Apple's iOS 17 brought a host of new features, including the option to leave video messages on FaceTime. While younger generations typically dread hearing their phones ring and seeing that someone has left a voicemail, Apple's new video version might be a hit. Now, when you call someone on FaceTime, if there's no answer you'll have the option to record and send a video message. Please note: Both you and your recipient must be running iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 to send and receive FaceTime video messages.
Step by step: How to send a FaceTime video message
Step 1: Go to the FaceTime app
Leaving a video message via FaceTime is pretty simple. All you have to do is initiate a FaceTime call like you normally would. This can be done in a few ways but the easiest way would be to go to the FaceTime app.
Step 2: Initiate the FaceTime call
Once in the app, tap the New FaceTime button, select the contact you're trying to reach then tap FaceTime at the bottom. If no picks up, you'll see "[Contact] is Unavailable" and you'll be presented with two options. You can either call them again or hit Record Video to do just that.
CNET
Step 3: Tap the Record Video option
Select Record Video and get ready to shoot your shot. You'll see an onscreen countdown and then you can record your message.
Step 4: Send your video message
After you're done saying what you need to say, you can send it by tapping Send, which looks like a white button circle with a green arrow inside, or you can select Retake.
Apple
Apple has also included a Save option, which means you can save the video message you just recorded directly to your Camera Roll. Or if you'd prefer not to send the message at all, you can simply hit Cancel.
But if you do go through with sending your video message, the recipient will be able to view it in the missed call log within their FaceTime app. Once there, they'll have the option to return your call, watch the video message or save it to their Camera Roll.
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Just when Microsoft’s buyout of Activision finally seemed to be near complete — and we could focus on Google’s legal tussles with the Department of Justice — the Federal Trade Commission said it will revive its attempt to block the $69 billion deal in an adjudicative process. Microsoft received EU approval over the summer when the European Commission endorsed the deal as long as the tech giant could ensure “full compliance with commitments.”
Normally, the FTC drops its challenges to deals when efforts are lost in federal court. This move will not delay the deal, though in the worst-case scenario, Microsoft might have to sell off parts of the gaming company. Microsoft told Bloomberg it’s not concerned about the move preventing its purchase. Regardless of the impact it could have, the FTC’s in-house hearing will only start after the Ninth Circuit issues an opinion on the appeal.
— Mat Smith
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The researchers analyzed 22 years’ worth of observations of the galaxy M87.
Observing 22 years of the first black hole humanity has ever imaged has offered “unequivocal evidence” that black holes spin. There’s apparently an oscillating jet that swings up and down roughly every 11 years. An international team of scientists headed by Chinese researcher Dr. Cui Yuzhu analyzed more than two decades of observational data gathered by more than 20 telescopes around the world to make the discovery in the black hole at the center of galaxy M87.
A small fraction of particles not falling into the black hole get jetted out. The telescopes’ observations show that M87’s jet oscillates by 10 degrees in a recurring 11-year cycle —– as Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity predicted. Aside from proving Einstein right, it’s a significant discovery that massively improves our understanding of black holes.
Honda has revealed more details about its all-electric Prologue SUV. The EV will have a listed range of 300 miles and cost around “the upper $40,000s” before any incentives or tax credits. The pricing puts it well above rival SUVs, like the Volkswagen ID.4, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Mustang Mach-E — all of which start around $40,000. Also, the range of Honda’s EV is comparatively shorter.
The Nitro Deck comes from CRKD, a new company founded at Embracer Group’s Freemode incubator lab. The Nitro Deck is a simple idea executed well: Slide your Switch screen into the frame and it acts as a self-contained, beefed-up gamepad, sidestepping the initially innovative but drifty Joy-Con controllers. You can also get it in a decidedly Gamecube colorway. Lots of purple.
Scientists at the University of Washington have developed flying robots that change shape in mid-air, without batteries, as originally published in the research journal Science Robotics. These miniature Transformers snap into a folded position during flight to stabilize descent. They weigh just 400 milligrams and feature an on-board battery-free actuator, powered by solar. Future-use cases could range from monitoring weather to checking air conditions with a fleet of the lil’ things
SpaceX has won a $70 million contract with the US Space Force to provide satellite communications for the US Space Force via its Starshield program, Bloomberg reported. The company will effectively be repurposing its Starlink network for military usage as a way to provide a "secured satellite network for government entities," according to SpaceX's website. The contract has a one-year duration.
"The SpaceX contract provides for Starshield end-to-end service (via the Starlink constellation), user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services," a Space Force spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. The initial phase requires the Space Force to pay $15 million to SpaceX by September 30th, and SpaceX will support 54 military "mission partners" across Department of Defence (DoD) branches.
A group of US senators recently criticized SpaceX's actions in Ukraine, after a biography on Elon Musk revealed that he refused Ukraine's request to extend Starlink coverage to allow a naval attack on Russian-held Crimea. "We are deeply concerned with the ability and willingness of SpaceX to interrupt their service at Mr. Musk’s whim and for the purpose of handcuffing a sovereign country’s self-defense, effectively defending Russian interests," they wrote.
However in a post on his social network X, Musk refuted that sentiment. "Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat. Starshield will be owned by the US government and controlled by DoD Space Force," he said.
SpaceX is already a key contractor for the Pentagon, providing the military with rocket launches. Last year, the Space Force approved the company's reusable Falcon Heavy to carry US spy satellites into orbit. Earlier this year, SpaceX won a contract to provide an unspecified number of Starlink ground terminals for use in Ukraine.
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The first black hole humanity has ever imaged has also provided us with what researchers are calling "unequivocal evidence" that black holes spin. An international team of scientists headed by Chinese researcher Dr. Cui Yuzhu analyzed 22 years of observational data gathered by more than 20 telescopes around the world. What they found was that the black hole at the center of galaxy M87, which is 6.5 billion times more massive than our sun, exhibits an oscillating jet that swings up and down every 11 years. This phenomenon confirms that the black hole is indeed spinning.
Yuzhu Cui et al. 2023, Intouchable Lab@Openverse and Zhejiang Lab
Black holes gobble up huge amounts of gas and dust, which they attract with their massive gravitational pull. A small fraction of those particles that don't fall into the black hole get spewn out and travel close to the speed of light, showing up as narrow beams along the axis. These beams are called "jets." The telescopes' observations show that M87's jet oscillates by 10 degrees in a recurring 11-year cycle, just as predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
So, what causes the M87's jet to swing back and forth? The researchers' analysis indicates that the black hole's spin axis doesn't perfectly align with the rotational axis of its accretion disk. This disk-like structure is typically found surrounding a black hole, because it's made of materials that gradually spiral into the void to be consumed. That misalignment between the rotating mass and the matter that swirls around it causes "a significant impact on surrounding spacetime," which affects the movement of nearby objects in what the General Theory of Relativity calls "frame-dragging."
This is a significant discovery that massively improves our understanding of the mysterious region of spacetime — aside from proving Einstein right, of course. Scientists have yet to find out the size of M87's accretion disk and how fast its black hole is spinning, though, and that entails further observation and analysis.
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X has cut over half its election integrity team including the head of the group, according to a report from The Information at least partially confirmed by Elon Musk in an X post. That's despite X recently promising to expand the team ahead of 2024 US elections, and in the face of criticism from the European Commission that X has a major disinformation problem.
X reportedly cut all four Dublin, Ireland-based members of the team, including leader Aaron Rodericks. Yet only yesterday, CEO Linda Yaccarino said X was planning to expand its safety and election teams around the world, according to The Financial Times. And less than a month ago, the company was planning to hire a civic integrity and elections lead focused on combatting disinformation. "If you have a passion for protecting the integrity of elections and civic events, X is certainly at the center of the conversation," said Rodericks in a LinkedIn post.
Rodericks was subsequently suspended for liking posts critical of X, Musk and Yaccarino. After The Information published its story and it was quoted by X News Daily, Musk responded: "Oh you mean the 'Election Integrity' Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone."
Yesterday, the EU released its first report on social media platforms' handling of disinformation as part of the Digital Services Act (DSA), finding that X had much higher levels of mis- and disinformation than its peers. X said in a series of posts that it disputed the "framing" of the data and remained "committed to complying with the DSA" despite pulling out of a voluntary Code of Practice on disinformation. In a statement accompanying the report, European Vice President Vera Jourova said that "my message for Twitter/X is you have to comply. We will be watching what you do."
However, since Elon Musk purchased X (née Twitter) last October, the company has cut more than 80 percent of its staff, and the company already had challenges staying on top of disinformation prior to his tenure. Under the DSA, X must comply with the stricter laws or face fines up to 6 percent of its annual global revenue — though to date, Musk has faced very little pushback for all that's happened with X.
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Horizon Forbidden West will come to PC in “early 2024,” Dutch port house Nixxes Software confirmed today. The sci-fi action-RPG marks the latest in a steady drumbeat of Sony’s first-party exclusives making the jump from PlayStation 5 to Steam and the Epic Games Store.
You can no longer buy last year’s hit soccer game, FIFA 23. Nor any other older game from the famous Electronic Arts sports franchise. At least, not digitally.
In a statement that may draw ire from gamers who’ve been feeling burned by the rising price of video games in recent years, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto has said that the price of new games should go up. Under Tsujimoto, the company has seen sales successes with new entries in its Monster Hunter and Resident Evil franchises, with the sales of Capcom games on PC helping to fuel that growth.
Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto says the price of games doesn’t reflect increased development costs
According to a report by Japanese financial outlet Nikkei, Capcom’s president made remarks during the recent Tokyo Game Show suggesting that the price of video games should increase to reflect the rising cost of development. As noted in coverage of the remarks by VGC, Tsujimoto is reported to have said that while “development costs are around 100 times higher” than during the NES era, the price of software has failed to follow suit. In order to continue attracting the sorts of talented developers Capcom relies on to the company, Tsujimoto believes that the option of raising the price of games to offset increased salaries “is a healthy form of business.”
While obviously not what most gamers want to hear, the remarks from Tsujimoto echo similar statements made by other executives in the gaming industry in recent years. In 2020, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick faced backlash from many in the gaming community after stating that “consumers were ready” for the $70 price point for games to become the standard. Despite causing controversy at the time, Zelnick’s statement proved to be prophetic, as both Sony and Microsoft raised the price of first-party games in the years that followed. In both instances, the companies used similar reasoning as Tsujimoto, citing the increased cost of developing the types of AAA titles gamers demanded as the cause for the increase.
With development costs for AAA games now regularly reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s hard to dismiss the financial logic behind Tsujimoto’s proposed price increase for new titles. And although Capcom hasn’t announced any official plans to raise prices on its games, given Tsujimoto’s statements and similar moves throughout the industry, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the iconic publisher follow suit down the line. It would almost certainly not be popular with players, but such a price increase could also help the company stave off the potential of a Capcom acquisition. In an industry that’s become increasingly consolidated, that sort of independence may prove to be worth the extra cost in the eyes of some gamers.
Apple has released a firmware update for its Studio Display to improve its contentious 12MP ultrawide webcam, it said in the release 17 notes spotted by 9to5Mac. While the company (sort of) addressed image quality issues in previous updates, users still complained about the camera's relatively high tilt that can be distracting on video calls. Now, the latest update "adds support for zoom, recenter and manual framing" to the webcam, giving users more control over how they look
The new controls now let you zoom and pan across the image to help position yourself in the frame the way you want, and you can go back to the default settings by hitting the "recenter" button. That should be a big help for those who use the webcam in manual mode, though it also works with Center Stage to automatically frame you in the image. The update also adds "minor stability improvements" to the Studio Display. Note that the Studio Display firmware update also requires the latest macOS Sonoma release that came out yesterday.
Also via the macOS Sonoma release, Apple brought the same controls over to the Continuity Camera that lets you use your iPhone for video chats on Mac. That might be a better option for many Studio Display owners, as despite all the fixes, the webcam still ain't great.
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Meta is gearing up for Connect, its annual event devoted to all things VR, AR and the metaverse. This year, the company is once again set to show off a new VR headset, with the Meta Quest 3, as well as its next-generation smart glasses.
It’s also an opportunity for Meta to showcase some of its latest AI advancements, which will reportedly come in the form of new generative AI chatbots. This year will also mark the return of an in-person component to Connect, which has been online-only since 2020. The main keynote will still be livestreamed for remote viewers, but the change will hopefully make for a more lively event than the largely pre-recorded sessions of the past few years.
Here’s a rundown of everything we’re expecting to hear about during Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote, which kicks off at 1PM ET on September 26.
Meta Quest 3 and second-gen Ray-Ban Stories update
We already know quite a bit about the Meta Quest 3, thanks to a preview from Zuckerberg earlier this year. The $499 headset has been considerably slimmed down from its predecessors and comes with redesigned controllers. It will also have better graphics and run on a new “next-gen” Qualcomm chipset, which will power new mixed-reality features akin to last year’s high-end Quest Pro. But with an official reveal at Connect, we should finally get a lot more details about the Quest 3 and its capabilities.
The VR headset likely isn’t the only Reality Labs gadget we’ll hear more about. As UploadVRnoted last week, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently hinted that a second-generation of Meta’s Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses are also in the works and coming "pretty soon." The new frames are expected to come with better cameras and some new features, like livestreaming, according to Janko Roettgers of the Lowpass newsletter. It’s not clear when the glasses could make an official debut — unlike the Quest 3, Meta has been fairly tight-lipped about its plans for the product — but considering Bosworth’s comments and earlier reports of a possible fall launch, it seems safe to say we’ll at least get an update on their plans.
Meta has at least one other major piece of hardware in the works, the augmented reality glasses it’s been teasing since 2020. Last year at Connect, Zuckerberg showed off a prototype for a wrist-based controller that could have AR applications, but didn’t offer a look at how the glasses themselves are progressing.
That could change this year. The Vergepreviously reported the company is readying a pair of smart glasses, which will use the wrist-based interface, for a 2025 release. Those glasses, however, would be something of a precursor to “full-fledged AR glasses,” which are slated for 2027. Given the timeframe, it seems more likely we’ll hear about the former, wrist-controlled frames, rather than the more ambitious AR ones, but it would make sense for the company to preview more details about the project.
Chatbots and AI
It looks like Meta is set to (once again) borrow a page from Snap’s playbook with a generative AI assistant. The Wall Street Journalreported this week that Meta is readying dozens AI chatbots with distinct personalities in a bid to attract younger users.
Zuckerberg has been teasing the idea of “AI personas” for Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger for some time. But it now sounds as if Meta intends for these AI personalities to play a role in its VR applications as well. According to The Journal, these bots, which have names like “Alvin the Alien” and “Bob the Robot,” will also live in the company’s metaverse apps. While many aspects of the plan sound a bit cringey — and even some Meta employees are reportedly skeptical of the bots — it offers an interesting window into how Meta is using AI to boost interest in the metaverse. Which brings us to…
What about the metaverse?
The company once known as Facebook has now had nearly two years to sell the public on its vision for the metaverse. So far, that’s largely fallen flat. Reality Labs losses have ballooned to more than $20 billion since last year and are expected to climb further. Meta’s investors have been openly skeptical, while new metaverse features, like the addition of legged avatars, have proved underwhelming.
So it’s not surprising that in recent months Zuckerberg has spent more time publicly hyping the company’s AI investments than the metaverse (though he’s said the company remains committed to both). So while Meta will likely share updates on Horizon Worlds, which recently began rolling out to non-VR platforms, I expect Zuckerberg and other executives will highlight the role AI plays in its vision for the metaverse much more than they have in the past.
Though the current AI boom and rise of large-language models has drawn its share of critics, the technology has already generated much more enthusiasm than the metaverse ever has. That could end up working in Meta’s favor if it can recast some of its metaverse projects as cutting-edge AI innovation rather than a virtual world most people don’t really understand.
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Microsoft boss Phil Spencer considered pulling the plug on Fallout 76 after Bethesda’s acquisition, but Sony ended up saving the game by adding it to PlayStation Now. Recently revealed court documents contain an email from Spencer dated September 2021, in which he talks about “moving on” from Fallout 76.
How did Sony save Fallout 76?
Bethesda’s foray into live service in 2018 landed with a thud and failed to woo players and critics. In September 2021, Spencer mentioned in an email that “this thing” has to hit 10 million monthly active users across all platforms, or it’s time to pull the plug. In other words, Fallout 76’s player base at the time didn’t warrant keeping servers alive.
Enter PS Now (now rolled into PS Plus). Spencer expressed his aversion to putting Microsoft games on PS Now because it was seen as a competitor to Xbox Game Pass. While pointing out that this is why Microsoft doesn’t allow Minecraft on Sony’s subscription service, he said that he was open to putting Fallout 76 on PS Now if it meant boosting player numbers. This exchange can be seen in the email below, extracted by TheGamer.
In light of Spencer’s past position, it’ll be interesting to see the implications of Sony’s Call of Duty deal on PS Plus and Game Pass.
A recent Instagram post by Dina actress Shannon Woodward has some fans convinced that she’s teasing The Last of Us Part 3. While a third installment may be in production, this specific post of Woodward’s does not relate to The Last of Us.
The Last of Us 3 motion capture rumors have been swirling for a while
The Instagram post in question is a photo of Woodward with journalist Ronan Farrow (son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen) in a mocap suit. The caption mentions a “top secret game” along with three emojis. Since Woodward’s gaming portfolio is limited to The Last of Us, fans took this as a hint that the secret game is TLOU 3. Not quite.
Zooming in on the photo below shows “Cyan Worlds” written above the barcode. Cyan happens to be the developer behind the Myst series, among others.
The photo above was published ahead of The Last of Us Day celebrations, so it’s understandable why fans got a little excited, but Naughty Dog has already said that it won’t be discussing any future games or TV show projects at this time.
The Last of Us Day is nearly upon us!
We're celebrating with a #TLOUDay stream tomorrow at 9am PT featuring announcements focused on art, merch, and more. While we're honoring the series' 10-year legacy, we will not be discussing any future game or TV show projects.
SAG-AFTRA members have voted in favor of a strike authorization for performers working in video games, including those who do voice work, motion capture and stunts for the industry. Of the 34,687 members who cast their ballot, 98.32 percent voted "yes." It doesn't automatically mean that the performers are going on strike, only that they could after September 26.
The guild explained that it's been negotiating for a new contract with video game companies since 2022, but that they "have refused to agree to critical terms [its] members need." For its next bargaining sessions on September 26, 27 and 28, it believes the strike authorization gives it the added leverage needed to get the companies to agree to its terms. At the moment, the guild is in talks with Activision, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions and WB Games.
Specifically, SAG-AFTRA is fighting for wage hikes that would allow performers to make a living from their work in the face of inflation, as well as more rigorous safety measures on set. The guild is also fighting for a contract that would protect performers against exploitative uses of artificial intelligence, such as companies making unauthorized copies of their likeness and voice. These all mirror the issues that ignited the ongoing strikes in the film and TV industry. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is believed to be nearing an agreement with major studios, with one of the last sticking points in their negotiations being the use of generative AI in content production.
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Cyberpunk 2077's developer has apologized for dialog and graffiti inserted in the Ukrainian version of the 2.0 update that's critical of Russia's invasion of the country, PC Gamer has reported. CD Projekt Red said it had nothing to do with the changes and promised to remove them.
"The Ukrainian localization of Cyberpunk 2077 contains several remarks that could offend some Russian players," the studio said in a (Google translated) statement. "These remarks were not written by CD Projekt Red employees and do not represent our views. We are working to fix them and replace them in the next update. We apologize for this situation and are taking steps to ensure it does not happen again."
As originally reported by Zone of Games (via a Rock Paper Shotgun report) some dialog makes reference to Ukrainian resistance slogans. Elsewhere, graffiti suggests Crimea is still part of Ukraine in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, following Russia's 2014 invasion. Other messages refer to citizen missile detection, COVID initiatives under President Zelensky, derogatory terms for Russians and more.
The Ukrainian localization was reportedly handled by the Ukrainian company SBT Localization, which also worked on Baldur's Gate 3, Darkest Dungeon and other titles. The changes were noticed by Russian and Ukrainian players, with multiple complaints registered on Steam and CD Projekt Red forums.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, deemed unlawful by a majority of nations, has had a deleterious effect on Ukraine's game industry. Developer GSC Game World was forced to halt work on Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl after the aggressions forced it to relocate staff to Prague in order to help employees and their families "survive" the conflict, it said. Earlier this year, Ukraine sent letters to Sony, Microsoft and Valve, urging them to block the title Atomic Heart from their gaming platforms over concerns about Russian connections.
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PlatinumGames co-founder and vice president Hideki Kamiya has announced his departure from the studio after 17 years. Announcing his resignation, the veteran developer said that the decision wasn’t an easy one to make, but it’s for the best.
Hideki Kamiya co-founded PlatinumGames in 2006
Kamiya had a storied career in the Japanese games industry, starting with 1998’s Resident Evil 2, 2001’s Devil May Cry, and Okami. He left Capcom after over a decade and in 2006, co-founded PlatinumGames, where he went on to make Bayonetta. Kamiya’s last day at the studio will be October 12.
“This came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs, and was by no means an easy decision to make,” Kamiya said in a statement. “However, I feel this outcome is for the best. I will continue to create in my Hideki Kamiya way. I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled.”
PlatinumGames released a separate statement, thanking Kamiya for his service and leadership. “We believe that he will continue to succeed in his future endeavors as a game creator,” the studio wrote. “We are looking forward to seeing the game industry grow into a better place with him in it.”
Hey big spender. Tinder Select, the dating app’s most exclusive tier, is rolling out now. It will cost love seekers $500 per month (or $6,000 annually — no bulk discounts) for features like exclusive search and matching.
The company has only offered Tinder Select to the less than one percent of users it considers “extremely active” — does anyone want that label? Tinder told Bloomberg it’ll open applications for Tinder Select on a rolling basis, but it didn’t say exactly when. Tinder’s exclusive membership was originally hinted at all the way back in 2019.
The owners of Tinder, Match Group, have dabbled in exclusive dating apps before, like The League, which it bought in 2022, so it’s not too much of a shock to see Tinder also get reframed for the lonely rich. Is this worse than paying for verification when you have less than 1,000 followers on other social media networks? Yes. Yes, it is.
Our short-but-sweet YouTube edition of this week’s news covers includes Microsoft’s rough, rough week, a sassier Alexa from Amazon and whether the iPhone 15 Pro is worth the extra bucks. Also: viewers take umbrage at my ‘fake’ glasses. Which are not fake.
I’ve been waiting for this. Sony fully embraced amateur / semi-pro content creators back in 2020, with the launch of the ZV1 camera. It has since added no less than four models to its ZV lineup, and this is the latest: the 12-megapixel full-frame ZV-E1. It uses the same sensor as the $3,500 A7S III, a video-focused camera — and a low-light marvel. However, the ZV-E1 costs $1,300 less. While Sony has cut some minor corners, it combines outstanding video features and AI tricks, and I might have to start saving for one.
Eagle-eyed visitors to Samsung’s Argentinian website — I visit it weekly — have spotted something a little unexpected: a product page for new Galaxy Buds FE earbuds, along with images of a Galaxy S23 FE smartphone and Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet. Samsung’s Fan Edition devices have proven popular, packing in solid features for a more reasonable price than Samsung’s flagship models.
The company hasn’t let slip any specs for the phone and tablet yet. However, there are some details on the Galaxy Buds FE, Samsung’s first Fan Edition earbuds. They’re slated to have a single 12mm driver, three microphones in each earbud to bolster active noise cancellation and a three-way speaker.
Foldables have come a long way since the original Galaxy Fold went on sale back in 2019. They’re smaller, they’re tougher and, while they still aren’t a great option for people on a budget, they’re now more affordable too. (Kind of?) We walk through the crucial specs, durability concerns and our favorite picks.
iPhone 15 Pro reviews, and Microsoft picks AI over Surface.
This week, Cherlynn chats about her experience reviewing the iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Watch Series 9. Does a 5X camera zoom make much of a difference? Meanwhile, Microsoft is basically consolidating all of the Copilot products it’s already announced for Edge, MS 365 and Windows, but maybe this will be less confusing in the long run?
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx seven-year mission to collect rocks and dust from a near-Earth asteroid is complete. The capsule containing the final samples returned to Earth on the morning of September 24th, touching down in the desert at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range at 10:52 am ET.
The device collected around 250 grams of material from a carbon-rich asteroid dubbed “Bennu,” which NASA says hosts some of the oldest rocks in our solar system. The sample gives scientists more information about the building blocks of what planetary makeup looked like 4.5 billion years ago.
Because asteroids are considered to be natural “time capsules” — due to how little they change over time – they can offer researchers a window into the chemical composition of our early solar system and determine whether or not Bennu carried the organic molecules that are found in life. Now that samples are in the hands of NASA scientists, the agency says its researchers will catalog the collection and conduct in-depth analysis over the next two years.
NASA
NASA's mission began all the way back in September 2016, launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It took just over a year to perform its flyby of Earth before arriving at the Bennu asteroid 15 months later in December 2018. In October 20, 2022, the explorer successfully captured samples from Bennu and began its journey back to Earth on May 10, 2021. Upon its touchdown on September 24th, The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx's full name) had journeyed 3.9 billion miles.
While NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is not the first attempt a space agency has made to deliver an asteroid sample to Earth, this mission’s rendition has the largest sample size. The Bennu sample is estimated to hold about half a pound of rocky material from the asteroid's surface. In a similar vein, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa mission delivered specks from an asteroid called Itokawa and in a secondary mission, brought back about 5 grams from another asteroid coined Ryugu in 2021. Japan’s agency shared 10 percent of their samples with NASA at the time. NASA is expected to share a small percentage of its OSIRIS-REx samples from Bennu with JAXA.
While the sample made landfall, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft remained in space. It has now set off on a new mission to explore another near-Earth asteroid called Apophis, which NASA says is roughly 1,200 feet (roughly 370 meters) in diameter and will come within 20,000 miles of Earth in 2029.
The new project, dubbed OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer (OSIRIS-APEX), will study changes in the asteroid that experts believed in 2004 had a 2.7 percent chance of hitting Earth. The spacecraft’s gas thrusters will attempt to "dislodge dust and small rocks on and below Apophis’ surface," giving experts data on how asteroid's proximity to Earth affected its orbit, spin rate and surface composition.
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Following marathon negotiations over the last five days, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and major studios have reached a tentative deal to end a 146-day strike that has shut down much of the industry, Variety has reported. "We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership," the WGA wrote in an email to members.
Picketing has been suspended as of Sunday night, but the strike is still in force until it's ratified and approved by members. "To be clear, no one is to return to work until specifically authorized to by the Guild. We are still on strike until then," the email stated.
One of the last sticking points was reportedly around the use of generative AI in content production. Other details of the contract have yet to be released, including around streaming residuals, staffing levels for shows and more. "Though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last ‘i’ is dotted," wrote the WGA.
Things were looking bleak for the industry in mid-September, but some high-profile WGA members reportedly pressured leadership to restart negotiations. In addition, four key AMPTP executives (Bob Iger from Disney, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, Ted Sarandos and David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery) participated in negotiations for three days. Bargaining resumed on September 20, and the deal was reached five days later.
Considering the strike length and WGA leadership's high level of praise for the deal, a positive vote from membership seems probable. The guild credited membership's solidarity and its willingness to "endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days" as key to clinching the deal. "It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal," it stated in the message.
The labor strife isn't finished yet, though. The SAG-AFTRA actors' guild is still on strike after hitting picket lines on July 14 over issues like likeness rights. "While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP’s tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members," the union wrote in a statement.
Even after the actors reach their own deal, it will take time for TV series, films, talk shows and other productions to get back up to speed — so expect delays in your favorite shows coming back. The AMPTP has yet to comment on the WGA deal.
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American entrepreneurs have long fixated on extracting the maximum economic value out of, well really, any resource they can get their hands on — from Henry Ford's assembly line to Tony Hsieh's Zappos Happiness Experience Form. The same is true in the public sector where some overambitious streamlining of Texas' power grid contributed to the state's massive 2021 winter power crisis that killed more than 700 people. In her new book, the riveting Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization, UC Berkeley applied mathematician and author, Coco Krumme, explores our historical fascination with optimization and how that pursuit has often led to unexpected and unwanted consequences in the systems we're streamlining.
In the excerpt below, Krumme explores the recent resurgence of interest in Universal Basic (or Guaranteed) Income and the contrasting approaches to providing UBI between tech evangelists like Sam Altman and Andrew Yang, and social workers like Aisha Nyandoro, founder of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, in how to address the difficult questions of deciding who should receive the financial support, and how much.
California, they say, is where the highway ends and dreams come home to roost. When they say these things, their eyes ignite: startup riches, infinity pools, the Hollywood hills. The last thing on their minds, of course, is the town of Stockton.
Drive east from San Francisco and, if traffic cooperates, you’ll be there in an hour and a half or two, over the long span of slate‑colored bay, past the hulking loaders at Oakland’s port, skirting rich suburbs and sweltering orchards and the government labs in Livermore, the military depot in Tracy, all the way to where brackish bay waters meet the San Joaquin River, where the east‑west highways connect with Interstate 5, in a tangled web of introductions that ultimately pitches you either north toward Seattle or south to LA.
Or you might decide to stay in Stockton, spend the night. There’s a slew of motels along the interstate: La Quinta, Days Inn, Motel 6. Breakfast at Denny’s or IHOP. Stockton once had its place in the limelight as a booming gold‑rush supply point. In 2012, the city filed for bankruptcy, the largest US city until then to do so (Detroit soon bested it in 2013). First light reveals a town that’s neither particularly rich nor desperately poor, hitched taut between cosmopolitan San Francisco on one side and the agricultural central valley on the other, in the middle, indistinct, suburban, and a little sad.
This isn’t how the story was supposed to go. Optimization was supposed to be the recipe for a more perfect society. When John Stuart Mill aimed for the greater good, when Allen Gilmer struck out to map new pockets of oil, when Stan Ulam harnessed a supercomputer to tally possibilities: it was in service of doing more, and better, with less. Greater efficiency was meant to be an equilibrating force. We weren’t supposed to have big winners and even bigger losers. We weren’t supposed to have a whole sprawl of suburbs stuck in the declining middle.
We saw how overwrought optimizations can suddenly fail, and the breakdown of optimization as the default way of seeing the world can come about equally fast. What we face now is a disconnect between the continued promises of efficiency, the idea that we can optimize into perpetuity, and the reality all around: the imperfect world, the overbooked schedules, the delayed flights, the institutions in decline. And we confront the question: How can we square what optimization promised with what it’s delivered?
Sam Altman has the answer. In his mid-thirties, with the wiry, frenetic look of a college student, he’s a young man with many answers. Sam’s biography reads like a leaderboard of Silicon Valley tropes and accolades: an entrepreneur, upper‑middle‑class upbringing, prep school, Stanford Computer Science student, Stanford Computer Science dropout, where dropping out is one of the Valley’s top status symbols. In 2015, Sam was named a Forbes magazine top investor under age thirty. (That anyone bothers to make a list of investors in their teens and twenties says as much about Silicon Valley as about the nominees. Tech thrives on stories of overnight riches and the mythos of the boy genius.)
Sam is the CEO and cofounder, along with electric‑car‑and‑rocket‑ship‑magnate Elon Musk, of OpenAI, a company whose mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” He is the former president of the Valley’s top startup incubator, Y Combinator, was interim CEO of Reddit, and is currently chairman of the board of two nuclear‑energy companies, Helion and Okto. His latest venture, Worldcoin, aims to scan people’s eyeballs in exchange for cryptocurrency. As of 2022, the company had raised $125 million of funding from Silicon Valley investors.
But Sam doesn’t rest on, or even mention, his laurels. In conversation, he is smart, curious, and kind, and you can easily tell, through his veneer of demure agreeableness, that he’s driven as hell. By way of introduction to what he’s passionate about, Sam describes how he used a spreadsheet to determine the seven or so domains in which he could make the greatest impact, based on weighing factors such as his own skills and resources against the world’s needs. Sam readily admits he can’t read emotions well, treats most conversations as logic puzzles, and not only wants to save the world but believes the world’s salvation is well within reach.
A 2016 profile in The New Yorker sums up Sam like this: “His great weakness is his utter lack of interest in ineffective people.”
Sam has, however, taken an interest in Stockton, California.
Stockton is the site of one of the most publicized experiments in Universal Basic Income (UBI), a policy proposal that grants recipients a fixed stipend, with no qualifications and no strings attached. The promise of UBI is to give cash to those who need it most and to minimize the red tape and special interests that can muck up more complex redistribution schemes. On Sam’s spreadsheet of areas where he’d have impact, UBI made the cut, and he dedicated funding for a group of analysts to study its effects in six cities around the country. While he’s not directly involved in Stockton, he’s watching closely. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration was initially championed by another tech wunderkind, Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes. The project gave 125 families $500 per month for twenty‑four months. A slew of metrics was collected in order to establish a causal relationship between the money and better outcomes.
UBI is nothing new. The concept of a guaranteed stipend has been suggested by leaders from Napoleon to Martin Luther King Jr. The contemporary American conception of UBI, however, has been around just a handful of years, marrying a utilitarian notion of societal perfectibility with a modern‑day faith in technology and experimental economics.
Indeed, economists were among the first to suggest the idea of a fixed stipend, first in the context of the developing world and now in America. Esther Duflo, a creative star in the field and Nobel Prize winner, is known for her experiments with microloans in poorer nations. She’s also unromantic about her discipline, embracing the concept of “economist as plumber.” Duflo argues that the purpose of economics is not grand theories so much as on‑the‑ground empiricism. Following her lead, the contemporary argument for UBI owes less to a framework of virtue and charity and much more to the cold language of an econ textbook. Its benefits are described in terms of optimizing resources, reducing inequality, and thereby maximizing societal payoff.
The UBI experiments under way in several cities, a handful of them funded by Sam’s organization, have data‑collection methods primed for a top‑tier academic publication. Like any good empiricist, Sam spells out his own research questions to me, and the data he’s collecting to test and analyze those hypotheses.
Several thousand miles from Sam’s Bay Area office, a different kind of program is in the works. When we speak by phone, Aisha Nyandoro bucks a little at my naive characterization of her work as UBI. “We don’t call it universal basic income,” she says. “We call it guaranteed income. It’s targeted. Invested intentionally in those discriminated against.” Aisha is the powerhouse founder of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, a program that gives a monthly stipend to single Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. The project grew out of her seeing the welfare system fail miserably for the very people it purported to help. “The social safety net is designed to keep families from rising up. Keep them teetering on edge. It’s punitive paternalism. The ‘safety net’ that strangles.”
Bureaucracy is dehumanizing, Aisha says, because it asks a person to “prove you’re enough” to receive even the most basic of assistance. Magnolia Mother’s Trust is unique in that it is targeted at a specific population. Aisha reels off facts. The majority of low‑income women in Jackson are also mothers. In the state of Mississippi, one in four children live in poverty, and women of color earn 61 percent of what white men make. Those inequalities affect the community as a whole. In 2021, the trust gave $1,000 per month to one hundred women. While she’s happy her program is gaining exposure as more people pay attention to UBI, Aisha doesn’t mince words. “I have to be very explicit in naming race as an issue,” she says.
Aisha’s goal is to grow the program and provide cash, without qualifications, to more mothers in Jackson. Magnolia Mother’s Trust was started around the same time as the Stockton project, and the nomenclature of guaranteed income has gained traction. One mother in the program writes in an article in Ms. magazine, “Now everyone is talking about guaranteed income, and it started here in Jackson.” Whether or not it all traces back to Jackson, whether the money is guaranteed and targeted or more broadly distributed, what’s undeniable is that everyone seems to be talking about UBI.
Influential figures, primarily in tech and politics, have piled on to the idea. Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of Twitter, with his droopy meditation eyes and guru beard, wants in. In 2020, he donated $15 million to experimental efforts in thirty US cities.
And perhaps the loudest bullhorn for the idea has been wielded by Andrew Yang, another product of Silicon Valley and a 2020 US presidential candidate. Yang is an earnest guy, unabashedly dorky. Numbers drive his straight‑talking policy. Blue baseball caps for his campaign are emblazoned with one short word: MATH.
UBI’s proponents see the potential to simplify the currently convoluted American welfare system, to equilibrate an uneven playing field. By decoupling basic income from employment, it could free some people up to pursue work that is meaningful.
And yet the concept, despite its many proponents, has managed to draw ire from both ends of the political spectrum. Critics on the right see UBI as an extension of the welfare state, as further interference into free markets. Left‑leaning critics bemoan its “inefficient” distribution of resources: Why should high earners get as much as those below the poverty line? Why should struggling individuals get only just enough to keep them, and the capitalist system, afloat?
Detractors on both left and right default to the same language in their critiques: that of efficiency and maximizing resources. Indeed, the language of UBI’s critics is all too similar to the language of its proponents, with its randomized control trials and its view of society as a closed economic system. In the face of a disconnect between what optimization promised and what it delivered, the proposed solution involves more optimizing.
Why is this? What if we were to evaluate something like UBI outside the language of efficiency? We might ask a few questions differently. What if we relaxed the suggestion that dollars can be transformed by some or another equation into individual or societal utility? What if we went further than that and relaxed the suggestion of measuring at all, as a means of determining the “best” policy? What if we put down our calculators for a moment and let go of the idea that politics is meant to engineer an optimal society in the first place? Would total anarchy ensue?
Such questions are difficult to ask because they don’t sound like they’re getting us anywhere. It’s much easier, and more common, to tackle the problem head‑on. Electric‑vehicle networks such as Tesla’s, billed as an alternative to the centralized oil economy, seek to optimize where charging stations are placed, how batteries are created, how software updates are sent out — and by extension, how environmental outcomes take shape. Vitamins fill the place of nutrients leached out of foods by agriculture’s maximization of yields; these vitamins promise to optimize health. Vertical urban farming also purports to solve the problems of industrial agriculture, by introducing new optimizations in how light and fertilizers are delivered to greenhouse plants, run on technology platforms developed by giants such as SAP. A breathless Forbes article explains that the result of hydroponics is that “more people can be fed, less precious natural resources are used, and the produce is healthier and more flavorful.” The article nods only briefly to downsides, such as high energy, labor, and transportation costs. It doesn’t mention that many grains don’t lend themselves easily to indoor farming, nor the limitations of synthetic fertilizers in place of natural regeneration of soil.
In working to counteract the shortcomings of optimization, have we only embedded ourselves deeper? For all the talk of decentralized digital currencies and local‑maker economies, are we in fact more connected and centralized than ever? And less free, insofar as we’re tied into platforms such as Amazon and Airbnb and Etsy? Does our lack of freedom run deeper still, by dint of the fact that fewer and fewer of us know exactly what the algorithms driving these technologies do, as more and more of us depend on them? Do these attempts to deoptimize in fact entrench the idea of optimization further?
A 1952 novel by Kurt Vonnegut highlights the temptation, and also the threat, of de-optimizing. Player Piano describes a mechanized society in which the need for human labor has mostly been eliminated. The remaining workers are those engineers and managers whose purpose is to keep the machines online. The core drama takes place at a factory hub called Ilium Works, where “Efficiency, Economy, and Quality” reign supreme. The book is prescient in anticipating some of our current angst — and powerlessness — about optimization’s reach.
Paul Proteus is the thirty‑five‑year‑old factory manager of the Ilium Works. His father served in the same capacity, and like him, Paul is one day expected to take over as leader of the National Manufacturing Council. Each role at Ilium is identified by a number, such as R‑127 or EC‑002. Paul’s job is to oversee the machines.
At the time of the book’s publication, Vonnegut was a young author disillusioned by his experiences in World War II and disheartened as an engineering manager at General Electric. Ilium Works is a not‑so‑thinly‑veiled version of GE. As the novel wears on, Paul tries to free himself, to protest that “the main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings . . . not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.” He seeks out the elusive Ghost Shirt Society with its conspiracies to break automation, he attempts to restore an old homestead with his wife. He tries, in other words, to organize a way out of the mechanized world.
His attempts prove to be in vain. Paul fails and ends up mired in dissatisfaction. The machines take over, riots ensue, everything is destroyed. And yet, humans’ love of mechanization runs deep: once the machines are destroyed, the janitors and technicians — a class on the fringes of society — quickly scramble to build things up again. Player Piano depicts the outcome of optimization as societal collapse and the collapse of meaning, followed by the flimsy rebuilding of the automated world we know.
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