Spoilers for Lower Decks, Fissure Quest.
It turns out you can have your cake and eat it.
The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is an exercise in box ticking for the shows creative team. It does the grunt work of laying the table and raising the stakes for next weeks series finale. But its also the shows last for now chance to wring a gag or two out of all those deep-cut, Extremely Online Trek in-jokes. Its fortunate that while the episode is a little on the thin side, the stuff thats thrown at the wall is charming enough for it not to matter.
For the second week in a row, were pulling focus from the lead quintet to catch up on William Boimler. (That, if your memory isnt too sharp, is Bomilers transporter clone, last seen faking his death to join Section 31.) Hes now captain of the USS Anaximander on a secret mission to close up the interdimensional fissures the show has been encountering all season.
Boimler, the shows avatar of a Star Trek fan, has been picking up stray figures from the canon during dimension hops. His crew includes TPol, Garak and an EMH version of Dr. Bashir, all played by their original actors.. And yes, Garak and Dr. Bashir are a married couple in this universe, because of course the show has to embrace that piece of fan lore that launched a thousand pieces of slash fiction.
The ship picks up an escape pod with Lt. Harry Kim inside, who learns most of the rest of the crew is Harries Kim as well. Hes the only one whos ever been promoted above the rank of ensign, nodding to the rumor that longtime series head Rick Berman said someone had to be the lowest-ranked member of the crew. And / or as punishment for clashing with the production team, as outlined in an interview Wang gave in 2011.
They soon encounter an alternate universe Mariner who, unlike our version, is a timid engineer. She, however, has worked out a way to track the vessel thats punching holes in the fabric of the universe. So the Anaximander lays a trap, only to reveal that its an old Enterprise-class ship called the Beagle. Its an exploration vessel with a human and Vulcan crew, led by Lily Sloane.
Paramount+
Sloane isnt trying to tear the universe to shreds, their universe just discovered to discover interdimensional travel ahead of warp. Theyve been leaping between universes exploring strange similar worlds, the same life and civilizations boldly examining the differences. Its a mission statement that outrages Boimler, whos gorged himself on fanservice and is now looking for something, anything new to cleanse his palate.
Naturally, this is Lower Decks winking toward its own major flaw, given its reverence for 90s era Trek. Ive always found it quite successful in bobbing and weaving around simply milking the audiences memberberries. But that doesnt mean it isnt at least complicit in the concept of serving up the same old crap, again and again.
Sloane disagrees, saying her crew looks to explore the ways in which people grow and evolve in different environments. She says shes met several different Boimlers, all of whom have their own Mariner, as their connection endures across the universes. And that exploration isnt just about exploring whats beyond us but finding whats true inside us. Thats a journey that can be just as perilous, and rewarding, as traveling to the furthest edges of the universe.
Kim, outraged at his namesakes stalled careers, steals the Beagle with plans to return to his own dimension. The Anaximander pursues, and while the other Kims mutiny and beam back, the Beagle successfully makes a jump but explodes in the process. That sends a huge wave of energy that will wipe out every universe in existence unless its dumped in a single place. Thankfully, Boimler knows where to send it to his transporter twin and the crew of the Cerritos.
See you next week for the finale.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/star-trek-lower-decks-sets-up-its-finale-elbowing-its-own-ribs-140054114.html?src=rss
Toyota just introduced a new compact electric SUV and dug into the past for inspiration. The new Urban Cruiser EV borrows its name for a car that first came along in the early 2000s and is based on the company's Urban SUV Concept unveiled last year. It looks like it's designed to compete with Volvo's EX30 and much like that vehicle, will come with a number of battery and drive options.
To give you an idea of size, the Urban Cruiser will be slightly larger than Toyota's hybrid compact SUV, the Yaris Cross. It'll be built on a new battery electric vehicle (BEV) platform that frees up extra space for the battery and occupants.
It'll come with two battery pack options, 49kWh and 61kWh, a bit smaller than the EX30's offerings (51kWh and 69kWh). The smaller pack supports up to 144 HP and 140 pound feet, while the larger pack option ups that to 174 HP and the same torque. If you upgrade to the dual-motor system, you'll see 184 HP and 221 pound feet of torque. Those power levels are far less than the EX30, which offers 268 HP as standard and a wild 422 HP on the twin-motor performance version.
Toyota
The Urban Cruiser will offer active safety features like adaptive cruise, active collision avoidance and lane-departure warning, along with a 360 degree camera. Inside, you'll get a 10.1-inch infotainment display along with a 10.25-inch driver's display, all in one unit. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will be standard.
Toyota
Price and range have yet to be revealed, but Toyota will be in tough against the much more powerful Volvo EX30 if the sticker isn't substantially lower. The Urban Cruiser is also arguably less attractive as well. It's set to arrive in the UK and elsewhere in Europe in the third quarter next year. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/toyota-takes-on-volvos-ex30-with-the-urban-cruiser-compact-electric-suv-143041000.html?src=rss
The American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) is sounding a warning about the use of AI in creating police reports, saying the tech could produce errors that affect evidence and court cases. The nonprofit highlighted the dangers of the tech in a white paper, following news that police departments in California are using a program called Draft One from Axon to transcribe body camera recording and create a first draft of police reports.
One police department in Fresno said that it's using Draft One under a pilot program, but only for misdemeanor reports. "It's nothing more than a template," deputy chief Rob Beckwith told Industry Insider. "Its not designed to have an officer push a button and generate a report." He said that the department has seen any errors with transcriptions and that it consulted with the Fresno County DA's office in training the force,
However, the ACLU noted four issues with the use of AI. First off, it said that AI is "quirky and unreliable and prone to making up fact... [and] is also biased." Secondly, it said that an officer's memories of an incident should be memorialized "before they are contaminated by an AI's body camera based storytelling." It added that if a police report is just an AI rehash of body camera video, certain facts might be omitted and it may even allow officers to lie if they did something illegal that wasn't captured on camera.
The third point was around transparency, as the public needs to understand exactly how it works based on analysis by independent experts, according to the ACLU. Defendants in criminal cases also need to be able to interrogate the evidence, "yet much of the operation of these systems remains mysterious." Finally, the group noted that the use of AI transcriptions might remove accountability around the use of discretionary power. "For these reasons, the ACLU does not believe police departments should allow officers to use AI to generate draft police reports," it said.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/aclu-highlights-the-rise-of-ai-generated-police-reports--what-could-go-wrong-133030452.html?src=rss
United Airlines announced that it is integrating the Share Item Location feature from Apple into its mobile app. This development could make it easier to track down baggage equipped with AirTags or a Find My network accessory when it somehow winds up in Paris rather than arriving with you in Perth.
The United integration will allow passengers to send information about their bag's location directly to the company's support staff in the mobile app. If a traveler isn't using the United app and their bag takes a detour, they will receive a text notification from the airline prompting them to submit a Share Item Location report.
Share Item Location is part of Apple's iOS 18.2, which just began rolling out this week. When the resource was initially introduced in the public beta, air transport tech company SITA said that it would use the feature in its WorldTracer system for tracking airline baggage, so this isn't the first time travel brands are realizing the potential of Share Item Location. However, it will only be available to customers who are using an iPhone running at least iOS 18.2.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/united-airlines-will-integrate-apples-share-item-location-feature-into-its-mobile-app-130049823.html?src=rss
After a particularly lean week for tech news, yesterday exploded. Weve got Googles next-generation AI model, Gemini 2.0, a barrage of games to intrigue us in 2025, MasterClass is going AI and, finally, Apples most headline-grabbing AI tricks and features broke cover, built into the latest iOS update.
Thats what I want to kick off with. A lot of features in iOS 18.2 are only for the iPhone 15 Pro, 16 and 16 Pro, which pack the necessary chip smarts to run Apple Intelligence. (Access is also limited to users in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK for now.)
Image Playground, available as a standalone app and through Messages, can generate image suggestions based on your text prompts or contents of your conversations. You can use a photo from your iPhones camera roll as a starting point. Note Image Playground cant produce photorealistic images of people. Thats by design.
Then theres Genmoji, to make your own custom emoji. Tap the new Genmoji button and enter a description of the character you want to make. You can even type the name of a contact, and contextually, itll ask if you want to use photos of that person (if you have them in your photos) to generate the emoji.
Both Siri and Writing Tools can now call on ChatGPT for assistance, although devices will always ask permission before doing so.
Anyway, back to creating an entire library of Genmoji, featuring... me.
Mat Smith
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Gemini 2.0 is Googles most capable AI model yet and available to preview today
Try the lightweight Flash version in the Gemini web app.
Almost exactly a week after OpenAI made its o1 model available to the public, Google is offering a preview of its next-gen Gemini 2.0 model. The company says 2.0 can offer native support for image and audio output. Rather than starting todays preview by offering its most advanced version of the model, Gemini 2.0 Pro, the search giant is instead kicking things off with 2.0 Flash. As of today, the more efficient (and affordable) model is available to all Gemini users. If you want to try it yourself, you can enable Gemini 2.0 from the dropdown menu in the Gemini web client.
Alongside todays announcement of Gemini 2.0, the company also announced Deep Research, a new tool that uses Gemini 1.5 Pros long-context capabilities to write reports on complicated subjects.
Continue reading.
Xbox previews cloud streaming of games you own on consoles
Its a beta test for now.
Microsoft has started a beta test to finally bring cloud streaming to Xbox consoles. Participants in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha tiers of the Xbox Insiders program can start using this feature now on their Xbox Series X|S and even Xbox One consoles. There are still some caveats on the feature. First, its limited to Game Pass Ultimate members. Second, the game needs to support cloud streaming. Theres a shortlist of titles in the program for now, but it includes Baldurs Gate 3, Balatro, Cyberpunk 2077, Animal Well, Stray and the first six Final Fantasy games.
Continue reading.
MasterClass On Call gives you access to AI copies of its experts
Ramseybot, engage.
MasterClass
MasterClass is expanding beyond prerecorded video lessons to offer on-demand mentorship from some of its most popular celebrity instructors. And if youre wondering how the company has gotten some of the busiest people on the planet to field your questions, surprise! Its AI. On Call is limited to two personas at launch: former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss and University of Berkeley neuroscientist Dr. Matt Walker. In the future, MasterClass says it will offer many more personas, like Gordon Ramsay, Mark Cuban, Bill Nye and LeVar Burton.
Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121531673.html?src=rss
Make your holiday plans now, because Sony has announced which games will be joining the Playstation Plus Game Catalog starting in December. The biggest highlight for PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra subscribers is Forspoken, a parkour and magic-filled RPG released by Square Enix in 2023. We didnt think the PS5 game fully matched the eye-popping visuals of other games like Horizon Forbidden West when we reviewed it, but a holiday vacation seems like the perfect time to bop around and experiment with some spells.
For a different take on open-world running and jumping, Sonic Frontiers is also joining the catalog. The game fuses high-speed platforming with a Breath of the Wild-inspired open world full of enemies and collectables. If you miss more of the traditional Sonic experience, there are bespoke challenge levels inspired by past Sonic games to run through too.
Both those games should hopefully be rewarding time sinks, but the two additions that most caught my eye were A Space for the Unbound and Coffee Talk. Ive basically heard nothing but good things about A Space for the Unbound since it came out in 2023, primarily because of its unique setting in late 90s rural Indonesia. Its a slice-of-life adventure game, according to Sony, but with some supernatural elements for added drama. Coffee Talk has been kicking around since 2020, and has some shared cultural DNA since its developer, Toge Productions, published Unbound and is based in Indonesia. Coffee Talk is a visual novel about running a coffee shop where you talk to patrons about their problems and make them drinks, a delightfully pleasant premise for a game.
Toge Productions
Rounding out the new additions to the catalog are a grab bag of sequels, racing games, multiplayer puzzle games, and more than one title where you play as a rabbit: Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly, Rabbids: Party of Legends, WRC Generations, F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow, Jurassic World Evolution 2, PHOGS and Biped.
If youre a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber, and like me, youre looking to blow the dust off your PSVR 2, Sony is also throwing in Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxys Edge. Its a virtual reality experience that gives you a sampling platter of Star Wars things to do in immersive first-person, like training to be a Jedi, blasting enemies, and palling around with droids. It's much more cost effective to live Star Wars than going to Disneyland.
Premium members will also get to stream a few new games in the Classics Catalog, with the shared theme of PlayStation mascot duos: Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves, Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves, and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. Im more of a Ratchet & Clank fan myself, but this is a great opportunity to play the very first Jak and Daxter game.
PS Plus Premium and Extra subscribers will be able to play these games starting December 17. If youre a Premium subscriber with a PlayStation Portal, youll be able to stream some of them directly to your handheld as part of Sonys cloud streaming beta test, too.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstation-plus-game-catalog-additions-for-december-include-forspoken-sonic-frontiers-and-vr-star-wars-232621272.html?src=rss
MasterClass is expanding beyond pre-recorded video lessons to offer on-demand mentorship from some of its most popular celebrity instructors. And if youre wondering how the company has gotten some of the busiest people on the planet to field your questions, guess what? The answer is generative AI.
On Wednesday, MasterClass debuted On Call, a new web and iOS app that allows people to talk with AI versions of its instructors. As of today, On Call is limited to two personas representing the expertise of former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss and University of Berkeley neuroscientist Dr. Matt Walker. In the future, MasterClass says it will offer many more personas, with Gordon Ramsay, Mark Cuban, Bill Nye and LeVar Burton among some of the more notable experts sharing their voices and knowledge in this way.
This isnt just another generic AI chatbot pulling data from the internet, David Rogier, the CEO of MasterClass, said on X. Weve built this with our experts training the AI on proprietary data sets (e.g. unpublished notes, private research, their lessons, emails, [and] expertise theyve never shared before).
Per Inc., MasterClass signed deals with each On Call instructor to license their voice and expertise. Judging from the sample voice clips MasterClass has up on its website, the interactions arent as polished as the one shown in the ad the company shared on social media. In particular, the voice of Chris Voss sounds robotic and not natural at all. On Call is also a standalone product with a separate subscription from the companys regular offering. To use On Call, users will need to pay $10 per month or $84 annually.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/masterclass-on-call-gives-you-on-demand-access-to-ai-facsimiles-of-its-experts-215022938.html?src=rss
The US Supreme Court dismissed an NVIDIA case it previously agreed to hear as improvidently granted. In other words: Oops, we never shouldve taken this one. The decision lets most of the lawsuit, brought by shareholders against the chip maker, proceed.
An investment firm and a pension fund brought the case against NVIDIA, claiming the company misled investors about its reliance on the crypto-mining industry. The suit claims NVIDIA concealed its dependence on the market before a 2018 crash that sunk the chip makers stock prices. (For better or worse, cryptocurrency has rebounded, and Bitcoin recently passed the $100,000 plateau for the first time.)
The courts unanimous dismissal reflected its apparent aversion to hearing the cases complex technical details. The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted is all the decision said. That language was identical to a remarkably similar dismissal in a case SCOTUS heard last month against Meta, which also accused it of deceiving investors.
The Washington Post reports that the justices offered hints at the NVIDIA dismissal when they heard arguments in mid-November. It becomes less and less clear why we took this case and why you should win it, Justice Elena Kagan reportedly said. The New York Times says court members across the ideological spectrum sounded frustrated with the arguments. This is a highly technical subject, Justice Samuel Alito said at one point. It just seems to me that youre asking us to engage in a kind of analysis that we are not very good at and werent expecting to when we took this case, Kagan said.
As AIs thorny and ultra-high-stakes legal and ethical questions loom, we can take comfort in the fact that the highest court in the worlds most powerful nation sounds utterly uninterested in diving into Big Techs often head-spinning technical details. At least the stakes are much lower in this case, only affecting the finances of a crazy-rich corporation and a group of (likely rich) Wall Street investors.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/us-supreme-court-bails-on-nvidia-case-allowing-a-shareholder-lawsuit-to-proceed-214001377.html?src=rss
Microsoft has started a beta test that will finally bring cloud streaming to Xbox consoles. Participants in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha tiers of the Xbox Insiders program can start using this feature now on their Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles.
This news is an extension of the "stream your own game" feature that Microsoft announced in November. That initial launch allowed Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream select games they've digitally purchased to their televisions, Meta Quest VR headsets and to some supported browser setups. The company said at the time that it planned to also bring streaming to Xbox consoles and to the Windows Xbox app in 2025.
While this update is a welcome addition to the "stream your own game" hardware, there are still some caveats on the feature. First, it's limited to Game Pass Ultimate members. Second, the game needs to support cloud streaming. There's a short list of titles included in the program for now, but several of them are excellent ones that are well worth a look: Baldur's Gate 3, Balatro, Cyberpunk 2077, Animal Well, Stray and the first six Final Fantasy games, to name a few highlights. Once this goes live to the whole Xbox audience, it should be a useful way to streamline game downloads and to access your whole library without needing to shell out for external storage.
In related Microsoft news, the Windows Xbox app is getting a couple updates. The new Home screen for the app will highlight curated game collections and suggested titles, as well as recent game news, releases and sales.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-previews-cloud-streaming-of-games-you-own-on-consoles-211008822.html?src=rss
The advent of Bluetooth trackers has made it a lot easier to find your bag or keys when theyre lost, but it has also put inconspicuous tracking tools in the hands of people who might misuse them. Apple and Google have both implemented tracker alerts to let you know if theres an unknown Bluetooth tracker nearby, and now as part of a new update, Google is letting Android users actually locate those trackers, too.
The feature is one of two new tools Google is adding to Find My Device-compatible trackers. The first, Temporarily Pause Location is what youre supposed to enable when you first receive an unknown tracker notification. It blocks your phone from updating its location with trackers for 24 hours. The second, Find Nearby, helps you pinpoint where the tracker is if you cant see it or easily hear it.
By clicking on an unknown tracker notification youll be able to see a map of where the tracker was last spotted moving with you. From there, you can play a sound to see if you can locate it (Google says the owner wont be notified). If you cant find it, Find Nearby will connect your phone to the tracker over Bluetooth and display a shape that fills in the closer you get to it.
Google / Engadget
The tool is identical to what Google offers for locating trackers and devices you actually own, but importantly, you dont need to use Find My Device or have your own tracker to benefit. Like Googles original notifications feature, any device running Android 6.0 and up can deal with unknown Bluetooth trackers safely.
Expanding Find Nearby seems like the final step Google needed to take to tamp down Bluetooth tracker misuse, something Apple already does with its Precision Finding tool for AirTags. The companies released a shared standard for spotting unknown Bluetooth trackers regardless of whether you use Android or iOS in May 2024, following the launch of Googles Find My Device network in April. Both Google and Apple offered their own methods of dealing with unknown trackers before then to prevent trackers from being used for everything from robbery to stalking.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/android-will-let-you-find-unknown-bluetooth-trackers-instead-of-just-warning-you-about-them-204707655.html?src=rss
