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The second-generation AirPods Pro have had hearing health features for a while now. However, those tools are being expanded in iOS 18 with Hearing Test, Hearing Aid and Hearing Protection that will soon be available on the earbuds. Apple's three-prong approach to hearing health now covers awareness, assistance and prevention, but it all starts with the "clinically validated" hearing test you can take on your own. Apple has created its version of the hearing test we all probably took as kids. The one where you sit in a booth and raise your hand when you hear a sound. The company offers an alternative to the booth, bulky equipment and trip to the doctor with AirPods Pro and the iPhone. In any quiet environment, the earbuds and the phone can now offer a similar test to what you'd get in a physician's office. Here's how it works. From the Settings menu on your iPhone, you'll tap into the AirPods Pro settings to find the Hearing Health section. First, the software will check to make sure the fit of your AirPods provides a good seal for the test and that your location is quiet enough for the tech to offer reliable results. Once Hearing Test begins, active noise cancellation (ANC) will be enabled and you'll tap your iPhone screen when you hear tones on both the left and right sides. Apple employed 150,000 real-world audiograms and millions of simulations to develop a test that's quick and easy. But most importantly, the company says, it created one that's accurate. Once the test is completed, you'll get immediate results on your phone, telling you the level of hearing loss (if any) in each ear. If you have minimal hearing loss but could maybe benefit from help in certain frequencies, the software will recommend some tweaks in the Media Assist settings for entertainment audio and calls. If you have mild to moderate hearing loss, Hearing Test may suggest you use the AirPods Pro Hearing Aid feature to improve every day life. Apple I got a brief walkthrough of Hearing Test following the iPhone 16 event, and it seems to be as quick and easy as Apple describes. To be clear, I didn't actually take a real test, just a simulated version with fake results, but every step in the process was accounted for in my abbreviated session. All told, you should be able to complete Hearing Test in about five minutes. Hearing Test results will be stored in the Health app, allowing you to see changes over time. You can retake the test as often as you want, with access to hearing health articles and the ability to download results just a tap away. I should also note that Hearing Aid is designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. If Hearing Test determines that you have severe hearing loss, the software will recommend that you visit an audiologist for further guidance. Hearing Aid is a software-based solution that boosts certain frequencies so certain sounds are enhanced on AirPods Pro. It's a first of its kind submission to the FDA, and a tool that allows you to customize the amplification, balance and tone at any time in the settings. The feature should help people with mild to moderate hearing loss better hear conversations and environmental sounds, but also improve what they hear in music, videos and calls. Both Hearing Aid and Hearing Test should be available this fall, pending FDA approval, as part of an iOS 18 update. Catch up on all the news from Apples iPhone 16 event!This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/how-apples-hearing-aid-and-hearing-test-will-work-on-airpods-pro-154814439.html?src=rss
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The venerable M3 Apple MacBook Pro is on sale via Amazon and the prices are cheaper than what we found on Prime Day. You can pick up a base model for $1,300 that comes with 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. The typical price for this version is $1,500, so this is a discount of 15 percent. This is the latest MacBook pro with an M3 chip that was released last year. It comes with a 14-inch display, an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. We loved this laptop in our official review, calling the design a major improvement over previous MacBook Pro releases and praising the gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, the abundant selection of ports and that speedy M3 processor. This machine also made our list of the best MacBooks, and for good reason. We called it the best MacBook for creatives due to the incredibly efficient and powerful CPU. Apple silicon aint no joke. The battery life is on point, lasting around 24 hours per charge. Thats about three full work days. Theres one caveat here. This is the model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The storage is fine, as there are plenty of ports for external drives and an SD card slot. If you are going with a MacBook Pro over an Air, however, it might be a good idea to spring for a model with 16GB of RAM to get the most out of the machine. Luckily, the 1TB/16GB version is also on sale via Amazon for $1,700. October Prime Day 2024 is around the corner, serving as Amazons (un)official kickoff to the holiday shopping season. If youre eager to snag some early holiday deals for those on your list (or yourself), heres what we know so far about the next Prime Day shopping event. When is October Prime Day 2024? Amazon has not announced the dates of fall Prime Day 2024 yet, but we do know it will be returning sometime in October. What is October Prime Day? October Prime Day is an extension of the regular Prime Day sale held annually in July. It features exclusive deals on Amazon for Prime members, although not quite on as big of a scale as the main summer Prime Day. How long is October Prime Day? In years past, October Prime Day has been two days long, just like Prime Day in July.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-14-inch-m3-macbook-152341654.html?src=rss
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Sony has officially announced the much-anticipated PS5 Pro. You'll need to dig deep into your pocket for it, though: the new console has a price tag of $700 and it will arrive on November 7. Pre-orders start on September 26. As with the PS5 Slim, if you want a disc drive or a vertical stand, you'll have to shell out extra. The Pro offers some notable improvements on the specs of the original PS5, which was released in 2020. Sony is hoping to narrow the gap between the fidelity and performance modes that players have become accustomed to choosing between. The idea is to offer improved graphical performance at more consistent frame rates across the board. To do that, Sony focused on three core upgrades: a larger GPU, advanced ray-tracing and AI-driven upscaling. That GPU has 67 percent more compute units and 28 percent faster RAM than the standard PS5. As such, according to the console's lead architect Mark Cerny, the new console will be able to deliver up to 45 percent faster rendering. Ray-tracing performance could be up to three times as faster than on the PS5. Meanwhile, Sony's AI-upscaling tech (i.e. its take on the likes of NVIDIA's DLSS) is called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, or PSSR. Of course, Sony's own studios have been updating their games to take advantage of these upgrades. Cernys presentation highlighted The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as some of the games that will benefit from improved visual fidelity and/or frame rates. Third-party partners are planning to tap into the PS5 Pro's extra power too, with patches on the way for the likes of Alan Wake 2, Assassins Creed: Shadows, Demons Souls, Dragons Dogma 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Games that have been patched or developed for the new system will have a PS5 Pro Enhanced label. Other features include a game boost tool that could improve or stabilize the performance of more than 8,500 backward compatible PS4 games, Sony says. The feature could boost the performance of PS5 games that aren't explicitly enhanced for the Pro as well. The company adds that its Enhanced Image Quality tool will improve the resolution of certain PS4 games as well. Other features include Wi-Fi 7, variable refresh rate and support for 8K resolutions. Sony managed to make the PS5 Pro more powerful without making it larger than the colossal original model. It has the same height as the original PS5 and the same width as the discless model. Along with a DualSense controller and the brilliant Astro's Playroom, the PS5 Pro comes with 2TB of built-in storage, which is a nice upgrade from the 1TB on earlier models. That $700 price may put many folks off of buying a PS5 Pro. But hey, at least Sony is offering gamers a tangible hardware upgrade. The newest Xbox systems either change the console's color, add some storage or remove the Series X disc drive. It's hard to keep many secrets around new gaming hardware, so today's announcement is hardly a surprise. There have been several leaks this year, one from a YouTube channel in May and then again in August from a Dealabs user. The PS5 has been a big seller for Sony, with 61.7 million units sold as of June 2024. With the PS5 Pro joining the original hardware and the PS5 Slim, Sony is in good shape to continue its dominance of this console cycle. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-unveils-its-ps5-pro-console-which-will-cost-you-a-whopping-700-151636487.html?src=rss
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