Tag Archives: author_name|Mariella Moon

Snap is testing a less confusing version of its app

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One of the most common criticisms against Snapchat is that it's not very intuitive and is quite hard navigate as a new user. Personally, I never quite got the hang of it and find TikTok much, much easier to use. Apparently, Snap is aware of the issue, because it's currently testing a "simplified version of Snapchat." Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has revealed the existence of an experimental Snapchat app in a lengthy blog post discussing the company's highs and lows over the past 13 years, as well as its most recent earnings and future plans. 

The simplified app "aims to improve accessibility and usability," he wrote, adding that it's been positively received in early tests. In addition, the app could lead to better app performance and faster load times overall. Even so, Spiegel said that the company "will be thoughtful and deliberate about making a change of this magnitude" despite the app's reception. That most likely means that Snap is still testing the app more thoroughly and that we won't be seeing it anytime soon. 

In addition to revealing the existence of a simpler Snapchat, Spiegel has also revealed that the company is testing new advertisement formats. One of those formats called Sponsored Snaps will show up as new Snaps in your chat inbox, alongside your friends' messages. The good news is that you won't get a notification for those Snap ads, and opening the messages is optional. As The Verge notes, though, the ads could sit above your actual friends' messages if you never open them. 

The company most likely cooked up the new and potentially more intrusive ad placement as a response to its lagging share performance in the ad market. Spiegel said that the company has managed to reverse two years of declining year-over-year revenue growth, but its advertising business is growing slower than its competitors'. He also said that expanding the company's digital advertising business is key to its long-term revenue potential and that Snap's investors are getting concerned that it's not growing faster. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/snap-is-testing-a-less-confusing-version-of-its-app-113007479.html?src=rss

Bluesky added over 2 million Brazilian users after Brazil banned Elon Musk’s X

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In a post on its own social network, Bluesky has revealed that it has added 2.6 million users over the past few days. That's a lot of growth in such a short time for a platform that only has around 8.8 million users overall. In a blog post, the company said over 85 percent of the new users are Brazilian, which works out well in excess of 2 million. 

If you'll recall, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes recently ordered the country's internet service providers to block X after the website formerly known as Twitter refused to ban specific accounts accused of spreading disinformation. 

Moraes also ordered Apple and Google to remove X from their app stores and for people caught using VPN to access the website to be fined R$50,000 ($8,900). Brazil's Supreme Court has just upheld the ban on X after its judges voted unanimously in favor of the measure, according to the BBC. X owner Elon Musk accused Moraes of destroying democracy "for political purposes." The website also created a new profile called "Alexandre Files," which it said would shine a light "on the abuses of Brazilian law committed by Alexandre de Moraes."

After X became inaccessible in Brazil, users in the country found new homes elsewhere. Bluesky experienced a huge spike in the number of unique daily likes and posters, as well as in the number of unique followers, on the last days of August. While the website isn't quite as robust as Twitter yet, it recently teased that its next major app updated will come with video features, which could help keep its new users around. 

Some other stats around Bluesky's meteroric rise show the impact of this influx of people to the platform. Comparing a 96-hour period from August 30 to September 2 to a similar period a month earlier, engineer Jaz said likes on the platform had risen from 13 million to 104.6 million, follows grew from 1.4 million to 100.8 million, and reposts increased from 1.3 million to 11 million. Bluesky developer Paul Frazee warned that users may see outages and performance issues as the platform has "never seen traffic like this."

Bluesky is a decentralized social network that was previously funded and was founded in 2019 by Twitter-founder Jack Dorsey. The website launched as an invite-only social network, but it finally opened to the public earlier this year. It also introduced new features most users would look for if they're set on leaving X, including direct messaging. While DMs only worked between two users upon launch, the website promised to roll out group messaging, media support and end-to-end encryption "down the line." Dorsey, however, exited the Bluesky board in May and later claimed that the website was "literally repeating all the mistakes" he made while running Twitter.

Update, September 4, 3:10PM ET: This story was updated after publishing. A section in the original story which inferred that the influx of users was likely Brazilian in origin was replaced with a statistic from Bluesky published on September 4 which confirmed this to be true. At the same time, further details were added to the story on the rise of follows, likes and reposts on the platform.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/bluesky-added-over-2-million-brazilian-users-after-brazil-banned-elon-musks-x-140032042.html?src=rss

Valve hires key employees from Risk of Rain developer

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It sounds like Hopoo Games, the developer of cult hit and roguelike platformer Risk of Rain, is going on a hiatus. In an announcement on X/Twitter, the company has announced that its co-founders Paul Morse and Duncan Drummond, "alongside many other talented members at Hopoo Games," will now be working for Valve. The company is stopping the production of an unannounced game called Snail as a result, and it's not quite clear if it will ever pick up from where it left off in the future. Hopoo also didn't say how many of its staff members are joining Valve and how many chose to leave or had been left out of the deal. "...[F]or now — sleep tight, Hopoo Games," one of the company's tweets reads. 

As Game Developer and several posters on the Steam subreddit notes, the former Hopoo staffers could be joining Valve's development of Deadlock, an upcoming MOBA shooter that it has been testing since 2023. Deadlock attracted thousands of early players before it was even officially announced, though it remains invite only and is still in early development with no release date yet. 

Hopoo also developed a side-scrolling stealth-action game called Deadbolt, but it owes most of its success to Risk of Rain, which spawned a sequel and a remake. Risk of Rain was released in 2013, and while its 2D shooting and platforming mechanics are pretty simple, the game isn't easy. It becomes more difficult and throws stronger monsters at you the more you play, and you only get one life — you'll lose all the experience you've gained if you die and will have to start again. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/valve-hires-key-employees-from-risk-of-rain-developer-123034840.html?src=rss

How to watch Boeing Starliner’s uncrewed flight back to Earth

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The Starliner is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station and to make its way back to Earth at 6:04PM Eastern time today, September 6. If the weather cooperates and the spacecraft leaves the ISS as planned, it will be landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico with the help of parachutes to slow its descent and inflated airbags at around 12:03AM ET on September 7. While the ground teams at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and at Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida can control the spacecraft remotely if needed, it will be an uncrewed, fully autonomous flight for the Starliner. 

NASA recently announced that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts that headed to the ISS aboard the Starliner for its first crewed flight, will be coming home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon instead. Wilmore and Williams flew to the ISS in June and were only supposed to spend a little more than a week on the orbiting laboratory. On the way there, however, five of the spacecraft's maneuvering thrusters had failed, and its helium leak problem that previously caused its launch to be pushed back had worsened. Engineers on the ground conducted tests with help from the astronauts on the ISS to determine whether the Starliner was safe for the crew to ride back to Earth. In the end, NASA decided that it's safer for Wilmore and Williams to come home on a SpaceX vehicle, because "there was too much uncertainty" around the Starliner's thrusters. 

The space agency will cover Starliner's return live on NASA+, the NASA app, its website, and you can also watch it below. Coverage of the undocking procedure will start at 5:45PM ET, while coverage for the spacecraft's deorbit burn, entry and landing will start at 10:50PM. NASA will also livestream Starliner's landing on September 7, starting at 12AM ET.

As for the SpaceX Crew-9 mission that's replacing the Boeing's vehicle on the ISS, it's scheduled to launch no earlier than September 24. Instead of flying with four astronauts as planned, it will fly with two — NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — to leave two seats empty for its return flight with Wilmore and Williams in February 2025. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/boeings-starliner-is-coming-back-without-a-crew-on-september-6-140023545.html?src=rss

Sonos made a public Trello board to track its broken app fixes

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The Sonos app is broken, and it's been causing not just customers, but also dealers and installers so many problems over the past few months. Now, it's documenting the app issues it has already fixed in a public Trello board that you can view and browse yourself. The company's Social & Community manager, Keith Nieves, has announced the Trello board on Reddit, describing it as a way for people to keep updated about its "progress on the path to a normal core app." While this is the first time Sonos has taken this approach, this isn't a new idea for the tech industry: Fortnite maintains a Trello board packed with information on bugs plaguing different aspects of the game.

Issues with the Sonos app started popping up after the company pushed a major app redesign back in April. The refreshed app was supposed to make it easier to play different kinds of content and was supposed to introduce more new features. Instead, users discovered that the application was lacking basic features like the ability to set alarms. It was also riddled with performance and reliability issues, such as those that prevented them from rearranging speakers, kept speakers from working altogether and made it difficult for them to add new devices to their home setup.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence acknowledged that people were experiencing "significant problems" with the company's new app in a post published in July. He said that Sonos had released updates that improved the app's performance since May and laid out a timeline for other fixes, including improving alarm consistency and restoring edit mode for playlists, which are rolling out in the next couple of months. 

Nieves is maintaining the Trello board by himself for now, and so far, it contains release notes from previous fixes, as well as a list of patches coming out soon. He said that the cards in the board were sourced from various posts and release notes communications, and he admitted that the board is "not an exhaustive list of every item on [Sonos'] internal roadmap, nor is it a complete view of all known issues." He seemed to be open to collaboration with users, though, and is asking users to PM him if they are experiencing issues not noted on a card. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/sonos-made-a-public-trello-board-to-track-its-broken-app-fixes-140013331.html?src=rss

The latest Tamagotchi is made with real eggs

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Bandai has launched a new Tamagotchi model, and it's actually made with real recycled egg shells. The Original Tamagotchi Celebration digital pet is even colored like a tan/brown egg, with green and white designs along with pink accents and buttons. Tamagotchi comes from the Japanese words for egg (tamago) and watch (uotchi) — and the toy is unmistakably egg-shaped — so the use of egg shells in particular is pretty on-brand. The model is paired with a packaging the uses recycled paper, as well, and Bandai says the model aligns with its mission to "promote a greener future." 

Tamagotchi is no longer just another toy from the 90s that millennials fondly remember playing in their youth. It has quietly made a comeback over the past few years, with both old players and kids contributing to its renewed popularity. In May, the company re-released Tamagotchi Connection, which old fans might remember as the model with a faux antenna, to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Last year, Bandai released the Wi-Fi-capable Tamagotchi Uni that gives users access to the Tamaverse, a virtual playground where players can meet others, so they could travel together and dress up their characters.

The Original Tamagotchi Celebration doesn't seem to have the Uni's more modern features, but it does come with basic Tamagotchi gameplay. Players will have to raise their Tamagotchi until it's an adult, feed it, give it medicine, clean its mess, play with it and even discipline it if it's acting out. It's exclusively available at Amazon, where's it's currently on for pre-order for $30. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-latest-tamagotchi-is-made-with-real-eggs-120051417.html?src=rss

Meta says Llama’s usage grew tremendously due to the power of open source

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Meta has published an update on how its Llama large language models are performing, and they're apparently doing so well that they're now "approaching 350 million downloads to date." That's 10 times more than the downloads it accumulated compared to the same time last year. Approximately 20 million of those downloads took place in the last month alone, after the company released Llama 3.1, its latest LLM that it says can now rival OpenAI's and Anthropic's. 

The monthly usage of Llama grew ten times from January to July this year for some of Meta's largest cloud service providers, the company said. From May to July, in particular, hosted Llama usage on its cloud partners more than doubled by token volume. In addition to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, the company teamed up with Databricks, Dell, Google Cloud, Groq, NVIDIA, IBM watsonx, Scale AI and Snowflake, among others, to make its LLMs more readily available to developers.

Meta attributed Llama's growing usage to "the power of open source." It said that making the LLMs available to all allowed it to see "a vibrant and diverse AI ecosystem come to life where developers have more choice and capability." When Meta released Llama 3.1, Mark Zuckerberg extolled the virtues of open source AI, calling it the "path forward." He also talked about the steps Meta is taking to make open source AI the industry standard. 

In its latest report, it gave examples of how companies are using Llama for their needs. AT&T apparently uses Llama to fine-tune customer searches, while DoorDash relies on the LLM to make tasks easier for its software engineers. Llama also generates the real-time reactions of the creatures called "Dots" in Niantic's Tamagotchi-like game Peridot. Meanwhile, Zoom uses Llama (along with other LLMs) to power its AI Companion that can summarize meetings and make smart recordings. "The innovation has been broad and rapid, from start-ups pushing new boundaries to enterprises of all sizes using Llama to build on-premises or through a cloud service provider," Meta wrote. "Industry is building and innovating with Llama, and we’re even more excited for what’s to come."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-says-llamas-usage-grew-tremendously-due-to-the-power-of-open-source-140020454.html?src=rss

LG debuts its ThinQ ON smart home hub that comes with an AI voice assistant

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LG has introduced a smart home hub called ThinQ ON that has the technology to control not just LG-branded appliances but also other smart home devices. It comes with a built-in speaker that gives you a way to talk to LG's AI voice assistant, so you can use it to look up information, as well as to control your smart devices with spoken commands. LG says its technology can "understand the context of conversations" and can determine your preference for a specific device. It could, perhaps, tell your preferred temperature for the thermostat or the washer cycle you typically use. And it can notify you when a task is done, such as when the dryer cycle is finished. 

The ThinQ ON hub is Matter-certified and can use Wi-Fi or Thread — a low-power wireless protocol — to connect to smart home devices and appliances. In addition, LG's acquisition of smart home platform company Athom and its smart hub Homey Pro earlier this year gives the device's compatibility a huge boost. Apparently, the Homey App Store contains over 1,000 applications that will give the hub that capability to control products from a wide number of brands around the world. 

LG has yet to reveal the ThinQ ON's pricing and availability, but it's showcasing the hub at IFA 2024 in Berlin, Germany, which will take place from September 6 to 10. 

A small white puck-like device on top of a white table with a sofa in the background.
LG Electronics, Inc.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/lg-debuts-its-thinq-on-smart-home-hub-that-comes-with-an-ai-voice-assistant-120052215.html?src=rss

Samsung’s 27-inch 5K ViewFinity S9 monitor is 48 percent off at Amazon for Labor Day

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Samsung's first 5K monitor is now on sale at Amazon for almost half off its original price. The company announced the ViewFinity S9 5K monitor at CES 2023 and released it first in South Korea before bringing it to the United States with a list price of $1,599 in July last year. Now, you can get the 27-inch monitor for only $830, 48 percent less than its list price and the lowest we've seen the device go for on the e-commerce website. To note, ViewFinity S9 is comparable to the 27-inch Apple Studio Display, which is also a 5K monitor that will set you back at least $1,599. 

The ViewFinity S9 has a 5,120 x 2,880 resolution, 218 pixels per inch, 99 percent DCI-P3 that delivers color saturation and a 60Hz refresh rate. It was designed with creatives in mind and has a matte display to reduce light reflections. The monitor also comes with an Intelligent Eye Care mode that automatically optimizes brightness, reduces blue light and eliminates screen flickering in order to reduce eye strain. 

You can connect it to both Windows and Mac devices, thanks to its DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, so you can use it as a monitor for various PCs. If you stream or attend video calls frequently, you can use its built-in SlimFit 4K camera that's also compatible with both Macs and Windows computers. 

The monitor is Apple AirPlay-compatible and will be able to mirror or extend your screen, which you help you boost your productivity. If you're looking at lengthy documents and a vertical screen would be ideal, you can pivot the monitor 90 degrees to keep reading without scrolling as much. In addition, you can just as easily use it for entertainment, because it comes embedded with several smart TV apps, as well as Samsung's Gaming Hub. 

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/samsungs-27-inch-5k-viewfinity-s9-monitor-is-48-percent-off-at-amazon-for-labor-day-123013009.html?src=rss

Instagram lets you add texts on photos and layer images for grid posts

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Instagram has introduced new text tools meant to help you design a grid that's more reflective of your personality. To start with, you can now layer your photos and add text to them, as stickers, to achieve the look you want. You can start the whole process by selecting an image and then tapping the text button to write a text overlay for it in the font that you prefer. If you'd rather layer several images for one post, tap on the gallery button in the top right corner of the screen instead. You can then change the shape of the sticker, which again can contain either a text or another image, into a square, a circle, a heart or a star by tapping on it. 

Speaking of text you can add to your photos, Instagram is adding new fonts you can use in the app. You can combine those fonts with the new animations and effects the app is adding, as well, to jazz up your Reels and Stories. Earlier this month, Instagram doubled the number of photos and videos you can share in a carousel post. From 10 files, the app now allows you to upload up to 20, giving you an easy way to add photo dumps to your account. These new features will let you personalize your photo dumps and to potentially use them as an outlet for your creativity... sort of like how Myspace users could customize their profiles back in the day. In fact, Instagram also recently announced a feature that lets you attach a song to your profile, which Myspace was known for in the early days of social media. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-lets-you-add-texts-on-photos-and-layer-images-for-grid-posts-160030041.html?src=rss