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Engadget offers relentless coverage of the latest in gadgets and consumer electronics, keeping you informed daily.

1.
Google’s theft protection features have started showing up for some Android users
October 5, 2024  21:06:34

Three new theft protection features that Google announced earlier this year have reportedly started rolling out on Android. The tools — Theft Detection Lock, Offline Device Lock and Remote Lock — are aimed at giving users a way to quickly lock down their devices if they’ve been swiped, so thieves can’t access any sensitive information. Android reporter Mishaal Rahman shared on social media that the first two tools had popped up on a Xiaomi 14T Pro, and said some Pixel users have started seeing Remote Lock.

Theft Detection Lock is triggered by the literal act of snatching. The company said in May that the feature “uses Google AI to sense if someone snatches your phone from your hand and tries to run, bike or drive away.” In such a scenario, it’ll lock the phone’s screen. 

Offline Device Lock, on the other hand, can automatically lock the screen after a thief has disconnected the phone from the internet. You can already remotely lock your phone with Google’s Find My Device, but the third feature, Remote Lock, lets you do so without having to scramble to figure out your Google account password. All you’d need for this is “your phone number and a quick security challenge using any device.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/googles-theft-protection-features-have-started-showing-up-for-some-android-users-210634941.html?src=rss
2.
What to read this weekend: Preventing an asteroid apocalypse, and Cult of the Lamb’s first arc wraps up
October 5, 2024  19:08:16

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

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/what-to-read-this-weekend-preventing-an-asteroid-apocalypse-cult-of-the-lamb-comic-louise-erdrich-mighty-red-190816097.html?src=rss
3.
X reportedly paid its Brazil fines to the wrong bank, causing further delay in reinstatement case
October 5, 2024  16:50:00

Despite the company’s recent decision to abide by the demands of the Brazilian Supreme Court, X still isn’t back online in Brazil — and according to Reuters, that’s at least in part because it paid its fines to the wrong bank. After weeks being banned in Brazil, X in late September named a legal representative for the country as ordered, and took down accounts the court accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech. Its final hurdle was to pay off the fines that it had racked up, reportedly amounting to roughly $5 million.

Citing Friday court filings, Reuters reports that X says it’s paid the fines and requested to have services restored. But, Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the funds went to the wrong bank, and the decision will have to wait until they’ve been transferred. X maintains that it paid its fines correctly, according to Reuters. X has been banned in Brazil since the end of August. While the company initially resisted the court’s orders, it recently changed its tune and said it was working with the Brazilian government to get the platform back online in the country.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-reportedly-paid-its-brazil-fines-to-the-wrong-bank-causing-further-delay-in-reinstatement-case-164959494.html?src=rss
4.
Amazon Prime Day 2024: The best early deals to shop ahead of the October Big Deal Days event next week
October 5, 2024  15:09:06

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days is back this year, returning on October 8 and 9. The “fall Prime Day” of sorts has served as the online retailer’s unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season for the past few years. We expect most of the deals to be Prime exclusives, meaning you must be an active Prime subscriber to get the discounts. There are always a couple of deals available for everyone, though, so it’s worth perusing Amazon’s site even if you don’t pay for Prime. It’s also worth doing so now because we’ve found a number of solid early Prime Day deals already available. These are the best of the bunch; we’ll be updating this post regularly in the lead-up to October Prime Day, so check back for the latest deals.

Apple AirPods 4
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget

While Apple deals are few and far between right now, you can save a bit on the new AirPods 4. AirTags have a slight discount as well, both in single and multi-packs.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020)
Valentina Palladino / Engadget

It's a safe bet that we'll see even more Amazon gear discounted on October Prime Day, but for now, you can snag a Fire tablet on sale, as well as Ring and Blink security cameras for much cheaper than usual.

Image of the new Ring indoor pan-tilt camera on a movable base in
Ring

You may not immediately think of them when you think about Amazon's own tech, but the shopping giant also owns Ring and Blink. Gadgets from these companies make up most of Amazon's home security offerings, and you can usually find steep discounts during Prime Day on security cameras, alarm systems and other bundles.

LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant
LEGO

A number of Lego sets have already been discounted for October Prime Day. Some of our favorites come from the Star Wars, Super Mario and Harry Potter lineups, and you'll find savings up to 41 percent on those. There's also a Lego City 2024 advent calendar that's 20 percent off and down to only $26.

Logitech Brio 500
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Early Prime Day deals on tech include discounts on power banks, webcams, air fryers, smart plugs and more.

October Prime Day will be held on October 8 and 9 this year.

October Prime Day is a members-only sale event run by Amazon in which the online retailer has thousands of sales on its site that are exclusively available to those with an active Prime members.

October Prime Day will last two full days.

Most October Prime Day deals will not be revealed until the days of the event. However, in years past, we've seen everything from clothing to household essentials to outdoor gear go on sale during this event. Engadget cares most about tech deals, and in past fall Prime Days, we've seen things like phones, tablets, headphones, earbuds, robot vacuums, smart home gear and more receive deep discounts.

Yes, because most deals will be Prime exclusives. However, there are always a few decent deals available to all Amazon shoppers, so it's worth checking out Amazon's site during October Prime Day to see where you can save even if you don't pay for Prime.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-day-2024-the-best-early-deals-to-shop-ahead-of-the-october-big-deal-days-event-next-week-190039220.html?src=rss
5.
Lego's website was hacked to promote a crypto scam
October 5, 2024  14:00:45

People who visited Lego's website on the evening of October 4 were welcomed by a banner with illustrated golden coins bearing the company's logo, claiming that the "Lego coin" is now officially out. It even promised "secret rewards" to those who'd buy some. But Lego wasn't truly launching an official cryptocurrency coin, and according to The Brick Fan, the button to buy led to an external cryptocurrency website selling "LEGO Tokens" with Ethereum. The website was, seemingly, hijacked by bad actors who switched its banner and used it for some sort of crypto scam. 

As users on the Lego subreddit have noted, the incident happened overnight for Lego's headquarters. The company responded relatively quickly, though, and removed the unauthorized banner and links. As of this writing, the Lego Fortnite collaboration banner is back up, and the "buy now" link leads to the collection. Lego told Engadget that no user accounts were compromised and that it has identified the cause of the issue. It also said that it was implementing measures to prevent anything similar from happening again in the future. However, the company has declined to share details about that "cause" or the measures it's implementing. 

Here's the company's official statement:

"On 5 October 2024 (October 4 evening in the US), an unauthorised banner briefly appeared on LEGO.com. It was quickly removed, and the issue has been resolved. No user accounts have been compromised, and customers can continue shopping as usual. The cause has been identified and we are implementing measures to prevent this from happening again."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/legos-website-was-hacked-to-promote-a-crypto-scam-140045757.html?src=rss
6.
Gmail's Gemini-powered Q&A feature comes to iOS
October 5, 2024  12:00:15

A few months ago, Google introduced a new way to search Gmail with the help of its Gemini AI. The feature, called Gmail Q&A, lets you find specific emails and information by asking the Gemini chatbot questions. You can ask things like "What time is our dinner reservation on Saturday?" to quickly find the information you need. It was only initially available on Android devices, but now Google has started rolling it out to iPhones. 

In addition to being able to ask questions, you can also use the feature to find unread emails from a specific sender simply by telling Gemini to "Find unread emails by [the person's name]." You can ask the chatbot to summarize a topic you know you can find in your inbox, such as work projects that you've been on for months consisting of multiple conversations across several threads. And you can even use Gemini in Gmail to do general search queries without having to leave your inbox. To access Gemini, simply tap on the star icon at the top right corner of your Gmail app. 

Google says the feature could take up to 15 days to reach your devices. Take note, however, that you do need to have access to Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium or Google One AI Premium to be able to use it. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gmails-gemini-powered-qa-feature-comes-to-ios-120015661.html?src=rss
7.
Foamstars is going free-to-play starting today
October 4, 2024  23:17:52

Square Enix’s multiplayer shooter Foamstars is moving to a free-to-play model. The four-player team multiplayer melee officially turned into a free game today on Sony’s PlayStation 4 and 5 meaning you also won’t need a PlayStation Plus subscription to play it, according to a posting on the studio’s support page.

If you purchased the game before Square Enix’s price change, the studio will send you a free “Legacy Gift” that includes 12 exclusive color-variant Bubble Beastie skins, an exclusive Slide Board design and a “Legacy” title. You’ll need to keep an eye on the game’s official website and X account to find out how to obtain your free “Legacy Gift.”

Foamstars released earlier this year on Sony’s past and current gen consoles as a third-person multiplayer battle game. It’s basically a mix of the homebase building mechanic of Fortnite and Nintendo’s family friendly multiplayer shooter melee Splatoon. Teams use mounds of foam to build terrain for their shooters to traverse at high speeds or build higher vantage points to attack their enemies. You shouldn’t learn anymore about the game’s backstory and where the mounds of foam come from or at least not while you’re eating. Trust us on this one.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/foamstars-is-going-free-to-play-starting-today-231750186.html?src=rss
8.
Fisker faces more bad news as the SEC starts investigating its business practices
October 4, 2024  22:25:05

The past week hasn’t been the kindest to the electric vehicle industry. Now, it’s capped off with news that the EV startup Fisker is the subject of an investigation from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

TechCrunch reported that SEC officials sent several subpoenas to Fisker. The filing doesn’t specifically say what the subpoenas are asking for or looking into but it’s clear that the SEC has launched an investigation into the floundering EV maker that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June.

Fisker has been struggling to keep its head above water ever since last year’s disastrous rollout of its Ocean SUV that failed to score more than a few thousands sellers even though it produced well over 10,000 units. Following its Q4 earnings report last year that saw a gross margin loss of 35 percent, the car maker announced it would lay off 15 percent of its workforce the following March as it shifted to a direct-to-consumer sales strategy.

A Fisker spokesperson declined to comment on the matter to TechCrunch saying they could not “comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.”

Fisker isn’t the only EV maker to suffer a noticeable setback. Tesla saw a major stumble with the fifth recall of its beleaguered Cybertruck.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/fisker-faces-more-bad-news-as-the-sec-starts-investigating-its-business-practices-222504280.html?src=rss
9.
Soon you'll be able to fling around the klutzy schlub in Human Fall Flat on VR
October 4, 2024  21:20:35

Why is it so satisfying to toss, drop, throw and fling ragdoll characters down steps, out of windows and into oncoming traffic in games like Human Fall Flat? Ragdoll games just know how to scratch the lizard part of our brain that enjoys being the destructive force of mayhem while also meeting the moral center of our frontal lobe by not causing any real world harm (or felony charges).

Now you’ll be able to see the fruits of your destruction in a virtual environment as Human Fall Flat and its hapless, ham-handed hero head to the Meta Quest headsets and Steam VR on Halloween. Curve Games and No Brakes Games are also working on a version for the PSVR2 for a date yet to be announced.

Human Fall Flat is a three-dimensional physics platformer that has you control a floppy, ragdoll human named Bob. Just like the other games, you’ll see Bob in a third-person perspective as you use his sinewy limbs to guide him through a series of bizarre obstacles like a train that somehow derailed through the top floor of a Victorian style mansion, a dysfunctional power plant in dire need of a OSHA review and the inevitable ice world level.

Owners of a Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 or Meta Quest 3S headset can pre-order the game now on the Quest App Store for the discounted price of $9.99. The Steam port doesn’t have a price yet but you can add it to your wishlist.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/soon-youll-be-able-to-fling-around-the-klutzy-schlub-in-human-fall-flat-on-vr-212033104.html?src=rss
10.
Prime Day Lego deals include up to 41 percent off Super Mario, Star Wars sets
October 4, 2024  20:32:06

October Prime Day is nearly here, and new early deals are popping up every day. Amazon uses October Prime Day to kickstart the holiday shopping season — even if you haven't even thought about the holidays yet, you should give the latest Prime Day Lego deals a look. A number of Lego sets from the Super Mario, Star Wars and Harry Potter collections are already on sale for up to 41 percent off. There are even steeper savings on general Lego sets as well.

On the Star Wars side of things, this Spider Tank set is 36 percent off and down to only $32, which is the lowest it's ever been. It includes 526 pieces that replicate the spider tank from season three of The Mandalorian, plus three minifigures: Din Djarin, Bo-Katan Kryze and Grogu. Once built, the spider tank has grabbing claws, flexible legs and a little cockpit in which one of the figures can sit. Also on sale is this Boarding The Tantive IV set in which you recreate the iconic scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. That will set you back $44, which represents a 20-percent discount.

In the Mario space, this Dixie Kong’s Jungle Jam expansion set has the biggest discount: 41 percent off and down to $16. It has 174 pieces along with buildable Dixie Kong and Squawks figures that both come with musical accessories. Mario fans who are old enough to have a work-from-home setup might appreciate this displayable Piranha Plant set that would look great in the background of any video conference call. It's 20 percent off and down to $48.

Rounding things out with Harry Potter sets, this Hogwarts Castle and Grounds set is down to $136 and has never been cheaper. It includes 2,660 pieces that create a final product that's over eight inches high, 13 inches wide and 10 inches deep. Plus, it comes with a cute, golden Hogwarts architect statue minifigure.

If you're looking for more general Lego sets, two of the best deals we found are on the Classic Medium Creative Brick Box, down to $19, and the Lego City 2024 advent calendar, down to $26. The former includes 484 pieces in all different sizes and colors, and would make a great gift for anyone who just likes to build with Lego without following a set of instructions. As for the latter, you probably know someone who loves a good advent calendar this time of year, and this Lego one has 24 surprise gifts that include seasonal minifigures, mini builds and more.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice, and stay tuned to Engadget.com for all of the best tech deals coming out of October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prime-day-lego-deals-include-up-to-41-percent-off-super-mario-star-wars-sets-143008945.html?src=rss
11.
X lost a court battle after trying to claim ‘Twitter ceased to exist’
October 4, 2024  20:30:30

X has lost a legal fight in Australia in which the company tried to avoid a $400,000 fine by claiming that Twitter no longer exists. The creative legal argument, first spotted by ArsTechnica, came amid a more than year-long dispute with Australia’s eSafety Commission.

The commission had asked the company, then known as Twitter, to provide details about its handling of child sexual exploitation on the platform last February. In its response, X failed to answer a number of questions and left “some sections entirely blank,” the commission said in a statement last year. As a result, the eSafety Commission slapped the company with a more than $415,000 fine for non-compliance.

It was an attempt to fight that fine that led to X’s claim that it shouldn’t be responsible since Twitter had “ceased to exist.” From the court filing:

X Corp submitted that, on and from 15 March 2023, Twitter Inc ceased to be a person, and therefore ceased to be a provider of a social media service. It was submitted that Twitter Inc therefore lacked capacity to comply with the notice, and that X Corp was not obliged to prepare any report in Twitter Inc’s place, as X Corp was not the same person as the provider to whom the notice was issued.

The argument isn’t exactly new for the Elon Musk-owned entity. CEO Linda Yaccarino has also repeatedly claimed that X is a “brand new company” in a bid to avoid scrutiny. She repeated the line multiple times earlier this year while testifying at a Senate hearing on child safety issues.

Australia federal Judge Michael Wheelahan, however, found the claim unconvincing, saying that X’s argument required “leaps in logic that were not supported by adequate explanation.” X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, eSafety Commissioner Inman Grant cheered the decision. “Had X Corp’s argument been accepted by the Court it could have set the concerning precedent that a foreign company’s merger with another foreign company might enable it to avoid regulatory obligations in Australia,” Grant said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-lost-a-court-battle-after-trying-to-claim-twitter-ceased-to-exist-203030765.html?src=rss
12.
Samsung’s One UI now covers all of its consumer devices, including TVs and appliances
October 4, 2024  20:18:51

Samsung will begin using the One UI name for all its consumer devices, now including TVs and home appliances. Executive Vice President Sally Hyesoon Jeong made the announcement at the company’s 2024 developer conference (via 9to5Google). The One UI branding was previously exclusive to its Galaxy phones, tablets and wearables.

“One UI now goes beyond mobile as the software experience for all Samsung consumer devices,” Hyesoon Jeong said onstage at the San Jose keynote. It’s part of the company’s aim for more cohesive branding across its consumer ecosystem, especially as its AI approach evolves.

A Samsung onstage in front of a screen showing three design principles: simple, impactful, emotive.
Samsung

Samsung also teased that its next software user experience, One UI 7, will arrive with the 2025 batch of Galaxy S phones. “One UI 7 will bring a fresh, new look to the entire interface,” Hyesoon Jeong said at the conference. She laid out three goals for the upcoming software: simple (with a purpose), impactful (leaving a “signature impression”), and emotive design that elicits a human reaction from the user.

The Samsung VP says the One UI 7 home screen grid represents the more focused design principles. “It’s sleeker and easier to use, giving you a neat home screen no matter which Galaxy device you’re using,” said Hyesoon Jeong.

Although you’ll have to wait until early next year for One UI 7, the company said a developer beta will be available to test-drive by the end of this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/samsungs-one-ui-now-covers-all-of-its-consumer-devices-including-tvs-and-appliances-201850799.html?src=rss
13.
LG C4 OLED smart TVs hit record-low prices ahead of Prime Day
October 4, 2024  20:04:42

Amazon Prime Day will be here in a few days, and we're seeing a health number of early deals available right now. While we expect to see better TV deals closer to Black Friday, a few decent ones have dropped on LG's C4 OLED smart TVs. The 55-inch version is just $1,297, which is nearly $700 off, and you'll find discounts of hundreds of dollars off on most other sizes.

This is the company’s mid-grade line of OLED TVs. Each model includes the updated Alpha 9 Gen 7 chip, which makes menu navigation much snappier. They also boast improved brightness when compared to previous models. These TVs almost hit 1,000 nits of brightness, which is a little dimmer than a Mini LED panel but better than many OLEDs.

There’s a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz, which is perfect for gaming. To that end, these sets are compatible with G-Sync and AMD Freesync. The PC gaming bona-fides are strong with this one. 

One of the cool features of this smart TV is enhanced compatibility with LG soundbars. Newly-released soundbars will connect wirelessly to the television, clearing away the endless clutter of cables from the living room. 

The 65-inch model is also on sale for $1,697, which is a discount of over $1,000. For the big spenders, the massive 83-inch version is available for $4,297. This is 20 percent off the typical price.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice, and stay tuned to Engadget.com for all of the best tech deals coming out of October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lg-c4-oled-smart-tvs-hit-record-low-prices-ahead-of-prime-day-184104010.html?src=rss
14.
EU court rules social networks can’t use personal data forever
October 4, 2024  19:30:14

Once again, the European Union has issued a ruling preventing Meta from going too crazy with user information. The top court in the EU ruled that limits must be put in place for how long Meta and other social media networks can use people’s information for ad targeting strategies.

TechCrunch reported that the EU’s highest court sided with an earlier opinion published in April by a court adviser. The previous ruling also urged for limits on the amount of time companies could retain customers’ personal data for the purpose of targeting advertising.

The rulings referred its retention guidelines to the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) established by the EU in 2018. Recital 65 of the GDPR establishes a person’s “right to be forgotten” and the right to rectification and erasure of personal data. Failure to comply with the GDPR could result in a 4 percent global annual turnover penalty, a number that could reach into the billions for a social media mega-corporation like Meta. Last year, Meta had to pay a $414 million fine (or approximately €390 million) for illegally requiring users of its social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to accept personalized ads.

The EU and Meta along with other big tech companies like Apple and Google have tangled over the use of personal data in relation to the Digital Markets Act. Meta is currently awaiting a fine ruling for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act when it required users to pay to prohibit the company from collecting and sharing their personal data. Last year, the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that Meta needed to obtain consent before delivering personal ads to users in the region.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/eu-court-rules-social-networks-cant-use-personal-data-forever-193013206.html?src=rss
15.
The third-gen Oura Ring is up to $100 off in this early Prime Day deal
October 4, 2024  18:49:04

Amazon Prime Day is right around the corner, so the deals are already coming in hot. For instance, the Oura Ring is up to $100 off. The discount depends on which design you go for. The Stealth Horizon design is $350 in all sizes, while many standard colors are $300. The gold option, however, jumps up to $450. The prices also fluctuate depending on if you choose the rounded Horizon design or the more blocky Heritage design. 

For the uninitiated, the Oura Ring is a smart wearable that tracks activity, sleep and more. The main benefit of choosing a smart ring over another type of fitness tracker is portability. It’s a lightweight ring, so after a few days you forget it’s even on. We called the Oura Ring the “perfect wearable for people who don't like wearables” in our official review. It even made our list of the best sleep apps and gadgets.

The device monitors over 20 biometric signals and is particularly precise when reading a pulse. The Oura Ring is also compatible with most of the most popular fitness-tracking apps, like Apple Health, Strava and Google Health Connect. Many of the designs are quite fetching and allow the device to easily pass as a regular non-techy ring.

On the downside, a bunch of the ring’s features are locked behind a subscription paywall. You get a month free with the initial purchase, but after that it’ll cost $6 per month. It’s also worth noting that this deal is for the third-gen Oura Ring. The fourth-gen device officially releases on October 15 and it’s smaller, with more tracking capabilities.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice, and stay tuned to Engadget.com for all of the best tech deals coming out of October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-third-gen-oura-ring-is-up-to-100-off-in-this-early-prime-day-deal-184904718.html?src=rss
16.
Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max hits a record low price ahead of October Prime Day
October 4, 2024  17:37:19

October Prime Day will be here in a few days, but you can already save on some tech, including a few of Amazon's own devices. Its most powerful streaming stick, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, has dropped to a record low of $35. That represents a 42-percent discount, and it's a return to the same sale price we saw during July Prime Day. Notably, it's just one of many Fire TV devices that have been discounted ahead of the sale event.

But the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is a great streaming device as well, with support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. As the name suggests, it can stream content in 4K Ultra HD. The stick also supports Dolby Atmos audio, for added immersion.

This streaming stick includes the company’s proprietary Fire TV Ambient Experience, which allows users to display art and photos on the screen. This mimics the functionality of something like Samsung’s The Frame TV. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max also boasts 16GB of storage, for downloads, apps and games.

Speaking of games, this thing doubles as a highly functional cloud gaming box. It can stream Xbox games via Game Pass Ultimate and integrates with Amazon Luna. We singled out this device as a great option for retro gamers, as it can easily run many emulation apps. Finally, it ships with an upgraded remote that offers Alexa integration.

While the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is arguably Amazon's best streaming dongle for most people that's on sale right now, the rest of the Fire TV device lineup is on sale, too.

  • Fire TV Stick Lite streamer for $18 ($12 off): This is already the most affordable Fire TV streaming stick, but it’s a steal at this sale price. It supports 1080p content and comes with a “lite” version of the Alexa Voice Remote.

  • Fire TV Stick streamer for $20 ($20 off): This dongle ups the ante on the TV Stick Lite by adding support for Dolby Atmos audio, plus it comes with the regular version of the Alexa Voice Remote. It also supports Wi-Fi 5 and comes with 8GB of internal storage.

  • Fire TV Stick 4K streamer for $25 ($25 off): This mode is the cheapest Fire TV Stick you can get to stream 4K content, plus it has support for Wi-Fi 6 and Dolby Vision and Atmos. With its live picture-in-picture feature, you can view security camera feeds right on your TV while you’re watching your favorite show or movie.

  • Fire TV Cube set-top box for $100 ($40 off): This model will provide the best performance of any Fire TV streaming device, and it supports 4K HDR content, Dolby Vision and Atmos and an enhanced version of the Alexa Voice Remote. Along with live picture-in-picture view and the Fire TV ambient experience, you can also hardware other devices to the Fire TV Cube including a cable box or a game console.

Check out the rest of the best early Prime Day deals here.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazons-fire-tv-stick-4k-max-hits-a-record-low-price-ahead-of-october-prime-day-163133521.html?src=rss
17.
New iOS update fixes microphone and password problems
October 4, 2024  17:33:41

There’s a new fix available for certain iPhones and iPads that addresses issues with recording and password security. Apple released two new patches including iOS 18.0.1 for iPhones and iPadOS 18.0.1, according to the support website. The update also finally allows users with an M4-powered iPad to upgrade to iOS 18, after the initial version was pulled for bricking users’ devices.

The patch fixes recording issues with all of the iPhone 16 models in the Messages app. The iPhone’s microphone would accidentally start recording a few seconds before becoming activated with the orange microphone icon.

The password patch fixes an issue in which the VoiceOver function may read a saved password aloud. The patch works for iPhone XS and later as well as iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (third generation and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (first generation and later), iPad Air (third generation and later), iPad (seventh generation and later) and iPad mini (fifth generation and later).

If you own one of these devices, you can download the new patches by going to the Software Updates tab in the General section of your Settings app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/new-ios-update-fixes-microphone-and-password-problems-173339119.html?src=rss
18.
Samsung confirms a software update wreaked havoc on older Galaxy smartphones
October 4, 2024  17:13:28

Samsung has confirmed that an update to its SmartThings app caused major issues for older Samsung Galaxy smartphones. 9to5Google first reported that the update, which rolled out from Samsung over the past few days, bricked devices from the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 series of phones. The publication also found some users reporting the same issue with Galaxy M51 and A90 models. After downloading the update, the devices reportedly got stuck in a bootloop and never fully turn back on.

Impacted devices can perform a factory reset to recover functionality, but that's not a perfect fix. It should make the phone usable, but any data that hasn't already been backed up will be lost. 

In a statement sent to Engadget Friday, a spokesperson confirmed the issue: "We are aware that a limited number of Galaxy smartphones running on Android 12 are rebooting continuously during an update to the latest version of the SmartThings app," the spokesperson told Engadget. "Upon discovery, we immediately suspended the update and are working to resolve the issue. Affected customers can contact the Samsung Contact Center to receive support for their devices.”

Software support for older models can become an issue for any hardware manufacturer. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ are five years old now, which is an age where companies may stop providing regular updates.

Update, October 4, 1:10PM ET: This story was updated after publish with confirmation and a fuller description of the issue from Samsung.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-confirms-a-software-update-wreaked-havoc-on-older-galaxy-smartphones-175136332.html?src=rss
19.
Meta's Movie Gen looks like a huge leap forward for AI video (but you can't use it yet)
October 4, 2024  16:57:17

At this point, you probably either love the idea of making realistic videos with generative AI, or you think it's a morally bankrupt endeavor that devalues artists and will usher in a disastrous era of deepfakes we'll never escape from. It's hard to find middle ground. Meta isn't going to change minds with Movie Gen, its latest video creation AI model, but no matter what you think of AI media creation, it could end up being a significant milestone for the industry.

Movie Gen can produce realistic videos alongside music and sound effects at 16 fps or 24 fps at up to 1080p (upscaled from 768 by 768 pixels). It can also generative personalized videos if you upload a photo, and crucially, it appears to be easy to edit videos using simple text commands. Notably, it can also edit normal, non-AI videos with text. It's easy to imagine how that could be useful for cleaning up something you've shot on your phone for Instagram. Movie Gen is just purely research at the moment —Meta won't be releasing it to the public, so we have a bit of time to think about what it all means.

The company describes Movie Gen as its "third wave" of generative AI research, following its initial media creation tools like Make-A-Scene, as well as more recent offerings using its Llama AI model. It's powered by a 30 billion parameter transformer model that can make 16 second-long 16 fps videos, or 10-second long 24 fps footage. It also has a 13 billion parameter audio model that can make 45 seconds of 48kHz of content like "ambient sound, sound effects (Foley), and instrumental background music" synchronized to video. There's no synchronized voice support yet "due to our design choices," the Movie Gen team wrote in their research paper.

Meta Movie Gen
Meta

Meta says Movie Gen was initially trained on "a combination of licensed and publicly available datasets," including around 100 million videos, a billion images and a million hours of audio. The company's language is a bit fuzzy when it comes to sourcing — Meta has already admitted to training its AI models on data from every Australian user's account, it's even less clear what the company is using outside of its own products.

As for the actual videos, Movie Gen certainly looks impressive at first glance. Meta says that in its own A/B testing, people have generally preferred its results compared to OpenAI's Sora and Runway's Gen3 model. Movie Gen's AI humans look surprisingly realistic, without many of the gross telltale signs of AI video (disturbing eyes and fingers, in particular). 

Meta Movie Gen
Meta

"While there are many exciting use cases for these foundation models, it’s important to note that generative AI isn’t a replacement for the work of artists and animators," the Movie Gen team wrote in a blog post. "We’re sharing this research because we believe in the power of this technology to help people express themselves in new ways and to provide opportunities to people who might not otherwise have them."

It's still unclear what mainstream users will do with generative AI video, though. Are we going to fill our feeds with AI video, instead of taking our own photos and videos? Or will Movie Gen be deconstructed into individual tools that can help sharpen our own content? We can already easily remove objects from the backgrounds of photos on smartphones and computers, more sophisticated AI video editing seems like the next logical step. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/metas-movie-gen-looks-like-a-huge-leap-forward-for-ai-video-but-you-cant-use-it-yet-165717605.html?src=rss
20.
OpenAI rolls out Canvas, its newest ChatGPT interface
October 4, 2024  16:52:44

OpenAI has debuted a new workspace interface for ChatGPT called Canvas. The AI giant unveiled its new ChatGPT workspace on its official blog and immediately made it available for ChatGPT Plus and Team users. Enterprise and Edu users will be able to access Canvas sometime next week.

Canvas is a virtual interface space for writing and coding projects that allows users to consult with ChatGPT on certain portions of a project. A separate window opens besides the main chat space and users can put writing or code on this new “canvas” and highlight sections to have the model focus on and edit “like a copy editor or code reviewer,” according to the blog.

Canvas can either be opened manually by typing “use canvas” in your prompt. Canvas can also automatically open when it “detects a scenario in which it could be helpful,” according to the blog post. There are also several shortcuts that can be used for writing and coding projects. For writing projects, users can ask ChatGPT for suggested edits or length adjustments, or ask it to change the reading level of a block of text, from graduate school level down to kindergarten. It can also add "relevant emojis for emphasis and color."

Coders can have ChatGPT review their code and add inline suggestions for improvements. It can also mark up your work with logs and comments to aid in debugging and make understanding your code easier. It's also capable of fixing bugs and port coding to a different language such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, C++ or PHP in Canvas mode.

OpenAI’s Canvas feature brings ChatGPT in line with other AI assistants that have separate workspaces to focus on certain areas of a project like Anthropic's Artifacts and the coding focused AI model Cursor.

Update, October 4, 12:55PM ET: This story was edited after publishing to include more context on the code and text functionality of the Canvas feature.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-rolls-out-canvas-its-newest-chatgpt-interface-230335185.html?src=rss
21.
Pick up Amazon's Echo Buds while they're on sale for $25 for Prime Day
October 4, 2024  16:44:25

We are just a few days from the official kickoff of Amazon Prime Day, but the deals have already been filling up our inbox. This one’s a doozy. Amazon’s well-reviewed Echo Buds earbuds are on sale for $25, which is half off and a record low price.

Amazon’s Echo Buds actually made our list of the best budget wireless earbuds, and that was at the full $50 price. We appreciated the lightweight form factor and the pocket-friendly case, both of which contributed to enhanced portability. There’s also multi-device connectivity and automatic wear detection.

This is an open design, which some people prefer and some hate. Basically, an open earbud design allows for more ambient noise from the world around you. This can be annoying, as it could get in the way of what you’re listening to, but it could also keep you safe while aimlessly wandering a busy city. You’ll be able to hear if a car is careening toward you.

The sound is actually great for budget-friendly earbuds, though it takes a bit of EQ adjusting to get everything perfect. On the downside, the battery life is on the lower side and the water resistance is bare-bones at best. Still, we recommended these earbuds at $50 so we absolutely recommend them at $25.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pick-up-amazons-echo-buds-while-theyre-on-sale-for-25-for-prime-day-164425885.html?src=rss
22.
One of our favorite Bluetooth speakers is cheaper than ever for Prime Day
October 4, 2024  16:38:06

You can save big on one of our favorite Bluetooth speakers in this early October Prime Day deal. The Marshall Emberton II is a stylish rectangular wireless speaker with a balanced output and 360-degree sound. Usually going for $170, it’s available in this Prime Day deal for a mere $100.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Marshall Emberton II is its style, which draws on the company’s history and looks like a scaled-down Marshall amp. Front and center is its vintage-looking metal grille, with the company’s iconic logo prominently displayed. You can order the device in black and cream, both on sale for the same price.

More than looks, though, the Emberton II has upgraded specs from the first-generation model that make it an even better value (especially at this sale price). It has a pair of 10-watt full-range drivers and passive radiators that deliver imposing sound for its size. It isn’t the most room-thumping speaker, with its tuning focusing more on a balanced sound signature than eardrum-blasting power. (But it’s still plenty loud for most uses.)

Three Marshall Emberton II Bluetooth speakers stacked on each other in a pyramid. Dark gray background.
Marshall

Like its predecessor, it supports 360-degree sound for a multidirectional experience. If you buy a pair, you can stack them together wirelessly using Marshall’s companion app for more immersive listening. Even if you already own one, its $100 sale price could be an excellent opportunity to get a second and try linking them.

The speaker lasts over 30 hours per charge and can recharge to full in three hours. It has an IP67 dust / water rating, meaning it’s rated for up to 30 minutes of immersion in a few feet of water. The Emberton II only weighs 118 g (4.2 oz).

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/one-of-our-favorite-bluetooth-speakers-is-cheaper-than-ever-for-prime-day-163805774.html?src=rss
23.
Facebook is pushing 'local' content and events to try to win back young adults
October 4, 2024  16:17:42

Meta has spent the last few years saying that “young adults” are crucial to the future of Facebook. Now, the company is introducing a number of changes to its 20-year-old social network in an effort to get younger users to spend more time in the app.

The updates include a new “local” section in the Facebook app that aims to surface information relevant to your local community, a renewed focus on events planned on the service and a new “Communities” feature for Messenger. The changes, Meta claims, will help young adults “explore their interests and connect with the world beyond their close friends.”

Emphasizing events isn’t an entirely new strategy for the company. It launched a standalone events app in 2016 and then rebranded it a year later to focus on “local” businesses and happenings. It quietly killed the app in 2021.

Meta is taking a slightly different approach this time. The new “local” section will surface Marketplace listings, Reels and posts from Facebook groups alongside event listings from your community. Local news, which Meta has also previously boosted, is notably absent Meta’s announcement.

In addition to the local tab, the company is also trying to make events more prominent in Facebook. Facebook will now provide personalized event recommendations in the form of a weekly and weekend digest that will be pushed to users via in-app notifications. The company is also changing how invitations to Facebook events work so users can send invites to their connections on Instagram and via SMS and email.

Groups on Facebook, which Meta has said is among the most-used features by young adults, is also getting attention in this update. Meta is experimenting with a “a customizable Group AI” that allows admins to create a bot that can chat with members to answer questions based on posts that have been shared in the group. Elsewhere in the app, Meta is starting to test an Instagram-like Explore section and a dedicated space for Reels inside of Facebook.

On Messenger, Meta is adding a new “Communities” feature, a concept it previously introduced on WhatsApp. Communities allows “small to medium-sized” groups to organize their conversations and interact in a way that’s more like a Facebook group. Members can create topic-based chats and there are built in moderation and admin tools for controlling who can join.

The changes are part of a broader effort by Meta to bring younger people back to its app with features tailored around how they use social media. “Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind,” the Facebook app’s head, Tom Alison, wrote in May.

Whether Meta’s latest efforts will be successful, though, is unclear. The company says there are more than 40 million young adults on Facebook in the US and Canada, a number that’s “the highest it’s been in more than 3 years.” But that’s still a relatively small percentage of its total users in the region and an even tinier slice of its users overall.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/facebook-is-pushing-local-content-and-events-to-try-to-win-back-young-adults-161742961.html?src=rss
24.
The best power banks and portable chargers for every device in 2024
October 4, 2024  16:01:27

Finding myself far from an outlet when my phone hits five percent makes me feel shaky. Luckily, part of my job is testing portable batteries so I usually have at least a few on hand. (The only hard part is remembering to bring one along.) I’ve spent the past year and a half testing more than two dozen units to figure out which are the best power banks for different scenarios — from a partial recharge for an iPhone to a massive laptop battery for working out in the field. People who travel or are simply forgetful will appreciate the benefit of having a little extra juice on hand, but as I’ve learned from my tests, they aren’t all winners. Here are the best power banks for just about every scenario. 

Nearly every rechargeable power bank you can buy (and most portable devices) contain a lithium-ion battery. These beat other current battery types in terms of size-to-charge capacity, and have even increased in energy density by eight fold in the past 14 years. They also don’t suffer from a memory effect (where a battery's lifespan deteriorates due to partial charges).

One drawback you may have heard is the possibility of lithium ion batteries catching fire. To limit the danger, battery packs require internal mechanisms to limit things like voltage and pressure. While you should still make sure a battery isn’t exposed to unnecessary stress like excessive heat, damage from drops or operating in freezing weather, battery packs are considered safe enough to bring on an airplane. According to the TSA, external batteries rated at 100Wh or less (which all of our recommendations are) can fly with you – just make sure you stash them in your carryon as they aren’t allowed in checked baggage.

Power bank manufacturers almost always list a battery’s capacity in milliamp hours, or mAh. Smaller batteries, say those that can charge a smartphone to between 50 and 75 percent, tend to have a 5,000mAh capacity. Larger batteries that can recharge laptops and tablets, or give phones multiple charges, can exceed 25,000mAh and we have a separate guide that covers that entire category. 

Unsurprisingly, the prices on most batteries goes up as mAh capacity increases, and since batteries are physical storage units, size and weight go up with capacity as well. If you want more power, be prepared to spend more and carry around a heavier brick.

You might think that a 10,000mAh power bank could charge a 5,000mAh phone to 100 percent twice, but that’s not the case. In addition to simple energy loss through heat dissipation, factors like voltage conversion also bring down the amount of juice that makes it into your phone. Most manufacturers list how many charges a battery can give a certain smartphone. In our tests, 10,000mAh of battery pack capacity translated to roughly 5,800mAh of device charge. 20,000mAh chargers delivered around 11,250mAh to a device, and 25,000mAh banks translated to about 16,200mAh of charge. That’s an average efficiency rate of around 60 percent.

Wireless

More manufacturers are making power banks with wireless charging. Not hassling with cables is nice, but it’s important to note that wireless charging is less efficient than plugging in your phone. Outside of MagSafe options, wireless portable chargers historically didn’t make the cut for our top picks for this guide for that reason. The Qi2 wireless charging standard arrived last year and improves performance for wireless charging, including for portable banks. Currently, iPhones are the only handsets that support the new tech, but as it’s an open standard, expect Google, Samsung and others to adopt it for future phones. In my testing, I’ve noticed an uptick in the performance of non-Qi2-enabled batteries as well, so you'll now see wireless options on this list.

Ports

Since Apple ditched the Lightning cable and adopted USB-C, we’re getting closer to a standard for charging connections — and all of our picks have at least one such port. But plenty of other devices use older interfaces, like USB-A and microUSB ports, plus Lightning for older iPhones. You can find cables with just about any combination of those connections, so when you’re picking out a battery, just check that one end of your preferred cord will fit.

Most battery packs have more than one port, which gives you different charging options. You’ll typically see at least one port labeled “in/out,” which means you can use it to both charge the bank and charge your device. While USB-A output ports can power up smartphones and other small devices, they can’t charge larger devices. Plus, they aren’t as fast as USB-C ports overall. That’s something to keep in mind when you’re deciding which ports and charging cables to use to connect your phone to the pack.

There’s even more variation among USB-C ports themselves, with different ports on the same device supporting different power transfer rates. What that means in practical terms is an iPhone will charge just fine plugged into a power bank’s 18W port. But to properly charge, say, a MacBook or similar laptop, it’ll need the extra juice supplied by a 100W port (which larger power banks can offer). Power banks with more than one port can also charge multiple devices at the same time, but speeds and the overall charge delivered will be lower.

You’ll also want to consider your charging cable. For anything larger than a smartphone (and to access fast-charging capabilities) you’ll want to use USB-C ports and cables. But not all cables are created equal, even when they have the same USB-C plugs on the end. If you want power delivery from a 100W USB-C power bank port, you’ll need a 100W-rated USB-C cable. Luckily, power banks capable of delivering 100W tend to include a compatible cable. For any devices that don’t, we’ve tried and liked Anker’s 100W USB-C cable. For smaller devices, we used this 60W cable from Nimble and we don’t recommend bothering with cables under 60W. For around $20, higher-capacity charging cables will make sure you’re not wasting time with connections that limit your potential power transfer.

For the most part, these rechargeable batteries have a squared-off, brick-like design, though many nod towards aesthetics with attractive finishes and detailing. While that doesn’t affect how they perform, it’s a consideration for something you’ll interact with regularly. Some portable power stations include extra features like MagSafe compatibility, a built-in wall plug or even a kickstand. Nearly all have some sort of indicator to let you know how much available charge your power bank has left, usually expressed with lighted pips near the power button. Some of the newer banks take that a step further with an LED display indicating remaining battery percentage.

Before we even put our hands on a battery pack, we did extensive research. We considered brands Engadget reviewers and staff have tried over the years and we checked out customer ratings on retail sites like Amazon and Best Buy. Then we get our hanHere’s the full list of power banks we've tested, which range from small wireless banks to large, multi-device batteries.

an assortment of power banks sit on a wooden table
Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Low capacity (≤10,000mAh)

Mid capacity (10,001 - 20,000mAh)

We're continuously updating this guide as companies release new products and we test them. We remove some products as we find picks that are more worthy of the best portable charger designation. We also add updated specs and prices where necessary. 

For testing, I used each battery with some combination of an iPhone 15, an iPhone 14 Plus, an iPhone 11, a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, a Galaxy S23 Ultra, a 5th-gen iPad Air and an M1 Pro 16-inch MacBook Pro. I charged one phone battery at a time, even though some packs are capable of multiple-device charging. I charged the phones and tablets from between zero and five percent until they were 100 percent full (or until the power bank was dead), and didn’t use the phones or tablets while they charged other than to power them on and enter the unlock code. In the case of the MacBook, I used it while it was charging (it’s my work computer).

I used the charging cable included with each power bank to charge the Galaxy S22 Ultra, MacBook Pro and the iPad Air. For the iPhones, I used the USB-C to Lighting cable that Apple provides. In the case of the lower-capacity power banks that didn’t include a cord or included one with USB-C to USB-A connectors, I used this 60W-rated USB-C to USB-C cable.

For reference, here are the battery capacities of each device we used for testing:

I noted the times for each charge and the number of charges each bank provided. I also paid attention to things like ease of use and overall design.

The Blade 2 from Baseus has a unique, flat shape that’s just a little wider than an ereader — which may make it easier to slip into a low profile laptop bag. It charged a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra considerably faster than any other battery bank we tried, getting it from four percent to full in just over an hour. It then filled the phone back to 62 percent from dead on a second charge in about a half an hour. But $100 is a lot for a standard power bank that holds fewer than two full charges. But if you can find the Blade 2 on sale, snap it up.

Anker’s 6.6k MagGo is pretty similar to our top pick for a MagSafe-compatible battery pack. It supports the Qi2 charging standard and props up your iPhone so you can use it or enable StandBy mode while powering up. This one even lets you set the viewing angle from 30 to 65 degrees. It was speedy in getting an iPhone 15 up to 50 percent in about 40 minutes. But for the added bulk, it doesn’t have as much capacity as the 10K MagGo, holding just enough juice for a single full charge plus about 5 percent. But it is $20 cheaper, which may be key for some.

The Mophie snap+ Powerstation Mini is terribly well-built. It feels premium with a rubberized contact point for the MagSafe charging pad and a stand that runs the entire width of the bank itself, making it extra sturdy. It’s compact, too, but only carries a 5,000mAh capacity, which gets you a partial charge on most newer or larger phones. Our current MagSafe/iPhone pick has double the capacity, a stand and a digital display — for just $20 more than the Powerstation Mini.

A slew of terms are used to describe power banks, including portable batteries, portable chargers, external battery packs and even, somewhat confusingly, USB chargers, which is what wall chargers are often called. They all mean the same thing: a lithium ion battery that stores a charge so you can refill a smartphone, tablet, earbuds, console controller, ereader, laptop, or just about any other device with its own built-in, rechargeable battery. 

There’s little difference between the terms, so the specs you’ll want to pay attention to are capacity (expressed in mAh), size and weight so you can find the right balance between recharging what you need and portability.

Power stations, on the other hand, are distinct. These are bigger units (often around the size of a car battery) that can be used to charge multiple devices multiple times, but notably, they can’t be taken on airplanes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-power-bank-143048526.html?src=rss
25.
Vessel of Hatred is the latest reason to start playing Diablo IV again
October 4, 2024  16:00:36

Ten years ago, the Reaper of Souls expansion completely reimagined and revived Diablo III. It overhauled huge swaths of the game, strengthening its foundation enough that D3 remained a fun time even as it stretched far past what should have been its expiration date.

Diablo IV has moved at a different pace. It managed to get through launch without the technical mishaps that plagued its predecessor, but it was still a game that landed somewhere short of its full potential on arrival. Our review felt that, and I felt it in my own playthrough. Once I finished the campaign and started the grinding loop, I quickly got bored and abandoned my character.

But ahead of its first major expansion, Vessel of Hatred, Diablo IV is not the same as it was at launch. I've spent some time with the new content in Vessel of Hatred and while I'll cover what the region of Nahantu brings to the table, I'm also taking this chance to take a broader look at the state of Diablo IV.

Vessel of Hatred introduces a new region, Nahantu, and a new class, Spiritborn. Nahantu is a jungle biome with lush greenery in some spaces and complete devastation in others. Basically, it’s your standard Diablo IV location. It also has several points of interest for the lore nerds out there.

D4 Vessel of Hatred - Spiritborn Gorilla
Blizzard Entertainment

Spiritborn is a completely new class in the Diablo universe and it's a great addition. This is a close-range fighter with skills inspired by four Spirit Guardians: The gorilla abilities center defense and heavy hits, the jaguar delivers tempo-driven fire attacks, the eagle deals lightning damage via feathers, and the centipede is all about poison powers. Yes, centipede. It doesn't sound like a fearsome creature, but trust me, those poison attacks are rad. The biggest thrill spawns from the ultimate abilities, where the actual Spirit Guardian appears to fight on your behalf. Having a spectral gorilla smash down and crush enemies is deeply satisfying in a way I didn't know I needed.

In my run of D4, I've put the most hours into playing a Necromancer and a Sorcerer. They're both loads of fun, but they feel at their strongest when they're completely focused on one element or damage type. I'm not enamored of needing to completely redo my talent tree and paragon boards every time I encounter a unique item, so I appreciate that a Spiritborn really can pick and choose skills from across the four Guardians. That's something Blizzard devs spoke about in a livestream about the class design, and I'm pleased to report that the class-specific Spirit Hall makes it easy to get benefits from legendary and unique item powers without overhauling your entire rotation. That's not to say optimal builds won't emerge over time, but flexibility is a real win in the Spiritborn kit.

My other favorite addition in Vessel of Hatred is the Den, a quartet of mercenaries that can join you on your quests. For solo players, they act like the companions in Diablo III — you can pick one to follow you around and join your battles. Each has a miniature skill tree that you can customize to best match your own playstyle. A secondary mechanic, Reinforcement, allows you to access followers’ abilities even if you don’t or can't have one equipped. Reinforcement allows you to pick a single ability from a single merc and set when you want them to use it. Their skills can map directly to when you use your own powers, or to more battle-specific conditions such as your character being injured or crowd controlled. My favorite combo started with me casting an eagle spell to yoink enemies into a clump, then my archer buddy would show up and fire off an incendiary grenade to scorch them all. But the combinations are pretty endless and easy to switch up on a whim.

The Den isn't a deep game system and heavy-duty players probably won't take long to max out all four companions. However, it offers yet another opportunity to customize your playthrough, and that's where I think a Diablo game shines. Even though I used a default Spiritborn model, named her Test and never bothered to transmog gear, it still didn't take long for me to start feeling attached to the character. This was my Spiritborn, my journey to save the world with my set of allies.

Sanctuary is a bleak place. Even when I play D4 with other people, the oppressive grimness of the settings and situations creates a feeling of "us against the world." Maybe a few NPCs will be useful from time to time, but most of them are either going to betray us or lie to us or die on us. But for once, even while facing the most unbeatable foes, Vessel of Hatred made me feel connected. It's in the expansion’s basic premise, that Neyrelle has chosen to shoulder an impossible burden for you and is going to try her damnedest to survive and succeed. It's in the presence of the Den, where someone always has your back in battle. It's in the refrain of your guide, Eru: Help is needed, so help is offered. It's in the new Dark Citadel end-game dungeon, which you literally can't complete without at least one other person. Even if you play Vessel of Hatred solo, you never feel alone.

Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred - The Den
Blizzard Entertainment

There are other notable features arriving with Vessel of Hatred, and you'll notice the stat crunch and new difficulty system if you've been keeping up with the game over the past year. Runewords are returning in a throwback to Diablo II, and there is of course more powerful gear to hunt down. But I see those updates as the culmination of a whole year of tweaks and revisions to Sanctuary.

For better and for worse, Blizzard is a game studio that responds to the demands of its audience. "We've heard your feedback" may be the most-uttered phrase across the company's events. I think there's a balance to be struck in giving the community such a loud voice in a game's direction, but in the case of Diablo IV, it has generally turned out well. When a lot of people fill the forums and say that a system is unfun, odds are good it'll get reworked. And there definitely were some unfun points in Diablo IV.

The item system got a thorough and rewarding overhaul in Season 4. Activities like the Helltide and Nightmare dungeons are no longer gated to the highest difficulty levels. Even simple tweaks have done a lot to improve quality of life: At one point, the locations of the vendors changed so that the Blacksmith, Jeweler and Occultist are now all next to each other, meaning you aren't mounting up to go across town just to swap out one item of gear. Nearly every update feels intended to give players more agency and more power.

A seasonal model also helps here, introducing fresh gameplay ideas every few months that the devs can learn from and possibly turn into permanent updates. For instance, Vessel of Hatred is launching with the start of a new season that adds Realmwalker monsters to chase across Sanctuary. Not every season revolutionizes the core gameplay — sometimes it’s just a glimpse into a faction with a short story thread to untangle — but these themed end-game additions can be reason enough to keep playing.

D4 Vessel of Hatred - Travincal
Blizzard Entertainment

For those who just want to experience the story, Vessel of Hatred is a worthwhile and natural continuation of the cliffhanger from the base game. For über-fans, I assume you live on the PTR and already have your own opinions about what's coming (and you'll play for hours no matter what).

I'm mostly speaking to the group in the middle, who have dabbled occasionally or never logged back in after the big Lilith battle. For these players, now's a good time to return to Diablo IV. Explore the new story, try the Spiritborn; you'll probably find plenty to enjoy.

A live game usually needs some time to find its footing, or to prove it has staying power beyond an initial fifteen minutes of fame. Vessel of Hatred is just the latest example of how Blizzard is committed to changing, improving and making Diablo IV a hell of a good time.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/vessel-of-hatred-is-the-latest-reason-to-start-playing-diablo-iv-again-160036459.html?src=rss
26.
Facebook is testing an Instagram-like Explore tab and introducing a new video tab for Reels
October 4, 2024  15:30:33

Meta just announced several updates coming to Facebook during the company’s IRL event in Austin. It's testing an Explore tab and adding a new video tab.

Let’s start with the Explore tab. If you’ve ever perused Instagram, you likely know how exactly this will work. This tab will house “a variety of content tailored to your interests.” 

Meta says that the algorithm has been designed to serve up “content that doesn’t just entertain, but helps you dive deeper into your interests.” Here’s hoping I get nothing but content about wild traversal strategies in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. In any event, the new Explore tab is still in the testing phase so it could be a bit before a wide rollout.

The video tab is also getting a major update to accommodate Reels. All of the video content on Facebook will now be housed behind this tab. The content will stream on a full-screen video player that lets users “seamlessly watch the best short-form, long-form and live videos in a single experience.”

The updated video tab starts rolling out to users in the “coming weeks.” This is definitely an attempt by Meta to capture some of those younger eyeballs, as the announcement was accompanied by statistics indicating that young adults on Facebook spend around 60 percent of their time watching videos and Reels.

I got news for you, Meta. My dad, who is not a young adult, also spends all of his time on Facebook watching videos and Reels. So we’ll all benefit from this expanded video tab.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/facebook-is-testing-an-instagram-like-explore-tab-and-introducing-a-new-video-tab-for-reels-153033149.html?src=rss
27.
What happens when solar panels die?
October 4, 2024  14:00:19

By the end of 2024, the world will have nearly 2,000 Gigawatts of solar generation capacity in service. Each panel is made of silicon, glass, various polymers, aluminum, copper and an assortment of other metals that capture the sun’s energy. It’s a rule of thumb that, barring damage, a panel will last for up to 30 years before it needs to be replaced. But what happens to all of those raw materials when the current crop of solar panels becomes obsolete? Surely, we’re not just wasting it all, are we?

Received wisdom suggests solar panels last for around 30 years, but that’s not the whole story here. “30 years is our best guess,” explained Garvin Heath of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). NREL found there was a higher rate of failures at the start of a panel’s life, often due to manufacturing or installation faults. In midlife, only a handful of panels fail. Then the statistics begin to climb northward the closer to the three decade mark you get but, even so, the number of panels that break are “less than one percent” of the total in operation at that time.

Matt Burnell is the founder of ReSolar, a British startup looking into reusing, repowering and recycling solar panels. As part of his work, Burnell visited a 40,000 panel array solar farm where 200 of the panels were broken during installation. “I took about 50 from that site, tested them to see their value for reuse [and] generation capacity,” he said, most of which were within the “tolerance range of the manufacturer.” Essentially, for the odd crack in the glass or bump on the frame — which may cause problems down the line — the panels were otherwise perfectly functional.

If a panel has survived its birth and installation, then the biggest thing that kills solar panels is the weather. Heath said a common cause is extreme weather events damaging the panel, or even just regular, aggressive weather causing things to degrade. Sadly, once a panel is broken, it’s often not worth the effort to repair.

So panels deemed “broken” during manufacture or installation may still be very capable of making power from the sun. But there are also plenty of panels that are being withdrawn from service after 25 or 30 years, even if they aren't broken in any meaningful sense. There's a fairly simple reason solar farms don't allow these panels to soak up rays until they simply cease to function.

The key issue is efficiency loss, which is when panels aren’t able to generate as much power as they did when first installed. Most solar panels are made with laminated adhesive layers that sit between the glass and the solar cells to hold them together and aid rigidity. Sun exposure can cause those laminated layers to discolor, reducing the amount of light that can reach the cells. That diminishes the energy-generation capacity, which is a problem for large commercial farms.

“Manufacturer's warranty their [solar] modules’ performance for a 30-year period,” explained Garvin Heath. For instance, a maker will pledge that its panels will be at least 80-percent efficient for the bulk of its expected three-decade service life. These warranties give large utility-scale customers confidence in what they’re buying, and at the point that term has expired, it’s often far more cost-effective to simply junk and replace them.

Power grids have a limited number of interconnections, essentially the on-ramp that enables them to push power to the grid. Each interconnection has a hard upper limit in terms of the power it can send, so solar farms need to generate the maximum permitted electricity at all times. “[Even when] they’re working within warranty performance, the opportunity cost of having a module producing [more] power on your interconnection is quite valuable,” said Heath.

ReSolar’s Matt Burnell used an example of a 10 Megawatt solar farm in the UK that had a 15 Megawatt interconnection. “10 years ago, they could only fit 10 megawatts into the space that they had [...] but with newer and more efficient modules, it’s now financially viable for them to strip the asset down and rebuild it.” “You have these big pension funds looking at this from a spreadsheet,” looking for ways to better maximize their investment. The end result is that all of these otherwise fine panels are junked. “When you think about the embedded carbon of bringing [the panels] over [from China]” said Burnell “and then they go into the waste stream [...] seems mad.”

Even if panels could be repaired to full efficiency,it’s not likely solar panel repair shops will be opening in droves. “There’s a serious question around the labor costs of testing and repairing versus just buying a new panel,” said Burnell. He added in another example of panels that had to be taken down to address fire safety legislation, which were similarly at risk of being discarded because the effort to repurpose them was too great. To reduce waste, ReSolar actually wound up collecting and sending on a consignment of those panels to Ukraine for use in a hospital.

Close up of a damaged solar panel.
Matt Burnell / ReSolar

Another rule of thumb is that only one in 10 solar panels is recycled, with the remaining nine sent to landfills. There is no standard method for tracking a panel’s eventual destination, and it’s not clear how such a system would be implemented. But there’s a risk landfills are about to be overwhelmed with the volume of panels that’ll be coming down from roofs. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, reported on the coming glut of panels in California after the state’s push to get more solar installed from 2006 onwards.

The legal situation is barely patchwork, with Grist describing things in 2020 as the “wild west,” since only Washington has any sort of mandatory legislation. Decommissioned solar panels are covered by federal solid and hazardous waste rules, dependent on the materials used in their construction. If a panel includes heavy metals like lead and cadmium, then they can’t be sent to a general landfill, lest their poisons leech into the soil. But that often just means those panels are redirected to landfills that are designed to handle specialist waste.

The EPA is, at present, looking at developing rules that would standardize the recycling process for solar panels and lithium batteries. But while there are no federal mandates for recycling, or even tough legislation at the state level, the situation is far from ideal. A small fraction of the panels are actually sent to recycling centers, the rest left to an uncertain fate. As Heath points out, the risk is that while recycling is uneconomical and unavailable, we’ll see huge boneyards of working solar panels, left piled up while the situation changes.

In the UK and Europe, solar panels are covered by the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive, or WEEE. The rules oblige supplying companies to collect and recycle discarded panels, or to shoulder the cost for another entity to do so. It means that, hopefully, we won’t see tons more panels being dumped to landfills, but also means it’s often going to be more economical to send working panels to recycling rather than repurposing them.

Image of two people examining damaged solar panels for potential recycling.
Matt Burnell / ReSolar

If you want to free up the raw materials lurking inside a solar panel, then there are two approaches. There’s the mechanical way, in which you can shred the components, which is both simpler and more wasteful: it can recover glass and metal, but little else. Or there are thermal and chemical approaches that seek to separate the components, enabling more of the rarer metals to be recovered.

“Existing recyclers have traditional markets that their economics are built around, so glass recyclers look at a module and say ‘wow, a module is 80 percent glass by weight, I know what to do with that,” said Heath. “With the materials inside, there are more precious metals with higher value,” he said, “but they’re mixed in with the plastic polymer layers [...] which are hard to separate economically.” Consequently, the silicon, silver and copper embedded in the cells are often ground down into bulk and abandoned.

The IEA’s 2024 report on panel recycling looked into how these mechanical methods aren’t great for material qualities. “The outputs of mechanical processing are usually not very pure and better yields of high-quality materials [...] especially silicon and silver, should be targeted,” it said. It added that often these recycling processes aren’t optimized to run solar panels, and so “there is frequently some downgrading of recovered material quality,” hardly a great step on the road to circularity.

It’s also hard to know what goes into a solar panel. “The variation in materials [found in solar panels] is wild,” said ReSolar’s Matt Burnell. The litany of manufacturers don’t yet have any obligation to share their raw material data, although new regulations will change that soon. Until then, it’s difficult for recyclers to know what they’ll be pulling out of the panels they’re looking to process.

As well as recyclers not knowing the composition of the panels, there’s the risk of noxious chemicals being added to expedite some processes. Antoine Chalaux is the general manager of ROSI Solar, a specialist solar panel recycler in France. He talked about the inclusion of chemicals like Teflon and antimony, both of which are toxic and cannot be released into the atmosphere. “We’ve developed our recycling processes to capture [them],” he explained, “but we’re pushing [manufacturers] to use it less [in future].”

Burnell believes that the industry is really at the “very dawn” of solar recycling but is confident that with investment today, solutions will be quickly found in the very near future. “We’ve got this massive lead-in time,” he said “so we know what’s coming onto the market today, and we know what’s coming into the system in 25 to 30 years.” The real ticking clock is for the glut of panels that were installed in the early 2010s that will start entering the waste stream in the next decade.

Right now, ROSI’s processes aren’t as cheap as other recyclers, and Chalaux knows that it can be a problem. “Right now, there’s no economic reason for companies to [recycle with us], but there’s the question of image,” he said. “All of the manufacturers and owners of PV projects want a good story for the end of life for their panels.” The other benefit of this process, however, is to produce high-purity recycled materials that can be used by local manufacturers.

Concept image of NREL's laser-welded solar panel.
Graphic by Al Hicks / NREL

One step toward a more recyclable solar panel might be to eliminate the use of those adhesive polymers in its construction. If a panel could just use sheets of glass with the solar cells sandwiched inside, it would be a lot easier to deconstruct. Not to mention you’d likely get a longer and better performance out of them, since there would be no polymer layers to discolor.

Thankfully, a team from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has demonstrated that such a product can exist. Rather than gluing the layers together, femtosecond lasers weld the front and back panels of glass to each other. The solar cells are sandwiched inside, held by the bonding of the glass to its sibling, and nothing else. And when the panel eventually reaches its end of life, which may be a lot longer than 30 years, it can just be recycled by shattering the glass.

The project, led by Dr. David Young, says that if the proposals are accepted, we could see a commercial version of the panel within two to three years. He added that the rigidity offered by welding will be just as sturdy and waterproof as panels using polymer layers. Unfortunately, by that point, we’ll have decades upon decades of panels made using the old system that we’ll still need to deal with. And until we get a cost-effective, scalable way to recycle them, the answer to the question ‘What happens to solar panels when they die?’ will be ‘nothing good.’

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/what-happens-when-solar-panels-die-140019832.html?src=rss
28.
Casetify's Evangelion collection returns for Evangelion Day
October 4, 2024  13:45:59

Casetify is bringing back the accessories based on Neon Genesis Evangelion that it originally launched in 2023, giving you another chance to grab one or two cases for your Apple devices. The crown jewel of the collection is perhaps the collectible case for the AirPods Pro and Pro 2, which was designed to look like the head of Evangelion Unit-01. It opens from the back to reveal a removable inner case that provides another layer of protection. You could also just carry the inner case if the Unit-01 head is a bit too bulky to fit in your bag or if you want to keep it pristine.

In addition, the collection features cases for iPhones and iPads, including all iPhone 16 models, with photos of Eva pilots, as well as typography highlighting key terms from the anime series. Casetify says its cases aren't just for collection purposes, though, and can actually protect your devices with their impact-resistant design. There's also a MagSafe charger with a cord that resembles Evangelion units' umbilical cables, as well as other MagSafe-compatible accessories. The collection is now available from Casetify's Co-Lab page, its Co-Lab app and its physical studio locations. Take note that some of these items sold out quickly the first time around, especially the AirPods case which Casetify called a "sought-after item."

Evangelion accessories.
Casetify

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/casetifys-evangelion-collection-returns-for-evangelion-day-134559673.html?src=rss
29.
159 employees leave WordPress founder's company after extortion lawsuit
October 4, 2024  13:30:40

The feud between WP Engine and Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO, recently came to a head when the web hosting service sued the latter, accusing him of "abuse of power, extortion and greed." In a new blog post, Mullenweg said his opponent's attacks on him and his company have been effective enough so that "a good chunk of [his] Automattic colleagues disagreed with [him and his] actions." As a response, he created a "buy-out package" that offered employees $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher, if they resign. A total of 159 people, or 8.4 percent of the company, took the offer. 

Most of the employees who left came from the company's Ecosystem / WordPress business, while the rest came from the division working on apps like Tumblr and Cloudup. As TechCrunch notes, Mullenweg gave the event a positive spin and exclaimed that "the other 91.6 percent gave up $126 million of potential severance to stay!" 

Mullenweg called WP Engine a "cancer to WordPress" and accused the company of violating WordPress’ trademarks. He said they offered WP Engine the option to "pay a direct licensing fee, or make in-kind contributions to the open source project," but the company refused. WP Engine argued that its use of the WordPress trademark was legal. In response, the WordPress Foundation changed its trademark policy page to say that the "WP" abbreviation is indeed not covered by the WordPress trademark, but to please not use it "in a way that confuses people." It named WP Engine outright and even said that the company has "never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress." The WordPress co-founder also banned WP Engine from accessing some of WordPress' plug-ins and themes, which broke a lot of the websites it's hosting. 

WP Engine accused Mullenweg of demanding eight percent of the company’s monthly revenue as royalty and of libel, slander, as well as of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and IRS fraud. In a statement, Automattic's lawyer Neal Katyal said he stayed up all night reading the complaint and found the whole thing "meritless." He added that he's looking "forward to the federal court’s consideration of [the] lawsuit."

Update October 4, 2024, 1:57PM ET: We updated the post to attribute the quote at the end to Automattic's lawyer.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/159-employees-leave-wordpress-founders-company-after-extortion-lawsuit-133040801.html?src=rss
30.
Early Prime Day deals include the Echo Show 8 for an all-time-low price
October 4, 2024  13:15:53

As to be expected, we're less than a week out from October Prime Day and Amazon devices are already on sale. Among the deals is an all-time-low price on one of our top picks for the best smart displays, the Echo Show 8. The latest model is back on sale for $85, which is $65 off its normal price. Any time you can get this smart display for less than $100, it's a good deal — but this is the best price we've seen, and it hasn't been this cheap since Prime Day in July.

We consider this to be the best smart display with Alexa compatibility due to the fact that it combines a lot of handy features and is almost a goldilocks size. The Show 8 has an eight-inch 1,280 x 800 touchscreen, which is just big enough to clearly see recipes and watch videos comfortably without being too large that it would take up too much space on a countertop or side table.

The Show 8 has an improved 13-megapixel camera with auto-framing, which will make for better video calls with friends and family. The camera can also double as a security device, allow you to check in on your home when you're away. And when you're not using it, or if you just prefer extra privacy, there's a physical shutter that will cover the camera entirely.

Of course, devices like the Show 8 are designed to showcase Alexa's talents. You can use the voice assistant through the smart display to check weather forecasts, refer to your calendar to know when your next appointment is, bring up the show you were binge-watching on Netflix and more. This model also has a built-in Zigbee smart home hub, which means you can directly connect smart home gear like smart light bulbs and plugs without the need for an extra hub. And if those IoT devices have Alexa smarts, you can use voice commands to control them as well.

If you're looking for something a bit more nightstand-friendly, there are other Alexa smart displays on sale right now, too. The Echo Show 5 is down to $50, while the recently revived Echo Spot has dropped to $45. The former is also one of our favorites thanks to its compact design, ambient light sensor and sunrise alarm feature. The Echo Spot just came back into the lineup a few months ago, and Amazon's billing it as a true smart alarm clock. It has a cute, circular design with a bold, half-moon shaped screen that can show the time, weather, alarms, currently playing music and more.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/early-prime-day-deals-include-the-echo-show-8-for-an-all-time-low-price-131553231.html?src=rss
31.
iRobot Roomba vacuum and mop machines are up to $420 off right now
October 4, 2024  13:00:46

Some of iRobot’s best robo-vacs are on sale. Wellbots has the ultra-premium Roomba Combo 10 Max + Autowash Dock for $420 off with Engadget’s code ENGDT420. Or, if you want a high-end model without spending quite as much, the Roomba j9+ and Roomba Combo j7+ are on sale for up to $320 off with these exclusive deals.

The iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max + Autowash Dock is the company’s most advanced (and expensive!) robot vacuum. This model sucks up dirt, mops and even self-cleans: Its dock can wash and dry the mopping pad, leaving less work for you. You can run self-cleaning manually, but its companion app will also remind you when it’s time for standard maintenance or deeper cleaning.

This model’s base can store dirt and debris for up to 60 days before emptying. Its mopping pad and self-cleaning tank hold up to seven days of water.

Usually a whopping $1,399, Wellbots has the Roomba Combo 10 Max + Autowash Dock on sale for $979. Although that’s still a pretty penny, this deal puts the vacuum within range of alternate models that don’t match its feature set. Use Engadget’s exclusive code ENGDT420 to see that price.

Product image for the iRobot Roomba j9+. The robot moves along a carpet with a dog in the background. Overlaid smartphone app, showing its mapping abilities.
iRobot

Also on sale is the Roomba j9+. This model doesn’t mop, but it gives you powerful automated vacuuming in a stylish package that won’t be an eyesore in your home. It has a three-stage cleaning system, multi-surface rubber brushes and high-end suction.

This model is usually a daunting $899, but you can get the Roomba j9+ for $619. Use Engadget’s code ENGDT270 during your checkout at Wellbots.

Finally, the Roomba Combo j7+ is a slightly older vacuum / mop model with high-end features. It has a 96.4 percent debris removal rate, obstacle avoidance and a four-stage cleaning system. This model has an edge-sweeping brush, dual multi-surface rubber brushes and power-lifting suction. The Combo j7+ can empty itself for up to 60 days.

You can pick up the Roomba Combo j7+ for only $679 (compared to its usual $999). Just enter the coupon code ENGDT320 while checking out.

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/deals/irobot-roomba-vacuum-and-mop-machines-are-up-to-420-off-right-now-130046509.html?src=rss
32.
Google Search is testing verified checkmarks for legitimate businesses
October 4, 2024  12:30:47

Google Search has always had one serious drawback — if you're not paying attention, it's easy to click on a fraudulent site that's mimicking a real business. Now, the company appears to be testing a long-overdue solution: blue verified checkmarks that show a company is legitimate. 

The checks started appearing next to official site links for corporations including Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon, according to a report from The Verge. The checks aren't showing for all users, though, and Google confirmed that the feature is still in testing. 

"We regularly experiment with features that help shoppers identify trustworthy businesses online, and we are currently running a small experiment showing checkmarks next to certain businesses on Google," a Google spokesperson told The Verge.

If you hover over a checkmark, a message pops up stating "this icon is being shown because Google's signals suggest that this business is the business that it says it is. Google can't guarantee the reliability of this business or its products." 

The implementation appears to be based on Google's Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) feature. That first appeared for Gmail, adding authenticated logos for emails from participating companies. The implementation is different in the Search tests, but may draw from the same database of organizations. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/google-search-is-testing-verified-checkmarks-for-legitimate-businesses-123047155.html?src=rss
33.
Games Done Quick will hold a fundraiser for people affected by Hurricane Helene next week
October 4, 2024  12:00:10

Games Done Quick, the organization that organizes charity game marathons featuring high-level speedrunners, has just announced its latest fundraiser. The group will hold an event called Disaster Relief Done Quick in support of the humanitarian nonprofit Direct Relief to aid those affected by Hurricane Helene, it announced in a tweet and press release. 

"Hurricane Helene [was] a life-threatening Category 4 hurricane that has left over 200 dead, millions without power and caused significant flooding and evacuations in the US Southeast," Games Done Quick wrote. "Disaster Relief Done Quick will begin on October 11 at 6PM EDT and conclude on October 13 at 11:59 PM EDT." 

If you're interested in watching you can do so at GDQ's Twitch channel. Multiple speedrunners and streamers have already submitted runs across games including Zelda: Four Swords, The Sims 4 and Tony's Hawk's Pro Skater series. 

Past GDQ events have raised large sums for charity, including the Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 which brought in $2.5 million for cancer research and Summer Games Done Quick 2024 ($2.55 million for Doctors Without Borders). Back in 2017, the organization raised $225,000 for Hurricane Harvey. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/games-done-quick-will-hold-a-fundraiser-for-people-affected-by-hurricane-helene-next-week-120010369.html?src=rss
34.
Engadget Podcast: Why the Windows 11 2024 update is all about Copilot AI
October 4, 2024  11:30:26

This week, Microsoft started rolling out the Windows 11 2024 update, but it quickly became clear that the company was far more eager to unveil new features for its Copilot AI and Copilot+ AI PCs. In this episode, Devindra and Cherlynn chat about Microsoft's current AI priorities, and what it means for people with older PCs. Also, we discuss the death of HoloLens and Microsoft giving up on AR as Meta, Apple and even Snap build for an augmented reality future.

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!

  • The new Windows 11 update goes all in on Copilot integration – 1:25

  • Amazon announces Fire HD 8 tablet line along with a few (pretty boring) AI features – 28:28

  • Tech debt led to Sonos’ disastrous app relaunch, will they be able to win users back? – 37:48

  • Google is making Gmail summaries more useful and adding a “happening soon” tab to your inbox – 41:11

  • Harvard students hack together facial recognition for Meta’s smart glasses that instantly doxes strangers – 44:00

  • Reddit introduces a policy change that will make site wide protests harder – 46:58

  • Around Engadget: Dan Cooper’s reMarkable Paper Pro review – 51:31

  • Working on – 55:53

  • Pop culture picks – 57:08

Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Devindra: What's up, everybody, and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar.

Cherlynn: I'm Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low.

Devindra: This week it's all about Microsoft. I guess Techtober has officially begun, Cherlynn, even though it feels like We've been doing Techtober since August, thanks to Samsung and Google and everybody.

yes.

Cherlynn: Yeah, it

Devindra: just never, it never freaking ends. But yeah the wave of tech news, which we used to call Techtober, which is now just TechFall, I guess, the fall of our lives and our productivity. Yeah. That is all happening. Microsoft announced that the Windows 11 2024 update is going out this week.

But I honestly think Microsoft is way more interested in the AI capabilities that it's bringing to CoPilot and also CoPilot Plus systems. And I think that's kind of funny. I think Cherlynn, you and I as Windows nerds and PC geeks I think it's something worth exploring because more so than even last year, this feels like a major shift for Microsoft.

So that's our first topic. We'll talk about a couple other things too, including HoloLens [00:01:00] 2 and basically the entire HoloLens family dying. As always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcatcher of choice, leave us a review on iTunes. That's always appreciated. Drop us an email at [email protected].

com and join us Thursday mornings, typically around 10 45 AM Eastern on our YouTube channel for our live stream. If we have gadgets, we'll do you know, sometimes we'll show them off. We'll do Q and A's. It's a fun time. Join us. Sherilyn, I'm sorry that I basically threw these giant stories at you ahead of ahead of the.

Big news announcement this week. A lot of big stuff happening from Microsoft Windows 11 2024 update, but also new features coming to co pilot plus AI PCs including more information about privacy and recall new features for the co pilot AI assistant. How did you notice something odd?

About these stories as I sent them to you, Cherlynn.

Cherlynn: Beyond it seemed like Microsoft might have given you the information incredibly close to the deadline. Well, there's

Devindra: that there's at least we got a heads up, but something that I don't know if you've noticed because I think you had [00:02:00]access to these docs too The news was essentially, Hey, this update is coming.

Everybody get ready for it. We love windows. We love windows updates. And then my entire, the entire document was like, Oh, by the way, copilot plus AI PCs, that's all we care about. So I got this document that was just like all new features. And then one little paragraph at the end, Oh, by the way, when this 11 update, you get HDR backgrounds, you get all this stuff, like literally 10 sentences.

But the entire like presentation for Microsoft is we love Copilot plus AI PC systems. Did that feel weird to you?

Cherlynn: I mean, I know that there was this the main post that you filed was like at the end where you said, Oh, by the way, there are these Windows 11 updates as well coming. And I think it didn't feel weird to me, I guess, because I was like, yeah, of course they're all in on Copilot and everything is about AI.

And maybe that's why, maybe I'm so over You're just so used to

it.

Right, the incremental cadence of every platform update being like little things, even though you know, before 10, we had a big significant jump to 10, and then 10 to 11 just felt kind of [00:03:00]minor because it was built for like better arm based improved performance, and then Now AI seems to be the mad rush here.

So I agree with you. It is weird, but it took you pointing it out for me to realize or feel it. You know?

Devindra: I mean, I totally agree with you. Like typically when we talk about windows updates, especially the annual cadences, like they're not huge things. And even windows 11 itself felt like a weird half step update where the most compelling thing was like, Hey, we put the task bar in the middle of your screen.

Rather than the side of your, that was the only thing people were talking about. I think, yeah, Microsoft is aware that the thing that could be more exciting now to people is Copilot Plus, first of all, and I think that's also key. I think more so than the Copilot AI Assistant, which is going to be in, you know, pretty much most Windows 11 machines, the Copilot Plus stuff, that is for the newer systems basically released this year.

So stuff like with the new snap track and processors, go ahead.

Cherlynn: Yeah no, I mean, the thing you're pointing out is exactly the thing that, got me questioning while I was reading your pieces because it wasn't about the windows 11 updates. It was more [00:04:00] you clearly have a distinction between co pilot and co pilot plus, and I was like where?

And then I had to like, I sussed it out for myself eventually, but I was like, Oh, so there is co pilot versus co pilot plus, and there's a bit of a difference here, right? There's, I mean, there's a total,

Devindra: yeah. So when I covered, I went to Microsoft's campus in May, right. Head of WWDC and everything.

That's when they announced the co pilot plus. PC initiative. And that was these custom, not custom, but these like systems that had a certain level of quality, right? So they launched with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X elite and X pro chips. But basically there was a minimum standard of 16 gigabytes of RAM, right?

40 tops NPU. So really powerful NPU for AI work. So it could do a lot of stuff locally rather than sending AI stuff to the cloud. You know, decent amount of hard drive space too. But that's the thing. It's like a certain level of computing quality. And that's the sort of thing Microsoft had to basically launch as an initiative with Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, everybody.

Whereas when Apple did their big push for ARM [00:05:00] based and new chips and everything, they could just be like, well, here's our new thing. We did it all. We did all the work and developers just have to catch up with us. So the copilot plus features are things like recall, but also new things that they talked about.

There's something called click to do, which if you hold down the windows button and right click, there will be contextual things you could be doing within that dropdown menu. So if you're in the photos app, I believe you can like, you can have it like just blur the background. Just remove this object if you click on an object.

So that's kind of useful. We're kind of getting a sense of what Microsoft wants to do with these new NPU powered features in the photos app, you can also super resolution photos, which is something you could do in Adobe stuff and Lightroom and other apps Pixelmator does that on the Mac too, but.

That's kind of cool. If you have a Lowr resolution photo and the AI basically interpolates a lot of stuff in that image to give you a bigger file that also looks pretty sharp. I've used that in Pixelmator. It's pretty good. Yeah, just a couple improvements down the way the recall stuff is interesting [00:06:00] too, because Microsoft also basically held a call last week to be like Hey, Recall privacy.

This is actually very important to us. And we're going to be very clear about this. And this follows the whole debacle after the recall launch where the recall announcement where everybody was like, there are gaping security holes here. Security researchers found things like where if you were an administrator, or actually, no, if you were able to hack into a computer, even without admin access, you could get access to the recall database, which is the screenshot of everything it's recording that you're doing on your system.

So Microsoft had to. Delay that feature by several months. Didn't even release it to testers to really lock that down. So the whole it sounds better now. It sounds like they're encrypting the entire database. Recall itself is running in what they're calling. Let me see here. A VBS enclave. So not even just like an encrypted thing, but like a virtual package of like where the program is too.

So hackers can't like directly access it. Windows Hello biometrics is necessary by default. And [00:07:00]also, Oh, the feature is not turned on by default. You have to turn it on. And these all came from complaints from everybody. I also asked Microsoft specifically, so what did you learn from this whole mistake, like this whole situation, which is they announced recall and they were like, this is one of the coolest things you can ever do.

You can remember anything you've ever done in your computer. Was completely mired in controversy. So, I talked with, or I sent a question to Pavan Devaluri, which is the head of windows. He's the head of windows. He knows we had an interview with him on this podcast months ago. He knows our complaints and our criticisms of surface and windows and everything.

And he basically said that they realize now that users want to have. Extra confidence with anything involving like their sensitive data, or especially AI things that are recording all their data. And also AI involves a rethinking of how Microsoft and other companies think about security on a Windows system, right?

Typically, if you have an administrator account on a Windows computer, The thinking is you could just go in and do anything, right? You could [00:08:00] do anything on any other accounts. You are an administrator of that PC. You have really like basically broad privileges, but now if you're using these AI features, which are sucking in a lot of data and a lot more data than windows PCs used to, maybe there's a good.

excuse for not giving the administrator full access to that, you know, to whatever that database is. So there's just things that they're thinking of that they didn't think of before. And that's a shame, but they're saying like that basically this whole fiasco they're taking into consideration. I don't quite know if I trust them yet, but how do you feel about their turnaround I

Cherlynn: think it took quite long.

And I re I realize it's more than just allow people to opt in. There's the holes they had patched the access to admin versus like user. Encrypting everything

is an encryption.

It still felt like it took a little long, but I mean, It just goes to show how little Microsoft had any forethought, right, about this sort of [00:09:00] privacy concern.

That it took public backlash to be like, Ah, crap. And that they had to, it felt like a ground up attempt to fix all these issues. And it doesn't bode well for me for any of their future sort of features based around your information. Like I think they are, I tend to think of Microsoft as the most engineer brain of the top three, like AI companies out there.

They're very engineer brain. They're very like, Oh yeah, this is convenient. Oh, it works. Let's ship it. They don't think about what about all these other things? What about people who are using your product that are not engineer brain that are going to break it in some consumer way, right? So I think it took a while, but I'm glad they're at least considering, and I hope it's a lesson, to be considering these things ahead of time, you know?

Devindra: Yeah, most definitely. They're also like, let me see here. I like the security things. Revamped copilot apps are getting some interesting features too. I think this is all kind of interconnected. So they basically announced this whole new [00:10:00] strategy called copilot labs, where they're going to talk about where they're going to let people play with new features ahead of time.

Let me see here. Copilot vision is one of those, and this is a weird thing. This is like literally the thing we're worried about. That's. It's going to basically see everything you're doing in your web browser showing and be able to basically give you tips on it. It's basically involving constant eyes on what you're seeing.

That's a lab feature. And also think deeper. Which is the ability to just give it a task and have it process a little longer to maybe get you some more helpful advice. These are all Copilot Labs features, these are like extra experimental if you think about the old Google Labs stuff. And right now only people paying for Copilot Pro subscriptions, so those are the 20 a month thing.

Only those folks can test it for now. I think at the very least, Microsoft is being very careful about how it's rolling this stuff out. It is showing it to people, but also a very small audience and taking that feedback before it rolls out broadly. And the thing about recall, they were just like, Hey, here it is.

Look, everybody, this is so [00:11:00]cool. We're capturing everything you're doing on your computer. And they were more excited about it than I think they realized. P other people would be because they didn't realize how little people trusted Microsoft, right?

Cherlynn: Yeah, I think the conundrum of having to pay for access to some of these extra features ahead of time is Both like a joy and a risk that you're taking and I guess we talked about this early adopter mindset a lot on the podcast which is Yeah.

You pay a premium to get to access things like prototypes, right? And these features in the labs are basically prototypes, but then you're also risking exposing yourself to a lot of potential, like, vulnerabilities. I guess. I don't think the word is exploits. I don't think the word is like bad. Like it's not bad.

It's just you have to be aware. The vulnerabilities is

Devindra: the world. Yeah. Is the word.

Cherlynn: Yeah. And, you know, I guess, cool, pay for that but at the same time, these are people who are paying there for early adopters, probably already much more on top of their security and knowing the risks they take.

It's just like Microsoft selling it to people [00:12:00] who are paying, meaning they're selling it to people who are fans, who are less likely to question is, you know, curious, in my opinion.

Devindra: I think it makes sense just being careful and also not too long after the show when we both went to Apple's campus and they announced Apple intelligence and it seemed like even Apple intelligence was launched with, The awareness of everything that went wrong with recall, right?

Like even Apple and other companies are kind of learning from all this. It's a learning experience for everybody, but the people going first usually take the first hit. So in this case, it was Microsoft. It's often open AI. We saw Google bar, you know, stumble right out of the gate too. And Apple at least is able to sit back and just watch and see how it can make things more useful.

Speaking of So this is the CoPilot app itself. CoPilot on the web, CoPilot's mobile app. There are some new features coming there too. CoPilot voice, which gives it a more personable assistant like voice. So you can actually have a back and forth conversation with it. That's kind of cool.

I think that's, that just makes it feel more more [00:13:00] useful to a lot of people. Copilot Vision, we talked about, they're going to do this thing called Copilot Daily, which that voice will also give you like a daily rundown of news and also things you may have scheduled or on your calendar. They want you to think of Copilot as like this thing that you can basically always turn to.

It feels like Copilot is your new computing interface in a way. And that's also probably why they're a little more excited about it rather than A Windows update, even though the Windows update is pretty big according to Microsoft, it is a full OS reconstruction. So it is not just like a minor step up.

It is like a full re installation and a full re architecture of Windows. Maybe following along the lines of what they did for the ARM stuff, back around the Copilot Plus launch, that version of Windows that went out with the ARM systems is very different. They had to rebuild Windows a lot.

To deal with arms. So I feel like we're going to see more of that basically on the Intel and AMD side. Any questions for one? This is, I see the chat is talking about this too. [00:14:00]This is just kind of wild to me. Cause last year we went to the Microsoft event and ended up being a surprise event about AI and we were all very confused.

How do you feel about like their standing now around AI and windows and everything?

Cherlynn: Yeah, I think you're pointing to the fact that Simon B. in the chat asked who is leading in AI, Windows OpenAI or Google for the consumers. And I mean, the rest of this episode. Windows is OpenAI

Devindra: at this point.

Cherlynn: Yes. The rest of this episode I think talks sort of about that, right?

We're getting to some Amazon news later in this episode that was announced this week as well. But what we're seeing, and to your point, Devindra, compared to this time last year or like last year in April or February, I forget. It was being AI. It was like the first time we had to contend with like consumer facing versions of these features.

But now here we are a year and a half after the fact, and every company has pushed out their own version of writing tools, summaries, basically, Chad GPT. And then we've got other companies doing their own implementations, you know, co pilot, we've got Google stuffing AI [00:15:00] into literally anything it makes.

We've got Apple with the redesigned Siri, which is still in classic Apple style, not actually here yet, right? Apple intelligence, slow to the party. And Amazon will see in a bit, gave us kind of, a teaser at what AI on it's going to look like. And it's much more of the same, but here's what you said got me to thinking, right?

You say that it's a, their new, basically the new interaction mode is the new interface, right? Well, how people are going to interface. I think I saw this trend when Tik Tok started becoming more of a thing, like short form videos started becoming more of a thing and I was like skeptical of it ever really taking off.

And yet you see. That generations for example, that, that story from the verge a while ago, where kids don't even use directories anymore, they just search in their file, explore for the file they're looking for. I was like, Oh crap, I guess. Yeah. You don't need to organize how

Devindra: files work. Yeah,

Cherlynn: I did. And I thought that was the way and these things are changing.

I think we're at. The start of [00:16:00]maybe gen alpha, whenever they get their first laptop, whenever they start using these Google services are going to be so used to AI that they'll use it in a way that we never thought, you know, and I, it's disappointing to me because I think it's even more critical thinking or kind of offloading to a computer as opposed to having our own brain process.

But I could also see human beings finding new, unique, creative ways to interact with AI. So I don't know, it's, Ooh it's

Devindra: it's

Cherlynn: weird, you know?

Devindra: It is weird. I am, I'm still unsold on the idea of the AI stuff taking over everything. Like I think at the end of last year, I wrote like Microsoft is really all in on copilot AI, but doesn't really have a vision for what it is going to be.

Now we're kind of seeing more of that, but also at the same time, like the basic copilot search is not super useful to me, I would rather search the internet and get actual results from, and go look at those results rather than have this. Machine feed information back to me and me not under, like it playing a game of telephone and us [00:17:00]not knowing if that information is actually accurate.

And then I have to go back and check that. Meanwhile, the actual Bing search is still as useless as ever. Which is funny to me I use edge a lot because I use different browsers for work and personal stuff, so I sometimes stumble into Bing search and it's still man, I wrote, I literally know I wrote this article about this thing.

It is at Engadget. com. And Bing just doesn't know it exists. I can put almost the full title of the whole thing there and Bing can't find it. And yeah,

Cherlynn: Not to okay. So disclosure, our parent company is Yahoo, which is owned by Apollo. Right. And even on yahoo. com

come on. Yeah.

Yahoo. No I've used Yahoo because I was forced to because of my corporate machines to hold to Yahoo as a search engine.

Sadly. Even Yahoo is I'll be like Engadget iPhone review or something. And the first result is not. Engadget, Yahoo, iPhone review, it's something else. And I'm like, what? Thankfully, because we know the people at Yahoo, we can be like, what is going on? This [00:18:00]search is bonked. And then they're like, oh, let's fix it.

So they'll, they can fix it. To your point though, like Bing AI, Bing search is pretty useless still. I think we're going to get to this later in the episode too. But I think Google search, Is also getting worse and worse. I've seen this online for a very long time, right? Yeah. With the ads placements up top, with the shopping modules up top, with the top stories and the discover boxes up top, it used to be helpful.

Now it's just getting the actual results further down the page, the things that I actually want to do. I don't care what Google wants to put in front of my eyes. I want to go and look into the results myself, maybe because I was born in the eighties, but

Devindra: This is why I like, I'm not so chilling on this AI driven future because Google is forcing it at us.

Microsoft is the Google search right now. You will see generative AI stuff at the top, usually then sponsored topics and other ads and stuff, maybe Google shopping. And then towards the bottom, you get to the results you want. So all these things are making our. Computing experience is worse. And I wonder like there it's high time [00:19:00]for some sort of user revolt on this stuff.

Like we looked at one look at recall and we were like no, thank you. Not like this. And Microsoft had to scramble back into its cave and fix it. Society took one look at Google glass and was like, no, thank you. That's not going to fly right now. We are just not ready for this, but also there are so many problems with this tech.

I do think we're going to get see a lot more pushback now, personally,

Cherlynn: I will say to be contrary. And I will point out that in our chat, Lee Woods says they use Gemini advanced several times a day just to summarize articles. You're hoping that they figure out a way to integrate Gemini into the Chrome browser.

Look, I think summarize is could be one of the easiest, like the best things that I can do if it's accurate and reliable. And I think For a lot of people who've been trying out the Apple intelligence stuff on betas, they found notification summaries to be quite accurate and super helpful. Yeah. There are tools that are going to be helpful.

We're just going to figure out and weed out, you know, the bad from the good. Yeah.

Devindra: Yeah. I mean, it's all about how we use this information. [00:20:00]Yeah, notifications. You know, what sucks right now in modern life and modern computing life is notifications. Too many notifications solve that problem for me.

Thank you. Less of a problem. Is finding stuff on the internet, but also making it harder for me to find stuff on the internet because you want to sell me this service that you, Oh, I'm so glad you love Gemini Google. That's cool. Nice. Good for you, Google. I would just like to use Google. I would just like to use Google search.

So yes. There is a point where it's getting in our way and these companies care more about it than we do. And then I think there are companies that are being, trying to be a little more thoughtful. Apple is doing some of that. Microsoft is getting there with some of the Copilot plus AI features, but we shall see.

I don't want to sound like an old man shouting at the clouds, but sometimes when things are dumb and things are stupid, I think you have to be like, the emperor has no clothes here. You know, last year at that event, Trillian, I distinctly remember talking to Microsoft executives and being like, how can you have this thing, which you know, is not always accurate, is not [00:21:00] always correct.

How can it be the basis of all these new interactions that are going to be a big part of windows and they're just like, this is a learning experience. I think people will understand if we make mistakes, that's not. It's not how computers should work, folks. Like I don't, you don't want to calculate or to have a learning experience as you're trying to, you don't calculate a critical figure for you.

You want me to just do the specific task. And even Microsoft was unaware of that. We shall see how all this goes kind of related to this. We also saw the news that Microsoft is killing HoloLens too. And there's no plans for a followup device. It's going to be using I think I heard. That they may be going to Anduril's headsets.

Like they're going to be doing software for that for military uses or something, but essentially HoloLens is dead, which is funny to see after literally last week, Facebook was just like, this is the future of augmented reality computing. Here are Orion glasses. [00:22:00]We saw Snaps glasses. We saw Vision Pro last year.

It seems like finally this category is heating up and Microsoft's response is okay, no, thank you. No, once there's

Cherlynn:competition, we're out. Sorry.

Devindra: Yeah. I mean, it doesn't help. Remember the HoloLens guy, Alex Kipman, I believe was booted out of Microsoft for being kind of a dirt bag. Just like we, he was like a weird sexist horny guy who really liked his AR.

Glasses. So that was the story going around. He just did not make that team a really good environment. So if you lose the guy who's like leading that technology, that's one thing, but also if you have Facebook, if you have meta, who's willing to spend tens of billions of dollars to really get ahead and Apple, who's clearly thought harder about vision pro than I think Microsoft has about HoloLens when it comes to making a consumer product.

It just seems like Microsoft was here early, but it can't compete. This is such a pocket PC situation for Microsoft. They had some Hardaware, they had some ideas. This is a web TV moment, but. Ultimately, they just [00:23:00] couldn't make it work and that's a shame. I liked HoloLens too. Like they, if they were willing to, I think there is space for Microsoft to play here.

I don't know. Did you ever try a HoloLens too? Or do you

Cherlynn: have feelings

Devindra: around this? I,

Cherlynn: I can't remember if the one I tried was an old one or the two, the second, I believe it was the second gen and it was like an event in Times Square. It was one of those art events and they were really trying to steal it.

So I'm going to be talking about how you can sell the potential of HoloLens outside of industrial and workplaces. I mean, I remember when the first few demos of HoloLens were just so interesting, where you could use these hand gestures, you could like, collaborate with teammates on this virtual diagram or whatever.

And I got to say, like in the headset wars, right? I mean, everyone made their own. There was the Mirage, the Quest. I mean, the Quest obviously with Meta having bought them became kind of the front runner right now, in my opinion, for more consumer friendly devices but HoloLens did stick around for a while there as something that people used in like factories or like more industrial places and commercial uses, and it [00:24:00] definitely had.

Felt to me for a while that Microsoft won in that category, even if it was very niche. And like you said, the defense category is somewhere where they can probably make a lot of money out of, but I, it's sad to see that just as it's getting, you know, to a point where the race seems to be properly heating up that like Microsoft's no, we're good.

Thanks.

Devindra: No, thank you. Yeah, we're it's a little, it seems like you guys are far ahead of us right now. So we're just tapping out. I did a demo. If you go back and read about I think it was called Microsoft mesh, which was their like virtual meeting software. And they sent me a HoloLens too. And I sat here in my office and I had a group Call with Microsoft executives and like 10 other journalists.

And it felt like they were all just, we were all just sitting near each other, even though we were all at our own homes. It was like 2021 maybe. So pandemic was still like keeping people away from each other. And that's, it felt good. It felt like it worked. It wasn't super clunky, but the Hardaware was just too expensive and I [00:25:00]don't think they wanted to do the work to like really make that cheaper.

They also had the whole like, you know, Windows mixed reality stuff for them to try to get into VR, but that felt like a little too late. Because Oculus was doing stuff before HTC Vive was doing stuff before. So Microsoft was too late to VR, too early for AR. And now everybody else is just like trekking ahead for maybe in 10 years, we'll get like the true AR glasses that everybody's dreaming of.

And honestly, I also feel like we as a society are not ready for those either. But yeah, just kind of, kind of sad to see. So RIP HoloLens. Maybe the, They look so cool is the thing. I kind of do want one when they're like 50 bucks being thrown out in a couple of years, I would love a HoloLens just to put on my shelf, just like I have a Microsoft Kin.

I have both Microsoft Kin phones in a drawer somewhere.

Cherlynn: I continue to hold on to Engadget's Google glass. So I understand

Devindra: the aliens are going to find our drawers full of like old tech and be like, [00:26:00] well, no other humans have these things. Why do these people like, what is the story here? What happened here? Anyway. Yeah. A shame for HoloLens, but yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens.

Cherlynn: Maybe they'll come up with co pilot glass.

You know what I mean?

Devindra: They're going to do, they're going to work on integrations for everybody else. So that's the thing. Microsoft rather than. Being the platform being the Hardaware. They're gonna try to work with everybody else's stuff That's why we're seeing Xbox and quests and everything right now.

So yeah, just a shame to see and Let us know what you folks think I mean I feel like maybe just because I'm a 90s PC kid who grew up on Windows like I have an affinity for old Windows I think about the way it works a lot If you have thoughts about Microsoft's new trajectory Drop us an email at podcastsandgadget.

com.

All right, let's move on to some other news. We got some stuff from Amazon and, oh boy, [00:27:00] is this, Sherilyn, we make fun of Amazon for being really boring when it comes to Hardaware, except for like their crazy random stuff, this is a nothing burger of a news hit. We got a new Fire HD 8 tablet, everybody. It's slightly faster.

It has a better camera. It's still a fire HD eight. I guess the crazy thing is it is available for 55 on sale. If you go for the ads and everything. So that's not, that's pretty good for a tablet with just free to sit down and watch stuff and it's faster than before. So there's that, but also like they want to do AI stuff with it.

Sure. Okay. Of course. Everybody wants to do AI summaries and whatnot. Is there anything special about these tablets, Rowan?

Cherlynn: So to be clear, Amazon announced the Fire HD 8 and two variants, the HD 8 for kids and I think like Pro is the other version. Anyway Alongside the launch of the Fire HD 8, it also announced some AI features are coming with the HD 8, but we'll also be rolling out to compatible Kindle tablets that already have been in the market for a very long time.

So [00:28:00] I was most intrigued by that. I want to do clarify that the HD 8 normally will retail at 99. 99, so 100. And right now it's on sale up until the end of Prime Day, which is from today. I, I don't know if you've opened your Amazon app, you'll see the big ad October 8th, October 9th, Prime Day.

Yay. I guess we needed another one. And up until then, the HD eight will cost, I think closer to 50, I forget if it's 55, but like somewhere in that ballpark. Anyway, what did jump out at me when I saw the press release was A, this is not the Amazon Hardaware event we've been waiting to happen in October, right?

This is just a drop ahead of Prime Day. And B, the AI tools. So, I was looking at it, I was like, first thing that came to my mind, I was like, Have we heard of AI? Amazon's AI features like this because it was like writing summer. It was summaries, writing tools and that sort of stuff. Yeah. I was like, Oh, this might be our first look at Amazon's own AI for devices.

Right. We've heard about some of their chat [00:29:00] bots. We've heard about, you know, it's improvements coming to its voice based assistant, which I will not say the name of right now, but like this for devices is basically rehashing what we've seen before, except for with an Amazon spin. So the only thing that stood out at.

To me was that you can get the AI to generate new wallpapers for the tablet, which cool. I guess the Alcatel idol four could do that. You know, it's just so many Android's material. You to quote a more recent example. So nothing super groundbreaking. But the fact that it's going to be available on a cheaper device, the fact that it's coming to a tablet.

Just to recap, like last week Samsung had the its FE event where it said it was bringing Galaxy AI to all, right? Samsung hammered home the point that with its new Galaxy Tab S10 series, that now you've got Galaxy AI on a phone, a tablet, and a watch. It's, you know, Samsung. It's, quote, bringing its AI to all, I guess, form [00:30:00]factors.

And Tab S10 starts at, I want to say, 650, maybe 700. So it's, yes, it's coming to a different form factor, but it's not necessarily super accessible. And so now, if you want to get a cheap little tablet for your kids for 50, you can. can get one that has AI, or if your existing fire tablet, I have a list of what's compatible.

If you want to upgrade that software, you can also get access to Amazon's AI tools, which are basically like every other chat GPT clone we've seen in the last year and a half. And that just brings me back to the point we were making earlier in this episode that it's becoming more and more prevalent.

We don't know how people are going to use it, but now that more people are going to be able to use it and kids. Ostensibly using a lot of fire HD tablets. We got it. We're gonna start seeing people Mass adopt these I guess I don't know. That's where I'm at with. Yeah.

Devindra: Yeah I mean, it's compelling because these are such cheap tablets.

I don't know about like base model You're giving up a [00:31:00] lot by staring at those Amazon ads folks, but it's hard to deny The usefulness of a 55, eight inch tablet. The kids stuff is cool because they keep saying first of all, there's ad free content, their parental controls. Amazon says that they are going to, they will still replace those tablets if they break, which is like the number one nightmare for a parent.

It's that. Tablets are just screens, like giant screens with glass, and they will be destroyed by your kids. The kids version of the E Fire HD puts them in a nice protective case. They have this guarantee from Amazon, so you feel a little better about it. I still have not done this for my kids.

Like we, I basically buy iPads on sale. I buy old iPads on sale and that's really what we've used as a family. So my son is using an iPad from like 2017 with a cracked screen, but that's what he uses, like in the car, if he needs to watch a video or something. My daughter has a 10 inch, one of the more recent 10 inch iPads.

But we, she wants to play Minecraft. She wants to play like a games from Apple arcade. And you can't, you are very limited [00:32:00] in what you get in a Fire tablet. These are sLowr machines. They have a limited library of games. They can't access all the apps that Android tablets can too, because of the Google stuff is not included.

So just be aware of what you're losing with a cheap tablet. That's all.

Cherlynn: Yeah. And that's why they're good for, I guess, kids, but to Dpro9's point in the chat, this is e waste right out the gate. Yeah,

Devindra: kind of, kind of. No, you're

Cherlynn: not wrong. I don't, I can't argue.

Devindra: It's a digital catalog. For buying stuff on Amazon, also for watching stuff on Amazon prime.

That's really what they want you to be doing. And then, oh, by the way, it can also do Netflix. It can also do these other things, but they just, they care about their own stuff. I

Cherlynn: see. I see the appeal of it being like a cheaper Kindle with a not great screen. And I can only imagine what a summary AI tool on a Kindle book might do.

Like it's not, I think, going to work with Kindle titles, but one day, Final Evolution, don't read books. Just read these AI summaries. I mean,

Devindra: the AIs can already summarize books. So I do. Yeah. [00:33:00]I don't know if you'll get it all within text, but it'll, they'll do it through the cloud or whatever. And then who needs to read who needs to really engage with content and wrestle with complex moral choices like just let's Smooth brain all the way AI brain means no tough choices for any of us And that's where we're going as a society.

Love it. Love to see it

Cherlynn: I will point out that a person in our chat. I think it was I've missed it, but you pointed out that you were you're doing your master's Tom Rogers or Someone that you're using the Kindle scribe and that's the like Tablet that Amazon makes you can write on which like this week, you know We are also gonna talk about a bit more about writing tablets.

And I think For me, that's where Amazon's Hardaware is still intriguing. And to be clear, no new Kindle has yet been announced this year season slash whatever. So we could still be waiting to see stuff from Amazon. And I wonder what would happen if they decided to stuff AI into a Kindle. Like I have no clue.

Devindra: It's mainly the [00:34:00] ink technology that keeps Kindles the price that they are. They occasionally go down, but they, those do not have super fast processors. Those are like really like basic devices. I would imagine they could easily get some cloud AI stuff. So like cloud source, Hey, some interesting topics that, you know, that these people have, or also when you go on Amazon now, you get AI crowdsourced user reviews.

I can imagine that being a thing. In the kindle like store when you're browsing around. Yeah,

Cherlynn: I could see that I could see also with the kindle scribe Like I said being a writing or drawing tablet like they could not only give you prompts for drawing. They could also Start an outline for you teach you calligraphy or teach you show like I used When I was reviewing the Kindle scribe originally, I used it a lot for Japanese, you're not going to practice.

So like handwriting practice for a different language. I could see if AI would just generate worksheets for me. That would be interesting. Hire me, Amazon. I will think of these ideas for you. That would be actually useful.

Devindra: I don't think [00:35:00] you want to work with Amazon. No, I don't know very few people don't work at Amazon.

I want to point out a thank you, Mark Dell for this wonderful comment, because it also fits into a bunch of things. But he says somebody needs to make an AI pin that just listens to everything and makes every decision in your life. Perfect. For those who are bad at decision making, it'll be the last decision you ever make.

That is a black mirror episode just waiting to happen. That certainly is going to be a thing. Also, Yeah shout out to the Yorgos Lanthimos movie, Kinds of Kindness, which is sort of about that too, which is sort about the idea that humans, we kind of all just want to let go a little bit and let people make decisions for us and then be like little subservient little slobs.

So depending on your view of humanity, you don't even need AI for that. You just need you just need a Dom to basically build your entire life. Let's move on to some other news. How about that?

Cherlynn: Did you see, did Sonos stuff,

Devindra: Sherilyn?

Cherlynn: I did not, but please explain to me. I mean, I saw it floating around and I kind of [00:36:00] have the TLDR, but I'd love to hear your details.

The

Devindra: TLDR is that Sonos released an app overhaul earlier this year. It was supposed to be a big redesign for them and it was a disaster. It was buggy. It crashed a lot. I honestly had trouble like connecting to my speakers properly. It lost features, including things like setting alarms that the original app did.

Disaster. Like literally Sonos, your only job is to give us the software to send music to your speakers. That's all you have to do. And what came out is that basically Sonos is a company that's been sitting on a lot of technical technical debt over the last few years. So there's a lot of stuff.

The old app was. Basically built on a lot of things and there were things they never cleaned up. The kind of underlying technology is something they never cleaned up. As Sonos was racing ahead to launch this app, a lot of people inside the company were complaining about it and kind of raised the alarms and saying this is not up to snuff, we should not release this.

And people were ignored. People were kind of bullied for even bringing up issues. So [00:37:00] that's a great corporate environment that you want to see. And now Sonos is at the point where they're just like fully fully. Apologizing and basically saying that they're going to do everything it can to fix this.

So, the quota here is our priority since its release has been and continues to be fixing the app. There were missteps and we first went in, went deep to understand how we got here and then moved to convert those learnings into action. I love when everybody said, anybody says learnings, by the way. Such wonderful corporate speak.

The quote continues. We are committed to making changes to get us back to being the brand people love by offering the best audio system for the home and beyond. And the quote I believe the Sono CEO so they're saying they're going to do a lot of changes. They're going to do a lot more testing.

And they're extending the manufacturer warranty for all home speaker products, including home theater gear and plug in speakers. I saw the news that the CEO is also declining to take a bonus this year, which is like the least you could do. You're still going to get paid millions, tens of millions of dollars.

Cherlynn: Rejecting this little bonus on top of my multi million dollar salary. Okay.

Devindra: Yeah. But at least [00:38:00] it's more than most CEOs do often when a company screws up, either somebody gets fired but rarely is somebody like, Hey, like I'm just going to take a direct hit for this. So, Hey, that's something good to see.

I would love to know what your stories are. With with Sonos speakers at this point, folks, I still use them, but it's stuff for sometimes I'm within Spotify and I like to send audio from Spotify straight to Sonos that's hit or miss these days. The Sonos app itself is still all over the place. I still like Sonos speakers cause they sound so much better than a lot of them in the actual networking.

The actual synchronization stuff is great. But just kind of a mess. I feel like they should discount some of these things. Be aware of the ARC whatever the new headphones are too. That was kind of the thing they were rebuilding the app for. And

Cherlynn: the

Devindra: ACE headset. Yeah. Those also don't seem like they're really worth buying at all too.

So check out our review of that whole thing. Yeah, Sonos is still keeping it real, I guess, trying to fix all these mistakes. You have something you want to mention from [00:39:00]Google, Cherlynn. Yeah, just a

Cherlynn: really quick bunch of news from Google. There was this is like a drive by recap, really, because the stuff that I want to talk about apparently isn't happening yet.

Gmail is getting better summaries, and Google is adding a happening soon tab to its Gmail service. I like that. I mean, like sometimes Google has really improved Gmail. Like I think Inbox was an app we all loved for a time and then they killed it. But the Inbox was really where they surfaced a lot of these good features.

Oh, there's a pack you know, like notification. You say

Devindra: we all very broadly, but it was certainly, I mean, the people

Cherlynn: online at that time,

Devindra: I remember Inbox. being launched. I'm like, what the hell is this? This was like when Google had 10 different video conferencing apps and couldn't decide on it either.

So I was mainly confused by Inbox, but yes, those designs did come over to main email. Yeah.

Cherlynn: I think there were some really interesting features that debuted on Inbox. And then finally when they did get integrated into Gmail and then, you know, cohesively bringing all of them into one app is the choice to make.

I agree with that. I just think there was some [00:40:00] nostalgia for Inbox. I still see online sometimes. Anyway. I mean, I like when like for example, last two weekends ago or something like that, I was watching James McAvoy movie that I cannot remember the title of anymore. Speak No Evil or something?

Devindra: Yeah.

Cherlynn: Okay I bought the ticket on an iPhone and had a Pixel 9 Pro next to me. Both had their SIM cards in them. And the Pixel 9 Pro had the SIM card. Tickets just like the instant I hit pay and it pulled up the tickets on Google pay because gmail was so good at parsing the receipt That I got in my inbox and just pulling that information.

I mean, yeah, it's a little creepy, but it's also very convenient for me whereas like You know, other features like track your packets, there's an event in this email, I will add it to your calendar that sort of stuff is really helpful in Gmail. And honestly, I think it's not a bad thing. I don't know if there's a net loss overall in terms of security and privacy, but we'll see.

So anyway Google also updated its Chrome Plus Chromebook Plus Slate of products this [00:41:00] week. Go to Engadget. com for all the details. Nate covered it for us, but yeah, I mean, as we continue to see all the big companies fight it out over AI it's nice to, you know, I guess, see what else is being put out there.

Devindra: That's something. I mean, it's also, I guess we're still waiting for are we waiting for like a Google Hardaware event again?

Cherlynn: No, thank God. I hope to God. No, if they did, I would be very upset.

Devindra: I mean, looking forward, we were waiting for possibly an iPad event slash Mac book event from Apple. Something more from Amazon.

Cherlynn: Exactly. I'm just waiting on Amazon.

Devindra: It's a whole bunch of that. There was a cool story. Did you see this one? It's really about a pair of students put facial recognition technology onto meta smart glasses basically to instantly dox strangers. They're not going to be releasing this code. This is more of like a project they did to prove what is possible.

And things that, that basically are kind of trivial to add to something like smart glasses. Did you see the story?

Cherlynn: I saw the headline, but what you're describing sounds a lot like that black mirror contact lens situation, right? Where you like scan people face [00:42:00] recognition and immediately pull up their like profile info.

There are social network and it's not just black mirror, right? It's a lot of science fiction movies have done that, but yeah, I, that's what it sounds like they're doing. I don't know if I'm mistaken.

Devindra: So essentially like they, it looks like it's going through the glasses, but also going straight to the information is going to a smartphone.

We're actually seeing it too. So you're kind of getting more information there. I will say there is a certain. Especially from a company like Meta, which I'm sure has looked at this stuff. Like we have all your, we have all your friends. We know who your friends are. We have all these databases of faces and names.

So we have that information too. I'm sure once Meta is ready to do like true AR stuff, this is going to be something that they do. I also think, and I think I learned this later in life is that I'm probably a little face blind. I used to think I was just bad at remembering people. But I personally think Oh, I have, I genuinely have a problem like deconstructing a face, unless you're somebody with like really distinctive [00:43:00] hair or something like that, or like a really distinctive face, things just kind of blur together for me.

So just professionally, I could see it being kind of useful or socially, I guess. So I see the uses, but yeah.

Cherlynn: Like that scene in Devil Wears Prada where like Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt are instructing, walking out to her. That's your like nightmare.

Devindra: Which is which?

Cherlynn: Yeah, but then like with the glasses, you never have to worry maybe, but again, AI has to be like reliable.

What if it recognizes, what if AI is also face blind and it's this is the governor or of, I guess, I don't know, Minnesota. I think I already

Devindra: know to distrust my brain when it comes to faces. So now it's just okay, you're just helping. Maybe I distrust you a little bit too, but you probably. You are probably better than me at some of

Cherlynn: this stuff.

However, to be clear, it's not as if Emily Blunt was all that reliable in the movie as well. Anita and Hathaway, the update pack to help her. So we, that's

Devindra: a great movie.

Cherlynn: You know, I saw that in

Devindra: theaters. It's a great movie. Anyway, this is a story from 404media. So yeah, check them [00:44:00] out at 404media. co. Love their work and love that they picked this whole thing up.

I also love to see like students doing this sort of work because this is what you want to see people doing, like not being like, I can't wait till I get a job at Google or Meta or wherever, but also taking this technology and like pushing it to its limits and like showing what is possible and what could be dangerous about it too.

So this is super cool. Did you have any thoughts, Cherlynn? Cause I know you went to talk about this before, but Reddit's policy changes to make site wide protests nearly impossible. We saw this story float up too. Kind of interesting there. Maybe a little disappointing from Reddit. Yeah.

Cherlynn: I am a chronic Reddit.

So I am

Devindra: as well. Yeah.

Cherlynn: Yeah.

Devindra: Yeah.

Cherlynn: When I'm not playing match factory, I am trying to rot my brain by doom scrolling Reddit, and I know that Reddit has had a lot of issues recently too that's got a lot of us up in arms. There was like that, that, you know, what is it called? Boycott. Thank you.

There

was a boycott last year or earlier this year.[00:45:00]

Time is a blur, but there was a boycott earlier because Reddit was being just. Awful. And, but now today or this week, I guess on Monday it, Made it harder to site wide protest. Basically it's changed his rules so that moderators of subreddits need admin approval to switch it from public to private.

It is, that's one of the rules that's being changed and is being interpreted as a way to kind of curb subreddits from protesting and, you know, have being able to do so all at once. Multiple subreddits cannot all go private at once without Reddit. Admin approval. It is very strange. It feels as if this was related to the protest from last year because a post on subreddit, our mod news written by the VP of community said the ability to instantly change community type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules in the past.

Right. So. It seems as if this could be one of the [00:46:00] reasons. It's only,

Devindra: yeah, I mean, Reddit, a site which is full of content that is created by the company Reddit, right? Fully editorialized content from edit. No, Reddit is a company that exists because people love to just post their own stuff. You exist because of the users.

So now they're afraid of the users, basically. This is what this is showing once again,

Cherlynn: there's a lot of other issues with reddit recently. I mean, the fact that the initial protest was in reaction to the API changes that forced third party apps to shut down. That also led to a lot of accessibility problems.

And then the company during those. The boycott just went in and took complete control of one of the big subreddits that had participated and then also recently licensed its content to train AI models So red has been making a lot of missteps lately. This seems one of the more recent ones anyway, it won't I don't think stop people from protesting in creative ways for me [00:47:00] My funny reaction to this is people will just keep posting more pictures of Sexy John Oliver.

That's it.

Devindra: Flood the zone. Flood the zone with Sexy John Oliver. I've also started doom scrolling Reddit, Cherlynnn, because sometimes it's or Twitter is terrible, especially when it gets I still see random right wing ads on Twitter, but it's also, that's where my friends are, so that's why I can never fully leave Twitter.

Blue sky is kind of up its own butt sometimes with some of those users and Mastodon is fine, but it's just the tech nerds. Like I don't have as like engaging conversations there. So sometimes you just want to like the internet as it was somebody asking, am I the asshole? Like that's,

Cherlynn: am I overreacting?

Am I overreacting?

Devindra: It's okay, that's addictive stuff, but it's all user generated content. And that is the danger. Reddit, when you build your entire company. I. On contributions from your users. So at some point, yeah,

Cherlynn: just a quick note too, that I don't actually think a lot of the advice given on Reddit is good.

Like some of them like default to run and I'm like what are you reading? Two paragraphs and deciding that this person's entire life is boiled down to one word. Stop, [00:48:00] but Reddit is also a very fun place. Like I just, I enjoy a lot of the inside jokes. Some of them get a little overused and stale, but.

It is a very fun thing. It is a thing.

Devindra: And also we've talked about how Reddit has basically taken over parts of the internet where rather than googling questions often like people just search in Reddit to learn how to fix something. Yes, exactly. Often when I'm googling things, like I end up going back to Reddit threads because that's what Google indexes.

Yes. Yes, exactly. Because there's

Cherlynn: multiple people with different expertise going in and giving you the answer on something and maybe one answer is wrong, but some other answer below is probably correct. We should talk more

Devindra: about Reddit at some point.

Cherlynn: We really could. I love Reddit.

Devindra: Alright, let's move on to some stories from around Engadget.

And speaking of writing on e paper, Mr. Daniel Cooper wrote about the Remarkable Paper Pro. It's a color ink tablet that you can write on. It seems super cool. Are you, and he gave it, he scored it 90. Hehehehe. So that's pretty high. The only thing is this thing is super expensive. So I think that's the main problem here, but the actual tech, like color ink is something I feel like [00:49:00] we've been waiting for a long time.

Price, let me hear it's 579 with the standard marker, 629. If you want the marker plus, and you can add a case for 89 and the leather one for 179. So this is a very expensive e ink tablet. Are you compelled by this, Cherlynn?

Cherlynn: That was the first thing I told Dan after I finished editing his review. I was like, I want to buy one of these and I might have to save up for it.

Yeah, 570. I look, I am a Kindle scribe user. I pick it up once a month to jot down my thoughts. Do I think once a month of scribbles is worth 570 as a starting price? I don't know, but it's cool as hell. And it's a, this, one of the pitches and one of the reasons we gave it a high score is that it is a distraction free writing tablet, right?

It's again, like the ink tablets, like the remarkable, like the Kindle scribe you know, books, I guess is another competitor. You don't have that. It's not as easy to just go over to Reddit, right. And in a minute. As it would be on a regular tablet. So [00:50:00]that's appealing. I think Dan was a little nervous about giving such a high score because, you know, it's not a tablet, it's limited in functionality but in its category, I think Dan firmly believes this is the best.

And for me, it's like a 90 means it is the best in this category. I can

Devindra: firmly also see Dan, lovely, funny, British man, just really quaking in his boots about this course. Oh man, is this, am I showing too much emotion here? Is this too effusive for me?

Cherlynn: I will say he was wavering between 89 I was like, no, the only difference here is that we give it a different color award.

Devindra: Yeah. Yeah. But I'm glad. I'm glad Dan likes it. It looks, I've looked at the remarkable stuff for a long time. Does this one also require a subscription? Because that was like a sticking point for me before.

Cherlynn: So, Dan doesn't mention the subscription in his review. And that is a good point. He does mention that the software has been meticulously fine tuned to make it easy Kindle scribe.

I will point out that Amazon has done a [00:51:00] lot of good hard work to improve some of its syncing over the year or months. It's been like six years since I reviewed the Kindle scribe so that like you can now, you know, sync your notes across your Amazon app toting devices, but you can, it's editing them is still tricky.

I don't know. It's not an easy space to be in. Let's say

Devindra: yeah. Oh, I see. So the subscription is required for clouds thinking. That is like a requirement for me. If I have something like this, like I want to be able to access my digital notes anywhere. So

Cherlynn: anywhere, exactly.

Devindra: Put that into the price too.

But I've been intrigued by the remarkables for so long. And this one is just like the dream of color ink. We're almost there. It's super expensive, but it does exist. So. That is, that's super cool. Yeah. Maybe we'll all get to play with it at some point. Also want to shout out Mr. Team Stevens has written a test drive for us of the Polestar 3.

They're a long awaited SUV. They're it's a compact SUV. But it's like a flagship one for Polestar. I'm sort of intrigued by this too, because Polestar is sort of like a sister brand to [00:52:00]Volvo and I'm into like what all the Volvos are right now. Tim also did the Volvo EX90 video for us a couple of weeks ago or months ago.

That's also worth checking out, but this one looks really cool. If you want a premium luxury electric, have you driven an electric car yet? She'll end. Cause I know you're in the process of learning how to drive.

Cherlynn: Oh, I don't know. Electric. I've driven plenty of gas cars, electric fuels.

Devindra: I feel like we get to record that video of just you, like having that experience of the instant torque.

And it feels real different. Things can go bad really quickly with an electric car.

Cherlynn: Yeah.

Devindra: We shall see. We gotta get Trillian on video. That should be a video series at any gadget. That'd be cool. That

Cherlynn: might be, yeah. It can happen. Anytime.

Devindra: All right, let's move on to what we're working on. I reviewed the Asus ZenBook S14, the new one with Intel's Lunar Lake AI chips.

Really liked it. So it's a nice laptop. I wish we had more access to the to the Copilot plus features that it, that update is not fully out yet. So I can't test recall. I can't test all those things, but this is sort of Copilot [00:53:00] ready. It is a nice piece of Hardaware. They're using like a weird ceramic metallic top two at the top of the lid, which I think feels good, looks unique and yeah.

Just really dig it. So pretty solid ultra portable. We're going to have a whole slate of like really decent laptops coming soon. So looking forward to that. Anything you want to shout out, Cherlynn?

Cherlynn: We just continue to plan for upcoming events and reviews. Not a lot of gadgets will be coming in. We just can't really talk about a lot of them yet.

And then I'm hopeful that I'll be taking some time off in October. All right. Maybe you might not hear me for a couple of episodes on the podcast. I know. It's always every time I put requests for a time off, it's always like maybe a tentative request. Cause the only reason, it's not that my team doesn't want me to go off, it's the tech companies that are like, surprise event.

And there goes my, like I could still take it off.

Devindra: Yeah. All right. Let's move on to our pop culture picks for the week. What do you have, Cherlynn?

Cherlynn: So mine's not so much a pop culture pick as a just like general life tip. And not anything that should surprise anyone. So I've been [00:54:00]spending a lot of time watching YouTube more than anything.

So I think I sort of already talked about this. The last time I was on that I canceled Hulu just cause it was getting way too expensive. And I also already have Disney plus. And then, you know, watching more YouTube, I paid for YouTube premium. So that's something that, you know, as a piece of advice that everyone's been giving YouTube premium is actually a pretty good, solid thing to pay for.

So much stuff to watch

Devindra: basically. Yeah,

Cherlynn: exactly. There's a lot to watch by creators, but also even from you know, filmmakers that are Hollywood titles out there. There's I was watching, bring it on the other day again for the 300th time on YouTube. But I don't really generally like to like recommend things that we cover.

So I tried to stay away but we have a really good. necessarily cover this. I just recently started a course on Coursera. It's the, I can't remember if it's the Harvard course or the Yale course, but one of the IVs, they have a course on psychology. So it's intro to psychology. So far I'm really enjoying it.

I think yeah. This program was designed very nicely. [00:55:00] The modules are a mix of recommended readings on the internet, and they're all free by the way, but also these like specially created videos by the academic institution itself and the lecturer who teaches the course at Yale, they've combined it with this voice, a transcript, as well as these animations that make it very digestible.

So I really liked that. And I think. My tip isn't Coursera specifically, but it's more like lifelong learning. I think you're never too old to keep learning. And it's so much more information's available out there, whether it be YouTube or Coursera or any number of learning platforms, I have been finding it really fascinating to dive into those.

So instead of, you know, and I'm not binge watching.

Devindra: You're doing something constructive with your time. First of all, Trillian, of course, for you to relax. You give yourself schoolwork. You're literally assigning yourself homework. So this says a lot about when I'm

Cherlynn: not, when I'm not doom scrolling, read it to learn about people or playing match factory.

I am sitting on the toilet on Coursera. So you're doing fantasy

Devindra: schooling [00:56:00] right now because you just miss the homework and the pressure and everything. It's great. But I agree. You never stop learning. I watch a lot of documentaries on YouTube. I, this is, I've just been like consuming stuff over audible more now too.

So like I found like nonfiction books are work really well for me over audible. So that's been a good way to digest a lot of that stuff. I'm glad you're digging this Shrillen. I'm glad it's been helpful for you, but yeah, I cannot get over, of course this is how Shrillen is unwinding. She's just giving herself more work.

Overachiever

Cherlynn: vibes. Yes. Overachiever

Devindra: vibes. Totally. Speaking of overachievers, I feel like you should go to the theater and check out Megalopolis, which is the Yeah,

Cherlynn: I have been wanting to. Yeah.

Devindra: Because this movie is kind of a, it is a spectacular disaster of a film, but it's also like a very singular, weird type of thing.

It's a Francis Ford Coppola movie that we've been waiting for decades, literally decades, he's been talking about. Yeah. He has spent, I think, 120 million of his own money to make this thing happen. This is a movie about a man who's trying to build a magical utopian city because he thinks [00:57:00] his country, or New Rome, his city, is kind of falling apart, like America today, and New Rome is also New York, and the imagery is all really blunt, the performances are all over the place, but it is kind of fun to watch.

Just how wild it is. Like Adam driver stars is essentially a Robert Moses stand in this architect who is destroying parts of the city to build his utopia built with a new new material. He discovered children. It's called Megalon. It's a living, it's a living building material. Isn't that.

Something. This movie is just all over the place. Tonally performance wise. Aubrey Plaza is in it as a character named Wow Platinum. She is a financial journalist slash broadcaster, and she's also bringing her like her, like spunkiness to this. I enjoy the interesting people to cast less a fan of it.

Like bringing people like Shia LaBeouf, who I don't want to see on movie screens anymore because he's a piece of garbage, but. The movie itself, like you have Lawrence Fishburne monologuing also working as like the assistant to Adam driver. [00:58:00] His voice just lends so much gravitas to this. It is a big, dumb thing.

That is it is a wild swing is a wild performance swing. I think for theater kids. I think maybe for you too, Cherlynn, like, I, I think you fit within the theater kid mold, but

Cherlynn: I'm kind of a theater kid. It is,

Devindra: it is very much within that. It's a wild swing about Oh, society is crumbling and what can save it?

Maybe one genius man. If we just follow him, maybe this could be it. At one point Adam driver does the, to be or not to be soliloquy and just. Does the whole thing because he does that to prepare, like it's a thing he does to get into his acting mode. And I think at one point, Francis Ford Coppola was like, yeah, we're just going to keep it in the movie.

We're just kidding. You're walking around the set. The to be or not to be has nothing to do. With what is actually happening in the movie, he likes, he liked it. So they kept it in this movie is all over the place. It's not going to, it's doing terribly in theaters. It may go away soon, but it sure is a spectacular thing to watch on a big [00:59:00]screen.

And yeah, talk about overachievers, like Mr. Francis Ford Coppola, who, you know, was tasked to do the Godfather at the age of 29. He was a really young man when he started working on that movie to make some of the best movies ever made and then to. Basically have a really weird late stage career where he is continually trying to reinvent cinema.

This is his big dream project. It's a mess, but it is it's not boring, you know, it is a really interesting thing to see. You can see clips of the performances. Just a thing I'll recommend, especially if you have time and you want to see like a wildly ambitious thing. Something I do think you'll showing, because I know you've watched anime in the past and you're a fan.

There is a new show that everybody's been waiting for. It's called Dan Da Dan. It is premiering today, or yeah, it's premiering today on Netflix and Crunchyroll. This show is like watching FLCL for the first time. It is just a big dose of wild anime energy. It's crazy. It is about, it's about two high school kids, a girl who [01:00:00]believes in ghosts and doesn't believe in aliens and a boy who believes in aliens and doesn't believe in ghosts.

I think I talked about this last week too, but I wanted to recommend it to you specifically Sherwin. Wild anime. I've I'm going to check out more episodes. The animation is fantastic. It's from Science Saru. But mainly for you, Cherlynn, because we did talk about this before. It is fantastic stuff.

I also finished season two of Interview with the Vampire, which is also good stuff. Amazing stuff. And I'll talk more about that. And I'll try to convince Cherlynn to watch that series to see some what is on Netflix right now.

Cherlynn: Well, that's it for the episode. This week, we're 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, Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Elman. You can find DRA online at

Devindra: Oh yeah, I'm at DRA on Twitter, mastodon blue sky, all over the place.

I'm also talk about movies and TV at the film cast. At the film cast.com.

Cherlynn: If you have any great ideas for what actually useful things AI can do, you can send [01:01:00] them to me. I can take credit for them and pitch them to the big companies. I'm at Cherlynn Low on Twitter or X. C H E R L Y N L O W I am at Cherlynn's Instagram on threads.

You can also email, um, Cherlynn at engadget. com. Email us your thoughts about this show at podcast at engadget. com or any questions really you have that you want us to answer. Leave us a review, please, on your podcast platform of choice and subscribe anywhere you get podcasts.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/engadget-podcast-why-the-windows-11-2024-update-is-all-about-copilot-ai-113026863.html?src=rss
35.
The Morning After: Samsung’s latest software update was bricking older Galaxy phones
October 4, 2024  11:24:37

I'd be cautious with your software updates if you’ve got a Galaxy phone with a 2019 vintage. An update rolling out from Samsung is reportedly bricking devices from the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 series of phones. 9to5Google reported some users had the same issue with Galaxy M51 and A90 models. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ are five years old, running Android 12 and circling an age where they may not support updates.

Affected devices were apparently trapped in a bootloop and could not fully turn back on. Don’t factory reset your device, though, as you’ll lose data. 

Was this a dark plot to force you to buy a new Galaxy foldable? No. Samsung has now pulled the update and shared a newer version (2.2.03.1) without the issue — make sure you check that update number.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, claiming the company violated a new child privacy law in the state. It’ll be the first test of Texas’ Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act. It requires social media platforms to verify the ages of younger users and offer parental control features, including the ability for parents to opt their children out of data collection.

Paxton alleges TikTok’s existing parental control features are insufficient, lacking “parental tools that allow them to control or limit most of a known minor’s privacy and account settings.”

Continue reading.

Starting on October 15, YouTube is increasing Shorts video limits from one to three minutes. For reference, TikTok, arguably its biggest competitor, has allowed users to share 10-minute videos for over two years. The company is working on letting you pull clips from across YouTube through the Shorts camera and make remix clips. If Shorts aren’t your thing, it will also be easier to skip them as YouTube is introducing a tool to show fewer Shorts, although this is only temporary.

Continue reading.

TMA
NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a supernova three times, at three different periods during its explosion, in one image. The image could help scientists better understand how fast the universe is expanding. One image, above, captures a streak of light with three distinct dots that appear brighter than the rest of it. As Dr Brenda Frye from the University of Arizona explained, those dots correspond to an exploding white dwarf star. It is also gravitationally lensed — there's a cluster of galaxies between here and the star, which bent the supernova’s light into multiple images.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-112437965.html?src=rss
36.
Apple will reportedly debut its in-house 5G modem with the iPhone SE 4
October 4, 2024  10:30:23

Bloomberg recently reported that Apple is close to releasing an updated iPhone SE, which will be its first update to the low-end model since 2022. According to 9to5Mac, Apple is also planning to use the phone as a launching pad for its in-house 5G modems. The company purchased the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business for $1 billion back in 2019 after taking steps to be more self-reliant and aggressively recruiting staff to make that happen. But it has yet to release devices that use the modems designed by its internal team.

Apple and Qualcomm have somewhat of a complicated history. Qualcomm sued Apple in 2017, accusing it of violating its patents related to its phones' ability to quickly connect to the internet after they're switched on, as well as patents related to battery efficiency, graphics processing and apps' capability to download data faster. They eventually settled their patent dispute after Apple agreed to pay Qualcomm royalties and to enter a six-year licensing deal, as well as a multi-year wireless chipset supply deal.

At the moment, Apple still equips its devices with Qualcomm-made 5G modems. Qualcomm also announced last year that it will continue providing modems to Apple until 2026. It's possible that Apple wants to put its in-house modem to the test with just one iPhone first before it puts its technology in more devices.

The iPhone SE 4 will look similar to the iPhone 14 (pictured above), 9to5Mac says, and will be powered by an A18 chip with 8GB of RAM that will make it possible for it to have some Apple Intelligence features. It will reportedly feature Face ID and will no longer have a home button like previous iPhone SEs, and the device will apparently have the iPhone 15's 48MP wide camera and 12MP front cam. The iPhone SE 4 is expected to be unveiled next year, possibly sometime in the spring. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-will-reportedly-debut-its-in-house-5g-modem-with-the-iphone-se-4-103023682.html?src=rss
37.
The best budget Android phone for 2024
October 4, 2024  09:00:36

The best budget Android phones are great ways to get all the essentials you want in a handset without breaking the bank. While flagship phones often steal the spotlight with their flashy features and high price tags, there’s no shortage of Android phones that deliver great performance at a fraction of the cost. In fact, Android’s vast ecosystem offers something for everyone, whether you’re looking for a high-end device or one of the best cheap phones on the market.

If you're not keen on shelling out for an Apple iPhone or one of the latest flagship phones, budget Android options can offer everything you need from solid cameras to impressive battery life and snappy performance. These phones may not have all the bells and whistles you’ll find on phones that cost hundreds more, but for most people, they’re more than enough to handle daily tasks, stream videos and stay connected.

We tend to define a budget phone as costing between $150 and $350. Any lower and the device runs the risk of suffering from too many compromises, and above that, you cross over to pricier midrange handsets (if you're open to spending more, we shouted out a couple of our favorites at the very end of this guide).

But for those with a little wiggle room, there are some things to consider. For example, a child may be better off with a cheaper device, especially if it’s intended mainly for emergencies or texting parents (and not social media). On the higher end of this price spectrum, sub-$350 phones have come a long way thanks to improved performance, better cameras with low-light capabilities, fast charging, and nicer displays like AMOLED panels. This makes them a viable alternative to, say, a flagship handset with a premium design, even if you have the flexibility to spend more.

When it comes to cheap phones, you get what you pay for. Most smartphones in this price range are made out of plastic, though the fit and finish of a specific model can vary a lot based on price. A bright screen is also important. Typically you’ll get LCD panels with a 60Hz or 90Hz refresh rate, but some phones may have OLED or AMOLED screens with increased color saturation. Long battery life is critical as well, so we tend to favor devices with larger power cells of around 5,000 mAh. In this price range, performance can vary a lot, so look for devices with at least 8GB of RAM and processors that can deliver stutter-free visuals. It’s also important to consider support length: as periodic security updates and lengthy software support can extend the longevity of your device, which will save you money in the long run.

iPhones tend to be more expensive compared to Android phones — even the cheapest iPhone, the iPhone SE, which starts from $429, is a harder pill to swallow compared to a cheap Android phone. In contrast, you can get your hands on a cheap Android device for as low as $100.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/best-budget-android-phone-160029327.html?src=rss
38.
The best Windows laptops for 2024
October 4, 2024  07:00:38

Choosing the best Windows laptop can be overwhelming with the wealth of options available. And with Microsoft's recent announcements at Microsoft Build, we can expect lots of exciting things coming out in the next few months as more Copilot PCs become available. Whether you need a premium ultraportable, a powerful gaming rig, or a versatile mobile workstation, our current list of the best Windows laptops highlights our favorites that have been rigorously tested by our team. You may even find a Windows laptop that suits you better than an Apple MacBook if you’re looking to make the switch. For those on a budget, check out our list of the best cheap Windows laptops to find great options that won't break the bank.

The challenge when thinking about performance is figuring out your sweet spot. That’s because while a Microsoft Windows laptop with blazing speed is nice, you may be paying for more oomph than you need. But if you skimp and get a weak processor, even simple tasks can become a chore and you might end up in a situation where you need to upgrade again sooner than you’d like. Thankfully, many laptops come in multiple configurations at the point of purchase. You can opt for a model with more processing power or discrete graphics, for example, if you want to do more than just web browsing. Good performance is more than just clockspeeds too, so we also consider things like fast wake times, storage speeds, multitasking and more advanced features like support for ray tracing, especially when a high-end graphics card is involved.

Regardless of whether a notebook has a touchscreen or a more traditional panel, we look for bright displays (300+ nits or more) that are easy use outdoors or in sunny rooms, accurate colors and wide viewing angles. Screens with high refresh rates are great for competitive gamers, while those with wider color gamuts are important for content creation and video editing. And even if you don’t plan on spending a ton of time on video calls, every laptop needs a decent webcam (1080p or higher).

Even with advancements in cellular modems and WiFi, dedicated ports for transferring data or connecting peripherals can make or break a laptop. Ideally, all but the thinnest and lightest systems come with three USB ports, while things like built-in SD card readers can be extremely handy when trying to import media from a camera. And if a notebook is saddled with a slow or outdated WiFi modem (we’re looking for Wi-Fi 6 or later), that’s basically an immediate disqualification.

It doesn’t matter how powerful a laptop is if it conks out when you need it the most. Typically we look for runtimes of at least eight hours on a charge, but when it comes to good battery life, longer is always better. That said, on gaming machines with thirsty graphics cards, you may have to settle for a bit less. And on bigger machines, it’s also important to consider if the system can charge via USB-C or if it needs a larger, proprietary power brick.

The main difference between a Windows laptop and a Chromebook lies in their operating systems. Windows laptops run on Microsoft’s Windows OS, whereas Chromebooks use Google’s Chrome OS.

Aside from using different operating systems, performance is one of the major differences between a Windows laptop and a Chromebook. Windows laptops can be equipped with powerful processors and discrete graphics, making them suitable for demanding tasks like gaming or video editing. Chromebooks, on the other hand, are generally optimized for speed and simplicity, focusing on lighter tasks like word processing and web browsing.

In terms of software, Windows laptops support a range of desktop programs, whereas Chromebooks primarily use web apps or Android apps from the Google Play Store. Because of their differences, Chromebooks tend to be more affordable since they are primarily designed for basic, everyday tasks. Windows laptops can range in price from budget to premium, with the latter suitable for gaming, professionals or creatives. 

When it comes to macOS and Windows, they’re basically two different worlds in the realm of computers, each with its own personality. MacOS is sleek, minimal and feels pretty intuitive, especially if you like things that just “work” out of the box. Apple designs macOS to work in tandem with its hardware, so if you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad, the whole ecosystem syncs up seamlessly. 

Windows is more like the jack-of-all-trades. It's known for being super flexible and customizable. Whether you want to tweak how things look or run a wide variety of software, Windows gives you that freedom. It's also more widely used in business settings, mainly because it's been around longer and is compatible with tons of different programs and hardware.

September 2024: Added an FAQ section.

July 2024: We updated our top picks to include the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-windows-laptop-130018256.html?src=rss
39.
Texas is suing TikTok for allegedly violating its new child privacy law
October 3, 2024  23:54:32

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against TikTok claiming the company violated a new child privacy law in the state. It's set to be the first test of Texas’ Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act since it went into effect just over a month ago.

Under the law, parts of which were struck down by a federal judge, social media platforms are required to verify the ages of younger users and offer parental control features, including the ability for parents to opt their children out of data collection.

Paxton alleges that TikTok’s existing parental control features are insufficient. "However, Defendants do not provide the parents or guardians of users known to be 13 to 17 years old with parental tools that allow them to control or limit most of a known minor’s privacy and account settings,” the lawsuit states. “For example, parents or guardians do not have the ability to control Defendants’ sharing, disclosing, and selling of a known minor’s personal identifying information, nor control Defendants’ ability to display targeted advertising to a known minor."

The lawsuit also argues that the app’s “Family Pairing” tool isn’t “commercially reasonable” because it requires parents to make their own TikTok account and because teens are free to deny their parents’ requests to set up the monitoring tool. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The app already prohibits most targeted advertising to anyone younger than 18.

"We strongly disagree with these allegations and, in fact, we offer robust safeguards for teens and parents, including family pairing, all of which are publicly available," the company said in a statement shared on X. "We stand by the protections we provide families."

The lawsuit adds to TikTok’s growing legal challenges in the United States. The company is currently fighting a law that could result in a total ban of the app in the United States. It’s also facing a separate Justice Department lawsuit related to child privacy.

Update, October 3, 2024, 8:05 PM ET: This story has been updated to add a statement from TikTok. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-is-suing-tiktok-for-allegedly-violating-its-new-child-privacy-law-235432146.html?src=rss
40.
Tesla’s fifth Cybertruck recall is due to a rear-view camera glitch
October 3, 2024  21:40:30

Tesla issued another recall for more than 27,000 Cybertrucks. This is the fifth time the electric truck has been recalled in the last year.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued the recall due to an image delay from the rear-view camera. The delayed rear-view camera failed to produce an image to the driver of what’s driving behind them within the legally required two seconds, “increasing the risk of a crash,” according to the official recall notice.

Reuters reports that the camera display is caused by a software glitch in the Cybertruck’s system. Some vehicles failed to complete the shutdown process before booting up again, causing a noticeable delay in the rear-view camera of up to eight seconds. So far, no crashes or injuries have occurred as a result of the software issue. Tesla is issuing a software update to address the rear-camera display delays.

This recall is just the latest in a string of notices and hiccups for the D-minus geometry project on wheels just this year. Tesla announced in April that it had to delay deliveries of the Cybertruck because of accelerator issues, a problem that prompted one of its most infamous recalls later that month due to sticky accelerator pedals.

Delivery delays led to another recall for the Cybertruck in June due to safety issues with the windshield wiper motor and trim. Several Cybertruck owners including some who just picked up their vehicle reported that the wipers failed to work.

Even virtual versions of the Cybertruck had to undergo repairs shortly after its release. The Cybertruck made an appearance in Fortnite as part of the game’s Summer Road Trip promotion but several players reported a weird glitch when they tried to morph a vehicle into Tesla’s signature truck. Epic Games pushed out a fix for the bug sometime later.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/teslas-fifth-cybertruck-recall-is-due-to-a-rear-view-camera-glitch-214029747.html?src=rss
41.
Samsung’s FAST TV Plus service is going all in on K-dramas
October 3, 2024  20:38:21

Samsung TV Plus, the company’s FAST live TV app preinstalled on its TVs, is getting many more K-dramas. Over 4,000 hours of K-Dramas, K-Thrillers, K-Crime and K-Romance from Samsung’s home country of South Korea were added to the ad-supported streaming app on Thursday.

The content comes from partnerships with “Korea’s most acclaimed production companies,” including CJ ENM, NEW ID and the distribution company KT Alpha. Newly added series include Voice 4, Dark Hole and Doom at Your Service (a terrific title if ever there was one). The psychological thriller Beyond Evil will arrive soon.

New unscripted shows are also part of the package. These include food entertainment series like The Genius Paik and Three Meals a Day, along with travel shows House on Wheels and Youn’s Kitchen.

Samsung says it now has the best library of NEW ID and KT Alpha K-Movies in the US. The award-winning Burning (starring Steven Yeun), A Taxi Driver (not the De Niro one but the Kang-ho Song one) and Assassination (starring Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae) are among those on the Samsung TV Plus now.

“K-Content is no longer niche – it’s one of the fastest growing and most watched categories globally, and Samsung TV Plus is uniquely positioned to deliver an unparalleled experience in this space with an endless offering of premium K-Content,” Salek Brodsky, Senior VP and General Manager of Samsung TV Plus, wrote in a press release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/samsungs-fast-tv-plus-service-is-going-all-in-on-k-dramas-203821372.html?src=rss
42.
Uber teams with Avride to offer self-driving vehicles for rides and food deliveries
October 3, 2024  20:16:22

Uber has entered a new deal to offer customers in select cities an option for self-driving vehicles. The partnership is with Avride, which used to be the self-driving unit for Russian conglomerate Yandex.

The multi-year deal will begin by introducing Avride's self-driving robots as a delivery option for Uber Eats orders in Austin, Texas. Later this year, the robots are expected to become available for delivery orders in Dallas and Jersey City, New Jersey. Autonomous driving is slated to begin service for Uber ride requests in Dallas in 2025. It will only be an option for "qualifying orders" on either Uber or Uber Eats, but the company didn't specify what those qualifications are.

Before spinning out as a new business concern, Yandex landed a similar deal in 2021 for its self-driving robots to make Grubhub deliveries to college campuses in the US. That year its autonomous vehicles reached a milestone of 6 million miles logged under "challenging conditions," mostly traveled in and around Moscow.

Uber had its own department exploring self-driving vehicles. However, it sold the unit to Aurora, another autonomous vehicle company, in December 2020. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-teams-with-avride-to-offer-self-driving-vehicles-for-rides-and-food-deliveries-201622292.html?src=rss
43.
Find a new life in death in The Sims 4’s Halloween-themed expansion
October 3, 2024  19:55:44

Playing The Sims, the virtual life simulator created by sim game maven Will Wright, has always given its players the feeling that they can control life and death. A new expansion for The Sims 4 takes that concept even further with the Life & Death pack that launches on Halloween.

The Life & Death expansion pack will take the world of Sims to a new plane of existence. It comes with new career paths, neighborhoods, haunted items and achievements about living life to the fullest until you die.

The biggest addition is a new suburb called Ravenwood that has three new neighborhoods to explore, including Crow’s Crossing, Whispering Glen and Mourningvale. You’ll be able to commune with the souls of the dead until they find a channel to the afterlife, make wishes with and investigate ancient shrines with mysterious powers and explore a cemetery. Each area also has a “Mysterious Merchant” who sells haunted objects and helps you pick out a final resting place during the “Try Before You Die Casket Sale.”

The Life & Death pack’s new achievements don’t just lean on the dead side of things. Your Sims can aspire to live a full life with the “Soul’s Journey” achievement track that offers a chance to “Rebirth a Sim” and create special “Bucket Lists” for young adult or older Sims. Once your Sim dies, they can come back as a ghost to complete unfinished business with the help of the living.

There’s also new career paths in the Life & Death pack that deal more with the darker side of the equation. Sims can pursue a profession on the Undertaker career track to become a mortician or a funeral director and achieve grisly rewards like a “Plague Mask” or a “Corpus Commendation Plaque.” The Reaper career path deals with the living and soon-to-be no longer living. Your Sim will work as the Netherworld Department of Death (NWDD) and train to become a soul reaper giving them the power to take life or give it back if your soul quota is too high.

The Life & Death expansion pack is available for pre-order for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and 5 and Xbox One and Series X|S. If you pre-order, you’ll receive some creepy collectibles including the Lasting Legacy Family Portrait, the Mournful Melodies Music Box and the Plumed Elegance Mask.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/find-a-new-life-in-death-in-the-sims-4s-halloween-themed-expansion-195544792.html?src=rss
44.
Google will expand Gemini Live to over 40 languages in the coming weeks
October 3, 2024  19:45:21

Gemini Live, Google’s AI chatbot you can talk to like a person, is about to support more languages. The company is rolling out support for the generative AI virtual assistant in over 40 languages in the coming weeks.

Gemini Live is Google’s take on “free-flowing, natural conversations” in this new generative AI era. You can use it for things like brainstorming for events, diving down learning rabbit holes or practicing for job interview questions (and receiving real-time feedback). Although Google describes it as like talking with a friend, I’m unsure how many would do all of that.

Additionally, the tool will let you chat in two languages on the same device, and further expansion of supported languages is in the works. Multi-language support will also work with Gemini integrations for other Google apps and services, like Google Calendar, Tasks, Keep and Utilities.

You can set your preferred language(s) in the Android app. In the Google app, go to Settings > Google Assistant > Languages, and choose your first preference. If you want a second one, there’s an option below that to “Add a language.”

You’ll need an Android phone to use it. Google hasn’t yet announced any plans to bring Gemini Live to iPhone. At least for now, the company seemingly prefers to use it to attract folks to its own mobile platform.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-will-expand-gemini-live-to-over-40-languages-in-the-coming-weeks-194521661.html?src=rss
45.
Amazon's Smart Thermostat drops to $56 in this early Prime Day deal
October 3, 2024  18:15:14

Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner, so deals have begun to trickle in. The company’s own Smart Thermostat has dropped to just $56, which is 30 percent off. The typical price is a whopping $80, so this is a legit bargain. It’s not a record-low price, but it’s darn close.

This is a fantastic smart thermostat with a vast array of features. It integrates with Alexa, so you can lay in bed and bark orders at it to get the temperature just right. Adjustments can also be made via the Alexa app on your phone, if those vocal cords are running dry. App control lets you change your home’s temperature from afar, which is handy when on the way home from work.

This is, basically, a Honeywell thermostat packed with Amazon’s smart tech, so it’s durable, easy to use and reliable. It’s highly possible that a smart thermostat like this will help save money on those monthly energy bills, as you can set schedules or make adjustments while, say, on vacation.

On the downside, this is a real-deal thermostat, so it requires a C-wire connection or a power adapter. Both of these kits are sold separately. The bundle with the C-wire connector is also on sale for $78.

It does lack a couple of the features found with some of its more expensive rivals, like the Google Nest thermostat. There are no touchscreen controls and no motion sensor. The voice and app controls, however, more than make up these omissions.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazons-smart-thermostat-drops-to-56-in-this-early-prime-day-deal-181514522.html?src=rss
46.
The Echo Dot is going for a record low of $23 thanks to a Prime Day deal
October 3, 2024  17:56:34

If you’re looking for an Alexa speaker on the cheap, this Amazon Prime Day deal will be hard to beat. The Echo Dot (5th gen) has improved audio that competes with more expensive rivals like the HomePod mini. Usually going for $50, the latest Echo Dot is only $23 today, cheaper than its July Prime Day price.

This Echo Dot model launched in 2022 with clearer vocals, deeper bass and more vibrant overall sound than previous generations. Of course, it will pale in comparison to bigger and much more expensive speakers, but good luck finding anything else of this quality for that sale price. It’s Engadget’s current pick for the best smart speaker under $50.

The speaker supports direct streaming from Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music. It works great for podcasts, too, and you can use it as a Bluetooth speaker with unsupported apps. Alexa lets you control smart home accessories, get weather updates and ask general questions. Fitting your home with smart speakers can be expensive, but this sale price could allow you to put Alexa in any room for a modest upfront investment.

The speaker has a cute, round shape and a minimalist style. It measures only 3.9 inches at its widest point and won’t take up much space on a table or desk. It's available in charcoal, white and blue — all on sale for the same price.

If you’re transforming your home into a smart home, you can opt for a bundle with a smart light for the same price. For $23, you can get a TP-Link Tapo smart color bulb and the smart speaker.

Although its audio isn’t quite in the same class as the Dot, the Echo Pop for even cheaper. The equally cute smart speaker is on sale for Prime Day for $18. This could be a good option if you’re fitting your home with Alexa devices, but there are some rooms where you won’t listen to music. Otherwise, the slightly more expensive Echo Dot will be the better bet.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-echo-dot-is-going-for-a-record-low-of-23-thanks-to-a-prime-day-deal-175633670.html?src=rss
47.
The best early Amazon Prime Day deals to shop before October Big Deal Days
October 3, 2024  17:54:46

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days is back this year, returning on October 8 and 9. The “fall Prime Day” of sorts has served as the online retailer’s unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season for the past few years. We expect most of the deals to be Prime exclusives, meaning you must be an active Prime subscriber to get the discounts. There are always a couple of deals available for everyone, though, so it’s worth perusing Amazon’s site even if you don’t pay for Prime. It’s also worth doing so now because we’ve found a number of solid early Prime Day deals already available. These are the best of the bunch; we’ll be updating this post regularly in the lead-up to October Prime Day, so check back for the latest deals.

Apple AirPods 4
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget

While Apple deals are few and far between right now, you can save a bit on the new AirPods 4. AirTags have a slight discount as well, both in single and multi-packs.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020)
Valentina Palladino / Engadget

It's a safe bet that we'll see even more Amazon gear discounted on October Prime Day, but for now, you can snag a Fire tablet on sale, as well as Ring and Blink security cameras for much cheaper than usual.

Logitech Brio 500
Will Lipman Photography for Engadget

Early Prime Day deals on tech include discounts on power banks, webcams, smart plugs and more.

October Prime Day will be held on October 8 and 9 this year.

October Prime Day is a members-only sale event run by Amazon in which the online retailer has thousands of sales on its site that are exclusively available to those with an active Prime members.

October Prime Day will last two full days.

Most October Prime Day deals will not be revealed until the days of the event. However, in years past, we've seen everything from clothing to household essentials to outdoor gear go on sale during this event. Engadget cares most about tech deals, and in past fall Prime Days, we've seen things like phones, tablets, headphones, earbuds, robot vacuums, smart home gear and more receive deep discounts.

Yes, because most deals will be Prime exclusives. However, there are always a few decent deals available to all Amazon shoppers, so it's worth checking out Amazon's site during October Prime Day to see where you can save even if you don't pay for Prime.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice in the lead up to October Prime Day 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-early-amazon-prime-day-deals-to-shop-before-october-big-deal-days-050506937.html?src=rss
48.
Saber Interactive is making a ‘AAA RPG’ based on Avatar: The Last Airbender
October 3, 2024  17:16:55

Paramount just announced that it's going ahead with a new video game based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, which will be developed by Saber Interactive. For the uninitiated, Saber is behind titles like Snowrunner and Teardown. It also has plenty of experience making licensed content, as it published Evil Dead: The Game and World War Z: Aftermath, among others.

A new game in the Avatar-verse isn’t that notable on its own. After all, there have been plenty already. Paramount is already crowing about the title, though, calling it a “AAA RPG” and claiming it’ll be the “biggest video game in franchise history.” That’s not exactly a high bar, given the cartoon’s rocky history in gaming. There was that one good Bayonetta-like game that featured Avatar Korra, but everything else is pretty much trash.

This upcoming RPG won’t follow Aang or Korra. Players will control “an all-new, never-before-seen Avatar.” The game’s set “thousands of years” before the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The story has been “developed in close collaboration with Avatar Studios”, though we don’t know if franchise creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are involved in any way.

This looks to be an action RPG and not a turn-based affair, as a press release suggests “dynamic combat” and a quest to “master all four elements.” However, there’s no release date and no suggestion as to how far along the game is. Paramount says it’ll be available “soon”, but the company hasn't released a trailer or even artwork, so one person’s “soon” is another person’s “probably sometime in 2026.”

In any event, sign me up. I’m a big-time cabbage head, or honorary member of the Aang Gang or whatever fans are called. Saber Interactive has proven itself worthy with other pre-existing IPs, so why not this one? It could work.

The Avatar franchise has been relatively quiet lately, though the live-action Netflix show was renewed for two more seasons to finish up the story. Franchise creators DiMartino and Konietzko are making an animated film that follows an adult Aang and friends, but it’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about that.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/saber-interactive-is-making-a-aaa-rpg-based-on-avatar-the-last-airbender-171655351.html?src=rss
49.
The Rubber Keyed Wonder is an adoring portrait of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
October 3, 2024  17:00:47

Hey! If you have fond memories playing Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy on your family TV, you’ll love The Rubber Keyed Wonder. It’s a new documentary chronicling the birth, life, death and rebirth of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum that premieres today. The crowdfunded film is an adoring look at the iconic and legendary artifact of computing history with plenty of high profile contributors. Two thumbs up! Go watch the film now, there’s no need for you to keep reading beyond this point, I hope you have loads of fun!

If you’re a die-hard fan, there’s no need to keep reading!

(Hopefully they’ve gone now.)

It was while watching The Rubber Keyed Wonder that I realized what makes me itchy about the current crop of pop-culture documentaries going around. A documentary should be an authored essay offering a point of view, an argument, or at least educating you about a subject matter. They’re usually deeply one-sided, but they normally have something to say beyond “hey, isn’t this neat?” That’s what I’ve found lacking in documentaries like this and GoldenEra, since they don’t have much at all to say beyond that. Which is heartbreaking when the film’s subject matter is nowhere near as neat and far more interesting as it's made out to be here.

If you’re unfamiliar, Sir Clive Sinclair was a British inventor whose work made a huge impact on the electronics industry. He developed ultra-small transistor radios, pioneered the pocket calculator, the digital watch and the portable TV. His interest in green transport saw him build a single-rider electric vehicle decades before the advent of the e-scooter. But all of that is a footnote to his range of affordable home computers, the most notable being the Spectrum.

The Britain Sinclair grew up in was broke, and he made it his life’s mission to produce products that were affordable enough for anyone to buy. His cheap, mass-market products were big hits and deeply undercut the competition, especially in home computers. Unfortunately, the low cost also meant his gear was badly-made, unreliable and severely underpowered.

But the affordability and limitations sparked a creative boom that is credited with creating the UK’s computer games industry. The heads of several major British studios cut their teeth on developing and selling games for the ZX Spectrum. And the second-order effects of Sinclair’s work left a far deeper impact on the technology industry more broadly. Sinclair’s protégé turned rival Chris Curry left to build Acorn Computers and, from there, founded ARM. The founder of what would become Rockstar North worked on the Sinclair production line in Dundee.

Sinclair was also reportedly difficult to work with, had severe temper tantrums and quite a big ego, too. He was fairly bad at business, and his refusal to listen to other people wound up costing him both of his companies, once during a fight with the UK’s National Enterprise Board in 1976 and once again in 1985. Then there was his habit of rushing out unfinished products to keep money flowing into his company at the cost of his reputation.

The reason I bring all of those things up is because every single one is either given the briefest of attention or elided completely. The Rubber Keyed Wonder would much rather streamline its focus to the Spectrum itself and its impact, erasing the more interesting story around it. But if you know anything about the territory, and how bound up the machine and its idiosyncratic founder were, these omissions hurt the story.

But I understand why: This isn’t a documentary that aspires to being a serious examination of a very interesting period in computing history. Instead, it’s a product of the fan-nostalgia industrial complex, where the most insightful comments are buried in favor of misty-eyed rememberings. That’s not to say it isn’t honest; even the Spectrum’s most ardent fans are happy to admit the machine sucked on several fundamental levels. Even the Sinclair employees joke that they knew they were selling barely-functional crap a lot of the time, but that the hobbyists who bought them loved it nevertheless.

The film can’t help but be informative, delving into the broader ecosystem that cultivated around the Spectrum. There’s its genesis, the games that made it famous, and the culture it spawned from independent computer stores to the cottage industry of magazines focused on it. But there’s also plenty of time-sucking montages of playthrough footage from Spectrum games that sap the film’s momentum in favor of squeezing the audience’s ‘member berries.

That’s not to say The Rubber Keyed Wonder is a waste of time, especially given the dearth of material on the subject*. There’s plenty in there that I learned for the first time, and found some of the games I’d not encountered as a kid to be seriously impressive. It’s just a shame that you will probably leave this film with a nagging desire to answer some of the questions it’s just not at all interested in engaging with.

* It’s probably the law that I have to mention Micro Men, the tongue-in-cheek BBC comedy that satirizes the feud between Sinclair and Curry. Both men went on the record to decry its factual inaccuracies, with Curry saying the film was “very unfair” on Clive Sinclair. It is, however, quite a fun watch so long as you accept that it’s mostly fictional. You can probably find it for free online if you look hard enough.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-rubber-keyed-wonder-is-an-adoring-portrait-of-the-sinclair-zx-spectrum-170047407.html?src=rss
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OpenAI now has a $4 billion credit line on top of $6.6 billion in funding
October 3, 2024  16:32:30

Keeping ChatGPT running is expensive as heck, so OpenAI needs access to plenty of cash to make sure the lights stay on. A day after the company said it had secured $6.6 billion in funding — the biggest ever funding round for a startup — it confirmed that it has a new $4 billion revolving line of credit. OpenAI has yet to tap the credit line, which it obtained from JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Santander, Wells Fargo, SMBC, UBS and HSBC. Some of those banks are also among OpenAI's customers.

All told, OpenAI now has a war chest of over $10 billion in liquid funds. The company says that will give it the ability to invest in new projects and research, expand its infrastructure and hire top talent. “This credit facility further strengthens our balance sheet and provides flexibility to seize future growth opportunities,” OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-now-has-a-4-billion-credit-line-on-top-of-66-billion-in-funding-163230350.html?src=rss