An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Gamer: Whether you think Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard is a move toward a dry gaming monopoly or a financial windfall for Activision and Blizzard games both, it’s definitely happened. The UK’s CMA has given the thumbs up, Kotick’s on his way out — the deal’s closed, and now we get to see the impact ripples spread. It looks like there’s already some great news for fans of Activision Blizzard’s older catalogue, as confirmed by Xbox boss Phil Spencer himself in an official interview on the Xbox channel. “I do think with Game Pass that we have the ability to pick a couple franchises every year and almost do like a ‘revisited’ [version] — I just made up that term … when you look across the franchises that are part of our teams, there’s an opportunity to go back.”
“I wanna make sure that when we go back and visit something that we do it with our complete ability not just create something for financial gain (or a PR announcement), and not deliver.” Ultimately, while he’s got his own wishlist (the return of FPS classic Hexen is a running gag), Spencer says it’s important for these fresh coats of paint to be a result of developer passion: “If teams wanna go back and revisit some of the things we have, and do a full focus on it, I’m gonna be all in. I think there’s an amazing trove of [games] we can go and touch on again. I think about things like the Quake 2 remaster that just came out from [id Software], I thought that was awesome. They did a real good job revisiting a game, making it current, but not leaving its history behind. I’d love to see more things like that.”
Enlarge/ Tesla-style plugs are coming to ChargePoint chargers. (credit: ChargePoint)
Tesla drivers will soon have a new place to fast-charge their electric vehicles. Today, the charging network ChargePoint announced it will have Tesla-style North American Charging Standard support for both its AC and DC chargers over the next few weeks. And in November, it will start shipping NACS cable upgrade kits for existing DC fast chargers, which will allow Tesla EVs to charge at those ChargePoint DC fast chargers.
“We’ve already said we’re already taking preorders on the home charger, and then over the next few weeks, we’ll start shipping the fast-charge cables to preorder customers that have our fast chargers, and you can already order a new fast charger with NACS cables on,” said Pasquale Romano, ChargePoint’s CEO.
“We think the most important difference is we do not make our customers decide by parking space whether the cable is NACS or CCS. I think that’s a mess and no one should do that. No one should have a dedicated parking space because you’ll never get the ratio right, and it will change over time. So every solution that we have is going to enable both connector types per parking space,” he told Ars.
GM, Cruise and Honda are teaming up to introduce a driverless ride-hailing service in Japan, which could launch in early 2026 if things go according to plan. The companies have entered a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture for the project, and they’re hoping to establish the company in the first half of 2024, provided they’re able to secure the necessary regulatory approvals by then. Their ride-hailing service will deploy the Cruise Origin electric shuttle van that the companies had developed together. It’s a self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or even a driver’s seat, which means it also has no pedals and no rearview mirror.
Cruise
Instead, it has a big cabin space where up to six passengers can sit facing each other, and its doors slide open like a subway’s. “The opportunity for the ridehail service in Japan, which is expected to be the first of its kind, is huge,” GM said in its announcement. It has the potential to solve the country’s ongoing driver shortage and could provide an alternative for those who can’t use Tokyo’s extensive train and subway system for any reason.
While it’s still early days for the project, the companies already have a vision for how they want to execute their plans. They’re looking to start by deploying “dozens” of Cruise Origins in central Tokyo by 2026 before expanding the fleet to 500 Origins. After that, they’re hoping to make the service available outside of the capital’s center. Like any other similar service, passengers will be able to hail an Origin through a dedicated app, as well as pay for their ride.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gm-honda-and-cruise-plan-to-offer-driverless-taxi-rides-in-japan-in-2026-123500078.html?src=rss
In 2015, researchers reported a surprising discovery that stoked industry-wide security concerns—an attack called RowHammer that could corrupt, modify, or steal sensitive data when a simple user-level application repeatedly accessed certain regions of DDR memory chips. In the coming years, memory chipmakers scrambled to develop defenses that prevented the attack, mainly by limiting the number of times programs could open and close the targeted chip regions in a given time.
Recently, researchers devised a new method for creating the same types of RowHammer-induced bitflips even on the newest generation of chips, known as DDR4, that have the RowHammer mitigations built into them. Known as RowPress, the new attack works not by “hammering” carefully selected regions repeatedly, but instead by leaving them open for longer periods than normal. Bitflips refer to the phenomenon of bits represented as ones change to zeros and vice versa.
Further amplifying the vulnerability of DDR4 chips to read-disturbance attacks—the generic term for inducing bitflips through abnormal accesses to memory chips—RowPress bitflips can be enhanced by combining them with RowHammer accesses. Curiously, raising the temperature of the chip also intensifies the effect.
I’m at a fascinating event this week at Lenovo. For the first time, Lenovo brought all the analysts that cover the company together as a group not to talk about each individual Lenovo product or service, but to chat about how Lenovo is executing its One Lenovo plan and creating an Apple-like experience that drives a “better together” concept. It’s the basis of why the company has become such a huge global success.
This is in contrast to Dell which has also been built from similar components but still appears largely siloed and defined more by internal conflicts than being a showcase of how to bring the full power of the company to bear on what remains a troubled market that’s struggling with how to deal with generative AI, foundation models, the metaverse, and whether employees come to work or work from home.
The contrast between the companies reminds me of my time at IBM when I could see what IBM was and how it originally became dominant, but experienced what IBM became while I was there in the 80s and 90s which was more a dysfunctional family that had lost market focus and customers and was struggling to keep the lights on.
In short, I see Lenovo transitioning to what IBM was at its peak, and Dell transitioning to what nearly put IBM out of business. And Dell is hardly alone in this trend. I’m somewhat of an expert on IBM’s decline because I got so frustrated with what was happening back then I researched and wrote a report on the causes of IBM’s decline, which had me both up for an award and nearly got me fired.
The Problem with Umbrella Companies
IBM was and both Lenovo and Dell are umbrella companies. An umbrella company is a firm often, but not always, formed through acquisitions that places each somewhat independent unit under a single brand. From the outside, it looks like one company, but inside, problems emerge when each unit competes with each peer unit for resources while the executives compete in terms of clout, status and the likelihood to lead the combined unit.
Customer needs tend to be subordinate to the conflict. You can see this play out in the market as Lenovo gradually has advanced on Dell and now tops that company in a growing number of areas, largely due to bringing the full power of the company against a growing list of customers that increasingly want suppliers to reduce, not increase, complexity in an increasingly complex world.
In short, the reasons that IBM nearly failed and Lenovo is out-executing Dell are tied to customer focus and using the power of the parent company so that the umbrella company becomes a competitive advantage instead of a disadvantage against smaller, more focused, efforts.
It Starts with the CEO
In looking back at IBM, that company started to break when Thomas Watson, Jr. retired. Until then succession appeared to be in the family so you had a leader that no one was likely to challenge and who could say “jump” and everyone in the company would ask how high. This is what Dell used to have when Michael Dell was more active and what Lenovo still seems to have. At Lenovo, the leadership is crystal clear. At Dell, not so much.
Succession is always an issue, but it only becomes a big issue should the CEO leave or when leadership is uncertain. What I’m seeing at Lenovo is that leadership is as strong as it was at IBM under Thomas Watson, Jr. (or Sr.). At Dell, leadership started to degrade when Michael Dell first tried to retire in the early 90s. Now it seems divided across a number of people while Michael Dell seems to be taking a far less active role.
This lack of focused and singular leadership is problematic in an umbrella company because each division leader then attempts to fill the leadership vacuum, and the resulting lack of a global authority and vision means they are often working at cross purposes rather than acting like they are on the same team.
Wrapping Up: Lenovo’s Competitive Advantage Is CEO Yang Yuanqing
While this starts with a clear and growing problem at Dell and uncertain leadership, Lenovo may experience this problem in the future should its current CEO either repeat Dell’s mistake or depart without assuring a similar concept of leadership that he enjoys. The Watsons clearly didn’t anticipate well enough what would happen when the family no longer led the company, and companies that remain in business over 100 years are the exception, not the rule. It is not uncommon for a firm to lose its way when a strong leader is replaced by someone that lacks experience, leadership skills, implicit/explicit authority, or market understanding.
This may be the strongest argument for why AI needs to focus on assuring the CEO job because that isn’t only the most highly compensated position, but it is the one position that, when it degrades, can put the company into decline. CEOs like Michael Dell, Yang Yuanqing, and Thomas Watson, Jr. are rare, yet we do little to assure the aspects that made them successful are sustained after they leave. Perhaps the most powerful use of AI will be to assure that a CEO who is exceptional is also virtually immortal, then use this to create that same dynamic so that every exceptional employee is also virtually immortal, thus ensuring the immortality and success of the company.
The Anker 511 is a USB-C charger that provides 30W of power at just 1.12 inches wide. It’s available in natural green, misty blue and lilac purple, alongside standard black and white options. The three-port Anker 735 GaNPrime 65W is also on sale, dropping to $40 from $60 — a 33 percent discount. It offers two USB-C and one USB-A port and uses Ankers IQ technology for more efficient, 65W charging. One of the best deals comes courtesy of a 43 percent discount on the Anker 736 GaN II 100W charger. At two-thirds the size of a MacBook’s 96W power brick, the model also includes two USB-C and one USB-A port, but with even faster charging than its counterparts.
Other Anker devices for sale outside the GaN family include the 313 10W wireless charger pad, down to $12 from $16, and the 332 USB-C hub with 100W, available for $30 versus its usual $50. Alongside its chargers for sale, Anker also has a markdown on its PowerConf S3 Speakerphone with six microphones. The home office device is discounted 38 percent in Black, dropping to $80 from $130.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anker-gan-chargers-are-up-to-43-percent-off-in-amazon-sale-122043698.html?src=rss
EV charging infrastructure company ChargePoint announced Thursday that it’s rolling out support for Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector. In a move announced earlier this year, the network will support AC and DC charging for the formerly proprietary, soon-to-be-ubiquitous Tesla plug. Rival Electrify America announced a similar change in June, but it set a more modest deadline of 2025 to make the transition.
Support begins rolling out today with “much of the lineup” expected to deliver during the next month. Cable upgrade kits for the company’s existing DC fast chargers will be delivered to customers in November, “offering Tesla drivers a public fast charging alternative for the first time,” the company wrote in a press release Thursday.
The ChargePoint app now includes an NACS selection filter to help find a compatible station on your route. “With many car manufacturers recently adopting the NACS standard for upcoming models, ChargePoint now offers every necessary cable solution to charge an EV in North America and Europe,” the company wrote. ChargePoint has over 48,000 EV charging stations globally.
ChargePoint
ChargePoint will provide a native DC connector and AC “solutions” compatible with Tesla vehicles. It will also continue supporting the Combined Charging System (CCS-1) standard. “The lineup offers AC solutions as well, negating the need for a cumbersome adapter to charge,” the company wrote. In addition, ChargePoint begins shipping cables for its Level 2 Home Flex charging system this month. It’s the first publicly available option offering NACS DC fast-charging speeds for non-Tesla EVs.
“With more than 35 million historical ChargePoint sessions initiated by Tesla vehicles, we saw the need to offer native connector solutions for this large portion of the EV market,” Pasquale Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, wrote in a press release. “Our support for both installed and new products opens up ChargePoint DC chargers to millions of drivers who have not yet had a fast charging alternative to the Tesla ecosystem, and makes their AC charging experience more convenient.”
The auto industry has lined up behind NACS in recent months. Ford, GM / Rivian, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, Jaguar, BMW and Hyundai have announced plans to adopt the standard in upcoming vehicles. Toyota and Volkswagen stand as two of the few remaining holdouts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chargepoints-ev-network-rolls-out-support-for-teslas-nacs-connector-120034510.html?src=rss
WhatsApp is finally giving you the option to send voice notes without concerns about them being recorded or shared. The messaging app is rolling out a feature that lets you set voice notes to view once and then self-destruct, WABetaInfo reports. Now, there’s really very little reason to call anyone.
WhatsApp is rolling out a feature to set view once mode to voice notes on iOS and Android beta!
The new feature works similarly to when you set a photo sent over WhatsApp to be viewable only once. When recording a voice note, you’ll see the number one inside a circle. Simply click that, and your voice note will become a one-time listen. However, you cant hear it again either, so if you’re someone who either likes the sound of your own voice (rare) or to analyze everything you’ve just said, then you might want to skip it. It also appears that the audio will be lost if your recipient accidentally closes out of the conversation while listening to it.
With voice notes’ popularity growing tremendously over the past few years, this new feature could be a great option for sending friends your streaming password, card information or just cold-hard gossip without it getting out there. The ability to set your audio messages to listen once is currently in beta testing on both Android and iPhone devices but should roll out to more testers in the coming days.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-tests-self-destructing-voice-notes-113555275.html?src=rss
We haven’t heard much on the state of Amazon’s drone deliveries, but the company still seems focused on exploring the possibilities. A report earlier this year said Amazon had made only a handful of deliveries due to FAA regulations. However, in the announcement of prescription deliveries in parts of Texas, Amazon said its drones “have safely delivered hundreds of household items in College Station [in Texas] since December 2022.”
Amazon
Customers at College Station are now eligible for aerial deliveries of “more than 500 medications” for common conditions like the flu, asthma and pneumonia. Texas has established itself as a hotbed for drone delivery trials. Alphabet’s Wing also began offering them in Dallas–Fort Worth, including a partnership with Walmart.
Beyond a future third drone delivery area in the US, Amazon is planning an international expansion to the UK and Italy in 2024. Drone deliveries will start at one site each before expanding to more locations. Amazon added it will integrate the Prime Air program into its delivery network. In the US, drones will run out of some Same-Day Delivery sites.
Amazon will also start using its MK30 drone, first revealed last November. This model has a range twice as large as previous drones and improved tolerance for higher and lower temperatures. The MK30 can also operate in light rain. It’s smaller, lighter and quieter than previous drones too. But will it attempt delivery while I’m in the shower? Probably.
Netflix has announced two price hikes during its quarterly earnings. It said it’s increasing rates for its Basic and Premium plans. The Basic plan, which Netflix killed earlier this year, moves from $10 to $12 for grandfathered customers, while Premium rises from $20 to $23. Netflix said its ad-supported and Standard plans will remain the same at $7 and $15.49, respectively. Yay?
The company’s move to limit password sharing appears to have paid off too. Paid memberships are up to 247.15 million, a significant 10 percent annual increase.
After years of delays and redesigns, Tesla Cybertruck deliveries will begin to select customers starting November 30, before the vehicle enters full production next year at its Texas Gigafactory. The latest design tweak is the vehicle’s electrical architecture, reportedly now being redesigned to accommodate an 800-volt standard, up from the 400V in existing Tesla vehicles. A lot of luxury and heavy-duty EV models — from the Audi e-Tron to the GMC Hummer EV — use 800V architecture as it enables EVs with large battery capacities to charge faster.
The platform is also helping channels create news-focused Shorts.
At a time when misinformation is rife on many platforms and is arguably even incentivized in some cases, YouTube is attempting to push back (while also being the home of so much of it). In around 40 countries, it’s rolling out a news hub to pull together news from “authoritative sources” in several formats: video on demand, live streams, podcasts and even Shorts. The feature will eventually land on desktop and connected TV apps.
YouTube creators may be able to upload music that sounds like it was actually sang by famous musicians one day. According to Billboard and Bloomberg, the video hosting platform is developing an artificial intelligence tool that can mimic the voice of recording artists. It was also hoping to introduce the feature during its Made On YouTube event in September, where it debuted other AI-powered creator tools including a generative green screen. Obviously, its plan didn’t push through, and it was apparently because negotiating with recording companies is taking time. The technology is new, after all, and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered first.
Billboard says one of the key issues they’re still hashing out is how monetization would work. Will artists be paid for the music YouTube feeds its AI model, or for the output made using the AI tool? Further, how would songwriters be compensated for any of their music used to train YouTube’s AI? Recording companies still reportedly have questions about how the AI model is trained, as well, and about how artists will have the power to opt in or out. If and when the tool does come out, YouTube intends to beta test it first by giving a select group of creators access to the voices of artists who opt in.
While negotiations are taking time, recording companies are receptive to YouTube’s idea, according to the sources. That’s because they’re looking at the use of AI in music as an inevitability, and they’re concerned about getting left behind if they resist licensing deals like what YouTube is offering. As Bloomberg notes, though, YouTube is walking a tricky path and may have to brace itself for legal issues in its quest to explore the use of generative AI in music. OpenAI, for instance, had been sued by a group of authors, including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin, for the alleged use of their novels to train its large language model.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-may-soon-let-musicians-lend-their-ai-voices-to-creators-105038588.html?src=rss
The government of India said on Tuesday that it plans to put an astronaut on the moon by 2040 and build an Earth-orbiting space station by 2035. Space.com reports: On Aug. 23, India became just the fourth nation ever to soft-land a spacecraft — its Chandrayaan-3 lander-rover duo — on the surface of the moon. In a recent meeting with the Indian government department that manages the country’s space program, Prime Minister Narendra Modi “directed that India should now aim for new and ambitious goals,” according to an official statement. India’s future moon exploration efforts will include a series of additional robotic Chandrayaan missions, a new launch pad and a heavy-lift launch vehicle, the statement added.
India’s delayed Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, now aiming to fly three astronauts to low Earth orbit in 2025, will feature 20 major tests, including three uncrewed missions to test the launch vehicle over the course of the remainder of this year and all of next. […] By the middle of the 2030s, India hopes to have a 20-ton space station in a fixed orbit 248 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, with capabilities to host astronauts for 15 to 20 days at a time, K. Sivan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), has previously said.
Further down the pipeline of missions, ISRO is planning a Venus orbiter called Shukrayaan-1 to study the surface of that hellishly hot planet. The payloads for that mission are currently being developed, current ISRO chairman S. Somanath had said last month. A second orbiter mission to Mars is also on the books, according to the latest statement. The nation’s first, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was launched in 2013 and studied the Red Planet’s atmosphere for eight years before it lost contact with Earth in April 2022. The follow-up mission, Mars Orbiter Mission 2 or MOM 2, will likely include cameras to study the planet’s crust and may also include a lander, although many of the mission plans are yet to be finalized.
Oppo’s first two horizontally folding phones caught our attention with their shorter 9:8.4 “golden” aspect ratio, but with the brand new Find N3, the company sided with a more conventional design, which is backed by some new software tricks to boost the multitasking experience. Not to mention an upgraded set of Hasselblad-branded rear cameras, a vastly improved folding durability, and the alert slider inherited from OnePlus — as we’ve already seen on the recent Find N3 Flip.
The new foldable AMOLED display on the Oppo Find N3 comes in at 7.8 inches wide, with a resolution set at 2,240 x 2,268, which ends up being a pixel density of 426 ppi. As far as crease goes, it’s even less visible than before, so it’s definitely fair to call it “virtually crease-free” this time round. The more interesting feature here is the new self-healing coating, which can apparently smooth out scuffs to keep the panel in pristine condition for a little longer.
With the increased body height, the Find N3’s cover display features a more familiar — and arguably more practical — 20:9 aspect ratio (though it’s still shorter than, say, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3). Here we have a flat 6.3-inch, 2,484 x 1,116 AMOLED panel (431 ppi), and much like the flexible screen, it supports 1,440Hz PWM dimming for less eye fatigue, 1-120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, up to 1,400 nits in High Brightness Mode and up to 2,800 nits peak. This is noteworthy, considering that many earlier foldable phones have weaker display properties on the inner screen.
Oppo
The Find N3 is built with Oppo’s third-generation Flexion hinge, which consists of zirconium-based liquid metal for compactness, as well as the company’s self-developed aircraft-grade steel for strength. The flexible screen is also backed by carbon fiber support plates for structural strength, making the device “36-percent more resistant to warping than past-generation foldables.” Better yet, Oppo got TÜV Rheinland to certify the Find N3’s 1,000,000-fold durability, which is more than double that of the Find N2’s “mere” 400,000 folds, let alone the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5’s 200,000 folds. The fold counts remain at 100,000 for both the 50ºC (122°F ) and -20ºC (-4°F) tests. While there’s no Ingress Protection Rating here, Oppo has applied a weather-sealing process to make the Find N3 splash-proof.
Photography is also a significant upgrade here. Find N3 is the first smartphone to pack Sony’s 48-megapixel (4:3), 1/1.43-inch LYTIA-T808 sensor (it’s actually 52 megapixels, 1/1.35 inches in full — 20-percent larger than the main rival’s). This is apparently the first sensor to feature a two-layer transistor pixel structure, which is a cunning trick to let each pixel receive more light, thus more image detail. Sony goes as far as claiming that this chip “rivals the high-quality 1-inch type sensor.” Additionally, this f/1.7, 24mm-equivalent main camera comes with optical image stabilization.
There’s also a 64-megapixel, f/2.6 periscope telephoto camera with an unnamed 1/2-inch sensor — one that’s apparently three times larger than what you’d get on a main competitor’s foldable. With this 70mm-equivalent lens, you get 3x optical zoom and 6x “lossless” zoom (by cropping), both of which are assisted by optical stabilization via a floating prism structure. You can use the same camera in Hasselblad Portrait mode.
Last but not least, the 48-megapixel, 14mm equivalent ultra-wide camera packs a Sony IMX5811/2-inch sensor, which Oppo claims to be 130-percent larger than key rival’s. It comes with an f/2.2 lens, a 114-degree field of view and macro shot support down to 4cm.
Oppo
To complement the photography hardware upgrade, the Find N3 packs a new Oppo Computational Photography (OCP) feature, which captures the original brightness information for fine-tuning each HDR shot “pixel by pixel.” The result is supposedly “a more natural image with rich highlights and shadows.” This sounds somewhat like what the now-retired MariSilicon X imaging neural processor would have handled in the past, but Oppo has yet to dive into the technical details on OCP. On a related note, the ProXDR display mode in the gallery app leverages OCP details to optimize the screen’s peak brightness, in order to make the photos pop; but you can also long-press the ProXDR button to see the photos as-is.
For video calls, you also have the option to use either the external 32-megapixel f/2.4 selfie camera (1/3.14-inch, 22mm equivalent), or the internal 20-megapixel f/2.2 counterpart (1/4-inch, 20mm equivalent).
As for the remaining core phone specs, the Find N3 is unsurprisingly packing Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, a dual SIM tray, NFC, a triple-speaker system (with spatial audio support) and a larger 4,800mAh battery. With 67W SuperVOOC charging support, the device reaches over 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 42 minutes. You’ll find the new alert slider (silent, vibrate and ring) located right next to the volume rocker, which is above the side-mounted fingerprint reader. The whole package comes in at 239 grams heavy and 5.8mm thick when opened — not record-breaking numbers but still impressive in this category.
On the software side, Oppo justified its shift in aspect ratio by adding some handy multitasking features. In this ColorOS 13.2 (based on Android 13), the new “Global Taskbar” offers an “App Library” button on the far left, which toggles a pop-up menu for quickly launching an app or even dragging it into a split-screen view. There’s also a “File Pocket” button next to that, which is another pop-up menu showing your recent files, images and clipboard items, so that you can easily drag and drop into an active app.
Oppo
Another powerful multitasking feature is “Boundless View,” which is basically split-screen on steroids. By tapping the top bar above your desired app in split-screen mode, you can click on “Expand View” which then automatically widens said app, but still leaving a small portion of the other app in view, thus letting you quickly swipe between apps. Similarly, you can also have up to three apps in this horizontal split-screen view — just drag the third app from the dock to the center of the screen. By expanding all three apps in this split screen, you’ll be creating a “15-inch Boundless View” layout, and you can get an interactive overview with a four-finger pinch at any time. Much like the usual split-screen mode, you can save these Boundless View app combos for quick access on the home screen.
My favorite handy features from before, namely two-finger split screen (swiping down the middle of the screen) and “FlexForm Capture” (partly open the phone while in the camera app), are here to stay. As a bonus, Oppo promises four years of software updates and five years of security updates for the Find N3.
Oppo
The Oppo Find N3, available in “champagne gold” and “classic black,” will be rolling out to global markets soon, with pre-orders starting in Singapore on October 20th. The damage is S$2,399 (around US$1,745) which, to our surprise, is a big jump from the Find N2’s price for the same 16GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration. The China version is offered as a premium kit, which is asking for 12,999 yuan or about US$1,777, and it comes with a kickstand case, a car charger and other accessories. Luckily for folks over there, they also have a more affordable 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant for just 9,999 yuan (about US$1,367), but this is still a lot pricier than last year’s base model. It’ll be interesting to see how the supposedly near-identical OnePlus Open foldable — launching later today — will differentiate itself from its Oppo twin, be it pricing or software.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/oppos-find-n3-foldable-goes-big-on-displays-and-durability-094134290.html?src=rss
The ninth annual Google for India event had a big announcement: the company plans to manufacture its Pixel phones in India, following steady growth in the country’s demand for the devices. Google’s senior vice president for Devices and Services, Rick Osterloh, positioned India as one of the company’s most important markets for Pixel devices. Google aims to begin rolling out locally produced Pixel 8 smartphones in 2024, eventually expanding to other Pixel models.
Google’s contribution to the “Make in India” initiative will see partnerships with domestic and international manufacturers. In a tweet, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, Sundar Pichai, stated, “We’re committed to being a trusted partner in India’s digital growth.” The pivot also allows Google to diversify its production away from China, where supply chain risks continue due to strains between the nation and the United States.
We shared plans at #GoogleforIndia to manufacture Pixel smartphones locally and expect the first devices to roll out in 2024. We’re committed to being a trusted partner in India’s digital growth- appreciate the support for Make In India @PMOIndia + MEIT Minister @AshwiniVaishnaw.
The company’s decision is another win for India’s government, which has attracted international device manufacturers, like Samsung and Apple, to make major investments in local production. Apple first produced iPhones in India back in 2017, but the first devices produced were all older models. Production initially also lagged six to nine months behind China but has improved steadily, first with iPhone 14 production starting within a month of launch. Most recently, a small number of India-made iPhone 15s were available in the region the same day as those produced in China.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-confirms-it-will-manufacture-pixel-phones-in-india-091725837.html?src=rss
If you have a personal WhatsApp account and a business one — or two accounts of the same nature — you’ll soon no longer have to carry two phones to be able to access them both. WhatsApp will finally let you add two accounts to one device, as long as you have a second phone number or a phone that supports eSIM or dual/multiple SIMs.
You won’t even need to log out of one account to be able to access the other. To have simultaneous access to two accounts, go to the app’s Settings page and click on the arrow next to your name to find the “Add account” option. Each account has its own privacy and notification settings, so you can choose to receive alerts from one and not the other, which sounds incredibly useful if you’re on vacation and don’t want to hear from your work or business for a while.
The new feature follows an update earlier this year that gave you the capability to access your account on multiple devices. WhatsApp used to be very strict when it comes to account access and limited you to having one account on one phone. It started exploring multi-device functionality in 2021, though, and rolled out the ability to sync one account across up to four phones in April. This upcoming update, which could make it easier to juggle different aspects of your life while maintaining boundaries, is rolling out for Android devices in the coming weeks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-will-soon-let-you-add-two-accounts-to-one-device-070407645.html?src=rss
The U.S. government is receiving dozens of reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) each month. “The office has received approximately 800 reports of unidentified objects to investigate as of this past April, up from 650 reports in August 2022, Sean Kirkpatrick, who heads the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the Pentagon told CNN.” From the report: The vast majority are benign objects, such as balloons or drones, but some may be the result of America’s adversaries trying to spy on the US, said Kirkpatrick. “There are some indicators that are concerning that may be attributed to foreign activity, and we are investigating those very hard,” said Kirkpatrick, speaking exclusively to CNN ahead of the release of the annual report on unidentified aerial phenomena.
A portion of the increase in reports comes from the Federal Aviation Administration, which monitors airspace around US airports starting to provide information to the Pentagon. About half of the reports contain enough data that they can be ruled out as “mundane things,” such as errant balloons or floating trash, Kirkpatrick said, but 2-4% are truly anomalous and require further investigation.
Asked if the Pentagon could definitively identify a sighting of an unidentified object as belonging to a foreign adversary, Kirkpatrick said that his office is “looking at some very interesting indicators of things, and that’s about all I can tell you.” But the office, which has more than 40 employees and is expected to grow, can’t say that for sure yet. “There are ways to hide in our noise that always concern me,” Kirkpatrick said, referring to the extraneous readings picked up by US radars and other sensors. “I am worried from a national security perspective.” “The Pentagon is preparing for a flood of new reports as it readies two new portals for submissions: one for historical sightings from current or former government employees and contractors and a second for public submissions of new reports,” notes CNN.
“It is the opening of the public portal, still several months away, that Kirkpatrick says could flood the system with ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of new reports to sort through.”
Back in February, Meta launched a Telegram-like feature for Instagram called “broadcast channels,” which introduced a one-way messaging feature to the app. It gave creators a way to update their followers without having to post on their main page. Now, the company is expanding broadcast channels’ availability and is also bringing it to Facebook and Messenger. Creators and public figures with Facebook pages will now be able to send messages, including photos, videos and voice notes, to their community.
It’s still a one-way messaging tool, which means only Page administrators can send messages in the channel, but participants can react to them and vote in polls. Admins can launch a channel directly from their page, and Facebook will send their followers a one-time notification to join after they send their first message. Based on the screenshots shared by Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, broadcast channels will show up in users’ Messenger chats under a tab aptly labeled “Channels.” Participants will get notifications every time the page owner sends an update, but they can mute the channel anytime. Presumably, those who chose not to participate the first time can still access the channel from the page’s profile like people can on Instagram.
Meta says any page admin where the feature is now accessible can start a channel if they want. The feature still isn’t available everywhere, though, and those who can’t find the option to open a broadcast channel yet can join the waitlist for now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-brings-instagrams-broadcast-channels-to-facebook-and-messenger-050801437.html?src=rss
Google has been caught hosting a malicious ad so convincing that there’s a decent chance it has managed to trick some of the more security-savvy users who encountered it.
Looking at the ad, which masquerades as a pitch for the open-source password manager Keepass, there’s no way to know that it’s fake. It’s on Google, after all, which claims to vet the ads it carries. Making the ruse all the more convincing, clicking on it leads to ķeepass[.]info, which when viewed in an address bar appears to be the genuine Keepass site.
A closer link at the link, however, shows that the site is not the genuine one. In fact, ķeepass[.]info —at least when it appears in the address bar—is just an encoded way of denoting xn--eepass-vbb[.]info, which it turns out, is pushing a malware family tracked as FakeBat. Combining the ad on Google with a website with an almost identical URL creates a near perfect storm of deception.
An anonymous reader writes: Adobe has unveiled a sparkling, interactive dress — and got the research scientist who created it to model the high-tech couture. Video of the dress debut shows researcher Christine Dierk wearing the slinky strapless number that, upon first glance, looks like the average sequined cocktail dress. With the click of a handheld remote, however, the dress began to shift patterns like something out of a fashion-forward science fiction film. Created under Adobe’s “Project Primrose” initiative, this “digital dress,” as Dierk described it for the audience at Adobe’s MAX conference last week, “brings fabric to life.”
“Unlike traditional clothing, which is static, Primrose allows me to refresh my look in a moment,” the Adobe scientist said, demonstrating the clothing’s capabilities by having its colors go from light to dark in an instant. The digital dress patterns can also, as Dierks demonstrated, be animated, and will even respond to movement — though that last feature appeared glitchy and didn’t work at first. The researcher-turned-model also told the hosts of her portion of the convention that she not only designed the dress with the help of her team at Adobe, but also stitched it herself.
While the specs of this particular smart garment haven’t been published, the high-tech sequins used for smaller Project Primrose offerings, a handbag and a canvas, were described by Dierks and her co-researchers last year in an article presented at a tech conference. As the article explains, those “sequins” are actually “reflective light-diffuser modules” that use reflective-backed polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLC), which are most often used in smart lighting. Technically, all those sequins are tiny screens.
Apple is taking a different approach to social with its Vision Pro headset: making apps social right out of the box. This, according to Road to VR’s Ben Lang, is what Meta should have done all along. Instead, it’s pioneered a social experience on the Quest platform that involves “jumping through a fragmented landscape of different apps and different ways to actually get into the same space with your friends.” From the report: Apple is taking a fundamentally different approach with Vision Pro by making social the expectation rather than the rule, and providing a common set of tools and guidelines for developers to build from in order to make social feel cohesive across the platform. Apple’s vision isn’t about creating a server full of a virtual strangers and user-generated experiences, but to make it easy to share the stuff you already like to do with the people you already know. This obviously leans into the company’s rich ecosystem of existing apps — and the social technologies the company has already battle-tested on its platforms.
SharePlay is the feature that’s already present on iOS and MacOS devices that lets people watch, listen, and experience apps together through FaceTime. And on Vision Pro, Apple intends to use its SharePlay tech to make many of its own first-party apps — like Apple TV, Apple Music, and Photos — social right out of the box, and it expects developers to do so too. In the company’s developer documentation, the company says it expects “most visionOS apps to support SharePlay.” […]
Perhaps most importantly, Apple is leaning on every user’s existing personal friend graph (ie: the people you already text, call, or email), rather than trying to create a bespoke friends list that lives only inside Vision Pro. Rather than launching an app and then figuring out how to get your friends into it, with SharePlay Apple is focused on getting together with your friends first, then letting the group seamlessly move from one app to the next as you decide what you want to do.
Even apps that don’t explicitly have multi-user experience built-in can be ‘social’ by default, by allowing one user to screen-share the app with others. Only the host will be able to interact with the content, but everyone else will be able to see and talk about it in real-time. It’s the emphasis on ‘social by default’, ‘things you already do’, and ‘people you already know’ that will make social on Vision Pro feel completely different than what Meta is building on Quest with Horizon Worlds and its ecosystem of fragmented social apps.
AlmaLinux is creating a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without any Red Hat code. Instead, AlmaLinux OS will aim to be Application Binary Interface (ABI) compatible and use the CentOS Stream source code that Red Hat continues to offer. Additional code is pulled from Red Hat Universal Base Images, and upstream Linux code. Benny Vasquez, chairperson of the AlmaLinux OF Foundation, explained how all this works at the open-source community convention All Things Open. ZDNet’s Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: The hardest part is Red Hat’s Linux kernel updates because, added Vasquez, “you can’t get those kernel updates without violating Red Hat’s licensing agreements.” Therefore, she continued, “What we do is we pull the security patches from various other sources, and, if nothing else, we can find them when Oracle releases them.” Vasquez did note one blessing from this change in production: “AlmaLinux, no longer bound to Red Hat’s releases, has been able to release upstream security fixes faster than Red Hat. “For example, the AMD microcode exploits were patched before Red Hat because they took a little bit of extra time to get out the door. We then pulled in, tested, and out the door about a week ahead of them.” The overall goal remains to maintain RHEL compatibility. “Any breaking changes between RHEL and AlmaLinux, any application that stops working, is a bug and must be fixed.”
That’s not to say AlmaLinux will be simply an excellent RHEL clone going forward. It plans to add features of its own. For instance, Red Hat users who want programs not bundled in RHEL often turn to Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL). These typically are programs included in Fedora Linux. Besides supporting EPEL software, AlmaLinux has its own extra software package — called Synergy — which holds programs that the AlmaLinux community wants but are not available in either EPEL or RHEL. If one such program is subsequently added to EPEL or RHEL, AlmaLinux drops it from Synergy to prevent confusion and duplication of effort.
This has not been an easy road for AlmaLinux. Even a 1% code difference is a lot to write and maintain. For example, when AlmaLinux tried to patch CentOS Stream code to fix a problem, Red Hat was downright grumpy about AlmaLinux’s attempt to fix a security hole. Vasquez acknowledged it was tough sledding at first, but noted: “The good news is that they have been improving the process, and things will look a little bit smoother.” AlmaLinux, she noted, is also not so much worried as aware that Red Hat may throw a monkey wrench into their efforts. Vasquez added: “Internally, we’re working on stopgap things we’d need to do to anticipate Red Hat changing everything terribly.” She doesn’t think Red Hat will do it, but “we want to be as prepared as possible.”
