Apple’s “Pro” iPhones usually look and feel a lot like the regular ones, just with some added features stacked on top. They’ve historically had better screens and more flexible cameras, and there has always been a Max option for people who really wanted to blur the lines between a big phone and a small tablet (Apple’s commitment to the cheaper “iPhone Plus” idea has been less steadfast). But the qualitative experience of holding and using one wasn’t all that different compared to the basic aluminum iPhone.
This year’s iPhone 17 Pro looks and feels like more of a departure from the basic iPhone, thanks to a new design that prioritizes function over form. It’s as though Apple anticipated the main complaints about the iPhone Air—why would I want a phone with worse battery and fewer cameras, why don’t they just make the phone thicker so they can fit in more things—and made a version of the iPhone that they could point to and say, “We already make that phone—it’s that one over there.”
Because the regular iPhone 17 is so good, and because it uses the same 6.3-inch OLED ProMotion screen, I think the iPhone 17 Pro is playing to a narrower audience than usual this year. But Apple’s changes and additions are also tailor-made to serve that audience. In other words, fewer people even need to consider the iPhone Pro this time around, but there’s a lot to like here for actual “pros” and people who demand a lot from their phones.
Fermenting milk to make yogurt, cheeses, or kefir is an ancient practice, and different cultures have their own traditional methods, often preserved in oral histories. The forests of Bulgaria and Turkey have an abundance of red wood ants, for instance, so a time-honored Bulgarian yogurt-making practice involves dropping a few live ants (or crushed-up ant eggs) into the milk to jump-start fermentation. Scientists have now figured out why the ants are so effective in making edible yogurt, according to a paper published in the journal iScience. The authors even collaborated with chefs to create modern recipes using ant yogurt.
“Today’s yogurts are typically made with just two bacterial strains,” said co-author Leonie Jahn from the Technical University of Denmark. “If you look at traditional yogurt, you have much bigger biodiversity, varying based on location, households, and season. That brings more flavors, textures, and personality.”
If you want to study traditional culinary methods, it helps to go where those traditions emerged, since the locals likely still retain memories and oral histories of said culinary methods—in this case, Nova Mahala, Bulgaria, where co-author Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova’s family still lives. To recreate the region’s ant yogurt, the team followed instructions from Sirakova’s uncle. They used fresh raw cow milk, warmed until scalding, “such that it could ‘bite your pinkie finger,'” per the authors. Four live red wood ants were then collected from a local colony and added to the milk.
Indonesia has suspended TikTok’s operational registration status in the country, alleging that the social media platform did not fully co-operate with a request to share its data during nationwide protests in August. In a statement, Alexander Sabar, an official from Indonesia’s digital and communications ministry, said TikTok had violated national laws by only providing partial data while the protests were ongoing between August 23 and 30.
Sabar said TikTok was given until September 23 to hand over its data related to traffic, streaming and monetization, after it emerged that some accounts with links to online gambling may have profited from TikTok livestreams during the protests. All forms of gambling are illegal under Indonesian law. TikTok reportedly said that it couldn’t provide all of the requested data due to internal policy. The app has now been temporarily suspended, although Bloomberg claims that TikTok remains accessible in the country for now.
Anger about the state of Indonesia’s economy, widespread police brutality and a number of government policies sparked August’s violent protests. TikTok voluntarily suspended its live feature for a number of days during the unrest in an attempt to keep the platform a “safe and civil space.” The app has over 100 million users in the country.
Sabar gave no indication as to how long the ban will last. As reported by Reuters, a spokesperson for TikTok said the company respects the laws of the countries it operates in, and added that it’s working with the digital ministry to find a resolution.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/indonesia-suspends-tiktoks-operating-licence-for-allegedly-withholding-data-145134189.html?src=rss
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act expired on Wednesday when the federal government shut down. The law had provided legal protections since 2015 for organizations to share cyber threat intelligence with federal agencies. Without these protections, private sector companies that control most U.S. critical infrastructure face potential legal risks when sharing information about threats. Sen. Gary Peters called the lapse “an open invitation to cybercriminals and hostile actors to attack our economy and our critical infrastructure.”
The intelligence sharing enabled by CISA 2015 helped expose Chinese campaigns including Volt Typhoon in 2023 and Salt Typhoon last year. Several cybersecurity firms pledged to continue sharing threat data despite the law’s expiration. Halcyon and CrowdStrike confirmed they would maintain information sharing. Palo Alto Networks said it remained committed to public-private partnerships but did not specify whether it would continue sharing threat data. Multiple bipartisan reauthorization efforts failed before the shutdown. The House Homeland Security Committee had approved a 10-year extension last month.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon’s fall edition of Prime Day is right around the corner, but you can already get some great deals on popular products like the Apple AirTag. Right now, a four-pack of Apple AirTags is $75, 25 percent off the regular price. If you’re an Apple user, then the AirTag is the best Bluetooth tracker on the market for you.
You can put these little discs in your wallet, in a backpack or in your luggage while you’re traveling. Your AirTag’s location will show up in your Find My app, powered by the vast network of iPhones, iPads and other compatible devices that receive the AirTag’s Bluetooth signal. Keep in mind these only work when close enough to participating devices to be located.
You can attach AirTags to just about anything thanks to an abundance of available accessories. Their built-in speakers can play a tone, triggered from your iPhone, to help you find them when the object they’re affixed to is lost. On iPhone 11 and newer models, you can take advantage of the AirTag’s Ultra Wideband capability and have your phone lead you right to your AirTag, complete with directional arrows on your iPhone screen.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/a-four-pack-of-apple-airtags-is-25-percent-off-ahead-of-prime-day-143112321.html?src=rss
It’s getting increasingly difficult to say smart rings are just a niche inside the broader world of wearable technology. The raft of celebrities who are seen wearing them, the NBA’s use of Oura rings as an early warning system against COVID-19 and, last year, Samsung’s entry into the market has made them far more prominent in the minds of mainstream consumers. We’ve tested plenty of smart rings, and are likely to test plenty more as the years roll on. To help you better understand the category, we’ve built this guide that explains what they do, what they’re for and which ones are worth your time and money right now.
Smart rings offer an alternative to smartwatches and fitness trackers to keep an eye on your health and daily activity. They can track your movements, heart rate, temperature and monitor how well you’ve been sleeping. Essentially, they take much of the same hardware you’d find in a smartwatch or tracker and shrink it down into a much smaller package.
The trade-offs are, as such, obvious: Rings are smaller and can’t track anywhere near as many things as a wrist-worn device can. You’ll also miss out on any of the added features that are found on those bigger pieces of gear, like a screen on which to see your notifications or real-time readings of your steps count. But they may be more accurate for your heart rate and temperature, and are significantly more discreet.
That discretion is important if you want to keep an eye on your health without looking like you care. Sure, they’re still gadgets, so they’re still noticeably bigger than traditional pieces of jewelry — but not by much. Plus, it’s an alternative for people who don’t like watches, with one statistic saying 68 percent of Americans don’t wear them.
Much like smartwatches and fitness trackers, smart rings are equipped with accelerometers and gyroscopes that can track your movement. That lets them interpret how much you’re moving and, based on whether you toss and turn in the night, how well you’re sleeping.
Many rings have PPG (photoplethysmography) sensors to monitor your heart rate and blood oxygenation, either continuously or at intervals. Plus, they often come with temperature sensors that can be used to track signs of infection, and the data they gather on body heat can be used to predict the wearer’s menstrual cycle.
It’s possible to use this information to draw broader conclusions about how you’re doing more generally. You can get metrics for your stress, resilience and recovery rates, and you’ll even get data on how calm you are during meditation sessions.
I’ve personally been able to look back at stressful days and then compare my vital signs to the baseline. This can be useful to monitor how well, or badly, you’re dealing with stress at any given time and chart progress made.
But not all smart rings are alike. Circular’s Ring 2 is one of a handful to offer its own one-line ECG (electrocardiogram). This, like many fitness watches that now offer the same, will look at your heart’s electrical activity to look for irregularities, such as atrial fibrillation. Evie, meanwhile, markets itself as a smart ring “designed for women” with a focus on reproductive cycle tracking.
At the risk of winning this year’s “Yeah, obviously” award, smart rings are not a replacement for smartwatches. Rings do not have built-in displays or vibration motors, so the only way to interact with them is via their companion apps on your phone.
There’s no way for you to get any idea of how you’re doing at any given time unless you’re able to look at your primary device. Even activity alerts — pop-ups telling you to move if you’ve been still for too long — can only be pushed to your phone.
You won’t get any of the added-value stuff you get with most wrist-worn devices either, and not just the ability to tell the time. That means no calls, apps, message responses, GPS, fall detection or mobile payments via NFC. There are a few exceptions: Samsung’s Galaxy Ring can detect pinch gestures to activate the camera trigger or turn off alarms with a compatible phone.
It’s probably worth noting that while no consumer wearable will be as accurate or reliable as a clinical diagnostic tool, the smaller hardware may mean a compromise in accuracy. Rings might also get in the way of certain types of activity, like pull-ups, barbell deadlifts or any other movement that involves gripping onto a handle that might push the accessory into your finger and cause discomfort.
Given the broader features available in even the most basic fitness tracker, it’s hard to say smart rings are a “better” choice. A $300 ring will do a lot less than a $50 tracker, and if you’re led by your wallet, a ring will always work out to be the luxury option. What they offer, however, is a far more elegant aesthetic, especially if you’re not likely to wear a tracker, smartwatch or fitness watch. And that’s before we get to people with skin sensitivities or other reasons for preferring a smaller, more unobtrusive tracker.
What do you want to get out of it?
Are you hoping a smart ring will encourage you to get out and exercise more? Help you keep an eye on your physical health? Manage your mental health? It’s good to go in with a clear picture of what you want because you may find the limited applications frustrating.
Will it fit your finger?
Most reputable smart rings will, during the ordering process, send you a sizing kit so you can find the most comfortable model. You’re asked to find a size that sits snugly on your index finger ensuring the sensors make good contact with your skin.
The companies often suggest you wear this plastic dummy on your hand for a few days before placing your order. After all, our hands can swell and shrink during the day and depending on the ambient temperature.
Normal rings can be sized up or down a bit (by a competent jeweler) if your body shape shifts over time. You can’t do that with most smart rings, so if you do change sizes drastically, you’ll have to go through the process from the start and pay full price again.
There are exceptions to this: If you pay for a coverage plan with Ultrahuman, for example, you’ll get one free ring replacement if you lose weight. Anecdotally, some makers will offer ad-hoc discounts if you speak to them but that’s obviously at the discretion of the name in question.
One thing to bear in mind is wearing your ring while working out, which might be an issue as pointed out earlier. Depending on your activity, you might find a ring uncomfortable compared to a watch. If gripping onto a dumbbell or handlebars is something you do frequently, it might be better to use a smartwatch or wristworn device. But for runners, swimmers or other folks who don’t need to grab onto much while they work out, a ring should be just fine.
What’s the battery life like?
Bigger rings will have bigger batteries, so it’s a lot harder to give a clean figure as to how long each ring will last on a charge. Thankfully most rings sip, rather than slurp, at their batteries and so most of them last at least five days or so on a charge. That’s one big plus over some smartwatches given they often will only last a day or so before needing more power.
What can you do if you lose your smart ring?
Several companies include Find My Ring features in their apps to identify the last location that your ring was connected to your phone. However, if you’re not a fan of minimalism and your home is full, it might be harder to find them. After all, the rings don’t have vibration motors or speakers to offer an audible chirp as and when you’re looking for them.
I once lost an Oura Ring 3 for two days before downloading a third-party app that could locate it within a few feet. Turns out, when I’d made my kids’ bed, the ring had fallen into my daughter’s duvet cover, which I found only once I’d turned the room upside down twice.
Samsung, meanwhile, offers location-tracking in its app and can give you a rough idea of your ring’s last location. You can also, if you’re hunting for it in dark environments, set its lights to blink, which is something its rivals do not offer.
Are there long-term costs?
The nature of the technology world, especially in 2025, is that a lot of hardware companies can’t survive selling users one device every three or four years. So, to supplement that income and to offer users a better value proposition, companies offer additional features at an extra cost.
That can come in the form of a premium subscription to unlock additional features and insights about your body. There are also one-off purchases to unlock specific features that you may want to focus on, as well as extended warranties or insurances.
I’d wager most people plan on wearing a smart ring for several years before opting to upgrade, and so it’s important to keep an eye on the total cost of ownership. If your budget will only stretch to the initial payment and no further, keep in mind what features you’ll be missing out on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/best-smart-ring-140000425.html?src=rss
James Marriott, writing in a column: The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word,” the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, “means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning.”
As Postman pointed out, it is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The world as we know it was forged in the reading revolution.
Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Numerous studies show that reading is in free-fall. Even the most pessimistic twentieth-century critics of the screen-age would have struggled to predict the scale of the present crisis. In America, reading for pleasure has fallen by forty per cent in the last twenty years. In the UK, more than a third of adults say they have given up reading. The National Literacy Trust reports “shocking and dispiriting” falls in children’s reading, which is now at its lowest level on record. The publishing industry is in crisis: as the author Alexander Larman writes, “books that once would have sold in the tens, even hundreds, of thousands are now lucky to sell in the mid-four figures.”
[…] What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the mid-2010s. Those years will be remembered as a watershed in human history. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience’s attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.
The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.
The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.
The Fitbit Charge 6 fitness tracker is on sale right now via Wellbots for $110, which is a discount of $50. Just enter the code ENGFIT50 at checkout, as this is an exclusive deal.
The Charge 6 topped our list of the best fitness trackers, and for very good reason. It’s a solid device that gets the job done. It features built-in GPS, which is always handy for navigating around trails, and the battery lasts an impressive seven days per charge. The heart rate monitor is accurate and the AMOLED display is eye-catching.
It also tracks steps, oxygen saturation, sleep and a whole lot more, with more than 40 dedicated exercise modes. It’s a relatively thin device that we said feels “premium when compared to other fitness trackers.” The unit integrates with Google Maps and Google Wallet.
Some of the more advanced features are locked behind a paywall, which is unfortunate, and there’s no integration with Apple Health. Otherwise, this is a near-perfect fitness tracker.
Wellbots is also selling the Fitbit Inspire 3 at a deep discount. It’s available for just $75 with the coupon code ENGFIT25.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/fitbits-charge-6-fitness-tracker-is-50-off-right-now-130019229.html?src=rss
Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Big Tech Told Kids to Code. The Jobs Didn’t Follow, a New York Times podcast episode discussing how the promise of a six-figure salary for those who study computer science is turning out to be an empty one for recent grads in the age of AI, drew the ire of the co-founders of nonprofit Code.org, which — ironically — is pivoting to AI itself with the encouragement of, and millions from, its tech-giant backers.
In a LinkedIn post, Code.org CEO and co-founder Hadi Partovi said the paper and its Monday episode of “The Daily” podcast were cherrypicking anecdotes “to stoke populist fears about tech corporations and AI.” He also took to X, tweeting: “Today the NYTimes (falsely) claimed CS majors can’t find work. The data tells the opposite story: CS grads have the highest median wage and the fifth-lowest underemployment across all majors. […] Journalism is broken. Do better NYTimes.” To which Code.org co-founder Ali Partovi (Hadi’s twin), replied: “I agree 100%. That NYTimes Daily piece was deplorable — an embarrassment for journalism.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
You don’t have to worry about losing access to Sunday Night Football and NBCUniversal’s other sports offerings and shows on YouTube TV over the next few years. The broadcaster has reached a multi-year agreement with Google to keep its programs on the streaming service after they were almost pulled by the end of the companies’ original deal. YouTube TV said at the time that NBC was asking it “to pay more than what they charge consumers for the same content on Peacock, which would mean less flexibility and higher prices for [its own] subscribers.” They were able to agree on a last-minute “short-term extension” while working on a more permanent deal to prevent the removal of NBCUniversal’s offerings.
The multi-year commitment will give you access to NBCUniversal’s portfolio, including NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, E!, Oxygen True Crime, MSNBC, USA, Syfy and Universo. You’ll also get access to the relaunched NBC Sports Network, the cable channel the broadcaster shut down in 2021, later this fall. “NBCSN will complement the prominent sports properties presented year-round on the NBC broadcast network,” the broadcaster announced. In addition, you will be able to get Peacock in the coming months as an add-on subscription through YouTube Primetime Channels.
Movies and shows from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will continue to be available to buy or rent from Google TV and YouTube TV, as well. And Peacock app will continue to be available via Google Play. “This deal builds on our long-standing partnership with NBCU while addressing the evolving media landscape and recognizing the importance of making content available where and how viewers want to watch it,” said Justin Connolly, Youtube’s Global Head of Media & Sports.
While Google and YouTube TV were able to reach an agreement with NBCUniversal, they failed to reach a similar deal with Univision, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the US. Google said that Univision’s “current demands aren’t supported by [its] performance on YouTube TV over the last four years.” TelevisaUnivision, its parent company, warned customers in early September that YouTube TV wanted to remove its programs from its standard package and to charge viewers an extra $15 to be able to access its network.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/google-and-nbcuniversal-reach-multi-year-agreement-for-youtube-tv-120051505.html?src=rss
If I covered everything announced at Amazon’s fall hardware event, it would take a while, and I would be repeating the hard work of my colleague Kris Holt. Check out his report for all the new Echo speakers, new Alexa tricks, more Nest Cameras and, yes, more Kindles — AKA the only Amazon hardware I’m usually interested in.
When it comes to Amazon’s ereader series, the standout new addition is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, combining its stylus-toting note-taking hardware with its latest color e-ink screen. It has a new rendering engine, too, which is meant to make writing faster, more fluid and more natural. Check out our first impressions of the device, and if you’re intrigued, you can order one later this year for $630.
If you think color is overrated, there’s a new regular Kindle Scribe, with a bigger screen that matches typical paper sizes. The refreshed Kindle Scribe will go on sale in the US by the end of the year, priced at $500. A version without a front light will be available for $430.
— Mat Smith
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Tile trackers reportedly have a security flaw that can let stalkers track your location
Disney reportedly lost 1.7 million paid subscribers in the week after suspending Kimmel
The best Amazon Prime Day deals include early tech discounts on Apple, Samsung and others
Alongside some tier shuffling, there’s also a painful sting in the tail for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. It now costs $30 a month, a 50 percent increase on what it was before. And there’s no discount if you go for an annual subscription, either. It’s also the second price jump in the last two years. It went up from $17 in July 2024. Three dollars doesn’t seem so bad now.
At $360 per year, Game Pass Ultimate is now more than twice as expensive as PlayStation’s Plus Premium. If you’re willing to pay up, though, Microsoft added 45 more games this week, including a lot of entries from the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry series, two gaming franchises where the games definitely aren’t very similar to each other.
Meta’s second-generation smart glasses are becoming a genuinely useful accessory. This year’s hardware upgrade addresses many of the issues we had with the original Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The battery life is much improved, while the 3K resolution bump makes video far more useful on platforms like YouTube. Resolution aside, the video quality is just better too. Check out our full review.
I felt a little nauseous writing that headline, but if your interest is piqued…
It’s been a rough time for Peloton. Now, the company is back with major hardware (and software) upgrades across its Bike, Tread and Row family of machines. It’s an almost-entire overhaul, with new software, programmable workouts and an array of collaborations. There are also some tentative steps toward wellness, because why not?
All of the new machines have a screen that rotates away from the bike/track/rower. The updated Bike+, Row+ and Tread+ models feature a 23.8-inch display, while the base models have a 21.5-inch display. Rotating it turns your Peloton into a more versatile screen for cross-discipline workouts, which Peloton has already dabbled in, including yoga and strength training. The new devices are now available for purchase.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-amazons-kindle-scribe-colorsoft-fuses-two-types-of-ereader-111516509.html?src=rss
This week, EA announced that it plans to go private as part of a massive $55 billion sale, a move that will likely have huge implications for the gaming landscape. In this episode, Devindra and Engadget’s Sam Rutherford chat about what this deal really means (and why it includes a Saudi Arabian investment fund), and also dive into the messy state of Xbox. Is the ROG Ally Xbox X already a failure at $1,000?
Electronic Arts to go private in a deal worth $55 Billion – 1:43
What the heck is going on with Xbox? The $1,000 ROG Ally Xbox X could be a failure even before launch – 15:23
Great games out now: Final Fantasy Tactics, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hades II and more – 42:46
Amazon’s fall hardware event announced new Echoes, a new Fire TV and a panopticon powered by Ring – 59:10
Google announces new Nest Doorbell along with a couple of Nest Cams – 1:09:34
Hollywood film stars recoil in disgust at Tilly Norwood, an AI actress created by a Dutch production studio –1:14:30
OpenAI’s Sora video app is full of fake shoplifting clips – 1:14:13
Working on – 1:17:35
Pop culture picks – 1:19:01
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Sam Rutherford
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/engadget-podcast-ea-xbox-and-the-state-of-gaming-in-2025-113000903.html?src=rss
Welcome to Edition 8.13 of the Rocket Report! It’s difficult for me to believe, but we have now entered the fourth quarter of the year. Accordingly, there are three months left in 2025, with a lot of launch action still to come. The remainder of the year will be headlined by Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket making its second flight (and landing attempt), and SpaceX’s Starship making its final test flight of the year. There is also the slim possibility that Rocket Lab’s Neutron vehicle will make its debut this year, but it will almost certainly slip into 2026.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
An Alpha rocket blows up on the pad. The booster stage for Firefly Aerospace’s next Alpha rocket was destroyed Monday in a fiery accident on the company’s vertical test stand in Central Texas, Ars reports. Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket “experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage.” The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed “proper safety protocols.” Imagery posted on social media platforms showed a fireball engulfing the test stand and a column of black smoke rising into the sky over Firefly’s facility roughly 40 miles north of Austin.
Snapchat will start charging users who exceed 5GB of saved Memories, with paid plans starting at $1.99/month for 100GB. “If your memories exceed this limit, you’ll need to subscribe to one of its new Memories Storage plans,” reports TechCrunch. From the report: The company told TechCrunch in an email that the introductory storage plan offers up to 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month. Snapchat+ users will get up to 250GB of storage as part of their $3.99 monthly subscription, while Snapchat Platinum users will get 5TB as part of their $15.99 monthly subscription. Snapchat explains that when it first launched Memories, it didn’t expect it to grow to what it has today, as users have saved more than 1 trillion Memories on the platform.
Snapchat will provide 12 months of temporary Memories storage for any Memories that exceed the 5GB storage limit. The company notes that users can download Memories directly to their devices. If you’re over the limit, but don’t sign up for a plan, your oldest Snaps will be saved, while the most recent ones that are over the storage limit will be deleted. Snapchat says the change won’t affect most users, as the vast majority have under 5GB of Memories. It will mainly impact those with “thousands of Snaps,” the company notes. “It’s never easy to transition from receiving a service for free to paying for it, but we hope the value we provide with Memories is worth the cost,” Snapchat wrote in a blog post. “These changes will allow us to continue to invest in making Memories better for our entire community.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Audiobook fans can get three months of Audible for $3 for a limited time ahead of the fall edition of Amazon Prime Day. Users will be charged $0.99 per month for the first three months, after which it will auto-renew at $14.95 per month.
Audible features thousands of titles in its catalog, including podcasts and Audible Originals. Subscribers will also get to choose one audiobook each month to keep in their collection for free, including best-sellers or new releases. Amazon Prime members will receive two credits the first month of their trial.
Amazon has been bringing Prime Day back in the fall for a few years now, and this year it returns October 7 and 8. Great deals tend to start rolling out in the days ahead of the event and this year is no exception. There are already sales on Apple devices, smart doorbells and most importantly, Lego sets.
If you’re a book lover but don’t have the time to sit down and read a hard copy, or you just prefer listening to the latest novel while on the go, then take advantage of this sale. It’s a limited-time offer and will only be available through December 16.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/you-can-get-3-months-of-audible-for-just-3-right-now-090052477.html?src=rss
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A team at Microsoft says it used artificial intelligence to discover a “zero day” vulnerability in the biosecurity systems used to prevent the misuse of DNA. These screening systems are designed to stop people from purchasing genetic sequences that could be used to create deadly toxins or pathogens. But now researchers led by Microsoft’s chief scientist, Eric Horvitz, says they have figured out how to bypass the protections in a way previously unknown to defenders.The team described its work today in the journalScience.
Horvitz and his team focused on generative AI algorithms that propose new protein shapes. These types of programs are already fueling the hunt for new drugs at well-funded startups like Generate Biomedicines and Isomorphic Labs, a spinout of Google. The problem is that such systems are potentially “dual use.” They can use their training sets to generate both beneficial molecules and harmful ones. Microsoft says it began a “red-teaming” test of AI’s dual-use potential in 2023 in order to determine whether “adversarial AI protein design” could help bioterrorists manufacture harmful proteins.
The safeguard that Microsoft attacked is what’s known as biosecurity screening software. To manufacture a protein, researchers typically need to order a corresponding DNA sequence from a commercial vendor, which they can then install in a cell. Those vendors use screening software to compare incoming orders with known toxins or pathogens. A close match will set off an alert. To design its attack, Microsoft used several generative protein models (including its own, called EvoDiff) to redesign toxins — changing their structure in a way that let them slip past screening software but was predicted to keep their deadly function intact. “This finding, combined with rapid advances in AI-enabled biological modeling, demonstrates the clear and urgent need for enhanced nucleic acid synthesis screening procedures coupled with a reliable enforcement and verification mechanism,” says Dean Ball, a fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank in San Francisco.
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