Engadget

28.02.2025 20:31 Intel announced that it's further delaying plans to open two chip fabrication facilities in Ohio, pushing their completion out to 2030. The company originally announced its plans for Ohio in 2022, with an ambitious opening set for 2025. Intel says it completed the "basement" level of its Ohio One project last quarter, which allows above-ground construction to get underway now. The $20 billion dollar project is technically split across two different chip fabs, dubbed Mod 1 and Mod 2, which won't be completed at the same time. Mod 1 is now set to open in 2030, to "align the start of production of our fabs with the needs of our business and broader market demand," according to Intel. Mod 2 will be completed the following year in 2031. Intel Corporation The justification is financial: Intel says it's taking a "prudent approach" that will ensure the chip fabs are completed in a "financially responsible manner." Intel previously told the state of Ohio that it was delaying the fabs until 2027. It also delayed the groundbreaking of the project seemingly to incentivize the passing of the CHIPS Act in 2022, according to a report from The Washington Post. More delays add to what's been a tumultuous period for Intel as a company. In December, former CEO Pat Gelsinger was pushed out, likely because he wasn't pulling-off Intel's aggressive plans to expand chip production. Prior to that, the funding the company was set to receive through the CHIPS Act was reduced by $600 million. Add in layoffs and the continued dominance of chip makers like AMD, and Intel remains in a tricky spot.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/intel-once-again-delays-its-long-awaited-ohio-chip-fabrication-facilities-185516274.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 20:31 Fubo TV is bringing in more subscribers and revenue but still losing loads of money. Ahead of its proposed Hulu + Live TV merger, the broadcast streaming service increased its subscriber count by about four percent in Q4 2024 and its quarterly revenue by eight percent from a year earlier. And hey, it only lost about $41 million in the quarter, so things aren't too shabby! The streaming service ended Q4 with 1.676 million paid subscribers. That's up from 1.61 million in Q3 and 1.45 million in Q2, so the company is doing something right in attracting new customers. Its total revenue has also grown: nearly $1.59 billion for the year and $433.8 million for the quarter . Not too shabby! But Fubo is losing boatloads of money — just less than before. It posted a net loss of nearly $178 million for the year, more than enough to ruin most individuals and small- or medium-sized businesses. But since this is corporate America, things are looking up there, champ! That's because Fubo improved its losses by over $115 million from a year earlier. The company is headed for some big changes. Pending shareholder and regulatory approval, Disney will buy a 70 percent stake in the company and merge it with Hulu + Live TV. The deal would create a new entity to manage the two brands, although the plan is for them to continue as separate services . Fubo is arguably the best live TV service for sports, but it still has some notable missing pieces. For starters, you won't find any Warner Bros. Discovery content. That means subscribers will miss out on a bunch of NBA games and MLB games on TBS. It also recently increased its prices, with the cheapest plan coming in at $85, slightly more than YouTube TV. Like the traditional cable it's gunning to replace, live streaming TV is increasingly an expensive hot mess.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/fubo-grows-its-subscribers-and-revenue-as-disney-deal-looms-183344157.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 20:31 We've published our review of the new "budget" iPhone 16e, but if the savings there don't feel like quite the bargain you were looking for, there are a few consolation deals on other Apple gear — along with a handful of sales on more tech we currently recommend. The spotlight deal highlights the lowest price yet on a four-pack of Apple AirTags . We also noticed Amazon is still running a deal that tosses in a free $200 gift card with the purchase of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra . Other deals include a discounted Anker charger, a hefty coupon on our favorite budget cordless vacuum and more. Here are the best deals from this week that you can still get today. Spotlight deal Apple 2024 MacBook Air M3 for $899 at B&H Photo : The next generation of the MacBook Air with an M4 chip is likely on the horizon. But there's little chance it'll be $200 off. The nice thing about most Apple gear is it tends to be relatively long-lived. So if you don't need the latest model, this deal could be one to snag. We gave the 13-inch model a high score of 90 in our review and named it the best laptop you can buy. Note that the discount applies to the Air model with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage in the Midnight colorway. Also at Amazon. Apple Pencil Pro for $99 at Amazon : If you have a newer iPad and want a compatible Apple Pencil to go along with it, take a gander at this deal, which is $30 off and about $10 more than the record low. The Pro stylus allows for squeeze-based gestures, haptic feedback, pressure sensitivity and the ability to sense when the stylus is rolled to change the orientation of pen and brush tools. Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget Apple Watch Series 10 for $329 at Amazon : This is the same deal we've seen for a few months now, but if you missed it the other times we mentioned it, here's another chance to save $70 on Apple's latest generation flagship smartwatch. It's currently our favorite smartwatch overall and we gave it a positive review when it came out back in September of last year. It has a thinner design this time, but a larger screen. The health tracking features are great and it's an ideal companion for an iPhone. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with a $200 Amazon gift card for $1,300 at Amazon : When Samsung's latest premium phone came out this January, Amazon offered a free $200 gift card for pre-orders. The same deal is still going strong, so if you were holding out to see what the reviews said before you bought it, then you still have a chance to get the same deal. If you shop at Amazon regularly, you might consider the $200 gift card akin to free money. Anker Soundcore 2 Portable Bluetooth Speaker for $38 at Amazon : It's not an all-time low, but still a pretty cheap price on a Bluetooth speaker. We recommend two Anker Soundcore speakers in our guide to portable speakers and this is the budget version of those. The 12-watt speaker isn't the most powerful, but you do get 24 hours of battery life on a charge and it's waterproof. For less than $40 it could be a good option for a knockaround speaker you don't have to worry too much about. Anker Anker USB-C Nano 65W charger for $30 at Amazon : We've seen this price again and again over the past few months, but it since one can never have enough wall chargers on hand, we'll mention it again. This is the larger version of the Nano charger we recommend in our fast charger guide and should serve you well for speedy refills on your laptop, smartphone and tablets. Reolink Altas PT Ultra 4K solar security camera for $139 at Reolink : In our newly published guide to security cameras, the Reolink Atlas earned the honor of best camera with solar power. We like the big battery, affordable solar panel and hi-res video quality. Also at Amazon with a clickable coupon. Rad Power Bikes RadCity 5 Plus plus battery for $1,499 at Rad Power : The ebike company's bestselling commuter model with a 14 Ah battery is selling for $1,499, which is $699 off. The battery is $499 on its own, so this is still $200 less than buying the bike on it's own at full price. The deal will run through March 12 and you'll see the full discount when you add both the battery and bike to your cart. Here at Engadget, we've tried out a few Rad Power bikes and found them to strike a good balance between quality and affordability. Valentina Palladino for Engadget Tineco Pure ONE S11 cordless vacuum for $199 at Amazon : The budget pick from our guide to the best cordless stick vacs is currently on sale for $100 off. It's relatively lightweight, easy to use and the suction is great for the price. It also has a feature that adjusts the suction to accommodate the amount of dirt it encounters. Crucial X9 Pro for $70 at Amazon : We've seen this deal a few times in recent months on one of our favorite portable SSDs. It's not the absolute fastest model but quick enough for most needs at a reasonable price. We also appreciate the rugged design and the fact that it stays cool with extended use. Also at B&H and Best Buy. Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget ASUS ROG Ally for $450 at Best Buy : This is the original ROG Ally that came out in mid-2023. It's not as powerful or ergonomic as the newer ROG Ally X, and we still think Valve's Steam Deck is he best gaming handheld overall. But this is cheaper than either of those models with similar capacites and it can play games from Steam, the Epic Games Store or the Xbox app. This deal ties the all-time low for the model with an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip. ThermoWorks Thermapen One for $79 at ThermoWorks : We recommend the Thermapen One in our guide to the best grilling gear. It reads temperatures quickly and accurately and has an easy-to-read display. This isn't the lowest price we've ever tracked, but this Engadget-exclusive deal marks the lowest price we could find in the last few months. Every day, Engadget editors hunt down the best discounts on the tech we recommend. See them all on our deals page. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-four-apple-airtags-for-a-new-low-of-65-plus-the-rest-of-this-weeks-best-tech-deals-173011789.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 The only surprise in Amazon’s reveal of Alexa+ this week was the price. With inflation rampant and many more impactful subscription services to choose from, $20 per month is an absolutely bonkers price for an as-yet unproven AI chatbot. Recall that Alexa has historically not cost anything as long as you've had hardware to run it. The same goes for Google Assistant as well as Apple’s Siri. They’ve always been tools to enhance hardware, not the product itself. What's stranger is that $20 per month, which I will reiterate is bonkers, is essentially fake — the equivalent of an inflated MSRP. And the reason I know that is because a whole-ass subscription to Prime costs $5 a month less, and includes Alexa+. You can read this one of two ways. Amazon thinks Alexa+ is worth more on its own than the entirety of Prime. Or, the ridiculous pricing is an artificial speedbump to steer people into Amazon's ecosystem while also encouraging them to buy some Echo hardware while they’re at it. Somehow a company accused in the US and Europe of deceptively separating customers from their money hasn't tried this trick yet. In a vacuum, $20 for Alexa+ does line up with some other premium AI services — OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus and the Google One Gemini Advanced plan both cost the same. And Amazon is doing something at least a little different by letting a generative AI voice assistant loose on your smart home, just as it did with the original Alexa. And I do find the option to build a library of uploaded documents within Alexa+'s memory intriguing, much as I'd prefer anyone but Amazon be the one storing that info. But despite some potentially useful features, it’s impossible to recommend spending that kind of money on Alexa+ now, given that Amazon predictably flubbed some demos in its presentation and hardly let any journalists at its event really test it out. I don’t think Amazon is expecting a ton of sign-ups at that $20 monthly price. Besides prodding more people to sign up for Prime, this wild price for Alexa+ telegraphs a move to jack up the cost of Prime sooner than later. It’s been just over two years since Amazon increased Prime’s price, so we’re certainly due for another gouging. Of course, the company will point to Prime’s “increased value” over that time, and to be fair you do get a lot your dollar at this point — assuming that you want to continue spending more cash at Amazon. And Alexa+, with its built-in ability to make a grocery list and order it through Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods, slots nicely into that framework. Vanilla Alexa's propensity to order regular, non-perishable goods from Amazon — sometimes without users intending it — will of course carry over. My recommendation? Given the economy, just back the hell away from this entirely. There are plenty of services that are more entertaining or useful for your money. Google’s Gemini Advanced plan comes with 2TB of Drive storage and a handful of other perks. Or you could sign up for Xbox Game Pass. Or blow your money on a couple video-streaming services and let the #content wash over you as we slide into the abyss. At least those options aren’t a portal to handing Amazon more of your hard-earned cash.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/20-a-month-for-an-ai-chatbot-in-this-economy-150021310.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 Microsoft is officially getting rid of Skype as of May 5 and encouraging its users to pick Teams once and for all. In its announcement, the company stated that the move will allow it to "streamline our free consumer communications offerings so we can more easily adapt to customer needs." Microsoft is also far from subtle in its push for Teams and included step-by-step instructions for migrating over. All users need to do is log in with their Skype credentials and their chats and contacts should appear. Teams and Skype users will be able to communicate with each other until the latter shuts down. Microsoft also published an entire YouTube video illustrating how to transition user data. However, anyone who doesn't want to move to Teams can choose to export all of their data and history before May 5. The news is hardly surprising given recent moves such as removing credits and phone numbers from Skype in favor of subscriptions. XDA initially reported the possibility of Skype shutting down, with a Skype for Windows code preview reading, "Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available. Continue your calls and chats in Teams." New users won't be able to access paid Skype features, while current subscribers can use credits and their plan through the end of their renewal period. Skype launched over two decades ago in 2003. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011 — right around the time myself and everyone I knew was desperately searching for a strong enough Wi-Fi connection in their home to talk with friends and before video chats became the norm at work. While Skype doesn't really have much to differentiate it in a world filled with the likes of Zoom, FaceTime and, yes, Teams, it's still hard to say goodbye to a service that provided such excitement and connection. Skype felt like a new era of communication and it will be missed. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/skype-will-take-its-final-curtain-and-video-call-may-5-144256172.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 The keyword for the iPhone 16e seems to be "compromise." In this episode, Devindra chats with Cherlynn about her iPhone 16e review and try to figure out who this phone is actually for. Also, they dive into Amazon's Alexa+ event, where we finally learned more about the company's AI-powered voice assistant. Alexa+ seems useful, but can we trust it? Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics iPhone 16e review: too expensive with too many compromises – 1:28 Amazon Alexa+ is a conversational assistant powered by AI – 18:39 Framework unveils a cheap 2-in-1 laptop and a…modular desktop? – 40:53 Clone Robotics released a video of a robot with fake skin that will haunt your nightmares – 43:26 NYT: American Psychologists are getting ready to fight AI clone therapists – 44:05 Working on – 47:59 Pop culture picks – 49:02 Interview with Daniel Rausch, VP of Amazon’s Alexa division – 55:34 Credits Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn LowProducer: Ben EllmanMusic: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien Transcript Devindra: What's up, Internet, and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar. Cherlynn: I'm Managing Editor Cherlynn Low. Devindra: This week, it's the iPhone 16e, which Cherlynn has reviewed. We're going to get her full thoughts on that thing. And also, Amazon held an AI event this week. We expected a lot of devices, but they spent 75 minutes talking about Alexa plus, which is the AI powered Alexa. You know, that they, Cherlynn: we expected a lot of devices. We have one. Devindra: I expected one device, maybe Cherlynn: one, at least one it's been a while. Devindra: Mr. Panos Panay was there, the father of the service and no devices, just him talking about AI. So that's weird. Cherlynn: Oh, and stay tuned at the end of this episode. Uh, I, we included an interview that I did with, um, the vice president of Alexa to talk more about the new Alexa plus. Devindra: Anyway, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcaster of choice, leave us a review on iTunes and drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. You can also join us on our live stream on Thursday mornings, typically around 11 a. m. Eastern. Um, you'll see our faces. Sometimes we'll do QA and show off devices as well. This week, uh, Sherilyn has the iPhone 16e, which is the least, um, impressive thing to show off. It's just like, Hey, you have an iPhone from 10 years ago, five, a while ago, Cherlynn: when, when Devindra: last, was there a single camera back iPhone? Cherlynn: Oh God, before that was 11. I think so. Devindra: Yeah. Like a while ago. So, you know, it's like a flashback. All right. So let's talk about this thing, Sherlynn. And I checked out your review. First of all, you gave it a really, um, I think serviceable score. Like you're saying 77 out of 100. Your title is what's your acceptable compromise. And really when we were talking about it last week, it really was like compromise seemed like the key word. The thing we kept coming back to was like just one camera, no mag safe, no fast wireless charging. What are your overall thoughts on this thing? Cherlynn: I mean, so that headline is like all thanks to our EIC, Aaron Souppouris, because I was like, where, where do I go from here? How do I, so, so he's right. It is like, instead of what's in your wallet, it's like, what are you willing to take out your wallet? I don't know. Um, okay. I'll tell you the story. Okay. So yesterday I was at the Amazon devices and services event where there were no devices and A bunch of other reporters had gathered and we were all like, you know, the, like, review's going up soon, right? And so we were all talking about our thoughts on the 16E. Uh, I was with Lisa Eadiccico, who's now at CNN and Julian Chokkattu from WIRED. And like, they were both going off about their own, like, grievances first. Julian was the first to be like, I can't stand that there's no magsafe. And I was like, huh? I almost like, was like, oh, I didn't really. And then Lisa goes, oh, I didn't mind that so much, but I can't stand that there's no dynamic island. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I pointed out that I didn't care about either of those, but I care that there's only one camera because there's so many. So all three of us had different things we couldn't. Devindra: I mean, you're all power reviewers, right? We are. Um, Cherlynn: but we, so, so I can understand that like a lot of the little, you know, the things that we find to be compromises are very unique to like each person's use case. And I think that that's the thing and that's why I went with that headline in the end. It is ultimately like you are the one that accepts these compromises. You are the one as a person considering an iPhone that has to decide what's a, an okay compromise for yourself. Um. And for me, the, the single camera is just, I can't, I can't abide, I can't live with it. So, um, I, to me, the lack of ultrawide initially was just like, all right, well, I mean, I don't, you know, maybe I don't need an ultrawide. Maybe that's okay. Maybe my parents will need an ultrawide. But I didn't realize until spending more time with the phone that it's not just that, right? Like the lack of a second camera or a second, like, source of data for Apple to pull information for photography, computational photography stuff means that a lot of other things are just poorer than what you actually already have out there. So portrait mode was for me the biggest deal. Um, there's also like you can't do the same photographic styles as you get on the regular iPhone 16s. Uh, there's just. Yeah, even when it does apply portrait mode, it's, it's just less accurate. Um, the sort of where they draw the line as to where to apply the blur is a bit messy because there's just one camera and it's doing face detection. So yeah, look, the, the other intriguing things about the iPhone 16E or like to, to kind of give it a few. You know, here's your positives. Um, affirmations, I guess it's like, yeah, it looks like right. And iPhone 16, it doesn't seem to deviate too far from this year's lineup. And that's like for the first time in a long time has an entry level iPhone, like an S E. Looks so similar or like the gap between the iPhone 16 E to the iPhone 16 is not as far as the iPhone SE 2022 was from the iPhone 13, and that's a point that like Aaron pointed out as well. So that closeness to the iPhone 16 lineup is largely, I think. Due to, I mean, what you can't see is the A18 chip inside, right? They have the same chip across the entire iPhone 16 lineup, which is kind of bonkers to me. And then there's also the fact that it looks externally quite similar, unless you open the screen, then you see the notch, and then you see the thicker bezels. And then it's like, all right. And also like, don't go look at the rear, right? The camera is just like a dead giveaway. But otherwise, if you're just kind of like staring at someone on the train, holding onto the iPhone 16e, it's not easy to tell which model they have if you're Not immediately looking at their camera. Um, so yeah, I mean, those are some good things about it, right? The display is an OLED, and like, yes, I know that of all the choices they could have made, an OLED's not necessary. Like, for an entry level iPhone, but the, it is very bright. Um, it doesn't get quite as bright as iPhone 16 or even iPhone 15, but it's nice. I don't like that it refreshes only at 60 Hertz, but it's just much more vibrant. So Devindra: does the base iPhone right now still. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The non Cherlynn: pro phones don't have ProMotion, which is 120 Hertz or up to 120 Hertz refresh rate. So, you know, you would need to like shell out quite a lot more money for 120 Hertz refresh rate on an iPhone. Um, and I guess. That's just what you gotta live with. And also to be fair, it probably impacts battery life in a way that you wouldn't enjoy anyway, because I feel like the pro phones last about a day. Yeah. Devindra: They have variable, like, refresh rates too. So it's like, it slows down depending on like how fast you're doing shit. Right. I feel like an LCD that was a higher refresh rate would be an overall better looking experience than just, you know, putting OLED at 60 Hertz, but yeah. Cherlynn: Yeah, I think that's like a personal thing. I like OLED. So like, I like the look of it. I really enjoy. Yeah. Not a fan of the LCDs, honestly, but here's the thing. Um, when I said battery life, also one of the great things about the iPhone 16 is its battery life, right? Like I think it does last a lot longer than the iPhone 16. Um, Partly because I don't know, maybe because it doesn't get quite as bright, but like partly because it has a bigger battery. And I think all of us reviewers were kind of hesitant to be like that modem. Is it going to work or not? Cause it's like very hard to say. Um, I think most of us were supplied with the, like with service for our review units and it was like, And for me, it's really hard to be like the C1 modem works better than my iPhone 16 pros, like whatever modems in there, because it was ATT versus T Mobile, right? It really wasn't down to the Hardaware. It was down to the fact that my carrier just. doesn't have as good coverage as ATT, sad to say. Um, so I can't tell you, I, I wrote down like, yeah, I did the speed test and fast. com like testing on both phones, but it's just not. And we can't just throw Devindra: over a SIM card anymore because there are no more physical SIM cards in iPhones. So we used it's just not, Cherlynn: I mean, it could support a dual SIM, like I could. you know, support, like, uh, I could have set up a different SIM card in there to just to really do the, you know, apples to apples testing on an Apple phone. Haha. I get it, but I can't Devindra: move it as easily as you used to be able to. Cherlynn: Yeah. Yeah. I, it's like give up my own phone for hours or it's just not, it wasn't like super easy to do within the span of like a week that I had the phone. So anyway, it could be due to the C1 modem that battery life was better, but in general, like I just find that the non pro phones. All kind of last longer than the pro phones the pro phones have always on display Which is one thing that I think drains the battery, too And to be clear the 16e 16 or 15 don't have always on display either So there's a lot of like little things that you have to consider you're doing a lot of Specs sheet peeping. I mean, I think we pointed out last time when we were talking about the iPhone 16 E that like, you know, you don't have wifi seven, you don't have a thread, you don't have ultra wide band. And that's not just in millimeter wave 5g, but also in like locating things precisely, right? Like when you're using find my, and also you don't have max safe. Um, 5 Watts as opposed to 15. So there's a lot of these little things. And depending on the audience, it may or may not matter. I don't know that my mom will care. Devindra: Um, For the people who don't know what they're missing, basically. Right. Cherlynn: But then for those people is 5. 99 the price point, right? Like it's, Devindra: I don't, yeah, Cherlynn: I don't, I don't think Devindra: so. Like given all the compromises you're listing, um, This is such a, Apple has put us in a weird spot, right? Because like 599, it is the cheapest iPhone, but used to be, I wrote a whole thing last year is why the base iPhone 16e was actually a pretty good deal, given everything they put in there, and it was cheaper than the pros, and that thing is what, 800? The base Cherlynn: iPhone 16? Devindra: The 16. Yeah. Just the 16. Yeah. Um, and to me that felt like given everything they put in there, it seems good. This one at 600 does not seem like a big enough difference cost wise to like turn people. Yeah, that's the main thing. And also I think, so I set up an iPhone 14 plus for my mom. I was talking about last week and she loves it, but also she really needs that bigger screen. You know, um, even though it's slightly harder to hold, like it is much easier once you're dealing with, you know, um, older eyes, basically, you kind of need bigger screens to use these devices correctly without like putting on reading glasses every single time. And that's why the plus end up being a good one. So I don't, I see people saying like, this is a good cheap one for your parents or something. A lot of people may actually find this even too small or harder to use. Cherlynn: And so, so when you're considering that, right? Like. You want a big screen on an iPhone, the cheapest one you're going to get is the 15 I think. And that one is going to start at the same price No, wait, uh, same price as the iPhone 16, um, smaller one. So, no matter what that decision is, whether you're going for iPhone 16 16 or 15 plus versus 16 E. The difference is 200. And if you're financing your phone over two months, that is like a few dollars a month over 24 months. Aaron and I were talking this out and Aaron was like, I'm happy to eat two ramen meals instead of like going out every month, just to save that money and make up for it, it's like, it's quite easy to do the math here and, and. And go for something better instead of the 16 E, like for me. If you like taking photos at all, don't do the 16e to yourself. I mean, again, it's going to be a huge improvement in quality over the iPhone 11 and up, but even the iPhone 11 onwards has dual cameras. Devindra: Yeah. Cherlynn: Quality itself is the same, but versatility is different, you know, so. Devindra: I mean, I kind of feel that, like, I don't want to sound like, Hey, just put everything on credit or installment plans, right. Or deal with your carrier payments. But that is kind of the way costs break down, at least in the U S I'm sure in other countries where you're not paying, you know, monthly, or if you're paying like all up front, A lot of people just want to buy their phones out right then. Yeah, this is legitimately cheaper and you'll feel that in your pocketbook. But I also agree that, um, the smartest thing to do is not to give away all your money, right? But also not to pay extra interest on it. So the carrier payment plans are actually pretty good. And if you do, if you throw in an upgrade in there, that's how they juice you, right? Like, that's how they get to they're like, Oh, we're going to give you 800 in credit for this very, very old phone. But yeah, the trade is like that credit is useless outside of paying for a phone. But if you care about paying for your phone, then it's actually pretty useful. So that's how I ended up getting like the 16, not the 16, the 15 pro max for like, not much because I just traded in an earlier iPhone and you have a good phone for like Cherlynn: two years. Yeah. Yeah. Devindra: Yes. Play the system, folks. Like, play. These carriers want to give you money. They want to tempt you with things. Um, the cheapest path for an iPhone may not necessarily be just the one Apple is selling, but again, also look at the used market. Look at other things. Uh, yeah. I'm surprised you didn't bring up the iPhone 16 plus, Sherilyn, because that one is 900. So not much more. Yeah, it's a bit far out. You're getting closer to the pro. There. Any other thoughts on the 16? Yeah. Because I just feel like, hey, yes. It's a cheaper iPhone with a lot of compromises and I just feel like I don't think we'll be talking about this phone very much after this week. Cherlynn: Okay. Devindra: Yeah. Cherlynn: So my thoughts on the reviewing the iPhone 16e. Um, and the other things that I really like are that being forced to use a phone that feels like it's from like, I don't know, five, at least five years ago, right, made me actually grow to appreciate the features I've taken for granted on the 16 pro that I kind of pooh poohed at the start. Right. So things like dynamic Island, I'm surprised. I'm like, Whoa, I actually liked dynamic Island and, and to Lisa's point, when she pointed out that she, um, missed it, I'm like, yeah, actually it is. Become, and it's not the aesthetic of it. It's not the all screen. It's the fact that it's functional. Your live activities sit there. It makes a big difference. And going back to the notch was like, huh, where's my waveform for my voice memo? You know, it's kind of like, Uber timer. Where's your, Devindra: when is your delivery? All that stuff is really Spotify Cherlynn: controls. All of that stuff. I mean, there is some kind of like some apps still sit at the top nicely, but not in the notch. And so it's just kind of weird. Um, the other thing that I've found myself missing from the iPhone 16 pro is weirdly camera control, but not in the way you'd expect. So what I like about camera control, having it versus not, is that. It's a really quick way to launch your camera in a dedicated, like it's just dedicated shortcut. You don't need to think about it. You just press it and it opens. Um, and the 16E has the action button that you can customize to do that. And so I found myself doing that, but the thing is you have to give it up, you know, like whatever, like, for example, I use the 16 pros action button to switch between silent mode and not silent mode and same. On the 16E, you can't have both at once, so that's kind of sad. You can still use the lock screen shortcut, of course, but I don't want to have to pull out my phone, swipe the screen, and then take a photo. I'm just like, take it out of my pocket and it's good to go, you know? So those are the things, like, I learned from my review, not specifically about the 16E, but about these other features Apple has introduced that, like, I wasn't super impressed by at the start, but, like, now I'm like, oh, they have actually. I've grown used to them in my life and That's why long term reviews are important. And I would say, stay tuned to our website. We'll see like more of these long term thoughts. Devindra: That's uh, yeah, I think that's ultimately it. It is, this is, I think for listeners of the show, probably not a phone. A lot of people would be buying. Ben, for the love of God, do not, um, Yeah, don't, don't do it. Cherlynn: Get the iPhone 15. I think you might enjoy, especially because if you don't care about Apple intelligence and don't. You know what all the fuss is about? The 15 is a good phone. Devindra: 15? So, the 15 Pro, like, honestly, any of those, although it's only the Pro Max that works with Apple Intelligence because it has the additional RAM. No, the Cherlynn: Pro. The Pro alone will get you intelligence, so you're fine. Just do the 15 Devindra: Pro? Cherlynn: Okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. Ben: Yeah, no, I wasn't aware of that because I was about to say that reading the Reviews for the 16e convinced me to get a, um, 16 base model or 16 pro, because I read Sherlyn's review and Julian's review at Wired back to back, and Julian made The really interesting point of, okay, yes, Apple intelligence going to be in its infancy right now, but if you want continued access to all of the stuff that might be coming in the next like year and a half, two years, two and a half years or so, because I do keep my phone for a while, then it's a good idea to have something that Like can get that right now Ben for you Devindra:specifically the voice notes transcription thing That could be useful in addition to other recording you're doing that's like instant transcription of an obsession you're in or something So Ben: yep, that's good stuff. So like if i'm doing um Recordings with like lav mics any of those lav mics that have gotten really popular in the last couple of years You see tiktokers using them and everything like that You should be able to use Apple intelligence to Transcribe this stuff that you recorded into, you know The sure app or the road app or whatever like that Devindra: not yet But I think that'll definitely come anything else you want to add Trillin because we got we get stuff Cherlynn: I was going to say that the iPhone 15 Pro, just to confirm, it does support Apple Intelligence, so you can consider that. I mean, like, that's going to be cheaper than the 16, it's the same price as the 16, I'm sure. That's what I'm trying to do right now, is to confirm the iPhone 15 Pro pricing for you. I, I don't know that Apple still sells the 15 Pro though, so if you can find it, get it, but if you can't. You Devindra: know, and after you're giving up the camera button, if you go for 15 pro and also any potential other, I don't know, I don't know if they're gonna have like lock off points for like what apple intelligence features you get because you'll have a slightly lower, um, you know, intelligence chip than, uh, I mean, maybe Cherlynn: in future, right? Like if, if we're thinking the apple intelligence is gonna stick around for five years. Sure. Ben: Yeah. Cherlynn: But I mean, yeah. Um, I'm not saying don't will in Ben: some capacity. Cherlynn: Sure. Sure. In, in some way. They might retire the name or something, but they'll still have the feature of like, yeah, intelligent Siri or whatever. Devindra: I don't, I, they're so dug in, like all these companies are so dug in, they would look ridiculous. So if they're just like, forget about all that AI stuff that we tried to feed you. It feels they're stuck with it Cherlynn: piece from three, five years ago. I can't, everyone's, I, Devindra: no, at least it's safe. At least these are, don't think these are features you can touch and feel and they do shit. Um, but some of them don't. Some of them just don't work well, NFTs were just like useless anyway. Let's move on. Let's move on. We got other news. Let's talk about in talking about potentially useless features. Amazon announced, uh, Alexa plus, sorry for people who have echoes nearby, but the AI powered version of its voice assistant that they've been talking about for a while. They announced, I think two years ago, 2023, that they were working on a better conversational Alexa using generative AI tools. We hadn't heard anything about it until now. It's coming. They fully announced it. Uh, there's no a clear arrival date yet, but it's gonna be $20 a month on its own or a part of a prime subscription if you already have it. And that is $15 a month. So clearly they just want you to get prime. That's the whole point of Amazon these days. Um, it's gonna be coming to a, you know, these devices with screens first, eventually to any of the devices. And since it's in the cloud, they're not doing onboard processing. Um, you don't have to go buy new devices. So that's cool. I think that's the main good thing here. But what is Alexa Plus, Jolene? Are you intrigued by it? Cherlynn: Yeah, uh, I wanted to say at the start of this episode, actually, really just to give people a moment to go and mute their echo speakers. So while I waffle on for a little bit, I'm not going to say the A word. You have some time right now. Walk over to your speaker, mute the microphone. But anyway, it's impossible to avoid this. I'm not saying this word, this episode at all. So your, your best bet is to have muted your speaker by this point, if not pause. Okay. So, I mean, we, we knew it was going to be about this, like redesign slash like next gen Alexa, um, for this event, but some of us are still, I guess, hoping for a device because it's been a long time since there's been a new echo speaker or a new echo device, new echo buds, new, like. Like a show I guess. So anyway, attending this event was intriguing. It was fun for me because it was nice to like, see people. Um, I don't know if y'all read the live blog, but there was a moment where we were like moving from one spot to another and I kind of saw Panos just kind of making his way through the crowd and nobody like knew. It was looking at it. I was like, Oh, this man is like being treated like an average Joe. And I'm like, this is Panos, excuse me. So I just went, I just like, as I was coming up the stairs, I saw him, Hey Panos. And he turns around and he's like, Oh, hi. And then he's like very friendly. He's like, I was with Lisa as well. And so like, he was shaking hands with both of us and he was like, saying nice things. Oh, thank you for your very kind article to me. And then like, he's talking to Lisa as well. So we're all just like, all right. I mean, that was, that's the sort of thing I go, I like, deeply Devindra: in the eyes, because the thing about making me question Cherlynn: my life choices, Devindra: he has those, uh, you know, like when you talk to a mystic or like a magician and they just like stare into your soul a little bit, it's so funny. It was very Cherlynn: like the, and then his portion of the presentation too was funny because, okay, so the nobody. Um, and I was able to see this set up because this was not a live streamed event. You could only see our photos and our live blog. And maybe you saw, you know, social media influencers live streamed it perhaps. So, but, but to describe it for you, we were all set around the stage and there was this gigantic, Projection of an echo show, which is their like picture frame looking smart display. And there's a webcam or an actual camera, I'm sure built into where the camera of the echo show would normally be on this gigantic a hundred inch echo show on the wall. Um, and then, you know, whatever PS or other people doing demos were doing on a. More like regular size echo show probably 21 on the stage was reflected in real time on that. So at some point, um, during the demo or the presentation, they had Alexa use the webcam on the wall and see if the people. You know, watching panels do his thing, we're reacting in a certain way. Right. He was like, Oh, Alexa, like, um, uh, tell me what this 200 group of 250 people look like. And like, um, you know, I'm, I'm nervous, you know, tell me about what they're saying. Like the expressions are telling you or something like that. And it was like, Oh yeah, they all look happy. And like, they're ready to listen to what you're saying because they have their laptops open and that sort of shit. And I will say like having seen the picture. Or the view of like myself in the audience. I'm like, you know, I think Alexa did like. I mean, if it was accurate and truly like a live present demo, then it's like, it, it worked to the way, like the humanity worked, right? Like it, they're good at parsing image info. Yeah. Devindra: I don't know why. If somebody had like stuck up their middle fingers or like did something really wild, like. They, it was a wi, they said it was a live demo, so they could have, Alexa could've just said that too. Like, could have pointed out they could have, I didn't, dude, being a jerk. Yeah, Cherlynn: I know. When I saw the camera open, I was like, yeah, I just put my hands up immediately. I was like, yeah, but I, I wish I should have done something different, but I wanted to verify that it was live and so like, I was just trying to move around and see if I was in it. Ben: Yeah. Good. That's a good move actually. Yeah, no, that was a good move because otherwise it could easily be a canned Cherlynn: response. Right. So I saw myself and I like was in the outfit that I was wearing that like it's just. Accurately at me, right? So, I mean, I guess that excitement in my expression did get correctly captured by Alexa, but you. Devindra: It locked onto you. Like, this one girl is a little too, too excited. One person. Please calm down. Please calm down. Yeah, like, Cherlynn: chill? Your laptop's falling off your lap? Like, maybe calm down. Um, but you know, so, so, so, to my, like, what I was saying earlier is that it's been a while since they promised or previewed this, and now it's like, I don't know that I was super excited by anything I saw a demo. Hang on. There is one thing I am. And like everything else seems very reminiscent of like Gemini and like. It's the new Siri and like, um, the, I, I, I mean, I guess opening. I also get Devindra: back to what is like, what is it? Yeah, it is Alexa, but it is also smarter, more conversational. You don't have to keep saying Alexa all the time. You can continue the, whatever you're saying to it, right. Cherlynn: More conversational, natural. And if that's reminiscent of anything other than what I've already said, it's also very co pilot by the way. Like it's just. It's contextually aware of like the conversation so you don't have to follow up and say like my favorite team is this and then like, you know, how did my favorite team do? You can, you can, you know, it will remember that stuff within the same conversation. You can also send it documents and emails and stuff and have it pull out pertinent information for you. So I think the demo that was given was like somebody sent their HOA, um, bylaws or whatever and asked if they could use solar panels and then Alexa was like, Right. Alexa was like, Oh, you can, but make sure it's just like, it seems like your HOA supports green energy, but doesn't want it to be visible. So as long as you use it on the side of your roof, that's not facing out, like you will be fine. That's Devindra: actually useful, by the way, like I just want to put that whole process, even if it means like you have to do something like drop a PDF to your Alexa through the website or the app or something like there are all these documents we live with. Nobody reads them all right. So, and then you get people on next door or like your neighborhood, a Facebook group who don't read asking the basic questions of stuff that's already explained. So like, if you could just talk to your Alexa and like get accurate info, that's cool. That is interesting. But also I feel like there's a downside to that because then you're putting all your trust in this machine, interpolated that correctly. Right. So they showed off one example of like, uh, Oh, you got your. Kids schedule for their sports games. When am I supposed to bring snacks for that? If that thing gives you the wrong date or tells you any bit of wrong info, that's a problem for you That's a problem for your kid That's like social embarrassment because then you're the parent who screws up bringing snacks and you don't want to be that parent Because other parents are so judgy. So that's the part where I'm like, I don't I don't know how much we can trust this You know, this is a nice little helper, but you're still gonna have to double check that info. I'd say Cherlynn: Are you okay, Devendra? It feels like you think, uh, your parents are judgy. Devindra: Uh, wait, just wait, Sherilyn. Wait till you encounter more parents. I think Cherlynn: there's quite a few I've already seen online, but okay, so, I mean, there's that stuff. And then what really intrigued me about the new Alexa, and I'm writing a story on this for the website, by the way. Or I've already written, it's just not going up yet. Um, it's the third party integration side of things. So Amazon's whole point, right? Let's start from there. Amazon's whole point was that these LLM based assistants, one of their greatest flaws or weaknesses is that they can't really work well with APIs. So Alexa Plus is going to work with third party services in three different ways. And it's important because you think about how all these Machine learning or like these generative AI chatbots, they generate things for you, but they rarely ever can do things with other companies and businesses on your behalf. And so this is going to be crucial to making like the Alexa plus experience much more useful because like so far we've been limited to talking to these chatbots and being like, create my essay for me, summarize this thing for me. Like it's very. Limited to generative stuff, but once you can broaden beyond that, it gets really useful. And I think that's why I'm so intrigued. And so the three ways that Amazon's going to use, um, make this work is one through API. So it's already worked with, like, it says tens of thousands of its partners at launch, um, including Uber, Samsung, Xbox, or some of the logos that we saw. So those are some sort of API integration, which means I think they've worked together with the company to ensure that that works. And that's an impressive number at launch. The second way is this thing that sounds very familiar. Basically, Alexa will be able to navigate websites on your behalf. It can, like, go out to, like, um, let's say a model project's website and see, like, Find a calendar. It's a restaurant that children Devindra: can't stop ordering from. Cherlynn: I love Mala project in New York. Um, but yeah, so you can just be like Alexa, like, um, what's that restaurant we really like in the east village. And it'll be like. Oh, these are the things and then like you can be like, Oh, can you make a reservation at that second one? And it will go to the website for you and scour it and then you can just tell it things like, Oh, for three people for how many and then it'll make the reservation. Um, if that sounds familiar, it's because Google's duplex. Was supposed to do that for you with restaurants, it would phone businesses on your behalf and you literally phone the businesses and Devindra: talk to you. Cherlynn: Yeah, it would use a human voice to talk to them. And that was kind of strangely implemented the Google Duplex system because it was a human talking to a machine to interact with humans on their behalf. Devindra: It offloaded so much work to the human workers and that's what pissed me off about that whole thing. Right, Cherlynn: it would bother actual human beings, which is where kind of it was very annoying. It's format that Amazon is describing has machine talking to website and it kind of eliminates that like sort of human frustration. It can probably be more likely to make mistakes in my opinion. Devindra: Like how is it talking to the website is the key. Is it talking to OpenTable? Is it talking to like a service that already exists? Cherlynn: Exactly. So, so no, so, so it can't. So there's two ways, right? One, so the open table thing is through the API method that I mentioned, um, before, which is when you have enough of these APIs, um, Alexa can form like what it calls experts. So it can have a reservation expert. It can have a food ordering expert globe. That's part of the API experience. The second part is it just goes out and scours the internet. I, I don't know the full technical details yet, and I'm going to ask Amazon for more. Okay. Um, but what it is is basically, yeah, the software is going out and scraping websites and being like, here's the reservation system and here's all the available things I'm going to click through as if I am a human being, clicking through these things and initiate the reservation. So. I mean, I think that's super intriguing. That also sounds familiar. And Devendra, you'll like this and you can tell me if you have faith in this. It sounds a lot like the Revit R1s, like large action model. Devindra: I mean, sure. It's like getting the LLMs to do actions. That just, yeah, it kind of sounds like that. Again, we have to see if it actually works. I have faith in APIs because robots understand APIs, right? You trigger a reservation function to this restaurant, has all the data already there. Having a robot just be like, can you scrape the text in this? Is, does this have a form to input for reservations? Can you input into like, that doesn't, that will not work. That definitely won't. Cherlynn: Right. So yeah. Yeah. And we saw that the Rabbit R1 struggled with it. So I, I don't know, I want it to work. I don't know the details of how it'll work. So like to be extra clear, right? Like we're kind of speculating a little bit here on how it all works, but it seems in essence and spirit to be very similar to Duplex and the Rabbit. R1s, LEMs, so we'll have to see how effective it really is. My question Devindra: to you, yeah, would you trust it? No, I can't. Because the just like, open OpenTable on your phone or something, or just go to Google on your phone because sometimes you can reserve right from the Google Maps thing. Right. But just doing it in five minutes on your phone. I trust that. And even then I'm like a little wary that the restaurant doesn't always check those digital reservations. Cherlynn: They don't get a concept. You show up and there's no table waiting for you. And there's nothing for Devindra: you. I don't trust that just talking to this stupid speaker that I've had for a decade, you know, that had trouble, you know, understanding me, we'll be able to effectively reserve something. I would love it for it to be able to do something like, Hey, set up this reservation on open table and let me double check it or set up a grubhub order or Uber. To me, that's more useful because I like stuff I can trust. And the whole thing about the Apple, the rabbit device, I couldn't trust anything. You can trust it. Yeah. Cherlynn: I wanted to say that like, um, the, the, the demo that they did was of thumbtack, right? So thumbtack is this like professional people that you can hire kind of like handy, but I guess it has a website and doesn't have an app. So what I think that the second method that Amazon's describing brings is that it eliminates, or at least like. It opens up the playing field to smaller businesses that don't have apps, that don't have developers who can work with Amazon to integrate APIs or to come up with their own APIs. It just makes it like it levels the playing field a little bit, right? And then finally, the third way that like Amazon is making Alexa Plus work better with their party services is, um, and this is where it's a bit dystopian. It's a through all these AI agents. So Alexa can go talk to AI agents on your behalf. Uh, so instead of having to like, um, the demo again, during the presentation was too soon. Oh, so like Alexa, go ask this thing to make me a country music song about bodega cats. And it was like, cool, I think you heard the song Davindra, it was a kind of a cute song. Devindra: I could barely hear it. Cherlynn: But you also could have gone to the website to ask for this song, right? So one day eventually you'll probably be able to get Alexa to talk to you, like say the United Airlines customer service chatbot or somewhere, your bank's chatbot. And the idea of these bots talking to each other is just so funny to me. Devindra: It's, it's sort of like, yeah, it's, it's, they have, um, sort of separated. The idea of visiting websites is just like, you're asking something to go visit something for you and talk to that something. So you can think of AI agents as just like websites that talk to each other, I guess, is this kind of the way this is all going, um, briefly, like we should talk about like. They talked about all sorts of other features for this too, like you'll be able to order groceries just by talking to it or other delivery services. They showed off the feature of like, um, your kids can use Alexa plus to, uh, basically conjure stories together and have like shared story time together, which is the whole thing. So yeah, a lot of cool ideas. Um, to me, this is like the most useful form of like. Generative AI stuff I've seen in terms of like, I don't want to type more stuff into search fields for, um, for co pilot or chat GPT. Like I want to be able to just talk to things and have it come back with information. My other thing though, is like, I am getting the sinking feeling that. I may have to just divest myself of a lot of Amazon stuff at this point, because the very morning that this was announced, we also got, um, Jeff Bezos is a memo to the Washington post editorial, you know, op ed page where there was, he was just like, this is going to be my little kingdom and we will write about what is fair and whatever. And like, we are in the midst of like a billionaire takeover of the American government, but also of so many other things. And I'm like, I. It is wild that he took, he chose that morning to do it. Uh, Jeff Bezos has been on a weird trajectory for a long time, but now it's like, can I justify Alexa Plus? Like, even if I, I'm still currently a Prime member, should I be using this or should I move to Google devices? Google has done a lot of crap, crummy things too. Should we just like, be really careful about any of these AI tools at this point? Like, there are moral questions now, the way we have to kind of sit and ask ourselves. Yeah. Cherlynn: Yeah. A bit depressing. A bit depressing. Devindra: We can't just like, you, it's, it's sort of like, you have to ask more questions now. Like I think pre iPhone era, we were like, Oh, cool, cool tech, cool, fun toy. Yeah. I can get excited for this. Speaker 2: It used Devindra: to be fun. And post iPhone it's like, well, no, this device requires lots of, uh, low wage labor in China and people were killing themselves at factories. There are all these moral costs to technology that we just used to, didn't. We didn't think about that much and now it is front and center and yeah, I don't know to me. It's something I can't stop thinking about at this point. So Alexa plus seems cool. I for many reasons. I don't know if I'll be able to trust it, even though I won't be paying anything extra for it. And maybe I should just give up on Amazon Prime altogether. I don't know if you have any other feelings on that show. Lynn or bed. Cherlynn: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think I was going to like stop buying stuff from Amazon. I have drastically decreased the amount of shopping I do on Amazon and target. It. Um, I just go and buy local things, which like I was already trying to do anyway, but now I just quite like the, the balance is swung in a different direction by a lot. And, um, but I do know that like Amazon, like the commerce and the way it's. It's, it services a lot of like businesses, like ours, it's difficult for me to like, um, every time I need to like do an Amazon, like run or something, run digital run. Um, I'll be like, all right, I'll at least like try to shop it through an in gadget link or something to make myself back the 5 cents. I don't know. I'm just Devindra: fraudulent. We're not going to get to any of that on this podcast. I don't know if Cherlynn: it's fraudulent, like, am I not allowed to buy something through? I think it's only Ben: fraud if you're doing it like automated, like 5, 000 times a day. Cherlynn: I'm like every now and then I'll do it. I've absolutely Devindra: goosed my own affiliate links in the past. I will admit to that. Right. I, Cherlynn: I, I mean, if we need to cut this out, we'll cut this out. But like, for me, it's like, Devindra: I'm not here Cherlynn: telling y'all to do it. I'm just, I'm also transparently telling you that we do make Devindra: money off of it. Became a thing. So it doesn't matter Cherlynn: anymore. So, so anyway, that, that's the only way I can see continuing to use Amazon on an ad hoc basis. And also when you can't get something anywhere else, which is rare these days, but I can get, I can understand that for like certain parts of the country or the world that there's no other option maybe, or there's no easy. Uh, financially like, like comparative solution, right? Amazon is cheap. And if you're in a bind, then like, maybe that's like all you've got. So I don't know. I mean, I don't want to judge anyone for not doing it. I'm just saying I'm trying to do it because we have the power. We just have forgotten. We have the power. We just, instead of exercising our collective. And I think that action is where it'll, I really would be curious to see, I'm going on a tangent now, I'd be curious to see how Target's doing now, but yeah. Devindra: I know, yeah, people are active about it. Thoughts, Ben, and then we'll run through it real quick. Ben: So to get back on topic, I'm wondering how much of Dev your tendency towards saying like, Hey, can you build an order and then let me check it is based in just kind of like old internet. Understanding like purchase requires big screen. Devindra: We're millennials. This is the thing. Like this, this is the old person's thing. Like kids will be just like, talk to their AI agents and get stuff delivered and not see all the fees and not. But I wonder. Ben: If they will be happy with what they end up getting because all it takes is like two or three garbled orders and people say, Oh, well, maybe I don't want to use this. Or maybe I want to use this in a different way. So is the workflow for how you like build an order and then check it? Is that going to be something that people end up doing themselves initially and then it gets built in by the developers? Or the other way around. I Devindra: don't think you have the ability to do that. You don't have the ability to do it right now. Like you can have from what we've seen from the demos, it can produce an order for you, but I don't think you can just like fill your cart and then you will empty the cart in your, you know, Grubhub app or whatever, finish an order. I don't think that capability is there, but I think people are going to ask for it because yeah, they're going to rent to things where you don't understand the fees. There's a lot of fees on delivery apps and other things. Um, there's a lot of ways these apps can like really screw you over in terms of On top of the Ben: lack of ability for comparison shopping. Devindra: Yeah, that's what I mean. And then you're like, okay, you'll let the AI do the comparison shopping. I'm like, okay, who has the lowest fees? Who has, what's, where can I get a pizza for a good price? It'll get delivered to me right now. That's the sort of thing AI should be able to solve. That's well rated and everything. Um, I don't know what I can trust. It Ben: seems like we're setting ourselves up for a situation where we're like, okay, yeah, we'll let the AI do the thinking and then there's going to be some big, um, like kerfuffle about how the AI was actually like, no, actually I prefer Amazon services. And we come back to the idea that Lenacon was right all along. Devindra: Maybe. I mean, listen, literally, uh, right now Jeff Bezos is out there, uh, turning the Washington Post, you know, editorial page into his personal playground of just like, uh, Um, I don't know. Freedom and, um, free enterprise, I think. Yeah, because that's, that's the thing that has trouble in America. Let's move on to other news real quick. I'm just gonna run down this stuff because I think it's worth the reading. Check out our stories on all of these things. Uh, framework had a bunch of devices that they announced. The modular laptop company, they announced, um, a modular desktop, which is a wild concept because desktops are modular. Yeah, exactly. They're modular and upgradable and Dan Cooper wrote up all these stories was like, yes, aren't desktops already modular? But they have basically created this cool like little mini itx case that is easy to put together Um is using some standard parts and it's also using that ryzen ai max chip We talked about at ces which has a pretty good gpu So this isn't a desktop where you're going to be putting in a graphics card or something but It's kind of a cool project for like a teenager or a kid who doesn't want to build a full size machine, but maybe put together a decently capable little box that can play some games. And they're also bringing Ryzen chips to the, uh, framework 13 laptop. And also something I'm kind of excited by for they are teasing a cheap two and one convertible 12 inch laptop, the framework laptop 12 that I think could be really, really cool. So again, similar, it's going to have like modular components you can plug in, but it's not underpowered. I don't think we have pricing on that yet, but hopefully it's going to be like decently priced. This, this could be a cool little thing for a lot of people. Um, so yeah, show me any thoughts on that on framework. Cherlynn: I just am trying to care. Devindra: I think it's nice to Cherlynn: support a smaller business than like the. HPs and the Lenovo's and the, you know, Devindra: Yeah, we complain about when those companies grew up all the time. So, yeah, I think it's, it's good that there are alternatives. Cherlynn: I think it's unique and cool, um, in the way that nothing as a brand, as a phone maker is unique and cool. This is maybe the nothings of laptops. Um, sure. Frameworks has been around for a very long time and there's a lot of like littler laptop brands out there. Like, um, man, they're escaping my mind. So like Frameworks is doing its own thing and I respect that. Devindra: It's a unique thing like the thing about nothing is that nothing nothing is doing is actually new or different They're just like here's a different design for an Android phone. It doesn't actually right But if Cherlynn: you don't want to support Apple or Google or Samsung for some reason nothing Devindra: backed by like a major Chinese Corporation, Cherlynn: uh, that might be one plus Devindra: Yeah, yeah, well, I think Cherlynn: nothing is on his own still so yeah, Devindra: we don't we don't fully know a Christa wrote up the story Christa Bell wrote up about iPhones having a bug where they briefly changed racist liquid word racist to Trump In iOS dictation, I don't To me, that doesn't seem like a bug. So we're just going to move on from that clone robotics proto clone. Uh, one of the first, uh, lifelike robots, uh, a robot body that somebody has developed, it looks like a fricking nightmare. Uh, go check out our story on the proto clone, bipedal musculoskeletal Android V1. It looks like a zombie robot. And it's dancing on wires. It looks horrific. Ben: You know what it looks like? The, um, what character from Prometheus? Yeah. With the kind of like sandy white skin? Devindra: Yeah, the, uh, the origin I don't know what they call them. It was like the originators, the people who Spoilers for Prometheus the people who seeded humanity, essentially. So that's cool. That's a whole thing. Uh, Benny brought up the story, human therapists prepare for battle against AI pretenders, and this is like, um, therapists essentially think like AI bots are going to be a big problem when people start to ask them for mental health help. And there have been stories of where people have harmed themselves. Teenagers have hurt themselves because of what they were seeing from an AI bot, basically. So that's dangerous. Yeah. The thing Ben: that really concerns me is how accessible these are on Metaproducts right now. Because if you do enough scrolling on Instagram, you'll see like their little Like chat bot insert between a couple of the posts of, you know, from accounts that you follow, hopefully a viewer would be able to see like, Hey, this is right next to like an AI clone of the hawk to a girl or something. So maybe I shouldn't consider this like actually high quality psychological help. But, uh, you never know. Devindra: In so many ways, we are not prepared for AI. You know what, what I keep seeing in Tik Tok is like a lot of, um, I'd call them tired millennials. We're just like, um, you know, guys, we are sandwiched between the boomers who didn't understand technology. And then the, the youngs, the Gen Z who grew up with tech, but also grew up with really easy to use tech. So they never had to fully understand it. And we're Ben: sandwiched between the boomers and the iPad babies Devindra: and the iPad babies. And now we're like, Oh, so now we got to explain. I got to tell my parents how to use their phones, but also make sure my kids don't like. Uh, talk to kidnappers on, on Minecraft or Roblox or whatever. So we, we are screwed digitally. So, which is also why I'm so, I have so much trepidation around AI in general, like this stuff is going to happen. These therapists are right to be worried because people, we are so, we are weak minded primates when it comes to talk, you know, putting. Um, I don't know, souls are putting like a meaning into things. So if a chatbot is talking to you like a human, you're going to treat it like a human. You're going to treat that advice like it's coming from a friend or something. And that worries me. Sherilyn, I know you care about mental health stuff. I don't know if you've thought about how this could hit. Cherlynn: I mean, I've, I've thought that the, I mean, social media has already done this. Social media has already destroyed kind of where people get their mental health info from. Um, I mean, we started first with the internet and then as the barrier to entry gets lower and lower, now we're at the barrier to entry of being a human, at least, is also falling down, so it seems like it's just, yeah, I mean, I talked to my therapist about it too, and my therapist and I, we're, we're both, you know, concerned, we're just like, eh, but it's not easy for people to, you know, get help, um, and therapy is expensive. So they're going to reach Devindra: out to whatever resources they can get. They're going to find Cherlynn: whatever they can. I mean, I, I could go on a rant for hours about how much I hate like the advice that people on Reddit parrot at each other because they saw one person make this one comment one time that they liked and then they just copy and paste it everywhere else. I really hate that one person made a joke like years ago that I too choose this man's wife and now you see it everywhere by like all kinds of other people because They can't come up with their own jokes or something. I mean, I'm being mean. I think it's a funny joke, but it's Devindra: true though. Yeah. Cherlynn: Is the same delete Facebook, Ben: hit the gym lawyer up like, yeah, it, it is unhelpful. Um, and from the point of view of the developers, especially if they have no contact with. Actually going to therapy they might be like, oh, you know what therapists are like just giving out the same advice to all of their clients So why don't we automate that because I don't know the therapists might be bored or something. But oh my god That is such a misunderstanding Devindra: Yeah, too much. There's too much information flowing around, unfortunately, and like we are so bad at processing it, which is also why I'm worried about. Yeah, in general, because it's also simplifying that information even more for a really gullible populace. Anyway, let's move on to what we're working on. I'm reviewing a lot of shit. A lot of GPUs are coming in. There is one fun CPU that I'm looking forward to testing in a couple weeks. So more on that soon. I don't know if you want to shout anything out, Sherlynn. Cherlynn: I mean, it's non stop from here on out, guys, we strap in, it's review season, it's event season for some reason already. So, yeah, stay tuned, come over to Engadget. com. Devindra: It's the end of February, we're still recovering from CES. Yeah, for what it's Cherlynn: worth, Devindra: this weekend Cherlynn: is Mobile World Congress. Like this weekend, Mobile World Congress starts. So just pay attention, you know, there's gonna be quite a lot of stuff coming Devindra: up. I miss going to Mobile World Congress. I miss doing that whole thing. It's actually been I think my, for the first time I did that was like, I did it on my own at my last site in 2012. And that was like a wild experience of when, like, there was so much 5G hype, there was so much 5G hype in the early, simpler days. Simpler days. I saw that Nokia, the 41 megapixel camera for the first time and that was like a big deal back then. Anyway, shout out to Mobile World Congress. Check out our coverage on all that stuff. Let's move on to our pop culture picks for the week. I just want to say I've been playing a lot of Avowed. Avowed is just where my jam is because the world is insane right now. This is Obsidian's, um, kind of their Skyrim. Their like simpler, more focused version of Elder Scrolls. It's on Xbox Game Pass right now. Um, so if you have Game Pass, it's really easy to try. I just love the look of this world. I love exploring it. Um, has a really good aesthetic. If you remember that scene in the movie Annihilation, which is one of my favorites, but the scene where people start to turn into plants, the bodies of plants, um, Avowed is a game where. You play somebody who has been touched by a God at birth and you have these like Godlike powers. Um, and as you design your character, you can have like plant face, basically, you can have, uh, roots growing out of your heads or seashells or things like that. I think people, people who are tryptophobic may have a lot of trouble with this game because it's leaning into like really weird looking designs for people, but also. It's a really cool fantasy world. Um, I just love like whenever I'm playing, I try to like put it in an hour at a time. I discover things all the time. Like there's always something interesting happening. It's a really fun world to just sit and explore. Also really useful thing to just like, you know, I'm testing so many video cards. It's a really good way to compare them to each other. So about, I'm really digging it. Uh, Sholin, anything you want to shout out? Cherlynn: Yeah, I've been on a documentary kick, but, uh, I would first start by telling you what you should not watch. Um. It's not a documentary, but based on like real events, the Netflix show called Apple Cider Vinegar. Really? I was saying I Devindra: was going to recommend that to you. Cherlynn: I was going to say that I started, I don't know if I already brought it up on this show, but I'm now realizing that I didn't. I tried to watch, I tried starting to watch it maybe a couple weeks ago. And I just could not, um, it's a bit too triggering for me. Uh, it's someone who's gone through a lot of like people in my life with cancer diagnoses, dying from cancer, that sort of stuff is a lot. Um, I already like my, I think in last year, one of the episodes last year, I recommend this command as the podcast is that was a woman who was posing as someone suffering from breast. Cancer. Apple cider vinegar tells the tale of, um, Belle Gibson in the drama dramatized like, uh, retelling of the story of Belle Gibson, um, who claimed to be dying from brain cancer and all kinds of terminal cancers, but actually lied about it, but profited majorly off of it, and was a big Devindra: healthcare like a guru. She did a lot to spread a lot of like health, like new forms of health, right? Whatever you call it, natural health. Cherlynn: Yes, Devindra: basically. Yes, Cherlynn: like, oh, you can eat your way out of cancer, basically. Like, eat well, eat healthy. Um, and, and, and was more or less pitching it as a way to, like, you know, heal herself. But anyway, uh, and instead of watching Apple Cider Vinegar, I couldn't, but I was still very Drawn into the story. And so thankfully Netflix actually has a different, um, series called the search for Instagram's worst con artists. And it is about bell Gibson as well, but it is more of a documentary retelling. The reason I really couldn't, um, stick through apple cider vinegar is because they also bring up this other influencer that, uh, bell Gibson drew inspiration from. And that person was a very young person. Yeah. Mila, um, she was diagnosed with, uh, an aggressive form of, I guess, sarcoma cancer. And so it had to be, you know, she was very young and was contending with these things that had to do with amputation. And that, that was when I had to stop because it was getting a bit too close to home. I Devindra: will say like, I think the show is really, really well done if, but it is like a lot. All at once. Um, it is well acted Caitlin Dever, who plays bell Gibson. She has been one of my favorite, like young actors for a while. I think she was in justified at one point and she was just incredible in that show. So yeah, it is a really well made show and very much like it, it feels like it's made by an Instagram, you know, somebody who was raised on Instagram basically, because like it's edited in that way, it like goes through a lot of like different ways of showing the story it's juggling three storylines at once, it is good, but I can understand why it's too much for you, Sherlyn. Cherlynn: Yeah. So, so to that point, I really, I mean, I liked it. I just couldn't keep watching. I do agree with you that the style of it is really nice and very easy to follow. Um, but even if you did enjoy Apple Cider Vinegar and you want to continue watching and following on that theme, then yes, go over and watch the Search for Instagram's Worst Con Artist. It's a two part docuseries. Um, they interview Belle Gibson's brother, uh, Belle Gibson's stepfather. Um, and, and the bunch of journalists who like pursued that story and how they came to, to find out what was happening. So, yeah, very interesting to me. And so, I will leave you with that as my recommendation this week. Well, that's it for the episode this week. Everyone, thank you as always for listening. Our theme music is by game composer, Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Ellman. You can find DaVindra online at Devindra: at BlueSky at at DaVindra and I podcast about movies and TV at the FilmCast at FilmCast. com Cherlynn: If you want to send me like social media accounts that are actually doing good in this world, you can hit me up, I guess, on threads at Sherlynn's Instagram or preferred, uh, is on BlueSky at You can also email us your thoughts at podcast at Engadget. com, leave us a review wherever you're listening to your podcast and subscribe in your favorite podcast platforms. Devindra: I've got a good social media account for you, Sherlyn, actually, and that is go watch Keith Lee's videos because Keith Lee has been touring the UK. And having a bad time with British food, it is hilarious to see in the Brits are fighting online. Cherlynn: I love that. And Devindra: it is, it's really, I will give Cherlynn: you, I will give you one like social media account that I followed that is kind of an example of what I'm looking for. Uh, we rate dogs. It's literally my favorite. Very nice. Thanks to everyone that like struggled with us through the technical issues for the live stream again today. We really appreciate you and sorry, we couldn't make it like the whole show. Devindra: It's a, it was both my computer deciding not to work, but also Google, uh, YouTube just stopped streaming. YouTube just stopped letting us stream. So that's fun. Yeah. Cherlynn: Sorry guys. Devindra: Sorry folks, but thank you for listening and thanks for trying. Cherlynn: So I was able to sit down with, uh, Daniel Roche, who is the vice president of Alexa, and he was on stage presenting and doing demos of the new Alexa Plus and how it integrates, uh, with third parties. You can listen to this interview now. It will tell you a lot more about. Um, all that third party integration stuff we were describing. Speaker 5: The presentation today, your part was specifically, it seemed, about how Alexa Plus would work with all these different third party, uh, apps and integrations. Especially given LLMs don't have, you know, natural, like, accessibility for APIs and stuff. Speaker 6: Not natively integrated, yeah. Speaker 5: Could you, just for our, uh, podcast audience, and for myself as kind of a refresher, Go over that really quickly again. Speaker 6: Yeah, so at a high level there are three different ways that Alexa Plus integrates with other services, capabilities, devices out there. And by the way, at launch it will be integrated with tens of thousands of different services, devices, and capabilities out there. The first way is, uh, through APIs. So APIs, you know, LLMs don't natively support APIs, calling APIs, filling out arguments the right way, choosing methods, etc. A big part of what we've done with Alexa Plus is, uh, basically building, uh, the way, you know, the nature of those integrations. And then, uh, building an at scale such that it can accommodate so many different types of integrations. You heard me talk about experts in our show today. So, uh, experts are the fundamental way that we accomplish that. So the information expert is really, really good at going out and. Uh, taking advantage of, you know, partnerships that we have with information sources, for example, right? Or, um, you saw, uh, a scheduling and reservation expert today, uh, use OpenTable APIs to complete a reservation for a restaurant that's just a few blocks from here. Um, and so, APIs, uh, uh, is the first way that I would, that I would say in terms of the three, the second way is, you know, partners don't necessarily show up and have all of these different APIs ready to go, but they might have a website, uh, that has all the capabilities they want to offer to customers. Thumbtack's a great example of that. Um, they, you know, help you provide, uh, find, uh, service providers across a hu

28.02.2025 16:13 Meme coins are not securities and, hence, aren't subject to federal laws regulating the financial instruments, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency has issued its official stance on meme coins, comparing them to collectibles, since their value is "derived from speculative trading and the collective sentiment of the market." Meme coins do not fit the definition of securities under the law, SEC said, because they do "not generate a yield or convey rights to future income, profits, or assets of a business." People who purchase them are also not considered to be investing in an enterprise, which means they're not "investment contracts" that are classified as securities. As such, people who sell and offer meme coins do not have to register their transactions with the commission under the Securities Act. Buyers are not protected by securities laws as a result, though that doesn't automatically mean that scammers can use them to dupe people without repercussions. Any fraudulent transaction involving meme coins could still be subject to enforcement action under other federal and state laws. The Trump administration's Securities and Exchange Commission has been showing signs of being friendlier towards the cryptocurrency industry ever since he took office. Just within this month, the SEC agreed to end an enforcement case that accused Coinbase of illegally running an unregistered securities exchange. The commission also dropped an investigation into Robinhood, which faced charges of violating securities laws with its crypto listings and sales. Even though the commission will not be regulating meme coins, it says it will still evaluate the "economic realities" of the presumably suspicious transactions they're involved in. Meme coins must be crypto assets "inspired by internet memes, characters, current events, or trends" purchased for "entertainment, social interaction, and cultural purposes" and whose value is "driven primarily by market demand and speculation." They typically have "limited or no use or functionality," the commission wrote, and "experience significant market price volatility." Crypto assets labeled as "meme coins" in an effort to evade regulations will still be considered as securities if they don't fit that definition. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/sec-says-meme-coins-are-not-subject-to-federal-securities-laws-140032772.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 Anyone who has rode the New York City subway can tell you that it has a lot of problems, from strange noises to flammable debris on the tracks. Now, as is the solution for everything these days, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is testing how AI could improve the repair process with the help of six Google Pixel phones. In this case, the Google Pixel phones rode on four different subway cars between last September and January. The experiment, conducted in partnership with Google Public Sector, used the phone's accelerometers, magnetometers and microphones to pick up on any worrisome noises. This data was thn sent to cloud-based systems that generated predictive insights using machine learning algorithms. The tech, known by Google as TrackInspect, found 92 percent of the defect locations that inspectors located. "By being able to detect early defects in the rails, it saves not just money but also time — for both crew members and riders" New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow stated in a release. "This innovative program — which is the first of its kind — uses AI technology to not only make the ride smoother for customers but also make track inspector’s jobs safer by equipping them with more advanced tools." Typically, inspectors walk all 665 miles of the subway tracks to find any issues, along with sensor-laden “train geometry cars" picking up data three times a year. During the experiment, inspectors checked out any locations highlighted and confirmed whether there was a defect. They could also ask questions about maintenance and protocols through the tools generative AI system. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/mta-strapped-google-pixels-to-subway-cars-to-spot-track-defects-133046252.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 AMD's decision to start off with mid-range RDNA 4 GPUs now seems prescient. NVIDIA's high-end RTX 5090 and 5080 are already selling well beyond their absurdly high prices, if you can find any in stock at all. And while the RTX 5070 Ti impressed us, it's already selling for close to the 5080's $1,000 launch price. Now AMD's Radeon 9070 and 9070 XT, which are set to arrive on March 6, have the chance to swoop in and deliver some serious competition. Based on early briefings from AMD, which include some impressive benchmarks , the RDNA 4 GPUs appear to be compelling 4K and 1,440p for discerning gamers who aren't ready to drop four figures on a video card. The Radeon 9070 starts at $549, but even more impressive, AMD managed to keep the 9070 XT at a very reasonable $599 launch price. Naturally, those prices will rise based on demand and the whims of card manufacturers, but they're still impressive compared to the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti . XFX On top of the usual raw performance upgrades, the major selling point for these new cards is AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution 4 upscaling technology. Unlike previous iterations, this time around it's powered by machine learning, similar to NVIDIA's DLSS. According to AMD, that allows for better image quality while upscaling from lower resolutions, as well as low latency and frame generation. AMD So what does that mean in action? AMD claims the 9070 XT can run Space Marine 2 at an average of 53fps in 4K, but with FSR 4 running that jumps to 182fps. That's similar to the leap in performance we've seen on NVIDIA's RTX 50-series GPUs, which can generate multiple frames. FSR 4 is supported on more than 30 titles at the moment, but for other games like Star Citizen and Forza Horizon 5, AMD claims its HYPR-RX driver-level upscaler can also improve performance by up to 3X. While both the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT come with 16GB of VRAM , the latter card will likely do a better drop driving 4K 240Hz screens. The 9070 XT sports 64 RDNA 4 compute units, 64 hardware ray tracing accelerators and 128 hardware AI accelerators, while the 9070 includes 56 compute units and RT accelerators, as well as 112 AI units. The 9070 XT can also draw significantly more power — 304 watts instead of 220W — and has more than a 500Mhz boost clock lead. The standard 9070 will likely be better suited for players who game in 1,440p most of the time, but who may occasionally dabble in 4K. AMD Curiously, most of AMD's benchmarks compare the new cards to the $549 RX 7900 GRE, a slightly under-specced card originally meant for China. But the company did make a handful of comparisons to other cards: For one, it claims the RX 9070 XT is 51 percent faster than the Radeon 6900 XT on average across 30 games while playing in 4K with maximum graphics settings. It's also reportedly 26 percent faster than the RTX 3090 across those same 30 games. As for the RX 9070, AMD says it's 38 percent in 4K/max settings than the RX 6800 XT and 26 percent faster than the RTX 3080. Surely AMD could have compared these cards to the RTX 40 lineup and newer Radeons, but then those gains wouldn't be as high. AMD Beyond gaming, AMD says its new RDNA 4 media engine will be able to encode H.264 with better image quality, and it'll support up to 8K/80fps encoding and decoding. As for AI, the 9070 XT is 34 percent faster than the RX 7900 GRE while using Davinci Resolve's Magic Mask Tracking Tool, and it's 70 percent faster while using Procyon SD XL for generative AI. If AMD can manage to keep the Radeon 9070 and 9070 XT in stock, and also hold prices close to their $549 and $599 launch figures, I wouldn't be surprised if some NVIDIA diehards jump ship. And if you're looking for something even cheaper, AMD says its RX 9060 cards will be coming in the second quarter. AMD This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/amds-radeon-9070-and-9070-xt-are-gunning-for-nvidias-mid-range-throne-130016775.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 16:13 First up, an apology. In Tuesday’s newsletter, I laid out how to watch Amazon’s Alexa press event. But aside from unveiling what Alexa+ will be capable of, there was no silly hardware and no upgraded Echos, but lots of demos. We learned Alexa+ will be included with an Amazon Prime subscription, and the company will also offer the enhanced digital assistant separately, for $20 per month. At the moment, Prime costs $15 per month in the US. So that's weird. Meanwhile, Apple’s new entry-level iPhone, the 16e, launches online and in stores today. The $599 phone is arguably $100 too expensive, but it packs a processor that can deliver Apple Intelligence to the masses. It has a gorgeous screen, with a notch — if not a Dynamic Island — and a long battery life. Thanks to that A18 chip, it is as powerful as iPhones, which cost several hundred dollars more. This is a phone for people who don’t upgrade every year . If you’re coming from an older iPhone, say an iPhone 11 , you’ll be treated to a brighter screen, improved image processing and, heck, 5G. Apple says the newer process will ensure the 16e is 80 percent faster than the iPhone 11. You are going to see the difference. Oh, and you get an action button. Our biggest concern is the single-camera situation. It’s a great camera, but we already miss the versatility of optical zoom that goes beyond the digital cropping that the iPhone 16e uses. Check out our full review right here. And if you’re OK not staying with an iPhone, we’re moving into the mid-range smartphone season — so stay tuned. — Mat Smith How to get MagSafe charging on an iPhone 16e A $599 iPhone 16e is a cruel joke The biggest tech stories you missed Everything announced at Amazon’s Alexa+ AI event EA releases source code for four Command Conquer games The best laptop you can buy in 2025 Gmail will stop using SMS for two-factor authentication Get this delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe right here! What to expect from Samsung, Nothing, Xiaomi and more at MWC 2025 Nothing’s new devices might be the headline grabbers. Nothing The world’s biggest smartphone event returns to Barcelona. While it’s no longer the heyday of Mobile World Congress, smartphone challengers from China love to reveal technically accomplished devices, and we’re expecting delights from the likes of Xiaomi, Honor, Huawei et al. Except maybe not Oppo — it’s done its thing already. At MWC 2022, Nothing’s Carl Pei showed off a prototype of the company’s first handset, the Nothing Phone 1. It looks like it’s ready to reveal its third-gen phone, with the company’s usual drip-drip of specs, features and hyperbole already in action. Nothing already revealed the design of one phone, the 3a Pro, in a nearly 11-minute video. Notably, a big ole camera bump to accommodate a periscope telephoto lens. Xiaomi is also teasing some heady camera hardware: Its 15 Ultra will be a photography powerhouse, rumored to pack a 1-inch main sensor and 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens. Will Samsung show off the slimline Galaxy S25 Edge? Perhaps. It might also be time to reveal an update to its A-series mid-range devices. Perhaps the company will do both. Continue reading. Sony cuts the price of PS VR2 to $400 Add the price of your PS5 too. Engadget Sony is permanently reducing the price of the PlayStation VR2. Starting in March, the headset will cost $400, down from $500. It still costs more than the Meta Quest 3S, a standalone headset, but is obviously capable of a richer graphic experience. That said, where are the AAA games? Even Sony’s own PS VR2 website struggles to offer anything particularly exciting. Continue reading. You’re never finding those lost wireless earbuds It’s time to let go. I have misplaced my Beats Fit Pro buds. Wherever I set them down, I recall thinking, “you’re going to regret not putting them back into the charging case.” And I was right. Two weeks on, I have the charging case, open and ready, but the buds have been translocated to another dimension. I tried Apple’s Find My app, which says they’re somewhere in my apartment. That doesn’t help me enough. I use them for workouts, so I checked jacket pockets, gym shorts, the bathroom, windows, the sides of my couch and even my inner ear canal. But no. I have held out hope for two weeks, but it’s time for me to let go. Fortunately, I work here, so I have three standby options for gym listening. But they didn’t fit as well as the Beats Fit Pro. I will hold onto the charging case, just in case they magically appear in my detergent box or somewhere else completely arbitrary, but mentally, I know I will never find them again. Goodbye, my waxy, sweaty buds of joy.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121514554.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 01:50 Microsoft is making its Copilot AI assistant available as a Mac app. The native macOS app will offer access to the web-based version of the Microsoft tool. It's rolling out today in the US, the UK and Canada. In practice, the apps functionalities sound pretty much identical to the experience of going to the web version of Copilot. The real distinction is that the Mac app includes a keyboard shortcut for activating the AI assistant with Command + Space and it can be viewed in dark mode. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it would make the Copilot features Voice and Think Deeper, which taps into OpenAI's o1 model, available to any users for free. Both moves seems aimed at broadening the company's audience for Copilot. Big tech companies have a rocky history of trying to make their software available on rival hardware. Sometimes, it can take years for a service to be optimized for a different brand's exact specs. The arrival of a dedicated macOS app for Copilot, which is already out as an iPhone and iPad app, might be about as quick as Microsoft has ever brought a service to the Apple ecosystem.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-launches-native-mac-app-for-copilot-235945829.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 01:50  Gaming accessory maker CRKD and Gibson have teamed up to revive the guitar controller in the form of two Gibson Les Paul-shaped controllers that will let you play your way through Fortnite Festival, Clone Hero, and even Rock Band 4. The Gibson Les Paul Black Tribal Encore Edition Guitar Controller and Gibson Les Paul Blueberry Burst Pro Edition Guitar Controller featured the whammy bar and colored frets from older gaming guitars, updated to work with modern platforms. CRKD is making both multi-platform and Xbox specific versions of the guitars, and depending on whether you pick the Encore or Pro Edition model, you'll get a slightly different set of features. CRKD The Pro Edition includes frets that have been "engineered for unmatched precision and responsiveness," along with a Hall-Effect whammy bar and a Hall-Effect Strum Bar with haptic feedback. The Encore Edition only has traditional mechanical frets and a normal strum bar, but CRKD says both guitars are designed to be modular, so you can purchase and swap in new components down the road if you want. Both guitars have built-in analog sticks and a d-pad for navigating in-game menus, and offer three different methods of connecting the controller to your console, mobile device or PC: wired via a USB cable, wirelessly via a 2.4GHz wireless dongle or Bluetooth. The Xbox versions of the guitar controllers work across Xbox, PC and Android, while the multi-platform version works on PC, Switch, Android and PS3. Notably, if you're looking to play Guitar Hero instead of Rock Band, you'll want the multi-platform guitar controller, because it offers greater compatibility with Guitar Hero games. CRKD Guitar controllers fell to the wayside as the companies largely responsibly for making Guitar Hero and Rock Band games either moved on or where shutdown. The bright spots in the slow decline of the music rhythm game genre has been third-party PC games like Clone Hero and YARG, and Harmonix's Fortnite Festival, which brought Rock Band-style gameplay to Epic's battle royale game in 2023. The Gibson Les Paul Black Tribal Encore Edition Guitar Controller is available to pre-order now for $109.99 for the multi-platform version, or $119.99 for the Xbox version. The Gibson Les Paul Blueberry Burst Pro Edition Guitar Controller can be pre-ordered for $119.99 for the multi-platform version, or $129.99 for the Xbox version. Both guitar controllers will start shipping in June 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/crkd-teamed-up-with-gibson-to-make-new-guitar-controllers-230204820.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 01:50 Video game preservation scored a win today with EA's decision to make four Command Conquer games open source. The company has released the source code for Command Conquer, Command Conquer: Red Alert, Command Conquer: Renegade and Command Conquer: Generals through a GPL license. All four projects are available to the public on Github. In addition, EA is adding Steam Workshop support to more contemporary entries in the real-time strategy franchise, including a modding support pack with assets from the series titles on the SAGE engine, such as Command Conquer Red Alert 3. This game genre has fallen out of vogue in recent years. But the C&C series still has a lot of fans, so a fresh boost of modder interest could bring new players to the franchise. EA released meticulous remasters of the first two installments of Command Conquer in 2020, which included the release of those games' source code. In December, the company made several of its patents for accessibility open source as well. It's also encouraging to see EA taking a positive action around a beloved franchise, especially when its recent efforts to remaster The Sims and The Sims 2 was riddled with technical issues at launch that required heavy-duty patches to fix.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/ea-releases-source-code-for-four-command--conquer-games-223425774.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 01:50  Forza Horizon 5 is officially coming to the PS5 on April 29. We knew the racing sim was going multiplatform, and now we have a legit date when players will be able to race around a digital replica of Mexico. This version does have cross-play support, which has already been a boon for Xbox and PC players. Additionally, the PS5 build allows gamers to purchase all of the same car packs, including the Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure expansions. There’s a new and free content update for PS5, Xbox and PC players called Horizon Realms that features a set of in-game achievements based on the game’s dynamic and evolving world, which arrives on April 25. Horizon 5 comes to PS5 in three flavors. The base game costs $60; the Deluxe Edition, which comes with the game's car pass, costs $80; and the Premium Edition, which comes with all of the game's DLC, costs $100. If you pre-order the Premium Edition you also get early access to the game on April 25, though does it count as early access when the game's been out for over four years on Xbox and PC? That's for you and your wallet to decide. All editions are digital only — the Forza Horizon X account confirmed there are currently no plans for a physical release. Developer Playground Games has also run down the various graphics modes available on PlayStation 5. Regular PS5 consoles will have access to a 60 fps performance mode and a 30 fps quality mode. PS5 Pro owners will have the same options, but with "increased fidelity" in the performance mode and ray-traced car reflections in races and free roam. There is no word currently on resolution targets for either console, or how they shape up versus Xbox Series X/S. For the uninitiated, Forza Horizon 5 is a fantastic open-world racing game that we absolutely loved upon its initial release in 2021. The graphics are top notch, with a gorgeous design aesthetic, and the open world is fun to just race around in. The game is so approachable that we said “you don't need to be into cars to love it.” This is just the latest former Xbox exclusive to bridge the console divide. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle debuted as an Xbox exclusive in December, but is also coming to the PS5 soon. Other former exclusives that have been allowed to roam free include Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and Grounded.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/forza-horizon-5-careens-onto-ps5-on-april-29-222606043.html?src=rss

28.02.2025 01:50 In a fitting crossover, Roblox is getting a big speed boost on Chromebooks. Google said on Thursday that a new x86 version of the online game platform and creation system is twice as fast as the Android version, which was previously the only way to play Roblox on ChromeOS. Given the overlap between Chromebooks and Roblox , a better-performing version on ChromeOS seems like a good match. Although there are more ARM-based Chromebooks than before, most still use x86 architecture. Google says the new Roblox build provides smoother gameplay, quicker load times and "an overall better Roblox experience." More specifically, you should see a 99 percent framerate increase in the virtual pet game Adopt Me! and a 67 percent boost in the role-playing sim Brookhaven RP. Load times are up to 29 percent faster when going from a fresh start to the login page. Alongside the x86 launch, Google and Roblox have some speed-themed in-game swag for Chromebook users. You can redeem a jetpack with a Chrome logo for your avatar to fly around like a Google-sponsored Buzz Lightyear. You can also redeem a "hoverboard" for faster ground travel. You'll find both on Google's perks page. This isn't the first mashup between the two companies. Last year, they teamed up on a weird game that teaches kids about online safety, the, uh, "interestingly" named Be Internet Awesome World. Google told Engadget that you can install the x86 version of Roblox directly through the Play Store. Although that's typically where you find the Android version, the storefront should automatically deliver the right build for your laptop.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/roblox-is-now-much-faster-on-chromebooks-210030799.html?src=rss