Author Archives: Mariella Moon

Uber will start reminding passengers to wear their seat belt

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Starting today, the Uber app will remind you to put on your seatbelt shortly after your ride starts. Passengers' tendency to not use a seat belt remains a significant concern, the ride-hailing service wrote in its announcement of the new safety feature, even though 50 percent of all vehicle crash deaths in the US in 2022 was caused by their non-usage. Now, your driver's phone will issue an audio reminder when you hop on, telling you to "Please use your seat belt for your safety." You'll also get a push notification on your phone at the same time that says: "Even on a short ride and seated in the back, use a seat belt for safety."

The company first started testing audio seat belt alerts in 2021 based on feedback from drivers. It said at the time that it believes the alerts will "increase seat belt use and help drivers ensure a safe environment while on a trip." This rollout makes it widely available in the US, UK, Taiwan, Latin America, as well as several countries in Africa. Uber intends to bring it to more territories in the future. 

The feature will only be enabled for your first five trips after the feature launches. Uber is likely hoping you'll get used to putting your seat belt on after those first five times, though it will send you a notification every 10th trip thereafter. The company also recently launched a new safety preferences section where you can find and automate the service's safety tools. From there, you can automatically switch on features like audio recording, PIN verification, RideCheck and Share My Trip. 

A screenshot of a phone screen with an Uber notification reminding the user to put on their seat belt.
Uber

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-will-start-reminding-passengers-to-wear-their-seat-belt-140000112.html?src=rss

Uber will start reminding passengers to wear their seat belt

Posted on by

Starting today, the Uber app will remind you to put on your seatbelt shortly after your ride starts. Passengers' tendency to not use a seat belt remains a significant concern, the ride-hailing service wrote in its announcement of the new safety feature, even though 50 percent of all vehicle crash deaths in the US in 2022 was caused by their non-usage. Now, your driver's phone will issue an audio reminder when you hop on, telling you to "Please use your seat belt for your safety." You'll also get a push notification on your phone at the same time that says: "Even on a short ride and seated in the back, use a seat belt for safety."

The company first started testing audio seat belt alerts in 2021 based on feedback from drivers. It said at the time that it believes the alerts will "increase seat belt use and help drivers ensure a safe environment while on a trip." This rollout makes it widely available in the US, UK, Taiwan, Latin America, as well as several countries in Africa. Uber intends to bring it to more territories in the future. 

The feature will only be enabled for your first five trips after the feature launches. Uber is likely hoping you'll get used to putting your seat belt on after those first five times, though it will send you a notification every 10th trip thereafter. The company also recently launched a new safety preferences section where you can find and automate the service's safety tools. From there, you can automatically switch on features like audio recording, PIN verification, RideCheck and Share My Trip. 

A screenshot of a phone screen with an Uber notification reminding the user to put on their seat belt.
Uber

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-will-start-reminding-passengers-to-wear-their-seat-belt-140000112.html?src=rss

YouTube prevents ad-blocking mobile apps from accessing its videos

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YouTube's war with ad blockers is far from over, and it's focusing on tools that enable ad-free viewing on mobile this time. The Google-owned video platform has announced that it's "strengthening [its] enforcement on third-party apps that violate" its Terms of Service, "specifically ad-blocking apps." It's talking about mobile applications you can use to access videos without being interrupted by advertisements. When you use an application like that, you may experience buffering issues or see an error message that says "The following content is not available on this app."

The service says its terms don't allow third-party apps to switch off ads "because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership." Like it's been doing over the past few months since it started cracking down on ad blockers, YouTube suggests signing up for a Premium membership if you want to watch ad-free. YouTube Premium will set you back $14 a month. 

Back in November, YouTube told us that it "launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience." It started by showing pop-ups whenever an ad blocker is in use telling you that it's against the website's TOS. Soon after that, you could only play up to three videos with an ad blocker on before you can no longer load any. Google also later admitted that if you have an ad blocker installed, you "may experience suboptimal viewing," such as having to wait a longer period before a video loads. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-prevents-ad-blocking-mobile-apps-from-accessing-its-videos-123055735.html?src=rss

YouTube prevents ad-blocking mobile apps from accessing its videos

Posted on by

YouTube's war with ad blockers is far from over, and it's focusing on tools that enable ad-free viewing on mobile this time. The Google-owned video platform has announced that it's "strengthening [its] enforcement on third-party apps that violate" its Terms of Service, "specifically ad-blocking apps." It's talking about mobile applications you can use to access videos without being interrupted by advertisements. When you use an application like that, you may experience buffering issues or see an error message that says "The following content is not available on this app."

The service says its terms don't allow third-party apps to switch off ads "because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership." Like it's been doing over the past few months since it started cracking down on ad blockers, YouTube suggests signing up for a Premium membership if you want to watch ad-free. YouTube Premium will set you back $14 a month. 

Back in November, YouTube told us that it "launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience." It started by showing pop-ups whenever an ad blocker is in use telling you that it's against the website's TOS. Soon after that, you could only play up to three videos with an ad blocker on before you can no longer load any. Google also later admitted that if you have an ad blocker installed, you "may experience suboptimal viewing," such as having to wait a longer period before a video loads. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-prevents-ad-blocking-mobile-apps-from-accessing-its-videos-123055735.html?src=rss

Keanu Reeves is reportedly playing Shadow the Hedgehog in Sonic 3

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When Sonic 3 hits the theaters later this year, you may be able to watch a franchise fan favorite be voiced by one of Hollywood's all-time fan favorite actors. Keanu Reeves will play the broody, tortured Shadow the Hedgehog, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The antihero, who's both an arch-rival and an ally to Sonic, will be created by Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik after the events of Sonic 2, based on the movie's first footage presented at CinemaCon last week. 

Shadow has a long history in the Sonic universe and first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2, which came out back in 2001. The black-furred anthropomorphic hedgehog was created in the games to help find a cure for Dr. Robotnik's granddaughter Maria, who had a terminal disease. It's unclear if the movie will follow a similar storyline — though we can again expect Sonic and his gang to stop Dr. Robotnik's plans to take over the world — but we'll likely get more details about the film before it comes out on December 20. Jeff Fowler will still lead the production as its director, while Ben Schwartz and James Marsden are reprising their roles as Sonic and his adoptive father-of-sorts Sheriff Tom Wachowski, respectively. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/keanu-reeves-is-reportedly-playing-shadow-the-hedgehog-in-sonic-3-072847772.html?src=rss

The latest version of xAI’s Grok can process images

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xAI, the OpenAI competitor founded by Elon Musk, has introduced the first version of Grok that can process visual information. Grok-1.5V is the company's first-generation multimodal AI model, which cannot only process text, but also "documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots and photographs." In xAI's announcement, it gave a few samples of how its capabilities can be used in the real world. You can, for instance, show it a photo of a flow chart and ask Grok to translate it into Python code, get it to write a story based on a drawing and even have it explain a meme you can't understand. Hey, not everyone can keep up with everything the internet spits out. 

The new version comes just a couple of weeks after the company unveiled Grok-1.5. That model was designed to be better at coding and math than its predecessor, as well as to be able to process longer contexts so that it can check data from more sources to better understand certain inquiries. xAI said its early testers and existing users will soon be able to enjoy Grok-1.5V's capabilities, though it didn't give an exact timeline for its rollout. 

In addition to introducing Grok-1.5V, the company has also released a benchmark dataset it's calling RealWorldQA. You can use any of RealWorldQA's 700 images to evaluate AI models: Each item comes with questions and answers you can easily verify, but which may stump multimodal models like Grok. xAI claimed its technology received the highest score when the company tested it with RealWorldQA against competitors, such as OpenAI's GPT-4V and Google Gemini Pro 1.5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-latest-version-of-xais-grok-can-process-images-120025782.html?src=rss

The latest version of xAI’s Grok can process images

Posted on by

xAI, the OpenAI competitor founded by Elon Musk, has introduced the first version of Grok that can process visual information. Grok-1.5V is the company's first-generation multimodal AI model, which cannot only process text, but also "documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots and photographs." In xAI's announcement, it gave a few samples of how its capabilities can be used in the real world. You can, for instance, show it a photo of a flow chart and ask Grok to translate it into Python code, get it to write a story based on a drawing and even have it explain a meme you can't understand. Hey, not everyone can keep up with everything the internet spits out. 

The new version comes just a couple of weeks after the company unveiled Grok-1.5. That model was designed to be better at coding and math than its predecessor, as well as to be able to process longer contexts so that it can check data from more sources to better understand certain inquiries. xAI said its early testers and existing users will soon be able to enjoy Grok-1.5V's capabilities, though it didn't give an exact timeline for its rollout. 

In addition to introducing Grok-1.5V, the company has also released a benchmark dataset it's calling RealWorldQA. You can use any of RealWorldQA's 700 images to evaluate AI models: Each item comes with questions and answers you can easily verify, but which may stump multimodal models like Grok. xAI claimed its technology received the highest score when the company tested it with RealWorldQA against competitors, such as OpenAI's GPT-4V and Google Gemini Pro 1.5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-latest-version-of-xais-grok-can-process-images-120025782.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s Windows 11 beta testers may start seeing ads in the Start menu

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Microsoft is exploring the idea of putting ads in your Windows 11 Start menu. To be specific, it's looking to place advertisements for apps you can find in the Microsoft Store in the menu's recommended section. I could hear you sighing in defeat if you've used Windows 10 extensively before — the older OS serves ads in the Start menu, as well, and they're also for apps you can download. At the moment, Microsoft will only show ads in this version if you're in the US and a Windows Insider in the Beta Channel. You won't be seeing them if you're not a beta tester or if you're using a device managed by an organization.

Further, you can disable the advertisements altogether. To do so, just go to Personalization under Settings and then toggle off "Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more" in the Start section. Like any other Microsoft experiment, it may never reach wider rollout, but you may want to remember the aforementioned steps, since the company does have history of incorporating ads into its desktop platforms. Last year, Microsoft also deployed experimental promo spots for its services like OneDrive in the menu that pops up when you click on your profile photo. 

A screenshot of the Windows 11 start menu showing an advertisement for 1Password.
Microsoft

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-11-beta-testers-may-start-seeing-ads-in-the-start-menu-032358394.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s Windows 11 beta testers may start seeing ads in the Start menu

Posted on by

Microsoft is exploring the idea of putting ads in your Windows 11 Start menu. To be specific, it's looking to place advertisements for apps you can find in the Microsoft Store in the menu's recommended section. I could hear you sighing in defeat if you've used Windows 10 extensively before — the older OS serves ads in the Start menu, as well, and they're also for apps you can download. At the moment, Microsoft will only show ads in this version if you're in the US and a Windows Insider in the Beta Channel. You won't be seeing them if you're not a beta tester or if you're using a device managed by an organization.

Further, you can disable the advertisements altogether. To do so, just go to Personalization under Settings and then toggle off "Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more" in the Start section. Like any other Microsoft experiment, it may never reach wider rollout, but you may want to remember the aforementioned steps, since the company does have history of incorporating ads into its desktop platforms. Last year, Microsoft also deployed experimental promo spots for its services like OneDrive in the menu that pops up when you click on your profile photo. 

A screenshot of the Windows 11 start menu showing an advertisement for 1Password.
Microsoft

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-11-beta-testers-may-start-seeing-ads-in-the-start-menu-032358394.html?src=rss

China reportedly orders state-owned mobile carriers to replace foreign chips

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Back in 2019, the FCC banned US carriers, which were then starting to deploy their 5G networks, from using subsidies to buy equipment from companies deemed a national security threat. Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE were at the top of that list. Now, China is implementing a similar measure: According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered state-owned mobile operators, including the two biggest carriers in the country, to phase out foreign chips. 

The regulator has reportedly told China Mobile and China Telecom, along with all other state-owned carriers, to check their networks for any semiconductors that weren't manufactured locally. It then asked them to determine a timeline to replace them. The Journal's sources said that it's now possible to switch to domestic chips, thanks to improvements in their quality and performance over the past few years. Chinese companies like Huawei were forced to design their own semiconductors after getting hit by trade sanctions, in order to be self-sufficient and in case they're no longer able to import chips from the US and its allies. The Chinese government, in turn, is supporting their efforts and is raising $40 billion in funds to help the domestic semiconductor industry. 

This latest move by China follows its ban on the use of Intel and AMD processors in government computers. Prior to that, China also prohibited the use of US-made tech in all government institutions and public bodies and banned local firms from buying chips made by US memory manufacturer Micron Technology. Intel and AMD will most likely suffer heavy losses from this latest development, since they provide most of the chips used for mobile networks around the world. China was also Intel's largest market in 2023 and accounted for 27 percent of its revenue. In addition to losing some of their biggest customers, the companies will now have to face competition from Chinese manufacturers, as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/china-reportedly-orders-state-owned-mobile-carriers-to-replace-foreign-chips-133001488.html?src=rss