Apple Music Classical launched on Android today, bringing the company’s dedicated orchestral app to a non-Apple platform for the first time. It follows the iPhone debut of the service in March.

Apple’s classical music app is separate from the mainline Apple Music app, with plenty of similarities but also distinctive navigation, font and metadata handling for easy searching. (Apple Music has been available for Android since 2015.) However, 9to5Macnotes that Apple Music Classical’s Android arrival means the company launched it on a rival platform before fleshing out its own hardware ecosystem, as it still lacks a dedicated iPad or Mac app. Although the Apple faithful are accustomed to the company rewarding their hardware loyalty, it’s an understandable move given that phones are more common streaming sources than computers or tablets. As a result, Apple can likely reel in more subscribers by stepping outside its walled garden before (presumably) expanding availability for its remaining in-house devices.

The app is the fruit of Apple’s 2021 acquisition of Primephonic, a Netherlands-based classical streaming service known for its superior search capabilities. Apple shut down the service soon after buying it.

Apple Music Classical offers over five million tracks, including “thousands of exclusive albums.” The search feature, carrying over from Primephonic, lets you find pieces based on composer, work, conductor or catalog number thanks to the library’s “complete and accurate metadata.” In addition, it streams in up to 192 kHz / 24-bit Hi-Res Lossless while supporting spatial audio and Dolby Atmos for select tracks. Of course, the service requires an Apple Music subscription; supported plans include individual, student, family or Apple One — but not the voice-only plan aimed at HomePod users.

The Android version requires Android 9 or later. It’s available “worldwide where Apple Music is offered,” except in China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Taiwan. You can download it now from the Play Store.

Wireless earbuds aren't usually your best choice for PC gaming audio between the lag and the lack of Bluetooth on some desktops. Razer thinks it has a simple solution, though: throw in a dongle. The company has introducedHammerhead Pro HyperSpeed buds that include a 2.4GHz RF adapter to plug into the USB-C port (there's an included USB-A adapter) on your computer or console. This expands support to more devices, of course, but it also drops latency to 40ms versus 60ms for the Bluetooth-based Gaming Mode. And yes, you can still connect to your phone over Bluetooth if you need to take a call.

These are otherwise similar to the plain Hammerhead Pro earbuds you saw before. They still offer THX-certified sound with customizable active noise cancellation (ANC) levels. This being Razer, there's Chroma RGB lighting to flaunt your choice of personal audio. How long they last on battery depends on how you're connected and what you're using. You can manage up to 6.5 hours of listening on Bluetooth with ANC and lighting disabled, with 24 hours of extra power from a wireless charging-capable case. That drops to 3.5 hours with ANC and lighting enabled, and using the dongle shrinks that runtime to between three and four hours (plus 11 to 14.5 hours from the case).

The Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed earbuds are available now for $200. That's a solid price if you're looking for do-it-all earbuds that can work with both your phone and your home gaming PC. With that said, there are options that can sound better or last longer if you're happy to stick to Bluetooth. Razer's latest option is more for those who'd rather not buy a separate gaming headset.

If you’ve been saving up to integrate Shaq’s voice into your Alexa devices, you’ve officially blown it. Amazon is ditching all of its Alexa-enabled celebrity voices, including Shaquille O’Neal, Melissa McCarthy and, say it ain't so, Samuel L. Jackson. The distinct voice options will no longer be available for purchase and will no longer function even if you made a purchase a while back, as reported by The Verge.

That brings us to the topic of refunds, and it looks like there won’t be any. This isn’t earth-shattering news, as the voice options launched for just $1 before moving up to $5 in recent months. Still, buying something and having it vaporize into nothing is never fun for consumers. All is not lost, however, as Amazon told Engadget it'll process refunds upon request. 

"After three years, we’re winding down celebrity voices. Customers will be able to continue using these voices for a limited time, and can contact our customer service team for a refund," wrote a spokesperson for the company. 

Samuel L. Jackson is leaving any day now, with an official announcement on the purchase page indicating the feature will officially stop working next week. Melissa McCarthy and Shaq will function until sometime in September. 

To the uninitiated, this feature was an add-on for Alexa that transformed its usual chirpy tones into that of a celebrity. This was all fairly limited when compared to Alexa’s full feature set, as the celebs won’t do reminders and don’t integrate with many skills. They do, however, tell jokes, answer questions and complete simple voice-assisted tasks. The service started with Jackson in 2019 but extended to include Shaq and McCarthy shortly thereafter.

So why did Amazon shut the feature down? Alexa’s no longer the hottest thing in the universe and the company’s hardware division recently laid off thousands of people involved with designing and manufacturing Echo speakers, so that could be part of it. Again, the feature set with these voices was on the anemic side, so maybe not enough people bought them to offset the licensing costs. Finally, there’s the AI elephant in the room. Reports indicate that Amazon is building its own large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT to radically transform Alexa, and celebrity voices may no longer fit into that vision.

Update, May 30th, 2023, 2:50 PM ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Amazon. 

If you’ve been saving up to integrate Shaq’s voice into your Alexa devices, you’ve officially blown it. Amazon is ditching all of its Alexa-enabled celebrity voices, including Shaquille O’Neal, Melissa McCarthy and, say it ain't so, Samuel L. Jackson. The distinct voice options will no longer be available for purchase and will no longer function even if you made a purchase a while back, as reported by The Verge.

That brings us to the topic of refunds, and it looks like there won’t be any. This isn’t earth-shattering news, as the voice options launched for just $1 before moving up to $5 in recent months. Still, buying something and having it vaporize into nothing is never fun for consumers. We’ve reached out to Amazon for clarification on these refunds and will update when we hear back.

Samuel L. Jackson has already flown the coop, with an official announcement on the purchase page about his voice avatar’s early retirement. Melissa McCarthy and Shaq still work, but only until September.

To the uninitiated, this feature was an add-on for Alexa that transformed its usual chirpy tones into that of a celebrity. This was all fairly limited when compared to Alexa’s full feature set, as the celebs won’t do reminders and don’t integrate with many skills. They do, however, tell jokes, answer questions and complete simple voice-assisted tasks. The service started with Jackson in 2019 but extended to include Shaq and McCarthy shortly thereafter.

So why did Amazon shut the feature down? Alexa’s no longer the hottest thing in the universe and the company’s hardware division recently laid off thousands of people involved with designing and manufacturing Echo speakers, so that could be part of it. Again, the feature set with these voices was on the anemic side, so maybe not enough people bought them to offset the licensing costs. Finally, there’s the AI elephant in the room. Reports indicate that Amazon is building its own large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT to radically transform Alexa, and celebrity voices may no longer fit into that vision.

Fresh on the heels of an in-depth look at Marvel's Spider-Man 2 gameplay, there's more news from the Insomniac Games camp. The studio's previous title, 2021's Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, is coming to PC on July 26th.

As is often the case with PC versions of PlayStation exclusives, there are some extra bells and whistles here. There are new "ray-traced shadows for natural light in outdoor areas" which allow for "realistic shadows with natural gradients in softness," as Julian Huijbregts, an online community specialist at Nixxes (the Sony studio that's working on the port), notes on the PlayStation Blog. The gameplay and cutscenes have been optimized for ultra-wide displays, including aspect ratios of 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 for triple-monitor setups.

Along with unlocked framerates, there's support for upscaling tech including NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR 2, Intel XeSS and Insomniac's own Temporal Injection, as well as NVIDIA Reflex and NVIDIA DLAA anti-aliasing. You can opt to use a keyboard and mouse with fully customizable controls or a controller. Plug in a DualSense, and you'll be able to experience the same haptic feedback and dynamic trigger effects that you would on PS5.

I finally got around to playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart after it hit PlayStation Plus recently and enjoyed it immensely. It's a breathtakingly gorgeous game with strong combat, captivating characters and a smart script. Insomniac also makes better use of the DualSense's capabilities than most studios.

Fingers crossed that Insomniac and Nixxes can avoid the kinds of technical issues that have plagued PC versions of other Sony games. The Last of Us Part 1 (Iron Galaxy worked with Naughty Dog on that port) and Horizon Zero Dawn, which Nixxes helped to fix, both had notable problems at the outset on PC.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart relies on the speedy load times of the PlayStation 5 to make the dimension-hopping feature work seamlessly. With that (and the stellar visuals) in mind, it's likely that you'll need a beefy gaming rig to get the most out of the port. So, it's probably worth waiting for Sony to reveal the PC specs before locking in a pre-order on Steam or the Epic Games Store.

In an interview with The Guardian more than a decade ago, Warren Spector, the director and producer of Deus Ex, said his dream game would take place in one city block. “There are people who are trying to simulate massive worlds at a level of an inch per mile,” Spector told journalist Keith Stuart. “I don’t get it. I really want deep worlds that you can interact with.”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about those comments while playing Diablo IV. Blizzard’s latest is easily one of the best games the studio has released in about a decade, but I can’t help imagining what Diablo IV could have been if it were a smaller, more focused experience.

The story of Diablo IV opens decades after the end of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, with the world of Sanctuary still reeling from the events of that game. Structurally, the narrative that unfolds is similar to Diablo II. Following a visit to a remote village, your character sets off after the demon Lilith – who is the daughter of Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils you defeated in Diablo II. More often than not, your character finds they’re one step behind Lilith, leading to predictably dire results.

I won’t say much more about Diablo IV’s story other than to note Blizzard smartly grounded it in the tragedy of its human characters. When the narrative calls on elements from past games, it does so in ways that feel natural and earned. Lilith is also a great antagonist. Every time she appeared on-screen, I felt a sense of unease waiting to see what kind of calculated cruelty she’d inflict on those unlucky enough to cross her path. If you only end up playing Diablo IV for its story, I think you will enjoy the experience, but if you decide to veer off its critical path, be prepared to play through a lot of uninspired content.

If you tried Diablo IV during one of the open betas Blizzard held in recent months, you’ve seen most of what the game’s open world has to offer as you’re leveling your character. Did you encounter a world event in the Fractured Peaks that tasked you with protecting a group of villagers hiding under their carts? Guess what – you’ll find another group just like that one again in Scosglen, the game’s second zone, and in other areas, too. I bet you played through a few optional dungeons. Well, there are more than 100 in the full game, and most feature a limited combination of layouts and objectives. World bosses and camps are more fun to complete, but there are far fewer of them than all the other content present in the game. The post-campaign adds more things to do like helltides and nightmare dungeons, but those increase the difficulty of the content, rather than introducing something substantially new.

Sometimes you’ll discover some interesting lore, a nifty bit of environmental storytelling or a named enemy that will drop an item with unique flavor text, but those moments are few and far between. I kept waiting for Diablo IV’s world to surprise me, to do something unexpected. The closest the game came to scratching that itch was when it sent the Butcher, a boss that shows up in nearly every Diablo game, to murder my character in an optional dungeon I was exploring. Even though my barbarian didn’t survive the encounter, I wanted more moments like that. Instead, the game seemed dead set on offering me an endless checklist of samey content if I ever decided to strike off on my own.

Blizzard Entertainment

That frustration is palpable while playing Diablo IV because so much of the game is immediately compelling. Nearly every inch of its open world is striking, with some of the most detailed and creative assets Blizzard has ever produced. Add to that a soundtrack that is haunting and evocative, and you have an experience that’s begging for players to inhabit it.

Maybe it’s my fault for expecting a live service game to offer something more substantive, but everywhere in Diablo IV, you see evidence that the people who spent years of their lives working on this project wanted the same thing. Just look at character creation. Clearly, the intention here was to allow players to make their druid, barbarian, sorcerer, rogue or necromancer look exactly like they’ve always appeared in their imaginations. Diablo IV offers a dizzying amount of visual customization for each class. In addition to all of the items, you can give your character different hairstyles and tattoos, and modify their skin tone, eye color and other attributes. Add in the transmog system, which allows you to transform the appearance of items to make them look like ones you’ve found in the past, and I can guarantee no two characters will look alike.

Blizzard obviously also put a lot of thought into player agency, allowing each class to be played in a variety of ways. The Aspects system is one of Diablo IV’s most compelling features: By completing dungeons and finding legendary items, you will collect item affixes that modify how skills work, and they’re transferable among your inventory. Some of these can completely change how your build functions. After some initial frustration, I found a build that allowed my barbarian to make short work of both hordes of monsters and Diablo IV’s spongy bosses, and I had a lot of fun with the game. I just wish there was more to do in Diablo IV’s world other than kill countless monster hordes. After all, role-playing has always been part of the ARPG genre.

Blizzard Entertainment

One last thing I want to note is that I played a version of Diablo IV that did not include any of the microtransactions the final build will feature. If you haven’t followed that aspect of the game’s development, I wrote about Blizzard’s monetization plans for Diablo IV last year. In short, Diablo IV is a full-priced game that also happens to feature an in-game shop and seasonal passes. Blizzard has promised that none of the cosmetic items you can buy in the shop or earn by completing the paid track of a season pass will grant “direct or indirect” gameplay advantages. The studio was also quick to note the shop and season pass will offer “more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices” for customizing your character. After Diablo Immortal, I’m fine with this setup, but I know some people will be put off by the presence of a season pass.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my time with Diablo IV; I enjoyed nearly every moment of it. In a lot of ways, it’s the Diablo game I’ve been dreaming of ever since I first set foot in the world of Sanctuary back in 1997. But it is also a reminder of all the ways Blizzard has changed since I first encountered its games. There’s no way the company that released Diablo II in 2000 and even Diablo III in 2012 could have created a game of Diablo IV’s scale, but sheer size is not what makes Diablo IV enjoyable. So often, that scale works against the game, resulting in a world that is, as Warren Spector might say, simulated at a level of an inch per mile.

Diablo IV will be available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 6th.

Sony's latest mid-range headphones are already a solid deal at their normal price, and now they've received a significant discount. As part of a wider sale on Sony audio, Amazon is offering the WH-CH720N over-ears for $128, or $22 off. That's the best price we've seen, and makes them an easy choice for commuting or studying.

The WH-CH720N headphones sound great despite costing half as much as Sony's flagship WH-1000XM5 model, with strong bass yet clear details and a wide soundstage. They're comfortable for long listening sessions, and the 35 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation (ANC) means you can use them for multiple workdays without plugging in.

There are areas where Sony's cost-cutting is obvious. While the ANC is usually good, it struggles with human voices. The hard plastic construction doesn't feel premium, and you'll lose conveniences like automatic pausing when you remove the headphones or start speaking. You still get multi-device Bluetooth pairing, though, and there's 360 Reality Audio (read: spatial audio) with compatible streaming services. At this price, there's little room to complain — you're getting a lot for your money.

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With the rise of ChatGPT, Bard and other large language models (LLMs), we've been hearing warnings from the people involved like Elon Musk about the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI). Now, a group of high-profile industry leaders has issued a one-sentence statement effectively confirming those fears.

Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.

It was posted to the Center for AI Safety, an organization with the mission "to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence," according to its website. Signatories are a who's who of the AI industry, including OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis. Turing Award-winning researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, considered by many to be the godfathers of modern AI, also put their names to it. 

It's the second such statement over the past few months. In March, Musk, Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 others called for a six-month pause on AI to allow industry and public to effectively catch up to the technology. "Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control," the letter states.

Though AI is not (likely) self-aware as some have feared, it already presents risks for misuse and harm via deepfakes, automated disinformation and more. The LLMs could also change the way content, art and literature are produced, potentially affecting numerous jobs. 

US President Joe Biden recently stated that "it remains to be seen" if AI is dangerous, adding "tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public... AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security." In a recent White House meeting, Altman called for regulation of AI due to potential risks. 

With a lot of opinions floating around, the new, brief statement is mean to show a common concern around AI risks, even if the parties don't agree on what those are.

"AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public are increasingly discussing a broad spectrum of important and urgent risks from AI," a preamble to the statement reads. "Even so, it can be difficult to voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks. The succinct statement below aims to overcome this obstacle and open up discussion. It is also meant to create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously."

According to the latest audit from NASA's inspector general, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designed to take astronauts to the Moon is substantially over budget and far behind schedule. NASA's spending on the Artemis Moon Program is expected to reach $93 billion by 2025, including the $23.8 billion already spent on the SLS system through 2022. That sum represents "$6 billion in cost increases and over six years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections," says the report.

One of the issues has been integrating older NASA technology with newer systems. "These increases are caused by interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies… were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS," the audit states. "However, the complexity of developing, updating and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated."

The Artemis Moon mission project was based on the Constellation program, launched in 2005 with the goal of returning to the Moon by 2020. Following its cancellation, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 mandated construction of the SLS and required the repurposing of existing technology, contracts and workforce from Constellation.

– Mat Smith

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NVIDIA's generative AI lets gamers converse with NPCs

It replies to natural speech, though the responses are... stilted.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology could allow gamers to speak naturally to non-playable characters (NPCs). The company revealed the tech during its generative AI keynote at Computex 2023, showing a demo called Kairos. The dialogue is rather wooden, but feeding voice-based interactions could be an interesting new dynamic in games. It uses NVIDIA NeMo tech for building, customizing and deploying large language models customized with lore and character backstories while using guardrails to protect against inappropriate conversations. It also deploys a speech recognition and speech-to-text tool called Riva, along with NVIDIA's Omniverse Audio2Face "for instantly creating expressive facial animation of a game character to match any speech track." Check out how it looks below.

Continue reading.

Tesla will open its Supercharger network to other EVs in Canada

Nearly 3,000 EV chargers are also coming to apartments and offices.

The Canadian government revealed Tesla will open access to some of its existing Supercharger network to other brands' EVs. This will start later this year with a pilot route between Ottawa, the capital, and Sudbury. There will be 750 opened stations by the end of 2025, and "at least" 350 of those will be speedy 250kW Superchargers. That performance is important, given the focus on long-distance travel. The government is teaming up with partners to help install nearly 3,000 EV chargers in multi-use residential buildings, offices, public places and fleets. The majority of the chargers will be Level 2 with around 100 faster Level 3 outlets.

Continue reading.

WhatsApp test brings screen sharing to Android phones

It's reportedly rolling out to more users soon.

WhatsApp's newest update takes a page out of work-centric video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app is adding a screen-sharing feature that will record and display the contents of your screen with whoever is on the other end of the video call, according to WABetaInfo. Screen sharing is only available to select Android beta testers right now but should roll out to more users in the coming weeks. However, it might not work on older Android models, bigger group calls or with people who don't have WhatsApp's latest version.

Continue reading.

NVIDIA has revealed G-Sync Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) 2, the second generation of tech it designed to minimize motion blur in competitive games. Compared with ULMB, which it released in 2015, the company says the latest version offers nearly twice as much brightness, along with almost no crosstalk — the strobing or double-image effect that sometimes appears when blur reduction features are enabled.

Motion clarity is largely determined by the monitor's pixel response time. To improve matters, NVIDIA is using "full refresh rate backlight strobing," which builds on the backlight strobing technique from the original ULMB. Although the previous version of the tech improved motion clarity for many, it needed to switch off the monitor's backlight 75 percent of the time. This reduced the brightness of the screen.

With ULMB 2, NVIDIA is able to match the display's refresh rate when it turns the backlight on and off. The aim is to only turn the backlight on when pixels are at the correct color value for each frame. This mitigates crosstalk, as you shouldn't see pixels when they're transitioning to the accurate color.

This approach wasn't really possible with the slower pixel refresh rates of older monitors. ULMB 2 is able to run at the full refresh rate of current displays. On a 360Hz display, each backlight strobe happens every 2.7 milliseconds — a rate that's imperceptible to the human eye.

What this all boils down to is NVIDIA being able to offer more brightness and an effective motion clarity of over 1000Hz. If you use a 360Hz monitor with ULMB 2 on, NVIDIA says you'll get an effective motion clarity of 1440Hz. The company claims that, without ULMB 2, you'd need a monitor that's capable of 1440Hz to get equivalent motion clarity. Given that we've only recentlystarted seeing 500Hz monitors, mass-market 1440Hz displays seem quite a ways off.

NVIDIA offered some brief demos of ULMB 2 in action. In the video below, you'll see what a motorcycle pursuit sequence looks like in slow-motion at 360 frames per second with the feature both off and on.

ULMB 2 is available now as a free update for compatible 1440p, 360Hz G-Sync monitors. Only two such displays are on the market at the minute, NVIDIA says: the Acer Predator XB273U and the ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQN, both of which are 27-inch monitors. The ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP (a 25-inch 1080p, 540Hz display) and the 27-inch AOC AGON AG276QSG G-Sync Monitor are also compatible, and they'll be available soon.

NVIDIA announced ULMB 2 alongside some AI developments at Computex. The company is developing a supercomputer that's designed to help companies build generative AI models. It also showed off tech that will enable players to use their microphones and have somewhat realistic conversations with in-game characters.