Your Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive might look quite different in the coming days. The tech giant has started rolling out the updated look and feel it promised for them last month based on its Material Design 3 language. In Docs, Sheets and Slides, Google is making it easier to find frequently used actions with a simplified user interface. The company is also moving some elements around to reduce clutter, including putting the edit and version history under a single clock icon at the top right corner of the app. Plus, Google is improving Docs' commenting experience — even adding emoji reactions that can be used to emphasize, upvote or disagree with responses — and updating its rulers and gridlines. 

As for Drive, the tech giant is introducing the ability to select multiple items at once to enable batch actions. It's adding new search categories, such as type (PDF, documents, videos and zips), owner and last modified, as well, to make sorting and finding files a lot easier. Those two combined could cut the time you need to do frequent tasks involving several files of the same type. Within individual files, Google will now start surfacing key actions inline "for quick access and increased productivity."

These features are now making their way to users, but it could take up to 15 days before they reach your apps. When Google announced its Workspace redesign in February, it also launched other features that included adding a stopwatch directly inside Docs that you could use to boost productivity. For Sheets, it added the capability to put Maps links directly in the app to aid in event or logistics planning. The app also got new shortcuts that let you quickly add relevant dates to a sheet simply by typing in @ with the appropriate keyword, like @today. 

Many Twitter users feared that the platform would fall apart after Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly fired thousands of employees and contractors. That hasn’t happened yet, but links failing to work, yesterday, is likely connected to the company’s recent tinkering with APIs.

On Monday, links and images completely broke on Twitter for a spell across the company's website and mobile apps. "Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now. We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences," Twitter shared on its Support account at 12:19 PM ET, Monday. It took roughly less than an hour for most of the social network to start working again.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted: "A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite." Twitter is restricting its APIs, the tools developers use to hook into the platform, and the company said it would start charging for access to them in early February.

Clicking on a link raised an error message that read: "Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint, please see https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api for more information." That link was also broken for a while.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Microsoft is holding a 'future of work' AI event on March 16th

You may see OpenAI technology powering Microsoft's business services.

Now everyone is excited about something Microsoft is working on, the company is going hard on events. It’s holding another AI event, focused on what it says is “the future of work.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft 365 lead Jared Spataro will host the presentation. A leak from The Verge suggests Microsoft may introduce AI-equipped versions of Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook and Word. While the exact functionality isn't known, The Information claims Outlook could use AI to improve search results and suggest email replies.

Continue reading.

Nothing will show off the Ear 2 earbuds on March 22nd

Not sure bugs and in-ear buds should be associated, though.

Nothing

Those looking for more details on Nothing's next earphones won't have to wait much longer. The company will reveal the Ear 2 on March 22nd. The latest teaser image suggests the transparent aesthetic will continue in the follow-up headphones, with an image showing a beetle pushing what appears to be a charging case out of frame.

Continue reading.

Microsoft’s Outlook is now free to use for Macs

You now have another major alternative to the built-in Mail app.

Microsoft is staying busy this week. It has made Outlook for Mac free to use. You previously needed either a Microsoft 365 subscription or an Office purchase to use the email client. It's available now through the Mac App Store. Microsoft pitches this as a good complement to Outlook for iOS, as you can now hand off an email draft to your iPhone if you haven't finished writing it on your Mac.

Continue reading.

Honda's latest autonomous robot packs things around construction sites

Asimo was cuter.

Honda

Honda is known for its vehicles and robots, and over the last few years, it has tried combining those two things with the Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV). It just unveiled a new third generation, designed to transport up to two palettes worth of goods around worksites with no human assistance. Compared to the second generation, the latest AWV has a larger bed size (two pallets) and higher capacity (2,000 pounds); a higher self-driving speed of up to 10 MPH; a larger battery for up to 10 hours and 28 miles of endurance. Honda says the AWV will allow construction and other companies to address issues like labor shortages and worksite transport. After extensively testing the last model, it said the AWV 3.0 is now ready for field trials.

Continue reading.

You now have another major alternative to the built-in Mail app on your Mac. Microsoft has made Outlook for Mac free to use. You previously needed either a Microsoft 365 subscription or an Office purchase to use the email client. It's available now through the Mac App Store.

Microsoft unsurprisingly pitches this as a good complement to Outlook for iOS. You can hand off an email draft to your iPhone if you haven't finished writing it on your Mac, for instance. An upcoming Profiles feature will tie into macOS' Focus modes to help you limit notifications when you're concentrating on work. As with all Outlook versions, you can use email accounts from various third-party services, including Gmail, iCloud and Yahoo (Engadget's parent company).

The company isn't shy about some of the reasoning behind the move. The team is "rebuilding" Outlook for Mac with performance, reliability and accessibility in mind. The free download might spur adoption by users who'd otherwise never give it a try. And of course, this might spur adoption of Microsoft 365 and Office for customers who want tight integration between their email software and productivity apps.

The addition might be welcome. There aren't many big email clients for the Mac, with Mozilla's Thunderbird being the most notable. Some are either paid-only or unlock features with subscriptions. Even if Outlook doesn't always match their features, you now have an easy way to try it.

Windows has frequently made managing multiple audio devices a hassle. Over the years, Microsoft has tried to improve the experience in a few ways. In 2021, for example, the company simplified how Windows 10 categorized Bluetooth devices. In spite of those efforts, it often feels like the OS doesn’t make switching between audio outputs and managing sound levels as easy as they should be. For instance, I wish Windows 11’s Quick Setting panel would allow me to adjust audio levels on a per-app basis.

Thankfully, Microsoft is finally preparing to solve that minor annoyance for Windows users. This week, the company detailed the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview and it just so happens to include a redesigned Quick Settings volume mixer. The updated interface element not only allows you to switch between audio devices but you can also use it to enable spatial sound and adjust volume output on a per-app basis, two things you can’t do with the current design. What’s more, Microsoft has added a dedicated shortcut to make accessing the feature faster. Once you have access to the volume mixer, press the Windows, Ctrl and V keys on your keyboard at the same time to open it.

"With this change, you can now tailor your audio experience with more control and fewer clicks to better manage your favorite apps," Microsoft says of the redesigned interface. As Bleeping Computer points out, the new volume mixer is reminiscent of the popular EarTrumpet mod. There’s no word yet on when Microsoft plans to roll out the latest Windows Insider features to regular users, but here’s hoping this one doesn’t take long to make its way to the general public.

Microsoft

Data privacy awareness boomed last June when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, limiting access to safe, legal abortion. Now, eight months later, privacy experts say not to let your guard down. Legislative bodies have made little progress on health data security.

We give up so much data each day that it’s easy to tune out. We blindly accept permissions or turn on location sharing, but that data can also be used by governing bodies to prosecute civilians or by attackers looking to extort individuals. That’s why, when SCOTUS declared access to abortion would no longer be a constitutional right, people began to scrutinize the amount of private health data they were sending to reproductive-health apps.

“The burden is really on consumers to figure out how a company, an app, a website is going to collect and then potentially use and share their data,” Andrew Crawford, senior counsel, privacy and data, at the Center for Democracy and Technology said.

There aren’t widespread industry standards or federal legislation to protect sensitive data, despite some increased regulatory action since last year. Even data that isn’t considered personally identifiable or explicitly health related can still put people at risk. Location data, for example, can show if a patient traveled to receive an abortion, possibly putting them at risk of prosecution.

“Companies see that as information they can use to make money,” Jen Caltrider, lead at Mozilla’s consumer privacy organization Privacy Not Included, told Engadget. Research released by Caltrider’s team in August analyzed the security of 25 reproductive-health apps. Eighteen of them earned a privacy warning label for failing to meet privacy standards.

So, what’s left for users of reproductive-health apps to do? The obvious advice is to carefully read the terms and conditions before signing up in order to better understand what’s happening with their data. If you don’t have a legal degree and an hour to spare, though, there are some basic rules to follow. Turning off data sharing that isn’t necessary to the function of the app, using encrypted chats to talk about reproductive care, signing up for a trustworthy VPN and leaving your phone at home if you’re accessing reproductive health care can all help protect your information, according to Crawford.

While industry standards are still lacking, increased public scrutiny has led to some improvements. Some reproductive-health apps now store data locally as opposed to on a server, collect data anonymously so that it cannot be accessed by law enforcement or base operations in places like Europe that have stronger data privacy laws. We spoke with three popular apps that were given warning labels by Privacy Not Included last August to see what’s changed since then.

Glow’s Eve reproductive-health app introduced an option to store data locally instead of on its server, among other security measures. Glow told Engadget that it doesn't sell data and employees are required to take privacy and security training.

A similar app, Flo Health, has introduced an anonymous mode and hired a new privacy exec since the report. The company told Engadget that it hopes to expand its anonymous mode features in the future with additions like the ability to stop receiving IP addresses completely.

Clue, another app that landed on the warning list, adheres to the stricter privacy laws of the European Union known as General Data Protection Regulation, co-CEO Carrie Walter told Engadget. She added that the company will never cooperate with a government authority to use people’s health data against them, and recommended users keep up with updates to its privacy policy for more information.

But there are no one-and-done solutions. With permissions changing frequently, people that use health apps are also signing up to consistently check their settings.

“Apps change constantly, so keep doing your research, which is a burden to ask consumers,” Caltrider said. “Use anonymous modes, when they're available, store things locally, as much as you can. Don't share location if you can opt out of location sharing.”

Even 3D modelling software is using AI art generators. Stability AI has introduced a Stability for Blender tool that, as the name implies, brings Stable Diffusion's image creation tech to the open-source 3D tool. You can create AI-based textures, effects and animations, whether using source material from your renders or nothing more than a text description. You may not need to be (or hire) a skilled 2D artist to put the finishing touches on a project.

Stability for Blender requires an API (programming interface) key and an internet connection, but it's free to use. It doesn't require any software dependencies or a dedicated GPU. This might help if you need to complete some texture or video work on a laptop that isn't as robust as your main workstation.

The addition theoretically saves time and money, and might help streamline your work. It can also help you make truly custom content, Stability says. It's safe to say this may be useful if you were already planning to use AI-generated art, as it could save you jumping between apps and services.

This isn't likely to give Stable Diffusion a major advantage over rivals like OpenAI's DALL-E. It also won't create 3D objects from scratch. You'll need a tool like POINT-E for that. However, it does hint at a way AI image generation can help creatives without as much risk of copyright issues. Stability for Blender can rely on your own content for source material — you shouldn't have to worry about legal trouble.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and DALL-E 2, announced several significant changes today. First, it’s launching developer APIs for ChatGPT and the Whisper speech-transcription model. It also changed its terms of service to let developers opt out of using their data for improvements while adding a 30-day data retention policy.

The new ChatGPT API will use the same AI model (“gpt-3.5-turbo”) as the popular chatbot, allowing developers to add either unchanged or flavored versions of ChatGPT to their apps. Snap’s My AI is an early example, along with a new virtual tutor feature for the online study tool Quizlet and an upcoming Ask Instacart tool in the popular local-shopping app. However, the API won’t be limited to brand-specific bots mimicking ChatGPT; it can also power “non-chat” software experiences that could benefit from AI brains.

The ChatGPT API is priced at $0.002 per 1,000 tokens (about 750 words). Additionally, it’s offering a dedicated-capacity option for deep-pocketed developers who expect to use more tokens than the standard API allows. The new developer options join the consumer-facing ChatGPT Plus, a $20-per-month service launched in February.

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Whisper API is a hosted version of the open-source Whisper speech-to-text model it launched in September. “We released a model, but that actually was not enough to cause the whole developer ecosystem to build around it,” OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman toldTechCrunch on Tuesday. “The Whisper API is the same large model that you can get open source, but we’ve optimized to the extreme. It’s much, much faster and extremely convenient.” The transcription API will cost developers $0.006 per minute, enabling “robust” transcription in multiple languages and providing translation to English.

Finally, OpenAI revealed changes to its developer terms based on customer feedback about privacy and security concerns. Unless a developer opts in, the company will no longer use data submitted through the API for “service improvements” to train its AI models. Additionally, it’s adding a 30-day data retention policy while providing stricter retention options “depending on user needs” (likely meaning high-usage companies with budgets to match). Finally, it’s simplifying its terms surrounding data ownership, clarifying that users own the models’ input and output.

The company will also replace its pre-launch review process for developers with a mostly automated system. OpenAI justified the change by pointing out that “the overwhelming majority of apps were approved during the vetting process,” claiming its monitoring has “significantly improved.” “One of our biggest focuses has been figuring out, how do we become super friendly to developers?” Brockman said to TechCrunch. “Our mission is to really build a platform that others are able to build businesses on top of.”

Jack Dorsey’s new Twitter alternative, Bluesky, is now available in closed beta on the App Store. The invite-only app could soon join a crowded field of budding Twitter competitors, including Mastodon.

Interested users can submit their email addresses to join the waitlist. The Bluesky app reportedly borrows heavily from Twitter. However, it includes minor differences like “What’s up?” in place of “What’s happening?” along with a simplified process of creating a post (which can also include photos) by selecting a plus button. Otherwise, it has familiar features like searching for and following users and viewing their posts on a Home timeline.

Bluesky began in 2019 as a Twitter-funded side project. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and was still CEO when the initiative started, saw it as a more open alternative to an increasingly centralized Twitter. Then, Bluesky spun off as its own company in 2021. Dorsey has said he believes social media should be free of corporate or government control and that only authors should have the power to remove their social-media content. Additionally, although he said Twitter’s decision to ban Donald Trump after his role in inciting the January 6th insurrection was “the right decision,” he also worried about its precedent in endangering a “free and open global internet.”

Whether Twitter users will flee to Bluesky (or other platforms) in large enough numbers to make a significant difference is an open question. However, considering many people seeking an alternative are doing so because of current CEO / owner Elon Musk’s headline-grabbing embrace of far-right figures and ideology, it may be illogical to expect them to flock to a brainchild of someone who holds reservations about banning anyone for any reason.

The ID.3 isn't even three years old, but that isn't stopping Volkswagen from giving its well-known EV a makeover. After months of teasers, the company has introduced a second-generation ID.3 that addresses criticisms of the first model. The new compact car offers a "sharper" design with improved aerodynamics and a higher-quality (and heavily recycled) interior. More importantly, VW has upgraded the technology — including its software, which garnered a long list of complaints from drivers.

The second-gen ID.3 includes the "latest software," with a simpler layout, better performance and over-the-air updates. The 12-inch infotainment display is now standard. You also have access to a Travel Assist feature that uses "swarm" data to aid driving — the crowdsourced info can keep you in your lane on a backroad even if there's just one known lane marking. Charging should be easier, too, between an automatic charge start (at compatible stations) and a route planner that factors in the availability and capacity of stations along the way. Your car won't direct you to a busy station with slow chargers.

Don't expect huge changes in performance. The new ID.3 uses the same 201HP motor system and battery options as before. That nets up to 265 miles of range (using the WLTP testing method) with the base 58kWh battery and 339 miles with the 77kWh pack. Those are still very healthy figures for an EV this size, however, and VW has teased a smaller battery for those who only need a commuter car.

Production is slated to start in fall 2023. VW hasn't outlined pricing or country-by-country availability, but we wouldn't count on this reaching the US. Like the original ID.3, the revamp is aimed primarily at European customers where North America gets larger vehicles like the ID.4 crossover and upcoming ID.Buzz.

Volkswagen

Even larger software improvements are in store, regardless of where you live. VW's Cariad unit has unveiled an app store (pictured at middle) for the automaker's brands, including Audi and Porsche. The platform will help third parties bring apps to a wide range of cars with relatively little fuss, including over-the-air-updates. Major early partners tend to be driving-oriented services like Spotify, TuneIn, The Weather Channel and Plugshare. However, you'll also find TikTok, Cisco's Webex meeting app and even Vivaldi's web browser.

The app store debuts in several Audi models (including EVs like the E-Tron GT and Q8 E-Tron) this summer for European and North American customers. More models and VW brands are coming later. Don't expect to upgrade your existing ride, though, as VW cautions that the shop will only be available in cars produced from summer onward.

TikTok is introducing new settings that are meant to reduce how much time teens are spending in the app. In an update, the company says it will automatically default teens under the age of 18 to a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes.

With the change, teens will still be able to bypass the daily limit, but they’ll be required to enter a passcode, “requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time,” the company says. Additionally, if teens opt to turn off the screen time limit altogether, TikTok will further prompt them to set a limit if they spend more than 100 minutes in the app.

The company is also adding new parental control features via the app’s “Family Pairing” feature, which allows parents to monitor their children’s activity on TikTok. Parents will be able to set their own custom screen time limits, and view a dashboard that details stats about their child’s time in the app, like how often they open it and what times of the day they use it most. Parents can also set a schedule for when their children can receive notifications, and choose to filter topics they don’t want to appear in their For You feeds.

The update comes as lawmakers in the United States have renewed their efforts to ban TikTok entirely. In addition to national security concerns, Congress has also criticized the company for not doing enough to protect its youngest users.