mercredi 21 septembre 2022

TechScape: AI’s dark arts come into their own

TechScape: AI’s dark arts come into their own

Advanced AI is moving from the lab into the mainstream – offering a glimpse of the dangers ahead. Plus, What3Words loses its direction

Programming a computer is, if you squint, a bit like magic. You have to learn the words to the spell to convince a carefully crafted lump of sand to do what you want. If you understand the rules deeply enough, you can chain together the spells to force the sand to do ever more complicated tasks. If your spell is long and well-crafted enough, you can even give the sand the illusion of sentience.

That illusion of sentience is nowhere more strong than in the world of machine learning, where text generation engines like GPT-3 and LaMDA are able to hold convincing conversations, answer detailed questions, and perform moderately complex tasks based on just a written request.

Continue reading...

Microsoft Surface rumors heat up ahead of rumored October event

Microsoft Surface rumors heat up ahead of rumored October event
The Surface Pro 8
Last year’s Surface Pro 8. | Image by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Microsoft is widely expected to launch its next generation of Surface devices at an event next month, and over the past week an increasing number of rumors have shed light on what form they could take. Top of the list is a new 2-in-1 device — the Surface Pro 9 — as well as the latest Surface Laptop 5.

WinFuture reports that both are expected to be available with 12th Gen Intel CPUs, up from the 11th Gen models seen in last year’s Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop 4. Specifically, it expects to see an Intel Core i5-1235U in the entry level models and a Core i7-1255U at the higher end, which should offer single-core performance increases of up to 22 percent and 12 percent respectively. Storage is expected to top out at 1TB, while up to 16GB of RAM should be available.

In addition to the Intel chips, the Surface Pro 9 could also be offered with an Arm-based processor. WinFuture reports that this will be branded as the Microsoft SQ3, and will be based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 platform. The good news is the laptop should actually support 5G this time around, which is more than can be said for last year’s Arm-powered Surface Pro X. If Microsoft is offering the Surface Pro 9 in both Intel and Arm flavors, that could mean we see an updated design and the end of the Surface Pro X line.

Over on the Surface Laptop 5 side, WinFuture reports that it’s yet to see any evidence of a version powered by an AMD processor. That’s in contrast to the Surface Laptop 4, which offered a choice of Intel and AMD. However, given that Surface chief Panos Panay posed for a selfie with AMD CEO Lisa Su just days ago, it would be surprising to see a Surface Laptop 5 without an AMD option. AMD refreshed its laptop processor lineup with the Ryzen 6000 series back at CES 2022, and announced new processors for low-power laptops just days ago.

Away from specs, the Surface Pro 9 might be available in new color options, with green (aka, “Forest”) and light blue (“Sapphire”) joining the standard black and silver variants. The screen size is expected to be 13.5-inches once again, while the Laptop 5 is expected to also be available in a larger 15-inch variant.

As for price, WinFuture reports that the Surface Pro 9 should start at €1,300 (around $1,288 and roughly €100 more than the starting price of last year’s Pro 8). Meanwhile the Laptop 5 should start at €1,200 for its 13.5-inch model (around $1,189 and roughly €50 more than last year) and €1,500 for the 15-inch version (around $1,487 and the same as last year).

According to leaker WalkingCat, Microsoft’s event is currently scheduled for October 11th at 12pm ET, although this timing is yet to be officially confirmed by the company itself.

mardi 20 septembre 2022

Twitch to ban Stake.com streams and other unlicensed gambling content

Twitch to ban Stake.com streams and other unlicensed gambling content
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As the conversation concerning Twitch and the platform’s allowance of gambling streams continues to swirl, the platform has struck its first blow. In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Twitch stated that it will ban “streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games” in a policy update effective October 18th.

Critically, Twitch is not banning all gambling, nor even all streaming of the gambling forms mentioned above. There will be a carveout permitting sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker, while the streaming of slots, roulette, and dice is only prohibited if the websites streamed aren’t “licensed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection.”

The gambling sites that will be swept up in the ban include Stake.com, which is one of the most popular slot gambling sites streamed on Twitch. Big streamers like xQc and Trainwreckstv frequently feature it on their streams.

Gambling on Twitch has become a hot-button topic as wealthy streamers seemingly promote their services, ostensibly to minors, and potentially feeding gambling addictions. Earlier this week, ItsSliker came forward admitting he bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow streamers to support his sports betting habit.

From that event, big-name streamers like DevinNash, Pokimane, and Mizkif, who is currently embroiled in a separate but tangentially related incident, proposed or supported a potential boycott of Twitch if the platform didn’t ban gambling from the site. Now, that action may no longer be necessary. However, sports betting, the form of gambling that started this recent conversation, is one that will be spared when the ban takes effect.

In its tweet, Twitch stated it will share more about its gambling policies ahead of their implementation on October 18th.

YouTube’s ‘dislike’ and ‘not interested’ buttons barely work, study finds

YouTube’s ‘dislike’ and ‘not interested’ buttons barely work, study finds
YouTube’s logo with geometric design in the background
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Even when users tell YouTube they aren’t interested in certain types of videos, similar recommendations keep coming, a new study by Mozilla found.

Using video recommendations data from more than 20,000 YouTube users, Mozilla researchers found that buttons like “not interested,” “dislike,” “stop recommending channel,” and “remove from watch history” are largely ineffective at preventing similar content from being recommended. Even at their best, these buttons still allow through more than half the recommendations similar to what a user said they weren’t interested in, the report found. At their worst, the buttons barely made a dent in blocking similar videos.

To collect data from real videos and users, Mozilla researchers enlisted volunteers who used the foundation’s RegretsReporter, a browser extension that overlays a general “stop recommending” button to YouTube videos viewed by participants. On the back end, users were randomly assigned a group, so different signals were sent to YouTube each time they clicked the button placed by Mozilla — dislike, not interested, don’t recommend channel, remove from history, and a control group for whom no feedback was sent to the platform.

Using data collected from over 500 million recommended videos, research assistants created over 44,000 pairs of videos — one “rejected” video, plus a video subsequently recommended by YouTube. Researchers then assessed pairs themselves or used machine learning to decide whether the recommendation was too similar to the video a user rejected.

Compared to the baseline control group, sending the “dislike” and “not interested” signals were only “marginally effective” at preventing bad recommendations, preventing 12 percent of 11 percent of bad recommendations, respectively. “Don’t recommend channel” and “remove from history” buttons were slightly more effective — they prevented 43 percent and 29 percent of bad recommendations — but researchers say the tools offered by the platform are still inadequate for steering away unwanted content.

“YouTube should respect the feedback users share about their experience, treating them as meaningful signals about how people want to spend their time on the platform,” researchers write.

YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez says these behaviors are intentional because the platform doesn’t try to block all content related to a topic. But Hernandez criticized the report, saying it doesn’t consider how YouTube’s controls are designed.

“Importantly, our controls do not filter out entire topics or viewpoints, as this could have negative effects for viewers, like creating echo chambers,” Hernandez told The Verge. “We welcome academic research on our platform, which is why we recently expanded Data API access through our YouTube Researcher Program. Mozilla’s report doesn’t take into account how our systems actually work, and therefore it’s difficult for us to glean many insights.”

Hernandez says Mozilla’s definition of “similar” fails to consider how YouTube’s recommendation system works. The “not interested” option removes a specific video, and the “don’t recommend channel” button prevents the channel from being recommended in the future, Hernandez says. The company says it doesn’t seek to stop recommendations of all content related to a topic, opinion, or speaker.

Besides YouTube, other platforms like TikTok and Instagram have introduced more and more feedback tools for users to train the algorithm, supposedly, to show them relevant content. But users often complain that even when flagging that they don’t want to see something, similar recommendations persist. It’s not always clear what different controls actually do, Mozilla researcher Becca Ricks says, and platforms aren’t transparent about how feedback is taken into account.

“I think that in the case of YouTube, the platform is balancing user engagement with user satisfaction, which is ultimately a tradeoff between recommending content that leads people to spend more time on the site and content the algorithm thinks people will like,” Ricks told The Verge via email. “The platform has the power to tweak which of these signals get the most weight in its algorithm, but our study suggests that user feedback may not always be the most important one.”

Uber responding to ‘cybersecurity incident’ after hack

Uber responding to ‘cybersecurity incident’ after hack

Ride-hailing company confirms attack after hacker compromises Slack app and messages employees

Uber has been hacked in an attack that appears to have breached the ride-hailing company’s internal systems.

The California-based company confirmed it was responding to a “cybersecurity incident”, after the New York Times reported that a hack had accessed the company’s network and forced it to take several internal communications and engineering systems offline. The hacker claimed to be 18 years old, according to the report.

Continue reading...

YouTube’s Dislike Button Rarely Shifts Video Recommendations, Researchers Say

YouTube’s Dislike Button Rarely Shifts Video Recommendations, Researchers Say New research from Mozilla shows YouTube users have little control over what is recommended to them.

How a Quebec Lithium Mine May Help Make Electric Cars Affordable

How a Quebec Lithium Mine May Help Make Electric Cars Affordable The project also illustrates how difficult it is to get lithium out of the ground and break China’s dominance in processing the metal and turning it into batteries.

lundi 19 septembre 2022

Emoji statuses and ‘infinite’ reactions are among Telegram’s latest features

Emoji statuses and ‘infinite’ reactions are among Telegram’s latest features
Screenshot of a variety of emoji reaction options in Telegram.
A new menu allows you to quickly select most used reactions. | Image: Telegram

Telegram’s throwing a bone to its non-premium users this month by extending them access to more emoji reactions. The feature now lets all users choose from “dozens” of emoji that they can drop onto message bubbles as an alternative way to contribute to the conversation. And if you’re paying the $4.99 a month for Premium, don’t worry, you’re now getting an endless supply of reaction options by way of the custom animated emoji packs released last month, as well as other new features.

Paying Telegram Premium subscribers can now use all animated emoji as a status, in addition to the default seven that can change colors based on the theme. For instance, you can choose a rotating controller emoji to indicate you’re busy fragging on your Xbox. It’ll appear in friends’ chat lists, groups, and on your profile page in place of the normal Premium badge, which is also where you would tap to apply the status.

There’s also a better login system now for “users who log out and log back in frequently” that can send a temporary code to your email address or can utilize Sign In with Apple or Google. Users on iOS will notice that the user interface for logging in has improved and includes the “fun animations” that Android users have already been enjoying.

Screenshot of many emoji options that can be selected for the status indicator, in this case a game controller is selected. Image: Telegram
Emoji status can be added by tapping the premium badge in your profile.
screenshot of android Telegram app in the downloads section and showing a drag-able icon that can move an active download lower or higher. Image: Telegram
The Android app now allows for download prioritization.

Speaking of Android users, the app will now have smother animations when handling media in the app, and also the app icon will match Android’s color and dark mode settings. And the downloads section, like the iOS version, can now have items prioritized so you can download those huge uncompressed astrophotography images before your friend’s kid’s dance recital video.

Finally, there’s now a better link format for sharing your Telegram user profile. Instead of the old t.me/username, you can now do username.t.me, which is easier to share audibly and is better for accessibility.

Telegram has been on a roll lately, adding more Premium features for subscribers, but the process has had some bumps. Founder Pavel Durov had hinted at upcoming features in June before launch, like removing ads, along with power user-targeted features like large file support and these emoji reactions.

He said that the new animated emoji feature, which includes an open custom platform to make your own versions, will “revolutionize how people express themselves.” Apple blocked an earlier update with “Telemoji” that apparently came too close to Apple’s custom designs, but Telegram eventually added “hundreds of vector-based emoji with smooth animations.”

Intel and How Autonomous Driving Will Fix the Electric Car Problem

Intel and How Autonomous Driving Will Fix the Electric Car Problem
passenger reading a book in an autonomous self-driving car
At Intel’s Mobileye facility in Israel I saw a future that suggests that a combination of electric cars and autonomous driving will lead to a far better personal transportation future. Let’s talk about that this week. The post Intel and How Autonomous Driving Will Fix the Electric Car Problem appeared first on TechNewsWorld.

Rockstar owner issues takedowns after Grand Theft Auto VI leak

Rockstar owner issues takedowns after Grand Theft Auto VI leak

Video and images posted online as hacker also threatens to leak source code for Grand Theft Auto V and VI

More than 90 videos and images of Grand Theft Auto VI, the long-awaited follow-up to 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V, one of the best-selling video games of all time – leaked online over the weekend, in one of the biggest confidential data breaches in gaming history.

The footage was posted to the GTAForums website by a user going by teapotuberhacker, who claims to have accessed it by hacking Rockstar’s internal company Slack feed and gaining access to their servers.

Continue reading...

Student tech: the best gadgets to help you make the most of university

Student tech: the best gadgets to help you make the most of university

With students’ finances overstretched, it’s important to get the right tech at the right price. Here are some of the best deals

The end of the summer is here, and with it the start of a new semester at university. The landscape of learning certainly looks brighter than it has for the last couple of years but the need to have the right gear is just as big, with many universities offering a mix of in-person and online learning.

From laptops and phones to headphones and note-taking tools, here’s a guide to some of the tech that will help make the most of the student experience at a time of stretched finances.

Continue reading...

Food Supply Disruption Is Another Front for Russian Falsehoods

Food Supply Disruption Is Another Front for Russian Falsehoods As the war in Ukraine has put pressure on the global markets for food, Russia has spread conspiracy theories that blame the West.

Google’s Nest Wifi Pro pricing leaks early

Google’s Nest Wifi Pro pricing leaks early
The 2019 version of the Google Nest Wifi which will likely stick around. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Google’s big hardware event isn’t until next month but the leaks have already begun, this time showing pricing for a new “Google Nest Wifi Pro 6E Router” courtesy of B&H Photo (via 9to5Google). The online store lists a variety of colors and combo packs starting at $199.99, each labeled as “new item — coming soon.” In other words, coming as early as October 6th when this pro version of the Nest Wifi is expected to be announced at the Made By Google event.

Unfortunately, the listings don’t include any photos or specs, but we’re not totally in the dark here. We previously saw details for what we expect to be called the “Nest Wifi Pro” in an FCC listing that mentioned Bluetooth Low Energy and Thread mesh networking radios (for Matter), in addition to 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E support for reduced signal interference and faster speeds.

The premature B&H listings mention a $299.99 2-pack bundle, $399.99 3-pack bundle, and colors that mimic other Nest products including “Snow” (white), “Fog” (pale blue), “Linen” (beige), and “Lemongrass” (yellowish green). We expect this Pro model to co-exist with the current Nest Wifi which lists for $169 but can often be had for less.

‘Gifs are cringe’: how Giphy’s multimillion-dollar business fell out of fashion

‘Gifs are cringe’: how Giphy’s multimillion-dollar business fell out of fashion

Generational divide threatens future of tech firm as it seeks approval for $400m takeover by Facebook owner Meta

It is rare for a multimillion-dollar company to explicitly state that its business is dying because it is simply too uncool to live.

But that is the bold strategy that the gif search engine Giphy has adopted with the UK’s competition regulator, which is trying to block a $400m (£352m) takeover attempt by Facebook’s owner, Meta.

Continue reading...

dimanche 18 septembre 2022

Tom Brady just chucked another Microsoft Surface tablet

Tom Brady just chucked another Microsoft Surface tablet
Tom Brady whips a Microsoft Surface tablet into the ground during a football game.
Touchdown!

Tom Brady might as well have been practicing his touchdown spike when he whipped a Microsoft Surface tablet into the ground during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game against the Saints on Sunday night. The quarterback was visibly frustrated following an incomplete pass, tossed his helmet onto the field, and stormed back to the sidelines where he chucked the tablet.

The Buccs were losing when Brady threw the tablet, but they ended up coming back and defeating the Saints 20-10. This isn’t Brady’s first documented case of tablet abuse — he threw the thing so hard against the bench after losing a Saints game last year that it actually bounced.

Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay responded to the incident on his Instagram story this time around, saying “Rest assured the Surface should be just fine.” I’m not so sure about that, Panos. The last tablet we saw Brady throw was destroyed, and we didn’t get to see how it fared after this temper tantrum.

The Surface tablet has become a punching bag for players and coaches alike since they were first introduced to the NFL in 2014. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was one of the first to get caught on camera tossing the tablet, and even Patriots coach Bill Belichick smashed it on the sidelines, albeit for reasons other than gameplay (he just couldn’t stand using tablets).

NFL’s website says Microsoft designed the Surface tablets specifically for football games, ensuring they can “stand up to the occasional drop.” Maybe Microsoft should make sure they withstand a throw from a quarterback’s throwing arm, too.

Correction September 18th, 6:16PM ET: A previous version of the article stated Bill Belichick was the former coach of the Patriots, when he is the current coach. We regret the error.

Why gender is at the heart of the matter for cardiac illness

Why gender is at the heart of the matter for cardiac illness

Studies show that women with heart disease are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men, and will have worse outcomes for surgery. What is behind this bias and how can how it be fixed?

Heart diseases are still chronically misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed in women. With depressing regularity, we see stories of women failed by the health system when they come to hospitals with the symptoms of a heart attack. As a professor of cardiac science with 40 years’ experience, for me it has been a frustrating journey to get to the real cause of this problem: a combination of professional, systemic and technical biases. The experiences of individual patients are complex to analyse and interpret, but now we can view these effects on a much bigger scale.

Women are 50% more likely to receive a wrong initial diagnosis; when they are having a heart attack, such mistakes can be fatal. People who are initially misdiagnosed have a 70% higher risk of dying. The latest studies have similarly shown that women have worse outcomes for heart operations such as valve replacements and peripheral revascularisation. As well as being misdiagnosed, women are less likely to be treated quickly, less likely to get the best surgical treatment and less likely to be discharged with the optimum set of drugs. None of this is excusable, but is it understandable?

Continue reading...

US charges Iran trio with orchestrating vast hacking and extortion scheme

US charges Iran trio with orchestrating vast hacking and extortion scheme

Men allegedly tried to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from groups in US including domestic violence shelter

Three Iranians have been charged with trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from organizations in the United States, Europe, Iran and Israel, including a domestic violence shelter, by hacking in to their computer systems, US officials said on Wednesday.

Other targets included local US governments, regional utilities in Mississippi and Indiana, accounting firms and a state lawyers’ association, according to charges filed by the justice department.

Continue reading...

How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step

How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.

Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’: What Will Apple Do?

Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’: What Will Apple Do? The Civil War drama “Emancipation” finished filming early this year. Now, Apple faces a quandary on what to do with the movie.

South Korean founder of failed cryptocurrency Terra denies he is ‘on the run’

South Korean founder of failed cryptocurrency Terra denies he is ‘on the run’

Do Kwon’s whereabouts are still unknown since a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant earlier this week

Do Kwon, the South Korean founder of the failed cryptocurrency Terra wanted by police, has denied he was on the run after Singapore investigators said he was not in the city-state as had been believed.

Kwon’s whereabouts have been thrown into question after a statement from Singapore police late on Saturday, and his tweets did not reveal where he was.

Continue reading...

samedi 17 septembre 2022

Fortnite’s new season adds Spider-Gwen and goopy chrome

Fortnite’s new season adds Spider-Gwen and goopy chrome
Spider-Gwen in Fortnite.
Spider-Gwen in Fortnite. | Image: Epic Games

A new season of Fortnite is upon us, and it’s dripping with chrome. Today sees the launch of Chapter 3: Season 4 for the battle royale game, dubbed “Paradise,” and the big change this time around is a mysterious new substance. It’s called chrome, and it appears to be able to change just about everything it touches: you can splash it on walls to go right through them or splash it on yourself for temporary fire immunity and faster sprinting.

Other additions this season including new locations, like a floating condo, and other points of interest that have, naturally, been infested with chrome. Sniper rifles have received a big buff, increasing both damage and headshot multipliers. There’s also a new kind of vault, which can be opened by finding various keys located across the island, giving players access to high-level loot.

And a new season means a new battle pass, with lots of characters to unlock. Highlighting this season’s battle pass is Spider-Gwen, and players who purchase the pass will immediately get access to a new skin called Paradigm. Other additions include a hipster cat, a strange bear creature, a werewolf (?), and yet another very cool anime skin. Here’s the full battle pass lineup in trailer form:

This season follows the light-hearted vibes of Paradise, which kicked off in June following a mech battle live event. That season of Fortnite was notable in particular for a huge Dragon Ball crossover event that let players give Goku a gun. Fortnite in general seems to have received a big boost this year following the introduction of a Zero Build mode in March.

TP-Link’s latest smart light strip goes with everything

TP-Link’s latest smart light strip goes with everything

The Tapo L930 has gradient RGB and tunable white light, and works with Apple Home, Google, and Alexa for under $50

TP-Link’s newest light strip, the Tapo L930-5, is a great addition to any smart lighting setup. The full-color gradient LED strip has almost everything you could want in a lighting strip — from tunable white light and dimming to music sync and some neat lighting effects, all for under $50. It’s the first lighting product from TP-Link to work with Apple Home, it also works with Alexa and Google Home, and it uses Wi-Fi, so it doesn’t need a hub.

Smart LED light strips are an easy, plug-and-play way to shed some light on a troublesome dark spot in your home or add some cool lighting effects under your cabinets, counters, or even around your bed — if you’re into that kind of thing.

The Tapo L930-5 is an RGBWIC LED strip — that alphabet soup means it has both RGB (with up to 16 million colors) and tunable white LEDs (up to 1,000 lumens). The separate white LEDs give it brighter and higher-quality white light than strips that only have RGB LEDs. The IC part means it uses an integrated chip, so it can display different colors along its 50 different lighting zones instead of a single color at a time. Very few LED light strips have both tunable white LEDs and addressable lighting, fewer still have all that and Apple Home support, and all of those are far more expensive than the Tapo L930-5.

I’ve tested several smart light strips, from high-end Eve and Philips Hue versions to budget strips from Feit, and the Tapo feels like it should cost more than it does. Even if you don’t need Apple Home support, it’s still better than anything else in its price range.

I installed the L930-5 along the underside of my kitchen breakfast bar, where I could use blue light to highlight the blue cabinets and make the bar an architectural focal point or switch to white light to brighten up my dark living room.

The Tapo light strip installed under a breakfast counter.

The 16.4-foot (5-meter) LED strip comes with a small controller with an on/off button and an AC adapter. I connected them, positioned the strip, and stuck it to the underside of my counter (literally stuck; it uses 3M tape). The biggest challenge was finding a spot with an outlet nearby, and I had a bit of trouble getting a smooth fit when going around a tight corner. I ended up cutting the strip instead (the strips are trimmable but can’t be re-connected).

The whole process took less than five minutes, and the end result was wow-worthy. I say that confidently: my teenagers said, “Wow, that’s cool,” when they came home from school, and they are very hard to impress.

The Tapo app, which I’ll come back to, is better than most. But the real power of smart lighting comes from connecting it to a smart home platform like Apple Home (previously known as HomeKit), Google Home, or Amazon Alexa, and Tapo supports all three.

In my kitchen, I have smart light switches from Lutron Caseta and Aqara and smart bulbs from Philips Hue. Using Apple Home, I added the Tapo light strip to a Scene with all those other lights, linked that to a Philips Hue motion sensor, and had them all turn on when someone walked into the kitchen. You can also set up an Alexa Routine to do this. Google Home doesn’t let sensors trigger routines but does support voice control, as do the other two.

TP-Link recently announced the Tapo line will support Matter when the new smart home standard launches later this year. It’s unclear whether existing devices like the L930-5 will be upgraded or whether it will launch new Matter-compatible products, but as Tapo products use Wi-Fi there’s a clear upgrade path. A new version of the Tapo app is coming later this year that Tapo says can “integrate all Matter-supported devices within one ecosystem.”

The Tapo bopping along to some tunes.

Unlike most smart lighting control apps, the Tapo app is well laid out, easy to use, and offers lots of features. I could set the lights on a schedule, create six preset light scenes, choose from 17 effects (as well as create my own), and sync with music. The app also monitors energy usage, has an Away Mode (to turn lights on and off randomly to mimic someone being at home), and a timer that will turn the lights on or off after a set period.

The Tapo app’s lighting effects take advantage of the light strip’s fifty individually addressable lighting zones. My favorites were the Rainbow effect for some vivid pops of color and the Aurora for a more soothing light show. I did try to create some of my own effects, which was easy to do in the app, but the presets looked a lot better than anything I came up with. I’m definitely going to be using the Bubbling Cauldron and Haunted Mansion options for my Halloween setup this year.

A light strip under a counter next to chairs
The Tapo light strip installed under a kitchen countertop.

The Tapo also includes an Auto White mode, which sets the light to white and automatically adjusts the brightness based on available light — though I’m not sure how it does it as I can’t find an ambient light sensor anywhere on it. This is a nice feature, though, and means you don’t end up with a bright light shining at you when you dim other lights in your house. Unfortunately, while it did dim automatically, it stayed at one color temperature, despite the app saying it should adjust from cool to warm. In my testing, the light strip also didn’t work with Apple Home’s adaptive lighting feature. I’ve reached out to TP-Link about both features.

The Tapo light strip can sync to music or ambient sound, which it did relatively well, if a bit more robotically and less smoothly than Philips Hue’s music sync feature. However, it uses the microphone on your smartphone or tablet, not a built-in microphone, as Nanoleaf lights and some Govee strips have. This was annoying, especially as you need to keep the app open on your phone for it to work, and it kept disconnecting. But that might be for the best if you’re not keen on your light strips having a microphone.

If you have multiple Tapo products, you can link them together in the Tapo app with Smart Actions. These are Scenes that let you control multiple devices at once by tapping a tile in the app or Automations that can run based on time of day or when triggered by another Tapo device. The Tapo app only works with Tapo products, not TP-Link’s other smart home line, Kasa. The Tapo line also has an Apple Home-compatible smart plug, and earlier this year, TP-Link announced an Apple Home-compatible power strip, dimmer switch, and color bulbs are coming soon.

Kitchen counter with pink lights
The Tapo light strip produced rich, bright colors.

At $49.99 for 16.4 feet of addressable lighting zones, RGB, and tunable white LEDs, the Tapo L930-5 is by far the best, least expensive light strip that works with Apple Home. But if any one of those features is negotiable, or you really want the Adaptive Lighting feature, you have other options to consider — though most still cost much more.

One thing to note is that the L930-5 only comes in one length right now: 16.4 feet (or 5 meters). That’s much longer than most smart light strips, which usually start around six feet, or two meters, though many can be extended up to 32 feet (10 meters) or even longer. TP-Link doesn’t sell extension kits for the L930, but it says a 32-foot version of the L930 is launching next month.

Single-color Philips Hue light strips start at around $100 for six feet, and its gradient light strips start at $180 for six feet and 1,800 lumens. You will also need the Hue Bridge to support Apple Home’s Adaptive Lighting. The Nanoleaf Essentials Light Strip ($50, 2,000 lumens) and Eve Light Strip ($80, 1,800 lumens) also support Adaptive Lighting but are expensive to extend and limited to one color at a time.

Even if you don’t want Apple Home support, the L930-5 is compelling. Most light strips in this price range can’t produce high-quality white light because they don’t have separate white LEDs. Losing the white LEDs is not worth the $10 or $15 you’d save by getting the Tapo L920-5, Govee, or Kasa smart light strips.

Unless you’re dead set on Adaptive Lighting or holding out for a light strip that’s guaranteed to work with Matter and Thread, this is the best, most affordable addressable light strip option right now.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The PS Vita’s time is now, again

The PS Vita’s time is now, again
The PS Vita revision facing the camera with its screen on, displaying its bubble-filled user interface.
The 2013 PS Vita still looks and feels surprisingly modern.

Every couple of weeks, I exhume my gadget graveyard from underneath my bed. I look at my iPods, old phones, and some other stuff. Most of it doesn’t stir me anymore, but the PS Vita is another story. It’s the device that I pull out most frequently, charging it up to, well, just to feel like it’s a part of the modern world.

I keep mine in a svelte Waterfield Designs soft case that cleans off fingerprints when it goes in so that it’s smudge-free when I pull it out, revealing design details that I apparently have an unshakable affinity to seeing over and over: gorgeous translucent shoulder buttons; the big (but not too big) display; and the sturdy yet elegant build quality. Almost everything going on with the look and feel of the Vita is still serviceable today, even if it’s daringly tiny compared to the size of, say, the Nintendo Switch.

You’ve probably heard this a million times, but the Vita, announced in mid-2011, was Sony’s compete-with-everything device, unenviably poised to take on mobile phones and Nintendo’s 3DS with console-like controls and graphics as well as forward-thinking (though, ultimately ill-advised) features like 3G support, apps of its own, and a rear touchpad meant to be a playground for innovation in gameplay.

A PS Vita’s display showing that it’s connected via 3G to AT&T’s service in 2012
Yep, there was a first-gen version of the Vita that supported 3G via AT&T.

Ten years later, the Vita is very dead outside of a vibrant homebrew scene that I’m continuously impressed by. It only took a fraction of those 10 years to seal its fate, and it deserved it. Or rather, parts of Sony’s vision for the Vita did. Remember its godforsaken proprietary memory card that cost a fortune and its Micro USB port? Yeah, goodbye. But there’s plenty about the Vita that can be reimagined for 2022; I just like to pretend that the concept of a handheld isn’t so dead to Sony.

I have, um, specific desires.

A new Vita shouldn’t have a brand-new ecosystem for exclusive games and apps built up around it, nor does it need to deliver high-end performance. Really, I would just like a modernized Vita with USB-C charging and a lightweight OS that’s built to supplement Sony’s PlayStation Plus plans, with cloud streaming and all of that. Remove some of the frills of the hardware and ship it. Just give me a reason to stop obsessing over this dead gadget.

The PS Vita sitting on a table, nested between an Akira manga and several other books. Photography by Sam Byford / The Verge
Tell me a new Vita with USB-C, microSD, and Android wouldn’t be the hottest device of 2022.

What else do I want in a next-gen PS Vita? I’m so glad that you asked. Using the late 2013 Vita revision as my reference, I’d be willing to accept a slightly wider and taller handheld to accommodate more buttons (just to reflect what’s on the PS5’s DualSense controller). I really like this Vita’s thickness, which is about as thick as a deck of cards, though I’d be cool with it taking on a few extra millimeters to incorporate a proper set of L2 and R2 triggers. Otherwise, just leave the rest of the design alone — I still love it.

As for the OS, slap Android on it for all that I care. Keep the bubbly user interface, or just make it stock Android. The latter would make it more practical for me to use it for other forms of entertainment, and I’m sure a relatively midrange Snapdragon chipset could get the job done. You can take or leave the game cartridge slot, but a microSD card slot, a headphone jack, and an OLED screen would be nice. I mean, it’s gotta be modern, right? Even the debut Vita model had an OLED. Sony switched it to LCD in the second iteration.

An iPhone 12 Pro sitting inside of Backbone’s One controller that has a Sony PlayStation-like design. Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
Traces of Vita DNA exist in Backbone’s Sony-approved iPhone controller.

Holding the Vita in my hands makes me feel like a revised version would find a bigger audience today than in the early 2010s. Sony seems to agree, in a way, that handhelds are an unavoidable part of the business today because it plans to make its own phone games based on its popular franchises. I mean, Sony even partnered with Backbone, a third-party accessory maker, to make an officially licensed PlayStation controller that wraps around an iPhone. As for what Sony’s doing internally in terms of handheld hardware, it’s making niche gaming accessories for its niche Xperia phones.

The last five years in tech have supplied more handhelds than I (and apparently Sony, too) could have ever predicted. Several products have capitalized on the Switch’s dominance in their own way, including multiflavored Aya Neo consoles, the Steam Deck, the Analogue Pocket, and soon (if the rumors are true), Logitech’s own handheld. Some reimagining of the Vita seems like an obvious idea. It belongs in the here and now with all of the other portable consoles, even if Sony doesn’t see it that way.

Dutch town takes Twitter to court over unfounded satanic paedophile claims

Dutch town takes Twitter to court over unfounded satanic paedophile claims

Bodegraven-Reeuwijk has been plagued by a conspiracy theory and wants tweets spreading it removed

A small Dutch town took Twitter to court on Friday to demand the social media company take down all messages relating to a supposed ring of Satan-worshipping paedophiles alleged to have been active in the town in the 1980s.

Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, a town of about 35,000 inhabitants in the middle of the Netherlands, has been the focus of conspiracy theories on social media since 2020, when three men started spreading unfounded stories about the abuse and murder of children they said took place in the town in the 1980s.

Continue reading...

‘So many people tell me they wish they could get out!’ Can we escape the tyranny of WhatsApp groups?

‘So many people tell me they wish they could get out!’ Can we escape the tyranny of WhatsApp groups?

Group chats were a lifeline during lockdown – but for many, the constant messages have become an oppressive distraction. Leaving, however, is not so simple

As I write, I have 101 unread WhatsApp messages, 254 unread iPhone messages and 46,252 unread emails across three separate accounts. For me, Inbox Zero is a faraway goal, as unachievable as mastering the perfect cat’s-eye flick, or learning how to cook.

But it is the WhatsApp messages, specifically the WhatsApp group chats, that terrorise me the most. If I were a woman of courage, I would simply exit these chats as soon as I am added to them; but I feel the weight of social obligation, and so I remain.

Continue reading...

vendredi 16 septembre 2022

US scientists to test advanced, real-time algae sensor at water treatment plant

US scientists to test advanced, real-time algae sensor at water treatment plant As danger looms in bodies of water globally where toxic algae blooms, a small plastic storage tub in Toledo sealed to protect against splashes, spiders and bird stool may contain a game-changing technology in the fight against the growing environmental problem.

Biden talks up electric vehicle revolution – but is America ready to give up gas?

Biden talks up electric vehicle revolution – but is America ready to give up gas?

President appears at Detroit auto show, where EVs are this year’s stars – but the road to electrification promises to be a bumpy one

Fresh off signing legislation aimed at propelling the nation’s electric vehicle (EV) transition, Joe Biden was in Detroit last week to reaffirm his support for electrification ahead of the opening of the US’s largest annual car show.

“The great American road trip is going to be fully electrified, whether you’re driving along the coast, or on I-75 here in Michigan,” he declared as the first North American International Auto Show since 2019 prepared to open its doors.

Continue reading...

Splatoon 3 review – Nintendo’s new squid game is ink-redible fun

Splatoon 3 review – Nintendo’s new squid game is ink-redible fun

Nintendo Switch; Nintendo
Never mind the spectacularly colourful paint battles, this is quietly one of the best and most inventive action-puzzle games around

Nintendo’s offbeat hit Splatoon has been around since 2015, but the idea is still so charmingly bizarre that it feels fresh: human-cephalopod hybrids splatter each other and their surroundings with colourful paint on ink-splashed battlefields. You transform back and forth between human and squid (or octopus), swimming through ink, emerging to chuck paint out of a bucket or shoot it from a squirt-gun or spread it with a roller, claiming territory with your own team’s colour. The arenas are city alleyways, abandoned factories, warehouses and urban landscapes – they have the feel of real-life underground skate spots, derelict yet cool.

Splatoon 3 does not change much about this premise, but it’s irresistibly stylish and gives you absolutely loads to do, from those chaotic trademark team battles to co-operative sorties on to industrial islands where you shoot at goggle-eyed fish to steal their shiny golden eggs. The more you play, the more you want to play, as new modes and weapons open up. A triple bow with exploding paint arrows, a transforming sword, an umbrella … they all beg to be toyed with, and they’re all gently hilarious.

Splatoon 3 is out now; £49.99

Continue reading...

Uber apparently hacked by teen, employees thought it was a joke

Uber apparently hacked by teen, employees thought it was a joke
The Uber logo against a dark background.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber says it’s investigating a “cybersecurity incident” amidst reports that the company’s internal systems have been breached. The alleged hacker, who claims to be an 18-year old, says they have administrator access to company tools including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. The New York Times reports that the ride-hailing business has taken multiple internal systems, including Slack, offline while it investigates the breach.

When contacted for comment by The Verge, a spokesperson for the company declined to answer additional questions, and pointed to its statement on Twitter. “We are currently responding to a cybersecurity incident. We are in touch with law enforcement and will post additional updates here as they become available,” the statement reads.

The hacker appears to have made themselves known to Uber’s employees by posting a message on the company’s internal Slack system. “I announce I am a hacker and Uber has suffered a data breach,” screenshots of the message circulating on Twitter read. The claimed hacker then listed confidential company information they said they’d accessed, and posted a hashtag saying that Uber underpays its drivers.

The Slack message from the alleged hacker was so brazen that many Uber employees appear to have initially thought it was a joke, the Washington Post reports. Employee responses to the post included lighthearted emoji like sirens and popcorn, as well as the “it’s happening” GIF. One unnamed Uber employee told Yuga Labs security engineer Sam Curry that staff were interacting with the hacker thinking they were playing a joke.

“Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I think IT would appreciate less memes while they handle the breach,” one employee’s response read, according to The Post.

The hacker claimed to the NYT to be 18 years old, and told The Post that they breached Uber for fun and is considering leaking the company’s source code. In a conversation with cybersecurity researcher Corben Leo, they also claimed to have gained access to Uber’s systems through login credentials obtained from an employee via social engineering, which allowed them to access an internal company VPN. From there, they found PowerShell scripts on Uber’s intranet containing access management credentials that allowed them to allegedly breach Uber’s AWS and G Suite accounts.

“This is a total compromise, from what it looks like,” Curry told the NYT. “It seems like maybe they’re this kid who got into Uber and doesn’t know what to do with it, and is having the time of his life.”

As Driverless Cars Falter, Are ‘Driver Assistance’ Systems in Closer Reach?

As Driverless Cars Falter, Are ‘Driver Assistance’ Systems in Closer Reach? With investigations and lawsuits over accidents adding skepticism toward fully driverless technology, car companies are betting on systems that take some, but not all, control.

WiZ’s smart lights can now be motion sensors

WiZ’s smart lights can now be motion sensors
Woman and cat walking past a light.
SpaceSense will turn WiZ light bulbs into motion sensors. | Image: Signify

Motion-triggered smart lighting is pretty magical. Figuring out how to set up little white motion sensors all over your house to make it work is not. With its new SpaceSense feature, Signify may have come up with the perfect solution: let the light bulbs do the work.

SpaceSense is a software feature coming to Signify’s Wi-Fi smart lighting line WiZ later this month. It uses Wi-Fi sensing technology that detects changes in Wi-Fi signal strength caused by movement to turn lights on when someone walks into a room and off when motion stops. Wi-Fi sensing is already being used in some routers and security systems, and it was only a matter of time until a lighting company figured out how to apply it to their tech.

With WiZ, the sensing technology is embedded directly in the light bulb; you only need two or more WiZ bulbs in a room to get started. Wiz has a wide range of Wi-Fi-powered smart light bulbs starting at $11, so the barrier to entry is low. The company also recently released several new products, including a floor lamp and portable lamp as well as new color-changing outdoor string lights that are coming next month.

Living room with soft lighting. Image: Signify
WiZ has a wide range of smart light bulbs and light fixtures that work over Wi-Fi and don’t require a hub. You need two in a room to use SpaceSense.

All WiZ products work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri Shortcuts, IFTTT, and SmartThings, and the company has promised it will support the new smart home standard Matter.

SpaceSense will be set up and controlled using the new WiZ V2 app, which launches this month. The app also allows a user to adjust the sensitivity of the motion detection and set a delay to keep lights on for a set period of time, even if no motion is detected.

The technology is opt-in and doesn’t detect or record a person's exact location or recognize faces. WiZ says all the detection data is processed locally on the light bulb.

According to WiZ, SpaceSense will work on most WiZ-branded products released since September 2021. It's working on compatibility with older models. Those brands include WiZ lights, Philips Smart LED lights, and any brand with the Connected by WiZ logo. It won’t work with Signify’s Philips Hue lighting products, as Hue uses Zigbee, not Wi-Fi.

jeudi 15 septembre 2022

YouTube Opens More Pathways for Creators to Make Money on the Platform

YouTube Opens More Pathways for Creators to Make Money on the Platform The video platform will let more creators earn payments and place ads in Shorts, its TikTok competitor, according to audio from an internal meeting.

Uber investigating computer network breach – report

Uber investigating computer network breach – report

A hacker apparently compromised an employee’s Slack messaging app and was able to gain access to other internal company systems

Uber said on Thursday it is responding to a cybersecurity incident, after the New York Times reported that a hack had breached the company’s network and forced it to take several internal communications and engineering systems offline.

A hacker compromised an employee’s workplace messaging Slack app and then used it to send a message to Uber employees announcing that it had suffered a data breach, the Times reported citing an Uber spokesperson.

Continue reading...

Uber Investigating Breach of Its Computer Systems

Uber Investigating Breach of Its Computer Systems The company said on Thursday that it was looking into the scope of the apparent hack.

Crypto’s Long-Awaited ‘Merge’ Reaches the Finish Line

Crypto’s Long-Awaited ‘Merge’ Reaches the Finish Line Ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrency platform, completed its much-anticipated switch to a more energy-efficient infrastructure.

mercredi 14 septembre 2022

Scientists try to teach robot to laugh at the right time

Scientists try to teach robot to laugh at the right time

Research team hopes system could improve natural conversations between humans and AI systems

Laughter comes in many forms, from a polite chuckle to a contagious howl of mirth. Scientists are now developing an AI system that aims to recreate these nuances of humour by laughing in the right way at the right time.

The team behind the laughing robot, which is called Erica, say that the system could improve natural conversations between people and AI systems.

Continue reading...

EA’s CEO is following the money to more games with player-created content

EA’s CEO is following the money to more games with player-created content
A skateboarder is doing a trick in the air in this screenshot from Skate. The camera is low to the ground and the photo looks like it is taken with a fish eye lens.
The new Skate is expected to offer lots of ways to be creative. | Image: EA

EA sees a big opportunity in games that let players create their own content, CEO Andrew Wilson said at a Goldman Sachs conference on Tuesday, as reported by Axios. Games like Minecraft and Roblox with extensive player creation tools have become huge hits with enduring popularity, and it sounds like EA wants to find more ways to let players create content in its own titles.

He highlighted a few EA franchises he feels have notable creative aspects already, like The Sims (which will soon be free to play), FIFA, and Battlefield, and talked about how the upcoming live service Skate title will offer many opportunities for player creation.

“Just like the real world, where skateboarding leans into fashion and music and automotive and building and brands, we think that franchise can do that as well,” Wilson said. “So you’ll see us lean more into really engaging and investing in creation.” The Skate team has already teased some of the tools they’re working on, such as in-game “CollaboZones” that can be built collaboratively and appear in others players’ worlds in real time.

Wilson expects that down the line, “there will be the creation of new worlds that sit right next to the worlds that we create, and people will move frictionlessly between those two things,” he said. This sounds somewhat similar to what you can see in Fortnite today — expansive player-made worlds are served up right next to Epic’s own modes in the game’s discovery tools.

Wilson indicated that there’s a significant business opportunity in encouraging players to create content. The correlation of “minutes engaged” (aka, how long somebody might be playing a game) to money spent is almost one to one, he said, so whether players or EA creates the content, there’s “an extraordinary opportunity for [EA].”

While EA is going to invest in gaming creation tools, Wilson discussed how the company doesn’t plan to pour money into gaming-adjacent entertainment opportunities like film, like some other companies have. “I’m not going to go out and buy a movie studio just because I think there will be a convergence between linear and interactive,” he said. “I think there are different ways we can do that.”

And despite the popularity of EA’s sports franchises, he’s not looking at expensive sports broadcast rights, either. “I’m not going to go out and spend billions of dollars on linear broadcast sports rights, because I think there’s a way we can deliver and fulfill the needs and motivations of our sports fans inside of our ecosystem in a far more deliberate way that is far more aligned with how they want to consume that content.”

He also addressed the state of the Battlefield franchise, which is trying to recover from the widely-criticized launch of Battlefield 2042 last year, and acknowledged that EA didn’t live up to expectations. “I don’t think we delivered in the last two iterations in the way that we should have,” he said. “There’s a lot of work we’ve got to do there.” EA has “an extraordinary creative team involved in Battlefield now,” he says, and I do think there’s a good chance it’s now on the right path. Vince Zampella, who heads up Apex Legends and Titanfall developer Respawn, is now in charge of the franchise, and there are new Battlefield experiences in the works like a new “narrative campaign” and a mobile game.

Wilson believes Battlefield could fill any potential vacuum left by Call of Duty following Microsoft’s pending Activision acquisition. “In a world where there may be questions over the future of Call of Duty and what platform that might be on or might not be on, being platform agnostic and completely cross platform with Battlefield is a tremendous opportunity,” Wilson said.

And while Wilson is on guard for disruption from tech giants that have stepped into gaming (some more successfully than others), he believes EA will endure. “I tell our teams: Never underestimate these giant companies that have innovative DNA, monopolistic tendencies, and deep pockets,” he said. “We always have to ask ourselves what happens if they get it right. But as of today, we have this very, very unique and special opportunity to deliver the future of entertainment.”

Tesla is being sued over Autopilot and Elon Musk’s Full Self-Driving predictions

Tesla is being sued over Autopilot and Elon Musk’s Full Self-Driving predictions
Illustration depicting multiple red Tesla sedans on a black background.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A lawsuit filed in San Francisco by a Tesla owner claims the automaker and its CEO / Technoking Elon Musk are “deceptively and misleadingly” marketing the Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” advanced driver assistance features that are available as paid software add-ons (via Automotive News).

The filing claims Tesla and Musk “deceived and misled consumers regarding the current abilities of its ADAS [advanced driver-assistance system] technology and by representing that it was perpetually on the cusp of perfecting that technology and finally fulfilling its promise of producing a fully self-driving car,” and that “contrary to Tesla’s repeated promises that it would have a fully self-driving car within months or a year, Tesla has never been remotely close to achieving that goal.”

The plaintiff, Briggs Matsko, says he spent $5,000 for the package in 2018, like many Tesla drivers who’ve paid thousands of dollars for Enhanced Autopilot. That was sold as a precursor to “Full Self-Driving” tech, a now $15,000 software add-on package that still isn’t ready to ship. Matsko is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit, while the company is already facing another class-action lawsuit targeting “phantom braking incidents” that have plagued the adaptive cruise control features on Teslas for years.

The lawsuit calls out Tesla’s features terminology, including the name “Autopilot,” as well as Elon Musk’s public statements and tweets regarding the perpetually unfinished Full Self-Driving system. It specifically mentions Musk’s claim that an autonomous US cross-country trip will be performed by 2018, and his 2019 claims about putting 1 million robotaxis on the road, saying, “A year from now, we’ll have over a million cars with full self-driving, software... everything.”

The road trip was eventually put on hold indefinitely, with Musk admitting that it would need a specialized route to work, and saying he preferred to have the Autopilot team focus on safety features. The robotaxis have not become a reality.

As for Full Self-Driving, the lawsuit backs its claims of fraud using this 2016 video released by Tesla — and still featured on its website — seemingly demonstrating a Model X leaving a garage, driving through a city, dropping off the “driver,” and then automatically finding a parallel parking spot to wedge itself into. Reportedly, former Tesla engineers that were there for the video’s production claimed the car used a pre-charted and 3D mapped route — technology that is not built into any production Tesla.

The lawsuit also makes the case that not only are Full Self-Driving and Autopilot misrepresented, but they’re also dangerous. It points to incidents like the 2018 crash where a Model X on Autopilot crashed into a concrete barrier in California, killing the driver, or another one where a Tesla on Autopilot crashed into the back of a stationary fire truck, prompting a federal investigation.

Matsko’s lawsuit says he’s looking for “injunctive relief prohibiting Tesla from continuing its deceptive and misleading marketing of its ADAS technology, restitution of the money Plaintiff and Class members paid for technology that Tesla promised but never delivered, and all available damages including punitive damages to punish Tesla for years of using deceptive and misleading marketing to eventually establish itself as a dominant player in the electric vehicle market.”

Android and iOS take big steps toward launching Matter smart home compatibility

Android and iOS take big steps toward launching Matter smart home compatibility
The Matter logo
Matter is a new smart home interoperability standard both Apple and Google helped create. | Image: CSA

It’s getting closer. With the drop of the iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 developer betas today, we have confirmation that “Matter Accessories” are on their way to Apple iPhones and iPads. Plus, Google’s Google Home Developer Console, which helps developers add Matter devices to its smart home platform, also went live today.

Matter is a new smart home connectivity standard that promises to unify all your connected devices, making it easier for your smart thermostat to talk to your connected door lock and for you to talk to either one using any voice assistant or smart home app you choose. At WWDC this year, Apple announced that iOS 16 would support Matter, and now we are seeing the first implementations.

A screenshot of the Settings page on an Apple iPad running iPadOS 16.1 developer beta.
A screenshot of the Settings page on an Apple iPad running iPadOS 16.1 developer beta.

A new option menu has appeared in Settings > General on both iPads and iPhones running the beta. Spotted by Aaron Zollo, it lists “Matter Accessories” and, when you tap it, takes you to a list of Matter accessories that have been added to “a connected service.”

Only there are no Matter-compatible accessories yet, as the Matter standard hasn’t been finalized. But this is a sure sign that developers and manufacturers are testing prerelease software ahead of the anticipated launch of Matter this fall.

We saw some beta Matter devices in action at the IFA tech conference earlier this month. Eve Systems showed off its smart plug being controlled by Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings.

That demo highlighted one of Matter’s core features — multi-admin control — which is hinted at in the iOS and iPadOS betas. This allows devices to have multiple masters, so you can ask Siri to turn down your Nest thermostat or have a Google Nest Hub control your Amazon smart plug.

Apple has been involved with Matter since it first began as one of its founding members, along with Google, Samsung, and Amazon. All three smartphone manufacturers have publicly stated that their smartphone and tablet devices will be Matter controllers, meaning they can onboard Matter devices to your smart home network.

Some screenshots that also surfaced today indicate Google is well on its way to adding a Matter Accessories section to its operating system. Android Police reports a Matter Devices & Services section has appeared in the Google account settings for some users, with a prompt to connect a new Matter device and the option to automatically show a notification when Matter devices are nearby. This hints at another key feature of Matter: a streamlined, more unified setup for smart home devices.

All this activity makes it seem increasingly likely that Matter will hit its goal of a fall launch, despite multiple previous delays.

Here come high-powered USB-C chargers that can fully power a 16-inch MacBook Pro

Here come high-powered USB-C chargers that can fully power a 16-inch MacBook Pro
Floating in white space is a white colored charge brick, almost square in shape, that has the word Hyper printed on the side. There's a USB-C port labeled 140W, another under it with 100W, and a final full USB-A port with a 30W label.
The HyperJuice 140W is one of the first USB PD 3.1 chargers to become available. | Image: Hyper

When Apple released the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros last year, the 16-inch models came with a new kind of USB-C charger — one that can deliver up to 140W of power to the MagSafe 3 port. That’s because Apple’s biggest MacBook Pro charger supports the latest USB Power Delivery specification: USB PD 3.1, which goes beyond the previous 100W limitation for a single USB-C port.

The USB Promoter Group published the latest specification of Power Delivery in May of last year, but accessory manufacturers are only now delivering products that support it. And it’s about time because 16-inch MacBook Pro users who swear by fast charging have been stuck with the included non-travel-friendly brick that only has one USB-C port. Now you can get ones with multiple ports, giving you the flexibility to share all that power with a phone, tablet, or even another laptop along with the MacBook Pro.

We haven’t tested these yet, but some USB PD 3.1 multiport charger options include the HyperJuice 140W for $129.99 and the Ugreen Nexode 140W for $149.99. Both of these chargers have two USB-C ports and one USB-A port for more flexibility but only support the max 140W out of one specific port and up to 100W out of the second one, individually. For the USB-A ports, the Nexode can do up to 22.5W, while the Hyper does 30W.

 Image: Ugreen
Ugreen claims its Nexode 140W can fast charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro from 0 to 56 percent in 30 minutes.

The HyperJuice and the Nexode seem like similar products otherwise (even though the Nexode is $20 more), but they actually behave differently when plugging more devices in. For instance, if you plug in two laptops to the HyperJuice, it can deliver up to 100W to the first device but only 20W to the second one. The Nexode, however, will split the power equally — giving each laptop up to 65W of power.

When occupying all three ports, the HyperJuice will still push 100W out of the first port, but then the second USB-C and the USB-A port will now share the same small 20W pool. That’s okay if your second and third devices are lower-power tablets, phones, or accessories, but if you’re like me and use an iPhone MagSafe charging puck and an old Apple Watch charger, then my iPhone might not be able to fast charge wirelessly.

Ugreen’s charger splits the joules differently in three ways: 65W to the high-powered USB-C, 45W to the second, and up to 22.5W out of the USB-A port. This is certainly a more versatile split, but if your main laptop is more power-hungry, then the HyperJuice option might make more sense.

 Image: Anker
The Anker 717 also has the USB PD 3.1 Spec for 140W, but only has one port.

Anker also makes a 140W USB PD 3.1 charger, but like Apple’s, it only has one USB-C port to offer. It’s also the same cost as buying the official one from an Apple store at $100, but the Anker 717 is at least a bit more compact, even though it doesn’t use the company’s slightly more efficient GaNPrime tech. There’s also Anker’s PowerCore 24K portable battery bank that can squeeze up to 140W of power out of its cells, though it can’t plug into a wall and pull AC power on its own.

This is just the beginning of a new era of compact multiport chargers. They will keep getting smaller and more powerful — but only if we get more devices that demand the power. The 2.1 revision of the USB-C PD 3.1 spec (yes, it’s quite confusing) is capable of up to 240W of power, so perhaps power-hungry gaming laptops are the next devices to push that envelope.

Shrunken Mac Minis and a new iPad Mini might come in November

Shrunken Mac Minis and a new iPad Mini might come in November The old Mac Mini design may finally be on its way out after more than a decad...