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04.12.2024 21:30 Dragon Age: The Veilguard is known for having one of the best character creation systems around, and now everyone can experience it without dropping $60. EA just announced that it has made the tools free for all users, as part of a larger Dragon Age Day celebration. It’s available right now for all platforms. There’s no time limit, so have at it. Additionally, the character carries over to the main game, so consider it a demo of sorts. The software also allows players to choose their class and faction, which also transfer to the game. The only caveat here is that the platform you use to create your character must be the same one you play the actual game on. There will be no mixing of PCs and consoles here. This character creator is very good, and it actually started picking up kudos even before the game was released. As for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, well, it’s also pretty dang good. We called it “beautiful in every way” in our official review, noting it was one of Bioware’s most-polished titles. If the devs put this kind of love into the next Mass Effect, we are in for a treat. Dragon Age Day isn’t just about this free character creator. EA and Bioware have also released new artwork for the game and put armor inspired by the protagonist of Dragon Age II into Dragon Age: The Veilguard. There’s also a new patch for the game that brings a bunch of quality of life changes and bug fixes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguards-excellent-character-creator-is-now-a-standalone-freebie-193834444.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 When we took a look at Xreal’s Air 2 Ultra AR glasses earlier this year at CES in Las Vegas, we had positive first impressions but also noted that its success would “ultimately boil down to the range of apps.” Xreal may have come up with a novel way to address this problem with its new One Series of AR glasses: make them connectable to more devices through USB-C. Xreal unveiled its new One Series AR glasses that can create customizable cinematic displays with three degrees-of-freedom rotational tracking and spatial computing. The new AR glasses can also create and control displays from “iPhones, Androids, Steam Deck, PC, MacBooks and just about any device with video-out over USB-C,” according to Xreal’s announcement. Previous Xreal glasses needed an Xreal Beam or Beam Pro adapter to create spatial displays for USB-C devices. The One Series puts its spatial capability in the glasses themselves with a custom silicon chip called the X1 that delivers “incredibly low motion-to-photon latency of only ~3ms at 120Hz,” according to the announcement. The Xreal One Series also offers a huge display area with 1080p full HD for each eye. The Xreal One uses a triangular birdbath lens design that can produce a 50-degree field-of-view and a 20.7-percent larger display than the Xreal Air 2 series. The Xreal One Pro is the first set of AR glasses with a flat-prism lens design that can create a 57-degree field-of-view. Both the Xreal One and One Pro also can deliver fine-tuned audio with Sound by Bose. The glasses themselves are still fairly big, as are most AR spectacles like the Meta Orion AR glasses. The One Series’ 11 mm plane is 40.9 thinner than “traditional birdbath optics,” according to the announcement. Xreal is currently taking pre-orders for the Xreal One for $499 and One Pro glasses for $599 on its website. Shipping begins in mid-December for the Xreal One and early next year for the Xreal One Pro.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/xreals-new-one-series-ar-glasses-use-usb-c-to-connect-with-nearly-any-device-191221387.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 When Helene made landfall in Florida earlier this year, 234 people lost their lives to the worst hurricane to strike the US mainland since Katarina in 2005. It’s natural disasters like that, and their growing intensity due to climate change, that have pushed scientists to develop more accurate weather forecasting systems. On Wednesday, Google’s DeepMind division announced what may go down as the most significant advancement in the field in nearly eight decades of work. In a post on the Google Keyword blog, DeepMind’s Ilan Price and Matthew Wilson detailed GenCast, the company’s latest AI agent. According to DeepMind, GenCast is not only better at providing daily and extreme weather forecasts than its previous AI weather program, but it also outperforms the best forecasting system in use right now, one that’s maintained by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts . In tests comparing the 15-day forecasts the two systems generated for weather in 2019, GenCast was, on average, more accurate than ECMWF’s ENS system 97.2 percent of the time. With lead times greater than 36 hours, DeepMind’s was an even better 99.8 percent more accurate. “I’m a little bit reluctant to say it, but it’s like we’ve made decades worth of improvements in one year,” Rémi Lam, the lead scientist on DeepMind’s previous AI weather program, told The New York Times. “We’re seeing really, really rapid progress.” GenCast is a diffusion model, which is the same tech that powers Google’s generative AI tools. DeepMind trained the software on nearly 40 years of high-quality weather data curated by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The predictions the new model generates are probabilistic, meaning they account for a range of possibilities that are then expressed as percentages. Probabilistic models are considered more nuanced and useful than their deterministic counterparts, which only offer a best guess of what the weather might be like on a given day. The former also harder to create and calculate. Indeed, what’s perhaps most striking about GenCast is that it requires significantly less computing power than traditional physics-based ensemble forecasts like ENS. According to Google, a single one of its TPU v5 tensor processing units can produce a 15-day GenCast forecast in eight minutes. By contrast, it can take a supercomputer with tens of thousands of processors hours to produce a physics-based forecast. Of course, GenCast isn’t perfect. One area the software could provide better predictions on is hurricane intensity, though the DeepMind team told The Times it was confident it could find solutions for the agent’s current shortcomings. In the meantime, Google is making GenCast an open model, with example code for the tool available on GitHub. GenCast predictions will also soon make their way to Google Earth.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/deepminds-gencast-ai-is-really-good-at-forecasting-the-weather-184751414.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 Meta is taking another important step toward making Threads interoperable with the fediverse. The app now allows users to follow accounts from Mastodon and other fediverse apps directly from Threads, Mark Zuckerberg said in an update. Since the early days of Threads, Meta has promised to bake-in support for ActivityPub, the open-source protocol that powers Mastodon and other decentralized services that make up “the fediverse.” Eventually, the goal is for Threads users to be able to seamlessly interact with other users on Mastodon or other sites that use ActivityPub. With the latest change, Threads users who have previously opted into fediverse sharing in the app will now be able to view profiles and follow accounts from Mastodon and other services directly in Threads. The update is a significant move toward making Threads compatible with the wider Activity Pub ecosystem. That said, there are still some significant limitations to Threads’ fediverse support. There’s currently no way to search for users on other servers, so the only way to find those accounts is to look for fediverse accounts that have followed you already or otherwise interacted with one of your posts. Users are also still unable to reply to posts that originate on Mastodon or other ActivityPub services, so the interactions are still one way — at least for now. And an in-app disclaimer from Meta notes that fediverse sharing is still a beta feature and that some posts from other servers “may not be visible” in Threads. Adam Mosseri, however, said that “more interop features are on the way,” so hopefully fediverse enthusiasts won’t have long to wait to see deeper integrations.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-now-allows-users-to-follow-fediverse-accounts-directly-in-its-app-183517197.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 If your group chat is anything like Engadget's Slack, Balatro probably comes up several times a week. The indie poker-style title is one of the most talked-about games of the year for good reason: it's endlessly compelling. But what if you don't have a laptop, phone, Steam Deck, Switch or other console nearby and you need your fix, goshdarnit? That's where a physical deck of Balatro playing cards may come in handy. A $16 deck is up for preorder on Fangamerand it's expected to ship in March. The mockups show subtly pixellated cards that ape the game's art style. They have a red design on the rear — Balatro players will know that the red deck is the default set in the game. But what of the game-changing jokers? I'm afraid you only get four of those: Joker, Juggler, Blueprint and Gros Michel. Plus, they're just regular ol' jokers here. That's a little disappointing, given how important jokers are in Balatro, but at least my personal favorite banana card is here. The same goes for the apparent lack of tarot, planet and spectral cards, which greatly modify each run. It's fun that there's a physical Balatro deck on the way, but it's a bit of a bummer that it's a standard set of cards that doesn't really play into the convention-breaking ethos of the video game. Perhaps a board game along those lines is in the works. But for now I might have to pick up several of these decks. I'm probably going to ruin at least one set by using a Sharpie to have 52 diamond cards. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-physical-deck-of-balatro-cards-can-soon-be-yours-for-16-180958044.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 There’s a huge gap between serious racers like Gran Turismo and arcade-style stuff like Mario Kart. That’s where the soon-to-be-released My First Gran Turismo comes in. This is a streamlined version of the iconic Sony racing game that’s intended “for those who have yet to experience Gran Turismo.” The free-to-play title launches for both PS4 and PS5 on December 6. Sony promises that the game is perfect for anyone aged “7 to 77.” I’m not sure what my 78-year-old dad would say about that, but whatever. There’s a trailer to help folks get the gist, which shows off a selection of real-world vehicles and graphics that don’t stray too far from the mainline games. It looks pretty fun. All told, there are 18 cars to choose from and three tracks to race around. For comparison, the most-recent entry Gran Turismo 7 includes more than 400 vehicles and around 40 dedicated tracks. It’s also a full-priced game, though likely on sale for the holidays, whereas My First Gran Turismo is free as a bird. The cars in this kid-friendly version have Mario Kart-style charts to show off various specs and there’s a nifty game mode called Music Rally. This makes players race along to the beat of a song. Other modes include time trials and license tests. Sony Finally, there’s PSVR 2 support for PS5, bringing the whole experience into virtual reality. Racing in VR is super fun, but remember to take copious breaks to avoid the dreaded nausea fairy. This launch is part of PlayStation's wider 30th anniversary celebration. The company released some retro-looking hardware, which sold out in no time, and digital themes from past console iterations. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-free-to-play-my-first-gran-turismo-comes-to-ps4-and-ps5-on-december-6-172344125.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 OpenAI will start announcing new features and demos tomorrow for 12 days through livestreams. Sources familiar with the matter told The Verge that these new products will allegedly include OpenAI’s long-awaited text-to-video tool, Sora, and a new reasoning model. The announcement for "12 Days of OpenAI”, as the company puts it, was made public on X yesterday. The first livestream will broadcast tomorrow, but the announcements themselves remain unconfirmed That said, in addition to the sources that spoke more recently with The Verge, the Wall Street Journal previously reported Sora was likely to come out before the end of 2024. Sora was revealed early this year, and shared with a small group of testers. But 20 or so of those artists leaked the model to the public in protest of “unpaid labor,” The Washington Post reported. OpenAI has broadly been the subject of criticism regarding the provenance of data supporting its language models, and Sora has been no different. The company has yet to directly address if Sora has scraped public YouTube videos — something that YouTube's CEO has said would be a breach of the platform's terms of service. OpenAI isn’t the only company working on text-to-video models. Google’s Veo is now available to Google Vertex AI users via private review. It was announced three months after Sora’s February unveiling.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-may-launch-sora-its-text-to-video-model-very-soon-171434280.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 Washington, DC’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing Amazon for allegedly excluding certain ZIP codes from enjoying Amazon Prime’s speedy delivery. Schwalb claims that, beginning in 2022, Amazon stopped using its in-house delivery systems for Wards 7 and 8 while still charging those customers the same amount for a Prime subscription. According to Census Reporter, Ward 7 and Ward 8 are 83 percent and 82 percent Black, respectively. According to the suit, instead of using its own trucks, Amazon relied on UPS and USPS carriers to make deliveries — a decision that resulted in longer delivery times. Only 24 percent of packages to these Wards were delivered within two days. Schwalb also alleged that Amazon didn’t notify any Ward 7 and Ward 8 residents about these changes. Worryingly, this isn’t the first time Amazon has been called out for excluding majority-Black neighborhoods from the full benefits of a Prime membership. A damning 2016 report in Bloomberg indicated the practice was common across several metro areas. Amazon has since provided Prime Free Same-Day Delivery to Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Chicago's South Side and the Bronx in New York City. Update, December 4 2024, 12:03PM ET: Amazon provided the following statement to Engadget: The claims made by the Attorney General, that our business practices are somehow discriminatory or deceptive, are categorically false. We want to be able to deliver as fast as we possibly can to every zip code across the country, however, at the same time we must put the safety of delivery drivers first. In the zip codes in question, there have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages. We made the deliberate choice to adjust our operations, including delivery routes and times, for the sole reason of protecting the safety of drivers. And we’re always transparent with customers during the shopping journey and checkout process about when, exactly, they can expect their orders to arrive. What we’d like to do, and have offered, is to work together with the Attorney General and their office in an effort to reduce crime and improve safety in these areas. Nevertheless, we will proceed in the process and demonstrate that providing fast and accurate delivery times and prioritizing the safety of customers and delivery partners are not mutually exclusive.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-sued-for-alleged-prime-delivery-disparities-in-two-majority-black-dc-neighborhoods-150049496.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 As Rust Cohle famously put it in HBO's True Detective, "Time is a flat circle." So it's maybe not a huge surprise that Max is the latest service to bring cable-style linear channels to a premium streaming service. It's starting to test such channels in the US. Some ad-free subscribers will see a Channels option on the homepage of adult profiles. This will take you to a selection of 24/7 feeds of HBO programming, including HBO and HBO 2 simulcasts. Other channels will showcase prestige drama, comedy and classic HBO shows, movies and documentaries. The channels work pretty much like any linear TV network in the modern age. You can restart shows, rewind and fast-forward. On select devices, you’ll be able to switch between channels directly in the player, without having to go back to the channels hub. This initial rollout lays the groundwork for more themed channels, which will start arriving next year. According to The Verge, Max may even offer personalized streaming channels down the road. These channels could help you avoid wasting time instead of scrolling through Max while figuring out what to watch. If you’re in the mood to laugh, maybe just turn on HBO Comedy. Warner Bros. Discovery will surely be hoping that channels increase engagement and keep people using the streaming service. After all, lots of folks simply switch on the likes of CBS because they want to watch something and they trust the network’s brand enough to deliver a show that suits them. Max already offers linear channels in Europe. Crave, a Canadian streaming service that has exclusive rights to the HBO library in that market, offers HBO and HBO 2 simulcasts as well. WBD notably pulled shows including Westworld and The Nevers from Max a couple of years ago. Roku and Tubi now offer free, ad-supported channels featuring HBO shows and other WBD programming. Rivals also have their own linear channels, including Disney+, Paramount+ and Peacock. Amazon, meanwhile, is shutting down Freevee and moving its programming to Prime Video. As if it weren't already evident enough that media conglomerates are trying to bring back the heady success that cable saw for decades, they're teaming up with each other through streaming bundles. One gets you Max, Disney+ and Hulu for $30 per month, while Comcast offers a package of Netflix, Peacock and Apple TV+ for $15 per month. Saving you money while dumping a ton of programming you don't care about into your lap? This is all really just cable 2.0.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/streaming-is-just-tv-all-over-again-165115834.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 21:30 Google has begun rolling out private access to its Veo and Imagen 3 generative AI models. Starting today, customers of the company’s Vertex AI Google Cloud package can begin using Veo to generate videos from text prompts and images. Then, as of next week, Google will make Imagen 3, its latest text-to-image framework, available to those same users. With Veo’s rollout, Google says it’s the first hyperscale cloud provider to offer an image-to-video model. To that point, OpenAI’s Sora model is still only available to select artists, academics and researchers — though that could change quickly with the company teasing 12 days of product demos starting December 5. Of Veo, Google says the model creates 1080p footage “that’s consistent and coherent” and can run “beyond a minute.” The tool is also capable of working with both text prompts and images. In the latter case, it’s possible to use either AI-generated or human-made pictures as the starting point for a video. Looking at the sample footage Google shared, it’s evident Veo, like all AI models, can struggle with cause and effect. For example, in the clip of the roasting marshmallows, the treats don’t yellow and char as they’re exposed to the heat of a campfire flame. Artifacting is also an issue, as is apparent if you look closely at the hands in the concert footage. Google As for Imagen 3, Google says the model generates “the most realistic and highest quality images from simple text prompts, surpassing previous versions of Imagen in detail, lighting, and artifact reduction.” Here again, however, you don’t have to look too closely to see Google has more work to do. In the first example of a group of friends sitting on the trunk of a car, the original prompt includes mention of “flash photography,” but the subjects are clearly backlit. One could argue that a flash was used to create intense backlighting, but if the idea behind the prompt was to create something representative of flash photography from the 1960s, this image isn’t it. Still, Google is keen to get more of its enterprise customers using generative AI. Citing its own research, the tech giant says among companies using generative AI in production, 86 percent report an increase in revenue. However, a recent Appen survey found return on investment from AI projects fell by 4.6 percentage points from 2023 to 2024.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-generative-ai-video-model-is-available-in-private-preview-160055983.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 16:00 I don't know about you but I plan to spend the next three months tucked away watching movies, reading books and playing games under a warm blanket. Black Friday and Cyber Monday might have come and gone, but there are still plenty of worthwhile deals out there that I will be perusing in pursuit of my gaming goals. If you have the same idea then let me point you toward a great sale currently on: The three month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is down to $29 from $50 on Woot. The deal comes courtesy of a 32 percent discount and an additional $5 off at checkout with the code GAMEPASS. The Xbox Game Pass is one of our favorite Xbox accessories and comes as a digital code. The Xbox Game Pass is a good deal with or without a sale . It gives you access to hundreds of Xbox and PC games. You can play games the day they come out and play online multiplayer through your PC, Xbox or the cloud. The sale is on for ten days or until Woot runs out of stock. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/three-months-of-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-is-on-sale-for-29-right-now-143059157.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 16:00 RPG fans who love Hironobu Sakaguchi's work may be familiar with Fantasian, a 2021 Apple Arcade exclusive. Now, Fantasian is coming to Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC on December 5. As The Verge puts it, Fantasian is Final Fantasy in all but name. The port to these platforms is called Fantasian Neo Dimension and doesn’t differ much from the original apart from added voice acting. The addition of voices will elevate the experience, and you’d be pleased to know that Square Enix is publishing this port, which ensures it gets the best treatment before release. One unique mechanic Fantasian has is the Dimengeon, a portmanteau of dimension and dungeon. If you activate this device in-game, the random battles will be stored and waiting for you to fight. The Dimengeon has a limit, which means you’ll have to face your foes eventually.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fantasian-an-apple-arcade-rpg-is-now-coming-to-consoles-and-pc-141543706.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 16:00 My hand is cramping. It’s not carpal tunnel or some other dubious reason that’s causing the pain. It’s an analog ache that is oddly satisfying in a nostalgic way. In the last few days, I’ve held a pen and written more words for a much longer time than I have ever done in years. As I pushed myself to handwrite large parts of this review to spend more time with the 2024 Kindle Scribe’s stylus and note-taking tools, I started to feel a sensation I hadn’t remembered since my teens. I often feel the urge to jot down thoughts and lists, but I never really wanted to spend longer than 15 minutes writing. And yet, Amazon’s new AI features for the Kindle Scribe seem to cater more to those who labor over essays or missives that they ultimately need to share with others. The Summarize and Refine tools for your notebooks, for example, can shorten and neaten up your scrawl so, I guess, you can send it to another person to read. That’s it, really. The other improvements to the Scribe’s writing experience are for scribbling on books, which I’ll get to in a bit. Editor’s note: Due to the Thanksgiving holidays in the US, we haven't had the time to test every element of the Kindle Scribe 2, so we won't be assigning a review score. With that said, the product is already on sale, so we wanted to give our initial impressions and are publishing a review in progress. We will update the story with a score and more impressions once we're satisfied that we've understood all of its strengths and weaknesses. What’s changed on the new Kindle Scribe As I said earlier, most of what’s new on the Kindle Scribe is internal. On the outside, Amazon did tweak the bezels not in actual size but in colors, so that there’s a white rectangle surrounding the screen, within a teal green column on the side. If you opted for the “tungsten” version, then instead of teal green you’ll see dark gray. I love the new color, but it’s a bit confusing and makes me think the grippable area is narrower than before when in fact, it’s about the same. Still, this is a small complaint, if that, and one that is mostly mitigated by how fresh the new version looks. The other main change is on the Premium Pen, which now has a rubberized top for its faux eraser. I’ve always appreciated how easy this was to use on the original Kindle Scribe, and I’m happy to report that the updated texture doesn’t get in the way of responsiveness. It certainly feels enough like erasers of my youth that every now and then I find myself subconsciously swiping away phantom dust. I will point out, though, that I had to remind myself to use the eraser on a few occasions, since I was more accustomed to simply striking out a mistake with the pen. The new Premium Pen also has a customizable shortcut button so long-pressing it can activate the highlighter, pen, marker, pencil, eraser, canvas or sticky note. Drawing on books on the new Kindle Scribe Finally, in addition to the two AI-related tools I already mentioned, Amazon also updated how you can write on ebooks. As I described in my hands-on in October, the new Active Canvas feature makes it so that once you put your pen on the page, a box will appear to contain your writing. Compared to the clunky implementation on the older model, which required you to first go to the floating toolbar on the left of every page, select the sticky note feature and then write in it, this seemed a huge improvement. In my testing so far, though, this was less impressive. The software was buggy in my experience. On one occasion, I drew a spiral over the words “We had a good yarn about old times” in an Agatha Christie novel. A translucent box appeared, containing my drawing in a layer above the text, with a check mark and cross at the top. You’re supposed to tap the check, which will cause the box to fully solidify and the rest of the page’s words will rearrange themselves to make room. However, when I hit X by accident, the box didn’t go away, and I was able to continue to add doodles all over the screen. When I flipped to a different part of the book and came back, though, it disappeared, only to reappear later when I was trying to underline something. That’s clearly just a bug, and when executed as intended, Active Canvas does work. You can resize the box, and lines will continue to reflow to make room or snap back into place. The boxes will stay where you left them, instead of disappearing under a little tag the way they did with the original Scribe. It’s a slight improvement, and though I can’t yet imagine how I’d use it in real life, it’s nice to know it’s there. I do have to point out a couple of caveats, though. This doesn’t work on samples — you can tell whether the Active Canvas is supported by checking if the floating toolbox is present. The other issue, which is a bigger one, is that Active Canvas can sometimes be triggered even when you’re just trying to underline something. Drawing lines under or on text will generate underlines, which will be indexed by Amazon the same way highlights are, so you can easily find them again later on. Cherlynn Low for Engadget It’s pretty annoying when you’re trying to underline some text and the words jump away to make room for a box you never wanted to appear. It gets even more frustrating when, due to the lag, you have to wait for seconds for the box to go away after you tap the X on top of it. Worse, that bug I mentioned earlier caused the spiral and other doodles I had drawn to show up where I was trying to underline words. Thankfully, I was able to delete that when it reappeared and had no more phantom boxes. These little hiccups would be less of a problem if Amazon weren’t already behind its competitors. Similar products from companies like Kobo already offer better support for writing on books, where you can circle specific words and the drawing will stay in place . I understand that Amazon has to manage the resizability of its content, to support people who often change up font sizes while reading. There needs to be a better way. One might be coming. At the Kindle’s launch event, the company did preview a collapsible margins feature, which lets you scribble in the column on either side of every book. Importantly, you’ll be able to resize these columns and the space in them can scroll vertically, giving you plenty of room to cram in your musings. Sadly, this feature is only going to be available in early 2025, so I wasn’t able to test it out. It’s also worth noting that the original Kindle Scribe, which continues to retail for $340, will be getting the Active Canvas and generative AI features, as well as the collapsible margin when that arrives. Generative AI features on the new Kindle Scribe Where things feel more finished is in Notebooks, where Amazon has had to contend with fewer limitations. This section contains your lists, jotpads and works of art. Like you could on the original, you can select from a variety of backgrounds like lines, a dot grid or even planner or calendar views. It’s here that you’ll find the new Summarize and Refine tools, by tapping on the sparkles icon on the top menu bar. Selecting either “Summarize” or “Refine writing” will bring up the option to work Amazon’s magic on the page you’re on or the entire notebook. After you decide, the Kindle will get to work, using cloud-based processing to generate either a summary of your words or a tidied up version of your chicken scratch. This usually took about 10 to 15 seconds, depending on the length of the source material. Once a result is returned, you’ll also get the option to customize the font and line spacing, as well as the ability to add it to the end or beginning of your notebook. Screenshots / Engadget I was surprised to see the Scribe make sense of a disorganized plan I made for reviews coverage that involved some lists with three in a row up top, two at the bottom and three lining the right side. The Refine tool accurately laid them out in sequential order, giving me a list of lists starting with the one I had in the top left position and ending with the tiny one titled “OSes” that I had squeezed in below “iPads” at the bottom right. The summary it returned for this example was also decent, and in all the other notes I tested I saw largely accurate results. Any mistake the system made felt reasonable, since I have horrible handwriting. It’s not really the Scribe’s fault that it thought I wrote “Addly” when really I just had an extremely malformed “n” and a barely legible “g” at the end of “Adding.” When I did make an effort to write more neatly, the Scribe was more accurate, but that almost feels like it defeats the purpose. If I’m going to try to write better for the AI so it can make my handwriting neater for others to read, then how is that different from making a greater effort for humans? As competent as the generative AI features here have been, I still remain hesitant to call them useful. I’m not the sort of person that likes writing long enough to need AI summarization . I also don’t generally share my handwritten thoughts with other people, though on the extremely rare occasion that I do, I could see Refine being a good start. Screenshots / Engadget The problem is that Refine isn’t always accurate, and its generated result isn’t editable. If I could go in and correct “Addly,” then I might not mind sending that document to my team. Or if that were the only mistake in the refined writing, I could share the note and tell my friends to ignore the one error. But I’d have to write a whole new appendix just to clarify the mistakes, at which point I might as well type up my original thoughts. Neither Refine nor Summarize are groundbreaking new features in generative AI or even note-taking, either. Apple offers a version of Refine on the new iPadOS, while Summarize is something we’ve seen all over products from Google, Apple, OpenAI, Samsung and more. While I respect that Amazon has largely avoided chasing hype with its adoption of generative AI on the Kindle Scribe, I need more time and testing to better understand how useful it might be in the long run. What I like about the Kindle Scribe 2 so far As I did with the original, I do like the Scribe a lot. It offers a smooth, convenient writing experience in a svelte, relatively light package that’s just 0.22 inches thick and weighs 433 grams . None of those dimensions have changed in the second-gen model, though the 10.2-inch screen somehow seemed sharper to me, despite having the same brightness and pixel density. Reading on such a roomy canvas is a joy, although I prefer to take the Paperwhite on the go since it’s a lot easier on my wrist. That expanse can be helpful for those with visual impairments that might need a much larger font, for example. I’ve also liked doodling on PDFs and “write-on books.” The latter is a category of titles in the Kindle store that are formatted so you can doodle directly on them. I borrowed a couple of these through my Kindle Unlimited subscription, and had a blast solving cryptography and Sudoku puzzles. I did see some promising books in this category, like interactive or hyperlinked planners, but the customer reviews for those put me off. There is a lot of potential in that space, though, that could make the Kindle Scribe far more useful. I just wish Amazon would invest more in the format and make a notebook you can write on that would also work with your phone’s calendar or reminders app and seamlessly integrate what you write on your planner into your digital universe. What I don’t like about the Kindle Scribe 2 Alas, that is not a reality. And the reality is that there are quite a lot of things Amazon could stand to improve. While I can understand that finding a way to keep a loose stylus attached to a tablet is challenging, the magnetic edge that the Premium Pen can latch onto is just a precarious approach. I was walking into my apartment with the Kindle Scribe in my hand and jostled the door by accident. Two seconds later, I was wondering where the stylus had gone. It was on the floor, and when I picked it up, I noticed the nib was slanted. I didn’t know if I had damaged it, and though it still worked well, I eventually saw some scratches on the Scribe’s screen that I suspect might not have been there had the pen not dropped due to a light knock against a doorframe. The company does include some replacement nibs in the box, so fixing this is fairly easy. Cherlynn Low for Engadget I also really wish Amazon’s Notebooks were more versatile. They’re better than they were with the original Scribe, but you still can’t edit them in the mobile Kindle app. You can view your Notebooks there, which is nice, but it’s slightly annoying that they’re listed in alphabetical order instead of based on what’s recently been opened like they are on the Kindle. Amazon rates the new and original Scribes as having the same battery life — that is, up to three weeks if you write for about half an hour a day, and up to 12 weeks if you read for that same amount of time. In my review of the older model, I saw battery numbers drop 35 percent in about a week with lots of writing and testing. With the new Kindle Scribe, the power level is currently at 21 percent after coming out of the box at 50 percent just a couple of days ago. I have been testing its AI, writing and annotating features pretty relentlessly in that time, and usually see the percentage fall one or two points whenever I generate an AI summary or refinement, too. I’ll need much more time to get a better sense of how the new Kindle Scribe’s battery holds up under more normalized use, but if it behaves like its predecessor, I shouldn’t need to charge it more than once every couple of months. Wrap-up Amazon’s new Kindle Scribe has a lot of competition from companies like Kobo, Boox and reMarkable. And with a price of $399, the new Scribe is a whopping $60 costlier than its predecessor, which will also get a lot of the new software updates. To be fair, the new Scribe comes with a Premium Pen for the price, while the cheaper model only includes a Basic Pen, so you’re partially paying more for a better stylus. While I do like the new color option and slightly improved annotation capabilities, I’m not sure Amazon has done enough to justify the additional cost here. I’d much rather see the company focus its efforts on improving its Notebook syncing and mobile editing software, as well as investing in innovating on the write-on book format, than chase the generative AI trend. No matter how much restraint it’s exercised in doing so.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/kindle-scribe-2-review-in-progress-is-slightly-useful-ai-worth-the-extra-cash-140018638.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 16:00 Ubisoft's first-person shooter XDefiant, which launched less than six months ago with some success, will shut down on June 3, 2025. As part of that, the studio will close three production studios and lay off 277 employees. New downloads, player registrations, and purchases will no longer be available starting today, However, Season 3 will launch as planned and servers will remain online until June 3. Players who purchased the Ultimate Founders Pack or bought anything in the last 30 days will automatically receive full refunds within eight weeks. "Despite an encouraging start, the team's passionate work, and a committed fan base, we've not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market," said Ubisoft's chief studios and portfolio officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert. Ubisoft confirmed that it will close its Osaka and San Francisco studios while ramping down its Sydney site. That will result in the loss of 277 jobs, or just over half of XDefiant's team, with the other half transitioning to other parts of the company. "I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and contributions. Please know that we are committed to supporting you during this transition," de Waubert told departing employees. At one time, XDefiant was Ubisoft's fastest growing game ever, hitting 5 million users sooner than any of its other titles and eventually counting up to 15 million players. However, it couldn't build on that success and last month, rumors began to circulate that XDefiant would be shut down. "The game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment," de Waubert said yesterday. Ubisoft has been going through a rough patch of late. The company recently cancelled The Division: Heartland before it launched and delayed Assassin's Creed Shadows until Valentine's Day 2025, following a disappointing launch for Star Wars Outlaws. Last year, the company cancelled three unannounced projects and commenced a restructuring program that led to over a thousand layoffs.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-is-giving-up-on-xdefiant-130023396.html?src=rss

04.12.2024 16:00 There's a chill in the air, lights have been strung through the trees and winter coats are a daily need. All this can only mean one thing: it's Spotify Wrapped season. Today, Spotify Wrapped begins rolling out to users across the globe with a slew of new features powered by Google's AI-powered NotebookLM. To be honest, some of it is, let's say, interesting. Notably, Spotify is releasing a My Wrapped AI Podcast with two hosts discussing all your listening preferences for the year. These hosts in question are powered by the same technology that NotebookLM uses to make audio overviews. The podcasts should last three to six minutes, are shareable and available for free and premium users in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Sweden for a limited time. If you love listening to AI then maybe this is exciting for you but, personally, I'm happy with my usual roundup. Spotify does caveat that it might not "provide a comprehensive overview" and could mispronounce words or use inappropriate language if its in a song title, for example. Then there's the AI DJ, which brings you through the music you listened to and provides commentary. Yes, this sounds a bit like the AI podcast, but it should focus more on the actual music and how you used the DJ. It should also touch on aspects like your top artists and most listened to songs. However, this feature and a wrapped version of Spotify's AI Playlist are only available to premium subscribers. As always, you can also see how your listening choices measure up against other users. Spoiler that's not really a spoiler: Taylor Swift and her album The Tortured Poet's Department took the most streamed spots for artist and album, respectively, both in the US and globally. Women took the top five spots for most streamed albums globally, while Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter held the title of most streamed song for the US and world. Other categories of interest include the top podcasts and most viral songs, plus one interesting addition: audiobooks. Spotify has leaned heavily into audiobooks this year, rolling out a subscription solely for the medium and new tools like a sleep timer and detailed author pages. So, it's no surprise that the platform has released its first ever year-end top charts for audiobooks. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas was the top audiobook for premium users in both the US and globally — a near inevitably for anyone paying even a little attention to book trends this year. Also new this year: Authors will join creators, artists, podcasters and advertisers in receiving a Wrapped all about how their readers listened to their books in 2024. As always, Spotify Wrapped is shaping up to be a bit cringe and the usual burst of fun. You can explore these features and more on your Spotify Wrapped or, if this has all been irrelevant to you, maybe on the just announced Amazon Music Delivered or through Apple Music Replay.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-wrapped-2024-includes-ai-hosted-podcasts-discussing-your-listening-habits-130002140.html?src=rss