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Samsung’s first big tech event of 2023 unveiled three phones and three laptops. The showstoppers are, predictably, the company’s premium flagships, the Galaxy S series. The S23 Ultra ($1,199) has a huge 6.8-inch, an S-pen stylus and a 200-megapixel camera. That’s a lot of pixels.

It’s the company’s first Adaptive Pixel sensor, which means while you can still shoot at 200MP, by default, the system uses pixel-binning to deliver brighter, clearer pictures at 50MP or 12MP. Other upgrades include optical image stabilization that’s been effectively doubled for better-lit photos and less shaky video.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23 (starting at $800) and S23+ ($1,000) are slightly more iterative but still premium smartphones. They pack reliable cameras and faster processors – the entire S23 series has a special overclocked version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. All the phones are available to pre-order now.

Samsung also revealed an ultra laptop. The 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Ultra draws inspiration from the company’s best-selling Galaxy S phones, but combines it with heavy-hitting PC specs, like 13th-gen Intel Core i9 processors and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 graphics.

– Mat Smith

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• Sony has now shipped over 32.1 million PS5s following blockbuster holiday sales

• FTC fines drug discount app GoodRx for sharing user information with Facebook and Google

AI-generated ‘Seinfeld’ is pretty awful

At least it’s inadvertently entertaining.

Nothing Forever

What if AI made never-ending Seinfeld? “Nothing, Forever” uses OpenAI’s GPT-3 natural language model to produce (occasionally coherent) dialog between pixelated characters Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. One creator posted to Reddit: “Aside from the artwork and the laugh track you’ll hear, everything else is generative, including dialogue, speech, direction (camera cuts, character focus, shot length, scene length, etc.), character movement, and music.” The stream has little human involvement and changes based on viewer feedback from the Twitch stream.

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Sony is killing its PlayStation Plus collection on May 9th

If you own a PS5, claim the games before then.

Since September 2020, Sony's PlayStation Plus Collection has offered a bunch of PS4 greatest hits to PlayStation 5 owners with an active PS Plus membership. It included God of War, The Last of Us Remastered, Resident Evil 7 and more. Alas, come May 9th, Sony is shuttering the PlayStation Plus Collection, saying it plans to focus on bringing more games to its various tiers of PS Plus. Make sure you download any of the 19 titles now, while they’re still there.

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Facebook now has 2 billion users

The social network is still growing.

Almost 20 years in, Facebook is still growing. Meta reported alongside its fourth-quarter earnings it has now reached two billion daily users. While Facebook isn’t the first Meta-owned platform to reach that number – WhatsApp recently crossed two billion DAUs – it does show the company’s biggest source of ad revenue is still growing. During a call with analysts, Zuckerberg suggested Meta will continue to make cuts as it prioritizes efficiency. “We're going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren't performing or may no longer be as crucial,” he said. The CEO also said generative AI would be a priority for Meta in the year ahead. He added: “One of my goals for Meta is to build on our research to become a leader in generative AI.”

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After saying that it could come to PlayStation 5 in early 2022, Discord chat has finally arrived in the latest beta, Sony announced. PS5 Testers in the US, Canada and Japan will be able to join Discord calls, some months after Microsoft introduced the feature on Xbox. PS5 is also gaining Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p, along with dashboard UX improvements and more. 

Discord integration is a bit clunky, much like it was on Xbox at first. Here's how to set it up and use it, according to Discord's blog. First, you need to link your PlayStation Network (PSN) account to Discord, then select Discord under "Linked Services." After that, you can complete the integration using either a QR code or the PS5's integrated browser. 

Each time you want to use Discord chat on console, though, you'll need to use your mobile device to transfer your conversation, which isn't ideal. Back in November, Microsoft made it possible to join Discord chats directly from the console, so hopefully Sony will eventually do the same. 

Sony

Other new social features include a new way to share screens, party chats in the dashboard and "friends who play" that shows which of your friends are playing a game right now. Sony also introduced Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p gaming, so HDMI 2.1 displays should exhibit smoother performance at that resolution with less tearing. Sony launched PS5 VRR in April last year and 1440p support shortly afterwards, but the two features have yet to work together. 

Gamers will also find new tools to access PS4 saved data on a PS5, along with the ability to move games from one PS5 console to another over WiFi or ethernet. The new beta is rolling out to certified testers today, and should be available to everyone else over the next few months.

Developers will soon have to pay Twitter to be able to use its API. The website has announced through its Twitter Dev account that it will no longer support free access to its API, both versions 1.1 and 2, starting on February 9th. It will launch a "paid basic tier" instead, but the company has yet to reveal how much it would cost. Twitter has been experimenting with new ways to make more money ever since Elon Musk took the helm. The biggest change so far has been Twitter Blue, which evolved into a $8-to-$11-a-month subscription service that allows users to purchase the website's previously elusive blue checkmark. 

A New York Times report from last year said Musk and his advisers also discussed the possibility of adding paid direct messages and videos behind a paywall. They even reportedly considered reviving Vine, its short-form video app that it shut down back in 2016. Musk has been exploring all possible sources of income to be able to pay the loans he took when he purchased Twitter for $44 billion. As The Information notes, he borrowed $13 billion from a group of banks to close the deal, and they weren't able to sell the debt to investors as planned. The company now has to pay $1.5 billion every year in interests alone.

Twitter showed signs that it had plans to change the way developers accessed its APIs when third-party clients like Tweetbot suddenly stopped working in January. Later, the company confirmed that it deliberately cut off their access due to "long-standing API rules," even though it previously removed the section in its developer policies that discouraged app-makers from creating something similar to its core service. A few days after third-party Twitter clients went down, the website updated its developer agreement to ban access to its "Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications."

"Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets," the company wrote in a follow-up tweet. "We're committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us." While it's pretty clear that Twitter intends to charge developers to use its API, it didn't say if it would make exceptions for researchers. Twitter provides specialized access to its API for academic research, and people in academia have been using data from the website for their studies across various fields, including health and politics. 

The website promises to share more details about the new "paid basic tier" for its API next week.

Kindle's Paperwhite 5 launched in 2021, but Amazon has just spruced up the models a bit with a couple of new colors and put them on sale for good measure. You can now grab them in Agave Green and Denim, with the regular 16GB variant priced at $110 (27 percent/$40 off) and the Signature version on sale at $140 ($50 or 26 percent off). Oddly, the black version doesn't carry any discount and is still priced at $190, so the new color versions are currently the way to go.

Amazon also did this for the Paperwhite 4, introducing new colors well after the original launch date, as The eBook Reader pointed out. Amazon used the same Denim Blue color on the 11th generation 2022 Kindle as well. Even if you're not crazy about the new colors, you'll see the same black bezels when viewing it from the front. 

We gave the Paperwhite 5 Signature Edition one of our highest Engadget scores ever (97) calling it "the best e-reader, period." It has a bigger and more responsive screen than ever, tiny bezels, both USB-C and wireless charging, a waterproof body, 32GB of storage, automatic brightness and warm light options. The standard model drops storage to 16GB and lacks wireless charging, but is otherwise the same. 

As mentioned, the Signature Paperwhite is $50 off in Agave and Denim, while the standard version offers a $40 savings in the green and blue shades — near the lowest prices we've seen. 

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Sony's gaming business had a blockbuster holiday quarter as it sold 7.1 million PS5s from October to December compared to 3.9 million in the same quarter last year. That's a whopping 82 percent increase, so the company's supply issues appear to be largely solved — much as the company has said as of late. In other words, you should be able to buy a PS5 now with little to no delay. 

All of that resulted in a giant boost in revenue, as its Game & Network Services segment took in 1.25 trillion yen ($9.7 billion), up 53 percent year on year. That includes over double the revenue for hardware and healthy boosts in software (30 percent), network services (20 percent) and others including PSVR and first-party software sales on other platforms (73 percent). 

To grasp the significance of all this, Sony has now sold 32.1 million PS5s compared to 25 million in November 2022, so total unit sales increased 28 percent in just a single quarter. It also means that Sony may hit its fiscal year 2022 PS5 sales forecast (18 million units from March 2022 to March 2023) if it can ship 5.2 million consoles, something that seemed wildly optimistic last quarter. If it does reach that goal, it will hit PS5 sales of over 37 million units.

Sony has fought Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, though Microsoft itself recently pointed out that Sony has five times more exclusive games than Xbox. In terms of first-party titles, God of War Ragnarök and Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut were standouts on PS5 this quarter. 

Sony's gaming business dwarfed its other segments, though its imaging sensor business continues to rise as well, with sales up 63 percent year on year to 417 billion yen ($3.24 billion). Sony supplies the lion's share of camera sensors to both smartphone and mirrorless camera manufacturers.  

Back in 2021, Nissan revealed a few concept vehicles as part of its announcement that it was going to invest $17.6 billion in the development of electric vehicles over the next few years. One of the concepts it presented is a convertible two-seater sports car called the Max-Out, but the automaker only released a render that showed what it was supposed to look like. Now, the company has shown off a real-life physical version of the Max-Out at the launch of the Nissan Futures event in Yokohama, and it looks like the automaker stayed true to its original design. 

It's still a two-seater convertible with headlights and edges that light up in different neon colors. The EV's design has the mixed aesthetics of several different sci-fi franchises, including Tron and Avatar. But other than showing what it looks like, Nissan hasn't shared details about the EV concept, probably because it doesn't have plans to create a production version of it anytime soon, if at all. 

TORU HANAI/Engadget

When the company first unveiled the Max-Out, it vowed to develop 23 electrified vehicles and to launch 15 new EVs by 2030. It didn't make a pledge to go fully electric by the end of the decade, but it did say that it was aiming for a mix of EVs and gas vehicles. In particular, it's targeting a market mix of 75 percent electrified vehicles in Europe and 40 percent electrified in the US and China. One of the EVs it has released since its 2021 announcement is the Ariya, Nissan's first electric crossover, which has an estimated range of 216 to 304 miles depending on the variant. 

Nissan says the Futures event will showcase how it's "shaping the future of sustainable mobility and innovative design" and how it's preparing for "the various challenges and opportunities the coming large-scale transition to electric mobility will bring." While the event will be held at the company's global headquarters in Japan, Nissan will upload some panel recordings on its YouTube channel. 

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The Federal Trade Commission has slapped prescription drug discount app GoodRx with a $1.5 million fine for the unauthorized disclosure of customers' identifiable health information with third parties, such as Facebook and Google. This is the first time the agency has taken enforcement action under its Health Breach Notification Rule, which requires vendors of personal health records to notify customers if their data has been breached. While the rule has applied to companies handling health records since 2009, FTC commissioners voted in favor of expanding it to cover health apps in 2021. 

According to the FTC, the California-based telehealth service repeatedly violated the rule by sharing customers' personal health information, including their health conditions and the medicine they're taking. Further, it shared their information with companies that have third-party advertising platforms like Facebook, Google and Criteo despite making a promise to customers that it will never do so. The FTC says GoodRx also monetized its customers' information. In 2019, for instance, it uploaded the email addresses, phone numbers and mobile advertising IDs of users who purchased certain medications to Facebook, so it can target them with health-related ads. 

In addition to imposing a $1.5 million fine on GoodRx, the FTC is also seeking to change how the company handles user information. In its proposed court order (PDF) against the company, it listed several provisions, including banning the service from disclosing user data for advertising purposes. For other purposes, it wants to require GoodRx to secure customers' consent first before sharing their health information to third parties. The FTC also wants GoodRx to get the third parties it shared data with to delete its customers' information, and it wants the company to establish a comprehensive privacy program that will protect user data. 

Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in statement:

"Digital health companies and mobile apps should not cash in on consumers' extremely sensitive and personally identifiable health information. The FTC is serving notice that it will use all of its legal authority to protect American consumers’ sensitive data from misuse and illegal exploitation."

Almost 20 years in, Facebook is still growing. The social network now has 2 billion daily active users, Meta reported alongside its fourth-quarter earnings. The report marks the first time Facebook, which added 16 million users last quarter, has reached 2 billion daily users.

While Facebook isn’t the first Meta-owned platform to reach 2 billion daily users — WhatsApp recently crossed 2 billion DAUs — it does show that the company’s biggest source of ad revenue is still growing, even while Meta has made significant cuts to its business in recent months. CEO Mark Zuckerberg alluded to the company’s recent restructuring, which resulted in the elimination of more than 11,000 jobs, saying in a statement that “our management theme for 2023 is the 'Year of Efficiency.'”

Meta

But while Meta’s revenue has shrunk over the last year, the company’s $32.2 billion in revenue for the last quarter of 2022 was still slightly better than expected even as it was down 4 percent from last year.

During a call with analysts, Zuckerberg suggested that Meta will continue to make cuts as it prioritizes efficiency. “We're going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren't performing or may no longer be as crucial,” he said. The CEO also said that generative AI would be a priority for Meta in the year ahead.

“Generative AI is an extremely exciting new area with so many different applications,” Zuckerberg said. “And one of my goals for Meta is to build on our research to become a leader in generative AI.”

Meta also continues to lose vast amounts of money on its metaverse investments. Reality Labs, the division overseeing its VR, AR and metaverse projects, lost $4.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, and nearly $14 billion for the whole year, Meta reported.

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