Technology

jeudi 2 février 2023

TikTok’s transparency theater

*One of the displays inside TikTok’s Transparency and Accountability Center in Los Angeles.* | Photo by Allison Zaucha for The Verge

What I observed during a recent visit to TikTok’s first transparency center.

TikTok is staring down the barrel of an outright ban in the US. It has already been prohibited on federal employee devices, blocked by dozens of universities across the country, and lawmakers are calling for its removal from US app stores.

It’s with that context that I and a handful of other journalists were invited to the company’s Los Angeles headquarters earlier this week for the first media tour of its “Transparency and Accountability Center.” It’s a space that, like the political discussion about TikTok these days, seems more about virtue signaling than anything else. Company officials say the center is designed for regulators, academics, and auditors to learn more about how the app works and its security practices. We were told that a politician-who-would-not-be-named had toured it the day before. TikTok eventually plans to open more centers in Washington, DC, Dublin, and Singapore.

Our tour was part of a multi-week press blitz by TikTok to push Project Texas, a novel proposal to the US government that would partition off American user data in lieu of a complete ban. The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was in DC last week giving a similar pitch to policymakers and think tanks. In March, he is expected to testify before Congress for the first time.

*What you see when you first enter TikTok’s transparency center.*

TikTok isn’t the first embattled tech company to lean on the spectacle of a physical space during a PR crisis. In 2018, Facebook invited journalists to tour its election “War Room,” which was really just a glorified conference room packed with employees staring at social media feeds and dashboards. Photos were taken, stories were written, and then the War Room was closed about a month later.

In a similar way, TikTok’s transparency center is a lot of smoke and mirrors designed to give the impression that it really cares. Large touchscreens explain how TikTok works at a high level, along with a broad overview of the kind of trust and safety efforts that have become table stakes for any large platform.

A key difference, however, is a room my tour group wasn’t allowed to enter. Behind a wall with Death Star-like mood lighting, TikTok officials said a server room houses the app’s source code for outside auditors to review. Anyone who enters is required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, go through metal detectors, and lock away their phone in a storage locker. (It wasn’t clear who exactly would be permitted to enter the room.)

*A room where you can interact with a mock version of the moderation software TikTok uses.*

The interactive part of the center I was allowed to experience included a room with iMacs running a mock version of the software TikTok says its moderators use to review content. There was another room with iMacs running “code simulators.” While that sounded intriguing, it was really just a basic explanation of TikTok’s algorithm that seemed designed for a typical member of Congress to grasp. Close-up photos of the computer screens weren’t allowed. And despite it being called a transparency center, TikTok’s PR department made everyone agree to not quote or directly attribute comments made by employees leading the tour.

At the moderator workstation, I was shown some potentially violating videos to review, along with basic information like the accounts that posted them and each video’s number of likes and reshares. When I pulled up one of a man talking into the camera with the caption of “the world bringing up 9/11 to justify Muslims as t3rrori$ts,” the moderator system asked me to select whether it violated one of three policies, including one on “threats and incitement to violence.”

At the code simulator iMac in the other room, I was hoping to learn more about how TikTok’s recommendations system actually works. This was, after all, a physical place you had to travel to. Surely there would be some kind of information I couldn’t find anywhere else?

What I got was this: TikTok starts by using a “coarse machine learning model” to select “a subset of a few thousand videos” from the billions hosted by the app. Then, a “medium machine learning model further narrows the recall pool to a smaller pool of videos” it thinks you’ll be interested in. Lastly, a “fine machine learning model” makes the final pass before serving up videos it thinks you will like in your For You page.

The information displayed was frustratingly vague. One slide read that TikTok “recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors, including the interests that new users convey to TikTok the first time they interact with the app, as well as changing preferences over time.” That’s exactly how you would expect it to work.

*Eric Han, head of USDS Trust and Safety at TikTok.*

TikTok first tried to open this transparency center in 2020, when then-President Donald Trump was trying to ban the app and Kevin Mayer was its CEO for all of three months. But then the pandemic happened, delaying the center’s opening until now.

In the past three years, TikTok’s trust deficit in DC has only deepened, fueled by a growing anti-China sentiment that started on the right and has since become more bipartisan. The worst revelation was in late December, when the company confirmed that employees improperly accessed the location data of several US journalists as part of an internal leak investigation. That same month, FBI director Chris Wray warned that China could use TikTok to “manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.”

TikTok’s answer to these concerns is Project Texas, a highly technical, unprecedented plan that would wall off most of TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. To make Project Texas a reality, TikTok is relying on Oracle, whose billionaire founder Larry Ellison leveraged his connections as an influential Republican donor to personally secure Trump’s blessing in the early phase of negotiations. (No one from Oracle was present at the briefing I attended, and my request to speak with someone there for this story wasn’t answered.)

I was given a brief overview of Project Texas before the tour, though I was asked to not quote the employees who presented directly. One graphic I was shown featured a Supreme Court-like building with five pillars showing the issues Project Texas is meant to address: org design, data protection and access control, tech assurance, content assurance, and compliance and monitoring.

TikTok says it has already taken thousands of people and over $1.5 billion to create Project Texas. The effort involves TikTok creating a separate legal entity dubbed USDS with an independent board from ByteDance that reports directly to the US government. More than seven outside auditors, including Oracle, will review all data that flows in and out of the US version of TikTok. Only American user data will be available to train the algorithm in the US, and TikTok says there will be strict compliance requirements for any internal access to US data. If the proposal is approved by the government, it will cost TikTok an estimated $700 million to $1 billion per year to maintain.

Whether Project Texas satisfies the government or not, it certainly seems like it will make working at TikTok more difficult. The US version of TikTok will have to be fully deconstructed, rebuilt, and published by Oracle to US app stores. Oracle will also have to review every app update. Duplicate roles will be created for TikTok in the US, even if the same roles already exist for TikTok elsewhere. And app performance could suffer when Americans are interacting with users and content in other countries since American user data has to be managed inside the country.

One name that wasn’t uttered during the entire briefing: ByteDance. I got the impression that TikTok employees felt uncomfortable talking about their relationship with their parent company.

While ByteDance was directly unacknowledged, its ties to TikTok weren’t hidden, either. The Wi-Fi for the building I was in was named ByteDance and conference room screens in the transparency center displayed Lark, the in-house communications tool ByteDance developed for its employees around the world. At one point during the tour, I tried asking what would hypothetically happen if, once Project Texas is greenlit, a Bytedance employee in China makes an uncomfortable request to an employee in TikTok’s US entity. I was quickly told by a member of TikTok’s PR team that the question wasn’t appropriate for the tour.

Ultimately, I was left with the feeling that, like its powerful algorithm, TikTok built its transparency center to show people what it thinks they want to see. The company seems to have realized that it won’t save itself from a US ban on the technical merits of its Project Texas proposal. The debate is now purely a matter of politics and optics. Unlike the tour I went on, that’s something TikTok can’t control.

It sounds like Google’s getting ready to compete with ChatGPT

Illustration: The Verge

Google may be gearing up to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search,” according to CEO Sundar Pichai. It would be a big move for the company — as systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E have gone viral, Google — a company that’s been flexing its AI muscles for years and producing tons of research in the area — hasn’t had a public answer to those sorts of tools, some of which could threaten its core businesses.

During an earnings call today, Pichai talked about how the company plans to “unlock the incredible opportunities AI enables,” saying the tech is “reach[ing] an inflection point.” He also says that it was Google’s earlier AI research that helped spawn “the generative AI applications you’re starting to see today.”

As for its own applications, Pichai says the company was planning on doing a lot within the next few months, something it’s been preparing for since “early last year.” Google says the first model people will be able to engage directly with is LaMDA, the company’s conversational AI model, though it’s not exactly clear what form that will take.

It won’t be the first time anyone outside the company is getting to use it — The Verge’s own Victoria Song got to demo a writing app powered by it last year, and Google’s AI Test Kitchen allowed people to interact with it on a limited basis after they got through a waitlist. But there was never any moment where tons of Twitter users were posting examples of what they got Google’s AI model to generate, and people haven’t been asking it to write intros for their podcasts or essays for their homework.

With some people talking about how you could use ChatGPT to replace Google search (side note: that does not currently work very well for many reasons), I’m sure the company has been feeling the pressure to do something with all the AI tech it has. In fact, Google reportedly has employees testing its own AI-powered chatbot rivals to ChatGPT right now, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was doing something similar with its currently internal tools for turning text into images or even video.

It seems like Google might still be taking it slow and won’t be giving people carte blanche access to do whatever they want. (No publically traded company wants to make another Tay.) Pichai says it’s perusing AI with a “deep sense of responsibility.” Later in the call, he said that Google would be the company would be “careful” and would be launching AI “more as labs features in certain cases, beta features in certain cases, and just slowly scaling up from there.”

Still, he says he believes the market is ready for these kinds of products. Whether society may be is an open question, but we’ve clearly seen that people want to play around with AI — and it seems like Google is ready to make its own version available.

You can listen to the full earnings call below.

Tech’s Biggest Companies Discover Austerity, to the Relief of Investors

Tech’s Biggest Companies Discover Austerity, to the Relief of Investors After years of expansion and billions in profits, Big Tech is pulling back from its famously lavish spending as a long boom finally ends.

Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro supply problems sank its holiday revenues

A side-by-side photo of Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro. — Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple reported its Q1 2023 earnings this afternoon. During the holiday quarter, the company took in $117.2 billion of revenue, down 5 percent year over year, and earnings per share of $1.88. It was the first such YOY for Apple since before the covid pandemic. Most of the curiosity around this quarter’s numbers was tied to iPhone sales; in early November, Apple warned of “longer wait times” for its flagship iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Both phones were hard to come by during the height of the holiday shopping season, though stock has since leveled out.

But the supply issues, combined with consumers being extra mindful of spending amid an uncertain economic outlook, led to an 8 percent drop in iPhone revenue. “As we all continue to navigate a challenging environment, we are proud to have our best lineup of products and services ever, and as always, we remain focused on the long term and are leading with our values in everything we do,” CEO Tim Cook said in Apple’s earnings press release.

The iPhone 14 Pro / Pro Max delays were related to strict restrictions affecting Foxconn, the China-based factory Apple uses to assemble iPhones. Workers clashed with police during protests in the weeks that followed, with employees angry over delayed payments and deteriorating working conditions that stemmed from covid containment measures.

Apple also predicted that Mac sales would “decline substantially” compared to the year-ago quarter. And they sure did, dropping by 29 percent. The company introduced completely redesigned MacBook Pros in October 2021 that drew rave reviews and created buzz throughout the laptop industry. This spurred excitement and sales well beyond the Mac’s typical performance. By comparison, the holiday 2022 lineup was already well established — and the M2 MacBook Air and Mac Studio had already been on the market for a few months.

Apple’s Q1 fiscal quarter did see the introduction of new iPad models, however. The revamped entry-level iPad now has a design that takes after the iPad Pro and iPad Air. The Pro tablets also got a spec bump up to the M2 chip and added a new “hover” feature for the Apple Pencil. iPad revenue was up by 30 percent, signaling that the new models were well received. Wearables (a segment that includes the Apple Watch and AirPods) fell by 8 percent, however.

“During the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion active devices as part of our growing installed base,” Cook said. Revenue for Apple’s all-important services division also rose 6 percent. On the software side, Apple rolled out its Emergency SOS via satellite feature for the iPhone 14 lineup in November. And macOS Ventura was released in late October with some useful features like Continuity Camera — though the overhauled settings interface hasn’t gone over well with all users.

Apple is widely expected to introduce a virtual reality headset sometime this spring. The device, rumored to be called Reality Pro, will mark Apple’s debut in a new product category that has been dominated by Meta to this point. There’s a lot riding on the headset after years of development and frequent rumors. Looking further out, the iPhone 15 Pro line is expected to switch over to USB-C, and Apple could finally bow to regulatory pressure and permit third-party app stores on iOS beginning with iOS 17 this fall.

Google’s fastest-growing business is insuring companies against their workers’ health

*Granular Insurance, part of Verily, part of Alphabet, which is Google.* | Image: Granular

I’ve heard people joke that Google only has a couple of successful businesses, primarily advertising. But it may have found another hit: insuring other companies against their workers’ potentially pricey medical care.

The Information is reporting that its healthcare company, Verily, more than doubled its revenue to become the biggest Alphabet subsidiary after Google proper — and that its health insurance business, Granular, is the biggest contributor to that growth. Granular’s revenue “rose nearly sixfold through the first nine months of last year to $151 million, from $27 million a year earlier,” writes The Information.

Exclusive: Google parent company Alphabet has never broken out financials of individual “other bets.” So here are financials of ⁦@Verily⁩.

Turns out Alphabet’s biggest non-Google business is…selling insurance.

⁦@jon_victor_⁩ https://t.co/5nnSsF7EqX
— Amir Efrati (@amir) February 2, 2023

But Granular doesn’t sell health insurance to employees. It sells “stop-loss” insurance to employers who are worried that their own workers’ medical claims might hurt them.

See, not every company helps their employees pay for traditional insurance premiums where your doctors bill, say, UnitedHealthcare or Anthem or Aetna for your care (though those companies may be middlemen anyhow). Some think it’d be more cost-effective to “self-fund” and pay the medical claims of employees themselves.

Like AOL, whose CEO, Tim Armstrong, once justified cutting employees’ retirement benefits because it had to pay $2 million to help save two distressed babies. I guess AOL didn’t have stop-loss insurance?

Anyhow, Google / Alphabet / Verily’s Granular Insurance is one of many stop-loss insurance companies that promise to pay claims over a certain dollar threshold in exchange for its own regular premiums. Yes, that means companies that sign up are paying for insurance instead of paying for insurance — they’re betting that most employees won’t have enough claims to justify traditional insurance premiums but also betting that some workers might have huge ones.

What makes Granular different from other stop-loss providers? That’s less clear. The company advertises that “Granular uses an intelligent framework to better protect self-funded employers from the cost volatility of a workforce with diverse health-related needs,” but I think that just means it’s cheaper. I dug up some local government meeting materials from the San Joaquin Valley Insurance Authority in Fresno County, California, and they mostly seemed to be considering Granular to replace their existing stop-loss provider because the offer was competitive.

But perhaps it’s more competitive because Google thinks its data makes for more accurate bets. The San Joaquin Valley Insurance Authority notes that Granular would be providing its service alongside “Point6,” which appears to be this company that says it “brings actionable and integrated solutions focused on the 0.6% of the employee population that is driving 35% of employer healthcare expenditures.”

Either way, it’s not exactly the image that I typically associate with Google’s health efforts. Originally, Verily was most closely associated with the dream of a smart contact lens that’s long since been shelved.

Incidentally, the FTC just fined a company $1.5 million for sharing private health data with Google and Facebook.

Tears, blunders and chaos: inside Elon Musk’s Twitter

In the three months since Musk bought Twitter for £44bn, thousands have been sacked and the company has nosedived. Here, staff tell of a firm in disarray and an owner whose reputation is also plummeting

In April 2022, Elon Musk acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder, and was offered a seat on the board. Luke Simon, a senior engineering director at Twitter, was ecstatic. “Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer and scientist, and he has a track record of having a Midas touch when it comes to growing the companies he’s helped lead,” he wrote on the workplace messaging platform Slack.

Twitter had been defined by the leadership of Jack Dorsey – a co-founder who was known for going on long meditation retreats, fasting 22 hours a day, and walking five miles to the office – who was seen by some as an absentee landlord, leaving Twitter’s strategy and daily operations to a handful of trusted deputies. To Simon and those like him, it was hard to see Twitter as anything other than wasted potential.

mercredi 1 février 2023

Amazon’s delivery drones served fewer than 10 houses in their first month

*Amazon’s hexagonal MK27-2 delivery drone.* | Image: Amazon

It’s been nearly a decade since Amazon’s Jeff Bezos promised us delivery drones, but they aren’t off to a particularly impressive start. Roughly a month after Amazon Prime Air made its first deliveries in California and Texas, it’d served fewer than 10 households — and it’s already laid off more than half the employees at those locations.

That’s according to a pair of new reports at The Information and Business Insider, and Amazon isn’t denying it. Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti didn’t contest those numbers in an email to The Verge when we asked. But she also said that Prime Air is actually working to expand drone deliveries in both California and Texas, with the FAA’s approval.

And there may be a very good reason why Amazon doesn’t have a lot of customers for drone deliveries quite yet, as The Information points out: Amazon’s drone isn’t allowed to fly over roads by itself.

To cross the road while still abiding by FAA rules, Amazon employees had to act as spotters to make sure no vehicles were coming when the drone needed to fly across the street, a plan the FAA approved.

Seems ridiculous, right? Amazon’s drone is effectively a five-year-old who needs to hold hands to cross the street. A drone designed to replace humans needs humans to go places.

But before you decide Amazon’s drone isn’t capable, before you conclude that the FAA is halting progress in its tracks — either or both of which might be true! — I suggest you actually read the FAA’s decision that made things this way. I’ve embedded it at the bottom of this story.

If you’ve never dug into an FAA drone filing before, you might not be aware: the FAA doesn’t exactly hand out licenses to operate autonomous drones and drone delivery services. It creates specific exemptions to the United States’ strict airspace regulations, each with a long list of conditions that companies must follow.

Until last November, Amazon couldn’t even fly its drones outside of “sparsely populated areas,” couldn’t fly over buildings or within 100 feet of a building, and had to stick to flying over property under Amazon’s total control. The FAA required Amazon’s drone pilots to have the kind of private pilot license that’d let you fly a plane, not just a drone. If I’m reading correctly, every flight needed as many as six human beings, including observers and ground station operators.

That seems to have been wise. There were five crashes in four months at Amazon’s testing facilities in Oregon, and one crash ignited a 25-acre brush fire. The drone weighs nearly 90 pounds.

But those rules were during the experimental stage, and Amazon successfully argued last November that its experience and its new, safer and more autonomous MK27-2 drone didn’t need as many humans or safeguards. Among other things, the FAA cited its “enhanced perception system that allows for detection of people or obstacles below the UA during delivery or landing,” its auto-abort feature, remote alerts, and the fact that it can fly even if one of its six motors fails as reasons to nix those specific restrictions and more.

But not all of them, not by a long shot. Here are just some of the ground rules that still exist:

i. Operations over people are prohibited, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator;

ii. Overflight of power plants is prohibited;

iii. Overflight of schools during times of operation (e.g., elementary, middle, high, preschool and daycare facilities) is prohibited;

iv. Operations over or within 250 ft. laterally of moving vehicles are prohibited, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator

v. Overflight of any area deemed high risk by the Operator during the flight route design process are prohibited;

vi. Sustained flight within 250 ft. laterally of roadways is prohibited, and transitions over roadways is prohibited, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator;

vii. The UA must remain at least 100 ft. laterally from any person during all phases of flight, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator.

You’ll notice that Amazon’s drone still can’t cross a road by itself, and can’t come near or fly over people. That means Amazon’s customers can’t stand in their own backyards when the package gets dropped — unless their backyards are bigger than my house — and the FAA states that Amazon has to explicitly warn customers about that when they sign up.

In addition, both its California and Texas operations were limited to flights within just 3-4 miles of their drone launch sites. That’ll limit the number of potential customers.

Now, however, Amazon no longer needs nearly as many people for each flight, and the FAA is no longer requiring those employees to have the same flight or medical training — so it’s not surprising that Amazon would lay off many workers now it’s made them expendable.

“The recent staffing reductions do not impact our plans to deliver in these locations,” Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti tells The Verge. “We remain committed to our delivery operations in Lockeford and College Station and will continue to offer a safe and exceptional drone delivery service to our customers in both locations. We’ll gradually expand deliveries to more customers in those areas over time.”

She says the FAA approved flights to more customers in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas just last week, and that Amazon is continuing to work on its next-generation drone, the MK30.

You can read the FAA’s revised requirements for Amazon’s MK27-2 delivery drone (and the reasons for its decisions) in the full document below.

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is making this the ‘year of efficiency’

An image of Mark Zuckerberg in front of a swirling background. — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. | Laura Normand / The Verge

During Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings call with investors today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained why he wants to make this the “year of efficiency.”

“I just think we’ve entered somewhat of a phase change for the company,” he said, noting that headcount steadily climbed for nearly two decades, making it “very hard to really crank on efficiency while you’re growing that quickly.” Now, after laying off roughly 11,000 employees and putting a pause on most hiring, he is focused on “increasing the efficiency of how we make decisions.”

Practically, Zuckerberg said this means “flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster.” As I reported in last week’s edition of my newsletter Command Line, he put it more plainly to employees during a recent all-hands meeting: “I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work.” Indeed.

It turns out that Wall Street loves austerity these days. Meta’s stock price shot up nearly 20 percent after its earnings report was released with Zuckerberg’s commentary. The company took a one-time $4.2 billion charge related to the layoffs, the canceling of some building leases, and the backing out of costly data center projects. It also hinted that more layoffs could be on the horizon in its press release: “We may incur additional restructuring charges as we progress further in our efficiency efforts.”

Meta’s core business of serving ads remains challenged, with overall revenue declining by one percent in 2022 compared to 2021. But Zuckerberg struck an optimistic tone on the earnings call, saying that commentary about the company is lagging behind the progress he is seeing internally on key initiatives like the performance of Reels.

And for all the doom and gloom about the slow decay of Facebook itself, the numbers tell a different story; daily users hit a staggering two billion in the fourth quarter for the first time.

A bar graph from Meta’s Q4 2022 earnings release, showing the growth over time in Facebook’s daily active users. For the first time, it’s over 2 billion. — *Facebook’s daily active users count topped 2 billion for the first time.*

“We’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial,” Zuckerberg said. For now, that doesn’t apply to his metaverse efforts, which remain as costly as ever. Reality Labs, the division of Meta building its Quest headsets and coming AR glasses, reported an operating loss of $13.72 billion for 2022. That number is, amazingly, expected to increase this year.

Since Facebook rebranded to Meta in the fall of 2021, investors have grown increasingly worried that Zuckerberg is spending on his metaverse dreams with reckless abandon and little to show for it. That could still be true. But with this new “efficiency” push, he may be able to get away with it.

The best webcam to buy right now

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

You can get a great 1080p webcam for under $75. If you want to spend more, you can get 4K recording, AI head tracking, and even a real gimbal.

If you don’t already have a laptop with a built-in webcam — or the one on your laptop isn’t very good — you might need a standalone webcam. Maybe it’s to be able to show your face during work or school. Maybe it’s for chatting with friends or for side projects, like livestreaming or recording yourself.

Before I show you my favorite options, there are some clever routes to take that don’t require you to buy a webcam. You can use your phone and this app that’ll fool your computer into thinking it’s a webcam. Apple’s Continuity Camera feature in iOS 16 and macOS 13 lets you literally attach your iPhone to your MacBook lid to use it as your webcam. Or you can go in the total opposite direction and connect a pricey DSLR or mirrorless camera to your computer to use as a webcam — a very good one, at that.

But assuming you simply want to purchase a webcam, our goal is to make it easier for you to find the one that matches your needs and your budget. We tested popular models from brands like Logitech, Microsoft, Dell, Opal, Elgato, as well as some models from brands that you might not have heard of.

Each camera’s video quality was judged by using it with Zoom (where footage is prone to compression, as it is with other web-based video calling apps), as well as with OBS Studio or VLC to see how it compares with a locally stored recording.

Note: Until further notice, keep in mind that some of Logitech’s webcams may not perform their features as advertised if you’re using them with an M1 or M2-based Mac computer. Its current two-pronged software strategy for macOS, which includes Logi Tune and G Hub, don’t offer the same depth of webcam customization as Logitech Capture. That app is still available for download for Windows and Intel-based Macs, but Logitech no longer supports it.

The best webcam for most people

Logitech C920S Pro HD

Usually priced around $60, Logitech’s C920S Pro HD provides better video and mic quality than others that I tested in this price range. It can record in 1080p resolution at up to 30 frames per second, and while you won’t have an issue finding other similarly priced webcams with those specs, the C920S Pro’s out-of-box color balance, exposure, and relatively fast autofocus made it stand out from others I tested.

The picture quality has sufficient detail, and even in my relatively dark apartment, the C920S Pro had no trouble making my facial features look sharp. But it wasn’t a flawless presentation overall, as is to be expected for the price. In less-than-ideal lighting scenarios, the C920S Pro made my skin look oversaturated, with red spots where the webcam couldn’t compensate for the lack of lighting. Though in a work or play environment flush with natural light, this was noticeably less of an issue.

Picture quality aside, the C920S Pro has several welcome features, like a generous 78-degree field of view, status lights that activate when the webcam is being used, and an included privacy shutter. Some other nice features at this price include its strong articulating stand, which can sit atop your monitor or just as easily screw into a tripod. It’s just a great value for the price.

The best 4K webcam

Insta360 Link

If you have $300 to spend on a webcam, the Insta360 Link is our new go-to recommendation. That’s around the same price as Opal’s C1 and Elgato’s Facecam Pro mentioned below, but some key factors give the Link an edge. It’s a 4K-ready webcam with a gimbal and loads of features.

That gimbal might be the star of the show for you. Instead of sitting stationary like most other webcams, the 0.5-inch Sony sensor is mounted to a motorized, three-axis arm that lets it move around. The gimbal allows the Link to track your head, and with an AI feature switched on, it can zoom in on your head, the top half of your body, or your whole body, if you’re standing far enough away. Insta360’s expertise in the action cam sector is showing in this consumer webcam.

The gimbal allows for a few alternate modes that might cut down on the tech you need to show off your work or to put your hobby on display on Twitch. One is deskview mode, which aims the Link’s slightly downward to show off your desk. There’s an overhead mode that aims the sensor directly at the ground (you’ll need to get clever with a tripod mount to utilize this or mount it oddly to your monitor). Then there’s a whiteboard mode, which tells the camera to look for four guiding stickers (included in the box) that prompt it to zoom in once it discovers them. This one seems gimmicky, but it works as intended and it could be great for people giving presentations.

Aside from those interesting features that make its $300 price more digestible, the Link delivers great video quality that’s better than any other webcam that I’ve tried so far. In my review, I primarily compared it to the Opal C1, which matches the Link’s 4K/30fps spec. Out of the box, the Opal C1 delivers a more contrast-rich image by default, while the Link looks more true to life and sharp but slightly duller by comparison (this can be tweaked to your taste in Insta360’s companion app). As for mic quality, neither option delivered stellar audio nor canceled out voices completely coming from across the room, although the Link was a little better at reducing some computer fan noise.

As I said in my review, I’d be happy to have either one of these two webcams on my desk for a virtual meeting. But when it comes to features, the Link is the more impressive option if you want to pay $300 for a webcam.

Other sub-$100 webcams we tested that you might like

The Microsoft Modern Webcam is okay, but its picture quality is not as good as the C920s Pro HD. Weirdly, its microphone doesn’t work at all in macOS and requires a separate utility to enable in Windows. For the price, just get the Logitech C920s.

Logitech’s C270 HD is the cheapest webcam-like object you can get, at around $20. Its 720p/30fps picture is fuzzy at best. Most people should spend more.

For this category, we also tested the Logitech Brio 500, but at $129.99, its 1080p/30fps video quality wasn’t that much better than the C920S Pro HD, although it added AI face tracking, which is a nice feature to have at this price. We hope that its clever privacy shutter and flexible mounting system make it into future (and more affordable) iterations, but this one isn’t totally worth its price unless you’re in love with the design.

Lastly, Dell’s barrel-shaped QHD webcam is tempting at $99.99, but its video quality looked awful. The capture feed doesn’t look natural, with darks having strange and overblown highlights. Plus, its longer shape is awkward if you plan to mount it to your laptop lid.

Other good high-end webcams we tested

The Opal C1 is an unconventional 4K webcam with DSLR-like quality and interesting machine-learning image effects. I was impressed with the image quality and features when I first reviewed it in late 2021, but it costs $300, and its software is still in beta and only works on Mac. The Insta360 Link is also $300 but doesn’t have the latter two drawbacks.

The Elgato Facecam Pro records in 4K/60fps but doesn’t have a built-in microphone. Most dedicated streamers won’t use the webcam’s built-in mic anyway, but others should take note.

The $140ish Logitech StreamCam is a great 1080p/60fps webcam with dual mics and smooth video capture, but features-wise, it’s stuck in the middle between the sub-$100 Logitech C920s and the Insta360 Link.

For this category, I also tested the OSBOT Tiny 4K, which like the Insta360 Link can rotate and move around to follow you in the frame. It also supports optional hand gestures to control its AI face tracking and zoom level. It even advertises the same 4K resolution at 30 frames per second recording. However, I was less impressed with its recording quality, and its companion software — while comprehensive — isn’t as polished as Insta360’s. Also, it’s physically larger, so it doesn’t sit as easily on top of a laptop display lid (and the included monitor mount is cheaply constructed). I think if you find it for $200 or less, I’d consider getting that model, but not when it’s priced within $100 or less of the better option that is Insta360’s Link.

Updated February 1st, 6:00PM ET: For 2023, we’ve tested new models, like the OSBOT Tiny 4K, Dell’s QHD webcam, and more. We also added a new pick for the best premium webcam, the Insta360 Link.

Meta earnings dropped by less than analysts expected

Parent company of Facebook and Instagram reports $32bn in revenue for fourth quarter, prompting rise in stock price

Meta investors got some good news in the social media company’s latest earnings report on Wednesday, which showed a smaller drop in revenues than analysts had expected.

Meta, which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp, reported $32bn in revenue for the fourth quarter, which drove a rise in its stock price in extended trading on Wednesday.

EA reportedly cancels new Titanfall single-player game

A screenshot from Titanfall 2. — *The wait for a new single-player* Titanfall *game continues.* | Image: EA

EA has canceled an unannounced single-player game set in the same universe as Titanfall and Apex Legends, according to Bloomberg. The news comes on the heels of EA’s most recent earnings report on Tuesday, where it announced that it would be shutting down Apex Legends Mobile, halting development on a planned Battlefield mobile game, and delaying the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor by six weeks.

Apex Legends, a battle royale live service shooter from Respawn Entertainment that was born out of a plan to make a new Titanfall, has become one of EA’s marquee titles. Fans of Titanfall have been hoping for a new single-player game in that series following the well-received single-player campaign in Titanfall 2, but given Bloomberg’s report, it seems like that may not become a reality anytime soon.

The canceled project was codenamed Titanfall Legends, Bloomberg says. EA will try to find other jobs at the company for the game’s team of “about 50,” though those who don’t get a new job will be laid off with severance. EA didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Respawn will still have a lot on its plate. In addition to working on Apex Legends, it’s developing two more Star Wars games in addition to Jedi: Survivor. And Respawn CEO Vince Zampella was put in charge of the Battlefield franchise shortly after the disappointing launch of Battlefield 2042.

EA has also shut down its Industrial Toys game studio, which was developing the Battlefield mobile game, according to VentureBeat.

mardi 31 janvier 2023

ChatGPT maker OpenAI releases ‘not fully reliable’ tool to detect AI generated content

OpenAI is calling on educators to give their feedback on how the tool is used, amid rising concerns around AI-assisted cheating at universities

OpenAI, the research laboratory behind AI program ChatGPT, has released a tool designed to detect whether text has been written by artificial intelligence, but warns it’s not completely reliable – yet.

In a blog post on Tuesday, OpenAI linked to a new classifier tool that has been trained to distinguish between text written by a human and that written by a variety of AI, not just ChatGPT.

Dissecting Elon Musk’s Tweets: Memes, Rants, Private Parts and Echo Chamber

Dissecting Elon Musk’s Tweets: Memes, Rants, Private Parts and Echo Chamber As he fights for free speech online and promotes his companies, the new owner of Twitter spends a lot of time replying to his fans.

Frontier’s bringing its 5-gig fiber network across the country

*Frontier joins AT&T as another 5-gig capable ISP available in the United States* | Graphic by William Joel / The Verge

Frontier, an internet service provider (ISP) that services 25 US states, has just launched 5 Gig fiber internet service across its entire network. Frontier launched 2 Gig fiber internet service less than a year ago, and the 5 Gig plan is currently available in all of Frontier’s fiber-connected markets, with no phased rollouts.

Compared to the cable-bound internet that most of us are familiar with, Frontier’s 5 Gig internet is reported to have upload speeds that are up to 125 times faster and up to five times faster downloads, all delivered with less latency.

The new 5 Gig network is one of the fastest internet options currently available in the US, with other fiber-enabled ISPs like Verizon Fios and Google Fiber still capped at around 2Gbps. Right now, other 5 Gig networks currently available in the US include AT&T, which offers 2 Gig and 5 Gig plans, and Optimum. Altice communications senior vice president Janet Meahan notes Optimum has started rolling out 5 Gig service across its fiber footprint in Connecticut and Long Island, as well as parts of its fiber networks in the Bronx, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Westchester.

Google Fiber is also slated to add 5-gig and 8-gig plans to its lineup sometime this year, despite its numerous setbacks.

The 5 Gig plan offered by Frontier starts at $154.99 per month, with the fee including a router and installation. This is roughly $55 more than the 2 Gig plans offered by Frontier and other ISPs; however, costs, availability, and promotions can vary from state to state. Even with a monthly price exceeding $150, 5-gig internet connectivity can be invaluable for networks responsible for a large number of devices and is still less expensive than AT&T’s 5Gbps plan, which starts at $179.99.

5-gig connection speeds are good, but only as long as you have the hardware to support it. Most Wi-Fi 6E devices, like the Google Nest Wifi Pro, are capable of handling 5Gbps throughput, but anyone planning to subscribe to Frontier’s new plan will want to check their specific hardware beforehand to get the most out of their investment.

Correction January 31st, 7:30PM ET: An earlier version of this story said AT&T had the only other 5-Gig service, but in fact, Optimum is also offering 5-Gig fiber service in several areas. We regret the error.

AMD thinks the PC sales slump will end after one more rough quarter

AMD banner — Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

People aren’t buying as many computers, and chipmakers are getting hit hard — but AMD thinks that should improve long before the year is out. “The first quarter should be the bottom for us in PCs,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said today on the company’s Q4 2022 earnings call.

Su predicts that the total addressable market for PCs will shrink 10 percent this year, down to around 260 million units. (IDC reported this month that 292.3 million PCs shipped in 2022, and both IDC and Gartner suggested it might take until 2024 to recover.) Su says AMD is expecting “a softer first half and a stronger second half.”

While AMD is predicting that both its client processor and gaming revenue will continue to drop next quarter — even as its new Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, 7000 laptop CPUs and RDNA 3 mobile chips make their way to shelves — Su says it actually has 25 percent more notebook design wins this year, with 250 different AMD-powered laptops set to go on sale.

The company’s profits sunk to just $21 million this quarter, a decline of 98 percent, but it says most of that was due to the Xilinx acquisition. Its revenue from client processors and gaming GPUs dropped 51 percent and 7 percent in Q4, respectively.

While AMD waits for demand to recover, Su says the company’s been “undershipping” its processors and GPUs into the market. While you can find some discounts due to the “marketing programs and pricing incentives in place,” Su says the company’s been focused on matching supply to demand as soon as possible. “We’ll undership to a lesser extent in Q1,” she says.

Research firm Gartner says the current PC slump “marks the largest quarterly shipment decline since Gartner began tracking the PC market in the mid-1990s.” It wrote that the combination of inflation, rising interest rates, “the anticipation of a global recession,” and the fact that many people already bought a new PC during the pandemic have all tanked demand for new computers.

Overwatch 2 is making it easier and cheaper for you to get older skins

Screenshot from Overwatch 2 featuring Zenyatta, Reaper and Mercy in Christmas holiday-themed skins — Image: Blizzard Entertainment

To coincide with the release of season 3, Overwatch 2 is reintroducing Overwatch credits, giving players ways to earn those credits via battle pass progression, and adding Overwatch’s epic and legendary skins to its shop at reduced prices. Altogether, this currency overhaul is meant to address the long-standing complaint that the new cash shop placed one of Overwatch’s most unique and desirable features — its well-designed skins — behind a paywall that was just too expensive.

As Overwatch season 2 nears its end, the developers published a blog highlighting their takeaways from the season. They addressed new hero Ramattra, including the tweaks they’ve made to his abilities, competitive ladder updates, and changes coming to rewards for seasonal events. But perhaps one thing that stood out the most was the changes the team is making to its skin shop known in-game as the Hero Shop.

“In Season 3, we’re bringing back Overwatch Credits, which had been previously shown as Legacy Credits and been unearnable in Overwatch 2,” the post read. “Now, all players can earn up to 1500 credits as free rewards and another 500 credits as premium rewards spread throughout Season 3 Battle Pass. We are also adding more uses for your Credits so you can choose from many potential rewards.”

Credits were phased out in the jump from Overwatch to Overwatch 2. You got them in loot boxes as a random reward and could use them to purchase cosmetics like skins, voice lines, and sprays. When Overwatch 2 subsumed Overwatch, you kept your credits and could still use them, but only on Overwatch prime cosmetics you didn’t yet have. Anything new required the purchase of the shiny new premium currency Overwatch coins. Ever since Overwatch 2 launched, players have complained that shop prices are a bit expensive. Players can earn Overwatch coins without buying them, but they’re awarded at such low rates it would take several months of grinding to earn enough to buy one of the new skins.

The developers were aware of the complaints and are making changes by reintroducing credits, adding “nearly all” epic and legendary Overwatch skins to the shop and making them always available, and lowering their price.

According to the blog, “these changes mean all players can earn a legendary skin of their choice each season from the Hero Gallery skins just for playing normally and without needing to make any purchases.”

This does at least partly address the concern that it just wasn’t possible for casual players to earn anything in the game without ponying up a bunch of cash. But while this may satisfy players who haven’t completed their Overwatch collection, unless Overwatch 2 skin prices come down or the team ups the number of coins you can earn, that Star Sheep Orisa will still be out of me and my wallet’s reach.

‘Everything is fake’: how global crime gangs are using UK shell companies in multi-million pound crypto scams

Investigation reveals more than 150 fake firms, many with ties to China, are targeting people online, breaking their hearts – and emptying their bank accounts

A woman meets a man online. They flirt. Then, after a few weeks, they begin imagining a future together. Fast forward a few months and one of them has had their heart broken and been defrauded of their life savings.

It sounds like a classic romance scam, but it isn’t. This is “pig butchering”: a brutal, elaborate and rapidly expanding form of organised crime, often involving criminal syndicates, modern-day slaves and victims around the world.

The Last Boeing 747 Leaves the Factory

The Last Boeing 747 Leaves the Factory The plane known as “Queen of the Skies” helped make air travel more affordable, but it has been supplanted by smaller, more efficient aircraft.

lundi 30 janvier 2023

‘They filmed me without my consent’: the ugly side of #kindness videos

Some social media users are building a following through ‘feelgood’ videos, in which, for instance, they give flowers to a stranger. The stranger then becomes their clickbait. Is there anything we can do to stop this?

Maree only wanted to buy some shoes. A pair that she liked the look of had gone on sale, so she made a trip into the city to try them on. It was late in the day in June, mid-winter in Melbourne, and the shopping centre was quiet. After making her purchase, Maree stopped for a coffee. “And that’s when it happened,” she says.

A young man approached her holding a posy of flowers. He asked Maree to hold them for him as he put on his jacket. “I wish I’d trusted my instincts and said no,” she says. “It was all so quick.” Maree took the flowers – then the man walked away, wishing her “a lovely day”. She held them out after him, bemused.

GM has started producing the Hummer EV SUV

General Motors has started production on the Hummer EV SUV at its Factory Zero in Michigan, according to Nicole Schmitz, a spokesperson for the company. The Detroit Press reported Monday that customers could start receiving their orders by the end of Q1. That lines up with GM’s FAQ stating that the SUV will be available in “early 2023.”

I won’t blame anyone who’s thinking, “wait, haven’t they been making these for a while,” because GM started delivering the truck version of the Hummer EV, which sports a five-foot-long bed, in December 2021. In October 2022, the company announced that it had made 782 of the vehicles during 2022, and said it had around 90,000 reservations for both the truck and SUV versions. Last summer, The Wall Street Journal reported that GM was only making around 12 Hummer EVs a day.

The Hummers are massive vehicles; the truck’s release revealed that its battery alone weighed 2,923 pounds or almost as much as an entire Honda Civic. That fact was actually recently highlighted by Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, during a speech about how vehicles are getting bigger and heavier.

“I‘m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” she said before specifically calling out the Hummer’s 10,000-plus pound gross vehicle weight rating. (She also mentioned how electrified vehicles from Ford, Volvo, and Toyota were significantly heavier than their gas counterparts.)

That does make it slightly ironic, then, that GM issued a press release about how it’s donating proceeds from selling the first production Hummer SUV at auction to a charity called “Tread Lightly!” which aims to “balance the needs of the people who enjoy outdoor recreation with the need to maintain healthy ecosystems and thriving populations of wildlife across the nation.” While I’m definitely happy to hear that the non-profit will be getting $500,000, I don’t think anybody will be able to tread lightly in a Hummer EV SUV.

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are reportedly all skipping E3 2023

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all skipping the revitalized E3 convention in June, according to a new report from IGN. E3 will be back as an in-person conference in Los Angeles after not happening at all in 2022, and I personally was hopeful that the big three console makers would be at the show when it takes place from June 13th through 16th to help make it feel like the big event of years past. But according to IGN’s reporting, that’s not the case.

That said, it’s not entirely unexpected. Sony first skipped E3 in 2019 and hasn’t been part of the convention since. Microsoft said last week that it would be doing a showcase in LA this summer but didn’t outright say the words E3. Nintendo has proven time and time again that it can drive huge news cycles with its can’t-miss Direct video presentations, so it may not feel the need to share the E3 spotlight. And since the show will be taking place about a month after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo may want to keep the attention of its fans on what could be one of the biggest games of the year.

As E3 has grown smaller, other digital stages have sprung up for game publishers to make their big announcements — most prominently, The Game Awards and the Summer Game Fest, both hosted by Geoff Keighley. He spoke to us in 2022 about where E3 does — or maybe doesn’t — fit into the gaming landscape. Incidentally, the Summer Game Fest account just tweeted that it will also be returning on June 8th, just a few days before E3.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition plays great on console

Key art of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition featuring the heads of three men representing the Aztec, English, and Berber civilzations — Image: Microsoft / World’s Edge

Age of Empires II is extremely special to me. The game came to me by accident at 16, and it has remained a great gaming love of mine ever since. I played Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Xbox to see if, after all these years, I could rekindle my fondness for this PC game on console, and it feels like love at first wololo all over again.

It is a daunting prospect to play a complex real-time strategy game like Age of Empires without the finely tuned control of a keyboard. There are maps and submenus to click through and units to select and move and control. Yet, the developers at World’s Edge have designed a thoughtful controller interface that, after a couple of hiccups, worked as seamlessly as I remember with a mouse and keyboard.

You can double-tap the A button to select units of the same time. You hold the button down and move the left thumbstick to select units within a certain area. There are also a handful of shortcuts that make ordering your little minions around a lot easier. The game will tell you if you have idle villagers and let you select those lazy slobs by pressing up on the D-pad. If there’s an enemy that needs a wololo-ing, right on the D-pad selects your monks. My favorite shortcut was hitting left on the D-pad, which selects all of your military units and brings them under your control simultaneously. If you’re one of those “numbers go up” sickos like I am, there is no greater joy than seeing your UI light up with the number of units you’re about to send to ruin a Carthaginian’s day.

Screenshot from Age of Empires: II Definitive Edition featuring a small city fringed with purple banners — *My cities were never so thoughtfully constructed. I just plopped buildings down wherever there was room and encircled them with walls.*

There are also some neat automation features built into AOE II that make management a bit easier. With a click of the right stick, you can automate how villagers gather resources depending on your goals. You can have a balanced approach or set it to a function that prioritizes food and gold if you’re going for a big military. Then, the next time you generate a villager, it automatically does your bidding without the need to manually direct them. I, however, am too precise for such settings. Part of the fun is the micromanagement, so I left that setting off.

I’m also not sure if this is new to AOE II: DE or something that’s been implemented before, but I really like how the game is smart enough to direct my villagers to automatically start digging for nearby gold or stone if I have them build a mining camp. I like when minions intuitively know what their goddess demands. (I also have way too much fun capriciously killing villagers if I need to free up my population for other units. I should probably talk to somebody about that.)

That said, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Electric Console Boogalo isn’t 100 percent elegant in its control scheme. If there’s a way to click directly on the map, I haven’t found it, forcing me to hold the thumbstick until I get to the area I want to survey. That makes it really hard to get a quick glance at what’s happening if you’re under attack. I hear the telltale horn blow, letting me know there’s a fight happening, and by the time my eyes are on the action, it’s over, and units I could have maybe withdrawn had I been quicker are dead.

One of the bigger issues I had, which resulted in a couple of frustrating game overs, was the fact that the game’s UI has so much going on because it’s been distilled from a PC experience to a console one, making it easy to miss crucial information. I needed to build a siege workshop. I clicked on my builder and hit the left trigger. I was immediately shown a wheel of the buildings it can construct, but none of them were siege workshops. I went mad, looking up tutorials and wikis, convinced that I hadn’t done enough upgrading to give my civilization access to the siege workshop yet. Turns out, buildings are segregated by function, with commerce buildings (mills, markets, and monasteries, oh my!) on one wheel and military buildings on another. A quick press of the Y button pulled up the military wheel and there was the siege workshop I was desperate for. On an embarrassing note, the game actually tells you to hit Y to bring up the military buildings, but I missed it as it got lost in the noise of the informationally stuffed UI.

Screenshot from Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition featuring the Berber civilization. — *Controlling a lot of little units over a big space can get difficult.*

Once I got over those initial hangups, AOE II: DE played exactly as I remembered. All the nostalgia of spending hours with this game came flooding back, and the experience is no less diminished playing on console.

I didn’t have access to computer games growing up. My family got our first home computer when I was 16, and it was an educational / work tool, and therefore, purchasing games for it was verboten. That didn’t stop me from playing Pinball while listening to the one song that came pre-installed on Windows XP machines — David Byrne’s “Like Humans Do” — on repeat every day after school.

All that changed when somehow, someway, and for some unknown reason, my mother’s boyfriend gave me a spindle of CD-Rs. Most of them were blank, one of them was a copy of Tomb Raider II, and another one was a bootleg copy of Age of Empires II: Rise of Rome.

Nobody told me what this game was. It wasn’t a gift or anything, just something that got put on a spindle of CDs and forgotten about. But I devoured that game. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I had no idea games like Starcraft or Myst or any of the other foundational PC games existed.

Age of Empires, quite literally, changed my gaming life. Instead of spending hours trying to run up my Pinball multiplier, I’d spend hours as Augustus trying to defeat Antony and Cleopatra. My enduring love of Roman history — complete with several college courses taken and several listens to the phenomenal podcast The History of Rome — came about because of this game.

I’m actually a bit sad those campaigns aren't available in this version of AOE: II, but I do know it’s coming soon. I can’t wait.

Sony promises ‘increased supply of PS5 consoles’ ahead of PSVR2 launch

Sony says it should now be a lot easier to find PS5 stock at retailers. After two years of supply challenges, Sony has thanked fans for their patience as it delt with “unprecedented demand” since the PS5 launch in November 2020.

“If you’re looking to purchase a PS5 console, you should now have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally,” says Isabelle Tomatis, VP of brand, hardware, and peripherals at Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Sony recommends its own PlayStation direct store for those looking for a PS5 in the US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. There are a variety of bundles available, alongside the base digital and disc PS5 consoles.

The PSVR2 headset on a table. — *Sony’s PlayStation VR2 headset.*

As Sony is confident its supply issues are over, it’s now launching a new PS5 commercial that’s filmed in the style of a live news channel with plenty of game references. Sony is also working with creators on social media to market the PS5 more.

This fresh marketing push also comes just after the launch of the new DualSense Edge controller, and weeks before Sony’s PlayStation VR2 launches on February 22nd for $549.99. The PSVR2 headset is a major upgrade over the original, with an OLED screen, a 110-degree field of view, and 4K HDR support. It also supports up to 120Hz for smoother frame rates and gameplay.

The VR2 will have more than 30 games in its launch window, including Gran Turismo 7, Resident Evil Village, and Horizon Call of the Mountain.

JD Sports hit by cyber-attack that leaked 10m customers’ data

Retail group says incident affected shoppers at JD, Size?, Millets, Blacks, Scotts and Millets Sport brands

The fashion retailer JD Sports said the personal and financial information of 10 million customers was potentially accessed by hackers in a cyber-attack.

The company said incident, which affected some online orders made by customers between November 2018 and October 2020, targeted purchases of products of its JD, Size?, Millets, Blacks, Scotts and Millets Sport brands.

How To Add a Stunning View to a Home, Office, or Apartment – Anywhere

What if you could buy a view and place it in any home? That is LiquidView’s proposition -- a stunning digital view placed in any home, regardless of location. The post How To Add a Stunning View to a Home, Office, or Apartment – Anywhere appeared first on TechNewsWorld.

Foldable iPad could arrive as early as next year, claims noted Apple analyst

A 10th-gen iPad in an Apple Smart Folio on a wood table. — *Apple’s 10th-gen iPad, released last year.* | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple could be on track to release a foldable iPad as early as next year, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. “I’m positive about the foldable iPad in 2024 and expect this new model will boost shipments and improve the product mix,” he tweeted early Monday. Kuo expects it to be joined by a revamped iPad Mini, due to enter mass production in early 2024.

Kuo didn’t offer many new details on the rumored iPad foldable, but said that it will feature a “carbon fiber” kickstand produced by Chinese component manufacturer Anjie Technology.

(4/4)
Thus, I'm taking a cautious approach to iPad shipments for 2023, predicting a YoY decline of 10-15%. Nevertheless, I'm positive about the foldable iPad in 2024 and expect this new model will boost shipments and improve the product mix.
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) January 30, 2023

A 2024 release date is significantly earlier than the last significant foldable iPad prediction, which came from Display Supply Chain Consultant analyst Ross Young last February. He reported that Apple is developing a foldable iPad/MacBook hybrid with a roughly 20-inch folding screen, but anticipated that it won’t be ready for release until 2026. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman later reported that Apple has been exploring a dual-screen foldable, and added that the bottom half of the display would serve as a virtual keyboard when the device is used as a MacBook-style clamshell.

Gurman didn’t offer an exact release date prediction, but noted in October that Apple’s foldable iPad could release “later in the decade.”

This isn’t the first time Kuo has put a date on an Apple foldable prediction after he said a foldable iPhone might release in 2023, two years ago. But it sounds like this might be a much smaller device with a screen size in the region of 7.5 to 8 inches. Gurman has even reported that Apple has discussed releasing a foldable device with a similar screen size to the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. Given the lack of rumors about a foldable iPhone more recently it’s hard to imagine it releasing in 2023, as Kuo previously predicted.

In the more immediate future, Kuo is predicting a drop in iPad shipments of between 10 and 15 percent year-over-year in 2023. Given the bump in sales enjoyed by most consumer tech companies during the covid lockdowns, and the drops many have experienced more recently, a decline in tablet shipments this year wouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

Finally, Kuo expects the next iPad that Apple releases to be the iPad Mini. He thinks a new model will enter production in the first quarter of 2024, succeeding its last refresh in 2021.

‘Recession Resilient’ Climate Start-Ups Shine in Tech Downturn

‘Recession Resilient’ Climate Start-Ups Shine in Tech Downturn Tech workers and investors are flocking to start-ups that aim to combat climate change.

dimanche 29 janvier 2023

The latest Super Mario Bros. Movie teaser showcases Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong

An image showing Donkey Kong in the Super Mario Bros. Movie — Image: Nintendo

The latest Super Mario Bros. Movie teaser lets us hear Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong for the first time. During the clip, Mario faces off against Donkey Kong in an arena of sorts — just like we’ve seen in the previous trailer — but this trailer expands on the scene.

While it seems like Mario’s on the losing side of the battle, this appears to change when the titular plumber hits a question mark block, and (presumably) gets the Super Bell, transforming him into Cat Mario. Seeing Mario in his adorably fuzzy catsuit sends Donkey Kong into a laughing fit, which gives us a chance to hear Rogen’s signature laugh.

Cat Mario in the Super Mario Bros. Movie — *Don’t laugh at Cat Mario.*

It’s nice to finally hear Rogen as Donkey Kong, and I have to admit, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well his voice (and laugh) suits the character. The film also features Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, and Jack Black as Bowser. From what I’ve heard so far, it seems like Nintendo and Illumination — the animation studio working on the film — did a great job with casting.

With every new trailer that Nintendo drops, I’m getting more and more hyped for the film’s release. Luckily, we’ll just have to hold out for a few more months, as the Super Mario Bros. Movie hits theaters on April 7th.

Are bands dead? How solo stars took over the charts

Pop was once all about four guys and their instruments. Now that gang mentality has been blown away by tech-savvy individuals

When David Crosby helped found the Byrds, the idea of being in a band like the Beatles was intoxicating. The musician, who died last week, and his bandmates were so obsessed with the Beatles that they watched A Hard Day’s Night and went straight out to buy the same instruments.

A modern-day Crosby would be well advised not to bother – bands are almost entirely absent from the music charts. Only four new songs by groups made it into the official Top 100 singles of last year, which was dominated by solo acts and a smattering of classics by the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Arctic Monkeys.