Apple plans to ramp up its US hiring and investments. On Monday, the company said it will hire around 20,000 workers and spend over $500 billion in the US over the next four years.
In 2021, several months after former President Biden took office, Apple said it would invest $430 billion domestically over the following five years. Bloombergnotes today's announcement marks an added $39 billion in spending and an extra 1,000 jobs annually over its previous numbers.
Apple said most of the 20,000 new jobs will focus on R&D, AI and machine learning, silicon engineering and software development. The company will also expand its data center capacity in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada to help meet Apple Intelligence's growing backend needs.
The company will also open an Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit, where its engineers will work alongside "experts from top universities such as Michigan State" to consult with small and medium-sized businesses on implementing AI and smart manufacturing techniques. Apple will also offer free in-person and online skills development courses. It already runs a Developer Academy in the Motor City.
The announcement follows a meeting between Tim Cook and President Donald Trump last week at the White House. Trump implied that Apple was making additional investments to avoid tariffs due to the iPhone maker's heavy reliance on manufacturing in China. "They don't want to be in the tariffs," Trump said after the meeting.
Apple hasn't said whether investments are related to tariffs, instead framing them as a sign of confidence in the nation's ability to innovate. "We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we're proud to build on our long-standing US investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country's future," Cook said in a press release.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-plans-to-invest-500-billion-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years-181217017.html?src=rss
My dream of a Sayonara Wild Heartssequel might never be fulfilled, but the sudden arrival of an enhanced version for PS5 just filled my heart on a dreary Monday. Publisher Annapurna Interactive announced the upgrade for the 2019 rhythm action game during its latest showcase.
The PS5 edition includes support for 4K visuals, 120 fps gameplay and haptic feedback via the DualSense controller. There's also a new unlockable mode called Remix Arcade that's only available on this PS5 version. Here, you'll try to nail high scores across random chunks of levels with no loading time between each. Developer Simogo notes that the mode will get progressively faster to add to the challenge.
Simogo had some downtime while figuring out its next big project after Lorelai and the Laser Eyesand the opportunity came up to bring Sayonara Wild Hearts to PS5. The PS4 version already works on the console and the team wasn't really interested in only upgrading the fidelity.
However, the studio "thought about the hardware and what type of experience that would only be possible on it and remembered that PlayStation 5 has a very fast SSD, which would allow for the type of quick loading we needed for our long lost Infinite Shuffle mode." Along with adding some new art and sound assets, the renamed Remix Arcade has "a random element that [will] sometimes mirror the level visually to keep players on their toes," the studio said.
Best of all, the enhanced edition for PS5 is a free upgrade from the PS4 version. Sayonara Wild Hearts is also available in the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog. Otherwise, it costs $13.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of my favorite games of all time, so I'm more than happy to have an excuse to play through its riotously fun, heart-mending story yet again. I'm tempted to plug my PS VR2 headset back in to let the stylized art and signature neon purple wash over my eyes as the dreamy pop soundtrack fills my ears.
Here's hoping Annapurna brings the game back to iOS as well — it left Apple Arcade a few months ago. I need to have Sayonara Wild Hearts available at all times. It's not enough to have it on PS5, Steam Deck, Switch and PC (can you tell I like this game a whole lot?).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/an-enhanced-version-of-sayonara-wild-hearts-for-ps5-is-out-now-174752837.html?src=rss
Blendo Games' latest installment of interactive weirdness, Skin Deep,is due to hit Steam on April 30, after nearly seven years of development. Skin Deep is a first-person sci-fi shooter, but it doesn't look (or smell?) like any of the dramatic space operas or realistic, precision-based games that generally flood this genre.
Skin Deep takes place on a futuristic cargo starship managed by an insurance corporation and filled with its clients' valuables, and you're the cryogenically frozen security officer kept on board in case something goes awry. Space pirates ambush the ship, your body thaws, and a non-linear game of shooting, sneaking, sabotaging and smelling ensues, all presented in Blendo's signature blocky 3D style.
Skin Deep features a mix of puzzles, madcap comedy and action scenes, and alongside the first-person gunplay, there's a sneeze mechanic and a stink system that sometimes leaves little smelly clouds in your wake, alerting nearby pirates to your presence. It's like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, but with fewer medieval peasants and way more space cats. Did we mention there are a bunch of cats that you have to save on the ship? Because there are, and some of them are dressed in little cowboy outfits.
For the odor mechanics, players become stinky only when it makes sense narratively, like when they're expelled from the ship's trash shoot alongside all the fish bones and rotten things. Your smell clouds subside once you figure out how to wash up. Sneezing follows a similar in-game logic.
Blendo Games
"If you're crawling through a dusty vent your little sneezy air level will increase, then you'll do a big sneeze noise," Chung told Engadget in 2021. "And there's a bag of pepper that we have. If you shoot it, a big cloud of pepper flies out. You can pick up a pepper bag and throw it at someone and they'll start sneezing."
Skin Deep is the most action-focused game that Blendo has ever made. The independent studio, led by Brendon Chung, has a lineup of award-winning titles under its belt, including Quadrilateral Cowboy, Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving. These titles tend to highlight clever puzzles and polygonal oddities, and Skin Deep is the first Blendo project to feature first-person shooter mechanics.
That's not to say FPS development is a new idea for Chung. He got his start in game development by customizing levels in Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Quake 2 and Doom 3 when he was a kid, and FPS games are often what he's drawn to as a player. He's still using a modified port of id Software's Doom 3 engine, idTech4, to make Skin Deep.
"I've played like a bazillion FPS games because I just really enjoy them," Chung said in 2021, "but I feel like there's so much that can be explored and that I wish these games would explore." You know, like well-dressed cats and stink systems.
Blendo Games
When we talked with Chung four years ago, the Skin Deep FAQ page read, "Is Skin Deep going to take 4+ years of development time like your previous game Quadrilateral Cowboy?" And the answer was, "I hope not." Today, there's an "(update: oops...)" added to that response. Development on Skin Deep started around July 2018, according to the FAQ.
Skin Deep is published by Annapurna Interactive and it's heading to Steam on April 30. A new demo is live now on Steam, as part of the Steam Next Fest hullaballoo. Steam Next Fest runs from February 24 at 1PM ET to March 3 at 1PM ET, showcasing a ton of fresh game demos and developer insights on the storefront.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/blendo-games-oddball-sci-fi-shooter-skin-deep-hits-pc-on-april-30-173010803.html?src=rss
The 8BitDo M Edition Retro Mechanical Keyboard is now 40 percent off at Woot, down to $60, the lowest it's ever been. It’s a newer version of the Retro 108 Mechanical Keyboard (without the numpad) that ships with a pair of programmable "Super Buttons" which resemble gigantic versions of the A and B buttons on an old game controller.
This 87-key keyboard has top-mounted hot-swappable PCBs, making it perfect for enthusiasts who like to tinker with their keyboards. It boasts three connection modes: wired, wireless 2.4Ghz and Bluetooth, and you can use the top left knob to swap between them.
For users who want to do some custom key mapping, 8BitDo offers its Ultimate Software V2. However, it’s only available on Windows. You can still use this keyboard on Mac, but the software won’t work.
The sale will only last five days, or until supplies run out.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/8bitdos-m-edition-retro-mechanical-keyboard-is-40-percent-off-right-now-164852149.html?src=rss
Apple’s fantastic stylus, the Pencil Pro, is on sale via Amazon for just $99. This is $30 off, which translates to a discount of 23 percent. This isn’t the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this item, but it’s close.
The Apple Pencil Pro is the company’s latest and greatest stylus. It allows for a number of squeeze-based gestures that can be adjusted via a drop-down menu during use. It also includes a gyroscope to detect when the stylus is rolled, which makes it easier to change the orientation of shaped pen and brush tools. Of course, it supports pressure sensitivity.
There's even a haptic engine to deliver vibration-based feedback when the pen is being used. And, maybe most conveniently, it works with Apple's Find My network. After all, stylus pens are small and easy to lose. All of this new tech has been squeezed into a package that’s actually lighter than the second-gen Apple Pencil.
The primary downside here is the price, which has been mostly alleviated by this sale. Before making a purchase, double-check to ensure that your iPad supports the Pencil Pro. It's only compatible with some of the company’s latest tablets, including the 11- and 13-inch iPad Air (M2), and the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro (M4). It also works with the newest iPad Mini.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-pencil-pro-is-back-on-sale-for-99-162456898.html?src=rss
In another sign that the Trump administration will be friendlier toward the cryptocurrency industry, the Securities and Exchange Commission is dropping an investigation into Robinhood. The agency has informed the company that it won’t move forward with any enforcement action, Robinhood said on Monday.
In May last year, Robinhood received a Wells Notice from the SEC indicating that the agency’s staff was going to recommend enforcement action against it. The company had faced potential charges of violating securities law through its crypto listings and sales. Under the Biden administration, there was some momentum for cryptocurrency to be considered and regulated as securities; Trump's policy goals seem to signal the opposite.
"Robinhood Crypto always has and will always respect federal securities laws and never allowed transactions in securities," Dan Gallagher, Robinhood’s chief legal, compliance and corporate affairs officer, said in a statement. "As we explained to the SEC, any case against Robinhood Crypto would have failed. We appreciate the formal closing of this investigation, and we are happy to see a return to the rule of law and commitment to fairness at the SEC."
Robinhood added that it was looking forward to working with the SEC to develop a clearer and more "tailored" regulatory framework for digital assets. The company introduced its crypto wallet in 2022, but it has faced regulatory trouble. New York officials handed the crypto side of Robinhood's business a $30 million fine in 2022 and in 2024, the company reached a $3.9 million settlement with California over crypto withdrawal claims. Meanwhile, just last month, Robinhood agreed to pay $45 million to settle SEC charges related to record keeping, trade reporting and other alleged rule violations.
Last week, Coinbase said the SEC was dropping a case against it. In a lawsuit filed during the Biden administration, the agency had accused that company of running an unregistered securities exchange.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-sec-is-dropping-an-investigation-into-robinhood-160629179.html?src=rss
Google's Veo 2 model was announced last December, and now we have an idea of what using it will cost. According to its pricing page: 50 cents per second of footage.
Veo 2 is presently limited to two-minute clips in up to 4K resolution — a fair sight more than the 20-second, 1080p clips generated by ChatGPT's Sora model. It's somewhat more difficult to compare the two on pricing as Sora uses a subscription-based approach. The staggering $200 ChatGPT Pro plan entitles a user to 500 videos per month, while the Plus plan caps things at 50 videos and hobbles the maximum quality and length to 720p and five seconds, respectively. Veo 2 users, meanwhile, just pay piecemeal whenever they choose.
Big-budget feature films cost many multiples of Veo's pricing per second to produce, but that's not really what the model is currently seeking or able to compete with. Google is already testing Veo 2 as a means to quickly generate backgrounds for YouTube Shorts through its Dream Screen feature. It (and Sora) are also likely to take a bite out of the stock footage industry, where high-quality clips can cost 100 times what a Veo 2 clip would. Of course, those clips are typically free of weird artifacts and mangled hands.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/each-second-of-googles-veo-2-ai-video-footage-will-cost-50-cents-155419146.html?src=rss
The Google DeepMind logo appears on a smartphone screen, and in the background, the Veo 2 page, in this illustration photo in Reno, United States, on December 18, 2024. (Photo Illustration by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Yesterday — 23 February 2025Latest Tech News From Engadget
Apple introduced its first in-house cellular modem, the C1, last week with the announcement of the not-so-budget iPhone 16e, and while it didn’t get into too much detail about it, the company reportedly has some big plans for future iterations. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, “Apple intends to eventually meld the modem component into the main processor.” Integrating the modem into the main processor could have energy and cost benefits, but that design is still a ways off. We’ll likely see the C2 and C3 without it first, which the company is already testing according to Gurman, and the integrated design won’t follow until “2028 at the earliest
During its unveiling, Apple called the new C1 modem its “most power-efficient modem ever in an iPhone.” The $599 iPhone 16e also has an A18 chip (but with four GPU cores) and supports Apple Intelligence, even if that’s not what people actually wanted out of it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/apple-reportedly-plans-to-combine-its-modem-with-future-processors-as-a-single-package-225159519.html?src=rss
Netflix dropped a blooper reel this weekend from the first season of its live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender show, giving fans a look at some cute behind the scenes antics while they wait for the next season. The first season was released a year ago, and Netflix announced shortly after that the show had been renewed for two more. There’s no release date yet for the new episodes, but the streaming service said on Saturday that production for the second season is underway. The third season will be its last.
It's been 1 year since the release of Avatar: The Last Airbender, so here's the official blooper reel to celebrate! pic.twitter.com/lFDjuW1if4
News surrounding Avatar: The Last Airbender has been surprisingly plentiful this week. On top of the updates from Netflix, Deadline reported that there’s a new animated series on the way that’ll pick up after the events of The Legend of Korra. That series will be called Avatar: Seven Havens. And, Magic: The Gatheringannounced an Avatar crossover coming out in November.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/netflix-releases-bloopers-from-avatar-the-last-airbender-and-says-season-2-production-is-underway-215253100.html?src=rss
You’ve heard of roguelike, you’ve heard of Soulslike, but have you ever heard of Rootlike? Root Bear is one of those games that just perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Playdate; it’s silly as hell, uses the crank and will engage your competitive side as you rack up tips from soda-drinking bears and try to beat your own high score. The game has been a massive success, so it’s no surprise to see it’s now inspired the development of other games in its style. Well, one game at least. Pup Cup, which recently arrived on the Playdate Catalog from developer Ledbetter Games, is a “Root-like score-chaser” where instead of serving soda to bears, you’re making delicious sweet treats for dogs (and a few other surprise guests).
In Pup Cup, you have 60 seconds to earn as many tail-wags as possible from the dogs who show up to your whipped cream stand. Some might want a towering heap, while others just want a little taste. The key is to fill the pup cup only to the height of the little box hovering over it, or the “Good Boy Zone,” by putting the crank in the forward position. If you serve too much, whipped cream is going to splat all over the place. But too little will leave the dogs disappointed, and who wants that?
There’s also Bork Mode, in which you can pet the dogs and add toppings, like a squeaky rubber duck, to earn yourself some more time. This makes things a little more complicated, though, as you have to pay attention to the D-pad icon that will briefly flash next to the dog in order to know which button to press, and you have to coordinate this correctly with the timing of your pour.
Pup Cup is a feel-good take on Root Bear. The gameplay is a little more relaxed, and it’s hard not to smile at the rotation of cute dogs popping up on your screen. Some of them wear outfits and accessories, and they may end up with a swirl of whipped cream on their nose. Each dog has its own little anxiously waiting animation, and happy customers will give you heart eyes when their orders have been fulfilled. It’s adorably goofy. You might even encounter a familiar knife-wielding goose or robotic dog.
As if all that wasn’t wholesome enough, the team also went out and served pup cups to dogs IRL during the Puppy Bowl. You can get Pup Cup on the Playdate Catalog for $3.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/if-you-liked-the-playdate-game-root-bear-you-should-check-out-pup-cup-201408441.html?src=rss
Intuitive Machines, the company that pulled off the first-ever commercial moon landing this time last year with its Odysseus spacecraft, is gearing up for another shot at touching the lunar surface. Its second flight under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is scheduled to take off no earlier than Wednesday February 26, launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The company is once again sending one of its Nova-C landers, this one nicknamed Athena. It’s expected to take about a week for Athena to travel to the moon, before it makes a landing attempt around March 6.
Athena is carrying NASA instruments including a drill and mass spectrometer, which will be used to attempt “one of the first on-site demonstrations of resource use on the moon,” according to the space agency. These tools will measure volatiles in the soil at the landing site in the lunar South Pole. The mission also offers Intuitive Machines another chance at landing its spacecraft with all six feet on the ground. Odysseus, though successful in touching down on the surface, toppled over and ended up lying on its side.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/intuitive-machines-is-expected-to-launch-its-second-lunar-lander-this-week-174703197.html?src=rss
We may see the M4 MacBook Air as soon as March. In the Power On newsletter this weekend, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is readying itself for the launch of the upgraded laptop next month. The company is “preparing its marketing, sales and retail teams for the debut,” according to Gurman’s sources, and it’s letting inventory of the existing models wind down. The M4 MacBook Air is expected to come in two sizes, 13-inch and 15-inch, like the previous model.
Apple introduced the M3 MacBook Air last March, and unveiled its new M4 chip a few months later, bringing that first to the iPad Pro. In October, it refreshed the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pros with the M4 family of chips. The MacBook Air is now due for its turn. While the laptop didn’t get the M4 chip in the fall, Apple did announce a long-awaited memory boost for the lineup at that time, with the M2 and M3 now starting at 16GB of RAM.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/apples-m4-macbook-air-could-be-here-in-just-a-few-weeks-153004599.html?src=rss
South Korean game development studio Pixelity says it’s working on a series of XR games based on Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the first one will be released next year. In an emailed announcement, the studio said it’s planning a trilogy “based on the world and events of all 26 episodes” of the beloved anime.
We don’t have much in the way of details just yet, but Pixelity says, “Players will experience the narrative through the eyes of an original character, exploring the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion, taking on quests, and engaging in thrilling battles — all while following the timeline and key events of the anime.” The trilogy will offer “interactive and cooperative gameplay with familiar characters.” The developer hasn’t revealed what platforms the games will be available on.
Pixelity has previously made games for the Meta Quest family of headsets, as well as Pico and other platforms. It also recently launched a couple of titles for Apple Vision Pro, Shooting Break and Rolling Buddy.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/an-xr-game-trilogy-based-on-neon-genesis-evangelion-is-in-the-works-222629986.html?src=rss
It’s not every day that we get to see a glimpse of what a mysterious space plane is up to in orbit. This week, the US Space Force shared a picture it says was snapped last year by the X-37B, showing Earth in the distance and a bit of the craft itself. X-37B launched on its seventh mission at the end of 2023, though not much is known about what that mission entails. Its previous flight, which wrapped up in 2022, set a new endurance record for the space plane, logging 908 days in orbit.
There isn't too much information to glean from the photo, but it does offer a rare look at X-37B in space. “An X-37B onboard camera, used to ensure the health and safety of the vehicle, captures an image of Earth while conducting experiments in HEO in 2024,” the Space Force wrote on X.
US Space Force
One thing we have been told about the current mission is that it marks the first time the Boeing-made X-37B has tried out a maneuver known as aerobraking, or a more fuel-efficient method of changing orbit through “a series of passes using the drag of Earth's atmosphere.” The Space Force said back in October that the vehicle had begun the process, and the latest update indicates it was successful. “The X-37B executed a series of first-of-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel,” the Space Force noted. It's unknown how much longer the mission is expected to go on.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-secretive-x-37b-space-plane-snapped-this-picture-of-earth-from-orbit-204803146.html?src=rss
There’s a lot to take in in the announcement trailer for Shotgun Cop Man: the wide-bodied, thumb-headed protagonist; Satan in the style of Handsome Squidward; a demon boss with a lethal fart(?) stream; intense, action-heavy platforming with shotgun-based movement. The upcoming new game from DeadToast Entertainment, the solo developer behind My Friend Pedro, looks absolutely unhinged. Its hero’s core mission? “Go to Hell, arrest Satan.”
Publisher Devolver Digital dropped the trailer on Friday, and while there’s no firm release date just yet, it’s slated to come out sometime this year. The game is described as a “punchy, crunchy, son-of-a-gun precision platformer.” But rather than jumping between platforms, players will rely on shotgun blasts to propel themselves and mow down enemies. The main campaign has about 150 levels, and there will be a built-in level editor so players can create and share custom levels.
Shotgun Cop Man will be available for PC and Nintendo Switch once it’s released. You can download the demo from Steam now to get a taste of the action.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/my-friend-pedro-creator-new-game-deadtoast-devolver-digital-shotgun-cop-man-181525492.html?src=rss
A still from the announcement trailer for Shotgun Cop Man showing Satan, who has a chiseled jaw, wearing in a rave-style net shirt and holding up a blurred middle finger. Below him are the words" [blurred] you, Shotgun Cop Man!"
In What We’re Listening To, Engadget editors and writers discuss the new music we can’t get enough of.
Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
You don’t need me to tell you to go listen to Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS — if you’re on the internet enough, you’vebeentoldto do so already. But I’ll add to the pile-on and say that this is Bad Bunny’s most personal work yet. It showcases how modern pop, rap and R&B can be seamlessly combined with old-school, traditional sounds from different cultures (in this case, Puerto Rico) in a way that celebrates both camps. Bad Bunny has always been deeply connected to his island home and it’s come through in his music, but DTMF is on a whole other level.
For me, there are no skips on this album — but if you’re going to listen to just one song, make it the salsa hit “BAILE INoLVIDABLE.” Aside from that, my favorites are “NUEVAYoL” (if you live in the five boroughs, be prepared to hear this all summer long), “KETU TeCRÉ,” “CAFé CON RON” and “EoO.” — Valentina Palladino, Deputy Editor, Buying Advice
The Weeknd - Hurry Up Tomorrow
The Weeknd is certainly going out with a bang with Hurry Up Tomorrow. Supposedly the pop star’s final record under his current pseudonym, Hurry Up Tomorrow also completes the trilogy that started with 2020’s After Hours and continued with 2022’s Dawn FM. It’s a massive (literally, at 22 tracks), cinematic album that serves as The Weeknd’s magnus opus, and without a doubt, his most personal project yet. His attitudes toward fame, legacy, suicide, past substance abuse, the fear of being alone and much more are all laid bare for listeners to hear, but in typical Weeknd fashion, he disguises it all in moody synths, thumping bass and top-tier vocals.
The first things I noticed during my initial listen were the transitions: they’re beyond smooth on this album, and they’re one of the reasons why the first five tracks make up one of the most energizing sequences I’ve heard start an album recently. I’d personally extend that to include the next two tracks, the final of which is “Open Hearts,” a song that’s cut from a similar cloth as “Blinding Lights” and will, no doubt, be a standout single from the record. My other top tracks are “Wake Me Up,” “Cry for Me,” “São Paulo,” and “Niagara Falls.” — V.P.
FKA twigs - EUSEXUA
FKA twigs is truly in a league of her own. I’ve been mentally prepared to be changed by the new album ever since she released the genuinely jaw-dropping “Eusexua” music video back in September (which features two tracks, “Drums of Death” and “Eusexua”), but it’s even more magnificent than I was ready for. FKA twigs has described the state of “eusexua” as “pure presence. It's a moment of nothingness. Or it's the moment before a really incredible idea… it's this ego-less presence which is just filled with this kind of tingling clarity.” Call me corny, but listening to this album is a spiritual experience every time.
Eusexua ebbs and flows over the course of its 11 tracks, starting out almost angelic with the title track before transporting you right onto a throbbing, disorienting club dance floor with “Drums of Death” and “Room of Fools,” then back down to a softer, emotionally raw place with “Sticky.” “Childlike Things” feels like the onset of unexpected joy, almost out of place in between “Keep It, Hold It” and “Striptease” but in a way that’s really grown on me.
“Perfect Stranger,” toward the beginning, and the penultimate song “24hr Dog” almost feel like two sides of the same coin, the latter hitting like the vulnerable comedown from the former. I love every song on this album, but I especially can’t stop listening to “Girl Feels Good,” which sounds like it’s been transplanted into 2025 from the ‘90s and hits me in just the right way. Eusexua has kind of taken over my personality for the time being. — Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor
Honorable mentions: A bunch of singles have come out lately that have me so hyped for albums we’re going to see later this winter and spring. I’m apologizing in advance for the person I’ll become when Lady Gaga’s Mayhem drops, because “Abracadabra” has reawakened something in me. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ve been obsessively listening to Bria Salmena’s brooding indie track, “Stretch the Struggle,” ahead of her debut album’s release at the end of March, along with “Sugar in the Tank” by Julien Baker and Torres, who have a country-leaning collaboration album coming out in April that I cannot wait for. All of the new SZA from SOS Deluxe: Lana (Deluxe?) has been a real treat too. — C.M.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/what-were-listening-to-bad-bunny-the-weeknd-fka-twigs-and-more-170429948.html?src=rss
A collage showing album covers for Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos (top left), The Weeknd's Hurry Up Tomorrow (top right) and FKA twigs' Eusexua (bottom)
ASUS has launched a new mouse that comes with an built-in fragrance compartment that can be filled with aromatic essential oils. We don't know why you'd want a mouse that's also an oil diffuser, but, well... the option (for some reason) now exists. If you want to change scents, you can just wash the vial and refill it with a different one. Just take note that the vial is in a bottom compartment, so you'll have to take care not to accidentally damage it and smear aromatic oils on your desk. You also cannot use 100 percent pure essential oils and will have to refill the vial with oils for reed diffusers, ultrasonic diffusers and aroma stones.
The ASUS Fragrance Mouse has three adjustable DPI levels at 1200dpi, 1600dpi and 2,400dpi, letting you change sensitivity as needed across different screen resolutions or across different games. You'd want to use a higher DPI for games that need quick responses like first-person shooters. It also has both 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity that you can use to connect to different laptops and PCs. The mouse isn't rechargeable, but ASUS says an AA battery can power it for a year. In addition, the company says the model's switches can last for up to 10 million clicks. ASUS has yet to announce how much the Fragrance Mouse will cost and when it will be available, but you can easily get a diffuser from Amazon if you're after the fragrance part of the product.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/asus-new-mouse-has-a-built-in-aromatic-oil-diffuser-153100716.html?src=rss
OpenAI has banned the accounts of a group of Chinese users who had attempted to use ChatGPT to debug and edit code for an AI social media surveillance tool, the company said Friday. The campaign, which OpenAI calls Peer Review, saw the group prompt ChatGPT to generate sales pitches for a program those documents suggest was designed to monitor anti-Chinese sentiment on X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. The operation appears to have been particularly interested in spotting calls for protests against human rights violations in China, with the intent of sharing those insights with the country's authorities.
"This network consisted of ChatGPT accounts that operated in a time pattern consistent with mainland Chinese business hours, prompted our models in Chinese, and used our tools with a volume and variety consistent with manual prompting, rather than automation," said OpenAI. "The operators used our models to proofread claims that their insights had been sent to Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom."
According to Ben Nimmo, a principal investigator with OpenAI, this was the first time the company had uncovered an AI tool of this kind. "Threat actors sometimes give us a glimpse of what they are doing in other parts of the internet because of the way they use our AI models," Nimmo told The New York Times.
Much of the code for the surveillance tool appears to have been based on an open-source version of one of Meta's Llama models. The group also appears to have used ChatGPT to generate an end-of-year performance review where it claims to have written phishing emails on behalf of clients in China.
"Assessing the impact of this activity would require inputs from multiple stakeholders, including operators of any open-source models who can shed a light on this activity," OpenAI said of the operation's efforts to use ChatGPT to edit code for the AI social media surveillance tool.
Separately, OpenAI said it recently banned an account that used ChatGPT to generate social media posts critical of Cai Xia, a Chinese political scientist and dissident who lives in the US in exile. The same group also used the chatbot to generate articles in Spanish critical of the US. These articles were published by "mainstream" news organizations in Latin America and often attributed to either an individual or a Chinese company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-bans-chinese-accounts-using-chatgpt-to-edit-code-for-social-media-surveillance-230451036.html?src=rss
Pro-Chinese protesters, carrying Chinese flags and a Hong Kong flag, take part in a rally against hostility towards mainland Chinese, on Canton Road at the Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district in Hong Kong, March 15, 2015. Hong Kong retailers' sales in January were the lowest since 2003 and revenue growth this year will likely be the slowest in at least four years, hit by a drop in visitors from the mainland who have been put off in part by rising hostility among Hong Kongers. REUTERS/Bobby Yip (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS CIVIL UNREST)
It's not clear that anyone was asking for a company to build a muscular, sinewy robot or to see a video of it dangling, helpless from a hook, but life is full of surprises and this YouTube video of Clone Robotics' "Protoclone" is here all the same.
The Protoclone appears to be a prototype version of the "Clone" robot the aptly named Clone Robotics is working to build. The video shows the Protoclone flexing its arms and legs, with visible artificial muscle fibers moving underneath its white "skin." Based on Clone Robotic's video description, the impressive part here is that fact that the Protoclone has "over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and over 200 sensors," and also that the robot is "faceless," for some reason.
The end goal for the startup is to build an android that's anatomically correct, with synthetic nervous, skeletal, muscular and vascular systems powering its movement. The "Myofibers" included in the Protoclone are a custom Clone Robotics creation with "the desirable qualities of mammalian skeletal muscle." For the eventual Clone robot's purposes, those qualities are the ability to "respond in less than 50 ms with a bigger than 30 percent unloaded contraction" and "at least a kilogram of contraction force for a single, three gram muscle fiber," according to Clone Robotics' website.
That the Protoclone is dangling in the video rather than roaming around of its own accord is a reflection of its prototype nature. Robots are often hung or propped up with a support arm until they can support their own body weight, something that can be hard to achieve without all of the right materials.
Clone Robotics is not unique in pursuing a human-like robot that could theoretically replace human workers. Figure is exploring a similar idea, minus the muscles. Tesla started off on the wrong foot with a person in a spandex suit, but it's serious about robots, too. Even the largest of tech companies have turned their attention to robots: Both Meta and Apple are reportedly exploring robotics as a future product category. It's fair to say Clone Robotics is winning when it comes to posting videos of muscular robots, though.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/can-somebody-let-this-robot-down-222011506.html?src=rss
While 20th-century heists involved scoping out a location, recruiting a person on the inside and having a daredevil getaway driver waiting outside, the 21st-century version looks more like what Bybit experienced today. A hacker stole nearly $1.5 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and staked Ethereum from one of the exchange's offline wallets, nabbing the largest cryptocurrency haul ever. One blockchain security expert said it's likely the all-time biggest heist of any kind, not just crypto.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou posted on X that the hacker took control of one of the exchange's cold (offline) wallets, manipulating a planned transfer and sending it to an unknown party. "The signing message was to change the smart contract logic of our ETH cold wallet," Zhou wrote. He explained that the hacker "took control of the specific ETH cold wallet we signed and transferred all ETH in the cold wallet to this unidentified address."
Rob Behnke, co-founder and executive chairman of blockchain security company Halborn, toldBloomberg the heist was likely the "largest incident ever, not just crypto."
The Bybit hack eclipses the previous record crypto thefts, including $620 million taken in 2022 from the Ronin Network and $610 million from Poly Network in 2021. There was also the infamous Mt. Gox hack of 2011, which took 850,000 Bitcoins. That translated to around $450 million in losses at the time. But one asterisk on Bybit's "biggest ever" title is that the Mt. Gox haul would be worth significantly more today: over $81 billion. It's hard to imagine what numbers for similar incidents could look like in a decade.
According to Bloomberg, Bybit had around $16.2 billion in assets before the hack, averaging over $36 billion in daily trading. Friday's theft accounted for around nine percent of its total assets. As news of the heist spread, Ether dropped as much as 6.7 percent from its high of the day. Bitcoin also shaved about three percent off its high on Friday.
In what sounds like the ultimate embodiment of the "This is fine" meme, Zhou capped his X post by reassuring customers that everything is okie-dokie at Bybit. "Please rest assured that all other cold wallets are secure," he posted. "All withdraws are NORMAL." (Normal in all caps is most definitely a sign that things are peachy.)
To be fair, Zhou said Bybit had already secured around 80 percent of the funding needed to cover the loss through partner bridge loans. So, perhaps the Dubai-based exchange will recover from the incident better than one would imagine. "Your money is safe, and our withdrawals are still open," he added on a livestream.
On the other hand, Bybit's X account posted a request for help. After stating that its security team and blockchain forensic experts were on the case, it added, "Any teams with expertise in blockchain analytics and fund recovery who can assist in tracing these assets are welcome to collaborate with us."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/bybit-hacked-for-almost-15-billion-in-the-biggest-crypto-theft-ever-212248349.html?src=rss
