Reddit is back after a major outage forced the entire site offline. All told, the outage lasted under an hour before company techs fixed the backend problem, according to an official status page. This outage impacted each and every page of the internet's favorite collection of disparate community forums. Reddit's fix looks to be working just fine, as everything is loading on my end.
Update, April 25 2024, 1:39PM ET: This story has been updated to include the fact that Reddit engineers have fixed the problem and that the site is back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/reddit-is-completely-down-so-good-luck-finding-cute-cat-pictures-172755445.html?src=rss
Reddit is back after a major outage forced the entire site offline. All told, the outage lasted under an hour before company techs fixed the backend problem, according to an official status page. This outage impacted each and every page of the internet's favorite collection of disparate community forums. Reddit's fix looks to be working just fine, as everything is loading on my end.
Update, April 25 2024, 1:39PM ET: This story has been updated to include the fact that Reddit engineers have fixed the problem and that the site is back.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/reddit-is-completely-down-so-good-luck-finding-cute-cat-pictures-172755445.html?src=rss
The Anker PowerConf C200 webcam is 20 percent off right now via Amazon or directly from the company. This brings the price down to $48. The $12 dollar discount isn’t the lowest price ever for the webcam, but its dang close. In other words, this is still a fantastic deal.
The C200 is one of our favorite webcams, easily sliding into second place on our list of the best available models. We loved the easy setup, as all you have to do is plug it into your computer or docking station and start recording. It also integrates with the company’s AnkerWork software for editing and for making quick adjustments to brightness, sharpness and contrast ratio.
The default resolution is 2K, but you can adjust to 1080p, 720p or even 360p as the content requires. The field of view is similarly adjustable, so you can offer watchers an ultra-wide view of an extremely messy bedroom. It boasts dual stereo mics with omnidirectional vocal pickup and ships with a built-in lens cover.
The webcam’s autofocus is quite fast, even when compared to pricier models, and its larger f/2.0 aperture helps the image stay illuminated even in dark environments. The overall image quality isn’t quite on par with our favorite webcam, the Logitech Brio 500, but it’s also less than half the price.
We do have some complaints about the C200. It’s a bit cumbersome to adjust the angle when perched on a screen, due to the design. There’s no short neck that connects the camera to the base. It’s just one chunky piece of plastic, requiring both hands to make adjustments. Also, the provided USB-C cable is on the shorter side, so you might want to have a longer one ready to go, particularly if you use a standing desk.
The Anker PowerConf C200 webcam is 20 percent off right now via Amazon or directly from the company. This brings the price down to $48. The $12 dollar discount isn’t the lowest price ever for the webcam, but its dang close. In other words, this is still a fantastic deal.
The C200 is one of our favorite webcams, easily sliding into second place on our list of the best available models. We loved the easy setup, as all you have to do is plug it into your computer or docking station and start recording. It also integrates with the company’s AnkerWork software for editing and for making quick adjustments to brightness, sharpness and contrast ratio.
The default resolution is 2K, but you can adjust to 1080p, 720p or even 360p as the content requires. The field of view is similarly adjustable, so you can offer watchers an ultra-wide view of an extremely messy bedroom. It boasts dual stereo mics with omnidirectional vocal pickup and ships with a built-in lens cover.
The webcam’s autofocus is quite fast, even when compared to pricier models, and its larger f/2.0 aperture helps the image stay illuminated even in dark environments. The overall image quality isn’t quite on par with our favorite webcam, the Logitech Brio 500, but it’s also less than half the price.
We do have some complaints about the C200. It’s a bit cumbersome to adjust the angle when perched on a screen, due to the design. There’s no short neck that connects the camera to the base. It’s just one chunky piece of plastic, requiring both hands to make adjustments. Also, the provided USB-C cable is on the shorter side, so you might want to have a longer one ready to go, particularly if you use a standing desk.
The University of Maine just unveiled the world’s largest polymer 3D printer. The new printer, named Factory of the Future 1.0 (FoF 1.0), can print objects as large as 96 feet long by 32 feet wide by 18 feet high. It’s also quite speedy, relatively speaking, as it can print up to 500 pounds per hour. That’s like three people, every hour.
It can dynamically switch between printing techniques to suit different aspects of complex jobs. The printer can flip between large-scale additive manufacturing, subtractive manufacturing, continuous tape layup and robot arm operations. These technologies make the printer uniquely suited for a number of industries, including housing, infrastructure and the development of military vehicles.
Most of the stuff it makes is recyclable, so “you can basically deconstruct it, grind it up if you wish” and “do it again”, according to Dr. Habib Dagher, the Director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine. To that end, the printer prioritizes biobased materials, like wood residuals.
This tech seems like a great way to build a ton of affordable housing quickly and that’s exactly what some proponents have in mind. “Maine needs an estimated 80,000 additional homes by 2030, many specifically for households with incomes at or below the area median income,” said MaineHousing’s Development Director Mark Wiesendanger. “This effort creates another means of producing quality affordable housing, while further driving costs down, and using abundant wood residuals from Maine sawmills.” APsuggests the printer “may one day create entire neighborhoods.” The specs indicate that it should be able to make a modest single-story home in around 80 hours.
However, this is America, so it’s not like people built this thing just to help the unhoused. UMaine researchers received funding from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. These governmental institutions are going to want a return on their investment, so the printer will also likely be used to whip up lightweight rapidly deployable vessels, like submarines and other maritime vehicles. Senator Susan Collins called the printer “invaluable to our national security."
The FoF 1.0 has a sibling printer on the UMaine campus, which was the previous record holder for the world’s largest 3D printer. It’s already been used to manufacture a 600-square-foot, single-family home made of wood fiber and bioresin materials. The new printer, however, is four times the size. Luckily, the two models are housed in the same location and can work on different aspects of the same projects simultaneously.
The University of Maine will soon break ground on a new research laboratory called the Green Engineering and Materials (GEM) Factory of the Future. This will be the new home of both printers, with a primary aim to “facilitate and scale up more sustainable manufacturing practices.” It will also likely house even larger printers in the future. “We’re learning from this to design the next one,” Dr. Dagher told ABC News.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-worlds-biggest-3d-printer-can-a-make-a-house-in-under-80-hours-155256122.html?src=rss
JetBlue is revamping its in-flight entertainment system, complete with a new branding. It’s now called Blueprint and brings several features that should make your next flight just a teensy-bit less grueling. The biggest news here is a watch party feature that lets customers view the same TV show or film with up to five other people.
This is actually pretty cool, as watching stuff with friends and family during a long flight typically requires the finicky “push play at the exact same time and hope nobody has to go to the bathroom” method. The watch party feature includes functionality that pauses content for all viewers, should one have to take a break to deal with existential panic from being six miles above the ground. It also works no matter where the seats are.
Introducing Blueprint by JetBlue™, a personalized inflight experience, giving you new ways to use your seatback screen with watch parties, the ability to resume your content on your next flight, entertainment recommendations and real-time arrival details.💙 Available on select… pic.twitter.com/KCg5StLNNV
The watch party tool is just one aspect of the revamped in-flight entertainment experience. The system will now provide content recommendations based on previous viewing history, as it will be tied to individual accounts. This means that customers can save their favorite movies and shows for repeat viewings. It also means that people can pick up where they left off from one flight to the next. JetBlue says this can be useful for a connecting layover flight or even a trip months down the line.
JetBlue has a content partnership with Peacock, so customers have access to the streamer’s catalog during flights. Both Twisted Metal and Mrs. Davis are solid in-flight binges. The company also teased more “exclusive entertainment and offers” coming to Blueprint in the future.
As for availability, Blueprint is ready to go on JetBlue aircraft with AVANT seatback touchscreens. This includes the Airbus A321neo, Airbus A321LR (Long Range) and Airbus A220.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/jetblues-in-flight-entertainment-system-just-got-a-watch-party-feature-185913233.html?src=rss
Parents throughout the country just breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of allowing more screen time for their kids that doesn’t revolve around some really loud and annoying YouTube dude. PBS just launched a new free ad-supported channel called PBS Retro, as reported by The Wrap. As the name suggests, this is a repository for all of your favorite edutainment classics from the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. The nostalgia is strong with this one.
PBS Retro is available via The Roku Channel, which is a streaming service on smart TVs and, of course, Roku devices. The 24/7 channel airs all of the shows you’re likely picturing right now, including Reading Rainbow and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. You’ll also be able to introduce your kids to Thomas and Friends, Zoboomafoo and Kratt's Creatures, among others. It’s a collection of old-school classics.
This isn’t the only PBS-adjacent channel available on Roku’s platform. It’s home to other ad-supported channels like PBS Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Road Trip, PBS Food, Julia Child and PBS Nature. There are also plenty of PBS-related channels available via subscription, including PBS Masterpiece, PBS Kids, PBS Living, PBS Documentaries and PBS America. Some of these are available on Hulu+ Live TV.
PBS may become an even bigger fixture in the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) space in the future. The organization says it's in the “early days of experimentation” with a goal of making PBS content “available in new places.” It will “continue to consider additional opportunities” if these FAST channels increase revenue and brand awareness. In the meantime, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood makes for some mighty fine ASMR.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pbs-retro-is-a-new-fast-channel-playing-just-the-classics-173125500.html?src=rss
It’s easy to drag Google for this but it’s not entirely in the company’s hands. The tech giant is working closely with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to ensure that any tools it implements to replace the cookie’s tracking and measurement capabilities aren’t anti-competitive. These tools are known collectively as the Privacy Sandbox and Google says it has to wait until the CMA has had “sufficient time to review” results from industry tests that’ll be provided by the end of June.
Google’s Privacy Sandbox has stirred up some controversy in recent years. The proposed tools have drawn complaints from adtech companies, publishers and ad agencies, on the grounds that they are difficult to operate, don’t adequately replace traditional cookies and give too much power to Google. To that end, the company said that it recognizes “ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers.” This is another reason given for the delay until next year.
The CMA isn’t the only regulatory agency giving the side-eye to the current iteration of these Privacy Sandbox tools. The UK-based Information Commissioner’s Office drafted a report that indicated these tools could be used by advertisers to identify consumers, as suggested by the Wall Street Journal.
Those in the ad industry want to see cookies given the heave-ho, despite complaints about Privacy Sandbox. Drew Stein, CEO of adtech data firm Audigent, told Engadget that it’s time for Google “to deliver on the promise of a better ecosystem” by implementing its plans to eliminate third-party cookies.
The CMA, on the other hand, has indicated a willingness to keep third-party cookies in play, particularly if Google’s solution does more harm than good. Craig Jenkins, the CMA’s director of digital markets, recently said the organization would delay implementation of Privacy Sandbox tools if “we’re not satisfied we can resolve the concerns”, as reported by Adweek. We’ll see what happens in 2025.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-has-delayed-killing-third-party-cookies-from-chrome-again-155911583.html?src=rss
What is multimodal AI? Simply put, it’s a toolset that allows an AI assistant to process multiple types of information, including photos, videos, text and audio. It’s an AI that can view and understand the world around you in real time. This is the underlying concept behind Humane’s maligned AI Pin. Meta’s version is more conservative with its promises and, honestly, we came away impressed during our initial hands-on.
Multimodal Meta AI is rolling out widely on Ray-Ban Meta starting today! It's a huge advancement for wearables & makes using AI more interactive & intuitive.
Excited to share more on our multimodal work w/ Meta AI (& Llama 3), stay tuned for more updates coming soon. pic.twitter.com/DLiCVriMfk
Here’s how it works. The glasses have a camera and five microphones, acting as the AI’s eyes and ears. With this in mind, you can ask the glasses to describe anything you are looking at. Do you want to know a dog’s breed before you go up and give it a good pet? Just ask the glasses. Meta says it can also read signs in different languages, which is great for traveling. We enjoyed exclaiming “Hey Meta, look at this and tell me what it says” and listening as it did just that. There’s even a landmark identification feature, though that wasn’t available to test.
There are some other potential use case scenarios, like staring at loose ingredients on a kitchen counter and asking the AI to whip up a relevant recipe. However, we need a few weeks of real people running the tech through its paces to gauge what it's actually good at. Real-time translation is going to be something of a killer app, particularly for tourists, but here's hoping it keeps the hallucinations to a minimum. Mark Zuckerberg has shown the AI picking out clothes for him to wear but, come on, that’s about as pie in the sky as it gets.
Multimodal AI wasn’t the only update for the smart glasses announced today. Meta revealed hands-free video call integration with WhatsApp and Messenger. There are also some new frame designs for the fashion-conscious. These new styles can be fitted with prescription lenses and are available for preorder right now. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses start at $300, which isn’t chump change but is certainly better than $700 for a clunky pin.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-do-the-ai-thing-without-a-projector-or-subscription-175403559.html?src=rss
X just announced a smart TV app for streaming video. Or, more accurately, that it claims it's building one, with absolutely no launch date mentioned. The appropriately-named X TV wants to be “your go-to companion for a high-quality, immersive entertainment experience on a larger screen.” By high-quality entertainment, X likely means that one Tucker Carlson video where he’s really impressed by grocery carts in Russia. That’s not a joke. Carlson is featured prominently in the little teaser video.
X CEO and marketing robot Linda Yaccarino promises “real-time” content and wide availability, but other than that details are scanter than scant. There’s some corporate speak nonsense about AI, of course, and boasts about “effortless casting” from a mobile device to a TV. Wait, I thought this was a TV app? So it’s also a mobile app that casts to a TV? Is there another word for less than half-baked? Does raw work?
In other words, we don’t know much. This is X. All we get are word salads that don’t really mean anything and then, one day, the app may or may not actually appear. If it does, it’s likely to be hopelessly broken. That sounds harsh, but there’s plenty of proof-laden pudding to go around. We got receipts.
Back when Twitter first rebranded to X, the company promised the whole thing would soon be “powered by AI.” X eventually did create a chatbot, Grok, but it’s not exactly the sharpest algo in the shed. It also doesn’t look to be “powering” the site anytime soon. Elon Musk promised that X would soon become a payments and banking platform, which thankfully hasn’t materialized. Remember when Musk said that all major X decisions would be conducted via user poll? When was the last time you’ve seen one of those? There’s also the whole ongoing blue check fiasco.
The long-promised job search tool did launch, but it’s just kind of crappy. X did pursue original video content for a while, but things seem to have cooled off ever since the Don Lemon/Elon Musk debacle. Two years after Musk purchased the site, it’s still far from being the “everything app.”
There’s also the question of what kind of content will be streaming on this platform. Again, this is X. I’m just not sure how many people want to sit on their living room couch and watch a guy scream into the void about how the video game site Kotaku is ruining American society. The ad spotlights Carlson, as mentioned above, which indicates an endless stream of videos of people complaining about the word woke without actually defining it. Call me crazy, but I’d rather watch actual TV.
Heck. Even if I wanted to watch a vlog of impotent rage, YouTube is right there. It’s on smart TVs now and it works just fine. It has everything Yaccarino promises that one day will come to X TV. Plus, YouTube can teach you stuff, beyond how to block folks with a blue check next to their name.
X TV may or may not release in the near or far future on some or all smart TVs. It may be an actual app on the TV or an app on a phone that casts to a TV. It may be powered by AI, or not. It may have “tailored search” or it may just show you endless loops of Jordan Peterson bursting into tears. Who the heck knows. Be on the lookout for this latest pivot to video… or not.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-says-its-his-turn-to-have-the-remote-161914334.html?src=rss