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Twitch has rolled out a number of changes to its violation enforcement system. The biggest change is that now infractions will disappear from an account after a set amount of time. This is great news for long-time creators, as minor violations stacked. This led to folks getting suspended as these smaller infractions piled up. The platform says that most minor infractions, like cheating in an online game, will expire after 90 days. More serious violations, like participating in hateful conduct, will remain on an account for one to two years. The worst behavior will still result in an immediate suspension. Also, if a user is indefinitely suspended due to the accumulation of multiple violations, they can apply for reinstatement after six months. Twitch This isnt any type of get out of jail free card. Twitch is also upping the consequences for repeatedly violating the rules in the same policy category. Each time a similar infraction occurs, the length of a suspension will increase. This will be true even if the severity of the offense hasnt gone up. The platform says this new rule is to help people understand the importance of adhering to our Community Guidelines without needing to resort to an indefinite suspension. Finally, Twitch is making good on its promise for increased transparency regarding policy violations. For most policy violations, users will now get a detailed email regarding the reasoning behind any suspension decision. This data will soon include specific chat messages or stream snippets. The information will also reside in the Appeals Portal. This starts with chat messages, with video clips coming later on. Most of these changes are rolling out right now. Twitch recently added something called Enforcement Notes that inform users if certain trends violate one of its policies. It also publishes notes to alleviate widespread community confusion and alert folks as to which behaviors are and arent out of bounds.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/twitch-community-guideline-violations-will-now-disappear-from-accounts-after-a-set-time-195122034.html?src=rss
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The demise of Humane is perhaps the most predictable tech story of 2025. The company tried to build some buzz around its AI Pin in late 2023, marketing the device as a tiny replacement for smartphones and playing up the fact that Humanes co-founders were former Apple employees. The problem was that it wasnt really clear what the AI Pin would do to justify its $700 asking price (plus a $24/month subscription). It didnt take long for things to spiral out of control. The AI Pin was released in April of 2024 to some of the worst reviews Ive ever seen for a consumer tech product. Just a month after launch, reports surfaced that the company was already trying to be acquired for the positively ludicrous sum of $750 million to $1 billion dollars. At the same time, it was rumored that Humane sold only 10,000 Pins, a far cry from the 100,000 they had planned for. HP was named as a potential suitor last May, and the company smartly waited until they could pluck Humane for a comparatively paltry $116 million. As it turned out, waving your hands and shouting about the promise of AI doesnt make it any easier to build compelling hardware we slammed its high price, terrible battery life, slow performance, excessive heat and hard-to-use projected display. (And Engadget was far from the only publication to eviscerate this device.) Hayato Huseman for Engadget For a device whose main interface was conversational, the challenges the AI Pin had answering questions or executing commands made it a non-starter. Even when it did what was asked, it did it in some strange ways, like sending generic texts instead of letting you dictate what exactly you wanted to say. Its camera rarely worked as intended; after taking photos and viewing them on the projector, the Pin would get extremely warm and sometimes just shut down entirely. Speaking of that projection screen, it was nearly impossible to actually see it outdoors, even on a cloudy day. And interacting with it made our reviewer Cherlynn Low want to rip [her] eyes out. Oh, lets not forget that its extended battery case was recalled because it was a full-on fire hazard! The whole debacle is an illustrative example of how most consumer-grade AI isnt ready for prime time. Google and Apple may be trying to shove Gemini and Apple Intelligence down our throats on nearly every product they make, but those tools are additive, built on top of the strong foundations of each companys existing platforms. In Humanes case, there was nothing to fall back on. And the combo of terrible voice responses and recognition paired with a projector display that was not at all ready for prime time (not to mention the other hardware failings) was far too much to overcome. There was simply no intelligence to be found here, artificial or otherwise. To be fair to Humane, building hardware is notoriously difficult; first-generation products often have glaring flaws, even when youre talking about massive companies like Apple. The first iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch may have shown huge promise, but they also had strange omissions and performance issues that made them hard to recommend to everyone. Some companies manage to figure that out; Pebble is a great example of a hardware startup that survived some early issues to find some success. It beat Apple, Samsung and Google to the smartwatch market, and did it in a way that has yet to be imitated (maybe thats why the company is being resurrected). The Pebble wasnt exactly the most elegant piece of hardware, but both the watch and its software worked well enough that it paved the way for the more advanced smartwatches we have today. Of course, that wasnt enough to keep Pebble alive, as the company eventually filed for insolvency and had its assets picked up by Fitbit (which was later purchased by Google, if youre keeping track). Humanes situation at launch wasnt entirely different it was trying to build a new type of hardware altogether, and history tells us that the first products in a new space are going to be far from perfect. But, if there had at least been a glimmer of useful software, Humane might have survived to improve on those hardware problems with a future version. But its assistant was so bad that it killed any potential that the AI Pin had. There was simply no intelligence to be found here, artificial or otherwise. My takeaway from the Humane disaster is that its too soon to spend your hard-earned money on the promise of AI the marketplace isn't solidified at this point, and trusting a brand-new company like Humane to get this sort of thing right is several bridges too far. (If you're not convinced, look at the similarly flawed Rabbit R1.) Apple Intelligence is still half-baked at best, but at least you can turn it off and ignore it. But the AI Pin, well, relied completely on AI, and it wasnt just not ready it was one of the worst devices weve ever tried in our nearly 21 years as a publication. For some thousands of early adopters, that means their Pin will be a brick in just a few days, with no financial compensation coming their way. But hey, at least it will still be able to tell you its battery level.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-humane-ai-pin-debacle-is-a-reminder-that-ai-alone-doesnt-make-a-compelling-product-190119112.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Instagram is rolling out an update for its messaging system that adds several new tools. These features could allow Instagram to better compete with direct-messaging rivals like Apple iMessage and various third-party platforms. First up, theres music-sharing. The update lets users share tunes in both one-on-one messages and group chats. Just open up the sticker tray and tap on the Music option. This will open up a search bar of Instagram's audio library. There are a couple of caveats here. The song has to be available via Instagram and clips are maxed out at 30 seconds. Direct messages will also now have a translation tool that works with 99 languages. The functionality here looks incredibly simple. Users just have to hold down a message and tap Translate. The translated message should appear directly below the original one. Easy peasy. Meta Theres a new way to pin messages, images or even Reels to the top of chats. Hold down the message and tap Pin. Instagram says folks can pin up to three messages per conversation. I could see this being handy to keep oft-requested information at the ready, though itll likely be used primarily for memes (not that theres anything wrong with that.) Instagram will also let people schedule messages by long-pressing the send button. This can be used to plan messages up to 29 days in advance. Finally, the platform has introduced a way to invite people to a group chat via a QR code. All of these tools begin rolling out today to iOS and Android users worldwide. A web update is in the works but isnt available just yet. Instagram sure has been busy adding new features to its software. It recently began testing a dislike button for comments. The platform announced that it was working on a video-editing app, similar to CapCut. The service even expanded the length of Reels to three minutes, likely to compete with TikTok. It also recently got rid of third-party fact checkers.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-adds-a-whole-slew-of-new-dm-features-in-latest-update-184535399.html?src=rss
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