Space agencies and private companies around the world have been scheduling their own lunar missions over the next few years, and that could be quite complicated to coordinate when they all use different time zones. During a meeting at the European Space Agency's ESTEC technology center in the Netherlands last year, space organizations discussed the "importance and urgency of defining a common lunar reference time."

In a new announcement, ESA navigation system engineer Pietro Giordano said a "joint international effort is now being launched towards achieving this." There are a few challenges: They will have to decide whether to keep lunar time synchronized with Earth's or not because clocks on the Moon run faster based on the satellite's position. Each day on the Moon is, in Earth terms, 29.5 days long.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Jack Dorsey launches his Twitter alternative, Bluesky

It’s out now in closed beta.

Jack Dorsey’s new Twitter alternative, Bluesky, is available in closed beta on the App Store. The invite-only app joins the list of Twitter substitutes, including Mastodon, as Twitter clings on through staff attrition and precarious stability. Bluesky began in 2019 as a Twitter-funded side project. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and was still CEO when the initiative started, saw it as a more open alternative to an increasingly centralized Twitter. Then, Bluesky spun off as its own company in 2021.

You’ll have to enter your email address to join the waitlist. The Bluesky app reportedly borrows heavily from Twitter. However, it includes minor differences like “What’s up?” in place of “What’s happening?” along with a simplified process of creating a post (which can also include photos) by selecting a plus button. So… yeah. It’s all pretty Twitter-esque.

Continue reading.

Sony 2023 Bravia XR TVs hands-on

Bigger, brighter and even more better looking.

Engadget

One major company was missing from this year’s CES barrage of TVs: Sony. Now it’s finally ready to show off its latest flagship sets. Its 2023 line of Bravia XR TVs are all powered by the company’s Cognitive Processor XR, so they all include support for stuff like Sony’s XR Clear Image tech, which allows for adaptive noise reduction, auto HDR tone mapping and more. Sony is also trying to take as much of the guesswork out of setup as possible by making its TVs in the standard video or cinematic modes look great right out of the box. Read on for the full round-up of both the LED and OLED families.

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Meta apparently plans to launch its first true AR glasses in 2027

The company reportedly shared its AR/VR roadmap with employees.

Meta has shared its latest augmented and virtual reality hardware roadmap with employees, and according to The Verge, it's planning to launch its first full-fledged AR glasses in 2027. While the company intends to release other AR glasses before then, the device it's launching in four years is the same one Mark Zuckerberg believes could become Meta's "iPhone moment." The glasses, which will reportedly project avatars as high-quality holograms superimposed on the real world, are expected to be quite expensive.

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Airbnb is banning people ‘likely to travel’ with prohibited users

The company’s policies lean heavily on the side of homeowners.

Airbnb is banning users who may be associated with people the company deems a safety risk. Although the short-term rental company faces an impossible balancing act of making owners feel secure without discriminating unfairly against renters, its appeals process – a critical step in catching overreaches – appears to err on the side of perceived homeowner security.

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LastPass posted an update on its investigation regarding a couple of security incidents last year, and they sound worse than we thought. The hackers infiltrated a company DevOps engineer's home computer by exploiting a third-party media software package. They implanted a keylogger into the software and captured the engineer's master password for an account with access to the LastPass corporate vault. After they got in, they exported the vault's entries and shared folders with decryption keys. The company insisted all sensitive customer vault data, aside from some exceptions, "can only be decrypted with a unique encryption key derived from each user's master password." The company added it doesn't store users' master passwords.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Samsung Galaxy S23+ review

A solid phone that’s probably not worth the upgrade.

We’ve already reviewed the Galaxy S23 Ultra which, thanks to a large screen, onboard S-Pen and 200-megapixel camera, is aggressively targeted at power users. For everyone else looking to get a new Android phone, there’s the Galaxy S23+ or the S23. We tested the plus model and were impressed by the battery life, screen and, well, all the areas Samsung typically delivers on. But with few meaningful changes, the S23+ isn’t a hugely worthy upgrade if you’re using an S22 or S21.

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Bing AI is coming to the Windows 11 taskbar, of course

That didn't take long.

Three weeks after introducing the new AI-infused Bing, Microsoft is ready to shove it into a Windows 11 update today. If you're in the Bing AI preview, you'll be able to access all of its new features from the search box in the Windows 11 taskbar. Just imagine a slightly more streamlined version of what we saw with the Bing AI on Edge: In addition to general web searching, you can ask Bing natural language queries, and its intelligent chatbot will reply conversationally.

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Xiaomi's 300W demo fully charges a phone in 5 minutes

It's with a slightly smaller battery, but impressive nonetheless.

Realme’s 240W phone charging tech was big news last month. Given it's MWC week, today Xiaomi has swiftly responded with a whopping 300W demo, which brought the charging time down to a little under five minutes. The charger is the same size as the 200W equivalent. The phone reached 20 percent in a little over one minute and hit 50 percent in two minutes 12 seconds.

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OnePlus will launch its first foldable smartphone later this year

It promises to release more details in the coming months.

As well as revealing its latest experimental phone, which it envisions to have liquid cooling capabilities, OnePlus announced it’ll launch its first foldable smartphone in the second half of 2023. In the background at the OnePlus 11 event earlier this month, the company teased a mysterious Q3 2023 launch with what seemed to be silhouettes of devices that fold, but it fell short of saying what exactly they would be.

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FTX co-founder Nishad Singh pleads guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges

Singh has agreed to cooperate with the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.

Nishad Singh, a co-founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has pleaded guilty to US federal fraud and conspiracy charges. Singh, who was FTX's director of engineering, is the third member of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle to agree to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against him. Singh admitted to making illegal donations to political candidates and PACs under his name using funds from Alameda Research (FTX's sibling hedge fund and crypto trading firm).

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Elden Ring's first expansion is called Shadow of the Erdtree

FromSoftware says it's already in the works.

FromSoftware

Developer FromSoftware has confirmed the rumors circulating since earlier this year: Elden Ring is getting a big chunk of DLC. In an announcement posted on the game's Twitter account, the Japanese developer said an upcoming expansion entitled Shadow of the Erdtree is currently in development.

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Almost four years after it was announced, Pokémon Sleep, a mobile game that tracks your sleep, is finally on the way. According to yesterday's Pokémon Presents event, it’ll arrive sometime this summer, after it was meant to debut in 2020. It features Snorlax (of course) and Professor Neroli, a Pokémon sleep researcher. The idea is you leave your phone next to you when you go to bed, and it analyzes your sleep… somehow.

There’s also Pokémon Go Plus +, a new physical device that connects to both Pokémon Sleep and Pokémon Go. For the former, you press the button when you go to bed and again when you wake up to track your sleep data, presumably instead of needing your phone. Pokémon Go Plus + (yes, that’s its name) follows the original Pokémon Go Plus peripheral, which emerged in 2016. It will be available on July 14th and cost $55.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Xiaomi shows off its new wireless AR glasses

They use the same chip as Meta’s Quest Pro.

Xiaomi

MWC 2023 has kicked off, and while the biggest phone players might not be revealing much, there are plenty of intriguing phones and peripherals. Xiaomi has unveiled its Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition, a compact AR headset using the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 as the Quest Pro. The company says these oversized sunglasses offer an elegant way to blend the digital and real worlds but don’t need to be tethered to a smartphone. There’s no word on price or availability, but they do look like they belong in a ‘00s music video.

Continue reading.

The OnePlus 11 Concept phone includes PC-like liquid cooling

The experimental project may hint at future phone designs.

OnePlus has revealed its latest experimental phone – and this time, the features are more practical than before. The OnePlus 11 Concept centers on Active CryoFlux liquid cooling, which mimics some gaming PCs. The system uses a piezoelectric ceramic micropump to send cooling fluid throughout pipelines in the phone (visible on the outside) without "significantly" increasing the phone's bulk.

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Google is bringing a bunch of new features to Android and Wear OS

Including better organizational tools and tap-to-pay animations.

Google is unveiling a raft of minor additions to Android and Wear OS, including a new widget for Google Keep to check off your to-do lists from your home screen. And with a compatible watch, you’ll be able to dictate notes and to-do list items from your wrist. Another more notable change is improved noise cancellation in Google Meet when used on some Android devices. Google said you’ll soon be able to use Chrome OS' Fast Pair feature to connect new Bluetooth headphones to your machine with a single tap.

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You can now fly the largest aircraft ever built in 'Microsoft Flight Simulator'

Proceeds will go toward rebuilding the craft destroyed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Microsoft

One year ago today, the largest aircraft ever built was destroyed during the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now, the Antonov An-225 Mriya is once again taking to the skies – albeit in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The Ukraine-built Mriya was an ultra-heavy lift jet transport aircraft with six engines. It was the heaviest aircraft ever built, and it had the largest wingspan of any plane at 290 feet. The Flight Simulator version of Mriya costs $20, with all proceeds going to the Antonov Corporation's Mryia reconstruction efforts.

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Tear down the middle school geology posters: We have an update. A team at Australian National University (ANU) has found evidence of a new fifth layer to the planet, an iron-nickel alloy ball in the inner core. The scientists found the hidden core by studying seismic waves that travel up to five times across the Earth's diameter – previous studies only looked at single bounces. The earthquake waves probed places near the center at angles that suggested a different crystalline structure deep inside.

The ANU researchers also believe the innermost inner core hints at a major event in Earth's past that had a "significant" impact on the planet's heart. As researchers told The Washington Post, it could also help explain the formation of the Earth's magnetic field. The field plays a major role in supporting life as it shields the Earth from harmful radiation and keeps water from drifting into space.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Russia's replacement Soyuz spacecraft arrives at ISS to bring back MS-22 crew

The spacecraft successfully docked on Saturday evening.

ROCOSMOS

MS-23, the Soyuz spacecraft Russia sent to bring cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth, has arrived at the International Space Station. According to Space.com, the vessel docked with the ISS at 7:58 PM ET on Saturday evening. MS-23 was scheduled to launch later this year, but Roscosmos was forced to push up the flight after MS-22 – Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s original return craft – sprung a coolant leak in December following a micrometeoroid strike. If an emergency broke out on the ISS and the entire crew had to evacuate, it wasn’t clear whether MS-22 could carry its crew safely back to Earth. That’s no longer the case, now the Soyuz spacecraft is docked.

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Watch the first episode of Star Trek: Picard’s final season for free

You can watch it on YouTube before paying out for a Paramount+ sub.

If you can’t resist the chance to see the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation one last time, Paramount is offering a free way to watch the first episode of season three. The debut episode sees Jean-Luc Picard return from retirement (yet again) after his friend and former first officer Will Riker receives a warning from Dr. Beverly Crusher. We’ve shared opinions on the first six episodes, but if you’re still intrigued, now there’s a chance to make your own mind up.

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Engadget Podcast: AI all the things!

ChatGPT is popping up on the Kindle Store, and even Spotify is looking at AI.

Engadget

The AI news just won’t stop! This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discussed the latest on Bing AI – Microsoft is loosening up recent restrictions, following reports of its bad behavior – as well as the rise of ChatGPT stories on the Kindle store. Spotify is also launching its own AI DJ, starring the digitized voice of one of its current hosts.

Continue reading.

It’s time for more Marvel Cinematic Universe, more special effects, more families in danger and more sinister baddies, with a bigger role for Kang the Conqueror – the big cross-movie threat, a la Thanos – played by Jonathan Majors. Alas, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers from too many special effects, sadly.

It uses Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) StageCraft technology (AKA “the Volume”), which came to prominence in Star Wars series The Mandalorian. It’s a series of enormous LED walls that can display real-time footage, synchronized to interactive lighting to make it feel like actors are in these sci-fi landscapes, fighting these threats to humanity. Still, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the tech, the actors and the narrative fail to convince.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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James Webb telescope captures ancient galaxies that theoretically shouldn't exist

Their age and Milky Way-like size make them an anomaly.

According to images taken near the Big Dipper by the JWST, scientists found six potential galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. That they could be almost 13 billion years old isn't what makes them odd, though, it's that they could have as many stars as the Milky Way, according to the team's calculations. The scientists explained the galaxies should not exist under current cosmological theory because there shouldn't have been enough matter at the time for that many stars to form. Now, that sounds like the start of a MCU movie.

Continue reading.

Google’s Magic Eraser photo tool is coming to older Pixel phones

And other Google Photos features will be more broadly available.

Google

Google is bringing photo features once exclusive to recent Pixel phones to more devices. Magic Eraser, a tool to easily remove unwanted people or objects from an image, debuted in 2021 on the Pixel 6, and starting today, Google is rolling out Magic Eraser to Pixel 5a and earlier models. All Pixel models and Google One subscribers will also gain access to an HDR effect to boost the brightness and contrast to videos. The same goes for Google One subscribers. Members on all plans will have access to Magic Eraser through Google Photos, even if they're on iOS.

Continue reading.

Netflix cuts prices in over 30 countries (but not the US)

It’s experimenting.

Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries – just not in the US. The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). The company introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October – it’s clearly trying a bit of everything.

Continue reading.

Elon Musk says California is home to Tesla’s engineering headquarters

The CEO moved the company’s corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021.

Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state: Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” But he’s back.

Continue reading.

It’s time for more Marvel Cinematic Universe, more special effects, more families in danger and more sinister baddies, with a bigger role for Kang the Conqueror – the big cross-movie threat, a la Thanos – played by Jonathan Majors. Alas, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers from too many special effects, sadly.

It uses Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) StageCraft technology (AKA “the Volume”), which came to prominence in Star Wars series The Mandalorian. It’s a series of enormous LED walls that can display real-time footage, synchronized to interactive lighting to make it feel like actors are in these sci-fi landscapes, fighting these threats to humanity. Still, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar says the tech, the actors and the narrative fail to convince.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

• Samsung's Galaxy S23+ is already $140 off

• Samsung is readying its own smartphone-to-satellite communication platform

• Panasonic S5 II review: The full-frame vlogging camera you’ve been waiting for

• Apple's Mac Mini M2 and M2 Pro models get their first Amazon discounts

• ‘Star Trek: Picard’: cargo cults and the perils of success

• The Roland SH-4d is a groovebox disguised as a synthesizer

James Webb telescope captures ancient galaxies that theoretically shouldn't exist

Their age and Milky Way-like size make them an anomaly.

According to images taken near the Big Dipper by the JWST, scientists found six potential galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. That they could be almost 13 billion years old isn't what makes them odd, though, it's that they could have as many stars as the Milky Way, according to the team's calculations. The scientists explained the galaxies should not exist under current cosmological theory because there shouldn't have been enough matter at the time for that many stars to form. Now, that sounds like the start of a MCU movie.

Continue reading.

Google’s Magic Eraser photo tool is coming to older Pixel phones

And other Google Photos features will be more broadly available.

Google

Google is bringing photo features once exclusive to recent Pixel phones to more devices. Magic Eraser, a tool to easily remove unwanted people or objects from an image, debuted in 2021 on the Pixel 6, and starting today, Google is rolling out Magic Eraser to Pixel 5a and earlier models. All Pixel models and Google One subscribers will also gain access to an HDR effect to boost the brightness and contrast to videos. The same goes for Google One subscribers. Members on all plans will have access to Magic Eraser through Google Photos, even if they're on iOS.

Continue reading.

Netflix cuts prices in over 30 countries (but not the US)

It’s experimenting.

Despite raising North American prices a year ago, Netflix is getting cheaper in over 30 countries – just not in the US. The company has cut prices by as much as half in parts of the Middle East (Yemen, Jordan, Libya and Iran), Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya), Europe (Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), Latin America (Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela) and Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines). The company introduced a cheaper ad-supported plan in 12 countries last October – it’s clearly trying a bit of everything.

Continue reading.

Elon Musk says California is home to Tesla’s engineering headquarters

The CEO moved the company’s corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021.

Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said a Palo Alto engineering hub will be “effectively a headquarters of Tesla.” Tesla will use a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state: Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” But he’s back.

Continue reading.

Bloomberg sources claim Apple’s quest for no-prick blood glucose monitoring is now at a "proof-of-concept stage" and good enough that it could come to market once it's smaller. The technology, which uses lasers to gauge glucose concentration under the skin, was previously tabletop-sized but has reportedly advanced nearer to an iPhone-sized prototype.

It’s been in the works for a long time. In 2010, when Steve Jobs headed up Apple, the company bought blood glucose monitoring startup RareLight. But no-prick monitors are a challenge. In 2018, Alphabet's health subsidiary, Verily, scrapped plans for a smart contact lens that tried to track glucose using tears.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Spotify's new AI DJ will talk you through its recommendations

The DJ uses OpenAI to tell you about the songs it chooses for you.

Generative AI is absolutely everywhere right now, and that includes Spotify. Its latest feature, simply called DJ, kicks off a personalized selection of music playing that combines Spotify’s well-known personalization tools, like Discover Weekly, as well as the content that populates your home screen, all with some AI tricks. The feature rolls out today across Spotify Premium in the US and Canada.

Continue reading.

Notion's AI editor is now available to anyone who wants writing help

The company only began testing Notion AI late last year.

Last November, Notion, the popular note-taking app, began testing a built-in generative machine learning algorithm dubbed Notion AI. Now it’s ready for launch. Notion said anyone, including free users, can start using its AI-powered writing assistant. More than two million people signed up for the waitlist for the alpha version and, according to the company, most testers weren’t asking it to write blog posts and marketing emails from scratch. Instead, they were using it to refine their own writing. As a result, the company decided to “completely redesign” Notion AI to make it more “iterative and conversational.” The new version of the tool will generate follow-up prompts until you’re satisfied with its results.

Continue reading.

Twitter’s 2FA paywall is a good opportunity to upgrade your security practices

The platform could become less secure – but that doesn't mean you have to be.

Twitter announced plans to pull a popular method of two-factor authentication for non-paying customers last week. Starting March 20th, if you don’t want to pay $8 to $11 per month for a Twitter Blue subscription (hi, that’s me!), you’ll no longer be able to use text message authentication to get into your account. There are still some options to keep your account secure. 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 to complete your login, or you can use hardware-based security keys that plug into devices. We walk you through the options if you want to stick around on Twitter.

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Uber puts a cute lil ride tracker on the iPhone lock screen

The app now supports iOS 16's Live Activities feature.

Uber

Uber has rolled out an update for its iPhone app that shows whether it's time to head out the door and meet the ride you ordered. You even get a cute car icon moving along to illustrate it. The company has launched support for Live Activities, an iOS 16 feature that puts real-time events from compatible apps on top of the lock screen and on the iPhone 14 Dynamic Island when your device is unlocked.

Continue reading.

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

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Bungie wins $4.3 million in case against 'Destiny 2' cheat company

The legal fight continues, however.

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.

Continue reading.

Microsoft is already reversing some limits it put on Bing's AI chat tools

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."

Continue reading.

Microsoft will put Xbox games on GeForce Now in an attempt to win over regulators

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.

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'M3GAN' and 'Get Out' producer Blumhouse is moving into horror games

Blumhouse Games will release titles that cost under $10 million to make.

Blumhouse

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.

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You can now test your racing skills against Sony AI’s GT Sophy – the one already wiping the floor with folks who get paid to play this professionally – when it arrives in today’s update for Gran Turismo 7 on the PlayStation 5 today. Players will face off against four GT Sophy AI opponents, all with vehicles specced slightly differently. There will be a four-circuit series separated by difficulty, too. The GT Sophy races will only be available until the end of March.

Sony

Meanwhile, an amateur Go player beat a highly-ranked AI system after exploiting a weakness discovered by a second computer. By exploiting the flaw, American player Kellin Pelrine defeated the KataGo system decisively, winning 14 of 15 games without further computer help.

It's a rare Go win for humans since AlphaGo's milestone 2016 victory. FAR AI developed a program to probe KataGo for weaknesses. The trick was to create a large "loop" of stones to encircle an opponent's group, then distract the computer by making moves in other areas of the board. Even when its group was nearly surrounded, the computer failed to notice. Now we just need to figure out how to use this strategy on the Gran Turismo circuit…

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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The OnePlus 11 Concept will feature a 'flowing back' with blue lighting

It's emphasizing the device's gaming prowess with PC-like LEDs.

Engadget

OnePlus has teased a version of its latest phone, the OnePlus 11 Concept, with... lots of LED lights. The "flowing back" has a unibody glass design with a meandering stream-type LED lighting pattern with a ring around the camera module. (Yes, it does remind us a little of the Nothing Phone 1's transparent, light-up back.) It will be revealed on February 27th at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona.

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The Fellow Opus is a coffee grinder that doubles as a showpiece

Consistency and versatility in an attractive package.

Fellow has a proven track record for well-designed, sturdy coffee gear. The company makes everything from travel mugs to kettles, including a grinder primarily designed to prepare beans for pour-over. Fellow’s second grinder is more versatile, used to prep beans for nine-bar espresso in addition to pour-over, French press, cold brew and much more. It’s consistent, easy to use and, well, stylish.

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Google Chrome's memory and battery saver modes are rolling out to everyone

The features first emerged in December.

Google Chrome has increasingly become a resource hog over the years, vacuuming up more and more of your system's memory and battery life with reckless abandon. Now, Google is doing something about it. As part of Chrome 110 for Windows, Mac and Chromebook desktops, the company is rolling out memory- and energy-saver modes. The features, which Google announced in December, are now enabled by default. You can turn them off in the Performance section of Chrome settings. Memory Saver puts inactive tabs on ice to free up RAM for other pages and apps. When you click on a frozen tab, you'll be able to continue from where you left off.

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Hey, if Twitter is making money from it, why not? Facebook’s parent company, Meta, announced its own Twitter Blue-like subscription called Meta Verified on Sunday morning. Mark Zuckerberg took to his newly launched broadcast channel to share the news, saying the subscription service would give users a blue badge, additional impersonation protection and direct access to customer support. Meta plans to test the subscription first in Australia and New Zealand before rolling it out to other countries. When Meta Verified does come to the US, it will cost $15 per month through the company's apps on iOS and Android. On the web, where app store commissions don't apply, the service will be $12 per month.

The company told Engadget the subscription will only be available to users 18 years or older. Meta will also require a government-issued ID that matches the Facebook or Instagram account’s profile name and photo. Once you're verified, you’re locked in to that profile name, username, date of birth and photo. If you want to change, you’ll have to go through the verification process again.

The blue tick on Twitter does come with the cringe-inducing text of: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.” (And you know I click to check.) Will Meta take a similar approach? And can we stop our egos from chasing that Instagram blue tick? And by “we,” I mean… me.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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The best tablets for 2023

We’ve got picks for every ecosystem

Engadget

While tablets don’t always get the same level of attention as smartphones or laptops – landing right in the middle in size and specs – they’ve become an increasingly important device for many, particularly with the shift to working and learning from home. There are a lot of options, so it can be difficult to pick the right one. We’ve done a bunch of the hard work for you, and we’ve got our top picks across a range of categories and prices, smartly timed after the release of the latest slates from both Apple and Samsung.

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Anime classics, including ‘Sailor Moon,’ ‘Naruto’ and ‘Death Note,’ are free to watch on YouTube

Viz Media has put a lot of free anime up on its YouTube channel.

Viz Media has uploaded some of the most well-known anime series to YouTube, for free. You can watch Sailor Moon – the old series that aired in the ‘90s – Naruto, Death Note, Inuyasha, Hunter X Hunter and others on the publisher's account. Viz has organized the episodes into playlists. However, you’ll have to be in the correct region (North America, it seems) to get access. No free anime for us Brits at the moment.

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Meta is bringing Telegram-like ‘channels’ to Instagram

The company will test the feature on Messenger and Facebook as well.

Meta has set its sights on copying a new messaging app: Telegram. Mark Zuckerberg just showed off “broadcast channels,” a new Instagram feature that brings one-way messaging to the app. The company is testing the feature with a handful of creators and plans to bring the Telegram-like functionality to Facebook and Messenger as well. Broadcast channels allow creators to stream updates to their followers’ inboxes, much like channels on Telegram. Those who join the channels can react to messages and vote in polls, but can’t participate in the conversation directly.

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NBA legend Paul Pierce settles with SEC over allegedly false crypto statements

He plugged EthereumMax on Twitter without disclosing payments he received.

NBA Hall of Famer Paul “The Truth” Pierce agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission over a cryptocurrency he promoted on Twitter. The government agency found Pierce violated anti-touting and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws. Pierce’s case echoes Kim Kardashian’s $1.26 million settlement in October for plugging the same currency. Pierce and Kardashian were also sued last year for their involvement in the scheme.

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