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Anker PowerConf C300 Review: A Little Bit of Everything

Our Verdict

The Anker PowerConf C300 is a consistent strong performer across lighting conditions, with a bevy of genuinely useful features that help make up for some stumbles in presentation.

For

+ Consistent image quality
+ Bonus features work well
+ Lots of value

Against

– Detachable camera shutter feels cheap
– Laggy Software

Anker’s new $130 PowerConf C300 webcam is part of a new initiative from the charger company to break into productivity gear. Labeled under the Anker Work brand, this camera is clearly aimed at professionals looking to buy the best webcams for video conferences. That means it packs a detailed 1080p sensor with multiple field of view options including 78 degrees, 90 degrees and 115 degrees, plus plenty of advanced features like AI framing, HDR and 60 FPS recording.

That’s a level of customizability that’s usually reserved for more expensive, enthusiast shooters like the Razer Kiyo Pro. But while the Anker’s visual fidelity didn’t quite live up to those $200 Kiyo Pro’s, probably because it doesn’t have the Kiyo’s powerful sensor, its strong suite of features still make a strong argument for spending slightly more on it than you would on a more casual but proven camera like the Logitech C920.

Regarding those features, the Anker PowerConf C300 comes with 4 shooting modes, including Personal, Meeting, Streaming and Custom. Personal and Meeting modes both use a “flexible angle” that adjusts the field of view and image framing based on your head movement and placement, although the former tends to be more zoomed-in while the latter is more zoomed out. Streaming mode, meanwhile, locks the camera at a 90-degree field of view and turns on 60 fps recording, while custom mode lets you set your own field of view and frame rate combinations in addition to getting the option to toggle on the HDR and Anti-Flicker settings.

In practical use, I found that most Streaming mode and Meeting mode photos tended to look identical, so for the below tests, I stuck to taking photos in Personal and Meeting modes. I did not include Custom mode in my tests, as I do not have an HDR monitor to test with.

Well-Lit Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

In terms of image fidelity, the Anker PowerConf C300 was roughly on par in a well-lit room with the Logitech C920, which is our leading mid-range 1080p webcam. However, perhaps reflecting its slightly higher price and more extended feature set, the Anker PowerConf C300 was much more accurate when it came to colors.

While the Logitech tends to give me a cooler color temperature than in real life, color in photos taken with the Anker came across as far more neutral and natural. This also extended to background elements, which tend to get washed out when using the Logitech.

Low-Light Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

When I drew my curtain and turned off all light sources in my office except for my computer monitor, I found that the difference between the Anker and Logitech webcams was, well, night and day. While the Anker now portrayed me with a cooler but still accurate color tone, its fidelity remained largely unchanged.

Meanwhile, the Logitech C920 introduced significant grain to its photos, especially on background elements. The Logitech’s color temperature also got even cooler than before, which made me look sickly.

Overexposed Room

Anker PowerConf C300 Personal Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Anker PowerConf C300 Meeting Mode

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

Logitech C920

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

I also took shots with the Anker PowerConf C300 and Logitech C920 pointing towards my window, to test how they work in an overexposed environment. While this is an over exaggeration of most user setups, it can help shed light on how a webcam might work under heavy light saturation.

The Logitech was, unfortunately, mostly unusable. While it did catch a glimpse of the buildings outside my window, which is impressive given that many webcams instead render windows as pure sheets of white, my face is bathed in too much shadow for me to want to call anyone under these conditions.

The Anker, however, again retained most of its fidelity in these conditions. The edges of my head were tinged by light in shots I took with it, but none of my face was hidden by excessive shadow. And while photos did suffer from a “white sheet” effect, putting the emphasis on the face is the right choice here. Even background elements appeared without issue, arguably looking better than in more neutrally lit shots.

Build Quality of the Anker PowerConf C300

Build quality is where it feels like the Anker PowerConf C300 stumbles most, although its emphasis on versatility extends to its build as well. That means you can tilt it forward 180 degrees, plus swivel it a full 360 degrees. For placement, the monitor mount fits snugly and has the typical hole for connecting a tripod on the bottom. It also connects using a detachable USB-C cable and has an optional privacy cover, but it’s here that the camera starts to show its weaknesses.

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The first, and less egregious, problem is that the webcam only includes a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box. If you want to connect over USB Type-A, you have to use a small adapter that you’re likely to lose. It’s a small price to pay for USB-C functionality and can be easily resolved with your own USB-C to USB-A cable, but small and easily lost parts are still worth bringing up. Which takes us to the removable privacy slider.

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The privacy slider is a detachable and purely physical switch, which means there’s no hardware level shut-off here, and you get two in the box. While that sounds like a nice gesture, it’s a testament to how easy it is to make one of these unusable. That’s because the slider attaches using glue. This introduced a few problems, the most dramatic one being that you probably won’t want to take the slider on and off a lot. Doing so can weaken the adhesive, and it’s not like it’s easy to find a place to store the slider in the meantime without leaving the glue open to the air. While this doesn’t present a major issue if you plan to use it all the time, I personally think the slider’s kind of ugly, and wouldn’t want it on at all times. Additionally, if we’re not meant to remove it frequently, why make it detachable instead of building it into the device?

There’s also the question of whether the glue will leave residue on your device, although I haven’t found this to be the case with my unit. It can be tricky to pry the slider off, though, which I suppose makes me happy that I have long fingernails.

As for the slider itself, it does its job well when attached securely, although its thin plastic has me worried about the slide rail’s durability over time. I’m also worried that the glue could break down over time, although this didn’t happen to me in the few days I used this camera while writing this review.

There’s also no guiding marks for where the slider should go on the webcam, so it’s easy to make a mistake when installing it, and adjusting it could weaken the glue.

Top: Logitech C920, Bottom: Anker PowerConf C3900 (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Anker PowerConf C300’s cord measured a little over 59 inches when pulled fully taut, which was long enough to easily reach all of my desktop’s USB ports.Logitech says the C920 has having a nearly-identical 60-inch cord, but as you can see in the picture above, its cord is noticeably longer than the PowerConf C300’s. When I pulled it taut and measured it with some measuring tape, it hit 70 inches, making it nearly a foot longer.

The PowerConf C300 also has built-in dual microphones that produce loud audio but also tended to give my voice a somewhat warbly effect that hurt clarity.

Special Features on the Anker PowerConf C300

The Anker PowerConf C300’s guide gives you instructions for downloading the free AnkerWork app, which is how you’ll access the camera’s different preset recording modes, adjust settings like brightness and saturation and set up a custom recording mode with HDR, anti-flicker, and/or 60FPS support.

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The user interface is simple and light, although it’s a bit annoying to me that I need to scroll down a long list to see all the different ways a recording preset will affect my shot. I would have preferred a layout that puts as much information on my screen at once as possible. But the biggest problem here is lag, which makes the image setting section (where you can adjust photo settings like brightness or sharpness) near unusable.

Every time you press a button or move a slider in the AnkerWork app, you’re going to need to wait at least a second while it applies your changes to the camera. This is obnoxious but not insurmountable when turning HDR or Anti-Flicker on or off. But for image settings, it makes it difficult for you to select a specific number, move by small increments, or test out different settings. That’s because the lag starts as soon as you click on the slider and move your mouse, and can last as long as 5 seconds. You won’t get to see where your slider ended up until after the lag ends. There’s buttons to move the slider by increments of 1 for fine tuning, which helps with this somewhat, but using them takes agonizingly long thanks to each button press triggering even more lag.

Compare this to the user interface and snappy response times for the software for the Razer Kiyo Pro, which also supports HDR and 60fps shots, and it’s easy to see there’s a lot of room for improvement here. A large firmware update and software pitch did hit as I was finishing this review, which helped reduce lag times in most instances, but they are still present and still make the image menu almost intolerable to use.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

As for the HDR and Anti-Flicker support, turning them on is as simple as flipping a toggle (and waiting for the lag), although the former is only available when recording at 30 fps. I wasn’t able to test HDR as I don’t have an HDR monitor, but turning it on even on my non-HDR setup still made images appear slightly brighter and richer.

As for 60 fps recording, it works smoothly once you click the toggle on. A 20 second video recorded at 60 fps also only took up 45.5 MB on my hard drive, which was only 0.5 MB larger than a 30 fps video of the same length. You can also stream at 60 fps, which I had no issue doing on a private YouTube stream.

Anker’s auto frame and solo frame options can be a little trickier to see the benefits of. While they automatically zoom in to put the focus on your face as soon as you turn them on, you really have to move a lot to see the frame actually adjust to follow you.

Bottom Line

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)

The Anker PowerConf C300 has consistent fidelity and enough premium features to more than justify its $130 price tag, even if the implementation for those features needs some work. Regardless of lighting conditions, it always had color accurate shots with no visible artifacting in my testing. And on top of that, its multiple fields of view and auto framing options made taking those shots in the best conditions possible easy.

60 FPS and HDR recording are also boons at this price point, as they’d usually require you to upgrade to something like the $199 Razer Kiyo Pro. They work well here, although the PowerConf C300’s picture quality doesn’t match those premium webcams and the software for accessing those features can frequently be unbearably laggy.

Still, if you want a webcam that can do more than your typical casual shooter but don’t need to go full premium, the Anker PowerConf C300 is an easy choice.

Twitter updates offensive tweet warnings, accepts that you like to swear at your friends

Twitter is updating its “be nice, think twice” system that prompts users to reconsider when they’re about to tweet a “potentially harmful or offensive” reply. The upgraded feature is now better at spotting “strong language,” claims Twitter; is more aware of vocabulary that has been “reclaimed by underrepresented communities” and is used in non-harmful ways; and also now takes into account your relationship with the person you’re messaging.

In other words, if you’re tweeting at a mutual who you interact with regularly, Twitter will assume “there’s a higher likelihood [you] have a better understanding of preferred tone of communication” and not show you a prompt. So, you can call your friend a **** or a ****-**** or even a ****-******* son of a ****-less ***** and Twitter won’t care. That’s freedom, folks.

Twitter first started testing this system in May 2020, paused it a little later, then brought it back to life in February this year. It’s one of a number of prompts the company has been testing to try and shape user behavior, including its “read before you retweet” message.

A sample prompt shown to a user before sending an offensive reply.

Image: Twitter

Improvements to the offensive-tweets prompt will roll out to English users of the Twitter iOS app today and to Android users “in the next few days.” The company says it’s already making a difference to how people interact on the platform, though.

Twitter claims internal tests show 34 percent of people who were served such a prompt “revised their initial reply or decided to not send their reply at all.” After receiving such a prompt once, people composed, on average, 11 percent “fewer offensive replies.” And people who were prompted about a reply (and therefore may have toned down their language) were themselves “less likely to receive offensive and harmful replies back.”

These “statistics” are as opaque as you would expect from any major internet platform (how exactly has the company quantified “less likely” in that last example? How many people are included in any of these tests? How do we know that people who revised their reply made it less offensive, or did they just use offensive language the system didn’t recognize?). But the ongoing roll-out does suggest that the feature is, at least, not making things actively worse on Twitter. That’s probably the best we can hope for.

PS5 designer helps Nike with latest Paul George sneakers

Nike, Sony, and basketball player Paul George have collaborated on another pair of sneakers, the PG 5, with help from PS5 designer Yujin Morsawa. According to Sony, “the colors of the shoe are heavily inspired by the industrial design of the PS5” with the PlayStation’s signature circle, square, cross, and triangle shapes woven into the materials like a DualSense controller. There’s also a PlayStation logo on the tongue of the right shoe, while the left’s tongue has Paul George’s PG logo.

The release comes a little over two years after Nike and PlayStation’s last sneaker collaboration, the PG 2.5, which drew inspiration from the design of the original PlayStation console. Earlier that year, the two companies worked together on the PG2, which were inspired by the PS4.

The PG 5 shoes are going on sale in “select regions” on May 14th, and they’ll arrive in North America on May 27th priced at $120, according to Nike’s site. There’s no word on how many pairs Nike will release, but given how limited its previous run of PlayStation sneakers was, we’re expecting these to sell out fast. Fitting, given how hard it still is to find PS5 consoles in stock.

If you’re interested, Sony says you should keep your eye on the Nike SNKRS app or local Nike website for more information on release dates and availability.

Boost Mobile’s Unlimited Plus plan now comes with talk, text, and telemedicine

In what looks to be a first in terms of subscriber perks, Boost Mobile has announced that its $60 per month Unlimited Plus cellphone plan will come with access to to 24/7 telemedicine through K Health starting this summer.

Specifically, Unlimited Plus subscribers will get all of the features of K Health’s usual $9-per-month offering. That includes the ability to text chat or hop on a video call with a doctor through the K Health app, which uses the app’s AI suggestions to identify symptoms and potential ailments, and receive actual treatment, including medications and other prescriptions.

The service is free and available for all Boost Unlimited Plus subscribers and offered at a discounted price of $7.99 per month for all of Boost Mobile’s other customers. You can sign up to get access to the service first on Boost Mobile’s site.

Because this is ultimately a phone plan, you’ll also get 35GB of 4G LTE data per month, after which you’ll get throttled to 2G speeds. That comes with “unlimited” talk and text, and a 30GB mobile hotspot as well.

Offering online healthcare to customers was not on the top of my list of things Boost Mobile would do after getting absorbed by Dish Network (as part of T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint). But getting healthcare in the US is an often expensive proposition, and that’s before the bill comes after treatment. And, Boost has a large percentage of low-income customers, many of whom have likely been affected by the pandemic, so providing access to healthcare could be a real shot in the arm.

Here’s how to turn your Lenovo laptop into an Echo Show, if you want to do that for some reason

A new Show Mode feature from Amazon is now rolling out to some Lenovo laptops. When you activate this, it will change your home screen to look like the home screen of an Echo Show smart display, in a similar fashion to the Show Mode feature on Amazon’s tablets. That means you’ll be able to do smart display things like controlling smart home devices, glancing at the weather and news headlines, and chatting with Alexa — you know, the kind of stuff you’ve always wished you could do on your ThinkPad.

The feature is currently rolling out to Yoga, ThinkPad, and IdeaPad PCs that have Alexa built in, and it’s available in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, India, Ireland, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. Lenovo says it’s coming to more Alexa-enabled PCs later this year.

If you’re interested in trying it out, open the Alexa app (it should come up if you type “Alexa” into the Windows search bar) and press the Show Mode button.

Lenovo first announced this feature at CES 2021 with its Yoga Slim 9i. Chromebooks have had this feature for a while — they can act like a Nest Hub Max when they’re not actively in use, though I can’t say I’ve ever taken advantage of this as a frequent Chromebook user.

Really, Show Mode seems like it would be the most useful on a device with a tablet form factor, which may not always be around its keyboard and touchpad. It could be cool on the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, for example, though the X12 unit that I reviewed earlier this year didn’t come with Alexa. But hey, if you want to try this out on your clamshell, don’t let me stop you.

Boost Mobile’s Unlimited Plus plan now comes with talk, text, and telemedicine

Tinder will now quiz you on your vibes

Tinder wants to give you more info on what you and a match have in common, so it’s launching a new quiz feature to help out. The quizzes, called Vibes, will pop up once a week and ask an assortment of goofy questions, from “_____ is not picnic food” to “Are you always 20 minutes early or 10 minutes late?” If another person gave the same answers as you, those answers will appear on their profile or, if you match, in your chat together.

Vibes isn’t turning Tinder into a full-on OkCupid rival for endless, silly personality quiz questions. The answers are temporary, vanishing after a few days. So you’ll have to return to the app and answer new questions the following week if you want to participate again.

Tinder has already been testing the quizzes since last year, and it says they’ve increased “likes and matches across the board.” (Though the company doesn’t provide a specific figure on how much likes and matches have increased.) Vibes seems to be the latest attempt by Tinder to increase engagement and give users more to talk about. The app previously ran an interactive video series that let users talk about which decisions they made for its characters.

The feature starts rolling out today and will be available globally in late May.

Tim Sweeney emailed Tim Cook personally to call for open app sales after WWDC in 2015

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was asking Apple to open its phones to other app stores as early as 2015, according to new emails made public as part of the companies’ antitrust trial. Under the subject line “iOS as an open platform,” Sweeney emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook directly to make the case for allowing other app stores to distribute software on iOS.

“The App Store has done much good for the industry,” Sweeney wrote to Cook, “but it doesn’t seem tenable for Apple to be the sole arbiter of expression and commerce over an app platform approaching a billion users.”

In particular, Sweeney asked to “separate iOS App Store curation from compliance review and app distribution,” essentially suggesting that Apple could maintain its security features across the platform without routing all downloads through the central App Store.

It’s a powerful distinction for the ongoing trial, in which Apple is arguing that App Store exclusivity is necessary to maintain the existing security and privacy features on iOS. These are part of the compliance process referenced by Sweeney in the email, and other ecosystems have been successful in implementing them across multiple app stores. Most recently, Google introduced a similar system on Android under the name Play Protect, guarding against malicious downloads even from side-loaded software.

Cook responded by forwarding the message to Phil Schiller with a question: “Is this the guy that was at one of our rehearsals?”

It’s likely that he was: a few weeks earlier, Epic Games had made an appearance at Apple’s WWDC event, touting the company’s work using Apple’s Metal API, although Sweeney did not appear onstage.

Other emails show Sweeney continuing to push Apple behind the scenes, asking Epic co-founder Mark Rein to push for a meeting with Greg Joswiak in January 2018. “If the App Store [were] merely the premier way for consumers to install software and not the sole way, then Apple could curate higher quality software overall, without acting as a censor on free expression,” Sweeney argued.

Rein was ultimately able to arrange a hearing for the idea through Apple’s Tim Kirby and expressed enthusiasm. “He was definitely receptive to the idea,” Rein wrote, “which doesn’t mean it will go anywhere, but does mean he’ll line up people who will listen and not shoot it down like Phil Schiller would…. so maybe there’s a smallest little crack on the very outer surface of the many feet of ice covering the frozen lake that is the Apple store.”

Six years later, the ice has yet to thaw.

Raspberry Pi Pico Powers Online Game Boy Multiplayer Tetris

(Image credit: Stacksmashing)

We’ve all been there before—you want to play Tetris with your friends but a 20 mile Game Boy link cable is impractical. That’s where Stacksmashing’s incredibly clever Raspberry Pi Pico project comes into play.

The best Raspberry Pi projects are ones that bring us together, especially right now. Stacksmashing’s using a Raspberry Pi Pico to act as a link cable, capable of connecting two or more friends online. That means you and your buddies can play Tetris against each other in real-time on actual GameBoys from all over the world!

Developing the project involved reverse-engineering the data from an actual link cable. The Raspberry Pi Pico interprets this data and can handle online Game Boy communication for the game of Tetris via a desktop client and server app. This tool is at the center of the project. All of the players connect through this locally hosted hub. In a demo, Stacksmashing managed to get three Game Boys playing Tetris competitively at the same time!

In order to connect a Game Boy to the server, a custom PCB was created. It’s compatible with Game Boys, Game Boy Colors, Game Boy Pockets, Game Boy Advances and even Game Boy Advance SPs. The PCB is soldered to a Pico which communicates with the computer over USB.

You can buy this custom PCB on Gum Road and explore the code used in the desktop server and client apps on GitHub.

Epic pushed Xbox chief to open free multiplayer just ahead of Apple Fortnite battle

Epic pushed Microsoft to open up its Xbox network for free multiplayer gaming just weeks before the Apple and Fortnite battle. In the weeks leading up to Epic Games’ decision to circumvent Apple’s 30 percent cut on Fortnite in-app purchases, CEO Tim Sweeney sent an email to Xbox chief Phil Spencer teasing something big and asking whether Microsoft could time free multiplayer with Fortnite season 14.

“Epic has certain plans for August that will provide an extraordinary opportunity to highlight the value proposition of consoles and PCs, in contrast to mobile platforms, and to onboard new console users,” said Sweeney. “While I can’t share details with any third party at this point, I give you Epic’s assurance that our efforts will be positive and supportive of Microsoft, Xbox and Windows.”

Sweeney also asked Spencer whether free Xbox Live multiplayer was coming, and whether Microsoft could time it to support Fortnite season 14, the season Epic Games launched its alternate payment method that got Fortnite kicked off the App Store.

Spencer replied that “we will get there and I want to partner with you,” and that pushing these policies was “at the highest levels” at Microsoft, but implied Xbox Live wasn’t ready to go free multiplayer just yet. “Totally understood!” said Sweeney in response. “I gather there’s a lot going on at Microsoft nowadays. Anyway, you’ll enjoy the upcoming fireworks show.”

The timing of the email is provocative, given the events that followed. Had Spencer gone along with the plan, it seems likely that Xbox could have opened up Fortnite to non-Gold subscribers at the same time that Apple was shutting out the game entirely.

The fireworks show that Sweeney promised certainly kicked off when Fortnite season 14 launched, and it has since resulted in Epic Games taking Apple to court in a trial that’s ongoing. Microsoft did eventually unlock Xbox Live free-to-play multiplayer last month, but it wasn’t as simple as Epic Games had hoped.

Microsoft’s removal of the Xbox Live Gold requirement came after the company was forced to reverse a price hike to its Xbox Live Gold subscriptions earlier this year. Microsoft had attempted to double the cost of a yearly Xbox Live Gold subscription, a move that backfired. Microsoft quickly reversed the decision and offered to remove the paywall for free-to-play multiplayer games.

Robinhood crypto trading crashed during a Dogecoin spike

Robinhood ran into issues processing cryptocurrency trades this morning, during a spike in the price of Dogecoin that sent users flocking to the app. The website DownDetector shows the outage starting around 9:30AM ET and reducing in severity about an hour later. Robinhood confirmed that it experienced a “partial outage” in crypto trading and said the issues had been resolved as of 11:15AM ET.

The outage was particularly noticeable since it came during a spike (and subsequent dip) in Dogecoin prices. Coins were priced at around $0.40 USD at the beginning of the day. Around 8AM ET, they spiked past $0.50 USD and reached as high as $0.60 USD near 10AM ET.

Update: Crypto trading is now fully restored. We know some customers may have experienced intermittent issues earlier. We’ll continue to monitor the situation closely and we’re sorry if you were impacted. Please contact us if you have outstanding issues. https://t.co/adhugIHVGR

— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) May 4, 2021

Users were quick to voice their frustrations with the app on Twitter, seeing it as a repeat of the situation that happened in January when Robinhood limited trading on buzzy, soaring stocks, including GameStop and AMC. In the app this morning, a message told users, “We are experiencing intermittent issues with crypto trading. We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.” Meanwhile, the price ticker on Dogecoin continued its rapid flip up and down.

Robinhood has made it incredibly easy for anyone to become an amateur trader of stocks or cryptocurrencies. But that’s also meant that problems with Robinhood can affect markets, since it may be the only route that a mass of traders circling a buzzy asset have to place a buy or sell order.

This is the second Dogecoin-related crypto trading outage on Robinhood in a matter of weeks. On April 16th, Robinhood wrote that enthusiasm for Dogecoin led to “sporadic crypto order failures.” At the time, the company said, “These interruptions aren’t acceptable to us.”

Robinhood is expected to go public later this year.

Instagram will now let you auto-caption Stories with just a sticker

Instagram now has a captions sticker for Stories, which will automatically transcribe speech in videos. The sticker will be available only in “English and English-speaking countries” for now but will eventually roll out to other languages and countries. Instagram says it will also start testing automated captions in Reels soon.

Captions have been available in IGTV and the Threads app, and Instagram says it’s adding them to Stories and Reels to make them more efficient and inclusive to watch. The feature should be a welcome addition for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, are not native English speakers, or just generally watch videos without sound.

The edit option lists each word of the captions separately. You can tap on individual words to make adjustments.

Like other text options in Stories, users can adjust the style and color of the captions after they’re generated. People can also edit individual words in the captions to correct spelling, punctuation, or any words that weren’t transcribed accurately. Auto captions rarely have perfect accuracy, especially for people with accents or atypical speech, so editing is crucial. There’s currently no option to have the text highlighted for better visual contrast, but you can use the draw tool or a sticker behind the captions to make them easier to see.

Other platforms and services have recently added or improved auto-captioning options. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams all offer automated captions for video calls. Google expanded its Live Caption feature across the Chrome browser in March, and TikTok launched automatic captions for American English and Japanese last month. Twitter announced Monday that it’s planning improvements for the captioning it offers in Spaces.

Walmart’s unannounced cloud gaming service detailed in confidential Epic emails

Walmart’s unannounced cloud gaming service, codenamed Project Storm, has been detailed in new confidential emails. An exhibit in the Epic Games v. Apple trial reveals Walmart’s efforts to pitch its cloud gaming service to Epic Games and get Fortnite on board.

“I played Walmart’s demo on an Android phone (with an Xbox controller) and the experience felt like playing on PS4 and superior to playing on Android or iOS,” said Epic Games co-founder Mark Rein in an email thread from April 2019. Rein also excitedly shares a photo of a game clip with the rest of the Epic Games executive team, showing how Walmart was planning to sell this in stores to let a phone attach to a controller. “They’re going to sell the clip for a crazy low amount, they were saying something like $2,” said Rein.

How Walmart was building its cloud streaming service.

A presentation attached to the emails shows how Walmart had been pitching its cloud gaming service to publishers like Epic Games. The company was planning to run the service on Windows, with third-party game launchers like Steam, Uplay, Origin, Epic Games Store, Battle.net, and Bethesda Launcher supported.

It’s not clear from Walmart’s presentation when the company planned to launch the service, with a beta period originally set to launch in July 2019. An early mock-up of the user experience looks very similar to other cloud gaming services, with a list of games, genres, and a search function.

An early look at Walmart’s Project Storm service.

Walmart was planning what it describes as an “open ecosystem,” with the ability to stream from the cloud or download and play games locally. The technology behind Walmart’s cloud gaming service is LiquidSky, a service Walmart acquired. LiquidSky was previously powered by IBM Cloud’s bare metal servers and Nvidia GPUs, and it appears to offer a powerful Windows PC for cloud gaming.

Epic Games was one of many publishers to which Walmart pitched. Reports originally surfaced about Walmart’s plans in 2019, but the company has still not officially announced any cloud gaming service. Sources familiar with Walmart’s plans tell The Verge that some publishers and developers had signed up to produce or host games on Walmart’s service, but that the launch had been put on hold once the pandemic began last year.

It’s not clear if Walmart’s cloud gaming service will still launch. We reached out to Walmart to comment on Project Storm, but the company did not respond in time for publication.

Either way, Mark Rein seemed interested in Walmart’s pitch and exploring services like Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now. “Walmart is open to exploring all kinds of business models, but I expect their service will be the least expensive of all of these because they’re Walmart and that’s their gig.”

Epic Games ultimately partnered with Nvidia to launch Fortnite on GeForce Now last year. It’s currently the only way to play Fortnite on iOS, after the Epic dispute with Apple led to the removal of Fortnite from the App Store.

Apple exec suggested cutting App Store commission to 20 percent as early as 2011

Phil Schiller, the Apple executive in charge of the App Store, raised the possibility of the company cutting its 30 percent commission rate to 25 or even 20 percent back in 2011 in response to competition. Schiller floated the idea in an email to then Apple CEO Steve Jobs and head of Apple services Eddy Cue. The email has been made public as part of the company’s legal battle with Epic Games. Bloomberg was first to report on the email exchange.

“Do we think our 70/30 split will last forever?” Schiller’s email begins. “I think someday we will see enough challenge from another platform or web based solutions to want to adjust our model.” Schiller goes on to suggest that if Apple were to ever change its fee structure, that it should do so “from a position of strength rather than weakness” and floats the idea of Apple dropping its commission rate once the App Store is generating over $1 billion in annual profit.

The email, released as part of Epic’s lawsuit against Apple.

Image: Court Documents

“I know that this is controversial, I just tee it up as another way to look at the size of the business, what we want to achieve, and how we stay competitive,” Schiller wrote. “Just food for thought.” Attached to the email is a Wall Street Journal article from 2011 which discussed the possibility of developers using web apps to bypass Apple’s App Store fees.

Apple’s 30 percent commission on many in-app purchases is central to its legal battle with Epic Games, which has accused the App Store tied to iPhones and iPads of being a monopoly. Epic is required to use Apple’s payment method for in-app purchases within Fortnite (and hence pay a 30 percent commission), and it was the company’s switch to offering its own in-app payments system that caused Apple to kick the game out of the App Store.

In response to the email, Apple said there is no evidence that the App Store’s fees are tied to its profit, and that the 2011 email did not confirm the store made $1 billion in profit, Bloomberg reports. Analysis from Sensor Tower has the App Store’s 2020 commissions revenue at around $22 billion, and Epic cites one witness who claims that its profit rate sits at around 80 percent.

Apple has adjusted its commission structure over the years, but has never dropped it standard rate wholesale to 25 or 20 percent. In 2016 it dropped its commission to 15 percent for subscribers who have signed up to a service for over a year. Then, last year, it dropped its rate to 15 percent for any developers who make under $1 million in sales on its store. The move saw pushback from Apple’s critics, with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney calling the decision “a calculated move by Apple to divide app creators and preserve their monopoly on stores and payments, again breaking the promise of treating all developers equally.”

Here are Apple’s and Epic’s full slideshows arguing why they should win at trial

Both Apple and Epic have released their opening presentations on why they feel they should win this week’s trial, which is set to determine the future of the App Store. In the documents, which you can look through below, each company lays out its case.

The lawsuit started when Apple removed Epic Games’ Fortnite from the App Store after Epic bypassed Apple’s system for in-app purchases. But it’s turned into a much deeper examination of Apple’s walled-garden approach to technology, and whether some of the walls the company puts up might violate antitrust law.

We took a deeper look at the companies’ legal strategies in advance of the trial, but you can see the same arguments play out in these presentations. Epic uses metaphors of brick walls and gas stations to argue that Apple’s control over what can and cannot be installed on the iPhone is unfair, and that allowing other methods of installing apps wouldn’t harm iOS’s security. Apple’s pushes back saying that Epic getting the openness that it wants would harm not just the App Store but other stores from Sony and Nintendo.