Category: Technology

A key feature of Apple’s Vision Pro VR, er, spatial computing headset is Personas that that lets people see a digital version of themselves during calls, Zoom meetings, etc. At launch, they looked a bit creepy, but Apple has improved them considerably in the latest release, according to posts on X spotted by MacRumors. They’re now more realistic, so users look less like impressionist paintings and more like humans. 

Once the visionOS 1.1 update is installed, you’ll be prompted to recapture your Persona to get the “latest appearance updates” — this is apparently done in part with the headset off and pointing at your face. Most users feel the updated Personas are better, and visually, they look less blurry and a touch more realistic, plus the proportions seem better.

As a reminder, Personas are a digital representing of the users created by data from the headset’s sensors and a new machine learning algorithm. They’re designed to be an “authentic spatial representation” of someone that shows their facial expressions and hand movements — so you won’t be a dork in a mask on group calls.

If you need to do that, though, a similar feature called EyeSight shows other people a digital version of your eyes when you’re wearing the Vision Pro. Apple still calls Personas a beta feature and provides detailed instructions to get the best results.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-latest-vision-pro-update-improves-the-look-of-persona-avatars-100558320.html?src=rss 

While Toyota helped lead the hybrid charge with its Prius, the company has been less active in EV production. But that might be in the past, as Toyota has announced another $1.3 billion for its Kentucky facility, with a focus on EVs. In particular, the company is building a new three-row electric SUV that will be available for US customers. 

Toyota’s Kentucky operation is its flagship facility, with nearly 9,400 employees. “Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to vehicle electrification and further reinvesting in our US operations,” Kerry Creech, president of Toyota Kentucky, said in a release. “Generations of our team members helped prepare for this opportunity, and we will continue leading the charge into the future by remaining true to who we are as a company and putting our people first for generations to come.”

Little is known so far about the three-row electric SUV, as Toyota only mentions it briefly in relation to the investment. However, it follows the company’s prior announcement of its Urban SUV concept slated to launch in Europe this year. 

The $1.3 billion investment will also go towards creating a battery pack assembly line at its Kentucky factory (a separate manufacturing plant in North Carolina produces the batteries). Toyota has big plans for its battery production, previously announcing three battery ranges focused on higher performance and low cost slated for 2026 and onward. The company is also working on its first solid-state batteries, which have the potential to charge an EV from 10 to 80 percent in 10 minutes. Toyota’s bZ4X EV currently takes 32 minutes to do so. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/toyota-announces-a-three-row-electric-suv-for-us-customers-092545458.html?src=rss 

Bluesky, the open source Twitter alternative, has seen a surge in new users just one day after opening its platform up to the public. The service has gained more than 850,000 users bringing its total sign-ups to just over 4 million.

The service had been in an invitation-only beta for about a year and had grown to just over 3 million users when it officially opened to the public. It currently has close to 4.1 million sign-ups, according to an online tracker. “Things are rolling over here,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wrote in a post on X.

The surge in new users suggests that there is still ample curiosity about the Jack Dorsey-backed platform that began as an internal project at Twitter in 2019. It also indicated that Meta hasn’t entirely cornered the market for a text-based Twitter alternative. The company’s Threads app has grown to 130 million monthly users, Meta announced last week.

Graber has said that Bluesky intended to grow at a slower pace so that it could build it the platform, and the underlying protocol, without the added pressure sudden surges in growth can cause. Some of those concerns were borne out over the last day as the spike in activity led to some technical issues on the site, including problems with the app’s custom feeds and a brief outage overnight. The outage was resolved within a couple hours, according to the company.

Much of Bluesky’s future success will hinge on whether it can maintain new growth and keep the interest of all its new users. Threads also saw an initial spike in new users, only for it to drop-off before eventually rebounding.

Though Bluesky may look a bit like Threads or X, it’s a fundamentally different kind of platform and part of the growing movement for decentralized social media. Its open-source protocol functions like a “permanently open” API, according to Graber, and the site already has dozens of developers building their own experiences. Bluesky also offers more customization features for users, with features like custom algorithms and the ability to choose your own content moderation settings.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bluesky-has-added-almost-a-million-users-one-day-after-opening-to-the-public-004854186.html?src=rss 

Disney will invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, the company announced on Wednesday. As part of the initiative, Disney and Epic Games will create a brand new “games and entertainment universe” over the next few years, Disney said in a statement.

“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disneys beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games an entertainment universe,” wrote Disney CEO Bob Iger in the statement. “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion.”

Players will be able to “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar, and more” in the new entertainment universe, which will be powered by Epic’s flagship Unreal Engine. Disney currently uses Unreal Engine to produce movies, video games, and content used in Disney theme parks around the world. It has also partnered with Epic Games previously to bring characters from Marvel, Tron, and Star Wars to Fortnite.

Neither company disclosed how much the valuation of Epic Games, a private company, would be after Disney’s investment. Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent currently owns 40 percent of Epic Games, while Sony owns just over 5 percent.

“[We] are collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in the statement. “Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite[.]”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/disney-is-investing-15-billion-in-epic-games-to-create-a-games-and-entertainment-universe-215015443.html?src=rss 

One week after Microsoft laid off nearly 2,000 employees in its gaming division, the Federal Trade Commission is accusing Microsoft of contradicting its pledge to allow Activision Blizzard to operate independently post-acquisition. The FTC filed a complaint in a federal appeals court on Wednesday, arguing that last week’s downsizing, which affected employees of Activision Blizzard, “contradicts Microsoft’s representations in this proceeding.” The FTC is asking for a temporary pause of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard as it further investigates potential antitrust issues.

In its arguments to the FTC over the past two years, Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn’t need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies. On January 30, Microsoft announced it was cutting 1,900 jobs across Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and Xbox after identifying “areas of overlap” specifically between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. This discrepancy is the core of the FTC’s complaint.

“Microsoft’s recently-reported plan to eliminate 1,900 jobs in its video game division, including in its newly-acquired Activision unit, contradicts the foregoing representations it made to this Court,” the FTC’s complaint said. “Specifically, Microsoft reportedly has stated that the layoffs were part of an ‘execution plan’ that would reduce ‘areas of overlap’ between Microsoft and Activision, which is inconsistent with Microsoft’s suggestion to this Court that the two companies will operate independently post-merger.”

Though the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority approved Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, the FTC hasn’t seen satisfaction regarding its own antitrust concerns. The FTC is still challenging the acquisition, which means there’s a possibility that Microsoft will be forced to divest all or part of Activision Blizzard.

In Wednesday’s complaint, the FTC argued that the recent layoffs also undermine its own ability to order relief for employees who were negatively affected in the acquisition.

Microsoft’s layoffs join an avalanche of mass firings in the video game industry, specifically in the past few months. An estimated 10,500 people in video games lost their jobs in 2023 — and already in 2024, 6,000 workers have been laid off.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html?src=rss 

On the company’s quarterly earnings call today, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the previously-announced standalone ESPN streaming service will arrive by the fall of 2025. The company had already tipped the service, which Iger explained will offer “the full suite” of ESPN networks as a streaming option, but a general launch date or any additional details hadn’t been revealed. 

Iger said that the standalone ESPN offering will serve up the live games and studio programming that’s currently available on a host of cable channels. What’s more, the service will provide access to ESPN Bet and fantasy sports alongside detailed stats and shopping. Of course, all of that will also include “robust personalization,” according to Iger. 

These new details come a day after Disney announced it would team up with Fox and Warner Brothers Discovery on a combined sports streaming service this fall. The yet-to-be-named option will include games from NFL, MLB, NHL and the NBA via channels including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN. There’s no word on pricing yet, but subscribers will be able to bundle it with their existing Disney+, Hulu, and Max subscriptions. This means that you’ll actually be able to stream ESPN networks without a cable or other live TV subscription before Disney’s own standalone service launches. However, the combo effort is sure to be more expensive as it mashes up all of those additional channels from Fox and Warner Brothers Discovery. 

Disney already offers ESPN+ as an alternative to cable. The service makes live games available for streaming, but it doesn’t provide access to action as it airs on ESPN networks. For that reason ESPN+ has been complement to the cable channels, but Disney hasn’t yet said how its services will exist after fall of next year. 

Standalone ESPN will also be available on Disney+ for bundle subscribers, just like the company has done with Hulu. No word on pricing for the new iteration of ESPN yet either, but there’s also plenty of time for Disney to hype the service between now and fall 2025. Iger did say that the the price “would be more attractive” than the typical cable bundle. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/espns-standalone-streaming-service-will-launch-by-fall-2025-220624127.html?src=rss 

Threads is beginning to test a bookmarking feature to allow users to save posts, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri. The update is beginning as a “limited test,” but the “heavily requested” feature will eventually have a permanent place on the service, the company said.

According to screenshots shared by Meta, the “save” button on Threads will look very similar to Instagram’s version of the feature. Users will be able to access their bookmarked posts from the “save” section of the app’s settings.

While the ability to save posts may not seem like the most exciting update, it will help bring a little more organization to the app. threads currently lacks direct messaging, search filtering, lists and a number of other features often requested by power users looking to replace the functionality of Twitter (now known as X).

Threads recently introduced searchable tags, but Meta has so far resisted adding chronological search or trending features. Mosseri has said chronological search could be easily gamed by spammers, though an “internal prototype” of the feature was recently spotted in the wild. Meta employees have also been spotted sharing images of a feature that looks a lot like trending topics, though it’s unclear what the company’s plans for it may be.

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the company “will continue listening to community feedback for ways to improve the Threads experience.” The app has climbed to 130 million monthly users, Mark Zuckerberg revealed last week. He has said that the app has the potential to be the company’s next billion-user service.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-threads-app-is-getting-a-bookmarking-feature-to-save-posts-194149279.html?src=rss 

Even NASA is not immune to layoffs. The agency says it’s cutting around 530 employees from its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California amid budget uncertainty. That’s eight percent of the facility’s workforce. JPL is laying off about 40 contractors too, just weeks after imposing a hiring freeze and canning 100 other contractors. Workers are being informed of their fates today.

“After exhausting all other measures to adjust to a lower budget from NASA, and in the absence of an FY24 appropriation from Congress, we have had to make the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs,” NASA said in a statement spotted by Gizmodo. “The impacts will occur across both technical and support areas of the Lab. These are painful but necessary adjustments that will enable us to adhere to our budget allocation while continuing our important work for NASA and our nation.”

Uncertainty over the final budget that Congress will allocate to NASA for 2024 has played a major factor in the cuts. It’s expected that the agency will receive around $300 million for Mars Sample Return (MSR), an ambitious mission in which NASA plans to launch a lander and orbiter to the red planet in 2028 and bring back soil. In its 2024 budget proposal, NASA requested just under $950 million for the project.

“While we still do not have an FY24 appropriation or the final word from Congress on our Mars Sample Return (MSR) budget allocation, we are now in a position where we must take further significant action to reduce our spending,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo. “In the absence of an appropriation, and as much as we wish we didn’t need to take this action, we must now move forward to protect against even deeper cuts later were we to wait.”

NASA has yet to provide a full cost estimate for MSR, though an independent report pegged the price at between $8 billion and $11 billion. In its proposed 2024 budget, the Senate Appropriations subcommittee ordered NASA to submit a year-by-year funding plan for MSR. If the agency does not do so, the subcommittee warned that the mission could be canceled.

That’s despite MSR having enjoyed success so far. The Perseverance rover has dug up some soil samples that contain evidence of organic matter and would warrant closer analysis were NASA able to bring them back to Earth. The samples could help scientists learn more about Mars, such as whether the planet ever hosted life.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-jet-propulsion-laboratory-is-laying-off-570-workers-185336632.html?src=rss