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by Sarah Fielding on (#6G66V)
Dead By Daylight has brought a fan-favorite collaboration back into its universe: Gamers can once again access the Stranger Things chapter, entering The Upside Down and choosing to play as Survivors Nancy Wheeler or Steve Harrington against the Killer, The Demogorgon.Behaviour Interactive first released a Dead By Daylight and Stranger Things crossover in 2019 on the heels of other horror collaborations like A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the license ended in 2021, and - despite pleas from fans for Netflix to renew the contract - the TV show-inspired board and characters left. To be fair, anyone who already owned the game could still play as Nancy or Steve, but no updates or additional purchases were available.Now, the Stranger Things chapter is once again available to all "including the Underground Complex Map from the Hawkins National Laboratory, and the iconic Survivor duo composed of Nancy Wheeler, a tough aspiring journalist, and Steve Harrington, a former high school jock with a knack for finding trouble," Mathieu Cote, head of partnerships for Behaviour Interactive, said in a statement. Players can also grab new outfits from the in-game store, including items for the Demogorgon.Speaking of the ever-frightening Demogorgon, the creature can navigate the map through a series of portals. Then, when it finds its prey, the Demogorgon uses one lunging strike to end things. While much of the Stranger Things chapter mirrors its initial iteration, as of now, related achievements and trophies won't be available.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/stranger-things-is-coming-back-to-dead-by-daylight-104511407.html?src=rss
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| Updated | 2025-06-27 20:46 |
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by Steve Dent on (#6G64Q)
GM's autonomous vehicle Cruise division is already going through a rough patch, with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recently suspending its driverless permits over safety issues. Now, several new reports have highlighted other issues with the company, including problems with its autonomous vehicles (AVs) recognizing children and the frequency with which human operators must remotely take control. The company also just announced that it's temporarily suspending production of its fully autonomous Origin transport.The most concerning issue is that Cruise reportedly kept its vehicles on the streets even though it knew they had problems recognizing children, The Intercept reported. According to internal, previously unreported safety assessment materials, Cruises autonomous vehicles may have been unable to effectively detect children in order to take extra precautions."Cruise AVs may not exercise additional care around children," the document states. Because of that, the company was concerned that its robotaxis might drive too fast near children who could move unexpectedly into the street. Cruise also lacks data around child-specific situations, like kids separating from adults, falling, riding bicycles or wearing costumes.In one simulation, the company couldn't rule out a scenario where a vehicle strikes a child. In another specific test drive, a vehicle detected a child-sized dummy but still struck it with a mirror at 28 MPH. The company chalked up the problems to a inadequate software and testing - specifically, it lacks AI software that could automatically detect child-shaped objects around the car and maneuver accordingly.In a statement to The Intercept, Cruise admitted that its vehicles sometimes temporarily lost track of children by the side of the road during simulation testing. It added that the problem was fixed and only seen in testing and not on public streets, though it didn't say what specific actions it took to resolve the issue. A spokesperson also said that the system hadn't failed to detect the children, but did fail to classify them as such.It further stated that the odds of an accident involving children were relatively low. "We determined from observed performance on-road, the risk of the potential collision with a child could occur once every 300 million miles at fleet driving, which we have since improved upon. There have been no on-road collisions with children."The report also notes that Cruise AVs have trouble detecting large holes in the road, such as construction site pits with crews inside, something the company itself called a "major risk." GM's own documents indicated that even with its small AV fleet, a vehicle was likely to drive into such a hole at least once a year - and into a pit with people inside once every four years.That scenario almost happened, according to video reviewed by The Intercept. Onboard cameras show an AV driving right to the edge of a pit, inches away from workers, despite the presence of construction cones. It only stopped because someone waved a "slow" sign in front of the windshield."Enhancing our AV's ability to detect potential hazards around construction zones has been an area of focus, and over the last several years we have conducted extensive human-supervised testing and simulations resulting in continued improvements," the company said in a statement. "These include enhanced cone detection, full avoidance of construction zones with digging or other complex operations, and immediate enablement of the AV's Remote Assistance support/supervision by human observers."All of that raises the question of whether Cruise should be operating its vehicles on public roads. "If you can't see kids, it's very hard for you to accept that not being high risk - no matter how infrequent you think it's going to happen," Carnegie Mellon engineering professor Phil Koopman told The Intercept.The child detection issue isn't the only recent expose on Cruise, as it turns out that the robotaxis aren't really autonomous at all. In fact, they require human assistance every four to five miles, according to a report in The New York Timesconfirmed in large part by Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt in Hacker News."Cruise AVs are being remotely assisted (RA) 2-4 percent of the time on average, in complex urban environments." wrote Vogt. That equates to someone intervening every four to five miles, which could be multiple times on many trips. There is typically one remote assistant "for every 15-20 driverless AVs," Cruise stated later.In a statement to CNBC, the company provided additional details: "Often times the AV proactively initiates these [remote assistance actions] before it is certain it will need help such as when the AV's intended path is obstructed (e.g construction blockages or detours) or if it needs help identifying an object," a spokesperson wrote. "Remote assistance is in session about 2-4 percent of the time the AV is on the road, which is minimal, and in those cases the RA advisor is providing wayfinding intel to the AV, not controlling it remotely."Finally, it appears that Cruise has halted production of its Origin autonomous vehicle after the California DMV pulled its license, Forbes reported. In an all-hands meeting with employees, Vogt, referring to the DMV license withdrawal, stated that "because a lot of this is in flux, we did make the decision with GM to pause production of the Origin," according to audio from the meeting.Cruise is still operating its AVs in California, but now must have a human backup driver at the wheel. Meanwhile, California says it has given Cruise a path back to driverless operation The DMV has provided Cruise with the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits, which the DMV will not approve until the company has fulfilled the requirements to the department's satisfaction," it said in a statement.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/things-are-going-from-bad-to-worse-for-cruises-robotaxis-094529914.html?src=rss
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by Steve Dent on (#6G64R)
TikTok only launched its Creator Fund a few years ago, but is already killing it off in favor of a new monetization scheme that arrived earlier this year. "Starting December 16, 2023, the Creator Fund will be discontinued in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany," a spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "All creators currently enrolled in the Creator Fund can upgrade to the Creativity Program."The Creativity Program emphasizes longer content, with a required minimum video length of at least one minute (TikTok now allows videos up to 30 minutes long). The company said it wants to create "the best possible experience" on the platform with the new system, but longer videos also help TikTok sell more ads. The main benefit for streamers is that it pays up to 20 times the amount offered by the Creator Fund, according to the company."We developed the Creativity Program based on the learnings and feedback from the Creator Fund, and we'll continue listening and learning from our community as we explore new features and enhance existing ones to further enrich the TikTok experience," TikTok said. The Creator Fund will continue to be available for users in Spain and Italy, at least for now.The Creator Fund was unveiled in 2020 with an initial commitment of $200 million to be paid out to top streamers. Soon after, the company said it would support hundreds of thousands of creators with over $2 billion in funding over the next three years.However, it got off to a rough start after top users complained that they weren't receiving very much money. Last year, streamer Hank Green shared that he made about 2.5 cents per 1,000 views on the platform - a fraction of his YouTube earnings and about half of what he earned on TikTok prior to the fund.
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by Kris Holt on (#6G63B)
Xbox has teamed up with a startup called Inworld AI to create a generative AI toolset that developers can use to create games. It's a multi-year collaboration, which the Microsoft-owned brand says can "assist and empower creators in dialogue, story and quest design." Specifically, the partners are looking to develop an "AI design copilot" that can turn prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and other game elements in the same way people can type ideas into generative AI chatbots and get detailed scripts in return. They're also going to work on an "AI character runtime engine" that developers can plug into their actual games, allowing players to generate new stories, quests and dialogues as they go.On Inworld's website, it says its technology can "craft characters with distinct personalities and contextual awareness that stay in-world." Apparently, it can provide developers with a "fully integrated character engine for AI NPCs that goes beyond large language models (LLMs)." The image above was from the Droid Maker tool it developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm's storytelling studio ILM Immersive when it was accepted into the Disney Accelerator program. As Kotaku notes, though, the company's tech has yet to ship with a major game release, and it has mostly been used for mods.Developers are understandably wary about these upcoming tools. There are growing concerns among creatives about companies using their work to train generative AI without permission - a group of authors, including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin, even sued OpenAI, accusing the company of infringing on their copyright. And then, of course, there's the ever-present worry that developers could decide to lay off writers and designers to cut costs.Xbox believes, however, that these tools can "help make it easier for developers to realize their visions, try new things, push the boundaries of gaming today and experiment to improve gameplay, player connection and more." In the brand's announcement, Haiyan Zhang, General Manager of Gaming AI, said: "We will collaborate and innovate with game creators inside Xbox studios as well as third-party studios as we develop the tools that meet their needs and inspire new possibilities for future games."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-let-xbox-game-makers-use-ai-tools-for-story-design-and-npcs-083027899.html?src=rss
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by Richard Lai on (#6G63C)
Following the recent launch of the new M3-equipped MacBook Pros, Apple will soon be releasing an update for its Final Cut Pro to make further use of its own silicon. According to the company, its updated video editing suite will leverage a new machine learning model for improved results with object and face tracking. Additionally, H.264 and HEVC encoding will apparently be faster, thanks to enhanced simultaneous processing by Apple silicon's media engines.On the user experience side, the new Final Cut Pro comes with automatic timeline scrolling, as well as the option to simplify a selected group of overlapping connected clips into a single storyline, and the ability to combine connected clips with existing connected storylines. As for Final Cut Pro for iPad, users can take advantage of the new voiceover recording tool, added color-grading presets, new titles, general workflow improvements and stabilization tool in the pro camera mode. Both the Mac and iPad versions of Final Cut Pro will receive their updates later this month.With Logic Pro's new Quick Sampler Recorder mode, users can create sampler instruments from any sound using the iPad's built-in microphone or a connected audio input.AppleFor those who need to focus on music creation, Apple has also updated Logic Pro with some handy new tools. For both the Mac and iPad versions, there's a new Mastering Assistant which claims to help polish your audio mix, by analyzing and tweaking "the dynamics, frequency balance, timbre, and loudness." You can use this tool to refine your mix at any point throughout the creation process. Another good news is that to avoid digital clipping and to boost low-level sensitivity, both flavors of Logic Pro now supports 32-bit float recording when used with compatible audio interfaces.If you're a fan of "Sample Alchemy" - a sample-to-instrument tool - and "Beat Breaker" - an audio multi-effect plug-in - on Logic Pro for iPad, you'll be pleased to know that both features have been ported over to Logic Pro for Mac. Similarly, the Mac app has gained two free sound packs, "Hybrid Textures" and "Vox Melodics," which can be found in the Sound Library. Some may also find the new "Slip" and "Rotate" tools in the "Tool" menu handy.Meanwhile, the updated Logic Pro for iPad offers a better multi-tasking experience. The app now supports iPadOS' "Split View" and "Stage Manager," thus letting you quickly drag and drop audio samples from another app - such as Voice Memos, Files or a browser - into Logic Pro. There's also a new "Quick Sampler" recorder plug-in for easily creating sampler instruments from any sound, via the iPad's built-in microphone or a connected audio input. This update, along with a handful of related in-app lessons, are available immediately.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-cut-pro-uses-apples-latest-chips-to-improve-face-and-object-tracking-065025314.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G61T)
Lucid's electric vehicles will be able to plug into over 15,000 Tesla Superchargers in North America starting in 2025. The automaker is the latest entry in the growing list of companies pledging to support the North American Charging Standard (NACS), also known as the Tesla charging standard. Lucid will give customers access to a NACS adapter for its current vehicles, which are equipped with the Combined Charging System (CCS), in 2025. The company intends to start building NACS ports into its EVs within the same year, as well, so that newer models no longer need to use adapters.Ford was the first automaker to announce this year that it was going to give its customers access to Superchargers after the White House convinced Tesla to share its charging network with vehicles from other companies. In the months after that, Mercedes, Volvo, Polestar, Honda, Toyota (and Lexus), BMW, Hyundai and Subaru revealed that they will also give their customers access to NACS adapters and will ultimately incorporate the standard into their vehicles over the next two years.As TechCrunch notes, Lucid vehicles use a 900-volt charging architecture, which became the basis of a Lucid Air promotion that called it the "fastest charging electric vehicle ever." At the moment, most Superchargers are rated at around 500 volts, and that means charging times won't be as fast as the company promises. That said, Tesla has started deploying V4 Superchargers that offer higher voltage charging in the US, and supporting NACS could convince potential customers in the region to purchase Lucid EVs. As company CEO Peter Rawlinson said, "[a]dopting NACS is an important next step to providing [its] customers with expanded access to reliable and convenient charging solutions for their Lucid vehicles."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lucid-evs-will-be-able-to-access-teslas-superchargers-starting-in-2025-055045292.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G5YS)
There has been another twist in the WeWork saga as the office space rental company has filed for bankruptcy protection. Following reports last week that the company was expected to file for Chapter 11 protection, WeWork's shares were halted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday. According to The New York Times, it described its bankruptcy filing as a "comprehensive reorganization" of its business. "As part of today's filing, WeWork is requesting the ability to reject the leases of certain locations, which are largely nonoperational, and all affected members have received advanced notice," the company told the publication in a statement.A number of factors played into WeWork's fall, including trying to grow too fast in its early days. The company has attempted to cut costs in recent years (including by closing several co-working spaces in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns) while its revenue has grown.However, WeWork has been toiling in a real estate market that has felt the pinch of inflation and the rising costs of borrowing money. It has also been contending with another pandemic-accelerated change as millions more people are opting to work remotely instead of going to their company's offices. In its most recent earnings report in August, WeWork said it had "substantial doubt" about its ability to remain operational.WeWork first attempted to go public in 2019, though it withdrew plans for an initial public offering after investors expressed concerns over profitability and corporate governance. Its S-1 filing showed losses of over $900 million for the first half of 2019 and indicated that WeWork was on the hook for over $47 billion worth of lease payments - WeWork takes out long-term leases on office space and rents it to workers and companies on a short-term basis.That fiasco led to Softbank, which at one point led an investment round into WeWork when it had a valuation of $47 billion, taking control of the company. Softbank pushed out co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann with an exit package that was said to be worth $445 million.The business eventually went public in 2021 after it merged with a special-purpose acquisition company. WeWork shares cost more than $400 two years ago, but by Monday the price had dropped to under $1.WeWork has made more attempts to steady the ship. In September, the company completed a reverse stock split. It said this was conducted to help it continue to comply with the $1 minimum share closing price required to stay listed on the NYSE.Later that month, WeWork said it would try to renegotiate the vast majority of its leases. At the time, CEO David Tolley pointed out that the company's lease liabilities amounted to over two-thirds of its operating income in the second quarter of this year.On October 31, WeWork said it would withhold some interest payments - even though it had the cash to make them - in an attempt to improve its balance sheet. The company then entered a 30-day grace period before an event of default.Meanwhile, Neumann has a new real estate venture, this time focused on residential rentals. It emerged last year that he had bought more than 3,000 apartments in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta and Nashville. Flow, the company that will manage those properties, has reportedly received an investment of $350 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wework-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-protection-030708470.html?src=rss
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by Andrew Tarantola on (#6G5X4)
Facebook is no stranger to moderating and mitigating misinformation on its platform, having long employed machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to help supplement its human-led moderation efforts. At the start of October, the company extended its machine learning expertise to its advertising efforts with an experimental set of generative AI tools that can perform tasks like generating backgrounds, adjusting image and creating captions for an advertiser's video content. Reuters reports Monday that Meta will specifically not make those tools available to political marketers ahead of what is expected to be a brutal and divisive national election cycle.Meta's decision to bar the use of generative AI is in line with much of the social media ecosystem, though, as Reuters is quick to point out, the company, "has not yet publicly disclosed the decision in any updates to its advertising standards." TikTok and Snap both ban political ads on their networks, Google employs a "keyword blacklist" to prevent its generative AI advertising tools from straying into political speech and X (formerly Twitter) is, well, you've seen it.Meta does allow for a wide latitude of exceptions to this rule. The tool ban only extends to "misleading AI-generated video in all content, including organic non-paid posts, with an exception for parody or satire," per Reuters. Those exceptions are currently under review by the company's independent Oversight Board as part of a case in which Meta left up an "altered" video of President Biden because, the company argued, it was not generated by an AI.Facebook, along with other leading Silicon Valley AI companies, agreed in July to voluntary commitments set out by the White House enacting technical and policy safeguards in the development of their future generative AI systems. Those include expanding adversarial machine learning (aka red-teaming) efforts to root out bad model behavior, sharing trust and safety information both within the industry and with the government, as well as development of a digital watermarking scheme to authenticate official content and make clear that it is not AI-generated.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-reportedly-wont-make-its-ai-advertising-tools-available-to-political-marketers-010659679.html?src=rss
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by Will Shanklin on (#6G5S2)
YouTube announced two new experimental generative AI features on Monday. YouTube Premium subscribers can soon try AI-generated comment summaries and a chatbot that answers your questions about what you're watching. The features will be opt-in, so you won't see them unless you're a paid member who signs up for the experiments during their test periods.The AI-powered summaries will organize comments into easily digestible themes." In a Mr. Beast video YouTube used as an example, the tool generated topics including People love Bryan the bird," Lazarbeam should be in more videos," No submarine" and More 7 day challenges." You can tap on the topic to view the complete list of associated comments. The tool will only run on a small number of videos in English" with large comment sections.YouTubeIf you're worried about YouTube's summaries spiraling out of control the way the platform's comment sections often do, the company says it won't pull content from unpublished messages, those held for review, any containing blocked words or those from blocked users. Further, creators can use the tool to delete individual comments if they see problematic (or otherwise unwanted) discussions about their videos.Meanwhile, YouTube's conversational AI tool gives you a chatbot trained on whichever video you're watching. Generated by large language models (LLMs), the assistant lets you dive in deeper" by asking questions about the content and fishing for related recommendations. The company says the AI tool, which appears similar to chatting with Bard, draws on info from YouTube and the web, providing answers without interrupting playback. Eligible users can find it under a new Ask" button in the YouTube app for Android.Starting today, YouTube Premium subscribers can opt into the comment summarizer on YouTube's experiments page. However, the company says you won't see the Topics" option for all videos. In addition, the conversational AI tool is only available now to a small number of people on a subset of videos," but YouTube Premium subscribers with Android devices will be able to sign up to try it in the coming weeks. The company warns the experimental features may not always get it right," a description that can equally apply to Google's other AI experiments.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-tests-ai-generated-comment-summaries-and-a-chatbot-for-videos-213405231.html?src=rss
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by Pranav Dixit on (#6G5S3)
During its first-ever developer conference on Monday, OpenAI previewed GPT-4 Turbo, a brand new version of the large language model that powers its flagship product, ChatGPT. The newest model is capable of accepting much longer inputs than previous versions - up to 300 pages of text, compared to the current limit of 50. This means that theoretically, prompts can be a lot longer and more complex, and responses might be more meaningful.OpenAI has also updated the data that GPT-4 Turbo is trained on. The company claims that the newest model now has knowledge about the world until April 2023. The previous version was only caught up until September 2021, although recent updates to the non-Turbo GPT-4 did include the ability to browse the internet to get the latest information.GPT-4 Turbo will also accept images as prompts directly in the chat box, wherein it can generate captions or provide a description of what the image depicts. It will also handle text-to-speech requests. And users will now be able to upload documents directly and ask the service to analyze them - a capability that other AI chatbots like Anthropic's Claude have included for months.For developers, using the newest model will effectively be three times cheaper. OpenAI said that it was slashing costs for input and output tokens - a unit used by large language models to understand instructions and respond with answers.In addition to announcing its newest large language model, OpenAI revealed that ChatGPT now has more than 100 million weekly active users around the world and is used by more than 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies. The company also said that it would defend customers, including enterprises, not only against legal claims around copyright infringement that might arise as a result of using its products, but it would also pay for costs incurred as a result.OpenAI Dev Day also saw the reveal of single-application "mini-ChatGPTs" today, small tools that are focused on a single task that can be built without even knowing how to code. GPTs created by the community can be immediately shared, and OpenAI will open a "store" where verified builders can make their creation available to anyone.The company didn't announce when GPT-4 Turbo would come out of preview and be available more generally. Accessing GPT-4 currently costs $20 a month.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gpt-4-turbo-is-openais-most-powerful-large-language-model-yet-211956553.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G5PB)
PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles will soon drop their X (formerly Twitter) integrations. As such, after November 13, you'll no longer be able to post clips or screenshots directly to X from either system.According to a notice Sony shared on its consoles (as noted by Wario64) and a support page, users will lose the ability to "post and view content, trophies and other gameplay-related activities on X directly from PS5/PS4 (or link an X account to do so)." Sony added the notice to its website at some point on Monday, according to a cached version of the support page.Sony hasn't revealed exactly why it's killing off X integration on its consoles. However, it may be related to X shutting down its free API earlier this year, forcing developers and companies to pay if they want to hook into its services. Microsoft stopped letting users post Xbox clips directly to X in April, likely due to that move.It'll still be possible to post your PlayStation clips to X. If you have a PS5, you'll be able to access your recent captures through the PS App and share them to X from your phone. PS4 owners (and PS5 users, if they prefer this approach) will need to use a USB drive to copy screenshots and clips to their computer. Alternatively, you can use one of the several other direct sharing options available on PS4 and PS5, such as YouTube.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ps5-and-ps4-are-losing-x-sharing-options-on-november-13-204747608.html?src=rss
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by Andrew Tarantola on (#6G5PC)
It's been nearly a year since ChatGPT's public debut and its evolution since then has been nothing short of extraordinary. In just over 11 months, OpenAI's chatbot has gained the ability to write programming code, process information between multiple modalities and expand its reach across the internet with APIs. During OpenAI's 2023 DevDay keynote address Monday, CEO Sam Altman and other executives took to the stage in San Francisco to unveil the AI chatbot's latest iteration, ChatGPT-4 Turbo, as well as an exciting new way to bring generative AI technology to everybody, regardless of their coding capability: GPTs!GPTs are small, task-specific iterations of ChatGPT. Think of them like the single-purpose apps and features on your phone but instead of them maintaining a timer or stop watch, or a digital assistant transcribing your voice instructions into a shopping list, GPTs will do basically anything you train them to. OpenAI offers up eight examples of what GPT's can be used for - anything from a digital kitchen assistant that suggests recipes based on whats in your pantry to a math mentor to help your kids through their homework to a Sticker Wiz that will turn your wildest dreams into die-cut stickers, shipped right to your door."The new GPTs are an expansion on the company's existing Custom Instructions feature, which debuted in July. OpenAI notes that many of its power users were already recycling and updating their most effective prompts and instruction sets, a process which GPT-4 Turbo will now handle automatically as part of its update to seed parameters and focus on reproducible outputs. This will allow users a far greater degree of control in customizing the GPTs to their specific needs.What users won't need is an extensive understanding of javascript programming. With GPT-4 Turbo's improved code interpretation, retrieval and function calling capabilities, as well as its massively increased context window size, users will be able to devise and develop their GPTs using nothing but natural language.Any GPT created by the community will be immediately shareable. For now, that will happen directly between users but later this month, OpenAI plans to launch a centralized storefront where verified builders" can post and share their GPTs. The most popular ones will climb a leaderboard and, potentially, eventually earn their creators money based on how many people are using the GPT.GPTs will be available to both regular users and enterprise accounts which, like ChatGPT Enterprise that came out earlier this year, will offer institutional users the chance to create their own internal-only, admin-approved mini-chatbots. These will work with (and are trained on) the company's specific tasks, department documentation or proprietary datasets. Enterprise GPTs arrive for those customers on Wednesday.Privacy remains a focal point for the company with additional technical safeguards being put into place, atop existing moderation systems, to prevent people from making GPTs that go against OpenAI's usage policies. The company is also rolling out an identity verification system for developers to help improve transparency and trust, but did not elaborate on what that process could entail.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gpts-are-the-single-application-mini-chatgpt-models-that-anyone-can-create-203311858.html?src=rss
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by Jeff Dunn on (#6G5PD)
If you're interested in a flip-style foldable phone, you effectively have two choices in the US: the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Razr+. We think the former is ultimately better for most people, but the latter is still a worthy alternative, and now it's on sale for $700 at Amazon. That's the lowest price we've seen for an unlocked model outside of trade-in deals. Motorola normally sells the Razr+ for $1,000, though we've seen the phone fall between $800 and $900 a couple of times since it arrived in June. This deal is applicable to the black, magenta and blue versions of the device.We gave the Razr+ a score of 85 in our review. As with the Galaxy Z Flip 5, the Razr+'s biggest selling point is that you can fold it in half and make it easier to tuck away. The main display is a vibrant 6.9-inch OLED panel with a 165Hz refresh rate; fold it shut, and you can use a 3.6-inch OLED display around the back. One advantage the Razr+ has over Samsung's foldable is that it can run most Android apps on that outer display with less fuss. (The Galaxy Z Flip 5 limits its cover screen to a handful of widgets by default, though can you enable wider app support through the device's settings.) Not every app is optimized for such a tiny screen, but you can quickly fire off a text, reply to an email, pick a new Spotify playlist or do other phone things without having to actually open the device.Beyond that, the Razr+'s cover display has a higher refresh rate (144Hz versus 60Hz) and pixel density (413 ppi versus 306 ppi) than that of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, plus it's 0.2 inches larger. It should last a little longer per charge, and its take on Android has more of a light touch than Samsung's One UI interface. It also supports slightly faster wired charging speeds.That said, there are a few clear downsides. For one, we found the Razr's camera performance to be a step behind the Galaxy Z Flip 5. The hardware has a meager IP52 water-resistance rating - which means it can withstand some light rain but little more - whereas Samsung's phone has a more robust IPX8 rating. (Though you'll want to be delicate with either phone, as all foldables carry a greater risk of durability issues.) While it's not slow, it uses a year-old Snapdragon Galaxy 8+ Gen 1 chip, so its performance is a little less futureproof. And Motorola's update policy is less robust: It promises three major OS updates and bi-monthly security updates for the Razr+, while Samsung promotes four years of OS updates and five years of monthly security updates for the Galaxy Z Flip 5.In the end, the main reason to consider the Razr+ is the bigger and more functional cover display, so if you're sold on the idea of a clamshell-style foldable, it's worth considering at this price. Just note that we may see a deal on Samsung's foldable as we get closer to Black Friday. One foldable we're less bullish on, however, is Motorola's midrange Razr: That one is also on sale for $500, but we found it to be too limited in our review.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-motorola-razr-is-300-off-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-201601542.html?src=rss
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by Will Shanklin on (#6G5PE)
A Parkinson's patient can now walk 6km (3.7 miles) thanks to an implant targeting the spinal cord. The Guardian reports that the man - 62-year-old Marc" from Bordeaux, France - developed severe mobility impairments from the degenerative disease. I practically could not walk anymore without falling frequently, several times a day," he said in a press release announcing the breakthrough. In some situations, such as entering a lift, I'd trample on the spot, as though I was frozen there, you might say." Wearing the spinal implant allows him to walk almost normally" as the research team eyes a full clinical trial.Marc underwent a precision neurosurgical procedure" two years ago at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), which helped facilitate the research. The surgery fitted him with an electrode field placed against his spinal cord and an electrical impulse generator under the skin of his abdomen. Although conventional Parkinson's treatments often target brain regions affected by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons, this approach instead focuses on the spinal area associated with activating leg muscles for walking.The procedure used a personalized map of Marc's spinal cord, identifying the specific locations signaling leg movements. He wears a movement sensor on each leg that tells the implant he's trying to walk; it then switches on and sends electrical impulses to the targeted spinal neurons, adapting to his movement in real-time.GABRIEL MONNET via Getty ImagesIn response to precise stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord, I've observed for the first time remarkable improvements of gait deficits due to Parkinson's disease," project supervisor Jocelyne Bloch, professor and neurosurgeon at CHUV Lausanne University hospital, said in a webinar discussing the patient's success. I really believe that these results open realistic perspectives to develop a treatment."The patient says he could walk practically normally with the stimulation after several weeks of rehab. He now wears it for around eight hours daily, only turning it off when sleeping or lying down for a while. I turn on the stimulation in the morning and I turn off in the evening," he said. This allows me to walk better and to stabilise. Right now, I'm not even afraid of the stairs anymore. Every Sunday I go to the lake, and I walk around 6 kilometres. It's incredible."The researchers caution that there's still a vast chasm between tailoring the approach to one person vs. optimizing it for wide-scale use. Co-leads Gregoire Courtine and Bloch are working on a commercial version of the neuroprosthetic in conjunction with Onward Medical. Our ambition is to provide general access to this innovative technology to improve the quality of life of Parkinson's patients significantly, all over the world," they said.Michael J. Fox (right) with Sting.Michael J. Fox FoundationIn the meantime, research on six new patients will continue in 2024. The team says a generous donation" of $1 million from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is funding the upcoming work. In 2021, the actor's organization announced it had contributed over $1.5 billion to Parkinson's research.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spinal-implant-allows-parkinsons-patient-to-walk-for-miles-193637427.html?src=rss
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by Katie Malone on (#6G5PF)
Mozilla recently reported that of the car brands it reviewed, all 25 failed its privacy tests. While all, in Mozilla's estimation, overreached in their policies around data collection and use, some even included caveats about obtaining highly invasive types of information, like your sexual history and genetic information. As it turns out, this isn't just hypothetical: The technology in today's cars has the ability to collect these kinds of personal information, and the fine print of user agreements describes how manufacturers get you to consent every time you put the keys in the ignition.These privacy policies are written in a way to ensure that whatever is happening in the car, if there's an inference that can be made, they are still ensuring that there is protection, and that they are compliant with different state laws," Adonne Washington, policy council at the Future of Privacy Forum, said. The policies also account for technological advances that could happen while you own the car. Tools to do one thing could eventually do more, so manufacturers have to be mindful of that, according to Washington.So, it makes sense that a car manufacturer would include every type of data imaginable in its privacy policy to cover the company legally if it stumbled into certain data collection territory. Nissan's privacy policy, for example, covers broad and frankly irrelevant classes of user information, such as sexual orientation, sexual activity, precise geolocation, health diagnosis data, and genetic information" under types of personal data collected.Companies claim ownership in advance, so that you can't sue if they accidentally record you having sex in the backseat, for example. Nissan claimed in a statement that this is more or less why its privacy policy remains so broad. The company says it "does not knowingly collect or disclose customer information on sexual activity or sexual orientation," but its policy retains those clauses because "some U.S. state laws require us to account for inadvertent data we have or could infer but do not request or use." Some companies Engadget reached out to - like Ford, Stellantis and GM - affirmed their commitment, broadly, to consumer data privacy; Toyota, Kia and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.Beyond covering all imaginable legal bases, there simply isn't any way to know why these companies would want deeply personal information on their drivers, or what they'd do with it. And even if it's not what you would consider a smart" car, any vehicle equipped with USB, Bluetooth or recording capabilities can capture a lot of data about the driver. And in much the same way a "dumb" tv is considerably harder to find these days, most consumers would be hard pressed to find a new vehicle option that doesn't include some level of onboard tech with the capacity to record their data. A study commissioned by Senator Ed Markey nearly a decade ago found all modern cars had some form of wireless technology included. Even the ranks of internet listicles claiming to contain low-tech cars for "technophobes" are riddled with dashboard touchscreens and infotainment systems.How it works in practice we don't have as much insight into, as car companies, data companies, and advertising companies tend to hold those secrets more close to the vest," Jen Caltrider, a researcher behind Mozilla's car study, said. We did our research by combing through privacy policies and public documentation where car companies talked about what they *can* do. It is much harder to tell what they are actually doing as they aren't required to be as public about that."The unavailability of disconnected cars combined with the lack of transparency around driver data use means consumers have essentially no choice to trust their information is being used responsibly, or that at least some of the classes of data - like Nissan's decision to include "genetic information" - listed in these worrying privacy policies are purely related to hypothetical liability. The options are essentially: read every one of these policies and find the least draconian, buy a very old, likely fuel-inefficient car with no smart features whatsoever or simply do without a car, period. To that last point, only about eight percent of American households are carless, often not because they live in a walkable city with robust public transit, but because they cannot afford one.This gets even more complicated when you think about how cars are shared. Rental cars change drivers all the time, or a minor in your household might borrow your car to learn how to drive. Unlike a cell phone, which is typically a single user device, cars don't work like and vehicle manufacturers struggle to address that in their policies. And cars have the ability to collect information not just on drivers but their passengers.If simply trusting manufacturers after they ask for the right to collect your genetic characteristics tests credulity, the burden of anyone other than a contract lawyer reading back a software license agreement to the folks in the backseat is beyond absurd. Ford's privacy policy explicitly states that the owners of its vehicles must inform others who drive the vehicle, and passengers who connect their mobile devices to the vehicle, about the information in this Notice." That's about 60 pages of information to relay, if you're printing it directly from Ford's website - just for the company and not even the specific car.And these contracts tend to compound on one another. If that 60-page privacy policy seems insurmountable, well, there's also a terms of service and a separate policy regarding the use of Sirius XM (on a website with its own 'accept cookies' popover, with its own agreement.) In fairness to Ford, its privacy notice does allow drivers to opt out of certain data sharing and connected services, but that would require drivers to actually comb through the documentation. Mozilla found many other manufacturers offered no such means to avoid being tracked, and a complete opt-out is something which the Alliance for Automotive Innovation - a trade group representing nearly all car and truck makers in the US, including Ford - has actively resisted. To top things off, academics, legal scholars and even one cheeky anti-spyware company have repeatedly shown consumers almost universally do not read these kinds of contracts anyway.The burden of these agreements doesn't end with their presumptive data collection, or the onus to relay them to every person riding in or borrowing your car. The data held in-vehicle and manufacturer's servers becomes yet another hurdle for drivers should they opt to sell the thing down the line. According to Privacy4Cars founder AndreaAmico, be sure to get it in writing from the dealer how they plan to delete your data from the vehicle before reselling it. There's a lot of things that consumers can do to actually start to protect themselves, and it's not going to be perfect, but it's going to make a meaningful difference in their lives," Amico said.Consumers are effectively hamstrung by the state of legal contract interpretation, and manufacturers are incentivized to mitigate risk by continuing to bloat these (often unread) agreements with increasingly invasive classes of data. Many researchers will tell you the only real solution here is federal regulation. There have been some cases of state privacy law being leveraged for consumers' benefit, as in California and Massachusetts, but on the main it's something drivers aren't even aware they should be outraged about, and even if they are, they have no choice but to own a car anyway.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/every-car-is-a-smart-car-and-its-a-privacy-nightmare-193010478.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G5PG)
Microsoft is injecting a ton of generative AI-powered features into Windows 11, but it's not all about the Copilot assistant. The company has started to update a string of apps with new AI functions, including Paint, Clipchamp, Snipping Tool and Photos. Microsoft released an update for Windows 11 2023, known as 23H2, on October 31. That update expanded access to Copilot and other AI features.Microsoft is rolling out the AI updates gradually, so you may not have access to everything just yet. Still, it may be handy for you to know what you can do with the new tools. Here are some pointers on how to use the AI features in each app.How to use Paint in Windows 11An AI-infused version of Paint that includes generative AI features is rolling out to Windows 11 users. Microsoft Paint Cocreator taps into the DALL-E model to enable you to create images based on a text description. The feature will whip up just about anything you can think of (within reason).It's easy enough to get started with Cocreator, as long as you have access to it. To begin with, Cocreator is available in the US, UK, France, Australia, Canada, Italy and Germany. Only prompts in English are supported for now. At the outset, there's a waitlist to use Cocreator. You can join this from the Cocreator side panel and you'll receive an email to let you know when you can start using the feature.You'll need to sign into your Microsoft account to use Cocreator. That's because the cloud-based service Cocreator runs on requires authentication and authorization. You also need to sign in to access credits; you'll need these to generate images with DALL-E. When you join Cocreator, you'll receive 50 credits with which you can create images. Each generated image costs one credit.MicrosoftHow to install Paint on Microsoft Windows 11If you don't already have Paint installed, you can download it from the Microsoft Store. Once you have it, open Paint and select the Cocreator icon on the toolbar. From there, you can type in a description of the image you'd like the AI to generate. Microsoft suggests being as descriptive as possible in order to get results that match your concept.After entering the text, select a style that you'd like your image to be in. Then hit the Create button.Cocreator will then generate three different images based on your text input and the style you chose. Simply click on one of these images to add it to the Paint canvas so you can start modifying it.Meanwhile, Paint now supports background removal as well as layers. With the help of AI, you can isolate an item (such as an object or person) and remove the background with a single click. You can also edit individual layers without affecting the rest of the image.How to use video auto composition with Clipchamp on Windows 11It should be easier for you to stitch footage together in the video-editing tool Clipchamp. The app will help guide you with automated suggestions for the likes of scenes, edits and narratives. But it's the auto compose feature that may prove most useful for many users. Auto compose is available on the web and in the Microsoft Clipchamp desktop app.Microsoft says that the media you add to Clipchamp is not used to train AI models and all of the processing takes place in the app or browser. The app's AI video editor (which Microsoft says is useful for everyone) can automatically generate slideshows, montage videos and short videos in 1080p based on the photos and videos you add to it.If you don't like the first video that Clipchamp offers up, you can check out a different version "instantly" since the app will generate multiple videos for you. Auto compose may also prove useful for professional video editors, Microsoft says, as the tool can generate several unique videos in the space of a few minutes.MicrosoftAfter you sign into Clipchamp, click the "Create a video with AI" button. You'll find this front and center on the main page. After you give your project a working title, you can upload media by clicking the "Click to add or drag and drop" button. Alternatively, you can simply drag and drop videos and photos into the media window.Once you've finished adding everything, hit the "Get started" button.Now, it's a case of letting the AI know what kind of style and aesthetic you're looking for. Styles include things like elegant, vibrant and bold. You'll use thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to inform the AI of your preferences. Alternatively, you can leave the decision up to Clipchamp by selecting the "Choose for me" option. When you're ready to move onto the following step, click the Next button.MicrosoftClipchamp will suggest a length for your video based on what it believes are the best combinations of your media. You'll be able to adjust the video length and the aspect ratio before moving on. Before you leave this screen, you can preview the video by clicking the play button.Next up, you'll be able to change the background music on the "Finish your video" screen if you're not a fan of the track that the AI picked. Click the music button to change the tune. Again, you'll be able to preview your video and audio track. If you're not happy with the video, you can ask for a different take by clicking on "Create a new version."MicrosoftIf you do like the video Clipchamp has created, you're pretty much done at this point. Click the Export button to save the video. From the export page, you can share your video directly to the likes of YouTube and TikTok, or add a copy to your OneDrive storage.After the AI is done with your video, you can further customize it in Clipchamp. Click on the "Edit in timeline" button and you'll be able to do things like add stickers, captions, animated text and audio files.In addition, you can enhance your video with AI options including a text-to-speech voiceover feature and automatically generated subtitles. The speaker coach tool aims to provide you with real-time feedback on your camera recordings to help improve your speaking skills and video presentations.Many Clipchamp features are available for free. But for videos in 4K resolution and other premium tools, you'll need to pay for the essentials plan, which costs $12 per month or $120 per year.How to use Snipping Tool's AI featuresThe Snipping Tool is one of the most useful in Windows 11. It's a cinch to capture and share some or all of your display. The app's AI functions should come in useful in a number of ways.First, the app supports text recognition. If you use the Snipping Tool to take a screenshot of something with text in it, you can click the Text Actions button. At the outset, you'll have two main options. You can copy all of the text and paste it into another app.Tech Based/YouTubeAlternatively, you can quickly redact private information. The tool should be able to recognize email addresses and phone numbers, and you'll be able to swiftly blue those out. That should save you having to manually cover up text in, say, Paint.The Snipping Tool should work quite nicely with Copilot as well. As indicated in a Windows 11 promo video, you can paste something you've clipped with the tool into Copilot, then do things like ask the assistant to remove the background from the image.How to use Background Blur in Windows 11's Photos appMicrosoftThe Windows 11 Photos app has some useful AI features as well. Those include improved search for images stored on OneDrive accounts -- it should be easier for you to find a photo based on content or location where it was taken.The app's editing features have been enhanced thanks to AI as well. One of the handier and easiest-to-use tools is the self-explanatory Background Blur (Paint 3D has a similar feature). That can help the subject of your photo stand out. AI separates the background from the subject, but to ensure your data stays on your device, the separation process takes place there rather than in the cloud.To use Background Blur, first select the image you want to use and open it in the Photos app. Click on "Edit image" at the top of the screen and select Background Blur. You'll then have a few options to choose from. You can opt to enable the blur effect instantly; adjust the intensity of the blur before applying it; or have more granular control by turning on the "Selection brush tool."Opt for the Selection brush tool and you can manually add denote more parts of the image for the AI to blur out. Alternatively, you can deselect parts of the image that you don't want to be blurred. You'll be able to change the brush size for finer control and modify the brush softness to intensify or turn down the blue effect.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/windows-11s-new-ai-features-how-to-use-paint-clipchamp-snipping-tool-and-photos-191541014.html?src=rss
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by Will Shanklin on (#6G5K8)
At least 15 visitors at Yuga Labs' ApeFest, a celebration of the marvels of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, may have experienced serious eye injuries. Bloomberg reports that multiple people attending the NFT event in Hong Kong last weekend say they experienced vision problems, which they suspect stem from the event's stage lighting. Some of the attendees claim doctors subsequently diagnosed them with photokeratitis (aka welder's eye"), caused by exposure to ultraviolet rays.Woke up in the middle of the night after ApeFest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital," the user Crypto June posted on X (via Coin Telegraph). Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights." User @docwagmi suspected that the ape friends" reporting problems appeared to have been up close with us front stage."The event's elaborately stylized bathrooms.@crypto_birb / XMeanwhile, Adrian Zduczyk wrote on X, To all my friends who suffer now: go get your eyes checked. You've likely most literally got your eyes burnt with UV like I did, which requires medications, eye drops, eye protection, antibiotics and specialist care. Don't ignore this health hazard. Without proper treatment, it may cause long lasting vision impairment and other serious damage." Zduczyk wrote that seeking medical attention quickly appears to have spared him long-term damage. My vision was tested as close to perfect with no serious cornea damage, luckily."Yuga Labs briefly addressed the issue on X, saying it's aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest," while claiming it's proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes." The company downplayed the number of people reporting issues, adding, Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms." The NFT company advised attendees experiencing symptoms to seek medical attention just in case."X users seemed none too pleased with Yuga Labs' PR response:
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by Kris Holt on (#6G5FP)
Surfshark is one of the best VPN services around and there are deals available for its various plans as part of an early Black Friday sale. You can pick up a two-year subscription to the mid-tier Surfshark One plan for $2.69 per month (86 percent off the regular price of a one-month subscription), plus you'll get an extra four months as a bonus.Surfshark One is probably the best option for most people. Along with a VPN that Surfshark says you can use across an unlimited number of devices without bandwidth restrictions, you'll get access to features such as antivirus software, data breach alerts (for things like email, credit card and ID leaks) and a privacy-focused search engine.While we found it easy to set up Surfshark's VPN in our testing, it took us a few attempts before we were able to stream a show from Hulu. So it may not be the ideal VPN if you often stream shows, movies and games. But if you're just looking for a VPN that will help protect you as you browse the web, Surfshark is a solid option.Meanwhile, Surfshark's basic plan is just $2 per month if you pay for 24 months upfront (that's 86 percent off a month-to-month plan). The company will also toss in three extra months for free. There aren't too many bells and whistles with this plan, but you'll still get a VPN you can use all compatible devices, along with an ad blocker and cookie pop-up blocker.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/surfshark-vpn-plans-are-up-to-86-percent-off-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-162730848.html?src=rss
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by Billy Steele on (#6G5FQ)
Probe meat thermometers are insanely helpful whether you're cooking indoors or out. They help ensure you don't serve your family and friends undercooked chicken or an overcooked steak. While most of them use wired probes attached to some type of display or hub, Meater's probes are completely wireless. This means you don't have to dodge a cable when flipping or moving things around the grill. They're also easier to use when wrapping large cuts like pork shoulders or brisket.With two models under its belt, the Traeger-owned company is debuting its latest version today: the Meater 2 Plus. While the device may look awfully similar to Meater's previous cooking gadgets and it still uses the charger as a Bluetooth range booster, there are some significant upgrades here. The company has installed additional sensors for more precise temperature readings, while also increasing heat resistance and overall durability. It has managed to do this without drastically increasing the price, too.The biggest change for the Meater 2 Plus is on the inside. The company has added four more internal temperature sensors for a total of five. There's also still the ambient temperature sensor on the opposite end to keep tabs on grill temps while you're cooking. Meater says the five internal sensors offer the real core temperature of the meat," which it says can help reduce any subpar results due to an error in probe placement (the app helps with that, too). All five can measure temps down to a tenth of a degree with an accuracy that's within half a degree.The Meater app displays the lowest temperature of the five sensors in the main view of the app and goes by that for any targets you may have set. Additionally, you can see the real-time temps of all five sensors by tapping on the one being displayed. As it did before, the company's mobile app offers guidance on target temperatures based on the doneness level you desire. There are lots of options for different types and cuts of meat, but you can also go full manual mode if you're doing something like reheating leftovers or know exactly what you want. Either way, the app calculates estimated finishing time based on internal and ambient temperatures. It also warns you when there's five minutes left, when you hit the target and when the required rest time (if any) is over.Photo by Billy Steele/EngadgetMeater also added a new Master Class feature to its app that will offer over 50 video courses that teach cooking techniques like two-zone BBQ, reverse searing and more. Step-by-step demos will include ingredient and tool checklists for easy shopping. There will also be detailed written instructions so you're not constantly swiping back through videos. Meater says this is just the initial batch and it plans to release new classes on a weekly basis.The other big physical updates are improved heat resistance and durability. First, the Meater 2 Plus can withstand open flames at temperatures up to 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 Celsius). This allows you to keep the probe in place while you sear. What's more, the Meater app will warn you when the device is getting too hot.That's over 400 degrees hotter than the max temperature rating of the Meater Plus (527 degrees Fahrenheit). Plus, much of the competition, like ThermoPro's TempSpike, can only handle just under 600 degrees. The Meater 2 Plus also has nine degrees more when it comes to the hottest internal temperature, now topping out at 221 degrees. The Meater 2 Plus is fully waterproof, so you can use it to deep fry or sous vide, as well. And when you're done, you can just pop it in the dishwasher. I've done it several times and it's still working just fine.The temperature and waterproof upgrades are made possible by a new full-metal, stainless steel probe design. The Meater 2 Plus is 30 percent slimmer than the Meater Plus and a new Zirconia ceramic band allows the Bluetooth signal to radiate from the device. Thanks to a high-performance antenna" and optimized RF design" specifically tuned for high heat, the Meater 2 Plus offers an expanded range of up to 250 feet. That's up from 165 feet on the previous model. The company says the new version can technically achieve 2,500 feet, but that requires a direct line of sight and no RF interference.Photo by Billy Steele/EngadgetMost of our backyards won't accommodate that, and you're going to walk into the house to grab a beer at some point. In my tests, I was able to venture from my deck all the way to the mailbox on the street without losing connection. Like other Meater products, the 2 Plus works with Meater Link for Wi-Fi and Meater Cloud, providing unlimited range, though you'll need to connect the Meater 2 Plus to another phone, tablet or laptop for these features.Meater also improved battery life and charging efficiency. The Meater 2 Plus can be recharged for up to two years with one AAA battery, doubling the longevity of the previous model which the company rated at 100 charges. A fully charged probe will still last over 24 hours before you'll need to dock it, unchanged from the Meater Plus. However, the Meater 2 Plus charges to 50 percent in only 15 minutes, enough for a 12-hour low-and-slow barbeque session. And as the company points out, you'll never have to worry about charging if you keep the probe docked when it's not in use.I've tested the Meater 2 Plus for three cooks so far and I've been impressed with the performance for all of them. It's completely wild to me to be able to throw this thing in the dishwasher instead of spending several minutes scrubbing the probe like I typically have to for all of my wired accessories. Of course, the highlight is the increased precision, which gives you a more detailed look at what's going on during your cook. It was especially handy while smoking a turkey breast, allowing me to make sure the center was safe to eat while monitoring the rest to make sure it didn't get too far past the coveted 165-degree mark. I also had no issues with high-heat use, though most of my testing was sub-350 degrees and primarily low-and-slow smoking. Besides turkey, I also used it for Over the Top Chili, smoked meatloaf and reheating leftovers.The Meater 2 Plus is available now on the company's website for $119.95. That's $10-$20 more than the Meater Plus, depending on your wood preference for the charger on that previous model.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meater-2-plus-review-a-more-precise-and-durable-wireless-meat-thermometer-160039734.html?src=rss
by Devindra Hardawar on (#6G5CK)
Apple's confusing laptop family finally makes sense this year. The long-rumored 15-inch MacBook Air arrived months ago, and the company surprised us by delivering two MacBook Pro revisions in less than 12 months. While I appreciated the speed bump that the M2 Pro models brought, the new M3-equipped MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch are a clearer sign of where Apple is headed. The company has killed off the long-suffering 13-inch MacBook Pro, which was cursed with a Touch Bar and an aging design. Now, its Pro machines are truly geared towards professionals, while the Air models are meant for everyone else.Curiously, though, Apple also seems to be dividing those professionals into more distinct subgroups. The cheaper $1,599 14-inch MacBook Pro sports a plain M3 chip, which has an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. It's an entirely new addition to the lineup, and consequently it seems tailor-made for people who want something more than a MacBook Air, but don't need the power of a $2,000 machine. It's equipped with a mere 8GB of RAM - a limitation you'll likely feel as browser tabs stack up - and it loses a USB-C port on its right side.If you're actually going to be doing any multimedia work, you can bump up to the $1,999 14-inch M3 Pro model, which features an 11-core CPU and 14-core GPU. You'll have to shell out $2,399 to get the full power of the M3 Pro with a 12-core CPU and 18-core GPU. And demanding users can jump to the $3,199 M3 Max model, sporting a 14-core CPU and 30-core GPU. Pricing hasn't changed at all for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which still starts at $2,499 with an M3 Pro chip. Notably, the bigger MacBook Pro can be equipped with a 40-core GPU M3 Max chip for $3,999.Both MacBook Pro models can also come in a "Space Black" color, which features a new anodization process to reduce fingerprints. (Unfortunately, it's not available for the base M3 14-inch MacBook Pro, another slight knock against that machine.) While the color looks more charcoal gray in person, it's darker than Apple's previous "Space Gray" MacBook Pros. And in my testing, it definitely attracted less fingerprint grease than the pure black "Midnight" MacBook Air (though it certainly wasn't perfect). I'm just hoping Apple can eventually produce a Midnight variant of the MacBook Pro that fares better with fingerprints. And don't worry, the classic silver option is still around.The 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetOther than that new color, though, not much has changed about the overall design of the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, which were refreshed in 2021. Their refined, all-aluminum design was a big step forward from Apple's older unibody cases, which stuck around for almost a decade. Both computers feature gorgeous 14- and 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR displays, which offer HDR, refresh rates up to 120Hz with ProMotion, and up to 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness. (One nifty upgrade: They now offer up to 600 nits of SDR brightness, instead of 500 nits.) And yes, the notch everyone made fun of is still around, and once again it houses a 1080p webcam.I'm not complaining, mind you. This MacBook Pro redesign was a major improvement when it debuted two years ago, and it still looks great today. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple sticks with it for years, just like it did the old unibody design. While some PC-makers are eager to throw in features to make their computers stand out - like the rear LED lights on ASUS's Zephyrus G14 and m16 - there's something casually cool and confident about these MacBook Pros.You might be wondering why we're reviewing both the 14-inch and 16-inch models together - to put it simply, they're practically the same machine with different screen sizes. One isn't necessarily better than the other, it really depends on your needs. If you're a video editor working on large project timelines, it makes sense to go for the biggest screen possible, especially since you can cram in that 40-core GPU. And if you need something more compact, the smaller model makes more sense as it weighs just 3.5 pounds, while the 16-inch is a back-aching 4.7 pounds.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetI tested the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 chip and 16GB of RAM, as well as the 16-inch model with an M3 Max and a whopping 128GB of RAM. (Unfortunately, we couldn't get our hands on an M3 Pro model to compare, but we'll update our benchmarks once we do.) To be honest, both computers performed exactly as I expected. The 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro is still a zippy little devil for general productivity work - in my case, that's with dozens of browser tabs, Slack, Evernote, Spotify and Pixelmator Pro all at once. The 16-inch model, on the other hand, was practically begging for more serious workloads. (Perhaps I was just feeling the pressure of using a machine with that much RAM and an 8TB SSD.)NoneGeekbench 5 CPUGeekbench 5 ComputeCinebench R233DMark Wildlife ExtremeApple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M3, 2023)2,368/10,72932,7491,932/10,1598,139Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (Apple M3 Max, 2023)2,367/22,96194,2451,915/23,830Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M2 Max, 2023)1,970/15,33871,5831,603/14,72518 ,487Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Apple M2, 2022)1,938/8,98427,3041,583/8,7196,767In the Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024 benchmarks, both the M3 and M3 Max chips showed slight improvements over the M2 variants and more noticeable leaps ahead of the M1 family. I can't imagine too many folks are eager to upgrade their M2 MacBook Pros, but demanding users may see the need to move beyond the M1 machines at this point. For content creators, time is money after all, so it's worth spending a bit more to plow through projects quickly. And if you're one of the many Mac users still on an Intel system, the M3 hardware makes the push to upgrade even more compelling.While Apple still isn't trying to court hardcore gamers much, it's at least laying the groundwork for a better gaming experience. Thanks to the upgraded GPU in the M3, for example, Lies of P played far more smoothly on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, compared to the slightly stuttery experience I saw on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2. I was able to crank all of the graphics settings to their highest level while playing in 1,920 by 1,200, and the game easily maintained a silky smooth 60fps. The 16-inch MacBook Pro delivered an even better experience thanks to the M3 Max. I was able to crank Lies of P up to 1440p with all of the graphics settings maxed out and still stay at 60fps. The M2 13-inch MacBook Pro, in comparison, hovered between 40 and 60 fps.What's most impressive, though, is that I saw that performance while on battery power. The dedicated GPUs on PC gaming laptops tend to slow down considerably when they're away from the lifeline of AC power. Apple's expansion into gaming could also open up the MacBook Pro to people who already own PC gaming desktops, but want the refinement of a Mac laptop. I was able to seamlessly dive into my Baldur's Gate 3 campaign (thanks Steam Cloud Saves) across both machines. That's something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetBoth MacBook Pro models still feature Apple's excellent keyboard and trackpad, and they all sport an SD card slot alongside a full-sized HDMI connection and headphone jack. They also have three USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports - except for the base M3 model, which just has two. Apple also improved on the already excellent battery life of the previous models: The 14-inch MacBook Pro lasted 24 hours and 30 minutes during our benchmark, while the 16-inch model reached 24 hours and 50 minutes. During real-world usage, both computers took almost two days before I had to recharge them. Given how power-hungry Intel's chips have been lately, it's nice to see laptops that can easily survive the 14 and a half-hour flight between New York City and Tokyo.Another plus? If you were stuck on that flight with either of these laptops, you'd truly appreciate their Liquid Retina XDR displays. While they're not OLED screens, their MiniLED backlights are wonderfully bright, and they also offer excellent color depth for photographers. Mostly, though, I appreciated their high refresh rates - even doing something simple, like scrolling through a website, looks incredibly smooth. And while the 14.2-inch screen on the smaller MacBook Pro is only a tad larger than the Air's 13.6-inch display, I found it noticeably more immersive while catching up on Netflix shows. For my purposes, the 14-inch model was also a great balance of screen size and portability - the 16-inch Pro is just so damn large. (But yes, I'd imagine that would be even more useful for video editing.)It's worth noting that Apple didn't send me the base $1,599 M3 MacBook Pro with just 8GB of RAM. Given what I've seen on Activity Monitor, I'm typically using 10GB to 13GB of memory with my typical workflow. And I'm just a lowly tech blogger! I'm sure I could still work decently on an 8GB system, but my overflow memory needs would end up hitting the SSD frequently as swap memory. That'll slow down performance considerably when I actually need to deal with large amounts of data - perhaps while downloading a game, or transferring 4K video footage from my camera - and frequent usage also decreases the life of your SSD.In many ways, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM feels as cynical an option as the old 13-inch machine. It's really just meant for people who want the Pro badge, but may underestimate the downsides of limited memory. And don't forget that you can't upgrade RAM on Apple Silicon - it's all baked right into the M3 chip. On older Intel systems, you could buy a low-specced MacBook Pro and add more memory down the line. That's simply impossible today, and Apple has little reason to change its architecture to become more flexible.So, as always, we recommend you buy as much RAM as you can up front, even if it means getting a smaller SSD instead. For example, my 14-inch MacBook Pro test system, which had a 1TB SSD along with 16GB of RAM, cost $1,999. But you could save $200 by opting for a 512GB SSD instead. Don't forget, a computer with 16GB of RAM could last you years, whereas you'll start feeling the burn with 8GB immediately.Photo by Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetIf you want to see how wild Apple's prices can get, just look at the 16-inch MacBook Pro I received, which clocks in at $7,199 with the full-powered M3 Max (16-core CPU, 40-core GPU) 128GB of RAM and that 8TB SSD. It's not something an average consumer would buy - but it would definitely be useful for Disney to have a pile of them on-hand to help editors and VFX artists pump out the latest Marvel show.Funny enough, my advice today echoes what I said last year: Don't buy the cheapest model. Beyond that, it's hard to go wrong. The M3 chips are incredibly efficient and powerful. And Apple's MacBook Pro design remains as elegant as ever. Just try to save up for at least 16GB of RAM.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/macbook-pro-14-inch-and-16-inch-review-an-m3-chip-for-every-situation-140048075.html?src=rss
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by Mat Smith on (#6G59N)
Elon Musk's new AI company, xAI, will release its chatbot to X subscribers who pay $16 per month once it exits beta. A select group of X users started testing Grok, a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT, this weekend.Musk laid out his heady ambitions for xAI earlier this year, saying in July that its intended purpose is, quite literally, to understand the true nature of the universe." Having said that, Musk says Grok will wield a sense of humor, like this... banter sewn into a guide to making cocaine, which must be funny to someone.Grok's notable feature is its real-time access to information published on X, which Musk claims will be a massive advantage over other models." Rival chatbots are limited to the information fed to their model. If Grok constantly pulls new information from X, it could have an edge. It could also be more liable to the horrible biases of AI models, not to mention parsing the mass of misinformation swirling around the rebranded social network.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedBlack Friday: The best early deals from Amazon, Target, Best Buy and moreVolvo EX30 first drive: Charming and eco-friendly with power to spareEcho will be the first Marvel show to hit Disney+ and Hulu simultaneouslyHow the meandering legal definition of fair use' cost us Napster but gave us SpotifyThousands of people are uninstalling ad blockers after YouTube's big crackdownX may start selling recycled user handlesIt's reportedly soliciting people to buy recycled user handles for $50,000.Beyond subscriptions for access to chatbots, X is looking at other ways to make money. The company has been trying to find buyers for inactive user handles, even sending solicitation emails asking for a flat fee of $50,000 to initiate a purchase," according to Forbes. Elon Musk announced back in May that X, formerly Twitter, would start purging dormant accounts and even alluded to plans for recycling disused handles.Continue reading.Fortnite keeps breaking player count records since releasing its OG seasonFortnite OG brought back the original island map and more.FortniteSince the release of Fortnite OG at the end of last week, player counts have reached new all-time highs - peaking on Saturday with 44.7 million players, according to a tweet from the Fortnite team. Players reportedly clocked a cumulative 102 million hours of play, making it the game's biggest day ever. Apparently, a 2018 map is old enough to be considered nostalgic.Continue reading.FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraudSBF faces up to 110 years in prison.Amr Alfiky / reutersA federal jury has found FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. Arrested in the Bahamas back in December 2022, SBF faces a maximum sentence of 110 years in federal prison for multiple crimes, including committing wire fraud against FTX customers, wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He'll be sentenced on March 28, 2024.Continue reading.Washington DC pilots free AirTags scheme to tackle car theftThe pilot program will focus on certain areas.The city of Washington DC will distribute free Apple AirTags to residents in specific neighborhoods, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced on Wednesday. The aim: to make stolen cars easier for police to track down. We are equipping residents with technology that will allow the [Metropolitan Police Department] to address these crimes, recover vehicles and hold people accountable," Bowser said.DC is the second city to hand out free AirTags to make finding car thieves easier. Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would give away 500 AirTags to make finding car thieves easier.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-elon-musks-new-ai-company-xai-launches-grok-the-chatbot-121533489.html?src=rss
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by Katie Malone on (#6G578)
Third parties selling our personal data is annoying. But for certain sensitive populations like military service members, the selling of that information could quickly become a national security threat. Researchers at Duke University released a study on Monday tracking what measures data brokers have in place to prevent unidentified or potentially malign actors from buying personal data on members of the military. As it turns out, the answer is often few to none - even when the purchaser is actively posing as a foreign agent.A 2021 Duke study by the same lead researcher revealed that data brokers advertised that they had access to - and were more than happy to sell -information on US military personnel. In this more recent study researchers used wiped computers, VPNs, burner phones bought with cash and other means of identity obfuscation to go undercover. They scraped the websites of data brokers to see which were likely to have available data on servicemembers. Then they attempted to make those purchases, posing as two entities: datamarketresearch.org and dataanalytics.asia. With little-or-no vetting, several of the brokers transferred the requested data not only to the presumptively Chicago-based datamarketresearch, but also to the server of the .asia domain which was located in Singapore. The records only cost between 12 to 32 cents a piece.The sensitive information included health records and financial information. Location data was also available, although the team at Duke decided not to purchase that - though it's not clear if this was for financial or ethical reasons. Access to this data could be used by foreign and malicious actors to target active-duty military personnel, veterans, and their families and acquaintances for profiling, blackmail, targeting with information campaigns, and more," the report cautions. At an individual level, this could also include identity theft or fraud.This gaping hole in our national security apparatus is due in large part to the absence of comprehensive federal regulations governing either individual data privacy, or much of the business practices engaged in by data brokers. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bill Cassidy and Marco Rubio introduced the Protecting Military Service Members' Data Act in 2022 to give power to the Federal Trade Commission to prevent data brokers from selling military personnel information to adversarial nations. They reintroduced the bill in March 2023 after it stalled out. Despite bipartisan support, it still hasn't made it past the introduction phase.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/researchers-posed-as-foreign-actors-and-data-brokers-sold-them-information-on-military-servicemembers-anyway-120038192.html?src=rss
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by Steve Dent on (#6G579)
MediaTek has unveiled its flagship Dimensity 9300 mobile processor using TSMC's 3rd-generation 4nm+ technology. The company claims much improved performance and power consumption over last year's Dimensity 9200, and performance on par with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor in some key benchmarks. That makes three flagship mobile system-on-chips launched in the last month (including Google's Tensor G3), showing some healthy competition in the high-end mobile processor space.The Dimensity 9300 has what MediaTek calls an "all-big core architecture" oriented toward performance, with four ultra-large cores and four big cores, making eight altogether. That compares to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which comes with a single ultra-large Cortex-X4 core, along with 5 big Cortex-A720 cores and 2 smaller Cortex-A520 cores to balance energy savings and performance.With all that, it delivers 15 percent more performance than the Dimensity 9200 at the same power level, or 33 percent power draw at the same performance. It also allows for 40 percent more peak performance, according to the company. Mediatek also claims an AnTuTu score of 2,130,000+, which roughly matches The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's AnTuTu score.MediaTek is also claiming a 46 percent jump in GPU performance over the previous processor at the same power levels and higher frame rates than its rival on certain gaming benchmarks. It also offers much improved deep learning performance over the Dimensity 9200 thanks to the new APU 790 AI processor - with up to 8 times the processing speed and Stable Diffusion image generation under a second.It also has features that improve computational photography and video, support for always-on HDR at 4K 60p, "real-time bokeh tracking" at 4K 30fps, AI processing on RAW photos and videos and support for the new Ultra HDR format in Android 14.That's all quite impressive if accurate, though tests will need to bear those claims out. In any case, it looks like a solid alternative to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and it's likely to appear on a number of upcoming devices, possibly including the The Vivo X100 and X100 Pro.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mediatek-takes-on-qualcomm-with-its-latest-flagship-mobile-processor-113009414.html?src=rss
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by Sarah Fielding on (#6G57A)
Black Friday is still a couple of weeks away, but the sales are already starting. Take Logitech, which has markdowns on lots of its best devices on Amazon, including the G733 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Headset. The well-made and stylish headphones (we named them one of the cutest gaming accessories) are currently $120, down from $150 - a 20 percent discount.Logitech's G733 headset backs up its good looks with powerful sound, a 20-meter range and up to 29 hours of battery life. Plus, its stretchy band and interchangeable earbud tips give you a comfortable, easy fit.Among the many other Logitech mice, keyboards and headphones currently for sale, there are a few other stand outs to look into. The G Fits True Wireless Gaming Earbuds are down to $150 from $230 - a 35 percent discount. These are a great option if you just can't get earbuds to stay in your ear, with Logitech's Lightform technology molding the device to your ear in just one minute upon first use. They also come with 10mm drivers, dual built-in beamforming microphones and passive noise canceling.OK, enough about listening - let's talk about the tools you need for gameplay. The G Pro Wireless Gaming Mouse is currently marked down 38 percent, dropping to $80 from $130. Logitech built the mouse with input from professional esports gamers, and it shows, touting features like a 1-millisecond report rate connection and up to 25,600 DPI. Looking for a cheap entry point into Logitech's devices? Try the G203 Wired Gaming Mouse, down to $20 from $40 - a 50 percent discount.Logitech's G915 Lightspeed RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard rounds out some of our favorites on sale with a 36 percent price cut, making the device available for $160 instead of $250. The wireless keyboard provides 30 hours of gameplay and 16.8 million color options. Plus, you can choose between three distinct sounds for your perfect level of clacking.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/logitech-gaming-accessories-are-up-to-50-percent-off-in-early-black-friday-sale-103543145.html?src=rss
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by Steve Dent on (#6G55G)
Last week, a number of Apple Watch owners noticed that their batteries were draining much quicker than normal after they installed the latest watchOS version 10.1. Now, Apple has acknowledged the issue in an internal memo seen by MacRumors, and promised that a fix will arrive in an upcoming update.The issue is affecting multiple models including older ones like Watch SE and Watch Series 5, up to brand new versions like Apple Watch Ultra 2, according to Reddit, Apple's Support Community, X and other sources. The issue appears to be fairly serious, with one user noting that "watchOS 10.1 is killing the battery on my Apple Watch," draining it from 100 to 50 percent in less than 60 minutes.Apple appeared to address the issue partly with its iOS 17.1 update, noting that it resolved a problem involving "increased power consumption" when a Watch running watchOS 10.1 is paired with an iPhone using iOS 17, as MacRumors noted. That doesn't seem to have fully resolved the issue, though.Apple said in the memo that the issue will be fixed in a watchOS update "coming soon," without providing a more specific date, specific models affected and reason for the problem. Given the nature of it, however, we'd hope it's a high-priority item. Apple is reportedly set to release iOS 17.1.1 for iPhone, and will hopefully also release watchOS 10.1.1 with a fix.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-battery-drain-issues-to-be-fixed-in-upcoming-watchos-update-090554269.html?src=rss
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by Steve Dent on (#6G540)
Volvo's EX30 crossover has yet to arrive, but it's already generated a lot of interest thanks to a killer combination of a charming design and low starting price of $35,000. On top of that, it's eco-friendly to the core due to its low carbon manufacturing footprint and use of sustainable materials.There is a but," though. All models sold globally to start with, including in the US, will be built in China by Volvo parent Geely. That's controversial given current geopolitical tensions and it means the EX30 won't be eligible for federal US tax credits. However, Volvo recently announced that it would build some models in its Ghent, Belgium plant in Europe starting in 2025 to boost... production capacity for the expected EX30 demand in Europe as well as for global export."We've finally been able to drive the EX30 in Barcelona and answer a lot of lingering questions. How's the handling, acceleration and range? We know it's fairly small, so is there enough interior space for the US market? And how does it stack up against the competition, especially Tesla, considering the lack of tax credits? Let's dive in and learn more.FeaturesWe looked at the EX30 when it first launched, examining the controls, infotainment system, storage and more, so check that out if you haven't. Still, I'll revisit some highlights here before the drive.There are two versions of the EX30, the single-motor Extended Range and the twin-motor Performance model, starting at $34,950 and $44,900 respectively (before the $1,195 destination fee). They're built on parent Geely's 400 volt SEA platform, shared by some upcoming Polestar models.The Extended Range version makes a decent 268 horsepower with 258 pound feet of torque, while the Performance model ups that to a wilder 422 horsepower and 400 pound feet. Both feature 69 kWh batteries, with 64 kWh usable, for an estimated EPA range of 275 and 265 miles respectively (the final figures should be available soon). There's a 51kWh battery too, but it's only available in Europe. The maximum charging rate is 153kW, bringing the battery from 10-80 percent in 26.5 minutes.Steve Dent for EngadgetStarting in 2025, the 2026 model year EX30 will be equipped with a NACS (North American Charging Standard) port thanks to its recent agreement with Volvo. That means the 2025 model debuting in 2024 will effectively be a unicorn, as it will carry a CCS port instead - though a NACS adapter will be included for Tesla Superchargers, of course.The base models are, well, basic, with things like parking sensors and a digital key left out. We tested both with the Ultra" equipment level, which includes the Harman Kardon sound system, larger wheels, USB-C outlets, power front seats, park assist pilot and more. Those cost $40,600 and $46,600, respectively.Steve Dent for EngadgetThe EX30 is a looker, with balanced proportions and smooth lines. The design says friendly" and accessible" rather than aggressive," and it caught a few admiring looks from passersby.From the outside, the EX30 looks larger than it is, but the 167-inch wheelbase is similar to a Mini Clubman or VW Golf GTI hatch - not large vehicles by any means. It weighs 3,850 pounds, about the same as a Kia Niro EV. All told, it's Volvo's smallest SUV by a good margin.That's not an issue up front, as the EX30 is relatively wide and has ample headroom for tall drivers. The backseat is a bit cramped, though, especially with tall occupants up front. The rear cargo area can accommodate a decent amount of stuff, and you can make it a bit larger by removing the floor-leveling door. It can be further expanded by folding down the front seats.Steve Dent for EngadgetRather than putting speakers in the doors, Volvo simply used a soundbar-like system built by Harman Kardon. That's smart, as it should appeal to younger users in Volvo's target market. With EX30-specific tuning, it sounds really good too.The interior isn't as basic as the Model 3, as there are switches and stalks for drive mode, turn signals, lights, volume and other primary functions. The interior is also less sterile thanks to Volvo's creative use of sustainable materials and color schemes. Everything is soft and welcoming, with a variety of textures and patterns, made from things like old denim and recycled PVC window frames.Steve Dent for EngadgetLike the Model 3, though, the EX30 has no dashboard, just a center touchscreen, so important information like speed and charge level is off to the side. Volvo says that it helps you refocus on driving, somehow, but I'm not a fan - it forced me to take my eyes off the road more than I'd like.All other things are handled by the 12.3-inch center touchscreen. The main display shows key functions like speed, moving map, charge, drive mode and more. Other settings let you change things like the steering firmness, or get maximum boost in the Performance model by choosing all-wheel drive - if you don't mind a significant hit to range. The on or off one-pedal control isn't as precise as I'd like, as it lacks multiple braking levels like Kia's EV6 and other models.DrivingSteve Dent for EngadgetNow that we know the EX30, what's it like to drive? In short, it's a Volvo. That's not a bad thing - what it lacks in agility, it makes up in comfort. It floats over tattered freeway pavement with little jolting and you'll barely notice potholes or small speed bumps. It's a nice car to drive in the city or take on cross-country trips, but it'd flounder on a track.That's not an accident; Volvo specifically tuned in a fair amount of suspension travel to favor comfort over sport. Tesla went the other way with the Model 3, so it can nip around corners more precisely, but rides harshly on less-than-smooth roads.In terms of power and torque, the Extended Range model has enough for most drivers. With a 5.1 second 0-60 MPH time, overtaking is safe and easy at freeway speeds and acceleration is crisp and predictable in all conditions. With that model, the power pairs well with the suspension, striking a nice balance between comfort and control.Steve Dent for EngadgetThe Performance version is on another level, though. With 422 horsepower and 400 pounds of torque in an EV of this size and weight, acceleration is hair-raising. In fact, it can go from 0-60 MPH in just 3.4 seconds, quicker than any Volvo to date and close to the Model 3 Performance. On tight winding roads with short passing zones, I felt confident enough to zip around trucks or buses. Freeway speed limits arrive almost too quickly, though the EX30 is limited to 180 km/h, or about 112 MPH.Despite the power, it's no race car. The suspension is identical to the Extended Range model, which is to say, too soft for high-speed cornering. Just stomping on the pedal from a start can create some drama, as it becomes clear that the suspension isn't quite up to that level of instant torque. So, apart from the raw horsepower, it's not an enthusiast car.Steve Dent for EngadgetThe EX30's Pilot Assist is reasonably advanced for a relatively inexpensive EV, offering more than just lane-keeping and collision avoidance. As on other Volvo cars, it can also change lanes automatically, make passing easier and adjust your speed to traffic. It also offers a Park Pilot Assist function that can locate spots at speeds up to 14 MPH and then park automatically. The system worked as well as any I've tried, squeezing the car into tight spots while displaying synthesized views all around the vehicle.It also has an advanced driver alert system as standard. It can not only detect if your hands are on the wheel, it uses a special sensor that raises a warning if it thinks you're distracted, drowsy or inattentive.Wrap-upAfter driving the EX30 for nearly a full day, I'm impressed. While not the most nimble crossover EV, it's comfortable to drive whether you're on the freeway or city streets full of potholes. Even in the base single-motor model, the acceleration is more than anyone needs. In the dual-motor performance version, it's borderline insane. It also offers enough range for reasonably long trips, with support for decently fast charging.Steve Dent for EngadgetVolvo has more or less nailed the interior, bar a few minor complaints. It ticks all the boxes for buyers looking for an eco-friendly car, particularly the fact that Volvo says it uses 75 percent less CO2 to manufacture than its current EVs. It also uses sustainable materials in the fun but functional interior.The EX30 has a lot of competition from the likes of Tesla, Volkswagen and Chevy, though, and is at a disadvantage due to the lack of a federal tax credit. The fact that it's built in China may turn off some buyers, though as mentioned, Volvo just announced it would build some EX30s in Ghent, Belgium, starting in 2025. Still, it should appeal to a lot of consumers looking for something charming, easy to drive and relatively quick, along with fans of the Volvo brand. With all that, the EX30 should be a solid hit in North America and elsewhere.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volvo-ex30-first-drive-charming-and-eco-friendly-with-power-to-spare-080039873.html?src=rss
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by Cheyenne MacDonald on (#6G4VE)
Discord is changing its approach to file hosting in an effort to crack down on malware. The platform will begin using temporary file links that will expire after 24 hours for user content shared outside of Discord, BleepingComputer reported. The change is expected to go into effect by the end of the year.While the stated intention of the move is to crack down on malware, it'll also curb the wider use of Discord as an unofficial file hosting service. It's not uncommon for users to upload images and other content to their own servers and then post those links elsewhere. You won't be able to do that as smoothly anymore once it makes the move away from permanent file links, because the links will go dead after a day. Nothing will change for content posted and shared within Discord itself.Switching to temporary file links will help our safety team restrict access to flagged content, and generally reduce the amount of malware distributed using our CDN [content delivery network]," a spokesperson for Discord told BleepingComputer. Discord also noted, If users are using Discord to host files, we'd recommend they find a more suitable service."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/discord-is-switching-to-expiring-links-for-files-shared-off-platform-202533531.html?src=rss
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by Cheyenne MacDonald on (#6G4QP)
Fortnite players are definitely here for the new throwback season. Since the release of Fortnite OG" at the end of last week, player counts have reached new all-time highs - peaking on Saturday with 44.7 million players total, according to a tweet from the Fortnite team. Players reportedly clocked a cumulative 102 million hours of play, making it the game's biggest day ever. With Chapter 4 Season 5, or Fortnite OG," Fortnite is dipping back into its Chapter 1 glory days to bring players back to the original 2018 island map, and reintroduce gear and other elements from its past.
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by Andrew Tarantola on (#6G4QQ)
The internet's "enshittification," as veteran journalist and privacy advocate Cory Doctorowdescribes it, began decades before TikTok made the scene. Elder millennials remember the good old days of Napster - followed by the much worse old days of Napster being sued into oblivion along with Grokster and the rest of the P2P sharing ecosystem, until we were left with a handful of label-approved, catalog-sterilized streaming platforms like Pandora and Spotify. Three cheers for corporate copyright litigation.In his new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, Doctorow examines the modern social media landscape, cataloging and illustrating the myriad failings and short-sighted business decisions of the Big Tech companies operating the services that promised us the future but just gave us more Nazis. We have both an obligation and responsibility to dismantle these systems, Doctorow argues, and a means to do so with greater interoperability. In this week's Hitting the Books excerpt, Doctorow examines the aftermath of the lawsuits against P2P sharing services, as well as the role that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "notice-and-takedown" reporting system and YouTube's "ContentID" scheme play on modern streaming sites.Verso PublishingExcerpted from by The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow. Published by Verso. Copyright (C) 2023 by Cory Doctorow. All rights reserved.Seize the Means of ComputationThe harms from notice-and-takedown itself don't directly affect the big entertainment companies. But in 2007, the entertainment industry itself engineered a new, more potent form of notice-and-takedown that manages to inflict direct harm on Big Content, while amplifying the harms to the rest of us.That new system is notice-and-stay-down," a successor to notice-and-takedown that monitors everything every user uploads or types and checks to see whether it is similar to something that has been flagged as a copyrighted work. This has long been a legal goal of the entertainment industry, and in 2019 it became a feature of EU law, but back in 2007, notice-and-staydown made its debut as a voluntary modification to YouTube, called Content ID."Some background: in 2007, Viacom (part of CBS) filed a billion-dollar copyright suit against YouTube, alleging that the company had encouraged its users to infringe on its programs by uploading them to YouTube. Google - which acquired YouTube in 2006 - defended itself by invoking the principles behind Betamax and notice-and-takedown, arguing that it had lived up to its legal obligations and that Betamax established that inducement" to copyright infringement didn't create liability for tech companies (recall that Sony had advertised the VCR as a means of violating copyright law by recording Hollywood movies and watching them at your friends' houses, and the Supreme Court decided it didn't matter).But with Grokster hanging over Google's head, there was reason to believe that this defense might not fly. There was a real possibility that Viacom could sue YouTube out of existence - indeed, profanity-laced internal communications from Viacom - which Google extracted through the legal discovery process - showed that Viacom execs had been hotly debating which one of them would add YouTube to their private empire when Google was forced to sell YouTube to the company.Google squeaked out a victory, but was determined not to end up in a mess like the Viacom suit again. It created Content ID, an audio fingerprinting" tool that was pitched as a way for rights holders to block, or monetize, the use of their copyrighted works by third parties. YouTube allowed large (at first) rightsholders to upload their catalogs to a blocklist, and then scanned all user uploads to check whether any of their audio matched a claimed" clip.Once Content ID determined that a user was attempting to post a copyrighted work without permission from its rightsholder, it consulted a database to determine the rights holder's preference. Some rights holders blocked any uploads containing audio that matched theirs; others opted to take the ad revenue generated by that video.There are lots of problems with this. Notably, there's the inability of Content ID to determine whether a third party's use of someone else's copyright constitutes fair use." As discussed, fair use is the suite of uses that are permitted even if the rightsholder objects, such as taking excerpts for critical or transformational purposes. Fair use is a fact intensive" doctrine-that is, the answer to Is this fair use?" is almost always It depends, let's ask a judge."Computers can't sort fair use from infringement. There is no way they ever can. That means that filters block all kinds of legitimate creative work and other expressive speech - especially work that makes use of samples or quotations.But it's not just creative borrowing, remixing and transformation that filters struggle with. A lot of creative work is similar to other creative work. For example, a six-note phrase from Katy Perry's 2013 song Dark Horse" is effectively identical to a six-note phrase in Joyful Noise," a 2008 song by a much less well-known Christian rapper called Flame. Flame and Perry went several rounds in the courts, with Flame accusing Perry of violating his copyright. Perry eventually prevailed, which is good news for her.But YouTube's filters struggle to distinguish Perry's six-note phrase from Flame's (as do the executives at Warner Chappell, Perry's publisher, who have periodically accused people who post snippets of Flame's Joyful Noise" of infringing on Perry's Dark Horse"). Even when the similarity isn't as pronounced as in Dark, Joyful, Noisy Horse, filters routinely hallucinate copyright infringements where none exist - and this is by design.To understand why, first we have to think about filters as a security measure - that is, as a measure taken by one group of people (platforms and rightsholder groups) who want to stop another group of people (uploaders) from doing something they want to do (upload infringing material).It's pretty trivial to write a filter that blocks exact matches: the labels could upload losslessly encoded pristine digital masters of everything in their catalog, and any user who uploaded a track that was digitally or acoustically identical to that master would be blocked.But it would be easy for an uploader to get around a filter like this: they could just compress the audio ever-so-slightly, below the threshold of human perception, and this new file would no longer match. Or they could cut a hundredth of a second off the beginning or end of the track, or omit a single bar from the bridge, or any of a million other modifications that listeners are unlikely to notice or complain about.Filters don't operate on exact matches: instead, they employ fuzzy" matching. They don't just block the things that rights holders have told them to block - they block stuff that's similar to those things that rights holders have claimed. This fuzziness can be adjusted: the system can be made more or less strict about what it considers to be a match.Rightsholder groups want the matches to be as loose as possible, because somewhere out there, there might be someone who'd be happy with a very fuzzy, truncated version of a song, and they want to stop that person from getting the song for free. The looser the matching, the more false positives. This is an especial problem for classical musicians: their performances of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart inevitably sound an awful lot like the recordings that Sony Music (the world's largest classical music label) has claimed in Content ID. As a result, it has become nearly impossible to earn a living off of online classical performance: your videos are either blocked, or the ad revenue they generate is shunted to Sony. Even teaching classical music performance has become a minefield, as painstakingly produced, free online lessons are blocked by Content ID or, if the label is feeling generous, the lessons are left online but the ad revenue they earn is shunted to a giant corporation, stealing the creative wages of a music teacher.Notice-and-takedown law didn't give rights holders the internet they wanted. What kind of internet was that? Well, though entertainment giants said all they wanted was an internet free from copyright infringement, their actions - and the candid memos released in the Viacom case - make it clear that blocking infringement is a pretext for an internet where the entertainment companies get to decide who can make a new technology and how it will function.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-verso-153018432.html?src=rss
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by Lawrence Bonk on (#6G4NY)
Brumate is holding an early Black Friday sale, offering 25 percent off most drinkware sets, including the well-regarded Hopsulator Trio. The deals start today and end on November 7, so you have some time to think about which insulated cups catch your fancy. Once you decide, just enter the code Cyber25" at checkout. As an example, this sale brings the price of the Hopsulator Trio down to $23.50 from $30.Brumate makes insulated and leak-proof cups that keep liquids at their desired temperature until you're done pushing the stuff through your gullet. The insulation here is certainly on point, which is why the company's products made our list of the best gifts for coffee lovers.On the opposite side of the spectrum, we put the Hopsulator Trio on our lists of the best outdoor gifts for dads and the best grilling gear, as the integrated insulation keeps cold beers cold even on the hottest of summer days. However, the Hopsulator is just for cans, though the company offers plenty of products to please devotees of loose liquid. Some of them could even serve as a decent container for a lunch stew or soup, so it's a win/win.Again, the sale ends on November 7. If you're in the market for some insulated and leak-proof cups, now's your time to shine. The cups and containers range in size from 12 ounces all the way to 40 ounces, for those looking to replicate the joy of slurping down a Big Gulp.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/brumates-early-black-friday-sale-knocks-25-percent-off-drinkware-150047391.html?src=rss
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by Cheyenne MacDonald on (#6G4BS)
Elon Musk's new AI company, xAI, will release its chatbot to subscribers of X's $16 per month Premium+ plan once it exits beta. The system, called Grok, is positioned to be a competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT and started rolling out to a select group of users this weekend.
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by Cheyenne MacDonald on (#6G48E)
X has been trying to find buyers for user handles it reclaimed from inactive accounts, even going so far as to send out solicitation emails asking for a flat fee of $50,000 to initiate a purchase," according to Forbes. Elon Musk announced back in May that X, formerly Twitter, would start purging accounts that have gone dormant, and has alluded to plans for recycling disused handles.According to emails seen by Forbes, X now has a task force called the @Handle Team" that's working on creating a marketplace for buying handles tied to inactive accounts. X changed its policy this year to stipulate that users must log in every 30 days to remain active, and risk having their accounts suspended or permanently removed if they go long enough without signing on. It's unclear how long a user would have to remain inactive for to actually be booted from the platform. After NPR quit the site this past spring, Musk began threatening to reassign its handle just a few weeks later.As of now, obtaining another user's inactive handle doesn't seem to be something just anybody can do. X's website still says it cannot release inactive usernames. But, the Forbes report suggests the company is looking at the possibility of a handle marketplace as yet another way to pull in money from its users. The company just recently introduced two new subscription tiers for paid users - a $16 per month Premium+ tier and a more pared-down $3 per month basic" tier.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-is-reportedly-soliciting-people-to-buy-recycled-user-handles-for-50000-174504242.html?src=rss
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by Mariella Moon on (#6G465)
Blizzard is planning an MCU-style future for the World of Warcraft. Chris Metzen, who only recently returned to the company as the executive creative director of Warcraft, has announced that the game's next three expansions will make up a three-part interconnected saga. Since Blizzard typically releases expansions within two years of each other, "The Worldsoul Saga's" story will take years to unfold. The first installment called World of Warcraft: The War Within is slated for release sometime in 2024, followed by World of Warcraft: Midnight and World of Warcraft: The Last Titan in the years after that.Warcraft general manager John Hight said the trilogy encompasses "one of the most ambitious creative endeavors ever attempted for World of Warcraft." Each one is a standalone narrative, but they're connected by an overall story arc, he explained. "Alongside these epic adventures, the ongoing quality-of-life feature updates players have come to expect from us since Dragonflight will continue in The War Within, further setting us up for the next 20 years and beyond," Hight added.While Blizzard has yet to released an in-depth summary for The War Within, it did share a few pertinent details about the expansion. It will feature an ancient civilization underneath the surface of the planet as it rises in power, while Alliance and Horde heroes experience visions of possible futures, both good and bad. Players can grind until they reach the expansion's level cap of 80, and they can explore a new continent called Khaz Algar. There's also a new unlockable and playable Titan-forged race called the Earthen, new bite-size adventures that can support one to five players called Delves, as well as a new feature dubbed Warbands, which allows players to share banks, reputations and transmogs across characters.Fans can already pre-purchase The War Within for $50, and it will also give them instant access to the Dragonflight expansion. The War Within: Heroic Edition, which comes with extras, is available for $70, while the The War Within: Epic Edition that includes beta access to the expansion, along with even more extras, will set them back $90.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/blizzards-next-world-of-warcraft-expansions-make-up-a-three-part-saga-154521763.html?src=rss
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by Mariella Moon on (#6G42X)
Revel is leaving behind its roots and ending its (at times controversial) electric moped service New York City and San Francisco. Company CEO and co-founder Frank Reig has sent a company-wide email, viewed by TechCrunch, telling staff that "the service has been strained and ridership isn't what it used to be." Revel has also sent out emails to its passengers, notifying them that the service will shut down on November 18 and encouraging them to use their account credits before then.
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by Mariella Moon on (#6G40E)
Lucid is selling several of its electric vehicle models at a discount until November 30, and as Reuters notes, it's another sign that the EV market is going through period of slow demand in the midst of tougher competition. The automaker is now selling the 2023 Air Pure All Wheel Drive (AWD) for $74,900, down from $82,400. Meanwhile, the Air Touring now costs $87,500 instead of $95,000, and the Air Grand Touring will set buyers back $10,000 less at $115,600 instead of $125,600. Lucid is offering these discounts as "Air Credits," which the company launched during an earlier round of price cuts."We think our customers still deserve a $7,500 credit for choosing an EV," Zak Edson, Lucid's Vice President of Sales and Service, said back in February. Buyers can get federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles within certain price ranges, but Lucid's luxury sedans are too expensive and don't qualify for the incentive.To note, customers can only avail of Lucid's discounts if they can take delivery within seven days of their order being ready. One of the company's main reasons for cutting prices seems to be to sell its current inventory, because the limited-time offers only apply to "cars for immediate delivery." Upon checking its available vehicles, Lucid has dozens of the aforementioned models available for buyers within the next two weeks.Lucid isn't the only EV-maker to cut its prices more than once over the past year. Tesla notably lowered its prices several times since 2022, the latest of which was announced after it revealed that it fell short of market estimates for deliveries in the third quarter of 2023.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lucid-cuts-prices-on-air-luxury-evs-by-up-to-10000-091529627.html?src=rss
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by Pranav Dixit on (#6G3R4)
The city of Washington D.C. will distribute free Apple AirTags to residents in certain neighborhoods, mayor Muriel Bowser announced on Wednesday. The aim: to make stolen cars easier for police to track down.We are equipping residents with technology that will allow the [Metropolitan Police Department] to address these crimes, recover vehicles, and hold people accountable," Bowser said in a statement, "we will continue to use all the tools we have, and add new tools, to keep our city safe." Local publication DCist first reported the story.D.C. residents in neighborhoods with the highest numbers of vehicle theft will be eligible to get free AirTags at three different events in the city over the next few months, starting next week. It's not clear how many AirTags, which cost $29 a pop, will be given away.Police officers will help residents put the AirTags in their cars and register them on their iPhones. If a car is stolen, residents will need to report the location of the car as it appears in Apple's FindMy app to law enforcement.D.C. is the second city to hand out free AirTags to make finding car thieves easier. Earlier this year, New York City mayor Eric Adams announced that the city would give away 500 AirTags to make finding car thieves easier. Since then the NYPD has held several AirTag and Tile tracker giveaways, focusing on Kia and Hyundai owners, though it's unclear if these come from the same supply announced by the mayor.AirTags, which Apple released in 2021, have often sparked controversy. Critics have said that they let stalkers track victims silently without their knowledge - a safety issue Apple eventually addressed. But the devices have also been useful, letting people keep track of pets, checked baggage and stolen campaign signs.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/live-in-washington-dc-you-might-be-able-to-get-free-airtags-for-your-car-202616642.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G3R5)
It's BlizzCon time, which means Blizzard is revealing some of the many things it has lined up for its stable of games. At the opening ceremony, there was a look at the future of Diablo IV, including the game's first expansion.Vessel of Hatred, which is slated to arrive in 2024, will build on the story of the main game. You'll find out the fate of the villain Mephisto and learn about his evil plans for Sanctuary. The DLC will feature the return of the Nahantu jungle area from Diablo II. The expansion will also introduce a brand-new character class. Blizzard is promising "new ways to play" and "new evils to vanquish" too. You can find out more details about Vessel of Hatred next summer.Before then, Diablo IV's third season will feature a new kind of challenge dungeon called The Gauntlet. Here, you'll fight against other players from around the world for your class ranking.The first Diablo IV seasonal event is called Midwinter Blight. It starts on December 12 and lasts for three weeks. There's more to come over the next month or two, including a six-week Season of Blood endgame event called Abattoir of Zir that starts on December 5.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/diablo-ivs-first-expansion-will-introduce-a-brand-new-class-in-late-2024-200121982.html?src=rss
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by Stephanie Barnes on (#6G3NT)
Apple's extended return policy has kicked in, which means the holiday season is officially upon us. Apple typically offers a standard 14-day return window. But under the newly revised policy, products purchased between November 3, 2023 and December 25, 2023, will be returnable until January 8, 2024. Apple's holiday grace period gives you more than enough time to return those AirPods from your grandmother because she didn't know you were firmly planted in Samsung's ecosystem.You can return most products in Apple's lineup, but there are a few exceptions. The return policy may not cover phones that are purchased with wireless carrier financing plans, so double-check that before you commit. Additionally, Apple doesn't allow the return of digital software downloads, products from the Software Update Program like software upgrades and Apple Gift Cards.The extended return policy is open for those in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Singapore and many other countries. However, some countries, including Italy, Spain, Mexico and Japan, have a slightly longer return window. Products purchased between November 3, 2023 and January 6, 2024, may be returned through January 20, 2024 in these countries.It's worth noting that this seasonal revision doesn't negate the terms and conditions of the standard return policy. Apple says all other terms and conditions provided in the Apple Online Store Sales and Refunds Policy are still applicable - so make sure you keep things in like-new condition if you want to make an exchange.Of course, the holiday policy doesn't just apply to gifts. You can totally use this time to buy one of those new colorful M3 iMacs and then exchange for a new color if you change your mind.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-extended-holiday-return-policy-is-now-in-effect-192054672.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G3NV)
BlizzCon is upon us, which means Blizzard had a ton of announcements for fans of its games duing the opening ceremony. The next Overwatch 2 hero was among the reveals and, as expected, the new tank is Baptiste's old running buddy, Mauga. A leak on the Nintendo Switch eShop's news tab gave the game away a few hours early.Mauga wields a pair of chainguns and he has an unstoppable charge ability that can knock enemies off of maps. Another ability reduces damage sustained by nearby allies and allows them to heal when they attack enemies. Mauga's ultimate ability looks fun, if terrifying for the other team. He traps nearby opponents into a cage match and has unlimited ammo for a short period of time.Best of all, you'll have a chance to try Mauga before he officially joins the roster when Overwatch 2's eighth season goes live in December. He'll be available in most game modes on all platforms this weekend. BlizzCon attendees are able to try out Mauga on site too.Fans have been awaiting Mauga's arrival in the game for several years. Blizzard had long intended to make him a playable character. The latest Overwatch 2 map, Samoa, included several references to the newcomer as well.Meanwhile, game director Aaron Keller touched on some of the things that are coming to Overwatch 2 in 2024. The next competitive game mode is called Clash, which has five points lined up in a row. The first team to capture all five points or reach a maximum score wins. The first map will be a new take on Hanamura, an old favorite of many (including yours truly).Early next year, there will be a major rework of the competitive system with new rewards. Upcoming seasons will be themed around things like eldritch horror, Egyptian mythology and witches. Fans will also enter a mirror universe in which heroes and villains trade places.In addition, three more heroes will arrive in 2024. A damage hero named Venture will arrive in season 10 (which is likely to start in April) while a support codenamed Space Ranger will debut in season 12 i.e. around August. Some more details about what's ahead will be revealed during a BlizzCon panel on Saturday.
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by Karissa Bell on (#6G3NW)
Another former Facebook employee is going public with allegations that the company failed to act on its own research showing that young Instagram users were having harmful experiences on the platform. Arturo Bejar, a former Facebook employee and consultant for Instagram, is scheduled to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, November, 7.Bejar, who detailed his efforts to raise the alarm internally about Instagram safety issues to The Wall Street Journal, was a Facebook employee between 2009 and 2015 and returned to the company in 2019 to advise Instagram's well-being team. He told The Journal that internal research showed that more than 20 percent of users younger than 16 felt worse about themselves after viewing others' posts" and that 13 percent experienced unwanted sexual advances in the past seven days."Bejar's disclosures come two years after another former Facebook employee, Frances Huagen, came forward with internal research about Instagram's harmful effects on teen mental health, along with other disclosures about controversial decisions within the company. Soon after, Instagram paused work on a dedicated app for kids, and dozens of states opened an investigation into the company.Last week, 41 state attorneys general sued Meta for harmful and psychologically manipulative product features" that harmed the mental health of its youngest users. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bejar consulted with state officials on their case. Now, he's set to publicly air his experiences in front of Congress,From Arturo's disclosures, we now know that Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri, and other Meta executives were personally warned that millions of teens face bullying, eating disorder material, illicit drugs, and sexual exploitation, often within minutes of opening the app," Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, both of whom sit on the judiciary committee, said in a statement. Rather than address these deadly harms, Facebook continued to hide this information from the public and Congressional oversight, ignored recommendations to protect teens, rolled back safety tools, and dismantled teams responsible for kids' safety."Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told The Wall Street Journal it disagreed with Bejar's claims that well-being research wasn't addressed, and said the company had introduced several safety updates as a result of the work of Bejar and his team.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/another-former-facebook-employee-will-testify-at-congress-about-safety-issues-at-instagram-185339860.html?src=rss
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by Lawrence Bonk on (#6G3NX)
Can you smell it? Black Friday is rapidly approaching, and some companies have already begun the onslaught of sales. Solo Stove, for instance, has just cut the ribbon on its annual Black Friday sale, offering discounts on numerous fire pits and related items and accessories. The biggest discount here is for the Ranger Backyard Bundle 2.0, which now costs $320 instead of $465. That's a savings of $145. The Yukon 2.0 bundle goes even further, with a discount of $245.These bundles include a next-gen fire pit, a marked improvement over the original, along with plenty of accessories, like the new base plate and ash pan. You also get a stand, a lid, a weather-resistant enclosure and even a carrying case for those BBQ-driven beach trips.We praised the removable base plate and ash pan with the 2.0 series, as these tools eliminated the messy cleanup process involved with previous releases. We also enjoyed the proprietary 360-degree airflow technology, allowing for an efficient burn for long periods of time. As a matter of the fact, the only significant downside here is the normal price, and this sale helps to alleviate those concerns.The fire pit bundles are not the only discount available via Solo Stove's Black Friday sale, though they are the most significant. You can grab the well-regarded Pi Prime pizza oven for $300, a savings of $50. If you are filled to the brim with fire pit accessories, you can also buy the Ranger 2.0 by itself for $200 instead of $230.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/solo-stoves-black-friday-deals-include-up-to-245-off-fire-pit-bundles-184011930.html?src=rss
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by Pranav Dixit on (#6G3JA)
YouTube's crackdown on ad blockers is hurting the companies who make them. Multiple ad blocking companies say that thousands of people are uninstalling their products after YouTube started showing warnings to people trying to watch videos on its website with ad blockers enabled.One of the companies, AdGuard, told Wired that more than 11,000 people have uninstalled its Chrome extension each day since October 9, compared to 6,000 uninstallations per day before YouTube implemented the change. On October 18, 52,000 people uninstalled AdGuard, the company's CTO Andrey Meshkov told Wired. However, installations of AdGuard's paid version, which YouTube's crackdown doesn't affect, went up.Another ad blocking company, Ghostery, said that its usage was flat in October as it experienced three to five times the daily number of installs as well as uninstalls. Notably, the company said that more than 90 percent of its users who completed a survey about why they uninstalled the product said they did so because the tool no longer worked with YouTube.Since YouTube's crackdown only seems to affect people who access its website through Chrome on laptops and desktops, some users also tried to use other browsers as a workaround. Ghostery told Wired that its installations of Microsoft's Edge browser went up by 30 percent in October compared to September.YouTube ads are increasingly contributing more to Google's overall revenue. The company sold more than $22 billion in ads on the platform from the beginning of this year through September. But the streaming platform is also trying to push more people to pay for YouTube Premium, which gets rid of ads, lets people download videos, stream videos in higher quality and access YouTube Music. Earlier this year, the company bumped up YouTube Premium's pricing by $2 to $14 a month.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/thousands-of-people-are-uninstalling-ad-blockers-after-youtubes-big-crackdown-174009041.html?src=rss
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by Lawrence Bonk on (#6G3JB)
NASA's Lucy spacecraft, first launched in 2021 to explore the Trojan asteroids trapped near Jupiter, has made an interesting discovery. The spacecraft found an asteroid, nicknamed Dinky, that actually has a smaller asteroid orbiting it, as originally reported by Scientific American. That's right. It's basically a moon with its own moon. It's an ouroboros of cosmic curiosity.The technical term here is a binary asteroid pair and Dinky, whose real name is Dinkinesh, was spotted by Lucy during a quick fly by. That's when the spacecraft spotted the smaller moon" orbiting it.A binary was certainly a possibility," Jessica Sunshine, a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland, told Scientific American. But it was not expected, and it's really cool."As a matter of fact, the fly by itself wasn't supposed to find anything of note. It was simply a trial run for the team to hone its skills before investigating the aforementioned Trojan asteroids orbiting the sun ahead of and behind Jupiter. The team wanted to make sure Lucy's probe would successfully latch onto a space rock, even when both objects were moving extremely fast. Guess what? It worked. Hal Levinson, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and principal investigator of the Lucy mission, said that the test was amazingly successful."As for Dinky and its, uh, even dinkier satellite, NASA scientists still have a long way to go with its investigation, as only about one third of the relevant data has been beamed down to Earth. NASA has released a series of images showing Dinky and its pseudo-moon, but not any actual data as of yet.Even just from these images, however, you can tell a lot about these two celestial bodies. There's a visible equatorial ridge on the main body of Dinky aka Dinkinesh and a secondary ridge-line branching off from it. The parent asteroid is covered in craters, likely the result of numerous hits by other asteroids. Levinson says that there are more images to come of the secondary satellite and that these pictures suggest that the junior asteroid has some interesting" stuff going on. He goes on to say that the shape is really bizarre."Binary asteroid pairs are not rare, as researchers have found that around 15 percent of near-Earth asteroids boast a cute lil orbital companion. NASA and affiliated researchers are still waiting for more data on the pair, including color images and spectroscopy that should shed some more light on the two asteroids. Levinson says there's a lot of cool stuff to come."In the meantime, Lucy will continue on its original mission, to investigate those mysterious Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. It'll make contact with one in 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-discovered-that-an-asteroid-named-dinky-actually-has-its-own-moon-173028204.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G3JC)
Not too long ago, Marvel Studios seemed indestructible. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has faced some significant setbacks over the last few years. As laid out in a Variety report this week, Marvel has been contending with a number of issues such as box office disappointments, while Jonathan Majors (who portrays the MCU's latest centerpiece villain) is awaiting trial for assault and harassment charges. Marvel also seemed to be stretching itself thin between its many movies and TV shows amid reports that visual effects staffers were overworked.Perhaps with all of that in mind, Marvel is trying something a bit different with its next streaming series in a bid to get fans back on board. Echo will be the first Marvel show to arrive on Disney+ and Hulu simultaneously. On top of that, for the first time since its former Netflix shows, Marvel will return to TV-MA-rated fare and drop all five episodes of the series simultaneously on January 10. However, Echo will only be available on Hulu until April 9.Echo will be the first superhero series to have both a deaf and a Native American character in the central role, as Varietynotes. Maya Lopez/Echo (Alaqua Cox) first appeared in Disney+ series Hawkeye in 2021, though she's more of an anti-hero.The show's first trailer shows Echo squaring off against a returning Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio). Based on this evidence, the series looks to have a darker, more adult-oriented tone that's more aligned with the likes of Daredevil (that show's titular character appears briefly in this trailer) and Jessica Jones than Ms. Marvel or Loki.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/echo-will-be-the-first-marvel-show-to-hit-disney-and-hulu-simultaneously-172206411.html?src=rss
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by Engadget on (#6G3F0)
ProtonVPN is running a Black Friday Sale on its VPN services, including a 30-month plan for 60 percent off, or $120 total. That works out to $4 per month for two and a half years of access, saving you $180 over paying full price. Proton VPN is our favorite VPN service and, unlike most VPN services that continually run promotions, Proton rarely hosts sales. Their email and other services are seeing discounts, too.In our tests, ProtonVPN passed with high marks - but so did most of the other services. What sets ProtonVPN apart is its overall security and privacy safeguards. The Swiss-based company employs an independently audited no-logs policy and has proven they don't comply with law enforcement requests to reveal data. It's also based on an open-source code and discloses potential vulnerabilities through an official peer-review program. Plus, we found it easy to use.While there is a free version, the Plus plan that's on sale grants access to more servers, with locations in more than 65 countries and lets you run the service on 10 devices at a time. Compare that to the free version which only has servers in three countries and protects just one device at a time.It's worth noting that Proton's Black Friday sale extends to all of its services, including Proton Mail, which we've recommended in our guides, and Proton Unlimited, which gives you access to VPN, Mail, Calendar, Drive and Pass, the company's password manager. The everything plan is down to $105 for the year, which works out to just under $9 per month.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/protonvpn-plans-are-up-to-60-percent-off-in-a-black-friday-deal-153355317.html?src=rss
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by Lawrence Bonk on (#6G3F1)
Apple just revealed some new hardware at a streaming event earlier this week, including Macbook Pro laptops equipped with the proprietary M3 chip. These laptops are still on preorder, as they don't officially release until next week. Despite that, you can already get a pretty sweet discount of $200 for one of these ultra-powerful computers.Retailer Adorama is offering the deal on pre-orders of nearly any configuration of the M3-enabled laptop. For instance, the basic Apple 14" M3 MacBook Pro costs $1,600 to pre-order anywhere else, but Adorama's deal brings the price down to $1,400. The same discount applies if you beef up the storage capacity, add more RAM, swap the screen size or increase the number of available cores.There is a slight hoop you have to jump through to get this deal. You must be an Adorama VIP member. Luckily, signing up for this program is fairly effortless and, more importantly, absolutely free. Once you sign up, log into the rewards page and the discount will show up as an option.These new Macbooks look to be the most powerful laptops the company has ever made, thanks to the just-built M3 chip. They are available in multiple colors, including the new Space Black option. The Macbooks ship in 14- and 16-inch versions and some feature M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, in addition to the standad M3. Though the prices start at $1,600 (or $1,400 with this sale), they can balloon to thousands of dollars once you start making upgrades.As for other specs, the screen's a bit brighter, with a peak of 600 nits. The new chips should also drastically improve performance and speed. Beyond that, many features remain the same as last year's models. You get the same 1080p FaceTime cameras and the six-speaker sound system. The computers aren't out in the wild yet, so we don't have information regarding battery life and other real-world metrics.This is an early Black Friday deal and it's for pre-orders only. In other words, once the laptops officially release on November 7, the sale will likely end.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-m3-macbook-pro-is-already-200-off-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-150707609.html?src=rss
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by Kris Holt on (#6G3F2)
Even though its latest microcomputer bears its own chip designs, Raspberry Pi has been using Arm CPUs since its inception in 2008. The two companies have now formed tighter bonds as Arm has picked up a minority stake in Raspberry Pi. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. However, the companies say it's a "strategic investment" on Arm's part.It seems that Arm wants to gain more of a foothold in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. "With the rapid growth of edge and endpoint AI applications, platforms like those from Raspberry Pi, built on Arm, are critical to driving the adoption of high-performance IoT devices globally by enabling developers to innovate faster and more easily," Paul Williamson, senior vice-president and general manager of Arm's IoT division, said in a statement.Many IoT developers have long been using Raspberry Pi's low-cost, capable computers for a wide range of purposes. The Register reports that, since 2020, more than half of all Raspberry Pi devices are being used for industrial and commercial purposes. However, Raspberry Pi is said to have prioritized those partners, perhaps making it more difficult for students and enthusiasts to get their hands on its computers at retail price.There's another reason why Arm and Raspberry Pi might want to be closer bedfellows. RISC-V is an open-source processor design that could make it easier for companies to build their own chips or lower manufacturing costs. Qualcomm and Google are working on a RISC-V platform to power Wear OS devices, for instance. In addition, several companies are also using RISC-V CPUs in would-be Raspberry Pi competitors.As The Register notes, Arm has pointed out the potential threat of RISC-V to its business. The company mentioned in a pre-IPO filing that if market support for RISC-V rises, "our customers may choose to utilize this free, open source architecture instead of our products." To that end, the investment could help to bolster Raspberry Pi's position in the single-board computer market and perhaps ward off competition.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/arm-picks-up-a-minority-stake-in-raspberry-pi-144946332.html?src=rss
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by Katie Malone on (#6G3F3)
Home improvement retailer Ace Hardware still can't take online orders as of Friday while it recovers from "a malicous cyberattack." News of the outage first started circulating on Sunday, after a Reddit user shared a note from CEO John Venhuizen detailing the incident. Ace Hardware has not responded to a request for comment to verify the email, but the website confirms that it is "currently unable to process orders online" and directs customers to make their purchases in-store.The cyber incident impacted warehouse management, invoice and other delivery systems, according to Venhuizen's memo. "The impact of this incident is resulting in disruptions to your shipments," Venhuizen wrote. An update issued on Monday urged stores to stay open, and confirmed there were no known impacts to its in-store payment and service systems.Out of the company's 1,400 servers and 3,500 networked devices, 1,202 were impacted by the attack, according to a notice obtained by Bleeping Computer. About half had been restored as of early Thursday morning. "This frustration and all of this effort is the direct result of a malicious cyber attack on Ace," the update said. "This was perpetuated by criminals. Though they are hiding in this shadows, they are no different than thugs who break into your store attempting to steal your stuff." The details of the attack, such as who is responsible and how they accessed the systems, hasn't been confirmed yet.Ace Hardware also warned retailers to be aware of cybercriminals trying to take advantage of the chaos by spoofing email updates or trying to remotely access in-store systems. Ace Hardware operates on a retailer-owned model, in which store owners form the cooperative of shareholders behind the retail giant. The retailer operates more than 5,800 stores.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ace-hardwares-online-ordering-and-other-systems-are-still-down-due-to-a-suspected-cyberattack-143208409.html?src=rss
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by Devindra Hardawar on (#6G3C6)
Apple's M3 chip is here, and the company is wasting no time shoving it into new computers. This week, we dive into the new M3-equipped MacBook Pros and iMac, which offer some notable upgrades over the M2 and M1 models. Also, we find time to celebrate the death of the old 13-inch MacBook Pro, and try to determine if the cheaper 14-inch MacBook Pro is actually meant for pros with 8GB of RAM. We also chat about Apple's healthcare plans, as well as Lenovo's ridiculous tablet fashion campaign.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!Subscribe!
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by Sarah Fielding on (#6G39T)
Samsung only debuted its new SmartTag 2 in mid-October, but the device already has a great sale going. Right now, you can get four SmartTag 2 trackers for just $80, down from $92. The 13 percent price cut puts each one at just $20 - that's quite a saving compared to the $30 a single SmartTag2 costs.The original SmartTag came on the scene in 2021 as a counter to the AirTag and Tile - but only for Galaxy users. Now, with its newest iteration, Samsung has updated quite a few features, such as taking the Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (UWB) variants and combining them into one model. The SmartTag2 also does something Apple still hasn't mastered: providing a key ring for its smart tracker. The initial model simply had a punch hole.Samsung's SmartTag 2 is also IP67 dust and water-resistant, giving you an easier time for runs in the rain or letting your dog wander around with it in all sorts of weather. Plus, its battery life lasts 50 percent as long as its predecessor, giving you 700 days in Power Saving Mode and 500 days in Normal Mode. At the moment, the SmartTag 2 still only works for Samsung devices, but it's definitely a good option if you have one.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-smarttag-2-four-pack-is-just-80-right-now-122558604.html?src=rss
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