Dan Seifert

Vincent Teoh from HDTVTest has done some measuring and comparing of the scene on various screens, including a $30,000 reference monitor, to see just how dark that scene got. The result? Most of it was well below a single nit of brightness, which is why it was so difficult to watch.

Teoh has some tips for those hoping to get a better experience, including turning off HDR entirely, but the only real fix would be for HBO’s directors to actually master the show for screens people watch it on, not just the reference monitors they are using while editing.

But thanks to ETA Prime’s testing of game emulation on an M1 iPad Air, we can see exactly how far ahead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon competition the M1 is. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.

ETA Prime tested a handful of games in a couple of PSP and Nintendo GameCube emulators and was able to run games at 1440p resolution better than Samsung’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-equipped Tab S8 could run them at a measly 720p.

Of course, thanks to the way iPadOS works, actually getting game emulators on it is a huge pain compared to Android or Windows, so take this for what it is: a demonstration of how capable the iPad could be if iPadOS got out of your way.

But I’m most interested in the Pixel Watch, which is Google’s first real effort at making its own wearable. David talked to Google’s Rick Osterloh ahead of today’s event all about the Pixel Watch strategy:

It’s a big deal for Google, but it’s an open question how big of a deal it is for breaking up Apple and Samsung’s dominance in the smartphone and wearables markets. Be sure to follow along with our live blog at 10AM ET to find out everything there is to know.

Putting aside the fact that I can usually tell when I’m sweaty and thirsty on my own without a $70 water bottle, this whole thing reminds me of the ill-fated Vessyl from 2014, a product formed of such hubris that it wasn’t even that funny when it failed miserably at its stated goal. We don’t need to do this again, folks.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my connected coffee mug says it’s time for a firmware update.

Kevin Purdy at Ars Technica agrees — he published a guide to Gmail-supporting Mac apps and ranks Mimestream number one. You can read about the others but I’ll just save you time — Mimestream is where it’s at.

These videos always look great from a marketing perspective, but I think they poorly reflect how I actually use a smartwatch. I want the computer on my wrist to show me useful information like weather, calendar appointments, timers, etc, which means it’s never as sparse or simple looking as it is in these ads.