Tag Archives: region|US

Google Photos will soon seamlessly transfer to Apple’s iCloud

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Google and Apple are launching a new tool to transfer images from Google Photos to iCloud. As part of the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), the tool will add iCloud transfers to Google Takeout’s export options. 9to5Mac first spotted the announcement.

The tool, which will roll out over the next week, automates the transfer process from Google Photos to iCloud, so you don’t have to download, upload or do anything beyond initiating the process on the web. An Apple support page says it could take several hours to a few days to complete, depending on the transfer size.

Transferring your pictures from Google to iCloud won’t delete them from Google Photos, so you’ll have to do that manually if you want. In addition, the service won’t work for child accounts, Managed Apple ID accounts (those set up through IT admins) or iCloud accounts with Advanced Data Protection turned on.

The tool follows the 2021 launch of one that does the inverse: moving your images from iCloud to Google Photos.

The DTI launched in 2023 as a collaboration between Apple, Google and Meta. Officially, it was formed to further the goals of the open-source Data Transfer Project (DTP), which began five years earlier. Unofficially, well, it’s probably not a coincidence the DTI commenced a couple of months before the European Commission named its “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, and the DTI’s goals happen to align with the governing body’s regulations. (Fancy that!)

Once it’s live (we aren’t seeing it available just yet), you can begin the process in Google Takeout. In the meantime, you can read Google and Apple’s instructions for all the fine print.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-photos-will-soon-seamlessly-transfer-to-apples-icloud-205521915.html?src=rss

Elon Musk escapes paying $500 million to former Twitter employees

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The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has been at the center of multiple legal battles from the very beginning of Elon Musk's takeover. One such suit relates to the more than 6,000 employees laid off by Musk following his acquisition of the company – and his alleged failure to pay them their full severance. Yesterday, Musk notched a win over his former employees.

The case in question is a class-action lawsuit filed by former Twitter employee Courtney McMillian. The complaint argued that under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Twitter Severance Plan owed laid off workers three months of pay. They received less than that, and sought $500 million in unpaid severance. However, on Tuesday, US District Judge Trina Thompson in the Northern District of California granted Musk's motion to dismiss the class-action complaint.

Judge Thompson found that the Twitter severance plan did not qualify under ERISA because they received notice of a separate payout scheme prior to the layoffs. Instead, she dismissed the case, ruling that the severance program adopted after Musk's takeover was the one that applied to these former employees, rather than the 2019 one the plaintiffs were expecting.

This ruling is a setback for the thousands of dismissed Twitter staffers, but there are future chances for them to win larger payments. Thompson's order noted that the plaintiffs could amend their complaint for non-ERISA claims. If they do, Thompson said "this Court will consider issuing an Order finding this case related to one of the cases currently pending" against X Corp/Twitter. There are still lawsuits underway on behalf of some past top brass at Twitter, one which is seeking $128 million in unpaid severance and another attempting to recoup about $1 million in unpaid legal fees.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-escapes-paying-500-million-to-former-twitter-employees-203813996.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 stores will close up shop on July 29

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Get ready to feel old and/or cluttered, depending on how many consoles are hooked up to your game room TV right now. The Xbox 360 Store and Marketplace are coming to a close later this month. Microsoft announced this last year and put an official end date of July 29, according to its official FAQ page. In case you didn’t notice, the end of July is fast approaching.

All of the games, DLC and any gaming tidbits for Microsoft’s second generation console won’t be available to purchase or download on the Xbox 360 console. Your games and movie purchases are still safe, however, if you’ve got any throwback titles on your Xbox One or Series X/S console. You can also still watch your purchased movies and shows on Windows 10 and 11 devices.

Phew! For a minute there, I thought I might not be able to play NBA Jam: On Fire Edition on my Xbox One. Running an even bigger headed Dirk Nowitski up and down the court is the only way to let out the frustrations from my day (and the last NBA Finals) without breaking stuff.

Microsoft first announced the shuttering of the Xbox 360 Store and Marketplace last year. It may be unrelated, but Microsoft has had a tough year on the Xbox side. Most recently, the company announced a price increase for its Game Pass Ultimate game buffet and online live plan from $17 a month to $20 and its Game Pass Core plan from $60 to $75. The Game Pass Core plan also includes access to PC games and comes with an EA Play membership.

So basically, the Xbox 360 is being taken off life support right now and we’re all just waiting for it to pass on to that great, big used game store in the sky. You’ve only got a few weeks left to offer your condolences.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-xbox-360-stores-will-close-up-shop-on-july-29-195630594.html?src=rss

The makers of Palworld have formed a new company in partnership with Sony

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The maker of Xbox Game Pass stalwart Palworld said on Wednesday it’s forming a new company in partnership with… Sony. Palworld developer and publisher Pocketpair announced its new team-up with Sony Music Entertainment to create Palworld Entertainment, Inc. The joint venture’s stated purpose: “accelerating the multifaceted global development of Palworld and its further expansion,” which sounds like corporate-speak for “merch, baby.”

The deal includes Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. and anime studio and game publisher Aniplex, Inc., both part of the broader Sony Corporation. Pocketpair says Palworld merchandise will soon be available for pre-order at Aniplex Online.

The joint venture’s new website

Pocketpair

When Palworld launched in Early Access in January, many in the gaming industry speculated Nintendo would sue it into oblivion. The game, which sold over a million copies in eight hours and exceeded 25 million players within its first month, isn’t subtle about its Pokémon influence. It includes nearly 1:1 likenesses of some of the longstanding franchise’s creatures, which the player — yes — collects and battles. But so far, The Pokémon Company has held back its lawyers. We can only speculate about its reasons, but fears of alienating fans of a beloved new game or worries about parody and fair use protections could be possibilities.

You can’t make up the irony of the newly established alliance, as the Pokémon Company was established as a similar joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures in 1998. Well-played, Sony.

Palworld Entertainment says it will kick off its new licensing push with a series of “exclusive merchandise based on the game.” The joint venture will debut its new lineup of goods (plushies, perhaps?) at Bilibili World 2024, which kicks off in two days in Shanghai, China.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-makers-of-palworld-have-formed-a-new-company-in-partnership-with-sony-184823203.html?src=rss

This early Prime Day deal discounts 25 percent off the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

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Amazon Prime Day isn’t quite here yet, but it is just around the corner. As we wait for July 16, some early deals are coming in hot. For instance, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is 25 percent off, dropping the cost down to $300. This is the best price we’ve seen all year on this particular model.

This isn’t your average air fryer/oven combo. It made our list of the best air fryers for some very good reasons. This is a huge appliance, measuring over one cubic foot, which brings both positives and negatives. On the downside, it’s big and will take up a lot of space in the kitchen. On the upside, the thing can cook an entire turkey or easily accommodate a five-quart dutch oven. It’s best thought of as a second primary oven and will be of particular use around the holidays.

Beyond the size, this is a capable contraption. It excels at crisping up ingredients and has many features beyond air frying. It includes a bunch of cooking modes, including toast, broil, bake, pizza and even dehydration. It’s a one-stop shop of culinary mayhem. All told, there are 13 of these cooking modes.

One strange omission is that it doesn’t offer any app connectivity or any smart features whatsoever. This is odd because, well, smart is right there in the name. Another con is the exorbitant price, but $300 is a whole lot better than $400, particularly if you have a big and hungry family.

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-early-prime-day-deal-discounts-25-percent-off-the-breville-smart-oven-air-fryer-pro-184105447.html?src=rss

Environmental groups accuse Amazon of ‘distorting the truth’ in latest clean-energy claim

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On Wednesday, Amazon claimed that it reached its goal of sourcing all its power from clean energy sources in the past year. If taken at face value, the announcement would mean it hit the milestone seven years ahead of schedule, which would be a monumental achievement. But environmental experts speaking to The New York Times, including a group of concerned Amazon employees, warn that the company is “misleading the public by distorting the truth.”

The company’s claim of achieving 100 percent clean electricity is based in part on billion-dollar investments in over 500 solar and wind initiatives. The company’s logic is that the energy these projects generate equals the electricity its data centers consume — ergo, even Steven.

But the renewable energy sources it uses for those calculations are fed into a general power grid, not exclusively into Amazon’s operations. Environmental experts caution that the company is using “accounting and marketing to make itself look good,” as The New York Times put it.

“Amazon wants us to think of its data centers as surrounded by wind and solar farms,” the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice wrote in a statement to The NYT. “[But] the reality is the company is heavily investing in data center expansions fueled by West Virginian coal, Saudi Arabian oil and Canadian fracked gas.”

Green plains filled with large windmills. Blue sky.
Amazon

Clean energy experts say Amazon’s inclusion of renewable energy certificates (RECs) in its calculations can be highly misleading. This is because if any power plants on a grid burn fossil fuels, businesses can’t know that the grid uses only clean energy. The Amazon employee group told The New York Times that, after subtracting the company’s use of RECs in its calculations, its clean-energy investment was “just a fraction of what was publicized.”

“Buying a bunch of RECs doesn’t help anything,” Leah Stokes, associate professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara, told The NYT. “You just have to be investing in real projects.”

To be fair, any movement toward clean energy should be applauded. Amazon still received a “B” grade from the nonprofit CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), which was lower than Google and Microsoft’s “A” but still a passing grade. The problem comes when companies use the smoke and mirrors more often associated with marketing and PR to mislead the public into believing they’re doing more for the environment than they are.

“A company needs to actually outline, what are the sources that you are accounting for in that calculation?” Simon Fischweicher, a CDP director, told The NYT.

With the meteoric rise of AI and the financial pressures to compete in this new gold rush, companies are now reshuffling their decks and finding new ways to meet their climate goals. However, if that shakeup offers less tangible movement and more weasel words and sketchy logic, then that’s creating a new problem on top of their alleged solutions for a genuine crisis.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/environmental-groups-accuse-amazon-of-distorting-the-truth-in-latest-clean-energy-claim-170633705.html?src=rss

Sony reveals the more vlogger-friendly ZV-E10 II

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It's been three years since Sony debuted the ZV-E10, a camera it targeted at vloggers, so it's high time that model got some upgrades. The company just announced the mirrorless ZV-E10 II. Sony says this variant adds some new features while retaining those that creators liked from the original, including a background defocus capability and the vari-angle flip screen.

The ZV-E10 II has a 26MP Exmor R CMOS sensor, an upgrade from the 24MP sensor in the original model. The larger-capacity battery (the NP-FZ100 found in some full-frame Sony cameras) may be a more compelling update. Sony claims that, with this battery, users will be able to shoot up to 195 minutes of video continuously.

Other features include a cinematic vlog setting that automatically optimizes the aspect ratio, frame rate and autofocus transition speed for a more cinematic look to videos, Sony claims. There's also a new vertical-oriented user interface and upgraded "connectivity for easy live streaming and data transfer," according to the company. All of this and the camera still weighs just 377 grams.

The ZV-E10 II will be available at the end of this month and it will cost $999 for the body only. If you'd prefer a $1,099 bundle with a new PZ 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS II lens, you'll need to wait until early August. The lightweight kit lens offers autofocus and video performance improvements over the previous version, according to Sony.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-reveals-the-more-vlogger-friendly-zv-e10-ii-163122315.html?src=rss

Amazon’s Kindle Scribe drops to a new record-low ahead of Prime Day

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Amazon Prime Day doesn’t officially start until July 16, but early deals have been trickling in for days. For instance, the well-reviewed Kindle Scribe e-reader is on sale for $235 and includes the company’s Basic Pen stylus thingamajig. All told, that’s a discount of $105, making this a record-low price. The downside? This deal’s only for Prime members.

The Kindle Scribe easily made our list of the best E-ink tablets. It would have nabbed the top spot, if not for the exorbitant original asking price and some stiff competition from the reMarkable 2. However, this deal makes the Scribe much cheaper than comparable products.

We called the e-reader “better than pen and paper” in our official review, specifically mentioning the low latency between stylus and tablet and the premium exterior design. The Scribe is my personal e-reader of choice and I’ve stared at that thing for hundreds and hundreds of hours. I love it, but mostly as an e-reader. The extra screen real estate just feels more like reading a newly-released hardcover than those diminutive tablets out there. It’s also, oddly, easy to hold with one hand when needed, despite the relatively large form factor.

The writing part works great. It’s a seamless experience. I just don’t really use it. My handwriting is atrocious and after drawing a few pizza slices in the note-taking app, I kind of got bored. If note-taking is your bag, this certainly gets the job done. However, sharing these notes could be a bit more intuitive. There’s no handwriting-to-text conversion algorithm and the software automatically syncs the notes as image files, but the only real option for editing after the fact is to convert to a PDF and head into something like Evernote.

However, this is a Kindle. The digital shop is the best in the business with the biggest selection of titles. I look at the Scribe this way. I have the best e-reader on the market, in my opinion, and the note-taking stuff, well, that’s just like a nice little bonus.

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/amazons-kindle-scribe-drops-to-a-new-record-low-ahead-of-prime-day-160955437.html?src=rss

Severance season two will hit Apple TV+ in January 2025

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Apple's terrific sci-fi thriller Severance has a premiere date for its second season, which will arrive nearly three years after the show's debut. You'll be able to return to the dystopian hellhole of Lumon Industries on January 17, 2025. A fresh installment of the 10-episode season will then hit Apple TV+ every Friday until March 21.

For the uninitiated, the series (which premiered in February 2022) focuses on a group of colleagues who have undergone a severance procedure. Their work and personal experiences are completely distinct from each other. Each person essentially has two different lives — they can't remember anything about the outside world while they're at work and vice versa when they're away from the office. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this could go very, very wrong.

Apple has also dropped the first teaser trailer for season two, the filming of which was put on hold due to last year's actors and writers strikes. The clip doesn't give much away other than the core premise and a few fleeting shots from the new season. A new character played by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) appears at the end and ominously says "you should have left." January is too far away.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/severance-season-two-will-hit-apple-tv-in-january-2025-152503912.html?src=rss

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra will get first dibs on Wear OS 5

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Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra will be the very first smartwatches to receive access to Wear OS 5, Google’s latest operating system for wearables. This was unveiled at today’s Unpacked event, alongside a slew of major product announcements. These product announcements also happened to include the aforementioned smartwatches.

That means that Samsung’s recently-announced gadgets are the very first smartwatches to get Wear OS 5, even before Google’s own products. This will change later in the year when the Pixel Watch 3 is likely to drop. Interestingly, this is exactly how it went down with Wear OS 4. The operating system first came to the Galaxy Watch 6 before being included with the Pixel Watch 2.

Google officially revealed Wear OS 5 two months ago at I/O 2024 and the new software is filled with useful updates. The UI is mostly the same as Wear OS 4, but the software has been optimized to improve battery life by up to 30 percent. There are some new health monitoring features, including analysis of stride length when walking or running.

The operating system includes some efficiency upgrades, with Google saying that, for instance, running a marathon will consume 20 percent less power on Wear OS 5 when compared to OS 4. There’s a new grid-based app launcher and additional options for watch faces. This software update doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but that extra efficiency is sure to be a boon for many consumers.

Incidentally, there’s no information as to when the operating system will be ported to Samsung’s older smartwatches. We’ll just have to wait and find out. For now, you have to plunk down $300 for the Galaxy Watch 7 or $650 for the Ultra to access the OS. 

Catch up on all the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-galaxy-watch-7-and-ultra-will-get-first-dibs-on-wear-os-5-151009264.html?src=rss