May 26
Paige Ruddy was trapped in the second floor of a house fire at around 4 a.m. Tuesday — mere hours before her scheduled courthouse marriage.
May 26
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Includes More Games Than Originally Revealed
Posted in: Today's Chili‘Metal Gear’ is making a triumphant return to modern consoles alongside a ‘Snake Eater’ remake, and even the oldest ‘Metal Gear’ games are coming, too.
May 26
If there’s a recipe for the perfect motorcycle, Aprilia may have figured it out. The right weight, the right balance, and the right power make the RS660 a star.
May 26
Spider-Man: No Way Home and Avengers: Endgame's Final Battles Get Epic New Lego Sets
Posted in: Today's Chili
When you think of epic Marvel movie set pieces, it’s hard to top Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The former brought almost every character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe together in a last-ditch attempt to defeat Thanos, and the latter saw three Spider-Men from different dimensions clash with four…
May 26
The Writers Guild of America is currently on strike against against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Screenwriters are battling the Hollywood studios for higher pay, better working conditions, and contract protections from AI replacement.
May 26
Heading into Memorial Day weekend, preparedness for travel is essential, with the Transportation Security Administration telling ABC7 it expects to screen 10 million travelers between Friday and Monday.
May 26
Ford has become the first major automaker to leap into bed with Tesla after the US government pushed to make EV charging more widely accessible. The carmaker has signed a deal, starting spring 2024, so selected Ford EVs can slurp down power at some Tesla Supercharger stations. As part of the pact, Ford said, from the 2025 model year, it’ll switch to Tesla’s open-source North American Charging Standard (NACS) on its vehicles. Meanwhile, existing models that still use the (more or less) global standard Combined Charging System (CCS) will be able to pick up a Tesla-designed adapter to bridge the gap.
The deal is surprising, especially given the relative power, size and prestige of the two companies involved. Ford, one of the world’s biggest car makers, is ceding control of its charger future to a relative minnow, albeit one that built a sizable own-brand charging network. Not to mention it runs the risk of creating a NACS–CCS EV-charging format war, which may erode consumer faith in EVs. After all, if you pull up at a gas station anywhere in the US, there should be a one-size-fits-all way to get fuel in your tank without worrying about the size of the pipe.
– Dan Cooper
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Google begins opening access to generative AI in search
At least for those who signed up for the Search Labs waitlist.
At I/O, Google showed off SGE, its experimental system to incorporate generative AI inside its search results. Now, the company’s answer to Bing AI is open for testing, at least to users who signed up to the Search Labs waitlist. Once they’ve received the email saying they have access, they can type into the Google search bar – there’s no separate chat window like Bing – to get AI-generated search results, which they can either expand or choose to ask follow-up questions.
Neuralink receives FDA clearance to begin human trials of its brain-computer interface
It’s a small but vital step on the road to Elon Musk getting wires into people’s brains.
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s controversial brain-to-computer interface startup, claims the FDA has approved it to begin human trials. The regulator hasn’t yet confirmed the claim, and while the company has said it’s not yet recruiting for a human trial, this approval makes one possible. In a tweet, Neuralink wanted to celebrate the “incredible work” taken by its team to secure the FDA’s blessing, not mentioning it was rejected back in March after it was revealed that more than 1,500 animals implanted with the technology had died.
MoviePass relaunches nationwide with a new pricing model
$10 a month for three movies ain’t such a bad deal.
After months of testing, MoviePass’ all-you-can-eat cinema subscription has relaunched itself across the US. This new version will offer you a tiered subscription plan, with the lowest offering charging you $10 a month for three screenings. It might not be the crazy bargain the previous version offered, but it’s still a damn sight cheaper than most single tickets. And if you’re a real cinephile, you can pay up to $40 a month for 30 screenings, which is staggering on a per-movie basis.
Sci-fi strategy game ‘Homeworld 3’ has been delayed to February 2024
The further delay will enable developers to give the title more polish.
Gearbox Publishing / Blackbird Interactive
Homeworld 3, the long-awaited second sequel to the groundbreaking space-based RTS, has been further delayed until February 2024. It’s the second time the title has been pushed back, with developers Blackbird Interactive asking for more time to polish and refine the title. Given that Homeworld 2 debuted in 2003, the two-decade wait for a true follow-up (yes, I’m ignoring Deserts of Kharak) is going to test the idiom “good things come to those who wait” to its very limits.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-ford-and-tesla-sign-ev-charging-pact-111556450.html?src=rss
May 26
Bluesky, the Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized Twitter alternative, has released one of its most significant updates to date: the ability for users to choose their own algorithms. The service, which is still in a closed beta, released its “custom feeds” feature, which allows people to subscribe to a range of different algorithms and make their own for others to follow.
In practice, the feature works a bit like pinning different lists to your home timeline on Twitter in that users can subscribe to multiple feeds and easily swipe between them in the app. But custom feeds, because they’re algorithmic, are also more powerful than simple account lists.
For example, there’s a feed dedicated to posts from your mutuals —people you follow who also follow you back. That may sound like a list, but unlike a Twitter list, the feed should change as you gain more mutual followers. And while Bluesky’s app stills defaults to the chronological “following” timeline, most custom feeds are not chronological.
Bluesky
The feeds also provide a window into the different communities forming on Bluesky, as well as what’s trending on the platform. There are already custom feeds devoted to furries, cat photos, queer shitposters, positive thoughts and the hellthread. Early adopters have been able to experiment with the feature for awhile thanks to third-party apps, like SkyFeed and Flipboard, which added the feature before BlueSky’s official app.
For now, creating a feed for Bluesky is open to anyone, though it’s “currently a technical process,” Bluesky’s protocol engineer Paul Frazee said in a post. “In future updates we’ll make it easy for users to create custom feeds in-app.”
The update could end up being a defining feature of Bluesky. Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, has said that algorithmic choice could address “backlash against the perceived algorithmic manipulation of people’s timelines.” It also offers a hint of what’s to come for the early-stage platform. Graber has outlined a similar vision for content moderation with users in control of the level of moderation and filtering they want.
“Our goal is to assemble a social media architecture that composes third-party services into a seamless user experience, because an open ecosystem is likely to evolve more quickly than a single approach to curation or moderation developed within one company,” Graber wrote. “By creating the interfaces for innovation in these areas, we hope to provide a dynamic and user-driven social experience.”
The idea of custom algorithms is one that’s long been embraced by Jack Dorsey, who floated the idea of allowing users to choose their own algorithms multiple times while he was still running Twitter. It also comes as there is industry-wide scrutiny on how social media algorithms impact users and whether the companies running major platforms are, even inadvertently, putting their thumb on the scale for one group of users. The appeal of custom algorithms is that users know upfront what each feed is prioritizing and can easily move between different experiences, most of which are not controlled by the platform.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bluesky-now-lets-you-choose-your-own-algorithm-183824105.html?src=rss
May 26
The lawmaker said that she has “taken action to ensure there are better days ahead for all of us.”
May 26
Tesla has proven to be the world’s most innovative auto company, combining top-tier technologies with an unmatched driving experience.
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