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Sennheiser announced a new pair of mid-ranged headphones today that carry over some features from its latest flagship model. The Accentum Wireless offers a similar sound" to the $380 Momentum 4, along with hybrid active noise cancellation (ANC), 50-hour battery life and a $180 price tag.The company suggests you'll hear breathtaking Sennheiser sound" from Accentum Wireless. They use 37mm dynamic transducers (slightly smaller than the 42mm ones in the Momentum 4) and Bluetooth 5.2 with multipoint connectivity. The headphones support aptX HD, which can output up to a 576 kbps bitrate for those with supported devices. It's also compatible with AAC (the maximum for iPhone users) and SBC codecs.The headphones' battery can last an estimated 50 hours on a single charge, not terribly far from the Momentum 4's absurd 60 hours. (By comparison, Sony's latest flagship headphones are only rated for 30 hours.) Sennheiser says the Accentum can quick-charge for up to five extra hours of playtime in only 10 minutes. In addition, the included USB-C cable also enables wired listening mode for environments where Bluetooth doesn't make sense.SennheiserOn the voice side, the Accentum Wireless has two mics with a wind-reduction mode and adjustable sidetone, which lets you control how much you hear your voice during calls. The headphones also pair with the Sennheiser Smart Control app, which gives you a five-band equalizer, user presets, software updates and management of multipoint connections.Sennheiser claims the Accentum's battery life is matched by its long-term comfort. The earcup and headband padding contact points effortlessly conform to the wearer's shape, with a gentle touch that always feels secure and natural," the company wrote in a press release. The fold-out cans also appear to borrow design cues from the Momentum 4, which (somewhat controversially) dropped previous Momentum headphones' iconic / vintage look.The black version of the Accentum Wireless will begin shipping on October 4, with pre-orders starting tomorrow (September 26). Meanwhile, the white colorway arrives in late November." The headphones cost $180 and will be available from select retailers and Sennheiser's website.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sennheiser-accentum-wireless-headphones-offer-50-hour-battery-life-for-180-220058335.html?src=rss

Reports of David Limp's retirement have been greatly exaggerated. The former SVP of Devices and Services announced last week at Amazon's 2023 Devices Event that he would be stepping down from the role he had held for more than a decade. By Monday, however, Limp had reportedly been tapped by Jeff Bezos to take over for current Blue Origin CEO, Bob Smith, who is retiring at the start of December.MSNBC reports that Smith will stick around until January 2, 2024 to assist with the transition. Bezos sent the following announcement to the Blue Origin's workforce on Monday:

Reddit announced today that it will begin paying top contributors for gold. The platform's new Contributor Program allows redditors who meet certain requirements to receive real-world money (distributed monthly) for their awarded content. The company is also revamping how post / comment rewards work by eliminating Reddit Coins (and all associated awards) in favor of all gold all the time.The Contributor Program is open to redditors who are 18+ years old, in an eligible location (only the US at the beginning), have an account in good standing" and meet karma minimums. Reddit will grant standard contributor" status (earning 90 cents per gold awarded) to those with at least 10 gold who received between 100 and 4,999 karma in the last 12 months. Beyond that, top contributors" (earning $1 per gold awarded) will need a minimum of 10 gold and over 5,000 karma from the preceding 12 months. Redditors falling below those thresholds won't be eligible for real-world payments until they reach the goals.You can check your eligibility by navigating to the program page via your profile menu. If you can join, the Get Verified to Start Earning" button will be highlighted and tappable/clickable.Reddit also made some interface changes to match the new emphasis on gold. Gilded posts and comments will now display a gold upvote icon in place of the standard one. The platform also now lets you award and purchase gold straight from a post: You can now long-press on the upvote icon for a post or comment in the Reddit mobile app (or, eventually, hover the cursor over the symbol on the web) to choose between giving one and 25 gold awards. A single gold will cost users $2, while they could pay up to $49 for 25 of them. The new gold system is available now on mobile and will roll out to web users later this year."Reddit's API changes from earlier this year make it much more difficult for third parties to track engagement on the platform. However, with anecdotal reports of engagement dropping after the API protests, today's moves could be viewed as a carrot to lure / retain prolific contributors who will help the platform build engagement - similar to creator programs from X, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/reddit-turns-top-contributors-reddit-gold-into-real-world-money-203036387.html?src=rss

Huawei is moving deeper into the electric vehicle business with the help of Chery Autos and now we know when the first production model from their joint venture will arrive. Luxeed is slated to debut its coupe-style S7 in China in late November, according to the South China Morning Post.Luxeed's blend of Huawei's tech and Chery's manufacturing know-how could help the S7 to make a splash in an increasingly crowded EV market. There's clearly some confidence in the car too. It will be superior to Tesla's Model S in various aspects," Richard Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's car unit, said at an event.The EV's range, price and tech features weren't disclosed at the event, the South China Morning Post noted. However, it emerged in August that the S7 will be based on state-owned Chery's E0X platform, which is designed for two-motor, all-wheel-drive EVs.This isn't exactly Huawei's first foray into EVs. The company collaborated with automaker Seres to create the Aito brand (which Huawei now fully owns) in 2021. Aito's first all-electric model, the M5, arrived last year. Aito will start deliveries of its M9, a luxury electric SUV, in China in December. Huawei has also been supplying other automakers with its Huawei HI intelligent automotive solution that includes a 4D imaging radar and an autonomous driving platform.Don't expect to see Luxeed's S7 make its way over to the US anytime soon, if ever, though. Huawei is still subject to sanctions in the country.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/huawei-and-chery-autos-claim-their-first-production-ev-bests-the-tesla-model-s-200918326.html?src=rss

NASA's pioneering OSIRIS-REx mission has successfully returned from its journey to the asteroid Bennu. The robotic spacecraft briefly set down on the celestial body in a first-of-its-kind attempt (by an American space agency) to collect pristine rock samples, before alighting and heading back to Earth on a three-year roundtrip journey. The samples impacted safely on Sunday in the desert at the DoD's Utah Test and Training Range and Dugway Proving Grounds.Even more impressive, the spacecraft performed its Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) maneuver autonomously through the craft's onboard Natural Feature Tracking (NFT) visual navigation system - another first! Engadget recently sat down with Guidance Navigation and Control Manager at Lockheed Martin Dr. Ryan Olds, who helped develop the NFT system, to discuss how the groundbreaking AI was built and where in the galaxy it might be heading next.ASSOCIATED PRESSThe OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security - Regolith Explorer) is America's first attempt at retrieving physical samples from a passing asteroid (Japan has already done it twice). Bennu, being roughly 70 million miles from Earth when OSIRIS first intercepted it, presented far more of a challenge in landing than previous, larger targets like the also-not-particularly-easy-to-reach targets of the moon or Mars.There's so many different factors," in matching the myriad velocities and trajectories involved in these landing maneuvers, Olds told Engadget. So many little details. A lot of what we're doing is based on models and, if you have little error sources in your model that aren't being taken into account, then those can lead to big mistakes. So it's really, really important to make sure you're modeling everything accurately."In fact, after OSIRIS-REx rendezvoused with Bennu in 2020, the spacecraft spent more than 500 days circling the asteroid and capturing detailed images of its surface from which the ground control team generated digital terrain models. It takes a lot of research to make sure you've got all the effects understood," Olds said. We did a lot of that with our work on Natural Feature Tracking to make sure we understood the gravity field around the asteroid. Even little things like the spacecraft's heaters turning on and off - even that produces a very, very tiny propulsive effect because you're radiating heat, and on really small bodies like Bennu, those little things matter."NASA/Goddard/University of ArizonaSince the asteroid revolved around its axis, the surface transitioning from sunlit side to dark and back again, every four hours, the OSIRIS team had to, design all of our TAG trajectories so that we were flying over the lit portion of the asteroid, Olds said. We didn't want the spacecraft to ever miss the maneuver and accidentally drift back into the eclipse behind the asteroid." The NFT system, much like a Tesla, relies primarily on an array of visual spectrum cameras to know where it is in space, with a LiDAR system operating as backup.LiDAR was initially going to be the primary method of navigating, given the team's belief during the planning phase that the surface of Bennu resembled a sandy, beach-like environment. We weren't expecting to have any hazards like big boulders," Olds said. "So the navigation system was really only designed to make sure we would land within about a 25-meter area, and LiDAR was the system of choice for that. But quickly once we got to Bennu, we were really surprised by what it looked like, just boulders everywhere, hazards everywhere."The team had difficulty spotting any potential landing site with a radius larger than eight meters, which meant that the LiDAR system would not be precise enough for the task. They racked their brains and decided to switch over to using the NFT system, which offered the ability to estimate orbital state in three dimensions. This is helpful in knowing if there's a boulder in the lander's descent path. The spacecraft ultimately touched down within just 72cm of its target.We did have some ground-based models from radar imagery," Olds said. But that really only gave us a very kind of bulk shape - it didn't give us the detail." OSIRIS's 17 months of flyovers provided that missing granularity in the form of thousands of high-resolution images. Those images were subsequently transmitted back to Earth where members of the OSIRIS-REx Altimetry Working Group (AltWG) processed, analyzed and reassembled them into a catalog of more than 300 terrain reference maps and trained a 3D shape model of the terrain. The NFT system relied on these assets during its TAG maneuver to adjust its heading and trajectory.That full maneuver was a four-part process starting at the safe-home terminator orbit" of Bennu. The spacecraft moved onto the daylight side of the asteroid, to a position about 125m above the surface dubbed Checkpoint. The third maneuver shifted OSIRIS-REx to Matchpoint, 55m above the surface, so that by the time it finished descending and came into contact with the asteroid, it would be traveling at just 10 cm/s. At that point the ship switched from visual cameras (which were less useful due to kicked-up asteroid dust) to using its onboard accelerometer and the delta-v update (DVU) algorithm to accurately estimate its relative position. In its fourth and final maneuver, was the craft - and its approximately eight-oz (250g) cargo - gently backed away from the 4.5 billion-year-old space rock.ASSOCIATED PRESSSunday's touchdown was not the end of the NFT's spacefaring career. An updated and upgraded version of the navigation system will potentially be aboard the next OSIRIS mission, OSIRIS-APEX. Next year, we're going to start hitting the whiteboard about what we want this updated system to do. We learned a lot of lessons from the primary mission."Olds notes that the asteroid's small stature made navigation a challenge, because of all those little tiny forces I was telling you about. That caused a lot of irritation on the ground ... so we're definitely wanting to improve the system to be even more autonomous so that future ground crews don't have to be so involved. The OSIRIS spacecraft is already en route to its APEX target, the 1,000-foot wide Apophis asteroid, which is scheduled to pass within just 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029. NASA plans to put OSIRIS into orbit around the asteroid to see if doing so affects the body's orbit, spin rate, and surface features.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/osiris-rex-used-a-tesla-esque-navigation-system-to-capture-45-billion-year-old-regolith-192132417.html?src=rss

Amazon is paywalling more formerly free features on its smart home devices. Several months after it moved some basic Ring alarm system features behind a subscription plan, Amazon is doing something similar for several Alexa Guard functions.Alexa Guard is a free security feature that came as standard on Echo devices. It listens out for things like alarms and intruders when you aren't at home. However, the company is shutting down Alexa Guard, as The Vergereports.Some Alexa Guard features will remain available to everyone at no extra cost as part of the core Alexa experience. These include the Home and Away modes (for arming and disarming a Ring Alarm system) and Away Lighting, which turns on smart lights to make it seem like you're en casa.However, you'll need to pay for the new Emergency Assist service to keep using several features. Amazon is paywalling Alexa Guard's smoke and CO alarm detection functions. You'll also soon have to pony up for a subscription if you want Alexa to keep an ear out for the sound of breaking glass, signifying a possible intruder.There's at least some good news for Ring Protect Pro members who linked their Ring and Alexa accounts as of September 20. Those folks will get an Alexa Emergency Assist membership at no extra cost until October 31 next year. Guard Plus, which added some extra features to Alexa Guard for a monthly or annual fee, is no longer available for purchase. It was included with a Ring Protect Pro plan.Alexa Emergency Assist currently costs $6 per month or $59 per year. However, that's listed as an introductory price that will only remain valid for everyone until January 8. After that time, non-Prime subscribers will have to pay extra for Emergency Assist. Much like Guard Plus, Alexa Emergency Assist enables users to call emergency services via the voice assistant on an Echo device.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-will-start-charging-for-formerly-free-alexa-guard-smoke-and-security-alerts-184602106.html?src=rss

Meta's planning on unleashing a swarm of personality-driven AI chatbots to attract young users to its various platforms, as originally reported by The Wall Street Journal. The first of these bots could launch as early as this week, with rumors persisting that one will get announced during Meta's Connect conference on Wednesday.It looks like these bots won't be tied to a particular platform under Meta's umbrella and should launch on a variety of social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp. The Journal says that Meta employees have been testing the generative bots for a while. The bots are being released to increase chat engagement, but some may offer productivity tools like coding and the like.These AI chatbots are stuffed with personality to keep the young (and young at heart) entertained. Specifics remain vague, but The Journal got a look at some internal documents that detail an AI called Bob the Robot" that's loosely based on Bender from Futurama. This bot is a self-described sassmaster general" with the internal documents referring to it as a sassy robot that taps into the type of farcical humor that is resonating with young people." As a note, Futurama premiered almost 25 years ago, long before many of those farcical humor-loving young people were even born.There's also a bot called Alvin the Alien" that reportedly pries users for personal information in its quest to understand humans. Your species holds fascination for me," an internal report has it saying. Share your experiences, thoughts and emotions! I hunger for understanding." One employee noted in the memo that users might fear this character" as it seems like it's purposefully designed to collect personal information." The company has been famously squeaky-clean regarding privacy violations in the past, so this should cause no concern.Meta's been trying to court younger users for a while now, particularly since the meteoric rise of TikTok. The app has overtaken Instagram in recent years and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants that marketshare back, telling investors during a conference call in 2021 that the company would retool its teams to make serving young adults their North Star rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people." So it looks like there won't be a chatbot that complains about participation trophies or Bud Light or whatever.The Journal suggests that dozens of these chatbots are on the way, referred to internally as Gen AI Personas. They'll also pop up in metaverse applications in addition to standard social media services. Reports also indicate that Meta's prepping a toolset for celebrities to allow them to create their own AI chatbots to interact with fans.Of course, Meta's not the first social media company to court youngsters with personality-filled chatbots. Amazon's prepping an Alexa-powered voice chat service for kids. Snap also launched the My AI service back in February and it has been used by over 150 million people since that release. Despite the success, My AI has run into some troubling issues for a product intended for children. For instance, it has chatted about alcohol and sex with users and even randomly started posting photos without consent. We'll have to wait and see if Bob the Robot" and his cohorts start behaving badly when they launch.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-plan-to-attract-young-users-hinges-on-cringe-worthy-ai-chatbots-173459484.html?src=rss

Repairability website iFixit has published its teardown of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the results are a mixed bag. Local repair shops still have to deal with the company's software-restricted parts pairing" requirement, which means they need to order official components directly from Apple and get on the phone with a company employee before iOS will accept individual part replacements.On the positive side, iFixit praised Apple for returning to a dual-entry" removable glass back cover with the iPhone 15 Pro models - a feature that debuted with the standard iPhone 14 line last year. This is a win for consumers as back glass repairs have been outrageously expensive on the high-end models until now, costing as much as $550," iFixit said in its teardown video.iFixit also examined the phone's titanium frame and came away less than impressed. While noting that titanium is dirtier to produce than stainless steel and aluminum (mocking Apple's Mother Nature" skit in its launch event), the site also said the material scratches easily. Unfortunately for the cool factor, we found that the color on the titanium shell scratches easily, a process that is only satisfying under the magnificent magnification of the microscope," the teardown video said. I could scratch this thing up all day."Elsewhere, iFixit found that the iPhone 15 Pro Max's logic board appears to be the same as the one in the iPhone 15 Pro, and you have to remove the speaker and Taptic Engine to access the battery-removal tabs. Interestingly, the website also noted that the main and wide camera sensors on the iPhone 15 Pro Max appear identical to those on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, suggesting the Tetraprism" periscope lens, which enables 5x optical zoom, is the only hardware-based camera update this year. Any improvement in image quality has more to do with a new A17 SoC than the camera hardware itself," iFixit said.Dinging Apple for parts pairing appears primed to stand as a primary focus of iFixit's Apple teardowns from now on. The repair advocacy website views it as significant enough of a problem to have lowered the iPhone 14's repairability score from 7 out of 10 to 4 out of 10 nearly a year after launch because of it. And as we've now come to expect, each year brings new parts pairing issues and bugs," the video said. This year's edition is the LiDAR sensor, which now crashes if the sensor is swapped out. Calibration issue or not, these bugs need to be fixed, or else they might as well be paired with the logic board with a tiny Apple warning saying, Hey, this phone is property of Apple.'"Due to the parts pairing requirement, iFixit gave the iPhone 15 Pro Max a mere 4 out of 10 repairability score. This phone won't accept salvaged parts, it complicates at-home repair, and it won't be any fun for your local repair tech," the website said.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/iphone-15-pro-max-teardown-reveals-a-mixed-bag-for-repairability-164720796.html?src=rss

Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya is leaving PlatinumGames, after helping to found the company back in 2006 when it was called Seeds Inc. Kamiya was recently promoted to VP, so this move comes as a slight surprise. He recently said on social media that it was "by no means an easy decision to make."Kamiya still has a couple of weeks on his post, as he officially exits the company on October 12. As for the why of it all, he wrote that the move came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs," but didn't offer further explanation. He says he's still going to make games in his Hideki Kamiya way", but hasn't announced if he's heading to another company, starting his own or even just planning to tinker away in a garage somewhere. He's only 52, so a complete retirement is highly unlikely.Kamiya's mark on gaming is massive. Most recently, he was the supervising director of the critically-acclaimed Bayonetta 3. During his more than 15 years at PlatinumGames, Kamiya worked on classics like the original Bayonetta, the Wii U and Switch cult hit The Wonderful 101 and the action-heavy Astral Chain, among others. He was staffed at Capcom and its spin-off studio Clover before founding PlatinumGames, helming Resident Evil 2, Viewtiful Joe and kami.Kamiya has been hard at work these past few years on a superhero title internally referred to as Project GG. He was lead director on the heroic" game and the company has marketed it as a conclusion to his superhero trilogy, joining Viewtiful Joe and the Wonderful 101. PlatinumGames hasn't announced if the game's still coming or if it will poof into vaporware with Kamiya's departure.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/platinumgames-co-founder-hideki-kamiya-is-leaving-the-studio-154529517.html?src=rss

Resident Evil Village is a haunting horror romp starring a very tall and elegant vampire lady (and some other monsters, sure), and it's heading to iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max on October 30. It'll hit the M1 and M2 models of the iPad Pro and iPad Air on the same day. The base game will cost $40 and its Winters' Expansion DLC will be an additional $20.Resident Evil Village originally came to PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2021, and it became a cultural touchstone for its monster-mashing storyline. The game includes werewolf creatures, a mutant fish man, a murderous cult leader and festering, zombie-like enemies, though its breakout star was Countess Alcina Dimitrescu. She's an exceptionally tall, undead, razor-fingered villain who leads a trio of vampiric daughters, and she's simply fantastic.Village landed on Mac in 2022. Apple revealed the iPhone and iPad versions during its annual iPhone event on September 12, 2023, but it didn't share a release date at the time. Capcom provided the date on its site this week. The Resident Evil 4 remake, which landed on PC and consoles this year, is also due to hit Apple's mobile devices in 2023, but no date has been confirmed just yet.Other games coming to the iPhone 15 Pro - thanks to the new A17 Pro chipset - include Death Stranding and Assassin's Creed Mirage. Death Stranding is due out this year, while Mirage is scheduled to hit in early 2024.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-iphone-15-pro-version-of-resident-evil-village-lands-on-october-30-153334740.html?src=rss

It's always nice to have some options when it comes to playing games on a fresh console, so for the next month Sony is giving away a free title to anyone who purchases and activates a new PS5.Dubbed the Upgrader Program, Sony's latest initiative to entice potential PS5 buyers is refreshingly straightforward. In order to get a free game, users will need to purchase and activate their console before 11:59PM PT on October 20th. Once that's done, you can just go to the PlayStation Store and redeem a specific title by tapping on a banner for this offer. That said, if you don't already have an existing PSN account, you will need to make one as the free games come in the form of a digital download.The other nice thing is the selection of free titles includes a number of high-profile releases from the past few years. Here's the full list of currently redeemable games:

It's only been a few weeks since Analogue released a glow-in-the-dark Pocket console, but the manufacturer is already gearing up for yet another limited edition launch that could evoke memories of your youth. Analogue will start selling transparent Pockets, which are reminiscent of clear Game Boy Color consoles, on September 29 at 8 AM PT/11 AM ET.You will have seven transparent colors to choose from: clear, smoke, red, blue, orange, green and purple. The retro gaming console will set you back $250 each - that means they cost $30 more than the basic versions, which are out of stock at the moment. These consoles are only available in limited quantities, though, and Analogue told us that they will never be sold again. If you're interested, you may want to online at the exact time the model will be available to check out, because the glow-in-the-dark edition sold out in mere minutes.Analogue's Pocket handheld can play Game Boy and Game Boy Advance cartridges out of the box and even support original accessories for the Nintendo console. You can also connect it directly to a Game Boy if you still have one for multiplayer gaming. But Game Boy cartridges aren't the only ones you can play again with a Pocket: Analogue also sells Game Gear adapters, so you can relive your '90s gaming experience. TurboGrafx, Neo Geo and Lynx adapters were also announced a long time ago, and will likely arrive one day... one day.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/analogues-limited-edition-transparent-pocket-handhelds-come-in-seven-colors-150049816.html?src=rss

ChatGPT is getting some significant updates that will enable the chatbot to deal with voice commands and image-based queries. Users will be able to have a voice conversation with ChatGPT on Android and iOS and to feed images into it on all platforms. OpenAI is rolling out the features now. They'll be available to Plus and Enterprise users at first, with other folks gaining access to the image-based features later.You'll need to opt in to voice conversations in the ChatGPT app (go to Settings then New Features) if you'd like to try them out. By tapping the microphone button, you'll be able to choose from five different voices.OpenAI says the back-and-forth voice conversations are powered by a new text-to-speech model that can generate "human-like audio from just text and a few seconds of sample speech." It created the five voices with the help of professional actors. Going the other way, the company's Whisper speech recognition system converts a user's spoken words into text.

Hey, big spender. Tinder Select, the dating app's most exclusive tier, is rolling out now. It will cost love seekers $500 per month (or $6,000 annually - no bulk discounts) for features like exclusive search and matching.The company has only offered Tinder Select to the less than one percent of users it considers extremely active" - does anyone want that label? Tinder told Bloomberg it'll open applications for Tinder Select on a rolling basis, but it didn't say exactly when. Tinder's exclusive membership was originally hinted at all the way back in 2019.The owners of Tinder, Match Group, have dabbled in exclusive dating apps before, like The League, which it bought in 2022, so it's not too much of a shock to see Tinder also get reframed for the lonely rich. Is this worse than paying for verification when you have less than 1,000 followers on other social media networks? Yes. Yes, it is.- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedWhat the Elon Musk biography revealed about his tumultuous Twitter takeoverDrop BMR1 PC speaker review: Not bad, but not amazingThe best October Amazon Prime Day early access deals for 2023Hitting the Books: Beware the Tech Bro who comes bearing giftsThe Morning After: Microsoft's bad week, and Alexa gets an attitudeLast week's biggest news meets Engadget's lens.Our short-but-sweet YouTube edition of this week's news covers includes Microsoft's rough, rough week, a sassier Alexa from Amazon and whether the iPhone 15 Pro is worth the extra bucks. Also: viewers take umbrage at my fake' glasses. Which are not fake.Watch here.Sony ZV-E1 camera reviewThe best vlogging camera, by a big margin.EngadgetI've been waiting for this. Sony fully embraced amateur / semi-pro content creators back in 2020, with the launch of the ZV1 camera. It has since added no less than four models to its ZV lineup, and this is the latest: the 12-megapixel full-frame ZV-E1. It uses the same sensor as the $3,500 A7S III, a video-focused camera - and a low-light marvel. However, the ZV-E1 costs $1,300 less. While Sony has cut some minor corners, it combines outstanding video features and AI tricks, and I might have to start saving for one.Check out the full review.Samsung leaks its next family of smartphones, earbuds and tabletsDon't get too excited. It's the Fan Edition ones.SamsungEagle-eyed visitors to Samsung's Argentinian website - I visit it weekly - have spotted something a little unexpected: a product page for new Galaxy Buds FE earbuds, along with images of a Galaxy S23 FE smartphone and Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet. Samsung's Fan Edition devices have proven popular, packing in solid features for a more reasonable price than Samsung's flagship models.The company hasn't let slip any specs for the phone and tablet yet. However, there are some details on the Galaxy Buds FE, Samsung's first Fan Edition earbuds. They're slated to have a single 12mm driver, three microphones in each earbud to bolster active noise cancellation and a three-way speaker.Continue reading.The best foldable phones for 2023Are flip phones back?Foldables have come a long way since the original Galaxy Fold went on sale back in 2019. They're smaller, they're tougher and, while they still aren't a great option for people on a budget, they're now more affordable too. (Kind of?) We walk through the crucial specs, durability concerns and our favorite picks.Continue reading.The Engadget PodcastiPhone 15 Pro reviews, and Microsoft picks AI over Surface.This week, Cherlynn chats about her experience reviewing the iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Watch Series 9. Does a 5X camera zoom make much of a difference? Meanwhile, Microsoft is basically consolidating all of the Copilot products it's already announced for Edge, MS 365 and Windows, but maybe this will be less confusing in the long run?Continue reading.Correction, 9/25/23 11:45AM ET: As Tinder Select is invite-only, we've updated the headline to reflect that.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-tinders-500-a-month-tier-is-now-open-to-everyone-who-can-afford-it-111517880.html?src=rss

Amazon is investing up to $4 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic as a way to provide advanced deep learning and other services to its Amazon Web Service (AWS) customers, the company wrote in a press release. In return, AWS becomes Anthropic's "primary cloud provider" to train and deploy its future foundation models. It's the second large investment in the company, founded by former OpenAI executives, following Google's $400 million partnership with the firm.The e-commerce company will start with a $1.25 billion investment to gain a minority stake in Anthropic, with an option to boost that to a total of $4 billion. Along with Google and Amazon, Anthropic also counts Salesforce, Zoom, Spark Capital and others as backers. Notably, Anthropic's deal with Google didn't require it to buy cloud services from the search giant.Anthropic recently unveiled its first consumer-facing chatbot Claude 2, accessible by subscription much like OpenAI's ChatGPT. The Claude Constitutional AI" system is guided by 10 foundational" principals of fairness and autonomy and is supposed to be harder to trick than other AI. Anthropic is also working on a chatbot it calls "Claude-Next" that's supposed to be ten times more powerful than any current AI, according to TechCrunch.The startup touts itself as an advocate for responsible AI deployment, and recently formed an AI safety group with Google, Microsoft and Open AI. It has been with AWS since 2021. "Claude excels at a wide range of tasks, from sophisticated dialogue and creative content generation to complex reasoning and detailed instruction, while maintaining a high degree of reliability and predictability," according to Amazon.Instead of training their own models, AWS customers will be able to use Anthropic's AI models via Amazon's Bedrock, a service designed specifically for AI development. Amazon Cloud also offers its own AI applications, and with the new partnership, is hoping to position itself as a key player in the field.Microsoft-backed OpenAI is largely considered to be the leader in AI and chatbot tech, thanks to its ultra-popular ChatGPT chatbot and DALL-E image generation service. Use of AI in business continues to grow exponentially, despite concerns over the legality and ethics of AI-appropriated content - it was considered to be a strong sticking point in the WGA writer's strike, for example.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-invests-4-billion-in-anthropic-openai-rival-095321755.html?src=rss

NASA's OSIRIS-REx seven-year mission to collect rocks and dust from a near-Earth asteroid is complete. The capsule containing the final samples returned to Earth on the morning of September 24th, touching down in the desert at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range at 10:52 am ET.The device collected around 250 grams of material from a carbon-rich asteroid dubbed Bennu," which NASA says hosts some of the oldest rocks in our solar system. The sample gives scientists more information about the building blocks of what planetary makeup looked like 4.5 billion years ago.Because asteroids are considered to be natural time capsules" - due to how little they change over time - they can offer researchers a window into the chemical composition of our early solar system and determine whether or not Bennu carried the organic molecules that are found in life. Now that samples are in the hands of NASA scientists, the agency says its researchers will catalog the collection and conduct in-depth analysis over the next two years.NASANASA's mission began all the way back in September 2016, launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It took just over a year to perform its flyby of Earth before arriving at the Bennu asteroid 15 months later in December 2018. In October 20, 2022, the explorer successfully captured samples from Bennu and began its journey back to Earth on May 10, 2021. Upon its touchdown on September 24th, The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx's full name) had journeyed 3.9 billion miles.While NASA's OSIRIS-REx is not the first attempt a space agency has made to deliver an asteroid sample to Earth, this mission's rendition has the largest sample size. The Bennu sample is estimated to hold about half a pound of rocky material from the asteroid's surface. In a similar vein, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa mission delivered specks from an asteroid called Itokawa and in a secondary mission, brought back about 5 grams from another asteroid coined Ryugu in 2021. Japan's agency shared 10 percent of their samples with NASA at the time. NASA is expected to share a small percentage of its OSIRIS-REx samples from Bennu with JAXA.While the sample made landfall, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft remained in space. It has now set off on a new mission to explore another near-Earth asteroid called Apophis, which NASA says is roughly 1,200 feet (roughly 370 meters) in diameter and will come within 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029.The new project, dubbed OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer (OSIRIS-APEX), will study changes in the asteroid that experts believed in 2004 had a 2.7 percent chance of hitting Earth. The spacecraft's gas thrusters will attempt to "dislodge dust and small rocks on and below Apophis' surface," giving experts data on how asteroid's proximity to Earth affected its orbit, spin rate and surface composition.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-osiris-rex-successfully-delivers-asteroid-samples-back-to-earth-091107901.html?src=rss

Following marathon negotiations over the last five days, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and major studios have reached a tentative deal to end a 146-day strike that has shut down much of the industry, Variety has reported. "We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional - with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership," the WGA wrote in an email to members.Picketing has been suspended as of Sunday night, but the strike is still in force until it's ratified and approved by members. "To be clear, no one is to return to work until specifically authorized to by the Guild. We are still on strike until then," the email stated.One of the last sticking points was reportedly around the use of generative AI in content production. Other details of the contract have yet to be released, including around streaming residuals, staffing levels for shows and more. "Though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last i' is dotted," wrote the WGA.Things were looking bleak for the industry in mid-September, but some high-profile WGA members reportedly pressured leadership to restart negotiations. In addition, four key AMPTP executives (Bob Iger from Disney, NBCUniversal's Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos and David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery) participated in negotiations for three days. Bargaining resumed on September 20, and the deal was reached five days later.Considering the strike length and WGA leadership's high level of praise for the deal, a positive vote from membership seems probable. The guild credited membership's solidarity and its willingness to "endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days" as key to clinching the deal. "It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal," it stated in the message.The labor strife isn't finished yet, though. The SAG-AFTRA actors' guild is still on strike after hitting picket lines on July 14 over issues like likeness rights. "While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP's tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members," the union wrote in a statement.Even after the actors reach their own deal, it will take time for TV series, films, talk shows and other productions to get back up to speed - so expect delays in your favorite shows coming back. The AMPTP has yet to comment on the WGA deal.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-hollywood-writers-strike-may-soon-end-after-tentative-deal-is-struck-082357469.html?src=rss

American entrepreneurs have long fixated on extracting the maximum economic value out of, well really, any resource they can get their hands on - from Henry Ford's assembly line to Tony Hsieh's Zappos Happiness Experience Form. The same is true in the public sector where some overambitious streamlining of Texas' power grid contributed to the state's massive 2021 winter power crisis that killed more than 700 people. In her new book, the riveting Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization, UC Berkeley applied mathematician and author, Coco Krumme, explores our historical fascination with optimization and how that pursuit has often led to unexpected and unwanted consequences in the systems we're streamlining.In the excerpt below, Krumme explores the recent resurgence of interest in Universal Basic (or Guaranteed) Income and the contrasting approaches to providing UBI between tech evangelists like Sam Altman and Andrew Yang, and social workers like Aisha Nyandoro, founder of the Magnolia Mother's Trust, in how to address the difficult questions of deciding who should receive the financial support, and how much.Riverhead BooksExcerpted from Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization by Coco Krumme. Published by Riverhead Books. Copyright (C) 2023 by Coco Krumme. All rights reserved.False GodsCalifornia, they say, is where the highway ends and dreams come home to roost. When they say these things, their eyes ignite: startup riches, infinity pools, the Hollywood hills. The last thing on their minds, of course, is the town of Stockton.Drive east from San Francisco and, if traffic cooperates, you'll be there in an hour and a half or two, over the long span of slatecolored bay, past the hulking loaders at Oakland's port, skirting rich suburbs and sweltering orchards and the government labs in Livermore, the military depot in Tracy, all the way to where brackish bay waters meet the San Joaquin River, where the eastwest highways connect with Interstate 5, in a tangled web of introductions that ultimately pitches you either north toward Seattle or south to LA.Or you might decide to stay in Stockton, spend the night. There's a slew of motels along the interstate: La Quinta, Days Inn, Motel 6. Breakfast at Denny's or IHOP. Stockton once had its place in the limelight as a booming goldrush supply point. In 2012, the city filed for bankruptcy, the largest US city until then to do so (Detroit soon bested it in 2013). First light reveals a town that's neither particularly rich nor desperately poor, hitched taut between cosmopolitan San Francisco on one side and the agricultural central valley on the other, in the middle, indistinct, suburban, and a little sad.This isn't how the story was supposed to go. Optimization was supposed to be the recipe for a more perfect society. When John Stuart Mill aimed for the greater good, when Allen Gilmer struck out to map new pockets of oil, when Stan Ulam harnessed a supercomputer to tally possibilities: it was in service of doing more, and better, with less. Greater efficiency was meant to be an equilibrating force. We weren't supposed to have big winners and even bigger losers. We weren't supposed to have a whole sprawl of suburbs stuck in the declining middle.We saw how overwrought optimizations can suddenly fail, and the breakdown of optimization as the default way of seeing the world can come about equally fast. What we face now is a disconnect between the continued promises of efficiency, the idea that we can optimize into perpetuity, and the reality all around: the imperfect world, the overbooked schedules, the delayed flights, the institutions in decline. And we confront the question: How can we square what optimization promised with what it's delivered?Sam Altman has the answer. In his mid-thirties, with the wiry, frenetic look of a college student, he's a young man with many answers. Sam's biography reads like a leaderboard of Silicon Valley tropes and accolades: an entrepreneur, uppermiddleclass upbringing, prep school, Stanford Computer Science student, Stanford Computer Science dropout, where dropping out is one of the Valley's top status symbols. In 2015, Sam was named a Forbes magazine top investor under age thirty. (That anyone bothers to make a list of investors in their teens and twenties says as much about Silicon Valley as about the nominees. Tech thrives on stories of overnight riches and the mythos of the boy genius.)Sam is the CEO and cofounder, along with electriccarandrocketshipmagnate Elon Musk, of OpenAI, a company whose mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." He is the former president of the Valley's top startup incubator, Y Combinator, was interim CEO of Reddit, and is currently chairman of the board of two nuclearenergy companies, Helion and Okto. His latest venture, Worldcoin, aims to scan people's eyeballs in exchange for cryptocurrency. As of 2022, the company had raised $125 million of funding from Silicon Valley investors.But Sam doesn't rest on, or even mention, his laurels. In conversation, he is smart, curious, and kind, and you can easily tell, through his veneer of demure agreeableness, that he's driven as hell. By way of introduction to what he's passionate about, Sam describes how he used a spreadsheet to determine the seven or so domains in which he could make the greatest impact, based on weighing factors such as his own skills and resources against the world's needs. Sam readily admits he can't read emotions well, treats most conversations as logic puzzles, and not only wants to save the world but believes the world's salvation is well within reach.A 2016 profile in The New Yorker sums up Sam like this: His great weakness is his utter lack of interest in ineffective people."Sam has, however, taken an interest in Stockton, California.Stockton is the site of one of the most publicized experiments in Universal Basic Income (UBI), a policy proposal that grants recipients a fixed stipend, with no qualifications and no strings attached. The promise of UBI is to give cash to those who need it most and to minimize the red tape and special interests that can muck up more complex redistribution schemes. On Sam's spreadsheet of areas where he'd have impact, UBI made the cut, and he dedicated funding for a group of analysts to study its effects in six cities around the country. While he's not directly involved in Stockton, he's watching closely. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration was initially championed by another tech wunderkind, Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes. The project gave 125 families $500 per month for twentyfour months. A slew of metrics was collected in order to establish a causal relationship between the money and better outcomes.UBI is nothing new. The concept of a guaranteed stipend has been suggested by leaders from Napoleon to Martin Luther King Jr. The contemporary American conception of UBI, however, has been around just a handful of years, marrying a utilitarian notion of societal perfectibility with a modernday faith in technology and experimental economics.Indeed, economists were among the first to suggest the idea of a fixed stipend, first in the context of the developing world and now in America. Esther Duflo, a creative star in the field and Nobel Prize winner, is known for her experiments with microloans in poorer nations. She's also unromantic about her discipline, embracing the concept of economist as plumber." Duflo argues that the purpose of economics is not grand theories so much as ontheground empiricism. Following her lead, the contemporary argument for UBI owes less to a framework of virtue and charity and much more to the cold language of an econ textbook. Its benefits are described in terms of optimizing resources, reducing inequality, and thereby maximizing societal payoff.The UBI experiments under way in several cities, a handful of them funded by Sam's organization, have datacollection methods primed for a toptier academic publication. Like any good empiricist, Sam spells out his own research questions to me, and the data he's collecting to test and analyze those hypotheses.Several thousand miles from Sam's Bay Area office, a different kind of program is in the works. When we speak by phone, Aisha Nyandoro bucks a little at my naive characterization of her work as UBI. We don't call it universal basic income," she says. We call it guaranteed income. It's targeted. Invested intentionally in those discriminated against." Aisha is the powerhouse founder of the Magnolia Mother's Trust, a program that gives a monthly stipend to single Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. The project grew out of her seeing the welfare system fail miserably for the very people it purported to help. The social safety net is designed to keep families from rising up. Keep them teetering on edge. It's punitive paternalism. The safety net' that strangles."Bureaucracy is dehumanizing, Aisha says, because it asks a person to prove you're enough" to receive even the most basic of assistance. Magnolia Mother's Trust is unique in that it is targeted at a specific population. Aisha reels off facts. The majority of lowincome women in Jackson are also mothers. In the state of Mississippi, one in four children live in poverty, and women of color earn 61 percent of what white men make. Those inequalities affect the community as a whole. In 2021, the trust gave $1,000 per month to one hundred women. While she's happy her program is gaining exposure as more people pay attention to UBI, Aisha doesn't mince words. I have to be very explicit in naming race as an issue," she says.Aisha's goal is to grow the program and provide cash, without qualifications, to more mothers in Jackson. Magnolia Mother's Trust was started around the same time as the Stockton project, and the nomenclature of guaranteed income has gained traction. One mother in the program writes in an article in Ms. magazine, Now everyone is talking about guaranteed income, and it started here in Jackson." Whether or not it all traces back to Jackson, whether the money is guaranteed and targeted or more broadly distributed, what's undeniable is that everyone seems to be talking about UBI.Influential figures, primarily in tech and politics, have piled on to the idea. Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of Twitter, with his droopy meditation eyes and guru beard, wants in. In 2020, he donated $15 million to experimental efforts in thirty US cities.And perhaps the loudest bullhorn for the idea has been wielded by Andrew Yang, another product of Silicon Valley and a 2020 US presidential candidate. Yang is an earnest guy, unabashedly dorky. Numbers drive his straighttalking policy. Blue baseball caps for his campaign are emblazoned with one short word: MATH.UBI's proponents see the potential to simplify the currently convoluted American welfare system, to equilibrate an uneven playing field. By decoupling basic income from employment, it could free some people up to pursue work that is meaningful.And yet the concept, despite its many proponents, has managed to draw ire from both ends of the political spectrum. Critics on the right see UBI as an extension of the welfare state, as further interference into free markets. Leftleaning critics bemoan its inefficient" distribution of resources: Why should high earners get as much as those below the poverty line? Why should struggling individuals get only just enough to keep them, and the capitalist system, afloat?Detractors on both left and right default to the same language in their critiques: that of efficiency and maximizing resources. Indeed, the language of UBI's critics is all too similar to the language of its proponents, with its randomized control trials and its view of society as a closed economic system. In the face of a disconnect between what optimization promised and what it delivered, the proposed solution involves more optimizing.Why is this? What if we were to evaluate something like UBI outside the language of efficiency? We might ask a few questions differently. What if we relaxed the suggestion that dollars can be transformed by some or another equation into individual or societal utility? What if we went further than that and relaxed the suggestion of measuring at all, as a means of determining the best" policy? What if we put down our calculators for a moment and let go of the idea that politics is meant to engineer an optimal society in the first place? Would total anarchy ensue?Such questions are difficult to ask because they don't sound like they're getting us anywhere. It's much easier, and more common, to tackle the problem headon. Electricvehicle networks such as Tesla's, billed as an alternative to the centralized oil economy, seek to optimize where charging stations are placed, how batteries are created, how software updates are sent out - and by extension, how environmental outcomes take shape. Vitamins fill the place of nutrients leached out of foods by agriculture's maximization of yields; these vitamins promise to optimize health. Vertical urban farming also purports to solve the problems of industrial agriculture, by introducing new optimizations in how light and fertilizers are delivered to greenhouse plants, run on technology platforms developed by giants such as SAP. A breathless Forbes article explains that the result of hydroponics is that more people can be fed, less precious natural resources are used, and the produce is healthier and more flavorful." The article nods only briefly to downsides, such as high energy, labor, and transportation costs. It doesn't mention that many grains don't lend themselves easily to indoor farming, nor the limitations of synthetic fertilizers in place of natural regeneration of soil.In working to counteract the shortcomings of optimization, have we only embedded ourselves deeper? For all the talk of decentralized digital currencies and localmaker economies, are we in fact more connected and centralized than ever? And less free, insofar as we're tied into platforms such as Amazon and Airbnb and Etsy? Does our lack of freedom run deeper still, by dint of the fact that fewer and fewer of us know exactly what the algorithms driving these technologies do, as more and more of us depend on them? Do these attempts to deoptimize in fact entrench the idea of optimization further?A 1952 novel by Kurt Vonnegut highlights the temptation, and also the threat, of de-optimizing. Player Piano describes a mechanized society in which the need for human labor has mostly been eliminated. The remaining workers are those engineers and managers whose purpose is to keep the machines online. The core drama takes place at a factory hub called Ilium Works, where Efficiency, Economy, and Quality" reign supreme. The book is prescient in anticipating some of our current angst - and powerlessness - about optimization's reach.Paul Proteus is the thirtyfiveyearold factory manager of the Ilium Works. His father served in the same capacity, and like him, Paul is one day expected to take over as leader of the National Manufacturing Council. Each role at Ilium is identified by a number, such as R127 or EC002. Paul's job is to oversee the machines.At the time of the book's publication, Vonnegut was a young author disillusioned by his experiences in World War II and disheartened as an engineering manager at General Electric. Ilium Works is a notsothinlyveiled version of GE. As the novel wears on, Paul tries to free himself, to protest that the main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings . . . not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems." He seeks out the elusive Ghost Shirt Society with its conspiracies to break automation, he attempts to restore an old homestead with his wife. He tries, in other words, to organize a way out of the mechanized world.His attempts prove to be in vain. Paul fails and ends up mired in dissatisfaction. The machines take over, riots ensue, everything is destroyed. And yet, humans' love of mechanization runs deep: once the machines are destroyed, the janitors and technicians - a class on the fringes of society - quickly scramble to build things up again. Player Piano depicts the outcome of optimization as societal collapse and the collapse of meaning, followed by the flimsy rebuilding of the automated world we know.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-optimal-illusions-coco-krumme-riverhead-books-143012184.html?src=rss

Now that iOS 17 is out in the wild, consumers are getting hands-on time with many just-released iPhone features. One of the neater inclusions is the brand-new StandBy mode. This toolset transforms your lock screen into a myriad of useful widgets, like alarm clocks, picture frames and more.What is StandBy?StandBy is a new feature that shipped with iOS 17. It lets you change up your lock screen to access a number of widgets. This can be highly useful when the phone's tethered to a charging dock or when you just want to take a quick glance at something without having to unlock your sparkly iPhone. There are a number of available widgets for this mode, including alarm clocks, picture frames, Siri, windows for incoming calls and large notification boxes. Third-party apps have been quick to offer support for StandBy, so tomorrow likely brings a host of new options.How to use StandByGetting started with StandBy is extremely simple. Connect your iPhone to a charger and set it down on its side, as the widgets are designed to take advantage of this orientation. Keep the phone stationary and press the side button to activate StandBy. Once activated, swipe left and right to switch between the various widgets, photos, clocks and other display options. Once you choose your favorite, scroll up or down to access adjustment options. For instance, swiping up when the alarm clock is on the screen will change the design.AppleIf your phone has an always-on display, your StandBy widgets will run without interruption. For older phones, you'll have to tap the screen when you want to see what's going on. The iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max all boast an always-on screen. If you're worried about the bright screen interrupting your sleep, just turn on Night Mode and the display will automatically adjust to low ambient light, covering everything in a non-intrusive red tint.How to turn off StandByDone staring lovingly at an alarm clock? Turn StandBy off by heading to settings and then look for StandBy as an option. Once you open that, just click it to the off position like you would Bluetooth or WiFi.How to customize available widgetsThe default widget when you first launch StandBy is the alarm clock, and there are several more first-party options available by swiping left and right. However, there's a simple way to customize the available widgets, allowing you to delete some from the stack and add others.AppleTo start this process, just long press on any widget while StandBy mode is activated. Once the phone unlocks via Face ID, you'll see the entire stack of widgets in the center of the screen in a jiggle mode reminiscent of when you delete apps. Look for the +" icon in the top left of the screen to add widgets. Each widget will have a -" attached to the thumbnail icon. Click on that to delete the widget from your stack.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-use-standby-mode-on-your-lock-screen-in-ios-17-130031058.html?src=rss

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is implementing a new security measure at the Times Square subway station. It's deploying a security robot to patrol the premises, which authorities say is meant to "keep you safe." We're not talking about a RoboCop-like machine or any human-like biped robot - the K5, which was made by California-based company Knightscope, looks like a massive version of R2-D2. Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of privacy rights group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, has a less flattering description for it, though, and told The New York Timesthat it's like a "trash can on wheels."K5 weighs 420 pounds and is equipped with four cameras that can record video but not audio. As you can guess from the image above, the machine also doesn't come with arms - it didn't quite ignore Mayor Eric Adams' attempt at making a heart. The robot will patrol the station from midnight until 6 AM throughout its trial run that's running over the next two months. But K5 won't be doing full patrols for a while, since it's spending its first two weeks mapping out the station and roaming only the main areas and not the platforms.It's not quite clear if NYPD's machine will be livestreaming its camera footage, and if law enforcement will be keeping an eye on what it captures. Adams said during the event introducing the robot that it will "record video that can be reviewed in case of an emergency or a crime." It apparently won't be using facial recognition, though Cahn is concerned that the technology could eventually be incorporated into the machine. Obviously, K5 doesn't have the capability to respond to actual emergencies in the station and can't physically or verbally apprehend suspects. The only real-time help it can provide people is to connect them to a live person to report an incident or to ask questions, provided they're able to press a button on the robot.NYC is leasing K5 for around $9 an hour for the next two months. The mayor sounds convinced that's worth what the robot can do even though, as The Times notes, he recently ordered several agencies to reduce spending by 15 percent. "This is below minimum wage," he said. "No bathroom breaks, no meal breaks." Adams has a history of supporting the use of machines as police tools. Earlier this year, the mayor also announced that the NYPD will acquire two Digidog robots for $750,000 each for use in hostage and other critical situations. That's quite a reversal from the NYPD's decision in 2021 to cancel its lease on what was then known as Boston Dynamics' Spot after facing backlash for its use.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/an-nypd-security-robot-will-be-patrolling-the-times-square-subway-station-130029937.html?src=rss

If you want to easily share contact information with someone, Apple's NameDrop is an efficient tool. With the recent launch of iOS 17, however, some consumers worry that accessing the new tool boasts a steep learning curve. That's not true at all, as it's quite simple to get started with NameDrop. Here's our guide on how to share contact information like a true boss.What is NameDrop?NameDrop is a feature that comes with iOS 17. It allows you to instantaneously send contact information to other people just by placing your iPhone near to their iPhone. This is similar to the pre-existing Tap to Share toolset, but with a specialized emphasis on contact information. There have been plenty of third-party apps that do this sort of thing, but this is Apple's first-party solution.How to use NameDrop to share contact information NameDrop is extremely simple. Just hold your iPhone near the top of someone else's iPhone. That's it. You'll see a faint glow emerge from the top of both devices to indicate a successful connection and NameDrop will appear on both screens.AppleOnce connected, you'll be able to adjust exactly what contact information gets shared between the two devices. You can receive the other person's information, send your information or do both at once. If you want to cancel, just move the phone away before the system finishes its dark magic.This only works for new contacts, though, and cannot be used to update pre-existing contact information. You can get around this limitation by deleting the contact before going in for the NameDrop.How to use contacts on iPhone to share informationNameDrop requires that both phones are updated to iOS 17, and that's not always a realistic possibility. You have another choice for sending out contact information. Just head into the Contacts app and select Share Contact. Select the specific data you want to share and tap Done. Finally, select the delivery method. You can choose between Messages, Mail and several other options. This isn't as easy as moving one phone close to another phone, but it should still take just a few seconds.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-use-namedrop-in-ios-17-130020397.html?src=rss

Tinder has officially rolled out its most exclusive subscription - Tinder Select" - according to a report by Bloomberg. This elite pay-to-date tier will cost love seekers $500 per month (or $6,000 annually - apparently there are no bulk discounts to be found here) for access to unique features like exclusive search and matching.This may sound ridiculous to the general public, and it may be why Tinder has decided to hold off on making the new tier available to everyone just yet. Tinder Select has only been offered to less than one percent of users the company considers extremely active." Tinder told Bloomberg that it will open up applications for Tinder Select on a rolling basis but it didn't say exactly when. Tinder's exclusive membership was originally hinted at all the way back in 2019.Tinder's parent company, Match Group, reported that the app's direct revenue raked in about $475 million in the second quarter of 2023, growing about six percent year over year. However, the number of people willing to pay for Tinder subscriptions declined four percent to 10.5 million. At a Citi conference in early September, Match Group President Gary Swidler said he thinks Tinder Select has the potential to have an impact on the company's overall revenue.Bloomberg/Match GroupMatch Group has dabbled in exclusive dating apps like The League,'' which it bought in 2022, so it's not too surprising that it's getting its flagship app into this space too. But if you're not up for that kind of commitment (if you even qualify) you can opt for other Tinder subscriptions - Plus, Gold, and Platinum, which have monthly memberships that start at $20, $30, and $40, respectively. Each tier provides different exclusive features (Platinum members, for instance, can message who they like before even matching.)Whether these paid versions will increase your personal odds of finding a partner is anyone's best guess. Thankfully, Tinder (and the majority of competitor dating apps) retain unpaid membership options, so those of us without $500 a month to burn can continue to get ghosted for free.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-find-love-on-tinder-for-500-a-month-if-you-qualify-for-its-elite-tier-213159522.html?src=rss

If you're setting up a new iPhone 15 today, you might run into some problems. As first reported by9to5Mac, the new models (including standard and pro variants) can get stuck in a boot loop where they may freeze on the Apple logo when transferring apps and data to the new model. Although Apple says the setup process should prompt you to install iOS 17.0.2, which fixes the problem, some users (including one Engadget staff member) have reported that it failed to do that. Here's what to do.First, if your iPhone 15 setup prompts you to install iOS 17.0.2 before reaching the data-transfer step, you're good to go: That means Apple's hotfix worked as planned, and you don't need to worry about any special instructions. Accept the update, wait for it to install and complete the process. But you'll need to hop on a computer if it doesn't prompt you to update.Computer workaroundStart by plugging your iPhone into a Mac or Windows PC using its supplied (or any compatible) USB-C cable. Then, put the phone in recovery mode using the following button combinations: While it's still plugged in, quickly press the iPhone's volume up button, then the volume down button. Immediately after, press and hold the phone's side (power / sleep) button until your handset displays the image below of a computer and cable. (If you don't see it, try the button combinations again without pausing.)AppleNext, Mac users can open Finder and select their iPhone from the sidebar. Windows users will need to open iTunes. (If you don't already have it, you can download it from here.)After opening Finder (Mac) or iTunes (Windows), it will ask if you want to restore or update your phone. Choose Restore," and it will install the new software. (Apple notes that if your iPhone restarts while your Mac or PC downloads the update, you'll need to wait for the update to complete before repeating the recovery mode button combination from paragraph three.)After your Mac or PC completes the software restore, you should be able to unplug your iPhone and follow the prompts on its screen to set it up and transfer your data as usual.Workaround without a computerIf you're on the go or otherwise don't have access to a computer, there's an alternate method that may take a little longer. After powering up the phone, select the option to set it up as a new iPhone instead of transferring apps and data from your old model or iCloud. Then, after it takes you to a clean Home Screen for the first time, navigate to Settings > General > Software Update, and install the iOS 17.0.2 update.After the update completes, head to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone, and choose Erase All Content and Settings" at the bottom of the screen. After it completes the factory reset, the setup process should allow you to transfer your existing content from iCloud or your old handset.Once you've set up your new phone, you can check out Engadget's iPhone 15 Pro / Pro Max review and iOS 17 preview to brush up on all your new features.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/iphone-15-stuck-on-the-apple-logo-during-setup-heres-how-to-fix-it-210049112.html?src=rss

The Federal Trade Commission looks set to drag Amazon into another legal battle between the two sides. The agency is preparing to file an antitrust suit against Amazon as soon as next week, according to Bloomberg. Reuters reports that the FTC has sent a draft complaint to attorneys general in an attempt to get as many states as possible on board with its case.The details of the long-awaited legal challenge are not known as yet. It's anticipated that the FTC will take aim at Amazon Prime, as well as claims that Amazon pushes third-party sellers to use its logistics and advertising services. The FTC is also said to believe that Amazon has rules to prevent products from being sold for less on rival platforms, which could be a factor in the suit (California has sued Amazon over that alleged practice).The FTC has been scrutinizing Amazon for several years. If it files suit next week, that will mark the fourth action it has taken against the company this year. In May, the agency sued Amazon over children's privacy concerns related to Alexa and claims that it was snooping on Ring users. Amazon paid a totalof $30.8 million to quickly settle charges in both cases.The following month, the FTC filed another complaint against Amazon, this time claiming that the company coerced people into signing up for a Prime subscription then making it difficult for them to cancel. That case is still ongoing. This week, the agency added three Amazon executives as defendants. It claims those individuals rebuffed pleas from Amazon employees to stop using deceptive tactics to trick people into signing up for a recurring payment through Prime.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ftc-may-file-an-antitrust-lawsuit-against-amazon-as-soon-as-next-week-194524903.html?src=rss

Unity announced significant concessions to its new game developer pricing on Friday. After rolling out the widely scorned changes 10 days ago, including a per-install fee many developers said could upend their entire businesses, the company rolled out a walkback today that softens some of the policy's sharper edges.Perhaps most notably, users on the Unity Personal plan will no longer be subject to the Unity Runtime Fee. This broadly disdained charge would have forced smaller developers to pay every time their game was installed (including reinstallations from the same user). Under the revised policy, Unity Personal users can earn up to $200,000 without changing plans - up from the previous $100,000. In addition, the company is waiving the requirement to include the Made with Unity" splash screen.Meanwhile, developers on Unity Pro and Enterprise plans won't have to worry about the Unity Runtime Fee until they upgrade to the next LTS (long-term support) version of the engine shipping in 2024. Any current games or projects in development based on versions of Unity older than that won't be charged the fee. It also only applies to those who switch to the upcoming version. We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using - as long as you keep using that version," Unity Create leader Marc Whitten wrote today.

From alarming questions about Elon Musk's role in Ukraine's war effort, to new details about his complicated personal life, there has been no shortage of bombshells from Walter Isaacson's recently released biography of Elon Musk.The book covers his childhood in South Africa, as well as his business dealings, from his first startup to Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink. Perhaps unsurprisingly, more than a quarter of the book is devoted to Twitter.Isaacson spent two years with Musk and thus had a front-row seat to his takeover of Twitter, beginning with his move to become a major stakeholder last spring. While much of the drama that unfolded at Twitter (now, X) over the last year and half has been well-documented, Isaacson's account adds telling - and at times bizarre - new details about how it all went down.Musk almost immediately regretted his decision to buy TwitterIsaacson describes Musk's initial bid to buy Twitter as impulsive - the result of one of his frequent manic" moods. And he writes that Musk regretted the plan almost immediately after the deal was put in motion - both because he thought he was overpaying, and because he was so unimpressed with Twitter's former leadership. Musk later admits, more than once, that he bought the company because he didn't have a choice.I don't know why I did it," he says two weeks after the deal finally closed. The judge basically said that I have to buy Twitter or else, and now I'm like, okay, shit."The main motivation for increasing Twitter Blue subscriptionsWe already know that Musk wants to bring banking and payments features to X, but the book makes it clear that those ambitions are very much intertwined with his push for Twitter Blue (now called X Premium) subscriptions. Isaacson writes that Musk was so focused on Twitter Blue because he saw it as a way to get a user's credit card information into the system, enabling Twitter someday to become the broader financial-services and payments platform."However, the plan was somewhat derailed by Apple, as most of Twitter's subscribers signed up via its iPhone app, and Apple doesn't share user data, like credit card and other financial details, with app makers. Incredibly, upon learning of this, Musk instructed Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, to just call Apple and tell them to give you the data you need." Roth, realizing that such a request would not go over well with Apple, declined to make the call.Musk would later meet with Tim Cook amid a separate dispute related to Twitter's iOS app, but, according to Isaacson, Musk opted not to bring up the user data issue. But it underscores just how important financial data is to his vision to make X an everything app."Musk tried to ban the ADL and other activists in 2022Musk often portrays himself as a noble defender of free speech, but even a sympathetic biographer is quick to point out all the ways Musk put his interests ahead of free speech after acquiring Twitter.Months before Musk would boost the #BanTheADL hashtag, he wanted to ban the group and other activists for urging advertisers to boycott the platform, Isaacson writes. Musk apparently went to Yoel Roth, twitter's former head of trust and safety, and demanded he stop users from urging advertisers to boycott Twitter."Musk then tried to ad lib a new policy to justify what would have been an unprecedented ban. I'm changing Twitter policy right now ... blackmail is prohibited as of right now. Ban it. Ban them," Musk said. Roth deflected and Musk apparently dropped the issue.Musk flip-flopped on whether to restore Donald Trump's accountDespite joking to his sons that he was buying Twitter to help Trump get reelected, Musk is no fan of Trump, according to Isaacson.

The National Football League, like most professional sporting industries, is embracing artificial intelligence. Through a partnership with Amazon Web Services called Next Gen Stats, the NFL is hoping that intelligent algorithms, with the help of high-tech data collection tools, will be able to extract meaningful data from games and decipher patterns in player performances. AWS says it was inspired by submissions to the 2023 Big Data Bowl, an annual software competition organized by the NFL, when it set out to invent a new category of analytics that pertains to the analysis of pressure" in the game of football.AWS helped build out AI-powered algorithms that can analyze player behavior on the field and can pick up on how aggressive a defender played, how fast they were and even how quickly a quarterback responded. This granular data quantifies pressure and in doing so, allows game analysts to dissect the strategies that might influence plays. This innovative suite of analytics rises above traditional statistics that are limited in how much they can reveal. While traditional data can tell you if a rusher passes a quarterback, it may not be able to provide insights on how much of a fight was put up. This is where the pressure probability being tracked by Next Gen Stats" delves into more detail.The AWS and NFL partners have focused on developing machine-learning models that can provide data relating to three areas in game play, according to Amazon. The first application is giving the AI the ability to identify blockers and pass rushers in pass plays. Second, teaching the tool how to quantify pressure" in a game. And lastly, the development of a process to detect individual blocker-rusher matchups. Ultimately, the development of this AI-tracking technology provides professionals in the football league with valuable information on player stats that can help scouts or coaches select new players. For example, knowing which player blocked or passed a rusher may help determine if they are a good fit for an offensive lineup.In the game of football, quantifying the performance of offensive players and the rushers that tackle them can be a difficult feat, even for game experts who have the eye for these quick movements. Player reactions can happen in split moments and an individual's performance in these high-speed exchanges can be hard to track and let alone quantify. Things like how close a defender got to the offensive lineup can help a coach understand the strength of their plays.The NFL collects data for these AI-powered processing softwares using tools it installs in its own fields. In every participating NFL venue, there are at least 20-30 ultra-wide band receivers inside the field and there are 2-3 radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags inside each players' shoulder pads and on other game gear, like balls and posts. These data transmitters collect information that is fed through a graphic neural network model (GNN), which allows the data to be relayed in real time. Using AI, the stats being extracted can be made into meaningful insights.

Eagle-eyed visitors to Samsung's Argentinian website have spotted something a little unexpected - a product page for new Galaxy Buds FE earbuds, along with images of a Galaxy S23 FE smartphone and Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet. That's because the company leaked its latest Fan Edition devices, as noted by SamMobile. One of the smartphone images includes the date October 4 on the device, which could be a nod toward the announcement or a release date.The company hasn't let slip any specs for the phone and tablet as yet. However, the Galaxy S23 FE and Galaxy Tab S9 FE were reportedly mentioned by name on the page. This is about as close as Samsung can get to a formal announcement without a press release or an Unpacked.The product page (which Samsung has taken down) did mention some details about the Galaxy Buds FE, Samsung's first Fan Edition earbuds. They're slated to have a single 12mm driver, three microphones in each earbud to bolster the active noise cancellation function and a three-way speaker.Samsung's Fan Editiondevices have proven popular over the years. They tend to pack in solid features for a more reasonable price than the company's flagship models. It's safe to imagine that quite a few people will be looking forward to snapping up this year's FE devices.While the leak appears to have been an error, we can't count out the possibility that Samsung deliberately showed off the latest FE devices before an official announcement. Major hardware companies are all jostling for your attention around this time of year. Just before Apple revealed the iPhone 15 lineup last week, Google dropped some teasers for its Pixel 8 and Pixel Watch 2 devices - Google's Pixel event isn't until October. So, Samsung may have been looking for headlines with a purposeful leak here (in which case, it evidently worked).The more likely scenario is that it's another unintentional slip up for the company. It's probably not quite as bad or as damaging as this week's massive Xbox leak, but you'd think Samsung would know better by now in any case.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-leaks-its-upcoming-fan-edition-devices-including-a-phone-tablet-and-earbuds-172156048.html?src=rss

Amazon has a half-off deal for Prime members on a Blink outdoor / indoor security camera bundle. The sale gives you a pair of Blink Outdoor 4 cameras, which launched last month, and a Blink Mini for only $117.49. Whether these are your first security cameras or you're adding to an existing setup, this is a chance to save 50 percent off their usual cost.The Blink Outdoor 4 is a wireless device that, despite its name, can work as an inside or outside camera. It supports person detection, which uses computer vision to alert you when it spots a human in its field of view (if you also subscribe to an optional Blink subscription). The camera offers 1080p HD video, infrared night vision, two-way audio and enhanced dual-zone motion detection. Its bundled AA batteries can last up to an estimated two years. Also included is the Blink Sync Module 2, required for offline storage (if you bring your own USB drive).Meanwhile, the Blink Mini is the company's classic entry-level indoor camera. The wired device also records and streams in 1080p. It includes motion detection, two-way audio and night vision. It also requires a Blink subscription to save clips in the cloud, but, like the Outdoor 4, the Blink Mini also supports offline storage if you connect a USB drive to the Sync Module 2.Remember that the deal is only available for Amazon Prime members. And it only lasts until midnight Pacific time.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-members-can-get-a-blink-camera-bundle-for-half-off-164520041.html?src=rss

Samwise Gamgee may be pleased to learn that we're going back to the Shire. Another Lord of the Rings game has been announced, but it's one that should be vastly different from the likes of Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Tales of the Shire is described as a "cozy" game that's coming to PC and consoles in 2024.Details about the upcoming title are thin on the ground, but a lovely little live-action trailer hints at the tone. It shows an illustrator drawing images of a hobbit and a Hobbit-hole (the semi-underground domicile of such a being). The artist moves away and the pages of the sketchbook blow over to show other hobbit residences and signs for various locations around the Shire.Here's hoping it's a chill Lord of the Rings-style farming sim in the vein of Stardew Valley. I have my fingers crossed that there will be multiple options for cooking potatoes. Namely boiling, mashing and sticking 'em in a stew. Maybe even turning them into big golden fries with a nice piece of fried fish.There are some notable names involved in the project: Private Division and Weta Workshop. It was revealed last year that the two sides were working on an LOTR game.Private Division is one of Take-Two Interactive's publishing arms. In recent years, it has released games such as The Outer Worlds, OlliOlli Worldand the fantastic Rollerdrome. As for Weta Workshop, that's the company that handled special effects for all six of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, as well as movies such as Avatar: The Way of Water. (Weta FX, a separate company, worked on the digital effects for those projects.)This is far from the only Lord of the Rings game in the pipeline. For one thing, Amazon is making a Lord of the Rings MMO with the team behind New World. Meanwhile, survival crafting title The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is slated to arrive on October 24.Last year, Embracer Group secured the rights to make games and other projects based on The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. Fast forward a year, and the company is in a difficult financial position, leading it to carry out layoffs and close studios. So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Embracer believes it needs to be "exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion and turning that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tales-of-the-shire-is-a-cozy-lord-of-the-rings-game-from-weta-workshop-152907546.html?src=rss

The Ayaneo Slide is one step closer to becoming a real, in-your-hands device, with the launch of its Indiegogo holding page. The company first announced the Ayaneo Slide back in January and initially set a release date for the second quarter of 2023.The Slide's shape is reminiscent of an early 2000s favorite, the Sidekick, giving it a real boost for nostalgia seekers. It has a six-inch 1080p floating screen with an adjustable angle for viewing preference. Ayaneo claims the keyboard has an ergonomic design and can display a range of light effects.Its system is based on the Ryzen 7000 mobile APUs, utilizes a 46.2Wh battery and has a Hall sensing joystick and trigger - plus a master controller. The Slide also has the company's updated frontend, AyaSpace 2, which upgraded the interface, quick settings window and gameplay customization. Hyper Sound stereo dual speakers and a customized heat dissipation system round out its primary features, but a promotional video details the Slide's many functions.An actual release date and cost for the Ayaneo Slide are still up in the air, with a call out on Indiegogo stating, "Sign up to get early-bird price on launch day!" Of course, a disclaimer adds that you'll also get updates and news from Ayaneo in the meantime. Once out in the world, the Ayaneo Slide will face some serious competition between rivals like the GPD Win 4 and Valve's ever-popular Steam Deck.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ayaneo-slide-the-sidekick-of-gaming-handhelds-is-coming-soon-145500588.html?src=rss

Solo Stove makes some of the best pizza ovens and other outdoor gear around, and thanks to some sitewide coupons, you can pick up the company's products for less than usual. Use SAVE20 to get $20 off purchases over $125, SAVE40 to get $40 off anything over $350 and SAVE100 to lower the price by $100 if you're buying something over $550. The codes should work with any fit pits, bundles, pizza ovens or other products on the Solo Stove storefront.Best of all, the coupons stack on top of other discounts. Case in point: the Solo Stove Bonfire 2.0 has dropped by $150 down to $250, and you can save an extra $20 by using the SAVE20 discount code.The Solo Stove Bonfire 2.0 is a smokeless fire pit you can use to help you stay warm, toast marshmallows and enjoy the outdoors more. Now that we're officially into fall, it's the kind of product that could help you make the most of the cooler evenings. In fact, the Bonfire 2.0 is among our favorite outdoor tech items for the fall. It's Solo Stove's medium-sized fire pit and the removable base plate and ash pan make it much easier to clean than the previous model.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/solo-stoves-sitewide-coupons-give-you-up-to-an-extra-100-off-140545319.html?src=rss

Since 2017, there have been endless rumors and even a rescinded announcement of a HiFi tier at Spotify, but no option itself. Now - finally - we're getting, that's right: more speculation. A Reddit user has dug into Spotify's app and uncovered possible information about a Supremium tier (Spotify's new name for the HiFi option). Apparently, it could have 24-bit Lossless music, which the company claims is free from "lag and delays."Despite its uncertainty, some pretty fun features are currently floating around in that code, including the ability to sort playlists by "danceability." The option to determine how much you want to boogie could come alongside other arrangements like BPM and smart order, which would attempt to create an ideal playlist based on tempo and key. Also being explored are the options to use smooth transitions instead of that few seconds of quiet and to filter your playlist based on mood or genre (something it introduced for Liked Songs in 2021).There are more possible Supremium perks discovered by the curious Reddit user, such as using AI to make playlists and something called Soundcheck that details your listening habits and "uniquely you" music - it sounds like a mashup of Spotify Wrapped and Daily Mixes. It could also include 30 hours of audiobooks each month versus paying for each book individually.Right now, the Spotify code puts its Supremium tier at $20 - more than any of its existing Premium plans: Student ($6 per month), Individual ($11 per month), Duo ($15 per month) and Family ($17 per month). The $20 price tag could change (if this tier ever becomes a reality), but it's on par with Tidal's 24-bit HiFi Plus option.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotifys-priciest-lossless-audio-plan-could-sort-playlists-by-danceability-131958408.html?src=rss

The European Commission has imposed a 376.36 million ($400 million) fine on Intel for blocking the sales of devices powered by its competitors' x86 CPUs. This brings one part of the company's long-running antitrust court battle with the European authority to a close. If you'll recall, the Commission slapped the chipmaker with a record-breaking 1.06 billion ($1.13 billion) fine in 2009 after it had determined that Intel abused its dominant position in the market. yeIt found back then that the company gave hidden rebates and incentives to manufacturers like HP, Dell and Lenovo for buying all or almost all their processors from Intel. The Commission also found that Intel paid manufacturers to delay or to completely cease the launch of products powered by its rivals' CPUs "naked restrictions." Other times, Intel apparently paid companies to limit those products' sales channels. The Commission calls these actions "naked restrictions."The case has gone through several European courts since then, with either side lodging an appeal, depending on what the decision was. In 2017, the highest court in the European Union ordered the fine to be re-examined on the basis that the Commission didn't conduct an economic assessment on how Intel's activity impacted its rivals' ability to compete against it.Europe's second highest court, the General Court, then decided last year that the Commission indeed failed to perform analysis of the company's rebate scheme. As a result, it came to the conclusion that it couldn't determine how the incentives Intel offered affected its competitors. It also scrapped Intel's 1.06 billion fine, explaining that it's not in a position to determine how much it actually has to pay, but it upheld previous courts' decision that the company's naked restrictions violated EU laws.In its announcement, the European Commission gave a few examples of how Intel hindered the sales of competing products. It apparently paid HP between November 2002 and May 2005 to sell AMD-powered business desktops only to small- and medium-sized enterprises and via direct distribution channels. It also paid Acer to delay the launch of an AMD-based notebook from September 2003 to January 2004. Intel paid Lenovo to push back the launch of AMD-based notebooks for half a year, as well.The Commission has since appealed the General Court's decision to dismiss the part of the case related to the rebates Intel offered its clients. Intel, however, did not lodge an appeal for the court's ruling on naked restrictions, setting it in stone. "With today's decision, the Commission has re-imposed a fine on Intel only for its naked restrictions practice," the European authority wrote. "The fine does not relate to Intel's conditional rebates practice. The fine amount, which is based on the same parameters as the 2009 Commission's decision, reflects the narrower scope of the infringement compared to that decision." Seeing as the rebates part of the case is under appeal, Intel could still pay the rest of the fine in the future.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-reinstates-400-million-fine-on-intel-for-blocking-sales-of-competing-chips-115922364.html?src=rss

Prime Video users will soon see ads on shows and movies unless they pay an extra $3 per month on top of their regular Prime subscription, Amazon has announced. "Starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements," the company wrote, noting that pricing for the ad-free tier will be announced for additional countries "at a later date."The news represents a significant change to Prime Video, which hadn't previously served ads next to movie and TV content as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The streaming service is currently included for free with a Prime or $9 per month if purchased separately, offering third-party content (movies, TV series, etc.) and Amazon Original content produced by Amazon Studios. That includes series like The Boys and The Citadel, along with movies including Air, Manchester by the Sea and The Big Sick.It didn't say how many ads you'll have to watch, though Variety suggests "limited advertisements" could mean around four minutes per hour. "We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers," the company said. "Ads in Prime Video content will be introduced in the US, UK, Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. No action is required for Prime members. We're not making changes in 2024 to the current price of Prime membership."The news follows a report early this summer that Amazon was planning some kind of ad-supported Prime Video tier. Now, it turns out that's just the regular subscription, with the new tier effectively an add-on.Amazon justified the decision, saying it will allow it to "continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time." It also cited the "vast selection of movies and series, including Amazon Originals and live sports, along with critically acclaimed series like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". The company recently spent millions to acquire rights to NFL Thursday Night Football and acquired MGM Studios in 2021 for $8.5 billion.Amazon has already dallied with ads, as it currently shows them next to live sports streaming on Prime. Amazon also offers the FreeVee ad-supported site with over 100 Prime Video original series, available on its Fire TV stick, on other devices and as an app.Ad-free Prime Video certainly made Amazon's $139 per year ($15 per month) Prime membership compelling. With that now watered down, and Amazon also introducing new fees for same-day deliveries, it will be interesting to see if there's any impact on subscriber numbers.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-prime-video-will-show-ads-unless-you-pay-3-more-per-month-111709384.html?src=rss

Microsoft, even without the usual face of its Surface announcements, had plenty to show off to the assembled media and industry guests yesterday. Unsurprisingly, it led with (and focused on) its latest AI developments. Its Copilot AI assistant is now graduating to assist with all things Windows 11, in an update coming September 26. It will appear in apps such as Edge, while browsing the internet, not to mention Microsoft 365 programs like Word and Excel. You activate Copilot with your voice or a right click and can use it for the sort of things you might not remember keyboard shortcuts for - or just can't be bothered to do manually, like organize windows on your desktop, delete the backgrounds from photos or even generate a Spotify playlist. It's shaping up to be a wide-ranging AI tool.EngadgetI'll get into a few more of the AI announcements, but they were punctuated by more Surface hardware, including the Surface Laptop Studio 2 (hybrid, not laptop, surely?), coming with a much-needed specification boost. It has an Intel 13th-gen i7 H class processor, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, and a 14.4-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, which can now tilt forward. There's also an intriguing trackpad that seemingly rolls in some features from Microsoft's accessibility-focused Adaptive Mouse.The company also unveiled its third-generation Surface Laptop Go, which Microsoft claims is 88 percent faster than the original Go, for $799.It wasn't the event (or the hardware) to turn around the rut that Microsoft's Surface line seems to be in, but there might be enough to satisfy folks thinking about getting a new laptop... or whatever the Studio 2 is.- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedRazer makes a $5,000 Lamborghini-inspired version of its Blade 16 laptopMicrosoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 hands-on: More ports and a much-needed spec bumpUS brings back free at-home COVID-19 tests as cases continue to spikeSurface Laptop Go 3 hands-on: Microsoft makes a better case for its cheap PCMicrosoft wants its Copilot AI to be your personal shopper'Everywhere' gameplay trailer shows off an ambitious sandbox with a Fortnite aestheticGoogle takes a snarky shot at Apple over RCS in its latest adThe green bubble/blue bubble controversy continues.Google has been trying to publicly pressure Apple into adopting the GSMA's RCS (Rich Communications Service) messaging protocol for a long time now, with the biggest response from Apple being CEO Tim Cook saying consumers should buy their moms an iPhone.So now, it's getting petty. Google's iPager" ad mimics Apple's marketing language to reveal a retro-styled beeper, suggesting Apple's behind the curve with its messaging platform. The spot says the iPager uses outdated messaging tech" to text with Android," citing many of the perceived disadvantages of sticking with SMS technology. The question is: Who is this YouTube parody for?Continue reading.Microsoft's Adaptive Touch makes laptop trackpads more inclusiveFor people who can't continuously use fingers to move a cursor.EngadgetMicrosoft continues to build inclusive accessories and features for its mainstream products, and the company showed off more at its annual fall event on Thursday. It unveiled an Adaptive Touch feature that works on the precision haptic trackpad" of the Surface Laptop Studio 2. During its keynote, the company called this the most inclusive touchpad on any laptop" and helps people who can't continuously use their fingers to move a cursor around. The system looks for multiple points of contact with the trackpad, noticing if they're moving in the same general direction, to determine where to move the mouse. It's in part based on the technology Microsoft uses for palm rejection, but reconfigured for Adaptive Touch.Continue reading.X is disabling Circles on October 31Another feature bites the dust.X users will no longer be able to tweet to a small group of friends or add people to their Circles after that date. The website formerly known as Twitter has announced it's deprecating Circles on October 31. The company launched Circles in August 2022, so the feature barely made it to its first birthday.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-everything-announced-at-microsofts-surface-event-111527099.html?src=rss

Before the Galileo spacecraft was destroyed two decades ago, it detected several chemicals on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, including carbon dioxide. Now, a couple of studies using observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest that the carbon dioxide on Europa's surface came from the ocean hidden underneath its icy shell. Further, the researchers have come to the conclusion that it's pretty recent in origin - geologically speaking, at least.The observations made using the telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument showed scientists that the carbon dioxide on Europa is most abundant in an area called Tara Regio, or "chaos terrain." In the images above, you'll see Tara Regio as the yellowish area to the left of the moon's center.Emily Martin, a planetary geologist at the National Air and Space Museum, told Scientific American that scientists believe Tara Regio's ice surface broke up when the weather got warm enough at one point. That caused the water from the subsurface ocean to come up, until it got cold again to create a slushy icy water sort of area. It's worth noting that previous Hubble observations of the region show that it also contains table salt, which indicates that saltwater, indeed, could've risen up to the surface of the moon.If Europa's carbon dioxide truly did come from its ocean instead of from meteors or other sources, then it would establish a big similarity between our planet and the moon. Europa is one of the objects in our solar system that's under observation for potentially having the conditions to support life. In April this year, the European Space Agency launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer or JUICE to make detailed observations of the planet's ocean-bearing moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Meanwhile, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will focus on the potential for life in the moon's ocean, is scheduled to take off sometime next year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-james-webb-telescope-may-have-found-the-source-of-europas-carbon-104717890.html?src=rss

Jaguar is joining Mercedes, Polestar and other automakers in adopting Tesla's NACS chargers for vehicles sold in North America starting in 2025. The company signed an agreement with Tesla to gain access to its 12,000+ Superchargers for its "current and future customers" using the standard."The next generation luxury electric Jaguars, launching in 2025, will incorporate the NACS connector without the need for an adapter in the USA, Canada and Mexico," it said in a press release, adding that it will adopt the standard for "vehicles and home chargers, and source and supply adapters from Tesla for I-PACE drivers once available." Jaguar noted that its in-house battery and power electronics technology will optimize charging rates on both Tesla's current V3 (250 kW) and upcoming V4 (350 kW) Superchargers.Jaguar has been quiet of late around its EV plans, but announced back in 2021 that it would become an all-electric brand by 2025, with its Land Rover division rolling out six new EVs in 2024 - all as part of a sweeping "Reimagine" strategy. The company will use a pure electric architecture for its Jaguar lineup, replacing gas and hybrid vehicles like the XE, XF, E-Pace and F-Pace with all-electric versions. Land Rover, meanwhile, will introduce two separate platforms for all-electric and hybrid vehicles.Many, if not most, major automakers have now signed up to use Tesla's Supercharger network, including Fisker, Ford, GM, Honda, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Rivian and Volvo. A number are reported to be in talks, including VW, Stellantis and Hyundai. In addition, other networks are adopting NACs, including ChargePoint and Electrify America. And recently, Tesla received $160 million in funding to expand its Supercharger network in year.All of that shows the wisdom in Tesla's gambit over ten years ago to make Superchargers a strong selling point for its EVs. Now, the network is becoming a key feature for other manufacturers as well - to the likely benefit of Tesla.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/jaguar-signs-on-to-use-teslas-chargers-too-095503057.html?src=rss

While most modern flip phone makers have been focusing on maximizing their cover screen sizes, a new contender decided to branch away with a circular one instead. Following its flagship foldable from earlier this year, China's Tecno has also unveiled its first flip phone, the Phantom V Flip 5G, which attempts to stand out from the crowd by offering a round external AMOLED display. Even though the Huawei P50 Pocket was the first clamshell to carry a similar feature, Tecno's counterpart comes in at a more practical 1.32 inches and a slightly sharper 352ppi, which should translate to easier selfies, richer notifications and handier widgets - namely weather, vitality rings, audio recording, timer and more.The Phantom V Flip is powered by MediaTek's Dimensity 8050 5G chip, so it's going head to head with the Moto Razr in the mid-range segment. As is the case with Tecno's recent devices, this one is competitively priced - at around $600, though it's only available in India initially (49,999 rupees, to be precise), with more markets to follow later. At least you get Google services pre-installed on this one, unlike most of its hometown buddies. As a bonus, Tecno's HiOS 13.5 (based on Android 13) comes with its own voice assistant, "Ella," which has ChatGPT built in.Despite the price point, the spec sheet doesn't disappoint here. The Phantom V Flip is 14.95mm thick when folded and 6.95mm thick when opened. At 195g, this turns out to be the heaviest device in the flip phone category to date. This is somewhat justified by the reasonable 4,000mAh battery (Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 5 only has 3,700mAh), which supports 45W fast charging - 15 minutes will refill a depleted battery to 50 percent, or wait for 45 minutes for a full charge. Sadly, there's no wireless charging here, for those who care.A half-opened Tecno Phantom V Flip 5G phone placed on a car hood, with its main camera facing a model who is posing with a hand gesture to remotely trigger the shot.TecnoThe Phantom V Flip packs a 6.9-inch FHD+ (2,640 x 1,080) flexible screen on the inside, with a 10-120Hz LTPO refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling. The hinge can hover at any angle between 30 degrees and 150 degrees, which is handy for selfies via the rear-facing cameras - you can even use gesture or voice to trigger your shots.Photography-wise, you get a 64-megapixel f/1.7 main camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a small LED ring flash, with all three features positioned along the circumference of the circular cover screen. When unfolded, there's a 32-megapixel punch-hole selfie camera at the top, complemented with an LED flash in the top screen bezel to make you look prettier in video calls.Tecno didn't cheap out on accessories, either. The Phantom V Flip is shipped with a protective case that shields all four sides of the phone, except the opening for the fingerprint reader and volume rocker. The case also has a ring attached above the hinge, allowing you to wear the phone as a pendant or hold it more securely.While it's unclear whether the $600 Phantom V Flip will make it to western markets, Tecno does appear to have an opportunity to spook its more established competitors in this ever-growing flip phone segment - especially before the new Moto Razr enters the US, if ever (in China, it starts from around $550). That said, it's just a matter of time before the likes of Honor and Xiaomi offer similarly competitive clamshells.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tecnos-phantom-v-flip-phone-puts-a-circular-display-on-its-cover-090836663.html?src=rss

Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard looked close to being dead not long ago, but it just took a big step toward clearing its last major obstacle. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that Microsoft's revised agreement "substantially addresses previous concerns and opens the door to the deal being cleared." The agreement is still in consultation, but final approval now looks highly likely."The CMA considers that the restructured deal makes important changes that substantially address the concerns it set out in relation to the original transaction earlier this year," the regulator wrote. "In particular, the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft will prevent this important content - including games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft - from coming under the control of Microsoft in relation to cloud gaming."The UK regulator initially blocked the merger over fears it would hand Microsoft a 60 to 70 percent share of the cloud gaming market, making it a monopoly player. That in turn would give it "incentive to withhold games from competitors and substantially weaken competition in this important growing market."In response, Microsoft announced last month that it would sell Activision Blizzard streaming rights to Ubisoft in an attempt to win UK approval. It said that if the merger goes through, it would transfer "cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard PC and console games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment... in perpetuity." Ubisoft said in a separate release that the titles would be available across a range of services.The revised deal "substantially addresses most concerns," the CMA wrote, but it still wants to ensure that provisions in the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft can't be "circumvented, terminated or not enforced." It added that Microsoft has offered remedies to ensure that those rights are enforceable, and those should resolve any residual concerns.Microsoft managed to turn the deal around after taking a lot of blows from regulators. Late last year, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger, but was later rebuffed by a federal court. The UK's CMA rejected the deal a few months later, but Microsoft appealed the decision and was later given more time to submit an amended deal. It made a major concession with the sale of streaming rights to Ubisoft - and that seems like it may have done the trick. We should know soon, as the CMA's consultation on Microsoft's proposed remedies closes on October 6.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-activision-merger-set-to-get-its-final-uk-approval-083315786.html?src=rss

X users will soon no longer be able to make posts viewable only to a smaller group of friends. The website formerly known as Twitter has announced that it's deprecating Circles on October 31st. Users won't be able to add people to their Circles anymore or create new posts limited to a tight-knit group. They will, however, retain the capability to remove people from the group if they no longer want certain accounts to be able to see their old limited posts.

Fighting fires was always dangerous. But with climate change, there have been more wildfires, which means even more risky rescue missions for local firefighting squads. That's why multiple different companies and teams of scientists are working to develop robots that can scope out burning buildings before human firefighters have to enter. The latest entrant is FireBot, a remote-controlled robot that can withstand temperatures as high as 650 degrees Celsius. At that scalding temperature, a firefighter wearing a protective suit can only withstand about 15 minutes of exposure.FireBot, which can be operated for four hours at a time, looks like an object straight out of a sci-fi film. With its saw-like arms" that help the metallic boxy device move, the bot can climb obstacles in its path using tracks that allow it to climb stairs and debris - a requirement for navigating raging fires. According toTechCrunch, which hosted FireBot's parent company at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this week, the bot uses MIMO wireless technology that can transfer data to a receiver as far as 0.9 miles away. That way, a crew can safely examine the inside of a burning building while using a joystick and display to maneuver the bot.The device has built-in sensors that include HD optical and thermal imagers, as well as various mechanisms to detect dangerous gasses. In addition, it can check for the presence of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, which are the two deadliest fumes that can injure or kill humans in a fire. Also importantly, the device is seemingly fast despite its boxy appearance. The FireBot can move twice as fast as a firefighter wearing full personal protective equipment that can, on average, be as heavy as 45 pounds.Paradigm RoboticsThe robot is expected to cost at least $90,000 when it goes on sale in the third quarter of 2024. Alternatively, fire departments could lease it. Although this device isn't exactly cheap, it can help alleviate the annual fees associated with firefighter injuries, which is estimated to cost fire departments up to $197,860 a year, according to a paper the National Fire Protection Association published in late 2019.The FireBot is not the first device that uses robotics to make firefighting safer. Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory are developing what's known as SAFFiR, or the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot. The bi-pedal humanoid robot is being engineered to navigate ships, interact with people, and use thermal imaging to identify and handle a hose to put out small fires.When Engadget covered the Navy's robot back in 2019, SAFFiR was still not water- and fire-proof, which may be why the Navy said its more advanced prototypes are still in the experimental stages of R&D. Similarly, there's DARPA's Atlas, a disaster-response robot that hosts an infrared and a rotating light detection and ranging (LIDAR) laser that allows it to navigate dense smoke. Still, nothing is as seemingly advanced as Paradigm's FireBot in terms of being able to withstand and navigate heat at fire scenes.In a similar vein, the Los Angeles Fire Department even experimented with specialized drones that can aid in scope and rescue missions as well as a ridiculously large 3,500-pound Thermite RS3" robot. That robot costs $272,000, making the FireBot seem almost reasonable by comparison.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-90000-fireproof-tankbot-will-scout-burning-buildings-for-people-to-save-231509079.html?src=rss

YouTube has new AI features for creators on the way. AI-powered features the company announced at its Made on YouTube event on Thursday include a green screen feature, insights to stimulate ideas, automatic dubbing to other languages and a soundtrack search.Dream Screen gives YouTube Shorts creators an AI-powered green screen, similar to a popular feature on TikTok. YouTube's tool will automatically remove backgrounds from your videos, replacing them with AI-generated images or videos based on your prompts.Although it's yet to be seen how professional and convincing the generated content appears in practice, the idea is for Dream Screen to make it easier to illustrate fantasy scenarios or simply liven up otherwise ho-hum backdrops. YouTube suggests trekking through an enchanted forest or riding shotgun as your pug drives you to school as two oddball scenes Dream Screen can craft. The company says it will start to test the tool with select creators" later this year before a broader rollout in 2024.YouTube Studio's AI-powered insight recommendationsYouTubeYouTube Studio will get a new feature that brainstorms for you. Similar to asking ChatGPT for video ideas, the insight recommendations" feature can draft outlines and help creators conceptualize projects. Similarly, assistive search in Creator Music will make it easier to find background tunes for your videos. Simply type in a description of your content and AI will suggest the right music at the right price," YouTube VP Toni Reid wrote today. Both Insights and assistive music search will be available for creators next year.YouTube also showcased the AI-powered dubbing feature it began testing earlier this year. Developed at Google's Area 120 incubator, it can generate a text-based translation into the selected target language. The company says it gives you a chance to double-check the output before choosing from different virtual narrators to read your content. The feature is currently being tested with select creators in English, Portuguese and Spanish.The company is also launching a YouTube Create app to help video makers produce content on their mobile devices. It includes standard features like editing, trimming, automatic captioning, voiceovers, filters, effects and royalty-free music with beat matching. The free app is currently in beta for Android in select markets.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtubes-upcoming-ai-powered-creator-tools-include-a-generative-green-screen-203144786.html?src=rss

Apple's watchOS 10 officially became available on September 18, and it brings a new feature in the Mindfulness app that gives you the option of logging your feelings and moods directly on your watch face. These updates will be available if you have an Apple Watch Series 4 or newer model. Here's how to navigate that new feature.Malak SalehHow to log your moodWhen you open the Mindfulness app, tap State of Mind" and then Get Started" to begin the logging process. From there, you can either log a momentary emotion" to input how you feel at that instant, or a daily mood" to report how you felt overall that day.Malak SalehUsing the watch's Digital Crown, you can scroll through seven abstract images with corresponding emotional valences ranging from "very pleasant" to "very unpleasant." Once you select an emotion, you can opt for more logging and go into greater detail about the feelings you're experiencing (including what's having the biggest effect on you) by selecting options from a drop-down menu.Malak SalehHow to view your mood logsOver time you can keep tabs on your daily logging activity in the Health app under the Mental Wellbeing" tab. Using a paired iPhone, click State of Mind" and then open Show in Charts." From this page, you can view the type of entries for daily moods or momentary emotions. You also have the option to view lifestyle factors associated with these entries to learn how your moods may correlate with variables like time spent in the sun, sleep trends, and exercise habits.Malak SalehAdditionally, specific assessments for depression and anxiety are now accessible in the Health app. You can also export PDFs of personal health reports if you ever need to share logs with a medical professional. You'll need to open the Health app and click the Sharing tab" at the bottom of the screen. From there you can choose to Share with someone," such as a contact, or Share with your doctor."If you want to share with your doctor, you can search for specific hospital systems to connect your health data and keep tabs on clinical records. For example, if you were a client at Green Primary Care" in Huntsville, Alabama, you could directly connect to the patient portal, get secure access to health records, and also share your personal health data with a care team - this is where building a habit of logging daily moods may be helpful for a provider to get a fuller picture on the state of your mental health.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-track-your-moods-in-watchos-10-190011516.html?src=rss

Ubisoft just confirmed that Tom Clancy's The Division 3 is headed toward active development. We have a long time to wait before we get our hands on the franchise sequel, despite it being over four years since The Division 2 graced consoles and PCs back in 2019. The company also named Julian Gerighty as Executive Director for the entire The Division brand.If that name sounds familiar it's because Gerighty is often credited as being the modern architect of the franchise after coming aboard in 2014 as Associate Creative Director ahead of the original game's launch. He moved up to Creative Director just in time for The Division 2 and its DLC releases.So just how long do we have to wait? Settle in folks and grab your hibernation pajamas, as it's gonna be awhile. Gerighty is currently the Creative Director for a little open-world game called Star Wars Outlaws. He won't transition to The Division 3 until that game has shipped. Ubisoft says Gerighty's first task will be to assemble the development team, so that hasn't happened yet. Star Wars Outlaws doesn't release until sometime next year so, well, you do the development math.Despite the forthcoming sequel, Ubisoft says The Division 2 will still be supported, though the company didn't detail future plans for DLC content. Concrete information regarding The Division 3 is basically non-existent, but Gerighty did say that the development process will be about refinement, it's about pushing the quality bar consistently forward."Outside of that, Gerighty will use his Executive Director role to solidify brand identity." That means he'll be actively involved with spin-off titles, mobile releases and the like. There are a plethora" of upcoming projects set in the franchise's universe, like the mobile game The Division Resurgence and the spin-off shooter The Division Heartland.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ubisoft-confirms-the-division-3-but-its-a-long-ways-off-190006878.html?src=rss