Category: Technology

The AI news just won’t stop! This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss the latest on Bing AI – Microsoft is loosening up some recent restrictions, following reports of its bad behavior – as well as the rise of ChatGPT stories on the Kindle store. Spotify is also launching its own AI DJ, starring the digitized voice of one of its current hosts. In other news, we discuss Microsoft’s recent agreements with NVIDIA and Nintendo, which could warm regulators towards approving its Activision Blizzard acquisition.

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 podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

Subscribe!

iTunes

Spotify

Pocket Casts

Stitcher

Google Podcasts

Topics

After the Microsoft and Google announcements, AI is suddenly everywhere – 1:17

Microsoft tries to win over regulators by putting Xbox games on GeForce Now – 26:29

Glucose monitoring on the Apple Watch could be coming soon – 28:16

Twitter limits SMS two-factor authentication to Blue users – 30:43

Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical is finished, regulators are still curious – 35:31

No Man’s Sky Fractal VR update is out just in time for PS VR 2 – 39:04

Working on – 42:58

Pop culture picks – 46:10

Livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos
Graphic artists: Luke Brooks

 

It’s time for more Marvel Cinematic Universe, more special effects, more families in danger and more sinister baddies, with a bigger role for Kang the Conqueror – the big cross-movie threat, a la Thanos – played by Jonathan Majors. Alas, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers from too many special effects, sadly.

It uses Industrial Light and Magic’s (ILM) StageCraft technology (AKA “the Volume”), which came to prominence in Star Wars series The Mandalorian. It’s a series of enormous LED walls that can display real-time footage, synchronized to interactive lighting to make it feel like actors are in these sci-fi landscapes, fighting these threats to humanity. Still, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the tech, the actors and the narrative fail to convince.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

Samsung’s Galaxy S23+ is already $140 off

Samsung is readying its own smartphone-to-satellite communication platform

Panasonic S5 II review: The full-frame vlogging camera you’ve been waiting for

Apple’s Mac Mini M2 and M2 Pro models get their first Amazon discounts

‘Star Trek: Picard’: cargo cults and the perils of success

The Roland SH-4d is a groovebox disguised as a synthesizer

James Webb telescope captures ancient galaxies that theoretically shouldn’t exist

Their age and Milky Way-like size make them an anomaly.

According to images taken near the Big Dipper by the JWST, scientists found six potential galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. That they could be almost 13 billion years old isn’t what makes them odd, though, it’s that they could have as many stars as the Milky Way, according to the team’s calculations. The scientists explained the galaxies should not exist under current cosmological theory because there shouldn’t have been enough matter at the time for that many stars to form. Now, that sounds like the start of a MCU movie.

Continue reading.

Google’s Magic Eraser photo tool is coming to older Pixel phones

And other Google Photos features will be more broadly available.

Google is bringing photo features once exclusive to recent Pixel phones to more devices. Magic Eraser, a tool to easily remove unwanted people or objects from an image, debuted in 2021 on the Pixel 6, and starting today, Google is rolling out Magic Eraser to Pixel 5a and earlier models. All Pixel models and Google One subscribers will also gain access to an HDR effect to boost the brightness and contrast to videos. The same goes for Google One subscribers. Members on all plans will have access to Magic Eraser through Google Photos, even if they’re on iOS.

Continue reading.

Netflix cuts prices in over 30 countries (but not the US)

It’s experimenting.

Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries – just not in the US. The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). The company introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October – it’s clearly trying a bit of everything.

Continue reading.

Elon Musk says California is home to Tesla’s engineering headquarters

The CEO moved the company’s corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021.

Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state: Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” But he’s back.

Continue reading.

 

Some YouTube viewers have reported seeing a new option for video quality in the website’s drop-down menu. In addition to the basic 1080p playback option, they’re also seeing another one labeled 1080p Premium with a note beneath it that says it offers “Enhanced bitrate.” A spokesperson told The Verge that the website is testing the new video quality, which is currently available to “a small group of YouTube Premium subscribers.” They described it as an “enhanced bitrate version of 1080p which provides more information per pixel that results in a higher quality viewing experience.” Also, there’s supposed to be no change to the quality of the standard 1080p resolution, which some people might not consider the good news YouTube deems it to be. 

Based on several comments on the Reddit thread discussing the test, viewers find the standard 1080p resolution on the website to be poor in quality. But a higher bitrate, which is used as a measurement for the amount of video data transferred within a certain timeframe, could mean getting better images without having to bump up the resolution. As XDA Developers notes, switching to 4K would give users access to better and sharper-looking videos, but they’d have to stream a much bigger file that could cost them more or eat up more of their data allowance. 

The enhanced 1080p option is just a test feature at this point, though, and YouTube might not approve it for a wide rollout at all. If it does make its way out of the experimental phase, only viewers paying for YouTube Premium will be able to access it. The subscription service will cost users $12 a month for an individual account or $23 a month for a family plan. 

 

MediaTek is set to demonstrate its new technology that can put two-way satellite communications on smartphones at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), which will take place from February 28th to March 3rd. Some of the devices that will show whether the semiconductor’s product actually works will come from Motorola. The manufacturer will debut two satellite smartphones, the defy 2 and CAT S75, as well as a Bluetooth accessory that comes equipped with MediaTek’s chip at the event. 

The company’s response to Qualcomm’s and Apple’s satellite technologies is a standalone chipset that can be added to any 4G or 5G phone. It uses the 3GPP Non-Terrestrial Network standard instead of proprietary technologies like Qualcomm’s and Apple’s do, which means it can be used with any network that complies with the standard. MediaTek teamed up with a company called Bullitt to use the latter’s Satellite Connect service and enable the satellite messaging feature on the aforementioned Motorola devices.

Another difference is that MediaTek’s chips connect to Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit satellites instead of to satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The chipmaker says its technology enables not just emergency SOS texts like Apple’s can, but also full two-way messaging. That means it can actually receive messages sent via satellite connection and not just send them. The iPhone 14, which debuted Apple’s satellite tech, can’t receive messages without a traditional cellular connection yet. Meanwhile, devices using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Satellite tech will need to be manually refreshed for new messages.

The Motorola defy 2 smartphone and defy Bluetooth accessory will be released in the second quarter of the year across North America, Latin America and Canada and will be the first devices to offer MediaTek’s satellite capabilities. 

 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing Google of routinely destroying internal messaging chat histories, which the company is required to preserve under federal rules for an antitrust lawsuit. Google is grappling with not just one, but a couple of antitrust lawsuits filed by the DOJ and groups of states. This particular case pertains to the lawsuit the department filed back in 2020 for “unlawfully maintaining monopolies” around search and search-related advertising.

In the DOJ’s filing, it said company employees typically used their internal chatroom, which was set to delete history every 24 hours, to discuss “substantive and sensitive business.” Apparently, the agency expected Google to change its chat history setting in 2019 when the company “reasonably anticipated [the] litigation,” but it left the decision to individual employees. Only a few people deemed their chat histories relevant to the case and preserved theirs for the court, and Google continued deleting most people’s chats even after the lawsuit was filed. 

Despite that, Google reportedly told the government that it had already “put a legal hold in place” to suspend auto-deletion on its chat tool. The DOJ alleges that the company’s claim was a lie and that it only truly stopped deleting chat histories this week after it was warned that the agency would file a motion for sanctions. It’s now asking the court to rule that Google had violated a federal rule and to order a hearing that would determine how the company would be sanctioned. The DOJ also wants the court to order Google to provide more information about its chat practices. 

Google, however, denies the DOJ’s allegations. A spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal: “Our teams have conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation. In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.”

 

You’re forgiven if you’ve forgotten about Humanity, the game from Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s studio Enhance. However, it’s finally close to launch — and it’s receiving expanded platform support in the process. Enhance and THA have announced during Sony’s State of Play event that the strange puzzle and platformer hybrid will arrive in May on PS4, PS5, PlayStation VR and PlayStation VR2. A demo is also available today through the PlayStation Store, although you’ll have to act fast when it’s only available to play for a “limited time.”

The premise is clearer. You play a Shiba Inu (yes, really) who places commands to guide human crowds to safety in pillars of light. And that’s just the start — you can expect flying people and lightsaber battles with the mysterious “Others,” among further oddities. There’s a 90-level story mode, but you can also build your own maps to challenge other players.

Humanity has been in development for a long time, to put it mildly. The title was unveiled in September 2019, and was slated to come to PS4 and PSVR sometime the following year. It’s not clear what prompted the three-year wait (the pandemic certainly didn’t help), but it might be worth a look to see what took the developers so long.

 

Spotify might not be done adding trendy technology to its streaming music service. The company has confirmed that it’s testing a feature which requires owning an NFT (non-fungible token) to unlock certain playlists. The band Kingship is part of a pilot that also includes organizations like Fluf, Moonbirds and Overlord. The experiment appears to be limited to Android users in certain countries, although TechCrunch notes this isn’t surprising when Apple limited NFT uses on iOS in October of last year.

A Spotify spokesperson tells Engadget the company “routinely” conducts tests. Some lead to product improvements while others only amount to “important learnings,” the representative says. The company isn’t commenting on future plans for the NFT pilot. The service is holding its next Stream On event on March 8th, but there’s no guarantee the feature will make an appearance.

The firm is no stranger to the digital tokens. It tested NFT galleries on artist pages last spring, and was hiring people with related technical experience. A move like this would help Spotify form partnerships where it could spur listening (and sales of partners’ NFTs) by putting a tastemaker’s music selections behind a paywall.

The timing is unfortunate, however. Blockchain businesses like FTX and Coinbase are reeling from either fraud accusations or the continued crypto market downturn. Interest in NFTs has also cooled dramatically in the past year, in part because the assets frequently aren’t selling well. Spotify is also cutting costs, and recently said it would lay off six percent of its workforce. The company has less money to invest in experiments, and would be entering a grim market.

 

YouTube Music is moving into podcasts. YouTube proper hosts video versions of many podcasts, some of which accrue hundreds of thousands or even millions of views per episode. The audio service hasn’t ventured into podcast territory just yet, but that’s about to change, YouTube’s podcast chief Kai Chuk announced at the Hot Pod Summit on Thursday.

“We will soon start to bring both audio and video-first podcasts to YouTube Music for users in the US, making podcasts more discoverable and accessible, with more regions to come,” a YouTube spokesperson told Engadget. “This will help make the podcasts that users already love on YouTube, available in all the places they want to listen.”

Podcast creation tools are coming to YouTube Studio and, later this year, it’ll be possible for creators to add audio podcasts to YouTube via RSS feeds. “Podcast playlists will be eligible for current and upcoming podcast features on YouTube, such as eligibility for youtube.com/podcasts, podcast badging and inclusion in the YouTube Music app,” the spokesperson said.

Background podcast listening will be available for free, according to TechCrunch. However, there will be ads unless you subscribe to YouTube Music. It also seems that users will be able to switch between video and audio versions of podcast episodes.

At least for now, it doesn’t seem that YouTube is planning to follow the likes of Spotify and Amazon by having exclusive and/or original podcasts. Whether YouTube Music can make a dent in Spotify and Apple’s share of the market remains to be seen, but by blending audio and video podcasts together and taking advantage of YouTube’s enormous reach, it can certainly make a play for listeners’ attention.

 

Sony is set to host its first State of Play showcase of 2023 this afternoon, featuring some new announcements and updates on previously revealed games. The stream starts at 4PM and you can watch it on PlayStation’s Twitch and YouTube channels. Alternatively, you can check out the State of Play via the embedded video below.

We’re expecting to hear about five games that are coming to PS VR2 later this year. It seems like an ideal time for Sony to show off what’s in the pipeline for the new headset, which it released earlier this week. We’ll also get details on some “anticipated” third-party games, as well as an in-depth look at Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Given the heavy focus on the followup to Batman: Arkham Knight, it’d be a little surprising if there were any other big announcements that could upstage that game, but you never know. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long to find out what’s up Sony’s sleeve.

 

Lordstown Motors’ problems aren’t over just because it’s manufacturing electric pickup trucks. The fledgling brand is pausing production and customer deliveries to help it tackle “performance and quality issues” with some components in its Endurance truck. Accordingly, it’s partnering with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on a voluntary recall to fix a connection problem that could cut motor output while driving.

The recall will affect 19 vehicles already on the road, some of which were in use at Lordstown. The company isn’t offering an estimate as to when production will resume, but claims it’s making “significant progress” on component and subsystem issues holding up manufacturing. More details are expected to come when the firm holds its next earnings call on the morning of March 6th.

The freeze is tiny compared to issues at rivals like Tesla, which has recalled hundreds of thousands of cars (if frequently for software-only problems). However, Lordstown hasn’t made many pickups so far — it only delivered the first trucks from its initial 500-unit wave in November, and said last year that it only expected to sell 3,000 Endurance models through 2023. The halt and recall are proportionately huge.

Lordstown also doesn’t have much breathing room. GM sold its stake in late 2021, just a few months after Lordstown warned it didn’t have enough money to make its signature truck. The startup then raised funds by selling its plant to manufacturing heavyweight Foxconn. It deepened the relationship in November in exchange for two Foxconn-chosen seats on the board of directors. There’s pressure on Lordstown to turn things around, and setbacks like this don’t help.