If you live somewhere with a lot of air pollution, or you just like to prepare for a dystopia where you have to close your ears and mouth to the outside world, the Dyson Zone might be for you. The device, which combines headphones with a facial purifier, isn’t on sale yet, but the company has announced how much the Zone will cost when it hits shelves. Soon this Daft Punk ball gag can be yours only $950.
Better known as a vacuum cleaner brand than a maker of fashion accessories, Dyson has put a lot of time and effort into this portable face gripper. While it may seem like a concept inspired by the pandemic, the Zone has in fact been more than six years in the making. Dyson has made it clear that this does not mean this is a Covid protection device. So what’s the point, you may ask? The Zone is specifically designed to filter out air pollution, not viruses, and is aimed at people living in cities or countries where rampant air pollution is virtually unavoidable.
Masks may be more fashionable in Western countries now than they were before the pandemic, but the Zone will likely still be seen as an outlier. Whether it’s Dyson or someone else technical heavy mask maker – can convince the public to adopt their wearables is unlikely. Especially considering the exorbitant price tag and the fact that it seems like everyone just returned to coughing in public with their mouth open.
Here are some more developments in the world of consumer technology.
Put Google Chrome on a diet
The most commonly used internet browser is a huge resource hog. However, soon Google Chrome will get an update with some new modes which allows you to streamline how much power and RAM it sucks up.
Google is rolling out two separate resource-saving modes: Memory Saver and Energy Saver. The first will reduce memory usage in all those tabs you have open but haven’t clicked in a while. This way, background tabs won’t passively eat up memory while you focus completely on something else. (Although you probably still need to clean up your tabs.)
The Energy Saver mode goes one step further. When it detects that your computer’s battery has dropped below 20 percent, it deactivates background tabs and also pauses visual effects and video on web pages you’re on.
Game (possibly) over
In January of this year, Microsoft announced it was buying giant in the video game industry Activision Blizzard. It was a huge deal that would put Microsoft in control of powerful franchises like Duty, World of Warcraft, Overexpectedand Diablo. Now the US Federal Trade Commission is trying to prevent that deal from going through.
The FTC is suing Microsoft to stop it $69 billion purchase, citing antitrust concerns about consolidating so many gaming brands under one company. Microsoft has had a game studio buying kick in recent years, acquire Skyrim and Fallout developer Bethesda in 2020.
