Category: Technology

Discord co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wants you to know he thinks a lot about enshittification. With reports of an upcoming IPO and the news of his co-founder, Jason Citron, recently stepping down to hand leadership of the company over to Humam Sakhnini, a former Activision Blizzard executive, many Discord users are rightfully worried the platform is about to become, well, shit.

“I understand the anxiety and concern,” Vishnevskiy told Engadget in a recent call. “I think the things that people are afraid of are what separate a great, long-term focused company from just any other company.” According to Vishnevskiy, the concern that Discord could fail to do right by its users or otherwise lose its way is a topic of regular discussion at the company.

“I’m definitely the one who’s constantly bringing up enshittification,” he said of Discord’s internal meetings. “It’s not a bad thing to build a strong business and to monetize a product. That’s how we can reinvest and continue to make things better. But we have to be extremely thoughtful about how we do that.”

The way Vishnevskiy tells it, Discord already had an identity crisis and came out of that moment with a stronger sense of what its product means to people. You may recall the company briefly operated a curated game store. Discord launched the storefront in 2018 only to shut it down less than a year later in 2019. Vishnevskiy describes that as a period of reckoning within Discord.

“We call it embracing the brutal facts internally,” he said of the episode. When Vishnevskiy and Citron started Discord, they envisioned a platform that would not just be for chatting with friends, but one that would also serve as a game distribution hub. “We spent a year building that component of our business and then, quite frankly, we quickly knew it wasn’t going well.”

Out of that failure, Discord decided to focus on its Nitro subscription and embrace everyone who was using the app to organize communities outside of gaming. Since its introduction in 2017, the service has evolved to include a few different perks, but at its heart, Nitro has always been a way for Discord users to get more out of the app and support their favorite servers. For instance, the $3 per month Basic tier allows people to use custom emoji and stickers on any server, and upload files that are up to 50MB. The regular tier, which costs $10 per month, includes 4K streaming, 500MB uploads and more. They’re all nice-to-haves, but the core functions remain free.

Vishnevskiy describes Nitro as a “phenomenal business,” but the decision to look beyond gaming created a different set of problems. “It wasn’t clear exactly who we were building for, because now Discord was a community product for everyone, and that drove a lot of distractions,” he said.

That sense of mission drift was further exacerbated by the explosive growth Disord saw during the pandemic, as even more new users turned to the platform to stay in touch with friends during lockdown. “It covered up all the things that we didn’t fully clarify about how we want to approach things,” said Vishnevskiy. “We came out stronger. A lot of people were introduced to Discord, and it’s their home now, but it’s probably part of what made it take longer to realize some of the decisions we made at the time weren’t right.”

One of those was a brief flirtation with the Web3 craze of 2021. That November, Citron tweeted a screenshot of an unreleased Discord build with integrations for two crypto wallet apps. The post sparked an intense backlash, with users threatening to cancel their Nitro subscriptions if the company went forward with the release. Two days later, Citron issued a statement saying Discord would not ship the integration.

“We weren’t trying to chase a technology. It was about allowing people to use Discord in a certain way, and that came with a lot of downsides. We were trying to do some integrations to limit some scams, and actually do right by users and make people safer,” said Vishnevskiy. “But we really underestimated the sensitivity the general user base had to the topic of NFTs, and we did not do a really good job at explaining what we were trying to do.”

According to reporting from that period, Discord’s employees were partly responsible for the reversal. An internal server made up of workers and game studio representatives reportedly erupted over the proposed implementation.

Looking back, Vishnevskiy credits the company’s employees, some of whom have been with Discord for a decade, for steering leadership in the right direction over the years. He says there have been situations where the company’s employees have come to him and Citron to ask “why are we doing this?” He adds, “sometimes, they’ve pushed us to do things [Jason and I] didn’t think we should be doing. I think that’s an amazing asset to have. This product is built by people who love it and use it.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Discord announced last year it would refocus on gaming. In the immediate future, that shift of strategy will see the company emphasize “simple things” like app performance and useability over “building new features.” In March, users got a taste of that new approach, with the company releasing a redesign of its PC overlay that made it less likely to trigger anti-cheat systems like BattleEye. In turn, that made the overlay compatible with a greater number of the most-played games on Discord. In that same release, Discord added three new UI density options to give users more control over the look and feel of the app.

Moving forward, one area where the company wants to be particularly thoughtful is around AI. Discord has deployed the tech in a few areas – for example, it partnered with Krisp AI in 2019 to add noise cancellation to calls – but it also has wound down experiments that didn’t work. “What we’ve found is that a lot of these things did not work well enough to be in the product,” said Vishnevskiy, pointing to features like AutoMod.

The tool exists in Discord right now. Moderators can use it to filter for specific words and phrases. But when the company first pitched the feature, it envisioned an AI component that would help admins manage large, unruly servers, and even built a version of it that ran on a large language model. The company has yet to ship the feature because “it was making too many mistakes.” Discord also experimented briefly with a built-in chatbot called Clyde that leveraged tech from OpenAI, but canned it less than a year later. At the time, the company didn’t give a reason for the shutdown, but the occasional screenshots posted to the Discord subreddit showed Clyde could, often unprompted, say some questionable things.

“We’re constantly retrying some of those ideas with modern models. No timeline on any of this because we will not ship until we think it’s a good fit for the product,” said Vishnevskiy, adding the last thing the company wants to do is “slap [AI] in because everyone else is doing it.”

Looking to the future, Vishnevskiy says Discord is focused on helping game developers, especially as it relates to discovery. The majority of the most popular games on Discord are the same ones that were popular on the platform 10 years ago. That’s where Vishnevskiy says the app’s new Orbs currency comes in, which people can earn by watching interactive ads, playing a game, or streaming their gameplay to friends on Discord. Yes, it’s a way for Discord to grow its revenue, but Vishnevskiy believes the system aligns player interests with developer interests by giving Discord users something in return for their time and attention.

At least that’s the idea. I got to try the system after my interview with Vishnevskiy, and while it does feel friendly to users, I’d like to see how Discord plans to make it into something smaller game studios can leverage. Right now, many of the publishers the company has partnerships with are advertising releases that already have a lot of word of mouth going for them. I’m sure fans of Marvel Rivals will love the chance to earn an Ultron avatar decoration for their Discord, but a game with 147,000 concurrent players on Steam isn’t exactly struggling.

Vishnevskiy wouldn’t discuss the specifics of when and if the company plans to IPO, but did offer one last assurance for users. “Discord is something that is meant to be a durable company that has a meaningful impact on people’s lives, not just now but in 10 years as well,” he said. “That’s the journey that Hammond joined and signed up for too. We are long-term focused. Our investors are long-term focused.” 

While it may be true that the Vishnevskiy and Discord’s veteran employees have learned a lot over the company’s sometimes turbulent history, it’s not clear how a culture of experimentation and dissent might change with more shareholders to appease. The test will be whether Discord can stay true to itself and its many users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/discords-cto-is-just-as-worried-about-enshittification-as-you-are-173049834.html?src=rss 

If you have an old iPad and you’re interested in externalizing some of the thousands of photos in your iCloud account, this guide’s for you. Instead of buying a new digital picture frame, you can turn your retired iPad into a dedicated photo display without much effort. You’ll need to change a few settings, download a photo frame app and decide how you want to prop up your new display — which can be as simple as using a stand or as complicated as getting out the drill and modding an analog frame. Here’s how (and why) to upcycle your old iPad into a digital picture frame.

Upcycled iPad versus a digital picture frame

An actual digital picture frame has a few obvious advantages: the necessary software is already there, it’s display-ready, complete with a frame and matted display, and, as a unitasker, it won’t display Gmail notifications over your photos. But the resolution for most smart frames tops out at 1,280 by 800 pixels. Even the standard iPad (9th gen) from 2021 has a resolution of 2,160 by 1,620. Plus, your old iPad is already yours. A decent digital frame will cost you around $100. And, since your iPad is certainly not a single-purpose device — it can take a FaceTime call or play an episode of Poker Face if the need arises.

How to turn your old iPad into a digital picture frame

I figured I’d be able to use Apple’s built-in software to do something as simple as creating a looping slideshow of images, but the experience wasn’t quite what I was looking for. Playing a slideshow within the Photos app does so as a Memory, complete with music, and there’s no way to turn that music off (though you can mute it). You can loop a Memory, but you can’t randomize the images and the interval between images is far too short (anything less than ten minutes feels like yet another screen blinking at you). So, to turn an iPad into a randomized, always-on and silent digital picture frame with a decent display length, you’ll have better luck with a third-party app.

I tried a few and my favorite is Synched Photo Frame by Re-frame ($10, lifetime access). It doesn’t pack a ton of features — no transitions, no image effects, no time and date overlay options and it’ll only access images from your Photos app — but it does the best job of making photos look good on an iPad.

It lets you set the viewing interval from 10 seconds to 24 hours and there’s a programmable sleep function so it doesn’t beam smiling pictures into the 3AM void of your living room. If your iPad is oriented differently than a photo, it shows two side-by-side images (i.e., two portrait images next to each other if your iPad is in landscape or two stacked horizontal pics if your tablet is vertical). A clean white border surrounds each split image; full-screen images go edge to edge. Images are cropped slightly to fit, which means they may lose a few details around the borders, but I think the effect is more attractive than blurred extended edges or black bars. The two-up solution is how our top pick for a digital photo frame, the Aura Carver, handles images with different aspect ratios — but you can’t set that device in portrait mode.

LiveFrame is another option and it’s actually cheaper at $5 for lifetime access. It has more features like transitions and image filters, but there’s no option for having two images up at the same time like in Re-Frame. Instead it can blur the edges, add bars or (hideously) stretch the image. I also experienced a number of glitches with the app and found the navigation a little tougher than it should be. I also tried Digital Photo Frame Slideshow but, at $30 annually, it’s too expensive for my taste and it doesn’t have a sleep function.

How to prepare your iPad for photo frame mode

Step one: Create an album

Most photo display apps will pull from albums you select in Photos. You probably already know how to make a new album, but there are a couple of elements to consider as you create one for a digital photo frame app on an iPad. All instructions are for iPadOS 18. If you’re working with an older version, the steps may be slightly different.

Select the Aspect Ratio Grid in the View Options menu of the Photos app so you can see which images are horizontal and which are vertical to more easily create your album.

Open Photos and tap the side bar icon in the upper left corner.

Under Albums, tap + New Album at the bottom of that list.

Name the album something memorable, as you’ll likely have to search for it within the photo frame app. Tap Create Album, then the blue plus sign.

If you want to only (or mostly) add a specific orientation (landscape or portrait), tap the up/down arrow icon at the bottom left of the pop up menu.

Tap View Options, then Aspect Ratio Grid. This will show the shape of each image so you can more easily select only the ones with the orientation you want. You can also use the View Options menu to zoom in on the thumbnails to get a better view of each picture.

Select the images you want and tap Add in the upper right.

Step two: Adjust your iPad settings

Adjusting a couple of settings will ensure your iPad keeps playing all day, interruption-free. Simply having the digital photo frame app playing should be enough to prevent your iPad from going dark, but your iPad may auto-lock when the app’s sleep mode kicks in, requiring you to unlock it in the morning to start the app back up. You’ll also want to make sure your slideshow isn’t interrupted with notifications from other apps.

Turn off Auto-Lock: Open Settings, tap Display & Brightness, tap Auto-Lock, select Never. You may get a warning that this setting will impact battery life, but since your iPad will stay plugged in, it won’t be an issue.

Turn off all Notifications: You’ll need to turn off notifications for every app on your iPad. Go to Settings> Notifications > Notification style, toggle off Allow Notifications for every app. Note: Using the Do Not Disturb Focus will enable DND on all your connected Apple devices, unless you toggle off Share Across Devices in Settings > Focus. But turning off notifications is still the better option.

Step three: Don’t let randos get at your stuff

Since you’ll probably want to display your new picture frame somewhere that people can see, there’s a risk of someone attempting to use your iPad. To prevent this, you can use an Accessibility feature called Guided Access. Apple designed it so parents could hand an iPad to their child without also giving them access to additional apps. We’re repurposing it for photo frame security to prevent anyone from navigating to your home screen or anywhere else. People can still tap on the screen to use the photo frame app’s controls or you can disable touch altogether.

Turn on Guided Access in the Accessibility section of the Settings app to prevent other people from accessing your iPad

Enable Guided Access: Open Settings, tap Accessibility then Guided Access. Set an unlock code, then set Display Auto-Lock to Never.

Turn on Guided Access: While the picture frame app is playing your slideshow, triple click the side button. A grey circle will appear, tap X to close it.

Enable or disable touch: If you still want to allow others to use functions within the photo frame app, toggle the Touch option on. If you want no response when the screen is touched, toggle it off. To access the Options menu, triple click the side button and enter your passcode. Tap Options in the lower left corner.

Note: Guided Access is turned on and off via the side button, so this option might not be feasible if you decide to put your iPad in a frame. One rather extreme workaround is to reset your iPad and set it up with a brand new Apple ID connected to family sharing that allows access to a shared Photos Library.

With your photo frame app open, triple click the iPad’s top button to enable Guided Access.

Put your new digital photo frame on display

This can be as simple as finding a stand you like and calling it a day. An Etsy seller called Event Frame makes custom frames for iPads. They aren’t cheap, going for around $100 each, but it’s one of the only companies I’ve found that actually offers model- and generation-specific sizing. I also considered the Snap Float Folio from Moft, as I’ve been impressed with some of the brand’s other origami-inspired accessories. If you’re crafty, you can take inspiration from this person’s Instructables and make your own frame from a physical media picture frame. Personally, I just got a right-angled USB-C cable and stuck my iPad in a collapsible stand I already had. The pictures are pretty enough.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/how-to-turn-your-old-ipad-into-a-digital-picture-frame-130017314.html?src=rss 

Team Asobi is releasing five new levels for Astro Bot, and you can get all of them for free. The developer has announced that the brand new levels will drop on July 10 at 9AM Eastern time. Like the speedrun levels and the previous levels the developer released at no cost, the new ones will be part of the Vicious Void Galaxy. Four of the new levels are called Twin-Frog Trouble, Suck It Up, Handhold Havoc and High Inflation, but Team Asobi is keeping the last one a secret. Each one will come with its own Special Bot, including a “revengeful newcomer.” The developer also hinted that finishing all five levels will lead to “something really cool.”

Astro Bot is a 3D platformer, wherein you control a small robot named Astro across levels set in different galaxies and planets. It features unique and creative uses of the DualSense controller, such as having to hold down the analog triggers and physically tilting the device in order to move Astro’s spaceship. Team Asobi has released several free levels before these new ones since the game launched in late 2024, and so far, Astro Bot has over 90 levels that you can play. 

In addition to announcing the freebies at PlayStation State of Play, Team Asobi has also revealed that it’s launching an updated version of the Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense wireless controller later this year. The developer promised more details in the future, but for now, you can see that the controller will come with Astro’s smiling eyes on its touchpad. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/astro-bot-is-getting-five-new-and-free-levels-this-july-123008291.html?src=rss