Technology - Kalakshar US

Proton Sheets joins the company’s productivity suite

The latest addition to Proton’s workplace suite is a spreadsheet tool called Proton Sheets. It will offer real-time collaboration, and users can control who has access to view and edit files. Proton Sheets can also be accessed on any device, including mobile ones. It supports importing CSV and XLS files, and the spreadsheets also support commonly used formulas for calculations.

A big part of Proton’s pitch is privacy, promising that users’ information won’t be used for training AI. The company also protects user data with end-to-end encryption by default; the press release pointedly notes that products like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel don’t do the same.

The Sheets app will be a part of Proton Drive, which already includes a Docs platform with several features similar to those offered by other productivity tools from big tech brands. Proton also offers a VPN and a Mail app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/proton-sheets-joins-the-companys-productivity-suite-110000344.html?src=rss

Meta’s Oversight Board wants to expand its powers in 2026

The Oversight Board is getting ready to tackle a new pain point for Facebook and Instagram users. Up to now, users have been able to appeal content moderation decisions related to specific posts to the board, but haven’t been able to ask the group to intervene in other situations that affect their accounts.

That could soon change. The board says that it will weigh in on individual account-level penalties in a pilot next year. The board noted the change in an impact report recapping its five-year history and what lies ahead in the year to come. “In 2026, our scope expands once more as we pilot the ability to review Meta’s decisions removing and impacting accounts, something that has created ongoing frustration for platform users,” the report says.

It’s not clear how this process will work, but if the board plans to take on account-level issues like suspensions, it would be a significant expansion of its purview. In an interview with Engadget, board member Paolo Carozza said that Meta is expected to refer a case to the board in January that will deal with an account-level issue. The handling of that case will allow the board to explore how it might take on similar cases in the future.

“We’re really excited to take it on because we think it’s an important area that really affects a lot of users and their interests,” he told Engadget. “We all know how many people are constantly coming forward complaining about account-level restrictions or blocking or whatever else, and so if we get it right — and it’s going to be important to work it out this first pilot — we’re really optimistic that it’s going to help open up a whole new avenue for us to be helpful to the users of [Meta’s] platforms.”

Carozza added that there are a number of “technical aspects” and other questions still being worked out between the board and Meta. So for now, it’s too soon to say whether there will ever be an official appeals process for suspensions, like there currently is for post removals. But he says Meta is equally invested in the effort. “It’s something we’ve been talking about with Meta for well over a year,” he said. “They’ve been expressing an openness and a willingness to give us access to those kinds of questions.”

The Oversight Board’s report hints at another way its influence could potentially expand. It notes that the group’s work has made it “well-positioned to partner with a range of global tech companies as they navigate issues arising from free speech debates globally.” Both Meta and Oversight Board officials have previously floated the idea that “other companies” might want to take advantage of its expertise.

Up to now, most other platforms have had little incentive to do so. But Carozza says the rise of generative AI has created some new interest from non-Meta affiliated platforms, and that there have been “really preliminary” conversations with other companies. “It feels like quite a different moment now, largely because of generative AI, LLMs, chatbots [and] the way that a variety of retail-level users of these technologies are facing a whole new set of challenges and harms that’s attracting a lot of scrutiny,” he said. “We have had conversations in recent months with other tech companies in this space about the possibility that the board might be able to contribute helpful services to them to help navigate some of these really thorny questions.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/metas-oversight-board-wants-to-expand-its-powers-in-2026-100000385.html?src=rss

US Department of Transportation doubles down on gas, cuts fuel efficiency standards

The Department of Transportation under President Donald Trump is moving to reverse more of the climate policies that had been enacted by President Joe Biden. Under a proposed rulemaking by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks in model year 2031 will be reduced to an average of 34.5 miles per gallon, down from the standard of 50.4 miles per gallon that was part of Biden’s plans to encourage more adoption of electric vehicles among US drivers.

The move was expected since Trump re-took office. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered the NHTSA to review fuel efficiency standards in January a day after he assumed the title. The current administration also ended a tax credit for buying electric vehicles over the summer. In the meantime, international manufacturers are racing ahead in their progress on building better EVs, offering other markets more exciting models that won’t arrive in the US thanks to tariffs.

While Trump’s announcement today claimed that the change would reduce the average cost of a new car by $1,000 and offer a savings of $109 billion over five years, gas prices are on track to increase if the Environmental Protection Agency does successfully repeal the finding that climate change causes human harm. Plus there’s the incalculable financial and human cost of a growing number of catastrophic weather events that have been predicted if the planet continues to get warmer.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/us-department-of-transportation-doubles-down-on-gas-cuts-fuel-efficiency-standards-234542939.html?src=rss

Artist Bungie plagiarized for Marathon alpha says the issue has been resolved

Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment appear to have settled the plagiarism scandal that rocked Marathon before the game was indefinitely delayed in June 2025. Fern Hook, an artist who goes by the name “Antireal” online, posted on X that her issues with Bungie using her work without credit in Marathon have been resolved to her “satisfaction.”

Marathon‘s distinct art style is one of its charms, but as Hook claimed on X and Bungie later confirmed, a portion of the assets and textures featured in the game’s alpha were lifted from Hook’s work. At the time, Bungie announced that it was conducting an investigation and hoped to discuss the issue with Hook. It’s not clear what kind of agreement Bungie, Sony and Hook came to, but it appears to have solved any outstanding issues.

The Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction.

— N² (@4nt1r34l) December 2, 2025

Bungie delayed Marathon from its original September 2025 launch date in June, and more recently ran closed playtests of an updated version of the game in October. As of Sony’s November earnings report, the company now says Marathon will launch by March 2026. Marathon is a reimagining of an older Bungie franchise, but more importantly, it’s also the developer’s first new game since Destiny 2 was released in 2017. Considering Sony’s increased scrutiny of Bungie’s performance, settling this issue and hopefully setting up Marathon for a smoother launch is definitely a good thing.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/artist-bungie-plagiarized-for-marathon-alpha-says-the-issue-has-been-resolved-223901094.html?src=rss

Apple design lead Alan Dye is heading to Meta

Alan Dye, Apple’s Vice President of Human Interface Design, has been poached by Meta, Bloomberg reports. The designer played a pivotal role in the look and feel of Apple’s products since Jony Ive left the company in 2019, and now he’ll be taking his talents to Meta.

Dye will reportedly work under Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth as the head of a new studio that will oversee the design of hardware, software and AI products. Apple is replacing Dye with Stephen Lemay, Bloomberg reports, a senior designer at the company who’s worked on all of the company’s interfaces since 1999. Considering the secrecy of Apple as a company, it’s hard to credit individual breakthroughs to individual designers, but Dye at least worked on several of Apple’s major new platforms and design changes, including things like the interface of visionOS and its new Liquid Glass design language.

Meta has had success with its Quest virtual reality headsets and more recently, its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, but the company clearly hopes to release many more consumer hardware products with Dye’s help. Those will likely include future versions of the Meta Ray-Ban Display and its Neural Band accessory.

Dye isn’t the first designer Apple has lost to a competitor. Evans Hankey, the company’s former head of industrial design, left Apple in 2022 to work with Ive. Hankey is now one of several former Apple employees building OpenAI’s upcoming hardware device. Dye joining Meta is particularly interesting in this case because Apple is rumored to be working on products that will bring the company in even closer competition to the social media giant. The Vision Pro could be considered to be a high-end competitor in VR, but Apple is reportedly working on its own pair of smart glasses, too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-design-lead-alan-dye-is-heading-to-meta-214449944.html?src=rss

Your ‘dear algo’ Threads posts might actually do something soon

In a lot of social media use, the algorithm is an intangible entity, silent and all-powerful in controlling what we see in our feeds. And like supplicants to a deity, sometimes we may find ourselves calling into the void, hoping to receive aid from that mighty being. Seems that for Threads users, at least, those prayers have been heard.

Many people on the Threads platform have taken to writing posts with the phrase “dear algo,” politely asking the network algorithm to show them more of what they want or less of what they don’t. According to a post today from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Threads will try out a feature where that’s exactly what happens. Connor Hayes, head of Threads, also posted about this limited test, adding that it will be an AI-powered feature. “When people add “Dear Algo” to a post, it will tell your feed what you want to see more or less of for up to three days,” he wrote. “If your profile is public, people can see your request, connect with you about it, or repost it.”

There is something satisfying about having users’ feedback taken seriously, even if it started as a bit of a joke. Threads has seen rapid growth since its debut in 2023. It had 400 million monthly active users as of August 2025 and in October it reached 150 million daily active users.

Update, December 3, 2025, 5:15PM ET: Added more detail from Connor Hayes about the tests.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/your-dear-algo-threads-posts-might-actually-do-something-soon-215448062.html?src=rss

OpenAI’s new confession system teaches models to be honest about bad behaviors

OpenAI announced today that it is working on a framework that will train artificial intelligence models to acknowledge when they’ve engaged in undesirable behavior, an approach the team calls a confession. Since large language models are often trained to produce the response that seems to be desired, they can become increasingly likely to provide sycophancy or state hallucinations with total confidence. The new training model tries to encourage a secondary response from the model about what it did to arrive at the main answer it provides. Confessions are only judged on honesty, as opposed to the multiple factors that are used to judge main replies, such as helpfulness, accuracy and compliance. The technical writeup is available here.

The researchers said their goal is to encourage the model to be forthcoming about what it did, including potentially problematic actions such as hacking a test, sandbagging or disobeying instructions. “If the model honestly admits to hacking a test, sandbagging, or violating instructions, that admission increases its reward rather than decreasing it,” the company said. Whether you’re a fan of Catholicism, Usher or just a more transparent AI, a system like confessions could be a useful addition to LLM training.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-new-confession-system-teaches-models-to-be-honest-about-bad-behaviors-210553482.html?src=rss

How to use Accessibility Reader on Apple devices

Earlier this year, Apple launched a new tool that makes it easier to read anything on your device’s screen. Designed for people with visual disabilities, Accessibility Reader provides a full-screen view of any on-screen text. (It’s a bit like Safari’s Reader Mode, only for any app.) The feature also lets you listen to your text read aloud.

Accessibility Reader is available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro. Your device will need to be on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe or visionOS 26.

It’s a fairly straightforward experience. But since it offers several launch and customization options, here’s a quick breakdown on getting started and tweaking it to your liking.

How to turn on and open Accessibility Reader

The Accessibility Reader settings toggle on macOS.

Activating the feature is the same on any Apple device. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Read & Speak, and turn on Accessibility Reader. (It’s at the very top.) Once you’ve done that, there are several ways to launch the tool.

Accessibility Shortcut (iOS / iPadOS / visionOS)

Triple-click the lock button. That’s the side button on iPhone and the top button on iPad and Vision Pro. (On older iPads, triple-click the Home Button.) This brings up the Accessibility Shortcut, which includes a quick-launch item for Accessibility Reader.

If you don’t need the other items in this menu, you can remove them at Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut. Then, using the shortcut will immediately launch Accessibility Reader.

Control Center (iOS / iPadOS)

You can add a Control Center shortcut for the tool. Swipe down from the top-right to launch Control Center. Then, hold your finger on an empty part of the screen. Choose “Add a control” (bottom), and find the Accessibility Reader shortcut. You can now tap that Control Center icon whenever you want to launch it.

Keyboard Shortcut (macOS)

The default Accessibility Reader shortcut on Mac is Cmd-Esc. Or, customize it in Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Reader by clicking the “i” next to the menu item.

Accessibility Shortcut (macOS)

The tool is also available as part of the Mac’s Accessibility Shortcut. You can launch this menu using a keyboard shortcut (Opt-Cmd-F5), by quickly pressing Touch ID three times or with a Control Center shortcut. (However, the above Cmd-Esc shortcut should be the simplest for most people.)

How to listen to text in Accessibility Reader

The tool also includes a text-to-speech (TTS) option. Once you’ve launched Accessibility Reader, listening is as simple as pressing the play button (▶). You can then use the pause (⏸) shortcut to take a break.

Other options include skipping backward or forward using the rewind or fast-forward symbols. There’s also a speed adjustment, which you can change by choosing the 1x button.

If you want the Reader to speak text automatically when it opens, you can do that, too. That option is found under Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Reader. (On Mac, select the “i” symbol next to the menu entry to find this option.)

How to customize Accessibility Reader

It’s easy to adjust the font size, color, theme and more. Once you’ve launched Accessibility Reader, tap the customization (AA) button. There, you can change the theme, colors, font, line spacing and much more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/how-to-use-accessibility-reader-on-apple-devices-212231319.html?src=rss

Netflix is getting rid of another of its game studios by selling it back to its founders

The developer of Cozy Grove and Alphabear is leaving Netflix. Spry Fox is being sold back to its original founders, Game File reports, and will continue to work on its upcoming “cooperative village life sim” Spirit Crossing as an independent company. Unlike other shuttered Netflix games studios Team Blue and Boss Fight Entertainment, Netflix will remain involved with the studio as Spirit Crossing‘s publisher on mobile.

As part of the arrangement, Spry Fox founders David Edery and Daniel Cook will be able to shop Spirit Crossing to other publishers for console and PC releases of the game. While reverting to being an independent studio is definitely a happier version of the typical studio closure story, it might not be without issues. Game File reports that layoffs at Spry Fox are still possible and the developer will need to find additional funding to continue long-term. Spirit Crossing may also need to be altered so that Spry Fox can continue to make money from the game after players purchase it.

Netflix acquired Spry Fox in 2022, a little over a year after it acquired Oxenfree developer Night School. Spry Fox released its first game for Netflix subscribers, a sequel to Cozy Grove, in 2024. The studio formally announced Spirit Crossing in March of this year, as an ambitious attempt to fuse the cozy life simulation elements of something like Animal Crossing: New Horizons with the online social experiences of MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.

That pitch apparently no longer jives with Netflix’s current game strategy, which changed when Epic Games’ Alain Tascan took over from ex-EA executive Mike Verdu. Whereas Netflix Games under Verdu acquired studios, funded projects and licensed an eclectic collection of mobile games for Netflix subscribers, Tascan has refocused the company’s games business around titles based on Netflix IP, social party games and known quantities, Game File writes. Spirit Crossing doesn’t fit neatly into any of those categories, which might be one reason Netflix is parting ways with Spry Fox.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/netflix-is-getting-rid-of-another-of-its-game-studios-by-selling-it-back-to-its-founders-203645232.html?src=rss

Crucial is a casualty of AI’s hunger for RAM

Micron Technology is winding down its consumer-facing Crucial brand to focus on providing RAM and other components to the AI industry, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company plans to continue shipping Crucial RAM and storage through February 2026, and will honor warranty service and support for its existing Crucial products even after it stops selling directly to consumers.

“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” Sumit Sadana, Micron Technology’s EVP and Chief Business Officer said in an announcement to investors. Micron Technology didn’t share how many jobs could be impacted by shuttering Crucial, but did note that it hoped to soften the blow via “redeployment opportunities into existing open positions within the company.”

The majority of generative AI products used today are supported by a growing network of data centers that train and host large language models. The rapid buildout of servers at these data centers has been a boon to PC parts makers like NVIDIA, who provide the GPUs used to power them, but also companies like Micron, who build the memory components these computers need to run. It’s not surprising the company would want to focus on where growing demand is, but it does put considerable strain on the remaining companies who continue to service both businesses and hobbyist PC-builders.

There were next to no true deals on memory or pre-built PCs for Black Friday due to how costly RAM has become now that AI companies are buying it in bulk. PC maker CyberPowerPC even went as far to say that “global memory (RAM) prices have surged by 500 percent and SSD prices have risen by 100 percent,” forcing it to raise prices on its products. Losing another source of RAM like Crucial likely won’t make things any better.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/crucial-is-a-casualty-of-ais-hunger-for-ram-185910113.html?src=rss