Tag Archives: author_name|Anna Washenko

Xbox is increasing Game Pass prices and adding a ‘standard’ plan

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Time for Xbox fans to adjust their budgets. Xbox Game Pass is increasing prices this year in a phased rollout. Beginning on July 10, any new subscribers will be charged the updated price, while current subscribers will see the higher costs take effect starting September 12. For the US, Game Pass Ultimate prices will increase from $17 a month to $20 a month, while a year of access to Game Pass Core will jump from $60 to $75. Microsoft laid out all the regional increases in a graph.

Microsoft is also adding a less expensive option in September with Xbox Game Pass Standard. This plan offers access to Game Pass titles but without some perks of the Ultimate package, such as day one releases and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The Standard option will include online multiplayer, some store discounts, and all the other features of the Core plan. It will cost $15 per month in the US.

Breakdown of benefits for Xbox Game Pass plans
Xbox

The final change is what looks like the beginning of the end for the Xbox Game Pass for Console plan. This option will no longer be available for new customers, and if any current plan holders stop their automatic renewal, they'll have to choose a different option if they want to re-up.

This is the latest in a string of sad news stories about Game Pass. In February, we heard from Microsoft that the program had 34 million subscribers, marking a notable slowdown in growth with only 9 million new players added in the past two years. That total includes Core, which is the rebranded Xbox Live plan for playing online games with minimal other perks, meaning the number of new subscribers is even lower. And in June, Xbox's hoped-for big splash of new hardware announcements turned out to be a mere trickle of refreshes. It's a great offer for players who want to keep up with the vast number of new games being released every month, but it doesn't seem to be connecting with the audience in the way Microsoft hoped.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xbox-is-increasing-game-pass-prices-and-adding-a-standard-plan-234657957.html?src=rss

Bumble wants users to report AI-generated images

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Bumble is making it simpler for its members to report AI-generated profiles. The dating and social connection platform now has "Using AI-generated photos or videos" as an option under the Fake Profile reporting menu.

"An essential part of creating a space to build meaningful connections is removing any element that is misleading or dangerous," Bumble Vice President of Product at Bumble Risa Stein said in an official statement. "We are committed to continually improving our technology to ensure that Bumble is a safe and trusted dating environment. By introducing this new reporting option, we can better understand how bad actors and fake profiles are using AI disingenuously so our community feels confident in making connections."

According to a Bumble user survey, 71 percent of the service's Gen Z and Millennial respondents want to see limits on use of AI-generated content on dating apps. Another 71 percent considered AI-generated photos of people in places they've never been or doing activities they've never done a form of catfishing.

Fake profiles can also swindle people out of a lot of money. In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission received reports of romance scams from almost 70,000 people, and their losses to those frauds totaled $1.3 billion. Many dating apps take extensive safety measures to protect their users from scams, as well as from physical dangers, and the use of AI in creating fake profiles is the latest threat for them to combat. Bumble released a tool called the Deception Detector earlier this year, leveraging AI for positive ends to identify phony profiles. It also introduced an AI-powered tool to protect users from seeing unwanted nudes. Tinder launched its own approach to verifying profiles in the US and UK this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bumble-wants-users-to-report-ai-generated-images-203627777.html?src=rss

OpenAI hit by two big security issues this week

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OpenAI seems to make headlines every day and this time it's for a double dose of security concerns. The first issue centers on the Mac app for ChatGPT, while the second hints at broader concerns about how the company is handling its cybersecurity.

Earlier this week, engineer and Swift developer Pedro José Pereira Vieito dug into the Mac ChatGPT app and found that it was storing user conversations locally in plain text rather than encrypting them. The app is only available from OpenAI's website, and since it's not available on the App Store, it doesn't have to follow Apple's sandboxing requirements. Vieito's work was then covered by The Verge, and after the exploit attracted attention, OpenAI released an update that added encryption to locally stored chats.

For the non-developers out there, sandboxing is a security practice that keeps potential vulnerabilities and failures from spreading from one application to others on a machine. And for non-security experts, storing local files in plain text means potentially sensitive data can be easily viewed by other apps or malware.

The second issue occurred in 2023 with consequences that have had a ripple effect continuing today. Last spring, a hacker was able to obtain information about OpenAI after illicitly accessing the company's internal messaging systems. The New York Times reported that OpenAI technical program manager Leopold Aschenbrenner raised security concerns with the company's board of directors, arguing that the hack implied internal vulnerabilities that foreign adversaries could take advantage of.

Aschenbrenner now says he was fired for disclosing information about OpenAI and for surfacing concerns about the company’s security. A representative from OpenAI told The Times that “while we share his commitment to building safe A.G.I., we disagree with many of the claims he has since made about our work” and added that his exit was not the result of whistleblowing.

App vulnerabilities are something that every tech company has experienced. Breaches by hackers are also depressingly common, as are contentious relationships between whistleblowers and their former employers. However, between how broadly ChatGPT has been adopted into major players' services and how chaotic the company's oversight, practices and public reputation have been, these recent issues are beginning to paint a more worrying picture about whether OpenAI can manage its data.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-hit-by-two-big-security-issues-this-week-214316082.html?src=rss

OpenAI hit by two big security issues this week

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OpenAI seems to make headlines every day and this time it's for a double dose of security concerns. The first issue centers on the Mac app for ChatGPT, while the second hints at broader concerns about how the company is handling its cybersecurity.

Earlier this week, engineer and Swift developer Pedro José Pereira Vieito dug into the Mac ChatGPT app and found that it was storing user conversations locally in plain text rather than encrypting them. The app is only available from OpenAI's website, and since it's not available on the App Store, it doesn't have to follow Apple's sandboxing requirements. Vieito's work was then covered by The Verge, and after the exploit attracted attention, OpenAI released an update that added encryption to locally stored chats.

For the non-developers out there, sandboxing is a security practice that keeps potential vulnerabilities and failures from spreading from one application to others on a machine. And for non-security experts, storing local files in plain text means potentially sensitive data can be easily viewed by other apps or malware.

The second issue occurred in 2023 with consequences that have had a ripple effect continuing today. Last spring, a hacker was able to obtain information about OpenAI after illicitly accessing the company's internal messaging systems. The New York Times reported that OpenAI technical program manager Leopold Aschenbrenner raised security concerns with the company's board of directors, arguing that the hack implied internal vulnerabilities that foreign adversaries could take advantage of.

Aschenbrenner now says he was fired for disclosing information about OpenAI and for surfacing concerns about the company’s security. A representative from OpenAI told The Times that “while we share his commitment to building safe A.G.I., we disagree with many of the claims he has since made about our work” and added that his exit was not the result of whistleblowing.

App vulnerabilities are something that every tech company has experienced. Breaches by hackers are also depressingly common, as are contentious relationships between whistleblowers and their former employers. However, between how broadly ChatGPT has been adopted into major players' services and how chaotic the company's oversight, practices and public reputation have been, these recent issues are beginning to paint a more worrying picture about whether OpenAI can manage its data.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-hit-by-two-big-security-issues-this-week-214316082.html?src=rss

Your next webcam could be a Game Boy Camera

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Forget your phone cameras and laptop built-ins; your next webcam could be your old Game Boy Camera. The team (sort of) bringing this peripheral into the modern age is Epilogue. The company makes the GB Operator, which lets people play original Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color cartridges on a current PC or a Steam Deck.

Today, Epilogue announced that it is working on an update that will make the Game Boy Camera into a webcam, but one that's a fuzzy, lo-fi, 16 kilopixel experience. The magic happens through the Playback emulator app that powers the GB Operator.

"We now have a live feed from the Game Boy Camera, but still need to fine-tune some things and allow for configuration options," the company said. "We wanted to share this update because it was exciting to see it finally work, and [we] can't wait to see everyone having fun with it. It's the worst and the best webcam you'll ever have."

We've seen fan projects adapting the Game Boy Camera before, and even a fan-made recreation of the hardware. Considering the original Game Boy is now more than three decades old, it's amazing to see the hardware continuing to inspire strange and creative experiences.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/your-next-webcam-could-be-a-game-boy-camera-231113749.html?src=rss

Your next webcam could be a Game Boy Camera

Posted on by

Forget your phone cameras and laptop built-ins; your next webcam could be your old Game Boy Camera. The team (sort of) bringing this peripheral into the modern age is Epilogue. The company makes the GB Operator, which lets people play original Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color cartridges on a current PC or a Steam Deck.

Today, Epilogue announced that it is working on an update that will make the Game Boy Camera into a webcam, but one that's a fuzzy, lo-fi, 16 kilopixel experience. The magic happens through the Playback emulator app that powers the GB Operator.

"We now have a live feed from the Game Boy Camera, but still need to fine-tune some things and allow for configuration options," the company said. "We wanted to share this update because it was exciting to see it finally work, and [we] can't wait to see everyone having fun with it. It's the worst and the best webcam you'll ever have."

We've seen fan projects adapting the Game Boy Camera before, and even a fan-made recreation of the hardware. Considering the original Game Boy is now more than three decades old, it's amazing to see the hardware continuing to inspire strange and creative experiences.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/your-next-webcam-could-be-a-game-boy-camera-231113749.html?src=rss

Cloudflare is taking a stand against AI website scrapers

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Cloudflare has released a new free tool that prevents AI companies' bots from scraping its clients' websites for content to train large language models. The cloud service provider is making this tool available to its entire customer base, including those on free plans. "This feature will automatically be updated over time as we see new fingerprints of offending bots we identify as widely scraping the web for model training," the company said.

In a blog post announcing this update, Cloudflare's team also shared some data about how its clients are responding to the boom of bots that scrape content to train generative AI models. According to the company's internal data, 85.2 percent of customers have chosen to block even the AI bots that properly identify themselves from accessing their sites.

Cloudflare also identified the most active bots from the past year. The Bytedance-owned Bytespider bot attempted to access 40 percent of websites under Cloudflare's purview, and OpenAI's GPTBot tried on 35 percent. They were half of the top four AI bot crawlers by number of requests on Cloudflare's network, along with Amazonbot and ClaudeBot.

It's proving very difficult to fully and consistently block AI bots from accessing content. The arms race to build models faster has led to instances of companies skirting or outright breaking the existing rules around blocking scrapers. Perplexity AI was recently accused of scraping websites without the required permissions. But having a backend company at the scale of Cloudflare getting serious about trying to put the kibosh on this behavior could lead to some results.

"We fear that some AI companies intent on circumventing rules to access content will persistently adapt to evade bot detection," the company said. "We will continue to keep watch and add more bot blocks to our AI Scrapers and Crawlers rule and evolve our machine learning models to help keep the Internet a place where content creators can thrive and keep full control over which models their content is used to train or run inference on."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cloudflare-is-taking-a-stand-against-ai-website-scrapers-220030471.html?src=rss

This Kindle Unlimited early Prime Day deal gives you a free three-month subscription

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It's July, and that means Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner. We're seeing a lot of early Prime Day deals ahead of July 16, and the latest offer coming from within Amazon's umbrella is for the readers out there. Prime members can now lock in three months of a free Kindle Unlimited subscription, an exclusive deal that will save you $36.

As the name implies, this program offers unlimited reading of more than 4 million book titles in the KU library, free access to magazines and comics, and free listening to thousands of included audiobooks. The book library has a mix of classics, popular series and new releases across genres.

Once your three free months are up, the subscription will renew at the usual rate of $12 per month. As with most Amazon subscriptions, you can cancel at any time. We're not seeing a specific end date for when this offer will end, so interested Prime members should move fast. For voracious readers and listeners, this subscription could be a nice counterpart to the three-month free Audible subscription Amazon put on offer yesterday.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-kindle-unlimited-early-prime-day-deal-gives-you-a-free-three-month-subscription-195856022.html?src=rss

Texas age-verification law for pornography websites is going to the Supreme Court

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Texas will be the main battleground for a case about porn websites that is now headed to the Supreme Court. The Free Speech Coalition, a nonprofit group that represents the adult industry, petitioned the top court in April to review a state law that requires websites with explicit material to collect proof of users' ages. SCOTUS today agreed to take on the case challenging a previous ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit as a part of its next term beginning in October.

Texas was one of many states over the last year to pass this type of age-verification legislation aimed at porn websites. While supporters of these bills have said they are intended to protect minors from seeing inappropriate content, their critics have called the laws an overreach that could create new privacy risks. In response to the laws, Pornhub ended its operation in those states, a move that attracted public attention to the situation.

"While purportedly seeking to limit minors' access to online sexual content, the Act imposes significant burdens on adults' access to constitutionally protected expression," the FSC petition says. "Of central relevance here, it requires every user, including adults, to submit personally identifying information to access sensitive, intimate content over a medium — the internet — that poses unique security and privacy concerns."

This case is one of the latest First Amendment rights questions to go before the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the court remanded a case about social media content moderation back to lower courts and passed judgment on how closely social media companies can engage with federal officials about misinformation.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/texas-age-verification-law-for-pornography-websites-is-going-to-the-supreme-court-233511418.html?src=rss

Netflix has reimagined Minesweeper and it’s out now

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The latest title to join the Netflix Games roster is a very modern take on one of the icons of Windows computing. That's right, you can now play Minesweeper through Netflix's app. The classic PC puzzle game has been reimagined with an international setting, tasking the player with very literally looking for underwater mines by overlaying the usual interface of numbers and flags over vibrant pictures of waterways from around the world.

For those of us who grew up playing the original game, this take from Netflix is certainly a departure in appearance. Colorful aquatic backgrounds? A journey mode? Buh? However, the Netflix version does have one definite bonus that the trailer calls out at its close: "No in-game ads. No extra fees. No in-app purchases." Trying to find a modern-day Minesweeper game for mobile involves sifting through what feels like countless options that mimic the look of the original, but are either ad-supported or require purchase to go ad-free.

Minesweeper is also an interesting retro addition to what has become a wide-ranging collection of titles at Netflix. The company has its own takes on card games Hearts and Solitaire alongside indie darlings like Hades and international mega-hits from the Grand Theft Auto series. Plus there are some games that tie into Netflix's own programming. The company has definitely cast a wide net with this endeavor.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-has-reimagined-minesweeper-and-its-out-now-220009017.html?src=rss