Monthly Archives: July 2024

Apple Maps is now available on the web in beta

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Apple Maps is expanding beyond its app. Just like with Google Maps, the service is now available on the web, albeit in beta form at the jump.

There are some limitations for now. Availability will vary by region and Maps is only available in English on the web at the outset. As things stand, you can access Apple Maps from Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad. Windows PC users can access the service via Chrome and Edge. Apple says it will expand the web experience to other languages, devices and browsers over time, but for now at least, iPhone users will need to keep using the Maps app.

The web version of Apple Maps includes directions; guides; opening hours, reviews and other helpful information for businesses; and actions such as ordering food. Apple will add other features, including Look Around (i.e. the company's version of street View), in the coming months. 

After many years of restricting Maps to an app, Apple might be trying to take on Google at its own game. Google Maps has, for instance, long allowed developers to embed a section of a map on websites. Apple says devs will be able to link to its maps on the web to offer their users driving directions, information about places and more.

Expanding beyond the app is a smart idea and it could help Apple Maps reach more eyeballs. The company also started offering a web version of Apple Music several years ago.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-maps-is-now-available-on-the-web-in-beta-193648138.html?src=rss

Fully off road capable, self-inflating AlphaGo S6 Air V4 camping trailer is like luxury villa on wheels

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It wouldn’t be wrong to say that there is no dearth of easy-to-tow camping trailers that are off-road ready and willing to go anywhere you want them to tag along. The limitation with most of them is the limited availability of space. No matter how spacious it is, a camping trailer still begs for a room unless it is one that can self-inflate in minutes to offer almost a luxury villa at the campsite to spend a weekend in with your family.

Enter the luxurious new camping trailer from South Africa. Called the AlphaGo S6 Air V4, this is an off-road trailer designed to accommodate a family of six within a self-inflating camper that maximizes time at the camp and reduces set up and set down stress. The basic nature of this trailer is to effortlessly transition from a low towable trailer into a splendid multi-room villa with luxurious amenities packed within.

Designer: AlphaGo

By that virtue, the new AlphaGo camping trailer vouches to “represent the ultimate in freedom, luxury and style.” The trailer employs air inflation technology created by Opus Campers ensuring that it does not need traditional tenting poles and can set up in five minutes, creating a spacious interior and adjoining space that allows the occupants to make the most of their camping adventure, as opposed to the trailers that limit the owners within their four walls.

Trailing behind your 4×4, this AlphaGo trailer keeps a low profile and glides like the ‘air.’ It has a lightweight aluminum body based on a galvanized steel chassis and features a 10-leaf spring suspension to tackle the grumpy roads. When you’re at the campsite, this marvel of engineering opens to reveal its beastly appearance. The two sections of the roof unfold to create sleeping platforms while the awning and bathroom inflate at the push of a button to create more space outdoor and living area inside to relax and unwind.

Within its spacious, premium finish interior, the camping trailer has a full kitchen, two bedrooms, and a lounge/dining area that transforms into a third bed. For entertainment, it’s installed with a 60-inch screen and a high-definition projector. AlphaGo S6 Air V4 starts at 449,995 South African Rand (roughly $24,500) with a 100 Ah battery, charging system, and 75-l fresh water tank. An inverter and solar panels are optional.

The post Fully off road capable, self-inflating AlphaGo S6 Air V4 camping trailer is like luxury villa on wheels first appeared on Yanko Design.

Modders made a tiny Nintendo Wii that doubles as a keychain

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The Nintendo Wii was a bona-fide cultural juggernaut, with over 100 million consoles sold during its lifespan. It was never the biggest console in the world, with a size approximating a paperback book. Modders, however, have managed to shrink the Wii’s footprint way down. They made a functional console that’s no bigger than a keychain, as reported by Time Extension. As a matter of fact, it actually doubles as a keychain.

The appropriately-named Nintendo Kawaii is a teensy-weensy Wii that lacks some of the bells and whistles of the original, but it works and can run games from that generation. It’s also quite fetching, with a CNC’d aluminum metal unibody. There are magnetic pogo pin connectors for power, AV support and controllers. There’s also a custom dock that offers support for four Gamecube controllers, which is a must for certain fighting games that rhyme with Shmooper Smash Bros.

The makers of this minuscule wonder say the project began as a challenge to make “the smallest functional Wii ever made.” It looks like they got the job done. As for excess heat, the whole thing is passively cooled and doesn’t include an internal fan.

It’s way too small to actually accept Wii discs, so this is a digital-only affair. Also, there’s the specter of Wiimotes. It doesn’t look like this offers Bluetooth connectivity of any kind, so you won’t be able to use traditional Wiimotes. You can, however, plug in any USB-C controller and the aforementioned Gamecube gamepads. Being as how it doesn’t work with Wii remotes, there’s no sensor bar or anything like that. This is for playing the console’s many controller-based games, with no waggle allowed. Wii Sports and Skyward Sword fans will have to look elsewhere. The OS looks to be open-source, so it may be able to emulate other stuff. We'll update this post when we find out more. 

The makers of this machine put an initial run of 30 units up for sale at $55. It sold out almost immediately, but that was just to test the waters. It’s highly possible orders will open back up again in the near future.

This isn’t the first time modders have hit the Wii with a shrink ray. Earlier this year, a hardware modder made a Wii that was the size of a deck of cards. That now seems gargantuan compared to the Kawaii.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/modders-made-a-tiny-nintendo-wii-that-doubles-as-a-keychain-185347707.html?src=rss

Meta takes down 63,000 Instagram accounts linked to extortion scams

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Meta has taken down tens of thousands of Instagram accounts from Nigeria as part of a massive crackdown on sextortion scams. The accounts primarily targeted adult men in the United States, but some also targeted minors, Meta said in an update.

The takedowns are part of a larger effort by Meta to combat sextortion scams on its platform in recent months. Earlier this year, the company added a safety feature in Instagram messages to automatically detect nudity and warn users about potential blackmail scams. The company also provides in-app resources and safety tips about such scams.

According to Meta, the recent takedowns included 2,500 accounts that were linked to a group of about 20 people who worked together to carry out sextortion scams. The company also took down thousands of accounts and groups on Facebook that provided tips and other advice, including scripts and fake images, for would-be sextortionists. Those accounts were linked to the Yahoo Boys, a group of “loosely organized cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams,” Meta said.

Meta has come under particular scrutiny for not doing enough to protect teens from sextortion on its apps. During a Senate hearing earlier this year, Senator Lindsey Graham pressed Mark Zuckerberg on whether the parents of a child who died by suicide after falling victim to such a scam should be able to sue the company.

Though the company said that the “majority” of the scammers it uncovered in its latest takedowns targeted adults, it confirmed that some of the accounts had targeted minors as well and that those accounts had also been reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-takes-down-63000-instagram-accounts-linked-to-extortion-scams-175118067.html?src=rss

AI search engines that don’t pay up can’t index Reddit content

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When Reddit said last month that it would block unauthorized data scraping from its site, everyone’s (rightful) first reaction was “AI, AI, AI.” However, now that the change has taken effect, chatbot makers may not be the only ones being locked out. The widely used forum also appears to be blocking major search engines other than Brave and Google, the latter of which reportedly inked a deal earlier this year with Reddit worth $60 million annually. However, a Reddit spokesperson told Engadget that the empty search results are about Google’s rivals not agreeing to the company’s requirements for AI training. It says it’s it’s in discussions with several of them.

404 Media reported on Wednesday (and Engadget confirmed in our queries) that searching for Reddit results from the past week on rival engine Bing (using “site:reddit.com”) returns empty results. The publication reported that DuckDuckGo produced seven links without any descriptions, only providing the note, “We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.” The engine now appears to have removed even those, as our test only produced an empty page, reading, “no results found.”

When Reddit said last month that it would update its Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt) to block automated data scraping, it’s now apparent that it wasn’t only meant to thwart AI companies like Perplexity and its controversial “answer engine.” Currently, Google appears to be the only search engine allowed to crawl Reddit and produce results from “the front page of the internet.”

A Reddit spokesperson told Engadget on Wednesday it isn’t accurate to say the missing search results are a result of its Google deal. “We block all crawlers that are unwilling to commit to not using crawl data for AI training, which is in line with enforcing our Public Content Policy and updated robots.txt file,” the company said. “Anyone accessing Reddit content must abide by our policies, including those in place to protect redditors. We are selective about who we work with and trust with large-scale access to Reddit content.”

Meanwhile, a source familiar with Reddit’s thinking told Engadget on Wednesday that Bing’s omission is due to Microsoft refusing to agree to Reddit’s terms regarding AI crawling. Instead, the Bing maker allegedly claimed its standard web controls were sufficient. The source claims Microsoft’s stance conflicts with Reddit’s data privacy policy, leading to the impasse and empty search results.

The ubiquitous robots.txt is the web standard that communicates which parts of a site can be crawled. Although many crawlers are known to ignore its instructions, Google’s standard procedure is to respect it. So, on the technical side, the companies in cahoots on the lucrative deal appear to have deployed some manual override.

The saga could be seen as a trickle-down effect of AI chatbots scraping the live web for results. With courts slow to determine how much of the open web is fair use to train chatbots on, companies like Reddit, whose bottom lines now depend on safeguarding their data from those who don’t pay, are building walls at the expense of the open web. (Although, given the integral role Microsoft has played in this AI era, cozying up with OpenAI early on, it seems ironic that Bing finds itself on the losing end of at least one aspect of the fallout.)

Colin Hayhurst, CEO of lesser-known “no-tracking” search engine Mojeek, told 404 Media that Reddit is “killing everything for search but Google.” In addition, the executive said his attempts to contact Reddit were ignored. “It’s never happened to us before,” he said. “Because this happens to us, we get blocked, usually because of ignorance or stupidity or whatever, and when we contact the site you certainly can get that resolved, but we’ve never had no reply from anybody before.”

Reddit has made no secret of its desire to block AI companies from scraping its treasure trove of data in this burgeoning age of AI. Last year, CEO Steve Huffman risked alienating large portions of its user base by blocking third-party API requests, leading to the demise of beloved apps like Christian Selig’s Apollo. Despite widespread protests among moderators and forum-goers, the company only temporarily lost negligible numbers of users.

The gamble appeared to pay off, and Reddit recovered. It went public in March.

Update, July 24, 2024, 5:00 PM ET: This story has been updated to add statements from Reddit and additional context from sources familiar with the company’s thinking.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/search-engines-that-dont-pay-up-cant-index-reddit-content-172949170.html?src=rss

CrowdStrike offered a $10 Uber Eats card to teammates and partners, but it got flagged for fraud

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Last week’s CrowdStrike outage plunged a noticeable portion of the world into a sea of blue death screens. The cybersecurity company tried to apologize with an Uber Eats gift card but its roll out had some troubles as well, according to a report from TechCrunch.

CrowdStrike apparently tried to send its "teammates and partners" a $10 Uber Eats gift card on Tuesday. The gift card was an attempt to apologize for the global shutdown that locked up computer systems for banks, hospitals, airlines and more and “the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused,” according to TechCrunch’s source who received the message.

When some tried to use the gift card on Uber Eats, they only saw a screen telling them that the offer had been rescinded by the issuing party. CrowdStrike told us that Uber flagged it as a fraud because of high usage rates.

CrowdStrike blamed the global system outage on a bug in an update that contained “problematic data.” The bug forced machines running on Windows into a boot loop that caused mass delays at airports, delayed scheduled surgeries and other operations at hospitals and disruptions at banks and even the London Stock Exchange.

Correction: July 24, 2024, 4:45PM ET: This story originally claimed that Crowdstrike tried to apologize for its recent outage by sending customers an Uber Eats gift card. The company gave us the following statement: "CrowdStrike did not send gift cards to customers or clients. We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/crowdstrike-offers-a-10-uber-eats-card-to-say-sorry-before-pulling-the-offer-172605510.html?src=rss

Celebrate the Rare Blue Moon with Omega x Swatch Limited Edition Watch

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Welcome to Wrist Watch Wednesday, where we dive deep into the latest and most captivating timepieces in the world of horology. Today, we explore the Omega x Swatch collaboration, MISSION TO THE SUPER BLUE MOONPHASE, a chronograph that marks the rare blue moon of August 19, 2024. This watch celebrates the summer season and a rare astronomical event, encapsulated in a design that seamlessly merges both brands’ expertise.

Designer: Omega + Swatch

MISSION TO THE SUPER BLUE MOONPHASE

The watch boasts a striking blue Bioceramic case, crown, and pushers, creating a sleek and modern aesthetic that is sure to captivate. The blue VELCRO strap, adorned with light blue topstitching and a blue Bioceramic attachment loop, perfectly complements the case, ensuring a cohesive and comfortable fit.

The dial is the centerpiece of this watch, showcasing a blue and silver opaline panda design. The silver opaline background is clean and sophisticated, while the contrasting blue subdials add a dynamic visual element. The blue hour markers are meticulously applied for precision, making them easily readable. Both the hour and minute hands are blue and coated with Grade A Super-LumiNova®, ensuring they glow brightly in low light. The chronograph seconds hand shares this luminescent coating, guaranteeing legibility in any condition.

This dial’s unique and poetic feature is the moon phase indicator at the 2 o’clock position. This subdial features two large blue moons on a dark blue disc, which rotates to display the moon’s different phases. Under UV light, hidden details in various shades of blue emerge on the moon phase mask and disc, adding a delightful visual surprise. This hidden moon design echoes the battery cover, linking the front and back aesthetics.

The blue Bioceramic bezel around the dial includes a white pulsometer scale, a practical tool historically used by medical professionals to measure heart rates. This pulsometer enhances both the watch’s functionality and its unique character.

The dial is protected by box-shaped bio-sourced glass, known for its durability and clarity. The center of this glass is etched with an “S” for Swatch, a subtle brand signature. The dial’s outer ring features a finely crafted circular pattern that beautifully catches light, adding depth and texture to the design. Recessed subdials contribute to the multi-layered appearance of the dial, ensuring that every element is functional and visually appealing. The sharp, smooth lugs integrate seamlessly with the case, and the Bioceramic material provides a unique tactile feel.

This exclusive model is available for purchase only from August 1 to August 19, 2024, starting from 5 pm at selected Swatch points of sale worldwide. The limited availability reflects the rarity of the blue moon that inspired this watch. The phrase ‘once in a blue moon’ is often used to describe something that happens very rarely, and this watch truly embodies that sentiment. Remember, it’s not often you get the chance to own something this special—truly a ‘once in a blue moon’ opportunity!

The specifications of the MISSION TO THE SUPER BLUE MOON PHASE include:
– Case Material: Blue Bioceramic
– Case diameter: 42.00 mm
– Case thickness: 13.75 mm
– Lug-to-lug distance: 47.30 mm
– Movement: Quartz chronograph with moon phase indicator
– Water resistance: 3 bar
– Strap: Blue VELCRO with light blue topstitching and a blue Bioceramic attachment loop

This collaboration between Omega and Swatch brings together the best of both brands, creating an aesthetically pleasing and highly functional watch. The moon phase indicator, pulsometer scale, and luminescent hands all contribute to a design that captures the beauty of a rare astronomical event. The MISSION TO THE SUPER BLUE MOONPHASE is not just a timepiece; it’s a collector’s item that embodies the essence of a once-in-a-lifetime celestial phenomenon, making it a must-have for watch enthusiasts and collectors alike.

The post Celebrate the Rare Blue Moon with Omega x Swatch Limited Edition Watch first appeared on Yanko Design.

MultiVersus leak suggests Barbie and Mad Max tie-ins are on the way

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MultiVersus, the platform fighter that pulls from Warner Bros. properties, could be getting a whole bunch of new stages and characters, according to a report by Kotaku. This includes content from the film Barbie and the Mad Max universe, in addition to more Adventure Land stuff and a potential tie-in with the forthcoming Beetlejuice sequel. WB owns a whole bunch of stuff, so this could get interesting.

The reporting is sourced from a fairly reputable dataminer on X, who published receipts in the form of screengrabs and the like. These images include an early version of a potential Barbie Land stage, complete with palm trees and, of course, a bright pink color palette. 

There’s also a picture that allegedly depicts a stage based on Quidditch, the broom-based sport from Harry Potter that makes absolutely zero sense. Other leaked stages include the wastelands from Mad Max, a background inspired by Powerpuff Girls and one pulled from the cartoon Samurai Jack.

Speaking of those last two, both the Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack will be showing up as playable characters. Samurai Jack makes for an interesting addition, being as how fighting is basically his whole thing. The dataminer has also indicated that Beetlejuice will soon be a playable character, likely coinciding with the September 6 release date of the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This has been confirmed by the developer, as has Samurai Jack. Adventure Time’s resident vampire bassist Marceline could also be joining the roster.

It’s worth noting that this information isn’t set in stone. Many of the stages suggested by the X user look to be extremely early in development and the same goes for some of the playable characters. It’s entirely possible, and likely, that WB and Ready Player Games are always tinkering with new stages and characters and not all of them make it to the final game. To that end, it was reported back in 2022 that Ted Lasso would be a playable character and, well, that hasn’t happened.

Warner Bros. did just buy the game’s developer, so it’s definitely serious about keeping the ball rolling on this whole branded platform fighter thing. WB has a ridiculously deep bench of IPs, including DC Comics, Harry Potter, HBO shows, Dune, Mad Max, Barbie, Looney Tunes and so many more. MultiVersus will never knock Super Smash Bros. from the throne, but it’s definitely proven itself to have a longer shelf life than, say, Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/multiversus-leak-suggests-barbie-and-mad-max-tie-ins-are-on-the-way-162251960.html?src=rss

The Google Pixel Buds A-Series drop to $69

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Amazon Prime Day 2024 might be behind us but the deals keep coming and they don't stop coming. Folks with a Google Pixel or other Android device who are in the market for a set of budget-friendly earbuds may be interested in a discount on the Pixel Buds A-Series (they're compatible with iPhones too, but the integration won't be as deep on iOS products). These earbuds were already decent value at $99, and now they've dropped to an even more attractive price of $69.

We gave the Pixel Buds A-Series a score of 84 in our 2021 review. They don't support wireless charging or have onboard controls, but otherwise we felt that they deliver excellent value for money (even more so now thanks to the current discount).

The sound quality is pretty darned decent and the buds can reduce background noise while you're on calls. You'll get up to five hours of listening time and 2.5 hours of talk time before you'll need to return the earbuds to the case, Google says. You'll seemingly get up to 24 hours of total listening time before you have to charge the case. Thanks to quick charging, you'll be able to add three hours of listening time after plugging in the case for just 15 minutes. While there's an adaptive sound function for automatically adjusting the volume, there's no true active noise cancellation here.

If you'd like something a more premium option, you can go with the Pixel Buds Pro instead. Those have dropped to $140, which is $60 off. However, they dropped to $120 during Prime Day.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-buds-a-series-drop-to-69-145630793.html?src=rss