Tag Archives: Software

Meta opens Quest OS to third parties, including ASUS and Lenovo

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In a huge move for the mixed reality industry, Meta announced today that it's opening the Quest's operating system to third-party companies, allowing them to build headsets of their own. Think of it like moving the Quest's ecosystem from an Apple model, where one company builds both the hardware and software, to more of a hardware free-for-all like Android. The Quest OS is being rebranded to "Meta Horizon OS," and at this point it seems to have found two early adopters. ASUS's Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is working on a new "performance gaming" headsets, while Lenovo is working on devices for "productivity, learning and entertainment." (Don't forget, Lenovo also built the poorly-received Oculus Rift S.)

As part of the news, Meta says it's also working on a limited-edition Xbox "inspired" Quest headset. (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest.) Meta is also calling on Google to bring over the Google Play 2D app store to Meta Horizon OS. And, in an effort to bring more content to the Horizon ecosystem, software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the Horizon Store. The company is also developing a new spatial framework to let mobile developers created mixed reality apps.

“Mixed reality is transforming how people interface with computers by integrating digital experiences and physical spaces to reach new levels of productivity, learning and play," Lenovo Chair & CEO, Yuanqing Yang, said in a statement. "Building from our past successful partnership, Lenovo is bringing together Meta Horizon OS with our leadership and innovation in personal computing to accelerate adoption of new user scenarios in mixed reality like virtual screens, remote presence, content consumption, and immersive training.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-opens-quest-os-to-third-parties-including-asus-and-lenovo-163127396.html?src=rss

Meta opens Quest OS to third parties, including ASUS and Lenovo

Posted on by

In a huge move for the mixed reality industry, Meta announced today that it's opening the Quest's operating system to third-party companies, allowing them to build headsets of their own. Think of it like moving the Quest's ecosystem from an Apple model, where one company builds both the hardware and software, to more of a hardware free-for-all like Android. The Quest OS is being rebranded to "Meta Horizon OS," and at this point it seems to have found two early adopters. ASUS's Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is working on a new "performance gaming" headsets, while Lenovo is working on devices for "productivity, learning and entertainment." (Don't forget, Lenovo also built the poorly-received Oculus Rift S.)

As part of the news, Meta says it's also working on a limited-edition Xbox "inspired" Quest headset. (Microsoft and Meta also worked together recently to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Quest.) Meta is also calling on Google to bring over the Google Play 2D app store to Meta Horizon OS. And, in an effort to bring more content to the Horizon ecosystem, software developed through the Quest App Lab will be featured in the Horizon Store. The company is also developing a new spatial framework to let mobile developers created mixed reality apps.

“Mixed reality is transforming how people interface with computers by integrating digital experiences and physical spaces to reach new levels of productivity, learning and play," Lenovo Chair & CEO, Yuanqing Yang, said in a statement. "Building from our past successful partnership, Lenovo is bringing together Meta Horizon OS with our leadership and innovation in personal computing to accelerate adoption of new user scenarios in mixed reality like virtual screens, remote presence, content consumption, and immersive training.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-opens-quest-os-to-third-parties-including-asus-and-lenovo-163127396.html?src=rss

Microsoft’s AI tool can turn photos into realistic videos of people talking and singing

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Microsoft Research Asia has unveiled a new experimental AI tool called VASA-1 that can take a still image of a person — or the drawing of one — and an existing audio file to create a lifelike talking face out of them in real time. It has the ability to generate facial expressions and head motions for an existing still image and the appropriate lip movements to match a speech or a song. The researchers uploaded a ton of examples on the project page, and the results look good enough that they could fool people into thinking that they're real. 

While the lip and head motions in the examples could still look a bit robotic and out of sync upon closer inspection, it's still clear that the technology could be misused to easily and quickly create deepfake videos of real people. The researchers themselves are aware of that potential and have decided not to release "an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings" until they're sure that their technology "will be used responsibly and in accordance with proper regulations." They didn't, however, say whether they're planning to implement certain safeguards to prevent bad actors from using them for nefarious purposes, such as to create deepfake porn or misinformation campaigns. 

The researchers believe their technology has a ton of benefits despite its potential for misuse. They said it can be used to enhance educational equity, as well as to improve accessibility for those with communication challenges, perhaps by giving them access to an avatar that can communicate for them. It can also provide companionship and therapeutic support for those who need it, they said, insinuating the VASA-1 could be used in programs that offer access to AI characters people can talk to. 

According to the paper published with the announcement, VASA-1 was trained on the VoxCeleb2 Dataset, which contains "over 1 million utterances for 6,112 celebrities" that were extracted from YouTube videos. Even though the tool was trained on real faces, it also works on artistic photos like the Mona Lisa, which the researchers amusingly combined with an audio file of Anne Hathaway's viral rendition of Lil Wayne's Paparazzi. It's so delightful, it's worth a watch, even if you're doubting what good a technology like this can do. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-ai-tool-can-turn-photos-into-realistic-videos-of-people-talking-and-singing-070052240.html?src=rss

7 Rendering Tricks to make your KeyShot Renders look Completely Photorealistic

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Render by Ali Rouzbeh

These small tips will take your renders from average to awesome.

If you’re on this website reading this article, there’s a fair chance that you’re an Industrial Designer who 3D models and renders for a living, and if that’s true there’s an even fairer chance that you’ve heard of KeyShot. Touted by 88% of designers as the best software for realistic renders, KeyShot is known for two things, being intuitive and easy to use, and being great at creating good renders with low effort. However, just like how a great camera doesn’t make you a great photographer, a great software doesn’t automatically make your renders incredible. If you’ve used KeyShot for work, personal projects, or the occasional design competition, here are a few lesser-known tips that should completely revolutionize your rendering game. Use these tricks to upgrade your skill set, bookmark the article for later, and give KeyShot 2024 a download so you can put your new rendering skills to the test!

Click Here to Get Free KeyShot Pro + Keyshot Web

1. Perfection lies in imperfection

Render by Jay Bhosale

That might sound like a paradox, but look around you – nothing is perfect. Your phone has fingerprint marks on it, your table’s got a few scratches, the glass you’re drinking water from isn’t 100% geometrically perfect – its surface has marginal imperfections that cause light to reflect/refract in unique ways. If you want to look real, you have to embrace reality… and in reality, nothing’s perfect. Sure, your product render against a white background can be as perfect as possible, but if you’re looking for a photorealistic scenario render, obsess over the imperfections. Add dust and fingerprints to flat glossy surfaces, use bump maps pretty much anywhere you can, create scratches as a layer/label in your material, remove 100% sharp edges (everything is marginally rounded off), and most importantly, push objects out of alignment in your scene. No real-world scenario has stuff aligned perfectly. These settings alone should take you halfway to photorealism, because humans perceive imperfections as a part of reality.

2. Bokehs are everywhere

Render by Mads Hindhede Svanegaard

Your eyes are telescopic. They can’t focus on everything at the same time – you look at one thing and everything else blurs out. The blur is the key here, and it’s why portrait-mode photos on smartphones look great too. Seldom do you see photos of ANYTHING where every single item is in focus, and similarly, your renders need to ‘focus’ on that too. Go to the Camera tab on the top right and scroll down to the part that says Depth of Field. Activate it, adjust your focus distance, use the target button to click on the object you want to focus on, and set your F-stop to an appropriate number to ensure everything else is properly blurred. It’s easy to overdo the blurring, so once you find the right F-stop, raise it a little higher to err on the side of caution (don’t over-blur stuff, it’ll look fake). Remember, blurring takes a significant chunk of your rendering time, so if you DO use this tip, double or triple your rendering time per image. The results will come out fantastic.

3. Adjust your Image Settings

Render by Andrei Garbu

If you’ve ever used a camera, chances are you didn’t just point at a photo and hit the shutter button. You probably adjusted the exposure, aperture, ISO, and maybe played around with the white balance too. Think of the camera in KeyShot as a camera in real life – all it really does is capture the angle and focus… but there are still settings you need to tweak. Here, the Image Settings are your friend. Click on the Image tab on the top right corner and switch from Basic to Photographic. Now you can play with the exposure, contrast, white balance, highlights, shadows, midtones, and other parameters. You can even increase or decrease your image’s saturation to get you that perfect balance of colors, darkness, and light. Select ‘Linear’ in the Response Curve setting, enable the Curve editing feature below, and tinker away! It’s the secret sauce your renders need!

4. Beginners render, legends ‘Denoise’

Render by Sam Gwilt

Sometimes your renders just look grainy because you didn’t give them enough time to render out perfectly. Makes sense, you’re probably on a strict deadline and you don’t have 10-20 minutes to spare per render. Luckily, KeyShot’s Denoise feature in the Image Settings works like magic. They just blur out the grains in your renders, letting you ‘cheat’ your way through a quick render. Enable Denoise and watch as all the grains disappear miraculously. Set your Denoise level to around 0.6 for a balanced effect – setting it too high will give you weirdly blurry/smudgy renders, and setting it too low will give you grainy images. The Denoise feature works VERY well when you’re using the Depth of Field setting too, allowing you to easily cut down your rendering time without cutting down on quality.

5. Caustics are a headache, but they’re worth it

Render by Tommy Cheong

If there’s any transparent object in your render, chances are that it won’t just absorb or block light, it’ll bend light too. If you’ve ever looked at a reflection of a glass of water on a table, or those bright lines at the bottom of a swimming pool, those are caustics. They’re caused by light being manipulated by transparent/translucent objects. Caustics in KeyShot remain disabled by default, but that’s only because they’re kind of an absolute headache. They require a truckload of CPU/GPU power, take a LOT of time to perfect, and even more time to render. But if you nail your caustics, you’re guaranteed to get a few ‘wow’s from people who see your renders. The Caustics setting can be found in the Lighting tab in the top right corner. Enable it and also enable Global Illumination. Increase your ray bounces as well as your global illumination bounces, and if you’re using glass or plastic as a material, go to the material settings and increase the sample size. The problem here is that there will be a difference between what KeyShot shows you in the preview window, and what it actually renders, so the only way to really tell if you’ve done a good job is by rendering images, reviewing them, and then tweaking the settings. Rendering caustics also takes a LOT of time, and here Denoise won’t help you. You just need to trust the process and let KeyShot do its job simulating the bouncing of light to create those caustic refractions. Like I told you, it’s a bit of a headache, but the rewards pay off well.

6. If you’re thinking fabrics, think RealCloth™

Render by Hossein Alfideh Fard

Perhaps one of KeyShot’s most underrated materials, RealCloth adds unbelievably photorealistic cloth effects to any fabric in your scene. Whether it’s a tablecloth, the upholstery of a sofa, or even the strap of a camera, RealCloth’s one job is to mimic the woven effect of any kind of cloth. It adds depth, weave-patterns, and even lets you bake in imperfections like flyaway fibers and threads. If you’re simulating photorealism, chances are one of the objects in your scene has a fabric texture (it could be something as small as a cloth tag on a product). If it does, tap into the power of RealCloth to get that absolutely perfect cloth effect. Don’t rely on fabric bump maps online, trust me they won’t give you the precise control or sheer jaw-dropping dynamism that RealCloth will.

7. Shadows are just as important as lights

Render by Will Gibbons

When you’re setting your scene, don’t focus all your energy on getting the right highlights. Focus also on getting great shadows. This means ditching the HDRI lighting settings and actually adding physical lights to your scene. Photorealism requires work, and those drag-and-drop environments won’t help you achieve it. Sure, you can use the environments to create realistic reflections, like a sky reflecting off a windshield of a car… but there’s NO way that environment will create the dramatic shadows you need. For those, you’ll require area lights, point lights, and/or spotlights. You’ll have to add these lights to your project by assigning them as materials to random spheres and planes within your scene. Unlike the HDRI environments, these lights will create actual shadows that are crisp at some edges, blurry at others, and more importantly, shadows that overlap, warp, and interact with each other. Take your smartphone flash and hold it against your hand. Move the flash closer and see the shadow grow bigger, move it farther and see the shadow get smaller – the shadow’s shape and behavior are determined by physical lights in your scene, not by the environment lights. So add physical lights to your scene and keep those shadows in mind because while the eyes don’t ever focus on shadows, they do register them. A render without accurate shadows will just look… off.

Click Here to Get Free KeyShot Pro + Keyshot Web

The post 7 Rendering Tricks to make your KeyShot Renders look Completely Photorealistic first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple says it was ordered to remove WhatsApp and Threads from China App Store

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Apple users in China won't be able to find and download WhatsApp and Threads from the App Store anymore, according to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The company said it pulled the apps from the store to comply with orders it received from Cyberspace Administration, China's internet regulator, "based on [its] national security concerns." It explained to the publications that it's "obligated to follow the laws in the countries where [it operates], even when [it disagrees]."

The Great Firewall of China blocks a lot of non-domestic apps and technologies in the country, prompting locals to use VPN if they want to access any of them. Meta's Facebook and Instagram are two of those applications, but WhatsApp and Threads have been available for download until now. The Chinese regulator's order comes shortly before the Senate is set to vote on a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban in the US. Cyberspace Administration's reasoning — that the apps are a national security concern — even echoes American lawmakers' argument for blocking TikTok in the country. 

In the current version of the bill, ByteDance will have a year to divest TikTok, or else the short form video-sharing platform will be banned from app stores. The House is expected to pass the bill, which is part of a package that also includes aid to Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden previously said that he supports the package and will immediately sign the bills into law. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-says-it-was-ordered-it-to-remove-whatsapp-and-threads-from-china-app-store-061441223.html?src=rss

Quicken Simplifi subscriptions are half off through April 21

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Subscriptions to the budgeting app Quicken Simplifi are half off through April 21. The price has been brought down to just $2 per month, which is billed annually at $24. The deal also extends to Quicken Classic, which adds more features for investments and tracking taxes. This tier now costs $4 per month, instead of $8 per month. It’s also billed annually.

Quicken Simplifi is pretty much the budgeting app to beat all budgeting apps. There’s a reason, after all, that it topped our list of the best budgeting apps and our collection of the best apps to replace Mint. We’ve consistently praised the user-friendly interface that makes it easy to get started and keep an eye on things. Users have instantaneous access to various metrics, like top-line balances, net worth, recent spending, upcoming recurring payments and more.

We also loved how simple (pun intended) it is to set up customized savings goals and the like. The UI is clean, yet offers playful visualizations to keep things interesting. It integrates with most financial institutions, including Fidelity. Users can also invite a spouse or a financial manager to co-manage the account.

There’s no integration with Zillow, so people can’t track fluctuations in home value, which is something that competing apps like Monarch Money and Copilot Money offer. It requires manual entry of real estate information, just like any other asset. We also experienced some small errors during use, in which the app miscategorized some expenses, though this was in line with other products we tested. There’s no option for a free trial, so $2 per month is about as close as it gets. Just remember to cancel before the year is up if things don’t work out.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/quicken-simplifi-subscriptions-are-half-off-through-april-21-190006927.html?src=rss

Quicken Simplifi subscriptions are half off through April 21

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Subscriptions to the budgeting app Quicken Simplifi are half off through April 21. The price has been brought down to just $2 per month, which is billed annually at $24. The deal also extends to Quicken Classic, which adds more features for investments and tracking taxes. This tier now costs $4 per month, instead of $8 per month. It’s also billed annually.

Quicken Simplifi is pretty much the budgeting app to beat all budgeting apps. There’s a reason, after all, that it topped our list of the best budgeting apps and our collection of the best apps to replace Mint. We’ve consistently praised the user-friendly interface that makes it easy to get started and keep an eye on things. Users have instantaneous access to various metrics, like top-line balances, net worth, recent spending, upcoming recurring payments and more.

We also loved how simple (pun intended) it is to set up customized savings goals and the like. The UI is clean, yet offers playful visualizations to keep things interesting. It integrates with most financial institutions, including Fidelity. Users can also invite a spouse or a financial manager to co-manage the account.

There’s no integration with Zillow, so people can’t track fluctuations in home value, which is something that competing apps like Monarch Money and Copilot Money offer. It requires manual entry of real estate information, just like any other asset. We also experienced some small errors during use, in which the app miscategorized some expenses, though this was in line with other products we tested. There’s no option for a free trial, so $2 per month is about as close as it gets. Just remember to cancel before the year is up if things don’t work out.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/quicken-simplifi-subscriptions-are-half-off-through-april-21-190006927.html?src=rss

Airchat is the latest app trying to make ‘social audio’ cool again

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There’s a new invite-only app going semi-viral among VCs, tech execs and other Silicon Valley personalities. It’s called Airchat and it’s trying to revive the concept of an audio-first social media app.

The premise is similar to Clubhouse, the audio app that had a viral moment at the height of the pandemic in 2021 and inspired copycat features in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit before gradually fading into obscurity. But unlike the original version of Clubhouse, Airchat isn’t built around live audio streams that require users to all tune it at once. It’s more like Twitter or Threads, except posts can only be shared as voice notes.

The app uses a timeline format, and automatically plays audio clips as you scroll your feed. You do have the ability to pause the playback and read text instead — each post is accompanied by an AI-generated transcript — but posts and replies can only be shared by recording an audio clip. There don’t seem to be any time constraints on how long individual clips can be, I found at least one post where a user spoke for a full hour just to see if it would work (it did).

It sounds a bit gimmicky (because it is), but the app has all the hallmarks of the kind of social apps that briefly go viral among a certain segment of extremely-online Silicon Valley nerds. It’s led by a pair of well-connected tech founders: AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant and former Tinder exec Brian Norgard. It’s invitation-only and has drawn a number of well-known tech personalities among its early users: Y Combinator CEO and San Francisco political provocateur Gary Tan, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, VC and Elon Musk confidant Jason Calacanis.

Over on X, Airchat’s high-profile user base is building hype and creating FOMO for those who haven’t been able to score an invite. (The app had to briefly shut off invites over the weekend due to “an influx of new users,” according to Ravikant, Airchat’s CEO.)

It’s not clear exactly how many users Airchat has just yet, but it seems to be in the low tens of thousands. The app has been downloaded close to 50,000 times, research firm Appfigures told Engadget, but it’s likely some of those downloads have come from people who don’t yet have an invite. Ravikant, who seems to be one of the most-followed users, currently has just over 11,000 followers in the app.

Using Airchat is, well, noisy and a bit confusing. Upon joining, the app asks to tap your contacts list to find friends who are already on the app, but finding people to follow beyond that can be challenging. The app doesn’t have the equivalent of a “for you” feed with recommended content so your only options are to manually search for users or lurk in conversations that do appear in your feed and check out other users’ posts and follows.

When I signed up, there were four people from my contacts in the app, only two of whom are actual friends. I followed them and the app’s founders and a couple other familiar names. I then began randomly following other users as conversations began to appear in my feed. This was a terrible strategy as my feed was quickly dominated by the voices of a few especially active (but not terribly interesting) posters. With so many new users all joining at the same time, at one point my feed was just a bunch of people talking about Airchat.

It’s also somewhat jarring to actually hear the voices of people you’ve followed on social media for ages but haven’t interacted with IRL. The app defaults to playing back audio at 2x speed, which tends to make people’s speaking voices sound a bit unnatural, but is also kind of necessary for long-winded posts.

The bigger issue, though, is that it’s not entirely clear what Airchat is for. There are a handful of “channels,” smaller groups dedicated to chatting about specific topics like coffee or astrology or AI or war, but conversations are disjointed and hard to follow. There seem to be some corners with spirited discussion. The “coffee” channel has 755 members and has lots of earnest discussion of pour-over techniques and photos of latte art. The channel is also “moderated heavily,” according to Ravikant (Airchat’s moderation policy is “self moderation,” which means they expect you to make good use of blocking and muting features, though an FAQ states they will remove users for “harassment, impersonation, foul behavior, and illegal content.)

More creative users are also finding ways to play with the audio-centric format. I found an ASMR group that consisted mainly of people speaking in breathy whispers that kind of gave me the ick (one person did post a nice clip of their cat purring). I listened to a few poetry readings in the “poetry” channel, but didn’t have the patience, even at 2x speed. There’s also a lot of talk of in-app karaoke, though I have yet to see it actually happen.

Some might see these kinds of gimmicks as the start of some new paradigm, where people use their voices to unlock new ways of interacting. But all I can think about is how Clubhouse, at its peak, had similar gimmicks: in-app game shows, open mic nights and (very NSFW) “moan rooms.” It was new and interesting at a time when most people were stuck at home with nothing to do, but the novelty wore off quickly.

While Clubhouse’s initial success sparked copycat features from almost every other major social media company, many of those have since shut down due to lack of interest. Even Clubhouse itself is a shell of what it once was. While the app still exists, it’s an entirely different service than the one that briefly captured the attention of bored tech workers. The company laid off half its staff in 2023 and has since pivoted to audio-centric group chats.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/airchat-is-the-latest-app-trying-to-make-social-audio-cool-again-140050450.html?src=rss

TikTok is trying to clean up its ‘For You’ recommendations

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TikTok is ramping up penalties for creators who post potentially “problematic” content and tightening its rules around what can be recommended in the app. The updates arrive as TikTok is fighting for its future in the United States and trying to convince lawmakers and regulators that its app is safe for teens.

Under its updated community guidelines, set to take effect in May, TikTok has added a long list of content that’s not eligible to be recommended in the app’s coveted “For You” feed. The list includes some obvious categories, like sexually suggestive or violent content, but it also adds topics that have previously been a source of controversy for the app. For example, the new guidelines bar videos showing “dangerous activity and challenges,” as well as many types of weight loss or dieting content. It also prohibits any clips from users under the age of 16 from appearing in “For You.”

There’s also a lengthy section dedicated to a wide range of misinformation and conspiratorial content. From the guidelines:

-Conspiracy theories that are unfounded and claim that certain events or situations are carried out by covert or powerful groups, such as "the government" or a "secret society"

-Moderate harm health misinformation, such as an unproven recommendation for how to treat a minor illness

-Repurposed media, such as showing a crowd at a music concert and suggesting it is a political protest

-Misrepresenting authoritative sources, such as selectively referencing certain scientific data to support a conclusion that is counter to the findings of the study

-Unverified claims related to an emergency or unfolding event

-Potential high-harm misinformation while it is undergoing a fact-checking review

In addition to the eligibility changes, TikTok says it will also begin to penalize creators who repeatedly disregard this guidance by making their entire account ineligible for recommendations, not just the specific offending posts. The company will also make their account “harder to find” in search.

Additionally, the app is getting a new “account status” feature, which will help users track if they are running afoul of these rules. Much like the feature of the same name in Instagram, TikTok’s account status will alert creators to strikes on their account and posts that run afoul of the app’s rules. And an “account check” feature will allow users to track if they are currently being blocked from recommendations or otherwise unable to access features like messaging or commenting as a result of breaking the app’s rules.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-is-trying-to-clean-up-its-for-you-recommendations-210057825.html?src=rss

TikTok is trying to clean up its ‘For You’ recommendations

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TikTok is ramping up penalties for creators who post potentially “problematic” content and tightening its rules around what can be recommended in the app. The updates arrive as TikTok is fighting for its future in the United States and trying to convince lawmakers and regulators that its app is safe for teens.

Under its updated community guidelines, set to take effect in May, TikTok has added a long list of content that’s not eligible to be recommended in the app’s coveted “For You” feed. The list includes some obvious categories, like sexually suggestive or violent content, but it also adds topics that have previously been a source of controversy for the app. For example, the new guidelines bar videos showing “dangerous activity and challenges,” as well as many types of weight loss or dieting content. It also prohibits any clips from users under the age of 16 from appearing in “For You.”

There’s also a lengthy section dedicated to a wide range of misinformation and conspiratorial content. From the guidelines:

-Conspiracy theories that are unfounded and claim that certain events or situations are carried out by covert or powerful groups, such as "the government" or a "secret society"

-Moderate harm health misinformation, such as an unproven recommendation for how to treat a minor illness

-Repurposed media, such as showing a crowd at a music concert and suggesting it is a political protest

-Misrepresenting authoritative sources, such as selectively referencing certain scientific data to support a conclusion that is counter to the findings of the study

-Unverified claims related to an emergency or unfolding event

-Potential high-harm misinformation while it is undergoing a fact-checking review

In addition to the eligibility changes, TikTok says it will also begin to penalize creators who repeatedly disregard this guidance by making their entire account ineligible for recommendations, not just the specific offending posts. The company will also make their account “harder to find” in search.

Additionally, the app is getting a new “account status” feature, which will help users track if they are running afoul of these rules. Much like the feature of the same name in Instagram, TikTok’s account status will alert creators to strikes on their account and posts that run afoul of the app’s rules. And an “account check” feature will allow users to track if they are currently being blocked from recommendations or otherwise unable to access features like messaging or commenting as a result of breaking the app’s rules.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-is-trying-to-clean-up-its-for-you-recommendations-210057825.html?src=rss