Posts Tagged: comes

Hitting the Books: Beware the Tech Bro who comes bearing gifts

American entrepreneurs have long fixated on extracting the maximum economic value out of, well really, any resource they can get their hands on — from Henry Ford’s assembly line to Tony Hsieh’s Zappos Happiness Experience Form. The same is true in the public sector where some overambitious streamlining of Texas’ power grid contributed to the state’s massive 2021 winter power crisis that killed more than 700 people. In her new book, the riveting Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization, UC Berkeley applied mathematician and author, Coco Krumme, explores our historical fascination with optimization and how that pursuit has often led to unexpected and unwanted consequences in the systems we’re streamlining. 

In the excerpt below, Krumme explores the recent resurgence of interest in Universal Basic (or Guaranteed) Income and the contrasting approaches to providing UBI between tech evangelists like Sam Altman and Andrew Yang, and social workers like Aisha Nyandoro, founder of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, in how to address the difficult questions of deciding who should receive the financial support, and how much.

blue background stylized iceberg with white writing
Riverhead Books

Excerpted from Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization by Coco Krumme. Published by Riverhead Books. Copyright © 2023 by Coco Krumme. All rights reserved.


False Gods

California, they say, is where the highway ends and dreams come home to roost. When they say these things, their eyes ignite: startup riches, infinity pools, the Hollywood hills. The last thing on their minds, of course, is the town of Stockton.

Drive east from San Francisco and, if traffic cooperates, you’ll be there in an hour and a half or two, over the long span of slate‑colored bay, past the hulking loaders at Oakland’s port, skirting rich suburbs and sweltering orchards and the government labs in Livermore, the military depot in Tracy, all the way to where brackish bay waters meet the San Joaquin River, where the east‑west highways connect with Interstate 5, in a tangled web of introductions that ultimately pitches you either north toward Seattle or south to LA.

Or you might decide to stay in Stockton, spend the night. There’s a slew of motels along the interstate: La Quinta, Days Inn, Motel 6. Breakfast at Denny’s or IHOP. Stockton once had its place in the limelight as a booming gold‑rush supply point. In 2012, the city filed for bankruptcy, the largest US city until then to do so (Detroit soon bested it in 2013). First light reveals a town that’s neither particularly rich nor desperately poor, hitched taut between cosmopolitan San Francisco on one side and the agricultural central valley on the other, in the middle, indistinct, suburban, and a little sad.

This isn’t how the story was supposed to go. Optimization was supposed to be the recipe for a more perfect society. When John Stuart Mill aimed for the greater good, when Allen Gilmer struck out to map new pockets of oil, when Stan Ulam harnessed a supercomputer to tally possibilities: it was in service of doing more, and better, with less. Greater efficiency was meant to be an equilibrating force. We weren’t supposed to have big winners and even bigger losers. We weren’t supposed to have a whole sprawl of suburbs stuck in the declining middle.

We saw how overwrought optimizations can suddenly fail, and the breakdown of optimization as the default way of seeing the world can come about equally fast. What we face now is a disconnect between the continued promises of efficiency, the idea that we can optimize into perpetuity, and the reality all around: the imperfect world, the overbooked schedules, the delayed flights, the institutions in decline. And we confront the question: How can we square what optimization promised with what it’s delivered?

Sam Altman has the answer. In his mid-thirties, with the wiry, frenetic look of a college student, he’s a young man with many answers. Sam’s biography reads like a leaderboard of Silicon Valley tropes and accolades: an entrepreneur, upper‑middle‑class upbringing, prep school, Stanford Computer Science student, Stanford Computer Science dropout, where dropping out is one of the Valley’s top status symbols. In 2015, Sam was named a Forbes magazine top investor under age thirty. (That anyone bothers to make a list of investors in their teens and twenties says as much about Silicon Valley as about the nominees. Tech thrives on stories of overnight riches and the mythos of the boy genius.)

Sam is the CEO and cofounder, along with electric‑car‑and‑rocket‑ship‑magnate Elon Musk, of OpenAI, a company whose mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” He is the former president of the Valley’s top startup incubator, Y Combinator, was interim CEO of Reddit, and is currently chairman of the board of two nuclear‑energy companies, Helion and Okto. His latest venture, Worldcoin, aims to scan people’s eyeballs in exchange for cryptocurrency. As of 2022, the company had raised $ 125 million of funding from Silicon Valley investors.

But Sam doesn’t rest on, or even mention, his laurels. In conversation, he is smart, curious, and kind, and you can easily tell, through his veneer of demure agreeableness, that he’s driven as hell. By way of introduction to what he’s passionate about, Sam describes how he used a spreadsheet to determine the seven or so domains in which he could make the greatest impact, based on weighing factors such as his own skills and resources against the world’s needs. Sam readily admits he can’t read emotions well, treats most conversations as logic puzzles, and not only wants to save the world but believes the world’s salvation is well within reach.

A 2016 profile in The New Yorker sums up Sam like this: “His great weakness is his utter lack of interest in ineffective people.”

Sam has, however, taken an interest in Stockton, California.

Stockton is the site of one of the most publicized experiments in Universal Basic Income (UBI), a policy proposal that grants recipients a fixed stipend, with no qualifications and no strings attached. The promise of UBI is to give cash to those who need it most and to minimize the red tape and special interests that can muck up more complex redistribution schemes. On Sam’s spreadsheet of areas where he’d have impact, UBI made the cut, and he dedicated funding for a group of analysts to study its effects in six cities around the country. While he’s not directly involved in Stockton, he’s watching closely. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration was initially championed by another tech wunderkind, Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes. The project gave 125 families $ 500 per month for twenty‑four months. A slew of metrics was collected in order to establish a causal relationship between the money and better outcomes.

UBI is nothing new. The concept of a guaranteed stipend has been suggested by leaders from Napoleon to Martin Luther King Jr. The contemporary American conception of UBI, however, has been around just a handful of years, marrying a utilitarian notion of societal perfectibility with a modern‑day faith in technology and experimental economics.

Indeed, economists were among the first to suggest the idea of a fixed stipend, first in the context of the developing world and now in America. Esther Duflo, a creative star in the field and Nobel Prize winner, is known for her experiments with microloans in poorer nations. She’s also unromantic about her discipline, embracing the concept of “economist as plumber.” Duflo argues that the purpose of economics is not grand theories so much as on‑the‑ground empiricism. Following her lead, the contemporary argument for UBI owes less to a framework of virtue and charity and much more to the cold language of an econ textbook. Its benefits are described in terms of optimizing resources, reducing inequality, and thereby maximizing societal payoff.

The UBI experiments under way in several cities, a handful of them funded by Sam’s organization, have data‑collection methods primed for a top‑tier academic publication. Like any good empiricist, Sam spells out his own research questions to me, and the data he’s collecting to test and analyze those hypotheses.

Several thousand miles from Sam’s Bay Area office, a different kind of program is in the works. When we speak by phone, Aisha Nyandoro bucks a little at my naive characterization of her work as UBI. “We don’t call it universal basic income,” she says. “We call it guaranteed income. It’s targeted. Invested intentionally in those discriminated against.” Aisha is the powerhouse founder of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, a program that gives a monthly stipend to single Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. The project grew out of her seeing the welfare system fail miserably for the very people it purported to help. “The social safety net is designed to keep families from rising up. Keep them teetering on edge. It’s punitive paternalism. The ‘safety net’ that strangles.”

Bureaucracy is dehumanizing, Aisha says, because it asks a person to “prove you’re enough” to receive even the most basic of assistance. Magnolia Mother’s Trust is unique in that it is targeted at a specific population. Aisha reels off facts. The majority of low‑income women in Jackson are also mothers. In the state of Mississippi, one in four children live in poverty, and women of color earn 61 percent of what white men make. Those inequalities affect the community as a whole. In 2021, the trust gave $ 1,000 per month to one hundred women. While she’s happy her program is gaining exposure as more people pay attention to UBI, Aisha doesn’t mince words. “I have to be very explicit in naming race as an issue,” she says.

Aisha’s goal is to grow the program and provide cash, without qualifications, to more mothers in Jackson. Magnolia Mother’s Trust was started around the same time as the Stockton project, and the nomenclature of guaranteed income has gained traction. One mother in the program writes in an article in Ms. magazine, “Now everyone is talking about guaranteed income, and it started here in Jackson.” Whether or not it all traces back to Jackson, whether the money is guaranteed and targeted or more broadly distributed, what’s undeniable is that everyone seems to be talking about UBI.

Influential figures, primarily in tech and politics, have piled on to the idea. Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of Twitter, with his droopy meditation eyes and guru beard, wants in. In 2020, he donated $ 15 million to experimental efforts in thirty US cities.

And perhaps the loudest bullhorn for the idea has been wielded by Andrew Yang, another product of Silicon Valley and a 2020 US presidential candidate. Yang is an earnest guy, unabashedly dorky. Numbers drive his straight‑talking policy. Blue baseball caps for his campaign are emblazoned with one short word: MATH.

UBI’s proponents see the potential to simplify the currently convoluted American welfare system, to equilibrate an uneven playing field. By decoupling basic income from employment, it could free some people up to pursue work that is meaningful.

And yet the concept, despite its many proponents, has managed to draw ire from both ends of the political spectrum. Critics on the right see UBI as an extension of the welfare state, as further interference into free markets. Left‑leaning critics bemoan its “inefficient” distribution of resources: Why should high earners get as much as those below the poverty line? Why should struggling individuals get only just enough to keep them, and the capitalist system, afloat?

Detractors on both left and right default to the same language in their critiques: that of efficiency and maximizing resources. Indeed, the language of UBI’s critics is all too similar to the language of its proponents, with its randomized control trials and its view of society as a closed economic system. In the face of a disconnect between what optimization promised and what it delivered, the proposed solution involves more optimizing.

Why is this? What if we were to evaluate something like UBI outside the language of efficiency? We might ask a few questions differently. What if we relaxed the suggestion that dollars can be transformed by some or another equation into individual or societal utility? What if we went further than that and relaxed the suggestion of measuring at all, as a means of determining the “best” policy? What if we put down our calculators for a moment and let go of the idea that politics is meant to engineer an optimal society in the first place? Would total anarchy ensue?

Such questions are difficult to ask because they don’t sound like they’re getting us anywhere. It’s much easier, and more common, to tackle the problem head‑on. Electric‑vehicle networks such as Tesla’s, billed as an alternative to the centralized oil economy, seek to optimize where charging stations are placed, how batteries are created, how software updates are sent out — and by extension, how environmental outcomes take shape. Vitamins fill the place of nutrients leached out of foods by agriculture’s maximization of yields; these vitamins promise to optimize health. Vertical urban farming also purports to solve the problems of industrial agriculture, by introducing new optimizations in how light and fertilizers are delivered to greenhouse plants, run on technology platforms developed by giants such as SAP. A breathless Forbes article explains that the result of hydroponics is that “more people can be fed, less precious natural resources are used, and the produce is healthier and more flavorful.” The article nods only briefly to downsides, such as high energy, labor, and transportation costs. It doesn’t mention that many grains don’t lend themselves easily to indoor farming, nor the limitations of synthetic fertilizers in place of natural regeneration of soil.

In working to counteract the shortcomings of optimization, have we only embedded ourselves deeper? For all the talk of decentralized digital currencies and local‑maker economies, are we in fact more connected and centralized than ever? And less free, insofar as we’re tied into platforms such as Amazon and Airbnb and Etsy? Does our lack of freedom run deeper still, by dint of the fact that fewer and fewer of us know exactly what the algorithms driving these technologies do, as more and more of us depend on them? Do these attempts to deoptimize in fact entrench the idea of optimization further?

A 1952 novel by Kurt Vonnegut highlights the temptation, and also the threat, of de-optimizing. Player Piano describes a mechanized society in which the need for human labor has mostly been eliminated. The remaining workers are those engineers and managers whose purpose is to keep the machines online. The core drama takes place at a factory hub called Ilium Works, where “Efficiency, Economy, and Quality” reign supreme. The book is prescient in anticipating some of our current angst — and powerlessness — about optimization’s reach.

Paul Proteus is the thirty‑five‑year‑old factory manager of the Ilium Works. His father served in the same capacity, and like him, Paul is one day expected to take over as leader of the National Manufacturing Council. Each role at Ilium is identified by a number, such as R‑127 or EC‑002. Paul’s job is to oversee the machines.

At the time of the book’s publication, Vonnegut was a young author disillusioned by his experiences in World War II and disheartened as an engineering manager at General Electric. Ilium Works is a not‑so‑thinly‑veiled version of GE. As the novel wears on, Paul tries to free himself, to protest that “the main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings . . . not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.” He seeks out the elusive Ghost Shirt Society with its conspiracies to break automation, he attempts to restore an old homestead with his wife. He tries, in other words, to organize a way out of the mechanized world.

His attempts prove to be in vain. Paul fails and ends up mired in dissatisfaction. The machines take over, riots ensue, everything is destroyed. And yet, humans’ love of mechanization runs deep: once the machines are destroyed, the janitors and technicians — a class on the fringes of society — quickly scramble to build things up again. Player Piano depicts the outcome of optimization as societal collapse and the collapse of meaning, followed by the flimsy rebuilding of the automated world we know.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-optimal-illusions-coco-krumme-riverhead-books-143012184.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

TCL’s Tab Disney Edition 2 comes packed with kid-friendly content for $199

Here to take on Amazon’s Fire Kids Edition tablet is TCL with its new Tab Disney Edition 2 slate which packs in a ton of kid-friendly content, an 8-inch HD display, and a colorful protective bumper case with a foldout kickstand for $ 199. The Tab Disney Edition 2 tablet is now on sale at Verizon, […]

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What comes after Webb? NASA’s next-generation planet-hunting telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope only launched recently, but scientists are already plotting a planet-hunting telescope that will help find worlds like our own.
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‘Final Fantasy XIV’ comes to Xbox next spring

It took a decade, but Square Enix's premier massively multiplayer online role-playing game is finally coming to Xbox consoles. The developer has revealed that Final Fantasy XIV will be available for Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024. Like its PS5 counterpart, this version will support 4K visuals on Series X and faster loading times. It's not yet clear if there will be Xbox-only upgrades.

An open beta is expected for patch 6.5X. In other words, the Xbox port should be ready in time for the Dawntrail expansion due in summer next year.

Microsoft has been eager to add Final Fantasy games to its catalog. In 2019, it added 10 titles to Game Pass that included many of the releases from VII through to XV. The deluge didn't include XIV, however, leaving Xbox players without an active MMO. The game debuted on PS3 and PC in 2013, with ports for PS4 (2014), Mac (2015) and PS5 (2021) in subsequent years.

The incentives are clear. Final Fantasy XIV helps court fans of the series, particularly those left out by the timed PS5 exclusive for XVI. It's also an attempt to reach out to both Japanese gamers and JRPG enthusiasts. The Xbox has struggled in Japan due in no small part to local studios skipping the platform in favor of domestic consoles from Nintendo and Sony. This game won't suddenly improve Microsoft's fortunes, but it does eliminate a barrier to adoption for some players.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-xiv-comes-to-xbox-next-spring-192903645.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

The Galaxy S22 series comes to Samsung’s Certified Renewed program in the US

Suppose you aren’t a fan of buying the absolute latest tech for top dollar. In that case, you may be interested to learn that the still excellent Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+, and Galaxy S22 Ultra have been added to Samsung’s Renewed program. This means you can pick up one of Samsung’s flagship phones from 2022 […]

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Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite now comes in two new colors

Kindle’s Paperwhite 5 launched in 2021, but Amazon has just spruced up the models a bit with a couple of new colors and put them on sale for good measure. You can now grab them in Agave Green and Denim, with the regular 16GB variant priced at $ 110 (27 percent/$ 40 off) and the Signature version on sale at $ 140 ($ 50 or 26 percent off). Oddly, the black version doesn’t carry any discount and is still priced at $ 190, so the new color versions are currently the way to go.

Amazon also did this for the Paperwhite 4, introducing new colors well after the original launch date, as The eBook Reader pointed out. Amazon used the same Denim Blue color on the 11th generation 2022 Kindle as well. Even if you’re not crazy about the new colors, you’ll see the same black bezels when viewing it from the front. 

We gave the Paperwhite 5 Signature Edition one of our highest Engadget scores ever (97) calling it “the best e-reader, period.” It has a bigger and more responsive screen than ever, tiny bezels, both USB-C and wireless charging, a waterproof body, 32GB of storage, automatic brightness and warm light options. The standard model drops storage to 16GB and lacks wireless charging, but is otherwise the same. 

As mentioned, the Signature Paperwhite is $ 50 off in Agave and Denim, while the standard version offers a $ 40 savings in the green and blue shades — near the lowest prices we’ve seen. 

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Twitter’s Blue subscription comes to Android devices

Twitter Blue has arrived on Android, and just like on iOS, it will cost you $ 11 a month to pay for a subscription through Google Play. The social media website has updated its About page for Blue to add Android pricing for all the countries where the service is currently available, namely the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. 

Before this, you'd have to pay for a subscription via the web or an iOS device if you want to enjoy Blue's perks on an Android phone. Take note, however, that paying through Google will cost you $ 3 more than paying through a web browser. By charging more when you pay via your device's app store, Twitter is essentially passing the tech giants' 30 percent commission onto you. If you don't mind firing up a web browser to pay for Twitter Blue, you can score a year-long subscription for $ 84 per year, no matter what your phone's operating system is. It's a newly launched option that's equivalent to paying $ 7 a month instead of $ 8. 

A Twitter Blue subscription will put a blue checkmark next to your name on the website and will give you access to features not yet available for non-paying users. One of those features lets you preview your tweet and gives you the option to "undo" it before it gets posted on your timeline. You also get access to bookmark folders, themes and custom app icons. But as TechCrunch notes, there's no telling what Blue's feature list will look like over the coming months: The company could very well add new perks or remove them in the future. The checkmark will likely remain as one of the service's main selling points, however, seeing as Elon Musk previously called Twitter's "lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark" as "bullshit."

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

The new Motorola Edge+ comes with a $1,000 price tag and a problem

Motorola is well-known for its value-for-money smartphones under the Moto G brand, but this year we have a new flagship phone from the company called the Edge+. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, and packing in dual 50MP cameras, the Edge+ comes priced at a not-so-cheap $ 1,000. which is Galaxy S22+ territory. Sporting […]

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Apple’s new Polishing Cloth comes with a hefty price tag

Apple released some new kit on Monday that includes upgraded MacBook Pro laptops and AirPods earbuds. It also released a pricey polishing cloth.
Wearables | Digital Trends

The Apple TV app comes to Sony’s Android TVs

You can add Sony TVs to the growing list of places where you can download and use Apple's redesigned TV app. Sony has begun rolling out the software to its lineup of recent smart TVs, starting with the X900H. It plans to follow with select 2018 sets…
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The POCO X3 comes with Snapdragon 732G SoC, 120Hz display, and costs just £199

The budget smartphone segment is getting more capable and more crowded than ever, with the latest entrant being the POCO X3 NFC that will cost just £199 when it goes on sale in the UK on September 17th. That £199 (~$ 260) gets you the recently announced Snapdragon 732G chipset, a 120HZ display, 33W fast-charging, and […]

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Google Meet comes to TVs thanks to Chromecast

After taking countless video calls throughout the coronavirus pandemic, you're probably at the point where you want to mix things up a bit. Now you can with Google Meet. Google has started rolling out an update for Meet that allows the software to ca…
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The stylish OPPO Watch comes with a dual-curved square display and Wear OS in tow

Having already launched in China running on the Snapdragon Wear 2500 chip and OPPO’s own watch OS, the OPPO Watch is finally official in the west, with the 41mm version going on sale in September and the higher-specced 46mm variant with LTE during October. Both models are powered by the Snapdragon 3100 chipset and feature […]

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Newton Mail comes back from the grave one more time

Newton Mail has had a very, very weird life. It started as a good, albeit expensive, email application with a ton of supercharged features; it wasn’t sustainable, however, so it was going to be killed off. At least, that was the original plan. Unlike Google’s Inbox, Newton Mail had a savior. Essential swooped in and […]

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Gladiatorial brawler ‘Gorn’ comes to PlayStation VR on May 19th

On May 19th, Gorn, one of the PC's better virtual reality showcases, will make its way to PlayStation VR. If you're not familiar with the title, it's a physics-based gladiator game. Gorn’s engine simulates every object in its arenas, including enemie…
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When it comes to protecting your new Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, or Galaxy S20 Ultra, Speck has got you covered

Samsung launched its range of Galaxy S20 smartphones on February 11th and if you have splashed the cash to buy yourself one of the new models you may want to protect your investment by wrapping it in an ultra-thin case. Luckily for you, Speck has a veritable host of cases to suit all of Samsung’s […]

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‘Saints Row IV: Re-Elected’ comes to Nintendo Switch on March 27th

While we have yet to hear new details about Saints Row V, you'll be able to play the franchise's best entry on Nintendo Switch when a port of the 2013 classic called Saints Row IV: Re-Elected comes out on March 27th.
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AT&T’s real 5G comes to NYC and five other cities

American 5G is in a poor state right now, but carriers are making at least some attempt to rectify that situation. AT&T is following up on its mid-December launch of real 5G by adding coverage for six major cities. You should now have lower-ban…
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Pixel Feature Drop comes with hidden new features

Google announced some new software upgrades for the Pixel Feature Drop, but what we didn’t expect to see, were the hidden gems not announced in the software update. The software upgrade brought with it new features like automatic call screening, improvements to Duo video calls, and more, but there’s more than what Google announced on […]

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The Google Pixel 4’s oleophobic coating apparently comes off really easily

The Google Pixel line has had a notorious history with poor coating on the screen, and it’s not uncommon to hear someone complaining about the finish rubbing off of the screen. That oleophobic coating is meant to resist bacteria and other general grossness, but it makes the phone look terrible if it comes off. This […]

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Steam Remote Play Anywhere comes out of beta; play your PC games anywhere on your phone

Steam has been testing out their Remote Play Anywhere for a bit, but they’ve decided to finally pull the feature out of beta. Is it a coincidence that this happens on the same week as Stadia’s launch? Who knows. Regardless, if you’re big into PC gaming and Stadia seemed interesting, this might be something to […]

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Deezer’s lossless audio finally comes to Android, iOS and the web

Deezer's lossless audio rollout has been slow, to put it mildly — it first reached connected speakers in 2014, didn't come to desktop apps until 2017, and has been a no-show elsewhere. It's widely available now, though. The service has launched its…
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Lights out dark mode comes to Twitter on Android

Twitter rolled out dark mode on their app a while back, but they also had an iOS exclusive “lights out” mode that turned the grays into real blacks. You would think that would’ve come to Android first since iPhones have only recently started even using OLED displays, but here we are. Anyway, that discrepancy is […]

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The 40mm Apple Watch Series 5 comes with a new battery design

Apple's latest smartwatch model isn't that different from Series 4, but its 40mm version is apparently hiding a component that's dramatically different from its peers. iFixit has discovered that the smaller Series 5 watch uses a battery encased in me…
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‘Call of Duty’ comes to mobile on October 1st

Get ready to compete in Team Deathmatch or play Battle Royale on your smartphone. Activision announced today that Call of Duty: Mobile will be released on Android and iOS devices on October 1st. The game, developed by Tencent's Timi Studio, will be f…
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Take your tunes on the road: YouTube Music comes to Waze

Drivers, rejoice! Never worry again about switching between YouTube Music (to listen) and Waze (to navigate). Rolling out today, YouTube Premium and Music Premium subscribers can safely listen to their favorite music from directly within the Waze app, where they get their directions. All of the albums, playlists, personalized mixes, and more that fans love to listen to are now available with a couple of quick taps as they navigate to where they need to go. With YouTube Music and Waze together in one experience, there has never been a more entertaining way to get around.

To listen to your favorites in YouTube Music as you drive with Waze, download the YouTube Music app for Android or iOS and start your free trial of YouTube Music Premium. Follow these simple steps to start listening:

  • Open the Waze app
  • Tap the music note icon to select YouTube Music as your audio app, and start enjoying your audio content directly from Waze.
  • Don’t see the music note icon? Head to Settings > Audio Player to turn on “Show Audio Player”

Rolling out from today and soon available to all 50 markets where both YouTube Music and Waze are accessible, subscribers can now easily play music as they drive safely. Check out these YouTube Music playlists to queue up while on the road, and happy cruising!

  • New Release Mix – Catch up on the latest drops as you drive, with this playlist filled with brand new music, selected just for you.
  • Dance Pop Bangers – Soundtrack your party, or your road trip, with these party hits.

Lawrence Kennedy

Product Manager, YouTube Music

Lawrence recently listened to Dance Pop Bangers while driving with Waze


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‘Travis Strikes Again’ comes to PC and PS4 on October 17th

You won't have to own a Switch to play a modern take on the No More Heroes universe. Suda51's Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Complete Edition is now slated to launch on PC (via Steam) and PS4 October 17th. The expanded title includes both the…
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Long overdue, Amazon Prime Video comes to Chromecast and Android TV (and Fire TV gets YouTube)

If you’re an avid media enthusiast or a cord-cutter, you’ve probably run into the painful reality of Amazon and Google not really getting along. So far that’s limited some app availability between the two platforms. Google semi-recently pulled YouTube from Amazon’s Fire TV platform, and Amazon has never had a Google Cast option or Android […]

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Google Pixel 3a gets a teardown and comes out way better than expected

The last major phone teardown that made the news was Samsung’s poorly designed Galaxy Fold. It didn’t last very long, either, since Samsung contacted iFixit and asked them to remove it, stirring up even more bad press. The good news for Google is that their Pixel 3a looks (relatively) easy to take apart and repair, […]

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YouTube Music comes to Sonos

YouTube Music just got a little bit louder! Beginning today, YouTube Music is now available to play on all Sonos speakers. Through the Sonos app, fans around the world with a YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium subscription can now easily play official songs, albums, thousands of playlists, and artist radioon top of YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers that you can’t find anywhere else.

Check out some of the YouTube Music features available on Sonos:

Recommended

Loaded with listening suggestions based on your favorites, Recommended has playlists for your every mood, plus your favorites and last played, ready to go. From Mellow Moods to Energy Boosters to Throwback Jams, quickly find what’s right for you in the moment.

New Releases

Find a collection of the freshest music specifically tailored to your tastes. Listen to newly released songs and albums. This week, my list featured Maggie Rogers, YouTube Music’s latest Artist on the Rise.

Top YouTube Charts

YouTube Charts are the best way to see what’s hot in music right now. The Top 100 Songs chart catalogs the most popular songs globally, and you’ll also find a local version that’s tailored to what’s trending in your country.

Your Mixtape

This personalized playlist features a mix of your favorites and new songs we think you’ll love. It’s constantly updating, so you can always count on Your Mixtape to deliver a new combination right at your fingertips within the Sonos app.

Library

Easily find your saved playlists, albums, and songs in your Library.

Available in all countries where YouTube Music and YouTube Premium are available, fans with a subscription can now easily play YouTube Music through a Sonos app. Already have Sonos and ready to try YouTube Music? Start your free trial at youtube.com/musicpremium, and learn more about setting up your account with Sonos here.

Brandon Bilinski, Product Manager for YouTube Music, who recently listened to “Light On” by Maggie Rogers on his Sonos Play:5


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Google’s phone-calling AI comes to Pixel phones in November

Do you want to be one of the first everyday users to try Google's phone-calling Duplex AI? You'd better have a Pixel device. Google has announced that Pixel users in the US will be the first to have access to the feature in November. If you live in A…
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Plex podcasts comes out of beta, includes Sonos and Android Auto support

Plex recently launched podcast support in beta, adding yet another type of media that’s supported in your Plex experience. Now that we’ve had a chance to test it out and work through some kinks, Plex is officially taking the beta tag off of podcasts and making it official to everyone with a few new features. […]

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Oculus Go comes to Europe and Canada

Customers in the US and Europe have been able to place Oculus Go reservations for a while now, but European VR enthusiasts still haven't received their headsets. That changes today as Oculus has officially opened online purchases and brought its devi…
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Bonjour, Alexa: Amazon’s Echo finally comes to France

While all my American and UK colleagues have had access to Amazon's Alexa for years, I've been left out of the party here in France. At last, however, folks in the nation (and Monaco) can parlez Francais with Alexa on Amazon's Echo, Echo Dot and Echo…
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Facebook’s video app comes to Xbox One

Facebook is continuing its quest to make its video easier to watch in the living room. The company has released a version of its Video app for Xbox One that gives you an easy way to catch videos in between Sea of Thieves sessions. It'll seem famili…
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Lenovo’s Smart Display comes with 8 or 10-inch HD displays and Google Assistant baked in

It’s long been rumored that Google has plans to release a Google Home device with a built-in display. Indeed, it’s perhaps one of the reasons that the search giant pulled YouTube support for Amazon’s Echo Show, a direct competitor. One such product is the Lenovo Smart Display, developed in partnership with Google. The Smart Display features […]

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Tidal’s free 12-day trial comes with new content each day

Starting on Christmas, Tidal will begin a 12-day free trial period that's a little different than a typical trial. Tidal already has a 30-day free trial for its regular and HiFi tier, but this one doesn't require you to put in a credit card first or,…
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December is here and with it comes the expanded Santa Tracker from Google

The ability to track Santa may exist in a place where Moore’s Law applies when one looks at how Google continues to expand their Santa Tracker platform each year. What started out as an online replication of the local TV news “tracking” Santa with the help of NORAD each year has blossomed into a month […]

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Amazon Silk browser comes to most Fire TV devices

Although overshadowed by smart speaker hardware like Google Home and Amazon Echo devices, manufacturers like Google and Amazon first started deploying apps to go along with content on their hardware via the television and their streaming devices like the Chromecast or Fire TV boxes. While it may not seem like the most intuitive app to […]

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Microsoft’s Edge browser comes to iOS and Android for beta testing

Microsoft's new mobile strategy? Bring as many of its services as it can to other platforms. That started with Microsoft Office and Cortana, and it's continuing with its Edge browser, which is available in beta on iOS and Android today. For now, the…
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Google Pixel camera trick comes to other phones through a mod

Much of the Google Pixel's photographic prowess comes from its software — it's particularly good at high dynamic range photos thanks to its HDR+ mode, which fills in gobs of detail while reducing the blur you sometimes see in HDR shots. But do you h…
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Open-world adventure game ‘Rime’ comes to the Switch this November

Tequila Works' highly-anticipated indie game Rime, formerly planned as a PS4 exclusive, is also headed to PC, the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. While some were worried the open-world adventure would cost more on the Switch (it won't), Rime will still…
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The live-streaming Mevo pocket cam comes to Android, goes 4K on iOS

Livestream has announced that its Mevo live-streaming camera is a getting a host of new updates this summer, including support for Android devices, YouTube live, 1080p streaming, and 4K internal recording.

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Survival smash ‘The Flame in the Flood’ comes to PS4 in January

The Flame in the Flood's distinctive approach to wilderness survival gaming was well-received when it reached PCs and the Xbox One earlier this year, so it's only natural that the game come to PlayStation gamers, right? Right. The Molasses Flood an…
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Birth control for men comes down to flipping a switch

Birth control for men still tends to be divided between condoms (which aren't always fun or reliable) and more drastic surgical procedures like vasectomies (which are frequently permanent). Not exactly ideal, is it? However, inventor Clemens Bimek…
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Huawei’s Honor series comes to the U.S. with the 5X and the Z1 fitness band

The Honor series is officially coming to the U.S., and leading the way are the Honor 5X and the Z1 fitness band. The smartphone and the wearable will be available to purchase on January 31.

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AI is almost as smart as the average high schooler, at least when it comes to the SAT

An AI system managed to score a 500 on the SAT math section, slightly lower than the average score of 513 achieved by high school seniors. While it’s impressive that AI can make it through the test at all, it hasn’t quite outsmarted us yet.

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‘Super Time Force Ultra’ comes to PS4 and PS Vita on September 1st

Super Time Force is one of the more mind-bending indie games to break cover in recent years, and now the time-traveling, side-scrolling shooter is coming to the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. As of September 1st, the game will be live in the PlayStatio…
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