Astronomers have used advanced instruments to calculate a more accurate age of Maisie’s galaxy, discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in June 2022. Although the star system isn’t quite as old as initially estimated, it’s still one of the oldest recorded, from 390 million years after the Big Bang — making it about 13.4 billion years old. That’s a mere 70 million years younger than JADES-GS-z13-0, the (current) oldest-known system.

A team led by the University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein discovered the system last summer. (The name “Maisie’s galaxy” is an ode to his daughter because they spotted it on her birthday.) The group initially estimated that it was only 290 million years after the Big Bang, but analyzing the galaxy with more advanced equipment revealed it’s about 100 million years older than that. “The exciting thing about Maisie’s galaxy is that it was one of the first distant galaxies identified by JWST, and of that set, it’s the first to actually be spectroscopically confirmed,” said Finkelstein.

The spectroscopic confirmation came courtesy of the JWST’s Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) conducted by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS). The NIRSpec “splits an object’s light into many different narrow frequencies to more accurately identify its chemical makeup, heat output, intrinsic brightness and relative motion.” Redshift — the movement of light towards longer (redder) wavelengths to indicate motion away from the observer — held the key to more accurate dating than the original photometry-based estimate. The advanced tools assigned a redshift of z=11.4 to Maisie’s galaxy, helping the researchers settle on the revised estimate of 390 million years after the Big Bang.

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The astronomers also examined CEERS-93316, a galaxy initially estimated at 235 million years pre-Big Bang — which would have made it astonishingly old. After studying this system, it revealed a redshift of z=4.9, which places it at a mere one billion years after the Big Bang. The first faulty estimate about CEERS-93316 was understandable: The galaxy emitted an unusual amount of light in narrow frequency bands associated with oxygen and hydrogen, making it appear bluer than it was.

Finkelstein chalks up the miss to bad luck. “This was a kind of weird case,” he said. “Of the many tens of high redshift candidates that have been observed spectroscopically, this is the only instance of the true redshift being much less than our initial guess.” Finkelstein added, “It would have been really challenging to explain how the universe could create such a massive galaxy so soon. So, I think this was probably always the most likely outcome, because it was so extreme, so bright, at such an apparent high redshift.”

The CEERS team is now evaluating about 10 more systems that could be older than Maisie’s galaxy.

Ford announced today that it’s expanding the availability of its BlueCruise hands-free driving tech. Previously, customers had to decide whether to add the option on available models at purchase — and that decision was final. Now, the service will be installed as standard on all supported vehicles. In addition to enabling it at purchase, owners can add the service later or only activate it for months when needed (like for road trips).

You’ll still have the option of buying the feature at purchase and folding it into your financing. However, you can now also subscribe to access annually or monthly at any point after that. BlueCruise costs $2,100 at purchase (for three years), while annual subscriptions cost $800 and monthly subscriptions $75. Ford also offers a 90-day free trial if you choose not to set it up at purchase.

The automaker expects to install BlueCruise on 500,000 vehicles in North America for the 2024 model year. That’s a significant ramp-up since it’s currently only installed on less than half of that: 225,000, according to Ford.

The service’s changes will also apply to Lincolns. The 2024 Navigator and Nautilus lines and “select trims” of the Lincoln Corsair will come equipped with BlueCruise. The $800 annual and $75 monthly pricing is the same for Lincoln models.

Ford says the tech’s upcoming version, BlueCruise 1.3, will enhance performance when driving around curves and narrow lanes. The company says v1.3 lets you keep your hands off the wheel longer. “Based on our internal testing, BlueCruise 1.3 stayed engaged in hands-free mode for an average of 5X longer compared to BlueCruise 1.0, the first version of BlueCruise,” the automaker said. The 1.2 software, rolled out earlier this year, added hands-free lane changes, in-lane repositioning and predictive speed assist. The company is serious about AI-assisted driving: It created an automated-driving subsidiary earlier this year to push toward a more machine-driven future.

Telegram launched its Stories feature to everyone today, following its availability to Premium users starting last month. Like Facebook Messenger’s Stories, they appear as expandable bubbles above your conversation. However, Telegram’s take is more customizable, providing granular control of who sees uploaded posts and for how long. “Now when you meet people on Telegram, you’ll see exciting snapshots of their life — not just a few profile photos,” the company wrote in a blog post today.

Launching alongside the messaging service’s 10th birthday, Telegram describes Stories as “by far the most-requested feature” in the company’s decade-long history. Its privacy controls include visibility options for everyone, all contacts, selected contacts or close friends.

Telegram

Telegram’s Stories also let you hide your posts from contacts you don’t want to see, and Premium users can choose between six, 12, 24 and 48 hours of visibility for new posts. In addition, post creators can see a list of the Telegram users who viewed their content. It also supports a BeReal-like dual-camera mode, letting you simultaneously share photos or videos captured by your phone’s front and rear sensors. The feature also includes reactions, so viewers can add a heart or choose from “hundreds” of other responses to posts.

Some of Stories’ more advanced controls are reserved for Premium subscribers ($5 per month). Perhaps most significant, paying users’ posts display first, giving them more exposure. Subscribers can also view others’ stories in stealth mode, hiding all traces of their visit from the author. Additionally, subscribers get the previously mentioned custom expiration options, a permanent view history (see who viewed your posts even after they expire), the ability to save Stories to the gallery, “10 times longer” captions and a higher allotment of daily Stories (up to 100).

Telegram Stories is scheduled to roll out to the service’s iOS and Android apps today.

Amazon announced a new generative AI feature today that summarizes product reviews. Available initially to “a subset of mobile shoppers in the U.S. across a broad selection of products,” the artificial intelligence tool creates a recap paragraph highlighting common themes from customer feedback. The company first confirmed in June it was testing an AI-powered summarization tool, but it now begins its official rollout. CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this month that AI is “at the heart of what we do.”

The idea behind the ML-generated summary is to let shoppers get the gist of their peers’ impressions without having to file through a swath of reviews manually. The wrap-up includes a short paragraph describing customer consensus: It’s a bit like an AI-powered version of the “Critics consensus” and “Audience says” blurbs you’d find on Rotten Tomatoes. “Customers like the stability, ease of use, and performance of the digital device,” one example summary shared by Amazon reads. “They mention that it’s way faster, the picture / streaming speed is excellent, and it’s a simple device to get connected. They also appreciate the performance, saying that it performs as expected and works great with LG 3D smart TV.”

The summary is followed by clickable tags showcasing relevant themes and common words from customer reviews. (It’s similar to an existing keyword feature in the company’s reviews.) Clicking on one will bounce you to full reviews addressing the chosen theme.

The elephant in the room is Amazon’s reputation with fake reviews. Although the retailer says it “proactively blocked over 200 million suspected fake reviews” in 2022 alone — and it’s known to sue culprits (and get a hand from the FTC in extreme cases) — that hardly means the company detects and blocks all of them. There’s also the question of whether AI-powered fake reviews (using ChatGPT or similar tools) are more challenging for Amazon to spot than human-written ones.

The company’s strategy includes only unleashing the summarization tool on verified purchases while using AI models that allegedly detect sketchy reviews — and calling in human investigators when needed. “We continue to invest significant resources to proactively stop fake reviews,” Amazon Community Shopping Director Vaughn Schermerhorn said. “This includes machine learning models that analyze thousands of data points to detect risk, including relations to other accounts, sign-in activity, review history, and other indications of unusual behavior, as well as expert investigators that use sophisticated fraud-detection tools to analyze and prevent fake reviews from ever appearing in our store. The new AI-generated review highlights use only our trusted review corpus from verified purchases, ensuring that customers can easily understand the community’s opinions at a glance.”

Some of the most advanced Roomba robot vacuums are on sale right now. Wellbots has the poop-detecting iRobot Roomba j7+ for an all-time low price of $549. Or, you can opt for our favorite vacuum / mop hybrid, the upgraded Roomba j7+ Combo, for $799. In both cases, you can enter the coupon code ENGROOMBA200 to receive the $200 discount exclusively for Engadget readers.

The Roomba j7+ includes a bundled cleaning station and iRobot’s poop detection tech. The company says the vacuum’s advanced sensors will avoid pet feces — and its “Pet Owner Official Promise” (P.O.O.P.) policy assures you it will replace the device for free if it runs over pet waste within its first year. The self-emptying vacuum also includes an intelligent mapping feature that lets you choose which rooms it covers, and you can schedule multiple cleanings per day in advance. The Roomba j7+ is usually $800, so its $549 discounted price (with code ENGROOMBA200) is worth noting if you’ve been on the lookout for a cleaning machine.

Wellbots’ coupon also applies to that model’s upgraded sibling, one of Engadget’s picks for the best robot vacuums. The Roomba j7+ Combo takes the j7+’s base features (including self-emptying tech and poop detection) and adds wet mopping, letting you transition seamlessly between carpet and floor cleaning. (It can do both simultaneously on hard floors.) It also includes a feature that can help keep your rugs dry by lifting the mop out of reach when it detects it’s on a carpet. The j7+ Combo typically costs $1,100.

Both devices work with the iRobot mobile app. It lets you manage the devices’ smart mapping capabilities, remote startup and scheduling. We find the app to be simple, intuitive and a significant selling point for Roomba robot cleaners.

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FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was sent to jail Friday after the judge overseeing his case revoked his bail. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan found probable cause that the disgraced former CEO repeatedly tampered with witnesses. In addition, Kaplan rejected Bankman-Fried’s attorneys’ request to delay his detention pending appeal.

Prosecutors argued that Bankman-Fried tried to harass a crucial witness last month when he showed a New York Times reporter the personal writings of his former partner Caroline Ellison, a cooperating witness who pleaded guilty in December to criminal charges related to defrauding FTX investors. The prosecution said SBF’s actions were an attempt to damage her reputation and influence prospective jurors. Meanwhile, SBF’s defense team accused prosecutors of using evidence laden with “innuendo, speculation, and scant facts.” Judge Kaplan sided with prosecutors, saying Bankman-Fried attempted to “tamper with witnesses at least twice.”

Reutersreports that the 31-year-old former FTX boss was ushered out of the court by US Marshals “after removing his shoelaces, jacket and tie and emptying his pockets.” The former CEO had been under house arrest in California (at his parents’ home in Palo Alto) since he was extradited in December following his arrest in the Bahamas last December. His $250 million bail package tightly controlled his internet usage.

AI and climate change represent two ways humans may ravage life as we know it on Earth, but the former can also help with the consequences of the latter. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) revealed a new program today that uses AI to detect wildfires. Created in partnership with the University of California San Diego, the Alert California AI program takes feeds from 1,032 360-degree rotating cameras and uses AI to “identify abnormalities within the camera feeds.” It then notifies emergency services and other authorities to check if a potential blaze warrants a response.

The program, launched in July, has already quelled at least one potential wildfire, according toReuters. A camera reportedly recorded a fledgling fire burning at 3 am in the remote Cleveland National Forest east of San Diego. The AI spotted the inferno and alerted a fire captain “who called in about 60 firefighters including seven engines, two bulldozers, two water tankers and two hand crews.” Cal Fire says the flames were extinguished within 45 minutes.

Cal Fire / University of California San Diego

The Alert California technology website says it uses LiDAR scans taken from airplanes and drones to create “equally precise, three-dimensional information about scanned surfaces.” It combines this with the physical traits of tree species to learn more about California’s forest biomass and carbon content. Cal Fire says the ML model leverages petabytes of data from the cameras to differentiate between smoke and other airborne particles.

The system was developed by UCSD engineers using AI from the California-based company DigitalPath. Cal Fire has invested over $20 million in the program over the past four years and promises an additional $3,516,000 in the near future.

“We’re in extreme climate right now. So we give them the data, because this problem is bigger than all of us,” Neal Driscoll, geology and geophysics professor at UCSD who serves as the program’s principal investigator, told Reuters. “We need to use technology to help move the needle, even if it’s a little bit.” However, Driscoll adds that the current sample size is too small to determine the program’s overall effectiveness.

You can check out Alert California’s “camera quilt” on your computer or mobile device. The website displays a grid of the remotely operated live camera views from across the region.

Instagram now lets you add music to photo carousels. Unveiled in partnership with pop star Olivia Rodrigo to promote her single “bad idea right?”, the feature allows you to pick licensed music to soundtrack your slideshows. In addition, the company announced that you can create Collabs with up to three co-authors and post audience-response prompts to Reels.

The carousel soundtracking feature adds a missing piece already found in TikTok’s Photo Mode, launched last year. “Whether you’re sharing a collection of summer memories with friends or moments from your camera roll, you can now add music to your photo carousels,” Instagram wrote in a blog post today. “Building off our launch of music for feed photos, anyone can add a song to capture the mood and bring their carousel to life.”

Also announced today, Instagram Collabs adds the ability to invite up to three friends (up from one) to help co-author feed posts, carousels or reels. The platform says each contributor’s audience will see the content (perhaps hinting that it could be a handy way for influencers to benefit from each other’s followings) and will feature on each account’s profile grid. In addition, the company says private profiles can still start posts / reels and invite collaborators as long as they follow the private account.

Instagram

Instagram also updated how the Add Yours sticker works. When a creator adds the new Add Yours prompt to a Reel and followers contribute content as a response, the creator can now highlight their favorite posted replies for all their followers to see. “With the Add Yours sticker, a creator or artist can invite their followers to join in on a fun prompt or challenge they create on Reels, and then hand-pick their favorite submissions to celebrate their fans’ creativity.” It essentially sounds like a way to use the human social desire to connect with high-status figures (especially celebrities like Rodrigo) to build engagement for creators and the platform as a whole.

Finally, Instagram noted that it’s bringing its music library “to more countries over the coming weeks,” although it hasn’t yet announced specific nations or dates. However, it did mention that Instagram is partnering with Spotify in Mexico and Brazil to showcase 50 of the most popular songs on Instagram Reels on the music platform’s Reels Music Chart.

Zoom has reversed course (again) and updated its terms of service after a backlash earlier this week. Following consumer blowback to a recently highlighted update to its terms which appeared to grant the platform the unlimited ability to use customer data to train AI models, it now says it will not use any consumer data to train AI models from Zoom or third parties. The previous wording said it wouldn’t do so “without customer consent,” which raised eyebrows since “consent” was (at best) a gray area for people joining a call (and acknowledging a pop-up) in which the meeting organizer enabled the feature and already agreed to the terms.

Zoom’s changes were listed in a preamble update to its previous blog post. “Following feedback received regarding Zoom’s recently updated terms of service, particularly related to our new generative artificial intelligence features, Zoom has updated our terms of service and the below blog post to make it clear that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments, or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models,” the notice reads.

Indeed, the previously troublesome section 10 in Zoom’s terms of service, related to AI and consumer data, has also changed. “Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen sharing, attachments or other communications-like Customer Content (such as poll results, whiteboard and reactions) to train Zoom or third-party artificial intelligence models,” the updated version reads. The previous variant of that section, even after Zoom made concessions in response to the blowback, appended the phrase “without customer consent.” But since “consent” seemed to be granted by simply joining a meeting (maybe even one required for your job) and acknowledging a popup, some users saw this as a potentially sneaky loophole to harvest AI data in situations where people don’t have much choice. The new version removes that ambiguity. 

“We’ve updated our terms of service (in section 10) to further confirm that Zoom does not use any of your audio, video, chat, screen-sharing, attachments, or other communications like customer content (such as poll results, whiteboard, and reactions) to train Zoom’s or third-party artificial intelligence models,” Hashim stated in the revised blog post. “In addition, we have updated our in-product notices to reflect this.”

Russia is heading back to the Moon as it tries to reassert itself as a significant world power in the wake of its war on Ukraine. A rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft will mark Russia’s first lunar mission since 1976. The expedition will attempt to land the exploration vehicle on the moon’s south pole, hoping to dig up water ice beneath the surface. You can tune in to watch the launch here.

The Soyuz 2.1v rocket carrying the lander is scheduled to lift off from the Vostochny spaceport in eastern Russia at 7:10 pm Eastern time. If successful, it would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole. NASA confirmed in 2020 the discovery of water molecules in sunlit parts of the Moon’s surface. Salvageable water could mark a breakthrough for lunar exploration, providing future human lunar missions with life support, fuel (through extracted hydrogen) and even potential agriculture.

Russia’s space trip also serves as a salvo in its attempt to reestablish itself as a significant world power unmoved by the West’s sanctions over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The vessel’s name is even a callback to the Soviet Space Program: Its last mission was the Luna-24, which spent 13 days heading to the Moon and back to collect samples in 1976. Referencing an era when the Soviet Union was an undeniable world superpower fits with President Vladimir Putin’s goals to project an image of Russian preeminence.

Luna-25 is also in a race against India: the country’s Chandrayaan-3 mission launched on July 14th and entered the Moon’s orbit this week. India’s craft is scheduled to reach the Moon’s south pole on August 23rd. The Luna-25 will take five days to reach the Moon and is expected to spend five to seven days in orbit before touching down. That timeline has Russia’s lander potentially reaching the Moon around the same time as India’s, if not slightly ahead.

The craft is expected to conduct experiments — using its 68 lbs of research equipment — on the Moon for about a year. It includes a scoop that can capture samples up to a depth of 15 cm (six inches) in its hunt for frozen water.

You can watch the launch stream below starting at around 7:10 pm EDT.