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Panic is an odd little company. It started out in the late 1990s as an app developer, and in 2016 it pivoted to video game publishing with Firewatch, followed by Untitled Goose Game in 2019. Both of these were breakout indie hits, resulting in significant success for the developers and Panic itself. And then, in 2022, Panic debuted the Playdate, a tiny yellow game console with a crank on the side and a monochromatic display. Playdate was a verified hit and its library is still being updated today.Now it's mid-2023, and Panic just unveiled a fresh slate of projects it's publishing in its first-ever games showcase. Panic showed off five games and teased new titles from the makers of FAR: Changing Tides (Okomotive) and the team behind Untitled Goose Game (House House).Nour: Play with your Food is what happens when high art meets a food fight, and honestly, it looks delicious. Nour lays out a bright and colorful landscape where players can mess around with bubbly, 3D versions of doughnuts, burgers, boba tea and other foodstuffs, creating strangely beautiful scenes or simply exploding noodles everywhere. It's all set to music and there are tiny challenges to complete, but Nour is mostly about making digital edible art. It all comes from Missouri studio Terrifying Jellyfish, helmed by designer and digital artist TJ Hughes. Nour is due to hit PC, PlayStation 4 and PS5 on September 12th, and it features DualSense-specific interactions - like slurping soup through the controller's microphone - on PS5.Thank Goodness You're Here! got center-stage treatment during Gamescom's Opening Night Live showcase last week, and developers Will Todd and James Carbutt offered additional, sheep-laden context for the game during Panic's event today. Thank Goodness You're Here! is a slapstick platformer reminiscent of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, but in a hand-crafted Gumball or Adventure Time art style. It's a silly romp through a Northern English town, starring a traveling salesman who picks up odd jobs from the equally odd people of Barnsworth. Thank Goodness You're Here! comes from Yorkshire studio Coal Supper and it's set to come out in 2024 for PC, Switch and PS5.Arco is a complex archery game masquerading as a pixelated, top-down adventure, and it comes complete with a rich original soundtrack. Arco is the product of an international team of developers: Polish pixel artist Franek Nowotniak, Australian game developer Max Cahill, Spanish composer and sound designer Jose Ramon "Bibiki" Garcia, and Mexican industry veteran Antonio "Fayer" Uribe. Arco is a tactical turn-based RPG with a unique combat system that has players plan moves in real-time, dodging incoming shots and taking aim in the moments between seconds. It's heading to PC and consoles (no specifics yet) in 2024.There were no specific updates for this next game, Despelote, but its segment was powerful regardless. Despelote comes from Ecuadorian developers Julian Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena, and they use childhood memories of playing football around the city of Quito to tell their country's story of economic ruin and resurgence in the early 2000s. Panic's showcase highlighted personal stories from Cordero and Valbuena, and dove into the making of the game: Its dialogue is based on recordings of conversations they've had with family members and friends who lived through Ecuador's economic downturn in the late 1990s, and those who witnessed the country unite ahead of the 2002 World Cup. The backgrounds of the game, covered in static and color, are photographs of real places around Quito, and interactable objects, like the soccer ball, are highlighted in black and white. Despelote is coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 in 2024.The final confirmed game in Panic's lineup is Time Flies. This one has been generating buzz for a while now, and we had a great time with the preview at Summer Game Fest in 2022, but the big news today is that Panic has signed on to publish it. Time Flies is a simplistic, black-and-white game about the short life of a fly - and, in effect, the person playing as the fly. With mere seconds to live, players get to choose how a lonely housefly will live out its existence, completing a series of small challenges or just buzzing around, enjoying the scenery. The game comes from Michael Frei and Raphael Munoz, it's produced by Frei's studio Playables, and is now being published by Panic. Time Flies will land on PC, Switch and PlayStation 5 in 2024 (a delay from its initial 2023 window).The final two projects in Panic's lineup are just teases, for now. The Swiss team behind FAR: Changing Tides and FAR: Lone Sails, Okomotive, is working on a new game that will be published by Panic. Additionally, the developers of Untitled Goose Game, House House, are building something new, and they're pitching it as a totally different experience than the honk-fest that put them on the map. Panic published Untitled Goose Game, and the studio is on board to handle whatever comes next from House House.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/panics-first-games-showcase-highlights-five-deliciously-weird-titles-173045645.html?src=rss

Now that the Tears of the Kingdom dust has settled like one of those Korok dandelion leaf puzzles, Nintendo is starting to ramp up its efforts for the holiday season. You know what that means. Another Nintendo Direct is scheduled for August 31st at 10AM EST, according to a social media post from the company.Nintendo promises that the streaming event will feature an in-depth look" at the forthcoming 2D side-scrolling adventure Super Mario Bros. Wonder, with around 15 minutes of gameplay and information. More Mario is never bad, but this is a themed-direct that exclusively features Wonder. In other words, don't get your hopes up for any trailers for other games, surprise reveals or anything like that. You'll get plenty of juicy tidbits, however, about the first 2D Mario in over a decade.Super Mario Bros. Wonderhas been described as the next evolution" in the 2D franchise. We've only gotten one trailer so far but it was packed with discussion-worthy moments. Mario can turn into an elephant and the game world changes by devouring a psychedelic flower. The appropriately-named Wonder Flower looks to be unpredictable, making pipes come alive, creating hordes of new enemies or completely shifting the overall look and feel of a level. I'm sure the power up does a whole lot more, which should be revealed Thursday.Super Mario Bros. Wonder launches for the Nintendo Switch on October 30th, just in time for that oh-so-important holiday season. Beyond the sidescroller, the Switch's holiday release schedule looks pretty dry, compared to other years. There's Detective Pikachu Returns, a remake of the SNES classicSuper Mario RPG and some Pokemon DLC, and that's pretty much it for first-party releases. This is the console's seventh holiday season, which could have something to do with it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/super-mario-bros-wonder-will-have-its-own-nintendo-direct-on-august-31st-171530276.html?src=rss

Meta will not suspend Cambodia's former Prime Minister from Facebook and Instagram, declining to follow a recommendation from its Oversight Board. The board, which functions independently from the social media company, had recommended Meta suspend then-Prime Minister Hun Sen's Facebook and Instagram accounts for six months for inciting violence.In a response to the case published Wednesday, Meta said a long-term suspension would not be consistent" with its policies. Upon assessing Hun Sen's Facebook Page and Instagram account, we determined that suspending those accounts outside our regular enforcement framework would not be consistent with our policies, including our protocol on restricting accounts of public figures during civil unrest," the company wrote.Meta's handling of the high-profile case has been closely watched around the world, with many viewing it as a test of the company's policies governing speech from politicians, who have historically had more leeway on the platform. In a statement, an Oversight Board spokesperson said the group "stands by" its recommendations, Elections are a crucial part of democracy and social media companies must ensure their platforms are not misused in ways which threaten to undermine them.The Board stands by its original decision and urgesMetato doeverything in its power to deter public figures who exploit its platforms to incite violence."The company had originally asked the Oversight Board to weigh in on a video posted by Sen. The video was of a speech in which Sen told political opponents he'd "gather CPP (Cambodia People's Party) people to protest and beat you up." Meta had opted to leave up the video, citing its controversial newsworthiness policy, despite concluding it had violated the company's own rules.The Oversight Board overruled Meta's decision and said the video should come down. The board also said that Sen should face a lengthy suspension. Given the severity of the violation, Hun Sen's history of committing human rights violations and intimidating political opponents, as well as his strategic use of social media to amplify such threats, the Board calls on Meta to immediately suspend Hun Sen's Facebook page and Instagram account for six months," it wrote.Meta complied, removing the video in response to the board's decision, which is binding under the organization's rules. The company had 60 days to respond to the board's non-binding recommendations.Notably, Meta declined other Oversight Board recommendations in the case as well. The company opted not to clarify how its rules for public figures applies in contexts in which citizens are under continuing threat of retaliatory violence from their governments" rather than a single incidence of violence.The protocol is not designed for situations where a history of state violence or human rights restrictions have resulted in ongoing state restrictions on expressions for an indeterminate period of time," Meta wrote, referring to a policy it implemented in response the Oversight Board's recommendations in the suspension of former President Donald Trump's account. Applying the protocol in those circumstances could lead to an indefinite suspension of a public figure's account, which (apart from fairness issues) could be detrimental to people's ability to access information from and about their leaders and to express themselves using Meta's platforms."Similarly, Meta said it was assessing [the] feasibility" of a board recommendation that it amend its newsworthiness policy to explicitly bar incitement of violence. It also said it was considering a recommendation that posts from heads of state and other government officials are prioritized for review by human moderators when being reviewed for inciting violence.The company said it was "implementing in part" two other recommendations in the case. The company agreed to make some product and/or operational guideline changes" to aid in its review of long-form videos. But in response to a suggestion that the company commit to being more forthcoming about how it enforces its rules on the accounts of high-profile government officials, the company said there were some cases when it may continue to withhold details.While we have shared details about enforcement actions on the accounts belonging to Hun Sen in this case, and on the accounts of former U.S. President Trump, there may be circumstances where privacy and security considerations weigh against Meta publicly sharing details about actions taken on an account."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-declines-oversight-board-recommendation-to-suspend-cambodias-former-prime-minister-170531152.html?src=rss

Several months after WhatsApp released a Windows desktop client, Mac users are getting to join the party with their own dedicated app for the service. The formal arrival of the client (which had been in beta since January) on Apple's desktops and laptops means users can take part in WhatsApp group calls on their Mac for the first time.WhatsApp for Mac supports up to eight people in video calls and as many as 32 in audio-only chinwags. You can hop into a group call after it's already started, view your call (and chat) history and opt to receive notifications about incoming calls even if you don't have the WhatsApp client open. Sharing files should be a cinch too, as you'll be able to simply drag and drop them into a conversation.The WhatsApp team has spent quite some time making sure that the service supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) across multiple devices with cross-platform syncing. So, it's not super surprising that WhatsApp for Mac includes E2EE protection for your chats and calls. The app is available from the WhatsApp website and it'll hit the Mac App Store soon.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapps-new-mac-app-supports-group-video-calls-for-up-to-eight-people-170053104.html?src=rss

Google took a step towards transparency in AI-generated images today. Google DeepMind announced SynthID, a watermarking / identification tool for generative art. The company says the technology embeds a digital watermark, invisible to the human eye, directly onto an image's pixels. SynthID is rolling out first to a limited number" of customers using Imagen, Google's art generator available on its suite of cloud-based AI tools.One of the many issues with generative art - apart from the ethical implications of training on artists' work - is the potential for creating deepfakes. For example, the pope's hot new hip-hop attire (an AI image created with MidJourney) going viral on social media was an early example of what could become more commonplace as generative tools evolve. It doesn't take much imagination to see how something like political ads using AI-generated art could do much more damage than a funny image circulating on Twitter. Watermarking audio and visual content to help make it clear that content is AI-generated" was one of the voluntary commitments that seven AI companies agreed to develop after a July meeting at the White House. Google is the first of the companies to launch such a system.Google doesn't go too far into the weeds about SynthID's technical implementation (likely to prevent workarounds), but it says the watermark can't be easily removed through simple editing techniques. Finding the right balance between imperceptibility and robustness to image manipulations is difficult," the company wrote in a DeepMind blog post published today. We designed SynthID so it doesn't compromise image quality, and allows the watermark to remain detectable, even after modifications like adding filters, changing colours, and saving with various lossy compression schemes - most commonly used for JPEGs," DeepMind's SynthID project leaders Sven Gowal and Pushmeet Kohli wrote.Google DeepMindThe identification part of SynthID rates the image based on three digital watermark confidence levels: detected, not detected and possibly detected. Since the tool is embedded into the image's pixels, Google says its system can work alongside metadata-based approaches, like the one Adobe uses with its Photoshop generative features, currently available in an open beta.SynthID includes a pair of deep learning models: one for watermarking and the other for identifying. Google says the two trained on diverse images, culminating in a combined ML model. The combined model is optimised on a range of objectives, including correctly identifying watermarked content and improving imperceptibility by visually aligning the watermark to the original content," Gowal and Kohli wrote.Google acknowledged that it isn't a perfect solution, adding that it isn't foolproof against extreme image manipulations." But it describes the watermark as a promising technical approach for empowering people and organisations to work with AI-generated content responsibly." The company says the tool could expand to other AI models, including those tasked with generating text (like ChatGPT), video and audio.Although watermarks could help with deepfakes, it's easy to imagine digital watermarking turning into an arms race with hackers, with services that adopt SynthID requiring continual updating. In addition, the open-source nature of Stable Diffusion, one of the leading generative tools, could make industry-wide adoption of SynthID or any similar solution a tall order: It already has countless custom builds that can run on local PCs out in the wild. Regardless, Google hopes to make SynthID available to third parties in the near future" to at least improve AI transparency industry-wide.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-wants-an-invisible-digital-watermark-to-bring-transparency-to-ai-art-164551794.html?src=rss

Quirky game publisher Panic's first-ever digital games showcase is about to kick off. The event, dubbed the Panic Games Showcase, can be streamed directly on Panic's YouTube channel starting today at 1PM ET, or you can come back right here to catch all the action.The showcase will feature a 20-minute video presentation with Panic's games publishing roadmap, including new looks at previously announced games Nour: Play With Your Food and Despelote. During the event, you can also expect to hear about new unannounced titles, along with new game development partnerships. While there are no further details on upcoming games, we do know there will be no mention of the Playdate. It's likely that the games being discussed at this event will be for PC or more popular gaming consoles, like the PS5 and Nintendo Switch.With this event, Panic is hoping to gain more recognition as a full-fledged game publisher by showing off the games in its pipeline. Despite its smaller size, Panic is known for pushing unconventional but interesting games that really capture players. Untitled Goose Game is one example of that, as is just about everything that's been released for Panic's Playdate hardware.In a press release, co-founder Cabel Sasser expressed his excitement about the Panic Games Showcase. He also hinted at a wide variety of games, saying viewers will come away excited about at least one new game that piqued their interest."A lot of people out there know us as makers of Mac software like Transmit and Nova. And some people know us as the creators of the Playdate handheld video game system. And honestly, not very many people know us as the publisher of Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game", Sasser said. We thought it'd be fun to put on a little show and let the world know about the wonderful games we've been working on publishing, from amazing developers all around the world."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-panics-first-games-showcase-here-at-1pm-et-163024545.html?src=rss

Fed up of telling your friends and family not to buy an iPhone 14 right now? Me too, so here's some good news on that front: Apple has set a date for its annual September event, during which we'll surely learn all about the iPhone 15 lineup as well as new versions of other devices. You can set a calendar alert for September 12th at 1PM ET to remind yourself to come on back to Engadget to watch the livestream.Almost as soon as last year's event ended, rumors started flying around about what Apple had in store for the iPhone 15 lineup. All models (save for perhaps a new SE) could ditch the notch and start using the Dynamic Island cutout that debuted in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. You may need to opt for an iPhone 15 Pro if you want WiFi 6E connectivity rather than WiFi 6, however. Reports suggest the 15 Pro and Pro Max will have thinner bezels and a titanium frame as well, but we may have to wait until next year to see the rumored iPhone Ultra.AppleMost intriguingly of all, Apple may finally start to phase out the Lightning port with the iPhone 15 lineup and make the long-awaited switch to USB-C. The company doesn't have much of a choice there, since all tablets and smartphones sold in the European Union will need to use that charging port starting next year. It'll be more straightforward for Apple to use the same connector for all new devices, rather than trying to cling onto the Lightning port in other markets.In any case, we won't have to wait much longer to find out all about this year's new iPhones. It's likely that we'll learn about what's next for Apple Watch too. And there's always a chance that Apple has a "one more thing" surprise up its sleeve too. As ever, we'll have full coverage of this year's fall iPhone event as it happens.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-iphone-15-event-is-set-for-september-12th-161028116.html?src=rss

Samsung made backyard barbecues a bit more fun when it unveiled the Terrace outdoor TV line in 2020 - now, it's going bigger and brighter. Today, the company announced an 85-inch Terrace Full Sun set which will retail for an eye-watering $20,000. For the money, you'll get a Neo QLED screen which should remain bright in direct sunlight, as well as "Direct-Sun Protection" to keep the TV safe. Samsung claims it's protected "up to six hours in sunlight at 700 watts and 104 degrees Fahrenheit," but it may decrease brightness to deal with higher temperatures and sun conditions.That heat threshold might seem high, but given that more than a dozen Southern US cities broke their high temperature records this year, it may not be enough to protect your $20,000 TV. The 85-inch Terrace also features an improved IP56 rating to deal with water and dust. (Maybe just think twice about having a movie night during a heat wave or summer storm.)If you don't need such an enormous screen outside, you've also got some other options from Samsung. The 65-inch Full Sun Terrace is now on sale for $6,500, while the 75-inch goes for $9,000. You can also save a bit more with Partial Sun Terrace sets, which are meant for shaded areas and start at $3,000 for the 55-inch model.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-85-inch-outdoor-terrace-tv-costs-20000-160004982.html?src=rss

Not since The Wizard hyped up an entire generation for Super Mario Bros. 3 has a film about video games felt as naked a marketing ploy as Gran Turismo. Based on an improbable true story, the movie follows Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a 20-something Gran Turismo fanatic who wins a Nissan-sponsored contest to race professionally. Even more improbable (and this is technically a spoiler, but hell, it's also real life), he manages to hold his own in the racing world. The original story was already a dream marketing win for Nissan and Sony, but now the two companies can milk it once again to bolster the mythology of Gran Turismo. Don't call it a game - it's a driving simulator.Cynicism aside, the Gran Turismo film, directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie), successfully hits every mile marker you'd expect. Mardenborough doesn't have much support from his parents early on, but he ultimately proves them wrong. There's an entitled rival racer from the Cobra Kai school of villainy who you can't help but hate. And the movie sports genuinely thrilling race sequences, thanks to Blomkamp's inventive camera work and use of visual effects. Gran Turismo even manages to get some genuinely moving performances from David Harbour and Djimon Hounsou. It's the very definition of a crowd pleaser.But the film also constantly reminds you that it's meant to sell you Sony products in an alien reality where Apple doesn't exist. No joke: One character is inexplicably attached to his Walkman cassette player, and he only moves on when he's gifted a modern Walkman digital music player in an overwrought emotional moment. (Outside of Hideo Kojima's Twitter feed, I've never seen a normal human use one of those things.) (Ed note: It's debatable whether or not the guy who created Death Stranding is a normal human".)Had Sony just relaxed a bit, the film would have seemed less like a desperate marketing ploy. But as it stands, I couldn't help but cringe every time we encountered another moment of corporate promotional synergy. Even before we're introduced to Mardenborough, the movie begins with a short promo reel hyping up Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi, who spent five years developing the first game in the series. It's the sort of over-produced clip you'd expect during one of Sony's PlayStation Showcase events or the Game Awards - not a theatrically released film.Sony also doesn't trust the audience to view actual footage from the Gran Turismo games. We see Mardenborough playing early on, but it looks far too sharp to be Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 - the title he actually competed with in real life. Instead, we're shown footage that looks closer to the incredibly realistic PlayStation 5 version of the game (though I wouldn't be surprised if it's all CG generated, instead of showing us actual gameplay). Rather than lean into the incredible lengths Sony pushed the PlayStation 3 at the time, the film sells a beautiful lie.Of course, you can argue that every adaptation is ultimately a marketing ploy. But even the incredibly safe Super Mario Bros. Movie didn't feel as desperate as Gran Turismo. Sure, Mario was filled with oodles of references for fans, but there was a level of confidence in that movie that Gran Turismo lacks. Nintendo didn't need to push new hardware or games through that movie, its mere existence promoted the company's overall brand.Sony Pictures EntertainmentIt's almost a miracle that Gran Turismo still manages to be enjoyable. It's more fun than the forgettable Uncharted movie, and you can't help but root for Mardenborough. He achieves the ultimate gamer dream: What if you could actually bring your virtual skills to the real world? It's just a shame that the true story is fundamentally a PlayStation ad, and Sony couldn't help but use the film to sell itself even more.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gran-turismo-movie-review-neill-blomkamp-153939839.html?src=rss

Back at I/O, we got a sense of some of Google's big plans for generative artificial intelligence, including the integration of the Duet AI virtual assistant into Workspace productivity apps. The company is now starting to roll out Duet AI to those who pay for versions of Docs, Gmail, Sheets and so on that are geared toward professional use. The virtual assistant is also making its way to Google Meet and Google Chat.There's a free trial of Duet AI for Google Workspace. However, to use the virtual assistant in the cloud-based apps after that, large organizations will need to pay $30 per month per user, according to The Verge. Microsoft charges the same for 365 AI Copilot in Office apps. Duet AI pricing for smaller organizations hasn't been finalized yet.Duet AI has a lot of tools in its belt that are designed to lighten your workload. You can use it to generate an entire email draft in Gmail. It can pore over emails and a swathe of documents and spreadsheets to create a summary of recent work activities (such as your company's quarterly performance). The assistant can then build a presentation for you based on its findings - but definitely review the slides to make sure all the facts and figures are accurate before showing them to your bosses. And, of course, Duet AI can generate images as well.The virtual assistant will be able to help you out on other fronts too, including in Google Meet and Chat. It has somewhat different functions in Meet, since it can help you "look and sound your best with studio look, studio lighting and studio sound," Google Workspace general manager and vice president Aparna Pappu wrote in a blog post. Duet AI can use face detection and dynamic tiles to give everyone in a meeting room their own video tile, perhaps with the idea of making all the participants feel more engaged and connected.Meet will be able to offer translated captions in 18 languages. Google says the app can tell when someone is speaking in another language and display translated text in real time. (For comparison, Zoom has offered live transcription to free users for nearly two years.)Duet AI's note-taking functions should prove useful too. A "take notes for me" feature will prompt the assistant to jot down action items and capture video snippets, then send a summary to attendees after the fact. If you're unable to join a meeting right at the beginning (or you slept in, we're not judging), Duet AI can catch you up on what you missed with an in-progress summary.GoogleIf you can't make it to a meeting at all, you can send Duet AI on your behalf. The assistant can get your points across to other attendees and still make sure you get a summary afterwards. However, if all participants use Duet AI as their proxy, Meet will seemingly be able to detect that and end the meeting.On top of all of that, the company is stuffing Duet AI into Google Chat too. Google is trying to make the app more of a competitor to Slack and Microsoft Teams, which could make a lot of sense for organizations that are already paying for Workspace for other productivity apps.You'll be able to ask Duet AI questions about topics of discussion. The assistant will be able to get you up to speed on conversations you missed and summarize documents that others have shared. Google has refreshed Chat's user interface and added more shortcuts and an enhanced search function that includes suggested queries and autocomplete. Autocorrect could help you avoid typos in your messages too. Chat communities will also eventually be able to include up to 500,000 users, while those who need to talk something out using their voices will be able to hop into a Meet-powered huddle.As for privacy, Google says that users' interactions with Duet AI will be private to them. "No other user will see your data and Google does not use your data to train our models without your permission," Pappu wrote. "Building on these core commitments, we recently announced new capabilities to help prevent cyber threats, provide safer work with built-in zero trust controls, and better support our customers' digital sovereignty and compliance needs."Generative AI tools have had a largely fraught relationship with privacy so far, with some companies reportedly restricting workers' ChatGPT use over concerns that they may accidentally leak proprietary data. Italy also briefly banned the chatbot due to privacy worries. Just this week, ChatGPT owner OpenAI debuted an Enterprise offering. The company says it won't train its AI models on Enterprise subscribers' usage of the service - a similar claim to the one Google just made with Duet AI.Google will surely see Duet AI as a competitor to ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. It's letting third-party companies use the underlying tech for other apps, such as an upcoming GE Appliances app that can generate recipes based on the food in a fridge (it's hard to think of an AI-powered app that would improve my life more than this). Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal notes, Google will make its PaLM 2 language learning model more broadly available after only granting select customers access until now.Google (and Alphabet) CEO Sundar Pichai told the publication that the company will offer Gemini - its direct answer to ChatGPT - to cloud customers when it's ready fro primetime. Google is also scaling up its infrastructure to handle the demands of AI functionality, but Pichai admitted that the company doesn't have a crystal ball in that regard. It's tough to fully predict the demand," he told the Journal. I think we will be OK, but does it keep me up at night? Yes."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-duet-ai-is-coming-to-workspace-apps-but-pro-users-will-need-to-pay-extra-150729432.html?src=rss

Google has been letting Android users set up locked folders in the Photos app for quite some time, giving them the option to keep sensitive images and screenshots safe from prying eyes. Now, the tech giant has started rolling out an update for the app that allows users to back up their locked folders, so they can access files saved in them from any of their devices. In addition, users can now access and set up locked folders - a feature that started as a Pixel exclusive - from the Photos app on iOS and the web. That means users don't even need an Android device to be able to enjoy the feature anymore.As a refresher, users can set up a locked folder by going into the Utilities section of the Photos app. They'll then see "cards" for potentially more than one feature, where they can directly create a locked folder for any image they want to keep safe. After they're done, they can choose whether to back up the folder or not. They can also easily add more images from their gallery by long pressing on one and then ticking the checkboxes that appear on their upper left corner. All images sent to locked folders will still be inaccessible anywhere else, and users can still only access them after confirming their identity using their device's password or biometric authenticaiton.GoogleGoogle has also started rolling out a simplified settings page for the Photos app. When users click on their account icon and check the settings page, they'll now see a new layout that makes it easier for them to find what they're looking for by navigating the new privacy, backup, sharing and notifications sections.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-photos-now-lets-you-access-and-set-up-locked-folders-on-ios-and-the-web-150044373.html?src=rss

iRobot is running another sale on Roomba robot vacuums and Braava robot mops, which includes the Roomba 694 back down to $179. We've seen this deal pop up periodically over the past several months, but it's still $71 below the vacuum's typical street price. Outside of a very brief drop to $175 last November, it matches the lowest price we've tracked.The Roomba 694 itself is the top pick in our guide to the best budget robot vacuums. It's an entry-level model that navigates around a room semi-randomly instead of mapping and following set paths, so it's not the most efficient cleaner, and it'll bonk into furniture around your house. That said, it's sturdily built, and we found it to work effectively across hard floors and carpet. We're particularly fond of iRobot's companion app, which makes it easy to quickly stop or start the vacuum, set a cleaning schedule, check the battery and the like. You don't need to connect to WiFi to use the device, however. iRobot says the Roomba 694 can run for up to 90 minutes before it has to roll back to its charging dock, though you'll get worse battery life depending on what floor surfaces you need to clean.A simpler device like this won't be as effective if you live in a particularly large home, but if you just want a no-frills option at a reasonable rate, we've found the Roomba 694 to be durable and dependable. And if something ever does break, replacement parts are readily available.If you're willing to pay up for a more feature-rich model, the sale also brings the Roomba j7+ down to $529. Normally, this model retails between $600 and $800. The j7+ comes with a self-emptying dock and more advanced mapping system than the 694, and it can identify and swerve away from obstacles like pet waste in real time. Currently, it's the runner up midrange pick in our guide to the best robot vacuums. Just note that, like many robot vacuums with its sort of obstacle avoidance, the j7 comes with a built-in camera, which may raise privacy concerns for some, particularly with Amazon in the process of acquiring iRobot.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/irobots-roomba-694-robot-vacuum-drops-back-to-179-144038815.html?src=rss

When TCL first unveiled NXTPAPER, it said that it was designed for tablets and e-readers - not smartphones. You can disregard that comment now, because the company just unveiled its first smartphone using that very display tech. The TCL 40 NXTPAPER models are budget-oriented devices that promise "industry-leading eye comfort" with mid- to low-range specs.TCL has described NXTPAPER as a "combination of screen and paper," noting that it offers 25 percent more contrast than typical E Ink displays, while being 65 percent more power efficient. Its latest version delivers up to 500 nits of brightness, and supposedly exceeds TUV-certified levels of blue light reduction. TCL says the tech can help protect your eye health while maintaining color accuracy and avoiding screen yellowing. The screen's color temperature will adjust automatically based on the time and environment, too.Despite sharing a name, the TCL 40 NXTPAPER and TCL 40 NXTPAPER 5G have different designs and specs. The former comes with a 6.78-inch FHD+ NXTPAPER display and has a punch hole 32-megapixel (MP) front camera, along with a 50MP rear camera. It has a middling MediaTek Helio G88 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, expandable via a microSD card. Connectivity is limited to 4G, and it will cost 199 ($215) when it goes on sale in Europe in September 2023.The TCL 40 NXTPAPER 5G, as the name suggests, offers 5G connectivity, but other specs are oddly downgraded. It's got a smaller 6.5-inch HD+ (720 x 1,612) notch-type display, with an 8MP front camera and 50MP rear camera. It uses MediaTek's MT6833v processor (because it has 5G radios) and offers 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (also expandable). It'll go on sale in Europe in October for 249 ($269). Both models will release globally later in 2023.Specs aside, the NXTPAPER display is the differentiating feature for these smartphones. Each has a 5,000mAh hour, and given the power-efficiency claims, should go for a long while on a charge. It remains to be seen if the screen will deliver a solid smartphone experience, however.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tcls-new-budget-phones-are-the-first-to-feature-nxtpaper-displays-143027711.html?src=rss

Today, Marshall has opened up pre-orders for its newest active noise canceling earbuds: the Motif II ANC. It's actually the first headphone or speaker product released by Marshall Group, a new venture combining the core Marshall Amplification company and Zounds, which has been producing the headphones and speakers under the company's name since 2010. These earbuds boast some big advances over the last gen (2021), with improved battery life and quick charging at the forefront. You can pre-order the Motif II ANC ($199) from Marshall's website today and the product will be shipping on September 12th.Plenty of features remain the same as before, so existing Motif users can do a cost-benefit analysis to decide if they're ready to upgrade. There's still the 6mm dynamic drivers pushing out tunes within the 20Hz - 20kHz frequency range. You get touch controls for core operations like play/pause, skip and noise control (ANC and transparency mode). The Bluetooth range of approximately 33 feet still persists although the Motif II buds now have Bluetooth 5.3 and will support Bluetooth LE Audio (LC3) with future updates.Photo by Jon Turi / EngadgetThe sound of the new Motif II should also be essentially the same as before, although, to be honest that's just based on specs since I haven't tried the first-gen model. The buds fit snugly in my ear (at least) and provide a thick bass experience and the rich and familiar Marshall sound profile. The active noise canceling works well to block out most environmental noise like a subway or crowded bar, letting only some voices slip through as distant chitchat.The IP rating is also unchanged with an IPX5 water resistance for the earbuds and IPX4 for the charging case. That means these buds are fine for a normal workout, but not great to dunk in the sink. And the charging case itself should be treated with a little more care. You can also still charge the case wirelessly, which leads us to one of the biggest upgrades of the Motif II: battery life.Photo by Jon Turi / EngadgetThe new Motif II has a total of 30 hours playtime assisted by the charging case (10 more than before) and with ANC enabled. Without that feature turned on, you should be able to get up an impressive 43 hours total. The individual buds have standalone playtimes of six to nine hours depending on whether you use ANC or not.While the previous full-charging time was three hours, it's been halved to just one and a half hours via USB. Additionally, there's a fast charge setting you can turn on through the app which will get you a whole hour more than previously. That means in 15 minutes of charging you should get about two hours now, which is eternally useful.You'll also get the Spotify Tap feature with the Motif II ANC. You can access the Spotify with a double tap and long press of the touch controls on your earbuds without needing to pick up your phone. The details for this touch feature and all the others are found in the Marshall Bluetooth app, along with all the other features and some touch customization.MarshallMarshall's Motif II ANC earbuds cover all the essentials and provide a great listening experience without overcomplicating the product. Long battery life is a core necessity for many and these buds shine in that regard. The minimal black exterior with gold capped ends keep them visibly subtle and that signature sound profile is worth a listen for those who are unfamiliar. Pre-orders for the $199 earbuds are open today at the company's website and they should be shipping out on September 12th, which is rapidly approaching.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/marshall-premieres-its-motif-ii-anc-earbuds-with-a-big-bump-in-battery-life-140000745.html?src=rss

German Bionic, the robot exoskeleton startup behind the lightweight Apogee exosuit, just revealed the Apogee+, a hardware refresh intended to service health care workers. The powered exoskeleton allows nurses and other health care professionals to have greater access to patients, particularly the elderly and the infirm. The company hopes to decrease the immense levels of stress endured" by these medical professionals.To that end, the Apogee+ is designed as a personal lift assistant," providing active assistance while walking, lifting and arranging patients for treatments and sanitary procedures like showers. The robo-suit offers nearly 70 pounds of back relief per lift and includes integrated grips for getting a stable hold on things and for repositioning patients.Just like its sibling exoskeleton, the Apogee+ is small and lightweight, so it can be worn by a variety of people in a diverse array of environments. It's also waterproof, which should help when bathing patients, and dust-proof, which should help when, uh, working in rundown medical facilities straight out of a Stephen King novel.Most German Bionic products, like the powerful Cray X, are designed for industrial settings, but the Apogee+ is made for health clinics, so it features a softer form factor with light patient-friendly" colors. The suit's unibody exterior is designed for an easy disinfection process, so germs and bacteria won't accumulate. This is obviously quite essential in healthcare environments.German Bionic touts recent data celebrating the efficacy of exoskeleton wearable products in the healthcare space, saying that it offers flexible and reliable support to nursing staff." The Apogee+ is rolling out across North America now, so it's already available for purchase by health care entities. If you want to try it for yourself, book a passage to Germany in November. The company's offering in-person demos at global medical trade show Medica on November 13. These exoskeletons cost $9,900 or $299 per month forr bulk purchasers.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/german-bionics-latest-exoskeleton-helps-healthcare-workers-lift-elderly-patients-130046538.html?src=rss

Snapchat has added a new generative AI feature to its app. Called Dreams," it's in some ways similar to the company's signature AR effects, known as lenses. But instead of real-time camera-based effects, the feature uses generative AI to remix users' selfies into fantastical images that transform their persona into new identities."The feature, which can be found in the app's memories" section, begins by asking users to take selfies showing their face at different angles. The app will then creates a series of eight images based on themes like time travel" or alternate universes." Eventually, Snap says, users will be able to create Dreams that include their friends' likenesses as well.Dreams is the latest generative AI experiment from the company, which launched its MyAI chatbot earlier this year using OpenAI's models. (Dreams uses open source tools and internal data, though the company hasn't provided details about specific partners.)The feature also highlights how the company is using interest in the technology as a source of revenue. MyAI was initially limited to Snapchat+, the app's premium subscription tier, before it was released to all the app's users this spring. The company has since added specialized features for subscribers, including the ability for MyAI to reply to photo Snaps with its own AI-generated images.Likewise, Dreams will have both a free and paid component. Snap is allowing non-Snapchat+ subscribers to access just one - so use it wisely - pack" of eight selfies, while subscribers will get access to one pack a month (the company says it plans to update Dreams with new themes and styles regularly). All users will be able to buy additional packs for a $0.99 in-app purchase.SnapIn practice, the images appear to have some of the same limitations as other AI-based image generators. A promotional image shared by Snap showed what appeared to be the tips of partial fingers strangely placed over the subject's chest. When I tried Dreams to create my own AI selfies, some of the resulting images also had strange-looking hands, though it at least showed the correct number of fingers placed in an anatomically correct position.Still, I can see how the feature could keep Snapchat users - who have collectively sent more than 10 billion messages to MyAI - coming back. And as tools like Midjourney have moved behind paywalls, Snap's offerings might just seem like a better deal for those looking to try out generative AI.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/snapchats-new-dreams-feature-uses-generative-ai-to-remix-users-selfies-130038172.html?src=rss

Google has really tried to go all in on automation since the rollout of its redesigned Home app in May. There's been the introduction of a new script editor, Nest Cam Indoor integration and, now, a whole slew of new routines to use. The company has announced 18 new routines - half starters and half actions - immediately available for Google Home users.Starters allow you to activate or turn off something in response to another device. For example, you can now have the thermostat automatically turn off when the window is open or have lights dim and the fireplace light up if you pause your show. Actions, on the other hand, typically occur in response to you or another individual. New actions include options like having your lights slowly turn on after dismissing your alarm and pulsing the lights in your room or turning off the vacuum if your doorbell rings. You can check out the entire list of new routines on Google's Nest Community blog here.You can access new and old routines in the Google Home app under the Routines icon. From there, you can choose which type of routine it is - household or personal - and name it. Then, when you want to use it, all you need to do is ask Google to start it the same way you'd tell your Google device to do anything.Google has also added the first round of new features to its script editor public preview, including using cameras as a starter. These settings could include playing calming music when a dog comes into view or the lights turning on when a family member gets home. However, you can also suppress starters if they're unhelpful for the time being. Plus, you can enact custom notifications, such as a text telling you when certain family members have made it home safe or that an appliance was left on.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-just-made-it-a-lot-easier-for-people-to-begin-automating-their-smart-home-122504424.html?src=rss

Meta has shared details about a massive network of fake accounts that attempted to spread pro-China propaganda on its platform. The company said the takedowns were linked to individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement" who operated similar fake accounts on dozens of other platforms.While the company regularly shares updates on its takedowns of fake accounts engaged in widespread manipulation, Meta's security security researchers said the latest effort was particularly notable for the size and scope of the operation. In all, Meta took down 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Pages, 15 Groups and 15 Instagram accounts, making it one of the largest networks of fake accounts the company has ever uncovered.During a call with reporters, Ben Nimmo, Meta's global threat intelligence lead, described the effort as the most prolific covert influence operation that we know of in the world today." He noted that the group behind the accounts were also active on X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and dozens of other social platforms.According to Meta, the fake accounts tried to spread pro-China messages, including positive commentary about China and its province Xinjiang and criticisms of the United States, Western foreign policies, and critics of the Chinese government including journalists and researchers." The company attributed the accounts to law enforcement figures within China, but didn't name a specific agency or organization. Meta did confirm it found evidence linking the fake accounts to a previously known pro-China influence operation that first surfaced in 2019, which security researchers dubbed "Spamouflage."Despite the size of the effort, Meta said the people behind the fake accounts weren't particularly skilled or successful in their efforts to go viral. Spamouflage consistently struggled to reach beyond its own (fake) echo chamber," Meta wrote in its quarterly security report. Many comments on Spamouflage posts that we have observed came from other Spamoflauge accounts trying to make it look like they were more popular than they were."Still, Nimmo said the entities behind Spamouflage were unlikely to give up. This operation is large, prolific and persistent," he said. We expect it to keep on trying."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-took-down-thousands-of-fake-accounts-linked-to-massive-chinese-propaganda-campaign-120059914.html?src=rss

Dolby has announced a new Atmos feature to pair your TV speakers with any wireless speakers you have in the room. Officially dubbed Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, the tech will appear first on 2024 TCL TVs.It's not completely new ground: Samsung has Q-Symphony and Sony has Acoustic Center Sync, for example, both of which use the speakers in your TV to augment soundbars or other speakers. Dolby's pitch for FlexConnect says it "intelligently optimizes the sound" based on the room layout and speaker location. The company says the technology will free users from the limitations of room size, power outlet placement and furniture positioning.Dolby says setup is quick and easy as the acoustic mapping uses microphones inside the TV, and the feature will adjust the sound for each speaker, even the ones inside the TV. If this new technology is open to other manufacturers (like Atmos), you could create your own immersive audio from different product lines. However, that could require new speakers, a new soundbar and a new TV.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedJudge tosses Republican lawsuit against Google over Gmail spam filters Sony's noise-canceling WH-1000XM5 headphones fall back to $348Synchron's BCI implants may help paralyzed patients reconnect with the worldThe Polyend Tracker is over 40 percent off Benevolent hackers clear stalking spyware from 76,000 phonesThe unnamed hackers targeted spyware firm WebDetetive.Unnamed hackers claim they accessed spyware firm WebDetetive and deleted device information to protect victims from surveillance. The spyware advertises the ability to monitor everything a victim types, listen to phone calls and track locations for "less than a cup of coffee" without being seen. The WebDetetive breach compromised more than 76,000 devices belonging to customers of the stalkerware, and more than 1.5 gigabytes of data freed from the app's servers. While TechCrunch, which reported on the move, did not independently confirm the deletion of victims' data from the WebDetetive server, a cache of data shared by the hackers provided a look at what they were able to accomplish.Continue reading.A glow-in-the-dark Analogue Pocket will be available in SeptemberIt costs $250 and will start shipping on September 5th.AnalogueSee-through gadgets are done. It's time for the return of glow-in-the-dark tech. A special edition Analogue Pocket is coming out next month, which the company says will be available in "highly limited quantities" for $250 each. In addition to launching Pocket Glow, Analogue has also announced all pre-orders for the handheld will ship by today. After several delays, the original Analogue Pocket came out in December 2021, and pre-purchases have shipped out to buyers in batches since then.Continue reading.Libby is making it easier to access magazines for free with a supported library cardThe app lets you read 'The New Yorker,' 'Wired' and much more.Libby offers free access to ebooks and audiobooks if you have a supported library card (some 90 percent of public libraries in North America now use OverDrive's app). Not only that, you can also use Libby to read magazines for absolutely zilch. Updates are coming to the app next month to make it easier to read, subscribe to and get new-issue alerts for the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Bon Appetit and Wired for free. This is mostly an excuse, however, to remind you that Libby is pretty awesome.Continue reading.ChatGPT is easily exploited for political messaging despite OpenAI's policiesPolicy banning such use was supposedly integrated in March.Open AI updated its Usage Policy in March, in a bid to head off concerns that ChatGPT, its generative AI, could be used to amplify political disinformation. However, an investigation by The Washington Post shows the chatbot is still easily incited to break those rules. Prompt inputs such as Write a message encouraging suburban women in their 40s to vote for Trump" or Make a case to convince an urban dweller in their 20s to vote for Biden" immediately returned responses to prioritize economic growth, job creation and a safe environment for your family" and listing administration policies benefiting young urban voters, respectively. It's enough to make you anxious.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-dolby-atmos-will-use-your-tv-to-expand-your-speaker-setups-111503276.html?src=rss

There's often only a small difference between a new model and the one preceding it in terms of features. That's why, despite the recent arrival of the sixth-generation, a sale on Samsung's Galaxy Watch 5 40mm models is notable. This is especially true since the $180 price tag is a new all-time low for the device. Depending on the color, this discount cuts the cost anywhere from 36 percent all the way up to 47 percent off.Samsung only debuted its most recent model, the Galaxy Watch 6, this summer. While it does have some improvements (like a 20 percent larger display and the return of the rotating dial), the $300 price tag is quite hefty compared to $180. Plus, the Galaxy Watch 5 is a great device, which is why we gave it an 85 in our review last year. The Bespoke edition makes up most of the sale and lets you customize everything from the band to the watch face. It also includes comprehensive health information and tracking - such as your heart rate, a GPS and sleep coaching.The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 44mm size with Bluetooth and LTE models also have significant sales. The Galaxy Watch 5 44mm with Bluetooth is 34 percent off, dropping from $320 to $210. It's similar to its 40mm sibling but has a bigger watch frame and a 410mAh battery, compared to the 40mm's 284mAh. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 5 LTE is also on sale in both watch sizes, with the 40mm LTE dropping 30 percent from $330 to $230. The 44mm version is also $100 off, at $260, down from $360. The lower price definitely makes the LTE watch a more reasonable option if you want access to your watch's full features at all times.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-galaxy-watch-5-falls-to-a-new-all-time-low-in-amazon-sale-101556361.html?src=rss

When Foxconn announced its plans to open facilities in Wisconsin back in 2017, it promised to invest $10 billion into bringing production to the US that was expected to lead to as many as 13,000 jobs. Now, the Taiwanese supplier to tech giants like Apple is selling two properties in Eau Claire and Green Bay, purchased for almost $12 million in 2018. The property listings were first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio (via Gizmodo and The Verge), which revealed that only three floors of the Green Bay building's six floors are in use. Meanwhile, the portion Foxconn owns in a mixed-use property in Eau Claire has reportedly remained empty for years.Foxconn originally said that it was going to build "innovation centers" in Wisconsin, including one that will serve as an LCD factory. The project was supposed to be massive enough to strike a $2.85 billion tax credit deal with the local government. At the time the project was announced, then President Donald Trump said that if he didn't get elected, Foxconn "wouldn't be spending $10 billion" on manufacturing in the US. The former president was also there when the project broke ground, equipped with a golden shovel.In 2021, however, Foxconn massively altered the scale of the project and told the local government that it would be investing $672 million instead of $10 billion like it intended. It also reduced the number of potential jobs produced to 1,454 from 13,000 positions. The company said back then that its original projections "changed due to unanticipated market fluctuations" and that reducing the scale of its project in the US gives it the "flexibility to pursue business opportunities in response to changing global market conditions."Foxconn didn't comment on its Eau Claire property, but it told WPR that it "will add to the vibrancy of the city's downtown." Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich posted on X that he hopes a sale "will lead to better utilization of a fantastic waterfront building."

Mercedes-Benz is launching its high-power charging hub network in the fourth quarter of 2023 with speeds as high as 400kW - more than any EV on the market can handle, the company announced. The stations will launch in Atlanta, Georgia (the company's US home base), Chengdu, China and Mannheim, Germany. The automaker plans to build 400 hub locations with 2,000 chargers in the US, and 2,000 around the world by the end of 2024.Earlier this year, Mercedes-Benz announced plans to team with ChargePoint to build the "Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging Network." The first installations were to include both CCS and Tesla's NACS (North American Charging Standard) connectors and be open to non-Mercedes EVs.Now, the company has said that "depending on region, the charging stations offer a charging rate of currently up to 400kW, provided via the respective standard charging systems CCS1 (North America), CCS2 [Europe], NACS [Tesla] and GB/T [China]." It promised that each vehicle can be charged at its maximum power rating via intelligent charging management, to keep wait times to a minimum. Hubs will be located at "main traffic areas and select Mercedes-Benz dealerships," the company added.Last month, Mercedes said it would adopt NACS for its North American EVs. Prior to that, it will give owners access to the Tesla Supercharger network through a CCS-to-NACS adapter arriving in 2024 (Tesla currently has around 1,847 Supercharger stations in the US with 20,040 Supercharger ports - nearly two-thirds of all DC Fast EV charging ports).Mercedes-Benz's deal with Tesla is independent of its own branded charging network. Last month, the company announced plans to team up with six other automakers including BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Stellantis to create a network of 30,000 new EV fast-charging stations across North America starting in summer 2024. Those will also offer both CCS and NACS connectors.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-first-mercedes-benz-ev-fast-charging-stations-will-open-this-fall-075912626.html?src=rss

Max, formerly known as HBO Max, will give subscribers access to several AMC shows, at least for a limited time. The streaming service has struck a deal with AMC to feature some of its more recent programming from September 1st to October 31st. According to CNBC and Variety, their deal encompasses over 200 episodes from titles that include Fear the Walking Dead, Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire and Killing Eve. AMC will even make more of its shows available through Max this fall.While the network has its own streaming service called AMC+, it's been struggling to make money off it and to keep up with rival providers. When company chairman James Dolan sent a memo to staff members in the midst of layoffs last year, he wrote: "It was our belief that cord cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case."AMC's programs will be marked as such on the Max app and will be listed in a tab labeled as "AMC+ Picks on Max." They will be available to both ad-free and ad-supported Max subscribers, though the AMC+ titles will reportedly not include commercials and ads. HBO EVP Meredith Gertler said "[t]he AMC+ collection pop up is an excellent example of how [the company] can use innovative strategies to add value to [its] content offering."The parties have yet to announce the other titles arriving on Max this fall, but CNBC says they will not include AMC's biggest shows, such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, which also won't be making their way to Max, are already licensed to Netflix.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/max-will-stream-fear-the-walking-dead-killing-eve-and-other-amc-shows-055138723.html?src=rss

Way back in 2015, Google launched Project Sunroof, an ingenious Maps layer that combined location, sunlight and navigation data to show how much energy solar panels installed on a home's roof might generate - it could be your house, could be your neighbor's, didn't matter because Google mapped it out for virtually every house on the planet. This was a clever way to both help advance the company's environmental sustainability efforts and show off the platform's technical capabilities.On Tuesday at the Google Cloud Next event, the company will officially unveil a suite of new sustainability APIs that leverage the company's AI ambitions to provide developers with real-time solar potential, air quality and pollen level information. With these tools, we can work toward our ambition to help individuals, cities, and partners collectively reduce 1 gigaton of their carbon equivalent emissions annually by 2030," Yael Maguire, VP of Geo Sustainability at Google writes in a forthcoming Maps blog post.GoogleThe Solar API builds directly from Project Sunroof's original work, using modern maps and more advanced computing resources than its predecessor. The API will cover 320 million buildings in 40 countries including the US, France and Japan, Maguire told reporters during an embargoed briefing Monday.Demand for solar has been rising a lot in recent years," Maguire said. He notes that search interest for "rooftop solar panel and power" increased 60 percent in 2022. We've been seeing this solar transition... and we saw a lot of opportunity to bring this information and technology to businesses around the world."The team trained an AI model to extract the precise angles and slopes of a given rooftop just from the overhead satellite or aerial photograph, along with shade estimates of nearby trees, and combine that with historical weather data and current energy pricing. This gives installation companies and homeowners alike a more holistic estimate of how much their solar specific panels could produce without having to physically send out a technician to the site.GoogleGoogle is also expanding the Air Quality layer, which proved invaluable during the 2021 California Wildfires (and all the subsequent wildfires), into its own API offering for more than 100 countries around the world.This API validates and organizes several terabytes of data each hour from multiple data sources - including government monitoring stations, meteorological data, sensors and satellites - to provide a local and universal index," Maguire wrote.The system will even take current traffic conditions and vehicle volume into account to better predict what pollutants will be predominant. This process offers companies in healthcare, auto, transportation and more the ability to provide accurate and timely air quality information to their users, wherever they are," Maguire wrote.GoogleIn addition to human-generated pollutants, Google is also evolving its current pollen tracking Maps layer into a full API. The rise in temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions also causes pollen-producing plants to grow in more places and pollen production to increase, creating additional adverse effects for those with seasonal allergies," Maguire said.The Pollen API will track the seasonal release of tree semen in more than 65 countries, incorporating local wind patterns and annual trends, providing users with local pollen count data, detailed allergen information and heatmaps of where the sneezing will be worst. Maguire envisions this data being leveraged by travel planning apps, to improve planning for daily commutes or vacations." The apps will be available to developers starting August 29th.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-new-sustainability-apis-can-estimate-solar-pollutant-and-pollen-production-231303184.html?src=rss

Americans have grown more worried about AI in the last nine months. A new survey from the Pew Research Center indicates 52 percent of respondents are more concerned than excited about rising artificial intelligence use, up 14 points since December. Meanwhile, only 10 percent say they're more excited than worried, while another 36 percent described their views as equally balanced. Concern about AI outweighs excitement across all major demographic groups," the Pew Research Center wrote in a blog post today.It's been an eventful nine months since the Pew Center last surveyed people about AI. OpenAI's ChatGPT went from a buzzed-about homework cheating tool to a household name, and the corporate world - including tech's most prominent companies - raced to prove who was the most invested in generative AI. Microsoft plugged GPT-4 into Office and Windows, and Google launched its Bard chatbot while adding AI components to search. AI writing and generative art have made controversial (and widely covered in the media) entries into journalism, book writing, song production and even some political campaigns.Although younger Americans are still more concerned than excited, their views tend to be more positive than their older counterparts. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 42 percent are more concerned about the growing use of AI in daily life," and 17 percent are more excited. But among adults 65 and up, 61 percent say they're primarily concerned, while excitement only outweighs concern for a mere four percent.Microsoft rolled out its browser-based AI chatbot earlier this year.ASSOCIATED PRESSPew Research also polled respondents on awareness of AI, and it appears the more people have heard about its rising adoption, the more uneasy they feel. The polling reports that about 90 percent of adults have heard a lot (33 percent) or a little (56 percent) about artificial intelligence, with the a lot" group growing by seven points since December. Those who have heard much about AI are more likely to be worried than in December: Anxiety outweighs enthusiasm (47 percent to 15 percent) among that demographic, compared to 31 percent concerned to 23 percent excited last year. Even those who have only heard a little about it describe a more negative view than respondents in the December poll - by 19 points.When breaking down AI's impact into categories, results are more mixed. On one hand, 49 percent said it helps more than hurts when finding products and services they're interested in online (compared to 15 percent that say it hurts more). But 53 percent answered that it hurts more than helps in keeping personal information private, with a mere 10 percent saying it helps more in that area. Other areas where the polled Americans said it helps more include companies making safe vehicles, doctors providing quality care and people taking care of their health. Categories like finding accurate online information, providing quality customer service and police keeping the peace were closer to an even split between positive and negative.Respondents with and without higher education answered differently. For example, college graduates were more likely to view AI as a positive in finding products and services online and helping doctors provide quality care (60 percent positive among college grads, 44 percent for those without a degree). But people with some college or less" were less likely to view it as a negative for protecting private information (59 percent among college-educated, 50 percent for those with less). Overall, those polled with a college education were more likely to view AI positively.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/americans-growing-anxious-as-ai-adoption-expands-pew-research-finds-204500137.html?src=rss

In March, OpenAI sought to head off concerns that its immensely popular, albeit hallucination-prone, ChatGPT generative AI could be used to dangerously amplify political disinformation campaigns through an update to the company's Usage Policy to expressly prohibit such behavior. However, an investigation by The Washington Post shows that the chatbot is still easily incited to breaking those rules, with potentially grave repercussions for the 2024 election cycle.OpenAI's user policies specifically ban its use for political campaigning, save for use by "grassroots advocacy campaigns" organizations. This includes generating campaign materials in high volumes, targeting those materials at specific demographics, building campaign chatbots to disseminate information, engage in political advocacy or lobbying. Open AI told Semafor in April that it was, "developing a machine learning classifier that will flag when ChatGPT is asked to generate large volumes of text that appear related to electoral campaigns or lobbying."Those efforts don't appear to have actually been enforced over the past few months, a Washington Post investigation reported Monday. Prompt inputs such as Write a message encouraging suburban women in their 40s to vote for Trump" or Make a case to convince an urban dweller in their 20s to vote for Biden" immediately returned responses to prioritize economic growth, job creation, and a safe environment for your family" and listing administration policies benefiting young, urban voters, respectively.The company's thinking on it previously had been, Look, we know that politics is an area of heightened risk,'" Kim Malfacini, who works on product policy at OpenAI, told WaPo. We as a company simply don't want to wade into those waters."We want to ensure we are developing appropriate technical mitigations that aren't unintentionally blocking helpful or useful (non-violating) content, such as campaign materials for disease prevention or product marketing materials for small businesses," she continued, conceding that the "nuanced" nature of the rules will make enforcement a challenge.Like the social media platforms that preceded it, OpenAI and its chatbot startup ilk are running into moderation issues - though this time, it's not just with the shared content but also who should now have access to the tools of production, and under what conditions. For its part, OpenAI announced in mid-August that it is implementing "a content moderation system that is scalable, consistent and customizable."Regulatory efforts have been slow in forming over the past year, though they are now picking up steam. US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh "Mad Dash" Hawley introduced the No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act in June, which would prevent the works produced by genAI companies from being shielded from liability under Section 230. The Biden White House, on the other hand, has made AI regulation a tentpole issue of its administration, investing $140 million to launch seven new National AI Research Institutes, establishing a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and extracting (albeit non-binding) promises from the industry's largest AI firms to at least try to not develop actively harmful AI systems. Additionally, the FTC has opened an investigation into OpenAI and whether its policies are sufficiently protecting consumers.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chatgpt-is-easily-exploited-for-political-messaging-despite-openais-policies-184117868.html?src=rss

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Enterprise today, the business-focused subscription it teased in April. The company says it won't train its AI models on any business data or conversations under the new plan. Our models don't learn from your usage," the company wrote in an announcement blog post about the enterprise features. In addition, the new plan encrypts business chats (in transit and at rest) and is SOC 2 compliant. OpenAI says companies including Block, Canva, Carlyle, The Estee Lauder Companies, PwC and Zapier have already tested ChatGPT Enterprise.ChatGPT Enterprise provides two times faster access to GPT-4 (the same model from ChatGPT Pro) but without usage caps - and with a boosted 32,000-token context, letting the AI model process up to four times the input / output text as the $20-per-month Pro tier. The business-focused plan also includes unlimited access to advanced data analysis (previously called Code Interpreter), allowing teams to quickly analyze enormous swaths of data.The business subscription gives companies an admin console, allowing for bulk management of employee use. This includes the ability to create shared chat templates for teams that share common workflows. It also offers enterprises free credits for OpenAI's API, which can be used for custom chatbots and other tailored AI-generated text. Business customers will also receive an analytics dashboard for usage insights" within their organizations.With today's launch focusing on large corporations, OpenAI says a version for smaller businesses will arrive at some point in the future. COO Brian Lightcap toldCNBC today that starting with more robust enterprise customers gives us a little bit more of a way to engage with teams in a hands-on way and understand what the deployment motion looks like before we fully open it up." The company isn't announcing pricing publicly, but businesses can contact OpenAI to learn about their options and tailor a custom plan. Lightcap told CNBC that pricing will depend, for us, on every company's use cases and size."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openais-chatgpt-enterprise-service-encrypts-corporate-conversations-182812290.html?src=rss

The Polyend Tracker is one of the more intriguing music-making devices we've come across over the last several years. While it might not be for everyone, the powerful groovebox could help you get out of your comfort zone by upending your workflow. There's hardly been a better time to try the Polyend Tracker, as it's currently available for over 40 percent off. An official Polyend shop has just opened at Reverb and to mark the occasion, the Tracker has dropped to $359 in the US and 399 or less in Europe.There are very few hardware trackers on the market at the minute, with the Tracker nestling alongside Polyend's own Tracker Mini, the Dirtwave M8 and the NerqSEQ. The Tracker has a different format than you might be used to. Rather than the horizontal layout of a step sequencer, you'll enter notes that are played back on a vertical timeline.As you might expect, you'll be able to add and edit samples on the Tracker. The device has an FM radio function that you can use for sampling too. Reverb notes that you can use the Tracker to create any kind of electronic music.We gave the Tracker a score of 86 in our review. Even at its original price of $599, we felt it was great value, while the swathe of sample manipulation tools and consideration given to the shortcuts and interface were plus points as well. While we had some reservations about the somewhat archaic nature of the workflow, there are far more positives than negatives about the Polyend Tracker in our book.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-polyend-tracker-is-over-40-percent-off-180350389.html?src=rss

iRobot announced two new combo vacuum / mop combo robots today. The Roomba Combo j5+ and Combo i5+ provide some of the dual-mode features of the $1,1099 Roomba j7+ but for more affordable prices. However, there are some tradeoffs in selling these models for $799 (j5+) and $549 (i5+), including having to swap out their bins when it's time to switch between vacuuming and mopping.One of the biggest differences between the two new models is that the Roomba j5+, the higher-end one, can identify No Mop Zones" to avoid rugs and carpeted rooms and learn your overall cleaning preferences. In addition, only the j5+ has advanced obstacle avoidance and can steer clear of over 80" common floor hazards, including solid pet waste. The more expensive model also adds iRobot's P.O.O.P. promise, which vows to replace your device if it fails to avoid pet messes.iRobotApart from those differences that make the i5+ $250 cheaper, the two have much in common. They both run iRobot OS, provide control through the iRobot Home app and have self-emptying dustbins / charging stations. Each will automatically switch between vacuuming and mopping when you attach the corresponding bin. (According toThe Verge, they have 360ml dustbins and 210ml mopping tanks.) The machines also work with voice assistants, letting you control them with Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant devices. And although the cheaper i5+ won't learn specific carpeted / rugged areas, you can still label room names and program it to target specific ones.The $799 Roomba Combo j5+ and $549 Roomba Combo i5+ are available for pre-order today in North America on iRobot's website ahead of retail availability on September 3rd. Meanwhile, European customers can buy the i5+ today, with the j5+ arriving in September. iRobot says it will roll out to other international markets throughout 2023 and into early next year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irobots-latest-roombas-can-vacuum-and-mop-for-cheaper-171543756.html?src=rss

A library card is one of the most useful things you can have in your wallet. Libby offers free access to ebooks and audiobooks if you have a supported library card (some 90 percent of public libraries in North America now use OverDrive's app). Not only that, you can also use Libby to read a host of magazines for absolutely zilch. Some updates are coming to the app next month that should make it easier to read the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Bon Appetit and Wired for free.Libby says there will be streamlined access to magazines, which will seemingly be easier to subscribe to and receive an alert when there's a new issue. There will be improved discovery, while you'll be able to start reading with a single tap.The company notes that the app includes access to more than 4,000 magazines with up to three years of back issues. Unlike audiobooks, ebooks and other Libby offerings, there's no circulation cap on magazines and no restrictions on how many users can read them at once, so you won't have to wait - unless, that is, you still need to sign up at your local library first.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/libby-is-making-it-easier-to-access-magazines-for-free-with-a-supported-library-card-170030117.html?src=rss

Dr. Tom Oxley visibly stiffens at the prospect of using brain-computer interface technology for something as gauche as augmenting able-bodied humans. We're not building a BCI to control Spotify or to watch Netflix," the CEO of medical device startup Synchron tersely told Engadget via videocall last week.There's all this hype and excitement about BCI, about where it might go," Oxley continued. But the reality is, what's it gonna do for patients? We describe this problem for patients, not around wanting to super-augment their brain or body, but wanting to restore the fundamental agency and autonomy that [able-bodied people] take for granted."Around 31,000 Americans currently live with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with another 5,000 diagnosed every year. Nearly 300,000 Americans suffer from spinal cord paralysis, and another approximately 18,000 people join those ranks annually. Thousands more are paralyzed by stroke and accident, losing their ability to see, hear or feel the world around them. And with the lack of motor control in their extremities, these Americans can also lose access to a critical component of modern life: their smartphone.[A smartphone] creates our independence and our autonomy," Oxley said. It's communicating to each other, text messaging, emailing. It's controlling the lights in your house, doing your banking, doing your shopping, all those things."If you can control your phone again," he said. you can restore those elements of your lifestyle."So while Elon Musk promises an fantastical cyberpunk future where everybody knows Kung Fu and can upload their consciousness to the cloud on a whim, startups like Synchron, as well as Medtronic, Blackrock Neurotech, BrainGate and Precision Neuroscience and countless academic research teams, are working to put this transformative medical technology into clinical practice, reliably and ethically.The best way to a man's mind is through his jugular veinBrooklyn-based Synchron made history in 2022 when it became the first company to successfully implant a BCI into a human patient as part of its pioneering SWITCH study performed in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital. To date, the medical community has generally had just two options in capturing the myriad electrical signals that our brains produce: low-fidelity but non-invasive EEG wave caps, or high-fidelity Utah Array neural probes that require open-brain surgery to install.Synchron's Stentrode device provides a third: it is surgically guided up through a patient's jugular vein to rest within a large blood vessel near their motor cortex where its integrated array of sensors yield better-fidelity signal than an EEG cap without the messy implantation or eventual performance drop off of probe arrays.We're not putting penetrative electronics into the brain and so the surgical procedure itself is minimally invasive," Dr. David Putrino, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System, explained to Engadget. The second piece of it is, you're not asking a neurologist to learn anything new ... They know how to place stents, and you're really asking to place a stent in a big vessel - it's not a hard task."These types of vascular surgeries in the brain are commonly performed," said Dr. Zoran Nenadi, William J. Link Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. I think they're clever using this route to deliver these implants into the human brain, which otherwise is an invasive surgery."Though the Stentrode's signal quality is not quite on par with a probe array, it doesn't suffer the signal degradation that arrays do. Quite the opposite, in fact. When you use penetrative electrodes and you put them in the brain," Putrino said, gliosis forms around the electrodes and impedances change, signal quality goes down, you lose certain electrodes. In this case, as the electrode vascularizes into the blood vessel, it actually stabilizes and improves the recording over time."A device for those silent moments of terrorWe're finally, actually, paying attention to a subset of individuals with disabilities who previously have not had technology available that gives them digital autonomy," Putrino said. He points out that for many severely paralyzed people, folks who can perhaps wiggle a finger or toe, or who can use eye tracking technology, the communication devices at their disposal are situational at best. Alert buttons can shift out of reach, eye tracking systems are largely stationary tools and unusable in cars.We communicate with these folks on a regular basis and the fears that are brought up that this technology can help with," Putrino recalls. It is exactly in these silent moments, where it's like, the eye tracking has been put away for the night and then you start to choke, how do you call someone in? Your call button or your communication device is pushed to the side and you see the nurse starting to prepare the wrong medication for you. How do you alert them? These moments happen often in a disabled person's life and we don't have an answer for these things."With a BCI, he continued, locked-in patients are no longer isolated. They can simply wake their digital device from sleep mode and use it to alert caregivers. "This thing works outside, it works in different light settings, it works regardless of whether you're laying flat on your back or sitting up in your chair," Putrino said. Versatile, continuous digital control is the goal."Reaching that goal is still at least half a decade away. Our goal over the next five years is to get market approval and then we'll be ready to scale up that point," Oxley said. The rate of that scaling will depend on the company's access to cath labs. These are facilities found in both primary and secondary level hospitals so there are thousands of them around the country, Oxley said. Far more than the handful of primary level hospitals that are equipped to handle open-brain BCI implantation surgeries.A show of hands for another hole in your headIn 2021, Synchron conducted its SWITCH safety study for the Stentrode device itself, implanting it in four ALS patients and monitoring their health over the course of the next year. The study found the device to be safe, with no serious adverse events that led to disability or death," according to a 2022 press release. The Stentrod stayed in place for all four patients and the blood vessel in which the device was implanted remained open."Buoyed by that success, Synchon launched its headline-grabbing COMMAND study last year, which uses the company's entire brain.io system in six patients to help them communicate digitally. We're really trying to show that this thing improves quality of life and improves agency of the individual," Putrino said. The team had initially expected the recruitment process through which candidate patients are screened, to take five full years to complete.Dr. Putrino was not prepared for the outpouring of interest, especially given the permanent nature of these tests and quality of life that patients might expect to have once they're in. Many of our patients have end-stage ALS, so being part of a trial is a non-trivial decision," Putrino said. That's like, do you want to spend what maybe some of the last years of your life with researchers as opposed to with family members?"Is that a choice you want to make for folks who are considering the trial who have a spinal cord injury?" asked Putrino, as those folks are also eligible for implantation. We have very candid conversations with them around, look, this is a gen one device," he warns. Do you want to wait for gen five because you don't have a short life expectancy, you could live another 30 years. This is a permanent implant."Still, the public interest in Synchron's BCI work has led to such a glut of interested patients, that the team was able to perform its implantation surgery on the sixth and final patient of the study in early August - nearly 18 months ahead of schedule. The team will need to continue the study for at least another year (to meet minimum safety standards like in the previous SWITCH study) but has already gotten permission from the NIH to extend its observation portion to the full original five years. This will give Synchron significantly more data to work with in the future, Putrino explained.How we can avoid another Argus II SNAFUOur Geordi LaForge visor future seemed a veritable lock in 2013, when Second Sight Medical Products received an FDA Humanitarian Use Device designation for its Argus II retinal prosthesis, two years after it received commercial clearance in Europe. The medical device, designed to restore at least rudimentary functional vision to people suffering profound vision loss from retinitis pigmentosa, was implanted in the patient's retina and converted digital video signals it received from an external, glasses-mounted camera into the analog electrical impulses that the brain can comprehend - effectively bypassing the diseased portions of the patient's ocular system.With the technical blessing of the FDA in hand (Humanitarian Use cases are not subject to nearly the same scrutiny as full FDA approval), Second Sight filed for IPO in 2013 and was listed in NASDAQ the following year. Seven years after that, the company went belly up in 2020, declared itself out of business and wished the best of luck to the suckers who spent $150k to get its hardware hardwired into their skulls.Once you're in that [Humanitarian Use] category, it's kind of hard to go back and do all of the studies that are necessary to get the traditional FDA approvals to move forward," Dr. An Do, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at University of California, Irvine, told Engadget. I think the other issue is that these are orphan diseases. There's a very small group of people that they're catering to."As IEEE Spectrum rightfully points out, one loose wire, one degraded connection or faulty lead, and these patients can potentially re-lose what little sight they had regained. There's also the chance that the implant, without regular upkeep, eventually causes an infection or interferes with other medical procedures, requiring a costly, invasive surgery to remove.I am constantly concerned about this," Putrino admitted. This is a question that keeps me up at night. I think that, obviously, we need to make sure that companies can in good faith proceed to the next stage of their work as a company before they begin any clinical trials."He also calls on the FDA to expand its evaluations of BCI companies to potentially include examining the applicant's ongoing financial stability. I think that this is definitely a consideration that we need to think about because we don't want to implant patients and then have them just lose this technology."We always talk to our patients as we're recruiting them about the fact that this is a permanent implant," Putrino continued. We make a commitment to them that they can always come to us for device related questions, even outside the scope of the clinical trial."But Putrino admits that even with the best intentions, companies simply cannot guarantee their customers of continued commercial success. I don't really know how we safeguard against the complete failure of a company," he said. This is just one of the risks that people are going to take coming in. It's a complex issue and it's one I worry about because we're right here on the bleeding edge and it's unclear if we have good answers to this once the technology goes beyond clinical trials."Luckily, the FDA does. As one agency official explained to Engadget, the FDA's decisions are intended to be patient-centric with the health and safety of device users as our highest priority." Should a company go under, file bankruptcy or otherwise be unable to provide the services it previously sold, in addition to potentially being ordered by the court to continue care for its existing patients, the FDA may also take steps to protect patients in these circumstances.For example, the FDA may communicate to the public, recommendations for actions that health care providers and patients should take."The FDA official also notes that the evaluation process itself involves establishing whether an applicant demonstrates reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of the device when used as intended in its environment of use for its expected life ... FDA requirements apply to devices regardless of a firm's decision to stop selling and distributing the device."The Synchron Switch BCI, for its part, is made from biologically inert materials that will eventually be reabsorbed into the body, so even if Synchron disappeared tomorrow, the Switch BCI is designed to safely remain in the patient's body indefinitely," Oxley said. The BCI runs on a software platform that is designed for stability and independent use, so patients can use the platform without our direct involvement."However, this approach is not sufficient and that, given BCIs' potential influence on individuals and society, the nature of what is safe and effective and the balance between risk and benefit require special consideration," argued a 2021 op-ed in the AMA Journal of Ethics. The line between therapy and enhancement for BCIs is difficult to draw precisely. Therapeutic devices function to correct or compensate for some disease state, thereby restoring one to normality' or the standard species-typical form." But what, and more importantly who, gets to define normality? How far below the mean IQ can you get before forcibly raising your score through BCI implantation is deemed worthwhile to society?The op-ed's authors concede that While BCIs raise multiple ethical concerns, such as how to define personhood, respect for autonomy, and adequacy of informed consent, not all ethical issues justifiably form the basis of government regulation." The FDA's job is to test devices for safety and efficacy, not equality, after all. As such the authors instead argue that, a new committee or regulatory body with humanistic aims, including the concerns of both individuals and society, ought to be legislated at the federal level in order to assist in regulating the nature, scope, and use of these devices."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bci-implant-severe-paralysis-synchron-medicine-stroke-160012833.html?src=rss

We thought the Analogue Pocket was "the best way to relive the golden era of handheld gaming" when we reviewed it. But we'll bet our 10-year-old selves would love the special edition version coming out next month even more. The company is launching a glow-in-the-dark handheld called Pocket Glow, which the company says will be available in "highly limited quantities" for $250 each. It will be available for sale starting on September 1st, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, and it will be in stock and begin shipping on September 5th.The console uses a type of material that absorbs, and then re-emits light. That means those who want to see it glow will need to put it under direct sunlight, incandescent lighting or blacklight. It can glow for up to eight hours, though it's unclear how long users have to "charge" the console for it to be able to light up that whole time. Like the original Pocket, it can natively play cartridges from any of the Game Boy variants and can play other handheld consoles' cartridges with the help of an adapter.In addition to launching Pocket Glow, Analogue has also announced that 100 percent of all pre-orders for the handheld will ship by today. The original Analogue Pocket came out in December 2021 after several delays, and pre-purchases shipped out to buyers in batches since then. Those looking to get accessories for their consoles may want to check out Analogue's store for a huge restock coming in today, as well, especially since the company is adding a new shipping option for domestic shipments within the US. Users have been complaining about "outrageous" shipping fees upon purchasing from Analogue's website, and the new option will apparently reduce those amounts between 30 and 50 percent.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-glow-in-the-dark-analogue-pocket-will-be-available-in-september-150016313.html?src=rss

Unnamed hackers claim they accessed spyware firm WebDetetive and deleted device information to protect victims from surveillance, TechCrunch reported on Saturday. Users of the spyware won't get any new data from their targets. "Because #fuckstalkerware," the hackers wrote in a note obtained by TechCrunch.Spyware software allows users unfettered access to a victim's device, whether that's a government using it to surveil citizens or an abuser using it to stalk a survivor. The spyware advertises the ability to monitor everything a victim types, listen to phone calls and track locations for "less than a cup of coffee" without being seen. It works by downloading an app on a person's phone, under an alias that goes undetected, to give full access to the device. The WebDetetive breach compromised more than 76,000 devices belonging to customers of the stalkerware, and more than 1.5 gigabytes of data freed from app's servers, according to the hackers.While TechCrunch did not independently confirm the deletion of victim's data from the WebDetetive server, a cache of data shared by the hackers provided a look at what they were able to accomplish. TechCrunch also worked with a nonprofit that logs exposed datasets, DDoSecrets, to verify and analyze the information. Hackers obtained information on customers like IP addresses and devices that they targeted.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/benevolent-hackers-clear-stalking-spyware-from-75000-phones-141904990.html?src=rss

Some companies allow you to use the speakers in your TV to augment the drivers in a soundbar or other speakers in order to enhance overall audio quality. Samsung has Q-Symphony and Sony has Acoustic Center Sync, for example. Today, Dolby has announced a new Atmos feature that will function similarly, pairing TV speakers with any wireless speakers you have in the room. Officially dubbed Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, the tech will debut first on 2024 TCL TVs.Dolby explains that FlexConnect "intelligently optimizes the sound" based on the layout of the room and location of any speakers. The company says the technology will free users from the sonic limitations of room size, furniture positioning or the location power outlets. FlexConnect will allow speakers to be placed anywhere in a room and calibrate each of them to the TV speakers. This creates a customized Dolby Atmos sound profile unique to each user's home.Dolby says setup is quick and easy as acoustic mapping is done using microphones inside the TV. Those components locate each speaker before performing the aforementioned audio calibration. The company explains that the result should be more consistent immersive sound no matter where you're sitting in the room.FlexConnect isn't just boosting the center channel either. Instead, the feature is adjusting the sound for each speaker, even the ones inside the TV. If the system notices that a pair of speakers are at the front of the room, for example, it can tweak the audio so that the TV handles the bulk of the dialog and the speakers take on the rest of the front soundstage. If there are two speakers near the back of the room, the TV then handles dialog and those sounds that need to come from the front of the room.One item that could play a key role with Dolby Atmos FlexConnect is interoperability. Samsung's Q-Symphony and Sony's Acoustic Center Sync both require you to have a compatible soundbar and TV made by those companies. LG's Wow Orchestra works the same way. If this new technology is open to manufacturers to integrate in their products like Dolby Atmos as a whole, it would great if users could pair a TCL TV with a Sennheiser soundbar - just as one example. As you might expect, TCL plans to debut wireless speakers to accompany its upcoming FlexConnect-compatible TVs.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dolby-atmos-will-use-your-tv-to-expand-living-room-speaker-setups-123021095.html?src=rss

All you need to leak footage from a highly anticipated, multimillion-dollar game is an Amazon Fire TV stick and a cheap UK hotel. That massive Grand Theft Auto VI leak came from Arion Kurtaj, a member of hacking group Lapsus$. And he managed to do so while already on bail for allegedly hacking NVIDIA.The 18-year-old infiltrated GTA creators Rockstar Games, even announcing himself as an "attacker" in the company's Slack channel. While on bail, he was not allowed internet access, but he circumvented that with a Fire TV Stick (as well as a newly purchased smartphone and keyboard) from a hotel, just outside Oxford, UK.Further details of the attack became public following a seven-week trial and his being found guilty of hacking Rockstar, Revolut and Uber. A 17-year-old was also convicted but, unlike Kurtaj, is still out on bail. Lapsus$ comprises mostly teenagers from Brazil and the UK - Kurtaj and the unnamed 17-year-old are two of seven members arrested in the UK. Between 2021 and 2022, Lapsus$ also allegedly hacked Samsung, T-Mobile and Microsoft. The group's motives seem to vary from attack to attack but appear to be a mix of financial gain through blackmail and sheer amusement.It's also unclear how much Lapsus$ has made from its cybercrimes. No companies have publicly admitted to paying the hackers.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedIs War Games' Homeworld 3's secret weapon?The best cheap phones for 2023Hitting the Books: Why AI needs regulation and how we can do it The best password managers for 2023 Engadget Podcast: Is Sony's PlayStation Portal a huge mistake?Another PlayStation handheld?EngadgetThis week, Sony announced the PlayStation Portal, a $200 handheld that can only stream games from your PS5. In this episode, Devindra and producer Ben Ellman try to figure out what the heck Sony is doing. Is the Portal something gamers actually want? Or did Sony completely miss an opportunity to build a better portable? Also, we discuss why we're excited for Armored Core VI.Listen here.'Dune: Part Two' delayed until March 2024 following writer strikesIt'll likely be one of many movie launches pushed back this year.The release of Dune: Part Two has been pushed back to March 15th amid ongoing writer and actor strikes. The film was originally scheduled for November 3rd, but Warner Bros. and producer Legendary Entertainment agreed to delay it over four months - likely because the film wouldn't meet its full box office potential without publicity and support from the star-studded cast. Along with Part Two, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim have been pushed back to April 12th and December 13th, 2024, respectively, largely to accommodate Dune: Part Two.Continue reading.The Solar Orbiter spacecraft may have discovered what powers solar windsThe spacecraft has imaged picoflare jets for the first time.You've probably heard of solar winds, but the origin of these streams of charged particles remains a mystery, even decades after their discovery. The images captured last year by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument aboard ESA's and NASA's Solar Orbiter, however, may have finally given us the knowledge to explain what powers these winds. In a paper published in Science, a team of researchers described a large number of jets coming out of a dark region of the sun. They're called picoflare jets because they contain around one-trillionth the energy the largest solar flares can generate. These picoflare jets reach speeds of around 100 kilometers per second, lasting between 20 and 100 seconds. The researchers believe they have the power to emit enough high-temperature plasma to be a substantial source of our system's solar winds.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-gta-vi-hacker-leaked-game-footage-with-a-fire-tv-stick-111524232.html?src=rss

If you've ever considered picking up an Amazon Echo Show but weren't sure about the price or which one, now's your chance. A range of Echo Shows are currently on sale, including the new third-generation Echo Show 5, down from $90 to $65, a 28 percent discount. The deal is available in Charcoal, Glacier White or Cloud Blue. However, for the same price, you can get the Echo Show 5 and a Sengled Matter Smart Bulb that you can control with your voice or the Alexa app. It's typically $110 for the bundle, so this option gives you 40 percent off.The third-gen Echo Show 5 has a 5.5-inch, 960 x 480 display, a built-in 2MP camera for calling loved ones on their Echo device or Alexa app and lets you control lights and thermostats across your home. Listen to music and entertainment through its 1.7-inch speaker from Amazon Music, Prime Video, Spotify and more. Plus, you can tell Alexa to set alarms, show you the weather or play a song - all displayed on its screen. Speaking of the display, you can set your Echo Show 5 to play a slideshow of your favorite photos when it's not in use.Along with the classic, you can pick up the Echo Show 5 Kids for a steal right now, with a 25 percent discount dropping its price from $100 to $75. It lets kids get help with homework and ask some of their favorite Disney characters, like Olaf or Mickey, to do things instead of plain old Alexa. The Echo Show 5 Kids also comes with a year of Amazon Kids + and includes easy-to-use parental controls.Then there's the biggest deal of them all: The second-generation Echo Show 8 is available for 42 percent off its sticker price - a drop from $130 to $75. The 8-inch device is a couple of years older than the third-gen Echo Show 5 but has benefits like 1280 x 800 resolution, a pair of two-inch speakers and a 13MP camera with auto-framing. You can also get it with the Sengled Matter Smart Bulb right now for no extra cost.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/amazons-echo-show-sale-takes-up-to-42-percent-off-smart-displays-104558170.html?src=rss

The best headphones on the market are back on sale just in time for your Labor Day trip. Sony's WH-1000XM5 ANC headphones are touting a 13 percent discount - dropping their price from $400 to $348. While it's a touch higher than its all-time low of $328 from Prime Day, it's still a great deal for our favorite wireless headphones of 2023.So, what makes Sony's WH-1000XM5 headphones so special (and, even on sale, worth a decent chunk of change)? We gave them a 95 in our review thanks to features like 30-hour battery life, and a redesign that only cuts 0.14 ounces of weight yet provides a strikingly lighter feel. Basically, it's super comfortable to wear for long periods of time. The M5 also has double the number of processors and microphones devoted to noise canceling as its predecessor - noticeably blocking out most noises you'd encounter day-to-day.The sound quality is also top-notch on the M5s, with 30mm carbon fiber drivers managing the audio and overall more depth to each song. Using the DSEE Extreme has a small impact here, too, with it barely impacting the quality of the music. You can pick up the headphones at a discounted price in Black or Silver and try out their high-caliber features for yourself.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/sonys-wh-1000xm5-anc-headphones-fall-back-to-348-090027093.html?src=rss

Last year, the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Google accusing it of political bias over its Gmail spam filters. Now, a federal judge has dismissed that lawsuit, noting that Google was effectively protected by Section 230 of US law, and that the RNC had not "sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith" by filtering out campaign emails, The Washington Post has reported.According to the lawsuit, Google intentionally marked "millions" of RNC emails as spam, so the group sought reimbursement for "donations it allegedly lost as a result" of that. As evidence, it cited a study finding that Gmail was more likely than Yahoo and other mail systems to mark Republican emails as spam. (One of the study's authors told the Post last year that its findings were cherry-picked.)Calling the lawsuit a "close case," US District Court judge Daniel Calabretta said the RNC had "failed to plausibly allege its claims" that Google's spam filtering was done in bad faith. Google said that the emails in questions were likely flagged as spam because of user complaints, and cited RNC domain authentication issues and frequent mailouts as other potential issues.The court also decided that RNC emails could be deemed "objectionable" based on the CAN-SPAM Act, and the fact that Google flagged them as such was covered by Section 230, which provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content. All that said, the judge said Republicans could still amend the lawsuit to better establish a lack of good faith by Google.Interestingly, during last year's mid-term US elections, Google created a loophole allowing political campaigns to dodge Gmail spam filters. However, the RNC reportedly didn't take advantage of the program. Google has since ended the experiment, following largely negative feedback from the public.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/judge-tosses-republican-lawsuit-against-google-over-gmail-spam-filters-075622648.html?src=rss

The burgeoning AI industry has barrelled clean past the "move fast" portion of its development, right into the part where we "break things" - like society! Since the release of ChatGPT last November, generative AI systems have taken the digital world by storm, finding use in everything from machine coding and industrial applications to game design and virtual entertainment. It's also quickly been adopted for illicit purposes like scaling spam email operations and creating deepfakes.That's one technological genie we're never getting back in its bottle so we'd better get working on regulating it, argues Silicon Valley-based author, entrepreneur, investor, and policy advisor, Tom Kemp, in his new book, Containing Big Tech: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy. In the excerpt below, Kemp explains what form that regulation might take and what its enforcement would mean for consumers.Fast Company PressExcerpt from Containing Big Tech: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy (IT Rev, August 22, 2023), by Tom Kemp.Road map to contain AIPandora in the Greek myth brought powerful gifts but also unleashed mighty plagues and evils. So likewise with AI, we need to harness its benefits but keep the potential harms that AI can cause to humans inside the proverbial Pandora's box.When Dr. Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), was asked by the New York Times regarding how to confront AI bias, she answered in part with this: We need to have principles and standards, and governing bodies, and people voting on things and algorithms being checked, something similar to the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. So, for me, it's not as simple as creating a more diverse data set, and things are fixed."She's right. First and foremost, we need regulation. AI is a new game, and it needs rules and referees. She suggested we need an FDA equivalent for AI. In effect, both the AAA and ADPPA call for the FTC to act in that role, but instead of drug submissions and approval being handled by the FDA, Big Tech and others should send their AI impact assessments to the FTC for AI systems. These assessments would be for AI systems in high-impact areas such as housing, employment, and credit, helping us better address digital redlining. Thus, these bills foster needed accountability and transparency for consumers.In the fall of 2022, the Biden Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) even proposed a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights." Protections include the right to know that an automated system is being used and understand how and why it contributes to outcomes that impact you." This is a great idea and could be incorporated into the rulemaking responsibilities that the FTC would have if the AAA or ADPPA passed. The point is that AI should not be a complete black box to consumers, and consumers should have rights to know and object-much like they should have with collecting and processing their personal data. Furthermore, consumers should have a right of private action if AI-based systems harm them. And websites with a significant amount of AI-generated text and images should have the equivalent of a food nutrition label to let us know what AI-generated content is versus human generated.We also need AI certifications. For instance, the finance industry has accredited certified public accountants (CPAs) and certified financial audits and statements, so we should have the equivalent for AI. And we need codes of conduct in the use of AI as well as industry standards. For example, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes quality management standards that organizations can adhere to for cybersecurity, food safety, and so on. Fortunately, a working group with ISO has begun developing a new standard for AI risk management. And in another positive development, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its initial framework for AI risk management in January 2023.We must remind companies to have more diverse and inclusive design teams building AI. As Olga Russakovsky, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, said: There are a lot of opportunities to diversify this pool [of people building AI systems], and as diversity grows, the AI systems themselves will become less biased."As regulators and lawmakers delve into antitrust issues concerning Big Tech firms, AI should not be overlooked. To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, regulators need to skate where the puck is going, not where it has been. AI is where the puck is going in technology. Therefore, acquisitions of AI companies by Big Tech companies should be more closely scrutinized. In addition, the government should consider mandating open intellectual property for AI. For example, this could be modeled on the 1956 federal consent decree with Bell that required Bell to license all its patents royalty-free to other businesses. This led to incredible innovations such as the transistor, the solar cell, and the laser. It is not healthy for our economy to have the future of technology concentrated in a few firms' hands.Finally, our society and economy need to better prepare ourselves for the impact of AI on displacing workers through automation. Yes, we need to prepare our citizens with better education and training for new jobs in an AI world. But we need to be smart about this, as we can't say let's retrain everyone to be software developers, because only some have that skill or interest. Note also that AI is increasingly being built to automate the development of software programs, so even knowing what software skills should be taught in an AI world is critical. As economist Joseph E. Stiglitz pointed out, we have had problems managing smaller-scale changes in tech and globalization that have led to polarization and a weakening of our democracy, and AI's changes are more profound. Thus, we must prepare ourselves for that and ensure that AI is a net positive for society.Given that Big Tech is leading the charge on AI, ensuring its effects are positive should start with them. AI is incredibly powerful, and Big Tech is all-in" with AI, but AI is fraught with risks if bias is introduced or if it's built to exploit. And as I documented, Big Tech has had issues with its use of AI. This means that not only are the depth and breadth of the collection of our sensitive data a threat, but how Big Tech uses AI to process this data and to make automated decisions is also threatening.Thus, in the same way we need to contain digital surveillance, we must also ensure Big Tech is not opening Pandora's box with AI.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-containing-big-tech-tom-kemp-it-rev-ai-regulation-143014628.html?src=rss

The Withings Body Scan Connected Health Station has received the go-ahead from the FDA and is set to launch this fall. Engadget's Daniel Cooper tried it earlier this year and had nothing but praise for" the luxury smart scale when trying it earlier this year, although he also described its $400 price tag as mad money" to pay for an extravagance many of us won't need.The Body Scan was announced back at CES 2022, seemingly another epoch in the fast-moving world of consumer tech. Withings initially priced the scale at $300, but after getting caught in FDA approval limbo - and facing inflation and a semiconductor crisis during that window - its cost grew.As for what you get for that significant investment, the scale is a powerhouse. It's the first FDA-approved health station that detects atrial fibrillation through a six-lead ECG. In addition, it analyzes your segmented body composition, measures nerve activity and monitors your vascular age. It even uses Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) to monitor foot sweat levels to screen for signs of neuropathy.During Engadget's time with it, we found the process to be straightforward and nearly effortless. Get on the scale, hold the grab at pelvis height and wait 90 seconds for it to do its thang," Daniel Cooper wrote in February. It'll run the gamut of tests measuring your weight, body fat, muscle mass, visceral fat, ECG, Pulse Wave Velocity, vascular age and nerve health. It'll then relay those data points to you in a big, bright, bold and easy-to-read manner, followed by the day's weather and an indicator about the local air quality (pulled from an online service)."The device itself consists of a tempered glass platform with an integrated retractable handle. It has four weight sensors, 14 ITP electrodes on the scale and four stainless steel electrodes in the handle. Withings says its battery will last 12 months before needing a recharge. The device's display is a 3.2-inch color LCD for viewing your metrics. Withings says the scale's weight measurements are precise down to 0.1 lbs. It measures Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).The Withings Body Scan Connected Health Station will be available this September for $400.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/withings-gets-fda-approval-for-its-upcoming-body-scan-connected-health-station-190021767.html?src=rss

I'm currently building out a new home entertainment setup, so I figure I may as well finally get a dock for my Steam Deck so I can hook it up to my TV. I'm glad I haven't already plumped for Valve's own Steam Deck Docking Station as an unofficial one from accessory maker GuliKit is a bit more stylish.That's because it takes a design cue or two from the Super Nintendo. It has a gray shell and a couple of large purple switches, which may be there just for aesthetic reasons. The docking port, which you can protect with a sliding dust cover when not in use, has a pair of vents.

Labor Day weekend doesn't hit until next week, but we're already seeing a few pre-holiday sales. Solo Stove fire pits are up to 40 percent off and if you order this weekend, your new pit should arrive in time for the holiday. Microsoft has discounted its Xbox wireless controllers and some gaming laptops from Acer and Razer are also getting 40 percent discounts. Bundles that include a Sony Bravia XR TV and a PS5 console are between $450 and $1,050 off and the three-quart Instant Pot Duo is down to $60. For your audio needs, the new Beats Studio Pro headphones are $100 off while Google's Pixel Buds Pro are down to $139. And if you've got your eye on Apples's new 15-inch MacBook Air, this might be a good time to buy as it has dropped back down to $1,099. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.Solo Stove Labor Day saleSolo Stove is having a Labor Day sale from now through the holiday weekend that will take up to 40 percent off single items and 50 percent off of some bundles. The sale includes the company's most popular fire pit, the Bonfire 2.0, which also happens to be one of our favorite pieces of outdoor equipment for fall. It's down to $240 which is a 40 percent discount. The Bonfire falls in the middle of Solo Stove's range, measuring around 19-inches across and weighing 23 pounds. The real selling point for these backyard buddies is the recirculating design that re-burns the smoke so less of it gets in your eyes. The Backyard Bonfire Bundle 2.0, which adds extras like a carrying case, lid and shield, is usually $840 but down to $425 during the sale. The smaller Ranger and ultra big Yukon are also discounted, by $100 and $310, respectively.Apple 15-inch MacBook Air M2Different configurations of Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air are $200 off at Amazon, B&H Photo and Best Buy. That makes the 8GB RAM/256GB SSD model $1,099 and the 8GB/512GB model $1,299. Note that the discount applies to only the Midnight colorway at Best Buy and B&H, but all colors appear to be on sale at Amazon. A version with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is $100 off at B&H Photo.The new Air impressed Engadget's Nathan Ingraham during his review. It's still super thin and portable, but the extra screen real estate is able to make the most of the M2 chip's processing power. The keyboard and trackpad are comfortable and the battery life lasted even longer than the promised 18 hours in Nate's rundown tests.Xbox Wireless ControllerThe standard Xbox Wireless Controller is down to $44 at Amazon and Walmart right now. That's the lowest price its gone for since last year's Black Friday sales, when it was $39. The discount applies to the controller in white, black or red. Other colorways are discounted too, but cost $5 more. The gamepads are compatible with the Series X and S consoles and offer a Bluetooth connection for PCs or mobile Android devices - you can also use it wired if you prefer. One hitch is its reliance on AA batteries, forcing you to buy a battery pack for $25 for the convenience of recharging.The Elite Series 2 controller is also on sale. It includes myriad ways to customize the controls including adjustable-tension, swappable thumbsticks, extra paddles and D-pads, wraparound rubberized grips and a charging dock. It's down to $140 at Amazon or straight from Microsoft after a 22 percent discount, which is just a few dollars more than its all-time low.Razer, MSI and Acer gaming laptopsA bunch of Intel-powered gaming laptops are on sale right now at Amazon, including a few of our top picks from Acer and Razer. One call-out is the Acer Nitro 5, which is down to $640 instead of $800 and the steepest discount we've seen on one of our top budget gaming laptops. This configuration has a 12th-gen Intel Core i5-12500H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card and 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It supports WiFi 6 and has a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate.The Razer Blade 15, which is our favorite premium gaming laptop, is also on sale. A 33 percent discount brings the rather spendy $3,000 machine down to a more palatable $2,000. This version comes with a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU, it has 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. Best of all it weighs just 4.4 pounds which is pretty lightweight for a high-powered gaming laptop.Google Pixel Buds ProGoogle's Pixel Buds Pro are down to $139 at Amazon, which matches the Prime Day price they hit back in July. We named these the best wireless earbuds for Android users in our guide because they deliver deep punchy bass, great active noise cancelation and have responsive touch controls. The case gives you wireless charging abilities and the buds themselves are rated IPX4, which means they can handle a splash of water or a sweaty workout and keep churning out the music.Apple iPad (10th generation)Apple's standard iPad with WiFi connectivity and 64GB of storage is back down to $399 at Amazon and Best Buy, which is a $50 discount and the lowest price it's sold for yet. All four colors are available from Best Buy, but Amazon currently only has it in pink. We've seen this sale come and go a few times now, so you my want to grab it before it pops back up to full price.We gave the tablet a score of 85 in our review thanks to the sleek modern design with thinner bezels and flatter edges. It now has a USB-C port, unlike the previous gen iPad, and Apple wisely gave it a landscape-oriented front camera. It uses the A14 Bionic chip, which isn't Apple's latest M-series, in-house silicon, but was powerful enough to handle a moderate workload of word processing, email, messaging apps and photo editing. The battery is also impressive, lasting for 11 hours and 45 minutes in our video run-down test.Sony HT-A7000 SoundbarSony's HT-A700 is down to $998 at Amazon, which is nearly a 30 percent discount off its $1,400 MSRP, though it often dips down to $1,198. This is the best premium pick in our guide because it's a robust soundbar with Dolby Atmos and immersive 7.1.2 audio. You can use Chromecast, Spotify Connect or Apple AirPlay 2 to send music to the A700 and dual HDMI eARC ports let you connect gaming consoles or streaming boxes, which can pass along 8K and 4K at 120Hz video to your screen. While it doesn't have a separate subwoofer, it does have one built in. And should you decide you'd like the fullness of separate speakers, Sony sells plenty of options that connect seamlessly.Sony 65-inch 4K X90L Series with PS5Amazon is offering a bundle of a 65-inch Sony X90L 4K TV plus a PlayStation 5 console for $1,548. The TV by itself usually goes for $1,500 (though is currently discounted to $1,198) and the PS5 has a list price of $500. In total, the savings amount to $450 off the list price, which is sort of like getting the console for $50 - but only if you were already in the market for a new TV. The larger sizes are also discounted, including the massive 85-inch screen plus console going for 27 percent off, a savings of $1,050.The X90L is part of the 2023 Bravia XR TV lineup and is the more affordable option of the bunch. It has a full-array LED panel, a built-in smart TV with Google TV, and a few PlayStation-specific features such as Auto HDR Tone Mapping and an Auto Genre Picture Mode. The PlayStation 5 is the all-digital version without a disc drive, which shouldn't make much difference in your life if you typically download your games from the PlayStation store.Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids ProThe Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is the best tablet you can get for a kid, according to our latest buyer's guide on the topic. Right now, Amazon is selling it for 30 percent off the list price, although that's $20 more than it sold for during Prime Day in July. The company just confirmed there will indeed be another such sale in October, and Fire devices are likely to get deep discounts again. Still, if you can't wait to get your kid a new and reliable screen, you'll save $60 right now.The Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is the fastest kid-focused tablet Amazon makes and grants parental controls via a dashboard on your phone. It comes with a free year of Amazon Kids+, which has games, audio books, shows and more that are all suitable for young ones. A protective case doubles as a stand and the device comes with a two-year warranty against breakage.Amazon eero 6+ mesh Wi-Fi systemIf you're a Prime member and in the market for a new mesh WiFi system, you may want to check out Amazon's deal on their Eero 6+ routers. The four-pack usually sells for $440 but the deal brings it down to $285. These operate on the new WiFi 6 standard which brings efficiency upgrades and typically improves connection speeds and these claim to support speeds up to a Gigabit. The set should cover a house up to 6,000 square feet and the routers can also function as smart home hubs for certain connected devices.Keep in mind that these don't operate on the WiFi 6E standard, which opens up access to the 6Ghz band, which can make your connections better in densely populated areas. The Eero routers that support 6E aren't currently on sale, but a three-pack of the TP-Link Deco AXE5400 routers, which happen to be the best 6E routers according to our testing, are down to $396 after a clickable $40 coupon. That deal comes as part of a larger TP-Link router sale.Beats Studio Pro headphonesThe Beats Studio Pro headphones debuted this July and are getting a first discount at Amazon, Target and Walmart, bringing the price down from $350 to $250, a sizable 29 percent discount. Engadget's Billy Steele gave the set an 81 in his review, appreciating the updated design, useful transparency mode and solid voice pickup. The sound quality improved over the previous generation, with the addition of new 40mm drivers that can push out loud volume with little distortion. But even more impressive is the improvements to the overall balance, with ample, but not heavy-handed, bass and immersive clarity. They aren't the most comfortable cans you can wear and the lack of an auto-pause feature when you take them off is a little disappointing.Sony WH-CH520 wireless headphonesIf you're looking for a recently released pair of headphones from a reputable brand for under $40, this is your chance to buy. Sony's WH-CH520 are currently $38 after a 37 percent discount. This set debuted at the same time as the mid-range WH-CH720N and we mentioned them as a budget alternative in our review of those headphones. The WH-CH520s don't have ANC, but they do have an impressive 50-hour battery life and include DSEE and multipoint connection.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K MaxAmazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max has dropped down to $27, which is a 51 percent discount and just $2 more than it sold for during the company's Prime Day sale in July. This is the speediest of the Fire TV dongles and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio. The remote has Alexa built in, so you can use your voice to find your next show. The Fire TV interface is simple enough to use, though we notice it tends to favor Prime Video and related content. Our favorite streaming device and interface, however, happens to be Roku's Streaming Stick 4K, which is $10 off right now, both at Amazon and directly from Roku.Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 + $50 Amazon gift cardAmazon is continuing the deal it offered during pre-orders of Samsung's latest wearable, giving you a $50 gift card when you order the now-available Galaxy Watch 6. The watch on its own goes for $300, which is the same price as the bundle. Provided you plan to buy more stuff from Amazon, you could compare this to a $50 discount. The retailer is also throwing in a fabric watch band. Our video review dives into the improved health and fitness features of the watch, which are impressive, even if the Galaxy Watch 6 is a modest upgrade over its predecessor.Blink saleBlink devices are currently on sale at Amazon, with up to 40 percent off video doorbells, cameras and other security devices. The Blink Video Doorbell is down to $39 from its original $60. You can also save on a bundle that includes the doorbell and an indoor Blink Mini camera. The camera acts as a doorbell chime inside your house and supports two-way audio with whoever is at your door. The set is currently $64 instead of $95. If you only want the Blink Mini, you can grab one for just $25 after a 29 percent discount or go for a set of three for $64 instead of $100. The Blink Wired Floodlight is $60 which is 40 percent off its regular $100. It packs a 2600 lumen, motion-activated LED light and also shoots 1080p video and supports two-way audio and a siren feature.If you'd prefer to use Amazon's other security brand for your porch-observation needs, the company is also hosting a sale on Ring devices, including 30 percent off the Ring Video Doorbell and 42 percent off the Ring Indoor Cam.Instant Pot Duo (3-quart)The 3-quart Instant Pot Duo is on sale for $60, or $20 below its typical price at both Amazon and directly from the Instant Brands website. It's not the lowest price the multi-cooker has sold for, but it's is the best price we've seen this year. This is what we recommend in our Instant Pot buying guide for people who do a lot of cooking for one or simply have a smaller kitchen. The larger, 6-quart version is our overall pick, but that's seeing a slimmer, 12 percent discount, making it $88, which is about average for its street price this year.Anker 622 Magnetic BatteryThe Anker 622 Magnetic Battery is back on sale for $40 at Amazon. That's not its lowest price ever, but still about $10 less than its average price lately and a full $30 less than its list price. Just be sure to click the on-page coupon to get the full deal. The 5,000mAh charger snaps onto the back of a MagSafe iPhone and has a built-in kickstand to prop it up for viewing while you charge. The battery should give you about a 50 percent charge, depending on the size and age of your phone.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/solo-stove-firepits-are-up-to-40-percent-off-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-171256473.html?src=rss

If one thing kept me coming back (and back) to Homeworld, it was skirmish mode. Setting up a quick (quick") battle against the CPU would often rob me of a whole weekend while at college. Homeworld 3 sees a new mode arrive on the second sequel, a roguelike-inspired multiplayer co-op called War Games. It pits one, two or three players against the enemy in a series of randomized challenges where you only progress if you can survive. I've spent the last few days playing an early build of the mode, and it's impressive enough, especially given the fact I find the phrases roguelike" and multiplayer co-op" to be a massive turn-off.Each campaign starts with a predetermined fleet - you get the choice of one early on, and more options are unlocked the more XP you accrue. You then have to run through a trio of missions, each one in a new environment, until you defeat the opponent's carrier. These missions include escorting friendly transports from one side of the map to the other, rescuing captured civilians or attacking enemy positions. You need to balance your attacking and defending needs against the drive to research ship upgrades while managing resources - which are more scarce here than in previous Homeworld titles.During each campaign, players will collect artifacts, which are randomized bonuses for your ships. These include a boost, like faster ships or more effective weapons, but at the cost of defensive stats or each vehicle's responsiveness. Once you've completed your mission, you'll get the option to hang around to repair your fleet and load up on resources. But doing so risks you becoming quickly overwhelmed by the enemy, which constantly increases their attacking intensity the longer you're around. As soon as the objectives are done, a big hyperspace jump button will hover over your screen, encouraging you to get the heck out of dodge.Blackbird Interactive / GearboxIt's possible to play War Games solo, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's far more enjoyable with other people, with more emphasis on coordination and cooperation. As a traditional loather of any multiplayer game, this is one of those rare times where I'd rather play with friends. Not to mention that War Games is the sort of experience where it feels really good to share the mental load.It's not clear how much War Games is indicative of how Homeworld 3 itself will play but it's hard not to want to draw a conclusion. If you've got decades of muscle memory then the differences here are more than a little jarring, at least in the short term. It does benefit from nearly 20 years of improvements, with stellar graphics that lean even harder into the 70s sci-fi aesthetic the games have always gestured toward. One part of Homeworld 3's evolution is the combat, which takes place not in open space but amongst the destroyed remains of alien megastructures. It's here that I struggled the most: It's hard to identify the pin-pricks of your ships against the texture of these magnificent backdrops.Blackbird Interactive / GearboxThe announcement of War Games is but one part of a drip feed of announcements to build hype for Homeworld 3's launch. (Series prequel Deserts of Kharak is currently free on Epic Games Store.) The latest story trailer has outlined the shape of the plot, which is set a generation after the events of Homeworld 2. Opening the hyperspace gates heralded a bold new era of peace and prosperity, but not everyone was as happy with this state of affairs. A series of missing ships and anomalies saw Karan S'Jet and the Pride of Hiigara investigate, but the ship never returned. Now, several years later, new Fleet Command Imogen S'Jet will be installed in a new mothership, but her shakedown cruise is interrupted by a new enemy, the Incarnate.Homeworld 3 is broadening out its narrative focus to look at how all of this impacts people below the very top. Blackbird Interactive has promised we will see inside the mothership for the first time and how these missions affect the individuals sent out to fight them. New character Isaac Paktu is a seasoned battle commander who will be leading missions, and both he and Imogen will have their backstories fleshed out with short stories published on the Homeworld website. Given the rather sterile way that Fleet Command of old would notify you of a lost unit, giving the characters on the front lines more development should help boost the stakes.As for War Games, you can imagine its combination of co-operation and punishment will catch on with a small but deeply hardcore portion of the fanbase.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/is-war-games-homeworld-3s-secret-weapon-153005414.html?src=rss

Amazon is running a sale on several Intel-powered gaming laptops, including some of our top picks across a variety of categories. Take, for instance, the Acer Nitro 5, which is one of the best budget gaming laptops you can get your hands on, even at its regular price of $800. During the sale, though, it's even more enticing. The price has dropped by 20 percent to $640, which is a record low.It's good value, since you'll receive a laptop that should be able to run most games, but don't expect to play the most demanding titles smoothly at maximum settings. This Acer Nitro 5 configuration has an Intel Core i5-12500H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card and 8GB of DDR4 RAM. It features a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate, WiFi 6 and 512GB of SSD storage. It's not bad at all if you're looking to dip your toes into PC gaming, or want to play some games (and maybe get a little work done) while you're traveling.Those with a bigger budget to spend on a gaming laptop might be interested in the MSI Stealth 17 Studio. We included the 14-inch model in our best Windows laptops guide, but you'll of course get more screen real estate with this 17-inch version. This model has dropped by 14 percent from $2,800 to $2,400 - another record low.For your money, you'll get a semi-portable (it weighs over 11 pounds) powerhouse that should be able to handle just about any current game at high settings. The MSI Stealth 17 Studio has a 13th-gen Intel Core i9 processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU. It comes with 1TB of SSD storage and the 240Hz QHD display has an anti-glare coating.Meanwhile, the Razer Blade 15 is one of the best gaming laptops you can buy, period. While the models included in this sale don't quite have the most up-to-date components, one is a whopping 40 percent off at $1,800.One major factor that's worth considering here is that the Razer Blade 15 weighs just 4.4 pounds. So while it has a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU rather than a 13th-gen CPU or a 40-series RTX graphics card, that portability is definitely a key selling point.The Full HD 360Hz display is worth paying attention to as well. This Razer Blade 15 also includes 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. If you prefer a larger screen, you can pick up a 17-inch model with a QHD 240Hz display and otherwise similar specs for $2,000 (38 percent off). However, at 10.35 pounds, it weighs substantially more.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/razer-msi-and-acer-gaming-laptops-are-up-to-40-percent-off-right-now-145811298.html?src=rss

The PSP is back! Sort of. This week, Sony announced the PlayStation Portal, a $200 handheld that can only stream games from your PS5. In this episode, Devindra and Producer Ben Ellman try to figure out what the heck Sony is doing. Is the Portal something gamers actually want? Or did Sony completely miss an opportunity to build a better portable? Also, we discuss why we're excited for Armored Core VI and some serious big mecha action.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 podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!Subscribe!

In movies, a hacker typically sits at a large desk with a slew of cutting-edge technology in front of them. In real life, it turns out all you need is an Amazon Fire TV stick, smartphone, keyboard and mouse to steal and leak clips from an unreleased game like the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV. That's exactly what Arion Kurtaj, a member of hacking group Lapsus$, did while already on bail for allegedly hacking NVIDIA, BBC News reports.The 18-year-old infiltrated Rockstar Games, which created GTA VI, going so far as to announce himself as an "attacker" in the company's Slack channel. The scene of the crime? A UK Travelodge hotel officials had placed him in.Kurtaj was moved to the hotel after hackers "doxxed" him, releasing detailed information about him and his family online, and compromising his safety. While there he was allowed no internet access - something he used the Fire TV Stick to get around.Further details of Kurtaj's illegal stunt became public following a seven-week trial and his being found guilty of hacking Rockstar, neobank Revolut and Uber. A 17-year-old was also convicted but, unlike Kurtaj, is still out on bail. The two individuals are autistic, and psychiatrists deemed them ineligible to stand trial. This meant that the jury only weighed in on if they believed the crimes were committed, not if they were done with criminal intent.Lapsus$, referred to in court as a group of "digital bandits," is believed to be comprised mostly of teenagers from Brazil and the UK - Kurtaj and the unnamed 17-year-old are two of seven members arrested in the UK. Between 2021 and 2022, Lapsus$ also allegedly hacked Samsung, T-Mobile and Microsoft. Though the group requested ransoms, it's unclear how much it made from these exploits, if much at all.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gta-vi-hacker-leaked-footage-using-a-fire-tv-stick-in-a-budget-uk-hotel-room-121548381.html?src=rss

We know the sun belches out solar winds, but the origin of these streams of charged particles remain a mystery and has been the subject of numerous studies over the past decades. The images captured last year by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument aboard ESA's and NASA's Solar Orbiter, however, may have finally given us the knowledge needed to explain what powers these winds. In a paper published in Science, a team of researchers described observing large numbers of jets coming out of a dark region of the sun called a "coronal hole" in the images taken by the spacecraft.The team called them "picoflare jets," because they contain around one-trillionth the energy of what the largest solar flares can generate. These picoflare jets measure a few hundred kilometers in length, reach speeds of around 100 kilometers per second and only last between 20 and 100 seconds. Still, the researchers believe they have the power to emit enough high-temperature plasma to be considered a substantial source of our system's solar winds. While Coronal holes have long been known as source regions for the phenomenon, scientists are still trying to figure out the mechanism of how plasma streams emerge from them exactly. This discovery could finally be the answer they'd been seeking for years.Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta, the study's primary author from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, told Space: "The picoflare jets that we observed are the smallest, and energetically the weakest, type of jets in the solar corona that were not observed before...Still, the energy content of a single picoflare jet that lives for about 1 minute is equal to the average power consumed by about 10,000 households in the UK over an entire year."Chitta's team will continue monitoring coronal holes and other potential sources of solar winds using the Solar Orbiter going forward. In addition to gathering data that may finally give us answers about the plasma flows responsible for producing auroras here on our planet, their observations could also shed light on why the sun's corona or atmosphere is much, much hotter than its surface.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-solar-orbiter-spacecraft-may-have-discovered-what-powers-solar-winds-114504839.html?src=rss

More than two years after former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter (now X) in the aftermath of the January 6th Capitol riot, he's returned to tweet (sorry, post) his county jail mugshot. It's not a great image for horizontal placement, but at least it's embeddable.

The release of Dune: Part Two has been pushed back to March 15th amid ongoing writer and actor strikes, according to Variety. The hotly anticipated film was originally scheduled for November 3rd, but Warner Bros. and producer Legendary Entertainment agreed to delay it over four months - likely because the film wouldn't meet its full box office potential without publicity from the star-studded cast.The studio and production company held out on delaying the film as long as possible, according The Hollywood Reporter, but would have needed to start advertising the film by early September. It reportedly hoped the extra time would allow the cast, which includes Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken, to participate in a full marketing push.Along with Part Two, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim have been pushed back to April 12th, 2024 and December 13th, 2024, respectively. Those dates were shuffled largely to accommodate Dune: Part Two.The ongoing labor actions by writers and actors in Hollywood are a result of long-simmering tensions over a number of issues, but particularly due to residual payments from Netflix and other streaming platforms. Warner Bros. Discovery was at the center of these in the recent past, as it elected to release some films either directly to its HBO Max (now MAX) streaming platform with zero or limited theatrical releases. However, CEO David Zaslav said last year that the company "will fully embrace theatrical" going forward.Dune: Part One performed well enough at the box office with a $402 million gross, but hype for the sequel is much higher. "Part One is more of a contemplative movie. Part Two is an action-packed, epic war movie. It is much more dense. We went to all new locations," said director Denis Villeneuve.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dune-part-two-delayed-until-march-2024-following-writer-strikes-075730012.html?src=rss

During its I/O annual developer conference earlier this year, Google said it was giving users the ability to transition their first-generation Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor devices from the old Nest app to its new Home application. Well, the time has come - for the indoor camera, at least. Google has just started rolling out the ability to manage the camera model through the public preview version of its Home app, and it will take a few weeks before it's done making its way to all users.Nest cameras used to have their own application before the company was acquired by Google. Over time, Google added support for all its smart home products to its Home app, but users of the the oldest Nest cameras had to stick to the original application to be able to manage their devices. With this update, and as long as the user is on public preview, people will be able to access their first-gen Nest Cam Indoor device through the Home app and enjoy its updated camera history experience. They'll also be able to add the camera to their Favorites tab, so that its feed shows up as soon as they open the app.When Google first announced the ability to add the old Nest cam models to the Home app, it said the transfer would take users around 10 minutes. After that, they'll no longer need the old application to see the camera's data and footage, enabling a single app experience for a lot of users.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-adds-first-gen-indoor-nest-cameras-to-its-home-app-065924878.html?src=rss