Technology - Kalakshar US

OpenAI brings ChatGPT’s Voice mode to CarPlay

In a surprise release, OpenAI has made ChatGPT’s Voice mode available through Apple CarPlay. If you’re running the latest version of both iOS and the ChatGPT app, and own a CarPlay-compatible vehicle, you can check out the experience. To get started, download all the necessary software, connect your iPhone to CarPlay and select “New voice chat” from ChatGPT. When the in-app text indicates ChatGPT is “listening,” you can start a conversation.

There are some notable limitations to using ChatGPT Voice with CarPlay. For one, OpenAI’s chatbot can’t control car functions. If you want to adjust the cabin temperature or skip tracks, you’ll still need Siri for those tasks. Due to Apple’s restrictions, you also can’t start using ChatGPT through a wake word like you can Siri. For example, to resume a previous conversation, you need to open the ChatGPT app from CarPlay and tap a recent or pinned chat.

With those limitations in mind, OpenAI suggests you can use Voice mode to get how-to advice, brainstorm ideas and practice languages. Personally, I like to listen to podcasts and music when I’m driving, but if talking with ChatGPT is your thing, you do you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-brings-chatgpts-voice-mode-to-carplay-191422297.html?src=rss

CFTC sues three states for trying to regulate prediction markets

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing Illinois, Arizona and Connecticut for attempting to outlaw or regulate prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. The CFTC believes it has sole jurisdiction to regulate these platforms, and that states attempting to classify them as illegal gambling are overstepping their authority.

CFTC defines prediction markets as “designated contract markets” where futures contracts are traded, essentially letting people bet on the outcome of events (for example, who will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2028). And because futures contracts are financial instruments distinct from traditional bets, they arguably fall under the supervision of the CFTC rather than the sports gambling authorities of individual states.

Multiple states, including the three the CFTC is suing, have challenged that interpretation of what prediction markets are and how they operate. Nevada sued Kalshi in February for operating a sports gambling market without proper licenses, a lawsuit made possible because a federal appeals court declined to prevent Nevada from pursuing its case. Arizona’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Kalshi in March along similar illegal sports gambling lines, and because the platform let people bet on Arizona elections, which violates state law. Both Illinois and Connecticut have also sent Kalshi and other prediction markets cease-and-desist letters, ordering them to stop advertising and offering their services in their respective states.

“The CFTC will continue to safeguard its exclusive regulatory authority over these markets and defend market participants against overzealous state regulators,” CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement. “This is not the first time states have tried to impose inconsistent and contrary obligations on market participants, but Congress specifically rejected such a fragmented patchwork of state regulations because it resulted in poorer consumer protection and increased risk of fraud and manipulation.”

Attempts to regulate, or in this case, stave off regulation of predication markets are complicated by the fact that President Donald Trump’s family has ties to the industry. Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi and investor in Polymarket. Major transactions made before recent US military actions in Iran have also suggested that people close to the government might be trading on prediction markets with insider knowledge. Some prediction markets have implemented new rules to prevent insider trading, but given the circumstances, it makes sense that states wouldn’t be satisfied with companies policing themselves.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/cftc-sues-three-states-for-trying-to-regulate-prediction-markets-190152226.html?src=rss

PSA: YouTube will be streaming Coachella for free next week

Coachella officially kicks off next Friday, April 10. But for anyone who doesn’t want to fly out to the desert or fork over upwards of $650 for a ticket, YouTube is going to livestream the concert for free so you can enjoy it on your own terms. Here’s a quick overview of all the programming that will be available in just over a week.

With YouTube planning on providing feeds of seven different stages, there will be no shortage of content. This includes the Quasar stage in both horizontal and vertical formats, so no matter what device you’re using, there should be an aspect ratio that works. Furthermore, for the first time, YouTube will also provide 4K streams of the main Coachella stage along with the Outdoor Theatre and Sahara. That’s a lot of music and artists to watch at once, so you’ll probably want to check out the official lineup or download the app (available on Android and iOS) to better plan out your schedule.

Alternatively, if you’re just in it for the vibes, there will also be a 24/7 Coachella TV stream featuring sets from both this year’s event and past performances. And if you can’t decide on a single artist to follow, you’ll also have a multi-view option allowing you to watch up to four stages at the same time.

Finally, in case you feel like you’re missing out on the social aspect of the concert, YouTube is bringing back its “Watch With” feature that pairs content creators including Valkyrae and Daniel Wall with artists such as Katseye and Fujii Kaze to provide a more interactive experience with feedback and reactions in real time. And if you need a souvenir for the event you attended virtually, there will even be an online merch store with exclusive drops from artists including BINI, Ethel Cain, Foster the People, Laufey, The xx and more. All you have to do is point your camera at the screen when you see a QR code pop up (you may want to have an extra device around for this).

Regardless of who you’re hoping to see or hear, all the festivities begin next Friday at 4PM PT on Coachella’s YouTube channel.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/psa-youtube-will-be-streaming-coachella-for-free-next-week-183033874.html?src=rss

Indie Pass is a forthcoming subscription service exclusively for indie games

Publisher and game management platform indie.io just announced the pending launch of something called Indie Pass. This is a subscription service, so it’s sort of like Game Pass but for indie titles.

It launches on April 13 and will offer over 70 games on that date, with more coming down the line. Not a single person on this planet wants another monthly subscription to manage, but this one costs just $8. That’s a pretty good deal, considering Game Pass Ultimate costs a whopping $30 per month.

However, these subscription platforms are only as good as their libraries. The company has already confirmed a bunch of nifty titles like the cozy game Echoes of the Plum Grove, the farm-based shooter Air Hares and the tactical RPG Dark Deity. It also promises a “constantly evolving catalog.” Indie.io publishes a lot of stuff, so that should make it easier to keep the catalog stacked.

The company is also currently courting indie developers and publishers, with a promise to reveal some of these partnerships in the coming weeks. This could be a nice way to drum up interest in new or smaller games, but everything really depends on if people are willing to pony up for another subscription.

Indie Pass is just for PC. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything that would prevent the platform from working on a Steam Deck via the console’s Proton layer. This lets players run Windows-specific titles on the console’s Linux-based OS. This has long been considered a good way to run indie.io-published games that don’t make their way to Steam. Engadget has reached out to the company for specifics and will update this post when we hear back.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/indie-pass-is-a-forthcoming-subscription-service-exclusively-for-indie-games-171304359.html?src=rss

Google releases Gemma 4, a family of open models built off of Gemini 3

When Google released Gemini 3 Pro at the end of last year, it was a significant step forward for the company’s proprietary large language models. Now, the company is bringing some of the same technology and research that made those models possible to the open source community with the release of its new family of Gemma 4 open-weight models.

Google is offering four different versions of Gemma 4, differentiated by the number of parameters on offer. For edge devices, including smartphones, the company has the 2-billion and 4-billion “Effective” models. For more powerful machines, there’s the 26-billion “Mixture of Experts” and 31-billion “Dense” systems. For the unfamiliar, parameters are the settings a large language model can tweak to generate an output. Typically, models with more parameters will deliver better answers than ones with less, but running them also requires more powerful hardware.

With Gemma 4, Google claims it’s managed to engineer systems with “an unprecedented level of intelligence-per-parameter.” To back up this claim, the company points to the performance of Gemma 4’s 31-billion and 26-billion variants, which claimed the third and sixth spots respectively on Arena AI’s text leaderboard, beating out models 20 times their size.

All of the models can process video and images, making them ideal for tasks like optical character recognition. The two smaller models are also capable of processing audio inputs and understanding speech. Separately, Google says the Gemma 4 family is capable of generating offline code, meaning you could use them to do vibe coding without an internet connection. Google has also trained the models in more than 140 languages.

Google is releasing the Gemma 4 family under an Apache 2.0 license. The company made previous Gemma models available through its own Gemma license. The move will give people a greater deal of freedom to modify the new systems to their needs.

“This open-source license provides a foundation for complete developer flexibility and digital sovereignty; granting you complete control over your data, infrastructure and models.” Google said. “It allows you to build freely and deploy securely across any environment, whether on-premises or in the cloud.”

If you want to give one of the systems a try for yourself, the model weights are available through Hugging Face, Kaggle and Ollama.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-releases-gemma-4-a-family-of-open-models-built-off-of-gemini-3-160000332.html?src=rss

Russia closes loophole to fully block payments for Apple services

Russia has closed a loophole that allowed its citizens to pay for Apple digital services. “As of April 1, 2026, payment processing is no longer available for purchases made on the App Store or other Apple Media Services in Russia,” the company wrote in a support document (via 9to5Mac).

The change affects all Apple services. However, the company says iCloud+ subscribers’ data will remain available after their subscriptions end, even after losing premium cloud storage. Customers’ previous purchases will still be accessible, as will existing Apple Account funds until they run out.

Why is Russia doing this? Well, the (state-aligned) Russian news outlet RBC reported that government officials said it was to prevent users from paying for VPN apps. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the country has stepped up its attack on the services as part of its “great crackdown” on online information and speech. By mid-January, it had reportedly blocked 70 percent more VPN apps than late last year.

With Russia’s war with Ukraine now in its fifth year, Putin’s regime apparently wants to shore up domestic support the way autocrats do: by limiting access to information. (VPNs allow Russians to circumvent the country’s strict online censorship.) The country’s crackdown has also included blocking WhatsApp, slowing down Telegram and repeatedly jamming mobile internet in Moscow.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/russia-closes-loophole-to-fully-block-payments-for-apple-services-163228262.html?src=rss

Artemis II crew is just like us, needs help with Microsoft Outlook issues

The four history-making Artemis II crew members are cooped up with each other in a tiny space for 10 days. And yet the most uncomfortable aspect of the mission might be having to deal with not one, but two instances of Microsoft Outlook.

Commander Reid Wiseman sent a literal “Houston, we have a problem” message to mission control in the early hours of Thursday. He sought tech support for internet connectivity issues on a PCD (personal computing device), which is a Microsoft Surface Pro. Before you ask, yes, Wiseman did try turning the device off and on again before requesting help, but that didn’t resolve the problem.

NASA detected that the PCD was actually on a network. It asked the commander for permission to connect to the tablet remotely so it could look into a problem with the Optimus software. “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working,” Wiseman responded, per a clip shared by Niki Grayson on Bluesky. “If you wanna remote in and check Optimus and those two Outlooks, that would be awesome.”

I scrubbed through some of NASA’s livestreamed feed of its communications with Orion, but didn’t hear any resolution to the problem. Perhaps tech support was looking into the matter while the astronauts were asleep. Engadget has contacted NASA for comment.

Tablet trouble isn’t exactly the biggest problem the crew had to deal with thus far. The astronauts reported an issue with a fan in the toilet, which handles urine collection. Although there are contingency urinal bags on board Orion, the issue was thankfully resolved within a few hours.

Still, dealing with Outlook means that the astronauts will have the sympathy of many office workers. Here’s hoping they don’t have to use Teams as well.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/artemis-ii-crew-is-just-like-us-needs-help-with-microsoft-outlook-issues-145230968.html?src=rss

Flipboard’s ‘social websites’ are a new spin on decentralized social media

Flipboard has been one of the biggest boosters of decentralized social media. Now, the company, which is known for its social news reading app, is rolling out its latest experiment, “social websites.”

The project offers publishers and creators an easier path into what’s often called the “open social web,” which includes the fediverse, as well as other protocol-based platforms like Blueksy. The company says it could also help creators of all stripes wrest back control of their audiences from mainstream social media platforms and other “walled gardens.”

In practice, social websites are essentially microsites that allow creators and publishers to bring together posts from decentralized platforms and RSS feeds into a single place where people can browse blogposts, newsletters, podcast episodes alongside relevant commentary from Bluesky, Mastodon and other federated services. It’s also the first web-based offshoot of Surf, Flipboard’s reader app designed for the open social web.

The company has already teamed up with a handful of publishers and creators who have made their own “social websites” on top of Surf. For example, Rolling Stone created a dedicated site for its political coverage, which features posts from its writers alongside news stories. Creator David Rushing created a site called “All Net” inspired by the NBA fan community on Threads. All Net features Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon posts, alongside clips from NBA podcasters and creators on YouTube. Fans can not just follow along the feeds of these social websites, but can join in the conversation around the posts from disparate platforms in a single space.

“The social web is really promising and really awesome, but it is kind of complex and it’s hard to use,” Flipboard CEO Mike McCue tells Engadget. “What we’re trying to do is actually make it [so] like in 15 minutes you can make one of these communities.”

Eliminating complexity is definitely something the wider protocol-based social web could benefit from. And the Surf website is refreshingly free of words like “protocol” and “federation.” You can see content from Mastodon, Pixelfed (the fediverse version of Instagram), PeerTube (fediverse YouTube) without ever having to log in and figure out how to use those platforms.

But there’s also a lot of upside for individual publishers and creators, according to McCue. He’s had a front-row seat to the years of volatile dynamics between publishers and social media platforms thanks to Flipboard. “They are really done with investing in yet another audience on yet another billionaire’s platform where the discovery is totally black-boxed,” he said. “Creators and publishers are looking for some way to basically take social media back, to own their own communities and their own relationships with their audience.”

Whether this experiment will result in meaningful traffic to publishers is less clear. The rise of Twitter alternatives hasn’t always resulted in traffic gains to websites, which are also grappling with increasing pressure from AI search. For now, Flipboard has just ten social websites from publishers, though anyone can now start to tinker with the site and make their own.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/flipboards-social-websites-are-a-new-spin-on-decentralized-social-media-150000323.html?src=rss

Uber expands its EV incentive program across the US

Uber is expanding its EV incentive program across the US. The company began testing the service in select cities last year. This is a program in which Uber offers drivers a $4,000 grant to switch from their current vehicle to an EV.

These grants are available for both new and used electric vehicles, which is nice because new cars are expensive and could be out of financial reach for many Uber drivers. This program is available to Platinum and Diamond drivers who complete 100 eligible rides by December 31. These drivers can apply for the grant on the platform’s website, with applications processed from April 16.

The $4,000 grant isn’t the only incentive on offer here. Drivers who purchase a new or used EV through the platform TrueCar can get an additional discount of $1,000. Also, Kia is partnering up with Uber to offer $1,000 off the purchase of a Niro or EV6 and $1,500 off the EV9 SUV. All of that adds up.

No matter how you slice it, however, it doesn’t add up to $7,500. This program exists because President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” wiped out the federal tax credit on EVs. Data indicates that full-time Uber drivers make an average of $42,000 per year.

A Kia EV9 starts at $55,000, which goes down to $49,500 with Uber’s grant and Kia’s discount. The math is still wonky, as I can’t think of many other jobs that require workers to spend more than a full year of salary to purchase the necessary tools to get going. The federal tax credit did provide $4,000 with the purchase of a used EV, which Uber’s policy does match.

The rideshare platform has been attracting EVs. Uber says there are more than 286,000 EVs on the app globally. The company also says that Uber drivers adopt EVs at a much faster rate than typical car owners in the US, Canada and Europe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/uber-expands-its-ev-incentive-program-across-the-us-152923864.html?src=rss

Samsung’s new Frame Pro and OLED TVs are now available to order

After sharing pricing and availability for its new Mini LED TVs in March, Samsung is ready to detail some of the other TVs it introduced at CES earlier this year. The 2026 versions of Samsung’s The Frame Pro and OLED TVs are both available to order today – save for some notable exceptions – and they start for as little as $1,200.

The Frame Pro was originally introduced in 2025 as the more premium version of Samsung’s popular The Frame art TVs. The big advantage of stepping up to a Pro model over a normal Frame is you get a Neo QLED panel with better backlighting, and support for Samsung’s Wireless One Connect box, which lets you avoid cluttering your TV with extra cables. The 2026 version doesn’t really change that formula. You still get a glare-free QLED panel, a refresh rate of up 144Hz or up to 240Hz when the TV is connected to a PC and access to the Wireless One Connect box. The key differences are The Frame Pro now comes in a smaller 55-inch size (joining Samsung’s 65-inch, 75-inch and 85-inch models) and one of the TV’s Micro HDMI ports supports eARC for improved audio quality with connected sound bars.

Samsung’s new S95H OLED for features a new design that lets it mount flush against a wall.

Samsung

Samsung’s improvements to its OLED TVs line is a bit more substantial. The company’s flagship S95H features what Samsung calls a “FloatLayer Design” with a metal bezel that lets the TV mount flush against a wall, and the option to use a Wireless One Connect Box to hide cable clutter. Both the S95H and the cheaper S90H feature brighter OLED HDR Pro or OLED HDR+ displays, and Samsung’s glare-free treatment to hide reflections. The TVs are also NVIDIA G-Sync compatible and support AMD FreeSync Premium Pro to prevent stuttering and screen tearing when you’re playing games, and use Samsung’s NQ4 AI Gen 3 Processor to handle 4K upscaling and other AI features. The cheapest OLED option, the S85H, now also comes in a smaller 48-inch size.

Most, but not all, of Samsung’s 2026 The Frame Pro models are available to purchase from Samsung and other retailers starting today. The 65-inch The Frame Pro is available for $2,000, the 75inch model is $2,800 and the 85-inch model is $4,000. Samsung has yet to share pricing or availability for the 55-inch The Frame Pro, or the 2026 versions of the entry-level The Frame.

All the company’s 2026 OLED TVs are also available to purchase. A 55-inch S95H is $2,500, the 65-inch model is $3,400, the 77-inch model is $4,500 and the 83-inch model is $6,500. The mid-tier S90H lineup starts at $1,400 for a 42-inch model and goes all the way up to $5,300 for an 83-inch model. Samsung’s S85H, meanwhile, starts at $1,200 for a 48-inch model and goes up to $4,500 for an 83-inch model.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/samsungs-new-frame-pro-and-oled-tvs-are-now-available-to-order-150000440.html?src=rss