Category: Technology

Google introduces AI-generated avatars to YouTube Shorts

A new feature that lets you create an AI avatar with your likeness is now live on YouTube. First announced in a blog post earlier this year, avatars are designed to be used in Shorts (provided you still allow them to show up), allowing you to insert yourself into video content in a way that YouTube deems to be safe and secure.YouTube’s approach to combatting the AI sloppification of the internet and the proliferation of deepfakes appears to be adding more and more AI features to its platform, framing this latest addition as a tool that gives creators more control of their digital identities…

A jury is about to decide the fate of Ticketmaster

Consumer complaints about Ticketmaster are so voluminous at state attorneys general offices that Pennsylvania’s comes with an explicit plea for residents lodging a grievance about the company to be patient for a response. That kind of pressure has driven more than 30 states to push forward with claims that Live Nation-Ticketmaster illegally monopolized parts of the concert industry, even when the federal government settled its claims. Soon it will be up to a jury to decide if the ways Live Nation-Ticketmaster conducts its business is not just frustrating, but also illegal. An antitrust trial…

Google Play will let you try a game before you buy it

Google Play has introduced a new feature called Game Trials, which will let you play a portion of paid games for free before you commit to buying them. It’s now rolling out to select paid games on mobile, and it’s coming soon to Google Play Games on PC. Titles that offer Game Trials will show a button marked “Try” on their profile pages. When you click it, you’ll see how long you can play the game before you have to buy it. In Google’s example, the survival and horror game Dredge will give you 60 minutes of free play time, after which you’ll get the option to either buy the game…

Apple is reportedly looking into 3D printing aluminum iPhones and Apple Watches

There could be even more 3D-printed Apple products coming in the future. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is exploring ways to 3D print aluminum to make the manufacturing processes for iPhones and Apple Watches more efficient.Gurman reported that this new production process could specifically change how Apple makes its watch casings as well as iPhone enclosures. It’s not the first time Apple has tapped into 3D printing, since both the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Series 11 were partially built with 3D-printed titanium that’s 100 percent recycled. More recently, Apple used its 3D printing…

The cute and cursed story of Furby

The hottest toy of 1998 was sort of adorable, and sort of annoying. It couldn’t do much – couldn’t do anything, really – but it could look at you, it could say some nonsense phrases, and it seemed uncannily aware of the world around it. That’s all Furby needed to pretty much take over the world.The story of Furby is filled with technical achievement. The fact that the furry little guy worked at all, ever, was a bit of a surprise to a lot of people involved. But Furby also represents a different way of thinking about our relationships with technology, a different idea about human-computer…

The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the EV struggle, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedApologies to the Toyota Prius, but the first hybrid vehicle of note was the Semper Vivus, developed by Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) way back in 1900. The Semper Vivus (Latin for “always alive”) used two combustion engines to power generators, which then fed electricity to motors inside the wheel hubs. The fact that it took modern…