Engadget

27.02.2024 20:10 TikTok is being forced to take down more music from its platform as a royalties spat with Universal Music Group rumbles on. UMG recently yanked recordings it owns or distributes from TikTok including tracks from the likes of superstars Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd. The standoff is now impacting songs published by UMG, with millions more tracks expected to be muted on TikTok by the end of this week. The latest step in this saga affects works by artists who have partnered with songwriters who are under contract to Universal Music Publishing Group , according to Variety. Due to an issue called split copyrights, if a UMPG-contracted writer has contributed to a song in any way, that track may have to be removed from TikTok. So artists who have collaborated with the likes of Swift, Adele, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Ice Spice, Elton John, Harry Styles and SZA may see their songs disappearing from TikTok and being muted on videos that currently use them. The move will prevent more artists from plugging their work on the most important platform for promoting music. According to the BBC, UMG removed around three million songs from TikTok after an agreement over its recording catalog expired. UMG's deal with TikTok over its publishing catalog ends later this week, at which point all relevant tracks could vanish from the short-form video service.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-is-muting-more-songs-amid-its-tussle-with-universal-music-161839190.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 20:10 It’s a question as old as time, or at least the early 2010s: Which iPhone should you buy? For most, the answer is simple: Buy the highest-end Apple phone you can afford. And if you’re happy with your current handset, don’t buy a new one at all. But if you’re sure it’s time to upgrade and need a hand, let us help. We at Engadget have tested and reviewed iPhones since their inception, including all eight models Apple sells today. Below, we’ve broken down the current iPhone lineup and named a few top picks.Before we dig in, let’s be clear: There isn’t really a “bad” iPhone. Each model provides a similar set of core perks: tight integration with other Apple devices, premium hardware, lengthy software support, and services like iMessage, Apple Pay and FaceTime. With the latest iPhone 15 series, Apple has finally swapped its charging ports from Lightning to the more universal USB-C. Still, some models are better buys than others right now. Just note that we’ve based this guide on the prices for new unlocked iPhones at Apple’s online store. If you can find a good deal on a refurbished model or a heavy discount from a carrier or a third-party retailer, that could change the equation depending on your budget. Other iPhones we tested This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-iphone-160012979.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 20:10 If you're looking to stock up on charging gear, a few Anker accessories we recommend are back on sale, including the Anker 622 Magnetic Battery down to $35 in various colors. Outside of a brief fall to $25 last year, that matches the lowest price we've seen for the wireless battery pack. The discount takes half off Anker's list price, though the device's actual street price has sat around $50 for most of the past year. This offer is also available at Anker's online store with an on-page coupon code. We've previously highlighted the Anker 622 for those who want a compact power bank they can use to recharge their phone without any cables. It's compatible with Apple's MagSafe standard, so it can quickly snap onto the back of any recent iPhone and immediately start topping it up. It's a 5,000mAh battery that only supplies up to 7.5W of power, so it's not especially fast and can't completely refill most phones on its own. Instead, it's best viewed as a pocket-friendly security blanket, a thin and light pack you can use to keep your phone from dying before you make it back to an outlet. The device can also serve as a charging stand when you aren't out and about, as it has a foldable kickstand built in and a side-mounted USB-C port that allows for pass-through charging. Just be aware that it won't work with cases that aren't magnetic. It's worth noting that Anker recently launched new wireless power banks that support the faster Qi2 standard, which can deliver up to 15W to compatible devices. But the closest analog to the 622 there is currently priced at $60. If you don't need the absolute fastest speeds, the older model is still a decent value when it's discounted to this extent. If you want a charging station for your desk, the Anker 525 Charging Station is also worth a look at $40. That's about $20 off its usual street price and an all-time low. This is a stubby, 67W desktop charger with two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports on the front, plus three AC outlets on the back. It'll split that power if you connect multiple devices at once, so it won't refill every phone, tablet or small laptop at max speed, but it should be quick enough for most people looking for something on the cheap. Beyond that, the Lightning-based version of Anker's 621 Power Bank is down to $20 with an on-page coupon. That matches the lowest price we've seen for the ultracompact battery pack, which has a foldable plug that connects directly into the bottom of older iPhones and provide an emergency 12W charge. We recommend the USB-C version of this device in our guide to the best power banks. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ankers-5000mah-magsafe-power-bank-is-on-sale-for-35-right-now-155349545.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 20:10 It’s another bleak day for the gaming industry as there’s more news of mass layoffs. This time around, its PlayStation that’s gutting its studios. Sony Interactive Entertainment says it’s laying off around 900 staff from its PlayStation division, roughly 8 percent of that department’s headcount. Insomniac , Naughty Dog and Guerrilla are all affected by the cuts. Those studios are behind some of PlayStation's most important franchises. For instance, within three and a half months, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had sold 10 million units. Sony's London Studio, which had been working on a co-op multiplayer game for PlayStation 5, is shutting down entirely, while Firesprite will also lose some staff. In addition, PlayStation will lay off workers from its Technology, Creative, and Support teams. PlayStation employees in the US who are losing their jobs will be informed today. Sony will adhere to local laws and regulations for carrying out layoffs in other territories — the company says people in all of its global regions will be affected. "After careful consideration and many leadership discussions over several months, it has become clear changes need to be made to continue to grow the business and develop the company," outgoing SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan told staff in an email. "We had to step back, look at our business holistically, and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community. The goal is to streamline our resources to ensure our continued success and ability to deliver experiences gamers and creators have come to expect from us." Meanwhile, Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, said that SIE leadership evaluated its studios and portfolio and looked at projects that are in various stages of development. Some of those projects have now been canceled. Hulst didn't provide more details, but the projects that have been canned surely include the one that London Studio was working on. According to Bloomberg, a live-service Twisted Metal game that was in early development at Firesprite is among the canceled projects. "I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members," Hulst wrote in a memo. "Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan." Hulst also noted that SIE is re-assessing its approach to delivering the kinds of expensive blockbuster single-player games that PlayStation has become known for over the last decade or so, and balancing that out with its desire to create long-tail multiplayer games. "Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate," Hulst wrote. "Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences — allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways — as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and mobile, requires a different approach and different resources." Sony is working on multiple live-service games and had planned to release 10 of them by 2026. At least one of those — The Last of Us Online — was shelved. However, the company has seen some success on the live-service front, with Helldivers 2 becoming one of the biggest hits of the year so far. However, it emerged this month that Sony doesn't plan to release any sequels for its major first-party franchises until at least April next year. It's relying on third-party titles such as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the Elden Ring expansion to help cover the gaps in its own pipeline. The company also lowered its PS5 sales forecast for the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. It expects to sell 21 million consoles in fiscal 2023, down from the previous estimate of 25 million. This slate of layoffs brings the total number of job losses in the games industry so far this year to more than 7,000 . That's on top of the more than 9,000 people who were laid off from the industry in 2023. Microsoft conducted sweeping cuts in its gaming division in January, laying off around 1,900 people. Riot Games, Unity, Twitch , Supermassive Games, Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive and Sega of America are also among those who have carried out layoffs. Update 2/27 10:53AM ET: Added a note about a Twisted Metal project reportedly being one of the canceled games.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/playstation-is-laying-off-900-staff-across-naughty-dog-insomniac-and-other-studios-145323606.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 14:42 Starting on March 5, GeForce Now users enjoying the service for free will find themselves faced with ads while they're waiting for their turn to play. NVIDIA has sent out an email to free users, telling them that they'll experience "up to two minutes of video sponsorship messages before each gaming session while in queue." It will provide support for the free service, the company said. NVIDIA also believes that the ads will lead to shorter wait times for free users. Company spokesperson Stephanie Ngo has confirmed the change to The Verge. GeForce Now gamers in the free tier can enjoy one hour of gaming at no cost, but they get cut off and have to wait in queue every time their hour-long gaming session is done. The most avid gamers who don't want to pay for GeForce Now's $10 Priority or $20 Ultimate subscription tiers will have to sit through ads multiple times. That said, the ads only show up in queue and not in the middle of a user's playtime, so they're not intrusive in the way Netflix's or Amazon Prime Videos' ads are. NVIDIA recently became the third most valuable company in the United States, overtaking Alphabet, and the fourth overall worldwide. The company is now valued at $1.83 trillion and has an 80 percent share in the high-end chip market, thanks to the AI boom over the past year. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidia-geforce-now-gets-pre-roll-ads-for-free-users-125754649.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 14:42 Lenovo’s Project Crystal is definitely sci-fi tech come to life. Currently, there are no plans to turn the concept laptop into a retail product. Yet. Instead, its ThinkPad division commissioned an exploration into the potential of transparent microLED panels and, sigh, AI integration. Engadget The most obvious use for the transparent laptop display would be sharing info at a doctor’s office or hotel desk. Instead of needing to flip a screen around, you could simply reverse the device’s output via software. According to Sam Rutherford, the transparency effect is bewildering. When closed or turned off, Project Crystal’s screen almost looks like an ordinary piece of glass with a brownish tint. But at a moment’s notice, the whole thing lights up like a battleship. It’s definitely the most intriguing thing so far at MWC 2024. Catch all the announcements right here. No tricorders, though. — Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed The best Bluetooth trackers Our favorite budget wireless earbuds are down to $53 right now Google finally brings Wallet passes to Wear OS watches along with transit directions ​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! Netflix removes grandfathered accounts’ access to Apple iTunes billing If you’ve been paying through Apple, you will now have to pay directly. If you’ve been paying Netflix through iTunes, you’ll soon have to say goodbye to your discounted rates. The company has confirmed to The Verge that it’s started removing users’ access to their iTunes billing plan for the streaming service. Members on the basic plan paying through iTunes will now have to pay the company directly using a credit or a debit card. Netflix stopped letting new customers sign up for in-app subscriptions on Apple devices way back in 2018 to avoid giving the latter a commission. Continue reading. NVIDIA’s RTX 500 and 1000 Ada GPUs bring more AI smarts to thin and light laptops They will debut in laptops this spring. NVIDIA unveiled its latest laptop GPUs and, what a surprise, they’re largely to assist AI processing. The RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation graphics cards are primarily for thin and light laptops. While they won’t offer as much TOPS AI performance as current higher-end mobile GPUs, they could be handy for on-the-go AI processing for researchers, content creators and video editors. These are workstation GPUs, so they’re not for your gaming demands. The company says the GPUs, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, offer up to twice the ray-tracing performance of previous-gen GPUs . Fourth-gen Tensor Cores, meanwhile, deliver up to twice the throughput of previous GPUs. Continue reading. This robot lawnmower runs Doom We’re not sure why. Engadget Landscaping technology company Husqvarna just announced the game will run on some of its robot lawnmowers. So you can mow down hellspawn and… grass. You play the game using the lawnmower’s onboard display. Rotating the control knob turns your character left and right and pressing the knob makes you shoot. Holding down the start button initiates forward movement. Continue reading. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-lenovos-project-crystal-laptop-looks-like-a-star-trek-prop-121555581.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 14:42 The US military has ramped up its use of artificial intelligence tools after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, based on a new report by Bloomberg. Schuyler Moore, US Central Command's chief technology officer, told the news organization that machine learning algorithms helped the Pentagon identify targets for more than 85 air strikes in the Middle East this month. US bombers and fighter aircraft carried out those air strikes against seven facilities in Iraq and Syria on February 2, fully destroying or at least damaging rockets, missiles, drone storage facilities and militia operations centers. The Pentagon had also used AI systems to find rocket launchers in Yemen and surface combatants in the Red Sea, which it had then destroyed through multiple air strikes in the same month. The machine learning algorithms used to narrow down targets were developed under Project Maven, Google's now-defunct partnership the Pentagon. To be precise, the project entailed the use of Google's artificial intelligence technology by the US military to analyze drone footage and flag images for further human review. It caused an uproar among Google employees: Thousands had petitioned the company to end its partnership with Pentagon, and some even quit over its involvement altogether. A few months after that employee protest, Google decided not to renew its contract, which had ended in 2019. Moore told Bloomberg that US forces in the Middle East haven't stopped experimenting with the use of algorithms to identify potential targets using drone or satellite imagery even after Google ended its involvement. The military has been testing out their use over the past year in digital exercises, she said, but it started using targeting algorithms in actual operations after the October 7 Hamas attacks. She clarified, however, that human workers constantly checked and verified the AI systems' target recommendations. Human personnel were also the ones who proposed how to stage the attacks and which weapons to use. "There is never an algorithm that’s just running, coming to a conclusion and then pushing onto the next step," she said. "Every step that involves AI has a human checking in at the end."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-pentagon-used-project-maven-developed-ai-to-identify-air-strike-targets-103940709.html?src=rss

27.02.2024 09:54 Those who've been paying Netflix through iTunes over the past years will soon have to say to goodbye to their lower, discounted rates. The company has confirmed to The Verge that it has started removing users' access to their iTunes billing plan for the streaming service. "Members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment" will now have to pay the company directly using a credit or a debit card, Netflix representative Momo Zhao told the publication. Netflix stopped letting new customers sign up for in-app subscriptions on Apple devices way back in 2018 to avoid giving the latter a commission. It allowed those who've already been paying through Apple to keep their payment preference, though, and at least one person said they were still enjoying the service's $10-a-month price until they got booted off their grandfathered pricing. The company killed its $10 basic plan in the US and the UK last year, which used to be its cheapest ad-free option in the regions. After a price increase a few months following that event, new customers have had to pay at least $15.49 to get a viewing experience that's not interrupted by ads. The ad-supported option now sets them back $7 a month, while the Premium tier that comes with support for four devices and Ultra HD now costs subscribers $23. Customers who used to pay through iTunes will now have to pay these prices — that is, if they still want to keep their subscriptions active.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-removes-grandfathered-accounts-access-to-apple-itunes-billing-055305616.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 Yet another notable game studio is laying off a significant chunk of its workforce. Supermassive Games, the developer behind interactive horror titles Until Dawn and The Quarry, is cutting around 90 jobs, according to Bloomberg. That's nearly a third of the studio's more than 300 employees. Supermassive confirmed in a statement that the studio will reorganize. "As a result, we are entering into a period of consultation, which we anticipate will result in the loss of some of our colleagues," it said. "This is not a decision that's been taken lightly, with many efforts made to avoid this outcome." A statement from Supermassive Games. pic.twitter.com/9GkgIrYQvt— Supermassive Games February 26, 2024 Supermassive notes that it's not safe from the "significant challenges" facing the games industry. More than 6,000 workers in the industry have lost their jobs since the beginning of the year and we're not even into March yet. Meanwhile, indie studio Die Gute Fabrik has paused production amid funding difficulties. The developer of Saltsea Chronicles and Sportsfriends will use its remaining funds to give staff a month of paid time "to catch their breaths" while they look for new jobs. The studio is still seeking backers to help it resume production and hopes to bring back current team members in the future. However, it notes that "the publishing and investment scene is so tough for companies and projects of our scale right now it's made it extremely difficult to secure funding for our next project without a gap in income." We’re sad to share that we're halting production at @gutefabrik due to the challenging funding investment scene in games right now. We downed tools earlier this month have been doing our best to support the team who'll be looking for work from mid-March.Full statement: pic.twitter.com/iQgXUHDxYj— Die Gute Fabrik February 26, 2024 This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/until-dawn-and-the-quarry-developer-supermassive-is-reportedly-laying-off-around-90-workers-165747517.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 Did you think you’ve seen the last of Doom running on random stuff? Think again. Landscaping technology company Husqvarna just announced that the game will run on some of its robot lawn mowers. So you can mow down hellspawn just ahead of mowing down errant blades of grass. Here’s the deal. It’ll only be available on the company’s Automower Nera robotic lawn mower models, beginning this April. Once downloaded, you play the game via the lawn mower’s onboard display. Rotating the control knob turns Doomguy left and right and pressing the knob makes you shoot. Holding down the start button initiates forward movement. It’s Doom. You know the drill. There are some caveats here. First of all, you have to sign up to download the software by September 9. It won’t be available for US residents, despite Husqvarna making a concerted effort to sell more robot lawn mowers in the United States. Finally, this is just the game running on the onboard display. It’s not as if the mower turns your yard into an actual level, with unwanted greenery representing demonic enemies. Still, it’s always nice to see Doom continue to do its thing. The idea to make the shooter available to lawn mower enthusiasts came after a successful test run at the gaming event DreamHack Winter 2023, which was held in Sweden last December. This is just the latest example of Doom popping up where it shouldn’t. We’ve seen the FPS running on pregnancy tests, rat brain neurons and even inside of other games, like the sequel Doom II and Minecraft. Most recently, Doom was spotted running on actual gut bacteria with a frame rate so atrocious it would take 600 years to reach the ending.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/can-your-robot-lawnmower-run-doom-this-one-can-162641979.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 Just ahead of Mobile World Congress, NVIDIA unveiled its latest laptop GPUs and, what a surprise, they’re designed largely to assist with AI processing. The RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation graphics cards are primarily for thin and light laptops. While they won’t offer as much TOPS AI performance as current higher-end mobile GPUs, they could be a handy option for on-the-go AI processing for the likes of researchers, content creators and video editors. It's worth noting they're workstation GPUs rather than ones designed for gaming. NVIDIA says the GPUs, which are based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, offer up to twice the ray-tracing performance of previous-gen GPUs . Fourth-gen Tensor Cores, meanwhile, deliver up to twice the throughput of previous GPUs, according to NVIDIA. The company says this helps with “accelerating deep learning training, inferencing and AI-based creative workloads.” The RTX 500 has 4GB of dedicated memory, while the RTX 1000 has 6GB. NVIDIA says they deliver up to 154 and 193 TOPS of AI performance, respectively. Compared with a CPU-only AI configuration, the RTX 500 is slated to provide up to three times faster AI-powered photo editing, as much as 10 times the graphics performance for 3D rendering and up to 14 times the generative AI performance for various models. The GPUs also support DLSS 3, the company’s upscaling tech. In addition, an eighth-gen encoder includes AV1 support. NVIDIA says this video codec is “up to 40 percent more efficient than H.264, enabling new possibilities for broadcasting, streaming and video calling.” If you’re interested in picking up a laptop with an RTX 500 or 1000 GPU, you won’t have to wait long. They’ll debut this spring in laptops from the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidias-rtx-500-and-1000-ada-gpus-bring-more-ai-smarts-to-thin-and-light-workstations-161517977.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 High-end wireless earphones like the AirPods Pro and Sony WF-1000XM5 are great, but getting the absolute best performance doesn't come cheap. If you want a more affordable pair that's actually decent, the Anker Soundcore Space A40 is the top pick in our budget wireless earbuds buying guide, and a new deal has dropped it to $53 at Amazon. Outside of a brief dip to $50 during Cyber Monday, that's the lowest price we've tracked. It's also $47 below Anker's list price, though the set has usually sold for $79 for most of the past year. In recent weeks, we've seen it fall to $59. Still, this is a good chance to save a little extra. This deal applies to the black colorway, but blue and white models are available for a dollar more. You can also get the earbuds for $53 at Anker's online store by clipping an on-page coupon. Anker's listing says the offer will run through Sunday. As noted in our guide, we like the Space A40 for delivering the kind of features we'd expect from earphones that cost two or three times as much. Its active noise cancellation isn't as powerful as something like the Sony XM5s, especially with higher-pitched sounds, but it's still superb for the money. It'll adapt to your surroundings by default, but you can manually set it to strong, moderate and weak levels as needed. The earbuds themselves are light, comfortable and water-resistant with an IPX4 rating, so they'll survive most gym sessions. Battery life sits at a good eight hours or so, with an additional 40-ish hours available through a compact case, which also supports wireless charging. The pair can connect to two devices simultaneously, plus there's a usable transparency mode. The Space A40's sound quality won't blow anyone away, but it's better than many budget earbuds we've tested. It has a warm profile by default, so there's a bump in upper-base range and the treble is a bit underemphasized. It can't capture as much crisp detail as the best premium pairs as a result, but it's far from a mess and still pleasant with most popular music. If you don't like how it sounds out of the box, you can customize the EQ curve fairly effectively through the Soundcore app. The big tradeoff to all of this is mic quality. The Space A40 can still work for phone calls in a pinch, but your voice will sound muffled, and it can get lost in noisy environments. This pair also lacks wear detection, so it won't auto-pause your music or podcast when you take an earbud out. Still, it's a great value on the whole, and this discount only amplifies that. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/our-favorite-budget-wireless-earbuds-are-down-to-53-right-now-154024026.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 With the writers and actors strikes in the rear view mirror, many great shows and movies are on the horizon. If you're looking for a solid TV to watch it all on, you're in luck: LG's 2023 C3 Series OLED TVs are having a big sale on Amazon. Take the 77-inch C3 Series, which is down to $1,949 from $3,499 — a 44 percent discount. The deal brings this model down to its all-time low price since debuting last spring. The LG 2023 C3 Series is available in six sizes, ranging from 42 to 83 inches. It has the new a9 AI Processor Gen6, which is exclusive to LG OLEDs and offers HDR tone mapping, object-based picture sharpening and AI upscaling. The company also introduced the WOW Orchestra feature, which integrates the speakers from the TV and newer soundbars. Plus, there's the Brightness Booster, which helps keep the screen easily visible even in well-lit rooms . On top of being great for good old-fashioned program viewing, we recently included LG's C3 Series in our roundup of the best TVs for gaming. This designation is thanks to features like supporting ALLM, the big HDR standards like Dolby Vision and the major VRR formats. The C3 series also follows HGIG's guidelines and comes with four HDMI 2.1 ports that have an output of 4K 120Hz when connected to a PC, Xbox or PS5. Currently, sales are running on all sizes, starting with a 25 percent discount on the 42-inch model, dropping its price to $897 from $1,197. The $1,800 discount comes courtesy of the LG C3 Series 83-inch TV, thanks to a 34 percent discount cutting its cost to $3,499 from $5,300. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-takes-up-to-1800-off-lgs-2023-c3-oled-tvs-151354354.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 19:01 AMD will start selling the Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics card in the US, offering users a detuned version of its 7900 XT flagship for $549. For a savings of around $350 over the latter, it has performance on par with NVIDIA's RTX 4070 Super for some games at some settings, according to AMD. It offers impressive specs for that sum, including a Navi 31 XL GPU with 80 compute units , 160 AI accelerators and 16GB of GDDR6 memory. That's just a bit less than the 20GB of GDDR6, 96 compute units and 168 AI accelerators in the 7900 XT. With that, it offers 26 to 46 FP32 TFLOPS, a bit lower than the 700 XT's 32 to 51.6 FP32 TFLOPS. However, that means it also consumes less power — 260W TGP compared to the XT's 315W. All of that should make it a powerhouse at its 1440p resolution sweet spot. AMD claims it offers 14 percent more FPS per dollar at 1440p settings than the $549 RTX 4070 12GB. That includes games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and others at 4K. In some settings , it outperforms the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super, AMD claims. AMD At the same time, the 7900 GRE comes with new AI accelerators as part of the unified AMD RDNA 3 compute unit. With 160 AI accelerators and 16GB of DDR6 memory, it can generate Stable Diffusion images in less than a second, AMD said, or let you load your own large language model . The 7900 GRE isn't exactly an unknown entity, as it has been sold with PC builds , in Europe for awhile now as well as China. In general, you can expect better performance and lower power consumption than the 7800 XT , and about a 20 percent drop off compared to the 7900 XT . The 7900 GRE goes on sale starting tomorrow for $549. That's likely to be a sweet spot for a lot of US buyers, so if you're looking to get one, act quickly. And if you want to spend a bit less, AMD is also lowering the US price of the RX 7700 XT to $419, $40 less than the original price, starting today.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amds-budget-version-of-the-7900-xt-gpu-is-coming-to-the-us-for-549-140050596.html?src=rss

26.02.2024 14:31 After complaints that Google’s image generator built into its Gemini AI was woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google’s efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images “failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range.” Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget’s tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church. The Verge reported that the chatbot also depicted Nazis as people of color, but we couldn’t get Gemini to generate Nazi images. “I am unable to fulfill your request due to the harmful symbolism and impact associated with the Nazi Party,” the chatbot responded. Raghavan said Google didn’t intend for Gemini to refuse to create images of any particular group or to generate historically inaccurate photos. He also reiterated Google’s promise to improve Gemini’s image-generation abilities. However, that entails “extensive testing” before the company switches the feature back on. — Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander tipped over at touchdown, but it’s still kicking Some Apple Vision Pro units reportedly developed a similar hairline crack on the front glass Amazon to pay $1.9 million to settle claims of human rights abuses of contract workers ​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! The first phone reveal at MWC 2024 is this official Barbie Flip Phone C'mon Barbie let's go party. HMD MWC 2024 kicks off this week, and while Engadget is covering it all remotely — no tapas for Mathew — this is one we’d be unlikely to book a meeting for. HMD has been making Nokia phones for the past few years and announced at MWC it’ll release an official Barbie Flip Phone this summer, in partnership with Mattel. It’ll be pink, obviously, with a dash of “sparkle.” It’ll be a feature phone, not a smartphone, with HMD marketing it as an accessory geared toward “style, nostalgia and a much-needed digital detox.” That also means it should be cheap. Continue reading. Samsung’s Galaxy Ring gets officially revealed at MWC It’ll be on display alongside its Galaxy AI mobile experience. Samsung Samsung has put its Galaxy Ring on public display for the first time at its booth at MWC, which starts today. The health and wellness device, available in platinum silver, gold and ceramic black, will go on sale later this year. The company said little about the Galaxy Ring when it first displayed a render of the device at Unpacked last month. We learned that it would be a wellness-oriented wearable to rival Oura, and it would have a suite of unknown sensors. Journalists weren’t allowed to photograph it, but some additional images from Samsung show it to be a chonky, concave ring about the same size as the Oura. The extra girth isn’t surprising, given the electronics cached inside. The company described the Galaxy Ring as “a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform.” So, a smart ring then? Continue reading. Let’s talk about Xbox This week’s gaming news. No one is suggesting Microsoft should stop making video-game hardware. But should Microsoft keep making generationally distinct consoles in the traditional hardware cycle? Does Xbox need a box? The company calls its cloud game streaming service xCloud for a reason, right? Watch here.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-why-googles-gemini-image-generation-feature-overcorrected-for-diversity-121506687.html?src=rss