Compared to what we were driving just a decade ago, today's connected cars and trucks are practically computers on wheels. From content streaming infotainment systems to the background processes that interpret sensor data and power the advanced driver assist features, software has become a fundamental component in modern vehicles. To better manage those countless lines of code, GM announced on Wednesday that it has developed an end-to-end software platform, dubbed Ulfiti (rhymes with "multiply").

GM's latest vehicles already enjoy features like OTA software updates and on-board internet connectivity thanks to the company's Vehicle Intelligence Platform (VIP). the Linux-based Ulfiti is designed to sit on top of that existing architecture and serve as a central hub for select software systems, separating them from the vehicle's core operations. 

"In all of the embedded controllers, we refactored them and extracted the software from the hardware out of them, making them available to our SOA layer," Scott Miller, Vice President of Software Defined Vehicle. at General Motors, said during a recent teleconference. "Basically we're abstracting them and making them available for a powerful hub for all the vehicle's systems."

"Then we're adding this service oriented layer on our high performance computing that we have in the vehicle for infotainment and safety," he continued. "And we're going to organize those abstractions as services."

This will enable GM to more quickly develop and deploy updates, new features and apps to customers. In essence, Ultifi will serve a similar function as Android does on smartphones — an API layer sitting between the underlying hardware and the end user. GM did note that Ultifi will run in conjunction with existing automotive OSes, such as Android Automotive, which GM announced in 2019 it would begin supporting. 

"Android Automotive is a certain subset of functionality in the car," Darryl Harrison, GM's Director of Global Product Development, explained. "Ultifi is more of an umbrella overall strategy. Some vehicles will have Android Automotive and some will have other infotainment apps and services."

In essence, GM wants to treat your vehicle like a rolling smartphone, offering users continuous OTA updates, cloud-based personalization options that drivers can transfer between GM vehicles, and smart home connectivity. The company is also considering pushing out various safety and comfort upgrades through via OTA, such as using the vehicle's onboard cameras to automatically engage the child locks when they detect children in the back seat or remotely closing the vehicle's sunroof if you parked outdoors and the weather forecast calls for rain.  

GM is also considering using Ultifi to offer subscription services to users, such as on-demand Supercruise that drivers can enable on long road trips but cancel once they reach their destination. Ulfiti could also allow for improved V2V (vehicle to vehicle) and V2X (vehicle to everything) applications including near-real time traffic and road hazard updates. Expect to see Ulfiti in select GM vehicles — both internal combustion and EV — starting in 2023.            

Apple is rolling out updates to its iWork suite of Keynote, Pages and Numbers on iPhone, iPad and Mac. The next time you deliver a presentation with Keynote, you'll be able to include live video feeds directly in the slides. You can resize the video feed and change the look with masks, frames, drop shadows and reflections.

With the Mac version of Keynote, you can add feeds from multiple external cameras, and share a connected iPhone or iPad screen, which could prove useful for interactive demos. There are more collaboration features too. A new multi-presenter function lets anyone control a shared slideshow and advance slides remotely using a Mac, iPhone or iPad. This could come in handy for group presentations.

The changes to Pages are largely iPhone-focused. The Screen View feature arranges text, images and other aspects of the document into a single-column view. Apple has increased the text size, while images are sized to fit your phone's screen. You can also view tables by scrolling left and right. Users will still be able to edit documents as usual when Screen View is active. You don't need to do anything to set up the feature, and it works with all word processing documents. Apple says you can toggle off Screen View so you can see the proper layout before you're ready to share or print the document.

As for Numbers, you can now get to grips with pivot tables across Apple devices. You'll be able to summarize, group and rearrange data to spot and study trends and patterns. There are options to visualize the pivot tables with charts and to share pivot data without disclosing the source data. You can also import pivot tables from and export them to Microsoft Excel.

Elsewhere, there's a new chart type called radar charts. Apple says this "makes it easy to visually compare multiple variables with similarities shown as overlapping areas, allowing differences and outliers to really stand out." There are new filters you can use to highlight unique entries or duplicate data.

All three apps now support Apple's new translation tools on iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey. The latest versions of Keynote, Pages and Numbers are now available on the App Store and Mac App Store.

Apple

Microsoft wasn't just indulging in wishful thinking when it said it wanted more third-party app stores in Windows 11's portal. The Vergenotes that new Microsoft Store policies now allow third-party storefront apps. And no, Amazon's Appstore isn't the only partner hopping aboard — the Epic Games Store is also coming to the Microsoft Store in the "next few months." As promised, Microsoft won't demand a share of revenue from these shops.

The company's loosened policies on rival browsers (which now allow browsers with non-Microsoft engines) are also paying dividends. Opera and Yandex Browser are coming to the Microsoft Store to provide an alternative to Edge. These additions won't help much if your first impulse is to download Chrome or Firefox, but they suggest Microsoft is open to at least some competition in its own store.

There's no mention of Steam, GOG or other well-known app and game stores. It's also unsurprising that Epic is an early adopter. It's a vocal opponent of Apple's App Store policies and determined to offer the Epic Games Store wherever possible. Microsoft is unsurprisingly taking advantage of this. It can pitch Windows 11's store as a more open alternative to Apple's Mac App Store, even if Mac users don't have any real trouble accessing the EGS and other storefronts.

Adobe has revealed some new masking upgrades that are coming to Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw (or ACR, Photoshop's raw photo processing tool). The company calls it the "biggest change to providing control over selectively enhancing photos" since it released Lightroom 2 in 2008.

The Adobe Research team wanted to bring AI-powered selection tools such as Select Subject and Sky Replacement from Photoshop into Lightroom and ACR, but the image processing engine used in the latter two was incompatible. The team had to make some big changes under the hood, which gave it a chance to change how selections are handled in Lightroom.

Until now, ACR, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic have only supported vector-based selections (which are recorded as mathematical expressions), but the AI-powered masks need bitmap (or image-based) support. So, to bring the AI-based tools to those apps, Adobe had to make both approaches work together. It's still able to use vector-based selections for brush, gradients, and range masks to minimize the storage space needed, while the select subject and select sky tools (which can create a mask for a subject or sky with a single click) use bitmaps.

As it figured out how to make those two kinds of selections work together, Adobe developed new features for ACR, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic across desktops, mobile devices, tablets and the web. One such upgrade is mask groups, which will let you combine any mask tools. For instance, you'll be able to use a gradient vector-based tool in concert with an AI-powered feature such as select sky. It'll be possible to separate a mask from another masking tool as well. You'll be able to invert selections and there'll be more options for range masks, such as targeting the entire image.

Adobe

A new masking panel should help you keep these masks organized. If you're using one of the desktop apps, you can move the panel around. In addition, you can name each mask to help keep track of what you're doing. You'll be able to preview masks in a variety of different ways with the help of overlay visualizations Adobe brought over from Photoshop.

Elsewhere, Adobe wanted to ensure the tools were available across apps and devices. It says the AI-powered tools work just as well on mobile devices as they do on desktop, while it's bringing range masks from ACR and Lightroom Classic to Lightroom's desktop and mobile apps. The company's also promising better in-app support to help you get the most out of all these tools, such as a step-by-step tutorial in Lightroom.

The feature parity means that no matter which device or app you prefer for image editing, you should have access to the same tools. These masking upgrades will be available in ACR, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic starting on October 26th. Adobe says its Research and Design Research teams are working on more AI-powered tools and other improvements it plans to announce in the near future.

Since 2019, Sign in with Apple has allowed iPhone and Mac users to protect their privacy by allowing them to generate random email addresses when they need to access a new website, service or app. It’s one of those small features that can have an outsized impact, and now something similar is coming to 1Password.

The company has partnered with email host Fastmail to introduce a feature called Masked Email. Like its Apple counterpart, the tool allows you to create unique email addresses for your logins. You can create the aliases directly within the 1Password app, which means you can access the tool on all platforms where the password manager is available.

Just how much the ability to hide your email can do to help safeguard your online privacy can’t be overstated. The vast majority of privacy breaches start with phishing emails. You’re far less likely to click on a suspicious link or inadvertently share your personal information if you don’t get one of those messages in the first place.

Skype has some significant changes in the works. It offered a peek at what's coming later this year, with a focus on speed, reliability and design, as well as other improvements. For one thing, video calls (on what Skype calls the "call stage") are getting a visual overhaul. New layouts and themes are on the way. You'll be able to see yourself on the main view while you're on a call, though you can hide your feed if you'd rather not look at your own face.

Video feeds are being rearranged into a grid to avoid relegating folks to a minimized view. Instead everyone on the call, including those who aren't sharing video, will be visible. You'll see larger video feeds in the top bar too.

Skype

There are several viewing options for the call stage, including speaker view, grid view, a large gallery and Together Mode (which makes seem like everyone's in the same space). You can also opt only to include people who are sharing video in the grid or switch the video stream off completely. Audio-only participants can use one of the app's background replacement images while on a call, rather than grey nothingness.

More colorful themes are in the pipeline, with features including gradients for buttons and for users without avatars. Meanwhile, "the beauty of the left side panel screams art, balance and lightness," says Skype, giving perhaps its best Apple impression.

Skype

Skype is also redesigning Meet Now, which allows people to join calls without signing up or installing the app. Invitation links are getting a new look, as invitees will see the name and avatar of your call. The service says it will soon support all browsers as well.

In addition, Skype is working on performance. It claims it has boosted performance "in key scenarios" by almost a third on the desktop app and by over 2,000 percent on Android. Also new or on the way are custom notification sounds, and an updated reactions window that lets you respond more quickly by searching or using pinned reactions.

Elsewhere, you can use Office Lens on the Skype mobile app to share scanned documents, photos and videos. A new feature called TwinCam will let you add a video feed from a second device to your call. That could be handy if you want to show off your pet, or let students see your textbook and your face at the same time. Just scan a QR code with your iOS or Android device to get started.

Skype

Nearly five years after Twitter shut down Vine, TikTok has reached the coveted 1 billion monthly active user mark. The company announced the milestone in a blog post on Monday. Attracting 1 billion users to any platform is a significant feat. However, TikTok’s rise in popularity is especially impressive when you consider almost exactly a year ago the Trump Administration was threatening to ban the app if ByteDance, TikTok’s Bejing-based parent company, didn’t sell it to an American buyer.

Then you have the speed at which TikTok achieved the feat. The app has only been widely available since 2018 — though you could download it in select markets as early as 2017. It took Instagram nearly eight years after its initial release and almost six years after it was acquired by Facebook in 2012 before it passed the 1 billion user threshold. Granted, the internet was a smaller place then with fewer people connected to it through their phones, but none of that takes away from TikTok’s ascent.

YouTube Music is rolling out to some Wear OS 2 smartwatches starting today. Gen 6 smartwatches from Fossil and Michael Kors will be able to stream music from the service, as will Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, Pro 3 Cellular/LTE and E3 models. The app was previously released for Wear OS 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.

It's the first YouTube Music smartwatch app that supports offline listening. If you're a YouTube Music Premium subscriber, you can download songs you can listen to offline and without ads. You'll be able to leave your phone at home and still listen to music while you work out or go for a walk.

The app includes the Smart Downloads feature, which updates the songs on your device when it connects to WiFi. Google says Premium subscribers can listen to more than 80 million songs and thousands of playlists from their wearable. The app, which is available through the Google Play Store, will hit more Wear OS 2 devices later this year.

Spotify rolled out an updated version of its Wear OS app last month. It also lets users download music to their smartwatch and stream tracks without the need to have a phone nearby.

Mention the name of Sunrise to a select demographic of nerds and you’re likely to elicit a visceral reaction. Before Microsoft purchased the calendar software in 2015 and shut it down about a year later, it was one of those apps people loved to praise. Thoughtful design and features helped it differentiate itself and earn a passionate fanbase in a crowded market that was dominated by heavyweights like GCal.

But then Microsoft shut down the app and fans were left to look elsewhere, with almost no alternative coming in to fill the void. But the good news is something similar could be on the way. Yahoo (Engadget’s parent company) is working on a standalone calendar app called Day. We know, not the most exciting sell, but stay with us.

According to TechCrunch, the company has recruited Jeremy Le Van, one of the co-founders of Sunrise, to help design the software. What’s more, the company has reportedly granted Le Van’s team the freedom to develop the software independent of other Yahoo properties. In its current iteration, the app apparently doesn’t feature any Yahoo branding or integrations. Moreover, the plan is to make it into something that can integrate with whatever email client and other tools people use.

Obviously, we’ll have to see what the final product looks like, but even if Day is only half as good as Sunrise it will make the calendar conversation more interesting.

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after developer Jane Manchun Wong discovered Clubhouse was working on a new feature called Wave, that functionality is now available to all users on both Android and iOS. Wave allows you to invite your friends to a private audio room. You can start using the feature by expanding the Hallway sidebar and tapping the wave emoji next to someone’s name.

Once you tap the icon, Clubhouse will send your friends a notification they can use to tell you whether they’re ready to join a conversation. You can invite as many people as you want, and once everyone is ready to chat, Clubhouse will create a private room for your group. You can open the space at any time to more people if you want to expand the conversation. If you push the app to the background, the app will pause your invites so that you don’t get pulled into a conversation without realizing it. Now that it’s here, we can’t wait for Facebook and Twitter to copy Wave, much like they did Clubhouse itself.