An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Mark Carney says that amid a fundamental shift to the nature of globalization, his government will catalyze the growth in both the public and private sector. But Canadian linguists say that’s a problem. Language experts have called out the Canadian prime minister’s growing “utilization” of British spellings in key documents — including the recent federal budget and a press release issued following a meeting with Donald Trump.

Carney, who served as the governor of the bank of England for seven years, appears to have run afoul of Canadian linguistic norms, returning to his home country with a penchant for using ‘s’ instead of ‘z’- a hallmark of British spellings. In an open letter (PDF) chastising the prime minister, six linguists have asked his office, the Canadian government and parliament to stick to Canadian English spelling, “which is the spelling they consistently used from the 1970s to 2025.” They warned that if governments start to use other systems for spelling, “this could lead to confusion about which spelling is Canadian.”

Canadian English is a source of immense pride for the nation’s pedants. But the country’s distinct and somewhat arbitrary spelling reflects the legacy of how Canada was colonized. “Canadian English evolved through Loyalist settlement after the American Revolutionary War, subsequent waves of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish immigration, and from European and global contexts,” the letter says, with the current accepted spellings of words reflecting “global influences and cultures from around the world represented in our population, as well as containing words and phrases from Indigenous languages.” The linguists pointed out that Canada’s distinct style of spelling was widespread in media and government documents, with this deliberate decision reflecting a desire to preserve a vital element of the country’s “national history, identity and pride.”

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Despite changing its name and using decidedly bird-free branding, X is trying to hold on to its original Twitter trademarks, TechCrunch reports. The xAI-owned social media platform has updated its terms of service to include references to Twitter after previously only mentioning X, and seemingly attempted to counter a startup’s petition to cancel the company’s Twitter trademarks with a petition of its own.

The startup X appears to be responding to is Operation Bluebird, a company cofounded by former Twitter general counsel Stephen Coates that went public last week with plans to capture what remains of Twitter for its own use. The first step in that process was filing a petition with the US Patents and Trademark Office to cancel X’s control of Twitter’s trademarks.

“The TWITTER and TWEET brands have been eradicated from X Corp.’s products, services and marketing, effectively abandoning the storied brand, with no intention to resume use of the mark,” Operation Bluebird explained in the petition. “Petitioner seeks to use and register the TWITTER and TWEET brands for new products and services, including a social media platform that will be located at the website twitter.new.”

In fairness to Operation Bluebird, Elon Musk was very open about his plan to abandon the Twitter name and bird logo after he acquired the company in 2022. “And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk posted in July 2022, not long before Twitter was rebranded to X. Even after the platform rebranded, though, at least one remnant of the original Twitter brand has stuck around: Twitter.com still redirects to X.com.

The updated terms of service TechCrunch spotted now say that as of January 16, 2025, “nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use the X name or Twitter name or any of the X or Twitter trademarks, logos, domain names, other distinctive brand features, and other proprietary rights, and you may not do so without our express written consent.” The company’s counterpetition also reiterates that the Twitter trademarks are X’s “exclusive property.”

Engadget has contacted Operation Bluebird for a response to X’s petition. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

At the time of writing, Operation Bluebird has convinced over 145,200 people to claim a handle on the company’s new social platform. Maybe X sees that early interest as a threat, but it’s just as possible Operation Bluebird’s public comments were enough to tip the company off so it could try to hold on to trademarks it clearly believes still hold some value.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-was-spooked-enough-by-new-twitter-to-change-its-terms-of-service-231138305.html?src=rss

This is the video of the Slow Mo Guys banging a drum covered in a rainbow of paint powder to capture the movement of the pigment in ultra slow motion as the shockwaves blast it all over the place. I can’t imagine this being a rainbow anybody would want to taste, but I’m not anybody. I’m already coughing up Skittles just watching.

Intel has quietly stopped maintaining its open-source user-space driver stack for Gaudi accelerators. Phoronix reports: It turns out earlier this year Intel archived the SynapseAI Core open-source code and is no longer maintained by Intel. The open-source Synapse AI Core GitHub repository was archived in February and README updated with: “This project will no longer be maintained by Intel. Intel has ceased development and contributions including, but not limited to, maintenance, bug fixes, new releases, or updates, to this project. Intel no longer accepts patches to this project. If you have an ongoing need to use this project, are interested in independently developing it, or would like to maintain patches for the open source software community, please create your own fork of this project.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is a video of the Great Ball Contraption (GBC) of Japan Brickfest 2025, constructed using 49 different ball-moving LEGO modules from eight master LEGO builders. The machine spans a very respectable 31 meters (102 feet). Damn, that is a lot of ball moving! Me? When I’m uncomfortable at the dinner table and need to move my own I do it like a gentleman: awkwardly squirming in my chair until somebody asks if I pooped myself and I regret not just using a salad fork.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The last vehicle will roll off the assembly line at Volkswagen’s plant in Dresden, Germany, on Tuesday, marking the first time in the automaker’s 88-year history that it has closed a plant in its home country. Volkswagen warned of potential production cuts last year, as it faced shaky demand in Europe and China, its biggest market, as well as higher tariffs that have crimped sales in the United States.

After 24 years of vehicle production, the Dresden plant will be converted into a research hub focused on technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and chip design. Volkswagen will team up with the government of the state of Saxony and the Dresden University of Technology on the project at the plant, known as the Transparent Factory because of its glass walls. “We did not take the decision to end vehicle production at the Transparent Factory after more than 20 years lightly,” Thomas Schafer, chief executive of the Volkswagen brand, said in a statement. “From an economic perspective, however, it was absolutely necessary.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remodeling your house can be an exciting experience. It can also be an expensive one, which is why a lot of homeowners opt to go the DIY route. But any DIY remodel can also be daunting, even if you’re relatively comfortable with home maintenance and repair tasks.

Whether you’re contemplating a DIY remodel for the cost savings or because it’s a fun challenge, there are a lot of online tools that can make the planning and execution of your project a lot easier. The 10 apps below can help you find inspiration, identify furniture and other items that will support your vision, and even show you how to tackle the entire project, step-by-step.

Best apps for DIY inspiration

Every home remodel starts with a need for change: you’re bored with your current look or you feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the flow or functionality of your house. But that feeling that something isn’t quite right doesn’t mean you immediately know what you want. These apps can help you get inspired:

• Houzz. One of the most popular interior design tools out there, and for good reason: With the Houzz app, you can see nearly infinite examples of interior design that you can leverage for inspiration. You can search by paint color, design aesthetic, or other details to see what other folks have done so you can steal their ideas and make them your own.

• LIKEtoKNOW.it. Instagram can be a treasure trove of design ideas, but folks don’t always think to tag every stick of furniture or lamp in the photo for your shopping convenience. This app takes screenshots of Insta posts or other sources and searches for the product, serving up links to stores where you can buy it.

• RoomStyler. This website offers a 3D plan creator and a moodboard tool, but it’s best used for inspiration. You can easily browse through designs created by people all over the world, and connect with other people who are also planning remodels so you can trade ideas and tips.

• Morpholio Board (iOS) / MoodBoard Maker (Android). If you’re the sort who likes to make a mood board when tackling a visual project like a home remodel, these tools are perfect. Collect product images, color swatches, and other visuals from just about any online source with the flick of a finger.

Best apps for DIY planning

Once you have a project in mind, it’s time to make it more concrete. These apps can help you plan out your project:

• CubiCasa. If you want to know whether your dream furniture will fit in a space, or you need to calculate how much flooring or cabinetry you’ll need for a kitchen remodel, CubiCasa makes creating an accurate floor plan of your house a snap. Just scan your rooms with your phone, and in a day or so you’ll get a clean floor plan with dimensions that you can use for planning.

• Pantone Connect (iOS / Android). It’s not free, but the myPANTONE app leverages the color-matching power of the Pantone folks to help you come up with pleasing, professionally-blessed color schemes for your home. It can even match a color in a photo and deliver a color palette for you.

• Paint My Room (iOS / Android). If you want to take a bit more of a DIY approach to choosing paint colors, this nifty app lets you apply a color to the walls of your room so you can see what it will look like before committing.

• HomeByMe. This is an incredibly useful app that lets you create 2D floorplans that you can easily convert into 3D floorplans. Then you can populate those floor plans with real, actual products to see what it will all look like.

• HomeZada. HomeZada is a platform that makes it easy to manage all aspects of running your home, from maintenance schedules to budgets. But it can be used more narrowly to manage a renovation or remodeling project, tracking materials, costs, and timelines in one handy place. If the sprawl of a remodel intimidates you (or you’re just the type to forget how much tile needs to be ordered the moment you’re standing in the store), this app can help keep everything managed.

The best step-by-step app for DIY projects

Finally, it’s time to get the thing done. But how?

• wikiHow (iOS / Android). If you’re not sure you have the skills and experience needed to tackle your DIY project, this classic online resource can show you how to do just about any task, complete with photos and videos to guide you. Using the app is a lot more streamlined and organized than sifting through 1,000 YouTube videos.

The New York Times is getting in on the year-end roundup bandwagon. The publication’s new Year in Games wraps up stats about which of its daily puzzles and brain-teasers readers played over the course of 2025. People can get their own personalized reports, or just look over the community stats for the Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee and Strands games. The Year in Games reviews are available on the iOS and Android apps for The New York Times, as well as on a dedicated mobile web page.

Annual analysis of all your activities has become a common feature for lots of services. Reports like Spotify Wrapped or the other many entertainment-related ones are usually a fun time, with splashy graphics and high shareability. Uber feels like an odder match.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nyt-games-has-a-year-in-review-thing-now-too-203000878.html?src=rss

Senators launched a probe Tuesday demanding that tech companies explain exactly how they plan to prevent data center projects from increasing electricity bills in communities where prices are already skyrocketing.

In letters to seven AI firms, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) cited a study estimating that “electricity prices have increased by as much as 267 percent in the past five years” in “areas located near significant data center activity.”

Prices increase, senators noted, when utility companies build out extra infrastructure to meet data centers’ energy demands—which can amount to one customer suddenly consuming as much power as an entire city. They also increase when demand for local power outweighs supply. In some cases, residents are blindsided by higher bills, not even realizing a data center project was approved, because tech companies seem intent on dodging backlash and frequently do not allow terms of deals to be publicly disclosed.

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Behold: Ken Paxton will now demonstrate that broken clocks are indeed right twice a day. The Texas Attorney General is notorious for, well, a very long list of reasons. But in this case, he at least appears to be doing consumers a solid: He sued five television companies for using ad-targeting spyware on their TVs.

Texas sued Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL for allegedly recording what viewers watch without their consent. The predatory technology, Automated Content Recognition (ACR), identifies the content being played on a device by matching short content fingerprints to a database.

ACR is essentially a Shazam for video. Except in this case, its sole purpose is to target your viewing habits to help line advertisers’ pockets. “This software can capture screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent,” Paxton’s press release says.

An LG Ad Solutions website boasts how ACR helps advertisers “target by content viewership, including show, network, app, service or genre.” Since it works with anything running on the device, it can identify purchases and subscriptions, track gamers’ habits and pinpoint users by region, city or zip code.

There should be a setting on your TV to turn it off. But, as Texas’ lawsuit against LG notes, TV software often “deceptively guides consumers to activate ACR and buries any explanation of what that means in dense legal jargon that few will read or understand.”

Paxton’s press release emphasized Hisense and TCL’s home base of China. “These Chinese ties pose serious concerns about consumer data harvesting and are exacerbated by China’s National Security Law, which gives its government the capability to get its hands on US consumer data,” the statement reads.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/texas-sues-five-tv-manufacturers-over-predatory-ad-targeting-spyware-201500248.html?src=rss

The new chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service told officers this week that they must become as fluent in programming languages like Python as they are in foreign languages like Russian as the spy agency adapts to what she described as a space between peace and war. Blaise Metreweli, MI6’s first female chief and previously the service’s director general of technology and innovation, said in her first public speech that mastery of technology is now required across the organization.

She warned that advanced technologies including AI, biotechnology and quantum computing are revolutionizing both economies and the reality of conflict. Metreweli focused particularly on threats from Russia, saying the country is testing the UK in the grey zone through cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, drones near sensitive sites and propaganda operations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Whether you’re looking for a more immersive sound experience (and clearer dialogue) to elevate movie nights and TV shows, or to upgrade your music listening experience, Samsung is widely known for its highly rated soundbars that combine a sleek aesthetic with a space-saving design that avoids the clutter of a full home theater system. Right now, a new Samsung Q990F soundbar is more than 50% off at $967.99 (originally $1,997.99) on Woot, making this an especially good time to invest. 

Samsung Q990F 11.1.4ch Q Series Soundbar

CA$967.99
at Woot

CA$1,997.99
Save CA$1,030.00

CA$967.99
at Woot

CA$1,997.99
Save CA$1,030.00

PCMag gives this soundbar glowing reviews and an Editors’ Choice Award, calling it the “best-sounding soundbar you can buy.” The Q990F is a premium four-piece surround system with a soundbar, a subwoofer, and a pair of rear satellite speakers. Compared to its predecessor, the HW-Q990D, this model has 23 drivers, seamless compatibility with other Samsung products, and multiple wired and wireless connections. While it’s slightly larger than other soundbars on the market, its performance justifies the extra size.

Its sound, described by PCMag as “deep lows and crisp, detailed highs,” delivers stunning sound, as do the multitude of drivers and frequency range. It delivers the closest performance to a surround-sound home theater system, but is much more convenient, compact, and affordable at this steep discount. 

Along with an HDMI cable and a power cable to connect to each speaker, it also comes with a small, no-frills remote that’s intuitive to use. Bluetooth 5.3 and wifi connectivity allow it to work with Google Cast and Apple AirPlay 2, allowing for multi-room audio, and it also supports direct streaming via Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect. The companion app has adjustable EQ controls, and while it only lets you tweak bass and treble, you can fully control the volume level of each channel to further fine-tune. 

If you’re looking for a soundbar-based surround sound system that provides the most immersive listening experience with as few components as possible, the Samsung Q990F soundbar stands in a class of its own and is well worth the splurge at a $1,030 discount. Just note that Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S. If you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. 

Google’s at it again, once more insisting that AI is something people need or want more of in their lives. The latest move comes from YouTube Gaming, which announced an open beta for a project called Playables Builder. This allows select YouTube Creators to use a “prototype web app built using Gemini 3” to make bite-sized games, no coding required. 

YouTube was testing the addition of small-scale games to its desktop and mobile platforms back in 2023, then added multiplayer capability to Playables last year. Since AI is appearing all over Google-owned services, today’s news probably shouldn’t be a surprise.   

The premise sounds similar to the Disco and GenTabs projects that Google Labs recently announced. They offer an AI layer to web browsing: provide a natural language input, get an interactive widget that does what you asked for. Despite my skeptical attitude toward AI, I can see those tools having some practical applications for search, where the goal is to aggregate whatever data you’re looking for into a manageable, easy-to-read interface. 

But a game is not simple. A good game takes what might be a simple idea and, with finesse and iteration and skill, transforms it into a genuinely fun experience. It’s a cute parlor trick that AI assistants can help people to make stuff without technical knowledge, but there’s a reason professional game devs work hard to amass all their know-how. Playables Builder is a peak example of misunderstanding what artificial intelligence is best at. Just because a chatbot can make a game doesn’t mean anyone will enjoy playing it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/youtube-is-letting-creators-make-playable-games-with-a-gemini-3-tool-195500318.html?src=rss