Tag Archives: author_name|Anna Washenko

Your ‘dear algo’ Threads posts might actually do something soon

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In a lot of social media use, the algorithm is an intangible entity, silent and all-powerful in controlling what we see in our feeds. And like supplicants to a deity, sometimes we may find ourselves calling into the void, hoping to receive aid from that mighty being. Seems that for Threads users, at least, those prayers have been heard. 

Many people on the Threads platform have taken to writing posts with the phrase "dear algo," politely asking the network algorithm to show them more of what they want or less of what they don't. According to a post today from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threads will try out a feature where that's exactly what happens. Connor Hayes, head of Threads, also posted about this limited test, adding that it will be an AI-powered feature. "When people add “Dear Algo” to a post, it will tell your feed what you want to see more or less of for up to three days," he wrote. "If your profile is public, people can see your request, connect with you about it, or repost it."

There is something satisfying about having users' feedback taken seriously, even if it started as a bit of a joke. Threads has seen rapid growth since its debut in 2023. It had 400 million monthly active users as of August 2025 and in October it reached 150 million daily active users.

Update, December 3, 2025, 5:15PM ET: Added more detail from Connor Hayes about the tests.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/your-dear-algo-threads-posts-might-actually-do-something-soon-215448062.html?src=rss

Your ‘dear algo’ Threads posts might actually do something soon

Posted on by

In a lot of social media use, the algorithm is an intangible entity, silent and all-powerful in controlling what we see in our feeds. And like supplicants to a deity, sometimes we may find ourselves calling into the void, hoping to receive aid from that mighty being. Seems that for Threads users, at least, those prayers have been heard. 

Many people on the Threads platform have taken to writing posts with the phrase "dear algo," politely asking the network algorithm to show them more of what they want or less of what they don't. According to a post today from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threads will try out a feature where that's exactly what happens. Connor Hayes, head of Threads, also posted about this limited test, adding that it will be an AI-powered feature. "When people add “Dear Algo” to a post, it will tell your feed what you want to see more or less of for up to three days," he wrote. "If your profile is public, people can see your request, connect with you about it, or repost it."

There is something satisfying about having users' feedback taken seriously, even if it started as a bit of a joke. Threads has seen rapid growth since its debut in 2023. It had 400 million monthly active users as of August 2025 and in October it reached 150 million daily active users.

Update, December 3, 2025, 5:15PM ET: Added more detail from Connor Hayes about the tests.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/your-dear-algo-threads-posts-might-actually-do-something-soon-215448062.html?src=rss

OpenAI’s new confession system teaches models to be honest about bad behaviors

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OpenAI announced today that it is working on a framework that will train artificial intelligence models to acknowledge when they've engaged in undesirable behavior, an approach the team calls a confession. Since large language models are often trained to produce the response that seems to be desired, they can become increasingly likely to provide sycophancy or state hallucinations with total confidence. The new training model tries to encourage a secondary response from the model about what it did to arrive at the main answer it provides. Confessions are only judged on honesty, as opposed to the multiple factors that are used to judge main replies, such as helpfulness, accuracy and compliance. The technical writeup is available here.

The researchers said their goal is to encourage the model to be forthcoming about what it did, including potentially problematic actions such as hacking a test, sandbagging or disobeying instructions. "If the model honestly admits to hacking a test, sandbagging, or violating instructions, that admission increases its reward rather than decreasing it," the company said. Whether you're a fan of Catholicism, Usher or just a more transparent AI, a system like confessions could be a useful addition to LLM training.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-new-confession-system-teaches-models-to-be-honest-about-bad-behaviors-210553482.html?src=rss

Uber is launching robotaxis in Dallas

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Uber has made a big push to offer robotaxis as an option for its rideshare services in more markets this year. Starting today, the company is offering autonomous vehicles as an option for customers in Dallas. The move is in partnership with Avride.

At the start, the AVs providing rides will have a person in the front seat, but Uber plans to have fully driverless operation "in the future." The company will have a small fleet of Avride's Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles to start, but it plans to eventually have hundreds of these AVs working in Dallas. Riders can set their preferences to increase their chances of being paired with a robotaxi in the Uber app. If someone is assigned an AV for their ride, they will have the option to switch to a traditional rideshare driver.

Uber started a partnership with Avride in October 2024, but the rideshare company has cast a wide net for collaborators. It has also worked to bring robotaxis to markets with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, with Lucid in the Bay Area, with WeRide in Abu Dhabi, and with Momenta in Europe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-is-launching-robotaxis-in-dallas-120000411.html?src=rss

Google Discover is testing AI-generated headlines and they aren’t good

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Artificial intelligence is showing up everywhere in Google's services these days, whether or not people want them and sometimes in places where they really don't make a lick of sense. The latest trial from Google appears to be giving articles the AI treatment in Google Discover. The Verge noticed that some articles were being displayed in Google Discover with AI-generated headlines different from the ones in the original posts. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, some of these headlines are misleading or flat-out wrong. 

For instance, one rewritten headline claimed "Steam Machine price revealed," but the Ars Technica article's actual headline was "Valve's Steam Machine looks like a console, but don’t expect it to be priced like one." No costs have been shared yet for the hardware, either in that post or elsewhere from Valve. In our own explorations, Engadget staff also found that Discover was providing original headlines accompanied by AI-generated summaries. In both cases, the content is tagged as "Generated with AI, which can make mistakes." But it sure would be nice if the company just didn't use AI at all in this situation and thus avoided the mistakes entirely.

The instances The Verge found were apparently "a small UI experiment for a subset of Discover users," Google rep Mallory Deleon told the publication. "We are testing a new design that changes the placement of existing headlines to make topic details easier to digest before they explore links from across the web." That sounds innocuous enough, but Google has a history of hostility towards online media its frequent role as middleman between publishers and readers. Web publishers have made multiple attempts over the years to get compensation from Google for displaying portions of their content, and in at least two instances, Google has responded by cutting out those sources from search results and later claiming that showing news doesn't do much for the bottom line of its ad business. 

For those of you who do in fact want more AI in your Google Search experience, you're in luck. AI Mode, the chatbot that's already been called outright "theft" by the News Media Alliance, is getting an even more symbiotic integration into the mobile search platform. Google Search's Vice President of Product Robby Stein posted yesterday on X that the company is testing having AI Mode accessible on the same screen as an AI Overview rather than the two services existing in separate tabs. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-discover-is-testing-ai-generated-headlines-and-they-arent-good-234700720.html?src=rss

Samsung fully unveils its Galaxy Z TriFold phone, and it’ll be available in Korea in a few days

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Samsung has unveiled its newest smartphone, and it's the highly-anticipated Galaxy Z TriFold. During an interview in July, a Samsung exec confirmed that the company was working on a three-panel phone that it aimed to release by the end of the year. The company said it expects the phone to be available for purchase in Korea on December 12, with markets including China, Taiwan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. For US shoppers, the TriFold will be available in the first quarter of 2026, but no specific date has been revealed yet.

The phone has an inward-folding design intended to protect the main display. If it has been folded incorrectly, the device will automatically vibrate and show an on-screen alert to notify its user. When fully extended, the TriFold has a 10-inch screen and the cover screen is 6.5 inches when folded up. It is 3.9mm at its thinnest point when unfolded and then 12.9mm while collapsed. 

To give that some context, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a traditional foldable that also has a 6.5-inch exterior screen and an internal display that opens to 8 inches wide diagonally. It has a profile of 8.9mm when folded and weighs 215 grams compared with the TriFold's 309 grams. With its two-hinge form, the TriFold makes it so you have basically a ten-inch tablet that folds down to a slightly heftier version of the Z Fold 7.

A side view of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold showing its thickness in the unfolded state
A side view of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold showing its thickness in the unfolded state
Samsung

Foldables introduce some additional design demands, and Samsung said that the screen panels meet with minimal gap but no actual contact when they are closed. The hinges have been designed to resist wear and the screen received a new reinforced overcoat to improve resistance. 

The phone runs on a custom Snapdragon 8 chip. It has a 5,600mAh three-cell battery system and offers 45W super-fast charging. The rear camera lineup includes a 12MP ultra-wide lens, a 200MP wide-angle lens and a 10MP telephoto lens, which is identical to the setup on the Z Fold 7. The main screen and the cover screen both have 10MP front cameras. 

No pricing information is currently available, but it seems like a safe assumption that this will be expensive. The Z Fold 7 starts at $2,000, so expect to pay a premium for that second hinge.

Promo image showing the fold angles of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Promo image showing the fold angles of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold
Samsung

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-fully-unveils-its-galaxy-z-trifold-phone-and-itll-be-available-in-korea-in-a-few-days-010000499.html?src=rss

Texas AG opens probe into Shein

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an investigation into online fast fashion retailer Shein. The probe will examine whether the company violated state laws related to labor practices and product safety. According to a release, Paxton's office wants to know if Shein uses toxic or hazardous materials and whether it misleads consumers about product safety and ethical sourcing. The Texas investigation will also look into privacy concerns and data collection at Shein, which isn't the first time those topics have arisen for the business.

Shein also drew criticism last month after a French consumer protection watchdog discovered illegal weapons and childlike sex dolls available on its website. France is now taking steps to suspend Shein's business in the country. Last year, the US government also seemed ready to take action against Shein and fellow low-cost retailer Temu over issues of product safety.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-ag-opens-probe-into-shein-000812688.html?src=rss

Instagram mandates total return to office for employees in 2026

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Instagram employees will be back at their desks full time next year. Beginning February 2, workers with the social media network will be expected to spend five days a week working in person in offices. Instagram leader Adam Mosseri announced the change in an internal memo first reported by Alex Heath's Sources newsletter. "It's clear we have to evolve," he told the staff, also closing with the note that "2026 is going to be tough." 

The full return to office mandate applies to Instagram's US employees in offices with assigned desks. The memo allowed that people will still be able to work remotely "when you need to," but gave an open-ended call to "use your best judgment" about when to take advantage of that flexibility. 

Many tech companies have adopted a hybrid approach to office work in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, Meta instituted a policy of three days a week spent in the office in 2023. Although the messaging from executives insists that in-person work has important benefits, employees have often resisted the shift back to old ways. 

Mosseri outlined other planned changes intended to make the social media company "more nimble and creative." One shift that's probably more welcome than the return to office is to scale back recurring meetings. Any recurring meetings will be canceled every six months unless they're deemed "absolutely necessary." He also plans the team to have more prototypes of product overviews rather than decks, and a faster process for unblocking and decision-making.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-mandates-total-return-to-office-for-employees-in-2026-212738225.html?src=rss

The Nintendo Switch 2-compatible Samsung P9 microSD Express Card is 25 percent off for Cyber Monday

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Anyone who has a Switch 2 will probably need some extra storage space at some point. Cyber Monday deals present a good opportunity to get ahead of things and stock up on storage while the options are discounted. A notable deal available now is the Samsung P9 microSD Express Card, which is on sale for $75. That's 25 percent off the 512GB card's usual price.

This Samsung microSD model is one of the few that is currently compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2. On its own, a microSD card might feel a little underwhelming as a standalone gift, but it's actually a very useful addition if you're presenting someone with some new Nintendo hardware this holiday, because modern game file sizes are pretty dang hefty. That means if you want to have easy access to more than a few titles in your game library, more storage is a must. If the 512GB option feels like overkill, the 256GB version of Samsung's Nintendo 2 microSD card is also 35 percent off at $39.

But Nintendo fans aren't the only ones who can appreciate more digital storage. MicroSD cards are useful for a range of other gaming handhelds, as well as a bonus for drone enthusiasts and even some tablet owners. And if Samsung isn't your brand of choice, there are several other options that are also on sale for Cyber Monday. The Lexar 256GB Play PRO microSD Express Card is going for about $49. The SanDisk 256GB microSD Express Card currently costs $60, and SanDisk's 512GB option is down to about $89.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-nintendo-switch-2-compatible-samsung-p9-microsd-express-card-is-25-percent-off-for-cyber-monday-100034365.html?src=rss

The Beats Studio Pro headphones are more than half off for Black Friday

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Black Friday deals are officially upon us. We've seen loads of great deals popping up around the Internet, including some serious discounts on headphones. The Beats Studio Pro set is available for a whopping 51 percent off on Amazon. That means you can grab the high-end Beats model for just $170 instead of its usual $350 price tag. This matches the cost we've seen for the Studio Pro headphones during other peak shopping times earlier this year, so this might be your last chance to pick them up for this price.

The Beats brand last updated this wireless over-ear headset in 2023, but it's still a solid choice for a workhorse pair of headphones. The current model improved audio quality and added a useful Transparency mode, so that you can listen to your tunes and still be aware of the world around you, which is great for settings such as public transit and the gym. The other option is a more immersive active noise-canceling mode. Beats Studio Pro also support lossless audio when wired on a USB-C cable. The official specs say the battery life for the headphones lasts up to 40 hours, or 24 hours when the active noise canceling mode is engaged. If you need to eke more life out of these Beats, they do offer a fast-charging mode that promises four hours of activity from just ten minutes of recharge.

There are several color options for the Beats Studio Pro, so if there's a particular hue you want to be sporting, this might be a deal to hop on quickly before the supplies run out or the deal expires. Also on sale in the Beats realm for Black Friday is the Beats Solo 4, which is 35 percent off and down to $130.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/the-beats-studio-pro-headphones-are-more-than-half-off-for-black-friday-140335170.html?src=rss