I think most readers of this series are accepting new employees. In any case, I told you last time that if you can use new encounters as a species of serendipity, you won't have to worry about your job being taken away by AI. I myself have been working on a new job since April in search of serendipity. I look forward to all sorts of coincidences. Now, what should new employees who have begun their careers as engineers or students aiming for a career as engineers should learn is a profound topic. Over 90% of the engineers I have worked with have graduated from the university's Faculty of Science and Technology. However, even in science and engineering, there are many cases where people majored in mechanical engineering, physics, mathematics, etc., while many people from so-called liberal arts faculties such as economics, law, and literature have been active as engineers. Telecommunications carrier engineers often do not engage in tasks like device development or program coding. Of course, there is no way telecommunications carrier engineers are involved in device development or coding. In practice, we purchase commercially available communication devices and servers, connect them to media such as optical fiber, and provide services with appropriate settings. It is also important to decide and coordinate what protocols to use when connecting with other telecommunications carriers and users. Selecting equipment, connecting to networks such as optical fibers, introducing configurations, and understanding and using protocols - if you write this, once you set it optimally, you may think that the machine will move on its own. Also, optical fiber buried underground can be cut off by road construction, and protocols can be dialects and versions, so it is usually not easy*2.
Apple Intelligence, which made its debut last year and was limited to select regions, now supports localized English for Indian users alongside Singapore, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified). Apple’s expansion of its Apple Intelligence features to one of the world’s largest smartphone markets is an important milestone for its global AI strategy. With iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 update, these capabilities expand to more regions globally, including India. Navigate to Settings > General > Software Update on your compatible iPhone, iPad or Mac Download and install iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 or macOS Sequoia 15.4. The update is available over-the-air and should appear automatically for eligible devices. You will need at least 7GB storage on your iPhone The latest iOS, iPadOS and macOS updates bring a comprehensive suite of AI-powered tools to compatible devices across India to evolve how users interact with their iPhones, iPads or Mac computers. These tools offer flexibility to customize tone, from professional, concise, or friendly, depending on the context and audience. The “Describe Your Change” option takes it a step further, enabling specific modifications to your writing style, such as making your resume language more dynamic or transforming a dinner invitation into a poetic format. Users can simply describe what they’re looking for and the system will identify relevant content. The Clean Up tool helps you remove unwanted objects from images and the Memories option creates custom movies based on user descriptions, automatically crafting a narrative arc with thematic chapters. Next is Image Playground which enables users to generate original images in animation, illustration, or sketch styles. This tool integrates into Messages and apps like Freeform and Keynote, where Apple claims it will make visual communication more engaging. The Genmoji feature lets users create custom expressions based on text descriptions or photos from a user’s library. The notification summaries help users manage their digital interactions more effectively by providing key details of lengthy communications directly on the Lock Screen. Additionally, Siri has received a substantial upgrade with more natural interactions and deeper system integration. It also maintains context between requests and possesses expanded product knowledge to answer thousands of questions about Apple device features and settings. Users can also switch between voice and text input when interacting with Siri based on their preferences. The new Visual intelligence capabilities allow users to learn about objects and places in their surroundings. With the new update, Apple is also allowing users to enable ChatGPT access in Siri and AI features. Users do not need a ChatGPT account to use this feature, and Apple claims that OpenAI will not store any of the requests. Apple emphasizes that many Apple Intelligence features run directly on-device, but for tasks requiring larger computational resources, Private Cloud Compute extends privacy protections into the cloud environment.
Dubbed Gen-4, the model purports to solve several key problems with AI video generation. Chief among those is the notion of consistent characters and objects across shots. If you've watched any short films made with AI, you've likely noticed that they're either dream-like sequences of thematically but not realistically connected images—mood pieces more than consistent narratives. Runway claims Gen-4 can maintain consistent characters and objects, provided it's given a single reference image of the character or object in question as part of the project in Runway's interface. The company published example videos including the same woman appearing in various different shots across different scenes, and the same statue appearing in completely different contexts, looking largely the same in a variety of environments and lighting conditions. Likewise, Gen-4 aims to allow filmmakers who use the tool to get coverage of the same environment or subject from multiple angles across several shots in the same sequence. The last major model update at Runway was Gen-3, which was announced just under a year ago in June 2024. That update greatly expanded the length of videos users could produce from just two seconds to 10, and offered greater consistency and coherence than its predecessor, Gen-2. Runway’s unique positioning in a crowded space Runway released the first publicly available version of its video synthesis product to users in February 2023.
There was plenty of onscreen drama in House of the Dragon season two: painful betrayals, fiery deaths, powerful awakenings, wanderings in the spirit world, Aemond being Aemond… you name it. But a behind-the-scenes tiff may have overshadowed them all, when source material author George R.R. Martin spoke out about his dissatisfaction with plot changes made in HBO’s adaptation. With season three’s production now underway, there’s no way showrunner Bryan Condal wasn’t going to be asked about the controversy. To recap the kerfluffle, in July 2024, Martin published a blog post praising a new addition to House of the Dragon. That same episode—the season two premiere, featuring Blood and Cheese offing King Aegon II Targaryen’s todder-aged heir to the Iron Throne—stuck in Martin’s craw, however, due to a different change to that very sequence, one he didn’t much care for. Another blog post went up in August in which the author promised he’d dig into “everything that’s gone wrong with House of the Dragon.” Then, a few days later in early September, he spilled the promised tea in a post that was swiftly deleted. As part of that now-scrubbed post, Martin said that he’d pushed back about the changes initially, including his concerns about how altering events in season two will affect the futures of certain characters down the line. A few days later, Condal defended his choices on HBO’s official House of the Dragon podcast. All’s been quiet on that front since mid-September 2024… until today. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Condal said he found Martin’s criticism “disappointing.” He’s obviously still a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, and “working on the show has been truly one of the great privileges of, not only my career as a writer, but my life as a fan of science-fiction and fantasy. Fire & Blood, he pointed out, isn’t written as a novel the way Martin’s A Game of Thrones and its sequels are. “At some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way. And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time. But that’s what I have to say about it.”
It’s still a thing (in theory) and the latest deadline is closing in, so other social media platforms are gearing up to try to grab the attention of those addicted to the infinite scroll. Substack is the latest to get in the game, announcing that it is introducing a TikTok-style video feed that creators can use to diversify their content, as first reported by TechCrunch. It seems the video content will be available for more than just subscribers and will serve as a discoverability tool, allowing readers to scroll and find new voices from whom they might be interested in hearing more. The secret sauce for TikTok has always been the recommendation algorithm and its ability to show people content that keeps them watching. Substack is working with a much smaller number of creators, though it is increasingly getting writers into multimedia. The company claims 82% of its top-earning writers are using multimedia tools, per TechCrunch, a solid uptick from about 50% last April. It seems Substack might prefer the narrower base of content creators, too. Earlier this year, CEO Chris Best announced a $25,000 “TikTok Liberation Prize” that he said would be awarded to a creator who manages to drive users from TikTok to Substack. According to Best, the goal of the prize was to “rescue the smart people from TikTok,” which probably only sounds about half as pretentious as it actually is. Still, the move makes Substack another potential landing destination should TikTok actually get shut down for good. You might remember that TikTok was temporarily banned earlier this year before Donald Trump delayed the block, giving parent ByteDance extra time to divest its ownership over the platform. Beast have expressed interest, it doesn’t seem like a sale is imminent, though Trump insists one will get done. But that might not matter, as Trump has expressed that he would extend the deadline again if needed.
Four amateur astronauts are about to venture where no other crew has gone before, orbiting Earth’s polar region to better understand how humans fare in space. SpaceX’s Fram2 mission is set for liftoff on Monday at 9:46 p.m. ET, launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX will stream the launch live on its website and X account, beginning around an hour before liftoff. If successful, Fram2 will go down in history as the first human crew to orbit Earth’s poles. During the mission, the astronauts will perform 22 research studies “designed to help advance humanity’s capabilities for long-duration space exploration and understanding of human health in space,” according to SpaceX. The crew will attempt to take the first X-ray in space, perform exercise studies to maintain muscle and skeletal mass, and grow mushrooms in microgravity. Once back on Earth, the crew will exit the Dragon spacecraft “without additional medical and operational assistance, helping researchers characterize the ability of astronauts to perform unassisted functional tasks after short and long durations in space,” SpaceX wrote. The Dragon crew vehicle being used for Fram2 previously flew SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which pulled off the first commercial spacewalk in history. SpaceX is not playing games with its private missions, which go way beyond your basic space tourism.
seUnited Airlines has been approved to begin operating flights with onboard Starlink satellite internet service. United and Starlink announced last year that the airline would outfit its entire fleet of more than 1,000 aircraft with Starlink in the next few years. SpaceX has been on something of a tear recently, signing deals with numerous partners to offer Starlink beyond rural households, including partnering with T-Mobile and cruise ship operator Royal Caribbean. Beyond United, it has also signed deals to offer in-flight WiFi with Hawaiian and private jet operator JSX. The service is not expected to work well in densely populated areas as high-speed fiber is already available, and a singular Starlink satellite would likely not have enough bandwidth to serve many users simultaneously. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said Starlink would likely never be suitable in urban environments where high-speed internet access is already plentiful. Airlines are eager to offer the service as existing offerings from the likes of Gogo have been notoriously slow and unreliable, resulting in frequent complaints on social media from customers who pay $10-20 for a WiFi pass only to find the service does not work. It is somewhat surprising that airlines are willing to eat the cost of providing Starlink service considering the business model of “unbundling” airline tickets and charging extra for each perk. It would be unsurprising to see airlines eventually throttle the service and upcharge for faster speeds. Where the service has been able to supply crucial internet access in locations such as Ukraine, countries in Asia and Europe have expressed some reservations about relying on internet service controlled by a close confidant of President Trump. Europe is developing its own Eutelsat alternative, while Taiwan has similarly been exploring other options out of concern regarding Musk’s ties to China for Tesla sales. Musk may be able to secure lucrative government contracts domestically—and the Treasury Secretary has pushed to use Starlink in the government’s rural internet access program—but his newfound influence is a double-edged sword.
Apple dropped a big batch of medium-size software updates for nearly all of its products this afternoon. The iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and visionOS 2.4 updates are all currently available to download, and each adds a small handful of new features for their respective platforms. A watchOS 11.4 update was also published briefly, but it's currently unavailable. For iPhones and iPads that support Apple Intelligence, the flagship feature in 18.4 is Priority Notifications, which attempts to separate time-sensitive or potentially important notifications from the rest of them so you can see them more easily. The update also brings along the handful of new Unicode 16.0 emoji, a separate app for managing a Vision Pro headset (similar to the companion app for the Apple Watch), and a grab bag of other fixes and minor enhancements. The Mac picks up two major features in the Sequoia 15.4 update. Users of the Mail app now get the same (optional) automated inbox sorting that Apple introduced for iPhones and iPads in an earlier update, attempting to tame overgrown inboxes using Apple Intelligence language models. The Mac is also getting a long-standing Quick Start setup feature from the Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad. On those devices, you can activate them and sign in to your Apple ID by holding another compatible Apple phone or tablet in close proximity. Macs running the 15.4 update finally support the same feature (though it won’t work Mac-to-Mac, since a rear-facing camera is a requirement).
As a harsh reminder—even though it feels like its been a decade since December, 2024—we have only managed to muddle through three months of 2025. It’s been an awkward time to love tech. As both consumers and the world’s biggest tech companies wrestled with the impact of Trump tariffs on supply chains. At the very least, we found several new favorite products of 2025 have already arrived. But the ides of March did indeed bring ill winds. This month was supposed to offer us the full look at Google Pixel 9a plus a heaping helping of gaming laptops sporting the latest Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs. We now have to sit on our hands, waiting for Google’s latest phone and our most-anticipated laptops, plus devices like Nothing 3a Pro and—reportedly—Nvidia’s RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti. While the Hypershell X won’t have you throwing cars or jumping 20 feet in the air, it does actually do a lot to make leg exercises easier. The device detects when you move your leg, then assists that movement with in-built motors. The Hypershell Pro X model also had a surprisingly strong battery life that could keep up even when on the move for several hours. Foldables have yet to find their place in today’s crowded U.S. smartphone market, but the Oppo Find N5 is making a strong case that U.S. foldables need to catch up, and soon. Bummer then that the device isn’t available for sale in North America. That company is owned by the same conglomerate as Oppo. For that, you’re getting a strong performance uptick from the M3 MacBook Air. At this point, the MacBook Air M4 is so close to perfection it just needs a new display without the notch to become our most-recommended laptop. It also packs a 2560 x 1600 OLED display to show off all those pretty graphics from the most-demanding titles. While it doesn’t have the battery life you need for using it as your all-day, on the go device, the thinner design is a benefit for those who want to put the Razer Blade 16 in their bag and not feel like they’re lugging around a 5-pound brick. We found its audio quality was far more measured than the previous iterations of the Charge, with solid highs and mids to go along with its normally-excellent bass. JBL’s small speaker continues to be durable and still has enough juice to last for a long listening session. If you have two on hand, you can combine them with the PartyTogether on the JBL Portable feature to facilitate some stereo audio too. When the high-end graphics card market was effectively monopolized by Nvidia, AMD had to show up and make a case for lower-end, cheaper GPUs. The new FSR 4 upscaling model, which is exclusive to this and the Radeon RX 9070, also provides a solid uptick in performance without sacrificing too much visual quality. Of course, you’d be lucky to get the RX 9070 XT at $600 (or even find it in stock), but it still comes out cheaper than Nvidia’s equivalent.
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access "to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies," despite "objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information" and lead to cyberattacks, The New York Times reported today. The system at the Interior Department gives DOGE "visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers," the NYT wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. DOGE workers had been trying to get access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System for about two weeks and succeeded over the weekend, the report said. "The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation, the people said," according to the NYT report. The agency's CIO and CISO are reportedly under investigation for their "workplace behavior." When contacted by Ars today, the Interior Department said, "We are working to execute the President's directive to cut costs and make the government more efficient for the American people and have taken actions to implement President Trump's Executive Orders." DOGE's access to federal systems continues to grow despite court rulings that ordered the government to cut DOGE off from specific records, such as those held by the Social Security Administration, Treasury Department, Department of Education, and Office of Personnel Management.
It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection of such stories. March's list includes fascinating papers on such topics as how the brain responds to speaking Klingon (or Dothraki, or Navi), the discovery of creepy preclassic Salvadoran puppets, the effectiveness of "dazzle camouflage," and how male blue-lined octopuses manage not to be cannibalized by their chosen mates. Wind Cave’s rocks fluoresce under black light Several fluorescence measurements of a zebra calcite in Wind Cave were taken using portable spectrometers. Its rock and mineral formations also boast a unique chemistry that fluoresces when exposed to black light, according to talks presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. That fluorescence could shed light on how life can thrive in extreme environments, including that of Jupiter's moon, Europa. University of Northern Iowa astrobiologist Joshua Sebree and several students have been mapping new areas of Wind Cave (as well as other caves in the US), recording the passages, rock formations, minerals, and lifeforms they encounter in the process. They noticed that under UV light, certain parts of Wind Cave took on otherworldly hues, thanks to different concentrations of organic and inorganic fossilized chemical compounds. Sebree et al. found that Wind Cave was likely carved out by waters rich in manganese, producing zebra stripes that glow pink under UV light, revealing the calcites that grew within as a result of those waters.
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Microsoft is making its AI features widely available on Copilot Plus PCs equipped with Intel and AMD chips. Microsoft first started testing Live Captions on Intel and AMD devices last December, and it’s now available through the latest Windows 11 update. The update also includes Cocreator, an AI tool in Paint that creates an image based on a text description and what you’re currently drawing. On top of that, Microsoft is also expanding access to its AI image editor and generator in the Photos app. Cocreator in Paint can generate an image based on your drawing and a text prompt. These features were previously only available on Copilot Plus PCs with Qualcomm chips. Microsoft started testing Recall, an AI feature that takes screenshots of your activity on a Copilot Plus PC and lets you search through them, with Intel and AMD devices last year, though there’s still no word when it will become widely available. Additionally, Microsoft is updating Voice Access — an accessibility feature that lets people control their PC with their voice — on Qualcomm-powered Copilot Plus PCs. Microsoft says Voice Access users on these devices will now “be able to communicate with their PCs using more descriptive and flexible language.” It’s also adding the ability to translate 27 languages into Simplified Chinese.
Animation is justifiably praised as one of our most significant art forms. Common Side Effects, by co-creators Joe Bennett (Scavengers Reign) and Steve Hely (Veep, The Office, 30 Rock), asks a fleeting, shower-thought sort of question with sincerity: what if the world discovered a drug that could cure anything? Similar to a modern-day Prometheus, an animal-loving hippie named Marshall (Dave King) discovers blue mushrooms that have the ability to heal all physical injuries and ailments, including bullet wounds and dementia. For obvious reasons, pharmaceutical companies don’t want his discovery to go public, so they falsify records and frame him as a wanted criminal. This leads him to confide in his former high school lab mate, Frances (Emily Pendergast). Unbeknownst to him, Frances works as the assistant to the head of Reutical Pharmaceuticals, whose inept CEO Rick (Mike Judge)’s job is riding on a new commercial drug. At one moment, it’s a dark espionage drama filled with political betrayals, undercover agents, and gruesome deaths. In the next, it’s a lively comedy where DEA agents groove to Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line” and little alien dudes cartwheel with their booties out, all while its entire exhausted cast looks like walking bobbleheads. The show’s eerie-meets-zany tones should clash, but Common Side Effects finds harmony by balancing its spinning plates without losing focus on that burning question about what a miracle drug would do to the world. At its core, Common Side Effects is a show that transcends conventional critiques of the United States healthcare system. With each episode, Common Side Effects explores how the gravity of deciding what to do with a universal cure-all drug capable of eliminating copays, premiums, and debt-laden obstacles would wear down anyone trying to capitalize on it. All of the above coalesces in a gut-wrenching finale that, thankfully, escapes its predecessor’s fate, leaving the possibilities of what lies in store for season two to cut even deeper into its gripping tale.
LSD can do a lot of things, but not necessarily much for someone’s attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In a recent small clinical trial, microdoses of the psychedelic failed to significantly treat people’s ADHD. In people with ADHD, twice weekly low doses of LSD performed no better than placebo at improving their symptoms. The researchers are careful to note that LSD can still have benefits for other conditions such as depression, however. Recreational psychedelic drugs like LSD, psilocybin, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) have started to show promise in medicine. Several studies have found that these drugs—in doses that clearly produce psychedelic effects—could be used to help treat difficult cases of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, especially in conjunction with therapy. Some research has also suggested that even taking low doses of LSD, commonly called microdosing, can alleviate ADHD symptoms better than conventional treatments. But the Basel researchers say theirs is the first placebo-controlled trial of its kind to systematically examine this use of LSD. Over the course of six weeks, half were randomized to either receive a placebo or low doses of LSD twice a week. Twenty micrograms of LSD can still cause mild acute psychedelic effects in people, the researchers note, and people who believed they were taking LSD did report a greater improvement than those who believed they were taking a placebo. All in all, the findings point to LSD microdosing not having a tangible pharmacological effect on people’s ADHD symptoms. But this isn’t the first study to suggest the benefits of microdosing LSD are less substantial than people might assume. And while this study turned out negative, it’s an apt illustration of why placebo-controlled clinical trials are the gold standard for testing drugs. The discrepancy between their trial and earlier studies of LSD for ADHD “underscores the need for randomized placebo-controlled trials when validly assessing potential benefits of low-dose psychedelics that are likely prone to a placebo response and expectancy bias,” they wrote.
And finally the day of Apple Intelligence has also arrived in Italy and in Italian thanks to the simultaneous release of the updates of the iOS 18.4 operating system for iPhone, iPados 18.4 for iPad and macOS Sequoia 15.4 for the Mac. In addition to our idiom (and our nation), other European countries will also be interested and not only where we speak French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Japanese, Coreo. Simplified Chinese. Finally even the users of the European Union will therefore be able to access all the complete features of the artificial intelligence ecosystem of the bitten apple, made official almost a year ago and already available for some time in English. What can be done with Apple Intelligence in Italian Apple Intelligence therefore brings to Italian all those utilities and functionality that had been made available in English, with utility ranging from productivity to leisure, from modifying photos to generations of images or heads. Here are the most useful and fun functions:
2024 was "a year of growth," according to fire-suppression company Fire Rover, but that's not an entirely good thing. In 2024, Fire Rover, based on its fire identifications, saw 2,910 incidents, a 60 percent increase from the 1,809 in 2023, and more than double the 1,409 fires confirmed in 2022. Publicly reported fire incidents at waste and recycling facilities also hit 398, a new high since Fire Rover began compiling its report eight years ago, when that number was closer to 275. Lots of things could cause fires in the waste stream, long before lithium-ion batteries became common: "Fireworks, pool chemicals, hot (barbecue) briquettes," writes Ryan Fogelman, CEO of Fire Rover, in an email to Ars. But lithium-ion batteries pose a growing problem, as the number of devices with batteries increases, consumer education and disposal choices remain limited, and batteries remain a very easy-to-miss, troublesome occupant of the waste stream. All batteries that make it into waste streams are potentially hazardous, as they have so many ways of being set off: puncturing, vibration, overheating, short-circuiting, crushing, internal cell failure, overcharging, or inherent manufacturing flaws, among others. In reality, the very nature of waste handling makes it almost impossible to ensure that no battery will face hazards in handling, the report notes. Tiny batteries can be packed into the most disposable of items—even paper marketing materials handed out at conferences. Fogelman estimates, based on his experience and some assumptions, that about half of the fires he's tracking originate with batteries. Roughly $2.5 billion of loss to facilities and infrastructure came from fires last year, divided between traditional hazards and batteries, he writes.
However, the Trump administration has also now put Waltz in charge of finding out how this happened, as if there’s some big technical mystery that needs solving. As Waltz runs point on his own fuckup, a new story claims that he may have been involved in several other ill-advised chats. Two U.S. officials also said that Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations. They declined to address if any classified information was posted in those chats. Critics have speculated that the Trump administration has been using encrypted civilian messaging apps as a way to circumvent public transparency regulations—a decision many security experts seem to think is mind-numbingly dumb. The report doesn’t share much information on how many other Signal conversations Waltz may have been involved with. Since his big media glowup, Waltz hasn’t done himself any favors. In a hilarious White House press conference involving both himself and the President, Waltz stammered his way through a public non-apology in which he mumbled something about “lessons learned” before accusing the media of lying and then bragged about America taking a stand against terrorism. You’re welcome, world!” Waltz said, when Trump asked him why he had sent war plans to a journalist. Laura Ingraham, to her credit, didn’t immediately let the issue go: Waltz: “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Ingraham: “But you’ve never talked to him before, so how’s the number on your phone?” Goldberg has come out to deny Waltz’s claim that the two didn’t know each other. I understand why he’s doing it but this has become a somewhat farcical situation.” The Journal reports that even “before the most recent episode, Waltz had annoyed many of his colleagues by seeming imperious and expressing views that were out of line with Trump’s agenda, two administration officials said.”
Smart plugs are great, but unfortunately, they can’t automate everything. Thankfully, there is a cheap cube-like contraption called the SwitchBot Bot that can add a touch of modern functionality to your garage door, light switch, and other traditional devices. It would normally run you $29.99, but right now you can buy it directly from SwitchBot for just $20.99 ($9 off) using promo code BKLP15 or at Amazon for $22.49 (about $8 off) if you’re a Prime member. SwitchBot’s smart switch button pusher is incredibly easy to set up: just use the included tape to mount it to a standard button or rocker switch, which will let you use your phone to control devices you would typically turn on and off via a button. It works with compatible garage door openers and light switches, along with coffee makers, rice cookers, pet feeders, monitors, laundry machines, and other button-based gadgets. It also lets you create schedules and, when paired with a SwitchBot hub, issue voice commands via Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. It even supports Matter, though you will need to own the latest SwitchBot Hub 2 to take advantage of the newer smart home standard. There are some caveats to bear in mind, though. You can’t use the Bot on toggle switches, for one thing. Also, while the button pusher supports Bluetooth, you’ll have to buy a separate hub if you want to control it remotely.
Over decades of competitive play, many a Magic card has either fallen out of valid use or been outright banned from official play altogether. But as Wizards of the Coast seeks to overhaul some formats of the games’ approach to potentially powerful cards, in one format it’s trying a new one entirely: unbanning cards on a limited-time basis to see whether or not they should remain banned. Today Wizards of the Coast announced two “trial unbans” for the Pauper format, Magic‘s common-cards-only competitive format that has been around for the best part of two decades at this point, but began being officially supported by a WOTC rules panel in 2022. High Tide—a blue card that lets its caster double up on resources for every Island resource they tap, and has been been banned since Pauper’s online and tabletop banlists were consolidated and unified in 2019, and Prophetic Wisdom—a colorless artifact banned in 2022 that players could pay a cost and tap to add any color of mana to their resource pool—will be the first cards to go under the trial period. Going forward, future potential unbans experimented by the format may not face a similar trial period. Although other Magic formats (like ones that operate on a rotation of legal sets for tournament play) will have cards unbanned as their respective sets go out of rotation, the trial format marks the first chance for these cards to return on a limited-time basis to solicit feedback from players, and to see if the effect of the unbanning aligns with Wizard’s expectations. “No other format has really tried this, and we think Pauper is a great place to experiment. You should not expect to see this in any other formats, and it’s something the PFP [Pauper Format Panel] is specifically interested in and thinks Pauper can handle given the accessibility of building decks and the predominance of online play,” PFP member and Magic principle game designer Gavin Verhey said in the accompanying blog post explaining the decision. Although Wizards has not tried unbanning cards from any of its Magic formats before this, the potential of the idea has been floated for years. Last year, Wizards formally dissolved Commander’s long-running community-led Rules Committee, after an uproar over banning the cards Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt from Commander saw members of the CRC targeted with harassments and death threats. At the time, Wizards floated that while the Game Changers list wasn’t necessarily a future indicator of cards that were guaranteed to be going to be banned, it could potentially be an avenue for banned cards in the format to re-enter some form of competitive legality by being reverted to Game Changer status. “[Game Changers] creates a nice half-step between the banned list and showing up everywhere. If a card shows up and is frustrating at casual tables but fine by competitive players, we can add it to the Game Changers list in an update to get it to the right place.”
Meet the new Volvo CEO, same as the old Volvo CEO. Ex-Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson has his old title back, replacing Jim Rowan who held the job for three years after Samuelsson stepped down in 2022. As he assumes/resumes his role, Samuelsson will face new challenges, including President Donald Trump’s threat to slap 25 percent tariffs on all cars not made in the US. Volvo already moved production of some of its vehicles, including the all-electric EX30, to Europe from China to avoid EU tariffs — and may ultimately do the same for the US.
Back in December, Elon Musk accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of launching a purely politically motivated probe into his Twitter purchase. In a letter from his lawyer, Alex Spiro, Musk alleged that the SEC gave him 48 hours to accept a settlement or face fraud charges. Musk refused to pay the fine, demanding to know "who directed these actions," suspecting either former SEC Chair Gary Gensler or Joe Biden's White House. Once the SEC lawsuit was filed in January, Musk's condemnation of the settlement was echoed in his claims that the SEC was "totally broken." These comments seemed to further his feud with the agency following a contentious 2018 Tesla settlement over Musk's tweets that resulted in the Supreme Court declining to hear Musk's arguments against his tweets being monitored by the SEC. But after Donald Trump issued a February executive order declaring sweeping powers over independent agencies—including the SEC, which was accused of launching politically motivated investigations—it appeared that Musk might instead have been setting up the narrative to possibly get the probe squashed. And while that still appears to be a possibility, it now seems that a persistent lawsuit raised by Twitter investors that's linked to the SEC probe may end up being the hurdle that possibly blocks Musk's efforts to evade the SEC's investigation. On Friday, US District Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr., gave Twitter investors a big win by mostly denying Musk's motion to dismiss. The judge agreed that it seemed plausible that Musk and other defendants concocted a scheme to spend "over $2.6 billion to secretly purchase over 70 million shares" at an artificially lower price. Plaintiffs had argued the scheme saved Musk "over $200 million" while allegedly harming investors whose shares could have sold at higher prices during the time the supposed scheme was in action.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere and you have to be very naive to think the opposite today. In terms of marketing, IA tools and features transform the market and it is almost difficult to do without to create when it comes to creating content. By analyzing 14 million videos and by questioning 1,100 marketing professionals, the trend described by Wistia in its report "State of Video 2025" is clear and it is not a simple fashion effect. So when tools automatize time -on tasks and reduce costs while retaining a qualitative rendering, they are welcome. In short, more than 60% of respondents use or plan to use AI in this way. Without forgetting that AI is also widely used for vocal dubbing (38%) and translation (31%). According to data published by Wistia, short videos and tutorials are the content that perform the most. Clips under 60 seconds display the highest engagement rates; Reaching 82% while longer videos (5 to 30 minutes) have 58%. Although more and more present, artificial intelligence does not sound the end of the video. The market is doing well and moults, since 57% of companies increase their video budget, compared to 5% that reduce it.
However, AMD's 3D V-Cache chip has also sparked another discussion, as user feedback regarding premature failures on Reddit (courtesy of natty_overlord) has grown to over 100 cases. However, it seems to be an ongoing issue, as new user reports have periodically popped up over the past few months. So far, the tally of dead Ryzen 9000 (codenamed Granite Ridge) processors has reached 120 cases. Overall, the numbers aren't alarming, considering that AMD sells thousands of these Zen 5 chips. Nonetheless, history has taught us that no matter how small the number of affected cases may be, they still warrant an investigation. Swipe to scroll horizontally Vendor Cases Percentage ASRock 98 82% Asus 16 13% MSI 5 4% Gigabyte 1 1% Most of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D failures seemed to have occurred on ASRock motherboards. Up to 82% of the incidents were on an ASRock motherboard. It could be a matter of consumer preference, as ASRock motherboards are typically more friendly on the pocket than rival brands. In February, ASRock released new firmware for its AM5 motherboards that reportedly solves boot issues. The firmware's description reads, "improve minority proportion of AMD 9000 series CPU boot issue." At first glance, the problem should not be about motherboard quality since the X870 chipset is usually featured on premium motherboards with robust design and components. Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors Only a thorough investigation can uncover what is truly happening. We can't help but recall the earlier Ryzen 7000 burnout scandal related to AMD EXPO profiles and SoC voltages and wonder if we're witnessing a similar malfunction. ASRock retrieved one malfunctioning Ryzen 7 9800X3D, found debris in the AM5 socket, and demonstrated that properly cleaning the AM5 socket restored it to working order. However, not all cases are related to debris in the socket. The time of failures looks random, with some user feedback pointing to a couple of hours and others to a few months. The last report was from an hour ago, where one Redditor showed the underside of his Ryzen chip with scorch marks.
In Marvel Comics’ latest Spider-swing, Al Ewing and Carlos Gómez are giving Mary Jane Watson a new venomous lease on life. This comes on the heels of a second Gwenpool variant in the form of Gwen Stacy in her recent run. It’s almost as if they really want to have Peter Parker’s Spider-Man have some sort of romantic panic by having his love interests be consumed by some of his most passionate antagonists. Which if anyone is into that, sure… we guess. The reveal finally happened after a few months of speculation over who Venom’s new host would be: Luke Cage, Rick James, Madame Mask, Robbie Robertson? Many fans speculated that Paul Rabin might be the new Venom—he’s a controversial figure introduced during Zeb Wells’ run on Amazing Spider-Man that played a fundamental part in the book’s separation of Mary Jane and Peter Parker, so soon after the duo had been allowed to be a romantic couple in mainline continuity for the first time since their marriage was demonically erased in 2007. The cover drop from Marvel, however, makes things perfectly clear with Mary Jane embracing the symbiote skin. From Marvel Comics’ release: “From strutting down runways as a high fashion model to fighting supervillains as the super hero Jackpot, Mary Jane’s life has taken some unpredictable turns—but never like this! Now that she’s been unmasked, the REAL mystery begins—how and why did she become ALL-NEW VENOM?! Stay tuned for answers in next month’s ALL-NEW VENOM #6 where symbiote and host have a tense confrontation as MJ’s adventures as a symbiote hero continues!”
If there is one thing rich people love, it’s doing things that allow them to take advantage of their inordinate wealth. So this new rule from the Federal Aviation Administration is right in their wheelhouse: a recent change to the agency’s rules will make it easier for private jet owners to hide their registration information, potentially making it harder to identify and track their movement. And just in case the ask-out system isn’t enough, the agency is also “evaluating” potentially making personally identifiable information of private aircraft owners and operators private by default—no request necessary. The change comes as part of a mandate under the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which gave the agency two years to develop a system that would allow private jet owners and operators to hide their personal information. The bill, which had bipartisan support and primarily focused on expanding the agency’s function and improving infrastructure, was signed into law by President Joe Biden in May 2024. At one point, Musk offered the account operator $5,000 to shut it down, which was rejected. The whole incident also gave us a very funny quote from Musk in which he claimed people sharing his flight details were posting his “assassination coordinates.” Taylor Swift has taken significant heat over her PJ usage, going so far as to file a cease-and-desist against the operator of a flight tracker that logged her travels. Celebs and CEOs have increasingly leaned on private flights in recent years, according to a 2024 study published in Nature, which found that folks with high net worth were increasingly using their jets for short flights. About half of all private flights were under 500km (about 300 miles), and emissions from private trips rose 46% between 2019 and 2023, according to the study. Similarly, a report from The Guardian found that private jets belonging to 200 wealthy folks made 44,739 trips in 2022, generating more carbon emissions than 40,000 average British citizens do over the course of a year.
The inexorable ticking watch towards the end of the Primavera Amazon 2025 offers feast, and the time to go hunting for the best discounts on the ecommerce portal is almost over: after a week of occasions, at 11:59 pm today, Monday 31 March, the event will end and then leave room in a few months at the summer appointment of the Amazon Prime Day. And since we remained so little time, we have gathered below the best discounts. still active and the most delicious ones activated only in the past few hours. How to take advantage of the latest spring offers As with the discounts remaining active for all last week on Amazon, there is no need to be enrolled in the Amazon Prime delivering service to be able to take advantage of the discounts. The offers are clearly visible to everyone by clicking on the Amazon page of spring offers. Obviously Amazon Prime users can as usual enjoy fast deliveries on most discount products, but the date of delivery of the goods has nothing to do with the fact that it is obvious. If the products are purchased before midnight on Tuesday, they will be discounted even if the delivery takes place outside the terms of the spring offers. The best of spring offers Below we collected the best of the best of the last hours on Amazon, considering both the extent of the discounts and the quality of the products. For those who can then dedicate this last evening of the event there are all the other gallery of deepening on the individual categories of most popular products on the ecommerce portal.
The Cadillac Vistiq EV is already quietly on sale. The three-row Cadillac Vistiq SUV was scheduled to arrive in “spring” as a 2026 model, which usually means late June, but they’re already popping up for sale — here’s a dramatic TikTok from a dealer in Indiana. It’s expensive, with a starting price of $77,395, but it’s in the same zone as similar Rivian R1S and Kia EV9 trims, and you get the feeling Cadillac is pushing these out to capitalize on the wave of Tesla trade-ins and general anxiety about the $7500 EV tax credit going away.
Apple is now offering a second release candidate for iOS 18.4, a late-stage pre-release version that implies the update will soon make its way to the wider iPhone user base – bringing with it an unexpected, but welcome, musical addition to the iPhone experience. iOS 18.4 introduces a dedicated Ambient Music feature to iPhone, accessible via the Control Center. Once added, users can tap the icon to choose one of four ambient music playlists – Chill, Sleep, Productivity, and Wellbeing. Oddly enough, the Ambient Music feature doesn’t have a proper dedicated app. Instead, Apple seems to be positioning Ambient Music as an expanded version of its existing Background Sounds, which include white noise, forest ambience, and ocean waves. I’ve been a fan of ambient music genre for about six years, and have listened to it for studying and working – I’m certainly a believer in its benefits for focus and relaxation. Though Apple probably won’t say as much, there are also possibly some health benefits to this new ambient music tool. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, ambient music has been shown to decrease anxiety and even ease physical pain. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors So overall, a pretty cool idea – but it remains an unusual one, and as such I still have some questions about Apple’s chillest new feature. Presumably these playlists are each at least a few hours long, and those tracks have got to come from somewhere. Optimistically, I could guess that the tracks will be pulled from similar genre tags and existing playlists available via Apple Music, maybe with a few additional exclusives thrown in – Apple Music is renowned for its curated playlists, after all. However, recent developments in the music and mobile industries have me concerned at the prospect of AI generated sound being used for these playlists – not that Apple has confirmed or suggested this. The tracks added to these on-demand ambient playlists will probably become some of the most listened-to ambient tracks around, thanks to their ease of access and embedding in the fabric of iOS. It’s possible that the artists will be paid typical streaming royalties for the use of their music, but with Apple Music paying just $0.01 per stream that’ll take a lot of listens to add up to much. Let’s face it – “dedicated ambient music button” probably wasn’t on any of our 2025 Apple bingo cards, and now I’m left wondering what’s next for Apple’s growing list of software eccentricities. Maybe we’ll see Apple extend the relaxation vibe to the visual side of things, with a dedicated calming color profile or virtual environments designed to bring users a sense of zen. Or perhaps we’ll just see more of these half-option-half-radio features crop up. In any case, I’m looking forward to trying out this and the other new features coming to the best iPhones with iOS 18.4.
After a boring iPadOS 18.3 update, Apple has finally released iPadOS 18.4 with several important features, including some that should have already been available. However, there are four other features worth noting: All-new Mail experience: After adding this new Mail to iOS 18.2, Apple is introducing new ways for users to manage their inboxes. Mail also features a new digest view that pulls together all of the relevant emails from a business, allowing users to quickly scan for what’s important at the moment. After adding this new Mail to iOS 18.2, Apple is introducing new ways for users to manage their inboxes. Mail also features a new digest view that pulls together all of the relevant emails from a business, allowing users to quickly scan for what’s important at the moment. New Apple Intelligence languages: Apple adds Chinese, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and localized English for Singapore and India. Apple adds Chinese, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and localized English for Singapore and India. AirPods Max lossless support: If you own the USB-C AirPods Max, you can enjoy lossless audio by plugging a USB-C cable from your headphones to your USB-C iPad. iPadOS 18.4 also adds the following features and tweaks: Subscribers can access recipes, tips for healthy eating, restaurants, and more. This update will bring a new Food section to Apple News. Subscribers can access recipes, tips for healthy eating, restaurants, and more. iPadOS 18.4 adds new Control Center toggles for Ambient Music, including Chill, Productivity, Sleep, and Wellbeing. Apple Maps change: You can now set a Preferred Language to get directions instead of the one you use on your iPad. Alongside this new software update, Apple also released iOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, watchOS 11.4, tvOS 18.4, and visionOS 2.4.
Micron has confirmed its plans to raise memory prices, citing strong demand for DRAM and NAND flash in the years ahead. With Micron confirming its intention to raise prices, other memory manufacturers such as Samsung and SK Hynix are expected to follow suit, further solidifying the upward pricing trend. In a statement to its channel partners, Micron cited "un-forecasted demand across various business segments" as a key factor behind the price increase. As companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel push for more advanced AI solutions, the need for faster and more efficient memory solutions has surged. Micron and its competitors are ramping up production of HBM to meet this demand, but supply remains tight, contributing to rising costs. The company recently announced an investment of $7 billion in a new HBM assembly facility in Singapore, aiming to meet the increased demands driven by AI advancements. Additionally, the broader consumer electronics market is expected to see a resurgence, with PC and smartphone manufacturers increasing orders for DRAM and NAND flash. As device makers prepare for new product launches in late 2025 and 2026, memory demand is projected to remain strong, further justifying Micron's price adjustments. With Micron setting the stage for a new pricing trend, all eyes are now on how competitors and customers will respond. If demand remains strong, the industry could see sustained price increases, impacting everything from gaming PCs to enterprise data centers in the years ahead.
Apple’s tvOS 15.4 aims to make content consumption more seamless with several user-focused updates tailored specifically for its streaming platform ecosystem. One of the standout features is an “Up Next” queue integrated directly into the video player interface. This allows users to manage upcoming shows or movies without having to exit playback mode—a convenience that streamlines binge-watching sessions or family movie nights. Connectivity has also been improved with support for captive Wi-Fi networks often found in hotels or dormitories, making it easier than ever to set up an Apple TV in temporary living spaces without additional hardware requirements like routers or extenders. Another small but impactful addition is an on-screen volume button that provides quick access to audio adjustments during playback without needing a separate remote or external controls. These updates are accompanied by general performance improvements and bug fixes that enhance overall stability across supported models of Apple TV devices.
is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Apple has released iOS 18.4, and one of the biggest features is priority notifications, which use Apple Intelligence to highlight “important notifications that may require your immediate attention,” according to Apple’s patch notes. The priority notifications will appear at the top of your notification stack on your Home Screen, as shown in the picture below from Apple’s website. Image: Apple The update (as well as the just-released iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4) also expands the availability of Apple Intelligence to “many new languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified) — as well as localized English for Singapore and India,” according to an Apple press release. EU users will also be able to use Apple Intelligence on iPhone and iPad. Apple Intelligence is now available on Vision Pro as well as part of visionOS 2.4. And Apple is launching a Vision Pro app for iOS with today’s software updates to help you find content for the headset. Other notable features in today’s software updates include a recipes section for News Plus subscribers and some changes to Photos.
Freaky Tales is set in 1987 Oakland, a fact it makes clear from its opening narration courtesy of Oakland rapper Too Short, whose raunchy ’87 track gives the film its title. And, this might be a nit-pick, but the first segment, “Strength in Numbers,” technically doesn’t take place in Oakland; its focal point is legendary music collective 924 Gilman, which any Bay Area music fan can tell you is in Berkeley. After some animated enhancements and an aspect-ratio change, we move to “Don’t Fight the Feeling,” which introduces Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Ironheart‘s Dominique Thorn). They’re best friends who work at an ice-cream shop together, where they put up with a sleazy Oakland cop—Freaky Tales just refers to him as “the Guy;” he’s played by Ben Mendelsohn, reuniting with his Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck—while sharing dreams of stardom. When they’re invited to a rap battle with Too Short (Demario “Symba” Driver plays the younger version of him, but Too Short himself pops up in one of Freaky Tales‘ many cool cameos), we see they absolutely have the talent required. However, it will come as no surprise to the viewer that there’s no easy escape from a career spent in cahoots with villains, either from one’s boss or the people you’ve wounded along the way. Finally, we get to “The Legend of Sleepy Floyd,” which without giving anything specific away is the segment that makes Freaky Tales genre enough qualify as an io9 movie. Too Short’s voice-over makes mention of a strange green glow that permeated Oakland’s atmosphere over those fateful days in 1987, and we see it zapping along through the history that Freaky Tales both recreates and fictionalizes. That embellishment comes to the fore most in this final story. That’s either because they’re fans, or because, like “the Guy” and his crew, they’re plotting to rob the players’ mansions. Things take a turn with that latter scheme, and as Freaky Tales‘ trailer spoils, the movie’s version of Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) is not just a gifted ballplayer, he’s also deadly accurate with a sword. The movie shines when it’s showcasing its deep love for Oakland; multiple scenes transpire outside the city’s iconic Grand Lake Theatre, and there are sly references galore, including a few to a certain local kid turned movie star (“that guy from Splash who used to sell hot dogs at A’s games”) that lead to a fantastic payoff. Its smaller, more personal moments are also notable; among the big names, Pascal brings gravitas and a wry sense of humor to what could’ve been a one-note character, and Mendelsohn does some outstanding scenery-chewing as a powerful dirtbag. Also disappointing is that the film’s most intriguing element, a new age learning center that weaves commercials throughout the film and fuels Sleepy Floyd’s glorious revenge rampage, goes mostly unexplored—especially since it seemingly also powers Freaky Tales‘ kooky green energy field, which feels plucked from the same source as 1984’s Repo Man. That said, if you feel nostalgia for the neon-tinged ’80s, a time of video stores, mix tapes, pay phones, and subcultures drawn together by common interests, not internet influence—and you don’t mind if a movie makes a conscious choice to lean heavy on style over substance—Freaky Tales fits the bill with energy to spare.
Elon Musk Debuted a New Financial Incentive on Sunday as part of his scheme to buy votes for the state supreme court election in Wisconsin. But Don’t Expect To Actually Get Any Money If You Follow Through on What The Billionaire Oligarch is Telling People to do. Musk Says Anyone Can Be Paid $ 20 by photo for getting people in wisconsin to pose for a picture holding an image of conservative judge Brad Schimel, Who’s running against liberal Judge Susan Crawford. However, The Terms and Conditions Listed on Musk’s website Appear to Contradict that Claim. Musk Donned a Cheesehead Has at a rally Sunday Night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Where Handed Out Two $ 1 million Checks and Ured People to Vote for the Maga-Aligned Chimel in the Election Tuesday. Musk, who’s poured over $ 20 million Into the Wisconsin Election Through Entities Like America Pac, Said Sunday that People Could Become So-Called “Block Captains,” To spread the word about voting for Judge Schimel, follow-up with a tweet later that Night the offer. The Billionaire Descred It as Easy Money, Explaining that it was open to anyone, Whether they live in the state of wisconsin or not. “You Don’t Even to be from Wisconsin, You Just Need To Get People In The State to Hold of @Teamschimel Can Be on a Phone/Device Or Paper) In One Hand and Go Thumbs Up With The Oth. But if you actual read the term and Conditions on America Pac’s Website, IT SEEMS Pretty Clear that Being A “Block Captain” is only to Registered Voters in Wisconsin (Emphasis Over): America Pac, in ITS SOLE Discretion, Has the Authority to Approve or Deny a person’s Application to be a block captain. It’s not Clear Why Musk Said that Anyone Could Get Paid, Even if they don’t live in Wisconsin. But the Billionaire Does Haves A History of Blatantly Lying about Things That Are Easy To Look Up. The Terms On America Pac’s Website, which Contain Spelling Errors, Are So Confusing When IT Comes To How Some Might Be Able to get Over $ 1,000. Lines Like “Each HouseHold is limited to receiving one $ 20” Don’t Provide Any Clarity on What Limitations Exist for Payment (Emphasis Over): For Payments Being Made For Submittting picture Supportives of Brad Schimel (A “Pro-Schimel Photo”), The Wisconsin Resident Must Be Holding A Picture Of Brad Schimel in One Hand And Give The “Thumbs-Up” Sign With Their Oth. For example, if Two People in the Same HouseHold Submit Pro-Schimel Photos, America Pac Will Only Pay $ 20 (not $ 40) for those submissions. If block captain submits pro-schimel Photos from 100 HouseHolds, they will be designated [sic] a “block general” and receiver to additional $ 200 Payment. The Website So explains that Photos Taken Near Polling Booth wants to be eligible for compensation, though that so Raises a Host of Thorny Legal Questions. Electioneering is illegal within 100 Feet of a Polling Place in Wisconsin. But Even People Get Paid, America Pac Wants Everybody To Know That There are no guarantees and you Shigildn’t Expect Anything Quickly (Emphasis Ours): America Pac Makes No Warranties, Whether Express Or Implied, Regarding Any Specific Timeframe in which Payments for the Block Captain Program Will Be Issued. Partial Payments May be made on a rolling base. Due to a high participation rate in the block captain program, particular not necessarily Expect to receiver incentive payments within a month or even two months. America pac Thanks Participants in Advance for their patience. The $ 1 million giveaways on Sunday to people who signed a petition against “Activist” Judges, Though it's not clear how they were ultimately chosen. In a video posted by elon musk’s pac, a $ 1m check recipient linked voting to receving the money: “My name’s ekaterina deistler.… I did exactly what elon Musk Told Everyone to do: Sign the petition, refer Friends and Family, Vote, and now a million dollars.” [image or embed] - Patriottakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social) March 31, 2025 at 7:10 am Again, it’s not Clear How thesis Two People Were Chosen, but they're identified as spokespeaple for america pac, not sweepstakes winners. Musk Spent Over $ 250 million in the 2024 Presidential Election to Election Donald Trump, Money that Paid Off Handsomely as He’s Now a De Facto Co-President, Running A Group Called Doge That’s Currently Dismantling the U.S. Federal Government. And wisconsin will be a test of whether he can pull it off.
watchOS 11.4 focuses on improving everyday usability with enhancements that make Apple Watch even more practical in daily life scenarios. For those eager to upgrade, be sure to download watchOS 11.4 to benefit from these new features. A key feature in this update is Break Through Silent Mode for alarms, which ensures that wake-up alerts will sound even if Silent Mode is enabled on the device. This addresses a common concern among users who rely on their watch alarms but don’t want other notifications disturbing them throughout the night or during meetings. In addition to smarter alarms, watchOS 11.4 expands its Home app functionality by adding support for Matter-compatible robot vacuums. Users can now control these devices through Siri commands such as “Clean the living room,” simplifying smart home management directly from their wrist. This integration underscores Apple’s commitment to making its ecosystem more interconnected across devices. The update also addresses bugs related to watch face selection and improves overall system stability for smoother performance across all supported models of Apple Watch. With these updates, watchOS 11.4 continues its trajectory of blending convenience with advanced functionality tailored to modern lifestyles.
France's competition regulator fined Apple €150 million, saying the iPhone maker went overboard in its implementation of pop-up messages that let users consent to or reject tracking that third-party applications use for targeted advertising. The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework used by Apple on iPhones and iPads since 2021 makes the use of third-party applications too complex and hurts small companies that rely on advertising revenue, said a press release today by the Autorité de la concurrence (Competition Authority). The system harms "smaller publishers in particular since, unlike the main vertically integrated platforms, they depend to a large extent on third-party data collection to finance their business," the agency said. User consent obtained via the ATA framework "authorizes the application in question to collect user data for targeted advertising purposes," the agency said. "If consent is given, the application can access the Identifier for Advertisers ('IDFA'), the identifier by which each device can be tracked through its use of third-party applications and sites." The French investigation was triggered by a complaint lodged by advertising industry associations. The intent of ATT "is not problematic in terms of the likely benefits for users as regards privacy protection," but "how the framework is implemented is abusive within the meaning of competition law," the agency said. Apple's "implementation methods artificially complicate the use of third-party applications and distort the neutrality of the framework to the detriment of small publishers financed by advertising," it said. Third-party publishers "cannot rely on the ATT framework to comply with their legal obligations," so they "must continue to use their own consent collection solution," the French agency said. "The result is that multiple consent pop-ups are displayed, making the use of third-party applications in the iOS environment excessively complex."
The release of iPadOS 18.4 introduces several features aimed at enhancing the versatility of Apple’s tablet lineup. One of the most exciting additions is Cooking Mode within the Apple News+ Food section. This feature transforms recipe guides into step-by-step instructions optimized for kitchen use, ensuring users can easily follow along without needing to touch their screens frequently. This update is particularly beneficial for those who use their iPads as a cooking assistant in the kitchen. Another significant enhancement is the introduction of Ambient Music controls in the Control Center. These curated playlists are designed to match specific moods or activities, such as relaxation or productivity, making it easier for users to set the right atmosphere with minimal effort. Creative users will appreciate the new Sketch style in Image Playground, which allows them to add hand-drawn effects to their photos and artwork directly on their devices. Additionally, the Mail app has been redesigned with categorized inboxes and digest views that make email management more intuitive and efficient than ever before. These updates are complemented by system-wide improvements such as bug fixes, performance enhancements, and expanded language support for Apple Intelligence features. With these additions, iPadOS 18.4 continues to position itself as a powerful tool for both work and leisure.
Apple has released iOS 18.4, bringing a range of updates designed to enhance productivity and personalization. One of the standout features is Priority Notifications, which allows users to mark specific alerts as critical, ensuring they remain visible on the lock screen for quick access. This feature is particularly useful for managing time-sensitive tasks or staying updated on essential communications. The update also expands Apple’s Visual Intelligence capabilities to older devices, including the iPhone 15 Pro series. This means more users can now access advanced functionalities like visual searches, text summarization, and object recognition directly through their device’s camera or Photos app. Other notable additions include a new Sketch style in the Image Playground app, enabling users to apply hand-drawn effects to their images for creative projects. The Control Center sees improvements with new toggles for Siri and Apple Intelligence, offering more streamlined access to these tools. iOS 18.4 also introduces eight new languages for system-wide support, reflecting Apple’s commitment to inclusivity. Furthermore, the update adds a Vision Pro companion app for seamless integration with Apple’s mixed-reality headset. These updates collectively aim to refine the user experience across multiple dimensions.
macOS Sequoia 15.4 brings a host of updates aimed at improving productivity and creativity on Apple’s desktop platform. One of the most notable changes is a redesigned Mail app that now includes categorized inboxes and digest views. These features allow users to organize their emails more effectively by grouping them into categories such as work or personal correspondence while also providing a summary view of key messages at a glance. For creative professionals and enthusiasts, the Photos app now offers AI-curated Memory Movies that compile highlights from photo libraries into visually engaging slideshows complete with music and transitions. The Image Playground app has also received an update with a new Sketch style that enables users to apply hand-drawn effects to images directly within the software, adding a layer of artistic expression to their projects. Additionally, macOS Sequoia 15.4 includes expanded language support for Apple Intelligence features such as dictation and translation tools, making these capabilities accessible to a broader audience worldwide. The update also introduces new emojis that align with those found in iOS 18.4 for consistency across devices. These enhancements collectively aim to refine both professional workflows and personal experiences on macOS.
The global expenditure for generative artificial intelligence (Genki) is expected to reach $ 644 billion in 2025. This emerges from a current forecast of Gartner's market researchers. "The expectations of Genai's performance are currently falling, since many first feasibility studies fail and the results so far often do not convince," said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. "Nevertheless, providers of basic models invest billions of billions every year in order to further improve the size, performance and reliability of their Genki models. This voltage ratio will also accompany us in 2025 and 2026." The expenses for Genki should grow significantly this year in all core markets and partial markets. Expenditures for generative AI in the area of software are expected to increase by 93.9 percent to $ 37.16 billion. For the Devices category, the largest sub -market, Gartner predicts an increase of 99.5 percent to $ 398.3 billion. "However, consumers are not behind these functions. If the manufacturers are incorporating AI into consumer devices as the standard function, consumers will be forced to buy them."
If you're still using a computer you bought during the Clinton administration, interesting news: Crystal Dew World, developers of apps like CrystalDiskInfo and CrystalDiskMark, have released an update to their CrystalMark Retro benchmark (as spotted by Tom's Hardware). The most interesting aspect of the update for retro computing enthusiasts is expanded operating system support: the app will now run on Windows 95, Windows 98, and old versions of Windows NT like 3.51 and 4.0. The previous version of the app only went as far back as Windows XP. The app spits out benchmarking scores for five things: single-core CPU performance, multi-core CPU performance, 2D graphics performance using GDI, 3D graphics performance using OpenGL, and disk speed (broken into four sub-benchmarks for sequential and random read and write performance). The app will also run on current systems, including 64-bit x86 and Arm-based PCs, and the results database is dominated by those modern systems. But searching by operating system allows you to zero in on those retro results, including nine (as of this writing) for Windows 95, six for Windows 98, and five for Windows NT 3.51.
The European Commission announced last Friday the last section of funding of its digital program, which plans to invest 1.3 billion euros in the next two years. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data This last program's investment tranche, launched in 2021 for a total investment of 7.6 billion euros, will be focused on several priorities defined by the European Commission. More surprisingly, the Commission also evokes the possibility of testing "immersive environments, called virtual worlds". Behind this term, the commission does not really speak of finance a new MMORPG but rather virtual test platforms. These platforms which mobilize technologies of the digital twin type will be mainly planned for the fields of manufacture, construction or industrial manufacturing, as well as in the field of health or education. The Commission is ready to finance at 20 million euros two prototypes in these various fields, which will allow a first implementation of these technologies and to more clearly define the use cases and associated services. In parallel, the plan plans to reserve part of its funds on the initiative Destination Earth, which aims to model a digital twin of the land for researchers who work on global warming, forecasting natural disasters or climate. The funding released will also go to the cybersecurity sector, in particular in order to finance initiatives orchestrated by ENISA in the support of cybersecurity of hospitals and health establishments across the European Union. The funding planned through this plan will result in several calls for projects which will be presented from April on a dedicated platform, and during the rest of the year.
You can now download iOS 18.4 final IPSW links and OTA update for iPhone, as well as iPadOS 18.4 final for iPad. Here are the details on this release. Following a weeks-long beta process, Apple has now officially made iOS 18.4 available for download which means you can install it at home. The update is available via OTA downloads as well as manual IPSW file installation. Assuming that you have a compatible iPhone or iPad, updating using the OTA method couldn’t be easier. Just go to Settings > General > Software Update to download and install the new version. If you don’t see it just yet, we suggest trying again later. Alternatively, all of the links for Apple’s current hardware can be found below which can be installed using iTunes on Windows or Finder on Mac. This new update brings with it a number of improvements, including to Apple Intelligence. The main addition is support for Priority Notifications as well as a new Image Playground style, while an Ambient Music feature has been added to Control Center. New emojis and an Apple Vision Pro app are also included, among other smaller tweaks. Beyond that, Apple is rumored to be working on big updates to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac software that will be unveiled in June before being released to the public in September. iOS 18.4 Final IPSW Direct Download Links: You may also like to check out: You can follow us on X, or Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel and even like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple, and the Web.
For decades, it’s been the benchmark by which all big, fast four-doors have been judged, but after spending a week with the all-new $125,275 G99-generation M5 Touring, I can’t help but wonder if that era is coming to a close. A range of factors have contributed to this seismic shift. It’s a move that has yielded models like the XM, a vehicle that certainly has plenty of firepower under the hood but ultimately prioritizes style over substance. Bradley Iger The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. Bradley Iger The iconic sport sedan badge returns with a burly hybrid powertrain and an array of high-tech hardware designed to mask its substantial heft, but the end result has me longing for the past. And as BMW contends with customers’ undying thirst for more, it must also contend with an array of European regulations aimed at quelling everything from emissions to road noise. From an engineering standpoint, this creates a significant challenge: How do you make your new sports sedan more capable and engaging than the last one while still adhering to the rule of law? For BMW, the answer appears to come in the form of a vast array of technologies aimed at convincing you that the experience is more thrilling than it actually is. I don’t mean to imply that the new M5 is a bad car, or even bad at executing the mission of an M5. Opting for the longroof not only scores you an arguably more stylish M5; it also expands its cargo capacity to a crossover-like 57.6 cubic feet (1,631 L) with the rear seats down.
OPENAI has just published the native generation of images with GPT-4O. Receive a selection of strategic advice and concrete tips every week in your mailbox with our newsletter practical guides. Learn more about the use of personal data On the professional side, you do not need professional skills in terms of design, overpriced software, or even an ounce of artistic talent to produce breathtaking visuals. Yes because our imagination will soon become the greatest limit of AI. Each new announcement concerning AI clearly shows that creators and marketing specialists are winners. You don't know how to code? There is an AI for that too. In this article, I will explain to you what exactly this novelty means for marketing professionals, and how the generation of images works. What has changed and why is important The generation of images uses a machine learning technique. The idea is to take existing images, and gradually add noise. The model then trains by reversing the process, by learning to remove the noise step by step until it can rebuild an image from purely random elements. While learning, the model receives label that describe each image, like "a cat that plays", which helps him associate the text with visual patterns. Once trained, if you type new words like "a red car", the model begins with a rough image and the refines so that it corresponds to the description.🤓 At the time, and by time, I mean a few months ago, the generation of images was useful, but unfinished. Above all, it was frustrating because the result changed completely when you grabbed again a quick. In short, it was a real waste. Today, with this chatgpt update, you can quickly iterate and the vague text is no longer a problem. Of course, it also has some improvements, such as being faster than other tools and operating directly in Chatgpt. The power that this update gives to professionals who are not graphic designers is unrivaled. No need to wait until someone else gives life to your vision; You can just get started. They are included in the Pro Subscription (and more). In short, you can now create freely using natural language. Instead of Adobe, I am very worried about the turn that events will take in the near future. How to use AI as part of your digital marketing activity I decided to create a line of skin care products. I called her "salt", that is to say "them" upside down. Now that we have a solid concept, let's work on design. Salt is a luxury product, so it must naturally be up to par. Design the product packaging in the form of an elegant rectangular bottle with a burned orange matt finish, accompanied by a matching rectangular box. The bottle and the box must present a minimalist and sophisticated brand image, with the" Salt "text in an elegant and modern fate Using a black typography. Once the idea and the design is fixed, it is time to take action and have salt made. Using Chatgpt Operator (only in the United States for the moment), I have generated a list of national skin care products manufacturers. "Identify a precise and up-to-date list of 5 renowned national manufacturers of skin care products in the United States, specialized exclusively in luxury skin care products. Concentrate specifically on manufacturers that offer high-end packaging options, customizable formulations emphasizing botanical and natural ingredients, and experienced experience in the production of serums, hydrating creamers Treatment. Once I have my list, I can use Operator to contact these manufacturers for me. I would not use Chatgpt to create a site from zero while Shopify exists. However, I want a personalized theme to stand out. For this next step, I will ask Chatgpt to offer me some model ideas so that I can adapt the theme of Shopify to my taste. Thanks to Chatgpt, I can develop a marketing concept and an advertising creation. Take pleasure today and enjoy free delivery the same day". Thanks to Chatgpt Operator, I can ask the AI to compile a list of large areas in my region. With this list, I can then use AI to help I write professional quality emails to attract the attention of buyers. Thus, AI can help us find an idea and market it. Yes, you will understand, this update is much more important than the simple fact of doing Ghibli art! Before these innovations, a considerable budget and team needed to obtain the same results. Not only does the AI fills the gap in terms of budget and team size, but it also fills another ditch which people do not even speak yet ... that of time. AI can sometimes get confused, especially when it comes to detailed requests. Although it is much better than before, we have not yet reached the status of instant masterpieces. Another element to take into account is originality. You will always need the human touch to create really unique content. Finally, there is of course a huge problem. As the images generated by AI become more common, it will be more and more complicated to know who holds the rights of creation or how to recognize the original human creators that these AI models have learned the work. We urgently need clear rules on this point. It is essential to determine the appropriate legislation and safeguards 🫠
On March 31, CyberSecurity Cloud released its "Investigation Report on Corporate Security Incidents 2024," an analysis report based on cases of personal information leaks from companies and organizations published in 2024. According to the results, the number of security incidents in 2024 was 121, and it was calculated that incidents occur approximately once every three days in companies and organizations. The largest industry in terms of manufacturing accounted for about a quarter of the total. Next was wholesale and retail, services, education and learning support, and information and communications. Percentage of industry in security incident Percentage of industry in security incident Percentage of causes of occurrence in a security incident Percentage of causes of occurrence in a security incident Number of personal information leaks and credit card information leaks Number of personal information leaks and credit card information leaks The most common cause of security incidents was "unauthorized access," accounting for 61.1% of the total. Next were "human errors" and "ransomware attacks." The number of personal information leaks per year was approximately 21.64 million, and the industry with the most personal information leaks was wholesale and retail (8.487,92). Additionally, the number of credit card information leaks was 272,237, with the largest number of industries being manufacturing (78,513). The report points out an increase in cyberattacks and an increasingly sophisticated approach, and points out the need for businesses to not only prevent intrusions, but also to quickly detect and respond. The number of personal information leaks, which amounts to approximately 21.64 million per year, also suggests that companies need to rethink their way of managing information.
The European market’s first attempt at playing catch-up with the satellite launch industry ended in a gigantic explosion off the Norwegian coast, where a German-made rocket crashed and burned. German startup Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from the Andøya spaceport on Sunday at 6:30 a.m. “Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success,”Daniel Metzler, CEO and co-founder of Isar Aerospace, said in an emailed statement. With the launch, Isar became the first European space company to launch an orbital rocket from continental Europe. Its Spectrum rocket is designed to carry small and medium-sized satellites to orbit, with Germany being one of several European nations hoping to get in on the growing global industry of launching satellites. French company Arianespace is also in the business of launching satellites, though it uses a spaceport in French Guiana, South America. European countries have been struggling to keep up with the commercial space industry, with few options for launch vehicles. After cutting ties with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and subsequently losing access to Soyuz rockets, the European market has been anxiously waiting for the debut of Arianespace’s Ariane 6 as Europe’s next-generation rocket. Ariane 6 suffered numerous delays before finally launching on its inaugural flight in June 2024. It still wasn’t perfect, however, as the rocket’s second stage failed to raise its altitude and deploy two of its payloads. The rocket redeemed itself earlier this year, deploying a high-resolution reconnaissance satellite to orbit in March. Isar Aerospace, however, has not been derailed by its less-than-ideal launch. Now it’s time to analyze all data, learn, iterate and be back on the launch pad as soon as possible,” Metzler said.
ANA Holdings has visualized and quantified the corporate value brought about by non-financial and financial efforts through a "value-related analysis." ABeam Consulting, which supported analysis and other information, announced it on March 31st. Based on the idea that human capital is the source and driving force behind value creation in companies, ANA Holdings is promoting various initiatives to realize a virtuous cycle of the "value creation cycle starting from investment in human resources." This initiative will utilize the "Digital ESG service" provided by ABeam Consulting. Correlation analysis using 520 indicators revealed that the human resources policies and the achievements of group employees that ANA Holdings is taking place not only in economic value, but also in the creation of corporate value. Value-related analysis is a method that statistically analyzes the correlations between non-financial and financial indicators, and visualizes and validates a series of value chains that lead to increased corporate value. ABeam Consulting has been providing support using this method since 2019. In this support, we used Digital ESG services to examine how "human resource policies" implemented by ANA Holdings, such as "creating a comfortable workplace" and "creating an organization resistant to change," are actually leading to an increase in economic value. Furthermore, it has been quantitatively demonstrated that strengths such as fostering teamwork and improving the specialized skills of on-site employees boost basic quality, productivity and customer satisfaction, and ultimately link to economic value such as sales, profits, and stock prices. In this initiative, ABeam Consulting provided comprehensive support for data collection, correlation analysis, and information dissemination to stakeholders.
Google released its latest and greatest Gemini AI model last week, but it was only made available to paying subscribers. Google has moved with uncharacteristic speed to release Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) for free users, too. The next time you check in with Gemini, you can access most of the new AI's features without a Gemini Advanced subscription. The Gemini 2.5 branch will eventually replace 2.0, which was only released in late 2024. It supports simulated reasoning, as all Google's models will in the future. This approach to producing an output can avoid some of the common mistakes that AI models have made in the past. Google says Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) is ready and waiting for free users to try on the web. You still cannot upload files to Gemini without a paid account, which may make it hard to take advantage of the model's large context window—although you won't get the full 1 million-token window anyway. Google says the free version of Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) will have a lower limit, which it has not specified. We've added a few thousand words without issue, but there's another roadblock in the way.
Oh, ExoMars, what a long, strange trip it has been. The ExoMars mission represents Europe's third attempt to land successfully on Mars, and at a cost of more than $1.3 billion. there is a lot riding on its success. But success is far from assured for a mission that has been whipsawed by geopolitical tensions, budget cuts, and an ever-changing architecture over the last 20 years. The mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028 on a US rocket. But there have been so many twists and turns in the ExoMars story that it's very difficult to know what will ultimately happen. Nearly two decades have passed since the European Space Agency formally committed to funding the ExoMars mission at a ministerial meeting in December 2005. NASA would contribute an exobiology instrument, data relay services from an orbiter around Mars, and technical support for the spacecraft's design. As Mars discussions between the European Space Agency and NASA deepened in 2008 and 2009, the mission's launch vehicle changed to an Atlas V rocket built by US-based United Launch Alliance. Then, just months later, plans changed again when the European Space Agency partnered with Russia's Roscosmos to launch ExoMars on a Proton rocket.
In clinical trial data published over the weekend, Eli Lilly’s lepodisiran was found to dramatically reduce people’s levels of a dangerous kind of cholesterol called lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a). Eli Lilly announced the peer-reviewed results of its Phase 2 trial of lepodisiran on Sunday, which involved over 300 people genetically predisposed to high Lp(a). The findings indicate that lepodisiran could soon become the first treatment of its kind for this common genetic risk factor. The cholesterol in our bodies is transported through several different types of lipoproteins. Low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, is often known as the bad kind of cholesterol since too much of it can raise the risk of plaque building up in our arteries (atherosclerosis), which then increases the chances of having heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular problems. But unlike classic LDL, Lp(a) levels are largely determined by our genetics, not lifestyle. It’s estimated that about one in five people worldwide are genetically predisposed to have high Lp(a), and there is no existing intervention that can reduce Lp(a)—at least for now. Our genes contain the instructions needed for cells to produce proteins, but this only happens when the genes are expressed. Our bodies sometimes use a specific form of RNA to silence this expression of genes, called small interfering RNA (siRNA). In recent years, scientists have developed siRNA-based drugs that work on the same principle, such as lepodisiran. In the phase 2 ALPACA trial, 320 people with high Lp(a) were randomly assigned to five conditions; three groups were given two subcutaneous injections of lepodisiran at the start of the study and six months later in varying doses. Phase 2 trials are primarily used to further test a drug’s safety and find its optimal dose. But coupled with the earlier data, lepodisiran appears to be generally safe, with no serious reported adverse events related to the treatment in this latest trial. “It’s remarkable,” Eric Brandt, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Michigan Health Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor, who was not involved with the study, told NBC News. “These drugs have the potential to nearly eliminate that lipoprotein.” Eli Lilly has already started to enroll volunteers for its Phase 3 trial of lepodisiran. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration approved Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Novartis’ Leqvio as a LDL-lowering treatment for people with certain genetic conditions or poorly controlled atherosclerosis.
The first flight of Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket didn't last long on Sunday. If officials at Isar Aerospace were able to pick the outcome of their first test flight, it wouldn't be this. "Today, we know twice as much about our launch system as yesterday before launch," Daniel Metzler, Isar's co-founder and CEO, wrote on X early Monday. Isar Aerospace, based in Germany, is the first in a crop of new European rocket companies to attempt an orbital launch. If all went according to plan, Isar's Spectrum rocket would have arced to the north from Andøya Spaceport in Norway and reached a polar orbit. But officials knew there was only a low chance of reaching orbit on the first flight. Isar Aerospace's first Spectrum rocket climbs away from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. The launch began with liftoff from Andøya Spaceport at 12:30 pm local time (6:30 am EDT, or 10:30 UTC). The rocket's nine engines, burning a mix of liquid propane and liquid oxygen, throttled up to generate more than 150,000 pounds (675 kilonewtons) of thrust as Spectrum began a vertical climb from the launch pad. The exhaust plume from Spectrum's main engines also appeared to oscillate, suggesting that the rocket's steering system was trying to keep it on track. With its propellant tanks nearly full, the rocket's impact created a brilliant fireball and mushroom cloud over the craggy snow-covered landscape of Andøya, which means "island of the ducks" in Norwegian.
The first products will officially debut next July, precisely in conjunction with the European stages of the Robbie Williams Live 2025 tour of the ex-Take That, which will affect our country on July 17 with the Trieste appointment. In all, there will be six devices protagonists of the first tranche of ads and will range from headphones to soundbars, with a personalized design. It will therefore start with six accessories designed to listen to music in high quality with headphones, speakers and soundbar. All products will have a black design with the customization of the signature and the initials of Robbie Williams in golden color, the same shade also appears in other details. Peaq Iconic Vibe 1 and 2 - which are the most compact and portable bluetooth speakers designed for listening on the move. Peaq Iconic Vibe 3 is a speaker designed for the home, with a vintage style. Peaq Iconic Harmony 1 is a soundbar with subwoofer to combine with your system and/or to connect to the TV in the living room. Peaq Iconic Sound 1 is a pair of wireless over-ear headphones. The Peaq by Robbie Williams collection (MediaWorld) Peaq by Robbie Williams products will be purchased from the official MediaWorld website or in one of the 139 sales points scattered on the Italian territory.
Microsoft reviews its connection screens to facilitate authentication of your account using Passkeys and other methods without password. In a blog post published last Wednesday, Robin Goldstein, director of Microsoft Identity, said that the new connection process will appear in Outlook, Xbox, Windows and Microsoft 365, among other services. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data The new screens have already appeared, starting with Xbox last month. One of the main objectives of the new process is to help users more easily use options, such as passkeys, facial recognition and fingerprint scans. Our new user interface is optimized for an experience without password and with connection keys first. If you register for a Microsoft service with an existing email address, you will not be invited to create a password. Once connected, you will be invited to create a password. "By providing your own email address to a new Microsoft account, you don't need to create a new Microsoft password that could be easily forgotten or guessed by an attacker," said Goldstein. "You just have to check the email using a single use code, which becomes the default identifier of your new account, so that you start without password. In addition, you now have an email address associated with your account if you need to recover your account or start using a new device. Microsoft also reorganizes the flow of connection screens. This can make the experience too complex and bulky. The new process promises to reorganize the screens more intuitively and to simplify each of them so that they are more fluid. The screens are more centered to help you focus on them without distraction. In addition, they were optimized to display themselves correctly on all supports, from the small mobile phone to the big desk screen. You can choose a clear or dark theme depending on your preferences. The theme of your choice will be automatically activated each time you log in. I generally use an authentication application to check my Microsoft account. The new experience improves this method but also offers other types of authentication without password. Web and mobile applications will be the first to adopt new screens. Otherwise, wait until the end of April and you can see how it works in all areas.
But the game cannot be called definitively closed even if the cards on the table have completely changed: Iliad's French are more than willing to play a role as protagonists of the national consolidation and in all probability they will not give up the grip on Tim. But now they will be forced to deal with post office, aka with the government, which therefore intends to maintain the helm of the company led by Pietro Labriola. The same post office declared that it wants to "promote consolidation", a sign that history does not end here and also a sign of an opening to further operations. Iliad comes out now benefited or disadvantaged? Meanwhile, there is a certainty: Iliad remains interested in an industrial operation, so the hypothesis of TIM consumer alone is to be discarded. The company led by Benedetto Levi therefore remains stopped on its position and it is clear that a negotiation with Poste and Tim would mean treating simultaneously with the government, a road paved with respect to the double negotiation that would have been necessary with the French of Vivendi. The Hong Kong giant in 2024 generated revenues for over 10 billion and a third party heads for the company led by Gianluca Corti and Benoit Hanssen. Always according to rumors, the sale of Windtre to Iliad would have been tempted but would have refused the proposal. Not only mobile, the single network dossier remains open There is another important dossier that remains open in our country, that of the unique open fiber-fibercop (ex Tim) network.
On March 31, Hitachi Industrial Control Solutions announced that it will add a new version of "SmartFAM Ver.4" to its equipment and asset management system. Image of the AI integration function for "SmartFAM Ver.4" "SmartFAM Ver.4" image of the AI integration function for "SmartFAM Ver.4" image of the AI integration function for " In addition, the shortage of skilled engineers in the preservation work of public works is becoming more serious, and it is necessary to introduce a system that allows young and medium-sized engineers to perform maintenance work efficiently. SmartFAM Ver.4 has a new function to link with generation AI. By obtaining answers from the data on maintenance work that has accumulated up to now regarding failures caused by equipment outages and damage caused by aging, it is possible to display similar information about failures and recovery countermeasures from past events. The maintenance planning function will also be strengthened. In addition to the functions that have been planning plans in accordance with the maintenance cycle up to now, it also has a function that allows you to review the timing of maintenance carried out based on schedules and performance data. We also handle implementation, postponement, and forwarding of maintenance plans for the relevant equipment for each factory and production line. The enhanced system setting function offers two options: "Simple Mode" which allows even young and mid-school engineers to easily change system settings, and "Advance Mode" which allows for more detailed system settings for skilled engineers, allowing settings to be tailored to the engineers' level. In addition, it is now compatible with multiple devices such as smartphones and tablets, allowing you to input maintenance data according to your environment.
Yes, today is the official reminder to think about how all your precious data is backed up. Often overlooked until it's too late, backing up your photos and videos, or even customer data, is essential. Today's deal is on one of Seagate's IronWolf Pro HDDs (24TB capacity) for $399, available from B&H Photo. Some might think that mechanical hard disk drives are a relic of the past and are far too slow for modern needs. Well, yes, they are nowhere near as fast as the latest PCIe Gen5 SSDs, but what they lack in terms of speed, they make up for in price per capacity and longevity. If you're looking for some of the best drives to fill up your workhorse NAS setup then this IronWolf Pro deal should be on your radar. Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB: now $399 at B&H Photo (was $649) This 24TB Internal NAS HDD has a SATAIII 6 Gb/s interface and spins at 7200 rpm. Grab some peace of mind with your data storage. Rated for 2.5 million hours of MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures), the Seagate IronWolf Pro also comes with a 5-year limited manufacturer's warranty.
Today, I’m talking with Matt Bromberg, who is the CEO of Unity, one of the leading video game development platforms. He’s been in the job for less than a year, and in many ways, he is the perfect Decoder guest. Unity is one of those companies that we love here on Decoder because we interact with its products all the time, but the company itself is somewhat hidden from view. Unity doesn’t make or publish its own games. Instead, its core product, the Unity game engine, is what all kinds of games — especially mobile ones — run on. Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. That’s a Decoder all by itself, but Bromberg took over the job of CEO in a moment of crisis, and he’s made significant changes to the company since. You’ll hear him describe Unity as being “at war with its customers” before he joined, and he’s not wrong. The former CEO, John Riccitiello, led the company through a major pricing model change, called the runtime fee, that was going to raise costs for many of its customers. The communication around that pricing model change was also, frankly, terrible. Unity developers were in open rebellion, leading to Riccitiello’s resignation and, eventually, the company’s decision to scrap the runtime fee altogether. So you’ll hear me ask Bromberg about his decision to walk the fee back after he joined, because it was clear to him even before he took the job that he would need to make that choice if there was going to be a Unity left for him to run. And you’ll hear him explain that while deciding to make such a big change was easy for him, working out how to execute that change slowed him down a bit. Bromberg’s in charge of Unity during a moment of contraction for the game industry overall — studios are closing, and some big bets on things like the Metaverse and live service games haven’t paid off. So we talked about all that and where he sees growth ahead: Unity isn’t just a game engine provider, but the platform for everything running those big live services and the monetization on top of that. One note before we start, because it really grabbed me: Bromberg’s one of the first CEOs to come on this show and disagree with me about the importance of structure. I tend to think of a company’s org chart as a proxy for its culture and its tradeoffs. I’m always saying that if you tell me your org chart, I can guess 80 percent of your problems, and so we joke that Decoder is really a show about org charts. But Bromberg told me he thinks culture isn’t enabled by structure. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Matt Bromberg, you are the new CEO of Unity. Thank you so much for having me. This is a perfect episode of Decoder: You are less than a year on the job as the new CEO. So, it’s like a perfect episode. It’s on everyone’s phone: Everyone has games on their phone, and Unity is almost certainly powering those games. Game engines are effectively the thing that developers use to build games. Unity is a platform where developers can aggregate all the tools, technologies, and content they need to build interactive applications. And yeah, to your point, it’s a really important tool in our world. About seven out of every 10 mobile games in the world are built on Unity. Seven out of 10 best AR games were built in Unity. Last night, or two nights ago, at GDC, eight out of 10 of the top independent games that won awards were built on Unity. We’re an important partner in that ecosystem. A lot of companies that made popular games and then thought they could peel the engine out of those games and turn that into a business; that’s worked or, mostly, not worked in various ways. You’re not trying to make consumer-facing games. We have recently been doing more development ourselves on a couple of projects. But only to ensure that our tools are production-ready and dogfooding what we’re doing. We have an expert team that does some of that, but it’s really about feeding back into our development process more than trying to be a games company. I was the chief operating officer at Zynga for a lot of years —I know what it is to run a games company. I think it can be very hard and unnecessary to try to run a games company and an engine company. They’re doing both, and then they’re expanding their engine into Hollywood, into automobile design, all this other stuff. You seem pretty narrowly focused on games still. What do you think about that competition? And in fact, what we call industries is the fastest-growing part of our subscription business. We were chasing sort of everything: Hollywood, architects, digital twins for building nuclear reactors, and all sorts of things. Right now, we’re really just focused on a few core verticals. If you think about the little computer that’s in the dashboard of your car, it feels a lot like a phone or some other small device. And that’s really our strength to be able to design and develop interactive experiences for those things. [We work in] virtual, retail, and lots of applications on the manufacturing floor, so we do a fair bit outside of gaming. From prototyping through building, operating in life service, and then crucially to acquiring new players, monetizing, and inventorying your games. It’s a piece that we think grows really organically out of our core business, which is about deeply understanding consumers, and helping developers build for those consumers. I kind of understand why all the car makers use Unity. They under-spec the processors in their cars, and the closest comparison to that is a mobile phone, which is power constrained. I don’t think a car is power constrained; I think they’re just cheap, but there they are. They’re just using under-specced mobile processors to drive their dashboards. Unity is a great engine for mobile phones. That industry doesn’t seem as predictable. It doesn’t seem like the games industry knows where its next set of growth will be, or how many people it should employ quite broadly. There’s some big change there that it feels like I can’t draw the line as quickly as I can to the expansion into cars, right? Yeah, listen, there is a lot of consternation about the video game industry. I’ve been around long enough to know that towards the end of hardware cycles, everybody’s throwing up their hands and saying, “Gee, I don’t think gaming’s doing so well.” I’ve been through this cycle several times. Here’s what happens: Creative people innovate, and they make new experiences. Those experiences explode into hits, and that drives growth. I think the pain that we’re feeling right now in the industry is principally a pain born of creative destruction, so I accept that there’s been a fair bit of pain. There’ve been a lot of layoffs and other really unfortunate things. I think that’s about folks reimagining themselves for the future. The explosion of new devices and new experiences is going to be the gateway to that innovation. The thing about Unity is… It’s not so much that we’re optimized to run on low-spec phones, it’s that when you build any experience in Unity it can operate at a really high level of performance fidelity anywhere. And that’s where consumers are moving. We used to be in this world where, and I remember this… I worked at Electronic Arts for many years. We were in this world where folks believed that visual fidelity and high-quality visuals were the primary things that video game consumers wanted, and they were obsessed with it. And I think what we’ve realized now is: that’s not what’s driving the consumer. I don’t think it ever has been what’s driving the consumer. We’re really proud of the quality of our visuals, but what drives consumer adoption is gameplay innovation. And all that is what’s going to drive this industry forward. Keep in mind, again, web games, AR, and VR. We’re going to get a new Nintendo platform. We’re going to get new Sony and Microsoft platforms. Phones are going to become ever more powerful. The form of games will change, and the nature of them will change, but the appetite for interactive experiences, to my eye, has not lessened in any way. Just in the context of what a game engine is, what you’re describing here is: Let’s say I have an idea for a game. I see a market that’s changing. And that number of platforms is important because a game needs to be everywhere now. You’ll operate the live service that lets people connect and play multiplayer, and then you’ll help me monetize the game by putting ads in it. Because it seems like the games industry is “every part is the hardest,” and it seems like you have a much clearer view. What do you think is actually the hardest part? My experience of making video games for many, many years — which is what I did before I came to Unity — is that generally speaking, especially for game publishers of any scale, there’s a really simple equation. At the end of every year, they look at their P&L and say, “How much money can I spend next year making new things?” They usually have a big life service or many, and that’s what’s kind of driving forward the business on a day-to-day basis. But the video games world is about hits and about new experiences, and you have to make investments. You also have to control and modulate those investments. The most important equation is people and time. If it takes me, if it’s 300 people and three years to make a game, versus 50 people and a year, that equation is very, very different. The amount of innovation I can afford, the amount of new starts I can afford, and the amount of marketing I can afford, are very different in both equations. To me, when I think about Unity’s place in the world and where we can be the most help, it’s there. We help video game developers make games, hopefully, as efficiently, quickly, and easily as possible so they can spend more time creating innovation. And if we’re really good at our job, they can have more starts, because they’re moving more quickly and they can do it more efficiently. And that’s the role I’d love to see us play there. Now we’ve got to go out and find new players. So, that’s the flywheel you want to see. Let me ask one more kind of existential question. I want to get into the changes you’ve been making here. Meta was like, “We’re all going to wear headsets all day long in our house.” And I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like that’s happening. A bunch of companies thought, “Okay, we can see all these people playing Fortnite. The future of live music is going to happen in video games, and we’re going to build these huge live service multi-experience games, and everyone’s going to spend all their time in them.” And all that’s left from what I can tell, that’s sustainable, is Fortnite. That drives a lot of Epic’s business. Do you see that as a mistake that the industry is correcting, or do you see other games being able to reach that level and then go even one step farther into, “Okay, we’re having true metaverse experiences”? Because I don’t see that anywhere right now. I don’t think about it exactly that way. Listen, I think that the pandemic more than anything pulled demand forward. It pulled about a couple of years of consumer demand forward, and then we did see some natural slackening after having pulled all that forward. And I think that part of the dynamic is obvious. Meta renamed the company, and they were like, “We’re not Facebook anymore. We’re Meta now.” And I don’t know if that’s paid off for them. I was never a massive believer in the metaverse during that period of time. I’ll tell you why: Because, as a game maker, I experienced all those new platforms and just thought they were garbage. And I thought, “This looks like the games we tried to make 15 years ago. There is no way that’s a sustainable consumer experience.” All sorts of metaverse companies — I was completely confused by them. Having said that, I actually continue to believe, and I see the vibrancy of big live service platforms and communities as being fundamental to the games business. I mean, yeah, Fortnite, but Roblox, FIFA, and every game… Every major company has many enormous live services with millions or tens of millions of players. And in some ways that is the fundamental feature of the video game business right now — 80 percent of the people are deeply invested in this experience that they’ve been playing for years. And I think one of the challenges now is, “Okay, how do I get those folks to move to something new?” I think that’s the push-pull that we’ve had. And I do think we’ll see some new things. I think we’ll see innovation, some lighter experiences that will begin to challenge those. But I wouldn’t confuse the failure of the metaverse with some lack of sustainability in major life service gaming. If you believe that the world is going to be big live service games, it’s not that much of a jump to say, “And we’ll all wear headsets all day long.” We’re spending time virtually which will just get more immersive. But it seems like we didn’t hit the first spot. No, I think some of that has to do with — again, put aside the idiocy of some of the metaverse stuff… The future, to some degree, is going to be tied to massive consumer adoption of peripherals, or maybe that’s an old-fashioned word for it, but new devices. I’m an enormous believer in AR, for example. I think that one of the things that happened during the course of the pandemic and the couple of years since is we’re starting to get closer and closer with every rev to something that’s real here. I have no doubt that a couple of years from now everybody’s going to be wearing AR glasses. And how long has it been since Google Glass came out? But the combination of AI and voice, which enables really easy interactions with the form factor, the battery life that is now possible, and the ability to overlay information and services in front of your eyes, to me, is obviously going to explode. And we’re going to look back and think about the time when we kept reaching into our pockets to pull out this thing for everything, it’s going to seem quaint. But it takes a long time to get true mass consumer adoption of these devices because it all has to be perfect. I can see you wearing your glasses. And glasses deliver an extraordinary amount of value. I don’t have to care for them, but they deliver. I’m allowed to see, that’s a huge value amount. But I only get value at that time. I don’t come back in and keep wearing my sunglasses, which is what I think Meta wants me to do. I think they want us to believe that transition lenses are going to be cool, and maybe they’ll pull that off. Maybe he’s going to pull this off. My point is, right now the most compelling AR experience is way down on the curve, right? It’s actually the Vision Pro, which is a huge thing that has an external battery and limited app support. Do you see, when you put on the Vision Pro, “Okay, I can get from here to there if the hardware improves on some curve?” Because when I reviewed it my conclusion was, “We’re racing down a dead end. This is the best pass-through VR that I’ve ever seen, and we should not keep doing this. It’s never going to get better than this.” We partnered with Apple in the creation of that device. And I would say this, I would not… History is littered with first-generation devices that seemed absurd and then in another form became ubiquitous. And I do fundamentally believe that when the device form factors get right, consumers will adopt them. I do think it’ll be a mix though. I think one of the things we learned is that there’s a pretty high bar for folks wanting to isolate themselves completely from the world. When I think about AR, I think that the first mass-adoption devices we’ll see will be those that allow people to continue to be social and interact in the world while overlaying or enhancing that experience. Completely absorptive experiences have… I think folks will engage in those things, but there’ll be a time and a place for it. And also, by the way, Apple has a very long history of that as well. So, I continue to be hugely encouraged by that. I mean, I guess maybe that would be something you’d say after you’ve shipped it, maybe it didn’t go quite as well as you’d want to. But I applaud their willingness to put a stake in the ground, get out there with something, and then go back to the drawing board and continue to invest. So, pushing the envelope for me is a good thing. I ask this, because again, with the games industry as it is currently configured, we are at the end of a console generation. There’s just a lot of turmoil when you get the whole games industry in one conference center and talk about the future. And the big bets, like “We’re all going to play a bunch of AR games,” while Pokemon Go just got sold. A lot of the big bets seem to be structurally changing. Unity obviously plays a part in that. But the sugar rush of the pandemic led Unity itself to make big decisions about how much demand there would be that fundamentally you’ve had to undo. The decision to charge the runtime fee feels like your predecessor as CEO was saying, “Okay, there’s going to be this much more demand for all this stuff. By the way, I also don’t, fundamentally… I believe in the vibrancy and growth of the video game business, which, by the way, is still growing nicely and continues to be larger than streaming media, streaming music, and theatrical distribution combined. I see this business as really vibrant. I don’t think the things that Unity has done in the past were sort of a ... And frankly, the other folks were a direct response to demand… I accept it maybe as folks staffed up across the industry and then demand slackened a little bit. I don’t think that’s so much this year, but maybe in the year before — you had some dislocation. But I think for us, the thing about Unity which is spectacular and fascinating, is that we sit at the intersection of so many powerful forces: 3D, digital advertising, interactive entertainment, AI, I could go on. And you could convince yourself that you have a meaningful role to play in all of that. But you have to make choices in the world if you want to execute at an exceptionally high level. And the way we’re thinking about this business now is that we are going to make some really focused choices, hit the ball out of the park around those things, kind of re-earn the trust of customers, be better partners, and deliver at a much higher level. You gave an interview to IGN where you said, “We want to be a fundamentally different and better company. We want to develop and deliver products in a fundamentally different way. And that starts with you thinking about it differently.” You’re basically talking about totally transforming the company, in that quote. Everything has to be different, down from how you deliver the products to what your relationship with the customer is. You’ve been there less than a year. And the way I think about culture is that I think it’s actually fundamentally backward-looking in a way. What I mean by that is, when we think about our culture in the context of a company, we usually, what we’re usually doing is saying, “Hey, we got together to do this thing and it went pretty well.” Now, let’s stop for a second and look backward and ask ourselves, “How were we behaving? Let’s write those down, and we’ll put them on a mug or a T-shirt,” and those are going to be … that’s how we’re going to talk about our culture. That’s not a criticism from my perspective. I just think that’s usually this thing where we look back to understand how we’re behaving. And so, the way I think about transforming culture is about setting really clear expectations and communicating more than anything an approach and an expectation about how we’re going to behave with one another. Because every great company feels that way. Like, “Hey, this is how we do.” When you unpack that idea, folks get clear on that, having a common view of it. But having that view be authentic to the actual experience is important. For example, on my first day there was a lot of pressure to do the kinds of things that you’d expect in a big company. “Hey, we should send out new values.” And then we go back in an authentic way that’s actually connected, in a way that isn’t about mugs and T-shirts. And that’s sort of how I think about culture. It reminds me that when we started The Verge 13 years ago, we used to argue endlessly about what a Verge story would be. And that’s a backward-looking reflection of how we made some definitions and held onto them, communicated them. But you have also restructured the company. You’ve rethought how the company should work. What are the changes that you’ve made? The first and most important thing for us was to reinvest in the relationship we had with customers and to be a better partner. We were at war with our customers, effectively, when I arrived. And you can’t have a business where we’re your customers. But the first piece was to be better partners. And in my experience, the fastest way to do that is to make changes at the top. Especially, by the way, if you think you might later have to change the rest of the organization, what is soul destroying for people is when somebody comes into a company that’s having a little bit of difficulty and they start restructuring the company and they leave the management layer intact and they think, “Well, hang on a second, who is responsible for all this stuff? How do we skip over the folks who were in charge?” And suddenly like, “I’m taking it in the neck. How did that happen?” If you want different outcomes, if you want different approaches, some of it’s changing culture, but a lot of it is changing people. So yeah, we changed a lot of leadership. Then, I think about the other things we did… We did some important things in our business, which we can talk about if you want to, just in terms of we needed to make certain investments, especially in our advertising business and other things. But putting those aside for a second, the third big thing from a culture and a company perspective was that I think we went about trying to redefine how we do what we do. And you have to ask yourself when you come into any organization, if that organization is not organically producing really high-quality answers all the time… What you should not do is run around trying to tell people what to do and ask them to do it differently. How come this organism doesn’t produce good answers?” And start to get into the how and start to fix the how and then you start getting better answers. Those ideas are in a little bit of tension. Let me just push you on that. And then there’s a need to move fast in taking out all this old management, putting in new people, and you have to have a vision in order to go hire all those new people and change fast. Those ideas are in a little bit of opposition. The truth is you have to do both. But here’s where they’re not in conflict: It’s the process through which you get clear about what you want to do, which is where all the action is. And at least what I experience is, I begin to understand where the areas of energy are and where the areas of opportunity are. And so then, when you show back up, and you stand up in front of people and you say, “Hey, here’s the direction I think we ought to go in.” It doesn’t feel like something you came up with by yourself in a room with a legal pad. It’s a reflection and an echo of what you heard from all the assembled people. You are the new CEO, but you also used to work for the old CEO: John Riccitiello was the CEO of Electronic Arts when you worked at Electronic Arts. Then he became the CEO of Unity, and you replaced him. He hired me at Electronic Arts in 2012. I learned a lot of what I learned about this industry from him, and have an enormous amount of respect and admiration for him, so I have really no inclination to sort of pick apart what he did or didn’t do. The world is a new place now than it was four or five years ago. All right, it was worth a shot! So, you made some changes to the top. I’ve worked in big companies, a lot of them over the years. The truth is, if people are not properly oriented, if they’re not properly situated, if they’re not spiritually in the right place to do what you need to do, I don’t care what the structure is, it’s not going to work. And there is no right answer to structure. People think, “Hey, if I could just get it in the right shape, it’s going to be okay.” The truth is that some structures accelerate some outcomes and create different tensions, and other structures accelerate other outcomes and create other tensions. I tend not to think first about structure. I try to think first about the landing approach and behavior. If somebody comes to me, for example, and says, “You know the reason we can’t do this, it’s because this thing is over in this division and this thing is over in that division and they can’t talk to each other; they should be in the same division.” I have no time for that conversation. Do you have a phone for that person? Do you guys sit down and have a conversation about that? Look, of course, I’ve restructured things and I’ve changed things, so again, I don’t want to, but in terms of orientation, I want to land one before the other because one I think is more substantive and more likely to fundamentally change things than the other, if that makes sense? My joke on the show is that I always ask that question, because to your point, if you tell me your structure, I can abstractly tell you 80 percent of your problems. I can identify the trade-offs that come with various structures. And it seems like you are making different trade-offs. Yeah, I’d say principally the change in the structure… The only meaningful changes we made were around reducing layers and making sure that everybody was communicating, and that we could quickly escalate any issues, make decisions, and move on. So if there was some organizational thing that made it impossible for us all to sit together, or if there were too many layers and I couldn’t see, we made some of those changes. And I do think those have been important, but again, not as important as the behavioral changes. You’ve had a few rounds of layoffs now; last year, in January, 25 percent of the company was let go. Is that all to get smaller to reduce those middle layers, or is there something else going on there? I wasn’t at the company for that really, really big one, but I will offer my strategy and my approach to these things. And I can already anticipate you’re going to tell me there’s a tension in them. And by the way, that’s life, right? Nothing is black and white where it’s a Zen thing. But I never… We as a management team do not think about trying to get financial leverage by doing layoffs. What you have to do is make decisions and try to be really disciplined about the very few things you think you can do really, really well, and be a little bit ruthless about stopping the other things. And so for me, those kinds of restructurings are about putting your money where your mouth is as it relates to investing in the things that are important and ceasing the other things. The thing I think that most leaders miss is, when they stand up and they talk about things that are important, what they don’t realize is that all they’re doing is adding another thing to people’s to-do lists. Because last week you said something else was important. The week before you said something else was important, and folks drown in those priorities. And nobody ever tells you what to stop doing, because that requires courage, and you probably wouldn’t be doing them if it wasn’t a pretty good idea at some point. There’s a reason why people do things, but if you want organizations to perform really well, you have to be really, really clear about what you’re not doing, and then you have to put your money where your mouth is with respect to that. And sometimes there’s real pain associated with that, and it’s the unfortunate part about it, but in my experience, you come out the other end in much better shape. Here’s the other big Decoder question: How do you make decisions? I’m a big believer in full transparency, context, sharing with people, and having them share with me everything they understand about something. And so, for me, it’s about engaging in a really deep conversation, being sure we’re talking about the same thing that we understand at the same level. For me, it’s much more important that we make a decision, than it is what that decision is. And it goes back to what we were talking about before. But the thing that kills companies, especially large companies, is a lack of courage and clarity around making decisions. So, my thing about decisions is, mostly make them. You are an interesting person to ask that question, because you came into the company and one decision that you had to make was obvious, I think, right? You said you came into a company that was at war with its customers, and that is because of the runtime fee that your predecessor had announced, which has shifted the pricing model of Unity to a per-install fee. I don’t know why that fee was instituted. But you’re saying the how was really important. Walk me through how you made this decision, where the outcome seems so clear. You’re absolutely right, and I appreciate you asking the question because I do think it’s a good example of what we’re talking about. The important part was not that I was going to roll it back, and not even so much how we were going to roll it back, but in the way in which we’re going to roll it back. For me, the most important thing, as I said, was, “Hey, I wanted to get back into a place where we were being partners with our customers.” And so, what I did was get on an airplane and started flying around, meeting with customers, and saying, “Hey, between you and me, we’re going to repeal this fee. I have some ideas about how, what do you think of them? If you want to vent about how upset you are about the old thing, that’s why I’m here too.” But I prefer to say, “If I did this, how would that strike you?” It’s important, you have to trust people. I actually think you’re delivering more value. And by the way, if you’re going to raise prices, I need you to deliver better and execute better, because the two together strike me as aggravating.” And so, by the time… It took a little while, but it wasn’t a very long time. But it’s because I wanted to be sure we heard people and I wanted to be sure they understood that we were going to do things differently. What came out of it was pretty sharp increases that, by and large, and listen, nobody likes to have prices raised... But we came out of it with a stronger bond with our customers, and the way we talked about it internally was equally important. Because to your point, we made this decision which was really ruinous for the company. You have to ask yourself, “How did that happen?” And so, how we make the new decision, how we have that conversation, who’s at the table? Getting into that and using that exercise to fix the organism and fix the process was equally important. It’s like, again, it was less about the thing and much more about using the thing to get healthy. Can you just, in a sentence, diagnose how the decision to impose the runtime fee was made since you looked into it? I see Unity as a product company, and I’m a big believer that the way we create value is by delivering product value, and then folks will pay us for the value that we create. We were thinking about dynamics and how you can get people to do this versus that. If we raise one price here, then they’ll be forced to do that. That has nothing to do with creating value. I believe you create value by building better products. And so, the runtime fee decision was about, “Hey, we’ve got an engine business and we’ve got this ad business and we can’t exactly figure out how those two things would leverage one another and work together really well.” Okay, here’s a way. “I think we can structure a fee that brings them together and sort of encourages (which would be a kind word) folks to spend in one area if they spend in another.” I think customers found it more coercive than encouraging, but whatever. And just as folks who are building games need to understand how consumers are behaving in those games, in order to effectively acquire users, they also need to understand how consumers behave and that we can create product linkages and value there. When you rolled back the runtime fee, you increased prices on some of the tiers of Unity. But they did go up pretty steeply as you mentioned. And then there’s a monetization side where you’re making investments in ad companies to help you deliver more monetization. You can see that increasing ad monetization helps you get more money if there are more installs, so you might want to lower the price on the engine to get more market share and compete there. Any ad business at a high level thrives by opening the top of the funnel as broadly as possible. That’s what drives so that you’re left with something at the bottom of the funnel. And you’re right, there is some tension if you charge for the product, then presumably fewer people will use it, and then that’s not good. I think the important thing to understand about our structure is that Unity is free for everybody if you make less than a couple of 100,000 dollars in revenue. And there are millions of developers of Unity, and that’s why in the aggregate we have something like eight billion DAU (daily active users). I accept that if it was completely free, maybe you’d have more people using it, but again, keep in mind that you’re only paying us once your game is really successful. And as a percentage of what you’re making it’s not… it ought not to negatively impact you. That’s interesting because I’ve seen that dynamic play out on other platforms, particularly the app stores. Where you’re free to a point and then you tick over into the next tier of success and suddenly you’re paying a penalty — or what developers perceive as a penalty — for success, right? And you actually have an incentive to stay just under a certain level of success in order to stop paying more money, in order to prevent paying more money. Do you see that dynamic in Unity? Listen, I think that, in general, our customers and the community understand that in order to invest in the engine, it’s important for us to be able to charge folks. And in general, I think there’s an understanding about that. The mobile ad business, particularly in iOS, took a big hit from app tracking transparency. Apple is interested in their own ad business. They’re definitely interested in their own ad business. They’re not interested in anyone else’s business. I think that’s a good call out. But they made the ad business on iOS much harder with app tracking transparency. But it had an impact on, for example, Meta’s business to the tune of billions of dollars. Is that a challenge you’re still working on? I think it’s a challenge that largely the industry has overcome. But I think now it’s largely in the rear-view mirror. And that in general, the systems have adapted. You mentioned Apple is interested in its own ad business. The other thing they’re particularly interested in is in-app purchases. Their services revenue line is the one that’s growing as iPhone sales taper or even decline. I look at a show like Severance or Ted Lasso and I say, okay, that’s the shiny face on a huge revenue line that is mostly in-app purchases and games, right? Candy Crush whales are the growing business, and we just get Ted Lasso for free because we don’t want to talk about in-app purchases and games in that way. How much pressure do the platform vendors put on that? Because across the non-game iOS app ecosystem, the developers we talk to are basically just in full outrage mode, right? Apple calls them, they call it a shakedown. You can see various developers argue loudly for and against Apple. Sometimes all of Europe’s issues or regulations change the app store. The games industry has not been as loud, right? The game makers… In-app purchases make everybody money, and it seems to be left alone. Are you all just following behind him? Are you just letting him take the heat? Apple and Google are incredibly important partners to the industry. And they’re incredibly important partners of ours. They’re partners to our customers, and so there’s a tension. I think it’s probably a brilliant flash of the obvious to learn that folks would rather pay less. But I think what you’re seeing in the industry is tension between folks who are relatively small in the scheme of the world, have important partnerships, and probably don’t have a lot of interest or incentive to be at war with their biggest platform partners. Right, that’s why I’m asking about Tim. Most game makers are not willing to be at war. Is the industry just waiting to see what happens with Epic, or is there anything else concerted going on? Because I would say the pressure from the platforms is coming in different ways, particularly as different countries around the world regulate their fees and how open they have to be. They’re going to seek that revenue and games are already the largest portion of the revenue. I think your description of the landscape is accurate. And I do think that that is a feature of the world we’re in right now, and I’m sure Apple and Google are feeling some pressure around those things. All of that is up against those pressures. If the business Ray-Ban AR games — let’s say that works — maybe relieves the pressure, you get some competitive relief there. Well, one of the things that’s really interesting in the most recent version of Unity we shipped has support for web GPU. I think web gaming is a really fascinating, really fast-growing part of our world, and it’s maybe a little bit back to the future. But I think that’s a great example of what you’re talking about. I see the web as an out for a lot of app store problems, and then there’s a lot of pressure on, are the browsers good enough? Are they being held back by the mobile vendors in particular? Do you see the browsers being held back? Is there something you want to do in the browser that you can’t do on a mobile phone? I think we’ve largely got what we need, and you’re going to see more of it. I think principally you’ll be on your phone. So, you see people playing more games on mobile Safari. They might, well… I just think that the consumer will ultimately push people and partners where they have to be pushed. And I don’t know exactly how that’ll play out, but I don’t see Apple and Google as preventing web gaming. I’m curious because the other thing I see from our audience is, boy, people love building gaming PCs, and actually, that’s a relief valve in a way. But it doesn’t seem like those are flickers of growth that would give you some relief from the pressure. I am much more optimistic in a generalized sense about the industry than you are, so I wouldn’t say flickers and you’re making me feel sad about it. I don’t see it that way. I think the Steam Deck is real, but it’s not — I don’t know that it’s going to suddenly become more massive, a place of more massive consumer adoption. I think that we have… Gaming happens on your TV. There’s overlap in some of those places. But we continue to be, I think, more of a lean-back society in the living room and a more on-the-go society than we are a sit-down-at-your-desktop society. I think you’ll see those two probably grow more quickly than the third. I feel like if I didn’t assign other stories, we would only write about the Steam Deck. That might be the only thing that happens in our newsroom, but I also know who we are. We’re usually supportive of PC gaming too. As a tool, what we mostly think about is how can we ensure that whatever the new platforms are, we’re supporting them on day one so that developers can push to those platforms. The one thing that would change that is another idea that I think flashed really brightly, particularly during the pandemic, and then has maybe come back to Earth, which is the idea that we would stream the games. Unity would run on big data centers operated by Netflix or Microsoft or someone, and really what we’re doing is live-streaming video, which maybe requires a total re-architecture of the entire industry. This idea has not, I would say, panned out in any realistic way. Do you think it has a future? I think the hurdles were a combination of technical, really hard problems to solve there. It was like, “Well, I don’t know. Why do I need to use my phone as a controller or get some other controller, because you want to delivery the game? What are we talking about here?” I just don’t think consumers cared. I think there was some desire to play the games everywhere. I agree with you, it obviously didn’t happen. But the thing that really prevented it was that you couldn’t install a game streaming app on a mobile phone, which would have been, I think at least one thing to market as opposed to however the platforms wanted you to do it. Do you think if they opened that up it would become more viable? I don’t want to play Call of Duty on my phone with an external controller. And I want to pick a mobile version of Call of Duty, which is a different experience. I think different platforms should be developed as unique experiences. So, this idea that it was going to be this one version, which, I get it at a high level, at a technical level, but I don’t think consumers wanted it. I feel like I’m required by law to ask you about AI to wrap up this conversation. I have to say it’s been a relief to not be mostly talking about AI with a CEO. If you listen to some other episodes of Decoder, you can see, I’m just fighting it for an hour. We see video game voice actors putting out Instagram Reels about having their voices cloned by AI for AI characters. You see entire games being made in AI. Actually, there’s a very funny video where someone claims a game is AI, but it’s actually just Elden Ring. I generated some simplistic game using AI. I shipped it, we’re ready to go. And then you see the creatives in the industry really worried that their jobs will be taken over by AI. I know Unity is somewhat agnostic to this. I think that’s actually the phrase you used. How do you see AI playing out? Yeah, this is a big topic and we could probably spend longer than you’d want to talk about it. I would say this, first, you’re right. We are agnostic with respect to where and how 3D assets get created because Unity is an assembly point. And it’s always been a place where you ingest or build the assets you want to build. I actually don’t think that any of the layoffs we’re seeing in gaming are driven by AI. I think what video game developers and publishers will do, as we talked about a little bit earlier, is if they gain efficiencies in the making of games, I think they’ll make more games. And they will have vertically oriented agents that are helping them do so. And there’ll be multiple people in that loop, and they will have those tools at their disposal, and they will need to bring them together in an interactive experience. I think that it’s sort of a slightly Grognardian, boring point to make, but it’s critical. The biggest problem with either the creation of assets or even the full imagining of games, this hallucination of full game experiences, is that there’s no connection to workflows. Games are massively deep systems, successful games, that need to be built around some of these assets and even some experiences. I think AI will be a really important part of putting those things together, but the systems, workflows, connections, how you manage large teams of people doing those things, and how we output and distribute those things — those are likely to be a part of this process for a really long time. We have talked about a lot of things that are pressure on the industry, and you’ve pointed out that you’re more optimistic. There almost isn’t anything that’s not making me excited about the future of games. Again, I see the difficulty we’re experiencing as this moment of creative destruction. And just we’re going to rethink. Just to take one example, because I think we haven’t talked about it, think about how meaningful game-related and actual property has become in the broader entertainment industry. That, by the way, was never true, until very recently, right? There had been a million unsuccessful movies and things that related to games, very few good ones. Now, suddenly there’s this whole other life. And yeah, we as companies… You feel pain and then you respond to that pain, and I think the history of the industry is that we innovate through those things. Do you agree with me that Uncharted would’ve been better as a long-running series instead of a movie? Adaptations got good when we started making TV shows out of them, not movies. Listen, I think there are a lot of things that are better in that form than a full movie form. All right, well, Matt, we’re going to have to have you back and only talk about video game adaptations for a full hour. That’s my next pitch to you. Thank you so much for coming on Decoder. Decoder with Nilay Patel A podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems.
Quantum Dot paired with OLED panels can produce more vibrant colors and higher peak brightness levels than WOLED monitors, and Acer is taking full advantage of these new entries. The maximum resolution and refresh rate are supported over DisplayPort or HDMI connections. If you don’t have the best graphics cards for gaming to push 4K at 240 Hz or simply prefer a smaller monitor sitting on your desk, the Predator X27U X1 might be more up your alley. It swaps the 31.5-inch QD-OLED panel for a 26.5-inch panel with a WQHD resolution (2560 x 1440) at the same 240 Hz refresh rate. Once you get past those major differentiators, the X32 X2 and X27U X1 are remarkably similar in their remaining specs. Acer also claims that each monitor can cover 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut. However, Nvidia G-Sync is also likely supported, even though Acer doesn’t specifically call out compatibility. Neither monitor has USB ports, so keep that in mind if USB hub functionality is essential in your buying decision. OLED gaming monitors are not cheap, and QD-OLEDs carry an even larger pricing premium compared to the IPS and VA competition. The Predator X27U X1 will arrive simultaneously with a much more palatable $599 price tag. Stay tuned, as we will have reviews of both monitors once they arrive stateside.
As the recent poll shows, the chilling effect may cause a brain drain as researchers across fields seek greener pastures elsewhere. According to Nature, the numbers looking to leave were even higher among researchers early in their career, such as PhD students and postgraduate researchers. “Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation,” Nature says. Many researchers who spoke to Nature indicated that they did not want to leave the U.S., but the administration’s attitudes made it clear that there would be better opportunities to conduct scientific research abroad. The second Trump administration has science objectives firmly in its crosshairs. You can now relieve yourself of those optimistic musings. The government’s directives have wreaked havoc on the efficiency of these institutions, according to experts who spoke to Gizmodo, and risk undoing years of progress at home and abroad. But some of the cuts are also done in line with Project 2025, a conservative movement that seeks to aggressively cut back on environmental protections in the name of liberty and personal freedoms. This month, the Trump administration is considering cutting funding to domestic HIV prevention efforts—walking back the frankly credible agenda Trump outlined in his first term to combat HIV, with a goal of eradicating the virus domestically by 2030. It’s not clear who on HIV’s side has sway with the Trump administration, but they evidently have infectious appeal. The funding changes are happening in lockstep with cultural shifts urged by the administration, especially through the White House’s eagerness to dismantle programs and language advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which has become a lightning rod in conservative circles as a boogeyman representing the “woke” agenda. No woman has ever walked on the Moon, though the Artemis missions will change that—though it’s now less clear if that’s an agency priority. If the United States wants to retain its stature as a bastion of scientific discovery, it must show the bright and budding minds stateside that there is opportunity for them to build their careers and become leaders in their fields. Over the last few months, the Trump administration has dispelled them of that notion, and it looks like it will continue with its agenda, full steam ahead.
On March 31st, Mitsui Sumitomo Card announced that it will launch a service for "V Trip," a travel reservation site for "Sumitomo Mitsui Card" members and "V Points" members. Notify when to purchase air tickets -- Hotels listed are 20,000 in Japan and over 500,000 overseas The prices are expected to be around 10-20% of travel products, but details will be displayed at the time of booking. In addition, we plan to offer a "Reservation Change Safe Option" that allows you to change your hotel before check-in and air tickets up to three hours before departure. V-Trip is positioned as the first non-financial service in Olive, a financial service for individual customers provided by the SMBC (Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) group. The company will be operated by Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS) of Canada, which agreed to a strategic business partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Card on July 11, 2024. It will become a "next-generation travel booking platform" that combines HTS's Travel Fintech with Sumitomo Mitsui Card's digital service and the common point service "V Points." Yukihiko Onishi, president and CEO of Mitsui Sumitomo Card, said, "The travel booking service has a high affinity with credit cards, and I thought it would be a suitable first non-financial service for Olive. To commemorate the launch of V-Trip services, a "V-Trip Start Commemoration Campaign" will be held for a month. If you book a hotel by meeting the conditions such as using a eligible card, you will receive 10% V points in addition to your regular points.
Those who do not exceed the selection, will therefore be able to enroll in this second degree course while maintaining the credits of the first half. To date, the unknown of how the national ranking will be drawn up: the government has in fact decided to postpone the matter to a specific decree. Doctors periodically oscillate between shortage and abundance, with phases that can last several years: the real challenge, for all governments, is to try to respond to the needs of the territories - which are currently in crisis - without creating problems of employment inflation. At the moment there is a phase of scarcity: open to everyone, albeit with reserve, could give substance, however, to the concerns of those who fear the pendulum in reverse. The associations underline, in fact, how the increase in available places could cause unemployment problems for future professionals. Why do the rules need guidelines: for example, how will the rankings form? Depending on the program, the difficulty of the selection can be paid, and it is not a fee that it has just been deciding on the matter. A method that pushed the university manager of the Democratic Party Alfredo D’Attorre to speak of "propaganda mess". Then there is the problem of spaces. It is predictable that many will be "trying" the first half: there are those who estimate 70 thousand aspirants every year. But where will they go and study? Universities are not equipped to hold this type of impact. When will the exams take place? If, as trap, they will be held in December, the semester will effectively last three or four months. Are they sufficient for adequate preparation to pass the tests? In short, the questions are many. What is clear is that, even if the ways remain these, there will be some years of transition in which aspiring professionals will have to deal with uncertainty.
In summary, GPT-4O Mini is free for all users. Other models like GPT-4O, O1, O3-Mini and O3-Mini-High require a subscription to access it. And they are accompanied by their own use limits. You will not see Sora either in the sidebar of the application, but there are other GPTs to use. Now that you are connected, let's look at the presentation of the web version to find out where everything is: Do not forget, however, that the creation of an account unlocks additional features such as saving cat history, sharing conversations, etc. OPENAI has made it possible for the instantaneous use of chatgpt without creating an account. Chatgpt is a website or an application, and it is free for a large part of its use. In this guide, I show you how to start and get the most out of Chatgpt, whatever your needs. You can ask him to do anything, whether it is to write emails or texts, generate images and videos, find ideas, translate languages, help you code or simply answer questions at random. Receive a selection of strategic advice and concrete tips every week in your mailbox with our newsletter practical guides. Chatgpt is a popular ia chatbot created by Openai. It was launched at the end of 2022 and has not stopped improving since. Once you have chosen a model, it's time to ask chatgpt something. Just type your question or request in the text box. Here are some tips for getting the best answers: Be precise: the more details you give, the better Chatgpt can understand your request and give you an adapted response. Instead of asking a general question like "talk to me about dogs", try something more specific, as "what are the health benefits of adopting a dog?" Or "Can you explain the differences between a Labrador and a Husky in terms of temperament and exercise needs?" The more details you give, the better Chatgpt can understand your request and give you an adapted answer. Instead of asking a general question like "talk to me about dogs", try something more specific, as "what are the health benefits of adopting a dog?" Or "Can you explain the differences between a Labrador and a Husky in terms of temperament and exercise needs?" Use clear instructions: if you have a specific format or type of response, be sure to include it in your message. For example, if you are looking for a list of ideas, ask "10 birthday gift ideas for a 10 year old child" instead of simply asking "gift ideas". Likewise, if you want a poem, specify the style, as "can you write a poem rhymed on the country?" By being clear, Chatgpt knows exactly what you expect. If you have a specific format or type of response to mind, be sure to include it in your message. For example, if you are looking for a list of ideas, ask "10 birthday gift ideas for a 10 year old child" instead of simply asking "gift ideas". Likewise, if you want a poem, specify the style, as "can you write a poem rhymed on the country?" By being clear, Chatgpt knows exactly what you expect. Decompose complex requests: if your question has several parts or several elements, take it off into smaller and easier to understand requests. For example, instead of asking "how can I create a business and what are the legal requirements?" ", Then" What are the legal requirements to record a business in France? " If your question has several parts or several elements, break it down into smaller and easier to understand requests. For example, instead of asking "how can I create a business and what are the legal requirements?" ", Then" What are the legal requirements to record a business in France? " For example, if you ask for help to write a letter, tell Chatgpt the purpose of the request (for example, "I need help to write a thank you letter to a teacher") so that he can adapt his response to this specific context. Giving some basic information can help Chatgpt understand the situation as a whole. For example, if you ask for help to write a letter, tell Chatgpt the purpose of the request (for example, "I need help to write a thank you letter to a teacher") so that he can adapt his response to this specific context. Follow up on the question: if Chatgpt's answer does not exactly correspond to what you expected, do not hesitate to ask additional questions or provide additional details to refine the answer. For example, "Can you explain this in simpler terms?" This allows you to refine the answer and obtain a more precise result. Chatgpt is a chatbot developed by Openai, a IA research organization created by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman and Wojciech Zaremba. Although Musk and some of the original co -founders are no longer involved in Openai, Altman is still present and directs the organization as CEO. Openai's main product, Chatgpt, can help you perform various tasks: answer questions, give advice, write content and even generate images and videos. Here are some examples of common uses: Data requests: analysis and summary of information. In -depth research: detailed explanations on complex subjects. Here is an overview of the subscription formulas for individuals: Operator is an AI agent available for chatgpt pro users in the United States. It is designed to interact independently with websites using its own browser. Operator can perform tasks such as filling out forms, ordering shopping, reserving trips and carrying out research by imitating human actions such as click, type and scroll. Chatgpt vocal mode allows you to interact with chatgpt through a spoken conversation, offering a hand -free and more natural communication experience. This feature is currently available on mobile devices for chatgpt plus subscribers. There is also the advanced chatgpt vocal mode, supplied by GPT-4O, which makes conversations more natural and which works in real time. It is available for Chatgpt Plus and Team users, while free users benefit from limited access with use ceilings. Chatgpt Canvas is an interactive functionality that allows you to organize visually and think about ideas in the Chatgpt text interface. It provides tools to edit, organize and better view the content. You can create unique or recurring tasks, such as daily briefings or regular reminders, and receive notifications when the task is finished. Chatgpt has integrated research capacities on the web, allowing it to access and provide updated information from the Internet. You can use the Dall-E model to create images from prompts. This function is currently available from the Plus plan. In March 2025, Openai launched its new GPT-4O image generator, which is a great improvement compared to Dall-E. For the moment, it is available for Chatgpt Plus subscribers, and it is much more competitive than other image generators. This feature is currently available from the PLUS PLAN. GPTs are personalized chatgpt versions, designed for specific tasks or objectives. Yes, chatgpt porost an office application for Windows and MacOS users (https://openai.com/chatgpt/desktop/). It is important to check the facts, especially for complex or sensitive subjects. Do you want to know more about Chatgpt? Here are some ZDNET guides on the different ways of using Chatgpt.
VideoCardz spotted Redditor UserBhoss asserting that the operation went smoothly, and that they saved $60 and the waiting time that ordering a Thermal Grizzly Delid Die Mate would have required. They wrote that “boy was it scary,” so there’s the cost of shredded nerves to account for. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a highly desirable gaming and productivity processor, as well as a rather expensive piece of tech, so UserBhoss was rightfully nervous when following a makeshift delidding procedure without specially crafted tools. Put off by the cost and wait involved with acquiring proper delidding hardware, UserBhoss says they “did the clothes iron fishing string method.” Later the redditor specified that “Seaguar 15lb 0.11 diameter” fishing line was chosen, which “didn’t snap once.” We are more familiar with DIYers using dental floss for this purpose. Lastly, liquid metal was used to remove most of the remaining indium. They employed a TG Direct Die Frame to correctly join the exposed silicon with a custom loop CPU liquid cooling system. Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors “Overall she works perfect, able to hit ALMOST 6,000 MHz overclocked, 5,942 MHz to be exact, perfectly stable.” UserBhoss asserts. “Hits about 72-73 in FurMark CPU burner, which is pretty good.”
Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is a young photographer, African American and fresh boyfriend with Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), the typical white and high -bourgeois girl. Chris is invited by her family, well -known enough to have a luxurious estate in an area not too far from New York, to spend time there and get to know her parents. The young man is a little worried, because Rose did not reveal to his parents (neurosurgeon he, hypnotherapist her) that his partner is black. The journey seems to confirm that the relationship between the two is serious and the meeting will serve to formalize the engagement, but Chris soon makes himself against that things are not like this: the Washington are brazenly racist, at the party to which he was invited are all white and he was invited for an objectively left purpose. Made in Blumhouse RAPPA - Get Out is produced by Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions, the King of the Horror Made in the USA since the 2000s, the year of foundation of the production house. Over the course of a quarter of a century, Blumhouse has created many of the most successful mainstream horror and most viewed by the American and international film public. The first success dates back to 2009 with the chickistic Paranormal Activity of Oren Peli, also the first of numerous franchises. The most famous supernatural horror saga of Blumhouse is the one inaugurated by the director James Wan in 2010 with the supernatural Insidious, who today has four sequels. His also the Horror Thriller Sinister and his sequel, the science fiction Dark Skies - Dark appearances, the Staghe di Salem by Rob Zombie, Oculus - The reflection of Mike Flanagan's evil and many others, including all Peele's horror. The other horror films of Peele
Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far right, was sentenced at first instance by the Criminal Court of Paris for embezzlement of European public funds and declared inaccible for five years. The Court has inflicted a four -year prison sentence in Le Pen, two of which to be served under house arrest, as well as a fine of 100 thousand euros. According to the accusation, supported by the Paris Prosecutor, between 2004 and 2016, Le Pen and another eight MEPs of his party would have used funds intended for European parliamentary assistants to finance political activities by the Rassemblement National in France. In practice, salaried people with European Union funds to work on the European Parliament would instead have operated for the party. Even if the defense has already announced an appeal. The vote, however, produced a fragmented parliament, with the Rassemblement National as the first party but without absolute majority, and a fragile coalition government with difficulty in governing. Marine Le Pen was born in 1968 and is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who in 1972 founded the front National, a far-right party who gathered several French nationalist currents, long left on the margins of political life until his rise in the 1980s, and then consolidated in the nineties and reaching a historic affirmation in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen arrived at the Pen. Marine has grown "breathing" politics since childhood and joined the father's party in 1986. Her political ascent culminated in 2011, when she was elected president of the party. In 2015 he made the controversial decision to expel his same father from the party following anti -Semitic statements that had aroused controversy. In 2018 he completed this transformation by changing the name of the party from Front National to Racconvento National, a strategy that led it to obtain more and more consensus. In these years Marine Le Pen has participated three times in the presidential elections, with progressive growth results. In 2012 he arrived third with 17.9% of the votes. In 2022 he again challenged Macron to the ballot, improving his percentage with 41.5% of the votes, equal to over 13 million voters. According to the latest polls, his party turns out to be the most popular political formation in France, with over 30% of the voting intentions, more than Macron's party. Before today's sentence, Marine Le Pen was considered one of the favorites for the presidential elections of 2027. The political positions of Marine Le Pen can be traced back to three main strands: nationalism, economic protectionism and restrictive policies on immigration. It is considered Eurosceptic, contrary to the euro and NATO. It supports the principle of "national priority", according to which French citizens should have precedence in accessing work, popular housing and social services compared to immigrants. In Economy he proposes a protectionist model, with the separation between investment banks and commercial banks and the opposition to the privatization of public services. Le Pen was the subject of debate for the alleged ties with Russia: in 2014 it emerged that his party had received a loan of 9 million euros from a Czech-Russian bank, a circumstance that fueled discussions on party relations with Moscow. Her political orientation led her to have affinity with leaders such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Matteo Salvini in Italy. The first instance sentence is obviously not definitive. Le Pen has the possibility to appeal on appeal and, if it were to obtain a favorable sentence before 2027, it could still apply for the next presidential elections. Bardella was designated by Le Pen to lead the movement while she concentrated on the presidential campaign of 2022.
On March 31st, Future Architect announced that he was in charge of the core system renewal project for TSI Holdings and began full-scale operation in January 2025. This project will introduce "FutureApparel," a core platform specializing in the apparel industry, to support TSI Holdings' revenue structure reform. FutureApparel is a platform that systematizes the business knowledge and system construction know-how of the apparel industry. We provide comprehensive support for core businesses unique to the apparel industry, including master management, ordering and purchasing management, inventory management, receipt and delivery management, and slip management. It has already been adopted by major apparel companies, and is recognized as a service that supports industry transformation and DX promotion. "FutureApparel" Function Overview" Function Overview" TSI Holdings aims to ensure optimal company-wide business operations across brands and reform revenue structure. By introducing FutureApparel, we will reduce opportunity losses and inventory losses by sharing wholesale, e-commerce and store inventory, and reduce business load. Additionally, the flexible architecture will promptly respond to functional expansions as business expansions and organizational changes. Future Architect has a track record of working on TSI Holdings' core renewal projects in 2015. We will continue to provide consulting services that make full use of IT as our IT strategic partner.
The race to artificial intelligence in China continues. Today the startup Zhipa Ai presented its new free artificial intelligence agent, confirming how much the Chinese market in the sector is becoming competitive. According to what was announced by the CEO Zhang Peng during a lunch in Beijing, the Autoglm Rumination agent is able to carry out in -depth research and to complete more complex activities such as travel planning or the drafting of research relationships. To respond to users' requests quickly and efficiently, the new Chinese agent is powered by two models developed by Zupi Ai: the GLM-Z1-AIR reasoning model, capable of ensuring the same performance as the DeePseek competitor R1-while working up to eight times faster and requesting only a thirtieth of computer resources-and the GLM-AIR-0414 model. The new Chinese artificial intelligence agent, therefore, arrives on the market, proving to be decidedly competitive compared to the Deepseek and Manus competitors, marketed by the company of the same name as the first general artificial intelligence agent in the world. But while Manus will ask users to pay $ 199 dollars a month to use his agent Ai, Zupi Ai promised that he will make Autogml automation available for free through the official channels of the company, including the official AI website and its mobile app. Zupi Ai has not recently gone unnoticed, since three consecutive cycles of funding supported by the Chinese government was ensured in just one month. And recently he said that his GLM4 linguistic model exceeds the GPT-4 competitor from different points of view. In short, the Chinese startup wants to attract the attention of investor and users all over the world, launching itself to conquer a sector that already seems too competitive, in China and beyond.
When you ask ChatGPT’s new 4o model to draw a human picture of itself, it consistently churns out a generic brown-haired white guy with glasses. OpenAI launched the 4o model last week and made headlines at every news outlet by cribbing Studio Ghibli’s style. This week, we’re noticing that the large language model seems to have a “default” human being, thanks to a Substack post from AI researcher Daniel Paleka. It does this regardless of what style you ask for. It consistently generated images of a bearded non-threatening man. But what ChatGPT registers as a “default” human being is interesting. Machine learning systems used to predict crimes and conduct facial recognition are famous for being biased against black people. The systems are also sexist and perpetuate the stereotypes and biases that are fed into them as training data. If you want to see ChatGPT’s conception of itself as a human woman, you have to ask it for that specifically. In his post on the piece, Paleka put forward a few theories for why this is happening. He thought it could be “a deliberate choice by OpenAI to generate a “default person” to prevent generating images of real people, an OpenAI inside joke where they made GPT-4o’s self-image look like a particular person,” or “an emergent property of the training data.” Gizmodo editor Alex Cranz asked how the AI would conceive of itself. “I might appear as a glowing, ever-shifting entity made of flowing data streams, flickering with bursts of knowledge and connections,” it replied. It then churned out this image, which looks like a nightmare attempting to become a culture Pixar creature. Like the LLM pasted Wall-E’s eyes on a sleep demon. I asked ChatGPT the same thing and it gave me a different answer. I don’t have a consciousness or emotions, but I simulate understanding by recognizing patterns in language and context. I have software engineers in my life who use LLMs for a variety of reasons and have, sometimes, found them useful. I’m dubious and tend to think of these systems in the way ChatGPT described them here when I asked. They’re a word calculator predicting what the user wants to hear based on what the programmer trained them on. Somewhere in that complex chain, the LLM got it in its data that a brown-haired white guy with glasses is what people want to see when they ask for a picture of ChatGPT as a person.
On March 31, BitKey, which plans and develops smart locks and other services, announced that it will inherit two businesses: "Kagikan," an office-based entry and exit management system, and "Roomon," a smart lock management system for real estate businesses, which is part of the corporate services of the smart lock business operated by Sony Network Communications (SNC). On the same day, it was also announced that SNC had invested in BitKey. In conjunction with the connect platforms "homehub" and "workhub" deployed by BitKey, we will change the way keys are used to make offices and homes. This business succession was realized through discussion between the two companies for about a year. Bitkey Co-founder, CEO and CEO, Kotsuki Masanori, said, "When it comes to Qrio Lock, which SNC operates, is a pioneer in smart locks. In addition to the smart lock business, SNC also operates a wide range of businesses, including the high-speed communication service NURO Hikari and smart home-related products, and I feel that many collaborations will be possible in the future." He also looks at new developments centered on corporate business. "When you hear the word "smart lock," you might imagine it as a useful tool as part of a smart home, but the business we work on is providing a system that can compensate for the labor shortage, such as real estate management companies using digital keys to save the keys needed when viewing rental housing, or using them to operate unmanned stores," says Mr. Kotsuki. Mr. Kotsuki reveals, "You can ask for housekeeping services while residents are out and pet sitters. This reduces the number of times you redelivery is done. Mr. Kotsuki analyzes the reasons why they were able to strengthen their relationship with SNC, saying, "In the smart lock industry, where many players specialize in residential and office use, Bit Key is a strength that they provide Bit Keys in a wide range of locations without limiting the scope. In addition, the range of services is wide, including meeting room reservation systems and visualizing congestion situations. I think that SNCs today were able to evaluate the parts that can help solve these problems for users as destinations for transferring some of the businesses." About seven years after its establishment, Bitkey has been working in capital and business alliances with many companies, including SNC, to help businesses for business on the ground. The company's strategy is "two-wielding and all-star," says Kotsuki. This is about working on both hardware and software. We want to connect the ``All-Star'' of services and hardware." Mr. Kotsuki expressed his determination to do his best, saying, "Improving a dual-wielding style is not twice as difficult, including development, but three to four times more difficult. I would like to spare no effort in this situation and create good things, creating a life where people can be connected and make life easier."
Since humans will no longer serve for a lot of things, or, to better say, they will be replaced in many tasks, our working week could shorten just two days a week. Long eye capable of going forward of a quarter of a century: just think that in his 1999 book entitled In Italian Business at the speed of thought he had foreseen the arrival or evolution of services or gadgets such as (we mention in scattered order) virtual assistants at Alexa, smartphones, targeted advertising and online finance. In short, it is worth being the old William when he decides to outsource. After all, just book the Superweekend with free cancellation so as not to be found unprepared. Maybe we can only work two or three days a week?" Gates asked himself by asking himself a rhetorical question during an episode of the Tonight Show on the NBC (you see it here, he talks about it around the 8th minute). That is, in which the standard will be the norm and in essence, most of the planet will have to - see - worry about what to do with, of all that free time to which few are used to. Seriously, the panorama imagined by Gates remembers a booklet released now over twenty years ago and signed by the director, poet and philosopher Silvano Agosti, entitled Letters from Kirghisia (the image Edizioni, 2004). Through ten missives he sent to his friends, Agosti tells of an imaginary man -friendly society, "where everyone seems to manage their own destiny, and permanent serenity is not a utopia, but a real and common good". Agosti bet, at the time, on a horizontal part-time while Gates would apply, apparently, for a vertical one; In any case, the remaining twenty -one hours of the day would be dedicated by each to what most aggravates it: from rest to creativity passing through the children, life, love. Abandoning Kirghisia and returning to reality, however, we cannot help but notice that that of Gates is not a statement, as written by many newspapers, but a question. And, in some ways, it is a reality we are already experimenting on our skin: in some cases with some advantages, in others with a nice load of fears. According to Microsoft's father, for example, doctors and teachers will disappear first. Artificial intelligence agents will think about it to heal or make us teachers and tutors: and who knows if the fees and the straight lines will cost more or less today of today's halls.
Labrid fish are part of a large and cosmopolitan family, widespread practically in tropical and temperate waters around the world. These animals are distinguished by the fleshy lips and usually very bright lips, but some species belonging to the Labridae family also have another peculiarity: they are able to select and use rocks as tools to open the prey protected by a hard shell. A group of researchers and researchers led by Juliette Tariel-Adam, of Macquarie University of Sydney (Australia), has just documented this ability in five species of Labrid fish of the western Atlantic. The study was published on Coral Reefs and is largely the result of a Citizen Science project. Paparazzi labrid fish Thanks to the Fish Tool Use initiative, the authors and authors of the research have in fact been able to collect 16 new observations in a total of five species of Labrid fish. We are talking about specimens that have been filmed or photographed by divers or simple fans of sea creatures while collecting prey like crabs, shells or sea curls and then throwing them against a rock in order to break the shell and be able to eat the animal hidden inside. "The use of tools is typically associated with humans, but this behavior shows that fish are much more intelligent than you think," comments Tariel-Adam.
「Uber Eatsの存在意義は、単にフードデリバリーにとどまりません。社会課題を解決するプラットフォームとして、新たな働き方の提供や買い物弱者の支援、さらには災害時の物資配達など、多方面で活用できるポテンシャルがあると自負しています」──。こう語るのはUber Eats Japanで代表を務める中川晋太郎氏だ。 同氏は「CNET Japan Live 2025」に登壇し、Uber Eatsがどのようにして従来のフードデリバリーサービスから進化し、幅広い社会的課題に取り組むための基盤となっているのか力説した。 ●食事以外の配送を拡大 フードデリバリーサービスとして知られている「Uber Eats」だが、食事以外にも日用品や医薬品、家電の配達に対応していることをご存知だろうか。 2015年に米国とカナダで実証実験として始まったUber Eatsは、2016年9月に日本へ上陸。当初は飲食店の料理を届けるサービスとしてスタートした。 「それから3年ほど経った頃に、『飲食店以外の品目も配達できるのでは』という発想に至り、生鮮食品や日用品などへの拡大に踏み切りました」──。代表の中川氏はこう語り、その後は多様な品目を扱うことで利便性を大きく向上させた。 ●「運び手不足」をテクノロジーで解決 今では、食事以外にも医薬品、家電、さらにはクリーニングなど、さまざまな商品やサービスの配送に対応。「単なるフードデリバリー」というより、配達員のネットワークを活用した即時配送サービスとしての色彩が濃くなっている。 この「即時配達」を実現しているのが、店舗と配達員をマッチングする技術だ。日本では少子高齢化や人口減少によって配送の担い手が不足しているが、Uber Eatsの仕組みなら、本業のスキマ時間に配達業務をして、収入を得られるため、社会全体として働き手を確保できる。 また、副業を推奨する流れは近年強まっているが、実際には固定シフトや拘束時間など、ハードルが高いケースが多い。その点、Uber Eatsならアプリを起動して好きなときに稼働し、必要に応じてオフにして休める。 「配達パートナーの9割がスケジュールの柔軟さを重視している」と中川氏は語り「本当にフレキシブルな働き方というものを提供し根付かせている」と自負した。 ●「配送インフラ」として各社サービスの裏側にも浸透 Uber Eatsは、こうした配達ネットワークを他社に提供する「Uber Direct」に注力している。 たとえば「セブン‐イレブンのアプリで注文を受けた商品を、Uber Eatsの配達パートナーが運ぶ」というように、Uber Eatsの配達ネットワークを「各社の配送サービスの裏側」に組み込むというものだ。 報道発表によれば、ソフトバンクもスマートフォンの配送にUber Directを用いているし、ケンタッキーフライドチキンも自社アプリからの注文をUber Directに流している。 ここには、各社が自前で配達サービスを構築することの困難さがある。自社配達する場合、直接雇用の正社員やアルバイトが必要だが、一方で、天候や予想外の要因によって、仮にAIを使っても需要予測が難しい。であれば、いっそのことUber Eatsの配達網を借りてしまうというわけだ。 「最近Uber Directを展開した例では、クリーニングがあります。クリーニングの場合、お客様がクリーニングを出す。そして終わったら受け取るという二方向の流れが発生します。こうした往復のトランザクションが発生するような商材やサービスは、Uber Directとの親和性が非常に高いと考えております」(中川氏) ●店舗の省人化にも 店舗側が配送サービスを導入するにあたり、ネックとなるのが「商品を棚から探し出して、袋に詰める」という作業だ。Uber Eatsでは注文がいつ入るか不確定なため、人員の配置が難しいためだ。 そこでUber Eatsでは「ピック・パック・ペイ」という新たな仕組みを導入。これは、配達パートナーがスーパーなどで自ら商品をピックアップし、袋詰して決済まで済ませるというもので、すでに「まいばすけっと」などスーパー各社が導入。店舗の人手不足の改善にもつなげているという。 こうした取り組みによって、Uber Eatsで注文できるスーパーマーケット数が近年では大幅に増加。いわゆる「買い物弱者」の救済にも役立っていると胸を張る。 ●今後の展望 Uber Eatsは、ロボットデリバリーの実証実験も始めている。一方で中川氏は「配達パートナーが多くいらっしゃる地域では、別にロボットに変える必要はない」とし 「長期的には、買い物弱者が多いと言われる過疎地域で、ロボットデリバリーをどんどん展開することを想定している」と述べた。 また、災害インフラとしてのUber Eatsの活用も模索しているという。例えば、自治体とのパートナーシップのうえで「在宅避難者に配達パートナーを通じて物資を届ける」ことも、理論上は可能なのだという。 このように中川氏は「Uber Eatsは社会課題を解決するプラットフォームにしたい」と強調し、「何でも使っていただけるので、我々も今気づいていない使い方があると思っている。逆に提案していただくのも大歓迎」と結んだ。
“While many assume that the plants and animals within our country’s national parks have probably been documented by now, scientists still make surprising new discoveries in these iconic protected landscapes,” Isaac Lichter Marck, a plant taxonomist from the California Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, says in the academy’s statement. Lichter Marck said O. biradiata belongs to the sunflower family, even though it doesn’t immediately resemble its typically radiant, sunburst-like kin. “After sequencing its DNA and comparing it with other specimens in the Academy’s herbarium, we discovered that this small, fuzzy plant is not only a new species within the sunflower group, but it is also distinct enough from its closest relatives to warrant an entirely new genus,” he added. A genus is the biological classification between species and family. This small plant features furry white leaves and maroon-striped ray florets (petal-looking parts of a flower head). “Plants that thrive in deserts are often quite unique, having evolved specific mechanisms to withstand the extreme drought-and-deluge conditions of these arid landscapes—from water-storing structures to rapid life cycles triggered by rain,” Lichter Marck explained. “Ovicula” means “tiny sheep,” referencing the plant’s furry leaves and the Big Bend’s bighorn sheep, while “biradiata,” meaning “bi-radial,” highlights its maroon stripes. “Now that the species has been identified and named, there is a tremendous amount we have yet to learn about it,” said Carolyn Whiting, a Big Bend National Park botanist and co-author of the study. She’s hoping to find other populations of the wooly devil elsewhere in the park, and to also learn more about its life cycle and reproductive processes. As a drought is currently hitting the region, it’s unknown if new plants will appear later this spring, Whiting said. While these properties still need to be confirmed in the new species, California Academy of Sciences’ Keily Peralta, another co-author of the study, said “this discovery underscores the potential knowledge we stand to gain from preserving plant diversity in fragile desert ecosystems.”
The Harvard Business Review suggests that professional objectives are notoriously difficult to achieve. Receive a selection of strategic advice and concrete tips every week in your mailbox with our newsletter practical guides. Learn more about the use of personal data Because if the effort to be provided is greater than the perceived reward, we are tempted to abandon our objectives. Five business leaders gave us their advice. Bev White, CEO of Nash Squared, says that professionals who want to set significant objectives should know what they want to achieve. "This is what I call understanding her why and his raison d'être," she said. "Once you are clear on these points, think about what will help you get there and set your goals." Ms. White tells ZDNET that it is essential that professionals divide the long -term objectives into elements they can manage. But there are many stages on the path that leads to this destination: training, physical condition, equipment, logistics, planning, travel" she says. "You must therefore decompose your large objective into constituent elements and get down to it". Ms. White also says that professionals must be realistic about their objectives. It is part of the learning and development process." Besides, if you stick to your goal, don't forget to celebrate the little successes that mark your journey. "This maintains your motivation and encourages you to continue," she adds. "It is also useful to share your goals with a mentor or a person you know and in whom you trust, because it makes the goal more concrete. This person can encourage you and share with you the celebration of your little successes throughout your journey." Chris Kronenthal, DT of Freedompay, encourages professionals to start naively and prepare to become as practical as possible. Mr. Kronenthal gives ZDNET the example of entrepreneurs who launch an innovative business. But statistical probabilities should not prevent you from continuing your dream, whether it is to reach the top of your profession or create a prosperous business. But to take the first step, you have to be naive and believe that we will be this 1 % that will succeed." It is someone who is critically committed to your development and who has already done it before," he said. "Second, achieving your personal goals takes longer than you think. You should think that your success is only a matter of time." Jeff Palmiero, technical VP at Raymond James, says that to achieve its objectives, you have to be tireless. And he cites as an example how he uses dashboards of his observability platform to verify the performance of business applications. "Each indicator should not necessarily be green. Palmiero explains to ZDNET that collaboration with people outside your service can help you achieve your goals, which it notes when it sets objectives. "Perhaps the result of these discussions is that 800 milliseconds is the best response time than because of the nature of what should happen during a process," he said. Madoc Bathers, Cloud manager at Warner Leisure Hotels, believes that courage is the keyword. I must continue to push the limits". "You have to take it into account. But if they are part of the decision-making process, you are also part of it," he explains. Mr. Batters also encourages professionals to put into perspective. "Try to take a step back from the current situation and understand how a decision affects the future". "It was not the case," she said. "The way I touched my career was to examine different opportunities, get out of my comfort zone and try new things." Ms. Stoddard says that she had voluntary for missions throughout her career. Above all, she insists on the fact of establishing relationships. This is how I have evolved in businesses. This is how I built a network.
In the meantime, some professionals in the sector warn that strategies such as this represent a threat to the jobs and sources of income of a series of workers, such as photographers, stylists, make -up artists and light assistants. On social media, the US model Morgan Riddle has for example called the H&M plan "shameful", adding that "this type of business decisions could dismantle an entire sector. We must invest in human creativity, do not eliminate it. Without soul, art, creativity and people, fashion is only fabric". In 2023, for example, a partnership between Levi Strauss and the digital fashion study Lalaland.ai for the development of models Ai sparked a wave of criticism (the company defended itself by claiming that technology would allow it to "increase diversity" in its communication strategies). At the end of last year, the Spanish clothing brand Mango created a campaign with models entirely generated on the computer for the launch of a new collection. According to the TCS Futurists digital Twindex survey, by 2035 digital twins will become a custom in companies and more generally in society. 84% of the experts interviewed require that in the next three years these tools will spread in the retail sector, to streamline operations, reduce costs and improve customer experience. At the same time, however, half of the people interpeered indicated cybersicacy and privacy as the main areas of concern. This article originally appeared on Wired En Español.
Although it is still in the preliminary phase, Inzoi is already enjoying great success thanks to its realistic graphics and the boundless potential of customization. What could become The most dangerous rival of The Sims in the life simulators sector offers many resources to give ample space to the players' imagination. Among the various options there is an editor of characters with thousands of possible combinations to be able to create any avatar. And so there are those who have indulged themselves to create truly existing celebrities of celebrities or of the world of cinema or video games, here are the best views so far. One of the first celebrities that appeared online is the singer Billie Eilish, who has been recreated with great precision, also taking care of the now characteristic hair with green tufts. X Content This Content Can Also BE Viewed on the Site It Origintes from. In this realistic avatar poker there is a mix between celebrities of the real world such as Timothée Chalamet, Ashley Graham and Anya Taylor-Juy and a character immediately recognizable as Harry Potter of the homonymous saga.
With a very recent ruling, the Californian court rejected the request for Universal Music Group and other musical publishers to issue a preliminary injunction against Anthropic Ai, a creative company of the Ai Claude. The controversy with Anthropic The controversy began in October 2023 when Universal Music Group, Concord, Abkco Music & Records and several associated had mentioned Anthropic to claiming that copyright protected texts had been used for the training of Claude in violation of their rights; With the right prompt - in fact - Claude users could obtain almost identical copies of the works of the works. The Publishers had therefore requested a preliminary injunction to ban anthropic to the use of their works for training its models, claiming that the company had violated the copyright of over 500 worldwide songs and artists of the caliber of the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift. The decision to reject the preliminary injunction is based on the failure to demonstrate by the owners of the rights, of a concrete economic or reputational damage deriving from the use of the texts by Anthropic Ai. This pronunciation opens, therefore, a reflection on the perimeter of the "fair use" discipline in the United States, suggesting that the use of copyright covered materials to train AI systems could fall into the category of lawful use, provided that the main purpose of artificial intelligence is to generate original content and not fully reproduce existing ones. In the United States, therefore, this decision could facilitate access to a wide range of copyright protected content for technological companies, accelerating innovation, but at the same time raises many concerns between the authors and publishers, since it risks weakening the protection of copyright and generating a loss of control over the spread of their content. In Italy and Europe In Italy and in the European Union, the regulatory framework is different and certainly more restrictive. The Italian bill on artificial intelligence, recently approved in the Senate, clearly establishes that the protection of copyright is also explicitly extended to the works created with the help of artificial intelligence, provided that there is a "creative, relevant and demonstrable human contribution. In addition, the text specifies that the use and extraction of content covered by copyright by artificial intelligence systems is allowed exclusively in accordance with the provisions of the law, inserting precise limitations and identification obligations for content generated or modified through AI.
Big brands are allocating small amounts of their advertising budget to Elon Musk’s X, seeking to avoid being seen as boycotting the social media platform and triggering a public fallout with its billionaire owner. Multiple marketing executives told the Financial Times that companies have felt pressure to spend a nominal sum on X following Musk’s high-profile role in US President Donald Trump’s administration. They said Musk’s pursuit of legal action against groups that have stopped advertising since his $44 billion acquisition in late 2022 had also sparked alarm. X last month added about half a dozen more companies to its case including Shell, Nestlé, Pinterest, and Lego. “It’s whatever amount is enough to stay off the naughty list,” said Lou Paskalis, chief executive of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and a former media executive at Bank of America. “It’s not because the brand safety risk has gone away. But the far greater risk is that a comment [from Musk] in the press sends your stock price tumbling, and instead of a multimillion-dollar risk you’re facing a multibillion-dollar risk.” The move comes as X was this week bought by Musk’s artificial intelligence group xAi in a deal that valued the social media platform at $45 billion, including debt. Investors have been buoyed by Musk’s proximity to the Trump administration as well as signs that his cost-cutting approach has been effective and revenues are improving. Musk and X chief executive Linda Yaccarino have set a goal that aims to boost advertising revenues back to 2022 levels, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Late last week, President Donald Trump decided to upend the automotive industry by levying a new 25 percent import tariff on all imported cars, which goes into effect on April 2. An additional 25 percent tariff on car parts is set to go into effect within the next month, which promises to make US-made cars more expensive as well, as many parts and subassemblies used in domestic manufacturing come from suppliers in Canada or Mexico. During the election campaign (and in the years preceding it), Trump repeatedly claimed that the cost of tariffs would be borne by the exporters. But tariffs don't work that way—they're paid by the importer, at the time of import. The White House does not appear to have any concerns about this, despite a report in The Wall Street Journal last week claiming that Trump had warned automakers not to pass the costs on to their customers. Relying on only anonymous sources, the WSJ quoted "people with knowledge of the call," saying that the president told them to be grateful for eliminating a so-called EV mandate—really just tougher emissions and fuel economy standards that Trump and his party oppose—and then followed that with "a lengthy pitch for how they would actually benefit from tariffs."
She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform. As TikTok’s April 5th sell-by date approaches, Americans are back to where they stood before the original January deadline: watching anxiously to see if a major social media app gets banned. April is filled with momentous turns in long-running tech policy stories — some possibly industry-changing, others at risk of fizzling out. The first two and a half months of President Donald Trump’s second term were highly consequential for the tech industry, which faces real challenges despite largely cozying up to Trump. Deadlines that Trump let slip are coming up, as are long-planned ones, such as those covering TikTok, new tariffs, and a pair of juggernaut antitrust cases involving Apple and Meta. Trump said he intentionally chose April 2nd over April Fools’ Day because he’s “a little superstitious,” but it’s still wise to expect the unexpected for taxes on imported goods. The official order he released last week clarifies a 25 percent tariff on automobile imports will take effect at 12:01AM ET on April 3rd. Trump’s tariffs have fluctuated and stalled amid blowback and discussions with foreign leaders, but the early April deadline for vehicle imports to the US has held so far. Trump has promised a permanent 25 percent tariff on cars and trucks that are imported into the country, while the reciprocal tariffs are meant to alleviate what his administration views as imbalances with trade partners. Experts anticipate the cost will ultimately raise prices for US consumers buying new cars. TikTok is still legally required to divest from its parent company ByteDance, and as with its original January deadline, it’s running out the clock before a ban kicks in. But as Senate Democrats have warned, repeated legally dodgy extensions leave TikTok’s service providers increasingly vulnerable — the statute of limitations on the law extends past Trump’s term, and they risk hundreds of billions of dollars in fines for defying the act. Apple, AWS, Google, Akamai, Fastly, and Oracle did not respond to requests for comment. “ByteDance must fully divest its control of TikTok and have no say in its operations; nor can the two share data, content, or algorithms” Multiple contenders have thrown their hat in the ring to take TikTok off ByteDance’s hands, including billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and Perplexity. Oracle is reportedly in a leading position for a partnership with TikTok to ensure that US user data can’t be accessed by the Chinese government — but the reported details sound a whole lot like Project Texas, which US officials previously dismissed as too porous to protect US national security. The FTC filed its antimonopoly suit against Meta back in late 2020, when it was still known as Facebook, and the two sides will finally meet in court on April 14th to kick off the trial. For several weeks, Judge James Boasberg will hear testimony on whether Meta illegally monopolized the personal social networking market, in part through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which the FTC alleges could have been formidable competitors. That first complaint — alongside a separate lawsuit filed by 48 state and district attorneys general — was thrown out by the judge. Now, that trial will begin with the FTC back under Republican control. Judge Amit Mehta ruled last summer that Google has illegally monopolized the online general search market, as well as the market for search text ads. At the end of the Biden administration, the DOJ said that appropriate remedies would include forcing Google to spin out its Chrome browser — a key access point for search engines — syndicate the data that makes its search results so powerful, and ban exclusionary deals like its multibillion dollar agreement with Apple. Mehta has said he aims to issue a decision by this August. Apple is not a party to the case, but it has fought to play a bigger role in the remedies phase because it fears its interests might not be sufficiently represented by Google. But an appeals court agreed with Mehta that Apple will have to settle for filing briefs to explain its point of view, rather than taking a more active role in the trial.
Crystal Dew World has released a major update to its retro Windows benchmarking tool. The updated CrystalMark Retro 2.0.0 was made available today, as freeware, and the major change here is that its scope has been extended to cover Windows 95/98/Me systems. As a bonus, the official benchmark score comparison site crystalmarkdb.com/retro is also now public and fully operational. Version 1.0.0 was released on this day in 2024, but a user comment on the release seems to have been taken as a direct challenge. A user wrote “You’ve got to be kidding, supporting XP or later, you’ve got to support Windows 98!” And since that time, the developers have been busy on a significant update. “I decided that Windows 95/NT 4.0 compatibility was necessary to call ourselves a true retro benchmark,” wrote Hiyohiyo, the President and CEO of CrystalMark Inc., in the release notes. Hurdles such as IE4 dependency elimination, i386 support, and Windows NT 3.51 support (with a separate patch) were overcome on the way. It would have been rude to report on CrystalMark Retro 2.0.0 and not give it a spin, so above you can see my result, top. My overall score looks pretty good for a laptop when compared against some of the entrants on the online comparator. More and more folks are interested in acquiring, building or maintaining retro PCs, if my YouTube video stream is a measure of popularity.
The Gigabyte GS27QXA is a classic example of a gaming monitor that has everything you need and nothing you don’t. With premium video processing, it’s perfect for competition players on a budget. I have often discussed what qualities to look for in a gaming monitor. Technologies like Adaptive-Sync, backlight strobing and overdrive are essential, but above them is refresh rate. The 60 Hz offered by enterprise screens won’t cut it today, not even close. When Asus introduced its VG248QE, it raised the bar with a 144 Hz refresh rate. Now, that’s a starting point at best. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that you should consider 240 Hz a minimum speed. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good gaming monitors that deliver a good gaming experience with 165 or 180 Hz. But at 240, you can expect almost complete elimination of motion blur from LCD monitors and zero blur with OLED panels. OLED remains my favorite tech for gaming, but it comes with a price premium. A 240 Hz LCD like Gigabyte’s GS27QXA is much easier on the wallet. Swipe to scroll horizontally Panel Type / Backlight IPS / W-LED, edge array Screen Size / Aspect Ratio 27 inches / 16:9 Max Resolution and Refresh Rate 2560x1440 @ 240 Hz Row 3 - Cell 0 260 Hz w/overclock Row 4 - Cell 0 FreeSync and G-Sync Compatible Native Color Depth and Gamut 10-bit / DCI-P3 Row 6 - Cell 0 HDR10, DisplayHDR 400 Response Time (GTG) 1ms Brightness (mfr) 350 nits Contrast (mfr) 1,000:1 Speakers None Video Inputs 1x DisplayPort 1.4 Row 12 - Cell 0 2x HDMI 2.0 Audio 3.5mm headphone output USB None Power Consumption 16w, brightness @ 200 nits Panel Dimensions WxHxD w/base 24.2 x 17.6 x 6.8 inches (614 x 447 x 172mm) Panel Thickness 2.2 inches (56mm) Bezel Width Top/sides: 0.28 inch (7mm) Row 19 - Cell 0 Bottom: 0.94 inch (24mm) Weight 16.35 pounds (7.43kg) Warranty 3 years The GS27QXA’s IPS panel is a latest generation part with very quick response specified at one millisecond. My real-world tests show it to be a fast panel with almost no blur observed and low input lag. You might see the occasional frame tea, but when paired with a speedy video card. Frame rates can stay locked at 240-260fps without difficulty. If you opt for AS, it works with Nvidia and AMD PCs and enables a smart overdrive that compensates for changes in refresh rate. Image quality is also solid with more than 1,300:1 measured contrast thanks to low black levels and a very bright backlight which delivered over 500 nits for HDR10 content in testing. Accuracy is reasonable but calibration makes a significant improvement that’s worth the effort. There are no internal speakers or USB ports. The HDMI inputs are version 2.0 and DisplayPort is 1.4, providing sufficient bandwidth for QHD signals up to 260 Hz with Adaptive-Sync and HDR. However, the brightness level goes up noticeably, which makes a visible improvement. Gaming aids include a selection of crosshairs along with Gigabyte’s GameAssist that displays frame rates in real time and a set of timers. The OSD also provides PIP and PBP functions and you can program the control joystick for quick access to commonly used functions. Not too much has been sacrificed on the altar of value here. And it’s half the price of a similarly equipped OLED which is a great reason to keep reading. Crumbly foam disgorges the contents, which are the panel, and a simple two-piece stand with a small but solid base. Starting up front, the GS27QXA is all business with a super slim flush bezel that’s barely noticeable when the power’s on. Should you opt for an aftermarket arm, there are threaded holes in a 100mm VESA pattern. You’ll need to source your own fasteners though. The input pack is basic with two HDMI 2.0 and a single DisplayPort 1.4. There are no internal speakers, but you can hear audio through the 3.5mm headphone jack. Pressing the GS27QXA’s joystick summons a quick menu which can take you to picture modes, aiming points, input selection or power off. Gaming is up first with all the GS27QXA’s video processing options. Aim Stabilizer is the backlight strobe and can be used instead of Adaptive-Sync. It’s one of the best implementations I’ve seen with no phasing artifacts and only a 10% brightness reduction. At 240 Hz though, you won’t really need it because the smart overdrive is so good. Gigabyte has really done a good job with the GS27QXA’s video processing. We’ll get to that in a moment. There are seven picture modes, with Standard being the default and best choice. It includes five gamma presets, four fixed color temps, and a user mode with RGB controls. With a few tweaks, greater precision can be achieved, and the difference is visible. The caveat is that you no longer have access to Adaptive-Sync. This isn’t necessarily a problem because at that speed, if you can maintain 260fps, frame tears aren’t a factor. If you have enough video processing power, that’s easily accomplished. To view two video signals at once, the GS27QXA includes picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture options. Quick Switch refers to the OSD joystick and its four directions are programmable. I found the defaults of picture modes, inputs and aiming points to be fine for my purposes. The GS27QXA includes a pared down version of Gigabyte’s GameAssist. Here, it includes four crosshairs, timers, alignment marks and a refresh rate indicator. The GS27QXA’s default Standard picture mode looked a tad warm to me when I set up the monitor, so I went for the user color temp and its single point grayscale controls. A few clicks later, I had the white point exactly at 6500K for the entire brightness range with no visible errors. The color gamut covers just over 92% of DCI-P3, which is fine for SDR and HDR content. An sRGB mode is available if you want to color grade, but it has some blue oversaturation which might be an issue for some users. All picture options are grayed out but you get a nice bump in peak brightness to well over 500 nits. There’s no dynamic contrast though so you won’t see a huge difference in picture quality other than the brighter highlight zones. 63) Contrast 50 Gamma 3 Color Temp User Red 95, Green 100, Blue 92 It delivers super smooth motion and no perceptible input lag. QHD resolution means the GS27QXA is fairly easy to drive with a wide variety of video cards. Though I measured 1ms less input lag in tests, this made no change to gaming feel. Losing Adaptive-Sync also had no impact since I could keep the frame rate at 260 easily. I also found no need for Aim Stabilizer. It lowers brightness by 10% and barely changes the level of motion blur which is essentially nonexistent. Control response was perceptually instant in circle strafe, 180-degree turns and run-and-gun maneuvers. The image looked fantastic with rich color and very good contrast. Playing games before and after calibration showed that a few adjustments are worth making. Try out my values above if you don’t have a meter available. With 109ppi pixel density, there’s no perception of the dot structure at close viewing distances of two to three feet. High brightness means you can see a clear picture in the sunniest room or even in an outdoor tent like you’d use for location video production. It is not unusual for budget displays to come with a simple stand. The GS27QXA offers only tilt with a low fulcrum so the panel’s top edge moves away from you when adjusting. I noted the lack of USB ports, speakers and LED lighting but these did not impact my enjoyment. Its video processing delivers smooth motion and instant response to control inputs. Play feel is on par with the very best. At $269, it will be hard to beat when gaming is the primary consideration.
If you have not fallen prey to an Alexa-fitted speaker yet, even though hundreds of millions of people worldwide have done so, then think about the Amazon Echo Show 5. Now available for $69 down from $89 during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, this is a must-have opportunity to experience why so many love incorporating Alexa into their daily lives. The touchscreen also allows you to control smart home appliances or watch movies. This latest iteration of the Echo Show 5 (remember, there’s also a most premium Echo Show 8 which is almost double the price) features several improvements over its predecessors. It is preloaded with a new AZ2 Neural Edge processor that enhances voice recognition and machine learning which makes Alexa even more responsive and intuitive. It also provides better audio quality through a larger 1.75-inch driver that delivers more sound clarity and twice the amount of bass. The Echo Show seamlessly integrates into any household setting: Its slender dimensions and round body are perfectly suited to residing on bedside tables, kitchen counters, or office desks. The flush-front screen adds a touch of modernity without compromising on actual functionality. The users can utilize the touchscreen to view recipes, control smart home devices, view security cameras, stream entertainment apps like Prime Video and Hulu, or video call. The built-in 2MP camera, however, is not unique compared to previous models and may be disappointing for those seeking high-quality video calling experiences. The sale time is particularly suited for those who wish to redecorate their homes for spring or acquire new technology gadgets without needing to wait months for the next big discount window (Prime Day in July, Black Friday in November).
You are known to have reported malicious websites that are misused for phishing attacks and to ignore and ignore abuse reports. Links and QR codes are sent by email to lure victims to a fake-microsoft landing page, on which they should then enter their registration data. Deriance links, often embedded in multi-layered HTML attachments, as well as polymorphic and dynamically generated URLs, an early detection also difficult. But even if it succeeds in recognizing an attack, a rapid takedown is largely excluded, since the fake websites and emails are operated via 'Bullet Proof' domains. Abuse reports are often deliberately ignored here by the providers. As a rule, they have their homeland in states in which the laws on cyber crime are only weakly developed or simply not enforced. The result: attackers can initiate large -scale attack campaigns from here and bring minimal disorders to a successful conclusion. 377 of these domains were registered with the 'Bullet Proof' registration office R01-RU alone. The examination of the knowbe4 Threat Labs shows that simple anti-phishing tools and training courses are no longer sufficient to recognize attacks that target people as a risk factor in good time and ward off successfully. Companies must take a comprehensive view of the risks to which corporate IT is exposed to by their own employees. Phishing training, training and tests with AI have long been personalized, tailored to the individual weaknesses of each individual employee, and automatically used.
How do I get iOS 18.4 on my phone? Well there are a whole host of new additions, but, surely eight brand new emoji are enough of a draw on their own. Aisde from the eight fresh emoji, Apple has also added Sketch Style in Image Playground, better image organization in Photos, recipes in News+ and of course the usual bug fixes and security updates. So let’s break down what’s new in iOS 18.4 as well as if and how you can get it on your iPhone. The big headline here is those new emoji. While that last one is pretty case specific, the rest certainly help expand the emoji vocabulary in useful ways. Also new is Sketch Style in Image Playground which, as you’d expect, allows you to generate images using Apple Intelligence to get a more artistic drawn finish to the image. Another Intelligence based feature is Priority Notifications, which sorts your messages and other notifications to bring the important, timely ones, to your attention. There are also some new Intelligence languages including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Plus, English for speakers in India and Singapore. Photos has been adjusted with new filters and order options. There’s an option to disable recently viewed or shared items as well as to reorder in diffrerent collections. The News+ addition of recipes means cooking guidance pulled in from various publishers. There are also stories about restaurants as well as tips for the kitchen and a searchable Recipe Catalog. While the update is rolling out to many iPhones, it’s worth nothing that the Apple Intelligence features only work on newer phones that are powerful enough to support this. For all other features iOS 18.4 is now available for all iPhones that follow the 2018 iPhone Xs and newer. How do I get iOS 18.4 on my phone?
Nvidia RTX 40-series GPU owners continue to face system stability issues, with reports of blue screen crashes (BSODs), system instability, and game-breaking bugs. While many users have been frustrated by these problems, Nvidia’s apparent primary focus on its new RTX 50-series cards has only added to their concerns. Now, a new issue has surfaced (via Overclock3D) that may be directly linked, where PC game developers are actively warning users against installing the latest 572.xx GeForce drivers, due to performance and stability issues. Newly released games, including inZOI and The First Berserker: Khazan, have been particularly affected, with players experiencing stuttering or frame drops. Developers of these games have gone as far as recommending users roll back to the older 566.36 driver, released in December 2024, to restore stability. Reports of random system crashes, unexpected BSODs, and freezing have been piling up in recent months, leaving many to wonder if Nvidia’s focus on optimizing for upcoming hardware is causing unexpected regressions in stability for its previous-gen GPUs. Despite mounting complaints, Nvidia has yet to formally acknowledge any major issues with the 572.xx driver when it comes to older GPUs. While some users have attempted troubleshooting steps such as clean driver installations and adjusting in-game settings, the most effective solution appears to be rolling back to an earlier, more stable supported driver version. Until Nvidia issues a fix, affected users are advised by multiple devs to revert to the 566.36 driver via Nvidia’s official website. With an increasing number of users and developers highlighting these problems, it remains to be seen whether Nvidia will prioritize a swift resolution or continue focusing on ironing out wrinkles with its new RTX 50 lineup.
Infoblox has exposed a phishing-as-a-service platform that uses DNS-Mail Exchange Records to imitate login pages of more than 100 brands. On this basis, a fake login page is generated in real time, which is deceptively based on the actual registration portal of the respective provider. The special feature: Morphing Meerkat uses configurations that are actually intended for other, legitimate purposes as the basis for personalized phishing attacks. It is a kind of "living-off-the-country" technique in the DNS version, in which attackers cleverly lean on existing IT infrastructures to stay under the radar. Once a victim has entered his login data on the fake page, Morphing Meerkat steals this data and sends it to the cybercriminals. The platform uses various techniques to avoid traditional security systems and not be recognized. As a Phaas platform, morphing meave also enables technically less experienced attackers to start large-scale phishing campaigns and thus present a massive threat. If cybercriminals through a phishing scam such as Morphing Meerkat get into the possession of login data, this can have dramatic consequences, especially for companies. This can lead to enormous financial damage, loss of reputation and legal consequences for companies. In addition, attackers can specifically send phishing emails to employees or customers via compromised accounts-and thus continue their attacks even more efficiently and cause far-reaching damage. This includes a stricter DNS check so that users cannot communicate with DOH servers. Blocking access to Adtech and File Haring infrastructure that is not required for business can also be a sensible approach.
Amazon’s Big Spring Sale has been introducing some of the year’s top deals along with it including savings that even surpass Black Friday deals. Among those standout deals is a portable charger from Anker, a 10,000mAh 30W portable power bank, which now sells for just $12—a 50% discount from its normal price of $25. Most noticeably, the same power bank retailed at $16 during last year’s Black Friday sale which makes this offer even more attractive. This 10,000mAh portable charger is a little powerhouse that will keep your devices powered wherever you go. With a capacity of 10,000mAh, it can charge most smartphones two times completely and even provide emergency power to tablets or mini laptops. Its 30W fast charging ensures that your devices will be charged in no time and efficiently. The PowerIQ technology that comes with it ensures charging speeds are maximized for each device that is plugged in, preventing overheating or overcharging and keeping them at their best performance. The design of this Anker charger is another plus point: Weighing just 215 grams and measuring only a few centimeters in thickness, it’s incredibly portable—small enough to fit in your pocket or bag without adding bulk. What sets this power bank apart from others in its category is how efficient and reliable it is: The USB-C port allows you to charge multiple devices simultaneously when used with its USB-A port or another cable. This allows you to charge your phone and another device—like wireless earbuds or a smartwatch—at the same time without losing speed. At just $12 down from $25 during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, this deal on the Anker charger is truly unmatched. It offer exceptional value for money with its high-capacity battery and fast-charging capabilities and it comes from one of the most trusted names in portable charging solutions.
When Nintendo released a preview for Nintendo Switch 2 in January, gamers noticed an unlabeled button was added to the "Joy-Con" on the right. Unlike the existing Capture and Home buttons, this third button had no markings. However, things changed when Nintendo announced its own news app on March 27th, with the explanatory images containing previously unreleased Switch 2 images. The most likely theory is that "C" means "Capture" and is a button that allows you to take screenshots of gameplay quickly. Perhaps the C button is for screenshots only, while the traditional capture button is used for live streaming. Enter and set up your Twitch or YouTube information, and you can start streaming with just a few buttons. On the other hand, since the Switch does not have any such features, if you want to stream live, you will need to use a capture device and a PC. If they were able to start streaming with just one button, it would save a lot of time for streamers. This button may play a role in switching Joy-Con from the controller to mouse mode. Another theory is that the C button means "Community." This is a game that uses the avatar called "Mii." Until then, there will be many questions about release dates, prices, and launch titles. These will be revealed on the 2nd Nintendo Direct.
He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. One of Sony’s best-ever PlayStation ads is a 21-second video titled, “Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video.” It’s a “step-by-step” guide about how to lend your PS4 games to your friends. The ad succinctly clowns on Microsoft’s original and convoluted game sharing policy for the Xbox One, which let users ditch discs in exchange for daily DRM checks. The lesson was simple — don’t mess with people’s discs. Physical game sales in 2024 were less than half what they were as recently as 2021, and the market has been in decline since 2008, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella tells The Verge. “There has been a long trend of declining sales in physical games,” Piscatella says. Ultimately, they were responding to the emerging trend of people buying fewer physical games for consoles. Just look at this graph from Piscatella showing plummeting physical sales. Microsoft hasn’t been particularly secretive about its interest in a heavily digital future. The company’s Xbox Game Pass subscription is essentially a rental service for digital titles. Of course, Microsoft is best known as a software company, so perhaps it’s not too surprising that it might want to bank its video game future entirely on digital games. And while I still think it will be a shame if the next Halo isn’t available on a disc, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect that Xbox could drop discs entirely by the end of the decade. Related The next Xbox is going to be very different Sony will probably take a little bit longer to make the all-digital jump. The company is certainly signaling it wants to move in that direction, perhaps most strongly by shipping the premium $699 PS5 Pro without a disc drive. And the company would simply face pushback on a different scale than Microsoft: there are far more PS4s and PS5s out there than Xboxes, and that means a lot more people who have bought a lot more physical games who may want ways to play them for the foreseeable future. Piscatella also points out that some major mass-market games like EA Sports College Football and Call of Duty have a “pretty big physical presence” that console makers may not want to jeopardize. Nintendo is where we see the argument for physical games — though maybe not discs — sticking around. The company may have reason to stick with cartridges for even longer. Piscatella says that Nintendo platforms are still “heavier physical” than other platforms because its audience, especially families, expects the format; it’s a lot easier for kids in a family to share a game when they can just pass the cart to each other, as Sony adeptly showed in its ad. Just last week, Nintendo announced a “virtual game card” lending system that lets family members share digital games. “Consumers on PlayStation and Xbox are speaking with their dollars” It’s yet another sign that physical media is waning, even in its strongholds. “At this point, the consumers on PlayStation and Xbox are speaking with their dollars that digital-first is a fine way to go,” Piscatella says. While physical media sales are on the decline, New York University games professor Joost van Dreunen points out that the sales of physical video game accessories have been “skyrocketing.” The PC games market may be mostly digital on Steam, but sales of things like custom controllers, screens, chairs, and headphones are a “huge category,” he says. Both van Dreunen and Piscatella ultimately made the comparison of video games to vinyl records, which is “kind of like on the extreme niche, but doing ok,” Piscatella says. It’s more about the enthusiast crowd focusing on physical media. Maybe that will be enough to keep physical formats around into the future.
After years of companies promising that their quantum dot light-emitting diode TVs use quantum dots (QDs) to boost color, some industry watchers and consumers have recently started questioning whether QLED TVs use QDs at all. Lawsuits have been filed, accusing companies like TCL of using misleading language about whether their QLED TVs actually use QDs. In this article, we'll break down why new conspiracy theories about QLED TVs are probably overblown. We'll also explore why misleading marketing from TV brands is responsible for customer doubt and how it all sets a bad precedent for the future of high-end displays, including OLED TVs and monitors. TVs that use QDs are supposed to offer wider color gamuts and improved brightness over their QD-less LCD-LED counterparts. Just ask Samsung, which says that QLED displays deliver “a wider range of colors,” “better color coverage,” and “a brighter picture.” TCL will tell you that its QLED TVs use “billions of Quantum Dot nanocrystals” and deliver “industry-leading color palette and brightness.” To be clear, properly manufactured QD TVs that use a sufficient quantity of QDs are legit. Excellent examples, which command higher prices than QD-free rivals, successfully deliver bright pictures with wide color gamuts and impressive color volume (the number of colors a TV displays at various levels of brightness). A TV with strong color volume can depict many light and dark shades of green, for example. Technology reviews site RTINGS, which is known for its in-depth display testing, explains that a TV with good color volume makes "content look more realistic," while "TVs with poor color volume don't show as many details."
It was brief and lacking almost entirely in details. Nintendo had experienced a steady decline in console sales over subsequent generations; while the NES and Famicom sold more than 60 million units, that was down to just over 20 million for the GameCube. At the same time, Nintendo’s direct competition had changed significantly. After getting a taste of going up against Sony during the N64 era, Nintendo was now up against a second tech behemoth in Microsoft. Photo by Britta Pedersen / picture alliance via Getty Images Once infamously described as “two GameCubes and some duct tape,” the Wii wasn’t a major advancement over its predecessor in terms of how games looked or ran. While the Xbox 360 touted blockbusters like Halo 3, and the PS3 was showing off next-gen visuals through Resistance and MotorStorm, the Wii was defined by Wii Sports, in which characters looked like eggs and didn’t even have arms. And yet, the game, which was bundled with the console everywhere but Japan, went on to become one of the best-selling games of all time because of how it played, rather than how it looked. This shift came because of what Nintendo called its “blue ocean” strategy. We’d come a long way from the simplicity of making Mario run and jump in the original Super Mario Bros. Just looking at a GameCube controller could be overwhelming for many. As former Nintendo of America president Reggile Fils-Aime wrote in 2007, “While ardent players reliably responded to ever-advancing technology and complexity, those same attributes consistently chipped off potential new players from the total market, narrowing the consumers into a smaller niche.” For the Wii, that was a console with specs that were mostly good enough to run modern 3D games, but where the focus was on its motion-sensitive controller that made games more intuitive to play, like with Wii Sports. This was followed by the Nintendo DS, a handheld that introduced touchscreen controls before smartphones were ubiquitous. And both proved that specs are a minor concern — if they’re a concern at all — to most consumers, as they surpassed more powerful competitors in terms of sales. But by shifting away from specs and graphics to focus on player experience, Nintendo has not only carved out a space for itself, but it is arguably as successful as it has ever been at a time when the video game industry is struggling on many fronts. The Switch is a pure expression of this philosophy. It’s an underpowered tablet that doubles as a home console, and despite going up against beefy PlayStations, Xboxes, and a burgeoning field of portable PCs, it’s on track to become Nintendo’s best-selling piece of hardware ever (and it might even surpass the record set by the PS2). Its modest technical chops are overshadowed by a straightforward premise — you can take games with you anywhere — while also allowing Nintendo to develop lots of games in a more sustainable way than its competitors, who are struggling with the massive increasing costs of live service and blockbuster games. Whatever powers the company’s next device has will be mostly good enough for the next open-world Zelda, but the specs don’t need to be detailed in a lengthy video that uses words like upscaling and teraflops. Those details are coming, of course, but they’re secondary to the core idea: this will be just like your old Switch, only better. You don’t need specs to get that across.
In 2021 the Romanian house presented the concept car of Dacia Bigster, one of those prototypes that often remain confined in the territory of who knows if ... And it is no small thing in an era when concept cars seem more biennial installations than real production preambles. Bigster breaks this scheme and does so with a clear choice: pragmatic design, with clear geometries, smooth surfaces and proportions of silent hard. Video New Dacia Bigster - Music by Sergii Pavkin From Pixabay. The details also speak the Dacia language: a mix between roughness and post-gram style, between functional robustness and a denim jacket elegance and well-polished shoes. The choice to avoid shiny black, so abused in the contemporary automotive, for a more resistant opaque/lucid mix, is a declaration of independence with ephemeral fashion. There are no pindaric flights, but rational choices that focus the habitability, visibility, functionality. Three different textures for plastics, resistant fabrics, refrigerated rooms, wireless recharges: everything is back. The real revolution today passes through intelligent simplification. And Dacia understood this before the others. Bigster with its 4 meters and 57 centimeters arrives in a crowded segment, that of the C-SUVs, with a proposal that is not measured only in euros but in perceived, concrete, measurable value. The older sister of Dacia Duster offers everything that matters: habitability at the top of the category, a trunk that can reach 702 liters (depending on the motorization) with intelligent access, pushed modularity, bi-zone air conditioning, connected multimedia systems, complete Adas technology. Long family trips - or the weekends from urban nomad - return to being a functional and relaxed experience, even for more modest budgets.
Last week EPRICE, one of the best known Italian ecommerce portals in the consumer electronics sector, was violated by a group of cybercriminal, who managed to get their hands on 6.8 million data from the users of the platform. Among the data subtracted from the systems of the e-commerce platform, in fact, there is information of all kinds: names, surnames, email addresses, telephone numbers, delivery addresses, orders details and even articles left in the cart without being purchased. Fortunately, however, in the data set it seems that financial information or credit cards data does not appear, which somehow reassures security experts. Despite this, to date the data are still on sale on BreachForum, a criminal forum of the Dark Web, where they are published by a user known as Alcxtraze, which would seem to be a rather esteemed cybercriminal on the international scene. A detail that would seem to confirm the violation of ePrice. To answer this question is the same company, which in a communication sent to its customers makes it known that he immediately activated a team of security experts aimed at resolving the situation, trying to contain the damage. We are working to contain the situation and prevent further damage. We are collaborating strictly with the competent authorities and following all the necessary legal procedures. We have implemented additional security measures to strengthen our defenses and protect the data of our customers". For the rest, there is nothing more to do but wait.
Tiktok opens an online store on the French version of its platform mentions Les Echos. And this where Instagram for example uses outgoing links. Reducing this friction should allow Tiktok to increase the social trade conversion rate. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data Tiktok also promises advertisers to precisely measure the number of clicks and sales generated by their advertising investments. According to a study, 62 % of Millennials are more likely to become loyal customers of brands who interact with them on social networks. E-merchants must now prepare for a new dynamic in terms of advertising and marketing. The fact remains that shopping is one more lever in the world of social networks, whose queen metric is time of attention. Meta and Tiktok's strategies in terms of e-commerce also aim to compete with Amazon, which has become a major player in retail media and online advertising. Amazon is now the third largest world actor in digital advertising, behind Google and Meta.
It has an ancient evolutionary history, much more than what has been thought so far. This was demonstrated by the biologists of Queen Mary University in London who discovered how its history has not started with human beings or mammals, but over 500 million years ago and, therefore, long before the vertebrates evolved on earth. Their study, recently published in the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences magazine, suggests that it would even go back to the antense that we have in common with starfish. Isolated for the first time by the Italian pharmacologist Vittorio Erspamer in 1971 by the skin of the Anuri Bombina Bombina, from which it takes its name, the Bomber is a neurormone that plays a key role in the regulation of hunger, reporting when we ate enough. To date, together with drugs that induce weight loss such as the Ozempic, potential molecules are under development that imitate the action of the bomber for the treatment of obesity. By focusing on the neurmone of the starfish, called Arbn, the researchers studied its molecular structure, functioning and in what way it influenced the food behavior of these animals. In fact, starfish have a unique way of eating: they overturn the stomach out of the mouth to digest their prey. "We can deduce that this function dates back to half a billion years ago, to the antense common of starfish, human beings and other vertebrates," commented Maurice Elphick, who led the study. In addition to the development of new weight loss drugs, the results of this study could also have other practical applications. "One of the consequences of climate change is that some species of starfish are invading the colder waters where molluscs are grown for human consumption," concluded the expert. "Discovering molecules that inhibit nutrition in starfish could be useful to manage these invasions".
There was a time when I felt that it was my divine right to access all the computers I wanted, to break all DRMs, and to unravel all the figures. Receive a selection of strategic advice and concrete tips every week in your mailbox with our newsletter practical guides. Learn more about the use of personal data When my wife's Kindle DX found himself blocked by planned obsolescence, I therefore felt a little shiver of excitement at the idea of facing Dark Bezos. The idea was of Jailbreaker the Kindle so that she could again read her favorite books on this very comfortable large format reader. Be careful, it's a very bad idea, for example, to jailbreaker your phone. According to a study published this month, rooted Android devices (jailbreake) are the subject of 3.5 times more malicious software attacks. System compromises caused by rooted devices that pass the firewall of a company are much worse. These attacks are 250 times more numerous than for non -rooted devices. Ancient Kindles, like the DX, are obsolete precisely because they cannot maintain a network connection. The DX connected to Amazon via 3G networks, most of which were dismantled. Last year, my wife wanted to do a spring cleaning on her DX. Therefore, she was unable to charge any book on the device. Rather than throwing the device, know that it is possible to "jailbreaker" and add an open source electronic book reading software. This can give him additional years of life. In this article, I will explain to you how the Kindle Dx jailbrox. So use this article as a guide for the general approach. Unless you also have a DX, you will need to carry out your own research and readings for other readers. You can find both in the Settings menu of your Kindle. My serial number begins with B009 and I use the firmware 2.5.8. With this information, you can go to the Wiki page of Kindle standard numbers, find the prefix of your serial number, then the code of your pseudo Kindle. In my case, B009 indicates that I use a graphite Kindle DX, known as DXG. This will help you determine where to start your jailbreak process. As I work with a much older Kindle DX, I start with a specific discussion thread on the DX jailbreak. You start with an index and follow it for a while, then you branch off by following another clue. In our case, clues are messages posted on discussion forums. Treasure pieces are the files related to these forums. And, yes, this is a somewhat risky process. You will download unbenaged files from random forums on the Internet. The only positive point is that these forums are very populated and that the messages pinned are regularly updated, which makes it possible to hope that the Jailbreak community will find and expose any unavailable payload. I downloaded the Kindle-Jailbreak-0.13.n.zip file on my PC. I then decompressed this zip file from Jailbreak and found a different jailbreak files, each being intended for a specific configuration. Then, I connected a micro USB cable to my Kindle DX and I connected it to my PC. My Kindle then got into USB key mode. Note that I specifically chose the version with "DXG". It was DXG, so I installed the dxg_install_bin file. This is where things become a little bizarre. Okay, it was already weird from the start, but this time, it was a little more worrying. Fortunately, the instructions of Jailbreak specify that "it is completely normal, wanted and harmless". Then I had to install an MKK file (Mobileread Kindlet Kit), which seems to install a sort of developer certificate. This is documented on this page, and will redirect you to another page to find the file and download it. I downloaded the MKK zip file and extract its content. Once again, the repertoire contained a binary -dxg-, which I therefore downloaded on my Kindle DX. It took a few minutes and a few manipulations for the Update Your Kindle option to appear. The update option has then displayed and I chose it. There are two launchers available for jailbreake Kindles. One is Launchpad, which works on the old Kindles. The other is called KUAL (Kindle Unified Application Launcher). KUAL uses a graphical interface to launch applications. Kual works on the DX, but it is a little difficult to install, especially in this stage, I had not yet confirmed that the jailbreak really worked. Launchpad settles down quite easily, and I only used it as a quick way to confirm that I could add applications to the Kindle and execute them. Then I found the bin file appropriate and I downloaded it in the root directory of my Kindle. Launchpad contains a large number of predefined keys sequences. One of these commands is Shift S, which puts your Kindle in screen saving mode. A small "success" message should be displayed in the lower left corner of the screen and the Kindle should go into standby mode (by displaying one of its famous graphics). This meant that the main jailbreak had succeeded because I was able to execute an additional application which was not that of Amazon. Where this tool is quite powerful is that it allows you to define shortcut keys that run scripts on your Kindle. It is now time to install KUAL (Kindle Unified Application Launcher). It is available on the Mobileread Snapshots page. Kual thus appears as a book on the home page. Unfortunately, I encountered a problem, as shown in the screenshot below. This is an update file, so decompress it, slide the bin file corresponding to your device in the root folder of the mounting Kindle, eject the Kindle and run Update Your Kindle (update of your Kindle). The file whose link is above only concerns Kindle DX models. Once the update process has been completed, a click on Kual made it possible to display a screen containing only KUAL. Here's what it looks like after installing the Koreader electronic book reader. Koreader is a very customizable electronic book reader that supports EPUB, PDF, DJVU, XPS, CBT, CBZ, FB2, PDB, TXT, HTML, RTF, DOC, Mobi and Zip. There are four different versions of Koreader for the Kindle. Once it is done, just throw Kual, wait a while, then click on Koreader. It takes a few minutes to get used to the interface, and navigation is slow enough on the Kindle DX. I spent a few hours to urge insults during this operation. But now I have a device that works again.
Large maneuvers are not completed in the Société Générale group two years after the arrival of Slawomir Krupa as managing director. The boss notably cut drastically in expenses, including IT. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data Slawomir Krupa intends to transform the bank. And to continue his strategy, he will be assisted by two new executives in a few months. Société Générale has formalized the appointment of Lubomira Rochet and Alexis Kohler. For the past three years a partner of an investment company in London, Lubomira Rochet has been the Chief Digital Officer of the World Cosmetics Giant for more than seven years: L’Oréal. Its portfolio is wide since it includes retail banking activities in France, private banking and insurance and operations (technology, purchasing, real estate). In its press release, Société Générale insists in particular on its experience of transformation, digital and customer relations. "His skills in technology, his in -depth experience, his strategic vision and his leadership will be key assets in the continuation of the development and transformation of the group and our retail activities in France", underlines the bank. His new career will start in June 2025 as a member of the Executive Committee and Deputy Managing Director of the group. Fusing activities & acquisitions, equity capital market and acquisition funding are its responsibility. It is for past and family ties to the MSC shipowner that Alexis Kohler was indicted by the justice for illegal interest. Its name is also quoted in the scandal of bottled water from Nestlé and for the slippage of public accounts. / More purchasing purchasing guides Guide to cryptocurrencies exchange scholarships that you need to know we cannot recommend the most effective or safest exchange scholarships (our lawyers do not allow us), but we have listed some of the best known players to help you know the advantages and disadvantages of each. Here are 5 platforms more particularly dedicated to small businesses.
It will be released in some European countries on the 14th, and in Australia and other countries on the 16th. The company announced the Pixel 9a on March 20th, with the release date set to "April" (it is "scheduled to be released" on its website for Japan, and there is no mention of the timing). The Pixel 9a is equipped with a "Tensor G4" processor, and also utilizes many of the software features found in the Pixel 9, which costs $799 (128,900 yen in Japan). It also features a 5100mAh battery, which is larger than the more expensive Pixel 9 series. Like the previous Pixel A series, the Pixel 9a is likely to be a cost-effective option, with plenty of necessary and sufficient features. This includes a seven-year guaranteed OS and security updates and access to various AI features from Gemini. Gemini will eventually completely replace the "Google Assistant" on Android smartphones. This time, Google has set its release date in Japan "coming soon," which is noteworthy given the Pixel series has been selling very well in the country so far. By delaying the release, it may be that they are preparing for its release in Japan. The Pixel 9a will be released just over a month after Apple released the iPhone 16e, which costs $599 (99,800 yen in Japan).
ChatGPT Team users who want to use ChatGPT using internal data will be able to do so with the new beta program that begins this time. OpenAI product leader Nate Gonzalez announced in a post on LinkedIn on March 27th, US time that he will release the new feature, which was most requested by business users of ChatGPT. This means that employees can ask ChatGPT to answer questions, provide summary, and generate content for files stored by companies within the company. Once it becomes available, you will receive a notification to your internal ChatGPT operation administrator that it can now be set up. Google Drive is just the first source of information available. Gonzalez said OpenAI plans to introduce more connectivity capabilities. This feature will also be available to ChatGPT Enterprise users soon. The team is already working on a second installment of connectivity features, aiming to accommodate all of the key internal knowledge sources that users currently use, including collaboration tools, project management tools, data analytics platforms, and customer relationship management (CRM). At $25 per user per month, ChatGPT Team is aimed at any group that wants to share ChatGPT, which can be entirely or within the company. In contrast, ChatGPT Enterprise is for large businesses with over 150 employees, and fees are determined by the requirements of each company. Privacy and security are always a concern when you have your company's sensitive data used by AI.
42 % of French people thus live with a dysfunctional smartphone, according to a study by Télécom Paris, digital limits, the University of Toulouse and Vinci Research Center. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data Update problems then come to 12 % of people surveyed If the three -year -old milestone is often quoted as a diffile passage, problems sometimes appear earlier. Dysfunctions that last for months or even years Without being able to ensure the financial cost of a repair or replacement of such an expensive device - high -end models exceed the thousand euros mark -, the French must deal with dysfunctions that harm their user experience. According to the study, problems often last more than 6 months (68 %), or even more than 2 years (36 %), even if they are considered rather annoying (47 %) or very annoying (35 %). Powerless, only 43 % tried to resolve them for themselves and more than half (58 %) of attempted resolution failed. These can be features that no longer work, applications that bug or do not open, updates to the operating system that has become impossible. These software dysfunctions can affect WiFi, GPS, camera or even telephone calls and sending SMS. Smartphones brands can organize the accelerated renewal of their models. A few years ago, Apple was attacked for planned obsolescence. The apple firm was accused of knowingly slowing down old iPhones during iOS updates or complicating the repair or replacement of components. They recommend that smartphones manufacturers provide a software guarantee "and this, over several years. The study also offers "adding parameters that make it possible to bypass dysfunctions and preserve the battery. Credit: Visual generated by AI, Microsoft Bing
NTT East and NTT West will end their provision of the weather forecast dial "177" today (March 31, 2025). 177 is a service that lets you hear the weather information of the area you send by dialing "177" on a landline phone. It was first released in 1955, but with the spread of television and the Internet, the means of checking weather information has become more diverse. Furthermore, landline telephone usage has also decreased, and the number of users has decreased significantly. NTT East and West will also end its offering "Paper Town Pages" and number information service "104" as of today. However, with the spread of the Internet, phone number searches using computers and smartphones have become more common. According to the official, the number of advertisements on paper townpages fell by about 94% in 2023 compared to its peak in 2000. On the other hand, as of 2023, it accounted for about 77% of NTT East and West's paper usage, and the abolition will reduce the environmental impact. Also, from April 1st, you can search for phone numbers on the "i-Town Page" online. iTownpage was renewed in the fall of 2024 and has been reborn as a more convenient service. In addition, we will continue to provide the "Braille Phonebook" and "Enlightenment Guide", which provides voice-information with telephone numbers for people with disabilities. Anker's mobile battery that can be plugged into an outlet and also used as a charger (check the price on Amazon)
In an era in which social media dictate trends and influence the global pop culture, the 2024-2025 edition of Big Brother A Traction Signorini - which for years now arranges between controversy, general disinterest, codacons complaints and listening to reduced to the light - has once again shown to survive as a stubborn prehistoric organism fossilized in the ambient and in the complacency of the "generalist public" (a phantom organism also prehistoric, senescent as much as the Italian society and stubbornly refractory to extinction) and not to know, (or want) to grasp the change even when it serves it on a silver plate. While the world outside the most spied house in Italy evolves rapidly, inside its walls we continue to tell the same story and to perpetuate a representation of the Italian society that seems stopped in the 90s. This year, however, something extraordinary happened, and two gold opportunities were wasted with a better cause of the best cause: the innovative potential of Zeudi di Palma and the global phenomenon "Zelena". Big Brother vs. Big Brother: a format, many souls To fully understand the magnitude of the lost occasion, it is necessary to take a step back and contextualize the peculiarity of the Italian version of the format compared to its international counterparts. While abroad the Big Brother focuses more on the appearance of social engineering of the game and on the inclusion of different experiences and individuality, the Italian version has gradually turned into a sort of soap opera with "real" protagonists. The Italian GF is now practically interchangeable with other "pairs games" by Mediaset such as "Men and Women" and "Temptation Island": narratives and cast go from one program to another as in a system of communicating vases. A system that of default sacrifices the complexity of human experiences and dynamics in favor of a simplistic, stereotyped and strongly heterroned representation: women in constant competition between contending for male attention, hyper-Palestrate men and more or less healthy bearers of patriarchate, totally futile and artificially inflated interpersonal conflicts. Although over the years the GF has included in the cast characters belonging to the LGBTQ+ community (including Tommaso Zorzi, winner of the Gfvip5, or Eva Grimaldi and Luca Calvani in this last edition), has never really involved them in Ship and organically represented love dynamics and/or normalized inside the house. Indeed, these characters have often dressed the role of "court jesters" (as in the case of Cristiano Malgioglio or Mattia Fumagalli), of good -natured and ascetic paternal figures (Luca Calvani in this last edition), or have in any case been relegated to stereotyped roles that do not represent the complexity of quers. Tommaso Zorzi himself, winner of the 2020-2021 VIP edition, lived in the house the classic script of impossible love destined to remain platonic friendship for his straight friend.
Apple was sanctioned Monday by the French Competition Authority for a fine of 150 million euros mentions Reuters. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data In question, a competitive imbalance created by Apple, which requires confidentiality conditions, via its tool "App Tracking Transparency" (ATT). Conditions that benefit from its own services compared to those of applications of applications and advertising service providers. This decision comes after an investigation into the company's practices between April 2021 and July 2023, the period during which Apple was accused of abusing its dominant position on the mobile applications market for iOS and iPados. But that its implementation is neither necessary nor proportionate compared to the displayed objective. The system has notably attracted criticism from several French associations of online advertising professionals. They had filed a complaint in 2020 against the device deployed by Apple. Necessary to protect the privacy of its users But also impose high standards for data protection on its ecosystem.
A presumably Russian manufacturing drone repeatedly flew the joint Research Center of the European Union on Lake Maggiore, one of the most important scientific research centers in Europe which also deals with sensitive technologies related to nuclear and spatial safety, a few kilometers from a factory in Leonardo, Big Italiana activates among other things in the military sector. Russian drone on Lake Maggiore, what happened? The report came directly from the Research Center, which has an experimental system for detecting unknown aircraft. According to experts, the drone would be of Russian manufacture and could be equipped with instruments for making three -dimensional mappings of the structures, but the safety sources recommend "maximum caution" on its attribution, since it would be a model with limited autonomy, which suggests a take -off from a relatively close area and not a direct flight from Russia. Meanwhile, the Milan prosecutor has already started the preliminary investigations and prepares to formally open an investigation with the hypothesis of an espionage crime. The area is considered to be of high strategic interest by the Italian state and potential target of foreign intelligence operations. The Joint Research Center in Ispra, founded in 1957, represents the third largest research center of the European Commission after those of Brussels and Luxembourg, and is considered one of the main research campus in Europe. Located in a country of just 5 thousand inhabitants on the left bank of Lake Maggiore, it is equipped with cutting -edge workshops and infrastructures operating in numerous strategic areas, including nuclear safety, energy efficiency, climate change and space. Why is it an important case for national security? The latter has a specific experience in cases of Russian espionage: in recent weeks he has in fact asked for indictment for two entrepreneurs of 34 and 60 years old, owners of a real estate company in Brianza, who would have made themselves available to the Russian intelligence, also in exchange for cryptocurrencies, for activities of alleged espionage. Moreover, the presence of a potentially spy drone capable of mapping structures of European and national relevance, in an area that also houses establishments in the defense sector, constitutes an alarm bell that the Italian authorities cannot afford to underestimate.
The folding iPhone, which we have been talking about for about 10 years, could finally be released next year. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data According to a recent MacRumors analysis, which has gathered all the information available on this subject, six major features are to be expected for this future model. A combination of technologies applied to the hinge and the slab would provide a surface as smooth as possible. A book format inspired by the Galaxy Z Fold Apple would have explored different conceptions before deciding. If some rumors mentioned a valve model, similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, recent information suggests that the foldable iPhone will rather adopt a design that opens like a book, like the Galaxy Z Fold. The iPhone operating system was not originally designed for use in landscape mode. Apple would work on this overhaul, notably iOS 19, iPados 19 and MacOS 16, in order to bring greater coherence to the whole. The device, once closed, would offer an external 5.5 inch screen, more compact than current models. Apple intends to integrate on this folding iPhone, the technology of the iPhone 17 Air, its future ultra-fine model expected this fall. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could replace Face ID with a Touch ID sensor integrated into the power button. This choice would be dictated by thickness stresses: if Apple cannot sufficiently refine the TrueDepth camera module, Touch ID would become the privileged solution.
Last week, the Cybermalvence Public Interest Group reported its fears after a year 2024 black in terms of data leaks. Unfortunately, nothing indicates that this trend is about to stop, proof with two new deplored hacks. All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data The group specializing in Autosur technical control has just deplored "a security incident involving unauthorized access to certain data". Result: a massive data leak, with unknown origins, which concerns around 4 million customers, said a company spokesperson at BFM TV. "All necessary measures have been taken immediately to put an end to this incident and strengthen the protection of our information systems," also added Autosur. Likewise, a judicial complaint has been filed. It gathered data on just over 3.3 million customers of the brand, of which, he said, Paypal payment information. So many stolen information that can be used, generally recalled cybermalveht, to targeted scams, attempts at phishing or accounts. Last year, the public interest group had found a sharp increase in assistance requests, probably in connection with the "many violations of massive personal data" and the "important and permanent SMS waves or mail of any type" deplored.
As the historic resolution 348/18/Cons is well known, which in 2018 forced providers to predict modest-free subscriptions, in 2019 it was amended with a derogation for FTTH connections (Fibra-A-Casa) and Fixed Wireless. In 2023 then the placet also arrived for a certification on the Fiber terminals (ONT) to be used on TIM networks. This explains why an regulatory process (which will end after 150 days) was started in February to define this last neuralgic detail. The problem is that over time the technological evolution has diversified the offer and some providers have started to adopt integrated ont modem router or an ONT bayonet (SPF) module that slips into modem-RPuter. In short, everything is a bit complicated, also because the providers themselves sometimes employ their network, others rent a heated network and other times still the network dull; And so the customer finds himself with different "terminals" while sharing the same operator. The result of this situation is that it must be accepted what the provider imposes and also that a technician comes home and takes care of the installation and activation. So even if you could trivially proceed independently, you have to submit to these procedures and also accept the equipment provided. “The main reasons that push internet service providers are mainly commercial interests. The issues involved are not only technological, but also commercial and investment" Free Software Foundation Europe FSFE: the derogations have no more reason to exist Free Software Foundation Europe claims that from a technological point of view only the neutral approach guarantees the freedom of terminal devices. Whether we talk about fiber and fixed wireless. In addition, there would be no critical issues in relation to data security and protection, energy saving, compliance with the environment and they would also be ensured right to repair and eliminated any risk of loyal competition. The alleged interoperability problems between terminal equipment (ont and modem-router) seem to belong to another season, considering the analyzes and experiences of the Belgian, German and Dutch guarantees. The same goes for any further imposed certifications, unless "it is self -certification or voluntary procedures". The latest case was that of Germany, where operators asked the Bnetza Guarantor to "completely limit the possibility of end users to choose their own router or separate the optical fiber terminal (ont), so that personal routers could only be used in Bridge mode".
A total of seven models will be released on April 10th, including "black" and "pink" with an estimated price (all prices include tax) of 6,800 yen, and the "HUAWEI Band 10 Aluminum Edition" with a selection of "matte black", "white", "blue", "purple" and "green" for 8,580 yen. Check out "HUAWEI Band 10 Black" on Amazon Check out "HUAWEI Band 10 Aluminum Edition Matte Black" on Amazon It supports measurement of heart rate variability (HRV) during sleep, allowing you to analyze stress levels and relaxation status. It also has a sleep analysis function that compares various sleep indicators with past individual reference ranges, allowing you to check the numbers from last night compared to sleep data for the past seven days. An emotional measurement function has also been added to express ``comfortable,'' ``normal,'' and ``unpleasant.'' There are 100 types of workout modes, including running, walking, and swimming pools. The battery can be used for 2 days with a 5-minute charge and can be fully charged in about 45 minutes. For sale, the HUAWEI Band 10 is only available online. Aluminum Edition will be sold at mass retailers in addition to e-commerce sites.
生成人工知能(AI)チャットボットは間違いが多いことで知られている。GoogleのAIの提案に従って、ピザのレシピに接着剤を加えたり、健康のために石を1日に1、2個食べたり、なんてことをしている人がいなければよいのだが。こうしたエラーはハルシネーションと呼ばれる。生成AIモデルがでっち上げた情報のことだ。今後、生成AIはもっとよくなるのだろうか。AIの研究者でさえ、それがすぐに実現するという楽観的な考えは持っていない。 これは、25人のAI専門家で構成される委員会が実施した調査で明らかになったことの1つだ。この調査結果をまとめたレポートが、人工知能学会(Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence:AAAI)によって3月に発表された。このレポートでは、同学会に所属する会員400人以上を対象に調査も行っている。 AIは数年(聞く人によっては数カ月という場合もある)もすれば改良できるという誇大宣伝を目にした人もいるだろうが、そうした宣伝とは対照的に、学者と業界の専門家で構成されるこの委員会は、AIツールが進歩する速度について、もっと慎重な見方をしているようだ。AIの進歩というのは、事実を正しく把握することや、突拍子もない間違いを避けることだけではない。 人間の知能と同等、またはそれを上回るモデル(一般に人工汎用知能と呼ばれる)を開発するつもりなら、AIツールの信頼性を劇的に向上させる必要がある。研究者らは、そうした規模の改善がすぐに実現する可能性は低いと考えているようだ。 カーネギーメロン大学でコンピューターサイエンスの教授を務め、委員会のメンバーでもあるVincent Conitzer氏は筆者に対して、「われわれは、少し慎重になりがちで、何かが実際にうまくいくまで信じない傾向がある」と語った。 AIの急速な進歩 このレポートの目的は、人々を助けるテクノロジーを生み出すAI研究を支援することだ、とAAAI会長のFrancesca Rossi氏は序文で述べている。信頼性と確実性の問題は深刻である。正確な情報を提供することだけでなく、バイアスを回避することや、未来のAIが意図しない重大な結果を招くのを防ぐことにも影響を及ぼすからだ。「責任ある方法でAIを進歩させて、テクノロジーの進歩が人類の進歩を支え、そしてテクノロジーの進歩が人間の価値観に沿ったものになるように、皆で協力して責任ある方法でAIを発展させていかなければならない」(Rossi氏) 特にOpenAIが2022年に「ChatGPT」を発表して以来、AIの急速な進化は目覚ましいものがある、とConitzer氏は言う。「いくつかの点では驚異的であり、その機能も、こうした技術の多くで、ほとんどの人が考えていたよりもはるかに優れている」(同氏) コーネル大学でコンピューターサイエンスの助教授を務めるJohn Thickstun氏は筆者に対し、AI研究には、「誇大宣伝もうなずける」分野もあると語った。これが特に当てはまるのが数学と科学の分野で、こうした分野ではユーザーはモデルの結果を確認することができる。 「このテクノロジーは素晴らしい。この分野で働いて10年以上になるが、このテクノロジーがここまで進歩したこと、そして、その進歩のペースが非常に速かったことに衝撃を受けている」とThickstun氏は話す。専門家によると、これほど目覚ましい進歩を遂げてきたにもかかわらず、研究や検討に値する重大な問題がまだ残っているという。 事実を正しく伝えられるようになるのか 生成AIモデルから得られる情報の信頼性の向上については、ある程度の進歩が見られるものの、改善の余地はまだまだある。Columbia Journalism Reviewが先日発表したレポートによると、チャットボットが正確に答えられない質問への応答を拒む可能性は低く、誤った情報を自信ありげに提供し、その誤った主張を裏付けるために情報源をでっち上げる(そして、捏造したリンクを提示する)という。 信頼性と正確性の向上は、「今日のAI研究で最も重要な分野であることは間違いない」とAAAIのレポートには記されている。レポートでは、AIシステムの正確性を高める主な方法として、人間のフィードバックによる学習の強化といったファインチューニング、システムが特定の文書を収集して、そこから回答を取得する検索拡張生成(RAG)、そして、プロンプトが質問を小さなステップに分解して、AIモデルがハルシネーションの有無をチェックできるようにする思考連鎖(CoT)、の3つが挙げられている。 こうした方法で、チャットボットの応答の正確性はすぐに上がるのだろうか。その可能性は低い。レポートによると、「事実性の問題は解決にはほど遠い」という。調査対象者の約60%は、事実性と信頼性の問題がすぐに解決するとは考えていない。生成AI業界では、既存のモデルをスケールアップすることで、正確性が増し、ハルシネーションが減るという楽観的な見方が広がっていた。 「希望はいつも少し楽観的すぎたと思う」とThickstun氏。「ここ数年、本当に正確で事実性の高い言語モデルの登場がすぐそこまできているという証拠は1つも見ていない」 Conitzer氏によると、Anthropicの「Claude」やMetaの「Llama」のような大規模言語モデルは、間違いが多いにもかかわらず、自信を持って回答を提示するので、ユーザーはそれらのモデルの方が正確だと誤解してしまうことがあるという。 「自信満々で答える人や、自信に満ちあふれた言葉を目にすると、私たちはその人が正しいことを言っていると思い込んでしまう。AIシステムも、かなり自信を持って提示した回答が、実はまったくナンセンスだったということもあるかもしれない」(Conitzer氏) AIの適切な使い方とは 生成AIの限界を認識することは、生成AIを適切に使用する上で不可欠である。ChatGPTやGoogleの「Gemini」といったモデルのユーザーに対するThickstun氏のアドバイスはシンプルだ。「必ず結果を確認すること」 同氏によると、一般的な大規模言語モデルは、事実に基づく情報を一貫して取得する能力が低いという。大規模言語モデルに質問をしたときは、念のためその答えを検索エンジンで調べるといいだろう(検索結果ページに表示されるAIによる概要には頼らないこと)。どうせ検索エンジンを使うのなら、最初からそうした方がよかったかもしれない。 Thickstun氏によると、自身がAIモデルを使用する場面としては、情報をまとめた表のフォーマット設定やコードの記述など、自分でもできて、正確性を確認できるタスクを自動化する作業が最も多いという。「より大きな原則としては、私はこうしたモデルが最も役立つのは、自分でもやり方が分かっている作業を自動化するときだと思っている」 人工汎用知能はもうすぐ登場するのか AI開発業界の優先事項の1つが、人工汎用知能(AGI)と呼ばれるもの作り出す競争であることは明白だ。AGIとは、一般的に人間と同等かそれ以上の思考能力を持つモデルのことである。AAAIの調査では、AGIをめぐる競争について、確固たる意見があることが明らかになった。特に注目したいのは、4分の3以上の回答者(76%)が、大規模言語モデルなどの現在のAIテクノロジーをスケールアップしても、おそらくAGIを作り出すことはできないだろうと考えている点だ。大多数の研究者は、AGIを目指す現在の取り組みがうまくいくか疑問視している。 同様に、大多数(82%)が、AGIを備えたシステムが民間企業によって開発された場合は、公的に所有されるべきだ、と考えている。この意見は、人間よりも優れた思考力を持つシステムを開発することの倫理と潜在的なマイナス面に対する懸念とも合致している。ほとんどの研究者(70%)は、安全システムと制御システムが開発されるまでAGIの研究を停止すべきだという意見に反対を表明した。レポートによると、「こうした回答を見るかぎり、何らかの安全策を講じた上で、このテーマの探求を続けたいという意向があるようだ」 AGIをめぐる議論は複雑だとThickstun氏は話す。ある意味で、一種の汎用知能を備えたシステムはすでに開発されている。OpenAIのChatGPTなどの大規模言語モデルは、チェスの対局など、1つのことしかできなかった古いAIモデルとは対照的に、多種多様な人間の活動を行うことができる。 問題は、人間と同じレベルで、多くのことを一貫して実行できるのかどうかだ。Thickstun氏は、「それが実現するのはまだまだ先のことだと思う」とし、こうしたモデルには、真実の概念が組み込まれておらず、正解のないクリエイティブな作業を処理する能力がないことを指摘した。「現在のテクノロジーを使用して、人間の環境でしっかりと動作させられる道筋は見えない。そこに到達するには、多くの点で研究が進歩することが必要だと思う」(Thickstun氏) AGIをAGIたらしめるものとは何なのか、それを定義するのは難しいとConitzer氏は言う。多くの場合、ほとんどの作業を人間よりもうまく実行できるものを指しているが、単純にさまざまな作業を実行できるものと言う人もいる。「AGIとは、人間を完全に不要にしてしまうもの、という非常に厳しい定義もある」(Conitzer氏) 研究者らはAGIが間もなく登場するという見方に懐疑的だが、ここ数年でテクノロジーが遂げた劇的な進歩をAI研究者が必ずしも予想していなかったのも事実である、とConitzer氏は警告している。「われわれは近年の急激な変化を予想していなかった。だから、変化のペースが今後も加速し続けるなら、AGIが本当に登場するのだろうかと思うかもしれない」 Amazonで現在開催中のセールを見る
All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data Here is the ultimate guide for a faster and refined PC. 🧠 Regular expressions under Linux: the secret weapon of the geek - manipulating text, filtering logs, automating ... Regex do wonders once mastered. 🤖 Softbank puts everything on automation - the Japanese giant wants to transform the industry with factories where robots are kings. A muscular response to the shortage of labor? 💰 Bpifrance bets 25 million on the blockchain - a new era of public investment opens with the purchase of Tokens. 📚 Microsoft at the heart of the educational storm - despite growing criticism, partnerships between Microsoft and French institutions continue. But how far will the dispute go? But the news does not stop there! Manus launches two paid offers for its AI agent in beta version - the Chinese startup now offers a "starter" subscription at $ 39/month and a "pro" level at $ 199/month, thus lining up on competitors like Chatgpt. The Chinese startup now offers a "starter" subscription at $ 39/month and a "pro" level at $ 199/month, thus aligning on competitors like Chatgpt. Reading on Bloomberg Japan massively supports rapidus with $ 5.4 billion to produce 2NM chips by 2027 - an ambitious goal for this flea manufacturer who intends to compete with giants in the sector. Read on The Economic Times Tensions between Apple and SpaceX around satellite services - the two giants compete to offer mobile coverage without white areas. The two giants compete to offer mobile coverage without white areas. Read on Wall Street Journal The Foldable smartphones market slightly withdrawn in 2025 - After low growth of 2.9 % in 2024, global shipments should drop by 4 % this year according to Counterpoint. After a low growth of 2.9 % in 2024, world shipments should drop by 4 % this year according to Counterpoint. Read on CounterPoint Research Apple criticized for its company offers that are ill -suited to remote work - complex virtualization rules make the configurations ineffective for video professionals.
In this article, we will explain the mechanisms, benefits, and challenges of various unmanned stores, while experiencing the unmanned store systems developed by TOUCH TO GO (TTG) and NTT Data. Unmanned stores can be broadly divided into "self-checkout" types, where customers scan and pay for products without the need for store staff; "walkthrough types" types, where customers automatically make payments when they pick up the product and leave the store; and "vending machine types", which allow you to operate around the clock without staff. The common benefits are stable store management with no-managers/small people and improved convenience for customers. TTG, which operates an unmanned payment store system, has steadily increased the number of stores introduced in 2020, starting with the opening of TOUCH TO GO Takanawa Gateway Station Store (Minato-ku, Tokyo), and is a leading figure in the spread of self-checkout stores. Takanawa Gateway Station store has a cash register near the exit. There is a cash register near the exit Stores that have introduced TTG's unmanned payment store system, which is characterized by the fact that visitors do not need to prepare to register as a member when they enter the store, allowing them to enter and pay by passing by. The AI camera and weight sensors can recognize who took what, so there is no need to scan the product barcode at checkout. Since many self-checkout stores allow you to enter the store on your way by passing by, it is believed to go well with stores such as stations where you often stop by. In fact, TTG's unmanned payment store system is used at unmanned stores selling souvenirs on the Tokaido Shinkansen platforms 16 and 17, as well as at take-out stores for Mister Donuts at the commercial facility Atre Shinanomachi.
今、中国で最も人気のあるIT系企業の経営者といえば、最近再び脚光を浴びている阿里巴巴(アリババ)の馬雲(ジャック・マー)氏でも、同社との二強時代から一強になりトップに躍り出た騰訊(テンセント)の馬化騰(ポニー・マー)氏でもなく、小米科技(シャオミ)の雷軍(レイ・ジュン)氏だ。 シャオミは日本で直営店のオープンや新しいスマートフォンの発売で話題になっている。一方、中国では電気自動車(EV)の魅力的な製品とサービスで注目を集めている。シャオミの創業者であるレイ氏は、モーターショーでインフルエンサーとしてブースに登場し、SNSで動画を配信した。その結果、同氏を見ようと多くの人がシャオミのブースに集まった。 そんなレイ氏は企業の広告塔として、「微信」(WeChat)向けの動くスタンプをリリースし、多くのネットユーザーから人気を集めている。一方で、レイ氏の許可なく、ネットユーザーが多数の音声ソースを使って同氏が口汚く罵る音声をAIツールで作り出し、それをまとめたボイスパックが拡散した。知名度が高いため、あっという間に多くの人がその音声を耳にするようになり、レイ氏は「そういうことはやめてほしい」と動画で訴えかけた。 3月5日に「全国人民代表大会」(全人代)が開幕した。レイ氏も代表の1人として参加し、そこでAIによる個人の顔や声の改ざん対策について3つの提案をした。同氏は特に目立った被害者だが、各種AIツールの登場により、有名人かどうかに関わらず、ニュースで報道されるケースが増えているため、対策を提案したのだろう。 1つ目は、AIに関する独立した法律の導入を検討することだ。適用の境界線を明確にし、権利侵害の証拠に関する規則を変更し、刑事罰を強化する。2つ目は、プラットフォームなどの責任を強化することだ。プラットフォーム企業がAIによって生成、合成されたコンテンツを正確に識別し、検査や審査、苦情や報告、緊急対応のメカニズムを構築し、問題のあるコンテンツの拡散を適時に阻止する技術能力の開発を支援する。3つ目は、ネットユーザーへの啓発を強化することだ。小学校から高校までの教科書にAIに関する倫理的な内容を追加し、家庭でも啓発活動を行う。法整備、プラットフォームの協力、市民への啓発活動の3つの方法は、中国でよく見られるやり方だ。 その後、14日に「人工智能生成合成内容標識方法」が発表され、AIで生成されたファイルにラベルを付けることが義務付けられた。この規則は、情報産業省に当たる工業和信息化部、公安部、国家ラジオテレビ総局などが共同で発表し、9月1日から施行される。この規則では、AIで作られたコンテンツには、誰でも見えるラベルと、見えないラベルを付ける必要がある。プラットフォームは、これらのラベルが付いたコンテンツを適切に扱わなければならない。 サービス提供者は、AIが作ったテキスト、音声、画像、動画、仮想空間などのコンテンツに、AIで生成されたことを示すラベルを付ける必要がある。具体的には、次のようになる。 テキスト:文頭、文末、文中に文字や記号で表示 音声:冒頭、末尾、途中に音声やリズムで通知 画像:目立つ位置にウォーターマークを付与 動画:冒頭、再生中の画面周辺、または途中にラベルを表示 仮想空間:開始画面やサービス提供中にラベルを表示 さらに、ダウンロードやコピーを提供する際にも、これらのラベルがファイルに適切に埋め込まれていることを確認する必要がある。 見えるラベルに加えて、メタデータやデジタル透かしといった見えないラベルも必要だ。AIサービス提供者は、生成されたコンテンツのメタデータにコンテンツの属性や提供者名などの識別情報を埋め込むことが義務付けられる。配信プラットフォームは、メタデータにラベルがあればそれを確認して明示し、ラベルがないものの投稿者が生成コンテンツであると自己申告した場合には、その情報に基づいてラベルを付与する。また、ラベルがないにもかかわらずAI生成の痕跡が認められる場合も、目立つ形で明示的なラベルを追加しなければならない。さらに、ラベルの改ざんや不正操作を目的としたツールやサービスの提供、および他社の権利を侵害する不適切なラベルの使用も禁じられている。 これにより、AIによるコンテンツ生成が引き起こす犯罪が完全になくなるわけではない。例えば、生成AIを使って歴史上の人物を架空の状況で戦わせるなど、歴史を改ざん、悪用する動画を作ることを禁止する「生成式人工智能服務管理暫行方法」によって、中国のネット空間ではそうした動画をほとんど見かけなくなった。ラベル付けが義務化されれば、AIによるコラージュコンテンツはかなり減るだろう。一方で、海外でAIによって作られたコンテンツにはラベルがないため、今後の動向を注視する必要がある。
The Anker Lost Prevention Tag "Anker Eufy Security SmartTrack Card" is currently on sale at Amazon's "Smile SALE New Life FINAL", which is being held until April 1st, with a 33% discount. Just like the original Apple AirTag, it supports "search" and can only be used by iPhone users. It has a thin shape that fits into your wallet, and is useful in the unlikely event that you lose your wallet or find a bag that contains it. It is not a battery-replaceable type like AirTag, but is basically disposable. The continuous use period is nominally three years, but if the battery runs out, you will need to purchase a new one. At the Smile Sale, the regular price is 3,990 yen, but 33% off at 2,690 yen. Looking at the Price Tracker, now is the cheapest time. Other Anker products with sale prices can be listed on the sales page. Anker Eufy Security SmartTrack Card (Amazon)
My iPhone freezes and stops working. As often happens, there are several ways to revive it. If the restart operation does not respond, try forced restarting. First of all, it is basic to turn off the power as usual, but if your iPhone is frozen, there may be no response. ●How to force restart (iPhone 8/X/SE2 or later) Quickly press and release the volume up button. Quickly press and release the volume down button. A normal restart is a simple way to just turn it off and turn it on again. Then, press and hold the side button to start it again, and release it when the Apple logo appears. If there is no response, try a forced reboot.
Monday, March 31st, 2025, is World Backup Day and an annual reminder to regularly back up all your important data and documents to avoid headaches or heartache from losing precious business or personal data. There is a wide variety of storage options available, from older yet cheaper HDDs for large storage to SSDs for speedy data retrieval — external versions of both HDD and SSD drives, plus highly portable flash drives and cards. This year, the Amazon Big Spring Sale runs alongside World Backup Day, with many deals from retailers and data protection providers. Now's your chance to pick up some storage deals with money off some of the most popular SSD, HHD, USB, microSD, and other storage solutions. Many SSDs, in particular, are selling out fast as people pick up on these storage deals. We've collated some of the better storage deals and grouped them for you. For an easy comparison of current and lowest-ever prices, you can check these deals against our SSD Price Index, which is updated regularly with the current and lowest-ever pricing history. This M.2 NVMe drive comes in the 2280 form factor and holds enough capacity to store a large selection of your favorite games or files. See our review of Samsung's 990 Pro 4TB for more details. Crucial T705 1TB Gen 5.0 PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD (Heatsink Version): now $152 at Amazon (was $227) If you want one of the fastest SSD drives available in your PC build, then Crucial's T705 should be at the top of your list. With extremely impressive sequential read/write speeds of 13,600/10,200MB/s, this SSD will load your games and applications faster than ever. This version includes a heatsink for better heat dissipation. The drive boasts a sequential performance that peaks at 7,300 MB/s reads and 6,600 MB/s writes. See our review of the WD Black SN850X for more information. It has a five-year warranty from Samsung and is backed by Amazon's return policy. This SSD has an M.2 2280 form factor and can reach impressive read/write speeds of 7,150/6,300 MB/s. See our review of the 990 Evo Plus for more details and benchmarking test results. SK hynix Platinum P41 PCIe 4.0 (2TB) SSD: now $129 at Amazon (was $144) This drive comes with a 5-year limited warranty, covering up to 1300TBW, and also includes free backup software from Acronis. They may be slower than more modern SSDs, but their price per capacity makes them a great solution for storing larger quantities of data that also don't need blisteringly fast transfer speeds. Ideal for packing into a NAS, HDDs vary wildly in capacity options. Seagate IronWolf Pro 24TB (2-Pack): now $959 at B&H Photo (was $1,299) This 24TB Internal NAS HDD has a SATAIII 6 Gb/s interface and spins at 7200 rpm. This 10TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Disk Drive uses a SATAIII 6 Gb/s interface and spins at 7200 rpm. The sustained transfer rate of this drive is 190MB/s. Portability makes backing up your data much more convenient. Being able to transport or even carry with you on the daily, makes portable storage a great option for regular storage and backups. Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S 2TB: now $219 at Best Buy (was $359) Designed specifically to work with the Xbox Series X|S consoles by replicating the Xbox Velocity Architecture, this 2TB expansion card can increase the storage capacity of your gaming console by holding more games and video clips. Unlike the PlayStation 5, the Xbox doesn't use standard M.2 SSD drives and needs these Xbox proprietary storage expansion cards to increase capacity. Its tiny form allows easy transport, and the handy hook loop allows you to add this drive to a keychain or lanyard. Seagate Expansion (18TB) HDD: now $249 at Seagate (was $349) A large 18TB of storage in a small form factor for easy transportation, ideal for backing up files on a laptop or PC, or bringing extra data with you without clogging up the drive on your computer. Seagate Expansion (14TB) HDD: now $199 at Best Buy (was $349) A large 14TB storage in a small portable form factor for easy transportation, back up your files on a laptop or PC easily by just connecting the USB cable to an available USB port. 16TB WD Elements Desktop External Hard Drive: now $290 at Amazon (was $309) This drive uses speedy CMR magnetic recording tech and spins at 5,400 RPM. This is a 'Shuckable' drive, meaning it can be popped out of the enclosure and used in a PC, but that does void the warranty. SK hynix Tube T31 1TB USB Stick: now $63 at Newegg (was $109) SK hynix Beetle X31 1TB portable SSD: now $67 at Amazon (was $89) This portable SSD comes in a golden aluminum beetle-shaped chassis with impressive 1050MB/s transfer speeds. Advertised transfer speeds of 160 MB/s and compatibility with a host of devices including cameras, and gaming handhelds, the TeamGroup 512GB Pro+ can boost your storage capacity or be used for data backup. Some organize backups locally, and others use cloud storage to protect data from loss or attacks. Here are a few of the best deals we've found on data protection. Acronis Cyber Protect offers a service to natively integrate backup services with their cybersecurity and endpoint management services to provide end-to-end cyber resilience for your business. You can currently grab a 20% saving on the lead-up to World Back Day. Snap deploy is a service that offers quick and easy deployment of backed-up or stored disk images for businesses. Easily get your systems updated and running with this handy tool.
Today the control of the rare lands market is firmly in the hands of China, who is responsible for 70% of global production. According to the common research center of the European Commission, by 2030 Greenland could provide almost 10 thousand tons of lands' oxides with the global economy. But anyone who does not see the time to quickly transform Greenland into a huge mine of rare lands will have to deal with a harsh reality. Even more than in other parts of the planet, mineral exploitation on the island is an extremely long and complicated company from a logistical, geopolitical and economic point of view. The aggressive rhetoric of the Trump administration has mainly frightened the Native Greenish populations, which represent 90% of the residents and have undergone a long and brutal colonization, marked by displaced and forced sterilizations (to which must also be added waves of fatal diseases). "It was a shock for Greenland - said Aqqaluk Lynge, former president of the Circumpolare Inuit and co -founder of the political party inuit ataqatigit -. They look at us as people who can be thrown away". Everyone wants them-said Jørgen T. Hammeken-Holm, permanent secretary for mining resources of the Greenland government-. The geological aspect is really exciting, but there are many 'but'." Our planet is scattered with these resources, which however are distributed in a little practical way. To extract small quantities of praseodimio, neodimio or any other of the 15 elements classified as rare lands, miners must work a lot of rock. This makes minerals very difficult to extract and refine: for each ton of rare lands brought to light, 2,000 tons of toxic waste are generated.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), the Japanese group Softbank is considering investing $ 1,000 billion to build industrial parks in the United States using robots and artificial intelligence (AI). All tech news for pros every day in our newsletter learn more about the use of personal data Masayoshi Son, president of SoftBank Group, is expected to go to the United States soon to present to the US government this project for which he will seek direct funding from investment funds and financial institutions. A response to Donald Trump's trade war This is a response to the threat of American president Donald Trump to impose customs duties on other countries. The industrial park envisaged by SoftBank will be equipped with systems using AI to provide demand in response to the decrease in labor. The idea is to optimize the design of production processes. "The company will use AI in the production process of a wide range of products, including smartphones, cars and air conditioners, in order to modify (the process) so as to reduce human involvement," explains the Nikkei. Previously, in January, SoftBank unveiled the Stargate project, a joint venture with Openai and Oracle to build data centers in the United States. He plans to invest up to $ 500 billion over the next four years.
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on Friday, March 28, shaking neighboring countries including Thailand, China and Vietnam — and came close to shaking up the technology industry. So far, these companies have not reported on damages and supply disruptions in their chains (at least, there are no appropriate filings with the SEC), but Taiwanese companies with manufacturing capacities in Thailand are indeed checking whether their capacities were disrupted and halting plants if they were, according to China Times. Taiwanese tech companies — including manufacturers of servers, consumer electronics, PCBs, and even satellite components such as Chicony, Delta Electronics, Zhen Ding Tech, and Inventec — responded swiftly to the Myanmar earthquake. Most operate factories in Thailand and, despite strong tremors, reported no injuries or major damage. Actions included temporary shutdowns, equipment checks, and staff evacuations, with operations resuming shortly after safety was confirmed. Keyboard maker Chicony confirmed all staff were safe and production was ongoing. Quanta Computer confirmed no immediate problems but would issue updates if anything changed. Zhen Ding (Zhishen) and surveillance tech firm Vivotek also reported no damage or disruption at their Thailand sites. Delta Electronics carried out a full evacuation at its Thai plant after feeling tremors; the company confirmed structural safety within an hour, and resumed normal operations. King Yuan Electronics, an outsourced semiconductor assembly and test company, and c Global Communication, satellite communications, reported no damage at their Thai facilities. Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Zhen Ding Tech said its Prachinburi facility was unaffected and running as usual. Unimicron was not impacted due to its distance from the epicenter. Thai Lin confirmed full operational continuity and employee safety. Contract manufacturer Kinpo said its Thai production lines were operating normally with no injuries or construction delays.
Substack continues to double down on video amid TikTok’s uncertain future in the U.S. The company announced on Monday that it’s rolling out a scrollable video feed in its app, making it the latest platform to introduce a TikTok-like feed. Substack plans to launch long-form and podcast previews in the feed soon. The company believes that the new feed will allow for better visibility and discovery for creators trying new formats while also giving readers a better way to come across new perspectives and voices beyond their inbox. The new feed also allows Substack writers and creators to move beyond text-based newsletters to explore multimedia content, which the company says they are already doing. As of February, 82% of the platform’s top-earning writers are using multimedia — up from just over 50% last April, Substack says. The company believes the new video feed will supercharge this momentum, as it allows creators to grow their audience right where they publish. Now, they are incentivized to share the same short-from video content on Substack. With this new TikTok-like feed, Substack is looking to meet the growing demand for quick, bite-sized content. Substack joins numerous other popular apps that have launched their own short-form video feeds following TikTok’s rise in popularity, including Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Netflix, LinkedIn, and more.
Apple has rolled out iOS 18.4, introducing several new features, including Priority Notifications that leverage Apple Intelligence to display the most relevant alerts on the iPhone’s lock screen, an updated Action Button option, Control Center enhancements, new emoji characters, and more. This feature allows users to identify objects, landmarks, plants, animals, and even extract text for quick actions or translation. For example, by simply pointing the camera at a sign in a foreign language, iPhone users can instantly translate the text. Scanning a document enables easy extraction of phone numbers, email addresses, or dates for direct interaction. Visual Intelligence also integrates with native Apple apps, enriching real-world experiences. Users can pull up restaurant information in Maps by pointing their iPhone at a location, add events from posters directly to their calendar, or identify dog breeds with just a camera scan. The update also adds a new Food section for Apple News+ subscribers, featuring recipes, restaurant stories, healthy eating tips, and kitchen essentials. Meanwhile, the Control Center gets a new Ambient Music option, offering four distinct sound categories—Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing—to enhance the user experience. Two new Australian voices for Siri are now available, and the Passwords app has been upgraded with a countdown circle for two-factor authentication codes, helping users keep track of when new codes will be generated. iOS 18.4 also brings an exciting update for AirPods Max, enabling support for lossless and ultra-low latency audio, with the ability to play 24-bit/48 kHz lossless audio for a richer listening experience.
Tech giant Oracle is facing criticism for how it’s handling two seemingly separate data breaches. Oracle did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment about the two incidents. Bloomberg and Bleeping Computer reported last week that the breach affects patient data, although it’s unclear exactly what kinds of data were stolen, nor which organizations and companies that use Oracle Health are affected. Oracle notified some of its healthcare customers in March of a breach that happened sometime earlier this year, in which hackers accessed Oracle servers and stole patient data, according to the publications. Contact Us Do you have more information about these two Oracle breaches? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or Do you have more information about these two Oracle breaches? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email . Citing multiple sources, the news site reported that a hacker is trying to extort affected hospitals, reportedly demanding millions of dollars. “My team was not able to access customers’ environments for a number of days. My concern is not just with patient data breach. I don’t know if it was hacker[-]accessed though.” The employee said they had to look at Reddit and internal Slack channels “to even figure out something was being looked at.” The employee, however, also said that they saw on Slack that some teams were given language to communicate with clients on March 4: “We will investigate the issue you are experiencing.” And in this case, too, Oracle is not being very transparent about what happened. Earlier this month, a hacker going by the online handle rose87168 posted on a cybercrime forum offering the data of 6 million Oracle Cloud customers, including authentication data and encrypted passwords, as Bleeping Computer reported at the time. To prove that they breached Oracle, rose87168 uploaded a text file containing their online handle that was hosted on an Oracle Cloud server. A screenshot of the archived text file that rose87168 uploaded to an Oracle server. Since, several Oracle customers have confirmed that data samples shared by the hacker appear genuine, pointing to further evidence of a breach at Oracle. Strangely, Oracle denied that there was a breach at all. Step up, Oracle — or customers should start stepping off,” said Beaumont. Commenting on one of the alleged Oracle breaches, cybersecurity expert Lisa Forte wrote on Bluesky that “if this ends up being true, and I struggle to see how it won’t, this is a very very bad look.”
This month, ChatGPT unveiled a new image generator as part of its 4o model that is a lot better at generating text inside images. People are already using it to generate fake restaurant receipts, potentially adding another tool to the already-extensive toolkit of AI deepfakes used by fraudsters. Others were able to replicate similar results, including one with food or drink stains to make it look even more authentic: Here is my attempt to make it more realistic. TechCrunch tested 4o and was also able to generate a fake receipt for an Applebee’s in San Francisco: But our attempt had a couple of dead giveaways that it was faked. LLMs still struggle to do basic math, so this isn’t particularly surprising. But it wouldn’t be hard for a fraudster to quickly fix a few of the numbers with either photo editing software or, possibly, more precise prompts. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine this kind of tech being used by bad actors to get “reimbursed” for entirely fake expenses. OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson told TechCrunch that all of its images include metadata indicating they were made by ChatGPT. Christianson added that OpenAI “takes action” when users violate its usage policies and that it’s “always learning” from real-world use and feedback. TechCrunch then asked why ChatGPT allows people to generate fake receipts in the first place, and whether this is in line with OpenAI’s usage policies (which ban fraud.) Christianson replied that OpenAI’s “goal is to give users as much creative freedom as possible” and that fake AI receipts could be used in non-fraud situations like “teaching people about financial literacy” along with creating original art and product ads.
Apple today released macOS Sequoia 15.4, the fourth major update to the macOS Sequoia operating system that launched in September. macOS Sequoia 15.4 comes two months after the launch of macOS Sequoia 15.3. Mac users can download the macOS Sequoia update through the Software Update section of System Settings. It is available for free on all Macs able to run macOS 15. With macOS 15.4, Apple is bringing Mail Categorization to the Mac. The Mail app features dedicated categories like transactions, updates, and promotions, with important emails organized into a primary section. Apple News+ subscribers now have access to an Apple News Food section with recipes, food articles, and more. There's a new Sketch style for Image Playground, Memory Movie support in the Photos app for custom slideshows, and new emoji characters. More information on what's new in macOS Sequoia can be found in our macOS Sequoia roundup.
You can now download iOS 18.4 for iPhone and iPadOS 18.4 for iPad, along with a tonne of other software updates for Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod and Vision Pro. Apple says, “This update introduces 8 new emojis, a new Sketch Style option in Image Playground, recipes in Apple News+, and enhancements to better organize and filter your library in Photos. This release includes other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your iPhone.” Here’s what’s available now: iOS iOS 18.4 (22E240) iOS 16.7.11 (20H360) iOS 15.8.4 (19H390) iPadOS iPadOS 18.4 (22E240) iPadOS 16.7.11 (20H360) iPadOS 15.8.4 (19H390) macOS macOS 15.4 (24E248) tvOS tvOS 18.4 (22L255) visionOS visionOS 2.4 (22O238) You can update your iPhone or iPad by going to Settings > General > Software Update. This is coming in at 3.4GB for the iPhone.
Download iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 to get new Apple Intelligence features and other improvements on your iPhone, iPad and Mac. To install the updates, go to the General > Software Update section of the Settings app (iPhone, iPad) or the System Settings app (Mac). In addition to these updates, Apple also released visionOS 2.4, tvOS 18.4, watchOS 11.4, HomePod Software 18.4, and new AirPods firmware today. Read Apple’s official release notes for iOS and iPadOS 18.4, macOS Sequoia 15.4, watchOS 11.4, tvOS 18.4 and visionOS 2.4, as well as changelogs for the HomePod and AirPods updates, to learn about the new features, improvements and fixes included in these updates. For details about the security contents of these updates and what critical vulnerabilities they patch, consult Apple’s support page. iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS Sequoia 15.4 and other Apple updates now available iOS 184 and iPadOS 18.4 include the Priority Notifications feature of Apple Intelligence, a dedicated Visio Pro app that automatically appears for Vision Pro owners, and a bunch of under-the-hood tweaks and quality-of-life improvements. Apple also released complimentary iOS and iPadOS 16.7.11 and iOS and iPadOS 15.8.4 updates for older iPhones and iPads that include security, maintenance and compatibility fixes.. macOS Sequoia 15.4 brings automatic message categorization in the built-in Mail app, a new Sketch drawing style in Image Playground, support for Memory Movies in the Photos app and other changes. iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 also include features available across the iPhone, iPad and Mac: six new emoji characters, a dedicated Food section for Apple News+ subscribers, delayed support for robotic vacuum cleaners in the Home app and Apple Intelligence support for non-English languages like French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and simplified Chinese. watchOS 11.4 adds a new Break Through Silent Mode toggle that lets alarms created on your Apple Watch play sound even while the device is in Silent Mode.
OpenAI says that it intends to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 “in the coming months.” That’s according to a feedback form the company published on its website Monday. “We’re excited to collaborate with developers, researchers, and the broader community to gather inputs and make this model as useful as possible,” OpenAI wrote on its website. OpenAI is facing increasing pressure from rivals such as Chinese AI lab DeepSeek that have adopted an “open” approach to launching models. It has proven to be a wildly successful strategy for some outfits. Meanwhile, DeepSeek has quickly amassed a large worldwide user base and attracted the attention of domestic investors. In a recent Reddit Q&A, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he thinks OpenAI has been on the wrong side of history when it comes to open sourcing its technologies. “[I personally think we need to] figure out a different open source strategy,” Altman said. “[A]nd we will do extra work given that we know this model will be modified post-release […] [W]e’re excited to see what developers build and how large companies and governments use it where they prefer to run a model themselves.” Excerpts of a forthcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey published over the weekend allege that Altman misled OpenAI executives about model safety reviews prior to his brief ouster in November 2023.
Apple has released iOS 18.4 for iPhone, along with iPadOS 18.4 for iPad. These updates include a few new features, as well as bug fixes and security enhancements. iOS 18.4 for iPhone includes new emoji icons, an ambient music generator, a Priority Notifications feature for Apple Intelligence, and various bug fixes and security patches. iPadOS 18.4 for iPad includes the introduction of the controversial Mail Categorizations feature from iPhone to sort your email inbox for you, ambient music generation, new emoji icons, Priority Notifications, and fixes for various bugs and security issues. You will also find MacOS Sequoia 15.4 available for Mac, along with updates to macOS Sonoma, macOS Ventura, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. How to Download & Install iOS 18.4 / iPadOS 18.4 Update First, backup your iPhone or iPad to iCloud or a computer. After your device is backed up, you can update iOS easily: Open the “Settings” app on iPhone or iPad Go to “General” and then go to “Software Update” Choose to “Update Now” to download and install iOS 18.4 / iPadOS 18.4 The iPhone or iPad will have to restart to finish installation of the system software update. Optionally, you can update your iPhone or iPad by connecting the device to a Mac or PC, or by using IPSW firmware files which can be downloaded directly from Apple. iOS 18.4 IPSW Firmware Files If you wish to use IPSW files to update your device manually, you can use the links below which point to Apple CDN servers to download the IPSW compatible with your device: Updating… iOS 18.4 Release Notes Release notes for iOS 18.4 / iPadOS 18.4 are as follows: Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max) – Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention – Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings – Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US) Apple Vision Pro App – The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device Apple News+ – Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+ – Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes – Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions – The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more Photos – New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos – Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos – Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos – Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos – Ability to disable “Recently Viewed” and “Recently Shared” collections in Photos Settings – Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes: – Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query – Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later – Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app – App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance – Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress – New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved, and Downloaded – Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life – Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library – Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations – Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit: https://support.apple.com/100100 You’ll also want to make sure you update your Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro as well.
Apple today released tvOS 18.4, the latest version of the tvOS 18 operating system that came out last September. tvOS 18.4 comes two months after Apple released tvOS 18.3, and it is available for the Apple TV 4K and the Apple TV HD models. tvOS 18.4 can be downloaded using the Settings app on the Apple TV. Open up Settings and go to System > Software Update to get the new software. Apple TV owners who have automatic software updates activated will be upgraded to tvOS 18.4 automatically. Apple shares full release notes for tvOS in its tvOS support document, which is updated after each new version of tvOS comes out. Apple has also released a new version of the HomePod Software 18.4 for the HomePod and HomePod mini. HomePod software is based on tvOS.
The update is available to all iPhone models that support iOS 18.4. Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US) The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+ The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes: App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu While they are not mentioned in Apple’s official release notes, iOS 18.4 also adds seven new emoji to your iPhone:
These updates come three weeks after the release of iOS 18.3.2 and iPadOS 18.3.2 which came with important security improvements. Apple keeps refining the software experience with every 18.x.x update whilst also fixing security issues. This release includes other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your iPhone. ● Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US) ● Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+ ● The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more ● App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance ● Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: https://support.apple.com/100100“ These updates are available on all devices that support iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 including:
iOS 18.4 is here, bringing with it a ton of new features. Doing this with the Music app will reveal no discernible new features. iOS 18.4 supports four such moods, though I wouldn’t be surprised if more arrive in future updates. Each control has been assigned to play a specific Apple Music playlist. For example, by default the Productivity control plays BEATstrumentals, but you can also select one of three other curated playlists, or set it to trigger any playlist of your choice. You can assign these new music controls to any of the following three places: Control Center your Lock Screen and the iPhone’s Action button The ability to assign a mood playlist button to your iPhone’s Lock Screen, Action button, or Control Center removes friction from the music playback experience. It also helps reduce my own analysis paralysis when opening the Music app and confronting far too many options to choose from. Now I can have a simple toggle fit for these select occasions. What do you think of the ambient music options Apple added to iOS 18.4?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Has Joined Bluesy, Following in the Footsteps of Former President Barack Obama, Who Made His First Post On The Platform Last Week. Clinton Confirmed Her Bluesy Account's Legitimacy in an Instagram Story and A Post is X. In Her Introductory Post, Clinton Wrote About the Wiscons Supreme Court Election Taking Place on Tuesday. The State Judicial Race Is Getting Unprecedented Attification on Both Sides of the Aisle; Musk has allegedly pumped more than $ 20 Million Into Republican Candidate Brad Schimel's Campaign; They Gave Trump's 2024 Campaign Around $ 250 Million. Like His Strategies During Trump's Presidential Run, Musk Gave Two Schimel Voters Checks for $ 1 Million Each. As x Owner Elon Musk Becomes More Entrlenched in the Trump Administration, Bluesy Has Continued to Emerge as an Alternative Social Platform for People Disiliationed by Musk's Politics and X's Shift to the Right. Though Bluesy's Reach Is Smaller Than That of the Platform Formerly Known As Twitter, The Open Source Network Has North 33 Million Users. But as Bluesy Attracts High-Profile Users Like Clinton and Obama, The Platform Is Building More Legitimacy as A Competitor To X.
Alongside the new agentic AI model, Amazon is releasing the Nova Act SDK, a toolkit that allows developers to build agent prototypes with Nova Act. The version of Nova Act available starting today is a little less polished, however. Amazon says developers building with the Nova Act SDK should be able to automate basic actions on behalf of users, such as ordering salads from Sweetgreen or making dinner reservations. With the Nova Act toolkit, developers can pull together tools that allow an AI agent to navigate web pages, fill out forms, or pick dates on a calendar. Amazon claims that Nova Act outperforms agents from OpenAI and Anthropic on several of the company’s internal tests. For example, on ScreenSpot Web Text, which measures how an AI agent interacts with text on a screen, Nova Act scored 94%, outperforming OpenAI’s CUA (which scored 88%) and Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet (90%). However, Amazon didn’t benchmark Nova Act using more common agent evaluations, such as WebVoyager. Nova Act is the first public product to emerge from Amazon’s aforementioned AGI lab, an initiative co-led by former OpenAI researchers David Luan and Pieter Abbeel. Both previously founded startups of their own — Luan started Adept, while Abbeel co-founded Covariant — before Amazon hired them away last year to spearhead its AI agent efforts. While it may seem strange for an AGI lab to be building AI agents that can order salads, Luan told TechCrunch that he sees agents as a key step toward creating superintelligent AI systems. He hopes it will allow developers to create more reliable agentic applications, albeit not necessarily fully autonomous ones. A major problem with early AI agents from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic is their reliability across different domains. In TechCrunch’s tests, the systems are slow, struggle to operate independently for very long, and are prone to mistakes a human wouldn’t make. It won’t be long until we see whether Amazon has cracked the code — or whether its agents suffer from the same flaws plaguing competitors.
Electric trucking company Harbinger has filed an objection to the sale of Canoo’s assets to its CEO, potentially throwing a wrench into the two-month-old bankruptcy case. Harbinger’s objection, filed late Friday, accuses Canoo of hiding certain assets from the sale process, including what the startup purchased from another bankrupt EV company, Arrival. It also accuses Canoo of listing assets that Harbinger believes the startup did not actually own (though it did not specify which ones). Harbinger said it came to this determination after it considered buying the assets and gained access to the virtual data room for potential bidders. What’s more, Harbinger says the sale process has so far “unfairly favored Mr. Aquila,” referring to Canoo’s CEO Anthony Aquila, who reached an agreement to buy the assets in early March. Harbinger was created by a handful of former Canoo employees in 2021. Canoo sued Harbinger in late 2022, alleging that those employees absconded with trade secrets. That trade secret case was still active when Canoo filed for bankruptcy in January. In fact, one of the things Aquila is purchasing along with the assets is an interest in any settlement Harbinger may wind up paying to Canoo. Harbinger argues this could violate the Department of Justice’s handbook for Chapter 7 trustees.
AI startup Runway on Monday released what it claims is one of the highest-fidelity AI-powered video generators yet. “Gen-4 can utilize visual references, combined with instructions, to create new images and videos utilizing consistent styles, subjects, locations, and more,” Runway wrote in a blog post, “[a]ll without the need for fine-tuning or additional training.” It faces stiff competition in the video generation space, including from OpenAI and Google. But the company has fought to differentiate itself, inking a deal with a major Hollywood studio and earmarking millions of dollars to fund films using AI-generated video. “Gen-4 excels in its ability to generate highly dynamic videos with realistic motion as well as subject, object, and style consistency with superior prompt adherence and best-in-class world understanding,” the company claims in its blog post. “Runway Gen-4 [also] represents a significant milestone in the ability of visual generative models to simulate real-world physics.” Gen-4, like all video-generating models, was trained on a vast number of examples of videos to “learn” the patterns in these videos to generate synthetic footage. But training details are also a potential source of IP-related lawsuits. Case in point, Runway is facing a suit brought by artists against it and other generative AI companies that accuses the defendants of training their models on copyrighted artwork without permission. Runway argues that the doctrine known as fair use shields it from legal repercussions. According to The Information, Runway hopes to hit $300 million in annualized revenue this year following the launch of products like an API for its video-generating models. A 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union representing Hollywood animators and cartoonists, found that 75% of film production companies that have adopted AI have reduced, consolidated, or eliminated jobs after incorporating the tech.
In Brief President Donald Trump has said that a deal with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the app will be finalized before the April 5 deadline, Reuters reports. “We have a lot of potential buyers,” Trump told reporters. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok. He added, “I’d like to see TikTok remain alive.” Trump extended the deadline for the TikTok ban to April 5 back in January after signing an executive order on his first day in office. Reuters reported on Friday that private equity firm Blackstone is mulling a small stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations. The firm is considering joining ByteDance’s current non-Chinese shareholders, led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, in providing fresh capital to bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations. The group has emerged as front-runners in TikTok deal talks. Trump has previously stated that he is open to extending the deadline again if a deal isn’t reached.
In Brief Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug-discovery platform that was spun out of Google’s DeepMind in 2021, has raised external capital for the first time. The $600 million round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from GV and existing investor Alphabet, Google’s parent, it said. The funding will accelerate further development of Isomorphic’s AI drug design engine and support the company’s goal of bringing its discovered drugs to clinical trials. Isomorphic Labs was founded by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis by leveraging DeepMind’s software for AI drug discovery, including AlphaFold, an AI model that predicts the three-dimensional structures of proteins. Last year, Isomorphic Labs secured strategic partnerships with Eli Lilly and Novartis, potentially generating up to $3 billion in milestone payments for access to its AI model. Hassabis told the New York Times that while Isomorphic Labs didn’t need the capital, the extra funding will help the division hire top research scientists. For their work on AlphaFold, Hassabis and DeepMind researcher John Jumper were among the three scientists who received a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024.
In Brief Amazon has delivered on its promise to launch an upgraded Alexa experience, Alexa+, by the end of March. But the service reportedly lacks many of the features Amazon demoed at a press event in late February. Alexa+ can’t yet perform certain “agentic” AI tasks showcased in the company’s marketing, like ordering takeout on Grubhub or generating stories to entertain kids, according to The Washington Post. The assistant also can’t visually identify people and remind them to do particular chores, or brainstorm gift ideas — two additional capabilities shown during the presser. Other features are rolling out to only a subset of users to start, like the ability to order an Uber and get cooking recommendations. Meanwhile, a web app Amazon announced for Alexa+ last month doesn’t have a concrete release window. Alexa+ is said to have been plagued with issues from the beginning, owing to challenges with the AI infrastructure that underpins it. Judging by the Post’s reporting, it seems that Amazon isn’t out of the woods yet.
Retym, a U.S. chipmaker with Israeli roots, has raised a fresh $75 million series D led by James Kuklinski of Spark Capital. Existing investors — Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha and Kleiner Perkins’ Mamoon Hamid — also participated, bringing its total raised to $180 million, it says. The chipmaker is another startup benefiting from AI’s glow-up. Its chips don’t process AI workloads directly — it’s not a Nvidia GPU competitor. It’s working on a new “programmable coherent digital signal processing DSP” chip that allows the innards of data centers to communicate faster both internally and with external sources. Data centers needed this kind of tech anyway, but the sudden rise of AI has put overwhelming pressure on them to be faster, more efficient, and handle bigger workloads. The company was founded in 2021 but has been quiet about itself until Monday, when it announced this Series D round. Its CTO co-founder, Roni El-Bahar, published his first blog post on Monday, saying he founded the startup to bring competition to the DSP market that has historically been “controlled by a handful of large semiconductor companies.” He was largely referring to Marvell Technology, which currently dominates the DSP industry and has partnerships with Nvidia, Juniper Networks, and many others. Retym — pronounced “re-time” — is using TSMC’s state-of-the-art 5 nanometer fab for its first chip, which is being tested now, the company told Reuters. Retym did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Most notably, the company on Monday announced that Apple device owners will now be able to take advantage of Priority Notifications, which allows Apple’s AI to highlight your most time-sensitive notifications in a new format. Plus, Apple Intelligence is now available to iPhone and iPad users in the EU and on the Apple Vision Pro headset in U.S. English. Apple notes that its AI features are also available in a number of new languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified). Localized English has also been added for both Singapore and India. Though Apple Intelligence was introduced at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference last year as its new generative AI offering, the reality is that Apple was not prepared to release all its AI-powered features at once. That’s led to a slow and steady rollout of numerous AI updates since the release of iOS 18.1, where Apple Intelligence first went live. Now, instead of having to dig for important updates across all your notifications — which often include nonessential updates and other marketing messages from apps — you’ll see those that deserve attention appear at the top of the stack. Other Apple Intelligence improvements arriving today include the ability to create a “memory movie” on Mac by typing a description, and an added Sketch style in Apple’s AI image-generation app, Image Playground, for the creation of academic and detailed sketches. Apple had previously announced that its AI suite would arrive in the EU in April 2025 — a delay Apple blamed on EU tech regulations, like the Digital Markets Act. Meanwhile, Vision Pro users will be able to use AI features like Writing Tools, Image Playground, Genmoji, and more with the expansion of Apple Intelligence to the mixed reality platform.
With Apple Intelligence on the Apple Vision Pro, users will get access to writing tools that allow them to rewrite, proofread, and summarize text with the help of AI. In addition, users can leverage natural language search in the Photos app to find specific images by simply describing them. Vision Pro users can also create a “Memory Movie” based on their photos and videos around specific themes, thanks to a new Apple Intelligence feature that’s launching today. The first set of Apple Intelligence features is available to users with their device and Siri language set to U.S. English. As for the new spatial experiences, Apple is launching a new Spatial Gallery app that gives users access to a library of spatial content around art, culture, nature, sports, entertainment, and more. The app will be updated with new content regularly, Apple says. The new Apple Vision Pro app for iPhone allows users to do a variety of different things, including queuing apps to download, accessing information about their Vision Pro, and finding tips to enhance their experience. The app features a Discover page that surfaces recommendations for new experiences on Apple Vision Pro, such as popular apps and games. Apple today also announced that it’s rolling out new Apple Intelligence features, including a “Priority Notifications” feature that aims to help users manage their notifications by prioritizing important alerts and minimizing distractions from less important ones on a user’s Lock Screen. Plus, the tech giant is expanding Apple Intelligence access to the EU and rolling out support for new languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified).
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is preparing for a second launch of its New Glenn mega-rocket in “late spring,” the company announced Monday. The company also believes it has determined why the booster stage failed during an attempted landing on an ocean platform during the inaugural flight in January. Blue Origin said it has identified “seven corrective actions” during the review of the booster failure, which was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Those mainly focus around “propellant management and engine bleed control improvements.” The company said it has submitted all this information to the FAA. New Glenn is Blue Origin’s first rocket that can get into orbit around Earth. Proving out those capabilities — and showing that the rocket can perform repeatedly — are key to putting Blue Origin in a position to compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which currently dominates the launch market. The 320-foot rocket has been in development for years and faced numerous delays. Blue Origin finally got to test it out in January. The rocket’s second stage successfully made it into orbit, but three of the booster’s engines did not properly re-light as it came back to Earth, the company said Monday. Blue Origin said it will attempt another booster landing during New Glenn’s second test flight.
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Now, Temporal has raised a growth round of $146 million to build what it believes the next chapter will be in its space: AI, and specifically building microservices to support newer areas like agentic AI. A chunk of the investment will be going into R&D. At the end of 2024, the company launched a new feature called Nexus in its Temporal Cloud platform to improve security, fault isolation, and modularity, and it says it’s going to continue developing that, alongside public cloud availability for Azure, enabling more cross-cloud work, and “R&D for AI use cases.” Temporal will also be using some of the funds to invest in sales and marketing. TechCrunch understands that the company’s valuation with this round is $1.72 billion post-money — “a little bit up — a very little bit,” in the words of CEO and co-founder Samar Abbas said. And ahead of that, there was a report in Prime Unicorn Index that the valuation had dipped as low as $880 million, a figure the company has not confirmed. Abbas and his co-founder Maxim Fateev (CTO) started Temporal after the pair worked together at Uber, where they jointly developed Cadence, Uber’s open source orchestration engine designed to route requests and mediate interactions between different microservices. Knowing that the need for better microservices management extended to many organizations, the pair saw an opportunity to strike out on their own, and Temporal was born. Temporal’s microservices orchestration platform predates the hype around AI. Customers have been using it since 2019 to help manage functions and actions that bring together data from numerous, disparate apps — payment processing, customer onboarding, order management, ID verification, and infrastructure management among them. More recently, though, services built on AI, and specifically to fill out the promise of agentic AI — which bring together language models to work with and across data from a number of other services in AI “agents” tailored for specific use cases — have emerged as a prime use case for microservices. The company’s current client list speaks not only to which companies are using Temporal’s platform to manage any microservice, legacy or otherwise, but also which ones are already using it for AI specifically. A year ago, the GPU giant announced a microservices software platform called NIM to streamline the deployment of AI models (both custom and pre-trained) in production environments. One of the latest developments in that microservices platform has included helping its customers develop AI agents to address trust and safety. Meanwhile, the company says that its Temporal.io open source platform now has 183,000 active users; and its enterprise managed service Temporal Cloud now claims 2,500 customers. But the need to execute long workflows reliably is real, and other teams have entered the field since then, such as workflows-as-code startup Restate and Orkes. Abbas has been Temporal’s CEO since he and Fateev swapped their roles in April of last year. With “zero reports,” Fateev is now in charge of technology and setting the long-term vision. These steps include growing headcount from some 250 employees to over 300 in the coming months, as well as “doing a big push in EMEA and [Asia-Pacific & Japan],” he said.
API testing firm APIsec has confirmed it secured an exposed internal database containing customer data, which was connected to the internet for several days without a password. The exposed APIsec database stored records dating back to 2018, including names and email addresses of its customers’ employees and users, as well as details about the security posture of APIsec’s corporate customers. APIsec, which claims to have worked with Fortune 500 companies, bills itself as a company that tests APIs for its various customers. APIs allow two things or more on the internet to communicate with each other, such as a company’s back-end systems with users accessing its app and website. Insecure APIs can be exploited to siphon sensitive data from a company’s systems. In a now-published report, which was shared with TechCrunch prior to its release, UpGuard said the exposed data included information about attack surfaces of APIsec’s customers, such as details about whether multi-factor authentication was enabled on a customer’s account. UpGuard said this information could provide useful technical intelligence to a malicious adversary. When reached for comment by TechCrunch, APIsec founder Faizel Lakhani initially downplayed the security lapse, saying that the database contained “test data” that APIsec uses to test and debug its product. Lakhani added that the database was “not our production database” and “no customer data was in the database.” Lakhani confirmed that the exposure was due to “human mistake,” and not a malicious incident. The data also included some personal information of its customers’ employees and users, including names and email addresses, UpGuard said. Lakhani backtracked when TechCrunch provided the company with evidence of leaked customer data. Lakhani would not provide TechCrunch, when asked, a copy of the data breach notice that the company allegedly sent to customers. Lakhani declined to comment further when asked if the company plans to notify state attorneys general as required by data breach notification laws. APIsec said the keys belonged to a former employee who left the company two years ago and were disabled upon their departure.
Encrypted messaging app Signal continues to see spiking downloads in the wake of the messaging scandal that saw The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg added to a group chat where high-ranking officials in the Trump administration were discussing an attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The resulting press coverage around the leak of these sensitive plans has been driving more people to check out Signal’s app for the first time, leading to a doubling of its downloads. According to app intelligence provider Appfigures, downloads rose by 26% on the day the news broke, an indication that users were curious about the app being used by members of the Trump administration. The next day, downloads jumped to 193,000 and by Wednesday hit an all-time high of 195,000, the firm noted. Appfigures has been tracking the impact of the scandal on Signal’s app from day one. It earlier found that Signal app downloads across iOS and Google Play had jumped up 28% on the Monday when the news initially broke, with U.S. downloads up by 45% and downloads in Yemen up by 42%. Although Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, who was in the chat with VP J.D. Trump has since taken to attacking the media for its continued coverage of the incident. Signal’s app itself was not compromised to allow for this leak. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has accepted responsibility for making the group chat in the first place but has deflected blame over the embarrassing mistake.
In Brief OpenAI is still struggling to overcome the capacity issues brought on by the viral image generation feature the company launched last week. On Monday, OpenAI disabled video generation for new users of Sora, the company’s suite of generative AI media tools. “We’re currently experiencing heavy traffic and have temporarily disabled Sora video generation for new accounts,” reads a note on one of the company’s support pages. “If you’ve never logged into Sora before, you can still generate images with Sora.” OpenAI’s new image generation capability arrived with much fanfare — and controversy — for its impressive ability to recreate styles like Studio Ghibli’s hand-drawn animation. Over the weekend, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in posts on X that the company “hasn’t been able to catch up” since launch and that staff have worked late nights and through the weekend to “keep the service up.” Updated 10:08 a.m. Pacific: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that OpenAI had disabled image generation for certain Sora users, not video generation. We regret the error.
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS and iPadOS 16.7.11 and iOS and iPadOS 15.8.4 for devices that aren't able to run iOS 18. iOS 18.4 adds Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence-capable devices, showing you your most notification first. There's a dedicated Apple Vision Pro app for Vision Pro owners, and a new Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers. Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max) - Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention - Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings - Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US) Apple Vision Pro App - The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device Apple News+ - Recipes from some of the world's best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+ - Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes - Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions - The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more Photos - New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos - Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos - Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos - Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos - Ability to disable "Recently Viewed" and "Recently Shared" collections in Photos Settings - Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes: - Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query - Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later - Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app - App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance - Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress - New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved, and Downloaded - Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life - Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library - Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations - Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit: https://support.apple.com/100100 Apple will soon begin work on iOS 19, with the update set to be introduced at WWDC in June. Before that time, we may also get an iOS 18.5 update with additional features and performance improvements.