Posts with «author_name|mariella moon» label

Twitch is giving all users access to its discovery feed later this month

Twitch has been testing a discovery feed for livestreams and Clips on mobile since last year, in hopes of giving users a new way to find new streamers to follow and, hence, spend more time on the platform. Now, the website has announced that it's rolling out the feature to all users later this month. The feed will first appear as a new tab in the mobile app and will allow viewers to switch between a scrollable feed for livestreams and another one for Clips. Like their names imply, the live feed will show users broadcasts from people they already follow and ongoing streams from people they don't based on their watch history. Meanwhile, the Clips feed will be filled with short snippets from live broadcasts. 

Users will be able to join ongoing streams from the live feed by tapping on the streamers' avatars to immediately go into theater mode. Twitch will also show when the streamer is live in the Clips feed, so viewers can check them out from there, as well. And just in case it isn't clear, Twitch explained in its announcement that the discovery feed will only be aggregating streams and clips from the service and that creators cannot upload to it directly. In other words, getting highlighted on the feed is a game of chance, though featured Clips will be given priority over non-featured ones. 

The discovery feed launching this month isn't its final form, though. Some users might start seeing the feed as their actual home page sometime next month, which is what Twitch had in mind for the feature in the first place. In early March, company CEO Dan Clancy said the service is giving its mobile app its first major redesign in years and that the discovery feed will be its new landing page. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-is-giving-all-users-access-to-its-discovery-feed-later-this-month-041009070.html?src=rss

Logitech adds programmable ChatGPT shortcuts to its mice and keyboards

Logitech has rolled out a new software tool called Logi AI Prompt Builder, which gives you quick access to ChatGPT's features. You first have to link a specific key on your keyboard or a button on your mouse with the tool from within the Logi Options+ software. After that, you can use that key or button as a shortcut to summon the prompt builder when you need it. 

The tool window pops up when you call it, populated with the text you've highlighted. It already has functions or "recipes" you can use, such as Rephrase, Summarize and Create Email, that will base their results on the text you've selected. However, you can create your own recipes, as well, including one that can generate images. From within each feature, you can also adjust the result's length and tone until you get one that fits your needs. It could help prevent disruption to your workflow if you do use AI tools frequently. And if you don't, well, maybe OpenAI is hoping that this could lessen friction and get you to use ChatGPT. 

Logitech says you can access the Logi AI Prompt Builder if you have one of its keyboards and mice that support the English language version of the Logi Options+ app, including its MX, Ergo, Signature and Studio Series devices. But take note that having one of its more recent models isn't a guarantee that you'll be able to access it: The Verge says they had to get a new mouse, because their 2022 M557 model was deemed too old to access the tool. 

One model that's sure to be able to conjure the prompt builder is the newly launched Logitech Signature AI Edition Mouse, which already has a dedicated button for it. You can only get the accessory from its website in the US and the UK starting this month for $49.99 and £54.99, respectively.

Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a dedicated keyboard key to summon Copilot, which is also powered by OpenAI's technology. The company said Copilot keys are slated to appear in new PCs coming this spring, as well as in future Surface devices. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/logitech-adds-programmable-chatgpt-shortcuts-to-its-mice-and-keyboards-133058130.html?src=rss

This hopping robot with flailing legs could explore asteroids in the future

Over the past two-and-a-half years, a group of students from ETH Zurich have been developing a robot with three spindly legs that was designed to be able to hop like an insect in microgravity. That's right — the curious little machine was built for space, specifically for the exploration of small celestial bodies like asteroids and moons. SpaceHopper, as the robot is called, could thus provide us more information to advance our understanding of life's origin, of the origin of water on our planet and of asteroids as potential providers of valuable resources. 

It has no preferred orientation, so it can go in any direction, and it has nine motors that give it the capability to jump long distances in low-gravity environments. The robot can even self-right after landing, ensuring the safety of any scientific payload it may carry. Since SpaceHopper was made for use on asteroids and moons, which have very little gravity compared to Earth, it has to be tested under conditions similar to those environments first. To see if it will actually work as intended, the students and the European Space Agency have recently taken the robot on a parabolic flight that creates a zero gravity environment when the aircraft freefalls. Apparently, they had no idea if SpaceHopper would be able to move as they intended in zero gravity scenarios and seeing that it actually worked was a "massive weight off [their] shoulders."

You can watch SpaceHopper flail about in the test flight below:

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-hopping-robot-with-flailing-legs-could-explore-asteroids-in-the-future-120043940.html?src=rss

ESA's Gaia mission discovers the biggest stellar black hole in our galaxy yet

In addition to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way also serves as home to smaller stellar black holes that form when a massive star collapses. Scientists believe there are 100 million stellar black holes in our galaxy alone, but most of them have yet to be discovered. The ones that had already been found are, on average, around 10 times the size of our sun, with the biggest one reaching 21 solar masses. Thanks to the information collected by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, though, scientists have discovered a stellar black hole that's 33 times the size of our sun, making it the biggest one of its kind we've ever seen in our galaxy so far. It's also relatively close to our planet at around 1,926 light-years away. 

Gaia BH3, as it's now called, was first noticed by a team of ESA scientists poring over data from the mission to look for anything unusual. An old giant star from the nearby Aquila constellation caught their attention with its wobbling, leading to the discovery that it was orbiting a massive black hole. BH3 was hard to find despite being so close — it's now the second closest known black hole to our planet — because it doesn't have celestial bodies close enough that could feed it matter and make it light up in X-ray telescopes. Before its discovery, we'd only found black holes of comparable size in distant galaxies. 

The ESA team used data from ground-based telescopes like the European Southern Observatory to confirm the size of the newly discovered celestial body. They also published a paper with preliminary findings before they release a more detailed one in 2025, so that their peers could start studying Gaia BH3. For now, what they know is that the star orbiting it has very few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, and since stellar pairs tend to have similar compositions, the star that collapsed to form BH3 could've been the same. 

Scientists have long believed that it's the metal-poor stars that can create high-mass black holes after they collapse, because they lose less mass in their lifetimes. In other words, they'd theoretically still have a lot of materials left by the time of their death to form a massive black hole. This was apparently the first evidence we've found that links metal-poor stars with massive stellar black holes, and it's also proof that older giant stars developed differently than the newer ones we see in our galaxy. 

We'll most likely see more detailed studies about binary systems and stellar black holes that use data from BH3 and its companion star in the future. The ESA believes that BH3's discovery is just the beginning, and it's going to be the focus of more investigations as we seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/esas-gaia-mission-discovers-the-biggest-stellar-black-hole-in-our-galaxy-yet-085753239.html?src=rss

Uber will start reminding passengers to wear their seat belt

Starting today, the Uber app will remind you to put on your seatbelt shortly after your ride starts. Passengers' tendency to not use a seat belt remains a significant concern, the ride-hailing service wrote in its announcement of the new safety feature, even though 50 percent of all vehicle crash deaths in the US in 2022 was caused by their non-usage. Now, your driver's phone will issue an audio reminder when you hop on, telling you to "Please use your seat belt for your safety." You'll also get a push notification on your phone at the same time that says: "Even on a short ride and seated in the back, use a seat belt for safety."

The company first started testing audio seat belt alerts in 2021 based on feedback from drivers. It said at the time that it believes the alerts will "increase seat belt use and help drivers ensure a safe environment while on a trip." This rollout makes it widely available in the US, UK, Taiwan, Latin America, as well as several countries in Africa. Uber intends to bring it to more territories in the future. 

The feature will only be enabled for your first five trips after the feature launches. Uber is likely hoping you'll get used to putting your seat belt on after those first five times, though it will send you a notification every 10th trip thereafter. The company also recently launched a new safety preferences section where you can find and automate the service's safety tools. From there, you can automatically switch on features like audio recording, PIN verification, RideCheck and Share My Trip. 

Uber

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-will-start-reminding-passengers-to-wear-their-seat-belt-140000112.html?src=rss

YouTube prevents ad-blocking mobile apps from accessing its videos

YouTube's war with ad blockers is far from over, and it's focusing on tools that enable ad-free viewing on mobile this time. The Google-owned video platform has announced that it's "strengthening [its] enforcement on third-party apps that violate" its Terms of Service, "specifically ad-blocking apps." It's talking about mobile applications you can use to access videos without being interrupted by advertisements. When you use an application like that, you may experience buffering issues or see an error message that says "The following content is not available on this app."

The service says its terms don't allow third-party apps to switch off ads "because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership." Like it's been doing over the past few months since it started cracking down on ad blockers, YouTube suggests signing up for a Premium membership if you want to watch ad-free. YouTube Premium will set you back $14 a month. 

Back in November, YouTube told us that it "launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience." It started by showing pop-ups whenever an ad blocker is in use telling you that it's against the website's TOS. Soon after that, you could only play up to three videos with an ad blocker on before you can no longer load any. Google also later admitted that if you have an ad blocker installed, you "may experience suboptimal viewing," such as having to wait a longer period before a video loads. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-prevents-ad-blocking-mobile-apps-from-accessing-its-videos-123055735.html?src=rss

Keanu Reeves is reportedly playing Shadow the Hedgehog in Sonic 3

When Sonic 3 hits the theaters later this year, you may be able to watch a franchise fan favorite be voiced by one of Hollywood's all-time fan favorite actors. Keanu Reeves will play the broody, tortured Shadow the Hedgehog, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The antihero, who's both an arch-rival and an ally to Sonic, will be created by Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik after the events of Sonic 2, based on the movie's first footage presented at CinemaCon last week. 

Shadow has a long history in the Sonic universe and first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2, which came out back in 2001. The black-furred anthropomorphic hedgehog was created in the games to help find a cure for Dr. Robotnik's granddaughter Maria, who had a terminal disease. It's unclear if the movie will follow a similar storyline — though we can again expect Sonic and his gang to stop Dr. Robotnik's plans to take over the world — but we'll likely get more details about the film before it comes out on December 20. Jeff Fowler will still lead the production as its director, while Ben Schwartz and James Marsden are reprising their roles as Sonic and his adoptive father-of-sorts Sheriff Tom Wachowski, respectively. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/keanu-reeves-is-reportedly-playing-shadow-the-hedgehog-in-sonic-3-072847772.html?src=rss

The latest version of xAI's Grok can process images

xAI, the OpenAI competitor founded by Elon Musk, has introduced the first version of Grok that can process visual information. Grok-1.5V is the company's first-generation multimodal AI model, which cannot only process text, but also "documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots and photographs." In xAI's announcement, it gave a few samples of how its capabilities can be used in the real world. You can, for instance, show it a photo of a flow chart and ask Grok to translate it into Python code, get it to write a story based on a drawing and even have it explain a meme you can't understand. Hey, not everyone can keep up with everything the internet spits out. 

The new version comes just a couple of weeks after the company unveiled Grok-1.5. That model was designed to be better at coding and math than its predecessor, as well as to be able to process longer contexts so that it can check data from more sources to better understand certain inquiries. xAI said its early testers and existing users will soon be able to enjoy Grok-1.5V's capabilities, though it didn't give an exact timeline for its rollout. 

In addition to introducing Grok-1.5V, the company has also released a benchmark dataset it's calling RealWorldQA. You can use any of RealWorldQA's 700 images to evaluate AI models: Each item comes with questions and answers you can easily verify, but which may stump multimodal models like Grok. xAI claimed its technology received the highest score when the company tested it with RealWorldQA against competitors, such as OpenAI's GPT-4V and Google Gemini Pro 1.5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-latest-version-of-xais-grok-can-process-images-120025782.html?src=rss

Microsoft's Windows 11 beta testers may start seeing ads in the Start menu

Microsoft is exploring the idea of putting ads in your Windows 11 Start menu. To be specific, it's looking to place advertisements for apps you can find in the Microsoft Store in the menu's recommended section. I could hear you sighing in defeat if you've used Windows 10 extensively before — the older OS serves ads in the Start menu, as well, and they're also for apps you can download. At the moment, Microsoft will only show ads in this version if you're in the US and a Windows Insider in the Beta Channel. You won't be seeing them if you're not a beta tester or if you're using a device managed by an organization.

Further, you can disable the advertisements altogether. To do so, just go to Personalization under Settings and then toggle off "Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more" in the Start section. Like any other Microsoft experiment, it may never reach wider rollout, but you may want to remember the aforementioned steps, since the company does have history of incorporating ads into its desktop platforms. Last year, Microsoft also deployed experimental promo spots for its services like OneDrive in the menu that pops up when you click on your profile photo. 

Microsoft

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-11-beta-testers-may-start-seeing-ads-in-the-start-menu-032358394.html?src=rss

China reportedly orders state-owned mobile carriers to replace foreign chips

Back in 2019, the FCC banned US carriers, which were then starting to deploy their 5G networks, from using subsidies to buy equipment from companies deemed a national security threat. Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE were at the top of that list. Now, China is implementing a similar measure: According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered state-owned mobile operators, including the two biggest carriers in the country, to phase out foreign chips. 

The regulator has reportedly told China Mobile and China Telecom, along with all other state-owned carriers, to check their networks for any semiconductors that weren't manufactured locally. It then asked them to determine a timeline to replace them. The Journal's sources said that it's now possible to switch to domestic chips, thanks to improvements in their quality and performance over the past few years. Chinese companies like Huawei were forced to design their own semiconductors after getting hit by trade sanctions, in order to be self-sufficient and in case they're no longer able to import chips from the US and its allies. The Chinese government, in turn, is supporting their efforts and is raising $40 billion in funds to help the domestic semiconductor industry. 

This latest move by China follows its ban on the use of Intel and AMD processors in government computers. Prior to that, China also prohibited the use of US-made tech in all government institutions and public bodies and banned local firms from buying chips made by US memory manufacturer Micron Technology. Intel and AMD will most likely suffer heavy losses from this latest development, since they provide most of the chips used for mobile networks around the world. China was also Intel's largest market in 2023 and accounted for 27 percent of its revenue. In addition to losing some of their biggest customers, the companies will now have to face competition from Chinese manufacturers, as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/china-reportedly-orders-state-owned-mobile-carriers-to-replace-foreign-chips-133001488.html?src=rss