Halo Rise is also a small but significant part of Amazon’s ongoing foray into health and wellness. For $140 (on sale now for $100), Rise uses motion detection to predict and track your breathing rate and calculate how long you’ve slept.
Like Google’s Nest Hub, which also uses motion detection to track your sleep, the Halo Rise should be at your bedside, within arm’s reach. When you wake up, Amazon will show you a summary of the last night, including a score and the time you slept. It will also praise you for doing well or warn you to go easy on the day if you didn’t get enough rest.
With products like the Halo Band and app features like body composition scanning, mobility and posture assessment, as well as controversial pitch control that monitors how you speak, the company is investing in health management tools. . As Engadget’s Cherlynn Low says in her review: “The question is whether we’re willing to trade our personal data for the convenience of an Amazon healthcare solution.”
–Matt Smith
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Top-down editing makes sense, but you might miss out on the fine controls.
Adobe Podcast, formerly Project Shasta, is a cloud-based audio production tool. As the name suggests, it’s primarily for podcast production, though it could be of interest to anyone who works with narrative audio. The most important thing to know is that there is no audio timeline or mixer view with channel strips here. The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s nothing like an audio editor. Podcast has a singular focus on audio, so there aren’t any video editing, presentation, or live streaming tools you don’t need. Second, some proprietary tools, notably Enhance Speech. With one click, this button transforms trashy audio recorded in the worst of rooms into something that sounds more professional. It’s almost magical.
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“It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way,” the public broadcaster’s chief executive said.
Twitter added a hashtag to NPR’s main account to designate the public broadcaster as “US state-affiliated media.” Such labels have generally been reserved for state organizations, such as RT and Sputnik in Russia and China’s Xinhua News Agency. Labels appear on every tweet from the accounts they apply to. NPR, an independent nonprofit organization, says that, on average, less than one percent of its annual operating budget comes from government grants. Meanwhile, the UK’s BBC, largely funded by the government, still lacks the label.
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Privacy experts say the rules would violate the privacy of everyone, not just teens.
Utah recently passed two laws that would drastically change the way teens in the state can use social media. The new laws will impose strict rules on how companies handle teen accounts. But among the most controversial aspects of the law is age verification. It requires companies like Snap, Meta, and TikTok to confirm the ages of their youngest users to enforce age-based restrictions. Under the rules, which take effect next March, big platforms will no longer be able to simply allow teens to enter their own birthday when signing up. But experts warn that focusing on age-based restrictions won’t address major security issues lawmakers say they want to address, such as privacy. And age verification measures, like those in Utah, pose a significant threat to the privacy of all social media users, not just teens.
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There’s even a black and white cinematic mode.
god of war ragnarok I just got a pretty significant update with New Game+ that is much more than just a rehash with tougher enemies. This NG+ is packed with features to squeeze more life out of last year’s PlayStation hit. Includes new armor sets that bring unique gameplay mechanics to the table. Zeus’s armor increases your magic and spell damage, but puts you at greater risk of taking damage. Spartan Armor, as the name suggests, removes all buffs and stat increases, increasing the challenge and leaving no room for bugs. If that wasn’t hard enough, the level cap is increased for enemies and players. There’s even a new black and white mode.
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But you will have to pay $23 or $30 for one box.
Best Buy today announced that it will expand its device recycling program to include a new mail-in option. The retailer will provide you with a box for your used electronics so you can send them in for recycling, saving yourself a trip to the store. However, you pay for the privilege: a small box (9 x 5 x 3 inches) for $23 for e-waste up to 6 pounds and a medium (18 x 14 x 4 inches) for $30 that holds up to 15 pounds. After receiving it, you can pack as many (approved) devices as you can, as long as they stay under the weight limit.
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