Apple has today announced Sports, a new iPhone app offering real-time stats for a number of major leagues. Once installed, users can set their favorite team and get a trove of data on their lock screen in the live activities box when the team is playing. Available free from today in the US, Canada and the UK, the app presently supports Basketball, Hockey and Soccer Football. The company added that other sports, including Baseball and American Football will debut for their upcoming seasons.

There are plenty of reasons you might not be able to watch your team of choice play live. You may have a prior engagement, the game may not be televised, or Todd Boehly has done so much damage to the club you can’t bear to look at it any more. In those situations, push alerts from major sports apps has been a lifeline, but it’s not always entirely reliable.

Now, it has been possible to get this working since iOS 16, if you fancied messing around in the depths of the Apple TV app. And some third-party platforms, like MLB’s homegrown app, would put this data in your lock screen or Dynamic Island. But Apple says that its own setup offers a “simple and fast way to stay up to speed on the teams and leagues they love.” The setup will also sync up with any sports preferences already stored in the Apple TV or Apple News apps.

Of more concern is that Sports will also offer up live betting odds for the games as they’re in play. It’s worth noting it will be possible to deactivate the live odds feature in settings, but it seems like it would have been smarter and less potentially harmful to make that opt-in, rather than opt-out.

Apple Sports is available to download right now, with support for English, while French and Spanish are supported where available.

Nintendo's about to kick off its first event of the year with the Direct Partner Showcase focused on upcoming third-party games for Switch. We could see the first news about Xbox titles like Pentiment coming to other platforms and maybe, hopefully more about the much-delayed Hollow Knight sequel, Silksong. The 25-minute presentation kicks off at 9AM ET today (February 21) and you can watch it below.

As mentioned, today's Direct could be more significant than a typical showcase. Last week, Microsoft announced that it would begin bringing some of its exclusive titles to "other consoles," likely meaning the Switch and Sony's PlayStation 5.

Microsoft didn't elaborate much more than that, but rumors cite Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded as likely first titles moving to other platforms. The only thing we know for certain, though, is that Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will remain Xbox exclusives for now. 

Apart from that, there are a few upcoming third-party games without release dates including Contra: Operation Galuga and Penny's Big Breakaway, so Nintendo might give us more info about those. We're also hoping to hear about Hollow Knight: Silksong which, last we heard in May 2023, was delayed and had no updated release window. 

[video here]

An appeals court has blocked a $1 billion copyright verdict from 2019 against US internet service provider Cox Communications and ordered a retrial, Arts Technica has reported. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Cox didn't profit directly from its users' piracy, rebutting claims from Sony, Universal and Warner. 

The judges did affirm the original jury's finding of willful contributory infringement from the trial, first announced back in 2018. To that effect, they ordered a new damages trial that may reduce the size of the award.

"We reverse the vicarious liability verdict and remand for a new trial on damages because Cox did not profit from its subscribers' acts of infringement, a legal prerequisite for vicarious liability," the panel wrote. It added that "no reasonable jury could find that Cox received a direct financial benefit from its subscribers' infringement of Plaintiffs' copyrights." 

Cox allegedly refused to take "reasonable measures" to fight piracy, according to the original allegations. Internet providers are supposed to terminate the accounts of offending users, but the ISP only conducted temporary disconnections and warned some users more than 100 times. The labels claimed it even instituted a cap on accepted copyright complaints and cut back on anti-piracy staffers.

However, the judges said that Sony offered no causal connection between infringement and higher revenues for Cox. "No evidence suggest that customers chose Cox's Internet service, as opposed to a competitor's, because of any knowledge or expectation about Cox's lenient response to infringement." 

Under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and EU rules, ISPs enjoy "safe harbor" protections that shield them from liability for user actions. However, that only holds if they comply with specific requirements and address copyright violations promptly — and in this case, Cox didn't do that, the judges said. 

"The jury saw evidence that Cox knew of specific instances of repeat copyright infringement occurring on its network, that Cox traced those instances to specific users, and that Cox chose to continue providing monthly Internet access to those users... because it wanted to avoid losing revenue," the ruling states. The case is now headed back to a US District court.

Google has released an open AI model called Gemma, which it says is created using the same research and technology that was used to build its Gemini AI models. The company says Gemma is its contribution to the open community and is meant to help developers "in building AI responsibly." As such, it also introduced the Responsible Generative AI Toolkit alongside Gemma. It contains a debugging tool, as well as a guide with best practices for AI development based on Google's experience.

The company has made Gemma available in two different sizes — Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B — which both come with pre-trained and instruction-tuned variants and are both lightweight enough to run directly on a developer's laptop or desktop computer. Google says Gemma surpasses much larger models when it comes to key benchmarks and that both model sizes outperform other open models out there. 

In addition to being powerful, the Gemma models were trained to be safe. Google used automated techniques to strip personal information from the data it used to train the models, and it used reinforcement learning based on human feedback to ensure Gemma's instruction-tuned variants show responsible behaviors. Companies and independent developers could use Gemma to create AI-powered applications, especially if none of the currently available open models are powerful enough for what they want to build. 

Google has plans to introduce even more Gemma variants in the future for an even more diverse range of applications. That said, those who want to start working with the models right now can access them through data science platform Kaggle, the company's Colab notebooks or through Google Cloud. 

Fujifilm’s X100V was, for some reason, a huge hit on TikTok. This made it hard to buy, despite its tiny form factor and retro Fuji appeal. Fortunately, the company is here to make money offer an improved update, the 40.2-megapixel X100 VI. While keeping the same retro form, it has much faster shooting speeds, in-body stabilization, 6.2K 30p video and more. Video-wise, it can also capture at 4K at 60 fps and 1080p at 240fps.

Fujifilm

Fujifilm’s X100VI is now on pre-order for $1,600 in silver or black, with shipping slated for early March 2024. Money to burn? Desperate for the TikTok cachet? The company is also offering a special edition version “engraved with the corporate brand logo from Fujifilm’s founding in 1934” for $2,000.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

OnePlus rejoins the smartwatch scene with the promise of a 100-hour battery life

Apple Music debuts a monthly version of its annual Replay feature

Tinder is bringing its advanced ID verification system to the US and UK

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Dr. Garmin will see you now

Can a smartwatch free up doctors’ time?

A project in the UK has explored if a Garmin Venu 2 wearable (and dedicated companion app) could free up doctors and nurses, six minutes at a time. The six-minute walk test (6MWT) can diagnose and monitor a number of cardiovascular maladies. This includes conditions, like pulmonary hypertension, which, if untreated, are eventually fatal. This project, however, crunches the test down to a simpler one minute.

Because the research was funded by a charity, the British Heart Foundation, the watch had to offer good value for money, and Garmin, with its established health research division, gave the team “confidence in the accuracy of the sensors.” The study suggests cutting the test to one minute has no detrimental effect on its outcome or accuracy, and patients are far more likely to run the test regularly if they can do so at home.

Continue reading.

Walmart is buying smart TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion

The retailer plans to boost its ad business with Vizio’s TV systems.

Walmart is buying Smart TV manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion, the retail giant announced as part of its latest earnings report. While Walmart has long been one of the major sellers of Vizio TVs, the company says the acquisition “enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling” via the company’s SmartCast OS. The companies plan to combine their ad businesses, with Vizio increasing Walmart’s access to more consumer info, like viewing data. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

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Apple says the iPhone 15’s battery has double the promised lifespan

All four models can retain 80 percent of their original charge after 1,000 cycles.

Engadget

Apple announced on Tuesday that its latest iPhones can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company’s previous estimate — without new hardware or software updates. And because timing is everything, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade for phones’ battery longevity.

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Twitch is increasing channel subscription prices for the first time

Some tiers will soon be more expensive in the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey.

After laying off around 500 workers and reducing how much streamers make from Prime subscriptions, Twitch is increasing the price of its subscriptions for the first time. The service says it’s “updating prices in several countries to help streamer revenue keep pace with rising costs and reflect local currency fluctuations.” The first markets to feel the impact of those changes are the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey. On the plus side, streamers will have the same revenue share, so they’ll earn more from subscriptions in those regions.

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Following its autonomous food delivery launch in Miami and Fairfax, Virginia, Uber Eats will soon be offering the same robotic service in Japan — its first outside the US. It is once again collaborating with Google alum startup Cartken, with local compliance help from Mitsubishi Electric, to bring a fleet of Model C sidewalk delivery robots to select areas in Tokyo in March. Uber Eats Japan CEO Shintaro Nakagawa says the autonomous delivery service will solve the local labor shortage issue, while complementing the existing human delivery methods "by bicycle, motorbike, light cargo, and on foot."

Cartken's six-wheeled Model C uses six cameras and advanced AI models for autonomous driving plus obstacle detection, and remote control mode is available when needed. With guidance from Mitsubishi, the robot has been modified to suit local needs in Japan. For one, its speed is capped at 5.4 km/h or about 3.36 mph as per local regulation, which is a lot slower than the 6 mph top speed it's actually capable of. The loading capacity has also been reduced from 1.5 cubic feet to about 0.95 cubic feet (27 liters), likely due to the extra thermal insulation in the compartment. Uber Eats adds that for the sake of privacy, people's faces are automatically masked in footage captured by the robots.

While this is Uber Eats' robotic delivery debut in Japan, Cartken already has a presence there thanks to Mitsubishi. Since early 2022, the duo has worked with Starbucks, local e-commerce giant Rakuten and supermarket chain Seiyu in some parts of Japan. In the US, Cartken also has a partnership with Grubhub to provide autonomous food delivery service on college campuses, including the Ohio State University and the University of Arizona.

Even though Uber Eats has yet to share which Tokyo restaurants will be tapping into its robotic delivery service, it should have no problem seeking partnership given Cartken's prior local experience. That said, I highly doubt that the pair would risk trialing their robots through a crowd of drunkards in Shibuya just yet.

FuboTV, a streaming platform dedicated to live sports, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, accusing the companies of staging "a years-long campaign" to hamper its business. The company's lawsuit comes shortly Disney-owned ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they're launching a sports streaming service in the fall of 2024, which will give subscribers access to sporting events from the networks they own. FuboTV's complaint argued that the companies are stealing its playbook and that the launch of their joint venture will destroy competition and lead to price inflation for consumers. 

Further, FuboTV alleged that the launch of the defendants' streaming service is but "the latest coordinated step" in their "campaign to eliminate competition in the sports-first streaming market" and in their effort to block its business. The streaming service said the defendants charge it content licensing rates that are 30 to 50 percent higher than the rates they charge other distributors. They also allegedly force FuboTV to bundle "dozens of expensive non-sports channels" that "customers do not want" with their sports offerings as a condition of licensing their content. All these increase the costs FuboTV must pass onto its customers, the company explained. 

FuboTV also claimed that the companies in question have prevented it from being able to offer streaming products subscribers would like, including content available on Hulu. Plus, the defendants allegedly impose a limitation on how many subscribers can buy their content package, ensuring that FuboTV can't make a dent in the market. 

"Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice," FuboTV CEO David Gandler said in a statement. "By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market. This strategy ensures that consumers desiring a dedicated sports channel lineup are left with no alternative but to subscribe to the Defendants' joint venture."

Engadget has reached out to all three defendants: ESPN has declined to comment, while Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have yet to get back to us. FuboTV is asking the court to prohibit the joint venture's launch or to impose restrictions, such as economic parity of licensing terms, on the defendants.

Instant messaging app Signal is best known for its privacy-related settings, though with phone numbers being the heart of the platform since its inception, there was no way to fully hide your own number until now. Earlier today, Signal announced that you'll soon be able to create a unique username (not to be mistaken with your profile name), which you can share with others via a link or QR code — as opposed to sharing your number. You'll be able to change your unique username as often as you want, but it needs to contain two or more numbers at the end, as part of Signal's anti-spoofing efforts. You can even delete your username entirely, as it is an optional feature.

Naturally, you'll still need a phone number to sign up for Signal, but note that with the new default, your number will no longer be visible to everyone (you can change this setting manually, if needed). There will also be a new option which prevents people from finding you by your number; they will need to have your exact unique username to do so. In other words, people who already have your number won't necessarily know that you are also on Signal, which is a good thing if you prefer to stay anonymous in this platform's public groups.

As is the case with any new feature, the likes of spammers and scammers will eventually find a way to abuse usernames, as you won't be able to verify their numbers instantly. Pro tip: when you see new contacts that appear to be your acquaintances, always double check with them through other means — preferably in person, or at least via a phone call. You may look out for these new Signal features in a few weeks' time, or you can get an early taste in the beta release.

Apple has updated the iPhone 15’s battery lifespan. The company said on Tuesday its latest iPhones can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company’s previous estimate — without any new hardware or software updates. Not so coincidentally, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade for phones’ battery longevity.

Before today, Apple’s online support documents quoted iPhone batteries as maintaining 80 percent of their original full charge after 500 cycles. But after the company retested long-term battery health in its 2023 smartphones — iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max — it found they can retain 80 percent capacity after at least 1,000 cycles. The company said its support documents will be updated on Tuesday to reflect the new estimate.

Apple says its testing involved charging and draining the batteries 1,000 times under specific conditions and a suite of tests reflecting common uses. As for how the estimate doubled without any physical or software changes, the company attributes the upgrade to continual improvements to its battery components and iOS power management.

For older (pre-2023) iPhones, the original estimate of retaining 80 percent capacity after 500 charge cycles still stands — at least for now. Apple said it’s looking into whether older models’ estimates need to be updated.

Apple

Starting in June 2025, smartphone and tablet manufacturers doing business in the EU will be assigned a grade (A to G) indicating their energy efficiency, battery longevity, protection from dust and water and resistance to accidental drops. The battery longevity portion of the grade requires at least 800 charging cycles while retaining at least 80 percent of their original capacity, helping explain why Apple began retesting its devices’ long-term health.

For ideal battery longevity, Apple recommends keeping your phone in temperatures between 62 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit when possible. You’ll also want to avoid charging or leaving your handset in hot environments (95 degrees or warmer) while trying to avoid much direct sun exposure. In addition, if you’re storing an old iPhone long-term, it’s best to leave it half-charged.

In addition, Apple will soon move one of your phone’s most essential battery metrics to a different part of iOS settings. Beginning in iOS 17.4, currently in beta, the battery cycle count will move from Settings > General > About to a more logical home under Battery Health (under Settings > Battery). Apple introduced the battery cycle count to its mobile software in iOS 17, which was launched last fall.

Acer unveiled a pair of AMD Ryzen 8040 series laptops on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, given their chips’ dedicated neural processing units (NPU), the company is marketing the 2024 Acer Swift Edge 16 and Swift Go 14 as AI workhorses. The Windows 11 machines support OLED displays, Radeon 780M graphics and 32GB of RAM.

The Ryzen 8040 chip series, revealed in December, has a dedicated AI Engine that AMD claims makes it up to 1.4 times faster than its predecessors in Llama 2 and AI vision model performance. Acer says the Swift Edge 16 and Swift Go 14 will deploy the NPU for AI-related tasks like PurifiedVoice (remove background noise in calls and recordings) and PurifiedView (blurring backgrounds in images and correcting your eyes’ positioning on video calls).

Acer

Like most new Windows machines (including Acer’s models launched at CES 2024), the laptops have a dedicated Microsoft Copilot button on their keyboards for quick ChatGPT-like AI queries. (Copilot taps into Microsoft and OpenAI’s servers through the cloud rather than using the machines’ on-device NPU.)

Both machines’ AMD chips include Microsoft’s Pluton security co-processor. Introduced in 2020 through a partnership with AMD and Intel, it bakes security directly into the processor, helping protect your credentials, encryption keys and personal data from hackers.

Acer Swift Edge 16

Acer

Acer markets the Acer Swift Edge 16 as optimizing performance without sacrificing portability. All device variants have a 16-inch OLED panel with WQXGA (3200 x 2000) resolution and a 120Hz frame rate with less than a 0.2ms response time. It supports 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification for (what should be) accurate and nuanced visuals.

The laptop’s Ryzen 7 8840U processor is joined by AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics. The notebook has up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD storage. Depending on your configuration, it supports Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6E.

The Swift Edge 16 weighs 2.71 lbs and is 12.95mm tall. It’s encased in a magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis and has a 54 Wh battery. It includes two USB-C ports (with USB4 speeds of up to 40Gbps), two USB-A, one HDMI 2.1 and a microSD slot.

Acer Swift Go 14

Acer

The smaller of the pair, the Acer Swift Go 14, has up to an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS octa-core processor with AMD Radeon 780M graphics. (Cheaper configurations will trade that for a Ryzen 7 8845HS or Ryzen 5 8645HS.) The machine maxes out at 32GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.

The top-shelf 14-inch variant will have a WQXGA (2880x1800) OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. Another version will swap that for a 1920 x 1200 IPS panel with touchscreen capabilities. The device’s hinge can extend to 180 degrees, and its glass trackpad is 44 percent larger than the previous model’s. It supports Wi-Fi 6E.

Thanks to its smaller footprint, Acer markets the Swift Go 14 as the more portable version. However, it’s about seven percent heavier than its 16-inch counterpart — at 2.91 lbs. It ships in configurations with either a 65 or 50 Wh battery.

Both models have 1440p QHD webcams, although only the Swift Go 14 is listed as having a privacy shutter. The smaller model is lighter on ports than the 16-inch model, forgoing the pair of USB-A connections in the larger one. The Swift Go 14 has two USB-C ports (both supporting USB4 speeds), an HDMI 2.1 connector and a microSD slot.

Pricing and availability

The Swift Edge 16 launches in March in North America, starting at $1,300. Meanwhile, the Swift Go 14 follows in April, starting at $700. Apart from their entry-level models, Acer hasn’t yet detailed how pricing will break down across various configurations.