Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge Even if someone is the type to buy all the latest big games, we’re certain we can help you find them a unique and adequately geeky gift this holiday. Continue reading…
Read MoreJennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge: Matter broke its promise of an easier smart home experience, as the standard suffers from poor implementation, significant backpedaling, and glacial progress — The new smart home standard finally arrived this year. But poor implementation, significant backpedaling, and glacial progress have left it broken.
Read MorePhoto Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge The sky’s the limit when money is no object, so why waste your hard-earned cash and coin on the everyday essentials? It’s time to dream big. Continue reading…
Read MoreBrady Snyder / Android Central: Google plans to limit the types of election-related queries for which Bard and SGE respond to, starting in early 2024, in preparation for elections worldwide — The move is intended to curb misinformation as the 2024 election nears — What you need to know
Read MoreIllustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Blockchain games are returning to Epic Games’ marketplace. The Epic Games Store has a strict ban on games classified as “Adults Only” by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) — normally games with excessive nudity or violence. But the marketplace announced today that blockchain games classified as AO
Read MoreLeah Nylen / Bloomberg: Pharmacy chain Rite Aid must stop using facial recognition for five years as part of a settlement with the US FTC, which says the tech falsely flagged customers — – FTC says chain’s surveillance system falsely flagged customers — Bankrupt pharmacy chain will stop using system, delete images
Read MoreEver since the demise of Google’s Stadia game streaming service, the associated Stadia controllers have found themselves in limbo, with the only way to switch them from the proprietary WiFi mode to Bluetooth by connecting to a special Google website. Yet as [Gary] found out, all this website does is flash a firmware file via
Read MoreImage: Getty Rite Aid isn’t allowed to use AI-powered facial recognition technology for another five years as part of a settlement it reached with the Federal Trade Commission. In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the FTC accuses Rite Aid of using facial surveillance systems in a “reckless” manner from 2012 to 2020. During this period,
Read MoreIsabel Gottlieb / Bloomberg Law: Harvey, which builds generative AI tools for law firms using OpenAI’s tech, raised an $80M Series B co-led by Elad Gil and Kleiner Perkins at a $715M valuation — Harvey.ai raised an additional $80 million, it announced Tuesday, valuing the generative AI legal technology platform at $715 million.
Read MorePhoto Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge From color-changing lights to gadgets that’ll take care of dinner for you and your pets, here are some of our favorite smart home gifts. Continue reading…
Read MorePranshu Verma / Washington Post: NewsGuard: since May 2023, websites hosting AI-created fake news articles have grown from 49 to 600+; some post “hundreds if not thousands of articles” per day — AI is making it easy for anyone to create propaganda outlets, producing content that can be hard to differentiate from real news
Read MoreIt’s not too late to finish your shopping. We rounded up deals on WIRED-approved gifts that ship quickly.
Read MoreIllustration: Beatrice Sala The US Justice Department (DOJ) says the FBI has created a decryption tool that helped it return the data of over 500 ransomware victims as part of a multinational law enforcement push. It also wrote that the bureau had seized “several websites” operated by the ALPHV / Blackcat ransomware gang. However, Bleeping
Read MorePranshu Verma / Washington Post: NewsGuard: since May 2023, websites hosting AI-created fake news articles have grown from 49 to 600+; some post “hundreds if not thousands of articles” per day — AI is making it easy for anyone to create propaganda outlets, producing content that can be hard to differentiate from real news
Read MoreImage: VW Volkswagen Group, which also owns Audi, Porsche, and Scout Motors, is finally doing what nearly every other automaker has already done: announce its intention to adopt Tesla’s electric vehicle charging standard. VW said it is “exploring adapter solutions” so that its current EV owners can access Tesla’s Supercharger network and expects to have
Read MorePhoto by Victoria Song / The Verge If you have an iPhone 14 or iPhone 15, you can now use satellite connectivity to access Verizon’s roadside assistance service. In a support page spotted by MacRumors, Apple now says you can take advantage of the capability with devices running iOS 17.2 (or higher) and a Verizon
Read MoreMichael Kan / PCMag: HughesNet debuts a $110/month 100Mbps satellite internet plan, double its previous top speed; Starlink offers 220Mbps, but US Ookla data shows many get ~70Mbps — HughesNet’s speed boost comes courtesy of the recently launched Jupiter 3 satellite, which is designed to serve customers in the Americas.
Read MorePhoto Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge The best tech gifts for those who spend way too much time sitting at a laptop or desktop PC — whether for work or leisure. Continue reading…
Read MoreAnissa Gardizy / The Information: Sources: AWS plans to overhaul its sales team as it aims to increase the share of Fortune 1,000 firms spending over $10M/year on AWS, from less than 20% to 80% — Matt Garman, head of sales at Amazon Web Services, plans to reorganize his more than 60,000-person team to address
Read MoreThe Verge Microsoft’s AI chatbot Copilot will now be able to churn out AI songs on demand — thanks to a new plug-in with Suno. The Cambridge-based AI music startup offers a tool on Discord that can compose an original song — complete with lyrics — based on a text prompt. Now, Copilot users will
Read MoreEmilia David / The Verge: Stability AI debuts Stability AI Membership, with free, $20/month, and custom pricing enterprise tiers, limiting commercial use of its models to the paid tiers — Stability AI, the maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, is now offering a subscription service that standardizes …
Read MoreImage: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Has December slipped by and left you with little time to finish your holiday shopping? I’m not here to judge you for waiting until the last minute (we’ve all been there, after all). Instead, I’ll do you one better by helping you find a variety of gift ideas
Read MoreNickolas Diaz / Android Central: Samsung’s Self-Repair program includes foldable devices for the first time, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5, and expands to 30 additional countries in Europe — Its latest smartphone series and laptop join in, too. — What you need to know — Samsung has expanded coverage …
Read MoreCredit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority Beeper will be releasing an update to fix its iMessage on Android problem. The latest fix from the company will require users to have a Mac or have a friend on Beeper with a Mac. Users will need to have their Macs turned on regularly so registration data can
Read MoreBeeper’s “Mini” Android app was supposed to be a simple green-bubble-to-blue-bubble messaging solution. It has now fueled a larger conversation about government regulation of the tech industry.
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