It’s that quiet, end-of-December period for tech news. Still, alongside our usual retrospectives on tech in 2024, the Russian government is cracking down crypto, and final seasons of hit Netflix phenomena are on their way.
First, according to reports by the state-owned news agency Tass, the Russian government banned crypto mining in ten regions for six years. Russia has cited the industry’s high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use. The Russian ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The currency has only been fully legal in Russia since November.
No, I don’t know what cliffhanger shenanigans wrapped up season 2 (it just came out!), but you won’t have to wait too long to see how it all concludes. The Netflix-owned blog Tudum announced that the South Korean drama will return for its third and final season next year.
After a bumper year in 2023, the last 12 months still offered plenty of amazing new releases. Whether you love a good indie or a big-budget production, there was something for you. And don’t worry: we shifted our Balatro essays into their own dedicated story.
The latest high-tech lamp from LG pulls double-duty as a plant pot. LG says the lamp with a circular lampshade shines LEDs in five different intensities on whichever plants you want to grow. Then, at night, the lights fire upwards to create cozy mood lighting. The taller, standing lamp can hold up to 20 plants at a time and you don't need to worry about watering. There's a 1.5-gallon tank built into the base of the lamp.
Honda and Nissan have officially confirmed the rumors that they're pursuing a merger. Both would still operate under their brands but with a new joint holding company as parent. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi also came on board, the combined group would become the world's third-largest automaker by sales volume, with a net worth of up to $50 billion.
Nissan and Honda previously announced plans to work together on EV development, but the joint company would be far more integrated. According to the press release, it could include standardizing vehicle platforms, unifying research and development teams, and optimizing manufacturing systems and facilities. This could help cut costs.
In the US, Nissan sells large pickup trucks and SUVs that Honda doesn't offer, alongside more experience in EVs and plug-in electric vehicles. On the other side, Honda has relatively stable financials while Nissan has been struggling, particularly at home in Japan.
According to the Financial Times, Meta may add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses collaboration. These screens could appear in a future device iteration as early as next year. It’s not aimed at full mixed reality, though. The screens will be on the smaller side and will likely be used to display notifications or responses from Meta’s AI virtual assistant.
A group of fans have made a native PC port of Star Fox 64, which they are calling Starship. Harbour Masters, the team behind the project, used a tool that converts the original game ROM into PC executable code, so it doesn’t use any proprietary Nintendo code. That means it’s technically legal. (I’m sure Nintendo is looking into it.)
Like previous ports, Starship features all kinds of modern bells and whistles to set itself apart from the 1997 original. The frame rate is higher and the port includes frame smoothing technology for better visuals. There’s also another major benefit: It’s moddable.
Apple is working on the next generation of AirPods Pro, and they may have some new health features, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman – although it’s a rumor we heard before, back in 2021.
The company has reportedly started testing features like temperature sensing and heart rate monitoring for the earbuds. Apple has found that the Apple Watch still does the latter better, but the AirPods “aren’t terribly far off” in their readings.
The company may have also revived its idea of putting cameras into AirPods, a rumor we’ve heard a few times over the last year. But it’ll still probably be years before any camera-equipped AirPods appear.
Intel’s Arc B580 is a rarity: A $250 GPU that delivers solid 1080p and 1440p gaming, even with a bit of ray tracing. Faster than a Radeon 7600 and RTX 4060 from the dominant GPU players, and Intel’s XeSS upscaling works well, even if it’s not as well supported as DLSS 3. According to our review, it’s a clear win for Intel – until we see what’s new from AMD.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon and Barbara Broccoli, the producer who inherited the franchise from her father and film producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, are in the middle of a fight that’s halted production on the next Bond film. Apparently, Barbara doesn’t trust Amazon with her family’s famous film franchise.
Broccoli was quoted telling some of her friends that the people who run Amazon’s media empire are “f—ing idiots.” When Amazon purchased MGM, executives started thinking of ways to expand the Bond film franchise to other mediums like a Moneypenny spinoff series for Prime Video or a separate spy film or TV show in the Bond universe. Broccoli refused to let any of these projects go forward. She also took umbrage with Amazon entertainment executive Jennifer Salke’s use of the word “content” to describe new James Bond projects. (I love that.)
Despite the unchanged design, Apple has packed an assortment of updates into the new AirPods Pro. All of the conveniences from the 2019 model are here as well, alongside additions like Adaptive Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio and a new touch gesture in tow. There’s room to further refine the familiar formula, but Apple has given iPhone owners several reasons to upgrade.
Last week, Google allegedly instructed contract workers evaluating Gemini not to skip any prompts, regardless of their expertise, TechCrunch reports based on internal guidance it viewed.
Now, contractors have allegedly been instructed not to skip prompts that “require specialized domain knowledge” and to “rate the parts of the prompt you understand,” adding a note that it’s not an area they have knowledge in. Apparently, the only times contractors can skip now are if a big chunk of the information is missing or if it has harmful content.
Google filed a statement to Engadget, saying its raters “perform a wide range of tasks across many different Google products and platforms. They provide valuable feedback on more than just the content of the answers, but also on the style, format and other factors.”
Elevation Lab has released an accessory for the Apple AirTag that extends its battery life by up to 10 years and makes it waterproof. The TimeCapsule contains your AirTag and two AA batteries. You don’t need to open your AirTag and tinker with it — you only have to remove its backplate and coin battery before attaching it to the case. As you can see, it will make your tracking device a lot bigger and considerably heftier, so it’s mostly ideal for use with large objects, such as vehicles and big suitcases. Peace of mind for $20 — plus two AAs.
Honda is officially introducing two Series 0 electric vehicle prototypes at CES next year, and the company says they’ll be available for purchase around the world sometime in 2026. The vehicles will be based on the futuristic-looking concepts the company presented at CES 2024, including a flagship model called the Saloon, which featured a low profile and aerodynamic design.
According to images shared by leaker Evan Blass, Lenovo’s sixth-generation ThinkBook Plus will have an extendable rolling display. The company first teased a “rollable” laptop concept in 2022. The display can extend and unroll until you effectively have two screens stacked on top of each other. Lenovo’s images show a video call open on the top part of the display, and what looks like a PowerPoint presentation on the bottom. It looks a little weird.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear TikTok owner ByteDance’s appeal of a law that could ban the app. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is set to go into effect on January 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. ByteDance claimed the law violates free speech rights, a position the ACLU has supported. The Justice Department defended the law in lower courts, citing concerns that the Chinese government could influence the company and collect data about American citizens.
The Supreme Court’s response was fast — only two days after the company filed its appeal. Oral arguments are scheduled for January 10.
It’s teaming with talent agency CAA to test ‘likeness management technology.’
YouTube is teaming up with one of the world’s largest talent agencies, CAA, to help its high-profile actors and athletes monitor their AI likenesses. The platform will test its “likeness management technology” with unnamed award-winning actors and top NBA and NFL athletes. Down the road, it will announce further testing for top YouTube creators, creative professionals and other talent agencies. It’s largely aimed at removing depictions of their likenesses.
It’s about avoiding regulatory pressures and regulation.
Apple is shelving its plans to offer the iPhone for a monthly subscription, according to a Bloomberg report. The idea of an Apple hardware subscription was first rumored in 2022, but a hardware subscription might have required Apple to “follow the same regulations as credit card companies.” It’s part of a retreat from the headaches of financial services. Apple Pay Later shut down in June 2024, replaced with access to Affirm loans in Apple Pay as part of iOS 18, while the Apple Card is also reportedly in limbo as it tries to find a replacement partner for Goldman Sachs.
LG’s transparent wireless OLED TV is now available. The 77-inch OLED T has 4K resolution, the company’s wireless transmission tech for video and audio and the ability to shift between transparent and opaque modes with the push of a button. And you pay just $60,000 for the privilege. Here’s what we thought when we saw it early this year.
OnePlus will launch its new flagship series, the OnePlus 13, on January 7, 2025. It’s getting increasingly difficult for smartphone makers to differentiate or push the envelope, but OnePlus is at least trying. Its new phone series will have IP68 and IP69 ratings.
IP68 certification means the device has protection against submerging and dust, the usual stuff, but the IP69 rating takes water resistance a step further, promising the device can withstand high-pressure jets of water — for all those high-pressure jet moments. The OnePlus 13 might be the first mainstream smartphone to get the certification.
The company likes wet phone tech. A few years ago, it introduced a Rain Water Touch feature in the OnePlus 12 and Ace 2 Pro. It used a special chip to algorithmically determine how you touched the screen while operating it in the rain or other wet conditions.
The OnePlus 13 will have three colorways: Arctic Dawn, Black Eclipse and Midnight Ocean, with the latter also being the first phone to use micro-fiber vegan leather. And the Arctic Dawn edition has a new glass coating that resists finger smudges — apparently another first in the industry, according to OnePlus.
They’re Japan’s second- and third-largest automakers.
Honda and Nissan are reportedly discussing a merger. The Japanese publication Nikkei said the two automakers are planning to sign a memorandum of understanding to sort out shared equity stakes in a new holding company. The potential merger would combine the assets of Japan’s second- and third-biggest automakers, giving them a better shot of competing with the nation’s market leader, Toyota. Bloomberg adds it would also put them in a better position against Tesla and Chinese EV makers.
Finally, the Exos M will go on sale after years of anticipation.
The Seagate website announced a new Exos M 30TM and 32TB hard disk drive (HDD), featuring 3TB per platter with three times the power efficiency per terabyte compared to other hard drives. The new hard drive is Seagate’s first HDD to use heat-assisted magnetic recording. HAMR refers to a magnetic storage process in which localized heat is applied to the disk material during writing, which allows for smaller regions and more space per platter. These and other breakthroughs could someday pave the way to a 50TB HDD.
The holidays haven’t even kicked off, but we’re already looking to next year when, almost immediately, some of the Engadget team will head to Las Vegas for tech’s biggest annual conference. The pitches from companies, both legit and unhinged, are already filling our inboxes and spam tabs, so what are we excited about?
Excited might not be the word, but we expect AI to become even more pervasive in good and overhyped ways. There will also be the usual slew of new processors and subsequent laptops. We expect NVIDIA to debut its long-awaited RTX 5000 video cards at CES, while AMD CEO Lisa Su has confirmed we’ll see next-generation RDNA 4 GPUs early next year. While 2024 was a year of endless AI PC hype, 2025 might be a year of reckoning. Microsoft’s long-delayed Recall feature is slowly trickling out to more users, for example, but is still facing struggles. PC makers in 2025 will have to actually prove their new AI-laced devices can live up to their claims.
There are also audio products, EVs, flying EVs (!) and more. Check out the full CES 2025 preview.
More than 100 million people use the site every day.
Cementing its status as the fastest growing social network ever (with a heavy nepo-baby lift from Instagram), Threads has hit 300 million users, with over 100 million people using the site every day. We could see some big changes for Threads as Meta capitalizes on that growth. The company reportedly has plans to experiment with the first ads for threads in early 2025, according to a recent report in The Information.
While it’s still a ways off, Zuckerberg has repeatedly speculated that Threads has a “good chance” of becoming the company’s next billion-user app.
The social media app is just a few weeks away from a potential ban.
It’s a tale of two social media networks today. After a federal court last week denied TikTok’s request to delay a law that could ban the app in the United States, the company is now turning to the Supreme Court to buy time. The social media company has asked the court to temporarily block the law. The company, which argues the law is unconstitutional, lost its initial legal challenge earlier this month. The company then requested a delay of the law’s implementation, saying President-elect Donald Trump had said he would “save” TikTok. That request was denied on Friday. TikTok is now hoping the Supreme Court will intervene to suspend the law, otherwise, app stores and internet service providers will begin blocking TikTok next month.
The current generation of consoles landed in roughly the same week in November 2020. At launch, the PS5 had seven new exclusive games to the Xbox Series’ two. Sony had a better showing too, with the likes of Demon Souls (sure, a remake) and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Four years on, the difference between the two consoles remains. We returned to the PlayStation 5 (in its slim iteration) and the Xbox Series X to see how the two approaches have fared. If you’ve been paying attention, you know the conclusion: estimates put PS5 console sales around double the latest Xboxes’.
Microsoft had two consoles, the entry-level Series S and the powerful Series X, while Sony went for largely the same power PS5, but with a disc-less iteration.
The Xbox Series X is a solid way to play Microsoft titles, popular third-party games and everything Microsoft has available on Game Pass. But if you had to choose between buying the Series X or PlayStation 5, the latter has better exclusive games, a bigger base of gamers and a better controller. (Editor: Mat’s opinion, there.)
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, God of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2, and Astro Bot have all been platform exclusives, while long-running series like Final Fantasy appear first on Sony consoles.
The strongest weapon in Xbox’s arsenal, Game Pass, has been neutered over time too. The Game Pass Ultimate plan also feels less, well, ultimate. The company increased the monthly price of its top plan to $20, including day-one access to new titles and a large library of games for Xbox and PC. The new $15 a month Standard plan doesn’t give day-one access but does include a library of hundreds of games.
Things could change, however. Sony is now drip-feeding its games to PC, diminishing the draw of console exclusives, while Microsoft’s game developer spending spree has to bear fruit eventually. Right? Right?!
That might be a discussion for the next wave of consoles.
Just in time to make your mid-cycle console seem under-specced, we may see the next HDMI standard, HDMI 2.2, in a matter of weeks. According to an email from the HDMI Forum, a new HDMI specification will be announced on Monday, January 6, in Las Vegas. (Ready for all those huge expensive TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony and the rest.) It’s been seven years since HDMI 2.1 arrived. The new specs will bring higher bandwidth, according to the email. But that’s all we know, for now.
A curious-looking post on X from US Rep. Josh Gottheimer got the New Jersey congressman in some mild trouble. Spotted by 9to5Mac, he shared what appeared to be his Spotify Wrapped playlist for the year, with one list consisting of Springsteen’s classic tracks. However, it was filled with formatting mistakes. He’d faked it.
He admitted to NJ Advance Media that he made a fake Spotify Wrapped list but says the tracks on each list are accurate. Gottheimer has since taken the post down and replaced it with a list of his most listened-to Springsteen tracks. He’s trying to save face because he’s in a heated race for New Jersey governor — and you know where Springsteen is a big deal? New Jersey.
Genmoji are custom emojis you can create if you’ve installed the iOS 18.2 or iPadOS 18.2 update. They are the emojis of your imagination, made real with help from Apple Intelligence — you describe what emoji you want to see, like a sad cowboy or an octopus DJ. You’ll need a device compatible with Apple Intelligence. That includes every iPhone 16 model, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, as well as iPad models with the M1 chip or later, and iPad mini (A17 Pro). Then, well, read on for a confusion-free guide.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/engadget-newsletter-playstation-vs-xbox-in-2024-121559189.html?src=rss
With over 60 million PS5s sold, Sony is so far dominating this generation of game consoles. Four years since the PlayStation 5 debuted, the company has rounded out its gaming lineup with the refined PS5 Slim (both with and without a disc drive) and the more powerful (and expensive) PS5 Pro.
At possibly the console’s midlife, up against the Xbox Series S and X, ever-increasingly powerful gaming PCs, and Nintendo’s Switch, it’s a good time to reassess what the PS5, in pole position, is doing to hold gamers’ attention spans and why the PS5 Slim is probably the right way to dive into Sony’s rich gaming selection.
Hardware
Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget
The PS5 Slim looks very similar to the original design but it’s noticeably (thankfully!) smaller. In fact, it’s 30 percent smaller by volume. Let’s be honest, it’s still big, but the PS5 Slim fits into the shelf in my home entertainment sideboard – the original PS5 did not.
Sony has kept the weird finned design of the original here, so there’s a shared aesthetic across all the PS5 consoles. In the box, there are also two transparent feet to mount the console horizontally. It’s a simpler, more subtle way to lift the console than the original’s awkward plinth with plastic hooks. The PS5 Slim can stand vertically on its own, but it might be worth getting a vertical stand for peace of mind, which unfortunately means laying down an extra $30.
Inside, it’s largely the same technical specs of the launch console: an AMD Zen 2 CPU, RDNA 2 GPU, 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, and both Wi-Fi 6 and gigabit ethernet. (Technically, the Xbox Series X packs more power and if you want more power, please see the PS5 Pro). The PS5 Slim, however, comes with a 1TB SSD, offering 25 percent more usable storage than the 825GB SSD inside the original PS5.
Having said that, at a time when a AAA game install can circle 150GB, we’d advise preparing yourself to add further storage, especially if you get the majority of your games through the online store. Fortunately, it’s easy to install an extra SSD (most of the best options have a preinstalled heatsink) and the prices for bigger storage have tumbled since 2020.
If you’re a disc-based gamer, the PS5 Slim has both a digital-only ($450) and disc model ($500), but you can ‘upgrade’ to a disc drive for an $80 premium. (It’s the same drive that PS5 Pro users will have to pick up, if you’re wondering why it’s been recently sold out everywhere.)
Even if you decide to add the disc drive, it’s been designed to keep within the smooth lines of the console, if leaving it a little lop-sided. Curiously, Sony demands you connect the console to activate the drive, something to be aware of if you’re planning to gift the console and want less stress.
Sony also swapped around the port options, shifting to a USB-C duo, instead of a single USB-C port and a USB-A port. Given that the latter maxed out at 480Mbps speeds, it’s another upgrade. (There are still two USB-A ports available on the back for older accessories.)
Beyond any physical changes, since its launch, Sony has fed through some notable technical upgrades to PS5 through software updates. For one, catching up to the Xbox with support for TVs with variable refresh rates, dynamically syncing the (HDMI 2.1) display’s refresh rate to the PS5 console's graphical output. This means games should output more smoothly and reduce the chances of screen tearing when your TV and PS5 aren’t entirely in sync. The PS5 Slim also supports 1440p resolution screens, a middle option between 1080p and 4K.
Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget
Sony added more features like personalized 3D audio profiles for gamers using headphones and Party Share, where you can transmit gameplay in real time. There’s also Remote Play, available on iOS and Android, as well as the company’s standalone streaming device, the PlayStation Portal. When it comes to Remote Play, there haven’t been any major changes since the PS4 iteration, but it does seem like the service is more stable in recent years.
There have been changes to how PlayStation’s separated out its subscription service. Starting with PlayStation Plus Essentials, $10 a month, this opens up access to online multiplayer, at least two free games each month, discounts, cloud storage and Share Play.
PlayStation Plus Extra ($15 per month), adds a bigger library of PS5 and PS4 games for free, while PlayStation Plus Premium ($18 per month) adds cloud streaming functionality, so you can play PS5 games without having to use your PS5. You can also play a collection of PS4 games (and even older games from the OG PlayStation onwards) without having to download the game.
Having said that, Xbox’s Game Pass offers a bigger selection of games, and often includes first-party Microsoft games available to play on release day. PlayStation, unfortunately, doesn’t do the same, and its biggest exclusive releases often only arrive free on PS Plus years later. Which tier is right for you will depend on how much you play, and whether you’re regularly trying to game away from wherever your PS5 is. It’s worth getting into PS Plus Essentials just for the dripfeed of free games.
Since launch, the PS5 has picked up plenty of other small improvements too, like dimmable power indicators for the PS5’s glow, and adaptive controller charging which should extend the battery life of your DualSense by optimizing charge time. A quick note to say that the DualSense remains the most comfortable, innovative controller that Sony has ever made – but the battery life is pretty appalling. Expect to plug it in pretty regularly.
Software
Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget
The PS5’s interface has also evolved since launch, with increased priority given to the customizable Welcome Hub, where you can choose the background, widgets and prioritze the games and features you’re using most. It’s also worth noting that the UI itself is far snappier and more responsive than it was at launch.
While you won’t get the back catalogue sharpening of the Pro console, the PS5 Slim will happily play most PS4 games, too. It’s a double-edged sword, however, with both PS4 and PS5 versions of games clogging up PlayStation’s online store.
And the games! It indicates a great problem to have: so many strong titles, both internally and from third-party publishers. God of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2, and Astro Bot have all been platform exclusives, while long-running series like Final Fantasy have landed on PS5 first, with other platforms getting the game much later. Then, there’s the likes of Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3 and anything on PSVR2 – not that there’s all that much for the headset.
Sony is now drip-feeding its games to PC, but it detracted from the console’s exclusive grasp on its flagship games. So far, there have been lengthy multi-year gaps between a game launching on PlayStation consoles and its arrival on PCs. God of War took four years to move from PS4 to PC, while Horizon: Zero Dawn took three years. That could change in the next few years, however. Earlier this year, Sony launched Helldivers 2 on PS5 and Windows at the same time, and Lego Horizon Adventures was released on PS5, Windows and Switch simultaneously last month.
Wrap-up
Photo by Mat Smith/Engadget
The PS5 Slim is the new normal for PlayStation gamers. It’s smaller without being small and packs in many small improvements in specs and software-based features. Anyone craving more power (or bragging rights over their Xbox Series X-owning friends) can go for the PS5 Pro, but that demands a $200 premium. For most of us, this is the PlayStation we’ll be playing for however many years it takes for the PlayStation 6 to appear.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation-5-slim-review-131542271.html?src=rss
The Game Awards delivered. While the games I thought deserved to win did so (Astro Bot! Balatro! Metaphor!), we got some wildcard trailers, like an entirely new game from Last of Us studio Naughty Dog.Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet takes place thousands of years in the future, and it stars bounty hunter Jordan A. Mun, played by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actor Tati Gabrielle. Note: This is the first game from Naughty Dog since 2005 that isn’t Uncharted or Last of Us .
There was also, many years on, another Witcher game.Witcher 4will feature Ciri kicking magical ass, but there’s no gameplay footage yet. Elsewhere, Virtua Fighter is getting a revival (part of Sega’s push to mine and relaunch its biggest hits) and a new brawler game from the makers of the Like A Dragon series.
Capcom too taps its gaming past, reviving the wolf god Okami and its magical ink strokes nearly two decades after the original, with the original game’s director, Hideki Kamiya, still at the helm.
And we have a new co-op game from the studio behind It Takes Two. Split Fiction is a co-op adventure where players leap between sci-fi and fantasy worlds. There is also a new sci-fi game from the creator of The Last Guardian, an Elden Ring co-op spin-off and, well, read on for even more.
YouTube and Instagram are likely to benefit the most.
With a TikTok ban in the United States looking more and more likely, a new report from Pew Research on teen social media use underscores just how influential the app is among its youngest users. It’s one of the most-used social media services by teens, with 57 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds scrolling TikTok every single day, according to the report.
TikTok is running out of options to avoid the ban in the United States. The company lost its initial legal challenge to a law requiring parent company ByteDance to sell the app or face a total ban in the country. TikTok has asked the courts for a temporary delay to the law, which is currently scheduled to take effect January 19.
Adobe has a new experimental tool for removing window reflections from photos. Originally announced at Adobe Max 2023 as Project See Through, the Reflection Removal tool is now available to preview in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Bridge if you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber. The tool uses AI to isolate two separate images: the reflection and whatever is on the other side of the window or reflective material. Adobe says the Reflection Removal tool can’t handle “reflections from windows that are small or far away” or reflections of “wine glasses, car bodies or clouds reflected in a lake.”
After a particularly lean week for tech news, yesterday exploded. We’ve got Google’s next-generation AI model, Gemini 2.0, a barrage of games to intrigue us in 2025, MasterClass is going AI and, finally, Apple’s most headline-grabbing AI tricks and features broke cover, built into the latest iOS update.
That’s what I want to kick off with. A lot of features in iOS 18.2 are only for the iPhone 15 Pro, 16 and 16 Pro, which pack the necessary chip smarts to run Apple Intelligence. (Access is also limited to users in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK for now.)
Image Playground, available as a standalone app and through Messages, can generate image suggestions based on your text prompts or contents of your conversations. You can use a photo from your iPhone’s camera roll as a starting point. Note Image Playground can’t produce photorealistic images of people. That’s by design.
Then there’s Genmoji, to make your own custom emoji. Tap the new Genmoji button and enter a description of the character you want to make. You can even type the name of a contact, and contextually, it’ll ask if you want to use photos of that person (if you have them in your photos) to generate the emoji.
Both Siri and Writing Tools can now call on ChatGPT for assistance, although devices will always ask permission before doing so.
Anyway, back to creating an entire library of Genmoji, featuring... me.
Try the lightweight Flash version in the Gemini web app.
Almost exactly a week after OpenAI made its o1 model available to the public, Google is offering a preview of its next-gen Gemini 2.0 model. The company says 2.0 can offer native support for image and audio output. Rather than starting today’s preview by offering its most advanced version of the model, Gemini 2.0 Pro, the search giant is instead kicking things off with 2.0 Flash. As of today, the more efficient (and affordable) model is available to all Gemini users. If you want to try it yourself, you can enable Gemini 2.0 from the dropdown menu in the Gemini web client.
Alongside today’s announcement of Gemini 2.0, the company also announced Deep Research, a new tool that uses Gemini 1.5 Pro’s long-context capabilities to write reports on complicated subjects.
Microsoft has started a beta test to finally bring cloud streaming to Xbox consoles. Participants in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha tiers of the Xbox Insiders program can start using this feature now on their Xbox Series X|S and even Xbox One consoles. There are still some caveats on the feature. First, it’s limited to Game Pass Ultimate members. Second, the game needs to support cloud streaming. There’s a shortlist of titles in the program for now, but it includes Baldur’s Gate 3, Balatro, Cyberpunk 2077, Animal Well, Stray and the first six Final Fantasy games.
MasterClass is expanding beyond prerecorded video lessons to offer on-demand mentorship from some of its most popular celebrity instructors. And if you’re wondering how the company has gotten some of the busiest people on the planet to field your questions, surprise! It’s AI. On Call is limited to two personas at launch: former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss and University of Berkeley neuroscientist Dr. Matt Walker. In the future, MasterClass says it will offer many more personas, like Gordon Ramsay, Mark Cuban, Bill Nye and LeVar Burton.
Users in 48 US cities can now buy a new Hyundai car from a local dealership through Amazon. Just like buying a car from a dealership, inside Amazon Autos you can browse by make, model, trim, color and features. And! Finance options! Whee!
The interface also offers an instant valuation of your current vehicle’s trade-in value, then you just drop it off when you collect your new ride. Amazon even claims transparent pricing and says this will remove the need for haggling with a salesperson. (Surely, that’s part of the thrill?)
If you’re not up for a Hyundai, Amazon Autos will add more manufacturers, brands, cities and features in 2025.
YouTube Playables users can now play some of its games with other humans. It doesn’t extend to all YouTube Playables’ 100-plus games, however. Right now, multiplayer is available on two games, Ludo Club and Magic Tiles 3, on both desktop and mobile. Or, you could see what games Netflix has for free. Speaking of which…
As teased in the fall, the latest installment in the spatial puzzle series Monument Valley is available on Android and iOS, free if you’re a paying Netflix user. The levels, once again, have that M.C. Escher vibe, where paths and structures don’t follow the laws of physics. Monument Valley 3 will also be getting new content updates every season. In an interview, ustwo Games lead designer Emily Brown called them “Monument Valley snacks,” bite-sized additions to the standalone game.
In its own heady blog post, Google debuted Willow, its latest quantum chip. It was flanked by hyped headlines that suggest something akin to the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The breakthrough might not be about the power, however: Google says it has reduced errors — a major issue with building quantum computers — by adding more qubits to the system.
In fact, Google makes no claim of quantum supremacy this time — something the company did when it publicly debuted its previous generation quantum computer in 2019. That claim quickly ended in controversy, with one researcher calling the company’s announcement “just plain wrong.”
Part of the issue then was that Google’s last quantum chip was not part of a general-purpose quantum computer. Instead, it surpassed classic computers in a single task: random circuit sampling (RCS). But, in Google’s own words, RCS has “no known real-world applications.”
However, the company is sticking with the metric, claiming RCS performance is a widely recognized gauge of quantum computing. That makes true comparisons difficult: Rivals including IBM and Honeywell use a quantum volume metric to tout their breakthroughs. They claim it gives a more holistic understanding of a machine’s capabilities. Google’s spec sheets and blog post don’t mention quantum volume at all.
Bose may be best known for its noise-canceling headphones and earbuds, but the company has a solid track record with speakers and soundbars too. With its new Smart Soundbar, however, it integrates its own earbuds (sold separately) to offer lots of directional audio. Sound quality is clear, the soundbar itself is compact and understated, but it all lacks a little in the bass department. Check out our full review.
Rode just announced the latest iteration of its well-regarded Wireless GO microphone system. The third-gen kit has 32-bit float on-board recording and audio can be captured directly to the receiver. The system can store up to 40 hours of footage — substantially more than the seven hours of the GO II. It also packs a new feature called GainAssist that will “dynamically balance audio levels on the fly.” Rode says the system eliminates “the wild fluctuations typically found in a raw recording.” It's $300 and has a dedicated charging case, sold separately for $90.
The Raspberry Pi 500 shares most of the same internal components as the Raspberry Pi 5, but with a keyboard shell and improved heatsink — all for $90.
The Pi 500 has a 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU and 8GB of RAM. There are three USB A ports (two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port) but no USB-C slots besides the charger, which doesn’t support peripherals, sadly. The kit will sell for $120, and if you need a monitor, the company also launched its Raspberry Pi Monitor for $100.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-google-reveals-its-powerful-willow-quantum-chip-121002850.html?src=rss
A new image generator called Aurora briefly opened for testing for some Grok users, and the tool’s results shared on X appeared far more realistic than X’s previous image generators. It was a brief debut, though. By Sunday afternoon, Aurora was gone. For a short time, there was a Grok 2 + Aurora (beta) option in Grok’s model selection menu, which is now replaced by Grok 2 + Flux (beta). It looks like Aurora may have gone public before it was meant to.
Grok’s previous image generator was called out for lacking certain restrictions on the content it can produce, like offensive images of politicians and celebrities. TechCrunch was able to generate an image of “a bloodied [Donald] Trump” — the kind of thing AI image generators are restricted from creating. In that brief period, paying Grok users leaped at the chance to put Adam Sandler and Ray Romano in photos together, or Captain Picard in a Christmas hat. Sure. Why not?
It’s due to complaints over the discontinued Google Pay.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said it has ordered federal supervision of Google Payment Corp. after determining that it meets the legal requirements for such oversight. The CFPB monitors banks, credit unions and other financial institutions and recently finalized a rule to supervise digital payment apps. The CFPB said it has “reasonable cause to determine that Google has engaged in conduct that poses risks to consumers.” Google filed a lawsuit shortly after the announcement to challenge the decision. The risks identified by the CFPB are tied to Google’s handling of erroneous transactions and fraud prevention.
A new game mode called Ballistic is coming to Fortnite in early access on December 11, bringing a 5v5 tactical first-person shooter experience. One team will be tasked with planting an explosive device — which detonates 45 seconds after it’s placed — and the other team will try to stop that happening. There will be one map to start and a limited selection of weapons and items.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-x-adds-then-quickly-removes-groks-new-photorealistic-image-generator-121552710.html?src=rss
Google DeepMind has just revealed Genie 2, a world-modelling AI capable of creating 3D worlds and sustaining those environments for significantly longer. Genie 2 isn’t a game engine. It’s a diffusion model that generates images as the player (either a human being or another AI agent) moves through the world the software is simulating. All it needs to start is a single image prompt either generated by AI or from a real-world photo.
There are limitations: DeepMind says the model can generate “consistent” worlds for up to 60 seconds, with the majority of the examples the company shared on Wednesday running for significantly less time — most videos are between 10 to 20 seconds long. Image quality also softens and comes undone the longer Genie 2 needs to maintain the illusion of a consistent world.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is here. Sure, that’s not Harrison Ford, but Troy Baker’s impersonation is an excellent Indie, augmented by the writing, audio and direction, which makes it feel like classic Spielberg and Lucas fare. The game has a few rough edges, but it’s all unashamedly Indiana Jones.
Oura is rolling out its respiratory sickness detection feature to Ring Gen 3 and Ring 4 wearers. Users with an active subscription should get Symptom Radar by December 11. The feature looks at metrics, including resting heart rate, skin temperature, sleep data and breathing rate, to see if there are any differences from your baseline stats. If there are, Oura may inform you it has detected possible common cold- or flu-like symptoms. Just in time for the holidays!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-intels-ceo-just-suddenly-retired-120401039.html?src=rss
A $16 deck of cards based on the Balatro design is up for pre-order on Fangamer, and it’s expected to ship in March. The mockups show subtly pixelated cards that mimic the art style of the game. They have a red design on the rear — the red deck is the default set in the game.
But what of the jokers, the cards that make Balatro a lot more than a poker spin-off? You only get four: Joker, Juggler, Blueprint and Gros Michel. One of those is the popular banana card, at least. It’s a little frustrating they’re not available to buy now. For other people, I mean, for the holiday. Yes. For me? No.
Picking the right white elephant gift means toeing a fine line: The goal isn’t simply to buy something terrible and make someone take it home. Rather, it should be just useful or amusing enough that it won’t immediately get tossed into the trash. And yes, there’s some Secret Santa gold in this list.
Max is testing streamable channels in the US, with a selection of 24/7 feeds of HBO programming, including HBO and HBO 2 simulcasts. Other channels will showcase prestige drama, comedy and classic shows. Rival streamers have their own linear channels, including Disney+, Paramount+ and Peacock. And if you didn’t think that was dragging us back to the cable era, bundles are back. One gets you Max, Disney+ and Hulu for $30 per month, while Comcast offers a package of Netflix, Peacock and Apple TV+ for $15 per month.
The beleaguered fitness company’s new strength-training app is called Peloton Strength+. The iOS-only app will give current and future Peloton subscribers access to audio-guided gym-based strength workouts. It includes a tool for generating new workouts based on how much time you have, your experience level or available equipment. There will also be instructional how-to videos and “in-ear coaching” to keep you on track while you’re working out. Peloton Strength+ will be available for a limited time at $1 per month for the first six months. After that, a Strength+ subscription will cost $9.99 per month. Peloton All Access, Guide and App+ subscribers will get it bundled into their existing service.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-you-can-buy-a-deck-of-balatro-cards-121523094.html?src=rss
Apple has wrapped up all your listening stats in a bow with its annual recap of your entire year in music streaming. This time, you can view the full Replay experience in the Apple Music app via the home, new and search tab — yes, no need to go to a microsite for your vital listening statistics. You can save a playlist of your most-played songs in 2024, though that and your stats will be cemented in January — if you’re looking to kick out a particularly embarrassing song that’s wormed its way into your head, you could spam other tracks? You can even access your Replays from previous years (something Spotify doesn’t offer with Wrapped).
More widely, the most-listened-to song on Apple Music overall this year was Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” his most recent Drake-diss track. Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” meanwhile, was the most identified song on Shazam. Beautifully hard to identify.
Who cares if Intel doesn’t have a boss! The company’s second-generation Xe2 Arc GPUs are real, and once again, they could be compelling options for gamers looking for capable video cards under $250. Confirming leaks from the past week, Intel today unveiled the $249 Arc B580 and the slightly less capable $219 B570, both of which target 1,440p gaming. We liked Intel’s last cards, but that hasn’t stopped its overall GPU market share from falling to zero percent. The Arc B580 cards will be available on December 13 for $249, while Arc B570 models will arrive next month, on January 16, for $219.
As Intel searches for a new boss, Daniel Cooper explores the state of things at the chip manufacturer, the missteps made by the outgoing CEO — including a disastrous aside about Taiwan — and where Intel goes from here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-intels-ceo-just-suddenly-retired-121513539.html?src=rss
It’s been a quiet few news days as everyone seemingly parses deals from Black Friday through to Cyber Monday. But there’s always time for a shock announcement: Pat Gelsinger is retiring after over 40 years at the company and close to four years at the chip manufacturer’s helm. Effective December 1, Gelsinger left his post and his position on the board of directors. The board has created a search committee to “diligently and expeditiously” find a new CEO. Gelsinger oversaw Intel during a tumultuous time for the company. In late 2022, Intel laid off about 20 percent of its staff in some divisions. This year alone, the company announced it would lay off another 15,000 people — or 15 percent of its workforce — amid a $10 billion cost-reduction plan.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) became the first individual account with a million followers on Bluesky. The decentralized social network has seen multiple spikes in user numbers since Twitter’s transformation to X and the recent US election, with its user base tripling in just three months. AOC has been active on the platform long before its post-election surge, posting 437 times since joining the platform in April 2023.
Tesla is finally adding SiriusXM integration to its best-selling models. The long-requested feature is coming to the Model 3, Model Y and Cybertruck (the three most popular EVs in the US) as part of the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update. After receiving the update, owners will see SiriusXM in the media sources menu. You’ll need Tesla Premium Connectivity ($10 monthly or $100 annually) or an active Wi-Fi connection for access.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-intels-ceo-just-suddenly-retired-121545207.html?src=rss
FILE - A sign mark's the entrance to Intel's Hawthorne Farm Campus in Hillsboro, Ore., on July 14, 2010. Oregon's political leaders said Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, they want their state, where chipmaker Intel is its largest corporate employer, to carve a bigger share of the booming semiconductor industry. The announcement comes three weeks after Intel announced that it is investing $20 billion to build a new chip factory in Ohio. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, file)
Elon Musk’s attorneys filed for an injunction against OpenAI and Microsoft on Friday, accusing them of anticompetitive practices. He wants to stop OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company. Musk first sued OpenAI earlier this year for allegedly violating its founding mission of building AI “for the benefit of humanity,” but he withdrew the lawsuit a few months later. He filed another lawsuit against OpenAI in a California federal court in August.
The third time’s the charm and all: Musk’s new motion accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of telling investors not to fund OpenAI’s competitors, such as Musk’s xAI, of “benefitting from wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information or coordination” through its relationship with Microsoft.
Intel is gearing up for an announcement on December 3 about its Arc GPUs, and whoops, leaks are spoiling the party. Reports from VideoCardz claim the event will reveal two Battlemage desktop GPUs — the Arc B580 and Arc B570 — that’ll launch on December 12. The B580 will allegedly have 20 Xe2 cores, a 2.8GHz GPU clock and 12GB of VRAM. The B570, on the other hand, will reportedly feature 18 Xe2 cores, a 2.6GHz GPU clock and 10GB of memory. Elsewhere, leaker @momomo_us on X posted listings that suggest the limited edition version of the B580 will be around $250.
Parody and fan accounts will have to be clearly labeled.
Bluesky has updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive” after third-party analysis highlighted its verification problem. The Bluesky Safety account said the social media service is removing accounts impersonating other people and those squatting on handles. Bluesky doesn’t have a conventional verification system, so it’s easy for unscrupulous users to pretend to be someone else, either for attention or to scam others. Bluesky now explicitly prohibits identity churning, as well. Accounts that start as impersonators to gain new users, then switch to a different identity to circumvent the ban will still get booted off the app.
Let’s cut to the chase. The chaos of Black Friday sales is here, and for the last week, we’ve been detangling the best deals on some of the best tech. We’ve got guides for specific categories, like cameras, Apple gear, gaming and more, but we’ve also pulled together 50(ish) of the best discounts right here.
After so many years of BF sales, mileage varies, but here are some of my cherry-picked highlights:
A post-apocalyptic world of humans in primitive-style garb battling giant dinosaur-like robots: We’ve definitely seen this before. This isn’t another Horizon game from Guerrilla. Oh, no, no. This is an initial look at a game called Polaris Quest from a Tencent subsidiary. I mean, sure, we had Dinobots in the ’80s, but this looks bafflingly close to Aloy’s adventures. One image shows a trio of human characters using bows and spears to tackle a mammoth-style machine. Even the game’s logo font looks like Horizon.
Extra buttons and firmware tweaks add to the upgrade.
Engadget
CRKD’s Nitro Deck turned my OLED Switch into an OLED Switch Lite, in a way. It added chunkier grips to both sides of the screen, a more logical USB-C charging passthrough and substantial triggers. It felt like a proper controller. The Nitro Deck+ is largely the same premise: a handheld deck for your Switch slate, no detachable Joy-Cons (and thus no drift) programmable buttons and — I hate to write this — a better hand feel.
The Las Vegas Raiders going up against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Chiefs (10-1) host the Raiders (2-9) in a game the home team is unsurprisingly the favorite to win. But last holiday season, the two teams faced off at Christmas, and the Raiders dealt a win in a shocking upset — so anything could happen. The game kicks off at 3PM ET on Amazon Prime Video and locally on KSHB-TV 41 if you want to be retro about it / don’t want to pay Amazon. You can tune into pregame coverage from 1:30PM ET.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-the-best-black-friday-deals-of-2024-121544704.html?src=rss
