Media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced he is stepping down as chairman of News Corp. and Fox in a memo to staff on Thursday. He will officially retire in November and will pass the torch to his son, Lachlan Murdoch, who will also remain as CEO and executive chairman of Fox Corporation.
As Uber continues to tout driver and rider safety as a number one priority, reports that its new spokesperson will be Robert De Niro playing Travis Bickle from 1976’s Taxi Driver definitely caused some head-scratching. Lucky for us, while Robert De Niro will be involved in a new Uber campaign, he will not be reprising…
Former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican seeking to unseat Biden, is also courting auto workers with a rally in Detroit.
Planescape has returned to Dungeons & Dragons. Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse includes three new books: the setting book Sigil and the Outlands; Turn of Fortune’s Wheel, the campaign book; and Morte’s Planar Parade, the bestiary.
It seems Twitter—the company now calling itself “X” based on one billionaire’s nostalgic whim—can’t escape users’ dissatisfaction with the platform, not even in its own advertising.
“All good things are doomed,” warns the marketing for the final chunk of Doom Patrol episodes, but you can bet Max’s DC series about a misfit team of oddly powered superheroes isn’t going to say farewell without some high-stakes action—and at least one battle against “an ever-growing hoard of butts.”
Microsoft, even without the usual face of its Surface announcements, had plenty to show off to the assembled media and industry guests yesterday. Unsurprisingly, it led with (and focused on) its latest AI developments. Its Copilot AI assistant is now graduating to assist with all things Windows 11, in an update coming September 26. It will appear in apps such as Edge, while browsing the internet, not to mention Microsoft 365 programs like Word and Excel. You activate Copilot with your voice or a right click and can use it for the sort of things you might not remember keyboard shortcuts for — or just can’t be bothered to do manually, like organize windows on your desktop, delete the backgrounds from photos or even generate a Spotify playlist. It’s shaping up to be a wide-ranging AI tool.
I’ll get into a few more of the AI announcements, but they were punctuated by more Surface hardware, including the Surface Laptop Studio 2 (hybrid, not laptop, surely?), coming with a much-needed specification boost. It has an Intel 13th-gen i7 H class processor, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, and a 14.4-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, which can now tilt forward. There’s also an intriguing trackpad that seemingly rolls in some features from Microsoft’s accessibility-focused Adaptive Mouse.
The company also unveiled its third-generation Surface Laptop Go, which Microsoft claims is 88 percent faster than the original Go, for $799.
It wasn’t the event (or the hardware) to turn around the rut that Microsoft’s Surface line seems to be in, but there might be enough to satisfy folks thinking about getting a new laptop… or whatever the Studio 2 is.
— Mat Smith
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‘Everywhere’ gameplay trailer shows off an ambitious sandbox with a Fortnite aesthetic
Google has been trying to publicly pressure Apple into adopting the GSMA’s RCS (Rich Communications Service) messaging protocol for a long time now, with the biggest response from Apple being CEO Tim Cook saying consumers should buy their moms an iPhone.
So now, it’s getting petty. Google’s “iPager” ad mimics Apple’s marketing language to reveal a retro-styled beeper, suggesting Apple’s behind the curve with its messaging platform. The spot says the iPager uses “outdated messaging tech” to “text with Android,” citing many of the perceived disadvantages of sticking with SMS technology. The question is: Who is this YouTube parody for?
Microsoft continues to build inclusive accessories and features for its mainstream products, and the company showed off more at its annual fall event on Thursday. It unveiled an Adaptive Touch feature that works on the “precision haptic trackpad” of the Surface Laptop Studio 2. During its keynote, the company called this the “most inclusive touchpad on any laptop” and helps people who can’t continuously use their fingers to move a cursor around. The system looks for multiple points of contact with the trackpad, noticing if they’re moving in the same general direction, to determine where to move the mouse. It’s in part based on the technology Microsoft uses for palm rejection, but reconfigured for Adaptive Touch.
X users will no longer be able to tweet to a small group of friends or add people to their Circles after that date. The website formerly known as Twitter has announced it’s deprecating Circles on October 31. The company launched Circles in August 2022, so the feature barely made it to its first birthday.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-everything-announced-at-microsofts-surface-event-111527099.html?src=rss
“My parents have been married for 50 years, and I really wanted that to happen,” said the model and mother of two.
Amazon has always handled its streaming video slate a little differently than the competition. Other companies have slyly introduced a cheaper ad-free option while slowly raising prices on non-ad-based subscription tiers, Prime Video is taking a different tack. The streaming service plans to hold ad-free watching…
Amidst a massive $69 billion dollar deal by Microsoft to purchase Activision—the largest deal in video game history—the tech giant has faced a good bit of turbulence. After UK regulators initially blocked the acquisition last spring, Microsoft scrambled to tweak the agreement and it’s now received preliminary approval.…
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