Kroy Biermann and Kim Zolciak were married for 11 years before filing for divorce this spring. They share four minor children.
Kroy Biermann and Kim Zolciak were married for 11 years before filing for divorce this spring. They share four minor children.
Stassi Schroeder announced she is expecting a baby boy with her husband, Beau Clark, in March 2023.
Stassi Schroeder announced she is expecting a baby boy with her husband, Beau Clark, in March 2023.
OpenAI warned Microsoft early this year about rushing the integration of GPT-4 into Bing without further training, according to The Wall Street Journal. Although Microsoft forged ahead anyway, the alert proved prescient as early users noticed “unhinged” behavior in the Bing AI tool. (The most memorable examples included arguing, plotting ways to break out of its restrictions and trying to convince a New York Times tech columnist to leave his marriage and elope with Bing instead.) In addition, the new report details “conflict and confusion” behind the curtains of the companies’ convenient but potentially fragile alliance.
Rather than buying OpenAI outright, Microsoft invested in a 49-percent stake in the artificial intelligence startup, a strategy designed to help it avoid antitrust scrutiny. The arrangement gave Microsoft early access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 to boost its Bing search engine. In addition, it’s adding OpenAI-powered CoPilot to Office and other software products as rival Google scrambles to catch up. Meanwhile, OpenAI gets the financial investment and Microsoft’s servers for hosting.
The WSJ describes the arrangement as an “open relationship” where Microsoft maintains significant influence without complete control. For example, although the agreement limits OpenAI’s search-engine customers, it’s still free to work with Microsoft’s rivals. That can place the two companies in precarious situations like their sales teams making overlapping pitches to the same customers. In addition, Microsoft employees have reportedly complained about diminished in-house AI spending and a lack of direct access to OpenAI’s models for its researchers and engineers.
Microsoft employees were also reportedly surprised at how quickly OpenAI launched ChatGPT. The startup opened its chatbot to the public last November on its way to setting the record for the fastest-growing app user base. Microsoft didn’t launch Bing GPT integration until February — after ChatGPT was already well on its way to becoming a household name.
Even with Bing’s shaky AI launch, it’s hard to argue Microsoft hasn’t benefited immensely from the partnership. The search engine saw an early 15-percent traffic boost after adding GPT integration, while the Bing mobile app was downloaded 750,000 times, including a peak of 150,000 daily installs, during its first week. The fact that Bing has become a buzzed-about product — after years of being mocked as Google’s also-ran competitor — is quite an accomplishment in itself. “When we grow, it helps [OpenAI], and when they grow, it helps us,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said in April.
Still, some analysts view the partnership as potentially problematic over time. “What puts them in more of a collision course is both sides need to make money,” said Oren Etzioni, board member and CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “The conflict is they’ll both be trying to make money with similar products.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-reportedly-warned-microsoft-about-rushing-gpt-4-integration-into-bing-182044458.html?src=rss
“Basically, we’re not planning a distinct sequel at all.”
Dan Greenawalt, GM of the Forza series, has been working on Motorsport games for two decades, but his remarks in a post-Xbox Showcase briefing on Sunday suggest this next release could be the last in the series. Forza Motorsport is the eighth title in Turn 10 Studios’ driving sim franchise, and the first new entry in almost half a decade.
Forza has been one of Microsoft’s most reliable first-party properties. Ignoring Playground Games’ spinoff Horizon series, the original Xbox had one Forza title, the Xbox 360 had three, and the Xbox One had three. Barring a few launch hiccups, every title has been well-reviewed and the franchise as a whole has sold millions. We’re now in the third year of this console generation, and there’s been no Motorsport game for fans to play.
A lot’s changed since Forza Motorsport 7 arrived in September 2017. The “day one with Game Pass” paradigm shift started with Sea Of Thieves in 2018, and has since become Microsoft’s entire business model. Now, Microsoft measures success more like a social network (or a tech news publication), focusing on monthly active users and playtime, rather than sales.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Forza Motorsport is set up more like a service game than a traditional AAA title.
While many of the modes that Forza players expect, especially the online multiplayer component, are being reworked and improved, Turn 10 is betting that its new career mode will keep players coming back week after week. At Summer Game Fest, the game’s creative director Chris Esaki talked a group of journalists through this new career-mode loop and the shift in philosophy for the series.
Esaki described Forza Horizon as “a whole new take on falling in love with cars.” We saw a career mode event called the Builders Cup, which began with a narrated showcase of a trio of cars. After picking one to roll with, you then head into “open practice,” where you get to know the car. These sessions are packed full of stats and challenges; you earn Car Experience Points (CXP) for every corner you take, and the closer to perfection you are the more CXP you’ll get. CXP is specific to each car, and is used to upgrade parts and customize vehicle performance.
After open practice, you head into a race, where there’s a new “challenge the grid” system that lets you essentially bet against your racing talent. You choose where on the grid to start and how fast your AI opponents are, with higher rewards as the difficulty scales up. After competing in the race itself, you’ll earn money for new vehicles as well as more of the car-specific CXP. Then it’s onto the next open practice, more tuning and customization, and more races.
Esaki calls this loop “level, build, dominate.” He sees it as a way to get players interested in a broad swathe of cars, rather than having them head straight to a Ferrari or Bugatti. That might sound like the ethos of another popular racing sim, but while there are definitely elements of Gran Turismo 7’s cups and café challenges in here, the Builders Cup feels both more contained and more repeatable. It’s all by design: Similar to recent Forza Horizon games, players can expect a big content update monthly, which then rolls out week-by-week.
We’ll likely hear much more about Forza Motorsport in the lead up to its release on October 10th, and I’m interested to try out the new simulation features, like a massively overhauled physics system and improved opponent AI. For now, though, the pitch seems solid. I’m a huge fan of Gran Turismo 7, but if you don’t enjoy online sim racing and the toxicity that comes with it, its single-player experience is fairly threadbare. In contrast, Turn 10 seems to have developed Forza Motorsport as a game that will last forever, with new experiences every week designed to satiate gamers’ desire for fresh races and Microsoft’s desire for monthly active users.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/forza-motorsport-wants-you-to-drive-forever-183033371.html?src=rss
If you go to Reddit right now, your favorite subreddit might not be available. More than 8,000 communities on the platform have gone private to protest Reddit’s API policy changes. Moderators of many of those subreddits said they’d open up access to their communities again on Wednesday, while others are prepared to prolong their protests indefinitely. Either way, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman doesn’t seem too worried.
According to The Verge, Huffman told staff to block out the noise from the collective action. He noted in a memo that there hadn’t been “any significant revenue impact” as yet and said Reddit would “get through it.”
Reddit was down for many users for a while on Monday, soon after the protest started. “A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues,” the company told Engadget at the time.
Huffman wrote that while Reddit anticipated the protest, “it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us.” He noted that some Reddit employees “have been working around the clock, adapting to infrastructure strains, engaging with communities and responding to the myriad of issues related to this blackout.” Huffman thanked them for their efforts and said that Reddit had to stay the course.
“There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” he reportedly wrote. “We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.”
In April, Reddit said it would start charging for API access. Third-party developers have used the API to make thousands of apps that hook into Reddit, including moderation tools. Reddit users are concerned that the changes will significantly harm the community. We’re already starting to see that play out to a certain extent.
Apollo and RIF, two popular third-party apps that redditors use to access Reddit, will shut down on June 30th, just before the API pricing changes come into force. The creator of Apollo estimated that maintaining the app would cost him around $20 million per year. Huffman addressed the issue in his memo.
“While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others,” Huffman wrote. “And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.”
Meanwhile, Huffman warned staff about wearing Reddit-branded apparel in public for the time being. “Some folks are really upset, and we don’t want you to be the object of their frustrations,” he wrote.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/reddits-ceo-reportedly-told-staff-that-the-communitys-api-protest-will-blow-over-183708217.html?src=rss
Have you ever struggled to bring together four folks for an Overwatch team? Tried to figure out how you and your friends can play Destiny 2 simultaneously?
Can you imagine assembling 33 players for a 25-minute raid? 33 Immortals plans to do exactly that.
Channeling the animation style of retro cartoons (and a little Banner Saga), 33 Immortals is a massively substantially multiplayer roguelike top-down action game, from the creators of Spiritfarer. At a session following this week’s Xbox Showcase at Summer Game Fest, five fellow spirits and I tried to escape hell.
In this early build of the game, there were two character types in play: a swordsman who could deal heavy close-range damage and an archer who could send up to three arrows toward enemies before having to reload. I got to play as the latter. Alongside the standard attacks, I could hold the action button to charge up a heavier piercing shot. The archer, when he reloads, recalls his fired arrows back to him, meaning strategic placement can effectively double the damage dealt.
All the characters also have a dash move, while trigger buttons open your world map, emote wheel and co-op powers. These co-op powers will vary depending on your character type and often demand careful planning to pull them off. Pressing the RB trigger displays a trio of circles on the ground; two of your fellow immortals need to activate the empty circles in order to trigger the attack. For me, this rained arrows on a wide area of the map, but for the swordsman, it launched a wide-ranged healing spell.
With plenty of enemies on-screen, especially in the more challenging portal dungeons, it’s a lot of fun just chaotically spamming attacks, helping the rest of your team finish off mid-bosses, or picking off easier foes at a distance before they coordinate their attacks.
If the sword and bow options sound a little limiting, don’t worry: 33 Immortals will offer up plenty of different character types to play with. With seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues, we’ll likely get to play around with seven different warriors. Outside of co-op powers and quirks, the button layouts don’t change among characters, making it easier to try out every option. To add a little more complexity, you can gather up in-game currency from monsters you kill, exchanging them for healing or trinkets to boost attack speed, defense and more.
And you’ll likely have to try, try and try again. Each raid is built to be around 25 minutes long, and you’ll want to keep as many players alive (and online) as possible so you’ll be able to fell the boss at the end. More players will mean it’ll take less time to shave the health bar of bigger enemies, as the game apparently isn’t built to scale with how many characters are playing. More immortals is always better.
By the way, you’re not quite immortal as a fighter, either. After taking too much damage, you’ll fall and reappear as an ethereal spirit, not able to do anything but float around until another raider can resurrect you – something that proved to be particularly frustrating in the middle of difficult fights. Naturally, it’s just better if you fight more cautiously, heal your allies and… don’t die.
33 Immortals is inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. You’re rebelling against God’s final judgment that your soul is damned, and there’s a fun twist in the way God delivers his anger when you beat one of his dungeons. As you step out of the portal, the ground around you will get immolated in holy fire, and you’ll have to dodge this and spawning enemies until God chills a little.
While this was an early demo, latency was a struggle for my machine, but the team has plenty of time to stabilize – and offer demos that are not in the middle of a hectic Xbox showcase. I’m excited to play a roguelike as part of a mob, and I’m curious to see what the other character types will be.
33 Immortals is coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2024.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/33-immortals-first-look-defying-a-god-is-more-fun-with-friends-190037208.html?src=rss
At the most basic level, the only kitchen equipment you really need are a knife, cutting board, a heatproof vessel of some kind and perhaps a utensil or two. But if you really want to take your cooking to the next level – and who doesn’t? – you’ll want to invest in a few key kitchen tools. From pressure cookers to toaster ovens, these are our favorite must-haves that will make cooking easier, faster and maybe even more enjoyable.
If you haven’t yet hopped on the bandwagon, a multi-cooker like the Instant Pot could become one of your favorite kitchen gadgets. This cult favorite can perform multiple tasks, including pressure cooking, slow cooking, sautéing, rice cooking, yogurt making, steaming and warming. The combination of all these features make it easy to prepare stews, soups, braises and more. You can make cheesecake in it too! Our favorite model for most people is the Instant Pot Duo Plus because it’s simple to use, with several quick-cooking modes for soup, eggs, porridge and grains. It has sterilizing and sous vide cooking functions too.
Want a smarter Instant Pot instead? Consider the Instant Pot Pro Plus. It not only has updated features like a canning function and an oven-safe inner pot, but you also get WiFi connectivity and a companion app, which offers step-by-step guided instructions for over 800 recipes. Plus, you can use it to release the Instant Pot’s steam remotely. You can also use the app to set a timer to release the steam automatically.
Nobody wants to eat undercooked meat, but it’s pretty inedible when it’s overcooked as well. One way to avoid either extreme is to use a thermometer to monitor the temperature. Our favorite is the Thermapen One from ThermoWorks. It gives readings instantaneously, and the screen rotates automatically depending on how you’re holding it. The auto-wake and sleep feature is useful for quick temp checks, and its IP67 waterproofing rating means you don’t have to worry about accidentally dropping it in the sink.
The ThermoPop is a more affordable option in ThermoWorks’ lineup. It’s not quite as fast as the Thermapen One, and it doesn’t have the rotating display or backlight. But it still measures temperatures accurately and while it’s not waterproof, it is splash resistant.
Bakers everywhere know that the most precise way to measure ingredients is with a scale. A “cup of flour” can be wildly different depending on how you scoop it, while a scale can tell you exactly if you have 120 grams. A digital scale is best for the most accurate measurements, and we especially like the Escali Primo. You can switch between grams and ounces with a single press, and importantly, there’s also a tare button that zeros out the weight so you can keep measuring in the same container. One reason we like the Escali Primo over other models is that it has a very long auto-off timer, allowing it to stay on for four minutes before shutting off. That’s important for when you need the extra time to chop up vegetables or gather other ingredients without having to worry about the scale resetting to zero.
The hottest kitchen gadget right now seems to be the air fryer, presumably because the idea of “frying” foods without the oily mess is an easy sell. Really, though, air fryers are just miniature convection ovens. They’re typically pod-shaped and often come with a removable basket. There are also toaster ovens with an air-frying function – see our recommendations below – if you prefer to have a multi-purpose appliance on your countertop.
Though both have their own merits, if you think you’re going to be air-frying a lot, we actually recommend a dedicated pod-shaped air fryer. These devices tend to result in crispier food, plus they’re easier to clean. One of our favorites is the Instant Vortex Plus with ClearCook and OdorErase. As the name suggests, it has a window so you can see what you’re cooking, as well as odor-eliminating filters that help reduce cooking smells – not many other air fryers have both. It also doesn’t take up as much space as a large toaster oven and it has easy to use controls.
Sure, you could probably mix together a batch of cookie dough by hand, but it’ll take time and quite a bit of upper body strength. That’s even truer if you want to knead bread dough or whip up a meringue. Save yourself the trouble by getting a stand mixer. The favorite among bakers and amateur cooks for years have been KitchenAid’s Artisan series. It’s durable, powerful and it comes with your choice of paddle, hook and whisk attachments to use with the mixing bowl. We also like that the KitchenAid mixers are compatible with a variety of accessories and attachments that can turn the machine into an ice cream maker, a meat grinder and a pasta machine just in case you want to expand your culinary horizons.
It’s hard to beat the Vitamix in this space. The high-performance blender brand makes machines that do more than just prep smoothies, but can also make salad dressing, sauces, batters and soups. It’s especially handy if you have a habit of adding tougher ingredients into your recipes – things like nuts, dried fruit and frozen produce. Whereas other, less powerful blenders may leave chunks once you introduce hardier ingredients, the Vitamix won’t, leaving you with a silky smooth final product.
Depending on the model you get, you can also buy different attachments to make the most of the blender’s powerful base. You can pick up 64-ounce containers for making smoothies for your whole family at once or a “dry grain” container that’s outfitted with a blade specifically for grinding up things like whole grains so you can make your own flour.
Vitamix currently has four series of blenders: the basic Vitamix One, which comes in at $250; the slightly more advanced Explorian series, which starts at $350 and is arguably best for most people; the Legacy series, starting at $400; and the advanced Ascent series, which will set you back at least $500. Yes, these are expensive machines, but it’s worth investing in if you do a lot of blending or like to experiment with making things from scratch.
A toaster oven is a surprisingly versatile appliance. Yes, you can use it to toast bread, buns, and all manner of baked goods. But it’s also a great alternative when you don’t want to warm up your whole house with your full-size oven. It heats up far faster too, which makes it a more efficient choice for warming up leftovers.
We love the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro as it’s big enough to roast a chicken and it also has other functions like dehydrate, proof and air fry (thanks to a super convection mode). It also includes presets for baking pizzas and toasting bagels. A step up from that is the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro, which adds WiFi connectivity so you can control it from your phone. The app has lots of recipes, too, and there’s an “autopilot” feature that automatically adjusts the temperature during cooking.
If you don’t want something quite so large, a smaller and more affordable alternative is the Panasonic Flash Express. It’s roomy enough to handle a slice of pizza but definitely won’t take up as much space as the Breville. It’s definitely a great option if all you want is a toaster oven for heating up frozen snacks or toasting several bread slices at once.
If you want to make sure your expensive steak is perfectly medium rare without having to constantly monitor its temperature, consider getting a sous vide cooker. These machines let you cook anything inside a temperature-controlled water bath so that it’s done to perfection. We’ve successfully made steak, chicken, burgers, eggs and even yogurt in a sous vide cooker, and the results have been perfect every time.
Our favorite model is the Anova Precision Cooker 3.0. The company added digital touch controls, a longer power cord and WiFi connectivity to an already stellar base product with the launch of the latest version. The companion app is thoughtfully designed as well, with hundreds of recipes and the option to control the machine remotely. And even though there’s an app component, you don’t have to use it; you can easily adjust the temperature with the on-board controls and the large digital display.
Valentina Palladino contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-kitchen-tech-gadgets-small-appliances-124515179.html?src=rss
Jennie addressed her fans on Instagram and said she was ‘so sorry’ that she had to leave the concert early due to a health scare.
Jennie addressed her fans on Instagram and said she was ‘so sorry’ that she had to leave the concert early due to a health scare.
Iconic synth manufacturer Moog has been acquired by super conglomerate inMusic, joining other brands snatched up by the company like Alesis, Akai, M-Audio and, well, a bunch more. In a statement, Moog president Joe Richardson says the acquisition could help the company overcome “ongoing challenges”, citing global distribution supply chain concerns.
To that end, chip shortages and various supply chain issues have plagued the company since early Covid, leading to stark price increases for some of its flagship instruments, as originally reported by Synth Anatomy and others. Moog has managed to stay an independent brand for decades, since the 1960s, so this is something of a shock for the synthesizer world.
Moog says it’ll still be developing synthesizers at its Asheville, North Carolina headquarters but makes no mention about the manufacturing process. To this day, many of the iconic instruments under the company’s umbrella are manufactured in the USA, so we’ll keep an eye on if that changes. Alesis, also owned by inMusic, designs its products in America but manufactures them in China.
There’s also the idea of brand cross-pollination. In the announcement letter, Richardson says the acquisition will allow Moog to “enhance the capabilities of inMusic and its exclusive brands.” Does this suggest a future Moog synth with actual Akai MPC pads or a budget-friendly Alesis synthesizer that takes advantage of Moog’s audio-shaping expertise? We shall see. In the meantime, Moog just celebrated its 70th anniversary with a Model D-inspired web app and recently released the Moog One, its most ambitious (and expensive) instrument ever.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/moog-acquired-by-conglomerate-inmusic-joining-akai-and-alesis-164536639.html?src=rss
Google just added a bunch of new features for Pixel smartphone owners in a system update. First of all, there’s a major improvement to the car crash detection feature, as it now not only contacts emergency services but automatically shares real-time location information with emergency contacts. To that end, the update also makes it easier to start emergency sharing or schedule a safety check by allowing for voice controls.
The recording feature got a major update here, with a new ability to export transcripts into Google Docs and generate labels based on who’s speaking so you can easily find the clip you want later. The photo timer also got a refresh, letting you initiate self-timed photos by raising your palm to start a countdown. This only works for Pixel 6 phones and newer.
If you have the well-reviewed Pixel 7 Pro, there’s an update to macro focus as the feature can now handle both still photography and video for detailed footage of a beetle climbing a flower or whatever. For all Pixel phone owners, Google Assistant is getting a glow up, with an array of new voice options and new language options. It also wouldn’t be a system update without some kind of emoji tomfoolery, so there’s new emoji wallpapers that let you mix and match images with patterns and colors to create unique backgrounds. The update brings even more wallpaper goodness via dynamic cinematic (3D) options.
Pixel Watch owners were not left out in the cold here, as there’s a new heart rate tool that tracks the upper and lower limits of your threshold, an auto-pause tool and the long-awaited blood oxygen tracker. These features are dropping now but it could take a few days, or weeks, before the update reaches your device.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pixel-phones-receive-a-slew-of-new-features-like-improved-car-crash-detection-170045659.html?src=rss
