The ocean floor is riddled with ungodly species that seem to have been created out of our worst collective nightmares. There are demonic-looking fishes that glow and sponges (that do not look like SpongeBob) that devour the ancient remains of other animals. But organisms along the ocean floor are biological carbon…
Peloton today launched Lanebreak, a new series of workouts that mimic a racing game for its connected stationary bike. Riders get behind a virtual wheel, race down a multi-lane highway and gain points for higher levels of output and resistance. The fitness company briefly beta tested Lanebreak last July, and is now launching the new mode as a software update to all Peloton bikes in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia.
Unlike the majority of other Peloton workouts, there’s no instructor on Lanebreak offering encouragement throughout the ride. Instead, riders can choose from a selection of different pop-centric playlists to listen to in the background, featuring the likes of David Guetta, David Bowie, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran.
For Peloton riders who are bored with the usual slate of instructor-led classes, Lanebreak adds a change of pace. It’s also the first new program that the fitness company has added to their fitness library in a while, following a major expansion in 2020 that included barre, yoga, pilates and strength training classes.
The fitness company, once a darling of the pandemic, has now run into financial woes due to a decline in demand. Earlier this month, Peloton replaced its CEO and laid-off roughly 20 percent of its workforce in an effort to streamline its expenses. But despite its struggles on Wall Street, Peloton’s incredibly loyal customer base has a 96% one-year retention rate. The bikes are a large upfront investment, and few Peloton riders want the added hassle of reselling and moving their $1,495 bike. While it’s unlikely that Lanebreak will recruit new Peloton riders, it’ll add some variety to a fitness library that, for some seasoned riders, has become stale.
“Her story is an example of how Brown and Black women have historically been marginalized and exotified in society and popular culture,” the film’s director said.
It’s been less than a month since the New York Times bought Wordle, but it’s wasting no time in ruining everyone’s favorite word game in all the shitty ways you’d expect from a billion-dollar behemoth. And—you guessed it—that means your little daily puzzles are being loaded with ad trackers now, too.
Bang & Olufsen revealed a new pair of Beoplay Portal headphones that remove the first model’s Xbox support and add PS5 support, retaining the original price.
Loki season two, the first second season in Marvel Studios history, is getting ready to go and its primary directors are now in place. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, whose latest feature Somewhere in the Dirt recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, will “co-direct a majority of the episodes” according to a …
Former Democratic presidential hopeful and disgraced New York mayoral candidate has a new dream job: web3 lobbyist.
YouTube is eyeing new measures to tackle misinformation on its platform. Among the changes being considered, according to Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan, are updates that would effectively “break” sharing features for videos with “borderline content.”
The change would be a major shift for the platform, though it’s not clear if the company will actually take such a step. Mohan described the possibility in a lengthy blog post outlining the company’s approach to preventing misinformation from going viral. In the post, he noted that so-called borderline content — “videos that don’t quite cross the line of our policies for removal but that we don’t necessarily want to recommend to people” — can be particularly challenging to deal with.
That’s because YouTube aims to remove these videos from its recommendations, but they can still spread widely when shared on other platforms. “One possible way to address this is to disable the share button or break the link on videos that we’re already limiting in recommendations,” he wrote. “That effectively means you couldn’t embed or link to a borderline video on another site.”
Mohan added that the company was still wrestling with whether or not it should take this more aggressive approach. “We grapple with whether preventing shares may go too far in restricting a viewer’s freedoms.” He said an alternative approach could be adding “an interstitial that appears before a viewer can watch a borderline embedded or linked video, letting them know the content may contain misinformation.”
If YouTube were to prevent sharing of some videos, it would be a dramatic step for the platform, which has repeatedly cited statistics claiming that less than 1 percent of views on borderline content comes from recommendations. But critics have pointed out that this doesn’t fully address the issue, and fact checkers and misinformation researchers have cited YouTube as a major vector of misinformation. Last month, a group of 80 fact checking organizations signed an open letter to the video platform urging it to do more to stop harmful misinformation and disinformation.
The YouTube exec hinted at other changes to come as well. He said the company is also considering adding “additional types of labels to search results” when there’s a developing situation and authoritative information may not be available. The company is also looking to beef up its partnerships with “with experts and non-governmental organizations around the world” and invest in technology to detect “hyperlocal misinformation, with capability to support local languages.”
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