Microsoft righted an age-old “wrong” (at least for those who geek out on disk formatting) earlier this week. With its latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview Build (viaThe Verge), the company increased the maximum FAT32 partition size limit from 32GB to 2TB when using the command line. The boost from the previous limit, which its creator thought would be limited to the lifespan of Windows NT 4.0, comes after 28 years.
FAT32 isn’t widely used today. Even SD cards, the last holdout, have mostly moved to exFAT. (FAT32 has other limitations for the modern world, like a 4GB file size limit.) So, the move appears to be more about making amends — a Windows geek’s equivalent of pardoning a historical figure who’s been dead for a century — than a practical change that will affect people today. The fact that the Windows GUI partitioning tool still includes the 32GB partition cap further decreases the odds that many will find much tangible benefit from the move.
In a 2021 video on his “Dave’s Garage” YouTube channel, retired Microsoft system engineer Dave Plummer explained why he chose the 32GB partition cap. When he picked the limit “on a rainy Tuesday morning” in the mid-90s, he thought it would have an extremely short lifespan and would see an increase in the next revision. “I picked the number 32GB as the limit and went on with my day,” he said. “I didn’t start to regret that choice until SD cards got to the magic 32GB size many years later.”
Plummer went on to dispute the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB cap to push the adoption of the company’s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted and that, to his knowledge, Microsoft never promoted it or made a dime from licensing it. Instead, he says FAT32’s artificial cap was more about preventing wasted space (especially with small files) than deploying any sinister corporate strategies.
If you really want to nerd out on ‘90s disk formats, Plummer’s three-year-old video goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that — unbeknownst to him at the time — would last nearly 30 years.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsoft-boosts-windows-fat32s-partition-size-limit-after-nearly-three-decades-192022618.html?src=rss
Mobile phone security firm iVerify has discovered a vulnerability in Google Pixel smartphones. According to iVerify's investigation, a piece of third-party software with deep system access is to blame, and troublingly it shipped with "a very large percentage of Pixel devices [...] since September 2017."
The issue relates to "Showcase.apk," a bit of software made for Verizon and used to put Pixel devices in demo mode while displayed in retail stores. The software downloads a configuration file over an unencrypted web connection, which — because of Showcase's deep access — might allow bad actors to perform remote code execution or remote package installation on the device.
The especially troubling part of this discovery is that Showcase can't be uninstalled at the user level. And while it is not enabled by default, iVerify said there could be multiple ways to activate the software. iVerify alerted Google to the vulnerability in May; thus far there's no confirmed evidence it's been exploited in the wild.
A Google spokesperson told Wired that Showcase “is no longer being used” by Verizon and that Google would have a software update to remove the software from all Pixel devices "in the coming weeks." Additionally, the rep said Showcase is not present in the line of Google Pixel 9 devices announced during the Made by Google event this week.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/researchers-claim-most-google-pixel-phones-shipped-with-exploitable-bloatware-since-2017-185926564.html?src=rss
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just announced some new features coming to Threads that should make it easier for creators and businesses to build followings and connect with fans. The biggest tool is something called Insights, which is basically an analytics platform.
Insights gives users a zoom-in view on traffic, with data on the age, gender and location of people who view and engage with content. This information can also be split up into followers and non-followers, to help with conversion.
Meta
Meta has been testing Insights for a few days now and it looks fairly useful, particularly for folks with large followings. I’m talking about brands, creators and power users. However, it should be fun for the rest of us to tinker with.
Threads will also now allow for simultaneous multiple drafts. Before this move, a new draft would replace the old one, so people just had one chance to jot something down for later. To that end, Meta’s working on a post scheduling feature, but it’s not ready yet.
Meta
Finally, there’s now a way to drag and drop pinned columns for reorganization purposes. This is only for the desktop client, but it does work with the Insights page.
Threads has some serious momentum right now. It just passed the 200 million user threshold after just a year of operation and CEO Zuckerberg has plans to bring that number up to one billion.
“We've been building this company for 20 years, and there just are not that many opportunities that come around to grow a billion-person app,” Zuckerberg said in a recent earnings call. “Obviously, there's a ton of work between now and there.”
I’m a fairly regular Threads user. The vibes are immaculate, especially when compared to that other app, but it still needs some work. The “For You” algorithm is incredibly slow, sometimes showing posts that are days old. The platform also has a bizarre aversion to politics and news, throwing it all under the umbrella of “potentially sensitive” content. This is a social media app that wants to be the public town square, like the bird app once was, so stop throttling news.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-introduces-a-new-analytics-platform-and-the-option-for-multiple-drafts-170033443.html?src=rss
An iPad-like tabletop device, Apple’s reported take on Echo Show and Nest Hub-style touchscreen devices, might still happen. According to Bloomberg, it could debut as soon as 2026, with a thin robotic arm that moves around a large display. In my mind, it’ll look like a mid-00s piece of technology, like something from Portal or I, Robot.
Rumors suggest it may tilt the screen up and down using actuators and rotate 360 degrees. This suggests it could tap into Apple’s DockKit software to track users as they move around their home for video calls and more. Hundreds of Apple employees are now said to be working on the tabletop system, and it’s apparently strongly linked to Apple Intelligence tools and Siri.
However, there are (understandable) concerns about whether consumers will actually want this, especially as the price may hover around $1,000. Please, Apple: Just make it detachable like the Pixel Tablet. Please?
I love that my colleague Billy Steele wrote this. I am currently wrestling with resyncing my Sonos Beam with my TV and thought I was going mad. I wasn’t. Following a major update back in the spring, the Sonos app was very broken and missing key functionality. It was missing basic features, like sleep timers and alarms. Some users also reported the inability to rearrange speakers, speakers working intermittently and trouble completing other basic tasks. Some say they can’t reliably load the app. I experienced most of this. Sonos has a clear plan for how it intends to fix this mess, but there’s no word how long that will take.
Even harder to understand what’s happening on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta has shut down CrowdTangle, the analytics tool that for years helped tens of thousands of researchers, journalists, and civil society groups understand how information was spreading on Facebook and Instagram. The company has introduced the Meta Content Library, but it’s much more tightly controlled than CrowdTangle. There’s a vetting process, and while tens of thousands of people had access to CrowdTangle, only “several hundred” researchers have reportedly been let into the Meta Content Library. Journalists are ineligible.
The timing couldn’t be worse; Meta shut down CrowdTangle less than three months before the US presidential election despite pressure from election groups and a letter from lawmakers requesting a delay.
The latest game, The Outlast Trials, is a risk for the developer.
The Sleep Room in The Outlast Trials is named after a real-life space at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, where from 1957 to 1964, doctors conducted mind-control experiments on patients as part of the CIA’s MK-Ultra initiative. It included electroshock therapy, sensory deprivation and heavy doses of psychedelic drugs.
Like all of Red Barrels’ games, The Outlast Trials draws from dark and true stories. The newest game is a cooperative four-player horror experience where participants have to ‘graduate’ from therapy by completing objectives and surviving monstrous villains. The gameplay mainly involves running and hiding from prowling, deranged sadists. It’s time to get scared again, but this time with your buddies.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-apple-is-still-working-on-a-rotating-ipad-like-tabletop-device-111940338.html?src=rss
Steam reviews tend to be a medley of serious, helpful, jokey and meme-y, but Valve is looking to switch that vibe up a bit. The company has started publicly testing a new "helpfulness" system that will bring useful reviews to the top and effectively demote the fun ones, depending on what the user wants to see.
"User reviews that are identified as being unhelpful for potential customers, such as one-word reviews, reviews comprised of ASCII art, or reviews that are primarily playful memes and in-jokes, will be sorted behind other reviews on the game’s store page," the company said.
Less of this
Valve
The new "helpfulness" button is toggled on by default and works only when you're in the "summary" and "most helpful" views. When enabled, you'll see reviews with the highest scores in terms of helpfulness up top, with jokey but relatively useless reviews pushed down below. Unticking the helpfulness box will bring back Steam's old review system.
Comments both negative and positive are evaluated using AI algorithms, user reports and Steam's moderators. In a FAQ, Steam said it will "take quite a while" to rate the 140 million+ existing reviews, and longer still for recently published ones.
"That doesn't mean players won't ever see... humorous, but unhelpful posts, but it hopefully means that they’ll see them less frequently when trying to learn about a game," Valve wrote. "The primary goal of Steam User Reviews is to help potential players make informed decisions about the games they are considering purchasing."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/steam-reviews-are-now-a-little-more-useful-but-a-little-less-fun-110038814.html?src=rss
X announced today that it is rolling out support for passkeys on its Android app. The social media platform formerly known as Twitter introduced this security option for iOS users in the US in January, then globally in April.
Passkeys started to take off as an option from tech companies and online services last year. We have a detailed explainer, but in short, this approach to protecting an account creates a digital authentication credential. It's a stronger alternative to passwords, which can be guessed or stolen. Even password managers have been moving to offer a passkey option for customers.
For X users, you'll still need a password in order to create an account. But once you're in the app, you'll need to click through some menu options to enable a passkey. It's listed under "Additional password protection" in the Security tab.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-adds-passkey-logins-for-android-users-231827149.html?src=rss
Halide is one of the best camera alternatives for the iPhone, a lovingly-crafted app that gives users plenty of manual control over the images they take. And today they just pushed out a major update with an intriguing proposition: an “anti-intelligent” camera.
Of course, more advanced digital photographers will already be familiar with the RAW format, something Halide (and basically all digital camera makers) have offered for years now. RAW simply means you’re getting every bit of data straight from the camera’s sensor, with few modifications or enhancements. The iPhone (and, again, most other digital cameras) typically store photos in a compressed format to save space and with a variety of enhancements applied to make the image look great as soon as you click the shutter.
So Halide’s new format, which they’re referring to as “Process Zero,” is the app’s attempt to make RAW a little more user-friendly. When you open the app, you can choose from three settings: ProRAW (Apple’s custom RAW format that does apply some of the company’s image modifications), Apple Processed (which applies the same computational photography tricks that you’ll get when shooting with Apple’s default camera app) and Process Zero.
The left image is captured in Apple's ProRAW format, while the right is captured with Halide Process Zero.
Halide
Process Zero gives you a RAW file that you can then apply a quick image brightness adjustment to. One of the big benefits from shooting RAW is that you have wide latitude in brightening up a dark image, or toning down one that is blown out. After you make this adjustment, Halide saves the RAW plus brightness adjustment in a new JPEG file that you can then easily export to other apps like Instagram, VSCO, Lightroom, or whatever image editing tool you choose.
The idea here is to let photographers capture RAW images without the computational and algorithmic changes that Apple makes and then easily do something with those photos. So, when you shoot in Process Zero mode, the phone is taking just one image — unlike the Apple camera, which shoots multiple photos and combines them to make a more balanced result. So while that might lead to an image with more noise and with some darker or lighter areas, it can also be significantly sharper and capture more detail than Apple’s process. Halide posted a detailed blog with tons of info on how this all works, complete with examples, and I highly recommend you check it out if you’re curious.
The Halide team also mentioned that the company is working on a Mark III of their app. But unlike Mark II, which arrived with a ton of new features, they’re planning to early-launch some Mark III features to gather feedback; Process Zero is just the first of those. And if you’re curious to check out these RAW capture updates alongside whatever else is in the works, you can get a yearly subscription to Halide for $12 right now, down from the usual $20 price. (If you hate subscriptions, you can also buy Halide Mark II and the eventually III release outright for $60.)
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/iphone-camera-app-halide-has-an-anti-intelligent-mode-to-make-shooting-with-raw-easier-211802575.html?src=rss
Sonos has laid off around 100 employees on Wednesday, first reported byThe Verge and confirmed to Engadget. Workers from the company’s marketing department allegedly bore the brunt of the hit. The cuts come as Sonos tries to simultaneously sell the public on its new Ace headphones and fix the rebuilt Sonos mobile app, which CEO Patrick Spence admitted was the result of his push for development speed.
The company confirmed the layoffs in a statement to Engadget. “We made the difficult decision to say goodbye to approximately 100 team members representing 6 percent of the company,” Spence said in a statement. “This action was a difficult, but necessary, measure to ensure continued, meaningful investment in Sonos' product roadmap while setting Sonos up for long term success.”
The company is also reportedly “winding down” some customer support offices, including one in Amsterdam scheduled for shutdown later this year. Sonos’ LinkedIn page reports 1,800 employees worldwide, and the six-percent figure quoted in the statement would put it at about 1,650 workers. The company’s last layoffs, in June 2023, slashed seven percent of its workforce.
Although Engadget’s review was largely impressed with the company’s new Ace headphones, the app complaints largely overshadowed the highly anticipated hardware launch. Designed to address “performance and reliability issues” and rebuild the developer platform with “modern programming languages that will allow us to drive more innovation faster,” the app launch has been a debacle. It’s created headaches for the company’s most loyal customers and threatened to drag down the brand as it pushes into new product categories. It even led to the delay of two new products that were otherwise ready to roll.
The new Sonos app for Android, iOS and desktop launched in May without core functionality like sleep timers and alarms. Customers reported problems rearranging speakers in different rooms, some only working intermittently and problems completing other basic tasks. Others even said they often couldn’t load the app on the first try.
Sonos
For a taste of how broken the app is, Spence laid out a timeline to repair it in a blog post late last month. July and August were dedicated to improving stability when adding new products and implementing Music Library improvements. An August and September window is reserved for improving volume responsiveness, user interface, stability and error handling. September and October will include tweaks to alarm consistency and reliability, and the restoration of editing playlists and queues. Improvements to settings will also be addressed. (Phew!)
In Spence’s statement about Wednesday’s layoffs, he said the cuts won’t affect the work on the app. “Our continued commitment to the app recovery and delighting our customers remains our priority and we are confident that today’s actions will not impact our ability to deliver on that promise,” the CEO wrote.
Today’s announcement wasn’t received well by the company’s Reddit community, which has been vocal about the app’s problems since its launch. Some viewed today’s reported layoffs as targeting 100 workers when one high-profile one would’ve done the trick. “I have to say that, I didn’t have both feet in the door to fire Patrick Spence, but any CEO who leaves his employees hung out to dry and then signs the paper that lays them off is a scumbag piece of shit,” u/teryan2006 wrote.
“Since I took over as CEO, one of my particular points of emphasis has been the imperative for Sonos to move faster,” Spence said on a July earnings call. “That is what led to my promise to deliver at least two new products every year — a promise we have successfully delivered on. With the app, however, my push for speed backfired.”
Update, August 14, 2023, 4:56 PM ET: This story has been updated to add the statement from Sonos CEO Patrick Spence.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/sonos-still-trying-to-fix-its-broken-app-reportedly-lays-off-100-employees-203224705.html?src=rss
Waymo driverless cars in San Francisco have been coming back online at night and honking at each other, as reported by CBS News. Videos have begun circulating showing dozens of the vehicles sitting in the same parking lot and just honking away without a care in the world. This has, obviously, irked some human neighbors who need sleep.
Is this a sign of the forthcoming AI apocalypse or is it some robotaxis learning how to flirt? Unfortunately for those looking for a “robots in love” narrative, it’s neither. It’s just an error within the security software. Simply put, the software mandates a honk when another car gets too close. These particular Waymo taxis sit right next to one another in a cramped parking lot when not in use and, well, there you go.
"We recently introduced a useful feature to help avoid low-speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us," the company said in a statement. "It has been working great in the city, but we didn't quite anticipate it would happen so often in our own parking lots.”
Waymo says that it has updated the software to address the issue, noting that “our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward.” So that’s that. Another mystery solved.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymo-driverless-cars-have-gotten-inexplicably-chatty-honking-at-one-another-all-night-162115440.html?src=rss
Following a major update back in the spring, the Sonos app was very broken and missing key functionality. The company admitted it made a huge mistake in pushing the redesign too soon and explained that it has since uncovered more “issues” that have prohibited it from adding those missing features. Users were quickly frustrated, and now the company is so mired in fixing its app problem that it delayed two products that are ready to launch ahead of the holiday season. Let’s discuss how we got here, what happened with the app, the consequences Sonos is facing and what likely happens next.
The backstory
Sonos released a completely rebuilt version of its app for Android, iOS and desktop in May. The total redesign was focused on making it easier to play different kinds of content while also creating a hub that’s better suited for finding what you need. Of course, it also has to work with the company’s various speakers and soundbars, and the overhaul took place ahead of the release of the first Sonos headphones. Those cans, the Ace, brought new functionality that had to be supported in the app, so the company thought it was time to wipe the slate clean.
“We viewed re-architecting the app as essential to the growth of Sonos as we expand into new categories and move ambitiously outside of the home,” CEO Patrick Spence said on the company’s Q3 earnings call. “In addition to its more modern user interface, the new app has a modular developer platform based on modern programming languages that will allow us to drive more innovation faster, and thus let Sonos deliver all kinds of new features over time that the old app simply could not accommodate.” He also noted that “performance and reliability issues had crept in” over the company’s history, so the user experience had already suffered as a result of the aging platform.
Billy Steele for Engadget
Some customers will always be resistant to change. The new customizable interface took some getting used to, but that wasn’t the problem. The app was missing basic features like sleep timers and alarms. Users also reported the inability to rearrange speakers in different rooms, speakers working intermittently and trouble completing other basic tasks. Some say they can’t reliably load the app on the first try.
“We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future, and with the knowledge that it would get better over time. However, since launch we have found a number of issues,” Spence explained in July. “Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality."
Spence laid out a roadmap for fixing the problems in the same blog post, which initially included restoring the ability to add new products to your home setup. Even I had trouble adding the Ace headphones to the app at first, but after a few tries I eventually got it. Spence also said that the company had released updates to the app every two weeks since the redesign launched on May 7, and that it would continue that schedule alongside detailed release notes. The most recent version, which included TV Audio Swap with the Ace headphones and older Sonos soundbars, delivered a handful of very basic things — like the ability to clear the queue on the iOS version.
“Since I took over as CEO, one of my particular points of emphasis has been the imperative for Sonos to move faster,” Spence said on the earnings call. “That is what led to my promise to deliver at least two new products every year — a promise we have successfully delivered on. With the app, however, my push for speed backfired.”
The fallout
Sonos
Customers have been understandably upset since early May, which is well-documented in the r/sonos subreddit. But, user satisfaction isn’t the only issue that the company is facing. With the new version of the app so busted it had to be fixed before missing items could be added, Sonos has delayed the launch of two new products that were ready to go on sale in Q4. Spence said that the company enlisted “the original software architect of the Sonos experience,” Nick Millington, to do “whatever it takes” to remedy the issues.
And it’s not just a headache for customers. Sonos dealers and installers, which make up a significant part of the company’s business, are allegedly so frustrated with what they encounter trying to do their jobs that some of them have paused sales. “As an installer when you try and talk this up to somebody to buy, it is extremely embarrassing at this point when you have to just say ‘well, the parent company is having issues,’ it makes you look like the jackass,” one Reddit post explained.
Spence explained on the company’s Q3 earnings call that the app debacle would cost between $20 and $30 million. CFO Saori Casey said that sum is due to the loss of sales stemming from the software problem and having to delay two new products that would’ve generated more revenue. As such, Sonos had to revise its Q4 financial guidance to lower expectations until this “chapter,” as Spence describes the current fiasco, is resolved.
While the company hasn’t revealed any details on what either of those two now-delayed products might be, there have been rumors that offer some clues. Bloomberg reported in November that the company was working on a soundbar that would surpass the capabilities of its current flagship, the Arc, in addition to a set-top TV streaming box. Both of those products would be hot-ticket items for the holidays, especially for the Sonos faithful.
Sonos Arc
Kyle Maack/Engadget
Bloomberg explained that the new soundbar would likely be $1,200, or $300 more than the Arc. Additionally, the new model would include “new technology” following the company’s acquisition of Mayht Holding BV. In Sonos’ announcement of that move, it said that Mayht “invented a new, revolutionary approach to audio transducers.” More specifically, the company’s engineering methods allow it to build transducers, a basic component of speakers, that are smaller and lighter without sacrificing quality.
According to that same Bloomberg report, the Sonos TV streaming box will be powered by an Android-based OS with various apps for different services. The device is also said to act as a hub for Sonos gear in the home. Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision should be on the spec sheet, and voice control will reportedly play a significant role in the gadget’s operation.
Bloomberg further explained that Sonos was working on a new high-end amplifier that could cost at least $3,000 and new eight-inch ceiling speakers. Frustrated dealers and installers would likely be hesitant to sell such expensive items with the app in the current state, if Sonos could even add the functionality to make them work. Any of these could be the two products the company was forced to delay, and any of them would’ve likely padded the bottom line before the end of the year. And that would be on top of the early sales of the Ace, a device that should be popular this holiday season.
What happens next?
Sonos has a clear plan for how it intends to fix its buggy app, but there’s no timeline for exactly how long that will take. The company has yet to deliver a TrueCinema feature for its Ace headphones that will map a room (with the aid of a soundbar) to virtually recreate the acoustics for a more realistic experience. And as we learned recently, new products have been delayed for the time being.
“Building a new software foundation was the right investment for the future of Sonos, but our rollout in May has fallen dramatically short of the mark,” Spence said on the earnings call. “We will not rest until we’ve addressed the issues with our app, and have delivered new versions that materially improve our customers’ experiences.”
The company is at a standstill until its app is fixed, with a full product pipeline plugged up for the foreseeable future – if the reports are to be believed. From the looks of it, Sonos planned to release an app that wasn’t completely done, but one that it thought was stable enough to use, with the goal of adding features over time to improve the overall experience. However, the complete rebuild was essential to the new technology and devices Sonos has in the works, since the company has been clear the old app wouldn’t have supported them. And since one of those items was the Ace, Sonos had to decide if it could wait longer to release its first headphones, a highly-anticipated product, or just go ahead with what it had.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/why-is-the-sonos-app-so-broken-140028060.html?src=rss