Many car makers will surround you with speakers in a bid to create immersive sound, but Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) thinks your seat can also play a role. The company's new Range Rover Sport SV Edition One includes Subpac-powered "Body and Soul Seat" tech (appropriately, BASS) whose headrest-mounted membranes and transducers deliver haptic feedback in response to lower frequencies in your music. Whether you're the driver or a passenger, you'll feel the thumps of a dance or rap track.
The system complements the Range Rover Sport's 29-speaker Meridian audio setup, which already has a subwoofer, but Jaguar Land Rover and Subpac also claim the vibrations can improve your health through six wellness programs. The companies point to a JLR-supported study indicating that BASS can help you relax and reduce stress by increasing the variability of your heart rate. Provided that holds up in the real world, this may be the luxury SUV to get if you need to unwind during the commute home.
Jaguar Land Rover
The Range Rover Sport SV Edition One is already sold out for its first year. You can sign up to be notified about other SV trim levels, and there are hints BASS will be more widely available going forward.
However well this seat works, it's just the start for Subpac. The company has been pitching its mix of haptics and bone conduction to movie theaters, music producers, VR simulation creators and gamers, and has a Flow platform that can bring vibration to seats and wearables (think of something like Lofelt's Basslet). The firm also hopes to venture into aviation and the overall wellness space. Don't be surprised if tactile audio finds its way into more of the devices you buy and use, even if it's limited to premium products.
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Garmin has just announced a pair of new smartwatches intended for explorers and extreme fitness enthusiasts. However, these are high-end gadgets with high-end specs and, accordingly, high-end price tags.
First up, the Epix Pro series. The main draw of these watches is that they ship with a bright and crisp AMOLED display, a design choice Garmin has begun to fully embrace, providing a vivid picture without drawing too much battery life. There’s also a built-in flashlight with multiple intensities and a strobe mode, a red-only visual display option for darker conditions and plenty of advanced fitness features.
To that end, the Epix Pro series includes “dozens” of new, preloaded activities like soccer, basketball, horseback riding, racquet sports and plenty more. The fitness trackers now offer endurance scores and hill scores for advanced metrics. Runners and walkers will also receive notifications regarding points of interest along the route. There are new weather map overlays to view local environmental conditions and upgraded shading for making it easier to understand elevations within topographic maps. The Epix Pro line is available now and launches in three sizes (42mm, 47mm and 51mm.) Prices start at $900.
The Fenix 7 Pro series is for serious explorers, with solar charging, a powerful LED flashlight, mapping upgrades and a red safety light, all of which are intended to provide greater awareness when training in the dark, like a ninja. The heart rate sensor also got a significant boost, with new optical sensors and sport-specific algorithms that track your pulse rate across a diverse array of activities. There's no ECG app, however, so you'll have to look elsewhere if that's a primary concern.
The new endurance score feature measures how easy it is to engage in prolonged physical activities, combining V02 sensors, hill scores and previous training data. Just like the Epix Pro, the Fenix 7 boasts an updated mapping system with weather overlays, points of interest and improvements to topographic maps. There’s also new preloaded activities like whitewater rafting and motocross. The Fenix 7 Pro is available in multiple sizes and designs, starting at $800.
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It's officially the end of an era for the original Google Chromecast, with the first-generation model no longer receiving any updates or support, 9to5Google reports. Chromecast first came on the scene in 2013 as a key-sized device that promised to provide a Smart TV experience for $35, and it has done just that. Google has upgraded the initial Chromecast's hardware throughout the years to keep up with streaming denands but is now leaving it behind for good.
In a release on Chromecast's informational hub, Google asserted that "Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended, which means these devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance." Google last updated Chromecast's support page back in April, meaning the announcement has gone unnoticed for some time now.
Through the lens of Google alone, a complete pull-back on the 10-year-old Chromecast original has been a long time coming. The company has only looked after the first-gen's bug and security issues (rather than larger-scale updates) since 2019. The last update came in November 2022 and was the first in three years. Google has also released newer versions since the first-gen, like the cheaper $30 Chromecast with Google TV (HD) and the $50 4K model.
If you're a loyal first-gen Chromecast user, the only thing to do now is to make sure it's fully upgraded and hope for the best.
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As is often the case with PC versions of PlayStation exclusives, there are some extra bells and whistles here. There are new "ray-traced shadows for natural light in outdoor areas" which allow for "realistic shadows with natural gradients in softness," as Julian Huijbregts, an online community specialist at Nixxes (the Sony studio that's working on the port), notes on the PlayStation Blog. The gameplay and cutscenes have been optimized for ultra-wide displays, including aspect ratios of 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 for triple-monitor setups.
Along with unlocked framerates, there's support for upscaling tech including NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 2, Intel XeSS and Insomniac's own Temporal Injection, as well as NVIDIA Reflex and NVIDIA DLAA anti-aliasing. You can opt to use a keyboard and mouse with fully customizable controls or a controller. Plug in a DualSense, and you'll be able to experience the same haptic feedback and dynamic trigger effects that you would on PS5.
I finally got around to playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart after it hit PlayStation Plus recently and enjoyed it immensely. It's a breathtakingly gorgeous game with strong combat, captivating characters and a smart script. Insomniac also makes better use of the DualSense's capabilities than most studios.
Fingers crossed that Insomniac and Nixxes can avoid the kinds of technical issues that have plagued PC versions of other Sony games. The Last of Us Part 1(Iron Galaxy worked with Naughty Dog on that port) and Horizon Zero Dawn, which Nixxes helped to fix, both had notable problems at the outset on PC.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart relies on the speedy load times of the PlayStation 5 to make the dimension-hopping feature work seamlessly. With that (and the stellar visuals) in mind, it's likely that you'll need a beefy gaming rig to get the most out of the port. So, it's probably worth waiting for Sony to reveal the PC specs before locking in a pre-order on Steam or the Epic Games Store.
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In an interview with The Guardianmore than a decade ago, Warren Spector, the director and producer of Deus Ex, said his dream game would take place in one city block. “There are people who are trying to simulate massive worlds at a level of an inch per mile,” Spector told journalist Keith Stuart. “I don’t get it. I really want deep worlds that you can interact with.”
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about those comments while playing Diablo IV. Blizzard’s latest is easily one of the best games the studio has released in about a decade, but I can’t help imagining what Diablo IV could have been if it were a smaller, more focused experience.
The story of Diablo IV opens decades after the end of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, with the world of Sanctuary still reeling from the events of that game. Structurally, the narrative that unfolds is similar to Diablo II. Following a visit to a remote village, your character sets off after the demon Lilith – who is the daughter of Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils you defeated in Diablo II. More often than not,your character finds they’re one step behind Lilith, leading to predictably dire results.
I won’t say much more about Diablo IV’s story other than to note Blizzard smartly grounded it in the tragedy of its human characters. When the narrative calls on elements from past games, it does so in ways that feel natural and earned. Lilith is also a great antagonist. Every time she appeared on-screen, I felt a sense of unease waiting to see what kind of calculated cruelty she’d inflict on those unlucky enough to cross her path. If you only end up playing Diablo IV for its story, I think you will enjoy the experience, but if you decide to veer off itscritical path, be prepared to play through a lot of uninspired content.
If you tried Diablo IV during one of the open betas Blizzard held in recent months, you’ve seen most of what the game’s open world has to offer as you’re leveling your character. Did you encounter a world event in the Fractured Peaks that tasked you with protecting a group of villagers hiding under their carts? Guess what – you’ll find another group just like that one again in Scosglen, the game’s second zone, and in other areas, too. I bet you played through a few optional dungeons. Well, there are more than 100 in the full game, and most feature a limited combination of layouts and objectives. World bosses and camps are more fun to complete, but there are far fewer of them than all the other content present in the game. The post-campaign adds more things to do like helltides and nightmare dungeons, but those increase the difficulty of the content, rather than introducing something substantially new.
Sometimes you’ll discover some interesting lore, a nifty bit of environmental storytelling or a named enemy that will drop an item with unique flavor text, but those moments are few and far between. I kept waiting for Diablo IV’s worldto surprise me, to do something unexpected. The closest the game came to scratching that itch was when it sent the Butcher, a boss that shows up in nearly every Diablo game, to murder my character in an optional dungeon I was exploring. Even though my barbarian didn’t survive the encounter, I wanted more moments like that. Instead, the game seemed dead set on offering me an endless checklist of samey content if I ever decided to strike off on my own.
Blizzard Entertainment
That frustration is palpable while playing Diablo IV because so much of the game is immediately compelling. Nearly every inch of itsopen world is striking, with some of the most detailed and creative assets Blizzard has ever produced. Add to that a soundtrack that is haunting and evocative, and you have an experience that’s begging for players to inhabit it.
Maybe it’s my fault for expecting a live service game to offer something more substantive, but everywhere in Diablo IV, you see evidence that the people who spent years of their lives working on this project wanted the same thing. Just look at character creation. Clearly, the intention here was to allow players to make their druid, barbarian, sorcerer, rogue or necromancer look exactly like they’ve always appeared in their imaginations. Diablo IV offers a dizzying amount of visual customization for each class. In addition to all of the items, you can give your character different hairstyles and tattoos, and modify their skin tone, eye color and other attributes. Add in the transmog system, which allows you to transform the appearance of items to make them look like ones you’ve found in the past, and I can guarantee no two characters will look alike.
Blizzard obviously also put a lot of thought into player agency, allowing each class to be played in a variety of ways. The Aspects system is one of Diablo IV’s most compelling features: By completing dungeons and finding legendary items, you will collect item affixes that modify how skills work, and they’re transferable among your inventory. Some of these can completely change how your build functions. After some initial frustration, I found a build that allowed my barbarian to make short work of both hordes of monsters and Diablo IV’s spongy bosses, and I had a lot of fun with the game. I just wish there was more to do in Diablo IV’s world other than kill countless monster hordes. After all, role-playing has always been part of the ARPG genre.
Blizzard Entertainment
One last thing I want to note is that I played a version of Diablo IV that did not include any of the microtransactions the final build will feature. If you haven’t followed that aspect of the game’s development, I wrote about Blizzard’s monetization plans for Diablo IV last year. In short, Diablo IV is a full-priced game that also happens to feature an in-game shop and seasonal passes. Blizzard has promised that none of the cosmetic items you can buy in the shop or earn by completing the paid track of a season pass will grant “direct or indirect” gameplay advantages. The studio was also quick to note the shop and season pass will offer “more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices” for customizing your character. After Diablo Immortal, I’m fine with this setup, but I know some people will be put off by the presence of a season pass.
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my time with Diablo IV; I enjoyed nearly every moment of it. In a lot of ways, it’s the Diablo game I’ve been dreaming of ever since I first set foot in the world of Sanctuary back in 1997. But it is also a reminder of all the ways Blizzard has changed since I first encountered its games. There’s no way the company that released Diablo II in 2000 and even Diablo III in 2012 could have created a game of Diablo IV’s scale, but sheer size is not what makes Diablo IV enjoyable. So often, that scale works against the game, resulting in a world that is, as Warren Spector might say, simulated at a level of an inch per mile.
Diablo IV will be available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 6th.
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According to the latest audit from NASA's inspector general, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the Moon is substantially over budget and far behind schedule. NASA's spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including the $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents "$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections," says the report.
One of the issues has been integrating older NASA technology with newer systems. "These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies… were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS," the audit states. "However, the complexity of developing, updating and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated."
The Artemis Moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020. Following its cancellation, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 mandated construction of the SLS and required the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation.
– Mat Smith
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NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology could allow gamers to speak naturally to non-playable characters (NPCs). The company revealed the tech during its generative AI keynote at Computex 2023, showing a demo called Kairos. The dialogue is rather wooden, but feeding voice-based interactions could be an interesting new dynamic in games. It uses NVIDIA NeMo tech for building, customizing and deploying large language models customized with lore and character backstories while using guardrails to protect against inappropriate conversations. It also deploys a speech recognition and speech-to-text tool called Riva, along with NVIDIA's Omniverse Audio2Face "for instantly creating expressive facial animation of a game character to match any speech track." Check out how it looks below.
Nearly 3,000 EV chargers are also coming to apartments and offices.
The Canadian government revealed Tesla will open access to some of its existing Supercharger network to other brands' EVs. This will start later this year with a pilot route between Ottawa, the capital, and Sudbury. There will be 750 opened stations by the end of 2025, and "at least" 350 of those will be speedy 250kW Superchargers. That performance is important, given the focus on long-distance travel. The government is teaming up with partners to help install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places and fleets. The majority of the chargers will be Level 2 with around 100 faster Level 3 outlets.
WhatsApp's newest update takes a page out of work-centric video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app is adding a screen-sharing feature that will record and display the contents of your screen with whoever is on the other end of the video call, according to WABetaInfo. Screen sharing is only available to select Android beta testers right now but should roll out to more users in the coming weeks. However, it might not work on older Android models, bigger group calls or with people who don't have WhatsApp's latest version.
NVIDIA has revealed G-Sync Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) 2, the second generation of tech it designed to minimize motion blur in competitive games. Compared with ULMB, which it released in 2015, the company says the latest version offers nearly twice as much brightness, along with almost no crosstalk — the strobing or double-image effect that sometimes appears when blur reduction features are enabled.
Motion clarity is largely determined by the monitor's pixel response time. To improve matters, NVIDIA is using "full refresh rate backlight strobing," which builds on the backlight strobing technique from the original ULMB. Although the previous version of the tech improved motion clarity for many, it needed to switch off the monitor's backlight 75 percent of the time. This reduced the brightness of the screen.
With ULMB 2, NVIDIA is able to match the display's refresh rate when it turns the backlight on and off. The aim is to only turn the backlight on when pixels are at the correct color value for each frame. This mitigates crosstalk, as you shouldn't see pixels when they're transitioning to the accurate color.
This approach wasn't really possible with the slower pixel refresh rates of older monitors. ULMB 2 is able to run at the full refresh rate of current displays. On a 360Hz display, each backlight strobe happens every 2.7 milliseconds — a rate that's imperceptible to the human eye.
What this all boils down to is NVIDIA being able to offer more brightness and an effective motion clarity of over 1000Hz. If you use a 360Hz monitor with ULMB 2 on, NVIDIA says you'll get an effective motion clarity of 1440Hz. The company claims that, without ULMB 2, you'd need a monitor that's capable of 1440Hz to get equivalent motion clarity. Given that we've only recentlystarted seeing 500Hz monitors, mass-market 1440Hz displays seem quite a ways off.
NVIDIA offered some brief demos of ULMB 2 in action. In the video below, you'll see what a motorcycle pursuit sequence looks like in slow-motion at 360 frames per second with the feature both off and on.
ULMB 2 is available now as a free update for compatible 1440p, 360Hz G-Sync monitors. Only two such displays are on the market at the minute, NVIDIA says: the Acer Predator XB273U and the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQN, both of which are 27-inch monitors. The ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP (a 25-inch 1080p, 540Hz display) and the 27-inch AOC AGON AG276QSG G-Sync Monitor are also compatible, and they'll be available soon.
NVIDIA announced ULMB 2 alongside some AI developments at Computex. The company is developing a supercomputer that's designed to help companies build generative AI models. It also showed off tech that will enable players to use their microphones and have somewhat realistic conversations with in-game characters.
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ARM just sent a not-so-subtle warning to Android phone makers still hanging on to 32-bit technology. The company has introduced its first lineup of CPU core designs that are exclusively 64-bit — unlike last year, there's no legacy tech for vendors to use. The Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520 don't always represent major leaps in performance, but they're likely to set the pace for Android in the near future.
The Cortex-X4, like the X3, is a performance core aimed at flagship phones. Its updated architecture delivers a 15 percent claimed higher performance, but uses 40 percent less power than its predecessor. That translates to faster app launches and a more responsive interface, according to ARM. We also wouldn't be surprised if this led to improved battery life in games and other intensive tasks.
Meanwhile, the Cortex-A720 is a sequel to the A715 "middle" core that handles most computing chores. While it is faster, the focus is on longevity. ARM claims the A720 is over 20 percent more power efficient than last year's design. Chipmakers can even use a smaller 'entry' version to cut costs or shrink their hardware.
We wouldn't discount the Cortex-A520 efficiency core. While it's ultimately meant for background processing and other low-demand duties, it's reportedly 22 percent more efficient than the A510 it's replacing while managing eight percent better performance. Your phone might last longer even if you aren't a heavy-duty user.
Yes, ARM is also paying attention to graphics performance. It's simultaneously launching Immortalis-G720, Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 GPU designs that again offer more performance with a reduced power draw. They notably introduce a deferred vertex shading (DVS) pipeline that uses much less bandwidth (33 percent less in the demanding Genshin Impact), leaving room for more complex scenes and HDR visuals. The Immortalis is said to offer an average 15 percent jump in performance over its predecessor, even as it's 15 percent more efficient. It supports 10 or more cores, while the Mali-G720 supports six to nine cores. The G620 is the budget offering with five cores or less.
ARM hasn't named customers. As virtually the entire mobile industry is built around ARM, though, we'd expect Qualcomm, MediaTek and others to use the new Cortex designs as starting points for their next system-on-chip models. Whether or not Apple uses it isn't clear. Although Apple uses ARM, it hasn't yet made the leap to the newer ARMV9 architecture.
It's safe to say this will influence the Android market, at least. While Apple cut off support for 32-bit hardware and apps with iOS 11's release in 2017, AnandTechnotes that Android has moved relatively slowly, with Chinese brands like Oppo and Xiaomi holding on to 32-bit capable SoCs for a particularly long time. The new ARM range effectively pushes those companies to upgrade — either they use pure 64-bit SoCs or risk being left behind.
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Tesla's plan to open up Superchargers is now extending to Canada after the government revealed that the company will open access to some of its existing Supercharger network to other brands' EVs. The effort starts later this year with a pilot route between the capital city of Ottawa and Sudbury. There will be 750 opened stations by the end of 2025, and "at least" 350 of those will be speedy 250kW Superchargers. That performance is important given the focus on long-distance travel — the open charger route will include a very large Trans-Canada Highway stretch between Ottawa and Calgary.
The announcement comes alongside a plan to make EV chargers more accessible in the country. The government is teaming up with partners to help install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places and fleets. Most of them (1,908) will be modest Level 2 chargers, but this will include 100 Level 3 chargers. Funding is going toward five ongoing projects installing as many as 1,328 EV chargers.
The Canadian news comes just as Tesla promised Ford EV drivers access to 12,000 North American Superchargers starting in spring 2024. Ford is also switching to Tesla's open-source charge port standard with 2025 model year cars. This is in addition to previous efforts to open Superchargers in the US and Europe. While this isn't ubiquitous coverage, it could be reassuring if you want a non-Tesla EV but are worried about inconsistent charger quality.
Canada isn't a major EV hub like the US or China, but it's taking steps to make itself an industry cornerstone. Volkswagen will build its first North American EV battery plant in southern Ontario. A deal for a Stellantis EV battery plant is on shaky ground, but could be influential if it goes through. Add the country's existing car manufacturing base and it may play an important role going forward. Not that the nation has much choice — if it's going to ban sales of combustion engine passenger cars by 2035, it needs to foster demand for EVs well in advance.
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NVIDIA CEO Jensen Hiang made a string of announcements during his Computex keynote, including details about the company’s next DGX supercomputer. Given where the industry is clearlyheading, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the DGX GH200 is largely about helping companies develop generative AI models.
The supercomputer uses a new NVLink Switch System to enable 256 GH200 Grace Hopper superchips to act as a single GPU (each of the chips has an Arm-based Grace CPU and an H100 Tensor Core GPU). This, according to NVIDIA, allows the DGX GH200 to deliver 1 exaflop of performance and to have 144 terabytes of shared memory. The company says that's nearly 500 times as much memory as you'd find in a single DGX A100 system.
For comparison, the latest ranking of the Top500 supercomputers lists Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee as the only known exascale system, having reached a performance of nearly 1.2 exaflops on the Linmark benchmark. That's over twice the peak performance of the second-placed system, Japan's Fugaku.
In effect, NVIDIA claims to have developed a supercomputer that can stand alongside the most powerful known system on the planet (Meta is building one that it claims will be the fastest AI supercomputer in the world once it’s fully built out). NVIDIA says the architecture of the DGX GH200 offers 10 times more bandwidth than the previous generation, "delivering the power of a massive AI supercomputer with the simplicity of programming a single GPU."
Some big names are interested in the DGX GH200. Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft should be among the first companies to gain access to the supercomputer to test how it can handle generative AI workloads. NVIDIA says DGX GH200 supercomputers should be available by the end of 2023.
The company is also building its own supercomputer, Helios, that combines four DGX GH200 systems. NVIDIA expects Helios to be online by the end of the year.
Huang discussed other generative AI developments during his keynote, including one on the gaming front. NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for Games is a service developers will be able to tap into in order to create custom AI models for speech, conversation and animation. NVIDIA says ACE for Games can "give non-playable characters conversational skills so they can respond to questions with lifelike personalities that evolve."
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Japan and JAXA, the country’s space administration, have spent decades trying to make it possible to beam solar energy from space. In 2015, the nation made a breakthrough when JAXA scientists successfully beamed 1.8 kilowatts of power, enough energy to power an electric kettle, more than 50 meters to a wireless receiver. Now, Japan is poised to bring the technology one step closer to reality.
Nikkei reports a Japanese public-private partnership will attempt to beam solar energy from space as early as 2025. The project, led by Naoki Shinohara, a Kyoto University professor who has been working on space-based solar energy since 2009, will attempt to deploy a series of small satellites in orbit. Those will then try to beam the solar energy the arrays collect to ground-based receiving stations hundreds of miles away.
Using orbital solar panels and microwaves to send energy to Earth was first proposed in 1968. Since then, a few countries, including China and the US, have spent time and money pursuing the idea. The technology is appealing because orbital solar arrays represent a potentially unlimited renewable energy supply. In space, solar panels can collect energy no matter the time of day, and by using microwaves to beam the power they produce, clouds aren’t a concern either. However, even if Japan successfully deploys a set of orbital solar arrays, the tech would still be closer to science fiction than fact. That’s because producing an array that can generate 1 gigawatt of power – or about the output of one nuclear reactor – would cost about $7 billion with currently available technologies.
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Portugal could become the latest country to effectively ban Huawei and other Chinese firms from participating in its 5G buildouts. As reported by Bloomberg, the government of Portugal this week recommended barring local carriers from sourcing 5G equipment from suppliers based outside of the European Union or from countries that aren’t part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED).
In a statement Portugal’s Higher Council for Cybersecurity shared on Thursday, the government said firms outside those jurisdictions pose a “high risk” to the security of the country’s wireless networks. The document didn’t call out Huawei specifically, but as China isn’t a member of NATO, the OCED or the EU, the company, alongside other Chinese suppliers like ZTE, would effectively be excluded from participating in Portugal’s 5G networks should the country’s cabinet approve the security council’s recommendation.
“Huawei has no prior knowledge of, and hasn’t been consulted about, this matter,” a Huawei spokesperson told the Financial Times. “Over the past two decades, Huawei has worked with Portuguese carriers to build out wireless networks and provide quality services that connect millions of people. We will continue to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and serve Portuguese customers and partners who rely on our products and services.”
Banning Chinese companies from participating in its 5G networks would be an abrupt turnaround for Portugal, which has enjoyed close relations with the East Asian superpower for years. As the Financial Times notes, Portugal has been one of the biggest per capita recipients of Chinese investment in recent years. Altice Portugal, the country’s largest wireless carrier, signed a deal in 2018 to use Huawei equipment for part of its 5G rollout. If Portugal moves forward with a ban, it would join Canada and a handful of other European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, that have recently barred the company from participating in their 5G networks.
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With the hype around AI reaching a fever pitch in recent months, many people fear programs like ChatGPT will one day put them out of a job. For one New York lawyer, that nightmare could become a reality sooner than expected, but not for the reasons you might think. As reported by The New York Times, attorney Steven Schwartz of the law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman recently turned to OpenAI’s chatbot for assistance with writing a legal brief, with predictably disastrous results.
A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge 🤣 pic.twitter.com/AJSE7Ts7W7
Schwartz’s firm has been suing the Columbian airline Avianca on behalf of Roberto Mata, who claims he was injured on a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. When the airline recently asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, Mata’s lawyers filed a 10-page brief arguing why the suit should proceed. The document cited more than half a dozen court decisions, including “Varghese v. China Southern Airlines,” “Martinez v. Delta Airlines” and “Miller v. United Airlines.” Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one who read the brief could find any of the court decisions cited by Mata’s lawyers. Why? Because ChatGPT fabricated all of them. Oops.
In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Schwartz said he had used the chatbot to “supplement” his research for the case. Schwartz wrote he was "unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPT’s] content could be false.” He even shared screenshots showing that he had asked ChatGPT if the cases it cited were real. The program responded they were, claiming the decisions could be found in “reputable legal databases,” including Westlaw and LexisNexis.
Schwartz said he “greatly regrets” using ChatGPT “and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity.” Whether he has another chance to write a legal brief is up in the air. The judge overseeing the case has ordered a June 8th hearing to discuss potential sanctions for the “unprecedented circumstance” created by Schwartz’s actions.
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Meta’s Quest 3 VR headset won’t arrive until later this year. However, now we have a better idea of what to expect from the device courtesy of Bloomberg’sMark Gurman, who says he went hands-on with a prototype to better understand how Quest 3 will stack up against Apple’s forthcoming mixed-reality headset. Gurman reports the prototype, codenamed Eureka, “feels far lighter and thinner” than its predecessor. He says the head strap “seems a bit stronger,” too, and uses fabric on the sides instead of plastic like the Quest 2.
More consequentially, the front of the device reportedly features a new design incorporating an enhanced sensor suite. Three “vertical pill-shaped sensor areas” house two color video pass-through cameras, two standard cameras and a depth sensor. As Gurman notes, that’s a significant upgrade from the Quest 2, which doesn’t come with color pass-through or a depth sensor. The presence of the former means you won’t need to designate the walls in your play space.
The front lower sides of the headset feature tracking cameras, while the bottom has a volume rocker and a wheel to adjust interpupillary distance. That means you can tweak the Quest 3’s IPD without taking the headset off, something you can’t do with the Quest 2.
“The actual clarity and VR displays within the Quest 3 feel similar to those in the Quest 2 — despite the resolution being rumored to be slightly higher,” Gurman writes, while noting pass-through for mixed reality applications and overall performance is significantly improved over the Quest 2. Speaking to the former, he says there’s a “night-and-day improvement” thanks to the added dual RGB cameras. “I was even able to use my phone while wearing the headset, something that often feels impossible on a Quest 2,” he adds. As for performance, Quest 3 reportedly features Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon XR2 chipset, leading to shorter app launch times and more consistent frame rates in games.
Notably, Gurman says the Quest 3 doesn’t include face and eye tracking, which means the headset won’t support foveated rendering. That’s a feature you can find on the Quest Pro. It allows the system to prioritize its limited computing resources on areas where you’re looking. Another feature the Quest 3 won’t carry over from the Quest Pro is controller-mounted cameras, though Gurman says Meta is trying to improve peripheral tracking in other ways.
“Meta hasn’t yet settled on pricing for the device, but people involved in its development believe it may come in higher than the Quest 2’s $400,” Gurman notes, adding the company could keep the Quest 2 around “at a lower price.” He adds Meta doesn’t plan to release a new Quest Pro “anytime soon since the first version bombed.” The company reportedly plans to announce the Quest 3 sometime in October, which aligns with what company executives have said in the past when asked when consumers can expect a new Quest headset.
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A US federal court this week gave final approval to the $50 million class-action settlement Apple came to last July resolving claims the company knew about and concealed the unreliable nature of keyboards on MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers released between 2015 and 2019. Per Reuters (via 9to5Mac), Judge Edward Davila on Thursday called the settlement involving Apple’s infamous “butterfly” keyboards “fair, adequate and reasonable.” Under the agreement, MacBook users impacted by the saga will receive settlements between $50 and $395. More than 86,000 claims for class member payments were made before the application deadline last March, Judge Davila wrote in his ruling.
Apple debuted the butterfly keyboard in 2015 with the 12-inch MacBook. At the time, former design chief Jony Ive boasted that the mechanism would allow the company to build ever-slimmer laptops without compromising on stability or typing feel. As Apple re-engineered more of its computers to incorporate the butterfly keyboard, Mac users found the design was susceptible to dust and other debris. The company introduced multiple revisions to make the mechanism more resilient before eventually returning to a more conventional keyboard design with the 16-inch MacBook Pro in late 2019.
Apple won’t have to admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement. Before this week, some members of the class action lawsuit attempted to challenge the deal on the grounds that a proposed $125 payout for one group in the class was not enough, an appeal Judge Davila rejected. “The possibility that a better settlement may have been reached — or that the benefits provided under the settlement will not make class members 'whole' — are insufficient grounds to deny approval,” Davila wrote in his ruling. The judge also rejected a request for compensation from MacBook owners who experienced keyboard failures but did not get their computers serviced by Apple. There’s no word when claimants can expect their payment to be sent out, but the lawyers involved in the case said they “look forward to getting the money out to our clients.”
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Apple plans to shut down its My Photo Stream service on July 26th, 2023, the company announced on Friday. The free service has been available since the release of iCloud in 2011. You can use My Photo Stream to upload the last 30 days of images and videos – up to a limit of 1,000 – from your Apple devices to iCloud. My Photo Stream predates iCloud Photos and gave Apple users a way to access their images and video clips on more than one device. Notably, content uploaded to iCloud through My Photo Stream do not count against your iCloud storage cap, though they’re not saved at full resolution.
In a support document spotted by MacRumors, Apple says My Photo Stream will stop automatically uploading photos to the company’s servers on June 26th, 2023. At that point, your photos and videos will remain on iCloud for 30 days until the official shutdown on July 26th. Since every image and video uploaded to iCloud through My Photo Stream is stored in its original format and resolution on at least one of your Apple devices, you won’t lose any cherished memories as part of the shutdown process. That said, if you want to have access to a specific image on a particular device, Apple recommends you save it to that device’s Photo Library before July 26th.
On iPhone and iPad, you can save an image from your My Photo Stream by opening the Photos app, navigating to the My Photo Stream album, selecting the photo you want to save and then tapping the Share button to save it to your Library. Apple ends the support document by noting, “iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud.”
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Valve has delisted Dolphin from Steam after receiving a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice from Nintendo. In late March, the developers of Dolphin, an open source emulator that can run most GameCube and Wii titles, said they were planning to bring the free app to Valve’s storefront later this year. In a May 26th legal notice seen by PC Gamer, Nintendo's legal team asked Valve to remove Dolphin from Steam, claiming the emulator violates the company’s intellectual property rights.
"Because the Dolphin emulator violates Nintendo’s intellectual property rights, including but not limited to its rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s Anti-Circumvention and AntiTrafficking provisions, 17 U.S.C. § 1201, we provide this notice to you of your obligation to remove the offering of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam store," the document states.
With the notice, the Dolphin team has two options on how to move forward. It can either file a counter-claim with Valve, arguing the emulator doesn’t violate the DMCA as claimed by Nintendo, or it can choose to comply with the takedown notice. If the team files a counter-notice, Nintendo would have two weeks to decide whether to file a lawsuit. As PC Gamer notes, it’s unclear if the company actually intends to pursue legal action against Dolphin. However, if a case were to go to court, it could have far-reaching implications for emulators. For the time being, the Dolphin team says it’s deciding what to do next.
“It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed,” the Dolphin Emulation Project said Friday. “We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.” As of the writing of this story, you can still download the Dolphin emulator from the project’s website and GitHub page. The Dolphin team did not receive a direct takedown notice from Nintendo.
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Twitter has withdrawn from a voluntary European Union agreement to combat online disinformation. In a tweet spotted by TechCrunch, Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, said Twitter had pulled out of the EU’s “Code of Practice” against disinformation. “You can run but you can’t hide. Our teams are ready for enforcement,” Breton said, referring to the EU’s Digital Services Act. As of August 25th, the DSA will require “very large online platforms” like Twitter to be more proactive with content moderation.
Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation.
But obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide.
Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25.
Twitter does not operate a communications department Engadget could contact for comment. Before Elon Musk's takeover last October, Twitter signed onto the EU’s Code of Practice against disinformation in 2018, alongside companies like Facebook parent Meta, Google and TikTok. While the Code is voluntary, the EU announced in June 2022 that sticking to the agreement would count towards DSA compliance. As TechCrunch notes, Twitter’s decision to withdraw from the deal just three months before the EU starts enforcing the DSA would appear to suggest the company plans to skirt the bloc’s rules on content moderation.
However, ignoring the DSA could turn into an expensive fight for Twitter and Elon Musk. The legislation allows EU officials to hand out penalties of up to 10 percent of global annual turnover for infractions, with the potential for fines of up to 20 percent of worldwide turnover for repeat instances of non-compliance. The European Commission has also said that repeat non-compliance could lead to the EU blocking access to offending services.
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ispace is done analyzing data from its failed Hakuto-R lunar landing, and it sounds like tricky terrain and a late change in the landing site are to blame. Apparently, Hakuto-R was able to complete the whole deceleration process in preparation of touching down on lunar soil. The spacecraft activated its descent sequence when it reached an altitude of around 100 kilometers (62 miles) and was able to slow down until it was only moving at a speed of less than 1 m/s.
However, its software had mistakenly estimated its altitude to be zero when it was still hovering around 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the ground. In other words, it thought it had already landed when it hasn't yet, and it continued descending at a very slow speed near the surface until its propulsion system ran out of fuel. ispace wasn't able to establish contact with the spacecraft again, but it believes it went on a free fall and ultimately crashed on the moon.
That's the how, but what about the why? Well, the company thinks the most likely reason why Hakuto-R's software suffered from an altitude estimation issue was because it got confused. While it was flying to its landing site, it passed over a large cliff that was determined to be the rim of a crater. The spacecraft's onboard sensor got an altitude reading of 3 kilometers when it passed by the elevated terrain, and that was apparently larger than the estimated altitude value the Hakuto-R team set in advance.
The spacecraft's software erroneously thought that the sensor reported an abnormal value, and it kept filtering out its altitude measurements afterward. ispace built the ability to reject abnormal altitude measurements into the lander as a safety measure in the event of a hardware issue with the sensor. However, it backfired for Mission 1 because simulations of the landing sequence failed to incorporate the lunar environment on the spacecraft's route. ispace made the decision to change Hakuto-R's landing site after its critical design review was already completed in 2021.
The Hakuto-R Mission 1 was poised to become the first successful moon landing by a private company and the first Japanese lunar landing overall. While it didn't get to land on the moon, ispace will use the data from the mission to design preparatory landing sequences for Mission 2 and 3, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
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We’re in the midst of a three-week break in the Formula E calendar, so now is a good time to take stock of the season so far. This is the ninth season of the all-electric racing series, but it’s the first of the Gen3 era. The new car is a massive leap forward in terms of technology. This model is able to regenerate up to 40 percent of the power needed to complete a race while on track. After a tumultuous preseason and major concerns heading into the first race back in January, there were some indications the series might stumble with its ambitious trajectory for the Gen3 racer. Despite the initial warning signs, the new generation for the series has begun without major issues.
I spoke to Neom McLaren team principal Ian James and Jaguar TCS Racing team principal James Barclay to get their thoughts on how the season has gone, the challenges of Gen3 and what’s to come in the near future for Formula E.
The races have been exciting to watch
Sam Bagnall
One of the major selling points of the Gen3 car was the ability for drivers to race each other in closer confines than Gen2. This was proven true in one turn at the Monaco E-Prix when Envision’s Nick Cassidy passed two cars (he nearly overtook a third) in the hotel hairpin. That’s not typically a spot on the compact street course where there’s a ton of passing, but with the Gen3 car, drivers were consistently running three-wide into that tight turn.
“I think the racing has been phenomenal,” James said. “There was a lot of talk at the beginning of the season about tires and the energy side of things, even the aesthetics of the car. But I actually think it's delivered.” He noted that the start of Gen3 has “mixed up the field” and that the competition has been “very close.” There have been six different winners in the first nine races and the championship lead has already changed hands multiple times.
There have also been a lot of overtakes. That’s mostly because no one wants to lead at some of the tracks until the very end of the race. The Gen3 car has considerable drag aerodynamically, so you use a lot more energy staying out front than running in the pack. Starting in Brazil, this peloton effect became apparent where drivers willingly hand off the lead to conserve power until the closing laps. Even the leaders will back off and bunch up the field in a bid to maximize efficiency while out front. For example, Round seven in Berlin saw 23 lead changes with this in-line running.
“It’s a different kind of racing, but it’s no less exciting,” Barclay said. “In quali [the Gen3 car] looks spectacular because the drivers are on the limits, and the race looks spectacular because there’s lots of overtaking. It’s always about making sure we have the best balance of both things, and that’s what we’re all working towards achieving within the championship.”
McLaren’s team principal also expressed the need to find “balance” within the new style of racing for Formula E, but agreed what we’ve seen out of the new car so far has been quite captivating. “It’s about the drivers learning and anticipating, making sure they can turn that into their advantage,” James said. “I think we’ve got to be careful that it doesn’t become the defining feature of Gen3 racing… but if we get the balance right, the racing is going to continue to be phenomenally exciting.” The overtakes will continue, according to the McLaren boss, but there also stands to be “some real speed” from the Gen3 cars too.
Teams have adapted quickly
Jaguar's Mitch Evans leads during his win in Berlin
LAT Images
When I spoke to James before the season began, he explained that teams would face “a very steep learning curve” starting at the first E-Prix of Gen3 in Mexico. That has been apparent in nearly every round of Season 9 so far. Teams like Porsche and Avalanche Andretti who started off strong have stumbled at times. And others, like Jaguar, who struggled at first have begun to find their form.
“What we have seen in these first races of the year is how quickly it has evolved,” Barclay said. “From where we were in Mexico [with] everyone getting to grips with the new car and the new tech, now everyone is absolutely flat out in quali and we’re into really complex race strategies because we’re really on top of the cars.” For Jaguar, its ability to get “on top of” Gen3 was most apparent in two particular races. In Berlin, the team scored its first 1-2 finish and in Sao Paulo Jaguar cars locked out the podium for the first time with Envision’s Nick Cassidy swiping third (Envision runs Jaguar powertrains).
While there have been some temporary issues that caused teams to pull cars from practice sessions out of caution, a major catastrophe has so far been avoided. Perhaps the biggest incident occurred in Cape Town when Mahindra and ABT Cupra pulled all of their cars from that event due to a suspension issue (the latter runs Mahindra powertrains as a customer team). The decision was made before qualifying citing safety concerns over running on a particularly bumpy track. The Race reported afterwards that rear suspension problems were discovered during manufacturer testing before the season began. Mahindra apparently modified the suspension afterwards, but the issue wasn’t sufficiently resolved for the cars to run in South Africa.
The new tires are a challenge, but that’s a good thing
Sam Bloxham/LAT Images
Heading into the season, drivers were vocal about the challenges of the new Hankook tires that were developed for Gen3. The compound is much harder than the previous version from Michelin, but it’s also more durable. Previously, tires would degrade so much over the course of the race that what began as treaded rubber would end up almost completely slick. Now, the series uses a compound that performs more consistently throughout an E-Prix
“What’s amazing is we have a car with less mechanical grip, because we have a harder compound tire,” Barclay explained. “Yet, we’re going faster.”
The tires posed the biggest challenge for the two races in Berlin, where Formula E runs on a temporary street circuit at the decommissioned Tempelhof Airport. The concrete surface is much more abrasive than asphalt. Combine that with the long curves and straights in the track layout and you can easily overheat the tires if you’re not careful. Sure, these two races are outliers for teams looking to unlock the full potential of the new compound, but it only made matters worse for those like McLaren who were already struggling with traction.
“Berlin was definitely the most acute circuit for that particular problem for us,” James said. “It's something that we're working hard together with Nissan to understand and hopefully bring some improvements in the future that will start to close the gap to the competition.” (McLaren runs Nissan powertrains as a customer team)
McLaren doesn’t have an issue with one-lap pace; the team has put its cars on pole twice already. James explained that the larger issue is due to the lack of overall traction and maximizing the energy usage simultaneously. “That’s when things start to become a little bit trickier,” he said. As a result, McLaren is seeing a compounding effect as each lap passes in a race, which James admitted “puts us on the backfoot.” He noted that some teams have figured out how to unlock the potential of the tires in different ways, but for others it’s still a fight. And at times it can be quite costly in terms of overall pace.
Formula E had to introduce in-season fixes
Carl Bingham
Following several big crashes in pre-season tests, Formula E made the decision to introduce a secondary braking system as soon as possible. Because the Gen3 car is regenerating power under braking on both the front and rear powertrains, there wasn’t a backup system in place if those systems became unusable – like in the event of a powertrain failure or a software issue. This led to several incidents where drivers weren’t able to safely slow down their cars. Formula E moved quickly to find a fix, with the first on-track tests of the emergency-use system occurred at the second race in Diriyah.
“The FIA, ourselves, we’re all learning and we’re working together to find the best outcome,” Barclay explained. “I think we have addressed those [issues], whether it be the secondary brake system or the change to the traction control regulations.” He said that all of the critical problems that have popped up are somewhat expected with a new car as both the teams and the series is “in this mode of optimizing Gen3.”
The traction control monitoring system is another area Formula E has addressed with an in-season change. Teams aren’t allowed to have traction control to ensure no one gains an unfair advantage and the FIA polices those regulations with torque sensors mounted on the driveshafts. This setup is meant to uncover any software-based tricks being used to unlock better grip. Speaking to The Race, the new system was described as “an evolution” of previous monitoring tech by Formula E’s technical boss Alessandra Ciliberti. The change had been in the works for months, in consultation with the car manufacturers who were also performing tests. Formula E decided the new tech, which monitors for consistent oscillations that differ from those caused by bumps and kerbs, was ready for use in Monaco earlier this month.
There’s still more to come
McLaren's Jake Hughes leads the pack in Monaco
LAT Images
Before the first race of the season, Formula E announced that it planned to test quick-charging pit stops at a few races this year. These cars don’t visit pit lane during an E-Prix unless there’s a problem, mostly because it ends any chance you have of keeping up with the pack and remaining in contention. In the early days of the series, teams had to swap cars to complete the races, but battery tech advanced enough that hasn’t been a requirement since 2018.
Of course, it’s not only the act of stopping for 30 seconds — you also have to learn how to use the technology that makes it possible. And there will also be changes to the race format. Currently, drivers leave the racing line to activate Attack Mode for a temporary power boost while remaining on track. With the reintroduction of pit stops, drivers will instead earn two Attack Charges, but it’s unclear how and when they’ll be deployed.
When Formula E announced it would postpone the stops until next year, series co-founder Alberto Longo explained that the technology was ready but that supply chain issues meant the system couldn’t be implemented until the last three or four races. He admitted changes to the race format that late in the season made testing the system “not the right decision.” Teams up and down the paddock are in agreement.
“We need to understand the implications of bringing it in on the race itself and make sure it’s done in a way that adds value rather than detract from the show,” James said. “And because we've afforded ourselves the time to be able to do that analysis, I think we'll put ourselves in a much better position.” He further explained that he’s less worried about the impact the fast-charging stops will have on the team as he’s confident in their ability to adapt, mostly due to their years of experience in the series.
Barclay echoed those thoughts on behalf of Jaguar. “The amount of newness in this Gen3 car, from the new tires to the slightly different race format (number of laps vs. time), there was a lot to go out,” he said. “I think adding those extra things add more complexity and [could have] potentially taken away from what we’ve seen.” He noted that the team has had plenty to tackle already, but they’re looking forward to the new challenge of Attack Charge when it comes.
“We’ve gotten into a place where we’ve seen some great races, and I think that will only be more of the case as the season unfolds,” he said.
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Korean companies LG and Hyundai are teaming up to build a new EV battery cell manufacturing plant in the US and have signed a memorandum of understanding to invest $4.3 billion in the project. The companies will each hold a stake of 50 percent in the joint venture, which will start construction on the new plant in the second half of 2023. Their new manufacturing facility will be located in Savannah, Georgia, where Hyundai is also building its first all-EV factory in the US. The battery plant is expected to be operational by 2025 at the earliest. After it starts production at full capacity, it will be able to produce 30GHWh of battery every year, which is enough to support the production of 300,000 electric vehicles.
LG and Hyundai are just the latest companies to invest in US-based battery manufacturing facilities over the past couple of years. Toyota announced in 2021 that it will build a battery plant in the country as part of a $3.4 billion investment, while Ultium Cells (GM's and LG's joint venture) secured a $2.5 billion loan from the Energy Department for the construction of EV battery facilities. More recently, Ford announced that it's spending $3.5 billion to build a lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Michigan. Lithium iron phosphate, which can tolerate more frequent and faster charging, costs less than other battery technologies and could bring down the cost of EVs.
Other companies could follow suit, seeing as the Biden administration is pushing to bring more EV and battery manufacturing to the US. Last year, it launched the American Battery Materials Initiative, which will give 20 companies $2.8 billion in grants in hopes of encouraging manufacturers to start battery production stateside and making sure that the US won't be heavily dependent on "unreliable foreign supply chains."
Hyundai and LG believe that the new facility can help create "a stable supply of batteries in the region" and allow them "to respond fast to the soaring EV demand in the US market." Hyundai Mobis, the automaker's parts and service division, will be assembling battery packs using cells manufactured in the plant. The automaker will then use those packs for Hyundai, Kia and Genesis electric vehicles.
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Ford has become the first major automaker to leap into bed with Tesla after the US government pushed to make EV charging more widely accessible. The carmaker has signed a deal, starting spring 2024, so selected Ford EVs can slurp down power at some Tesla Supercharger stations. As part of the pact, Ford said, from the 2025 model year, it’ll switch to Tesla’s open-source North American Charging Standard (NACS) on its vehicles. Meanwhile, existing models that still use the (more or less) global standard Combined Charging System (CCS) will be able to pick up a Tesla-designed adapter to bridge the gap.
The deal is surprising, especially given the relative power, size and prestige of the two companies involved. Ford, one of the world’s biggest car makers, is ceding control of its charger future to a relative minnow, albeit one that built a sizable own-brand charging network. Not to mention it runs the risk of creating a NACS–CCS EV-charging format war, which may erode consumer faith in EVs. After all, if you pull up at a gas station anywhere in the US, there should be a one-size-fits-all way to get fuel in your tank without worrying about the size of the pipe.
– Dan Cooper
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At least for those who signed up for the Search Labs waitlist.
At I/O, Google showed off SGE, its experimental system to incorporate generative AI inside its search results. Now, the company’s answer to Bing AI is open for testing, at least to users who signed up to the Search Labs waitlist. Once they’ve received the email saying they have access, they can type into the Google search bar – there’s no separate chat window like Bing – to get AI-generated search results, which they can either expand or choose to ask follow-up questions.
It’s a small but vital step on the road to Elon Musk getting wires into people’s brains.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s controversial brain-to-computer interface startup, claims the FDA has approved it to begin human trials. The regulator hasn’t yet confirmed the claim, and while the company has said it’s not yet recruiting for a human trial, this approval makes one possible. In a tweet, Neuralink wanted to celebrate the “incredible work” taken by its team to secure the FDA’s blessing, not mentioning it was rejected back in March after it was revealed that more than 1,500 animals implanted with the technology had died.
$10 a month for three movies ain’t such a bad deal.
After months of testing, MoviePass’ all-you-can-eat cinema subscription has relaunched itself across the US. This new version will offer you a tiered subscription plan, with the lowest offering charging you $10 a month for three screenings. It might not be the crazy bargain the previous version offered, but it’s still a damn sight cheaper than most single tickets. And if you’re a real cinephile, you can pay up to $40 a month for 30 screenings, which is staggering on a per-movie basis.
Homeworld 3, the long-awaited second sequel to the groundbreaking space-based RTS, has been further delayed until February 2024. It’s the second time the title has been pushed back, with developers Blackbird Interactive asking for more time to polish and refine the title. Given that Homeworld 2 debuted in 2003, the two-decade wait for a true follow-up (yes, I’m ignoring Deserts of Kharak) is going to test the idiom “good things come to those who wait” to its very limits.