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Moon mining startup Interlune wants to start digging for helium-3 by 2030

Sat, 2024-03-16 11:22

A budding startup called Interlune is trying to become the first private company to mine the moon’s natural resources and sell them back on Earth. Interlune will initially focus on helium-3 — a helium isotope created by the sun through the process of fusion — which is abundant on the moon. In an interview with Ars Technica, Rob Meyerson, one of Interlune’s founders and former Blue Origin president, said the company hopes to fly its harvester with one of the upcoming commercial moon missions backed by NASA. The plan is to have a pilot plant on the moon by 2028 and begin operations by 2030, Meyerson said.

Interlune announced this week that it’s raised $18 million in funding, including $15 million in its most recent round led by Seven Seven Six, the venture firm started by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The resource it’s targeting, helium-3, could be used on Earth for applications like quantum computing, medical imaging and, perhaps some day down the line, as fuel for fusion reactors. ​​Helium-3 is carried to the moon by solar winds and is thought to remain on the surface trapped in the soil, whereas when it reaches Earth, it’s blocked by the magnetosphere.

Interlune aims to excavate huge amounts of the lunar soil (or regolith), process it and extract the helium-3 gas, which it would then ship back to Earth. Alongside its proprietary lunar harvester, Interlune is planning a robotic lander mission to assess the concentration of helium-3 at the selected location on the surface. 

A graphic showing how helium-3 is produced by the sun, travels to the moon and is deflected by Earth's magnetosphereInterlune

“For the first time in history,” Meyerson said in a statement, “harvesting natural resources from the Moon is technologically and economically feasible.” The founding team includes Meyerson and former Blue Origin Chief Architect Gary Lai, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt, former Rocket Lab exec Indra Hornsby and James Antifaev, who worked for Alphabet’s high-altitude balloon project, Loon. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/moon-mining-startup-interlune-wants-to-start-digging-for-helium-3-by-2030-152216803.html?src=rss

Tesla settles long-running racial discrimination court battle with former worker

Sat, 2024-03-16 09:30

Owen Diaz's lengthy court battle against Tesla is officially over, now that both parties have agreed on a settlement. Attorney Lawrence Organ, Diaz's lawyer, told CNBC that that the "parties have reached an amicable resolution of their disputes," but that the "terms of the settlement are confidential." If you've been following this case for a while now, that means you won't get to find out how much Diaz is getting after the massive $137 million in damages he was originally awarded got dramatically lowered to $3.2 million. 

The former elevator operator famously sued the automaker for enabling a racist workplace, saying that he faced discrimination "straight from the Jim Crow era" as a Black individual. He said his fellow workers left left drawings of swastika and racist graffiti, such as ones of Inki the Caveman, on his workspace and around Tesla's Fremont assembly plant. Diaz also said that he and other Black workers were subjected to racial slurs, and that the company failed to address thes behaviors despite repeated complaints. 

In 2021, a San Francisco court ordered Tesla to pay $137 million in damages to its former worker, which was one of the highest amounts awarded to a plaintiff suing on the basis of discrimination. However, a judge during the appeals that followed found the amount excessive and lowered it to $15 million, even though he upheld the original jury's verdict. The parties went back into trial after Diaz refused the lowered amount, but a jury lowered the damages Tesla must pay even further to $3.2 million. At the time, Diaz's lawyer said he was wrongly attacked by the defense and that they had already requested a new trial due to misconduct. It looks like both parties have since agreed to negotiate behind closed doors. 

While Diaz's case is done, Organ also represents Marcus Vaughn, who filed another lawsuit against the automaker for racial harassment. Vaughn called Tesla's Fremont plant a "hotbed for racist behavior" and petitioned the court last year to give his lawsuit class action status so that he could add 240 Black colleagues to his complaint. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-settles-long-running-racial-discrimination-court-battle-with-former-worker-133036456.html?src=rss

The PS5 Pro is reportedly coming this holiday season

Sat, 2024-03-16 04:44

Confession time: I already have a copy of Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the PS5 even though I still don't have a PlayStation 5 console. I never get consoles the moment they come out and usually wait a few years for their next version. In the PlayStation 5's case, I thought it was going to be the PS5 Slim, but it looks like I could have another option by the end of the year: The PlayStation 5 Pro. Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming says the PS5 Pro details leaked by the Moore’s Law is Dead YouTube channel came from documentation Sony itself recently sent to third-party developers. 

Take the website's confirmation with a grain of salt, of course, but Henderson has a pretty good track record when it comes to leaks. In 2022, he reported that Sony was working a "genuine professional controller" for the PS5, two months before the DualSense Edge was officially announced. He also revealed that the company was set to release a version of the console with a detachable disc drive a full year before Sony introduced the smaller and lighter PS5 model. 

Based on leaked information on the PS5 Pro so far, it will offer improved and consistent frame rate (FPS) at 4K, as well as a "performance mode" for 8K resolution. It's also expected to be able to render games up to 45 percent quicker and to have ray tracing capabilities that are two to three times faster than its non-pro counterpart. Plus, the documentation Moore’s Law is Dead featured in its video shows that it will have a GPU with 67 Teraflops FP16 (33.5 Teraflops FP32) performance, which indicates faster speeds and better graphics overall.

Henderson says Sony is targeting a holiday release for the PS5 Pro, most likely to take advantage of heightened sales for the season. However, that could still change, depending on whether the company feels there haven't been enough first-party title releases this year. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ps5-pro-is-reportedly-coming-this-holiday-season-084404542.html?src=rss

The FTC is probing Reddit’s AI licensing deals

Fri, 2024-03-15 17:29

The Federal Trade Commission is looking into Reddit’s AI licensing deals, the company disclosed in paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which is in the midst of its Initial Public Offering, said that the regulator notified Reddit officials that it “intended to request information and documents” about the company’s AI deals.

It’s not clear why the FTC is probing Reddit’s relatively new licensing business, but it seems to be in the early stages of its inquiry. “On March 14, 2024, we received a letter from the FTC advising us that the FTC’s staff is conducting a non-public inquiry focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models,” Reddit wrote in a filing. “Given the novel nature of these technologies and commercial arrangements, we are not surprised that the FTC has expressed interest in this area. We do not believe that we have engaged in any unfair or deceptive trade practice.”

Reddit’s deals to license its catalog of user-generated content are a key part of the company’s strategy to grow its revenue as it gets ready to go public. On the day the company filed for IPO, the company announced it had reached a deal with Google, which will use Reddit data to train its AI models. That arrangement was reportedly worth around $60 million. The company said it was in the early stages of “exploring” these types of deals.

According to Axios, other companies have received similar letters from the FTC. The regulator has previously shown an interest in the current wave of generative AI upstarts and their relationships with large tech companies, The FTC is currently investigating Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon over their investments into prominent AI startups.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ftc-is-probing-reddits-ai-licensing-deals-212902998.html?src=rss

Microsoft is once again asking Chrome users to try Bing through unblockable pop-ups

Fri, 2024-03-15 14:43

Microsoft has been pushing Bing pop-up ads in Chrome on Windows 10 and 11. Windows Latest and The Verge reported on Friday that the ad encourages Chrome users (in bold lettering) to use Bing instead of Google search. “Chat with GPT-4 for free on Chrome! Get hundreds of daily chat turns with Bing Al”, the ad reads. If you click “Yes,” the pop-up will install the “Bing Search” Chrome extension while making Microsoft’s search engine the default.

If you click “Yes” on the ad to switch to Bing, a Chrome pop-up will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to change the browser’s default search engine. “Did you mean to change your search provider?” the pop-up asks. “The ‘Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome’ extension changed search to use bing.com,’” Chrome’s warning states.

Directly beneath that alert, seemingly in anticipation of Chrome’s pop-up, another Windows notification warns, “Wait — don’t change it back! If you do, you’ll turn off Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and lose access to Bing Al with GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Select Keep it to stay with Microsoft Bing.”

Essentially, users are caught in a war of pop-ups between one company trying to pressure you into using its AI assistant / search engine and another trying to keep you on its default (which you probably wanted if you installed Chrome in the first place). Big Tech’s battles for AI and search supremacy are turning into obnoxious virtual shouting matches in front of users’ eyeballs as they try to browse the web.

There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to prevent the ad from appearing.

Microsoft reportedly confirmed the pop-up’s authenticity in statements to Windows Latest and The Verge, cringingly painting the move as an opportunity for users. “This is a one-time notification giving people the choice to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome,” a company representative wrote. “For those who choose to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome, when signed in with their MSA [Microsoft account] they also get more chat turns in Copilot and chat history.”

In a reminder of how friendly its intrusive ads supposedly are to user freedom, it added, “We value providing our customers with choice, so there is an option to dismiss the notification.” Engadget emailed Microsoft for independent verification, but the company didn’t immediately respond. We’ll update this article if or when we hear back.

Windows Latest described the advertisement as coming from a “server-side update” and said the ad wasn’t part of a Windows update. Instead, the outlet speculated that it’s linked to BCILauncher.EXE or BingChatInstaller.EXE, two processes Microsoft reportedly added to “some Windows systems” on March 13.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-is-once-again-asking-chrome-users-to-try-bing-through-unblockable-pop-ups-184348202.html?src=rss

Uber and Lyft are quitting Minneapolis over a driver pay increase

Fri, 2024-03-15 14:00

Uber and Lyft plan to end operations in Minneapolis after the city council voted to increase driver pay. The council passed an ordinance on the issue last week. On Thursday, it voted to overrule a mayoral veto of the measure.

The new rules stipulate that ridesharing companies need to pay drivers at least $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute (or $5 a ride, whichever is higher) whenever they're ferrying a passenger. Tips are on top of the minimum pay. According to the Associated Press, the council passed the ordinance to bring driver pay closer to the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour.

However, Uber and Lyft say they'll end services in the city before the pay rise takes effect on May 1. Lyft says the increase is "deeply flawed," citing a Minnesota study indicating that drivers could meet the minimum wage and still cover health insurance, paid leave and retirement savings at lower rates of $1.21 per mile and 49 cents per minute. “We support a minimum earning standard for drivers, but it should be done in an honest way that keeps the service affordable for riders," spokesperson CJ Macklin told The Verge.

An Uber spokesperson told the publication that the company was disappointed by the council's choice to "ignore the data and kick Uber out of the Twin Cities,” putting around 10,000 drivers out of work. They noted Uber's confidence that by working with drivers, drivers and legislators, “we can achieve comprehensive statewide legislation that guarantees drivers a fair minimum wage, protects their independence and keeps rideshare affordable.”

However, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz last year vetoed a bill to boost wages for Uber and Lyft drivers, citing concern over the state becoming one of the most expensive places in the country for ridesharing. Other jurisdictions have mandated minimum driver pay for ridesharing services, including New York City, where the rate starts at about $18 per hour.

If Uber and Lyft follow through on their threat to quit Minneapolis, that could make it harder for people (particularly folks with disabilities and those who can't afford a car of their own) to get around. The rise of ridesharing has upended the taxi industry over the last decade or so. As such, a Minneapolis official says there are now just 39 licensed cab drivers in the city, a significant drop from 1,948 licensed drivers in January 2014.

Meanwhile, some upstart ridesharing companies are looking to move in and take over from Lyft and Uber. Empower and Wridz, for instance, have shown interest in starting operations in Minneapolis. Both companies ask drivers to pay a monthly subscription fee to use their platforms and find riders. In return, drivers keep the entire fare.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-and-lyft-are-quitting-minneapolis-over-a-driver-pay-increase-180041427.html?src=rss

Walmart is selling the M1 MacBook Air for only $700

Fri, 2024-03-15 13:15

The M1 MacBook Air has dropped to its lowest price ever, thanks to a sale at Walmart. You can pick one up for just $700, which is $50 cheaper than the previous low and a whopping $300 discount from the original asking price. If you’re looking for an entry-level Apple laptop, this is a mighty fine option.

Now, the M1 Air is over three years old and a full two generations behind the newly-released M3-equipped laptops. Despite getting a bit long in the tooth, the M1 chip is still no slouch, so this MacBook Air is plenty capable. It’s a solid machine that excels with basic everyday computing tasks, like streaming content and surfing the web. It’ll even do fine with light video editing and music production. We called it “faster than most PCs” in our official review back in 2020.

That doesn’t exactly track anymore (the march of progress and all) but the M1 Air features a gorgeous Retina display and no fan noise to speak of, in addition to an excellent keyboard and trackpad. The battery life is great, going for over 16 hours before having to hit the outlet. That’s only an hour or two shorter than the new M3 MacBook Air computers.

Apple Silicon chips are pretty dang impressive, but the M1 will struggle when you go beyond everyday computing tasks and into the worlds of serious video editing and AAA gaming. Also, the M1 laptop still has that wedge-shaped design, whereas the newer models feature a uniformly flat design. Some people actually prefer the wedge, but I’m not one of them.

This is the bare-bones standard M1 Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The 720p webcam isn't going to win any visual clarity awards, but it’ll get the job done. This isn’t the most future-proof computer around, as Apple recently discontinued it, but it’s also $700. The M3 MacBook Air starts at $1,100 and the M2 starts at $1,000. 

Best Buy has the M1 Air on sale for even cheaper, at $650. This is one heck of a deal but it looks to be tied to specific locations. The retailer's also offering open box models.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/walmart-is-selling-the-m1-macbook-air-for-only-700-171500495.html?src=rss

Netflix will stream the Mark Twain Prize honoring Kevin Hart on May 11

Fri, 2024-03-15 12:23

Netflix is the new streaming home of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor as part of a multiyear deal. This year's prize is going to Kevin Hart, who is being honored for his "extraordinary contributions to the genre and his impressive achievements across comedy, film and television." The likes of Dave Chappelle, Jimmy Fallon, Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall, Chelsea Handler, Nelly, Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld are set to pay tribute to Hart (and perhaps roast him a bit) at the ceremony. For what it's worth, Hart inked a multiyear movie deal with Netflix in 2021.

The Mark Twain Prize is in its 25th year and it's perhaps one of the most prestigious comedy awards in the US. It's awarded to those who have had "an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, best known as Mark Twain," a press release notes. Previous recipients include Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Carol Burnett, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, David Letterman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Stewart and Adam Sandler.

The ceremony takes place on March 24 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington DC. You'll be able to watch it when it hits Netflix on May 11. That's during the Netflix is a Joke festival, a series of stand-up shows taking place in Los Angeles that will also stream on the platform. Netflix has a rich history of comedy specials and shows at this point, so it seems like a natural fit for the Mark Twain Prize, which was previously broadcast on Comedy Central, PBS and CNN.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-will-stream-the-mark-twain-prize-honoring-kevin-hart-on-may-11-162300362.html?src=rss

The best early Amazon Big Spring Sale deals you can shop today

Fri, 2024-03-15 12:15

There's another jumbo-sized Amazon sale on the way. The Big Spring Sale, as it's called, will run from March 20 to March 25 and include a variety of discounts on "seasonally relevant items." This doesn't look to be another Prime Day situation, however; Amazon says most of the offers will be available to everyone, with only some exclusives for Prime members. We don't expect this Spring sale to be as heavy on tech-specific deals, either: Amazon's press release says it'll include Echo and Kindle discounts and "up to 40 percent off select electronics" but mostly highlights things like outdoor furniture, beauty products, clothing and sports equipment.

If past Amazon sales are any indication, most of these discounts will be bad. But if you're hoping to grab a good gadget at a discount, we'll be sorting through the noise and picking out the handful of tech deals that are actually worth your time. Amazon has put up a landing page for the Big Spring Sale already, so below we've rounded up the best early deals we could find. As of this writing, the standouts include price drops on Sonos speakers, Apple's AirPods Pro, Sony and Bose headphones and Roomba robot vacuums. To be clear, not everything is explicitly tied to Amazon's Spring sale — we're still seeing good PS5 and Nintendo Switch deals from a few days ago, for instance — and we've included a few noteworthy sales from stores besides Amazon. If you're looking for a bargain, though, here are the best tech deals you can grab today. We'll update this roundup over the coming days as more discounts pop up.  

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and find the best spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-early-amazon-big-spring-sale-deals-you-can-shop-today-161534608.html?src=rss

Sennheiser Accentum Plus review: Upgrades that aren’t worth the extra cost

Fri, 2024-03-15 12:00

Less than four months after debuting its mid-range Accentum headphones, Sennheiser revealed another version at CES that remains more affordable than its flagship Momentum set. Dubbed the Accentum Plus, this more-expensive model swaps the physical buttons for touch controls while offering revised active noise cancellation (ANC), wear-detection and other conveniences the first version didn’t. All of the additions come at a price, though, as the Plus ($230) costs $50 more than the regular Accentum. For a set of headphones that mostly looks the same, are internal updates enough to justify a bigger investment?

Design

It’s difficult to tell the Accentum Plus and Accentum apart at first glance. That lack of physical controls on the older model is what primarily distinguishes the two. The Plus version still has one button which manages power, pairing and voice assistants, but all of the audio and call controls are touch-based and located on the outside of the right ear cup. They work well, from taps for playback to swipes for volume, but depending on your preferences, ditching the physical controls for touch may be a turn off. The other difference is that the Plus has a 3.5mm aux jack along with a USB-C connection whereas the first Accentum only has the latter.

A nearly identical design means Sennheiser didn’t address my key criticism of the first Accentum. The headphones remain almost entirely made out of plastic, which gives them a cheap look and feel. Plus, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the build quality for a set of $230 headphones. The company introduced its new design style on the Momentum 4 in 2022, which it continued with the overall look on the Accentum line. But, the latest Momentums are a bit more polished than these two more recent models.

Software and features

For the most part, the Sennheiser Smart Control App offers the same features for the Accentum Plus as it does for the Accentum. Almost everything you’d need is on the main screen, with battery percentage at the top. Below that sit connection management for multipoint Bluetooth and My Sound audio customization. There, you can adjust a five-band EQ, select a prebuilt sound preset or make your own. The company also offers Sound Personalization that calibrates the audio based on your responses to a few samples in the app.

Sennheiser’s Sound Zones are here as well, giving you the ability to configure specific audio settings based on your location. You can create up to 20 of these for places like home, work, gym and more. Of course, you have to give the app permission to track your location, which could be a nonstarter for some users.

The last item on the main interface of the app is ANC control. Here, you can disable the automatic “adaptive” adjustment to the Accentum Plus’ noise cancellation and leave “regular” noise cancellation on. There’s a slider to blend of ANC and transparency as you see fit. You can cycle between ANC and transparency mode with a double tap on the right ear cup, but that action doesn’t allow you to activate any preferred blends. Instead, it only turns on full ANC or complete transparency.

Sound quality Sennheiser Accentum Plus headphones from the side, laid flat on two books.Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Sennheiser’s flagship earbuds and headphones have consistently offered the best sound quality among all of the products I’ve tested. The company has a knack for a well-tuned audio profile that's dynamic, but not overbearing, and that offers plenty of fine detail thanks to excellent clarity across the EQ. That trademark crispness returns on the Accentum Plus, but it’s at its best at around 65-75 percent volume. Knock that level down to around 50 percent and sound quality begins to suffer.

There’s a pleasant airy, atmospheric quality to tracks on Fever Ray’s Radical Romantics on the Accentum Plus, enveloping you the way the sound on more expensive headphones would. However, when you decrease the volume to about 50 percent, bass begins to overpower some of the details and the audio profile begins to muddy. The clarity that makes Sennheiser’s headphones so good is gone at this point, which is a bummer for those of us who don't always desire louder listening.

While there’s ample bass that’s offset by crisp highs throughout most genres, more chaotic styles like metal can be a mixed bag. Boomy bass is still there on Texas In July’s Without Reason and Better Lovers’ God Made Me An Animal, but finer details in guitars and drum textures start to get lost. The overall performance is a bit flat with all of the instruments coming across compressed compared to other sets. Switch over to something more mellow like Charles Wesley Godwin’s Live From Echo Mountain and it’s like you put on different headphones. It feels much more like you’re in the room where this was recorded.

ANC performance

Sennheiser says the Accentum Plus has hybrid adaptive ANC where the Accentum just has hybrid ANC. This means that the Plus model adjusts to changes in environmental noise while the regular model has just one level of blocking ability. During my tests, I struggled to tell a big difference between the two, even when switching quickly from one set to the other. The overall ANC performance is solid in most circumstances, but it’s far from what you’d get on the best that Bose, Sony and even Sennheiser have to offer. And since the Plus version is more expensive, I expected an obvious improvement.

Call quality Sennheiser Accentum Plus headphones power button, USB-C port and 3.5-mm jack.Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Like most over-ear headphones, the Accentum Plus is just fine for calls. The audio quality isn’t pristine, but it’s certainly passable for most uses. That includes work calls, although I’d suggest something with a better mic if you’re actually leading the presentation. Overall, the voice quality comes across compressed and a bit tinny. It’s not the worst, but it’s also probably not what you want when how you sound really matters. You can choose to have the headphones automatically switch to transparency mode when you take a call. However, the Accentum Plus doesn’t pipe in your voice, so the overall audio isn’t as natural as more-expensive options like the AirPods Max.

Battery life

The Plus’ battery life remains unchanged from the regular Accentum at 50 hours. That’s definitely not a bad thing. In fact, I exceeded that figure during my tests, notching 57 hours of use with ANC enabled. This included a mix of listening and calls, and during the latter I switched to transparency mode instead of noise cancellation. There were also a few days in between sessions where the headphones sat unused. When you do find yourself out of juice, you can get five hours of listening time after plugging in for only 10 minutes.

The competition

Given that the upgrades on the Plus are marginal, it’s hard to recommend them over the cheaper Accentum. Both carry Sennheiser’s crisp, clear sound that performs well most of the time. The ANC improvements aren’t enough to justify spending more and the only thing you may truly benefit from is automatic pausing that wear-detection brings. The company’s Momentum 4 would definitely be an upgrade over either Accentum, but that costs around $300. Plus, Sennheiser’s flagship headphones still have its newer, more-boring design – albeit with a few refinements.

If you’re in the market for affordable noise-canceling headphones that don’t cut too many corners, consider the Sony’s WH-CH720N. Currently available for $105, this budget option won’t win any design awards as it’s also all-plastic, but it’s more comfortable and has great audio for the price. Noise cancellation is just okay, though Adaptive Sound Control allows you to automate audio settings based on activity or location and there’s support for Sony’s 360 Reality Audio.

Wrap-up

Sennheiser’s attempt to improve on its initial mid-range Accentum offering is a mixed bag. For all of its updates, the Accentum Plus isn’t the massive improvement you’d expect with its higher price. Sure, the sound is great at times and the ANC will get the job done, but the best thing about this Plus version is the better-than-expected battery life. However, you can get that same play time on the regular Accentum for $50 less. Some small design refinements and a more-obvious step up in terms of audio quality and ANC performance would’ve made a larger impact. But, as it stands, the Accentum Plus isn't a significant upgrade over last year’s model.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sennheiser-accentum-plus-review-upgrades-that-arent-worth-the-extra-cost-160035421.html?src=rss

Disney+ screws UK Doctor Who fans with global release strategy

Fri, 2024-03-15 11:50

The latest series of Doctor Who will debut on iPlayer and globally on Disney+ at midnight in the UK. The first two hour-long episodes land on May 11, which will then air on BBC One later that day in prime time. Those who know how time zones work will have already guessed that Doctor Who will now be available to view in the US on May 10 at 7pm ET and 4pm PT.

There are plenty of sucky things about living in the UK, one of which is that we’re a day behind the US TV schedule. Buzzy shows like Lost were often spoiled by the internet long before it was legally available to view here. To curb the rampant piracy, shows like Game of Thrones and Succession were broadcast at 2am or 3am.

That way, ardent viewers could DVR those airings and watch them before they got to work lest it be spoiled. Because, if you didn’t, you’d have to be extremely careful when you were treading around on the internet. There were very few shows I didn’t have spoiled for me given that I work on the internet all the damn day.

So you can imagine my dismay to learn that Doctor Who, one of the crown jewels in the British TV firmament, will now be treated the same way. It’s hard not to feel annoyed given that the bulk of the series’ funding comes from the license fee paid by the majority of TV owners in the UK. It seems mad, to me, that the global simulcast isn't tied to the UK broadcast, rather than this obvious tweak to ensure the US gets it first. Especially when the alternative is to stay up until 2am on a Saturday morning. 

(Yes, I know there’s precedent for this, The Five Doctors aired on PBS two days before the UK airing, and the TV movie aired on Fox twelve days earlier. But that was in the pre-internet heyday when you didn't have every big moment from the show shared by its own official social channels mere seconds after it aired.)

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/disney-screws-uk-doctor-who-fans-with-global-release-strategy-155040558.html?src=rss

One of our favorite pairs of noise-cancelling earbuds is down to a record-low price

Fri, 2024-03-15 11:12

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are now $250 on Amazon ahead of the Spring Sale. This is a discount of 17 percent, as they typically cost $300. It also happens to be a record-low price for the wireless earbuds, though they’ve only been on the market since September of last year. You can find more Bose gear on sale here too.

The earbuds boast some of the best active noise cancellation around, rivaling many over-ear headphones. That’s the primary reason why the Bose QuietComfort Ultra line made our list of the best wireless earbuds.

However, there’s plenty more to like here. We called out the spatial audio capabilities in our official review, which doesn’t require specially-made content, thanks to virtualization software that works to put the listener right in the middle of the acoustic sweet spot. The battery life is on point, the sound quality is great and the touch controls let users easily change the volume, skip songs and answer calls. These are dang good earbuds.

They aren’t, however, perfect earbuds. As mentioned, the battery life is great, getting anywhere from 16 to 24 hours before needing juice, when you factor in a few trips to the charging case. However, using the spatial audio feature drastically reduces the battery life, so be cautious when enabling different modes. There’s no wireless charging out of the box, as this feature requires a $50 silicone cover for the charging case. Still, today’s discount saves $50, if wireless charging is an absolute must.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/one-of-our-favorite-pairs-of-noise-cancelling-earbuds-is-down-to-a-record-low-price-151206909.html?src=rss

The Google Nest Thermostat drops to $100 ahead of the Amazon Big Spring Sale

Fri, 2024-03-15 10:28

Folks who like controlling aspects of their home using their voice or an app may be pleased to learn there’s a sale on Google Nest gear happening now ahead of the Amazon Spring Sale. There are some solid discounts here, including one on the Google Nest Thermostat, which is down to $100. That’s $30 off the usual price and it applies to all four colors. While that's not the lowest price we've seen for the thermostat (it has dropped to $80 in the past), it's still a solid deal.

The Nest Thermostat has been around for a few years now. It's a more affordable version of the Nest Learning Thermostat, which usually costs $249 but is also on sale for $190. Both are designed to help save energy and cut down on heating and air conditioner costs. The Energy Star-certified Nest Thermostat can automatically adjust the temperature when you leave your home to avoid wasting energy on heating or cooling.

You can use the Nest app to adjust the settings remotely, so if you're getting back earlier than usual or unexpectedly staying out late, the temperature will be just right. You can also control the thermostat using Google Assistant or another Matter-certified voice assistant (such as Alexa or Siri) as long as you have a compatible smart device. Meanwhile, the Savings Finder feature will offer you tips on how to adjust your temperature schedule to reduce costs even further.

Several Nest cameras are on sale too. The Indoor Nest Cam is down to $80, which is $20 off. If you’d prefer a camera for the exterior of your residence, the Outdoor Nest Cam has dropped from $180 to $140. Those looking for a smart doorbell, meanwhile, may want to consider the Nest Doorbell Wired. That's $20 off at $150.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-nest-thermostat-drops-to-100-ahead-of-the-amazon-big-spring-sale-142804063.html?src=rss

Chatbots promise a future that will never arrive

Fri, 2024-03-15 10:00

Conversing with your computer has been a dream of futurists and technologists for decades. When you look at 2004’s state of the art, it’s staggering to see how far we’ve come. There are now billions of devices in our hands, and homes that listen to our queries and do their very best to answer them. But for all of the time, money and effort, chatbots of any stripe have not swallowed the world as their creators intended. They’re miraculous. They’re also boring. And it’s worth asking why.

Chatbot is a term covering a lot of systems, from voice assistants to AI and everything else in the middle. Talking to your computer in the not-so-good old days meant typing into a window and watching the machine attempt a facsimile of the act of conversation rather than the real thing. The old ELIZA (1964 to 1967) trick of restating user inputs in the form of a question helped sell this performance. And this continued even as far as 2001’s SmarterChild chatbot. The other branch of this work was to digitize the analog with voice-to-text engines, like Nuance’s frustrating but occasionally wonderful product.

In 2011, the ideas in that early work joined up to make Siri for the iPhone 4S, which was quietly built on Nuance’s work. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, saw Siri’s promise early and launched a large internal project to make a homegrown competitor. In 2014, Alexa arrived, with Cortana and Google Assistant following in subsequent years. Natural language computing was now available on countless smartphones and smart home devices.

Companies are largely reticent to be specific about the price of building new projects, but chat has been costly. Forbes reported in 2011 that buying the startup behind Siri cost Apple $200 million. In 2018, The Wall Street Journal quoted Dave Limp, who said Amazon’s Alexa team had more than 10,000 employees. A Business Insider story from 2022 suggested the company pegged more than $10 billion in losses on Alexa’s development. Last year, The Information claimed Apple is now spending a million dollars a day on AI development.

So, what do we use this costly technology for? Turning our smart bulbs on and off, playing music, answering the doorbell and maybe getting the sports scores. In the case of AI, perhaps getting poorly summarized web search results (or an image of human subjects with too many fingers.) You’re certainly not having much in the way of meaningful conversation or pulling vital data out of these things. Because in pretty much every case, its comprehension sucks and it struggles with the nuances of human speech. And this isn’t isolated. In 2021, Bloomberg reported on internal Amazon data saying up to a quarter of buyers stop using their Alexa unit entirely in the second week of owning one.

The oft-cited goal has been to make these platforms conversationally intelligent, answering your questions and responding to your commands. But while it can do some basic things pretty well, like mostly understanding when you ask it to turn your lights down, everything else isn’t so smooth. Natural language tricks users into thinking the systems are more sophisticated than they actually are. So when it comes time to ask a complex question, you’re more likely to get the first few lines of a wikipedia page, eroding any faith in their ability to do more than play music or crank the thermostat.

The assumption is that generative AIs bolted onto these natural language interfaces will solve all of the issues presently associated with voice. And yes, on one hand, these systems will be better at pantomiming a realistic conversation and trying to give you what you ask for. But, on the other hand, when you actually look at what comes out the other side, it’s often gibberish. These systems are making gestures toward surface level interactions but can’t do anything more substantive. Don’t forget when Sports Illustrated tried to use AI-generated content that boldly claimed volleyball could be “tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.” No wonder so many of these systems are, as Bloomberg reported last year, propped up by underpaid human labor.

Of course, the form’s boosters will suggest it’s early days and, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said recently, we still need billions of dollars in more chip research and development. But that makes a mockery of the decades of development and billions of dollars already spent to get where we are today. But it’s not just cash or chips that’s the issue: Last year, The New York Times reported the power demands of AI alone could skyrocket to as much as 134 terawatt hours per year by 2027. Given the urgent need to curb power consumption and make things more efficient, it doesn’t bode well for either the future of its development or our planet.

We’ve had 20 years of development, but chatbots still haven’t caught on in the ways we were told they would. At first, it was because they simply struggled to understand what we wanted, but even if that’s solved, would we suddenly embrace them? After all, the underlying problem remains: We simply don’t trust these platforms, both because we have no faith in their ability to do what we ask them to and because of the motivations of their creators.

One of the most enduring examples of natural language computing in fiction, and one often cited by real-world makers, is the computer from Star Trek: The Next Generation. But even there, with a voice assistant that seems to possess something close to general intelligence, it’s not trusted to run the ship on its own. A crew member still sits at every station, carrying out the orders of the captain and generally performing the mission. Even in a future so advanced it’s free of material need, beings still crave the sensation of control.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/chatbots-promise-a-future-that-will-never-arrive-140033258.html?src=rss

The Morning After: The best smartphones under $300

Fri, 2024-03-15 08:57

Aside from who’d win in a fight between Elon Musk and the ghost of Steve Jobs, the question I’m asked most is how to find the best budget-friendly smartphone.

TMASamsung

As an insufferable early adopter/power user, I’m used to spending $1,000-plus on my daily addiction, but you don’t have to get a great capable phone in 2024. This time around, our top picks cost between $100 and $300, so we truly mean cheap. (In fact, our picks undercut my go-to recommendation of the Pixel 7A, which is hovering above $400.)

Take a look at our guide, which includes devices from OnePlus, Samsung and Moto.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Where to recycle your used and unwanted gadgets

The Steam spring sale is here to raid your wallet

Unicorn Overlord is a must-play for tactics fans

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

No more Pornhub for Texas The parent company blocked access to all its other adult entertainment websites.

You’ll have to get your kicks elsewhere, Texas. Pornhub is now inaccessible in the state, after the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled Texas can enforce its age-verification regulations for porn websites. If you try, you’ll be met with a message: “Dear user, as you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website.” As you might have guessed, Texas now tops the list of states for VPN searches as its residents look for a workaround to access their favorite adult content.

Continue reading.

Google I/O 2024 takes place on May 14 What’s next for Android and the company’s AI products. TMAGoogle

Google revealed the date for this year’s I/O conference in really annoying fashion. It asked folks to complete a tedious logic puzzle. Once enough people finished all 15 levels and got a marble to its destination repeatedly, they got the date.

The keynote will give us a look at upcoming Pixel and Android features — and maybe a bit of hardware. Please?

Continue reading.

SpaceX’s third Starship test launch takes off successfully Next, the company plans to test relighting its Raptor engine in space. TMASpaceX

The third time’s the charm as SpaceX attempted another test of its Starship rocket. The Starship launched at 9:25AM ET on Thursday morning. Shortly after launch, it completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy Booster, and the Starship successfully ignited the second-stage Raptor engines. While SpaceX said both the booster and Starship were going to return to Earth at “terminal velocity,” thus making any recovery of them impossible, it looks like Starship didn’t make it to splashdown, breaking up on re-entry (according to initial data).

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-the-best-smartphones-under-300-111502970.html?src=rss

Engadget Podcast: Why is the US trying to ban TikTok again?

Fri, 2024-03-15 08:30

Another week, another concerted effort to ban TikTok in the US – except this time, it could actually happen. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with Engadget Senior Editor Karissa Bell around the latest TikTok drama. The House passed a bill that could ultimately ban the company if ByteDance doesn’t sell it off within six months. It may face a tougher fight in the Senate, but if it’s approved there President Biden has said he’s willing to sign it into law.

Is this a justified fight against the Chinese-owned social media company, or is it the sum of our political fears against all things China? (Maybe it’s a bit of both?) We discuss why this potential ban could be a huge civil rights violation, as well as the need for true data privacy laws in the US, which would apply to all social networks.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics
  • U.S. House passes bill that would give Bytedance 6 months to sell TikTok – 0:47

  • Microsoft’s Surface and AI event preview – 17:04

  • Apple will allow EU users to download some apps from websites – 27:38

  • Five Tesla execs earned $2.5B over the last five years while the company paid no income tax – 34:53

  • Around Engadget – 44:57

  • Working on – 48:31

  • Pop culture picks – 50:17

Subscribe! Transcript

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

What's up internet and welcome back to the Engadget podcast.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

I'm senior editor Devindra Hardwar.

Cherlynn

I am Deputy Editor Cherlynn Lowe.

Devindra

This week, all eyes are on TikTok, or I guess the entire government is aligned to get TikTok

Cherlynn

[silence] Oh. [silence]

Devindra

out of the US or at least sold to another company. We're going to be talking about everything happening around that. So the house just passed a bill that would give ByteDance six months to sell TikTok. If they don't do that, TikTok will be banned from US app stores.

Karissa

.

Devindra

We're going to bring on Chris Abell from Engadget to dive into all that. This is something we've been talking about for years, but it actually seems like it's happening now. So that's pretty wild. As always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes

Karissa

Hey, pretty good.

Devindra

or your podcatcher of choice. Leave us a review on iTunes and drop us an email at podcastsengadget.com.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

So let's dive into the latest battle between the US government and TikTok. Joining us for this discussion is senior editor Chris Abell. Chris, how's it going?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Well, another busy week for you, Chris. I feel like every time we talk to you, you're like you're just following like what the government is doing or what politicians are doing at the latest minute. I feel like this is such a great beat for you.

Karissa

Yeah, so there was a new bill that kind of came out of nowhere.

Devindra

Can you basically update us? What just happened this week between the house and the fight against TikTok?

Karissa

It's called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

Applications Act.

Devindra

Really rolls off the tongue. Yeah.

Karissa

Yeah, they really nailed it with the name.

Devindra

Uh huh. Okay.

Karissa

And basically, if it passes into law, it gives ByteDance,

Devindra

It's it's weird how this happened so quickly.

Karissa

the parent company of TikTok, six months to sell the app or else it will be banned in the United States.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Like do we have a sense of like what happened here? Because right now, the two sides of our government, right?

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

The I mean, the two sides of Congress just have been having a lot of trouble deciding on anything altogether.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Like there's very little bipartisan legislation happening right now. But all of a sudden, Democrats and Republicans are like, yes, TikTok bad. Let's ban TikTok for some reason. Chris, do you have a sense of like what's going on and why this came on so quickly? Thank you.

Karissa

Yeah, I mean, it's gotten overwhelming support, which if you know this Congress,

Devindra

Thank you. Thank you.

Karissa

that doesn't happen very often.

Devindra

Thank you. Thank you.

Karissa

Yeah, I think there's been some interesting reporting about this.

Devindra

Thank you. Thank you.

Karissa

I think it's kind of taken a lot of people by surprise,

Devindra

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Karissa

including TikTok themselves. And from what we know from some of the political outlets is, I think that there was sort of a, TikTok calls it a secret effort, but certainly a quiet effort to kind of craft a bill like this.

Devindra

forward to this talk.

Karissa

And I believe that there were officials from the Biden administration that also

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

kind of advised on writing the bill in a way that they thought might make it more able to stand up to potential legal challenges, stuff like that. But it kind of just came out of nowhere, was introduced last week, and it cleared committee in a unanimous vote two days later, and

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

then went to the House floor yesterday, and the vote was.

Devindra

Can we can we talk about the the why of it Karissa?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Because I feel like you have a sense here. We've been hearing for years now and honestly since the Trump administration like since he wanted to just like ban TikTok

Karissa

I mean, I think it's all of the above.

Devindra

because he was so mad at it for some reason. I've read that there are potential security concerns because this is a major social network that's on hundreds of millions of phones in the US. People seem to be concerned that it is a company that is ultimately working at the behest of the Chinese government, right? Like that's how every major Chinese company works. Is that the main thing? Are they worried about actual hacking already happening or is this all about fears of what could happen? Right.

Karissa

On one level, a lot of it, I wanna say is, maybe not optics is the right word, but certainly, it's a Chinese company as folks in Congress like to always say.

Devindra

You.

Karissa

They think, a lot of them kind of push this idea that the Chinese Communist Party could have exercise sort of undue influence over TikTok and manipulate its algorithm or force them to give them user data. What we know is TikTok says, that's never happened, even if they tried to do that, they wouldn't do it, they wouldn't comply with that kind of order.

Devindra

Also tiktok status stored in the US now after the last fight,

Karissa

It is, yes, there have also been cases, few particular cases where it was found

Devindra

right? You. You.

Karissa

out that ByteDance employees were looking into the accounts of specific journalists, for example, that were doing some unflattering reporting. On the company and TikTok came out against that, they said that those employees got fired. They've tried to say that was kind of like a one off sort of thing. And then I think the kind of broader concern that a lot of national security officials have raised is TikTok gets a lot of data about its users, their location, what they're looking at, all kinds of personal information that these apps collect. And they worry that if that data could somehow flow to China, to Chinese officials, that somehow they could use that in a nefarious way to advance their geopolitical aims. Well, it's a much bigger problem than just TikTok.

Devindra

I mean, we've talked about a lot of stuff before, especially when you've come on

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Chris, so that everything the government is pointing to the tiktok is doing is something every single frickin social network is guilty of at this point in terms of tracking user data in terms of doing inappropriate things with user data, undo influence, like influencing kids and kids attitudes.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Like there were even Facebook's own reporting found that they were negatively impacting teenagers, right? And by highlighting suicidal content and things like that. So what is the difference between what Facebook and Instagram and everybody else is doing and what tiktok is doing? Is it really just the, because it's from China part of it that seems to be freaking people out, Karissa? That's it.

Karissa

I mean, yes, there are people in Congress who actually care about

Devindra

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Karissa

the data access issue and they want to pass kind of comprehensive privacy legislation. But so far those efforts have gotten nowhere but kind of China bad, TikTok bad, has that sort of point of view has found a lot more support. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Tiktok itself has responded. The CEO, Shou Chu also put up a response video last week yesterday saying that it's a violation of first amendment rights and things like that.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Like, so I was also saw reporting at the New York times that tiktok has sent influencers has basically paid for influencers to go to, to the Capitol and to, or to Congress and to protest and also to be very vocal about what's happening here and to whip up their followers. Tiktok also did an a push update to users in the U S saying, Hey, call your Congressman about this thing that's happening, which not a great look, but also, you know, who else did that?

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Uber, Lyft, like so many other apps that we use and rely on have done this to like influence, you know, how politicians think of them too.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

But again, it's because, oh my God, this Chinese app sent a push

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

notification to everybody. What are we going to do about it? I, I'm just like, where do you come down this ultimately, Sherlin? Because I know you have thoughts about Tiktok overall.

Cherlynn

Yeah, we talked a little bit about this before we got into this episode, the vincro, which is

Devindra

Mm.

Cherlynn

I have less of the concerns around the data access thing in part because it's hard to prove so far. I will say I look at other Chinese companies that have really grown in popularity recently, like Temu. Temu is the classic example, one of those companies that out of nowhere, they had Super Bowl ads

Devindra

Yeah.

Cherlynn

and then just had ridiculous press. They were spamming all your Instagram ads and they just really insidiously took over. And then you see people talking about Temu now because for me, I never wanted to use Temu. I was very much like, no, the way they've come up is way too suspicious. But then it is very weird.

Devindra

That's weird. It's weird. Yo. Yeah. Yeah.

Cherlynn

And then I heard about other people buying stuff from them. I'm starting to see people order stuff from them. I see packages in my lobby, that sort of stuff. And I'm realizing that people are just buying the...

Devindra

Yeah. It's cheap.

Cherlynn

They don't really care so much that Temu is a Chinese company. They care that it's cheap. And then you see all the online discussion over Amazon goods versus Temu goods and the same thing can cost a lot less on Temu.

Devindra

Yeah. Yeah.

Cherlynn

But then you don't consider the fact that Amazon is a bit more of a trusted company. You can refund more easily. That sort of stuff. Also that. So do I think Temu is out here to get your data? No.

Devindra

And most importantly, it's a U S company. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cherlynn

But do you know what I think is happening? And this is me putting on my conspiracy theory hat. China is influencing America in a lot of ways that you might not be aware of. TikTok is one of the ways. TikTok, I'm less nervous about the data access and more about the ease with which they could push propaganda if they wanted to. They are on all our phones. They have control over all the algorithms. If they wanted to send one message, they could just tweak the algorithm and have everyone look at this one video.

Devindra

They could. Sure. All of a sudden.

Cherlynn

So that's one thing. The other is competing against Amazon. They're undermining the competition. If they did steal customers from Amazon, which I don't think they're going to, then they're weakening one of your biggest companies. The other thing that's linked to the propaganda issue here. Look at all the Chinese companies and names in your film industry. Look at all the movies that are made just because China threw some money at it and it's like you have to hire this and that. Chinese actress, whatever.

Devindra

There are more Chinese actors in Hollywood productions.

Cherlynn

Tencent is in so many things. Don't even talk about the gaming and mobile gaming industry. Look at Tencent's name in all your films.

Devindra

Things are set there. Yeah. I mean, sure, sure.

Cherlynn

This is just the things that have crept up over the years that people aren't really paying attention to that I feel is the larger issue here. And I feel a TikTok ban might not solve it, but it's at least raising awareness. And I think that's where the fear comes from.

Devindra

But that's so many things you're pulling up so many things for

Cherlynn

Yeah.

Devindra

and you're right. Like there's a lot of like money from China going into Hollywood, going to all sorts of things and games and also real estate.

Cherlynn

Oh, don't even get me started.

Devindra

That's a whole thing. Like, yeah, there are so many things going on. We have also talked about the cybersecurity concerns around China

Cherlynn

You.

Karissa

.

Devindra

because openly the U S government is like, yeah, China is attacking us. Like the government's attacking us. It's been tied to groups hacking into companies and hacking into

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

like, I think even government offices after a certain point. So like there are those concerns there, but I'm talking specifically about social media. It sure seems like if we have all these concerns about what China

Karissa

.

Devindra

is doing and about what the power of TikTok is, it almost seems like the better solution would be like, like you were mentioning Chris, that the people talking about a, okay, an overall data

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

privacy bill that could protect kids no matter using which app they're using and protect our data and maybe open up the transparency of algorithms to see how things are actually working. It feels like that would be where our energy is better spent, but that would not be good for YouTube or Facebook or everything, right? Like is from your sense, Chrissa, would that be more effective?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

But is there a reason we're not seeing that?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

You. [silence] You can't point to a country and say, like, "It's this country's fault," right? That's the ultimate thing. We have seen commentary from researchers and activists to—

Cherlynn

Right.

Devindra

I'm reading from our post here—in a letter to lawmakers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, Fight for the Future,

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

and the Center for Democracy and Technology have all argued that the bill would "set an alarming global precedent for excessive government control over social media platforms," and they likely invite copycat measures by other countries, "with significant consequences for free expression globally." So that is the other thing, too. Like, listen, China already has the internet already restricted for a lot of its users, right? People can get access to the full breadth of the internet or Google or everything, but would other companies start to react to this, too? If we are starting to block TikTok, would people start to just block Facebook or Meta from some things as well? That could be a potential issue. But I feel like that's an aside. That's not the core potential harm here.

Karissa

.

Devindra

For me, it's just like, it's really weird. We just want to kill one app, man. Especially when there's not one thing you can point to, to be like, "Hey, this app is actively harming us," whereas Facebook, it self-proved it was actively harming us, and we did nothing to them, basically.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Meta has slapped fines on these companies, but that's pretty much it. There's no nationwide ban of anything. Anyway, this seems like it's going to be an ongoing story. What is next for this to actually happen, Karissa?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

[silence] [silence] Also interesting that even Trump is saying now that he thinks it would be a bad idea to ban TikTok because it would embalm Meta and Facebook, and "Zucker schmuck" is, I believe, what he called him. That's according to the posts on True Social, always with the names, always with the very, very smart-sounding, not third-grade name-calling names. But it does seem like that will be a much bigger fight, and yeah, we'll be paying attention to it. I do wonder, you know, I've talked to influencers, I've talked to people who have managed to build basically a following on TikTok and earn money from it, just like people have on YouTube and stuff. It also seems really weird that the government could just be like, "Hey, this thing that you've kind of centered your life around and has been paying you, we don't like it right now, so therefore, bye-bye to your livelihood." To me, that's also a potential problem. I don't know. I feel like the president is not great. I want to point people to a lot of great reporting around this stuff. 404 Media, which I love, has a great editorial saying, "The US wants to ban TikTok for the sins of every social media company" by Jason Kobler. Great piece. Great, great piece. Worth reading. And I think that is true. Great headline.

Karissa

.

Devindra

And it really is that we are so mad at social media, what social media has done to us and how it's influencing kids, but good God, it is happening everywhere.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

And I think to a certain degree, TikTok has been better than meta and Facebook, than from hiding some of the actual harms it's doing to people. So I don't know. This is such a messy story. But you know what, listeners? Let us know what you think. Drop us an email at podcast@engadget.com. Chris Abell, where can people find you online these days?

Karissa

They can find me still on Twitter or x, I guess now it's called, Karissa BE.

Devindra

Thank you so much.

Karissa

I'm also a lot more active on threads and blue sky lately, same handle.

Cherlynn

You.

Karissa

Thank you.

Cherlynn

Thanks, Karissa.

Devindra

In other news, it looks like event season is whipping back up again. We got the news at Microsoft. Yeah, weirdly.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Weirdly. Weirdly.

Devindra

Microsoft is going to be holding a Surface and AI event on March 21st. At least that was the initial news.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

Now I'm hearing from Microsoft. I'm hearing from like a couple different people that this may not be like a huge consumer PC event. This may be more enterprise focused. I believe it's tied to their Ignite conference. But hey, Microsoft is doing a thing. They're going to broadcast stuff. We're going to hear more about their AI and Surface products. Maybe not as much as we expected. What do you think about this, Shrilin? Are you excited to hear what Microsoft has clicking at this point? Yes. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. I mean, listen, I've been testing Copilot for a bit, and I've not been super impressed. I've been paying for the Copilot Pro thing just to see how that is going. And some of my responses are a little faster. You know, some of the queries are a little faster. The image generation is better. But, man, it is not. It is not changing my life. It is not worth $20 a month. I spend $20 a month on things I use all the time, you know, and it kills me. All the streaming services I use and I don't watch enough of. To me, that is more worth it than what I'm getting from Copilot.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

And I think that's the story we're hearing from some companies, too.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

I'm hearing from people at certain big companies that are trying to move over to Microsoft Teams and lean into Copilot stuff that people just don't want to use it. It is this brand new thing, and it's really hard to encourage people to do it. But companies will be paying per chair, you know, $20 to $30 per chair for people to use Copilot. I don't know if that's going to be worth it for a lot of people. That's an office license. That's what an office license used to cost monthly, you know.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

You. You. You. You.

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

You mean Gemini? [LAUGHTER] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we all remember, yeah. It is — I think they've just been so desperate. This is what we've been talking about last year, right?

Cherlynn

You.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

Like, Microsoft was so quick to bring Copilot everywhere, and Google's like, "Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, Bart, Bart, Bart. Whip it like — get it faster." Yeah.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

Google has its own expertise. I think that much is clear because they have been working on this stuff forever, and we've talked about that.

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

Like, Google has been working on AI algorithms. Like, some part of ChatCPT is from Google's own research. And, like, the idea of making it a product, that's where a lot of people have been hesitant. That's where Microsoft was just like, "Hey, look at what — yeah, look at what OpenAI has. We're going all in on this." Yeah.

Cherlynn

You.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

To be clear, we talk about AI, like, it's this new, Gen AI is relatively new, but AI's been around, right?

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

So if you look at what Google has done in the past with this AI-based features like Smart Compose, Smart Reply, Suggestions, right?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Those are just kind of baked into its products for free. It didn't charge you a per-seat AI fee to use Smart Reply because it knew probably that people won't pay for these sorts of things.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Mm-hmm. I think — well, they also didn't know how to productize it, too. So I feel like that's been — that's been, like, part of the thing.

Cherlynn

So, you'll see. True, um...

Devindra

What do you think about Surface devices, by the way? Because we also talked about last summer — or last fall, when I came to New York for the Surface AI event,

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

where we didn't get to see a new Surface Pro. We didn't get to see a new Surface laptop, and I found a lot of that a little disappointing.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Are you at all ready for new Surfaces? Do you think Microsoft can make a big impact? Because the — we've been hearing that these will be the debut of the AI PC Surfaces,

Cherlynn

You.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

You.

Devindra

which is also confusing on another level, but I'll get into that. Are you excited about the new things, Sherlin?

Cherlynn

I think it's, I'm less excited and more curious as to what this means for Microsoft's hardware direction moving forward and wonder if it's why Pinos may have left because it looks like they're just trying to be less consumer-focused and more, "We will shop with, um, we will shop directly to businesses now. We'll make these Surface devices just for enterprises."

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

. [BLANK_AUDIO] .

Cherlynn

And so if that's the case, then like, yeah, that's where my mindset rather than like, "AI PCs are the new thing." I'm not really that keen on that.

Devindra

I don't know if that's really the thing, but we did see something last fall that was interesting, is that the new Surface Go, the tiny little hybrid tablet — I think it was the Surface Grow 4 —

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

that one never got a consumer release, and they didn't even talk about it during the event. It was just, like, quietly, "Hey, it has new hardware. It's available for businesses."

Karissa

.

Devindra

You could still buy it as a consumer, but they are marketing and gearing it towards businesses. I don't know if the same thing's going to be true about the Surface Pro, right?

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

The Surface Pro is like their flagship baby. That's the thing proving that Microsoft could make a computer differently than Apple. And I think it's the thing that also, design-wise, pushed a lot of the PC industry to try these hybrid tablets.

Karissa

.

Devindra

My thing is I just don't think people want these things anymore, because the dream was Windows would eventually be upgraded to be better in a touchscreen tablet environment,

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

and they just never did that. You know, like, after Windows 8, we got Windows 10, and then I like Windows 10 quite a bit, but Windows 10 and Windows 11 have not done much to really optimize the touchscreen experience. They're a little better, but they're still, like, fundamentally, you're using a keyboard and trackpad or mouse.

Cherlynn

Exactly.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

You know, they're really old-school desktop things. It's not like using iPadOS or something. Yeah.

Cherlynn

Yeah. It's, it's, and it ties into that whole thing we, I think, talked about last week where Android apps are going away from the Windows ecosystem, you know? Yeah, duh. I don't think this has worked.

Devindra

[Laughter]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

You know, the thing everybody loved and used. Yeah. So, I don't know. What we're expecting eventually, it may be next week, it may be later on at the Microsoft Build event,

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

but we're going to see new Surfaces with Intel chips that have the MPUs in them. That is what Intel and AMD are marketing as AI PCs right now. I want to be clear, this would not be the first quote-unquote "AI PC Surface" because the Surface Pro 9 with 5G that I reviewed last year had the Qualcomm chip, which had an MPU.

Karissa

. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

So, that's where it got really confusing. So, that computer, well, Copilot didn't exist back then. Or at least Copilot in, yeah. Now there's also Copilot Key, which is replacing the right-side function key at the bottom of your keyboard.

Cherlynn

Did it have a co-pilot key though? [silence]

Devindra

Also, totally useless. But that was such a weird release because it was a slower chip. It was also running the Windows on ARM setup, so it was incompatible with a lot of older apps.

Karissa

.

Devindra

But it ran like Windows Studio FX because it had the MPU and the Intel-based Surface Pro 9 could not do that.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

So anyway, I think I had a good headline when I reviewed the 5G was like "Pro in Name Only" because it was so slow and just didn't work as well as an Intel computer.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

.

Devindra

So sure, these will be the first x86-based Surfaces with MPUs and they'll have Windows Studio FX. They may work better with Adobe software and some other software that's using this stuff.

Cherlynn

AI, right. Right.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

I don't think anybody has fully tapped into what an MPU can do either, so I don't know how that's going to excite people. But that's the thing. I think people will be down for that. I want to ask our listeners actually, are you all still excited about Surfaces? Because I do remember when the first Surface came out, I reviewed that thing. It was a mess, but the vision of what Microsoft was selling was really interesting.

Karissa

.

Devindra

And now we are more than 10 years on. We are a ways into this whole family line. The Surface Pro kind of looks the same. It's still pretty powerful for how thin it is.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [silence]

Devindra

The Surface laptop is just a laptop. Are you excited at all about anything else Microsoft is doing? I think at the Surface laptop studio in the fall, which is their high-end one that can tilt the screen forward. I also don't know if people are actually buying that because that machine had some problems. So Microsoft is just in a weird place. And yeah, I think we can see the writing on the wall, like why Panos may have decided to move over to Amazon.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

Yeah. [silence]

Devindra

Maybe also I would just wager like Microsoft is looking at this whole division where it has spent billions of dollars in design and R&D and everything.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

And Surface has been making money, but not a ton. It took a while for it to start turning a profit. It's not like a leading PC maker at this point. So I think Microsoft is just in a weird place. Are they just going to tread water with Surface for now?

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Kind of like what they're doing with Xbox? I guess we'll see. [silence]

Cherlynn

Yeah. I mean, I think the Surface tablet still has a place, but with the laptops, even though I really love the Surface laptops, I think they struggle to differentiate from everyone out there, like Dell and HP and so on.

Devindra

For sure. I think the real challenge is like, listen, whenever I look over at the MacBook Air, like the MacBook Air M2, and I'm looking at the MacBook Air M3, I'm like,

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

.

Devindra

"Oh, you beautiful, you beautiful beast. You're so thin. You're so fast. You don't have a fan. You do everything."

Cherlynn

[laughs] It is. Gosh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Devindra

And there's a reason I've been giving it high reviews. And then I look at the Surface and I'm like,

Cherlynn

[silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

"It's like the meme where you hear the Jurassic Park theme song and crummy music or something." It's just not as good. It's not as good, even though the Surface hardware is still pretty impressive for what it is. The Windows experience is not as good, I'd say. So anyway, we will be following up with that.

Karissa

.

Devindra

And actually, I think we're going to release the podcast maybe a little later next week so we can record after the Surface event. Just so we're fully in the know with all this stuff. So stay tuned for more on this.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

We also saw the news this week that Apple is going to allow iOS apps to be distributed on websites in the EU. That follows the stuff we were talking about last week where what additional app stores were going to be opened up and, yeah, third-party app stores. So hey, for some developers, they can link directly to apps from the web. Any thoughts on this, Cherlynn? I think I don't think we fully know how it's going to work. I'm going to read from our report here.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Yeah. "The web distribution option, which will be available this spring, will effectively let developers bypass the app ecosystem entirely for their own apps.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

To be eligible, devs have to opt into new app store rules and pay for a fee for each user install after certain thresholds."

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

So it's not going through an app store. It's going through something the developer wants.

Cherlynn

Yeah. Right. Which is interesting. I like that they still have to agree to the rules and whatever because you need to assure the quality of the apps, and they should still go through some sort of review to make sure they're not malware.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Yeah, this cannot be the Wild Wild West like Android is.

Cherlynn

Exactly. Like Android sometimes. But I think it is interesting to me because we've always had issues running tests on iOS devices versus Android or Windows versus Apple.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Yeah.

Cherlynn

And this opens up potentially a way to get a custom battery test in or a custom other sorts of screen testing features in.

Devindra

Yeah.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

I'm intrigued. I don't know if it'll come over to the US just yet. I don't know if that'll ever happen. I don't even know what the holdup might be.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

If only because it seems like EU has just way more aggressive regulations and the EU is just better at forcing these sorts of fairness things.

Devindra

They're better. I mean, we talked last week, the EU fined Apple $2 billion for what it did with music apps.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

So, yeah, they are flexing some muscles there. And U.S. regulators are just like, "We can't touch Apple. Apple 2 is too powerful."

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

US regulators, I feel like they want to do to Apple and companies the size of Apple what the EU has been able to do, but they just can't get their act together.

Devindra

Oh, sure. They are just like spinning up, right? It's basically after Lina Khan came on, basically.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

Like the FTC is all of a sudden like, "Okay, we're going to do stuff." You know, but it's like starting it's like trying to get up to highway speed from zero. There's a lot. There's a lot. It requires a lot of effort.

Cherlynn

I mean, they gotta go learn where Singapore is on the map before they come talk to us. That's all I gotta say. [silence]

Devindra

Well, you know, yeah, that goes into what we were talking about before around TikTok showing yes.

Karissa

.

Devindra

We also saw the news that Airbnb is telling hosts to please stop filming their guests. And for the love of God, I wish this was more of a thing initially.

Cherlynn

Woo!

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

So I had remembered that Airbnb said it was blocking hosts from using cameras in houses. But it's actually the current policies. They can use cameras in common rooms. I believe they have to like try to let people who are saying no.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

[silence]

Devindra

But they can't be in private areas like bedrooms and bathrooms. Now the new rules are saying no indoor cameras at all in rentals.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

And also you have to alert people if you have outdoor cameras. Hosts can also use like decibel monitors to, you know, to see what's going on with noise levels. But they cannot record audio. So that's the other thing too. Good policies.

Cherlynn

Yeah, I think it's interesting because there's a lot of anger or discussion around the internet over Airbnbs versus hotels.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Or a room or you're saying like while somebody is still there.

Cherlynn

And if you're crossing with Airbnb, the idea that it used to be that it's like people's homes that they rent out that they don't need.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

But now with these sorts of rules, sure, and that's not very comfortable for a lot of people, but sure, it doesn't really matter to me what you're getting into.

Devindra

Yes. Yes.

Cherlynn

Transparency is key. And I think with this new rule, you're getting even closer to hotel region for Airbnbs, which is that people who don't feel comfortable listing their own homes that they would want to keep an eye on as Airbnbs are less incentivized now.

Karissa

.

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Look, if you're going to do this, you need to have some level of trust. And if you don't have that, then it's going to be really hard for you to run this Airbnb business.

Devindra

[LAUGH]

Cherlynn

You really need to have a second home. This is kind of why I've been seeing people say, "Have a second home, that's what you rent out as an Airbnb and that's where you don't have indoor cameras."

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

And I just don't understand if that logic is going to be any good.

Devindra

[LAUGH]

Cherlynn

So, I don't know. If anyone out there is an Airbnb host, and this rule impacts you specifically, because I know I have an indoor camera at home.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

I'm the sort of paranoid person that needs to be aware of like what's going on in my home at any point. And so I would not be an Airbnb host anymore.

Devindra

[LAUGH]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

I have used it to spy on my partner when he's been around, so he's aware. I'll take a screenshot and send it to him and be like, "Get off my couch now!"

Devindra

Listen, yeah, I see you taking the last coffee.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Yeah.

Devindra

This is a whole conversation we need to have as a society about how we deal with

Cherlynn

That's it. Right.

Devindra

indoor cameras. But how do you feel about Airbnbs versus hotels at this point children? Because I feel like it's location dependent. I've been a lot of great Airbnbs. I've been a lot of bad Airbnbs. I've been also in a lot of good and bad hotels.

Karissa

.

Devindra

But I feel like the baseline for a hotel is at least better, because there are more views and there's more stuff going on. There's more regulation they have to follow. Whereas, it's kind of like, I don't know,

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

is Airbnb really paying close attention to this host? I don't know what being a super host actually means.

Cherlynn

Right.

Devindra

I still feel like there's more volatility there. Mm-hm.

Cherlynn

I agree with you. I think I tend to go more with hotels than Airbnbs, but you're right. It is location dependent because I have an upcoming trip to rural America and the only available hotels just don't seem great.

Devindra

[LAUGH]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

They're like, "Motels." I don't want to give it away too much, but this is a state that starts with the letter I and has a lot of farms and will be going to farm country.

Devindra

What is rural America to you, Sherlin? Okay, okay. This will be the last we have seen of Sherlin Low.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Yeah, I will be disappearing and I'll become a child of the corn.

Devindra

It's just gone. Well, we can find you easily, Sherlin, because there's no elevation there. It's just all flat land.

Cherlynn

Oh, good.

Devindra

So we can see if you wander off, we can just look over.

Cherlynn

Okay, excellent. There are no clips for me to fall off. Fantastic.

Devindra

We'll see you 100 miles away.

Karissa

.

Devindra

There's nothing, there's nothing. [LAUGH]

Cherlynn

But yeah, in that situation, instead of looking for a hotel, because again, either the hotels are full up and then so therefore I had to look for Airbnbs or they're just not kind of what I'm looking for.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Then I look at Airbnbs in nearby towns. It's not ideal, I guess. And as an Airbnb guest, right? Let's flip it. Do I feel like this new rule protects me? I guess. I don't really have an issue with a camera in the place. As long as the host makes it clear, sure.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Yeah, I feel like it's a problem. Like if you come out of the shower in a towel or something,

Cherlynn

I'm the sort of person that would be like, "As long as you tell me where the cameras are, I will put blockage things in front of it so that I can see it."

Devindra

it's easy to forget that you may be monitored, yeah. [LAUGH]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

I don't think they, I don't know if they tell you where the camera,

Cherlynn

Right. I think the rule is less around an outright ban and more around transparency. But then again, that's harder to enforce, I guess.

Devindra

like maybe a good host will be conscientious, yeah. In other news, we also saw this piece that apparently Tesla has paid no federal income.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Taxes over the last five years, but Tesla has managed to pay its executives $2.5 billion. Does that seem fair to you?

Cherlynn

Over the last five years, let's be clear. So that's half a million gone.

Devindra

Over the last five years, but still, also Tesla, yeah, gone.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Also Tesla received a rebate, a tax rebate of $1 million in that time.

Cherlynn

What?! Of how much? How much? A million?

Devindra

That is $1 million.

Cherlynn

I don't know. I think that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money.

Devindra

So, very, very small amount compared to the billions it's been giving to executives.

Karissa

.

Devindra

I feel like just this headline, just this headline deck is enough to like really trigger anybody who's not paying attention to like how broken our financial system is and

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

how broken our tax system is.

Cherlynn

I also want to just shout out our homepage right now because, kudos to our team, every other Elon Musk-related article has a picture of his face and various expressions on it.

Devindra

What a crock. [BLANK_AUDIO] In refund, yeah.

Cherlynn

And it's got me giggling. But yes, it's paid executives $2.5 billion over five years and it received a million dollars in refunds.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

That's wild. It earned $4.4 billion during those five years and $2.5 of that amount went to his executives. That's like half of your...

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

It's okay, I mean, listen, Trillin, how will Elon Musk keep his like standing up as

Cherlynn

...

Devindra

he's not the richest person in the world anymore. He's now the second richest person, but he had a net worth of 207,

Karissa

.

Devindra

basically 208 billion at the start of March, according to Forbes. But Tesla's not alone. Like they're talking about several companies that have done this and

Cherlynn

Right. Exactly.

Devindra

this is just like the Tesla's one of 35 companies that paid less federal income

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

tax and they paid their top five executives during the past five years, according to this article by Sarah Fielding. Just, I don't know, what are we doing over here? We don't have enough money to give public schools or to feed kids, but these companies don't have to pay taxes.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

And again, I want to say this is not just like, you know, $2.5 billion to top executives. This is like top five executives. I'm like, if $2.5 billion went into his top 20 executives over five years, that's half a million for 20 people a year.

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

That's also too many executives, yeah.

Cherlynn

It's too many executives. But I went with executives as a weird word because if they were like C-suite or like, you know, whatever, then I'm like, "Oh, okay, you mean the top few people."

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

But executives could be like a marketing executive. I don't think they mean that. But anyway, over like, it's only for five people in five years.

Devindra

Including Elon Musk.

Cherlynn

That's like... Anyway, hey, Devendra, if you had half a million dollars, do you think you would be set for life?

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

.

Devindra

No, I would not be set for life. I would be in the process of starting to set myself up for life. But also, Trillin, now that I have two kids and just like dealing with life

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Hmm.

Devindra

stuff, I'm like, that would be a really helpful thing. That would get me back to New York, right? But also, my adult self would be like, I gotta invest a big chunk of that too to like start an engine for money for future kids and stuff. So no, no, that's not being set for life, not at all.

Cherlynn

Sure. I feel as if if I got a half a million, I would be set for life. But you're right, I might not be. Maybe if I invested it wisely, I would be. But a half a million always feels...

Devindra

Yeah, but super helpful.

Karissa

.

Devindra

[LAUGH] [BLANK_AUDIO] The way to be set for life is to have your money work for you, which is what rich people do. Sort of like not having to pay taxes, that's also really helpful.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

As you can see, that helps you keep your pile of cash, like Smaug the dragon. Yes, that's what's happening here. Just disgusting, just absolutely disgusting.

Cherlynn

Jeez. Anyway. Yes, and keep your eyes open for these companies and what they're doing, I guess. I don't know what we can do about it other than as journalists cover it.

Devindra

I'm very glad we talked about this stuff. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

.

Devindra

I mean, what we could do is like elect people who are like,

Cherlynn

I think it's a good idea to have a conversation with people. I think it's a good idea to have a conversation with people.

Devindra

we're gonna tax the rich. We need to tax companies more because Tesla, by the way, Tesla and Elon Musk's

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

companies have gotten billions of dollars of federal funding to federal assistance to make themselves possible. So they're also government funded companies to a certain degree. Anyway, the Oscars were also this weekend, Trillin, did you get to check it out? [BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

I did. I didn't watch it live, but I watched it the night after on Hulu. And boy, oh boy, I was not expecting to cry. But I did. It's very moving.

Karissa

.

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

I think I really was... I don't know if this is the first year they're doing this where they would pull out like previous Oscar winners of that exact category and who had a connection maybe to each nominee to not only list them, name them, describe them, but then also hand out the award.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

I was very moved with the, I think, Best Supporting Actress category where you had Jodie Foster was one of the nominees and you had... I can't remember if it was Jamie Lee Curtis that was on stage. I think so.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

Everyone was just saying something and it was like there was a personal thing. It felt meaningful and I don't know why I just started to cry at that point. Maybe I was emotional.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

It was very touching. Michelle Yeoh was for Best Actress, yeah. And Emma Stone won. And to be clear, I think Lily Gladstone was robbed. But...

Devindra

I think Lily Gladstone was absolutely robbed, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cherlynn

Yeah, but I think Emma Stone did great as well. I'm not saying anyone's better than the other, but...

Devindra

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Karissa

.

Devindra

It's a great performance in Poor Things.

Cherlynn

Yes. Exactly.

Devindra

I think Poor Things is a great movie. You can see it now on Disney Plus of all services.

Cherlynn

Yeah, it's on Hulu! Well, because Disney+ is on.

Devindra

You can see that Hulu and Disney Plus, yeah.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

But yeah, I do agree. I think the Lily Gladstone one was a better performance, but it was quiet and it was internal and that is not highlight as much.

Cherlynn

Exactly. It was so subtle, layered, deep.

Devindra

So the reason I bring up the Oscars, by the way, is that Apple TV Plus and Netflix, and I don't think anybody else, any other streaming services were really nominated. But they were all kind of shut out because Oppenheimer just kick butt,

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

Took everything. And poor things.

Devindra

like all the way down. Won Best Picture and Poor Things, won a lot of awards too. But what really killed me, not only was Lily Gladstone robbed, but

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Killers of the Flower Moon, the movie she was in, the Martin Scorsese film,

Cherlynn

Didn't get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not a single Oscar. Yeah. That's wild.

Devindra

did not gain anything, did not win any awards. And that is just truly sad to me.

Cherlynn

That was a good movie, but I think this year's competition was rough. I'm sorry. I keep cutting you off. Go on.

Devindra

I think Poor Things, it's a great movie. It's rough, it is rough. No, it's fine, it's fine.

Karissa

.

Devindra

What did you think of Oppenheimer, Shulin? Did you...

Cherlynn

I haven't watched it yet.

Devindra

[laughs] Oh, you've watched so many reality shows.

Cherlynn

I've seen... I've seen so many... Yeah, Naked and Afraid. Oh, no, no, no. You're talking about Private Party, the one, the dangly bits.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Did you watch the one where everybody is naked? I'm sure you've watched that. Naked in a... Oh, yeah, the other one. Yeah. Yeah.

Cherlynn

Anyway, Naked Attraction, I think that's what it is. Anyway, no, I was so proud of myself this year watching the Oscars because I actually have seen so many of the finalists and the movies that were in the running.

Devindra

[laughs]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

And no, Oppenheimer, the one that won everything I have yet to see. So yeah, that was very funny. I also haven't seen, and this was a choice, I didn't see the Korean one.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Thank you, past lives. I was like, poor things. No, no, no. It's not my kind of thing. It's very drama, romance heavy, and I'm not super into that. I know. Yeah.

Devindra

Past Lives? Past Lives. Dude, you need... How did you not see Past Lives? I told you to see Past Lives, specifically. Hmm. I think, yeah, I think there are certain things that you would relate to in that,

Karissa

.

Devindra

but it's very good.

Cherlynn

I hear that. But I really wanted to watch Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, and I never got around to watching them ahead of the Oscars, but they're still on my list. But they did win a couple of awards too, so yeah.

Devindra

It is... I'm very glad I got to see it last week. Yeah. And yeah, all great.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Zone of Interest is one of those movies where you can't just watch it at home on your TV. Like, if you do, put on headphones or something, but that is...

Cherlynn

Okay. Oh wow, okay. Okay, okay.

Devindra

It is such a unique movie where you just have to kind of be there in the theater, because it is slow and steady, but also the environment and being oppressed by the sound

Karissa

.

Devindra

is all part of it. Tremendous films. Tremendous films all around. Shout out to Jonathan Glaser for being the only person who spoke up against the genocide happening in Gaza as well.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Shout. Yes.

Devindra

This is a whole Oscar ceremony. There was one award, I believe, best short film to a project called No More War, and they also didn't say anything about that ongoing war. It's also very weird. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of a mess.

Cherlynn

There were a lot of, there was one of the winners decided to dedicate their, I think their winning speech to awareness of the war in the Israel-Palestine conflict and all that stuff.

Devindra

That's Jonathan Glaser.

Karissa

. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Yeah. So that's why he was the only one.

Cherlynn

Okay.

Devindra

He was the only one who really directly called it out.

Cherlynn

Yeah, he had a prepared speech and everything, and it was also interesting to me. It wasn't just that he was the only one, it was that his team also all agreed because everyone takes turns at the microphones when there's a team going up to receive an award, and his team all, they all seem to agree that this was the message they want to put out, and that really made sense.

Devindra

[silence] That's... I mean, there is follow-up coverage to Shilin, because the person behind him was a big

Karissa

.

Devindra

financer, like a billionaire tied to Russia, and yeah, it's a whole thing.

Cherlynn

Oh no.

Devindra

So that person probably did not want Jonathan Glaser to be having that whole speech.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

That person probably shouldn't have taken the stage. So there you go.

Devindra

So yeah. [laughter] But apparently he paid for a big chunk of the movie, so that's the whole thing. Yeah.

Cherlynn

Hey, but there was a big highlight at the Oscars. I'm Just Ken was really awesome. And also it was right after Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt took the stage to I think do sort of a...

Devindra

Yeah. Did you fall, guy?

Karissa

.

Devindra

[silence]

Cherlynn

Yeah, but they had a little bit ahead of their introduction of their like, you know, tribute to stunt, the stunt industry. The two of them had a little like fake banter around like, oh, you know, we can put this Barbenheimer thing to rest finally right and then you know,

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Barbenheimer did better. That's what Emily Blunt said and then Gosling was like, oh yeah y'all just wrote on our hotels all summer so it was like, yes, exactly.

Devindra

Yeah. They're really previewing their movie coming up, and that just premiered at South By, by the way. It apparently is fantastic.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Fall Guy by David Leitch. So great. Fantastic. I'm very glad that worked out for him, because I think his last movie was Hobbs and Shaw, and that movie is not part of the Fast and Furious family to me.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

No.

Devindra

No, thank you. Yeah.

Cherlynn

I also wanted to just really quickly shout out American fiction and Jeffrey Wright and Rustin, Komen Domingo, all just, you know, didn't get awards but I think, again, it was such a tough year to win anything everyone seemed really to bring their A game.

Devindra

Yes. [silence] It's such a tough year. Well, go catch up in your Oscar movies, everybody.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Anything you want to catch up us on that's happening around in Gadget, Sherlin? [silence]

Cherlynn

Yes, so this week we continue our anniversary coverage with Billy's story about 20 years of Bluetooth audio. It is on our site called, it's called from mono to mainstream. It's really interesting I think, I, you know, think that Bluetooth is kind of a finicky platform sometimes but we have come a long way.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Such a long way. Come on.

Cherlynn

Very, very long way.

Devindra

Yeah. That's a great headline, too, because what we remember is the crappy old single-ear Bluetooth

Karissa

.

Devindra

headsets, right? And now it's just like you get full, pretty much uncompressed audio, or at least really

Cherlynn

Yeah, and also like just all the other extra features I think like switching around having multiple connections all of that stuff. You know, I think, is part of the development here even if I wish it didn't drop off so much sometimes, I think, you know, we have like come very far.

Devindra

good quality audio.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Yeah. [silence] [laughs]

Cherlynn

I also wanted to shout out this seemed to be budget phone week cheap phone week because we saw Moto announce new Moto G devices this week as well as Samsung brought a new mid range Galaxy A55.

Devindra

[silence]

Karissa

.

Devindra

[silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

And coincidentally at the same time Sam published a new budget Android phones guide so if you're in the Android ecosystem you're looking for something that's less than $350. That's a very helpful guide with some of our favorite pics in there as well. So those are just some good stories around gadget this week.

Devindra

Coco, thank you so much. We did get some feedback from some listeners, too.

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

Yes.

Devindra

Last week we had asked, I was asking if anybody was actually using Android apps on Windows

Cherlynn

Thanks for watching.

Devindra

now that that's ending. We got a great email from Irwin from Illinois who tells us that he's actually using something.

Cherlynn

Thanks for watching.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

I'm going to quote his email here. He says, "I regularly use the Washington Post app to read the newspaper on my HP Spectre laptop. I enjoy the capability to view the print edition where the typography is superior to the web-based version. I make use of the touchscreen ability to easily enlarge the view and swipe around the page." And he says, "Yes, I'll still be able to read the paper using a browser, but the experience

Karissa

.

Devindra

is inferior." End quote. That's a pretty good one. I've not spent time...

Cherlynn

This is a cool feature.

Devindra

Yeah, I can imagine it being good, too, because I think the New York Times had a Windows app

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

at some point, too. So the nice thing about Windows apps, especially for newspapers, is that they're pretty clean. So it's mostly the articles, mostly the formatting. That's a good one. Thank you for that feedback, Irwin. And yeah, hopefully he'll be able to find something else that can do that.

Cherlynn

Yeah, that the other thing that this brings up to is that Android apps, you know, working on Windows isn't just a problem of Microsoft but also the apps support of larger screens.

Devindra

Yeah? [silence]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

And so like when an app is designed to make better use of a larger screen, the way maybe this Washington Post app has say for an iPad or an Android tablet.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Yeah, then it works nice on a laptop touchscreen.

Devindra

I think the problem does really come down to Microsoft. It's a whole chicken and the egg thing. If Microsoft makes it easier for developers to make good looking, touchscreen capable

Karissa

.

Devindra

Windows apps, maybe more people will do that. And I think they've been trying to do that. And developers have been like, "I don't know. Here. Here's a really basic ass looking thing compared to a very easy, a very simple iPad app, which

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Right.

Devindra

looks and feels better as a touchscreen experience."

Cherlynn

I think, yeah, I was thinking more about like the Android app specific scenario but yes if Microsoft made Windows apps better to, you know, use.

Devindra

Yeah. [silence] This is also why the Android apps are here because Microsoft was like, "We need more apps.

Cherlynn

Right, yeah.

Devindra

People aren't making apps for us. So let's just bring in Android apps."

Karissa

.

Devindra

Except those are not great apps. Anyway, let's move on to what we're working on. And listen, I have had on my desk for the past month or two, the Alienware QDOLED 32

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

inch 4K monitor, which is a very beautiful gaming monitor.

Cherlynn

Yeah.

Devindra

It's the first 4K QDOLED from Alienware. And actually one of the first of these monitors at this size, it's also a 240 Hertz thing. So I'm working on a review of this. I've just been so busy and we've been going through so many changes.

Karissa

.

Devindra

I have not had time to focus on it. So working on a review of this thing, it is a very good monitor. So expect something positive soon. What are you working on, Joellen? [silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Yeah, digging into data I never really looked at before which is really interesting for me. We're also I don't know we can tease this. Davindra is continuing to work on the podcast and its most popular features maybe and hopefully bringing that to people again.

Devindra

Uh-huh. I mean, the most popular one of the things is the stream that we've been talking about

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

Yeah.

Devindra

for a long time. So we'll see. We shall see. [silence]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Okay, so there you go.

Devindra

[laughs] You're working on recovering from a root canal. So... [silence]

Karissa

.

Devindra

It is... Listen, whatever they give you, Joellen, if they ask, do you want the... You're going to take the anesthesia.

Cherlynn

The good stuff.

Devindra

Some dentists even ask, do you want to just go to sleep? I don't know if they fully do that anymore, but the local anesthesia is pretty good now.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Everybody send Joellen your well wishes and everybody around Joellen finally gets a break for a day.

Cherlynn

Hey.

Devindra

You know? Do we have any pop culture picks for the week, Joellen?

Cherlynn

I have been okay so yesterday the Love is Blind finale which is a reunion that dropped and I watched it and was actually one of the best reunions they've ever done so if you have been sort of casually skirting around this, you know, I think it's worth looking at.

Devindra

[silence]

Karissa

.

Cherlynn

I also watched the Oscars and I do think it's a very heartwarming thing even if it's like not, you know, an actual like pop culture thing it's like an award ceremony is a weird thing to recommend, I got a lot of like joy and emotions out of it so I think it might be worth it.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Yeah. [silence]

Cherlynn

I will say the in memoriam section was too hard for me to actually watch and listen to because my, the song they chose was Conte Partiro and it's a song that I sang with a friend before they got killed last year.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Oh, I'm sorry. [silence]

Cherlynn

So finally what I have been watching and it's a lot more light hearted. I think you'll be proud of me Devendra. I finally started watching Schitt's Creek.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

I mean, I don't even think I've recommended this, but it's a good show.

Cherlynn

And it's good.

Devindra

Yeah.

Cherlynn

It is a really interesting show and okay so maybe we've never talked about it on this podcast before if we haven't, here is what it is. It's basically about this really rich family that fell from grace basically they they lost all their money because their business manager conned them and then they had to move into this town called Schitt's Creek, because the dad once I bought the town as a joke, as a gift for his son.

Devindra

[silence]

Karissa

. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

And so they have to deal with that understanding how to live life as non rich people not to even, I don't think they're actually poor in this situation, they do have help from the strangers in this town.

Devindra

[silence]

Cherlynn

But yeah, it's fun to watch them kind of grow, and it's like, Dan and Eugene. Is it Levi? Levy? Levy. Dan and Eugene Levy co-wrote this co-produced this their father and son team, they're both really good in this series.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Levy, yeah. [silence] Yeah, that's sweet.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

[silence]

Cherlynn

They're really good. I love Dan Levy a lot. Very, very good work and fun to watch. It's one of those shows that after you get to know the characters you just put it on in the background and I understand why they did a clean sweep of the Emmys in 2020 so that makes a lot of sense.

Devindra

Gotcha, gotcha. I'm glad you're watching that. It's a good feel good show.

Karissa

.

Devindra

It's a very sweet show.

Cherlynn

Yeah, we need it. Yeah.

Devindra

The characters grow and it's smarter than your typical sitcom at that level.

Cherlynn

Yeah, exactly.

Devindra

Very cool. Good rec there, Joellen. I want to recommend something that I think our listeners would like.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

And also, I think you'd appreciate it, Joellen. It's The Gentleman on Netflix.

Cherlynn

Yes.

Devindra

Guy Ritchie has brought not quite the— he's not like remade The Gentleman film, which is five years old at this point. That one started Matthew McConaughey. It's not like rebooting that movie, but it is like a sort of taking the world of The Gentleman and just putting it into a TV show format.

Karissa

.

Devindra

It stars Theo James as a son of a— I know you love him.

Cherlynn

Who I love.

Devindra

I know from— he was in— what was it?

Cherlynn

Divergent.

Devindra

White Lotus, but also Divergent.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

And actually, and The Inbetweeners, I think you should watch The Chrelane because Theo

Cherlynn

And the in betweeners. Sorry.

Devindra

James is basically doing his James Bond tryout right now. Like, it is very much what he's doing here.

Cherlynn

Well, he did that in Divergent. He also wasn't How It Ends, which I also watched because of him. So yes.

Devindra

Yeah. Yep, yep. I know, like, you're fully sold on him.

Karissa

.

Devindra

I think he's not— he's actually one of the weaker parts of the show, but the show itself is overall fun. I am a Guy Ritchie fan from way back. I love Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I love Snatch. I watched that DVD so much it broke in my player in college.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

Oh no.

Devindra

Like, if you were near me in college and we were just watching movies, I would, like,

Cherlynn

Oh, wow.

Devindra

corral people into my room just to watch movies with me. So that was one we watched all the time.

Cherlynn

Oh, wow.

Devindra

So this feels like Guy Ritchie going back home and doing, like, the fun kooky gangster stuff that he was always so good at.

Karissa

.

Devindra

And it is just, like, a really easy watch. Cool people doing cool stuff in London. That's always fun. Also has the Guy Ritchie trope of, like, very strong, cool brunettes, which I think, yeah,

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

that's always fun. I think you'd appreciate that, Cherlynn.

Cherlynn

It's a lot. I will say it is a lot but but yeah, I can take it. It comes in waves, I think.

Devindra

Like, it's just a really fun show. It is well-written. I think the acting— like, if it's well-acted, it may get a little tiresome because it's, like, eight episodes of, like, this Guy Ritchie energy. But also, I like that Guy Ritchie energy. That's just me personally. Yeah.

Karissa

.

Devindra

It comes in waves. Like, sometimes it's really manic and crazy, and sometimes it's, like, very chill.

Cherlynn

Yes.

Devindra

And it's, like, cool British people doing— having tea and doing cool crime stuff.

Cherlynn

Yeah.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Cherlynn

What was that? What was that Brad Pitt movie he did?

Devindra

Yeah. Snatch? Not Fight Club, but, yeah, Snatch is perfect.

Cherlynn

But snatch okay I saw that recently.

Devindra

Snatch is such a good movie. But anyway, that was me in my early 20s, in late teens, actually, loving Snatch and Guy

Cherlynn

It was a lot. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Devindra

Ritchie stuff. So yeah, The Gentleman is good.

Karissa

.

Devindra

Like, by against all odds, this sort of, like, redo of a movie that not many people liked and I thought was okay is doing really well on Netflix. So check that out.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

I think it's a ton of fun. @Dvydra on Twitter, Mastodon, Blue Sky, all over the place, and I have podcasts about

Cherlynn

Well, that's it for the episode this week everyone. Thank you as always for listening. Our theme music is by game composer Dale North. Our outro music is by our former managing editor Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Elman. You can find the Vindra online at

Karissa

.

Devindra

movies at the Filmcast at thefilmcast.com. I'll also be hosting TWIT this week, so check that out at twit.tv.

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

Thank you.

Cherlynn

If you want to send me your favorite things Singapore is known for you can send them to me on x at Cherlynn Low or email me chir@engadget.com hit me up on threads at Cherlynn's Instagram.

Devindra

[APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE]

Cherlynn

Email us your thoughts at podcasts@engadget.com. Leave us a review please on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on anything that gets podcasts.

Devindra

[END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END]

Karissa

.

Devindra

[APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END]

Cherlynn

Thank you.

Devindra

[APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END] [APPLAUSE] [END]

Karissa

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Devindra

[APPLAUSE] [END] [ Silence ]

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Karissa Bell
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-us-tiktok-ban-123000231.html?src=rss

Twitch is ending its pandemic-era Prime Video watch parties

Fri, 2024-03-15 07:00

If you're one of the — apparently few — remaining people still doing watch parties now that the pandemic lockdowns are way behind us, we're sorry to say that watching Prime Video shows with your pals on Twitch will no longer be an option soon. The Amazon subsidiary is removing the Prime Video Watch Party feature from its online streaming platform on April 2, almost four years after it became available to all of its users. Twitch introduced the feature in a closed beta test back in 2019 and then rolled it out to US streamers in 2020, shortly after the world pretty much shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

You might have used watch parties as a way to connect with other people those days, so that you could still be together even if you couldn't be at the same place. It may have been a godsend if you'd spent those lockdowns alone and may have helped you get through some really tough, isolating days. According to Variety, almost one-fifth of adults in the US had participated in a virtual co-viewing experience back in 2020. But your habits may have changed after the lockdowns had lifted. You may no longer be using that Peloton bike and home gym setup... and you may no longer be hosting or attending watch parties as often anymore, or at all. Not when you can go to the gym or go to actual theaters with friends. 

In Twitch's announcement, it said that the feature's usage on its platform has "declined over the years." Instead of thinking of ways on how to make it more appealing, the company has decided to remove it altogether and to invest its resources in other features. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-is-ending-its-pandemic-era-prime-video-watch-parties-110004438.html?src=rss

Where to recycle your used and unwanted gadgets

Fri, 2024-03-15 05:00

We love tech of all shapes and sizes around here, but over the past decade it’s become increasingly obvious that our gadget fervor comes at a cost —especially when it comes to the environment. Metal and plastic don’t fully decompose over time, and almost everything we buy now has rare earth elements in it. But all is not lost as companies and consumers alike have become more cognizant of the problem, and offer possible solutions.

On your end, this means disposing of your old products responsibly, allowing companies and governments to reuse some components and dispose of others in a safe manner. That means taking the things you can’t give away or sell to a recycling center or, at the least, to a store that can pass it along for recycling. Check out our advice below on how to find a place that’ll take your old phones, computers and other broken or outdated gadgets.

National chains Scrap metal, iron and computer dump for recycling or safe disposal. Ulsan, South Korea.

There is no national electronics recycling law at this time, so you won't find any federal programs to assist you with getting rid of old devices. The USPS does run a program for federal agencies and their employees, but it's not available to the general public. Instead, the rest of us have to rely on nationwide retailers to toss out our old stuff.

Best Buy

With more than 1,000 locations in the United States, Best Buy may also be local to you, in which case, you can go to a location to drop off items to be recycled. You just need to take it to the customer service counter. They'll issue you a receipt too, but keep in mind that you can't claim the drop-off as a deduction on your taxes because Best Buy isn't a charity.

As of 2023, Best Buy also has a mail-in option. You can purchase a small- ($23, up to 6 pounds) or medium-sized ($30, up to 15 pounds) box from the retailer, fill it up with as many approved gadgets as you can (while staying under the weight limit) and ship it back to Best Buy to be recycled. You can either drop off your boxes at a UPS drop-off point or schedule a UPS pickup (do not drop the boxes off at a Best Buy store).

You can even recycle televisions and monitors, though in most places you'll be charged a fee of $30 per item to cover the higher costs of transporting and disassembling them. Best Buy’s in-house TV brands of Insignia and Dynex will always be accepted for free, though, as long as they’re smaller than 49 inches. (Consumers in California are not charged the $30 fee, while locations in Pennsylvania charge the fee but in return offer a $30 gift card as reimbursement. Connecticut locations will only accept Insignia and Dynex sets for recycling.) If you're turning in any desktops, laptops or PC gaming accessories, you’ll get a voucher for 20 percent off toward the purchase of a new Logitech mouse, keyboard, webcam or headset. Just be aware that Best Buy limits you to three items per household per day, including up to two televisions.

Staples

Recycling your stuff at Staples is similar to Best Buy — just bring your products to the checkout counter and an associate will help you out. But you can only bring in seven items a day, and the store won’t accept televisions at all (monitors are allowed). Staples Easy Rewards members also receive points for bringing in goods to be recycled or shredded; the points can be redeemed at checkout for discounts on purchases (200 points = $1 off).

If you can’t make it to a store, Staples also offers a mail-in program. You’ll need to purchase a recycling box first, which start at $20 for a small box and go up to several hundred for a full pallet (only available for commercial locations). You can put as much as you want into a box as long as it fits inside and doesn’t exceed the weight limit (a large box can accept up to 70 pounds). A “serialized” option is also available for an additional charge, which includes an inventory list for everything you send back. The boxes are shipped to you and then back to Staples at no extra cost;, just drop off the sealed packages at your local UPS drop-off point or call for a pickup.

Office Depot

Office Depot has more than 1,300 locations, but unlike Staples and Best Buy, it won't recycle your old gadgets for free. If you're only getting rid of a few phones or batteries, those can be turned in at any store for no charge. For everything else, you must purchase a Tech Recycling Box ($8.39 for small, $18.29 for medium, and $28 for large) even if you’re already at the store. Once you have the box, you can fill it with as many items as you can fit inside, including smaller televisions, as long as it doesn’t exceed the weight limit. So it's a great deal if you have a lot of stuff you want to dispose of. These must be turned in at an Office Depot store; an associate will check to make sure all the items are acceptable and prepare the box for shipping (you’ll be asked to fill out a form).

You can also return used ink and toner cartridges and get $2 each, up to 10 a month, if you’re a rewards member and spend at least $10 in-store on products within the same month.

Home Depot and Lowes

You can dispose of old rechargeable batteries, old phones and CFL bulbs in the dropoff boxes at any of 2,300 Home Depot or 2,200 Lowe’s locations. The bins are usually located in the front of the store, and Home Depot has an 11-pound limit on individual items.

Target

Target locations have drop-off bins for recyclables located near the entrance; in addition to bins for paper and plastics, there is a specially-designated bin for e-waste like cellphones and used ink cartridges.

Manufacturers Stack of old, broken and obsolete laptop computer

If you can't make it to a retail location, especially when you need to get rid of only one or two items, many companies offer recycling programs for their own products. They'll even pay for shipping. Some run their own programs while others use outside organizations. We've outlined policies from a handful of manufacturers below.

Amazon

Amazon would love for you to use its trade-in program and, if you’re looking to recycle Amazon-branded products like Kindles, Fire TVs and even Ring doorbells, you absolutely should. Amazon will send you a gift card as well as promotional discount to use on a future Amazon device purchase, even if the returned product is non-functional.

For products from other manufacturers that can’t be resold, Amazon offers mail-in recycling. You can send in your busted phones and tablets, as well as select peripherals like keyboards and mice. You'll just need to fill out some forms online and generate a shipping label, which you can slap on any box. Drop it off at a UPS location, and you're good to go; Amazon will cover all the costs.

Apple Apple's Apple

If your iPhone or MacBook is still in good shape, you should consider selling it, but if it's too old or beat up you can still score a gift card by turning it into Apple's recycling program. For iPhones (as well as select handsets from Samsung and Google) and iPads, you'll be asked to fill out a form attesting to the product's condition and given a trade-in quote (at the time of writing this, a working iPhone 8 goes for $50 and an iPhone 12 scores you $220). For Macs and Apple Watches, you'll be asked to provide a serial number as well. Though Apple won't give you cash for anything it deems too old, broken or otherwise unacceptable, you can still mail it in or bring it to any Apple Store so it can be responsibly disposed of.

Dell

Dell offers drop-off recycling via a partnership with Goodwill. Not every location participates, but there are more than 2,000 that do. And, because it's a charity, you may even be able to deduct it as a donation on your taxes. Dell also has a mail-back program on its site where you can generate and print out a shipping label and drop the package off at a FedEx location instead.

Epson

You can ship old products back to Epson by simply creating a shipping label on its site and dropping it off at a FedEx location. If you’re located in New York, you can even get free packaging sent to you by calling 866-922-8252. Epson also recommends getting in touch with a local charity via Digitunity, where your old equipment may be refurbished for use by people in need.

HP

If you can, HP recommends taking its products to the nearest Best Buy. HP does have a trade-in program, but it’s geared toward business customers looking to upgrade equipment that still has market value and individual consumers will be redirected to other recycling methods.

Ink and toner cartridges can be returned by mail; the company will mail you an envelope that can hold between 3 and 8 ink cartridges and can be dropped off in a mailbox or at the post office. For toner and large quantities of ink cartridges, you can print out a label and use your own box, or request a box be sent directly to you, which you’ll fill with items and drop off at a UPS location.

Other manufacturers

Many other companies use outside recyclers to dispose of their products, and you'll often see the same names popping up again and again across different manufacturers. This should simplify things in some cases — you should be able to send in products from multiple sources in one package. You just need to fill in the make and model to generate a prepaid shipping label. However, different states have different rules on what you can return, so the drop-downs for selecting your product may vary by area.

Two major recycling companies you'll notice a lot are RLG, which covers Acer, Canon, Google, Intel, Lenovo, and Microsoft, and MRM, which recycles products for Brother, Hisense, Hitachi, HTC, Logitech, Panasonic, TCL and Wacom.

States computer parts for electronic recycling

There may not be a national law dictating that you must recycle your electronics, but at least 26 states have passed rules that vary widely on what they demand of manufacturers and consumers. Almost all states that do collect products for recycling provide this service free, with the bill footed by the companies in some way. Most provide some local programs to help you get rid of your stuff, regardless of whether recycling your gadgets is required or optional.

States where you can no longer dispose of electronics in the regular trash and must recycle them include: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

The following states have laws requiring manufacturers to pay for recycling, but you, the consumer, are not actually required to recycle your electronics: Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.

The following states have some special circumstances worth noting:

Connecticut

Does not allow recycling centers to charge you a fee for turning in electronics, so many organizations and retailers that would usually charge for recycling televisions and monitors do not accept them. Because you cannot dispose of them curbside, you can take them to a municipal transfer station for free.

New York

New York State has a law making it illegal to charge a fee at recycling centers, so this is your best bet for disposing of old televisions (retailers can still charge for the service). If you live in a New York City apartment building with 10 or more units, contact your landlord about getting an ecycleNYC drop-off box installed in your building. It’s super convenient and free.

Pennsylvania

Does not allow retailers to charge you a fee to recycle, so places like Best Buy and Staples will not accept most televisions or monitors. Many recycling centers have also closed as a result of underfunding, so check the list of open locations first. Some nonprofit recyclers may still accept the items, and you should check to see if your local government is hosting any drop-off events. Lancaster and Dauphin Counties also still run civic recycling programs.

Virginia

This state does not have a dedicated statewide recycling program, but some localities run their own programs including Fairfax, Loudoun and Rockbridge counties, and cities like Arlington. Check each municipality’s site for details.

Cell phones Electronics Recycling

Cell phones are the easiest gadget to recycle — if you haven't already decided to sell yours off on eBay or via sites like Decluttr and ecoATM. But, if you can't or won't make some cash off of it, you can send it to:

Call2Recycle, which has drop-off centers all over the country in many chain stores, including Lowes and Home Depot. It will also accept rechargeable batteries.

Cell Phones for Soldiers accepts phones in any condition and sells them to refurbishers or recyclers. The proceeds go toward purchasing phone cards for troops so they can call their friends and family back home. To be clear, the phones are not given directly to the soldiers.

The three major US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — all offer free recycling. You can trade in your old device in-store or send it in for a credit toward a new phone, or let them straight up recycle it. AT&T also participates in Cell Phones for Soldiers.

If you do decide to try your luck with ecoATM to see if your old phone is still worth a few bucks and it turns out it's worth nothing, you can at least rest easy knowing that the company will also recycle your phone responsibly.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/where-to-recycle-electronics.html?src=rss

Black Mirror will get six new episodes in 2025

Fri, 2024-03-15 04:15

Black Mirror, the series that eerily foreshadowed our current tech dystopia, is set to return in 2025 for a seventh season, Netflix revealed at its UK Next event. The six-episode run will include a sequel to one of the best-loved episodes, the darkly funny Star Trek spoof USS Callister

It's light on details, with a Netflix teaser only teasing the 2025 date and sequel episode. "Robert Daly is dead, but for the crew of the USS Callister, their problems are just beginning," the description reads. The original episode from season 4 (2017) starred Jesse Plemons and Cristin Milioti, along with the voice of Aaron Paul and an uncredited cameo by Kristen Dunst. That episode won multiple Emmys, including one for Outstanding Television Movie.

Black Mirror debuted in the UK in 2011 with the occasional hiatus, including this year. It was created by Charlie Brooker and executive produced by Annabel Jones. 

Its last season, in 2023, featured five episodes and included a few bangers like Loch Henry and Joan is Awful. The latter takes streaming services to their logical, dark conclusion (think The Truman Show meets OpenAI meets Netflix) — and we expect similar themes in the upcoming season. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/black-mirror-will-get-six-new-episodes-in-2025-081523986.html?src=rss

Pornhub says adios to Texas

Fri, 2024-03-15 03:18

If Pornhub were a cowboy, then it has just tipped its hat and ridden off into the sunset to leave Texas. It's now inaccessible in the state after the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Texas can start enforcing its age verification regulations for porn websites. As 404Media reports, when you visit Pornhub or any other adult entertainment website owned by its parent company Aylo from within the state, you'll now get a message that begins with: "Dear user, as you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website."

The message then explains that the practice would "impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech" and that it's the "least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas' stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors." Texas' age verification rules require porn website visitors to prove their age by providing a copy of one of their government IDs. Aylo said in its message that "providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk."

Texas governor Greg Abbott signed the age verification bill into law last year, but a group of porn websites that included Pornhub filed a lawsuit to block it a month later. A judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked its immediate enforcement, ruling that the plaintiffs showed that they "will likely be violated if the statute takes effect" and that they will "suffer irreparable harm." However, the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton (pictured above), appealed the injunction. The court did strike down the law's requirement to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography," but Paxton has clearly won the battle. 

Pornhub's message for its Texas visitors is the same one it shows visitors from other states with similar age verification laws, including Utah, Montana, North Carolina and Mississippi. Last year, Aylo also started requiring Louisiana visitors to verify their identities through the state's digital driver's license wallet app, but most states don't have a comparable application that works with its system. "We believe that the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users' age on their device and to either deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification," Aylo explained in its message. 

In a rather amusing yet expected turn of events, there was a spike in Google searches for "VPN" after the appeals court's ruling came out. As you might have guessed, Texas now tops the list of states for VPN searches, indicating that people are now looking for ways to circumvent Pornhub's shutdown in the region. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pornhub-says-adios-to-texas-071814587.html?src=rss

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