Category: Technology

Nintendo held its first Direct presentation of the year on February 8th, and it was jam-packed with announcements.

Here’s the full stream if you want to parse through it:

But read on for a recap of quick everything that was featured during the showcase, with release dates:

Pikmin 4 — July 21st, 2023
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Expansion Pass Volume 3 — February 15th, 2023
Samba de Amigo: Party Central — summer 2023
Fashion Dreamer — TBA 2023
Dead Cells Castlevania DLC — March 6th, 2023
Tron: Identity — April 2023
Ghost Trick Phantom Detective — summer 2023
DecaPolice — TBA 2023
Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon — March 17th, 2023
Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass — spring 2023
Disney Illusion Island — July 28th, 2023
Fire Emblem Engage Expansion Pass Wave 2 — February 8th, 2023 (Expansion Pass 3 and 4 were also teased but undated)
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie — June 2023
Octopath Traveller II — free demo on February 8th ahead of February 24th game launch
We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie — TBA
Minecraft Legends — April 18th, 2023
Have a Nice Death — March 22nd, 2023
Sea of Stars (from Canada’s Sabotage) — August 29th, 2023
Omega Strikers — April 27th
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection (1-3) — June 1st, 2023
Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp — April 21st (following an indefinite delay)
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe Epilogue reveal — February 24th, 2023
Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games coming to Switch Online — February 8th, 2023
Metroid Prime Remastered — February 8th, 2023
Master Detective Archives Rain Code — June 30th, 2023
Baten Kaitos 1+2 HD Remaster — summer 2023
Fantasy Life: The Girl Who Steals Time — TBA 2023
Professor Layton and the New World of Steam — TBA
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — May 12th, 2023 (yes — just a new trailer but no delay)

What are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Nintendo

Google’s recently-announced ChatGPT-like AI chatbot Bard is already making factual mistakes.

On Monday, February 6th, Google announced that its ChatGPT competitor Bard would go public in the coming weeks. In a blog post by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, an example of the chatbot’s capabilities was shown.

When asked, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?” the chatbot shared three simple-to-understand points, one of them being that “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.”

While we know that the JWST is the most advanced telescope to peep at the universe with and can take better photos of planets outside our solar system, saying that the JWST took the very first picture of an exoplanet isn’t factual. As stated on Nasa’s website, the first image of an exoplanet was taken back in 2004, while the JWST became operational in 2022. The first exoplanet was imaged by the VLT (Very Large Telescope), stationed in Cerro Paranal, Antofagasta, Chile.

Several astronomers and astrophysicists were quick to point out the inaccuracy of Bard, with Grant Tremblay (@astrogrant) saying, “Not to be a ~well, actually~ jerk, and I’m sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take “the very first image of a planet outside our solar system.” He added, “I do love and appreciate that one of the most powerful companies on the planet is using a JWST search to advertise their LLM. Awesome! But ChatGPT etc., while spooky impressive, are often *very confidently* wrong. Will be interesting to see a future where LLMs self error check.”

Not to be a ~well, actually~ jerk, and I'm sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take "the very first image of a planet outside our solar system".

the first image was instead done by Chauvin et al. (2004) with the VLT/NACO using adaptive optics. https://t.co/bSBb5TOeUW pic.twitter.com/KnrZ1SSz7h

— Grant Tremblay (@astrogrant) February 7, 2023

In a statement given to The Verge about Bard’s inaccuracy, a Google spokesperson said, “This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”

In related news, Microsoft has partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT-like functionality to the Bing search engine. Read more about it here.

Via: The Verge

Twitter appears to be experiencing an outage, as users globally report not being able to see new Tweets.

According to Ookla’s Downdetector, the outage started roughly between 4:30pm ET and 4:50pm ET.

Users are also reportedly unable to publish new Tweets and send or receive direct messages (DMs). According to Downdetector, the outage is affecting Twitter on the web and also on the mobile app. Trying to publish a Tweet gives an error which says “You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets,” as seen in the second screenshot above. Twitter uses AWS (Amazon Web Services) to host its servers, but the issue doesn’t seem to stem from AWS.

Access to the website is still active, and some users are still able to Tweet out and read new Tweets on their timelines. It is unclear what is causing the outage.

Developing…

After an indefinite delay early last year, Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp finally has a release date.

Announced as a part of today’s Nintendo Direct, the game will officially hit store shelves on April 21.

The remake of the classic tactics titles was shelved last March, citing “recent world events” for the push. While never explicitly said, it was assumed that the push came because of war breaking out in Ukraine.

Now after a year’s delay the games are finally ready to see the light of day!

See the full trailer below:

Every month, Roku adds new streaming content to its Roku Channel. The channel features free content, including Roku Originals, movies, documentaries, TV series and live programming.

Check out the free new content available on the Roku Channel in February below:

Yogi Bear
Pink Panther 1
Pink Panther 2
Agent Cody Banks 1
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
A Grand Romantic Gesture
Mouthpiece
American Heist
Come to Daddy
What Keeps you alive
The Notebook — Available starting February 15th
Monster in Law — Available starting February 15th
Bewitched — Available starting February 15th
Silverado
The Cable Guy
The Deal
Meet me in Paris — Available starting February 10th
Emeril Cooks S2 — Available starting February 17th

To access the Roku Channel on your Roku device, press ‘home’ on your Roku remote and select ‘Streaming Channels.’ Select ‘Search Channels’ and look for the Roku Channel. Roku Channel base tier is completely free to use. You can also access the Roku Channel through the Roku app on iOS and Android.

Following in Microsoft’s footsteps, Mountain View, California-based Google today, at its Live from Paris event, announced AI-focused updates to Search, Maps and Translate, via The Verge.

Just two days ago, on Monday, February 6th, Google announced that its ChatGPT competitor ‘Bard’ will be available to the public in the “coming weeks,” with Google CEO Sundar Pichai describing it as an “experimental conversational AI service” powered by LaMDA. The chatbot made an appearance at the event, where Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president at Google, said that users would be able to interact with Bard to explore complex topics, collaborate in real-time and get new and creative ideas.

Today, live from Paris 🇫🇷, we’re sharing a few new ways we’re applying our advancements in AI to make exploring information even more natural and intuitive.

Join us at 2:30pm CET ⬇️ #googlelivefromparishttps://t.co/452k7Rc7Hn

— Google Europe (@googleeurope) February 8, 2023

Google then explained how some questions have No One Right Answer, or ‘NORA.’ This is applicable to questions like “what is the best constellation to look at when stargazing.” The answer to such questions is subjective, and hence, it has NORA. To help answer such queries, Google is introducing generative AI directly into Search results.

Soon, if you ask Google Search questions that have NORA, the new generative AI features would organize complex information and multiple viewpoints and opinions, and combine them in your search results.

Here are some of the other new announcements made across Google’s platforms, with some features releasing in the near future, and others in the coming weeks and months:

The Street View and Live View mixture, called Immersive View, is now beginning to roll out in five cities, namely London, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Tokyo. The feature will next expand to Florence, Venice, Amsterdam, Dublin, and more.

The multi-search tool that allows users to initiate a search using an image and a few words of text is also receiving an update. The feature allows users to take photos of objects like food, supplies, clothes and more, and add the phrase “near me” in the Google app to get search results showcasing local businesses, restaurants or retailers that carry that specific item. The feature was limited to the United States, but is now rolling out globally wherever Google Lens is available. The feature will also be available on mobile web globally in the next few months.

Under Google Maps, the company is adding new features to assist EV drivers, including suggested charge stops for shorter trips, filters for “very fast” charging stations and indications of places with chargers in search results for places like hotels and grocery stores.

Further, ‘Translate with Lens’ for images is now rolling out globally. Normally, if you’d translate the text on an image, the translated text would be added on top of the image as ‘extra text,’ and wouldn’t be blended in. This would block or distort the image behind the text. Now, with a new machine learning tool called ‘Generative Adversarial Networks’ (the same tool used in Pixel phones for Magic Eraser), Google Lens can translate the text, and blend it back into the background image without distorting it, making the image retain its natural look.

ETAs and turn-by-turn navigation via Google Maps would now be visible on your lock screen. The feature is also compatible with iOS 16’s Live Activities. Google Translate will also be introducing additional context and information for certain words or phrases, starting with English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish languages in the coming weeks. The new Google Translate design for Android will be available on iOS in the near future.

Follow the links to learn more about the new Search, Maps and Translate features.

Image credit: Google 

Source: Google, Via: The Verge

Netflix has confirmed official Canadian pricing for password sharing.

In a February 8th blog post, the company revealed that it will cost $7.99 CAD per month, per person, to add up to two people outside of your household to your Netflix account. These sub-accounts will have their own profiles, personalized recommendations, logins and passwords.

While we’ve known for months that Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing was coming, the Canadian price is a bit surprising. Last year, Netflix began testing the paywall on password sharing in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, where it cost 2,380 CLP (about $4 CAD) $2.99 USD (about $4 CAD) and 7.9 PEN (about $2.77 CAD), respectively. Therefore, the Canadian cost is at least double what Netflix has been charging in Latin America.

Netflix says the paywall is rolling out today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. However, there are some restrictions.

To start, Basic with Ads ($5.99/month) and Basic ($9.99/month) members cannot pay for extra members with whom they can share their passwords. Standard ($16.49) subscribers may pay for only one extra member, while Premium ($21.99/month) can purchase two additional users.

Meanwhile, Netflix is rolling out a suite of related new features, including:

Set primary location — this is how Netflix will know that anyone who uses your account from the same location (I.P. address) is permitted to do so
Manage account access and devices — a new ‘Manage Access and Devices’ page to make it easy to control everyone who has access to the account
Transfer profile — a way for people to transfer their profiles (including personalized recommendations, viewing history and My List) to a new account if they want to start paying for their own

Last week, Netflix’s support page briefly listed a 31-day sign-in requirement to verify your account as part of its password-sharing crackdown, but this was said to be an error and quickly amended. As a result, users were confused about Netflix’s actual stance. Even still, some questions remain. For instance, Netflix says you can still use your account while travelling (i.e. on vacation), although it’s unclear how long of a grace period you’d be given for that. We’ll update this story once more information becomes available.

Last year, Netflix confirmed it would begin charging for password sharing amid multiple quarters of losses, claiming that more than 100 million households were doing so. As a result, the company said it was leaving a significant amount of money on the table, and, therefore, wanted to crack down on it.

Source: Netflix

Today, global technology company Zoho unveiled its unified communications platform, Trident, and added new capabilities to its virtual office platform, Zoho Workplace.

Trident seeks to help businesses communicate and collaborate more efficiently across channels, reduce tool ambiguity and boost an organization’s digital adoption. The platform combines mail, messages, audio/video calls, calendar, tasks, and more into the same place. Additionally, Trident is Zoho’s first native desktop app for email and chat.

Zoho Workplace also now features a flexible and comprehensive business mail and cloud office suite, built on a common data model and unified through search and AI. 

“The goal of Zoho Workplace is to enable businesses to unify their work to a point where the line between apps disappears. It’s heartening to see so many new businesses join the Zoho family, using Zoho Workplace as their customizable center of gravity,” said Zoho Canada managing director, Chandrashekar LSP.

The company said that Zoho Workplace grew 30 per cent over the 2021-2022 period, and now has more than 16 million users, a growth that it attributes to the increasing demand for streamlined, cost-efficient solutions, as well as higher standards for user privacy. 

Privacy is one of the main reasons that the company runs its services on its own infrastructure operated by Zoho’s IT management division, ManageEngine, which recently opened two new data centres in Canada. 

Having made a promise in 2005 to never show ads or sell data, Zoho differs from large organizations who indulge in “perverted” privacy abuses and “treat any fines and penalties as cost of doing business, because they’ve already made billions,” stated LSP.

Migrations from Google, Microsoft, and from GoDaddy Workspace Email to Zoho Workplace doubled in 2022, the company boasted.

Other new capabilities launched:

Zoho Voice Platform is now a full phone system integrated directly within team collaboration app Zoho Cliq and web conferencing app Zoho Meeting. Employees can make direct line calls, send SMS messages, and pick up inbound calls across apps.
New AI-based grammar tool, BluePencil, that brings writing suggestions and a text editor that can be used on any third-party webpage.
Universal Drag and Drop seeks to help users save time when working across multiple workplace products
Mobile Device Management capabilities and OTP-restricted Emails to enhance security
TrueSync added to Zoho Workdrive for unlimited storage limits. TrueSync also replicates all WorkDrive files and folders on the desktop to enable users to switch between the cloud and computer. Files can be accessed and edited locally, without using up hard drive space.

Zoho Workplace is available in three editions: Standard is C$3.75 per user per month, Professional is C$7.50 per user per month and Zoho Mail is C$1.25 per user per month.

The post Zoho launches new unified communications platform first appeared on IT World Canada.

Erica Phillips has never been a Bell customer, so she thought notices she received at an old address from the company in 2020 were fraudulent.

In a TikTok post, Phillips explains the Bell notices stated she owed money in an account under her name. She also received similar letters from Rogers. After doing some research and realizing the notices were real, she contacted both companies to explain the situation.

“Rogers dealt with within a week,” Phillips said in the video posted on January 24th. “But Bell has taken the opposite and has doubled down and has been harassing me since 2020 about this.”

@ericaphil

Shot on iPhone (8!! On Telus!!) @Bell Mobility #advice #bellmobility #bell #fraud #help #canadianoligarch

♬ original sound – Erica Phil

She filed reports with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and the police. With the bill amassing thousands when she posted the video, Phillips said it was sent to two collection agencies, one of which was calling her three times a day. The calls didn’t stop until Phillips shared her experience on social media and with news outlets.

“We have conducted an investigation and have determined that this account was fraudulent,” Bell told CBC News in a February 7th article. According to Phillips’ post on TikTok, the collection agency that called her three times a day told her the account was valid.  It’s unclear whether Bell conducted an investigation when Phillips originally contacted the company.

Either way, Phillips is relieved.

“It’s so nice knowing that this won’t continue being a daily reminder of something that shouldn’t have been my problem to begin with,” she told CBC.

This isn’t the first time Bell has examined an issue after being contacted or notified by another party or platform. Last month, the company incorrectly charged a Nova Scotia senior long-distance prices for local calls. The company didn’t investigate its mistake until CBC reached out to them.

Source: ericaphil/TikTok Via: CBC