Satellite video calls will be coming to Europe from later this year, following a successful demo of the tech by Vodafone in partnership with AST SpaceMobile. Rollout in the US through AT&T will follow some time later.
As with existing satellite text and voice calls, the service will operate in remote areas where no cellular coverage is available …
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We’ve got several parents on our staff, and as members of The Verge, they are also into gadgets. Put the two together, and you’ve got some really interesting stuff that can be used to keep your infant, toddler, or child safe, happy, educated, and / or out of trouble.
Here are some of the devices that the folks here use to help be better — and happier — parents.
The Yogasleep Hushh is a small, portable white noise machine. That’s it, and that’s why it’s great.
It’s not a smart device and doesn’t require any sort of subscription. It has physical buttons. It has three different white noise options. It can run on battery for up to 24 hours, and you can charge it with a USB-C cable. It even comes with a ring to attach it to things.
My wife and I turn on the Hushh every time we put our baby down to sleep. If you’re looking for a simple white noise machine that just works, this is the one to buy. – Jay Peters, news editor
I think Vava has one of the only no-gimmicks baby monitors right now that has the few things I wanted: a big screen, good battery life, zero internet features, and USB-C charging. When my wife and I had our first child just over a year ago, it felt like our short wishlist was impossible to find in the market, regardless of price. It has never failed to connect even at the furthest point of our home and has taken many tumbles without breaking. We tried the Panasonic KX-HN4101W that had a built-in sound machine and charged with Micro USB, but it would not turn on after a few months of use. It did have a very sensitive motion detection feature that was only useful enough to feed into my anxieties as a new parent. – Umar Shakir, news writer
Much like Umar’s pick above, the Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro my wife and I opted for is a no-fuss 720p video monitor requiring no internet connection. One of its advantages is you can buy a cheap wide-angle lens for it that easily gives you a full view of a crib or bassinet. That lens was clutch at family get-togethers, where we had to set up the little one to nap in a spare bedroom with cramped spacing. My only gripes are the use of barrel plugs instead of USB-C and that you can only crop into the center of the frame when you have those moments of illogical worry and want to make sure the baby is breathing.
I think the separation these non-connected monitors offer, compared to cloud-connected ones, can be a healthy one. It may not be for everyone, but if one parent is home with the baby while the other is out grocery shopping or actually socializing, it not only prevents judgy snooping but also helps them be present where they are outside the house. – Antonio G. Di Benedetto, reviewer
CRKD’s Atom is not a baby toy at all, but this wireless mini controller is certainly baby-sized. I don’t want to force my interests onto my kid, but even before her first birthday, the little one has already taken to picking up some of our various game controllers around the house and fidgeting with the buttons and sticks. We’ve since designated a couple of older gamepads for baby plaything duty, prompting me to try putting the tiny Atom in her hands. Along with some Xbox and PlayStation controllers, the Atom is now in rotation for her to carry around and press its satisfyingly clicky D-pad and buttons.
I imagine this little gamepad could be an accessible on-ramp to baby’s first video games, and I even put it to the test one day. I fired up Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on the TV (via a docked Steam Deck), customized the controls to just use the D-pad, and watched her gently move around and shoot onscreen. She didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on, but she enjoyed the bright colors and identified that she was controlling it before enemies blew her up in seconds. (I need an invincibility mode for her.) Then my self-awareness and “Oh shit, is this bad parenting?” senses kicked in, and I turned off the game. Maybe I’ll just stick to her mimicking dad and mom playing on her unpaired controller for now. – Antonio G. Di Benedetto, reviewer
When you have a kid, you’re not just gaining another human. You’re also gaining all of the hardware needed to care, feed, and even transport them. The GB Pockit Air won’t fit all of your stroller needs since it’s only designed for kids ages six months and up, but for those times when you’re trying to travel light, you’ll appreciate its clever engineering. It weighs just 10.1 pounds and folds down small enough to fit in a backpack or shoulder bag, and it’s airplane hand luggage-compliant. Despite its lightweight design, the Pockit Air still features eight wheels for stability, padded shoulder straps, and a mesh pocket on the bottom for carrying other kid necessities. – Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, news
The Snoo is a smart bassinet that plays white noise and rocks your baby, ramping up the intensity if your baby keeps crying. I have heard from friends that it does not work for every baby, but when it works, it really works — and you have truly magical moments when it successfully puts your baby to sleep. You can control the intensity manually and get nice sleep logs in their proprietary app — though Snoo’s parent company, Happiest Baby, has come under fire for introducing a new subscription fee of $19.99 / month for the main app functionality after nine months. While infuriating, I was so desperate for sleep, I would still have bought a Snoo. Also look out for return policies; some parents prefer to buy their Snoos from Amazon to avoid Happiest Baby’s steep $199 restocking fee. – Helen Havlak, publisher
These have been my son’s favorites — music, in particular, is a big hit with him. Any musical toy may eventually drive you insane, but these cycle through enough tunes that I am still dancing along to them with my son. The Fisher-Price Flap & Wobble Penguin is a musical penguin toy that cycles through surprisingly boppy remixes. It flaps its wings with high-contrast black-and-white spots that will mesmerize your baby. Meanwhile, the Take Along Tunes Musical Toy is a great cheap little teether and music-maker that has amused my baby for hours. And at less than $10, it is a good deal. – Helen Havlak, publisher
If you plan to pump or to formula feed, it’s nice to have an easy way to warm bottles. Our baby will drink room-temperature bottles, but he definitely prefers nicely warmed milk (who wouldn’t?). This warmer sits on our counter, looks reasonably nice, and works well. – Helen Havlak, publisher
Before my kid’s hands were large enough to hold a Nintendo Switch controller, this kid-sized handheld satisfied their gaming curiosity. What’s unique about the LeapFrog RockIt Twist is that it can be held four different ways, with each side of the handheld featuring unique control mechanisms like dials, a slider, spinners, various buttons, and a more traditional D-pad. It comes with 12 preloaded games that utilize the unique controls while also covertly teaching skills like math, problem-solving, and literacy so you’ll feel slightly less guilty about all the screen time. – Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, news
When screen time is over, there’s no building toy, not even Lego, that holds my kid’s attention better than GraviTrax. It lets you build complicated marble runs using myriad components including ramps, risers, bridges, switches, and launchers — and that’s just the starter set. There are several expansions that add motorized components that can keep marbles rolling indefinitely if assembled correctly, and it’s one of those toys that adults will enjoy just as much as kids do. For younger kids, there’s also now a GraviTrax Junior line with simpler components and larger marbles. – Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, news
Over the holidays, we gave several tech-y gifts to our four-year-old daughter, including walkie-talkies, a camera, and a piano (really for me). But the gift she loves the most is the MUID Benson Lying Flat Duck Night Light, which is exactly as it’s titled: a lamp in the shape of a duck lying flat. But this lamp is squishy, entertaining to look at, and has an option to stay on for only 30 minutes. This is perfect for us, and for her, because it gives her some autonomy at bedtime when we turn off the other lights, letting her have 30 minutes to draw or play in her bed before going to sleep. – William Joel, senior creative director
My toddler is obsessed with music and is always bopping along to whatever is playing. My husband bought her a Yoto Player, which is like a speaker cube with dials that kids can adjust on their own to change volume and scroll through songs, and it’s become our most-used kid gadget. There’s a low-fi screen on the front that depicts simple images to coincide with the song (or story) that’s playing. You can control it through an app, which, honestly, I never downloaded, or through analog cards that kids can pop into the Yoto slot themselves. Cards come in several different languages for a range of ages and applications, like bedtime songs or classic folktales, and it chills her out on car rides and when she’s getting ready for bed. – Kristen Radtke, creative director
Resale platform Poshmark is launching Smart List AI, an automated product listing tool for sellers, the company announced today.
The tool has been in beta testing since last fall and uses sellers’ photos to generate details like the type of product, the size and brand, the style and color, and other details, as well as a title and description for the listing. Like other platforms that have introduced AI listing tools, the promise is that Smart List AI will streamline the process for sellers and cut down on the amount of time it takes to list items. Sellers will still input the price of their item, Manish Chandra, founder and CEO of Poshmark, told The Verge via email.
Other platforms like eBay have also introduced AI-generated listings that fill in details like product titles and descriptions. And like eBay’s feature, Poshmark’s tool will depend on sellers actually confirming that the information is correct — in the secondhand market, accurate details for things like the brand, size, and condition of an item are essential.
In my experience on eBay, at least, AI-generated descriptions are not very helpful; they mostly read like marketing fluff. What’s actually helpful is a detailed list of any flaws, wear and tear, or precise measurements — things that an AI listing tool wouldn’t be able to generate.
Retailers, including Shopify and Amazon, have pushed generative AI shopping products on both the merchant and consumer ends. And whether its AI-generated product listings or entire garments “created” using AI, the aim is often the same: to increase the scale of production, but not necessarily improve the quality.
Smart List AI will be available to Poshmark users on iOS in February.
Mark Zuckerberg is planning some big changes for Facebook in a bid to make using the platform feel like it did “back in the day.” During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Zuck said that Facebook is an important part of its more than three billion monthly users’ lives and that he’s working on making it “way more culturally influential than it is today.”
He didn’t divulge any specific changes, only that he’s “excited this year to get back to some OG Facebook,” and that the overhaul will be a significant focus for the company over the next 12 months. Zuckerberg also suggested that Meta may have to sacrifice its short-term business results in order to focus on product changes needed to improve Facebook.
“I think that’s sort of a fun and interesting goal that will take our product development in some interesting directions that we maybe haven’t focused as much on in the last several years,” Zuckerberg said during the earnings call Q&A. “I think it’s an investment area and something I’m going to spend some time on.”
Recapturing the OG Facebook vibe could mean several things. Many people like myself will think back to the era before it was overtaken by our boomer and Gen X relatives — online spaces are less fun with your family spectating. But let’s not forget that the original Facebook, known as Facemash, was a site Zuckerberg created to nonconsensually rank his female classmates at Harvard by attractiveness. I sure hope this isn’t the “masculine energy” he thinks we need more of, given he reportedly blamed former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg for making inclusivity changes at the company.
Zuckerberg’s comments about old-school Facebook don’t necessarily mean he actually wants to strip modern features out of it. He celebrated that the time users spent watching videos on Facebook was up by “double-digit rates year-over-year” earlier in the earnings call, and said he expects Reels on Instagram and Facebook to keep growing “regardless” of what happens with TikTok.
Tesla released its financial results for 2024 on Wednesday afternoon, following the close of the markets. The maker of electric vehicles may have to invest in stocks of red ink, because 2024 results were even less impressive than the already-underwhelming 2023 numbers.
During the final quarter of last year, Tesla saw its automotive revenues fall by 8 percent compared to the same three months of 2023, dropping to $19.8 billion. It more than doubled its energy and storage revenues, which grew by 113 percent compared to Q4 2023, but this amounts to just $3 billion and a small fraction of Tesla's overall business. Similarly, services posted a 31 percent growth during those three months, but again the actual contribution in dollar terms was just $2.8 billion.
Total revenue grew by 2 percent in Q4, but income fell by 23 percent, and its operating margin has dropped to just 6.2 percent—the lowest since Q1 2024. By contrast, the industry average operating margin for an automaker is around 10 percent. Net profits fell an astounding 71 percent to $2.3 billion.
© Kai Eckhardt/picture alliance via Getty Images
Microsoft is closely associated with OpenAI's ChatGPT AI model, but the software giant has no qualms about playing the field. Microsoft announced that it's bringing the DeepSeek-R1 AI model to Copilot+ PCs soon, starting with Snapdragon X devices and following later with Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Ryzen AI 9 PCs. The DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B model will arrive "soon" on Microsoft AI Tookit for developers, with more powerful 7B and 14B variants coming later.
The 1.5B (base) model isn't powerful compared to the higher-tier 32B and 70B models, but MIcrosoft points out that the models are "NPU-optimized" for Copilot+ PCs. The minimum configuration for such computers is 256GB of storage, 16GB of RAM and an NPU with at least 40 TOPS (trillions of operations per second).
"These optimized models let developers build and deploy AI-powered applications that run efficiently on-device, taking full advantage of the powerful NPUs in Copilot+ PCs," Microsoft wrote. It added that it implemented systems to take advantage of low-bit processing to ensure the R1 models could run locally on NPU hardware.
At the same time, Microsoft is bringing DeepSeek's R1 model to its Azure AI Foundry platform, The Verge reported. It joins other AI models on that service, including GPT-4, Mistral AI, Meta-Llama 3 and others. That comes as a bit of a surprise, given that Microsoft is reportedly probing whether DeepSeek used OpenAI's technology in an unauthorized manner.
AI pundits have also expressed concerns about privacy issues around China-based DeepSeek, something that Microsoft addressed in a Marketplace Community post. "DeepSeek R1 has undergone rigorous red teaming and safety evaluations, including automated assessments of model behavior and extensive security reviews to mitigate potential risks," wrote Microsoft senior product marketing manager, Justin Royal.
DeepSeek shook up the AI world with its R1 model, which doesn't require nearly as much computing power as competing models. That spooked markets yesterday, causing a selloff in chip giant NVIDIA and other AI-adjacent stocks. OpenAI, which has been sued by multiple newspapers and publishers around the world for copyright infringement, recently accused DeepSeek and other Chinese AI startups of "distilling" its models.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/deepseek-is-coming-to-windows-copilot-pcs-130041096.html?src=rss©
© Steve Dent for Engadget
The internal DeepSeek database was exposed to the internet without a password.
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Jared Zhao originally got interested in data analytics during his time at UC Berkeley because he was drawn to how it could turn raw data into a story. Zhao founded his first data analytics startup Polyture in 2021. But advancements in generative AI just a year later made Zhao realize what Polyture was building was […]
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New York Blood Center said it does not have a "specific timetable for system restoration" following the attack, which has led to canceled appointments and delays
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SuperOps has raised $25 million in an all-equity Series C round led by March Capital to bolster AI integration into tools supporting managed service providers and IT teams.
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DeepSeek privacy concerns have led to investigations being opened in both the US and Europe, and seen the app removed from the App Store in Italy. It seems likely the same will happen in other countries.
Italian’s privacy regulator questioned whether the app complied with GDPR, a tough privacy law that applies across 30 different countries …
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LG is adding Google Cast support to its range of hotel TVs, making it easier to stream content from your phone or other devices. Cast joins existing support for Apple Airplay, and LG is the first manufacturer to offer both options on its hotel TVs.
If you stay in a hotel room with a compatible LG TV, you should be able to scan a QR code with your phone and then start streaming video or music directly to the screen from a user interface you’re already comfortable with. That way you won’t have to enter any personal information or login details into the TV itself. LG says it uses network isolation to maintain privacy between hotel rooms, and that your connection will be maintained for the duration of your stay but severed upon checkout.
Some hotels, including Hyatt, already offer Cast through customized hospitality Chromecast hardware. LG has instead included casting directly into the TV, with no additional hardware required.
“Many hotel guests nowadays wish to stream their favorite content from a personal device to their in-room TV,” said Paik Ki-mun, head of LG’s information display business. “With LG Hotel TVs integrating Google Cast, they can enjoy a secure and convenient content-streaming experience, just like they’re used to at home.”
LG says Cast should work on any of its TVs running webOS23 or later. From its consumer line-up, that covers all of the company’s models from 2023 onwards, and a selection of 2022 models via updates — so you’ll still have to hope that your next hotel gave its TVs a recent upgrade.
