ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1 was poised to make history. It was going to be the first successful moon landing by a private company and the first Japanese lunar landing overall. But shortly before the spacecraft was supposed to touch down on the lunar surface, ispace lost contact with it. Now, the Japanese company has announced that there was a "high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the moon's surface." It didn't use the word "crash," but the spacecraft is clearly not in a condition that would allow the company to proceed with the mission. 

The spacecraft was scheduled to land on the moon on April 26th at 1:40 AM Japan time (April 25th, 12:40PM Eastern time). ispace said it was able to confirm that the lander was in vertical position as it approached the surface and that its descent speed rapidly increased by the time its propellant was almost gone. 

By 8AM Japan time, ispace has determined that "Success 9" of Hakuto-R's mission milestones, which is the completion of its lunar landing, was no longer achievable. The company has yet to detail what happened to the spacecraft and what the root cause of the failure was, but it's currently analyzing the telemetry data it had acquired and will announce its findings once it's done. 

Hakuto-R launched on top of a SpaceX rocket around 100 days ago, carrying payloads from NASA, JAXA, as well as the UAE's first lunar rover called Rashid. While the mission failed to reach its ultimate goal, ispace said it was "able to acquire valuable data and know-how from the beginning to nearly the end of the landing sequence" and that it will use what it has learned from this event to enable a "future successful lunar landing mission." The company still intends to push through with Mission 2 scheduled for launch in 2024 and Mission 3 for 2025.

Beats might release its next-gen Studio Buds model on May 18th. MacRumors spotted an Amazon listing that showed images and details for Apple's Beats Studio Buds+ — the page even allowed customers to pre-order the earbuds until it was yanked offline. The earbuds, which were listed for $170 or $20 more than the current model, will have a transparent option that puts their internal components on display, similar to Nothing's design. That said, they will also be available in black and ivory for those who aren't quite as intrigued or enamored by transparent electronics. 

According to the listing, the Studio Buds+ can run up to 36 hours, instead of just 24 when combined with the charging case like the current model. Speaking of the charging case, it seems to retain its predecessor's shape, except it's most likely lighter. The upcoming product's item weight is 3.87 ounces, while the current Studio Buds' is listed as ‎4.5 ounces.

The Studio Buds+ microphones are three times larger than the current model's, and they also have a more powerful processor. Those components enable 1.6 more active noise cancelling power and a transparency mode — that is, the mode that lets some ambient noise in so the user remains aware of their surroundings — that's apparently twice as effective. 

The upcoming earbuds also support spatial audio for immersive sounds, "always on" Siri and compatibility with Apple's "Find My" tracking app. Plus, they feature one-touch pairing with both Apple and Android devices, as well as automatic switching that makes it easy to use them with multiple phones and tablets. Considering the Amazon page for the Studio Buds+ seems to have the complete details about the model, we'll likely see it go back up in the coming weeks when Apple is ready to take pre-orders. 

We might see an electric vehicle based on Honda's e:Architecture, its dedicated EV platform, a year earlier than the company had previously announced. At a business briefing, wherein the automaker talked about earnings structure, battery initiatives and other things, it has announced that it's building a mid-to-large-size EV based on the e:Architecture and that will go on sale in North America by 2025. Honda previously said that vehicles adopting the architecture will be available in 2026. 

The company also announced that it's further developing its vehicle OS for use with mid-to-large-size EVs in North America and making sure that it allows for the "continuous advancement of vehicle functions and services for customers even after the vehicle is purchased." As TechCrunch notes, though, it didn't say if it's currently working on (or at least planning) a smaller vehicle based on its e:Architecture for the North American market at the moment. 

Before the vehicles based on its dedicated platform come out, Honda will launch the EVs it's currently developing with General Motors: The Acura ZDX and the Prologue, which is automaker's first electric SUV. Both vehicles will be available in 2024. In Japan, Honda is expected to release a series of small-size EVs, including an electric N-One, which is a mini box-like Kei car that can be commonly seen on the streets in the country, in 2024. It will also launch a small-size SUV for the Japanese market in 2026. 

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has introduced a new bill that would give it the power slap the biggest tech companies with a fine worth billions if they don't comply with its rules. It's a multi-faceted bill that's aimed at protecting consumers and encouraging competition, and it will allow the CMA to directly enforce the law instead of having to go through the court. 

If the bill passes, the agency's Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will be able to enforce a set of rules on how companies it deems to have "strategic market status" in key digital services have to operate. The CMA didn't name any specific company in its announcement, but the DMU will most likely identify Google, Apple and Amazon as organizations with strategic market status. 

The DMU could require them to be more transparent on how their app store review systems work or to open up their data to rivals — in Google's case, it could be a rival search engine. If these companies fail to abide by the new rules, the DMU could fine them up to 10 percent of their global turnover. Apple, for example, earned around $283 billion in revenue for 2022, so that could translate to a massive fine worth $28.3 billion. 

In addition to giving CMA the ability to set rules for tech giants, the new bill will also address the problem with "subscription traps," which is costing UK consumers £1.6 billion (US$2 billion) a year. Its new rules will require businesses, not just the biggest tech companies, to provide customers with clearer information before they start a subscription. Companies will also be required to send customers notifications if their free or low-cost trial is coming to an end and before their subscription auto-renews. Plus, companies will have to provide customers an easy way to unsubscribe. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a similar rule back in March that would make it as easy to cancel subscriptions as it is to sign up. The proposal is also still waiting for approval before it can be implemented. 

Another concern the bill will address is fake reviews. The new rules are expected to prohibit companies from commissioning the composition and submission of fake reviews and from posting reviews without taking steps to ensure that they're genuine. Further, the rules would make it illegal to offer or to advertise submitting, commissioning and facilitating fake reviews.

Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, said in a statement:

"The new powers in this bill help the CMA take swift, decisive action to tackle rip offs, protecting consumers whether they are shopping online or on the high street. The new fining powers will provide an important deterrent to businesses seeking to take advantage of people while also ensuring fair dealing businesses can thrive. 

The bill will also strengthen the Digital Markets Unit, helping to ensure digital markets remain competitive and continue to benefit people, business, and the UK economy. We welcome its introduction to parliament and look forward to it progressing."

Opera has released the early access version of its completely redesigned browser that it plans to launch for all platforms later this year. It's called Opera One, and it was designed to have a cleaner look with plenty of open space for future generative AI features and extensions in its sidebar and address bar. Opera says it has implemented a new multithreaded compositor and its new modular design principles for the browser to enable a fresh batch of features that include what it calls "tab islands."

The browser has the capability to automatically and intuitively group websites people open based on their content. It will open all pages with menus and restaurant details in one island, for instance, and all tabs with Google Docs in another. The idea is to reduce confusion and make it easier to jump between tasks, whether for work or for something personal. Opera apparently conducted research and found that users get overwhelmed by the number of tabs they have and wish their browsers could do more for them. This is Opera's answer to that problem. 

While the browser was designed with the capability to create tab islands on its own, users can manually group pages together, as well. They can drag and drop tabs between islands or create a new one by pressing the CTRL or Command button and clicking on the websites they want to group before right clicking on the "create a tab island" option. Opera considers tab islands as the first manifestation if its modular design strategy with their clearly distinguishable island borders and color markets, so we could probably expect more similarly designed features. 

In addition to tab islands, Opera One comes with ChatGPT, ChatSonic and AI Prompts enabled by default. If you'll recall, the company introduced sidebar integration for the AI chatbots back in March, allowing users to quickly launch them in a separate window within the browser. Meanwhile, the AI Prompts feature suggests different ways people can use the chatbots to transform the text on page, such turning a chunk of text into a soap opera dialogue or extracting information from it to create quiz questions. 

Opera One is now available for download from the company's website. 

Google's Bard chatbot now has the capability to help you with programming tasks. The tech giant said that coding has been one of its users' top requests, and now it has given Bard the ability to generate, debug and explain code. Bard can now write in 20 programming languages, including C++, Java, JavaScript and Python. It now also features integration with Google's other products and can export code to Colab, the company's cloud-based notebook environment for Python, as well as help users write functions for Sheets. 

Aside from being able to generate code, Bard can now provide explanations for snippets of code. It could be especially useful if you've only just started learning programming, since it will show you why a particular block has the output that it has. And yes, Bard can now also help you debug code that isn't quite working like you want it to. 

Google admits that at this point, Bard might spit out code that "doesn’t produce the expected output" or code that's incomplete. The tech giant advises double-checking and testing its responses first. In fact, Bard can debug its own output if you find that it's returning an error — just type in "this code didn’t work, please fix it." Finally, if you're not a programming beginner but still need a help of help, you can ask the chatbot to optimize your code by making it faster or more efficient.

Google

The tech giant opened up access to its AI chatbot in March, though it still has a ways to go to reach the popularity that ChatGPT is enjoying today. To note, ChatGPT has the ability to write and improve existing code in several programming languages, as well, so Google giving Bard the capability is perhaps inevitable. Google has also been constantly improving Bard in other ways and previously rolled out upgrades powered by a new language model called PaLM. A few days ago, the company created an "experiment updates" page where you can see all the changes Bard has gone through as it adds even more features and performs bug fixes. 

Last month, TikTok updated its community guidelines to add policies that prohibit videos with climate change misinformation on the app. As The Daily Beast notes, the change is taking effect today, April 21st. According to the service's announcement, TikTok will no longer allow content that "undermines well-established scientific consensus" regarding the climate crisis. 

TikTok will still allow videos that tackle discussions about climate change, such as government policies related to it, as long as they don't go against scientific consensus. However, it will start deleting content that violate its new policy today, and any user searching for climate information will be directed to "authoritative information" that TikTok had decided on in partnership with the United Nations. 

Back in 2022, internet trust researchers at NewsGuard have published a report about misinformation. They had found that TikTok is full of false information about, among other topics, climate change, and looking for the term brings up search suggestions like "climate change debunked" and "climate change doesn’t exist." During the height of the pandemic, looking for COVID-19 videos would also bring up suggestions that include "covid vaccine hiv." In addition, misinformation was especially prevalent during the presidential election season in the US. TikTok had ended up removing over 300,000 election-related videos and over 50,000 videos sharing COVID-19 misinformation. 

When TikTok introduced its new policy regarding climate change, it also added new rules covering AI tech that creates content. All digitally manipulated or created media on TikTok must now come with the appropriate tag, such as "synthetic," "fake" or "altered."

Ubisoft and developer Red Storm Entertainment have given us a closer look at The Division Heartland by releasing a cinematic trailer for the upcoming game at the publisher's Division Day event. The trailer introduces Silver Creek, the rural town that will serve as the backdrop for the free-to-play title, along with a new villain named Killian Tower who had disavowed the Division and killed his whole team. Players will assume control of an agent who tracks down Tower to rural America in a bid to find out why their former commander went rogue. 

The companies have yet to announce a launch date for the survival-action shooter, but fans can register at the game's official website for a chance to participate (and get five friend invites) for an upcoming closed beta. When the game does come out, it's expected to be available on consoles, PC and the cloud. 

Ubisoft has also revealed its roadmap for The Division 2 Year 5, which will start with the launch of Season One: Broken Wings wherein players have to rescue civilians taken hostage. Broken Wings will introduce a new free rogue-lite mode called Descent. Up to four people can play the mode together, though they'll have to start out without gear or any specialization available on the main game. While Season One of the online game isn't available yet, players can check out Descent mode on its Public Test Server starting today. 

Finally, Ubisoft has announced that the next test phase for The Division Resurgence mobile game will take place this summer. Fans can sign up for the chance to participate right now, and those who do will get access to a special Joint Task Force cosmetic outfit when Resurgence launches. 

For years, Imgur has made sharing photos and GIFs on the internet as easy as uploading a file — you don't even need an account to use it. Now the website has announced a change to its Terms of Service that could potentially erase years of internet history. Starting on May 15th, Imgur will be deleting "old, unused, and inactive content" that's not tied to a user account, so plenty of images posted on random websites online could disappear overnight. In addition, the service will be removing "nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content" even if they were uploaded by someone with an account. 

Imgur has long been the go-to service for people uploading explicit content meant for sharing on NSFW subreddits, since Reddit itself prohibits direct uploads of explicit images. Back in 2019, the photo-sharing website stopped displaying NSFW Imgur subsections associated with subreddits. However, it didn't delete any images and still allowed users to upload pornographic content, as long as they choose the "hidden" privacy status. Apparently, this has caused confusion and frustration on what is and isn't allowed on the hosting service. By banning explicit images completely, Imgur said it could address the risks they pose to its business and protect the company's future. 

The website will use automated detection alongside human moderators to find content to be deleted under the new rules. It will not be issuing warnings or suspensions for automated flags, but it will warn users if they try to upload anything that violates its updated Terms of Service. "Artistic nudity" is still allowed under the new rules, but they might get flagged by the website's automated detection tool that's still being calibrated. Bottom line is that, those who want to save viral images and other pieces of internet history may want to download them before they disappear. And those using Imgur to post photos on /r/gonewild may want to find an alternative service soon. 

Google's advertising customers will soon be able to use the company's generative artificial intelligence to create ad campaigns, according to the Financial Times. Apparently, the tech giant is gearing up to embed its generative AI, the same technology powering its Bard chatbot, into its Performance Max program. Performance Max can already help customers determine where their ads should run and generate simple ad copy. But the Times' says the AI's addition will give it the capability to create sophisticated campaigns similar to those designed by marketing agencies. 

The company has reportedly shown ad customers a presentation entitled "AI-powered ads 2023," telling them that its technology can generate advertisements based on the imagery, video and text they supply. In addition, Google told them that the ads its AI creates will fit the audience they aim to reach and will be designed to enable them to reach sales targets and other goals. 

At least one person expressed concerns about the possibility of Google's ad tool spreading misinformation, the Times says, because it could be optimized to convert new customers with no concern for facts. Back when Google posted on ad on Twitter about Bard, for instance, the chatbot spouted a falsehood claiming that the James Webb Space Telescope had taken "the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system." In truth, it was the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope that took the very first images of exoplanets that we had ever seen. Google has assured the Financial Times that it will put firm guardrails in place to prevent errors and misinformation when it rolls out AI-powered ads in the coming months.