Feed aggregator

Can advanced AI in Visual Studio 2022 turn the sophisticated IDE into a replacement for low-code tools that is suitable for non-coders to create business apps?

The nonprofit organization that supports the Firefox web browser said today it is winding down its new partnership with Onerep, an identity protection service recently bundled with Firefox that offers to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites. The move comes just days after a report by KrebsOnSecurity forced Onerep’s CEO to admit that he has founded dozens of people-search networks over the years.

Mozilla Monitor. Image Mozilla Monitor Plus video on Youtube.

Mozilla only began bundling Onerep in Firefox last month, when it announced the reputation service would be offered on a subscription basis as part of Mozilla Monitor Plus. Launched in 2018 under the name Firefox Monitor, Mozilla Monitor also checks data from the website Have I Been Pwned? to let users know when their email addresses or password are leaked in data breaches.

On March 14, KrebsOnSecurity published a story showing that Onerep’s Belarusian CEO and founder Dimitiri Shelest launched dozens of people-search services since 2010, including a still-active data broker called Nuwber that sells background reports on people. Onerep and Shelest did not respond to requests for comment on that story.

But on March 21, Shelest released a lengthy statement wherein he admitted to maintaining an ownership stake in Nuwber, a consumer data broker he founded in 2015 — around the same time he launched Onerep.

Shelest maintained that Nuwber has “zero cross-over or information-sharing with Onerep,” and said any other old domains that may be found and associated with his name are no longer being operated by him.

“I get it,” Shelest wrote. “My affiliation with a people search business may look odd from the outside. In truth, if I hadn’t taken that initial path with a deep dive into how people search sites work, Onerep wouldn’t have the best tech and team in the space. Still, I now appreciate that we did not make this more clear in the past and I’m aiming to do better in the future.” The full statement is available here (PDF).

Onerep CEO and founder Dimitri Shelest.

In a statement released today, a spokesperson for Mozilla said it was moving away from Onerep as a service provider in its Monitor Plus product.

“Though customer data was never at risk, the outside financial interests and activities of Onerep’s CEO do not align with our values,” Mozilla wrote. “We’re working now to solidify a transition plan that will provide customers with a seamless experience and will continue to put their interests first.”

KrebsOnSecurity also reported that Shelest’s email address was used circa 2010 by an affiliate of Spamit, a Russian-language organization that paid people to aggressively promote websites hawking male enhancement drugs and generic pharmaceuticals. As noted in the March 14 story, this connection was confirmed by research from multiple graduate students at my alma mater George Mason University.

Shelest denied ever being associated with Spamit. “Between 2010 and 2014, we put up some web pages and optimize them — a widely used SEO practice — and then ran AdSense banners on them,” Shelest said, presumably referring to the dozens of people-search domains KrebsOnSecurity found were connected to his email addresses (dmitrcox@gmail.com and dmitrcox2@gmail.com). “As we progressed and learned more, we saw that a lot of the inquiries coming in were for people.”

Shelest also acknowledged that Onerep pays to run ads on “on a handful of data broker sites in very specific circumstances.”

“Our ad is served once someone has manually completed an opt-out form on their own,” Shelest wrote. “The goal is to let them know that if they were exposed on that site, there may be others, and bring awareness to there being a more automated opt-out option, such as Onerep.”

Reached via Twitter/X, HaveIBeenPwned founder Troy Hunt said he knew Mozilla was considering a partnership with Onerep, but that he was previously unaware of the Onerep CEO’s many conflicts of interest.

“I knew Mozilla had this in the works and we’d casually discussed it when talking about Firefox monitor,” Hunt told KrebsOnSecurity. “The point I made to them was the same as I’ve made to various companies wanting to put data broker removal ads on HIBP: removing your data from legally operating services has minimal impact, and you can’t remove it from the outright illegal ones who are doing the genuine damage.”

Playing both sides — creating and spreading the same digital disease that your medicine is designed to treat — may be highly unethical and wrong. But in the United States it’s not against the law. Nor is collecting and selling data on Americans. Privacy experts say the problem is that data brokers, people-search services like Nuwber and Onerep, and online reputation management firms exist because virtually all U.S. states exempt so-called “public” or “government” records from consumer privacy laws.

Those include voting registries, property filings, marriage certificates, motor vehicle records, criminal records, court documents, death records, professional licenses, and bankruptcy filings. Data brokers also can enrich consumer records with additional information, by adding social media data and known associates.

The March 14 story on Onerep was the second in a series of three investigative reports published here this month that examined the data broker and people-search industries, and highlighted the need for more congressional oversight — if not regulation — on consumer data protection and privacy.

On March 8, KrebsOnSecurity published A Close Up Look at the Consumer Data Broker Radaris, which showed that the co-founders of Radaris operate multiple Russian-language dating services and affiliate programs. It also appears many of their businesses have ties to a California marketing firm that works with a Russian state-run media conglomerate currently sanctioned by the U.S. government.

On March 20, KrebsOnSecurity published The Not-So-True People-Search Network from China, which revealed an elaborate web of phony people-search companies and executives designed to conceal the location of people-search affiliates in China who are earning money promoting U.S. based data brokers that sell personal information on Americans.

Enlarge / "Yes, we offer Internet at your address." (credit: Chev Wilkinson via Getty Images)

An Internet service provider that admitted lying to the Federal Communications Commission about where it offers broadband will pay a $10,000 fine and implement a compliance plan to prevent future violations.

Jefferson County Cable (JCC), a small ISP in Toronto, Ohio, admitted that it falsely claimed to offer fiber service in an area that it hadn't expanded to yet. A company executive also admitted that the firm submitted false coverage data to prevent other ISPs from obtaining government grants to serve the area. Ars helped expose the incident in a February 2023 article.

The FCC announced the outcome of its investigation on March 15, saying that Jefferson County Cable violated the Broadband Data Collection program requirements and the Broadband DATA Act, a US law, "in connection with reporting inaccurate information or data with respect to the Company's ability to provide broadband Internet access service."

Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The social network Threads is going to start showing live sports scores, starting with NBA basketball. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the initiative and wrote that it’ll be adding more leagues in the near future. 

Here’s how it works. During a game, just search for the teams and you’ll see an up-to-date score. If the game is over, a search will bring up the final score. You can also find out when a game will start by searching for it ahead of time. This obviously resembles how X does things, as the platform began showing live sports scores back in 2017, when it was called Twitter.

Each score is accompanied by the two team logos. Tapping on these logos redirects users to a conversation about that team. Threads, along with Instagram, recently decided to stop recommending political content, so emphasizing sports is a decent way to capture the “real time” vibe of a hip and happening social network.

To that end, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has been, sigh, courting NBA diehards for months, calling the community of basketball fans on Threads a “great example of the kind of thing we hoped to see” on the app. A Threads spokesperson told Engadget that “basketball has become one of the most popular topics” and that “NBA Threads has become one of the app’s most active sports communities.”

This makes sense, as NBA discourse is also huge on X. NBA Twitter, as it's still called in sports media, regularly drives coverage and conversation about the pro basketball league. It sure seems like Meta hopes to siphon away some of that influence. Apple also recently announced its own sports-related initiative. The first-party Sports iPhone app offers real-time stats for a number of major leagues, including the NBA, and throws up live score data on the lock screen during a game.

Threads is all over the place this week. The platform introduced a new algorithm-tuning feature that works by swiping left and right on posts and announced a beta test that lets users share content to Mastodon and other fediverse services. The live scores feature is also in its testing phase. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/threads-is-getting-into-live-sports-scores-starting-with-the-nba-185616086.html?src=rss

For more than 10 years, Ensemble Ibérica has brought the musical landscape of southwestern Europe and beyond to Kansas City.

As the Senate considers the bill that would force a sale or ban of TikTok, lawmakers have heard directly from intelligence officials about the alleged national security threat posed by the app. Now, two prominent senators are asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify and make public what they have shared.

“We are deeply troubled by the information and concerns raised by the intelligence community in recent classified briefings to Congress,” Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn write. “It is critically important that the American people, especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake.”

The exact nature of the intelligence community's concerns about the app has long been a source of debate. Lawmakers in the House received a similar briefing just ahead of their vote on the bill. But while the briefing seemed to bolster support for the measure, some members said they left unconvinced, with one lawmaker saying that “not a single thing that we heard … was unique to TikTok.”

According to Axios, some senators described their briefing as “shocking,” though the group isn’t exactly known for their particularly nuanced understanding of the tech industry. (Blumenthal, for example, once pressed Facebook executives on whether they would “commit to ending finsta.”) In its report, Axios says that one lawmaker “said they were told TikTok is able to spy on the microphone on users' devices, track keystrokes and determine what the users are doing on other apps.” That may sound alarming, but it’s also a description of the kinds of app permissions social media services have been requesting for more than a decade.

TikTok has long denied that its relationship with parent company ByteDance would enable Chinese government officials to interfere with its service or spy on Americans. And so far, there is no public evidence that TikTok has ever been used in this way. If US intelligence officials do have evidence that is more than hypothetical, it would be a major bombshell in the long-running debate surrounding the app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/senators-ask-intelligence-officials-to-declassify-details-about-tiktok-and-bytedance-180655697.html?src=rss

Enlarge / The Galaxy S24 line. (credit: Samsung)

Electric design is a field full of varying opinions and trade-offs. Companies agonize over the physical shapes of their devices and the materials used, all trying to create a high-quality, premium-feeling device that fits with the constraints of mass production. Material choices usually center around cost, feeling, and durability, but how often do manufacturers take into account smell? Samsung users are finding that if you pop out the Galaxy S24 Ultra's "S-Pen" stylus and give it a whiff like you're huffing a marker, you'll find that it... smells bad?

9to5Google found the following incredible post from Reddit user "LatifYil" titled, "Why does my s pen smell so bad?" The post has almost 250 comments of users all mostly agreeing with the post's sentiment that "the S-Pen in my Galaxy S24 Ultra absolutely reeks. Either I have a sensitive nose or this thing is being barbequed by the internals while it's unsheathed." The top-rated, very-online comment is, "Op got me to smell my pen. Can confirm it's a stinky boi."

Those describing the smell all seem to agree Samsung's stylus often smells like an electrical fire. One user writes that it's "a very burnt and plastics smell." Another says the S23 Ultra stylus "smells like new tech with a hint of burning." A more descriptive commenter says it smells like "an electric mixer that's turned on, but the beaters are jammed up and can't turn, so the motor is overheating." The S-Pen is mostly plastic but has a soft rubber tip, and a lot of users identify that soft bit as the smelly part.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge (credit: Instagram)

Instagram users have started complaining on X (formerly Twitter) after discovering that Meta has begun limiting recommended political content by default.

"Did [y'all] know Instagram was actively limiting the reach of political content like this?!" an X user named Olayemi Olurin wrote in an X post with more than 150,000 views as of this writing. "I had no idea 'til I saw this comment and I checked my settings and sho nuff political content was limited."

"Instagram quietly introducing a 'political' content preference and turning on 'limit' by default is insane?" wrote another X user named Matt in a post with nearly 40,000 views.

Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A team of university security researchers has found a chip-level exploit in Apple Silicon Macs. The group says the flaw can bypass the computer’s encryption and access its security keys, exposing the Mac’s private data to hackers. The silver lining is the exploit would require you to circumvent Apple’s Gatekeeper protections, install a malicious app and then let the software run for as long as 10 hours (along with a host of other complex conditions), which reduces the odds you’ll have to worry about the threat in the real world.

The exploit originates in a part of Apple’s M-series chips called Data Memory-Dependent Prefetchers (DMPs). DMPs make the processors more efficient by preemptively caching data. The DMPs treat data patterns as directions, using them to guess what information they need to access next. This reduces turnarounds and helps lead to reactions like “seriously fast,” often used to describe Apple Silicon.

The researchers discovered that attackers can use the DMP to bypass encryption. “Through new reverse engineering, we find that the DMP activates on behalf of potentially any program, and attempts to dereference any data brought into cache that resembles a pointer,” the researchers wrote. (“Pointers” are addresses or directions signaling where to find specific data.) “This behavior places a significant amount of program data at risk.”

“This paper shows that the security threat from DMPs is significantly worse than previously thought and demonstrates the first end-to-end attacks on security-critical software using the Apple m-series DMP,” the group wrote.

The researchers named the attack GoFetch, and they created an app that can access a Mac’s secure data without even requiring root access. Ars Technica Security Editor Dan Goodin explains, “M-series chips are divided into what are known as clusters. The M1, for example, has two clusters: one containing four efficiency cores and the other four performance cores. As long as the GoFetch app and the targeted cryptography app are running on the same performance cluster—even when on separate cores within that cluster — GoFetch can mine enough secrets to leak a secret key.”

The details are highly technical, but Ars Technica’s write-up is worth a read if you want to venture much further into the weeds.

But there are two key takeaways for the layperson: Apple can’t do much to fix existing chips with software updates (at least without significantly slowing down Apple Silicon’s trademark performance), and as long as you have Apple’s Gatekeeper turned on (the default), you won’t likely install malicious apps in the first place. Gatekeeper only allows apps from the Mac App Store and non-App Store installations from Apple registered developers. (You may want to be extra cautious when manually approving apps from unregistered developers in macOS security settings.) If you don’t install malicious apps outside those confines, the odds appear quite low this will ever affect your M-series Mac. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-silicon-has-a-hardware-level-exploit-that-could-leak-private-data-174741269.html?src=rss

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth dropped only a few weeks ago, but fans of the series won't have to wait long at all to play a new addition to another recent entry. The Rising Tide, the second paid expansion for Final Fantasy XVI, will arrive on April 18.

The release date was revealed at a PAX East panel, where it was announced that The Rising Tide will cost $20. However, if you haven't already picked up the previous paid DLC, Echoes of the Fallen, you can snap up both for $25 through a discounted expansion pass.

The Rising Tide will see Clive and his cohorts travel to the hidden land of Mysidia. They'll "uncover the tragic history of a forgotten people" as they look for the dominant of Leviathan, a long-lost Eikon of water. As with Echoes of the Fallen, the action takes place before the ending of the main game.

As the title and description suggest, you'll get to wield an array of water-based attacks, including a "sea-spitting serpent." The PlayStation Blog also teases that Clive will find another power on his journey. Meanwhile, the trailer shows off the battle with Leviathan, which takes place on the surface of a lake.

Those who beat The Rising Tide and the main game will gain access to a new endgame mode called Kairos Gate. You'll battle through 20 levels of increasing difficulty, taking down one wave of enemies after another. You can earn new materials and weapons for Clive through this mode. 

On top of all that, Square Enix will release a free update for Final Fantasy XVI on April 18 that includes a string of quality-of-life upgrades. For one thing, you'll be able to instantly return to the NPC who gave you a quest with the Quick Complete option. A Skill Set feature will let you save up to five Feat and Ability loadouts. In a positive update for accessibility, you'll be able to remap the controls as you see fit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-second-final-fantasy-xvi-dlc-the-rising-tide-will-arrive-on-april-18-174232733.html?src=rss

Iconic singer Joni Mitchell has put her music back on Spotify more than two years after she left the platform as a protest against it hosting misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, typically spread by beefy podcast bad boy Joe Rogan. This happens just a week after fellow protestor Neil Young rejoined the streaming service.

Mitchell has made no comment about her music returning to Spotify. Back in 2022, Mitchell wrote in a statement that “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue” of the COVID vaccine, as published by Pitchfork.

Young returned to Spotify on the grounds that Joe Rogan’s podcast is no longer exclusive to the platform, as it now appears on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. "My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify," he wrote in a blog post that may have been deleted since being published. The singer also noted that fans would have nowhere to go if he pulled his music from each of the above platforms.

Beyond the obvious reasons, Young and Mitchell had a personal stake in combating medical misinformation. Both musicians were victims of polio, a disease that was wiped out in North America thanks to vaccines.

Joni Mitchell has been experiencing something of a career resurgence in the past few years. She started playing live again in 2022, after an aneurysm in 2015 left her unable to perform. The singer even performed at this year’s Grammys. As for Rogan, he recently signed a new $250 million deal with Spotify to continue his various podcast ventures.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/joni-mitchell-joins-neil-young-and-returns-to-spotify-170655527.html?src=rss

Enlarge / Sometimes your infernal-engine-powered heart just isn't in it. (credit: Larian Studios/Hasbro)

Swen Vincke, director of the colossal entity that is Baldur's Gate 3, is not leaving the door open to future expansions of that already fully packed game.

At this week's Game Developer's Conference (GDC), Vincke made it clear during a talk and in interviews that Larian Studios is not going to make any major new content for Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3)—nor start work on Baldur's Gate 4, nor make anything, really, inside the framework of Dungeons & Dragons' Fifth Edition (5e).

Not that Vincke or his team are bitter. Their hearts just aren't in it. They had actually started work on BG3 downloadable content and gave some thought to Baldur's Gate 4, Vincke told IGN. "But we hadn’t really had closure on BG3 yet and just to jump forward on something new felt wrong." On top of that, the team had new ideas that didn't fit D&D 5e, which "is not an easy system to put into a video game," Vincke said.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge / The Enterprise-D bridge recreation, seen in London in 2002. (credit: Peter Bischoff/Getty Images)

More than a decade has gone by since three Star Trek: The Next Generation fans first decided to restore the bridge from the Enterprise-D. Plans for the restored bridge morphed from opening it up to non-commercial uses like weddings or educational events into a fully fledged museum, and now that museum is almost ready to open. Backers of the project on Kickstarter have been notified that Sci-Fi World Museum will open to them in Santa Monica, California, on May 27, with general admission beginning in June.

It's not actually the original set from TNG, as that was destroyed while filming Star Trek: Generations, when the saucer section crash-lands on Veridian III. But three replicas were made, overseen by Michael Okuda and Herman Zimmerman, the show's set designers. Two of those welcomed Trekkies at Star Trek: The Experience, an attraction in Las Vegas until it closed in 2008.

The third spent time in Hollywood, then traveled to Europe and Asia for Star Trek: World Tour before it ended up languishing in a warehouse in Long Beach. It's this third globe-trotting Enterprise-D bridge that—like the grit that gets an oyster to create a pearl—now finds a science-fiction museum accreted around it. Well, mostly—the chairs used by Riker, Troi, Data, and some other bits were salvaged from the Las Vegas exhibit.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Samsung announced pricing and availability details for its 2024 TV lineup on Thursday, and it's rolled out a fairly unique deal to entice pre-orders: If you order one of its latest sets between now and April 11, it'll throw in a bonus 65-inch 4K TV for no extra cost. The offer applies to the company's new OLED TVs (the S90D and S95D), 4K LED TVs (the QN85D and QN90D), 8K LED TVs (the QN800D and QN900D) and Frame TVs. It's available at several retailers, including Samsung.com, though you can get an extra $100 off each set at Amazon if you're a Prime member or Best Buy if you subscribe to that shop's My Best Buy Plus service. At the former, the deal comes as part of the retailer's wider Big Spring Sale event.

As for what's new with these sets, Samsung says the high-end S95D OLED TV uses anti-glare technology to hold up better in brightly-lit rooms, while the step-down S90D can reach higher brightness levels than last year's model. The aesthetics-focused Frame TV can now drop to a lower 60Hz refresh rate to conserve energy while displaying artwork, and the QN90D has an updated processor. And while most people don't need to splurge for an 8K TV, both the QN800D and top-end QN900D promise a few upscaling and motion-enhancing features based on AI.

It's an appealing promo, but there are some caveats to keep in mind before you buy. The bonus TV in question is the Samsung TU690T, an entry-level model from 2022. Though we haven't tested it ourselves, other reviews say that it can't get very bright and provides a mostly basic image. It lacks a local dimming feature to improve contrast, it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and it only has two HDMI ports, neither of which are HDMI 2.1. As of this writing, the 65-inch model is available for $480 at Best Buy.

It's also worth remembering how the pricing cycle of the TV market usually works. We'll have to wait for reviews to see just how improved Samsung's newest TVs are, but for the most part, they don't look to be massive upgrades over their predecessors from last year. The S95D's anti-glare tech may be the most meaningful change in practice.

Most of those 2023 TVs, meanwhile, are still available for significantly lower prices. Last year's excellent S90C OLED, for example, is now going for $1,298, which is $700 less than its 2024 equivalent. The new Frame TVs are an exception right now, though we've seen multiple discounts on last year's model in recent months. In general, the best times to buy a TV are still the holiday sales period and right about now, when new models are introduced and still-great older TVs fall in price until they're discontinued.

We highlight last year's S90C and QN90C TVs in our gaming TV buying guide, and we've previously recommended the Frame TV for those who are willing to trade some picture quality for a classier design. 

With all of that said, a free TV is a free TV. If you're dead-set on getting one of Samsung's latest and just want a large screen for, say, a guest room or office, this deal should sweeten the pot.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-is-throwing-in-a-free-65-inch-4k-tv-when-you-pre-order-one-of-its-new-2024-tvs-164301225.html?src=rss

Companies don’t need to make huge updates to their wireless earbuds across generations. Sometimes, making a great set more reliable and adding features that extend their lifespan are upgrades enough. That’s what Sennheiser has done for the Momentum True Wireless 4 ($300). The company’s fourth-generation earbuds retain the excellent sound quality I’ve come to expect from Sennheiser along with rebuilt Bluetooth tech, higher-resolution sound, support for Bluetooth LE Audio and a tool for battery longevity. But, not everyone will reap all of the benefits I encountered during my Momentum True Wireless 4 review.

Momentum True Wireless 4: Design

The Momentum True Wireless 4 is identical in appearance to the Momentum True Wireless 3, with the only difference being a new copper/black color option alongside the existing silver/black and silver/white versions. Also, you’ll now get a fourth, extra-small, set of ear tips and the company still includes three sizes of stabilizer arcs to help you get an ideal fit. Sennheiser’s Smart Control app has a fit test too, so you’ve got help there. The company has also upgraded the dust and moisture protection here with an IP54 rating, so they now withstand fine debris in addition to water spray.

There are, however, some important changes inside the Momentum True Wireless 4. That includes an update to Qualcomm’s S5 Sound Gen 2 platform with Snapdragon Sound. Part of the Bluetooth overhaul I mentioned is a redesigned antenna, which makes this fourth-gen set of wireless earbuds more reliable. Users had reported issues with dropouts and the companion app failing to recognize the Momentum True Wireless 3, so Sennheiser is clearly addressing those issues here.

Software and features

Like with recent Sennheiser audio gear, the company’s Sound Control app is where you access all of the settings and customization options for the Momentum True Wireless 4. The main interface gives you quick access to battery percentages, Bluetooth connections, personalized sound, ANC settings, transparency level, reconfiguring touch controls, fit test and Sound Zones. That last feature allows you to automate changes to audio settings like ANC and transparency on your location. You can set up to 20 of these “zones” for places like home, work and the gym. Of course, you have to give the app permission to monitor your whereabouts to use this.

Sennheiser has taken steps to future-proof these flagship earbuds – ensuring they last for the next few years, at least. First, they support Bluetooth 5.4, which is ready for LE Audio and Auracast. Those items aren’t available on the Momentum True Wireless 4 just yet, but Sennheiser is planning an update this spring that will deliver features like broadcast audio, audio sharing and assisted listening.

If you have a recent premium Android phone, the inclusion of Snapdragon Sound will come in handy for increased audio quality. The Qualcomm processor in those devices can muster what Sennheiser calls “flawless” lossless audio when streaming from a compatible music service. There are two settings here: high resolution at 24-bit/96kHz via aptX Adaptive and lossless at 16-bit/44.1kHz with aptX Lossless.

The final quality-of-life update concerns the battery. In order to maintain better performance over time, Sennheiser added a battery protection mode that stops the buds from charging past 80 percent. This is important since earbud batteries are almost never replaceable and preventing them from overcharging will extend its lifespan. It’s nice to see the company making a product last longer, which will also have environmental impacts.

Momentum True Wireless 4: Sound quality Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Sennheiser has a longstanding reputation for great sound quality and the Momentum True Wireless 4 continues that tradition. I couldn’t detect a huge difference between the Momentum True Wireless 4 and its predecessor, though, despite the company saying this year’s model has “evolved tuning” that includes things like “smoother treble response, extensive bass and effortless midrange.” And that’s just fine because the Momentum True Wireless 3 already sounded amazing.

There’s still great detail and clarity here, combined with a warm, inviting sound profile that’s enjoyable for hours on end. Even though the bass is boomy and punchy when a song like Incendiary’s “Lie of Liberty” demands it, the low-end tone never overpowers. And you can easily hear the texture of the distorted guitars, clanging hits on the ride cymbal and other subtleties on that bombastic hardcore track. Shift over to something more mellow like Charles Wesley Godwin’s Apple Music Sessions and the level of detail envelopes you even more. Those songs are also available in Dolby Atmos, so they really allow the Momentum True Wireless 4 to shine.

If the stock tuning doesn’t suit you, you can adjust a 5-band EQ and save any custom presets. The app also offers Sound Personalization, which tunes the audio to your listening preference via a quick test. The Momentum True Wireless 4 sounded great out of the box and I left the tuning untouched except for a bit of due diligence.

Android users can take advantage of the increased audio quality I mentioned earlier. There is a noticeable difference in the sound, especially in the finer details, but whether it’s “better” depends on your preferences. Of course, that higher-resolution playback will impact battery life and you’ll need a specific streaming plan (like Tidal’s Hi-Fi or Hi-Fi Plus options) or locally stored files to use what Snapdragon Sound offers in the first place.

iPhone owners shouldn’t feel left out as Apple’s AAC streaming also sounds great on the Momentum True Wireless 4. It’s aided by the fact that Apple Music’s audio quality is superior to other services, especially if the tunes are available in Dolby Atmos.

ANC performance Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Like its predecessor, the Momentum True Wireless 4 has an adaptive ANC setup that automatically adjusts to changes in your environment for a more “immersive listening experience.” Sennheiser didn’t point out any differences in its noise-canceling setup on this new model and I didn’t notice any discernible improvement or decline. The ANC works just fine in most settings, but like most earbuds and headphones, it struggles with sounds like human voices. I also found that it’s not as robust as the best buds from Bose and Sony with some sources of constant noise, like white noise machines and noisy fans.

Call quality

Sennheiser uses six microphones to handle calls on the Momentum True Wireless 4. Overall quality is good, but not pristine, as long as you’re in a quiet spot. Constant noise like a raucous fan comes across as a nondescript hum, but it’s still noticeable. Transparency mode helps a bit during calls, if only to let you be aware of your surroundings. It has a natural sound compared to other earbuds, but doesn’t pipe in your voice, so the end result isn’t as good as Apple’s AirPods Pro.

Momentum True Wireless 4: Battery life

The Momentum True Wireless 4’s battery is rated to last seven hours with ANC on, but you can extend that 30 minutes by disabling it. During my tests, which consisted of mostly ANC listening at around 70-percent volume with a few calls using transparency mode, I easily hit the seven-hour mark. Factor in the case, which supports wireless charging, and you can expect up to 30 hours of playback on the go. There's also a wireless quick-charge feature with the battery protection mode that gives you an hour of use in just eight minutes.

The competition

The leader of the pack is still Sony’s WF-1000XM5. While the Momentum True Wireless 4 has the edge in terms of sound quality, Sony’s earbuds offer better noise-canceling and a host of handy features. Tools like Speak-to-Chat automatic pausing and DSEE Extreme audio upscaling cannot be overlooked. Sony also provides the ability to automatically change sound settings based on your location like Sennheiser does, so you don’t have to sacrifice that feature. The WF-1000XM5 debuted last July, which means you can find them on sale often. They’re currently going for $278, $22 less than the Momentum True Wireless 4.

Wrap-up

No new design? No problem. Sennheiser has made enough upgrades to the Momentum True Wireless 4 to make it a compelling entry in a growing line of stellar-sounding earbuds. Sound quality is great as always, and that’s the biggest selling point for me. Combine that with the higher-resolution audio on Android, forward-facing features and solid battery life, and this model checks a lot of boxes for a flagship set of buds. Sure, ANC could be better and some folks will yearn for spatial audio, but just because the Momentum True Wireless 4 is superb in some areas doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sennheiser-momentum-true-wireless-4-review-stellar-sound-forward-looking-features-153004419.html?src=rss

Qualcomm is said to have new Arm-based laptops of its own in the pipeline, while consumer versions of the new Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 that run on the Snapdragon X Elite chipset are believed to be on the way. While that in the past would have meant the makers of x86- and x64-based Windows software needing to port their apps, Qualcomm sought to assure game developers that their titles will run just fine out of the box on any unannounced Snapdragon X Elite systems that just happen to be coming up.

At the Game Developers Conference, Qualcomm engineer Issam Khalil told the audience that the computers will use emulation to run many x86 and x64 games at nearly full speed without the need to tweak the code or change any assets. According to The Verge, Khalil explained that games are typically bottlenecked by the graphics processing unit, and emulation doesn't impact GPU performance. As such (save for some CPU cost when a block of code in a game runs through its emulation process for the first time), Qualcomm suggests many titles will perform just fine.

There are some caveats. Certain games simply won't work through emulation, particularly those using kernel-level anti-cheat tech. However, Qualcomm has been testing its emulation with the top games on Steam and appears convinced that its tech should be able to handle most games.

Otherwise, Khalil told developers that they have two other options for running their games on Snapdragon-based Windows machines. They can fully port their titles to native ARM64 for optimal CPU performance and power usage. Alternatively, Qualcomm will support hybrid ARM64EC apps, in which Windows libraries and Qualcomm’s drivers run natively, but the other parts of the software are emulated. This is said to deliver “near-native” performance.

If Qualcomm can actually pull off this emulation trick as promised, it'll be an impressive move, and it could ultimately help Arm-based Windows laptops offer a blend of strong performance and better power efficiency than x86 Intel-based machines. However, the proof is in the pudding. Qualcomm hasn't had a terrific track record of x86/x64 emulation thus far. In fact, senior editor Devindra Hardawar criticized the Arm-based Surface Pro 9 for its poor Windows emulation.

So far, Apple has arguably been the most successful company at emulating x86 software on its Arm-based M-series chips with the help of its Rosetta 2 translation layer. One key point to bear in mind here is that Apple has total control over the entire ecosystem, as PC Gamer notes, including the hardware and operating system. As such, Apple can perhaps better optimize the emulation process than other companies that provide fewer parts of the equation, such as Qualcomm with its GPUs and CPUs.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/qualcomm-says-most-windows-games-will-work-on-its-latest-arm-laptop-chipset-152540577.html?src=rss

Enlarge / Is a name like "Suyu" ironic enough to avoid facing a lawsuit? (credit: Suyu)

Switch emulator Suyu—a fork of the Nintendo-targeted and now-defunct emulation project Yuzu—has been taken down from GitLab following a DMCA request Thursday. But the emulation project's open source files remain available on a self-hosted git repo on the Suyu website, and recent compiled binaries remain available on an extant GitLab repo.

While the DMCA takedown request has not yet appeared on GitLab's public repository of such requests, a GitLab spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the project was taken down after the site received notice "from a representative of the rightsholder." GitLab has not specified who made the request or how they represented themselves; a representative for Nintendo was not immediately available to respond to a request for comment.

An email to Suyu contributors being shared on the project's Discord server includes the following cited justification in the DMCA request:

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The Amazon Big Spring Sale is here, and it’s brought a ton of deals on seasonal favorites. Amongst the clothing, shoes, home goods and outdoor gear on discount right now, there are a decent number of tech deals to be had as well. Amazon made it pretty clear in its announcement of the Big Spring Sale that tech wasn’t going to be the main focus this time around (unlike traditional Prime Day, when we usually see tons of great tech deals). But we at Engadget have been able to comb through the sea of discounts and find some good deals on things like AirPods, Roomba robot vacuums, Anker charging gear and more. Check out the best tech deals you can get in the Amazon Spring Sale below, and don't miss some of the other best tech deals we found across the web at the end of the list.

Best Spring Sale deals under $50

Best Spring Sale deals on Apple devices

Best Spring Sale deals on Anker devices

Best Spring Sale deals on headphones, earbuds and speakers

Best Spring Sale deals on smartphones

Best Spring Sale deals on gaming gear

Best Spring Sale deals on smart home tech

Best Spring Sale deals on Amazon devices

Best Spring Sale deals on other tech

Best tech deals available elsewhere on the web

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-tech-deals-we-found-in-the-amazon-big-spring-sale--save-on-earbuds-tablets-power-banks-and-more-150018303.html?src=rss

Enlarge / "Notepad.exe but with spellcheck" looks pretty much exactly like you'd expect it to. (credit: Microsoft)

Whatever else you can say about Windows 11—and whatever you think about its pushy tendencies and the Copilot feature that has been rolled out to pretty much everyone despite being labeled a "preview"—the operating system has ushered in a bit of a renaissance for decades-old built-in apps like Paint and Notepad.

Notepad's development in particular has been striking; it had gotten small under-the-hood updates over the years, but in many ways, the version that was still in Windows 11 at launch in 2021 was the same app that Microsoft shipped with Windows XP, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, or even Windows 1.0.

An updated version of Notepad currently rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels is adding two more modern features to the old app: spellcheck and autocorrect. Per usual, spellcheck in Notepad highlights misspellings with red squiggly underlines, and right-clicking the word or pressing Shift + F10 will pop up a short menu of suggested fixes.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge / Wired for science! (credit: Marianna Boros, Eötvös Loránd University)

Needle, a cheerful miniature schnauzer I had as a kid, turned into a ball of unspeakable noise and fury each time she saw a dog called Puma. She hated Puma so much she would go ballistic, barking and growling. Merely whispering the name “Puma” set off the same reaction, as though the sound of it and the idea of the dog it represented were clearly connected deep in Needle’s mind.

A connection between a word and a mental representation of its meaning is called “referential understanding,” and for a very long time, we believed dogs lacked this ability. Now, a study published by a team of Hungarian researchers indicates we might have been wrong.

Practice makes perfect

The idea that dogs couldn’t form associations with language in a referential manner grew out of behavioral studies in which dogs were asked to do a selective fetching task. The canines had a few objects placed in front of them (like a toy or a bone) and then had to fetch the one specifically named by their owner.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments