The Halo Rise is also a small but significant piece of Amazon’s ongoing foray into health and wellness. For $140 (on sale now for $100), the Rise uses motion sensing to predict and track your breathing rate and calculate how long you’ve slept.

Like Google’s Nest Hub, which also uses motion detection to track your sleep, the Halo Rise must be beside your bed, within arm’s reach. When you wake up, Amazon will show you a summary of the last night, including a score and the time you slept. It’ll also congratulate you on doing well or caution you to go easy that day if you didn’t get enough rest.

With products like the Halo Band and app features like body composition scanning, mobility and posture assessment, as well as the controversial tone monitoring that monitors how you speak, the company is investing in health management tools. As Engadget’s Cherlynn Low puts it in her review: “The question is whether we’re willing to trade our personal data for the convenience of an all-Amazon healthcare solution.”

– 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

‘Call of Duty’ can detect and ban XIM-style cheat hardware

Kobo takes on the Kindle Scribe with improved Elipsa 2E e-ink tablet

The Ram 1500 REV electric truck beats F-150 Lightning with 500-mile range

'No Man's Sky' Interceptor update adds new ships, corrupt worlds and VR improvements

Adobe Podcast's text-based editing turns limitation into liberation

Top-down editing makes sense, but you might miss the fine controls.

Adobe Podcast, formerly Project Shasta, is a cloud-based audio production tool. As the name suggests, it’s primarily for podcast production, though it might interest anyone that works with narrative audio. The main thing to know is there’s no audio timeline here and no mixer view with channels. The first thing you’ll notice is how it doesn’t look like an audio editor at all. Podcast has a singular focus on audio, so there are no video editing, presentation or live streaming tools you might not need. Second would be some proprietary tools – notably Enhance Speech. With one click, this button transforms garbage audio recorded in the worst of rooms into something that sounds more professional. It’s almost magic.

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Twitter designates NPR as 'US state-affiliated media'

'It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way,' the public broadcaster's CEO said.

Twitter has added a label to NPR’s main account to designate the public broadcaster as "US state-affiliated media." Such labels have typically been reserved for state-run organizations, such as RT and Sputnik in Russia and China's Xinhua News Agency. The labels appear on every tweet from the accounts they're applied to. NPR, an independent non-profit, says that on average, less than one percent of its annual operating budget comes from government grants. Meanwhile, the UK’s BBC, largely funded by the government, still lacks the label.

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Why lawmakers are pushing age verification requirements for social media platforms

Privacy experts say the rules would violate everyone's privacy, not just teens'.

Utah recently passed two laws that would drastically change how teens in the state can use social media. The new laws will impose strict rules on how companies handle teenagers’ accounts. But among the most controversial aspects of the law is age verification. It requires companies like Snap, Meta and TikTok to confirm the ages of their youngest users to enforce age-based restrictions. Under the rules, which take effect next March, large platforms will no longer be able to simply allow teens to enter their own birthday at sign-up. But experts warn that focusing on age-based restrictions won’t address the core safety issues lawmakers say they want to solve, like privacy. And age verification measures, like those in Utah, pose a significant threat to the privacy of all social media users, not just teens.

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'God of War Ragnarök' New Game+ update adds armor, level caps and enchantments

There’s even a cinematic black-and-white mode.

God of War Ragnarök just got a pretty significant upgrade with a New Game+ that is much more than a simple rehash with tougher enemies. This NG+ is packed with features to squeeze more life out of last year’s PlayStation hit. It includes new armor sets that bring unique gameplay mechanics to the table. The Zeus armor increases your magic and spell damage but places you at greater risk of incoming damage. The Spartan Armor, as the name suggests, eliminates all perks and stat boosts, increasing the challenge and leaving no room for error. If that wasn’t tough enough, the level cap is increased for enemies and players. There’s even a new black-and-white mode.

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Best Buy’s new recycling program will let you mail in your old electronics

But you’ll need to pay $23 or $30 for a box.

Best Buy announced today it’s extending its gadget recycling program to include a new mail-in option. The retailer will provide a box for your used electronics, so you can ship them back for recycling, saving a trip to the store. However, you pay for the privilege: either a $23 small (9 x 5 x 3 inches) box for e-waste weighing up to 6 lbs and a $30 medium (18 x 14 x 4 inches) one supporting up to 15 lbs. After receiving it, you can pack in as many (approved) devices as you can fit, as long as they stay under the weight limit.

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Twitter has added a label to the main account of NPR to designate the public broadcaster as "US state-affiliated media." Until now, such labels have typically been reserved for state-run organizations such as RT and Sputnik in Russia and China's Xinhua News Agency. The labels appear on every tweet from accounts they're applied to.

“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’ a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR," the broadcaster's CEO John Lansing said in a statement. "NPR and our member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.”

As Mediaite points out, Twitter has edited its guidelines regarding the "state-affiliated media" label since applying it to NPR's account. "State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media," the guidelines page read on Tuesday, according to a Wayback Machine snapshot. By Wednesday morning, Twitter had removed the text "or NPR in the US." Twitter no longer has a communications department that can be reached for comment. 

Elon Musk, who took over Twitter in October, noted the change to NPR's account. In response to a user who gave him acknowledgment for the move, Musk tweeted a portion of the state-affiliated media policy that reads "State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution." Musk wrote that the definition "seems accurate" with regards to NPR.

On Tuesday, Musk responded to a tweet that criticized NPR over a report suggesting that “European right-wing politicians [are] lobbing a conspiracy theory that elites want people to eat bugs.” He replied with an exclamation point. The user who posted the thread went on to claim that "NPR is worse than the propaganda of Maoist schoolchildren during the cultural revolution.”

NPR, which is an independent non-profit, says that on average, less than one percent of its annual operating budget comes from government grants. Over the last five fiscal years, around 70 percent of its revenues have come from corporate sponsors and core and programming fees paid by member organizations. Meanwhile, Voice of America, a broadcaster that is owned by the US government, does not have a state-affiliated media label on its Twitter account.

Back in February, Hello Games rolled out an update for No Man's Sky that overhauled the game’s virtual reality experience on all platforms. Now the developer has released another update that doesn't only bring new VR features, but also expands the game's lore and introduces new experiences. In the latest free update called Interceptor, a new corruption has spread throughout the universe, infecting planets until they turn into purple-hazed worlds growing purple crystals, twisting sentinel machines into new forms and giving rise to new enemies. 

Players may find themselves facing off against big spider-like and small crab-like machines, as well as corrupted drones, on these worlds. Hello Games says they're its most lethal antagonists yet and come armed with stealth tech, flamethrower and explosives. Players might also come across huge Sentinel capital ships that can provide them a challenging bout of space combat. In addition, the update gives players access to a variety of new Starship they can collect, powered by new tech and equipped with new features, such as an ability called the Anti-Gravity Well.

On the technical side of things, Interceptor brings improved visuals and new features for virtual reality that include wrist interface controls. Finally, this update comes with Xbox-focused improvements and was designed to enable smooth and consistent frame rate for visually complex scenes while playing on the console. 

Interceptor will be available for download today on PC, the PS4 and the PS5, the Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and virtual reality. 

After some testing, Tidal's DJ feature is officially available. Now called Live, the option lets HiFi and HiFi Plus subscribers share what they're playing in real-time with other paying members. Once you start, you just have to share links with others who want to tune in. You can't mix and scratch, unfortunately, but this may do the trick if you're hoping to host a virtual listening party.

As you might guess, Tidal is using this to promote both itself and artists. Musicians like Alesso, Aluna and Diplo are hosting Live sessions in the US, UK, Brazil, Germany and Poland, while Tidal will have genre experts playing picks throughout the week.

Live is available now on Android and iOS and works with over 100 million tracks. Tidal plans start at $10 per month. You'll still have to settle for regular AAC tracks, unfortunately. For now, higher quality tunes aren't an option. You also have to listen to DJs in the country where you signed up. You can't tune into a German trendsetter's session from the US, to put it another way.

This may be more or less alluring than similar options at rival services, depending on what you're looking for. Spotify's Group Sessions let everyone involve control playback, but only for several people. Amazon's Amp, meanwhile, is more of a music-oriented radio show tool and (while we were trying it, at least) isn't guaranteed to have the tunes you want to share. Tidal's approach is simple, but may be ideal if you want to be the sole DJ without the pressure to speak up.

The catch, of course, is that everyone involved has to be a subscriber. Tidal doesn't even register on Statista's global market share chart — while it's a known brand, you'll be performing for a relatively small audience. You'll have to convince your friends to switch away from the likes of Spotify or Apple Music to make the most of Live, and there's no guarantee they'll be willing to give up their carefully curated playlists and recommendations.

Facebook just announced it is implementing multiplayer games into the video call feature within Messenger. This functionality allows you to converse with friends and family as you kick their booty in 14 currently-available titles. Trash talk is back, baby!

The video call gaming feature is available on Messenger for iOS, Android and the web, with no specialized installations required. The 14 games being showcased at launch include old favorites like Words With Friends and Mini Golf FRVR to newer titles like Card Wars and Exploding Kittens. Each game is designed to be played by as few as two people, though each title boasts differing maximum player numbers.

Each game is optimized for the service, with clearly-demarcated leader boards, and a user interface that leverages the Messenger experience. All you have to do is start a video call on Messenger, tap the group mode button, tap the “Play” icon, and then browse through the library of available games. The company has been experimenting with Messenger-enabled games for the past few years, but nothing has really stuck, so one hopes this new mode has some staying power.

The launch lineup here is relatively slim, at 14 titles, but Facebook Gaming says more free games are on the horizon later this year. To that end, the company is urging interested developers to contact their Partner Manager for details on how to add games to the platform. This news comes mere months after Meta shuttered the standalone Facebook Gaming app.

Klaus Teuber, who created the board game sensation Settlers of Catan, has passed away at the age of 70. According to the official Catan website, Teuber died on April 1st after a “brief and severe illness.” He is survived by his wife Claudia and their two sons, Guido and Benny, all of which are involved with publisher Catan Studios.

It is hard to do justice to how important Catan was (and is) to the board game space. Teuber invented the multiplayer resource-trading game in 1995 and is one of the first European board games to achieve massive success throughout the rest of the world. As of 2020, over 32 million copies of Catan in 40 different languages have been sold globally.

It’s not just board games. The popularity of Catan has allowed for multiple digital versions available for smartphones, video game consoles and PCs. The game has also left quite a pop culture footprint, inspiring countless references in media properties like The Big Bang Theory, Parks and Recreation, Supergirl and South Park. It even inspired a short film in 2014, The Lord of Catan, starring Amy Acker. There have also been rumors of a forthcoming Sony-produced feature film floating around since 2015.

Teuber may be best known for creating Catan, but the designer also had his hand in many popular board games like Barbarossa, Wacky Wacky Wacky and more. All told, he won the Game of the Year award a whopping four times. Not bad for a former dental technician who didn’t even begin developing games seriously until the 1990s, when he was in his 40s.

“I developed games to escape,” he told The New Yorker in 2014. “This was my own world I created.”

Teuber also founded publisher Catan Studios, which posted a memorial tweet today urging the title’s many fans to honor his impact on the world of gaming by “being kind to one another” and pursuing their dreams to the fullest.

Have you heard about the Scandoval? I asked a handful of friends this question over the past week, and a surprising number confirmed this strange new word had recently popped up in their news feeds, attached to stories from The New York Times, CNN and Vanity Fair. My friends didn’t quite know what it was, aside from the vague notion that it was related to the Real Housewives shows. More importantly, they didn’t know why it was being recommended to them, considering they didn’t follow Bravo shows or reality television.

That’s because this is the March Madness of reality TV. The Scandoval is an explosive cheating scandal involving the cast of Vanderpump Rules — and it’s unfolding in real time, with cameras on, allowing viewers to look for signs of deceit in every scene as it airs. There are clear villains and an obvious heroine, and it’s all leading up to the reunion, which was filmed at the end of March and has already provided a drip feed of drama and staged paparazzi encounters. The Scandoval is so monumental in the Bravo multiverse that it’s culturally important for people outside of this bubble to know what’s going on — just like folks who don’t follow sports are subjected to the NCAA’s media cycle every year.

Jeff Daly/Peacock

It’s not all about the Scandoval, either. This is a golden era for Bravo and its streaming home, Peacock. Nearly every Housewives franchise is popping off in its own special way, and many of them are making mainstream news headlines: Jen Shah of Salt Lake City was just sentenced to six and a half years in prison for running a telemarketing scam and her surprise arrest was caught on camera; Erika Jayne of Beverly Hills continues to display obscene greed as her estranged husband, disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi, is federally indicted on charges he stole millions of dollars from victims of corporate malfeasance. Miami, a streaming-only series exclusive to Peacock, just wrapped a beautiful fifth season and cemented itself as a blueprint for future Housewives shows; Ultimate Girls Trip, a crossover event that brings wives together like the third act of a Marvel film, is in its third season and already serving hype for its fourth. Married to Medicine continues to be a powerful, captivating and hilarious franchise centered on Black women and doctors in Georgia, and it’s bringing in a notorious wife from the Atlanta history books for its upcoming season.

That’s not even all of it, and the above list doesn’t address the biggest bit of Bravo drama happening right now: the Scandoval. Here’s a brief summary, for the culture: Vanderpump Rules is a spin-off of Beverly Hills starring the servers and bartenders of trendy Los Angeles restaurants. Its tenth season is currently airing, and as it kicked off, news broke that Tom Sandoval, a bar owner with Peter Pan syndrome, had been cheating on his partner of nine years, Ariana Madix, with a younger cast member named Raquel Leviss for the past six months. Details about the affair have been dripping out online — lightning bolt necklaces will never be the same — and viewers are scouring each new episode for signs of the pair’s lies. Meanwhile, Bravo picked cameras back up after the affair came to light, and the mid-season trailer promises intense, intimate reactions from everyone involved, plus plenty of vengeful edits for Ariana. The reunion is poised to be a spectacle like Bravo has never seen.

Nicole Weingart/Bravo

To put it back in sports terms: The Scandoval is like David Beckham cheating on Victoria with Emma Bunton. Or like Scottie Pippen’s ex-wife starting a relationship with Michael Jordan’s son — a storyline that literally happened on the latest season of Miami. See? As Quad said on season nine of Married to Medicine when asked whether she’d cheated on past boyfriends, our cup runneth over.

This all means Peacock is getting my money for the foreseeable future, no high-budget original series required. I mean, I loved Poker Face, but I haven’t thought about it much since watching the final episode of season one. Housewives and its related series live outside of the app, on message boards and social media and podcasts, filling the silence even between seasons. Meanwhile, the Scandoval is driving viewership for Peacock, where Vanderpump is available to stream next-day. Peacock is also the only place to watch Miami and Ultimate Girls Trip, two shows that already make it essential in my own app lineup. I never expected to get so much use out of an NBC streaming service, but here we are.

The next app to get my business will be whichever one picks up Married at First Sight Australia. If you’ve made it to this point in this article — a Real Housewives fever dream somehow published on a technology website — do yourself a favor and find a way to watch it (in between Vanderpump Rules episodes, of course).

Netflix released at least one movie a week over the past two years – I challenge you to name them all! – but for 2023, the company is changing course. According to Bloomberg, the streaming giant is restructuring its movie division and releasing fewer movies overall. Despite the sheer number of titles Netflix previously released, only a few had won accolades, attained significant hours of streaming, or had the kind of cultural impact some of the biggest blockbusters had achieved. (According to the company's Top 10 page, its most-watched movies for 2021 and 2022 include Red Notice, Don't Look Up and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.)

Netflix ramped up its film development after studios started building their own streaming services instead of licensing their movies to the company. This restructuring will combine the team working on small projects with a budget of $30 million or less and the unit that produces mid-budget films that cost $30 million to $80 million. There’s also a big-budget arm to its film development unit – likely involved with the aforementioned hits. No word yet on whether the restructuring will affect that part of the business.

– 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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Tesla sets new company record after delivering more than 422,000 EVs in Q1 2023

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Japan joins US-led effort to restrict China's access to chipmaking equipment

Breaking Bard

Testing the limits of today's leading AI chatbots.

Engadget

The generative AI race is on, and the current frontrunners appear to be Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI, which is powered by ChatGPT. But what are the limits to the questions it can answer? We asked Google’s Bard chatbots a series of questions to see which is better at delivering facts, replacing us at our jobs or participating in existential debates. We also looked at their speed, transparency and how likely they were to break if we started to push its buttons And don’t worry, Bing AI got the same treatment.

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Apple wins appeal against UK antitrust probe into its mobile browser

Through a technicality.

Apple won an appeal against an investigation launched by the UK’s antitrust watchdog last fall. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a full probe into Apple and Google in November. At the time, the regulator said that many UK businesses felt restricted by the “stranglehold” the two tech giants had on mobile browsing. The probe also sought to determine if Apple was restricting the cloud gaming market through its App Store rules. The company said the CMA should have opened the probe at the same time it first published its report on mobile ecosystems last June. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the court that oversees CMA cases, agreed with Apple, saying the regulator gave notice of its investigation too late.

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Court rules Elon Musk broke federal labor law with 2018 tweet

Tesla has also been ordered to rehire a worker that it illegally fired.

According to a federal appeals court, Elon Musk broke US labor law in 2018 when he tweeted that Tesla factory workers would forgo stock options if they chose to unionize. In May 2018, a Twitter user asked Musk about his union stance. “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted,” he tweeted in response. “But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.” Tesla has argued the tweet was Musk’s way of pointing out that workers at other automakers don’t receive stock options. The court ordered Musk to delete the tweet. As of the writing of this article, the tweet is still there.

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Nearly a year after he first floated the idea of making Twitter’s recommendation algorithm public, the company has posted the source code for its recommendation algorithm on GitHub. In a Twitter Space discussing the move, Elon Musk said he hoped users would be able to find potential “issues” in the code and help make it better.

“Our initial release of the so-called algorithm is going to be quite embarrassing and people are gonna find a lot of mistakes but we're going to fix them very quickly,” Musk said.

Notably, the code released Friday only deals with how tweets are shown in Twitter's "For You" feed. The company didn't release the underlying code for its search algorithm or how content is displayed on other parts of Twitter, though Musk said the company would "for sure" open-source the search algorithm as well.

In a blog post outlining how Twitter’s recommendations work, the company explained the various steps of the algorithm, including ranking and filtering. But Twitter users have already been finding interesting details in the code itself. For example, Jane Manchun Wong noted that “Twitter’s algorithm specifically labels whether the Tweet author is Elon Musk.” That may offer yet another explanation for why Musk’s tweets appear so often. Wong also noted that the algorithm has labels indicating whether the tweet author is a “power user” as well as whether they are a Republican or Democrat.

When asked about that aspect of the algorithm in the Twitter Space, Musk said “I agree that shouldn’t be there … it definitely shouldn't be dividing people into Republicans and Democrats, that makes no sense.” A Twitter engineer followed up saying “it’s actually not too important.”

Developing...

Drew Carey isn't afraid of AI. Instead, The Price is Right host and longtime improv comedian is embracing the technology. During a recent episode of his SiriusXM radio show, "Friday Night Freakout," Carey used an artificially generated version of his voice to handle most of his DJ work, reading a script written by ChatGPT. His AI voice kicked off the show, introduced upcoming songs and recapped what listeners were hearing. As an experiment to see just how far AI could go on the radio, the episode was mostly a success. But Carey's fans weren't happy about it.

"I violated a rule from Radio 101," Carey told me. His Twitter fans complained that the voice sounded soulless, and that they missed the "real Drew." "The reason FM stations and treasured radio stations still make money is because people like the personality of the DJs," he said. "You don't have to be like a big boss radio guy and be phony. You can just talk... that's what listeners like."

While his fans were ultimately forgiving of the experiment, Carey says he got the message: "Don't do it again."

For many entertainers, AI could be viewed as yet another threat in an increasingly precarious industry. Soon after ElevenLabs introduced a beta version of its AI voice tool — the same software Carey used for his radio show — online trolls used it to impersonate Emma Watson, Joe Rogan and other celebrities. Watsons' simulated voice read portions of the Mein Kampf aloud, while other deepfaked voices made openly racist and transphobic statements, according to Vice.

Carey's AI voice wasn't perfect: It sounded a tad robotic, it didn't have the inflections his fans have grown to love over the years, and the ChatGPT-written script was noticeably simplistic. But if you were driving down the highway late at night, and you just wanted a bit of company alongside some classic rock, it's possible you wouldn't notice the DJ wasn't human. In fact, ElevenLabs recently partnered with Super HI-Fi to create "fully customized and personalized" AI driven radio stations.

"I was just playing with it, and I wanted to show what it was capable of," he said. "Plus, I thought, oh, I don't want to show everybody how to make an exact copy of my voice right now. I thought it might screw me over somehow. So I had that little fear in the back of my head."

It took a weekend for Carey and a friend, who already had experience training ChatGPT and other AI tools, to create his AI voice. ChatGPT wrote 99 percent of his radio show's script, though Carey made a few tweaks of his own. Funny enough, when he asked the chatbot to write a joke about how easy it was to use, it wrote the line "even Drew Carey can use it." (Perhaps ChatGPT is just trying to snag a spot on the inevitable Whose Line Is It Anyway? revival.)

Carey envisions AI being used in the future for the grunt work of radio and other production. Perhaps it could read a script late at night, or churn out some ad copy. When I asked if that's a potential problem for newcomers, he noted, "There are no blacksmiths anymore... If you're a mechanic that works on internal combustion engine cars, if you don't make the switch to electric soon, you're out of a job."

According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, up to 300 million jobs around the world could be automated thanks to recent advancements in AI. But the bank's economists also point out that major innovations that replace some jobs typically lead to the creation of new roles. And for those who are only partially impacted by AI, they'll likely be able to complement their work with generative intelligence.

For celebrities like Carey, AI could also be a way for them to continue working indefinitely, long after they've retired or passed on. James Earl Jones's voice has already been reconstructed for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's approved future work to "keep Vader alive." Eventually, actors (and their estates) could sign off on AI clones that entertain us for generations to come.

Carey isn't afraid of such an outcome. "You know what, if the price is right, anything can happen," he said when I asked if he'd ever sell his digital likeness. "I'm not worried about CGI Drew Carey taking over, because people want to see me, they want some kind of host. They want that interaction."