According to a document leaked on X, Google is planning to introduce some major changes to its Bard AI tool as soon as this coming week. The plans, which have not been publicly confirmed, reportedly include changing the Bard name to Gemini. It would make sense for Google to do so, if only for simplicity’s sake — the company introduced its new multimodal AI model, Gemini, at the end of 2023 and has begun integrating it into some of its products, including Bard.
The changelog shared by Android app developer Dylan Roussel is dated February 7, and also notes that the paid Gemini Advanced tier will become available at this time. It mentions a Gemini app for Android is “coming soon,” as well.
Google added a new changelog for Bard, and — oh boy — it's a big one!
The availability in Canada is awesome! That said I don't really understand the limitations with the app. That's disappointing as someone who lives in Europe.
Per the document, Gemini Advanced will give users access to the Ultra 1.0 model of Gemini, which is “far more capable at highly complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions, and creative collaboration.” It’ll be available in over 150 countries and optimized for the English language at the start. The changelog also says Gemini will expand to Canada with this release.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-reportedly-rebranding-bard-to-gemini-and-plans-to-launch-a-dedicated-app-204442265.html?src=rss
Apple released a new support document for the Vision Pro on Friday night, and it clarifies which accessories will — and won’t — work with the headset. While Apple says it is compatible with “most” Bluetooth keyboards, including its own and other manufacturers’, the Vision Pro doesn’t support Bluetooth mice. Vision Pro owners will be to use Apple’s Magic Trackpad, though.
Apple Vision Pro officially hit shelves yesterday, and there are hundreds of apps for productivity and entertainment available at launch. With eye and hand tracking for precision navigation and controls, there isn’t necessarily a need for a mouse, but some people probably would have liked to use one for certain tasks. However, it is compatible with plenty of other accessories that are critical for certain experiences, like gaming controllers. According to Apple, “All controllers with MFi (Made for iPhone) designation work with Apple Vision Pro. This includes controllers by Xbox, PlayStation, and any controller that works with iPadOS.”
And, while it supports Bluetooth keyboards, you may need to upgrade if you use an older Apple keyboard. According to Apple, its older models that use removable batteries will not work with the Vision Pro.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-wont-be-able-to-use-a-bluetooth-mouse-with-apple-vision-pro-183137646.html?src=rss
Apple’s latest smartwatch, the Series 9, is back down to its record-low price in a one-day-only sale at Best Buy. The 41mm Apple Watch Series 9, which normally goes for $399, is just $299 today for the GPS model. The larger version, 45mm, is on sale for $100 off as well, bringing it down to $329. For both sizes, the deal applies to multiple colors, so you can get the watch in Silver, Light Pink, Starlight, Midnight or (Product)Red with either the sport band or the nylon sport loop.
The Apple Watch Series 9 added some new features for more convenient interactions with your smartwatch. That includes Double Tap, a control option that doesn’t require you to touch the screen at all — you just need to squeeze your thumb and index finger together two times using the hand on the same arm as your watch, and it’ll carry out a designated action. You could use it, for example, to pause or unpause your music.
The Series 9 scored a 92 in our review, excelling as usual at health and fitness tracking, among other tasks. It also tops our list of the best smartwatches you can get this year. Apple also introduced on-device Siri for the Apple Watch with the Series 9, which means the assistant can function when you’re offline or don’t have your phone with you. Apple also said it improved the “Raise to Speak” feature with the Series 9 to wake Siri more efficiently without voice commands. All of this is made possible by its new S9 system-in-package (SiP).
You won’t get blood oxygen monitoring with the Series 9, though, despite the feature initially being among its offerings. Apple removed the feature last month following a patent dispute. But even without that, the Series 9 is a solid device that offers pretty much everything you’d need or want in a smartwatch.
Following failed negotiations with TikTok, Universal music has come good on its threat to pull music from the social media platform. That means no more TayTay, no more Drake and no more... all the other artists that fall under its corporate umbrella. Elsewhere, the CEOs of the world's most influential social media platforms got an (at times) genuine grilling from the US Senate. While a few senators managed to come across as, once again, out of touch and out of their depth. X boss Linda Yaccarino might have said the most bizarre thing, stating that the once-Twitter social network was a "brand new company," and that it was looking into parental controls. Twitter was founded in 2006, Linda.
As mentioned, the CEOs of Meta, Snap, Discord, X and TikTok testified at a high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child exploitation online. Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, Jason Citron, Linda Yaccarino, and Shou Chew spent nearly four hours being grilled by lawmakers, but we've managed to condense the main points and the social media executives' responses to them.
The hearing was the first time Spiegel, Citron and Yaccarino testified to Congress. Notably, according to lawmakers, all three were subpoenaed by the committee after refusing to appear voluntarily. Judiciary Committee Chair Senator Dick Durbin noted that Citron “only accepted services of his subpoena after US Marshals were sent to Discord’s headquarters at taxpayers’ expense.”
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-tiktok-loses-taylor-swifts-songs-and-the-verdict-on-the-galaxy-s24-ultra-140001783.html?src=rss
Sometimes you just need a break from Instagram. If you’re ready to delete your Instagram account, you can deactivate or delete it from either a computer or mobile device. In this guide, we’ll walk through the steps involved and also break down the difference between deactivation and deletion.
Malak Saleh
Deactivating vs. deleting Instagram
Deletion is for people who want to permanently remove their account from Instagram. Deletion will not only make your account vanish from the platform, but it means all your likes, photos and videos will be permanently stripped. So if you had a photo where you tagged other accounts , that photo will no longer show up under your friends’ tagged tabs, for example. It’s important to note that deleting your account is irreversible.
In contrast, when you deactivate your account your likes, photos and videos will temporarily be hidden until you reactivate your account. While reactivating your account is as simple as logging back into the app, if you delete your account and decide to return to the app, you will have to create a new account entirely. You can only deactivate your account once a week, meaning if you deactivate your account then decide to relog in within that window, you won't be able to hide your profile again.
How to permanently delete Instagram
In Instagram’s iOS and Android apps, deleting your account is all done through the Settings page. To start, go to your account’s page and tap the icon with three horizontal lines at the top right corner of the screen. Tap the Settings and privacy icon in the dropdown menu at the top of the list. Once you select that icon, you will navigate to a new page with a full list of tools. At the very top of the new Settings page, tap Accounts Center, then select Personal details under Accounts settings. A new page will appear showing your contact information and birthday. Tap “Account ownership and control”’ and then a new tab that reads “Deactivation or Deletion” will appear.
Malak Saleh
If you have more than one Meta account registered to your Instagram, you will have to choose which account you want to deactivate or delete. After you select the profile you want to manage, a new page will open showing you your options. Instagram lets you choose between deactivating or deleting at this point. The page you’re looking at here includes an explanation of the difference between permanently deleting or deactivating your account.
To wit, Instagram will remind you that deleting your account is permanent and that your profile, photos, videos, comments, likes and followers will be permanently removed from the app. Once you tap “Delete account,” a drop-down will appear asking you why you are removing your account. You can select which reason applies to you, such as “Too many ads” or “Too busy/too distracting.” If you do select certain options, such as “Privacy concerns,” Instagram will share articles available through its Help Center designed to address your concerns and persuade you to keep your account active.
Malak Saleh
How to delete or deactivate your Instagram account from a web browser
If you prefer using Instagram on your computer (who does that?!), deleting or deactivating your account from a web browser might be easier for you.
To delete your Instagram account from a computer, the instructions are pretty much the same as when you take action on your mobile device, but some of the drop-downs are in different places. If you're on the Feeds page, select that same icon with three horizontal lines in the bottom left corner of your page. You can also take the same initial step from your profile page and tap the Settings icon in the top right corner of your profile. Either way, you will automatically end up on the Settings page or you can tap to select it from a drop-down after selecting the More button.
Malak Saleh
Tap Account Center and a menu will appear showing you the singular or multiple profiles you manage and all the tools on one page. Instead of selecting “Personal details” as you would on a mobile device, tap “Your information and permissions,” which will open up three drop-down menus, one of which reads “Deactivation or deletion.” Tap and then select the profile you want to deactivate or delete, then select which action you want to proceed with.
Either way, you will be prompted to write your password for that profile if you select to deactivate or delete the account. Finally, you will need to select a reason for deleting or deactivating the account, and then you’re done. Once you select the reason, for a second time, Instagram will ask you to confirm deletion and give you a date that your account details will be permanently deleted off of the platform.
Again, after your request goes through, it can take Meta up to 30 days to delete the account and affiliated information permanently. Meta does warn that during the 30 days pass, your content will remain subject to Instagram’s privacy policy, but your information and profile will not be accessible to other people using Instagram. It also is worth noting that it can take up to 90 days for the deletion process to finish after it gets initiated. So if you're really trying to disappear, it could take a while.
Malak Saleh
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-delete-your-instagram-account-130017501.html?src=rss
New Yorkers can say goodbye — for now — to the robot the New York Police Department (NYPD) used to patrol the Times Square subway station. The Knightscope K5, which is a 400-pound machine that looks like it could be R2-D2's massive sibling, was one of Mayor Eric Adams' high-tech experiments for New York City. It was deployed in a pilot last year ostensibly to help keep commuters safe, but it had no actual capabilities that could be useful in situations that had to be addressed on site. "The K5 Knightscope has completed its pilot in the NYC subway system," a spokesperson for the department told The New York Times.
The K5 has cameras that can record video and a button that people can press to get in touch with a live agent. It patrolled the station from midnight until 6AM throughout its trial run that lasted for two months, though "patrolled" might be a generous way of putting it. The machine has no arms and can't go up or down the stairs. Commuters told The Times that it usually has a couple of cops with it and that it almost always seemed to be plugged in.
New York leased the K5 for around $9 an hour during its trial phase that ended in December. "This is below minimum wage," Adams said when he announced the robot's deployment at the Times Square station. "No bathroom breaks, no meal breaks." At the time, privacy advocates had been concerned that the machine could eventually be equipped with facial recognition and other surveillance tools. They no longer have to worry about the K5 being used for surveillance in NYC, unless, of course, city officials decide to keep on leasing it for other purposes. A Knightscope spokesperson told The Times that the company is "not authorized to speak about certain clients," which presumably includes the NYC government.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nyc-ends-trial-run-of-times-square-subways-security-robot-105528275.html?src=rss
Apple’s Vision Pro is here — along with a solid collection of third-party launch apps. Although there are some big-name omissions (Netflix, YouTube and Spotify), the headset already supports over a million compatible App Store apps, Apple’s first-party offerings and over 600 apps developed specifically for the “spatial computing” device. Here are the notable third-party Vision Pro apps you can install on day one.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft
Microsoft didn’t skimp on its entry into the Vision Pro era. Seven of the company’s Office apps are available to install on launch day. These include Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Loop.
The Windows maker added several tools unique to the mixed-reality headset. For example, Word has a focus mode to block out distractions, PowerPoint includes an immersive environment for practicing presentations in front of a virtual audience and Excel lets you quickly move documents to other apps using Vision Pro’s pinch-to-drag gesture.
Microsoft Teams uses Vision Pro’s “Persona” feature, which gives you a digital avatar. Persona matches your digital representation’s facial expressions to yours; this may give off uncanny valley vibes to your colleagues, but it could also make your virtual self appear more lifelike. In addition, Microsoft’s VisionOS apps include Copilot, the company’s generative AI assistant that can draft text, create summaries and generate PowerPoint presentations.
Disney+
Disney
Given Disney’s longstanding collaboration with Apple (Steve Jobs sat on the company’s board, and Bob Iger sat on Apple’s until 2019), perhaps it isn’t surprising Disney went all-out with its Vision Pro app.
The app lets you stream Disney+ content in one of four 3D virtual environments: the Disney+ Theater (inspired by Hollywood’s historic El Capitan), the Scare Floor from Monsters Inc., Tony Stark’s Avengers Tower and Luke Skywalker’s land speeder on Tatooine. Although we’ve seen virtual environments in countless Meta Quest (and other VR) streaming apps, Vision Pro’s higher resolution should make them feel more immersive.
Disney’s VisionOS app also includes a selection of supported 3D films. The library consists of “dozens of popular movies,” including Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Elemental and Encanto. (Disney promises the list will expand over time.) You can also buy or rent more 3D movies from the Apple TV apps’ Store tab.
Zoom
Zoom
Zoom is also an early Vision Pro supporter. Like Microsoft Teams, Zoom’s VisionOS app will use Apple’s Personas, displaying you in calls as a 3D virtual avatar that matches your facial expressions and hand movements. The company says you can scale the app’s spatial setup “to the perfect size,” ensuring you feel like you’re in the same room as your colleagues.
A future update to the Zoom app will add support for 3D object sharing, letting designers share and collaborate on 3D models in their virtual space. The app will also eventually include Zoom Team Chat and the ability to pin your fellow meeting participants in space around you. Zoom says the latter will help you “feel more connected to the people in the meeting.”
MLB and NBA
MLB
America’s second and third most popular sports leagues are represented on Vision Pro. The NBA app lets you stream up to five live broadcasts in multi-view while glancing at other game scores and stats off to the side. Meanwhile, the MLB app offers fully immersive environments, including a ballpark with a view from home plate and stats for each pitch. A future update (scheduled for around Opening Day) will add access to “additional MLB.TV content” for subscribers.
The world’s premier baseball league shared its enthusiasm for the app. “If there is an opportunity for a baseball fan to enjoy our sport on any given platform, then we need to have a presence where we can deliver unique storytelling experiences,” wrote MLB Deputy Commissioner Noah Garden.
Max
Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max is available on Vision Pro, offering access to the streaming service’s movies, series, news and sports. The company says select titles will be available in 4K and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos.
Like other VisionOS apps, Max will offer at least one virtual environment in which you can stream content: the Iron Throne room from Game Of Thrones and House of the Dragon. “The intricate Targaryen-era adornments will make fans feel like they’re watching the programming available on Max in Westeros during the height of their reign,” wrote HBO / Max Content Chair Casey Bloys.
Lowe’s Style Studio
Lowe's
Lowe’s will use the Vision Pro to make it easier to imagine ways to spend money in its stores. The Lowe’s Style Studio app lets headset owners “step into an immersive, interactive 3D kitchen scene,” allowing you to “experiment in ways that weren’t possible until now.” The idea is to inspire you by stepping into a virtual space “curated by Lowe’s professional designers” with hundreds of customizable real-world materials.
Game Room
Resolution Games
Stockholm-based studio Resolution Games launched the Game Room app, which lets you play tabletop classics in mixed reality or fully virtual environments. Games include chess, solitaire, hearts, yacht and (the Battleship-like) Sea Battle.
It supports one to four players in online play against foes using different Apple devices (not just fellow Vision Pro owners). It also supports single-player against AI opponents.
Other confirmed apps and games
Here are more highlights from Vision Pro’s collection of over 600 launch apps:
AmazeVR Concerts - Front-row virtual concerts
Animoog Galaxy - Create music in 3D space
Apple Arcade games(more than 250 games, including NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition, Sonic Dream Team, and TMNT Splintered Fate)
Blackbox - Spatial puzzles
Box - Cloud file management and collaboration, including with 3D objects
CellWalk - Tour a bacteria cell
Complete HeartX - Anatomy, diagnoses and treatments
Decathlon - Shop in 3D
djay - Turntables and mixing
Exploring Mars - Explore Mars with NASA rovers
Fantastical - Calendar and tasks
Healium - Relax in nature scenes
IMAX - View 2D and 3D content
Insight Heart - Learn about the human heart
J.Crew Virtual Closet - Immersive shopping
JigSpace - Interactive presentations in 3D
Lego Builder’s Journey - Build with 3D LEGO bricks
Loóna - Relaxing 3D dioramas
Lungy: Spaces - Breathing exercises and meditation
MindNode - Mind maps in spatial reality
Mytheresa: Luxury Experience - Shopping with live consultations
Navi - Real-time translation with live captions
NowPlaying - A peek behind the music
Numerics - Live business widgets
Odio - Personal sound spaces
OmniFocus and OmniPlan - Project management visualizations
PGA Tour Vision - Immersive golf experience
Red Bull TV - 3D maps of races / immersive videos
Sky Guide and Night Sky - Your personal planetarium
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/here-are-the-most-useful-apple-vision-pro-apps-at-launch-222817206.html?src=rss
Even better for Rogan’s bottom line? The deal allows Spotify to distribute Rogan’s podcasts on additional platforms, including a video version for YouTube. The contract stipulates a revenue-sharing agreement based on ad sales, so this will likely put a lot more money into the comedian's pocket. There’s also an upfront minimum guarantee for the world’s preeminent expert on all things Covid, but the financial amount remains undisclosed.
Spotify is reportedly angling to renegotiate expiring contracts with existing content creator to offer lower minimum guarantees, but that may not apply to Rogan. The company’s also planning on revising these contract terms to allow for publication on other platforms, like YouTube, which is exactly what it's doing with Rogan here.
There’s also likely an audience number target threshold, as was the case with his 2020 deal. He’ll sail right past that, however, as The Joe Rogan Experiencecontinues to be Spotify’s most popular podcast, even beating Travis Kelce talking about Taylor Swift and, sigh, The Tucker Carlson Podcast. That’s the current top three.
Despite bringing in a metric ton of ears to Spotify, Rogan has been a regular source of controversy. He’s pushed a whole lot of ill-informed Covid nonsense throughout the years, which prompted doctors and scientists to call for an update to Spotify’s misinformation policy. This led to boycotts from both users and creators. Most famously, Neil Young pulled his songs from the streamer in protest.
Spotify has long excused this stuff by calling itself a platform and not a publisher. However, this new deal quite literally has the company publishing Joe Rogan’s podcasts on other platforms. It's also, of course, been publishing Rogan on its own platform for years.
There’s also the ever-present issue of how Spotify pays artists. The company is notorious for paying musicians very little, or even nothing at all. This leads one to dream of a world where musicians get a tiny piece of that Rogan pie, but, alas, that’s not in the cards. Spotify did set aside $100 million to foster diversity in podcasts and music, but ended up not really spending any of it. Hey, it’s the thought that counts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/joe-rogan-reportedly-nabs-another-250-million-from-spotify-to-share-his-big-brained-ideas-192007040.html?src=rss
Let's be honest: you deserve better than simply sticking with your TV's built-in speakers. Sure, modern TVs can pump out decent audio (and you can find good deals on some at the minute), but most folks would be far better served with a proper home theater setup. And, with the Super Bowl right around the corner, Sonos has picked a good time to run a sale on many of its devices. One discount in particular that stands out is a price cut for the Sonos Arc. The company's top-end soundbar has dropped by $180 to $719. That matches Black Friday pricing.
The Sonos Arc is one of our favorite premium soundbars. It has a sleek design and delivers great audio quality. There are some downsides, unfortunately. The Arc only has one HDMI input, so your TV is the only device you can connect to it directly. While the soundbar ties into the rest of the Sonos ecosystem, giving you the option to add some of the company's other speakers as surrounds, expanding the setup can get expensive pretty quickly.
That said, Sonos subwoofers are on sale too, including the Sub Gen 3. That has dropped from $799 to $639. The Sub Gen 3 will pair seamlessly with the Arc or several other Sonos products to help you build out a complete home theater system with more low end. Meanwhile, it's worth taking a look through the rest of the sale as Sonos has slashed prices on other speakers as well as some bundles.
CTA
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonoss-arc-soundbars-are-180-off-just-ahead-of-the-super-bowl-184521821.html?src=rss
For the discerning gamer who didn't rush out to grab NVIDIA's RTX 40-series GPUs over the last few years, the company's new Super cards are genuinely compelling. They all deliver far more power than before — so much so that the $599 RTX 4070 Super is actually a decent 4K gaming card. But the $999 RTX 4080 Super is also a solid deal for power-hungry gamers, since it's $200 less than the original 4080. Between those two cards, NVIDIA now has desirable upgrade options for mid-range and high-end gamers.
But what of the new RTX 4070 Ti? It's stuck right between its two siblings, with no clear audience. After all, if you're ready to spend $799 on a video card, stretching a bit more for the 4080 Super might make more sense for the additional power. Otherwise, you might as well just get the 4070 Super, overclock it a bit, and spend the extra $200 on another SSD or more RAM. It's a conundrum entirely of NVIDIA's making, one that might have been solved by giving the 4070 Ti Super a slight $50 discount. (And it's even more confusing when some cards, like the ASUS model we reviewed, are priced above MSRP.)
Just like the 4070 Super, the 4070 Ti Super and 4080 Super feature more CUDA cores than the original models, as well as slightly higher clock speeds. The 4070 Ti Super packs in 8,448 CUDA cores compared to 7,680 on the 4070 Ti, while the 4080 Super has 10,240 CUDA cores instead of 9,728. The 4070 Ti Super also has 4GB more VRAM, bringing it up to 16GB of GDD6X memory, while the 4080 Super sticks with 16GB. (NVIDIA likely doesn't want to edge much closer to the beastly RTX 4090, which is now selling for hundreds more than its original $1,599 launch price.)
Given the RAM bump, I expected the RTX 4070 Ti Super to be far faster than the 4070 Ti, but it ended up scoring only 742 points higher in the 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme benchmark. It fares better on games, scoring 15fps higher in both Halo Infinite (104fps)and Cyberpunk2077 (93fps)while playing in 4K with maxed out graphics and ray tracing settings. The 4080 Super's results were similarly muted: It hit 289 more points than the 4080 in TimeSpy Extreme, and it was 10fps higher in Cyberpunk (103fps) while playing in 4K with ray tracing.
Content creators will also appreciate the additional horsepower. The 4070 Ti Super scored 87,707 points in the Luxmark HDR benchmark and 7,424 points in Blender's test, compared to 75,997 and 7,247 on the 4070 Ti super. The 4080 Super hit 99,515 points in Luxmark HDR compared to 94,832 points from before.
These are the results you'd expect by simply throwing more CUDA cores into these cards, so I'm not exactly disappointed. But after benchmarking both GPUs and comparing their results to the 4070 Super, I'm more underwhelmed by the 4070 Ti Super. I can understand NVIDIA not wanting to make it much faster, but it seriously needs to be cheaper than the original 4070 Ti. Otherwise, like I said, the 4070 Super is far more compelling, and I wouldn't be surprised if cheaper 4070 Ti cards pop up.
We reviewed the ASUS TUF Gaming 4070 Ti Super (which is currently selling for $850), as well as NVIDIA's Founders Edition 4080 Super. The ASUS GPU sports three fans and a typical heatsink design, whereas NVIDIA's card once again uses its unique (and very effective) vapor chamber cooling setup. Both cards hovered around 75 Celsius under load, but the ASUS GPU was noticeably louder thanks to those three large fans. I could still hear the 4080 Super spin up under pressure, but it wasn't nearly as loud.
If you can’t tell by now, the biggest selling point of the 4080 Super is that it's $200 less than the original. Not only is it a better deal on its own, but its lower price should (hopefully) help to reduce the cost of older 4080 cards eventually too. And if you’re not ready to shell out $999 for a video card, then the $599 4070 Super is no slouch either.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidia-rtx-4070-ti-super-and-4080-super-review-183034039.html?src=rss
