Friday, July 16, 2021

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Amazon's Alexa voice options now include Shaq and Melissa McCarthy

Posted: 16 Jul 2021 03:35 AM PDT

Those who find Alexa's default voice too cold can have the digital assistant mimic celebs. Though, in the past, the only A-list impression the AI could do was everyone's fave badass Samuel L. Jackson. Turns out, people liked the idea of ordering a weather report from a superstar, because Amazon is adding two more famous voices to Alexa's toolkit. The new options include four-time NBA champ Shaquille O'Neal and Oscar-nominated actor Melissa McCarthy. 

Amazon says the SLJ skill, introduced for a limited price of $0.99, became one of its top-selling digital purchases upon launch. The new voice options don't come with an early discount, so you'll have to fork out $5 for each. But, the prospect of hearing Shaq rap and McCarthy tell jokes may seal the deal for some. If you want to try before you buy, check out the voice samples below.

Alexa grew into an impersonator thanks to advancements in its neural text-to-speech technology. The AI is clearly getting smarter all the time as Amazon is introducing a new original voice option and new wake word ("Ziggy") too.

US energy department hopes instant permits will boost rooftop solar installations

Posted: 16 Jul 2021 03:05 AM PDT

With the US back in the Paris climate accord, President Joe Biden has the lofty goal of decarbonizing the US power grid by 2035. As part of that plan, the Department of Energy (DoE) has announced that it's rolling out a new tool that will make it much easier and faster to get a permit for a rooftop solar installation. 

The cost of solar has plunged 90 percent over past decade, but permit-related costs can take up to a third of the price of a rooftop installation. On top of that, with solar permitting varying widely around the US, some customers must wait months to get approval, the DoE wrote. 

The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP+) platform will supposedly solve those issues, becoming the standard portal for local governments to process permit applications. It automatically checks codes to ensure safety while generating a standardized inspection checklist that installers and inspectors can use to verify compliance in the field. 

We have 3 million households today that have solar on their roofs, but the potential is so much greater.

The government piloted the SolarAPP+ program in four communities around Arizona and California: Tucson and Pima County in Arizona, and Menifee and Pleasant Valley in the California. "In Tucson, for example, SolarAPP+ reduced permitting reviews from approximately 20 business days to zero," according to the DoE. 

"We have 3 million households today that have solar on their roofs, but the potential is so much greater," DoE's solar energy director told Reuters. "Having streamlined processes and an automated permitting platform that can make it faster, easier and cheaper for homeowners to go solar promises to really help expand the residential solar sector."

Local governments and installers can now sign up to get started with the app, or attend webinars listed on the DoE's blog. All of that is part of the DoE's Summer of Solar campaign which includes research by the agency aimed at lowering soft costs (design, siting, permitting, installation, etc.) associated with rooftop solar power. 

PayPal ups its weekly cryptocurrency buy limit to $100,000

Posted: 16 Jul 2021 02:20 AM PDT

One way fintechs have set themselves apart from traditional banks is by embracing crypto trading. For some of the biggest names in the sector, the expansion has been a success. Take PayPal. Following in the footsteps of Square'sCash App, the company began allowing US members to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin cash back in November. It followed that with the option to checkout with crypto in March and brought crypto trading to its subsidiary Venmo the following month. Now, as part of its ongoing push into digital currencies, PayPal is upping the amount of crypto users can buy to $100,000 per week and scrapping the $50,000 annual limit altogether.

The expansion marks a fivefold increase to the service's crypto purchasing limit in less than a year. PayPal says it's also adding to its in-app guides and educational materials on cryptocurrency to help dispel myths around virtual currencies. In January, PayPal made an investment in US-based tech startup Taxbit, which helps consumers and businesses calculate the taxes owed on cryptocurrency holdings.

The payments company has made it clear that its crypto push is about driving engagement. Speaking at JP Morgan's annual tech conference in May, PayPal CFO John Rainey said that people who have purchased crypto use the app twice as much as others. A large part of that is people checking the prices of their holdings. Rainey added that 50 percent of crypto holders use the app daily.

Twitter is finally rolling out auto-captions for voice tweets

Posted: 16 Jul 2021 01:05 AM PDT

Twitter rolled out voice tweets over a year ago now and has taken a lot of heat for the lack of accessibility features. Now, it's finally rolling out automatically generated captions that appear when you click on the "CC" button. The new feature is only available on iOS, as voice tweets have yet to arrive on Android. 

Captions are available in English, Japanese, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, French, Indonesian, korean and Italian. They will only appear on new voice tweets, as they need to be generated when the tweet is created, Twitter told The Verge. 

When voice tweets were first being tested last June, critics immediately pointed out that they should have had captions from the start as required in the US by Federal Law. Twitter then admitted that it didn't have a dedicated accessibility team and relied on employees to donate additional time for those features. Since then, however, the company has launched teams dedicated to accessibility. The company originally promised to add automated captions by early 2021, but that date obviously slipped a bit. 

Twitter promised to improve and expand the service across its products. "Though it's still early and we know it won't be perfect at first, it's one of many steps we're taking to expand and strengthen accessibility across our service, and we look forward to continuing our journey to create a truly inclusive service," said Twitter's global accessibility head Gurpreet Kaur. 

Elgato's Stream Deck MK.2 supports seven cute faceplates

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 04:54 PM PDT

Sure, Elgato's Stream Deck MK.2 can organize your desktop apps and make going live on Twitch as easy as pressing a button, but most importantly, it supports a range of adorable faceplates. The Stream Deck MK.2 costs $150 and it's being sold alongside seven new faceplates, priced at $10 each. Elgato showed off the MK.2 today in a new trailer and it's available to order now (yes, so are the faceplates).

The Stream Deck MK.2 has 15 customizable LCD keys that can be connected to PC apps, media tools and specific platforms, with plugins for Twitch, OBS, YouTube, XSplit, Spotify, Philips Hue and others. This allows streamers in particular to set hotkeys for going live, controlling A/V features and interacting with the audience. The icons on the MK.2 are digitally customizable as well.

In June, Elgato rolled out Stream Deck 5.0, a beefy software update that included a new store, icon library, and a selection of DMCA-free music and sound effects.

Here are the emoji finalists for Unicode 14.0

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 03:17 PM PDT

With just two days before World Emoji Day on July 17th, Emojipedia has shared a list of draft characters the Unicode Consortium will consider for final inclusion in Unicode 14.0. The list includes charming candidates like a melting smiley face, a disco ball, beans and a pointing finger in various skin tones. Not every emoji you see below will make the cut. However, once the Unicode Consortium decides on a final candidate list in September, the remaining ones will make their way to your devices starting in late 2021 and throughout 2022.

Unicode 14.0 Emoji candidates
Emojipedia

As with almost every potential Unicode release since 2014, the draft list includes characters designed with diversity and inclusivity in mind. In particular, you'll notice there are several new versions of the handshake emoji. And that's a big deal. Due to technical limitations, it was one of the few characters you couldn't modify with a skin tone, but after about two years of work, that's almost certainly changing with Unicode 14.0.

What's also notable about the above list is that the Unicode Consortium has been working on it longer than usual. In 2020, the organization delayed the release of Unicode 14.0 due to the pandemic. "This year we simply can't commit to the same schedule we've adhered to in the past," it said at the time, noting the pandemic had overwhelmed the volunteer contributors it depends on for its work around emoji.

Facebook is notifying some users whose posts were removed by automation

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 02:29 PM PDT

Facebook is testing a change that will let users know when their post was removed as a result of automation. The new experiment comes in response to the Oversight Board, which has said the social network should be more transparent with users about how their posts are removed.

The company revealed the new test in a new report that provides updates on how Facebook is handling the Oversight Board's policy recommendations. The test comes in response to one of the first cases the Oversight Board took up, which dealt with an Instagram post meant to raise awareness of breast cancer that the company removed under its nudity rules.

Facebook restored the post, saying its automated systems had made a mistake, and updated Instagram's rules to allow for "health-related nudity." But the Oversight Board had also recommended that Facebook alert users in cases when a post was removed with automation rather than as a result of a human content reviewer. Facebook previously said it would test this change, which is now in effect.

"We've launched a test on Facebook to assess the impact of telling people more about whether automation was involved in enforcement," facebook writes in its report. "People in the test now see whether technology or a Facebook content reviewer made the enforcement decision about their content. We will analyze the results to see if people had a clearer understanding of who removed their content, while also watching for a potential rise in recidivism and appeals rates." The company added that it will provide an update on the test later this year.

The report also shed some additional insight into how the company is working with the Oversight Board. The report notes that between November 2020 and March 2021 it referred 26 cases to the board, though it's only chosen to take up three — one of which was in response to its suspension of Donald Trump. (Notably, the latest report only covers the first quarter of 2021, so it doesn't address the board's recommendations in response to Trump's suspension.)

Though the Oversight Board has only weighed in on a handful of cases, its decisions have resulted in a few policychanges by Facebook that could have a much broader effect. However, in some areas, the company has declined to follow up on its policy suggestions, such as one that Facebook study its own role in enabling the events of January 6th. In a blog post, the company noted that "the size and scope of the board's recommendations go beyond the policy guidance that we first anticipated when we set up the board, and several require multi-month or multi-year investments."

The new Anthony Bourdain documentary 'Roadrunner' leans partly on deepfaked audio

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 02:06 PM PDT

On July 16th, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain will open in US theatres. Like many documentaries, the film pieces together archival footage, including interviews and show outtakes, to attempt to tell the story of its subject in their own words. It also includes words Bourdain never spoke to a camera before his death by suicide in 2018, and yet you'll hear his voice saying them.

In an interview with The New Yorker, the film's director, Morgan Neville, said there were three quotes he wanted Bourdain to narrate where there were no recordings, and so he recreated them with software instead. "I created an AI model of his voice," he told the magazine.

It appears that was no easy feat either. In a separate interview with GQ, Neville said he contacted four different companies about the project before deciding on the best one. That company fed about a dozen hours of audio to an AI model. A lot of the work involved deciding the exact tone of Bourdain's voice Neville wanted the software to replicate since the way the author and travel host narrated his writing changed so much over the years he was on TV.

Compared to some of the other ways we've seen AI and deepfakes used to trick people, this isn't the worst example, but the ethics of it are still questionable. The film, as far as we're aware, doesn't include a disclosure that AI was used to replicate Bourdain's voice. "If you watch the film, other than that line you mentioned, you probably don't know what the other lines are that were spoken by the AI, and you're not going to know," Neville told The New Yorker. "We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later." In his interview with GQ, he said Bourdain's family told him "Tony would have been cool with that," adding, "I was just trying to make [the quotes] come alive,"

Candace Parker is NBA 2K's first female cover athlete

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 01:10 PM PDT

Twenty two years after the debut of NBA 2K, the basketball sim series will feature a woman on the cover of the game for the first time. Two-time WNBA MVP and 2016 WNBA Finals MVP Candace Parker features on the front of the WNBA 25th Anniversary Special Edition of NBA 2K22.

Parker is one of several basketball stars to feature on NBA 2K22 packaging. Luka Dončić is the cover athlete on the standard edition of the game, while the NBA 75th Anniversary Edition features Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The WNBA 25th Anniversary Special Edition is a GameStop exclusive (Canadians can pick it up from EB Games). It's a physical edition for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and it features a bundle of seven exclusive in-game WNBA jerseys, including one for Parker. It costs $70 and it will be available on September 10th.

Although it's taken a long time for 2K to put a female athlete on the cover of an NBA game, it's a positive step forward for representation. NBA 2K20 was the first 2K game to feature WNBA teams and players, and a WNBA version of the MyPlayer career mode debuted in NBA 2K21.

EA has been featuring more women in its sports titles over the last several years. It beat 2K to the punch by featuring WNBA players in NBA Live 18. EA put women on the cover of a FIFA title for the first time in 2015. FIFA 2016 was the first edition of the series to feature women soccer players.

Clippy will return as an emoji in some Microsoft apps

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:50 PM PDT

Twenty years after being unceremoniously dumped from Microsoft Office, Clippy is ready to make a triumphant return. As part of a broader update to 1,800 emoji, the one-time assistant will replace the paperclip emoji in various Microsoft 365 products, including Office, Teams and Windows. Microsoft is updating its emoji library to make the characters 3D, as well as more colorful and fun. The company told The Verge approximately 900 of the redesigned emoji would feature some sort of animation, which you'll be able to see in action in apps like Teams.

Windows Emoji
Microsoft / The Verge

The company said it plans to roll out the new characters to Windows and Teams sometime in the upcoming holiday season. They will then make their way to other Office apps, including Yammer and Outlook, sometime after that. 

Microsoft teased Clippy's return earlier this month when it said on Twitter it would replace the paperclip emoji in Office if at least 20,000 people liked its tweet. As of the writing of this article, that message has 151,000 likes and counting. The tweet was an about-face for Microsoft. In 2019, a group of employees released a Teams sticker pack dedicated to the Office assistant on GitHub, only for the company to remove it a day later. This time, it appears Clippy is here to stay for good.

Elgato's first webcam gets a lot of things right

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:30 PM PDT

Though it's still best known for its capture cards, Elgato is working toward taking over your entire streaming setup. The past half decade has seen the introduction of the Stream Deckline for easily initiating macros during a broadcast; different kinds of lighting; and, last year, the company's first gaming microphones. The one thing missing in this list was a webcam — until today's introduction of the Elgato FaceCam.

Elgato FaceCam mounted on a monitor
Kris Naudus / Engadget

On its surface, the $200 camera is not that unique. It's a chunky rectangular box that can be easily clipped on top of a monitor, or connected to Elgato's multi mount system. It shoots 1080p at 60fps, with a Sony-made STARVIS CMOS sensor. It may not be 4K, but most streamers don't need that kind of resolution right now. The FaceCam makes up for it with a robust suite of settings in its dedicated Camera Hub program. Yes, you'll have to download another piece of software for this camera to run alongside Game Capture, Stream Deck, Wave Link (for the mics) and Control Center (for the lighting), which is a little annoying. Other companies bundle all their different drivers and settings into one tool, but I suppose keeping them separate probably makes sending out updates easier.

It's a me on the screen
Kris Naudus / Engadget

In the Camera Hub you'll have easy access to things like contrast, exposure and white balance. (The latter two can be set to automatic so you have one less thing to fuss over.) The automatic white balance was a little warm for my taste, but it was easy enough to turn it off and knock the number down to a cooler 4000K. The software also comes with zoom options, but it's nothing to write home about, as the camera is fixed focus. You'll always be sharp as long as you always remain between 12 inches (30 cm) and 47 inches (120 cm) from the camera. That should take care of anyone working at a desk; anyone who moves further back would be better served with something a little more portable with advanced settings.

Elgato Camera Hub, close up to my chin
Kris Naudus / Engadget

The biggest draw of the Camera Hub is the real-time ISO reading, which makes it a lot easier to detect and react to changes in your lighting. Maybe your lights are too bright, or maybe the natural light from outside vanished with an oncoming thunderstorm (which is exactly what's happening as I type this). The exposure and white balance can adjust automatically, or you can tweak the settings yourself on the fly. There's a Stream Deck plugin available, which should make it possible to adjust the settings with the touch of a button. Of course, that's dependent on you having smart lighting in the first place, like Elgato's Key Light or Ring Light.

Exposure, ISO 426
Kris Naudus / Engadget

There's a definite sense that you're meant to go all-in on Elgato's streaming lineup, probably best evidenced by the lack of a microphone in the FaceCam. The company says it didn't bother since most gamers tend to use headsets anyway, but let's face it: Elgato would rather you pick up one of its Wave:1 or Wave:3 mics. They do indeed sound great, but they're not my preferred microphones thanks to some issues I had with getting the Wave:3 to work while I was wearing a headset — yes, even one made by Elgato's parent company Corsair.

Elgato Camera Hub, hey look it's me
Kris Naudus / Engadget

For the most part, the FaceCam has a lot fewer kinks. My biggest problem was plugging it in, as it must be plugged into your system directly and not via a hub. And that's tough with many modern laptops, which may only have two USB-C ports. The FaceCam comes with a USB-C to USB-A cord, and the company recommends you use the included wire instead of providing your own. I was forced to search around for a converter dongle. While I commend companies for finally embracing USB-C in their gaming accessories, we need some solutions on the software side to ensure that they can actually be used with hubs. My Logitech C920 works with a hub and it comes with a built-in mic, so it's likely to remain my default webcam for most purposes.

Elgato FaceCam mounted on top of a monitor
Kris Naudus / Engadget

Still, the FaceCam is off to a promising start. The video quality is crisp and free of noise, and when it's not there's a built-in filter you can enable. I haven't needed it to, though, as the camera has handled my Google Hangouts and Zoom calls with ease. The price is a bit steep, but still on par with Logitech's Brio 4K and Razer's Kiyo Pro, both of which cost $200. What your money gets you here is the assurance that it will work seamlessly with your Elgato Stream Deck — a piece of equipment that, right now at least, has no real competition.

US Surgeon General warns that health misinformation is an 'urgent threat'

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:12 PM PDT

US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has issued an advisory warning of the dangers posed by health misinformation, calling it an "urgent threat" that social media companies and technology platforms need to do more to address.

As The New York Timespoints out, it's a rather unusual step for the office of the Surgeon General, which typically issues advisories centered around specific health concerns like the opioid epidemic. In a press release, the Surgeon General said that "health misinformation has already caused significant harm" and undermined vaccination efforts.

The advisory includes a 22-page report on steps that individuals, health organizations, researchers and journalists can take to help mitigate the spread of misinformation. Notably, it also calls out social media companies, though it stops short of calling any of the platforms out by name. But the report echoes much of the criticism that platforms like Facebook and Twitter have faced during the pandemic.

"Product features built into technology platforms have contributed to the spread of misinformation, the report states. "For example, social media platforms incentivize people to share content to get likes, comments, and other positive signals of engagement. These features help connect and inform people but reward engagement rather than accuracy, allowing emotionally charged misinformation to spread more easily than emotionally neutral content."

The report also highlights the problem of algorithmic amplification, which can make it difficult for companies like Facebook to prevent misinformation from going viral.

"Algorithms that determine what users see online often prioritize content based on its popularity or similarity to previously seen content," the report says. "As a result, a user exposed to misinformation once could see more and more of it over time, further reinforcing one's misunderstanding. Some websites also combine different kinds of information, such as news, ads, and posts from users, into a single feed, which can leave consumers confused about the underlying source of any given piece of content."

The report also recommends that companies "prioritize early detection of misinformation 'super-spreaders' and repeat offenders." A widely cited report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found more than half of anti-vaccine misinformation online can be linked to just 12 individuals. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also referenced that same report, noting that many of these "super-spreaders" remain active on Facebook.

Instagram’s latest test is… telling people about the Facebook app

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 12:00 PM PDT

Instagram is running a new test to tell users about another app they might want to check out: Facebook. The photo sharing app is experimenting with a notice at the top of users' feeds that encourages them to check out features that are "only available" on Facebook.

"We're testing a way to let people who have connected their Instagram accounts to Facebook know about features only available there, such as how to find a job, date online, buy and sell goods, or catch up on the latest news," a spokesperson said in a statement.

That the company is using one of its billion-user apps to promote another billion-user app might not seem to make a lot of sense, but it's only the latest (and perhaps most aggressive) way the social network has used Instagram to drive people back to its main app. The company has been steadily bringing the two apps closer together and has been encouraging users to link their accounts. (A book published last year reported that Mark Zuckerberg was "jealous" of Instagram's success and worried the app could eventually "cannibalize" Facebook. Tensions between him and the app's founders ultimately led to their departure in 2018.)

Facebook points out that only "a very small group" of Instagram users who have previously opted to link their accounts will see the messages, which can be dismissed. But even if it never expands, it would suggest that the company is far from done with its attempts to get Instagram users to spend more time on Facebook.

Iranian hackers used Facebook to target US military personnel

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 11:27 AM PDT

On Thursday, Facebook disclosed that a network of hackers with ties to Iran tried to use its platform to target US military personnel. At the center of the campaign was a group known as Tortiseshell. Facebook says the collective went after individuals and companies in the defense and aerospace industries. Its primary targets were in the US, but they also sought out people in the UK and parts of Europe.

"This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation, while relying on relatively strong operational security measures to hide who's behind it," Facebook said. "Our platform was one of the elements of the much broader cross-platform cyber-espionage operation, and its activity on Facebook manifested primarily in social engineering and driving people off-platform (e.g., email, messaging and collaboration services and websites), rather than directly sharing of the malware itself."

What went down appears to be unprecedented for Tortoiseshell. In the past, the group has primarily targeted IT companies throughout the Middle East. The methods it employed were similar to those that China's Evil Eye used to target the Uyghur community earlier in the year.

Facebook says the group created "sophisticated online personas" to contact its targets and build trust with them before trying to convince them to click on malicious links. They had accounts across multiple social media platforms to make their ruse appear more credible. The group built fake recruiting websites and even went so far as to spoof a legitimate US Department of Labor job search tool. Facebook believes at least some of the malware the group deployed was developed by Mahak Rayan Afraz, a company with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran has been accused of a variety of malicious online activities over the past year. Most notably, Microsoft said last September it was one of the countries that tried to meddle in the 2020 US presidential election.

Valve's Steam Deck handheld PC starts at $399 and lands in December

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 11:12 AM PDT

The rumors about Valve making a version of the Nintendo Switch for handheld Steam gaming are true. The company has revealed the Steam Deck, which will arrive in December in the US, Canada, the European Union and the UK, with availability expanding to more regions later. The system starts at $399.

Although the hardware isn't final, according to IGN, the device currently looks like a mashup of a Switch, a Sega Game Gear and the Steam Controller. It has a seven-inch touchscreen, with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 at a 16:10 aspect ratio, 400 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate.

Valve Steam Deck
Valve

There are dual thumbsticks, two 32.5mm square trackpads, an analog directional pad, four main face buttons, triggers and a quartet of grip buttons, as well as gyro controls. The Steam Deck also has a headphone jack, stereo speakers, dual microphones and haptic feedback. It weighs around 669 grams and it's just under a foot wide.

Valve teamed up with AMD on the hardware. The Steam Deck's custom chipset features a 2.4-3.5GHz processor and a 1.0 to 1.6GHz GPU with eight RDNA 2 compute units. Valve claims it's a "Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse" that's capable of running the latest major games "in a very efficient power envelope."

The handheld PC comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 512GB of NVMe internal storage, which you can expand with a microSD card. Valve says the 40-watt-hour battery will power the device for between two and eight hours on a single charge. The battery life will depend on how resource intensive the games you play are. The Switch, meanwhile, runs for up to nine hours. 

Valve Steam Deck
Valve

Steam Deck runs on a new version of SteamOS that's designed for handheld use. Valve says it uses Proton, a compatibility layer that lets games run without developers having do any porting work. You'll have access to your full library of games. You can expect to have access to many Steam features, including chat, remote play (so you can play games from your PC just about anywhere), cloud saves and, of course, the Steam storefront.

The device has a built-in quick suspend and resume feature. Pressing the power button will suspend your game and send the Steam Deck into sleep mode. You'll be able to continue where you left off when you hit the power button again.

Steam Deck will support a variety of Bluetooth and USB-C peripherals. You can plug in a powered USB-C hub and use multiple devices at once. You can connect the system to an external display and play games at up to 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz.

Valve is also making an official dock with DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0 and Ethernet ports, as well as one USB 3.1 connection and two USB 2.0 sockets. You'll be able to use the Steam Deck as an actual PC, if you like. In fact, you'll even be able to install some other game stores.

The Steam Deck could be compelling for those who've been yearning to play all kinds of PC titles while they're on the move or even relaxing on a couch. However, the name is very similar to Elgato's Stream Deck, so it remains to be seen whether that part of the system will stick. Notably, the device costs just $50 more than the upcoming OLED version of the Switch and the same as an all-digital PlayStation 5.

The base $399 Steam Deck comes with 64GB of eMMC internal storage and a carrying case. For $529, you can upgrade the storage to a 256GB NVMe SSD. The 512GB model costs $649 and comes with "premium anti-glare etched glass." The dock will be sold separately.

Reservations for the Steam Deck open on July 16th at 1PM ET on the Steam store. You'll need to pay a deposit, but that goes toward the price of the system.

Can Richard Branson really call himself an astronaut after Sunday's Virgin Galactic flight?

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 10:00 AM PDT

On May 5, 1961, Commander Alan Shepard piloted his Mercury Freedom 7 spacecraft to a soaring height of 116 miles above the planet's surface to become the first American to reach Earth's orbit. This past Sunday, Sir Richard Branson was escorted to an altitude of 50 miles aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Unity. Somehow, these men are now both considered astronauts.

The discrepancy here lies in the fact that since the Space Era began, the world's exo-planetary powers have never really gotten around to formalizing where the Earth's atmosphere ends and where "space" — loosely defined as it is — begins. Even within the US federal bureaucracy, different agencies use different standards. What NASA mission control considers the edge of space is actually 26 miles farther out than where the NOAA and US Air Force demark the atmospheric boundary. So the next time you find yourself hurtling through the Mesosphere, keep a close eye on your altimeter if you want to earn the coveted Astronaut Badge.

‘Loki’ shakes up the status quo of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 09:30 AM PDT

This post contains major spoilers for episode six of 'Loki.'

In case you didn't hear earlier, Lokiwill return for season two, and thank goodness: The finale didn't resolve a whole lot, if it resolved anything. Well, we did find out who was pulling the strings behind the Time Variance Authority and why, but it really served as an introduction to a villain who's scheduled to make his next appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

However, Loki never felt like an extended prequel to, well, anything. It's been a show that's stood largely on its own, one which forged a unique identity apart from everything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the Thor movies. After all, this isn't the Loki we spent eight years watching on screen. This one was created in 2019 in the middle of Avengers: Endgame, a variant that so far is walking a path free of Asgard and all that pesky Avengers business.

Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino
Chuck Zlotnick / Marvel Studios

And so Loki the show paved its own road as well, not really relying too much on knowledge of the films past the first and last Avengers movies. You could walk into the series knowing as much about Loki's fate as the variant Loki and walk away after the first season knowing just as little. The finale was interesting because for the first time, I have no idea how a Marvel show fits into the greater scheme of things. And like He Who Remains, I find that a bit exciting.

One thing that has been true of all the Marvel shows has that we've always generally known where they're supposed to slot into the bigger universe. Agents of SHIELD was originally intended to be a way for the side stories of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to thrive but for a while it was treated as a place to dump movie leftovers. Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist were originally aimed toward setting up The Defenders limited series. WandaVision was a prequel for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, while The Falcon and the Winter Soldier did character work for the next Captain America film.

Tara Strong as Miss Minutes and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Renslayer
Marvel Studios

But Loki, aside from wrapping up a loose thread from Endgame, doesn't actually tie into anything, especially any upcoming projects. They don't even name the man behind the curtain, he's just "He Who Remains." And he's killed by the end of the episode, which means any time we see him from this point forward, it's technically a different person; another cosmic iteration of the same jerk. Fans of the comics know that he's meant to be Kang the Conqueror, but that big reveal is yet to come — because the man we met is not a conqueror. He was a cosmic bureaucrat.

The conqueror, though hinted at in the Loki finale, will make his first full appearance in early 2023. He won't remember the events shown in the Disney+ show since he wasn't actually there, which means either the film will completely ignore all we learned here, or explain it to the audience anew. Prior knowledge of Loki shouldn't and most likely won't be necessary.

Sophia Di Martino and Tom Hiddleston
Chuck Zlotnick / Marvel Studios

Which leaves season two of Loki free to do almost anything it wants. The man who seems to now be in charge of the TVA is unlikely to be even close to the same man that Scott Lang and Hope Pym will have to tangle with, since we are dealing with a multiverse of possibilities. It does throw the next Doctor Strange movie into a bit of uncertainty, since in our original non-COVID timeline that was supposed to have premiered back in May. Were we supposed to see the debut of the multiverse before we saw its origin? Or will there be some other cosmic wrench to mess things up further for the MCU? A lot of things that seemed inevitable when all these projects were originally announced have now been thrown into uncertainty.

But for now, the key takeaway from the Loki finale is that the series is not beholden to anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It didn't have to load up a ton of character development or make sure everything is back in place plot wise before the next film. It's free to take its small cast of characters and fully explore their possibilities, with no worries about how it will affect the other Marvel properties. What will happen to Loki, Sylvie, Mobius, Ravonna and the rest? We can focus on their individual stories instead of fussing over what can and can't happen.

We can no longer make predictions based on future projects in the pipeline, or contractual obligations of actors. Theories can proliferate and almost nothing is off-limits. Every step Loki and the rest take just means another multiverse to explore in shows like What If?. The Sacred Timeline is dead, and so are the shackles of movie continuity.

How Arturia made its music-making software more accessible

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 09:00 AM PDT

When visually impaired music producer Jason Dasent decided to buy a collection of instrument plugins from Arturia about four years ago, he did so despite his suspicion that the company's tools wouldn't be accessible. He was right. "At that point I couldn't browse and use the software," he said. "I pretty much couldn't do anything." He had spent some $500 on Arturia's V Collection 5, a set of virtual instruments that included recreations of some vintage synths he wanted to use. It was cheaper than spending hundreds of thousands on actual synths, he told himself.

But because Arturia's preset manager Analog Lab wasn't built to accommodate the visually impaired at the time, Dasent had to drop even more cash. "I would have to hire someone to come in for maybe three days to save these presets," he said. For between $500 and $1,000, this person would export the presets to a format that would work in Avid's Pro Tools, which had the accessibility features Dasent needed. It was a tedious and expensive process, he said, but even after that he could only choose presets. He couldn't tweak cutoffs, envelopes, parameters or adjust the brightness. "I had no choice but to just stick with the presets," he added.

In 2019, Dasent presented at the Audio Developers Conference (ADC) in London, where he was approached by Arturia's then director of software development, Kevin Molcard. Moldcard wanted to make Analog Lab accessible, and asked for Dasent's help. After the company set him up with the V Collection 7 and one of its Keylab controllers, Dasent started playing around. Eventually, Dasent was introduced to Arturia product manager Pierre Pfister, who wanted to learn more about what Analog Lab was missing.

Two months later, Dasent said, he got a call from Pfister. "I have something to show you." What Pfister then shared with Dasent was an early version of a new accessibility toolset in Analog Lab V. "It's as if my eyes are now open," Dasent gushed. That kicked off a months-long back-and-forth between Dasent, Pfister and the Arturia team as they worked on the prototype, culminating in the launch of a new update today. The company is announcing a new accessibility mode to Analog Lab V, which will enable all users to turn on auditory feedback and screen reading. It also brings various "ergonomic improvements and bug fixes."

With this new accessibility mode, the company's Keylab controllers now communicate with the Analog Lab software and a computer's text-to-speech engine. "Basically, as I press a button on Keylab, or I turn a dial or change a value, it sends notifications out to the system voice, allowing me to know exactly what's on the keyboard," Dasent said in a video describing the update. Now, when he tweaks faders and encoders on the keyboard, "I can know exactly what the values are as I tweak the parameters." As he turns a knob on the controller to scroll through a list of instruments, a voice reads out the name of each item he lands on. 

Since Dasent is familiar with Arturia's devices, he has the layout of buttons and dials memorized. But he added that "the layout of the keyboard is very well thought out, so it makes learning where everything is very easy." 

The most challenging part of getting the software accessible for visually impaired users, according to Pfister, wasn't necessarily implementation or programming — it was figuring out how best to communicate with the system's text-to-speech. Since a lot of music software (and many creative products in general) aren't designed with accessibility in mind, there aren't many best practices to pull from. Arturia almost had to start from scratch. "The hardest part was knowing what we should do and how we should make a product accessible," Pfister said.

Once they figured it out and showed Dasent the first prototype though, the results were gratifying. "His reaction made everything worth it."

A screenshot of Arturia's Analog Lab V, with a navigation column on the left, three rows in the middle for Instruments, Types and Sound Banks. At the bottom is a keyboard with nine dials on top of it for controlling brightness, timbre, time, movement, effects, delay, reverb and master.
Arturia

Pfister and his team know there's more work that needs to be done. He acknowledged that Arturia is a small company and there's "a lot of things we don't know." The plan for now is to continue listening to and soliciting feedback to "identify what most of our users would like to be able to do." Whether that means getting all of the Analog Lab program fully accessible or to make all its individual instruments accessible, Pfister said the goal is to continue improving what it's done with Analog Lab.

Like most of the tech industry, music software developers have, until now, largely overlooked the needs of people with disabilities. In a 2019 blog post for competing music company Native Instruments, UK technologist Chris Ankin said: "Historically, music software offered poor accessibility with existing screen readers."

Even the leading digital audio workstation (DAW) Pro Tools struggled with keeping its software accessible through years of updates in the 2000s. At the time, in an effort to keep up with the latest versions of Apple's desktop software, Avid offered newer plug-ins and features in its OS X version that those using older editions of Pro Tools did not get. The problem is, while the pre-existing Pro Tools HD (which launched in 2002) was "almost entirely accessible," according to audio engineer Slau Hatlyn in an article on Avid's website, the software for OS X wasn't usable even after Apple introduced its VoiceOver screen reader in 10.4 Tiger in 2005. The only thing Hatlyn could access was the menu bar. "No other windows were readable."

It took until Pro Tools version 8's launch in 2008 for the software to regain accessibility, a long time considering "the previous accessible version was 5.3," according to Hatlyn. Even so, the conversation continued, with Hatlyn calling out changes that broke accessibility between versions 10 and 11.

Arturia's KeyLab mk2 keyboards
Arturia

And this is one of the industry's most widely used DAWs. While Apple's Logic is lauded as accessible, other music software companies that build assistive technology into their products are a rarity. Brands like Ableton and Image Line don't appear to have comprehensive tools for the visually impaired in their products Ableton Live and FL Studios, at least based on the comments ontheir forums. A spokesperson for Ableton highlighted a Zoom Display feature, as well as recent updates to improve contrast, reduce automatic colors and adjust grid intensity as tools in Live for visually impaired users. The spokesperson added "We're aware that there is much more to be done here." Image Line has yet to respond to our request for comment.

Will Butler, the vice president of company whose app, Be My Eyes, connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers, wrote a LinkedIn post about the accessibility of music software. In it, Butler asked blind music producer Byron Harden to anecdotally rank the accessibility of popular music software. While Harden placed GarageBand, Pro Tools, Audacity and Logic in the top four, awarding them passing scores out of ten, Ableton Live and FL Studio came in near the bottom with one point each.

Butler also highlighted Native Instruments for its efforts. In 2019, the company expanded support for Mac's VoiceOver, as well as Narrator and the Speech API in Windows. Prior to that, Native Instruments had made keyboards with touch-sensitive rotary encoders and buttons with auditory feedback. With those, its software "can detect when the user's fingers are resting on them, then give auditory feedback – synthesized speech – of the current value, and do so continuously as it's adjusted."

Music producer Jason Dasent playing on an Arturia keyboard

That auditory feedback is one of the features Arturia is bringing to Analog Lab V that Dasent is most grateful for. "One thing they got right: quality of feedback," he said. Say for example you load a preset. When you hit the load button in Analog Lab V, it will say "Loaded" and read out the name of the pack. Dasent said that software can sometimes offer too much feedback or use overly lengthy sentences and phrases to communicate. It would be like a sighted person having to read 20 lines of text to get one little piece of information that a single sentence could have conveyed. 

As Pfister recalled his first call with Dasent, he was amazed and shocked by the amount of effort Dasent was willing to expend to use Arturia's instruments. "If they are willing to put in that much effort, why don't we do a little bit to make their life so much easier?"

Indeed, while there are frontrunners in making music software more accessible for people with disabilities, the industry as a whole could benefit from a published set of best practices. This way, they could be disseminated to smaller companies entering the space and make it easier for them to build accessible products. Ultimately, as with the development of most assistive technologies, that would benefit all users regardless of able-bodiedness.

Nintendo Switch OLED pre-orders open today at 3PM ET

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 08:54 AM PDT

If you want to secure the new OLED variant of the Nintendo Switch before its October 8th release date, now's your chance. In the US, pre-orders will open at 3PM ET today and we're already seeing the console listed at Best Buy, B&H, GameStop and other retailers. 

Buy Switch OLED at Amazon - $350Buy Switch OLED at Best Buy - $350 Buy Switch OLED at GameStop - $350Buy Switch OLED at B&H - $350Buy Switch OLED at Walmart - $350

The newest Switch comes with a larger, 7-inch OLED display, as well as 64GB of internal storage, a redesigned kickstand, "enhanced audio" and a new dock that adds a wired LAN port. Nintendo will offer the $350 console in two colorways at launch: classic neon red and blue, and black and white.

What you won't find on this version of the Switch is a new chipset. Ahead of the OLED model's announcement at the start of the month, there were reports Nintendo planned to include an updated SoC with NVIDIA's DLSS tech to enable the console to output games at 4K. That didn't happen, but that's not to say a Switch "Pro" is off the table.

Whether or not the OLED Switch represents a missed opportunity, we expect demand for the console will easily outstrip supply. In May, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa told investors the company was still contending with production issues, and the global semiconductor shortage isn't expected to end anytime soon. 

Messenger chats are about to get more annoying thanks to Soundmojis

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 08:25 AM PDT

Just ahead of World Emoji Day, Facebook has announced a new feature for Messenger: emoji with sound. With Soundmojis, you can annoy everyone else in your chats with short audio clips that are linked to a visual emoji.

The initial Soundmoji library includes sound cues for standard emoji including applause and a drumroll as well as evil laughter. There are also audio clips from artists such as Rebecca Black (it's hard to imagine which day of the week would be most appropriate for that Soundmoji) and movies and TV shows including F9, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Bridgerton. Facebook will add more sound effects and clips over time.

If you really want to risk the wrath of your friends and family by bugging them with Soundmojis, open a Messenger chat, then tap the smiley face followed by the loudspeaker icon. You'll be able to preview Soundmojis from the library before sending them. I wonder what an eyeroll sounds like.

Blue Origin's first paying customer is the youngest person to fly to space

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 08:11 AM PDT

Blue Origin's auction winner can't make the company's first commercial spaceflight, but there will be a historic substitute. Jeff Bezos' firm has revealed that the first paying passenger for a New Shepard rocket is Oliver Daemen, who at 18 years old will be the youngest person to visit space. That's more than a little appropriate when one of his fellow passengers is 82-year-old Wally Funk, who'll be the oldest person to make the trip.

The flight is still scheduled for July 20th. The auction winner still wants to remain anonymous, but will take a later Blue Origin trip due to "scheduling conflicts."

It's not clear how much Daemen paid for the trip, but it's likely no small amount. Oliver's father is Joes Daemen, the CEO of hedge fund Somerset Capital Partners. While he probably didn't have to pay the $28 million from the auction, the final price was likely enough to keep other wealthy customers at bay.

This launch won't have as much impact as intended given Virgin Galactic's fully crewed spaceflight. Nonetheless, it's still historic beyond the ages of some of its passengers. This trip will include an honest-to-goodness paying customer. It might also be the first flight of its kind to technically enter space. While Virgin's altitude was short of the Kármán line (62 miles) that officially delineates space, Blue Origin is keen to point out that it should cross that symbolic barrier. Think of the July 20th flight as escalating a private space race that's unlikely to end any time soon.

Aston Martin's Valhalla hybrid supercar hints at its EV future

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 07:42 AM PDT

McLaren isn't the only British supercar maker that can build a searingly fast hybrid. Aston Martin has introduced a Valhalla supercar that mates a 740HP, AMG-made 4.0-liter V8 with a 201HP dual electric motor system to produce top-tier performance while cutting emissions. The two-door can reach 62MPH in just 2.5 seconds and hit a top speed of 217MPH, but you can also drive a modest 9 miles in pure EV mode if you can live with an 80MPH top speed.

The electric technology also helps save weight. The Valhalla includes an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission that uses the hybrid system for reversing, eliminating the need for a conventional reverse gear. Toss in electric-assisted torque vectoring for the all-wheel drive system and the car should be agile, not just quick off the line. Aston predicts a 6:30 lap time for the Nürburgring Nordschleife, although the brand has yet to make an attempt.

Aston Martin Valhalla rear view
Aston Martin

You can also expect a relatively light (3,417lbs) carbon fiber body and an adjustable ride height to keep the car usable on less-than-perfect streets.

Aston will start deliveries near the end of 2023 at prices between £600,000 to £700,000 ($830,000 to $968,000) in the UK, and it will be rare — the company only plans to produce units for about 2.5 years. Even so, it's an important machine. It gives Aston a foil to McLaren hybrids like the Artura and Speedtail. More importantly, the company sees it as a way to "drive the transition" from combustion engines to pure EVs. Don't be surprised if production electric sports cars arrive in the next few years, at least once the company is reasonably stable.

‘Resident Evil Re:Verse’ gets a last-minute delay to 2022

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 07:19 AM PDT

At this point, it's almost a surprise when a notable game slated for 2021 isn't delayed. The latest title to slip to 2022 is Resident Evil Re:Verse, the upcoming multiplayer take on the horror franchise. What stands out with this delay, however, is that Capcom is putting the release date on ice only a week or two before the game was supposed to drop.

"The previously announced July 2021 launch of Resident Evil Re:Verse is being moved to 2022 so that the team can continue working to deliver a smooth gameplay experience," the Resident Evil crew wrote in a tweet. "We will share updated launch details at a later time. Thank you for your patience and understanding." 

Re:Verse was announced as a freebie for those who own Resident Evil Village. Capcom suggested those who have a physical copy of Village keep their Re:Verse download code in a safe place or add it to their account so they're ready to roll when the game finally drops.

Re:Verse is effectively a separate deathmatch mode in which between four and six players pick a Resident Evil character and duke it out in short battles. When you die, you return as a zombie. The player with the most points after five minutes wins.

Game development is a complex process where all manner of things can go wrong. We've seen time and time again that delays are often necessary, especially amid the impact of COVID-19. Pushing back Re:Verse by at least six months at the last minute is a curious case, though. A lengthy delay indicates the game isn't close to being ready despite the July release window.

Although it's an add on for a main-series Resident Evil game, the delay will be disappointing to those who were looking forward to Re:Verse. Still, it's better to have a game that arrives late and works properly from the jump rather than one that needs months of post-launch hotfixes and larger patches to squish bugs.

Lyft's shared rides return with COVID measures and advanced booking

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 06:33 AM PDT

Lyft unsurprisingly axed shared rides as COVID-19 took hold, but it's rethinking them as the pandemic (hopefully) subsides and demand resumes. The company is relaunching shared rides on July 19th with a few tweaks to both streamline your trips and acknowledge the safety issues of a not-quite-normal US.

You can now request these rides up to 30 minutes in advance, saving you money and increasing the chances that you'll get an optimized route. There also won't be any surprise route changes or delays if you choose the "no surprise pickups" options — you won't be late for work because someone hailed a ride at the 'wrong' moment.

Lyft shared rides scheduled in advance
Lyft

And yes, you'll still have to abide by some pandemic safety restrictions. Everyone in the car will still have to wear masks, and there will be no more than two passengers (both in the back seats). You can't eat or drink, either. If anyone violates the rules, both the driver and passengers can cancel a ride without penalty.

Shared rides will initially be available in Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia, with more cities hopping aboardi in the months ahead.

In some ways, this is as much about coping with Lyft's practical realities as anything. With ridership picking back up, Lyft is facing a shortage of drivers. The shared option could help Lyft keep up while it recruits more drivers, especially among cost-conscious travellers who don't mind some socially distanced company.

Pininfarina's 'virtual' concept car features a holographic AR display

Posted: 15 Jul 2021 06:14 AM PDT

If autonomous rides ever free us from driving, more focus will need to be paid to car interiors. A new concept crammed with a mind-boggling amount of tech offers a vision of what that future may look like. If the vehicle ever becomes a reality, that is. Meet the Teorema, a virtual blueprint for the zenith of road transport. Or, a pipe dream, depending on your point of view. The breadvan-style car ditches doors for a rear entrance, made possible by a roof that extends upwards and forwards, and packs a holographic augmented reality (AR) display.

Pininfarina Teorema
Pininfarina

Passengers are guided to the five seats (laid out in a 1-2-2 formation) by a "foot-triggering" floor. Inside, there's a spacious cabin where you can sit facing others or turn the chairs into desks or even beds. It's all about creating a "social space" accentuated by the three driving modes, two of which (Autonomy and Rest) don't require you to drive at all. If you do decide to take the wheel, you can watch the world through that jacked-up AR display — though that could prove distracting. Of course, the concept is electric.

Pininfarina Teorema
Pininfarina

It helps to know that the Teorema is the brainchild of Pininfarina, an Italian design house associated with one-off car bodies along with numerous prototypes, some of which actually became production models. So, don't rule it out altogether. Maybe, it could become a luxury commercial vehicle with some modifications. Either that, or a limited edition toy for tech billionaires like Elon Musk. Worse still, an NFT. 

Alas, it could also wind up on the scrap heap of concepts that never saw the light of day. You could accuse the Teorema of being too futuristic. But, that's all the rage, right?

Pininfarina Teorema
Pininfarina
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