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Best Wireless Headphones for 2024

QuietComfort Ultra Headphones
QuietComfort Ultra Headphones
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Best Wireless Headphones for 2024

QuietComfort Ultra Headphones
QuietComfort Ultra Headphones

When you're cutting the wire, you have a lot of features and wear styles to choose from. There are a few front-runners like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, and AirPods Pro 2.

We test wireless headphones based on six key criteria: design, sound quality, noise-canceling performance, voice-calling performance, features, and value.

Here are our current wireless headphone favorites -- including some value picks.

Best new noise-canceling headphones

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones

While Bose's new flagship QuietComfort Ultra Headphones may not be a huge upgrade over the company's Noise Cancelling 700 headphones, they feature a more premium design along with Bose's new Immersive Audio feature, which delivers some sound-quality enhancements. Along with excellent sound and great noise canceling, the QC Ultra Headphones are also superb for making calls, with top-notch background noise reduction.

Updated Apple noise-canceling wireless earbuds

Apple AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C)

Apple not only swapped in USB-C for Lightning connectivity in its new iPhone 15 models, but it made the switch with the AirPods Pro (second generation).

The new AirPods Pro 2 with MagSafe (USB-C) are nearly identical to their Lightning predecessor, delivering the same excellent sound, noise canceling and voice-calling performance. That said, they offer some other small upgrades, including additional dust resistance and a new acoustic architecture that allows for Lossless Audio with the Vision Pro, the wearable headset Apple released on Feb. 2 for $3,499. Is it possible that new acoustic architecture makes the buds sound subtly different with current devices like the iPhone? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) are easy to recommend to Apple users despite their high price.

Best budget noise-canceling wireless earbuds

Earfun Air Pro 3

Earfun has put out a series of wireless earbuds over the last couple of years with one important commonality: They're very good values, made more so by frequent discounts. The company's new-for-2023 Earfun Air Pro 3 earbuds feature the latest Qualcomm QCC3071 system-on-a-chip with AptX Adaptive for Android and other devices that support the new LE Audio standard and LC3 audio codec, which is superior to the SBC codec (they also support AAC for Apple devices).

Lightweight and comfortable to wear -- I got a good seal with the largest ear tip size -- these aren't a huge upgrade over the Earfun Air S, but they are better. They have slightly larger wool-composite drivers (11mm versus 10mm), slightly improved noise canceling and better battery life (up to 7 hours with noise canceling on, according to Earfun).

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Microsoft Revamps AI Copilot with New Voice, Reasoning Capabilities

Copilot logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Copilot logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Microsoft Revamps AI Copilot with New Voice, Reasoning Capabilities

Copilot logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Copilot logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Microsoft has given its consumer Copilot, an artificial intelligence assistant, a more amiable voice in its latest update, with the chatbot also capable of analyzing web pages for interested users as they browse.

The US software maker now has "an entire army" of creative directors - among them psychologists, novelists and comedians - finessing the tone and style of Copilot to distinguish it, Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, told Reuters in an interview.

In one demonstration of the updated Copilot, a consumer asked what housewarming gift to buy at a grocery store for a friend who did not drink wine. After some back-and-forth, Copilot said aloud: "Italian (olive) oils are the hot stuff right now. Tuscan's my go-to. Super peppery."

The feature rollout, starting Tuesday, is one of the first that Suleyman has overseen since Microsoft created his division in March to focus on consumer products and technology research.

Long identified with business software, Microsoft has had a much harder road in the consumer realm. Its Bing search engine, for instance, is still dwarfed by Google.

Suleyman is hoping for a bigger splash with Copilot, which launched last year in a crowded field of AI chatbots, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.

Copilot's newly fashioned voice capabilities make it seem much more of an active listener, giving verbal cues like "cool" and "huh," Suleyman said.

Underlying the product are Microsoft AI, or "MAI," models, plus a technology suite from partner OpenAI, Suleyman said.

Suleyman added that consumers who spend $20 monthly for Copilot Pro can start testing a "Think Deeper" feature that reasons through choices, like whether to move to one city or another.

He said an additional test feature for paying subscribers, Copilot Vision, amounts to "digital pointing" - the ability for users to talk to AI about what they see in a Microsoft Edge browser. Consumers have to opt in, and the content they view will not be saved or used to train AI, Microsoft said.

These updates represent "glimmers" of AI that can be an "ever-present confidant, in your corner," Suleyman said. It's a vision he articulated as CEO of Inflection AI, whose top talent Microsoft poached in a closely watched deal this year.

Suleyman said that eventually, Copilot will learn context from consumers' Word documents, Windows desktops, even their gaming consoles if they grant permission.

Asked what Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, thinks of the company's AI efforts, Suleyman said Gates was excited.

"He's always asking me about when Copilot can read and parse his emails. It's one of his favorite ones," Suleyman said. "We're on the case."