Your gaming PC or laptop is your window into your favorite games. And while system performance is one key aspect of your setup, there can be a lot more to a gaming battlestation than just PC internals. Aesthetics are another piece of the puzzle as are the capabilities of your peripherals. ASUS makes many PCs and laptops for gaming, but it also makes high-performance peripherals that can let you level up your rig with a uniform style and advance your gameplay with gaming mice, keyboards, headphones, and more that can give you the edge in your games.

For all of your games, competitive or casual, being able to interact with that world is pivotal. Whether it’s a rich, fantasy world brimming with sights and creatures or a scarred battlefield crawling with enemies to challenge, your ability to react is critical. That might mean a high-accuracy mouse for locking onto enemies or a snappy keyboard to cycle through a huge assortment of spells and abilities. It can also mean a quality headset to both hear your surroundings and communicate with teammates about your strategy. For all of these needs, ASUS ROG has you covered. 

With a headset like the ASUS ROG Delta S Wireless, you can tune into your surroundings, enjoying game soundtracks, the sound of special effects and attacks, or key into movements outside of your vision. The headset offers a low-latency wireless connection as well as Bluetooth for use with a wide range of devices. If you’re always on the move, the ASUS ROG Cetra true-wireless earbuds deliver low-latency Bluetooth for gaming on mobile devices, and their active noise cancellation can help you tune out external sounds to focus on your games. 

PC gamers know their keyboard plays a large role in their success. Snappy mechanical key caps provide consistently responsive controls, so you know your keystrokes won’t be missed or delayed. For serious play, ASUS offers the ROG Azoth 75% keyboard, a compact model that leaves plenty of room for your mousing hand. The ROG Azoth comes in black or in white and gray and offers customizable RGB lighting, letting you pick the ideal match for your system. For those who need an extra-compact option, there’s also the ASUS ROG Falchion, a 65% wireless mechanical keyboard that truly shrinks its footprint. You can also get a fuller keyboard with the ROG Strix Scope II 96, which offers a 96% size so you still get a number pad but retain a little more desk space, and you’ll find wireless connectivity, RGB lighting, and a comfy wrist rest.

Looks are only a part of what you can customize on ASUS’s keyboard. You also get a choice of switches to find the feel that suits you. ASUS’s ROG NX Storm clicky switches offer smooth stroke and a pronounced actuation point so you can build the muscle memory of exactly where your click will register. You can also go for ROG NX Snow switches, which provide a smooth, linear motion and a satisfying “thock” at the bottom of the stroke. If you prefer different switches on different keys, the ROG Azoth and ROG Strix Scope II 96 keyboards uses hot-swappable switches, so you can pop in whatever switch you want beneath your keys.

In many games, your mouse can be especially crucial. In MOBAs and RTS games, your ability to click on the right target at the right time is paramount. In MMORPGs, the extra buttons available on some mice, like the ROG Spatha X Wireless, can help you go from a struggling wizard to a first-rate sorcerer casting spells and abilities with ease. Meanwhile, in FPS games, precision tracking and responsive buttons can make the difference between a game-winning headshot and a complete whiff.  ASUS provides a staggering variety of mice for gaming, such as the lightweight and high-DPI ROG Gladius III Wireless mouse and even lighter options like the 75g ROG Keris Wireless, the 59g ROG Strix Impact III, and the 54g ROG Harpe.  

Back in August, Google announced a big redesign of Chat that adds Duet AI and other smart features, as well as audio huddles, to the work-focused messaging service. A new homescreen is core to this revamp, with the straightforward web version announced first. Last week, the redesigned mobile client was introduced with a new take on navigation for Google apps.

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Instead of a bar docked to the bottom of the screen, you get a pill-shaped container with four sections and a circular tab indicator, while there is a separate square button to the right. The different shapes are a bit jarring, with the floating action button (FAB) being taller than the pill for whatever reason. I’m also not a fan of both things being centered and would prefer the bottom bar being left-aligned while the FAB is positioned normally.

This design inherently does not support text labels under each tab. Thankfully, the Google Chat icons are pretty straightforward and representative of Home, Direct messages, Spaces, and Mentions. This, however, might not be the case for all services. 

This new bottom bar floats and applies a translucency effect to content above/below and to the left/right. I assume the intention is to let users get a peek at what’s being covered by the bar, but it’s not a lot. At best, you get to see a profile picture and timestamp. I’d rather the new bottom bar take up more horizontal space.

More broadly, it’s weird to have the create/compose button on the same level – in terms of organizational hierarchy – as the core sections of the app. In the case of Google Chat, starting a new conversation is an action that can be shared across all views. However, I don’t think that’s applicable to other applications, with the FAB’s function usually being highly specific to the particular tab. 

Meanwhile, in Gmail, this new bottom bar appears above the existing one docked to the bottom of the screen when you open the Chat tab. The floating nature of the new navigation element is what makes this design possible, but it results in a very cluttered look. 

What’s notable about this revamp is that we know the other design that Google contemplated. In May, Google shared a “Timeline” redesign of the Chat that’s a bit more conventional. Top tabs would have avoided the double bottom bar look we have today in the integrated Gmail experience. 

At the end of the day, this new bottom bar still looks like one, and users should not have any issues navigating Google Chat. However, the big question is how it fits into Material You, which – for better or worse – is associated with large touch targets and spacious layouts.

The new bottom bar feels much more compact than Material 3, which might be Google’s way of course-correcting with an eye toward density. In all, I wouldn’t call this Material 4 by any means, but a theoretical Material 3.5 feels right.

From 9to5Google

Hands-on: Beeper Mini might be even better than an actual iMessage app for Android

Google app readies new Sports widget for your Android homescreen [Gallery]

Amid busy holiday travels, Apple still holds back Android’s ‘Find My Device’ network

Pixel Watch 2 gets first Google discount as Black Friday 8 Pro deals & trade-ins return

Google Wallet notifications will be sent directly from the app [U]

Nothing had another worrying security problem in its CMF Watch app; now there’s a way to report it

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Pixel Camera 9.2 rolling out: UI redesign & Ultra HDR on old phones, more 

Instagram and Facebook Messenger chats are being disconnected this month

Google Messages starts rolling out Photomoji [Gallery]

OnePlus 12 goes official with 24GB RAM, 4,500 nit display, higher price

Discord launches redesigned app on Android and iOS

From the rest of 9to5

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed a mysterious, ghostly object that we’ve been spotting for years. The object, which is entirely undetectable by the Hubble Space Telescope, has shown up in observations by certain ground-based telescopes in the past. And now, James Webb has detected the ghostly object, too.

The object in question is an extremely distant galaxy known as AzTECC71. It is believed to date back to nearly 1 billion years after the Big Bang, and glimpses of the ghostly galaxy excite astronomers because it gives us a tiny glimpse into the oldest structures of our universe’s evolution.

One particularly interesting thing about James Webb spotting this ghostly object is that it furthers theories that massive stellar nurseries like AzTECC71 could have existed that long ago, and that they may be more common than we previously believed, too. If that is the case, then scientists may need to rethink how we look at the early universe completely.

If the dusty observations of AzTECC71 are any indication, then the early universe could have been far dustier than we believed, allowing for star-forming galaxies to evolve and grow. Despite the size of the little blob in James Webb’s observations, astronomers say that AzTECC71 is actually massive, and can form hundreds of new stars every year.

The fact that this ghostly object is so hard to spot could also be a clue for astronomers that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other galaxies out there, hiding in plain sight. We just might not have discovered them yet, as they may be too faint to glimpse through the current technological hardware that brings James Webb and modern telescopes to life.

The James Webb has continued to capture marvels within our universe, giving us more depth to the early universe, and helping us better understand the way that stars form and how the universe evolved over the past several billion years. A new paper on the cosmic ghost has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

In November, WhatsApp was testing a feature that would allow users to send photos and videos as documents, essentially preserving the content’s original quality.

At the time, the feature was available to a very limited number of users, and on Android only.

Now, as shared by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp has released ‘update 23.24.73’ for iOS on the App Store, and the feature is rolling out to everyone with the latest update.

Once updated, you can use the feature by going into a chat > share > ‘Document’ > ‘Choose Photo or Video.’

According to the publication, the feature is rolling out now, and users that don’t see the feature yet should have it “over the coming weeks.”

In other WhatsApp-related news, the platform rolled out group voice chats, which lets users start group calls silently, without ringing everyone in the group.

Image credit: WABetaInfo

Source: WABetaInfo

Philips Hue launched a new version of its smart Christmas lights earlier this fall deemed the Festavia string lights. Smart home owners have been waiting for festive lights you can control with your voice for ages. Now after using them for the past few months, it’s safe to say that Philips Hue has delivered just the solution – if you’re willing to shell out enough frankincense, myrrh, and gold.

Philips Hue’s strategy around decking the halls with festive lighting has been in the works for years at this point. Back in 2022, the company first launched the Festavia series only to have them sell out months before December even arrived. Consider it a trial run, if you will. But now for 2023, the company is back with an actual rollout.

Right when Philips Hue revealed its new Festavia smart Christmas lights, I had to score a set. I opted to pick up a set of the 65-foot lights which include 250 of the color-changing bulbs and quickly strung them up around my apartment. Not to spoil too much from the rest of this story, but I fell in love with them instantly. So much so that I went out and bought a second set of them now that there’s a Christmas tree right in the center of my living room.

So now that I’ve used them for two different use cases, I have a lot of thoughts so share about the whole experience. And it really is a costly one. There’s no getting around that the Philips Hue smart Christmas lights are on the more premium side, making one of the more expensive smart home brands even more so. The set that I picked up sells for $220 regularly, meaning I dropped almost $450 on Christmas lights.

Do I regret it? That’s a bit more complicated than just answering yes or no, so indulge me a little.

I’ve been waiting years for the ability to buy a string of Christmas lights, plug them in, and then begin barking orders at Siri to turn them not just on or off, but also have my digital helper change the colors. I’ve tried every trick in the book up until now to convert your standard pair of lights over to the smart side, and now that it’s all said and done I am so happy to have a pair that I don’t have to fuss with.

And before I get too far ahead of myself, the new Festavia lights arrive in two different lengths with different lighting zones for each. Like I said already, I brought home the 65-foot strand, but there’s also the 130-foot option with 500 LED bulbs. Each one is weather-resistant for outdoor use, and comes with either five or ten lighting zones depending on the length.

Right out of the box, these are like any other release from Philips Hue. The lights get plugged in with their weather-resistant power supply and then can be paired with your existing Philips Hue bridge. Mine were set up in just a minute or so, with the act of actually stringing them around the Christmas tree being the far more time consuming part.

And now after using them for awhile, I really am sold. I adore the smart home control, with the multi-colored features really being the one aspect that sell these for me. Having five different lighting zones to tailor the lights to look however I like is exactly the reason I wanted to splurge on a more premium lighting option this year, and Philips Hue is delivering. HomeKit support may not be the best for this feature, but I am reminded just how good the Hue app is.

By far the biggest issue with the Philips Hue Christmas lights is that I wish they were just a little smarter. The main offender of this is that I don’t think there are enough animated lighting effects available in the app. I really wish that Philips Hue took the time to launch a new effect for these – something multicolored and Christmas-y would have gone a long way. The ones that are included right now are very solid, but they just lack the festivity I would have loved to see – especially at $220 a pop.

I do appreciate that Philips Hue launched a few new lighting effects just a few months back, and so there’s a lot more ways to take advantage of the five different lighting zones with animated scenes. But if there’s one thing that the company could do, it would be offering the ability to make your own animated effects like tons of other companies let you do.

9to5Toys’ Take

So back to that question of are the Philips Hue Festavia lights worth it? I’d say so. I’ve had both strands set up for about a week now and maybe it is the Christmas spirit in me hijacking the keyboard, but the novelty of having all of these smart features is certainly not lost on me. I did also have the first pair installed for about 2 months, and so the answer was pretty much locked in the second I went to go buy a second strand of these smart Christmas lights.

But I don’t think everyone should buy these. Only more hardcore smart home owners like myself are going to love these like I do. People who will relish all of the customization and lighting effects are going to find these to be the solution that many of us have been waiting for. And at the time of writing, you can take 15% off both strands of Festavia lights, helping you bring home a little smart festivity for less.

If you’re on the fence, it’s just a good idea to go grab a smart plug and upgrade your existing Christmas lights. The Philips Hue Smart Plug is an easy recommendation because we’re talking about the ecosystem. But if you want just a standalone option, the meross Matter Smart Plug will work with pretty much every smart home system, voice assistant, and smart home out there for only $16.

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Microsoft has released a patch to deal with Copilot’s broken multi-monitor support and reminded users that if they want to keep chatting with the Gen AI preview, they’ll need to ditch their local account in favor of something from Microsoft.

As if to underline the preview nature of Microsoft’s Copilot for Windows release, the generative AI helper that turned up in Windows 11 didn’t work for users with multi-monitor setups. The issue was sufficiently bad that Microsoft slapped on a compatibility hold until the fix could make its way from the Windows Insider program to the PCs of regular users.

The result is KB5032288, which landed in preview form this week. The patch for Windows 22H2 and Windows 23H2 – be warned, Microsoft will pull optional, non-security preview releases for Windows 11 22H2 from February 27, 2024 – allows the preview to be used over multiple displays. Click the Copilot button on the taskbar of the display where you want the assistant to appear, and the son-of-Clippy will show up.

Microsoft has also added Alt+Tab support for the Copilot in Windows preview. However, as with many things Copilot-related, the company warned: “This is available to a small audience initially and deploys more broadly in the months that follow.”

This is assuming those users have a Microsoft account. In the release notes for the patch, Microsoft said users can only ask Copilot in Windows for help 10 times if using a local account. After that, it’s verified accounts all the way. Unsurprisingly, these include a Microsoft Account and Azure Active Directory – or what will become Microsoft Entra ID before long.

The Register asked Microsoft how it came up with a limit of 10 questions. It sounds more like something a Dungeon Master might decide upon when reanimating the dead, so perhaps Cortana is still lurking behind the scenes somewhere. We will update if the company responds.

In the meantime, the requirement for a Microsoft account, and particularly one that is verified, is a pointer to where Copilot is headed in the enterprise Windows world.

As well as Copilot, the update addresses issues in File Explorer and – for a real blast from the past – problems that can cause Internet Explorer mode tabs to stop responding. ®