Friday’s top tech news: a pair of DIY projects for the weekend – The Verge

Fitbit might be working on blood pressure tech, but its future is murky

2023-02-10T17:34:51-05:00

The Fitbit Sense 2 didn’t inspire much confidence in the future of Fitbit smartwatches. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Fitbit recently filed a patent application (pdf) for a force-sensitive display that would enable blood pressure readings on wearables. But even if patents did guarantee success - which they don't - the past few months make it hard to be confident in the future of Fitbit smartwatches.

First things first, you shouldn't read too hard into any patent filing. While it can give you a sense of what a company's working on, it's a legal tool for companies to effectively call dibs on a particular innovation. In the claims section of this filing (via Wareable), Fitbit outlines a force-sensitive screen combined with a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor …

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Reddit thinks AI chatbots will ‘complement’ human connection, not replace it

2023-02-10T16:14:45-05:00

Reddit doesn't seem to be too worried about the AI-powered conversational chatbots like the ones Google and Microsoft revealed this week, based on a statement the company shared with The Verge. Shifting from traditional search to ChatGPT-like bots could erase the strategy of appending "reddit" to your searches to find human-sourced information instead of SEO-optimized garbage.

But Reddit believes the chatbots won't replace actual human connection.

"AI chatbot technologies are still new and something we're exploring and keeping our eyes on," said Reddit spokesperson Nick Singer. "Though, there will always be a need for genuine community and …

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Meta found a leaker who shared details about its unannounced VR headsets with a YouTuber

2023-02-10T14:07:49-05:00

A version of this story was first published in yesterday's edition of my Command Line newsletter.

A monthslong leak investigation by Meta has uncovered the source behind renders of the company's unannounced VR headsets that were published last year by a YouTuber named Brad Lynch.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shared the news earlier this week with employees in an internal post seen by The Verge. He said Meta has cut ties with the leaker, who I'm told was a third-party contractor and asked Lynch for revenue share from the YouTube ads running against his videos. In his post to Meta employees, Bosworth confirmed that the unnamed leaker was paid a …

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Nowatch review: a chic stress tracker for the Goop faithful

2023-02-10T09:30:00-05:00

That’s no watch.

Modern life is stressful. The past three years have been particularly stressful thanks to a global pandemic, a worsening economy, and an aneurysm-inducing news cycle. But while most wearable companies have introduced features meant to help with mindfulness, recovery, and stress reduction, that's not their main focus. But with the Nowatch, that's the entire purpose.

You can tell from the name. Nowatch - pronounced Now-watch - centers on the idea that "time is now." (You'd be forgiven for thinking it's pronounced "no watch" given that there's no watch.) The idea is to help you stay present and connected to the current moment. You get zero not …

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GMC Hummer EV review: bummer EV

2023-02-10T08:00:00-05:00

If you want an EV that makes sense, you should not buy the GMC Hummer EV. If you want an EV that's affordable, you should not buy the GMC Hummer EV. If you want an EV that's efficient or luxurious, you should not buy the GMC Hummer EV.

Is there any reason to spend $110,000 on this ghastly behemoth? I spent a week trying to figure it out, and frankly, I'm still left wondering.

Size matters

I may refer to the Hummer as gargantuan, but it's really about the same length as its nearest competitor, the Rivian R1T. It is so much wider, though, that it requires front running lights, and the squat windshield needs three wipers. Sitting behind the w …

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Microsoft to demo its new ChatGPT-like AI in Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook soon

2023-02-10T07:02:31-05:00

Microsoft is getting ready to demonstrate how its new ChatGPT-like AI will transform its Office productivity apps. After announcing and demonstrating its Prometheus Model in its new Bing search engine earlier this week, Microsoft is gearing up to show how it will expand to its core productivity apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the company is preparing to detail its productivity plans for integrating OpenAI's language AI technology and its Prometheus Model in the coming weeks. The software giant is tentatively planning an announcement in March, highlighting how quickly Micro …

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Windows 11 will soon control your RGB lighting for PC gaming accessories

2023-02-10T05:14:55-05:00

Microsoft is working to bring native support for RGB PC gaming accessories to Windows 11. The Windows lighting experience will include the ability for PC gamers to configure accessories with RGB lighting without having to install third-party software.

Twitter user Albacore has spotted early work for integrating this new lighting experience into Windows 11 in the latest public test builds of the operating system. Options for controlling brightness, lighting effects, speed, and colors can all be found in the settings interface of Windows 11. There's even a feature that will match your accessories to the Windows accent color.

New settings for …

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Cloudflare wants to help you set up your own Mastodon-compatible server in ‘minutes’

2023-02-10T04:40:08-05:00

A promotional image for the Wildebeest project. | Image: Cloudflare

Wildebeest is a new project from Cloudflare that's designed to make it easier for individuals to set up and run their own Mastodon-compatible servers. It highlights one of the key strengths of Mastodon over centralized competitors like Twitter, which is that anyone can host an instance of the microblogging service that's connected it to the wider network (aka Fediverse).

"You can quickly deploy your Mastodon-compatible server on top of Cloudflare and connect it to the Fediverse in minutes," Cloudflare's Celso Martinho and Sven Sauleau write in a co-authored blog post. "You don't need to worry about maintaining or protecting it from abuse or …

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Tesla’s Autopilot was not cause of fatal Texas crash, NTSB determines

2023-02-10T03:52:30-05:00

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has exonerated Tesla's Autopilot system as the cause of a fatal and fiery Texas crash involving a Tesla Model S in 2021. Investigators for the NTSB issued their final report this week that determined the driver was operating the vehicle up until it impacted the tree and that they had been under the influence of alcohol and drugs (via Ars Technica).

Here's the probable cause as written in the NTSB's final conclusion:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the Spring, Texas, electric vehicle crash was the driver's excessive speed and failure to control hi …

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Google is working on making Chrome’s picture-in-picture more useful

2023-02-09T20:14:39-05:00

The latest Chrome beta, version 111, includes a trial for a feature that could make the browser's picture-in-picture feature significantly more useful. Instead of being only for playing videos, Google's looking into letting it display basically any web content in a floating window that stays on top of all your other windows.

There are quite a few ways this feature, which is called Document Picture-in-Picture, could be useful. Some of Google's examples are mostly just spins on how picture-in-picture already works, such as video players but with custom UI (such as buttons to like or dislike a video, a timeline, or captions), or a miniplayer f …

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