Writer-director Matthew Vaughn is well known for turning giving franchises a good kick in the ass. He did that with a movie literally called Kick-Ass, but also by rebooting the X-Men franchise with First Class, and updating the spy franchise with Kingsman. In between, Vaughn has been attached to, or at least…
Source: Gizmodo – Does Star Wars Need Rebooting? Matthew Vaughn Thinks So
The British Museum has announced plans to digitize its entire permanent collection, totaling over eight million pieces, as reported by ARTNews. The museum announced the move as part of ongoing efforts to increase security and public access. Back in August, the museum reported the theft of thousands of pieces, including over 1,500 historical artifacts, so this announcement is likely in response to that.
The project will require the documentation and upload of more than 2.4 million records and is estimated to take more than five years to complete, so you’ll have a great time cruising a virtual version of the museum sometime in 2029. Digitization is also an expensive process, which has been one of the primary hurdles when it comes to these projects. British Museum will spend a grand total of $12.1 million on the process.
“It is my belief that the single most important response to the thefts is to increase access, because the better a collection is known – and the more it is used – the sooner any absences are noticed,” interim museum director Mark Jones said in a statement.
Despite the aforementioned theft being the primary motivator behind the digitization project, the museum’s also using this announcement to fend off repatriation requests for the return of items. Museum board chairperson George Osborne told the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee that they plan on using the digitization efforts as a response to these requests, saying the museum has a “pretty good website” that offers digital access “even if you cannot visit.”
However, the museum doesn’t currently have the money to complete the project, though it vows to raise the funds via private investors and not by asking taxpayers or the British government. The museum has already digitized half of its collection as part of a project started back in 2020.
Speaking of 2020, the early days of Covid forced many museums to hasten digitization efforts. The Grammy Museum digitized its entire archives and many NYC-based institutions followed suit, among numerous other instances.
Even before Covid, there were plenty of digitization efforts in place, particularly following a report by the National Science Foundation that urged these projects as part of a comprehensive strategy to protect the actual items from outside elements and to allow increased access for researchers. However, that same report says it’ll take decades before most museums are fully digitized at a global cost of $500 million, as noted by Science.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/british-museum-is-digitizing-its-entire-collection-in-response-to-recent-thefts-173426690.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – British Museum is digitizing its entire collection in response to recent thefts
Enlarge / Pandu Nayak, Google’s vice president of search, was Google’s first witness called after the Department of Justice rested its case in historic monopoly trial. (credit: Eamonn M. McCormack / Stringer | Getty Images Europe)
The Department of Justice called its last witness this week, resting its case in a blockbuster antitrust trial probing Google’s alleged monopoly over search. Over the next five weeks, Google will do everything in its power to defend against those allegations—or else risk a potential breakup of its lucrative, industry-dominating search business—including likely calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other top executives as witnesses.
Since the trial began on September 12, Judge Amit Mehta has heard testimony from 29 witnesses, Bloomberg reported, including leading economists and senior executives from Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and other tech companies either partnering with or rivaling Google over the years.
Much of this testimony was closed to protect tech companies’ trade secrets, but news outlets have since filed a motion hoping to unseal testimony and access more trial documents sooner, hoping to share more details with the public about the case the DOJ made.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google’s 21-year deal with Apple is the “heart” of monopoly case, judge says
Universal Music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, as the world’s largest music group battles against chatbots that churn out its artists’ lyrics. From a report: Universal and two other music companies allege that Anthropic scrapes their songs without permission and uses them to generate “identical or nearly identical copies of those lyrics” via Claude, its rival to ChatGPT. When Claude is asked for lyrics to the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, for example, it responds with “a nearly word-for-word copy of those lyrics,” Universal, Concord, and ABKCO said in a filing with a US court in Nashville, Tennessee.
“This copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the Internet,” the music companies said, while claiming that Anthropic had “never even attempted” to license their copyrighted work. The lawsuit comes as the music industry is grappling with the rise of AI technology that can produce “deepfake” songs that mimic the voices, lyrics, or sound of established musicians. The issue drew attention earlier this year after an AI-produced song that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd spread online.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Universal Music Sues AI Startup Anthropic For Scraping Song Lyrics
Enlarge / The Netflix logo at the entrance to Netflix Albuquerque Studios film and television production studio lot.
Having earned a 22 percent margin on $8.5 billion in revenue and picked up nearly 9 million customers from its crackdown on shared passwords, there’s only one thing left for Netflix to do as it rounds out 2023: raise prices. The streaming giant will not, it turns out, be waiting for the actors’ strike to end.
Starting today Netflix’s non-HD, one-screen-at-a-time Basic plan will be $11.99 per month, up $2, or 16.7 percent, from the $9.99 price set during Netflix’s last price increase in January 2022. The Standard package remains $15.49 per month, while the Premium plan, with 4K resolution and four screens, was bumped from $19.99 to $22.99 per month, about 13 percent. The “Standard with ads” plan remains at $6.99.
In its letter to shareholders for Q3 2023, Netflix states that adoption of ads-included plans grew 70 percent from Q2 to Q3, and that 30 percent of new signups are for ad-based plans. Making people pay for password-sharing also had a big impact, as the last quarter saw 8.8 million paid net subscriber additions versus the 2.4 million added the same quarter in 2022, due to “the roll out of paid sharing, strong, steady programming and the ongoing expansion of streaming globally.” Netflix now stands at 247 million subscribers worldwide.
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Source: Ars Technica – Netflix raises prices up to 17% amid new contracts, licensing costs
The European Union (EU) has sent official requests to Meta and TikTok for information about their response to content relating to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The panel’s decisions carry significant weight under the recently passed Digital Services Act (DSA), which gives European Commissioner Thierry Breton broad authority to impose heavy fines on the tech behemoths. It follows a move last week to open an investigation into X (formerly Twitter).
The Commission is asking Meta for more information about what it’s done to mitigate illegal content and misinformation related to the ongoing violence in the Middle East. The TikTok request specifically calls out “the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech” and misinformation on the platform. In addition, the Commission wants additional information from TikTok about “its provisions related to the protection of minors online,” and from Meta related to how it’s protecting election integrity.
“By pointing out the responsibility of platforms — and their CEOs — in the management (or lack of management) of illegal content distributed on their platforms, we are sending out a very explicit signal: things have changed in Europe,” Commissioner Breton said in a related speech Wednesday to Parliament. “There is a law. It must be respected.”
We will not let terror and #disinformation divide us or undermine our democracy 🇪🇺
My intervention at the European Parliament Plenary on fighting disinformation and dissemination of illegal content in the context of the #DSA and in times of conflict ⤵️https://t.co/iBdSrvZTiS pic.twitter.com/Ddhgs4Nlzv
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 18, 2023
Both companies have until October 25 to respond to Middle East crisis questions and November 8 for the other issues. From there, the European Commission will “assess next steps.”
Although affluent Big Tech corporations may have calmly skirted similar requests without consequences in the recent past, the DSA gives the Commission legally binding enforcement power that can carry fines of up to six percent of a company’s global turnover. That’s enough to serve as an effective “stick” against the infringing companies. “With the DSA, we have a complete toolbox that we must make full use of to achieve our goal: to ensure that online security is guaranteed and fundamental rights are fully protected,” said Breton.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-eu-is-probing-meta-and-tiktoks-israel-hamas-response-170057848.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – The EU is probing Meta and TikTok’s Israel-Hamas response
In a press conference last week, Greg Tito, senior communications manager for Wizards of the Coast, discussed the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons product The Deck of Many Things alongside lead designer Jason Tondro and game designer Makenzie De Armas.
Source: Gizmodo – Dungeons & Dragons’ Deck of Many Things Is a Tarot-Inspired Supplement
Threads was a unicorn in the vacuum left behind by a Musk-infested Twitter turned X. But as the excitement for the sterile and lifeless platform inevitably waned for users, Meta’s newest trick to give the illusion of Threads’ growth is to just jam its posts into Facebook feeds.
Source: Gizmodo – Meta Plans to Grow Threads By Ramming Its Posts to Facebook
Games Done Quick speedrunning marathons have seen plenty of unusual attempts at beating games as quickly as possible in the name of charity. From races between multiple players to blindfolded runs, there’s often something a little offbeat on the schedule to shake things up. A run that’s earmarked for January’s Awesome Games Done Quick event might take the biscuit, though: a Shiba Inu is set to become the first dog to take part in GDQ.
Peanut Butter (who is named after the speedrunning term PB, or personal best) is scheduled to tackle NES game Gyromite alongside his human, JSR. The pooch’s run will take place remotely, which may come as slightly disappointing news to those attending AGDQ in-person in Pittsburgh.
According to a video JSR shared of a previous speedrun of the 1985 game, Peanut Butter uses a custom NES controller with four buttons. Those are mapped to A, B, Select and a fourth button that acts as pressing A and B simultaneously. JSR claims Peanut Butter handled all inputs for the run and that “no assistance, autofire, macros or save states were used.” However, it’s worth noting that JSR did guide PB through Gyromite with the help of some tasty incentives.
It took the three-year-old Shina Ibu 25 minutes and 28 seconds to finish the game in that earlier attempt. According to How Long to Beat, that’s over an hour faster than it takes the typical player to complete Gyromite. So Peanut Butter is probably better than you at this game.
There are a few things you can bank on when it comes to Bose headphones. The first is powerful and effective active noise cancellation (ANC) that’s been the best in the industry for years. You can also reliably expect that the company’s new set of cans will be comfortable over the course of a long flight or extended work session. Bose continues to check both boxes with the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones ($429), but the marquee feature here is the company’s unique take on spatial audio. However, more immersive sound and a refreshed design, along with everything else the company is known for, comes at a higher price.
After debuting a refreshed design on the Bose 700 headphones in 2019, the company returned to its old aesthetic on subsequent models. With the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose did a mix of the two, but it mostly stuck to the traditional look of the QC line. The outside of the ear cups are where the blend of the 700 and previous QuietComfort models is most apparent. They have a similar shape to those on the 2021 QC 45s, but the physical buttons are almost entirely gone, more like the 700s.
Bose removed the three-button setup for playback and volume, instead assigning play/pause, skipping tracks and changing audio modes to a single multi-function control. Just below it on the right ear cup, the Bluetooth pairing button also handles power. The company moved the on-board volume adjustment to a touch-sensitive strip that you can glide your finger across to raise or lower the level. Bose also allows you to assign a shortcut to the volume slider that’s activated by long pressing on it. Even though it’s touch-based, the slider reliably recognized my thumb swipes.
Another notable design change is the headband and hinge. Bose gave these a refined look by using metal instead of relying entirely on plastic. The hinge is better integrated in the headband so there are no visible screws until you fold the ear cups in. Those ear cups can also rotate flat, consistent with previous models over the years. Even with all the changes, Bose managed to keep things extremely comfortable during long listening sessions. Both the earpads and the inside of the headband are soft and cushiony, and I didn’t notice the extra weight.
All the settings are found inside the Bose Music app. Once connected, the software serves up battery life and a volume slider right up top, with quick access to audio modes, Bluetooth connections, EQ, Immersive Audio, shortcut customization and tips underneath. The app also has a media player that mirrors whatever you’re playing elsewhere, so you don’t have to leave to control tunes when you’re tweaking headphone settings.
For audio modes, Bose gives you three by default: Quiet, Aware and Immersion. The first is just active noise cancellation, while the second is full transparency. Immersion is both maximum ANC and Immersive Audio. Bose also offers the ability to create your own modes with an adjustable noise canceling, the option of wind block and Immersive Audio. Once you create a new mode, favoriting it will make it accessible via the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones’ on-board controls.
For Immersive Audio, there are three options to choose from. You can disable it entirely for the stock Bose tuning, and to save battery life, or you can opt for Still or Motion settings. The former keeps the audio at a fixed point and it is best for when you’re sitting. The latter allows the audio to follow you as you move around, using head tracking to keep the sound in front of you at all times.
In order to use that long press on the volume slider shortcut, you first have to enable it in the Bose app. From there, you can assign a handful of actions to the gesture. These include hearing the battery level, cycling through the Immersive Audio presets, accessing a voice assistant or playing content from Spotify. If none of those seem particularly helpful, you can always leave it turned off.
While the headline feature is Immersive Audio, Bose has also improved its stock tuning on the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. Before I even activated spatial audio, I could tell the sound was considerably warmer and clearer, with more bass right out of the box. Overall sound quality is one area Bose lagged slightly behind the likes of Sony and Sennheiser, but the company is certainly catching up.
Bose’s take on spatial audio doesn’t rely on specialized content like Dolby Atmos in Apple Music or Sony 360 Reality Audio. Those formats have been engineered to specifically make the instruments sound like they’re playing around you. Bose uses a combination of headphone components and its newly developed signal processing for Immersive Audio. Thanks to virtualization, it works with any content and that makes it more convenient.
Like the dedicated spatial audio formats, the first thing you’ll notice is the sound is louder. Immersive Audio lends more overall presence to music, but there’s also heightened clarity and detail. Rather than surround you with sound, Bose claims to put you in the acoustic sweet spot, as if you were sitting in the perfect position in front of a set of high-end speakers. Indeed, the company achieves this as albums like TesseracT’s prog-metal War of Being have an atmospheric depth while preserving finer details – from the texture of the singer’s growl to subtle nuances in the drums.
At times, Bose’s spatial audio can make songs sound worse. On Tyler Childers’ “In Your Love,” the vocals are sharp and tinny, and the reverb is accentuated to the point it becomes a distraction from the rest of the music. And the vocals are now several notches louder than the instruments. When it hits, this audio tech is a joy to listen to, but because Bose is relying on signal processing rather than carefully engineered content, the results can vary greatly.
Another area Bose continues to improve is transparency mode. On the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, the company offers noticeably clearer audio when piping in your surroundings and allowing you to hear your voice. It’s still not as good as what Apple manages on the AirPods Max (no one comes close really), but Bose is making strides. That certainly helps when you’re taking a call or need to be tuned into your environment.
Stellar noise canceling performance is nothing new on a set of Bose headphones. The company is consistently the best in terms of allowing you to block out the world and the same holds true with the QC Ultra Headphones. Constant rumbling from an air conditioner or white noise machine is reduced to barely a whisper. The headphones do a great job with TV sound and human voices too – even the lethal combination of a nine-year-old playing Fall Guys.
Bose promises “amazingly clear calls” on the QC Ultra Headphones, a claim that’s on par with nearly every headphone company these days. While I wouldn’t describe the audio quality for calls that way, it’s suitable for everyday voice and video calls when you just need to hear and be heard. It doesn’t sound like you’re on speakerphone, but it’s not pristine either. That’s better than what a lot of the competition offers and near the best you’ll get on wireless headphones.
Bose says you can expect up to 24 hours of use with ANC turned on. If you opt for both noise cancellation and Immersive Audio, that figure drops to 18 hours. However, during my tests using the latter option, both the Bose app and macOS were showing 30 percent remaining after 20 hours. So while it’s true that the company’s new spatial audio impacts battery life, the QC Ultra Headphones still surpass the stated numbers.
To help you conserve battery, the QC Ultra Headphones will automatically turn off when they aren’t being worn and no audio is playing for 10 minutes. There’s also a quick-charge feature that gives you two and a half hours of use in 15 minutes. That’s with ANC on and Immersive Audio off though. If you need spatial audio during this time, Bose says you can expect 30 minutes less battery life after the fast top off.
While Bose has done a lot to catch up, it still doesn’t offer the suite of features that Sony does on the WH-1000XM5. No company does and that’s why the M5 is consistently at the top of our best wireless headphones list. The QuietComfort Ultra Headphones do offer more effective noise cancellation, but there’s nothing akin to Sony’s Speak-to-Chat automatic pausing or the ability to change audio modes based on your activity or location. The M5 also supports Sony’s DSEE Extreme that uses AI to upscale compressed audio and increase depth and clarity. The results are far more consistent than Bose’s Immersive Audio.
With the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose remains near the top of the headphone heap. While Immersive Audio is great at times, the results are inconsistent and can be downright bad with some albums and songs. Still, the default tuning is improved and puts these headphones closer to the level of Sony and Sennheiser sonically, mostly due to added bass, increased clarity and enhanced warmth. Bose needed to nail its new trademark feature to help justify the higher price, but it failed to do so. The QuietComfort Ultra Headphones showcase a number of improvements over previous Bose models, but they’re not good enough to dethrone the king.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bose-quietcomfort-ultra-headphones-review-a-new-spin-on-a-reliable-formula-160009025.html?src=rssIn its antitrust confrontation with the government, the pillar of Google’s defense has been that innovation — not restrictive contracts, backed by billions in payments to industry partners — explains its success as the giant of internet search. From a report: Its competitive advantage, it says, is brilliant people, working tirelessly to improve its products. Pandu Nayak, Google’s first witness in the antitrust trial that began last month, is the face of that defense. Mr. Nayak, a vice president of search, was raised in India and graduated at the top of his class at one of that nation’s elite technical schools. He came to America, earned his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University and then spent seven years as a research scientist on artificial intelligence projects at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Nineteen years ago, Mr. Nayak joined Google and found a particularly welcoming workplace, filled with professional friends. “At the end of the day, Google is a technology company — it really values the skills that I have,” Mr. Nayak said in his testimony on Wednesday. The computer scientist’s testimony is an attempt to rebut a central argument in the case filed by the Justice Department and 38 states and territories. Their suit claims that scale is essential to competition in search. That is, the more data from user queries a search engine collects, the more it learns to improve its service, which attracts still more users, advertisers and ad revenue. That flywheel, the suit says, is fueled by ever-increasing volumes of user data.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – In Antitrust Trial, Google Argues That Smart Employees Explain Its Success
Peacock streams new episodes of Chucky the day after they premiere on Syfy and USA—and any fans who’ve been lurking ‘round those parts have probably noticed the streamer has an excellent library of horror movies. Here are 10 to get you started at the height of Halloween season.
Source: Gizmodo – Curate Your Own Horror Fest With the Best Spooky Movies on Peacock
As expected, the commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines to move forward with a plan to largely restore Obama-era net neutrality protections. All three of the agency’s Democratic commissioners voted in favor of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (PDF), with the two Republican commissioners dissenting.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who has long supported net neutrality rules, last month announced a proposal to reclassify fixed broadband as an essential communications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. It also aims to reclassify mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service.
If broadband is reclassified in this way, the FCC would have greater scope to regulate it in a similar way to how water, power and phone services are overseen. As such, it would have more leeway to re-establish net neutrality rules.
Supporters believe that net neutrality protections are fundamental to an open and equitable internet. When such rules are in place, internet service providers have to provide users with access to every site, content and app at the same speeds and conditions. They can’t block or give preference to any content and they’re not allowed to, for instance, charge video streaming streaming services for faster service.
“The proposed net neutrality rules will ensure that all viewpoints, including those with which I disagree, are heard,” Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was sworn in as the panel’s third Democratic member in September, said ahead of the vote. “Moreso, these principles protect consumers while also maintaining a healthy, competitive broadband internet ecosystem. Because we know that competition is required for access to a healthy, open internet that is accessible to all.”
On the other hand, critics say that net neutrality rules are unnecessary. “Since the FCC’s 2017 decision to return the Internet to the same successful and bipartisan regulatory framework under which it thrived for decades, broadband speeds in the U.S. have increased, prices are down, competition has intensified, and record-breaking new broadband builds have brought millions of Americans across the digital divide,” Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC, said in a statement. “The Internet is not broken and the FCC does not need Title II to fix it. I would encourage the agency to reverse course and focus on the important issues that Congress has authorized the FCC to advance.”
Restoring previous net neutrality rules (which the Trump administration overturned in 2017) has been part of President Joe Biden’s agenda for several years. However, until Gomez was sworn in, the FCC was deadlocked, leaving that goal in limbo until now.
The FCC suggests that reclassification will grant it more authority to “safeguard national security, advance public safety, protect consumers and facilitate broadband deployment.” In addition, the agency wants to “reestablish a uniform, national regulatory approach to protect the open internet” and stop ISPs from “engaging in practices harmful to consumers.”
The FCC will now seek comment on the proposal with members of the public and stakeholders (such as ISPs) having the chance to weigh in on the agency’s plan. After reviewing and possibly implementing feedback, the FCC is then expected to issue a final rule on the reclassification of broadband internet access. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, this means net neutrality protections could be restored as soon as next spring.
It’s still not a sure thing that net neutrality protections will return, however. The implementation of revived rules could face legal challenges from the telecom industry. It may also take quite some time for the FCC to carry out the rulemaking process, which may complicate matters given that we’re going into a presidental election year.
Nevertheless, net neutrality is a major priority for the fully staffed commission under Rosenworcel. “We’re laserlike focused on getting this rulemaking process started, then we’re going to review the record, and my hope is we’ll be able to move to order,” the FCC chair told The Washington Post.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fcc-moves-forward-with-its-plan-to-restore-net-neutrality-protections-154431460.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – FCC moves forward with its plan to restore net neutrality protections
Enlarge / FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr arrive to testify during a House committee hearing on March 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Kevin Dietsch )
The Federal Communications Commission today voted to move ahead with a plan that would restore net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation of Internet service providers.
In a 3-2 party-line vote, the FCC approved Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which seeks public comment on the broadband regulation plan. The comment period will officially open after the proposal is published in the Federal Register, but the docket is already active and can be found here. (The FCC website seems to be having some problems right now, so these links may not work.)
The proposal would reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, a designation that allows the FCC to regulate ISPs under the common-carrier provisions in Title II of the Communications Act. The plan is essentially the same as what the FCC did in 2015 when it used Title II to prohibit fixed and mobile Internet providers from blocking or throttling traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.
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Source: Ars Technica – FCC moves ahead with Title II net neutrality rules in 3-2 party-line vote
The humble Amazon Fire TV Stick is on sale for $20, representing a discount of 50 percent. This is the exact same price found during the Prime Day event earlier this month, so if you missed it then, now’s your chance.
This sale is for the latest generation of the entry-level Fire TV Stick, and not the often-discounted 4K Max edition. The standard Fire TV Stick offers streaming in Full HD and ships with an Alexa-enabled remote for voice controls. There’s Dolby Atmos audio support on select titles with compatible home audio systems and an easy plug-and-play installation process, which is the whole point of these streaming sticks. Just pop it into an available HDMI port and you’ll be good to go.
The streaming stick allows access to just about every platform out there, such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu and, of course, Prime Video and the entire spate of Amazon channels. To that end, you also get six free months of Amazon’s in-house streaming service MGM+. At $6 per month, that’s a $36 value. MGM+ isn’t the most popular streaming site on the block, but does offer some unique original programming, like the surprisingly decent Lost-alike From, the crime drama Godfather of Harlem and the just-announced sci-fi vehicle Beacon 23.
This is part of a larger sale of Amazon-branded products. There are no 4K Fire TV streaming sticks involved, but there are plenty of smart TVs. You can snag a Fire TV 43″ Omni Series 4K UHD smart TV for $300, a discount of 25 percent, and an Amazon Fire TV 55″ 4-Series 4K UHD smart TV for $270, a massive savings of nearly 50 percent. Check the whole list here, as some TVs go as low as $110.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-latest-fire-tv-stick-is-on-sale-for-just-20-153511003.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick is on sale for just
After years of capturing the massive world of Jupiter, the Juno spacecraft has recently turned its attention to its Jovian moons. During a close flyby of Jupiter’s spookiest moon, Juno imaged the charred surface of a volcanic world caught in a haunting gravitational tug.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA’s Juno Reveals Hellish Landscape of Jupiter’s Moon Io in Latest Flyby
They’re just little guys. Little spider-guys.
Source: Gizmodo – Spider-Man 2’s Photo Mode Will Let You Turn Your Heroes Into Just Little Guys
Enlarge / A box of Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral drug. (credit: Getty | Europa Press News)
Pfizer on Wednesday revealed that it raised the list price of a course of Paxlovid—its life-saving antiviral drug used to reduce risk of severe COVID-19 in those most vulnerable—to nearly $1,400, more than double the roughly $530 the US government has paid for the treatment in the emergency phase of the pandemic.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had noted in an investor call at the beginning of the week that the company would increase the price of Paxlovid as it moves from government distribution to the commercial market at the end of this year. But, he did not announce the new list price then. Instead, the company revealed the more than two-fold increase in a letter to pharmacies and clinics dated Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the list price of $1,390 after viewing the letter.
A Pfizer spokesperson told the Journal that “pricing for Paxlovid is based on the value it provides to patients, providers, and health care systems due to its important role in helping reduce COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Pfizer more than doubles price of life-saving COVID antiviral, Paxlovid
What good are AI-powered processors without apps that take full advantage of them? That seems to be the question Intel has been asking itself lately. The company just announced a new initiative, the AI PC Acceleration Program, which is meant to help developers create new AI-powered features that take advantage of Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra mobile chips.
Those processors, which are due to arrived on December 14th, are notable for being the company’s first to include a neural processing unit (NPU). Just like how a GPU speeds up gaming tasks, an NPU accelerates AI workloads, like the background blur feature in Windows 11’s video chat Studio Effects. An NPU alone won’t make people rush out to buy new notebooks, though. What Intel needs are compelling reasons for people to want AI acceleration.
Enter the AI PC Acceleration Program, which so far includes more than 100 software vendors and over 300 AI-powered features, according to Intel. These aren’t just no-name developers either: Current participants include Audacity, Adobe, BlackMagic, Webex and Zoom. As part of the program, Intel connects developers with AI toolkits like OpenVINO, design resources, and marketing help. This is uncharted territory for most software makers, after all — Intel’s assistance could help them to deliver useful AI features more quickly.
“We at Audacity are thrilled to be partnering with Intel to help bring powerful, open and, most importantly, free AI tools to a mass audience of AI PC users,” Martin Keary, Audacity’s head of product, said in a statement. “With time, we expect these kinds of initiatives to produce a new kind of creative environment for musicians, podcasters and audiophiles – a worthy successor to the traditional audio tools that have typified the last 20 years.”
This isn’t the first time Intel has tried to push developers to build new AI features, Robert Hallock, Intel’s senior director of client technology and performance marketing, told Engadget. It runs similar initiatives for server and datacenters, which have led to around 1,000 examples of AI-enabled software. Developers will be able to sign up for the AI PC Acceleration Program online, and Intel will then determine there eligibility and the resources they’ll require.
Hallock notes that the fruit of Intel’s AI push won’t just be limited to the company’s NPUs either—they should also run on AI hardware from AMD and Intel without much extra effort. Looking ahead, he expects NPUs to be a common component in all PC processors, making them something developers can rely on even more. Developers will still target CPUs for latency-sensitive work, while games and 3D rendering will go straight for GPU power. But the NPU will be the go-to solution for long-running, power-intensive AI tasks because it’s far more efficient than GPUs and CPUs.
“In the quest for performance per Watt, having this third accelerator makes a big difference,” Hallock said. “It extends battery life, it allows GPU offloads. That’s one of the key benefits.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/intel-ai-pc-acceleration-program-core-ultra-150054881.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Intel is pushing developers to make AI-enabled PC apps
Discord is introducing new safeguards to protect young users. On Thursday, the company announced Teen Safety Assist. With this week’s initial rollout, the program consists of two features: Automated alerts and content filters.
Moving forward, when a user a teen hasn’t chatted with before sends a direct message, Discord will display a safety alert if the platform’s automated systems suspect the teen’s safety could be at risk. The prompt will nudge the young person to reconsider if they want to respond to the message, and point them to the app’s block feature and related safety tips.
By default, Discord will now also automatically blur potentially sensitive images from a teen’s friends and delete sensitive content from strangers. Young people can disable the feature through an option in Discord’s settings menu. Adults, meanwhile, can enable the filters for themselves, if they want the additional protections.
The introduction of Teen Safety Assist comes amid increased scrutiny of Discord’s efforts to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and protect young users from predatory adults. In June, NBC News identified 35 cases over a period of six years where adults had allegedly used the platform to kidnap, groom or sexually assault minors. The outlet also found 165 cases where authorities were prosecuting adults for sharing CSAM over Discord or allegedly using the platform to extort young users into sending sexual images of themselves.
In the aftermath of the report, Discord banned teen dating servers and changed its safety policies to ban the sharing of AI-generated CSAM. It also announced new rules explicitly prohibiting any other kind of text or media content that sexualizes children. At the same time, the company introduced Family Center, a dashboard for parents and guardians to keep track of what their teens are doing on Discord.
“Teens are still in the process of learning about themselves and what it means to be online, and our new safety features are rooted in providing them with agency on the platform, to give them ways to learn and grow in safe and age-appropriate online spaces,” said Savannah Badalich, senior director of policy at Discord. “These newest features are part of an ongoing, multi-year effort to continually evolve and advance safety on Discord.”
At the same time, Discord is introducing a new warning system for people who violate its policies. Outside of incidents involving the most “extreme” violations, the company is moving away from permanent bans. It’s doing so under the belief that most users will choose to be better online citizens given the chance and proper guidance.
In practice, the system will notify a person when they’ve violated one or more of Discord’s policies and detail the restrictions on their account. It will also link out to the company’s Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and appeal mechanism. A new “Account Standing” tab within the settings menu will allow users to see all their current and past policy violations.
“We think we’ve built the most nuanced and proportionate reporting system,” Badalich told Engadget, adding the company hopes other platforms will look to what Discord has created for inspiration related to their own enforcement efforts. “We believe people, especially teens, have the capacity to grow.”
Separately, Discord announced a slew of new features and enhancements slated to arrive either in the near future or down the line. To start, the platform’s in-app shop, which Discord began testing last month with Nitro subscribers, will soon be available to all users. The marketplace features digital items people can use to decorate their avatars and profiles. Discord will offer store discounts to Nitro members, as part of a new perk for signing up.
This week, the company will also start rolling out a feature called Remix. It allows users to edit an image directly within Discord’s mobile app and share it with their friends and servers. The company spent much of the last year improving its Android and iOS clients. One recent update saw it improve app launch times on both platforms. In the near future, Discord says people can expect a new “Midnight” dark mode the company claims reduces battery consumption on devices with OLED screens, more functional notification tabs and a new search feature for the settings menu to make it easier to find the exact option you’re looking to tweak.
Last but not least, the company says it will begin rolling out Premium App Subscriptions to eligible developers in the UK and Europe, following a launch that began in the US a few weeks ago. On the subject of third-party apps, bots and plugins, the company said it’s in the process of exploring how to make those accessible across nearly every part of Discord. It provided few details on the effort, but said the goal is to allow people to access their favorite apps and bots without those experiences being restricted to select servers.
“We’re experimenting with a few different things, but the goal is for developers to reach more people with the awesome experience they’re building. For users, we don’t want them to be gated from having these custom experiences at their fingertips,” Cherry Park, director of product marketing at Discord, told Engadget. “In terms of the way we architecture and build it, there are a couple of solutions. Some are easier, some are more difficult, and you’re going to see us experiment with a few of them over the next few quarters.”
Discord promised to share more about its efforts around app portability in the near future. In the meantime, Nitro subscribers will get a chance to test new features before they become available to the public.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/discords-latest-teen-safety-blitz-starts-with-content-filters-and-automated-warnings-150031569.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Discord’s latest teen safety blitz starts with content filters and automated warnings
