Technology

Google is working on a next-gen video chat booth that makes the person you’re chatting with appear in front of you in 3D. You can see them from different angles by moving around and even make eye contact, Google said during a preview of the project at its I/O conference today. The system is called “Project Starline,” and it’s basically a really, really fancy video chat setup. The platform uses multiple cameras and sensors to capture a person’s appearance and shape from different perspectives. It then stitches those together into a 3D model that’s broadcast in real time to whomever they’re chatting with. In Google’s preview, Starline was used for person-to-person calls (not group chats), and both sides seemed to be using specialized tech so it could all work. In a demo video, people using t...

Nintendo has hit a milestone with the ever-growing library of retro games included in its Nintendo Switch Online service. The next batch will take the number of available games past 100, with five new titles resulting in a total of 104. In keeping with recent form, the latest additions are, well, not necessarily blockbuster releases. Here’s the list: Caveman Ninja: Joe & Mac, a prehistoric action game released in arcades and ported to the SNES by Data East in 1991 Magical Drop 2, a 1996 Data East puzzle game for the SNES that was originally on the Neo Geo but never previously got a Western release Super Baseball Simulator 1.000, a SNES baseball game released by Culture Brain in 1991 Spanky’s Quest, a 1991 SNES action game by Natsume about a monkey with a magic bubble Ninja JaJaMaru-kun...

It’s a long-standing problem that dates back to the days of film: image processing tends to be tuned for lighter skin tones and not that of black and brown subjects. Google announced an effort to address that today in its own camera and imaging products, with a focus on making images of people of color “more beautiful and more accurate.” These changes will come to Google’s own Pixel cameras this fall, and the company says it will share what it learns across the broader Android ecosystem. Specifically, Google is making changes to its auto-white balance and exposure algorithms to improve accuracy for dark skin tones based on a broader data set of images featuring black and brown faces. With these tweaks, Google aims to avoid over-brightening and de-saturating people of color in photos for mo...

Google just finished its live Google I/O 2021 keynote, where the company unveiled a huge number of announcements, including a new look coming to Android, a bunch of features coming to its Google Workspace productivity suite, and even a new AI that talked as if it were Pluto. Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn followed the whole thing in real time right here on our live blog. But if you just want to get caught up on the biggest news from the show, read on for our recap. Image: Google Google revealed that Android 12 will have a brand-new “Material You” design with a whole lot of new changes. It offers a lot of color and customization, and the new mobile OS will even be able to change system colors to be able to better match your wallpaper. It also offers some new privacy features, including a new p...

Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables teased an exciting new feature coming to Wear devices during Google’s Developer Keynote on Tuesday: the ability for the streaming services’ 356 million users to download music directly to their watch, and listen to it at times when they don’t want to carry their phone (via XDA Developers). The feature isn’t included in the redesign that was just released, but Spotify says that it’s currently in the works. The announcement came alongside Google’s reveal that it would be merging Wear OS with Samsung’s Tizen. During Tuesday’s I/O keynote, Google promised that the updated OS would bring faster performance and longer battery life, which are currently still issues for Wear OS watches. The YouTube Music app is also getting an update, which will simila...

Phil Schiller is one of the biggest names at Apple, and at the Epic v. Apple trial, his job was to make Apple feel small. Over two days of testimony including several hours of cross-examination, he didn’t always succeed — but he left the stand without facing some of Epic’s harshest lines of attack. Schiller, whose title is simply “Apple Fellow,” has spent more than 30 years with the company. In his testimony, he recounted joining Apple in the ‘90s and watching Steve Jobs reorganize the then-failing computer maker. He reminisced about the iPod and name-dropped largely forgotten competitors like Handango and BlackBerry Messenger. In court, Epic Games has portrayed Apple as a scolding, disingenuous bully that locks users into a walled garden and gets mad at cartoon bananas. Schiller countered...

Google unveiled Android 12 at its opening I/O 2021 keynote, and now you can try the new update yourself as part of the first public beta. The Android 12 public beta is currently available for Google’s Pixel phones (Pixel 3 and up) and will also come to devices from OnePlus, Lenovo, Asus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Tecno, TCL, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. You can enroll your Pixel phone on Google’s Android beta site or find specific instructions for other supported phones on the Android Developers page. Android 12 brings a cornucopia of new features, but the most exciting are the new visuals. Along with new animations, widgets, and a modified lock screen, Android 12 also offers theming, with the ability to change the colors used across the OS just by changing your wallpaper. Not all of the dramatic vis...

Amazon has extended its moratorium on law enforcement use of its facial recognition software “until further notice,” according to Reuters. The ban was set to expire in June. As early as 2018, Amazon employees had pushed Amazon to scale back the project, arguing that documented racial bias in facial recognition could exacerbate police violence against minorities. Amazon defended the project until June 2020, when increased pressure from widespread protests led to the company announcing a yearlong moratorium on police clients for the service. Rekognition is offered as an AWS service, and many of Amazon’s cloud computing competitors have similar technology. Microsoft announced that it would also not be selling its facial recognition services to police the day after Amazon’s pledge, and IBM sai...

A group of Jewish Google employees is calling on the company to increase its support of Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly bombing campaign in Gaza. The conflict started with Israel’s attempt to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and escalated when militants fired rockets toward Jerusalem and Israel responded with airstrikes. In an internal letter, Google workers ask CEO Sundar Pichai to put out a statement condemning the attacks, including “direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by Israeli military and gang violence.” The letter currently has 250 signatures. (An external version of the note can be found here). The request is coming from a new employee resource group which formed last year in response to pro-Zionist sentiment within “Jewglers” — Google’s off...

Twitch has removed the ability for Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, one of the most popular streamers on its platform, to run ads on her videos — even though it’s unclear that she broke any of the site’s rules. Siragusa said in a tweet that it’s because her streams are “not advertiser friendly.” Siragusa is known for streaming herself chatting and gaming while wearing swimsuits. She’s hugely popular, with more than 20,000 subscribers — putting her among the site’s top 20, according to TwitchTracker. She’s also been the target of relentless criticism because of her appearance, including sexist attacks from Twitch users who argue that the success of some women on the platform is unearned or illegitimate. This is an ALARMING precedent and serves as a stark warning that although content may not o...

Ford has revealed the all-electric F-150 pickup truck one day ahead of schedule. The truck, dubbed F-150 Lightning, was on display Tuesday at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan during a speech from President Biden. Images from the event show that the F-150 Lightning largely looks like its gas and hybrid counterparts, though the truck has a more modern grille, with an unbroken light bar that stretches from headlight to headlight. Image: CNBC The F-150 EV has been years in the making and is the second mass-market electric vehicle from Ford, following the Mustang Mach-E. The company is set to reveal full pricing, specifications, and other details about the electric pickup truck Wednesday at 9:30PM ET. But the truck is expected to be one of the most powerful F-150s ever made, and...