1-Day Woot Sale Knocks Up to $1,198 Off Samsung's The Frame 4K TVs
1-Day Woot Sale Knocks Up to $1,198 Off Samsung's The Frame 4K TVs
Samsung's "The Frame" looks like no other TV on the market right now. That's because it's as much a piece of decor as it is a screen for watching shows and movies. And right now, Woot has a rare opportunity to snag one of the latest 2022 models at a discount. Today only, Woot is offering up to 28% off The Frame TVs, with sizes ranging from 43 inches up to 85 inches. These deals are only available until 9:59 p.m. PT (12:59 a.m. ET) tonight, or while supplies last, so be sure to get your order in before then.
The Frame is more than just a TV. It's also a sleek piece of digital artwork designed to mesh seamlessly with the rest of your home. It's ultrathin at just 1 inch thick, and it features interchangeable magnetic bezels that come in a range of colors and materials, so you can find one that fits your home's style. And just because it's also a display piece, that doesn't mean Samsung skimped on the hardware. It's equipped with a 4K QLED screen, boasts support for HDR10 Plus and has a refresh rate of 120Hz for a crisp, rich picture.
It also has an anti-glare matte display, a new addition for the 2022 model, that almost entirely eliminates light reflection so you can see the screen clearly -- day or night. When it's not in use, you can also set The Frame to art mode, where it functions as a digital picture frame. You can upload your own photos, or choose from over 1,400 pieces with a $6 monthly subscription to Samsung's Art Store.
Best Cheap TV Deals: Save Up to $172 on TVs From TCL, Vizio, Toshiba and More
Best Cheap TV Deals: Save Up to $172 on TVs From TCL, Vizio, Toshiba and More
This story is part of Amazon Prime Day, CNET's guide to everything you need to know and how to find the best deals.
There's a huge market for TVs at the moment, including plenty of pricey models with high-end features like 8K resolution and OLED panels. But not everyone is looking to spend big money on the latest, greatest and biggest. Oftentimes, all you're looking for is a decent picture, user-friendly interface and consistent performance. There are plenty of these models floating around out there as well, and with a little digging, you'll have no trouble finding one at a great price.
To help you get the absolute most bang for your buck, we've rounded up some of the best bargains available on some of these more affordable models below. We haven't tested all of these TVs ourselves, but based on their specs and what we know about these brands, we're comfortable recommending them at these prices. We'll continue to update this page as deals come and go, so check back often to make sure you're getting the best price available.
Insignia
This 4K UHD Insignia might not have made it onto our list of the best TVs for this year, but it still boasts impressive specs that make it a highly competitive model and a solid deal. It runs Amazon's Fire TV OS, so you can instantly access all your favorite streaming content, and it also supports Apple Airplay (though not Chromecast). It's equipped with an HDMI eARC port so it's easy to run the audio through a soundbar or surround sound system, and the Alexa voice remote allows for easy hands-free browsing.
Vizio
Vizio's V-Series made its way onto our best TVs list as a runner-up budget option because it comes with Chromecast and Apple AirPlay built in, which plenty of other smart TVs do not. These allow you to stream, or even mirror, content from your phone or computer. It also boasts 4K UHD picture, and an IQ active processor that enhances the quality of any non-4K content. We liked the picture quality of the TCL above more, but the convenience of this model is tough to beat. Just note that Target won't ship this TV, so you'll have to pick it up in person if you want to take advantage of this deal.
TCL
The TCL 3-Series is featured on our best TVs under $500 list as our favorite ultracheap option. At less than $200, this is the only TV on our list that doesn't support a 4K picture, though at this size that's hardly necessary. It does, however, come with Roku built in, so you can still stream all your favorite shows and movies. With 1080p resolution and three HDMI ports, this is a no-frills smart TV that gets you exactly what you pay for.
TCL
This 65-inch TCL offers the same image quality of the 4-Series above, but with a much larger screen. It's the same stunning 4K display with direct lit backlighting, but this one features a Google OS, rather than Roku. That means that it comes with Chromecast capabilities built-in, as well as voice control through the Google Assistant remote.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snaps spooky image of a dying star
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snaps spooky image of a dying star
The Hubble Space Telescope is sending some seriously spooky Halloween vibes out into the universe with an eerie image of dying star CW Leonis. The star looks like a cosmic cobweb, though there's a very grounded science explanation for its appearance. In keeping with the season, NASA likened the star to a hypnotizing vortex, a peek into a witch's cauldron and a giant space-spider web.
CW Leonis is what's known as a "carbon star." "The orange-red 'cobwebs' are dusty clouds of sooty carbon engulfing the dying star," the European Space Agency said in a statement on Thursday. "They were created from the outer layers of CW Leonis being thrown out into the inky black void." Hubble is a joint project of NASA and ESA.
CW Leonis is located about 400 light-years from Earth, making it our closest carbon star. Hubble has witnessed changes in the material around the star as seen in an animated view of telescope observations between 2001 and 2016.
The cause of the carbon star's shifts in brightness over a relatively short span of time is still under investigation. "Astronomers speculate that gaps in the dust shrouding CW Leonis may allow beams of starlight to pierce through and illuminate dust, like searchlight beacons through a cloudy sky," ESA said.
Hubble's vision is a perfect companion for a Spitzer Space Telescope view of a Godzilla-like nebula that also came out this week. These celestial visual treats are a delightful way to mark Halloween.
Nvidia's $2,500 Titan RTX is its most powerful prosumer GPU yet
Nvidia's $2,500 Titan RTX is its most powerful prosumer GPU yet
Nvidia's Titan cards have always walked a fine line between the gamer-oriented GeForce and the professionally targeted Quadro. They're basically Quadro-power cards with GeForce-capability drivers. That historically plops them into the really, really expensive gaming GPU category or on the lists of video professionals who demand speed and value more than certification.
The new $2,499 Titan RTX, a Turing-architecture-based card that Nvidia announced Monday, adds even more of that power to the mix. It should still appeal to gamers, especially those who want to play Metro Exodus in 8K when it arrives in 2019. But the architecture's optimized ray-tracing and AI-acceleration cores also make it an option for more dataset-focused research, AI and machine-learning development and real-time 3D professional work that doesn't require workstation-class drivers.
The distinction between the GeForce and Quadro cards is waning over time as applications drift away from OpenGL. Adobe's video applications such as Premiere and After Effects, for example, use the CUDA cores directly for acceleration. But Photoshop is still the elephant in that room. You can still only get 30-bit color support (10 bits per channel) with the workstation drivers, which are restricted to Quadro cards.
It's hard to make direct comparisons solely based on specs, in part because Nvidia is inconsistent about the specs it provides at launch. You usually have to wait a little bit until people dig in and ferret them out.
Most of the specs Nvidia's provided for the $6,300 Quadro RTX 6000 and the $2,499 Titan RTX are almost identical -- the Quadro does have a faster base GPU clock speed and four DisplayPort connectors vs. the Titan's three. So I can't wait to find out what magic the Quadro performs that merits an almost $4,000 premium. Given that neither GPu is shipping yet (the Quadro's in preorder and the Titan is slated for the end of November), we'll have to wait and see.
On the flipside, the less-endowed Quadro RTX 5000 only costs $200 less than the Titan RTX, so you give up quite a bit of power in exchange for those workstation certifications.
As a gaming card, it looks like it'll fit right into its traditional slot as a power bump up from the highest-end GeForce. But unless it delivers a bigger performance gap than the previous generation's GTX 1080 Ti/Titan Xp, it will be doubly not worth it at twice the price of the RTX 2080 Ti. Or it will be, at least, until more games ship which take advantage of its ray-tracing processors.
Comparative specifications
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (Founders Edition)
Quadro RTX 5000
Quadro RTX 6000
Titan RTX
Titan Xp
GPU
TU102
TU104
TU102
TU102
GP102
Memory
11GB GDDR6
16GB GDDR6
24GB GDDR6
24GB GDDR6
12GB GDDR5X
Memory bandwidth
616GB/sec
448GB/sec
672GB/sec
672GB/sec
547.7GB/sec
GPU clock Speed (MHz, base/boost)
1,350/1,635
1,620/1,815
1,440/1,770
1,350M/1,770
1,405/1,582
Memory data rate/Interface
n/a/352 bit
n/a/256 bit
n/a/384 bit
14Gbps/384 bit
11.4Gbps/384 bit
Texture fill rate (gigatexels per second)
420.2
348.5
509.8
510
379.7
Ray Tracing (Gigarays per second)
10
8
10
11
n/a
RT cores
68
48
72
72
n/a
RTX-OPS (trillions)
78
62
84
n/a
n/a
CUDA Cores
4,352
3,072
4,608
4,608
3,840
Tensor Cores
544
384
576
576
n/a
FP32 (TFLOPS, max)
14
11.2
16.3
n/a
12.1
Price
$1,200
$2,300
$6,300
$2,500
$1,200
Correction, 12:55 p.m. PT: An earlier headline on this story had the incorrect price for the Nvidia Titan RTX. It costs $2,500.
Fastest gaming laptops, ranked: All the most-powerful gaming laptops tested in the CNET Labs.
Computers for the creative class: The very best new laptops, tablets and desktops for creatives.
The good ol' 802.11 standard we commonly call Wi-Fi gets updated every several years with new features and faster speeds. The latest iteration (802.11ax) arrived in 2019, marking the sixth major generational update, and the Wi-Fi industry dubbed it Wi-Fi 6 to make things less complicated and easier to identify for customers.
Since then, Wi-Fi 6 has established itself as the de facto standard for next-gen gadgets. Just about every new phone and computer release supports it, and we're starting to see support pop up among peripheral devices, too. Did you pick up an Apple TV 4K or Amazon Fire TV 4K Max media streamer last Black Friday? Both of those support Wi-Fi 6. Have you managed to score a new PlayStation 5 console yet? That's a Wi-Fi 6 gadget, too.
Wi-Fi 6 devices like those are backwards compatible with older routers, but if you want to unlock their full potential, then you'll need a Wi-Fi 6 router running your home network. That was an expensive proposition back when Wi-Fi 6 first arrived, but not any more. Shop around, and you'll find a number of options available for less than $100, as well as mesh systems, gaming routers, range extenders and more. Some do the job better than others -- but that's where we come in, with comprehensive, hands-on tests to help identify the best upgrade picks for the money.
Expect regular updates to this post as we continue to put Wi-Fi 6 to the test in 2022. Whenever we find a new router that merits consideration, we'll add it to the list. For now, here are the models I'd recommend for anyone making the purchase in August 2022.
Ry Crist/CNET
When a router supports Wi-Fi 6, that means that it's capable of using new features like OFDMA and 1024-QAM to deliver faster speeds and lower latency to busy networks with lots of connected devices. That's true even with the budget-priced value picks -- and among those, the one that performs the best is the TP-Link Archer AX21.
Currently priced at $100 and on sale for $70, the Archer AX21 did an outstanding job in my at-home speed tests. At the end of multiple days of tests across five spots in my house, the Archer AX21's average download speed on a 300Mbps fiber network was a near-perfect 299Mbps. That includes triple-digit download speeds in the very back of my house, a common dead zone where a lot of the routers I test struggle to stay connected at all. In 2022, I retested the AX21 after upgrading my home network to gigabit speeds -- it isn't powerful enough to top out a connection like that, but it still delivered fast, consistent speeds, with my downloads averaging in at 441Mbps.
That level of performance was strong enough for the Archer AX21 to beat out similar models from Netgear, Asus and D-Link, and it even kept the pace with fancier routers that cost significantly more. It's also a cinch to set up, thanks to TP-Link's Tether app for Android and iOS, which also offers quick access to basic network settings without bombarding you with ads like some other router apps will.
All of that makes the Archer AX21 an extremely worthy pick for small- to medium-size homes, and one of the best value picks you'll find that supports Wi-Fi 6.
Read our TP-Link Archer AX21 review.
Ry Crist/CNET
2021 was a very good year for TP-Link, and it wasn't just because of the Archer AX21. There's also the TP-Link Deco W7200, which cruised through my speed tests to earn a spot as my top-rated mesh router of the year. With multiple devices working like a team of routers to spread a faster, more reliable signal across a larger area than a single router can, it's a fantastic pick for large homes -- and one that won't set you back very much at just $233 for a two-pack.
What's great about the Deco W7200, along with its full support for Wi-Fi 6, is that it's a tri-band model with the usual 2.4 and 5GHz bands plus an additional 5GHz band that the system uses as a dedicated wireless backhaul connection between the main router and its satellites. That dedicated backhaul is the key to unlocking the best mesh performance, because it keeps those system transmissions separate from your regular network traffic. Tri-band mesh routers like those will often cost you $400 or more, but the Deco W7200 gets you there for hundreds less.
Sure enough, the performance was outstanding when I tested the system out. In fact, of all of the mesh routers that I've tested at home, only two averaged faster download speeds -- the first costs more than $200 more than the Deco W7200, and the other costs more than three times as much. That makes the Deco W7200 a flat-out unbeatable value, and a better, more noticeable upgrade for most homes than splurging on a high-powered standard router.
The only real downside? So far in 2022, it's been a bit of a challenge to catch the Walmart exclusive in stock. If you're struggling to find it, keep reading for other suggestions, or check out the TP-Link Deco X90, a slightly higher-end model that performed even better than the W7200 in my tests. It's a bit more expensive, but Amazon currently has it marked down to $400.
Read our TP-Link Deco W7200 review.
Ry Crist/CNET
Asus is one of the top names in the gaming router category, boasting the best variety of fast, flashy routers that promise elite performance, low latency, and advanced controls for your connection. The Asus RT-AX86U is actually one of the more understated routers in that mix -- it doesn't include color-changing lights or an oversize, ostentatious design -- but it's still one of the best gaming routers you can buy. Gaming aside, it's one of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers you can buy, period.
Along with offering fast, consistent speeds, the RT-AX86U did a better job at managing latency than any other router I tested it against, and it comes with a full suite of tools for optimizing your connection while gaming, including an adaptive quality-of-service engine and an Open NAT database of game- and platform-specific port forwarding rules. There's even a Mobile Game Mode designed to instantly prioritize traffic to your phone.
In other words, the RT-AX86U checks all of the boxes you'd want from a gaming router (except the color-changing lights, I guess -- though you can get it Zaku-styled if you're willing to spend a little more). Most importantly, it makes strong enough use of Wi-Fi 6 to ensure that even the non-gamers in your household will appreciate having it around.
At around $250 or less, it's definitely an upgrade pick, but a reasonable one that's still less expensive than a lot of gaming routers (and, as of writing this at the start of June, it's marked down to $200 on Amazon). And, if you're thinking about upgrading to a new multi-gig internet plan from AT&T, Frontier, Xfinity, Verizon, Ziply Fiber or another provider offering plans like those, you can get an upgraded RT-AX86U equipped with a multi-gig Ethernet jack supporting incoming wired speeds of up to 2.5Gbps for $250.
Read our Asus RT-AX86U review.
Ry Crist/CNET
Remember how I mentioned that the TP-Link Deco W7200 outperformed every other mesh router I've ever tested except for one? Well, here's the one that beat it -- the AX6000 version of the Netgear Orbi mesh system.
With that all-important tri-band design and full support for Wi-Fi 6, the AX6000 Orbi blew us away with excellent signal strength and downright impressive top speeds when we first tested it out a year or two ago. Those speeds have held up ever since -- whether we're clocking top speeds in our lab or testing real-world speeds at home, literally nothing else I've tested performs as well. On top of that, the AX6000 Orbi deserves credit for being one of the first mesh routers to offer a multigig WAN port and breaking the bottleneck that capped incoming wired speeds at just a single gig.
Performance like that usually comes at a premium, and sure enough, the AX6000 Orbi costs $700 for a two-pack. Like a Mercedes Benz for the mesh category, it's more machine than most people need, but there's nothing wrong with coveting one -- or waiting for the rare sale. If it were my money, I'd rather go with that Deco W7200 system and spend the hundreds I'd save on something else, but if you just want the best mesh router performance that we've seen in our tests, full stop, money be damned, here it is.
Read our Netgear Orbi AX6000 review.
Ry Crist/CNET
Going with a mesh router makes a ton of sense if you live in a large, multi-story home with a lot of space to cover. In cases like that, it's worth it to prioritize getting a system with more than two devices in the mesh -- and Amazon's Eero 6 Plus gets you there for $299, complete with full support for Wi-Fi 6.
The Eero 6 Plus takes the Eero 6 that preceded it and beefs things up with a faster AX3000 build and new support for full-width 160MHz channels, up from 80MHz. Those wider channels allow the system to move data twice as efficiently to compatible devices, and they made a huge difference in my performance tests, where the 6 Plus finished as a top ten finisher among the thirty or so mesh routers I've tested at home. None of the routers that beat its average download speeds can beat its value, and that makes the Eero 6 Plus an excellent pick.
Read our Eero 6 Plus review.
Ry Crist/CNET
It was a bit too pricey for me to recommend when it launched at $380 for a two-piece setup, but I've seen the Asus ZenWifi XD6 marked down to $300 at multiple outlets in recent weeks, which makes it a much better value -- and right now, Amazon and other outlets are offering it for even less, at $260 for a 2-pack.
For the money, you're getting a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 mesh router that performed more like a fancier tri-band model in our tests, and one that was fully capable of optimizing our speeds throughout the entirety of the 5,400-square-foot CNET Smart Home. In fact, I'd go so far as to call it the most capable dual-band mesh router I've ever tested.
As of writing this, multiple retailers (including Amazon and B&H Photo) have the XD6 on sale for $260, which is a great deal. If that price jumps up above $300 again, feel free to skip it. But this is a solid mesh router with one of the more comprehensive control apps available from a major manufacturer, making it a good pick for intermediate and advanced users who want to fine-tune their home network experience.
Read our Asus ZenWifi XD6 review.
Wi-Fi 6 router FAQs
If you've got questions about the ins and outs of Wi-Fi 6, be sure to check out my full explainer on the standard and what makes it better than the Wi-Fi of yore. You can also reach me by looking me up on Twitter (@rycrist) or by clicking the little envelope icon on my CNET profile page to send a message straight to my inbox. In the meantime, I'll post answers to any commonly asked questions below.
What makes Wi-Fi 6 better than before?
Wi-Fi 6 includes support for new Wi-Fi features that help devices pass data back and forth faster and more efficiently. One of the key upgrades is 1024-QAM, which stands for quadrature amplitude modulation, or the trick your router uses to send radio waves that other devices can read as a series of ones and zeroes -- the binary code that makes up everything you see, read and experience online. 1024-QAM allows your router to send out 10 digits of binary code with each transmission, compared to eight digits of binary from Wi-Fi 5 routers that use 256-QAM. That's one of the key reasons why Wi-Fi 6 offers top speeds that are roughly 30% faster than before.
Other features of note include OFDMA, or orthogonal frequency division multiple access, which improves network efficiency by allowing your router to send data to multiple clients within a single channel at once. Think of that like a pizza delivery driver dropping off multiple pizzas to multiple customers in one trip to save gas. There's also Target Wake Time, which lets the router schedule devices that need to periodically check in so that they don't cause interference with one another. And, though it isn't specifically tied to Wi-Fi 6, most next-gen routers will support WPA3, the latest standard for Wi-Fi security.
Will older devices still work with a Wi-Fi 6 router?
Yes -- Wi-Fi 6 is fully backward compatible, so earlier-gen Wi-Fi devices will still be able to connect to them and get online. They just won't be able to take advantage of the new Wi-Fi 6 features that speed things up for current-gen devices.
What's Wordle? Surely by now you're at least vaguely aware of the viral word game taking over our planet. But in case you want some info on its origins, here's everything you need to know.
What is Wordle?
Wordle is a daily word game you can find online here. It's fun, simple and, like a crossword, can only be played once a day. Every 24 hours there's a new word of the day, and it's up to you to figure out what it is. The site itself does a fantastic job of explaining the rules:
This game is so good.
Wordle
Wordle gives players six chances to guess a randomly selected five-letter word. As shown above, if you have the right letter in the right spot, it shows up green. A correct letter in the wrong spot shows up yellow. A letter that isn't in the word in any spot shows up gray.
You can enter a total of six words, meaning you can enter five burner words from which you can learn hints about the letters and their placements. Then you get one chance to put those hints to use. Or you can try for performance and guess the word of the day in three, two or even one go.
Simple stuff, but also incredibly compelling.
So it's a word game? Big deal...
Yeah, it's just a word game. But it's super popular: Over 300,000 people play it daily, according to The New York Times. That popularity may sound perplexing, but there are a few tiny details that have resulted in everyone going absolutely bonkers for it.
There's only one puzzle per day: This creates a certain level of stakes. You only get one shot at the Wordle. If you mess up, you have to wait until tomorrow to get a brand new puzzle.
Everyone is playing the exact same puzzle: This is crucial, as it makes it easier to ping your buddy and chat about the day's puzzle. "Today's was tough!" "How did you get on?" "Did you get it?" Which takes us to the next point...
It's easy to share your results: Once you've successfully or unsuccessfully done the puzzle for the day, you're invited to share your Wordle journey for the day. If you tweet the image, it looks like this...
Note that the word and letters you chose are obscured. All that's shown is your journey toward the word in a series of yellow, green and gray boxes.
It's very compelling. If you get it easily, maybe in the second or third try, there's a gloating element whereby you must show your followers how smart you are and share.
If you get it by the skin of your teeth in the sixth go, that's also a cool story. But most importantly, the puzzle itself isn't spoiled.
So Wordle isn't just a word game, it's a conversation starter and a chance to show off on social media. That's why it's going viral.
Tips and tricks
If you're a word game purist, you may want to avoid the following tips and rely entirely on your own instincts. For everyone else who's sick of seeing gray boxes, here are some tips that you may find helpful.
Choosing your first word: The first word is arguably the most important. To maximize the value of your opening gambit, choose a word with three vowels and five different letters. Some examples: orate, media, radio. I always use "adieu" for some reason. It's a habit and I'm refusing to break it.
I just finished reading a fascinating piece by Tyler Glaiel, a programmer and game designer who tried to figure out the best possible starting word. Apparently we should all be kicking off Wordle with the word "roate." Honestly, read this whole article, it's great.
Avoid reusinggrays: There's a keyboard at the bottom of the Wordle board that shows what letters are green, yellow and gray. Avoid reusing letters that have come up gray. Yes, this sounds obvious. But it can take time and effort to think of five-letter words that don't use letters you've already tried. That effort will pay off.
Letters can appear twice: This complicates matters, especially when you're running out of letters to try on word four or five. But letters often recur, as with words like chill, sissy and ferry having been the correct answers in the past.
Who made Wordle?
Wordle is the work of software engineer Josh Wardle, who originally created the game for his partner, a fan of word games, and tells the BBC it will never become laden with ads. Extremely online people may remember Wardle as the creator of Place, an utterly wild collaborative art project/social experiment that sent the internet into a tizzy in April 2017.
Place was a shared online space that allowed literally anyone to fight over what was drawn there. It resulted in huge, sprawling communities battling over space on this gigantic online canvas.
It ultimately ended up looking like this:
Remember Place? That was a wild time.
Reddit
Wordle got a mention in The New York Times in November, but really got traction when the share element got added.
In a Reddit post, Wardle said he wanted Wordle to feel like a croissant, a "delightful snack" that's enjoyed occasionally. This is explicitly why there's only one puzzle per day. "Enjoyed too often," he explained, "and they lose their charm," Wardle says.
Agreed.
New York Times acquisition
At the end of January, creator Josh Wardle sold Wordle to the New York Times for a figure "in the low seven figures."
Wardle noted that his "game has gotten bigger than I ever imagined" and added he's "just one person."
The game will ultimately become part of New York Times subscription puzzle service, but Wardle made sure that Wordle would remain free-to-play and that current streaks would be preserved in the move.
"It is important to me that, as Wordle grows, it continues to provide a great experience to everyone," Wardle said. "Given this, I am incredibly pleased to announce that I've reached an agreement with The New York Times for them to take over running Wordle going forward."
Wordle hasn't gotten harder since joining the New York Times
It just hasn't! Come on folks!
According to The New York Times: "Nothing has changed about the game play," the Times' communications director, Jordan Cohen, said to CNET in an email.
If you check out the game's script you can see that the New York Times hasn't made any significant changes to the game.
Wordle clones...
Since the success of Wordle, there's been clones. Lots of clones. Some have been cynical cash grabs, but a huge amount of them are unique, interesting alternatives.
Worldle invites you to guess countries based on their outline.
Squabble is a multiplayer, Battle Royale version of Wordle.
Dordle forces you to solve two Wordles at once.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's a fairly comprehensive list of word games you can check out if you get tired of the original.
Google Maps Is Adding a 3D 'Immersive View' That's Like Flying a Drone From Afar
Google Maps Is Adding a 3D 'Immersive View' That's Like Flying a Drone From Afar
At the Google I/O 2022 keynote, CEO Sundar Pichai debuted a new feature coming to Google Maps that gives users a drone-level aerial view of cities, offering a helpful middle ground between satellite and street views.
Immersive View, as the new mode is called, uses "billions of photos" to model buildings and trees in 3D using machine learning. The new view lets users understand a city's topography, rotate their perspective to look between buildings, and see traffic and weather conditions at different times of day.
Immersive View also gives 3D looks into nearby restaurants, allowing users to scan around and rotate their view to get a get a better look at the layout, which may be important for those still cautious about eating indoors.
Immersive View is created from neural rendering based on photos alone and is streamed from Google Cloud, so it will run on any smartphone or device. The new view will start rolling out in Google Maps for Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo later this year with more cities added soon, per an official blog post.
