Several years ago, Land Rover announced plans to offer electrified versions of all its vehicle and that process has finally begun. The company teased the Range Rover Electric in a press release and video, promising an 800 volt architecture and all the benefits of a modern EV. At the same time, it'll be just as powerful and capable off-road as its gas-guzzling counterparts.

Apart from some aspirational promises, details are still sparse. To start with, it'll supposedly have "performance comparable to a flagship Range Rover V8 and the all-terrain capability developed in-house by Land Rover experts." That all-terrain capability includes the ability to wade through 850mm of water (2.8 feet), though the current V8-powered 2023 Range Rover already offers 900mm of depth. 

Land Rover

The new model will supposedly be the "quietest and most refined Range Rover ever created," the company said, thanks to "active road noise cancellation configuration and sound design, plus cabin comfort levels enabled by its electric underpinnings." In other words, it'll take advantage of the relatively low noise levels and simplicity of an electric drivetrain, like other luxury EVs.

The new model will be built on Jaguar Land Rover's Modular Longitudinal Architecture (LMA) based on an 800 volt architecture, something that generally supports added charging power, enhanced performance, increased efficiency and weight savings. That, the company says, will help enable "fast-charging on public networks," among other benefits.  

The company is also promising "a seamless electric ownership experience — effortless charging, energy partnerships, software-over-the-air updates and intelligent technology to maximise range." On top of that, the vehicle and and batteries will both be built in the UK in Solihull and Wolverhampton, respectively.

Range, performance and other key specifications, along with full photos of the vehicle are still missing. If you're undeterred by that and swayed by Land Rover's promo video (featuring glimpses of the vehicle, a model in a gold dress wearing green rubber boots, some koi fish and plenty of water), you can now join the waiting list. 

If you need a spare gamepad for your Xbox or PC, Microsoft's wireless Xbox Series X/S controller is currently available for $45 at Amazon. That's close to the lowest price we've seen and the sale applies to multiple finishes (carbon black, blue and velocity green). 

The Series X/S controller is the classic well-balanced model with responsive face buttons, triggers, and joysticks. The d-pad offers nice tactility compared to Sony's DualSense PS5 controller, though it still uses an asymmetrical joystick layout. It comes with Bluetooth connectivity so you can use it with a PC or mobile device, plus a dedicated "Share" button for screen and video capture. 

While you don't get the advanced haptic feedback features of the DualSense, it fits nicely in your hand and is generally easier to use on a PC — especially for clients besides Steam. Alternatives like the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller and Microsoft's own Elite Series 2 pad offer a wider array of features, but if you just need the basics, the standard Xbox controller is solid.

The primary drawback is a reliance on AA, rather than rechargeable batteries for power. That lets it last longer on a charge than the DualSense, but you'll have to buy a separate rechargeable battery pack if you don't want to regularly swap out batteries. If you can live with that limitation, the sale offers a cheap way to get an extra high-quality controller or two. 

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Generative AI is nothing new for Snapchat users, with the app's "My AI" suite offering the likes of a free ChatGPT-powered chatbot, as well as the freemium AI-generated "Dreams" selfie effects, Bitmoji backgrounds and more. In the latest update, Snapchat+ subscribers can now leverage AI to extend images — or "zoom out" — at the click of a button, thus making the social media app even more practical. Say you have a snapshot of your pet but it's a little too close, just click on the crop button on the right menu, and then hit the "Extend" button at the bottom. Voilà!

The updated My AI also lets subscribers directly generate Snaps by typing a simple prompt. In the viewfinder, click the "AI" button on the right, then type in whatever you desire (within reason, of course), and shortly, you'll have an image to tinker with before sharing. Snap suggests you try silly prompts like "a dog sleeping on a rocket" or "a planet made out of cheese."

Last but not least, the aforementioned Dreams feature now lets you generate fantastical portraits with friends in them. On the Dreams page, simply pick a friend, hit "Done," and then you'll be able to share the generated portrait of you both. Like before, Snapchat+ subscribers are given one pack of eight Dreams selfies every month, whereas non-subscribers only get one pack as a free trial, before they consider signing up for the $4-a-month service. Regardless, all users can buy more for $0.99 per pack.

Snap's ongoing AI efforts seem to be paying off, with its number of subscribers rocketing from five million in September to seven million today — getting one step closer to the ten million "medium-term goal" set by CEO Evan Spiegel back in April, as reported by Time Magazine. Of course, given the fierce competition like Meta which offers similar features for free, Snap will have to keep churning out new AI-powered tools to keep its platform fun and fresh.

Xbox is giving you a detailed look at how much you've gamed and which titles you've truly enjoyed playing this year. Its 2023 recap shows your total time gaming on the system over the past year, the month you'd been most active on the Xbox, your total achievements and your top genres in a pie chart, which could give you an idea whether your taste in games has changed over time. Of course, you'll also get to see a list of games that you've played the most this year, ranked based on how much time you've spent on each one.

The recap will also let you know if you've unlocked rare achievements. And it will show how you stack up against other fans when it comes to the number of hours you've gamed, your gamerscore, and your total number of achievements — stats that could fuel your competitive nature and compel you to game more, or make you realize if you've been spending a bit too much time playing. 

Since it's that time of the year when everybody and every brand looks back over the past months, you can get an overview of your gaming life even if the Xbox isn't your system of choice. If you're more of a PlayStation gamer, Sony also recently rolled out its wrap-up recap for 2023 that contains the same information, along with game recommendations based on your history, perhaps to encourage you to rack up more gaming hours in 2024. 

Threads is going to make an effort to moderate more of the user-generated content on the platform. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, posted that it is working on creating a fact-checking program. Mosseri didn’t lay out what such a program would entail, only saying that Threads is going to “match fact-check ratings from Facebook or Instagram to Threads.” Currently, fact-checkers can't rate content on Threads, so instead when something gets flagged as being false on Instagram or Facebook, a fact-checker’s ratings will also roll over onto the app. “Our goal is for fact-checking partners to have the ability to review and rate misinformation on the app,” Mosseri wrote.

The program is expected to be available early next year. Meta said third-party fact-checking partners will flag and review the content that circulates on Threads. The app’s users will be given the choice to increase, lower or maintain the default level of “demotions on fact-checked content” in personal feeds. Meta says if a user decides to see less sensitive content on Instagram, those settings will roll over into their Threads view.

Social media companies, like Threads, have to consider expanding guardrails to prevent misinformation from proliferating on their platforms, especially ahead of the coming presidential elections. A fact-checking system on the Threads app isn’t a huge shock considering recent moves by the company. When the company introduced a search tool, it blocked certain words “previously linked” to misinformation on Meta’s platform.

However, offering users a fact-checking feature does not necessarily mean Threads will become the new front page for digital news. Mosseri told TechCrunch that the platform, as of now, does not plan on “amplifying the news” on its platform.

Netflix has published the first of a new twice-a-year engagement report called “What We Watched.” The first installment, launched Tuesday as a Microsoft Excel file, lists the hours viewed for every title (original and licensed) that has tallied more than 50,000 viewing hours. Although it’s an uneven performance comparison since episodic series will rack up many more hours than standalone films, this is the first ultra-detailed glimpse at what people watch on Netflix.

The first spreadsheet, covering January to June 2023, includes 18,214 entries of eligible content. The first season of the action-thriller series The Night Agent: Season 1 sat comfortably at the top with 812,100,000 hours during that period. Following (far behind) in second place was season two of the drama Ginny & Georgia (665,100,000 hours). Rounding out the top five are season one of The Glory (622,800,000), the inaugural season of the Jenny Ortega-led Wednesday (507,700,000) and the limited prequel series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (503,000,000).

The J.Lo action flick The Mother was the top-ranked movie on the list, raking in 249,900,000 viewing hours and falling at number 20 behind a glut of multi-episode series. Idris Elba’s Luther: The Fallen Sun (209,700,000) came in at 26, while the Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction 2 (201,800,000) slotted in at 29.

Netflix

In addition to hours viewed, the spreadsheet denotes each title’s release date and whether it’s available globally. For curiosity’s sake, the lowest-ranking globally available item on the list is the 2020 comedy special Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill.

Netflix stressed the importance of not using total hours viewed alone to determine a movie or series’ impact. “Success on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes, and is not determined by hours viewed alone,” the streamer wrote in its announcement blog post. “We have enormously successful movies and TV shows with both lower and higher hours viewed. It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience — and the size of that audience relative to the economics of the title.”

Netflix says the new biannual spreadsheets will combine with its weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists to paint a more comprehensive picture for viewers, creators and industry watchers.

You can rev up Excel or Numbers and download the inaugural Netflix spreadsheet drop here.

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are about to get some powerful upgrades thanks to improvements to the social network’s AI assistant. The company is finally adding support for real-time information to the onboard assistant, and it’s starting to test new “multimodal” capabilities that allow it to answer questions based on your environment.

Up to now, Meta AI had a “knowledge cutoff” of December 2022, so it couldn’t answer questions about current events, or things like game scores, traffic conditions or other queries that would be especially useful while on the go. But that’s now changing, according to Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, who said that all Meta smart glasses in the United States will now be able to access real-time info. The change is powered “in part” by Bing, he added.

Separately, Meta is starting to test one of the more intriguing capabilities of its assistant, which it’s calling “multimodal AI.” The features, first previewed during Connect, allow Meta AI to answer contextual questions about your surroundings and other queries based on what your looking at through the glasses.

Meta

The updates could go a long way toward making Meta AI feel less gimmicky and more useful, which was one of my top complaints in my initial review of the otherwise impressive smart glasses. Unfortunately, it will likely still be some time before most people with the smart glasses can access the new multimodal functionality. Bosworth said that the early access beta version will only be available in the US to a “small number of people who opt in” initially, with expanded access presumably coming sometime in 2024.

Both Mark Zuckerberg shared a few videos of the new capabilities that give an idea of what may be possible. Based on the clips, it appears users will be able to engage the feature with commands that begin with “Hey Meta, look and tell me.” Zuckerberg, for example, asks Meta AI to look at a shirt he’s holding and ask for suggestions on pants that might match. He also shared screenshots showing Meta AI identifying an image of a piece of fruit and translating the text of a meme.

In a video posted on Threads, Bosworth said that users would also be able to ask Meta AI about their immediate surroundings as well as more creative questions like writing captions for photos they just shot.

Apple is adding a new iPhone feature called Stolen Device Protection that limits what thieves can do with a stolen phone and passcode. Created following a report earlier this year by the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern, the opt-in feature is included in the iOS 17.3 beta, now available for developers. It works using a combination of location, biometric scans, and time delays, allowing victims to lock out the perpetrator and safeguard their data.

Stolen Device Protection aims to snuff out a common practice among iPhone thieves in public places, who watch users enter their passcode before snatching the device and bolting. In such cases, the perpetrator could reset the owner’s Apple ID password, turn off Find My, add a recovery key and factory reset the phone for resale before the victim can do anything about it.

For example, without Stolen Device Protection turned on, an iPhone thief with your passcode can use that to change your Apple ID password, locking you out of your device. This allows the pickpocket to turn off Find My, crucial to wiping the device for a new user. The thief can then sell the device at full used value, rather than trying to pass off an iCloud-locked brick for much less.

Photo by David Imel for Engadget

But with the feature turned on, the phone will ask for a Face ID or Touch ID scan if the user is away from a familiar location like home or work. It will also require a one-hour delay before changing the Apple ID password on the device. After the hour, it will still ask for a Face ID or Touch ID Scan before changing the Apple ID password from the iPhone. This makes life much harder for the thief and gives the owner time to report the iPhone as stolen, locking out the perp.

Stolen Device Protection works similarly with Apple security settings. Adding recovery keys or updating the account’s trusted phone number is another way iPhone thieves lock out the original owner. Like in other areas, with the new feature activated, the phone will ask for two biometric scans an hour apart if away from trusted locations.

Similarly, iCloud Keychain passwords, Apple’s built-in password manager, will require a Face ID or Touch ID scan. The passcode won’t serve as a backup for failed biometric scans when the Stolen Device Protection is turned on.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple plans to prompt users to turn on the feature in iOS 17.3. Since Apple only launched the update’s first beta today, the general public may need to wait at least several weeks before trying it out.

Sony’s 2023 Wrap-Up is now available. The recap, similar to those from music streaming services, reflects on your PS5 or PS4 gaming habits from the past year. The new version will sum up your most-played games, tally your total hours and assign an algorithmically generated “gaming style.” Since, from a business standpoint, these year-end rewinds also serve as crowdsourced social media marketing, Sony created easily shareable digital cards outlining your 2023 habits.

You can view your PlayStation 2023 Wrap-Up by visiting Sony’s web portal and logging in with your account. It generates cards summarizing your top games, trophies earned, monthly gaming stats and your personalized style. (Mine was “Thrill Seeker.”) A button at the bottom of the UI will pop up the cards to share with friends or followers. Sony will also, uh, “helpfully” recommend games you haven’t yet bought that fit your personalized style.

The company says the recap is only available if you’ve played games on a PS5 or PS4 for at least 10 hours from January 1 to December 31. In addition, if you didn’t consent to “Full Data” collection from PS5 settings or “Additional Data” from PS4 systems in certain regions (Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia, India and Russia), you won’t be able to use the promotional feature. Sony is also throwing in a bonus “unique avatar” and a PlayStation Stars digital collectible of a Spider-Bot from the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise as rewards.

Since annual digital recaps have transformed into a popular online tradition in recent years, you can likely expect similar rewinds from Xbox and Nintendo before long.

Music-creation software company Output just launched an AI tool that generates free sample packs based on text prompts. These packs are royalty-free and include 30 samples that can be used in the digital audio workstation (DAW) of your choice, including Logic Pro, Ableton, Pro Tools and others.

The algorithm mixes and resynthesizes pre-existing samples to create new sounds that match the text prompt. This was developed to help music-makers move quickly, so they aren’t slowed down by hunting for that perfect sample to match the vibe of the track. Instead, just write something like “moody sounds for a rainy day” and let the AI assistant do the rest. You can also ask for sounds related to a specific event or samples based on a specific artist or genre.

The tool also allows for more nuanced prompts, like asking to generate samples in a particular key and tempo. Pack Generator is currently in beta, but available to use via a browser-based portal. This is the first available tool for Output’s Co-Producer suite of generative AI products. The company promises more to come throughout 2024.

One of the cool things about this tool is that it’s completely trained on Output’s in-house sample library, so it doesn’t pull from actual working artists, which is not true of most available AI products. It’s also not intended to replace artists in any way, as it just creates sample packs. It remains to be seen how useful these AI-generated samples will be in real-world productions, but Pack Generator is available now, so it won’t take long to find out.

Output has been a major player in the samples space for nearly a decade, offering meticulously crafted and clean sound packs. The company also has a popular product called Arcade that lets users mangle samples to create unique soundscapes.