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Skullcandy just announced new earbuds that go all-in on sustainability. The EcoBuds True Wireless earbuds are made with 65 percent certified recycled plastics and 57 percent less heavy metals than competing products. This gives the earbuds a 50 percent lower carbon footprint when compared to rival devices.The bad news? The move toward sustainability forced Skullcandy to nix the usual battery case that accompanies modern earbuds, as lithium battery packs are a major environmental offender.To make up for the lack of a charging case, the new earbuds can be charged from a smartphone, in addition to any USB-C port or outlet. The earbuds still get eight hours of use before requiring some juice.SkullcandyKeeping with the company's budget-friendly MO, these earbuds cost just $40. They are available in a Glacier colorway, which is a mix of white and blue, starting today. Skullcandy hasn't announced if it would be adding more colors to the lineup in the near future.Of course, Skullcandy isn't the first company to try its hand at environmentally sustainable audio devices. Sony once made a version of its LinkBuds S earbuds out of recycled water bottles, which were also a melange of white and blue. That seems to be the preferred colorway for major corporations looking to drum up a bit of positive press.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/skullcandys-new-wireless-earbuds-are-made-primarily-out-of-recycled-plastics-130031817.html?src=rss

Nothing says its latest device - the Phone 2a - is a mid-range handset. And just going by its specs, which include a 6.5-inch 120Hz OLED screen, up to 12GB of RAM and a big 5,000 mAh battery, that seems right. But starting at $349, it's positioned more like a budget offering which makes it even more appealing. That's because in a category where device makers often cut corners to hit a specific price, the Phone 2a combines solid components with a unique design to deliver a handset that looks good and is big on value. So while there are a couple of hiccups for potential buyers in the US, Nothing has created an engaging option in a sea of boring budget phones.Design and display: Definitively distinctiveNothing's aesthetic is unmistakable. It's inspired by 90s retro gadgets with translucent plastic like old Gameboys but remixed with a more modern and cohesive finish. This lets you see a number of its components like NFC antennas (which is the disc surrounding the rear cameras) without it becoming distracting. That said, on the Phone 2a, Nothing switched things up by moving its cameras to the middle and rearranging its Glyph lights, which gives the back more of a face while a small red accent provides a pop of color. It's available in black and white color schemes, with the former sometimes making me feel like I'm looking at Wall-E's emo cousin.Photo by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetAnother departure from Nothing's previous handsets is that the Phone 2a features a polycarbonate back instead of a glass one. Now this might seem like a bad thing, but this device is a reminder of how nice plastic can be when it's done well. Nothing says the phone's subtly rounded edges wouldn't be possible to do with glass. While I'm not sure that feature is a bona fide selling point, it does feel good. Additionally, the choice of material results in something that feels a lot lighter than it looks, which is nice compared to traditional glass bricks. The Phone 2a weighs just 6.7 ounces (190 grams), which is less than a Pixel 7a (6.82 ounces/193.5 grams) despite the latter boasting a significantly smaller 6.1-inch display.As for the screen itself, the 6.5-inch OLED panel delivers punchy colors and surprisingly good brightness of around 700 nits during normal use with peaks of up to 1,300 nits. The only thing I struggled with was the in-screen fingerprint reader, which took a few registrations to get it dialed in before it would unlock every time.Performance: More than good enough for the moneyPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetNothing is bucking conventional wisdom by opting for a Mediatek Dimensity 7200 Pro chip instead of something from Qualcomm. Memory starts at 8GB, though in the US, the only config features 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. And while its Geekbench 6 scores (1,123 single-core and 2,603 multi-core) were a bit behind what I got from a Pixel 7a (1,442 single-core and 3,639 multi-core), it felt speedy and responsive during normal use. The only small issue is that sometimes scrolling through websites or social media wasn't quite as smooth compared to more expensive rivals. But unless you're hoping to do some serious mobile gaming, the Phone 2a has more than enough oomph to go around.Cameras: Better than your average budget handsetA challenge for both budget phone makers and smaller companies like Nothing is keeping up with big names like Samsung and Google. But unless you're a real stickler for image quality, the Phone 2a is good enough. It did a fine job during the day of producing pics that you won't be embarrassed to post on social media. Both the main and ultra-wide cameras are based on 50-megapixel sensors that capture warm tones and produce color saturation that's a touch richer than what I got from a Pixel 7a. That said, if you zoom in, you'll notice that Google's phone delivers slightly sharper photos with more detailed textures. At night, when budget phones tend to struggle a bit more, the Phone 2a's images were slightly darker than similar shots taken with a Pixel 7a, as expected, but they were still more than serviceable. Sometimes, Nothing's pics were actually less grainy than Google's.Battery life: 5,000 mAh goes a long wayPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetThanks to its large 5,000 mAh battery, the Phone 2a turned in one of the best times we've seen from a budget handset. On our video rundown test, it lasted 23 hours and 47 minutes, which is just shy of the Nothing Phone 2's mark of 24:25 and way better than similarly priced rivals like the Pixel 7a (17:41).When it comes to charging, though you don't get support for wireless power (which is understandable on a phone in this price range), the Phone 2a does support wired charging at up to 45 watts, which is faster than some flagship phones like the Pixel 8.US availability and carrier infoOne of the biggest bummers about the Nothing Phone 2a is that while it will be readily available online in Europe, folks in the US should know that there are a few extra hurdles to jump through. The first is that in order to buy one, customers will need to sign up for the company's Developer program. Thankfully, this can be done for free and as soon as you do, you'll get a link to purchase the Phone 2a directly from Nothing. Additionally, while the handset does support 5G on T-Mobile via the N41 band, you won't get any 5G on AT&T or Verizon, which severely limits the appeal for people on those networks.Wrap-upPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetOn paper, the Phone 2a has pretty much everything I look for in a good budget device. It's got a solid build including IP54 water resistance, a bright screen and excellent battery life. While its performance isn't earth-shattering, it still feels snappy even when compared to slightly more expensive rivals. But what really elevates the Phone 2a is that it accomplishes all this without erasing its personality in the name of cost-cutting. There simply isn't another handset in this price range that looks this good. Nothing also pays attention to small details like the phone's crunchy pseudo-analog sound effects that help marry its distinctive design with its custom UX and dot-matrix-inspired widgets. I just wish the Phone 2a was easier to buy and had better 5G support in the US.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nothing-phone-2a-review-a-budget-phone-thats-packed-with-personality-123040337.html?src=rss

The creator of a popular Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, appears to have agreed to settle Nintendo's lawsuit against it, less than a week since the games company accused the emulator's creator of piracy at a colossal scale."A joint final judgment and permanent injunction filed Tuesday says developer Tropic Haze will pay the games company $2.4 million - along with a long list of concessions. The people behind Tropic Haze must halt all activities related to offering, marketing, distributing or trafficking in Yuzu emulator or any similar software that circumvents Nintendo's technical protection measures." No more emulating, then. It must even surrender the emulator's web domain (including any variants) to Nintendo. The website is still live at time of writing.In recent years, Nintendo has increased its efforts to quash popular emulators and game piracy sites. It sued ROM-sharing website RomUniverse for $2 million and helped send hacker Gary Bowser to prison. Will this latest lawsuit stop people trying to emulate Nintendo consoles and games? No. But it'll likely deter anyone trying to make a buck out of it.We also take a look back at how Steam reshaped video games in the past two decades.- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedNational Guardsman who leaked US defense secrets on Discord agrees to 16-year plea dealSteam defined the modern video game industryShure's first wireless lapel mic can connect to your phone without a receiverYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!Apple announces new MacBook Airs with M3 chipsThis is the same CPU that powers the latest MacBook Pro laptops.AppleAs predicted yesterday, Apple revealed new MacBooks. This time, it's MacBook Air laptops housing the company's latest Apple Silicone: M3 chips. No Pro or Max options, but it's also just' a MacBook Air - the company's entry-level laptop. Expect performance increases of 17 percent in single-core tasks and 21 percent in multi-core tasks, according to Apple's estimates. As before, both computers max out at 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. There is now support for up to two external displays when the laptop is closed, as well as Wi-Fi 6E.The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air is $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,299. The M2 13-inch model will remain at $999 - now mighty tempting at that price. Both of the new MacBook Air models are available to pre-order today.Continue reading.Twitter's former CEO and other execs are suing X for $128 million in unpaid severanceThe group says Musk made up a fake cause" for their firing.A group of former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, is suing Elon Musk and X over millions of dollars in unpaid severance benefits. The claims date back to the chaos surrounding Musk's takeover of the company in October 2022. The lawsuit cites Musk biographer Walter Isaacson's account of the events, which explains Musk rushed to close the Twitter deal a day early to fire the executives for cause" just before their final stock options were set to vest.Continue reading.Instagram finally lets you edit DMsIf you're quick.Meta just rolled out a software update for Instagram that finally allows DM edits. However, you have to do it within 15 minutes of sending the message. It seems the messages won't be tagged as edited,' like Apple's Messages or WhatsApp, either.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-switch-emulator-creators-settle-lawsuit-with-nintendo-for-24-million-121645766.html?src=rss

The battle between AI chatbots is more than a two-horse race. Anthropic, the company formed by several ex-OpenAI employees, claims its new Claude 3 language model outperforms ChatGPT and Google's Gemini in several key industry benchmarks. It even hit "near-human" levels on some tasks, the company wrote in a blog.There are three new chatbots under the Claude 3 umbrella, including Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus. Sonnet powers the Claude.ai chatbot and is offered for free with an email sign-in. Meanwhile, Opus is the largest and most powerful LLM and will be available with a $20 per month subscription via the "Claude Pro" service. It's also multi-modal, so it can work with both text and image inputs, unlike past versions.All Claude 3 models "can power live customer chats, auto-completions and data extraction tasks where responses must be immediate and in real-time," the company said. On top of promising "near-instant results," they can supposedly handle longer, multi-step instructions with increased accuracy.AnthropicOpus showed better graduate-level reasoning than GPT-4, scoring 14.7 percent higher in that test than GPT-4. It also beat OpenAI's chatbot in tasks involving math, coding, reasoning and knowledge.They also top past Claude models. "For the vast majority of workloads, Sonnet is 2x faster than Claude 2 and Claude 2.1 with higher levels of intelligence. It excels at tasks demanding rapid responses, like knowledge retrieval or sales automation. Opus delivers similar speeds to Claude 2 and 2.1, but with much higher levels of intelligence," according to Anthropic.Meanwhile Haiku, the smallest version of Claude 3, is "the fastest and most cost-effective model on the market." To that end, it's capable of reading a dense research paper complete with charts and graphs in under three seconds.The company also noted that Claude 3 "can process a wide range of visual formats, including photos, charts, graphs and technical diagrams," aiding companies that use PDFs, flowcharts, or presentation slides. It'll also be less likely to refuse harmless content thanks to a more nuanced understanding of requests, while still recognizing "real harm."Anthropic has said that Claude AI is guided by 10 secret foundational pillars of fairness. Claude 3 was trained on both nonpublic internal and public-facing data, using hardware from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud (Amazon recently invested $4 billion in Anthropic).Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3 Sonnet are available now through Anthropic's API, with Haiku set to follow soon. Sonnet is also accessible through Amazon Bedrock and in private preview on Google Cloud's Vertex AI Model Garden.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropic-says-its-new-claude-3-ai-chatbot-scores-better-on-key-benchmarks-than-gpt-4-071343736.html?src=rss

A group of former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are suing Elon Musk and X over millions of dollars in unpaid severance benefits. The claims date back to the chaotic circumstances surrounding Musk's takeover of the company in October 2022.When Musk took control of the company, his first move was to fire Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett. According to the lawsuit, Musk had special ire" for the group because of the role they played in the months-long court battle that forced Musk to follow through with the acquisition after he attempted to back out of the deal. According to the lawsuit, Agrawal is entitled to $57.4 million in severance benefits, Segal is entitled to $44.5 million, Gadde $20 million and Edgett $6.8 million, for a total of about $128 million.The lawsuit cites Musk biographer Walter Isaacson's account of the events, which explains that Musk rushed to close the Twitter deal a day early so he could fire the executives for cause" just before their final stock options were set to vest. According to Isaacson, Musk bragged that the legal maneuver saved him about $200 million.Musk doesn't pay his bills, believes the rules don't apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him," the lawsuit states,Because Musk decided he didn't want to pay Plaintiffs' severance benefits, he simply fired them without reason, then made up fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision."X didn't respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Of note, it's not the first time former Twitter employees have sued the company for failing to pay severance benefits. A separate lawsuit claimed Twitter owed former workers more than $500 million in unpaid severance. Agrawal, Segal and Gadde also previously sued the company over unpaid legal bills as a result of shareholder lawsuits and other investigations that resulted from Musk's takeover,This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitters-former-ceo-and-other-execs-are-suing-elon-musk-and-x-for-128-million-in-unpaid-severance-231428042.html?src=rss

On Tuesday, Shure unveiled its better-late-than-never entry into the creator-focused wireless consumer lapel mic space. The audio company's MoveMic system - available in single-channel (the $249 MoveMic One) and dual-channel (the $349 MoveMic Two) models - joins an increasingly crowded space of wireless lavalier mics alongside three tiers of Rode's Wireless Go system and two iterations of DJI's Mic.Most products in this space require a receiver for your phone, but Shure offers direct-to-phone wireless transmission - including for two mics in the dual-channel model. But the catch is that it only works when using Shure's MOTIV apps (available on iOS and Android), which won't be everyone's cup of tea.For more versatile recording (including with cameras, computers and third-party phone apps), you'll have to use the MoveMic Receiver. It's available as a standalone $199 purchase or as part of a $499 bundle with two dual-channel mics.ShureThe mic has subtle styling, with most of its body designed to tuck away behind clothing. Each mic weighs 8.2g and measures 46 x 22mm, and it has an IPX4 rating for resistance to at least light splashes and sprays of water (including rain).The MoveMic has a 50Hz to 20kHZ frequency range with a tolerance of +/-1dB. Its range covers up to 100ft away (direct line) from the paired device. Shure estimates eight hours of recording per mic, plus another two full charges when using its bundled charging case.The MoveMic two bundle includes two lapel mics, a charging case and receiver.ShureShure's entry into this space isn't cheap. The single-channel MoveMic One costs $249, the dual-channel model (including two mics) jumps to $349 and a bundle with a pair of mics with a receiver runs $499.By comparison, the Rode Wireless Go II costs $299 for a bundle with a pair of dual-channel mics and a receiver, and the DJI Mic 2's equivalent package is $349. (And that isn't including those companies' budget models.) Shure is banking on its industry reputation and the MoveMic's more subtle appearance to justify the extra cost. Still, creators and video journalists will want to ask themselves whether those warrant the premium before taking the plunge.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/shures-first-wireless-lapel-mic-can-connect-to-your-phone-without-a-receiver-221517242.html?src=rss

Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking classified defense secrets on Discord, has pled guilty. The New York Times reports the 22-year-old withdrew his not-guilty plea on Monday, trading a guilty admission for up to around 16 years in prison. Had he gone to trial and lost, he could have faced up to 60 years.In a Boston federal court, Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information" under the Espionage Act. Federal authorities arrested the airman at his mother's house last April.The Air National Guardsman is accused of sharing classified documents on a Minecraft-focused Discord server in late 2022. The posted files included volumes of information about the war in Ukraine (including details about military equipment and Russian and Ukrainian troop movements), as well as Russia's attempts to stockpile more weapons from Egypt and Turkey. The content eventually landed on 4chan, Telegram and other Discord servers.The leaked docs also contained a report about the hacking of an unnamed American company by a foreign adversary" and details about a plot to assault US troops serving abroad.The government said it didn't find evidence of deliberate espionage motives, nor did it accuse Teixeira of acting as a whistleblower in the mold of Edward Snowden. Instead, prosecutors concluded he wanted to gain status with his online friends. The New York Times reports that a senior federal law enforcement official, speaking anonymously to the paper, said the DOJ wouldn't have agreed to the reduced sentencing if it had uncovered more malicious motives.The judge presiding over the case, Indira Talwani, scheduled a hearing in September to finalize her endorsement of the deal. The sentencing guidelines range from 11 to more than 16 years in prison. His lawyer, Michael K. Bachrach, told reporters Teixeira's immaturity played a pivotal role while promising he would push for the lowest sentence. He is very much a kid," the attorney reportedly said. We will be able to establish why his youth played a substantial role."A NYT investigation of more than 9,500 of Teixeira's messages, published last May, revealed an obsession with weapons, mass shootings, shadowy conspiracy theories - and proving he was in the right, and in the know."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/national-guardsman-who-leaked-us-defense-secrets-on-discord-agrees-to-16-year-plea-deal-215721722.html?src=rss

Tropic Haze, the popular Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator developer, appears to have agreed to settle Nintendo's lawsuit against it. Less than a week after Nintendo filed the legal action, accusing the emulator's creators of piracy at a colossal scale," a joint final judgment and permanent injunction filed Tuesday says Tropic Haze has agreed to pay the Mario maker $2.4 million, along with a long list of concessions.Nintendo's lawsuit claimed Tropic Haze violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Without Yuzu's decryption of Nintendo's encryption, unauthorized copies of games could not be played on PCs or Android devices," the company wrote in its complaint. It described Yuzu as software primarily designed to circumvent technological measures."Yuzu launched in 2018 as free, open-source software for Windows, Linux and Android. It could run countless copyrighted Switch games -including console sellers like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Wonder. Reddit threads comparing Switch emulators praised Yuzu's performance compared to rivals like Ryujinx. Yuzu introduces various bugs across different titles, but it can typically handle games at higher resolutions than the Switch, often with better frame rates, so long as your hardware is powerful enough.A screenshot from Yuzu's website, showing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildTropic Haze / NintendoAs part of an Exhibit A attached to the proposed joint settlement, Tropic Haze agreed to a series of accommodations. In addition to paying Nintendo $2.4 million, it must permanently refrain from engaging in activities related to offering, marketing, distributing, or trafficking in Yuzu emulator or any similar software that circumvents Nintendo's technical protection measures."Tropic Haze must also delete all circumvention devices, tools and Nintendo cryptographic keys used in the emulator and turn over all circumvention devices and modified Nintendo hardware. It even has to surrender the emulator's web domain (including any variants or successors) to Nintendo. (The website is still live now, perhaps waiting for the judgment's final a-okay.) Not abiding by the settlement's agreements could land Tropic Haze in contempt of court, including punitive, coercive and monetary actions.Although piracy is the top motive for many emulator users, the software can double as crucial tools for video game preservation -making rapid legal surrenders like Tropic Haze's potentially problematic. Without emulators, Nintendo and other copyright holders could make games obsolete for future generations as older hardware eventually becomes more difficult to find.Nintendo's legal team is, of course, no stranger to aggressively enforcing copyrighted material. In recent years, the company went after Switch piracy websites, sued ROM-sharing website RomUniverse for $2 million and helped send hacker Gary Bowser to prison. Although it was Valve's doing, Nintendo's reputation indirectly got the Dolphin Wii and GameCube emulator blocked from Steam. It's safe to say the Mario maker doesn't share preservationists' views on the crucial historical role emulators can play.Despite the settlement, it appears unlikely the open-source Yuzu will disappear entirely. The emulator is still available on GitHub, where its entire codebase can be found.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/makers-of-switch-emulator-yuzu-quickly-settle-with-nintendo-for-24-million-203204698.html?src=rss

X has, once again, quietly changed its rules around deadnaming and misgendering without an explanation. With the latest change, it seems that there will be no penalties for misgendering or deadnaming people on X after al, except in cases when it may be required by local laws."The update, which was first spotted by Mashable, comes after X appeared to reinstate some aspects of Twitter's former policy, which fell under its hateful conduct rules. Prior to Elon Musk's takeover, Twitter had barred targeted deadnaming and misgendering. That section of the company's rules then disappeared last April. Then, last week, ArsTechnica noted that the policy was quietly updated to indicate that X would reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition."While it wasn't a full reversal of the earlier policy - under the company's previous leadership, intentional misgendering was grounds for a suspension - it seemed that there once again would be penalties for this type of harassment. Now, that section of Twitter's rules is prefaced with where required by local laws."As with so much of what happens at X, there is significant confusion about the policy as the company's rules seem to change based on the whims of Musk rather than a considered process. This was on display over the last fewldays as Musk fielded several complaints from right-wing personalities about last week's change. On Thursday, Musk told one such account that the update is just about repeated, targeted harassment of a particular person." But by Saturday, Musk was offering a new explanation. Turns out this was due to a court judgment in Brazil, which is being appealed, but should not apply outside of Brazil," he said.X didn't respond to a request for comment about the policy or why it was changed twice in a matter of days. But Musk is known to be sympathetic to people who regularly engage in anti-trans harassment. One of his first moves after taking over the company was to reinstate a number of accounts banned for violating the company's previous hateful conduct policy. He has also repeatedly mocked people who specify their pronouns and publicly criticized X staff for attempting to apply the company's freedom of speech, not reach" policy to a transphobic documentary.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-walks-back-its-misgendering-policy-after-right-wing-complaints-202433498.html?src=rss

Apple revealed some new M3 MacBook Air laptops today and one of the marquee features is that they can drive two external displays while the lid is closed. It's pretty weird when the Air line gets a feature missing from the beefier MacBook Pro line, but Apple's on top of it. The company just announced that this feature is also coming to standard M3 MacBook Pro laptops via a software update, as reported by 9to5Mac.There's no details as to which software update would include the new tool, though macOS Sonoma 14.4 is in active development, so that's a possibility. The feature should work exactly how it does with the forthcoming M3 MacBook Air, as the two lines share a processor and a similar architecture.This update is going to be for 14-inch MacBook Pro laptops with the standard M3 chip. The more powerful versions with the M3 Pro and Max chips can already do this, so the 16-inch model doesn't require a software update. Prior to this, you could only use the regular M3 MacBook Pro to drive a single external monitor with the lid closed.Apple Silicon MacBook Pros have been able to drive multiple external displays all the way back to the M1 Pro chip, but never with standard M-series chips. Apple hasn't offered up a reason as to why this took so long to get going on chips without Pro or Max in the name. In any event, this is going to be huge for current M3 MacBook Pro owners looking for more screen real estate.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-m3-macbook-pro-is-getting-multi-display-support-just-like-the-air-193844930.html?src=rss

Google just announced that some Pixel phones are getting next-gen call screening. This improves on the pre-existing Call Screen feature by implementing a new Hello button. Once tapped, the system will deploy Google Assistant to speak on your behalf.The digital assistant will ask the caller why they're trying to reach you, and you'll be able to hear the response in real-time. If it sounds important, you can interrupt and begin the call. If not, you can kick them to the curb and go back to watching TV.Google Assistant already worked to screen calls in a similar way, but the Hello button gives the user ultimate control as to when to begin the screening process. There's even an option to tell the caller to wait a little bit, if you can't get to the phone quite yet. In addition to the real-time element, the tool still captures transcripts of these screenings to peruse at your leisure. The new Call Screen update is only available for the Pixel Fold and Pixel 6 phones and newer.This is part of a larger March features drop for Pixel phones. Google's smartphones will now be able to share 10-bit HDR videos directly to Instagram, with no processing required. This is similar to the approach Samsung recently took with its Galaxy S24 native camera update.The features drop also expands the company's recently-launched Circle to Search tool to Pixel 7 smartphones. As the name suggests, this lets people search for stuff by simply drawing a circle around the object. The tool was previously only available for Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 users.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pixel-phones-just-got-next-gen-call-screening-190034396.html?src=rss

Google is releasing new features for the first-gen Pixel Watch, and they include the health-monitoring capabilities that launched with its successor. The older wearables will now be able to detect whether you're working out and can automatically start tracking your activity and then stop when you're done. In particular, it works for running, walking, elliptical training, spinning, outdoor biking and rowing.You'll also be able to track the time you spend in different heart rate zones, which could help you optimize your workouts. Plus, you'll be able to set a goal pace for your exercise sessions to get a notification for when you're not performing up to par. In case you want your first-gen Pixel Watch to help you feel more relaxed instead, simply fire up the Fitbit Relax App on the device to guide you through some breathing exercises.For travelers, though, Google's most exciting update for watches isn't just for its Pixel line. The company has rolled out public transit directions for devices running Wear OS 3 and above, which means you can check what kind of public transportation you can take right on your wrist - it will even display your public transit options' real-time departure schedules. You'll now also be able to navigate an unfamiliar location without taking out your phone through a compass-enabled map view on your watch.The company is releasing features for different devices under its Pixel line, as well. Pixel phones will now be able to share 10-bit HDR videos directly to Instagram Reels and will be able to upload Ultra HDR Photos to the app. In addition, the Pixel 8's "Circle to Search" feature is coming to Pixel 7 and Pixel Pro phones, giving you a quick way to do Search queries without having to switch apps. All you have to do is draw a circle around or highlight an image, a video or a piece of text to look up the information you need. Finally, a "Call Screen" feature will give you access to a "hello" chip you can tap while a call is being screened. Google Assistant can ask the caller to speak, so you can get an idea of why they're calling, and it can also ask them to wait a bit longer if you can't pick up their call just yet.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-updates-the-first-gen-pixel-watch-with-health-monitoring-features-190002033.html?src=rss

Instagram launched direct messaging tools way back in 2013, but there hasn't been a way to edit them after the fact. That changes today. Meta just rolled out a software update for the Instagram app that finally allows for DM edits, with one major caveat. You only have 15 minutes to make any changes.Here's how it works. Once you send a direct message and realize you made a huge blunder, like accidentally" professing your love to an old college buddy, just press and hold on the sent message. This will create a dropdown menu. Look for edit" and make the required changes. Nobody will ever be the wiser, as long as you got there within 15 minutes.MetaThis isn't the only change to DMs found with today's update. You can also pin up to three of your favorite direct messages on top of the feed, which is useful in the case of ongoing conversations. This can be done with standard one-on-one chats and group chats. Just hold on the conversation tab, look for the dropdown and tap pin" to make the move.The update also makes it easier to toggle read receipts on and off, depending on personal preference. The rest of today's new features are cosmetic. There are new DM themes, and some include unique animations. Finally, the update features a way to save your favorite stickers in your DMs for easy access. Just hold on the sticker and it'll be there next time you want it.Meta's constantly making changes to Instagram. Back in January, it began testing a feature that lets users access a secondary photo grid that only close friends can see. Late last year, the app got customizable story templates.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-finally-lets-you-edit-dms-183412692.html?src=rss

Microsoft has announced its second games showcase of 2024 and this one is all about projects from its third-party partners. The second Partner Preview stream is set for March 6 at 1PM ET. It will run for around 30 minutes and feature more than a dozen new trailers from publishers including Capcom, Nexon and EA.Three games have been confirmed for the showcase. We'll find out details about traversal and combat in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, an EA-published 2D Metroidvania game that's set to arrive next month. Abubakar Salim, who voiced Bayek in Assassin's Creed Origins, is the game's creative lead and will narrate the Partner Preview trailer.In addition, we'll see gameplay from Capcom's strategy-action game Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and The First Berserker: Khazan, an action RPG from Nexon. Microsoft is also promising details on more titles that are bound for Xbox, PC and Game Pass. This is a common refrain every time one of these streams takes place, but since we know it's coming to Game Pass on its release day, perhaps this will finally be when we learn more about Hollow Knight: Silksong.You'll be able to watch the stream on Xbox channels on YouTube and Twitch (YouTube streams will be available in 4K, but Twitch is limited to 1080p). Microsoft says it will make the showcase available in more than 40 languages, including American Sign Language, British Sign Language and English Audio Descriptions. For the first time, Microsoft will offer versions of an Xbox stream in Bengali, Mori, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Swahili, Tamil, Urdu and Zulu.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-is-running-an-xbox-partner-showcase-on-march-6-173008112.html?src=rss

Apple's Magic Keyboard for iPad is 40 percent off right now via Amazon. That brings the price down to $180, which is a savings of around $120. It's not the lowest price we've ever seen for the 11-inch keyboard, but it's certainly close. Typical sales drop it to around $250 or so, so this is still one heck of a deal.This is the perfect keyboard to turn your 11-inch iPad Pro or Air into a standalone workstation. There's a reason, after all, why it ended up on our list of the best iPad accessories. It magnetically attaches to the tablet, with a hinge that keeps the screen floating above the keyboard. In other words, it basically turns your iPad into a laptop.We praised Apple's Magic Keyboard for its emphasis on comfort and the precise trackpad. There are dozens upon dozens of competing third-party products out there, but none of them get the job done quite like this luxury keyboard. The major issue here is the price, which this sale somewhat alleviates.There is one other potential issue on the horizon. There are rumors circulating that Apple is about to announce a new range of iPads, which may or may not work with this keyboard. If you're buying a keyboard for an iPad you already own, that's no big deal. If you want to buy both at once, however, you should wait for an official announcement.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/apples-magic-keyboard-for-the-11-inch-ipad-pro-and-air-is-40-percent-off-172148756.html?src=rss

Both Amazon and Best Buy have kicked off new sales on Samsung's Galaxy S24 lineup, taking up to $150 off the unlocked versions of the recently released smartphones. The 6.8-inch Galaxy S24 Ultra and the 6.7-inch Galaxy S24 Plus are each $150 off at $1,150 and $850, respectively, while the 6.2-inch Galaxy S24 is $100 off at $700. We've seen a handful of trade-in and gift card offers for the phones since they were released in late January, but these are their largest cash discounts to date. As a reminder, the S24 Ultra and S24 Plus start with 256GB of storage, while the base S24 starts with 128GB. If you need more space, higher-capacity models are also discounted. The deals apply to multiple color options, too.Google's Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro remain the top picks in our guide to the best Android phones: They take better photos, generally provide a cleaner software experience and typically cost less. That said, we note Galaxy S24 Ultra as a good alternative for those who're willing to pay for more premium hardware. It runs on a faster chip (Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3), has a gorgeous OLED display and gets longer battery life. Its titanium frame should be a bit more durable long-term, plus it comes with Samsung's S Pen stylus. Samsung did jack up the price by $100 over last year's model, though this deal neuters that hike at least a little bit. We gave the Galaxy S24 Ultra a score of 89 in our review earlier this year.The smaller Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus aren't quite as high-end but may still be worthwhile if you want to avoid a Pixel. Both earned a score of 87 in our review. They still get you a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, a rich 120Hz OLED display and seven years of software updates. That software includes the same suite of hit-or-miss AI features, including a live language translation tool. The S24 Plus lasts longer on a charge, but the base S24 may appeal to those who want something more compact. The S24 Ultra has a more advanced camera array, though, with a sharper main lens and an extra telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom. These two also use aluminum frames instead of titanium. We'll inevitably see larger discounts on each of these phones in the months ahead, but if you've been sitting on an older Galaxy device and want to upgrade today, this is a decent chance to save.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/samsungs-galaxy-s24-phones-are-up-to-150-off-at-amazon-and-best-buy-164520013.html?src=rss

Gather 'round, children, and let me tell you a story about the old bugaboo we used to call DRM.Digital Rights Management was the beast under every gamer's bed in the mid-2000s, an invisible bit of software baked into game discs that dictated and tracked player behavior under the guise of preventing piracy. DRM software, like SecuROM, limited the times a game could be downloaded and forced players to regularly connect to the internet for authentication checks, at a time when less than half of American adults had reliable broadband connections. DRM features soured the releases of BioShock, Mass Effect and Spore, and by 2010, anti-piracy software had rendered Assassin's Creed 2 and Splinter-Cell: Conviction unplayable. When Microsoft attempted to release the Xbox One with always-on DRM features in 2013, intense vitriol from fans forced the company to reverse its plans at the 11th hour. There were lawsuits. DRM was a curse word.Meanwhile, Valve was building out Steam. When it landed in 2003, the digital PC storefront was designed to streamline the patch process for games like Counter-Strike and make it easier for Valve to implement anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. Steam was made to be a DRM machine. In 2004, with the release of Half-Life 2, Valve made Steam a requirement for every player, and even those who'd purchased new, physical copies of the game had to boot up the launcher first. There was some low-level grumbling, but PC players were used to being lab rats, and Half-Life 2 was good enough to drown out the dissent. Steam adoption skyrocketed. So, naturally, Valve turned it into a store for third-party games.While other publishers were fighting with players over DRM features in individual titles and consoles, Steam quietly added dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of games each year. Today, Steam has 132 million monthly active users and an estimated 103,000 games, more than any other mainstream distribution service. Nearly all of these titles are playable only while connected to Steam - even after paying full price, even after downloading, even in offline mode. This has done nothing to stop Steam from becoming more essential to more players each year.Competition is good, but the PC market has no competition," Super Meat Boy co-creator Tommy Refenes told Engadget in 2018. There is only Steam."The widespread adoption of anti-piracy software marked an era in video games where players felt like they didn't really own the products they were buying. And then, this practice became normal. Broadband saturation continued to climb, the market for physical media dissolved into pixelated dust and streaming entertainment media found its foothold. Today, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Epic Games and most major publishers have their own digital stores with proprietary DRM features. However, Steam is entrenched as the industry's largest DRM machine because it's the most popular digital games storefront, period. And if the last 20 years are any indication, that's not going to change any time soon.Did you hear that? That was the sound of our collective Steam libraries, representing trillions of dollars in purchased games, expelling a dusty sigh of relief. Because if Steam disappears, all of our games do too.It's a chilling thought - Steam's demise would enact immediate, catastrophic chaos across the video game industry, gutting players' libraries and cutting off one of the most direct points of sale for developers of all sizes. Steam feels too big to fail, and Valve operates it as such. Valve is a private company valued at $6.5 billion in 2021,and CEO Gabe Newell, himself, is a billionaire. The studio is similar to Nintendo in that it's able to ignore gaming trends and carry on doing whatever it wants at any given time, while Steam prints money and its most ardent fans cheer the studio on with friendly memes. Hail, Gaben!Steam popularized the 70/30 revenue split, giving developers on the platform 70 percent of the money their games generate and pocketing the rest. Apple and Google copied this formula with their mobile app stores. When it debuted in 2018, the Epic Games Store shaped its entire marketing campaign around taking on Steam and dismantling its rev-share ratio, claiming it was exploitative and unfair, especially to indies. Epic offered every developer an aggressive split of 88/12, and CEO Tim Sweeney literally dared Valve to match it.Valve barely blinked. The studio shifted its Steam payout schedule slightly, offering a 75 percent cut on games that made more than $10 million, and 80 percent on anything that brought in more than $50 million. Epic eventually shifted its attention away from Valve and moved to a more vulnerable target in the rev-share space: Apple.If you were running a store without competition and you were making billions of dollars a year, how much time and energy would you dedicate to making it better?" Refenes asked in 2018, during the launch of the Epic Games Store. How much money would you spend to improve the experience for everyone that uses it, if the end result is you would make the same or possibly less money? My answer is, The minimum amount of time, effort and money required."Valve has become more hands-off with Steam as it's aged. In the platform's early days, developers would pitch their games to actual people at Valve, who would launch a handful of projects on the storefront every week, ensuring plenty of attention for each title. For small studios, getting a game on Steam was like hitting the jackpot. This changed in 2012, when Valve implemented Greenlight, a process that allowed players to choose which games would make it to Steam (after developers submitted a $100 entry fee). Greenlight eventually evolved into Early Access - a system still around today and the standard on other platforms too - and the number of games on Steam rose astronomically in just a few years.In 2013, Steam added 435 new games, according to Steamdb. In 2017, it added 6,947 games. This was a tumultuous period for developers, especially those who started production when Steam was a curated space, but ended up releasing their games into an unregulated and oversaturated marketplace.Indie developers Ben Ruiz and Matthew Wegner began building the stylish brawler Aztez in 2010, and it received a ton of pre-release hype. Aztez finally went live on Steam on August 1, 2017, but was immediately lost in the crowd.There were 40 other games that launched on August 1," Wegner told Engadget in October 2017.Ruiz added, If I was paying attention to Steam, maybe I wouldn't be so blindsided by what happened, but I'm also not necessarily sure what I would've done differently. If I'd have known like, oh, it's a saturated market now - what the fuck do you do? ...There's a billion indie games that come out on Steam every single day."Today, Steam is a self-sustained game-distributing machine with more than 100,000 titles and counting. Getting on Steam no longer equates instant success for any developer, but it's a necessary aspect of most release plans. There are other options: GOG, operated by The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 publisher CD Projekt, is one of just a few digital distributors committed to DRM-free game purchases; large publishers like Ubisoft, EA and Microsoft all have Steam-like storefronts and the Epic Games Store has a superior revenue split for developers. Still, giants like Microsoft and EA find it necessary to simultaneously release their games on Steam, handing Valve a cut of each purchase in the process.As a private company raking in endless piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to operate on its own timeline. The company famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to work on pet projects or just generally follow their hearts.As a result, Valve is an incredibly rich company that doesn't produce much. Its games are legendary, but there's a running joke in the industry that Valve can't count to three: Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007. Left 4 Dead 2 came out in 2009. Portal 2 came out in 2011. In 2020, the VR game Half-Life: Alyx landed as an entree into Valve's Index headset, which came out the previous year and cost $1,000. The studio is still ignoring an extremely disruptive bot invasion that began consuming TF2 in 2020, despite consistent pleas for support from dedicated players. In December 2023, Valve replaced Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with Counter-Strike 2, interrupting an ESL Pro League tournament in the process.Meanwhile, many of the writers who helped create Valve's most iconic franchises left the studio around 2017, after years of inactivity. In 2018, Valve hired all 12 developers at Firewatch studio Campo Santo, who were at the time working on a very-rad-looking new game, In the Valley of Gods. There have been no updates from that team since.Steam's unwavering success has helped turn Valve into a senior resort community for computer science nerds, where game developers go to live out their final years surrounded by fantastic amenities, tinkering and unsupervised. It's a lovely scenario, really. It's just not particularly productive.Matt T. Wood worked at Valve for 17 years, helping to build Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO and both episodes of Half-Life 2. He left in 2019 and is now preparing to release his first independent game, Little Kitty, Big City.Valve talks a lot about, like, you can do anything you want," Wood told Engadget in 2023. And it's like, well - that's never true. Valve has a direction, and they have a trajectory. And so, for me, it was realizing that the direction that Valve was going in was not a place that I wanted to be long-term. ...They were sitting on their laurels a little bit, and it's like they weren't really challenging themselves, taking risks or doing anything. Steam's making a lot of money so they don't really have to."Little Kitty, Big City is coming to Steam, of course.Valve is supremely skilled at making money off of other people's work, and Steam epitomizes this trait. The company did the same thing with Steam Machines back in 2014 too: Valve created a Steam Controller, but it never actually built a Steam Machine. Instead, Valve licensed its name to PC manufacturers, and these companies built boxes to beam Steam into people's living rooms. Valve offloaded manufacturing costs while collecting market data about actual demand for quasi-PC, quasi-console hardware. Valve never ended up making its own box (unless you view the Steam Deck as a Frankenstein hybrid of the Steam Controller and Steam Machines, which I do).The Steam Deck is the most exciting thing to come out of Valve in decades, and that's largely because the company actually seems dedicated to improving and supporting it. Valve seemingly gave up on VR hardware after the Index, but less than two years after the release of the Steam Deck, Valve dropped an OLED version featuring a gorgeous screen and other improvements.The Steam Deck is, of course, all about Steam. Just like Half-Life 2 was a clever ruse to get more people registered on Steam back in 2004, the Steam Deck is positioned to dominate the handheld PC market in 2024, and it comes with Steam installed.Today, digital distribution is the backbone of the industry (which I guess makes DRM the spinal fluid), and Steam is the undisputed leader in this space.Steam's legacy is a vast and varied landscape of games serving millions of individual libraries, some thousands of titles deep - all of which can disappear with a snap if Valve decides to stop, sell or pivot. It's a storefront that set the standard and refused to stop growing. It's entire studios of artists and writers devoured, and beloved franchises left to rot. It's a stranglehold that allows Valve to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors.Behind the curtain of the video game industry, there's Steam, constantly churning, powering everything.To celebrate Engadget's 20th anniversary, we're taking a look back at the products and services that have changed the industry since March 2, 2004.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/steam-defined-the-modern-video-game-industry-163021533.html?src=rss

Prime members can access a bunch of perks for their monthly subscription fee, from the likes of Prime Video and ad-free Amazon Music to delivery and games at no extra cost. They're also eligible for discounts on certain products, such as Blink security cameras. A five-pack of Blink Outdoor 4 cameras has dropped by half to $200. That's the lowest price we've seen for this particular bundle.If you're in the market for a single security camera, it's worth noting that you can buy one Blink Outdoor 4 unit for $65 if you're a Prime member. That's 46 percent off and also a record low.The Blink Outdoor 4 is our pick for the best wireless outdoor security camera. Compared with previous models, it has a wider field of view (at 143 degrees on the diagonal), enhanced motion detection and, according to Amazon, better image quality and low light functionality. There's also person detection available to those who take out the Blink Subscription Plan, which includes features such as cloud storage for video clips. Otherwise, you can save video locally by buying a Sync Module 2 separately and connecting a USB storage drive.Despite the product's name, the Blink Outdoor 4 is suitable for indoor use too. It runs on a pair of AA batteries and the cells will last for up to two years before you need to replace them. The cameras are also weather resistant and support night vision, motion detection and two-way audio. It's worth bearing in mind that the only voice assistant Blink supports is Alexa, which makes sense since Amazon owns the brand.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/prime-members-can-save-up-to-50-percent-on-blink-outdoor-4-security-cameras-151735553.html?src=rss

After a few weeks of rumors, Apple announced the newest entries to its MacBook lineup today: 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models, both powered by the M3 chipset. As anticipated, the M3 addition is the biggest change for these notebooks, bringing them in line with the latest MacBook Pros and 24-inch iMac, which were all updated at the end of 2023 to run on Apple's latest silicon. You can order both new MacBook Air laptops today from Apple's website and other retailers starting at $1,099, and they will be available in stores on March 8. With these new machines, Apple has removed the M1-powered Air from its online store and the MacBook Air M2's starting price has dropped to $999.Apple states that the M3 MacBook Airs will be up to 60 percent faster than the M1-powered laptop and up to 13x faster than old-school Airs running on Intel chips. Speed and efficiency are the big takeaways here, because otherwise the MacBook Air specs haven't changed much. The new 13-inch and 15-inch notebooks have octa-core CPUs and support up to a 10-core GPU, along with up to 24GB of RAM and up to 2TB of internal storage. Notably, the base 13-inch MacBook Air M3 has the same starting specs of the M2 model that came before it: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Display specs remain the same across the board as well: both new models include a Liquid Retina panel with a 2,560 x 1,664 resolution and up to 500 nits of brightness.The only other noteworthy additions on the M3-powered MacBook Airs are the added support for Wi-Fi 6E (the M2 Air supports just standard Wi-Fi 6) and up to two external displays (with the lid closed). The latter should be particularly useful for multitaskers and anyone using the new Air as a daily driver and wants to use more than one external display in their desk setup.Color options have carried over from the M2 version as well: the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 are available in midnight, space gray, starlight and silver. Although it appears Apple's now billing the M2 Air as its "budget" option in the lineup, the M1 machine remains on sale (at the moment) at other retailers like Amazon when you can pick it up for as low as $750.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-order-the-apple-macbook-air-with-m3-135057630.html?src=rss

Following months of speculation, the European Commission has officially handed down its fine to Apple, and it's much higher than initially expected. Apple is on the hook to pay 1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) for restricting alternative music streaming apps on the App Store - the EU's first fine for Apple and its third-largest ever announced. It follows an investigation initially opened in 2020 following Spotify's filed complaint alleging Apple took steps to suppress the music service due to competition with iTunes and Apple Music.The Commission has announced "that Apple bans music streaming app developers from fully informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app and from providing any instructions about how to subscribe to such offers." The practice, known as anti-steering, is illegal under EU antitrust laws.The investigation found that Apple banned app developers from telling users the price of any subscriptions on the internet or the difference in price between in-app and outside purchases. The company also prevented developers from including information about or links to alternative subscription purchasing pages on their websites or in emails. Apple has engaged in these practices for nearly 10 years and might have caused iOS users to pay more for music streaming subscriptions than necessary due to the fees it imposes (that developers then factor into their prices). The Commission found Apple's actions also "led to non-monetary harm," creating a more frustrating user experience.The news follows February rumors that Apple would be hit with a fine of 500 million ($542.6 million) due to its antitrust App Store policies - less than a third of the final number. The European Commission claims it set the fine at 1.8 billion to be "sufficiently deterrent" to prevent Apple repeating its actions. However, Apple plans to appeal the decision.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-fines-apple-nearly-2-billion-for-blocking-alternative-music-apps-134001372.html?src=rss

Apple just announced a refresh for the ever-popular MacBook Air series, just one month after launching the Vision Pro headset. The big takeaway here? The new MacBook Air is outfitted with the company's proprietary M3 chipset. This chip was previously reserved for the more powerful MacBook Pro line and the latest iMac models, and it's coming to new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air models.The M3 chip is significantly more powerful than its predecessor, with benchmark tests showing an approximate performance increase of 17 percent in single-core tasks and 21 percent in multi-core tasks. This carries over to GPU performance, with an improvement of around 15 percent compared to the M2.In other words, the line between the MacBook Air and the Pro continues to blur. Gone are the days when the Air was exclusively used for web surfing. (It is worth noting, however, that the new Air features the standard M3 chip, and not the M3 Pro or Max).Beyond the new chip, this is still the MacBook Air. It looks essentially the same as the 2022 model, with the same gorgeous 13.6-inch screen and surprisingly robust quad-speaker setup. We called the M2 version from two years ago "Apple's near-perfect Mac" and an "ideal ultraportable." Similarly, the 15-inch model is essentially identical as the one that Apple introduced last summer, aside from the M3 upgrade.The new MBAs come with a relatively humble 8 gigs of RAM - but these aren't Apple's power-user laptops. They... just have a very powerful chip. As before, both computers max out at 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.There should be new benefits, including, as Apple mentions, support for up to two external displays when the laptop is closed. There's also Wi-Fi 6E included in 2024's family of Air laptops.The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air is priced at $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts from $1,299. Apple also bids farewell to the M1 MacBook Air, while the M2 13-inch model will remain on sale for $999.Both new MacBook Air models are available to preorder today, with devices coming out Friday March 8.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-announces-new-macbook-airs-with-m3-chips-132810766.html?src=rss

This website first began on March 2, 2004. It's older than YouTube, the iPhone, Uber, Tesla cars, Spotify and a whole lot more. It's even roughly a month older than the word podcast.'To mark the 20th anniversary of Engadget, we're taking a longer look at how the tech industry has changed over the past two decades. First up: streaming.We were going to kick things off with a letter from the editor, but two weeks ago, Engadget's parent company laid off many editors, writers and videographers from our small team, including our editor-in-chief, Dana Wollman.As Aaron Souppouris puts in his introduction to the series, it's not business as usual," but we are committed to pushing Engadget forward. What started as a grass-roots tech blog has now morphed into a media organization aiming to break news, give no-BS buying advice and highlight the stories in tech that matter."Oh, and we have a podcast.- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedDune 2 kicks butt (literally)This is what it looks like to reenter Earth's atmosphere from a space capsule's POVStreaming video changed the internet foreverYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!No, Mark Zuckerberg isn't having a PR moment'Meta has rarely been in so much hot water.Tom Williams via Getty ImagesAxios, a site known for political analysis (and extensive use of bullet points), has joined the ranks of pundits fawning over Mark Zuckerberg's PR strategy. The Meta CEO, they claim, is (as originally headlined) having a PR moment." Should anyone be praising the PR strategy of a gigantic company credibly accused of enabling a variety of mass-scale harm? Even if that PR strategy was working - which it isn't.Continue reading.Apple might announce new iPads, M3 MacBook Airs very soonNo spring event?In Bloomberg's Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman says Apple plans to announce several new products in a series of online videos and marketing campaigns" pretty much imminently. If so, that'd be two years in a row Apple has passed on a spring event. This year, it could be particularly busy: Along with an iPad Pro refresh and a new 12.9-inch iPad Air, Gurman reports that Apple is planning to announce new Apple Pencils and Magic Keyboards. (Likely with USB-C.) It's also expected to release the M3 MacBook Air in 13- and 15-inch models.Continue reading.Waymo gets approval to deploy its robotaxi service in Los AngelesDespite the company getting suspended in February.The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has permitted Waymo to expand its robotaxi operations to Los Angeles and more locations in the San Francisco Peninsula despite opposition from local groups and government agencies. In the CPUC's decision, it admitted receiving letters of protest from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance about Waymo's expansion.Following an incident where two of its robotaxis collided with a backward-facing pickup truck, the agency suspended Waymo's expansion efforts in February for up to 120 days. Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said in a statement to Wired that the company will take an incremental approach" when deploying the service in LA.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-20-years-of-engadget-121611170.html?src=rss

Apple is expected to have some big releases coming up soon - including new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, and the M3 MacBook Air - but it's reportedly not going to host a big spring launch event for the announcements. In the Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman reports that Apple is planning to announce the new products on its website with a series of online videos and marketing campaigns." If so, that'd be two years in a row that Apple has passed on a spring event, with this year being particularly stacked with new products.Whatever format the announcements come in, rumors suggest they'll be happening imminently. Gurman, however, predicts more conservatively that the hardware drop will come either this month or next. Along with the iPad Pro refresh and a new 12.9-inch iPad Air, Gurman reports that Apple is planning to announce new Apple Pencils and Magic Keyboards. It's also expected to release the M3 MacBook Air in 13-inch and 15-inch models.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-may-skip-a-spring-event-and-announce-new-ipads-m3-macbook-airs-online-instead-211706684.html?src=rss

A class action complaint filed against Apple on Friday in the northern California court has accused the company of creating unfair conditions to ensure iCloud remains the dominant cloud storage choice for its devices, according to Bloomberg Law. By placing surgical technological restraints" on the types of files other cloud providers can host, Apple has made it so only iCloud can offer Apple device users full-service storage, the complaint argues. According to the complaint, this has also allowed Apple to charge higher fees in the absence of any real threat to iCloud's dominance."The proposed class, represented by Hagens Berman, would cover tens of millions of customers in the US, Bloomberg Law notes. While iPhone and iPad users do have the option to store certain types of files with non-Apple cloud storage providers, there are some things - including app data and device settings - that only iCloud has permission to host. This leaves users to choose either the unattractive" option of juggling multiple cloud storage accounts to fully cover their backup needs, or iCloud's full-service convenience. The complaint argues that Apple's restrictions are arbitrary and work to stifle competition.Apple does not dominate because it built a superior cloud-storage product," the complaint states. From a security and functionality standpoint, iCloud is no better (and often inferior) to other cloud storage platforms. Instead, Apple has achieved market dominance by rigging the competitive playing field so that only iCloud can win." The case was only just filed and hasn't yet been granted class action status, but anyone who thinks they may be eligible to get in on it can fill out a form on the Hagens Berman website to find out more information.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/proposed-class-action-lawsuit-accuses-apple-of-monopolizing-cloud-storage-for-its-devices-190822242.html?src=rss

A two-pack of Sonos Era 100 wireless smart speakers is currently going for one of the best prices we've seen since the holiday season on Woot. You can get two of the speakers for $410, or $88 off the normal price. That's almost as low as the Black Friday price from last year, when the Sonos Era 100 speaker dropped to an individual price of $199. If you're looking for some decent midrange speakers to upgrade your home audio setup, the Sonos Era 100 is a solid option, especially at an 18 percent discount.The Sonos Era 100 was released last year as the successor to the Sonos One, and it brought a lot of improvements. It packs two tweeters and a bigger woofer than the Sonos One, making for high quality sound. The Sonos Era 100 is our choice for the best midrange smart speaker of the moment thanks to its impressive sound quality and features like Trueplay tuning, which Sonos made even better with this model. The Era 100 uses its built-in mics to tune itself for the optimal output for its location.With the Era 100, you also have the option to manually connect a device to the speaker via its USB-C port. Unfortunately, you'll most likely need an adapter to connect something like a turntable, but it's still nice to have the line-in option (the Sonos One did not). If you're hoping to use a voice assistant with the Era 100, you should know it's best suited for people working with the Alexa ecosystem. The speaker supports Alexa and Sonos' own voice assistant, but it does not work with Google Assistant.The Sonos Era 100 is a good choice for multi-room audio or a home theater setup, and can be coupled with a soundbar for an even better experience. It also has better on-device controls compared to the Sonos One, and a physical mic switch for when you want to be sure it's not listening.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/a-two-pack-of-sonos-era-100-smart-speakers-is-88-off-right-now-161512036.html?src=rss

We're back, having had to say goodbye and part with some great coworkers friends here at Engadget last week. Since then, we've covered everything at note at MWC 2024, including some sci-fi-level concepts from Lenovo that may never make it to stores but can still, well, hold our desensitized tech journalist's attention. Meanwhile, Nintendo is, once again, taking emulators and pirates to task in the courts. But this time could prove crucial for the future of emulators. A reminder: Nintendo's new console is set to launch in 2025. Coming up next week, Engadget's 20th anniversary. We're older than YouTube!This week:: Lenovo's concept laptop looks like a Star Trek prop:: Nintendo steps up its fight against game piracy:: The Barbie phone debuts at MWC 2024Read this:I write reviews too! Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes the characters and world reintroduced with Remake and does a better job at scaling it all up. Instead of playing in a single city, this time, it's a world tour. There's also an expanded roster of playable characters, almost doubling Remake's total. But there's only one big question: Does Aerith survive?Like email more than video? Subscribe right here for daily reports, direct to your inbox.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-lenovos-sci-fi-see-through-laptop-nintendo-versus-emulators-and-more-160031142.html?src=rss

Incredible footage released by Varda Space Industries gives us a first-person view of a space capsule's return trip to Earth, from the moment it separates from its carrier satellite in orbit all the way through its fiery reentry and bumpy arrival at the surface. Varda's W-1 capsule landed at the Utah Test and Training Range, a military site, on February 21 in a first for a commercial company. It spent roughly eight months leading up to that in low Earth orbit, stuck in regulatory limbo while the company waited for the government approvals it needed to land on US soil, according to Ars Technica.Here's a video of our capsule ripping through the atmosphere at mach 25, no renders, raw footage," the company posted on X alongside clips from reentry. Varda also shared a 28-minute video of W-1's full journey home from LEO on YouTube.

Lunar night has come around again, presenting yet another test for the two landers that recently arrived on the moon's surface. Both Japan's SLIM spacecraft and Intuitive Machines' Odysseus have gone to sleep for the two-week-long stretch of darkness, the two teams confirmed at the end of this week. There's no guarantee that they'll be able to resume operations afterward, but they'll try to reestablish contact when the time comes.While the solar powered landers weren't built to withstand the frigid lunar night, SLIM - which has been on the moon since January 19 - has already beaten the odds before to pull through last month. It'll be the first lunar night for Odysseus, which landed on February 22.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has given Waymo permission to expand its robotaxi operations to Los Angeles and more locations in the San Francisco Peninsula despite opposition from local groups and government agencies. "Waymo may begin fared driverless passenger service operations in the specified areas of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Peninsula, effective today," the regulator wrote in its decision (PDF). As CNBC notes, Waymo has been testing its driverless vehicles in those locations for a while now, but this decision will allow it to charge passengers for their robotaxi rides.In the CPUC's decision, it admitted that it received letters of protests regarding Waymo's expansion from the City of South San Francisco, the County of San Mateo, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance. And, it received those letters before the agency suspended Waymo's expansion efforts in February for up to 120 days following the Alphabet-owned company's revelation that it had issued a recall for its vehicles. Waymo reported back then that two of its robotaxis collided with a backwards-facing pickup truck that was being towed in December 2023 because its software predicted the truck's movements incorrectly. The company had to develop and deploy a fix to its fleet.LA Mayor Karen Bass previously sent a letter to the CPUC (PDF), stating her concerns about the regulator's decision to allow autonomous vehicles to operate in her city. "To date, local jurisdictions like Los Angeles have had little to no input in AV deployment and are already seeing significant harm and disruption," she wrote. David Canepa, vice president for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, also said in a statement regarding this recent development: "I'm confused and a bit suspicious that the CPUC took only 11 days to change its mind on the suspension. I find this to be egregious and disingenuous. We have had no talks to address our concerns and it says to me that neither Waymo nor the CPUC care about local concerns the public safety of our residents."Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina, however, assures the public in a statement to Wired that the company will take an "incremental approach" when it comes to deploying the service in LA. It also has "no immediate plans" to expand its service in San Francisco. In addition, she said Waymo will continue to "work closely with city officials, local communities, and [its] partners." Ilina has also noted that while the CPUC did get letters of protest, it also received letters of support for Waymo's expansion from 81 organizations and individuals. They include letters from various groups for the elderly and people with disabilities, local community councils, as well as transportation advocates.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/waymo-gets-approval-to-deploy-its-robotaxi-service-in-los-angeles-100018409.html?src=rss

OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk has sued the company, his fellow co-founders, associated businesses and unidentified others. He claims that, by chasing profits, they're violating OpenAI's status as a non-profit and its foundational contractual agreements to develop AI for the benefit of humanity."The suit alleges that OpenAI has become a closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion and holds a 49 percent stake. Microsoft uses OpenAI tech to power generative AI tools such as Copilot.According to the filing, under OpenAI's current board, it is allegedly developing and refining an artificial general intelligence (AGI) to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity. This was a stark betrayal of the Founding Agreement."The suit defines AGI as "a machine having intelligence for a wide variety of tasks like a human." Musk argues in the suit that GPT-4, which is purportedly "better at reasoning than average humans," is tantamount to AGI and is "a de facto Microsoft proprietary algorithm."Musk has long expressed concerns over AGI. He claims the theoretical tech posits "a grave threat to humanity," particularly "in the hands of a closed, for-profit company like Google."According to the filing, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and fellow co-founder Greg Brockman persuaded Musk to help them start the non-profit and to fund its early operations in a bid to counter Google's advancements in the AGI space with DeepMind. He noted that their initial agreement called for OpenAI's tech to be "freely available" to the public. Musk claims to have donated $44 million to the non-profit between 2016 and 2020 (he stepped down as an OpenAI board member in 2018). As TechCrunchreports, Musk previously said he was offered a stake in OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary, but rejected it due to "a principled stand."Muskl, of course, has some skin in the game. Since the public debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, there's been a battle between tech giants to offer the best generative AI tools. Musk joined that rat race when his AI company, xAI, rolled out ChatGPT rival Grok to Premium+ subscribers on his X social network last year.When Altman swiftly returned to power after OpenAI's board shockingly fired him in November, he's said to have appointed a new group of directors that is less technically minded and more business-focused. Microsoft was appointed as a non-voting observer. The new board consisted of members with more experience in profit-centric enterprises or politics than in AI ethics and governance," the lawsuit alleges.The suit accuses the defendants of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair business practices. Musk is seeking a jury trial and a ruling that forces OpenAI to stick to its original non-profit mission. He also wants it to be banned from monetizing tech it developed as a non-profit for the benefit of OpenAI leadership as well as Microsoft and other partners.Competition regulators in the US, the UK and European Union are said to be examining OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft. It was reported this week that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether OpenAI misled investors. Several news organizations have sued OpenAI and Microsoft as well, alleging that ChatGPT repurposes their work "verbatim or nearly verbatim" without attribution, infringing upon their copyright in the process.In a couple of internal memos seen by Bloomberg, OpenAI said it "categorically disagrees" with the lawsuit Musk has filed. Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon denied that OpenAI has become a "de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft and said that Musk's claims "may stem from [his] regrets about not being involved with the company today." Altman also said in another memo that Musk is his hero and that he misses the person he knew who competed with others by building better technology.Update, March 02, 2023, 1:47AM ET: This story has been updated to include OpenAI's internal memos about the lawsuit.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-sues-openai-and-sam-altman-for-allegedly-ditching-non-profit-mission-160722736.html?src=rss

Meta is starting to bring the Threads API online, though it will still be some time before it's widely accessible to developers. The company has begun testing its new developer tools with a handful of companies, Meta engineer Jesse Chen shared in a post on Threads.According to Chen, whose post was first spotted by TechCrunch, the API is currently in beta" but a wider rollout could come by the end of June." The initial group of companies testing out the beta version of the API include social media management platforms Sprinklr, Hootsuite, Social News Desk and Sprout Social. Meta is also working with tech news aggregator Techmeme and live video platform Grabyo. For now, it sounds like the API will primarily enable the publishing of content to Threads from these services, but Chen said there are also plans to enable reply moderation and insights capabilities."Having an API could help Threads attract more publishers and power users, who often rely on third-party software for posting and analytics. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has previously expressed some reluctance to woo publishers, saying that his concern" was that a dedicated API would mean a lot more publisher content and not much more creator content." (Mosseri has also said he doesn't want to amplify news on the platform.")But with 130 million users, Threads is starting to look more and more like a viable alternative to X, and offering professional-level tools is a good way to get publishers and brands to post more to the platform. Having an API could also, potentially, aid the company's plans to support interoperability with Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse, though Meta hasn't publicly discussed its API in that context,.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-starting-to-test-the-threads-api-with-third-party-developers-200125403.html?src=rss

Apple has walked back its decision to remove home screen web apps in the European Union (EU). After initially blaming its decision to ditch them on the Digital Markets Act's (DMA) requirement to support non-WebKit browsers, Apple now says European users will return to enjoying the same web app experience from before when iOS 17.4 arrives early this month.We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU," Apple wrote Friday in an updated developer support document. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS."Progressive web apps (PWAs) act much like native apps with features like dedicated windows, notifications and local storage. Apple removed them for European customers in the second iOS 17.4 beta, instead asking if users want to open the website in Safari.At the time, the company claimed web app support could compromise security, given the DMA's requirement to support non-WebKit browser engines. Addressing the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps using alternative browser engines would require building an entirely new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS and was not practical to undertake given the other demands of the DMA and the very low user adoption of Home Screen web apps," the company wrote in February.The Open Web Advocacy organization chimed in quickly to criticize Apple's now-reversed move. Apple has had 15 years to facilitate true browser competition worldwide, and nearly two years since the DMA's final text," the organization wrote in February. It could have used that time to share functionality it historically self-preferenced to Safari with other browsers. Inaction and silence speaks volumes."The EU didn't sound much happier about the web app removal. European Commission officials said in late February they were probing Apple's decision in what sounded like the build-up to a formal investigation. The Financial Times reported that regulators sent developers questions about the impact of Apple's PWA removal.Whatever may have happened between then and now to change Apple's mind, it's remaining tight-lipped. Instead, the company is framing its reversal as a simple response to requests" it received to continue offering home screen web apps. Perhaps EU officials assured the iPhone maker the company wouldn't need to support PWAs from other browser engines, or maybe the company merely wanted to head off a formal probe (and the bad PR it could generate). Regardless, only European iOS 17.4 beta users are without web apps, and they'll have them back once the software's final version arrives.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-backtracks-on-plans-to-get-rid-of-web-apps-on-iphones-in-the-eu-195232177.html?src=rss

I knew what I was getting into when I sat down for a press screening of Dune Part 2: A towering sci-fi epic best viewed on an enormous theater screen, just like Denis Villeneuve's first Dune film. What I didn't realize was that it would also give me a serious back massage - it really does kick butt. That was my experience at an Atlanta-area AMC, where the film whipped the Dolby Cinema seats into such a frenzy that, for one thrilling sequence, I felt like I was actually riding a sandworm plowing through the spice-filled desert of Arrakis.Now, I can't guarantee you'll have the same ride at a normal theater (unless the subwoofer is cranked up obscenely high). What makes AMC's Dolby Cinema locations unique is that they feature rumbling transducers in every recliner seat, in addition to powerful dual-laser Dolby Vision projectors and enveloping Atmos sound. I've seen tons of films in AMC Dolby Cinemas since those screens began rolling out in 2017, but Dune Part 2 is the first time the haptic seats actually felt like they enhanced my moviegoing experience. When I rushed out to the bathroom in the middle of the film, I noticed that my body was still vibrating, the way you sort of feel after a deep massage by expert fingers.Technically, you're still better off watching Dune Part 2 in IMAX theaters - it was actually filmed for that enormous format, and true IMAX theaters also deliver enough walloping low-end sound to shake your core without the need for rumbling seats. But it's hard to find full-sized IMAX screens, and for most US viewers it'll likely be easier to find a nearby AMC Dolby Cinema.Let's be clear: I'm no fan of theater gimmicks, like the moving seats and various weather effects in 4DX cinemas. So I'm genuinely surprised how much I appreciated a heavy dose of recliner rumbling in Dune Part 2. Perhaps it's because the film is also fanbtastic - not that I expected any less from Villeneuve, a director who turned the first Dune into a cinematic feast and was also miraculously able to deliver a Blade Runner sequel that surpassed the original.Photo by NIKO TAVERNISE for Warner Bros.Dune Part 2 picks up where the first film abruptly ended, with Paul Atreides and his mother making their way through the desert with its native inhabitants, the Fremen. It's immediately clear that this isn't actually a sequel to the first film, it's genuinely a second half, with all of the action and more spectacle that many felt were lacking before.Personally, though, I just loved being back in Villeneuve's vision of Frank Herbert's universe. As much as I appreciate the bombastic costumes and environments from David Lynch's Dune adaptation, I find this iteration far more immersive: Every room seems genuinely lived in, every custom feels like an organic outgrowth of a society that's existed for thousands of years. It's the sort of attention to detail we don't often see in films and TV today, when it's easier to shoot faux desert scenes on ILM's StageCraft set (aka "The Volume," the technology that was so thoughtlessly implemented in Quantumania).Warner Bros.Even if you don't end up seeing Dune Part 2 in a Dolby Cinema (I swear, this isn't an ad), it's a film worth seeing on the big screen. Its vast scale and ambition can't be contained on a TV, and its elaborate soundscape (including Hans Zimmer going extra hard for the score) deserves more than tinny flatscreen speakers or a mere soundbar.Dune has always seemed like an unadaptable work, something so massive that it could only truly exist in Frank Herbert's shroom-filled dreams. But once again, Villeneuve and his creative team have seemingly done the impossible: They've turned the fantasy of Dune into a cinematic reality. You owe it to yourself to pay tribute.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dune-2-review-dolby-cinema-194415814.html?src=rss

This week, Adobe revealed an experimental audio AI tool to join its image-based ones in Photoshop. Described by the company as an early-stage generative AI music generation and editing tool," Adobe's Project Music GenAI Control can create music (and other audio) from text prompts, which it can then fine-tune in the same interface.Adobe frames the Firefly-based technology as a creative ally that - unlike generative audio experiments like Google's MusicLM - goes a step further and skips the hassle of moving the output to external apps like Pro Tools, Logic Pro or GarageBand for editing. Instead of manually cutting existing music to make intros, outros, and background audio, Project Music GenAI Control could help users to create exactly the pieces they need-solving workflow pain points end-to-end," Adobe wrote in an announcement blog post.The company suggests starting with text inputs like powerful rock," happy dance" or sad jazz" as a foundation. From there, you can enter more prompts to adjust its tempo, structure and repetition, increase its intensity, extend its length, remix entire sections or create loops. The company says it can even transform audio based on a reference melody.Adobe says the resulting music is safe for commercial use. It's also integrating its Content Credentials (nutrition labels" for generated content), an attempt to be transparent about your masterpiece's AI-assisted nature.One of the exciting things about these new tools is that they aren't just about generating audio-they're taking it to the level of Photoshop by giving creatives the same kind of deep control to shape, tweak, and edit their audio. It's a kind of pixel-level control for music," Adobe Research scientist Nicholas Bryan wrote.The project is a collaboration with the University of California, San Diego and the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Adobe's announcement emphasized Project Music GenAI Control's experimental nature. (It didn't reveal much of its interface in the video above, suggesting it may not have a consumer-facing UI yet.)So you may have to wait a while before the feature (presumably) makes its way into Adobe's Creative Cloud suite.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/adobes-latest-ai-experiment-generates-music-from-text-184019169.html?src=rss

Spotify has added another subscription option. This time around, it's offering a plan that has little to do with music. The Audiobooks Access Tier (which is US-only for now) offers 15 hours of audiobook listening each month for $10. You'll have access to Spotify's library of more than 200,000 titles You can, of course, still listen to ad-supported music via Spotfy's free tier.At first glance, it might seem odd for Spotify to offer an audiobook-only tier at this price. Spotify Premium, which costs $11 per month, has the same 15 hours of audiobook listening time as well as other perks. However, audiobooks often take somewhere in the realm of between seven and 11 hours to listen to.As such, Spotify is undercutting Audible to a degree. That platform offers one audiobook credit per month for $15. So, for $5 less with Spotify, you might be able to listen to roughly two books per month (unless you prefer to enjoy epic novels that are around 1,000-plus pages long in print). It's worth bearing in mind, though, that unused listening time does not carry over into the next month.Spotify noted that, since it started offering 15 hours of audiobook listening to Premium subscribers at no extra cost in November, there's been a 45 percent increase in those on the free tier searching for and interacting with audiobook material every day (the company also sells audiobooks on its web player). That uptick in interest is a decent enough reason for Spotify to try an audiobook-only subscription tier.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-rolls-out-an-audiobook-only-subscription-180829039.html?src=rss

Axios, a site known for political analysis and extensive use of bullet points, has joined the ranks of pundits fawning over Mark Zuckerberg's PR strategy. The Meta CEO, they claim, is (as originally headlined) "having a PR moment" which is "casting a halo effect on the company itself." That's obviously untrue, but let's say it in a format more likely to reach Axios's audience.The big picture: Zuckerberg's recent PR blitz is neither out of character nor a sign of a freshly rehabbed image. In fact, Meta and Zuckerberg are staring down one of the biggest crises they've ever faced.Why it matters: Praising the PR strategy of a gigantic company which is credibly accused of enabling a variety of mass-scale harms is, at best, irresponsible, even if that PR strategy was working - which it isn't.

It's 1995, and I'm trying to watch a video on the internet. I entered the longest, most complex URL I'd ever seen into AOL's web browser to view a trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson's long-awaited film adaptation of Mortal Kombat. I found it in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, tucked away in the bottom of a full-page ad for the film. Online marketing at the time was such an afterthought, studios didn't even bother grabbing short and memorable web addresses for their major releases, let alone dedicated websites. (Star Trek Generations and Stargate were among the few early exceptions.)After the interminable process of transcribing the URL from print, I gathered my family around our Packard Bell PC (powered by an Intel 486 DX and, let's say, 8MB of RAM), hit return and waited as the video slowly came down our 33.6kbps dial-up connection. And waited. It took 25 minutes for it to fully load. After corralling my family once again, I hit play and was treated to an horrendously compressed, low-resolution version of the trailer I'd been dreaming about for months. It was unwatchable. The audio was shit. But that was the moment I became obsessed with online video.I imagined a futuristic world beyond my boxy CRT set and limited cable TV subscription. A time after VHS tapes when I could just type in a URL and enjoy a show or movie while eating one of those rehydrated Pizza Hut pies from Back to the Future 2. The internet would make it so.Looking back now, almost 30 years later, and 20 years after Engadget sprung to life, I realize my 11-year-old self was spot on. The rise of online video transformed the internet from a place where we'd browse the web, update our LiveJournals, steal music and chat with friends on AIM to a place where we could also just sit back and relax. For Millennials, it quickly made our computer screens more important than our TVs. What I didn't expect, though, was that streaming video would also completely upend Hollywood and the entire entertainment industry.If my experience with the Mortal Kombat trailer didn't make it clear enough, video was a disaster on the internet in the '90s. Most web surfers (as we were known as the time) were stuck with terribly slow modems and similarly unimpressive desktop systems. But really, the problem goes back to dealing with video on computers.Apple's Quicktime format made Macs the ideal platform for multimedia creators, and, together with its Hypercard software for creating interactive multimedia databases, it spawned the rise of Myst and the obsession with mixed-media educational software. PCs relied on MPEG-1, which debuted in 1993 and was mainly for VCDs and some digital TV providers. The problem with both formats was space: Hard drives were notoriously small and expensive at the time, which made CDs the main option for accessing any sort of video on your computer. If your computer only had a 500MB hard drive, a slim disc that could store 650MB seemed like magic.But that also meant video had no place in the early internet. RealPlayer was the first true stab at delivering streaming video and audio online - and while it was better than waiting 20 minutes for a huge file to download, it was still hard to actually stream media when you were constrained by a dial-up modem. I remember seeing buffering alerts more than I did any actual RealPlayer content. It took the proliferation of broadband internet access and one special app from Adobe to make web video truly viable.While we may curse its name today, it's worth remembering how vital Macromedia Flash was to the web in the early 2000s. (We've been around long enough to cover Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia in 2005!) Its support for vector graphics, stylized text and simple games injected new life into the internet, and it allowed just about anyone to create that content. HTML just wasn't enough. Ask any teen or 20-something who was online at the time, and they could probably still recite most of The End of the World by heart.With 2002's Flash MX 6, Macromedia added support for Sorenson's Spark video codec, which opened the floodgates for online video. (It was eventually replaced in 2005 by the VP6 codec from On2, a company Google acquired in 2009.) Macromedia's video offering looked decent, loaded quickly and was supported on every browser that had the Flash plugin, making it the ideal player choice for video websites.The adult entertainment industry latched onto Flash video first, as you'd expect. Porn sites also relied on the technology to lock down purchased videos and entice viewers to other sites with interactive ads. But it was YouTube (and, to a lesser extent, Vimeo) that truly showed mainstream users what was possible with video on the internet. After launching in February 2005, YouTube grew so quickly it was serving 100 million videos a day by July 2006, making up 60 percent of all online videos at the time. It's no wonder Google rushed to acquire the company for $1.65 billion later that year (arguably the search giant's smartest purchase ever).After YouTube's shockingly fast rise, it wasn't too surprising to see Netflix announce its own Watch Now streaming service in 2007, which also relied on Flash for video. At $17.99 a month for 18 hours of video, with a library of only 1,000 titles, Netflix's streaming offering didn't seem like much of a threat to Blockbuster, premium cable channels or cinemas at first. But the company wisely expanded Watch Now to all Netflix subscribers in 2008 and removed any viewing cap: The Netflix binge was born.It's 2007, and I'm trying to watch a video on the internet. In my post-college apartment, I hooked up my desktop computer to an early-era (720p) Philips HDTV, and all of a sudden, I had access to thousands of movies, instantly viewable over a semi-decent cable connection. I didn't need to worry about seeding torrents or compiling Usenet files (things I'd only heard about from dirty pirates, you see). I didn't have to stress about any Blockbuster late fees. The movies were just sitting on my TV, waiting for me to watch them. It was the dream for digital media fanatics: Legal content available at the touch of a button. What a concept!Little did I know then that the Watch Now concept would basically take over the world. Netflix initially wanted to create hardware to make the service more easily accessible, but it ended up spinning off that idea, and Roku was born. The company's streaming push also spurred on the creation of Hulu, announced in late 2007 as a joint offering between NBCUniversal and News Corp. to bring their television shows online. Disney later joined, giving Hulu the full power of all the major broadcast TV networks. Instead of a stale library of older films, Hulu allowed you to watch new shows on the internet the day after they aired. Again, what a concept!Amazon, it turns out, was actually earlier to the streaming party than Netflix. It launched the Amazon Unbox service in 2006, which was notable for letting you watch videos as they were being downloaded onto your computer. It was rebadged to Amazon Video On Demand in 2008 (a better name, which actually described what it did), and then it became Amazon Instant Video in 2011, when it was tied together with premium Prime memberships.As the world of streaming video exploded, Flash's reputation kept getting worse. By the mid-2000s, it was widely recognized as a notoriously buggy program, one so insecure it could lead to malware infecting your PC. (I worked in IT at the time, and the vast majority of issues I encountered on Windows PCs stemmed entirely from Flash.) When the iPhone launched without support for Flash in 2007, it was clear the end was near. YouTube and other video sites moved over to HTML5 video players at that point, and it became the standard by 2015.By the early 2010s, YouTube and Amazon weren't happy just licensing content from Hollywood, they wanted some of the action themselves. So the original programming boom began, which kicked off with mostly forgettable shows (anyone remember Netflix's Lillyhammer or Amazon's Alpha House? Hemlock Grove? They existed, I swear!).But then came House of Cards in 2013, Netflix's original series created by playwright Beau Willimon, executive produced (and partially directed) by renowned filmmaker David Fincher and starring Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (before he was revealed to be a monster). It had all of the ingredients of a premium TV show, and, thanks to Fincher's deft direction, it looked like something that would be right at home on HBO. Most importantly for Netflix, it got some serious awards love, earning nine Emmy nominations in 2013 and walking away with three statues.By that point, we could watch streaming video in many more places than our computer's web browser. You could pull up just about anything on your phone and stream it over 4G LTE, or use your smart TV's built-in apps to catch up on SNL over Hulu. Your Xbox could also serve as the centerpiece of your home entertainment system. And if you wanted the best possible streaming experience, you could pick up an Apple TV or Roku box. You could start a show on your phone while sitting on the can, then seamlessly continue it when you made your way back to your TV. This was certainly some sort of milestone for humanity, though I'm torn on it actually being a net win for our species.Instant streaming video. Original TV shows and movies. This was the basic formula that pushed far too many companies to offer their own streaming solutions over the past decade. In the blink of an eye, we got HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV+, Peacock, and Paramount+. There's AMC+, powered almost entirely by the promise of unlimited Walking Dead shows. A Starz streaming service. And there are countless other companies trying to be a Netflix for specific niches, like Shudder for horror, Criterion Channel for cinephiles and Britbox for the tea-soaked murder-mystery crowd.And let's not forget the wildest, most boneheaded streaming swing: Quibi. That was Dreamworks mastermind Jeffrey Katzenberg's nearly $2 billion mobile video play. Somehow he and his compatriots thought people would pay $5 a month for the privilege of watching videos on their phones, even though YouTube was freely available.Every entertainment company thinks it can be as successful as Disney, which has a vast and beloved catalog of content as well as full control of Lucasfilm and Marvel's properties. But, realistically, there aren't enough eyeballs and willing consumers for every streaming service to succeed. Some will die off entirely, while others will bring their content to Netflix and more popular services (like Paramount is doing with Star Trek Prodigy). There are already early rumors of Comcast (NBCUniversal's parent company) and Paramount considering some sort of union between Peacock and Paramount+.Online video was supposed to save us from the tyranny of expensive and chaotic cable bills, and despite the messiness of the arena today, that's still mostly true. Sure, if you actually wanted to subscribe to most of the major streaming services, you'd still end up paying a hefty chunk of change. But hey, at least you can cancel at will, and you can still choose precisely what you're paying for. Cable would never.It's 2024, and I'm trying to watch a video on the internet. I slip on the Apple Vision Pro, a device that looks like it could have been a prop for The Matrix. I launch Safari in a 150-inch window floating above my living room and watch the Mortal Kombat trailer on YouTube. That whole process takes 10 seconds. I never had the chance to see the trailer or the original film in the theater. But thanks to the internet (and Apple's crazy expensive headset), I can replicate that experience.Perhaps that's why, no matter how convoluted and expensive streaming video services become, I'll always think: At least it's better than watching this thing over dial-up.To celebrate Engadget's 20th anniversary, we're taking a look back at the products and services that have changed the industry since March 2, 2004.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/streaming-video-changed-the-internet-forever-170014082.html?src=rss

This Saturday, on March 2, 2024, Engadget turns 20. Originally founded by Peter Rojas - you can read more about those early days here - the site has had eight editors-in-chief and, to my count, seven parent organizations to answer to. What started as a truly influential tech blog has morphed into a media organization aiming to break news, give no-BS buying advice and highlight the stories in tech that matter. We have written millions of words, we've won awards and we've somehow survived several media apocalypses. It's been a ride - and if you've been with us since the start, we salute you.To mark the occasion, our team has been thinking about how the tech industry has changed over the past two decades. At the heart of our anniversary package is a collection of over a dozen retrospectives of seminal gadgets and apps that did not exist 20 years ago, illustrated by the brilliant Koren Shadmi.Engadget, believe it or not, is older than YouTube, the iPhone, Uber, WhatsApp, Android, Tesla EVs and countless other things that are a huge part of our lives today.We planned to open this month of celebration with a letter from the editor, but last Friday, Engadget's parent company laid off several people from our small team, including our editor-in-chief, Dana Wollman, and our managing editor, Terrence O'Brien.Though the site does not yet have an editor-in-chief, we do have a strong leadership team that has collectively been at the site for decades. There is no way for things to be business as usual," but we are committed to pushing Engadget forward.While it's a bittersweet time to be celebrating an anniversary, the show must go on. Having edited Dana's letter before it was due to be published, I want to take the opportunity to borrow her main talking points, which are more important to the remaining team than ever before:

The latest version of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is on sale for $40, which matches the record low Black Friday price. The streaming stick normally sells for $60, so this is a discount of 33 percent.This is the most advanced streaming stick Amazon has ever made. As the name suggests, it can easily handle 4K video, and it also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+. The stick integrates with Wi-Fi 6E and boasts 16GB of internal storage, up from eight with the previous generation. There's a new 2.0 GHz quad-core processor, on-device Alexa and a remote that gives you control over affiliated smart home devices.This is also the first-ever streaming stick to feature Amazon's AI Art feature. There's a built-in image generation model, so you can set the screensaver to be, well, whatever you want. If the idea of a six-pawed cat eating a plate of slightly-off spaghetti doesn't do it for you, the stick also allows access to more than 2,000 pieces of actual art for use as screensavers.This is part of a larger Amazon sale on all of its various streaming devices, from sticks to actual televisions. Of note, the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite has been discounted to $20, which nearly matches a record low price. The Fire TV Stick Lite made our list of the best streaming devices, thanks to its simple interface and support for all of the major streaming platforms.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/the-new-amazon-fire-tv-stick-4k-max-is-on-sale-for-a-record-low-of-40-164541303.html?src=rss

It's Friday, which means it's time for another roundup of the week's best tech deals. This week's highlights include a small but rare discount on Sony's PlayStation 5, as a bundle that includes Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is $50 off and down to $450 at Best Buy. If you don't need a new game console, Apple's AirPods Pro are back at an all-time low of $189, while Amazon's Echo Show 8 and Fire TV Stick 4K Max are at respective lows of $90 and $40. A number of recommended Anker accessories are on sale as well, including the Soundcore Space A40, our favorite budget earbuds, down to $53 and the PowerConf C200, one of our favorite webcams, down to $48. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still buy today. 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/the-ps5-slim-spider-man-2-bundle-drops-to-450-plus-the-rest-of-the-weeks-best-tech-deals-162102658.html?src=rss

Razer's Blade family of gaming laptops are among the most premium on the market. And while there aren't a ton of major changes on the 2024 Blade 14, for the first time ever, it will be available in both classic black and Mercury (aka silver) at launch. Now this might not sound like a big deal, but it means you can get a portable rig with strong performance that doesn't shout about it like a lot of other gaming laptops do. When you combine that with an exquisite chassis milled from a single block of aluminum and a wealth of ports, you end up with a system that straddles the line between a beefy gaming machine and a portable all-rounder.Design: Now in silver from the jumpOn the outside, Razer is definitely taking the approach of If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That's not a bad thing on a laptop that's pretty much the closest thing to a MacBook Pro for gaming. The entire system feels incredibly solid with only the slightest bit of flex on spots like the lid. And unlike a MacBook, the Blade offers a wide variety of ports including four USB (two 3.2 Type-A and two Type-C with USB 4), a 3.5mm audio jack and a full-size HDMI 2.1 connector).Plus, there's a dedicated power socket so you don't need to hog an extra slot while charging. The Blade 14 even supports USB-PD (power delivery) so you can use third-party chargers in a pinch, though you won't get full performance this way due to a lower 100-watt limit (versus 230 watts when using Razer's included brick).The two small downsides to the Blade 14 are that its super sturdy frame weighs a touch more (4.05 pounds) than similar laptops like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (3.31 pounds). You also don't get an SD card reader like you do on the bigger Blade 16. That's a bummer for anyone planning to occasionally use this thing as a photo or video editing machine, but it's not a deal breaker.Display and webcam: Bright and blazing-fastPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetThough there's only a single display option for the Blade 14, it's a good one. It features a 2560 x 1600 LCD panel that supports AMD FreeSync and a gamut that covers 100% of the DCI-P3 spectrum. It's also more than bright enough at over 450 nits while the matte anti-glare coating helps keep reflections to a minimum. This means not only do games and movies look great with vivid hues, it's also accurate enough for editing. The only thing I wish there was a config with an OLED panel like there is on the Blade 16.Meanwhile, above the display, there's a 1080p webcam with an IR sensor for Windows Hello. But my favorite thing about this component is that Razer included a tiny physical shutter, which should reduce concerns about government agents spying on you.Performance: Class-leading speedPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetThe Blade 14 is available in two basic configurations: a base model with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS chip, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage and an NVIDIA RTX 4060 GPU. There's also an upgraded model with 32GB of memory and an RTX 4070 (which is the version we reviewed). In short, this thing flies, delivering about as much performance as you can get out of a 14-inch laptop. In PCMark 10, the Blade 14 scored 7,436 versus 6,170 from an ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H chip. But more importantly, it can handle almost any game you can throw at it with ease.In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and ultra settings, the Blade 14 hit 101 fps compared to 67 fps from an MSI Stealth 14 Studio with an RTX 4060. When I increased the resolution to 1440p, it still pumped out a very playable 66 fps. Meanwhile in Returnal at 1080p and epic presets, Razer enjoyed a similar lead reaching 92 fps versus 78 for the MSI. So unless you feel like moving up to a larger 15- or 16-inch system with room for an RTX 4080 or above, this performance is essentially as good as it gets in this segment.Battery Life: Better than expected unless your gaming unpluggedPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetGaming laptops are notorious for short run times. However, on PCMark 10's Moden Office rundown test, the Blade 14 turned in a respectable time of 6 hours and 46 minutes. That's more than an hour longer than the MSI Stealth Studio 14 (5:19) and nearly good enough to last through an entire workday. But it still falls way short of more typical ultraportables without discrete graphics like the ZenBook 14 OLED (12:43).That said, even with some power-saving tricks like automatically reducing its display to 60Hz when running on battery, you're still going to want to keep the Razer's power brick handy. When I played Teamfight Tactics, the Blade's battery dropped from 85 to 45 percent after a single 40-minute game.Wrap-upPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetWith a starting price of $2,200 or $2,700 as configured, the Blade 14 is on the pricey side. But that's not really new for Razer's laptops and there's no doubt this thing delivers a thoroughly premium experience, with its excellent build quality, beautiful display and great performance. It's equally adept at gaming or editing on the go, and with the silver model being available at launch, you can get a machine that blends in better outside of LAN parties. The main thing that would stop me from buying one is the existence of ASUS' refreshed ROG Zephyrus G14, which has similar specs and a much lower starting price of $1,600. But if you have the means, the Blade 14 won't do you wrong.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/razer-blade-14-2024-review-a-portable-but-pricey-powerhouse-specs-price-160020891.html?src=rss

Fisker has announced its future plans alongside preliminary 2023 and Q4 earnings, and it's not looking great for the EV manufacturer. The company plans to lay off 15 percent of its workforce - nearly 200 people - as it shifts from a direct-to-consumer to a Dealer Partner model. The company is halting all investments in upcoming models and will resume only if in partnership with another automaker.The company's fourth-quarter revenue increased to $200.1 million from $128.3 million in Q3. However, its gross margin was negative 35 percent, and it lost $1.23 per share. Its sole EV on the market, the Ocean SUV, also had 10,193 units produced but 4,929 vehicles delivered.The automaker first introduced its pivot to a Dealer Partner Model in January and claims it has received interest from 250 dealers across North America and Europe, along with 13 signed agreements. "We are aware that the industry has entered a turbulent, and unpredictable period," Henrik Fisker, chairman and CEO of Fisker, said in a statement. "With that understanding and taking the lessons learned from 2023, we have put a plan in place to streamline the company as we prepare for another difficult year. We have adjusted our outlook for 2024 to be much more conservative than in 2023." The company plans to deliver between 20,000 and 22,000 Ocean models across the world.Fisker is currently negotiating with "a large automaker" for an investment and joint production of future EVs. This means that previously announced vehicle production, such as the Alaska EV pickup with humungous cup holders and a designated cowboy hat space, will be on hold indefinitely. Fisker originally planned to start production on the Alaska EV pickup in early 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fisker-halts-work-on-new-ev-models-until-it-finds-more-money-140050091.html?src=rss

After years of buildup, Fisker has finally started building its ambitious electric Ocean SUV in Austria. The company pledged to start production by the end of 2022, so it has met that target with around six weeks to spare.If you didn't lock in a pre-order for the EV swiftly, you may still be in for quite a wait before you get your hands on the Ocean. Fisker will ramp up production gradually. It plans to build more than 300 units in the first quarter of 2023, increasing to more than 8,000 the following quarter. For Q3, the aim is to make more than 15,000 units. All told, Fisker expects to assemble around 42,400 units in 2023.Two of the Ocean trims have sold out in the US for 2023 and the company has received more than 63,000 reservations in total. The limited-edition Ocean One trim, which is based on the high-end Ocean Extreme, required a $5,000 deposit and sold out within 30 days earlier this year. Fisker will crank out 5,000 units of the Ocean One before moving on to other variants.Peter Reiter PhotographyThe Ocean Extreme, which starts at $68,999, is capable of traveling 350 miles on a single charge, according to Fisker. The SUV boasts what the company claims is the first digital radar system as a safety feature. The Ocean Extreme has dual-motor, all-wheel-drive with 550 horsepower, which can accelerate the vehicle from 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. It also includes three driving modes, a 17.1-inch rotating screen you can play games on and a solar roof.The base-level Ocean Sport is selling for $37,499, while the mid-tier Ocean Ultra will set you back $49,999. The Sport has one 275 hp engine that can take the car from 0 to 60 mph in 6.6 seconds. The dual-motor Ultra has 540 horsepower and a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.9 seconds.Fisker claims the Ocean is the planet's "most sustainable vehicle." The SUV is being assembled in a carbon-neutral factory. The vehicle also includes more than 50 kg (110 pounds) of recycled, biodegradable and overall eco-conscious materials.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fisker-electric-ocean-suv-production-starts-173013409.html?src=rss

This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss some of the editorial changes happening at Engadget. We've lost some amazing colleagues, but we're still here aiming to deliver the best tech coverage possible. As for this week's news, we chat about the reported death of Apple's Project Titan" EV car project. It never felt quite real, but it still would have been fun to see.Here's a hot take: Maybe the Apple Car felt redundant since Tesla basically built it already. Say what you will about Elon Musk today, but Tesla certainly disrupted the car industry in all of the ways we'd expect Apple to. Agree? Disagree?Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!Topics

Video doorbells manufactured by a Chinese company called Eken, sold under different brands for around $30 each, have serious security issues, according to Consumer Reports. These doorbell cameras are sold on Walmart, Sears and even with an Amazon Choice badge on Amazon.As is often the case with basic technology products, the device is available under multiple brands, including Eken, Tuck, Fishbot, Rakeblue, Andoe, Gemee and Luckwolf, among others. Most pair with an app called Aiwitt.AmazonThese devices aren't encrypted and can expose the user's home IP address and WiFi network name to the internet, making it easy for scumbags to gain entry. Worse, somebody could easily take control of it by creating an account on the Aiwit app, going up to the doorbell and then pressing a button to put it into pairing mode, which then connects it with their phone.Worse still, even if the original owner regains control, the hijacker can still get time-stamped images from the doorbell, as long as they know its serial number.There's no way to protect yourself if you do own this doorbell series. Temu told Consumer Reports it's looking into the issue. Amazon, Sears and Shein reportedly didn't respond.- Mat SmithThe biggest stories you might have missedMicrosoft plans to streamline game upscaling across different graphics cardsThe best DACs for Apple Music LosslessThis week's gaming news: layoffs and weird PR emails You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!Dell XPS 16 laptop reviewBeauty and power come at a cost.EngadgetThe XPS 16 stands out from most other large laptops by combining power and beauty. But you'll have to suffer through some usability tradeoffs. For example, the XPS 16's invisible trackpad, a lovely divisive design feature, is still annoying and not for everyone. A lack of ports counteracts that minimalist design. (No HDMI, no SD card reader.)Continue reading.UK government wants to use AI to cut civil service jobsThat's not a typo.The UK government is actively promoting the use of AI to do the work normally done by civil servants, including drafting responses to parliamentary inquiries, the Financial Times reports.UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden will unveil a red box tool that can allegedly absorb and summarize information from reputable sources, like the parliamentary record. A separate instrument is also being trialed that should work for individual responses to public consultations. The Telegraph quoted Dowden arguing that implementing AI technology is critical to cutting civil service jobs - something he wants to do. It really is the only way, I think, if we want to get on a sustainable path to headcount reduction."Continue reading.Meta is killing the Facebook News tab in the US and AustraliaThe tab is already gone in the UK, France and Germany.In early April, the Facebook News tab will disappear for users in the US and Australia. Meta has announced it's pulling the dedicated tab to align [its] investments to [its] products and services people value the most." Meta added that the number of people using the News tab in the US and Australia over the past year has dropped by 80 percent.By pulling the News tab in Australia, the company will stop paying publishers in the country for their content after their current deals end. A few years ago, Facebook blocked Australian news links in response to the then-proposed law requiring companies like Meta to pay media organizations for their content. The company unblocked news links just a few days after striking deals with Australian media organizations.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-your-cheap-video-doorbell-may-have-serious-security-issues-121525353.html?src=rss

X has updated its abuse and harassment page in January, and it has added a new section that explains its new rule against intentionally using the wrong pronouns for a person or using a name they no longer go by. As noticed by Ars Technica, the new section entitled "Use of Prior Names and Pronouns" states that the service will "reduce the visibility of posts" that use pronouns for a person different from what they use for themselves and those who are now using a different name as part of their transition.The social networking service formerly known as Twitter removed its longtime policy against deadnaming and misgendering transgender individuals just as quietly back in April 2023. GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said at the time that X's decision was "the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike." It's worth noting that Elon Musk, the website's owner, has a history of liking and sharing anti-trans posts and talking points.Under the new policy, X will only act on a post if it hears from the target themselves "given the complexity of determining whether such a violation has occurred." That puts the onus on the target who might end up being blamed for not reporting if they choose to distance themselves from the abuse. Jenni Olson, GLAAD's senior director of social media safety, told Ars that the organization doesn't recommend self-reporting for social media platforms. Still, policies clearly prohibiting the deadnaming and misgendering of trans people are still better than vague ones that don't clarify whether or not they're in violation of a platform's rules, Olson said.X reduces the visibility of posts by removing them from search results, home timelines, trends and notifications. These posts will also be downranked in the replies section and can only be discovered through the authors' profiles. Finally, they will not be displayed on the X website or app with ads adjacent to them, which could prevent a repeat of the ad revenue losses the company suffered last year. In late 2023, advertisers pulled their campaigns from the website just before the holidays after Media Matters published a report showing ads on the website right next to antisemitic content.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-reinstates-policy-against-deadnaming-and-misgendering-114608696.html?src=rss

In early April, the Facebook News tab will start disappearing for users in the US and Australia. Meta has announced that it's deprecating the dedicated tab found in the bookmarks section of its social network as part of its efforts to "align [its] investments to [its] products and services people value the most." The company already retired the News tab in the UK, France and Germany in early December 2023, explaining that it's funneling its resources to other things that people want to see more of, such as short form videos.In Meta's new post, it said the number of people using the News tab in the US and Australia over the past year has dropped by 80 percent. News makes up less than three percent of what users see on Facebook apparently, and it's just not a big part of their experience. "We know that people don't come to Facebook for news and political content - they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests," the company wrote.By pulling the News tab in Australia, the company will also stop paying publishers in the country for their content after their current deals end. A few years ago, Facebook blocked news links in the country in response to the then-proposed law that would require companies like Meta to pay media organizations for their content. The company unblocked news links just a few days later after it started striking deals with Australian media organizations.According to The Age, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission believes that Google and Meta inked deals with dozens of outlets, including Guardian Australia and News Corp Australia, worth about $200 million a year. Meta is responsible for around one-third or $66 million of that total amount, meaning its decision is bound to have a huge impact on the news business in the country. And there seems to be no room for negotiation: The company made it clear in its announcement that it's not going to enter new commercial deals for traditional news content in any of the regions where it has already removed the News tab.Meta has not blocked news links in the aforementioned countries, however, and Facebook users can still access any that's been posted on the social network. Publishers can also continue posting links to their stories on their official pages as usual.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-killing-the-facebook-news-tab-in-the-us-and-australia-082750820.html?src=rss

Saber Interactive has reportedly found an exit strategy from the death grip of its parent company, Embracer Group AB. Bloomberg reported Thursday that a group of private investors" will buy the studio in a deal worth roughly $500 million. Saber would then become a private company with about 3,500 employees.Engadget emailed a spokesperson from Saber for confirmation about the alleged buyout. The studio declined to comment.The alleged agreement would be one of Embracer's most significant cost-cutting moves since the collapse of a reported $2 billion deal with a group backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Some criticized the imperiled deal as the gaming equivalent of sportswashing," using popular sporting acquisitions and partnerships to boost beleaguered governments' global images. That followed US intelligence's conclusion that the Saudi regime murdered The Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018.Other cost-cutting moves at Embracer have included laying off about 900 employees in September, cutting another 50 or so jobs at Chorus developer Fishlabs and implementing more layoffs at Tiny Tina's Wonderland developer Lost Boys Interactive, Beamdog, Crystal Dynamics and Saber subsidiary New World Interactive. Embracer also closed Saints Row studio Volition Games and Campfire Cabal.LucasArts / AspyrAccording to Bloomberg, Saber's sale won't affect the studio's role in developing an upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) remake. That game has already changed hands once: One of Saber's Eastern European studios took over from Aspyr Media in the summer of 2022.Aspyr had reportedly already been working on the game for years before providing a demo for Lucasfilm and Sony in June 2022; a week later, Aspyr fired its design director and art director. (Reports of the KOTOR demo costing a disproportionate amount of time and money may indicate a possible reason for the fallout.) By late that summer, Saber had taken over the development of the highly anticipated - and indefinitely delayed - remake.Embracer bought Saber for $525 million in 2020 as it scooped up gaming studios left and right. It acquired at least 27 companies during that period, folding some of them (Demiurge Studios and New World Interactive) into Saber. Bloomberg reports that the deal to sell Saber to private investors includes an option to bring along multiple Embracer subsidiaries."One studio that's far too big to be included in this transaction is Borderlands developer Gearbox Entertainment. However, Kotaku reported Thursday that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told staff this week that a decision about the studio's future had been made. He allegedly said he'd be able to share more details with them next month.In the meantime, a cloud of uncertainty envelops Gearbox - and Embracer's other remaining studios. I've personally been looking for roles elsewhere not just due to the Embracer layoff fears, but due to pay," an anonymous developer reportedly said to Kotaku. Vague and in a holding pattern is definitely par for the course at the moment and has been for most of 2023."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/saber-interactive-may-escape-embracers-death-hug-and-become-a-private-company-203623311.html?src=rss

Activision studio Toys for Bob has announced that it's leaving the corporate rat race and is spinning off as an independent developer. This comes just weeks after Activision Blizzard's parent company Microsoft instituted sweeping layoffs at Toys for Bob that impacted 86 employees. That's more than half of the entire staff.The developer said the choice to go indie will allow it to return to being a small and nimble studio", harkening back to its early days of the 1980s and 1990s when it made hit titles like Star Control. To that end, the company says it's already developing a new game, though there won't be any official announcements for a while.Additionally, there looks to be no hard feelings for former parent company Activision and, uh, grandparent company Microsoft. Toys for Bob said that both entities have been extremely supportive of our new direction and we're confident that we will continue to work closely together as part of our future."Toys for Bob is primarily known for the Skylanders franchise, but was also behind the well-reviewed Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. It's also been involved with creating content for Call of Duty: Warzone.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/activision-studio-toys-for-bob-is-going-independent-after-sweeping-xbox-layoffs-201548396.html?src=rss

Dell's XPS 16 takes the minimalist design of the XPS 13 Plus and scales it up to a 16-inch system that's far more powerful and functional. But just like with that earlier machine, which was Dell's first attempt at implementing an "invisible" trackpad in its palm rest, there are some usability tradeoffs. It's hard not to be impressed by how sleek the XPS 16 looks - personally, I consider it one of the most attractive Windows laptops around - but power users who demand a wide variety of ports may find it lacking. (Even Apple can fit a full-sized SD card slot and HDMI port on the MacBook Pros, why can't Dell?)It's no surprise why Dell is leaning so hard on the XPS 13 Plus's design language: That machine looked unlike any other Windows PC when it debuted two years ago. Now instead of being a separate "Plus" variant, it's talking over the XPS 13 mantle entirely. (Pour one out for the traditional XPS 13 design we've loved so much.) The XPS 14 and 16, meanwhile, are more powerful MacBook Pro competitors that fix some of the problems with the smaller model. They both have headphone jacks, for one, and they also offer a total of three USB-C ports (instead of just two) and a microSD card slot.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetI'll admit, even though I had issues with the XPS 13 Plus, I was still wowed by the XPS 16 the instant I opened it up. Its 16.3-inch OLED screen was glorious to behold, with the barest amount of bezel around the edges. Its all-glass wrist rest and touchpad looked like a crystal clear pond that was frozen over with an elegant layer of frost. And the XPS 16's elegant keyboard was practically begging to be typed on. It's just so damn pretty.But will that beauty get in the way of its functionality, as it did for the XPS 13 Plus? The mere presence of more ports (and a headphone jack!) makes it clear that Dell is thinking more practically with the XPS 16. It is, after all, a potential successor to the XPS 15, a product that we've praised as one of the go-to options for 15-inch Windows notebooks.While Dell is sticking with the invisible trackpad that I found frustrating on the XPS 13 Plus, it's a bit less of a problem on the XPS 16. For one, the actual trackpad area is far larger, stretching between the Windows key on the left and Copilot button on the right, so there's far less chance you'll miss it. Dell also offers adjustable haptics for the touchpad, which you can tweak from absolutely no feedback (a setting for the criminally insane) and to truly deep and satisfying clicks. There's still no real justification for hiding the trackpad entirely, though, and using it takes some adjustment.I'm all for PC makers taking wild design swings, but Dell's invisible trackpad remains more of a party trick than a leap forward for computing. Techies often criticize Apple for emphasizing aesthetics over functionality, but at least I can clearly tell exactly where a MacBook's trackpad is without looking down. There's still a continuous feeling of smoothness across Apple's palm rests, so Dell doesn't have a major advantage either.The XPS 16's capacitive top row of buttons, which can switch between function keys and multimedia controls, is another design conundrum. Sure, it looks a bit cleaner than a typical laptop keyboard, and it allows for better airflow since Dell can fit in more cooling hardware underneath it, but it's impossible to touch type any of those keys. Even after several days of testing, I couldn't train my fingers to immediately make their way to a specific function key. That's bad for general usability, as well as for users with accessibility needs.Most damning of all, the capacitive top row buttons completely disappear in direct sunlight (or even on a cloudy-yet-bright day (see below). You'll need to cup your hands over them or find some sort of shade to change your volume or screen brightness. Is that really worth avoiding another standard row of keys?Can you see any function keys here?Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetAt least Dell got the keyboard right, and that's always been a highlight of the XPS lineup. The XPS 16's keyboard is luxuriously wide, with large key caps and a deep 0.3mm dish. Dell was able to make more room for those features by shaving away the space between the keys. I'll admit, it also takes some getting used to since it feels different than most other laptops, but once I suffered through a few hours of typos, I found myself enjoying the typing experience overall. For once, my hands had room to spread out.The keyboard and trackpad experience will likely feel similar across all of the new XPS models, but it's the glorious 16.3-inch screen that sets the XPS 16 apart. You can choose between a 1080p+ LCD screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, or a 4K+ OLED panel that tops out at 90Hz. The OLED option (which our review unit came with) is the one to go for if you're looking for true color accuracy, since it supports 100 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut (the LCD model covers 100 percent of the sRGB minimum spec). And of course, it also comes with all of the advantages of OLED: High levels of contrast and inky dark black levels.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetThe XPS 16's massive display allowed me to multitask easily, and it allowed me to see an expansive timeline while working on an Audacity recording in full screen. With its high level of color accuract, everything just popped on the XPS 16, from browsing the web to watching movies on Netflix. (It also supports Dolby Vision HDR, which adds more depth to dark scenes and higher peak brightness highlights).It's worth noting that the OLED display is rated at 400 nits of brightness, 100 nits less than the LCD model, but I didn't have any trouble reading off our review unit's screen outdoors in direct sunlight. (It's annoying that the pricier OLED can't reach a 120Hz refresh rate, but it still looks decently smooth at 90Hz.)In addition to having a tremendous display for creative tasks, the XPS 16 also packs in enough power to get you through an overwhelming work day (and also enough to let you game a bit when you need a break). Our XPS 16 review unit was equipped with Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU, a configuration worth a hefty $3,399.NonePCMark 103DMark (TimeSpy Extreme)Geekbench 6Cinebench R23Dell XPS 16 (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, NVIDIA RTX 4070)7,4364,0872,298/13,1171,676/14,755Framework Laptop 16 (AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, Radeon RX 7700S)8,1294,7702,557/11,9611,675/14,448Razer Blade 18 (Intel i9-13950HX, NVIDIA RTX 4060)7,3265,0092,708/12,8741,900/15,442ASUS Zephyrus G14 (2022, AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, Radeon RX 6800S)7,1703,821N/A1,521/12,212While I've seen Intel's new CPU in action on the ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED, it was far more impressive on the XPS 16, where it scored almost 3,000 points higher than the ZenBook in the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark. The XPS 16 was also nearly twice as fast in the Cinebench 2024 benchmark when it came to multi-threaded CPU work. (These scores also make me wonder if the ASUS machine was just terribly unoptimized, since it was one of the first notebooks released with a Core Ultra chip.)The XPS 16 also soundly bested the Framework Laptop 16, another big screen notebook targeted at creative professionals (along with being almost entirely modular). It scored over 1,000 points higher than the Framework machine in the Geekbench 6 multithreaded CPU benchmark, and it was over twice as fast in the Cinebench 2024 GPU test.Curiously, the XPS 16 only scored a few hundred points higher in PCMark 10 compared to the 2022 XPS 15 (which used an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU and NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti), but the advantage this year is that Intel's new chips also feature an NPU for AI tasks. The XPS 16 scored 3,109 points in the Geekbench ML test, a cross-platform benchmark for comparing machine learning capabilities. That puts it on par with an iPad Pro with Apple's M2 chips.In Windows, NPUs mainly enable special features like Studio Effects, which can blur your background or optimize your lighting in video chats. But developers like Adobe and Audacity have committed to adding more AI-powered tools in their apps, so having a capable NPU could pay off down the line.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetThe XPS 16's raw horsepower also makes it a capable (if overpriced) gaming machine. I was able to play Halo Infinite in 1440p+ (2,560 by 1,600 pixels) with maxed out graphics settings at an average of 63fps. Cyberpunk 2077 also reached 63fps on average in 1440p, so long as I enabled NVIDIA's DLSS upscaling and avoided ray tracing. These aren't very impressive scores when compared to dedicated gaming systems, but it's certainly better than what I saw on the XPS 15 a few years ago. The XPS 16's keyboard is well suited to shooters, thanks to its large keys and tactile feedback, but it's a pain if you're playing something that frequently uses function buttons. If you're really eager to game on this system, you're better off opting for the 1080p LCD screen, since it can hit a higher 120Hz refresh rate and requires less GPU rendering power.After living with the XPS 16 for a few weeks, I'm still genuinely impressed by its sheer beauty and power. But it's not the easiest machine to travel with, since it clocks in at 4.8 pounds. That's about the same weight as the most powerful MacBook Pro 16-inch, so it's not overkill, but is still something to consider. In comparison, the latest XPS 15 weighs 4.5 pounds, while the new XPS 14 is far more portable at 3.7 pounds. If you need a ton of screen space, you've probably already resigned yourself to having a large machine. But it's still worth considering what your actual workflow looks like. Do you truly need a 16 inch screen at all times, or would you rather have something lighter for travel that you pair with a roomier monitor at your desk?Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetAnother big benefit of a large machine? Tons of battery life. The XPS 16 lasted eight hours and 30 minutes in the PCMark 10 Modern Office benchmark, while the Framework Laptop 16 survived for only four hours. The ZenBook 14 OLED is still our top performer for that test - it went for 12 hours and 43 minutes - but you'll still be able to last a typical workday with the XPS 16 without searching for power.As you can probably tell from our review unit's cost, the XPS 16's price is its biggest potential issue. It starts at $1,899 with the Intel Core Ultra 7, Intel Arc graphics, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD and a 1080p+ LCD screen. The latest XPS 15 starts at $1,099 with a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 CPU and a similar build. At the very least, it's nice to see that Dell isn't shipping workhorse machines with 8GB of RAM by default (like Apple and so many other companies are). Other upgrades for the XPS 16, unfortunately, will cost you dearly: It's another $400 to get an NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU ($600 for the 4060 and $1,100 for the 4070), bumping up to OLED costs another $300 and stepping up to 32GB of RAM is an astounding $600 extra.Good looks don't come cheap. But the same is true for every other premium 16-inch laptop (the MacBook Pro 16 starts at $2,499!). This isn't necessarily a category for finding a good deal, unless you're looking through older or refurbished models. The XPS 16 is meant for people with deep pockets who demand an enormous screen, tons of power and beautiful hardware. In that respect, it's a total success - as long as you're not too annoyed by its invisible trackpad.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dell-xps-16-review-beauty-and-power-comes-at-a-cost-200513721.html?src=rss