Technology - Kalakshar US

YouTube introduces multiplayer mini-games on Playables

YouTube is expanding how you can interact with games on its free in-app platform, Playables. The company has announced that users can now try out a multi-player function that allows them to game with other players in real-time.

However, that doesn’t extend to YouTube Playables’ entire 100-plus catalogue of titles. “We’re beginning to test a new multiplayer feature for a few select games on YouTube Playables. Multiplayer on Playables lets you play games in real-time with other users,” YouTube said in a release. “We’re just getting started testing out new features for YouTube Playables with more to come in the future.” Right now, multiplayer is available on two games, Ludo Club and Magic Tiles 3, on both desktop and mobile devices.

YouTube first announced Playables in September 2023 and it was originally available to select participants before expanding to all Premium subscribers. In May, it announced that the platform would be available to all YouTube users. It’s available games range from action and sports to trivia and puzzles.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/youtube-introduces-multiplayer-mini-games-on-playables-133056235.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Google reveals its powerful Willow quantum chip

In its own heady blog post, Google debuted Willow, its latest quantum chip. It was flanked by hyped headlines that suggest something akin to the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The breakthrough might not be about the power, however: Google says it has reduced errors — a major issue with building quantum computers — by adding more qubits to the system.

In fact, Google makes no claim of quantum supremacy this time — something the company did when it publicly debuted its previous generation quantum computer in 2019. That claim quickly ended in controversy, with one researcher calling the company’s announcement “just plain wrong.”

Part of the issue then was that Google’s last quantum chip was not part of a general-purpose quantum computer. Instead, it surpassed classic computers in a single task: random circuit sampling (RCS). But, in Google’s own words, RCS has “no known real-world applications.”

Google

However, the company is sticking with the metric, claiming RCS performance is a widely recognized gauge of quantum computing. That makes true comparisons difficult: Rivals including IBM and Honeywell use a quantum volume metric to tout their breakthroughs. They claim it gives a more holistic understanding of a machine’s capabilities. Google’s spec sheets and blog post don’t mention quantum volume at all.

— Mat Smith

Get this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

The biggest tech stories you missed

OpenAI’s Sora video generation AI model arrives globally

Grok’s new Aurora image generator is back and rolling out to everyone on X

What’s new in iOS 18.2

Bose Smart Soundbar review

Earbuds as surround sound speakers.

Bose may be best known for its noise-canceling headphones and earbuds, but the company has a solid track record with speakers and soundbars too. With its new Smart Soundbar, however, it integrates its own earbuds (sold separately) to offer lots of directional audio. Sound quality is clear, the soundbar itself is compact and understated, but it all lacks a little in the bass department. Check out our full review.

Continue reading.

Rode’s Wireless GO III adds more storage and some color options

There’s now 40 hours of on-board storage.

Rode

Rode just announced the latest iteration of its well-regarded Wireless GO microphone system. The third-gen kit has 32-bit float on-board recording and audio can be captured directly to the receiver. The system can store up to 40 hours of footage — substantially more than the seven hours of the GO II. It also packs a new feature called GainAssist that will “dynamically balance audio levels on the fly.” Rode says the system eliminates “the wild fluctuations typically found in a raw recording.” It’s $300 and has a dedicated charging case, sold separately for $90.

Continue reading.

The Raspberry Pi 500 is a $90 computer in a keyboard

You can use it anywhere with a free USB port.

Engadget

The Raspberry Pi 500 shares most of the same internal components as the Raspberry Pi 5, but with a keyboard shell and improved heatsink — all for $90.

The Pi 500 has a 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU and 8GB of RAM. There are three USB A ports (two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port) but no USB-C slots besides the charger, which doesn’t support peripherals, sadly. The kit will sell for $120, and if you need a monitor, the company also launched its Raspberry Pi Monitor for $100.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-google-reveals-its-powerful-willow-quantum-chip-121002850.html?src=rss

Google’s Willow quantum chip breakthrough is hidden behind a questionable benchmark

Google debuted Willow, its latest quantum chip, on Wednesday, and if you’ve spent any time online since, you’ve undoubtedly run into some breathless reporting about it. Willow “crushes classical computers on a cosmic timescale,” proclaims one headline; Google “unveils ‘mind-boggling’ quantum computer chip,” reads another. It’s all anchored by a claim that Willow can complete a computation that would theoretically take a classical computer significantly more time than the 14 billion years the universe has existed. But, as you can probably guess, what the chip represents is not so simple.

First, with Willow, Google makes no claim of quantum supremacy, something the company did when it publicly debuted its previous generation quantum computer, Sycamore, back in 2019. You may recall that, at the time, Google publicized how it took Sycamore just 200 seconds to perform a calculation that would have theoretically taken the world’s then-fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to complete. That feat, the company said, demonstrated that it had created a quantum computer that could solve problems the best classical computers could not even attempt. In other words, Google had achieved quantum supremacy.

However, that claim quickly ended in controversy, with one researcher calling the company’s announcement “indefensible” and “just plain wrong,” and Google has since avoided talking about quantum supremacy. Instead, it just says it has achieved “beyond classical computation.” Part of the issue was that Sycamore was not a general-purpose quantum computer; instead, it was designed to surpass classical computers in a single task known as random circuit sampling or RCS. The thing about RCS is that, in Google’s own words, it has “no known real-world applications.” Yet, here again, the company is touting RCS performance.

Google says Willow can complete its latest RCS benchmark in under five minutes. By contrast, the company estimates it would take Frontier, currently the world’s second most powerful supercomputer, 10 septillion years to complete the same task. That number, Google says, “lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse.”

Google

More practically, Google tries to make the case that RCS performance should be the metric by which all quantum computers are judged. According to Hartmut Neven, the founder of Google Quantum AI, “it’s an entry point. If you can’t win on random circuit sampling, you can’t win on any other algorithm either.” He adds RCS is “now widely used as a standard in the field.“

However, other companies, including IBM and Honeywell, instead use a metric called quantum volume to tout their breakthroughs. They claim it points to a more holistic understanding of a machine’s capabilities by factoring in how its qubits interact with one another. Unfortunately, you won’t find any mention of quantum volume in the spec sheet Google shared for Willow, making comparisons difficult.

To that point, the far more impressive claim Google is making today is that Willow is “below the threshold.” To date, the problem that has plagued every attempt to build a useful quantum computer is that the quantum bits they’re based on are difficult to control. They only hold their quantum state for fractions of a second, and the more qubits are added to a system, the more likely it is to produce errors. However, with Willow, Google says it has found a way to reduce errors as it adds more qubits to the system. According to the company, Willow is the first time this has been done.

“As the first system below threshold, this is the most convincing prototype for a scalable logical qubit built to date. It’s a strong sign that useful, very large quantum computers can indeed be built,” says Neven. “Willow brings us closer to running practical, commercially-relevant algorithms that can’t be replicated on conventional computers.”

That’s the real breakthrough here, and one that points to a future where quantum computers could solve problems that have tangible effects on people’s lives. That future, however, isn’t here just yet, and even Google admits it has more work to do before it gets there.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/googles-willow-quantum-chip-breakthrough-is-hidden-behind-a-questionable-benchmark-224707174.html?src=rss

Rode’s latest Wireless GO microphone system boasts 40 hours of on-board storage

Rode just announced the latest iteration of its well-regarded Wireless GO microphone system. The third-gen kit brings plenty of new features to the table, especially when compared to 2021’s Wireless GO II.

The microphone allows for 32-bit float on-board recording and audio can be captured directly to the receiver. The system allows up to 40 hours of footage, stored internally, and includes a new technology called GainAssist.

This is a compression algorithm, of sorts, that will “dynamically balance audio levels on-the-fly.” Rode says the system eliminates “the wild fluctuations typically found in a raw recording.” The company even says that there should be little-to-no editing required in post when using this system. If the algorithm makes a mistake, the microphone includes a secondary storage channel that records a dry copy of the audio.

Rode

Most users will use these microphones connected to a camera of some kind, so on-board storage won’t be needed. Rode says that the new Wireless GO system can operate up to 260 meters from the receiver, so long as it’s in the line of sight. The company also says that it is compatible with all Rode Series IV devices, including the RodeCaster Pro II and Rodecaster Video. This is in addition to offering “universal compatibility with cameras, smartphones and computers.”

There are locking lavalier connectors and an integrated LCD screen for keeping an eye on battery and audio signal levels. Finally, this system is available in a whole bunch of limited-edition colors, including red, orange, pink and purple, among others. The Wireless GO II was only available in black and white.

Rode

This updated Wireless GO microphone kit comes with one receiver, two transceivers, a charging hub, a few windshields and plenty of cables. It’s available for $300. There’s also a dedicated charging case, which is sold separately for $90.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/rodes-latest-wireless-go-microphone-system-boasts-40-hours-of-on-board-storage-230014651.html?src=rss

A new California bill would add warning labels to social media platforms

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan have proposed a new bill, AB 56, that would require social media companies to put a warning label on their platforms to disclose their mental health risks.

Citing social media platforms’ “harnessing of addictive features and harmful content for the sake of profits,” Attorney General Bonta says that consumers should have access to information about platforms that could impact their mental health. The current bill lacks detail on how much information these warning labels should have or how they should appear, but mentions the Cyberbullying Protection Act and the Online Violence Prevention Act as possible precedent for such a requirement. Those bills required social media platforms to disclose their cyberbullying reporting features in the terms of service, and clearly state whether they have a way of reporting violent posts for users and nonusers on the platform, respectively.

Bonta and Bauer-Kahan’s new bill follows an open letter signed by 42 attorneys general (Bonta included) that called for Congress to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media. The US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy proposed the idea himself in an essay for The New York Times Opinion section in June. A surgeon general’s warning label requires congressional action to actually be put in place, but could prove effective in changing behavior in the same way it has for tobacco products, according to Murthy.

You can trace a lot of the recent commotion around children and social media to an advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health that the US Surgeon General published in 2023. The advisory claimed that social media could “have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents” and that “children and adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems.” A warning label is unlikely to completely fix things and social media isn’t the sole cause of all children’s problems, but labels are another level that can be pulled to change things.

A wider reaching Texas bill that required social media companies block teens from seeing “harmful content” was struck down a few months ago in 2024, but requiring social media warning labels, especially given California’s legal history, seems much more feasible. Mental health impacts are just one of the risks children face online, though. According to the Federal Trade Commission, there’s still mass surveillance to deal with, too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/a-new-california-bill-would-add-warning-labels-to-social-media-platforms-233653838.html?src=rss

Musicians demand music labels drop their Internet Archive lawsuit

Musicians Tegan & Sara, Open Mike Eagle, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and more have signed a letter organized by Fight for the Future demanding music labels drop their lawsuit against the Internet Archive, the online library and nonprofit best known for the Wayback Machine.

“We, the undersigned musicians, wholeheartedly oppose major record labels’ unjust lawsuit targeting the Internet Archive,” the Musicians for Fairness and Preservation Open Letter reads. “We don’t believe that the Internet Archive should be destroyed in our name.” Instead, the letter offers three alternative ways the lives of musicians could be materially improved: By partnering with organizations like the Internet Archive to preserve original recordings and music culture, allowing musicians to keep 100 percent of merchandise sales and ending vertical investments in streaming services like Spotify.

The advent of streaming services already made being a working musician highly unprofitable, but as the letter notes, things like the COVID-19 pandemic and Live Nation’s monopoly on ticket sales have made it nearly impossible to perform without some kind of extra expense.

The original lawsuit put forth by labels like Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group was specifically targeted at the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, which aims to preserve music recorded on 78 RPM records. The project has over 400,000 recordings available to stream, including music from well-known artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra. If the labels win their lawsuit, the Internet Archive could be on the hook for up to $621 million dollars in damages to account for the music streamed through the Archive since 2006, Rolling Stone writes.

Music isn’t the only front where the Internet Archive is fighting. The organization recently lost its appeal in an ongoing lawsuit with publishers over digital book lending. The Internet Archive claims its digital book library can lend out eBooks under the fair use doctrine, but multiple judges have now disagreed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/musicians-demand-music-labels-drop-their-internet-archive-lawsuit-214139644.html?src=rss

Apple Intelligence: What’s new in iOS 18.2

More Apple Intelligence features are coming in December. (Apple)

Apple

Apple Intelligence was the big news at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference back in June. Apple made good on a modest first wave of features in October. But iOS 18.2 — along with sibling OS upgrades for Mac and iPad — will bring a meatier set of Apple Intelligence features to Apple’s suite of devices, including Genmoji, Image Playground and ChatGPT integration.

To check out Apple’s new AI, you must have an eligible device and run the current iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 or MacOS 15.1. (On the iPhone side, that’s basically the current iPhone 16 models plus last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.) You’ll also need to join the waitlist in the Settings app, but Apple Support says it usually only takes a few hours to gain access. Once approved, you’ll receive a notification saying it’s ready to activate on your device.

Here’s what Apple Intelligence features you’ll soon have access to this month and beyond. For now, you can test out Writing Tools, check out the new additions to the Photos app, see summarized notifications and more.

Which Apple Intelligence features are coming soon?

More Apple intelligence features are expected to become available in December with the release of iOS 18.2, but you can try them now if you’re running the developer beta. Here’s what Apple has said is coming.

Genmoji: You’ll be able to create custom emojis called Genmoji by using photos of friends and family or by typing a description of what you want.

Image Playground: This tool will let you quickly create fun images, like turning yourself into a cartoon character, and let you come up with a new image based on the description you give.

ChatGPT integration: Perhaps the most well-known AI tool will be built-in to Writing Tools and Siri to help out with requests. For instance, if you ask Siri about a certain document, ChatGPT can help. But Apple is, as usual, prioritizing privacy considerations: You’ll always be asked before your information is shared and you’ll control when it’s used.

Priority Notifications: When you receive multiple notifications each day, they’ll be prioritized by what’s most important. For instance, if you have a dinner reservation that evening or an important meeting to attend, those notifications will be shown at the top of your notifications so you don’t forget.

Visual intelligence (iPhone 16 series only): Using the new Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 lineup, you’ll be able to learn about and interact with objects and places right in front of you. For instance, you can use it to translate a sign from one language to another or find out more about a restaurant you’ve never been to by opening the Camera app, then pressing and holding the Camera Control button.

In 2025, we’ll see a more robust Siri integration. For starters, it’s getting onscreen awareness to “take action with things on your screen.” So if a friend texts you their new email address or when their birthday is, you can ask Siri to add it to their contact card.

Priority notifications are coming soon to iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence. (Apple)

Apple

What is Apple Intelligence?

Apple Intelligence is essentially Apple’s very own generative AI system built-in to eligible devices to help with tasks like writing, communicating and expressing yourself. Apple says that while it draws on your personal context, it doesn’t allow anyone else – Apple employees included – to access your personal data.

Note that Apple will integrate ChatGPT into its system to help with Siri and Writing Tools (more below), but you must give permission to use it on a case-by-case basis.

Which Apple Intelligence features are available now?

Apple Intelligence provides access to a variety of new features you can use on your iPhone, iPad or Mac if they’re one of the eligible devices.

New Photos app additions: While a new Photos app is available for everyone who upgraded to iOS 18, iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence (and running iOS 18.1 or newer) also get a new Clean Up tool that lets you remove background objects from your pictures with just a tap. For instance, you can remove strangers from your family photo at the beach or that piece of laundry you forgot to put away. And if you have thousands of photos and videos saved, you can now find what you’re looking for by describing it — show all photos featuring a blue house with a red door, for example.

Writing Tools: You can use this in most apps to help proofread your text, as well as craft different versions of what you’ve written until you find the right words. For example, if you need to write a cover letter or send an email to your boss, you can use Writing Tools to help you communicate what you need to say. This tool will also summarize an entire lecture for you, or any text you select. More features will be added in future updates.

Summarized notifications: If you receive dozens of notifications each day, you’ll now see a summary of the messages to make it easier to read through them.

Siri improvements: Apple has given Siri an AI makeover to make conversations with the smart assistant more natural, but more. And for your convenience, you’ll be able to switch back and forth between giving commands by voice or by typing to Siri. The bot also comes with “richer language-understanding capabilities,” which is helpful if you tend to jump from thought to thought while talking.

Siri improvements: Apple is pledging to make Siri more dynamic and useful with a series of upgrades coming in 2025. In the meantime, you can now switch back and forth between giving commands by voice or by typing. The assistant is also now said to offer “richer language-understanding capabilities,” which is helpful if you tend to jump from thought to thought while talking. And it now features a new interface, which shows a glowing edge on your screen when activated.

Which devices are compatible with Apple Intelligence?

Compatibility with Apple Intelligence is largely limited to very recent iPhones, as well as Macs and iPads with Apple’s M-series Apple Silicon chips. Here’s the full list of devices that will work with Apple Intelligence.

iPhone 16

iPhone 16 Plus

iPhone 16 Pro

iPhone 16 Pro Max

iPhone 15 Pro

iPhone 15 Pro Max

iPad Pro: M1 and later

iPad Air: M1 and later

iPad Mini: A17 Pro

MacBook Air: M1 and later

MacBook Pro: M1 and later

iMac: M1 and later

Mac mini: M1 and later

Mac Studio: M1 Max and later

Mac Pro: M2 Ultra

What regions and languages support Apple Intelligence?

To use Apple Intelligence on an eligible device, make sure Siri’s language is set to US English – this should work for most regions around the world. In December, English language support for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK will be available.

For European Union (EU) Apple device users, Apple Intelligence should now be available on their eligible macOS devices. They’ll gain access on their iPhones and iPads in April.

In 2025, Apple expects to have support for additional languages like Chinese, English (India and Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese and more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/apple-intelligence-whats-new-in-ios-182-223004890.html?src=rss

Chinese regulators are investigating NVIDIA for potential antitrust violations

NVIDIA, graphics chip maker and recent backbone of the AI industry, is under investigation by Chinese regulators over potential antitrust violations, The New York Times reports. The concerns center on the acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, a computer networking company NVIDIA bought in 2020.

As part of the conditions of that acquisition, Chinese regulators required NVIDIA to “provide information about new [Mellanox] products to rivals within 90 days of making them available to NVIDIA,” Bloomberg writes. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation is kicking off its investigation because it believes that those terms were violated. This wouldn’t be the first time NVIDIA has been investigated for monopolistic behavior – The US Department of Justice reportedly launched its own antitrust investigation into NVIDIA in September 2024 – but it has a different flavor in the context of the escalating trade war between the US and China.

On December 1, the US Department of Commerce announced export restrictions and sanctions on 140 Chinese companies producing chipmaking tools, and on “China-bound shipments of high bandwidth memory chips,” Reuters writes. The goal was fairly clear: the US wanted to limit China’s ability to develop advanced AI by preventing it from creating the kind of chips used to train and run it. This fight goes both ways, of course. It seems safe to say that the Chinese ban on all shipments of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the US was a response.

Threatening NVIDIA makes sense on a few fronts. The company’s H100 GPUs were used to train the vast majority of generative AI models used today, something that doesn’t seem likely to change with the Blackwell chips Nvidia announced earlier this year. That’s made it one of the most valuable companies in the world as AI speculation has run rampant, and a big target for governmental oversight. Plus, Bloomberg writes that NVIDIA gets some 15 percent of its revenue from China. However the investigation resolves, NVIDIA feels like a logical next step to escalate the US and China’s conflict even further.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/chinese-regulators-are-investigating-nvidia-for-potential-antitrust-violations-200136726.html?src=rss

TikTok asks court to delay the law that would ban its app next month

TikTok is beginning its last-ditch legal challenge to avoid a ban in the United States. The company filed an emergency injunction in federal court Monday, asking for a delay in the law that would ban the app from taking effect so it could have time to mount a Supreme Court challenge.

The new court filing comes just three days after the company lost its initial court challenge to the law, currently set to take effect January 19, 2025, that requires app stores and internet providers to block TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t sell the app. In their ruling, a panel of three appeals court judges wrote that the US government had “persuasive national security justifications that apply specifically to the platform that TikTok operates.”

TikTok has argued the law is unconstitutional and that it would unjustly hurt creators and businesses that rely on its service. “Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the TikTok Ban is halted,” TikTok said in a statement Monday.

In its latest filing, TikTok notes that President-elect Donald Trump has promised to “save” the app and that temporarily halting the law would allow “the incoming Administration to evaluate this matter.” Right now, the law is slated to take effect the day before Trump’s inauguration.

The company requested a decision by December 16. Even if the injunction isn’t granted, it’s still not quite the end of the line for the company’s legal challenges. If the Supreme Court ends up taking on the case, TikTok would have another opportunity to try to get the law overturned.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-asks-court-to-delay-the-law-that-would-ban-its-app-next-month-192427139.html?src=rss

OpenAI’s Sora video generation AI model arrives globally later today

Following an early preview at the start of the year, Sora, OpenAI’s long-awaited video generation model, is ready for public use. If you’re a ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscriber, you can begin experimenting with the tool starting later today, OpenAI announced on Monday. A more powerful model powers the product than the one OpenAI showed off in February. Sora Turbo is significantly faster, according to the company, though OpenAI cautions the new model still has limitations. “It often generates unrealistic physics and struggles with complex actions over long durations,” says the company.

When users first visit the dedicated landing page OpenAI has set up for Sora, they’ll be greeted with a feed of videos the model has created for other people. By clicking on a video, you’ll be able to see the exact prompt someone gave Sora to generate the footage you see. From here, you can also decide to re-cut a video, blend it into a clip you’re working on, or remix it. In this initial release, OpenAI is limiting Sora to generating videos that are up to 1080p and 20 seconds long.

ChatGPT Plus subscribers can use Sora to generate up to 50 videos at 480p per month. Alternatively, Plus users can generate fewer videos at 720p. OpenAI says the Pro plan affords 10 times as much usage, at higher resolutions and longer durations. “We’re working on tailored pricing for different types of users, which we plan to make available early next year,” the company adds.

Developing…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-sora-video-generation-ai-model-arrives-globally-later-today-182613208.html?src=rss