Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has brought its budget-friendly sensibilities to the action camera world, and the result is enough to make even the most ardent GoPro owner stop in their tracks. Xiaomi's Yi Action Camera is a compact action-travel camera made for the non-sedentary photographer.

Like the entry-level GoPro Hero , the Yi Action Camera comes with comparatively powerful photo and video capabilities, despite its diminutive size. The new Chinese camera is priced at 399 RMB (about $65, AU$85 or £40) -- half the GoPro Hero's retail price of $130.

Despite the big price gap, the Yi actually meets the GoPro Hero's specs head-on -- at least on paper.

Both cameras share a few features in common, such as built-in Wi-Fi for file transfers and remote control via companion apps. The two cameras also have similar battery capacity, identical waterproof depth, and the handy option of bracket-mounting the device on your chosen helmet, pet harness, or vehicle.

However, the Yi pulls ahead in video quality. The GoPro Hero shoots at a 5-megapixel resolution and records 1080p video at 30fps or 720p video at 30fps. The Yi Action Camera is powered by an Ambarella A7LS image processor paired with Sony's back-illuminated Exmor R BSI CMOS image sensor, which enables it to shoot photos at 16 megapixels and record 1080p video at 60fps, outclassing the GoPro ever so slightly. The Yi Action Camera is also significantly lighter -- 72g, versus the 111g GoPro Hero.

The GoPro Hero does have a wider viewing angle -- 170 degrees against the Yi Action Camera's 155 degrees, and GoPro's brand ubiquity comes along with a host of accessories and transparent plastic camera housing, which the Yi Action Camera lacks. The Chinese action camera does come with a 499 RMB ($80, AU$105 or £55) option, which bundles only a proprietary selfie stick, along with a choice of white- or olive-coloured camera body.

What dampens some of the excitement for the Yi Action Camera is the notoriously limited availability of Xiaomi's products. The Yi Action Camera is currently available only in the Chinese market and subject to Xiaomi's flash sales through its online Mi store.

Podcasts are now available to stream directly from the Spaces tab on Twitter, the social media giant said in a blog post Thursday. Starting today, you can head over to your Spaces tab, which is essentially Twitter's answer to audio-chat app Clubhouse, and listen to popular podcasts from around the world.

From the podcasts hub in the Spaces tab, you'll find automatically suggested podcasts based on your Twitter activity. For instance, if you regularly interact with content from a particular publication, you'll likely see podcasts from that publication, Twitter said. You can also give a podcast a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to further customize which podcasts Twitter suggests.  

"Starting today, the reimagined Spaces Tab, including the addition of podcasts, will be visible to a group of global English-speaking audience on iOS and Android," Twitter said.

Hey! You. Yes you! Are you ready to laugh? Are you ready to slap your thighs and guffaw as the brands you know (and love) interact with you on their blue-tick-verified official channels?

Are you ready for photoshops, slickly produced parody videos, banter on the twittertubes and wholesome "laffs" with the tech giants eroding your personal privacy for a quick buck?

Are you ready to be overcome by how relatable corporate entities can be? They're just like regular people and certainly aren't just faceless brands fighting for your eyeballs on the social media battlegrounds.

Hello, it's April Fools' and I don't think it's a stretch to say that, in a universe where outlandish garbage occurs every single day, April Fools' should be cast into the sun to melt in agony for all eternity. In 2019, in this universe, April Fools' is no longer tenable and should be cancelled. With immediate effect.

This is the universe of alternative facts. A universe where we're so disconnected in our bubbles that reality is the mirage we collectively construct in our 100-page deep group chats. A universe where Russia's Internet Research Agency spends years sowing discord online by spreading and supporting anti-vaccination messaging on Facebook.

This is the universe where bots are influencing elections. A universe where a significant amount of the internet-dwelling populace struggles to distinguish between real news and #fakenews.

This is a world where the flat-Earth community is in the midst of a terrifying growth spurt.

Hurray for April Fools', right? Yeah... maybe let's skip this year.

I can't decide if the internet destroyed April Fools' or the internet destroyed my ability to enjoy April Fools'. Either way, thanks to the internet, April Fools' has become little more than a festival of forced fun cannibalized by brands desperately trying to humanize themselves on Twitter.

In 2019 April Fools' is your creepy uncle, five drinks deep, reading out the joke he found in a Christmas cracker, slapping you on the back. "IT'S JUSTA LAFF INNIT? NUFFINK WRONG WIV A BITTOVA LAFF."

Look at this little dude! What a laff! Sydney Trains, I will never complain about your shoddy service and constant delays ever again! Thanks fellas.

Look! Aha! Can you imagine? The Rock and Jason Momoa playing Rugby with the New Zealand All Blacks. Great stuff. Great Laffs. Laffs everywhere.

In the tech world, April Fools' usually involves a hilariously designed fake product. The joke: This crazy product solves a problem no one has!

Who would want a ridiculous product like this? Oh Logitech, you loveable goofs! Smart devices can't decipher actual bullshit. What a laff!

Good one, Roku! Streaming socks. Another great laff with the boyz!

The problem, in fact, is that real Silicon Valley inventions are utterly beyond parody and have been for years. We're at the vanishing point. We've lived through Juicero. We've got smart toilets analysing our poop. And Cryptocurrency? Don't get me started. We've got KodakCoin, we've got DogeCoin, we've got TrumpCoin. I could absolutely imagine seeing any of those three in a "hilarious" April Fools' press release, but incredibly these are real ideas that absolutely exist in the real world.

We're in The Bad Place, people. And in a world that's already terrible, over-branded and beyond parody, April Fools' is a step too far.

It's an anachronism. A joke out of time. Comedy evolves faster than every art form known to man and the fact we're still anticipating, dreading and actually participating in this outdated abomination is baffling at best.

Pranks between buddies? Sure. I'm not the fun police. Brands creating fake news in an attempt to signal boost existing products? Let's stick a fork in that one.

Oh, and did you hear about Google getting rid of Inbox? That perfectly minimalist app that seamlessly bundles all your important emails in one convenient place. They'd never get rid of that! GOOD ONE, GOOGLE. Great laffs!

Oh.

After a two-year hiatus, Westworld is back for a third season, and so far, the action takes place both in the park as well as outside in the real world. We get a glimpse of what our world might look like in the year 2058. Watching Dolores, Charlotte and Bernard navigate the future Los Angeles, London and China, I was struck by the thoughtful depiction of technology.

Shows and films often miss the mark when it comes to predicting the future -- (cough) Back To The Future II (cough) -- but Westworld takes a Minority Report-like approach and envisions the world populated with devices a generation or two from what we use now.

I've assembled a list of the most interesting gadgets from the first two episodes, and their real-world influences. If you're looking for more Westworld, check out our Westworld season 3, episode 1 recap and breakdown, our Westworld season 3 episode 2 recap where we talk about that Game of Thrones and Jurassic Park Easter egg or our review of the first four episodes of Westworld season 3.

Note: This story originally published on March 17. But we'll be updating this article throughout the third season of Westworld with more gadgets and technology.

Beware: Spoilers ahead. 

Bernard's sliding screen tablet

One of the iconic gadgets in the first two seasons of Westworld was the trifold tablet Bernard uses. This season, he gets an upgrade to a tablet that has a sliding display. For several years now, rollable screen TVs like LG's have been available to purchase. And earlier this year, the Chinese company introduced a phone with a sliding display that unfurls to give you more real estate. The screen flexes around the internals of the body to make it more pocketable. But when you want to go from a smartphone to something like an iPad Mini, you slide the right edge out. 

Smart pills, aka wafers

Three times in the first episode, characters digested a wafer with what looks like circuitry on it -- once by Jerry before bed, another time by Caleb's mom in a hospital bed and once by a character at a party. Electronics inside the human body aren't anything new, but a smart pill is. And leave it to Westworld to have a pill that looks like a Communion wafer, aka a symbol for the body of Christ.

The way Jerry uses the wafer along with an app on his tablet makes me think the wafer is transmitting some kind of experience or meditation into his head.

Incite cellular network carrier

We know Incite is a data company, but it's also a cell carrier. Several times in the first episode we see Caleb's phone showing "Incite" where a carrier's name would normally be. Perhaps one of the ways Incite collects data is by being a carrier. This isn't a crazy futuristic idea -- just over a year ago Motherboard discovered US carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint were selling customer location data.

During CES this year, several of us from CNET attended a keynote dinner for the fictional company, hosted by HBO. Obviously this was an elaborate marketing activation. But the CES dinner indicated there might be more to Incite than just data. Take a look at the video below to hear more about Incite, how the company compares with Delos, and my experience at this crazy dinner.

Rico app

Caleb uses a gig economy app to earn money committing crimes. In a behind-the-scenes featurette about episode 1, Jonathan Nolan, one of the show's creators, explains that the Rico app is built on blockchain, which the government can't track or trace, and which in the show prevents users from cheating each other. The app lets users specify the level of crime they're interested in. For example, throughout episode 1 we see Caleb decline to commit crimes like kidnapping or murder. The apps tagline is "make money, motherfuckers."  

The app provides turn-by-turn heist directions for Caleb and two random accomplices, played by Marshawn Lynch (with the coolest light-up mood shirt) and Lena Waithe. Rico becomes a new cinematic device for showing a heist. Instead of the formulaic approach where criminals meet, plot the heist and then execute it (with things going wrong), Rico lets the viewer discover the aspects of the heist as Caleb does (and it even has a bit of a western vibe). The backpack Caleb is asked to pick up on the subway has a giant X on it, marking the spot. He robs an ATM with two other gig accomplices.

By the way, like all good apps, Rico lets Caleb rate his accomplices after they finish stealing from the ATM.

Transparent holographic projection monitor

If there is one technology that's ambitious (as if making a robot so perfect that they pass as a human weren't enough) it's the transparent holographic projection screen. There are two strips of metal on a desk and when Bernard presses a button, a projected computer screen appears literally out of thin air. We've seen this in countless TV shows and movies like Iron Man where a screen is projected on air like a 3D holograph. Like the hover board in Back To The Future II, this seems like something we'd have in 38 years. The closest thing I've seen to the hologram screen is a Japanese virtual assistant that is essentially a 3D hologram of a virtual assistant in a tube named Hikari.

Marshawn Lynch's light-up mood shirt

One of my favorite things from the first episode is the shirt Marshawn Lynch's character wears. A series of words on the front describe moods like sad, scared, bored and angry. Whatever he feels, the word for that mood lights up white. Throughout most of the episode the word amused is lit.

Later, in a scene where he has to remove someone from a club, Lynch's character gets punched in the face and the word angry lights up. But when the character fights back the word amused lights back up.

Though there aren't any shirts that literally light up like this based on your feelings, there were mood rings in the '70s, and in the '90s Hypercolor shirts changed color depending on the wearer's body heat.

Implants in people

We don't actually see any implants during the show, but Francis asks Caleb if he'd consider getting his implant turned back on. The implant helps people smooth over the "rough edges." Caleb says, "Some people need it. But for me, I guess the rough edges are the only thing I'm hanging on to."

Implants could be used with the wafers. Fellow Westworld fan and CNET colleague Caitlin Petrakovitz suggests that the implant might be in a person's hard palate, and that when a wafer is inserted it takes them to another place. In the case of Jerry, it was a sunset. In the case of Caleb's mom it's the ocean in the ceiling above her bed.

If people have implants, that might help make sense of a badass but odd moment we saw in the Delos boardroom. At one point, interim CEO Charlotte Hale presses a mute button on the table, which cuts off the words coming out of another board member's mouth. It could be that this board member has an implant, and since Hale is in a position of higher power than he is, she's able to control him in this environment. Plus, if any workplace would decree that their employees have implants, it would be Delos.

Muting another person talking

As mentioned above, Hale mutes a person who's speaking. Whether or not the muted person has an implant, we see from the controls in the boardroom table that there's some sort of noise cancellation that can be used for each person's seat. Perhaps it works in tandem with an implant?

Obviously, noise cancellation has been used with headphones for years. Onboard mics take outside low frequencies and neutralize them before they reach your ear. It's kind of a reverse cone of silence from Get Smart.

Another theory could be that the other board members are holograms and she's simply muting their audio feed. I hope she actually has technology to mute someone live, because that's so much more badass.

Impossible abattoir

Bernard is working under an assumed name as a butcher in a meat plant where cow meat is grown synthetically. It's not clear if it's an Impossible or Beyond Burger kind of thing, where the meat is made from vegetable protein. In fact we see butchers cutting off slabs of meat from pillars that sport tubes of blood.

Lab-grown meat is an actual thing. A California-based company called Just grows cultured chicken meat that's currently used to make chicken nuggets. But I'm pretty sure that Just doesn't grow its chicken meat on pillars and cut it off in slabs.

Log and camera blocker

Lena Waithe's character shows off a tiny box that looks like a portable battery charger for your phone. When turned on, it prevents people from being logged or filmed. It can also turn off police car sirens and play music over all nearby speakers and headphones. There are actually numerous camera and radio jammers you can buy to blind a camera. How effective they are is another matter.

Double in-screen fingerprint scanners

Who has two thumbs and needs to transfer a file? Jerry from Incite! Over the past few years, the dedicated fingerprint reader on our phones has moved beneath the screen, like on the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. And though users of iPhone and Google Pixel phones have Face ID, I've never seen a tablet or phone with a double biometric like this. Who needs a password when you have two thumbs?

It's not entirely clear if Dolores' thumb is being scanned to receive the files onto her external drive or if she's just holding the tablet for Jerry.

Little black dress that's a gold gown

One of the most James Bond moments for Dolores is when she walks into a dinner party for Incite wearing a little black dress and then tugs on the top to transform it into a full length evening gown. I'd argue this is less "technology" and more along the lines of a quick change clothes artist you might see at halftime during a basketball game. 

Self-parking attack motorcycle

Dolores uses a motorcycle to tail Liam Dempsey in a Porsche on his way to a meeting. When she arrives, the motorcycle parks itself. Later we see her summon the motorcycle à la Batman to have it take out a bad guy.

At CES in 2019, BMW showed off a working prototype of a self-riding motorcycle. The one Dolores had looked far cooler.

Self-driving car

Dolores arrives at an event for the company Incite inside a self-driving Audi. The car even has suicide doors like the car from the Matrix. There are numerous self-driving cars in development and testing, but currently you aren't going to take one solo to an event.

AI personality of Francis

Throughout episode 1, Caleb is speaking to his old Army buddy Francis over the phone. Toward the end of the episode, it's revealed Francis is dead and Caleb is hearing an AI approximation of Francis that's used as therapy.

In 2017, a digital avatar of Roman Mazurenko was built from old text messages and things he said when he was alive. In fact a 2013 episode of Black Mirror featured a service that keeps deceased family members alive online.

Westworld smartwatch

Another gadget Caleb sports is a smartwatch around his wrist. It looks similar to the Nubia Alpha smartphone, which has a flexible screen and is worn like a bracelet.

Westworld single AirPod

Over the past two years, Apple's wireless AirPods have become a common sight. Caleb sports a single wireless earbud on his left ear throughout the first episode. He uses it mainly to talk with Francis.

AR hologram glasses

We see Jerry conversing with a very real-looking hologram of a financial broker via his glasses. There are numerous AR glasses out there, like the Magic Leap One. But the dream is to have AR in a pair of glasses that don't look like big bulky goggles and aren't connected to a hard drive and battery pack. In 2019, the company Nreal took a step toward fitting AR into what looks like a pair of Oakley sunglasses.

Westworld's Alexa is System

In Star Trek, to interact with the computer, a character would say the trigger word "computer." Currently there are a handful of smart assistants that answer to their names, like Alexa, Siri and Bixby. I like that the characters in Westworld call their assistant "system." It's a nice nod to Star Trek and feels more sophisticated than "Hey, Google."

Also notice that the control panel is made or powered by Incite. Again, this is likely another way the company is getting data on the people who use its products.

Last week, Motorola announced four new Moto phones: the G7, the G7 Play, the G7 Power and the G7 Plus. As new members of the company's line of G-devices, these phones serve as the updates to Motorola's line of midrange phones. Moto G phones usually offer solid specs and reliable performances at affordable prices, and they often end up being our top pick for best budget phones for the year.

Read CNET's in-depth review of the Moto G7.

Out of the four phones, the Moto G7 is considered to be the main flagship. It features a 6.2-inch display, a 12- and 5-megapixel dual camera on the back, a Snapdragon 632 processor and a 3,000-mAh battery. It's available now in Brazil and Mexico and will hit Europe in mid-February. It will then roll out to countries in Asia Pacific countries, Latin America and North America. It starts at $299 or £239 (which converts to about AU$420).

The Moto G7 Plus is the slightly higher-end model. It has the same display and battery specs, but it has a more advanced Snapdragon 636 chipset. Its rear camera setup also includes 16- and 5-megapixel cameras, and it has a 12-megapixel front-facing shooter (compared to the G7's 8-megapixel one). It's also a tad more expensive at 300 euros. It won't be sold in the US, but that converts to $340 or AU$480. It will be £269 in the UK and also available in Brazil, Mexico, Australia and countries in Europe and Latin America.

Lastly, the G7 Play and the G7 Power fall a half-step below the Moto G7. Though they have the same processor as the G7, they only have one rear camera each, and the G7 Play has a smaller, lower-resolution 5.7-inch display. The G7 Power, however, stands out from the whole pack by having the highest capacity battery of the bunch. It features an impressive 5,000-mAh battery, which is expected to yield a long battery-run time. 

The G7 Play and Power cost $199 (£149, or about AU$280) and $249 (£179, or about AU$420), respectively. They will be available in Brazil, Mexico and countries in Europe, Latin America and North America. The G7 Power will have a slightly wider distribution, and Motorola will sell it in India and countries in the Asia Pacific region as well.

For more info on how these phones compare, check out CNET's chart below.

Motorola's Moto G7 family spec comparison

	Motorola Moto G7 Play	Motorola Moto G7 Power	Motorola Moto G7	Motorola Moto G7 Plus
Display size, resolution	5.7-inch LCD; 1,512x720 pixels	6.2-inch LCD; 1,520x720 pixels	6.2-inch LCD; 2,270x1,080 pixels	6.2-inch LCD; 2,270x1,080 pixels
Pixel density	294ppi	271ppi	403ppi	403ppi
Dimensions (inches)	5.85 x 2.81 x 0.32 in.	6.28 x 2.99 x 0.37 in.	6.18 x 2.96 x 0.31 in.	6.18 x 2.96 x 0.33 in.
Dimensions (millimeters)	148.71 x 71.5 x 8.19 mm	159.43 x 76 x 9.3 mm	157 x 75.3 x 8 mm	157 x 75.3 x 8.3 mm
Weight (ounces, grams)	5.33 oz.; 151g	6.98 oz.; 198g	6.07 oz.; 172g	6.2 oz.; 176g
Mobile software	Android 9.0	Android 9.0	Android 9.0	Android 9.0
Camera	13-megapixel	12-megapixel	12-megapixel, 5-megapixel	16-megapixel, 5-megapixel
Front-facing camera	8-megapixel	8-megapixel	8-megapixel	12-megapixel
Video capture	1,080p	1,080p	4K	4K
Processor	1.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 632	1.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 632	1.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 632	1.8GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636
Storage	32GB	32GB	64GB	64GB
RAM	2GB	3GB	4GB	4GB
Expandable storage	Up to 512GB	Up to 512GB	Up to 512GB	Up to 512GB
Battery	3,000-mAh	5,000-mAh	3,000-mAh	3,000-mAh
Fingerprint sensor	Back	Back	Back	Back
Connector	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C
Headphone jack	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Special features	Water repellent with P2i nano-coating; front-facing flash	Water repellent with P2i nano-coating; TurboPower charging	Water repellent with P2i nano-coating; TurboPower charging	Water repellent with P2i nano-coating; TurboPower charging
Price off-contract (USD)	$199	$249	$299	300 euros, converts to $341
Price (GBP)	£149	£179	£239	£269
Price (AUD)	Converts to AU$280	Converts to AU$350	Converts to AU$421	Converts to AU$480

Streaming service  Netflix is thinking about pricing its new ad-supported subscription tier at $7 to $9 per month, according to a report. That would be around half the price of its most-popular ad-free plan, which goes for $15.50 a month.

As Netflix gets ready to introduce advertising for the first time, it's being cautious about striking the right balance between attracting budget-minded viewers and offering a non-jarring experience, Bloomberg reported Friday.

The company is planning to sell approximately four minutes of ads per hour for the new tier and will show ads during and before some programs, but not after, Bloomberg said, citing unnamed sources familiar with Netflix's plans.

Netflix didn't immediately provide a comment to CNET.

Read more: Best Streaming Service of 2022: Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus and More

Ads won't be shown during children's shows, Bloomberg reported earlier, and subscribers reportedly won't be able to download content for offline viewing.

Netflix's new ad-supported tier  could begin rolling out in at least six markets during the last three months of this year, Bloomberg said Friday, with a full launch possibly coming in early 2023. Plans could change, however.

This past April, when Netflix reported its first subscriber loss in a decade, co-CEO Reed Hastings reversed years of dismissing any interest in advertising by revealing the company was looking at a cheaper, ad-supported option. The company is also planning to start charging for password sharing, next year.

Rival streaming services Hulu and Disney Plus have also recently announced new ad-supported offerings as part of their lineup.