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Mashable is a leading source for news, information & resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's 25 million monthly unique visitors and 10 million social media followers have become one of the most engaged online news communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.
Updated: 2 hours 16 min ago

Let AI do the heavy lifting with Write Bot for just $20

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 05:00

TL;DR: Through April 2, use AI to your advantage with a lifetime subscription to Write Bot Pro on sale for just $19.97.

We all have a lot on our plates. Busy professionals across industries have a multitude of tasks to complete daily, including writing.

Artificial intelligence has opened up opportunities to streamline workloads everywhere. Creating written content using AI support can drastically cut the time used and remove some of the frustration. That's why Write Bot could be a lifesaver. It's currently on sale for just $19.97 for a lifetime subscription through April 2.

Write Bot was created to generate natural-sounding content using machine learning algorithms and special language processing techniques. Within minutes, it can write the marketing material, blog content, or product descriptions you need to reduce your workload. It's also a terrific option for SEO meta descriptions, social posts, business plans, and more.

Select your Use Case and fill in the blanks with as much information as you'd like. Write Bot will generate your content, and you can then edit it as you see fit.

You can also use this tool to summarize info, translate text, and more. 

This offer is only available to new Write Bot users. You'll get a million AI words per month.

Add this lifetime subscription to Write Bot Pro to your productivity arsenal while it's on sale for just $19.97 until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: Write Bot Write Bot™ Harness the Power of AI Content Creation: Lifetime Pro Subscription $19.97 at the Mashable Shop
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Access useful features on your Mac with MacPilot for just $30

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 05:00

TL;DR: Through April 2, you can gain over 1,000 Mac features and enhance your user experience with a lifetime license to MacPilot for just $29.97 (reg. $99).

We Mac users love our machines. Wouldn't it be exciting to level up your Mac experience with a key to hidden features? That's what MacPilot is made to do. And through April 2, you can get a lifetime license for just $29.97 (reg. $99).

Unlock your Mac's untapped power while still enjoying the Apple interface you know and love. This offer gets you lifetime access to over 1,200 features. And the best part is that you don't need to employ complex file operations to do so.

Have some fun with your Mac using MacPilot while optimizing performance. Add spacers and stacks to the dock, display certain hidden files in Finder, change the file format of the screenshot, toggle animations, optimize and repair your system, and more.

MacPilot makes it easy to see everything about your computer, including the graphics card, RAM, and serial number.

This lifetime license is available on up to three desktop devices. It also includes all updates needed.

Don't settle for a one-size-fits-all Mac experience. With MacPilot, you have the power to customize your Mac to suit your needs. 

Take the pilot's seat while using your Mac with this lifetime license to MacPilot — on sale for just $29.97 (reg. $99) until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: Koingo MacPilot Lifetime License $29.97 at the Mashable Shop
$99.00 Save $69.03 Get Deal

Get a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN Pro for $25

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 05:00

TL;DR: Through April 2, lifetime access to FastestVPN PRO on 15 devices is just $24.97 for a limited time.

Online security and privacy are both extremely important when it comes to using the internet, so having a reliable virtual private network (VPN) is usually a good idea. Whether you’re conducting online banking, working with certain sensitive data, or just want some added security, you could benefit from using a VPN.

FastestVPN PRO offers a comprehensive solution that not only helps protect your digital life but enhances your online experience with a plethora of advanced features. Through April 2, you can get a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN PRO while it’s on sale for $24.97.

FastestVPN PRO lives up to its name by providing lightning-fast speeds with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. With access to over 350 high-speed servers globally, users can enjoy seamless browsing, streaming, and downloading without any lag or buffering. Whether you're accessing the internet from your Windows PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Smart TV, or router, FastestVPN ensures a smooth and uninterrupted connection.

Using the WireGuard protocol, users experience secure and unhindered speeds of up to 10 GBPS on the fastest available servers. The inclusion of double VPN servers adds an extra layer of protection, encrypting your data twice for enhanced privacy. Plus, the Internet Kill Switch feature ensures that your IP address remains hidden even if your connection drops unexpectedly, preventing any potential breaches.

The inclusion of a NAT firewall and ad blocker ensures that your device is shielded from potential threats and intrusive advertisements. Additionally, the AES 256-bit encryption safeguards your data with military-grade protection, giving you peace of mind knowing that your information is secure.

This VPN is very user-friendly, making it accessible to users of all levels. The intuitive interface allows for easy navigation and setup, while the multi-device login feature enables you to protect up to 15 devices simultaneously.

Until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT, you can grab a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN PRO on sale for $24.97.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: FastestVPN FastestVPN PRO: Lifetime Subscription (15 Devices) $24.97 at the Mashable Shop
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This lifetime subscription to an AdGuard Family plan is just $23

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 05:00

TL;DR: Through April 2, pick up a lifetime subscription to AdGuard's Family Plan (on up to nine devices) while it's on sale for just $22.97 (reg. $79).

There is so much to love about the internet. The ability to hop online, buy something, and have it arrive almost instantly is pretty cool. And while having enormous amounts of information at our fingertips is helpful, those unwanted ads we have to suffer through are not. Of course, people have already figured out a way around that, like the people at AdGuard. 

Through April 2, new users can avoid annoying advertisements with a lifetime subscription to AdGuard's Family Plan for just $22.97 (reg. $79). That covers up to nine devices for life.

AdGuard is an intuitive ad blocker that can give you a more efficient, less frustrating online experience. In addition to blocking ads, AdGuard acts as a privacy tool that helps protect your devices from malware and offers parental controls for the young ones in the group. That means you can easily set the kids up with restricted access to inappropriate sites.

This ad-blocking privacy solution can work to hide your data from trackers and analyzers. It's also compatible with a wide variety of devices, including Apple and Android, so you can cover everyone in the family, even if they use different tech brands.

Block ads and enjoy a safer, more streamlined online experience with a lifetime subscription to AdGuard's Family Plan (on up to nine devices) for just $22.97 (reg. $79) until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: AdGuard Software AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime Subscription $22.97 at the Mashable Shop
$79.99 Save $57.02 Get Deal

Secure lifetime access to this PDF converter for under £20

Wed, 03/27/2024 - 01:00

TL;DR: A lifetime license to PDF Converter Pro is on sale for £19.80, saving you 75% on list price.

In this digital world, it can be incredibly useful to have tools to make some of the more time-consuming jobs easier. Case in point, this PDF Converter Pro was created to make easier work of converting files to and from the PDF format. A lifetime license is on sale for just £19.80 through April 2.

Available only to new users, students, professionals, and business owners alike will find it easier to change document formats. Convert PDFs to a variety of formats, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Text, HTML, PNG, and JPG. You can also create PDFs from Word, Excel, PPT, and images to be more efficient and back up your work.

Say goodbye to manual retyping and tedious formatting — PDF Converter Pro was made to transform your documents with just a few clicks. It also has other tricks up its sleeve, including the ability to merge and split PDF docs, extract images, compress, and more. You can even secure your PDFs through easy encryption.

You need to have Windows 8 or higher or macOS X 10.8 or later. You'll get access on two devices for life, with updates included.

Take control of documents and streamline your workflow with this invaluable tool. Get a lifetime license to the PDF Converter Pro for just £19.80.

Opens in a new window Credit: PDF Converter Pro PDF Converter Pro (Lifetime License) £19.80 at the Mashable Shop Get Deal

Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for March 27

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 22:00

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.

If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for March 27's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Wordle.

What's the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.

Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:

Piecered by a bug.

Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no letters that appear twice.

Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...

Today's Wordle starts with the letter S.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. What's the answer to Wordle today?

Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to Wordle #1012 is...

STUNG.

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

NYT Connections today: See hints and answers for March 27

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 21:00

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for March 27's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Tweet may have been deleted

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Tweet may have been deleted

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

  • Yellow: Corrections

  • Green: Argue

  • Blue: Casino games

  • Purple: Types of chips

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

  • Yellow: Update for Accuracy

  • Green: Quarrel

  • Blue: Games of Chance

  • Purple: ___Chip

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to Connections #289 is...

What is the answer to Connections today
  • Update for Accuracy: AMEND, CORRECT, FIX, REVISE

  • Quarrel: FIGHT, ROW, SCRAP, TIFF

  • Games of Chance: BINGO, LOTTERY, ROULETTE, WAR

  • ___Chip: BLUE, COMPUTER, POKER, POTATO

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday's Connections.

How much is Spotify Premium in the US?

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 18:47

Everything is better without ads ruining the vibe, and your perfect playlist deserves to play on uninterrupted. Don't believe us? As of December 2023, Spotify had more than 230 million Premium subscribers enjoying ad-free songs, podcasts, and audiobooks. Here's how each of the platform's Premium plans break down.

What do I get with a free Spotify account?

You'll have access to Spotify's music library, but you'll have to listen to ads and won't be able to download music to your phone for times when you don't have W-Fi access (like on planes).

What do I get with a Spotify Premium plan?

If you want an ad-free and offline listening experience, Premium is the way to go. You'll get ad-free access to Spotify's entire music library and be able to download music and podcasts to your device. Plus, you have the option to bump up the quality of your audio, play songs in any order, and create a listening queue, none of which are available on Spotify's free plan.

SEE ALSO: Spotify is dabbling in online learning What are Spotify's Premium plan options?
  • Premium Individual (Two months free, then $10.99/month): This plan is for one person and includes all the Premium features.

  • Premium Student (One month free, then $5.99/month): Students at an accredited higher education institution can get 50% off all Premium features for up to 4 years, in addition to access to Hulu's ad-supported plan at no extra cost (a $1.99/ month value for students).

  • Premium Duo ($14.99/month): Two people can each get their own Premium account with Premium Duo. Spotify stipulates that these two people must be living together but, since there's no way for them to know that, you could probably split this plan with a bestie or sibling. You'll also get 15 hours of audiobooks listening time per month.

  • Premium Family ($16.99/ month): This plan offers a discounted rate for families of up to six, and each member gets their own account. One family member, the "plan manager," pays for the plan, manages members, and can set explicit content filters for members.

    This plan is great for parents who want to ensure that their little ones aren't listening to explicit material, or parents who want to give their child their own account in the Spotify Kids app. On the Premium Family plan, only the plan managers get 15 hours of audiobook listening time per month.

Our favorite tech gifts: Treat yourself to a new toy with that tax return money

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 15:47

Once upon a time, kids (and kids at heart) longed for the biggest present in the pile. But size doesn't matter when picking out the best tech gifts. Some of the year's top gadgets are small enough to fit inside your pocket, and thanks to digital downloads, many popular gaming gifts take up no physical space whatsoever.

Our tech gift guide includes some of the best new releases of the year, most of which we've written about and reviewed. From the new Nintendo Switch OLED Mario Red Edition to new Amazon devices, we've focused on the gadgets our editors really loved this year — the true drool-worthy I can't believe you got this for me gifts.

Here are over 50 of Mashable's favorite gift-worthy gadgets and tech gifts.

How to screen record on an iPhone

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 14:56

Sometimes a simple screenshot doesn't suffice.

When you want to show off a new app feature you're experimenting with or need to share a looong conversation with a trusted group of friends, it's better to record a video. If you have an iPhone, recording your screen can be done in a few simple steps. Here's how.

SEE ALSO: How to easily combine photos on an iPhone Total Time
  • Less than 1 minute
What You Need
  • iPhone

Step 1: Add Screen Recording to Control Center

Go to Settings > Control Center and tap the plus sign to add the Screen Recording tool. This enables you to prepare for the next step and easily start recording.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Step 2: Open Control Center

Open your Control Center on newer iPhone models by swiping down from the upper righthand corner. On iPhone models with a home screen, open Control Center by swiping up from the bottom.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Step 3: Hit record

Tap the Screen Recording button which is the circle icon of the recording symbol. Once you do this, you'll receive a three-second countdown. You'll know your iPhone is recording when there's a red dot at the top of the screen.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Step 4: Make your video

Now that your iPhone is recording, navigate to what you want to record. Whatever action you perform on the device is being captured, so essentially your iPhone records what you see. To stop recording, tap the red dot at the top of your screen, and then tap the Stop button to end the video.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Step 5: Find and edit your recording

Once you hit Stop, your recording is automatically saved to your Photos app. From here you can edit it however you would with any other video, like cutting, cropping, or adding filters.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Where's the AI in these 'AI-powered' products for your home? An explanation.

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 14:01

Around the release of ChatGPT in 2022, AI became the buzzword du jour for tech investors and startups, so it's only natural that in our tech-saturated consumer world, AI would become a buzzword in home electronics and appliances just a short time later. And boy is it ever a buzzword. If you're shopping for an appliance with "AI" shoehorned into its specs, someone will sell you something. 

But you may find yourself the proud owner of say, an artificially intelligent toaster, and be left with some regular old hot bread, and a few questions about where all that supposed AI went. 

Artificial intelligence is a capacity or an attribute, not a thing, and it's highly subjective: the ability to simulate human intelligence, more or less covers it. Philosophers and computer scientists still have to hash out the finer points of what counts as artificial intelligence, what its potential is or is not, and how contemporary "generative AI" applications like ChatGPT fit into the picture, but that's above my pay grade as a tech journalist. What I can tell you, however, is what companies currently market as artificial intelligence. 

So a quick look at some home appliances is a fantastic way to see what companies think AI is, and what they think consumers want AI to be. Keep in mind that anything automated or capable of performing a calculation can be considered AI if you broaden your definition enough, but that's an obvious cop-out. If you buy one of these devices for its AI capabilities and feel like you didn't get any actual AI, it's doubtful you can get a refund, but at least after reading this, you'll have an overview of how much, or how little, intelligence you can really expect from a gadget. 

Here's where the AI is in five pieces of technology for your home: 

Nest Learning Thermostat

What it is: Google's Wi-Fi enabled thermostat that looks like a giant, glowing watch battery, found in approximately 100 percent of Airbnb units, and approximately zero percent of rented homes. 

What it does: When you first use it, by turning its ever-so-satisfying wheeled exterior to dial in your preferred temperature, it learns how hot or cold you want it to be at different times of the day. Then, if all goes according to plan, it optimizes your A/C and heater to fit your preferences without your constant input. If you have a smart home system and you integrate your Nest thermostat into it, you can do things like use voice commands to change the temperature. 

Where the AI is: Google's overview of the Nest thermostat actually doesn't mention AI (perhaps because Google is still struggling to get its story straight about the topic in general) but AI is nonetheless a huge part of the marketing for Nest products, and shows up in all sorts of pages about Nest and Google Home, including an explainer on using AI-generated scripts to generate climate-control-centric Google Home Routines. So it really can integrate with generative AI.

As far as AI in the classic functions of the Nest itself goes, Google software engineer Ramya Bhagavatula told an official Google blogger in 2020, "We’re using people’s preferences and adding machine learning to find you ways to help save energy." Optimizing temperature with a Nest thermostat involves AI algorithms that used to run on the device, and now run in the cloud. "Originally, each thermostat operated on its own, but now we have the power to make intelligent decisions based on anonymized data, which might not have been possible if we were just looking at each individual device," Bhagavatula explained.

Google Nest Thermostat $99.99 at Amazon
$129.99 Save $30.00 One of the most popular thermostats in the world. Shop Now Samsung 2024 Bespoke 4-Door Flex Refrigerator with AI Family Hub Plus

What it is: A refrigerator with one of its four doors almost entirely taken up by what looks like an iPad the size of a coffee table. 

What it does: Most users treat Samsung's Family Hub-enabled refrigerators — or any smart fridges — like refrigerators that can also play MrBeast videos. But they can be integrated with the rest of your smart home if you have one, so if you're a virtuosic tech adopter, you can use it to do all sorts of gee-whiz things like answer your door via your smart doorbell while standing in your kitchen. 

Where the AI is: Samsung's Family Hub predates the 2022 AI explosion. It has always included a system for streamlining the process of turning your refrigerated ingredients into meals using software that, say, suggests recipes based on foods you've indicated are inside it, automates shopping lists to suit those recipes, and orders the food you need via in-fridge versions of shopping apps. That's not the AI part.

The new AI Family Hub feature announced at CES 2024 puts AI front and center in its marketing, but if you're imagining an artificially intelligent voice assistant who helps you cook, it doesn't look like Samsung has even tried to do that. The legitimate, unambiguous use of contemporary AI in this fridge appears to be a new camera with integrated AI computer vision so that your fridge can independently recognize ingredients inside of it, such as a tomato. This saves you the trouble of manually informing the fridge you're a tomato owner. Your tomato can then be swept up into the broader, non-AI, Family Hub software ecosystem.

Opens in a new window Credit: screenshot via Samsung Samsung Bespoke 4-Door French Door Refrigerator
Note: This is not the still-unreleased AI version Shop Now CatGenie A.I. Self-Washing Cat Box

What it is: An automated cat box hooked up to your house's plumbing system that can pipe cat urine and feces into a nearby toilet or wastewater let-out. 

What it does: Even for an automated cat box, this is a surprisingly sophisticated device in terms of its setup and number of moving parts. Once the CatGenie detects a cat has conducted its business and left, liquid waste is drained through the bottom, thanks to proprietary non-clumping granules in place of litter, which the mechanism then washes and dries. Solids are sifted out, and shunted up a chute into a sort of macerator, where they're turned into a slurry that can then be delivered to a toilet bowl with the liquid waste. What a time to be a cat parent. 

Where the AI is: To my surprise, the basic mechanics of the CatGenie haven't really changed in over a decade. Nonetheless, according to the website, the "A.I." version, "uses artificial intelligence to give you and your cat the most customized and personalized waste management system ever invented for cats." The AI version also seems to be the only type of CatGenie sold new on the CatGenie website, so there may well not be a regular CatGenie anymore — only CatGenie A.I.

It's a mystery which CatGenie capabilities should be thought of as AI. There's no evidence that it has — or would benefit from — computer vision rather than something simpler like an infrared sensor to recognize that a cat has entered and exited. It does now come with an app, allowing you to look over a log of your cat's litter box visits, and control how often it scoops and self-cleans, but a clear AI-enhancement within the app for optimizing your cat's usage of the box relative to the number of cleans is not in evidence. 

Mashable has reached out to CatGenie for an explanation of its A.I. claims, and will include them if we receive a response.

CatGenie A.I. Self-Cleaning, Fully-Flushing, Self-Scooping, Automatic Cat Box Small $479.00 at Amazon
A sophisticated, self-cleaning cat box, AI or not. Shop Now Roborock S7 MaxV Robot Vacuum (featuring ReactiveAI 2.0 Obstacle Avoidance)

What it is: A robot vacuum purporting to have a particularly easy time avoiding obstacles and pet poop compared to similar products.

What it does: If you can't wrap your head around the idea of getting a robot vacuum, that may be because like most people, you're more of a slob than you would care to admit, and your floors aren't reliably clear enough of junk to give a robot free reign without worrying that it will, say, choke to death on a sock. This robot will actually avoid said sock. 

Where the AI is: ReactiveAI 2.0 Obstacle Avoidance is a somewhat controversial feature, because it doesn't just use something like LIDAR, infrared, or photocell censors, which are more for detecting boundaries than for avoiding objects that shouldn't be vacuumed over. Instead, it sees into the nooks and crannies of your filthy house with an old-fashioned RGB camera. Roborock's S7 MaxV features actual AI-based computer vision that "knows" its looking at a cat turd, and will give that sucker the wide berth it deserves. Reviews suggest it's the real deal, again, if you don't mind the intrusive RGB camera, which is currently a necessity for enabling AI image detection. 

Opens in a new window Credit: Sscreenshot via Amazon Roborock S7 MaxV Robot Vacuum and Sonic Mop Note: This model was out-of-stock as of this writing Shop Now Briiv Pro 2.0 'The World's First AI Powered Air Purifier'

What it is: A tabletop air purifier that draws in air through some nice green moss and a disc of coconut fibers, followed by a conventional filter. It's also "The World's First AI Powered Air Purifier."

What it does: It purifies indoor air and the moss looks nice. 

Where the AI is: This product's successful Kickstarter page says it works by "harnessing a unique AI machine learning algorithm," making it "the most advanced air quality monitoring system on the planet." However, it's not abundantly clear that there is anything about this device that would qualify as more "artificially intelligent" than any other air purifier with an air monitor that allows it to respond to pollutants in the air by turning on.

A representative from Briff using the name Serena Nash told Mashable that Briiv does use AI. In an email, they explained that the device "has the library of information we have been teaching it built in and then it’s running an algorithm with that data, but the active part of the machine learning is cloud based." The model itself is "not a large language model like IBM or chat GPT, so we can’t just talk to it with text prompts like the big mainstream models, we are more like a neural network model," Nash explained.

This email left us with further questions — particularly whether or not Briiv is claiming to be using neural networks for deep learning, or not. Or alternatively, whether the company is using terms like "AI" and "algorithm" in some other way. As of this writing Briiv still had not expanded after a request for clarity.

Opens in a new window Credit: an air purifier Briiv Pro 2.0 - AI Powered Air Purifier at Indiegogo
Shop Now

Apple confirms dates for WWDC 2024

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:36

Try to contain your surprise: Apple is going to hold a big event later this year.

No, not the one announcing new iPhones, though that's inevitable, too. This one will be focused on the next versions of iOS, iPadOS, and the rest of Apple's software suite. That's right, the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference is starting on June 10, per an official announcement from Apple on Tuesday.

SEE ALSO: I used the Apple Vision Pro on a flight to Costa Rica — and it was chaotic Tweet may have been deleted

Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak gave us the biggest clue as to what to expect in his tweet, with the conspicuous capitalization of "Absolutely Incredible." A CNBC report came out not 24 hours prior to Apple's announcement claiming that the company would have some kind of AI-infused app store available by June. This could be a cornerstone of iOS 18, which we don't know a lot about so far.

WWDC is typically not a hardware event, though it is worth noting that Apple Vision Pro was announced there a year ago. Maybe that'll happen again, but given Joswiak's tweet (and the fact that Apple is generally not that subtle about these things), software might take the forefront yet again in 2024.

Why don't we have AI-powered robot butlers yet? An investigation.

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 13:02

In a very telling interview at Davos earlier this year, Bill Gates spelled out who AI is meant to help: "It is so dramatic how it improves white collar productivity. And later, with the robotics — not yet — but eventually, blue collar productivity," Gates told Bloomberg. AI that can make you a hundred times faster at writing emails? Your wish is Big Tech's command. AI that can build an entire car? Hold that thought. They're working on it.

But if you're like most people — meaning nothing like Bill Gates — the biggest productivity suck of all is your endless list of chores. And in this regard, AI is decidedly not coming to our rescue anytime soon, even if the business world is hyping up humanoid robots like crazy right now.

For instance, a startup called Figure released a demo the other day of what seems like the humanoid robot of my dreams: when asked for something to eat, it hands the user an apple, and it uses an integrated OpenAI large language model to explain why it made that decision while it puts some trash in a bin. Then it puts some dishes away.

Figure's concept robot makes for an impressive demo, but unless this company has some truly unique engineering going on behind the scenes, it's probably just a demo. The robot doesn't walk, and sticks to a narrow and tightly scripted routine. This might be the mechanical chosen one, but probably not. Decades of demos like this have come and gone, and we still don't have robots in our homes that actually pick up trash and do the dishes.

This notion has existed since the conception of "robots" as an idea — by which I mean the 1920 Czech play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which coined the term "robot" in the first place. R.U.R.'s robots were humanoid figures, a.k.a. androids, meant to toil away while their human overlords chillaxed. But even though technology has accelerated to the point where we now have machines that can respond to simple written prompts with vibrant moving images of, say, fictional humanoid robots, or any other fantasy scenarios we care to conjure, physical robots only seem to bring joy to real-world humans if the human in question is named Jeff Bezos. Meanwhile, for average individuals, robots are mostly objects of frustration, if not outright fear.  

As for literal robot servants to act as our in-house butlers, it's begun to feel like that century-old idea needs an additional century to percolate down from concept to consumer reality.

To the world's estimated 10,000 actual human butlers, that must feel like good news. AI automation seems to be jeopardizing a lot of gigs right now, so who wants to consign yet another category of flesh-and-blood people to the dustbin of permanent unemployment? At the risk of splitting hairs, though, come on: that's just not what we're talking about when we talk about the conspicuous absence of robot butlers. The world has about eight billion people, most of whom are plagued by chore loads that seem to only ever grow and never get finished (particularly if they are women).

If they were actually useful, robot butlers would be chore-killing appliances rather than snooty status symbols. I'm pretty confident the remaining butlers in the world — highly skilled managers of palatial estates who know which freshly polished rifle is for pheasants and which one is for foxes — would get to keep their weird antique jobs, even if Apple really did start manufacturing iJeeves.

Ideally, then, the robot butler revolution wouldn't be an example of automation wrecking lives. It could instead be a true example of progress — technology for the people. And yet, there's no sign of it anywhere. 

Here are the reasons why:

Robots move... robotically

In 1988, Carnegie-Mellon roboticist Hans Moravec, writing in his book Mind children: the future of robot and human intelligence, stumbled upon a key piece of robot wisdom. A misconception by snobby software programmers at the time held that robots were clumsy because they were being built by troglodyte gearheads, and once intellectuals took over, robots would be performing brain surgery on their own in no time. However, he wrote, "it has become clear that it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult-level performance in solving problems on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility."

This excerpt inspired what's now known as Moravec's Paradox: the idea, paraphrased from Moravec, that what's hard for humans is easy for robots, and vice versa.

So while you may have seen plenty of footage of Boston Dynamics robots, such as the humanoid prototype Atlas, performing tasks with eerie precision, that's just because you're seeing the product of hours of rehearsals in which the robot botched something basic countless times before finally getting it right a single time while the camera was rolling. Boston Dynamics doesn't hide this fact, by the way, but its videos of clumsy robots don't go as viral — because they don't prompt thousands of social media posts all making the same "we're all gonna die" joke.

In short, even as we begin to imagine — and struggle to clearly define — "general artificial intelligence," any AI that wants to be embodied in the physical world will still need to share the actual environments we humans inhabit, which include irregular and diverse surfaces and objects, occasional wetness, things with unevenly dispersed holes and protrusions in them, softness, mushiness, lumpiness, breakability, and crumbliness. This is good for anyone who worries about an AI apocalypse, but it's bad for anyone worried about remembering to put laundry in the dryer while a toddler has a tantrum. As things stand today, the helpers and the hurt-ers will instantly be defeated by banana peels.

Robot arms and hands are built for fumbling

In a 1952 episode of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ethel were given the prototypical factory job: picking up little chocolates with their hands, wrapping them in paper, and putting them back down on a conveyor belt. Only a real goofball could screw up something so basic.

But today's robot hands remain hilariously clumsy, even in basic situations like this one. In a TEDx talk from earlier this year, UC Berkeley roboticist Ken Goldberg explains that robotic hands and arms have to deal with a multifaceted problem he reduces down to the word "uncertainty." Robots, Goldberg says, are "uncertain" about their own controls, uncertain about what they can "perceive" with their onboard cameras, and uncertain about physics, meaning they're forced to deal with "microscopic surface topography" that makes objects in the real world behave in totally novel ways even when seemingly all variables are removed (Try sliding your smartphone from one side of your desk to the other with one finger, and then imagine a robot trying to do what you just did).

Goldberg is partially using his TEDx talk to pitch his own robot company — designed to perform tasks almost exactly like Lucy's — picking up diverse objects from bins in warehouses, scanning them, and putting them in smaller bins. It's downright astonishing that robots narrowly targeted at such basic tasks remain so cutting edge.

A brand new paper by Stanford roboticist Cheng Chi and seven coauthors explains why, 72 years after Lucy's candy factory job, robot hands are still even clumsier than a screwball comedian's. The paper, a sort of open-source manifesto for robot builders is called, "Universal Manipulation Interface: In-The-Wild Robot Teaching Without In-The-Wild Robots," and it vividly describes today's state-of-the-art tools for these sorts of tasks: simplified, viselike "grippers" trained by humans holding them like little puppets and performing tasks — things like picking up a chocolate, putting it in a wrapper, and setting it back down. Unfortunately, the paper notes, "While users can theoretically collect any actions with these hand-held devices, much of that data can not be transferred to an effective robot policy."

The paper then goes on to provide a sort of open-source recipe for a better gripper training system, including a universal physical gripper anyone can make with consumer-grade tools. Cheng's hope is that robot labs around the world can work together to build vast public datasets of "policy" for robots to follow, and with a little luck, the Universal Manipulation Interface (UMI) will take over the space, perhaps enabling robot hands in the near future to do, say, a tenth of what one Lucy can do with her human hands. Even that would be a colossal achievement.

Robot "thinking" is too rigid for the real world

"Err-or. Err-or."

The idea that a robot will break (or explode) if slightly confused is a well worn trope known among trope aficionados as the "Logic Bomb." It appeared five times in Futurama alone. The thing about logic bombs, though, is that they're pretty close to robot reality.

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In 2019, the East Coast supermarket chain Stop & Shop rolled out a line of robots that endlessly navigated the store purportedly scanning the floor for messes, and then... cleaning them up? Nope. It just sounds the alarm for a human employee to come fix the problem. This often meant the robot would just stall in an aisle for long stretches of time, emitting an audible "danger" alarm over a non-hazard like a single tissue or a lid on the floor. Employees reported finding it pretty useless.

In our age of generative AI, it feels particularly absurd that the latest models can differentiate photos of mutts from those of purebred dogs, or hold court about the intricacies of translating Proust, but physical robots are still limited to one or a handful of very basic functions, and they still constantly glitch out when trying to carry out the same basic tasks as a 20 year old Roomba.

A concept called "open-vocabulary" robot manipulation, however, is supposed to act as something like a bridge between Roombas and ChatGPT. The models can process natural language prompts into computer-friendly ones and zeroes. Those ones and zeroes can then turn all that information into robot commands. In theory.

But another brand new paper, "MOKA: Open-Vocabulary Robotic Manipulation through Mark-Based Visual Prompting," by a four-person team led by Berkeley's Fangchen Liu, describes the problem. The authors note that "large models pre-trained on Internet-scale data still lack the capabilities to understand 3D space, contact physics, and robotic control, not to mention the knowledge about the embodiment and environment dynamics in each specific scenario, creating a large gap between the promising trend[s] in computer vision and natural language processing and applying them to robotics."

In the new, endlessly flexible system the authors propose, images are tied to the actual movements a given robot either requires – or is capable of – given its environment. Images are described with words, allowing the model to use vision not just to predict limitations and parameters for action, but to identify possibilities. That is to say, if the Stop & Shop robot were equipped with this system, it could identify a "hazard" like eleven spilled jellybeans, but then also something in the environment like a "broom," capable of "sweeping" the jellybeans up. If it were equipped with some arms, and a nice pair of grippers, the possibilities would be endless. Again, in theory.

But that may not matter much, because...

The economics of robot butlers just don't add up

To paraphrase a saying often attributed to sci-fi author William Gibson, the robot butlers of the future may arrive soon, but that doesn't mean they will be evenly distributed.

The current crop of cutting edge consumer robots doesn't leave me with much hope that I'll ever be able to afford a functional robot butler. For example, products in the "Sanbot" line of robots from Qihan Technology can do some cool stuff, but they're explicitly designed to replace retail and concierge workers and point of sale systems, and those are priced at around $10,000 (though I wasn't able to find a retailer with a website I would rate as trustworthy). Practically speaking, Sanbot devices aren't even functional workers though. They seem to be more like marketing gimmicks — a hi-tech inflatable tube man, essentially.

Meanwhile, a Segway Loomo, which is basically a smartphone attached to a miniature Segway scooter that can follow people around a stair-free environment would set me back $2,055.30 if I bought one right now on Amazon, which I currently feel no inclination to do. A Unitree Go2, which is a pretty amazing knockoff of Boston Dynamics' robotic dog Spot — minus the all-important arm — would cost me $2,399. These are the closest things to butlers I can buy right now, but they can't be of any real help around the house.

Goldman Sachs, for its part, predicted "a market of up to US$154bn by 2035 in a blue-sky scenario" for humanoid robots according to a 2022 report from the banking firm's research department. Goldman also pointed out that "robot makers will need to bring down production costs by roughly 15-20% a year in order for the humanoid robot to be able to pay for itself in two years." That's for business robots, not butlers.

The point is that robots are way outside my price range, and seem like they will be for the foreseeable future. Roughly speaking, $10-20,000 seems to be the price range companies have in mind. At these prices, they'd better not chip my ceramics when they do the dishes, but if they truly crushed my household to-do list flawlessly, I might save up. I doubt I'm alone in that.

Still, the most depressing omen of all — and the one that might best sum up the whole state of robot butlers — is the fact that Elon Musk has a division of Tesla chipping away at a humanoid robot called Optimus. Musk says Optimus will cost $20,000, and at an event where he talked about his robots, he said "the robots will be able to do everything, bar nothing." Considering the apparent truth value of the average statement from the richest man in the world, all of his promises about robots fill me with certainty that even way-too-expensive robot butlers are never going to arrive.

Baltimore's Key Bridge collapse put the internet's conspiracy brain on gross display

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:59

In the early hours Tuesday, in Baltimore, Maryland, a massive cargo ship rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bridge collapsed shortly thereafter, reportedly plunging eight people into the waters below, six of whom are still missing.

It is a horrific tragedy. It was also caught on live cams and seemingly filmed by nearby witnesses. The footage is bone-chilling.

Yet, nearly immediately, this horrible incident was met with conspiracy theories and people just asking questions despite a complete and total lack of evidence suggesting this was anything but a tragic accident. It puts into stark relief just how broken the internet's collective brain is, and, relatedly, just how much being online has steered folks toward conspiratorial, nonsensical thinking. To a certain subset of people, it appears, nothing can be as it seems — there has to be a nefarious or salacious backbone to any story, no matter how obviously tragic.

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Here's a disturbing and sad thought. A couple hours after most of the East Coast woke up — and some eight hours after the accident itself — and the conspiracies are already too numerous to fully count. The octopus' tentacles have already spread. That's the way these things go. Folks latch onto one piece of "info" here, another "thought" there, and the conspiracies get confusing and nearly impossible to comprehend. Think of how something like QAnon bleeds into Epstein conspiracies which fuses with political conspiracies, and forever and ever it goes on.

SEE ALSO: What happens when people talk to their therapists about conspiracy theories? It's tricky.

But soon after the bridge collapse, one popular theory popped up prominently in the comment sections of TikTok videos of the accident. There were lots of just asking questions about how there were so many angles of the collapse. People wondered how witnesses would just know to film at that exact time. Seriously, this type of comment was posted quite a lot on disturbing video footage. How is that peoples' first thought?

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @toby_jg02 Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @toby_jg02

Let's take a step back and be logical here. Why would there be so many videos? First, the Key Bridge spanned the Baltimore Harbor, which is a major port. There are live cams on the bridge and harbor. Many of the videos seemed to come from those cameras. Also, if you happened to be in the area and awake shortly before 2 a.m. — Baltimore is a densely populated city with people out at all times — you might begin filming when you heard the likely horrific and loud sound of a cargo ship ramming into a bridge. The fact that there are multiple angles of the accident is far from surprising. It's 2024. It's expected, at least if you stop to think about it for a moment. Also, not for nothing, but if some shadowy group or entity was going to do something as horrific as this why would they want to have it filmed? As a famous Baltimore-based show pointed out — "is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?" — someone wouldn't purposefully create evidence to incriminate themselves.

But that's where the internet is. If anything happens online — and, well, everything happens online — there are bound to be theories about how things are not as they seem. Think of the recent Kate Middleton debacle, which obviously inspired more mainstream and prevalent conspiracies. Middleton had been diagnosed with cancer and was dealing with it privately, but the online ecosystem wouldn't allow for that vacuum of information. Mashable's Meera Navlakha summarized the emergence of the royal Photoshop chaos and early spin, and Ryan Broderick, who writes the digital culture newsletter Garbage Day, did a good job breaking down how the Middleton theories expanded and got out of control.

Broderick wrote, near the conclusion of the piece:

"Over the last 25 years we have slowly uploaded every part of our lives to a system of platforms run by algorithms that make money off our worst impulses. Well, the ones brands are comfortable advertising around. And for years we have wondered what the world might look like when we crossed the threshold into a fully online world. Well, we did. We crossed it. This is what it looks like."

The Rubicon is well in the rear-view and it means even a tragic bridge collapse or cancer diagnosis is subjected to the often mis-aligned spotlight of the internet's conspirators.

And, by the way, the how were there cameras is far from the only theory and "question" to arise in the hours after the collapse. Conspiracists questioned if DEI were to blame, or Jewish people, or unnamed terrorists. Lots of people wondered how the bridge could collapse just because it was hit, not taking into account, of course, just how massive that a cargo ship really is.

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People suggested in the comments that it could've been intentional or some kind of "distraction" planted by the government.

Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @dailymail Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @joeycontino2 Credit: Screenshot: TikTok / @apaynelife757

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, on air, went right from talking about the White House saying there was no evidence of nefarious intent to talking about the "wide open border" in a now-viral clip.

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This is where we are now. A tragedy is, almost immediately, grist for the internet's mill. You could see the theories shape-shift and grow in real time on Tuesday. The internet has, almost subliminally, taught folks that they can tie a hobbyhorse gripe to any major incident.

To be clear: This is not everyone. Far from it. And that's not to say skepticism isn't warranted online. Especially amid the rise of AI, it's worth stopping for a second to consider what is real and what isn't. It's worth questioning power and the official story. But the internet's predilection for conspiratorial thinking, depressingly, sucks the oxygen out of other, real issues that might be worth questioning. Maybe we should be talking about the degradation of America's infrastructure. But maybe not through the lens of how this accident can be pinned on someone or some thing.

Conspiracy theories, just asking questions, all of this isn't new. We've seen it time and again. The worst things imaginable — Sandy Hook, notably — have all been subjected to it.

But Tuesday morning made clear how impossible it is to escape. How engrained it now is in our culture. Our internet brains, the internet's brain, it's all one and the same.

Around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday the Key Bridge collapsed in what all indications suggest was a horrible accident. And before most of Baltimore had gotten out of bed, the internet was already questioning the city's awful reality.

How to take screenshots on Windows

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:47

Everyone runs into this speedbump eventually.

I get it: You're reading an article or scrolling through your social feeds and you see something you want to share with a friend. Unfortunately, the easiest way to do that would be via screenshot, and you don't actually know how to do that on a Windows PC. The good news is that's really not a difficult problem to solve these days.

Here's how it works.

SEE ALSO: Microsoft adds spellcheck and autocorrect to Notepad on Windows 11 How to take screenshots on Windows

Unlike MacOS, which has a screenshot feature built-in at the OS level, Microsoft has opted to put an app into modern versions of Windows called Snipping Tool. This is the key to taking screenshots on Windows, according to the mothership itself.

Before we get into all the wonders of Snipping Tool, I should mention that there's one way to take screenshots on Windows that has always worked. Simply find the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard and press it to take a screenshot, which should automatically be pasted to your clipboard. For basic screenshots, this might be all you need. Pressing the Windows key + Shift + S will also do this, in case you'd rather press three buttons instead of one.

But for anything a little more complicated, such a screenshot that only includes one window or needs cropping, Snipping Tool is the way to go. You can find it by pressing the Windows key and searching for it in the search bar. Snipping Tool will let you choose what shape you want your screenshot to be, which windows you want to screenshot, or even annotate a screenshot with text or drawings.

If you want, you can always put Snipping Tool on your taskbar, too.

In short, Snipping Tool is the way to screenshot on Windows 11. However, the Print Screen button will work just as well a lot of the time. It's up to you to figure out what's the best method for any scenario. Have fun out there, folks. Just remember to always crop to the point of focus.

Send spring pollen packing for under $150 with this Shark Clean Sense air purifier

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:18

SAVE 38%: The Shark HP102PETBL Clean Sense air purifier is just $149.99 at Amazon, down from the typical price of $239.99. That's a savings of $90.

Opens in a new window Credit: Shark Shark HP102PETBL Clean Sense air purifier $149.99 at Amazon
$239.99 Save $90.00 Get Deal

If you deal with allergies from pollen or suffer from itchy eyes on account of a beloved pet's hair, using an indoor air purifier can provide tons of relief. Swap tissue boxes for this Shark air purifier that's discounted at Amazon today.

As of March 26, the Shark HP102PETBL Clean Sense air purifier is just $149.99, down from the regular price of $239.99. That's a savings of $90 or a 38% discount.

As much as we love our pets and spring flowers, both can cause major allergy issues. From the runny nose to sneezing, pollen and other allergens can linger in indoor air. The Shark Clean Sense air purifier aims to take care of 99.98% of these pesky airborne particles.

Designed for rooms up to 500 square feet, the Shark air purifier uses a HEPA filter to capture the particulate matter that could be the source of respiratory irritation. The size means it's ideal for a bedroom, nursery, or a smaller office. But since it weighs under six pounds, it's possible to move it from the bedroom to the office or the rec room throughout the day without much trouble.

This model features Shark Clean Sense IQ, a digital reading that shows you how clean the room's air currently is. It automatically adjusts power to ensure clean, filtered air. You can also program it to continuously operate at one of four fan speeds.

If you're dreading the congestion that comes with springtime, set up the Shark HP102PETBL Clean Sense air purifier and enjoy the season thanks to allergen-free indoor air.

Best Buy Video Game Spring Sale, day 2: Save $25 on 'Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection'

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:16

UPDATE: Mar. 26, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with the latest drop from Best Buy's Video Game Spring Sale.

Opens in a new window Credit: Naughty Dog 'Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection' for PlayStation 5 $24.99 at Best Buy
$49.99 Save $25.00 Get Deal

When one sale ends, another begins.

Best Buy's Video Game Spring Sale is here, and bringing seven days of video-game-centric deals with it. Like the 12 Days of Gaming Sale last December, the retailer will be dropping a new offer every single day from March 25 to March 31, with each one lasting for one day only. We don't know what the deals will be ahead of time, so be sure to keep checking back with us daily to get the lowdown on what's discounted. What we do know is that each one will be "a featured video game and/or gaming accessory," according to the sale page. And yes, that "and" really got our attention, too.

SEE ALSO: Gaming starter kit: All the gear you need to play like a real gamer

Day two of the Video Game Spring Sale features a heavy discount on the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, just $24.99 ($25 off) for the recently remastered dual-game package. The collection comes packed with the two most recent (and probably the best) Uncharted games — Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Uncharted: Lost Legacy — both updated for the PlayStation 5. And if you're wondering, yes, it's worth it for the graphics and performance improvements alone. A playable blockbuster action movie in 4K, at 60 frames per second? We're in.

Previous Best Buy Video Game Spring Sale deals

Note: Anything marked with a strikeout was sold out or unavailable at its Video Game Spring Sale price at the time of writing.

Day one:

'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' trailer is heaving with snacks and action

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:14

Get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubblicious and some Skittles because the snack-heavy trailer for Bad Boys: Ride or Die is here.

Screeching into frame in a deeply expensive Porsche Turbo S, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back as Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett in the fourth installment of the Bad Boys franchise (following 2020's Bad Boys for Life).

This time, the detective lieutenants have a dangerous game on their hands as the late Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) has been framed for corruption by some powerful foes. Soon, the guys on the run themselves.

SEE ALSO: 'Bad Boys 2' is Michael Bay at his best, giving into his worst impulses

Expect plenty of snacks, major action-sequences, and one of the slickest gun-passing camera shots I've seen this week.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die hits cinemas June 7.

Musk's X to pay legal fees to support doctor who sued to silence her critics (and lost)

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:05

Since acquiring the company now known as X, Elon Musk has claimed that his social media platform would be one where free speech ideals reigned supreme. In August 2023, Musk went so far as declaring that he would financially support any user who was punished for their speech on X.

"If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill," Musk said. "No limit. Please let us know."

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk and X lose lawsuit against anti-hate nonprofit

This past Sunday, X seemingly shared an example of one such case.

"X is proud to help defend Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against the government-supported efforts to cancel her speech," X said, going on to say they would pay the remainder of the doctor's $300,000 legal bills. Gill had previously posted that she had raised around half of the amount herself through a crowdfunding campaign, meaning X was going to fund the estimated remainder of $150,000.

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However, Musk and company left out an important, glaring detail that seems to run contrary to his stated "free speech" beliefs: The lawsuit that Gill lost was one that she filed in an attempt to silence critics from saying things she did not like.

Who is Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill?

Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a Canadian physician who published posts in 2020 on X, then Twitter, that presented her COVID vaccine-skepticism and anti-lockdown beliefs in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, in one tweet that Gill posted in August 2020, she said, "If you have not yet figured out that we don't need a vaccine, you are not paying attention. #FactsNotFear."

Gill's posts were highly criticized by the medical community and were covered by journalists with mainstream news outlets.

As a result, Gill sued 23 doctors, journalists, and news outlets, claiming defamation. Some of the individuals that she sued were ones who had posted their criticism in direct response to her on the social media platform X.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit under anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, deeming that the suit was an attempt by Gill to silence her critics' speech. Gill was ordered to pay the defendants' legal fees, a judgment of $300,000.

X steps in to support Gill

According to X's official statement on its support for Gill, "Elon Musk learned earlier this week about her crowdfunding campaign to pay the judgment," and that's when he pledged to help.

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In its post, X claims that "free speech is the bedrock of democracy and a critical defense against totalitarianism in all forms" and that "we must do whatever we can to protect it."

"At X, we will always fight to protect your right to speak freely," X's statement ends.

However, X leaves out critical information about this case that makes their position contrary to Musk and company's stated beliefs.

X claims in its statement that Gill was "harassed by the legacy media, censored by prior Twitter management, and subjected to investigations and disciplinary proceedings by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario."

But it was Gill who filed the lawsuit, in an attempt to stifle speech she didn't like, which included posts from her critics on then-Twitter. 

Also, while the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), a regulatory medical body, did "caution" Gill over her COVID posts, those are intended to be educational or remedial measures, not punitive. Gill did not lose her medical license. (In addition, the CPSO was not involved in Gill's lawsuit.)

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But, X's actions here shouldn't be too surprising. Musk and company just lost a lawsuit of their own — also struck down under anti-SLAPP law — one day after it announced their financial support for Gill. In that case, X sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech online, over reports regarding X that Musk did not like.

"In support of your right to speak," Musk commented earlier this week regarding X's financial help for Gill.

But, it doesn't seem that Musk extends that "right to speak" to Gill's or X's critics.

I tried using ChatGPT to help me move across the country

Tue, 03/26/2024 - 12:03

When you hit your 20-somethings, nobody tells you how to adult. So now, four months away from the end of my lease, I need to figure out how to move across the country for the first time by myself. I could ask my parents, but where's the fun in that — I am a big boy after all. This means obviously, as a reporter for an esteemed tech outlet, the solution is artificial intelligence.

I mean why not, right?

Big Tech has spent billions of dollars trying to find meaningful ways for us to incorporate generative AI into our lives. So, why not use generative AI as my personal assistant and financial planner during my cross-country move from Austin to Chicago?

In theory, moving to a new city is an ideal test of the tools OpenAI claims ChatGPT to be good at, especially now that it can access the internet, users can upload attachments and photos, and can be custom-built for specific needs. If ChatGPT can't ease some of my burdens when it comes to budgeting, searching for, financing, and driving to a new apartment that's more than 1,100 miles away, then perhaps it's not worth the GPUs it's built with.

SEE ALSO: I spent a week using AI tools in my daily life. Here's how it went. Step 1: Budgeting

Even before we look at apartments, I need ChatGPT to help me save money. On top of paying rent and utilities between now and June 1, I also started paying back my student loans in January, which runs me a cool $200 a month until the 2040s.

My goal is to paint a broad picture of what I need to do financially to have the money to make my move as stress-free as possible. ChatGPT — and, thus, this experiment — is inherently limited because the AI can't do all the financing for me. As much as I would love, in theory, for this AI to take care of my budgeting fully, it can't; nor do I feel comfortable allowing OpenAI to have access to my sensitive financial data.

Truly, this might be way above ChatGPT's pay grade considering it's a conversational AI with a hallucination problem (and not an arithmetic machine), but I gave both AIs the prompt specifying what I'm trying to achieve and asked it to calculate "how much I need to save from each paycheck to reasonably move to Chicago."

The AI was game to help.

You gotta be as specific as possible. The AI's don't appreciate having to do financial guesswork. Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

The big challenge was getting numbers that were realistic to my current situation — especially when it came to dates. Between the time this was written and when my July 1 move-in date arrives, I'll receive 7 paychecks. During testing, if my prompt didn't specify July 1, 2024, ChatGPT would assume I meant July 1, 2025, and calculate for a year's worth of money. And even when I am specific about the dates, the AIs may still just hallucinate random numbers, like when ChatGPT randomly calculated for 10 pay periods instead of the 7 I'd specified.

The math was a little spotty, but with some tweaking to the prompts, ChatGPT gave me the ideal number that I should save based on my income and recurring payments. This matched up with the math I did by hand, which admittedly doesn't mean much — that's why my degree is in journalism and not STEM.

Step 2: Finding a place

Now that I know how much I need to save, I need to get a shortlist of places that fit within my budget. My range for rent for my next apartment is $1,000-$1,500. I'm not looking for anything fancy in the Windy City, but a studio/1 bed with an in-unit washer/dryer would be perfect.

Unfortunately, OpenAI has slowly wound down plugins so we're going to have to rely on CustomGPTs, an evolved version of plugins that allows users to create their own chatbots, to specify our real estate needs for this experiment. I used three different CustomGPTs: Apartment/House Rental Finder, Apartment Scout, and Apartment Finder.

So far, the running trend with these GPTs and this experiment, in general, is I need to be extremely specific — which ruins the fun for me, because I'm trying to offload all my thinking to the robot. It's clearly a worse experience than just Googling. For instance, Apartment Scout gives a bulleted list of neighborhoods, and when I tell it which one I like, it goes:

It looks like I'm encountering some technical difficulties accessing the specific rental listings directly from the sources I usually rely on. However, you can find suitable studio or 1-bedroom apartments within your price range and criteria by checking out popular rental websites such as Zillow, Apartments.com, and Realtor.com.

What do you mean go somewhere else? Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

On another attempt, it provides a few links to actual apartment listings.

Now it wants to act right. Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

At least this GPT provides a link for me, unlike Apartment/House Rental Finder, which uses Craigslist to find apartments that specify my needs and then will tell me to go there myself if I ask for links to the apartments it listed.

Very helpful. Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

Ultimately, Apartment Finder was also not of much help and also told me to go somewhere else to find what I needed.

Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

The results (or lack thereof) are not surprising. ChatGPT was designed to tell the user whatever will make the user feel happy or smart, rather than be any sort of leader or authority, so if you are unsure about the broad strokes of where you want to live, then you're not gonna have much luck.

I'll guess I'll stick to late-night scrolling on Zillow.

Step 3: Packing and Planning

The final step of this move is the packing and planning of the drive. One of the perks of ChatGPT is that you can upload pictures now, so I decided to see if showing ChatGPT my room would help it give me advice on how to pack up my belongings for the move.

Short answer: It didn't. Long answer: It didn't, and instead gave me generic advice on how to rip apart my room:

First, declutter the room, separating items to keep, donate, or discard. Gather moving supplies: boxes, bubble wrap, packing paper, tape, and markers. Pack items from least used to most used, labeling boxes with contents and destination room. Dismantle furniture, wrapping pieces in moving blankets or bubble wrap. Protect the electronics with bubble wrap and place them in boxes. Roll up the rug and secure with tape. Pack the artwork with bubble wrap and place in picture boxes. Use wardrobe boxes for hanging clothes and suitcases for others. Pack a box of essentials separately. Clean the room once emptied.

This advice, especially that neat tidbit about rolling up the rug in my room, wasn't all that useful (hint: my floor is carpeted).

Don't mind my room, it's a little dirty Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

Okay, well, that was a bust, so what about the drive? Unsurprisingly, this is where ChatGPT was the most helpful. I gave it two scenarios: one where I use a rented U-Haul to drive to Chicago, and another where I keep my car. According to the U-Haul website and the math done by ChatGPT, renting and driving a U-Haul costs around $700+.

The mover's dilemma: Sell all my stuff or spend $700 on a U-Haul? Credit: OpenAI via screenshot

If I drive my car, a 2012 Dodge Durango, the cost of just the gas is only around $240.

After calculating costs, ChatGPT gave me some routes to take. Of course, that information is superfluous since I can use Google Maps anyway, but it's nice to know now where my little adventure will take me. According to my friend from Illinois, the drive from Austin to Chicago is not great, so I'm glad ChatGPT told me to have some podcasts on deck to keep me entertained.

Conclusion

Here's the TL;DR: Don't use ChatGPT to plan a move across the country.

It's not that ChatGPT can't be helpful, cause it can. The chatbot helped me visualize a broad overview of my finances and gave me some useful tips and tricks for packing and route-planning. However, you need to be so hyper-specific with the prompts that all that time tinkering could be spent, you know, planning your move yourself.

Wanna use the CustomGPTs to help find apartments? Sorry, they'll just tell you to use Zillow. Wanna use ChatGPT to pin down how much to save out of your paychecks? Unless you're willing to get into the weeds about your financial security, good luck getting it to not just make shit up — and even then it still might. Of course, these chatbots aren't designed to do life for you, but this exercise was somehow more frustrating than I thought it would be.

I guess I'll call my parents for help after all.

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