Lenovo’s Project Crystal is definitely sci-fi tech come to life. Currently, there are no plans to turn the concept laptop into a retail product. Yet. Instead, its ThinkPad division commissioned an exploration into the potential of transparent microLED panels and, sigh, AI integration.
The most obvious use for the transparent laptop display would be sharing info at a doctor’s office or hotel desk. Instead of needing to flip a screen around, you could simply reverse the device’s output via software. According to Sam Rutherford, the transparency effect is bewildering. When closed or turned off, Project Crystal’s screen almost looks like an ordinary piece of glass with a brownish tint. But at a moment’s notice, the whole thing lights up like a battleship. It’s definitely the most intriguing thing so far at MWC 2024. Catch all the announcements right here. No tricorders, though.
If you’ve been paying through Apple, you will now have to pay directly.
If you’ve been paying Netflix through iTunes, you’ll soon have to say goodbye to your discounted rates. The company has confirmed to The Verge that it’s started removing users’ access to their iTunes billing plan for the streaming service. Members on the basic plan paying through iTunes will now have to pay the company directly using a credit or a debit card. Netflix stopped letting new customers sign up for in-app subscriptions on Apple devices way back in 2018 to avoid giving the latter a commission.
NVIDIA unveiled its latest laptop GPUs and, what a surprise, they’re largely to assist AI processing. The RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation graphics cards are primarily for thin and light laptops. While they won’t offer as much TOPS AI performance as current higher-end mobile GPUs, they could be handy for on-the-go AI processing for researchers, content creators and video editors. These are workstation GPUs, so they’re not for your gaming demands. The company says the GPUs, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, offer up to twice the ray-tracing performance of previous-gen GPUs (they employ third-gen ray-tracing cores). Fourth-gen Tensor Cores, meanwhile, deliver up to twice the throughput of previous GPUs.
Landscaping technology company Husqvarna just announced the game will run on some of its robot lawnmowers. So you can mow down hellspawn and… grass. You play the game using the lawnmower’s onboard display. Rotating the control knob turns your character left and right and pressing the knob makes you shoot. Holding down the start button initiates forward movement.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-lenovos-project-crystal-laptop-looks-like-a-star-trek-prop-121555581.html?src=rss
Lenovo’s Project Crystal is definitely sci-fi tech come to life. Currently, there are no plans to turn the concept laptop into a retail product. Yet. Instead, its ThinkPad division commissioned an exploration into the potential of transparent microLED panels and, sigh, AI integration.
The most obvious use for the transparent laptop display would be sharing info at a doctor’s office or hotel desk. Instead of needing to flip a screen around, you could simply reverse the device’s output via software. According to Sam Rutherford, the transparency effect is bewildering. When closed or turned off, Project Crystal’s screen almost looks like an ordinary piece of glass with a brownish tint. But at a moment’s notice, the whole thing lights up like a battleship. It’s definitely the most intriguing thing so far at MWC 2024. Catch all the announcements right here. No tricorders, though.
If you’ve been paying through Apple, you will now have to pay directly.
If you’ve been paying Netflix through iTunes, you’ll soon have to say goodbye to your discounted rates. The company has confirmed to The Verge that it’s started removing users’ access to their iTunes billing plan for the streaming service. Members on the basic plan paying through iTunes will now have to pay the company directly using a credit or a debit card. Netflix stopped letting new customers sign up for in-app subscriptions on Apple devices way back in 2018 to avoid giving the latter a commission.
NVIDIA unveiled its latest laptop GPUs and, what a surprise, they’re largely to assist AI processing. The RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation graphics cards are primarily for thin and light laptops. While they won’t offer as much TOPS AI performance as current higher-end mobile GPUs, they could be handy for on-the-go AI processing for researchers, content creators and video editors. These are workstation GPUs, so they’re not for your gaming demands. The company says the GPUs, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, offer up to twice the ray-tracing performance of previous-gen GPUs (they employ third-gen ray-tracing cores). Fourth-gen Tensor Cores, meanwhile, deliver up to twice the throughput of previous GPUs.
Landscaping technology company Husqvarna just announced the game will run on some of its robot lawnmowers. So you can mow down hellspawn and… grass. You play the game using the lawnmower’s onboard display. Rotating the control knob turns your character left and right and pressing the knob makes you shoot. Holding down the start button initiates forward movement.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-lenovos-project-crystal-laptop-looks-like-a-star-trek-prop-121555581.html?src=rss
After complaints that Google’s image generator built into its Gemini AI was (ugh) woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google’s efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images “failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range.”
Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget’s tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church. The Verge reported that the chatbot also depicted Nazis as people of color, but we couldn’t get Gemini to generate Nazi images. “I am unable to fulfill your request due to the harmful symbolism and impact associated with the Nazi Party,” the chatbot responded.
Raghavan said Google didn’t intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate historically inaccurate photos. He also reiterated Google’s promise to improve Gemini’s image-generation abilities.
However, that entails “extensive testing” before the company switches the feature back on.
MWC 2024 kicks off this week, and while Engadget is covering it all remotely — no tapas for Mathew — this is one we’d be unlikely to book a meeting for. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices) has been making Nokia phones for the past few years and announced at MWC it’ll release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer, in partnership with Mattel. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.” It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” That also means it should be cheap.
Samsung has put its Galaxy Ring on public display for the first time at its booth at MWC, which starts today. The health and wellness device, available in platinum silver, gold and ceramic black, will go on sale later this year. The company said little about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. We learned that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable to rival Oura, and it would have a suite of unknown sensors.
Journalists weren’t allowed to photograph it, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura. The extra girth isn’t surprising, given the electronics cached inside. The company described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” So, a smart ring then?
No one is suggesting Microsoft should stop making video-game hardware. But should Microsoft keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle? Does Xbox need a box? The company calls its cloud game streaming service xCloud for a reason, right?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-why-googles-gemini-image-generation-feature-overcorrected-for-diversity-121506687.html?src=rss
After complaints that Google’s image generator built into its Gemini AI was (ugh) woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google’s efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images “failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range.”
Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget’s tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church. The Verge reported that the chatbot also depicted Nazis as people of color, but we couldn’t get Gemini to generate Nazi images. “I am unable to fulfill your request due to the harmful symbolism and impact associated with the Nazi Party,” the chatbot responded.
Raghavan said Google didn’t intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate historically inaccurate photos. He also reiterated Google’s promise to improve Gemini’s image-generation abilities.
However, that entails “extensive testing” before the company switches the feature back on.
MWC 2024 kicks off this week, and while Engadget is covering it all remotely — no tapas for Mathew — this is one we’d be unlikely to book a meeting for. HMD (or Human Mobile Devices) has been making Nokia phones for the past few years and announced at MWC it’ll release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer, in partnership with Mattel. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.” It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” That also means it should be cheap.
Samsung has put its Galaxy Ring on public display for the first time at its booth at MWC, which starts today. The health and wellness device, available in platinum silver, gold and ceramic black, will go on sale later this year. The company said little about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. We learned that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable to rival Oura, and it would have a suite of unknown sensors.
Journalists weren’t allowed to photograph it, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura. The extra girth isn’t surprising, given the electronics cached inside. The company described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” So, a smart ring then?
No one is suggesting Microsoft should stop making video-game hardware. But should Microsoft keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle? Does Xbox need a box? The company calls its cloud game streaming service xCloud for a reason, right?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-why-googles-gemini-image-generation-feature-overcorrected-for-diversity-121506687.html?src=rss
Every gram counts in commercial flight. Material scientists from Kobe University have discovered “nanospheres” that are near-invisible silicone crystals. The particles can reflect light thanks to very large and efficient scattering, research published in the ACS Applied Nano Matter journal details. The result could mean covering a surface in vibrant color while only adding 10 percent of the weight of painting an aircraft for the same effect.
Minoru and Hiroshi’s discovery focuses on structural rather than pigment color to exhibit and maintain hues. The former absorbs wavelengths while reflecting those the human eye picks up. Structural colors, on the other hand, are intense and bright as light interacts with micro- and nanostructures. While the headline commercial benefits are for planes, the paint could have many more uses simply for its brightness.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes the characters and world reintroduced with Remake and does a better job at scaling it all up. Instead of playing in a single metropolis, Midgar, this time, it’s a world tour. There’s also an expanded roster of playable characters, almost doubling Remake’s total, each with a unique play style, once again. But does Aerith survive?
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is the latest Leica-branded smartphone, featuring a second-gen one-inch camera sensor. Xiaomi is finally catching up with the competition by picking up Sony’s newest mobile camera sensor, the LYT-900. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a slight edge on rival phones with the same sensor, with its faster main variable aperture at up to f/1.63, beating the Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s f/1.8 — on paper, at least.
Pick the parts you want and install them yourself.
Framework is selling its cheapest modular laptop. It has dropped the price of its B-stock Factory Seconds systems (which are built with excess parts and new components). As such, it’s now offering a Framework Laptop 13 barebones configuration for under $500 for the very first time. The 13-inch machine comes with an 11th-gen Intel Core i7 processor with Iris Xe graphics. So the CPU should be sufficient for most basic tasks and some moderate gaming. However, you’ll need to add RAM, storage, a power supply, an operating system and (probably) even a Wi-Fi card.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-nanosphere-paint-could-reduce-a-planes-co2-emissions-121433976.html?src=rss
I’m not sure if there’s a good way to name the second part of a trilogy of games based on an original title that’s the seventh in a series of games. But this one is called Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Rebirth takes the characters and world reintroduced with Remake and does a better job at scaling it all up. Instead of one single metropolis, Midgar, this time, it’s a world tour. There’s also an expanded roster of playable characters almost doubling Remake’s total, each with a unique playstyle once again.
The expansive new world finally takes advantage of the PS5 hardware. Rebirth feels like a fantasy world and Square Enix has successfully combined exploration in a Final Fantasy title with rich, dense cities and settlements, more like its golden era RPGs. Sure, Final Fantasy XVIgave me world to explore, but there wasn’t much in a lot of it. (Even if it had the narrative excuses for why.)
The Gold Saucer is a multi-story Disneyland with mogs and chocobo characters emblazoned everywhere, theme park rides, travelators, holograms and glossy surfaces. Meanwhile, Cosmo Canyon looks like a tree house that took a hundred years to make, filled with tourists and woo-woo hippies. There is even a hippie circle where you can share your truth. (Funnily enough, there’s an Ayahuasca-style vision sequence in the game, which has nothing to do with Cosmo Canyon – which is a bit of a waste.)
The story of Rebirth follows protagonist Cloud and the rest of his party as they chase antagonist Sephiroth, getting sinister mega-corporation Shinra riled up along the way.
Cloud seems increasingly unhinged as Sephiroth seemingly worms his way into his head. It is a slightly different route to the original game, adding an extra layer on top of the missed memories and his unusual origins. In fact, in the second half of Rebirth, not only does Cloud become increasingly unlikeable, but I start to dislike the rest of the party for not calling him out on his poor decisions and weird behavior. Childhood friend Tifa? You're an enabler. My unease with the main characters persists through to the end, unfortunately.
The party hops between towns, boarding ships, or finding different breeds of giant rideable birds that can traverse mountains or shallow water. It’s these areas outside of the city hubs where the exploration, the battles and the side quests happen. So many side quests.
Remake had some dull side quests – a lot of fetch quests seemingly there to eke out the playtime. Rebirth suffers from this too – this isn’t quite Witcher-level side quests – and I think it’s exacerbated when you’re playing a game whose story beats you kinda know, as you’re going to feel diverted from them.
As you enter new regions, new points of interest will populate your map. These can range from natural springs to artifact hunts (featuring an iconic Final Fantasy series mainstay) that could include holographic battles, a new tower defense game and a card game that I was more than willing to invest a little too much time into.
There's also a lot of items to pick-up, reminding anyone of the gathering-and-crafting headaches of many current-gen games, from Baldur's Gate 3 to Horizon to... most open-world games, to be honest. Fortunately, despite my trepidation, you don't have to collect everything. The game provided enough items just through my normal exploration to make the items I wanted. Particularly potent accessories and items are usually locked behind an item that only the strongest monster in a certain region drops.
Square Enix
At least the lion’s share of side quests, games and challenges are optional. If you’re not interested in figuring out a route to a rocky outcrop to defeat a monster, then you really don’t have to. You can just make a beeline for the next primary objective and see where the story goes.
Rebirth doesn’t address all the questions you may have about this Remake trilogy. You’ll have to wait for the third part of the story, and I also don’t want to ruin the story for fans who waited decades for this project.
There are occasional flash… sideways, to an alternate timeline where most of the original party died in an accident, but spin-off protagonist, Zack, another SOLDIER like Cloud, is still alive. His death in the original game was a major story beat, alongside another: the death of main party member Aerith. Does she survive Chapter 2? Will this be Final Fantasy 7’s The Empire Strikes Back? I can't say but there is one particularly satisfying final battle.
Some side quests held my attention. If anything, sometimes I got so distracted that I lost track of the story’s twists and turns. Rebirth benefits from a rich collection of characters both from Remake and the original, helping to add interest to what are sometimes merely item-collecting quests.
More often than not, I was happy to be distracted because the art direction and environment design were just so gorgeous. It all looks bigger and better than Remake, no more two-dimensional wallpaper skies and horizons. From the top of Cosmo Canyon, you can still see the fans of the Cosmo area, there for your flying bird exploration.
During my playthrough, there were some questionable graphic textures, especially in the overworld, but Square Enix launched a patch to correct most of this a day before this review’s embargo. While I'm no pixel peeper or FPS obsessive, before the patch I did find Performance mode (FF7 Rebirth once again offers a high-frame option and a high-res option to play in) a little too blurry. I hope future updates address that. Despite all that, this is often the prettiest PS5 game since Horizon Forbidden West.
Once again, Square Enix has folded in a soundtrack filled with new melodies and even more remixes and reimaginings of the basic MIDI originals from 1997. My pick: the new Cosmo region overworld theme, which screams Beck. A music reference also from 1997.
Square Enix
This game is delightfully stupid in places, intentionally. There’s a sense of humor that gets as ridiculous as any Like a Dragon sidequest. Segways? Yes. Ninja clones of the most annoying character, yes, a catdog riding a giant bird, yes.
The battle system takes what Remake introduced and adds further cooperative attacks and skills. There are synergy skills, instant, no-cost attacks and defensive moves that combine your controlling character with party allies. Then there are synergy abilities (completely different) that build up over a battle, as you use your more typical attacks and spells. These are more like special attacks, often ensuring you can beat tricky enemies. Alongside damage, they’ll offer a buff, like faster attack gauges, unlimited MP or raising the limit levels of characters to even more powerful ultimate moves.
Square Enix
It seems, at the start, excessive, and I am someone who owns a $150 polygon figurine of Cloud in a dress. The whole system (including pressuring and staggering, the elemental weaknesses, status effects, buffs, debuffs, limit breaks, and an active time battle (ATB) gauge needed to do anything substantive with your players) is a lot.
Even if you’re coming from Remake, as I did, Rebirth’s battle system can overwhelm at the start. While the game introduces these new synergies in simpler two-party battles, it never quite offers a good enough explanation for utilizing it in early battles. As I mentioned in my preview, there’s a new aerial combat system, but aside from Cloud, I have no idea how to launch other characters into the air without tapping into dedicated synergy abilities.
Fortunately, the battle system as a whole, muddy learning curve aside, is fun. And extremely satisfying once you figure out the patterns and behaviors of certain bosses. I'll admit: I died a few times. But I never felt frustrated by it.
I really enjoyed the battle challenges in Remake, and Rebirth has seemingly just shy of a hundred of them, spread across battle arenas, holodeck fights and rare monsters in the wild. I’m already fascinated with the card game Queen’s Blood. Card games have their own entire side-story, but the best parts are the card ‘puzzles’ where you have to really understand how the more unique cards work to win.
Square Enix
Other highlights include a bunch of reimagined minigames beyond the Queen’s Blood, though. So. Many. Minigames. There’s a new Fort Condor tower defense game, the bike ride battle from Remake, a holographic Super Punch-Out-styled game, a Star Fox-style shoot-em-up – in fact Super Nintendo seems to have heavily inspired the game selection at Rebirth’s Gold Saucer amusement park. There’s a lot to do, and while there are certainly repetitive elements, it feels like the game is providing them for completionists, not everyone else.
I completed all the side quests in two areas, playing the game in a new dynamic difficulty setting, where enemies won’t scale down their levels as you play, but they will scale up, meaning you’re not going to steamroll the game if you’ve grinded for a few levels before. Of course, there’s standard difficulty too. It will definitely be a challenging playthrough if you haven’t played Remake. And don’t worry if you haven’t the original 1997 game: Rebirth ensures die-hard fans and newcomers can follow along, with many easter eggs for the former if they pay attention.
Rebirth is the difficult middle chapter. Remake on the PS4 showed it was possible to imagine a PlayStation game for the modern era, with deeper combat, and beautiful graphics, but perhaps not quite the heft to create FF7, the world. That's what Rebirth seems to achieve. Looking back on Remake now, entirely set in the city of Midgar, it seems claustrophobic by comparison.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-review-a-whole-new-world-140018063.html?src=rss
In the big Nintendo Direct presentation yesterday, we learned of two of the four Xbox titles Microsoft said would appear on “the other consoles.” One of them is Pentiment, coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5, well, today.
The critically acclaimedPentiment has been an Xbox, PC and Xbox Cloud exclusive since launch in late 2022. It has an eye-catching animated historical art style — and is delightfully niche. The game’s director, Josh Sawyer, said creating and launching a game like this would never have been possible without Game Pass, which, as Kris Holt notes, makes it an unusual pick to be transferred to other platforms. Xbox boss Phil Spencer said earlier this month the titles hopping platforms had all been on Xbox and PC for at least a year and had hit their “full potential” on those platforms.
The other game coming to other consoles is Grounded — pretty much Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the game — and will land April 16. Microsoft also later confirmed that Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thievesare coming to PlayStation 5.
There’s a Borderlands movie coming out, and we have our very first teaser trailer. This footage gives us a glimpse of all of the major characters. Cate Blanchett is taking a nice fat paycheck starring as the famously short-tempered Lilith, who’s searching for a mysterious vault. Comedian Kevin Hart portrays the mercenary Roland, and Jamie Lee Curtis plays the scientist Dr. Tannis, who featured in all three games. Also, you can’t have a video game adaptation without Jack Black, it seems.
Apple has launched a new iPhone app, offering real-time stats for a number of major sports leagues. Once you’ve installed Apple Sports, you can set your favorite team and get a trove of data on your lock screen in the live activities box when the team is playing. The app is free and available in the US, UK and Canada for basketball, hockey and soccer. The company said other sports, including baseball and football, will debut when new seasons kick off.
Staff disregarded Musk’s directive to provide outsiders with “full access to everything.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concluded Elon Musk ordered Twitter (now X) employees to take actions that would have violated FTC rules on consumer data privacy and security. Twitter security employees “took appropriate measures to protect consumers’ private information,” likely sparing Musk’s company from government repercussions. FTC chair Lina Khan wrote: “Ultimately, the third-party individuals did not receive direct access to Twitter’s systems, but instead worked with other company employees who accessed the systems on the individuals’ behalf.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-these-are-the-first-xbox-exclusive-games-heading-to-switch-and-ps5-121538895.html?src=rss
Fujifilm’s X100V was, for some reason, a huge hit on TikTok. This made it hard to buy, despite its tiny form factor and retro Fuji appeal. Fortunately, the company is here to make money offer an improved update, the 40.2-megapixel X100 VI. While keeping the same retro form, it has much faster shooting speeds, in-body stabilization, 6.2K 30p video and more. Video-wise, it can also capture at 4K at 60 fps and 1080p at 240fps.
Fujifilm’s X100VI is now on pre-order for $1,600 in silver or black, with shipping slated for early March 2024. Money to burn? Desperate for the TikTok cachet? The company is also offering a special edition version “engraved with the corporate brand logo from Fujifilm’s founding in 1934” for $2,000.
A project in the UK has explored if a Garmin Venu 2 wearable (and dedicated companion app) could free up doctors and nurses, six minutes at a time. The six-minute walk test (6MWT) can diagnose and monitor a number of cardiovascular maladies. This includes conditions, like pulmonary hypertension, which, if untreated, are eventually fatal. This project, however, crunches the test down to a simpler one minute.
Because the research was funded by a charity, the British Heart Foundation, the watch had to offer good value for money, and Garmin, with its established health research division, gave the team “confidence in the accuracy of the sensors.” The study suggests cutting the test to one minute has no detrimental effect on its outcome or accuracy, and patients are far more likely to run the test regularly if they can do so at home.
The retailer plans to boost its ad business with Vizio’s TV systems.
Walmart is buying Smart TV manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion, the retail giant announced as part of its latest earnings report. While Walmart has long been one of the major sellers of Vizio TVs, the company says the acquisition “enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling” via the company’s SmartCast OS. The companies plan to combine their ad businesses, with Vizio increasing Walmart’s access to more consumer info, like viewing data. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Apple announced on Tuesday that its latest iPhones can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company’s previous estimate — without new hardware or software updates. And because timing is everything, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade for phones’ battery longevity.
Some tiers will soon be more expensive in the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey.
After laying off around 500 workers and reducing how much streamers make from Prime subscriptions, Twitch is increasing the price of its subscriptions for the first time. The service says it’s “updating prices in several countries to help streamer revenue keep pace with rising costs and reflect local currency fluctuations.” The first markets to feel the impact of those changes are the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey. On the plus side, streamers will have the same revenue share, so they’ll earn more from subscriptions in those regions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-fujifilm-updates-its-tiktok-famous-compact-camera-121509964.html?src=rss
Nintendo’s Switch 2 (not its official name) was widely expected to arrive sometime this year, but that may not happen. Now, the company is reportedly telling publishers the next-gen console is slated for release in the first quarter of 2025.
If that did happen, it would mimic the release of the original Switch, which was announced in October 2016 and came out in March 2017.
What can you expect from Nintendo’s next console? We don’t know much yet, including the name. Rumors suggest it’ll have backward compatibility with Switch, along with 4K capabilities and visual quality similar to that of the PS5 and Series X. It could use NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling tech to ramp up the graphics of older games, too.
In the interim, there’s a Nintendo Direct tomorrow that will focus on new third-party games.
It’s looking into addictive algorithms, harmful content, privacy and more.
TikTok is in the EU’s crosshairs over potential Digital Services Act (DSA) breaches around the safety of minors and other matters. The formal proceedings will focus on addictive algorithms, the rabbit-hole effect, age verification issues and default privacy settings. It’s getting into it: The European Commission will also probe ad transparency and data access for researchers.
The safety of young users seems to be a major driver: It will force the social media site to ensure high levels of privacy, safety and security for minors with default privacy settings — like it did for Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
Sony laid down a gauntlet with the 24.6-megapixel A9 III. It’s the world’s first mirrorless camera with a global shutter, a much-awaited holy grail feature. It completely eliminates rolling shutter distortion found on CMOS cameras by reading the entire sensor at once. It also boosts speed and removes the need for a mechanical shutter. However, as the first of its kind for Sony cameras, it’s expensive ($6,000) and has a reduction in still image quality, due to the nature of a global shutter. But the benefits far outweigh those — this is one fast, accurate camera. Check out the full review.
France and Italy already restrict phones during class.
Experts and regulators have expressed concerns about children’s wellbeing and distraction due to their phones while at school. The UK government has become the latest to announce guidance for banning the use of phones during school. It follows other European countries, like France and Italy, which prohibit phones in classrooms.
Some schools in the UK already have no-phone policies in place, but these guidelines could bring widespread adoption and uniformity. “This is about achieving clarity and consistency in practice, backing headteachers and leaders and giving staff confidence to act,” Gillian Keegan, the UK’s secretary of state for education, said in a press release.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-nintendos-next-console-may-not-arrive-until-2025-121556644.html?src=rss
NASA wants volunteers for its second year-long simulated Mars mission, the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA 2). For the mission’s duration, starting spring 2025, the four selected crew members will live in a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat in Houston. It’s paid, but we don’t know how much. At least living costs will be nil.
The Mars Dune Alpha habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center simulates life for future explorers on the red planet, where the environment is harsh and resources limited.
Applicants must be US citizens aged 30 to 55, speak English proficiently and have a master’s degree in a STEM field, plus at least two years of professional experience, a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft. Or two years of work toward a STEM doctoral program.
I barely qualify for two of those requirements — good luck to the rest of you.
It’s been investigating Apple’s App Store rules since a 2019 complaint from Spotify.
Apple may be facing a fine of roughly $539 million (€500 million) from the EU and a ban on its alleged anti-competitive App Store practices for music streaming services, according to The Financial Times. The publication cites five unnamed sources and says the European Commission will announce its ruling early next month.
The investigation was prompted by a 2019 antitrust complaint filed by Spotify and focuses on App Store rules that, at the time, prevented developers from directing customers to alternative subscriptions outside the app, which could be notably cheaper as they didn’t have to include Apple’s 30 percent fee.
Your dank memes, confessional posts and excessively strong feelings on Baldur’s Gate 3 couplings will soon train an artificial intelligence company’s models, according to Bloomberg. The website reportedly signed a deal “worth about $60 million on an annual basis” earlier this year.
When Reddit started charging companies for API access in April 2023, it said pricing would split in tiers so even smaller clientele could afford to pay. Companies need that API access to train their chatbots on posts and comments. This is likely the top tier of all that.
Intuitive Machines’ own attempt at the first-ever commercial Moon landing is off to a good start. After launching without a hitch on Thursday, it snapped a few incredible images of Earth. The team posted a series of updates on X at the end of the week, confirming the lander has passed some key milestones, including engine firing, ahead of its touchdown.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-want-to-live-in-nasas-mars-simulation-for-a-year-121543499.html?src=rss