Technology

mardi 26 juillet 2022

Zuckerberg says Meta and Apple are in ‘very deep, philosophical competition’ to build the metaverse

US-IT-LIFESTYLE-internet-FACEBOOK — Photo by AMY OSBORNE / AFP via Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg believes that Apple and his company are in a “very deep, philosophical competition” to build the metaverse, suggesting the two tech giants are ready to butt heads in selling hardware for augmented and virtual reality.

The Meta CEO told employees earlier this month that they were competing with Apple to determine “what direction the internet should go in,” according to a recording of his comments during an internal all-hands meeting obtained by The Verge. He said that Meta would position itself as the more open, cheaper alternative to Apple, which is expected to announce its first AR headset as soon as later this year.

“This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience,” Zuckerberg said of the brooding rivalry. “And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.”

Since rebranding Facebook’s company name to Meta, Zuckerberg has been pushing for the concept of interoperability for the metaverse, or what he sees as the next major chapter of computing after mobile phones. Meta recently helped stand up the Metaverse Open Standards Group with Microsoft, Epic Games, and others. The idea is to spur the creation of open protocols that will let people easily move through future immersive, 3D worlds with their virtual goods.

Apple is absent from the group, which Zuckerberg called out as not surprising in his comments to employees. He explained how Apple’s approach of building hardware and software it tightly controls had worked well with the iPhone, but that for the metaverse, “it’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better.”

While CEO Tim Cook has been upfront about the company’s interest in AR as a category, Apple has been characteristically silent about its unannounced hardware plans. Even still, all signs point to the imminent release of a high-end headset that blurs the full immersion of VR with AR experiences that overlay over the real world. Meta is planning to release a similar kind of headset later this year, codenamed Cambria, and is also readying its first true pair of AR glasses.

If VR and AR do take off like Zuckerberg hopes, it seems he wants to position Meta as the Android to Apple’s iOS. There is a parallel to draw already: Meta’s Quest headset already allows the side loading of apps that are not approved by Meta’s VR app store, similar to how Google’s Android allows for sideloading. And even though it just increased the price of the Quest by $100, Meta’s hardware is still mostly sold at a loss or breakeven.

Apple and Meta have never really seen eye to eye. The former is currently costing the latter billions of dollars a year in lost ad revenue on iOS, thanks to its prompt that asks people if they want a third-party app to track them for showing ads. Zuckerberg’s remarks suggest that even as he tries to invent his way out of being under Apple’s thumb on mobile, the two tech giants are going to be battling for years to come.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of Zuckerberg’s answer on June 30th to a Meta employee’s question about metaverse competition with Apple:

Employee question: Apple is absent from metaverse standards and are coming out with their own AR glasses. How does that affect Oculus and our ecosystem? Thanks.

Mark Zuckerberg: I think it’s pretty clear that Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product but philosophically. We’re approaching this in an open way and trying to build a more open ecosystem. We’re trying to make more stuff interoperable with Android. We’re trying to develop the metaverse in a way where you can bring your virtual goods from one world to another. We created the Metaverse Open Standards Group with a bunch of other folks that you just mentioned, and Apple didn’t join. But I don’t think that’s a surprise. Apple, for a few generations of computing now, has been the closed provider of computing.

This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience. And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.

One of the things I think is interesting is that it’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better. If you look back to PCs, Windows was clearly the one that had a lot more scale and became the default and norm that people used. And Mac did fine, but I think PC and Windows were, I think, the premier ecosystem in that environment.

On mobile, I would say it’s more the other way. There’s more Android devices than there are iOS devices, but I think in developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe in kind of the high end, [and] a lot of the culture-setters and developers, I do think that skews quite a bit more towards iPhone and iOS. So I’d say on mobile, Apple has really carved out quite a good position for themselves, and that’s why they’re the most valuable company in the world, or maybe one of the couple most valuable companies in the world.

But I just don’t think that the future is written here yet for the metaverse. And I think part of our job is we’re going to continue doing leading research and pushing on this at all levels of the stack. We’re doing VR. We’re doing AR. We basically deliver our devices at cost or at a slight subsidy, or slightly more than cost in some cases. But the bottom line is our business is not primarily taking a premium on the devices. We want as many people to be interacting in there as possible. Part of that is having it be an open ecosystem that’s interoperable.

Our north star is can we get a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade? If we do that, we’ll build a business that is as big as our current ad business within this decade. I think that’s a really exciting thing. I think a big part of how you do that is by pushing the open metaverse forward, which is what we’re going to do.

So yeah, Apple is going to be a competitor. I think that that’s pretty clear, but it’s actually a very deep competitor. It’s not just [that] they have a device that has some more features than us. It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in. And I am proud of the investments that we’re making to help push forward the open metaverse on this and hopefully make the next version of computing a bit more open.

Logitech’s new ‘gender-inclusive’ PC gaming accessories come with the pink tax

Logitech G Aurora collection featuring the G735 headset, the G715 wireless keyboard, and the G705 mouse. — *The keyboard, headset, and mouse (complete with color add-ons for each) cost a cool $639.97.* | Image: Logitech

Logitech has announced a lineup of PC gaming accessories that are designed to be more gender-inclusive — and specifically geared toward women — than any of its previous releases. Companies shouldn’t be trying to market consumer technology by gender in 2022 and should instead recognize the wide variety of tastes and physical needs consumers have. But Logitech’s gone and done it anyway.

And the gadgets in the Aurora collection do seem cool, and notably, they’re new — not just new colorways of existing products. But aside from a few interesting features across the entirety of the Aurora collection, it still feels like a case of the pink tax at work.

With its latest collection of gaming accessories (and the many pricey add-ons you can purchase to customize them), Logitech wants to let you know that it now recognizes under-represented groups... the same groups that it has largely ignored for years.

A wide variety of genders enjoy playing games and using all the accessories required, but many peripheral companies, Logitech included, have spent a very long time designing products for a very specific type of gamer: one with larger than average hands and who is comfortable using peripherals decked out in dark colors and RGB lighting.

Logitech has slowly realized that not everything needs to look like it comes from the office IT department or from wherever the “gamer aesthetic” emerged. It started offering accessories with more rounded corners and fun colors in the last few years. The Aurora collection focused more on gaming than the productivity-oriented peripherals previously launched. Only, in addition to neat looks that lean on “gender-inclusivity” marketing, this collection has beyond-accessible prices and surprisingly lousy battery life claims.

Logitech G735 — *The G735 isn’t all that vibrant by default, with just its RGB LEDs.*

The head of the class in terms of price and impressive features is the $229.99 G735 wireless headset. It looks like a more whimsical version of the G Pro X model, clad in white with RGB LEDs tracing around the perimeter of its bulbous, rotating earcups. Like the much more affordable ($50 or so) G435 wireless headset, the G735 features braille on each sidearm to identify left from right, which is a great accessibility feature that more companies should copy. Logitech claims that the G735’s design is more inclusive because it can accommodate smaller heads and things like small earrings and glasses. While that’s technically true, it’s weird that it apparently only makes its other headsets for people with giant heads and perfect vision.

The G735 features dual wireless connectivity, the ability to connect via 2.4GHz and, say, your phone via Bluetooth. Logitech says that the G735 can last around 16 hours with the LED lighting on and at 50 percent volume. Most wireless headsets these days tout day-long battery life, at least, so this is a disappointing figure. Turning off the lighting apparently bumps it up to around a 56-hour lifespan per charge.

Logitech G715 — *The G715 and G713 include a cloud-shaped wrist rest, which otherwise costs $20 by itself.*

The $199.99 wireless G715, alongside the $169.99 wired G713, are tenkeyless models that feature media keys, a volume wheel, and a whole lot of RGB LEDs. In addition to backlighting beneath each of their double-shot PBT keycaps, they have LEDs surrounding the keyboard to give off an aura. Logitech says you’ll be able to choose between tactile, linear, or clicky mechanical GX switches at the time of purchase.

The G715 can tether wirelessly to the included Lightspeed 2.4GHz dongle or connect via Bluetooth. Logitech says you can expect around 25 hours of battery per charge. Like the headset, that’s on the low end of the spectrum for longevity, considering its high price.

Logitech G705 — *The G705’s color can’t be changed (outside of its LEDs), but you can purchase a $30 mousepad to brighten things up.*

Lastly, the $99.99 G705 wireless mouse is the first mouse that Logitech says was “intentionally” designed for players with smaller hands. From one angle, it looks like your ordinary gaming mouse, but from the angle that exposes its two thumb buttons, it looks more like an ergonomic mouse with its contoured thumb rest. It has a “gaming-grade” sensor (Logitech didn’t confirm the exact sensor ahead of publication) with up to 8,200 DPI of sensitivity, and it can last up to 40 hours with the LEDs enabled. That battery life isn’t great. If it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse, it’s because I am.

Buying Logitech accessories is rarely affordable, and the Aurora collection is no exception. It’ll cost you $499.97 (assuming you bought the wired G713, not the G715 that’s $30 more) to purchase each of the three items, but why stop there? There are add-ons to buy, too!

The G735 comes in white, but you can purchase a different colored boom microphone bundled with two ear pads (in pink or neon green) for $20.
As for the keyboards, you can purchase top plates for either keyboard for $20, and don’t forget a $40 set of keycaps.
For the mouse, there are two accessories to buy, including a $29.99 15.75 x 18-inch mousepad and a $40 heart-shaped carrying case for both the G735 headset and the G705 mouse.
If you’re all in on Logitech’s inclusive lineup and you purchase one of each add-on, you’ll pay at least $649.97.

Many tech companies, including Logitech, love to explain to the press how each of its new gadgets is the byproduct of a lot of user research, testing, and collaboration with the intended audience as if those are the ingredients that will guarantee a great product that’s angled in an authentic way. The team behind this collection seemed excited by the idea that its new products will make some people feel seen, and honestly, that’s great. Design that’s too focused on one very specific group makes for products that feel repetitive and potentially off-putting. Logitech making gaming mice for smaller hands and headsets that can be worn with eyeglasses are all good things. Making gaming less insular is a very good thing.

But it’s the crummy-sounding battery life — because Logitech doesn’t want to solve the problem of smaller gadgets requiring less space for batteries — that’s a problem. It’s the high price that’s a problem.

If your target audience can’t afford the product or use it for the same amount of time as something cheaper, then how inclusive or accessible is it, really?

Amazon UK to charge £1 more a month for Prime service from September

Monthly subscription to increase by 12.5% to £8.99 in latest sign of rising delivery costs

Amazon is to increase the price of its monthly Prime subscription service by 12.5% – or £1 – to £8.99 from September in the latest sign that delivery costs are rising.

The company said the cost of an annual Prime package, which includes unlimited deliveries for online shopping, access to its video and music streaming services and its Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries, would rise by more – 20%, or £16 – to £95, although this remains a discount on the monthly option.

Florida chef’s pink sauce videos stir up TikTok backlash

Chef Pii’s tips on how to use her $20-a-bottle condiment have won 40m views, she says, but many wonder what goes into it

It’s pink. It’s a sauce. It’s called, rather prosaically, Pink Sauce. And it’s doing a very good job of trying to break the internet right now.

A Florida chef’s TikTok videos showing her dunking fried chicken, french fries and vegetables into her culinary creation have gone viral. Up to 40m views, she claims.

lundi 25 juillet 2022

Chess robot breaks seven-year-old’s finger during tournament in Russia

2020 China International Industry Fair — *A stock photo of a chess-playing robot in Shanghai — unconnected to this incident.* | Photo by Gao Yuwen/VCG via Getty Images

A chess robot broke the finger of a seven-year-old boy playing in a tournament in Russia, according to reports from local news outlets (seen via The Guardian).

The incident happened last week at the Moscow Chess Open, where the robot was hired to play competitors. Video of the incident (below) shows the machine is a standard industrial robot arm customized to move pieces on three chess boards simultaneously.

“The robot broke the child’s finger. This, of course, is bad,” Sergey Lazarev, President of the Moscow Chess Federation, told Russian news agency TASS (translation via Google Translate).

Said Lazarev: “The robot was rented by us, it has been exhibited in many places, for a long time, with specialists. Apparently, the operators overlooked it. The child made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried, the robot grabbed him. We have nothing to do with the robot.”

It’s not clear what explanation —if any — the robot’s creators have offered for this accident, but such incidents are not unusual in scenarios where robot engineers have failed to properly consider safety protocol around humans.

In most industrial environments, robots are essentially unseeing operators. They move along set paths at set times, and often lack sensors to recognize or respond to nearby humans. In other words: if you move into their path, they won’t know you’re there.

This sort of blind collision has been the cause of many robot fatalities. The first such incident is generally thought to have taken place in 1979, when Ford factory worker Robert Williams was crushed by a robot arm. The US Department of Labor logs these deaths, which tally roughly one fatality a year, though the statistics vary based on different companies’ definition of a robot. For example, is a conveyer belt a robot? Or a molding machine?

In the case of the chess robot, it seems the device was designed only to identify and move chess pieces — not respond to the appearance of a human hand in its playing area.

“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realize he first had to wait,” Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told a Telegram-based news channel Baza, according to The Guardian.

However, it’s more accurate to say that the robot’s designers violated safety rules by creating a machine that could inadvertently hurt humans. A number of basic features could have prevented the accident — from placing a camera above the chess board that disables the robot’s movement if foreign objects appear in frame, to limiting the force that can be output by the robot’s arm.

Although footage of the incident is distressing, according to Lazarev the child was soon recovered enough to continue to play. “The child played the very next day, finished the tournament in a cast, and the volunteers helped to record the moves,” Lazarev told TASS. “The robot operators, apparently, will have to think about strengthening protection so that this situation does not happen again.”

How to save money when you buy video games and consoles

Consider getting physical products, head for sales and beware dodgy resale sites

Downloading games is far more convenient than buying them on a disc these days but if you play on consoles, buying a physical copy often costs substantially less – especially a few weeks or months after a game comes out.

QAnon Candidates Aren’t Thriving, but Some of Their Ideas Are

QAnon Candidates Aren’t Thriving, but Some of Their Ideas Are While few with ties to the conspiracy theory are winning their primaries, themes pushed by QAnon followers have become Republican talking points.

Dine like Da Vinci, unleash your inner diva – 101 ways the arts can slightly improve your life

Follow the gospel of Larry David, go gaming on horseback, always carry a cushion, bin your cinema mates and learn Korean off the telly … Guardian writers present their best cultural life hacks

If you’re seeing something long and challenging, remember that having an alcoholic drink beforehand is asking for trouble. So be sure to do it.

Gen Z Designers Made It Big on This App. Now They’re Graduating.

Gen Z Designers Made It Big on This App. Now They’re Graduating. Depop, a social shopping app, was a springboard for many young designers during the pandemic. Some are now taking their success elsewhere.

dimanche 24 juillet 2022

I was charged £72 because of Wizz Air’s own technical glitch

We couldn’t check in online so had to pay to use the airline’s desk

On 27 June my partner and I were booked on a 7.55am Wizz Air flight from Gatwick to Athens. On the Saturday before, I received an email telling me to check in online.

After filling in all the necessary details and double-checking the information, the website said “something went wrong” and I was unable to complete the process. I tried several more times but could not get to the end.

Amazon buys US medical provider as it cements move into healthcare

One Medical, the primary care organization, will be acquired by the e-commerce behemoth in a deal valued at roughly $3.9bn

Amazon will acquire the primary care organization One Medical in a deal valued roughly at $3.9bn, marking another expansion for the retailer into healthcare services.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said in a statement Thursday it is buying One Medical for $18 a share in an all-cash transaction. It’s one of Amazon’s biggest acquisitions, following its $13.7bn deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017 and its $8.5bn purchase of Hollywood studio MGM, which closed earlier this year.

Why Big Tech Is Making a Big Play for Live Sports

Why Big Tech Is Making a Big Play for Live Sports Competing for rights to broadcast games from the N.F.L. and other leagues could be hard for broadcast and cable companies that “aren’t playing by the same financial rules.”

samedi 23 juillet 2022

Marvel outlines Phase 6 with Fantastic Four and two new Avengers movies

Marvel is looking far into its future at San Diego Comic-Con. The company confirmed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which just got its first trailer) will end phase four of its cinematic universe on November 11th, and outlined what to expect for phase five. But Marvel also took things one step farther and detailed phase six of the MCU with a trio of movie announcements.

Things will kick off with Fantastic Four on November 28th, 2024; followed by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty on May 2nd, 2025; before wrapping up with Avengers: Secret Wars on November 7th, 2025. Marvel is calling this period of the MCU — phases four through six — the “Multiverse saga,” which will come to a close with Secret Wars.

The announcements were made during a busy panel at SDCC. Outside of the big theatrical releases, Marvel also showed off a new trailer for She-Hulk and confirmed Daredevil: Born Again for Disney Plus, which will star Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio from the original Netflix Daredevil series.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s first trailer pits Atlantis against the world

Winston Duke as M’Baku in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. | Marvel Studios

More so than any of Marvel’s other big reveals at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s first trailer’s something to legitimately get hyped about.

During Marvel’s big Hall H showcase today, actress Letitia Wright said that her and the rest of the cast and crew’s goal with Wakanda Forever was to honor the legacy that Chadwick Boseman left following his passing. Wakanda Forever’s trailer doesn’t directly acknowledge what’s become of T’Challa in the MCU, but his absence and the recent discovery of a new underwater nation once again have the world — Wakanda in particular — on edge. While Wakandans like Shuri (Wright), Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and Okoye (Danai Gurira) are seen mourning and seemingly trying to figure out how they’re going to move on, the trailer also spotlights a new group of amphibian humanoids — one of whom is born with winged feet.

In Marvel’s comics, the kingdoms of Wakanda and Atlantis have clashed on a number of occasions to calamitous effect as their respective monarchs’ egos clashed. Here, the MCU’s Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and the other Atlanteans appear to have ties to Mayan cultures, and their arrival seems to prompt some sort of confrontation with the humans of the surface world. Along with M’Baku (Winston Duke), Ayo (Florence Kasumba), and the rest of the Dora Milaje, Riri Williams (Dominque Thorne) is seen gearing up for the battle Wakanda’s about to face, and judging from the trailer’s shots of mayhem they’re going to need her help.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also stars Florence Kasumba, Michaela Coel, and Martin Freeman. The movie hit theaters November 11th.

Marvel confirms new Daredevil series for Disney Plus

Now it’s official: a new live-action Daredevil series is coming to Disney Plus. The news was first reported earlier this year, but at Comic-Con this evening Marvel confirmed the series’ existence. It will be called Daredevil: Born Again, and will once again star Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio as Daredevil and the Kingpin. The show is expected to hit Disney Plus in the spring of 2024.

Cox and D’Onofrio will be reprising their roles from the original series which debuted as part of partnership with Netflix; earlier this year, however, all of Netflix’s Marvel series — including Jessica Jones and Luke Cage — left the streamer in order to move to Disney Plus. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin has already made an appearance on Disney’s streaming platform through a role on last year’s Hawkeye.

Meanwhile, the next major MCU series coming to Disney Plus will be She-Hulk — and Marvel just released a new trailer for it at SDCC.

She-Hulk’s new trailer shows the importance of spandex and yoga

The next big Marvel series on Disney Plus is She-Hulk — and at Comic-Con this evening, Marvel Studios provided a fresh look at the show. The new trailer has a decidedly more lighthearted tone than the first, with Bruce Banner explaining just how important both spandex and yoga are when you’re a gigantic superhero. But it also gets into some legal drama and, of course, includes some cameos from elsewhere in the Marvel cinematic universe.

The trailer was released during a SDCC panel that also detailed the future of the fifth phase of the MCU, which includes films like Blade, Captain America: New World Order, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, alongside Disney Plus series like the second season of Loki. Elsewhere at SDCC, Marvel also showed off its animated slate, including a new trailer for I Am Groot and more details on Spider-Man: Freshman Year and X-Men ‘97.

She-Hulk, meanwhile, hits the streaming service on August 17th.

Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless review: a compact, feature-rich gaming keyboard

This diminuative gaming keyboard ticks a lot of boxes

One of the core appeals of mechanical keyboards is their customizability. With the right keyboard, there’s an almost infinite amount of parts to upgrade, swap out, or customize to get a keyboard that precisely suits your needs. There’s obviously nothing wrong with using a keyboard exactly as it comes out of the box, but sometimes it’s just plain fun to tinker.

Hot-swappable keyboard switches take this customizability a step further. Rather than having each key’s switch soldered to the board (meaning you have to whip out a soldering iron to change it), hot-swappable switches can be removed with a simple pulling tool. It makes replacing them as easy as changing a keycap. The feature has become more and more common on enthusiast boards, but it’s still relatively rare on keyboards from mainstream or gaming brands.

That makes Corsair’s K70 Pro Mini Wireless an interesting accessory. At first glance, it looks a lot like the kinds of mechanical gaming keyboards that Corsair has been producing for years with its aggressive gamer font and RGB lighting. But underneath, it’s the first keyboard from the company that includes hot-swappable switches. It means it offers a potent mix of Corsair’s gaming-focused features like low input latency and the customizability of enthusiast boards.

At $179.99, it’s expensive, and its compact 60 percent layout won’t be for everyone. But it ticks a lot of boxes if you’re willing to pay the price.

The Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless is very recognizably a Corsair product. It’s entirely black aside from its flashy RGB lighting, and each of its keys is styled with an aggressive all-caps font. Up top, there’s a single USB-C port for charging and connectivity, a physical on / off switch, and a small dock for the keyboard’s 2.4GHz USB dongle.

There’s no switch to put the keyboard in a macOS layout mode and no Mac-specific keycaps or legends. This is a Windows-focused keyboard — understandable given Corsair’s focus on gaming. Two feet on the underside of the keyboard let you set it at a steeper angle if you prefer.

Between its USB dongle, the ability to save up to three different Bluetooth connections, and good old-fashioned wired connectivity, there’s a good range of connectivity options. That said, some of them aren’t as responsive as others. You’ll have to use wired connectivity to get the keyboard’s maximum polling rate (where it’ll scan for keystrokes internally at 4,000Hz and report them to your PC at 8,000Hz), but it can only report at 2,000Hz when using its 2.4GHz dongle. Corsair doesn’t say what the keyboard’s polling rate is over Bluetooth, but typically, the wireless standard isn’t known for its low latency.

*From left to right: USB receiver, on/off slider, and a USB-C port.*

*An included switch-puller lets you remove the keyboard’s mechanical switches.*

Corsair is only selling the K70 Pro Mini Wireless with either linear Cherry MX Red (which is what my review sample had) or gaming-focused linear Cherry MX Speed Silver switches, but the fact that it’s hot-swappable means you have a lot of other options if you’re willing to buy switches separately. You could swap in alternative Cherry switches, like tactile browns or clicky blues, or even more esoteric community options, like Holy Pandas or Gazzew Boba U4s. The world is, truly, your lobster.

Corsair includes the required switch puller in the box with the keyboard (there’s also a keycap puller) for removing the switches, and I was able to replace a couple with relative ease. The only problem here is that only three-pin (aka plate-mount) switches can fit in the keyboard’s circuit board, meaning that you’ll have to clip the plastic legs off five-pin (PCB-mount) switches to get them to fit. It’s not the end of the world, but it means you’ll have to pick your replacement switches carefully or be prepared to do a little modding. It’s not ideal when the selling point of hot-swap is simplicity.

It’s also, obviously, possible to swap out the K70 Pro Mini Wireless’ keycaps. There’s no immediate need to since the keycaps that come with the keyboard are durable double-shot PBT and allow the keyboard’s RGB backlighting to shine through. Also worth noting is that because each of these keys has a secondary function, there are a lot of additional legends printed on the sides of the keycaps. Replace the keycaps, and you might have a hard time remembering your keyboard shortcuts. Finally, the keyboard’s switches are orientated to be north-facing, which can create compatibility issues with some Cherry-profile keycaps.

*Almost every key has a secondary function printed on its side.*

The K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a very compact keyboard. It uses a 60 percent layout, which means that it lacks additional dedicated keys like a function row, numpad, or even arrow keys. The result is a keyboard that’s optimized for space-confined desks or even large desks when you want to absolutely maximize the amount of space your mouse gets.

If you’re a gamer who sometimes runs out of mouse space because of a big keyboard, a compact model like this can be really helpful. But, for others, such a restrictive layout is less ideal, and I struggled to use the K70 Pro Mini Wireless as a work keyboard over the past week. All of its “missing” keys are accessible via a function key on the bottom right of the keyboard, but having to press two keys just to access arrow keys is tiresome, and it only gets worse when you need to add more modifiers. I frequently had to press as many as four keys simultaneously while working, and it felt very inefficient. I wouldn’t recommend this keyboard for office work.

Nor is it a particularly great keyboard for typing. Although Corsair is using original Cherry switches, which are durable and long-lasting, the construction of the keyboard makes them sound cheap and plasticky, and they don’t feel as good as competing compact keyboards from Epomaker or Keychron. That’s doubly so for larger keys, whose stabilizers sound clinky and metallic.

The K70 Pro Mini Wireless feels a lot more at home when you’re using it for gaming, where you don’t miss the extra keys and (in theory) you have the most to gain from its reduced input latency. But I remain skeptical that most people can feel the benefits of polling rates above 1,000Hz. I tested the K70 Pro Mini Wireless by using it to play Overwatch on a 120Hz OLED display, first in its wired 8,000Hz polling mode (which needs to be manually enabled in Corsair’s iCue software) and then with its 2,000Hz dongle, and I couldn’t perceive any difference between it and a standard 1,000Hz keyboard. It’s reassuring that there seems to be no input lag penalty for using the keyboard wirelessly, but you shouldn’t go in expecting a big upgrade.

One aspect of the K70 Pro Mini Wireless that I didn’t expect to be useful, but were, are its mouse shortcuts. By default, pressing the Fn key along with WASD moves your mouse around the screen, and there are also shortcuts to speed the mouse’s movement up and slow it down, as well as for left and right-clicking. It’s inexact enough that I’d never recommend anyone try playing a game like this, but it’s a neat feature for people like me who have to control a gaming PC underneath their TVs with a wireless keyboard and trackpad. It means the K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a useful little tool that couch gamers might want to use for booting up a game to then play with a controller, although, at $180, it’s very expensive compared to the cheap wireless keyboard / trackpad combos that are readily available.

Battery life is OK but not exceptional, based on Corsair’s estimates (my testing involved regularly plugging the keyboard in via USB to test latency, so I wasn’t able to run it down consistently during my review period). It promises up to 32 hours with backlighting on, rising to 200 hours with it off. So expect to charge it weekly for the privilege of keeping its lights on or a little over once a month otherwise. That’s nothing compared to Logitech’s (otherwise lower-specced) $150 MX Mechanical Mini, which offers 15 days with backlighting on, or 10 months with it off, but roughly in line with the RGB model of Keychron’s $65 K12 (up to 240 hours with backlighting off).

*You can adjust the tilt of the keyboard.*

*My sample came with Cherry MX Red switches.*

With its compact 60 percent layout, the K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a keyboard that’s never going to be for everyone. It’s great that Corsair has caught up with the emerging trend towards hot-swappable switches, but if you’re looking for a compact keyboard that you’ll need to use for equal parts productivity and play, then my advice would be to — at a minimum — get a slightly larger 65-percent board that includes an arrow cluster. No amount of customizing switches or keycaps is going to make up for the missing keys.

Used primarily as a gaming keyboard, the K70 Pro Mini Wireless fares a lot better, and it’s nice getting the customizability of an enthusiast mechanical keyboard without giving up the quality of life features of a big brand like Corsair. But $180 is a lot to pay for a keyboard solely for gaming. The Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless may be a very customizable keyboard, but ultimately it’s not a very versatile one.

Photography by Jon Porter / The Verge

Facebook to restore chronological feed of posts from friends

Firm is splitting its News Feed over two tabs on its iOS and Android apps, separating its algorithmic curation

Facebook is going back to basics, restoring a chronological news feed to its app to make it easier for users to keep up with posts from their friends.

More than a decade after Facebook updated its patented News Feed to default to showing “top stories” rather than a chronological list of posts from friends and pages, the company is restoring the ability to “easily see the most recent posts from your friends, Pages and groups”.

Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient

Company said Blake Lemoine violated Google policies and that his claims were ‘wholly unfounded’

Google has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.

Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) to be “wholly unfounded”.

vendredi 22 juillet 2022

The engineer who claimed a Google AI is sentient has been fired

*The company reportedly says he violated confidentiality policies.* | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who publicly claimed that the company’s LaMDA conversational artificial intelligence is sentient, has been fired, according to the Big Technology newsletter, which spoke to Lemoine. In June, Google placed Lemoine on paid administrative leave for breaching its confidentiality agreement after he contacted members of the government about his concerns and hired a lawyer to represent LaMDA.

A statement emailed to The Verge on Friday by Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel appeared to confirm the firing, saying, “we wish Blake well.” The company also says: “LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible development.” Google maintains that it “extensively” reviewed Lemoine’s claims and found that they were “wholly unfounded.”

This aligns with numerous AI experts and ethicists, who have said that his claims were, more or less, impossible given today’s technology. Lemoine claims his conversations with LaMDA’s chatbot lead him to believe that it has become more than just a program and has its own thoughts and feelings, as opposed to merely producing conversation realistic enough to make it seem that way, as it is designed to do.

He argues that Google’s researchers should seek consent from LaMDA before running experiments on it (Lemoine himself was assigned to test whether the AI produced hate speech) and published chunks of those conversations on his Medium account as his evidence.

The YouTube channel Computerphile has a decently accessible nine-minute explainer on how LaMDA works and how it could produce the responses that convinced Lemoine without actually being sentient.

Here’s Google’s statement in full, which also addresses Lemoine’s accusation that the company didn’t properly investigate his claims:

As we share in our AI Principles, we take the development of AI very seriously and remain committed to responsible innovation. LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible development. If an employee shares concerns about our work, as Blake did, we review them extensively. We found Blake’s claims that LaMDA is sentient to be wholly unfounded and worked to clarify that with him for many months. These discussions were part of the open culture that helps us innovate responsibly. So, it’s regrettable that despite lengthy engagement on this topic, Blake still chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information. We will continue our careful development of language models, and we wish Blake well.

T-Mobile agrees to $350 million settlement over its massive 2021 data breach

*The hack is costing the company big.* | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the 2021 hack that it says exposed around 76.6 million US residents’ data. According to the proposed agreement filled on Friday, which you can read in full below, T-Mobile will put $350 million into a settlement fund to go to lawyers, fees, and, of course, to people who file claims. It’ll also be obligated to spend $150 million on “data security and related technology” during 2022 and 2023, in addition to what it had already budgeted for.

In August, the company announced that its systems had been breached, following reports that Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver’s license information for over 100 million of its customers was for sale. While the number proved to be slightly inflated, T-Mobile’s figure of how many people were impacted continued to rise over the rest of the month. T-Mobile’s CEO called this security breach — its fifth in four years — “humbling.”

The proposed settlement agreement still has to be approved by a judge, but if it is, T-Mobile will have 10 days to put money in the fund to cover the costs of notifying people who are eligible to claim. According to the settlement, that covers “the approximately 76.6 million U.S. residents identified by T- Mobile whose information was compromised in the Data Breach,” with a few caveats for some of the carrier’s employees and people close to the judges that presided over the case. In the interest of full disclosure, that could very well mean that I’m eligible to apply for compensation, as I was a T-Mobile customer when the hack occurred.

The settlement agreement doesn’t contain estimates on how much each claimant can expect to receive, though it’s difficult to estimate that kind of thing until it’s clear how many people will make claims.

The lawsuit that T-Mobile is hoping to settle here accused the company of failing to protect its past, present, and prospective customers’ data, not properly notifying people who may have been impacted, and overall having “inadequate data security.” T-Mobile denies these allegations in the agreement, saying that the settlement doesn’t constitute an admission of guilt. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the carrier says it “has the right to terminate the agreement under certain conditions” laid out in the proposed agreement but says that it anticipates having to pay out the claims.

Outside of this lawsuit, there have been other responses to T-Mobile’s data breach and others like it. The FCC proposed new rules surrounding such attacks, which aim to improve how a company communicates with people about their data.

Now Microsoft Office is blocking macros by default

There’s been a bit of back and forth since the change was originally announced, but this week Microsoft started rolling out an update to Microsoft Office that blocks the use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros on downloaded documents.

Last month, Microsft was testing the new default setting when it suddenly rolled back the update, “temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability.” Despite saying it was temporary, many experts worried that Microsoft might not go through with changing the default setting, leaving systems vulnerable to attacks. Google Threat Analysis Group leader Shane Huntley tweeted, “Blocking Office macros would do infinitely more to actually defend against real threats than all the threat intel blog posts.”

Now the new default setting is rolling out, but with updated language to alert users and administrators what options they have when they try to open a file and it’s blocked. This only applies if Windows, using the NTFS file system, notes it as downloaded from the internet and not a network drive or site that admins have marked as safe, and it isn’t changing anything on other platforms like Mac, Office on Android / iOS, or Office on the web.

Microsoft:

We’re resuming the rollout of this change in Current Channel. Based on our review of customer feedback, we’ve made updates to both our end user and our IT admin documentation to make clearer what options you have for different scenarios. For example, what to do if you have files on SharePoint or files on a network share. Please refer to the following documentation:

• For end users, A potentially dangerous macro has been blocked

• For IT admins, Macros from the i n ternet will be blocked by default in Office

If you ever enabled or disabled the Block macros from running in Office files from the Internet policy, your organization will not be affected by this change.

While some people use the scripts to automate tasks, hackers have abused the feature with malicious macros for years, tricking people into downloading a file and running it to compromise their systems. Microsoft noted how administrators could use Group Policy settings in Office 2016 to block macros across their organization’s systems. Still, not everyone turned it on, and the attacks continued, allowing hackers to steal data or distribute ransomware.

Users who try to open files and are blocked will get a pop-up sending them to this page, explaining why they probably don’t need to open that document. It starts by running through several scenarios where someone might try to trick them into executing malware. If they really do need to see what’s inside the downloaded file, it goes on to explain ways to get access, which are all more complicated than what happened before, where users could usually enable macros by pressing one button in the warning banner.

This change may not always stop someone from opening up a malicious file, but it does provide several more layers of warnings before they can get there while still providing access for the people that say they absolutely need it.

Apple reportedly will curb hiring next year in response to rocky economy

The company joins other tech firms in slowing hiring as fears grow that inflation will lower consumer demand

Apple is reportedly planning to slow hiring and spending growth next year to cope with an economic downturn, which would place it in the company of American tech companies including Facebook, Amazon and Google in enacting similar measures.

The changes, first reported by Bloomberg, would not affect all teams, and Apple is reportedly still planning a major product launch scheduled for next year that includes a mixed-reality headset, its first significant new category since the Apple Watch in 2015.

MOCVD tool to advance gallium-oxide semiconductor research

MOCVD tool to advance gallium-oxide semiconductor research Cornell engineers and materials scientists have added a state-of-the-art tool to their suite of laboratory equipment to help in the study of gallium oxide, a material commonly viewed as the heir apparent to silicon carbide and gallium nitride as the go-to semiconductor for many power electronics applications.

jeudi 21 juillet 2022

Neopets security breach: users’ data reportedly stolen

Virtual pet site launches investigation but has not confirmed the scale of the alleged breach, amid reports hacker has taken database with user details

The popular virtual pet website Neopets says it has launched an investigation after a hacker breached its databases, with one website claiming the personal data of up to 69 million users may have been stolen.

“Neopets recently became aware that customer data may have been stolen … it appears that email addresses and passwords used to access Neopets accounts may have been affected,” the website said in a statement issued on its official Twitter account on Thursday.

Uncomfortable day for aviation as Farnborough runway hits 50C

Climate crisis highlights need for net zero flights as industry pins its hopes on emerging hydrogen technologies and ‘sustainable’ fuel

The temperature of the runway hit 50C at the Farnborough airshow this week. Officials checked for melting tarmac between the aerospace industry showing off its wares, with flights by passenger jets including the Boeing 777X and Airbus A350, assorted military aircraft and flypasts by the Red Arrows display team.

The heat on Monday was yet another reminder, if one were needed, of the urgency of decarbonising aviation, responsible for about 3% of global emissions. The threat of climate crisis has taken the shine off an industry that was once the height of glamour, and zero-emissions flight presents a technical challenge far greater than decarbonising most other parts of the economy.

The Last of Us’ PS5 remake includes a speed run mode and smarter AI

*Who doesn’t want to know what it’s like to pet a giraffe?* | Image: Sony

Sony released a ten-minute-long trailer for The Last of Us Part 1 on Thursday, where the game’s directors talk through some of the improvements coming in the PlayStation 5 remake of Naughty Dog’s iconic game. The trailer takes plenty of opportunities to show off the improved graphics (which look as nice as they have in the leaked screenshots, but it’s not like the game was ugly on the PS3 or PS4), but the most interesting involve changes to the gameplay — Naughty Dog says that the AI for enemies and companions will be improved, that there will be some extra gameplay modes, and that the game’s cutscenes will have audio descriptions for accessibility.

When it was originally released in 2013, The Last of Us’ AI was nothing special. The remake, however, apparently builds off of The Last of Us Part 2’s more modern system for controlling NPCs, making them better at working together and coming up with tactics more complex than “run straight at the man with the shotgun.” According to Neil Druckmann, creative director of both Last of Us games, this makes for more intense fights. Your companions’ AI has also apparently gotten an upgrade, which should hopefully avoid immersion-breaking experiences where Ellie or Henry run right in front of an enemy who then has to act like they didn’t notice.

In terms of gameplay modes, the remake will apparently include a permadeath mode for those who want to really try their hand at surviving a zombie (er, sorry, “infected”) apocalypse. There’s also a speed run mode, though the trailer offers pretty much no details on that other than that the game will display a timer in the upper right corner.

The trailer includes some other neat details as well — apparently the character animation system has gotten an overhaul, the game will have improved haptics that’ll supposedly make it feel like you’re actually petting a giraffe in that one famous scene, and Naughty Dog details some of the things it’s doing with the adaptive triggers, one of the PS5’s best features. If you’re at all interested in the remake I’d recommend checking it out.

Personally I’m still not sure whether all of this is enough to make me want to replay the game (I’ve already gone through it once on the PS3, and then played the PS4 remaster), but it does seem like it’ll be worth picking up for people who have never experienced it, or who have been looking for an excuse to do another playthrough. The Last Of Us Part 1 is set to release for PlayStation 5 on September 2nd, and for PC at some point in the future.

You can make your new Pixel look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

A cool thing about Google’s Pixel 6 series phones is their unique camera bar design. If the finish of that strip were a different color than black — specifically blue, orange, purple, or red — it would totally look kind of like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And now that you can’t unsee the resemblance, device outfitter Dbrand would like to help make your Pixel 6 device look like one of your favorite childhood heroes.

With Google’s latest phone the Pixel 6a releasing next week, Dbrand decided it's a good time to revisit the sewers and launch its Teenage Mutant Ninja Pixels decals for all three phones. They match the green heroes-in-a-half-shell plus their masks, and include four camera decal strips that reflect the colors of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. Personally, I think the Pixel 6a’s two-camera array does the best job looking like proper eyes (the spidery camera array of the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, not so much).

Available now for the Pixel 6a: https://t.co/c6UA3lRbhV pic.twitter.com/vHNwMHUEQ7
— dbrand (@dbrand) July 21, 2022

Dbrand didn’t say it’s officially licensing TMNT or anything, but the logo sure looks similar; we wonder if the company’s trying to create copyright controversy yet again. It was sued last year over the design of its PS5 Darkplates and last week it made skins that can make your Pixel, iPhone, and other devices look like the Nothing Phone 1.

The TMNP skins for the Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are available for preorder now for $24.95 and will ship in early August. They’d be totally rad to have on while streaming the retro TMNT Shredder’s Revenge game.

mercredi 20 juillet 2022

Square Enix summons Meteor, launches its NFT project

Image of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII Remake staring menacingly into the camera with bright mako-green eyes as the background burns — Square Enix

What had once been a warning of dark times to come is now a reality. Square Enix has finally announced its NFT (or non-fungible token) project after threatening us with the company’s embrace of the controversial and largely reviled-by-gamers blockchain technology.

To facilitate this extraordinary waste of fans’ good-will, Square Enix has partnered with Enjin, an NFT company that will store Square Enix’s tokens on its Efinity blockchain. Starting today, consumers will be able to pre-order a physical action figure that comes with a code redeemable for a digital NFT. There will also be physical trading cards that similarly have a digital NFT component available for pre-order later this year.

If you’re wondering which of its many franchises Square Enix is pulling these NFTs from, well, that’s the worst part. In what is perhaps the most astounding case of “Didn’t read the source material you created,” Square Enix is making its NFTs from Final Fantasy VII— that relatively obscure indie game about a bunch of freedom fighters taking down a corporation that’s killing the planet.

Yes, you read that right. Square Enix is choosing to make its NFTs — a technology known to consume exorbitant amounts of energy contributing to wildly increased emissions and accelerating already out-of-control climate change on a planet that is either on fire, drowned, or melting — out of characters it created who were dedicated to stopping companies from doing exactly what an NFT facilitates.

The math is not mathing.

Currently, there are no images available of what the action figure or the collectible cards will look like or how much they’ll cost. In an environment where gaming-related NFTs are frequently met with swift and furious backlash, on top of the precipitous fall in price of all things cryptocurrency, it is also not known if these FFVII NFTs will have any value other than sentimental.

Screenshot from 1997’s Final Fantasy VII featuring Barret Wallace with a text box over his head stating, “The planet’s dying Cloud”

In the face of an inevitable backlash, Square has chosen to focus on its use of the Efinity Parachain, a layer 1 proof-of-stake solution that touts itself as “eco-friendly” and run by a company committed to being carbon neutral by 2030. It promises to be more power efficient than older Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain technology, and with bridges that connect different blockchains without relying on them and their energy-hungry ways to operate.

But the planet’s dyin’, Cloud, we ain’t got that kinda time.

Minecraft owner bans in-game NFTs to discourage profiteering

Minecraft developer Mojang Studios is taking a strong stance against NFTs. In a blog post titled “Minecraft and NFTs,” the studio, which is owned by Microsoft, wrote that “integrations of NFTs with Minecraft are generally not something we will support or allow.”

“To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our client and server applications, nor may Minecraft in-game content such as worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods, be utilized by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset,” Mojang said.

According to Mojang, some companies have created “NFT implementations that are associated with Minecraft world files and skin packs.” The studio also suggests that there could theoretically be Minecraft “collectible” NFTs or that players could earn NFTs by doing things in Minecraft on a server or earning them outside the actual game.

Mojang argues these practices encourage digital scarcity and exclusion, which goes against the values of Minecraft. “NFTs are not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots,” the studio said. Mojang goes even further by saying that the speculative nature of NFTs “encourages profiteering.”

I strongly encourage you to read the blog post in full, as it succinctly lays out many criticisms of NFTs and blockchain projects in language that’s easy to understand. (There are quite a few more quotes that I could have included.)

Valve has taken also taken hard stance against blockchain games and NFTs on Steam, and much of the gaming community has soundly rejected NFTs, with Ubisoft stopped making NFTs for Ghost Recon Breakpoint just a few months after launching the initiative. Epic Games said last year it’s “open” to blockchain games on the Epic Games Store, and the first blockchain game came to the store in June.

While Mojang doesn’t completely shut the door on incorporating blockchain in the future, it concludes by saying that “we have no plans of implementing blockchain technology into Minecraft right now.”

I replaced my Steam Deck’s noisy fan and am so happy I did

160 hours into Elden Ring, I’m sure of one thing: the single most annoying thing about my Steam Deck is its whiny fan. And now, I’m so happy to report there’s a way to fix it. It takes roughly 15 minutes and $30 — depending on where you live — to install a replacement fan from iFixit.

Five days ago, the repair company finally got a large shipment of those fans, and I bought one right away. Now, my Steam Deck’s tiny screech is gone.

Is the fan still loud? Yes, yes it is, but it’s a whoosh instead of a whine. I like to think of it as the sound of air escaping the Deck’s vents, but mostly, I don’t think about it at all. I can easily tune out the new whoosh, whereas the whine always managed to get my attention even after Valve tweaked its software to bring the fan noise down.

In fact, the new fan has less whine than the electrical tape trick I showed you in April, and — YMMV — seems to be oh-so-slightly quieter overall. I did an admittedly unscientific test with the new fan against both my original whiny fan and one fixed up with the electrical tape, and the new fan measured 2 to 2.5 decibels lower than either in the quietest room in my house.

Each time, I let the Deck’s chip heat up to over 90 degrees Celsius and nearly maxed out its power draw at 28 watts to ensure the fan was blowing as much as possible — which, honestly, is pretty similar to how it runs when I’m playing Elden Ring normally.

*iFixit sells the “good” fan, made by Huaying.*

How can a replacement fan make such a difference? It’s a long story, but the Steam Deck community figured out many months ago that Valve shipped its gaming handheld with one of two different fans. One is made by Delta, the other by Huaying, and it’s long been suspected that the Delta fan is an inferior part that Valve didn’t initially design for. But while Valve has attempted to alleviate the issue with software, it’s definitely a hardware problem as well.

Last month, GamersNexus all but settled the question, putting both fans to the test and providing excellent audio samples of what the “whine” actually sounds like in practice (skip to 8:51 for that):

So when iFixit announced it had found a supply of the Huaying fans, there was reason for excitement. Would fixing it be as simple as buying the “better” fan, popping the Deck open, swapping the fans and re-fastening 13 screws? I think I’ve now seen enough to say the answer is yes.

*The $30 iFixit kit comes with picks to open the Deck, a screwdriver and ESD-safe tweezers, and the fan.*

I won’t attempt to re-write iFixit’s fan replacement guide, which you can find right here, but I will say that it was quick and easy with those instructions and the kit — which includes a simple screwdriver with the right Philips bits, a pair of tweezers, and a handful of blue picks to pop open the Steam Deck’s plastic shell clips.

It took a couple tries to figure out how to use those blue picks to pop open the case, and I found it easier to pull out the fan’s electrical connector with my fingernails than tweezers, but every piece got used and I didn’t need anything that wasn’t in the box.

I spend a lot of time playing the Deck in quiet rooms where family members are trying to doze off. So for me, it’s $30 well spent. I just wonder why Valve isn’t doing something about the fan itself — it’s pretty clear now that the whiny fan isn’t the intended experience.

Apparently some Steam Deck owners have lucked out with the better fan after an RMA, too — but when I returned my 64GB model, it came with another Delta. I’m only getting to try the Huaying now.

In case you’d like to hear some of my own audio samples (you’ll need to turn the sound up and/or wear headphones!), I took recordings of the bare Delta fan, a taped-up Delta fan, and the Huaying fan all at the same distance from the microphone.

Delta fan

Delta fan ramping up (whine more obvious)

Delta fan with electrical tape (very slight whine in background)

Huaying fan, aka “the good one”

At the time I’m writing these words, iFixit still has the Steam Deck replacement fan in stock.

Samsung says folding phone shipments reached nearly 10 million last year

Samsung is gearing up the hype machine for the release of its next foldables once again, and ahead of the next Unpacked event on August 10th, mobile president TM Roh has published another blog post making the case that the time for foldables is now — and that more people are picking up foldable phones.

“Three years ago, Galaxy foldables could be summed up in a single word: radical,” Roh wrote. “Very quickly, however, it became clear that this groundbreaking, flexible design fit perfectly into modern lifestyles. As a result, what was once a novelty three years ago is now the preferred choice for millions.”

In the post, Roh says that the industry shipped almost 10 million foldable smartphones worldwide in 2021, a figure that was up 300 percent from 2020. Samsung could be overstating the market a little bit — Ross Young, CEO of DSCC and a widely-cited display tech analyst, shared data with The Verge that says there were 7.9 million foldables shipped, while IDC says there were 7.1 million foldables shipped. Whatever the number is, it would represent just a fraction of the smartphone market; according to IDC, Samsung alone shipped 272 million smartphones just in 2021.

But Ross also shared data that suggests Samsung overwhelmingly has the lead in the foldable market. Samsung led by a mile in 2021 with 87.8 percent of phones shipped, according to DSCC, while Huawei came in a distant second at 9.3 percent. The bottom three on DSCC’s list had just a tiny share of shipments: Xiaomi had 2.4 percent, Royole had 0.3 percent, while Oppo had 0.2 percent. And with foldable shipments estimated to reach 27.6 million in 2025, per IDC, Samsung is going to want to capture as much of that potential market as it can.

This is all to say that it makes sense why Samsung is beginning to roll out the red carpet for its next Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip models, even if they aren’t expected to look much different from last year’s: the company practically is the foldable market right now, and it wants to take that lead even further. Apple is reportedly exploring foldable concepts, but with any sort of release apparently at least a year away — or maybe more — Samsung’s upcoming Unpacked event is yet another opportunity for the company to keep its foot on the gas.

Elon Musk now says Tesla could start Cybertruck deliveries in mid-2023

*An upgrade from “hopefully next year.”* | Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the company hopes to start delivering the Cybertruck, its battery-powered electric pickup, in the “middle of next year” during a call for investors. This is a more specific timeline than Musk has provided before — in last quarter’s earnings call, he said that the truck would be coming “hopefully next year.”

Tesla originally announced the truck in 2019, with a goal of starting production in late 2021. In August 2021, the company announced a delay until 2022, and Musk pushed that prediction further back until “hopefully” next year during the company’s Q4 earnings call in January. In the meantime, competitors like Ford and Rivian have launched their own electric pickups, with Ford saying that it plans to make 150,000 F-150 Lightnings in 2023.

One of the defining features of the Cybertruck is its outlandish, angular design — it looks like an early video game model. The company has apparently had problems making that design safe for use in the real world; in late 2021, Musk tweeted that he was worried about the truck’s windshield wiper. Currently, it’s one giant arm that’s meant to clean off the entire windshield in a single stroke.

Videos have leaked out of the truck driving on test tracks, and earlier this year, someone posted a video showing a walk-around of a prototype unit. In other words, the truck hasn’t been entirely MIA, in sharp contrast to the second-gen Roadster that’s also supposed to ship in 2023.

During the call, Musk didn’t elaborate on what Tesla had left to do to get the Cybertruck out on the road. However, the company has run into production issues even with its existing Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles in the past few months — a factory it opened in Shanghai, China, has faced repeated shutdowns due to COVID, which the company said were a factor in the drop in production it reported in its second-quarter earnings results. “Tesla does not have a demand problem, we have a production problem,” Musk said on the earnings call.

Gifts for strangers: the ‘ethically ambiguous’ TikTok trend using unknowing people as fodder for content

In viral videos, content creators film themselves surprising strangers with toys, food and wads of cash – whether they like it or not

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Picture the scene. You’re sitting alone, enjoying a coffee. Maybe you’ve got a podcast on. Maybe you’re on the phone to your mum. Enter a random person clutching a bunch of flowers.

“Would you be able to hold this?” they ask, before gliding away, content in the knowledge they’ve just made your day (probably).