Tech Boys

It's May and it's getting warm (in the Northern Hemisphere). At a time like this, the Eta Aquarid meteor shower is a great excuse to look up at the night sky . This year's shower peaks close to the new moon — the opposite of a full moon — which is ideal. Dark skies mean better viewing conditions, which will come as a relief to anyone who tried to catch this show last year when a dazzling full moon filled the sky with light, making meteor viewing next to impossible. These conditions also contrast nicely with the Lyrid meteor shower last month, during which a nearly full waxing gibbous moon may have ruined your attempt to make a wish on a shooting star. When to watch the Eta Aquarids in 2024 The Eta Aquarids produce a long show, with activity from April 15 to May 27 this year. However, if you're only looking up once, plan to do it during the show's period of peak activity on the night of May 4 and into the wee hours of the morning on May 5. In theory, 2 a.m. local

This Apple Watch Series 9 vs. SE face-off will obliterate all the questions you have about the popular smartwatches — well, that's the plan at least. I've always been a smartwatch skeptic. Whether it's the Google Pixel Watch , the Samsung Galaxy Watch , or the Apple Watch , all seemed superfluous for anyone who has a phone. When people tried to persuade me to join the smartwatch squad, they always brought up fitness as a use case, which has never been a priority for me — until now. After hearing my doctor tell me that my blood pressure is too high, I decided to take exercise more seriously. What really drew me to consider an Apple Watch, however, is that I want to make sure I'm hitting — and maintaining — a target heart rate while running on the treadmill, ensuring effective calorie burning. And of course, one of the best ways to track heart rate is to use an Apple Watch. But I've been faced with a dilemma. Should I get the SE (second generation) or spend a li

Does AI have a place in the music industry? At least one label seems to think so. The record label Sub Pop told the Los Angeles Times that the music video for "The Hardest Part," a single release on May 2 by the artist Washed Out, is the first collaboration between a major music artist, filmmaker, and OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video generator. It is also the longest video yet created using AI. The creative team behind the video says that Sora made it possible for them to create something sweeping in scale without blowing their budget (the total cost of the video has not been disclosed). Access to Sora, which is not yet available to the general public, was provided to video director, Paul Trillo, free of charge. Over the course of six weeks, he edited together 55 clips that he selected from the estimated 700 that Sora produced from his text prompts. "A lot of music videos just don’t have the budgets to really dream big," Trillo told the Los Angeles Times. "

X is using Grok to publish AI-generated summaries of news and other topics that trend on the platform. The feature, which is currently only available to premium subscribers, is called “Stories on X,” according to a post from the company’s engineering account. According to X, Grok relies on users’ posts to generate the text snippets. Some seem to be more news-focused, while others are summaries of conversations happening on the platform itself. One user posted a screenshot that showed stories about Apple’s earnings report and aid to Ukraine, as well as one for “Musk, Experts Debate National Debt,” which was a summary of a “candid online discussion” between Musk and other “prominent figures” on X. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s also remarkably similar to Moments, the longtime Twitter feature that curated authoritative tweets about important news and cultural moments on the platform. The feature, which was overseen by a team of human staffers, was killed in 2022 . Like other g

Microsoft is more explicitly banning police departments from using its AI models to identify suspects, according to new conduct language for its Azure OpenAI collaboration. The new language explicitly prohibits using its AI model services "for facial recognition purposes by or for a police department in the United States." It also prohibits use cases in which mobile cameras are used by any law enforcement globally "in the wild" or where patrolling police officers use body-worn or dash-mounted cameras to verify identities. Microsoft also disallowed identification of individuals within a database of suspects or prior inmates. The company's Azure OpenAI system, which provides API access to OpenAI's language and coding models via Microsoft's cloud storage, recently added Chat GPT-4 Turbo with Vision , OpenAI's advanced text and image analyzer. In February, the company announced it was submitting it's generative AI services for use by federal age

Elon Musk has made no secret that he’s not a fan of the block button. Now, X is changing how blocks work on its platform, though it’s (for now) stopping short of Musk’s wish of nuking the feature entirely. Instead, X is tweaking the visibility of replies in the context of a block. Previously, a user could block someone on X and still reply to their posts. And the person who was blocked wouldn’t be able to view that reply or know the person who had blocked them was engaging with their posts. That’s now being rolled back so that users will be able to see direct replies even if the person posting has blocked them. In a post from X’s engineering team, the company said the change is “part of our ongoing commitment to aligning the block feature with our principles as a public town square.” We are making changes to how block works. If a user who has blocked you replies to one of your posts, you will now be able to see their reply. This change enables you to identify and report any pot

Google Street View offers a window to the world in all its bizarre , intimate , and often unfiltered glory. However, this peek into everyday life also extends to your home, potentially revealing more than you'd like — from views into bedroom windows to concerns about privacy and safety . Fortunately, there's a solution. You can request Google to blur your house permanently, leaving behind only a vague outline of the building. The process is surprisingly simple. Launched in 2007 , Street View provides a ground-level perspective of numerous cities and towns worldwide, captured by roving vehicles and photographers equipped with camera-laden backpacks . From its inception, the service has been a subject of controversy, touching on expected concerns as well as unexpected ones. In 2008, for instance, the Minnesota suburb of North Oaks objected to its inclusion on Google's service, citing trespassing concerns. In response, Google promptly removed the images from Street Vi

The FDA just gave the Apple Watch a historic first approval for a digital health tech device. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Apple Watch – or more specifically its atrial fibrillation (AFib) feature – has received its approval as a qualified device in the Medical Device Development Tools (MDDT) program. The feature helps detect abnormal heart patterns and has previously been credited for saving users' lives. SEE ALSO: Apple Watch Series 10: It’s tipped to get better battery life, thanks to this new feature This FDA approval allows the Apple Watch AFib feature to be used as a "tool to assess atrial fibrillation (a type of arrhythmia, or abnormal heartbeat) burden estimates within clinical studies." The Apple Watch can now be used as a non-invasive "biomarker test to help evaluate estimates of AFib burden as a secondary effectiveness endpoint within clinical studies intended to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of cardiac ablatio

Snapchat will finally join most of its messaging app peers and allow users to edit their chats. The feature, which will be rolling out “soon,” will initially be limited to Snapchat+ subscribers, the company said. With the change, Snapchat users will have a five-minute window to rephrase their message, fix typos or otherwise edit their chats. Messages that have been edited will have a label indicating the text has been changed. The company didn’t say when the feature might be available to more of its users, but the company often brings sought after features to its subscription service first. Snap announced last week that Snapchat+, which costs $3.99 a month, had reached 9 million subscribers. The app is also adding several non-exclusive features, including updated emoji reactions for chats, the ability to use the My AI assistant to set reminders and AI-generated outfits for Bitmoji. Snap also showed off a new AI lens that transforms users’ selfies into 1990’s-themed snapshots (just

Facebook’s News Feed algorithm has long been at the center of debates about some of Meta’s biggest problems. It’s also been a near constant source of complaints from users. But, if a newly filed lawsuit is successful, Facebook users may be able to use the social network with a vastly different feed. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University is suing Meta on behalf of a researcher who wants to release a browser extension that would allow people to “effectively turn off” their algorithmic feeds. The extension was created by Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He argues that Facebook users would be better off with more control over their feeds. “The tool, called Unfollow Everything 2.0, would allow users to unfollow their friends, groups, and pages, and, in doing so, to effectively turn off their newsfeed—the endless scroll of posts that users see when they log into Facebook,” the lawsuit explains . “Users who downloa