Payments relating to a class action lawsuit filed in 2018 over Apple’s butterfly MacBook keyboards have reportedly begun to arrive. The settlement website now states that payments for approved claims will go out in August — and sure enough, 9to5Mac’s Michael Burkhardt reports that he received two settlement checks in the mail on Saturday. Just how much eligible MacBook owners will get varies depending on the extent of the repairs their devices needed. But for some, it could mean a check (or multiple) of up to $395.

After Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in 2015, complaints arose over “sticky” and unresponsive keys, susceptibility to debris and other major issues. The company ultimately started phasing out the design in 2019. The lawsuit filed in 2018 accused Apple of knowing that its keyboards had problems and concealing this from consumers. While Apple denied the lawsuit’s allegations of defective keyboards and did not admit to any wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $50 million as part of a settlement.

Per the settlement website, people who got two or more topcase replacements within four years of purchasing one of the affected MacBooks are expected to get between $300-$395. MacBook owners who got just one topcase replacement could get up to $125. Claimants who only needed keycap replacements will get a maximum of $50. Of course, to receive a payment, you’d need to have filed any claims by the deadlines outlined in the settlement. And, when the settlement was first reached in 2022, Reuters reported that it will only apply to customers who bought the affected laptops in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Washington. You can find the full details in the case’s FAQ.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-has-finally-started-sending-out-payments-from-its-butterfly-keyboard-settlement-210754935.html?src=rss

© Nathan Ingraham/Engadget

New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention.

Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

Toward Eternity does not waste any time in getting to the drama. The novel by Anton Hur begins in the not-so-far-off future, and opens with a moment of crisis: a patient in a nanotherapy research clinic has seemingly vanished into thin air. This patient had been undergoing a new type of treatment that uses android cells (dubbed “nanites”) to cure cancer by replacing the body’s own cells. In doing so, however, it transforms the body entirely into a nanodroid, giving rise to “nano humans” that are no longer subjected to mortality.

The story jumps through time and different perspectives, exploring what it means “to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology.” From the second I started reading this one, I did not want to put it down.

Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere by Rob Jackson

It can be hard not to get swept up in the doom and gloom of climate change, especially amid reports marking Earth’s hottest years on record and still-rising emissions from fossil fuels. Stanford climate scientist Rob Jackson’s new book Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere aims to foster a more optimistic outlook by calling attention to the courses of action that could lead us to a better future for our planet and its inhabitants.

“I view my book as a home repair manual for the planet,” Jackson said in a recent interview published by the scientific journal ACS Central Science. “It highlights the people and the ideas needed to solve the climate crisis. I want most of all to give people hope, a sense of optimism. Yes, climate change is already bad, but we can still fix this problem.”

Epitaphs from the Abyss #1

Legendary comic book publisher EC Comics, which brought us series like Tales from the Crypt and Weird Science more than 70 years ago, is making a comeback with its first new series in decades: Epitaphs from the Abyss. The first issue of the horror series was released at the end of July and features four tales — which are introduced by a ghoulish narrator dubbed The Grave-Digger.

Epitaphs from the Abyss #1 has stories by Brian Azzarello, J. Holtham, Stephanie Phillips and Chris Condon, with art by Lee Bermejo, Phil Hester, Peter Krause and Jorge Fornés. There’s something about those old EC Comics that just hits different, and Epitaphs faithfully slips back into that vibe to deliver spooky new stories that have a classic feel.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-to-read-books-existential-sci-fi-ai-technology-climate-crisis-solutions-ec-comics-horror-183058573.html?src=rss

Prison Architect 2, the sequel to the 2015 cult hit, isn't coming out this year as its creators had planned. The prison construction simulator's publisher, Paradox Interactive, has announced that its release has been delayed indefinitely. In its post, Paradox has admitted that its internal reviews and beta testing feedbacks surfaced the areas that need more attention, mainly the game's performance and content. "We need to raise the quality a bit more to meet the standards we'd like to achieve with this sequel," it wrote. 

This latest development comes after a series of delays. Prison Architect 2 was supposed to come out on March 26, but it was pushed back a couple of times so that its developers at Double Eleven and Kokku could resolve issues concerning memory usage and minimum spec configuration. This time, Paradox decided not to set a new release date. It says it will announce a new one once the Prison Architect 2 teams are done reworking the game's scope. 

Earlier this year, Paradox Interactive also had to deal with the overwhelmingly negative reception for Cities: Skylines 2's Beach Properties asset pack. Players weren't happy with the $10 DLC's contents, especially since they're still waiting for patches for the main game that was riddled with visual and mechanical bugs when it was released in 2023. Prison Architect 2's delay could prevent a repeat of what happened to Cities: Skylines.

Paradox explained that improving the game will take time, because it has "deep systems that all interact with each other." If one area is fixed, other parts of the game need to be fixed or adjusted, as well. For now, the publisher and the developers will refund all pre-orders. Those who purchased from Paradox directly will automatically be reimbursed, but those who purchased from the Xbox, PlayStation or Steam stores will have to go through those platforms to get their refund. Paradox will remove the option to pre-order the game entirely and will add the supposed pre-order bonus to the base game instead.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prison-architect-2-is-delayed-indefinitely-160038125.html?src=rss

© Paradox Interactive

NVIDIA has discovered “design flaws” in its upcoming series of AI chips that may push their release back at least three months, The Information reports. The company has reportedly started notifying customers of the delay, including Microsoft. Large orders of the new Blackwell chips were initially slated to start shipping sometime this year, but sources told The Information that they’re now not expected until early 2025. In addition to Microsoft, the publication reports that Google, Meta and other major companies have placed bulk orders of the Blackwell chips that are collectively worth “tens of billions of dollars.”

NVIDIA announced the Blackwell series chips back in March, touting performance boosts of up to 30 times what’s achieved by its flagship H100, which serves as the backbone for some of today’s biggest AI systems. The company at the time also said the Blackwell chips could reduce “cost and energy consumption by up to 25x.” But according to The Information, citing sources involved with the Blackwell chip, “design problems arose unusually late in the production process.”

NVIDIA and its chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, are now doing test production runs to get to the bottom of the issues, according to The Information, which reports that the first big shipments may not go out until the first quarter.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-blackwell-ai-chips-have-reportedly-hit-a-snag-and-may-arrive-months-late-163009474.html?src=rss

© NVIDIA

A future artificial intelligence product by Meta could have you chatting with celebrities. According to Bloomberg and The New York Times, the company is in talks with Awkwafina, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Key, among other celebrities from various Hollywood agencies for its AI projects. The company apparently intends to incorporate their voices into a conversational generative AI-slash-digital assistant called MetaAI, which is similar to Siri and Google Assistant. 

Meta plans to record their voices and to secure the right to use them for as many situations as possible across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and even the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Bloomberg says negotiations have started and stopped many times, because both sides can't seem to agree with the terms for use. For now, they seemed to have settled on a time limit, meaning any voice the company records can only be used over a set period. However, the deals with the actors could be renewed or extended by the time their contract is up. 

The actors' representatives are still looking to negotiate for stricter limits, though SAG-AFTRA has reportedly reached an agreement with Meta on terms. SAG-AFTRA, if you'll recall, fought for the establishment of provisions to protect actors from the threat of job loss due to AI when it went on strike last year. Under those terms, a company will have to pay actors and obtain their consent before it can use their AI-generated likeness. If Meta reaches a deal with the actors it's talking to, it could pay them millions of dollars in fees. 

Meta is looking to finalize deals before its Connect conference in September, The Times says, where it's expected to launch a bunch of AI products. During the same event last year, the company also introduced a chatbot platform with 28 "characters" voiced by celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Dwyane Wade and Kendall Jenner. The Information reports that Meta has just quietly scrapped that project, and the celebrity chatbots' pages on Facebook and Instagram are no longer available. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-reportedly-offering-millions-to-use-hollywood-voices-in-ai-projects-121019385.html?src=rss

© Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Apple pulled the latest short film in its The Underdogs: OOO (Out of Office) series set in Thailand. The tech giant scrubbed it over complaints about stereotypical portrayals of Thailand and its people in certain scenes.

The Bangkok Post reports that Apple issued an apology to the people of Thailand for the fifth film in its Underdogs series. The ad series features a group of travel weary office workers navigating the world using Apple’s various products.

Several viewers posted comments criticizing the film’s use of a sepia filter to make Thailand seem underdeveloped. The comments also called out the costuming and scenery decisions in its airport scene using outdated representations of Thailand’s citizens.

Sattra Sripan, the spokesman for the Thai House of Representatives’ committee on tourism, called for a boycott over the ad.

“Thai people are deeply unhappy with the advertisement,” Sripan said in a statement. “I encourage Thai people to stop using Apple products and change to other brands.”

Apple issued an apology for the ad shortly after pulling it off of YouTube. Lawmakers have also invited Apple representatives to visit with them to discuss the ads and how they portray Thailand on film.

“Our intent was to celebrate the country’s optimism and culture, and we apologize for not fully capturing the vibrancy of Thailand today,” the statement read.

This is the second time this year that Apple has apologized for a commercial. Apple pulled an ad back in May that it told AdAge “missed the mark” for its new thin iPad Pro. The commercial features a giant pneumatic press crushing a large collection of items used in or to represent creative endeavors such musical instruments, paints, a generic arcade cabinet, and camera equipment. The steel crusher smooshes everything flat and lifts up to reveal an intact iPad sitting on the lower steel block that a voiceover describes as “the most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest.”

Artists, musicians and other creators took offense to the ad’s implied tone that generative AI would replace human artistic endeavors. Apple vowed not to air the ad on TV but it’s still on its YouTube page with the comments section disabled.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-apologizes-for-another-ad-that-missed-the-mark-220045564.html?src=rss

© Apple

A guest who appeared on the No Jumper podcast to boast about a hack and payback scheme involving his victims’ social media accounts could face federal charges. Idriss Qibaa, also known as “Dani” and “Unlocked” who authorities allege ran the social media hacking site Unlocked4Life.com, faces two criminal felony counts filed by the US Attorney's Office in Nevada for allegedly violating interstate communications laws for threats he issued in text messages to two victims and members of their families, according to documents obtained by 404 Media.

Investigators filed the sealed complaint against Qibaa on July 25 and issued a warrant the following Monday when also made his first initial appearance in court, according to federal court records.

The criminal complaint states that the FBI received a tip about Qibaa’s alleged extortion scheme on April 1 pointing to an appearance he made on the No Jumper podcast hosted by Adam22, also known as Adam Grandmaison, back in January under his pseudonym “Dani.” Qibaa outlined a financial scheme using over 200 victims’ social media accounts in which he would lock them out of their pages and charge them to regain access.

He also boasted that he made about $600,000 a month from his activities and hired two security guards to follow him.

“You’re making $2 million a month off your Instagram and Telegraph,” Qibaa says on the podcast. “I come and I take it away and make you pay for it back and I make it public and I post it and I expose you.”

Qibaa even said on the podcast episode that he pulled the scheme on celebrities who unknowingly kept paying him to get their social media back. He later noted “I’m very petty” followed by a menacing laugh.

“I’ve talked to stars who have told me that they’ve paid to get it back 20 times over and over and over they just have to keep paying to get it back,” Qibaa says, “and I’m like you realize what’s happening to you right like the same that’s getting you it back is…you’re getting extorted.”

The criminal complaint tells the story of eight victims’ encounters with Qibaa and his services. One identified as “J.T.” operated two Instagram accounts: a cannabis news aggregate account called “theblacklistxyz” and a cannabis merchandising store under “caliplug,” both of which are currently set to private. J.T. reached out to Qibaa asking if he could obtain a username. Qibaa quoted a price back between $4,000-$5,000. J.T. refused to take Qibaa up on the offer and Qibaa responded with threats.

“Qibba told J.T. that J.T. had wasted Qibaa’s time, blocked J.T.’s Instagram pages and demanded $10,000 to reinstate it,” the complaint reads. “J.T. offered Qibaa $8,500 to reinstate the account, an offer Qibaa accepted.”

The complaint asserts that Qibba reached out to J.T. two more times. The first time, Qibba asked if J.T. would promote his Instagram page under the username “unlocked4life” that’s since been taken down. J.T. agreed but when he learned Qibaa had been threatening and extorting other victims, he confronted Qibaa and “Qibaa was irate.”

A few months later, Qibaa apparently increased the scope of his threats to J.T. and members of his family. He sent threats to call the victim’s ex-wife’s lawyer and child protective services on his kids. Screenshots of the victims’ phone show Qibaa allegedly identifying the address and phone number of the victim’s sister. He texted another family member and introduced himself as “The guy that’s gonna murder your drug dealer brother. Tell him Unlocked says hi though. We have your entire family’s info.”

Another victim identified as a journalist and comedian with the initials “E.H.” learned they were a target of Qibaa’s illegal services. Qibaa blocked their Instagram account, the name of which was redacted, at the request of a dentist in California who treated them. E.H. reached out to the Unlocked4Life account and received a reply that read, “Yo its Idriss.” He then told E.H. to pull up the No Jumper podcast episode featuring his interview. Qibaa not only took the victim’s Instagram account access away but also threatened to take their Social Security number and “blast it out” if they didn’t pay him $20,000.

According to the complaint, not even restraining orders could make Qibaa leave his victims alone. One named “R.B.” received a restraining order from Los Angeles County Superior Court in July but “Unblocked” responded, “Cute restraining order..last I checked you’re still gonna die.” Then “UNLOCKED UNCENSORED” posted on Telegram, “$50,000 reward for whoever sleeps BO this week.”

Perhaps the most disturbing threats happened to several victims in which Qibaa claimed he’d happily go to jail if payments weren’t made to him. Screenshots of the text chains show a person named “Dani” and “Daniel” telling his victims, “I will come and shoot you myself,” “I’m going to bury you for this shit” and “D., L., J., T., Children-Main Targets” referring to the victims’ children.

Another text chain shows Qibaa allegedly threatening someone that he would “rather take a life sentence for murdering you then this,” “Idc if I have to shoot you my self [sic]” and “I’ll go to jail happily.” He follows the text with the threat “Here’s the last guy that came to take photos / came near my home” and sends three pictures of an unidentified bearded man, his car and a photo of his badly bruised and bloodied on the ground.”

Adam22 concluded his podcast interview with “Dani” saying he was “very excited to see the fallout from this” and “I respect the hustle even though I can’t justify it on a moral level.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hack-and-payback-instagram-scammer-gets-nabbed-after-bragging-about-it-on-a-podcast-202509349.html?src=rss

© Screenshot from YouTube

Google is phasing out an Olympics ad for its AI-powered chatbot, Gemini, after receiving widespread criticism for showing a father using AI to help his daughter write a fan letter to her favorite athlete. In the 60-second commercial, which is still available on YouTube, a father uses Gemini to write a fan letter to Olympic track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, on behalf of his young daughter.

“She wants to show Sydney some love and I am pretty good with words, but this has to be just right,” the dad says in the commercial. “So Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is.” The ad ends with the words: “A little help from Gemini.”

A Google spokesperson told CNBC that although the ad tested well before it aired, “given the feedback, we have decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation.” The spokesperson added that the ad’s goal was to create an authentic story to celebrate Team USA. “We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it,” they added.

“The commercial showing somebody having a child use AI to write a fan letter to her hero SUCKS,” wrote Linda Holmes, the host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, on Threads. “Obviously there are special circumstances and people who need help, but as a general ‘look how cool, she didn’t even have to write anything herself!’ story, it SUCKS. Who wants an AI-written fan letter??”

Shelley Palmer, a professor of advanced media at Syracuse University’s communications school, strongly criticized the ad in a widely-shared post on her blog. She argued that the commercial’s approach could lead to a “monocultural future where original human thoughts become increasingly rare” and expressed concern for the ads’s implications for parenting and education.

The backlash reflects the broader debates around the role of AI in creative processes and its potential impact on the quality of human expression. As AI technologies continue to advance, companies are facing increasing scrutiny not only over how they portray and promote these tools but also about using the work of creative professionals without permission to train AI models.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-will-no-longer-air-an-olympics-ad-that-showed-a-child-using-ai-to-write-a-fan-letter-201214273.html?src=rss

© Google

The US Department of Justice is suing TikTok for violating a child privacy law and violating a 2019 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission for previous privacy violations. The lawsuit stems from an earlier investigation into the company by the Federal Trade Commission, which referred its privacy case to the DoJ earlier this year.

The FTC had been looking into whether TikTok had violated the terms of an earlier privacy settlement with Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance prior to the launch of TikTok. According to the FTC, the investigation found that TikTok had “flagrantly” violated both the 2019 settlement and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

In a statement, the Justice Department also cited TikTok’s collection of personal information about children on its platform and its failure to comply with the requests for the information to be deleted.

From 2019 to the present, TikTok knowingly permitted children to create regular TikTok accounts and to create, view, and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular TikTok platform. The defendants collected and retained a wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents. Even for accounts that were created in “Kids Mode” (a pared-back version of TikTok intended for children under 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other types of personal information. Further, when parents discovered their children’s accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and information in them, the defendants frequently failed to honor those requests. The defendants also had deficient and ineffectual internal policies and processes for identifying and deleting TikTok accounts created by children.

In a statement, TikTok said it took issue with the allegations, saying it had previously addressed some of the conduct described by the Justice Department. “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” the company said. “We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”

The lawsuit comes at a particularly inconvenient time for TikTok, which is set to face off with the Justice Department in federal court next month over a law that aims to force ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban in the United States.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-justice-department-sues-tiktok-for-breaking-child-privacy-laws-190456433.html?src=rss

© Anadolu via Getty Images

Warner Bros. Discovery is shuttering Boomerang, a streaming service dedicated to classic cartoons, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The platform started as a digital cable channel back in 2000 before expanding to a streaming platform in 2017.

Boomerang will officially cease operations on September 30, giving subscribers around two months to quickly binge every Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo cartoon. However, some content will be folded into Max. The linear channel will continue to operate via cable and satellite providers, reaching an estimated 26 million homes.

Additionally, Boomerang subscribers will be grandfathered into Max’s ad-free tier “with no change” to the subscription price “until further notice,” according to an email sent to users. That’s a dang good deal, as Boomerang costs $6 per month and Max’s ad-free plan currently costs $17 per month.

Max

Max, however, is already home to much of the same programming as Boomerang. This includes Looney Tunes shorts, several Scooby-Doo shows, Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones, among others. It’s also home to the entire catalog of Cartoon Network shows and plenty of DC animated series, like Harley Quinn.

The company hasn’t specified which shows and movies would be making the move to Max, simply telling subscribers that “some Boomerang content may not be available” after September 30.

Boomerang isn’t the only cartoon-adjacent streaming platform on the chopping block. Kid-friendly Noggin shut down earlier this year after layoffs at parent company Paramount Global. On the upside, Disney+ has plenty of cartoons, given the pedigree, and the same goes for Netflix and Prime Video.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/say-goodbye-to-boomerang-the-streaming-service-dedicated-to-classic-cartoons-182127381.html?src=rss

© Boomerang/Max

Another giant name in the gaming press is shutting down its operations. Game Informer announced today that it’s been shut down by its parent company GameStop after 33 years in the business. The entire website and its archives have also been removed and now redirect to the magazine’s final statement of thanks to its readers.

“After 33 thrilling years of bringing you the latest news, reviews and insights from the ever-evolving world of gaming, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Game Informer,” the publication’s statement reads. 

Several social media posts confirmed the sad news about the state of the magazine and its staff. Lead video producer Alex Van Aken posted on X that the staff didn’t know what was happening until “there’s a tweet that someone higher up posting spilling the news.”

Game Informer’s content director Kyle Hilliard says on X that the bad news about the mass staff layoffs landed right when they were in the middle of creating a new issue. “A frustrating turn of events (especially considering we were about 70 percent done with the next issue and it was going to have a GREAT cover),” Hilliard wrote on X.

The magazine launched in August of 1991 under the FuncoLand game store brand with Sonic the Hedgehog sprinting across its cover. The cover headlines promised “sizzling hot pre-release reviews inside!” on games like Decap Attack, Micro Machines and NHL Hockey. GameStop acquired the FuncoLand brand in 2000 and the gaming magazine. Game Informer amassed a peak readership of 6 million, according to its official website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/game-informer-magazine-is-shutting-down-after-33-years-181549995.html?src=rss

© Screenshot from X

Instagram is blocked in Turkey amid a dispute over Hamas-related content on the platform. The app has been inaccessible in the country since Friday morning. Netblocks, an organization that tracks internet and social media outages, confirmed that Instagram had been restricted in the country.

Turkish regulators didn’t specify why the block was in place but, as Bloomberg reports, the crackdown on Instagram appears to be related to its handling of Hamas-related posts on the platform. On Friday, Turkey’s head of communications Fahrettin Altun, said in a post on X that Instagram “is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences” for Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed earlier this week.

Meta hasn’t publicly commented on the block.

It’s not the first time Turkish authorities have blocked a major social media service. Twitter was briefly blocked in the country last year following a devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people. YouTube and Twitter were also blocked in 2014.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/turkey-has-blocked-instagram-amid-a-dispute-over-hamas-related-content-175934777.html?src=rss

© NurPhoto via Getty Images

It's Friday, which means it's time for another roundup of good tech deals. Our latest edition is headed up by a few notable discounts from the PlayStation Store's Summer Sale. Both the standard and digital versions of the PS5 are $50 off, for one — not a huge price drop, but still about as low as we usually see the consoles fall. The soon-to-be-improved PlayStation VR2 is down to $349, a $200 discount, while a number of our favorite PS5 games are also on sale. Beyond that, Apple's entry-level AirPods are back down to a low of $70, several Amazon Echo devices are available for the prices we saw during Prime Day and Google's Pixel 8a is at a new low ahead of the company's big Pixel hardware event later this month. Here are the best tech deals from this week you can still buy today. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-playstation-5-is-50-off-plus-the-rest-of-the-weeks-best-tech-deals-170024467.html?src=rss

© Aaron Souppouris/Engadget

Tesla is facing yet more legal action over Autopilot after the parents of a motorcyclist who was killed in a crash involving a Model 3 sued the company. The plaintiffs, who also sued the driver of the Tesla, claimed that the car's driver assistant tech and other safety measures are “defective and inadequate.”

The plaintiffs argued in the complaint, which was obtained by Reuters, that Autopilot sensors and cameras “should have identified the hazard posed by" the motorcycle. Autopilot was engaged when the Model 3 struck the back of Landon Embry's motorcycle at 75-80 miles per hour in Utah in 2022. Embry died at the scene.

His parents also claim the Model 3 driver was tired and that "a reasonably prudent driver, or adequate auto braking system, would have, and could have slowed or stopped without colliding with the motorcycle." Tesla does not have a public relations department that can be reached for comment.

This is the latest in a long line of legal and regulatory issues that Tesla has contended with over the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features. Just this week, Washington state investigators determined that a Tesla Model S involved in a fatal crash with a motorcycle in April had Full Self-Driving engaged at the time.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-sued-over-fatal-autopilot-crash-164723952.html?src=rss

© ASSOCIATED PRESS

THQ Nordic is holding a livestream showcase event at 3PM ET and you can watch it live via the YouTube embed placed below. If YouTube isn’t your bag, the event will also stream on the company’s Twitch channel and its Steam page.

The company says the digital showcase will offer updates on a bunch of games, like Titan Quest II, Way of the Hunter, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed and the upcoming remake of Gothic 1. The press release does suggest that there will be more games spotlighted during the event, but didn’t name names. It also says there will be “new announcements.”

There’s a car-shaped elephant in the room here. The press release advertising the event is titled “The day of (W)reckoning is at hand.” This is almost certainly a reference to the company’s long-gestating racing franchise Wreckfest. Are we getting a sequel or maybe a remake? Time will tell.

Not that much time though. The stream officially starts at 3PM ET, but there’s a pre-show at 2:45 ET hosted by HandyGames. This subsidiary of THQ Nordic is responsible for titles like Lock’s Quest and Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt, among others.

One final thing. If you’re into puzzles or internet-based mysteries, THQ Nordic did drop a hint about something else that would be covered during the event. The Wheel of Fortune-esque teaser simply says “_ _ e E _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.” Make of that what you will.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-thq-nordics-digital-showcase-at-3pm-et-164018041.html?src=rss

© THQ Nordic

After a couple of months of beta testing on consoles to iron out some bugs, Valorant is now properly available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in some regions. You can dive into the free-to-play tactical shooter on the consoles if you're in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan or Brazil. Riot plans to open up the game to console players in other regions down the line.

Riot says it optimized the gameplay for consoles, which included the addition of a new Focus shooting mode that's a bit like hipfire, but with lower sensitivity for greater precision. There won't be any support for crossplay between PC and consoles so as to maintain competitive integrity, but you will have access to all your purchased or earned cosmetics and there will be shared progression across all platforms. Riot also notes that there will be parity between all platforms in terms of balance changes and added agents, maps, premium content and other features.

"We believe there are millions of players that would love to play Valorant, but currently can’t, and we hope to change that with bringing Valorant to consoles," Valorant production designer Arnar Gylfason said in a statement. "We aim to provide them the joy of the Valorant experience and all it entails: a core tactical shooter gameplay focused on mastery and player expression, a team-based competitive environment where match quality and fairness comes first, our amazing ecosystem with a unique style, high-quality cosmetics and a thriving community that values personal and competitive identity."

This is a significant step for Riot as Valorant is its first live-service game on console — the likes of League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics remain PC-only. However, the publisher plans to bring its upcoming LoL-based fighting game 2XKO to PlayStation and Xbox as well.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/valorant-is-now-out-of-beta-on-playstation-5-and-xbox-series-xs-160016521.html?src=rss

© Riot Games

Apple has been pressuring ByteDance and Tencent to close loopholes in China that funnel customers to external payment systems for making in-app purchases, according to a report by Bloomberg. Anyone living in the West knows the drill here. Apple wants that 30 percent commission.

Reporting indicates this pressure campaign began in May. Apple allegedly warned Tencent that it would reject crucial WeChat updates if it didn’t eliminate the ability for users to make payments outside of Apple’s ecosystem. Tencent complied with the original request, issuing an update in July, but Apple went one step further.

WeChat is home to thousands of third-party mini-games and experiences. Apple asked Tencent to disable in-game chat between creators and players, as that's another theoretical loophole that could funnel users to third-party payment systems. Tencent has yet to agree to this request.

Back in June, Apple reportedly did something similar with ByteDance. It threatened to withhold updates of Douyin, which is basically the Chinese version of TikTok, unless it plugged any gaps that steer users away from that much-coveted 30 percent commission. According to Bloomberg, ByteDance has yet to issue a formal response.

These are aggressive moves on the part of Apple. China is the world’s largest smartphone market, sure, but the iPhone isn’t the dominant brand throughout the country. As a matter of fact, the phone failed to crack the top five in sales last quarter and the company recently experienced a 6.5 percent decline in profits.

It’s also worth noting that both ByteDance and Tencent aren’t happy corporate warriors looking out for the little guy. These massive companies levy their own commissions on creators and likely didn’t want Apple cutting into their bottom lines.

An Apple spokesperson was unusually blunt in a statement to Bloomberg, simply saying that company guidelines dictate that the sale of all digital goods must go through its system and that the review team has the power to reject app submissions that violate that policy. Neither Tencent or ByteDance issued a comment to Bloomberg. 

China, like the rest of the world, has been cracking down on walled gardens like Apple’s App Store. Despite the country’s hesitance to continue allowing closed ecosystems controlled by a single entity, Apple CEO Tim Cook is bullish about its prospects in China. “We continue to be confident in the long-term opportunity in China,” he said during a recent earnings call. “I don’t know how every chapter of the book reads, but we’re very confident in the long term.”

Apple is facing numerous legal hurdles all over the world regarding its Hungry Hungry Hippos approach to gobbling up commission fees. The European Commission issued a ruling that dictates it must allow app developers to steer users to payment systems and offers outside of the App Store. The company also faces potential fines from the EU, to the tune of ten percent of global annual revenue. As for the US, Epic sued Apple over its developer transaction fee policy and many other companies have expressed their own concerns. It's also worth nothing that Tencent owns a 40 percent stake in Epic Games. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-fighting-tencent-and-bytedance-over-in-app-payments-in-china-155949462.html?src=rss

© Unsplash / Sumudu Mohottige

People are so excited for the next-gen Switch, they're likely holding off on buying Nintendo's current consoles and games. At least that's what the company's latest earnings report seems to indicate. For the quarter ending on June 30, Nintendo posted a net profit of 80.9 billion Japanese Yen, which is higher than its forecast but over 50 percent lower than its net profit for the same period last fiscal year. In addition, the company said it only sold 2.1 million Switch consoles for the quarter. That means it experienced a 46.3 percent decline on unit sales year-on-year. Even its games didn't sell well, seeing as Nintendo posted a software sales figure that's 41.3 percent lower than last fiscal year's at 30.64 million units sold. 

In its report, Nintendo admits that the low sales figures for games was caused by the lack of big releases, such as the previous year's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The Super Mario Bros. Movie also helped "energize" its business back then. But since hardware sales for this quarter are similar to the previous one's, Nintendo considers its Switch sales to be stable. 

Nintendo is expected to launch its "Switch 2" console soon. It was expected to come out sometime this year, but according to reports published in the previous months, it will be released in early 2025 instead. There's still very little known about the upcoming console, but rumors say it will have backwards compatibility, as well as 4K capabilities. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nintendo-profits-fall-55-percent-as-people-save-their-cash-for-the-switch-2-140019403.html?src=rss

© Photo by Kris Naudus / Engadget

Our pick for the best budget Android phone is looking even better right now as the Google Pixel 8a has dropped to a new all-time-low price. You can pick up the device for $399. That's 20 percent off the regular price, and it's even lower than any of the deals we saw for it during Prime Day.

The Pixel 8a has the same Tensor G3 chip as the rest of the Pixel 8 lineup, which means you get access to the same AI features that its higher-end siblings have. We're fans of the cameras, 120Hz OLED display and battery life too (it lasted 20-and-a-half hours on our video rundown test). IP67 dust and water resistance is definitely welcome as is Qi wireless charging, even if it's not the fastest at a max capacity of 7.5 watts. Add all of that up and it's little surprise that the Google Pixel 8a earned a score of 90 in our review.

But that's not all, folks. The rest of the Pixel lineup is on sale too. The standard Pixel 8 with 128GB of storage is $499, which is $200 off the regular price. We gave that model a score of 90 in our review.

The Pixel 8 Pro pipped that, however, with a score of 93. That's our pick for the best Android phone on the market right now, and you can pick up one with 128GB of storage for $699, or $300 off.

This all comes with one key caveat in that Google is set to unveil the Pixel 9 lineup later this month. Those are expected to have more fancy features (some of which will come to Pixel 8 devices eventually), a more deeply integrated Gemini AI chatbot, an upgraded chipset and a revamped camera system. If you want the latest Pixel device — which will come with an extra year of software support — it'll be worth holding off for a couple of weeks. However, if you need a new phone of the Android variety right now, you can't really go wrong with any of the above options.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-8a-drops-to-a-new-low-of-399-135125969.html?src=rss

© Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Intel is extending the warranties for its controversial Core 13th and 14th-gen processors by two years, it has announced in a community post. The company says it will share more details in coming days, but for now, customers just waiting for their computers to conk out can at least know that they may not have to spend money to replace their processors. Intel revealed in July that after extensive analysis, it found that elevated operating voltage was causing these particular processor models' instability issues for a lot of people.

A microcode algorithm has apparently been sending incorrect voltage requests to the processor, causing users' computers to crash. The company is working on a patch that it plans to release in mid-August, but for some people, it may be too late: As Tom's Hardware notes, the patch will not fix processors that are already crashing. An indie gaming studio called Alderon Games reported that based on its personnel's observations, the processors' failure rate is 100 percent. Even CPUs that work well deteriorate and fail in the end. That's why an extended warranty is very much welcome, especially since some models only have a year-long warranty. 

"Intel is committed to making sure all customers who have or are currently experiencing instability symptoms on their 13th and/or 14th Gen desktop processors are supported in the exchange process," the company wrote in its announcement. It also admitted that "this has been a challenging issue to unravel and definitively root cause." For now, Intel advises those who purchased systems from computer manufacturers to reach out to the brand's support team. Meanwhile, people who purchased boxed CPUs for their PCs can contact Intel's customer support.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intel-makes-good-on-cpu-instability-issues-by-extending-warranties-by-two-years-130010567.html?src=rss

© Intel

The Federal Communications Commission's voted to restore net neutrality protections back in April, but the process isn't as smooth-sailing as its proponents would like. According to Reuters and Fast Company, the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked the rules from taking effect because the broadband providers' legal case challenging their reinstatement will likely succeed. A group of cable, telecom and mobile internet providers sued the FCC shortly after its three Democrat commissioners voted to restore net neutrality protections

Under net neutrality rules, broadband services are classified as essential communications resources. That gives the FCC the power to regulate broadband internet and to prohibit providers from offering paid prioritization, which some ISPs have been using to charge bandwidth-heavy companies like Netflix additional fees. It will also prevent ISPs from blocking or slowing down traffic to specific websites. 

Net neutrality's opponents have long argued that the rules will put off investors. The group of providers that filed this recent case against the FCC said the rules' reinstatement would force them to "forego valuable new services, incur prohibitive compliance costs and pay more to obtain capital." In its decision, the court wrote that the "commission has failed to satisfy the high bar for imposing such regulations and that "net neutrality is likely a major question requiring clear congressional authorization."

The commission originally approved net neutrality rules back in 2015, though they have been in the works for years before that. Under the Trump administration, however, the FCC had voted to roll back the rules and to reclassify broadband internet services back to Title I, which means the agency would have less oversight on the industry. The rules were supposed to take effect on July 22 after the FCC voted to reinstate them, but a court blocked them from taking effect until August 5. Now, net neutrality's proponents will have to wait even longer. The appeals court has scheduled oral arguments discussing the issue for late October or early November, before or during the 2024 US presidential election. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/court-blocks-the-fccs-efforts-to-restore-net-neutrality-again-123029311.html?src=rss

© FCC/Steve Balderson

The surprise 2022 hit PowerWash Simulator has already seen loads of extra content like a DeLorean car washing DLC and even a special edition to aid mental health research. However, the latest update gave users more than developer FuturLab bargained for, according to a recent post on X.

The company released a cruise ship DLC yesterday (Summer Seasonal 2024), but multiple users on Steam complained that they couldn't play it. While a fix was being readied, an upcoming level called "Muckingham Files 4" was somehow released for free onto Steam. Consequently, users on that platform (and no others) can now play both levels.

The Summer Seasonal release lets you make a rusty, grubby cruise ship sparkle again. Meanwhile, Muckingham Files 4 lets users blast graffiti off the vandalized mansion of crypto enthusiast Devon King or clean the firefighting plane of Floraine Perez following a flight over "Mount Rushless."

Much like certain YouTube videos, PowerWash Simulator provides the simple but satisfying experience of blasting gunk off of different objects and... nothing else, really. Folks on Steam get to double up the fun this month, but FuturLab apparently doesn't want them to rub it in the faces of other platforms' users. "Just pretend it didn't happen," the developer advised. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/powerwash-simulators-developers-accidentally-gave-steam-players-a-free-update-120056355.html?src=rss

© FuturLab

Samsung's Galaxy Ring is here, and honestly it's just a bit basic. This week, Cherlynn and Devindra dive into what does and doesn't work with Samsung's latest wearable. Also, we discuss Friend's new AI gadget, which listens to your conversations and sends text messages to help you feel less lonely. To get a better sense of the device, Devindra also talks to Friend's CEO, Avi Schiffmann, about why he's leaning away from the productivity side of AI helpers and more towards the vibes of friendly AI. (And yes, we also ask why he spent $1.8 million of Friend's $2.5 million funding just to buy the Friend.com domain.)

In other news, we discuss the potential impact of KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) with India McKinney, the EFF’s Director of Federal Affairs. While lawmakers are uniformly positioning KOSA as a way to protect kids on the internet, it could also lead to draconian censorship and destroy free speech on the web as we know it.

---

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

• Cherlynn reviews the Samsung Galaxy Ring: Great sleep tracking, but needs more features – 2:13

• Interview with Avi Schiffmann, founder of AI wearable company Friend – 27:27

• KOSA passes the senate – we chat with EFF’s India McKinney about why it matters – 48:22

• What we’ve learned since the massive 7/19 Crowdstrike outage – 1:12:07

• Elon Musk shared an AI altered video of Kamala Harris without labeling, breaking the rules of his own site – 1:18:57

• Apple Intelligence arrives in the iOS 18.1 developer beta – 1:21:57

• Google makes peace with third-party cookies after years of mixed signals – 1:26:38

• Around Engadget: Mat Smith’s Galaxy Flip 6 review – 1:29:36

• Working on – 1:31:44

• Pop culture picks – 1:32:22

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Credits 

Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Guests: Friend CEO Avi Schiffman, EFF Director of Federal Affairs India McKinney
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Transcript

Devindra: What's up, Internet? And welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra

Cherlynn: Hardwar. I'm Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low.

Devindra: Today we are back from a bit of a break, a bit of a summer break. How are you doing, Cherlynn?

Cherlynn: Jet lagged.

Devindra: Oh, man. Yeah, you were in Singapore, right? You came all the way back over.

How long were you in Singapore?

Cherlynn: It was under a week, but including travel, I was gone for about a week and basically missed two days of recording this podcast. So that's why we missed this many episodes. How dare you

Devindra: to see your family, to have good food at the hawker stands. How dare you? That's also a really fast trip for such a long flight, Cherlynn.

You're such a trooper. But this week, folks, we are coming back into the swing of things. Cherlynnn is going to talk about her review of the Samsung Galaxy Ring. We're going to talk about KOSA passing the Senate. This is something we've talked about before, the Kids Online Safety Act. And we're going to talk a bit about the the AI gadget, Friend.

which debuted this week with a really, I don't know, cheesy trailer and had a lot of us laughing, but we also have some interviews with folks too. We have Avi Schiffmann, the CEO friend who talks with me about what he's trying to accomplish with this device and why he moved away from making it like a productivity focused thing, like the Humane AI pin or the Rabbit R1.

And joining us to talk about KOSA is India McKinney, director of federal affairs at the EFF. They're going to talk about why. This bill has a huge amount of privacy concerns. People are worried about censorship online because of this bill and the things that can, it can stop online as always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcast of choice, leave us a review on iTunes.

Drop us an email at podcast@engadget.Com. We love your feedback. We love questions and anything you send us can be mentioned on the show. So if you want to be internet famous for an episode or something, just a shout us out. We also typically live stream the show on Thursday mornings around 10 45 AM Eastern on our YouTube channel.

So join us for that. You can talk with the chat crew. You can see us do some Q and a live on camera today. Sheldon's going to show off the the galaxy ring boy. It's round. I don't know what else you can show off with that thing, Cherlynn, but we'll talk a bit about that thing. Let's get right into it, actually.

Cherlynn, you reviewed the Galaxy Ring. This was a device I was not super amped about, but Samsung I feel like Samsung was really leaning on it because Apple hasn't done it yet. There aren't too many other smart rings out there, except for the Oura. How do you feel about this thing?

Cherlynn: Okay, so to your point, on its own, the Ring doesn't do a lot.

And it's, No, it's really basic. Like it's a 400 device. That's got a bunch of sensors on it. It will track your. Heart rate variability, skin temperature, steps, and all that stuff.

Devindra: It's 400? That, that didn't click with me until now. Yeah, it's actually 399. You could get an Apple Watch for that price.

Yeah,

Cherlynn: it is expensive so you have to be okay with the fact that you're paying a lot of money for something that on its own, once again, doesn't do a lot. And the thing is you, with the ring, you leave it there to passively call it, collect data on you. And then you spend most of your time. If you're like me and interested in those, bits of information, you spend most of your time on the Samsung health app on the phone.

And I. I like it. I think it's very comfortable to wear partly because it's so paired down. It doesn't have a lot. It's not as heavy as the aura ring. In fact, it's actually half the weight.

Devindra: The ring is a thick boy. If you look at it, it's chunky, much

Cherlynn: thicker. And in fact, with the Samsung galaxy ring, I felt like so mine is a size seven, which is the third smallest size Samsung offers.

And that's pretty similar to my actual ring size for those who are wondering, but I would find even throughout the day as your body changes, it never gets too tight. In fact, like my, it might actually be too loose at times, which is important because that affects my blood oxygen readings at night.

Which I'll get into later, but first and foremost, the galaxy ring is a passive health. Data tracking device. And that's, if it's right for you and if you have the 400, you want to spend on that, go for it. I think there are people out there that are looking for low key, low profile gadget like this Martha on the chat asked a very good question.

And it's something that is actually crucial in my review, which is. Was or is there any reason to buy or get the smart ring if you have a smart watch? I, for me, I found in my testing that the ideal combination is a ring and a watch. If I had a crap ton of money. I would wear the ring to track passive things like sleeping, low level activities, like neat stuff.

And then the watch, I would use for tracking workouts or when I'm like out and about, and I'm more likely to want to get notifications on a wrist worn screen. That really, like I found that when I was watching, wearing both the watch ultra and the galaxy ring to be like the best combo. And I was out and about Because I don't want to wear that goddamn watch ultra at home.

It's so huge. I hate it.

Devindra: Yeah, that device may not have been meant for you. Just like the Apple watch ultra, right? That is just a big honking thing. I will say

Cherlynn: the watch ultra never felt as big as the Galaxy one because don't forget what Samsung's doing with the Galaxy watch ultra is to stuff a circular screen into a squarish body.

So it just adds bulk. It doesn't need to be as bulky as It is as or it just isn't the Apple Watch Ultra isn't as bulky, but

Devindra: yeah, it's fits the shape of your wrist more by being a little more squarish, that's a good question, though, by the way, from Mark Dell, is that I think the thing facing wearables, I remember when a lot of the wearable stuff, when Fitbit first came out, when Jawbone had their early stuff, people were like, Oh, this is so cool.

I could track my activity. I could do all sorts of stuff. And the constant question was why do I need this in addition to my smartphone? And now the question is, why do you need the smart ring? Likely in addition to an Apple, to a smart watch. And then the, I feel like the I don't know, algebra for that.

Like the equation for that math is too annoying and too difficult for most consumers. It just seems like these things don't fully justify themselves yet.

Cherlynn: I, for one, I think that one thing I said in my review is that this thing doesn't do much, and that's pretty that's okay by me. And I will point out that what it doesn't do is frustrating.

But to that point where if you do have that, you've decided I, I like this setup, right? Wearing a ring and a watch. The Galaxy, the Samsung Health app is actually not bad at parsing and putting together all of your data on the one page. You don't have to keep jumping back and forth between two windows or apps.

To just get all your data, it just all adds up, right? So one of the things that Samsung introduced alongside the galaxy ring and the watch ultra is it's galaxy AI enabled health, features like the energy score, which by the way, Garmin and Fitbit has been doing forever and ever, but the energy

Devindra: score, it's

Cherlynn: based on how much sleep you got the night before and how much activity you did the day before, and it tells you how ready you are to, tackle the next day so every morning you get a new energy score after Samsung's calculated your sleep and your activity from the day before and it's like today you can take it easy or You should take it easy or then like you had a lot of rest and you did basically nothing yesterday you little lazy pig You do more today It doesn't say those words, but like your energy score being high means you can go on and go on a big hike or whatever.

Devindra: I love this idea, by the way, like I wish we had the actual tech to make this biologically like fully accurate, right? That would be like an implant or something. So you would have a little Mega Man, meter on your wrist.

So Oh, I have full hearts today. I have a full life bar. Let's go. Let's take on the world. We're all gaming characters

Cherlynn: now. Yeah. But the thing is, The main issue with this, and we're coming back again to the problem here, which is the Galaxy Watch Ultra, you mother pizza. It's like the Galaxy Watch Ultra is not only a chunky boy, it's like a chunkster on the scale of that we've established in previous episodes of the Engadget podcast, the watch itself, I have confirmed with Samsung last week, does not have wear detection.

It does not know whether it's on your wrist or not. This thing the Apple Watch does, just does, okay? The Apple Watch knows all the watches. It seems

Devindra: like a very basic feature for any smartwatch. Yes, it

Cherlynn: is a basic feature. And here's where the bigger problem with that is, right? Not only is it just chilling, when it's not on your wrist, therefore just draining its own battery.

It's also randomly detecting workouts when you're not wearing it. So if you put it like I did on my purse and I took a cab ride or something, it was like, Oh, you've been biking.

Devindra: We're tumbling.

Cherlynn: No, I haven't. I haven't, bro. No. And the other thing is, It doesn't have word detection so that one of the key features of the Galaxy Watch Ultra is how when you press down that orange quick button for five seconds, the emergency siren will go off.

Yeah. Do you know the number of times in my testing where the siren just going off in my backpack somewhere and I'm like embarrassed in the Singapore airport, I have a video of this. My mom was like, what is that sound sending me off to, by the way, like to go home to the, to us. And we were like, what is that sound?

And it's in my bag. Of course.

at 2 percent battery screaming with the emergency SOS. So that was frustrating, but to back to the point with the energy score, because that info from the Galaxy Watch Ultra was so inaccurate and messing up my entire activity history because of those phantom workouts, that my energy score was like, Oh, you worked out too much yesterday.

You took a lot of bike rides. Just don't work out as much today. I was like, huh? That's weird. It's not a problem if you like, take the time to go in and read and figure out what happened. But if you're just looking at your energy score and that's all you look at, you'll be like getting very inaccurate information.

So that's just. That's just one of like my bad experiences during testing. It's not a galaxy ring issue. It's a galaxy watch. Cause

Devindra: if you had another galaxy watch, not even the ultra, like you would still have the same data like management issue between both of them.

Cherlynn: And Mark, that was like, good to know that I can stick my watch on my cat to try to boost my score.

That's not, I don't want to sure. Boost your activity score, but not your energy score or your readiness score. But do name Charlie in the chat ask a good question, which is something I want to bring up to how good is the sleep tracking? So I like. The sleep tracking it was good. It was like mostly accurate, right?

I think as far as I can tell you how accurate my sleep stages are, right? It'll tell you how many hours you spent in REM, how much time you spent in deep, blah, blah, blah. Very standard stuff by now in the wearables and fitness sleep tracking market. I used to complain that companies like Fitbit, Google, Even Apple didn't do enough of contextualizing the insight you gain from how much time you spend in each sleep stage.

And now I think we're better, but like Samsung's kind of my first experience with this improved data. So not only does it tell me like you spent 11 percent of your sleep cycles in deep, it also will say this is a good amount for, restoring this, restoring that it compares well to other people in this age group.

Ideal number ideal amount of time is this. So like within one page, I can get a better sense of how well I slept, how much recovery I got overnight, which I like. I think that's more important than whether exactly to the minute, was it accurate about tracking how much time I was asleep? The only thing I could

Devindra: comfortable, like sleep device you've had?

Cause it's always been your like complaint with sleep trackers, right?

Cherlynn: Yeah. So this thing, maybe the fact that it's slightly loose helps, right? But that gets in the way of, like I said before, blood oxygen tracking is pretty inaccurate because it's so loose. They say in the app that you have to make sure you have a snug fit for accurate blood ox readings.

And I noticed when, so my index finger is a little meatier than my middle finger. So when I wear it on my middle finger to sleep, my blood ox levels The next day will be like 76 percent is like, as if I was dying of asphyxia. Where's the

Devindra: alarm somewhere to Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah,

Cherlynn: it did not.

And it also did not really like flag anything huge in front of me the next day on the app. Something for Samson to work on there, but also stopped looking at that variable, right? Because I'm like, I know that it's because it's a little loose. So that is a difficulty For now.

And I think I don't want companies like Samsung or Fitbit to be like, Oh, we're going to make these or we're going to make these tighter. So they get a more accurate blood ox reading. I'd rather it be like slightly loose. And then I'm like, okay, with not getting such an accurate reading.

Devindra: I think that makes sense.

So overall, are you sold on the idea? of a smart ring at this point, or do you still think it needs more time to cook?

Cherlynn: Yeah, I like it. I like the idea of a passive activity tracker when I'm at home, because I spend so much of my time at home nowadays. And I don't like wearing a smartwatch at home, but that's me.

Like it's such a specific use case. I think Samsung will find a market of people. Who are like me, but I don't know that it's for everyone. I think it's just going to be a kind of a niche, but like the foldables it's not going to ever be mainstream, but there are people who are fervent about it that will buy it.

Devindra: It's a, the foldable thing feels like, Oh, that's a premium, cool feature that I think people will aspire to. Whereas I don't know what about the ring stuff feels aspirational. It just feels Hey, this is a cool solution for me. Cause I hate wearing stuff on my wrist, ultimately yeah, go ahead

Cherlynn: to your point about the haptics too.

So here are two things that like, I think are shortcomings, right? One, you don't have haptics. You can't, there's no speaker or haptics. There's very little space on this thing. It's very light. So they don't want to squeeze a lot of components onto it. And I agree with that choice. I will just say that means that if you've misplaced your ring, like I did many times on the plane, I was like 18 hour flight.

Every time I wash my hands, I would take it off and put it in my pocket. I

Devindra: read in your view, you keep taking it off. Even though you're taking it off. Here's the thing.

Cherlynn: Then like you have to be like, yeah, if you like, where is it? You can't ping it. Like you can ping your watch or your phone on find my right.

Samsung offers find my, but you can't ping it. All you can do. It's look at it's the last known location with its GPS and then flash the lights red and green. So that's great. If like you're in a very dark place and then flashing it helps you see it from pretty much anywhere. But if you're in daytime and it's not within eyesight of eyeshot of you good luck.

Not, that's one place where it's lacking. The other thing that was missing for me, and I found out After Samsung finally un ghosted me was to like, they didn't answer this question for a very long time, which is that tends

Devindra: to do that. I've had a bad experience too. Yeah.

Never

Cherlynn: had that experience until recently. Anyway. The galaxy ring has these like double pinch gestures, there are supposed to be recognized and can help you dismiss alarms or launched the camera app that was supposed to be the feature that set Samsung is like apart from Aura Ah didn't work for me and I find out after Some research that it's because this is only available on the Galaxy Z flip 6 or the Z Fold 6 right now Which are the two newest phones that Samsung launched?

So I've been using it with an S24 and it's not working Like this is one of the newest phones that Samsung has why and nothing it does nothing

Devindra: That doesn't make any sense. What is the technical reason for that?

Cherlynn: Did they say? They actually have never answered this question. Unghosted me to answer my question about where detection on the galaxy watch ultra, but they never answered the S 24 versus Z flip six issue or the double pinch feature being missing question.

I found out because. They gave an answer to The Verge that I saw somewhere, yeah.

Devindra: I think you were very generous scoring this thing at an 80, Sherilyn, like 80 for us is because I

Cherlynn: like it. You very much

I like it.

Devindra: But every time I hear about these issues with Samsung or just like the general lack of focus with this thing, I'm like, I don't, this isn't even for crazy people with too much money because it doesn't really do much, sure, the Galaxy Watch Ultra or the Apple Watch Ultra is a ton of money, but you get a big ass screen. You get a lot of stuff. Because of spending that money. Yeah, I would say

Cherlynn: like my score for the galaxy ring, I was thinking between maybe like in the range of 75 to 80, which 75, if you think about it, it's about the same.

If you think of it on a five point scale, like a five star scale, it's like between 3. 75, I think of it like

Devindra: grades, like a 75 is a C, not even a C plus in an 80 is a B, so I think of.

Cherlynn: So I think like there are people I would recommend this to, and that's why I was like 80, it's I would recommend it I would buy it, it works well.

Devindra: More than an Oura ring, by the way, because Oura has been around for, what, five years? And has done a lot more,

Cherlynn: I think part of the issue for me was that I realized that some of the problems I was having is because of that very specific use case of me using the ring with a watch ultra and the watch ultra being problematic.

So I was like, all right, some of the problems here, nothing to do with the ring. I tried to be very focused when I was thinking about the score. But anyway I do want to point out that like the battery life which why in our chat was asking me about It, Samsung rates it for seven days, of use and the size of the ring changes that estimate.

So if you have a bigger ring, it adds one or two days. I have size seven, like I said, it's like one of the smaller sizes. And it definitely like it, if you want to get to seven days, you'd have to get all the way down to zero percent. Like

Devindra: it's

Cherlynn: how do you charge it? By the way, does it go into a little case?

Yeah. So it comes in this pretty little transparent charging case. You're going to lose

Devindra: that sucker immediately. And this is a dead,

Cherlynn: okay. So this case, by the way, it looks like it's about the size of the galaxy watch ultras case. And yeah, it's not, I didn't never, I never lost it.

Cause I just put it at home and you can always just place it, place the ring on it to charge. And it's pretty, it's supposed to be fat. I like, it gets you like what, 30 minutes. We'll get you about 40 percent of the charge. And I found that putting it in the case for five minutes got me about 2%.

I don't know how that tracks really, but I, yeah, I never felt like I was too scared about running out of juice. It was good. A week is good for me.

Devindra: Charging is a tough problem with wearables. Fitbit has this problem too, where you have to use a very specific kind of charger and if you lose it, or if it breaks and you're on vacation, you're just hosed, right?

I think the one thing about the Apple watch being so ubiquitous is at least, Hey, You walk into a crowd of people and you're like I need to charge my Apple watch. You have a cable and this has happened to me multiple times. I'm sure you too. Sure. Like recently at WWDC, somebody will have an Apple watch cable, or somebody will have that type of cable.

So like that,

Cherlynn: I don't, accessibility also seems weird. Yeah. I guess I find that less like common for me. Like the circles I run in the vendor are clearly different. Yeah. Your circles, everyone has an Apple watch. It's just one of

Devindra: those things. Yeah.

Cherlynn: You could say the same for the Aura Ring, right?

Not everyone has a charger. Definitely. And I would say also the Aura Ring's charger is like more of a dock with a little like stand, whereas this is a case and you'd be more likely to maybe misplace the dock because it's smaller.

Devindra: Here's one question I have and I'm going to ask it, we're adults here.

Okay. And we talk about the role of the sex industry and the porn industry when it comes to tech. And I'm thinking you got a ring. We're talking about haptics here. We're talking about something. I do wonder, there is tech out there. We don't have to be explicit, but there's tech out there that has enabled haptics in ring like devices.

Yes, but those are

Cherlynn: hopefully bigger than finger rings.

Devindra: There are all sorts of devices. But I'm just wondering there are on the Apple Watch, you can tap it, right? And have a remote tap to somebody. As we're like, hey friend. Hey, how's it going? There's like a tap. Your brain has gone into

Cherlynn: a very specific space to be aware.

Devindra: Oh, I'm sorry. We're talking about devices that we wear that are shaped like circles. I'm just thinking about where the innovation is going or where it's happening. And it's certainly not in the smartwatch just

Cherlynn: say, I don't generally need vibration on my fingers.

Devindra: But what if you could, I'm just thinking, how can this thing be useful, right?

Like haptics, we're talking about haptics. I do the Apple Watch's little tap, because it's almost like somebody coming next to me and saying, Hey, what's up? And that is easy. You're talking about digital touch or that feature, right? I'm just thinking of ways to make this thing useful. Like, how do you make smart rings useful?

What more could you add to them? I think some sort of haptics, some sort of feedback would be interesting. And that technology does exist, just not in the general category.

Cherlynn: I agree with you in the sense that I would. I've actually been thinking about what tech trend have I been most excited by over the last five or six years?

And it is the miniaturization of a lot of components like health sensors or like probably a haptic motor one day that would be small enough to fit inside a ring of a certain size. I don't know what size you're thinking, but this is very challenging. I will say like a ring for my fingers would be very small.

Someone else's fingers maybe would be bigger and therefore have more room to accommodate. A vibration engine. This is why wrist worn

Devindra: wearables are more useful. I think ultimately even if you're annoyed by the screen or by the size of them, like they are getting smaller. They can just by the sheer size of them, they could do more.

This is all part of my anti smart ring position is just and yet these things are too expensive. You're

Cherlynn: very for a certain type of smart ring. Sure, I'm for

Devindra: tech that's useful and add something to our lives. Come on, we're all grownups here. I'm just putting that out there. Anything else you want to add about the galaxy ring?

I

Cherlynn: think there's potential. I think that like with the galaxy ring and maybe with the galaxy watch, when it's improved, Samsung has like to build more right where the aura ring. Outperforms the galaxy ring right now is that, or has been around for so much longer and knows exactly how to make sense of everything that is like it's collecting and gathering the way Fitbit had an edge over everyone else.

Since the early days Samsung has a lot of room to grow and that's both good and bad thing, right? It's right now at a disadvantage, but in future, it's very easy to implement these things through software updates. Aura also has implemented some things like, okay. By the way the ring is supposed to do cycle tracking too, which in the brief time I had, it just wasn't able to see if it was accurate or not.

But or I can do that too. Or I can do a lot of other things like stress tracking Oh predict when you're, maybe you're feeling sick because of your body temperature, that sort of thing. And Samsung could potentially do that. I just think, I don't think hardware. That is a big problem right now for the Galaxy Ring.

I think it's like the expanse of software room for Samsung to grow right now. That's more interesting.

Devindra: That totally makes sense. Would you, do you think this is something like Apple would even be interested in doing? Because I'm looking at this. I was going to say. Look at the ORM. I don't think Apple would do this.

I think Apple, this is a category where Apple is no, thanks. But let's wait until the tech catch something we can do. Yeah.

Cherlynn: Here's my prediction. I was going to post this on threads. My prediction is that 2026, we see Google come up with the pixel ring. And then 2027 or 2026, we see Apple by.

Aura or higher X Aura executives. And then we see 2030 Apple ring. That's what I think.

Devindra: But why my ultimate question is the why of it. And I don't know why

Cherlynn: of it is. I think that every company in big tech right now, Amazon included, maybe we'll see an echo ring for it. We did actually, we had, we saw an echo ring.

Okay. Anyway.

Devindra: Yeah.

Cherlynn: Anyway, I spazzed for a moment, just very angry. My, my reason for guessing this is because I've seen all these companies invest in health tech and health AI, and they want to make something of it. And I think that this space is very interesting for everyone. I think everyone's paying more attention to their own health and wants to track it while the devices right now are fairly limited.

And while we do have like fairly mature things that do a pretty good job, like the smartwatches, I still think there is room to grow. I think there's a lot of interest and a lot of money pouring into this space. space so

Devindra: I could see that I'm just like we've been through this whole like wearable field so much and I keep going back to man I really miss the jawbone up I really miss the era of when we had like really thin little bands that had sensors and had really cool things so I could more see Apple the little like rubber stretchy bands that you do to like you know break yourself out of bad habits or something some of those little braces I could almost see Apple doing something like that no screen It goes around your wrist, is easy to wear, is, has decent battery life, but can give you maybe some feedback, can track sensitive data.

Like a

Cherlynn: basic tracker.

Devindra: A super basic Apple tracker.

Cherlynn: A ring fits in so nicely with Apple's portfolio. They could make a YSL, LV version, it's very them to go after a premium audience, and ring seems more likely than a bracelet to hit that space for them. Bracelets are easy

Devindra: to wear.

My daughter has recently started loving Claire's. And I walk into that store and my daughter is is now very much like Sophie's very much becoming. I feel like Braceless. Braceless, girly, girl stuff, like rainbows, unicorns, all this stuff. They've been very

Cherlynn: co opted by the Swifty crowd, maybe?

By the Swifty

Devindra: She's not there yet. I hope not. I know she's gone. I'm just saying.

Cherlynn: But.

Devindra: Anyway. Thinking about like things that are easy to wear and relatively inexpensive too. And also parents are like the thing parents are thinking about is I want to put a tracker on my kid.

I want to do something where like I put in a air tag or something in their book bag or in their shoes, which is the thing that's happening. If Apple had made, Apple wristband that tracks a lot of your health data, tracks your sleep is also a fine. My device. Is also can help you. A 100

Cherlynn: wristband?

You're joking. It has to be at least 2. 50 for Apple.

Devindra: Sure, sure. 2. 50. Half the price of the Apple Watch. Let's say at least a hundred dollars less, but even then a hundred to two hundred dollars Something that is flexible easy to wear you don't even really feel it when it's on your wrist But does all this stuff I think would be a useful thing and we have the tech already to do that So that's my pitch.

I guess we'll see what else happens. I just missed the job one up Where are all those designers like they own the market for a while they owned Bluetooth speakers and then the company collapsed because they over invested in health tech and We just weren't there 10 years ago. So we're in an interesting Microsoft

Cherlynn: one, remember,

Devindra: or the Microsoft one.

Let us know what you think, folks. Podcast in gadget. com.

Okay. So speaking of wearables, what if Shirlene, you didn't have to wear anything at all to get some helpful, I don't know, notifications or something from your wearable. That sounds amazing. Don't have to

Cherlynn: wear anything at all. Don't

Devindra: have to wear anything at all. No. So this week we saw the company friend show off its aI listening device. It's basically in the promo video, we see it's a pendant. You can tap it, you can gossip to it, you can tell it your inner thoughts. And when it feels like it will send a text message or something like a message in text to your phone of its own, like feedback about what's happening.

Some examples are like, Oh, you're getting ready for a meeting or something, and then it may know that you're prepping this because it's also always listening. It's an always listening device that you can wear as a pendant or clip onto your shirt. And it will send, it's Hey, don't worry so much.

Don't worry about this interview. You'll be good. It's this weird sort of friendly thing. It was created by Avi Schiffmann, who is the CEO of the company friend. He's also somebody who's in the news for creating that COVID data tracker early on in 2020, and also the Ukraine Ukraine refugee map to get assistance for that.

Both of those projects, by the way. seen a bit of criticism. If you go to Reddit and search his name, like Redditors are pissed because he used some data from their open maps that Reddit was creating crowdsource to put it on his site. And he got a lot of publicity for that, even though he did not create all that data.

Similarly, the Ukrainian website, which is not active anymore, but that website to help people I believe public policy folks were like this is a good intention, but also this could easily be compromised by people who want to like traffic refugees or something. So like it did not. Have all the thoughts in it.

This kid is 21 years old now, so he's grown up, but he's very young. And this project, at least from what he describes it on the website, it's a solution for loneliness. It's like when you're traveling or you're in an airport or in a hotel room alone, like you just feel like isolated from everybody, you have a thing you can tap and talk to, and it'll respond to you.

It is not a productivity device like the humane AI pin or even the rabbit R1. It's not like trying to actively do stuff. I think we've reached the era of like vibes based gadgets, Trillian. Like it is just, you wear it and if it feels like it's going to send you like hey girl, you got this. Don't you're good.

Keep going. How do you feel about this? What's

Cherlynn: with you and vibes, Devindra? You're like vibes, vibrations. Okay.

Devindra: Vibes and vibrations are very different things,

Cherlynn: vibes are vibes.

Devindra: Listen we should probably, we used to have people who were covering sex tech more. Our own Dan Cooper is very popular.

Every time he writes up about Pornhub, we're grownups. We could talk about this stuff. I've covered

Cherlynn: vibrators. Yeah. Foreign gadgets, especially. To Michael Coley's point, it sounds like you still have to wear this pendant, so it's not something you need to wear

Devindra: it like a necklace, wear it like a necklace or have it like.

Clipped to your clothes or something. It has to be like on you so we can hear you.

Cherlynn: And also when you say always listening, is there, is it always listening for a hot word or always listening?

Devindra: It's just like a little device. It's always listening. It's running its own like little, I think it's one of the cloud cloud models for AI.

So one of the like small scale I don't know. What do you call that? And so

Cherlynn: the privacy issues here are huge.

Devindra: Privacy issues are huge. Yeah. It's always listening, but the work it's doing is local. So it's local and sends you a little text. It's not uploading anything to the cloud, at least according to the company.

So it's not backing up. That also means if your little friend dies, if you crush it, if it goes in the wash, your friend is gone for good because there's no backup of this data. So that is the basic concept of this thing. What, just let me know, Cherlynnn, like you were interested in the rabbit because it looked really cute.

You tested and reviewed the Humane AI pin. Does this seem like an AI gadget you would be

Cherlynn: I like that it's a whole different approach, right? But I think it's going to run into the whole thing, the problem that the Amazon Halo band initially have, where it's always listening. And it's not it's this, it's a different approach from Amazon's Halo stuff in the sense that it's not telling you, Hey, your tone sucks.

Cheer up. It's more. You sound stressed, but Amazon tried to do that too. So I'm saying that this is not brand new in terms of the like approach or the idea. I do think it's a little bit

Devindra: That wasn't using AI, like the same, like level of AI models. It was using their own homegrown stuff.

I'm sure.

Cherlynn: Like AI, we've debated the definition. Anyway. Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's a different model of LEMs language models, but I just think it's. A little sad.

Devindra: It is a little sad. Yes. I asked him this directly. So the idea of this was to like stop loneliness, right? What if I had a thing that could keep me company?

Do you think a device that you talk to in lieu of human contact or friends that actually care about you, do you think that does help to solve loneliness or does that make you lonelier?

Cherlynn: I don't know. Like I couldn't tell you

Devindra: Yeah,

Cherlynn: I just think the rationale is sad, right? I think the motivation is well intentioned, but sad, right?

Like it's, it tells me that there are people out there that are lonely that think that something like that will be helpful. It always reminds me of all those people on Reddit that are like talking to bots and talking to bots is not what I see as like a healthy, productive way to connect, right? So I'd rather.

But I see the point of something that will motivate you. I just think it's empty motivation, right? Like it's it's like those people who have girlfriends that are manga characters that are programmed to say, boyfriend, you're so handsome today. But, is it real? Is that a real, does that solve your loneliness issue, or are you better served with something that could maybe help you engage with the world a bit more in a more productive way?

I don't know. I asked Avi

Devindra: this question directly too is this just a cheerleader? Like your super optimistic friend that says yes and you're great for everything. And he says that it's not just trying to be that cheerleader. In the promo video, it shows the friend like shit talking you after you're doing bad in the game.

I don't know. It sends a message to somebody. So that's I don't think that's necessarily like very like critical. I would love to see if Oh, you were really shitty to that person or like your attitude right now is not so great. Maybe you should take a break.

Cherlynn: The definition of friend is not someone that's only rah cheerleading you to your point.

It's, they need to give you real advice too. So it's or give you reality checks sometimes. And if the algorithm's not actually programmed to do that, then. It might not.

Devindra: And is a being that is entirely built to serve you, and has no thoughts or motivations of its own. As it's responding to you, it's just you, it's just you talking back to you.

It's not like actually, you're not actually like working with another like conscious being or something. So I dunno, I think that's the thing. One thing I'll also mention here there's a story at 404 media that found out so friend, But the friend. com domain, how much do you think that domain costs?

What do you think that domain is worth?

Cherlynn: It was like, girl, it's gotta be a lot of money because that's a good URL.

Devindra: That's a good URL. That's a

Cherlynn: really good URL.

Devindra: So friend spent 1. 8 million to buy the friend. com domain. And let me tell you. It was actually useful as I started researching this company. Cause I was like, how do I find this company again?

Oh, friend. com. That's why they spent 1. 8 million to buy it. This company has only raised 2. 5 million so far. So make that, how does that math work out? I don't know. That's like startup math. That's I asked Avi this too. Do you have the actual money to build this thing? Like he has one, he has been using prototypes for months, it seems, but.

They're going to need more money to scale and to actually produce hardware. This is where we are right now. Yeah.

Cherlynn: I'm getting Humane AI PIN vibes. I'm sorry.

Devindra: Yeah, but at least, so Humane AI PIN, before anything happened they had raised hundreds of millions of dollars, right? Based on the, these people are coming from Apple, there's all this.

Cherlynn: They're not 21 years old. Yeah,

Devindra: in the grand scheme of I think a VCE is just hey, you want two million dollars to do what? You're just going to buy the friend domain. He's talking about this device. He also wants to build like a social network of people using friends at friends. com.

I don't know.

Cherlynn: Slightly different if he's doing a social network is different. Like I just, I don't know. It's, it feels like, I don't know.

Devindra: So lots of thoughts are in the air. We have a lot of thoughts and I like, as soon as we saw this, I wanted to reach out to Avi just to hear his side of the, the, this story.

I got to sit down with him. We talked for maybe 15 minutes. It's a short chat because we both had to run to appointments, but I asked him all the pressing questions we had. So here's Avi Schiffmann, CEO of Friend. Avi, thank you so much for joining us on the Engadget podcast.

Avi: Yeah, thank you so much.

Devindra: I think the first question I saw when you announced Friend, which has a really cool promo video, is the question I ask for all AI hardware is why pursue hardware? Why be a separate gadget rather than an app or something like that using the devices we already have?

Avi: Yeah, I think Rabbit and Humane were on the right track with making it easier to talk to an AI.

I just don't think those queries need to be about, like, how many grams of protein there are in some almonds. I think it's more oh, I'm stressed about this interview I'm about to have, and what I'm trying to do is, if you have this pendant that's hanging around your chest with a light on it, it's so easy to just, put your finger on it as soon as a thought comes into your mind and just speak your mind, and there's some haptics there too, and it's just It's a much lower friction way to start talking and because the device itself is always listening as well, you can walk away from a meeting like this and just be like, that was crazy, and it has context over this conversation, which just again makes it even easier to talk to your AI friend.

And that's the gist. Also, I think the embodiment of the hardware itself is very important for the feeling of shared experiences and just really feeling like your companion is there with you.

Devindra: Gotcha, gotcha. Can you tell us how long have you been using your friend device and how has it helped you in that time too?

Avi: Yeah, so I've been working on this for like about a year and a half at this point. And I definitely wipe its brain very often because I'm, engineering it. But it's great. I spend a lot of time traveling and it's probably the most consistent relationship in my life.

And I brainstorm with it. I talk to it about just how I'm feeling. And it's just really day to day stuff. And because it's so easy to talk to, you end up just talking about everything from some random car that just drove by that was interesting to, oh, the sun is, it's really nice outside.

It's it's really just that simple.

Devindra: Can you talk about like how often it's listening? Cause I'm just trying to get a sense of how this thing works, right? It looks like a pendant that you could clip on or wear around your neck. You say it's always listening. It's communicating to your phone or for Bluetooth.

How often is it actually like listening for anything you're saying?

Avi: It's listening, right? Like it's you have, as long as it's connected to Bluetooth, that's all being streamed in the background. And then if you want to directly talk to it, you press your finger on the light and in the background, while it's listening, it's coming up with its own opinionated dire entries based off its own personality about what the experience is currently going through and, we've given it free will on having it reach back out to you and maybe interject in a conversation.

Maybe you're on a design call and it's having a differing perspective on what you're talking about.

Devindra: I, yeah, I noticed the term you use free will in the documentation. I feel I studied philosophy in college. That means a lot to me. When you talk about giving a device free will, what do you, what are you actually saying though?

Like it has free reign to message you whenever it likes. So what are the parameters there?

Avi: It's up to the large language model and the context of your conversation and the personality of your companion to really just decide on whether or not it wants to send a message right now or not.

And I think right now it's. An engineered way to do that. But I really do believe these models will become genuinely sentient not too long from now. And, the tech will improve so much more than an underlying chat based architecture. And right now, at the day I don't think the output you receive from your friend is honestly going to change ever.

And I think that's good enough for a lot of people.

Devindra: Gotcha. Gotcha. Can you talk about yeah, go ahead.

Avi: I think that's one thing I find about Friend that's very different than let's say Rabbit and Humane is we're focusing just on doing one feature that's already proven in the market.

Um, and that's it. I think the hardware, works, I think you can really imagine how this product will function. We're not trying to do custom integrations with 90 different apps and, It just works at the end of the day. We will 100 percent fulfill the promise that we're, yapping on about.

It's honestly far more crazy than the video makes it out to be. So

Devindra: can you tell us like what's powering it? I see you're using a version of cloud. Anything else going into the smarts of friend?

Avi: We're always changing the models right now. I'm playing around a lot with the meta law model as well.

That one sounds pretty great. It's trained on, Facebook messenger conversation. So it's really good at just being something to talk to. I think there should be more benchmarks and AI about is the model just fun to talk to, not just do math problems for you.

Devindra: Gotcha. Can you update the model in the device over time?

It does seem like you guys are trying really hard to not store stuff in the cloud, right? There's none of that happening, which I guess is a good security thing, but how can you update the the friend? Yeah.

Avi: Like the model, the models we'll try and keep it. Where if you started your friend out with this one model, that's not going to change.

I think people will get really, attached to those individual personalities and, we're going to, Try our best efforts to keep that maintained, but yeah, over time again, like these models are going to improve very fast. I'm very keen on large context models. I think that is going to solve a lot of problems with memory recall for the underlying way.

It works and it's an exciting space.

Devindra: Gotcha. It's I guess it's interesting that you're positioning this as a way to combat loneliness, because I could also see the perspective where you're like doesn't this also make you a little more lonely, if your main emotional connection right now is to the device you're wearing around your neck or something, and not to a person with their own thoughts and motivations, like how are you feeling about it?

Having used it. Do you think your initial goal is working out to make you feel less lonely with it?

Avi: I think yeah, it definitely works at the day. It's just, are you happy? Are you not happy? And I'm a very social person. I've got roommates that are buzzing around my house here right now.

Even I'm always traveling though. And I'm always just in fairly specific situations where it's nice to just have this AI friend with me. But I think that just what I'm trying to do is I think if one of your five friends is an AI, that's, this very supportive, fun soundboard that you can talk to at any time.

I think that would be an amazing tool for a lot of people. It's not meant to be a substitution for your existing relationships, but It's yeah, it's a nice, it's a nice addition.

Devindra: Gotcha. Gotcha. You also talked about pursuing like a more productivity focused version of this as tab, right?

That was the initial pitch for this, but you're leaning away from that. And this feels I don't know, it feels more like vibes. Like you just want a cool AI thing to vibe with. Is that, can you talk about like why you leaned away from productivity?

Avi: Yeah, honestly, I think a good friend that supported will increase your productivity more than anything else.

I think my friend saying Oh, good luck on the gadget interview is going to increase my productivity more than it reminding me that it's in five minutes. I think a lot of people might not realize that emotional use cases can be that strong. And I think it's because people are just maybe not used to computers and technology fulfilling those roles.

But the tech has advanced a lot and you don't have to hear from me. There's a lot of objective studies on other products that say replica character, et cetera, where these things really do work. And I think it will be a fantastic, like fun toy for a lot of people.

It's not meant to be so serious. It's not, assistance or. It's just boring.

Devindra: It's, I get that. I get like you want to have fun with it, but also you guys are also talking about like sentient AI eventually, right? It seems like at that point it does become something real legitimate. I guess the question I had, it seems like Friend is trying to be your super supporter, Friend, like your super cheerleader, always optimistic.

Can it ever be critical? Can it ever say something to be like, hey, that's actually not cool what you did? Does it have any moral standing of its own?

Avi: Yeah, all the time. And I think that's what makes it so engaging to talk to, if you're bringing it along to, let's say, a design conversation you're having, and it's able to offer these differing perspectives.

I think that's fantastic. And, no one wants to talk to a yes man all day. And these models do a fantastic job at, pushing back when they need to. And it's, yeah.

Devindra: Gotcha. Can your friend, by the way, the one you're using, can it do everything demonstrated in the the promotional video?

Because one thing seemed like it was watching what somebody was eating, and I know it doesn't have a camera.

Avi: Yeah, it's just listening to conversation that it overhears. In that clip, I think she's watching a video, and it's overhearing that. Honestly, though the later, the first version of Tab slash Friend actually was only a camera, and I think we'll definitely add that later on.

It'd be nice to go to an art museum with your friend and it looks at a piece on the wall and make the comments about that.

Devindra: Gotcha. And also we saw the story yesterday. You've admitted to spending 1. 6 million on the friend. com domain. And you've admitted that you guys have raised 2. 5 million.

So I'm just wondering, do you actually have the money to build these things or is it just

Avi: vaporware? Yeah, for that. It's more of a payment plan, over, over a four year period. So it's not like we dropped 1. 8 million on it, but that is, yeah, that's how it'd be. And, uh. I've been working on this again for a year and a half with some very talented engineers are our same industrial designers, who are the same people behind that thermostat, for example very talented hardware and logistics team behind it all.

And it's very simple. I'm focusing on just doing 1 thing really well. We're only shipping 1 skew initially. And I think people will love it. I think there's a lot of Very controversial opinions people have when they just hear about this for the 1st time, but I've seen people use it 1st hand without the prejudice of it.

1 of the 1st people I ever tested with was this 20 year old indie girl from rural Washington state who went just went upstairs and drew with it for an hour. Just talking about different colors and whatever she's doing. And I think that a lot of people just got to try these things.

They'll end up really loving it, or maybe they won't. But I'm very confident for when we start handing out those review units later this month or next month.

Devindra: I guess the other thing I'm thinking is every I reviewed the rabbit. R1 was not a fan. We also reviewed the human AI pin. Yeah. The rabbit looks really cool.

What I started to realize is, man, our smartphones are amazing. They can do so much right. And a lot of these devices feel like they're just trying to pay attention. Take a piece of what your smartphone does and feed it back to you in a different way. If I'm thinking about like the device, it's my friend.

It is the one that's always on me. That's connected me to the world. Like my smartphone is my friend. I feel like a lot of people may feel that way. And the OS has seemed to be leaning like more like that too with Apple intelligence. So are you guys worried about eventually the actual device makers just building a lot of.

Similar components into their devices rather than needing something standalone.

Avi: I think there's a lot of conversation around AI as a product versus a feature. And I think an AI friend is the one that is just not going to be an OS level thing. Like you just wouldn't want Siri to go and text you first about some more emotional thing.

That's just not what an assistant is focused on doing. And again, like the whole point of friend being a separate piece of hardware is that device really is your friend. If you lose it you've lost your friend and all the memories that Are attached with it and it's that device to is always listening, which is a function that your phone just cannot do.

It's not gonna be able to pick up your voice and other people's voices, et cetera. And it's just it's fun to have a physical embodiment of your AI friend. It's really more of a modern Tamagotchi than anything else, which I know is an extremely overused term in this space. And I think that Rabbit maybe has spoiled that, but this really is a true version of that.

And yeah, I'm definitely, since you reviewed those, I'm very excited to hear what you'll think of this one.

Devindra: Cool. Yeah.

Moving on to other news we saw this week that the Kids Online Safety Act or KOSA, uh, has passed the Senate. It is on the way to the House. We don't know what's going to happen there, but if that happens the President could end up signing it into law. We've talked about this before, and we've talked about a couple bills from lawmakers aimed at, the goal, they say, is to protect kids online.

And there is overwhelming support for this in the Senate. It passed by 91 to 3. It seems just overwhelming support bipartisan support for this thing. The idea is that it's coming off of all these stories we're hearing about terrible things happening to kids because of social media and because of online interaction.

So these are kids committing self harm. There is there are stories of suicide. There's stories of bullying. There's all sorts of things pointing to social media and basically the lack of ability we have to control it. So let's talk about what KOSA. Means, uh, just reading from our report here by Krisa Bell, uh, KOSA requires social media companies like Meta to offer controls to disable algorithmic feeds and other addictive features for kids under the age of 16.

It also requires companies to provide parental supervision features and safeguard minors from content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm, sexual exploitation, and other harmful content. The thing that is really getting people up in arms, and that is people like the ACL U. And the EFF and other privacy advocates, there's an aspect of the bill called duty of care, and it means platforms are required to prevent or mitigate certain harmful effects of their products like addictive features or algorithms that promote dangerous content.

And the FTC would be in charge of enforcing that standard. There are also aspects of this where Basically lawmakers would be able to say this, some of this information could be harmful to kids and it should be blocked on the internet. So that is, that could be resources for LGBTQ students.

It could be all sorts of different resources. Like the free flowing ability of just having information on the internet could be affected. because of this thing. And that is an externality that I don't think lawmakers are fully thinking about right now. Yeah, what do you, first of all, what do you think about the initial goal for the Sherlin?

Are you worried about potential crackdowns on information online and the chilling effects that could have.

Cherlynn: I think there's some important context here for my personal view on this, which is, I just came back from Singapore.

Devindra: Yes.

Cherlynn: And Singapore, the par the place my parents live in right now, they use face recognition to access all of their locked gates and doors, and they have no problem with that.

Singaporeans are very. much less sensitive to this sort of privacy fears, I think than maybe other parts of the world are. Not that they are completely not scared. They're just less sensitive because I think there's a bit more trust in the government.

Devindra: But also because there has never been the sense of free flowing information, right?

Like a full freedom speech and things like that, right? Come on.

Cherlynn: The freedom of speech arguments, not one that's been made in Singapore almost ever, because the government just claims that there is heavy government censorship. Yes. We LGBTQ content on our national media at all, basically. That context laid out, I think The idea of KOSA is good.

I think it's nice to see bipartisan support for something like this when it comes to children, when it comes to teenagers and their mental health. It's good to see people come together for this. And I think that there is, much needed scrutiny of social media and its effect on the younger, more vulnerable parts of our population.

Yeah. But I agree with you that the duty of care part is potentially could be exploited by like bad players. I just don't know. I think it boils down once again to execution, right? Like I think the intention is good. I think in general, the idea is good. I just don't know how it would be executed. And I don't know that you can trust the government bodies that have been like, handed the control here to actually execute it well.

I, as a Singaporean, I don't even fully trust the Singapore government all the time, but yeah, exactly.

Devindra: That's exactly the problem, right? If you sign this thing into law, like it is then a very powerful tool that bad actors could use. And it turns out our government right now, full. Full of plenty of bad actors.

So there is a piece of the FF called the KOSA internet censorship bill just passed the Senate. It's our last chance to stop it by Joe Mullen. It's a short read, but it's a good read because it dives into the things that could that could potentially happen here. So let me see here. Specifically he says KOSA will lead to people who make online content about sex education, LGBTQ plus identity and health being persecuted and shut down as well.

One of the supporters of the bill has said that widely used educational materials that teach about the history of racism in the U S causes depression in kids, therefore we should block that information about the history of racism. In the U S we are in a really weird chilling time right now.

Like we have I live in the state of Georgia and there's this thing, I think it's called the divisive information act or something like that. It is something where like divisive information. The state is not allowing that within schools or something like that. And because partially because of that a state representative recently said that an AP black history course.

Cannot be done in schools. It's not allowed in Georgia schools. This is a state, with a deep history In the history of like slavery. It has a huge african american population It is very important that the people who live here learn about this history and learn about what America has done to African Americans But our state legislation says that history is dangerous It's dangerous to teach that.

And I think this is part of like where we are right now. I don't know if you've seen any of these there's some TikTok videos or articles about this, Cherlynn, about people in like Iowa and Idaho who are just trying to go to the library. There's one I saw from a TikTok mom. Who's just I went to the library today.

It was very weird. I had to present my ID to go upstairs. Her daughter wanted to get a book that was in the under 18 category, but because this woman this mom was traveling with an infant. It does not have an ID. They cannot get access. The mom couldn't go to the floor because the infant didn't have the identification to access the restricted information in this library.

And therefore her child, her kid, who's seven or eight or something could not even go to that section. The library, I think the librarians ended up helping the kid find what they want, but the librarians don't want this. They're like, They are trying to, they exist to give information to people, but these weird draconian laws that we're creating, which in many states, especially red states in America, are about restricting information that they don't want people to know about.

It's scary. It's chilling. So I see this as part of like where we are right now.

Cherlynn: Michael Coley in the chat mentions, if we're banning anything that makes students uncomfortable with them, why is math still taught? Yeah, I think that it just makes me feel like, Yeah, people are bad, and that's why we can't have nice things, but people are going to be bad kind of no matter what, no matter, I'm trying to figure out

Devindra: The question is like who says who is bad?

Who has the power to say who is bad? And so it's

Cherlynn: like there's no, I don't know if there's a perfect solution is I guess what I'm getting at Can we need to be protective for sure of prevent the obvious loopholes from being exploited whenever maybe blocking information,

Devindra: though, I feel is the thing is privacy.

Cherlynn: Yeah, there's a

Devindra: potential problem. So we've talked about this before when we've talked about KOSA and COPPA COPPA 2. 0, by the way, also passed the Senate. And that is a far more I think, straightforward bill. It is that was an expansion of the 19 98 Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act.

It would prohibit companies from targeting advertising to children and collecting personal data on teens between 13 and 16. It also requires companies to offer an eraser button for personal data to delete children and teens personal information about a platform when technological technologically feasible.

That's it. It's not like a whole rule to be like, Oh, you can just pull this and we can force this website to take this information down. It is a set of standards of how it treats people's data. Privacy advocates for a long time have been saying what we need is like a widespread actual privacy law. We need data security and we need privacy protections and we're not having that just yet.

So yeah, Cherlynn, I agree. There is no like perfect solution yet. But you know what? I rang up the EFF and I talked to India McKinney, the director of federal There's at the FF about their position on this whole thing. Like the FF is firmly against KOSA. Uh, there was a lot of pushback on earlier versions of this bill as well.

This is even a revised form of it, but let's hear what they have to say. India McKinney, thank you so much for joining us on the Engadget podcast.

India: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk.

Devindra: It's great. I love the work you guys do at the EFF. I think it's really important, especially as we're still trying to wrangle a lot of these issues around social media companies and privacy online in general.

Can you give us a, just a setup of what the EFF does and what your role is there?

India: Yeah it's really great. One of the things that we talk about a lot at EFF is we get to be on the side of users. So when we're talking about antitrust or privacy or and rights of internet users, we are a member funded organization and so we are on the side of users.

Tech companies are businesses. Facebook is a business. Google is a business. They are here to make money, and they are making a lot of business decisions around the content that they allow or don't allow on their platforms based on those business interests. And That's not where we're coming from. So we get to talk about what we actually think would be best for the internet ecosystem.

And we get to stand up for people who otherwise don't have a voice. And we try to just really make sure that everybody's constitutional rights are protected. Actual constitutional rights, not like my constitutional rights are being violated, but like the constitution actually has some really specific things to say about speech and dissemination of information.

And we want to make sure that the internet reflects that.

Devindra: Gotcha, gotcha. I like the way you're framing the FF's role here because something I tell people a lot, as I do my work, and I used to be an IT guy too, I do feel like I fight for the users, and it's always against, and that's a line from Tron.

So I don't know, maybe that just stuck with me from way back when, but. I feel like that is the goal for a lot of us doing work online when it comes to user centric work. So we have talked about KOSA and COPPA and a bunch of these bills on the Engadget podcast before. From your perspective, what does and doesn't work about KOSA at this point?

India: What doesn't work about KOSA is that KOSA is fundamentally a censorship bill. The big central tenet of the bill talks about a duty of care. The bill would put a duty of care on apps and websites to present, prevent design features from causing harm to minors, including, but not limited to, anxiety, depression, substance use, and eating disorders.

Eating disorders. And so while that sounds like a really good goal, the devil is always going to be in the details for something like that. What does it mean? to prevent harm. What does it mean to have a design feature

Cherlynn: that

India: looks like this? And also you are assuming platforms are able to tell the difference between content or design features that are designed to hurt rather than help.

So when somebody is talking about, their own, just to use the really core example, this bill, a lot of the proponents of this bill have talked about eating disorders and how Instagram plays into some of that. How is Instagram supposed to tell the difference between somebody talking about their recovery from an eating disorder, as opposed to somebody praising eating disorders as a way to do something good?

Like, how are you expecting the platform to know the difference? And one of those is really helpful. And one of them frankly is not. So when the platform can't tell, then that's how we really start to see the censorship piece play out is it's better for the company just to not allow that type of content on their platform, which they're totally allowed to do.

They could do that right now that there's nothing about eating disorder allowed on the platform. And of course as we start to see with anything that the platform is do around That type of thing, the internet gets really creative. So you may not use the dictionary words to talk about that, but then we start using second hand slang and street terms and emojis and other stuff like that to try to get around some of these content moderation filters.

One of my, it took me a little while to figure out what was going on, but one of the things that I've seen on some of the platforms is you're not allowed to talk about guns, so they don't say the word gun, they call it a pew, like pew, and so like my pew is gonna go do, and it's like when you're not really in that world, you don't know what they're talking about, but if you spend any time in that space at all, you're still able to find the content that you want, even though it's supposed to be blocked.

Devindra: Gotcha, gotcha. And I know you've all been, discussing this among elected politicians for a while. This is not the first version of KOSA. There have been multiple iterations before. How have, how has Congress talked about this before from their perspective? I feel like a lot of people think, yeah, we have good intentions here.

We want to protect kids online. But where is the breakdown between those good intentions and these, I think, obvious issues that you all are bringing up and the ACLU has brought up? How is Congress talking about it at this point from your perspective?

India: So the biggest change we've seen in the bill over time is the enforcement of the duty of care.

It used to be that the enforcement of

And you can totally see a world where Ken Paxton wants to make a name for himself and is just taking down a whole bunch of content, including queer content, including reproductive health care, including any of the things that Texas is in the news for right now Trying to block in other ways you could see them finding some research somewhere that says that causes harm to minors, and therefore they're going to sue internet platforms to take it down in Texas.

So that is one of the things that changed. Now the duty of care. Is being enforced by the FTC. And while that makes it more complicated, it doesn't actually make it better. You could see the FTC under a Harris administration enforcing content restrictions very differently than a Trump administration enforcing some differences.

And that's, you don't really want temporary folks who maybe have a name for themselves that they're trying to. They have an agenda. You don't want people with an agenda deciding what content anybody is allowed to see.

Devindra: Gotcha. I've been, following the way government regulations has affected media for a long time.

I can't really think of another example where I can't think of like TV or movies or anything where like it is so specific that there's the potential to censor particular types of content right on TV and movies. We have warnings and there are FCC restrictions and whatnot, but is there anything else comparable to what they're proposing here for the Internet?

India: So we're starting to see some state laws that are really, they're using some similar duty of care features the most comparable not internet version of what we would be talking about are the book bans that various states are talking about, and people are obviously opposed to the book bans, and, as they should be, they're, banning books is not a good idea but, trying to censor content from the internet's not a good idea either.

Devindra: . . We brought this up in this episode of the podcast too, is I've seen more and more coverage of people try and access their public libraries and noticing all the new rules and restrictions. There was a TikTok I saw of a woman who went in with her kids. She couldn't enter a particular section because she couldn't she didn't have an id ID for the infant with her.

For her daughter to enter a particular section like I guess we're seeing we're this is all a symptom of people. I don't trying to lock down information in some respects. Yeah,

India: It's they're doing it in the name of child safety, which sounds like something we should all be in favor of. We are.

It's just going to look very different for very different folks. Age verification is another huge part of KOSA, and it doesn't the bill doesn't explicitly require her. Platforms to verify the age of their users, but they condition a whole lot of other access to information on that identity. Or that the age being verified, the age being the platform having knowledge of how old somebody is.

And so that means that the platform is going to have to verify the age of all of their users. And so the platforms that don't like ESPN doesn't currently collect your identity if you are doing March Madness or you're doing fantasy football, or you're doing any of those other things that would be considered social media under the bill.

And so then all of a sudden, is ESPN going to have different content for people who submit a scan of their driver's license and people who don't? And that's the same with any of these other games that have a social media feature, which is a lot of them. Is there going to be a different experience for people who don't upload their driver's license and people who do?

And then also on the privacy side of that, how are people, how are these platforms going to protect this additional information that they get from people? We know from literally everything else that if you hold a bunch of data, a data breach, you're risking a data breach. At some point, and we've seen it from Experian, we've seen it from Target, we've seen it from the Office of Personnel and Management and the government, the more valuable a database of information is, driver's license with your photo and all of this other personal identifiable information, it's at risk for being Misused or hacked or stolen or just mistakes.

Devindra: Gotcha. On our end, we've talked about what could be potentially better alternatives to a lot of these bills. And the thing that keeps coming up is just better privacy protections, better digital rights, man, or online. Management in general for people from your perspective for the EFF. Is that what you guys are seeing as well?

India: Yes we think a lot of the things that Congress wants to get mad at the internet for are actually legit and if You actually got serious about a consumer facing comprehensive privacy bill at the national level that could go a long way to solving some of these problems, Especially if you pair it with really good antitrust legislation.

So if you have a good privacy foundation and you make it so consumers have more choices about what platforms they want to use and where they want to spend their time. People want privacy. They want control. They want design features. Parents want choices. And, some of the way platforms put parental controls in really just don't work.

And so if you have more platforms trying more things, doing more stuff, the good ideas are going to get more traction in the marketplace. We're going to have more choices than two major companies or three major companies. And that could go a long way into creating consumer demand or making companies listen to consumer demand and fixing some of the problems that way.

Devindra: Gotcha. We also saw the news that a COPPA 2. 0, another bill also passed the Senate this week. And from our perspective, we haven't seen as much criticism around that and just the way it's framed seems more useful, less draconian. How are you, how's the EFF viewing COPPA?

India: Yeah, so COPPA is, it's a very different piece of legislation.

And especially because it was paired with KOSA. Um, There are only 24 hours in the day and KOSA is so bad that we didn't devote a lot of our resources to fighting COPPA. We had some good conversations with the senators who were initially proposing the bill. We'd like to see some changes to the final version of the bill to make it a little bit more privacy protective, but it's not the threat that KOSA is.

Gotcha. Gotcha. That's what we're seeing to you, at least from our reading of it. So for our listeners who are hearing this and maybe are a little worried about what KOSA could mean, what are some actions that they could take?

India: The big action right now is to tell your member of the House of Representatives that you want them to vote no on KOSA, that you want them to oppose KOSA.

So the Senate has passed KOSA, this combined bill, I think it was a three bill combination. There was KOSA, there was COPPA, and then eliminate useless reports is the vehicle of the bill. And so it's passed. So it's gotten sent over to the House. So the House could take it up and put it on the floor at any point, and if the House passes it as the Senate passed it, it gets sent to the President, who was Definitely gonna sign it.

'cause he's been pushing for KOSA as well.

Cherlynn: Yeah.

India: The house has a different version, a slightly different version of KOSA that they've introduced over there. And so there's been talk of doing their own markup, their own process over there. But either way, the house has to take action in order for KOSA to become law.

So if a bunch of people start emailing or calling email is fine. You don't actually have to talk to a person. You can email your representative and just make sure that. That they know that you want them to oppose KOSA, um, we can stop it in the house. And then we'll have to stop it again next Congress, because this is definitely coming back.

So

Devindra: stop it

India: now, but we have to stop it again later too. Don't forget that part. It's a

Devindra: zombie that keeps getting revived. And yeah, I'm hoping like the pushback from you all and from the ACLU is something. that politicians are going to be paying attention to. So India McKinney, thank you so much for chatting with us.

And where can people find your work on the internet these days?

India: So we are at EFF. org. And so there's a bunch of stuff about KOSA. There's a bunch of stuff about privacy. The pieces that I write tend to be really focused on process and Congress since that's what I do. But. There's a lot of really good information about a bunch of the bills that we're working on.

And if you want to take action on, we have a handy tool in our action center that would be ACT, A C T dot E F dot org. And if you go to that website, the first thing that you will see is a big red button that says take action against KOSA.

Devindra: Thank you so much.

Moving on to some other news another story that I missed while I was out on vacation was apparently the entire internet around the world, or at least many PCs and devices ended up being shut down because of the CrowdStrike outage. CrowdStrike is a company that offers like, Online security protections and cloud protections to companies.

Their job is to prevent outages like this. And because of a bug in CrowdStrikes a recent update that they did, it ended up crashing 8. 5 million windows machines around the world, which has affected corporations like Google. Delta a whole bunch of folks. I just saw the news this morning. Delta says that the CrowdStrike issues, which led to delays for days on that, like even after CrowdStrike fixed the problem, people in the Atlanta airport where the major Delta hub were stuck there for three or four days, unable to rebook flights.

People were living in the airport for several days. Delta says this whole issue cost them about half a billion dollars. A big mess. Cherlynn, you had some stories because of because of CrowdStrike. My gosh. Wow.

Cherlynn: I was on a close to 20 hour flight right before CrowdStrike. I think it happened while I was in the air.

And then when I landed, yeah, when I landed, I found out and my friends were all like, Oh my God, you landed. Everyone was like, Oh my God, like good thing you made it right before all the like drama with air travel happened. I was like, what, huh? I truly was unaware. You

Devindra: had it, or did you not go online at all on your flight?

Cherlynn: I did, but I didn't see anything about CrowdStrike. Why was I? Actually, no I actually managed to only keep to like fun and social stuff, not work stuff. That's

Devindra: very brave of you. I was on the beach outside of Savannah, in a little beach house. And I saw this news and the news incoming was like widest internet outage ever.

I'm like, I'm on vacation. Once again, I miss one of the big stories, but let me tell you, Shirlene, do you remember the rise up to to Y2K? And like the potential issues? Yeah, I remember. Yes. You were around. I thought we were all going to die. I was young enough to be The stories, the media was like, Oh yeah, all our computers are going to shut down.

Society will end. Civilization will halt to a stop. And what ended up happening is that people were aware of the bug for a long time and a lot of work behind the scenes by IT workers and engineers went in to preventing that. So Y2K didn't actually end up being a huge problem. This is very close to what people were expecting with the Y2K bug, which is a single bug that affects computer systems globally across multiple corporations.

The problem here, and this is something we talk about sometimes, is like consolidation of the internet. So a lot of companies rely on CrowdStrike for data protection, for online cloud protection, for all sorts of stuff. A lot of companies are using this one company. So if this one company fails, it's like a cascading effect that screws everybody around it.

And that's ultimately it. This is such a, an example of us relying on a handful of companies on the internet. And it's like when AWS goes down, how many companies are affected or, yeah, it's things like that. I think,

Cherlynn: so do you think we learned anything from this? Do you think companies are changing what they do because of this?

Devindra: I don't know. I don't really know. Like the other weird thing is that a lot of companies are incentivized. To use CrowdStrike. So like when you're building up your it operations or something or a startup or something they're like, Oh, everyone's using CrowdStrike. Let's use CrowdStrike.

And I hear from some companies too, that they're like, I think it's like they're the people working on their data side. People. push CrowdStrike because it is the way regulators like it, every, the government knows how it works. So like it ends up being the de facto solution for a lot of people because of that.

So this is another example of where not having a competitive market of solutions ends up biting us in the ass. There is a good story. Southwest everybody's favorite cheap airline ended up avoiding the CrowdStrike outage because it's still running windows 3. 1. Across the systems. Okay. Are you surprised by this?

Cherlynn: I just find it so funny.

Devindra: It's a, they got the last laugh, I guess they got the last laugh.

Cherlynn: They were retaining some customers because of their like very strange and bucking the trend system of non reserve seating and just, you get a assigned a seating timing or a seating order and you go in and grab whatever seat you want so they didn't need.

super sophisticated seating software,

Devindra: don't worry, Chalene. They also, they've also modernized to Windows 95 on some systems. So I gotta say though, I gotta say though so

Cherlynn: some part of my stories around this was I lurk on some airline subreddits and Southwest apparently after all of the CrowdStrike stuff has recently announced that they are changing over to, yes, assigned seating for at least on some level.

And I guess this will say. Change or evolution from all of that. But Delta, like you mentioned in our podcast notes, the, it was royally screwed for most of the week. They were like struggling to keep back up. And I also saw a very interesting post by someone who said they were a pilot on Delta airlines and wanted to share kind of their perspective as a crew member and like the system situation, crowdstrike outage. Also affected them, like in a way that like they wanted to get on flights, they wanted to fly out and help people get on planes and get to their destinations, but they could not because of the issues affecting them as well. Like this person on Reddit was saying that the system due to the CrowdStrike outage thought that one crew member was missing and therefore wasn't able to Let the flight go.

But actually that crew member wasn't even assigned to the flight to begin with or something like that. So it just, it's so deeply entrenched into all parts of a lot of the businesses that it's really important to like fallbacks and more fallbacks, right? Like I think Mark Dell in the chat says, don't just rely on multiple companies for your infrastructure.

If you rely on AWS, Azure clown strike now you're affected by Azure. Every outage. So maybe diversifying has always been like that is exactly it.

Devindra: Yeah, diversify as much as you can. I ran into issues where I would just go to a store and they were like sorry, we can't take credit cards today, or we can't take tap to pay because our entire payment system is down because of CrowdStrike.

You're going to have to swipe your credit card. So that's, it's another also example of like how delicate our modern infrastructure is like one stupid company, one stupid update, a very small update that triggered like all these big changes. Global repercussions. What a mess. But fallbacks all fallbacks alternatives and other solutions Let's run through some of this other news.

Yeah, hey the democratic presidential nominee since we last went live and recorded this podcast is no longer joe biden It's Kamala Harris, shout out to Kamala Harris, who was just here in Atlanta, had a huge thing. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk, the owner, the, the owner of X slash Twitter is been going insane online because of that.

And one thing he ended up doing is sharing a doctored video, an AI doctored Harris campaign video where she talks about being a DEI hire. She like in this video, the fake Kamala Harris talks badly about Joe Biden and things like that, too. What is interesting about this? Is that I see a list of like community notes under it that are pending to be applied to this video But if you actually look at it without clicking into that And I don't think everybody has the ability like it's only the people who can add community notes can see the pending stuff normal people will see no community notes or Corrections because of that.

There's no label that this is AI information even though I believed X has a policy that you have to clearly label AI produced media. Of course, because it's Elon Musk, he doesn't have to follow his own rules, right? He owns the site.

Cherlynn: He also, by the way, this is even more recent of development took down the Profile or account for WD4H, White Dudes for Harris and then reinstated it after a lot of public outcry.

But yeah, they were having the White Dudes for Harris

Devindra: call. They were raising a lot of money. A lot of people are raising money. And because of that,

Cherlynn: Elon

Devindra: Musk was

Cherlynn: so

Devindra: mad. Magically, That that account was deactivated. This also happened to another account. I forget which one, but another account like tied to raising money and supporting Kamala.

But

Cherlynn: I am echoing commentary on Reddit that I agree with, which is that didn't he totally just buy Twitter because he wanted to enforce free speech for everyone, but then now only for him?

Devindra: Remember when any of these folks, especially like the right wing folks who are all about free speech, they are the first ones to limit speech and censor things and Change speech to their own, like whatever they prefer instead.

So

Cherlynn: I just, yeah.

Devindra: Yeah. I just want to point this out be careful out there on Twitter because I still, I'm still spending time there because that is still where a lot of the conversations are happening, right? And that is where the people I trust and follow are also, I'm also on blue sky, I'm also on mastodon, but I see a lot of people leaving those services and going back to Twitter because that's where the community is.

And part of me is I don't want Elon to just Take that, he can manipulate it. We're gonna be there. But yeah, there's also the story recently that Musk admitted to Jordan Peterson that he bought Twitter to get at the woke mind virus that he thinks made his daughter trans So that is Elon Musk right now.

Not a good fella, unfortunately just a mess, but we will have our Elon updates every week as much as we can. Just pointing out all the crazy things he's into. Did you try out Apple intelligence, Cherlynn? Something smarter than Elon Musk? Every

Cherlynn: week we have Apple updates too, right?

Devindra: Apple intelligence is here in the iOS 18.

1 developer beta, not any other betas, just that specific beta. But like the basic capabilities of Apple intelligence are here. I've been playing around with it for a while. The only thing I've noticed is I really the full screen effect for Siri. I really like it when the screen, when the whole screen border just like lights up and it's all shiny.

This is like the weird, I don't know, tech aesthetic sides of me. It is so much nicer than the little Siri ball. I think I just like to see that, but functionally you can ask Siri multiple questions. Now you can, I think the, some of the text input stuff is a little better. Have you been testing it?

Have you noticed any differences?

Cherlynn: I have been testing iOS 18 the beta, but I haven't gotten the Apple intelligence features just yet. I will say I'm pretty familiar with what's new in this one because. I took the briefing and saw a lot of the demos. So yes, the glowing, oops. The glowing border is very nice.

It's a little bit reminiscent of Google in the sense that like the color scheme is like a rainbow aesthetic. But anyway the, yes, and then a new feature is that you can now type to Siri if you ever want to. Double tap the bottom of your

Devindra: screen to do that. Yeah.

Cherlynn: Which I have seen it get tripped up because tapping the bottom of your screen sometimes triggers reachability, which is where it brings the rest, the top of your screen down to the middle.

It's not a great gesture

Devindra: right now. I think they gotta work on that. Not great. There has to

Cherlynn: be a better way to do this. I get what Apple is trying to achieve because it's putting everything within reach of your thumb, so bottom half of the screen, but there has to be something better. And then I am excited to see Genmoji, but Genmoji is not yet here.

Image Playground is not yet here. We've been hype about Apple intelligence for a bit. There's some writing related features that are here too. I don't know if you've tried them out, but what I have seen, and this is fun, what I've seen around threads, people have been testing out the Apple intelligence update is the summarizing of your notifications in mail and messages.

And that is hilarious because The way, I think it seems really smart, right? Like I saw one before and after where like before it would just be like Groupon deals on blah, blah, blah. It pre summary would just give you a preview, but with Apple intelligence, it would just be like the coupon code for 40 percent off is six or something like, like it's just, it just gets to the point and that's actually pretty useful and smart.

Devindra: That's how I handle my personal mail, by the way. Like I have a personal Gmail that I've had since Gmail came out and I don't go in there and trying to clear that inbox. I just live there and sit and watch a pile up. And in the morning I'm like, Hey, I take a glance at the inbox. Anything interesting?

No. Keep moving. I don't even do Marcus. Yeah, I just like to let it pile up because that's the only way to manage that onslaught of mail, right?

Cherlynn: It's smart. It's nice to see. So anyway right now, because Apple intelligence is still a developer beta, it's not as widely available as a public beta, which in both cases, you'd be running beta software.

So if you were keen to try it out, definitely make sure you back up your https: otter. ai installing or updating anything. But if you have tried it out or if even if you haven't, like what feature are you most intrigued by? Let us know. Podcast at Engadget. com.

Devindra: I will also point out the really cool Apple intelligence glow up thing also happens in CarPlay.

So if you ask to talk to Siri in CarPlay, because CarPlay is just mirroring what is your phone is projecting. So it's cool. It looks good. I just love the effect. It makes me feel like, Oh, we are, these are future assistants. This isn't just like a little visual

Cherlynn: refresh. That's what everyone wants.

Yeah. It feels good. I want to play with the new lock screen and the new grid or your app grid too. So the photo

Devindra: changes are cool too. There's a lot of like in like individual cool stuff here. One question I asked Avi from friend was just like, I feel like everybody is trying to make these AI assistants, that are going to be helpful. And we love and know our AI friends. It's our smartphone. The device we rely on the most, the one that holds all of our memories and is important to our daily lives, it's our smartphone, stupid. So we keep trying to, we keep trying to add things on top of the smartphone to like, I don't know, break out the smartphone experience, but no it's the smartphone.

It's always going to be the smartphone, like as more AI enabled features and personalized features come to the, come to our phones. Like I think that's it. The more we will like our devices. Anyway, let's move on. A couple of quick things from Google. Google's making it easier to remove explicit deep fakes from its search results.

That's a good thing. It's also going to stop them from from even appearing to in the first place, or at least do more work to stop that. So that's something good there. There's some follow up news on Google's third party cookies. Shilin, I'm sure you have I got to laugh at this one. Yeah.

Cherlynn: I've been following Google's decision to deprecate third party cookies from the browser and from the internet at large for a very long time.

For years we've been writing about this, yeah. Remember when we had, oh, they were announcing Flock, which is federated learning of clusters I'm not wrong. Yes. Then they moved to something else, another bird name, and then they did Privacy Sandbox, it was another, and then after all of that hullabaloo, I think that's how you pronounce that word.

Yes. It decided no, we're not getting rid of third party cookies and Chrome after all. And it's like Google graveyard again, I'm

Devindra: not surprised. Like it's Google co towing to advertisers, basically to the ad industry who don't want their lives to be made harder. Ultimately,

Cherlynn: it is that I think the one thing that Apple does better than Google on this is that Yes, sometimes Apple takes a very long time to deliver some new feature that everyone else has been doing, but when Apple does something drastic and makes a statement like that, it tends to stick to it.

And does so seemingly thoughtfully, having thought through the process before implementing something instead of making an announcement, making all of this stuff all of this work happen and giving a lot of people all the anxiety and then pulling back again and yielding to advertiser pressure.

I think one thing also that Apple has been good at doing is to be like, nah, you don't care about letting your apps track users. It's they

Devindra: get part of that business, but it's not the entirety of their core business model, which is, that's what they're not as

Cherlynn: dependent on ad revenue. Yeah. I don't know.

I like Google's approach on some things. I think this is just strange and hilarious. I don't know that I agree or disagree just yet. I think there has to be a better way.

Devindra: I would love to be in the meetings, like I say, talk about all these complicated solutions. Okay, how do we really get rid of third party cookies, but also still keep making life easy for advertisers?

And at the end of the day, somebody comes in and is just like, how about nah? How about we don't? Do anything. How about we just keep going the way we've always been going because it makes us a lot of money That is Google today. They are not the don't be evil company Now they seem like they well, how about evil?

It's okay. How about I don't think it's just not great

Cherlynn: Yeah, I think I'm not as personally invested in the third party hooky sort of Situation whether or not advertisers can certainly personalize ads as well. I am more invested in like the SEO drama and what happens with that and how our AI search results and AI, generated content going to affect publishing because that's my line of work.

I think it's

Devindra: totally all interrelated, right? Like it is another sign that Google is okay, we got you ad industry. We got your back publishing industry. Media editorial industry. What are

Cherlynn: you paying us? Yeah,

Devindra: what how can we take all your money though, please? And you take

Cherlynn: all the money you're making though real quick

Devindra: Let's mention some stories around and gadgets Matt Smith reviewed the galaxy flip six, which looks really cool He digs it, even though he thinks Samsung is playing it safe.

So I agree. It looks really cool. Samsung is also marketing them as body cams for police. So that's I guess that's a talk about like unintended consequences for your technology, but because the screen can flip up, I guess a police officer can put them in a front pocket and that's a body cam. I don't know.

That doesn't seem standardized.

Cherlynn: I just think it's funny because look at Samsung marketing this thing. Okay, I'm at the risk of this episode running longer than it already is running quickly to shout out that basically what apple Samsung to here is show some life pictures and video footage of people dressed in what appeared to be police uniforms.

And then with the galaxy flip six kind of like. Clipped onto the pocket with the camera facing out and therefore like a body cam, right? I guess it's a good use case for affordable. If you notice my pitch going higher is because I don't believe it. I will say I have seen the Surface Duo Microsoft Surface Duo being used by Microsoft employees at who have disabilities as a more like accessibility Friendly piece of tech or device.

So there's something better that you can think about with your product, Samsung. But this doesn't seem to be it.

Devindra: Yeah. Yay police is basically what Samsung is doing. I want to shout out just con that it wrote about Star Wars Outlaws, which is the new open world Star Wars game. I know a lot of people are excited about the title is I really want to like Star Wars Outlaws.

So I think Jess is a bit conflicted on it. Like she, her story is she is not super into Star Wars recently. I really want to get Jess into Star Wars Acolytes. But this game so far, I think she had good impressions with earlier demos and now it just feels big and a little aimless. I've seen other previews that were more hot on it too.

So I think overall it's like a positive look at this game, but Jess has concerns. I have concerns too. I am. Less of a fan of big open world games these days, especially when they don't fill them up with stuff to do. So there's that. Let's move on to what we're working on. On my end, just more AI laptops are coming in.

I'm coming off a vacation, so I'm going to be reviewing some of those. Sherilyn, what's up with you?

Cherlynn: Yeah, still doing a couple of watch related things to Galaxy Watch Ultra. I'm still testing that as well as still spending time with the watchOS 11 beta. And then August in case y'all didn't know is going to be the month of Google.

So that's what I'm, that's what they say.

Devindra: That's what they want it to be before it's the fall of Apple, or Apple's autumn, I guess not fall of Apple. Exactly.

Cherlynn: Apple fall. We'll see.

Devindra: Yeah. So big we're prepping for all that stuff. Let's move on to our pop culture picks for the week.

What you got? All

Cherlynn: right. So this past weekend I saw in theaters, Deadpool and Wolverine, and I loved it. I liked it because I'm a Marvel fan. I watched it with someone who's not a Marvel fan and didn't enjoy it as much. I think that their criticism, I know their criticism is Their criticism is fair.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought when you said that. Their criticism is fair in that they think that the whole movie relied a little too heavily on a lot of these Marvel type tie ins, but that was exactly what made it fun for me. So I will say that it really depends going into this movie, what sort of history you have with the characters.

these franchises if you'd Wolverine you like the X Men you like even the other MCU stuff even you'll have a good time

Devindra: I think what

Cherlynn: pre mcu so much there like

Devindra: I think that's part of the fun of it too like how long have you been on watching marvel movies and how much have you stuck with this company right Not I've been phase one bad times.

There have been good times. I'm talking pre phase one. Pre phase one is where I really doubt that. There was one

Cherlynn: surprise. Yeah, I'm assuming you've seen it that there is one moment that I was like,

Devindra: I shouted and I started a critic screening of multiple points where this is a group of like media. These are movie critics behind me.

People shouting and clapping. I'm like, yes. Yes. Hooray. We're doing this. Hell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was very

Cherlynn: excited throughout. Yeah. So it was a really good time, but you need to have some like historical knowledge and appreciation for that sort of gag, I think, to be really enjoying this movie as well as I did.

Devindra: Yeah, good time. Good times. I also agree there. A lot of film critics are like there's not much of a plot. It's not much of a story. The actual character motivations are very confusing. There has a good villain. I do the villain is played by Emma Corrin. They were in the show I'd recommended, A Murder at the End of the World, and they were just fantastic and creepy.

Love them because it's They don't look like a typical villain either. Not like a big, muscly dude or a crazy alien. It's just like skinny girl with psychic powers. That's weird. That is something I want to shout out a game. I feel like I've been waiting for a game to really hit me for a while.

I have not been fully into anything, but I started playing Kunitsugami, Path of the Goddess, and gotta say. Frickin love this thing. It's on Game Pass right now. It is a tower defense game. It's a game where you are protecting this I don't know, a priestess who has magical powers, who you're trying to save.

It's very much like old Japanese folklore type stuff too. So this is a game from Capcom. It brings to mind things like Okami and some of their earlier games. But yeah you're a spiritual Samurai trying to Cleanse these areas you control the villagers villages. You give them jobs you set up like where they stand and how they attack oncoming things.

I am really digging it. I just love the systems. I love the game, and I love how weird it is. It feels very much like a PlayStation 2 game, and I just miss that vibe. So I'm digging it. Kanitsugami, Path of the Goddess. We'll probably be writing about it a bit in Gadget 2, so keep an eye out.

And I think that's it for this week's Roulette!

Cherlynn: Yes, that's it for the episode. So this week everyone, thank you as always for listening. Our theme music is by Game Composer Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Elman. You can find DRA online

Devindra: at dra on Twitter, blue Sky, Mastodon, and I podcast about movies and tv@thefilmcast.com.

Cherlynn: If you want to send me the weirdest health metric you want the galaxy ring to track you can send them to me I'm at shirlynlo on twitter slash x or just email me at shirlyn at engadget. com Email us your thoughts about the show at podcast at engadget. com Leave us a review please on itunes because that helps people discover us And subscribe on anything that you're listening to your podcasts on

baby nephew

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-samsung-galaxy-ring-review-eff-on-kosa-and-another-ai-friend-113013886.html?src=rss

© Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Thanks to a string of leaks and Google’s own teases — usually following said leaks — we know we’ll get the official reveal of the Pixel 9 lineup. 

The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro will be straight-up successors to the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro but rumors suggest Google will add a Pixel 9 Pro XL, with a larger screen. All three of the phones are expected to have a redesigned, chonky camera module and possibly even a new chipset.

Engadget

Alongside all those phones, we’re expecting a lot more news on Gemini, Google’s flavor of AI powered assistant, and Android 15. Yep, we’re on no. 15 already. More leaks and rumors point to updated smartwatches and wireless buds too. And, dare I say, a new streaming box. The Made by Google event kicks off August 13 at 1PM ET. Plenty of time for more leaks, right?

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Intel will cut over 15,000 jobs in a sweeping cost-cutting effort

I really want to like Star Wars Outlaws

Meta’s Threads has 200 million users

Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and X

Boeing eats another $125 million loss over Starliner woes

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

AI startup says scraping every song on the internet is ‘fair use’

Suno admitted it trained its AI model on copyrighted songs.

In June, music labels Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group sued music AI startups Udio and Suno, claiming they trained their AI models by scraping copyrighted materials from the internet. In today’s court filing, Suno acknowledged its neural networks do, in fact, scrape copyrighted material. It argued the scraping was all part of a backend tech process to create “non infringing” new products. These don’t contain samples, so where’s the problem? Well, everywhere according to the RIAA, which represents music labels and initiated the lawsuit.

Continue reading.

There’s even a problem with the Fortnite version of the Cybertruck

A bug in the Cybertruck–Fornite crossover has now been patched out.

Fortnite

A new DLC pack for Fortnite offered players a chance to drive the Tesla Cybertruck in-game. Now, a week later, several players have posted videos of a glitch when they used the Cybertruck during a match. Art imitates life: Tesla’s real world Cybertruck is contending with issues with its windshield wiper that could reduce the driver’s visibility. Then there was the stuck accelerator pedal recall from April.

Continue reading.

The Republican National Committee loses its legal challenge to Gmail

It claimed it was disproportionately impacted by spam filtering.

A federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) against Google over its Gmail service. The suit alleged that Google’s email platform labeled GOP fundraising emails as spam at a higher rate than those from the other side of the aisle. The ruling marks the second case the RNC has lost over allegations of unfair filtering by Gmail. The RNC filed a lawsuit in the same court in 2022. This dismissal with prejudice means it cannot bring the case to another court — but it can still file an appeal against Calabretta’s decision. That is unless the RNC is busy with other things, like, perhaps, a presidential election.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-what-were-expecting-at-googles-2024-pixel-event-111538002.html?src=rss

© Google

Folding smartphones have come a long way since the original Samsung Galaxy Fold came out in 2019. They’re smaller, more durable and, even if they aren’t exactly the most budget-friendly phones, they’re more affordable now, too. Whereas you may not have considered a foldable phone as your daily driver five years ago, they’re much more viable options today — and you have many more to choose from. If you’ve been toying with the idea of switching to a folding phone, or you’re ready to upgrade the foldable you already have, we at Engadget can help with your decision-making process. We've spent hundreds of hours and many days testing and reviewing the best foldable phones on the market right now — here's everything you need to know before picking one up.

Note: For this guide, we’re focusing on devices that are widely available in North America and Europe. That’s because while there are even more options for people who live in Asia (especially China), they are often difficult to buy from abroad and may not support your local carriers.

How we test foldable smartphones

When evaluating foldables, we consider the same general criteria as we do when we’re judging the best smartphones. Devices need to have good battery life (at least a full day’s use), bright displays (peaks of at least 1,000 nits), sharp cameras and responsive performance. That said, foldable phones come in different shapes (and sizes); there are varying designs that may appeal to different types of people.

For those who prefer more compact and stylish devices, flip-style foldables resemble old-school namesakes but with flexible interior displays (typically six to seven inches diagonally) and smaller exterior screens. Alternatively, for power users and people who want to maximize mobile productivity, there are larger book-style foldables (with seven to eight-inch main displays) that can transform from a candy bar-style phone to essentially a small tablet when opened.

Are foldable phones worth it? A note on durability

Aside from their displays, the biggest difference between foldable phones and more traditional handsets is durability. That’s because while some models like the Pixel Fold and Samsung’s Galaxy Z line offer IPX8 water resistance (which is good for submersions of up to five feet for 30 minutes), their flexible screens – which are largely made from plastic – present some unique challenges.

Most foldables come with factory-installed screen protectors. However, unlike regular phones, users are instructed not to remove them without assistance from approved service centers. Thankfully, Samsung does offer one free screen protector replacement for its foldables, while Google charges between $29 and $129 depending on the warranty status of your device. That said, while we can’t do long-term testing for every foldable phone on the market, after personally using the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 each for a year, I’ve found that Samsung’s pre-installed screen protector tends to start bubbling nine to 12 months after purchase. So you’ll probably want to factor in that your foldable may need some sort of servicing after about a year unless you plan on removing the screen protector entirely (which is possible, but goes against most manufacturers' instructions).

Furthermore, foldable phone owners need to be mindful about keeping sharp objects away from their flexible displays, as rocks, keys or even pressing down very hard with a fingernail can leave permanent marks. In the event that you need to get a flexible screen serviced, you’re potentially facing a much higher repair bill when compared to a typical phone (up to $500 or more depending on the model and the severity of the damage). In short, while the ruggedness of foldable phones has improved a lot, they're still more delicate than traditional handsets, which is something you need to account for.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-foldable-phones-160030013.html?src=rss

© Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget

When most tech companies are challenged with a lawsuit, the expected defense is to deny wrongdoing. To give a reasonable explanation of why the business' actions were not breaking any laws. Music AI startups Udio and Suno have gone for a different approach: admit to doing exactly what you were sued for.

Udio and Suno were sued in June, with music labels Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group claiming they trained their AI models by scraping copyrighted materials from the Internet. In a court filing today, Suno acknowledged that its neural networks do in fact scrape copyrighted material: "It is no secret that the tens of millions of recordings that Suno’s model was trained on presumably included recordings whose rights are owned by the Plaintiffs in this case." And that's because its training data "includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet," which likely include millions of illegal copies of songs. 

But the company is taking the line that its scraping falls under the umbrella of fair use. "It is fair use under copyright law to make a copy of a protected work as part of a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product," the statement reads. Its argument seems to be that since the AI-generated tracks it creates don't include samples, illegally obtaining all of those tracks to train the AI model isn't a problem.

Calling the defendants' actions "evading and misleading," the RIAA, which initiated the lawsuit, had an unsurprisingly harsh response to the filing. "Their industrial scale infringement does not qualify as ‘fair use’. There’s nothing fair about stealing an artist’s life’s work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals," a spokesperson for the organization said. "Defendants had a ready lawful path to bring their products and tools to the market – obtain consent before using their work, as many of their competitors already have. That unfair competition is directly at issue in these cases."

Whatever the next phase of this litigation entails, prepare your popcorn. It should be wild.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ai-startup-argues-scraping-every-song-on-the-internet-is-fair-use-233132459.html?src=rss

© Suno

Admit it. You kind of knew this was coming. Late last month, a new DLC pack called the Summer Road Trip bundle offered players a chance to drive the Tesla Cybertruck in games like Fortnite and Rocket League. Now a week later, several Fortnite players have posted videos of a glitch that occured when they used the Cybertruck during a match.

Posts about the Cybertruck glitch appeared on Reddit and YouTube. The glitch happens when you morph a truck into Elon Musk’s boxy behemoth. On exiting the vehicle, a bug rendered your Nitro Fists, the melee weapon that’s pretty much exactly how it sounds, completely useless.

YouTube creator Tabor Hill tested out the glitch when he morphed a truck into the Cybertruck and drove it around for a few seconds. Instead of gently gliding forward into an opponent’s soft face with the Nitro Fists, the gelignite gauntlets caused his character to go into a loud, repetitive twitch.

Of course, this glitch wouldn’t be deliciously ironic if Tesla’s real world Cybertruck didn’t have more glitches than a Max Headroom monologue. Right now, Tesla’s truck is under its latest recall because of issues with a windshield wiper that could reduce the driver’s visibility. That’s on top of the infamous stuck accelerator pedal recall that happened back in April.

We reached out to an Epic Games representative by email for a chance to comment, and they informed us that the bug was identified and fixed at around 1PM ET today.

Update, July 31, 7:28PM ET: This story and its headline was updated after publish to include information from Epic Games about the fix that was pushed out earlier today.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-cybertruck-is-causing-fortnite-players-to-get-cyberstuck-224015466.html?src=rss

© Epic Games

In a crushing quarterly update, Intel disclosed that it will cut more than 15 percent of its workforce. The layoffs, which could impact over 15,000 jobs, are part of the company's $10 billion cost-reduction plan to recover financial stability. Intel posted a second-quarter net loss of $1.6 billion, plunging from the net income of $1.5 billion it reported in the same period of 2023.

CEO Pat Gelsinger addressed employees with a memo acknowledging the scope of today's announcements. "This is painful news for me to share," he said. "I know it will be even more difficult for you to read. This is an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history."

As well as the job cuts, the cost-reduction plan includes creating separate financial reporting for Intel Products and Intel Foundry. The Intel Foundry branch saw an operating loss of $2.8 billion in Q2, even more than the $1.8 billion operating loss it saw during the second quarter last year. Intel has been in the process of overhauling its foundries to make them more competitive. In the interim, it has had to rely on other companies for some production. TSMC, the same manufacturer used by Apple, Qualcomm and AMD, is producing its new Lunar Lake chips.

The company took an additional hit in the public eye when its 13th- and 14th-generation desktop CPUs began experiencing instability issues. While a fix is expected this month to prevent any further problems, any damage that the microcode errors caused to CPUs appears to be permanent.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intel-will-cut-over-15000-jobs-in-a-sweeping-cost-cutting-effort-220951016.html?src=rss

© ASSOCIATED PRESS

If you live in Ohio and constantly forget your wallet when you head out for a drive, we’ve got some good news for you: The state of Ohio became the fifth US state to accept driver’s licenses and official state IDs in the iPhone’s Apple Wallet app.

Digital identification in Apple’s wallet app can now be used across Ohio at Traffic Safety Administration (TSA) airport security checkpoints and select businesses and apps. The state is also working on implementing a free age verification app for businesses that require checking customers’ ID, according to WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati.

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has also created an instructional video that shows you how to add your license or state ID to your Apple Wallet if you’re a resident of the Buckeye State.

Ohio now joins Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Maryland as states that accept and recognize digital licenses and IDs in the iPhone wallet app. If you’re not in one of those states, you may be joining that list soon since 24 other states and Washington DC and Puerto Rico are exploring or in the process of implementing mobile digital license regulations. Seven of those states are currently committed to implementing digital wallet access, according to 9to5Mac.

Google Wallet is also accepted in four states including Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Maryland. Phone users with Android 8 or high can save their IDs to Google Wallet. This feature is not yet available for foldable devices, according to Google’s help section.

Apple added the ability to store driver’s licenses in the digital wallet app with iOS 15 in 2021. Apple Wallet is also recognized as an accepted form of identification or access in other societal sectors. Residents of the UK received an update last year that allows them to see their bank account totals from the Apple Wallet App. The Apple Wallet also allows hotel guests to store their room key cards in the app starting in 2021 with the Hyatt hotel chain.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ohio-becomes-the-fifth-us-state-to-recognize-ids-in-apple-wallet-211807995.html?src=rss

© Apple

The Threads app has passed the 200 million user mark, according to Meta exec Adam Mosseri. The milestone comes one day after Mark Zuckerberg said that the service was “about” to hit 200 million users during the company’s latest earnings call.

While Threads is still relatively tiny compared to Meta’s other apps, it has grown at a much faster clip. Zuckerberg previously announced 175 million users last month as Threads marked its one-year anniversary, and the Meta CEO has repeatedly speculated that it could be the company’s next one-billion-user app.

“We've been building this company for 20 years, and there just are not that many opportunities that come around to grow a billion-person app,” Zuckerberg said. “Obviously, there's a ton of work between now and there.”

Continuing to grow the app’s user base will be key to Meta’s ability to eventually monetize Threads, which currently has no ads or business model. “All these new products, we ship them, and then there's a multi-year time horizon between scaling them and then scaling them into not just consumer experiences but very large businesses,” Zuckerberg said.

While Threads has so far been able to capitalize on the chaos and controversy surrounding X, Meta is still grappling with how to position its app that’s widely viewed as an alternative to X. Mosseri and Zuckerberg have said they don’t want the app to promote political content to users that don’t explicitly ask for it. This policy has even raised questions among some Meta employees, The Information recently reported.

Thread’s “for you” algorithm is also widely viewed as slow to keep up with breaking news and current events. Mosseri recently acknowledged the issue. “We’re definitely not fast enough yet, and we’re actively working to get better there,” he wrote in a post on Threads.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-threads-has-200-million-users-211656147.html?src=rss

© Meta

Google is adding support for its School time feature to more hardware. School time allows parents to limit functionalities on a child's devices during predetermined hours. That might be the time they are in classes or for any period where an adult wants to limit screen time. Parents will be able to use the Family Link parental controls app to set School time hours on their kids' select Android phones, tablets and Samsung Galaxy Watches. However, Google hasn't shared any further specifics about which devices in those categories will receive this update. The tool was originally launched on the Fitbit Ace LTE smartwatches in May.

School time is designed to help limit a mobile device's distractions for a young user. When enabled, it sets a dedicated home page with limited notifications. Parents can select which apps remain available, and can allow texts and calls to come through from particular individuals. This encourages focus when it's needed, while still allowing for emergency contact if needed.

Family Link, Google's portal for parents to manage their kids' mobile activity, received a redesign in 2022. And if you're looking for similar features in the Apple ecosystem, check out the Schooltime feature.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-school-time-feature-is-coming-to-android-smartphones-204621597.html?src=rss

© Google

TCL’s massive 115-inch QD-Mini LED TV is finally available to consumers, after being unveiled back in January. This is officially the world’s largest QD-Mini LED TV and can be purchased directly from TCL or via select retailers throughout the country.

The thing costs $20,000, which is around the price of 8,000 cups of coffee, but it does come with the option for some truly unique add-ons. Early buyers can choose from a selection of bonuses, which include a ticket to Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.

There’s no airfare included, but Super Bowl tickets don’t come cheap. The promotion also provides just a single ticket, so there will be no loved ones to enjoy the experience with. On the plus side, you’ll get to hang out with a bunch of strangers who also spent $20,000 on a TV. TCL promises shared “unique experiences” with other financially irresponsible people who attend the championship game, but didn’t get into any details.

If football isn’t your bag, the company has a selection of other perks available. Purchasers can attend a movie premiere at the famous TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre) which includes two round-trip plane tickets and hotel accommodations. This also features a walk on the red carpet and a private opera box.

Other options include a concert at SoFi stadium and a trip to LA to visit Activision to see how the Call of Duty sausage gets made. Finally, there’s an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES.) We head there every year and it’s a sweaty, anxiety-filled mess. Go for the Super Bowl or movie premiere if you have $20,000 to drop.

As for actual TV specs, the TCL 115QM89 boasts Quantum Dot technology, a 6.2.2 channel speaker system and an AIPQ ULTRA processor for high-quality and crisp images. It also features 20,000 dimming zones to help shadows and highlights appear more defined. For the math wizards out there, that amounts to $1 per dimming zone.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tcls-20000-115-inch-qd-mini-led-tv-comes-with-a-ticket-to-the-super-bowl-191507877.html?src=rss

© TCL

ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced in February that they would jointly launch a sports-focused streaming service, and today they've shared some pertinent details. Subscriptions to the Venu service will cost $43 a month. The platform will have three broad categories of content: live games and events, on-demand sports programming and talk content such as studio shows. Venu will launch at an unspecified time this fall.

The linear networks included in Venu are ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN+. Viewers will have access to lots of major events across the world of athletics. The World Series of Major League Baseball, the four Grand Slams of tennis, the Stanley Cup finals for the National Hockey League, and a wide spread of college athletics will all be represented in Venu's programming.

When people sign up at the launch price, that monthly cost will be locked in for twelve months. Considering how often we see prices going up in the streaming landscape, it's safe to assume that $43 won't be the fee indefinitely.

Watching sports is a fragmented and expensive activity today. Different leagues might have media rights deals with multiple different networks and streaming platforms, meaning fans have to check carefully where to find their favorite teams each night. Having so many providers together under one umbrella would streamline the experience, especially for people who like to follow multiple sports. But the joint effort has drawn criticism. FuboTV filed a lawsuit after the initial announcement, claiming the new streaming package would violate antitrust practices.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/venu-is-the-new-sports-streaming-service-likely-to-drain-your-bank-account-190011555.html?src=rss

© Andy Lyons via Getty Images

A federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) against Google over its Gmail service. The suit alleged that Google’s email platform labeled GOP fundraising emails as spam at a higher rate than those from the other side of the aisle.

District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta from the Eastern California District Court dismissed the case with prejudice, preventing the Republican party from bringing its case against Google back to court. The dismissal with prejudice means it cannot bring the case to another court but can still file an appeal to Calabretta’s decision, according to The Verge.

Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order that the RNC failed to state a claim under “any legislative policy” or prove there was “sufficient harm to users of Gmail.”

“The RNC has not shown Google’s alleged conduct has violated any other law, which is a necessary element of intentional interference with economic relations,” Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order. “Accordingly, the court grants Google’s motion to dismiss, this time with prejudice.” Calabretta had previously dismissed the case without prejudice.

Thursday’s ruling marks the second case that the RNC has lost over allegations of unfair filtering by Gmail. The RNC filed a lawsuit in the same court in 2022 seeking damages from Google for “donations it allegedly lost as a result” of labeling fundraising emails as spam. Calabretta called the lawsuit a “close case” but ultimately ruled that the RNC “failed to plausibly allege its claims” that Google’s spam filtering was committed in bad faith, according to court filings.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-republican-national-committee-loses-its-legal-challenge-to-gmail-184122392.html?src=rss

© DOMINICK REUTER via Getty Images

It's almost time once again for the tech world to stop everything else it's doing and pay attention as a major company shows off its latest hardware. Next up is Google's turn at bat. Thanks to a string of leaks and Google’s own teases, we already have a pretty clear idea of what the company has planned for its Made by Google event.

We'll get the official reveal of the Pixel 9 lineup, for one thing. This includes what the company is calling the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which is certainly more of a mouthful than "Pixel Fold 2." In addition, Google will certainly reveal more details about Android 15 and the operating system's public rollout. Expect to hear the word "Gemini" a lot too as Google is likely to focus on the AI-powered features of the new handsets.

Some accessories could be in store in the form of Pixel Buds Pro 2 and a new Pixel Watch (or two) as well. There may be some other devices on show, including a new Google TV streaming box — with the Chromecast branding perhaps going away — as well as an updated Nest Learning Thermostat.

Google typically holds its big annual hardware event in October, but the company is actually holding it in the summer this time around, perhaps to get ahead of the iPhone 16 lineup. The Made by Google event will take place on August 13 at 1PM ET.

Here's what we know for certain Google will show off at the event and everything else we expect to learn about at Made by Google:

Pixel 9, 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL

As usual, the main event of Made by Google will be the Pixel 9 lineup. Google has confirmed (as if it were ever really in doubt) that it will show off new smartphones at the event, but it's expected to have three traditional models this year instead of two.

The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro will be straight-up successors to the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Leaks and rumors suggest Google will be adding a Pixel 9 Pro XL, with a larger screen than the other two models, to the lineup as well. YouTuber Andro-news claims to have gotten their hands on an engineering sample of the larger handset, which has flat edges, polished metal on the sides and matte-textured glass on the rear. However, the phone isn't switched on in the video.

The Pixel 9 Pro is slated to have more advanced specs than the Pixel 9 but with the same display size. The Pixel 9 Pro XL, meanwhile, is expected to have almost the same specs as the 9 Pro but in a bigger handset. Per Tom’s Guide, the 9 and 9 Pro displays will measure around 6.3 inches while the Pixel 9 Pro XL may have a whopping 6.9-inch screen.

All three of the phones are expected to have a redesigned camera module. This large camera bar (which Google has confirmed at least for the Pixel 9 Pro) looks like it protrudes quite a bit from the main body. Unless you pick up an appropriate case, you can probably expect this to snag on your pocket more often than you'd like. The Pixel 9 is believed to have 50MP wide and 48MP ultrawide lenses in its camera array.

Google is likely to employ a new chipset this year, which will probably be called the Tensor G4. Leaks have also suggested that the base Pixel 9 will come with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The two larger phones are expected to max out at 512GB of storage. One other expected addition this year is the introduction of emergency satellite messaging, a feature that Apple has supported on the last two generations of iPhones.

Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Google will be hoping that consumers find the design of its latest foldable phone more elegant than its name. "Pixel 9 Pro Fold" doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as "Pixel Fold 2." However, the change does make sense if Google is looking to more clearly position the foldable as a premium product with the inclusion of "Pro" in the name. If the foldable has the same chipset as the rest of the Pixel 9 lineup, the name change is even more logical.

It's not rare for phone manufacturers to go with a major redesign on their second (or even third) stab at a new form factor as they learn more about what works and what doesn't. Like its more rigid siblings, the 9 Pro Fold also has a noticeable camera bump albeit one that positions the lenses vertically. Leaked images from a regulator in Taiwan indicate that the selfie camera has been moved on the interior screen to support a wider field of view. It appears that Google has reduced the fold crease this time around too.

Android 15 and Gemini

As ever, Google has been gradually announcing Android 15 features over the last several months, in large part to help developers update their apps ahead of the operating system's public rollout. Along with security measures such as Theft Detection Lock and Google Play fraud prevention, it should come as little surprise that Google is weaving AI more tightly into the fabric of its mobile OS.

The Made by Google teasers have made it very clear that the company is focusing heavily on the AI features of its new devices, such as the ability to draft a letter or email based on a prompt. Google confirmed back at I/O that Gemini will be more deeply integrated into Android 15 (which perhaps could spell the demise of Google Assistant) and will have better contextual awareness of what you're doing. For instance, you'll be able to ask the chatbot questions about a YouTube video you're watching and it should be able to answer them. You might think of it as a modern, interactive version of Pop-Up Video.

We should get a release date for Android 15 — at least for supported Pixel devices — at the event. It'll be around the same time Google starts shipping the new Pixel lineup, most likely later in August.

Pixel Watch 3

It's just as well Google doesn't build ships considering how many leaks it has to deal with. A couple of weeks ahead of Made by Google, Android Headlines got its hands on the specs of the Pixel Watch 3, which is expected to be available in two sizes: 41mm and 45mm.

The Pixel Watch 3 will likely have an Actua display capable of delivering up to 2,000 nits of brightness — that's twice as bright as the previous model's AMOLED display. Per the leak, Google claims that a battery saver mode extends the time between charges to up to 36 hours, though you'll get up to 24 hours of standard use out of the wearable when the always-on display is enabled. The smaller model is expected to offer 20 percent faster charging compared with the previous model as well.

It had been anticipated that Google would name the larger model the Pixel Watch 3 XL. However, that's no longer expected to be the case, according to Android Headlines. Each variant will have its size listed in parentheses to differentiate them, the publication says.

Pixel Buds Pro 2

It's been two years since Google released the Pixel Buds Pro, so those are very much due for an upgrade. Rumors suggest the Pixel Buds Pro 2 will debut at Made By Google. Some unofficial renders have popped up, indicating that along with the existing Charcoal and Porcelain colorways, there will be Aloe and Hot Pink variants to match various Pixel phone options. It appears that Google is bringing back a version of the wingtip design from the original Pixel Buds too.

It remains to be seen what Google is cooking up for the audio side of the Pixel Buds Pro 2 but we do have at least some sense of the price. Rumors suggest the Pixel Buds Pro 2 will cost $229, which is $30 more than the base price of the current model.

Everything else

There are a couple of other devices that could make their public bow at Made by Google. Nest doesn't typically get a lot of love at these events, but we could very well see the next Nest Learning Thermostat on August 13.

A YouTuber claimed to have all three colorways of the fourth-gen model in hand: polished silver, polished gold and obsidian. One big difference this time around is that Google seems to be ditching the plastic shell in favor of stainless steel. It's unclear whether you'll be able to adjust the temperature by rotating what appears to be a much thinner bezel or if you'll operate the thermostat via a touchscreen or an app. According to a leaked spec sheet, the thermostat will come with a second-gen Nest Temperature Sensor.

Elsewhere, Google seems to be ditching the streaming stick format (and perhaps even the Chromecast branding) in favor of a set-top box with the so-called Google TV Streamer. According to images obtained by 9to5 Google, the device has a low profile with a slanted, pill-shaped design. The longer remote still has YouTube and Netflix buttons. However, the Google Assistant button has been replaced by one that just features a microphone — perhaps another sign that Google is depreciating Assistant in favor of Gemini.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/made-by-google-2024-pixel-9-pro-gemini-new-foldables-and-everything-else-to-expect-on-august-13-181029588.html?src=rss

© Reuters / Reuters

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced plans to turn land that previously housed aspects of the Manhattan Project into a 1 GW solar farm. For the uninitiated, the Manhattan Project was a top-secret and successful effort to develop nuclear weapons during the 1940s.

This particular renovation is being conducted at the former home of the Hanford nuclear testing facility, otherwise known as Site W, which is in Washington state. This site housed the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium made at this location was used in the very first atomic bomb and the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

The location certainly is intriguing, but so is the transformation project. This 580-square mile section of semi-arid desert could end up housing the largest solar project in the country, if built to the announced capacity. This record currently belongs to the Edwards Sanborn Solar and Energy Storage project in California, which generates 875 megawatts of solar power.

The DOE has teamed up with Hecate Energy to repurpose the 8,000-acre site. This is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative that launched last year. This program is tasked with repurposing DOE-owned land for clean energy generation. This program has already added around 90 GW of solar capacity to the grid, which is enough to power 13 million homes.

This isn’t quite a done deal yet. The DOE and Hecate Energy still have to negotiate for a realty agreement and the government could cancel these negotiations at any time.

This is good news, but we still have some catching up to do with regard to Europe. The US produces around 5.6 percent of its energy via solar, but the EU recently shot up to 9.1 percent. However, trends are moving upward in both regions.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-manhattan-project-nuclear-weapons-site-is-being-turned-into-a-giant-solar-farm-173047830.html?src=rss

© Unsplash / American Public Power Association

When Don Lemon's "premium" video hosting deal on X was canceled in March, a representative for the former CNN anchor threatened legal action. Nearly five months later, he's taking Musk and his platform to court, claiming he hasn't been paid.

The former CNN anchor filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Musk and X, the New York Times reports. The suit pertains to an alleged payment agreement Lemon says Musk refuses to honor. Lemon filed his case in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

Lemon claims that he agreed to produce a news and interview show on the X platform back in January. Lemon would receive $1.5 million a year and part of the advertising revenue for producing premium content for X. However, Lemon states in the filing that he never signed a contract because Musk told him he didn’t need to “fill out paperwork” and that he’d back his show regardless of his views or interview topics.

Lemon kicked off his first episode by interviewing Musk, asking questions about Musk’s alleged ketamine use, his views on transgender individuals and his stance on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring initiatives. Lemon also interrogated Musk for tweets which appeared to support the racist belief known as the “great replacement theory.” Hours after the interview, Musk texted Lemon to tell him their deal was done.

X chief executive officer Linda Yaccarino says the company was focused on becoming a “video first” platform and inked similar deals with famous names like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard and sports commentator Jim Rome. Many of these shows have yet to materialize on X.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/don-lemon-is-suing-elon-musk-and-x-171526672.html?src=rss

© Screenshot from YouTube

When the Mustang Mach-E first hit the streets at the end of 2021, people were so up in arms about its name that it felt like you couldn’t have a serious discussion about the vehicle itself. How dare Ford tarnish the legacy of its iconic pony car with *gasp* a crossover SUV?! And an all-electric one at that. But now that Ford has had a few years to refine the platform, it’s a great time to take another look at what is still the company’s most engaging EV to date.

What’s new for 2024

Ford has made several tweaks and adjustments to the Mach-E over the past few years, like streamlining the UI for its infotainment system, offering a wider range of colors and switching to LFP batteries (lithium ferrophosphate) for the standard range model and NCM (nickel, cobalt, manganese) for extended range trims. But for 2024, there are a few additional updates such as a new rear motor (which Ford says was developed in-house) that deliver a touch more torque and slightly faster charging speeds. The 72kWh standard range model can now go from 10 to 80 percent in 32 minutes or around 36 minutes for specs with the larger 91kWh extended range battery pack. That’s about six minutes faster compared to previous model year vehicles.

The Mach-E GT now also receives Ford’s MagneRide suspension tech as standard. This feature was only available on the top-spec GT Performance Edition, which now exists as a Performance upgrade package (and is what I reviewed here), instead of being a full standalone trim. It offers an extra 100 pound-feet of torque and improved tuning. This year, there are yet more color options headlined by Eruption green and Ford’s optional Bronze appearance pack (which you can see in photos of our loaner vehicle), alongside a brand new Rally model. It features some exclusive design touches including a larger rear spoiler and a bunch of tweaks for better off-road performance and handling.

Finally, earlier this spring, Ford announced that its EVs in the US can use Tesla’s Supercharging network and created a program that provides one free adapter to Mustang Mach-E and Ford 150 Lightning owners. (Envision a giant USB dongle that allows Ford’s CCS charging ports to use Tesla’s NACS plugs. Starting in 2025, new Mach-Es will come with an NACS plug from the factory.)

Design: A family-friendly muscle car for the EV age

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

One of the biggest issues Mustang die-hards have with the Mach-E is that it represents diametrically opposed objectives. Muscle cars are supposed to be simple, low-slung affairs that are big on power and light on weight (and often practicality). But this thing has two rows of usable seats, a large cargo area and a curb weight of between 4,400 and 5,000 pounds depending on the spec. That’s about 1,000 pounds heavier than an equivalent gas-powered Mustang.

Factor in that the Mach-E has a frunk where the engine ought to be and you’re basically looking at something that sits on the complete other end of the spectrum from where Mustang landed when it first hit the roads back in the 1960s. And often, when a product is being pulled in multiple directions, it ends up stuck in the middle.

But on the Mach-E, Ford has artfully balanced nods to previous Mustangs while embracing a more accommodating crossover EV design. The car’s long hood and vertical taillights give it an unmistakable familial resemblance while the clever use of black panels on its roof, below its doors and elsewhere make the crossover look sleeker than it actually is. (Admittedly, they’re hard to see on a black car like the one I tested, but check out some other colors to see what I mean.) And in an ever growing sea of vaguely teardrop-shaped EV SUVs, the Mach-E stands out as a striking homage to a classic.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the Mach-E’s design is its door handles, or lack thereof. Instead, you get a button mounted on the pillar behind each window. In front, there’s also a small tab nearby you can pull to open, while in back, Ford expects you to simply grab the inside of the door when climbing in, because that’s what people tend to do anyway. And Ford is right. Buttons are good and don’t need any explanation. Plus, they’re a lot simpler than handles that have to pop out just so you can yank on them. Even my toddler (who isn’t even three yet) can open the doors by himself. Plus, they still deliver on the original purpose of getting rid of handles to reduce drag. It seems Ferrari agrees, because the Italian supercar maker opted for a similar tabbed design (albeit without the button) for the rear doors on the new Purosangue.

Another nifty feature inspired by the cars of yesteryear is the numeric touch controls on the driver’s side door. Just like the buttons on old Explorers, you can create a PIN that lets you unlock the car with a handful of taps. This lets you hide your keys inside the car if you’re at the beach or going on a hike and don’t want to risk losing them in the wild. It’s a bit of simple tech mixed with basic practicality that I wish more carmakers would support.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That delicate blend between new and old continues inside as well. In the center of the dash is a large 15.5-inch touchscreen that controls most of the vehicle’s functions. But unlike other EV makers (most notably Tesla), Ford stopped short of making everything so streamlined that it's hard to use. At the bottom of the screen, the touch buttons for the heated seats and temperature are frozen in place, so they’re always easy to reach. And then smack in the middle is a big control wheel that adjusts dynamically to handle whatever you need. By default, it handles volume, but if you touch something like the fan button first, you can simply twist the dial to increase or decrease the speed. It’s a wonderful blend between digital and analog controls that means you’re never more than two gestures away from turning something off or setting it to full blast.

It's endearing that Ford is so committed to its transitional philosophy between new and old that in addition to a built-in wireless charger, the Mach-E has USB-A and USB-C jacks positioned side-by-side. Usually, automakers just pick one and stick with it, sometimes resulting in cars saddled with only Type-A slots.

Meanwhile, over on the driver’s side, Ford skews a bit more traditional, where controls for the blinkers and wipers are just stalks. It’s a tried and true setup that makes the Mach-E feel immediately familiar, which is not something all EVs can claim. There’s even an on/off button for the car, which almost feels quaint in a time when so many electric cars let you just walk up, put your foot on the brake and go. But as I said before, buttons are good, so unless you really feel like tapping one is a drag, I don’t see an issue with Ford’s approach.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

As for the rest of the interior, it’s easy to tell that the Mach-E was built with expertise. There’s a nice mix of premium textures (with very little piano black trim to call attention to fingerprints) and no cracks or loose ends to speak of. The cabin is also very quiet, with not even a hint of an EV’s usual faint electric motor whine (unless you’re really gunning it). Compared to the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Mach-E has a slightly higher seating position (as befits a proper SUV) and larger cargo area (29.7 cubic feet versus 27.2), with the trade-off being slightly less rear-seat legroom for passengers in the second row. That said, I’m six feet tall and there’s still plenty of room in the back for me. However, if you want to really maximize storage, Tesla’s Model Y beats out both with large cubby spaces throughout.

The one thing I wish Ford offered — even if it had been strictly an optional extra — is ventilated seats. It’s something you can get on other similarly priced rivals or even the F-150 Lightning. And as I was testing this during the peak of a heatwave, it would have been the cherry on top of an otherwise already solid interior.

Tech and infotainment: A big screen with a much-appreciated analog touch

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Mach-E’s infotainment is powered by Ford’s Sync 4A system which is generally fine. You have all the basics for adjusting car settings, navigation and more. But most people are probably going to augment that with support for both wired and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which makes the whole setup feel much more complete. Pairing was a cinch and connecting was fast enough that generally by the time I got into the car and put my seatbelt on, Android Auto was ready to go. From the main screen, you get a big window for mapping and some smaller panes for music and recent apps. In the settings, you can adjust things like the propulsion sounds or one-pedal driving, the latter of which I think is tuned perfectly for the Mach-E. It offers plenty of deceleration when you lift off but not so much that your head jerks around if you let it slow all the way to a full stop.

Meanwhile, thanks to the FordPass app, you get some additional controls on your phone, though things are a bit spartan compared to rivals like Tesla. All the basics are there like being able to lock the car, roll down the windows and activate the climate control remotely. But there are a lot of little things it can’t do too.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

There’s no option to see the view from the Mach-E’s cameras on your phone like on a Model Y, and you can’t even adjust individual climate settings. You can either let the car pick a temperature or let it default to whatever it was the last time you were driving. However, one thing the Mach-E offers that a Model Y doesn’t is a top-down 360-degree camera. That thing is a lifesaver when you need to squeeze into a tight space while parallel parking and should be a standard feature on every new car. I just wish Ford’s execution was a touch more polished, as it applies little black outlines around the car that add the tiniest bit of guesswork.

You can also use your phone as a key, which is great for anyone who doesn’t want to carry Ford’s egg-shaped fob around. But I wish Ford would steal another page out of Tesla’s playbook and let you use the car’s sensors as a built-in dash cam. All the necessary equipment is already in place and there are plenty of USB ports for anyone who wants to plug in an external storage drive.

Unfortunately, there are still a few infotainment menus like the one for Sirius XM radio that take too long to appear. In 2024, I simply do not understand how a minimum $40,000 car has a screen that’s occasionally slower than a smartphone. And while Sync and Android Auto/CarPlay are usually quite responsive, there are a handful of situations where the display can’t keep up.

Performance: Pony power

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Mustang or not, with a 0 to 60 time of just 3.3 seconds for a GT with the Performance upgrade pack, the Mach-E is seriously quick. And even if you opt for a more affordable Premium model with dual motors and AWD, you’re still hitting 60 in 5.2 seconds, which is more than respectable.

However, the real star of the GT’s kit is its MagneRide damping system. It makes the car feel more confident and planted in the corners. The downside is that it makes the ride even firmer, which is great when you want to really push the pace while maintaining control. But around me, where the roads exist in a superposition of being either freshly paved or filled with so many potholes you might as well be driving on the moon, you will feel every bump just a bit more. Regardless, compared to the bouncier feel from the standard suspension in Mach-Es with Select and Premium trims, I’ll take that extra bit of sporty rigidity every time.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Mach-E also offers a few different performance modes: Whisper, Engaged and Unbridled, which roughly translates to relaxed, sport and full power. In Whisper, which I used the most for driving around town, the car is relatively chilled out. There’s still a lot of performance to tap into, you just have to be a little more deliberate with your foot before it arrives. But that’s just fine when you're out getting groceries and don’t want to crack all your eggs before you get home. Engaged offers a good balance between speed and comfort, and Unbridled doesn’t need much explanation. At this point, most people know that EVs can deliver peak torque at all times unlike cars powered by internal combustion. So while classic Mustang fans might not like to admit it, in the real world, the Mach-E is every bit as quick as its gas-powered predecessors. There’s a sense that there’s always excess power waiting to be unleashed and it's absolutely exhilarating.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

On the flip side, when you don’t feel like driving, Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving tech is among the best in the business. Granted, it’s a bit more restricted than something like Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot as its only available on approved highways. But according to Ford, that covers over 130,000 miles of roads across North America, so it wasn’t hard to find somewhere I could use it. And when it’s activated, you can just sit back and let the car do the work, which is a true stress reliever when you’re stuck in highway traffic.

BlueCruise neatly stayed in the middle of the lane without needing to bounce between the lines. When you want to change lanes, you can simply flick the blinker stalk in the proper direction and let BlueCruise do the rest. I also appreciate that when it’s on, the entire screen on the driver’s side display turns blue, so there’s no confusion about what’s going on. Meanwhile, the small sensor bank behind the wheels monitors your eyes to ensure you’re still paying attention. And when BlueCruise needs to revert back to good ‘ole adaptive cruise control, that’s really obvious too.

Range and charging: Underpromise but over-deliver

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Mach-E offers between 250 and 320 miles of range depending on the spec, with the GT falling in the middle with 280 miles of juice. (Note: all GTs come standard with AWD and Ford’s extended range battery pack). Those figures are more than solid and pretty much the same as a Tesla Model Y (Ford’s long-range RWD model can hit 320 miles per charge, while the Model Y Performance delivers 279 miles).

However, I noticed that Ford’s in-car range estimates are on the more conservative side, but in a good way. It feels like the Mach-E engineers were living by the mantra of underpromising and over-delivering. That’s because unlike every Tesla I’ve driven — which often served up overly optimistic calculations before updating to more realistic estimates halfway through the trip — what you see on the Mach-E’s display is pretty much what you get. And especially for first-time EV buyers who might be suffering from range anxiety, this predictability makes for more confidence on longer journeys.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

On the other hand, perhaps the Mach-E’s biggest weakness is its charging time, which lags behind almost all of its rivals even with the six-minute decrease for 2024 models. This is because it maxes out with 150kW DC fast charging compared to 250kW for a Model Y or 350kW on a Hyundai Ioniq 5. Granted, if you have the luxury of being able to install a charger in your garage, that difference might not be a big deal. But for those who regularly need to charge mid-trip, you’re looking at between 10 and 15 minutes of extra time spent plugged in compared to its rivals. So while it’s not a deal breaker, faster DC charging would be the biggest upgrade Ford could add to the Mach-E.

Still, even for me, who lives in the city and can’t charge in my building or the lot I rent when testing cars, it’s not that bad. There are at least six public chargers within a five-block radius, all of which are significantly closer than the nearest gas station. This makes it easy to recharge the car when needed, which probably won’t be very often unless you have a major commute thanks to the Mach-E’s above-average range.

Wrap-up

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

So is the Mach-E a real Mustang? Ford certainly believes so because almost every badge on the outside of the car is a Mustang logo instead of the classic blue oval. However, methinks the lady doth protest too much. I suspect Ford will never admit to attaching the Mustang name to the Mach-E in hopes of attracting buyers to its first mainstream EV. (I’m not counting the electric Ranger from the 90s.) But you know what? The Mach-E is a great name for a car in its own right and it represents an incredibly thoughtful marriage of Ford’s legacy with forward-thinking design. (Though if we’re borrowing inspiration from the past, I kind of wish Ford had revived the Thunderbird name instead).

Sure, it’s not quite as techy as a Model Y and I hope Ford will incorporate some of Tesla’s more advanced features into future vehicles (a UWB-based car key would be really nice too). But at the same time, the Mach-E is welcoming to all sorts of drivers, including folks who may have never driven an EV, while also delivering tight handling and spirited performance. And unlike an old-fashioned Mustang, its size and two full rows of seats means the whole family can enjoy it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/2024-ford-mustang-mach-e-gt-review-a-thrilling-mix-of-pedigree-and-electricity-170015532.html?src=rss

© Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

You’re neck deep in a research project but the finish line is in sight. You hit the close button on your browser. It vanishes and takes the dozens of tabs you had open with it. You heave a sigh of relief — and then remember that you need to verify just one more detail from one of the web pages you had open. The problem is that you have no idea which one it was or how to get back there. You start digging through your browser’s history, feverishly clicking on any pages that look familiar, but the page that you knew you looked at seems to have vanished.

If this sounds familiar, a new feature coming to Google Chrome on the desktop in the next few weeks might be just what you need. With it, you'll be able to ask questions of your browsing history in natural language using Gemini, Google’s family of large language models that power its AI systems. You can type a question like “What was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” into your address bar after accessing your history and Chrome will show relevant pages from whatever you’ve browsed so far.

Google

“The high level is really wanting to introduce a more conversational interface to Chrome’s history so people don’t have to remember URLs,” said Parisa Tabriz, vice president of Chrome, in a conversation with reporters ahead of the announcement.

The feature will only be available to Chrome’s desktop users in the US for now and will be opt-in by default. It also won’t work with websites you browsed in Incognito mode. And the company says that it is aware of the implications of having Google’s AI parse through your browsing history to give you an answer. Tabriz said that the company does not directly use your browsing history or tabs to train its large language models. “Anything related to browsing history is super personal, sensitive data,” she said. “We want to be really thoughtful and make sure that we’re thinking about privacy from the start and by design.”

In addition to making wading through your search history more conversational, Google is also adding two new AI-powered features to Chrome. It’s finally bringing Google Lens, which is already on both Android and iPhones, to Chrome on the desktop in the US. “This means you’ll be able to easily select, search and ask questions about anything you see on the web, all without leaving your current tab,” according to Google’s blog post about the feature.

You can search with Google Lens in Chrome on the desktop by selecting its icon on the address bar and then clicking on anything on a web page that you want to search. Clicking on a picture of a plant on a web page with Google Lens, for instance, will open a sidebar directly on the web page and identify it. You can then ask follow-up questions such as “how much sunlight does this plant need to stay alive?” and get AI-generated responses inline without leaving the page you’re on.

Lens is also capable of parsing text within videos, which means you can hit pause and directly select any text displayed in the frame (such as a math equation) and quickly get a description in a sidebar with more AI-generated information about it.

Google

Finally, Google is adding Tab Compare, a feature that will present you with an AI-generated overview of products across multiple tabs in a single place “By bringing all the essential details — product specs, features, price, ratings — into one tab, you’ll be able to easily compare and make an informed decision without the endless tab switching,” Google says.

Google

For now, the feature is restricted to products, but Tabriz imagines a future when it might evolve to let you compare multiple schools, universities, daycares, or anything that might “make it easier for people to make decisions that are comparisons.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-will-let-you-search-your-chrome-browsing-history-by-asking-questions-like-a-human-160058575.html?src=rss

© picture alliance via Getty Images

SiriusXM just announced a standalone podcast subscription service called SiriusXM Podcasts+. The platform will be available via Apple Podcasts starting August 5 and will offer a “premium listening experience” for some of the “biggest shows across the SiriusXM Podcast Network.”

Subscribers will enjoy an ad-free experience, bonus content and early access to new episodes of popular shows. None of the content is exclusive, however, as you’ll still be able to check out these podcasts via numerous other platforms.

At launch, the platform will be home to some of the bigger names in the space. There’s Smartless, the one with Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, and other programs from the same production team. Other included podcasts include Literally! with Rob Lowe, Andy Cohen’s Daddy Diaries Podcast and Last Podcast on the Left. The company says that more programs will join the platform later this year.

Though tied to Apple Podcasts at first, the company says it expects the “subscription will expand to other platforms in the coming weeks.” At launch, it’ll be available in over 60 countries. SiriusXM Podcasts+ will cost $6 per month or $45 per year.

SiriusXM has become a major player in the podcast space, which makes sense given that satellite radio talk shows are basically podcasts by another name. This move could continue that trend.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/siriusxm-is-launching-a-standalone-podcast-subscription-service-152534504.html?src=rss

© SiriusXM

Netflix has announced plans for its Geeked Week 2024 event. The festivities will take place on the week of September 16. As in previous years, it's sure to include a ton of news and updates for Netflix TV shows, films and games. One thing that's new this year is an in-person fan event that will take place in Atlanta on September 19.

A teaser gives some idea of what's in store. Among other projects, you can expect updates on Wednesday, Squid Game (which will return in December), Arcane, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tomb Raider, One Piece and a little show called Stranger Things. The clip also suggests there will be some news on the Monument Valley front — that series is slated to hit Netflix's games library this year, while a sequel has been teased.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-geeked-week-2024-starts-on-september-16-150024143.html?src=rss

The Beats Fit Pro are a great set of earbuds, especially if you have various Apple devices. Now is a better time than ever to pick up a set as they've dropped to their lowest price ever. The white variant is available for $140 from Woot. That's $60 off the regular price and $10 less than we saw them going for during Prime Day.

This is our pick for the best headphones for running and we gave the earbuds a positive review. Our main takeaway is that they offer all of the major features of Apple AirPods (Apple owns Beats) without having to be stuck with the questionable stem design. Instead, the Beats Fit Pro have a wingtip design to help them stay securely in your ears even during strenuous workouts. The IPX4 rating helps protect them from sweat and splashing water from any angle.

The Beats Fit Pro have solid sound quality with punchy bass, while spatial audio support is a neat feature. Although you can't really fully customize the equalizer settings, the Adaptive EQ function helps the audio quality remain good no matter what you're listening to. The active noise cancellation and transparency modes are also winners in our book. Battery life is not too shabby at up to six hours, with the charging case adding up to an extra 21 hours.

Apple aficionados might get the most out of these since the earbuds pair almost instantly with iPhones and other products from the company. The earbuds will automatically switch between your iPhone, iPad and Mac depending on which device you're using at the time. You can control the earbuds from the system settings too — there's no need for Apple users to download a separate app. However, Android users can get a lot out of the Beats Fit Pro too. Thanks to a companion app, there's support for quick pairing and control customizations, and you'll get a battery status indicator too.

On the downside, the controls can be overly sensitive. They're too easy to accidentally press when simply adjusting the earbuds, which is an annoyance. The charging case feels relatively cheap as well in comparison with the solid build quality of the earbuds. Those quibbles aside, the Beats Fit Pro are a strong option for anyone looking for a great set of running headphones — or earbuds in general.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-beats-fit-pro-earbuds-drop-to-a-new-low-of-140-143422646.html?src=rss

© Billy Steele/Engadget

Next time you're craving a chalupa supreme, you might not be ordering from a person. Taco Bell is expanding its program for using AI voice recognition in drive-thrus. After testing the technology in more than 100 locations in 13 states, the fast food chain's parent company aims to add voice-powered AI capabilities to hundreds more Taco Bell drive-thrus in the US by the end of the year.

"With over two years of fine tuning and testing the drive-thru Voice AI technology, we’re confident in its effectiveness in optimizing operations and enhancing customer satisfaction," said Lawrence Kim, chief innovation officer for Yum! Brands. The company also owns KFC and is currently testing Voice AI in five locations for that chain in Australia.

It sounds a little goofy, but in practice, this is an application of AI that people who aren't early adopters might encounter in the wild. There are lots of splashy headlines about chatbots that sound like celebrities, but this type of practical use case shows where and how voice AI might appear in a person's routine and workplace. The press release centers the employee experience as one of the reasons for pursuing the technology. "Tapping into AI gives us the ability to ease team members’ workloads, freeing them to focus on front-of-house hospitality. It also enables us to unlock new and meaningful ways to engage with our customers," Taco Bell Chief Digital & Technology Officer Dane Mathews said.

That's the positive side. On the negative side, there are still plenty of imperfections yet to be resolved in the tech. McDonald's ran a similar effort exploring drive-thrus powered by AI, but called off its program earlier this summer. Customers had encounters that were equal parts frustrating and hilarious with the AI ordering options during the testing phase. There's also a concern that if the kinks in these AI systems do get worked out, the easing of team members' workloads could turn into losing some team members' jobs.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/taco-bell-will-add-voice-ai-ordering-to-hundreds-of-drive-thrus-this-year-141110768.html?src=rss

© REUTERS / Reuters

Boeing has revealed that it has taken another $125 million in losses as a result of its Starliner spacecraft's delayed return from the ISS. As SpaceNews reports, the company has revealed the losses in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, along with more details about its earnings for the second quarter of the year. The company already posted $288 million in losses "primarily as a result of delaying" the Crew Flight Test mission in 2023. 

The first crewed Starliner flight took off in June with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. Boeing's spacecraft was only supposed to stay docked to the ISS for eight days before ferrying the astronauts back to Earth, but issues with its hardware prevented the mission from sticking to its original timeline. 

The company had to examine and find what caused the Starliner's degraded maneuvering thrusters while it was approaching the ISS. In addition, the helium leak that caused several delays to the spacecraft's launch seemed to have worsened, as well. Since June, the company has been putting the spacecraft through a series of tests. Just a few days ago, on July 27, it completed a hot fire test of the Starliner's reaction control system jets and made sure that the vehicle's helium leak rates remain within the acceptable margin. The tests were conducted with Williams and Wilmore onboard, because they're part of the preparations for the spacecraft's flight back home. 

NASA said the tests' results are still being reviewed. But once Boeing and the agency ensure that the Starliner is ready, they will set a date for the Starliner and the astronauts' return flight. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/boeing-eats-another-125-million-loss-over-starliner-woes-130027376.html?src=rss

© Boeing

After the live experiences, TV shows based on TV shows and a boom in childhood South Korean games and hobbies, Squid Game returns for season two. Almost three years after the bleak, lightly anti-capitalism drama became a massive hit in the US. Season two will hit Netflix December 26, with a final third season coming sometime in 2025.

In a letter, series director and writer, Hwang Dong-hyuk, teased the continuation of Seong Gi-hun’s revenge, facing off against Front Man. We’re expecting more death, betrayal and enough delicious Korean food to make me want to take a trip to Seoul.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

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Reddit CEO wants Microsoft to pay for its content

Steve Huffman called out Microsoft for scraping data from Reddit.

Reddit boss Steve Huffman called out Microsoft and other AI search engines, like Anthropic and Perplexity, for not paying for the information their AI models have seemingly scraped from Reddit. “Without these agreements, we don’t have any say or knowledge of how our data is displayed and what it’s used for, which has put us in a position now of blocking folks who haven’t been willing to come to terms with how we’d like our data to be used or not used,” Huffman said in an interview with The Verge. Reddit said it’s blocking unauthorized data scraping by updating its Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt), and it’s already stopped Microsoft’s Bing from accessing the social site’s data.

Continue reading.

Twelve South’s AirFly Duo Bluetooth dongle drops to $30

The best way to listen to your inflight movie with wireless headphones.

Engadget

Twelve South’s AirFly Duo is a dongle that connects Bluetooth earbuds and headphones to in-flight entertainment systems. The device is currently on sale for $30, and I swear by it. It plugs into any 3.5mm audio jack, so you can use it with gym equipment, older gaming systems or even TVs. I used it with my Switch before Nintendo finally enabled Bluetooth audio.

Continue reading.

Senators introduce bill to protect individuals against AI-generated deepfakes

OpenAI joined several entertainment industry groups in backing the NO FAKES Act.

US senators have introduced a bill to combat the growing threat of AI-generated deepfakes. The legislation would hold online platforms accountable for deepfake content by requiring them to label the material. If it passes, the NO FAKES Act would create an option for people to seek damages when their voice, face or body are recreated by AI. Both individuals and companies would be held liable for producing, hosting or sharing unauthorized digital replicas.

It follows the Senate’s recent passage of the DEFIANCE Act, which would enable victims of sexual deepfakes to sue for damages.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-squid-game-returns-on-december-26-111550905.html?src=rss

© Netflix

OpenAI will give the US AI Safety Institute early access to its next model as part of its safety efforts, Sam Altman has revealed in a tweet. Apparently, the company has been working with the consortium "to push forward the science of AI evaluations." The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has formally established the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute earlier this year, though Vice President Kamala Harris announced it back in 2023 at the UK AI Safety Summit. Based on the NIST's description of the consortium, it's meant "to develop science-based and empirically backed guidelines and standards for AI measurement and policy, laying the foundation for AI safety across the world."

The company, along with DeepMind, similarly pledged to share AI models with the UK government last year. As TechCrunch notes, there have been growing concerns that OpenAI is making safety less of a priority as it seeks to develop more powerful AI models. There were speculations that the board decided to kick Sam Altman out of the company — he was very quickly reinstated — due to safety and security concerns. However, the company told staff members in an internal memo back then, that it was because of "a breakdown in communication."

In May this year, OpenAI admitted that it disbanded the Superalignment team it created to ensure that humanity remains safe as the company advances its work on generative artificial intelligence. Before that, OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, who was one of the team's leaders, left the company. Jan Leike, who was also one of the team's leaders, quit, as well. He said in a series of tweets that he had been disagreeing with OpenAI's leadership about the core priorities of the company for quite some time and that "safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products." OpenAI created a new safety group by the end of May, but it's led by board members that include Altman, prompting concerns about self-policing. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-vows-to-provide-the-us-government-early-access-to-its-next-ai-model-110017697.html?src=rss

© JASON REDMOND via Getty Images

Once you’ve set up your new iPhone, it’s time to make the most of it with the best iPhone accessories. It’s exciting to choose a new case or wireless charger, and personalize your smartphone with a cute PopSocket to really show off your style. There are probably a bunch of iPhone accessories you didn’t even know you needed, like a kickstand so you can watch YouTube or TikTok videos while getting ready in the morning, or an AirTag so you can use your new iPhone 15 Pro Max to keep track of all your belongings. With an extensive range of iPhone accessories to choose from, we’ve whittled down the best accessories that are worth investing in. If you’re not quite done accessorizing your Apple devices, you can also check out our recommendations for the best Apple Watch accessories.

Best iPhone accessories

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-iphone-accessories-140022449.html?src=rss

© Engadget

You might have an idea of which smartphone you want to buy next. But there are more options than ever before that are solid — plenty of companies are making stellar handsets nowadays, at similar prices, all with comparable feature sets. That said, the choice isn’t always cut-and-dry. If you know you want an iPhone, your decision-making process is a bit easier. If you’re an Android person, you have even more options to choose from and more questions to answer before you spend any money. At Engadget, we review phones regularly and have tested dozens over the years; so far for 2024, our top picks remain the same as they were last year, with Apple's iPhone 15 Pro and Google's Pixel 8 handsets sitting at the top of the list. Whether you’ve had your eye on them, one of Samsung's new Galaxy S24 phones or another device, we’re here to help you decide which is the best phone to buy this year.

Android or iOS?

When you're searching for the best smartphone, it becomes clear that each OS has its pros and cons. Apple’s tight-knit ecosystem makes it super easy to share data between iPhones, iPads and Macs or seamlessly hand-off phone calls or music from one device to another. At the same time, you’re effectively locked in, as services like Apple Messages aren’t available on other platforms.

As for Android, there’s a much wider range of handsets from companies like Google, Samsung, Sony and more. However, Android phones don’t enjoy that same length of software support and often have lower trade-in values. In short, there’s no wrong answer. However, you will want to consider how your phone will fit in with the rest of your devices. So unless you’re really fed up with one OS and willing to learn another, it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to switch from an iPhone to an Android phone (or vice versa) – especially if everyone else in your household is using the same platform.

Cameras

Since your cell phone often pulls double duty as your primary camera, figuring out what kind of photo tools you want is key. Nowadays, practically every mobile phone can take a great picture in bright light. But if you want a long optical zoom, you’ll probably have to upgrade to a more expensive device.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Mid-range phones often only have two rear cameras (a primary wide-angle lens and a secondary ultra-wide camera) and can sometimes struggle in low-light situations. Each phone maker also has various features that might be a better fit for your style, with Apple offering four different color presets on the latest iPhones, while Google’s Pixel 8 comes with neat tools like dedicated long exposure and Action Pan modes.

Will you get mmWave 5G or Wi-Fi 7?

The good news is that in 2024, most phones have at least Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6e and support for some kind of 5G connectivity. However, if you want the fastest wireless speeds possible, it’s going to cost you a little extra. For example, on certain networks, mmWave 5G offers up to gigabit download speeds, less latency and better bandwidth. But mmWave 5G also requires more sophisticated (and pricier) modems, which means support for it is often missing on less expensive devices, even those like the unlocked version of the Pixel 8.

On the bright side, mmWave 5G isn’t as widely available as other versions of 5G, so depending on where you live and what network you’re on, you may not be missing out on much right now if you buy a phone that doesn’t support it. It’s a similar situation for Wi-Fi 7, which is available on some high-end handsets like the Galaxy S24, but harder to find on cheaper devices. Wi-Fi 7 also requires you to have a compatible router, so unless you know you need it or have a specific use case in mind, the lack of support for mmWave 5G or Wi-Fi 7 shouldn’t be a dealbreaker when looking for a new phone.

Other features to consider

Because not everyone agrees on what makes the best phone, you should think about any other specs that might be extra important for you. Mobile gamers will almost certainly appreciate the 120Hz refresh rates you get on phones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 or the Apple iPhone 15 Pro. Alternatively, if long battery life is important, you’ll probably want to go with a larger iPhone or an Android phone with a battery that’s between 4,000 and 5,000 mAh in size. Meanwhile, if you find yourself juggling a lot of devices, it can be really nice to have a phone that supports reverse wireless charging, which on Samsung phones even lets you recharge the company’s Galaxy Watches.

Other smartphones we've tested

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

For its latest super-premium phone, Samsung gave the S24 Ultra a more durable titanium frame, faster performance thanks to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and a much longer battery life. The company also tweaked its longest telephoto lens with a 5x optical zoom so it's more usable in a wider range of situations. But the biggest upgrade is a new full suite of AI tools, which includes the ability to proofread texts, edit images and transcribe recordings. And when you tack on the best display available on a phone today and a built-in stylus, you have a very compelling flagship handset. Unfortunately, starting at $1,300, the S24 Ultra is a bit too expensive to recommend to anyone without deep pockets.

OnePlus 12

While the OnePlus 12 wasn’t able to unseat the latest Pixel, it’s worth mentioning because it offers powerful specs for the money. It features a speedy Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, a big and bright 6.8-inch, 120Hz OLED screen and the best battery life we’ve seen on any phone to date. OnePlus also brought back support for wireless charging for the first time in several generations, along with a good (but not great) IP65 rating for dust and water resistance. And even though its huge camera module looks a bit ungainly, its photos are surprisingly sharp. But the best thing is that, with a starting price of $800, the OnePlus 12 costs $200 less than a Pixel 8 Pro or a similarly specced S24+.

FAQs

How do I know which smartphone is the best for me?

While choosing the best smartphone can be challenging, it mostly comes down to how you plan on using the device. All of the best phones available now get the basics right — you’ll be able to make calls, text and access the internet without many hiccups. If your smartphone is your most used gadget, you may want to consider paying for a device on the higher end of the price spectrum. That will get you better overall performance, higher-quality cameras and a phone that will last for many years. If you don’t use your phone for everything, you may be able to compromise on performance and extra perks and spend less on a still-capable handset.

How much is a smartphone?

Smartphones range in price from $300 to over $1,500. The best budget phones available now will usually compromise on overall performance, design, camera prowess and extra features to keep costs down. On the flip side, the most expensive phones will have powerful processors, triple-camera arrays and even flip or fold designs. Most people will find a phone that fits their needs somewhere in the middle of that wide price range — we’ve found that most of the best smartphones available right now cost between $500 and $1,000.

What can you do on a smartphone?

Smartphones are essentially small, portable computers that let you do things like check email, browse social media, follow map directions, make contactless payments and more. This is all on top of the basics like making phone calls and texting, which we’ve come to expect in all modern cell phones. Smartphones have also mostly replaced compact cameras thanks to their high-quality, built-in shooters, and the fact that most smartphones today as just as portable, if not more so, as compact cameras.

How long do smartphones last?

Smartphones can last years and people are holding on to their phones longer now than ever before. Software updates and battery life are two of the biggest factors that can affect phone longevity. Apple promises five years worth of software updates for its latest iPhones, and Google promises the same for its Pixel phones. Samsung phones will get four years worth of Android updates from the time they launch. As for charging speeds and battery life, your phone can deteriorate over time as you use and recharge your phone on a regular basis.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-smartphones-140004900.html?src=rss

© Engadget

Netflix has finally set a date for the next season of Squid Game, almost three years after the Korean drama became a massive hit in the US. Season 2 is set to hit Netflix December 26, with a final third season coming sometime in 2025, the streamer announced.

While the initial teaser for Season 2 doesn’t reveal much about what to expect in the next installment, Netflix shared a few more details about the plot in a letter from Hwang Dong-hyuk, the series’ director and writer.

Seong Gi-hun who vowed revenge at the end of Season 1 returns and joins the game again. Will he succeed in getting his revenge? Front Man doesn’t seem to be an easy opponent this time either. The fierce clash between their two worlds will continue into the series finale with Season 3, which will be brought to you next year.

I am thrilled to see the seed that was planted in creating a new Squid Game grow and bear fruit through the end of this story.

We’ll do our best to make sure we bring you yet another thrill ride. I hope you’re excited for what’s to come. Thank you, always, and see you soon, everyone.

Despite the long wait since the initial season, Netflix has done a lot to capitalize on the success of Squid Game. The series inspired a spinoff reality show, called Squid Game: The Challenge, which has also been greenlit for a second season. The company also treated fans to an IRL Squid Game pop-up in Los Angeles.

Additionally, Netflix announced plans for a Squid Game multiplayer game that will debut alongside Season 2 of the show. Details of the game are unclear, but the company has said that players will “compete with friends in games they’ll recognize from the series.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/season-2-of-squid-game-arrives-on-netflix-december-26-000010045.html?src=rss