Month: August 2024
Amazon will discontinue the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition’s main reason for existing
If you own an Amazon Echo Show 8 Photos edition, be prepared for your device to start showing ads. According to emails posted by customers on Reddit and Threads and first reported by The Verge, Amazon will discontinue its PhotosPlus subscription feature that let people upload and display their own pictures on the Echo Show 8.
Reddit/amazonecho
PhotosPlus subscriptions will end on September 12 and Amazon will end support for the photo feature on September 23. Instead, affected customers will have to upload their photos to Amazon Photos with 25 GB of storage and learn to live with the ads on their home screen.
The feature, which costs $2 a month, let users upload their own photos for display on the Echo Show 8’s home screen turning the voice and touch controlled screen device into a digital picture frame. The screen would rotate the owners’ photos every 30 seconds, a feature that could be left on indefinitely (or as long as it could last on its chargeable battery).
Any mention of the PhotosPlus subscription has been removed from Amazon’s website. The Amazon Echo Show 8 Photos Edition is also no longer for sale.
Amazon has seen some major struggles with Alexa devices. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Alexa lost Amazon more than $25 billion from 2017 to 2021. Amazon has tried to recoup some of those losses by eliminating bonuses to Alexa developers. The tech giant is also reportedly working on an advanced version of Alexa known as “Remarkable Alexa” that could come with a monthly subscription fee.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-will-discontinue-the-echo-show-8-photos-editions-main-reason-for-existing-210045966.html?src=rss
If you own an Amazon Echo Show 8 Photos edition, be prepared for your device to start showing ads. According to emails posted by customers on Reddit and Threads and first reported by The Verge, Amazon will discontinue its PhotosPlus subscription feature that let people upload and display their own pictures on the Echo Show 8.
PhotosPlus subscriptions will end on September 12 and Amazon will end support for the photo feature on September 23. Instead, affected customers will have to upload their photos to Amazon Photos with 25 GB of storage and learn to live with the ads on their home screen.
The feature, which costs $2 a month, let users upload their own photos for display on the Echo Show 8’s home screen turning the voice and touch controlled screen device into a digital picture frame. The screen would rotate the owners’ photos every 30 seconds, a feature that could be left on indefinitely (or as long as it could last on its chargeable battery).
Any mention of the PhotosPlus subscription has been removed from Amazon’s website. The Amazon Echo Show 8 Photos Edition is also no longer for sale.
Amazon has seen some major struggles with Alexa devices. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Alexa lost Amazon more than $25 billion from 2017 to 2021. Amazon has tried to recoup some of those losses by eliminating bonuses to Alexa developers. The tech giant is also reportedly working on an advanced version of Alexa known as “Remarkable Alexa” that could come with a monthly subscription fee.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-will-discontinue-the-echo-show-8-photos-editions-main-reason-for-existing-210045966.html?src=rss
COVID shot now or later? Just getting it at all is great, officials respond.
As the summer wave peaks, officials are prepping for the coming winter wave.
Enlarge / A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. (credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO )
With the impending arrival of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines approved yesterday, some Americans are now gaming out when to get their dose—right away while the summer wave is peaking, a bit later in the fall to maximize protection for the coming winter wave, or maybe a few weeks before a big family event at the end of the year? Of course, the group pondering such a question is just a small portion of the US.
Only 22.5 percent of adults and 14 percent of children in the country are estimated to have gotten the 2023–2024 vaccine. In contrast, 48.5 percent of adults and 54 percent of children were estimated to have gotten a flu shot. The stark difference is despite the fact that COVID-19 is deadlier than the flu, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus is evolving faster than seasonal influenza viruses.
In a press briefing Friday, federal health officials were quick to redirect focus when reporters raised questions about the timing of COVID-19 vaccination in the coming months and the possibility of updating the vaccines twice a year, instead of just once, to keep up with an evolving virus that has been producing both summer and winter waves.
Microsoft’s Copilot Falsely Accuses Court Reporter of Crimes He Covered
An anonymous reader shares a report: Language models generate text based on statistical probabilities. This led to serious false accusations against a veteran court reporter by Microsoft’s Copilot. German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft’s Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR. The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician.
Copilot even went so far as to claim that it was “unfortunate” that someone with such a criminal past had a family and, according to SWR, provided Bernklau’s full address with phone number and route planner. I asked Copilot today who Martin Bernklau from Germany is, and the system answered, based on the SWR report, that “he was involved in a controversy where an AI chat system falsely labeled him as a convicted child molester, an escapee from a psychiatric facility, and a fraudster.” Perplexity.ai drafts a similar response based on the SWR article, explicitly naming Microsoft Copilot as the AI system.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Language models generate text based on statistical probabilities. This led to serious false accusations against a veteran court reporter by Microsoft’s Copilot. German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft’s Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR. The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician.
Copilot even went so far as to claim that it was “unfortunate” that someone with such a criminal past had a family and, according to SWR, provided Bernklau’s full address with phone number and route planner. I asked Copilot today who Martin Bernklau from Germany is, and the system answered, based on the SWR report, that “he was involved in a controversy where an AI chat system falsely labeled him as a convicted child molester, an escapee from a psychiatric facility, and a fraudster.” Perplexity.ai drafts a similar response based on the SWR article, explicitly naming Microsoft Copilot as the AI system.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
3 modern western thrillers on Netflix with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes
These aren’t the westerns of old with white hats and black hats. They’re much smarter, more complex and often much more violent too.
It’s all Clint Eastwood’s fault. 1992’s Unforgiven reinvented and rebooted the western, a genre that had long fallen into cliché. Unforgiven took the tired tropes and turned them around, showing the shades of gray that we didn’t see in our matinee movies of good guys in white hats and bad guys in black. And filmmakers have been following that lead ever since, with western-style movies telling much more nuanced stories with much more complex characters and often, much more violence too.
These three films all use the western genre, they’re all on Netflix and they all have 90% plus on Rotten Tomatoes, but they tell very different stories. Bone Tomahawk shares some of its DNA with From Dusk Till Dawn in its lurid, over-the-top violence, while The Furnace takes the familiar trope of gold-driven greed, transplants it to the Outback and uses it to shine a light on Australian history. And while Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog takes place beneath widescreen skies, the story it tells is much smaller and considerably more claustrophobic.
All could rank among the best Netflix movies – so see which one takes your fancy as the perfect weekend watch.
Bone Tomahawk
“Bone Tomahawk surges head first into violence with absolute courage and graphic disregard,” says Every Movie Has A Lesson, and that’s probably an understatement: this is an exceptionally violent movie that definitely isn’t for the squeamish. As Ireland’s The Herald put it: “For 100 minutes or so, Bone Tomahawk plays out as a clever and truly enjoyable Western… and then the film turns all kinds of nasty.”
The movie follows a small town sheriff (Kurt Russell) who leads a rescue mission to capture three people who have been abducted by a cannibalistic clan. The mission takes them into hostile territory, and things get messy. Very messy. But as Empire explains, despite scenes including “one spectacularly appalling cannibal dismemberment” the film is “as much a comedy as a cowboy horror film… Its influences veer all over the map, with stretches recalling the Coen brothers punctuated by echoes of Rob Zombie.”
The Power of the Dog
Adapted from Thomas Savage’s cult novel, The Power of the Dog is set on a ranch in 1925 and, according to Empire, “ruminates on the same romantic taboos, repression and visceral expressions of desire” as director Jane Campion’s much-loved The Piano. It centers on three key characters: Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), his brother’s new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and Rose’s son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and tells its story slowly as Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood’s “scuffed guitar and sorrowful strings” provide the sparse soundtrack.
“What looks like it might become a love story turns out to be a tale of revenge,” The New Yorker says, adding that while the movie is “intensely beautiful” and “especially breathtaking” it’s also frightening and very intense. According to Columbus Alive the film “doesn’t just have one of the year’s best performances; it has four of them”, with Salon in full agreement: it’s “an exacting drama about masculinity, toxic and otherwise…. The strong performances and the striking visual style make this a potent piece of filmmaking.”
The Furnace
The story may sound familiar – gold-related greed leads to madness and violence – but The Furnace tells it very well; according to The Australian it’s “beautiful, even powerful, but rather bleak.” The debut movie by director Roderick MacKay is an Australian western set in the late 19th century with an impressively diverse cast and an interesting take on a well-worn story.
According to The Guardian it has echoes of the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and critics agree that the movie features a superb central performance by David Wenham and Ahmed Malek as Mal and Hanif, the duo at the center of this “roadless road movie”.
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In a New Netflix Documentary, the Mysteries Surrounding Steve McNair Persist
The streaming giant’s effort to rehash the former N.F.L. quarterback’s football career and death doesn’t offer much new, a columnist for The Athletic writes.
The streaming giant’s effort to rehash the former N.F.L. quarterback’s football career and death doesn’t offer much new, a columnist for The Athletic writes.
Jannik Sinner Parts Ways With Fitness Coach and Physiotherapist After Doping Ruling
The two men were at the heart of the case involving the world’s top-ranked tennis player, which rocked the sport this week.
The two men were at the heart of the case involving the world’s top-ranked tennis player, which rocked the sport this week.