At Apple’s education-themed event in Chicago on Tuesday, the biggest news was a new version of the 9.7-inch iPad, last updated in June.  This new version keeps the same basic look and price: $329, £319 or AU$469 for most people; $299 for US students, teachers and schools. But it adds both a faster A10 CPU and …

Meet the new iPad: It’s a lot like the 2017 model, but with a key feature upgrade: Pencil support. Compatibly with Apple’s stylus — still $99 at retail and $89 for students — was previously only available on iPad Pro models costing twice the price.  The starting price of the new iPad is the same: $329 (£319 in the UK, …

Expect new iPads to be the centerpiece of Apple’s big education event this year. That was my guess in the hours after Apple announced its March 27 press conference more than a week ago, and all the news since then continues to point in that direction. >> Follow CNET’s Apple live blog here But let’s back up a bit. Apple’s surprise announcement …

It was soft. It didn’t leave marks on my face. And the VR looked just fine. That’s my first-impression feel of Oculus Go, an upcoming bid by Facebook to get new people interested in VR for a sub-$200 price, no phone necessary. That $199 roughly converts to £150 or AU$255. The Oculus Go is a VR headset that’s self-contained. In …

HTC Vive Focus, a mobile standalone VR headset first launched last year in China, is now going worldwide by year’s end, according to an announcement by HTC during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The headset has built-in 6 DoF (six degrees of freedom) tracking that allows movement in a room without added external sensors. It runs software compatible …

I’m standing in front of a mirror, looking at an avatar of a woman that isn’t me. “Blink,” I’m told. But it’s not working for me. One eye is permanently shut. Maybe it’s my glasses? I try lifting the goggles away from my face a bit. Now, it tracks. I roll my eyes around, and my virtual eyes in the …

There’s a chance your next mobile game could offer up an Amazon prize, starting right now. Much like HQ Trivia’s daily money giveaways, Amazon’s newly-announced GameOn service looks to enable prizes and knit that into cross-platform competitions. Except, in GameOn’s case, Amazon is designing it to work on consoles, PCs and mobile at once. Announced ahead of the Game Developers …

How much would you pay for high-end VR? HTC is betting $799. (UK and AU prices aren’t available yet, but the equivalent is roughly AU$1,040 or £575 converted.) But there’s a catch: This time, that’s only for part of the package. The HTC Vive Pro, a new PC-connected VR hardware update to the original HTC Vive, was unveiled in January …

Apple snuck in a little Friday surprise with an unexpected invite to a March 27 event. And it’s not at the company’s lavish Cupertino campus — it’s in Chicago. “Join us to hear new creative ideas for teachers and students,” the invitation says. The location is Lane Tech College Prep High School on the city’s north side. Apple’s last education-themed …

Google just rebranded its Android Wear watch platform with a new name: Wear OS. This news arrives less than two months before Google I/O, the annual developer conference in which Google announces its new initiatives and software broad strokes. New Google hardware generally (though not always) hits around October. Maybe Wear OS is an indicator that Google’s smartwatch strategy is …