Technology - Kalakshar US

Persona 3 Reload arrives on Switch 2 in October

The Nintendo Switch was a great place to play Persona games, and it looks like the outgoing console has passed on the torch to its successor, with last year’s Persona 3 Reload kicking things off when it comes to Switch 2 on October 23.

Reload is a full remake of 2006’s Persona 3 (later ported to the PSP as Persona 3 Portable), which Engadget’s Mat Smith called “a gorgeous version of itself” in his review. It’s both one of the most confusing and influential entries in the long-running series, and the remake’s updated visuals means it sits proudly alongside Persona 5 Royal as one of the most stylish RPGs you’ll ever play. It’s also one of the more repetitive entries, but that didn’t put off the many Persona sickos out there from experiencing the remixed game all over again.

The Switch 2 version of Persona 3 Reload means the game will be playable on practically every modern platform, but the big question will be how it performs on the more powerful hardware. The Switch port of Persona 5 Royal wasn’t quite as easy on the eyes as the PlayStation, Xbox and PC versions, but the portability made it the ideal platform for the game all the same.

Persona 3 Reload comes to Switch 2 on October 23. At the time of writing there’s no news on whether a physical version will be available at launch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/persona-3-reload-arrives-on-switch-2-in-october-134501067.html?src=rss

Brilliant Labs launches its second-generation smart glasses

Brilliant Labs is the startup behind Frame, the open-source smart glasses designed for hackers and other creative types. Today, the company is launching Halo, a new pair of glasses that, predictably for the age we live in, are being sold on the back of their AI features. Halo is a wayfarer-style pair (compared to the Panto-styled Frame) and, if you’re a spectacles wearer, you’ll be able to get prescription lenses in more than 100 countries thank to a partnership with SmartBuyGlasses.

Brilliant is happy to brag that Halo includes a camera, microphone and bone-conduction speakers in its slender chassis. A natural pitfall of many smart glasses has been the compromises necessary to keep weight down while still offering enough functionality to be useful. Being able to keep the weight to a trim 40 grams is one hell of an achievement, especially given the glasses have a color OLED display and a battery that promises to run for 14 hours on a single charge.

Unfortunately, instead of a display that overlays onto the lens, Halo “works” by projecting into your peripheral vision. I’ll be honest, these displays are becoming more of an irritation the more I use them, especially compared to models that have prisms inside the lenses.

Last year, Brilliant introduced Noa, its AI agent which it said was designed from the ground up to be used within the context of a pair of glasses. The company says that, when paired with Halo, Noa will be able to talk to you in a way that is natural and intuitive, as if “speaking with a real person.” It claims the secret sauce is in the fact Noa will be able to “understand what it hears and sees within its environment and responds with contextually relevant information in real time.”

That’s a lot of braggadocio, especially given the promises that come next about Narrative, its agentic memory system. Narrative will, so it is said, remember the name of a person you met or the details of a conversation you’ve had “years or even decades later.” This will harness the glasses’ optical sensors and microphones to keep tabs on what’s going on from your point of view. And since audio and video are both being constantly recorded, the system will build a “private and personalized knowledge base” about you.

Naturally, a pair of AI-enabled smart glasses will raise privacy hackles, and Brilliant says Noa will act as a VPN between you and the AI model behind it. Your interactions will be private by default, and users will get a lot of fine-grain privacy controls to ensure they’re happy with how much data they share. Plus, you’ll have voice commands to turn off the microphone, camera and the glasses themselves should you need to. Although if you’re doing something you’d rather not be recorded, the smartest advice is to not wear a pair of AI glasses in the first place. Not to mention that your general concerns about having a database built of every single thing you do in a day (and your social graph) is likely to be easily de-anonymized if necessary.

Brilliant also promises Halo will enable users to build custom applications for their glasses just from natural language commands. The company says that you just need to tell Noa what you need, and it’ll build an app to serve your purpose “within seconds.”

Pre-orders for Halo are opening today, but shipping isn’t due to begin until late November 2025, with the price set at $299. Compatible prescription lenses will be available to purchase through SmartBuyGlasses, too. The company is also taking great pains to tell users that it will, again, be releasing a limited number of pairs and so anyone interested in owning one will need to get in the line.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/brilliant-labs-launches-its-second-generation-smart-glasses-130000032.html?src=rss

Google’s ‘virtual satellite’ AI model can provide a near real-time view of Earth

Google has introduced a new AI model called AlphaEarth Foundations that it says can function like a “virtual satellite.” The model uses a system called “embedding,” which works by taking big volumes of pubic information from various sources every day, such as optical satellites, radars and climate simulations, and then combining them all together. It then divides lands and coastal waters into 10×10 meter squares, which it then analyzes and tracks over time. As Wired explains, these squares are color-coded to indicate different characteristics, such as vegetation types and material properties.

The company said AlphaEarth Foundations makes its data easy to use by creating what it calls “highly compact summary” for each square of land or coastal water it monitors. These compact summaries apparently need 16 times less storage compared to those produced by comparable AI systems, thereby reducing costs needed for Earth observation.

So what exactly can the model’s data be used for? Google explained that scientists can use the model to create detailed maps on demand for multiple purposes, such as to monitor crop health or to track deforestation. In its announcement, the company claimed that the model excelled at a wide range of tasks over different time periods when it was tested. “AlphaEarth Foundations represents a significant step forward in understanding the state and dynamics of our changing planet,” Google wrote. The company gave over 50 organizations access to the model’s Satellite Embedding dataset, a collection of its annual embeddings, to test its use in real world applications over the past year. Now, it has released the dataset in Google Earth Engine so that other scientists can use it for their own research.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-virtual-satellite-ai-model-can-provide-a-near-real-time-view-of-earth-133055880.html?src=rss

DJI Osmo 360 review: A capable action cam that’s a real threat to Insta360

DJI is finally taking on rising rival Insta360 with its first panoramic action camera, the Osmo 360. The company dug into its deep engineering toolkit in an effort to one-up the competition with features like a new sensor design, up to 8K 50 fps 10-bit log recording and a smaller, lighter body.

It also matches or beats its rival in other areas, with similar battery life and superior low-light capability. After testing the device in various scenarios like riding around on an e-bike, I’m impressed. Like other 360 cameras, though, the Osmo 360 sacrifices video quality for the convenience of unlimited angles. Plus, DJI’s editing app still needs some work.

Design and features

Insta360’s cameras made a splash in the action cam world because of a then-unique trait: they capture footage from all angles. That lets you reframe video in any direction so you’re not stuck with a traditional camera’s forward-only view. The downside is that quality is reduced from the stated resolution (from 8K to 4K, for example) when footage is “de-warped” or flattened to create the final video.

DJI has so far stayed out of this category, but that’s changed with the Osmo 360. Like rival models, it has a lens and sensor on each side, with a display at the back and a record and camera view button below (just like Insta360). There’s also a power button on the side. Other settings and controls are operated from the screen or a smartphone via DJI’s Mimo app.

A key feature is the new 1-inch square sensor designed specifically for panoramic shooting. That allowed DJI to use 25 percent more of the sensor than rival models with rectangular chips, in turn boosting image quality and low-light capability. It also makes the camera more power-efficient.

The Osmo 360 is a bit smaller than Insta360’s latest model, the X5. Though a bit thicker and wider, the Osmo is substantially shorter at just 83mm compared to the X5 (124.5mm). It’s also about 9 percent lighter at 183 grams. All that makes it slightly easier to carry and attach to your body, bikes or other things, though it’s still bulkier than a regular action cam.

Another bonus with the Osmo 360 is the 105GB of usable built-in storage (plus a microSD slot), compared to… zero for the competition. The battery is the same as the one in the Osmo Action 4 Pro and 5 Pro, so owners of those models already have a compatible battery. It supports up to 120 minutes of 8K 30 fps recording in endurance mode, or 100 minutes in regular mode, similar to the X5’s 93/115 minutes. On top of that, battery life on the Osmo 360 can be boosted to 180 minutes with an optional battery extension rod.

Video and audio

DJI

With its new sensor, the Osmo 360 can produce the highest quality video in the 360 category at up to 8K 50 fps, compared to 8K 30 fps on the Insta360 X5 and 6K 30 fps on the Insta360 One RS. That in turn lets creators capture high-quality flat (de-warped) video at up to 4K 50 fps. The new model also offers 10-bit D-LogM recording to boost dynamic range, which is better than the X5’s 8-bit I-Log. And if you’d rather record flat video, you can do that in single-lens “Boost Video” mode at 4K 120 fps, with a field of view up to 170 degrees.

The other benefit is improved low-light capability in all modes. DJI says that the native 8K pixel size is 2.4 micrometers, twice that of the X5, allowing for increased light gathering. If you want to take panoramic photos, the Osmo 360 beats the competition there as well with up to 120MP photos (compared to 72MP for the X5), or it can bin four pixels down to one for 30MP photos with lower noise in low light.

After testing it in day and night conditions, I’m impressed. In good light, it was on par with Insta360’s X5 in terms of sharpness and color accuracy. It was superior in tricky contrasty situations, though, with the D-LogM profile boosting dynamic range. Skies, shiny roads and other brightly lit objects showed more detail than the 8-bit I-log video shot with the X5 and shadows were also less washed out.

DJI’s digital RockSteady stabilization delivered impressively smooth video, even over rough cobblestone roads. And as with other DJI devices, you can let the camera bank with your movements or keep the horizon level (HorizonSteady), although that will come at the cost of some resolution. Stitching was also seamless (except occasionally with objects close to the camera), so I could choose any angle without worrying about distortion.

Not all was perfect though. As with other 360 models, the Osmo 360 is clearly less sharp than DJI’s Action 5 Pro after conversion to 4K flat video. And while low-light performance was indeed very good, digital stabilization became problematic when shooting at night, showing signs of pixelation and video tearing due to motion blur. However, that’s a problem that’s typical with all action cams since they lack optical stabilization.

Like other DJI Action cams, the Osmo 360 supports the company’s Mic 2 and Mic Mini wireless microphones and can record from two of those at the same time via its OsmoAudio direct connection system. You can also connect third-party wireless earbuds as I did with Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro 2, though only one set at a time.

DJI’s mics allow for crisp and clear audio, and add a lot of convenience. When paired with the camera, they can also record audio internally to provide a backup copy. Insta360 recently released its own microphone system with the $50 Mic Air that connects directly to the Insta360 X5 and Insta360 Ace Pro 2. However, those models can only use one mic at a time rather than two like the Osmo 360.

DJI Studio editing

Software is an important component of panoramic cameras. On top of editing, they help creators change camera angles and do 360-specific moves. And if you plan to output full panoramic content, it injects that metadata into the final video so that apps like Facebook and YouTube will recognize it correctly.

A big reason for Insta360’s success has been its excellent Studio app that helps users do all of those things. DJI’s response to that is a new app of its own, which is also called Studio, but its first crack at a 360 editor doesn’t quite measure up to its rival.

DJI Studio does let you do basic editing, like inserting shots and trimming them. However, it’s not the most intuitive process — it took me too long to figure out how to trim shots before inserting them into the timeline. It’s also a bit buggy: the source display tends to show shots you haven’t selected and the camera angles sometimes randomly change. It also lacks features found on Insta360 Studio like text overlays and transitions.

That said, DJI Studio does a good job with its most important task. It’s easy to switch to a new view using keyframes and set animations to improve smoothness. You can then export video in either flat or panoramic formats and import it into apps like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve for the final color correction, effects and titles. All told, DJI Studio is good for a first release, but still needs work compared to its main rival.

Wrap-up

Steve Dent for Engadget

It took DJI awhile to get a panoramic action cam into the market, but the Osmo 360 was worth the wait. It stacks up well against its main rival, Insta360’s X5, by offering better video quality in low light or high-contrast situations. It’s also easy to use, offers good battery life and trumps its competition with a large amount of built-in storage.

The primary drawbacks are slightly lower image quality compared to regular action cams and stabilization that breaks down a bit in low light. The all-new DJI Studio app also needs some work. For a first effort, though, the Osmo 360 is a surprisingly solid rival to Insta360’s X5.

DJI’s Osmo 360 is now available nearly everywhere but the US at €480 for the Standard Combo (around $554) which includes a single battery, protective pouch and rubber lens protector, or €630 ($728) for the Adventure Combo which adds two extra batteries, a charger, a quick release adapter mount and a 1.2m Invisible Selfie Stick. As for US availability, “it will not be available for sale immediately in the U.S. market through official DJI channels,” a DJI spokesperson told Engadget. “We currently do not have an estimated timeline… but we will let you know when we do.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/dji-osmo-360-review-a-capable-action-cam-thats-a-real-threat-to-insta360-120019592.html?src=rss

Spotify’s lax privacy means anyone can see the Vice President’s song choices

A new cybersecurity “breach” has revealed the personal information of various celebrities, and while it won’t let you steal their identities, it will allow you to… judge them. The “Panama Playlists” details the Spotify song choices of notable people ranging from Vice President JD Vance to talk show host Seth Meyers to tech bros like Palmer Luckey. And technically, it wasn’t a breach at all, but a possible lack of understanding around Spotify’s privacy settings.

Spotify has always allowed users to make playlists public or private and some even actively seek followers. On top of that, each playlist cover shows “Public Playlist” or “Private Playlist” right up top. However, the default for new playlists is “Public,” so many users may not be aware that they’re listening habits are available for the world to see — if someone looks hard enough.

That’s exactly what the unknown creator of the Panama Playlists did: simply search for famous people and find their public playlists. The results aren’t really that interesting? Sure, it’s kind of funny that JD Vance has I Want It That Way on his “Making Dinner” playlist, ironic that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s playlist features Aretha Franklin’s Respect, and very on-the-nose that US AG Pam Bondi has Cold As Ice on her playlist.

Panama Playlists

Other standouts are Young Dumb, Broke by Khalid on Sam Bankman-Fried’s “loud” playlist, James Blake’s Retrograde on Pete Buttigieg’s “Election Eve” playlist and Billions and Billions on venture capitalist Mark Andreesen’s “Focus Alpha” list. In other words, everything is about as you’d expect given the personalities (most of whom aren’t exactly in the A-list tier). As The Verge noted, one list was attributed to Kara Swisher, but she said it was inaccurate so it was removed.

While a relative trifle compared to other data leaks, Panama Playlists does show Spotify’s loose behavior around user privacy. For one thing, it makes all your playlists public by default. If you switch that to private in the settings, it will only affect playlists created afterwards. You then need to set each one to private individually. Playlists, followers and following also appear on your profile by default. With that in mind, think of Spotify as not just a streaming but a social media platform, and treat your privacy accordingly.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/spotifys-lax-privacy-means-anyone-can-see-the-vice-presidents-song-choices-123015427.html?src=rss

Is Mark Zuckerberg flip flopping on open source AI?

Earlier today, Mark Zuckerberg shared a rambling memo outlining his vision to build AI “superintelligence.” In the memo, Zuckerberg hinted that the pursuit of more powerful AI might require the company to be more selective in what it open sources.

Citing “safety concerns” he wrote that Meta would need to be “rigorous” about such decisions. The line stood out to many as Zuckerberg — who once said “fuck that” in reference to closed platforms — has made open source central to Meta’s AI strategy.

During Meta’s second quarter earnings call, Zuckerberg further acknowledged there could be a shift, though he downplayed the significance of it. Here’s what he said when asked if his thinking had changed.

I don’t think that our thinking has particularly changed on this. We’ve always open sourced some of our models and not open sourced everything that we’ve done. So I would expect that we will continue to produce and share leading open source models. I also think that there are a couple of trends that are playing out. One is that we’re getting models that are so big that they’re just not practical for a lot of other people to use, so we kind of wrestle with whether it’s productive or helpful to share that, or if that’s really just primarily helping competitors or something like that. So I think that there’s, there’s that concern.

And then obviously, as you approach real superintelligence, I think there’s a whole different set of safety concerns that I think we need to take very seriously, that I wrote about in my note this morning. But I think the bottom line is I would expect that we will continue open sourcing work. I expect us to continue to be a leader there, and I also expect us to continue to not open source everything that we do, which is a continuation of kind of what we, what we’ve been, been kind of working on.

That’s notably different than what he wrote almost exactly a year ago in a different memo titled “Open Source AI is the Path Forward.” In that, even longer note, he said that open source is crucial for both Meta and developers.

“People often ask if I’m worried about giving up a technical advantage by open sourcing Llama, but I think this misses the big picture,” he wrote. “I expect AI development will continue to be very competitive, which means that open sourcing any given model isn’t giving away a massive advantage over the next best models at that point in time.”

He also argued that open source is safer. “There is an ongoing debate about the safety of open source AI models, and my view is that open source AI will be safer than the alternatives. As long as everyone has access to similar generations of models – which open source promotes – then governments and institutions with more compute resources will be able to check bad actors with less compute.”

To be clear, Zuckerberg said the company would continue to open source some of its work. But he seems to be laying the groundwork for a future in which Meta’s “superintelligence” could be a lot less open.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/is-mark-zuckerberg-flip-flopping-on-open-source-ai-231310567.html?src=rss

Showrunner, an AI-powered streaming service, launches in alpha this week

Fable, a startup designing tools to generate animated TV shows from scratch, is launching an AI-powered streaming service this week, Variety reports. The service is called Showrunner, and it will allow subscribers to generate scenes, view content created for Fable’s in-house AI-generated animated shows and even insert themselves into the animations they generate.

Showrunner is launching in alpha, and based on Fable’s website, you’ll primarily interact with it through the company’s Discord to start. Per Variety, subscribers will pay anywhere from $10 to $20 month for credits that can be exchanged for the ability to generate new animated scenes. The word “scenes” is key here. While Fable is launching with a couple of distinct animated shows, they’re really more like collections of worlds and characters that subscribers can use to create new scenes.

Those include Exit Valley, a Family Guy-inspired riff on the culture of Silicon Valley, and Everything is Fine, a comedy about a husband and wife who are stranded in an alternate world and trying to reunite. The company’s goal is bigger than than just original content. Fable founder Edward Saatchi imagines a Disney-owned “Toy Story of AI” where subscribers could generate endless new scenes of Buzz and Woody interacting. For now, though, interested Showrunner users have to settle with knockoffs.

Engadget was able to preview an earlier version of Fable’s Showrunner AI models back in 2019 that capably generated new South Park episodes based on audio inputs. The startup’s model was able to create a watchable copy of the show’s style even back then, which might be why Amazon has invested an undisclosed amount in Fable as part of the launch of Showrunner.

While creatives remain skeptical to downright antagonist towards AI, companies have started using it more publicly in production. For example, Netflix recently touted its use of generative AI in its original show The Eternaut. Even if adoption grows, though, that doesn’t really clarify whether the average film or TV viewer has any desire to generate content on their own, especially if it’s as rough-around-the-edges as most AI-generated media is. Besides being a public demonstration of Fable’s tech, Showrunner seems like a test to see if that desire is even there.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/showrunner-an-ai-powered-streaming-service-launches-in-alpha-this-week-204042241.html?src=rss

Spotify now requires face scans to access age-restricted content in the UK

Spotify is introducing new requirements to confirm the ages of users in the UK trying to access explicit content. The streaming platform is implementing a facial scan process in partnership with Yoti, which also provides its services to Instagram. UK Spotify users may be prompted to perform this age check when they try to view or listen to age-restricted content.

This type of approach to checking ages can sometimes yield wrong results. If the facial scan based on a photo of the user determines their age incorrectly, the person can instead provide an ID for verification. In addition to the limits on some explicit content, Spotify may use the results of these checks to deactivate an account if the user is below the minimum required age to be on the platform. In the UK, the minimum age for Spotify users is 13. “If you cannot confirm you’re old enough to use Spotify, your account will be deactivated and eventually deleted,” the company said.

The UK’s Online Safety Act has seen companies and services including Reddit, Bluesky, Microsoft/Xbox and pornography providers now requiring some form of age verification, either within the region or for all users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/spotify-now-requires-face-scans-to-access-age-restricted-content-in-the-uk-210738192.html?src=rss

Trump will end the de minimis exemption for low-cost global shipments

President Donald Trump’s latest economic move is to halt the de minimis exemption, a provision that made international shipments of low-value items cheaper. When the exemption ends on August 29, shipments valued at or under $800 will be subject to duty fees when sent by any carrier other than the international postal network, no matter what country they are coming from.

According to the White House’s announcement of this change, shipments will either be assessed with an ad valorem duty equal to the tariff rate for the country of origin set by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or with a limited-time specific duty between $80 and $200 per item. The specific duty will only be a available for six months, after which all shipments will be subject to an ad valorem duty. The administration claimed the de minimis exemption was harming US businesses and that the loophole was being used to ship synthetic opioids such as fentanyl into the country.

The administration had already suspended de minimis exemptions for shipments from China and Hong Kong in May. A large number of those low-cost purchases originated in those regions, which are the center for several online shopping sites specializing in inexpensive goods, such as Shein and Temu and Amazon’s Haul.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trump-will-end-the-de-minimis-exemption-for-low-cost-global-shipments-202707806.html?src=rss

Dropbox is pulling the plug on its password manager

Dropbox is saying goodbye to its password manager after five years of service. This leaves current customers in a lurch, as the company has also announced that users only have a few months to extract all of their data.

This discontinuation will happen in phases, but October 28 is the day Dropbox Passwords will be entirely shuttered. On August 28, the platform will become view-only in both the mobile app and browser extension. The autofill functionality also deactivates on that date.

On September 11, the mobile app will stop working, though information will still be retrievable via the browser extension. As previously mentioned, users lose access to everything on October 28 as all data will be “permanently and securely deleted.”

Dropbox didn’t give an actual reason behind this move, only saying that it’s “part of our efforts to focus on enhancing other features in our core product.” That likely means it wasn’t attracting many people to platform, despite being a fairly solid offering. It’s been a free perk of the larger Dropbox suite since 2021, after first being offered to just Pro users.

The company recommends current users transition over to 1Password, which happens to be our pick for the best password manager. However, there are plenty of other platforms out there to try out.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/dropbox-is-pulling-the-plug-on-its-password-manager-184720450.html?src=rss