James Trew

Former Editor-at-Large

James started writing about music and audio before he was legally old enough to go to the nightclubs he was reviewing. Since then he's covered tech and culture for titles such as Men's Journal, Playboy, Future Music and High Snobiety. Since joining Engadget in 2011, James has continued to specialize in the creator space along with maintaining his interest in sub-cultures, with stories on everything from competitive Tetris to skateboard videos and the accidental invention of digital Reggae. In his spare time, he enjoys adding to his list of Podcast ideas that probably might not happen.

Articles by James Trew

GoPro updates Karma drone with much-needed 'follow me' feature
When GoPro announced it was working on a drone, pretty much everyone thought that it'd have some sort of "follow" feature. It didn't. But it had the required technology all along. Finally, today, Karma is being updated to unlock that feature, along with a few other goodies.
GoPro Hero 6: 4K 60 FPS, better stabilization and HDR photos
When GoPro hosts an event in the fall, you get no prizes for guessing what's coming. CEO Nick Woodman just revealed the Hero 6 here in San Francisco, to no one's surprise. What is surprising (if you ignored the leaks) is that the new camera has one big, largely invisible change: the image processor (which GoPro is calling the GP1). We'll get to why that's important in a bit.
UVify's Draco drone is fast, furious fun for wannabe racers
I'm flying high above the San Francisco Bay, maybe 150 feet in the air. I look down and start gliding toward a dilapidated skate park. Once I'm near the ground, I pull my nose up and look level with the horizon. Spotting two trees, I race toward them, pass between them, then turn on a dime, skirting some shipping containers on my left. It's like every dream I've ever had about flying, but faster. It's also not a dream. I take off a pair of video goggles, and I see the shipping containers come into focus, this time directly in front of me, as my eyes adjust to the sunlight. This is my third "first-person-view" flight with the Draco drone, and it's more exciting every time.
Gnarbox turns your phone into a 4K video-editing studio
It's an overcast day in San Francisco, and there's a drone buzzing high above the city. I'm with Tim Feess, the young co-founder of Gnarbox, a rugged portable video-editing tool that pairs with an app on your phone and works with multiple cameras and memory cards. Clouds might be lingering over the skyline, but Feess is unperturbed. He's confident that we can make a video of our afternoon that I'd not only be pleased with but would find a cinch to create. He brings the drone down, and we decide to find a more colorful spot to fly.
The FDA has a significant change of heart about e-cigarettes
The FDA has just announced a sweeping change in its policy regarding e-cigarettes and vaping products. In a press release issued this morning, the administration outlined its plan to focus on reducing usage of combustible cigarettes and tobacco, in turn loosening restrictive rules laid out just last year, that could have wiped out most vaping products ("eliquid").
GoPro QuikStories automatically creates a sweet edit for you
If you've spent more than five minutes on social media recently, you'll know that "stories" are the hot new currency. Sharing your day with your followers keeps you and your friends coming back for more. While stories have largely been the realm of apps like Instagram and Snapchat, GoPro recently decided it would toss its hat into the narrative-telling ring with "QuikStories."
AirDog's ADII 'follow me' drone doubles down on action sports
In 2015, the big innovation in drones was "follow-me" mode. It wasn't new, but the technology was finally good enough for it to become a leading feature in quadcopters. A few did just that, most notably AirDog, Lily, 3DR, DJI and Hexo+. In 2017, Lily is bust, 3DR had to pivot to enterprise and Hexo+ has been "out of stock" on its website for months. DJI was already the biggest player in the game back then. The small, indie team at AirDog, on the other hand, is alive and well, and back with a new drone -- the ADII -- which takes the follow-me feature to (literal) new heights.
These drone racing goggles could spark the sport's digital era
Drones with digital video capabilities already exist, but in the racing world, analog is still king. For now, at least. Fat Shark has been the go-to maker of racing drone goggles for several years, and it's about to double down on digital, which in turn could be the nudge toward dropping analog feeds that the sport needs. The $350 Base HD is the company's first all-digital headset, and it comes with a fancy new 720p LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) display improved brightness, contrast ratios and clarity and a 28 degree field of view (this might sound small, but drone racing doesn't call for a huge FOV).
Atari 2600 fans get the revival console they deserve
If you want to play retro Atari 2600/VCS games, you're not short on options. There's eBay for the original console, of course. You can play some on mobile, buy one of those Flashback all-in-ones or splurge on the ultimate man/woman cave table. But for those who have the original cartridges but don't want to keep an old console on permanent life support or tinker with modifications under the hood, your options aren't so good. Enter the RetroN 77 -- the VCS reimagined for the modern age. Importantly, it plays most if not all of the original game cartridges in glorious 1080p and at a modern aspect ratio, right out of the box.
GoPro's Fusion could make 360 video cool, if it nails the software
Yesterday GoPro CEO Nick Woodman presented the Fusion 360/VR camera to the world for the first time at Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado. The company teased an image about a month ago, but it turns out that was a bit of a trick. The deliberate use of lighting hid the true shape and form of the camera. Fusion is actually bigger than it looked. GoPro has long considered itself as having outgrown the "action cam" label, instead positioning itself as an enabler for stories beyond the reach of your phone's camera. Put in those terms, Fusion, and 360 video in general, could make more sense.
This is the GoPro Fusion: the company's all-in-one VR camera
GoPro surprised everybody when it teased its "Fusion" 360-degree action camera back in April. Mostly because GoPro rarely teases anything (Karma, perhaps being the exception), preferring to show up out of nowhere with a glossy release video and launch event. The half-reveal didn't tell us much, just that there was a camera coming in the fall, it had a resolution of 5.2K, a feature called "OverCapture" that would allow you to "punch out" a regular video from the spherical capture and well, that was kinda it.
Flying a DJI Spark by waving your hand isn't as great as it sounds
DJI's Spark is the company's first attempt at a true drone for everyone. DJI has made no secret about the fact it thinks non-RC enthusiasts want a lightweight, compact quadcopter that's easy to control. That's exactly what the Spark is. But after spending some time with it (and a Mavic Pro, for comparison), I'm torn. The Spark is, indeed, incredibly fun, simple to use and easy to carry around. But, the gesture controls aren't as useful, or reliable enough for new pilots. And therein lies the dilemma.
'Arden's Wake' paves the way for never-ending VR stories
Making movies in virtual reality is easy. Making good animated movies in virtual reality is hard. There's no "mise en scène" to play with, and even the basic 180-degree rule is washed away with a head turn. The limitations of a cinema screen make storytelling easier, linear, comfortable. Penrose Studios doesn't care much for comfort, it seems. The same studio that gave us the haunting Allumette and infantile captivation of The Rose and I is back at the Tribeca Film Festival this year with its third VR story -- Arden's Wake -- and it promises to be bigger, more detailed and more technically improbable than anything we've seen from the studio so far.
Google Earth feeds your wanderlust with 'Voyager' stories
There are two things you should never do if you want to maintain productivity: start clicking on links in Wikipedia, or open Google Earth. There are many, many other ways to waste time on the internet but the amount of work hours lost between those two is probably enough to make most managers weep. Your boss won't be too pleased, then, to learn that Google Earth's latest update, revealed today, ratchets up its time-killing potential several notches.
ESPN's Drone Racing League returns with faster, bigger races
Last year, I asked a simple question: Can drone racing become as big as eSports? While we wait to find out, one of the leading race organizers -- the Drone Racing League -- is making all the right moves this year to make that answer yes. One of the keys to achieving that, the DRL hopes, is the introduction of the Racer3 drone, which will be the standard craft all pilots in the DRL race with. Unsurprisingly, it's more powerful and agile than its predecessor (the Racer2, obviously) and could be the shot in the arm the sport needs to go mainstream. The Racer3 should make races -- which air on ESPN starting June 20th -- even more thrilling, luring more fans (and, by association, lucre) to the game.
GoPro's $100 accessory puts Karma's gimbal (almost) anywhere
When GoPro launched Karma at the end of the last year, company CEO Nick Woodman was keen to point out that it's "So much more than a drone." That statement was mostly referring to the bundled handheld grip, which uses the stabilizer from the quadcopter, bringing smooth video to ground-based activities as well. Now, there's a new member of the Karma family, with the self-explanatory name of "Karma Grip Extension Cable." The accessory (pictured on the left, above) brings the gimbal's video-smoothing skills to even more points of view. Albeit at a price.
Ethan Hawke shot most of his forthcoming biopic with DJI gear
Ethan Hawke's forthcoming biopic, Blaze, sees the actor make the move from center stage to the director's chair. The movie tells the story of the late country and western artist Blaze Foley, and is being filmed in almost entirely with DJI products. That doesn't mean most of the movie is filmed from the air, though. DJI drones are part of the production, but the company's non-flying camera gear, including the Osmo RAW and the Ronin DSLR stabilizer, were used extensively throughout the production. DJI was at SXSW in Austin to talk about its involvement in the film -- all part of its DJI Creative Studio initiative.
Party Bot decides who's on the guest list, what music to play
While most people in the tech business only roll into Austin once a year for SXSW, a handful of companies choose to call the city home. Fjord (formerly known as Chaotic Moon) is one of them. So, when the festival sets up around them, it uses the week as an opportunity to show of some of its proof-of-concept (and usually fun) ideas.
'La La Land' composer on electronica's key role in the film
Damien Chazelle's La La Land might not have won that Oscar, but it did scoop up the one for Best Original Music Score. The man behind that score is Justin Hurwitz. Anyone who has seen the film will know that the soundtrack is largely divided between vintage Hollywood music and classic jazz -- the style favored by tortured musician Seb (Ryan Gosling). But for all of its antiquity, one of the biggest conflicts of the movie is Seb's struggle with pop success after joining his friend Keith (John Legend) in a band that fuses jazz flavors with modern electronic music. Hurwitz's challenge, then, was not only to score the movie but also to create a musical backdrop to Seb's journey of self-discovery, a journey that ultimately proves to be a crucial fork in the movie's twisting story.
SXSW 2017: What to watch out for over the weekend
The atmosphere here in Austin, Texas is warming up nicely (as is the weather, thankfully). With the smell of BBQ and the constant strum of guitars now permanently lingering in the air, it can only mean one thing: SXSW's Interactive weekend is upon us. If you're not here on the ground in Austin, no worries: We're here to bring the show to you via the interpipes.

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