It’s been 47 years since the twin Voyager spacecraft started their historic mission. Having travelled through interstellar space, farther from Earth than any other human-made objects, their nuclear batteries are depleting — but NASA is taking measures to squeeze as much life out of the aging probes as possible.

The Voyagers’ radioisotope power system loses around 4 watts each year, so to preserve power, NASA engineers have been shutting down some of the science instruments carried by each probe. Voyager 1’s cosmic ray subsystem experiment was turned off on February 25th. When the low-energy charged particle instrument aboard Voyager 2 is shut down on March 24th, both spacecraft will have three out of the ten identical science instruments they launched with remaining operational.

“Electrical power is running low,” said Voyager project manager, Suzanne Dodd. “If we don’t turn off an instrument on each Voyager now, they would probably have only a few more months of power before we would need to declare end of mission. The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible.”

Instruments aboard the probes have been turned off for this purpose before. The only equipment that remained powered after both spacecraft had completed their final flyby of the solar system’s gas giants was prioritized to collect data about the heliosphere and interstellar space. With the latest shutdowns, NASA says the Voyager probes should have enough power to keep operating for another year.

The Voyagers have greatly surpassed the lifespan expected from their two-planet exploration mission. Both were only built to last five years, but the scientific data they’ve collected since is unique, motivating NASA to extend their chances of survival. The agency managed to fix Voyager 1 when it stopped transmitting viable data in 2023, 15 billion miles away from Earth, bringing it back online again in June last year.

Future energy saving plans include turning off the low-energy charged particle instrument aboard Voyager 1 next year, and Voyager 2’s cosmic ray subsystem in 2026. With these efforts, NASA engineers believe the two probes could continue operating with at least one science instrument into the 2030s — providing unforeseen challenges don’t arise.

“Every minute of every day, the Voyagers explore a region where no spacecraft has gone before,” said Voyager project scientist Linda Spilker. “That also means every day could be our last. But that day could also bring another interstellar revelation. So, we’re pulling out all the stops, doing what we can to make sure Voyagers 1 and 2 continue their trailblazing for the maximum time possible.”

Two trailblazing scientists who today received this year’s Turing Award for creating fundamental artificial intelligence training techniques are using the spotlight to shine concern on the dangers of rushing AI models out for public consumption. 

University of Massachusetts researcher Andrew Barto and former DeepMind research scientist Richard Sutton warned that AI companies are not thoroughly testing products before releasing them, likening the development to “building a bridge and testing it by having people use it,” according to The Financial Times. 

The Turing Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” carries a $1 million prize and was jointly awarded to Barto and Sutton for developing “reinforcement learning” — a machine learning method that trains AI systems to make optimized decisions through trial and error. Google’s senior vice president Jeff Dean describes the technique as “a lynchpin of progress in AI” and has remained “a central pillar of the AI boom” that led to breakthrough models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AlphaGo before that.

“Releasing software to millions of people without safeguards is not good engineering practice,” Barto told The Financial Times. “Engineering practice has evolved to try to mitigate the negative consequences of technology, and I don’t see that being practised by the companies that are developing.”

Unsafe AI development has been notably criticized by Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton — two of the “godfathers of AI” who are also previous Turing Award recipients. A statement was also issued by a group of top AI researchers, engineers, and CEOs in 2023, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, warning that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.”

Barto called out AI companies for being “motivated by business incentives” instead of focusing on advancing AI research. OpenAI, which has made repeated promises to improve AI safety and briefly ousted Altman, in part, for “over commercializing advances before understanding the consequences,” announced plans in December to transform itself into a for-profit company.

Google Messages is introducing an AI feature that aims to help protect Android users from text message scams. The new AI-powered scam detection tool was announced today alongside other new features, including live location sharing in the Find My app for Android users and features specifically for Pixel owners like multicamera streaming support and new text-to-image options in Pixel Studio.

Scam Detection in Google Messages works by monitoring SMS, MMS, and RCS messages in real time for suspicious patterns. Once a likely scam has been detected, Google Messages will present a warning message to users that allows them to quickly dismiss it or report and block the sender. Google says the feature is designed to tackle “conversational text scams that begin innocently” before later initiating nefarious schemes.

“Traditional spam protections are focused on protecting users before the conversation starts, and are less effective against these latest tactics from scammers that turn dangerous mid-conversation and use social engineering techniques,” says Alberto Pastor Nieto, senior product manager for Google Messages. “To better protect users, we invested in new, intelligent AI models capable of detecting suspicious patterns and delivering real-time warnings over the course of a conversation, all while prioritizing user privacy.”

Scam Detection is launching in English and rolling out to the US, UK, and Canada first, with expansion to more countries coming “soon.” The feature is on by default and only monitors conversations with people who aren’t saved to your contacts list. Google says that all message processing occurs on-device to keep user conversations private. The feature can be disabled under Google Messages’ Spam Protection settings.

Another feature that starts rolling out to Android users today is the ability to share live location information with “trusted contacts” in the Find My app. Google says that location data is “safely stored” and that users can select who they want to share their location with and for how long, with the app dropping “regular reminders” about who this information is being shared with. A similar feature was already available for Google Maps, but now people can coordinate meetups or find lost friends in the same app used to find missing devices.

Google is also releasing additional features that are only available on Pixel devices. Pixel 9 users can now connect GoPro cameras or other Pixel phones to their own device via Bluetooth and WiFi to stream from different angles on compatible apps, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok — similar to Apple’s multicamera feature on iPads and iPhones. Pixel 9 users can also now use the Pixel Studio app to generate images or stickers of people. These will be stylized rather than realistic to prevent the tool from being misused.

Other Pixel 9-specific updates include support for satellite messaging on both Verizon and T-Mobile, as well as suggestions in Pixel Screenshots that will automatically recommend which screenshots should be added to the user’s collections. Transcription has also been refreshed for Pixel Watches, Pixel Tablets, and Pixel 6 phones and newer, allowing users to transfer audio recordings from old devices and have them automatically transcribed and saved within the Recorder app. 

All the features mentioned in this article are starting to roll out today but may take a few weeks to appear on supported devices.

Google is disabling the original uBlock Origin ad blocker for more Chrome browser users, alongside other extensions that are no longer supported as the browser migrates to its new extension specification, Manifest V3. According to Google, the new standard aims to improve privacy and security, but also removes a feature that some ad blocking extensions relied on to work — a compromise that Mozilla is unwilling to make for its own Firefox browser. 

Users online are reporting on Reddit and X that Chrome is removing outdated extensions. In Chrome, a notification window will appear underneath the extensions tab on the browser taskbar with a message encouraging users to remove the impacted add-on, saying it has been turned off and is “no longer supported.” Two buttons are available that allow users to either quickly delete or manage their extensions.

Google’s uBlock Origin phaseout on Chromium-based browsers began in October, but started to have a wider impact in recent weeks. Bleeping Computer has also reported that extensions on staffers devices are being turned off, and Verge staffers have seen similar updates on our own machines.

These changes come as Google migrates Chrome away from the now defunct Manifest V2 specification. Support is being killed not just for uBlock Origin, but for any extension that hasn’t (or is unable to) update to Manifest V3. uBlock Origin users can switch to uBlock Origin Lite, which has more limited filtering capabilities than its predecessor due to Manifest V3’s ad blocking restrictions.

Chrome won’t be the only service affected by the Manifest V3 rollout — other Chromium-based web browsers like Microsoft Edge are also losing V2 support and Brave says it can only offer “limited” support once all Manifest V2 items are removed from the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla says that Firefox will continue offering both extension specifications, however, potentially giving uBlock Origin users a new browser to relocate to.

The Blue Ghost spacecraft has landed on the moon, making history as the first private lander to “successfully” achieve this feat according to its creator, Firefly Aerospace. The Texas-based commercial aerospace firm announced on Sunday that its lander had “softly touched down on the Moon’s surface in an upright, stable configuration.”

This is technically the second private spacecraft to land on the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander, which touched down last February, was the first US spacecraft to land on the Moon since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, but its mission was cut short after it toppled over.

Having nailed its own landing, Blue Ghost will now spend a full lunar day (about two weeks) performing research operations, including “lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments.” These experiments aim to provide environmental data and test technologies that will help NASA again land crewed astronaut missions on the Moon. Blue Ghost is also expected to capture high-definition images of a total eclipse on March 14th, which will see Earth blocking the sun when viewed from the Moon.

“With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities,” said Firefly Aerospace’s Chief Technology Officer Shea Ferring. “We want to thank NASA for entrusting in the Firefly team, and we look forward to delivering even more science data that supports future human missions to the Moon and Mars.”

Blue Ghost was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 15th, alongside Resilience — another private lunar lander built by Japan’s iSpace aerospace firm. Resilience is taking a longer, more energy-efficient route to reach the Moon that’s aided by gravity propulsion, and isn’t expected to arrive until early May.

Blue Ghost arrived at its lunar destination after traveling 2.8 million miles over 45 days while downlinking more than 27GB of data. It then spent two weeks orbiting the Moon prior to landing on March 2nd, touching down just 100 meters away from its target location within the 300-mile-wide Mare Crisium.

“This incredible achievement demonstrates how NASA and American companies are leading the way in space exploration for the benefit of all,” acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro said. “We have already learned many lessons – and the technological and science demonstrations onboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will improve our ability to not only discover more science, but to ensure the safety of our spacecraft instruments for future human exploration – both in the short term and long term.”

The United Kingdom dealt a significant blow in its war on encryption last week that, aside from blemishing Apple’s meticulously curated privacy commitments, could have worldwide ramifications for personal data protections. And while several days have passed since Apple pulled its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature from UK customers, other end-to-end encryption providers like Meta, Signal, and Telegram have yet to meaningfully take an official stand beyond some of their execs posting about it on social media.

The UK may have set a precedent for other global governments to follow when it reportedly ordered Apple to give it backdoor access to iCloud data. Under the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), the British government can legally demand user data be handed over for the purpose of national security and crime prevention. That seemingly includes worldwide data access, even if it’s tightly encrypted.

Some of these demands would be facilitated by controversial changes that were made to the IPA in April 2024 to expand its surveillance capabilities, like allowing intelligence services to access bulk personal datasets held by third parties and the UK government to interfere w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, meme coins don’t meet the requirements to be protected by federal securities law. In new guidance issued on Thursday, the SEC announced that it doesn’t view most meme coins — cryptocurrencies that originate from internet memes or cultural phenomena — as securities, and that transactions around them do not need to be registered with the commission.

The SEC said it reached this decision because the coins do not “generate a yield or convey rights to future income, profits, or assets of a business,” and therefore cannot be considered a security. Instead, the SEC describes meme coins as “more akin to collectibles” and “typically have limited or no use or functionality.”

This comes amid a rise in new meme coin cryptocurrencies following Trump’s election. The DOGE acronym for Trump’s waste elimination agency was likely inspired by dogecoin, a popular meme coin that was enthusiastically supported by DOGE leader Elon Musk prior to his appointment. Trump and his wife Melania also launched their own respective meme coins in January, which have plummeted in value since being released.

The clarified guidance could impact crypto regulations and shield companies and individuals that create meme coins from potential litigation. The digital currencies tend to experience volatile price swings and are popularly used in “pump and dump” schemes, in which a token is artificially inflated via insider promotion to cash in on the buying frenzy.

“Meme coins typically are purchased for entertainment, social interaction, and cultural purposes, and their value is driven primarily by market demand and speculation,” said the SEC. “Given the speculative nature of meme coins, they tend to experience significant market price volatility, and often are accompanied by statements regarding their risks and lack of utility, other than for entertainment or other non-functional purposes.”

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia has joined President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) service. Gebbia, a close friend of Elon Musk and fellow billionaire, announced that he’s been tasked with “improving the slow and paper-based retirement process,” though the specifics of his involvement are unclear.

“Excited to share I’m bringing my designer brain and start-up spirit into the government,” Gebbia announced on X. “I can think of few more important ones than volunteering to improve the user experience within our government.”

Musk has complained that the current system for processing retirement applications is too slow and restrictive due to using manually checked paper records. A converted mine in Pennsylvania is currently used to store and process 400 million printed government documents, taking up 26,000 filing cabinets. The US Office of Personnel Management announced on Thursday that it had processed an entire retirement application digitally for the first time, completing the task “without printing a single piece of paper” within two days, instead of the several weeks it usually takes.

It’s unclear if Gebbia’s role at DOGE is a paid position. Gebbia remains a significant shareholder and board member of Airbnb despite leaving his operating role at the company in 2022 — the same year he joined Tesla’s board of directors. In response to Gebbia’s DOGE appointment, some Airbnb users and hosts have posted on the rental platform’s community forums with threats to boycott the service and called for Airbnb to distance itself from the co-founder.

Gebbia attracted similar ire from the Airbnb community last month when he revealed that he had voted for Trump in the November elections. Gebbia had been a Democratic donor until 2023 and scrutinized Trump for his “heartless, cruel, and immoral” family separation policy during his previous presidency. Having professed to having a “woke-up call,” his DOGE appointment further cements his pledge to support the MAGA ethos.

Instagram is reportedly considering spinning its Reels feature into a standalone short-form video app to take advantage of TikTok’s uncertain future in the US. Instagram head Adam Mosseri was overheard discussing the plans with staff this week according to an anonymous source cited by The Information.

The Reels app is reportedly part of a Meta initiative code-named Project Ray which aims to help Instagram better compete against TikTok. Plans include improving how Instagram content is recommended and bringing more three-minute-long Reels videos to users in the US. 

TikTok has around 170 million US users and still faces a ban after being given a 75-day extension by President Donald Trump in January. During TikTok’s temporary removal from app stores last month, Instagram released Edits — a blatant riff on the CapCut video editing app owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance — and allegedly tried to lure creators to its own platform with cash bonuses.

It’s unclear if Reels would still be integrated into Instagram if it does get its own separate app, but a dedicated short-form video platform would be closer to the curated scrolling experience provided by TikTok. This would be Meta’s second attempt to launch a direct TikTok competitor after releasing the standalone video-sharing app Lasso in 2018 — and later shutting the app down in 2020 to focus on Reels.

Google is making it easier to remove and update Search results that contain your personal information. The company’s “Results about you” tool for detecting personal information like addresses and phone numbers that appear in Search has been updated to make it “easier than ever” for users to sign up and for removals to be requested directly on the Search page.

The Results about you tool can help people proactively monitor what sensitive information is appearing in Search results for anyone to find. You register by giving Google the name, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses that you want it to scan for. (Google says your contact data “is not shared or used to personalize your experience across other Google products.”) You’ll then be notified when your data is detected so you can request removal.

The tool was previously hidden away unless you were using the Google app — on mobile web and desktop it was buried deep within the History settings under Google user accounts. It’s also only currently available to users in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, Sweden, Thailand, India, and Indonesia, but will be expanded to more countries in the future.

Clicking on the three-dot menu next to results in Google Search will now display a “remove this result” option that users can click on to more quickly request removal, and understand what kind of information is eligible for deletion. Three request options will appear once opened: personal information, which includes the doxxing content outlined on Google’s help page; legal removals to flag illegal content like copyright infringement and child abuse; and requests to refresh outdated Search results.

The latter is a new feature for situations where users have had their information updated, corrected, or removed from a website but Search results haven’t reflected those changes. Upon selection, Google will be prompted to recrawl the website linking to the Search result and update its information.

More Android phones could soon provide longer lifetime support updates thanks to a new agreement between Qualcomm and Google. Qualcomm announced on Monday that “up to eight consecutive years of software and security updates” will be available to Android phones running on future Snapdragon 8 and Snapdragon 7-series chips.

As Android specialist Mishall Rahman points out, the “eight consecutive years” is a little misleading here because Qualcomm includes the year on which a device is released. That means the device can be supported for eight years, but receive seven years of Android version upgrades — bringing more Android phones in line with the seven years of support provided on Google’s Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 lineup.

Qualcomm mentioned its support expansion plans in October, which started with devices running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform. That includes the Samsung Galaxy S25 series, Xiaomi 15 Series, OnePlus 13, and Asus ROG Phone 9. 

Today’s announcement extends that service to additional chipsets, but it’s important to note that eligible phones aren’t guaranteed to receive expanded support updates. This update makes it easier and more affordable for phone manufacturers to provide users with longer support, but Qualcomm says that it’s ultimately up to device makers to decide whether they offer it on specific phone models.

“Support for platform software included in this program will be made available to OEMs for eight consecutive years, including both Android OS and kernel upgrades, without requiring significant changes or upgrades to the platform and OEM code on the device,” Qualcomm said.

Phones running older Snapdragon chips won’t be eligible for future support upgrades according to Qualcomm. The biggest caveat to all this beyond hoping device makers actually implement the expanded support update is that very few phones are likely to keep running for the full eight years. But if you’re committed to reducing e-waste and continually repairing your Android phone, at least the option will be there.

Major newspapers across the UK today are all on the same page for once. Specifically, their front covers, which feature the same campaign imagery protesting government proposals that could eviscerate copyright protections against artificial intelligence. Brits popping into their local store or newsagents will be greeted by a spread of bright blue pages demanding the same thing: MAKE IT FAIR.

Creative and media industries have teamed up on this “Make It Fair” initiative, calling for readers to help protect British creative industries. The campaign was created to fight government proposals that would allow artificial intelligence companies to train their models on copyright-protected work without permission.

The stunt appears to be carefully timed. A public consultation period — in which anyone can submit their opinions to the UK government — closed today following its launch on December 17th, proposing that exceptions be made to copyright law regarding AI training “for any purpose,” including commercial. Creatives would be able to opt out of the new “text and data mining” process via a so-called “rights reservation” process, but that places greater responsibility and labor requirements on individuals to ensure their works are protected.

“Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI models,” reads the campaign website hosted by the News Media Association (NMA). “Publishers and creators say that doing this without proper controls, transparency or fair payment is unfair and threatens their livelihoods.”

Members of the NMA trade body include The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and the Guardian, alongside regional print and digital outlets across the UK. The Make It Right campaign is also backed by the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, described as a “broad group of rights holders, AI businesses, and organizations” seeking to ensure that creatives are protected and fairly compensated under generative AI regulations.

The government’s proposals have been widely criticized over concerns that weakening copyright protections and letting AI companies gobble up whatever data they please could have a devastating impact on the UK’s $152 billion creative industry. The Make It Fair campaign is one of several pushbacks that have rolled out today in protest, including a silent album called “Is This What We Want?” released by more than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush and Damon Albarn.

“The ‘Make It Fair’ campaign opposes the government’s proposal in its consultation to weaken copyright law and allow tech firms to run rampant over creative content,” NMA CEO Owen Meredith told The Verge. “This extraordinary show of unity from the news media industry shows the time has come for the government to wake up and recognise the existential threat posed by unchecked exploitation of our creative industries.”

During its consultation period, the UK government invited “anyone with an interest in these issues” to share views and evidence regarding the potential economic impact the copyright protection changes may have. There’s no clear timeline for what will happen next, but the UK government said it will use the consultation responses to “help design the best possible policy” to achieve its objectives around expanding AI — suggesting that at least some changes will be on the horizon.

“We see AI as a powerful tool and a partner to creativity, but a partnership should be on fair and equal terms,” Meredith said. “Tech firms need creative content, and up-to-date professional journalism, to power AI — if they want to use our content, they must also be willing to compensate creators fairly, just as any responsible business would.”

The BBC, Britain’s publicly funded media service, also issued its own statement today saying that the proposal “is currently unworkable.”

“To be clear, we support the Government’s ambition to grow the creative and AI sectors,” said Rhodri Talfan Davies, Director of Nations at the BBC. “But we do not believe securing these goals requires changes that weaken how content is protected under the UK’s Intellectual Property regime.”

Adobe has released a powerful new Photoshop mobile app that includes many of the design, editing, and generative AI tools found on the desktop version. The app integrates with Photoshop on the web to allow creatives to work on projects across multiple devices and is globally available today on iPhone, with Android coming “later this year,” according to Adobe.

A simplified version of the popular editing software called Photoshop Express has been available on mobile devices since 2010, but Adobe says the new app is more powerful and provides a broader range of recognizable Photoshop capabilities. The two apps share some common features — including tools for resizing, masking, contrast / saturation adjustments, and removing objects or blemishes — but while Photoshop Express is similar to more typical mobile editing apps like Picsart and Facetune, the new Photoshop app seems closer to the desktop experience.

The free version gives users access to many Photoshop editing tools, including the Spot Healing Brush, Tap Select, layers, selections, masks, and features for compositing and blending images together. It also provides Adobe Stock assets, directly integrates with Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Express, Lightroom, and Fresco, and includes Adobe’s Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand AI tools.

Other Photoshop features like Object Select, Magic Wand, Content Aware Fill, Clone Stamp, and the Remove Tool are locked behind a $7.99 monthly or $69.99 annual subscription. This premium Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan also includes light / dark adjustment options, advanced blend modes for controlling transparency, color effects, styles, and integration with Photoshop on the web — alongside access to Generate Similar and Reference Image on the web-based platform.

All users who are already subscribed to a paid Photoshop plan will gain premium access to Photoshop on mobile. Adobe hasn’t mentioned if it has anything in store for Photoshop Express, which currently still provides a more affordable $4.99 monthly premium tier subscription. It’ll be confusing if Adobe plans to support both apps simultaneously, especially as it also has another similarly named editing platform called Adobe Express available on mobile.

Rebooting Photoshop on mobile is a welcome and unsurprising move, however. Photoshop Express, while useful for quick edits and throwing together social media graphics, never truly felt like Photoshop. The user interface on the new Photoshop iPhone app is still heavily optimized for mobile, so you can drag and select tools around with your finger, but the overall experience is more geared toward creative professionals and labor-intensive design tasks.

There’s a vast number of mobile editing apps to compete with these days, and downloads for Photoshop Express on iOS have been falling. The creative software giant has also taken steps to simply buy its way into more of the market, having completed its acquisition of Pixelmator’s Mac and iOS apps earlier this month.

A free version of Gemini Code Assist, Google’s enterprise-focused AI coding tool, is now available globally for solo developers. Google announced today that Gemini Code Assist for individuals is launching in public preview, aiming to make coding assistants “with the latest AI capabilities” more accessible for students, hobbyists, freelancers, and startups.

“Now anyone can more conveniently learn, create code snippets, debug, and modify their existing applications — all without needing to toggle between different windows for help or to copy and paste information from disconnected sources,” said Ryan J. Salva, Google’s senior director of product management. “While other popular free coding assistants have restrictive usage limits, with usually only 2,000 code completions per month, we wanted to offer something more generous.”

That feels particularly targeted at GitHub Copilot, the most direct competitor to Gemini Code Assist, which also provides a free user tier that’s limited to 2,000 code completions and 50 Copilot Chat messages each month. Google is offering up to 180,000 code completions per month by contrast, which it describes as “a ceiling so high that even today’s most dedicated professional developers would be hard-pressed to exceed it.”

Like the enterprise version, Gemini Code Assist for individuals is powered by Google’s Gemini 2.0 artificial intelligence model and can generate entire code blocks, complete code as you write, and provide general coding assistance via a chatbot interface. The free coding tool can be installed in Visual Studio Code, GitHub, and JetBrains developer environments and supports all programming languages in the public domain.

Developers can instruct Gemini Code Assist using natural language, such as asking the coding chatbot to “build me a simple HTML form with fields for name, email, and message, and then add a ‘submit’ button.” It currently supports 38 languages and up to 128,000 chat input tokens in the token context window, which is the amount of text (tokens) that can be processed or “remembered” when generating a response.

The free Individual tier seems pretty expansive, but it doesn’t include all of the advanced business-focused features available in the Standard and Enterprise versions of Gemini Code Assist. If you want productivity metrics, integrations with Google Cloud services like BigQuery, or to customize responses using private code data sources then you’ll need to use Google’s paid tiers.

Legendary Apple artist Susan Kare has released 32 new retro-inspired icons that are designed to live outside of your computer screen. Instead, the “Esc Keys” collection Kare created in collaboration with Asprey Studio consists of mechanical keyboard keycaps and wearable pendants, each featuring an 8-bit pixel art illustration like a dog, a plant, mail, and coffee.

While these icon designs are brand new, the style will be recognizable to anyone familiar with Kare’s work. She’s responsible for creating much of the iconography on the first Macintosh personal computer operating system, including the “Happy Mac” boot-up icon and the original floppy disk file save symbol.

Kare and Asprey Studio founder Alastair Walker told Fast Company that “there’s hidden meaning” to each of the new designs that represent things that people can enjoy doing away from their keyboards. Each piece in the Esc Keys collection is crafted in silver or gold-coated silver and is limited edition — from 30 to 120 pieces depending on the icon — so purchasing something won’t come cheap.

Prices start at $650 for silver computer keys, ranging up to $2,064 for necklace pendants in gold vermeil (a method that coats solid silver in a layer of gold). Solid gold options are “available upon request” apparently, and each piece comes with its own blockchain-inscribed digital artwork to verify “ownership and provenance.”

Kare has paid similar homage to Apple’s computing history in her other art collections. There are prints of her original Macintosh designs available on her website, and in 2014, she sold hand-painted Jolly Roger pirate flags, inspired by the one she painted to fly above the Apple campus office in 1983, for up to $2,500.

Apple is several months away from launching the iPhone 17 series but a significant camera redesign may be on the horizon. Leaker Majin Bu has shared CAD renders of what are purported to be the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and the rumored iPhone 17 Air — with the latter three all featuring Pixel-like rectangular camera bars.

The new CAD renders show the rear camera bars on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models stretched to extend their currently square design, now reaching across the entire upper body. They still retain the rounder edges seen on the current models. The 17 “Air” features a similar design, albeit with only a single rear camera lens. According to these renders, the camera module on the standard iPhone 17 model will be largely unchanged, differentiating it from the premium models.

Majin Bu is an established leaker but, as MacRumors notes, the information he’s shared hasn’t always been correct. These renders are just some of several similar leaks about the iPhone 17’s rectangular camera bar in the last few months, however, with concept designs also shared by Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser and other leakers including Ice Universe, Fixed Focus Digital, and Digital Chat Station.

In January, Majin Bu also posted an image of iPhone bodies alleged to be “part of” the iPhone 17 family. The design looks similar to the iPhone “Air” render he shared yesterday, and resembles the pill-shaped camera bar sported by Google’s Pixel 9 lineup. Rumors about the so-called iPhone 17 Air have been floating around for months describing a new, slimmer model that’s expected to join the upcoming iPhone lineup, similar to Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S25 Edge.

It’s early days and these leaks shouldn’t be taken as gospel. We won’t know the official iPhone 17 design until Apple reveals it later this year, with an announcement expected sometime in September.

Android Auto users are experiencing wireless connectivity issues following its recent updates. As seen by Android Authority, some Reddit users report that attempting to wirelessly connect to vehicles via the Android platform is causing their phones to reboot. Others are finding that wireless connectivity is refusing to work entirely.

Google told The Verge that its team is “aware of the issue” and is “currently investigating a fix.” No ETA has been provided. We will update this story when more information or a solution is available.

In recent weeks, some phones have only worked with Android Auto using a wired connection, according to several complaints on Google’s Android Auto community forums spotted by 9to5Google. Users have reported Bluetooth connections will work briefly before dropping, or will only connect wirelessly once their phone has been rebooted. In some cases, Android Auto is randomly forcing connected phones to reboot without being prompted to do so.

“The reboots have happened when on a call, while listening to YouTube Music, and listening to Libby books,” said one Reddit user. “It has happened when both plugged in and unplugged, and when I have been using the gps and also not.”

It’s a jumble of different issues, but the timeline suggests the bugs may be tied to the v13.4 and v13.5 Android Auto updates that rolled out in January and February. It’s unclear if rolling back to a previous version of the software fixes the connectivity issues, and a viable workaround hasn’t been established.

Almost 18,000 Swagtron electric scooters are being recalled by Walmart due to fire and safety concerns regarding their lithium-ion batteries. There have been seven reports of SG-5 Swagger 5 Boost batteries “overheating, smoking, melting or igniting” according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), including a fire that caused burn injuries and “substantial property damage” to a residential apartment building.

The recall impacts about 17,970 SG-5 Swagger 5 Boost units sold at Walmart and Sam’s Club between May 2018 and October 2024, with customers being emailed instructions on how to receive a full refund. The affected models — SWGR5-V2-SLV, SWGR5-V2-2, SG5 Boost, SG-5S, 96262-2, 96262-9, SG-5S, and 96560-2 — cost between $175 and $450, and have their model numbers located on the side of the scooter deck.

Swagtron itself, which sold the SG-5 Swagger 5 Boost directly via its own website, notably hasn’t issued a recall for the scooter. The CPSC said that Swagtron has actually ignored its requests for a recall and information about the product. We have reached out to Swagtron for comment.

“Consumers should immediately stop using and charging the recalled electric scooters, cut the throttle cord, and dispose of the entire product following local and state hazardous waste disposal procedures,” the CPSC said in its recall notice.

The recall follows an earlier warning issued by the CPSC in October, urging consumers to cease using SG-5 Swagger 5 Boost scooters that had been purchased from Tractor Supply, Best Buy, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Amazon, eBay, and Swagtron’s website from 2019 onwards. At the time, the CPSC said it was also aware of 139 additional reports of fire or thermal incidents involving other Swagtron products and criticized the company for failing to provide safety information.

Swagtron, previously called Swagway, was initially better known for making hoverboards. It got into the electric scooter business in 2016, around the same time that the CPSC recalled 267,000 of its hoverboards over — you guessed it — having battery packs that posed a fire risk.

Amazon is ending Android support for its Appstore this year on August 20th. The retail giant announced the update on an FAQ support page with no explanation for the shutdown, but said its Appstore will still be available on Fire TV and Tablet devices, where it serves as the default app marketplace.

Apps downloaded from Amazon’s Appstore onto Android devices won’t necessarily disappear on August 20th, but the company says they “will not be guaranteed to operate” once they stop receiving updates. This comes as Microsoft is preparing to cease support for Amazon’s Appstore on Windows starting March 5th, as part of its Android subsystem being deprecated.

Amazon is also killing its Amazon Coins program — a virtual currency that can be purchased and used to buy apps and in-app items via the Amazon Appstore marketplace. New coins cannot be purchased after February 20th, 2025, but existing coin balances can still be used to make Appstore purchases. Amazon says that any coins remaining in user accounts after August 20th will be refunded, though more refund information will be shared “at a later date.”

Shutting down Android support is a curious decision given Amazon’s own Fire OS is Android-based, but Amazon’s Android Appstore is little more than a strange footnote in history. It once allowed users to “test drive” Android apps in web browsers, ran a program that provided free versions of apps, and came pre-loaded on Amazon’s failed Fire phone.

Amazon’s Appstore can also be sideloaded onto third-party Android devices and was initially growing that audience, but it’s been unable to compete with Google’s Android market dominance in recent years — a point notably raised in the Epic v. Google case to help argue that Google’s Play app store constituted an illegal monopoly. Amazon even tried to make it easier to sideload by hiding it within the Amazon app until Google closed the loophole that allowed it to do so.

Spotify is bringing more AI-narrated audiobooks to its platform via a new partnership with ElevenLabs. On Thursday, the audio streaming giant announced it would begin accepting audiobooks recorded using ElevenLabs’ AI voice software, saying it “recognizes the potential of digital voice-narration to grow and expand the audiobook market.”

To be clear, AI-recorded audiobooks are already permitted on Spotify, albeit with several restrictions. Spotify’s audiobook distribution platform, Findaway Voices, only accepts digitally recorded audiobooks from “specific partners” — having previously also partnered with Google Play Books — and requires each recording to undergo review before publishing. ElevenLabs is one of the most recognizable AI voice providers on the market, however, which could lead to a surge in synthetically voiced audiobooks on Spotify’s platform.

Authors can use ElevenLabs to narrate their audiobooks in 32 languages, with a wide selection of synthetic voices to choose from. The free version of the software only provides 10 minutes of text-to-voice per month. There are several premium tiers available that expand this limitation, but users will need at least the $99 monthly Pro subscription to generate 500 minutes of narration — roughly the length of the average audiobook.

While Spotify says it “firmly believes in the power of human narration,” the company believes that digital voices could make audiobook production more cost-effective for smaller authors and make it easier to create audiobooks of older, backlist titles that would otherwise be ignored. Spotify says that all AI-narrated titles will have their metadata marked and be clearly identified to listeners in book descriptions with “this audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.”