Adobe has dominated the creative industry for years with its suite of gold-standard tools. However, Audition feels a little outdated when it comes to audio post-production. It's powerful on paper but has clunky integration with other software, can get sluggish with large sessions, and simply lacks some key features I value in a comprehensive audio editor.

Once you step foot in the note-taking landscape, you’ll be greeted with FOSS, freemium, and paid applications designed to help you record all your ideas. Whether you’re a self-hosting manic who prefers the privacy of FOSS services or a casual user who prefers convenience above all else, you’ll find plenty of note-taking solutions out in the wild.

Samsung subsidiary Harman has agreed to acquire the audio business division of Masimo, taking ownership of audio brands like Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, and Polk Audio.The $350 million deal brings them under the same roof as JBL, Harman Kardon, Arcam, AKG, Mark Levinson, and Revel, which Samsung acquired back in 2016 with its $8 billion acquisition of Harman. The Masimo transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.“Finding the right home for this business has been a stated priority of the new Board from day one, and this transaction represents an important milestone,” said Masimo vice chairman Quentin Koffey. Masimo, you might recall, is the global medical technology company that launched a US patent infringement lawsuit against Apple over the pulse oximetry tech used in the Apple Watch. In its press release, Samsung says it “plans to solidify its global No. 1 position in the consumer audio market” by combining the Harman and Massimo businesses. Part of that plan also includes applying professional audio technology from Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, and Marantz to Samsung’s lineup of smartphones, wireless earphones, headphones, TVs, and sound bars, alongside expanding its car audio business portfolio with brands like Bowers & Wilkins.“Harman is proud to have grown into a world-class audio company with 75 years of history, and we expect that the acquisition of another luxury audio brand, B&W, will further solidify Harman’s position as a true audio powerhouse,” said Dave Rogers, president of Harman’s lifestyle business unit.

The first photos of the Asus ROG Ally 2 have surfaced online thanks to regulatory listings, but with a twist: there are two versions of the gaming handheld, and one features a dedicated Xbox button.We reported two months ago that Microsoft was working with Asus to develop an Xbox-branded handheld codenamed “Project Kennan,” and this appears to be it. It’s a black version of the otherwise almost identical white ROG Ally 2, with a small button in the top-left corner bearing an engraved Xbox logo. That button is blacked out on the regular ROG, though will likely be replaced or removed in its production version.91mobiles found listings for the ROG Ally 2 at the Indonesian certificate, and VideoCardz linked those to an FCC listing for the Wi-Fi module included in the two devices, which includes photos of the hardware. That listing also reveals some limited specs, which include a 7-inch, 120Hz LCD display — about the same as the first generation — with an 8-core, 36W AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU included in the Xbox edition, and a less powerful 4-core, 20W chip in the white version.The design has also been altered, with more molded controller grips on each edge, rather than the blocky, sloped design of the ROG Ally. That leaves the hardware as a whole looking thicker than before, but perhaps it’ll be more comfortable to hold.With certification already under way, it’s likely that a release is around the corner. Asus often launches hardware at Computex, which begins on May 20th — just one day after Microsoft’s own Build conference begins on May 19th.

After announcing a pair of lower-end Surface PCs today, Microsoft is raising prices on the rest of its available lineup by about 20%. That's right; the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop is now $1,199, $200 more than it was yesterday, also known as $200 more than a base model MacBook Air.

In recent years, Nvidia has heavily marketed its DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation technologies with its graphics cards, especially for high-resolution 4K gaming. Although it's a clever trick that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to upscale lower-resolution footage, I'm not a huge fan of it. Yes, the output looks almost as good as natively rendered 4K footage, but upon closer inspection, you'll notice visual artifacts and ghosting, especially during fast-paced scenes. Frame Generation also adds latency, which is the last thing I want in competitive esports titles.

Sennheiser has announced the first pair of open earbuds as part of its affordable Accentum range, but just how much of a bargain they are depends on where you live. US customers will have to pay more, presumably to offset increased import costs thanks to Trump’s recent tariffs.The Accentum Open earbuds will cost $129.95 when they begin shipping to US buyers in early June, but cost less elsewhere. They’ll arrive in Canada at the same time for CAD$149.95 (about $109), and are available already in Europe for €89.90 (about $102) and the UK for £69.99 (about $93). Those European prices include sales tax, making the difference even more stark.For comparison’s sake, when Sennheiser launched the $199.99 Accentum True Wireless this time last year, they were priced at CAD$279.95 (about $203, converted at today’s rates), €199.99 (about $227), and £169.99 (about $227).  This is Sennheiser’s first pair of “open” true wireless earbuds, which don’t block the ear canal, allowing listeners to maintain awareness of their surroundings. They ape the original AirPods’ design, which audio manufacturers have returned to in recent years as an alternative to the total silence of active noise-cancelling models.The Accentum Open feature 11mm drivers and dual beamforming microphones for calls. Sennheiser says the buds last for six and a half hours on a single charge, with a total of 28 hours including the charging case. The fast charging delivers an hour and a half of playback from 10 minutes plugged in, and multipoint connectivity lets you connect to two devices simultaneously.

Back in the day, Microsoft didn't just sell Windows to you as is, but it also offered the option to enhance your experience even further with a set of add-ons called Microsoft Plus! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name, though I'll avoid using it for the rest of the article). These add-ons would enhance the experience in all kinds of ways, either by adding new themes to the operating system or new tools entirely, like audio recorders, and more.

Patreon creators on iOS can now link fans to alternative payment systems.The latest version of Patreon’s iOS app allows creators in the US to accept payments outside of Apple’s App Store payment system. First seen by TechCrunch, the 125.5.0 update released on Monday enables Patreon creators to link out to web payments, avoiding the up to 30 percent commission that Apple charges on in-app purchases.This follows the Epic v. Apple ruling on May 1st that blocks Apple from imposing fees on purchases made outside of apps. The expected Patreon update joins Spotify, Amazon’s Kindle, and other apps that can now steer US users to better pricing and deals outside of Apple’s App Store without incurring a 27 percent charge from Apple.The new Patreon web payment option supports Apple Pay, credit cards, Venmo, and PayPal. The alternative checkout options are currently limited to fans purchasing new memberships and creators using the subscription billing model, which charges fans based on their sign-up date, according to Patreon. The company is working to include alternative checkout options for one-time payments “in a future update.”“This ruling is a huge moment for creators and fans, and we will continue fighting for a future where creators are in control, communities thrive, and professional creativity is possible for all,” Patreon said in a statement last week.

Vulcan’s force-sensitive arm can apply just the right amount of pressure to avoid causing damage.Amazon has announced a new AI-infused warehouse robot that it says has a sense of touch. This allows the Vulcan robot to pick and stow roughly three-quarters of the items stocked in the company’s warehouses, a task that was previously handled predominantly by human workers.“Vulcan represents a fundamental leap forward in robotics,” says Aaron Parness, Amazon’s director of applied science, in a press release. “It’s not just seeing the world, it’s feeling it, enabling capabilities that were impossible for Amazon robots until now.”Vulcan is not Amazon’s first robot capable of picking items up, but it is the first that’s dextrous and sensitive enough to maneuver goods inside the compact, fabric-covered compartments that the company uses for storage — which are themselves already moved around warehouses by a different fleet of robots. Vulcan uses an arm that Amazon says “resembles a ruler stuck onto a hair straightener” to rearrange any items already in a compartment and add new ones, with force sensors that help it know when it makes contact with an object and how much force and speed to use to avoid causing damage. A second arm includes a suction cup to grab anything it wants to take out of the pods, with an AI-powered camera to make sure that it hasn’t picked up multiple items by mistake.AI is integrated throughout Vulcan’s systems, which were trained on physical data including touch and force feedback. It also “learns from its own failures,” building up an understanding of how different objects behave when touched, so Amazon hopes Vulcan will become more capable over time.Amazon says that Vulcan is already operational in Spokane, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany, where it’s processed half a million orders so far, and is primarily being used to pick items at the top and bottom of the eight-foot fabric stacks. That saves human workers from bending down or fetching ladders, which Amazon argues will improve worker safety and reduce injuries. Vulcan can apparently pick around 75 percent of Amazon’s stock, and will alert a human when it finds something it can’t pick up. “Vulcan works alongside our employees, and the combination is better than either on their own,” says Parness.“I don’t believe in 100 percent automation,” says Parness in an interview with CNBC that demonstrates Vulcan’s capabilities. “If we had to get Vulcan to do 100 percent of the stows and picks, it would never happen.”That could be cold comfort to the company’s one million warehouse workers, who may soon be outnumbered by the 750,000 robots Amazon says it’s deployed over the years. Vulcan will now join them, rolling out across Europe and the United States “over the next couple of years.”

Bugs in Windows aren't entirely uncommon. Recently, we covered a Windows RDP security "bug" that Microsoft has acknowledged, but refused to fix. However, things can get even more problematic if operating system issues impact organizations, where operational infrastructure is critical to business viability. Unfortunately, one such issue is plaguing enterprise customers once again, where Windows Server components have broken after recent updates.

In a scene where a triple-A developer can, and will, drop a gigantic game out of the blue, other game creators understandably get a bit anxious. For indie developers, the passion project they've poured years of their life into may be swept away because a giant company decided to shadow-drop their latest and greatest game, consuming all attention until the indie's critical opening window has long been lost.