Tag Archives: provider_name|Engadget

The Morning After: The Nex Playground channels the spirit of Xbox’s Kinect

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You might not have heard of the Nex Playground, but it’s a tiny gaming system built entirely around Kinect-like games. With its camera and computer vision processing, the $249 Nex Playground can track up to four players as effectively as Microsoft’s old Xbox motion tracker, according to Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar.

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The hardware is cute and well-designed, there are plenty of games, and it works offline. The only issue is the ongoing subscription needed to access most games. Check out our full review to learn more.

— Mat Smith

Even if demand for Optimus is still unknown.

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Tesla

Tesla is going to wrap up production of its Model S and X EVs next quarter, CEO Elon Musk has announced. It’s less of a major shift for the company than it sounds: The newer Model 3 and Y now make up the bulk of the company’s sales. Tesla delivered over 1.5 million Model 3 and Y vehicles but sold under 450,000 Model S and X units. Musk added that Tesla’s long-term goal is to manufacture 1 million Optimus robots in the current Model S and X production space.

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It’ll still be under the umbrella of Snap.

Snap’s augmented reality glasses business will now be its own company called Specs Inc. It’ll still be fully owned by Snap, though. The company has been trying to figure out ways to raise outside money for its AR glasses to better compete with Meta, which has a lot more money to spend on development. Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg said his Reality Labs will (eventually) stop losing so much money as it doubles down on AI glasses and shifts away from virtual reality. According to the Meta boss, the company’s smart glasses sales “more than tripled” in 2025.

How can Snap’s Specs match the might of Meta? Well, its next pair will apparently be lighter, smaller and more capable than its older smartglass model, which was pretty dev-focused.   One request: make them not look awful.  

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Maybe it’s time for an upgrade.

Hosting a Super Bowl party? Maybe you’ve been thinking about replacing an aging set, or you’re itching for a full refresh of your home theater setup — either way, if you’re looking for a good deal on a new TV, we’ve got you covered. TV prices steadily decrease after a new model comes out. The 2026 TV models were announced at CES and are expected to arrive this year, making now a good time to look for discounts on 2025 sets. Aside from the holiday shopping season, this is one of the best times of the year to save on a TV — it’s like the manufacturers know there’s a Super Bowl.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-the-nex-playground-channels-the-spirit-of-xboxs-kinect-121500965.html?src=rss

Apple just reported its best-ever quarter for iPhone sales

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Apple shared its latest quarterly financial results today and the news is once again very, very good for the Cupertino company. The quarter ending December 27, 2025 marked "the best-ever quarter" for iPhones, which generated a record high revenue of nearly $85.27 billion for the business. Apple doesn't disclose the number of devices sold any more, but even with the prices for many of its latest generation of smartphones surpassing $1,000 a pop, that's still got to be a heck of a lot of iPhones. 

"The demand for iPhone was simply staggering," CEO Tim Cook said on the conference call to discuss the results. "This is the strongest iPhone lineup we've ever had and by far the most popular."

That wasn't the only massive number in the earnings report. Services revenue also logged its biggest quarter yet, growing 14 percent over the same period last year to reach just over $30 billion. It was also Apple's biggest quarter to date for total revenue, which was nearly $143.76 billion for the already fabulously wealthy company.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/apple-just-reported-its-best-ever-quarter-for-iphone-sales-234135513.html?src=rss

Amazon discovered a ‘high volume’ of CSAM in its AI training data but isn’t saying where it came from

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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said it received more than 1 million reports of AI-related child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in 2025. The "vast majority" of that content was reported by Amazon, which found the material in its training data, according to an investigation by Bloomberg. In addition, Amazon said only that it obtained the inappropriate content from external sources used to train its AI services and claimed it could not provide any further details about where the CSAM came from. 

Amazon provided Engadget with the following statement to explain why it doesn’t have data that can provide any further action on what it found.

“When we set up this reporting channel in 2024, we informed NCMEC that we would not have sufficient information to create actionable reports, because of the third-party nature of the scanned data. The separate channel ensures that these reports would not dilute the efficacy of our other reporting channels. Because of how this data is sourced, we don't have the data that comprises an actionable report.”

"This is really an outlier," Fallon McNulty, executive director of NCMEC’s CyberTipline, told Bloomberg. The CyberTipline is where many types of US-based companies are legally required to report suspected CSAM. “Having such a high volume come in throughout the year begs a lot of questions about where the data is coming from, and what safeguards have been put in place.” She added that aside from Amazon, the AI-related reports the organization received from other companies last year included actionable data that it could pass along to law enforcement for next steps. Since Amazon isn’t disclosing sources, McNulty said its reports have proved “inactionable.”

Amazon provided Engadget with these additional details, which were first reported in Bloomberg:

“Amazon is committed to preventing CSAM across all of its businesses, and we are not aware of any instances of our models generating CSAM. In accordance with our commitments to responsible AI and the Generative AI Principles to Prevent Child Abuse, we take a deliberately cautious approach to scanning foundation model training data, including data from the public web, to identify and remove known CSAM and protect our customers. While our proactive safeguards cannot provide the same detail in NCMEC reports as consumer-facing tools, we stand by our commitment to responsible AI and will continue our work to prevent CSAM.”

The company also reiterated that “we intentionally use an over-inclusive threshold for scanning, which yields a high percentage of false positives” to explain the high volume of content the company reported.

Safety questions for minors have emerged as a critical concern for the artificial intelligence industry in recent months. CSAM has skyrocketed in NCMEC's records; compared with the more than 1 million AI-related reports the organization received last year, the 2024 total was 67,000 reports while 2023 only saw 4,700 reports. 

In addition to issues such as abusive content being used to train models, AI chatbots have also been implicated in several dangerous or tragic cases involving young users. OpenAI and Character.AI have both been sued after teenagers planned their suicides with those companies' platforms. Meta is also being sued for alleged failures to protect teen users from sexually explicit conversations with chatbots.

Update, January 30, 2026, 11:05AM ET: This story has been updated with several statements from Amazon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-discovered-a-high-volume-of-csam-in-its-ai-training-data-but-isnt-saying-where-it-came-from-224749228.html?src=rss

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI are reportedly holding merger talks

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Two Elon Musk companies are reportedly planning to merge. On Thursday, Reuters reported that SpaceX and xAI are holding merger talks ahead of a planned IPO. Part of their plan is to launch AI data centers into space (but unfortunately, only as far as Earth's orbit).

Last week, it was reported that Musk planned to take SpaceX public despite having once said it wouldn’t happen until the company had a presence on Mars. Now, the IPO could happen as early as this year. Shares of xAI would reportedly be exchanged for shares in SpaceX under the merger. Reuters reports that two entities were set up in Nevada on January 21 to facilitate the deal.

If the idea of two Musk companies becoming one sounds familiar, that's because it happened less than a year ago. In March 2025, xAI bought X, putting Grok (known for nonconsensual "nudifying" images) and X (infamous for being a far-right hellscape) together under one unholy roof.

The latest idea Musk is pitching is blasting AI data centers off into space. At last week's gathering of the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland, he said, "The lowest cost place to put AI will be in space. And that will be true within two years, maybe three at the latest." The idea is that data centers in orbit could harness solar power and reduce cooling costs. However, industry analysts and executives consider it a risky bet, questioning whether the savings would warrant the massive investment. If or when the AI bubble bursts, the plan could go down in flames — if not literally, then figuratively.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/elon-musks-spacex-and-xai-are-reportedly-holding-merger-talks-211740150.html?src=rss

Publishers are blocking the Internet Archive for fear AI scrapers can use it as a workaround

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The Internet Archive has often been a valuable resource for journalists, from it's finding records of deleted tweets or providing academic texts for background research. However, the advent of AI has created a new tension between the parties. A few major publications have begun blocking the nonprofit digital library's access to their content based on concerns that AI companies' bots are using the Internet Archive's collections to indirectly scrape their articles.

"A lot of these AI businesses are looking for readily available, structured databases of content," Robert Hahn, head of business affairs and licensing for The Guardian, told Nieman Lab. "The Internet Archive’s API would have been an obvious place to plug their own machines into and suck out the IP."

The New York Times took a similar step. "We are blocking the Internet Archive's bot from accessing the Times because the Wayback Machine provides unfettered access to Times content — including by AI companies — without authorization," a representative from the newspaper confirmed to Nieman Lab. Subscription-focused publication the Financial Times and social forum Reddit have also made moves to selectively block how the Internet Archive catalogs their material.

Many publishers have attempted to sue AI businesses for how they access content used to train large language models. To name a few just from the realm of journalism:

Other media outlets have sought financial deals before offering up their libraries as training material, although those arrangements seem to provide compensation to the publishing companies rather than the writers. And that's not even delving into the copyright and piracy issues also being fought against AI tools by other creative fields, from fiction writers to visual artists to musicians. The whole Nieman Lab story is well worth a read for anyone who has been following any of these creative industries’ responses to artificial intelligence.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/publishers-are-blocking-the-internet-archive-for-fear-ai-scrapers-can-use-it-as-a-workaround-204001754.html?src=rss

Waymo begins service at San Francisco International Airport

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As fans and media prepare to descend on the Bay Area for Super Bowl LX, what does a high-tech city like San Francisco do? Why, call in the robotaxis, of course. On Thursday, Alphabet's Waymo began offering fully autonomous rides at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

There are some limits. For now, SFO access is restricted to "a select number of riders." However, access will gradually expand over the coming months. The service is also limited to the SFO Rental Car Center (pickups and drop-offs) at launch. Waymo says it will expand to other airport locations, including terminals, "in the future."

The San Francisco Standard notes that SFO is now the third airport in Waymo's repertoire. The San Francisco launch follows the company's service at Phoenix Sky Harbor and San Jose Mineta. As for the Bay Area, Waymo now serves more than 260 square miles in the region.

Unfortunately, this isn't Waymo's only appearance in the news this week. On Wednesday, the company said one of its robotaxis struck a child, who sustained minor injuries. The incident took place on January 23 in Santa Monica. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/waymo-begins-service-at-san-francisco-international-airport-192913050.html?src=rss

Apple acquires Q.ai for a reported $2 billion

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Apple has acquired Israel-based startup Q.ai, a move that could provide a much-needed boost to the tech giant's capabilities in artificial intelligence. Although Apple has not disclosed terms of the deal, sources told Financial Times that the arrangement is reportedly valued at nearly $2 billion. If that figure is accurate, the Q.ai acquisition marks Apple's second largest acquisition to date, followed by its purchase of Beats for $3 billion back in 2014.

Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said in a statement that Q.ai "is a remarkable company that is pioneering new and creative ways to use imaging and machine learning." Apple hasn't shared any specifics about how it plans to leverage the startup, but its past work indicates the possibility of Apple moving deeper into AI-powered wearables. "Patents filed by Q.ai show its technology being used in headphones or glasses, using 'facial skin micro movements' to communicate without talking," the Times reported. 

The startup's founding team, including CEO Aviad Maizels, will join Apple as part of the deal. This acquisition marks Maizels' second sale to Apple; he previously founded a three-dimensional hearing business called PrimeSense that Apple bought back in 2013.

For several months, many tech insiders have speculated that an acquisition might be Apple's best path forward to catching up in the AI race. In the company's Q3 earnings call in July 2025, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that "We’re open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap." A deal like this one could eventually lead to Apple developing its own fully in-house AI chatbot rather than relying on a competitor like Google to power artificial intelligence in its Siri assistant.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-acquires-qai-for-a-reported-2-billion-190017949.html?src=rss

Music publishers sue Anthropic for $3 billion over ‘flagrant piracy’

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A group of music publishers led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group are suing Anthropic, according to a report by Reuters. The suit accuses the AI company of illegally downloading more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, including sheet music, lyrics and compositions.

These songs were then allegedly fed into the chatbot Claude for training purposes. There are some iconic tunes named by Universal in the suit, including tracks by The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond and Elton John, among many others. Concord is an independent publisher that handles artists like Common, Killer Mike and Korn.

The publishers issued a statement saying that the damages could amount to more than $3 billion. This would make it one of the largest non-class action copyright cases in US history.

"While Anthropic misleadingly claims to be an AI 'safety and research' company, its record of illegal torrenting of copyrighted works makes clear that its multibillion-dollar business empire has in fact been built on piracy," the lawsuit says.

The suit was filed by the same legal team as last year's Bartz v. Anthropic case. The music publishers say they found that Anthropic had been illegally downloading thousands of songs during the discovery process of that suit.

For the unfamiliar, the Bartz v. Anthropic case ended with an award of $1.5 billion to impacted writers after it was found that the company had illegally downloaded their published works for similar training purposes. The terms of that agreement dictated that the 500,000 authors involved in the case would get $3,000 per work. The $1.5 billion looks like a big number, but not so much when broken down like that. Also, Anthropic is worth around $350 billion.

In the Bartz case, Judge William Alsup ruled that it was legal for Anthropic to train its models on copyrighted content but not legal to acquire that content via piracy. We'll have to wait and see how this new suit shakes out. The legal precedent here seems to suggest that if Anthropic would have just spent a buck on each copyrighted song, then they'd be in the clear. That's an odd distinction when it comes to building an entire company around snatching up copyrighted content, but whatever.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/music-publishers-sue-anthropic-for-3-billion-over-flagrant-piracy-185459358.html?src=rss

Google’s Project Genie lets you create your own 3D interactive worlds

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This past summer, Google DeepMind debuted Genie 3. It’s what’s known as a world world, an AI system capable of generating images and reacting as the user moves through the environment the software is simulating. At the time, DeepMind positioned Genie 3 as a tool for training AI agents. Now, it’s making the model available to people outside of Google to try with Project Genie.

To start, you’ll need Google’s $250 per month AI Ultra plan to check out Project Genie. You’ll also need to live in the US and be 18 years or older. At launch, Project Genie offers three different modes of interaction: World Sketching, exploration and remixing. The first sees Google’s Nano Banana Pro model generating the source image Genie 3 will use to create the world you will later explore. At this stage, you can describe your character, define the camera perspective — be it first-person, third-person or isometric — and how you want to explore the world Genie 3 is about to generate. Before you can jump into the model’s creation, Nano Banana Pro will “sketch” what you’re about to see so you can make tweaks. It’s also possible to write your own prompts for worlds others have used Genie to generate.

One thing to keep in mind is that Genie 3 is not a game engine. While its outputs can look game-like, and it can simulate physical interactions, there aren’t traditional game mechanics here. Generations are also limited to 60 seconds, as is the presentation, which is capped at 24 frames per second and 720p. Still, if you’re an AI Ultra subscriber, this is a cool opportunity to see the bleeding edge of what DeepMind has been working over the past couple of years.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-project-genie-lets-you-create-your-own-3d-interactive-worlds-183646428.html?src=rss

Maingear’s latest retro gaming desktop takes you back to the Quake era

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Maingear is back with another nostalgia-fueled gaming PC. The Retro98 may look like it's made for playing Quake while you wait for The Phantom Menace trailer to drop. But on the inside, the beige box is powerful enough to slay today's most demanding AAA games. "You're not going to find this PC at your local Radio Shack," Maingear promises.

If you're at least middle-aged, the Retro98's exterior is instantly familiar. The hand-built tower includes an LED fan-speed display, a working turbo button and a power-lockout key. Sticking with the nostalgic motif, its front I/O is hidden behind the Maingear logo. I can already hear The Beastie Boys' “Intergalactic” playing in the background.

Fortunately, you won't be limited to 1998 games. (Dope as they are.) It has up to a Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor, GeForce RTX 5090 graphics, 64GB Kingston Fury RAM and 4TB Kingston FURY Renegade NVMe Gen5 SSD. The maxed-out version (described by Maingear as "unapologetically overkill") even includes open-loop liquid cooling.

Two beige-tower PCs that look like they were ripped from 1998. One is opened, revealing modern components inside.
The Retro98 starts at $2,500 and goes all the way up to $9,799.
Maingear

Now for the bad news. As you might expect from a retro novelty PC like this, you'll have to pay a pretty penny. The base model (Intel Core Ultra 7 265K / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070) costs $2,499. There are two other standard tiers, priced at $3,499 and $4,999. Finally, the open-loop-cooled "Alpha" build is a whopping $9,799. Hey, those aren't 1998 prices!

The Retro98 also has an extremely limited run. Maingear is producing only 32 standard units and six alpha units. The company says it won't bring this build back once those sell out. However, there is a workaround for tinkerers: Since it's based on the SilverStone FLP02 tower PC case, you could grab one of those and build your own.

Those wealthy and nostalgic enough to take the plunge can order the Retro98 today from Maingear’s website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/maingears-latest-retro-gaming-desktop-takes-you-back-to-the-quake-era-174958445.html?src=rss