Calling all current or aspiring streamers: The Elgato Stream Deck XL is on sale right now. A 20 percent discount brings the device down from $250 to $200 — just $10 more than its all-time low price.
The Elgato Stream Deck XL isn't just any old model — it has 32 macro keys. You can customize each LCD key to include controls such as changing scenes, switching cameras and adjusting the audio. Plus, it offers integration with platforms like Twitch, Discord, YouTube and Spotify. A non-slip magnetic stand allows it to sit easily on your desk, and you can connect to it with a USB cord.
If you're looking for something a little smaller (and cheaper), then check out Elgato's Stream Deck MK.2. This model is one of our picks for tools that let you game-stream like a pro. Its biggest difference from the XL is that it comes with 15 keys, which still gives you a solid amount of customizable options. Pick one up for $125, down from $150 — a 17 percent discount.
Several audio companies have been hopping on the open-ear earbuds bandwagon, a headphone design where the speaker rests outside the listener's ear rather than inside it. Beyerdynamic is the latest to offer this listening option with the VERIO 200, the brand's first set of open-ear true wireless headphones. The set retails for $220 and is available to order today.
Open-ear headphones can come with some sacrifices to audio quality, but this set features a custom 16.22mm graphene driver. Using the lightweight graphene in speakers can cut down on sound distortion, so the high-end material could help negate that usual performance tradeoff with this style. The open-ear approach can also be more comfortable if you don't enjoy the usual in-ear earbud experience. And you'll be able to hear your surroundings much better with this design, something that can be important for people wearing these in outdoor settings. VERIO 200 has a hook design that is intended to keep the headset secure even during physical activity.
Beyerdynamic
Battery life is always a concern with true wireless devices, but Beyerdynamic claims pretty solid longevity. The company says that the VERIO 200 has up to eight hours of battery life, and its charging case adds another 27 hours. The buds are Bluetooth 5.3-compatible and can pair with both iOS and Android devices. They can be controlled by voice or through Beyerdynamic's new mobile app, which offers full custom EQ capabilities and sound tuning.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/beyerdynamic-debuts-its-first-open-ear-true-wireless-headphones-140008310.html?src=rss
There is something about summer that always seems to bring extra dirt and mess into the home, but, between the heat and many daily activities, I know the last thing I want to do is vacuum. While robot vacuums can be quite costly, right now, the Shark AI Ultra Voice Control Robot Vacuum with Matrix Clean Navigation is half off on Amazon, dropping its price to $300 from $599. It's a version of one of our favorite robot vacuums, the Shark RV2502AE AI Ultra — which also retails for $599. That one is 40 percent off right now, down to $360.
Shark's AI Ultra Voice Control Robot Vacuum with Matrix Clean Navigation is a great option if you're looking for a robovac that offers a bit of everything. As the name suggests, it offers features like voice control, which lets you start or schedule a clean through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. It also uses Matrix Clean to create a precise grid, ensuring it hits every corner of your home. Plus, 360 LiDAR vision allows it to avoid any objects in its way, so it can continue on even if you can't be bothered to tidy up.
The vacuum empties itself into a base with a 60-day capacity for dirt and debris (and the sale actually makes it cheaper than the 45-day option). Shark also bills it as skilled at collecting pet hair, thanks to powerful suction and a self-cleaning brushroll.
Elden Ring's giant Shadow of the Erdtree expansion dropped on Friday and it didn't take long for players to poke under the hood and discover some fascinating things. The first big bad of the DLC is the Divine Beast Dancing Lion, a fearsome creature that uses wind, lightning, ice and its own hulking body to decimate foul Tarnished. But the mandatory boss suddenly seems a bit less terrifying after YouTuber BonfireVN found out that it's basically just two large dudes in a suit.
BonfireVN's video shows one person wearing the lion's head and another one hunched over in the rear — a little like a pantomime horse. The video shows the front end of the near-nude boss firing off elemental attacks and twisting through the air to lunge at the player, while the back half just sorta tags along as if connected by magnets.
Game developers use all kinds of tricks just to make things work, but this one actually makes sense on a conceptual level. As 80 Level points out, it keeps in with the Chinese tradition of the lion dance, wherein two people wear a costume and mimic the movements of the big cat. One person controls the head and the other takes charge of the body, albeit with less flip flopping than the namesake Elden Ring boss.
FromSoftware/Bandai Namco/BonfireVN
Meanwhile, the $40 Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is evidently a hit already. Elden Ring (which includes the DLC) reached a simultaneous player count of 780,000 on Steam alone over the weekend. It hadn't seen those kinds of numbers since it neared a million concurrent Steam players when it debuted in early 2022. Elden Ring has now sold more than 25 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time.
Shadow of the Erdtree has earned near-unanimous praise from critics, but many players felt it was too difficult and review bombed it on Steam as a result. Elden Ring's creators have a clear message to naysayers, though: get good, scrubs.
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn’t the right approach,” From president and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki told The Guardian. “Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy — which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elden-ring-dlcs-fearsome-dancing-lion-boss-is-just-two-big-dudes-in-a-suit-124451502.html?src=rss
Apple may be on the hook for a fine of up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue following a regulatory action from European Union officials. In the preliminary findings of its investigation, the bloc says the company breached Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules by failing to let App Store developers freely tell users about alternate payment options away from Apple’s ecosystem.
If Apple is found guilty, it could face a fine of tens of billions of dollars under the DMA’s severe penalties. Should a DMA violation be repeated, fines can reach up to 20 percent of global annual revenue.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, opened this investigation into Apple in March. From that start date, it has 12 months to finalize the preliminary findings. This also marks the first regulatory action under the DMA, as The Financial Times notes.
The EC preliminarily found that Apple has broken so-called anti-steering rules. Major tech companies that are subject to the DMA are required to let third-party developers inform users about alternative ways to make purchases without charging developers to do so.
In their preliminary findings, officials determined that none of Apple's updated terms let developers freely nudge customers toward alternative payment options. The EC notes that Apple doesn't let developers tell users how much less they could pay elsewhere.
Apple by and large only allows developers to use link-outs, the Commission said — in other words, they can include a link to a web page to carry out a payment. "The link-out process is subject to several restrictions imposed by Apple that prevent app developers from communicating, promoting offers and concluding contracts through the distribution channel of their choice," the EC said.
Regulators added that although Apple is entitled to receive a payment for helping developers find new customers through the App Store, "the fees charged by Apple go beyond what is strictly necessary for such remuneration." For example, they point out, developers have to pay Apple a fee for any purchase of digital services or goods that someone makes within seven days of an app link-out.
Developers have to fork over up to 30 percent of any purchases made via the App Store (Google charges similar fees for Play Store purchases). As such, developers are able to offer consumers cheaper prices if they make purchases away from the App Store.
In 2020, Epic Games informed Fortnite players through the game's mobile apps that they could pay less for V-Bucks by purchasing the in-game currency directly from the developer. Apple and Google swiftly booted the game off their app marketplaces, prompting legal battles that are still ongoing. However, thanks to the DMA, Epic plans to launch its own mobile app store in the EU and re-release a mobile version of Fortnite in the bloc later this year.
Reuters / Reuters
“Throughout the past several months, Apple has made a number of changes to comply with the DMA in response to feedback from developers and the European Commission," Apple told Engadget in a statement. "We are confident our plan complies with the law, and estimate more than 99 percent of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created. All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to utilize the capabilities that we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive rate. As we have done routinely, we will continue to listen and engage with the European Commission.”
The company recently found itself in hot water with the EU on a similar front — the bloc fined it €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) earlier this year over violations of anti-steering rules. The Commission claimed that Apple prohibited third-party developers of music streaming apps from telling iOS users that they could pay less for subscriptions if they sign up away from Apple's ecosystem. Apple has formally challenged the fine.
The EC has also opened a fresh investigation into Apple over another potential DMA violation. The bloc has taken issue with new fees Apple is charging developers “to access some of the new features enabled by the DMA,” such as the ability to offer a third-party app marketplace as well as app downloads through other means, such as the web. The EC notes that Apple still allows developers to keep operating under a previous agreement, which doesn’t let them make use of alternative distribution channels.
Devs who sign up for the new terms are subject to what Apple calls a core technology fee. This equates to a payment of €0.50 per user per year after the first million users. The fee, which Apple announced in January, applies even to downloads from third-party app marketplaces. Many of Apple's rivals slammed the company over the new terms (as well as over updated rules for third-party payments in the US). Last month, Apple granted non-commercial and small developers an exemption from the core technology fee.
The EC is also looking into whether Apple is making it too complicated for users to install third-party app marketplaces and apps. The third part of the investigation concerns "the eligibility requirements for developers related to the ability to offer alternative app stores or directly distribute apps from the web on iPhones," such as needing to have a developer account that's in good standing.
Meanwhile, Apple said on Friday that it was delaying the rollout of Apple Intelligence — the company's name for a suite of generative AI features that will debut in iOS 18 — and some other features in the EU. “We are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security,” the company told Bloomberg.
Update 6/24 10:19AM ET: Added Apple's statement and details about the core technology fee exemption.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-may-face-a-mammoth-fine-after-the-eu-said-it-violated-competition-rules-120019892.html?src=rss
FILE - An Apple logo adorns the facade of the downtown Brooklyn Apple store on March 14, 2020, in New York. Apple is discontinuing its buy now, pay later service known as Apple Pay Later, barely a year of it being broadly available in the U.S., and instead plans to rely on the larger companies who already dominate the industry like Affirm and Klarna. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
It’s been a weekend of crypto scams, hacks and deepfake chaos. Late on Friday, someone hacked 50 Cent’s accounts to push memecoin GUNIT and made off with millions. The exact amount is unclear; Fiddy himself wrote on Instagram, “whoever did this made $3,000,000 in 30 minutes.” The rapper’s X account and website were hacked at the same time.
Then, multiple deepfakes of Elon Musk were spotted on YouTube, telling viewers to deposit their crypto on a suspicious website, promising free crypto in return. Now taken down, the looped video showed Musk at what looked like a livestream from a Tesla event, with an AI-generated version of his voice instructing viewers to visit a website and deposit their Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin to enter the competition. Over 30,000 viewers tuned into the stream at one point, pushing it to the top of YouTube’s Live Now recommendations.
Don’t take investment advice from rappers and social media network owners.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew on the heavily delayed first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner craft, won’t be returning from the International Space Station until sometime next month, instead of, well, earlier this month. NASA announced last night that it’s pushing the date of their return trip even further to review problems with Starliner’s first flight.
I love it when an Engadget writer solves a problem I have. You might be used to using VPNs to stream video content from other regions, but it falls apart a bit if you’re trying to view it on your TV. That’s where this guide comes in. Alongside guides for smart TVs and TV dongles, there’s a great tip I hadn’t thought of: using an HDMI cable to pipe video directly from your phone. Smart!
A federal jury in Las Vegas found five defendants guilty.
Jetflicks once boasted visitors could watch just about any TV show or movie “Anytime. Anywhere.” A jury in a Las Vegas federal court found the people behind the site guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Jetflicks used computer scripts and software to scour the internet for illegal copies of movies and television shows and posted hundreds of thousands of illegal copies as far back as 2007 from torrent and Usenet sites — back when illegally watching shows and movies was a little more challenging.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-elon-musk-deepfakes-are-pushing-crypto-giveaways-111500963.html?src=rss
As with any overly marketed products, the claims around virtual private networks (VPNs) can be fishy. Phrases like “military-grade encryption” or “total anonymity” aren’t verifiable, and certainly won’t help you decide which services suit your browsing needs best. As more of these companies embrace influencer marketing to sell their products, the obscure lingo has only grown, making it a confusing field to navigate, despite VPNs’ importance for online security. We tested nine popular VPNs to demystify the market and help you figure out which are the best VPNs available today.
VPNs, or virtual private networks, mask your IP address and the identity of your computer or mobile device on the network and creating an encrypted "tunnel" that prevents your internet service provider (ISP) from accessing data about your browsing history. VPNs are not a one-size-fits-all security solution, though.
Instead, they’re just one part of keeping your data private and secure. Roya Ensafi, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, told Engadget that VPNs don’t protect against common threats like phishing attacks, nor do they protect your data from being stolen. Much of the data or information is stored with the VPN provider instead of your ISP, which means that using a poorly designed or unprotected network can still undermine your security. But they do come in handy for online privacy when you’re connecting to an untrusted network somewhere public because they tunnel and encrypt your traffic to the next hop.
That means sweeping claims that seem promising, like military-grade encryption or total digital invisibility, may not be totally accurate. Instead, Yael Grauer, program manager of Consumer Reports’ online security guide, recommends looking for security features like open-source software with reproducible builds, up-to-date support for industry-standard protocols like WireGuard (CR's preferred protocol) or IPsec, and the ability to defend against attack vectors like brute force.
Understanding VPNs and your needs
Before considering a VPN, make sure your online security is up to date in other ways. That means complex passwords, multi-factor authentication methods and locking down your data sharing preferences. Even then, you probably don’t need to be using a VPN all the time.
“If you're just worried about somebody sitting there passively and looking at your data then a VPN is great,” Jed Crandall, an associate professor at Arizona State University, told Engadget.
That brings us to some of the most common uses cases for VPNs. If you use public WiFi networks a lot, like while working at a coffee shop, then VPN usage can help give you private internet access. They’re also helpful for hiding information from other people on your ISP if you don’t want members of your household to know what you’re up to online.
Geoblocking has also become a popular use case as it helps you reach services in other parts of the world. For example, you can access shows that are only available on streaming services, like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime, in other countries, or play online games with people located all over the globe.
There are also a few common VPN features that you should consider before deciding if you want to use one, and which is best for you:
What is split tunneling?
Split tunneling allows you to route some traffic through your VPN, while other traffic has direct access to the internet. This can come in handy when you want to protect certain activity online without losing access to local network devices, or services that work best with location sharing enabled.
What is a double VPN?
A double VPN, otherwise known as multi-hop VPN or a VPN chain, passes your online activity through two different VPN servers one right after the other. For VPN services that support this, users are typically able to choose which two servers they want their traffic to pass through. As you might expect, this provides an extra layer of security.
Are VPNs worth it?
Whether or not VPNs are worth it depends how often you could use it for the above use cases. If you travel a lot and rely on public WiFi or hotspots, are looking to browse outside of your home country or want to keep your traffic hidden from your ISP, then investing in a VPN will be useful. But, keep in mind that even the best VPN services often slow down your internet connection speed, so they may not be ideal all the time.
In today's world, we recommend not relying on a VPN connection as your main cybersecurity tool. VPN use can provide a false sense of security, leaving you vulnerable to attack. Plus, if you choose just any VPN, it may not be as secure as just relying on your ISP. That’s because the VPN could be based in a country with weaker data privacy regulation, obligated to hand information over to law enforcement or linked to weak user data protection policies.
For VPN users working in professions like activism or journalism that want to really strengthen their internet security, options like the Tor browser may be a worthwhile alternative, according to Crandall. Tor is free, and while it's less user-friendly, it’s built for anonymity and privacy.
How we tested VPNs
To test the security specs of different VPNs and name our top picks, we relied on pre-existing academic work through Consumer Reports, VPNalyzer and other sources. We referenced privacy policies, transparency reports and security audits made available to the public. We also considered past security incidents like data breaches.
We looked at price, usage limits, effects on internet speed, possible use cases, ease of use, general functionality and additional “extra” VPN features like multihop. The VPNs were tested across iOS, Android and Mac devices so we could see the state of the mobile apps across various platforms (Windows devices are also supported in most cases). We used the “quick connect” feature on the VPN apps to connect to the “fastest” provider available when testing internet speed, access to IP address data and DNS and WebRTC leaks or when a fault in the encrypted tunnel reveals requests to an ISP.
Otherwise, we conducted a test of geoblocking content by accessing Canada-exclusive Netflix releases, a streaming test by watching a news livestream on YouTube via a Hong Kong-based VPN and a gaming test by playing on servers in the United Kingdom. By performing these tests at the same time, it also allowed us to test claims about simultaneous device use. Here are the VPN services we tested:
NordVPN didn’t quite make the cut because it’s overhyped, and underwhelming. As I've written in our full review of NordVPN, the pricing, up to $14.49 for a “complete” subscription, seemed high compared to other services, and its free or lower cost plans just didn’t have the same wide variety of features as its competitors.
TunnelBear
Despite the cute graphics and user friendliness, TunnelBear wasn’t a top choice. It failed numerous basic security tests from Consumer Reports, and had limited availability across platforms like Linux. It did, however, get a major security boost in July when it updated to support WireGuard protocol across more of its platforms.
Bitdefender VPN
Bitdefender doesn’t offer support for devices like routers, which limits its cross-platform accessibility. It also lacked a transparency report or third-party audit to confirm security specs.
Atlas VPN
Atlas ranked lower on our speed tests compared to the other VPNs tested, with a notably slower difference on web browsing and streaming tests. It was a good option otherwise, but could easily cause headaches for those chasing high speed connections. Security-wise, an Atlas VPN vulnerability leaked Linux users’ real IP addresses.
VPN FAQs
What are some things VPNs are used for?
VPNs are traditionally used to protect your internet traffic. If you’re connected to an untrusted network like public WiFi in a cafe, using a VPN hides what you do from the internet service provider. Then, the owner of the WiFi or hackers trying to get into the system can’t see the identity of your computer or your browsing history.
A common non-textbook use case for VPNs has been accessing geographically restricted content. VPNs can mask your location, so even if you’re based in the United States, they can make it appear as if you’re browsing abroad and unblock access. This is especially useful for streaming content that’s often limited to certain countries, like if you want to watch Canadian Netflix from the US.
What information does a VPN hide?
A VPN doesn’t hide all of your data. It only hides information like your IP address, location and browser history. A common misconception is that VPNs can make you totally invisible online. But keep in mind that the VPN provider often still has access to all of this information, so it doesn’t grant you total anonymity. You’re also still vulnerable to phishing attacks, hacking and other cyberthreats that you should be mindful of by implementing strong passwords and multi-factor authentication.
Are VPNs safe?
Generally, yes. VPNs are a safe and reliable way to encrypt and protect your internet data. But like most online services, the safety specifics vary from provider to provider. You can use resources like third-party audits, Consumer Reports reviews, transparency reports and privacy policies to understand the specifics of your chosen provider.
What about Google’s One VPN?
Google One subscriptions include access to the company’s VPN, which works similarly to other VPNs on our list, hiding your online activity from network operators. However, Google announced recently that it plans to shut down the One VPN because "people simply weren’t using it." There's no specific date for the shutdown, with Google simply saying it will discontinue the service sometime later in 2024. Pixel phone owners, however, will continue to have access to the free VPN available on their devices.
Recent updates
June 2024: Updated to include table of contents.
November 2023: This story was updated after publishing to remove mention of PPTP, a protocol that Consumer Reports' Yael Grauer notes "has serious security flaws."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-vpn-130004396.html?src=rss
Apple is apparently looking to take all the help it can get to integrate generative AI into its recently announced Apple Intelligence. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources with knowledge of the discussions, Apple has held talks with Meta about the possibility of using the company’s generative AI model. It also reportedly had similar discussions with startups Anthropic and Perplexity. As of now, though, nothing has been finalized, WSJ reports.
At WWDC earlier this month, Apple officially announced its much-rumored partnership with OpenAI that will bring ChatGPT to newer iPhones, iPads and Macs with the upcoming generation of the devices’ OS. During the event, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, also name-dropped Google’s Gemini as something that could be added to Apple Intelligence in the future. “We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want,” Federighi said. It would make sense, then, for Apple to be shopping around.
But for the time being, only OpenAI has been confirmed as a partner. OpenAI’s GPT-4o will be integrated into Apple Intelligence to bolster Siri and other tools, with some features expected to arrive later this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-reportedly-even-held-talks-with-meta-about-an-ai-partnership-as-it-plays-catch-up-212741746.html?src=rss
A YouTube Live broadcast that ran for five hours today used a deepfake of Elon Musk to push a cryptocurrency scam, in the latest of a series of similar bogus streams. The video, which has has since been taken down, showed a clip of Musk that was meant to look like a livestream from a Tesla event, with an AI-generated version of his voice instructing viewers to visit a website and deposit their bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin in order to participate in a giveaway. The message, playing on a loop, promised the system would then “automatically send back double the amount of the cryptocurrency you deposited.”
Over 30,000 viewers were tuned into the stream at one point (though we can’t discount the possibility these numbers were inflated by bots), pushing it to the top of YouTube’s Live Now recommendations. The account masquerading as Tesla, @elon.teslastream, had the Official Artist Channel verification badge, so we may be looking at an account hack. Both the video and the channel were removed after Engadget reached out to Google. We’ll update this article if we hear back with any more information.
Screenshot by Cheyenne MacDonald/Engadget
These Elon Musk deepfake scams seem to have surged over the past couple of months, in each instance using an account posing as one of Musk’s companies. This one was titled “Tesla's [sic] unveils a masterpiece: The Tesla that will change the car industry forever.” Earlier in June, Cointelegraph reported on similar scams run by 35 accounts pretending to be SpaceX around the time of the Starship launch. Scammers in April attempted to get in on the eclipse hype using the same tactic, as Mashable reported at the time. And there have been numerous reports of fake Musk livestreams posted on Reddit recently.
Crypto scams targeting Musk’s followers on social media have been a problem for years, as have those involving celebrities in general. Just this Friday, 50 Cent was hit by a hack that used his accounts to carry out a pump-and-dump scheme.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deepfakes-of-elon-musk-are-pushing-crypto-giveaway-scams-on-youtube-live-200700886.html?src=rss
An AI-generated clip of Elon Musk with a qr code that says "scan or regret" from a crypto scam
Sometimes we all need to just turn off the ol’ brain for a bit and have some dumb fun. That’s the kind vibe I was after when searching the Playdate Catalog for a new game to play this weekend, and let’s just say I got more than I could ever ask for in Touch Egg. The game, made by Joelle Tindall, is simple: crank wildly to extend a finger Pinocchio-style and poke the egg as many times as you can, but don’t let the horrifying man in the room see you or you’ll lose said finger. It’s all about chasing the high score, and you have 60 seconds to try and get those pokes in.
There is no story (well, none beyond “He lays the eggs and doesn’t want you to touch them”), so no explanation as to who the man is, what sort of creature would hatch from the egg, why you’re bothering it and why everything is so creepy. Don’t worry about any of that, just crank.
You can only touch the egg when the man’s eyes are closed. Three exclamation points will appear in succession to signal that his eyes are about to open and you need to stop cranking. You can also put him to sleep for a few seconds by hitting the ‘A’ button, but this can make it so there’s no warning when he’s going to open his eyes. All the while, the unusually wide cat clock is ticking.
The visuals are wonderfully unsettling, and, just to add to the absurdity of it all, you can unlock little accessories like sunglasses that are worn on the thumb. There are also a few secrets to uncover as you play and — I’m sorry — Egg-Chievements to be earned. I clicked on Egg Touch solely because it made me think of the I Think You Should Leave egg game, and ended up being unable to put it down for a solid hour. (Unlike in ITYSL, there are no NSFW surprises here).
Egg Touch is only $1 on the Playdate Catalog and free on itch.io. Now get outta here and go touch that egg.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/touch-egg-is-the-most-ridiculous-playdate-game-ive-tried-yet-and-im-hooked-173155394.html?src=rss
A still from the Playdate game Touch Egg showing an unnaturally long finger extended horizontally toward an egg sitting on a nest/incubator while a scary man watches from behind
Apple’s third-generation AirPods have dropped back down to the lowest price we’ve seen thanks to a deal on Amazon right now. The AirPods, which normally go for $170, are 17 percent off, making them just $140. Apple overhauled the design of the standard AirPods with this model, which was introduced in 2021. The third-gen AirPods have a shorter stem to look more like the AirPods Pro (but without the eartips), a contoured design for comfort and are rated for sweat and water resistance.
Previous models of the non-Pro AirPods weren’t sweat and water resistant, but the third-generation carries an IPX4 rating, which should be adequate for workouts. They also boast an improved method of automatic pausing over the earlier versions, using both an accelerometer and a sensor that detects skin so they can better sense when they’ve been removed from your ear.
The third-generation AirPods run on Apple’s H1 chip, which allows for one-touch fast pairing and always-on Siri. They offer Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and dynamic head-tracking — but no active noise-cancellation, that’s for the AirPods Pro only — and produce much better sound compared to the earlier models. In Engadget’s review, the third-generation AirPods scored an 88 for their comfort-focused design, audio quality and battery life.
The battery life is noticeably longer in the third-generation AirPods. Apple says these AirPods get about 6 hours of battery life on a charge, but in our tests, they lasted over an hour beyond than that. With the charging case, they can get about 30 hours of life in all. If you need to top them up while you’re out, you only need to pop them in the case for five minutes to get another hour of playtime. If you’re not concerned about features like active noise cancellation, the third-generation AirPods are a great bet, especially at their reduced price.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-third-gen-airpods-are-back-on-sale-for-their-lowest-price-yet-144041181.html?src=rss
Amazon Prime Day 2024 is almost here, so it’s a good time to start thinking about the things you’ll want to look for once the deal wave hits. Everything from gadgets to clothes to household necessities will be on sale during the event, and if you’re a subscriber, you’ll have access to all of the Prime Day deals. Engadget will be surfacing all of the best tech deals we can find – both on Amazon and elsewhere – but there are some important things to know ahead of time so you can get exactly what you want out of this year’s Prime Day.
When is Amazon Prime Day?
We do not have official dates for Prime Day 2024 yet, but we do know it’ll be back sometime in July. The shopping event focuses on exclusive deals for Prime members, which means you’ll have to be a Prime subscriber on Prime Day to take advantage of most of the savings. Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial to new Prime subscribers, so you can start your free trial closer to July and participate in the event.
If you don’t pay for Prime and have no intention of doing so, you should still check out Amazon on Prime Day for sales that are available to all shoppers — there are always a few of them. Plus, it’s very likely that other retailers like Target and Best Buy will have their own competing Prime Day sales during that time frame, too.
Speaking of competitors, Walmart just announced that its version of Prime Day, dubbed Walmart+ Week, will take place June 17 through June 23. Walmart+ Week offers exclusive deals for Walmart+ members, and the retail giant appears to be placing a lot of emphasis on gas and travel discounts this year. It's currently teasing 20 cents off every gallon of gas purchased at Exxon and Mobil stations, as well as 20 percent Walmart Cash back on travel accommodations purchased through Walmart+ Travel. However, that's not to say we won't see discounts on other items, including electronics, during Walmart's members-only shopping event.
Amazon Prime Day deals
Amazon Prime Day typically lasts two days, but for the past few years, the company has started pushing out deals well before the event actually kicks off. We anticipate the same happening this year, with early Prime Day deals kicking off possibly as soon as Amazon officially announces the dates of Prime Day 2024.
Be they early Prime Day deals or day-of sales, Amazon gadgets are almost guaranteed to be on sale for the event. You can safely bet on things like Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and Fire TV devices to be at record-low prices for Prime Day, so if you’ve had your eye on one of those items, it’s worth waiting for those deals to drop. Prime Day is only matched by Black Friday in its discounts, so while that means you will likely have another chance to get that smart speaker for dirt cheap, it probably won’t be until the holiday shopping season.
Amazon gadgets will not be the only items discounted on Prime Day. You’ll find clothes, shoes, household items, appliances, accessories and more on sale, but here at Engadget, we’ll naturally be focusing on electronics. We expect this year’s Prime Day to be like last year’s, in that it will bring big discounts on headphones, earbuds, gaming accessories, SSDs and microSD cards, robot vacuums and more.
It’s also worth mentioning the types of deals you can expect to see on Prime Day. Some deals will be live for the entire event (which is usually two full days), while others will only last for 24 hours. Those are the hardest to predict, since Amazon usually does not give any indication how long a given sale will last. Our recommendation is to buy the things you’re most keen on as soon as you see them drop in price – that will ensure you get it while the discount is available, and while the item is still in stock.
You can also expect to see some “Lightning deals” happen during Prime Day. Thankfully, these are usually clearly labeled with the amount of time remaining to grab the deal noted on the product page. In our experience, only a handful of these flash sales are actually worth your money, but if you see something that’s been on your wishlist drop in price for only a few hours, it’s in your best interest to grab it immediately.
How to prep for Prime Day
It’s best to go into Amazon Prime Day as prepared as possible; that means knowing exactly what you want so you stay focused and avoid distractions. The whole of Amazon's site will be overwhelming on Prime Day, so the less time you spend aimlessly browsing, the more your wallet will thank you later.
One thing you can do to stay on track during Prime Day is to make a list of your top items before the event. This requires a bit of prep work, but you’ll be grateful you did it once the event arrives. Make note of the most important items you want to pick up on Prime Day. You can either do this the old-fashioned way on a sticky note, or you can use Amazon’s wish list feature. For the latter, add the items you want to buy on Prime Day to your wish list (or, even better, make a dedicated wishlist with only your Prime Day desirables) and return to that list during the shopping event. Not only will you have everything you want all in one place, but you’ll also be able to see which of those items are cheaper on Prime Day than they were when you originally added them to your list.
It’s also recommended to use a price tracker to make sure you’re getting a decent deal. Sites like CamelCamelCamel let you monitor the price of specific items on Amazon. You can check out price history charts and you can make your own price-drop alerts, receiving emails when something you want gets a discount. CamelCamelCamel also has some browser extensions you can download so you don’t have to navigate away from an Amazon product page to check its price history.
Engadget will be covering Amazon Prime Day in its entirety, so if you have a lot of tech on your to-buy list, be sure to check back here on Prime Day for the best tech sales we could find. We’ll be sure to include gadgets from across the board – from headphones to robot vacuums to gaming gear – plus the best “anti-Prime Day” deals you can find from other retailers. You can also follow the @EngadgetDeals Twitter account and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter to stay up to date on the latest discounts.
Amazon deals that you can shop ahead of Prime Day
While we wouldn't call these sales "early Prime Day deals" just yet, they do represent some of the best deals you can get on Amazon right now as we wait for the full details of Prime Day to be revealed. We'll update this list as prices change and as we find even more of the best Amazon deals you can get.
Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-day-2024-the-best-deals-to-shop-ahead-of-prime-day-and-everything-we-know-so-far-about-the-sale-in-july-110027593.html?src=rss
50 Cent and his millions of social media followers were reportedly the targets of a pump-and-dump crypto scam on Friday that resulted in hackers pocketing a good chunk of change before it was all shut down. The exact amount they made is unclear; the rapper initially wrote on Instagram that “whoever did this made $300,000,000 in 30 minutes” (per Cointelegraph), but the post has since been edited to say $3,000,000 as of this afternoon. I will not make a Get Rich or Die Tryin’ pun, I will not make a Get Rich or Die Tryin’ pun...
The scammers used 50 Cent’s X account and website, Thisis50, to push $GUNIT. “My Twitter & Thisis 50.com was hacked I have no association with this Crypto,” 50 Cent wrote in an Instagram post containing screenshots of the unfolding mess. “Twitter worked quickly to lock my account back down,” he added. His X account and Thisis50.com still appear to be unavailable. Stay safe out there, and be wary of celebrities shilling crypto.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/someone-apparently-hacked-50-cents-accounts-to-peddle-a-memecoin-and-made-off-with-millions-205920738.html?src=rss
Jun 15, 2024; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Rapper 50 Cent during pre-game of the game between the BC Lions and the Calgary Stampeders at BC Place. Mandatory Credit: Simon Fearn-USA TODAY Sports
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew on the much-delayed first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner craft, won’t be coming home from the International Space Station until sometime next month, well past their originally planned return date of June 14. NASA announced last night that it's pushing the date of their return trip back even further in order to allow for more reviews into problems that arose with Starliner during its flight, and to avoid conflicts with upcoming spacewalks. As of now, there’s no date set for the flight back to Earth.
Starliner launched on June 5 and delivered Wilmore and Williams to the ISS about a day later. Their stay was only supposed to last a week or so. During the flight, however, four small helium leaks sprung in the propulsion system, on top of the one that had already been identified prior to launch. And, when Starliner first attempted to approach the ISS on June 6 and begin docking, five of its 28 thrusters went offline. Boeing was able to get four of them back up and running. NASA also revealed a few days after launch that the teams were looking into an issue with a valve in the service module that was “not properly closed.”
The space agency had already pushed the date of the return trip back a few times over the last week and most recently landed on June 26, but now says the flight won’t take place until after the spacewalks planned for June 24 and July 2 have been completed. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, on Friday.
This adjustment deconflicts from a series of spacewalks while allowing mission teams time to… pic.twitter.com/pjqz1zEu4g
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) June 22, 2024
“Starliner is performing well in orbit while docked to the space station,” Stich also said. “We are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni’s return on Starliner and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/starliner-astronauts-return-trip-has-been-pushed-back-even-further-174336571.html?src=rss
Boeing and ISS astronauts pictured on the ISS: front, from left: Suni Williams, Oleg Kononenko, and Butch Wilmore. Second row from left are, Alexander Grebenkin, Tracy C. Dyson, and Mike Barratt. Back row: Nikolai Chub, Jeanette Epps, and Matthew Dominick
Summer Game Fest 2024 officially wrapped up on June 10, after a long weekend of game previews, developer interviews and unlimited cold brew — but we just published our final stories from the show this week (held under embargo, of course). Those were Mat Smith's impressions of Black Myth: Wukong and Tales of the Shire, and they capped off a month of juicy video game news out of the summer's biggest show.
On top of the playable previews, Day of the Devs, Devolver, Xbox and Ubisoft held their own showcases brimming with new information and game reveals, and the big Summer Game Fest kickoff event was similarly stacked. Just to name a few of the hits: There's a new Doomwith a medieval flair (and flail), Civilization VII is coming out in 2025, Slitterheadwill land on November 8, Heart Machine is building a gorgeous-looking platformer called Possessor(s), and the Fablereboot is due out in 2025. There are also new Xbox Series consoles coming out this fall — and as it turns out, Microsoft's mid-cycle refresh says a lot about the Xbox hardware business as a whole, especially when compared to the company's internal roadmap that leaked in October 2022.
After E3 collapsed on itself like a sad soufflé, Summer Game Fest has emerged as the home of mid-year video game goodness, offering a little more room for smaller studios and plenty of space to grow. It's been four years of digital and physical Summer Game Fest events at this point, and the show just keeps getting better.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/take-a-behind-the-scenes-tour-of-summer-game-fest-play-days-2024-153009861.html?src=rss
Thanks to the convoluted nature of geography-based licensing among the major studios, streaming services with international reach can have much more comprehensive selections of TV shows and movies in a different country. That’s why savvy viewers have long used VPNs – virtual private networks – to expand their options. Change your location from the US to the UK and, voila, you suddenly have access to Friends and The Office on Netflix again.
That’s great if you’re watching on a phone, tablet or PC, where installing and activating a VPN is as generally as simple as visiting the device’s app store. But streaming through a VPN is a bit more challenging on a TV. Thankfully, there are quite a few ways to get that VPN-filtered content on the biggest screen in your home. Below, we’ll walk you through unlocking geo-blocked content on your TV.
If you don’t already have a VPN subscription, we’d suggest choosing a service from our list of best VPNs. And with the notable exception of Proton VPN, we’d strongly recommend avoiding any free VPN options.
How to stream video to your smart TV using a VPN
The easiest way to install a VPN on your smart TV is to download it from the built-in app store – if your preferred VPN is available. Among the top smart TV platforms, Amazon’s Fire TV and Google TV are your best bets for built-in support. If your set doesn’t run those operating systems, you can add them to any TV with a free HDMI port for as little as $30. Meanwhile, the pricier Apple TV supports a growing list of VPNs as well. Roku, unfortunately, does not support built-in VPN apps.
Fire TV
Amazon’s Fire TV operating system has a wide range of content to binge-watch, as it comes with access to Prime Video’s expansive catalog. Thankfully, its user interface is easy to navigate, making installing a VPN a breeze.
Amazon's Fire TV Stick line is a very VPN-friendly streaming platform.
Amazon
To set up a VPN, navigate to the Fire TV app store and search for the VPN service to which you’re subscribed. Fire TV has multiple options on the app store, including most of the services mentioned in our aforementioned best VPNs list.
From there, the process is pretty simple: Download the app, log in and connect to the VPN. When you obfuscate your IP address using the VPN and connect to a different country, you’ll unlock its Prime Video content library.
Google TV
Google TV is a smart TV operating system with a sleek user interface that supports thousands of apps, including VPNs and streaming platforms. As with Fire TV, just download your VPN app of choice, input your credentials and run it before activating the streaming service you’d like to check out. While Google TV doesn’t have as robust a VPN library as Fire TV, it currently has a wider selection than Apple TV (see below).
Apple TV
If you want to install a VPN on your Apple TV directly, you’ll need tvOS 17 or later. If not, you can follow our alternative workarounds below.
Apple TV boxes have become more VPN-friendly with recent OS updates.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
For those with tvOS 17 and later, setting up a VPN on your Apple TV is simple. However, it’s important to note that it doesn’t support many services, so you’ll have to double-check that the VPN you subscribe to has Apple TV compatibility.
AirPlay or Google Cast from a VPN-enabled device
There are two distinctions between screen casting and mirroring. The former is when you stream content on a device, cast it on your smart TV and still use the device for other purposes without interrupting what you’re streaming. The latter is when you show everything you’re doing on your device on your TV. For example, if you’re streaming a movie and tab out, your smart TV will mirror everything you’re doing.
As with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in vehicles, there are Apple and Google flavors of screencasting: AirPlay and Google Cast (formerly Chromecast). In each case, you start by running your VPN of choice on your phone or tablet, firing up your streaming app, starting your movie or TV show and simply clicking the AirPlay or Google Cast icon when streaming the video. If your TV doesn’t have AirPlay or Google Cast built-in, you can buy a set-top box that supports one or the other.
AirPlay is probably the most well-known casting and mirroring technology, and it currently works on a wide range of smart TVs and set-top boxes. I screencasted from my iPhone XR with a VPN enabled to my Samsung UHD TV and everything worked without a hitch.
On the Google side, click the icon with a TV and Wi-Fi rays to start casting your content to the big screen.
Note that Amazon is working on a rival screencasting platform called Matter Casting, but it’s not widely supported yet.
HDMI from a VPN-enabled device
If you don’t want to fiddle with wireless protocols, an underrated and lesser-known way to stream video to your TV using a VPN is via an HDMI cable. You’ll need an HDMI cable and (for some devices) an HDMI dongle, such as one that converts a USB-C port to HDMI. Once connected, your laptop, phone or tablet screen should be displayed on your TV’s screen. At that point, just fire up your VPN, start your streaming app (or browser) and maximize the window.
Whole-house VPN access: Set up a VPN on your router
All of the methods above describe ways to get VPN streaming access on a single TV. But if you want a whole-house approach – in which you could, for instance, watch UK Netflix on every device on your home network – you’d want to investigate accessing the VPN at the router level. Just note this is for advanced users only, and is far and away the most challenging method of the bunch.
This requires installing a new router, or making major modifications to your existing one. Furthermore, it generally requires installing a custom firmware on a router, which usually means voiding the hardware manufacturer’s warranty. And even then, you’ll need an expert user in the household who knows how to engage and disengage the VPN and customize its settings, as leaving it turned on all the time can interfere with non-streaming activities, including simple things like shopping online.
All that said, a more streamlined whole-home option for ExpressVPN users is to try out that provider’s AirCove router models. (Note that Engadget has not yet tested these models.) Because they are ExpressVPN’s own hardware, they include warranty coverage and support through the company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-stream-video-to-your-tv-using-a-vpn-023736315.html?src=rss
Perplexity, a company that describes its product as "a free AI search engine," has been under fire over the past few days. Shortly after Forbes accused it of stealing its story and republishing it across multiple platforms, Wired reported that Perplexity has been ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol, or robots.txt, and has been scraping its website and other Condé Nast publications. Technology website The Shortcut also accused the company of scraping its articles. Now, Reuters has reported that Perplexity isn't the only AI company that's bypassing robots.txt files and scraping websites to get content that's then used to train their technologies.
Reuters said it saw a letter addressed to publishers from TollBit, a startup that pairs them up with AI firms so they can reach licensing deals, warning them that "AI agents from multiple sources (not just one company) are opting to bypass the robots.txt protocol to retrieve content from sites." The robots.txt file contains instructions for web crawlers on which pages they can and can't access. Web developers have been using the protocol since 1994, but compliance is completely voluntary.
TollBit's letter didn't name any company, but Business Insider says it has learned that OpenAI and Anthropic — the creators of the ChatGPT and Claude chatbots, respectively — are also bypassing robots.txt signals. Both companies previously proclaimed that they respect "do not crawl" instructions websites put in their robots.txt files.
During its investigation, Wired discovered that a machine on an Amazon server "certainly operated by Perplexity" was bypassing its website's robots.txt instructions. To confirm whether Perplexity was scraping its content, Wired provided the company's tool with headlines from its articles or short prompts describing its stories. The tool reportedly came up with results that closely paraphrased its articles "with minimal attribution." And at times, it even generated inaccurate summaries for its stories — Wired says the chatbot falsely claimed that it reported about a specific California cop committing a crime in one instance.
In an interview with Fast Company, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told the publication that his company "is not ignoring the Robot Exclusions Protocol and then lying about it." That doesn't mean, however, that it isn't benefiting from crawlers that do ignore the protocol. Srinivas explained that the company uses third-party web crawlers on top of its own, and that the crawler Wired identified was one of them. When Fast Company asked if Perplexity told the crawler provider to stop scraping Wired's website, he only replied that "it's complicated."
Srinivas defended his company's practices, telling the publication that the Robots Exclusion Protocol is "not a legal framework" and suggesting that publishers and companies like his may have to establish a new kind of relationship. He also reportedly insinuated that Wired deliberately used prompts to make Perplexity's chatbot behave the way it did, so ordinary users will not get the same results. As for the inaccurate summaries that the tool had generated, Srinivas said: "We have never said that we have never hallucinated."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-companies-are-reportedly-still-scraping-websites-despite-protocols-meant-to-block-them-132308524.html?src=rss
In this installment of What We're Listening To, Engadget editors dive into some of the recent music releases we've been playing on repeat. Yes, Brat has us in a chokehold, too.
Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats - Nell’ Ora Blu
When I first heard Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats was putting out an album inspired by 1960s-70s giallo films, I felt like my interests, personally, were being targeted. It’s the kind of crossover that now seems like it had to happen at some point, but I never realized my need for it until this moment. (One person on Reddit, though, was really onto something with the idea last year). Lo and behold, Nell’ Ora Blu dropped last month and it scratches a very specific itch in my brain.
It is not at all the usual fare you’d expect from Uncle Acid, very much taking on the structure of a soundtrack with a lot of ambient instrumentals and short dialogue tracks voiced by genre regulars Edwige Fenech, Franco Nero and Luc Merenda (it pulls influence from the poliziotteschi crime/action films as well). The scores in these movies often feel like psychedelic horror experiences in themselves — with heavy moments that really drag you in, only to be offset by something so delicate it’s almost disorienting — and unsurprisingly, Uncle Acid absolutely nails this. This is the perfect album to pop on in the background while you’re trying to get some art or writing done, ideally as a thunderstorm rolls in. It's pretty long, coming in at around an hour and 17 minutes, but I almost always replay it at least once per sitting.
Nell’ Ora Blu isn’t necessarily going to be an automatic hit with Uncle Acid fans. It’s more for the person who watched Deep Red or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage or anything of that ilk and immediately sought out the soundtrack afterward. Still, I expect there’s a fair amount of overlap between those groups, considering the band does generally have the whole sleaze horror vibe going anyway. Honestly, I want more. We don't need to stop at giallo — give me Uncle Acid's take on Jean Rollin and the fantastique next (please).
— Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor
Nathy Peluso - Grasa
Admittedly, I’m late to the Nathy Peluso bandwagon. I was first introduced to her after falling down a rabbit hole of BZRP Music Sessions (collab tracks made by Argentine producer Bizarrap and various Latin music heavyweights) and listened to hers (#36). Her second album, Grasa, just dropped and represents her latest full body of work released since the Grammy-nominated Calambre came out in 2020. Grasa is likely my album of the summer — and certainly a top pick for the whole year — thanks to its engaging experimentation and its marriage of a bunch of different styles including hip hop, latin trap, bolero, salsa and straight-up pop. There are no skips on this album, at least half a dozen bangers and I personally love the transitions from the snarling, fast-paced tracks to the few ballads and slower songs peppered throughout.
Peluso already proved she was a great singer on Calambre, but I think her vocal performances on this album, particularly in ballads like “Envidia” and “El Día Que Perdí Mi Juvendtud,” standout as high points. And then there are the bangers, as it were: “Aprender a Amar” gets in your face with fierce rapping and blaring horns; “Legendario” might be the most obvious potential single off the whole album thanks to its signature pop tempo and sound; and “La Presa” is basically a salsa IV straight to your veins. There are plenty of others I’m not naming here, but anyone who has even a passing appreciation for Latin pop (regardless of if you speak Spanish or not — I don’t) shouldn’t sleep on Grasa.
Young Miko - att.
Puerto Rican artist Young Miko’s first full-length album, att., is the definition of “a vibe.” After collaborating with Karol G, Bad Bunny and other Latin superstars, Miko has solidified her space in the Latin pop scene with this project. While I don’t think it’s a career-defining album, it’s a great showcase of her laid-back, Spanglish-style rapping that marries genres like reggaeton and Latin trap, and her ability to create a clear mood with such fusion, plus a healthy dose of great beats. Ultimately, it’s simply easy listening from front to back. Personal highlights include “arcoíris,” “tamagotchi” and Feid collab “offline.”
Charli XCX - brat
Brat is 100 percent worth the hype. Eloquent music critics and writers have bestoweda lot ofpraise onto this album already, so suffice to say that I agree with most of them (and you should go read their analyses). Standouts include “Club classics,” “Sympathy is a knife,” “So I,” and “B2b,” but arguably my favorite is the closer “365.” A riff off of the opener “360,” this track ups the ante in every way, and the transition to it from the penultimate “I think about it all the time” is so satisfying and euphoric.
It's been 10 years since Norwegian producer and DJ Todd Terje declared that it was, finally, album time. He had made a name for himself as a DJ and remixer in the 2000s, but It's Album Time marked his first (and sadly, only) full-length collection on which he is the singular driving force. It's a gloriously oddball collection that flips between dramatic, movie score-style symphonic pieces and true dance-disco bangers. (After a recent listen, I convinced myself that Terje could help Dua Lipa make the best album of her career.)
For my money, the 10-minutes combo of "Straandbar" and "Delorean Dynamite" encapsulate the best things about the album. It's a gloriously funky build-up with intricate percussion, fat synths, bouncing bass lines and a ridiculously simple but incredibly infectious guitar lick that comes in halfway through "Delorean Dynamite" that makes me want to run through a brick wall. You'll know it when you hear it.
And, of course, there's "Inspector Norse," a song that caught fire in 2012 and paved the way for the rest of It's Album Time. If Terje never makes another album (he's only 43, so there's plenty of time!), "Inspector Norse" serves as seven perfect minutes of his career. Maybe he'll swing by and take us to his planet again, but it's hard to be sad about his lack of output when It's Album Time is so damn perfect.
— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor, News
XG - Woke Up
Cocona shaves her head in this video. Just because she wanted to. This song is great. XG is life.
— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-were-listening-to-nell-ora-blu-grasa-brat-and-more-130028558.html?src=rss
A collage featuring the album covers for: Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Nell’ Ora Blu; Nathy Peluso, Grasa; Young Miko, att; Charli XCX, Brat; Todd Terje, It's Album Time
The following contains spoilers for “Empire of Death.”
“Empire of Death” is the typical Russell T. Davies series finale: It’s bombastic, dense and totally uninterested in resolving its own story. The episode bounces around for the requisite amount of time before leaping to its climax with an arresting visual of little substance. Because what Davies is really interested in is the scenes afterward, and the all-too-brief moment where Ruby Sunday gets coffee.
Bad Wolf / BBC Studios
At the end of “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and (classic-series companion) Mel (Bonnie Langford) are face to face with Sutekh’s minion (Susan Twist). Sutekh begins spraying its dust of death, a cloud of dust that turns whoever it touches into a pile of dust themselves. The Doctor and Mel outrun the cloud on Mel’s scooter in an action sequence that feels like it ate the bulk of the episode’s budget.
The pair head back to UNIT HQ to reunite with Ruby at the time window. Sutekh’s dog form is still clutching the TARDIS as a prized possession and wipes out the rest of the UNIT staff, including Kate (Jemma Redgrave), Rose (Yasmin Finney) and Morris (Lenny Rush). (Three deaths you just know won’t last for longer than half an hour.)
Sutekh explains to the Doctor he clung to the TARDIS (at some point) and followed it around on every step of the Doctor’s journey. Every planet the Doctor landed on, he planted a Susan Twist character there, each one lingering both as a trap for the Doctor and to sow Sutekh’s murderous dust. And he used the TARDIS’ perception filter to hide what he was doing. Did you know the filter operates at a distance of 73 yards? It’s a callback!
The Doctor, Ruby and Mel hightail it into the memory window’s TARDIS, which turns out to be the Memory TARDIS (which is just a regular TARDIS). This was a small, cobbled-together set from the 60th anniversary framing series Tales of the TARDIS, in which classic series actors introduced classic series episodes to new viewers. While in flight, the trio see what Sutekh has done to the universe, rendering it cold and empty, and giving Ncuti Gatwa a chance to scream his frustration into the literal void.
It’s now very important to uncover the identity of Ruby Sunday’s mother, especially given that Sutekh is interested in the answer. The trio take the Memory TARDIS on one final voyage to the dystopian future as shown in “73 Yards.” That’s where evil prime minister Roger ap Gwillam has instituted compulsory DNA testing to ensure the UK is a racially-pure nation. (Yes, it is a bit yikes.) But it’ll also give the Doctor the chance to identify who Ruby’s mother is from the records.
Once the information is on screen, they’re all pulled back to UNIT HQ in 2024 by Sutekh who is similarly curious. Sutekh uses his power to pull the Doctor to the floor, threatening his life, unless Ruby shares the information held on the gizmo she’s holding. But as she gets close to the pooch, she smashes the screen with the data on it and clips a piece of smart rope to Sutekh’s collar to ensnare him.
The Doctor then whistles for the TARDIS to come back to him, where he and Ruby clip the other end of the lead to the console and dematerialize. They then take this giant, evil alien dog on a walk through the time vortex which, uh, ah, something something brings everyone back to life. Try not to think too hard about it and enjoy the arresting visual of the TARDIS dragging a giant evil dog through some nice CGI.
There’s then some words about the Doctor having to become a killer in order to stop Sutekh killing. He casts Sutekh into the vortex. Given that’s what he did last time, I’m not sure why it’s more successful now but, as I said, coherence was never the focus of the episode.
Back at UNIT HQ, with everyone revived and eating pizza, they’re able to track down Ruby’s mother. She got pregnant at 15 and gave her daughter up to avoid the reprisals from some sinister stepfather who may have harmed the child. But she never sought to track down her daughter afterward, and didn’t even tell the father of the child that she’d had a baby. As for why Sutekh was interested in Ruby’s mother, the Doctor says it’s because people had invested time and emotion into her. Which feels like Davies chiding the audience for focusing on questions he himself laced into the series for this purpose.
And while I can see what Davies was trying to say, it’s not as if he’s played fair here – pointing a neon sign at Ruby saying that she was important. We don’t know why she can bend reality to her will, or make it snow whenever she thinks about her abandonment. We didn’t obsess over this question because we apply meaning to meaningless things, but because the show and its characters ascribed meaning to them.
The Doctor and Ruby stand outside a coffee shop where Ruby’s mother is now sitting, drinking and staring at her phone. The Doctor suggests that, since her mother never cared enough to look for her, she isn’t interested in connecting. But Ruby is undeterred and walks in, orders a coffee and sits on a big bench across from her mother, so that when the waiter calls her name, her mother looks up.
From there, we see the Sundays catching up. But for all the wonders of the universe the Doctor wishes to see, this apparently joyful reunion isn’t one of them, choosing to leave Ruby there. He says they'll meet again but, given he left his own granddaughter, it’s just as likely he’ll forget all about her.
And so the TARDIS sets off for pastures new.
Bad Wolf / BBC Studios
I don’t think “Empire of Death” paid off the previous episodes with any degree of satisfaction but I never expected it to, either. Davies's modus operandi is to ignore the mechanics of storytelling in favor of vibes and those brief moments of touching character drama. The whole giant dog in space is weightless compared to the scene where Ruby sits across from her mother. Ironically, it was here that we should have dragged things out — the anticipation of if she would speak up would have been a better use of the show’s time than a lot of what happened last week.
But the ending did make me wonder about who in this world gets the privilege of a happy ending. Davies nearly died of a drug overdose in the mid ‘90s and then lost his partner to a brain tumor in 2018. He’s a cynical, nihilistic writer who feels humanity is only ever one or two missed meals away from the most evil forms of fascism. And yet, it’s rare that he ever plays a minor note at the conclusion of an episode of Doctor Who.
No companion leaves without a parting gift big enough to sooth the pain of being separated from the Doctor. In fact, on two separate occasions, a companion gets their own personal clone of David Tennant. Here, does Ruby get a happy ending by being reunited with her mother, or is it her mother who gets the greatest of absolutions? She never sought her daughter out, never looked to remedy the rupture, yet here she’s welcomed with love.
In fact, this episode provokes plenty of questions for me, including if it’s okay for the people who abandon you to get to live their lives with the comfort of moving on? What about the weird twist that the Doctor kills Sutekh but allows his wave of resurrection to reanimate planets full of evil beings? After all, Telos — one of the Cybermen’s hangouts — gets namechecked as a place that has been saved. Maybe it’s just better to remember that, sometimes, you need to turn your brain off and just feel Doctor Who. See you for the Holiday special.
Mrs Flood Corner
Mrs. Flood is disconnected from Sutekh, breaking the fourth wall at the end of the episode while dressed as a glam rock Mary Poppins. She tells the audience that the Doctor’s ending is on the way and is delighted by the idea, further stoking thoughts that she’s playing a longstanding villain. The obvious guesses — given Mrs. Flood is played by a woman — is that it’ll be some future incarnation of Missy or The Rani. Fine?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/doctor-who-empire-of-death-review-take-your-dog-for-a-walk-004516577.html?src=rss
Replacing a talent like the late Kevin Conroy, the man who voiced Batman in fan favorites like Batman: The Animated Series and the Arkham game trilogy, must be a monumental feat. Conroy’s deep, steady voice defined the character for decades — it’s a challenge just to think of a cartoon Batman and not hear Conroy’s voice behind the mic. Sadly, Conroy passed away in 2022 and Batman must carry on without him.
A new series is coming to Amazon Prime starting on August 1 called Batman: Caped Crusader and Vanity Fairrevealed that actor Hamish Linklater will provide the voice for Batman/Bruce Wayne on the new noirish animated series. Linklater is best known for roles in movies including The Big Short and Midnight Mass, and shows like the recent Apple+ limited series Manhunt,where he played President Abraham Lincoln.
Batman: Caped Crusader aims to be more of an old-fashioned detective story with the art style of the original 1939 comics. Linklater’s take on the character seems more subdued to match the tone, and it’ll be interesting to see how a Batman show will work in the style of a Mickey Spillane-esque story.
No Batman movie or show is complete without his menagerie of villains. Only three of the voice actors have been revealed so far: Christina Ricci will voice Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Diedrich Bader will voice Two-Face/Harvey Dent and Jamie Chung will play Harley Quinn.
Based on the full cast list, there should be more villains on the roster. The series will also feature the voices of McKenna Grace, Minnie Driver, Gary Anthony Williams, Tom Kenny, John DiMaggio and Michelle C. Bonilla, according to the Internet Movie Database.
Fans of Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold will also be happy to know that some of those shows’ original writers and creators are joining the new Amazon Prime series. Bruce Timm, the artist and co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series, and James Tucker, the producer and one of the writers of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, are the showrunners and executive producers of Batman: Caped Crusader.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hamish-linklater-is-the-new-voice-of-batman-214608627.html?src=rss
Antstream Arcade offers over 1,300 retro games from old-school platforms like Atari consoles, Commodore 64, DOS and arcade. It even has a few PS1 games, but its fare is less Metal Gear Solid and more… Hogs of War. You can browse Antstream’s current library here.
Although Apple cited developer feedback for its loosening of rules, you can likely thank the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Designed to boost competition and prevent the all-too-common consumer-hostile practices in Big Tech, the DMA’s regulations went into effect in 2023. Earlier this year, Apple said it would begin allowing developers to submit single apps that stream entire libraries of games, something it had previously resisted.
Antstream typically costs $5 monthly or $40 annually, but Cult of Mac reports that it will launch with an introductory offer of $4 per month or $30 for a year. You can check out the company’s website to see if it’s worth it before it launches next week.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/antstream-will-be-the-iphones-first-official-game-streaming-app-204617575.html?src=rss
The illegal streaming service Jetflicks once boasted on its website that visitors could watch just about any TV show or movie “Anytime. Anywhere.” Now the five people behind the bootleg streaming service are facing some serious jail time.
A jury found Kristopher Dallman, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi and Peter Huber guilty in a Las Vegas federal court on Friday for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann was also found guilty on two counts of money laundering and three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement for leading the Jetflicks operation, according to court documents and a US Department of Justice press release.
Jetflicks used computer scripts and software to scour the internet for illegal copies of movies and television shows and posted hundreds of thousands of illegal copies as far back as 2007 from torrent and Usenet sites. The defendants created a catalog of bootleg shows and movies bigger than the combined collections of streaming services including Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime, according to the Department of Justice.
Users could pay a subscription fee to access the site on pretty much any media streaming device with a web browser. Jetflicks claimed to “offer more than 183,200 television episodes and have more than 37,000 subscribers,” according to the initial indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2019.
Dallmann, the leader of the group, and his co-conspirators “made millions of dollars streaming and distributing this catalog of stolen content,” according to the press release.
At one point, operators and employees of Jetflicks were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from its subscription service. Dallman wrote in an online chat that his site made $750,000 in one year, according to the indictment.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) took notice of Jetflicks in 2012 and sent cease and desist letters to the site’s operators. Four years later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started its undercover operation of the site by paying for a six-month subscription. Undercover agents recorded multiple instances of illegal uploads of shows like Shameless, Ray Donovan, The OA and SyFy’s 12 Monkeys alongside charges for accessing them. Then the agents traced those charges back to the defendants’ bank accounts, according to court records.
A sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled. The Department of Justice says Dallman could face up to 48 years in prison and the four remaining defendants could each face five years in prison.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/five-men-face-jail-time-for-running-the-illegal-streaming-service-jetflicks-202758485.html?src=rss
X will soon be moving the ability to live stream behind its premium paywall, the company announced. The change will make X the only major social platform to charge for the feature, which is currently free on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch and TikTok.
“Starting soon, only Premium subscribers will be able to livestream (create live video streams) on X,” the company said. “This includes going live from an encoder with X integration,” an apparent reference to X’s game streaming capabilities.
X didn’t offer an explanation for the change. The company has used additional features, like post editing, longform writing, and ad-free feeds to lure users to its paid subscriptions, but hasn’t typically moved existing, widely available, features behind its paywall. X Premium subscriptions start at $3/month for the "basic" tier, and rise to $8/month for Premium and $16/month for Premium+.
There are, however, other signs that the Elon Musk-owned platform wants to charge for other simple features. The company introduced a $1 annual charge for new accounts to have posting privileges in New Zealand and the Philippines. Though the company still describes the scheme as a test, Musk has suggested he wants to expand the fees to all new users.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-is-making-live-streaming-a-premium-feature-185151147.html?src=rss
Spotify has a new plan for US subscribers that keeps you on the old $11 monthly pricing — as long as you don’t mind ditching audiobooks. The new Basic tier includes the music and podcast content you get from Premium but without 15 hours of audiobook access, a recently added feature we suspect many subscribers don’t care about anyway. Spotify said earlier this month it would hike Premium prices to $12 per month, beginning in July.
The Basic plan echoes one it rolled out in the UK last month. That one costs £11 per month compared to £12 for Premium with audiobook content.
Some have suspected Spotify’s audiobook push has nefarious motives. Earlier this month, the National Music Publishers’ Association asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the move, going as far as calling the company’s audiobook integration “a scheme to increase profits by deceiving consumers and cheating the music royalty system.” The NMPA complaint claims Spotify will pay about $150 million less in music royalties over the next year because of its audiobook fusion. Spotify told Engadget it did nothing wrong and rejected the accusations.
Spotify has been penny-pinching in other areas. It was reported last year that the company planned to overhaul its royalty model. One alleged part of that plan was to demonetize tracks earning less than five cents per month, pushing out some indie artists without established audiences.
Spotify also laid off around 9,000 employees late last year, citing “the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs.”
You can switch to the audiobook-free tier (which is now live) by navigating to your account page, then “Manage your plan” and “Change plan” and picking Basic. If you’re a new subscriber, you can choose the Basic option when signing up.
Update, June 21, 2024, 2:36 PM ET: This story has been updated to note that the ability to sign up for the Basic plan is now live.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotifys-basic-plan-returns-to-11-a-month-by-cutting-audiobooks-163804267.html?src=rss
“We are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security,” the company said in a statement to Bloomberg. Apple didn’t expand on how DMA regulations could force it to compromise user privacy and security.
The DMA, which passed in 2022, tries to usher in fair competition by reining in what Big Tech companies can do to stifle competition. It blocks them from pushing out smaller competitors, favoring their own services over those of rivals, locking customers’ data into their platform and limiting transparency about their use of advertising data.
This isn’t the first time Apple has pinned blame on regulations — without offering much in the way of specifics — for blocking EU users from having nice things. Earlier this year, the company said it would remove the ability to add home screen web apps in Europe due to DMA rules. It later reversed course, citing “requests” it received. Google did something similar when it removed third-party apps and watch faces from European devices, blaming “new regulatory requirements.”
Apple’s delay comes when EU regulations present a thorn in the company’s side. The European Commission formally opened an investigation into the company in March and reportedly plans to charge it in the coming weeks for DMA violations. The company was already fined €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) earlier this year for preventing app developers from informing iOS users about cheaper music subscription plans outside of the company’s ecosystem.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-will-reportedly-withhold-new-ai-features-in-europe-due-to-regulations-183313640.html?src=rss
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the annual developer conference event at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S., June 10, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
As we do each Friday, we've gathered up the best deals on tech we could find. In the audio department, we spotted sale prices on some of our recommended earbuds from Anker and Beats. Discounts on Apple gear include all-time low prices on the 15-inch 2024 MacBook Air laptop, the new Apple Pencil Pro stylus and the (Product) RED Apple Watch. For your home, you can snag a deal on our favorite mesh Wi-Fi system and charging docks from both Anker and Belkin. And if all this talk of shopping has you thinking about your finances, you may want to check out the half-price subscription to Quicken Simplifi, our current top pick for a budgeting app. Here are all the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-new-apple-pencil-pro-gets-its-first-discount-plus-the-rest-of-the-weeks-best-tech-deals-161923518.html?src=rss
We've known for a while that Amazon is planning to soup up Alexa with generative AI features. While the company says it has been integrating that into various aspects of the voice assistant, it's also working on a more advanced version of Alexa that it plans to charge users to access. Amazon has reportedly dubbed the higher tier "Remarkable Alexa" (let's hope it doesn't stick with that name for the public rollout).
According to Reuters, Amazon is still determining pricing and a release date for Remarkable Alexa, but it has mooted a fee of between roughly $5 and $10 per month for consumers to use it. Amazon is also said to have been urging its workers to have Remarkable Alexa ready by August — perhaps so it's able to discuss the details as its usual fall Alexa and devices event.
This will mark the first major revamp of Alexa since Amazon debuted the voice assistant alongside Echo speakers a decade ago. The company is now in a position where it's trying to catch up with the likes of ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who pledged that the company was working on a “more intelligent and capable Alexa" in an April letter to shareholders, has reportedly taken a personal interest in the overhaul. Jassy noted last August that every Amazon division had generative AI projects in the pipeline.
"We have already integrated generative AI into different components of Alexa, and are working hard on implementation at scale — in the over half a billion ambient, Alexa-enabled devices already in homes around the world — to enable even more proactive, personal, and trusted assistance for our customers," said an Amazon spokeswoman told Reuters. However, the company has yet to deploy the more natural-sounding and conversational version of Alexa it showed off last September.
Remarkable Alexa is said to be capable of complex prompts, such as being able to compose and send an email, and order dinner all from a single command. Deeper personalization is another aspect, while Amazon reportedly expects that consumers will use it for shopping advice, as with its Rufus assistant.
Upgraded home automation capability is said to be a priority too. According to the report, Remarkable Alexa may be able to gain a deeper understanding of user preferences, so it might learn to turn on the TV to a specific show. It may also learn to turn on the coffee machine when your alarm clock goes off (though it's already very easy to set this up through existing smart home systems).
Alexa has long been an unprofitable endeavor for Amazon — late last year, it laid off several hundred people who were working on the voice assistant. It's not a huge surprise that the company would try to generate more revenue from Remarkable Alexa (which, it's claimed, won't be offered as a Prime benefit). Users might need to buy new devices with more powerful tech inside so that Remarkable Alexa can run on them properly.
In any case, $10 (or even $5) per month for an upgraded voice assistant seems like a hard sell, especially when the current free version of Alexa can already handle a wide array of tasks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-reportedly-thinks-people-will-pay-up-to-10-per-month-for-next-gen-alexa-152205672.html?src=rss
One of my favorite PC trends has been the explosion of gaming handhelds. Even after big names like ASUS and Lenovo entered the market last year with the ROG Ally and Legion Go, more manufacturers continue to join the fray. But with the Claw A1M, MSI is taking the road less traveled by opting for an Intel chip instead of something from AMD. And that has made all the difference, even if many of those changes are not for the better.
Design and display - Straightforward but effective
While MSI may have zagged with the Claw’s processor, its design is incredibly familiar. That’s because aside from being black instead of white, it almost looks like a carbon copy of the ROG Ally. That said, a few subtle changes have a bit of an impact. The Claw’s grips are more pronounced, so it’s more comfortable to hold, while its rear paddles are smaller and located a bit further down so there’s less of a chance you press them by accident.
MSI also opted for Hall effect joysticks, so they are a touch more precise and should wear better over time. However, the springs inside are rather light, so they don’t feel quite as tight as I typically prefer. Unfortunately, while its triggers are nice, the Claw’s bumpers are a bit too spongy.
Meanwhile, nearly the entire rear panel on the Claw is vented to provide ample room for cooling. And along the top there’s a built-in microSD card reader, 3.5mm audio jack, a volume rocker and a single USB-C port with support for Thunderbolt 4. That last one is a very nice inclusion as it's fast enough to hook up peripherals like an external GPU dock. I just wish there were two of them so I had a spare slot for accessories.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Of course, in the middle there’s a 7-inch 1080p IPS LCD display. It’s relatively colorful and with a tested brightness of around 450 nits, it’s easy to view even in sunnier rooms (though direct sunlight is still an issue). However, aside from a 120Hz refresh rate, there’s not much else going on. There’s no variable refresh rate to help reduce tearing in more modern games and it can’t match the size or more saturated hues of the Legion Go’s 8.8-inch OLED panel. And while this isn’t really a design consideration, with the Claw priced at $750, I wish MSI shipped it with an included case like Lenovo does with the Legion.
Performance - Keeping up, but just barely
Here’s where things get a bit tricky, because at least on paper, the Claw is pretty well-equipped. Our review unit features an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU with Arc graphics, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. There is also a less expensive model with an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H chip and a 512GB SSD. Unfortunately, the Claw’s real-world performance lags behind MSI’s claims and rival handhelds. Back at CES 2024, MSI touted that the Claw would be 20 to 25 percent faster than AMD-based alternatives. But no matter what I do or how much time I spend tweaking settings, I simply can’t produce numbers anywhere in that ballpark.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1280 x 720, high graphics and in Balanced Mode (30 watts), the Claw hit 52 fps, which is slightly behind the 54 fps I got from the ROG Ally at just 15 watts. To make matters a bit worse, those numbers didn’t improve much when I switched to the Claw’s 35-watt Extreme Performance setting, which only bumped the framerate up to 59 fps compared to 60 fps for the Ally when set to 25 watts. So despite running at a higher TDP (total device power), the Claw is just barely keeping up.
It’s a similar story in other titles too. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 720p on medium graphics, the Claw hit 50 fps in Balanced mode, which is the same as the Ally. Finally, in Returnal at 720p on medium, it was essentially a tie again with the Claw hitting 32 fps versus 33 fps for the Ally. Overall, the Claw’s performance isn’t bad, but it’s not as prodigious as MSI promised.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
The underlying issue seems to be the Claw’s optimization and graphics drivers. I’ve been using the Claw for about a month, and in that time it’s gotten a ton of updates including two or three BIOS flashes and a seemingly endless number of new graphics drivers. There was even one in late May that boosted performance by as much as 30 percent in some titles. So just imagine how rough performance was at launch earlier this spring.
In some respects, this level of support is reassuring because it shows Intel’s commitment to improving the graphics on its latest chips. That said, the Claw has been on the market since as early as April depending on the market, so it clearly wasn’t ready at launch and its performance continues to be a work in progress.
Battery life - Nothing special
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
With a 53Wh cell, there was hope the Claw could provide significantly longer runtimes than the Ally and its smaller 40Wh power pack. But because of the Claw’s higher TDP, the difference in real-world longevity isn’t quite as pronounced. When I played Diablo IV on medium graphics, the Claw lasted an hour and 43 minutes, which is 12 minutes better than the Ally’s time of 1:31, but more than 20 minutes less than the Steam Deck’s mark of 2:07.
Software - Clunky at best
One of the biggest issues with Windows-based handhelds is that while they are great for gaming, doing anything else without an external mouse or keyboard can be a chore. Windows 11 generally works as you’d expect, but the MSI Center app feels much less polished. Similar to ASUS’ Armoury Crate, MSI Center is meant to be a one-stop shop for launching games, tweaking settings and downloading updates. And while it works, it just feels clunky. The app often stutters when you open it and I ran into a couple of instances when patches stalled while trying to update software.
Wrap-up
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Ultimately, timing may be the Claw’s biggest enemy. If it had come out last year when the ROG Ally and Legion Go hit the market, the Claw may have been a more interesting rival. But ASUS is about to release a successor to the Ally – the Ally X – next month with a completely redesigned chassis, 24GB of RAM and a huge 80Wh battery. That leaves the Claw in a really tight spot. And our top-spec review unit costs $750, which is $100 to $200 more than an equivalent ROG Ally (albeit with half the storage) and has basically the same performance and an almost identical design.
Meanwhile, thanks to recent price cuts, the Claw is also more expensive than the Legion Go, but doesn’t have the OLED screen, kickstand and detachable controllers found in Lenovo’s handheld. This doesn’t even factor in Intel’s drivers, which clearly weren’t ready at launch and even now after multiple updates, don’t offer a significant advantage in performance. But the Claw’s biggest opponent may be MSI itself, because while we’re still waiting on an official release date, the company has already announced a successor in the Claw 8 AI+. The Claw isn’t a bad handheld gaming PC; it just arrived too late and without the tuning it needed.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/msi-claw-a1m-review-a-touch-late-and-bit-too-pricey-143009327.html?src=rss
I’ve always been a PC guy, even when other content creators were waving MacBooks around. I’ll state up front that I don’t game, so everything I do on a laptop revolves around video editing. To handle that, I use a high-end desktop Windows machine at home and up till recently had a Gigabyte Aero 15X laptop for video editing on the go.
Then, the Aero 15X died. The keyboard stopped working and the Thunderbolt 3 port failed. I didn’t even really mourn the loss — it was always noisy and hot. Battery life was never great, and to do any serious video work, I had to plug it in with a comically large and heavy power brick.
It was time for a new laptop, but I had no intention of reliving my Gigabyte experience. Instead, I wanted to find the best laptop for image and video editing — a lightweight, powerful and cool computer with long battery life. I needed to edit 4K video on DaVinci Resolve while doing color correction, as well as adding effects and titles. I also do RAW photo editing, so I’d be using Photoshop and Lightroom regularly, too.
I eyed a MacBook Pro M3, but figured it would be too expensive. After checking, I was surprised to find that the gap between the price of a new MacBook Pro and a Windows laptop with similar performance has been less since Apple started using its own Silicon.
So I made the leap and purchased a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro chip (12-core CPU and 18-core GPU), 36GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. From what I’d read, that would be enough to handle challenging edits. I paid $3,100 in Canada including taxes, with the same machine selling for about $200 less in the US.
Steve Dent for Engadget
I put my new MacBook to work right away when I created a video review of the Nikon Z8 while in Vancouver. Later, I edited a review of the Fujifilm X100 VI in London and did a hands-on video for Panasonic’s S9 camera from Japan. Those projects gave me a good feel for the MacBook’s performance, battery life and usability while on the road.
Back at home, I was curious to compare the MacBook to my desktop PC. While not state-of-the-art, the latter still has impressive specs with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-core CPU, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti GPU and 64GB of RAM. To that end, I expected the two machines to be relatively competitive, performance-wise.
I use mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS R6 II and Panasonic’s S5 II, which output up to 6K 10-bit 4:2:2 Log H.264 or H.265 Quicktime files. Those formats usually tax a computer’s processor and GPU, so I wasn’t expecting real-time playback.
However, I noticed that I could smoothly play those video files in DaVinci Resolve on my MacBook Pro with no rendering or conversion required. I can’t do that on my well-specced desktop PC, so what was going on?
It turns out that even recent NVIDIA and AMD GPUs can’t decode many of those commonly used formats in real time, as systems integrator and benchmark specialist Puget Systems revealed recently. It is doable with some of the formats (not H.264) on newer Intel CPUs with Quick Sync tech on DaVinci Resolve 18 Studio or later.
Real-time playback of 8K H.265 files with multiple color correction nodes? No problem.
Steve Dent for Engadget
The ability to edit these files straight out of the camera was a major quality-of-life improvement, as it eliminated a time- and storage-wasting step.
I also saw real-time playback on my Mac in most circumstances with no rendering. That includes sequences with 6K and 8K video, color correction on most clips, titles, multiple layers, optical-flow time-warping and stabilization.
In contrast, my high-end desktop PC not only requires me to convert my video files but also to enable timeline rendering, particularly with 6K or 8K video. Both of those things take up time and can consume hundreds of gigabytes of disc space.
While the MacBook felt fast, I also wanted to see how it compared to my Windows machine more objectively. I used the PugetBench Creator benchmark suite, which compares performance between machines on commonly used creator apps like Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve.
Considering my PC didn’t perform as well for video-editing, the results surprised me. The MacBook Pro M3 did come out on top in Photoshop tests, garnering an overall score of 10,076 compared to 7,599 for my desktop PC. That’s largely due to the superior M3 processor.
Steve Dent for Engadget
However, my PC out-benchmarked the MacBook Pro for video-editing by a pretty wide margin, thanks to its faster GPU. The Apple machine saw an overall score of 4,754 on the Premiere Pro PugetBench tests in high power mode, while my PC hit 8,763.
There are no public PugetBench tests yet for DaVinci Resolve, but Puget Systems’ own scores show that high-end PCs handily outperform high-end MacBook Pro models on that app. The PC is generally better when working with RAW formats and easily beats the MacBook Pro for GPU effects, AI features and encoding to H.264 and H.265 formats.
These results show that benchmarks don't paint a full picture. The relative power of a computer depends on what you’re doing with it, and in my case, the ability to edit certain video formats without rendering outweighed pure speed. However, people who use more effects or work with ProRes or RAW formats may be better off with a powerful PC.
All that said, a lot of the stuff I hated about my Windows laptop had nothing to do with performance. I was often annoyed by my Aero 15X’s weight (if you include the power brick), heat, noise, build quality and relatively useless trackpad.
Since I bought the MacBook Pro 16, I’ve never felt it get overly hot and the fans rarely kick in, even while editing video. By contrast, there’s not a single Windows creator PC I’ve heard of that doesn’t generate excessive heat and fan noise under intensive loads.
Add a second display like this Ricoh portable 150BW model
Steve Dent for Engadget
Another major bonus with the MacBook is that it offers the same performance whether plugged in or not, but the same can’t be said for most PCs. Many throttle down when unplugged, substantially reducing performance.
If you need to edit on the go and don’t have access to AC power, the MacBook wins here as well. While editing on DaVinci Resolve, it can go three to four hours on battery power alone, triple what my Gigabyte laptop could do. And it takes the MacBook Pro just 1.5 hours to get to a full charge, compared to around 2 hours minimum for Dell’s XPS 17 9730. It charges considerably faster, as well.
It’s also less of a grunt to lug than my Aero was, as it weighs a less and the charger is much lighter, too. Finally, the trackpad is much better, to the point that I can even edit videos without a mouse, something I could never say with the Aero or any other PC laptop I’ve owned.
While I have my quibbles — I dislike the webcam notch, for instance — I've otherwise found the MacBook Pro 16 M3 to be nearly perfect. As it stands now, Windows laptops using Intel and AMD silicon might be able to match it in performance, but they lag far behind in efficiency. That may change with the new Qualcomm laptops or NVIDIA’s upcoming 5000-series GPUs, but for now, Apple’s products are hard to beat for traveling content creators like me.
Update June 24, 2023: The article has been corrected to state that the Gigabyte Aero 15x has a Thunderbolt 3 port, not a Lightning port.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-latest-macbook-pro-beats-my-high-end-pc-for-content-creation-130053351.html?src=rss
Anker makes our pick for the best budget-friendly earbuds in the form of the Soundcore Space A40. That model is now an even more enticing proposition, as has it dropped to an all-time-low price. You can pick up the Anker Soundcore Space A40 now for $40. The earbuds usually cost $80, so you're saving $31.
Given that the Space A40 boasts features you'd find in earbuds that are twice as expensive, we already felt that they offered great value, so this is a pretty solid deal. The earbuds are light, and we reckon they should be comfortable to wear for extended periods. You won't hear as much detail as you would get from higher-end options, but that's to be expected. What you will get is an all-round warm sound profile that does a decent job at the lower end.
You'll be able to adjust the EQ settings in the Soundcore app if you wish to put more onus on the bass or high end. You can also customize the touch controls through the app.
In terms of durability, these earbuds have an IPX4 rating for water resistance, which is at least enough to protect them from everyday sweat and light rain. It's possible to connect them to two devices at the same time and you can use each earbud independently. The battery life isn't bad either as the buds will run for around eight hours before you have to plop them back into the charging case (which has wireless charging support and can top up the earbuds with another 40 hours or so of listening time).
The best feature of the Space A40 though is the active noise cancellation (ANC), which delivers great performance for earbuds at this price. There's adaptive ANC tech that adjusts the intensity of the noise cancellation based on your surroundings, though it won't block out higher pitched sounds completely. You can adjust the ANC level manually too. There's also a transparency mode, which is decent enough.
While phone calls are viable with these earbuds, the mic quality isn't terrific. The lack of auto-pausing when you remove an earbud is a disappointment too. Still, those are relatively minor complaints for a set of earbuds that are otherwise great value.
The Apple AirTag is our pick for the best Bluetooth tracker for iPhone users and there’s some good news if you’ve been waiting for a solid deal before picking up a few of them. A four-pack of AirTags is currently on sale. You can snap up the bundle for $80. That’s a discount of $19 and it’s just $5 or so more than the lowest price we’ve ever seen for the four-pack.
One great thing about AirTags is that they’re integrated into Apple’s ecosystem right off the bat. It works with the Find My app on Apple devices, so you don’t need to download an additional app. Just pair it with your iPhone (a very straightforward process) and you’re good to go.
AirTags can tap into a vast network of connected devices thanks to the large number of iPhones that are out in the wild. So if you misplace an item that has an AirTag attached, all it takes is for someone with an iPhone to be close by and it will pop up in Find My. Also, once you move around 1,200 feet away from an AirTag, you’ll likely receive a left-behind alert, just to make sure you didn’t accidentally leave something behind. (You can turn off these alerts for certain trackers and set up exceptions for them at locations like your home and office.)
If you have an iPhone with an ultra-wide band (UWB) chip — an iPhone 11 or later, but not SE models — it can point you in the right direction of an AirTag with directional arrows and a distance meter when you’re within 25 feet. This is handy if you struggle to hear the chirp of an AirTag (it has the quietest ring of any tracker we’ve tested) or the disc is obscured from view.
The AirTag is fairly rugged thanks to its IP67 rating for water and dust resistance. It has a replaceable battery too, unlike some rival trackers.
On the downside, the audible ring only lasts for seven seconds when you press the play button, so you might miss it. There’s no built-in attachment point, so if you want to put an AirTag on your keys, for instance, you’ll need to buy an accessory.
The Apple Pencil Pro is currently on sale for $119 on Amazon, or $10 lower than its original price. While that's not a massive discount, it's the first time the new iPad accessory has gone on sale since it came out in mid-May. If you've been looking to get the model as soon as possible, this is a great chance to at least get it at a lower price than usual. The Apple Pencil Pro comes equipped with a sensor that can recognize squeezes, which can bring up tool palettes, activate shortcuts and do other actions. A haptic engine then delivers tangible feedback to serve as confirmation for each gesture and action you perform. You can also change the orientation of the shaped pen and brush tool by rotating the barrel of the stylus.
The Apple Pencil lineup can be a bit confusing, seeing as you now have four models to choose from that work with different iPad models. Apple's Pencil Pro works with latest iPads, namely the 11- and 13-inch iPad Air (M2), and the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro (M4), so it's the one to get if you're also buying one of the company's newest tablets. To note, the new stylus retains the second-gen Pencil's shape and matte finish, though it's a bit lighter. And it still pairs and charges magnetically with compatible iPads. In addition, the new Apple Pencil works with the company's Find My network. If it's not attached to an iPad, and you misplace it, you can simply log into Apple's Find My and track it down.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-new-apple-pencil-pro-is-on-sale-for-the-first-time-since-launch-113052630.html?src=rss
It's been a quiet week of news, but we've been feverishly testing Microsoft's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop Copilot+ AI PCs. In this episode, Devindra and Sam will answer your questions about Microsoft’s new hardware, and we'll deliver some of our first impressions. It turns out Microsoft may have finally gotten Windows on Arm support right! And some of the Copilot+ AI features are actually useful, surprisingly enough. But we'll have to wait a few months to test out the controversial Recall feature, which was pulled from the Copilot+ launch.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Topics
Dev and Sam’s first thoughts and an AMA on the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop Copilot+ AI PCs – 1:05
News from Nintendo direct: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Mario, and finally, Metroid Prime 4 – 25:46
Former OpenAI chief scientist launches Safe Superintelligence, inc – 35:02
Wired report: AI search engine Perplexity is ignoring robots.txt guidelines – 37:36
Listener question: What do you do with 8 gig fiber home internet? – 41:08
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Sam Rutherford Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Transcript
Devindra: [00:00:00] What's up, Internet, and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar. Joining me today is Senior Writer from Engadget, Sam Rutherford. Hey, Sam. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing okay because we finally have some Copilot Plus PCs. Sam has the Surface Laptop, I have the Surface Pro.
And we've just started testing these things. They came in late and we're just like trying to get Arubia as quickly as we can for both of us, but we've got some impressions here. We're going to be taking some questions from our live stream. So that's the first step, a special episode for us.
Cause it's a pretty light news week, but yeah, if you join us Thursday mornings, around 10 30 AM Eastern on our YouTube channel. You too can participate and ask us questions. See us show off some gadgets. We'll show off some stuff live from the Surface Pro. So if you're listening to this in audio form, go back and watch the video, cause you can actually see us test out some features and show off the hardware too.
As always folks, if you're enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice, leave us a review in iTunes. That's always super helpful and drop us [00:01:00]an email at podcast at engadget. com. Question for you, Sam, what was your first impression upon tearing open the Surface Laptop?
Sam: Right away I think it's good they didn't mess with the design. The design was never the issue for the Surfaces, they're, very beautifully crafted. And, opening up and this is going to sound like silly, but it's it functioned exactly like a windows 11 laptop is supposed to.
It just works. Yeah. Yeah. It just worked. And that was like, Hey, this is actually an improvement from, previous attempts at windows on arm right away. It seems like they, Microsoft has nailed all the important aspects. Battery life so far seems very good. Performance is very smooth.
I'm still wanting to test, how far you can push it, but what Qualcomm has been saying about the Snapdragon X elite chip. It seems a lot more believable. I have, a lot more faith in this new chip than previous, the 8cx versions of that. And yeah, it seems like maybe Microsoft and Qualcomm had really put it all together for, this new attempt at really [00:02:00] pushing Windows on ARM.
Devindra: I feel the same way, right? Like I just got done basically doing a quick review of the Surface Pro 10 for business, which is Was just a straight up chip upgrade over the Surface Pro 9 stuff. And I was reminded, I like the way the Surface Pro feels, but there's so many things that annoy me about it.
Like the kickstand and everything that's all still here on the new Surface Pro, but there are a few things that make this whole experience a lot better. First of all, you feel that this chipset, I have the Snapdragon X Elite in mind, is just fast. It feels like when I first started testing the M series MacBooks, like the MacBook Air and the first MacBook Pros that had it.
Everything is fast. Everything is zippy. It boots up quickly. It certainly wakes up from sleep almost instantly. Which is nice. Battery life looks really good. And I think mostly coming I feel so burned, Sam, having reviewed the Surface Pro 9 with 5G with that weird, like the 8CX chip. Or even the
Sam: Surface Pro X before that was supposed to be like a really big coming out.
And that thing did not deliver.
Devindra: The Surface Pro X, you should go back, check out Sherilyn's review of that thing. But that was like [00:03:00] Microsoft's big design push. Hey, we have thinner bezels. We have a thinner machine running on this ARM chip. But it was a disaster. Because for years, Microsoft has done a bad job of making Windows actually work well on ARM and the chips themselves weren't that fast to I did you ever play with the Surface RT, Sam?
The first Surface they ever launched? Yeah. That I remember after the launch event, like this seemed like a really cool idea, kickstand hybrid tablet laptop PC, but the Surface RT was a disaster because it ran a really limited version of Windows RT. And the app ecosystem
Sam: wasn't there.
There was no
Devindra: app ecosystem, right? It couldn't run any older apps. There was no emulation. There wasn't even emulation. I think when the surface pro X launched and then they eventually added that, but it wasn't very good. Like even with the the last pro nine, five G everything felt slow. Even running Chrome felt crummy.
Like you could feel the
Sam: system crawl. If you were doing something, it wasn't native to arm.
Devindra: It just felt like I'm using a bad, slow computer. And worst of all, for that computer, you also have to pay like an extra 300, 400 bucks to get it over the typical surface pro. So [00:04:00] good news, this surface pro works really well.
The Hardaware is still good. Like I'm still amazed what they can fit into the surface, the size of a surface case, because it's a full PC, it's, it feels more impressive to me than even what Apple can do with an iPad or something, because those are, I guess now it's the same because this is a mobile chip too.
But. Just Hardaware wise, it still feels more impressive to me. And the thing, I think what I noticed, Sam is like none of the AI features feel like the actual things I'm loving about this machine. It's more that it's fast. It's running all the apps I'm used to. I don't really have to deal with much incompatibility.
There is some though, like you noticed League does launch at all.
Sam: Yeah. One of the, I play, League of Legends with my wife pretty frequently. So that's one of the first things I tried installing. And it's really frustrating because you can go through, you can install League just fine.
It installs normally, even though it's definitely not an ARM native game. And then when you try to actually play, you [00:05:00] can't. And it's not because League itself doesn't run. It's because Riot's anti cheat system, Vanguard, needs kernel level support. So they asked you, hey, go restart your system so it can install the Riot anti cheat.
And. You restart it and then you can go play and it tells you to restart the thing because the anti cheat doesn't work. They
Devindra: can't touch this kernel
Sam: basically. And it's so frustrating because this is more of a like a sad situation for riot than Microsoft, because they, and they implemented the system within the last two or three months.
And so it's like they implemented the system. It doesn't support the new chip architecture. And so you have a system that has enough power to run it. It should run great, and even in emulation, it should be just fine, but because of Riot's anti cheat system, it doesn't work, and this is actually something that, a lot of games with anti cheat protocols are gonna suffer from more of your competitive games I think you mentioned Fortnite doesn't quite work right either?
Fortnite
Devindra: doesn't work at all Sam, there was a story yesterday [00:06:00]from the Wall Street Journal that Samsung put a warning up on its website about Copilot Plus PCs, that Fortnite won't even launch. But this was a known thing. Fortnite does not support ARM processors on Windows because you have to run it through the Epic launcher and it's also using anti cheat and it doesn't even try to launch.
It's just Hey, we don't support Windows on ARM. Sorry. So that's a big deal. Certainly for people who play those games, that stuff can be updated. Like those developers maybe Epic will. Play nice with this stuff eventually, but there were also reports that some Adobe apps also don't launch.
So there is still some of that, but I think at least from my typical workflow I was launching like most of the apps I use really it's only Evernote is the one that's emulated from X 86, everything else, like Spotify, Slack, and all those. Yep.
Sam: The big apps, even, Photoshop, Lightroom, those are supported.
All of your major stuff just seems to play pretty nicely, and even when it's not native, it still seems to run pretty fast.
Devindra: It feels pretty good. And I did try out some of the AI features as well. The big one, of course, recall [00:07:00] was recalled by Microsoft because of glaring security holes that everybody questioned them about.
And that's the reason why
Sam: we're playing catch up on the reviews is that they, they made some changes to recall. It's now only gonna be available if you're a windows insider I believe is what, at least initially. And so that's
Devindra: from now too. It's not even soon. Yeah.
Yeah. We have not had a chance to test recall. I did see the hands on stuff with it and it looked fine, but that security stuff. It's like what we were talking about with Apple's intelligence. All those announcements like Apple at least thought a little harder about privacy and actual concerns people would have that security professionals would have.
And Microsoft just like totally, they were just like empty brain over here, like with a lot of these potential issues. So I did try out the co create feature, which I'll demo on the live stream in a bit. Which where you can do a little doodle and then type some text and it'll make some images for you.
It's fine. Like it's the images aren't that great. Honestly, it's not as GPT. And I'm still left with the questions. What the hell do I do with this thing? It's not like [00:08:00] the Genmoji stuff that Apple is showing off where you're like, Oh, you can make a fun thing based on a friend's face and have a yeast for it.
It's just like a crummy AI picture. Okay, fine.
Sam: To me, it feels like more of a bonus. And there's all, there's some weird situations where there's a new feature called image creator. And it's available in paint, but if I go and look at it in paint, I'm looking at it right now. It doesn't work. It doesn't work for me.
It doesn't work. And then there's also like a counter, like you can only use so many prompts and I'm seeing that go down, but I'm pressing it and the results are weird. But the, it, the funny thing is that if you go into the photos app, there's also a tab for image creator and it works way better in the photos app than it doesn't paint, which is and it doesn't seem to be like there's a token limit for the version in photos.
And so it's all there's some weird just like incongruities where you have the same thing. It's got the same name, but they work differently depending on which app you're using it in. And that's a little weird.
Devindra: That's a clear, like a sign that this is all coming in hot. And then Microsoft was really working on this stuff very recently.
[00:09:00] And to Microsoft's credit, like there
Sam: is a big, like yellow preview tag on the button. Sure. So yes, it's very clear that this is still like a, work in progress.
Devindra: It's just, it's a weird thing to see on like shipping Hardaware. Like it's like the Gmail beta label, which was, and Google did that for a lot of its products.
Hey there may be issues, but we were testing out some new stuff here in Windows. It feels like a bit of a cop out, I guess if it worked better, I'd have less of a problem with it. The one I really liked, I don't know if you've tried live captions yet, Sam, but that is a really cool feature where once you enable it, your computer will just say, basically caption any video that's playing and in many cases translate.
Language to English. The translation stuff is okay. It's it reads like bad subtitles to me. Cause I was playing some anime videos and like comparing subtitles to the like incoming translation and it was really messy at times. It's not like a miracle product, but it is cool. It's really for people with hearing impairments.
I do think that'll be a really, and you can
Sam: often get just enough from those transcriptions or other translations [00:10:00]that you can at least understand what's going on. It's not going to be super elegant, you're getting the basics down, mostly correct.
Devindra: Yeah. So I'm working on my review of this thing.
I've tried Oh, I did one benchmark that I was able to run. I don't know if you saw the score, Sam. But can you pop over to our benchmark database? Just look at the score I put down for the, for PCMark10 on this thing. And tell me what you think about that.
Sam: If that's the case, that's double pretty much anything else that we've tested recently.
Or maybe not between 50 percent and double double the score.
Devindra: The score is 12, 615 points in PCMark10. The fastest PC I've seen this year, which was the framework Laptop 16, which ran a really hot rise chip was 8,129. So this Surface Pro got a higher PC Mark 10 score than any laptop we've seen this year and by a significant margin by over 50%.
That's wild. I did double check like Qualcomm's what they were expecting from when they initially announced the Snap drug and [00:11:00] next leap. Yeah. And that's that's pretty on target for what they were in. That's insane to have that come out of the super thin laptop tablet hybrid.
I'd love to see you glad that like
Sam: those numbers are living up to the claims because that was the big thing is like Qualcomm was talking a huge game about, Hey, we have these new Orion architecture, we bought a company a couple years ago to completely read change how we build laptop chips for arm.
And so it's really good to see, Hey, Qualcomm did it.
Devindra: They totally did. What was the name of the company that they bought? Was it it wasn't Nuvia. I think Nuvia. Nuvia sounds right. Yeah. I'm trying to look it up now, but yeah, that was a big deal for them because it felt like they were also really limited by what ARM was giving them.
And Nuvia, I believe also comes from some like Apple Silicon former Apple Silicon engineers. So like some of that ingenuity that went into the A series chips and the early M series chips is also. happening over here and you can feel it. It's one of those things where it's as [00:12:00] soon as you like, start this thing up and start poking around, like it just feels fast.
So this isn't just synthetic benchmarks, like being blown up. So I'm excited by this. Yeah. I
Sam: can't confirm it was Nuvia and that acquisition was finalized back in 2021. Hasn't been that long from, That acquisition to okay coming out with a retail product.
Devindra: So early impressions, very good, very fast, good benches.
Also I'll mention this quickly. I got the surface flex keyboard with this and that's the one where you can actually remove it from the surface pro and still like type wirelessly. And that does alleviate. Some of my problems with working with the surface pro in general, like it's I'm so tired of having the kickstand on my lap because I have dents on my legs from testing so many services and it's uncomfortable.
It doesn't. It's not a great typing experience, but putting the surface on a table and having the keyboard in my lap. I was doing that yesterday. It just felt like it felt comfortable. Life changing, and something you can do with tablets already. That's not exactly a new thing, but to have that capability, [00:13:00] like baked into the surface, that's nice.
I wish this keyboard were cheaper. I believe it's 350. So like it is the price of the base iPad. And that doesn't include the
Sam: pen. If you want the pen, you're looking at 450 ish.
Devindra: As always, this stuff is way too expensive for Microsoft and they should just put it together. Especially now, because there is no tablet mode in Windows 11.
I was trying to hook around to find it and they basically just gave up on that. It is really weird to sell a Surface as a tablet, not include a keyboard, and then be like it's a full PC, right? It's a PC tablet. Except even you don't support tablet software very much or very well anymore.
But anyway, my first impressions are good. Anything else you want to add about the Surface laptop, Sam?
Sam: No, I'm just, really excited to see how Microsoft can take it from there and how, the big issue is that like a lot of companies, weren't supporting ARM the way that it really needed to be, at least from a consumer side.
So I'm really interested to see how that Hey, we have the Hardaware. We have great devices. Now, how are developers going to respond to supporting arm on windows? Because [00:14:00]Microsoft doesn't really have that like iron clad thing that Apple does was like, Hey, we are changing architectures, you do this, or we're not going to support you.
And In some ways that makes, Apple had a much cleaner transition because they have that iron hand on the ecosystem. Whereas, Microsoft is a little bit, less pushy when it comes to, these big transitions.
Devindra: Yeah. We've talked about this before. Like Apple, Apple is such a, it's a tight ship that runs the software.
The Hardaware has a full chain and also now the processor is they go wherever they want to go and everybody has to follow them. Whereas Microsoft is okay, guys, are we gonna, what's, what do you got today? Arm? You got these chips and then what can we do to get you
Sam: on board?
Devindra: Yeah. And then okay, who's going to build machines for Oh, only surface, only our surface team are making chips or laptops with these systems.
Okay. Windows software side. Are you ready to support this? They shrug their shoulders. So like it is so many. So many things have to align for this to work really well on the PC side. And I think four years after Apple Silicon debuted, it seems like we're [00:15:00]there. I've also seen the reviews of the the Asus Copilot Plus PC that seemed to be pretty impressive.
I'm hoping to get like, yeah, one of us will get our hands on that soon. The Dell the XPS 13, I want to see like how this kind of transforms how that thing works. So good news so far, all signs point to this being a very good thing. I do feel bad for people who bought the first batch of AI PCs from Intel and from from AMD too.
I've talked to Microsoft people. They said some of these features may eventually trickle down to those systems, which has much slower MPUs, but we don't know yet. Like stuff is in flux. You will, everybody gets Windows Studio effects, which is the cool background features. You may get some acceleration on older AI PCs in Adobe apps or whatever.
So there is some benefit, but. If you held off on buying a PC, now is the time to jump in because the Copile Plus stuff seems very good. Maybe not for a high end production machine yet, but for a really great ultra portable that you can take anywhere, certainly something like the Surface Pro or Surface Laptop, it's a good [00:16:00] sign.
Let's take some questions from the audience. Hello, folks. Podcast producer Ben is here, and I'm sure you've been looking at questions, and what are people thinking about these devices?
Ben: Yeah, so hey, everybody. There are a few questions. One of the big ones from Simon B. is, how do you guys feel about the reward system with the Edge browser?
Devindra: Oh, I saw that question. I don't, I'm not into any of that stuff. I don't know. I've seen people get like some trinkets or something like Xbox has had some rewards things for a while. The micro being and the Microsoft accounts have had some reward things. It just feels like they are just bribing you to use these services.
I don't care about the rewards. Have you touched them at all, Sam?
Sam: Yeah, it's and Google does this too. There's like an Android rewards thing that I, would. And it's it's good if you have it's more of a discipline thing where it's do you have 30 seconds out of your day to go do these like very simple prompts?
And then you can get, some, imaginary points. And then maybe in a year or two, you have enough points is like buy an app or something.
Devindra: You get some free labor from kids basically in teenagers. Yeah.
Sam: If you have the drive to [00:17:00] do that every day, that's cool. It's just something that like, I don't think about it unless I like, open up bing and I get the little prompt and I'll go do it.
It takes 10 seconds. Usually but
Ben: it feels a bit like When I was in elementary school and saving the like little cut out things from the back of my chip bag It's the internet version of that chester cheeto hat or something
Devindra: I remember I would try to I cut out a serial barcode to get like a batman frisbee after the first batman You I forgot my frisbee.
I'm still sad about it to this day.
Sam: Now, one thing I do think is interesting is that both of the new Microsoft machines have fans, as far as I know, which kind of puts it in a different category in terms of a pure MacBook Air rival, which in some ways, like I kind of respect that because If you were just like doing basic stuff, MacBook air is great, we've heard reports about, Hey, you go outside and the sun's beating down on the laptop and the laptop has no way to cool itself and so it'll shut down because it's [00:18:00] overheating.
So I'm like, I don't mind the fan. Yeah. Yeah. In theory, like the idea of a completely fanless machine is great because it's silent and less moving parts to worry about, but I think it's like a general work machine. I think having that on there. It is good. So I'm, that's one thing I like to work outside.
Devindra: Yeah. Like I do use, I've used the MacBook airs all over, but certainly I think it was like last year when I went to WWDC and you're just, you're outside and the sun is on you and it just starts to get a little freaky having a little fan in there that can kick in is nice. I will tell you all I was installing like three games at once.
So like sucking down maybe. 500 gigabytes or no, three to 400 gigabytes of like data all at once. And yeah, the surface got toasty. Like the fan kicked in. It wasn't super loud, but it was like, I am working here. I'm working to get all this stuff in quickly. And it did load pretty quickly. But
Ben: remind me again, was this in the sun or a bit
Devindra: outside and a bit inside, but basically once I got inside and was like next to my router, like it was just like sucking in data.
The SSD was doing a lot of work, the wireless chipset was doing a lot of work, and I could [00:19:00] hear the fan. It wasn't, it was noticeable, but it wasn't like noisy or loud or anything. It was just like a pleasant hum. Any other questions we want to tackle?
Ben: So DudeNameCharlie said rewards for your data in relation to reward system for Edge browser Dom Larry said here in Australia, the flex keyboard and pen is 7.
99 AUD. Don't do it! Australia,
Sam: I'm
Ben: so sorry.
Sam: Australia gets screwed so badly on pricing. Australia
Ben: gets extremely screwed because everything needs to get there on a boat.
Devindra: That's unfortunately, plus you have giant bugs and crazy wild animals, so I'm sorry Australia. And roving bands of marauders I've seen.
At least from what the Mad Max movie said.
Ben: Then we have like Chirag Arora who says, can we run Ableton? What do you think? Can we do a quick Google to see? I'm not a music guy. So that is not something I thought of. Released a like Ableton on arm situation. Because I imagine that.
They've already done this for the M1 chips. And [00:20:00] so would it be that you got to rebuild for windows?
Devindra: Like it's a whole thing. Yeah, it is a whole thing.
Sam: While you're looking that up, Mark was asking he was having issues on could install certain game pass games. There is no game pass.
Devindra: Computers because if you launch the Xbox app, it just shows you cloud streaming. That's weird.
Sam: And for and so you've got to look at two things. It's like the game streaming works just fine. And then if you download games from like the window store it looks like Microsoft, from what I can tell is doing a better job of labeling which games are and are not supported.
Unfortunately a lot of them are not, you will go in and you will see some games that are, so that's one thing I want to dive into more and see what's the percentage of like games that like, hey, work fine or just be, just don't run at all.
Devindra: I was thinking they were just blocking entirely.
Cause when I launched the Xbox app, that's normally where I go to look at game pass releases, there's no game pass section at all on these systems. It's just cloud streaming. But if you go through the store, yeah, you should technically the general
Sam: Microsoft store. It's a, you get a little bit different [00:21:00]information.
Devindra: I did. So I installed steam and I got a couple of games going. I have not been able to play anything yet, but I did run 3d mark a couple of times and actually. I have the the stats on that too. And 3dMark, look, it's fine. It's better than the Intel XE stuff has been running 3dMark Wildlife Extreme.
I got a score of 6, 430, which was on par with the HP Spectre X360 16, a 16 inch computer, so it was faster than that one. Faster than a lot of the Intel Arc graphics we've seen this year. Certainly not as fast as Nvidia stuff. Impressive for a system of this size and this slim.
Ben: Yeah, Jonathan Anderson says, let me know when this silly game pass thing comes to Nintendo until then Zelda. We'll get to that, actually. And Simon B has another question, which is there a cloud streaming that's any good from Microsoft? Yeah,
Devindra: really? The Xbox cloud streaming, which I think some of the best cloud streaming, to be honest.
Sam: And so this almost makes you wonder is this part of Microsoft strategy? Because, Hey, [00:22:00] they've been pushing, cloud streaming for a long time. And, and the cloud streaming works just fine. And so maybe this is their solution to Hey, you want a game. If you pay us a little bit extra money, you can, you can play all your games in the cloud.
Devindra: I think, that's part of, that's been part of the pitch for a while, but I don't think cause there have been reports that the cloud network has also been like slow to launch and stuff for people. So maybe they're, they don't want it to get too popular, but yeah, like the ability to just sit down and play a game on any laptop, as long as you can log into a web browser is fantastic and is a good thing with a system like this where you don't want all that Hardaware.
Maybe inside your laptop. But you have good internet and you want to play some games. I could see that being a thing.
Ben: Yeah. Lord Buckethead asks, does Doom run? If you can stream it, then yes, of course Doom runs.
Devindra: Anything can run. If you stream it, anything is possible.
Ben: That's how this
Devindra: works.
Ben: You'll be able to play the new Doom.
What is the Middle Ages? Primeval Doom? The Dark Ages. What a
Devindra: good title. Quick thing on this surface. This is the first surface with an [00:23:00] OLED screen and the screen looks fantastic and the speakers are very good too. So I've been using this as I, I just want to do a little writing. I'm going to go to bed, like just lay down, bed, rest my back a little, but I can still like watch stuff.
The speakers are surprisingly good. So yeah, I think overall I'm feeling like good. The Hardaware
Sam: generally has been, top notch from what I can tell.
Devindra: I think that's it that we have for questions today, but you know what folks, I always want to answer this stuff. So you can drop us an email at podcast on gadget.
com. I'm in the middle of my review. Sam's still working on his, but we definitely want to answer your questions. Send us some and we can answer them in the next episode.
All right, let's move on from all this Surface stuff. There was a Nintendo Direct this week. Which I think came as a surprise. We didn't get much of a heads up that was happening. But a few things we want to call out. New Zelda. With starring Zelda, that's good. The Legend of Zelda Echoes of [00:24:00] Wisdom.
How do you feel about this Sam? Because I've been waiting for this game for a long time.
Sam: I'm incredibly excited. So it has the, it's similar art style that they used for the Link's Awakening remake. Which I absolutely adored. I think it looks incredible. Yeah. And then obviously starring Zelda where you're, she's the main protagonist.
Link gets disappeared right in the beginning. Yeah. And that's fine. It's I think everybody has been really interested in to see like the series of the franchise is legends of Zelda and it's been how many years until she gets to like really take center stage. Every non
Devindra: gamer, every parent has been like, Oh you're Zelda, right?
That little guy running around, that's Zelda, the legend of Zelda.
Sam: And then on top of that, like the idea, like she does, she doesn't use a sword. She has this new echoes ability where she can basically capture like the essence of like inanimate objects chairs beds, whatever, but also enemies really.
brings a really interesting twist on the traditional like Zelda game style. I do wish they gave her just like a regular weapon. I don't think it has to be a sword, but I want to just see [00:25:00]Zelda run around and bonk people on the head with a giant hammer or something.
Devindra: Maybe we'll get something like that.
It does have a weird sense.
Sam: We've only seen a little bit from like the teasers and the preview. So hopefully she has her wand that makes echoes. And then, she gets a little bit of melee melee action in there too.
Devindra: I'm I think a bad interpretation of this is it's almost like they're saying, Oh, girls can't use swords, right?
Of course a girl can use a sword. And that reminds me of comments from the shadow of Colossus creator who I love his games, but he did say something weird at some point. It was like, Oh yeah, girls can't go on adventures like that. That's why his games are typically about young boys trying to save people.
I don't. Yeah, that's bad faith. I'd say here. It's what's interesting is that it is a really interesting mechanic and we've also seen Zelda in some games be kick ass. She's been a kick ass warrior in some games. And I'm not sure if the
Sam: Lord lines up, but like I'm, if we're going to see if like we get an appearance from Sheik, which was like, remember, Zelda had, it transforms into Sheik and she was like a mysterious character.
She was a ninja basically.
Devindra: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. And so I think, if they can incorporate that in some way, [00:26:00]that way Zelda gets some melee abilities on top of her magic stuff. I think that would be really cool, but I, we'll have to wait to see how the game plays out.
Devindra: Yeah. I'm glad it's not just melee cause then it would feel like a palette swap to just Oh, it's another character hopping around doing Zelda puzzles. This seems like a fundamental rethinking of how this universe can work in the same way that Breath of the Wild was and Tears of the Kingdom was.
Gotta love it. Gotta love the people developing series producer. Yeah.
Sam: I was gonna say, and someone who like, Link to the Past is one of my favorite games of all time. So I love that they're, still continuing on with the top down quote unquote 2D Zelda games.
Devindra: I love it too.
I would, I need the art though. I need the sprites. I need me some sprites. Like as much as I like this little like cutesy 3d art style, but it doesn't hit in the same way. When I scroll tick tock, I often see people playing like older Zelda games. I'm like, it just feels good. And we don't get a lot of that from Nintendo.
We do get it from other companies trying to be Zelda like. That's a thing. So this game looks cool. The other thing that was really interesting is they finally fully showed us Metroid Prime. It's called [00:27:00] Metroid Prime 4. It has been years since they first announced this thing. was 2017 when they first announced that they were working on it.
And in 2019 they also announced a complete do over, like they were stopping development of that version of Metro Prime four and starting it over. So now here we are, it's 2024 and this game is coming next year. They say for the switch, but it's okay, or whatever else Nten has next year, right? This is a lot of this is prep for software for next year or for their new system.
Sam: It's interesting how they're setting up for this is like the end of the switches like era and then whatever the switch to whatever, they call it, we'll see. I'm curious to see how, what kind of support these games get in terms of will they be fully supported?
Will they be launched titles for a new Nintendo system? They're gonna
Devindra: carry the store over like the switch has been so successful. They can't do another Oh, this is a weird one off store and all the stuff you bought may die in a couple years or something Like the switch is forever.
Sam: Yeah, and I actually think this is like this is something [00:28:00]that like nintendo has a really big opportunity with if you look at like With the switch, they switched they, moved over to an arm based chip.
And so I'm really curious to see like what the continuity will be for this next system. Will it also be arm? I really hope so. Because it's it has like really big implications on hey, is it easier to pour older games over to the new title? Does this, there's been rumors that the new device will support game cartridges from the switch and stuff like that.
And then on top of that bringing back a lot of the virtual, quote unquote, virtual console titles where, Hey, we're having classics on the store and they run on the switch and they run on the new machine too, so you get to carry over your library as well too. And I think that's a really big.
Thing that, they could capitalize on with whatever the replaces the switch.
Devindra: There's no reason to do an architecture change. Like I'm just like looking at this on a strategic level, like they've done so much work to build emulators for the switch itself. Like that stuff will directly carry over to another arm system.
There was also like, I don't, what else would they go with? There's really nothing like PC [00:29:00]Hardaware with an, yeah, if they go back to power
Sam: PC, people will just go quake in their seats, but yeah,
Devindra: it's not. So yeah I fully expect them to stick with like arm and looking at what arm is doing now, like maybe relying on some good stuff.
And also, yeah, probably working together with Nvidia again, because nobody else really used the Tegra chipset. I think the Zune HD had the Tegra, which I really liked. But. That it's just like dead Hardaware. I do think a lot of these games will just work across both systems.
Like you wouldn't want people buying new games this year and by next year, like they just won't work. Did anything else jump out at you from these announcements? Yeah.
Sam: I thought gonna get a new Mario and Luigi game. It's called brother ship, which I think is actually. Sounds a lot, sounds really fun, but also could be like some sort of hidden pun, because it was like in the teaser it showed that I'm like, traveling around the world, maybe on a boat, so hey, this is gonna be cool, like Mario and Luigi capped in a boat together, that could be fun.
The
Devindra: art style is like almost a little cel shaded too.
Sam: Yep. Looks a little different, yeah. I'm always a sucker for a new [00:30:00]Mario Party game. Cause you get one like every five years at most. And so there's going to be a new Mario Party game called Mario Party Jamboree. And it's sad because like I bought the last one and I played it like a bunch when it first came out and then like I had a kid and I had no one to play it with cause I didn't ever do anything that wasn't kid related.
Devindra: And also you don't have people over to play Mario Party games. Yes. And so we had a pandemic, that's the whole thing. So I'm excited
Sam: for Mario Party Jamboree, even though I may have aged out of it.
Devindra: Maybe you're aging back into it though Like I am my daughter is now five and she's starting she's like big on Minecraft and some games So yeah, this is a good entry point.
She also watches me play RPGs. So and then likes the games Yeah,
Sam: you were talking about sprites Give me right gonna be a dragon warrior 3 HD 2d remake and so I mean I love the way that thing looks because it does capture more of that like spite inspired graphical quality.
And as someone who's like always appreciated dragon warrior, but it has never dived into it the way that like, I played every final fantasy game. This seems like a [00:31:00] really good place to jump on because it's like chronologically it's the first of the, dragon warrior trilogy games.
So it'll be really interesting. It's modern graphic style, but, with a more of a classic turn based RPG feeling, which is always, right up my alley.
Devindra: This looks really cool. I do at least HD 2D gets us some sprites alongside 3D engine stuff. But then I'm like playing Hades 2, and it's just oh, look at this glorious artwork.
Look at this. There's still some 3D work in there, but it's just mostly, beautiful illustrations. I don't know anything else from the Sam.
Sam: No, that was about it You know, there's a ton of stuff there. There's a new Metal Slug game That was like a some sort of like a tactics tower defense game
Devindra: They is it tower defense or is it metal slug tactics because they announced that no So
Sam: they showed the tower defense game On the stream, but Metal Gear, there's a perfect segue because the Metal Slug game that I'm really interested is Tactics, which is supposed to come out sometime later this year too.
So we'll see which one, if I play both or whatever, but yeah.
Devindra: Awesome. Yeah, good direct from Nintendo. Also like coming [00:32:00]after we were just like dying from so much stuff from summer game fest. So good time to play some games, folks. Let us know what you're playing or what you're excited for.
Podcast and gadget. com. We had a couple news bits. I just want to mention briefly we had talked about Ilya Sutskever, the former chief scientist of open AI who left that company a couple of weeks ago. He has launched a new AI company called safe super intelligence, Inc, or SSI. That's all we know. He says he's working on, he's not working on like stuff, like open AI is he's going straight to super intelligence and he wants to build it safely.
It sounds like a lot of talk and not much details about this thing yet. Do you have any thoughts on the Sam? Because I have bad, I don't have great feelings when people talk about super intelligence.
Sam: Yeah. There's this whole section that like of the internet, that's like very wants to talk about artificial general intelligence as like a thing that will be here very soon.
And so the idea of Hey, someone's going to focus on the safety. And if you actually go, there's not a ton of details on it, but if you go to the safe superintelligence website, it's actually pretty funny because all I [00:33:00] do is our mission is to make safe superintelligence the name of the company is safe superintelligence SSI.
That's all we care about. That's all we want to work on. And so it's they are very focused on the, especially the safety part of AI. And so I appreciate that kind of directive, but like you said, there's, it's so early that it, there's really not much to talk about in terms of like actual deliverables just yet.
Devindra: I think even like John Carmack, like when he left meta and very loudly was like, I cannot work with like your weird corporate rules and stuff. He said he was going to go work on AGI. Like it is a thing smart people are focused on. I just feel like it feels like the time where the tech industry gets a little too religious about a thing that may never ultimately happen.
I've been reading about the singularity from Ray Kurzweil since the 90s and Michio Kaku was talking about it too. It's a thing they've imagined, like where our machines get super intelligent and then we won't be able to control them. I, I don't know if we'll actually get there and, I don't know if these companies actually building safety measures are going to be helpful at all.
[00:34:00] That's what OpenAI was supposed to be. That's why Elon Musk and Sam Altman and a lot of folks like put that company together as a non profit and they end up being just a thing, raising tons of money to make a lot of money selling AI. I feel like it's a lie they're telling themselves.
But yeah, I don't know. It's weird. We didn't, we were even talking about this. We didn't even cover the story in gadget because there's no detail here. It's, he's doing a thing called safe superintelligence and we don't know what that thing actually is. So to me, that is like a nothing burger, at least for something we'd write about.
Something I do want to talk about and shows like the immediate dangers of AI is perplexity. And wire just put up a piece called perplexity is a bullshit machine. If you've not heard of perplexity is like an AI search engine type of thing where you'd put in queries and it will just answer them.
The CEO calls it an answer engine, but what it really seems like What's happening is it's using different AI engines to basically answer your [00:35:00] questions, but also it's scraping. It is both scraping the internet and scraping websites and texts and then sending that to the AI engines and then sending a response to you and Forbes had reported that they were basically just like straight up copying.
Their reports. If you asked a question about an article, like it will just repeat the Forbes article at you with very little attribution or unclear attribution. So people have been mad at this company for a while. I think somebody, I don't know if it was Forbes, but they had said like perplexity is working on a licensing deal.
After they started stealing their stuff. And, they
Sam: have made some small changes to call out attribution a little bit better or make it more prominent or better yet cite their sources and link back to, where they're getting this info from. This all seems like a very much like a company that is, they did a thing without thinking about the consequences of the thing that they made.
And now they're trying to fix all the problems with the thing that they made. And it's I don't know, maybe you should have thought about that a little bit harder before you opened it up [00:36:00]to just users out there.
Devindra: It's like the thing tech companies do. Like people, you may not have noticed like what happened, like how Uber.
And how Lyft and a lot of these companies like rose to power. But a lot of it was just by a thing. Hey, we're going to deploy this thing, which is using tech. Oh, you have local laws about how people handle taxis or things like that, or share transportation. We're going to ignore those entirely. And just do our thing.
It's the mentality
Sam: of we're going to disrupt stuff by breaking things and fixing it later.
Devindra: Yeah. Or if you've been to a city recently and scores and scores of electric scooters, just littering the streets, it's because these companies have deployed the stuff and didn't think about where do you put it?
How do you keep it out of the way? Like, how do you actually maintain a decent public space, even though you're putting junk out there and these companies just didn't care. So it left it up to cities to do a lot of that stuff. So what Wired found. And this report is really interesting is that perplexity is straight up.
They have like secret Wired has already blocked perplexities like search crawlers, and then apparently this company has other secret [00:37:00] search crawlers that are out there that are ignoring the robots. txt file, which in a website tells the search engine, Hey, crawl me, or don't crawl me, or you don't have access to certain things.
This is just bypassing what. What publishers are actually saying these companies should have access to. So this company sucks. And this is to me the best example of just like AI hubris of just I can build this thing, look at all these tools, the web is right there. It's open. I can just grab this text and deliver something to you and raise a lot of money while doing it too.
I don't know how much of this seems like a legitimate business personally. Any thoughts, Sam, any thoughts beyond that?
Sam: No, you hit on the head. It's like they're priming themselves up to be the example of what not to do in terms of using AI responsibly. And so I guess we'll see how that fallout ends up.
Devindra: All right, let's move on to one listener question we got from Mark Dell, who's now watching our live stream. So thank you for being a loyal listener and watcher, Mark. But he said that recently he got Google Fiber at his apartment. He formerly had [00:38:00] 30 megabits up and down. He went all in on Google Fiber and got the 8 gigabit plan.
And just sucked it down, basically like having that full access, but he realized he's lucky to get 1. 4 gigs speeds over wifi, 2. 5 gigs over ethernet. That's the limit of most network cards. And now Google's also considering 20 gig fiber. He's wondering, is there any practical use for such fast internet for residents?
And you know what? No, not right now, but what's also great having more internet than, what to do with and being ready for whatever's happening 10 years from now. If you're streaming games, if you're doing stuff I have a gigabit up and down plan with AT& T fiber. It's incredible.
Like I was talking about getting a ton of steam games, like downloading three steam games at once. That stuff comes in a couple of minutes, like just. Sucks data down. Maybe Mark, you don't want to pay for the full eight gig plan. If you're not going to use it, do they have a four gig plan? Do they have a two gig plan or something?
Yeah, you need all the Hardaware to support it. And wifi seven is coming. It's going [00:39:00] to support faster Hardaware or faster speeds. Ethernet is always becoming a faster thing, but I think at best I see 2. 5 gigabit cards in most systems. I guess you could get 10. And yeah, there's some, you can
Sam: get 10 if you look for it.
And obviously it's a lot easier to like, if you have a desktop and you can get your own network card and all that, that the one thing that is like like an overlooked benefit is that, let's say you have eight, eight gig plan and you can only get 2. 5 gigs to a specific laptop or PC or whatever.
The one thing about having a huge. Bandwidth pipeline like that is that if you have a lot of people in your house, you can send multiple people can be sucking down 2. 5 gigs without impacting what other people are doing. And this is like one of the classic issues of if you have bad internet and someone who's watching Netflix and then someone else decides to watch, max or, they're downloading a game from steam.
Then you can start impacting what other people are doing. And they're, their stream is going to start buffering or shuddering or something like that. And so that's the nice thing about that. And that's part of the reason why I probably pay for more, [00:40:00]bandwidth than I need so that I just don't have to think about it.
I always know that I have way too many devices in my place and, I want to make sure that there's running smoothly connected to the internet, super fast all the time. And so it's nice to have that kind of Re bonus overhead is, one of the small fringe benefits.
Devindra: Especially for us, we occasionally have to upload tons of 4k video, so if I have to upload 50 to a hundred gigabytes of stuff, like I want that up quickly that was a real pain when I was traveling to WWDC and the Microsoft campus to get the stuff from the DJI Osmo pro up into the cloud.
It just took forever and I really killed my workflow a little bit. So you still need the internet sometimes. And if you can get that good internet internet, go for it. I see Mark Dell in the chat. He says he's already downgraded his Google fiber. He could do that in the app, so that's super useful.
And he got a 10 gig switch, so he has a decent backbone now too. This is great. This is great. And that's one of those things
Sam: you got to think about too. It's I have a new bandwidth and that's great. And if let's say you get your router from whatever ISP you're using or, you're getting your modem from whatever [00:41:00] ISP, then you have to like, make sure your router can handle all that.
And that's, where DaVinci was talking about Hey, Wi Fi seven is coming and more devices. And there are a handful of like smartphones on the market today that do support Wi Fi seven. But obviously you're not going to get Wi Fi 7 speeds if your router doesn't support it. And you got to think holistically about like how you upgrade the, the devices that you're using.
Devindra: What's funny is that I have the Surface Pro here. I think it has Wi Fi 6E and I noticed okay, I'm just gonna plug into ethernet to suck down these Steam games faster. I have gigabit. I think it's, no it's a gigabit, like ethernet connection over here. And I was still getting faster speeds over my wife.
The wifi was coming in faster, even though it's going through a repeater that's in my basement here. That's going, hitting the router, the wifi still came in faster. So we are at a weird place where yeah, you, if you want raw speed, sometimes wifi will be better. If you want like stable connections, like that's where you plug into ethernet.
So that's why I have on my desktop.
Sam: Yeah. If we, if you want to get into the really nitty gritty stuff, there's some interesting things that like net gear [00:42:00] and some of the other router makers are doing with wifi seven where they're doing like multiple channel aggregation. And so you can really pump up those speeds over wifi.
And it's For someone who remembers when wifi was just like very unreliable and spotty. It's Oh, this is so nice to not have to think about it. And a lot of these new wifi seven routers are really expensive, but Hey, when the prices come down, I think you just appreciate it from not having to like constantly babysit your wifi like that.
It's just, really nice to have.
Devindra: I remember when Wi Fi like barely supported a room Oh man, like I was the first person to put a Wi Fi router, like in my dorm room and I had to hide it from IT and all this stuff. Good stuff. Wi Fi is good. Anyway, if you have access to fiber folks, make that switch.
It may be a little more than what you're paying for cable in most cases, from what I've seen, it actually isn't, but the stability of the connection and the ability to not like actually share that connection with everybody in your neighborhood is super great. Like I. Yeah, fiber is just such a solid connection to the internet.
All right, let's move on to what we're working on. Hey, I'm [00:43:00] working on a review. Let's review the Surface Pro and I'm going to try to get some other Copilot Plus systems in soon. Sam, anything from you?
Sam: Yeah, obviously, working on the Surface laptop. But I have a review for the MSI Claw, which is MSI's attempt at making a gaming handheld, which, they went with an Intel chip instead of something from AMD.
And That makes a pretty big difference. Turns out who knew? Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Also at some point I'm trying to, squeeze in a review for the Keychron Q1 HE, which is sort of Keychron's attempt at making a Wooting clone. Cause it has the HE stands for Hall Effect switches.
You do get, full analog control and you get some of that like rapid trigger stuff that you see some on some gaming keyboards. I've been really enjoying it so far. I just got to find time to write it up.
Devindra: I just picked up one of those new fee keyboards. I think we've recommended the new fi or new fee.
Yeah, that was
Sam: the keyboard that I bought before this one. And it's really great. And they make some really good low profile keyboards. Which is actually my preference. Just 'cause, [00:44:00] years of typing on laptops. I prefer the, the more chit lower profile style keys. I'm
Devindra: using the low profile new V 96, I think.
And it just that, that's the one I got. Feels good? Yeah. Feels so good. Loving it. And yeah. Got any pop culture picks for us this week, Sam?
Sam: Yeah. I'm still watching star Wars, the acolyte. That's so good. I think we were talking about this in Slack the other day. It's I'm enjoying it a lot.
I just wish they hadn't done the evil twin trope. Just because it's I think that, that trope is played out. But yeah, aside from that, I've been enjoying it. And then I think the doctor who season finale is this weekend. And I, as someone who is definitely, I do not classify myself as a whovian.
That's, more of my wife's thing, the transition for this season, because now Disney's kind of running it. Yeah. The production quality is way up and things just look good, which is like old seasons of Dr. Who looks janky. The effects. Yeah it's rough. But the thing is that the show is like it's been very hit or miss.
I think like the first episode was good. And then the middle episodes were just like, They lost the whole idea. And then for the season finale, you finally [00:45:00] things, it seems like they're getting back to like core Dr. Who, which I enjoy more. But as someone who is not as invested into the franchise as some other people are I'm definitely not the target audience.
Devindra: That's why I'm like, I've never like fully gone into it. There's some stuff, the Matt Smith season, the first one, like that was good. But the writing and doctor who always seems like really hit or miss even when like they have a really talented person in charge. So and there was
Sam: there's two episodes.
I think the guy who plays the doctor had some commitment on another Film or something and so there's two episodes where the doctor is just not in doctor who and that's just a weird situation there are a lot of side characters.
Devindra: I guess I could see that happening. Yeah, shout out to Dr.
Who. I keep, that's one thing I keep like thinking I need to watch that because I do like the new doctor. I've seen him and it was sex education. Oh yeah, he's great. Yeah. Great show. That's on Netflix. And then it like evaporates from my mind because any, literally anything else in my life happens, I'm like, I forget about Dr.
Who. So glad you're digging it, Sam, even if it's messy. One thing I want to shout out is a show I think you will like, and a lot of people should be watching, Not Enough People are [00:46:00]watching Evil, which was a show on CBS by the Kings, people who did The Good Wife and The Good Fight. It is straight up X Files.
It's awesome. I watched the
Sam: first season of that. Yeah. And then there was like a long hiatus. It was either after season one or season two. And I keep meaning to go back to it. But yes that show is awesome.
Devindra: I'm shouting it down shouting it out now because season four is on Paramount plus, which I've been going through excellent stuff.
Like it's pretty much like when the X Files had hit its run and knew the characters and knew the tone and could be a little playful with things. The show is about a trio of people who are out to investigate miracles. Basically, but they're it's led by a priest played by name is escaping you right now, but he was Luke Cage,
Mike Coulter.
Yes. And there's also a tech guy who's a total like skeptic played by Asif Manvi. And a therapist who is just like looking at the human psychological side of things. It is X Files, but it's also these folks are a priest. Push basically working for the Catholic church to do this too, but it's not like a preachy religious show.
It's [00:47:00] using religious iconography to explore weird supernatural stuff. I think it has a lot of fun with that. The first three seasons are on Netflix now, so it used to be hard for people to see it. So if you wanted to see the show, if you've heard me talk about it before, check it out. Go to Netflix, just watch Evil.
If you liked The X Files, if you liked Buffy, if you liked a lot of those old shows where there was basically a mystery of the week there was a team of folks who would have to deal with those. It's funny. It's cool. It's super smart. I love the show. It's like one of the things I just sit down and love watching.
Sam: I'll also say Michael Emerson. He plays like Ben from Lost.
Devindra: Ben from Lost.
Sam: He is such a good bad guy. And I don't want to ruin the like reveal of like who his character really is. Yeah. But he is, he's he's so well cast and well equipped to play the role that he's doing in that is so I really think the performances in that show really make it just even if it is you're looking at a standard monster of the week episode.
Like you were, they're such, they do such a good job of like really getting you invested into it.
Devindra: They have a lot of fun. And yeah, poor Michael Emerson. I [00:48:00]remember during loss, he talked about being on the subway and nobody wanted to sit near him or stand next to him because they all saw him as this like evil man from TV.
So he's just a little typecast there, but now he's doing it again.
Sam: So I guess it worked out for him. It worked out for
Devindra: him. Like what Giancarlo Esposito ended up doing. He's just he's a villain everywhere, apparently, like doing the same thing everywhere. He hasn't worn it out like Giancarlo Esposito has.
So anyway, go watch Evil. It's on Netflix. The new season is on Paramount Plus. That's it for this week, folks. Our theme Is by Game Composer Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Element. You can find me online at dra on Twitter, blue Sky Mastodon.
Also talk about movies and TV at the film [email protected]. Where can we find you, Sam? You can find me on Twitter slash x at Sam Rutherford. Email [email protected]. Leave us review on iTunes and subscribe on anything that gets podcasts. That's it folks. We're [00:49:00]at.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-surface-pro-and-laptop-copilot-qa-113046302.html?src=rss
Did you know Meta has a customer services department? If you have a problem with Facebook, Instagram and the rest, you might find it hard to get some of that service. Instead, people have been taking Meta to small claims court to get some kind of response to their complaints. Engadget spoke with five individuals who have sued Meta in small claims court over the last two years. In three cases, the plaintiffs were able to restore access to at least one lost account, but all eventually got the attention of Meta’s legal team.
The company has argued that it is not liable for more than $100 in damages according to its terms of service. However, some plaintiffs were awarded thousands of dollars — which still might pale compared to lost earnings for those whose businesses revolve around their Facebook or Instagram presence. We chart the mixed results of these users and Meta’s logic in giving them so much attention.
You may have already noticed, but Amazon says it's reduced its use of plastic airbags included with its packages, shifting to compostable paper filler in most cases. It plans to eliminate using them by the end of the year. It’s a move in the right direction: In 2021, the nonprofit ocean conservation group Oceana estimated that the waste produced from plastic air pillows alone “would circle the Earth more than 600 times.”
Ubisoft has released a trailer for its remake of the cult classic game Beyond Good and Evil, adding that it will launch on June 25. The understated cult hit has been upgraded to 4K and 60FPS – it was initially released on the PS2, so you’ll see the difference. It will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with physical copies going on sale next month, too. What about the sequel that has been revealed, teased, promised, and… seen (by me!)? No word.
After years of scrutiny over the Russian company's government ties.
The Biden administration has taken sweeping action to ban Kaspersky Labs from selling its antivirus products to US customers. A source told Reuters that the company's connections to the Russian government made it a security risk. In a statement included in the report, Kaspersky added that its activities did not threaten national security and that it would pursue legal options. The FCC put Kaspersky on its list of companies posing unacceptable security risks in 2022, while back in 2017, federal agencies in the US banned Kaspersky products. The company cannot sell to new customers starting in July.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-how-small-claims-court-became-metas-customer-service-hotline-111555251.html?src=rss
FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — that it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Smart displays have evolved quite a bit since the initial debut of Amazon’s first Echo Show back in 2017. In fact, the category didn’t really come into its own until Google joined the fray with its own line of hardware about a year later. Now, both of these companies are essentially dominating the smart display landscape, with each offering their own take on a smart assistant with a screen.
It’s that screen that can make smart displays much more useful than smart speakers. Rather than just having a voice assistant recite the current weather report, for example, you can see a five-day forecast as well. The same goes for when you ask about your shopping list or calendar; it's simply easier to read the whole list or your day's appointments at a glance. Plus, touchsreens offer other benefits that speakers can't, like watching videos or checking your webcam to see who's at your front door. We've tested and used many smart displays over the years and below are a list of our top picks for the best smart displays you can get today.
Best smart displays for 2024
What to consider before buying a smart display
Amazon vs. Google voice assistants
The first question you should ask when looking for the best smart display for you is whether you prefer Amazon’s or Google’s ecosystem. If you have a lot of Google smart devices in your home, like Nest thermostats and security cameras, or even if you use a Google Pixel smartphone as your daily driver, then a Google-powered model may make more sense. If you have Amazon products, like a Fire TV Stick or a Ring cam, Amazon would obviously be a better choice from a compatibility standpoint. Of course, it's perfectly acceptable to have products from competing companies in the same home, but just realize they might not work seamlessly with each other from the start.
Aside from that, the two systems also offer some unique features. Google, for example, works best if you have an existing Google account and use services like Calendar and Photos. We especially love Google smart displays because they work well as digital photo frames. You can set it up to automatically pull in pictures of friends and family from your Google Photos library, and the algorithm is smart enough to use what it thinks are the best shots — so less chance of blurry photos or images of your eyes half-closed showing up, for example. But although you can use Amazon's displays as digital photo frames, the process is not quite as intuitive as Google’s, and Amazon doesn’t have anything comparable to Google’s photo-sorting algorithm.
It might seem like a minor point, but seeing as the display is on standby 90 percent of the time, its secondary function as a digital picture frame is very welcome. All Google smart displays also support YouTube and YouTube TV, step-by-step cooking instructions and all of the usual benefits of Google Assistant, like weather reports. As with Assistant on the phone, it also has voice recognition, so only you can see your calendar appointments and not others.
Amazon's smart displays, on the other hand, are slightly different. Instead of YouTube, they offer some alternative video streaming options, including Amazon Prime, NBC and Hulu. They also come with two browsers (Silk and Firefox), which you can use to search the web or watch YouTube videos – a handy enough workaround given the lack of a dedicated app. Amazon devices also offer step-by-step cooking instructions as well, thanks to collaborations with sources like SideChef and AllRecipes. The cooking instructions sometimes include short video clips, too.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-smart-display-202448797.html?src=rss
SpaceX has started offering some users a new Starlink kit that's small enough to fit in a backpack, so users can take it wherever they want to and get access to the company's satellite internet service. The Starlink Mini will cost users $599 up front, according to the emails SpaceX has sent out. That's $100 more than the standard dish kit, and users will need to have an existing standard service plan because they can only tack on the Mini Roam service for an additional fee of $30 a month. As TechCrunch notes, a Starlink residential customer will have to pay $150 every month in all if they also get the Mini.
The smaller dish may not cost that much forever, though. SpaceX said in its message that it's working to make Starlink more affordable as a whole, and that it's only offering a limited number of Mini kits "in regions with high usage" for now. A few days ago, company chief Elon Musk talked about the Mini on X (formerly known as Twitter) and called it a "great low-cost option." He also said that it will cost "about half the price of the standard dish to buy and monthly subscription."
About half the price of the standard dish to buy and monthly subscription, but you can still watch multiple 4k video streams simultaneously!
In SpaceX's message, it said the Starlink Mini dish comes with a built-in Wi-Fi router, so it's not only smaller than the standard version, it also needs fewer components to access the internet. It also consumes less power, has DC power input and is capable of download speeds that go over 100 Mbps. In addition to the dish itself, the kit will ship with a kickstand, a pipe adapter, a power supply and a cord with a USB-C connector on one end and a barrel jack on the other.
As the company mentioned in its message, it's only rolling out to select areas with high usage at the moment. But Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink Engineering, said on X that the company is ramping up production of the Mini and that it will be available in international markets soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spacex-starts-selling-the-starlink-mini-for-599-in-select-locations-041258500.html?src=rss
After a bit of a false start, Ubisoft has released a trailer for its remake of the cult classic game Beyond Good and Evil. The video first appeared in a tweet from the game studio that was later deleted. But the new announcement seems to be sticking around, and that means we really will be getting the Beyond Good and Evil - 20th Anniversary Edition on June 25. It will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Limited Run Games will also be selling physical copies of the remaster starting July 12; those will be for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S and Switch.
The two-minute long trailer showcases the newly updated art assets. The remaster will run at up to 4K and 60 FPS, and it has a re-orchestrated soundtrack. Plus it also promises "exclusive new content," but it's unclear what that might include. Check out the whole video for yourself:
Today's back-and-forth on X echoes back to how the world learned about the planned remaster in the first place. A listing for it appeared on the Xbox Store and an incomplete version was briefly on Ubisoft Plus back in 2023 thanks to a technical glitch. Also, any time Beyond Good and Evil comes up, regular readers might find themselves wondering about the sequel that has been revealed and teased and promised and seen for more than a decade. No, this update doesn't seem to bring any new information about that project.
What a long, strange development cycle it's been.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-beyond-good-and-evil-remaster-will-be-released-next-week-for-real-230001749.html?src=rss
Sony has announced that it will be ending its rewards program at the end of this year. No, it’s not PlayStation Stars, the loyalty program that rewards you digital collectibles for completing certain gameplay tasks. Nor is it the defunct PlayStation Rewards program, which offered PSN bonuses for the most voracious PlayStation gamers. It’s terminating the Sony Rewards program offered through the Sony and PlayStation-branded Visa credit cards.
The company updated the FAQ and Terms and Conditions pages to reflect that it will sunset the Sony Rewards website and mobile app on December 31, 2024, and new members will no longer be accepted into the program effective immediately. Pre-existing Sony and PlayStation cardholders will still be able to redeem points, access their account and submit bonus points and purchase credit request forms through the app between now and New Year’s Eve. However, they cannot send physical bonus points and credit request points by mail after July 21.
Additionally, members can no longer earn points through offers or partner offers, and they can’t link their accounts to the Sony Store or Movies Anywhere. The Sony Rewards customer service will cease operation on February 14, 2025. As far as the Sony and PlayStation credit cards are concerned, cardholders will be contacted by Comenity Bank in due time about changes to the credit card programs but they can keep using them until December 31.
The Sony Rewards program launched in 2017, allowing you to accrue enough points through your Sony or PlayStation credit card to redeem items only from the Sony brand. Redeeming points for PlayStation games seems like a great perk at first glance, but the redemption process is inflexible and the APR for purchases sits at a high 27.99%. The Xbox Mastercard, which Microsoft introduced last year, has the same issue but the APR can be 20.99%, 26.99% or 31.99%, depending on your balance. Plus, there’s no cash back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-will-terminate-its-sony-rewards-program-224538912.html?src=rss
You know those little plastic air bags in your more fragile Amazon purchases that make perfect popping noise makers when you crush them? Amazon says it's reduced its usage of them and plans to completely eliminate using them by the end of the year.
The ecommerce behemoth announced on its news blog that it has reduced the use of plastic air pillows by 95 percent and switched to crumbled paper filler instead. Amazon also says it plans to use paper filler for “nearly all” of its customer deliveries on Prime Day.
The company says its decision to phase out the use of plastic air cushions at its distribution centers aims to eliminate unnecessary waste and focus more on using recycled materials.
Plastic pollution has always been a concern when it comes to our environment but it has dramatically increased as a result of Amazon’s meteoric rise especially during the COVID pandemic. The nonprofit ocean conservation group Oceana released a study in 2021 showing that Amazon produced 599 million pounds of plastic waste in 2020. The group also estimated that the waste produced from plastic air pillows alone “would circle the Earth more than 600 times.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-its-cut-down-on-those-plastic-air-pillows-in-packages-222953642.html?src=rss
New York has passed two new laws restricting how social media companies interact with and collect data from users under the age of 18.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed two bills into law on Thursday including the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act.
SAFE requires social media companies like Facebook and X to restrict addictive feeds to minors on its platforms. These include feeds that are “algorithmically driven” to prevent “unhealthy levels of engagement,” according to a press release.
The New York Child Data Protection Act also prevents online sites and devices from collecting, sharing or selling the personal data of anyone under the age of 18.
Both laws require companies to obtain consent from parents before allowing kids to access feeds driven by algorithms or collecting data from them. The new laws also require social media companies to create age verification and parental consent controls for its platforms based on guidelines set by New York’s Attorney General.
New York passed two new laws restricting how social media companies interact with and collect data from users under the age of 18. Governor Hochul said in a released statement that these new policies will “provide a safer digital environment, give parents more peace of mind and create a brighter future for young people across New York.”
Other parts of the country have passed laws restricting or limiting children’s access to phones and online platforms. The California State Senate approved a bill similar to New York’s SAFE Act that would also prevent social media apps from sending notifications to minors during school hours and from midnight to 6 a.m. throughout the year. The Los Angeles Unified School District instituted a ban that restricts students’ phone usage during school hours. California Governor Gavin Newson responded to the decision by promising to work with lawmakers on a similar statewide law.
These new policies and laws aren’t just about keeping kids off of their phone while they’re in school. They are designed to address mental health issues caused by social media platforms. The New York Times published an op-ed on Monday from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calling social media an “important contributor” to the detriment of mental health in teenagers and called for social media companies to post a warning label for adolescents on its platforms and apps.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-york-governor-signs-two-new-bills-into-law-protecting-kids-from-social-media-211935749.html?src=rss
FILE — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks during a news conference in New York, Oct. 11, 2023. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill, Thursday, June 20, 2024, that would allow parents to block their children from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm, a move to limit feeds critics argue are addictive. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
The image of the Serpens Nebula you see above, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), not only looks mesmerizing but also captures a never-before-seen phenomenon. The aligned, elongated “protostellar outflows” visible in the top left support a longstanding theory. As suspected, the jets shoot out in alignment from the swirling disks of surrounding material, showing evidence that clusters of forming stars spin in the same direction.
NASA says the bright and clumpy streaks in the image’s upper-left area, which somewhat resemble JJ Abrams-style lens flare, represent shockwaves caused by outward-shooting jets that emerge when the interstellar gas cloud collapses inwards. As forming stars condense and twirl more rapidly, some material shoots out perpendicular to the disk.
“Astronomers have long assumed that as clouds collapse to form stars, the stars will tend to spin in the same direction,” Klaus Pontoppidan of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote in a blog post. “However, this has not been seen so directly before. These aligned, elongated structures are a historical record of the fundamental way that stars are born.”
The aligned jets (which look a bit like JJ Abrams-style lens flare) indicate the forming stars spin in the same direction.
The Serpens Nebula is only one or two million years old and sits around 1,300 light years from Earth. NASA says the dense cluster of protostars at the image’s center includes stars less than 100,000 years old. Serpens is a reflection nebula, meaning the gas and dust cloud shines by reflecting light from stars inside or nearby.
The JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captured the image, which covers about 16 trillion miles by 11 trillion miles. The black rectangles you see at the full image’s lower left and upper left represent missing data. NASA says its next step is to use the telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to study the Serpens Nebula’s chemical breakdown.
You can check out NASA’s instructional video below for a closer look at specific details from the glorious image.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-webb-telescopes-dazzling-nebula-image-supports-a-long-held-theory-210229206.html?src=rss
The Biden administration has taken a sweeping action to ban Kaspersky Labs from selling its antivirus products to US customers. The Russian software company will not be able to sell to new customers starting in July and cannot provide service to current customers after September.
Ahead of the official news, a source told Reuters that the company's connections to the Russian government made it a security risk with the potential to install malware, collect privileged information, or withhold software updates on American computers. US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced the ban at a briefing today.
"You have done nothing wrong, and you are not subject to any criminal or civil penalties," she said to current Kaspersky customers. "However, I would encourage you, in as strong as possible terms, to immediately stop using that software and switch to an alternative in order to protect yourself and your data and your family."
This level of presidential order to block or limit access to tech and software from countries deemed foreign adversaries dates from the Trump administration. In 2020, he made an effort to ban TikTok and WeChat on the grounds that the Chinese-owned apps could be a security risk. That action was overturned in 2021, but it sparked a review of the apps that has culminated in legislation Biden signed in April that could force TikTok to find a new owner to continue operating in the States.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-us-will-ban-sales-of-kaspersky-antivirus-software-next-month-205106837.html?src=rss
If you’re in the market for a new webcam, you can save 20 percent on one of Engadget’s top picks for video calls. The Anker PowerConf C200, our top budget pick even at its standard price, is on sale for only $48.
Anker PowerConf C200 Webcam captures video in up to 2K resolution. Although 1080p will suit most people just fine (and you can lower it to that, 720p or 360p if you want), we appreciated the extra sharpness and clarity the 2K feed brought to our calls. The plug-and-play webcam has a fast autofocus and an ƒ/2.0 aperture to let in more light and help brighten up darker scenes.
It has dual stereo microphones built in, and you can use its companion software (AnkerWork) to change its pickup sensitivity from the default directional to omnidirectional (the latter for when more than one person is in your room). The webcam has a 95-degree field of view, but you can adjust it to 78 degrees if you prefer a tighter shot.
As far as tradeoffs, it’s a surprisingly short list for this price point. The Anker C200 lacks the fancy AI framing in some of the latest flagship models, and its cube-like shape makes it a bit more challenging than some competitors to adjust while on top of your screen. Its bundled USB-C to USB-A cable is also annoyingly short — not a big deal for laptops, but folks with standing desks or more sprawling desktop setups may need to swap it out for a longer one.
Anthropic rolled out its newest AI language model on Thursday, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The updated chatbot outperforms the company’s previous top-tier model, Claude 3 Opus, while working at twice the speed. Claude users (including those on free accounts) can check it out beginning today.
Sonnet, which tends to be Anthropic’s most balanced model, is the first release in the Claude 3.5 family. The company says Claude 3.5 Haiku (the fastest in each generation) and Claude 3.5 Opus (the most powerful) will arrive later this year. (Those models will stay on version 3 in the meantime.) The Sonnet update comes only a few months after the arrival of the Claude 3 family, showcasing the breakneck speed AI companies are working to spit out their latest and greatest.
Anthropic
Anthropic claims Claude 3.5 Sonnet marks a step forward in understanding nuance, humor and complicated prompts, and it can write in a more natural tone. Benchmarks (above) show the new model breaking industry records for graduate-level reasoning, undergraduate-level knowledge and coding proficiency. It beats OpenAI’s GPT-4o on many of the benchmarks Anthropic published. However, the latest Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Llama models tend to score within a few percentage points of each other on most tests, underscoring the tight competition.
The company claims Claude 3.5 Sonnet is also better at interpreting visual input than Claude 3.0 Opus. Anthropic says the new model can “accurately transcribe text from imperfect images,” a skill it hopes will attract customers in retail, logistics and financial services who need to grok data from charts, graphs and other visual cues.
Claude’s update also brings a new workspace the company calls Artifacts (above). When you prompt the chatbot to generate content like code, text documents or web designs, a dedicated window appears to the right of the chat. From there, you can prompt Claude to make changes, and it will keep the Artifacts window updated with its latest output.
The company sees Artifacts as a first step towards making Claude a space for broader team collaboration. “In the near future, teams — and eventually entire organizations — will be able to securely centralize their knowledge, documents, and ongoing work in one shared space, with Claude serving as an on-demand teammate,” the company wrote in a press release.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available now for anyone with an account to try on its website, as well as in the Claude iOS app. (On both of those platforms, Claude Pro and Team subscribers get higher token counts.) You can also access it through the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. It costs $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens — the same as the previous model.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropics-newest-claude-chatbot-beats-openais-gpt-4o-in-some-benchmarks-170135962.html?src=rss
Stylized digital image of a rough outline of a human head (profile) with a black squiggly-lined explosion happening in its brain. Orange-ish background.
Embracer Group is making the move to using AI in game development following the mass layoff and game cancellations months ago. The parent company of THQ Nordic, Gearbox Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics - Eidos Montreal detailed in its annual report (via Game Developer) that it is adopting an AI policy to its game production model, despite the controversy around the use of AI in the games industry and beyond. It said that not using AI will lead to the company lagging behind other major game developers and publishers like EA, Sony, Square Enix and Ubisoft, claiming that the tech will help expedite the development process and give players an optimized gameplay experience.
“AI has the capability to massively enhance game development by increasing resource efficiency, adding intelligent behaviors, personalization, and optimization to gameplay experiences,” Embracer said in the report. “By leveraging AI, we create more engaging and immersive experiences that provide each player with a unique, dynamic and personalized experience.”
Along with listing the benefits of using AI in and outside of game development, Embracer said it understands that adopting the technology is not without risks. It noted that AI may “produce unethical, biased, discriminatory or completely wrong results if it has not been properly trained, instructed or used for purposes it was not designed.”
Embracer’s plans to adopt AI comes several months after it laid off 1,500 employees and canceled 80 games over the past year, along with shuttering studios like Volition of Saints Row fame. Despite concerns that AI will replace human workers, Embracer says it doesn’t intend to use it that way. It went so far as to say AI will open doors to entry into the games industry for some developers, including those with disabilities who can’t operate certain equipment the same way as non-disabled people. Only time will tell if they’ll keep that promise.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/embracer-group-plans-to-use-ai-in-game-development-163040373.html?src=rss
Last month, Ray Palena boarded a plane from New Jersey to California to appear in court. He found himself engaged in a legal dispute against one of the largest corporations in the world, and improbably, the venue for their David-versus-Goliath showdown would be San Mateo's small claims court.
Over the course of eight months and an estimated $700 (mostly in travel expenses), he was able to claw back what all other methods had failed to render: his personal Facebook account.
Those may be extraordinary lengths to regain a digital profile with no relation to its owner's livelihood, but Palena is one of a growing number of frustrated users of Meta's services who, unable to get help from an actual human through normal channels of recourse, are using the court system instead. And in many cases, it's working.
Engadget spoke with five individuals who have sued Meta in small claims court over the last two years in four different states. In three cases, the plaintiffs were able to restore access to at least one lost account. One person was also able to win financial damages and another reached a cash settlement. Two cases were dismissed. In every case, the plaintiffs were at least able to get the attention of Meta’s legal team, which appears to have something of a playbook for handling these claims.
Why small claims?
At the heart of these cases is the fact that Meta lacks the necessary volume of human customer service workers to assist those who lose their accounts. The company’s official help pages steer users who have been hacked toward confusing automated tools that often lead users to dead-end links or emails that don’t work if your account information has been changed. (The company recently launched a $14.99-per-month program, Meta Verified, which grants access to human customer support. Its track record as a means of recovering hacked accounts after the fact has been spotty at best, according to anecdotal descriptions.)
Hundreds of thousands of people also turn to their state Attorney General’s office as some state AGs have made requests on users’ behalf — on Reddit, this is known as the “AG method.” But attorneys general across the country have been so inundated with these requests they formally asked Meta to fix their customer service, too. “We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company,” a coalition of 41 state AGs wrote in a letter to the company earlier this year.
Facebook and Instagram users have long sought creative and sometimes extreme measures to get hacked accounts back due to Meta’s lack of customer support features. Some users have resorted to hiring their own hackers or buying an Oculus headset since Meta has dedicated support staff for the device (users on Reddit report this “method” no longer works). The small claims approach has become a popular topic on Reddit forums where frustrated Meta users trade advice on various “methods” for getting an account back. People Clerk, a site that helps people write demand letters and other paperwork required for small claims court, published a help article called “How to Sue facebook,” in March.
It’s difficult to estimate just how many small claims cases are being brought by Facebook and Instagram users, but they may be on the rise. Patrick Forrest, the chief legal officer for Justice Direct, the legal services startup that owns People Clerk, says the company has seen a “significant increase” in cases against Meta over the last couple years.
One of the advantages of small claims court is that it’s much more accessible to people without deep pockets and legal training. Filing fees are typically under $100 and many courthouses have resources to help people complete the necessary paperwork for a case. “There's no discovery, there are no depositions, there's no pre-trial,” says Bruce Zucker, a law professor at California State University, Northridge. “You get a court date and it's going to be about a five or 10 minute hearing, and you have a judge who's probably also tried to call customer service and gotten nowhere.”
The stakes
“Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp [have] become crucial marketplaces where people conduct their business, where people are earning a living," Forrest said. “And if you are locked out of that account, business or personal, it can lead to severe financial damages, and it can disrupt your ability to sustain your livelihood.”
One such person whose finances were enmeshed with Meta's products is Valerie Garza, the owner of a massage business. She successfully sued the company in a San Diego small claims court in 2022 after a hack which cost her access to personal Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as those associated with her business. She was able to document thousands of dollars in resulting losses.
A Meta legal representative contacted Garza a few weeks before her small claims court hearing, requesting she drop the case. She declined, and when Meta didn’t show up to her hearing, she won by default. "When we went through all of the loss of revenues," Garza told Engadget, "[the judge] kind of had to give it to me.”
But that wasn’t the end of Garza’s legal dispute with Meta. After the first hearing, the company filed a motion asking the judge to set aside the verdict, citing its own failure to appear at the hearing. Meta also tried to argue that its terms of service set a maximum of $100 liability. Another hearing was scheduled and a lawyer again contacted Garza offering to help get her account back.
“He seemed to actually kind of just want to get things turned back on, and that was still my goal, at this point,” Garza said. It was then she discovered that her business’ Instagram was being used to advertise sex work.
She began collecting screenshots of the activity on the account, which violated Instagram’s terms of service, as well as fraudulent charges for Facebook ads bought by whoever hacked her account. Once again, Meta didn’t show up to the hearing and a judge ordered the company to pay her the $7,268.65 in damages she had requested.
“I thought they were going to show up this time because they sent their exhibits, they didn't ask for a postponement or anything,” she says. “My guess is they didn't want to go on record and have a transcript showing how completely grossly negligent they are in their business and how very little they care about the safety or financial security of their paying advertisers.”
In July of 2023, Garza indicated in court documents that Meta had paid in full. In all, the process took more than a year, three court appearances and countless hours of work. But Garza says it was worth it. “I just can't stand letting somebody take advantage and walking away,” she says.
Even for individuals whose work doesn't depend on Meta's platforms, a hacked account can result in real harm.
Palena, who flew cross-country to challenge Meta in court, had no financial stake in his Facebook account, which he claimed nearly 20 years ago when the social network was still limited to college students. But whoever hacked him had changed the associated email address and phone number, and began using his page to run scam listings on Facebook Marketplace.
“I was more concerned about the damage it could do to me and my name if something did happen, if someone actually was scammed,” he tells Engadget. In his court filing, he asked for $10,000 in damages, the maximum allowed in California small claims court. He wrote that Meta had violated its own terms of service by allowing a hacked account to stay up, damaging his reputation. “I didn't really care that much about financial compensation,” Palena says “I really just wanted the account back because the person who hacked the account was still using it. They were using my profile with my name and my profile image."
A couple weeks later, a legal rep from Meta reached out to him and asked him for information about his account. They exchanged a few emails over several weeks, but his account was still inaccessible. The same day he boarded a plane to San Mateo, the Meta representative emailed him again and asked if he would be willing to drop the case since “the access team is close to getting your account secure and activated again.” He replied that he intended to be in court the next day as he was still unable to get into his account.
Less than half an hour before his hearing was scheduled to start, he received the email he had spent months waiting for: a password reset link to get back into his account. Palena still attended the hearing, though Meta did not. According to court records reviewed by Engadget, Palena told the judge the case had been “tentatively resolved,” though he hasn’t officially dropped the case yet.
The hurdles of small claims
While filing a small claims court case is comparatively simple, it can still be a minefield, even to figure out something as seemingly straightforward as which court to file to. Forrest notes that Facebook’s terms of service stipulates that legal cases must be brought in San Mateo County, home of Meta’s headquarters. But, confusingly, the terms of service for Meta accounts states that cases other than small claims court must be filed in San Mateo. In spite of the apparent contradiction, some people (like Garza) have had success suing Meta outside of San Mateo.
Each jurisdiction also has different rules for maximum allowable compensation in small claims, what sorts of relief those courts are able to grant and even whether or not parties are allowed to have a lawyer present. The low barrier to entry means many first-time plaintiffs are navigating the legal system for the first time without help, and making rookie mistakes along the way.
Shaun Freeman had spent years building up two Instagram accounts, which he describes as similar to TMZ but with “a little more character.” The pages, which had hundreds of thousands of followers, had also been a significant source of income to Freeman, who has also worked in the entertainment industry and uses the stage name Young Platinum.
He says his pages had been suspended or disabled in the past, but he was able to get them back through Meta’s appeals process, and once through a complaint to the California Attorney General’s office. But in 2023 he again lost access to both accounts. He says one was disabled and one is inaccessible due to what seems like a technical glitch.
He tried to file appeals and even asked a friend of a friend who worked at Meta to look into what had happened, but was unsuccessful. Apparently out of other options, he filed a small claims case in Nevada in February. A hearing was scheduled for May, but Freeman had trouble figuring out the legal mechanics. “It took me months and months to figure out how to get them served,” Freeman says. He was eventually able to hire a process server and got the necessary signature 10 days before his hearing. But it may have been too late. Court records show the case was dismissed for failure to serve.
Even without operator error, Meta seems content to create hardship for would-be litigants over matters much smaller than the company's more headline-grabbing antitrust and child safety disputes. Based on correspondence reviewed by Engadget, the company maintains a separate "small claims docket" email address to contact would-be litigants.
Ron Gaul, who lives in North Dakota, filed a small claims suit after Meta disabled his account following a wave of what he describes as targeted harassment. The case was eventually dismissed after Meta’s lawyers had the case moved to district court, which is permissible for a small claims case under North Dakota law.
Gaul says he couldn’t keep up with the motions filed by Meta’s lawyers, whom he had hoped to avoid by filing in small claims court. “I went to small claims because I couldn't have a lawyer,” he tells Engadget.
Ryan, an Arizona real estate agent who asked to be identified by his first name only, decided to sue Meta in small claims with his partner after their Facebook accounts were disabled in the fall of 2022. They were both admins of several large Facebook Groups and he says their accounts were disabled over a supposed copyright violation.
Before a scheduled hearing, the company reached out. “They started basically trying to bully us,” says Ryan, who asked to be identified by his first name only. “They started saying that they have a terms of service [and] they can do whatever they want, they could delete people for any reason.” Much like Gaul, Ryan expected small claims would level the playing field. But according to emails and court records reviewed by Engadget, Meta often deploys its own legal resources as well as outside law firms to respond to these sorts of claims and engage with small claims litigants outside of court. "They put people that still have legal training against these people that are, you know, representing themselves,” he said.
In the end, Meta’s legal team was able to help Ryan get his account back and he agreed to drop himself from the small claims case. But two months later his partner had still not gotten back into hers. Meta eventually told her that her account had been permanently deleted and was no longer able to be restored. Meta eventually offered $3,500 — the maximum amount for a small claims case in Arizona. He says they wanted more, but Meta refused, and they felt like they were out of options. Ryan claims they had already lost tens of thousands of dollars in potential sales that they normally sourced from Facebook. “We were prepared to go further, but no lawyer would really take it on without a $15,000 retainer and it wasn't worth it.”
While it may seem surprising that Meta would give these small claims cases so much attention, Zucker, the Cal State Northridge professor, says that big companies have their own reasons for wanting to avoid court. “I don’t think places like Google or Meta want to have a bunch of judgments against them … because then that becomes a public record and starts floating around,” he says. “So they do take these things seriously.”
Without responding to specific questions about the substance of this story, Meta instead sent Engadget the following statement:
"We know that losing and recovering access to your online accounts can be a frustrating experience. We invest heavily in designing account security systems to help prevent account compromise in the first place, and in educating our users, including by regularly sharing new security features and tips for how people can stay safe and vigilant against potential targeting by hackers. But we also know that bad actors, including scammers, target people across the internet and constantly adapt to evade detection by social media platforms like ours, email and telecom providers, banks and others. To detect malicious activity and help protect people who may have gotten compromised via email phishing, malware or other means, we also constantly improve our detection, enforcement and support systems, in addition to providing channels where people can report account access issues to us, working with law enforcement and taking legal action against malicious groups."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-small-claims-court-became-metas-customer-service-hotline-160224479.html?src=rss
Instagram is rolling out another way for users to engage with a smaller group of friends and followers starting today. Close Friends on Instagram Live does what it says on the tin: you’ll be able to limit the viewership of livestreams to just your list of Close Friends. Up to three other people will be able to join your more-intimate broadcasts.
This could help users plan trips, collaborate on homework or simply catch up, Instagram suggests. The update will also give influencers an option for hosting livestreams for a private (and perhaps paid-up) audience.
Since November, users have been able to limit the reach of posts and Reels to their Close Friends. According to Instagram, users are looking for ways to connect with friends and followers more privately. The popularity of features like DMs, Close Friends and Notes attests to that.
Speaking of Notes, Instagram has flagged a couple of under-the-radar aspects of that feature that it introduced in recent months. You can now essentially post a video as a note. This will temporarily replace your profile photo. You’ll also see an Easter egg (in other words, confetti animations) when you wish a friend a happy birthday in a note. This will appear when you include the words “happy birthday” or use birthday-related words while @-mentioning a pal.
Last but not least, Instagram has introduced a welcome feed update. You now have the option to add music to carousel posts that include videos. Until now, it was only possible to add music to carousels comprised solely of photos.
Instagram
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-now-restrict-instagram-lives-to-close-friends-150023794.html?src=rss
European Union officials have delayed talks over proposed legislation that could lead to messaging services having to scan photos and links to detect possible child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Were the proposal to become law, it may require the likes of WhatsApp, Messenger and Signal to scan all images that users upload — which would essentially force them to break encryption.
For the measure to pass, it would need to have the backing of at least 15 of the member states representing at least 65 percent of the bloc's entire population. However, countries including Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were expected to abstain from the vote or oppose the plan due to cybersecurity and privacy concerns, Politico reports. If EU members come to an agreement on a joint position, they'll have to hash out a final version of the law with the European Commission and European Parliament.
The legislation was first proposed in 2022 and it could result in messaging services having to scan all images and links with the aim of detecting CSAM and communications between minors and potential offenders. Under the proposal, users would be informed about the link and image scans in services' terms and conditions. If they refused, they would be blocked from sharing links and images on those platforms. However, as Politico notes, the draft proposal includes an exemption for “accounts used by the State for national security purposes."
EU Council leaders are said to have been trying for six months to break the impasse and move forward negotiations to finalize the law. Belgium's presidency of the Council is set to end on June 30, and it's unclear if the incoming leadership will continue to prioritize the proposal.
Patrick Breyer, a digital rights activist who was a member of the previous European Parliament before this month's elections, has argued that proponents of the so-called "chat control" plan aimed to take advantage of a power vacuum before the next parliament is constituted. Breyer says that the delay of the vote, prompted in part by campaigners, "should be celebrated," but warned that "surveillance extremists among the EU governments" could again attempt to advance chat control in the coming days.
Other critics and privacy advocates have slammed the proposal. Signal president Meredith Whittaker said in a statement that "mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption," while Edward Snowden described it as a "terrifying mass surveillance measure."
Advocates, on the other hand, have suggested that breaking encryption would be acceptable in order to tackle CSAM. "The Commission proposed the method or the rule that even encrypted messaging can be broken for the sake of better protecting children," Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová said on Thursday, per EuroNews.
The EU is not the only entity to attempt such a move. In 2021, Apple revealed a plan to scan iCloud Photos for known CSAM. However, it scrapped that controversial effort following criticism from the likes of customers, advocacy groups and researchers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-delays-decision-over-scanning-encrypted-messages-for-csam-142208548.html?src=rss
Instagram is recommending Reels with sexual content to teenagers as young as 13 even if they aren't specifically looking for racy videos, according to separate tests conducted by The Wall Street Journal and Northeastern University professor Laura Edelson. Both of them created new accounts and set their ages to 13-years-old for the tests, which mostly took place from January until April this year. Apparently, Instagram served moderately racy videos from the beginning, including those of women dancing sensually or those that focus on their bodies. Accounts that watched those videos and skipped other Reels then started getting recommendations for more explicit videos.
Some of the recommended Reels contained women pantomiming sex acts, others promised to send nudes to users who comment on their accounts. The test users were also reportedly served videos with people flashing their genitalia, and in one instance, the supposed teen user was shown "video after video about anal sex." It took as little as three minutes after the accounts were created to start getting sexual Reels. Within 20 minutes of watching them, their recommended Reels section was dominated by creators producing sexual content.
To note, The Journal and Edelson conducted the same test for TikTok and Snapchat and found that neither platform recommended sexual videos to the teen accounts they created. The accounts never even saw recommendations for age-inappropriate videos after actively searching for them and following creators that produce them.
The Journal says that Meta's employees identified similar problems in the past, based on undisclosed documents it saw detailing internal research on harmful experiences on Instagram for young teenagers. Meta's safety staff previously conducted the same test and came up with similar results, the publication reports. Company spokesperson Andy Stone shrugged off the report, however, telling The Journal: "This was an artificial experiment that doesn’t match the reality of how teens use Instagram." He added that the company "established an effort to further reduce the volume of sensitive content teens might see on Instagram, and have meaningfully reduced these numbers in the past few months."
Back in January, Meta introduced significant privacy updates related to teen user protection and automatically placed teen users into its most restrictive control settings, which they can't opt out of. The Journals' tests were conducted after those updates rolled out, and it was even able to replicate the results as recently as June. Meta released the updates shortly after The Journal published the results of a previous experiment, wherein it found that Instagram’s Reels would serve "risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos" to test accounts that exclusively followed teen and preteen influencers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-is-reportedly-recommending-sexual-reels-to-teens-as-young-as-13-121626058.html?src=rss
MORZINE, FRANCE - APRIL 08: Three teenage boys looks at their smartphone screens in village of St Jean d'Aulps on April 8, 2024 near Morzine, France.
Following the lead of the EU Commission and several US administrations, TikTok is set to be banned from UK government phones amid security concerns around the Chinese-owned video app. Recently TikTok announced that every account belonging to a user below age 18 have a 60-minute daily screen time limit automatically set. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
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