We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you’ve ever tried dragging a too-large speaker—or worse, relied on your phone’s tiny audio for sound projection—you should appreciate this sale on the Skullcandy Terrain Mini: It's palm-sized, no-frills, and currently on sale for $34.99 down from $39.99 on StackSocial, with free shipping in the U.S. That price drop isn’t jaw-dropping, but for under $35, you’re looking at a IPX7-rated waterproof speaker that won’t be damaged if it's dropped in the pool this summer.The Skullcandy Terrain Mini has Bluetooth 5.3, so the connection holds steady within a 33-foot range. The battery is said to give you 14 hours of playtime, which should cover most day-long adventures or at least a solid workday playlist without needing a recharge. When it does die, it uses USB-C, which is thankfully included in the box, so you won’t need to dig through old cords. It also comes with a wrist strap that you can clip it to a bag or swing it around like a lanyard when you’re on the move. As far as sound goes, it's decent on its own, but the True Wireless Stereo feature means you can pair it with a second unit for real stereo separation. You can also use Skullcandy’s Multi-Link to chain together up to 99 of these. Realistically, you’ll probably never do that, but the option’s there if you ever want to DJ a flash mob.That said, this speaker doesn’t punch far above its size. It’s built more for casual, portable listening than booming bass or high-volume precision. The fabric mesh helps with durability and sound clarity, but it’s not going to replace your home speaker setup. If you’re in the market for a rugged little speaker that’s waterproof, rechargeable, and easy to toss in a bag, the Skullcandy Terrain Mini fits.

Rumors circulated today that robotaxi company Waymo might use data from vehicles' interior cameras to train AI and sell targeted ads to riders. However, the company has tried to quell concerns, insisting that it won't be targeting ads to passengers. The situation arose after researcher and engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered an unreleased version of Waymo's privacy policy that suggested the robotaxi company could start using data from its vehicles to train generative AI. The draft policy has language allowing customers to opt out of Waymo "using your personal information (including interior camera data associated with your identity) for training GAI." Wong's discovery also suggested that Waymo could use that camera footage to sell personalized ads to riders. Later in the day, The Verge obtained comments on this unreleased privacy policy from Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina. "Waymo's [machine learning] systems are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads," she said. Ilina said the version found by Wong featured "placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose" and noted that the feature was still in development. It "will not introduce any changes to Waymo’s Privacy Policy, but rather will offer riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection for ML training purposes." Hopefully Waymo holds to those statements. Privacy and security are huge concerns as AI companies try to feed their models as much information as possible. Waymo is owned by Alphabet and Google is developing its own AI assistant, Gemini, as well as other AI projects with its DeepMind division.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymo-has-no-plans-to-sell-ads-to-riders-based-on-camera-data-225340265.html?src=rss

The Quiet PC UltraNUC Pro 14 Fanless is designed for business users seeking a high-performance, noise-free workstation with a premium look.

Apple is reeling over concerns that President Donald Trump's tariffs could force the iPhone maker to raise prices or accept lower profits.

Including how the Blob and Monstro digital visual effects were achieved. The post Here’s Noid’s VFX breakdown for ‘The Substance’ appeared first on befores & afters.

AI tools are suddenly everywhere, and you've probably tried out using an AI program to generate text and images, or perhaps even audio and video. But AI isn't just coming for media you passively experience: Companies are also using interactive entertainment, including video games. We've seen examples of this over the past year or so. Google's Genie model, for example, aims to generate playable video game environments from user prompts. Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled a similar AI model, called Muse, and that model's first mainstream experience is now here: The company is offering an experimental version of Quake II, a game originally released in 1997, that is powered by AI. I've now played the AI version of Quake, and it's...bizarre, to say the least. It feels like playing a video game in a dream. Not because it's good, but because it's everything about it feels unstable and ephemeral. Other than the purely for the novelty, I'm really not sure why this thing exists.What it's like to play AI QuakeWhen you first load up the "Copilot Gaming Experience," you agree to a popup warning you the game is rated M and that you are indeed 18 years or older—even though M-rated games are supposed to be 17 and up. Consider this your first warning that something is off.The game loads in a small window in the center of the screen. Immediately, you can tell it's not quite right. Sure, it's recognizably a video game: It's from a first-person perspective, with an animated hand holding a pistol in the bottom-right. You have a health bar, an ammo counter, and a weapon indicator. You can recognize that you are in a room, with clearly-defined (yet blocky) features. However, something about the entire experience just feels wrong, and the effect worsens as soon as you press a button. Credit: Lifehacker There is what feels like a full second delay between you pressing a key on your keyboard and the action taking place on-screen. Lag would be one thing, but that isn't the end of it: When you do move, the environment shifts ever so slightly, like nothing around you is actually stable. For example, there are no enemies when you first start, but they may appears as you move around a room. They don't spawn with any kind of animation or care—you move a frame, and all of a sudden, an enemy is forged. (More on that instability in a moment.)The game plays a bit like SuperHot, in that when you stop moving, nothing happens. Enemies don't attack, and in fact just freeze up entirely. It's only when you take an action that you'll notice things change on the screen: A monster may move, shape-shift (due to the AI, not a Quake gameplay mechanic) or attack, or perhaps the room itself will change entirely. You can look at the floor, spin around in a circle two or three times, then look up, and find yourself in another corner of the map. The game does try to stay consistent. You always start in the same room, and if you're lucky, you'll be able to maintain the integrity of the map as you run between areas—hopefully without being shot at by a newly-generated blurry enemy. But as you move and look around, you can almost feel the ground shifting beneath you, as if the game world could shape into something else at a moments notice. This, really, is what gives it the feeling of being in a dream.Things fall apartSometimes, you run into a room and encounter an enemy, firing away. But if you run past it, then turn around, it'll be gone. You don't even need it to exit your field of vision: By just strafing from left to right to "dodge" its attacks, I watched one enemy "fall apart" onto the floor, as if I was using the moving ground to erase the monster. You don't have the same problem, as it's impossible to die. When you are attacked, your health counter appears to track downwards at a reasonable rate. However, you'll notice the numbers start to bounce around at random. Even if your health hits zero, your character won't collapse, nor will you get a "Game Over" screen. The counter will simply bounce around single digits as you take damage forever, or until you kill the monster (or let the AI decide it's time to disappear the character entirely). Game-breaking bugsThe game can simply break on a moment's notice. On one run, I was about to enter hallway, decided to do a 360-scan of the room before I did, and when I made it all the way around, the hallway had turned into an elevator. When I walked up to the elevator button, I triggered a loading screen that never finished loading. Another time, I looked down, spun around, and looked back up to find myself in another room entirely. As I stepped around, I was suddenly losing health, but there was no attacker in sight—at least, not one I could see. Just as I was about to fire around the room at random, the game paused and never came back to, similar to the event in the elevator. If the game doesn't freeze on its own, the site will time you out, forcing you to start a new game if you want to continue playing. Credit: Lifehacker Should video games be fun?The game is powered by Microsoft's WHAM model, which the company says was trained on human gameplay data to guess what should be displayed frame-by-frame, as well as what the player might control next. In its research paper, Microsoft enthusiastically explains what's so great about an AI model that can generate video game environments. I'm not so sure I agree. For one, this Quake experience isn't fun. There's no objective or challenge, other than to see how long you can go without breaking the experience. You can kill enemies, sure, but they can't kill you. In fact, the AI generation may get to the enemy before they can get to you, if you simply move the wrong way. With time, I'm sure Microsoft will present a more polished version of this experience. Perhaps there will be more consistency as you move around the map; perhaps enemies will actually stand their ground, and be capable of ending your game. But even if we get to the point where AI spits out an entirely playable experience, why would we want that? Who wants to effectively click a randomizer button and play whatever amalgamation of real video games the computer program concocts for us? That's not to say there aren't potential, practical uses for AI in game development—but we should be looking at those as tools to add to a game developer's workflow, and not something that makes that developer obsolete. If this is the current state of AI-generated video games, however, flesh and blood game probably developers aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Consumer electronics brand Framework announced today on X that it will temporarily suspend US sales of select laptop models as a result of the global tariffs enacted for the country last week. The company said it will remove the Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U versions of its Laptop 13 systems from its website. At the time of publish, that Ultra 5 Intel model is not listed, but the Ryzen 5 one with the AMD chip appears to still be available for purchase. In a follow-up post, the company said that it originally priced its laptops based on a 0 percent tariff for goods from Taiwan. With the current 10 percent tariff, the products would be sold at a loss. "Other consumer goods makers have performed the same calculations and taken the same actions, though most have not been open about it," Framework said. Given the language of the initial post, this doesn't seem to be the end of US customers' chances to buy Laptop 13 models. But the sweeping tariffs on imports enacted by President Donald Trump last week have already sparked other industries to rethink their US sales and pricing. UK-based Jaguar Land Rover also paused shipments to the US as a result of the tariffs, while Japan's Nintendo has delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 gaming console, although the launch date appears unchanged.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/framework-pauses-some-us-laptop-sales-due-to-tariffs-221115971.html?src=rss

Google has enhanced its AI Mode with image-based search.

Kimbal Musk, the brother of the world's wealthiest person, took to X on Monday to criticize President Donald Trump's tariffs.