Category: Technology

Anthropic announced that its Claude chatbot is now available as an Android app. After introducing the platform’s free iOS app in May, Android owners can now also play with the company’s AI on their mobile devices. The Android app is free and works with both the Pro and Team plans for paid users. Conversations with Claude can happen across hardware, with both of the mobile apps and the web version connected to each other.

This platform is one of several large-language model AI chatbots currently available to the public. OpenAI and its ChatGPT tool have attracted the lion’s share of attention. ChatGPT is already available in both Android and iOS app form, and it underlies many features of the new Apple Intelligence. However, it’s possible that Claude may have more powerful skills. According to Anthropic, the Claude 3 version of the platform performed better than both ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini on some important benchmarks. The Claude 3 Opus version scored top marks in March and the Sonnet 3.5 version did the same in June. We always need to take that kind of comparison from one of the companies in question with many grains of salt. But even the leaps between the Sonnet and Opus over the course of a few months do appear to be impressive.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/anthropics-claude-chatbot-is-now-an-android-app-220046355.html?src=rss 

The sudden and tragic passing of Kevin Conroy, the revered voice actor who voiced Batman/Bruce Wayne for Batman: The Animated Series and the Batman Arkham games and died in 2022 at 66, somehow felt worse with the release of the Suicide Squad game. Rocksteady’s disappointing open world DC Comics game almost marked the last time that Conroy would voice The Dark Knight and an evil Batman at that. Even if the game was good, it wouldn’t feel right letting Conroy’s credit list end on such a down note.

Thankfully, a new Warner Bros. Animation trilogy based on the Justice League: Crisis of Infinite Earths DC comics series will feature the final voiceover performance of Conroy as Batman. The climatic scene showing his final moments found its way to X yesterday.

Conroy’s final voiceover occurs in the final film of the trilogy. If you don’t want to know how it ends before you’ve had a chance to watch the whole thing, you should stop scrolling down right now.

The whole scene feels like a purposeful nod and tribute to Conroy and his contributions to the animated and pixelated Batmen. The scene starts with lightning as the virtual camera pans down to Batman. He’s standing on a building overlooking Gotham City just like in the opening credits of Batman: The Animated Series, the 90s afternoon TV cartoon that first glued Conroy’s voice to the image of Batman.

The Joker, voiced by Troy Baker, sneaks up behind ol’ Bats and tries to sucker punch him but fails. He strikes Joker to the ground and Joker says with a smile, “I’m flattered. The end of the world and you wanted to spend it with me. I didn’t know you cared.”

Some kind of destructive force envelopes the city and sky. Batman remarks just before the world implodes, “I care, Joker, about Gotham, about justice and if it has to end, at least I go out like this. Being Batman.”

We also should’ve included a Kleenex warning because it’s such a touching way to pay tribute to Conroy and his legacy to the Batman series.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hear-kevin-conroys-final-performance-as-batman-in-crisis-on-infinite-earths-221556477.html?src=rss 

A US Senate Committee led by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has issued a report claiming nearly half of Amazon warehouse workers were injured during the week of Prime Day 2019. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman described the company’s behavior from five years ago as “incredibly dangerous.” For its part, Amazon claims Sen. Sanders is distorting and cherry-picking facts while ignoring others to fit a narrative.

The report cites internal company data, including injuries Amazon isn’t required to document for OSHA, allegedly showing warehouse workers suffered nearly 45 injuries per 100 workers during the week of Prime Day 2019. Meanwhile, of the “recordable” injuries serious enough that the company has to report them to OSHA, the report claims Amazon’s were more than double the industry average — over 10 per 100 workers.

“The incredibly dangerous working conditions at Amazon revealed in this investigation are a perfect example of the type of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” Sanders wrote Tuesday in a HELP Committee announcement. The Senator said Amazon treats its workers as “disposable” and “with complete contempt for their safety and wellbeing.”

Meanwhile, an Amazon spokesperson’s statement, shared with Engadget, claims the committee’s findings paint a misleading picture. The company says the committee’s conclusions drew from unverified anecdotes, misrepresented years-old documents and included factual errors and misguided analysis.

“For example, one of the false claims in the report implies that we’re not adequately staffed for busy shopping periods,” company spokesperson Kelly Nantel wrote in Amazon’s statement. “This is just not true, as we carefully plan and staff up for major events, ensure that we have excess capacity across our network, and design our network so that orders are automatically routed to sites that can handle unexpected spikes in volume.”

Amazon says it’s made “significant progress” in the five years since the data the report cited, including reducing its recordable incident rate (those requiring OSHA reports by law) by 28 percent in the US. The company says it also lowered its “lost time incident rate” (workers who suffer more significant injuries that require time off) by 75 percent.

No matter whose framing you prefer, this isn’t the first time Amazon has been criticized for its warehouse working conditions. Last year, a coalition of labor unions, citing OSHA data, claimed the company was responsible for 53 percent of all serious warehouse injuries recorded in the US in 2022. That report claimed Amazon’s warehouse workers were injured more frequently (and often more severely) than their non-Amazon counterparts.

Last month, the California Labor Commissioner’s office fined Amazon nearly $6 million for violating a state law requiring large companies to notify warehouse and distribution workers in writing about their expected quotas, how often they’re expected to perform certain tasks and what consequences they would face for failing to meet their quotas. That law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, was drafted in reaction to Amazon workers claiming they would skip bathroom breaks or risk injury to optimize their output.

That followed a 2021 report by The Washington Post (ironically, owned by Jeff Bezos), claiming data shows Amazon’s warehouse workers “suffer serious injuries at higher rates than other firms.” The company, still helmed by Bezos at the time, quickly changed its “Time Off Task” policy in response.

In addition, as CNBC notes, OSHA and the US Attorney’s Office are investigating conditions at some Amazon warehouses. The Department of Justice is also investigating whether the company underreports injuries — an accusation echoed by Sanders in the HELP Committee’s findings.

Perhaps The Coalition for Workplace Safety (CWS), an organization that tries to balance corporate and regulatory priorities (good luck with that), found a spin we can all agree on. “If [Sanders] wants to improve safety for delivery workers, he should start with the US Postal Service, as OSHA’s own data shows the USPS by far has the highest percentage of investigations resulting in citations compared to other large employers in the industry.”

The moral of the story? No matter what a company is accused of, there’s a good chance the US Postal Service sucks even more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/senate-probe-bernie-sanders-claims-nearly-half-of-amazon-warehouse-workers-were-injured-during-prime-day-2019-204028410.html?src=rss 

Streaming has hit a new high on the American viewing charts. According to the latest Nielsen data, streaming services were responsible for 40.3 percent of daily TV viewing in June 2024. It’s a banner result for streaming video, which first overtook cable in Nielsen ratings back in 2022. The June result marks not only the biggest share recorded for streaming since Nielsen added it as a tracked category on The Gauge report, but it is also the largest share Nielsen has ever recorded for a single viewership category. Cable TV secured 27.2 percent of American viewing for the month, followed by broadcast TV at 20.5 percent.

YouTube was the favorite streaming platform with 9.9 percent of the monthly usage, followed by Netflix at 8.4 percent. The summer sensation of Bridgerton helped boost Netflix’s performance; the costume drama was responsible for a staggering 9.3 billion minutes of viewing during the month. There’s a notable drop after those two services, with Amazon’s Prime Video securing 3.1 percent, and companion platforms Hulu and Disney+ coming in with 3 percent and 2 percent shares, respectively.

In case those streaming figures seem low, it’s important to note that Nielsen tracks viewing only on television screens. That means the vast number of hours Americans spend streaming shows on their phones and tablets isn’t part of this accounting.

While streaming continues to draw ever-more eyeballs, executives are more focused on drawing in dollars. Another report, this one from analyst PricewaterhouseCoopers, projected that advertising would be responsible for about 28 percent of global streaming revenue. In 2023, the ad share was 20 percent.

The report credited that shift to the growth rate of subscription revenue stalling out. “Usage and consumer uptake of the core offering is continuing to increase — albeit at a lower rate than in recent years – but companies are having greater difficulty getting people to pay more for digital goods and services,” PwC said. “As the number and range of streaming services proliferate, a form of market saturation has begun to kick in.” In response, recent years have seen many of the top video streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video have introduced hybrid models that offer lower monthly subscription costs in exchange for viewers watching ads. If the PwC forecast is accurate, we can expect other platforms to follow suit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/streaming-accounted-for-more-than-40-percent-of-tv-viewing-in-june-203206939.html?src=rss 

A pre-release build of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has leaked online two months before release, according to reporting by Insider Gaming. This is a fully playable version that was “randomly posted on a tracker,” according to sources who have downloaded and experimented with the build. It remains unclear how the game ended up online.

Players have said that the game is around 75GB in size. Though this leaked build is playable, it does have some issues. There are missing strings and a bunch of placeholder assets, but the version does include server data that should allow for online play. As expected, gameplay footage has begun popping up online, but we’ll refrain from posting any so as to keep things spoiler-free. We will drop a trailer though, because the game looks neat. 

In addition to forgoing gameplay videos, we don’t recommend heading to a torrent site to look for the leaked build. This is not only bad for the hard-working folks who made the game, but will more than likely riddle your PC with more bugs than an open Florida patio in summer. Torrents ain’t what they used to be.

Developers Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive have issued a statement regarding the leak, asking fans to wait for the official release and thanking them for ongoing support. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 comes out on September 9 and will be available for the PS5, Xbox Series S|X and PC.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/warhammer-40k-space-marine-2-has-leaked-online-two-months-before-release-185034761.html?src=rss 

Behaviour Interactive has shared a bunch of Dead by Daylight-related updates, including the release date for an upcoming spinoff. The Casting of Frank Stone, which was developed by Until Dawn studio Supermassive Games, will hit PC, PlayStation and Xbox on September 3.

This is a single-player game that brings the narrative adventure format that Supermassive has used so effectively in its previous projects to the DbD universe. The story will change based on the decisions you make and how you deal with quick-time events and puzzles. It focuses on a bunch of young people who want to film their own horror movie in a condemned steel mill, only to find evidence of crimes carried out by a serial killer. The game is said to take between five and seven hours to complete.

As for the main game, Lara Croft is now available as a survivor as part of the Tomb Raider chapter, which went live today. Cross-progression will finally be available starting on July 22 as well. You’ll need a Behaviour account and a copy of the base game for each platform on which you want to play it. You’ll have access to all of the same progress and purchases on each system.

Those who have been waiting for extra DbD mayhem can look forward to a limited-time mode that pits two killers against eight survivors when the long-awaited 2 vs. 8 option goes live on July 25. The maps are larger and survivors will need to repair twice as many generators to escape. To keep the action fast paced, hooks and perks will be removed. Survivors will be able to try out a new class system instead. The 2 vs. 8 mode will be available until August 8.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dead-by-daylight-spinoff-the-casting-of-frank-stone-arrives-on-september-3-192339402.html?src=rss 

Big-ticket items might get the lion’s share of the attention during Amazon Prime Day, but look below the surface and you’ll find a bunch of deals on items that were already budget-friendly. Case in point: our pick for the best budget wireless earbuds, the Anker Soundcore Space A40, have dropped to $49. That’s a discount of $31 and brings the earbuds back down to match their record-low price. This is just one of many Prime Day deals we have our eye on.

We feel that the Soundcore Space A40 buds deliver excellent active noise cancellation (ANC) performance, especially for a model in this price range. Anker employs an adaptive system by default that adjusts the ANC intensity based on the noise around you. You can set the ANC to strong, moderate or weak levels manually too and Anker claims it can block up to 98 percent of noise. It’s worth noting that the ANC might not be as effective for blocking higher-pitch sounds, while the transparency mode does the trick, but it’s not nearly as effective as what you’d find on more premium earbuds.

The Space A40 buds are pretty comfortable. They have a battery life of about eight hours, with the charging case adding around another 40. The default sound profile is warm and pleasant without totally blowing out the low end. You can tweak the EQ settings to your preference in the Soundcore app, which can help you refine the bass and higher frequencies. The touch controls are customizable too. Changes you make are saved directly to the earphones.

The IXP4 water resistance rating isn’t super robust, but you’ll be able to wear the Space A40 in light rain and at the gym without too much of a concern. What’s more, there’s multipoint pairing, so you can connect the earbuds to two devices at the same time — for what it’s worth, we haven’t encountered any significant connection issues.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prime-day-deals-bring-our-favorite-pair-of-budget-wireless-earbuds-down-to-only-49-170653500.html?src=rss 

Some of the world’s largest tech companies trained their AI models on a dataset that included transcripts of more than 173,000 YouTube videos without permission, a new investigation from Proof News has found. The dataset, which was created by a nonprofit company called EleutherAI, contains transcripts of YouTube videos from more than 48,000 channels and was used by Apple, NVIDIA and Anthropic among other companies. The findings of the investigation spotlight AI’s uncomfortable truth: the technology is largely built on the backs of data siphoned from creators without their consent or compensation.

The dataset doesn’t include any videos or images from YouTube, but contains video transcripts from the platform’s biggest creators including Marques Brownlee and MrBeast, as well as large news publishers like The New York Times, the BBC, and ABC News. Subtitles from videos belonging to Engadget are also part of the dataset.

“Apple has sourced data for their AI from several companies,” Brownlee posted on X. “One of them scraped tons of data/transcripts from YouTube videos, including mine,” he added. “This is going to be an evolving problem for a long time.”

YouTube, Apple, NVIDIA, Anthropic and EleutherAI did not respond to a request for comment from Engadget.

So far, AI companies haven’t been transparent about the data used to train their models. Earlier this month, artists and photographers criticized Apple for failing to reveal the source of training data for Apple Intelligence, the company own spin on generative AI coming to millions of Apple devices this year.

YouTube, the world’s largest repository of videos, in particular, is a goldmine of not only transcripts but also audio, video, and images, making it an attractive dataset for training AI models. Earlier this year, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, evaded questions from The Wall Street Journal about whether the company used YouTube videos to train Sora, OpenAI’s upcoming AI video generation tool. “I’m not going to go into the details of the data that was used, but it was publicly available or licensed data,” Murati said at the time. Both YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have said that companies using data from YouTube to train their AI models was a violation of the platform’s terms of service.

If you want to see if subtitles from your YouTube videos or from your favorite channels are part of the dataset, head over to the Proof News’ lookup tool. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-nvidia-and-anthropic-reportedly-used-youtube-transcripts-without-permission-to-train-ai-models-170827317.html?src=rss 

Amazon’s (twice) yearly Prime Day event has arrived and with it comes a slew of low prices on big ticket items like laptops and TVs — but the savings on smaller stuff can be just as worthy, particularly if you need a the batteries, cables, chargers and more that keep your bigger accessories running.

We’re also seeing deals on smaller gadgets like Bluetooth trackers, speakers and streaming devices — all of which represent the best Prime Day deals under $50. Check out the sales below for the more affordable Prime Day deals you can shop right now.

As with all Engadget tech deals coverage, we only highlight discounts on gear we’ve tested or have otherwise used and know to be worthy of your money. We cross-checked our guides and reviews with the Prime Day deals Amazon has put forth to come up with what you see here. And we’ll update these deals roundups throughout both days of Amazon’s Prime Day sale.

Prime Day tech deals under $20

Prime Day tech deals under $30

Prime Day tech deals under $40

Prime Day tech deals under $50

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prime-day-deals-under-50-we-found-42-of-the-best-tech-deals-on-sale-during-amazons-big-event-110004393.html?src=rss