Kalakshar US

Elon Musk isn’t quite done making major changes to X. The platform’s owner and chief technical officer says the service formerly known as Twitter is getting rid of the option to block other users, except for when it comes to DMs. Musk, who has previously signaled his desire to remove the feature, suggested it “makes no sense” to block other users instead of muting them. The mute option will still be available.

Many people use the block feature to protect themselves from harassment. It’s long been a key safety feature of the platform and nixing it opens the door to users perhaps seeing more hateful content they don’t want to deal with in their feeds and notifications. Moreover, as CNBC points out, some users block advertisers and brands they don’t want to see, which (were enough people to do that) could have a notable impact on X’s bottom line.

In the spring, X killed off the platform’s free API, which broke many third-party apps. Just one year earlier, Twitter (as it was known at the time) started recommending third-party apps for people to use to mitigate harassment on the platform. One of those tools, Block Party, has since abandoned Twitter in the wake of the API changes.

On a related note, soon after Musk posted about the plan to remove the block function, rival service Blueskywent down. It may be that more X users are looking for a life raft as the platform becomes less palatable for them.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sorry-you-wont-be-able-to-block-elon-musk-or-anyone-else-on-x-184331733.html?src=rss 

Sega Sammy has completed its purchase of Angry Birds developer Rovio, officially plunking down a cool $776 million to acquire the company. The deal was first floated back in April, but both companies had to jump through some finalization and regulatory hoops. Sega’s hoping the purchase will give them a stronger foothold in the mobile space, despite the golden days of Angry Birds fandom passing almost 15 years ago.

However, Rovio is not just the one IP. Beyond Angry Birds and its many spinoff games, the company is known for the match-three puzzler Sugar Blast and the narrative mystery title Small Town Murders. Okay, those aren’t exactly high-profile IPs, but Sega gets something beyond recognizable franchise titles with this purchase. It gets a ready-made infrastructure for developing, publishing and advertising mobile games. This means it can hit the ground running when making mobile titles based on its own IPs, like Sonic, Samba de Amigo, Persona, Football Manager and others. There’s also hundreds of older games just waiting for mobile ports.

Back in April, CEO Haruki Satomi said that “the mobile gaming market has especially high potential, and it has been Sega’s long-term goal to accelerate its expansion in this field.”

Beyond Sega’s pre-existing franchises, the company will likely continue with more Angry Birds mobile games. Despite losing some of that late 2000s luster, Angry Birds is still a fairly hot commodity, with related movies, TV shows and even a bizarre restaurant in New York City. Maybe pairing up those annoyed avians with a certain blue hedgehog will bring the one-time mobile smash back into the collective consciousness. Now, who’s up for flinging Knuckles into a bunch of pigs?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sega-completes-purchase-of-rovio-for-776-million-191525883.html?src=rss 

Lamborghini, known for enabling many a mid-life crisis, revealed a new EV concept vehicle at Monterey Car Week, after teasing the announcement a few day ago. The all-electric Lamborghini Lanzador boasts all kinds of high-tech bells and whistles, with a design actually inspired by spaceships. This grand tourer (GT) vehicle features plenty of infotainment features, with a large Y-shaped center console bridge and a slim dashboard for making adjustments.

The driver also has instant access to climate controls and various digital functions via an integrated “pilot’s unit.” This unit also allows access to an array of driving modes via the company’s ANIMA control system. There’s even retractable displays that stream pertinent information to passengers regarding speed, distance, climate, entertainment and more.

As for the design, the driver and passenger sit low to the ground, as if in a jet, and are separated by that center console. The company says the interior is “unexpectedly roomy”, despite a roof height of around 1.5 meters, further increasing the car’s low-to-the-ground proportions. The rear space can be used to store luggage and other necessities, and there’s a concealed trunk under the front bonnet for more storage options.

Design is cool and all, but what about all of those internal speed-enhancing goodies? The Lanzador includes high-powered electric motors on each axle, with a peak power of over one megawatt. There’s all-wheel drive with e-torque on the rear axle for improved cornering. Lamborghini says it’s all powered by a “new generation high-performance battery” and ensures a long driving range, but didn’t announce the actual mileage per charge. The company also says that the car’s aerodynamic design should further increase real-world mileage.

Though strictly a concept car, Lamborghini says the Lanzador is not merely a “whim of designers and engineers” and provides a “concrete preview” of production vehicles that will begin rolling out in 2028. To that end, there’s an emphasis here on eco-friendly design materials, like Merino wool, sustainably tanned leather and recycled carbon. This also adds further proof that the company is serious about going all-electric by 2030.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lamborghinis-new-all-electric-concept-car-was-inspired-by-spaceships-174550629.html?src=rss 

Microsoft reportedly published — and retracted — an AI-generated article that recommended people visit a Canadian food bank as a tourist attraction. The article “Headed to Ottawa? Here’s what you shouldn’t miss!” included recommendations for catching a baseball game, honoring fallen soldiers at a war museum and… swinging by the Ottawa Food Bank. Paris Marx first called out the story on X (formerly Twitter). “People who come to us have jobs and families to support, as well as expenses to pay,” the AI-written section about the food bank section read. “Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach.”

Before its retraction, the article appeared on Microsoft Start, the company’s AI-aggregated news service that replaced Microsoft News in 2021. After The Vergereported on the article and its highly inappropriate recommendation about “going into it on an empty stomach,” Microsoft senior director Jeff Jones told the publication, “This article has been removed and we are investigating how it made it through our review process.”

The original URL now displays the message, “This page no longer exists. A new search page will load automatically.” The Verge uploaded screenshots of the initial story to Imgur.

The article’s author was listed merely as “Microsoft Travel,” suggesting real people may not have had any involvement in its creation. Microsoft Start’s “About Us” webpage claims it uses “human oversight” for the algorithms that “comb through hundreds of thousands of pieces of content sent by our partners” to help the company “understand dimensions like freshness, category, topic type, opinion content and potential popularity and publish according to user preferences.” The Windows maker reportedly laid off around 50 reporters from the division in 2020 while shifting to AI-generated news.

Microsoft is hardly the first company to get overzealous in its use of AI-created content. Early this year, CNET published numerous error-ridden financial explainer articles composed by artificial intelligence. More recently, Gizmodo’s parent company G/O Media posted an AI-composed (also mistake-filled) Star Wars article on the site, which deputy editor James Whitbrook called “embarrassing, unpublishable, disrespectful.” As the Associated Pressproceeds with measured caution on AI-assisted news coverage, other media outlets — including Microsoft’s news publishing wing — appear considerably more comfortable cashing in on fully AI-written articles, clearing the inevitable wreckage after the fact.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-retracts-ai-written-article-advising-tourists-to-visit-a-food-bank-on-an-empty-stomach-182701884.html?src=rss