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As Twitter continues to figuratively kneecap itself by limiting tweet views, Meta is hustling to bring its Twitter rival to reality. A listing for an app called Threads was spotted on the iOS App Store with an estimated release date of July 6th. In May, a report said the microblogging service was nearing completion and could be out as soon as the end of June. While an end-of-June launch didn't quite happen, the app could arrive when Twitter users are more willing (and maybe even eager) to finally jump ship.
Twitter boss Elon Musk announced at the weekend that verified accounts — which translates to paying users — can read 6,000 posts daily, while non-paying users can only read 600. He said the website is adopting the measure to "address extreme levels of data scraping [and] system manipulation."
From both the app listing and rumors, we’re expecting Threads will migrate your followers and circles from your existing Instagram handle, ensuring you should have an active timeline right from the outset. That is, if you’re an Instagram user.
– Mat Smith
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Amazon is offering a $5 credit when you buy a $50 eGift card for Prime Day
Blue Origin is planning to open new launch sites outside the US
Tidal is increasing its HiFi plan to $11 per month
The best mobile microphones for 2023
Since smartphones started eating casual photography’s lunch, camera makers have focused on devices designed for very specific uses. Action cams provide sharp, fluid video. Compact cameras target both tourists and vloggers. And DSLRs are available at some of the best prices we’ve seen. Then there are mirrorless cameras, which continue to improve their autofocus and video. And that’s where some guidance helps. Whether you’re a creator looking for just the right vlogging camera, an aspiring wildlife photographer or a sports enthusiast, we’ll help you find the perfect camera to match your budget and needs.
Remember the early days of the AI hype train, when everyone spent their time making stupid images using text prompts? If you want to recapture the nostalgic haze of, uh, late 2022, Picsart has you covered. The popular image editor just launched an AI-powered animated GIF generator, calling the tool its “most unhinged” platform yet. Type a bunch of nonsense into the chat box, wait a minute or so and marvel at your “chaotic and eccentric” creation. The platform’s integrated into the regular Picsart app and is available for iOS, Android devices and on the web.
If you've been having trouble using Twitter recently, you aren't alone — the service has been having issues since it started limiting the daily number of posts users could view. Although many of the platform's issues stabilized over the weekend, TweetDeck remains broken unless users switch to the beta version of the list aggregator. Now, Twitter is gearing up to solve the issue by making that beta version of TweetDeck the main version. According to Twitter Support, the feature will become exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers in the near future, noting that "in 30 days, users must be Verified to access TweetDeck."
There really is an HBO show on Netflix. All five seasons of Issa Rae's highly acclaimed comedy-drama series Insecure are now streaming on Netflix in the US. Even more HBO shows are on the way, too. Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under and Ballers are also coming to Netflix as part of the deal, the company told Deadline. Meanwhile, Netflix users outside the US can stream True Blood on the service.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-metas-instagram-linked-twitter-rival-could-arrive-this-week-111508536.html?src=rss
Threads
Screenshots of the iPhone screen showing a new app called Threads by Meta.
In a baffling move over the weekend, Elon Musk said the company would restrict unverified accounts to reading 600 posts per day – and new accounts to only 300 tweets daily. Meanwhile, Twitter will allow verified accounts to read 6,000 posts each day. For most people, that means, short of paying for Twitter Blue, they can spend about a minute or two on Twitter before encountering a "rate limit exceeded" error. Less than two hours later, Musk said Twitter would "soon" ease the limits to 8,000 for verified accounts and 800 for those without Twitter Blue.
Musk claimed the "temporary" limits were in place to address "extreme levels of data scraping" and "system manipulation." The day before, Twitter began preventing people not logged into the site from viewing tweets. Musk did not say what "new" means in the context of an account, nor did he say how long Twitter plans to restrict users.
It’s a challenging change to Twitter when it’s courting advertisers and paid users. Fewer eyes for ads and fewer benefits for subscribers.
– Mat Smith
You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!
AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton isn't convinced good AI will triumph over bad AI
Europe’s Euclid space telescope launches to map the dark universe
Hitting the Books: How SNAP's digital services became an online quagmire
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Apple is working on bringing new health features to its AirPods family. The first could be a hearing test. Already, AirPods support audiogram profiles, so iOS can tune earbuds to adjust for hearing loss. Some apps, like Mimi, already tap into this feature. Gurman added Apple is exploring how to market the AirPods Pro as a hearing aid since the FDA made it easier for Americans to buy over-the-counter options last year.
Apple is also working on an earbud feature to measure your body temperature. The company already introduced a built-in temperature sensor with the Watch Series 8 and Watch Ultra. But a sensor can get a more accurate temperature reading from the ear canal than the wrist. However, Gurman warns both features are “several months or even years away.”
When Cowboy introduced its Adaptive Power update earlier this year, I wondered when a new model would arrive. The answer is, well, today. The new variant encourages a more upright design for a relaxed Dutch riding position. It also has a wider saddle — a feature at the top of our wish list for the Belgian company’s latest iteration. The e-bike has a wireless charging phone mount, and, like all its models, its companion app integrates with Google Maps. The Cowboy Cruiser is available for an “introductory price” of £2,690 (roughly $3,400) in black or white.
Gfycat is shutting down. Snap, Gfycat’s parent company, said it plans to shut down the GIF database and delete all user content in a few short weeks. “The Gfycat service is being discontinued,” a notification at the top of the website reads. Gfycat’s impending demise won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has tried to use the site in recent months. In May, Motherboard reported Snap had allowed Gfycat’s security certificates to expire. The oversight meant the platform temporarily became inaccessible to most internet users.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-twitter-limits-unverified-users-to-seeing-600-posts-a-day-113153535.html?src=rss
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A view of the Twitter logo at its corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
It turned into a five-hour showdown between TikTok CEO Shou Chew and US lawmakers, who have found suspicion of TikTok to be a rare source of bipartisan agreement. It comes as US officials told the company they could ban the app if it doesn’t separate itself from ByteDance.
As with previous hearings with social media executives, lawmakers pressed Chew for often impossible yes-no answers to complex questions and grew frustrated when he declined to give one. In one exchange, Representative Tony Cardenas asked Chew whether ByteDance was a Chinese company. He would only admit it was a “global” firm with a Chinese founder. The hearing was also notably different from previous hearings with other social media company CEOs because the vast majority of lawmakers are not active on TikTok. Not all of their questions were nuanced, either: Representative Richard Hudson demanded to know if TikTok can “access the home WiFi network.” TikTok’s future remains uncertain, Chinese officials said Thursday they opposed a sale of the social network.
– Mat Smith.
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
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Twitter says it's killing legacy verified checkmarks starting on April 1st
The Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on the businesses of crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and has charged him for the unregistered offer and sale of the tokens Tronix and BitTorrent. If those tokens sound familiar even to non-hardcore crypto enthusiasts, it's because several celebrities had promoted them on social media – and now they're also being charged by the agency. According to the SEC, eight celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Ne-Yo and Akon, illegally promoted the tokens online without disclosing they were paid to do so. All celebrities charged, except for Soulja Boy and musician Austin Mahone, have agreed to pay a collective amount of $400,000 in penalties to settle the charges.
A new Cyberpunk 2077 technology preview (Overdrive Mode) supports path tracing, the next goalpost to make games look even prettier and keep you buying expensive new GPUs, courtesy of… GPU manufacturer NVIDIA. The two-year-old game joins Minecraft, Portal and Quake II — old… classics? – in supporting the technology. While ray tracing follows a single beam of light across a virtual scene, path tracing follows the light as it bounces around an environment, more realistically mimicking how it works in the physical world. But the heady calculations behind it mean you’ll need the most powerful NVIDIA RTX 40-series GPUs to enjoy Cyberpunk 2077’s path-tracing makeover – and you might still run into performance issues.
After multiple scrubbed attempts, Relativity Space has finally launched its 3D-printed rocket. But the results were mixed. Its Terran 1 vehicle successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral late Wednesday but failed to reach orbit after the second-stage engine ignited only momentarily. It's unclear what led to the failure, but Relativity is promising updates in the "coming days." Terran 1 endured Max-Q (maximum dynamic pressure), the moment expected to place the most stress on the 3D-printed design, so that’s being seen as an achievement. The 3D-printing process theoretically provides simpler, more reliable rockets that are cheaper to make and could be ready in weeks, lowering the costs of putting satellites into orbit.
The Framework Laptop 16 is the company’s second product after its upgradeable 13-inch notebook, but there’s not much information – or specs – to go on at the moment. Yesterday’s announcements essentially just prepared the ground for a fuller media blitz closer to pre-orders opening later this spring. But according to company founder Nirav Patel, the new laptop has “pretty much complete flexibility to support changes when it comes to GPUs.”
Archer Aviation and United Airlines announced a partnership today to launch a commercial air taxi route between downtown and O’Hare International Airport in 2025. As well as being United’s headquarters and largest hub, Chicago's airport makes it an ideal testbed for flying taxis. The drive to or from O’Hare, in the western suburb of Rosemont, can take anywhere from 35 minutes to over an hour, depending on traffic. Archer estimates a flight in one of its air taxis will only take 10 minutes to travel from O’Hare to its destination at a downtown helipad.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-what-tiktoks-ceo-told-congress-about-the-apps-ties-to-china-113834453.html?src=rss
1475546124 - TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 23: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. The hearing was a rare opportunity for lawmakers to question the leader of the short-form social media video app about the company's relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and how they handle users' sensitive personal data. Some local, state, and federal government agencies have been banning the use of TikTok by employees, citing concerns about national security.
Who’d have thought anyone would use Bing in 2023? By choice! Bing has crossed 100 million daily active users a month after the launch of its chatbot AI, according to Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's VP for Modern Life, Search and Devices. He said the company is fully aware it's still just "a small, low, single-digit share player," but hey, there was a time when Bing wasn't even a part of the conversation.
Around a third of Bing's daily preview users have been using its chat AI for their queries. On average, Microsoft is seeing three chats per session, with over 45 million chats since it introduced the new Bing. Microsoft took advantage of packaging advanced chatbot AI into its search engine, but dominant player Google is rushing to catch up: It introduced its own chat AI, Bard, last month. And as you’ll see from today’s newsletter, it’s been a busy 24 hours for OpenAI and chatbots.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
The best mirrorless cameras for 2023
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Raspberry Pi is offering a 1.6-megapixel global shutter camera module, providing a platform for machine vision, hobbyist shooting and more. Global shutter sensors with no skew or distortion have been promised as the future of cameras for years now, but so far only a handful of products have appeared. Like other global shutter sensors, the new Raspberry Pi sensor pairs each pixel with an analog storage element, so light signals can be captured and stored by all pixels simultaneously. The Global Shutter Camera is now available to purchase for $50.
Grammarly is also getting into generative AI, with GrammarlyGo. Its auto-composition features help the proofreading software keep up with companies adding the ChatGPT API (or different generative AI backends) to their products. The feature can use context like voice, style, purpose and where you’re writing to determine its approach. So it can spit out email replies, shorten passages, rewrite them for tone and clarity, riff or choose from one-click prompts. The company says it will soon add the AI writing feature to its Premium, Business, Education and Developer plans – and free plans “in select markets.” The GrammarlyGo beta will begin rolling out in April.
Discord is partnering with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT. There’s a chatbot, obviously, but the company also plans to use machine learning in a handful of more novel and potentially useful ways. Starting next week, a public experiment will augment Clyde, the built-in bot Discord employs to notify users of errors and respond to their commands with conversational capabilities. The most interesting feature uses OpenAI tech to offer conversation summaries. When it arrives in a few servers next week, the feature will create an overview of chats you may have missed while away.
Earlier this year, Roku announced its own TVs; now you can pick one up at Best Buy. Roku Select sets range from 24 to 75 inches, and Roku Plus televisions come in 55-, 65-, and 75-inch sizes, all powered by its streaming platform. The Select TVs will start at $149 (with a potential drop to $120 this summer), and the Plus models below $500 – similar to TCL and other partners. You’ll probably be more interested in the Roku Plus series, which has QLED panels, local backlight dimming for better contrast, 4K Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos-approved speakers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-microsofts-bing-has-over-100-million-daily-active-users-thanks-to-its-chatbot-121513875.html?src=rss
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Microsoft Bing search engine in pictured on a monitor in the Bing Experience Lounge during an event introducing a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington on February 7, 2023. - Microsoft's long-struggling Bing search engine will integrate the powerful capabilities of language-based artificial intelligence, CEO Satya Nadella said, declaring what he called a new era for online search. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)
Many Twitter users feared that the platform would fall apart after Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly fired thousands of employees and contractors. That hasn’t happened yet, but links failing to work, yesterday, is likely connected to the company’s recent tinkering with APIs.
On Monday, links and images completely broke on Twitter for a spell across the company's website and mobile apps. "Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now. We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences," Twitter shared on its Support account at 12:19 PM ET, Monday. It took roughly less than an hour for most of the social network to start working again.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted: "A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite." Twitter is restricting its APIs, the tools developers use to hook into the platform, and the company said it would start charging for access to them in early February.
Clicking on a link raised an error message that read: "Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint, please see https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api for more information." That link was also broken for a while.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
'FIFA 23' will add all 12 National Women's Soccer League teams on March 15th
'Cities: Skylines II' heads to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2023
'Silo' teaser reveals Apple's latest post-apocalyptic drama
Microsoft's Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 Core is 15 percent off right now
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Now everyone is excited about something Microsoft is working on, the company is going hard on events. It’s holding another AI event, focused on what it says is “the future of work.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft 365 lead Jared Spataro will host the presentation. A leak from The Verge suggests Microsoft may introduce AI-equipped versions of Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook and Word. While the exact functionality isn't known, The Information claims Outlook could use AI to improve search results and suggest email replies.
Those looking for more details on Nothing's next earphones won't have to wait much longer. The company will reveal the Ear 2 on March 22nd. The latest teaser image suggests the transparent aesthetic will continue in the follow-up headphones, with an image showing a beetle pushing what appears to be a charging case out of frame.
Microsoft is staying busy this week. It has made Outlook for Mac free to use. You previously needed either a Microsoft 365 subscription or an Office purchase to use the email client. It's available now through the Mac App Store. Microsoft pitches this as a good complement to Outlook for iOS, as you can now hand off an email draft to your iPhone if you haven't finished writing it on your Mac.
Honda is known for its vehicles and robots, and over the last few years, it has tried combining those two things with the Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV). It just unveiled a new third generation, designed to transport up to two palettes worth of goods around worksites with no human assistance. Compared to the second generation, the latest AWV has a larger bed size (two pallets) and higher capacity (2,000 pounds); a higher self-driving speed of up to 10 MPH; a larger battery for up to 10 hours and 28 miles of endurance. Honda says the AWV will allow construction and other companies to address issues like labor shortages and worksite transport. After extensively testing the last model, it said the AWV 3.0 is now ready for field trials.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-every-link-on-twitter-briefly-broke-121538863.html?src=rss
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Twitter logo is seen through broken glass in this illustration taken, January 25, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Neuralink’s efforts to bring a brain-computer interface still have a way to go. According to a new report from Reuters, Elon Musk’s startup was apparently denied authorization by the FDA in 2022 to conduct human trials using the same devices that, well, killed 1,500 animals. Those tests, according to internal reports, lead to needless suffering and death of test subjects.
Current and former Neuralink employees told Reuters: "The agency’s major safety concerns involved the device’s lithium battery; the potential for the implant’s tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue."
The FDA is concerned that, because of the minuscule size of the electrical leads, they are at risk of breaking off during removal (or even during use). At Neuralink's open house last November, Musk claimed the company would secure FDA approval "within six months," basically by this spring. That’s looking increasingly unlikely.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Alienware reveals revamped gaming peripherals
'Star Trek: Discovery' is ending with season 5 next year
Garmin unveils its first dedicated running watches with AMOLED displays
Don't make me watch 'Boba Fett' to understand 'The Mandalorian' season 3
Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard purchase will reportedly be approved by the EU
I'm sick of winter, but I love pizza, okay? Ooni is one of the biggest names in the pizza oven game. The company has a full line of models that use wood, charcoal or gas to give you the hot-and-fast pizzeria experience in minutes. Ooni promises high-heat cooking for Neapolitan-style pizza, plus the ability to bake other styles, bread and even sear steaks with its ovens. Until now, all of the company's products have been made for outdoor use, but today it's debuting its first indoor model: the $999 Volt 12. Taking design cues from the high-end Karu 16, the Volt 12 is also Ooni's first all-electric pizza oven. The company says you can use it indoors or outside thanks to "advanced" insulation and powder-coated carbon steel exterior that retains heat and withstands the weather.
Microsoft’s web services chief Mikhail Parakhin has revealed that 90 percent of Bing preview testers should see a toggle that changes the chatbot's responses. A Creative option allows for more "original and imaginative" answers, while a Precise switch emphasizes shorter, to-the-point replies. There's also a Balanced setting, somewhere between the two. The company reined in the Bing AI's responses after early users noticed strange behavior during long chats and 'entertainment' sessions. As The Verge noted, the restrictions irked some users as the chatbot would simply decline to answer some questions.
Ford says it’s aiming to restart production of the F-150 Lightning on March 13th, several weeks after it put the EV on hold. It paused production and sent a stop-shipment order to dealers after a battery issue caused a truck to catch fire in a holding lot on February 4th. It’s unclear what exactly led to the fire or how Ford has resolved the problem, though the company has said there's no indication a charging fault was to blame. Since it initially started F-150 Lightning production last April, Ford has sold fewer than 20,000 of the EV. But it’s very much in demand: Ford initially capped reservations at 200,000 in 2021 before reopening them last August. And a reminder: The F-Series has been America’s best-selling vehicle for 41 years.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-fda-reportedly-denied-neuralinks-request-to-begin-human-trials-of-its-brain-implant-121545291.html?src=rss
Neuralink
A monkey sits in front of a monitor and watches the screen as it blows into a small metal pipe as part of the Neuralink testing.
Space agencies and private companies around the world have been scheduling their own lunar missions over the next few years, and that could be quite complicated to coordinate when they all use different time zones. During a meeting at the European Space Agency's ESTEC technology center in the Netherlands last year, space organizations discussed the "importance and urgency of defining a common lunar reference time."
In a new announcement, ESA navigation system engineer Pietro Giordano said a "joint international effort is now being launched towards achieving this." There are a few challenges: They will have to decide whether to keep lunar time synchronized with Earth's or not because clocks on the Moon run faster based on the satellite's position. Each day on the Moon is, in Earth terms, 29.5 days long.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Rivian's electric R1S SUV will get an extended range 'Max' battery this fall
US intelligence agencies say Havana Syndrome probably wasn't caused by "energy weapons"
Jack Dorsey’s new Twitter alternative, Bluesky, is available in closed beta on the App Store. The invite-only app joins the list of Twitter substitutes, including Mastodon, as Twitter clings on through staff attrition and precarious stability. Bluesky began in 2019 as a Twitter-funded side project. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and was still CEO when the initiative started, saw it as a more open alternative to an increasingly centralized Twitter. Then, Bluesky spun off as its own company in 2021.
You’ll have to enter your email address to join the waitlist. The Bluesky app reportedly borrows heavily from Twitter. However, it includes minor differences like “What’s up?” in place of “What’s happening?” along with a simplified process of creating a post (which can also include photos) by selecting a plus button. So… yeah. It’s all pretty Twitter-esque.
One major company was missing from this year’s CES barrage of TVs: Sony. Now it’s finally ready to show off its latest flagship sets. Its 2023 line of Bravia XR TVs are all powered by the company’s Cognitive Processor XR, so they all include support for stuff like Sony’s XR Clear Image tech, which allows for adaptive noise reduction, auto HDR tone mapping and more. Sony is also trying to take as much of the guesswork out of setup as possible by making its TVs in the standard video or cinematic modes look great right out of the box. Read on for the full round-up of both the LED and OLED families.
Meta has shared its latest augmented and virtual reality hardware roadmap with employees, and according to The Verge, it's planning to launch its first full-fledged AR glasses in 2027. While the company intends to release other AR glasses before then, the device it's launching in four years is the same one Mark Zuckerberg believes could become Meta's "iPhone moment." The glasses, which will reportedly project avatars as high-quality holograms superimposed on the real world, are expected to be quite expensive.
Airbnb is banning users who may be associated with people the company deems a safety risk. Although the short-term rental company faces an impossible balancing act of making owners feel secure without discriminating unfairly against renters, its appeals process – a critical step in catching overreaches – appears to err on the side of perceived homeowner security.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-the-moon-needs-its-own-time-zone-121559989.html?src=rss
It’s time for more Marvel Cinematic Universe, more special effects, more families in danger and more sinister baddies, with a bigger role for Kang the Conqueror – the big cross-movie threat, a la Thanos – played by Jonathan Majors. Alas, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers from too many special effects, sadly.
It uses Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) StageCraft technology (AKA “the Volume”), which came to prominence in Star Wars series The Mandalorian. It’s a series of enormous LED walls that can display real-time footage, synchronized to interactive lighting to make it feel like actors are in these sci-fi landscapes, fighting these threats to humanity. Still, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the tech, the actors and the narrative fail to convince.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Samsung is readying its own smartphone-to-satellite communication platform
Panasonic S5 II review: The full-frame vlogging camera you’ve been waiting for
Apple's Mac Mini M2 and M2 Pro models get their first Amazon discounts
According to images taken near the Big Dipper by the JWST, scientists found six potential galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. That they could be almost 13 billion years old isn't what makes them odd, though, it's that they could have as many stars as the Milky Way, according to the team's calculations. The scientists explained the galaxies should not exist under current cosmological theory because there shouldn't have been enough matter at the time for that many stars to form. Now, that sounds like the start of a MCU movie.
Google is bringing photo features once exclusive to recent Pixel phones to more devices. Magic Eraser, a tool to easily remove unwanted people or objects from an image, debuted in 2021 on the Pixel 6, and starting today, Google is rolling out Magic Eraser to Pixel 5a and earlier models. All Pixel models and Google One subscribers will also gain access to an HDR effect to boost the brightness and contrast to videos. The same goes for Google One subscribers. Members on all plans will have access to Magic Eraser through Google Photos, even if they're on iOS.
Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries – just not in the US. The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). The company introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October – it’s clearly trying a bit of everything.
Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state: Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” But he’s back.
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA
(L-R): Kathryn Newton as Cassandra "Cassie" Lang and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in Marvel Studios' ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2022 MARVEL.
According to a report from Reuters, ChatGPT is listed as the author or co-author of at least 200 books on Amazon’s Kindle Store. However, the number of bot-written books is likely higher than that since Amazon’s policies don’t require authors to disclose their use of AI.
Brett Schickler published on the Kindle Store a children’s book written and illustrated by AI. Although Schickler says the book has earned him less than $100 since its January release, he only spent a few hours creating it with ChatGPT prompts like “write a story about a dad teaching his son about financial literacy.”
Science-fiction publication Clarkesworld Magazine has temporarily halted short-story submissions after receiving a flood of articles suspected of using AI without disclosure, which was reported by PCMag. Although Editor Neil Clarke didn’t specify how he identified them, he recognized the (allegedly) bot-assisted stories due to “some very obvious patterns.” He added that spam submissions resulting in bans hit 38 percent in February.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Bungie has been embroiled in a legal battle with cheat provider AimJunkies since 2021, with both sides slapping the other with lawsuits. Now, the game developer has walked away with $4.3 million in damages and fees after a victory in an arbitration proceeding. However, US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly ruled mostly in favor of AimJunkies last year, deciding Bungie had failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove its claim. He gave Bungie the chance to present more evidence – and that copyright infringement lawsuit is still headed to trial. Bungie will use this first victory in its argument during AimJunkies' countersuit, in which it accused the developer of violating its ToS for reverse-engineering its cheat software.
Microsoft limited Bing's AI chats early after launch to prevent disturbing answers, but it now plans to restore longer chats. It’s expanding the chats to six turns per session (up from five) and 60 chats per day (up from 50). The daily cap will climb to 100 chats soon, Microsoft says, and regular searches will no longer count against that total. An upcoming test will also let you choose a tone that's "precise" (that is, shorter and more to-the-point answers), "creative" (longer) or "balanced."
During the European Commission hearing over Microsoft's proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard, Brad Smith, Microsoft president, announced the company and NVIDIA have struck a 10-year deal to bring Xbox games to the GeForce Now streaming service. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said: “This partnership will help grow NVIDIA’s catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games.”
Earlier this month, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority said the Activision acquisition could result in a "substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles," and that Microsoft already had a 60 to 70 percent share of the cloud gaming market and that, should the deal go through, it would "reinforce this strong position." In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger.
Horror movie behemoth Blumhouse is getting into video games. The company behind hits like M3GAN, Get Out, The Purge and Insidious is opening a production and publishing division that will work on original horror games for PC, consoles and mobile. “We’re in the scary story business. We do films, we do TV and there is this massive, growing segment in media and entertainment called gaming,” Blumhouse President Abhijay Prakash told Bloomberg. The game publishing division will keep the budgets modest and rather than adapting its own movies into games (something Blumhouse has tried in the past), the company will look for projects that are in development and offer studios financial support and creative insight.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
Samsung's flagship phone of 2023 is here – if you don’t count the foldables. The Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $1,200 and has a big, beautiful OLED screen, better cameras, a new chip for even better performance and some revamped software. And, of course, there’s still a built-in S Pen for all your drawing and note taking. The highlight feature since last year’s S22 Ultra is the new 200MP sensor, which offers more options for advanced content creation. And, with five rear cameras, there are a lot of options.
In normal use, the S23 Ultra uses 16-to-1 pixel-binning from that huge sensor to help gather more light and produce sharp, colorful images without needing extra-large files. And in most situations, it seemed to produce better-looking photos. According to Engadget’s Sam Rutherford, the S23 Ultra images taken using the default 12MP mode featured more accurate colors and better details than those captured with the sensor's full 200 megapixels. However, this could be the most capable smartphone camera yet.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Microsoft deploys AI in the classroom to improve public speaking and math
Amazon secures key FCC approval to deploy its Project Kuiper broadband satellites
Lucid tries to keep pace with rivals with a $7,500 'EV credit'
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that Tesla's Autopilot was not at fault in a 2021 crash in which two people died. The agency said the 2019 Model S accelerated just before hitting a tree in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston. Neither occupant was in the driver's seat when they were found, leading to questions about Tesla’s Autopilot function. The NTSB found the car's rapid acceleration from 39 MPH to 67 MPH two seconds before the crash was likely due to "impairment from alcohol intoxication in combination with the effects of two sedating antihistamines, resulting in a roadway departure, tree impact and post-crash fire."
Meta has restored former President Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, two years after it suspended him from both platforms. The company previously said it would apply extra "guardrails" to his accounts to "deter repeat offenses." Trump has an agreement with the "free speech" app Truth Social, whereby he has to share social media posts there first and can't drop them anywhere else for at least six hours. Twitter restored Trump's account on its service late last year, but he hasn't returned to what was once his favored social media platform.
In related news, Twitter is making millions of dollars from a handful of some of its most infamous users, according to a new report. New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) estimates Twitter “will generate up to $19 million a year in advertising revenue” from just 10 accounts once banned from the platform. The report examined 10 accounts previously banned for “publishing hateful content and dangerous conspiracies.” The accounts were reinstated after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
While we’ve been impressed by the 100-watt charging on the OnePlus 11, it’s already been beaten, twice, in China. First, a Redmi phone featured a whopping 210W charging, and now the Realme GT Neo5 can charge its 4,600mAh dual-cell battery from zero to 20 percent in merely 80 seconds, to 50 percent in four minutes and to 100 percent in 9.5 minutes. Naturally, you’ll need this specific phone, its dual-GaN power adapter and its proprietary high-current USB-C cable to deliver 20V/12A of power. The phone is already available in China, priced at around $500, but the company says there are plans for an international launch, too.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra S Pen
While there aren't any new features for 2023, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra still features a built-in S Pen along with a ton of handy drawing, notetaking and content creation tools.
Netflix is rolling out changes to account sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain after trialing the change in Latin America. If you live in one of these countries, you must set a primary location for where you use it. Then, if you have friends or family who want to share your account, you'll have to subscribe to either the Standard or Premium tier and pay a fee ($8 in Canada and New Zealand, €4 in Portugal and €6 in Spain) for up to two extra users outside of your home.
In Netflix’s words, “Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films.” It's not clear how new regions will take to the policy. Many rival services don't have account-sharing restrictions, and given how many options there are now, this could coax users elsewhere. Or maybe people will rediscover illegal streams, torrents and all the other methods we used to watch video before the streaming boom.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Google Translate should soon offer better suggestions for words with multiple meanings
Nintendo is adding Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to Switch Online today
The Trump-era White House asked Twitter to take down Chrissy Teigen's mean tweet
Virgin Orbit's first UK orbital launch may have failed due to a $100 component
Apple's retail staff is reportedly testing its 'buy now, pay later' service
Discovery+ will remain a standalone streaming platform after all
This week, Google posted an ad to Twitter showing off the natural-language AI model displaying false information. A short GIF showed an example of a Q&A with Bard: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?”
Among a few facts, Bard says “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.” However, the JWST didn’t take the first pictures. That honor belongs to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004. Chatbots get things wrong, sure, as did search engines before them. However, stripped of much context, there’s a higher chance of picking up errors and not even knowing.
At I/O 2022, Google revealed an Immersive View feature for Maps that uses computer vision and AI to combine Street View and aerial photography into a 3D format. The feature rolled out today in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. The feature adds contextual information, including traffic, the weather and how busy a location typically is at different times of the day. You'll be able to soar over buildings and see things like the location of an attraction’s entrance.
Twitter announced it would no longer allow any developer to use its APIs for free. Other than confirming a February 9th cut-off date – that’s today – we don’t know much more. Musk has suggested Twitter could charge $100 a month “with ID verification,” but hasn’t elaborated. Once free access is shut off, thousands of apps, research projects, bots and other services will stop functioning. We break down what you should probably do – if things still work. Tweets and DMs were recently not functional for many users.
AirPod repair options are limited if something happens to the charging case, and your earbuds aren’t under warranty. Apple will replace the case for a fee – but that creeps close to the cost of an entirely new set of AirPods. There’s no easy way to repair a set of AirPods Pro and limit your electronic waste. Replacement parts are expensive, hard to find or non-existent. Engineer Ken Pillonel, who also created that USB-C iPhone, is trying to fix that. With his latest DIY project, you can swap the battery in your AirPods Pro case rather than replace it altogether.
Nintendo closed out yesterday’s Direct showcase (a remastered Metroid Prime is available to play now!) with a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showing off the game's traversal mechanics and dramatic cinematics. Oh, and Link takes to the skies above Hyrule on a gigantic drone.
Netflix
HOUSTON, TEXAS - APRIL 19: In this photo illustration, the Netflix app is shown on a mobile phone on April 19, 2022 in Houston, Texas. The company Netflix is expected to report its first-quarter earnings after the close of trading later today. The report will be for the fiscal Quarter ending March 2022.
Apple is considering a more expensive iPhone “Ultra” that would slot in above the iPhone Pro, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. He says the device could arrive as early as next year. Gurman also pointed to recent comments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook. “The iPhone has become so integral [to] people’s lives,” he told analysts when asked if the increasing average price of the iPhone was sustainable. “I think people are willing to really stretch to get the best they can afford in that category.”
Gurman hinted the iPhone Ultra could feature a faster processor, better camera hardware and an even larger display. “There also may be more future-forward features, such as finally dropping the charging port,” he adds. Apple already uses “Ultra” to tag its top M2 processors and Watches. Is the iPhone next?
– Mat Smith
Jury rules Elon Musk is not liable for shareholder losses after 'funding secured' tweets
Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater, no filtering required
Elon Musk claims Twitter will start sharing ad revenue with Blue subscribers
The Treasury Department has revised its classification standard to treat more vehicles as SUVs, raising the price threshold from $55,000 to $80,000 and making more EVs eligible for the full $7,500 credit under the Inflation Reduction Act. As Autoblog notes, that should cover five-seat versions of the Tesla Model Y (only the seven-seater qualified before) as well as the Cadillac Lyriq, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and VW’s ID.4. The Treasury expanded the classification using the public-oriented Fuel Economy Labeling standard rather than the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). This will help treat crossovers "consistently," the department says.
Google has announced a streaming event called Live from Paris that will be all about "Search, Maps and beyond," set to be broadcast on YouTube on Wednesday February 8th. "We're reimagining how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need," the description reads.
Hopefully, the "beyond" part will shed more light on its plans for a ChatGPT rival. During Google's earnings call last week, Pichai finally addressed Google's own plans for an AI chat system. "In the coming weeks and months, we'll make these language models available, starting with LaMDA, so that people can engage directly with them," he said.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked Wikipedia after slowing access to the website for 48 hours over content it considers sacrilegious. The telecom authority revealed on February 1st that it approached the website with a court order to remove "blasphemous" material from its website. After Wikipedia didn't comply or appear before authorities, the PTA degraded access to the website for a couple of days and threatened to block it entirely if it didn't comply with its demands. The agency didn't publicly list the Wikipedia entries it doesn't want people in Pakistan to see. In 2020, the PTA temporarily banned TikTok due to "immoral and indecent" material before the short-form video app promised to moderate clips. The Muslim-majority country has stringent blasphemy laws.
According to reports, CEO RJ Scaringe told Rivian employees of the project during a company-wide meeting held on Friday. He said the startup had a “small group” of engineers working on a bike. This news comes in the same week the company announced layoffs that would affect six percent of its workforce – the second major restructuring Rivian has undertaken in less than a year. The company said the move was an effort to refocus itself on scaling production of its R1T and R1S EVs.
iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro
The iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro held in two hands, placed next to each other with their rear cameras facing out.
In a new study, University of Minnesota law professors used ChatGPT AI chatbot to answer graduate exams at four courses in their school. The AI passed all four, but with an average grade of C+. The University of Minnesota group noted ChatGPT was good at addressing "basic legal rules" and summaries, but it floundered when trying to pinpoint issues relevant in a case.
When faced with business management questions in a different study, the generator was "amazing" with simple operations management and process analysis questions, but it couldn't handle advanced process questions. It even made mistakes with sixth-grade-level math – something other AI authors have struggled with.
If you're unsure whether we're ready for robot lawyers, you're not the only one. DoNotPay is a free AI-powered chatbot that can draft letters and fill out forms for various legal matters, including appeals for parking tickets. Joshua Browder, the CEO of the New York startup, announced his company's bot would represent a defendant fighting a traffic ticket in the courtroom on February 22nd. However, he received multiple jail threats from state bar prosecutors if he was to go through with his plan. DoNotPay is postponing its court case. Browder told NPR "The truth is most people can't afford lawyers. This could've shifted the balance and allowed people to use tools like ChatGPT in the courtroom that maybe could've helped them win cases."
– Mat Smith
BuzzFeed is the latest publisher to embrace AI-generated content
Apple's Studio Display drops to a record low price at Amazon
Amazon's Blink Wired Floodlight Camera is now available for $100
Audi's Activesphere EV concept is built for off-roading and augmented reality
OnePlus teases its first tablet ahead of next month's official reveal
During a conference call discussing Tesla's latest earnings, company chief Elon Musk said mass production of the Cybertruck, its electric pickup, won't begin until 2024. He still expects manufacturing to kick off "sometime this summer" but warned output would be "very slow" early on. Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019.
For people intrigued by the Steam Deck but want something with a bit more performance, the Ayaneo 2 is a great little (pricey) portable gaming PC, says Engadget's Sam Rutherford. It features a newer Ryzen 7 6800U CPU that pumps out frame rates between 25 to 40 percent higher than the Steam Deck, while its sophisticated hall sensor joysticks deliver even more responsive controls. The Ayaneo 2 also features a seven-inch bezel-less LCD display with a higher 1,920 x 1,200 resolution and tons of connectivity, thanks to three USB-C ports. Crucially, it's based on Windows 11 instead of SteamOS, which means it should run practically any game you can think of. The main downsides are somewhat short battery life (about two and a half hours on a charge), the lack of built-in touchpads and a starting price $450 higher than the Steam Deck. Yeah, that's about double.
The US Department of Justice has spent months infiltrating and disrupting the Hive ransomware group, the agency announced on Thursday. The DOJ says Hive has targeted over 1,500 victims in 80-plus countries, extorting hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments. It first infiltrated Hive's network in July 2022, providing over 300 decryption keys to Hive's current victims and more than 1,000 keys to previous victims – preventing over $130 million in ransom payments.
Dutch authorities arrested a hacker for obtaining and trying to sell the personal information of nearly every Austrian citizen in May 2020 – and the defendant had also offered "similar data sets" from Italy, the Netherlands and Colombia. Authorities say the hacker posted in an online forum the nine million data sets, which police say consists of "registration data" residents must provide to authorities: full names, addresses and dates of birth – but no financial info. "Since this data was freely available on the internet, it must absolutely be assumed that these registration data are, in full or in part, irrevocably in the hands of criminals," the police said.
Headsets have come a long way since the launch of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive six years ago. The Meta Quest 2 has already been around for two years, and it's proven to be a very capable portable VR experience. And if you're looking for a more immersive experience, high-end PC headsets are getting cheaper (and there's the new PS VR 2 to look forward to). Read on for our top picks.
Microsoft And OpenAI Photo Illustrations
ChatGPT website displayed on a phone screen and OpenAI logo displayed on a screen in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 10, 2023. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Microsoft is making a "multibillion-dollar" investment that will lead to wider uses of OpenAI's technology, as well as more robust behind-the-scenes support. Microsoft has launched OpenAI-powered features, like natural language programming and a DALL-E 2 graphic design tool. OpenAI uses Microsoft's infrastructure to train its best-known systems, including DALL-E 2 and the popular ChatGPT bot. ChatGPT is coming to Azure soon. However, don't expect anyone to see ChatGPT in Bing – at least not yet. The expansion may help Microsoft seize a competitive advantage. Google reportedly sees ChatGPT as a threat to its search business,
The versatile AI chatbot is having a surge in popularity. The existing version already had more than one million users around December 2022. That's probably grown, too – and Microsoft wouldn't mind a piece of that.
– Mat Smith
Facebook Messenger encrypted chats now include more of the features you expect
Apple releases iOS 16.3 with support for physical security keys
Microsoft's Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 Core falls to a new low of $100
With its last batch of MacBook Pros, Apple gave its more demanding fans everything they wanted: tons of ports, lots of power and genuinely great screens. This time, it's just a straightforward chip upgrade, featuring the new M2 Pro and M2 Max. They're faster, as you'd expect, and they deliver a few features power users may appreciate, like 8K video output and support for WiFi 6E. The new MacBook Pro 14-inch isn't a dramatic departure from the last model, but the new chips will be incredibly useful to creative professionals.
Elon Musk said he could've sold his SpaceX shares to take Tesla private when he took the witness stand again to defend his 2018 "funding secured" tweets in a lawsuit filed by the automaker's shareholders. According to CNBC, Musk proclaimed: "SpaceX stock alone meant 'funding secured' by itself. It's not that I want to sell SpaceX stock but I could have, and if you look at the Twitter transaction – that is what I did. I sold Tesla stock to complete the Twitter transaction. And I would have done the same here."
The plaintiffs' lawsuit is based on Musk's infamous 2018 tweets in which he said he was "considering taking Tesla private at $420." The judge in this case has already determined his tweets were "objectively false and reckless." However, the plaintiffs still have to prove Musk knew his tweets were misleading and caused their losses to win the case. Musk and Tesla previously had to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $20 million each to settle a separate lawsuit over the same tweets, accusing him of making "false and misleading statements" that could constitute fraud.
Microsoft is stopping sales of Windows 10 downloads on January 31st, according to a product page spotted by The Verge. That date "will be the last day this Windows 10 download [and all-important license keys] are offered for sale," according to Microsoft. However, it will continue to support Windows 10 with security updates until it's discontinued for good in October 2025. Windows 10 launched in 2015 and will be discontinued exactly 10 years later. The company announced its end date in June 2021 as part of its "modern lifecycle policy," just before the launch of Windows 11.
We're expecting Apple to reveal a mixed reality headset in the coming months. It'll be Apple's first new product category since Apple Watch, which debuted in 2015. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has shared details about what to expect from the product, which may be called Reality Pro. The standalone device will have an interface similar to an iPhone and iPad and the option to pin widgets to the home screen. Alternatively, it may be used as an external display for a connected Mac. Along with Siri voice commands, there'll be the option to use a Mac, iPhone or iPad keyboard to enter text on the xrOS operating system, according to the report.
For one-on-one chats in which both participants wear a Reality Pro, the report also suggests FaceTime will render realistic versions of their face and body. Yes, that means legs! The device is rumored to appear ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, with a release to follow in fall. The price, though, may put many off. The headset could retail for around $3,000. That's twice as much as the Meta Quest Pro.
OpenAI And ChatGTP
OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The FAA paused all domestic departures in the US on the morning of January 11th because its NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions system failed. Now we know why: deleted files. Contractors working on the Federal Aviation Administration's NOTAM system, it seems, deleted some crucial files by accident. This resulted in delays and cancellations of thousands of US flights. The issue even impacted military flights that partly relied on FAA NOTAMs: Pilots reportedly had to call around to ask for potential flight hazards.
Apparently, its contractors were synchronizing a main and a back-up database when they "unintentionally deleted files" that turned out to be necessary to keep the alert system running. The FAA reiterated it has "so far found no evidence of a cyberattack or malicious intent." We’ve all accidentally deleted a file, sure. It’s just never grounded the flights of an entire country.
– Mat Smith
Keychron Q1 Pro: An aluminum-framed wireless mechanical keyboard at last
Scientists found a new emperor penguin colony by tracking poo markings from space
Tech publication CNET is halting its use of AI-written articles for the time being. "For now," leadership has paused experiments with AI stories, telling staff during a question-and-answer call. Editor-in-chief Connie Guglielmo reportedly said future AI-related stories would include a disclosure that the publication uses automated technologies. There are a few reasons. Last week, Futurism noticed dozens of financial explainer articles on CNET appeared to have been written using "automation technology." The disclosure was effectively hidden when you had to click the byline to see it. CNET claims humans "thoroughly" edited and fact-checked the work, but there appear to be multiple (and sometimes major) errors in stories.
Twitter is working on a new, more expensive Blue subscription tier for users to browse the platform without seeing ads. “Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks,” Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday afternoon. “Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads.” The existing Twitter Blue subscription costs up to $11 per month, but the ability to see fewer ads is still listed as “coming soon.” At the same time, Twitter’s ad revenue has apparently plummeted. The Information reported that a senior Twitter manager told employees last Tuesday daily revenue was down 40 percent from the same day a year ago.
Following a report of Marvel’s Avengers’ imminent demise, the studio published a blog post on Friday announcing plans to stop supporting the live-service title after September 30th. Crystal Dynamics will release one final balance patch and shut down the game’s in-game cosmetics store on March 31st. The developer says cosmetics previously only obtainable through the marketplace will be free for all players who own a copy of the game.
On that same day, players will see their remaining credit balance converted to in-game collectibles and resources. The swift end of Marvel’s Avengers won’t come as a surprise to fans. In November 2020, two months after the game went on sale, publisher Square Enix said it had failed to recoup the cost of making the title. Then, last May, Square sold Crystal Dynamics to Embracer Group.
The Food and Drug Administration has cleared Wandercraft's Atalante exoskeleton for use in stroke rehabilitation. The machine can help with intensive gait training, particularly for people with limited upper body mobility that might prevent using other methods. The current-generation Atalante is a self-balancing, battery-powered device with an adjustable gait that can help with early steps through to more natural walking later in therapy. While the hardware still needs to be used in a clinical setting with help from a therapist, its hands-free use helps patients re-establish their gait, with or without arms. Wandercraft plans to deliver its first exoskeletons to the US during the first quarter.
evening traffic at airport
While Google shuttered Stadia for good this week, other cloud gaming services are expanding their offerings. NVIDIA is upgrading its GeForce Now service with a bunch of features, thanks to the addition of new SuperPODs equipped with RTX 4080 GPUs. This seems to be the first truly high-end cloud gaming experience. The renamed Ultimate plan now includes support for refresh rates of up to 240Hz at full HD or 4K at 120 fps and an expanded set of usable widescreen resolutions (3,840x1,600, 3,440x1,440 and 2,560x1,080).
NVIDIA is also adding better support for HDR on both Macs and PCs, along with the ability to use full ray tracing with DLSS3 in supported games. This elevates GeForce Now above rivals like Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is capped at 1080p/60 fps. There are the usual cloud gaming caveats: NVIDIA’s recommended minimum bandwidth for gaming at 1080p at 240 fps is 35 Mbps.
If you want to max out at 4K/120 fps, Engadget’s Sam Rutherford notes you’ll need at least a 45 Mbps connection. These new SuperPODs have limited availability, too. At launch, new servers with 4080 GPUs will be in four places: San Jose, Los Angeles, Dallas and Frankfurt, Germany. That means only people in the US and Central Europe will experience NVIDIA’s best cloud gaming experience, for now.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
'Endless Dungeon' will hit PC, Xbox and PlayStation on May 18th
'Birth' is the macabre indie game quietly crushing the convention circuit
Samsung's Galaxy Watch will soon stream live video from Nest and Ring cameras
Apple's new 14-inch MacBook Pro gets its first discount on Amazon
Samsung may have a way to strike a hefty blow to the United States’ burgeoning right-to-repair movement. If the ITC (International Trade Commission) finds in the company’s favor, it would, in the words of Louis Rossmann (who published the text of the complaint), “fire a kill shot on the entire repair industry.” Samsung says several patents cover its AMOLED displays. But factories in China (and elsewhere) are, according to the company, churning out similar screens that infringe on those patents. Several businesses named in Samsung’s complaint include MobileSentrix, Injured Gadgets and DFW Cellphone & Parts. Many offer wholesale parts and equipment to other repair companies, as well as their own repair services. If Samsung’s request is successful, it could prevent large volumes of third-party OLED displays from being imported to the US, curtailing the repair ecosystem for one of the most crucial to your smartphone: the screen.
In case there was any doubt about Twitter’s intentions in cutting off the developers of third-party apps, the company has quietly updated its developer agreement to make clear that app makers may not create their own clients. The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access to the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” The company's suggestion that the rule was "longstanding" doesn't line up with its history. Twitter clients have long been a part of Twitter. Twitterrific, one of the most prominent apps affected by the API shut-off last week, was created before Twitter had its own native iOS app. Twitterific is even credited with coining the word “tweet.”
It's been over 12 years since Tron: Legacy debuted, and those who've been longing for a third entry in the classic sci-fi series may get what they asked for. Tron: Ares, as the film may be called, could start filming this August with Jared Leto, ol' Morbius himself, reportedly set to star, with Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) is in talks to direct, according to Deadline. Leto first signed on back in 2017, but Disney had a third movie on the backburner long before then. Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski said in 2015 that he wrote and storyboarded a sequel "that takes place on the internet with Yahoo and Google and all those sites."
Netflix co-creator Reed Hastings is stepping down as the company's co-CEO. Ted Sarandos, who has been co-CEO since July 2020, will share the reins with newly promoted operations chief Greg Peters. Hastings' departure comes as Netflix slowly recovers from a grim 2022. It lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade and blamed a combination of fiercer competition and widespread account sharing. In its recent earnings report, it announced adding 7.66 million new customers, reaching 230.75 million subscribers.
NVIDIA GeForce Now servers
GeForce Now SuperPOD servers
Twitter appears to have deliberately cut off third-party clients from accessing its API. Since Thursday evening, many of the most popular apps that scroll Twitter without going through the company’s own software, including Tweetbot and Twitterrific, haven’t worked, with no official communication from Twitter. On Sunday, a report from The Information featured messages from Twitter’s internal Slack channels that suggested the company is aware of the outage – and is likely the cause of it. “Third-party app suspensions are intentional,” reads one message in a channel the company’s engineers use to fix service disruptions.
In the last 24 hours, Tweetbot briefly came back online, but then fizzled out again. Does Twitter really want us to reinstall its app or use it in our web browsers? Will this work, or will more of us just turn off Twitter entirely?
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
Hitting the Books: How to build a music recommendation 'information-space-beast'
Biden administration announces conditional $700 million loan for Nevada lithium mine
Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 raises $2.6 million for charity
iRobot's Roomba Combo j7+ vacuum and mop is $200 off right now
Nieuwe Mobile posted leaked images of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and S23 Plus. The alleged renders show the camera placement, colors and design of the new flagships, which Samsung is set to announce next month. There are, once again, lots of camera sensors. The Ultra’s back appears flatter than its predecessor’s and has five camera sensors. Additionally, three of the S23 Ultra’s lenses (likely the primary, ultra-wide and 10x telephoto cameras) are bigger than the others. According to rumors, the Ultra will have a 200-megapixel main camera, a first for the Galaxy lineup. (Standard and Plus models should have 50-megapixel cameras.)
NVIDIA has updated its Broadcast software with a beta Eye Contact feature that, like Apple's FaceTime, fixes your gaze to keep it focused on your camera. It preserves your blinks and eye color and will even transition between digital and real eyes when you look far enough off-center. It’s not perfect: The developers caution there are "millions" of potential eye-color and lighting scenarios they can't test. It could, however, reduce the awkwardness of your first scripted video.
England will ban businesses from selling and offering a variety of single-use plastics, including plates and cutlery, by the end of the year, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced on Saturday. In addition to some plastics, the ban will cover single-use trays and certain types of polystyrene cups and food containers but will exempt plates, trays and bowls included with supermarket ready-meals – the government intends to target those through a separate plan. The government will begin enforcing the legislation in October 2023.
Tweetbot
Tweetbot service disruption dialog.
FreshRSS 