Bose's portable Bluetooth speakers have made several of our latest shopping guides, thanks in part to the long battery life and loud, bright sound that carries well outdoors. They're also among the most expensive out there, but several models including the Smart Speaker, Revolve+ and S1 Pro are now on sale at Amazon with savings of up to 30 percent.
While Bluetooth speakers are often commodity items, Bose's SoundLink Revolve ($179 or 18 percent off) and Revolve Plus ($229 or 30 percent off) have premium features. Bose has eschewed typical plastic materials for a fancy "single-piece aluminum enclosure" that's resistant to spills, rain and splashes with an IPX4 rating. And by outputting music from 360 degrees, they sound the same to anyone in the vicinity. The only drawback is bass that lacks some oomph.
If you want more low end and don't mind spending more, Bose's Portable Smart speaker is also on sale at $319, for a savings of $80 (20 percent). Also a 360-degree speaker, it has a well-rounded low end and bright dynamic sound with plenty of nuance. It's more geared toward home use, offering WiFi, voice and app control, along with support for Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Spotify Connect, Amazon Music, Chromecast and more.
Finally, if you really need big sound for outdoor parties, the Bose S1 Pro Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $599, or $100 (14 percent) off. It's designed for rugged use and supports not only wireless Bluetooth, but wired inputs from a guitar, DJ setup and more. You also get Auto EQ and other speakers to maximize sound output, whether you're inside or out.
As far as I know, no one is using an Apple AirTag to stalk me. But if that were to change, I’m not even sure I’d notice Apple’s attempts to warn me. The “AirTag Found Moving With You” notification near-constantly sits on my homescreen, and I’ve gotten used to quickly swiping it away.
But I’m getting ahead of myself – let me tell you about my dog, Rosie. She’s a sweet tempered, mild mannered rescue. Still, there was one catch when we adopted her: She’s a flight risk.
We’ve seen this firsthand when the sound of fireworks or a strong wind causes her to enter a full-blown panic. Rosie shuts down, shakes and, when it’s really bad, tries to run away. We’re working on it, but, in the meantime, we’ve turned to Apple AirTags as an extra reassurance.
The $29 quarter-sized AirTag attached to her collar keeps track of her location so that we can quickly find her if she ever got away. It’s mostly for peace of mind — we’ve only had to use it once — but it’s also quickly become an annoying part of my daily routine.
The problem is that the AirTag is registered to my partner’s device. That means that Apple doesn’t recognize my iPhone in connection with the AirTag, seeing the unknown tracker as a threat to my safety. It sends a notification that there’s an AirTag following me, which won’t go away until I acknowledge its presence in the Find My app, and there’s no way to tell it “hey, that’s just Rosie!” to disable the recurring notification. Plus, it’ll ping and make sounds to alert me of its presence, causing our already skittish dog confusion.
An example of what the unwanted tracking notification looks like and options to proceed.
Katie Malone
These safety features exist for a good reason. They can notify a survivor that they’re being followed, and put them in control to bring it as proof of stalking to law enforcement, if that’s something they feel safe doing, Audace Garnett, technology safety project manager at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, told Engadget. In cases like that, AirTag’s persistence may be a welcome way to manage one’s safety. Competitors like Bluetooth tracker Tile have taken note, implementing a $1 million penalty on people using the product to stalk someone.
“For us, who are not being stalked or harassed, it may be an annoyance to us,” Garnett said. “But for someone that's in a domestic violence situation, who is under power and control, this may be a life-saving tool for them.”
There are a few viable solutions, but none quite worked for me. The notification provides an option to disable the AirTag, which would be helpful to stop an unwanted third-party from knowing your location. That feature renders the AirTag useless, though, so it would no longer be able to track my dog if she did get out.
There is a way to pause tracking notifications for that specific AirTag, but it only lasts for 24 hours. Disabling Find My notifications didn’t work, so I tried disabling unwanted tracking notifications. That setting disables all unwanted tracking notifications, not just for this specific AirTag. So, if someone were to slip one in my bag, I wouldn’t get those notifications either. (Either way, the AirTag would still ping and make other noises as a back up safety feature for folks without smartphones.)
My partner and I could always open a Family Sharing iCloud, or a joint account that connects our devices. If we did that, I would unlock an option to cancel notifications for Rosie’s AirTag. We currently have separate accounts, though, and aren’t interested in fully merging our clouds. I could also buy any other tracking device to replace it with, like the slew of options available specifically for pets, if I wanted to spend the additional cash to avoid this feature.
Or, I could deal with the minor inconvenience knowing that somewhere out there, this feature is helping someone else stay safe. I think I’ll go with that.
If you are experiencing domestic violence and similar abuse, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by phone at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or by texting "START" to 88788.
Generative AI is absolutelyeverywhererightnow, so it’s no surprise to see Spotify putting it to use in its latest feature, simply called “DJ.” It’s a new way to immediately start a personalized selection of music playing that combines Spotify’s well-known personalization tools that you can find in playlists like Discover Weekly as well as the content that populates your home screen with some AI tricks. I got early access to DJ and have been playing with it for the last day to see how Spotify’s latest take on personalized music works, but the feature is available as of today in beta for all premium subscribers in the US and Canada.
While Spotify has loads of personalized playlists for users, I’ve found that the app lacks a simple way to tell it to just play some music you like. On Apple Music, for example, I can ask Siri to play music I like and it’ll start a personalized radio station based on music I’ve played alongside some things it thinks I’ll enjoy but haven’t played before. It’s a reliable way to jump right into my collection. In the same vein, Spotify’s DJ pulls together a mix of songs you’re currently listening to, old favorites you might have forgotten, and new tunes that fit in with what it thinks you’ll like.
The AI twist to DJ comes in the form of a literal DJ, which speaks to you in an AI voice generated by Sonantic, a startup that Spotify bought last year with a focus on generating realistic speech. In this case, the DJ’s voice model was trained on the voice of a real human, Spotify’s own Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan. Jernigan hosted “The Get Up,” Spotify’s morning show that combined recorded segments with music tailored to your tastes.
The DJ’s voice is generated through AI, and so are the things it says to you. When you first kick off a DJ session, you’ll get a quick overview of what you might expect to hear. For example, the first time I started up DJ, “X” came on and told me that it was a DJ designed for music and that it knew what I liked and for starters it was going to play me some Jenny Lewis. Sure enough, Lewis’s “Do Si Do” kicked things off, along with a few other songs with a similar vibe. At the top of the now playing screen, you’ll see a little info on how the song was picked, like “based on recent listening,” “throwbacks,” “recommended for you” or “from your past.”
Once you start a segment, you’ll generally hear a handful of songs that fit into the category, but if you want to change things up you can just tap the DJ button in the lower right corner of the now playing screen. At that point, X the DJ pops back up to give you some info about what’s coming up next. When I just tapped it, X said, “OK, changing it up. Here are our editor’s picks for the best in hard rock this week, starting with Motionless In White.”
Spotify says that none of the dialog you hear from X is pre-recorded; it’s all generated on the fly by OpenAI. However, the company wanted to make it clear that it looks at generative AI as a tool for its music editors, not something that it is just trusting to get everything right. Spotify’s VP of personalization Ziad Sultan told Engadget in a product demo that the company put together a “writers room” of script writers, music editors, data curators and engineers, all of whom are working together to make sure that the bits of info that the AI DJ drops are useful, accurate and relevant to the music you’re hearing.
Sultan stressed that Spotify’s usage was a lot different than implementations like free-form text, image generation and other such AI use cases. “We’ve built a very specific use case, and we’ve made a few choices about how it’ll be implemented,” he said. “The most important one is the creation of that writer’s room – we’re taking this [AI] tool and putting it into the hands of music experts.”
What’ll make Spotify’s DJ work or fail is whether it can pull up music you want to hear. From that perspective, Spotify isn’t doing anything wildly different than it already does: analyzing your listening history and finding stuff it knows you like and things it thinks you’ll enjoy. And as with everything else you do on Spotify, your DJ usage will be analyzed so that it can get better at serving you tunes you want to listen to. At the beginning, anyway, the AI DJ aspects are being used as small augmentations to a personalized music channel – and as long as Spotify can continue to know what songs you love and which ones you’re likely to fall in love with, DJ should be a useful addition.
If you’ve ever been derailed from an on-time departure by a set of lost keys or misplaced wallet, you’ll benefit from a Bluetooth tracker. These small devices attach to your stuff and use your smartphone to keep tabs on where they are. There aren’t a ton of players in the field yet, but we tested out some of the most popular options to see what each tracker does well so you can decide which is the best Bluetooth tracker for you.
What to look for in a Bluetooth tracker
Bluetooth trackers are small discs or cards that rely on short-range, low-energy wireless signals to communicate with your smartphone. Attach one to your stuff and, if it’s in range, your phone can “ring” the tracker so you can find it. These devices offer other features like separation alerts to tell you when you’ve left a tagged item behind, or where a lost item was last detected. Some can even tap into a larger network of smartphones to track down your device when you’re out of range. Depending on what you want the tracker to do, there are a few things to look for when deciding which to get.
Device compatibility
Like most things from the folks in Cupertino, AirTags only work with other Apple products. The company has opened up access to its Find My network to third-party manufacturers, including Chipolo, though. Its One Spot and Card Spot finders work with Apple's large tracking network, but only pair with Apple devices. Chipolo’s classic trackers will work with either Android or Apple devices, as will Tile trackers.
Finding network
Crowd-sourced finding capabilities are what make headlines, with stories about recovering stolen equipment or tracking lost luggage across the globe. Using anonymous signals that ping other people’s devices, Bluetooth trackers can potentially tell you where a tagged item is, even if your smartphone is out of range. Apple’s Find My network is by far the largest, with over a billion iPhones in service all running Apple’s Find My app by default. So unless an iPhone user opts out, their phone silently acts as a location detector for any nearby AirTags.
While Android phones outnumber iPhones globally, they don’t have a similar, unified “find-my”network. (Though, reports that Google may be working on AirTag rival means such a system may be coming.) In the meantime, Tile offers the second-largest finding grid, with every smartphone that runs the Tile app acting as incognito locators. After Life360 acquired Tile, the 47 million users of that app were added to the 50 million existing Tile users, creating a sizable network.
In our tests, AirTags offered nearly real-time location data and were quickest to find items abandoned in spots around Albuquerque, including a bar, bookstore and coffee shop in Nob Hill, along with various outdoor hangouts on UNM’s campus. Tile trackers were able to locate our lost items most of the time, though not with the same pin-point accuracy as AirTags. Chipolo’s Spot trackers operate on the same Find My network and perform on par with the AirTags. Chipolo’s classic trackers, on the other hand, don’t have much of a crowd-sourced network to speak of. Yet as we used the trackers, the size of the finding network started to feel less important in the face of typical, everyday use cases. It was their ability to out-perform in every other way that boosted Chipolo’s classic trackers to the top of our list.
Amy Skorheim / Engadget
Separation alerts
Here’s where a tracker’s day-to-day utility really shines. A separation alert lets you know when you’ve traveled too far from your tagged items, which is useful if you want to make sure your laptop bag, or jacket or umbrella always comes with you when you leave the house.
These notifications work when you’re out and about too. If you’ve got a tracker in your wallet and walk out of a restaurant without it, the separation alert should kick in, resulting in less lost stuff. This feature also tells you where your tagged item and phone were last paired, allowing you to retrace your steps if you happen to miss the alert.
Each tracker handles left-behind items differently. Both AirTags and Chipolo include the feature by default. Tile trackers require a yearly subscription to enable the alerts (currently $30 per year). Both AirTags and Tiles allow you to turn off separation alerts at certain locations, meaning you can set your home as a “safe” place where items can be left behind, but alerts will still trigger elsewhere. Chipolo doesn’t offer safe locations, but you can toggle out-of-range alerts on a per-item basis.
In our tests, the Chipolo sent an alert after we got between 250 and 450 feet away from our tagged item. AirTags alerted us between the 600- and 1,400-foot mark. And Tiles sent a notification after about an average of 1,500 feet. The notifications were not consistent on an iPhone, but worked well when operating with an Android phone.
Connectivity, volume and design
The feature you may use most often is the simple “find my keys” function. If you have your phone, but no idea where your tagged keys are, you can tap a button in the tracker’s app to make the tracker ring. The ability to consistently and quickly connect with your phone is important for making it out the door with less stress. Tile and Chipolo classic trackers will also let you double click the device itself to make your phone ring, but AirTags and Chipolos running on the Find My app don’t offer this feature.
The volume of the tracker may determine whether you can find an item buried in your couch cushions or in a noisy room. AirTags have a reputation for being on the quiet side, and that aligned with what we saw (measuring roughly 65 decibels). Chipolo’s keychain-style tags, both the Apple-only version and the device-agnostic version, and the Tile Slim wallet tracker were the loudest, measuring between 83 and 85 decibels.
Design will determine what you can attach the tracker to. AirTags are small, smooth discs that have no way of securing to anything without accessories, which are numerous, but that is an additional cost to consider. Both Chipolo and Tile offer trackers with holes that easily attach to your key ring, and both companies also offer card-shaped versions designed to fit in your wallet. Batteries are replaceable for AirTags, Chipolo One and Tile Pro. Tile Mate and all card-shaped trackers don’t have replaceable batteries, which means you’ll have to replace the entire unit whenever it dies.
Stalking and stealing
AirTags have recently gotten a lot of attention for bad actors planting them on people in order to stalk them. While this fact may not influence your buying decision, any discussion of Bluetooth trackers should note what steps both Apple and Tile have taken to address the issue. If an AirTag is detected moving with you and apart from its owner, the device will ring to alert you of its presence. If you have an iPhone, as long as you have location services and Bluetooth turned on, you’ll automatically get an alert on your phone, with no further steps required. If you have an Android, you can download a special app that can detect unknown AirTags. Tile offers a similar feature through its standard app, and it doesn’t require a Tile account to search for suspicious nearby trackers.
As far as combating theft goes, a Bluetooth tracker may or may not be a good option. Anecdotal stories abound in which people have recovered stolen goods using a tracker — but other tales are more cautionary. Neither Apple nor Tile promote their trackers or finding networks as a way to deal with theft. GPS trackers, on the other hand, are typically marketed for just that purpose.
How we tested
Before deciding on which trackers to test, we researched the field, looking at user reviews on Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers, along with discussions on sites like Reddit. We also checked out what other publications had to say on the matter before narrowing down our picks to Apple AirTag, Tile and Chipolo trackers.
After acquiring the trackers, I tested each one over the course of a few weeks using both an iPhone 11 and a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. I recreated likely user experiences, such as losing and leaving items behind at home and out in the city. I planted trackers at different spots near downtown Albuquerque, mostly concentrated in and around the University of New Mexico and the surrounding neighborhood of Nob Hill. Each test was performed multiple times, both while walking and driving and I used the measure distance feature on Google Maps to track footage for alerts. I paid attention to how easy the app was to use, how reliable the phone-to-tracker connection was and any other perks and drawbacks that came up during regular use.
Best Overall: Chipolo One
Hands-on testing is great at smashing assumptions, and that’s what happened with the Chipolo One. This tracker’s crowd-sourced finding network cannot compare with AirTag or Tile. In fact, when I left the Chipolo for 24 hours just outside the busy student union at UNM, I was never alerted that a member of the Chipolo community had detected my item. But as I used it and pictured how most people would use a tracker on a daily basis, the device proved its worth and earned its spot on my keyring.
The One is a small and colorful plastic disc with a hole. It works with both Apple and Android devices and requires an app which is simple to use and easily pairs new trackers. The app and tracking experience on an iPhone and a Galaxy phone were nearly identical, working equally well on both platforms. It rang the loudest of all the trackers, so hidden items were quickly found around the house. Unlike other trackers, there was never a delay between pressing the Ring to Find button and hearing the trill. The ring delay for AirTag was never more than a few seconds and Tiles would generally connect and ring after no more than ten seconds. While that’s not a deal-breaking delay, it could add to the stress of rushing out the door.
Where the Chipolo One truly set itself apart was with its separation alerts. I would only get a half to two blocks away (or an average of 350 feet) before getting an alert asking if I’d forgotten an item. Neither AirTag nor Tile ever beat Chipolo to the punch. The alerts were consistent whether I was forgetting an item at home, at a coffee shop, or inside my car.
As far as losing stuff out in the wild, it will get you back to the spot where your phone and tracker were last paired. That means if you miss an alert or don’t have them turned on, Chipolo will give you directions (via your maps app) and take you right to where you left your item. In one test, I had a friend hide the tracker nearby when I wasn't looking. I left the area and returned hours later, using the last location information to lead me within a few feet of the tracker. Ringing the tracker then made it easy to find. Of course, if someone walks off with your tracked item, the Chipolo will be harder pressed to help you out.
If you’re concerned about lost luggage when you travel or if you worry you may lose things on trains or buses, this isn’t the tracker for you because of its much smaller finding network. But if you’re looking for a dead simple way to find your keys and make sure your jacket leaves the bar when you do, the Chipolo One is hard to beat.
Best for iPhones: AirTag
AirTags work with the Find My app, so they don’t require any additional downloads. If you’ve used the Find My app before, you’ll likely understand how this works. These are the quietest of the trackers we tested and each time you press the Play Sound button, the tags only ring for seven seconds. You’ll need to keep pressing if you don’t find your item right away and AirTags can’t be used to ring your phone.
As for separation alerts, AirTags were consistent, always delivering a “left behind” alert when I traveled about 1,200 feet away, or about three square blocks, without an item. You can turn off separation alerts for any given tracker, as well as designate certain locations, such as your home or workplace, as exceptions for the notifications.
One feature that AirTags have that no other tag offers is the ability to tap into the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless protocol. This allows you to play a fun game of hot and cold with an item when it’s within about 25 feet of your iPhone. Directional arrows and a diminishing distance meter on your iPhone’s screen point you to an item without having to ring it. This worked reliably about 75 percent of the time in my tests; sometimes it was just easier to ring the item when the directional finding couldn’t keep a lock on the tracker. UWB is supported by iPhone models 11 and later and while newer Galaxy and Pixel phones also support UWB, no Android-compatible tracker has been released, though, Tile has announced one that will.
AirTag’s ability to locate a lost item out in the city is almost eerie. I had someone (who was not carrying an iPhone) take my bike with a tracker hidden under the seat to a location a little over a half mile away. I set out a few minutes later and toggled on Notify When Found in the Find My app. Within three minutes, I received a notification that the bike had been “seen” near an address. Tapping on Directions navigates to Apple Maps, which took me to a spot about 30 feet from the bike. Had it been obscured from view, I could have then used the Find Nearby button to activate the UWB locating features. Ringing the tag was too quiet to hear on the sidewalk.
If you want the same scary-precise community finding features, but with a louder ring and a hole in the tracker, the Chipolo One Spot is a solid option. It doesn’t offer UWB capabilities, however, and the separation alerts are the same as with AirTags (letting you get 1,200 feet away before a ping, versus an average of 350 feet with our top rec, Chipolo One classic).
Best for Android: Tile Pro
Tile will work with either Android or Apple devices, but the experience is much better on Android. Certain connectivity issues and a lack of alerts that plagued the iPhone experience did not show up in tests with the Galaxy phone. One caveat to note is that Tile requires a subscription to enable separation alerts. Tile Premium goes for $3 per month or $30 per year and includes location history and item reimbursement of up to $100 on items that you register with the company, they’ll also send out a fresh battery once a year. Tile stands out as the only tracker company offering reimbursement — even without a subscription, they’ll pay out up to $25 for items that you register with them.
The Tile Pro is a key-fob shaped device with a metal keychain hole that feels sturdy. The Pro’s ring was just a few decibels quieter than the Tile Mate (78 versus 82 decibels), but the connectivity range was better with the Pro, and it was more accurate in finder network tests. On top of that, this is the only current Tile device with a replaceable battery, which lasts about one year.
For the lost-item tests, I had a friend take the Pro to random locations. After turning on the Notify When Found feature, an alert would arrive between five and ten minutes later saying my lost item was “found by the community.” The map details were typically accurate within about 100 feet or so, though it occasionally thought the Tile was at a business next door to where it actually was. Without the UWB feature, precision finding of an item was trickier. In one test, the tracker ended up in a noisy pub. While the directions pointed me to the right location, it would have been difficult to find the item if I hadn’t spotted my friend, as the ring function was useless among the din.
Best wallet tracker: Tile Slim
The Tile Slim is louder than both the Pro and the Mate, and nearly equals the loudest tracker we tested, the Chipolo One. It works with both Android and Apple devices and its thick credit card shape fits in the slots of a typical wallet (though it often won’t connect when inside an RFID-blocking wallet). The separation alerts you’ll get if you pay for a Tile subscription activate at about the same distance as the Tile Pro, letting you get around 1,500 feet away before pinging you about a left-behind item. When using an iPhone with Tile trackers, separation alerts rarely came and connectivity between the phone and tracker was spotty at best, even in close proximity. If you use an iPhone, the Chipolo Card Spot is equally loud, runs on Apple’s vast Find My network and consistently gives you a left-behind alert at around 1,200 feet.
Amazon and Cochlear have teamed up on a new feature that streams audio directly from Fire TV devices to hearing implants, using the Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol. It’s the first time a smart TV device can stream sound directly to a hearing implant processor.
Cochlear says television was the company’s natural next step after working on streaming audio from smartphones to hearing aids. “TV is a big part of our lives,” said Ryan Lopez, a product management and marketing director at Cochlear. “We get our news and information through television, our entertainment, sports, music. When we started to work with [Amazon], what really came to light was their dedication to accessibility, effective communication, and collaborating on how we can combine these technologies. At Cochlear, we were really proud to be a part of this.”
The feature will work with the Cochlear Nucleus 8, Nucleus 7, Nucleus Kanso 2 and Baha 6 Max sound processors. You’ll also need a Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV 4-Series, Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen) or Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen).
Amazon
“When we talked to audiologists and customers who used hearing aids, and other experts in the field, the majority told us that the first thing you really want if you’ve got hearing loss is to be able to hear clearly the people around you,” said Peter Korn, director of accessibility for Amazon Devices. “The second thing you want is the ability to hear the television, to enjoy entertainment.”
Twitter announced plans to pull a popular method of two-factor authentication for non-paying customers last week. Not only could this make your account more vulnerable to attack, but it may even undermine the platform’s security as a whole and set a dangerous precedent for other sites.
Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, adds a layer of security beyond password protection. Weak passwords that are easily guessed by hackers, leaked passwords or phishing attacks that can lure password details out of a user can all lead to unwanted third-party account access.
With 2FA, a user has another guard up. Simply entering a password isn’t enough to gain account access, and instead the user gets a notification via text message, or uses an authenticator app or security key to approve access.
“Two factor authentication shouldn't be behind a paywall,” Rachel Tobac, CEO of security awareness organization SocialProof Security, told Engadget, “especially not the most introductory level of two factor that we find most everyday users employing.”
Starting March 20, non-subscribers to Twitter will no longer be able to use text message authentication to get into their accounts. The feature will be automatically disabled if users don’t set up another form of 2FA. That puts users who don’t act quickly to update their settings at risk.
Software-based authentication apps like Duo, Authy, Google Authenticator and the 2FA authenticator built into iPhones either send you a notification or, in the case of Twitter, generate a token that will let you complete your login. Instead of just a password, you’ll have to type in the six-digital code you see in the authentication app before it grants access to your Twitter account.
Security keys work in a similar way, requiring an extra step to access an account. It’s a hardware-based option that plugs into your computer or connects wirelessly to confirm your identity. Brands include Yubikey, Thetis, and more.
Security keys are often considered more secure because a hacker would have to physically acquire the device to get in. 2FA methods that require a code to get in, like via text message or authentication app, are phishable, according to Tobac. In other words, hackers can deceive a user into giving up that code in order to get into the account. But hardware like security keys can’t be remotely accessed in the same way.
“Cyber attackers don't stand next to you when they hack you. They're hacking you through the phone, email, text message or social media DM,” Tobac said.
Still, putting any 2FA behind a paywall makes it more inaccessible for users, especially if the version put behind the paywall is as widely used as text-based authentication. Fewer people may be inclined to set it up, or they may be ignoring the pop-ups from Twitter to update their accounts so that they can get back to tweeting, Tobac said.
Without 2FA, it’s a lot easier for unauthorized actors to get into your account. More compromised accounts makes Twitter a less secure platform with more potential for attacks and impersonation.
“When it's easier for us to take over accounts, myths and disinformation increase and bad actors are going to increase on the site because it's easier to gain access to an account with a large following that you can tweet out whatever you like pretending to be them,” Tobac said.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk implied that paywalling text-message based 2FA would save the company money. The controversial decision comes after a privacy and security exodus at Twitter last fall. In the midst of layoffs, high-level officials like former chief information security officer Lea Kissner and former head of integrity and safety Yoel Roth left the company.
According to a report from Reuters, ChatGPT is listed as the author or co-author of at least 200 books on Amazon’s Kindle Store. However, the number of bot-written books is likely higher than that since Amazon’s policies don’t require authors to disclose their use of AI.
Brett Schickler published on the Kindle Store a children’s book written and illustrated by AI. Although Schickler says the book has earned him less than $100 since its January release, he only spent a few hours creating it with ChatGPT prompts like “write a story about a dad teaching his son about financial literacy.”
Science-fiction publication Clarkesworld Magazine has temporarily halted short-story submissions after receiving a flood of articles suspected of using AI without disclosure, which was reported by PCMag. Although Editor Neil Clarke didn’t specify how he identified them, he recognized the (allegedly) bot-assisted stories due to “some very obvious patterns.” He added that spam submissions resulting in bans hit 38 percent in February.
– Mat Smith
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Bungie has been embroiled in a legal battle with cheat provider AimJunkies since 2021, with both sides slapping the other with lawsuits. Now, the game developer has walked away with $4.3 million in damages and fees after a victory in an arbitration proceeding. However, US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly ruled mostly in favor of AimJunkies last year, deciding Bungie had failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove its claim. He gave Bungie the chance to present more evidence – and that copyright infringement lawsuit is still headed to trial. Bungie will use this first victory in its argument during AimJunkies' countersuit, in which it accused the developer of violating its ToS for reverse-engineering its cheat software.
The company says it will restore long chats 'responsibly.'
Microsoft limited Bing's AI chats early after launch to prevent disturbing answers, but it now plans to restore longer chats. It’s expanding the chats to six turns per session (up from five) and 60 chats per day (up from 50). The daily cap will climb to 100 chats soon, Microsoft says, and regular searches will no longer count against that total. An upcoming test will also let you choose a tone that's "precise" (that is, shorter and more to-the-point answers), "creative" (longer) or "balanced."
If the deal goes through, Call of Duty games will come to NVIDIA's streaming service.
During the European Commission hearing over Microsoft's proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard, Brad Smith, Microsoft president, announced the company and NVIDIA have struck a 10-year deal to bring Xbox games to the GeForce Now streaming service. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said: “This partnership will help grow NVIDIA’s catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games.”
Earlier this month, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority said the Activision acquisition could result in a "substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles," and that Microsoft already had a 60 to 70 percent share of the cloud gaming market and that, should the deal go through, it would "reinforce this strong position." In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger.
Horror movie behemoth Blumhouse is getting into video games. The company behind hits like M3GAN, Get Out, The Purge and Insidious is opening a production and publishing division that will work on original horror games for PC, consoles and mobile. “We’re in the scary story business. We do films, we do TV and there is this massive, growing segment in media and entertainment called gaming,” Blumhouse President Abhijay Prakash told Bloomberg. The game publishing division will keep the budgets modest and rather than adapting its own movies into games (something Blumhouse has tried in the past), the company will look for projects that are in development and offer studios financial support and creative insight.
Uber has given its app a major redesign for the first time in a long while, and the new version reflects the massively expanded range of services in recent years. The updated Android and iOS apps center around a new home screen that puts ridesharing and Uber Eats deliveries in one place, with fewer steps needed to book trips or order food. There's also a dedicated tab for all the services available in your city, so you won't have to wonder which options are available.
The revamp promises more personalization as well. Tap the usual "where to?" button and you'll now see both saved locations as well as recommendations for destinations and ride types based on your habits. If you normally reserve rides instead of booking on the spot, you may see other scheduled options. An activity hub shows all your past and future Uber uses.
The upgrade also brings some long-expected Live Activities features to iPhone users. Anyone using iOS 16 can now see live ride progress on their phone's lock screen. And if you happen to have an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max, you'll see those ride updates around the Dynamic Island (read: front camera cutout) while the device is unlocked. You won't have to wait for notifications to know when it's time to head out the door.
The app is available today. Uber tells Engadget the Eats app "isn't going anywhere," and that the iPhone-specific upgrades will reach that software in the "coming months." The unified experience in the main app isn't exactly a shock, though. Uber now handles bikes, scooters, package deliveries, groceries and many other services beyond basic car hailing and restaurant orders. The app redesign might help you discover offerings you didn't realize were available, or encourage you to try features that previously felt like too much of a hassle.
A rework like this might be necessary. While Uber touted higher bookings and profit margins in 2022, its delivery business grew just six percent over the year. The harmonized app isn't guaranteed to improve Uber's bottom line, but it might encourage delivery orders from customers who otherwise wouldn't have tried a feature like Eats.
Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite Kids tablet offers a more eye-friendly reading experience than the regular Kindle Kids, but that features comes at a premium price. Right now, though, they're on sale with the biggest discounts we've seen yet, letting you grab one for just $105 or $55 (34 percent) off the regular price. You'll also find big savings on the bundle sold with a cover, power adapter and screen protector, now discounted to $118, for a total savings of $75.
The fifth-gen Paperwhite has a larger and brighter, 6.8-inch display, compared with the previous model's six-inch screen. The 300 ppi screen is glare-free and looks like real paper, which allows for "easy reading in all conditions, even direct sunlight," Amazon says. It's also more responsive than before, and offers an IPX8 water resistant rating.
The Kids edition offers some extra perks designed for the younger set, as well. It includes a one-year subscription of Amazon Kids+, which offers thousands of ad-free books, games, videos, apps and Alexa skills from Marvel, National Geographic and others. The adjustable warm light allows for safe night reading, and there's no worry about going to the beach or pool with the waterproof rating.
As mentioned, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids (8GB) is on sale for $105 in the "emerald forest" color, matching the lowest price we've seen. The best deal, though, may be on the $118 bundle (black or emerald forest) which adds a power adapter and screen protector for just $13 more and saving you $75 over the regular price.
Last year, Samsung introduced a feature called "Text Call" for Bixby with One UI 5, which essentially transforms voice calls into written text and vice versa. It was initially available in Korean, but now the company has launched support for the feature in (US) English. The feature lets users answer calls by typing a message that Bixby will then read out loud to the caller. It can also transcribe what the caller says, making it a pretty useful tool for those hard of hearing or for anyone taking a call in a noisy environment.
While Bixby has several voice options, Samsung is giving users the capability to personalize the voice it uses to answer calls. They can use the new Bixby Custom Voice Creator to record a few sentences, allowing the assistant to analyze their voice and tone and then use artificial intelligence to mimic what they sound like. At the moment, though, both features come with limitations: Voice creator is only available in Korean on the Galaxy S23 series. Meanwhile, Text Call as a whole can only be accessed on Galaxy S23 devices, the Z Fold 4 and the Z Flip 4.
In addition to English support for Text Call, Samsung has also rolled out the capability to customize Bixby's wake word into whatever the user wants. The assistant can now also play music that fits whatever workout is playing on Samsung Health and save schedules on the Calendar app. Finally, Samsung has expanded the things it can do offline, including setting timers, taking screenshots and switching on the flashlight.
