Connexion
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
It's easy to get the impression that Discord chat messages are ephemeral, especially across different public servers, where lines fly upward at a near-unreadable pace. But someone claims to be catching and compiling that data and is offering packages that can track more than 600 million users across more than 14,000 servers.
Joseph Cox at 404 Media confirmed that Spy Pet, a service that sells access to a database of purportedly 3 billion Discord messages, offers data "credits" to customers who pay in bitcoin, ethereum, or other cryptocurrency. Searching individual users will reveal the servers that Spy Pet can track them across, a raw and exportable table of their messages, and connected accounts, such as GitHub. Ominously, Spy Pet lists more than 86,000 other servers in which it has "no bots," but "we know it exists."
An example of Spy Pet's service from its website. Shown are a user's nicknames, connected accounts, banner image, server memberships, and messages across those servers tracked by Spy Pet. [credit: Spy Pet ]
As Cox notes, Discord doesn't make messages inside server channels, like blog posts or unlocked social media feeds, easy to publicly access and search. But many Discord users many not expect their messages, server memberships, bans, or other data to be grabbed by a bot, compiled, and sold to anybody wishing to pin them all on a particular user. 404 Media confirmed the service's function with multiple user examples. Private messages are not mentioned by Spy Pet and are presumably still secure.
Enlarge / An image of a boy amazed by flying letters. (credit: Getty Images)
Some weeks in AI news are eerily quiet, but during others, getting a grip on the week's events feels like trying to hold back the tide. This week has seen three notable large language model (LLM) releases: Google Gemini Pro 1.5 hit general availability with a free tier, OpenAI shipped a new version of GPT-4 Turbo, and Mistral released a new openly licensed LLM, Mixtral 8x22B. All three of those launches happened within 24 hours starting on Tuesday.
With the help of software engineer and independent AI researcher Simon Willison (who also wrote about this week's hectic LLM launches on his own blog), we'll briefly cover each of the three major events in roughly chronological order, then dig into some additional AI happenings this week.
(credit: Google)
On Tuesday morning Pacific time, Google announced that its Gemini 1.5 Pro model (which we first covered in February) is now available in 180-plus countries, excluding Europe, via the Gemini API in a public preview. This is Google's most powerful public LLM so far, and it's available in a free tier that permits up to 50 requests a day.
Epic Games has filed a proposed injunction that would stop Google from restricting third-party app distribution outside Google Play Store on Android devices after proving that Google had an illegal monopoly in markets for Android app distribution.
Epic is suggesting that competition on the Android mobile platform would be opened up if the court orders Google to allow third-party app stores to be distributed for six years in the Google Play Store and blocks Google from entering any agreements with device makers that would stop them from pre-loading third-party app stores. This would benefit both mobile developers and users, Epic argued in a wide-sweeping proposal that would greatly limit Google's control over the Android app ecosystem.
US District Court Judge James Donato will ultimately decide the terms of the injunction. Google has until May 3 to respond to Epic's filing.
Enlarge / Legendary Pictures has confirmed that it plans to make Dune: Part Three with director Denis Villeneuve. (credit: YouTube/Warner Bros.)
Dune: Part Two is still raking in the moolah at the box office, and deservedly so. But judging by my various feeds, fans are already swooning over the prospect of director Denis Villeneuve extending his vision into a trilogy by adapting Frank Herbert's 1969 sequel, Dune Messiah, for the next installment. Will there be a Dune: Part Three? Most signs currently point to yes, with a couple of caveats. Exactly how soon we'll be seeing a return to Arrakis depends a lot on Villeneuve.
Variety confirmed that Legendary Pictures is working with the director on developing Dune: Part Three, although it remains unclear from the wording of the plethora of news items whether the project has officially been greenlit. ("Development" can mean a lot of things.) Naturally, the studio is eager, as are we: the film is the biggest hit of 2024 thus far, with global earnings of $630 million (although the hotly anticipated Deadpool and Wolverine this summer might give it a run for its money).
That confirmation sent fresh frissons of excitement across the Internet, although Villeneuve had been talking about the prospect as far back as September 2021. Those plans always depended on the success of Part Two, and that hurdle has obviously been cleared. By August 2023, the director was on record saying there were "words on paper" for a third film. And we learned just last month that composer Hans Zimmer was already working on the score for Dune: Part Three.
Enlarge / The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has made the largest 3D map of our universe to date. (credit: Claire Lamman/DESI collaboration)
An international collaboration of scientists has created the largest 3D map of our universe to date based on the first results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). It's an impressive achievement, with more to come, but the most significant finding stems from the collaboration's new measurements of dark energy. Those results roughly agree with the current prevailing theoretical model for dark energy, in which dark energy is constant over time. But there are some tantalizing hints that it could vary over time instead, which would call for some changes to that prevailing model.
Granted, those hints are still below the necessary threshold to claim discovery and hence fall under the rubric of "huge, if true." We'll have to wait for more data from DESI's continuing measurements to see if they hold up. In the meantime, multiple papers delving into the technical details behind these first results have been posted to the arXiv, and there will be several talks presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society being held this week in Sacramento, California, as well as at Rencontres de Moriond in Italy.
“Our results show some interesting deviations from the standard model of the universe that could indicate that dark energy is evolving over time,” said Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, a physicist at the University of Texas, Dallas, and a member of the DESI collaboration. “The more data we collect, the better equipped we will be to determine whether this finding holds. With more data, we might identify different explanations for the result we observe or confirm it. If it persists, such a result will shed some light on what is causing cosmic acceleration and provide a huge step in understanding the evolution of our universe.”
Enlarge / A Dell XPS 14 laptop. The Copilot key is to the right of the right-Alt button. (credit: Dell)
In January, Microsoft introduced a new key to Windows PC keyboards for the first time in 30 years. The Copilot key, dedicated to launching Microsoft's eponymous generative AI assistant, is already on some Windows laptops released this year. On Monday, Tom’s Hardware dug into the new addition and determined exactly what pressing the button does, which is actually pretty simple. Pushing a computer's integrated Copilot button is like pressing left-Shift + Windows key + F23 simultaneously.
Tom's Hardware confirmed this after wondering if the Copilot key introduced a new scan code to Windows or if it worked differently. Using the scripting program AuthoHotkey with a new laptop with a Copilot button, Tom's Hardware discovered the keystrokes registered when a user presses the Copilot key. The publication confirmed with Dell that “this key assignment is standard for the Copilot key and done at Microsoft's direction.”
Surprising to see in that string of keys is F23. Having a computer keyboard with a function row or rows that take you from F1 all the way to F23 is quite rare today. When I try to imagine a keyboard that comes with an F23 button, vintage keyboards come to mind, more specifically buckling spring keyboards from IBM.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Depending on who you ask about AI (and how you define it), the technology may or may not be useful, but one thing is for certain: AI hype is dominating corporate marketing these days—even in fast food. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, corporate fast food giant Yum Brands is embracing an "AI-first mentality" across its restaurant chains, including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Habit Burger Grill. The company's chief digital and technology officer, Joe Park, told the WSJ that AI will shape nearly every aspect of how these restaurants operate.
"Our vision of [quick-service restaurants] is that an AI-first mentality works every step of the way," Park said in an interview with the outlet. "If you think about the major journeys within a restaurant that can be AI-powered, we believe it’s endless."
As we've discussed in the past, artificial intelligence is a nebulous term. It can mean many different things depending on the context, including computer-controlled ghosts in Pac-Man, algorithms that play checkers, or large language models that give terrible advice on major city websites. But most of all in this tech climate, it means money, because even talking about AI tends to make corporate share prices go up.
Enlarge (credit: Getty | YinYang)
In a disturbing sign of the times, Medicare this week implemented a change to its claims-processing system that adds two extra digits to money amounts, expanding the fields from eight digits to 10. The change now allows for billing and payment totals of up to $99,999,999.99, or a penny shy of $100 million.
In a notice released last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) explained the change, writing, "With the increase of Part B procedures/treatments exceeding the $999,999.99 limitation, CMS is implementing the expansion of display screens for monetary amount fields related to billing and payment within [the Fiscal Intermediary Shared System (FISS)] to accept and process up to 10 digits ($99,999,999.99)."
The FISS is the processing system used by hospitals and doctors' offices to process Medicare claims.
Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards)
On Monday, OpenAI announced that visitors to the ChatGPT website in some regions can now use the AI assistant without signing in. Previously, the company required that users create an account to use it, even with the free version of ChatGPT that is currently powered by the GPT-3.5 AI language model. But as we have noted in the past, GPT-3.5 is widely known to provide more inaccurate information compared to GPT-4 Turbo, available in paid versions of ChatGPT.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has transformed over time from a tech demo to a comprehensive AI assistant, and it has always had a free version available. The cost is free because "you're the product," as the old saying goes. Using ChatGPT helps OpenAI gather data that will help the company train future AI models, although free users and ChatGPT Plus subscription members can both opt out of allowing the data they input into ChatGPT to be used for AI training. (OpenAI says it never trains on inputs from ChatGPT Team and Enterprise members at all.)
Opening ChatGPT to everyone could provide a frictionless on-ramp for people who might use it as a substitute for Google Search or potentially gain new customers by providing an easy way for people to use ChatGPT quickly, then offering an upsell to paid versions of the service.
Enlarge / Two cheapo Intel mini PCs, a Raspberry Pi 5, and an Xbox controller for scale. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
I recently tried to use a Raspberry Pi 5 as a regular desktop PC. The experiment wasn't a failure—I was able to use a Pi to get most of my work done for a few days. But the device's performance, and especially the relative immaturity of the Linux's Arm software ecosystem, meant that there were lots of incompatibilities and rough edges.
One of the problems with trying to use a Pi 5 as a regular desktop computer is that, by the time you've paid for the 8GB version of the board, a decent active cooler and case, and (ideally) some kind of M.2 storage attachment and SSD, you've spent close to a couple of hundred dollars on the system. That's not a ton of money to spend on a desktop PC, but it is enough that the Pi no longer feels miraculously cheap, and there are actually other, more flexible competitors worth considering.
Consider the selection of sub-$200 mini desktop PCs that litter the online storefronts of Amazon and AliExpress. Though you do need to roll the dice on low-to-no-name brands like Beelink, GMKTec, Firebat, BMax, Trigkey, or Bosgame, it's actually possible to buy a reasonably capable desktop system with 8GB to 16GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a Windows 11 license, and a workaday x86-based Intel CPU for as little as $107, though Amazon pricing usually runs closer to $170.
Enlarge / The Google Gemini logo. (credit: Google)
In early March, Google made the odd announcement that only one of its two latest smartphones, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, would be able to run its latest AI model, called "Google Gemini." Despite having very similar specs, the smaller Pixel 8 wouldn't get the new AI model, with the company citing mysterious "hardware limitations" as the reason. It was a strange statement considering the fact that Google designed and marketed the Pixel 8 to be AI-centric and then designed a smartphone-centric AI model called "Gemini Nano" yet still couldn't make the two work together.
A few weeks later, Google is backtracking somewhat. The company announced on the Pixel Phone Help forum that the smaller Pixel 8 actually will get Gemini Nano in the next big quarterly Android release, which should happen in June. There's a catch, though—while the Pixel 8 Pro will get Gemini Nano as a user-facing feature, on the Pixel 8, it's only being released "as a developer option." That means you'll be able to turn it on only via the hidden Developer Options menu in the settings, and most people will miss out on it.
Google's Seang Chau, VP of devices and services software, explained the decision on the company's in-house "Made by Google" podcast. "The Pixel 8 Pro, having 12GB of RAM, was a perfect place for us to put [Gemini Nano] on the device and see what we could do," Chau said. "When we looked at the Pixel 8 as an example, the Pixel 8 has 4GB less memory, and it wasn't as easy of a call to just say, 'all right, we're going to enable it on Pixel 8 as well.'" According to Chau, Google's trepidation is because the company doesn't want to "degrade the experience" on the smaller Pixel 8, which only has 8GB of RAM.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Voice synthesis has come a long way since 1978's Speak & Spell toy, which once wowed people with its state-of-the-art ability to read words aloud using an electronic voice. Now, using deep-learning AI models, software can create not only realistic-sounding voices, but also convincingly imitate existing voices using small samples of audio.
Along those lines, OpenAI just announced Voice Engine, a text-to-speech AI model for creating synthetic voices based on a 15-second segment of recorded audio. It has provided audio samples of the Voice Engine in action on its website.
Once a voice is cloned, a user can input text into the Voice Engine and get an AI-generated voice result. But OpenAI is not ready to widely release its technology yet. The company initially planned to launch a pilot program for developers to sign up for the Voice Engine API earlier this month. But after more consideration about ethical implications, the company decided to scale back its ambitions for now.
Enlarge / Supply-chain attacks, like the latest PyPI discovery, insert malicious code into seemingly functional software packages used by developers. They're becoming increasingly common. (credit: Getty Images)
PyPI, a vital repository for open source developers, temporarily halted new project creation and new user registration following an onslaught of package uploads that executed malicious code on any device that installed them. Ten hours later, it lifted the suspension.
Short for the Python Package Index, PyPI is the go-to source for apps and code libraries written in the Python programming language. Fortune 500 corporations and independent developers alike rely on the repository to obtain the latest versions of code needed to make their projects run. At a little after 7 pm PT on Wednesday, the site started displaying a banner message informing visitors that the site was temporarily suspending new project creation and new user registration. The message didn’t explain why or provide an estimate of when the suspension would be lifted.
Screenshot showing temporary suspension notification. (credit: Checkmarx)
About 10 hours later, PyPI restored new project creation and new user registration. Once again, the site provided no reason for the 10-hour halt.
Enlarge / Oregon's repair bill prohibits companies from implementing software locks that prohibit aftermarket or used parts from being installed in their devices.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek today signed the state's Right to Repair Act, which will push manufacturers to provide more repair options for their products than any other state so far.
The law, like those passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, will require many manufacturers to provide the same parts, tools, and documentation to individuals and repair shops that they provide to their own repair teams.
But Oregon's bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function. Known as parts pairing or serialization, Oregon's bill, SB 1596, is the first in the nation to target that practice. Oregon State Senator Janeen Sollman (D) and Representative Courtney Neron (D) sponsored and pushed the bill in the state senate and legislature.
Enlarge / The basic requirements for an AI PC, at least when it's running Windows. (credit: Intel)
Microsoft said in January that 2024 would be the year of the "AI PC," and we know that AI PCs will include a few hardware components that most Windows systems currently do not include—namely, a built-in neural processing unit (NPU) and Microsoft's new Copilot key for keyboards. But so far we haven't heard a whole lot about what a so-called AI PC will actually do for users.
Microsoft and Intel are starting to talk about a few details as part of an announcement from Intel about a new AI PC developer program that will encourage software developers to leverage local hardware to build AI features into their apps.
The main news comes from Tom's Hardware, confirming that AI PCs would be able to run "more elements of Copilot," Microsoft's AI chatbot assistant, "locally on the client." Currently, Copilot relies on server-side processing even for small requests, introducing lag that is tolerable if you're making a broad request for information but less so if all you want to do is change a setting or get basic answers. Running generative AI models locally could also improve user privacy, making it possible to take advantage of AI-infused software without automatically sending information to a company that will use it for further model training.
Enlarge / OnLeak's renders of the Pixel 9 Pro XL, the Pixel 9 Pro, and the Pixel 9. (credit: OnLeaks / 91Mobiles / MySmartPrice)
When renders of the Pixel 9 came out in January from OnLeaks, we got our first hints that a big change in Google's lineup was afoot. Usually, the company does a big "Pro" phone with three cameras and all the premium features and then a smaller Pixel that gets cut down somewhat, usually with only two cameras. Those January renders showed a big and small phone both with three cameras, indicating the base model Pixel 9 was getting updated to be a "mini-Pro" model—a smaller phone, but still with all the trimmings. The small Pro model still seems to be in the works, but apparently, that's not the base model.
The new render from OnLeaks and 91Mobiles shows a third Pixel 9. This one is the usual cut-down small model with only two cameras. Apparently, the lineup would now be a 6.8-inch "Pixel 9 Pro XL," a "Pixel 9 Pro" at 6.1 inches, and a "Pixel 9" at 6.0 inches.
The base model's design looks just like the other Pixel 9 leaks. The camera bar takes on a new rounded pill shape. The sides switch to a flat metal band, like an iPhone 4/15. The corners of the display and phone body are much more rounded.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Benj Edwards)
On Tuesday, Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus large language model (LLM) surpassed OpenAI's GPT-4 (which powers ChatGPT) for the first time on Chatbot Arena, a popular crowdsourced leaderboard used by AI researchers to gauge the relative capabilities of AI language models. "The king is dead," tweeted software developer Nick Dobos in a post comparing GPT-4 Turbo and Claude 3 Opus that has been making the rounds on social media. "RIP GPT-4."
Since GPT-4 was included in Chatbot Arena around May 10, 2023 (the leaderboard launched May 3 of that year), variations of GPT-4 have consistently been on the top of the chart until now, so its defeat in the Arena is a notable moment in the relatively short history of AI language models. One of Anthropic's smaller models, Haiku, has also been turning heads with its performance on the leaderboard.
"For the first time, the best available models—Opus for advanced tasks, Haiku for cost and efficiency—are from a vendor that isn't OpenAI," independent AI researcher Simon Willison told Ars Technica. "That's reassuring—we all benefit from a diversity of top vendors in this space. But GPT-4 is over a year old at this point, and it took that year for anyone else to catch up."
Enlarge / Will the fragile Xbox balloon pop if that cage is opened? (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)
Since the days of the NES, the one unshakable distinction between the PC and console gaming markets was the latter's "walled garden" approach to game distribution. For decades now, console makers have completely controlled the licensing and sales methods available for games on their own hardware.
So when Microsoft Xbox chief Phil Spencer says that he's open to breaking down that walled garden for his consoles, it's a big deal.
Speaking to Polygon in an interview at last week's Game Developers Conference, Spencer said he could foresee a future in which competing game marketplaces like the Epic Games Store or indie clearinghouse itch.io were available directly on Xbox hardware. “[Consider] our history as the Windows company," Spencer told Polygon. "Nobody would blink twice if I said, 'Hey, when you’re using a PC, you get to decide the type of experience you have [by picking where to buy games].' There’s real value in that."
[credit: Microsoft ]
Microsoft is debuting major updates to two of its Surface PCs today: both the Surface Pro 10 and the 13.5- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 6 are major internal upgrades to Microsoft's mainstream Surface devices. Both were last updated nearly a year and a half ago, and they're both getting new Intel chips with significantly faster integrated GPUs, upgraded webcams, the Copilot key, and better battery life (according to Microsoft's spec sheets).
The catch is that both of these Surfaces are being sold exclusively to businesses and commercial customers; as of this writing, regular people will not be able to buy one directly from Microsoft, and they won't show up in most retail stores.
These aren't the first Surface products released exclusively for businesses. Microsoft introduced a new business-exclusive Surface Go 3 tablet last fall, and a Surface Pro 7+ variant for businesses in early 2021. It is, however, the first time Microsoft has introduced new versions of its flagship tablet and laptop without also making them available to consumers. You can find some of these business-only PCs for sale at some third-party retailers, but usually with extended shipping times and higher prices than consumer systems.
Enlarge / OnLeak's Pixel 8a render. (credit: OnLeaks and Smartprix)
Google's next mid-range phone, the Pixel 8a, is rapidly approaching release. The presumed launch date has always been Google I/O, and that's officially set for May 14. Although the Pixel 8a recently hit the Federal Communications Commission, the box has leaked, and renders have been out since October, we haven't really talked specs.
The ever-reliable Kamila Wojciechowska has a new article for Android Authority detailing some specs for the upcoming device. Apparently, there are some big upgrades planned. The Pixel 7a took a big jump to a 90 Hz display, and the Pixel 8a is encroaching even more into flagship territory with a 120 Hz display. Wojciechowska's source says the Pixel 8a display will be a 6.1-inch, 120 Hz, 2400×1080 OLED panel with an improved 1,400 nits brightness. The display's 120 Hz screen will not only make the phone more competitive here; it will also be a big deal for the Pixel line's recent expansion into India, where 120 Hz is the norm at this price range.
The report says to expect the same camera loadout as the Pixel 7a, along with the newer Google Tensor G3 chip, just like the other Pixel 8 phones. Google doesn't mention it on the spec sheet, but Wojciechowska says internally there is a small difference: It's the same silicon on the A-series, but Google goes with a cheaper, hotter silicon packaging method. So expect some thermal differences.
Enlarge / Mustafa Suleyman, talks on Day 1 of the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park at Bletchley Park on November 1, 2023 in Bletchley, England. (credit: Getty Images)
Microsoft has hired Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder of Google’s DeepMind and chief executive of artificial intelligence start-up Inflection, to run a new consumer AI unit.
Suleyman, a British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind in London in 2010, will report to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, the company announced on Tuesday. He will launch a division of Microsoft that brings consumer-facing products including Microsoft’s Copilot, Bing, Edge, and GenAI under one team called Microsoft AI.
It is the latest move by Microsoft to capitalize on the boom in generative AI. It has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and rapidly integrated its technology into Microsoft products.
Enlarge / You'll notice the Forest Stewardship Council's logo on the sidewall to the right of the Pirelli logo. (credit: Pirelli)
Formula 1 is on a big sustainability kick. The race cars are switching to carbon neutral synthetic fuels. Teams are improving their logistics to cut freight emissions. Race tracks are starting to run entirely on solar power. And now, the tires that Pirelli brings to the races have been given the seal of approval by an NGO as meeting its standards for sustainable forestry.
It will be hard to spot when the cars are moving, but this year, you'll find a tree logo on the sidewall. That indicates that the natural rubber that went into making the tire has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Natural rubber makes up about 15 percent of the rubber in an F1 tire, with the rest being synthetic.
According to the FSC, natural rubber is a key driver of deforestry, as well as human rights abuses, particularly among the smallholders who farm 85 percent of the world's natural rubber. By putting its logo on the tire, the FSC says that Pirelli has met "the world's most credible standards for sustainable forestry," protecting both the forests and the forest communities' rights, including fair wages.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Justin Sullivan )
Epic Games yesterday urged a federal court to sanction Apple for alleged violations of an injunction that imposed restrictions on the iOS App Store. Epic cited a 27 percent commission charged by Apple on purchases completed outside the usual in-app payment system and other limits imposed on developers.
"Apple is in blatant violation of this Court's injunction," Epic wrote in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of California. "Its new App Store policies continue to impose prohibitions on developers that this Court found unlawful and enjoined. Moreover, Apple's new policies introduce new restrictions and burdens that frustrate and effectively nullify the relief the Court ordered."
The permanent injunction issued by the court in September 2021 said that Apple may not prohibit app developers from including external links to alternate sales channels "or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms" that aren't Apple's in-app purchasing system. The injunction also said that Apple may not prohibit developers from "communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app."
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. (credit: Epic Games)
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long been an outspoken opponent of what he sees as Valve's unreasonable platform fees for listing games on Steam, which start at 30 percent of the total sale price. Now, though, new emails from before the launch of the competing Epic Games Store in 2018 show just how angry Sweeney was with the "assholes" at companies like Valve and Apple for squeezing "the little guy" with what he saw as inflated fees.
The emails, which came out this week as part of Wolfire's price-fixing case against Valve (as noticed by the GameDiscoverCo newsletter), confront Valve managers directly for platform fees Sweeney says are "no longer justifiable." They also offer a behind-the-scenes look at the fury Sweeney and Epic would unleash against Apple in court proceedings starting years later.
The first mostly unredacted email chain from the court documents, from August 2017, starts with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell asking Sweeney if there is "anything we [are] doing to annoy you?" That query was likely prompted by Sweeney's public tweets at the time questioning "why Steam is still taking 30% of gross [when] MasterCard and Visa charge 2-5% per transaction, and CDN bandwidth is around $0.002/GB." Later in the same thread, he laments that "the internet was supposed to obsolete the rent-seeking software distribution middlemen, but here's Facebook, Google, Apple, Valve, etc."
(credit: Velo AI)
Whether or not autonomous vehicles ever work out, the effort put into using small cameras and machine-learning algorithms to detect cars could pay off big for an unexpected group: cyclists.
Velo AI is a firm cofounded by Clark Haynes and Micol Marchetti-Bowick, both PhDs with backgrounds in robotics, movement prediction, and Uber's (since sold-off) autonomous vehicle work. Copilot, which started as a "pandemic passion project" for Haynes, is essentially car-focused artificial intelligence and machine learning stuffed into a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and boxed up in a bike-friendly size and shape.
A look into the computer vision of the Copilot.
While car-detecting devices exist for bikes, including the Garmin Varia, they're largely radar-based. That means they can't distinguish between vehicles of different sizes and only know that something is approaching you, not, for example, how much space it will allow when passing.
Enlarge / Artist's conception of Epic Games celebrating their impending return to iOS in Europe. (credit: Epic Games)
Apple has agreed to reinstate Epic Game's Swedish iOS developer account just days after Epic publicized Apple's decision to rescind that account. The move once again paves the way for Epic's plans to release a sideloadable version of the Epic Games Store and Fortnite on iOS devices in Europe.
"Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies," Apple said in a statement provided to Ars Technica. "As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program."
Apple's new statement is in stark contrast to its position earlier this week when it cited "Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple" as a reason why it couldn't trust Epic's commitments to stand by any new developer agreement. In correspondence with Epic shared by the Fortnite maker Wednesday, Apple executive Phil Schiller put an even finer point on it:
Enlarge / Artist's conception of Apple attempting to dodge the concerns of EU regulators. (credit: Epic Games)
European Union regulators are investigating whether Apple's recent revocation of an Epic Games iOS developer account puts the iPhone-maker in violation of the Digital Markets Act and other rules in the continent. If Apple is found in violation, the European Commission could impose significant fines as part of its effort to put some force behind its sweeping tech regulations.
"We have requested further explanations on this from Apple under the DMA (Digital Markets Act)," a European Commission spokesperson told Reuters late Thursday. "We are also evaluating whether Apple's actions [regarding Epic Games] raise doubts on their compliance with the DSA (Digital Services Act) and the P2B (Platform to Business Regulation), given the links between the developer program membership and the App store as designated VLOP (very large online platform)."
Apple's plans for what Epic calls "malicious compliance" under the DMA, which goes into effect today, have gotten plenty of attention in recent months. But the European Commission's statement suggests its investigation could encompass other regulations as well.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
On Monday, Anthropic prompt engineer Alex Albert caused a small stir in the AI community when he tweeted about a scenario related to Claude 3 Opus, the largest version of a new large language model launched on Monday. Albert shared a story from internal testing of Opus where the model seemingly demonstrated a type of "metacognition" or self-awareness during a "needle-in-the-haystack" evaluation, leading to both curiosity and skepticism online.
Metacognition in AI refers to the ability of an AI model to monitor or regulate its own internal processes. It's similar to a form of self-awareness, but calling it that is usually seen as too anthropomorphizing, since there is no "self" in this case. Machine-learning experts do not think that current AI models possess a form of self-awareness like humans. Instead, the models produce humanlike output, and that sometimes triggers a perception of self-awareness that seems to imply a deeper form of intelligence behind the curtain.
In the now-viral tweet, Albert described a test to measure Claude's recall ability. It's a relatively standard test in large language model (LLM) testing that involves inserting a target sentence (the "needle") into a large block of text or documents (the "haystack") and asking if the AI model can find the needle. Researchers do this test to see if the large language model can accurately pull information from a very large processing memory (called a context window), which in this case is about 200,000 tokens (fragments of words).
On Monday, Anthropic released Claude 3, a family of three AI language models similar to those that power ChatGPT. Anthropic claims the models set new industry benchmarks across a range of cognitive tasks, even approaching "near-human" capability in some cases. It's available now through Anthropic's website, with the most powerful model being subscription-only. It's also available via API for developers.
Claude 3's three models represent increasing complexity and parameter count: Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus. Sonnet powers the Claude.ai chatbot now for free with an email sign-in. But as mentioned above, Opus is only available through Anthropic's web chat interface if you pay $20 a month for "Claude Pro," a subscription service offered through the Anthropic website. All three feature a 200,000-token context window. (The context window is the number of tokens—fragments of a word—that an AI language model can process at once.)
We covered the launch of Claude in March 2023 and Claude 2 in July that same year. Each time, Anthropic fell slightly behind OpenAI's best models in capability while surpassing them in terms of context window length. With Claude 3, Anthropic has perhaps finally caught up with OpenAI's released models in terms of performance, although there is no consensus among experts yet—and the presentation of AI benchmarks is notoriously prone to cherry-picking.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Formula 1's 2024 season burst into action this past weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The 10 teams had just spent three days conducting preseason testing at the Sakhir circuit, but Friday's qualifying session was the first time everyone left the sandbags in the garage. On Saturday, we got a true reflection of just how much of a gap there is between Max Verstappen in the Red Bull and the other 19 drivers.
The prospect of a third runaway championship for the Dutch driver will be too much for some fans to stomach, and social media is full of complaints from people who want to cancel their F1 subscriptions. Not everyone can find the excitement in a race for second place, after all. Luckily, F1 isn't the only game in town.
Take this year's Formula 2 season, for example. As the name suggests, it's the feeder series for F1, a place for younger drivers to cut their teeth before (hopefully) moving up to the main attraction. Everyone uses the same car in F2, and for 2024, it's all-new. The car is built by Dallara, which also makes IndyCar's chassis, the Japanese Super Formula car, the Formula 3 car, and sports prototypes for Ferrari, Cadillac, and BMW. It's powered by a 3.4 L turbocharged V6 with around 620 hp (462 kW).
Enlarge / A view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (credit: Getty | Nathan Posner)
COVID-19 is becoming more like the flu and, as such, no longer requires its own virus-specific health rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday alongside the release of a unified "respiratory virus guide."
In a lengthy background document, the agency laid out its rationale for consolidating COVID-19 guidance into general guidance for respiratory viruses—including influenza, RSV, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and others, though specifically not measles. The agency also noted the guidance does not apply to health care settings and outbreak scenarios.
"COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV," the agency wrote.
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)
Amid safety scandals involving "many loose bolts" and widespread problems with Boeing's 737 Max 9s, Boeing is apparently considering buying back Spirit AeroSystems, the key supplier behind some of Boeing's current manufacturing problems, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Spirit was initially spun out from Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 2005, and Boeing had planned to keep it that way. Last year, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun sought to dispel rumors that Boeing might reacquire Spirit as federal regulators launched investigations into both companies. But now Calhoun appears to be "softening that stance," the WSJ reported.
According to the WSJ's sources, no deal has formed yet, but Spirit has initiated talks with Boeing and "hired bankers to explore strategic options." Sources also confirmed that Spirit is weighing whether to sell its operations in Ireland, which manufactures parts for Boeing rival Airbus.
Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)
For the third year running, Microsoft is releasing a batch of small- to medium-sized Windows 11 updates in February. This year's collection of tweaks includes the now-obligatory smattering of generative AI features but also some window-snapping changes, better Android phone integration, and accessibility upgrades, among other things.
Starting with the non-AI features: If you've paired an Android phone with your PC in the Your Phone app, Microsoft says that "soon" you will be able to use the phone's camera as a webcam during video calls. This mirrors a similar Mac-to-iPhone feature that Apple added to macOS a couple of years ago; though most PCs these days are sold with webcams, the camera on any reasonably recent Android phone will be a visual upgrade.
Window snapping is getting some "intelligent suggestions" that Microsoft says will "help you quickly organize open apps based on how you use them." And the Widgets view gets a new "focused" view and subcategories that will let you easily switch between widget boards if you want different widgets for different contexts (one for home and one for work, for example).
Enlarge / The Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine is shown at a CVS in 2023. (credit: Getty | Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle )
People ages 65 and up should get another dose of a COVID-19 vaccine this spring, given the age group's higher risk of severe disease and death from the pandemic virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.
Earlier today, an advisory committee for the CDC voted overwhelmingly in favor of recommending the spring booster dose. And late this afternoon, CDC Director Mandy Cohen signed off on the recommendation, allowing boosting to begin.
"Today’s recommendation allows older adults to receive an additional dose of this season’s COVID-19 vaccine to provide added protection," Cohen said in a statement. "Most COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last year were among people 65 years and older. An additional vaccine dose can provide added protection that may have decreased over time for those at highest risk."
Enlarge (credit: Busà Photography | Moment Unreleased)
OpenAI is now boldly claiming that The New York Times "paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products" like ChatGPT to "set up" a lawsuit against the leading AI maker.
In a court filing Monday, OpenAI alleged that "100 examples in which some version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model supposedly generated several paragraphs of Times content as outputs in response to user prompts" do not reflect how normal people use ChatGPT.
Instead, it allegedly took The Times "tens of thousands of attempts to generate" these supposedly "highly anomalous results" by "targeting and exploiting a bug" that OpenAI claims it is now "committed to addressing."
Enlarge / A battle between Ragnar Lothbrok and Oda Nobunaga was unlikely to occur, given the roughly 700 years between their existences. But Age of Empires is a limitless canvas. (credit: World's Edge)
Real-time strategy (RTS) games aren't getting many new titles or mainstream attention these days, but that need not be a problem. Age of Empires 2, one of the best games in the genre—and some would say of all time, period—continues to be playable on modern systems and is even getting new expansions.
Victors and Vanquished gameplay trailer.
Victors and Vanquished, an expansion for Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, arrives March 14. It adds 19 scenarios to the base game, allowing you to play as, among others, Oda Nobunaga, Charlemagne, and Ragnar Lothbrok. The campaigns are inspired by the deep community around Age of Empires but spiffed up with voice acting, music, bug fixes, and "quality of life improvements." Some new mechanics show up in the scenarios, including population migration, political decisions, assassinations, and more. It's $13 on launch day, works with Xbox Game Pass on PC (where AoE2: DE is included), and it's on sale for preorder at about $11 until launch.
Oda Nobunaga's realm in Victors and Vanquished. [credit: World's Edge ]
Developer World's Edge Studios has offered up five expansions for AoE2:DE since its 2019 release, including the Return of Rome DLC in 2023 that shuttled in the civilizations from the original Age of Empires. A big chunk of their inspiration comes from the community. And a huge chunk of that big chunk is Filthydelphia, who had been turning out campaigns like "Kings of West Africa" and "Francis Drake on the Spanish Main" for years. Beyond the maps and army configurations, many of the campaigns contain narrative pieces. "City of Peace" involves a young woman murdered in Madinat al-Salaam, and you, the vizier, must find her murderer. Community scenarios like these make up 14 of the expansion's 19 scenarios.
Reddit filed to go public on Thursday (PDF), revealing various details of the social media company's inner workings. Among the revelations, Reddit acknowledged the threat of future user protests and the value of third-party Reddit apps.
On July 1, Reddit enacted API rule changes—including new, expensive pricing —that resulted in many third-party Reddit apps closing. Disturbed by the changes, the timeline of the changes, and concerns that Reddit wasn’t properly appreciating third-party app developers and moderators, thousands of Reddit users protested by making the subreddits they moderate private, read-only, and/or engaging in other forms of protest, such as only discussing John Oliver or porn.
Protests went on for weeks and, at their onset, crashed Reddit for three hours. At the time, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the protests did not have “any significant revenue impact so far.”
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)
A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders.
According to the court filing, the abuse that the girl, C.O., experienced on Snapchat happened soon after she signed up for the app in 2019. Through its "Quick Add" feature, Snapchat "directed her" to connect with "a registered sex offender using the profile name JASONMORGAN5660." After a little more than a week on the app, C.O. was bombarded with inappropriate images and subjected to sextortion and threats before the adult user pressured her to meet up, then raped her. Cops arrested the adult user the next day, resulting in his incarceration, but his Snapchat account remained active for three years despite reports of harassment, the complaint alleged.
Two years later, at 14, C.O. connected with another convicted sex offender on Snapchat, a former police officer who offered to give C.O. a ride to school and then sexually assaulted her. The second offender is also currently incarcerated, the judge's opinion noted.
Enlarge / Your author actually made it out of this, but not that much further. (credit: Kevin Purdy/Ghost Ship Games)
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor started as a talk over a beer between two development teams, according to Søren Lundgaard, CEO of Ghost Ship Games. Ghost Ship, ramping up its publishing arm after the multi-year success of Deep Rock Galactic, gave Funday Games license to graft its quirky dwarven corporate dystopia onto the auto-shooting likes of Vampire Survivors.
I'm glad they had that beer, and even more glad they've offered up the resulting game for Early Access on Windows PC via Steam (and Steam Deck, and Linux via Proton). Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is my favorite of the genre I sometimes call "strategic walking." I am, of course, biased by the flavor and familiarity with Deep Rock Galactic (DRG). But the elements of DRG Funday has put into DRG: Survivor make for a fun, cohesive game, one that's easy to play in sessions and not be overwhelmed—mentally, at least. Bug-wise, you are absolutely going to get trampled.
Launch trailer for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
We peeked at Survivor in June, and it has gotten a lot of polish since then, along with entirely new character classes, biomes, and upgrade mechanics. The basic mechanics remain the same: You complete mission objectives and mine resources while an increasing horde of insectoids chases you, and your weapons automatically fire at them. Some weapons shoot in wide patterns, some blast up close, and others do things like home in on the creature with the most hit points. The big decisions you make are where do you move to pick up dropped experience points and angle your shooting, and what do you pick for your upgrades when they become available.
Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, and Glen Powell star in Twisters, a standalone film inspired by the 1996 classic.
Like so many others, I adored the 1996 film Twister, now a classic in the "disaster porn" genre and still in frequent weekend and holiday rotation on broadcast and cable networks nearly 30 years later. We're finally getting a follow-up with Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung (Minari). Universal Pictures dropped the official trailer during the Super Bowl on Sunday.
(Some spoilers for the original film below.)
Twister rocked the 1996 box office, racking up $495 million worldwide and snagging an Oscar nomination for special effects. Critics' reactions were more mixed. The film earned well-deserved praise for its special effects and sheer entertainment value. Who can forget the flying cows, the jaw-dropping CGI twisters, and that classic scene when a tornado suddenly rips through a drive-in movie screen in the middle of The Shining? But others criticized the thin character development and dismissed the film as "loud," "dumb," and "a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actor's craft."
Enlarge / A still image from BodyArmor's 2024 "Field of Fake" Super Bowl commercial. (credit: BodyArmor)
Heavily hyped tech products have a history of appearing in Super Bowl commercials during football's biggest game—including the Apple Macintosh in 1984, dot-com companies in 2000, and cryptocurrency firms in 2022. In 2024, the hot tech in town is artificial intelligence, and several companies showed AI-related ads at Super Bowl LVIII. Here's a rundown of notable appearances that range from serious to wacky.
Microsoft Game Day Commercial | Copilot: Your everyday AI companion.
It's been a year since Microsoft launched the AI assistant Microsoft Copilot (as "Bing Chat"), and Microsoft is leaning heavily into its AI-assistant technology, which is powered by large language models from OpenAI. In Copilot's first-ever Super Bowl commercial, we see scenes of various people with defiant text overlaid on the screen: "They say I will never open my own business or get my degree. They say I will never make my movie or build something. They say I'm too old to learn something new. Too young to change the world. But I say watch me."
Then the commercial shows Copilot creating solutions to some of these problems, with prompts like, "Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script," "Write code for my 3d open world game," "Quiz me in organic chemistry," and "Design a sign for my classic truck repair garage Mike's."
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )
Movie companies have lost a third attempt to unmask Reddit users who posted comments discussing piracy. In an order on Wednesday, the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected movie copyright holders' demand for seven years' worth of "IP address log information" on six Reddit users.
In a motion to compel that was filed last month, movie companies Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures argued that "Reddit users do not have a recognized privacy interest in their IP addresses." But in Wednesday's ruling, US Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson said, "The Court finds no reason to believe provision of an IP address is not unmasking subject to First Amendment scrutiny."
Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures previously sued the Internet service provider Frontier Communications, alleging that it is liable for its users' copyright infringement. Seeking evidence for that case, the movie companies subpoenaed Reddit in an attempt to prove that Frontier has no meaningful policy for terminating repeat copyright infringers and that this lack of enforcement drew customers to Frontier's service.
Enlarge / OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman walks on the House side of the US Capitol on January 11, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with investors to raise as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion for AI chip manufacturing, according to people familiar with the matter. The funding seeks to address the scarcity of graphics processing units (GPUs) crucial for training and running large language models like those that power ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini.
The high dollar amount reflects the huge amount of capital necessary to spin up new semiconductor manufacturing capability. "As part of the talks, Altman is pitching a partnership between OpenAI, various investors, chip makers and power providers, which together would put up money to build chip foundries that would then be run by existing chip makers," writes the Wall Street Journal in its report. "OpenAI would agree to be a significant customer of the new factories."
The alleged Pixel Fold 2 prototype. [credit: Android Authority ]
Google still isn't giving up on the foldable smartphone game, and rumored details about the Pixel Fold 2 are slowly coming out. The most eye-popping news is from Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman, who claims to have a live picture of an "early prototype" of the Pixel Fold 2.
A lot about the Fold 2 is different, starting with the camera bump on the back. In every Pixel review, we praise the trademark camera bar for 1) looking good and 2) having a symmetrical design that gives the phone a stable base when placed on a table, and this prototype would seem to walk both of those things back. The supposed Pixel Fold 2 prototype switches to a lopsided rear design with a camera block in the top-left corner of the phone, just like everyone else in the industry. It's hard to tell what's going on with the camera block, but there is certainly room for four camera lenses now instead of the usual three. The top-left post almost looks blank in the photo, though—it could just be a spot for a laser autofocus sensor.
One justification for the wonky camera block could be that the device is narrower and doesn't have room for the full-length camera bar anymore. The report says that "the cover screen is narrower, but more importantly, the inner screen’s aspect ratio is closer to a square." One of the best parts of the Pixel Fold design was that it opened up into a wide-screen device and had enough horizontal room to show a tablet app layout. If you're in the "foldable should open up into a tablet" camp, then a square screen would be a disappointment. The other option, followed mainly by the Galaxy Fold series, is "a foldable should open up to show side-by-side phone apps," and a square screen puts you more in that camp. You could argue that, given the lack of Android tablet apps, a square-ish foldable is a more practical choice. I'd argue the Pixel line should be aspirational and that foldables aren't yet ready for "practicality" arguments, given all the durability issues that still plague the devices.
Enlarge / What is this, some sort of "meta universe" or something? (credit: Disney / Epic)
Entertainment conglomerate Disney has announced plans to invest $1.5 billion for an "equity stake" in gaming conglomerate Epic Games. The financial partnership will also see both companies "collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences," according to a press release issued late Wednesday.
A short teaser trailer announcing the partnership promises that "a new Universe will emerge," allowing players to "play, watch, create, [and] shop" while "discover[ing] a place where magic is Epic."
In announcing the partnership, Disney stressed its long-standing use of Epic's Unreal Engine in projects ranging from cinematic editing to theme park experiences like Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Disney's new gaming universe will also be powered by the Unreal Engine, the company said.
Enlarge / The three recalled pouches linked to lead poisonings. (credit: FDA)
A spice grinder named Carlos Aguilera of Ecuador is the likely source of contaminated cinnamon containing extremely high levels of lead and chromium, which made its way into the apple cinnamon fruit pouches of US toddlers, according to an announcement by the Food and Drug Administration this week.
To date, there have been 413 cases of poisoning across 43 US states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA said Ecuadorian officials at the Agencia Nacional de Regulación, Control y Vigilancia Sanitaria (ARCSA) identified Aguilera as the cinnamon processor and reported to the FDA that his business is no longer operating. Aguilera received raw cinnamon sticks sourced from Sri Lanka, which, according to raw sample testing conducted by ARCSA, had no lead contamination upon their arrival. After Aguilera processed the cinnamon, it was supplied by a company called Negasmart to Austrofoods, the manufacturer of the apple cinnamon pouches.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Apple / Benj Edwards)
The recent launch of the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset has inspired a number of social media stunts, including a viral video of someone wearing the headset while piloting a Tesla Cybertruck set to self-driving mode. On Monday, this prompted US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to issue a warning on social media, reports BBC and The New York Times.
"Reminder—ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times," Buttigieg wrote on the social media platform X.
The Apple Vision Pro's mixed-reality features combine elements of stereoscopic VR with camera passthrough so users can see the world around them while they use the device. This has led to people experimenting with wearing the goggles while walking around in public and filming the results for TikTok and YouTube.
Lupita Nyong'o stars as Sam in A Quiet Place: Day One.
The 2018 post-apocalyptic horror film A Quiet Place deservedly won critical raves and an Oscar for sound editing. Sound, and often the absence thereof, was used to build suspense and create extremely effective jump scares. The 2021 sequel followed the same basic rules. So it's a bit jarring that the official trailer for the new spinoff film, A Quiet Place: Day One, is rife with the sounds of New York City streets. It's written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, who co-wrote the original film with John Krasinski.
(Spoilers below for the first two films.)
As I've written previously, A Quiet Place had a simple premise: in early 2020, sightless extraterrestrial creatures wiped out most of the humans and animals on Earth. They hunt by sound thanks to their hypersensitive hearing and are difficult to kill because they sport tough armored skin. The film centered on the Abbott family, struggling to survive a few months after the initial invasion. Dad Lee (John Krasinski) was an engineer focused on keeping his family alive each day. Wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) was a doctor, pregnant with their fourth child.
While the world awaits closing arguments later this year in the US government's antitrust case over Google's search dominance, a California judge has dismissed a lawsuit from 26 Google users who claimed that Google's default search agreement with Apple violates antitrust law and has ruined everyone's search results.
Users had argued that Google struck a deal making its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser specifically to keep Apple from competing in the general search market. These payments to Apple, users alleged, have "stunted innovation" and "deprived" users of "quality, service, and privacy that they otherwise would have enjoyed but for Google’s anticompetitive conduct." They also allege that it created a world where users have fewer choices, enabling Google to prefer its own advertisers, which users said caused an "annoying and damaging distortion" of search results.
In an order granting the tech companies' motion to dismiss, US District Judge Rita Lin said that users did not present enough evidence to support claims for relief. Lin dismissed some claims with prejudice but gave leave to amend others, allowing users another chance to keep their case—now twice-dismissed—at least partially alive.
Enlarge / Behold: Io (credit: Björn Jónsson)
Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.
Good morning. It's February 6, and today's image reveals the Jovian moon Io in a revelatory new light.
Over the weekend the operators of NASA's Juno spacecraft released a new batch of images showcasing a February 3 flyby of Io, the volcanically active moon orbiting Jupiter. Io, if you didn't know, is the most volcanically active world known to humans.
Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi) 
