Category: Technology

Disney has taken another step into the hyper-competitive world of live sports broadcasting. According to The Guardian, the entertainment conglomerate has secured a five-year deal to broadcast live Women’s Champions League soccer matches on Disney+ across multiple European broadcast territories, including the United Kingdom. 

From the NFL on YouTube to the Grammys on Disney+, the broadcast rights to live events have become a hot commodity as streamers look to make inroads into one of cable TV’s biggest selling points. And in recent years, broadcast rights for women’s sports leagues have become more competitive as the category’s growth in viewership accelerates.

Amazon has been streaming WNBA games since 2021, and last year Netflix secured the rights to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Disney’s investment in streaming the best in European women’s soccer signals an important continuation of that trend.

According to the same report by The Guardian, Disney made a “hugely competitive offer” for the streaming rights, and is said to be investing not only in the rights themselves, but in extensive coverage with high-caliber production. The deal was entered into in agreement with UC3, the joint venture between UEFA and the European Club Association, which means club representatives were involved in the discussions.

In the United States, the broadcast rights for the Women’s Champions League are held exclusively by DAZN; the platform currently streams 19 matches for free in addition to more for subscribers. YouTube had signed on as a streaming partner in the US for all games from 2021 to 2023, but didn’t renew that deal when it ended.

The deal reportedly includes some free-to-air coverage of the Women’s Champions League in the United Kingdom, though there are no details yet on which games or how many exactly. So if you’re in the UK, don’t forget to renew that TV license.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-will-reportedly-stream-womens-champions-league-soccer-matches-across-much-of-europe-155854592.html?src=rss 

It’s been a while since a company has thrown out a truly silly number of megapixels for a new phone. After all, the double-digit pixels found on most flagship handsets are just used to pixel bin the size down without harming the quality. Rejoice, then, when I tell you Honor’s new midrange 400 series is shipping with a 200 megapixel sensor working hand-in glove with an AI to make use of all that data. 200 megapixels, in this economy? Apparently so.

The 400 series is the latest in Honor’s not-at-all-confusingly-named “N” series of midrange handsets which bear numbers. Naturally, while there’s also a low end version of the 400 to buy, the company’s focus here (as always) was on the 400 Pro 5G and the regular 400 5G. Both models get that 200 megapixel primary camera tied to a Samsung-made 1/1.4-inch sensor with both optical and electronic image stabilization. Both are also equipped with a 12-megapixel macro/wide camera, plus a 50-megapixel front-facer.The Pro, however, also gets an additional 50-megapixel telephoto that the company claims will produce some impressive digital zoom.

Of course, these handsets are less about the raw numbers and more about what they can do when the images are run through the AI. Honor says the phones will capture and enhance portraits, erase passers-by, create videos from still images and can even remove reflective glare when taking pictures through panes of glass. Plus, on-device generative expand will expand the edge of an image if you feel the original was too closely cropped when you shot it. And Honor says the phone will use AI to create film simulation models to annoy all your Fuji-owning frenemies. Honor hasn’t yet been clear about how much of these AI innovations will be part of the phone and how much will require an extra subscription.

As for the rest of the phone, the 400 Pro’s spec list is no slouch: It’s got a Snapdragon 8, Gen 3 processor, 16GB RAM and a 5,300mAh silicon carbon battery. Up front, you’ll be staring into a 6.7-inch 2,800 x 1,280, 120Hz AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 5,000 nits. If you opt for the regular 400, then you’ll get a Snapdragon 7, Gen 3, 8GB RAM and a 6.55-inch, 120Hz AMOLED with a similarly beefy peak brightness. Both handsets will get Honor’s often-ballyhooed AI thread optimization for better sustained performance under load, such as if you’re gaming on the go. And the company has tweaked the graphics engine to better handle people’s massive photo libraries without stuttering.

The Honor 400 series is available to buy in Europe and the UK from today, with the Pro 5G setting you back €800 / £700. The regular 400 5G can be snapped up for €500 / £400 if you want 256GB storage and €550 / £450 if you want 512GB instead. Naturally, if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative, the “Lite” version can be picked up for €300, but the company didn’t share any specs for that particular handset. As usual, there’s no word on if this handset will come to the US unless you import it yourself.

What Honor has been eager to point out, is the company has committed to providing six years of Android support for these handsets. That means buyers should expect to get at least that many OS and security updates, and Android 16 will be coming to the handsets by the end of the year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/honors-midrange-400-series-pairs-a-200-megapixel-camera-with-the-usual-ai-tools-150018371.html?src=rss 

The team behind GeoGuessr is withdrawing the location-guessing game from the Esports World Cup (EWC) after fans protested its decision to participate in the event. Community members pulled many popular custom maps from the game after it emerged the game’s publisher, GeoGuessr AB, was going to hold a tournament at the EWC, which takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in July.

Map creators who removed their community creations from GeoGuessr claimed that the EWC is “a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record.” Many other prominent game franchises will be featured at the event, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Rocket League, Street Fighter and EA Sports FC.

In a statement posted on X and Reddit, GeoGuessr AB CEO and co-founder Daniel Antell said the community stated loud and clear that the decision to take part in the EWC “does not align with what GeoGuessr stands for.” As such, the team is pulling out of the event.

Here is Antell’s full statement:

Hi everyone,

I’ve seen your reactions over the past few days regarding our decision to participate in the Esports World Cup in Riyadh. When we made that decision, it was with positive intentions. To engage with our community in the Middle East and to spread GeoGuessr’s core mission of let everyone Explore the World.

Since Erland, Anton, and I founded GeoGuessr in 2013, we’ve always strived to be a community-first game. Everyone here at the Stockholm office is a passionate GeoGuessr fan, doing our best to build something meaningful, with you and for you.

That said, you – our community – have made it clear that this decision does not align with what GeoGuessr stands for.

So, when you tell us we’ve got it wrong we take it seriously. That’s why we’ve made the decision to withdraw from participating in the Esports World Cup in Riyadh.

We will come back with information on how the wildcards will be distributed as soon as possible.

Thank you for speaking up and sharing your thoughts.

/Daniel

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/geoguessr-pulls-out-of-the-esports-world-cup-after-a-community-protest-151138984.html?src=rss 

Amazon is testing a new feature that involves AI-generated hosts talking through product summaries. It looks fairly similar to Google’s audio overviews, which also include AI-generated hosts that seem plucked from a middling podcast.

Amazon says that these “AI shopping experts help save time by compiling research and providing product highlights for customers from product pages, reviews and insights.” This leads me to an obvious question. Amazon is notorious for hosting fake reviews. Some studies suggest that fake reviews account for more than 40 percent of the sum total. Do these AI hosts pull from those reviews? We’ve reached out to Amazon and will update this post if we hear back.

Each audio summary will remind you that it was generated by AI, just before an introduction from the “expert” hosts. Amazon says these hosts are “like having helpful friends discuss potential purchases to make your shopping easier.”

You might be able to try this out right now. It’s currently available to some US customers on the mobile app for certain products, like this Ninja Blender, OSEA Undaria Algae Body Oil, SHOKZ OpenRun Pro headphones and a couple of other items. Just tap the “Hear the highlights” button under the product. Amazon has stated it’ll be rolling this out to more customers and more products in the near future.

I can see this being a boon for those with visual impairment issues, but I listened to a couple of summaries and they certainly don’t save any time. I could peruse reviews, look at product information and even conduct a web search of my own in a fraction of the time it took the friendly experts to complete their spiel.

The company says this feature is useful when “multitasking or on the go” but I don’t tend to mindlessly spend money in that way. Do you? This seems like another AI thingamabob that nobody really asked for, but maybe it’ll find a niche somewhere. Again, this could be seriously useful for the visually impaired, but that’s not how Amazon is pitching it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-is-testing-ai-generated-hosts-that-talk-customers-through-product-features-153112886.html?src=rss 

The first device OpenAI is putting out with Jony Ive won’t be a phone or a wearable and may not even have a screen at all, according to The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI chief Sam Altman reportedly talked about the company’s plans to employees after announcing that it has purchased Ive’s startup called io. The Journal said Altman told employees that they have “the chance to do the biggest thing [they’ve] ever done as a company.” 

Altman and Ive gave out clues for what the company’s first device could be: They said it will be fully aware of its environment and the user’s activities, that it will unobtrusive and could either be carried around in one’s pocket or placed on a desk. The executives also believe that it’s bound to become one of people’s “core” devices after a laptop and a phone. According to the Journal, it won’t be a phone and that one of Ive’s and Altman’s goals is to wean people off screens, which means it most likely wouldn’t come with a display. Altman reportedly said that it won’t be a pair of glasses, and Ive wasn’t keen on building a product users can wear in the first place. 

Whatever the device is, they intend on guarding specifics until it’s time to release it in order to prevent their competitors from copying it. They’re hoping to launch their new AI device late next year and are hoping to ship 100 million units “faster than any company has ever shipped 100 million of something new before.” Ive’s team, the Journal said, has been talking to vendors that can mass produce the device over the past four months. 

OpenAI apparently started working with Ive’s startup a year-and-a-half ago. The original plan was to have Ive’s company build a product that uses OpenAI’s technology, but they realized that it could become the primary way users will interact with OpenAI’s generative AI models. And that is why OpenAI ended up acquiring the startup founded by Apple’s former chief design officer for $6.5 billion. We’ll have to wait and see whether the combination of Ive’s design and OpenAI’s tech is compelling enough to convince people to buy yet another device from a new category. A company called Humane, for instance, tried and failed to get people to purchase the Ai Pin, which it marketed “as a tiny replacement for smartphones.” In February, the company disconnected all the Pins it had sold, leaving customers without access to all of its features.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-first-device-with-jony-ive-reportedly-wont-be-a-phone-or-a-wearable-130024787.html?src=rss 

Encrypted messaging platform Signal is rolling out a feature called Screen Security to its Windows app. It’s broadly a way to prevent a computer from logging screenshots of your messages when the app is open, but in a blog post, the company directly called out the Recall feature in Windows 11 as the reason for this new capability. 

Signal explained that what it essentially did was to flag its application as protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM), because content under that umbrella will not be recorded in a screenshot on a Windows device. It’s the same reason that a movie streaming from Netflix will appear in screenshots as a black box. Screen Security will be on by default, but this setting can be easily disabled for cases where a user does need to be able to access the application, such as when using a screen reader.

“We hope that the AI teams building systems like Recall will think through these implications more carefully in the future,” the company said. “Apps like Signal shouldn’t have to implement ‘one weird trick’ in order to maintain the privacy and integrity of their services without proper developer tools.”

The Recall feature in Windows 11 has had a difficult and well-delayed development process. While the AI-powered tool to record everything on a PC’s screen has some potential benefits for user productivity, it’s also raised a lot of concerns about privacy and security. Although Microsoft has started rolling out Recall to Copilot+ PCs, not everyone is convinced that it’s ready for prime time.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/signal-will-block-microsoft-recall-from-snooping-on-your-texts-225853193.html?src=rss 

A group of GeoGuessr map creators have pulled their contributions from the game to protest its participation in the Esports World Cup 2025, calling the tournament “a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record.” The protestors say the blackout will hold until the game’s publisher, GeoGuessr AB, cancels its planned Last Chance Wildcard tournament at the EWC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from July 21 to 27.

GeoGuessr is a browser game where players try to pinpoint locations using only Google Street View images, and it relies on community mapmakers to stay relevant. The blackout, which began on May 21, includes “dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps,” according to a statement the group shared on Reddit. The removed maps have been played tens of millions of times.

One of the largest GeoGuessr communities, Plonk It, has also removed its Map Directory and shared the mapping community’s open letter. That statement reads in full as follows:

We’ve hit up GeoGuessr AB for a comment on the blackout and will update this story as we hear back.

The EWC is a huge, multi-game event owned and operated by the Saudi government and held in the country’s capital city. It’s an evolution of the Gamers8 tournament and this year marks the second EWC-branded competition; it’s due to take place in July and August with a total prize pool of $38 million, split among 24 games. Franchises participating in the 2025 event include Rocket League, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Overwatch, Dota 2, Valorant, Street Fighter 6, EA Sports FC and PUBG.

It’s difficult to compete in esports without running into Savvy Games Group, the video game arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Alongside hosting the EWC, Savvy has financial stakes in Nexon (10.2 percent ownership), Electronic Arts (9 percent), Embracer Group (8.3 percent), Nintendo (7.5 percent), Capcom (5 percent) and Take-Two Interactive (6.8 percent as of 2023). Savvy also runs ESL FACEIT Group, which contains the Electronic Sports League, a longstanding and significant esports event company. The New York Times reported last year that the Saudi government plans to invest $38 billion in the video game industry by 2030.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long documented the abuses of the Saudi government. HRW describes Saudi Arabia’s human rights record as “abysmal,” and specifically calls out the PIF as a reputational whitewashing tool. Saudi authorities have been accused of sportswashing in traditional sports as well, specifically through the country’s ownership of LIV Golf and Newcastle United FC.

In February, Riot Games — the operator of League of Legends, Valorant and Teamfight Tactics, and arguably the largest name in esports — signed a three-year deal with the Esports World Cup Foundation for an undisclosed sum. Riot defended the partnership, arguing that the resulting financial boon for players and the esports industry outweighed other concerns.

“We know some of you may not feel great about our decision to partner with the EWC in this way, and we respect that,” Riot’s statement read.

Though corporate support for the EWC remains strong, the GeoGuessr mapping community isn’t alone in rejecting this year’s tournament. Street Fighter 6 player Christopher Hancock, who plays as ChrisCCH for FlyQuest, recently declined his spot at EWC 2025. In a social media statement, Hancock said, “I gave this decision a lot of thought and ultimately decided that, due to the nature in which the event is funded and managed, I do not feel comfortable participating in it.” He added that the partnership between the Capcom Pro Tour and the EWC effectively forced him to work with the Saudi-backed group.

“Choosing to not participate in any EWC qualifiers would effectively mean retirement from competing,” Hancock said. “I find it regrettable that this event has become so deeply embedded in the [fighting game community], but I have not yet made a decision on whether I will stop competing in events associated to it altogether.”

Alongside the GeoGuessr map blackout, the community protest added one new, short challenge to the game called How to Run A Dictatorship. It takes players through five locations around Riyadh, documenting the alleged government-sanctioned torture, kidnapping, imprisonment and oppression of women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities and political dissenters occurring in these places. The challenge takes just a few minutes, so feel free to experience it yourself.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/geoguessr-community-maps-go-dark-in-protest-of-ewc-ties-to-human-rights-abuses-221037118.html?src=rss