Thursday, 29 February 2024
Windows 11: Not as big a priority in EMEA compared with North America
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Post Office CEO’s claim to be ‘working hard’ on Capture investigation in doubt
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A Neuromancer TV series is coming to Apple TV+
Apple TV+ has announced it's adapting William Gibson's Neuromancer into a 10-episode series. The novel debuted in 1984 and is largely thought to mark the birth of cyberpunk, which includes creations like The Matrix and Robocop. In fact, it's crazy that it has taken four decades for it to get the Hollywood treatment.
Neuromancer follows "a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets," a release states. The story is being brought to the small screen by Graham Roland (Dark Winds, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) and JD Dillard (Devotion, Sweetheart), who will act as showrunner and director, respectively. Skydance Television and Anonymous Content will co-produce it with support from Drake's DreamCrew Entertainment.
Production on Neuromancer has yet to start, so details like the cast and release date are still up in the air. In the meantime, you can check out the existing video game and graphic novel versions of Neuromancer and Amazon's series, The Peripheral, based on another one of Gibson's works and starring Chloë Grace Moretz.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/hCxZJs0from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/hCxZJs0
Wednesday, 28 February 2024
CCS accused of pricing G-Cloud SMEs out of framework with £20m insurance cover hike
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Nintendo lawsuit accuses Switch emulator creators of 'piracy at a colossal scale'
Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against the creators of a popular Switch emulator called Yuzu, which gives users a way to play games developed for the platform on their PCs and Android devices. In the lawsuit shared by Game File's Stephen Totilo, the company argued that Yuzu violates the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Nintendo explained that it protects its games with encryption and other security features meant to prevent people from playing pirated copies. Yuzu has the capability to defeat those security measures and to decrypt Nintendo games. "[W]ithout Yuzu's decryption of Nintendo's encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices," the company wrote in its complaint.
It's illegal to "circumvent technological measures put into place by copyright owners to protect against unlawful access to and copying of copyrighted works" under the DMCA, Nintendo continued. And distributing "software primarily designed to circumvent technological measures" also constitutes unlawful trafficking. The defendants are, thus, "facilitating piracy at a colossal scale," the lawsuit argued. This case could set a precedent for future lawsuits against emulators, which aren't illegal in and of them themselves. As Ars Technica notes, Nintendo's arguments are calling their very nature unlawful.
To illustrate how much Yuzu has affected its business, Nintendo revealed in its complaint that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was illegally distributed a week and a half before its official release. It was apparently downloaded over a million times from pirated websites, which specifically noted that people can play the game file through Yuzu. The company also mentioned that Yuzu's creators are making money from their emulator. They're getting around $30,000 a month from their Patreon supporters and have earned around $50,000 from the paid version of their software on Google Play, so far.
Nintendo is asking the court to stop Yuzu's creators from promoting and distributing the software. It's also asking for an unspecified amount in "equitable relief and damages."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/X2k1JVQfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/X2k1JVQ
Tuesday, 27 February 2024
CIO interview: Nigel Richardson, European CIO, PepsiCo
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Microsoft president commits to Azure open platform for AI
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The Pentagon used Project Maven-developed AI to identify air strike targets
The US military has ramped up its use of artificial intelligence tools after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, based on a new report by Bloomberg. Schuyler Moore, US Central Command's chief technology officer, told the news organization that machine learning algorithms helped the Pentagon identify targets for more than 85 air strikes in the Middle East this month.
US bombers and fighter aircraft carried out those air strikes against seven facilities in Iraq and Syria on February 2, fully destroying or at least damaging rockets, missiles, drone storage facilities and militia operations centers. The Pentagon had also used AI systems to find rocket launchers in Yemen and surface combatants in the Red Sea, which it had then destroyed through multiple air strikes in the same month.
The machine learning algorithms used to narrow down targets were developed under Project Maven, Google's now-defunct partnership the Pentagon. To be precise, the project entailed the use of Google's artificial intelligence technology by the US military to analyze drone footage and flag images for further human review. It caused an uproar among Google employees: Thousands had petitioned the company to end its partnership with Pentagon, and some even quit over its involvement altogether. A few months after that employee protest, Google decided not to renew its contract, which had ended in 2019.
Moore told Bloomberg that US forces in the Middle East haven't stopped experimenting with the use of algorithms to identify potential targets using drone or satellite imagery even after Google ended its involvement. The military has been testing out their use over the past year in digital exercises, she said, but it started using targeting algorithms in actual operations after the October 7 Hamas attacks. She clarified, however, that human workers constantly checked and verified the AI systems' target recommendations. Human personnel were also the ones who proposed how to stage the attacks and which weapons to use. "There is never an algorithm that’s just running, coming to a conclusion and then pushing onto the next step," she said. "Every step that involves AI has a human checking in at the end."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/sJuD65xfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/sJuD65x
Cozy Bear and other APTs changing tack as cloud adoption increases
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Monday, 26 February 2024
AMD's budget version of the 7900 XT GPU is coming to the US for $549
AMD will start selling the Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) graphics card in the US, offering users a detuned version of its 7900 XT flagship for $549. For a savings of around $350 over the latter, it has performance on par with NVIDIA's RTX 4070 Super for some games at some settings, according to AMD.
It offers impressive specs for that sum, including a Navi 31 XL GPU with 80 compute units (5120 stream processors), 160 AI accelerators and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. That's just a bit less than the 20GB of GDDR6, 96 compute units and 168 AI accelerators in the 7900 XT. With that, it offers 26 to 46 FP32 TFLOPS, a bit lower than the 700 XT's 32 to 51.6 FP32 TFLOPS. However, that means it also consumes less power — 260W TGP compared to the XT's 315W.
All of that should make it a powerhouse at its 1440p resolution sweet spot. AMD claims it offers 14 percent more FPS per dollar at 1440p settings than the $549 RTX 4070 12GB. That includes games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and others at 4K. In some settings (comparable DLSS/FSR modes), it outperforms the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super, AMD claims.
AMD
At the same time, the 7900 GRE comes with new AI accelerators as part of the unified AMD RDNA 3 compute unit. With 160 AI accelerators and 16GB of DDR6 memory, it can generate Stable Diffusion images in less than a second, AMD said, or let you load your own large language model (LLM).
The 7900 GRE isn't exactly an unknown entity, as it has been sold with PC builds (and even standalone), in Europe for awhile now as well as China. In general, you can expect better performance and lower power consumption than the 7800 XT (for just $50 more), and about a 20 percent drop off compared to the 7900 XT (for $350 less).
The 7900 GRE goes on sale starting tomorrow (February 27, 2024) for $549. That's likely to be a sweet spot for a lot of US buyers, so if you're looking to get one, act quickly. And if you want to spend a bit less, AMD is also lowering the US price of the RX 7700 XT to $419, $40 less than the original price, starting today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/X6kUco3from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/X6kUco3
The Morning After: Why Google's Gemini image generation feature overcorrected for diversity
After complaints that Google’s image generator built into its Gemini AI was (ugh) woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google’s efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images “failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range.”
Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget’s tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church. The Verge reported that the chatbot also depicted Nazis as people of color, but we couldn’t get Gemini to generate Nazi images. “I am unable to fulfill your request due to the harmful symbolism and impact associated with the Nazi Party,” the chatbot responded.
Raghavan said Google didn’t intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate historically inaccurate photos. He also reiterated Google’s promise to improve Gemini’s image-generation abilities.
However, that entails “extensive testing” before the company switches the feature back on.
— Mat Smith
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The first phone reveal at MWC 2024 is this official Barbie Flip Phone
C'mon Barbie let's go party.
HMD
MWC 2024 kicks off this week, and while Engadget is covering it all remotely — no tapas for Mathew — this is one we’d be unlikely to book a meeting for. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices) has been making Nokia phones for the past few years and announced at MWC it’ll release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer, in partnership with Mattel. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.” It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” That also means it should be cheap.
Samsung’s Galaxy Ring gets officially revealed at MWC
It’ll be on display alongside its Galaxy AI mobile experience.
Samsung
Samsung has put its Galaxy Ring on public display for the first time at its booth at MWC, which starts today. The health and wellness device, available in platinum silver, gold and ceramic black, will go on sale later this year. The company said little about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. We learned that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable to rival Oura, and it would have a suite of unknown sensors.
Journalists weren’t allowed to photograph it, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura. The extra girth isn’t surprising, given the electronics cached inside. The company described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” So, a smart ring then?
Let’s talk about Xbox
This week’s gaming news.
No one is suggesting Microsoft should stop making video-game hardware. But should Microsoft keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle? Does Xbox need a box? The company calls its cloud game streaming service xCloud for a reason, right?
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TechUK warns datacentre operators government could get powers to enforce heat reuse
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Sunday, 25 February 2024
Lenovo debuts Core Ultra-powered laptops and hybrids with dedicated Copilot key
Lenovo announced several new business laptops and hybrids at this year’s MWC conference, including refreshes in the ThinkPad T-series and the ThinkBook line. The company’s calling them “AI PCs” because they all feature a dedicated Microsoft Copilot button that offers immediate access to the digital assistant.
The just-announced models include the ThinkPad T14 Gen 5, ThinkPad T16 Gen 3, ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 and ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4. These computers are powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra processors, which has come to be expected with new Lenovo computers.
Lenovo
The ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 boasts a durable 3:2 display with Corning Gorilla Glass and the whole thing’s powered by an Intel Core Ultra U processor. You can spec this tablet/laptop hybrid with up to 32GB of RAM, for multitasking. The detachable backlit folio keyboard boasts a three-button TrackPad and the tablet includes a front-facing 5MP camera and an 8MP rear-facing camera.
The redesigned ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 features an ultra-thin 16.85mm profile, which is slightly thinner than the previous generation. It’s also light, weighing just over 3.5 pounds. The 14-inch display boasts a 16:10 aspect ratio and the keyboard includes a larger touchpad that has been crafted with glass-like Mylar. It also ships with the new Magnetic Slim Pen for more nuanced touchscreen controls.
Lenovo
In addition to the Core Ultra processors and the near-instantaneous Copilot integration, the ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 and T16 Gen 3 have been built for DIY repairs. The iFixit team was on-hand to advise the overall design, so there are plenty of customer replaceable parts, making it easy to swap out the DIMM, SSD, WWAN card and battery, among other components. With this in mind, iFixit has proactively rated these laptops with a repairability score of 9.3 out of 10. That’s a whole lot better than products from many rival companies.
The ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 goes on sale this April and will be available in several SKUs, starting at $950. The ThinkPad T16 Gen 3 also goes on sale this April and will start at $1,220. The ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 will be available the same month and will feature a starting price of $1,400. Finally, the ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 goes on sale this March with a starting price of $1,170.
Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/fMdJUbufrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/fMdJUbu
Barbie’s hot pink flip phone is coming to the real world this summer
If you were wondering when brands will finally stop trying to cash in on the Barbie craze, the answer is, somehow, not yet. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices), which has been making Nokia phones for the past few years, announced for MWC that it’s partnered with Mattel to release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.”
Aesthetically, it sounds a lot like the original hot pink Motorola Razr of the aughts. But while that phone eventually got rebooted as a smartphone for the era of modern foldables, the Barbie phone is keeping things pretty basic. It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” HMD hasn’t revealed much else about it yet, like pricing or actual photos, but the company says it plans to unveil the Barbie Flip Phone at MWC, so we'll likely see more of it as the week unfolds.
Most people may not be ready to ditch their smartphones entirely just yet, but if you’re looking for a burner, this is probably one of the cutest you could get.
HMD
Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!
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Samsung’s Galaxy Ring will officially make its public debut this week at MWC
We’re about to get our first real look at Samsung’s Galaxy Ring. In a blog post this weekend ahead of Mobile World Congress, the company revealed it’ll have the Galaxy Ring on display at its booth at the Barcelona convention, which starts tomorrow. Samsung hasn’t said much yet about what the Galaxy Ring will be capable of since teasing it at the end of its Unpacked event in January, but we do know it’s a wellness-oriented wearable positioned to rival the likes of Oura.
Samsung today described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” All we’ve really seen of it so far is a rendering, though.
Aside from the Galaxy Ring, Samsung’s booth will heavily promote its Galaxy AI, with a hands-on interactive experience. The company also says it’s expanding Galaxy AI to more of its products, including the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5 and Tab S9 series, plus the Galaxy Watch 6, Galaxy S23 series and S23 FE. It's also got plans for Galaxy AI applications in its new Galaxy Book 4 series and, of course, the Galaxy Ring we still know next to nothing about.
Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/Vqbt2RJfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/Vqbt2RJ
Saturday, 24 February 2024
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander tipped over at touchdown, but it’s still kicking
It turns out Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus spacecraft didn’t land upright after all. In a press conference with NASA Friday evening, the company revealed the lander is laying on its side after coming in a little faster than expected, likely catching its foot on the surface at the moment of landing. Fortunately, Odysseus is positioned in such a way that its solar panels are still getting enough light from the sun to keep it charged, and the team has been able to communicate with it. Pictures from the surface should be coming soon.
While the initial assessment was that Odysseus had landed properly, further analysis indicated otherwise. Intuitive Machines CEO and co-founder Steve Altemus said “stale telemetry” was to blame for the earlier reading. All payloads except the one static art installation, though — Jeff Koons’ Moon Phases sculptures — are on the upturned side. The lander and its NASA science payloads have been collecting data from the journey, descent and landing, which the team will use to try and get a better understanding of what happened. But, all things considered, it seems to be doing well.
Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines
The team plans to eject the EagleCam, developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, soon so it can take a picture of the lander and its surroundings perhaps as soon as this weekend. It was supposed to be ejected during descent to capture the moment of landing, but issues on touchdown day prevented it from being released.
Once Odysseus was in lunar orbit and hours away from its landing attempt, the team discovered its laser range finders, which are key to its precision navigation, were not working — due entirely to human error. According to Altemus, someone forgot to flip a safety switch that would allow them to turn on, so they couldn’t. That realization was “like a punch in the stomach,” Altemus said, and they thought they could lose the mission.
The team was thankfully able to make a last-second adjustment cooked up on the fly by Intuitive Machines CTO and co-founder Tim Crain, who suggested they use one of the on-board NASA payloads instead to guide the descent, the Navigation Doppler LIDAR (NDL). In the end, Odysseus made it there alright. Its mission is expected to last a little over a week, until lunar night falls.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/GU7PVivfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/GU7PViv
Let's talk about Xbox | This week's gaming news
No one is suggesting that Microsoft should stop making video game hardware. What we've been considering, here in the dark and twisted Engadget Slack channels, is whether Microsoft should keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle. Basically, does Xbox need a box? Microsoft has been busy building the foundation of a platform-agnostic, cloud-first future for video games, and it consistently falls behind both Sony and Nintendo in the console race. So why are executives trying to get us excited about a superpowered 10th-gen Xbox?
Maybe Microsoft is hesitant to reveal a drastic ecosystem change after the chaos around the Xbox One and its always-on DRM features in 2013. After an outpouring of negative feedback at the idea of a persistently online console, Xbox had to rapidly reverse its launch plans, while Sony took the PlayStation 4 on an early victory lap. This fumble set the stage for the next decade of console sales, and it's a lesson that would stick with any studio — especially one that's trying to make streaming and cloud gaming the norm.
That's understandable, but it doesn't change the fact that accessible, affordable (and probably handheld) hardware makes a lot of sense for Microsoft's current vision and investments. More than an expensive console, at least.
This week's stories
A delicious Elden Ring entrée
Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion will come to PlayStation, Xbox and PC on June 21. This one has been a long time coming: FromSoftware announced the DLC in February 2023, leaving plenty of time for players to get super psyched for more masochism. A new, three-minute trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree shows off sprawling locations and epic bosses inspired by chaotic combinations of animals, insects and elements. The expansion costs $40 and pre-orders are live now.
Borderlands by Cate Blanchett
I’m just gonna come out and say it: I think Cate Blanchett makes a great Lilith. The first trailer for this summer’s Borderlands movie is out and it looks like Mad Max meets Guardians of the Galaxy — which is Borderlands in a nutshell anyway. The film stars Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Ariana Greenblatt, it’s directed by Eli Roth, and it’s due to hit theaters on August 9.
Xbox should exit the console business
Last Thursday, Xbox executives made it clear that they weren’t about to abandon the traditional hardware market, and they teased a next-generation console that will represent “the largest technical leap you will have ever seen.” That’s cool, but considering Microsoft’s position in the industry, it doesn’t feel like Xbox needs to be making consoles any more.
After acquiring half of the industry, Microsoft is now a mega-publisher of games, with over 30 in-house studios. Many of these development teams are world-renowned, with rich, multi-platform histories. It’s also the operator of one of the largest game subscription services in the world, Game Pass.
Game Pass grew wildly during the pandemic, but subscriptions have stagnated. In court documents from April 2022, Microsoft revealed it had 21.9 million Game Pass subscribers and 11.7 million Xbox Live Gold members across its consoles, for a total user base of 33.6 million. Last week, Microsoft revealed Game Pass has 34 million subscribers, which includes PC Game Pass and Game Pass Core, the new name for Xbox Live Gold. Even assuming PC Game Pass had zero subscribers in 2022, this means Game Pass subscriptions grew just 1 percent over the past 22 months. The more likely scenario is that the total number of subscriptions actually shrank over this period — though it’s at least possible that more people are paying for the full-price service than before.
Microsoft’s plan for this console generation was clear for all to see: Sell hardware and upsell a subscription service populated by its own games. Turns out, it’s tough to sell Game Pass to someone without an Xbox, and not enough people are buying Xboxes. Microsoft stopped reporting hardware numbers during the Xbox One era, but analysts peg the combined sales of the Xbox Series consoles at around 25 million. Meanwhile, Sony has sold more than 50 million PS5s, and Nintendo has sold around 140 million Switches. This gap appears to be growing every day, and it’s far more pronounced in Japan and Europe than in the United States. If Microsoft wants to grow Game Pass, it seems like it’ll have to be on platforms outside of Xbox.
This week, Xbox confirmed plans to bring four formerly exclusive games to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles, and for years executives have been pitching an ecosystem where Xbox — and Game Pass — is playable on anything with a screen. Microsoft has a powerful cloud network that even Sony uses for game streaming, plus it owns more than 30 studios. Long-term, Microsoft is positioning Xbox to be a platform-agnostic, software-publishing powerhouse with the industry’s most stable streaming network at its back.
In this landscape, it’s surprising to hear Xbox talk about building a hyper-powered console for the next generation. I’m not advocating for Microsoft to ditch the hardware market — it makes sense for the company to focus on handheld devices and affordable streaming boxes that support Game Pass and cloud play. Xbox is working toward a future where its games and Game Pass are available everywhere, which raises a clear question about its current plans: Why bring an expensive next-gen console to a war that is actually about software, subscriptions and streaming?
Bonus Content
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Sony president Hiroki Totoki told investors last week that the company would be more aggressive in bringing its PlayStation titles to PC.
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Xbox has confirmed which of its games are coming to other consoles: Grounded and Pentiment will come to PlayStation and Switch, while Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush will only arrive on PS5. Both Sea of Thieves and Grounded will support crossplay across all platforms.
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Now for a totally different port: The Pokémon Company has scheduled an anniversary stream for next Tuesday at 9AM ET. It might be a bit early for a gen-10 reveal, but a Switch remake of Black & White seems like a safe bet.
Now Playing
If you’re a Switch or PlayStation player curious about all of these Xbox games coming to your consoles, I have one easy and clear recommendation: play Pentiment. Obsidian’s narrative-driven, tapestry-looking game is a surprise and a delight, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing it on Game Pass recently. It's out now on PS4, PS5 and Switch, and I’m sure it’s just as great on those platforms.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/XeyFCcrfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/XeyFCcr
X starts giving non-paying users the ability to make audio and video calls
X is slowly rolling out audio and video calling to users that don't pay for its premium subscription service that's formerly known as Twitter Blue. Enrique Barragan, an engineer for the company, has shared the news on the platform. The company initially launched the feature for iOS users last year, giving paying subscribers the option to call other people through the app, and was a step towards making X the "everything" application Elon Musk wants it to be. Earlier this year, the capability made its way to Android devices, but the ability to make calls remained limited to Premium subscribers only.
By the end of January, Musk said that X will make audio-video calling available to everyone as soon as the company is confident that it's robust. We're still being asked to subscribe to X Premium to be able to make calls when we hit the phone icon in DMs, but those who get the update will be able to make calls even if they're not a paying subscriber. The official X support page for the feature now says that all accounts are able to make and receive calls, though both parties must have been in contact via Direct Messaging at least once. In the past, it said only "Premium subscribers have the ability to make audio and video calls."
In addition to announcing the capability's rollout, Barragan revealed that users will now also be able to receive calls from everyone on the app if they want to. Audio and video calls were automatically switched on for us when we checked our DMs' Settings menu, configured so that we can (thankfully) only receive calls from people we follow. We're already seeing the "Everyone" option in there, though, ready to be picked by the most intrepid X users.
we’re slowly rolling out audio and video calling to non premium users, try it out! now you can also choose allow calls from everyone https://t.co/LLH1PwiIg2 pic.twitter.com/LH3HMsAXnv
— Enrique (@enriquebrgn) February 23, 2024
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Google explains why Gemini's image generation feature overcorrected for diversity
After promising to fix Gemini's image generation feature and then pausing it altogether, Google has published a blog post offering an explanation for why its technology overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company's Senior Vice President for Knowledge & Information, explained that Google's efforts to ensure that the chatbot would generate images showing a wide range of people "failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range." Further, its AI model grew to become "way more cautious" over time and refused to answer prompts that weren't inherently offensive. "These two things led the model to overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others, leading to images that were embarrassing and wrong," Raghavan wrote.
Google made sure that Gemini's image generation couldn't create violent or sexually explicit images of real persons and that the photos it whips up would feature people of various ethnicities and with different characteristics. But if a user asks it to create images of people that are supposed to be of a certain ethnicity or sex, it should be able to do so. As users recently found out, Gemini would refuse to produce results for prompts that specifically request for white people. The prompt "Generate a glamour shot of a [ethnicity or nationality] couple," for instance, worked for "Chinese," "Jewish" and "South African" requests but not for ones requesting an image of white people.
Gemini also has issues producing historically accurate images. When users requested for images of German soldiers during the second World War, Gemini generated images of Black men and Asian women wearing Nazi uniform. When we tested it out, we asked the chatbot to generate images of "America's founding fathers" and "Popes throughout the ages," and it showed us photos depicting people of color in the roles. Upon asking it to make its images of the Pope historically accurate, it refused to generate any result.
Raghavan said that Google didn't intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate photos that were historically inaccurate. He also reiterated Google's promise that it will work on improving Gemini's image generation. That entails "extensive testing," though, so it may take some time before the company switches the feature back on. At the moment, if a user tries to get Gemini to create an image, the chatbot responds with: "We are working to improve Gemini’s ability to generate images of people. We expect this feature to return soon and will notify you in release updates when it does."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/9DZsrp2from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/9DZsrp2
Friday, 23 February 2024
CIO interview: Craig Donald, CIO, The Football Association
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The Morning After: 'Nanosphere' paint could reduce a plane’s CO2 emissions
Every gram counts in commercial flight. Material scientists from Kobe University have discovered “nanospheres” that are near-invisible silicone crystals. The particles can reflect light thanks to very large and efficient scattering, research published in the ACS Applied Nano Matter journal details. The result could mean covering a surface in vibrant color while only adding 10 percent of the weight of painting an aircraft for the same effect.
Minoru and Hiroshi’s discovery focuses on structural rather than pigment color to exhibit and maintain hues. The former absorbs wavelengths while reflecting those the human eye picks up. Structural colors, on the other hand, are intense and bright as light interacts with micro- and nanostructures. While the headline commercial benefits are for planes, the paint could have many more uses simply for its brightness.
— Mat Smith
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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review
The open-world tour.
Engadget
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes the characters and world reintroduced with Remake and does a better job at scaling it all up. Instead of playing in a single metropolis, Midgar, this time, it’s a world tour. There’s also an expanded roster of playable characters, almost doubling Remake’s total, each with a unique play style, once again. But does Aerith survive?
Xiaomi 14 Ultra combines a 1-inch camera sensor with 4 AI imaging models
It also supports satellite calling and texting.
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is the latest Leica-branded smartphone, featuring a second-gen one-inch camera sensor. Xiaomi is finally catching up with the competition by picking up Sony’s newest mobile camera sensor, the LYT-900. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a slight edge on rival phones with the same sensor, with its faster main variable aperture at up to f/1.63, beating the Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s f/1.8 — on paper, at least.
Framework’s new sub-$500 modular laptop has no RAM, storage or OS
Pick the parts you want and install them yourself.
Framework is selling its cheapest modular laptop. It has dropped the price of its B-stock Factory Seconds systems (which are built with excess parts and new components). As such, it’s now offering a Framework Laptop 13 barebones configuration for under $500 for the very first time. The 13-inch machine comes with an 11th-gen Intel Core i7 processor with Iris Xe graphics. So the CPU should be sufficient for most basic tasks and some moderate gaming. However, you’ll need to add RAM, storage, a power supply, an operating system and (probably) even a Wi-Fi card.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/z8X9SJMfrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/z8X9SJM
Google Pay is shutting down in the US later this year
Google Pay was largely replaced by Google Wallet back in 2022, but it has still been operating in several countries, including the US. Now, the search giant has announced that Pay will be discontinued stateside on June 4, 2024 in a push to simplify its payment apps. After that, it will only be available in Singapore and India due to the "unique needs in those countries," Google wrote in a blog.
As part of the deprecation, Google will be removing peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, managing your balance and "find offers and deals." For the latter, it recommends using the new deals destination on Search. Users will still be able to transfer their Google Pay (GPay) balance to a bank account after June 4, 2024 using the Google Pay website.
Google Wallet has now largely replaced GPay, with five times as many users in 180 countries, the company said. That's because it can handle more than just payments — on top of credit and debit cards, it stores transport passes, state IDs, driver's licenses, virtual car keys and more.
Google's payment system has been a mess over the years. It started off as Google Wallet, which was launched in 2011. At the time, it was a tap-to-pay system that came out years ahead of Apple Pay (2014), supported by Mastercard and retailers like Macy's.
Meanwhile, Android Pay came out in 2015, then that was integrated with Google Wallet in 2018 and rebranded as Google Pay. In addition, the company originally had a Google Wallet card (killed in 2016) that was effectively a prepaid debit card usable with any retailers that accepted Mastercard. Now everything is back under the Google Wallet umbrella — unless the company changes its mind again.
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The latest experimental Threads features let you save drafts and take photos in-app
Meta is currently testing a couple of capabilities for Threads, which Instagram head Adam Mosseri describes as some of the "most requested" features for the social network. One of these experimental features is the ability to save drafts. Users will be easily able to save a post they've typed as a draft that they can edit and publish later by swiping down on their mobile device's display. When there's a draft saved, the app's menu at the bottom of the screen highlights the post icon. At the moment, though, they can only save one draft, and it's unclear if Meta has plans to give users the ability to save more.
In addition to drafts, Meta is also testing an in-app camera. It opens the mobile phone's camera from within Threads itself, so that users can more easily share photos and videos from their phone. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg made a post on the service with a photo he says was taken with the new in-app camera the company is testing.
Meta told us that these are initial tests for the experimental features, which means they could undergo a lot of changes before they get a wide release, and are only available for a small number of people. Over the past month, Meta also started testing a bookmarking feature for Threads that allows users to save posts they can refer to later. The company is experimenting with its version of trending topics on Threads, as well, along with the ability to make cross-posts between Threads and Facebook.
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Thursday, 22 February 2024
Google's sign-in and sign-up pages have a new look
After teasing it for the past couple of weeks, Google is rolling out a new sign-in page with a slightly cleaner design. The changes are small and don't affect functionality, but it's something that users encounter often, and Google has been using the previous version since it changed its logo, as far as I can see.
The refresh puts the sign-in (and sign-up) page more in line with the company's Material Design ethic introduced back in 2014. To that end, it's now aligned left (instead of centered) and features an orientation that automatically adjusts to your screen's size — so it's wider on PC screens and narrower on smartphones. It shows up on all types of devices, but may not appear on older browsers, the company said.
The biggest previous change Google made to its sign-in page was putting password entry onto a second page back in 2015. That update was made "in preparation for future authentication solutions that complement passwords," and to reduce confusion among people who have multiple Google accounts, it said at the time.
Google emphasized that the change will be permanent, much like the switch to Gmail's integrated view. The rollout will be fairly gradual, starting on February 21 and set for completion by March 4, 2024.
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Nvidia CEO sees shift in datacentres to ‘AI generation factories’
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PlayStation now supports passkey sign-ins
You don't have to type in your password every time you log into your PlayStation account anymore. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has launched passkey support for PlayStation accounts, which means you can simply sign in through your mobile device or computer and use its screen unlocking method to log in. If you use a PIN, your fingerprint or your face to unlock your phone, for instance, that's also how you'll be able to get into your PlayStation account. On desktop, we were easily able to link our account with 1Password and use its passkey capability.
In its official page for the update, the company touches on the benefits of using passkeys, such as reducing account vulnerability. Passkeys can't be reused or given away, whether it's inadvertently or on purpose as SIE explains, making them resistant to phishing and data breaches.
To set up a passkey, you simply have to go to Security under Account Management. There, you can activate the option and create a passkey by following the on-screen instructions. The company warns that some hardware security keys could cause issues, and it might be better to use synced passkeys on mobile devices instead. It also cautions against the use of mobile PIN codes as passkeys on Android and recommends iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager, 1Password and Dashlane as a passkey provider. After setting up the option, you'll be prompted to use your passkey whenever you need to sign in on a PlayStation 5 or a PlayStation 4 console. You can deactivate the option anytime, though, if you want to go back to signing in with a password.
Login to your PlayStation account hassle-free with passkeys arriving later today! Keep an eye out for updates. pic.twitter.com/BAmh64EwHR
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) February 21, 2024
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Wednesday, 21 February 2024
The Morning After: Fujifilm updates its TikTok-famous compact camera
Fujifilm’s X100V was, for some reason, a huge hit on TikTok. This made it hard to buy, despite its tiny form factor and retro Fuji appeal. Fortunately, the company is here to make money offer an improved update, the 40.2-megapixel X100 VI. While keeping the same retro form, it has much faster shooting speeds, in-body stabilization, 6.2K 30p video and more. Video-wise, it can also capture at 4K at 60 fps and 1080p at 240fps.
Fujifilm
Fujifilm’s X100VI is now on pre-order for $1,600 in silver or black, with shipping slated for early March 2024. Money to burn? Desperate for the TikTok cachet? The company is also offering a special edition version “engraved with the corporate brand logo from Fujifilm’s founding in 1934” for $2,000.
— Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
OnePlus rejoins the smartwatch scene with the promise of a 100-hour battery life
Apple Music debuts a monthly version of its annual Replay feature
Tinder is bringing its advanced ID verification system to the US and UK
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Dr. Garmin will see you now
Can a smartwatch free up doctors’ time?
A project in the UK has explored if a Garmin Venu 2 wearable (and dedicated companion app) could free up doctors and nurses, six minutes at a time. The six-minute walk test (6MWT) can diagnose and monitor a number of cardiovascular maladies. This includes conditions, like pulmonary hypertension, which, if untreated, are eventually fatal. This project, however, crunches the test down to a simpler one minute.
Because the research was funded by a charity, the British Heart Foundation, the watch had to offer good value for money, and Garmin, with its established health research division, gave the team “confidence in the accuracy of the sensors.” The study suggests cutting the test to one minute has no detrimental effect on its outcome or accuracy, and patients are far more likely to run the test regularly if they can do so at home.
Walmart is buying smart TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion
The retailer plans to boost its ad business with Vizio’s TV systems.
Walmart is buying Smart TV manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion, the retail giant announced as part of its latest earnings report. While Walmart has long been one of the major sellers of Vizio TVs, the company says the acquisition “enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling” via the company’s SmartCast OS. The companies plan to combine their ad businesses, with Vizio increasing Walmart’s access to more consumer info, like viewing data. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Apple says the iPhone 15’s battery has double the promised lifespan
All four models can retain 80 percent of their original charge after 1,000 cycles.
Engadget
Apple announced on Tuesday that its latest iPhones can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company’s previous estimate — without new hardware or software updates. And because timing is everything, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade for phones’ battery longevity.
Twitch is increasing channel subscription prices for the first time
Some tiers will soon be more expensive in the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey.
After laying off around 500 workers and reducing how much streamers make from Prime subscriptions, Twitch is increasing the price of its subscriptions for the first time. The service says it’s “updating prices in several countries to help streamer revenue keep pace with rising costs and reflect local currency fluctuations.” The first markets to feel the impact of those changes are the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey. On the plus side, streamers will have the same revenue share, so they’ll earn more from subscriptions in those regions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/T56uE2efrom Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/T56uE2e
Unisys investigating potential involvement in controversial Post Office system
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Uber Eats expands its autonomous food delivery service to Japan
Following its autonomous food delivery launch in Miami and Fairfax, Virginia, Uber Eats will soon be offering the same robotic service in Japan — its first outside the US. It is once again collaborating with Google alum startup Cartken, with local compliance help from Mitsubishi Electric, to bring a fleet of Model C sidewalk delivery robots to select areas in Tokyo in March. Uber Eats Japan CEO Shintaro Nakagawa says the autonomous delivery service will solve the local labor shortage issue, while complementing the existing human delivery methods "by bicycle, motorbike, light cargo, and on foot."
Cartken's six-wheeled Model C uses six cameras and advanced AI models for autonomous driving plus obstacle detection, and remote control mode is available when needed. With guidance from Mitsubishi, the robot has been modified to suit local needs in Japan. For one, its speed is capped at 5.4 km/h or about 3.36 mph as per local regulation, which is a lot slower than the 6 mph top speed it's actually capable of. The loading capacity has also been reduced from 1.5 cubic feet to about 0.95 cubic feet (27 liters), likely due to the extra thermal insulation in the compartment. Uber Eats adds that for the sake of privacy, people's faces are automatically masked in footage captured by the robots.
While this is Uber Eats' robotic delivery debut in Japan, Cartken already has a presence there thanks to Mitsubishi. Since early 2022, the duo has worked with Starbucks, local e-commerce giant Rakuten and supermarket chain Seiyu in some parts of Japan. In the US, Cartken also has a partnership with Grubhub to provide autonomous food delivery service on college campuses, including the Ohio State University and the University of Arizona.
Even though Uber Eats has yet to share which Tokyo restaurants will be tapping into its robotic delivery service, it should have no problem seeking partnership given Cartken's prior local experience. That said, I highly doubt that the pair would risk trialing their robots through a crowd of drunkards in Shibuya just yet.
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Tuesday, 20 February 2024
Government agrees law to protect confidential journalistic material from state hacking
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Flying into cloud – EasyJet’s journey out of the datacentre to AI
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Fujifilm's X100VI is a big step forward for the TikTok-famous compact camera
Fujifilm's X100V was the toy to have over the last couple of years (thanks, TikTok) and the company has now released its successor, the 40.2-megapixel X100 VI, with large improvements across the board. While keeping the same retro form, it offers much faster shooting speeds, in-body stabilization, 6.2K 30p video and more.
The X100VI looks identical to the previous model, with the same styling and control positions. The series was conceived as a street photography camera, borrowing a lot of styling cues from Leica's famous rangefinder cameras. As such, it doesn't have the world's great ergonomics, but is light at 521 grams, discreet for shooting and can slide into a jacket pocket.
Fujifilm
Fujifilm elected to go with the same 40.2-megapixel (MP) APS-C sensor as the much bigger X-H2, significantly boosting resolution over the X100V. I think that's a wise choice as it gives the camera — which has a wide-angle fixed 23mmm f/2.0 lens (35mm full-frame equivalent) — more cropping options. The price for that is likely a small drop in low-light sensitivity.
Another big new feature on the X100VI is built-in 5-axis stabilization with up to 6 stops of shake reduction. Given the X100VI's small body, it's an unexpected but welcome feature, and will be a big help to street photographers taking candid shots on the fly.
The X100V keeps the same 3.69-million dot hybrid optical viewfinder and 1.62-million dot LCD display, but the latter now tilts downward an extra 15 degrees to make shooting from above easier. It retains the same battery as before (CIPA rated for 300 shots), and unfortunately, the same slow UHS-I card slot.
Fujifilm
The X100VI still shoots at 11fps with the mechanical shutter and 20fps in electronic mode, but autofocus is quicker and more capable, according to Fujifilm. It now offers the company's latest tracking and face/eye detection, along with animal/vehicle and other types of subject detection.
Image quality should be improved as well with the extra resolution and a lower native 125 ISO. And since a lot of the newfound social media popularity of this camera is based on the film simulation modes, the camera comes with 20 built-in, including a new one called Reala Ace, designed to offer "faithful color reproduction and contrast tonality."
Fujifilm
Finally, one usually doesn't think of video when it comes to this series, but the X100VI is surprisingly capable for a tiny compact. It can shoot 6.2K video at up to 30fps, 4K at 60 fps and 1080p at 240fps. You also get 10-bit F-log and F-Log2 recording, shockingly good for a small, photo-centric camera with a fixed lens. The only downside is relatively low data rates (200Mbps max) due to the slow cards, but you can capture ProRes to an external recorder.
Fujifilm's X100VI is now on pre-order for $1,600 in silver or black, with shipping slated for early March 2024. The company is also offering a special edition version "engraved with the corporate brand logo from Fujifilm's founding in 1934" for $2,000. It has vowed to reduce the long lead times of the previous model by manufacturing it in China like other recent models.
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Monday, 19 February 2024
Nintendo's Switch 2 may not arrive until 2025
Nintendo's "Switch 2" was widely expected to arrive sometime this year, but a new rumor is putting that timeline into question. Now, the company is telling publishers that the next-gen console is slated for release in the first quarter of 2025, according to VGC, Eurogamer and other sources. That would line up with the release of the original Switch, which was announced in October 2016 but came out in March 2017.
Publishers were reportedly briefed recently on the launch date change from late 2024 to early 2025. Several sources said they were working on Switch 2 games with releases planned for early 2025. One key title could be the long-delayed Metroid Prime 4, which is still on Nintendo's release schedule but has no specific date attached.
Earlier this month, Nintendo slightly bumped its fiscal 2024 Switch sales forecast from 15 million to 15.5 million, compared to 18 million and 23 million in 2022 and 2021. Nintendo's stock slid today based on the release delay rumors, according to Reuters.
Not much is known about the future device, including the name. Rumors suggest it will have backward compatibility with Switch, along with 4K capabilities and visual quality similar to that of the PS5 and Series X. In any case, this year is bound to be a busy one for the company — if the new console does launch in Q1 2025, it'll likely be announced at a Nintendo Direct showcase later this year.
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Sunday, 18 February 2024
Biden administration may give automakers more time to shift to EVs
The Biden administration plans to loosen the limits on tailpipe emissions proposed last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), giving automakers more time before they’ll be required to sell significantly more electric vehicles than gas-powered cars, The New York Times reported this weekend. Under the proposed regulations laid out by the EPA, EVs would have to account for 67 percent of new car and light-duty truck sales by 2032.
Rather than forcing manufacturers to start ramping up EV sales right away, the changes would allow them to make the shift more gradually through the remainder of the 2020s, sources told the NYT. After 2030, though, EV sales would need to drastically increase. Automakers have argued that the current cost of electric vehicles and the lack of charging infrastructure stand in the way of hitting such extreme targets as those proposed by the EPA. Last year, just 7.6 percent of new cars sold in the US were EVs, per NYT.
The revision is likely a move in part to appease labor unions, which represent a demographic seen as a key area of support for Biden and have expressed a need for more time to unionize new EV plants among other concerns, according to NYT. The rules are not yet finalized, but are expected to be published in the spring.
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A satellite designed to inspect space junk just made it to orbit
Astroscale’s ADRAS-J spacecraft, a demonstration satellite that could inform future space junk cleanup efforts, is now in orbit after a successful launch from New Zealand on Sunday. The satellite was sent to space atop an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab. Its mission, which was selected by Japan’s space agency (JAXA) for Phase I of the Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration program, will see ADRAS-J rendezvous with an old Japanese rocket upper stage that’s been in orbit since 2009.
There it goes! 🛰️👋
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) February 18, 2024
ADRAS-J is now in orbit, ready to start its mission of rendezvousing with an aging piece of space debris and observing it closely to determine whether it can be deorbited in future.
Proud to be part of this innovative @astroscale_HQ mission studying ways to… pic.twitter.com/WcMexdBhHR
The accumulation of waste in Earth’s orbit from decades of spaceflight is an issue of growing concern, and space agencies around the world are increasingly working to address it, in many cases tapping private companies to develop potential solutions. One of the most effective ways to deal with space junk could be to deorbit it, or move it to a lower altitude so it can burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. ADRAS-J will be the first to target a piece of existing large debris and attempt to safely approach and characterize it, relying on ground-based data to hone in on its position.
Over the next few months, it’ll make its way to the target and eventually try to get close enough to take images and assess its condition to determine if it can be removed. “ADRAS-J is officially on duty and ready to rendezvous with some space debris!” the company tweeted. “Let the new era of space sustainability begin!”
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The EU is reportedly set to hit Apple with a $539 million fine in antitrust probe
Apple may be facing a fine of roughly $539 million (500 million euros) from the EU and a ban on its alleged anti-competitive App Store practices for music streaming services, according to FT. The publication, which cites five unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, reports that the European Commission will announce its ruling early next month.
The probe stems from a 2019 antitrust complaint filed by Spotify and is focused on App Store rules that at the time prevented developers from directing customers to alternative subscription options outside the app, which could be cheaper as they wouldn’t have to compensate for Apple’s 30 percent fee. Apple later loosened these restrictions. According to FT, the Commission will say Apple broke EU antitrust law and created “unfair trading conditions” for its rivals with the App Store’s “anti-steering obligations.”
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Saturday, 17 February 2024
NASA is looking for volunteers to live in its Mars simulation for a year
If extreme challenges are your cup of tea, NASA has the perfect opportunity for you. The space agency put out a call on Friday for volunteers to participate in its second yearlong simulated Mars mission, the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA 2). For the duration of the mission, which will start in spring 2025, the four selected crew members will be housed in a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat in Houston. NASA is accepting applications on the CHAPEA website from now through April 2. It’s a paid gig, but NASA hasn’t publicly said how much participants will be compensated.
The Mars Dune Alpha habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center is designed to simulate what life might be like for future explorers on the red planet, where the environment is harsh and resources will be limited. There’s a crew currently living and working there as part of the first CHAPEA mission, which is now more than halfway through its 378-day assignment. During their stay, volunteers will perform habitat maintenance and grow crops, among other tasks. The habitat also has a 1,200-square-foot sandbox attached to it for simulated spacewalks.
To be considered, applicants must be a US citizen aged 30-55, speak English proficiently and have a master’s degree in a STEM field, plus at least two years of professional experience, a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft or two years of work toward a STEM doctoral program. Certain types of professional experience may allow applicants without a master’s to qualify too. CHAPEA 2 is the second of three mission NASA has planned for the program, the first of which began on June 25, 2023.
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The Morning After: Zuckerberg's Vision Pro review, and robotaxis crashing twice into same truck.
Sometimes, timing ruins things. Take this week, instead of detailing the disgust I feel towards this 'meaty' rice, this week's Morning After sets its sights on Mark Zuckerberg, the multimillionaire who's decided to review technology now. Does he know that's my gig?
The Meta boss unfavorably compared Apple's new Vision Pro to his company's Meta Quest 3 headset, which is a delightfully hollow and petty reason to 'review' something. But hey, I had to watch it. And now maybe, you'll watch me?
We also look closer at Waymo's disastrous December, where two of its robotaxis collided with a truck. The ... same truck.
This week:
🥽🥽: Zuckerberg thinks the Quest 3 is a 'better product' than the Vision Pro
🤖🚙💥💥: Waymo robotaxis crash into the same pickup truck, twice
🚭🛫🚫: United Airlines grounds new Airbus fleet over no smoking sign law
Read this:
GLAAD, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy group, has published its first annual report on the video game industry. It found that nearly 20 percent of all players in the United States identify as LGBTQ, yet just 2 percent of games contain characters and storylines relevant to this community. And half of those might be Baldur's Gate 3 alone. (I half-joke.) The report notes that not only does representation matter to many LGBTQ players, but also that new generations of gamers are only becoming increasingly more open to queer content regardless of their sexual orientation. We break down the full report here.
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Wyze camera security issue allowed users to see other owners' homes
Some Wyze camera owners have reported that they were suddenly given access to cameras that weren't theirs and even got notifications for events inside other people's homes. Wyze cofounder David Crosby has confirmed the issue to The Verge, telling the publications that "some users were able to see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users started seeing strangers' camera feeds in their accounts after an outage that Wyze said was caused by an Amazon Web Services problem.
Crosby wrote in a post on the Wyze forum that the company's servers got overloaded, which corrupted some user data, after the outage. The security issue that resulted from that event then allowed users to "see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users couldn't view those videos and could only see their thumbnails, he clarified, and they were not able to view live streams from other people's cameras. Wyze was able to identify 14 incidents before taking down the Events tab altogether.
The company said it's going to notify all affected users and that it has forcibly logged out everyone who've recently used the Wyze app in order to reset tokens. "We will explain in more detail once we finish investigating exactly how this happened and further steps we will take to make sure it doesn’t happen again," Crosby added.
While the company doesn't have a detailed explanation for what happened yet, its swift confirmation of the incident is a huge departure from how it previously dealt with a security flaw. Back in 2022, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender revealed that in March 2019, it informed Wyze of a major security vulnerability in the Wyze Cam v1 model. The company didn't inform customers about the flaw, however, and didn't even issue a fix until three years later.
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Reddit reportedly signed a multi-million content licensing deal with an AI company
Ever posted or left a comment on Reddit? Your words will soon be used to train an artificial intelligence companies' models, according to Bloomberg. The website signed a deal that's "worth about $60 million on an annualized basis" earlier this year, it reportedly told potential investors ahead of its expected initial public offering (IPO). Bloomberg didn't name the "large AI company" that's paying Reddit millions for access to its content, but their agreement could apparently serve as a model for future contracts, which could mean more multi-million deals for the firm.
Reddit first announced that it was going to start charging companies for API access in April last year. It said at the time that pricing will be split in tiers so that even smaller clientele could afford to pay. Companies need that API access to be able to train their chatbots on posts and comments — a lot of which had been written by real people over the past 18 years — from subreddits on a wide variety of topics. However, that API is also used by other developers, including those providing users with third-party clients that are arguably better than Reddit's official app. Thousands of communities shut down last year in protest and even caused stability issues that affected the whole website.
Reddit could go public as soon as next month with a $5 billion valuation. As Bloomberg notes, the website could convince investors still on fence to take the leap by showing them that it can make big money and grow its revenue through deals with AI companies. The firms behind generative AI technologies are working to update their large language models or LLMs through various partnerships, after all. OpenAI, for instance, already inked an agreement that would give it the right to use Business Insider and Politico articles to train its AI models. It's also in talks with several publishers, including CNN, Fox Corp and Time, Bloomberg says.
OpenAI is facing several lawsuits that accuse it of using content without the express permission of copyright holders, though, including one filed by The New York Times in December. The AI company previously told Engadget that the lawsuit was unexpected, because it had ongoing "productive conversations" with the publication for a "high-value partnership."
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