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It's now harder to know where celebrities are flying to and their carbon emissions, with Meta shutting down Instagram and Threads accounts devoted to tracking private jets, TechCrunch reports. "Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Boards recommendation, weve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy," Meta told the publication. Deleted accounts include those tracking the flights of Taylor Swift, Bill Gates and, the head of Meta himself, Mark Zuckerberg. Jack Sweeney, a college student in his early 20s who runs the accounts, confirmed the news on his personal account. It's the latest in a line of pushback he has faced in the past. In Late 2022, Elon Musk suspended Sweeney's @ElonJet account which tracked Musk's flights on X (then Twitter). He soon made an account with the handle @ElonJetNextDay to post Musk's flights with a one day delay. Then, one year later, Taylor Swift's lawyers sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter stating, "While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client." In May, Sweeney's job became a little bit harder, with the Biden administration allowing anyone with a private aircraft to keep their registration data anonymous. However, Sweeney said tips and other research make it still doable.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-bans-private-jet-tracking-accounts-on-instagram-and-threads-140429820.html?src=rss
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If youre a game developer or animator, chances are you frequent sites like the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Quixel, ArtStation Marketplace and Sketchfab Store. The days of buying assets from each of these stores separately are over, as Epic Games just launched Fab, its new marketplace merging all of the sites mentioned above. While the Fab website is live, Unreal Engine 5 Editor users can also access it in the app directly when the update is live. Unreal Editor for Fortnite also has Fab integration, which is currently down for maintenance. Fabs content includes animations, VFX, environments, characters, plug-ins and much more. These assets may have either a Creative Commons license or Standard License; the latter comes in Personal and Professional tiers. Epic Games says that both tiers of the Fab Standard License allow assets to be used in any game engine you want. However, the Creative Commons license only allows assets to be used on Unreal Engine. 3D assets can also be viewed in real time before purchasing to ensure developers only get the products they need. Epic Games The entire Quixel Megascans library is available for free now until the end of this year, and the contents are free to use in all engines and creation tools. There are 17,000 assets from the original library, along with 10 packs accompanying Fabs launch. Epic Games also mentioned some future goals for Fab, including Roblox and Minecraft assets, access to MetaHumans and more. There will also be a portion of Fabs Megascans content made free next year in the form of a starter pack.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/epic-games-launches-a-new-unified-game-development-assets-marketplace-fab-135335228.html?src=rss
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WhatsApp just announced that itll soon let users add contacts from any device, and not just a primary phone, thus solving one of lifes little annoyances. A forthcoming update will let people add and manage contacts via the web client, on a Windows PC and eventually other linked devices. Users will also be able to save a contact exclusively to WhatsApp without syncing to a phone, which is useful when sharing a handset with others or for those who manage both work and personal WhatsApp accounts on the same device. Meta says that this will also solve the problem of people losing all of their contacts when they misplace a phone, as the contacts will be fully restorable. Even better? The company says this is the first step toward what many consider the holy grail of potential improvements. WhatsApp is getting usernames, so you wont have to save someones information via a phone number. Meta says this will add an extra degree of privacy since you can share a username without sharing a phone number. The multi-device contacts tool is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks and months. Theres no ETA on dedicated usernames. WhatsApp has been busy lately, in light of crossing an audience retention milestone. The app recently unveiled enhanced video calling and passkey support on iOS.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/whatsapp-will-soon-let-users-add-contacts-from-any-device-130047546.html?src=rss
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