Verizon’s Total Wireless Prepaid Brand Offers Five-Year Price Guarantee Total Wireless, a prepaid brand owned by Verizon, now offers a five-year price lock on unlimited data plans. The company is kicking off its new deal with an updated logo and a customer promo that advertises “less than $30 per month,” although you would need four lines to achieve that price per line. For a single line on Total, you’ll pay $50 per month to get unlimited data, including access to Verizon’s 5G UWB network, and the company promises that “speeds do not slow down through network management.” The price includes taxes and fees. As a comparison, Visible, another Verizon prepaid brand, drops from 5G bandwidth to LTE after a certain threshold... Continue reading… source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/11/24196382/verizon-total-wireless-prepaid-five-year-price-lock

Gemini AI: The Future of Smarter Robots Google Says Gemini AI Is Making Its Robots Smarter DeepMind found “preliminary evidence” that Gemini enables its robots to plan how to undertake complex tasks from simple instructions. Image: Google DeepMind Google is training its robots with Gemini AI so they can get better at navigation and completing tasks. The DeepMind robotics team explained in a new research paper how using Gemini 1.5 Pro’s long context window— which dictates how much information an AI model can process— allows users to more easily interact with its R2-T robots using natural language instructions. This works by filming a video tour of a designated area, such as a home or office space, with researchers using Gemini 1.5 Pro to make the robot “watch” the video to…

Tech Startup Combats Climate Change by Capturing Carbon and Cooling Data Centers This Climate Tech Startup Wants to Capture Carbon and Help Data Centers Cool Down 280 Earth’s pilot carbon removal facility in The Dalles, Oregon. | Image: 280 Earth Data centers are a growing climate problem, especially as all the energy needed to train AI models inflates tech companies’ carbon footprints. A startup that spun out of Google’s “moonshot factory” X says its technology can provide a potential solution. It can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, run partially on servers’ waste heat, and even generate water to help cool a data center more efficiently. The company, 280 Earth, just signed a $40 million agreement to capture carbon dioxide emissions for some big names through an initiative called…

Codename Lasso: Neue Sonos-Soundbar im Anmarsch Falls sich jemand fragt, warum Sonos nicht viel auf die Fehlerbehebung bei älteren Geräten gibt: Der Anbieter will neue Hardware verkaufen. Als nächstes steht offenbar ein Nachfolger für die Soundbar Sonos Arc auf dem Programm. Chris Welch vom Magazin The Verge ist schon seit geraumer Zeit bestens informiert, wenn es um anstehende Produktneuheiten von Sonos geht. Jetzt hat Welch die ersten Daten zum kommenden Soundbar-Flaggschiff von Sonos parat und legt zudem noch ein paar frühe Fotos einer Beta-Version der Soundbar bei. „Lasso“-Bilder: The Verge / Unser Titelbild zeigt noch die Sonos Arc Das künftige Soundbar-Topmodell von Sonos hört auf den Codenamen „Lasso“ und läuft intern mit der Modellnummer S45. Rein äußerlich unterscheidet sich das neue Gerät nur unwesentlich von der vor vier Jahren vorgestellten…

Model Rocket Enthusiasts Master Vertical Landings It took Aryan Kapoor three years to land a model rocket vertically. Joe Barnard (or BPS.Space) and Aryan Kapoor are two model rocket enthusiasts who’ve spent years working to advance the hobby with innovative ways to precisely steer model rockets and land them vertically instead of just watching them parachute back to Earth after a launch. Despite many failures and setbacks, they’ve each succeeded in recreating SpaceX’s Falcon 9 landing capabilities at a much, much smaller scale and without billions of dollars of funding. Barnard, who studied music production in college — not aerospace engineering — spent seven years designing, building, and perfecting various custom components, including a custom thrust vectoring mechanism for model rocket engines. Relying on a pair of servo motors that…

The King of Chum: The Man Behind the AI Gaffes at Sports Illustrated and USA Today The King of Chum: The Man Behind the AI Gaffes at Sports Illustrated and USA Today In the evolving landscape of digital content, one man’s influence looms large, casting a shadow over reputable publications like Sports Illustrated and USA Today. Known for a series of AI-related errors that have recently come to light, his footprint on the internet is both extensive and controversial. While artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize many industries, its implementation in media has not been without hiccups. The man in question stands at the crossroads of this turbulent junction, with a history replete with errors and missteps. His work, often characterized by poor quality and misinformation, has filled the internet with…

TouchScreen HomePod Hints in tvOS 18 Beta tvOS 18 Beta Hints at TouchScreen HomePod The latest beta version of tvOS 18 is fueling speculations about a HomePod with a screen. Hidden in the source code of the third pre-release version of tvOS 18 is a screen component designed for touch operation. Such a functionality makes little sense for a TV device, but tvOS also serves as the basis for the HomePod's operating system. The Apple blog 9to5Mac reports that it was able to access this system component, finding a lock screen comparable to that of an iPhone or iPad, designed for touchscreen control. There isn't much else to see at this stage, as the component seems to be in a very early phase of development. Amazon's Echo Show 10 The…

AI Design Apps Made My New Apartment Look Odd I thought AI apps could help design my space, but they’re not quite ready yet. Continue reading... source: https://www.theverge.com/24171559/ai-design-app-chatgpt-ikea-spacely-decoratly

Sonos Next Flagship Soundbar This is Sonos’ Next Flagship Soundbar Illustration: The Verge As Sonos continues chipping away at fixing bugs and improving the performance of its poorly received mobile app redesign, the company also remains focused on several new hardware products. Among them is an ultrapremium soundbar that will serve as a successor to the current Sonos Arc — at a significantly higher price. Codenamed Lasso, the device is currently in limited beta testing, and today, I can share the first images of it. The exterior of the Lasso soundbar bears a strong resemblance to the Arc, which Sonos introduced over four years ago. But inside, the components and speaker drivers have been completely overhauled and redesigned, and that’s expected to result in a cost upwards of $1,200. Sonos…

How to Manage a Road Trip Move Uprooting your life and moving hundreds — or thousands — of miles isn’t easy. Here’s how to make sense of it all. Continue reading… source: https://www.theverge.com/24173840/moving-long-distance-tips-tricks-how-to