Category: Technology

TikTok’s latest answer to its addictiveness is gamified mindfulness tools. The app’s new Well-being Missions let you earn badges for completing challenges related to balanced digital habits. To be clear, mindfulness and dopamine-seeking mini-games are a contradictory pair. But hey, at least it’s healthier than doomscrolling.

The first batch of TikTok’s “short, engaging missions” focuses on the platform’s existing digital well-being tools. (The company plans to test new features and expand the missions over time.) They include quizzes and flashcards, aspects the company says were well-received in early testing.

TikTok says Well-being Missions focus on positive reinforcement. The idea is to form new habits through encouragement, education and a sense of progress. The gamified challenges are based on research, advice from TikTok’s Youth Council and expert consultations.

It’s easy to draw a straight line between TikTok’s mindfulness features and accusations that it knowingly harmed users’ mental health. ByteDance’s own research reportedly found that compulsive use of the platform correlates with “a slew of negative mental health effects.” It’s also associated with disruption to sleep, responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.

Some might say the answer to that would be to, oh, make the platform less addictive. But come on, now: can’t interfere with profits! So, badge-earning mindfulness missions, it is. Go get ’em, champ.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-gamifies-mindfulness-with-well-being-missions-110014036.html?src=rss 

TikTok’s “For You” recommendations have long been a source of mystery and fascination for creators on the platform. Even the most seasoned TikTok stars don’t always understand why some videos go viral and some don’t. And there’s long been lots of speculation about the types of content that is and isn’t acceptable to the app’s recommendation algorithm.

Now, the company is looking to give creators more transparency into its recommendations. TikTok is testing out a “content check” feature that will allow creators to preview whether their videos have issues that might prevent them from appearing in the coveted “For You” feed.

TikTok is kicking it off with a web-based feature called “Content Check Lite” that will be available on desktop in TikTok Studio. The feature will check uploaded videos for “For You” eligibility and flag potential issues before posting. The company also says it’s in the “early stages” of experimenting with a “broader” content check feature that can check “content against all our Community Guidelines before it goes live on platform,” and offer specific feedback on changes that can help correct ineligible content. A “small group” of creators are currently part of the test, according to the company.

TikTok has already tested a version of this for TikTok Shop sellers, and says the feature has already resulted in a 27 percent reduction in “low-quality uploads” to the app. The feature could also help the company increase trust with creators, who often speculate about “shadow bans” and why some videos don’t get as many views as they expect.

“Ultimately, our goal is to help creators understand our rules and make sure that they can know how best to build that audience and build that thriving following on TikTok,” TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, Adam Presser, said during a press event. “We’re excited to learn from the pilot, and hope to have more to share ahead in the next few months.”

The company is also adding several other updates for creators, including new muting and filtering controls that make it easier to weed out specific terms from comments in live streams and other posts. The app is also getting a designated “creator inbox” to make it easier to manage messaging in the app. Creators who want to have a separate space to interact with followers will also be able to take advantage of “creator chat rooms,” which allows eligible accounts to make a dedicated space for chats with up to 300 followers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-content-check-tells-creators-if-their-videos-will-be-blocked-from-for-you-pages-110015168.html?src=rss 

TikTok users in the United States will soon see crowd-sourced fact checks appearing alongside videos on the platform. The app is beginning to roll out Footnotes, its version of Community Notes, the company announced.

TikTok announced its plan to adopt the feature back in April and since then almost 80,000 users have been approved as contributors. Footnotes works similarly to Community Notes on X. Contributors can add a note to videos with false claims, AI-generated content or that otherwise require more context. Contributors are required to cite a source for the information they provide and other contributors need to rate a footnote as helpful before it will show up broadly. Like X, TikTok will use a bridging algorithm to determine which notes have reached “a broad level of consensus.”

According to screenshots shared by the company, Footnotes will appear prominently underneath a video’s caption. Users will be able to read the full note and view a link to its source material.

While TikTok is the latest major platform to adopt the crowd sourced approach to fact checking, unlike Meta, the company is still continuing to work with professional fact checking organizations, including in the United States. The company also points out that Footnotes will be subject to the same content moderation standards as the rest of its platform, and that people can report notes that might break its rules. The presence of a note won’t, however, impact whether a particular video is eligible for recommendations in the “For You” feed.

For now, the company isn’t making any commitments to roll out the system beyond the US. “We picked the US market because it’s sufficiently large that it has a content ecosystem that can support this kind of a test,” TikTok’s head of integrity and authenticity product, Erica Ruzic, said during a press event. “We will be evaluating over the coming weeks and months, as we see how our US pilot is going, whether we would want to expand this to additional markets.”

The test of Footnotes comes at a moment when the company’s future in the United States is still somewhat in limbo. President Donald Trump has delayed a potential ban three times since taking office in January as a long long-promised “deal” to create a US-owned TikTok entity has yet to materialize. Trump said a month ago that an agreement could be announced in “two weeks.” Since then, there have also been reports that TikTok owner ByteDance is working on a new, US-only version of the app in anticipation of a deal. TikTok representatives declined to comment on those reports, which have suggested such an app could debut in early September.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktoks-community-notes-era-starts-today-110041152.html?src=rss 

Opera is filing an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in Brazil, alleging it creates an unfair environment for alternate browsers to compete with Edge. The Norway-based company claims Microsoft’s deals to make Edge the exclusive pre-installed browser on Windows machines creates an unfair environment for alternate browsers to compete. Opera also argued that Microsoft uses design tactics and dark patterns to further discourage people from downloading and using rival products. It is asking Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) to pursue remedies against Microsoft.

“Microsoft thwarts browser competition on Windows at every turn. First, browsers like Opera are locked out of important pre-installation opportunities,” Aaron McParlan, general counsel for Opera, said in a statement. “And then Microsoft frustrates users’ ability to download and use alternative browsers.”

This isn’t the first time these two companies have clashed. Opera sued Microsoft in the EU all the way back in 2007 with a similar argument that bundling Internet Explorer was anticompetitive. Last year, it also argued (albeit unsuccessfully) that Microsoft should have gatekeeper designation for the Edge browser under the EU’s Digital Markets Act.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/opera-takes-its-browser-beef-with-microsoft-to-brazil-in-antitrust-complaint-214105355.html?src=rss 

YouTube will start using machine learning to determine whether viewers should be on a teen account. The company said it plans to start using this AI application on a subset of US users in the coming weeks for a trial before rolling it out to the rest of the market. The tool will assess user behaviors including the types of videos being searched for, the categories of videos watched and how long the account has existed. When an account is deemed by machine learning to belong to a teen, YouTube will disable personalized advertising, activate digital wellbeing tools and add other safeguards for its younger users.

Since introducing supervised teen accounts in 2021, YouTube has continued to add protections aimed at its younger users. The company noted that it has been using this machine learning approach “in other markets for some time, where it is working well.”

YouTube isn’t the only service to leverage an AI tool to catch users who might be lying about their age. However, it’s putting the burden of correcting false positives on its users: “If the system incorrectly estimates a user to be under 18, they will have the option to verify that they are 18 or over, such as using a credit card or a government ID.” Meta has a similar tool it began rolling out across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger earlier this year, but it lets people simply change their settings if the AI tool incorrectly guesses their age.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/youtube/youtube-is-turning-over-age-verification-to-ai-185634150.html?src=rss 

OpenAI is rolling out a new Study Mode the company says is designed to give students a better understanding of complex topics. Like Claude’s Learning Mode, which Anthropic introduced in April, Study Mode will see ChatGPT adopt a Socratic approach to conversations. Rather than answer a question outright, the chatbot will attempt to guide the user to their own solution, starting with questions that allow the system to calibrate its responses to their objective and understanding. Conversations then unfold using a “scaffold” structure, which means ChatGPT will slowly roll out information so as not to overwhelm the user with more information than they’re ready to digest.

OpenAI says it developed Study Mode in collaboration with teachers, scientists and pedagogy experts. Rather than running on an entirely new model, the tool is powered by a series of custom system instructions.

“We chose this approach because it lets us quickly learn from real student feedback and improve the experience — even if it results in some inconsistent behavior and mistakes across conversations,” said OpenAI. “We plan on training this behavior directly into our main models once we’ve learned what works best through iteration and student feedback.”

Notably, OpenAI isn’t making Study Mode available only to ChatGPT Edu users. Instead, the company is first rolling out the feature to logged in Free, Plus, Pro and Team users. Edu subscribers will gain access in the “next few weeks.” 

It will be interesting to find out how many students end up actually using Study Mode, as a toggle allows you to easily turn the feature on and off. And as a recent New York Magazine article vividly detailed, AI cheating is a major problem at US colleges. For its part, OpenAI says it plans to work on making Study Mode more engaging and useful to students. The company is exploring how to offer deeper personalization through the tool, as well as ways to offer goal setting and progress tracking across conversations.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/chatgpts-study-mode-will-guide-students-to-an-answer-stey-by-step-180614172.html?src=rss 

NotebookLM, the Google research tool that gained notoriety for its AI-generated podcasts, is introducing a feature called Video Overviews. As the name suggests, this tool automatically creates videos on requested topics and pulls data from a user’s uploaded images, diagrams, quotes and documents.

It’s rolling out right now, but there are some caveats. These overviews are only available in English, though Google says more languages are on the way. Also, the tool doesn’t make videos in a conventional sense. It creates slideshows with narration.

Despite this limitation, the company says the feature is “uniquely effective for explaining data, demonstrating processes and making abstract concepts more tangible.” Google also says it’ll be expanding the toolset in the future, so it won’t always be just a slideshow machine.

Video Overviews do currently offer some handy playback options. There’s the ability to skip back and forth by 10 seconds and adjust the playback speed. The company is also updating NotebookLM’s Studio tab. It’s getting a visual refresh, which rolls out “over the next few weeks” to all users.

Google has certainly been busy iterating on the platform these past few months. It released an official NotebookLM app back in May and began offering curated “featured notebooks” earlier this month. This lets users experiment with the platform with pre-approved topics like William Shakespeare, so newbies won’t have to actually upload anything. Audio-only overviews are also now available in over 50 languages. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-adds-video-overviews-to-notebooklm-181524866.html?src=rss 

After kicking off its PS Plus 15th anniversary celebrations last month, Sony has announced the PS Plus Monthly games for August. From August 5, members of all of the service’s tiers will be able to add Lies of P (PS5, PS4), DayZ (PS4) and My Hero One’s Justice 2 (PS4) to their libraries.

The headliner is undoubtedly Lies of P, the surprisingly great Pinocchio-flavored soulslike from 2023. South Korea-based studio Neowiz’s twisted take on the oft-reimagined children’s novel stood out in what is now an overwhelmingly crowded genre, thanks to its stylish Belle Epoque-era setting and slick combat. There aren’t many better FromSoft tribute acts around. The post-apocalyptic survival game DayZ launched on PS4 with not-exactly-glowing reviews in 2019, but is still getting fairly regular updates in 2025. Meanwhile, 3D arena fighter My Hero One’s Justice 2 is worth checking out for fans of the My Hero Academia manga on which it’s based.

As it continues to mark 15 years of its Game Pass-rivalling subscription service, Sony has announced that from August 5, members can download a set of anniversary avatars. Themed around the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo IV and God of War Ragnarok, as well as cult retro favorite Twisted Metal, these are also available to subscribers on all tiers.

As for last month’s games, you have until August 4 to add Diablo IV, The King of Fighters XV and Jusant to your game library.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/lies-of-p-leads-augusts-lineup-of-ps-plus-games-165600067.html?src=rss