For anyone in their 30s and 40s, discussing any topic around Final Fantasy VII comes with obligatory baggage. This applies even if you weren’t into games in 1997 and had no idea what Final Fantasy was — that’s weight that has to be carried into the topic.
I was fresh of high school when Final Fantasy VII debuted. I played it. I liked it. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t feel like I had to in…
HTC’s $999 VR headset Vive Pro Eye has been targeted specifically at enterprises since it debuted last year, augmenting the older Vive Pro model with integrated Tobii eye tracking at a premium. Following a similar January price drop on the Vive Pro, HTC today cut the Vive…
We learned over the weekend that Facebook was ready to roll out its rebuilt Messenger app for iOS with a new design focused on simplicity. Now Facebook has officially launched the new iOS Messenger and says that it’s 2x faster and the app size is 1/4 of the previous…
Podcast: Solving AI’s black box problem
March 2, 2020
What happens when you don’t know why a smart system made a specific decision? AI’s infamous black box system is a big problem, whether you’re an engineer debugging a system or a person wondering why a facial-recognition unlock system doesn’t perform as accurately on you as it does on others.
In this episode of the The AI Show, we talk about engineering knowability into smart systems. Our…
Facebook announced today that it’s starting to roll out a “faster, smaller, and simpler” version of Messenger on iOS. Facebook says the new version of the app will load twice as fast and be one-fourth the size. The rollout is supposed to happen “over the next few…
Xiaomi’s Android One smartphones come with the promise of clean software and quick updates, but the company hasn’t been very good at delivering those updates over the years. Now, Xiaomi has finally delivered Android 10 for the Mi A3, but the rollout has already been…
Apple has tentatively agreed to a $500 million settlement after admitting to slowing down older phones. The deal would provide small payouts for many iPhone owners in the US, plus greater compensation for named class members and attorneys. It covers people who bought any product in the iPhone 6 and 7 lineup — which Apple secretly throttled to conserve battery life.
As Bloomberg Law notes, the…
Apple will pay up to $500 million to settle one of the US lawsuits that came out of the company throttling older iPhones, according to Reuters. Depending on how many people ultimately try to take part in the settlement, you could get about $25 per phone, with a minimum of…
Netmarble has announced Marvel: Future Revolution, a new mobile game based on the superhero brand.
Future Revolution will be an open-world RPG starring a large cast of Marvel heroes and villains. The title does not have a release date, and Netmarble did not say how its…
You’d be forgiven if you didn’t know that Google Home speakers and smart displays double as Bluetooth speakers, but they do. For those who’ve been using that functionality over the years, a strange bug has popped up over the past year or so where Google Home devices disconnect from Bluetooth and, now, Google is finally acknowledging the problem.
Support threads dating back to late 2018…
