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AutoZone alerted authorities on Tuesday that it had been a victim of the Clop ransomware gang's MOVEit attacks earlier this year. According to a breach notification filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the data leak from the auto parts retailer impacted 184,995 people. The hackers acquired personal information, including full names and social security numbers, the notification said.The incident happened in May, as a part of a string of attacks linked to Clop. The hackers exploited a vulnerability in file transfer software MOVEit, attacking more then 2,000 organizations and impacting 62 million people, according to researchers at Emsisoft.AutoZone realized it had fallen victim to the Clop attack in August, but it didn't suss out what data had been affected by the attack until earlier this month. That said, Clop claimed responsibility for an attack on AutoZone in July, publishing 1.1GB of internal and employee data from the auto retailer, according to Bleeping Computer."AutoZone became aware that an unauthorized third party exploited a vulnerability associated with MOVEit and exfiltrated certain data from an AutoZone system that supports the MOVEit application," AutoZone wrote in a notification to customers. It's unclear which parts of the AutoZone systems the Clop hackers accessed and, although the Maine notification says social security numbers had been leaked, AutoZone did not provide any specifics.AutoZone rakes in $17.5 billion in revenue each year, operating more than 7,000 retail locations.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/autozone-warns-almost-185000-customers-of-a-data-breach-202533437.html?src=rss

OpenAI rival Anthropic launched Claude 2.1 today. The latest version of the ChatGPT rival boosts its context window to 200,000 tokens, allowing you to paste the entirety of Homer's The Odyssey for AI analysis. (Tokens are chunks of text it uses to organize information, and a context window is the set limit of tokens it can parse in a single request.) The company said version 2.1 also halves Claude's hallucination rate, leading to fewer erroneous answers (like those the ChatGPT lawyer trusted far too much). Coincidentally or not, the update arrives as the tech world watches Anthropic's rival OpenAI descending into pandemonium.The company says Claude 2.1's 200K-token context window allows users to upload entire codebases, academic papers, financial statements or long literary works. (Anthropic says 200,000 tokens translates roughly to 150,000 words or over 500 pages of material.) After uploading the material, the chatbot can provide summaries, answer specific questions about its content, compare / contrast multiple documents or recognize patterns humans may have a harder time seeing.Processing a 200K length message is a complex feat and an industry first," the company wrote in an announcement blog post. While we're excited to get this powerful new capability into the hands of our users, tasks that would typically require hours of human effort to complete may take Claude a few minutes. We expect the latency to decrease substantially as the technology progresses."Anthropic warns that analyzing and responding to extremely long inputs could take the AI bot a few minutes to complete - significantly longer than the seconds we typically have to wait for simpler queries. We expect the latency to decrease substantially as the technology progresses," the company wrote.Hallucinations, or confidently inaccurate information, are still prevalent in this generation of AI chatbots. However, Anthropic says Claude 2.1 has cut its hallucination rate in half compared to Claude 2.0. The company attributes some of the progress to an improved ability to separate incorrect claims from admissions of uncertainty, making Claude 2.1 about twice as likely to admit it doesn't know an answer rather than providing a wrong one.Anthropic says Claude 2.1 also commits 30 percent fewer errors in extremely long documents. In addition, it has a three to four times lower rate of mistakenly concluding a document supports a particular claim" when using more robust context windows.The updated bot adds a few perks specifically for developers, too. A new Workbench console allows devs to refine prompts in a playground-style experience and access new model settings to optimize Claude's behavior." For example, it lets users test multiple prompts and tap into Claude's codebase to generate snippets for SDKs. Another new developer beta feature, tool use," lets Claude integrate with users' existing processes, products, and APIs." The company cites examples like using a calculator for complex equations, translating plain language to structured API calls, using a web search API, tapping into clients' private APIs or connecting to product datasets. The company cautions that the tool use feature is in early development and urges customers to submit feedback.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropics-chatgpt-rival-claude-can-now-analyze-150000-words-in-one-prompt-201033756.html?src=rss

Meta announced that it is rolling out new tools that will give eligible researchers access to data from its social media apps Facebook and Instagram in an effort to support public interest research." The Meta Content Library and Content Library API tools, which were previously made available for beta testing, will share real-time information about the user-generated content including metrics like the number of times a Reel on Instagram is viewed or the amount of posts that are made on a Facebook page.The Meta Content Library will exist on the web through a controlled-access "clean room" that prohibits the export of data. All analysis and review of the real-time content from Facebook and Instagram will be done through an API that has search capabilities. The company's data search tools will only be available for eligible researchers and professionals" who will need to be pre-approved. Research groups or individuals seeking to gain access to Meta's data will need to fill out an application through a form and provide a detailed explanation about the mission of the research project in question and who is involved. Final approval is subject to an independent review by the ICPSR. Once granted access to the API, Meta says there are no fees associated with access to the Content Library.The new tools, while they may be forging a pathway for data access, are similar to - and in some ways more limited than - what Meta has previously provided to researchers hoping to understand how content circulates on its apps. There's also every reason to be skeptical. Meta's Open Research and Transparency team, which similarly developed a researcher API and platform, was the subject of criticism when in 2021 it was caught allegedly sending incomplete and inaccurate data to researchers. That same group of researchers at N.Y.U.'s Center for Cybersecurity later had their API access completely revoked by the company.The new Content Library and API probably won't do much to stave off public pressure after years of backlash over how it regulates misinformation and harmful content. Meta has also been under fire for how it moderates content related to the war in Gaza and for how it plans to prevent the proliferation fake content related to the upcoming US presidential election. To top things off, Meta is currently facing a lawsuit filed by 41 states over how it allegedly harms younger users. A highly gatekept API may not be the show of goodwill the company needs to convince regulators it has the public's best interest at heart.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-content-library-provides-researchers-with-digital-clean-room-for-data-access-190829440.html?src=rss

Even though it seemed that former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman would lead a new AI research division at Microsoft, he might still get his old job back. According to Bloomberg, the OpenAI board - which caused chaos at the company when it fired Altman on Friday - has reopened discussions with the former chief executive regarding his possible reinstatement.The talks are said to involve board member (and Quora CEO) Adam D'Angelo as well as OpenAI investors, some of whom have been pushing for Altman's return. According to the report, board members "largely refused to engage" with Altman until Monday, so these latest talks are said to be a significant development.Meanwhile, Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer, said that his company will match the compensation OpenAI workers are currently receiving if they jump ship. Most of the company's workers have threatened to walk unless the OpenAI board resigns and reinstates Altman and former president Greg Brockman (who resigned in protest over the board booting out Altman). They warned the board on Monday that Microsoft is willing to hire them too, and Scott has confirmed that.To my partners at OpenAI: We have seen your petition and appreciate your desire potentially to join Sam Altman at Microsoft's new AI Research Lab," Scott wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission."

LG Black Friday deals include a number of decent discounts on its 2023 OLED TVs, and a couple of noteworthy sales on 2022 models as well. You can currently save $300 on this 42-inch 2023 LG C3 OLED TV, which is down to a record low of $897, and $200 on this 65-inch B3 OLED set, which is on sale for $1,297. If you're willing to get a slightly older model, you can get this 2022 55-inch B2 OLED TV for nearly half off its starting price.Its worth noting that OLED TV sales around this time of year are mostly a culmination of steadily dropping prices. TV manufacturers often lower the "regular" prices on their high-end TV sets throughout the year, starting shortly after the models debut. Some of these sale prices have been around since the start of the holiday shopping season, but that doesn't change the fact that many of them are record lows.If you're unfamiliar, OLED TVs stand out for their deep blacks and rich colors when compared to standard sets. LG's 2023 C3 OLED models run on the upgraded a9 Gen 6 processor that brings AI upscaling, object-based picture sharpening and HDR tone mapping, among other things, to the TVs. LG updated its TV operating system to have a simplified UI that requires less scrolling, which should make it even easier to navigate. It also now supports "quick cards" that let you more easily jump into categorical content like music and sports, personal profiles and AI-based search keyword recommendations.The B3 series is an entry-level alternative for anyone who doesn't want to spend quite as much on a new TV. This year's models run on an older a7 Gen 6 chip and do not support the level of brightness boosting you'll find in the C3 sets, but they do support 4K content at 120Hz refresh rates. If you're still not ready to drop so much money on an OLED set, LG Black Friday deals also include some discounts on the company's QNED sets.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lg-black-friday-deals-save-up-to-300-on-2023-oled-tv-sets-183847464.html?src=rss

Spotify has officially unveiled its new streaming payment policy for artists and labels, and the details are pretty much exactly what has been reported for weeks. In other words, smaller artists are getting something of a shaft here, as songs that don't meet the minimum threshold of 1,000 streams per year will not be eligible for any payment whatsoever.Spotify was already notorious for underpaying artists, but now many will get nothing at all, aside from the opportunity and privilege to exist on its servers. Spotify says this is to eliminate fraud, and indicates that the money that used to go to these smaller artists and alleged fraudsters will be redistributed to those above that 1,000 play per year threshold.Also, the company's nixing many payments for so-called noise" content, like recordings of rain falling on a rooftop and other items intended for relaxation and to provide white noise. The cuts won't impact all noise recordings, just those under two minutes in length. Additionally, Spotify's currently looking to adjust the royalty model for noise recordings, keeping the payouts lower than actual songs. However, the company hasn't provided any concrete details.Spotify's crowing that these combined cuts will provide an additional $1 billion toward artists in the next five years, but hasn't offered details as to how the funds would be redistributed, only saying that the streamer itself would not make additional money under this model."It did note that 99.5 percent of all streams meet the above thresholds, but also stated that the remaining 0.5 percent account for just $40 million per year, which is much lower than the advertised $1 billion of new funds being pumped into the system for established artists, even if you account for $200 million over five years. Spotify also claims that songs with less than 1,000 annual streams generate an average of $3 per year, which isn't a lot. If those numbers hold, this whole thing could be much ado about, well, $3. Still, there's something of a precedent being set here.Spotify says fraudulent content creators often try to game the system" by posting a high volume of tracks, generating pennies for each that add up to real money over time. This is something the company refers to as artificial streaming, as there's an AI component at play, so the 1,000 play threshold hopes to stop this activity dead in its tracks. Smaller artists are just collateral damage here.As a matter of fact, artists with under 1,000 streams in the last 28 days cannot even participate in Spotify's recently-launched marketing toolset that lets artists pay the streamer for placement on home feeds.In a completely unrelated note, Spotify is shutting down in Uruguay after the country passed a bill that requires fair pay to artists, as reported by MixMag. The company made threats to shut down when the bill was first suggested back in July and now it has followed through. A spokesperson for Spotify actually wrote Uruguay's Minister of Education, Pablo Da Silveira, to say that the country's bill would force it to pay twice" the amount of royalties to artists. It went on to say that complying with Uruguay's fair pay law would make its business model unfeasible."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-confirms-it-wont-offer-payouts-for-songs-with-fewer-than-1000-plays-181501465.html?src=rss

Cities: Skylines II developer Colossal Order is delaying the city building simulation's expansion roadmap. After numerous complaints about the PC game's performance (and the delay of console versions until 2024), the team decided to pause rapid patches, digging instead into more time-consuming performance and bug fixes. CEO Mariina Hallikainen apologized for the delay in a blog post, explaining, We must not rush new content out before the base [game] is ready for it."The development delay pushes most Cities: Skylines II expansion pass content back by a quarter. The Beach Properties asset pack has been postponed to Q1 2024 from Q4 2023. Two creator packs (Modern Architecture and Urban Promenades), initially scheduled for Q1 2024, will arrive in Q2 2024. Finally, the Deluxe Relax and Soft Rock radio stations are knocked back to Q1 and Q2 2024, respectively. Meanwhile, the Bridges & Ports expansion remains in the Q2 2024 slot.Hallikainen's blog post cited a need to address more time-consuming bug fixes and performance problems before rolling out new content. We have made it through the quicker fixes and we're now digging into the ones that require a bit more work," she wrote. The CEO mentioned applying fixes for graphical details to improve GPU performance before moving on to CPU optimizations, including stutter fixes, while ensuring a fast and smooth experience. She said the development team is currently sifting through players' bug reports, identifying 100 reproducible issues the team will look into and another 100 reports requiring more investigation.Colossal Order / Paradox InteractiveWeeks before launch, Colossal Order raised the game's minimum and recommended specs, warning, We have not achieved the benchmark we targeted." However, it and its publisher, Paradox Interactive, opted to continue with Cities: Skylines II's planned release date. When it arrived in late October, fans, hoping for a stable experience expanding on the 2015 original, panned the product they got. They complained about shoddy performance, buggy core gameplay elements and an overall lack of optimization relative to the PC hardware it runs on - even, in some cases, on fairly high-end setups.Despite fans' disappointment with the stability of the hotly anticipated title, Colossal Order seems to have received the message. Once the PC version is where we want it to be, we will be focusing on the console release and DLC content," Hallikainen wrote.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cities-skylines-ii-developer-delays-dlc-to-to-focus-on-fixing-the-base-game-180702925.html?src=rss

Amazon's Echo Buds just got a spate of new features via a software update, though most of these tools are only available for the recently-released 2023 lineup of earbuds. First up, you can now tap the earbuds to start a recommended playlist, so you don't need to fumble with your phone to launch a playlist or even speak out loud to ask Alexa for help. It's all in the tap.You can launch playlists via one triple tap or a single long press, which is adjusted via the settings in the associated Alexa app. It looks like this feature works with all of the major streaming platforms, as Amazon says it accesses your preferred audio provider" to find the playlist. Just look for Tap Controls" in the Echo Buds device settings to get started.There's also a new audio personalization tool that lets you tailor the sound to better integrate with your physical environment and the content you're consuming. For instance, you can tune the frequencies to accentuate the bass during a walk, to provide a fuller sound. The company lists other examples where this feature comes in handy, including watching movies on a laptop. This could actually be quite handy, as all sound sources are not created equal.Again, head to the Echo Buds device settings via the Alexa app and look for the audio personalization options. You can even adjust each ear independently of one another, so your right ear can be louder or offer a different range of frequencies than the left ear. Amazon says the setup process here takes around four minutes. It's also worth noting that this feature is available for both 2023's model and 2021's second-gen Echo Buds.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-latest-echo-buds-get-new-features-including-tap-to-start-playlists-170939952.html?src=rss

Just a couple of months after its debut, you can already score a great deal on the Apple Watch Series 9 thanks to an Amazon Black Friday discount. The smartwatch has dropped to $329, which is $80 or 18 percent off the regular price of $399. The previous low we saw for the Apple Watch Series 9 was $349 earlier this month.This price applies to the 41mm model and you can take your pick from a variety of case colors and sport bands. Several 45mm variants are on sale too. That size of the Apple Watch Series 9 is down to $360, which is $69 off the standard price of $429.At these prices, the Apple Watch Series 9 becomes a more enticing option as a gift for a special someone in your life, or even just yourself. We think this is the best smartwatch you can buy overall (though obviously you'll need to look at different options if you're an Android user).In our review, we gave the Apple Watch Series 9 a score of 92. There are some major upgrades this year, thanks to the introduction of a more powerful S9 system-in-package (SiP) processor.One of the key new features is called Double Tap, which builds on Apple's Assistive Touch accessibility tool. When Double Tap is enabled, you carry out a pinching action using the hand that's wearing the watch to carry out the main function in an app. It's a useful way to control certain aspects of your smartwatch without having to touch the screen. You can use Double Tap to, for instance, snooze an alarm, pause a song that's playing or reply to a message.Using the gesture to reply to a message will bring up the Siri-powered voice typing option. So it's worth mentioning here that, thanks to the S9 SiP, the Apple Watch Series 9 can handle on-device Siri processing. That makes the voice assistant's performance a bit snappier, as Apple doesn't have to send your request to its servers for processing and back again. It also means that Siri can work offline.Elsewhere, a second-gen ultra wideband chip powers a more precise Find My iPhone experience, as long as the phone you're looking for also has that chip. For instance, when you're looking for a misplaced iPhone 15 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 9 will show you how many feet away the device is, along with a directional indicator to guide you to it. Other upgrades in the latest Apple Watch include a brighter display. You'll also be able to check out the revised UI that Apple brought in with watchOS 10.Meanwhile, the second-gen Apple Watch SE (which scored 89 in our review last year) has fallen to an all-time-best price too. If you're looking for a more budget-friendly way into the Apple Watch ecosystem, this could be the right option for you. Both sizes of the Apple Watch SE are $70 off, with 40mm versions coming in at $179 and 44mm variants starting at $209.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-series-9-falls-to-a-new-low-of-329-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-164517938.html?src=rss

The Sunbird messaging app for Android has flown the solar coop. The app has completely shut down following massive privacy concerns, as reported by 9to5Google. This comes after the app received increased scrutiny when it partnered with Nothing to act as the basis of the smartphone manufacturer's Nothing Chats app. Nothing's app was only available for less than one day before the aforementioned privacy concerns came to light and it was pulled.The app's gone from Google's Play Store, though the parent company says this shutdown is temporary, according to an announcement posted on Reddit. Long story short? Sunbird was a niche product that didn't quite work and the Nothing collaboration turned the spotlight to that fact. It promised full end-to-end encryption but many users could exploit vulnerabilities to access private user messages. 9to5Google, for instance, found over 630,000 files using this vulnerability. Call me crazy, but that doesn't seem too secure.The writing was on the wall for Sunbird to anyone paying attention, which wasn't that many people until Nothing got involved. The company missed several deadlines for launch, all while making lofty promises regarding secure iMessage and Android chat interoperability. During the company's first announcement presser back in 2022, Sunbird refused to take questions regarding the underlying technology of the app and related privacy concerns, closing the Zoom chat when things got too hot, as reported by ArsTechnica. This led reporters to suggest that Sunbird simply wasn't a serious company."There's also the giant Apple-sized elephant in the room. The tech giant recently announced it would offer support for RCS text messaging in 2024, completely eliminating the need for workarounds like Sunbird in the first place. In other words, the green bubble-blue bubble divide is coming to an end.Despite erasing itself from the Play Store, Sunbird's official website makes no mention of the shutdown, still boasting about the app's peerless end-to-end encryption. The company's also yet to make a public statement on the matter.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sunbird-shuts-down-its-imessage-app-for-android-after-major-privacy-concerns-160713312.html?src=rss

Nintendo has formally rolled out its set of Black Friday deals for the year. While there aren't any straight cash discounts on Switch hardware, the company is offering a new Switch OLED bundle that pairs the $350 console with a digital copy of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and a three-month individual Nintendo Switch Online subscription for no extra cost. The console's Joy-Con controllers feature a Smash Bros.-themed design as well. This bundle is available at several retailers, including Walmart, Target, GameStop, Best Buy and Nintendo's own online store.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate typically retails in the $50 to $60 range and the Switch Online membership goes for $8, so that's about what you're saving here. We've seen the console go for less on its own, but if you've been meaning to give Smash Bros. a shot, there are much worse options for a free pack-in game. Although Ultimate was released way back in 2018, we still consider it the quintessential fighter for Nintendo's system, and it currently holds a spot on our list of the best Switch games.Speaking of, Nintendo has also discounted a handful of its own Switch titles. Some notables include the cutesy adventure game Luigi's Mansion 3down to $40, the 3D platformer Kirby and the Forgotten Land at a new low of $42 and the 2D platformer Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freezedown to a new low of $30. (Cue the memes.) Luigi's Mansion and Tropical Freeze are both included in our roundup of the best couch co-op games, while Forgotten Land is on our aforementioned list of best overall Switch games. Elsewhere, the RPG Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is on sale for $40, while Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Mario Strikers: Battle League are each available for a low of $30. A couple of these deals aren't all-time lows - and it's hard to call games like Battle League and Return to Dream Land essential - but each is at least a little cheaper than usual.Among Switch games that aren't published by Nintendo (in America), the turn-based strategy game Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hopeis on sale for $15, the recently released Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1is $20 off at $40 and the hardcore RPG Shin Megami Tensei V is back at an all-time low of $20. A couple other acclaimed RPGs in Persona 5 Royaland Octopath Traveler IIare also on sale for $25 and $39, respectively. (Though you can get the PS5 version of the latter for $9 less.)The Nintendo eShop, meanwhile, is now running a "Cyber Deals" sale through December 3. Many of the deals noted above are also available there, but other highlights include Portal Companion Collection(which includes the all-time great puzzlers Portal and Portal 2) for $6.79, the moving management sim Spiritfarerfor $7.49, the throwback platformer The Messengerfor $5, the beat-em-up Streets of Rage 4 for $12.49 and the superbly written Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium for $12.49 and $14, respectively. All of those match the lowest prices to date for the Switch versions of each game.Unfortunately (and perhaps predictably), many of Nintendo's newest hits aren't officially part of these sales, so we don't expect to see major discounts on 2023 games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4 or Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Staples is technically listing Zelda and Wonderfor $40 each, but it doesn't have either game in stock as of this writing. You can also take $5 off Wonderat GameStop if you order online and pick up in-store, though that's hardly a deal. The older Super Mario Odysseyand The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are on sale for $40 each, though Walmart says it'll have both of those available for $30 on November 22, so it's worth waiting if you've yet to play either of them.There's also a bundle that pairs a red and blue set of Joy-Cons with a digital copy of Super Mario Party for $100. Since the controllers usually go for $80, the deal effectively brings the game down to $20. That's roughly $30 less than it typically costs on its own. It's worth noting that this isn't the latest Mario Party game, though - that would be Mario Party Superstars, which came out two years ago. Still, if you want a few new boards to play and need a set of Joy-Cons anyway, it might be worthwhile.If you'd rather not pay up for the Switch OLED, Nintendo is still selling holiday bundles for the standard Switch and Switch Lite as well. The systems themselves aren't any cheaper at $300 and $200, respectively, but the Switch is available with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and that same Switch Online membership at various retailers, while the Switch Lite now comes with Animal Crossing: New Horizons at Walmart and Target.These bundles have been available for a few weeks, and the included games are again on the older side - Mario Kart arrived way back in 2017, while Animal Crossing hit in 2020. The Mario Kart bundle in particular is one that Nintendo rolls out just about every holiday season, so it's not an amazing deal. Still, both titles tend to retail between $40 and $50 on their own, and both are included in our Switch games buying guide. If you're late to the Switch train, they're strong starting points.The big caveat to all of this is that we may be nearing the end of the Switch's life cycle. The original console arrived nearly seven years ago, and various reports have suggested that we're likely to see some sort of follow-up in 2024. A recent Eurogamer report, for instance, said that Nintendo demoed a possible "Switch 2" for developers in August. If you aren't dying to catch up on Switch games you missed, it might be wise to wait.That said, the Switch's library is still excellent. If you (or your kid) have been looking to finally hop on the bandwagon, these deals provide at least a little extra value - even if we'd have preferred to see more substantial discounts on the consoles by this point.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendo-black-friday-deals-get-a-new-switch-oled-bundle-and-a-bunch-of-discounted-games-155016053.html?src=rss

While Google may have officially released Android 14 at the start of October, there's a good chance you're still waiting for the update to arrive on your device. In recent years, the company has done its best to reduce the lag between when the latest version of Android arrives on its own Pixel phones and those from third-party partners, but that gap still exists in 2023. As of the writing of this article, many phone manufacturers are still beta testing their Android 14 skins.Engadget reached out to nearly every major phone manufacturer in the US market to find out how close they are to releasing a stable build of Android 14. If you're unsure if your phone will receive the new OS, this article will answer that question too.ASUSRichard Lai/EngadgetASUS began publicly testing Android 14 in the US on October 10. At the moment, the beta is only available on the company's current flagship, the Zenfone 10. The Zenfone 10 Android 14 closed community beta is first up - and as such Zenfone 10 is the first device which should be getting a stable release," an ASUS spokesperson told Engadget.ASUS declined to say when Zenfone 10 users could expect a stable version of Android 14 to arrive on their devices, with the company noting the timing of the release is highly dependent on the stability and results of the beta tests with our signed-up community members."Beyond the Zenfone 10, only a handful of other ASUS phones will receive Android 14 due to the company's current policy of supporting its recent devices with two platform updates. Taking that into account, the oldest phones ASUS will update with Android 14 are the Zenfone 9 and ROG Phone 6.GooglePhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetAs the main steward of Android, Google was one of the first phone makers to release a stable build of Android 14. Much of the Pixel line, dating as far as back to 2020's Pixel 4a 5G, has had access to Android 14 since October 4. Starting with the Pixel 8 series, Google has promised to support future devices for seven years. The first Android 14 Pixel Feature Drop will arrive sometime in December. In the meantime, you can enroll in the Android Beta for Pixel program to check out the first two Android 14 quarterly platform release (QPR) betas. Those include features that will arrive in later Feature Drops.HuaweiUnless there's a dramatic change in US-China relations, Huawei devices in the United States, Canada and Europe will not receive access to Android 14, at least not in the form accessible on devices from other manufacturers. In 2019, the Commerce Department placed the telecom giant on its Entity List, a move that prompted Google to cut official ties with Huawei. HarmonyOS, the company's version of Android, doesn't draw directly from the codebase Google makes available to its commercial partners. Additionally, most recent Huawei devices, including the Mate 60 Pro, aren't available outside of China.MotorolaPhoto by Cherlynn Low / EngadgetMotorola will begin rolling out Android 14 to its phones in early 2024. The 2022 Edge, Edge+ and Edge 30 Fusion are the oldest devices the company plans to upgrade this time around. The company's 2023 lineup - including the Razr, Razr+, Moto G Power, G Stylus and G 5G - are also slated to receive Android 14. For the status of Android OS on a specific device, users can visit our software support page," a Motorola spokesperson said.NothingPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetCarl Pei's Nothing recently began rolling out the second open beta of Nothing OS 2.5, which builds on Android 14 with a few features designed to extend the capabilities of the company's signature Glyph interface. Nothing is continuing the process of Beta testing on Phone (2) which provides early access to our newest improvements, including new features for Glyph interface, and refinements resulting from Open Beta 1," a Nothing spokesperson told Engadget.Pei detailed Nothing OS 2.5 in a recent community update Nothing uploaded to YouTube. Among other enhancements, Open Beta 2 adds a new Glyph animation when the Phone 2's NFC hardware is in use. The update also adds new optional shortcuts users can access from the Phone 2's power button, and tweaks to the operating system's three-finger swipe gesture to make it more reliable. You can find the full list of changes on Nothing's website.To date, Nothing has pledged to support its phones with three years of OS upgrades and four years of security updates. Having only entered the smartphone market in July 2022 with the Phone 1 and released one other handset since then, Nothing users can rest assured their device will get Nothing OS 2.5.OnePlusPhoto by Sam Rutherford/EngadgetOxygenOS 14, OnePlus' upcoming skin of Android 14, does not currently have a release date. The company declined to say when users could expect the update to arrive, telling Engadget it did not have any additional information to share at this time."However, the good news is that OnePlus is testing a beta version of OxygenOS 14 with users outside of the company. On November 8, it announced the Beta 4 release of OxygenOS 14, at the same time making the software available to people in the US and India.If you bought your OnePlus phone anytime in the last three years, it's likely to receive Android 14. With its two most recent products, the OnePlus 11 and OnePlus Open, OnePlus pledged to provide four years of Android updates and five years of security patches. With earlier handsets, including last year's OnePlus 10 Pro, the company said it would support those products with three years of platform updates.With that in mind, the OnePlus 8T, which was released in late 2020, is likely the oldest OnePlus phone slated to receive OxygenOS 14. Additionally, as with most other manufacturers, those with older devices will probably end up waiting longer before they see the latest version of Android arrive on their phone.SamsungSam Rutherford/EngadgetSamsung began rolling out a stable build of its Android 14 skin, One UI 6, at the end of last month. With the company offering four generations of OS updates on many of its recent devices, older phones like the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy A32 won't be left out of the company's Android 14 rollout. That said, expect to wait longer if you do own one of those earlier handsets.SonySonySony began rolling Android 14 to its flagship Xperia 1 V phone on November 6. If your 1 V hasn't prompted you to install the update yet, you can manually check if it's available to download by opening your phone's Settings menu and tapping the System Update" option, which is found under the System" heading.The Android 14 update will be rolling out to other Xperia models," a Sony spokesperson told Engadget. However, we are not able to share the exact timing of that rollout."XiaomiXiaomiOutside of Google, Xiaomi was one of the first OEMs to roll out a stable release of Android 14 to its users. As of this article, MIUI 14, which builds on the latest version of Google's operating system, is available on the Xiaomi 13 Pro, 13 and 12T.Unfortunately, those with older Xiaomi handsets may end up waiting a while before MIUI 14 arrives on their phone. The exact timeline for Xiaomi to update its older devices to Android 14 is currently not available," a Xiaomi spokesperson said. Please stay tuned for further updates on this matter."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/when-will-your-phone-get-android-14-152432975.html?src=rss

If you've read any of my music gear reviews on Engadget, then you probably know that I love all things broken and lo-fi sounding. And you might also know that Chase Bliss is one of the best out there when it comes to making your instruments sound like they're coughing up digital dust after crawling out of a decades long hibernation. The company's latest pedal, Lossy, is a collaboration with Goodhertz, a top notch plugin maker that has an incredible lo-fi pedigree all its own. In fact, it's based on the company's VST effect of the same name.Lossy takes whatever you feed it, and makes it sound like a crappy MP3 from the late '90s. It's a realtime digital degradation machine that introduces artifacts, resonance and crunch that will bring back warm memories (or chilly nightmares) of waiting hours for a single bootleg to finish downloading from Napster.The heart of the pedal is the Loss control which has three different modes and determines the overall character of the sound. It can deliver the familiar sound of a low bit-rate MP3 (Standard), play only those frequencies stripped out by compression for an especially tinny tone (Inverse), or spit out washes of out of unsteady glitches (Phase Jitter).Of course, there's lots of variety within those three modes depending on how high you have the Loss and Global knobs turned. While Loss determines the total amount of the effect, Global is a macro that sets the intensity of the effect. These two things combined shape the core sound, but the Packets switch is also vitally important. When off you just get the core Lossy sound, but you can turn on Packet Loss for dropouts reminiscent of a bad cellular connection, or switch it to Packet Repeat which fills those spaces with frozen audio for something more akin to a skipping CD. The Speed knob determines how often the effect interrupts your playing.There's also a dedicated Freeze function, which is unlike any other I've seen on a pedal before. Rather than simply grabbing the last fraction of a second of audio and repeating it ad nauseam, it actually evolves over time. It stretches out notes, changing as you play to create ambient pads, drones and shifting soundscapes.Rounding out Lossy is a lowpass filter and reverb section to help glue everything together. Plus there is a hidden limiter and auto gain function that brings all the nuances your playing to the fore and ensures the tiny details of the Loss effect aren't, well, lost.Last year Chase Bliss shifted to a direct to consumer model so, the only place you can pickup a Lossy is straight from the company's website. It's available now, however, for $399 and buying a pedal gets you 50-percent off the Goodhertz Lossy plugin that inspired it, which is normally $79.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chase-bliss-and-goodhertzs-lossy-is-a-pedal-that-makes-your-guitar-sound-like-a-crappy-mp3-141611147.html?src=rss

We've already seen DJI's Osmo Action 4 and GoPro's Hero 12 representing the rugged action cams of 2023, and now, it's Insta360's turn to unveil its take on this category - one that focuses more on video quality than, say, its Go series' versatility. In a nutshell, Insta360's brand new Ace Pro can be described as a GoPro on steroids, thanks to its handy 2.4-inch flip touchscreen, 1/1.3-inch sensor, Leica tuning and, most notably, 5nm AI neural processor. You'll also get the usual "FlowState Stabilization," IPX8 waterproof rating (down to 33ft or 10m) and swappable battery (up to 100 minutes in 4K@30fps Active HDR; fast charging at up to 80 percent in 22 minutes, or to 100 percent in 46 minutes).Insta360 claims that combining its AI denoising feature with its new image sensor, the Ace Pro produces clearer and more stable low-light results for both videos (up to 4K@30fps in "PureVideo" mode) and stills (up to 48 megapixels). There's also an "Active HDR Video" mode which turns on automatically when lighting conditions are met, with the company emphasizing on improved color accuracy here - we'll take a closer look at this in our review later. The camera is also capable of recording at up to 4K@60fps, 4K@120fps (slow motion) or even 8K@24fps, but none of these can take advantage of the AI enhancement nor Active HDR.The dedicated AI chip isn't just for enhancing image quality. Over the years, Insta360 has been finding ways to make video editing easier and quicker, and this time, it's doing so by letting the camera itself do some auto-editing first. Dubbed "AI Highlights Assistant," this feature analyzes your video while picking out the best bits in real time, then you can review the AI edit on the camera first (and also delete the bits you don't need to save space). When you next connect your Insta360 mobile app to your Ace Pro, the new AI-generated clip will be automatically pushed to your phone.Aside from having to test out this feature myself, Insta360 also warned that "AI Highlights Assistant" does require extra power (the company promises to continue optimizing power consumption here), so be mindful of your camera's battery life when using this feature.Another fun new feature for making editing easier - though not necessarily limited to the Ace Pro - is "AI Warp," which can be found in the "Shot Lab" template section in the mobile app. It's basically Insta360's first take on generative AI: you can pick a template or type in your own prompt, in order to get the app to transform either the entire video or just the highlighted subject into your desired style - be it cyberpunk, anime, space, superhero costumes or more. The company added that you can look out for even more AI-related effects in its mobile app in 2024.Insta360 Ace Pro action cam on a multi mount.Insta360The Insta360 Ace Pro is already available for ordering, with the $450 standard bundle including a standard mount and a flexible adhesive mount. There's also a slightly more affordable Ace priced at $380, and while it comes with the same accessories, it has to make do with a smaller 1/2-inch sensor, a max video resolution of just 6K@30fps, no fast charging and no love from Leica. The rest of the feature list is the same, otherwise.Optional accessories include a dive case (for down to 197ft or 60m), a quick release mount, a multi mount, a GPS preview remote, a "Vertical-Horizontal Mount" and a mic adapter plus cold shoe module (for use with the quick release mount).This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/insta360s-ace-pro-is-a-leica-branded-action-cam-with-ai-enhancements-133003809.html?src=rss

Tinder is adding many new, pretty basic, features, including the profile prompts and basic info tags other dating apps, like Hinge or Bumble, have. Profile prompts, for example, are a long-standing feature on both, with Tinder users now able to share their responses to statements like The first item on my bucket list is... " or Two truths and a lie."The dating app points to Gen Z's responses in its recent Future of Dating report as motivation for the updates, saying: At Tinder, we understand that connecting today is about authenticity, depth and the desire for connections that go beyond the surface."The company calls it a rizz-first redesign," which equates to these new prompts, zodiac sign info and... new animations. Is that rizz-first? I'm not sure it is.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedAmazon will host free AI Ready courses to boost the AI talent poolHBO's Max is offering 70 percent off its ad-supported plan in Black Friday saleWhat is going on with OpenAI and Sam Altman?The Webb telescope captures a chaotic' view of the center of our galaxyIt'll help test current theories of star formation.NASAThe James Webb telescope has captured parts of the center of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail." This area is about 300 light-years from the galaxy's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, and over 25,000 light-years from Earth. The galactic center is the most extreme environment" in the Milky Way, according to University of Virginia professor Jonathan Tan.Continue reading.Most of OpenAI's staff threatens to quit unless the board resignsAnd reinstates Sam Altman as CEO.OpenAI's corporate drama kept Engadget busy over the weekend, as the company ousted its CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, then reportedly tried to get him back when he was poached by Microsoft - one of OpenAI's major investors. Now, most of the company's staff have threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman. According to Wired and Kara Swisher, around 500 employees signed the letter.Continue reading.X CEO calls article that led to latest brand exodus misleading and manipulated'Linda Yaccarino says X stands against antisemitic content.X CEO Linda Yaccarino called a report from watchdog group media Matters for America misleading and manipulated," following a large-scale advertiser pullout. In a note she sent to X employees on Sunday night, she said: While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading article, the data will tell the real story."Major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Paramount Global and Yaccarino's former employer, NBCUniversal, pulled their ads from X last week, after the watchdog group's report found ads from some of these brands ran next to pro-Nazi content on the website. It also came days after Musk publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory as a response to a far-right X user.X filed its lawsuit against Media Matters on Monday.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-tinders-rizz-first-redesign-just-ruined-rizz-for-everyone-121537687.html?src=rss

Some YouTube viewers who use Firefox or Edge instead of Chrome have reported having to wait around five seconds every time they try to load a video. In screen recordings shared on Reddit and other online forums, users show how their screen goes blank for a short period when they click on a YouTube video before the page loads. But when they switch to Chrome, that waiting period seemed to be non-existent. Android Authority and 404media, which reported on the users' complaints, weren't able to replicate the phenomenon. We also didn't notice any difference in loading times when we accessed YouTube on different browsers.Based on the code found by some YCombinator and Reddit posters, YouTube has implemented an anti-adblocker mechanism that's causing the delays. We did find the snippet of code cited in those threads, but it's not quite clear what it does. In a statement that Google has provided Android Authority, it admitted that it has implemented a system that's meant to urge viewers to uninstall their ad blockers. The company said that users who have ad blockers installed "may experience suboptimal viewing" no matter what browser they choose to use"To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we've launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience," the spokesperson said. "Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers earlier this year, but it went all out earlier this month when it prevented viewers around the world from watching videos unless they disable their apps, add-ons and extensions. The video hosting website is hoping to entice users who couldn't stand watching ads to subscribe to its $14-a-month YouTube Premium service. Multiple ad-blocking companies have since reported experiencing an elevated number of uninstallations per day since then, but Google has yet to reveal whether YouTube Premium subscriptions have also gone up as a result.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-admits-youtubes-war-on-ad-blockers-is-resulting-in-suboptimal-viewing-experiences-115041371.html?src=rss

There's never been a better time to buy the Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen), as it has fallen to another new low on Amazon. Both sizes (40mm and 44mm) are available with discounts of $70, with the 40mm GPS Watch SE starting at just $179, or 28 percent ($70) off and the 44mm model starting at $209 (25 percent off). That's an all-time low, besting the $189 price we saw just two days ago.With solid performance, a familiar design and support for numerous apps, the 2022 Watch SE scored a solid 89 in our Engadget review. It looks nearly identical to the latest Watch models, and delivers smooth performance despite the slightly older processor. Most importantly, it offer all the same features you'd get in the more expensive models, like all-day heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS, fall detection, Apple Pay support, sleep-tracking and more. Battery life has also been improved over the previous model.It doesn't include a blood oxygen sensor or ECG, nor the always-on display of the Series 8 or Series 9 models. If those things aren't terribly important, you'll still get a full Watch experience. The other main drawbacks with all Watch models are sleep tracking that doesn't quite measure up to the competition, and less than a full day of battery life.If you want the higher-end models, there's more good news too. All the Watch Series 8 models are on sale, starting at $299 for the Watch Series 8 (GPS 41mm), $329 for the Watch Series 9 (in red only, $100 off) and $359 for the Watch Series 9 in other colors.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-se-falls-to-another-new-low-in-black-friday-sale-110511086.html?src=rss

Starfield just received some key updates promised by Bethesda a couple of months ago, the developer announced. Version 1.8.86 comes with DLSS support that finally gives users with supported NVIDIA cards features including DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Reflex Low Latency and DLSS frame generation. That should assuage numerous grumbling users, many of whom used a controversial DLSS mod to tide themselves over.Along with DLSS, the update includes GPU performance optimizations that will help users with higher-end cards. Bethesda has also addressed memory leaks and other related issues, improved renderer threading and made a number of other stability and performance improvements. On the graphics side, it added brightness and contrast controls (!), while addressing issues around ambient occlusion, shader compilation, HDR brightness (Xbox and Windows 11 only), material issues, crowd character eyes and more.

US Senator Ron Wyden wants the public to know about the details surrounding the long-running Hemisphere phone surveillance program. Wyden has written US Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter (PDF), asking him to release additional information about the project that apparently gives law enforcement agencies access to trillions of domestic phone records. In addition, he said that federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies have the ability to request "often-warrantless searches" from the project's phone records that AT&T has been collecting since 1987.The Hemisphere project first came to light in 2013 when The New York Times reported that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was paying AT&T to mine and keep records of its customers' phone calls. Four billion new records are getting added to its database every day, and a federal or state law enforcement agency can request a query with a subpoena that they can issue themselves. Any law enforcement officer can send in a request to a single AT&T analyst based in Atlanta, Georgia, Wyden's letter says, even if they're seeking information that's not related to any drug case. And apparently, they can use Hemisphere not just to identify a specific number, but to identify the target's alternate numbers, to obtain location data and to look up the phone records of everyone who's been in communication with the target.The project has been defunded and refunded by the government several times over the past decade and was even, at one point, receiving federal funding under the name "Data Analytical Services (DAS)." Usually, projects funded by federal agencies would be subject to a mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment conducted by the Department of Justice, which means their records would be made public.However, Hemisphere's funding passes through a middleman, so it's not required to go through mandatory assessment. To be specific, ONDCP funds the program through the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is a regional funding organization that distributes federal anti-drug law grants and is governed by a board made up of federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The DOJ had provided Wyden's office with "dozens of pages of material" related to the project in 2019, but they had been labeled "Law Enforcement Sensitive" and cannot be released to the public."I have serious concerns about the legality of this surveillance program, and the materials provided by the DOJ contain troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress," Wyden wrote in his letter. "While I have long defended the government's need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court. The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-senator-calls-for-the-public-release-of-att-hemisphere-surveillance-records-083627787.html?src=rss

X has filed a lawsuit against media watchdog group Media Matters over the latter's research that showed ads on the social network appearing next to antisemitic content. The company's owner, Elon Musk, promised to file a "thermonuclear lawsuit" against the organization late last week following an advertiser exodus. In its complaint, X said Media Matters "knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on X Corp.'s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content." It added that the group portrayed the "manufactured images" as if they represented the typical user's experience in the platform. "Media Matters designed both these images and the resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp," the company wrote.As TechCrunch notes, though, Media Matters didn't exactly "manufacture" the images it used with its research. Based on X's own investigation as it detailed in its lawsuit, the organization used an account older than 30 days to bypass the website's ad filters to follow a set of users known to produce "extreme, fringe content" along with the biggest advertisers on the platform. The group then allegedly kept on scrolling and refreshing its feed to generate "between 13 to 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user." X said the watchdog didn't provide any context regarding the "forced, inauthentic nature" of the advertisements it saw."In a response to Media Matters' research, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said "not a single authentic user on X saw IBM's, Comcast's, or Oracle's ads next to the content in Media Matters' article." She added that "only two users saw Apple's ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters," confirming that the organization did see the advertisements, even if it had to create the right conditions for them. After Yaccarino released her statement, Media Matters head Angelo Carusone retweeted several posts from seemingly authentic users showing ads for searches and tags such as "killjews" and "HeilHitler." We reached out to the organization about the lawsuit, and a spokesperson told Engadget: "This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X's critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court."Aside from X's lawsuit, Media Matters also has to grapple with an investigation by Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. Paxton said his office is looking into Media Matters, which he called "a radical anti-free speech" organization, for potential fraudulent activity. He said he's investigating the watchdog to "ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square."

Spotify struck a special deal with Google that lets it pay no commission to Google when people sign up for subscriptions using the music streaming service's own payment system on Android, according to new testimony in the ongoing Epic v. Google trial first reported by The Verge. As part of the same deal, Spotify paid Google just four percent commission if users signed up for the service through Google, far less than most other apps which typically pay 15 percent for subscriptions through the Google Play Store.Listening to music is one of [the phone's] core purposes... if we don't have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones", Google's partnerships head Don Harrison reportedly said in court. Both Google and Spotify also agreed to put $50 million each in a success fund" as part of the deal.The remarks were made as part of a lawsuit first filed against Google by Epic Games, the maker of the wildly popular Fortnite, in 2020. Epic claimed that Google's Play Store on Android was an illegal monopoly that forced app makers to part with huge sums of cash in exchange for offering users in-app purchases through the Play Store. Epic filed a similar lawsuit against Apple in 2021, which it lost.A small number of developers that invest more directly in Android and Play may have different service fees as part of a broader partnership that includes substantial financial investments and product integrations across different form factors," Dan Jackson, a Google spokesperson, wrote to Engadget in a statement. "These key investment partnerships allow us to bring more users to Android and Play by continuously improving the experience for all users and create new opportunities for all developers."Spotify initially supported Epic in its fight against Google and Apple. But in 2022, the company started using a Google program called User Choice Billing that let Android apps use their own payment systems in exchange for giving a reduced cut to Google. The special deal revealed in court showed that Google was willing to carve out even more exceptions for popular apps like Spotify.Google has had some pretty big business secrets spilled in the last few days. Last week, an economics professor testifying on behalf of the company in a separate antitrust trial that has since wrapped up, revealed that Google pays Apple 36 percent of all ad revenue it generates through Apple's Safari browser, a figure which Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai later confirmed while he was testifying in the Epic v. Google trial.The Verge also reported earlier this month that Google offered Netflix, another popular streaming service, a custom deal. It offered a reduced commission of 10 percent, which Netflix turned down - instead choosing to not offer users a way to sign up for Netflix directly within its Android app.Update, November 20, 2023, 6:50PM ET: This story was updated with a statement from Google.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-reportedly-struck-a-special-deal-with-google-that-let-it-skip-play-store-fees-224646377.html?src=rss

It's been an eventful weekend at OpenAI's headquarters in San Francisco. In a surprise move Friday, the company's board of directors fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, which set off an institutional crisis that has seen senior staff resign in protest with nearly 700 rank-and-file employees threatening to do the same. Now the board is facing calls for its own resignation, even after Microsoft had already swooped in to hire Altman's cohort away for its own AI projects. Here's everything you need to know about the situation to hold your own at Thanksgiving on Thursday.How it startedThursday, November 16This saga began forever ago by internet standards, or last Thursday in the common parlance. Per a tweet from former-company president Greg Brockman, that was when OpenAI's head researcher and board member, Ilya Sutskever, contacted Altman to set up a meeting the following day at noon. In that same tweet chain (posted Friday night), Brockman accused the company of informing the first interim-CEO, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, of the upcoming firings at that time as well:

Cruise, the self-driving car company owned by General Motors, confirmed to Reuters that its co-founder and chief product officer Daniel Kan has resigned. Kan's departure comes just a day after the company's CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation on X after a 10-year tenure. Kan is said to have announced his resignation over Slack, however, the reasoning for his departure has not been made clear by the company.The company's executive reshuffling follows a public relations nightmare that started last month when a Cruise robotaxi hit a pedestrian in San Francisco and pinned them under the vehicle. The parent company, GM, is still conducting a safety probe on the accident and both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise remain suspended. The company's public image has been reeling from the accident ever since, and about 950 robotaxis had to be recalled by GM. The California DMV suspended Cruises' driverless permits shortly after, and that ruling has remained in place.

In 2022 Polyend announced the Play, a fascinating sample-based groovebox and MIDI sequencer that was pretty much universally beloved by anyone who could get their hands on one. The pandemic fueled chip shortage made them pretty hard to come by, at least initially. But my, how things have changed in a little over a year. In just around 18 months, the company has managed to bring the cost of the Play down from $799 to just $499. More exciting though, is the availability of the Polyend Play+.The updated version is dramatically more powerful than the original. It still has eight tracks of sample playback and eight tracks of polyphonic MIDI sequencing. But, it now supports stereo sample playback and there are four built-in synth engines that can be controlled by the dedicated MIDI tracks. There's also support for audio over USB-C. And impressively, it's multitrack with 14 individual stereo tracks available for each of the eight sample channels, the three synth slots, the reverb and delay sends, plus a master audio out.The synths are limited to eight voices collectively, but you can divide them up over three tracks however you see fit. So you can have a monophonic bass, a duophonic lead and then have a five note polyphonic track for chords. The four different engines are ACD, FAT, VAP and WTFM. The first three are different flavors of virtual analog synths, with ACD delivering simple single oscillator not unlike Roland's famed SH-101. While FAT and VAP are more complicated, with the former delivering thick three-oscillator tones, and the latter having a pretty extensive modulation matrix for evolving pads. WTFM, is a two operator FM synth that, at least based on the samples posted on Polyend's site, is far more capable and versatile than you'd expect.While you can do some menu diving and customize the synth patches to your liking. There are plenty of presets, each with macro controls for quickly dialing in something pleasing. That is the big selling point of the Play in general, its immediacy. There's still the semi-generative pattern filling options, and that includes being able to auto-generate bass and chord progressions using the synth engines.One of the more intriguing things, however, is that Polyend is allowing owners of the original Play to trade theirs in for the Play+ for $399. This gives people who shelled out for a unit an upgrade path to the new more powerful hardware, but also reduces waste (and potentially saves Polyend some money) by allowing it to sell those returned units as refurbished down the road.The Polyend Play+ is available now for $799.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/polyends-799-play-has-a-shot-a-being-the-ultimate-groovebox-210001667.html?src=rss

X CEO Linda Yaccarino called a report from a watchdog group that led to a large-scale advertiser pullout misleading and manipulated" in a note she sent to X employees on Sunday night.While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading article, the data will tell the real story," Yaccarino wrote in the note, which was first published by The Hollywood Reporter, and which Engadget has seen a copy of. Because for all of us who work at X, we've been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination, as there's no place for it anywhere in the world." Yaccarino's note was titled Our Work is Meaningful".She also framed the situation as a free speech issue, writing that no critic will ever deter us from our mission to protect free speech." In doing so, she aligned herself with X owner Elon Musk's repeated claims that free speech on the platform is paramount. Musk has repeatedly dismissed concerns of hate speech increasing on X ever since he bought the service last year.Major advertisers including IBM, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount Global, and NBCUniversal, whose advertising division Yaccarino previously headed, pulled their ads from X last week after a report from watchdog group Media Matters for America found that ads from some of these brands ran next to pro-Nazi content on the website. The move also came days after Musk publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory as a response to a far-right X user. Musk's comment drew widespread criticism, including a statement from the White House, which called his post an abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate" that runs against our core values as Americans."On Friday, Musk said that the company would file a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company[.]" The company filed the lawsuit on Monday.Yaccarino was already under pressure to resign as X CEO from advertisers who are questioning her decision to risk her reputation to protect Musk, Forbes reported. In a post on X on Monday morning, Yaccarino doubled down on her criticism of Media Matters. When you're this consequential, there will be detractors and fabricated distractions, but we're unwavering in our mission," she wrote. Thank you for standing with us!"An X spokesperson sent a link to Yaccarino's X post in response to Engadget's request for comment.

Amazon has the Dyson Airwrap on sale for a record low. The innovative styling tool uses air rather than extreme heat to dry and shape hair - potentially boosting your hair's long-term health when used regularly. Typically $599, a clickable coupon on its product page drops the price to $480.The Dyson Airwrap utilizes the Coanda effect, a phenomenon describing airflow's tendency to follow the path of a curved surface. Here, the air jet flows around the tool's barrel or brush attachment, wrapping, drying and styling your hair. It does so without extreme heat, which could cause hair damage if used long-term. Dyson says the device measures the airflow's temperature over 40 times per second, maintaining a safe temperature for your hair.The styling tool has a rotating cool tip, three airflow speeds, three heat settings and a cold shot feature that immediately turns off the heating element, setting your style with a blast of cool air. Its seven bundled accessories include a 1.2-inch long barrel, a 1.6-inch long barrel, separate brushes for soft or firm smoothing, a Coanda smoothing dryer, a round volumizing brush and a detangling comb. In addition, you'll get a filter cleaning brush and storage case.DysonThe blue blush holiday gift set and a complete set for straight-to-wavy hair are covered in the sale. Note that a third model on the product page, Complete Diffuse for Curly to Coily Hair," isn't eligible for the $119 coupon.The Dyson Airwrap has been a hot item on social media that's regularly gone in and out of stock. So, if you've been considering one, you may not want to wait long before snagging Amazon's record deal.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-black-friday-deals-include-the-dyson-airwrap-for-its-lowest-price-yet-203322271.html?src=rss

The James Webb telescope is back with some more gorgeous images. This time, the telescope eyed the center of the Milky Way galaxy, shining a light on the densest part of our surrounding environs in unprecedented detail." Specifically, the images are sourced from a star-forming region called Sagittarius C, or Sgr C for short.This area is about 300 light-years from the galaxy's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, and over 25,000 light-years from a little blue rock called Earth. All told, the region boasts over 500,000 stars and various clusters of protostars, which are stars that are still forming and gaining mass. The end result? A stunning cloud of chaos, especially when compared to our region of space, which is decidedly sparse in comparison.As a matter of fact, the galactic center is the most extreme environment" in the Milky Way, as stated by University of Virginia professor Jonathan Tan, who assisted the observation team. There has never been any data on this region with this level of resolution and sensitivity", until now, thanks to the power of the Webb telescope.At the center of everything is a massive protostar that weighs more than 30 times our sun. This actually makes the area seem less populated than it actually is, as this solar object blocks light from behind it, so not even Webb can see all of the stars in the region. So what you're looking at is a conservative estimate of just how crowded the area is. It's like the Times Square of space, only without a Guy Fieri restaurant (for now.)NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia).The data provided by these images will allow researchers to put current theories of star formation to their most rigorous test." To that end, Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument captured large-scale emission imagery from ionized hydrogen, the blue on the lower side of the image. This is likely the result of young and massive stars releasing energetic photons, but the vast size of the region came as a surprise to researchers, warranting further study.The observation team's principal investigator, Samuel Crowe, said that the research enabled by these and forthcoming images will allow scientists to understand the nature of massive stars which is akin to learning the origin story of much of the universe."This is obviously not the first interesting image produced by the James Webb telescope. We've seen stars born in the Virgo constellation, water around a comet in the main asteroid belt and a fairly offputting view of the Pillars of Creation, among others. It's seen things you people wouldn't believe and, luckily, it won't all be gone like tears in the rain because of the internet and because Webb's still out there.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/webb-telescope-images-show-an-unprecedented-and-chaotic-view-of-the-center-of-our-galaxy-185912370.html?src=rss

Amazon has cut Ember smart mug prices to record lows for Black Friday. The high-tech mugs have built-in heating that can keep your coffee, tea or other hot drink at your ideal preset temperature, allowing you to take your time sipping it without worrying about a lukewarm beverage. Usually $130, you can pick up the 10 oz Ember Smart Mug 2 starting at $90.One of Engadget's recommended gifts for teachers, the Ember Smart Mug 2 can keep your mug heated to anywhere between 120 and 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Once you find your perfect temp, you can set the mug's companion app (available for iOS and Android) to it and forget about it. The mug will remember your setting, automatically heat when it detects liquid and stop when it's empty. The mug lasts up to 80 minutes on a full charge, and if you leave it on its bundled charging coaster (except, of course, when picking it up to sip), it essentially lasts all day.At the time of publication, the white, black and red variants of the 10 oz. Mug 2 are available and marked down on Amazon. However, the black and red options cost a (still heavily discounted) $100, requiring an extra $10 over the white model.Amazon also has the standard 14 oz. Ember Smart Mug 2 for $40 off. The larger model includes the same features, temperature controls and estimated battery life as the 10 oz. one. This variant ships in white and black for $109.46 (usually $150) and you can grab the copper version for $130 (typically $180).Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ember-smart-mugs-are-at-record-low-prices-in-amazons-black-friday-sale-185030627.html?src=rss

The Shark AI Ultra robot vacuum and mop combo machine is on sale for $400 via Amazon as part of a Black Friday deal. This is a discount of $300, or 43 percent, and is the lowest price we've ever seen for this particular model. This is a well-regarded midrange unit with plenty of functionality, including the ability to both vacuum and mop.As a matter of fact, the Shark AI Ultra topped our list of the best robot vacuums in 2023. We admired its reliable cleaning performance, the intuitive mobile app that produces accurate home maps and the inclusion of Alexa/Google Assistant voice control options. We took a look at a slightly older model that didn't yet include the sonic mop feature, so this refresh is likely even better than the one that topped that list.It's got all of the features you expect from a decent robovac, including obstacle avoidance, LiDAR navigation and, of course, a self-emptying base. The base is also bagless, so you won't have to constantly dole out cash for new bags every few months. As a matter of fact, the only bad thing you can say about this thing is that it's too expensive at its original price of $700. Well, that's definitely been handled.This is the week of Black Friday, so Shark's combination unit isn't the only robovac on sale. You can spend even less on a combo machine, as the TP-Link Tapo vacuum/mop hybrid device is on sale for $250 instead of $400. This is another fantastic unit and tops our list of the best budget robot vacuums.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-shark-robot-vacuum-and-mop-combo-machine-is-300-off-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-180041559.html?src=rss

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on online child sexual exploitation on December 6 and the CEOs of major tech companies are set to testify. The committee expects Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his counterpart at TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, to testify voluntarily. It also wants to hear from the CEOs of X (formerly Twitter), Discord and Snap, and it has issued subpoenas to them."Big Tech's failure to police itself at the expense of our kids cannot go unanswered," committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in a joint statement, as Reuters reports. "I'm hauling in Big Tech CEOs before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on their failure to protect kids online," Durbin wrote on X.

If you're looking for a VPN with robust cross-platform software support, CyberGhost's Black Friday sale gives you four extra months when you buy a two-year plan. Combined with the typical savings from committing to two years, it adds up to 84 percent off the security company's standard monthly pricing over the same period.When you buy two years of CyberGhost access for $56.94, the VPN provider will throw in four months for free. The deal is live now and runs through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, wrapping up on December 7.CyberGhost is Engadget's pick for the best VPN for cross-platform access. It offers simultaneous connections on up to seven devices while supporting devices like computers, phones, routers, smart TVs and more. CyberGhost has Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux apps, and it even offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Ensuring its status as our favorite cross-platform VPN is the company's detailed instructions on setting up its various apps, helping to enhance its all-around user-friendliness.The company recently expanded its server network from 91 to 100 countries, adding Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic to its available locations. CyberGhost committed to an independent audit with Deloitte earlier this year. It also runs a vulnerability disclosure program and recently published an updated transparency report.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cyberghost-black-friday-deal-includes-four-extra-months-with-two-year-plans-174248901.html?src=rss

These days, it's perhaps more difficult than ever to buy someone a video game as a gift. Not only are there thousands of options, your intended recipient may already have access to a given game on another platform or it may already be included in a subscription service they pay for. A gift card is likely a safer bet. To that end, you can save 10 percent on Xbox and PlayStation gift cards for Black Friday. At both Amazon and Target, you can snap up a $50 Xbox gift card for $45.That's almost enough to cover three months of access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which now costs $17 per month. Alternatively, that's enough to pay for four months of Xbox Game Pass access (at $11 per month) or five months of PC Game Pass ($10 per month). Should your recipient choose to pay for Game Pass with their gift card, they'll have access to a library of hundreds of games. They could always just buy games outright, of course.PlayStation Plus gift cards are also 10 percent off at Amazon. A $70 gift card is down to $63, while a $30 option is on sale for $27. The former will cover five months of PlayStation Plus Extra access. Similar to Game Pass, that tier of Sony's subscription service includes access to hundreds of PS4 and PS5 games. PS Plus Extra costs $15 per month, $40 per quarter or $135 per year.Last but not least, a 12-month Nintendo Switch Online Family membership is available for $32 (usually $35) at Amazon. This is a solid gift for a household that has at least two Nintendo Switches - a family membership lets up to eight people use Nintendo Switch Online. The service includes access to online multiplayer, as well as a library of NES and SNES classics and a few battle royale-type exclusives from Nintendo, such as Tetris 99 and F-Zero 99.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-50-xbox-gift-card-is-5-off-in-this-black-friday-deal-164130270.html?src=rss

The TP-Link Deco AXE5400 Wi-Fi 6 mesh router system is on sale for $200 as part of Amazon's Black Friday commercial festivities. That's a discount of $100 and matches a record-low price for the device. This deal is for the two-pack, so you get both the actual router and an extender to place somewhere else in the home.This is a fantastic mesh router setup for most consumers at $300, so that absolutely remains true at $200. There's a reason, after all, why TP-Link's device topped our collection of the best mesh Wi-Fi router systems of 2023. We ended up calling it the best for most people" in that list, citing the budget-friendly price tag and the powerful range, which is more than enough to offer coverage to every nook and cranny within the home.In our official review of the router system, we admired the blisteringly-fast speed" and decent reliability. We also liked that the security and parental control features are free, nestled within a proprietary app. The app itself is a bit bare-bones when compared to competing software, but it's still useful.On the downside, if you can call it that, the hardware itself isn't quite as attractive as some rival units, like those cute lil Google Nest ovals, but routers typically get stuffed somewhere out of the way, so this isn't a huge deal. In other words, we are nitpicking. This is a great mesh router system for just about anyone.Amazon's primary Black Friday deal is for the two-pack, as mentioned, but the single pack and the three-pack also get some love. You can snag the single-pack system for $120 instead of $170 and a three-pack, which covers up to 7,200 square feet, for $360 instead of $450.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-black-friday-deals-include-100-off-our-favorite-wi-fi-6-mesh-router-system-155618201.html?src=rss

If you've considered securing your online accounts with a physical key, today isn't a bad time to start. Yubico has its highly rated YubiKeys on sale for Cyber Week, and you don't have to wait for Black Friday to take advantage. From today through November 27 (Cyber Monday), you can buy one and get one half off on YubiKeys in the standard and YubiKey 5 series.A physical hardware key is one of the most secure ways to protect an online account: It's a secondary authentication method to prevent people from jacking your data with a password alone. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Slack and other big names in the tech world support the accessories. Unlike using your phone for SMS authentication, YubiKeys aren't prone to SIM card hacks; an intruder would need your physical key and passwords to access your protected accounts.The buy one, get one half-off deal is appropriate because security experts recommend keeping one hardware key with you at all times and a backup stored in a safe location. This redundancy means you can still access your data even if you lose one key. Just remember to set up both keys with each account you secure. (Scan the account's setup QR code for each key.)When shopping for YubiKeys, buy the type that matches your devices' ports. Yubico sells models with USB-A, USB-C, Lightning and NFC connections - some including more than one. If you have an older (pre-2023) iPhone, you may want to consider future-proofing your purchase with the YubiKey 5Ci, which has both Lightning and USB-C connectors, or the YubiKey 5C NFC, which you can tap against your phone without plugging in. Apple has phased out Lightning in its current products, so getting a YubiKey with USB-C will allow you to eventually upgrade your phone without buying new security keys.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/yubikeys-are-buy-one-get-one-half-off-for-black-friday-140046543.html?src=rss

Some folks have a more intricate coffee-making process than "insert pod, press button, get java." Serious coffee fans who don't mind putting in more effort to get a high-quality cup of joe may be interested to learn that Fellow is running a Black Friday sale. Many of the brand's devices are 20 percent off on its website until November 28. The discount will automatically be applied at checkout.Fellow is behind some of the best gifts for coffee lovers - though of course you can always treat yourself to some of its gear. The brand's Tally Pro scale usually costs $185, but you can get it for $148 right now.Fellow created the scale with precision in mind. If you know your preferred coffee-to-water ratio, you can indicate that in Brew Assist Mode to reach your target brew weight for your ideal pour-over. More experienced folks might opt for the Timer Mode, which displays a timer and weight in grams side-by-side to guide the brewing process with few distractions.You can also use the Tally as a small kitchen scale. Switch to Weight Mode, and you can measure anything up to 5.5 lbs. The scale will give readings in grams, ounces, pounds and milliliters. The battery will run for up to three months before you need to recharge it via USB-C.A good scale is only one part of the pour-over coffee equation: you'll definitely need a kettle too. Fellow's Stagg EKG Pro kettle is not only eye-catching, it should have all the bells and whistles you need. It typically costs $255, but it has dropped to $204 during this sale.FellowA Guide Mode will help you pick a preset temperature for different coffee brewing styles or varieties of tea. If you're more confident about the ideal temperature for your drink, you can set it manually and even schedule a time for the kettle to warm up. There's even an option to set your altitude to stop the water from boiling over. A hold mode can maintain a certain temperature for up to 60 minutes as well.As with the other products mentioned here, the kettle comes with a two year warranty. If you register the device, Fellow will extend the warranty to three years.In addition, coffee buffs will want to have a capable grinder on hand for their preferred beans. The Opus Conical Burr Grinder (currently $156) and Ode Brew Grinder Gen 2 ($276) are each 20 percent off as well. The Opus has more than 40 precision settings. It has six-blade 40mm conical burrs with a burr speed of 350 RPM. There's a 110g capacity, but you can load it up with a single serving to help ensure maximum freshness.With the Ode Gen 2, Fellow promises a quiet grind and an automatic stop. It has what the company claims are best-in-class Gen 2 Brew Burrs along with anti-static tech that's said to reduce grind mess. There are 31 grind settings and the grinder has a 100g capacity.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fellow-coffee-devices-are-20-percent-off-for-black-friday-150007766.html?src=rss

The OpenAI chaos took another twist on Monday morning as most of the company's staff threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman. According to Wiredand Kara Swisher, around 500 employees - including several executives - signed the letter.Swisher noted that OpenAI has 700 employees. Several of them, including Chief Technical Officer Mira Murati (who held the company's top job on an interim basis for less than a weekend), wrote on X early Monday that "OpenAI is nothing without its people."

Black Friday is almost here, and deals are springing up everywhere from tablets to streamers. Max, the streamer formerly known as HBO Max, is offering 70 percent off its Max with Ads plan, dropping the price from $9.99 per month (or $100 if you pay for an entire year) to $2.99 per month. The reduced cost lasts for six months, at which point you can cancel or pay full price - all depends on how badly you want to watch reruns of Succession.The Max with Ads plan comes with concurrent streaming on two devices, full HD 1080p and, of course, ads. Max currently offers three plans: With Ads, Ad Free and Ultimate. Ad Free is $16 each month or $150 for a year and includes the same benefits as the cheapest plan, just no ads and up to 30 downloads. Ultimate is $20 per month or $200 for a year and allows for simultaneous streaming on four devices, certain titles available in 4K UHD with Dolby Atmos and up to 100 downloads. All new plans include the Bleacher Report Sports Add-On through the end of February 2024.You have a few days to decide if you want to lock in the discounted subscription or put your money towards other deals, as the sale is available from now through Monday, November 27. Both new and returning customers can access it when signing up for a Max With Ads plan.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/max-is-offering-70-percent-off-its-ad-supported-plan-for-six-months-in-black-friday-sale-140005554.html?src=rss

OpenAI may grab all the headlines, but Amazon has been quietly toiling on AI across all its divisions and even using AI-powered robots in its warehouses. Now, in a bid to attract new talent, the company is launching a free program called "AI Ready," with the aim of providing generative AI training to two million people globally by 2025.Consisting of eight free courses, the classes will be available through Amazon's learning website and offered to non-Amazon employees as well. They'll teach people AI skills including the generative AI technology that powers ChatGPT and other language models.They're designed for beginners and advanced users in both tech and tech-adjacent roles. Three courses are aimed at business and nontechnical users, while five are designed for developer and technical audiences. Along with the classes, Amazon announced that it's providing Udacity scholarships valued at more than $12 million to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underrepresented communities around the world."The goal of AI Ready is to help level the playing field of AI education, supported by the new initiatives we're launching here today," said AWS VP of data and AI, Swami Sivasubramanian. "If we are going to unlock the full potential of AI to tackle the world's most challenging problems, we need to make AI education accessible to anyone with a desire to learn."AI technology has been in use for some time now in field ranging from medical research to retail customer assistance - but it really exploded with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT virtual assistant. The field is still in its teething stages and systems are notoriously complex, however, so there's a serious shortage of qualified programmers, technicians and others. Amazon notes that 73 percent of employers say that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority, but three of four are unable to find qualified people.Amazon said its aim is to "democratize" generative AI education, noting that the program will benefit not just its own employees but its enterprise customers who seek workers with prompt engineering and other skills. It could also help AWS (Amazon Web Service) customers as several courses are based on its own platforms including Bedrock AI and CodeWhisperer, a tool that automatically generates code.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-will-host-free-ai-ready-courses-in-an-effort-to-attract-new-talent-133851547.html?src=rss

There has always been little more to swiping right or left on a person's Tinder profile than if you like how they look. Now, the dating app is finally introducing a range of features that provide a more rounded idea of people, such as profile prompts and basic info tags.Anyone who has used apps like fellow Match Group-owned Hinge or Bumble will likely find many of these updates familiar. Profile prompts, for example, are a long-standing feature on both, with Tinder users now able to share their responses to statements like "The first item on my bucket list is" or the ever-popular "Two truths and a lie." Basic info tags let people share facts such as their zodiac sign, drinking habits and love language. More unique is the addition of a quiz, which should highlight a user's interests and preferences (they can add these results to their profile). Plus, there's now an option to report specific details of a person's profile that are alarming versus reporting the entire account.Tinder is openly looking to engage Gen Z, and that couldn't be clearer than the pointedly named "Rizz-first Redesign." There are UI updates, enhanced animations, and even a new "It's a Match!" screen. At the same time, Tinder has also introduced a dark mode feature for more discrete swiping while out in public or dimmer lighting at night.The dating app points to Gen Z's responses in its recent Future of Dating Report as motivation for the updates. "At Tinder, we understand that connecting today is about authenticity, depth, and the desire for connections that go beyond the surface. This suite of features is the response to this evolving need," Mark Van Ryswyk, Chief Product Officer at Tinder, said in a statement. "We know the new generation of daters prioritizes value-based qualities such as respect (78 percent) and open-mindedness (61 percent) over looks (56 percent). They care about authentic connections formed through shared interests and common causes and have no time for the 'game-playing' of previous generations." Was connecting not about authenticity in the past? That's for someone else to debate.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tinder-profiles-just-got-a-rizz-first-redesign-131015062.html?src=rss

OpenAI's board of directors announced Friday it had fired CEO Sam Altman. But he's doing okay. By Monday morning, he had joined Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team," according to the company.Altman cofounded OpenAI with Elon Musk in 2015 as a nonprofit and served as the CEO for the for-profit arm since 2019. He was originally fired from OpenAI over a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board," according to an internal staff memo. Several key members also resigned, including co-founder Greg Brockman (who will now also join Microsoft) along with a few senior researchers. Dozens" of OpenAI employees reportedly announced internally they'd be quitting too, with some expressing interest in joining a potential new Altman startup.According to Bloomberg, the board had reportedly considered reversing Altman's firing, though the ousted exec wanted the existing board to resign and issue a public apology - and I fully endorse all this drama, if true.The company did not apologize, however.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedApple will offer RCS support starting in 2024Alan Wake II is great, but it doesn't need gunsStadium card stunts and the art of programming a crowdThe Last Of Us Part II Remastered is coming to PS5 next yearWhat is RCS and how is it different from SMS and iMessage?Apple will finally support it next year.Following the news that iPhones will support Rich Communication Services next year, what exactly is RCS? Well, positioned as a next-generation replacement for SMS and MMS, it adds modern features you may already use on WhatsApp, including read receipts and the ability to send high-resolution images and more. We wrestle with what this means, and how iMessage fits into it all.Continue reading.Nothing pulls its iMessage-compatible Chats appThe Sunbird-based app, which was still in beta, has been removed from the Play Store.NothingIt's a weird week for messaging and texts. Nothing has pulled the beta of its new messaging app, Nothing Chats. The company touted the Sunbird-based app as the answer to the longstanding Android versus Apple texting woes, supporting RCS and iMessage. However, critics voiced concerns over the security risks workarounds like this bring. Nothing Chats does not have end-to-end encryption, and 9to5Google noted attachments sent by other users could easily be accessed in plain text.Continue reading.SpaceX loses another Starship and Super Heavy rocketThere was a double explosion during testing.SpaceXSpaceX's second test flight of its Starship spacecraft - which it hopes will eventually ferry humans to the Moon and Mars - ended in an explosion Saturday morning, minutes after taking off from the company's spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. After completing stage separation, when the Super Heavy booster detached itself from Starship, the rocket's first stage exploded. Starship, however, continued for several more minutes, with a faint explosion heard around the eight-minute mark. Unlike its first test, Starship was able to reach space this time. The company is framing it as a success, even if it did... explode.Continue reading.The best Black Friday Deals we've found so farFrom Amazon, Walmart, Target and more!We've rounded up the best Black Friday deals on tech we've tested, and we expect many of the live deals to run through to Cyber Monday. As a taster, we're already seeing record lows on iPads, wireless earbuds, PS5 controllers, Xbox consoles, Sonos gear, smart TVs and more.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-microsoft-recruits-recently-fired-openai-ceo-sam-altman-121523955.html?src=rss

We're only a few days out from Black Friday, and the sales keep building. The latest deal worth checking out comes courtesy of a new all-time low price on Apple's ninth-generation iPad. The 64GB device is currently available for $230, down from $329 - a 30 percent discount.The ninth-gen Apple iPad is a great option if you want a simple, well-performing iPad that does everything you need. It's the cheapest option on the market (even more so now), with us naming it the best budget iPad for 2023. It first came on the scene in 2021, getting an 86 in our review thanks to updates like Apple's A13 Bionic chip and doubling the amount of storage it has for the same price.Apple's 2021 iPad also has True Tone technology, changing the color based on the room's ambient light, and has a 12MP front-facing camera. Plus, it offers up to 10 hours of battery life when watching videos, playing music or on the internet. Accessory-wise, it's compatible with the first-gen Apple Pencil. If you want a bit of an upgrade, Apple's tenth-generation iPad is also on sale, with a 22 percent discount dropping its price to $349 from $449.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-9th-gen-ipad-falls-to-a-new-low-of-230-in-early-black-friday-deal-104050480.html?src=rss

In another twist on the OpenAI saga that raged over the weekend, Microsoft has swooped in and hired Sam Altman and Greg Brockman just after OpenAI confirmed Altman won't be returning, CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X.The pair, along with colleagues are joining Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team." Nadella added that Microsoft "remain[s] committed to our partnership with OpenAI," but the move looks a giant hedge on that bet. It also means the much of OpenAI's talent may be moving to Microsoft, which may stall progress on the widely-used ChatGPT product.

Talks over reinstating co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI have apparently broken down. According to The Information and Bloomberg, the board has now hired Altman's fellow Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as OpenAI's new interim CEO. This appointment was reportedly announced internally by co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.Altman was originally fired from OpenAI over "a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board," according to an oddly blunt internal staff memo published by Axios earlier. The news was subsequently followed by resignations from several key members, including co-founder Greg Brockman - who was ousted as the chairman of the board - along with a few senior researchers. They may end up joining Altman in one of his rumored new ventures - to develop an AI chip to rival NVIDIA, as well as to build an AI-centric hardware in collaboration with former Apple designer, Jovy Ive.It won't be just Altman leaving either. According to a separate report from The Information, "dozens" of OpenAI employees announced internally that they'd be quitting the company as well. Over the weekend, some expressed interest in joining a potential new startup from Altman and could end up with rival companies looking to poach staff, including Google.The board had since allegedly consider reversing Altman's firing, though according to an earlier Bloomberg report, the ousted exec wanted the existing board to resign, and that OpenAI to issue a public apology to him. This arrangement obviously didn't take place in the end. Questions remain as to whether those who walked out with Altman will go back to OpenAI, and how this bizarre series of events will affect the development of GPT-5 plus other related projects.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sam-altman-will-not-be-returning-to-openai-062957892.html?src=rss

Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt has resigned. In his announcement on X, the 38-year-old exec expressed that "the last 10 years have been amazing," while reminding us that "the startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities." As to what Vogt is doing next, he plans on taking a break first to "explore some new ideas." Vogt had previously co-founded video platforms Justin.tv, Twitch and Socialcam.According to TechCrunch, General Motors has since promoted Mo Elshenawy, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Cruise, to President and CTO of its robotaxi subsidiary. No replacement has been named for the vacant CEO spot.

Newly ousted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former president Greg Brockman are meeting with executives at the company's San Francisco headquarters now as discussions about possibly reinstating their positions continue, The Information reports. Per The Information, interim CEO Mira Murati and others have been leading the push to get Altman reinstated as CEO, and invited the two to HQ on Sunday. Altman and Brockman showed up for talks this afternoon, sources told The Information.Around the time of the report's publication, Altman tweeted a photo of himself wearing a guest badge for entry into the building, writing, first and last time i ever wear one of these (sic)" - which could be interpreted several different ways, at this point. Sources told The Verge that Altman has set a 5PM PT deadline for board members to reach an agreement that could ultimately determine whether he walks away from OpenAI, or they do.

If you haven't yet hopped on the air fryer bandwagon, now is the perfect time to do so thanks to an Amazon Black Friday deal on one of Ninja's DualZone Foodi air fryers that's slashed $100 off the normal price. The XL Ninja DZ401 Foodi air fryer, which has two separate cooking compartments, is only $130 right now. The 10-quart beast of an appliance usually costs $230, and this is the best deal on it yet.The DZ401 Foodi uses Ninja's DualZone technology, which allows it to cook different types of food simultaneously in its two separate compartments. Each basket has a capacity of 5 quarts. With its Smart Finish setting, it can even coordinate the timing of the different dishes so they're done at the same time. It'll take up a fair amount of counter space, but would come in handy for anyone cooking for a large family or guests. In addition to frying, Ninja's DZ401 Foodi can broil, roast, bake, reheat, and dehydrate food. It's a versatile appliance, and one of the best air fryers on the market right now.While it brings the option to cook with both baskets at the same time, you can also just cook using one for smaller or less complex meals. You won't have to wait for it to preheat thanks to its rapid heaters, or worry about it being overly noisy. The current 43 percent discount on Amazon is far better than even the previous low of $180, so snatch one up now if you've been waiting for just the right moment.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-ninja-foodi-dualzone-air-fryer-is-cheaper-than-ever-in-amazons-black-friday-sale-191803817.html?src=rss

There's never been a better time to buy the Apple Watch SE, which has dipped to a record low price on Amazon in a Black Friday deal. The 40mm second-generation Apple Watch SE (GPS model), released in 2022, is $60 off from its usual price of $249 - making it just $189 right now. That's the lowest price we've seen it hit yet, even cheaper than the former all time low of $200.Despite being Apple's more budget-friendly smartwatch, the Apple Watch SE (2nd gen) is an impressive device that has a lot to offer even when compared to the premium models. We gave it a review score of 89. It doesn't come with an Always On Display or skin temperature sensor, but it excels in workout tracking, performing just as well as the more expensive Series 8. The only drawback is, you'll have to lift your wrist with purpose to wake up the screen and check your progress.It sports the same tried-and-true Apple Watch design with a rounded square face, and, being lighter than some other options at just 26.4 grams, it's comfortable to wear. Where it does differ significantly from the pricier models is in battery life. The Apple Watch SE will get you through the day with normal activity, but don't expect to wake up the next morning with anything left over. You'll more than likely need to pop it onto the charger by the end of each night.At just $250 normally, though, it's already the best smartwatch you can get for its price. If you were on the fence before, now is the best time to grab an Apple Watch SE while it's cheaper than ever.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-apple-watch-se-drops-to-a-record-low-of-189-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-164553035.html?src=rss

With college bowl season just around the corner, football fans across the nation will be dazzled, not just by the on-field action, but also by the intricate "card stunts" performed by members of the stadium's audience. The highly-coordinated crowd work is capable of producing detailed images that resemble the pixelated images on computer screens - and which are coded in much the same manner.Michael Littman's new book, Code to Joy: Why Everyone Should Learn a Little Programming, is filled with similar examples of how the machines around us operate and how we need not distrust an automaton-filled future so long as we learn to speak their language (at least until they finish learning ours). From sequencing commands to storing variables, Code to Joy provides an accessible and entertaining guide to the very basics of programming for fledgling coders of all ages.MIT PressExcerpted from Code to Joy: Why Everyone Should Learn a Little Programming by Michael L Littman. Published by MIT Press. Copyright (C) 2023 by Michael L Littman. All rights reserved.GIMME A BLUE!"Card stunts, in which a stadium audience holds up colored signs to make a giant, temporary billboard, are like flash mobs where the participants don't need any special skills and don't even have to practice ahead of time. All they have to do is show up and follow instructions in the form of a short command sequence. The instructions guide a stadium audience to hold aloft the right poster-sized colored cards at the right time as announced by a stunt leader. A typical set of card-stunt instructions begins with instructions for following the instructions:

You can get a four-pack of Apple AirTags at nearly their lowest price ever right now in a Black Friday deal on Amazon. Thanks to a 19 percent discount, the multipack is just $80. That's like getting four AirTags - normally $30 individually - for $20 apiece. A four-pack usually costs $100, so you don't want to wait on this one. Amazon is also running a deal on single AirTags, which are currently priced at just $24.Apple's AirTags have become wildly popular due to the convenience they offer for keeping track of your belongings. Just pair one of the discs with your iPhone, give it a name, and attach it to whatever item you want to keep tabs on. Slip it in a purse, backpack or wallet, or add it to your keyring. For the latter, though, you'll need to pick up a case that has a key loop.AirTags work with Apple's Find My app, which will guide you directly to the lost item if it's within your vicinity. Or, if it was last spotted somewhere farther away, it'll appear at that location on the Find My map. AirTags have a built-in speaker, too, so you can ping the device and let its sound guide you toward the lost object. The trackers are water resistant, which Apple says should withstand spills or even quick drops in a puddle, and the replaceable battery should last around a year.Apple has sold tens of millions of AirTags since the product's 2021 debut, and they remain a consistently popular product. If you've been eyeing the item trackers, now's the time to pick them up at one of the best prices yet.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-four-pack-of-apple-airtags-is-down-to-80-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-151323188.html?src=rss

Ooni is holding a Black Friday sale, offering all-time-low deals on its highly-rated outdoor pizza makers. The company's Fyra 12 wood pellet pizza oven is 30 percent off, dropping it to $244 from its standard $349. If that's out of your holiday budget, Ooni also has the Pizza Steel 13, a flat surface that upgrades your indoor-baked pizzas, on sale for $70.The Ooni Frya 12 wood pellet pizza oven is one of Engadget's top picks for the best pizza ovens. It uses sustainably sourced hardwood pellets" to reach 950 degrees Fahrenheit in 15 minutes and can cook stone-baked pizzas in as little as 60 seconds. It uses a gravity-fed hopper that replenishes the pellet tray automatically, allowing you to focus less on the oven's needs and more on your pie's.The outdoor oven fits 12-inch personal pizzas inside, allowing everyone at your gathering to customize their pies. It weighs only 22 lbs and has a relatively small footprint, ideal for easy transportation and tabletop pie-baking. It could be a popular supply for outdoor parties, tailgating, camping and other open-air activities that would benefit from more pizza.OoniMeanwhile, the deceptively simple-looking Pizza Steel 13 accessory slides into your conventional oven to enhance your homemade pies. The stainless steel surface heats quickly and retains the warmth, helping your indoor pizzas come out more like those made in dedicated pizza stoves. The Pizza Steel 13 is on sale for $70 (typically $100).Ooni's Black Friday sale runs from now through November 28.Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo's Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog's experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ooni-black-friday-deals-include-up-to-30-percent-off-pizza-ovens-and-accessories-140019161.html?src=rss