Apple’s recently announced iPhone 16e hit store shelves yesterday morning. It serves as a new entry point to the iPhone lineup, and replaces the family. While the iPhone 16e has a number of big upgrades over the iPhone SE 3 that it replaced, there are some smaller ones that might’ve slipped under the radar.
more…
%20Abstract%20Background%20022025%20SOURCE%20MadHappy.jpg)
In a TikTok video with over 3 million views, a woman in a fluffy, maximalist coat sits in the back seat of a luxury SUV, parked in the middle of a New York City street. Atop the 6-second video, a line of text reads, “our bodyguards got us matcha.” The camera zooms in on two […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Google Photos makes backing up photos and videos from your phone pretty seamless: set it to work in the background and all your precious memories are saved to the cloud without you having to do anything else. Â
The smoothness of this process does tend to mean you can find yourself with a rather gigantic collection, however â which then creates its own problems when it comes to finding specific items in your ever-growing library. But even if you have a photo library spanning decades, there are tools to help.
These are some of the search tricks you can try to find images and videos in Google Photos.
Google Photos can recognize people and pets in your photos, and it can even recognize individuals as they age over time.Â
If youâve never identified the person before or if the algorithm doesnât recognize them, you will have to help out with the identification.
In late 2022, initial payments for the Small Developer Assistance Fund started going out, with each eligible US developer receiving at least $1000 – up to 4x the projected minimum payout. A second round of payouts begun toward the end of 2023, and now the third and final round of payments started going out this week.
more…
Alphabet has announced a new development for Taara's technology that could lead to low-cost, high-speed internet connectivity, even in far-flung locations. Taara's general manager, Mahesh Krishnaswamy, has introduced the Taara chip, a silicon photonic chip that uses light to transmit high-speed data through the air. The Taara chip is abut the size of a fingernail, far smaller than the technology the Alphabet division has been using. Taara Lightbridge, which is what its first-generation technology is called, is the size of a traffic light and uses a system of mirrors and sensors to physically steer light to where it needs to go. The new chip uses software instead.
Taara is a project under X, Alphabet's moonshot factory. The high speed wireless optical link technology underpinning the project was originally developed for X's Project Loon internet broadcasting balloons. Alphabet pulled the plug on Loon in 2021 and focused on Taara instead, using its technology to beam broadband across the Congo River and the streets of Nairobi. Even years before Loon shut down, Alphabet's X was already toying with the idea of using light to beam internet and tested the technology in India.
Taara's technology works by using a "very narrow, invisible light beam to transmit data at speeds as high as 20 gigabits per second, up to distances of 20 kilometers (12.1 miles)." It's like traditional fiber, in the sense that it uses light to carry data, except that light doesn't travel through cables. Instead, Taara's hardware emits beams of light. The beams from two units must be aligned with each other to be able to form a secure link that can transmit data, which is why Lightbridge was fitted with the parts needed to be able to physically steer the light. Taara's new chip doesn't need those components: It contains hundreds of tiny light emitters controlled by software with automatic steering
Krishnaswamy said Taara's light-beaming units will only take days to install instead of the months or years it can take to lay fiber. During tests in the lab, the Taara team was able to transmit data at speeds of 10 Gbps over a distance of one kilometer (0.62 miles) using two of the new chips. They're now looking to improve the chip's capacity and range by creating an "iteration with thousands of [light] emitters." The team expects the chip to be available in 2026.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/alphabets-taara-chip-uses-light-beams-to-provide-high-speed-internet-140040922.html?src=rss©
© Alphabet
Amazon’s long-awaited update to its assistant is almost here. About 18 months after the company first previewed the “next-gen Alexa” built with generative AI, it unveiled Alexa+, and early access will be available starting in March. Alexa+ will exist alongside the older Alexa and will cost $20 a month, unless you have a Prime membership, which will make it free to use. The new assistant will come with all the modern upgrades that its contemporaries like the redesigned Siri or Gemini offer, like more conversational interaction, better contextual understanding and the ability to “summarize complex topics” and “make suggestions based on your interests.” But it does one thing differently, and it’s the way Amazon purports to integrate with third-party apps and the rest of the internet that could set it apart.
At the presentation, vice president of Alexa and Fire TV Daniel Rausch outlined three ways the new assistant can integrate with other services you use. Firstly, it already works with “tens of thousands” of integrations already available, with Uber, Sonos, Samsung and Xbox being a few of the many logos that were displayed when Rausch said this. Presumably, that means Amazon worked with these partners to get their apps to play nicely with Alexa+ through their APIs.
Secondly, for the large swath of the online world that doesn’t have apps or the resources to code an API just for Alexa+, the assistant should be able to scour the internet for their website and navigate it on your behalf. During the presentation, Rausch demonstrated how Alexa+ was able to go to the Thumbtack website to hire a professional to fix his oven. Instead of having to whip out a phone or laptop to click through menus himself, Rausch could just verbally tell Alexa+ what he needed and what times he was available, and the AI did the rest.
This example in particular struck me as very similar to Google’s restaurant-reservation system Duplex, which, since way back in 2018, could call businesses on your behalf to book a table. All you had to do was tell Google what date and times you were considering, how many people were in your party and it would make the call for you, even speaking in a human-sounding voice to the restaurant. The way Alexa+ would click around websites on your behalf seems like Duplex on steroids.
Finally, Alexa+ can work with the “AI agents” on other sites, so you can talk to just one assistant instead of dozens of chatbots. In the presentation, Rausch got Alexa+ to work with the AI music generator Suno to come up with a country-style song about bodega cats.
After the company’s presentation, I spoke with Rausch to get more clarity on how Alexa+ will work with the rest of the online world. For one, I wanted to know for sure if that third method would work with customer service chatbots from companies like Capital One, United Airlines and more. While Rausch said that he had no details to share on specific names or services, he did confirm that “the SDK is all about integrations like that,” saying it’s for people to use Alexa to connect with agents on their behalf to complete tasks.
Rausch is aware that any friction at all in the adoption and setup process can turn people away. To that end, upgrading to Alexa+ should not require any additional sign-ins or authentication. You should be able to have all your connected appliances, security cameras and home routines carry over without any effort.
“The reason that customers love Alexa is it takes away all the complexity,” Rausch said. People don’t need to remember the brand of the WeMo plug they bought, for example, to be able to tell Alexa to turn off a lamp. “We would never take that away,” he said. When you’re adding new services after upgrading to Alexa+, Rausch said you’ll either do so “in the ways that you do it today” or that it’ll get even easier, since “Alexa can walk you through those setups in many more cases.”
According to Rausch, instead of having to “dig around in the Alexa app, you just say ‘Alexa, I want to set up a streaming account with Hulu' or something.” You’ll be presented with a QR code on an Echo device with a screen to facilitate that, and the assistant should guide users along the way.
“We like to say Alexa is an expert, and now an expert on herself.”
Amazon isn't the only company that has made its assistant perform tech support for users. This approach is very similar to how Siri can teach you how to, say, shoot a video in Cinematic mode or create a Genmoji. Where better to get help about a product you’re using than the product itself? Why make me go to a different place for information?
“From a customer experience perspective, customers just want the thing done,” Rausch said. “They don’t have to be responsible or care about any of these things, right?” He believes people just want the plumber or a reservation booked, and don’t want to fuss around with websites and phone calls.
People do want their digital assistant to be helpful and easy to use, but isn’t it equally important that these AI services are accurate and reliable?
When I asked Rausch how Amazon worked around the tendency of generative AI to hallucinate and sometimes spread misinformation, he said “I actually think in the industry, there’s been a mistake of thinking a model is a product.” He also said “LLMs are at the foundation of the architecture, but they’re not the only thing answering the question.”
In other words, Alexa+ is using a combination of Amazon’s knowledge graphs, reliable sources on the internet and partnerships with authoritative outlets. “Other products will simply give you an answer out of the LLM. If you're asking for an authoritative answer, that's not actually sometimes the way to get one. and I think that's what you're highlighting,” he said.
Rausch added that Amazon has “taken great care” with Alexa. “Will it make mistakes? Every piece of software makes mistakes,” he said. “But we’re working hard to ground it in knowledge.”
I’ve yet to try out Alexa+ for myself, and everything we’ve seen so far has been in highly controlled demos, so it’s hard to tell what real world performance will be like. But if the new Alexa is truly able to work with third-party services in a way that’s seamless and effective, it would not only bring Amazon back into the consumer AI race, but could possibly give it an advantage over the likes of Google, Apple and OpenAI. Considering Amazon really brought the idea of a virtual assistant into homes around the world, this could also have an impact that goes beyond the tech-savvy users of today’s AI services.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazons-generative-ai-vision-for-alexa-is-appealing-but-unproven-140014416.html?src=rss©
© Sam Rutherford for Engadget
Time is ticking to get AI industry insights — and major savings. There are just two days left to save up to $325 and secure your spot at TechCrunch Sessions: AI. But act fast, this special offer ends on March 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TC Sessions: AI is an event like no other that […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Since its founding in 2021, OpenAI Startup Fund has invested in over a dozen startups, including many of the hottest startups in AI.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Of all of my favorite games, Sayonara Wild Hearts might be the hardest to describe. Itâs a rhythm game, but also you ride on a motorcycle and a dragon, wield giant swords while dodging fireballs, and teleport to a retrofuturistic VR world. Itâs structured like a pop album, telling a story of love and loss, and is narrated by Queen Latifah. Itâs Tony Hawkâs Pro Skater meets R-Type crossed with Rhythm Heaven as directed by Carly Rae Jepsen. It makes sense once you play it, trust me.
This was all true when the game first launched in 2019 on the Switch and PS4 (it was also on Apple Arcade, but has since been removed). But now is a good time to check it out if you havenât. The game just launched on the PS5 â itâs a free upgrade if you have it on PS4 â which adds some performance improvements and a new endless mode called remix arcade that you can read more about here. Really, though, the new platform is just an excellent excuse to dive back into this world.
Sayonara Wild Hearts follows the story of a young heartbroken woman who is transported to an alternate realm where she must restore harmony by collecting lots of hearts. To do this, you play through a series of 23 …
Welcome back to the Abstract!
How’s your mental state these days? Feeling burnt out? Well, have I got a story for you about a guy whose mind was so blown by the events of his time that we can see his actual neurons 2,000 years later. I’m not trying to trivialize anyone’s legitimate feelings of stress; just giving us all the opportunity to look on the bright side: We haven’t been cooked alive—yet!
Next, Mars. Want to live there? Some people apparently do. Here’s a guide to the best coastal real estate of the past, courtesy of a rover that recently died there. Snap up your timeshare before Elon Musk buys it and names it X-Mars-the-Spot or some crap. Then, scientists raise alarms about all the weird endangered animals that get short shrift compared to fan favorites, like tigers, and whales, and Moo Deng. Last, an ode to the mama bear. Enjoy!
This is Your Brain on Mount Vesuvius
Nearly 2,000 years ago, a young man aged about 20 was chilling out in the Collegium Augustalium, a hall built to worship Emperor Augustus, in the Roman town of Herculaneum. Nobody knows what was running through his mind that morning, but we know what was there by the afternoon: A heat-shocked brain preserved in organic glass.
This unlucky fellow was one of the thousands of people killed when Mount Vesuvius blew its ever-lovin’ top in the year 79, burying the neighboring towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum in searing ash, lava, and pumice.
Remains of the man in the Collegium Augustalium. Image: Pier Paolo Petrone
The man in the Collegium Augustalium, who probably served as the building’s guardian, was lying down in bed when he was hit by a fast-moving volcanic belch, known as a pyroclastic flow, which raised his body temperature well above 510°C (950°F).
That is, medically speaking, too hot. But while it is an absolutely horrifying way to die, the guardian has the posthumous honor of having a preserved glass brain “formed by a unique process of vitrification” which “is the only such occurrence on Earth,” according to researchers led by Guido Giordano of Università Roma Tre.
“Our comprehensive chemical and physical characterization of the material sampled from the skull of a human body buried at Herculaneum by the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius shows compelling evidence that these are human brain remains, composed of organic glass formed at high temperatures, a process of preservation never previously documented for human or animal tissue, neither brain nor any other kind,” said the team.
“The glass that formed as a result of such a unique process attained a perfect state of preservation of the brain and its microstructures” including “exceptionally well-preserved complex networks of neurons, axons, and other neural structures,” the researchers added.
Neural structures preserved in glass. Image: Giordano, Guido et al
We talk about having brain-freeze or being brain-fried, but the guardian definitely has us all beat with: brain–vitrified-into-glass-via-volcano. While it’s probably not how this guy hoped to go down in history, it’s insane that we can look at an ancient person’s actual brain, down to the neural structures, after 2,000 years. These same networks once carried thoughts like “what should I have for lunch?” and “Emperor Augustus was so based” and now they are laid out in front of us, immortalized in a glass tableau.
“We reconstruct a scenario where a fast, very hot ash cloud was the first deadly event during the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption, enveloping victims, including the guardian who was subject to the specific conditions for heating the brain at temperatures well above 510 °C without the (total) destruction of the cerebral tissue,” the team said. “The brain then turned into glass during the fast cooling at glass transition temperature close to 510°C. Later, in agreement with witness accounts and deposit stratigraphy, Herculaneum was progressively buried by thick pyroclastic flow deposits, but at lower temperatures, so that the unique presence of a vitrified brain could have been preserved until today.”
Don’t mess with Mount Vesuvius! Unless you want people to look at your neurons in 2,000 years, in which case: go with the pyroclastic flow.
Oceanfront Property on Mars (Ocean Not Included)
Martian lakes? Sure. Rivers? Ok. But a big ole Martian ocean? Show me the receipts.
That’s the upshot of a decades-long debate about whether a vast Martian sea extended across the northern lowlands of the red planet billions of years ago. Now, China’s Zhurong rover has produced the aforementioned receipts—and they are premium property deeds.
“Various observations suggest that large amounts of liquid water once existed on the Martian surface, however, the nature and fate of this water are uncertain,” said researchers co-led by Jianhui Li and Hai Liu of Guangzhou University.
“Through radar data gathered by the Zhurong Rover, we identify extensive dipping deposits in the subsurface of southern Utopia Planitia,” the team said. “These deposits have structures similar to those of Earth’s coastal sediments. This finding implies the past existence of a large water body, supporting the hypothesis of a past ocean in the northern plains of Mars.”
The Zhurong rover landed in 2021 in a region called Utopia Planitia, at the edge of this proposed shoreline. Though it died the next year, it is still producing revelations from beyond the grave as scientists work through its observations.
This study provides the first clear onsite evidence that ocean waves lapped against these lowlands, creating scenic beaches. All you have to do to cash in on this location is go back in time about four billion years and adapt your body to an alien planet, which is only slightly more challenging than getting into the housing market here on Earth in the present day.
Will Somebody Please Think of the Amphibians?!
Humans are causing a sixth mass extinction event. Yup, it’s a bummer. To make matters worse, even our efforts to help curb the losses get all tangled up with our biases toward the so-called “charismatic megafauna” that most inspire our wonder, affection, and asymmetric sympathy.
Enchanting animals like rhinos, tigers, and pandas have become the icons of conservation movements—but these anthropic preferences come at a great cost, reports a new study that analyzed roughly 14,600 conservation projects over a period of 25 years.
“More attention is urgently needed to assess the extinction risks of neglected taxa, especially smaller species,” said researchers led by Benoit Guénard of the University of Hong Kong. “Paradoxically, while approximately 6% of species identified as threatened were supported by conservation funds, 29% of the funding was allocated to species of ‘least concern.’”
“For example, small-bodied taxa, such as amphibians, have been known to be the most threatened of vertebrate groups for two decades, accounting for ~25% of the threatened vertebrate species” and “yet, amphibians received only 2.5% of recent funding, which declined from 4% in the late 1990s,” the team said. “Similarly, weak conservation efforts are observed within many groups of mammals (e.g., Rodentia, Chiroptera), reptiles (e.g., Squamata, Serpentes, or nonmarine Testudines), or insects (e.g., Odonata, Orthoptera) despite the well-known threats to these taxa.”
Honestly, preach. This problem has been a hobby-horse of mine for years—and if a hobby-horse were a real endangered species, it would probably get disproportionate conservation funding.
To that end, the authors made a series of recommendations for “a more holistic distribution of conservation funding” and “more balanced coverage of threatened species within conservation programs.”
“Successful citizen-science programs, even for taxa not typically seen as charismatic, have already spurred an increase in local and applied actions, as many individuals may feel geographically disconnected from some of the large megafauna that receive the ‘lion’s share’ of funding,” the team noted.
“With heightened awareness of the essential functions and services of many species that are often seen as less charismatic, it is crucial to address these biases and optimize the allocation of funds to ensure the protection of these species.”
Stoneflies and salamanders need love too! Who cares if they don’t inspire Disney movies or Moo-Deng-level devotion? Are we really so superficial that we predicate survival on cuteness?
I mean, yes, evidently—I will literally do this in the following section. I contain hypocritical multitudes. But you can still ogle adorable animals while recognizing the urgent need for more objective conservation approaches.
And now, on to a story about endangered charismatic megafauna….
A Moment of Zen from an Arctic Den
Last, polar bear cubs. Yeah. We deserve it. We talked about the uncharismatic minor-fauna. Now show us those fluffy little bear cubs.
Scientists have done just that by filming a bunch of cuddly future killers emerging from their dens for the first time. For six years, a team logged footage from cameras installed at roughly a dozen sites in Svalbard, Norway, to get a better sense of the factors involved in this crucial rite of passage for bears, which is rarely observed as the dens tend to be in remote and inaccessible parts of the Arctic.
The results revealed…very cute cubs. I just want to pick them up and hug them and accept the fatal mauling that comes my way—worth it for the snug. But in addition to lil baby bear pics, the study also produced valuable scientific insights, which was not necessary, but is nonetheless appreciated.
“We found that the probability a bear had broken out of the den could be accurately predicted from changes in collar temperature, activity, and ordinal date,” said researchers led by Louise Archer of the University of Toronto. “Post-den emergence behavior was influenced by external environmental temperature, time of day, and the amount of time since den breakout; bears were more likely to emerge and stay outside longer given warmer temperatures and increasing time since den breakout.”
“Our study highlights the importance of the post-emergence period for cub acclimatization and development and provides new monitoring tools to study polar bear denning behavior, which is increasingly vulnerable to disruption in a rapidly changing Arctic,” the team said.
The study is also a reminder of the general badassery of mama bears. These animals mate in the spring, delay implantation for several months (wish humans had this trick), dig out a den in late summer, give birth to tiny 600-gram cubs around the winter solstice, nurse them for several months, before emerging with them in the spring, by which point they have fasted up to eight months and lost nearly half their body weight. And then they have to raise the dang kids solo! All while humans make their lives immeasurably harder with the effects of climate change.
These moms deserve a medal. Made of meat. Give the moms 5,000-pound meat medals.
And with that, may you emerge from your dens as spring starts to thaw the Northern Hemisphere. Just watch out for volcanoes!
Thanks for reading! See you next week.
The beefy Windows gaming tablet is back, and itâs done two things I thought impossible. It made me respect integrated graphics, and it convinced me a Windows tablet can be fun.
The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is a 13-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard, a bright screen, and the guts of a gaming laptop. I knew it was something special when I used a clamp-on controller to turn a preproduction model into some kind of superpowered, supersized Steam Deck. In daily use, it’s more like a husky Surface Pro, with an AMD Strix Halo processor featuring powerful integrated graphics for gaming and a battery that lasts a full workday in non-gaming tasks. It’s a charming and versatile device that could plausibly replace a desktop, laptop, and a tablet or handheld for a certain type of PC gamer â one who doesnât mind the $2,100 starting price.
The ROG Flow Z13 is a tablet thatâs also trying to be a hardcore gaming machine. It has a 13.4-inch, 180Hz IPS touchscreen with pen support, 32GB of unified memory (up to 128GB), a 1TB m.2 SSD, and ample port selection, starting at $2,099.99. The Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 APU in our $2,299.99 review unit offers surprisingly good gaming performance, especial …
As Engadget celebrates its 21st birthday this weekend, we're rounding up all of the recently published reviews from the last few weeks. It's already a busy time for the reviews team, even though spring is still officially a few weeks away. The latest entries include a new iPhone, the latest from NVIDIA and those Beats workout earbuds the company teased months ago. Pour a couple bevvies for the weekend and make one a double, because we're old enough to drink now.
Apple's new "budget" phone has arrived, providing the most affordable gateway to Apple Intelligence. While the iPhone 16e offers solid performance, expected long battery life and a great display, there are some caveats that you might not be able to live with. "In my week or so with the iPhone 16e, I felt the drawbacks of the camera the most — I can live without MagSafe and the Dynamic Island," Cherlynn writes. "But what the iPhone 16e does offer is fast performance, a clean design, long battery life and, most crucially, cheaper access to Apple’s ecosystem."
If you're in the market for a new 4K gaming GPU, the RTX 5070 Ti is a a nice upgrade over the regular 5070. However, finding one, and doing so for a decent price, is another thing entirely. "I knew it would be a tad faster than the 4070 Ti Super, but with the addition of multi-frame generation, it's also a far more capable 4K card," Devindra says. "And it's definitely more future-proof than the 5070, since it has 16GB of VRAM like the 5080."
With A1 II, Sony had to live up to its own high standards. And while the camera may be the company's best mirrorless option yet, it's not a huge leap over the A1. "The innovation that Sony is known for is lacking here, and on top of that, the A1 II is very expensive," Steve explains. "The A1 II is only a mild upgrade over the A1 and when it comes to video, it’s lagging behind the Nikon Z8 and Z9 as well as the Sony R5 II."
Steve also took the DJI Flip for a spin. He gives the creator-friendly drone high marks for 4K video quality, battery life and a people-safe design. The drone's obstacle detection isn't the best though, and it struggles in windy conditions.
While Lenovo has already teased a new version of the Legion Go gaming handheld for later this year, the company introduced the more streamlined Legion Go S in the meantime. There are some things to like here, including a more portable design, an 8-inch 120Hz display and handy controls. For now, the price is the main problem.
"The issue is that Lenovo hasn’t fully rolled out all of its variations," Sam writes. "So even if you aren’t holding out for the SteamOS variant, you’d be silly not to wait for less expensive versions to come out with starting prices closer to $600 (or even $500 for the one with Valve’s platform)."
After an initial tease months ago, Beats finally debuted its updated Powerbeats Pro workout earbuds. The hook design remains, but there are significant upgrades both inside and out, including Apple's first dance with heart-rate tracking in an audio product. "On the whole, the Powerbeats Pro 2 are a substantial upgrade over the original," I explain. "They’re more comfortable and have a host of new features that help it match today’s earbuds."
I also reviewed the Noble Audio FoKus Rex5 earbuds in the last month. This set offers the best sound quality I've experienced on wireless earbuds, thanks in part to the company's use of five drivers in each one. However, the Rex5 is expensive at $449 and it's far from a complete package in terms of features and noise-canceling performance.
Managing editor Cherylnn Low spent more time living with the Kindle Scribe 2 and updated the review with some long-term observations about the tablet. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 was wrapped around the wrist of buying advice senior report Amy Skorheim as she put yet another incremental update from the company through its paces.
My review of the Technics AZ100 earbuds that one a Best of CES award from Engadget is coming soon. As I suspected during my brief hands-on in Las Vegas, the improved sound is the star of the show here, but I won't spoil the rest of the review with more observations. MWC 2025 is happening next week, so whatever is announced during the show will certainly be on the upcoming review agenda. For now, you can check out our preview here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-iphone-16e-nvidia-rtx-5070-ti-sony-a1-ii-and-more-130054263.html?src=rss©
© Devindra Hardawar for Engadget
