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Bing may be back. Microsoft announced yesterday it’s partnering with OpenAI to enhance Bing with its AI technology. However, Microsoft also had a surprise up its sleeve: The next release of Bing will tap into a new next-generation language model the company claims is “much more powerful” than ChatGPT and designed specifically to excel at search.

During its event, Yusuf Mehdi, the company’s consumer chief marketing officer, demoed the new Bing, asking it to compare the most influential Mexican artists and their best-known paintings. Bing displayed its response in a new side panel with annotations and weblinks. Later, Mehdi asked the search engine to compare three pet vacuums while listing the pros and cons of each model.

With the chat feature, you can ask Bing to create a five-day travel itinerary for you, including links to accommodation, flights and things to do. The new Bing is already available to preview. You can visit Bing.com – which I haven’t done since 2009 – to try a few sample queries and sign up for the waitlist for when it launches in earnest.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the PS4

It’s the third best-selling console ever.

The Switch just leaped over both the Game Boy and PlayStation 4 to become the third bestselling console of all time. The console had sold 122.55 million units by the end of 2022, Nintendo announced in its earnings report, so it’s now only behind the DS and PlayStation 2 in lifetime sales. Nintendo said last year the transition to its next console was “a major focus.” It could start becoming a more urgent one soon.

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Microsoft’s new Bing and Edge hands-on

It’s like ChatGPT built right into your browser.

Through a partnership with ChatGPT -maker OpenAI, Microsoft is adding more advanced AI conversation models to power updates to both Bing and its Edge web browser. The company’s keynote happened at a breakneck pace, but fortunately, Engadget’s Cherlynn Low got to test things out right after.

With the new Edge, a button on the top right gives you access to the new Bing’s chat feature in your browser. But it goes beyond just answering your questions without having to leave the pages you’re browsing. Edge can help make sense of the sites you’re looking at and make research or multitasking much easier. You can use a new Compose function to create posts, emails and, apparently, even essays, and while the results are pretty similar to ChatGPT’s, they could be incredibly convenient.

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OnePlus 11 review

A back-to-basics flagship phone.

The OnePlus 11 has everything we loved about OnePlus in the past: a powerful processor, a vivid screen and the return to a competitive price tag. The headline feature remains the fast-charging technology, cranked up to 100 watts. The cameras are improved, if not quite among the best smartphone shooters. But at this price ($699), it’s difficult to complain.

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Google will blur explicit images in search by default

It’s one of several upcoming features the company announced on Safer Internet Day.

Yesterday was Safer Internet Day, and Google says it’s working to blur explicit images in search results for all users as the default setting, even if they don’t have SafeSearch switched on. SafeSearch filtering is already the default for signed-in users under 18. It’ll encompass nudity as well as violent content.

Elsewhere, Google is adding another layer of protection to the built-in password manager on Chrome and Android. The company says if you have a supported computer, you’ll have the option to require biometric authentication before filling a saved password into a form. The same feature will also let you “securely reveal, copy or edit passwords” you’ve saved in the password manager without having to punch in your main password first.

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Samsung’s latest 77-inch S95 QD-OLED TV generated some buzz at CES this year thanks to brightness levels up to 2,000 nits, 144Hz refresh rates and more. Now, the company has revealed that you’ll pay to get those premium features: $4,500 for the 77-inch model, with shipping set to start in the US on February 15th. 

As mentioned, Samsung’s 2023 QD-OLED TV lineup will supposedly hit up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, a bit more than LG’s latest OLED models and approaching Mini-LED TVs. That’s thanks to a new QD-OLED Panel from Samsung Display, which uses a new “HyperEfficient EL” OLED material and Samsung’s IntelliSense AI. The TVs will also be more energy efficient and offer more accurate colors, according to Samsung Display. 

The 144Hz refresh rate will make it great for gaming, as it already offers the lowest input lag you can get on any TV or monitor at just 0.1 milliseconds. As HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh pointed out, the 77-inch S95C will come with an external connect box, which allowed Samsung to make the panel extremely thin and reduce bezel sizes down to the bare minimum. However, as with all other Samsung TVs, it doesn’t support Dolby Vision, using Samsung’s HDR 10+ instead. 

The price is a bit more than LG’s comparable 77-inch G2 model from last year, priced at $4,200. If you order before February 20th, though, Samsung will throw in free installation worth around $200. The company has yet to reveal pricing across the rest of its lineup, but last year’s 55- and 65-inch models cost $2,200 and $3,000, respectively.

 

Virgin Orbit’s first orbital launch from UK soil, which was supposed to be a huge milestone for the company and for the region, may have ended in failure because of a component that cost around $100. According to SpaceNews, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart has revealed at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California that the evidence so far points to a filter in the rocket’s second stage engine getting dislodged and causing issues.

If you’ll recall, the company launched its historic “Start Me Up” mission from Spaceport Cornwall on January 9th, and things seemed to flow smoothly at first. Virgin’s LauncherOne rocket was able to detach from its carrier aircraft, and the company reported a successful stage separation. But soon, it became clear that the rocket wasn’t able to reach orbit as planned. “[The rocket’s] upper stage experienced an anomaly,” a company spokesperson told Engadget at the time, and that “prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage.” They added: “This event ended the mission, with the rocket components and payload falling back to Earth within the approved safety corridor without ever achieving orbit.” 

The LauncherOne rocket for the mission was carrying satellites from seven customers, including government entities. One of its payloads was a joint project between the UK Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the US Naval Research Laboratory called CIRCE (Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment). Virgin Orbit promised to conduct a full investigation into the root cause of the anomaly, but it didn’t wait for results to come back before announcing that it was going to attempt another UK launch as soon as later this year. 

The company isn’t done with its investigation, Hart said during the event, but he was confident enough to reveal the investigators’ findings: “Everything points to, right now, a filter that was clearly there when we assembled the rocket but was not there as the second stage engine started, meaning it was dislodged and caused mischief downstream,” he said. “This is like a $100 part that took us out.” Hart also said that Virgin Orbit is no longer going to use that filter and that it’s currently looking for potential fixes. 

 

Apple has expanded the internal testing for its Pay service’s buy now, pay later feature to include its retail employees, according to Bloomberg. When the tech giant’s experimental features make their way to its retail staff, that’s typically a sign that it’s going to be released in the near future. Apple Store workers started testing the company’s credit card in 2019 a month before it became available, and staff at its HQ visitor center tested Tap to Pay shortly before the first partner companies like Square and PayPal launched support for the payment solution. 

The tech giant first announced the pay later functionality for Apple Pay at its WWDC event in June 2022. It was supposed to arrive alongside iOS 16, but the company changed its mind and rolled out the new mobile platform without the feature in tow. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported at the time that the company was having “fairly significant technical and engineering challenges in rolling out the service,” which led to delays. 

When Apple introduced pay later, it said the payment option will give users a way to split the cost of purchases into four equal installments paid over six weeks with no additional interest or fees. Gurman now says that the company is also working with Goldman Sachs Group to offer an option that splits up the cost of large purchases into several months with interest on top. Seeing as the company even established its own subsidiary to conduct customer credit checks and approvals, it’s not hard to believe that it has plans to introduce more pay later options in the future. 

 

Canon has put Sony and its other rivals on blast with the launch of the $1,500 24-megapixel EOS R8, its cheapest full-frame camera yet. Released alongside the $680 R50 APS-C model, it’s targeted to photographers and video creators on a budget. However, it’s got some impressive features like uncropped, oversampled 4K video up 60 fps, shooting speeds up to 40 fps and Canon’s excellent Dual Pixel autofocus. 

On the photography front, the R8 can shoot at up to 6 fps with the first-curtain electronic shutter (like the R50, there’s no fully mechanical shutter) or a whopping 40 fps with the electronic shutter. That sounds great, but rolling shutter may be an issue in electronic mode for fast moving subjects. It can capture up to a very respectable 100 C-RAW + JPEG files at a time to the single UHS-II card slot. The autofocus systems looks strong, using Canon’s Dual Pixel AF along with AI subject detection for people, animals and vehicles. 

For video, you can capture 4K video up to 60 fps with 6K oversampling, or Full HD at up to 180 fps — quite impressive considering the price. Editing-friendly ALL-I capture is supported up to 4K 30p with a 470Mbps data rate. It supports up to two hours of continuous recording with no 30-minute limit, though 4K 60p and 180 fps Full HD shooting times are thermally limited to around 30 minutes. You can shoot 10-bit HDR PQ or Canon Log-3 video, so this would be the perfect budget vlogging camera if not for the overheating situation. It also has focus breathing compensation (for select lenses).

The main thing missing compared to the $2,500 EOS R6 II is 5-axis in-body stabilization. However, it does have optical stabilization with supported lenses and Canon’s Movie Digital IS, which works in concert with lens stabilization. 

Other features include a micro-HDMI port that supports up to 4K 60p, mic and headphone ports, an LP-E17 battery (no CIPA battery life provided yet) and USB webcam support. The 3-inch, 1.62 million dot display flips out for vloggers, but the OLED electronic viewfinder is a low-end unit with 2.36-million dots of resolution.

Despite the low price, there are no red flags I can see on the R8 (pending a full review, of course). At a full $1,000 below the R6 II, it looks like a great camera particularly for vloggers and content creators. Canon also introduced a budget full-frame kit lens, the RF24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM, selling by itself for $300. The EOS R8 goes on sale in the spring of 2023 for $1,500, or $1,700 with the aforementioned lens. 

 

Canon is adding a new, more affordable entry point into its RF mirrorless camera ecosystem. Alongside the full-frame EOS R8, the company unveiled today the EOS R50, an APS-C RF mount camera that will start at $680 when it goes on sale later this year. Canon didn’t send over a full spec sheet, but judging from the information the company did share, the R50 could quickly become a go-to for many beginners.

The camera features a 24.2-megapixel sensor capable of capturing uncropped 4K video footage at up to 30 frames per second. The R50 can also shoot 1080p video at up to 60 frames per second and S&Q-style slo-mo footage at up to 120 frames per second. What’s more, Canon claims the camera can capture a full hour of continuous footage. Despite its modest price, the R50 also includes the company’s excellent Dual Pixel autofocus technology, with built-in subject detection for people, animals and vehicles. Best of all, the tech is available for both stills and video.

You don’t get any log modes, but it does have HDR PQ which also gives you 10-bit video — not bad for a budget camera. Other video features include a microHDMI port for external video, both microphone and headphone ports, and UVC compatibility for direct webcam streaming. 

Burst shooting speeds are great at this price as well: 12 fps in electronic first-curtain shutter mode (there’s no full mechanical shutter) and 15 fps in electronic shutter mode, both with servo AF. It’ll only capture 13 C-RAW+JPEG files in a burst though, likely due to the slow UHS-I SD card support. There’s no in-body stabilization (IS) at that price, but it can use the IS built into lenses or digital stabilization (with a crop) for vlogging. It also has an OLED viewfinder, which many cameras in this price range don’t, though resolution is fairly low at 2.36 million dots. 

At the same time, Canon is expanding its RF lens lineup to add new crop sensor glass. The RF-S55-210mm is a compact telephoto lens with a full-frame equivalent field of view between 88mm and 336mm. It features a variable f/5 to f/7.1 aperture, four-and-a-half stops of built-in optical stabilization and close-focusing capabilities. The RF-S55-210mm IS STM isn’t the fastest option in Canon’s RF lens stable, but it does add some much-needed choice on the APS-C side of things.

At $680 for body-only, the R50 slots under the EOS R10, which was previously Canon’s most affordable RF mirrorless camera. Effectively, the R50 is a more capable version of the EOS M50 Mark II that’s less than $100 more expensive and doesn’t limit you to Canon’s dead-end EF-M mount system. It’s also competitive against Sony’s ZV-E10 and Nikon’s Z30, which cost about the same but don’t offer an electronic viewfinder. The EOS R50 will arrive later this year. In addition to selling the body on its own, Canon will bundle the camera as part of a Content Creator Kit that will ship with a microphone, 18-45mm kit lens and grip for $800.

 

For one night only, Disney’s breakout Star Wars series is coming to cable TV. Ahead of the premiere of the third season of The Mandalorian on March 1st, Disney announced today it would air the show’s debut episode, “Chapter 1: The Mandalorian,” on February 24th. If you somehow haven’t seen the series before, you can catch the episode that started it all on ABC, Freeform or FX. All three stations will air the 41-minute debut at 8PM ET/PT.

If you’ve managed to avoid spoilers for The Mandalorian until now, first of all, great job; it couldn’t have been easy. Second, we won’t ruin the surprise, but the debut episode is a great taste of what made the first season of the series feel so special. It has a bit of everything that people came to love about The Mandalorian, including witty dialogue, fun action set pieces and, of course, a certain cute alien.

This isn’t the first time Disney has brought a Disney+ exclusive to TV. The company previously aired two episodes of Andor on ABC, Freeform and FX when it seemed that series was struggling to find an audience. Considering the company recently lost $1.5 billion on its streaming services, bringing The Mandalorian to broadcast TV makes a lot of sense as an effort to attract subscribers to Disney+.

 

The age of generative AI is upon us, and this week alone Google and Microsoft made major announcements around their respective products for the masses. While Google unveiled an “experimental conversational AI service” called Bard yesterday, Microsoft had a fuller slate of news to share at its event in Redmond, WA today. Through a partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Microsoft is adding more advanced AI conversation models to power updates to Bing and Edge. 

The company’s keynote today happened at breakneck pace, with demos whizzing by so quickly there was barely enough time to make sense of the updates. Thankfully, I was able to briefly check out a full demo here with Dena Saunders from Bing Engineering. It was nice to see everything at a more comprehensible pace, but it was unfortunately restricted to a set of scripted examples. I’ll be getting access to the preview through my own whitelisted accounts in a bit so I will be updating this post with my personal impressions, but for now, I can break down at least what the updates look like on a demo computer.

In general, there are four new areas of change coming to Bing (and we’ll get to Edge later): Search, Answers, Chat and Create. The first update is the new search box. Instead of your typical long, one-line bar, there is now a box more similar to those on Twitter or Facebook that prompts you to ask Bing anything. The character limit is now 1,000. The idea is to make the process of looking for answers something more conversational — similar to Google’s approach for years now. 

When you submit your query, results are now displayed a bit differently. On the left is a column with your typical “answers” just like how you see it on Bing now. On the right, however, is a box that explains how the system found those answers. I initially thought this was similar to what Google does in its “About this search” panels, but I was wrong. This box is a home for the AI and fills up with text that appears in real time, complete with animation and a “Stop responding” button in case you don’t have the patience to see the AI’s explanation. 

The third and fourth parts are the more interesting updates. Chat, for example, is a new way you can get solutions to the problems you’re looking to solve. You can access the Chat page from the Bing results page by tapping the Chat button above the answers or by scrolling up (swiping down on touchscreens). 

This story is developing, please refresh for updates.

 

You can add Zoom to the long list of major tech companies that have laid off employees in recent times. It’s letting go around 1,300 employees, which equates to 15 percent of the workforce.

In a note to staff, CEO Eric Yuan indicated that the company expanded its headcount too quickly after Zoom’s pandemic-driven boom — it tripled in size in the space of two years. “We didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities,” Yuan wrote.

He noted that even though many folks have returned to the office, people and companies are still relying on Zoom. That said, Yuan said that amid a rocky economic climate, “we need to take a hard — yet important — look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision.”

Yuan said he was taking accountability for the layoffs. He’s reducing his salary for the upcoming fiscal year by 98 percent and the executive team will forego 20 percent of their base salaries. All will forfeit their corporate bonuses for fiscal year 2023 (i.e., the 2022 calendar year).

Zoom employees in the US who are being let go will receive up to 16 weeks’ salary and healthcare coverage, their earned fiscal year 2023 bonus, stock option vesting for six months and help to find a new job. The company said laid-off workers outside the US will get similar support based on local laws.

Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell and Spotify are among the other major tech companies that have this year announced sweeping layoffs or plans to let go more staff than they originally planned. We’re keeping a running tally of the big tech layoffs of 2023, which is becoming an increasingly sobering list.

 

Microsoft’s use of AI on the web will extend beyond smarter Bing searches. The company is updating its Edge browser with an “AI-powered copilot” that assists with everyday tasks. Integration with the new Bing can help you get the key takeaways from a document, compare content and even draft posts (such as on LinkedIn) with a specific format, length or tone.

The revised interface revolves around a new sidebar. You can use a chat feature in this space to ask questions like you would with Bing, while a compose option helps you write new content using prompts. You can also expect a new look.

Both Bing and the updated Edge are based around a new AI model, Prometheus, built with the help of OpenAI. While it draws some lessons from the popular ChatGPT conversational AI, it’s billed as more powerful and optimized for search. Microsoft also claims it’s a “responsible” platform where protections against abuse and errors exist at every level.

The new Edge is available now in preview form. While Bing is the highlight of Microsoft’s AI announcements, the new browser clearly plays an important role. The AI capabilities theoretically give Edge an advantage over Chrome, Safari and other browsers. Of course, how long any lead lasts is uncertain. Google is holding an event tomorrow (February 8th) that may shed light on its bid to rival ChatGPT, and it won’t be surprising if AI-driven search is part of that strategy.