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Microsoft says Bing’s ‘Tank Man’ censorship was a human error

On Microsoft’s search engine Bing, searching for “Tank Man,” the iconic figure from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China, turned up no image results in the United States for part of Friday. Vice was able to produce the same results in the US, and heard from multiple users from other countries who ran into… Read more

EU and UK open antitrust investigations into Facebook Marketplace

The European Commission and UK regulators have opened antitrust investigations into Facebook over concerns its Marketplace service is unfairly distorting competition for classified ads. Both are interested in whether or not Facebook unfairly used advertising data to compete in the classified ads market, and are collaborating as part of the investigation. “Facebook collects vast troves… Read more

Xgimi Halo

Our Verdict The specs and feature highlights are appealing but the Halo falls short when it comes to subtlety For Excellent black depth Bright for the money Handy portable features Against Blunt contrast control Poor speaker placement If you’ve ever had to pull an all-nighter for work, then you’ll know the taste of the 4am… Read more

Google Replaces Millions of Intel’s CPUs With Its Own Homegrown Chips

Home News (Image credit: Intel) Google has designed its own new processors, the Argos video (trans)coding units (VCU), that have one solitary purpose: processing video. The highly efficient new chips have allowed the technology giant to replace tens of millions of Intel CPUs with its own silicon. For many years Intel’s video decoding/encoding engines that come… Read more

China Says WuDao 2.0 AI Is an Even Better Conversationalist than OpenAI, Google

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) researchers announced this week a natural language processing model called WuDao 2.0 that, per the South China Morning Post, is more advanced than similar models developed by OpenAI and Google. The report said WuDao 2.0 uses 1.75 trillion parameters to “simulate conversational speech,… Read more

Google confirms diversity exec no longer in role after problematic post

One of Google’s top executives in diversity strategy and research has left his post after a 2007 blog post slamming the state of Israel resurfaced on June 1st. In the post, Kamau Bobb used antisemitic language, insinuating Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing.” The post was quickly picked up by the New… Read more

Google Pixel Buds A-Series review: Sounds familiar

(Pocket-lint) – Google has announced a new version of the Pixel Buds, its true wireless headphones that originally launched in 2017 – the first-gen weren’t all that, though, while the second-gen Buds 2 stepped things up a little in 2019. The third model belongs to the A-Series, picking up on the A series that we’ve… Read more

Chrome will soon warn you when you might not want to trust an extension

Google is rolling out new safety features for Chrome which are designed to make it easier to spot dubious downloads and extensions. They build upon the browser’s Enhanced Safe Browsing feature, which launched last year to offer better warnings against phishing sites. When it comes to Chrome extensions, the browser will now show a warning… Read more

Google announces $99 Pixel Buds A-Series

As usual for Google hardware, the new Pixel Buds A-Series have already been extensively leaked, and the company even tweeted about them prematurely. But today, the earbuds are being officially announced. They’re priced at $99, a significant savings compared to the $179 standard Pixel Buds, and are available for preorder in the United States and… Read more

Google Pixel Buds A-Series review: price is everything

The new Pixel Buds A are available in a dark green color The $99 Pixel Buds are a better buy than their pricier predecessors With the new, awkwardly named Pixel Buds A-Series, Google is trying to do more than merely introduce a much cheaper set of true wireless earbuds: the company wants to get it… Read more

Satechi’s iPad Pro hub will let you pretend it’s a real desktop

The latest gadget from Satechi is both a stand and a USB-C hub made for the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models that have a USB-C charging port, as well as the 2020 iPad Air. It’s $100, and with your tablet wedged into the stand, it should look more like a traditional monitor, so you… Read more

Google is making it harder for Android apps to track you once you’ve opted out

It’s going to get harder for Android apps to track users who’ve opted out of receiving personalized ads, the Financial Times reports, after Google announced changes to how it’ll handle the unique device identifiers that allow marketers to track them between apps. Starting later this year, Google is cutting off access to these “Advertising IDs”… Read more

Google TV could soon offer personalised homepages for each user in your family

Home News (Image credit: Google) Looks like Google TV could soon support different user profiles on the home screen. 9to5Google has dug into the source code of the latest version of the operating system and found mention of personalised home screens, which would offer a much more tailored experience for anyone watching. Google TV already… Read more

For Apple TV Plus to succeed, it has to be everywhere — even Android TV

This week, Apple brought its Apple TV app to many new Android TV devices — not just the Nvidia Shield. And Apple was smart to widen that support — the expiration date for free trials of Apple TV Plus is swiftly approaching, with many customers about to see their subscriptions end July 1st. That gives… Read more

Apple asks staff to return to office three days a week starting in early September

Apple employees are being asked to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Tim Cook sent out an email Wednesday informing staff of the change. “For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing… Read more