 70s, eventually becoming as endemic to suburban shopping malls as Auntie Anne’s and Claire’s and that arcade with the double-screened X-Men game.
When you think of Brookstone now, you think of its massage chairs. How could you not? That’s what got you in the door, after an enervating hour of roaming the Borders aisles and soaking in the cologne at Abercrombie & Fitch. Brookstone offered a vibrating oasis with heated lumbar support.
It was more, though. During the height of the mall era, Brookstone carried gadgets that were both sublime and absurd, often at the same time. Before Bluetooth’s ubiquity, it sold wireless headphones with a range that barely encompassed a dorm room. In the aughts, you could nab a self-contained sea monkey habitat that looks like an orb from Labyrinth. And of course there were, and still are, the foot baths.
During the height of the mall era, Brookstone carried gadgets that were both sublime and absurd, often at the same time.
“Brookstone has always been a place of discovering new things,” says Brookstone public relations director Paul Donovan.
That includes some eventual mainstream hits as well; Brookstone was among the first to carry Parrot drones and iRobot vacuums, Tempur-Pedic beds and Fitbit wearables. But its main appeal was that sense of discovery, the joy of the inessential. What do you get the person who has everything? Something so niche from Brookstone—a “fermentation crock” designed specifically for sauerkraut, say—that it’s guaranteed to delight, or at the very least to surprise.
“Brookstone offers a number of unique and innovate products created by third parties who—prior to their relationship with Brookstone—do not have access to wide distribution channels,” the company wrote in its bankruptcy filing. In other words, the weird little gadgets and toys that remind you that tech doesn’t have to conform to perfectly chamfered rectangles. It can be janky and odd and unexpected, and all the more fun for it. “Brookstone has always been a place you go when you don’t know what you want,” says Donovan.
To be clear, not all of that is going away. This isn’t even Brookstone’s first bankruptcy. It’ll retain its online presence, and its 35 airport stores will remain open. It’s not the same, though. You go to a Brookstone at the airport out of necessity; it just happens to sell the nearest pair of headphones or two-tone neck pillow. It was discovery that brought you to the Brookstone at the mall.
That will hold true until the remaining locations shutter. But the long collapse of the shopping mall in the US is well-documented. Brookstone isn’t its first victim, and won’t be its last. If anything, it’s remarkable that it held on so long. Its contemporary, Sharper Image, shut down its last 86 stores in the summer of 2008.
‘Brookstone has always been a place you go when you don’t know what you want.’
Brookstone PR director Paul Donovan
Something else may be at work in Brookstone’s retreat as well. Losing foot traffic surely was the knockout blow, but its online and airport sales dropped steadily from 2015 to 2017 as well. It might be this: When Brookstone reigned, all gadgets were a little weird, a little risky. Not everything had a chip in it. But over the last decade, increasingly commoditized hardware has ceded the spotlight to software, to systems. In a world like that, Brookstone’s oddities and innovations have a hard time breaking through.
Still, Donovan sees opportunities ahead. The company has an airport store redesign on the way, and traditional retail operations still active in China.
Meanwhile, online, Brookstone recently instituted a “Makers Showcase” that gives promising crowdfunding projects a platform. Donovan touts the Royole RoWrite Smart Writing Pad, a digital slab you can draw on, and zap the file to your iPad or Android device over a Bluetooth connection. He likes the GeoOrbital Pavement Electric Bike Wheel, which promises to “Convert your manual bicycle into an e-bike with a 20mph top speed.” Scrolling through the page, you’ll also find a “smart pillow,” and a Google Assistant shower speaker. And pretty quickly you realize that it’s true: Brookstone stores are closing, but its spirit lives on in these affable oddities.
“There’s been a democratization of innovation; more people can invent stuff. But somebody’s got to be there to put it all together, to find the good stuff and present it to you in a place that you trust and understand, and that’s always been Brookstone’s job,” says Donovan.
Getting people there will remain a challenge. The internet’s a lot bigger than a mall. And while Brookstone will carry on as an online source of last-minute Father’s Day and graduation gifts, there was nothing quite like walking into the store, knowing the unexpected was waiting for you on its shelves.
Next, the dog, now named Marshmallow, was rushed to a veterinarian for treatment — but Kyriakopoulou had saved him from more than just the aftermath of the fire.
Judging from Marshmallow’s overgrown coat, it is believed that he had been living as a stray, unloved and alone. That was about to change.
These headphones won’t fail—or fall out—when you’re dripping with sweat on the final sprint.
Plantronics’ reflective woven cable stands out with a stylish pop of color and a dab of safety. But we really love these buds for their toughness and clear sound. The IPX5 rating means they’re impervious to perspiration, and their stiff, loop-shaped wings mean the buds will stay wedged in your ears.
$64
The velvet-smooth flexible band on this headset rests gently on the back of your neck to keep your buds in place during any sweat-making activity. They sound great, and their IPX4-rated skin shields them against moisture. Plus, the battery lasts far beyond the quoted 12 hours, so they’re perfect for an ultramarathon (or just an extra-long day at the beach).
$100
The latest version of Jaybird’s beloved wireless, sweatproof buds still provide four hours of rich, natural sound, but now they have even more-secure stay-put wings for anchoring them in your ears. Also improved is the cord-management system, which keeps the cable from flopping against your skull—pretty annoying by mile 17.
$150
This article appears in the July issue. Subscribe now.
Taking a premium product and making it more affordable is a dangerous game. In the worst case, you end up with the notorious Cadillac Cimarron—a frumpy sedan that was barely different from its cheap Chevrolet and Pontiac stablemates. You can’t just take any old widget, apply an expensive brand, and call it a day.
That’s why I think the new Microsoft Surface Go is an impressive device. It’s a cheaper Surface Pro-style tablet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll miss out on important features. While you can find cut corners, most folks who need a super portable basic computer won’t feel like they’ve been swindled.
The teeny-tiny Go, focused on portability and starting at $399, might not be powerful enough to replace a brawny laptop. But if you’ve got a desktop that could benefit from a companion device, or you’re a student whose needs are limited to Google Docs, web browsing, and the occasional Netflix binge, Surface Go could be enough to win you over.
On the outside, Surface Go looks like you’d expect. It’s the same design that previous Surface Pro devices have sported in prior years: a rectangular tablet with a flip-out metal kickstand and a keyboard that magnetically attaches to the bottom. Unlike the latest Surface Pro, the Go is a smaller, cuter version of the successful recipe.
So, cut two inches off a Pro’s 12-inch screen to make it a 10-inch one. What else was cut out? Surprisingly, not much. The screen is sharp (with an 1800 x 1200 resolution) and looked great when I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark on it. It uses the same magnetic charging connector as other Surfaces. You get a Windows Hello facial recognition camera for impressively fast, secure biometric logins. The kickstand even has the same trick hinges as the pricier Pro, folding back underneath the device at a reflex angle, propping it up for typing, movie watching, drawing, or notetaking.
The first sign that something’s a little different is when you run your eyes down the spec sheet. Surface Go has a significantly slower processor than other Microsoft computers—an Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y chip. It feels more responsive than Intel’s past mobile chips (called Atom), but think of it as a cousin of Intel’s Core-branded Y-series chips, found in thin laptops like the Apple MacBook.
Designed to work without a fan, this dual-core Pentium has a surprisingly low top speed: 1.6 GHz. For context, I used to own a 2010 MacBook Air. For its time, it was a zippy computer that handled my daily tasks and lasted me a few years (until I started dabbling in graphic design and needed more reliable power). The Surface Go has almost twice the performance of that laptop.
OK, but is it fast? Absolutely not. Apps open noticeably slower than they would on a Surface Pro. That said, I kept a lot of tabs open, wrote in OneNote, ran Slack, and even rocked out to some streaming tunes—Surface Go barely buckled. Would I want to run full-blown Adobe Lightroom Classic CC on this thing? Or edit 4K videos? Heck no.
Because Surface Go is based on an Intel chip, you can run basically anything Windows 10 can handle. Out of the box, Go comes pre-set in what’s called Windows 10 S-mode, which basically means you can only install apps from the Microsoft Store, and you’re limited to one internet browser: Microsoft Edge. For a lot of people, that won’t be enough. But, for the heck of it, I tried getting by with only grabbing apps from the store.
You know what? I was pleasantly surprised at how far the app selection has come.
I was able to grab Twitter, Slack, OneNote, and even Plex for playing back media from my home server. And all told, Edge has come a long way since it debuted three years ago, letting me add my password manager and handling my typical sites without issue. Even Xbox Play Anywhere titles were available, and I was able to download and pick up Thimbleweed Park where I left off at home. You won’t be playing Forza 7 on Surface Go, but for less demanding games, and especially indie titles, it’ll do the trick.
The keys are precise without feeling too flat, and Microsoft’s designers did a bang-up job minimizing some keys to keep the letters in the center big and usable.
But, then again, for every good app like Netflix, Spotify, or iTunes, you’ll find another piece of must-have software missing from the Microsoft Store. For instance, when it came time to hop on a video call, I found that there was no way to add Zoom to the browser and I had to use a different device to join the meeting. Amazon’s software is also incomplete, so there was no way for me to read my Kindle books.
Thankfully, S-mode is easily bypassed, so you can install any Windows app you need. But the Store is better than many people think—and especially if you have family members prone to installing anything that’s placed in front of them, S-mode could keep them just a bit safer from malware.
The signature accessory for a Surface tablet like this is a Type Cover. These backlit covers have keyboards built-in, and they’re a must-buy if you hope to use a Surface Go like an itty-bitty laptop. Microsoft offers up the Go keyboard in four finishes: one plain black and three colored, Alcantara-adorned deluxe ones. Naturally, you’ll also be able to use a Surface Pen with this device, and they’re now available in color-coordinated tones to match your Type Cover, if you’re a stickler for stuff like that.
Because the display is smaller on this Lilliputian Surface, my biggest fear was that the shrunken keyboard would make the typing experience worse. Smaller cover means a smaller keyboard and trackpad, right? Well, yes. But I didn’t feel like it was a noticeable downgrade. The keys are precise without feeling too flat, and Microsoft’s designers did a bang-up job minimizing some keys to keep the letters in the center big and usable. Even the trackpad keeps pace with its Surface brothers and sisters, offering up a slick, responsive experience.
Speaking of input, Surface Go relies on one USB-C port for plugging in devices. There’s also a Surface Connect charging port, so unlike the Apple MacBook, you can at least use an external device while you charge without having to get an expensive dongle. While I can’t stand USB-C in some instances, on a lightweight device like this it’s par for the course.
At least it’s a standard port that works with tons of accessories you already own, admittedly with an adapter. The USB-C port can also be used to charge Surface Go, but in my experience it should be used when the tablet is asleep. While plugged in to a big external USB battery, Surface Go started to slowly lose charge as I played a YouTube video. But, if you already have USB-C devices in your arsenal, you might be able to bring one fewer charger on your next trip, and I’m in favor of that.
The weakest aspect of the device, no matter what you’ll want to use it for, is battery life. I was able to get between 4 and 5 hours comfortably from the Surface Go. That sounds pretty good, but compared to the competition it’s actually fairly middling. An iPad can legit last you all day. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Windows PCs are reportedly getting 10+ hours on a single charge.
But my biggest reservation comes down to pricing: The base model is $399, but like in the past, you won’t get a cover or a pen included. The cheaper Go also has a measly 4 GB RAM, and a puny, slow 64 GB eMMC flash drive. The model I tried was way more capable, rocking a faster 128 GB NVMe SSD and 8 GB RAM. I’d say if you have the means, spring for this $549 config—it’ll multitask way more effectively.
Then again, that’ll put you at around $780 for the whole kit and caboodle and that’s a lot of dough. That’s almost iPad Pro money. That’s solid mid-range laptop money. That’s Chromebook-and-a-new-smartphone money. That’s almost Surface Pro money, for pete’s sake!
So, it’s imperfect and expensive and a little poky in the configuration I think you should buy. But, here’s the thing—I like using Surface Go a lot. I would have killed for a computer like this when I was in college. I’m so envious of today’s students! And I can’t stress this enough: Its reduced footprint makes it an ideal size for tossing in a backpack or messenger bag. No, it might not be the best computer for the money, but what it lacks in speeds and feeds it makes up for with pure charm.
Earlier this week, newlyweds Kendra Campbell and her husband Dan drove to the marina in Comox Valley, in British Columbia, Canada, to check on their sailboat. When they gazed out into the harbor, Dan told his wife he couldn’t see their mast over the breakwater.
“I told him he was nuts as of course it’s there,” Kendra Campbell told The Dodo. “We then got into our tender [small boat] … and headed out into the harbour. Our boat was not where we left it anchored. We both looked at each other … and did not know what to think. I covered my mouth with my hand as I was so confused, and we kept looking at each other.”
The Campbells have only had their boat for about a year, and they both started to panic.
Here at WIRED, we like Sonos speakers. Throughout the last six years, we’ve reviewed everything from its small Play:1 speaker to its new Beam and recommended every one of them. But it’s not cheap to turn your home into a Sonos-powered shrine to sound. Like Apple products, Sonos speakers are built to work with other Sonos speakers, and don’t come cheap, starting at $200 for the least expensive, smallest model. But which ones should you buy? Read on for our recommendations.
Updated August 1, 2018: We’ve added the Sonos Beam soundbar to our recommendations and updated the guide for Late 2018.
The Sonos One (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is just about the smallest Sonos speaker, but it still packs enough oomph to fill most rooms and its hands-free Alexa integration is a lot of fun. Sonos took the time to make Alexa sound great, and thanks to its voice commands, the Sonos One has become my go-to speaker. It holds the premiere spot in my kitchen, where I like to listen to tunes the most each day. Alexa works like normal, and can play music, tell you the weather, find a recipe, and answer simple questions. Amazon keeps adding Skills to Alexa, making it more useful all the time. Support for Google Assistant is promised for 2018. The Sonos One is also the first third-party Alexa device that lets you use voice control to stream Spotify.
I’ll recommend other Sonos speakers in this guide, but you also can’t go wrong just buying 2-4 Sonos Ones to fill your house up. You get a discount on orders of 2 or more. They’re much more affordable and their small size means you can hide them in any room.
Buy the Sonos One for $199 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Play:1 is a Good Alternative: The Play:1 is $150 on Amazon and Sonos.com. It sounds about as good as the Sonos One, but doesn’t have touch controls or microphones for Alexa. If you already own a One, it’s a good way to add more satellite speakers to your home.
If you really like to party, I recommend adding a Sonos Play:5 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) to your setup. It has enough of a kick to dial a party up to 11, or really annoy your neighbors. I placed mine in the largest room of my apartment and it’s honestly more power than I need. Sonos boasts that this model has six Class-D digital amplifiers: three tweeters, three mid-woofers, and a phased speaker array. In practical terms, it will fill a very large room, or basement with ease.
Out of the four standard Sonos speakers I tested, this one delivered the largest range of sound, with enough thump to satisfy fans of any genre.
Buy the Play:5 for $499 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Avoid the Play:3: The medium-sized Play:3 is an older model that hasn’t gotten an physical update since 2011. It still sounds decent, but it doesn’t have the depth of the cheaper Sonos One.
The Beam (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of three soundbars Sonos offers. It doesn’t sound quite as impressive as the older, larger Playbar, but it still sounds fantastic and its smaller size and extra features are worth the tradeoff. It’s $300 less expensive, too.
Unlike the Playbar, it can connect to your TV via HDMI ARC, letting you turn your tube on and off with your own voice…because yes, it also has Alexa built-in, and Apple Airplay 2. Later this year, it’s getting an update to unlock Google Assistant. Even if you don’t particularly need a voice assistant today, you may change your tune in a few years. If you own a Fire TV Stick, it’s already possible to use basic Alexa commands on the Beam to watch any TV show or movie. No voice assistant is perfect, but they’re always improving.
Buy the Sonos Beam for $399 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Save Up for the Subwoofer: Sonos hasn’t yet released a more affordable Sub to match the cheaper Beam. The standard Sub is superb, but it will cost you $699 on Sonos or Amazon. Don’t bother buying surround speakers until you own a Sub—it’s a far bigger upgrade.
A soundbar can make all the difference in a home theater, and costs a lot less than a full surround sound setup. The Sonos Beam is great for apartments, but if you really want a powerful soundbar, the Sonos Playbar (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is still the best. With more mid-woofers, it delivers deep bass and has more balance and depth than the Beam or Playbase. It’s also built to hang on a wall, but at just over 3-inches tall and 5-inches thick, it can also sit in front of most TVs without hassle.
If you plan to spend the extra money to buy the Playbar, you should save up $699 more to get a Sonos Sub.
Buy the Playbar for $699 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Playbase is Best for Pedestal TVs: The Playbase (Playbase sounds a little sharper than the Playbar on high treble sounds, like cymbals, but it’s still one of the best soundbars you can buy. It’s made to sit under a standing TV and costs $699 on Amazon or Sonos.com.
Sonos Playbar, Sub, and 2 Sonos Ones
To enable surround sound with one of its soundbars, Sonos requires two rear speakers, one for the left and one for the right. I’ve used two Play:5 speakers, but it’s overkill. Two Sonos One speakers are a better match. You simply place them to the left and right of your couch. They don’t add as much benefit as you get from the Playbar soundbar and Sub combo, but if you watch a lot of movies and want to hear things like TIE Fighters flying over your head in Star Wars, you’ll like the extra juice a couple of Ones provide. You can buy the speaker combo piecemeal or in a bundle.
Sonos speakers can be configured to output 5.1 surround, but the company’s products are not currently equipped to deliver Dolby Atmos. Still, this is one of the easiest surround sound systems to set up. You just open up the Sonos app, add a surround speaker, and follow the instructions while the software does the rest.
If you don’t have a table on each side of your couch to set these speakers on, Sonos sells Sanus Speaker Stands for $100 and Wall Mounts for $60. I have not tested these, but I don’t see any red flags.
Buy the Playbar bundle for $1,678 on Amazon or Sonos.com
Or Try a Beam Bundle: The Playbar still sounds better, but the Sonos Beam works great as the center of a home theater, too. You can buy a Beam, Sub, and two Play:1s for $1,396 on Amazon. The bundle isn’t available on Sonos.com.
When you have two toddlers, grocery shopping is a feat requiring the strength, courage, and dexterity of an Olympian. Can you push a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time? Can you tie a child on your back, or will he start screaming at the injustice? What if one of them rams a tiny kid’s cart into a display of stacked wine bottles? Do I really need to pick out bananas myself? Should we all just starve?
However, I have found the solution. The Burley Solstice is agile enough to steer with one hand around precarious piles of peaches. It’s so comfortable that my children fight over who gets to ride in it, which means that they’re not walking around and snatching items off the shelves. And it has an awe-inspiring amount of storage. The 55-liter cargo basket is large enough to fit an enormous Yeti bag, even if it didn’t have three additional mesh pockets for jackets, water bottles, and sunglasses.
At 29 pounds, it’s not particularly light, nor does it fold down into a very compact package for storage or transport. But those are easy for me to overlook when it comes to its maneuverability, ease of use, and comfort.
Nearly 40 years ago, Burley founder Alan Scholz started a bike-bag company and named it after his wife, a bike racer known as “Burley Bev.” He soon branched out into making bike trailers and strollers for hauling his bags and young daughter around town.
Today, Burley is known for making bike trailers and jogging strollers that prioritize the safety of the kids and pets inside. All Burley products have been tested to exceed American Society for Testing and Materials safety standards, with UPF 50 fabric that also conforms to regulations on phthalates, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Putting your child in a Burley jogging stroller means that they’ll be safe, even from lead poisoning, should they choose to gnaw on the sunshade. But it’s also important to note that no matter how safe a jogging stroller is, you shouldn’t be taking your kid at high speeds over rough terrain unless they have adequate head and neck control—around 6 months or so. If you’re just itching to get out with a newborn, the Solstice also has an optional car-seat adapter as well as a clear weather shield if you’re often out and about in rain or snow.
As I write this, the Solstice is drying out on the sunny deck beside me, after I hosed cracker crumbs and sand out of the seat. The fabric is made from an attractive, durable, water-repellent polyester weave that is smooth and plush, and easy to clean. It also has a removable, washable Spring Integrated Technology seat pad, which Velcros into place under the five-point harness.
It’s easy to figure out how to use the stroller. All the parts that are manipulable are in a bright canary yellow that stands out against the dark fabric and black fittings, so you’re not fumbling around trying to find the brake or the side-lock that automatically holds the stroller in place when it’s folded.
A strap on the back of the stroller reclines the seat if your child falls asleep, with a hidden mesh panel for additional airflow. The retractable sunshade has a clear panel to watch your kid. (I’d suggest bringing a light blanket, however, if you want to make sure that your child’s legs are protected from the sun.)
A simple knob on the front wheel lets you choose to either lock it or let it swivel freely, which makes it easier to maneuver through our front gate or lock it into place for running on straightaways. Coil spring suspension and enormous, air-filled tires make for easy, smooth travel on the roughest and bumpiest of trails and on the beach.
It’s hard to test for durability when you have a product for only a few weeks. But we bumped it around single track trails and on the beach, running errands, and walking to the park. Even tossing it in and out of the back of my car, the Solstice hasn’t shown any discernible wear.
By far, the two best attributes of the Solstice are how comfortable it is and how much stuff it can store. The seat pad is plush, and my tester model came with the optional drink holder and snack cup that easily click into the stroller frame. The seat is 16 inches wide, so my 1-year-old was able to fit his entire lap keyboard in the seat with him.
You’ve never seen true luxury until you’ve seen a 1-year-old cruising along at a cool 8 miles per hour, waving at passersby, nibbling on cheese crackers, bopping and singing along to tinny Elmo jingles like a miniature Stevie Wonder. The seat also fit my 3-year-old and has a capacity for children of up to 75 pounds and 42 inches tall. In my family, that probably means that my children will be able to ride in it until they’re 23 years old.
And finally, the cargo basket is enormous. When I was running, handy interior mesh pockets were a convenient place to stow small water bottles and sunglasses. After years of trying to fit a single stuffed animal into a cargo basket without dislodging my child, it was a revelation to not worry about having enough space. I could walk to the farmer’s market and actually shop while I was there! And bring vegetables home!
The Solstice has a few drawbacks. Both my 6-foot spouse and I (much shorter) found the telescoping handle to suit our height and stride length. But the handle travels a mere three inches up and back and was not able to accommodate a 6-foot-6 dad acquaintance of ours. So, LeBron, this isn’t the stroller for you.
And then there’s the weight. Twenty-nine pounds is really heavy. You can close the stroller one-handed and it will lock automatically, but personally, I can’t haul both the stroller and a squirmy toddler up a flight of stairs simultaneously. Folded, it’s 40.5 inches long and 16 inches high. Even if the wheels do pop off very easily, it might not be the best choice if your family goes on a lot of road trips where trunk space is at a premium.
Still, if you have the room to store it, the Solstice is a great jogging stroller that converts pretty easily to an everyday one, especially if you live in a first-floor building and don’t drive very often. It’s easy to use and accessorize, and my kids have been enjoying our daily trips to the park, beach, and neighborhood splash pad. Most important, I’m able to grocery shop with the Solstice, so we’re all able to eat after we get home.