Tech

discord-starts-down-the-dangerous-road-of-ads-this-week

Discord starts down the dangerous road of ads this week

ads, discord, gaming, Social Media, Tech / /

Sponsored Quests —

Discord’s first real foray into ads seems minimally intrusive.

– Updated

The Discord logo on a funky cyber-background.

Discord

Discord had long been strongly opposed to ads, but starting this week, it’s giving video game makers the ability to advertise to its users. The introduction of so-called Sponsored Quests marks a notable change from the startup’s previous business model, but, at least for now, it seems much less intrusive than the ads shoved into other social media platforms, especially since Discord users can choose not to engage with them.

Discord first announced Sponsored Quests on March 7, with Peter Sellis, Discord’s SVP of product, writing in a blog post that users would start seeing them in the “coming weeks.” Sponsored Quests offer PC gamers in-game rewards for getting friends to watch a stream of them playing through Discord. Discord senior product communications manager Swaleha Carlson confirmed to Ars Technica that Sponsored Quests launch this week.

Discord shared this image in March as an example of the new type of ads.

Enlarge / Discord shared this image in March as an example of the new type of ads.

The goal is for video games to get exposure to more gamers, serving as a form of marketing. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that it viewed a slide from a slideshow Discord shows to game developers regarding the ads that reads: “We’ll get you in front of players. And those players will get you into their friend groups.”

Sellis told WSJ that Discord will target ads depending on users’ age, geographic location data, and gameplay. The ads will live on the bottom-left of the screen, but users can opt out of personalized promotions for Quests that are based on activity or data shared with Discord, Swaleha Carlson, senior product communications manager at Discord, told Ars Technica.

“Users may still see Quests, however, if they navigate to their Gift Inventory and/or through contextual entry points like a user’s friends’ activity. They’ll also have the option to hide an in-app promotion for a specific Quest or game they’re not interested in,” she said.

“Users may still see Quests, however, if they navigate to their Gift Inventory and/or through contextual entry points like a user’s friends’ activity. They’ll also have the option to hide an in-app promotion for a specific Quest or game they’re not interested in. “

Discord already tested the ads in May with Lucasfilm Games and Epic Games. Discord users were able to receive Star Wars-themed gear in Fortnite for getting a friend to watch them play Fortnite on PC for at least 15 minutes.

Jason Citron, Discord co-founder and CEO, told Bloomberg in March that the company hopes that one day “every game will offer Quests on Discord.”

Discord used to be anti-ads

It may be a nuisance for users to have to disable personalized promotion for Sponsored Quests when they never asked for them, but it should bring long-term users at least some comfort that their data purportedly doesn’t have to contribute to the marketing. However, it’s unclear if Discord may one day change this. The fact that the platform is implementing ads at all is somewhat surprising. Discord named its avoidance of advertising as one of its key differentiators from traditional social media platforms as recently as late January.

In March 2021, Citron told WSJ that Discord had eschewed ads until that point because ads would be intrusive, considering Discord’s purpose of instant back-and-forth communication and people’s general distaste for viewing ads and having their data shared with other companies.

“We really believe we can build products that make Discord more fun and that people will pay for them. It keeps our incentives aligned,” Citron told WSJ at the time.

That same year, Citron, in response to a question about why being ad-free is important to Discord, told NPR: “We believe that people’s data is their data and that people should feel comfortable and safe to have conversations and that their data is not going to be used against them in any way that is improper.”

Sponsored Quests differs from other types of ads that would more obviously disrupt Discord users’ experiences, such as pop-up ads or ads viewed alongside chat windows.

A tight-rope to walk

Beyond Sponsored Quests, Discord, which launched in 2015, previously announced that it would start selling sponsored profile effects and avatar decorations in the Discord Shop. In March, Discord’s Sellis said this would arrive in the “coming weeks.” Discord is also trying to hire more than 12 people to work in ad sales, WSJ said Saturday, citing anonymous “people familiar with [Discord’s] plans.”

Discord’s Carlson declined to comment to Ars on whether or not Discord plans to incorporate other types of ads into Discord. She noted that Sponsored Quests “are currently in the pilot phase” and that the company will “continue to iterate based on what we learn.”

In 2021, Discord enjoyed a nearly three-times revenue boost that it attributed to subscription sales for Nitro, which adds features like HD video streaming and up to 500MB uploads. In March, Citron told Bloomberg that Discord has more than 200 million monthly active users and that the company will “probably” go public eventually.

The publication, citing unnamed “people with knowledge of the matter,” also reported that Discord makes over $600 million in annualized revenue. The startup has raised over $1 billion in funding and is reported to have over $700 million in cash. However, the company reportedly isn’t profitable. It also laid off 17 percent of staffers, or 170 workers, in January.

Meanwhile, ads are the top revenue generator for many other social media platforms, such as Reddit, which recently went public.

While Discord’s first real ads endeavor seems like it will have minimal impact on users who aren’t interested in them, it brings the company down a tricky road that it hasn’t previously navigated. A key priority should be ensuring that any form of ads doesn’t disrupt the primary reasons people like using Discord. As it stands, Sponsored Quests might already put off some users.

“I don’t want my friendships to be monetized or productized in any way,” Zack Mohsen, a reported long-time user and computer hardware engineer based in Seattle, told WSJ.

Updated April 1, 2024 at 5: 32 p.m. ET to add information and comment from Discord. 

Discord starts down the dangerous road of ads this week Read More »

redis’-license-change-and-forking-are-a-mess-that-everybody-can-feel-bad-about

Redis’ license change and forking are a mess that everybody can feel bad about

Amazon AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS, Biz & IT, cloud services, data stores, elasticsearch, Google Cloud Services, opensearch, opentofu, redis, Tech, terraform / /

Licensing is hard —

Cloud firms want a version of Redis that’s still open to managed service resale.

–

AWS data centers built right next to suburban cul-de-sac housing

Enlarge / An Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center under construction in Stone Ridge, Virginia, in March 2024. Amazon will spend more than $150 billion on data centers in the next 15 years.

Getty Images

Redis, a tremendously popular tool for storing data in-memory rather than in a database, recently switched its licensing from an open source BSD license to both a Source Available License and a Server Side Public License (SSPL).

The software project and company supporting it were fairly clear in why they did this. Redis CEO Rowan Trollope wrote on March 20 that while Redis and volunteers sponsored the bulk of the project’s code development, “the majority of Redis’ commercial sales are channeled through the largest cloud service providers, who commoditize Redis’ investments and its open source community.” Clarifying a bit, “cloud service providers hosting Redis offerings will no longer be permitted to use the source code of Redis free of charge.”

Clarifying even further: Amazon Web Services (and lesser cloud giants), you cannot continue reselling Redis as a service as part of your $90 billion business without some kind of licensed contribution back.

This generated a lot of discussion, blowback, and action. The biggest thing was a fork of the Redis project, Valkey, that is backed by The Linux Foundation and, critically, also Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle, Ericsson, and Snap Inc. Valkey is “fully open source,” Linux Foundation execs note, with the kind of BSD-3-Clause license Redis sported until recently. You might note the exception of Microsoft from that list of fork fans.

As noted by Matt Asay, who formerly ran open source strategy and marketing at AWS, most developers are “largely immune to Redis’ license change.” Asay suggests that, aside from the individual contributions of AWS engineer and former Redis core contributor Madelyn Olson (who contributed in her free time) and Alibaba’s Zhao Zhao, “The companies jumping behind the fork of Redis have done almost nothing to get Redis to its current state.”

Olson told TechCrunch that she was disappointed by Redis’ license change but not surprised. “I’m more just disappointed than anything else.” David Nally, AWS’ current director for open source strategy and marketing, demurred when asked by TechCrunch if AWS considered buying a Redis license from Redis Inc. before forking. “[F]rom an open-source perspective, we’re now invested in ensuring the success of Valkey,” Nally said.

Shifts in open source licensing have triggered previous keep-it-open forks, including OpenSearch (from ElasticSearch) and OpenTofu (from Terraform). With the backing of the Linux Foundation and some core contributors, though, Valkey will likely soon evolve far beyond a drop-in Redis replacement, and Redis is likely to follow suit.

If you’re reading all this and you don’t own a gigascale cloud provider or sit on the board of a source code licensing foundation, it’s hard to know what to make of the fiasco. Every party in this situation is doing what is legally permissible, and software from both sides will continue to be available to the wider public. Taking your ball and heading home is a longstanding tradition when parties disagree on software goals and priorities. But it feels like there had to be another way this could have worked out.

Redis’ license change and forking are a mess that everybody can feel bad about Read More »

google-podcasts-shuts-down-tomorrow,-april-2

Google Podcasts shuts down tomorrow, April 2

Tech / /

Google Listen was the last good Google podcast app —

Building a podcast player into Google Search was always a weird plan.

–

Each headstone in this miniature, decorative cemetery is for a defunct Google product.

Enlarge / A spooky Halloween display from Google’s Seattle campus.

RIP Google Podcasts. Google’s self-branded podcasting service shuts down tomorrow, April 2, and existing users have until July to export any subscriptions that are still on the service. Google originally announced the shutdown in September and has been plastering shutdown notices all over the Google Podcasts site and app for a few days now.

Google Podcasts was Google’s third podcasting service, after Google Listen (2009–2012) and Google Play Music Podcasts (2016–2020). The shutdown will clear the deck for Google’s media consolidation under the YouTube brand with podcasting app No. 4: YouTube Podcasts.

Google Podcasts has always had an awkward life.  Despite an eight-year existence, it has only been a viable podcasting app for maybe half that time. The project grew out of the Google Search team’s desire to index podcast content. That started in 2016 when searching for a podcast would show a player embedded right in the Google Search results. This only worked on google.com and on the Android search app.

The Google Podcasts shutdown notice.

The Google Podcasts shutdown notice.

Google

Actually subscribing to a podcast didn’t come until two years later, in 2018, allowing users to finally do the bare minimum of opening the app and seeing the latest episodes of shows they’re subscribed to. Again, though, this was all in the Google Search app, which didn’t make sense to anyone, especially when Google already had a decent podcast ecosystem going in its primary music app, Google Play Music. A month later it launched a formal “Google Podcasts” app on the Play Store, helping the app make a little more sense, even though under the hood the “app” was just a link to the podcast interface in the Google Search app. This was also the first podcast player to integrate with another Google Search project, the Google Home smart speaker.

Two years later, in 2020, Google finally launched an iOS app. At this point, four years after launch, as a third-party observer, you could begin to think that “maybe Google is actually serious about Google Podcasts.” The very next year rumors of “YouTube Podcasts” started, and the writing was on the wall for the search team’s weird little podcast app.

Google Podcasts is one of the major examples of Google’s disorganization. Along with Google Play Music Podcasts, Google launched two competing and disconnected podcast services within the same week! The Google Search team never had a clear reason for building a podcast app, and no clear vision; it felt like it was going rogue inside the company. Along with a glacially slow development pace, Google Podcasts feels like it should have never existed to begin with.

Google Podcasts shuts down tomorrow, April 2 Read More »

i-use-these-2-apps-for-universal-airdrop-rather-than-pushing-people-to-apple

I use these 2 apps for universal AirDrop rather than pushing people to Apple

AirDrop, file sharing, localsend, snapdrop, Tech / /

Let’s clear the AirDrop —

They’re free, they’re easy, they’re open source, and they generate funny names.

–

These kinds of sharing names are fun to shout across the house (I have first-hand knowledge of this).

Enlarge / These kinds of sharing names are fun to shout across the house (I have first-hand knowledge of this).

Kevin Purdy

I like AirDrop just fine for sending files between devices, but I’m the only one of two humans in my household that regularly uses Apple devices. I cannot, to paraphrase the Apple CEO’s litigation-influencing quip, simply buy my spouse an iPhone. And a MacBook. And sell our household Chromebook. And give up entirely on Windows-based PC gaming.

Instead, I’ve come to use two apps to send files between operating systems on the same Wi-Fi, whether they’re systems from Cupertino, Redmond, Mountain View, or elsewhere. One is LocalSend, a cross-platform app with an open source client and protocol that I install wherever I can. The other lower-friction tool that’s especially handy for guests and rarely used devices is SnapDrop, a website or web app you open on both devices and then send files through, entirely on your local network. It, too, has its code out there for anybody to view.

Neither of these apps is new, which is good. They’ve been around long enough to garner good reviews and trust from their users. Beyond sharing files between two humans, I’ve also leaned on them when setting up headless systems or other quirky devices.

Snapdrop, for one-off transfers or quirky systems

Kevin Purdy

I don’t always have the patience to install the Flatpak or App Store version of LocalSend on every Raspberry Pi, Linux partition, or tablet in my house. If I need to send an image, a torrent file, or even just a long text string or web address across my home, and if both systems are technically capable of opening a browser, I use Snapdrop.

You open the browser on each device, head to Snapdrop.net, and then, almost always, you see both computers on your network. Each gets an icon and a quirky but memorable name, like “Purple Salamander” or “Green Rodent.” Click on the other computer’s icon to then pick a file and send it. Right-click (or tap-and-hold on mobile) to send a text message. There are icons in the upper-right corner if you want to install Snapdrop as a PWA (web app), switch between light and dark modes, or get links to the app’s GitHub repo or social channels.

That’s it—that’s the app. You could host your own instance on Docker if you want. And you can and should donate if you find it useful. A few key things from the FAQ:

  • Snapdrop is peer-to-peer through WebRTC and only uses SnapDrop’s hosting for a Signaling Server.
  • Because it’s using WebRTC, files and messages are encrypted on transit. Snapdrop doesn’t see the files; “Snapdrop doesn’t even use a database,” the author writes.
  • The developer only ever intends to keep this project as a way to send files instantly over local networks and willfully rejects new feature ideas.

Once in a while, the Snapdrop site has failed to load on a device, but I’m not the kind of person who can confidently blame that on the device, local network, ISP, regional network, global DNS quirks, sunspots, or whatever else. I’m glad when it works. If it doesn’t work, I can fall back to LocalSend.

LocalSend, the belt-and-suspenders local transfer system

LocalSend is nearly as simple and focused as SnapDrop, but it doesn’t rely on the wider global web for anything and can more ably get around the occasional can’t-see-you quirks.

The client is available for just about all the major systems, usually in both app store and unofficial channels (Homebrew, Android side-loading, Flathub, etc.). You can send more kinds of things with one click than on Snapdrop, including folders and photos from a phone’s library. If a device doesn’t show up, you can manually enter its local IP address to find it (which has worked for me a few times). You can favorite a device, send to multiple devices, send multiple files, send via link, choose to have files automatically accepted and saved to a folder of your choice, and otherwise set up things to your liking. And because it’s a locally installed app, you can send files to it through your system’s share/send dialogues.

LocalSend says it relies on HTTPS connections and a REST API to send between devices, with a TLS/SSL certificate generated on the fly on each device. As with Snapdrop, you can compile and run LocalSend yourself.

I’ll welcome any other suggestions for same-network file sharing in the comments. Both of these apps save me from having to log into web-based file-sharing systems every time I just want to show a funny photo or share a PDF, and for that, I thank them.

I use these 2 apps for universal AirDrop rather than pushing people to Apple Read More »

8bitdo’s-$100-wireless-mechanical-keyboard-is-a-tribute-to-commodore-64

8BitDo’s $100 wireless mechanical keyboard is a tribute to Commodore 64

8bitdo, commodore 64, Keyboards, mechanical keyboards, Tech, Wireless keyboards / /

  • Fits in nicely with old cassettes and floppy disks.

    8BitDo

  • The keyboard uses a top mount and has an aluminum top plate.

    8BitDo

  • The keyboard has knobs for toggling connectivity modes (left) and controlling the connected system’s volume (right).

    8BitDo

  • There’s a magnetic compartment for storing the optional wireless dongle.

    8BitDo

The Commodore 64 introduced a generation of future computer geeks to personal computing. The 8-bit system first launched in 1982 and was discontinued in 1994. During that time, it made its mark as one of the first and most influential personal computers, and many still remember the computer fondly.

A Commodore 64.

Enlarge / A Commodore 64.

Gaming peripherals maker 8BitDo wants to bring that nostalgia to people’s fingertips and this week announced the Retro Mechanical Keyboard – C64 Edition. 8BitDo is careful not to use the name “Commodore” outright. But with marketing images featuring retro Commodore gear in the background, press materials saying that the keyboard was “inspired by the classics,” and certain design cues, the keyboard is clearly a tribute to the ’80s keyboard-computer.

8BitDo starts with the sort of beige that you only see on new peripherals these days if the gadgets are trying to appear old. A rainbow stripe runs horizontally and north of the function row, like on Commodore’s computer. There’s a power button with a bulb popping out of the keyboard case, ready to illuminate when it receives the signal.

  • The 8BitDo keyboard’s power LED.

    8BitDo

  • Retro rainbow.

    8BitDo

Like the Commodore 64, the C64 keyboard has limited keys, foregoing a number pad. The column of F-keys on the right side of the retro computer is abandoned in favor of today’s standard navigation keys. Naturally, the ports have also been updated. 8BitDo’s wireless mechanical keyboard can connect with a detachable USB-C to USB-A power cable via a 2.4 GHz wireless USB-A dongle or Bluetooth 5.0. 8BitDo claims that the keyboard’s 2000 mAh battery can endure 200 hours of use before needing a charge.

The new keyboard also reduces the bulkiness of a true vintage keyboard. It’s 6.7 inches tall and weighs 2.31 pounds. Commodore 64s were about 8 inches tall and weighed over 4 pounds.

A trimmer keyboard should help 8BitDo better appeal to its core audience of gamers. The keyboard even comes with a separate pair of large buttons and a joystick for gaming with an arcade feel. The joystick and Super Buttons, as 8BitDo calls them, are programmable, including with macros, without downloading 8BitDo’s software.

NES-inspired keyboard.” data-height=”1708″ data-width=”2560″ href=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/5-Super-Stick-and-Super-Buttons.jpg”>The keyboard comes with a joystick and mega-size buttons, just like 8BitDo's <a href=NES-inspired keyboard.” height=”427″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/5-Super-Stick-and-Super-Buttons-640×427.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / The keyboard comes with a joystick and mega-size buttons, just like 8BitDo’s NES-inspired keyboard.

8BitDo

The C64 doesn’t support Apple devices; it only supports Windows 10 and Android 9.0 and higher. The software for reprogramming the keyboard and setting up different profiles (which you can toggle with the heart button near the keyboard’s top edge) doesn’t officially support Apple OSes.

SA keycaps

If you really want to feel like you’re typing on an ’80s system, it’s not just about muted shades of beige; it’s about what your fingers feel. While there are some design changes that might have made the keyboard feel more authentic, some thought was clearly given to making this 2024 keyboard feel like it came out more than 30 years ago.

To start, the C64’s keycaps are made of ABS plastic with doubleshot legends. Some premium mechanical keyboards these days opt for PBT, as such keycaps typically offer better grip and resist fingerprint smudges better. But if we’re trying to be as accurate to the original C64 as possible, doubleshot ABS is the way to go.

The keycaps on the Commodore 64 were also notably spherical and contoured. 8BitDo’s design uses SA-profile keycaps, which are some of the tallest keycaps that are widely available. Some hardcore enthusiasts can tell the difference between SA keycaps and the Commodore 64’s original keycaps, but this is still a strong choice from 8BitDo, (plus the original Commodore 64 keycaps wouldn’t fit on modern mechanical switches without some modding).

8BitDo’s $100 wireless mechanical keyboard is a tribute to Commodore 64 Read More »

report:-redesigned-m3-ipad-pros,-large-screened-ipad-air-now-expected-in-may

Report: Redesigned M3 iPad Pros, large-screened iPad Air now expected in May

Apple, ipad, iPad Air, ipad pro, iPadOS, Tech / /

the wait continues —

Next-gen iPads will be Apple’s first new tablets since late 2022.

–

The M2 iPad Pro. The updated version will come with refined designs and new accessories.

Enlarge / The M2 iPad Pro. The updated version will come with refined designs and new accessories.

Apple

If you’ve been waiting for new iPads to come out, prepare to wait just a little longer: Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that redesigned iPad Pros with Apple’s M3 chip, plus refreshed iPad Air models with the M2 and a larger-screened option, should now arrive sometime in “early May.” Gurman had previously reported that new iPads could arrive in March or April, not long after the updated M3 MacBook Airs.

Gurman suggests that “complex new manufacturing techniques” for the new iPad screens have “contributed to the delay,” and that Apple is also “working to finish software for the devices.”

The details of what the new iPads will look like hasn’t changed. The new iPad Pro models will shift to using OLED display panels for the first time and will have their designs tweaked for the first time since the 2018 iPad Pros introduced the current rounded, slim-bezeled look. Those new iPad Pros will also come with redesigned Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories, though it’s unclear whether those accessories will be totally rethought or if they’ll just tweak existing designs to work with the new tablets.

The iPad Air refresh will be more straightforward. It should retain the current design, which is very similar to the 2018-era iPad Pro refresh but with a power button-mounted TouchID fingerprint sensor instead of a FaceID camera for authentication. But the new Airs will come with an M2 chip instead of the current M1, and a 12.9-inch variant will provide a less-expensive large-screened option for people who want to use their iPad as their primary computer but who don’t want to pay for the extra bells and whistles of the Pro.

Some rumors have suggested the iPad Pro could come with a price hike relative to the current-generation model, though the sources of those rumors can’t agree on how big a jump it would be. Gurman hasn’t mentioned Apple’s pricing plans in his reports.

There’s also no word about the other tablets in Apple’s lineup, all of which are at least a year or two old. The sixth-generation iPad mini and the $329 ninth-generation iPad were last updated in September 2021, while the awkwardly positioned 10th-generation iPad was released in October 2022.

New hardware is always nice to have, but it does continue to feel like the power of Apple’s M-series chips is a bit wasted on Apple’s tablets. The iPad’s relatively limited multitasking model, restrictions on third-party software and the general dearth of performance-intensive high-end apps in Apple’s app store mean that performance really isn’t a problem on current-generation iPads; there’s nothing an iPad can currently do that an M1 can’t handle with room to spare. Apple will announce new operating system versions at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 10; it’s possible that iPadOS will get some new features that more fully leverage the power of Apple’s newer chips.

Report: Redesigned M3 iPad Pros, large-screened iPad Air now expected in May Read More »

google-says-running-ai-models-on-phones-is-a-huge-ram-hog

Google says running AI models on phones is a huge RAM hog

Google, Google Pixel, google pixel 8, pixel 8, Tech / /

8GB of RAM ought to be enough for anybody —

Google wants AI models to be loaded 24/7, so 8GB of RAM might not be enough.

–

The Google Gemini logo.

Enlarge / The Google Gemini logo.

Google

In early March, Google made the odd announcement that only one of its two latest smartphones, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, would be able to run its latest AI model, called “Google Gemini.” Despite having very similar specs, the smaller Pixel 8 wouldn’t get the new AI model, with the company citing mysterious “hardware limitations” as the reason. It was a strange statement considering the fact that Google designed and marketed the Pixel 8 to be AI-centric and then designed a smartphone-centric AI model called “Gemini Nano” yet still couldn’t make the two work together.

A few weeks later, Google is backtracking somewhat. The company announced on the Pixel Phone Help forum that the smaller Pixel 8 actually will get Gemini Nano in the next big quarterly Android release, which should happen in June. There’s a catch, though—while the Pixel 8 Pro will get Gemini Nano as a user-facing feature, on the Pixel 8, it’s only being released “as a developer option.” That means you’ll be able to turn it on only via the hidden Developer Options menu in the settings, and most people will miss out on it.

Google’s Seang Chau, VP of devices and services software, explained the decision on the company’s in-house “Made by Google” podcast. “The Pixel 8 Pro, having 12GB of RAM, was a perfect place for us to put [Gemini Nano] on the device and see what we could do,” Chau said. “When we looked at the Pixel 8 as an example, the Pixel 8 has 4GB less memory, and it wasn’t as easy of a call to just say, ‘all right, we’re going to enable it on Pixel 8 as well.'” According to Chau, Google’s trepidation is because the company doesn’t want to “degrade the experience” on the smaller Pixel 8, which only has 8GB of RAM.

Chau went on to describe what it’s like to have a large language model like Gemini Nano on your phone, and it sounds like there are big trade-offs involved. Google wants some of the AI models to be “RAM-resident” so they’re always loaded in memory. One such feature is “smart reply,” which tries to auto-generate text replies.

Chau told the podcast, “Smart Reply is something that requires the models to be RAM-resident so that it’s available all the time. You don’t want to wait for the model to load on a Gboard reply, so we keep it resident.” On the Pixel 8 Pro, smart reply can be turned on and off via the normal keyboard settings, but on the Pixel 8, you’ll need to turn on the developer flag first.

The bigger Pixel 8 Pro gets the latest AI features. The smaller model will have it locked behind a developer option.

Enlarge / The bigger Pixel 8 Pro gets the latest AI features. The smaller model will have it locked behind a developer option.

Google

So unlike an app, which can be loaded and unloaded as you use it, running something like Gemini Nano could mean permanently losing what is apparently a big chunk of system memory. The baseline of 8GB of RAM for Android phones may need to be increased again in the future. The high mark we’ve seen for phones is 24GB of RAM, and the bigger flagships usually have 12GB or 16GB of RAM, so it’s certainly doable.

Google’s Gemini Nano model is also shipping on the Galaxy S24 lineup, and the base model there has 8GB of RAM, too. When Google originally cited hardware limitations on the Pixel 8 for the feature’s absence, its explanation was confusing—if the base-model S24 can run it, the Pixel 8 should be able to as well. It’s all about how much of a trade-off you’re willing to make in available memory for apps, though. Chau says the team is “still doing system health validation because even if you’re a developer, you might want to use your phone on a daily basis.”

The elephant in the room, though, is that as a user, I don’t even know if I want Gemini Nano on my phone. We’re at the peak of the generative AI hype cycle, and Google has its own internal reasons (the stock market) for pushing AI so hard. While visiting ChatGPT and asking it questions can be useful, that’s just an app. Actually useful OS-level generative AI features are few and far between. I don’t really need a keyboard to auto-generate replies. If it’s just going to use up a bunch of RAM that could be used by apps, I might want to turn it off.

Google says running AI models on phones is a huge RAM hog Read More »

apple’s-first-new-3d-vision-pro-video-since-launch-is-only-a-few-minutes-long

Apple’s first new 3D Vision Pro video since launch is only a few minutes long

Apple, apple vision pro, Football, Immersive Video, Mixed Reality, MLS, soccer, sports, Tech, virtual reality, vr, XR / /

Immersive Video —

Major League Soccer highlight reel is the first Immersive Video since launch.

–

  • All the available Immersive Video launch content fit on a small strip in the TV app.

    Samuel Axon

  • Initial videos were labeled as episodes in a series, but subsequent episodes haven’t come.

Tonight, Apple will debut some new Immersive Video content for the Vision Pro headset—the first sports content for the device. It doesn’t seem like much after two months of no new content, though.

Starting at 6 pm PT/9 pm ET, Vision Pro users will be able to watch a sports film captured for the platform’s Immersive Video format. The video will be a series of highlights from last year’s Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs, and according to Six Colors, it will run just five minutes. It will be free for all Vision Pro users.

On February 2, Apple released what appeared to be the first episodes of three Immersive Video series: Adventure, Prehistoric Planet, and Wildlife. Each debuted alongside the Vision Pro’s launch with one episode labeled “Episode 1” of “Season 1.”

However, it’s been almost two months, and none of those series have received new episodes. The only other piece of Immersive Video content available is an Alicia Keyes performance video that also debuted on February 2. Most of these videos were only a few minutes long.

That means that this short soccer video depicting sports moments from 2023 will be the only new piece of Immersive Video content Apple has put out since the device launched at the beginning of February.

When I reviewed the Vision Pro as an entertainment device, I lauded its capabilities for viewing 2D films and videos, but I also talked a bit about its 3D video capabilities. I said the first pieces of original 3D content from Apple seemed promising and that I looked forward to future episodes. Given that they were labeled just like Apple TV+ series in the TV app, I assumed they would arrive at a weekly cadence. Further episodes haven’t come.

Notably, Apple didn’t include a first-party app for playing 3D videos downloaded from the web with the Vision Pro, though an independent developer filled that gap with an app called Reality Player. There are a few 3D video streaming or downloading services in the visionOS App Store, but the selection is very anemic compared to what you have access to with other headsets.

Apple hasn’t been calling the Vision Pro a VR headset, opting instead for the term “spatial computing”—and that’s understandable because it does a lot more than most VR headsets.

But if you’re looking for new examples of the sorts of passive viewing content you can enjoy on other headsets, the Vision Pro is still far behind the competition two months in.

The device can display a wealth of 2D video content, but this drives home the initial impression that the Vision Pro is meant for viewing flat, 2D content as windows in 3D space. The situation isn’t quite as dire with apps and games, with a handful of new spatial apps in those categories rolling out in recent weeks.

Most apps behave just like iPad apps, with 2D viewports at the content; you can position those viewports wherever you want in the room around you. Most video content is also 2D.

There are situations where that’s neat to have, but it’s surprising Apple hasn’t invested more in actual 3D content yet. In terms of new stuff, this short soccer video debuting tonight is all we have right now.

Listing image by Samuel Axon

Apple’s first new 3D Vision Pro video since launch is only a few minutes long Read More »

facebook-let-netflix-see-user-dms,-quit-streaming-to-keep-netflix-happy:-lawsuit

Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit

ads, antitrust, facebook, Meta, netflix, privacy, Social Media, streaming, Tech / /
A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, with Elizabeth Olsen

Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series.

Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta’s streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn’t produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

The streaming business’ demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [PDF] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

As spotted via Gizmodo, a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [PDF] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

The letter alleges that Netflix’s relationship with Facebook was remarkably strong due to the former’s ad spend with the latter and that Hastings directed “negotiations to end competition in streaming video” from Facebook.

One of the first questions that may come to mind is why a company like Facebook would allow Netflix to influence such a major business decision. The litigation claims the companies formed a lucrative business relationship that included Facebook allegedly giving Netflix access to Facebook users’ private messages:

By 2013, Netflix had begun entering into a series of “Facebook Extended API” agreements, including a so-called “Inbox API” agreement that allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook’s users’ private message inboxes, in exchange for which Netflix would “provide to FB a written report every two weeks that shows daily counts of recommendation sends and recipient clicks by interface, initiation surface, and/or implementation variant (e.g., Facebook vs. non-Facebook recommendation recipients). … In August 2013, Facebook provided Netflix with access to its so-called “Titan API,” a private API that allowed a whitelisted partner to access, among other things, Facebook users’ “messaging app and non-app friends.”

Meta said it rolled out end-to-end encryption “for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook” in December. And in 2018, Facebook told Vox that it doesn’t use private messages for ad targeting. But a few months later, The New York Times, citing “hundreds of pages of Facebook documents,” reported that Facebook “gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.”

Meta didn’t respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment. The company told Gizmodo that it has standard agreements with Netflix currently but didn’t answer the publication’s specific questions.

Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit Read More »

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Ubuntu will manually review Snap Store after crypto wallet scams

Biz & IT, Canonical, containerization, containers, mark shuttleworth, snap store, snaps, Tech, Ubuntu / /

Linux app distribution —

Former Canonical employee calls out the “Safe” label applied to Snap apps.

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Man holding a piggy bank at his desk, with the piggy wired up with strange circuits and hardware

Enlarge / One thing you can say about this crypto wallet: You can’t confuse it for any other.

Getty Images

The Snap Store, where containerized Snap apps are distributed for Ubuntu’s Linux distribution, has been attacked for months by fake crypto wallet uploads that seek to steal users’ currencies. As a result, engineers at Ubuntu’s parent firm are now manually reviewing apps uploaded to the store before they are available.

The move follows weeks of reporting by Alan Pope, a former Canonical/Ubuntu staffer on the Snapcraft team, who is still very active in the ecosystem. In February, Pope blogged about how one bitcoin investor lost nine bitcoins (about $490,000 at the time) by using an “Exodus Wallet” app from the Snap store. Exodus is a known cryptocurrency wallet, but this wallet was not from that entity. As detailed by one user wondering what happened on the Snapcraft forums, the wallet immediately transferred his entire balance to an unknown address after a 12-word recovery phrase was entered (which Exodus tells you on support pages never to do).

Pope takes pains to note that cryptocurrency is inherently fraught with loss risk. Still, Ubuntu’s App Center, which presents the Snap Store for desktop users, tagged the “Exodus” app as “Safe,” and the web version of the Snap Store describes Snaps as “safe to run.” While Ubuntu is describing apps as “Safe” in the sense of being an auto-updating container with runtime confinement (or “sandboxed”), a green checkmark with “Safe” next to it could be misread, especially by a newcomer to Ubuntu, Snaps, and Linux generally.

More than that, Pope’s post points out that writing, packaging, and uploading the Snap to Ubuntu’s store results in an app that is “immediately searchable, and available for anyone, almost anywhere to download, install and run it” (emphasis Pope’s). There are, he noted, “No humans in the loop.”

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and CEO of Canonical, responded to a related thread on whether crypto apps should be banned entirely. “I agree that cryptocurrency is largely a cesspit of ignoble intentions, even if the mathematics are interesting,” Shuttleworth wrote. At Ubuntu, it was “fair to challenge ourselves” to offer additional safety measures, “even if they will never be perfect.” Making apps safer for people vulnerable to social engineering is “a very hard problem but one I think we can and should engage in,” Shuttleworth wrote.

He did not, however, agree that cryptocurrency apps should be broadly banned.

After what Shuttleworth described as “a quiet war with these malicious actors for the past few months” (which was, according to Pope, ongoing as of earlier this month), Snaps are indeed changing.

At the Snapcraft forums, Holly Hall, product lead for Ubuntu’s backing services company Canonical, wrote last week about a new policy of manual review for all new Snap registrations. Engineering teams will review apps and reach out to publishers to verify names and intents. A name that is “suspected as being malicious or is crypto-wallet-related” will be rejected. A policy regarding how to properly publish a crypto wallet in the Snap store is forthcoming, Hall wrote.

As noted by The Register, a different sandboxed app platform (store), Flathub, recently made related changes to its validation process. Flathub now flags apps that have made notable changes to permission requests or package names. Open software repositories have long faced issues with malicious look-alike uploads, including the PyPI index for Python programming.

Ars has reached out to Canonical for comment and will update this post if we receive a response.

Ubuntu will manually review Snap Store after crypto wallet scams Read More »

how-apple-plans-to-update-new-iphones-without-opening-them

How Apple plans to update new iPhones without opening them

Apple, Tech / /

Steve Jobs would be so proud —

Apple wants to rid the iPhone-buying process of the post-unboxing update.

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Being in a box doesn't mean the iPhone can't update.

Enlarge / Being in a box doesn’t mean the iPhone can’t update.

Unboxing a new gadget is always a fun experience, but it’s usually marred somewhat by the setup process. Either your device has been in a box for months, or it’s just now launching and ships in the box with pre-release software. Either way, the first thing you have to do is connect to Wi-Fi and wait several minutes for an OS update to download and install. The issue is so common that going through a lengthy download is an expected part of buying anything that connects to the Internet.

But what if you could update the device while it’s still in the box? That’s the latest plan cooked up by Apple, which is close to rolling out a system that will let Apple Stores wirelessly update new iPhones while they’re still in their boxes. The new system is called “Presto.”

French site iGeneration has the first picture of what this setup looks like. It starts with a clearly Apple-designed silver rack that holds iPhones and has a few lights on the front. The site (through translation) calls the device a “toaster,” and yes, it looks like a toaster oven or food heating rack.

A Presto box. They hold six devices at once. There are two of them stacked on top of each other in this picture.

Enlarge / A Presto box. They hold six devices at once. There are two of them stacked on top of each other in this picture.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has been writing about whispers of this project for months, saying in one article that the device can “wirelessly turn on the iPhone, update its software and then power it back down—all without the phone’s packaging ever being opened.” In another article, he wrote that the device uses “MagSafe and other wireless technologies.” The iGeneration report also mentions that the device uses NFC, and there are “templates” that help with positioning the various-sized iPhone boxes so the NFC and wireless charging will work. With that wireless charging, downloading, and installing, all while being isolated in a cardboard box, Apple’s “toaster” probably gets pretty hot.

No one has explained exactly how the system works, but we can make some educated guesses. Even when an iPhone is “off” or discharged, it’s still possible for the NFC chip to work. Apple Pay and digital card keys are already set up to work with a low battery. Placing a box in the Presto oven would presumably trigger the NFC chip, wake the OS, and cause the phone to boot into an Apple-only unattended update mode (hopefully, there is a lot of security around this).

NFC’s maximum data rate of 848 kbit/s means there’s no way you could send an OS update over that connection, but that quick burst of data is good enough to wake the phone and pass it an SSID and password for a Wi-Fi connection of some kind, which pretty much has to exist in the Presto oven somewhere. With wireless charging powering the phone the whole time, it will have plenty of juice to connect to the Internet, download the update, and install it.

The idea of updating a phone in its box is a uniquely Apple proposition, as pulling it off requires end-to-end control of the device. It will take a lot of work put into the hardware, software, box design, and the unique phone oven itself, and the system will require an army of Apple-controlled retail stores that are committed to updating the devices. That’s a huge amount of work just to avoid the minor inconvenience of the initial setup download. Only Apple would think to do this.

Some software support for the Presto box is already built into iOS 17.2, so it sounds like it’s just a matter of rolling out the hardware at Apple Stores. Gurman’s report from earlier this week said the rollout would start in April for the US and finish by the summer.

How Apple plans to update new iPhones without opening them Read More »

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Proxmox gives VMware ESXi users a place to go after Broadcom kills free version

Biz & IT, Broadcom, esxi, proxmox, Tech, vmware / /

time to migrate —

Proxmox is a Linux-based hypervisor that could replace ESXi for some users.

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Proxmox gives VMware ESXi users a place to go after Broadcom kills free version

Broadcom has made sweeping changes to VMware’s business since acquiring the company in November 2023, killing off the perpetually licensed versions of VMware’s software and instituting large-scale layoffs. Broadcom executives have acknowledged the “unease” that all of these changes have created among VMware’s customers and partners but so far haven’t been interested in backtracking.

Among the casualties of the acquisition is the free version of VMware’s vSphere Hypervisor, also known as ESXi. ESXi is “bare-metal hypervisor” software, meaning that it allows users to run multiple operating systems on a single piece of hardware while still allowing those operating systems direct access to disks, GPUs, and other system resources.

One alternative to ESXi for home users and small organizations is Proxmox Virtual Environment, a Debian-based Linux operating system that provides broadly similar functionality and has the benefit of still being an actively developed product. To help jilted ESXi users, the Proxmox team has just added a new “integrated import wizard” to Proxmox that supports importing of ESXi VMs, easing the pain of migrating between platforms.

The announcement claims that an imported ESXi VM will have “most of its config mapped to Proxmox VE’s config model” to minimize downtime. The documentation indicates that the import wizard is still “in tech preview state” and “under active development,” though it’s also said to be “working stable.” The importer works with VMs made in ESXi versions 6.5 through 8.0, which was the most recent version available before Broadcom discontinued the software.

A wiki article from Proxmox also provides more information about preparing your VMs for the move. The article recommends uninstalling guest tools made to work with ESXi, noting network configuration settings like MAC addresses or any manually assigned IP addresses, and disabling any full-disk encryption that stores its keys in your hypervisor’s virtual TPM. It’s currently not possible to migrate vTPM settings from one hypervisor to another, so booting up a VM with disk encryption enabled will require a recovery key before the machine will boot.

Like the free version of ESXi, the free version of Proxmox VE doesn’t include technical support beyond what is offered in Proxmox’s community forums. For people who use Proxmox VE and want to deploy it more widely in a business, Proxmox does offer a few subscription tiers that provide access to its more stable Enterprise Repositories and actual technical support from the software’s developers.

Proxmox gives VMware ESXi users a place to go after Broadcom kills free version Read More »