Filipino workers in Manila are remotely operating robots that restock convenience store shelves across Tokyo. The partnership represents a new economic model where physical labor can be offshored through telepresence. Around 60 workers at Astro Robotics monitor the machines and intervene when problems occur about 4% of the time. They earn between $250 and $315 per month. Japan faces severe labor shortages but has resisted expanding immigration. Offshoring the work through robots solves this while dramatically reducing costs.

Filipino workers are also training the AI systems designed to eliminate the need for human operators entirely. Tokyo-based Telexistence has collected extensive data from its workers and is providing it to a San Francisco startup building fully autonomous robots. The combination of automation and offshoring creates what one University of Michigan professor called a “double whammy” for workers in developed nations. It also exploits workers in developing countries who build the tools meant to replace them. The market for AI agents is expected to grow eightfold to $43 billion by 2030. Human-only work is forecast to drop 27% over the next five years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yet another streaming platform is asking people to dig deeper into their wallets and pay more to keep using the service. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has jacked up the prices of all HBO Max plans, 16 months after the last increase to the ad-free offerings. 

The entry-level, ad-supported plan is now $11 per month (an extra $1) or $110 per year ($10 more). HBO Max Standard will run you an extra $1.50 per month at $18.49 or $15 per year at $185 for the annual plan. As for the HBO Max Premium option, subscribers will now have to pay $23 per month (up by $2) or $230 for an annual plan (an increase of $20).

The new prices kick in immediately for newcomers. Existing monthly subscribers will start paying more as of November 20 (whenever their next billing cycle starts on or after that date). Yearly subscribers will be notified about the price changes 30 days before their plan renews.

WBD CEO David Zaslav suggested in September that price increases were on the way, along with a stricter crackdown on password sharing. “The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and streaming quality — we all think that gives us a chance to raise prices,” Zaslav said. “We think we’re way underpriced.”

The company announced the price increases on the same day that Disney is making several Disney+ plans more expensive. As it happens, some of the Disney+ bundles that are going up in price include HBO Max. 

News of the price hikes comes just as WBD sticks a For Sale sign out on its lawn. It was reported this month that the company turned down an acquisition offer from Paramount Skydance for being too low. WBD has now confirmed that “multiple parties” have expressed interest in buying some or all of the company, and that it’s now conducting “a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.”

In June, WBD announced plans to split into two companies. As things stand, Warner Bros. will retain the namesake film, TV and game studios, as well as New Line Cinema, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max. Discovery Global will have all of the other live cable channels, such as CNN, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Discovery and TLC (it will also be saddled with the lion’s share of WBD’s debt). That split is slated to take place by mid-2026, but WBD said on Tuesday it would consider other options. 

“The Warner Bros. Discovery Board will evaluate a broad range of strategic options, which will include continuing to advance the company’s planned separation to completion by mid-2026, a transaction for the entire company or separate transactions for its Warner Bros. and/or Discovery Global businesses,” WBD said in a press release. “As part of the review, the company will also consider an alternative separation structure that would enable a merger of Warner Bros. and spin-off of Discovery Global to our shareholders.”

WBD hasn’t set a deadline or timetable for completing this review. But given the whole HBO Max naming debacle, it might take the board quite a while to make its mind up.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/hbo-max-is-getting-even-more-expensive-starting-today-143939446.html?src=rss

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Right now, black JBL Live 460NC on-ear headphones are down to $39.99 (originally $129.95), offering a nearly 70% discount on this long-lasting, noise-cancelling alternative to in-ear buds from a reliable brand with free shipping.

JBL Live 460NC Noise Cancelling On-Ear Headphones

$39.99
at Walmart

$129.95
Save $89.96

$39.99
at Walmart

$129.95
Save $89.96

Battery life is the standout feature on these headphones, which provide up to 50 hours of playback with ANC off and up to 40 hours with ANC on. Ten minutes of charging provides around four hours of extra playtime. While some consumer reviews say they experience discomfort due to a feeling of tightness when worn for long periods (likely due to the on-ear design), most find them to be a lightweight option that’s “comfortable enough to wear all day without any regret,” as noted in this PCMag review. 

For a $40 price point, these headphones offer high-quality adaptive noise cancelling to drown out background noise and clear, crisp audio powered by 40mm drivers. They perform well across all genres, making them ideal for everyday listening. They feature three main settings: ANC, Ambient Aware, and TalkThru mode, which lets you hear surroundings or have a chat without taking off the headphones. Buttons on the ear cup allow you to manage calls, with a VoiceAware feature letting you control how much of your own mic input is routed back into the earbuds. They also integrate with Alexa and Google, which can be controlled by tapping the ear cup. If you want to adjust EQ and presets, you can do so on the companion app. 

They might not offer the best-in-class ANC or come with a carrying case, but they offer outstanding value at just $40. If your priority is good sound, long battery life, decent comfort, and modern features like app controls and ANC, the JBL Live 460NC on-ear headphones hit the sweet spot between everyday value, audio performance, and comfort.

Samsung is partnering with Perplexity to bring the startup’s AI Search engine to its smart TVs. If you own a 2025 Samsung TV, you can start using the app today. The company will bring the software to older 2024 and 2023 sets later this year via an OTA update. As part of today’s announcement, Perplexity is also offering free 12-month subscriptions to its Pro plan. To redeem the offer, you’ll need to scan the QR code that appears within the new app.

As mentioned, Perplexity is an AI search engine. Before OpenAI, Anthropic and others added similar capabilities to their chatbots, Perplexity’s offering was novel, giving users a way to search the web more deeply than even Google allowed at the time. Things have gotten even more competitive in recent months, with Google going all in on AI Mode in Search. Still, if you want to try different, it’s worth seeing what Perplexity has to offer. The company’s Samsung TV app allows users to both type and use their voice to ask questions.

No matter how you slice it, this is a curious partnership. Perplexity doesn’t have a great reputation, even when you consider the broader AI industry. In August, Cloudflare accused the company of scraping websites it wasn’t supposed to be. Later that same month, two of Japan’s largest media companies sued the company for copyright infringement, alleging it not only stole information from them but also attributed falsehoods to them. And just last month, Merriam-Webster sued Perplexity as well, again alleging copyright infringement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexity-made-a-tv-app-and-its-coming-to-samsung-sets-143000479.html?src=rss

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The Kindle Colorsoft is Amazon’s most expensive e-reader (technically, the Kindle Scribe is more of an e-note), but that doesn’t automatically make it the best Kindle. In fact, if you mostly use your Kindle for novels or even black-and-white manga rather than color comics or picture books, the Colorsoft will actively make that content look worse. While I’ve been banging this drum about color e-readers for a while, you don’t have to take my word for it: Amazon actually used to warn buyers about this too, but has since taken that warning down.

As far back as February, according to a page saved by The Internet Archive, Amazon’s FAQ for the Kindle Colorsoft included the following frank commentary on the device’s shortcomings:

“The Colorsoft display is distinct from the Paperwhite display. The Kindle Colorsoft is designed to provide a high-quality reading experience in both color and black and white. You may notice that the texture or brightness of the display looks different than the Kindle Paperwhite display. That’s because of the color filter layer that creates the easy on the eyes color reading experience on Kindle Colorsoft. If you are looking for a slightly crisper black and white reading experience, you may want to check out Kindle Paperwhite, which has the fastest page turns and highest contrast ratio of any 2024 Kindle device.”

While not outright derogatory towards the company’s color products, the explanation was a noteworthy in that it did admit that the Kindle Paperwhite, despite being less expensive, offers a crisper black and white experience. (Why? Because the color filter in the Colorsoft, which is there whether it’s actively being displayed or not, lowers the contrast and can add unwanted texture and shine to text even when you’re reading reading black-and-white content).

Apparently someone at Amazon corporate thought it was time for a change, and one at the expense of prospective buyers. Over the weekend, the company changed the Colorsoft FAQ once again, and it now reads as follows:

The Colorsoft display is distinct from the Paperwhite display, and includes a fully optimized display stack to deliver high quality color reading. The black and white resolution (300ppi) is the same across devices.

That’s much less clear. While not outright lying, the new disclaimer sidesteps the device’s shortcomings, instead simply acknowledging that the Colorsoft has a “high quality” color experience while bringing up an unrelated note about black-and-white resolution. That’s a misdirect—the Colorsoft’s issues with contrast and artifacts remain, despite matching the Paperwhite in black-and-white resolution, as seen in the picture below.

“Dune” on the Kindle Colorsoft (left) vs. Kindle Paperwhite (right)
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

It’s an understandable move from a marketing perspective, but also a disappointing deletion of a rare moment of honesty from a big brand, while emphasizing the larger anxiety behind color e-Ink. (I reached out to Amazon for comment, and will update this story if I hear back.)

Color e-ink isn’t really ready for the market

Frankly, I don’t think most adults have a need for color e-Ink. Unless you’re a big comic book reader, there’s a good chance that what you’re reading on your Kindle is in black-and-white. And if that’s the case, you’re going to get a better experience by paying less for a device without a color filter. I can see why Amazon would be cagey about it.

Credit: Amazon

But with charts and pricing like the above, that’s not strictly intuitive, and it’s why I appreciated the clarification provided on the old FAQ page so much, especially because it was willing to direct users looking for a specific experience towards a better product for them, even at the expense of profit for Amazon.

The new description instead seems tailor made to make it seem like the Paperwhite and Colorsoft are about on par for black-and-white content, but that the Colorsoft also has color, which is just not true. It’s actually the misconception I always correct first when writing about this product category, and I’m disappointed to see Amazon change its messaging to spread it. While color e-Ink has a niche appeal, trickery and obfuscation is not the way to sell it.

Amazon executives believe the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 workers in the United States by 2027 through robotic automation. Internal documents viewed by The New York Times show the automation would save approximately 30 cents on each item the company picks, packs and delivers. The documents reveal that executives told Amazon’s board last year they hoped automation would allow the company to flatten its U.S. workforce growth over the next decade.

Amazon expects to sell twice as many products by 2033. That projection translates to more than 600,000 positions Amazon would not need to fill. Amazon opened its most advanced warehouse in Shreveport, Louisiana last year as a template for future facilities. The site uses a thousand robots and employed a quarter fewer workers than it would have without automation. The company plans to replicate this design in approximately 40 facilities by the end of 2027. A facility in Stone Mountain, Georgia currently employs roughly 4,000 workers. After a planned robotic retrofit, internal analyses project it will process 10% more items but need as many as 1,200 fewer employees. The documents show Amazon’s robotics team has set a goal to automate 75% of its operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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If you’ve ever wanted to bring festival energy to your living room or backyard, the JBL PartyBox 110 comes pretty close. Right now, a restored, like-new unit is available at Walmart for $299.96. This professionally refurbished version still comes backed by Walmart’s 90-day free return policy. It has been inspected, tested, and cleaned by a certified Walmart seller to meet strict performance standards. You might see tiny cosmetic marks, but functionally, it works just like new and delivers the same punchy sound JBL’s known for.

JBL PartyBox 110 Speaker

$299.96
at Walmart

$420.00
Save $120.04

$299.96
at Walmart

$420.00
Save $120.04

It’s a 160W Bluetooth speaker designed to fill big spaces with sound and light. You get four customizable RGB light rings that sync to the beat and two side strobes that add club vibes to any setup. It’s large, yes, but two built-in handles make hauling it to a poolside party or rooftop hangout manageable. Once upright, it’s rated IPX4 water-resistant, meaning light splashes won’t ruin the night. Sound-wise, JBL’s Bass Boost feature adds satisfying low-end thump without muddying vocals, and the mid-range stays clear enough for guitars, synths, and voices to shine. It can get loud—loud enough to make small speakers sound like background noise—but expect a bit of compression at max volume. There’s also an EQ in the PartyBox app for anyone who likes fine-tuning the mix.

It reportedly lasts up to 15 hours with lights off and about 12 hours with them on—plenty for all-day events or long studio sessions. You can connect a mic or guitar directly for karaoke or jam nights, daisy-chain another PartyBox for stereo sound, or even charge your phone from its USB port. The only notable drawbacks are that it’s heavy, has no built-in voice assistant, and some Bluetooth latency can make it less ideal for movie nights. But as a restored buy for $300 with full functionality, solid construction, and those hypnotic light shows, the PartyBox 110 feels like a no-brainer for anyone chasing big sound on a smaller budget.