If it seems like everyone is rushing to develop an alternative to ChatGPT, you're not wrong. Chinese online commerce heavyweight Alibaba has confirmed to CNBC that it's working on its equivalent to OpenAI's hit AI chatbot. The company isn't detailing features or offering a release schedule, but says it has been developing generative AI since 2017 and is in the middle of internal testing.

The reveal comes as multiple tech giants have introduced rivals to or spinoffs of ChatGPT this week. Google unveiled Bard, while China's Baidu said it was testing "Ernie Bot." Microsoft, meanwhile, launched a redesigned Bing that uses a "much more powerful" language model built with OpenAI's help. The text-generating AI is considered particularly useful for search, where it can provide detailed responses to very specific questions.

Alibaba hasn't said how it would put the AI to work. However, the company is a powerhouse in online shopping and has its fingers in numerous other fields ranging from cloud computing through to finance. A counterpart to ChatGPT could be useful in many of these categories, and might help Alibaba challenge Baidu and other Chinese firms hoping to wield AI as a competitive advantage.

ChatGPT, the automated text generation system from Open, has taken the world by storm in the two months since its public beta release but that time alone in the spotlight is quickly coming to an end. Google announced on Monday that its long-rumored chatbot AI project is real and on the way. It's called Bard.  

Bard will serve as an "experimental conversational AI service," per a blog post by Google CEO Sundar Pichai Monday. It's built atop Google's existing Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) platform, which the company has been developing for the past two years. 

"Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models," Pichai declared. "It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses." Whether that reliance on the internet results in bigoted or racist behavior, as seemingly every chatbot before it has exhibited, remain to be seen.

The program will not simply be opened to the internet as ChatGPT was. Google is starting with the release of a lightweight version of LaMDA, which requires far lower system requirements than its full-specced brethren, for a select group of trusted users before scaling up from there. "We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information," Pichai said. "We’re excited for this phase of testing to help us continue to learn and improve Bard’s quality and speed." 

Chatting with internet users is only the next step in Google's larger AI mechanizations. Pichai notes that as user search requests become more complex and nuanced, "you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web," Pichai said. He added that such features would be rolling out to users "soon." The commercial API running atop LaMDA, dubbed Generative Language API, will begin inviting select developers to explore the system starting next month.

After teasing it last year, YouTube has rolled out a new feature called Go Live Together that lets creators co-host livestreams. Anyone with over 50 subscribers can invite a guest to host a livestream with them from iOS and Android mobile devices. Only one guest is allowed at any time, but the host can swap in new guests during the same livestream. 

You can schedule co-streams through YouTube's desktop app, but both the host and guest must use mobile devices during the livestream. To do so, open the YouTube app, tap "Create" then "Go Live Together." After entering stream details, select "Invite a co-streamer" and send an invite link to the co-streamer. They'll then be sent to the waiting room until you click "Go Live."

There's no minimum number of followers for guests, but the host will be held responsible for guests violating any community guidelines. Hosts can earn revenue for ads, which can appear in pre-, mid- and post-roll form. 

YouTube offered a similar feature that lets creators co-host shopping livestreams, which allows both co-hosting and redirects to a brand's channel. Twitch recently introduced a feature in beta called Guest Star which allows creators to bring up to five guests onto streams. That system is a bit simpler, as any viewer can raise a virtual hand and the host can invite them on, much like Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces. Unlike YouTube's mobile limitation, Twitch's version is only available on desktop. 

There are certain things you can’t really demonstrate in the same way as other pieces of consumer electronics. A WiFi-connected urine analyzer that sits in your toilet and samples your pee for analysis is one such gadget. That’s why I had to go to a behind-closed-doors event in a private suite here at CES in Las Vegas to test out this prototype version of Withings’ U-Scan.

U-Scan is Withings first attempt at a body fluid-analysis device, albeit one with the weight of such a well-regarded brand in the health tech space. The shell-shaped hardware sits on the edge of your bowl like a scent block, and catches a small sample of fluid while you’re micturating. After around a minute, users will find conclusions about their menstrual cycle or nutrition, depending on what cartridge is installed, pushed to their phone.

Regardless of biology, you’ll need to sit down on the toilet to use this thing, and that it’s a little surprising when the hardware lights up when it starts working. You’ll certainly know when it is as well, since it makes a fairly noticeable whirring noise while your sample is processed. At this early stage, I was able to receive information about two stats: The pH of my urine as well as its specific gravity.

Now, I could reveal what my stats were, but I’d much rather not spoil the video where you can learn a little bit more about how it all works.

We’re back in Vegas for CES, and while the show doesn’t officially open until tomorrow, many exhibitors have already unveiled their new products at various press conferences and media events. Today, we’re starting to see some of the early car news that frequently dominates CES, as well as more from TV makers, gaming laptop brands, smart home companies and more. If you haven’t fully caught up yet, here’s a recap of the biggest news from Day 1 of CES 2023.

From last night

But first, even though we already recapped most of yesterday’s launches in another video, there was still more stuff unveiled last night that was announced after we had shot that. For example, Withings showed off the U-Scan, a $500 toilet computer that will… scan your pee.

It’s a 90mm block that you place inside your toilet bowl like a deodorizer, and uses a litmus-test-like microfluidic system to detect what substances are in your urine. You’ll have to choose which specific tests you want to be running in your module, though Withings is making a consumer-centric version that will analyze your nutrition and hydration levels, while also predicting your ovulation and period cycles. It’s still waiting on US regulatory approval before bringing this stateside, and will launch first in Europe.

In less… icky news, we also saw the Fufuly pulsating cushion by Yukai Engineering. A vibrating cushion might sound straight out of an anime, but the idea is really that hugging something that can mimic lifelike pulsing could have calming effects. Something else that could relieve anxiety? Watching a video of birds being cute! Bird Buddy also launched a new smart feeder that comes with a camera so you can spy on your feathery friends while they nest up. The latest model is designed for hummingbirds and uses AI to understand what breeds are within view and, together with a motion sensor, determines when they’re ready for a snack.

Speaking of snacks, there was plenty of food-related tech news last night, including GE Profile’s $1,000 stand mixer that has a digital scale and voice controls built in. We also saw OneThird's freshness scanners that use near infrared lasers and proprietary algorithms to tell if produce is fresh. It can even calculate an avocado’s shelf life in real time, and help reduce food waste!

We also saw Loreal’s robotic lipstick applicator for those with limited hand or arm mobility, Valencell’s blood pressure monitor that clips onto your finger and Wisear’s neural earbuds that let you control playback by clenching your jaw. There were smart lights, smart speakers, smart pressure cookers, smart VR gloves and more. Make sure to go to Engadget.com to get all the details!

Now, onto the news that came out today. We had a small trickle of car news ahead of the outpouring is likely to come tomorrow. Volkswagen unveiled its upcoming ID.7 EV sedan, teasing us with a general body shape and the name, but not much else. BMW, meanwhile, shared more about its futuristic i Vision concept vehicle program by revealing the i Vision Dee, or “Digital Emotional Experience.” It’s a pared-down concept featuring a heads up display running the full width of the front windshield. Many of the Dee’s features are also expected to make their way into production models, specifically BMW’s new NEUE KLASSE (new class) EV platform, starting in 2025. The Dee will also feature BMW’s Mixed Reality slider to control how much digital content appears on the display.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

TVs

Samsung also waited till the evening to reveal its premium 2023 TVs, focusing on MiniLED and 8K technologies for this year’s series. It also brought more sizes to its portfolio and introduced new soundbars that offer Dolby Atmos support on both the entry level and the highest end. Meanwhile, rival LG showed off a 97-inch M3 TV that can wirelessly receive 4K 120Hz video so you can deal with fewer wires in your living room, as well as… more soundbars. Leave it to LG and Samsung to basically do the same things as each other.

Relatively smaller TV competitor Hisense today unveiled its UX Mini LED TV, an 85-inch set that can hit 2,500 nits at peak brightness and features more than 5,000 local dimming zones. Meanwhile, startup Displace showed us a new wireless 55-inch OLED TV that attaches to any surface via vacuum suction, eliminating the need for a wall mount or stand altogether. Plus, thanks to its four onboard batteries, you can do without a power cord, too. This is essentially a complete, standalone portable TV.

Laptops

We also saw more laptops from ASUS, MSI and HP. ASUS made a laptop with glasses-free 3D, a large Zenbook Pro 16X with plenty of room for thermal dissipation, as well as a Zenbook 14X with a ceramic build. Both the latter Zenbooks also come with OLED screens. Meanwhile, HP launched a new series of Dragonfly Pro laptops that are supposed to make the shopping process easier for consumers by eliminating most configuration options. The Dragonfly Pro Chromebook has an RGB keyboard and Android-like Material You theming features, while the Windows version exclusively uses an AMD chip and has a column of hotkeys on the right of the keyboard that offer shortcuts to camera settings, a control center and 24/7 tech support. The last of these buttons is programmable, so you can map it to launch your favorite app, file or website.

Finally, we’re seeing the first of some audio news, starting from JBL. The company unveiled its 2023 soundbar lineup, all five models of which will support Dolby Atmos. It also launched new true wireless earbuds with a “smart” case that has a 1.45-inch touchscreen on it that offers controls for volume, playback, ANC and EQ presets. Almost coincidentally, HP also showed off the Poly Voyager earbuds that also have a touchscreen on the carrying case and offers similar controls to the JBL. But the Voyager also has a Broadcast mode that lets you use the included 3.5mm to USB-C cable to connect the case to an older device with a headphone jack (like when you’re on an airplane), so you can watch movies during a flight without needing to carry a second set of headphones around.

There’s plenty more news coming out of CES not just today but the rest of the week. I didn’t even get to tell you about Samsung’s new budget-friendly Galaxy A14 smartphone, or Citizen’s new smartwatch. For all the details on anything you might have missed today, check out our comprehensive coverage on Engadget.com or our YouTube channel. And stay tuned for all of the news from CES 2023.

While Lenovo has been a huge force in the enterprise laptop space thanks to its long line of ThinkPads and ThinkBooks, Motorola is now hoping to leverage its parent company’s expertise by bringing some of Lenovo’s best features over to its newest mobile device: the ThinkPhone by Motorola.

At first glance, Motorola nailed the ThinkPhone’s basic design. It sports a relatively stealthy appearance featuring aramid fiber in back (and you can still see the weave like on ThinkPads), aircraft-grade aluminum around the sides and a screen made from Gorilla Glass Victus in front. But more importantly, Motorola claims the phone is MIL-STD 810H-certified, which means it’s built to withstand drops of up to 1.25 meters and other environmental stresses. And like all good handsets these days, the ThinkPhone also features an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance including submersions of up to five feet for 30 minutes. So that’s the durability side of things covered relatively thoroughly.

To ensure the ThinkPhone delivers top-notch security, Motorola is including its ThinkShield platform which supports a range of threat detection services and IT features such as easy-to-use mobile device management (MDM) and zero-touch enrollment. But for me, after complaining numerous times about lackluster software support on its consumer phones, I really like that Motorola is committing to at least four years of regular security updates and three major OS upgrades for the ThinkPhone (the device will come with Android 13 out of the box). Granted, this is still a bit short of what Samsung and Google offer on Galaxy S and Pixel phones, but it's a nice improvement and anything short of this would probably be a dealbreaker in the enterprise space.

However, where things get interesting is the way the ThinkPhone works when paired with one of Lenovo’s business laptops. Using what Motorola is calling Think to Think connectivity, you can sync the handset with a nearby ThinkPad, allowing you to wirelessly share files, mirror your phone’s screen on your notebook, copy-paste text and photos and more. And if you’re the type of person who always wants to look their best during video calls (like my colleague Cherlynn Low), you can even use the ThinkPhone’s camera (both front and back) as a webcam instead of the lower-res sensor that’s probably built into your laptop.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Because the ThinkPhone supports Motorola’s Ready For platform, you can also use the handset as a portable desktop in a pinch by connecting it to an external display, keyboard and mouse. All told, it’s a nice bit of synergy between Moto and its parent company, though I do wonder why it took so long for the two to finally work together. Remember, Lenovo bought Motorola from Google way back in 2014.

Another nice nod to the ThinkPad line is the red button on the side of the phone, which can be programmed by IT personnel to open a specific piece of company software or to launch a specific app by the user. On top of that, you can double tap the red key to open a menu with shortcuts to features like the advanced webcam function or app streaming. Thanks to a partnership with Microsoft, the ThinkPhone will also come pre-loaded with Office 365 (including a free one-month trial). And in the future, there will even be a push-to-talk feature built directly into Teams, so you can send audio messages with a single tap.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

As for general specs, the ThinkPhone looks pretty solid, though there isn’t really anything that stands out. It features a 6.6-inch OLED display with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, 8GB or 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The phone also supports dual sims, but sadly there’s no option for expandable storage via microSD. The front-facing selfie cam uses a high-res 32MP sensor while the dual shooters in back are comprised of a 50MP main cam and a 13MP ultrawide lens. I’m a bit disappointed to see that Motorola didn’t include a zoom lens or even a dedicated macro cam, but considering this phone is meant for business, I can see why those were left off.

That said, I do like that Motorola included a sizable 5,000 mAh battery and support for 68-watt fast charging (not to mention an included power brick). Not only does this mean you can add hours worth of juice in just a few minutes, Moto’s power adapter is also beefy enough to charge most ultraportable laptops that support USB-PD, so it can pull double duty in a pinch.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

However, the big challenge for the ThinkPhone is that with devices from Samsung and Apple being by far the most popular when it comes to enterprise handsets, it could be difficult for Motorola to break in, even with support from Lenovo. Moto has yet to reveal detailed pricing for the ThinkPhone, though it’s slated to become available in the US, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Australia and parts of Asia sometime in the “coming months.”

Roland may be a mainstay in the electronic music world, but it also dabbles in the occasional creator product, too. This year at CES the company has unveiled an audio interface aimed squarely at streamers and it’s called the Bridge Cast ($299).

Like rival products such as the GoXLR or Rode’s Rodcaster Pro II, the Bridge Cast offers a way to pipe different audio feeds (chat, music, game audio, browser sounds and so on) to different destinations - usually your local mix and the one your audience hears.

As you’d expect, there’s an input for an XLR mic and options for dual/submixes along with a selection of vocal effects. There are four channels with rotary controls for mic, aux, chat and game. Each channel also gets a mute button for quickly removing unwanted audio without diving into settings. An intersting touch is the ability to customize the faceplate so if your channel, stream or team has a logo you could add some branding into your Twitch or YouTube feed.

Deeper control will apparently be available via the companion software to fine tune the mic sound or even the EQ of your game audio.

The streaming space has become a massive opportunity for legacy audio companies, and it’s good to see Roland furthering its commitment to this space. How it stacks up to its rivals though, remains to be seen, but if your new year’s resolution was to finally get that stream off the ground then it looks like you have one more option to consider.

Google is giving its search results on desktop the "continuous scrolling" treatment over a year after launching the feature on mobile. Continuous scrolling will eliminate the need to click "Next" or the page numbers at the bottom of your search results. Instead, Google will automatically load the next batch of results on the page once you've scrolled to the bottom of the current list. If you use Google on mobile, the feature will feel very familiar. 

The tech giant has confirmed the rollout to Search Engine Land and told the publication that its website will automatically show up to six pages of results before you need to click a "More results" button to load the next batches. Its arrival on desktop will make the Google search experience more consistent across devices and platforms. "So starting today, we're bringing continuous scrolling to desktop so you can continue to see more helpful search results with fewer clicks. It's now even easier to get inspired with more information at your fingertips," a company spokesperson said. 

Similar to the mobile version of the feature, it will initially be available for English queries in the US and will most likely make its way to more people and more regions in the future. 

Berserk, the long-running manga that married fantasy and, well, violence, is coming back to the small screen. The original 25-episode 1997 anime series based on the manga and directed by Naohito Takahashi is coming to Netflix on December 1st, according to ComicBook.com.

As is clear from the trailer below, Berserk is a pitch black and fairly brutal anime that came some eight years after the manga first appeared in Young Animal magazine. The series covers the so-called Golden Age Arc, covering the period when Guts joined the Band Of the Hawk and met the other primary characters, Griffith and Casca. It's considered by some fans to be the best take on the manga, and is said to have inspired or influenced major anime hits like Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan.

The release of Berserk material from Netflix seemed a fait accompli when it was announced that the streaming service had secured the rights to that franchise, along with Parasyte, Monster and other classic anime. In addition, new material could be coming soon as well, according to a countdown clock that appeared recently on Berserk's official website, pointing to a date in mid-December. Nothing is official yet, but it looks like promising times for fans of the franchise. 

Google has laid Hangouts to rest, a couple of years after it first announced that it was going to push people to use Chat, its Slack-like app, instead. After allowing users to move to Chat on their own in 2021, Google phased out the Hangouts Chat app for Android and iOS in July. Users were shown a prompt telling them that "Hangouts has been replaced by Google Chat" and to switch to either the standalone Chat app or the Chat experience within Gmail. As TechCrunch notes, the last version of the messaging service, Hangouts for the web, is now also going away for good.

When users access the Hangouts website, they might see a message that says: "Starting November 1, 2022, Hangouts on the web will redirect to Chat on Web. We recommend moving to Chat now." We can still access the website without being automatically redirected, but there's a link to Google Chat that we can click to load the new messaging experience. The website might completely disappear in the coming days. 

Chat used to be one of Google's business offerings before the company switched up its messaging strategy and made it available to everyone. The company says Chat "opens up new and better ways" to collaborate with features that weren't available on Hangouts. Users can edit Docs, Slides or Sheets side-by-side within Chat. Teams at work or groups of friends can also work on documents and manage tasks using Spaces, which is a dedicated place they can use for topic-based collaboration. And since Gmail features Chat integration, people can easily access conversations without having to open the Chat website. 

Google previously said that those who want to keep a copy of their Hangouts data will have to use its Takeout tool before the service is gone for good. We still see Hangouts on Takeout, so those who want to do some last-minute data-saving may want to do so now while it's still possible.