iOS 18.4 has been available in beta for less than two weeks, and following beta 2’s arrival earlier this week we’re still discovering updates and changes. The latest: there are two new App Store additions that should make downloading apps and updates just a little bit nicer of an experience than before.
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Prime Video is now experimenting with AI-assisted dubbing for select licensed movies and TV shows, as announced by the Amazon-owned streaming service on Wednesday. According to Prime Video, this new test will feature AI-assisted dubbing services in English and Latin American Spanish, combining AI with human localization professionals to “ensure quality control,” the company explained. […]
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The ruling said that a lower court can charge two NSO Group co-founders and a former executive of two affiliate companies for the alleged hacking of a lawyer.
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Car prices are already at record highs, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs — if they stay in place — could send them into the stratosphere. The situation remains extremely fluid, with Trump administration officials today announcing a one-month reprieve for the auto industry, according to Politico.
But if tariffs stay in place, sticker prices could skyrocket by as much as $12,000, according to one analysis. Dealerships could be stuck with a bunch of trucks and SUVs that no one can afford. Some models could vanish from showrooms altogether. Many of these changes won’t take effect right away, as dealerships work through their vehicle stock. But the net impact could still be devastating.
After an initial delay, Trump earlier this week imposed 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico as well as an additional 10 percent tariff on goods from China. Around 5.3 million vehicles are built in Canada and Mexico, 70 percent of which are destined for the United States.
Automakers have warned about catastrophic effects on the industry if Trump’s tariffs remain in place. Ford CEO Jim Farley put the matter plainly at an investor conference last month: “Let’s be real honest,” Farley said, “Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canadian border will blow a hole in the US industry that we have never seen.”
“Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canadian border will blow a hole in the US industry that we have never seen.”
That could include a historic decrease in vehicle production in the US, Canada, and Mexico — possibly as much as a third of the vehicle output in all three countries. Current production for North America is about 63,900 vehicles a day: 41,700 in the US; 17,600 in Mexico; and 4,600 in Canada. Production on some models, like the popular Toyota RAV4, which is made in Canada, could halt altogether, S&P Global Mobility said during a webinar this week. It’s unlikely that Toyota will find space at its US assembly plants to replace that production.
Vehicle prices are already hitting historic highs, with average transactions for new vehicles clocking in at $48,118 in January, according to Edmunds.
The threat of tariffs didn’t really move the needle last month, but it still has the potential to impact the cost of new vehicles now that they’re in effect. With these tariffs — plus the 25 percent tariff proposed on the EU and a cumulative 20 percent increase on Chinese-made vehicles — the average list price of new vehicles in the US could increase by over 7 percent, from $49,800 to $52,500, according to CarGurus.
Top-selling models, including the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Equinox, Toyota RAV4, Chevrolet Silverado 1500, and Honda HR-V, could all see major price increases. But the effects won’t be felt for at least several months thanks to healthy inventory levels, up 12 percent year over year.
The average list price of new vehicles in the US could increase by over 7 percent, from $49,800 to $52,500
Other analysts sifted through component costs for specific US-made vehicle models to see how tariffs could even impact domestically assembled vehicles. Anderson Economic Group concluded that the tariffs could boost manufacturing costs by $4,000 to more than $10,000 per car, depending on the vehicle model. Battery-electric crossover SUVs could see the biggest spike of $12,000, according to the group’s deep dive.
Automakers have had months to prepare for the tariffs, but given the complex nature of supply chains, it’s unclear that any of them will be able to avoid passing cost increases along to consumers. The investment bank Jefferies predicted prices would go up by about 6 percent on average, or $2,700, while two analyses cited by Kelley Blue Book agreed on a $3,000 average price bump.
Auto dealers, many of them Trump supporters, are left to reckon with the repercussions of the president’s trade war. In a recent interview with Fox, a Philadelphia-based Ram dealer called the tariffs “traumatic.” He recounted the experience of a customer who ordered a $80,000 truck, only to abandon the purchase after the price went up by $20,000.
“It’s going to sit on my lot, and you know the higher interest rates we’re paying right now for floorplan, and nobody’s gonna buy the truck because it just had a $20,000 price increase,” Ram dealer David Kelleher told the outlet.
Kia EV9 owners can soon take advantage of the SUV’s Vehicle-to-Home power backup capabilities with the availability of a bi-directional charger coming in June. The new Wallbox Quasar 2 electric vehicle charger is the first home EV power connector in the US that works with the EV9 and is now up for preorder for owners and lessees of the vehicle.
The Quasar 2 can feed power to the EV9’s battery to charge it or draw from it to keep your home’s lights on during a blackout. You’ll need both the charger and a special Power Recovery Unit to interface with your home power panel to make the home generator features work. EV9 owners get first dibs on the Quasar 2 but will need to register with Wallbox to preorder both items and, according to Kia, they will be available “on a first-come, first-served, while supplies last basis.”
Not all homes can support the system; owners will need at least 200-amp service in their home and may also need permission from a utility company or municipality to use all the features. The Quasar 2 also supports solar panels and includes software to manage energy flow from the sun to your car battery, home, and the grid. Ideally, you could charge your vehicle off of solar energy or the grid during off-peak hours, and sell back excess power to the utility company.
With the March 2025 Feature Drop, Google is rolling out Pixel Camera 9.8. Like with all releases, the rollout takes some time before arriving for all users.
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When we look back on the iPhone 16e years from now, the thing we’ll all remember is that it was the first iPhone to use Apple’s own modem.
Even though the two companies have a testy relationship, Apple has historically relied on Qualcomm for modems. The C1 chip in the iPhone 16e is Apple’s first step toward breaking up with Qualcomm.
Qualcomm, however, says it’s not worried about the competition posed by Apple’s foray into modems…
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Apple’s M4 MacBook Air comes with several nice upgrades, but it isn’t packed with tons of new features. Yet despite the limited revisions on paper, the new MacBook Air stands out from Apple’s lineup as a rare product I can heartily recommend to just about anyone. Here’s why.
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In an effort to make movies and TV shows more accessible on Prime Video, Amazon announced that it's testing an AI dubbing system that will translate select content on the company's streaming service into other languages.
Amazon says that "AI-aided dubbing" will be available in English and Latin American Spanish on 12 licensed movies and series available through Prime Video, including "El Cid: La Leyenda, Mi Mamá Lora and Long Lost." That the company describes it as "AI-aided dubbing" rather than just AI dubbing appears to be key here. Amazon says it's taking a hybrid approach where "localization professionals collaborate with AI." A safe guess would be that Amazon's AI system takes a first pass at generating dubs and then professionals edit them for accuracy and fit.
Creating captions, subtitles and dubs is a fairly big business, especially now that streaming has increased the number of films and series that are made every year and licensed to be viewed around the world. It makes sense that streamlining the process of making content more accessible would be of interest to Amazon. The possible problem is, at least for film and television, dubbing is done by professional actors. AI-generated voices have gotten more lifelike over the years, but it remains to be seen whether the average person will be okay with a large portion of their media diet being delivered by something human-adjacent rather than the real deal.
Of course, maybe we'll be trained to accept it because it will be all over social media first. Amazon isn't alone in leveraging AI to squeeze more out of the videos on its platform. YouTube released a tool in 2024 that lets creators automatically dub their videos in other languages when they upload them, and more recently, Meta announced plans to automatically dub and lip-sync Reels on Instagram into other languages.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/prime-video-is-beginning-an-ai-dubbing-pilot-program-for-select-movies-and-series-190252188.html?src=rss©
© Amazon
The first time you make anything, it probably won’t come out perfect, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when MSI’s debut gaming handheld struggled out of the gate. And that’s before you consider the unorthodox choice to go with an Intel chip instead of one from AMD like practically all of its rivals. However, MSI didn’t give up, and now it’s back with not one but two versions of its second-gen handheld, headlined by the Claw 8 AI+. Not only is it bigger than before, it has twice as many Thunderbolt 4 ports, a way bigger battery and some of the best performance we’ve seen from any device in this category. But more importantly, as the follow-up to a device plagued by lackluster software and unfinished drivers, it feels like the Claw got its bite back.
With its 8-inch screen, the Claw 8 AI+ is bigger than its predecessor and a number of its rivals like the ROG Ally X, though it's still smaller than Lenovo’s chunky 8.8-inch Legion Go. MSI also zagged by giving it a two-toned black and sandstone chassis. Ergonomics are generally fine, but if I’m nitpicking, I would prefer slightly larger grips for increased comfort. But aside from that, the handheld features a relatively straightforward mix of premium components strewn across a familiar blueprint.
It has Hall Effect sensors for its joysticks and triggers along with some embedded RGB lighting, the latter of which has become sort of an unspoken requirement among portable gaming PCs these days. You also get two Thunderbolt 4 ports that support both data and charging — which are especially handy if you ever plan on using this thing for productivity — and a microSD card slot for expandable storage. I appreciate that unlike Lenovo’s handhelds, MSI included a built-in fingerprint reader that makes unlocking Windows-based devices like the Claw a lot more convenient. That said, you don’t get a touchpad, though MSI’s software does let you control your cursor with the joysticks, so it’s not a complete pain in the butt anytime you have to switch between games and apps. And finally, around back, there’s a single pair of paddles.
As for the display, while it's an IPS panel instead of the super-rich OLEDs on some handhelds, the Claw’s screen offers above-average brightness (up to 500 nits), a solid 120Hz refresh rate (with VRR) and the perfect resolution for a system this size (1,920 x 1,200). So all told, there’s very little to gripe about when it comes to its visuals. Plus, thanks to some surprisingly punchy front-facing speakers, it has solid audio too.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that after lackluster results from MSI’s first attempt, the Claw 8 AI+ pumped out strong performance that was easily able to keep up with and sometimes surpass what I’ve seen from its competitors. Some of that is assuredly due to more polished software and recent driver updates from Intel, but still, between its Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chip, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage, the Claw produced framerates that were often 10 to 15 percent higher than what we got from the Ally X.
For example, when set to its 30-watt preset, in Cyberpunk 2077 at 800p on medium settings the Claw hit 75 fps versus 65 fps for the ROG Ally X at the same TDP (thermal design power). Meanwhile, in Returnal at 800p on medium, the Claw also bested the Legion Go by reaching 56 fps compared to just 46 fps for the Lenovo. Now it’s important to note that MSI’s midrange power for the preset on the Claw (which is what I used to get those figures in Returnal) is 17 watts instead of 15 watts like on most of its rivals, which may be MSI’s attempt to skew benchmarks in its favor. But even after you account for that, the Claw still comes out ahead.
Another nice thing about the Claw is that if you don’t want to fiddle around with settings all the time, there’s what MSI is calling its AI Engine mode, which will automatically adjust things to optimize performance or battery life depending on what you want. It’s a nice option for quickly changing how much horsepower you need, though as always, you’re going to need to tweak things manually for the best results.
The rest of the MSI Center app feels somewhat spartan. There are sections for launching games, performing software updates, changing the RGB lighting and more. You can even install game stores like Steam directly inside the program. But aside from that, the app isn’t very fancy or all that pretty to look at. All the important stuff is there though, which is what really counts since Windows 11 as a whole still feels way clunkier to use than more bespoke platforms like Valve’s SteamOS.
The Claw 8 AI+ features an 80Whr cell, which is one of the largest battery packs in this category and allows for prodigious longevity. In Elden Ring on medium settings, the handheld lasted just over three hours on a single charge. That ain’t too shabby, especially after my recent testing with the Lenovo Legion Go, which only lasted for two and a half hours at best, and that was when playing a much less demanding game in Metal Slug Tactics.
After the original bombed, a lot of companies would have simply called it quits. Sure, a lot of the first system’s issues may have been caused by Intel’s chip and unpolished drivers more than anything MSI did (or didn’t do). But with the Claw 8 AI+, MSI came back and totally redeemed itself. Not only is it a very competent gaming handheld, this cat offers a solid design, great performance and above-average battery life.
However, even though it pushes out slightly fewer frames, the $800 ROG Ally X remains a better value (especially if you can find it on sale) and its smaller screen makes it a more portable pick for people planning to game on the go. When it comes to larger competitors, Lenovo’s Legion Go offers similar horsepower for even less money with starting prices of $700 (or less, now that it regularly receives discounts). But if you’re looking for top-notch performance from a portable PC with an assortment of premium components, the Claw 8 AI+ makes an interesting case as an upgrade pick among gaming handhelds.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/msi-claw-8-ai-review-this-cat-got-its-bite-back-184526430.html?src=rss©
© Sam Rutherford for Engadget
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