Mar 22
What goes around comes back around, and it seems that the era of wired earbuds has come back. Here are 10 wired earbuds that are actually worth the money.
Mar 22
I like my AI like I like my foreign cheese varieties, incredibly weird and full of holes, the kind that leaves most definitions of “good” up to individual taste. So color me surprised as I explored the next frontier of public AI models, and found one of the strangest experiences I had since the bizarre AI-generated …
Mar 22
WhatsApp has announced two new features for group chats and communities. The first is a privacy update, allowing admins to decide whether a person can get access to the group or not. Previously, anyone could join using an invite link provided by any member. Typically, banners within the chat indicating a new person has entered the group are small and can easily disappear from view after a few messages. This shift can ensure conversations and information is shared with those who it’s intended to be.
The other update focuses on connecting with other people in your Communities. Last year, WhatsApp created Communities to allow multiple groups to exist under one umbrella. Now, the messaging platform is making it easier to find out which groups you have in common. The group names will appear when you search under a specific contact’s name.
This announcement comes on the heels of a few new WhatsApp updates. The most recent one allows users to schedule when they will leave a WhatsApp group chat. This feature is still in beta testing, but would mean a big clear out of your conversation history. Other recent additions include picture-in-picture support for iOS video calls and voice notes as status updates.
Thee two new features should be available worldwide in the next few weeks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-group-admins-can-approve-who-joins-communities-115003246.html?src=rss
Mar 22
Windows support is coming to Nreal Air AR glasses. The company announced Nebula for Windows, which lets you view your PC on the virtual equivalent of an ultra-wide monitor.
Nreal says gaming is the top use for its glasses, which connect to an external device to show content on a private virtual screen. The company cites a recent survey showing that 68 percent of Nreal Air owners use the glasses for gaming, making Windows support a top priority.
The company says Windows users will enjoy a virtual curved gaming monitor with a 21:9 aspect ratio. Nreal suggests the setup is particularly ideal for fans of cockpit games where a wide field of view is advantageous. In addition, Nebula for Windows will support three degrees of freedom (3-DoF), meaning it follows your head movements and rotations but not leaning or moving through space.
Nreal
Nreal hasn’t yet announced an exact release date, but it will show off the Windows support at GDC 2023 in San Francisco this week. It will also showcase “next-gen casual AR games for mobile” there as the company looks to spark more Android gaming development for the popular wearable.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nreal-air-ar-glasses-will-soon-support-windows-120041674.html?src=rss
Mar 22
The former president has been privately musing to associates about how to play being paraded by cops in front of cameras, according to the report.
Mar 22
Ubisoft's new 'Ghostwriter' AI tool can automatically generate video game dialogue
Posted in: Today's ChiliA good open world game is filled with little details that add to a player’s sense of immersion. One of the key elements is the presence of background chatter. Each piece of dialog you hear is known as a “bark” and must be individually written by the game’s creators — a time consuming, detailed task. Ubisoft, maker of popular open world gaming series like Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs, hopes to shorten this process with Ghostwriter, a machine learning tool that generates first drafts of barks.
To use Ghostwriter, narrative writers input the character and type of interaction they are looking to create. The tool then produces variations, each with two slightly different options, for writers to review. As the writers make edits to the drafts, Ghostwriter updates, ideally producing more tailored options moving forward.
The idea here is to save game writers time to focus on the big stuff. “Ghostwriter was created hand-in-hand with narrative teams to help them complete a repetitive task more quickly and effectively, giving them more time and freedom to work on games’ narrative, characters, and cutscenes,” Ubisoft states in a video release.
Ubisoft touts Ghostwriter as an “AI” tool — the big thing at the moment with seemingly every company, from Google to Microsoft, hopping onboard the AI train.
Like similar tools, though, the question is how to get people — namely staff — to actually use it. According to Ben Swanson, the R&D scientist at Ubisoft who created Ghostwriter, the biggest challenge now is integrating the tool into production. To better facilitate this, the production team created Ernestine, a back-end tool that facilitates anyone to create new machine learning models in Ghostwriter.
If Ghostwriter proves effective, writers should be able to spend their time and energy building more detailed and engaging gaming worlds to explore.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ubisofts-ghostwriter-ai-tool–automatically-generate-video-game-dialogue-103510366.html?src=rss
Mar 22
Google Bard is the company’s answer to ChatGPT: an AI chatbot using LaMDA, the company’s in-development language model. We’ve been testing it, and what’s immediately clear are all the company’s warnings, whether it’s the experiment label or the regular reminders that Bard “will not always get it right.” Even the example entries, when you boot up Bard, include what the chatbot can’t do.
The big difference between Google and Bing’s integration is the alternative responses that Bard throws up alongside the conversation. You can click the dropdown arrow next to “View other drafts” at the top left of each chat bubble to see some other suggestions. Unlike Bing, Google’s chatbot doesn’t always cite its sources, which I think could be a major point as these chatbots creep into our daily internet lives. They’re still prone to mistakes, and I want to know where these bots get their answers from. Also, be careful what you’re searching for. Google notes these early rounds of testing will inform Bard’s direction, so we’d advise not using private information. Another reason to be cautious? A bug in ChatGPT accidentally revealed user chat histories yesterday.
The rollout of Bard seems to be happening pretty quickly, so if you’re in the US or the UK, you should get access a few hours after applying.
– Mat Smith
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Oppo’s Find X6 Pro packs a 1-inch sensor and a periscopic camera
For now, it’s only coming to China.
Photo by Richard Lai / Engadget
Oppo’s made another flagship phone, and it’s the largest external redesign since 2021’s Find X3 Pro, with the three rear cameras – all with a 50-megapixel resolution plus optical stabilization – in a large circular island. The glass-covered upper part houses the main camera, the ultra-wide camera, the LED flash and Hasselblad’s logo, while the lower part features the periscopic camera with 3x optical zoom (65mm equivalent) or 6x “in-sensor” zoom – a fancy new way of saying it crops the image. Along with the barrage of sensors, Oppo has stuck to its strengths, featuring 100W SuperVOOC fast-charging, which the company claims can fully charge the phone in a mere 28 minutes. It’s bonkers.
NVIDIA’s big AI reveal is tools to build more AI
With DGX Cloud, more companies can build their own.
NVIDIA’s AI push finally seems to be leading somewhere. The company’s GTC (GPU Technology Conference) has always been a platform to promote its hardware for the AI world. Now it’s practically a celebration of how well-positioned NVIDIA is to take advantage of this moment. Supercomputers are expensive, so its new DGX Cloud service offers an online way to tap into the power of its AI supercomputers. Starting at a mere $36,999 a month for a single node, it’s meant to be a more flexible way for companies to scale up their AI needs. Man, that’s still expensive.
Ford unveils an electric Explorer crossover built for Europe’s narrow streets
The compact EV even has a moving touchscreen.
Ford
Ford has finally shown the medium electric crossover it teased last year. It’s an electric Explorer “designed for Europe” and suited to tight city streets. It’s relatively compact (under 14.8ft long versus 16.6ft for the gas SUV) and includes a few technology features you won’t even find in higher-end Ford EVs like the Mustang Mach-E. The 15-inch vertical touchscreen will seem familiar, but it slides up and down – you won’t have to settle for an awkward position. You also won’t find the physical knob from earlier Ford EVs. The automaker also utilizes the electrified design to provide a massive amount of console storage space (enough for a laptop) and a locker for valuables.
Duolingo is building a music learning app
The company is looking for a music scientist to help it build the application.
According to a job posting (seen by TechCrunch), Duolingo has a small team working to build an app for teaching music. The job ad is for an “expert in music education who combines both theoretical knowledge of relevant learning science research and hands-on teaching experience.” They have to translate “research findings into concrete ideas” that can be used for the “learning by doing” activities Duolingo is known for. If it’s anything like Duolingo, I’ll be learning melodies and instruments I may never ever play in the real world. What’s the musical equivalent of, “Without a doubt, I want to eat ham”?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-google-expands-access-to-its-ai-chatbot-bard-112516974.html?src=rss
Mar 22
Many older people weren’t vaccinated and hospitals didn’t have adequate supplies, reportedly leading to as many as hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
Mar 22
For many residents, the character is a playful taunt of China’s President Xi Jinping.
Mar 22
The OPPO Find X6 Pro has launched yesterday in China and packs impressive hardware specifications, including a 50 MP triple-camera with a massive 1-inch primary camera sensor and a periscope telephoto.
The successor of the OPPO Find X5 Pro, the Find X6 Pro offers the standard features found in the latest flagship Android phones, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, a large 5,000 mAh battery, a 120 Hz 6.82-inch 3,168 x 1,440 AMOLED display, IP68 for dust and water resistance,16GB RAM and 512 GB storage.
Similarly to most Chinese high-end phones, it provides fast charging above 50W with a power brick included in the box, unlike the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, or the Google Pixel 7 Pro. The SuperVOOC 100W fast charging technology is the same as the one found in the OnePlus 11 (for the Chinese version, and the U.S. version got only 80W).
Unlike the OnePlus latest flagship, the Find X6 Pro includes 50W wireless charging, a feature also found in the Honor Magic5 Pro and the Xiaomi 13 Pro.
The OPPO Find X6 Pro will be available in China on March 24th, 2023, and there is no word about a global release that would include the European market. The price starts at 5,999 yuan (about $870) for the 12GB/256GB version, and the 16GB/512GB model costs 6,999 yuan (about $1020).
The primary camera featuring the uber-large 50MP 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor is the star of the show, and you can also find it in the latest Xiaomi flagship launched at MWC, the 13 Pro. Other phones offering the 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor are the Vivo X90 Pro and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra.
Additionally, the 23 mm wide shooter has a large f/1.8 aperture and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS).
Both the 15 mm ultrawide and the 65 mm periscopic cameras offer a 50-MP 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX 890 sensor with OIS.
The telephoto shooter delivers a 3X optical zoom alongside a 6X hybrid zoom (using crop) and OPPO claims it features “the largest sensor of any smartphone telephoto camera on the market” with a “large 2μm pixel”. Larger sensors with larger pixels can capture more light which enables better performance in low-light environments.
The 21 mm 32MP selfie camera shoots 1080p 30 fps videos while the rear photo module delivers 4K 60 fps movies.
OPPO Find X6 Pro Launches With 1-inch Uber-Large Sensor
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