Hasta La Gadget!

Looking to churn out the best document and photo quality from your home or company office? We’re rounding up the best printers of 2022.

Sony has launched an interesting product called Mocopi, consisting of six motion-tracking bands worn on your hands, feet, back and head, with a price of 49,500 yen (about $358). The aim is to let you track your body to create videos or operate avatars in real time with metaverse apps like VRChat. It even offers an SDK that lets you import motion data into 3D animation apps. 

Apparently a play on the term “mocap,” (motion capture) Mocopi’s six color-coded, lightweight motion sensors use “proprietary technology and a smartphone” with a dedicated app, according to Sony. “Normally, video production using motion capture requires dedicated equipment and operators,” Sony wrote. “By utilizing our proprietary algorithm, ‘Mocopi’ realizes highly accurate motion measurement with a small number of sensors, freeing VTubers [virtual YouTubers] and creators involved in movie and animation production from time and place constraints.”

On December 15th, Sony will provide a software development kit (SDK) that links the motion capture data with metaverse services, along with the real-time development platform Unity and Autodesk’s animation/mocap app MotionBuilder. “This SDK expands the use of motion data for activities such as full-body tracking, thereby facilitating the development of new services in areas such as the metaverse and fitness.”

In a how-to video (below), Sony shows how you can pair the sensors with the app, strap them to your body and calibrate them. From there, you can start dancing or do other movements and see the in-app avatars ape your actions. A second video showcasing some avatar animations (above) looks good, but does reveal typical motion capture issues like jitter and foot sliding. 

It’s an ambitious product aimed at not only people interested in the metaverse, but animation professionals and filmmakers as well. Sony notes that you can use existing VRM avatars and export recorded videos in the MP4 format, provided you have a device with iOS 15.7.1 or Android 11. Reservations are set to start in mid-December 2022 and it will go on sale in late January 2023, but there’s no word yet on North American availability. 

Tools like DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, which generate images based on a few lines of text, briefly set social media ablaze this year. But Amazon’s entry into the AI art world is a bit different. Create with Alexa lets children guide the creation of animated stories using a few kid-friendly prompts.

Since Create with Alexa is visual storytelling, it’s only available on Echo Show devices, not the company’s audio-only speakers. Amazon says it works whether the device is in Amazon Kids mode or not.

To create a new story, your child would begin by speaking, “Alexa, make a story,” and then following several prompts. The AI then generates an illustrated five-to-ten-line narrative — including animations, sound effects and music — built around their answers.

Amazon’s generative AI has a narrow scope at launch, with only three themes available: “space exploration”, “underwater” and “enchanted forest.” After picking one, children choose the story’s hero from options like “an astronaut named Speedy” or “an alien named Fuzzy.” Your child can then pick a color scheme and a tonal description like silly, happy or mysterious. Afterwards, they can save their stories to watch again later or share them with friends and family.

Amazon

This isn’t a case of Alexa splicing together ready-made scenes. Amazon says no two AI-created stories will be the same, even if your child repeats the process with identical prompts

According to Amazon, Create With Alexa includes safeguards to ensure the feature only produces kid-friendly content. “From the get-go, we used carefully curated data sources to train AI models,” Eshan Bhatnagar, head of product for Alexa AI, said in a blog post today. “We have multiple guardrails such as content filtering and curated prompts to ensure this experience is both delightful and safe.” Additionally, Create with Alexa requires parents to enable the feature before their kids can use it.

Create With Alexa arrives in an atmosphere of uncertainty surrounding Amazon’s voice assistant. Earlier this month, the retail giant confirmed it had begun laying off employees, reportedly slashing around 10,000 jobs. Its Devices & Services division, which handles Echo Show and Alexa, reportedly bore the brunt of it. In October, Amazon also killed off Glow, its kid-focused video-calling device.

Create with Alexa is available on Echo Show devices starting today in the US. However, it’s only available in English and the United States at launch.

Logitech’s Litra Glow has been a big success since it launched early this year, giving streamers an easy way to create soft and flattering illumination for their faces. It’s already quite affordable at $60, but now it has dropped back to an all-time low price of $50 on Amazon.

Buy Logitech Litra Glow at Amazon – $50

The Litra Glow promises to be safe on the eyes for all-day streaming, while providing a “natural, radiant look across skin tones.” You also get cinematic color accuracy via Logitech’s TrueSoft technology, regardless of skin tone. It’s ready to use out of the box thanks to the five presets with different brightness levels and color temperatures, or you can create custom options using the G HUB software. As a bonus, any presets you create can be assigned to the G Keys on a Logitech G keyboard or mouse. 

It’s now on sale for $50, matching its all-time low price. You can find other soft- and ring-style lights from Elgato and others, but most from any recognizable name brand are considerably more expensive. The Litra Glow is already a great buy with Logitech’s promised color accuracy, and now Amazon’s discount makes it even more affordable.

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Elon Musk claims that Apple has “threatened to withhold” Twitter from its app store. According to Musk, the company “won’t tell us why” it has issues with the social network’s app. In subsequent tweets, he railed against Apple’s 30 percent “tax” on in-app purchases and claimed the App Store owner has “censored” other developers. He also said Apple “has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.” Apple hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment. Musk also hasn’t specified if the company is holding updates to the service or threatening to remove the app from its store altogether.

Apple has strict, if often unevenly enforced, rules that govern the content in apps in its store. You might remember Parler, a “free speech” rival to Twitter, which was removed from the App Store for its lax content moderation rules. The app returned after it rolled out an AI-based moderation system. ​​

– Mat Smith

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WhatsApp’s latest feature is sending messages to yourself

Message Yourself lets you send notes, reminders and shopping lists.

As confirmed by TechCrunch, a new feature called Message Yourself is now being rolled out globally to iOS and Android users in the next few weeks. Once you get the update, you’ll be able to see yourself at the top of the contacts list when creating new messages. Once you click on that, you’ll be able to send yourself notes and reminders. Until now, you could only message yourself by creating a group with just you as a member or by using the apps click to chat feature. Or open your notes app.

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Twitter data leak exposes over 5.4 million accounts

The dump includes private phone numbers and email addresses.

Earlier this year, Twitter confirmed an API vulnerability allowed the theft of 5.4 million users’ private user data, but the company said it had “no evidence” it was exploited. Now, all those accounts are exposed on a hacker forum. An additional 1.4 million Twitter profiles for suspended users were reportedly shared privately, and an even larger data dump with the data of “tens of millions” of other users may have come from the same vulnerability. If you’re thinking about using two-factor authentication, now would be a good time.

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Apple Watch Ultra’s powerful diving tools arrive with the Oceanic+ app

The smartwatch is now more useful for recreational divers.

Apple

Hush Outdoors and Apple have released Oceanic+, effectively giving Ultra owners a recreation-oriented dive computer. The software tracks fundamentals like depth, no-decompression time (a figure used to set duration limits for given depths) and water temperature. The app works without the touchscreen, and you can set compass headings using the action button. Developers have even cranked up the haptic feedback, so you can feel it through a wetsuit.

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Google sued by FTC and seven states over ‘deceptive’ Pixel 4 ads

Influencers who never used the phone were paid to endorse it.

Engadget

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states have sued Google and iHeartMedia for running allegedly “deceptive” Pixel 4 ads. Promo ads aired between 2019 and 2020 featured influencers extolling the virtues of phones they reportedly didn’t own — Google didn’t even supply Pixels before most of the ads were recorded. The FTC wants to bar Google and iHeartMedia from making any future misleading claims about ownership.

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