Three students from the UK wanted to help people use phones less, so they made a new app.

It is Hold. The app is popular in some countries in Europe and it has more than 120, 000 users.

Between 7:00 and 23:00 every day, if students do not use their mobile phones for every 20 minutes, they will get 10 points. They can use the points to get goods and services in the app’s marketplace. If students want to get two free coffees, they need 300 points. That means they don’t use the phone for 10 hours on the Hold app.

Teachers and parents may be happy about the app because it can help students spend less time on their phones.

Virtual (虚拟的) worlds and the real world are going to collide (碰撞) with a new device.

On June 5, Apple released its new product—the Apple Vision Pro headset. It mixes the real environment with computer images. Wearing the headset, users can see digital content (数字内容), such as movies or games in front of their eyes. At the same time, the environment around the users is captured (捕捉) and shown on the screen as well. This makes the users feel that they are looking at their surroundings (环境) directly. “It’s like your phone but right in front of you—wherever you are,” one of the first users of the headset told the BBC.

The headset is equipped with 12 cameras, six microphones and different sensors (传感器). These work together to follow the user’s eye movement and gestures (手势), allowing them to control the device without a remote control (遥控器). For example, tapping (轻拍) your fingers together will be viewed as a click.

The product also has some special social characteristics (社交特征). When a person gets close to someone wearing the headset, the screen will show the eyes of the user. It makes the user look more friendly. But if the user is fully immersed (沉浸在) in a virtual world, others won’t see the eyes and will know the user is in a “do-not-disturb (免打扰)” mode.

“Blending (融合) digital content with the real world can unlock experiences like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said. “Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and the iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial (空间的) computing.”

However, there are still some weaknesses of the headset because this is the first of its kind by Apple. A user said it’s about 0.6 kilograms—it can be heavy because you need to wear it on your face. It’s also very expensive. The headset now costs $3,499 (about 25,000 yuan). Another thing is that the battery (电池) can only work for two hours. It needs to be plugged in (连接电源) for longer use.

“The first generation of the headset is about creating buzz (轰动),” Foad Fadaghi, a business expert, told American Financial Review. “We believe Apple will have a better model sometime in 2024.”