It's been a few months since we've heard any details about Samsung's latest 98-inch TV, which we learned about back at CES in January. Now, the company has offered up more information about the 98" Class Crystal UHD (DU9000), which is available starting today for $4,000 from its own webstore and select retailers.

Samsung previously revealed that this model uses an AI-powered feature to optimize picture quality for the larger screen. Typically, as screens get bigger so do their pixels. However, with Supersize Picture Enhancer (which the company's other current 98-inch models boast), Samsung says it can increase sharpness and reduce visible noise to ensure there's no pixel distortion.

Other features of the DU9000 include 4K upscaling, PurColor (which adds another layer of image processing to improve the picture quality) and HDR. The Motion Xcelerator function and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz should help ensure smooth gameplay — you'll be able to stream games from the likes of Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna through the Gaming Hub. Other gaming features include AI Auto Game Mode, Mini Map Auto Detection and Virtual Aim Point.

If you're wary that a 98-inch TV might be too much screen for your small living room, Samsung doesn't want you to worry about that. The company claims that the recommended viewing distance for a 98-inch TV is between six and 12 feet. The DU9000 joins other 98-inch TVs in Samsung's portfolio, including ones with Neo QLED 8K, Neo QLED 4K and QLED 4K panels.

Amazon has deals running right now on some of Anker's best power banks and chargers. The sale includes our favorite MagSafe-compatible power bank for 2024: Anker's 10,000mAh Qi2 MagGo Power Bank. The device is down to $67.50 from $90 — a 25 percent discount. The only catch is that the deal is just available in white (though the black model is only $2.50 more).

Anker's 15W MagGo Power Bank was one of the first Qi2-certified devices available and can bring an iPhone 15 from zero to 50 percent in just 45 minutes. It can charge an iPhone to 100 percent and another time to 70 percent before needing another charge. It also offers a small screen indicating how much battery the power bank has left for charging or until it's recharged. The device comes with a kickstand for easy support while fueling up a phone. 

Other notable Anker devices on sale include the 552 USB-C Hub and the Prime 27,650mAh Power Bank with a 100W Charging Base. The 552 USB-C Hub is down to $30 from $70 — a 57 percent discount. It offers 9-in-1 connectivity and file transfer at up to five gigabytes per second. Then there's Anker's Prime 27,650mAh Power Bank, which is 30 percent off, dropping to $164.50 from $235. It offers two USB-C ports and one USB port that deliver up to 250W of power. The device charges at 100W with the included base or at 140W with a USB-C cable. 

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Last year Adobe launched Firefly, its latest generative AI model building on its previous SenseiAI, and now the company is showing how it'll be used its video editing app, Premiere Pro. In an early sneak, it demonstrated a few key features arriving later this year, including Object Addition & Removal, Generative Extend and Text to Video.

The new features will likely be popular, as video cleanup is one a common (and painful) task. The first feature, Generative Extend, addresses a problem editors face on nearly every edit: clips that are too short. "Seamlessly add frames to make clips longer, so it's easier to perfectly time edits and add smooth transitions," Adobe states. It does that by using the AI to create extra media, helping cover an edit or transition.

Adobe

Another common issue is junk you don't want in a shot that can be tricky to remove, or adding things you do want. Premiere Pro's Object Addition & Removal addresses that, again using Firefly's generative AI. "Simply select and track objects, then replace them. Remove unwanted items, change an actor’s wardrobe or quickly add set dressings such as a painting or photorealistic flowers on a desk," Adobe writes.

Adobe shows a couple of examples, adding a pile of diamonds to a briefcase via a text prompt (generated by Firefly). It also removes an ugly utility box, changes a watch face and adds a tie to a character's costume. 

Adobe

The company also showed off a way it can import custom AI models. One, called Pika, is what powers Generative Extend, while another (Sora from OpenAI) can automatically generate B-Roll (video shots). The latter is bound to be controversial as it could potentially wipe out thousands of jobs, but is still "currently in early research," Adobe said in the video. The company notes that it will add "content credentials" to such shots, so you can see what was generated by AI including the company behind the model.

A similar feature is also available in "Text to Video," letting you generate entirely new footage directly within the app. "Simply type text into a prompt or upload reference images. These clips can be used to ideate and create storyboards, or to create B-roll for augmenting live action footage," Adobe said. The company appears to be commercializing this feature pretty fast, considering that generative AI video first appeared just a few months ago. 

Those features will arrive later this year, but Adobe is also introducing updates to all users in May. Those include interactive fade handles to make transitions easier, Essential Sound badge with audio category tagging ("AI automatically tags audio clips as dialogue, music, sound effects or ambience, and adds a new icon so editors get one-click, instant access to the right controls for the job"), effect badges and redesigned waveforms in the timeline. 

After being briefly overtaken by Apple in 2023, Samsung once again holds the title for most global smartphone shipments. The International Data Corporation (IDC) Mobile Phone Tracker's preliminary data for 2024's first quarter showed Samsung reclaiming the lead it has held since 2010. 

Samsung has reportedly shipped 60.1 million units worldwide in quarter one, representing 20.8 percent of the market share. Apple shipped 50.1 million units for 17.3 percent of the market share. Both companies saw a decrease from 2023's quarter one, though Apple's was much more significant (-9.6 percent) than Samsung's (-0.7 percent). The top five brands remained the same in quarter one as all of 2023, rounded out by Xiaomi with 40.8 million units, Transsion with 28.5 million units and OPPO with 25.2 million units shipped. Transsion overtook OPPO to enter fourth place. 

The IDC points to these numbers as an indication that the smartphone market is strengthening. "Firstly, we continue to see growth in value and average selling prices (ASPs) as consumers opt for more expensive devices knowing they will hold onto their devices longer. Secondly, there is a shift in power among the Top 5 companies, which will likely continue as market players adjust their strategies in a post-recovery world," said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC's Worldwide Tracker team in a statement. "Xiaomi is coming back strong from the large declines experienced over the past two years and Transsion is becoming a stable presence in the Top 5 with aggressive growth in international markets. In contrast, while the Top 2 players both saw negative growth in the first quarter, it seems Samsung is in a stronger position overall than they were in recent quarters."

Tesla has halted Cybertruck deliveries, telling owners that there has been an "unexpected delay regarding the preparation of your vehicle," Carbuzz has reported. One buyer on the Cybertruck Owners Club said he was told that Tesla issued a recall over a problem with the accelerator. 

"We have just been informed of an unexpected delay regarding the preparation of your vehicle. We need to cancel your delivery appointment on Sunday and we will reach out again when we're able to get you back on the schedule," Tesla wrote to another client. "We apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to hosting your Cybertruck delivery soon!"

One owner posted a TikTok showing what might be the potential issue. Due to a problem with excessive lubricant on the accelerator pedal, the cover can loosen and slide toward the front, jamming into a gap in the floorboard. That effectively causes the accelerator to fully engage, creating an obviously dangerous situation. However, Tesla has not confirmed the exact reason for the delay or recall. 

Tesla said deliveries should resume on April 20 (yep), but the situation might create a ripple effect that slows later deliveries as well. The vehicle, which finally went into production late last year after numerous delays, has seen other complaints from buyers, too. Those include a lack of visibility, offroading difficulties, potential danger to occupants due to a lack of crumple zones, issues with the CCS adapter, lower range than expected, discoloration of the stainless steel body panels and more. 

Tesla has joined the litany of companies that have conducted sweeping layoffs in recent times. According to Reuters, the company is firing "more than 10 percent" of its workforce; the company had more than 140,000 employees as of December 2023. The publication saw an internal memo noting the percentage, though it didn't state the exact number of jobs affected. A source also told Reuters that some staffers have already been notified, which indicates that the layoffs have already begun.

"As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity," Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly wrote in the memo. "As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10 percent globally."

It emerged in early February that the company asked managers which employees' positions were essential, suggesting that layoffs were imminent. The automaker also canceled biannual performance reviews for some workers, according to Bloomberg.

Since 2020, Tesla has effectively doubled its headcount and ended 2023 with more than 140,000 employees. Although it has carried out several rounds of layoffs over the years (including dozens of workers on the Autopilot team a year ago), the company's workforce grew by about 10 percent in 2023 alone.

During Tesla's quarterly earnings call in January, CEO Elon Musk noted that the company was between "two major growth waves." The first was the popularity of the Model 3 and Y. The next is a lower-cost EV that the company seems to be pinning its hopes on. That's slated to arrive in late 2025, though reports suggest Tesla may be ditching that lower-cost model to focus on robotaxis. Musk says that the company plans to reveal its robotaxi on August 8.

Musk had warned investors to expect "notably lower" sales growth this year, which may have prompted cost-cutting efforts to appease them. Indeed, Tesla saw a sales slump in the first three months of 2024. Deliveries dropped by eight percent year-over-year and 20 percent from the previous quarter. The company is set to report earnings and sales for the first quarter of 2024 on April 23.

Instagram got a surprise visitor. Meta AI, the company’s AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions, write poetry and generate images with a simple text prompt, is up in your DMs. Meta warned that Meta AI was coming and has spent the last few months adding the chatbot to products like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. We all knew Instagram would be next.

“Our generative AI-powered experiences are under development in various phases, and we’re testing a range of them publicly in a limited capacity,” a Meta spokesperson told Engadget. For some of us at Engadget, the feature appeared in Instagram’s Direct Messaging inbox.

We could tap it to start a conversation with Meta AI, where it could give definitions of words, suggest headlines and… generate images of dogs on skateboards.

Ah, the future.

— Mat Smith

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TCL’s first original movie is this terrible-looking AI-generated love story

Stop reading this and just watch.

TCL

TCL, maker of many TVs, is to release its first special — a short romance movie — on TCLtv+ this summer. Minimizing effort (and artistic license), it’s using generative AI, and the result is as creepy, dreamy and blurry as all the other generative AI video we’ve seen so far. Watch the protagonists’ faces contort and blur. Marvel at the tone and color profiles switching for no apparent reason. You have to watch it: a rare laugh on a Monday morning.

Continue reading.

Apple claims Epic is trying to ‘micromanage’ its business

The company is asking a judge to deny Epic’s recent motion.

Last month, Epic Games filed a motion asking a California judge to hold Apple in contempt for what it claims are violations of a 2021 injunction. Now, Apple is asking the judge to reject Epic’s request, alleging the motion is an attempt to “micromanage Apple’s business operations in a way that would increase Epic’s profitability.” Epic said Apple’s “so-called compliance is a sham” and accused the company of violating the injunction with its recent moves. Apple maintains it has acted in compliance with the injunction, stating in the new filing: “The purpose of the injunction is to make information regarding alternative purchase options more readily available, not to dictate the commercial terms.”

Continue reading.

Google, a $1.97 trillion company, is protesting California’s plan to pay journalists

The company is temporarily removing links to California news for some.

Google, the search giant that brought in more than $73 billion in profit last year, is protesting a California bill that would require it and other platforms to pay media outlets. The company announced it was beginning a “short-term test” to block links to local California news sources for a “small percentage” of users in the state. How will this end up? Let’s take a look elsewhere.

The company pulled its News service out of Spain for seven years in protest of local copyright laws. However, in Australia, the company signed deals worth about $150 million to pay publishers. It also eventually backed off threats to pull news from search results in Canada and forked over about $74 million.

Continue reading.

The best laptops for both gaming and schoolwork

True work-and-play machines.

Engadget

Gaming laptops are now cheaper and more powerful than ever, and many wouldn’t look out of place in a classroom. If you aim to do some serious multimedia work alongside playing video games online, it’s worth looking at a dedicated gaming system. We select the best machines for balancing work with play, with advice on screen sizes, portability and more. Jack will no longer be a dull boy.

Continue reading.

It often feels like we live in a fully connected world, but anyone who has been caught without a signal at a time of need can tell you it's far from true. Emergency satellite connectivity is a solution to this problem, and one the Google Pixel 9 series and next-generation Google Fold will allegedly offer, according to Android Authority's Kamila Wojciechowska. The feature will purportedly be available for T-Mobile customers first, thanks to the network provider's partnership with SpaceX to create satellite messaging. It could become available on other networks in the future. 

The messaging service will allegedly ask users questions such as "What best describes your situation?" and "Are there weapons involved?" It's unclear whether the feature will be free for Google Pixel 9 and next-gen Google Fold users. T-Mobile hasn't confirmed pricing for its satellite messaging service in previous announcements. 

If the news is true, Google would be following in the footsteps of Apple, which launched its own Emergency SOS satellite feature in late 2022 for iPhone 14 users in countries such as the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. The tool has since expanded to include the iPhone 15 and countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which have mass wilderness areas where cellular service is absent. 

Blackmagic Design released its annual NAB 2024 update and announced over a dozen new products, including a new version of its popular DaVinci Resolve editing suite. Other key products include the Micro Color Panel for DaVinci Resolve on iPad, a 17K 65mm camera and the Pyxis 6K cube camera.

Davinci Resolve 19

DaVinci Resolve has become a popular option for editors who don't want to pay a monthly subscription for Adobe's Premiere Pro, and is arguably more powerful in some ways. The latest version 19 takes a page from its rival, though, with a bunch of new AI-powered features for effects, color, editing, audio and more. 

Blackmagic Design

Starting with the Edit module, a new feature lets you edit clips using text instead of video. Transcribing clips opens a window showing text detected from multiple speakers, letting you remove sections, search through text and more. Other features include a new trim window, fixed play head (reducing zooming and scrolling), a window that makes changing audio attributes faster and more.

The Color tool introduces "Color Slice," a way to adjust an image based on six vectors (red, green, blue, yellow, cyan and magenta) along with a special skin tone slider. For instance, you can adjust any of those specific colors, easily changing the levels of saturation and hues, while seeing and adjusting the underlying key. The dedicated skin slider will no doubt make it attractive for quick skin tone adjustments. 

Blackmagic Design

Another key feature in Color is the "IntelliTrack" powered by a neural engine AI that lets you quickly select points to track to create effects or stabilize an image. Blackmagic also added a new Lightroom-like AI-powered noise reduction system that quickly removes digital noise or film grain from images with no user tweaking required. 

"Film Look Creator" is a new module that opens up color grading possibilities with over 60 filmic parameters. It looks fairly easy to use, as you can start with a preset (default 65mm, cinematic, bleach bypass, nostalgic) and then tweak parameters to taste. Another new trick is "Defocus Background," letting users simulate a shallow depth of focus via masking in a realistic way (unlike smartphones), while Face Refinement tracks faces so editors tweak brightness, colors, detail and more. 

The Fusion FX editor adds some new tools that ease 3D object manipulation and on the audio (Fairlight) side, BMD introduced the "Dialogue Separator FX" to separate dialogue, background or ambience. DaVinci Resolve 19 is now in open beta for everyone to try, with no word yet on a date for the full release. As usual, it costs $295 for the the Studio version and the main version is free. 

Micro Color Panel

Blackmagic Design

BMD's DaVinci Resolve for iPad proved to be a popular option for editors on the go, and now the company has introduced a dedicated control surface with the new Micro Color Panel. It'll offer editors control that goes well beyond the already decent Pencil and multitouch input, while keeping a relatively low profile at 7.18 x 14.33 inches. 

A slot at the top front lets you slide in your iPad, and from there you can connect via Bluetooth or USB-C. The company promises a "professional" feel to the controls, which consist of three weighted trackballs, 12 control dials and 27 buttons. With those, you can perform editors, tweak parameters like shadows, hues and highlights, and even do wipes and other effects.

"The old DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel model has been popular with customers wanting a compact grading panel, but we wanted to design an even more portable and affordable solution," said Blackmagic Design President Grant Petty. It's now on pre-order for $509. 

Pyxis 6K camera

Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design is following rivals like RED, Sony and Panasonic with a new box-style camera, the Pyxis 6K full-frame camera. The idea is that you start with the basic brain (controls, display, CFexpress media, brain and sensor), then use side plates or mounting screws to attach accessories like handles, microphones and SSDs. It's also available with Blackmagic's URSA Cine EVF (electronic viewfinder) that adds $2,000 to the price. 

Its specs are very similar to the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K I tested late last year. The native resolution is 24-megapixels (6K) on a full 36 x 24mm sensor that allows for up to 13 stops of dynamic range with dual native ISO up to 25,600. It can record 12-bit Blackmagic RAW (BRAW) directly to the CFexpress Type B cards or an SSD.

It also supports direct streaming to YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and others via RTMP and SRT either via Ethernet or using a cellular connection. Since the streaming is built into the camera, customers and csee stream status and data rate directly in the viewfinder or LCD. The Pyxis 6K arrives in June for $2,995 with three mounts (Canon EF, Leica L and Arri PL). 

Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K and 17K

Blackmagic Design

Along with the Pyxis, Blackmagic introduced a pair of cinema cameras, the URSA Cine 12K and 17K models. Yes, those numbers represent the resolution of those two cameras, with the first offering a full-frame sensor 36 x 24mm with 12K resolution (12,888 x 6,480 17:9) at up a fairly incredible 100 fps. The second features a 65mm (50.8 x 23.3 sensor) with 17,520 x 8,040 resolution offering up to 16 stops of dynamic range. 

Both models will come with features like built-in ND filters, an optical low pass filter and BMD's latest gen 5.0 color science. The URSA Cine 12K will come with 8TB of internal storage, or you can use your own CFexpress media. Other features include live streaming, a high-resolution EVF, V-battery support, wireless Bluetooth camera control and more. The URSA Cine 12K model is on pre-order for $14,995 (with a copy of DaVinci Resolve), with April availability. The URSA Cine 17K is under development, with no pricing or release yet announced. 

Last month, Epic Games filed a motion asking a California judge to hold Apple in contempt for what it claims are violations of a 2021 injunction relating to the company’s App Store practices. Now, Apple is asking the judge to reject Epic’s request, alleging in a new filing spotted by Reuters that the motion is an attempt to “micromanage Apple’s business operations in a way that would increase Epic’s profitability.”

The original injunction by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers required Apple to let developers provide an option for external payment methods, which would allow them to avoid fees of up to 30 percent on App Store and in-app purchases. Apple introduced new App Store guidelines for developers in January that do allow linking to external websites for purchasing alternatives, but the new rules also require they get Apple’s approval to do so and impose a commission of 12-27 percent for these transactions. Per Reuters, Epic argued that this makes alternative payment options “commercially unusable.”

Epic also said at the time that Apple’s “so-called compliance is a sham,” and accused the company of violating the injunction with its recent moves. Apple maintains that it has acted in compliance with the injunction, stating in the new filing, “The purpose of the Injunction is to make information regarding alternative purchase options more readily available, not to dictate the commercial terms on which Apple provides access to its platform, tools and technologies, and userbase.”