Kalakshar US

The long-anticipated F1 film comes to theaters on June 27. To celebrate the pending release, Apple has developed a haptic trailer exclusively for iPhones. This leverages the smartphone’s Taptic Engine to let people “feel the action” right in the palm of their hands.

Apple promises that viewers will “experience the power of the engines, the rumble of the curbs, and the intensity of every gear shift like never before with responsive vibrations.” It’s available to stream right now via the Apple TV app, but requires iOS 18.4 or later. Here’s a regular trailer that won’t make your hands rumble, but is still fun. 

F1 stars Brad Pitt and was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who made the box office monster Top Gun: Maverick. He also directed the underrated Tron: Legacy, though has no involvement with the upcoming Tron: Ares. Hans Zimmer made the score. Apple spared no expense here.

To that end, the company is extremely bullish regarding the film. It’s getting the full theatrical treatment, along with a nationwide IMAX release. Apple also featured the movie prominently at its recent WWDC event and screened it for attendees at the Steve Jobs Theater.

Formula 1 has been surging in popularity these past years, as the sport has significantly widened its cultural footprint. Netflix released a documentary series about the organization called Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which was a huge hit. People like cars that go fast. Who knew?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/apple-made-a-haptic-trailer-for-the-f1-movie-that-only-works-on-iphones-180815475.html?src=rss 

When it launched, Apple ‘s Visual Intelligence feature allowed you to point your compatible phone’s camera at things around you and either perform a Google Image Search or ask questions via ChatGPT. At WWDC 2025, the company showed off updates to broaden the usefulness of Visual Intelligence, largely by embedding it into the screenshots system. To quote the company’s press release, “Visual intelligence already helps users learn about objects and places around them using their iPhone camera, and it now enables users to do more, faster, with the content on their iPhone screen.”

This reminded me of the “onscreen awareness” that Apple described as one of Siri’s capabilities when it announced Apple Intelligence last year. In that press release, the company said, “With onscreen awareness, Siri will be able to understand and take action with users’ content in more apps over time.” Though it’s not quite the same, the updated screenshot-based Visual Intelligence more or less allows for your iPhone to serve up contextual actions from your onscreen content, just not via Siri. 

In a way, it makes sense. Most people are already accustomed to taking a screenshot when they want to share or save important information they saw on a website or Instagram post. Integrating Apple Intelligence actions here would theoretically put the tools where you expect them, rather than make users talk to Siri (or wait for the update to roll out).

Basically, in iOS 26 (on devices that support Apple Intelligence), pressing the power and volume down buttons to take a screenshot will result in a new page being pulled up. Instead of the thumbnail of your saved image appearing in the bottom left, you’ll see the picture take up almost all of the display, with options around it for editing, sharing or saving the file, as well as getting Apple Intelligence-based answers and actions at the bottom. In the bottom left and right corners sit options for asking ChatGPT and doing a Google Image Search respectively.

Depending on what’s in your screenshot, Apple Intelligence can suggest various actions below your image. This can be asking where to buy a similar-looking item, adding an event to your calendar or identifying types of plants, animals or food, for instance. If there’s a lot going on in your screenshot, you can draw on an item to highlight it (similar to how you select an object to erase in Photos) and get information specific to that part of the image. 

Third-party apps or services that have enabled App Intents, like Google, Etsy and Pinterest, can also appear here so you can carry out actions within this space too. For example, if you’ve found a bookend you like, taken a screenshot and identified it, you can shop for it on Etsy or pin it on Pinterest. 

One aspect of this update to Visual Intelligence that gives me pause is that, for people like me who screenshot mindlessly and don’t want to do anything other than get receipts, this might add a frustrating step between capturing a screenshot and saving it to Photos. It sounds like you may be able to turn off this interface and stick to the existing screenshot system, though.

The examples that Apple gave for Siri’s ability to understand what’s on your screen felt somewhat similar. In its press release from last year, Apple said “For example, if a friend texts a user their new address in Messages, the receiver can say, ‘Add this address to his contact card.'” 

Like Visual Intelligence in screenshots, this involves scanning the onscreen content for pertinent information and helping you put it in a place (like Contacts or Calendar) where it’s most useful. However, the promise of Siri’s new era was more about interacting with all parts of your phone, across first- and third-party apps alike. So you could ask the assistant to open an article you added to your Reading List in Safari or send photos from a specified event to a contact.

It’s clear Apple has yet to deliver these advancements to Siri, and like Craig Federighi said at the WWDC 2025 keynote, those might only be discussed later this year. Still, as we await that status update, the changes coming to screenshots might be a preview of things to come.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ios-26-screenshots-could-be-an-intriguing-preview-of-apples-delayed-siri-rework-183005404.html?src=rss 

It’s been five years since the Steven Universe saga ended, via a final season and movie that took the story into the future. Now, it’s coming back, according to a report by Deadline. Prime Video is working on a sequel series, with franchise creator Rebecca Sugar in tow as an executive producer (and hopefully as a songwriter.)

This doesn’t look to be a straight sequel series, in that the focus is shifting away from Steven, the Crystal Gems and Beach City. Instead, the tentatively-titled Steven Universe: Lars of the Stars will follow punk rock slacker Lars Barriga and his ragtag band of space pirates.

Spoiler time: Just about every character got a cool arc in the main series, but Lars was one of the standouts. He started as a selfish jerk stuck at a dead-end job, but finished the show as the captain of an actual starship trying to make a difference in the universe.

Deadline says the new episodes will follow the “space outlaw as he and his pirate crew smuggle contraband, evade the authorities and uncover the darkest secrets of the fallen Gem Empire.” So this looks to be a series that will largely take place in space, exploring the fallout of the final episodes of the main show. We don’t know which, if any, of Steven Universe’s main characters will show up or in what capacity.

The news was revealed by Sugar at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. She went on to say that she misses “my world and my characters” and that she “can’t wait to share [the sequel] with you and can’t thank you enough for all your support.” Sugar’s long-time production partner, Ian Jones-Quartey, is also involved.

We don’t have a release date for this, which gives you plenty of time to catch up on the OG show and the movie. There are 160 episodes, so buckle up. Once that’s done, there are several affiliated video games to dig into.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/theres-a-steven-universe-sequel-series-in-the-works-at-prime-video-164211472.html?src=rss 

The Browser Company’s new AI-powered browser is now available in an invite-only beta. Called Dia, the browser was first announced towards the end of 2024, and is built around the deep integration of what its maker calls “the most personal AI on the market”.

Dia allows you to “chat with your tabs” and will adapt and learn the more you use it. You can open an AI chat on any webpage without having to leave the tab, where the built-in bot can search the web, compare websites, answer questions about the content displayed, and even draft a document in the tone of a specific webpage. You can set preferences to customize the chatbot’s tone and style for writing tasks, as well as its coding language and how it talks to you.

All of these features live within Dia’s URL bar, with the idea being that you don’t need to visit dedicated pages for other LLM chatbots such as ChatGPT to get things done with AI. The Browser Company has plenty of rivals, though, not least Google, which last month announced that it will soon bring its Gemini AI assistant to Chrome, which will be able to do many of the same things as Dia’s own chatbot. Opera’s upcoming Neon browser also comes with an integrated AI and is being billed as “fully agentic”.

Back in May, The Browser Company confirmed that it had stopped active development on its Arc web browser, shifting its focus to Dia instead. Arc members get instant access to the new browser and invite friends to join once they’re signed up to Dia. If you’re not a member of either browser you can join the waiting list here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-browser-companys-new-ai-browser-rolls-out-to-private-beta-testers-170311014.html?src=rss 

Disney and NBCUniversal have filed a joint suit against AI company Midjourney alleging copyright infringement on their various properties. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, includes images created by Midjourney that feature a wide variety of protected characters from each company’s various properties, including Star Wars, Shrek, The Simpsons, Despicable Me and others. The 110-page suit alleges that the AI company “helped itself to countless” copyrighted works when training its models that have been creating and disseminating “innumerable” copies of these characters via AI-generated images.

In the lawsuit Midjourney is described as “the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.” Disney and NBCUniversal are the first major Hollywood players to enter the now crowded field of AI copyright infringement lawsuits; it comes against the backdrop of similar lawsuits against OpenAI, Meta and Perplexity AI.

The intersection of art and artificial intelligence continues to be battled out in court, though a suit brought by two of the largest names in media properties carries immense weight. “We are bullish on the promise of A.I. technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity,” said Horacio Gutierrez, Disney’s general counsel, in an email to The New York Times. “But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an A.I. company does not make it any less infringing.”

In a separate email to The New York Times, Kim Harris, general counsel for NBCUniversal, said, “We are bringing this action today to protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us and the significant investment we make in our content.”

We’ve reached out to Midjourney for comment and will update if we hear back.

Read the lawsuit below:

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/disney-and-universal-studios-file-suit-against-midjourney-for-copyright-infringement-154206053.html?src=rss 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that Robotaxi service is “tentatively” set to begin in Austin, Texas on June 22. This comes after the company said last month that it had already begun testing driverless Model Ys in Austin. Shortly after that, Bloomberg reported that Tesla had internally discussed a launch date of June 12, though the only publicly shared timeline has been sometime in June.

The first Robotaxi Model Y operating without a person in the driver’s seat was spotted on South Congress in Austin yesterday. It sported a decal on the side of the vehicle that read “Robotaxi” in the same font as Tesla’s stylized version of Cybertruck. In the video, a person sitting in the passenger seat can be seen, though it’s unclear what their role is. 

The driverless Model Y was followed closely behind by a Model Y with a driver, though again, their role and identity are unclear. Musk had previously said that Robotaxis will be remotely monitored at first and geofenced to areas of Austin that are the safest for the vehicles to navigate.

Musk, who has a history of playing fast and loose with timelines, had originally promised in 2019 that there would be one million Robotaxis on the road by 2020. He now says the company will start with about 10 taxis in Austin, before expanding rapidly.

Reuters recently attempted to gather more information on Tesla’s planned launch and vehicles from the City of Austin, but city officials were blocked from releasing any information by Tesla and the Texas Attorney General.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-will-start-offering-public-robotaxi-rides-in-austin-on-june-22-says-elon-musk-161801916.html?src=rss