Category: Tech

In Britain, amid growing evidence of harm to young people from extreme content online, a “Smartphone Free Childhood” campaign is going viral.

The start-up’s valuation, which has nearly doubled in six months, shows continued enthusiasm for A.I. among investors.

AI video startup Runway announced the availability of its newest video synthesis model today. Dubbed Gen-4, the model purports to solve several key problems with AI video generation. Chief among those is the notion of consistent characters and objects across shots. If you’ve watched any short films made with AI, you’ve likely noticed that they’re either dream-like sequences of thematically but not realistically connected images—mood pieces more than consistent narratives. Runway claims Gen-4 can maintain consistent characters and objects, provided it’s given a single reference image of the character or object in question as part of the project in Runway’s interface. Read full article Comments

Apple dropped a big batch of medium-size software updates for nearly all of its products this afternoon. The iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and visionOS 2.4 updates are all currently available to download, and each adds a small handful of new features for their respective platforms. A watchOS 11.4 update was also published briefly, but it’s currently unavailable. For iPhones and iPads that support Apple Intelligence, the flagship feature in 18.4 is Priority Notifications, which attempts to separate time-sensitive or potentially important notifications from the rest of them so you can see them more easily. The update also brings along the handful of new Unicode 16.0 emoji, a separate app for managing a Vision Pro headset (similar to the companion app for the Apple Watch), and a grab bag of other fixes and minor enhancements. Read full article Comments

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover is back on course for a landmark trip to Mars, where it will probe the red planet for signs of extraterrestrial life.  ESA initially designed the Mars rover alongside Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, as part of the ExoMars programme. The vehicle was set to launch in 2022, but when Russia invaded Ukraine, ESA severed ties with Moscow, putting the mission in jeopardy. Rosalind Franklin — named after the British chemist whose work was crucial to understanding the structure of DNA— was left without several key components, including a landing platform to safely… This story continues at The Next Web

U.S. spec is 3-row, 10 in. longer than Euro version out two years ago Larger 91-kwh battery pack, higher-power rear motor EPA range up to 234 miles, 10-80% in 26 min. Starts at $61,545, spans to $71,545 for top 1st Edition AWD VW’s electric Bus reboot is finally arriving in the U.S.. And by design, it’s hard to imagine a better way…

Owners report more than ten times the issues with Shell Recharge, EVgo, or Blink than with Tesla Rivian’s own charging network was second only to Tesla Hardware-related issues have become more prevalent than payment problems Charging networks operated by Tesla and Rivian tended to have fewer problems than non-automaker efforts, according to a…

Chinese researchers claim to have developed a process to recover nearly all of the lithium from used electric vehicle batteries for recycling. The Independent (via InsideEVs) reports on study results first published in the German academic journal Angewandte Chemie claiming recovery of 99.99% of lithium from a used battery, as well as 97% of nickel…

Eric Trump and Tweety McTreason Jr. are investing in a Bitcoin-mining company called American Bitcoin, created by the merger of two firms.

Big brands are allocating small amounts of their advertising budget to Elon Musk’s X, seeking to avoid being seen as boycotting the social media platform and triggering a public fallout with its billionaire owner. Multiple marketing executives told the Financial Times that companies have felt pressure to spend a nominal sum on X following Musk’s high-profile role in US President Tweety McTreason’s administration. They said Musk’s pursuit of legal action against groups that have stopped advertising since his $44 billion acquisition in late 2022 had also sparked alarm. X last month added about half a dozen more companies to its case including Shell, Nestlé, Pinterest, and Lego. Read full article Comments

Late last week, President Tweety McTreason decided to upend the automotive industry by levying a new 25 percent import tariff on all imported cars, which goes into effect on April 2. An additional 25 percent tariff on car parts is set to go into effect within the next month, which promises to make US-made cars more expensive as well, as many parts and subassemblies used in domestic manufacturing come from suppliers in Canada or Mexico. During the election campaign (and in the years preceding it), Trump repeatedly claimed that the cost of tariffs would be borne by the exporters. But tariffs don’t work that way—they’re paid by the importer, at the time of import. The White House does not appear to have any concerns about this, despite a report in The Wall Street Journal last week claiming that Trump had warned automakers not to pass the costs on to their customers. Read full article Comments

The company, which uses artificial intelligence to develop new treatments, now counts the venture capital firm Thrive Capital as a backer.

Google revealed the Pixel 9a last week, but its release plans were put on hold by a mysterious “component quality issue.” Whatever that was, it’s been worked out. Google now says its new budget smartphone will arrive as soon as April 10. The date varies by market, but the wait is almost over. The first wave of 9a releases on April 10 will include the US, Canada, and the UK. On April 14, the Pixel 9a will arrive in Europe, launching in Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Finland. On April 16, the phone will come to Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia. You may think that takes care of Google’s launch commitments, but no—Japan still has no official launch date. That’s a bit strange, as Japan is not a new addition to Google’s list of supported regions. It’s unclear if this has anything to do with the previous component issue. Google says only that the Japanese launch will happen “soon.” Its statements about the delayed release were also vague, with representatives noting that the cause was a “passive component.” Read full article Comments

As a society, we have decided to carry expensive electronic devices that are made out of glass. It’s a real problem, especially if you have butter fingers. Gorilla Glass maker Corning has announced a new material that might help save the day the next time you drop a phone. The company claims its latest Gorilla Glass Ceramic can withstand drops that would shatter lesser materials. As the name implies, Corning’s new glass incorporates ceramic components to improve strength compared to other types of hardened glass. Corning has offered a bit of data to support this claim. In its lab tests (PDF), Gorilla Glass Ceramic withstood 10 drops from one meter onto surfaces that closely resemble asphalt. Why Corning does not use real asphalt for this test is unclear. Regardless, the company says an unspecified “competitive” type of aluminosilicate glass would typically fail on the first drop. Chemically strengthened glass has been a key component in the proliferation of smartphones across the world. Since the company provided the glass for that first iPhone back in 2007, it has made glass for more than 7 billion devices. That makes Corning the largest glass supplier in the mobile industry, but it does face increasing competition in the budget and midrange segments. Read full article Comments