Apple is borrowing a marketing tactic from Twitter pirates. The company made the unusual move of uploading the entire first episode of its series Silo to the social platform, allowing anyone there to watch the opening installment for free. The gambit follows Twitter’s move to allow longer video uploads for subscribers. The free episode may be worth checking out: Engadget found the Apple TV+ original series to be “simply transcendent sci-fi TV.”

Silo is based on the science fiction novel Wool by American author Hugh Howey. It takes place on a post-apocalyptic version of Earth, where what remains of humanity is confined to the Silo, a 144-story underground bunker that serves as a self-sufficient underground community. The citizens are told that the world outside the Silo is perilous, but questions arise about what truly lies beyond. It’s a clever premise that allows showrunner Graham Yost to explore the book’s themes about truth vs. fiction and information as power. Apple has reportedly renewed the series for a second season.

Rebecca Ferguson (Dune) stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer who uncovers a web of secrets after her lover, George (Ferdinand Kingsley), is murdered. The series also stars Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, Common, Tim Robbins and Harriet Walter.

Episodes one through nine of Silo are available to stream now on Apple TV+. The season finale (titled “Outside”) premieres this Friday.

A rainy weekend threatened to delay the reopening of a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. But officials called in reinforcements: a giant jet dryer from a nearby race track, according toBillyPenn. The dryer is expected to ensure the highway opens this weekend as promised by PA Governor Josh Shapiro.

The jet dryer, used to prevent wet tracks at nearby Pocono Raceway, consists of a modified helicopter turbine attached to the back of a Chevy Silverado. PA Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll, who had worked with racetrack officials when he held office in the area, knew who to call when stormy conditions threatened to delay the reopening. “We’ve known Mr. Carroll for a number of years, he was a representative here in Northeast Pennsylvania,” said Ricky Durst, Pocono Raceway senior marketing director. “He knew the raceway well, knew that we often had to deal with weather circumstances during our events, and knows that we have the ability and the tools to dry asphalt.” The track also reportedly brought a Chevy Camaro pace car to the scene, although its utility during the asphalt drying is less clear.

Last night, workers paved the six-lane segment reconnecting the highway around the collapsed section ahead of the planned weekend reopening. The jet dryer’s arrival should be welcome news for Shapiro, who said yesterday, “I can confidently state right here, right now, that traffic will be flowing here on I-95 this weekend… We have completed every phase of this project safely and way ahead of schedule.” A section of the overpass collapsed last weekend when a tanker truck exploded in flames underneath, killing the driver and closing traffic for the entire workweek.

Meanwhile, Twitch streamer Brent Schooley saw an opportunity for fun as area residents eyed the I-95 reconstruction progress. The Philadelphia-based software developer began broadcasting a live view of the work — accompanied by LoFi beats. Schooley told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he started his “FIX THAT JAWN!” stream to provide a much-needed “chatroom for memes” as people check in on the progress. Although some people speculated it was a clever youth-outreach move from the Governor’s PR team, the project arose organically. “It’s another example of how this has truly taken a life of its own,” said Manuel Bonder, press secretary for Gov. Shapiro.

The next version of the prompt-based AI image generator, Stable Diffusion, will produce more photorealistic images and be better at making hands. SDXL 0.9, a follow-up to Stable Diffusion XL, “produces massively improved image and composition detail over its predecessor” according to Stability AI. The announcement appeared in a since-deleted blog post and was reported byBloomberg.

Stability AI describes the new model as providing “a leap in creative use cases for generative AI imagery.” Sample images included in the blog post revealed advancements when using the same prompts in Stable Diffusion XL beta and SDXL 0.9. The images generated with the newer model — including aliens, a wolf and a person holding a coffee cup — appear to show finer detail and more convincing hands. Hands were an easy “tell” to spot AI-generated art — at least until Midjourney v5, a rival platform that runs on Discord, launched in March.

Stability AI

“Despite its ability to be run on a standard home computer, SDXL 0.9 presents a leap in creative use cases for generative AI imagery,” Stability AI said. “The ability to generate hyper-realistic creations for films, television, music, and instructional videos, as well as offering advancements for design and industrial use, places SDXL at the forefront of real world applications for AI imagery.”

Stability AI writes that the new model’s “significant increase in parameter count (the sum of all the weights and biases in the neural network that the model is trained on)” allows for the improved results. Running SDXL 0.9 locally on a PC will require a minimum of 16GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 20 (or higher) graphics card with 8GB of VRAM. It supports Windows 11 / 10 and Linux.

Stability AI

According to the deleted blog post, the model will soon be available on Stability AI’s Clipdrop web tool and will be added to the startup’s DreamStudio app. The startup says the open-source version of SDXL 1.0 will arrive in mid-July.

EVE Online has finally embraced its destiny. The game, often jokingly called a “spreadsheet simulator” due to the competitive advantages its most dedicated players can gain by tracking in-game data, now has a Microsoft Excel add-in. “Gain a competitive edge by harnessing the power of data, as access to and the understanding of data can spell the difference between victory and defeat,” developer CCP Games wrote Tuesday in a blog post. The free extension, first announced last year at EVE Fanfest, is available now.

Besides serving as crossover marketing for CCP Games and Microsoft, the add-in could help level the playing field and make it easier for new players to enjoy the long-running MMO. “You can now quickly and efficiently arm yourself with the information and knowledge to reach your goals and aspirations,” the development team said. “Easy access to in-game data facilitates decision making and brings added fairness and accessibility to everyone, without requiring coding knowledge or dependence on player-developed third-party tools.” CCP Games collaborated with Microsoft’s Excel team to create the add-in.

Available data includes “your assets with location and item value, market orders, item market prices, wallet transactions, skills, as well as an overview of corporation finances (if you have required roles) to make informed decisions.” After importing your in-game information, you can generate custom reports or visualization tools like graphs and charts. The developer describes it as the “first and only” video game to offer official Excel-based data integration.

“CCP Games has extensive experience in the MMO space, so it’s only natural that we collaborate with them to launch the first-ever native Microsoft Excel add-in for a video game,” said Catherine Pidgeon, Microsoft’s Head of Product, Excel. “With the add-in, the EVE Online player base can seamlessly export and manage data without third-party tools. Through this collaboration, we’re excited to see how players of EVE Online of all skill levels can use Excel to streamline data management and take their in-game experience to new heights.”

To try out the tool, select the “Insert” tab in Excel (desktop or web) and then the “Get Add-ins” button, and look for EVE Online. Alternatively, you can find the add-in in the Microsoft Store. Finally, CCP Games launched a sample workbook to help you get started.

Dropbox announced two new products today that (not quite shockingly) shift the company’s focus to AI. Dropbox AI scans your documents, providing summaries and answers, while the more ambitious Dropbox Dash serves as a unified search bar for your life.

Dropbox AI is the simpler of the two new offerings. It applies artificial intelligence to file previews, offering summaries and a natural language Q&A about your docs. “With the click of a button, you can summarize your content, like contracts and meeting recordings, into a concise explanation,” the company explained. Or, ask Dropbox AI questions about the content of a specific file, and it can answer. “With Dropbox AI, now you can pull up a file, ask it anything, and Dropbox will read the document for you and give you an answer,” CEO Drew Houston said in a promotional video.

Meanwhile, Dropbox Dash has a much broader scope, essentially serving as a souped-up and AI-powered version of Apple Spotlight search, Windows Search or third-party launcher apps like Alfred. Dropbox wants Dash to be your one-stop shop for anything you need to know — locally or online. “Dropbox Dash is AI-powered universal search that connects all of your tools, content, and apps in a single search bar,” the company wrote. “With connectors to major platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, and more, you can find everything in one place, fast.” The idea is to provide customers with a ChatGPT-like dialog box that answers questions about all the personal and work-related content in your digital universe.

Dropbox

In addition to being a universal search bar, Dropbox Dash is also a browser extension. The company organizes URLs into Stacks, described as “Smart collections for your links that offer a quick way to save, organize, and retrieve URLs” — similar to how playlists store songs. The extension also adds a start-page dashboard showing search, Stacks, shortcuts and other suggested contextual items. Finally, Dropbox says Dash will eventually “pull from your information and your company’s information to answer questions and surface relevant content using generative AI.” (For example, you could skip searching your business’s internal links and pages and ask Dash when the next company holiday is.)

Trusting a company with all that data is a tall order. Dropbox wants to assure customers that it’s prepared for that responsibility — pledging to be transparent and not sell your data to advertisers. “In this next era of AI, it’s more important than ever that we protect our customers’ privacy, act transparently, and limit bias in our AI technologies so they’re built as fairly and reliably as possible,” the company said.

As lofty as Dropbox’s ambitions are with Dash, I can’t help but see an AI-powered “search box for everything” as a logical extension of modern operating systems. I’d be surprised if Apple, Microsoft and Google haven’t already been working on their versions of an AI-infused universal search bar to eventually bake into their products on the OS level. If those suspicions are correct, that could leave Dropbox with a brief window to establish Dash before the heavy hitters step in and make a third-party variant redundant for most customers.

Dropbox AI for file previews is available in alpha today for Dropbox Pro customers in the US. In addition, it will “start rolling out” for “select Dropbox Teams.” Finally, you can sign up to join the waitlist for Dropbox Dash.

Qualcomm expanded its S3 Gen 2 Sound platform today with an eye on gamers. The new chip, designed for dongles and adapters, can deliver sub-20ms latency while supplying an additional backchannel for voice chat.

The expansion to Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 Sound combines Snapdragon Sound and LE Audio for “ultra-low latency of less than 20ms for lag-free wireless audio with voice back-channel for in-game chat.” The chip-maker notes that it reduces latency even more when skipping the voice chat and delivering game audio only. Additionally, a Qualcomm representative tells Engadget that it could also work with wireless charging cases with audio-transmission features (handy for wireless listening to in-flight entertainment).

It also supports the latest version of Auracast, a broadcast standard based on Bluetooth LE Audio. Dongles and adapters using Qualcomm’s platform can cast from devices like TVs, phones, PCs and consoles to a virtually unlimited number of nearby listeners. The tech can be used for assistive listening at public events, broadcasting announcements or simply sharing your music with nearby friends.

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Qualcomm

“With every generation of Snapdragon Sound, we have driven down latencies and improved audio quality, and with this latest addition to our Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 Sound portfolio, we are providing our best wireless gaming experience yet,” said Qualcomm marketing director Mike Canevaro. “We know from our annual State of Sound survey that consumers want lag-free audio for gaming, but until now this immersive wireless audio experience has been reserved for proprietary gaming solutions.”

Qualcomm hasn’t yet announced specific devices where we’ll see the extended platform, but the reveal could mean compatible accessories aren’t far behind.

It looks like Fake Drake won’t be taking home a Grammy. Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said this week that although the organization will consider music with limited AI-generated voices or instrumentation for award recognition, it will only honor songs written and performed “mostly by a human.”

“At this point, we are going to allow AI music and content to be submitted, but the Grammys will only be allowed to go to human creators who have contributed creatively in the appropriate categories,” Mason said in an interview with Grammy.com. “If there’s an AI voice singing the song or AI instrumentation, we’ll consider it. But in a songwriting-based category, it has to have been written mostly by a human. Same goes for performance categories – only a human performer can be considered for a Grammy. If AI did the songwriting or created the music, that’s a different consideration. But the Grammy will go to human creators at this point.”

The CEO’s comments mean the fake Drake / The Weeknd song “Heart on My Sleeve,” which went viral earlier this year before getting wiped from streaming platforms over copyright takedowns, wouldn’t be eligible. Another AI-generated scammer sold fake Frank Ocean tracks in April for a reported CAD 13,000 ($9,722 in US dollars), while Spotify has been busy purging tens of thousands of AI-made songs from its library.

On the other hand, it raises questions about artists like Holly Herndon, who used an AI version of her voice for a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” (The AI-generated performance would suggest not, but would the fact that it’s her own voice make a difference?) Or, for that matter, there’s the upcoming “final” Beatles track that Paul McCartney says will use AI to isolate a garbled recording of John Lennon’s voice. And would Taryn Southern, who (also transparently) used AI to co-produce her 2018 debut album, be eligible? We reached out to the Recording Academy for clarification about these examples and will update this article if they respond.

Awards or not, Mason acknowledged that AI would upend the music industry. “AI is going to absolutely, unequivocally have a hand in shaping the future of our industry,” Mason said. “So, we have to start planning around that and thinking about what that means for us. How can we adapt to accommodate? How can we set guardrails and standards? There are a lot of things that need to be addressed around AI as it relates to our industry.” The CEO added that the Recording Academy recently held a summit “with industry leaders, tech entrepreneurs, streaming platforms, and people from the artist community” to discuss AI’s future. “We talked about the subject and discussed how the Recording Academy can be helpful: how we can play a role and the future of AI in music.”

A US Senate committee is investigating Amazon’s warehouse safety practices. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy today, initiating the probe. Sanders urged Jassy to address health and safety issues at the company’s warehouses and requested additional information about its response to various safety issues. In a statement to Engadget, Amazon said, “We’ve reviewed the letter and strongly disagree with Senator Sanders’ assertions,” while adding that it has extended an invitation for the Senator to tour one of its facilities.

Sanders’ nearly 2,400-word letter takes the retailer to task for reported injuries and unsafe practices at its warehouses. “The company’s quest for profits at all costs has led to unsafe physical environments, intense pressure to work at unsustainable rates, and inadequate medical attention for tens of thousands of Amazon workers every year,” Sanders wrote. “At every turn — from warehouse design and workstation setup, to pace of work requirements, to medical care for injuries and subsequent pressure to return to work — Amazon makes decisions that actively harm workers in the name of its bottom line.”

The letter contrasts Amazon’s history of warehouse injuries and safety complaints with its $1.3 trillion market value, founder Jeff Bezos’ net worth of nearly $150 billion and Jassy’s $289 million in compensation over the last two years. It cites figures from the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of North American labor unions, that paint the company’s patterns as “uniquely dangerous.” “In 2022 alone, Amazon warehouse workers suffered nearly 39,000 injuries, 95 percent of which were so serious that they required workers to either lose time at work or switch to modified duty,” Sanders wrote. “Amazon’s rate of serious injuries at its warehouses, at 6.6 injuries per 100 workers, was more than double the rate at non-Amazon warehouses. And despite constituting only a little more than a third of the warehouse workers in the country, Amazon workers suffered more serious injuries than all of the other warehouse workers in the United States combined.”

In an email to Engadget, Amazon disputed SOC’s data. “There will always be ways for our critics to splice data to suit their narrative, but the fact is, we’ve made progress and our numbers clearly show it. Since 2019, we’ve reduced our rate of recordable injuries across our global network by more than 23%, and we’ve reduced our Lost Time Incident Rate by 53%. This is easily verifiable by examining the data we report to OSHA.” In addition, the company highlighted a report detailing its “meaningful and measurable progress,” while pointing us to a blog post regarding its efforts to help combat the effects of summer heat.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sanders’ letter asks Jassy to explain why Amazon’s injury rates are “significantly higher than the warehouse industry average” despite regulators repeatedly identifying measures Amazon could take to improve safety. It also asks the company to address why Amazon’s claims of robotics improving safety don’t align with data that says its robotic facilities have 28 percent higher injury rates than non-robotic ones. Finally, it asks for communications about a connection between workers’ pace of work and the prevalence of injuries.

In addition to his letter, the Senator created a website for current and former Amazon workers to submit stories about their experiences with the company. Sanders asked Jassy to respond by July 5th.

This is far from the first complaint about Amazon’s safety practices. A company warehouse collapsed in December 2021, spurring Congressional action that described Amazon’s response as “disappointing” and part of a “wholly inadequate safety culture.” In response to the collapse, Amazon tweaked its severe-weather strategy but refused to build storm shelters at its warehouses. In addition, federal prosecutors and the US Department of Labor announced an investigation last year over the company’s workplace conditions — a move that included OSHA inspections. In April, the SOC said Amazon was responsible for 53 percent of all severe warehouse injuries in the US despite employing around one-third of the country’s warehouse workers.

“When faced with worker injuries, Amazon provides minimal medical care while hiding those injuries from regulators and workers’ compensation programs,” said Sanders. “This system forces workers to endure immeasurable long-term pain and disabilities while Amazon makes incredible profits from their labor. That cannot be allowed to continue.”

Gannett, a news publisher accused of monopolistic behavior, is suing Google for monopolistic behavior. It’s the latest in a string of lawsuits against the search giant, and it repeats many of the arguments made by the Department of Justice in its second lawsuit against Google, filed earlier this year. Gannett is the US’ largest news publisher. “Google has monopolized market trading to their advantage and at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else,” Gannett CEO Mike Reed said toCNBC. “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy. Without free and fair competition for digital ad space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms.”

Gannett, which owns USA Today and various local papers, says Google has overly broad control over the online ad business, leading to diminished ad spending despite growing online readership. The crux of the complaint is that Google owns the largest ad exchange and ad server — both acquired rather than built organically — and that arrangement has led to diminished industry revenue.

“Content providers, including hundreds of our local news outlets, create enormous value but see none of the financial upside because Google, as middleman, has monopolized the markets for important software and technology products that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell ad space,” Gannett CEO Mike Reed wrote today. “Google trades on that conflict of interest to its advantage and at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else. Our lawsuit details more than a dozen significantly anticompetitive and deceptive acts by Google, starting as early as 2009 and persisting to present day.”

In a statement to Engadget, Google insisted that its services are popular because they’re the best — not due to a lack of competition. “These claims are simply wrong. Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize — in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” VP of Google Ads Dan Taylor said. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue. We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.” Google says the average large publisher will use six different platforms to sell ads on its websites, while advertisers and media agencies will use over three platforms to buy ads. The search giant describes its ad tech fees as transparent and consistent with industry rates.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

However, Gannett’s complaints are similar to those of the DOJ, which filed a suit in January (alongside eight states) to break up Google’s advertising business. “Google’s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged,” the Justice Department alleged at the time. It was the DOJ’s second lawsuit against Google, following one filed in 2020 under former Attorney General Bill Barr, accusing the company of having a monopoly over search and search-related advertising.

Gannett’s and the DOJ’s most recent lawsuits claim Google has stifled competition in the space through acquisitions. “Whenever Google’s customers and competitors responded with innovation that threatened Google’s stranglehold over any one of these ad tech tools, Google’s anticompetitive response has been swift and effective,” the DOJ said.

Gannett is no stranger to monopolistic accusations. Although the company is over 116 years old, it was acquired by New Media Investment Group and merged with GateHouse Media (taking on the Gannett brand) in 2019. Since the merger, Gannett has laid off over half its workforce and shut down numerous local news outlets. In the period immediately following the acquisition, Gannett “owned 261 daily and 302 weekly newspapers,” according toNieman Lab. “By the end of 2022, those totals were 217 daily and 175 weekly newspapers,” although some were due to selling papers to local buyers. In addition, the company went from about 25,000 employees at the time of the acquisition to 11,200 in its most recent filing report.

At its Tudum 2023 event today, Netflix revealed new trailers for two highly anticipated live-action adaptations of beloved animated series. One Piece gets a full trailer ahead of its August 31st premiere on the streaming service, while we’ll have to settle for a brief teaser trailer for Avatar: The Last Airbender, which won’t arrive until 2024.

The 90-second One Piece trailer shows the cast and settings of the live-action take on the manga and long-running anime series. We see plenty of star Iñaki Godoy as the naive but kind protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, who can stretch like rubber. The other Straw Hat Pirate crew members are Mackenyu as Roronoa Zero, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp and Taz Skylar as Sanji.

Meanwhile, the 37-second Avatar: The Last Airbender teaser doesn’t give us any shots of the cast or environments from the live-action remake. Instead, we see symbols of the four nations (Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads) fading in and out. Each includes a subtle audio cue corresponding to its element. Whenever we do finally see its cast, it will include Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka and Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai.

You may recall from a few years back that Avatar: The Last Airbender original series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko departed the project, raising questions about how faithful the new adaptation will be to the source material. “I realized I couldn’t control the creative direction of the series, but I could control how I responded,” DiMartino said in 2020. “So, I chose to leave the project. It was the hardest professional decision I’ve ever had to make, and certainly not one that I took lightly, but it was necessary for my happiness and creative integrity.” Still, he added at the time that the Netflix adaption “has the potential to be good.” We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.