Throughout the ongoing wildfires, California officials have relied on emergency alerts to communicate with citizens. This system is an important way for officials to communicate with citizens instantly across iPhone and Android devices.

On Thursday evening, however, a wildfire evacuation alert went out to everyone in Los Angeles – even though it was only meant for a subset of residents.

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With wind speeds falling, firefighting reinforcements arriving from out of state, and more water sources online, authorities now have a critical window to take control of the situation.

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After two days of dealing with wildfires that have burned thousands of acres, residents across Los Angeles County received a wildfire evacuation alert on Thursday afternoon that was a mistake. Shortly after, officials sent a follow-up alert saying that the notice was intended only for people near the Kenneth Fire in Woodland Hills.

Los Angeles County shared a message on X explaining what happened: “An evacuation order for residents near the Kenneth Fire currently burning in West Hills was mistakenly issued Countywide. This alert was only intended for residents of Calabasas and Agoura Hills.”

CBS News quotes a local official who said that the alert, which included a broken URL, was sent “due to a technical error.”

Image: The Verge

Many wildfires are burning in the LA area, and officials have confirmed at least six deaths, CNN reports. LA County has a population of nearly 10 million people, which is the “largest population of any county in the nation,” according to the county’s website.

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The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the app as soon as next week.

Apple acknowledged issues with the reliability of the iPhone’s built-in alarm feature last April after a report by NBC’s Today morning show and said it was working on a fix, but some people are still having trouble. Android Authority points out this Reddit post by bryanlolwut in the r/iPhone subreddit from Wednesday with a picture of an iPhone with an Alarm set for 10:30, but the alarm goes off at 12:42 instead — the time displayed on an Apple Watch.

Late into Thursday, many Reddit users are still commenting on the thread, saying they’re having similar issues.

“My morning alarm was displaying as going off while making no sound and no haptics for 40 minutes,” said Slawek_Zupa. Another post says their alarm went off at 5PM when it was supposed to go off at 7AM.

The reports in the thread today include people still using iOS 17 and others who have updated to iOS 18 with Apple Intelligence.

Some say they’ve tried turning off Apple’s Attention Awareness Features, which can reduce the alarm volume when it goes off if the iPhone detects your face. However, it hasn’t solved the problem for many, and you lose out on features like seeing full notifications on your lock screen.

We’ve asked Apple if they’re still looking into this problem, but we have not received a response yet. Personally, I’ve also noticed my iPhone sometimes doesn’t make sounds or vibrate in the morning, but it does drop down a lifeless notification as if it did. Luckily, I’ve got a Google Pixel 8 Pro as a backup that usually gets me going, and I’m trying the Nintendo Alarmo, too, but my wife has had enough of Zelda yelling at Link to wake up.

The first big redesign of the Gemini overlay on Android is beginning to roll out for some users.

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At CES 2025, Brelyon showed off its latest immersive display called the Ultra Reality Extend and even after seeing it in person, my brain still can’t fully comprehend a monitor that looks bigger and deeper on the inside than it does on the outside.

Billed as the world’s first commercial multi-focal monitor, the Ultra Reality Extend merges the ease-of-use and simplicity of a traditional desktop display with the kind of spatial depth you can normally only get from VR headset. Granted, the max simulated depth the Extend delivers is only 2.5 meters, which isn’t nearly as far as you’d get from devices like a Meta Quest 3S or an Apple Vision Pro, but considering that Brelyon’s monitor doesn’t require any additional equipment (aside from a connected PC), the effect is truly impressive. And it’s much easier to use too, all you have to do is set yourself in front and the monitor will do the rest, which results in much less eye strain or the potential nausea that many people experience with modern VR goggles.

Brelyon

This allows the monitor to defy its dimensions, because even though it’s much chunkier than a typical display, the view inside is absolutely monstrous. From a 30-inch frame, the Ultra Reality Extend provides a virtual display that’s equivalent to a curved 122-inch screen. Meanwhile, its 4K/60Hz resolution uses 1-bit of monocular to deliver spatial content that looks closer to 8K with elements of the scene capable of looking closer or further away depending on the situation.

When I watched a game clip from Spiderman, the trees and light poles whipping past in my face felt so real I started to flinch subconsciously. Then in other scenes, Brelyon’s monitor was able to separate different layers of the content to make snow in the foreground look blurry as it whipped across the screen while characters in the distance remained tack sharp. It’s rather uncanny because the effect is visceral in a way that games and movies on flat screens just can’t match.

Meanwhile, underpinning the monitor is Brelyon’s Visual Engine, which allows the display to automatically assign different depths to elements in games and videos on the fly without additional programming. That said, developers can further optimize their content for Brelyon’s tech, allowing them to add even more depth and immersion.

Unfortunately, the downside is that the Ultra Reality Extend’s unique approach to spatial content is quite expensive. That’s because while the monitor is available now, the company is targeting pricing between $5,000 to $8,000 per unit, with the exact numbers depending on the customer and any partnerships with Brelyon. Sadly, this means the display will be limited to enterprise buyers who will use it for things like making ultra-realistic flight simulators with depth-enabled UI instead of normal folk who might want a fancy monitor for movies and games. But if Brelyon’s tech takes off, one day, maybe…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/breylons-immersive-display-is-the-tardis-of-monitors-233606873.html?src=rss

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© Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget