The Morning After: Xiaomi's (maybe not-so) transparent phone

June 01, 2018

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

June the first be with you.

US lawmakers are paving the way for more people to catch the eSports itch.ESports betting just got a whole lot easier. Now what?

On May 14th, the United States Supreme Court eliminated a 26-year-old law prohibiting states from sponsoring sports gambling. Today, states are free to establish their own sports-betting laws, and a few governors are acting fast. Following that, the NFL, NBA, NHL and other national sports leagues are calling for some form of federal regulation in sports betting. The eSports market is particularly poised to blast off thanks to new state-by-state regulations because the professional eSports industry was already on the rise. Jessica Conditt lays it out.

The Mi 8 also does 3D face unlock.Xiaomi's latest flagship has a notch and a fascinating back

Xiaomi's Mi 8 smartphone marks its eight anniversary -- hence the jump from last year's Mi 6. The new handset starts at 2,699 yuan (about $420) and comes in a familiar-looking dual-sided glass design, with the most notable difference being the new vertical dual camera. Yes, there's a notch, which is for accommodating an infrared front camera for facial recognition, but there's also a new design flourish: a (seemingly) see-thru back, that upon closer inspection appears to be a nicely decorated piece of RF shield.

We're not likely to see many hardware updates.Apple will make digital health a focal point at WWDC

Apple's big developer conference kicks off next week: Expect more of a focus on software tweaks and not so much new hardware. Bloomberg reports that MacBook and MacBook Pro refreshes, lower-cost MacBooks and a revamped iPad Pro line are likely to show up much later this year. Instead, the conference is likely to focus on software. Rumors point to software upgrades, digital-health features (like we saw from Google last month) and other under-the-hood improvements.

Witness the gaming laptop getting thinner, and faster, before your eyes.What to expect at Computex 2018

And if you literally Could Not Care Less about Apple, we've got a week of coverage from Asia's biggest tech show, Computex. It focuses on, yes, computers, from processors to hybrids to VR headsets. Ahead of what we unearth in Taipei, here's what we're already expecting.

Rumors point to more RPG-like features.'Assassin's Creed: Odyssey' takes the series to ancient Greece

Just hours after the leaked image of a keychain accessory revealed the game, Ubisoft has posted a quick teaser for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. With only five seconds of video, the teaser serves as a quick callback to the movie 300 as a Spartan-looking warrior boots his enemy off a cliff, before flashing the game's logo with a familiar helmet in the middle.

You don't need a lot to upgrade your kitchen.The kitchen gadgets you should buy (and the ones you can skip)

The kitchen. The last frontier of the smarthome? Nah, that's the bathroom. Do you need connected kitchen appliances? Maybe. Do you want them. Oh, most definitely. We've drawn together some of the best upgrades, and, yes, that includes the Instant Pot.

'Fulfilled by Amazon' should be a badge of trust, not a legal loophole.Amazon needs to get a handle on its counterfeit problem

Chances are you wouldn't suspect whatever you're buying from Amazon, whether it be clothing, sunglasses or a handbag, is fake. And, for the most part, that tends to true. But that doesn't mean you should trust that every product is legit. Search for Yeezys, a highly coveted pair of Adidas shoes, you'll get more than a thousand results that are clearly fake. Two dead giveaways are design flaws and an unlikely low price -- trust me, Adidas doesn't sell them for $20. The worst part is that some of them bear the seemingly trustworthy Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) label. But all that really means is the company is acting as the middleman between you and the actual seller.