Muller Van Severen has spent the last 15 years masterfully blurring the lines between art and design, and their latest exhibition, Frames, at the Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium, takes this exploration to new heights. The exhibition, their first solo show at the gallery, is an immersive experience that challenges our understanding of space, functionality, and sculpture. Featuring over 30 works, each unique in its form and approach, the show continues Muller Van Severens investigation into the intersection of sculpture and functional object.At the heart of Frames is a process Muller Van Severen has reined over time. The duo, comprising Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, begins with a single plate, using minimal intervention cutting, folding, and opening the material to create depth and dimension. The result is a collection of pieces that transition between abstraction and figuration, merging sculptural expression with usability. While the works can be appreciated as art objects, they are designed to be used, transforming the way we interact with the objects around us and the spaces we inhabit.The architectural inspiration behind these pieces is clear, with references to geometric forms and bold visual vocabularies reminiscent of the Suprematists, pioneers of the early 20th-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry. Works like Frame #17 and Frame #20 nod to Russian artist Kazimir Malevichs 1915 Suprematist installation, The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10. Muller Van Severen takes it a step further, crafting forms that are not just to be viewed but to be lived with a continuation of Austrian artist Franz Wests vision of furniture as art.Muller Van Severen shows us that objects, particularly functional objects, can elevate and shape our experiences of space. By breaking down the boundaries between art and design, the designers make art and functional design virtually indistinguishable, encouraging us to integrate these pieces into our daily lives to make art a lived experience rather than a distant object to admire.Muller Van SeverenFor more information on Muller Van Severens exhibition Frames, visit timvanlaeregallery.com.Photography courtesy of Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp-Rome.

TikToks filters can be a fun way to interact with the app, acting like digital face paint that can make you look like, for example, a clown or a tiger. But effects that aim to amplify a users beauty are a trickier subject, as TikTok itself is now acknowledging.Following over a dozen lawsuits that have targeted the platform over its effect on teens mental health, as well as research done in collaboration with the London-based Internet Matters non-profit, the company now says that in the coming weeks, users who are under the age of 18 wont be able to use certain appearance-altering effects.While the company says it wont target effects designed to be obvious or funny, it will restrict effects designed to alter your appearance, with the goal being to ease concerns that those viewing the content might not realize it had been altered.In other words, teens on TikTok will still be able to wear digital animal ears to their hearts content, but probably wont be able to use beauty filters once these age gates are in place (goodbye, Bold Glamour). While the news was announced at the companys European Safety Forum, TikTok Safety and Well-being Public Policy Lead For Europe Dr. Nikki Soo told The Verge that the restrictions will be rolled out globally.The company will also work towards providing more information on the specific ways an effect might alter a users appearance, although it wasnt stated whether the burden here will fall on TikTok or effect creators. The latter, however, will see new guidance educating them on some of the unintended outcomes their effects might have.As for even younger users, TikTok said its working on new machine learning technology that will prevent users who are under 13 from being on the platform, although specifics remain unclear. Its possible said technology will also go to use to keep users who are under 18 from lying about their age, although the company didnt say whether thats the case.Within Europe, TikTok is also planning to launch in-app resources across 13 European countries that connect users to local helplines for issues including suicide, self-harm, hate, and harassment.According to TikToks report with Internet Matters, "beautifying filters contributed to a distorted worldview in which perfected images are normalized and can result in "significant social pressure to look a certain way online. The upcoming restrictions on said filters join prior limits TikTok has made as it attempts to get ahead of criticisms, including a default screen time limit of one hour per day for users between the ages of 13 and 17.

Whether you joined Bluesky this month, or you're a day-one user, it's possible you've got a lot of posts on the new-ish social network already. (I'm not calling them "skeets," okay?) In all the talk about whether or not to delete your X postsor whether to port all of them over to Blueskyyou probably haven't considered deleting your Bluesky posts too. After all, Bluesky is relatively new, and still, somehow, pretty good. Why delete all the funny, trenchant, insightful, intelligent posts you've made so far?Your social media posts should be ephemeralThis isn't really a conversation not just about Bluesky, but about posting to social media platforms in generalparticularly ones where your account is public. These platforms are all about sharing your thoughts on any given subject at any given moment. They invite you to engage with current events as they are happening. A bombshell piece of news just dropped: What do you think of that? You just walked out of the season's biggest movie: Tell the world why you hated it. It's your own, personal soapbox, to stand on wherever, whenever. Your place to comment, disagree, rant, or otherwise share your state of mind.There are known downsides to this kind of always-on mindset. A viral post can draw unwanted attention; a hot take can start a heated online debate that might cause trouble for you offline; a misunderstanding can snowball into a scandal. While you risk a negative responses to posts as you make them, there are equal risks to posts you leave up: Years down the road, will someone unearth a post of yours, 100% out of context, and interpret your feelings in a totally different way than you meant them? Or, perhaps you did mean them that way, but you are now a changed person, and no longer align with that way of thinking. Maybe you don't even remember what you were talking about, or making the post at all. Whatever the case, that post doesn't represent you as you are nowso why is it still floating out there on the internet, attached to your name?That's why automatically deleting posts can start to look a lot like wisdom. We've all scrolled through our social media accounts before, cringing at the crap we used to post, and erasing the worst of them one-by-one. But there's a case to be made for taking a more consistent approach to erasing the pastan automated solution you'll (hardly) have to think about. You can auto-delete your Bluesky postsRather than go through your past posts yourself and hand-sort the ones that should stay or go, you can use a program to automatically delete all your posts after a set period of time. Consider this one, created by writer Emily Gorcen.Gorcen's script is designed to save a private archive of everything you post on Bluesky, and delete each post after a preset length of time, or after it reaches a preset level of "popularity." This prevents any given post from going viral, and thus, drawing too much attention to your feed. It's a funny twist on public social media accounts, since, for most of social media history, going viral has been a bit of a goal for many posters. Gorcen practices what she preaches: On her Bluesky account, you can see that posts auto-delete every two days. (The original post that introduced me to this topic has, appropriately, been deleted.)You'll quickly notice, however, there are posts on Gorcen's feed older than two days. That's because not every post is deleted two days after it's posted, as the script ignores any posts you "like" yourself. While it might be a bit weird to like your own posts, it might be a bit easier when you remember that by doing so, you're saving that post from deletion 48 hours hence.You aren't really losing anything by using this script: While the posts are deleted from your account, the script still saves to them your post archive. This way, you can reference anything you've ever posted, without worrying about how your posts will be received by internet strangers months or years from now, or if a post's vitality would have been too much for you to handle.Choose what to delete and whenThe script does require some coding know-how (which I, regrettably, do not have). Gorcen has instructions for installation in your python management solution, including the need to download libmagic. Once set, there are different command-lines to run to determine your variables: there's one for setting a threshold of reposts a post can receive before it's deleted; one for setting the age limit for posts (Gorcen's is two days, but you can set yours to anything you want); and one for choosing domains to ignore deleting, so you can choose not to delete posts linking to specific websites. Gorcen emphasizes that you should set up the "-y, --yes" command line, as this is required to automate the script. When properly set up, you can use this automated script to deletes nearly everything you post after a set number of days or after it reaches a threshold of engagement, minus posts you like, or posts that contain certain links. Of course, you could always think a little harder about what you post, and post less often, but that's not as much fun.

The Federal Trade Commission has put Uber in its sights once again. Bloomberg reported that the regulator is investigating complaints about the Uber One subscription program. Customers alleged that the company signed users up for the service without their consent and made it difficult to cancel their subscriptions. According to documents seen by Bloomberg, the Commission opened this inquiry earlier this year."We will continue to answer any questions the FTC may have about our cancellation policies, Uber representative Noah Edwardsen told the publication. "The Uber One cancellation process follows both the letter and the spirit of the law: Uber One members can easily cancel their membership in the app in fact, the majority of those cancellations take 20 seconds or less."Earlier in 2024, the FTC ratified a "click to cancel" rule that requires companies make it as easy to end a subscription as it is to start one. The regulator sued Amazon and Adobe for similar claims around their subscription products within the past year.This also isn't the first time the FTC has examined the rideshare company. Uber agreed to a settlement with the agency in 2017 around questions of exaggerating driver income to encourage recruitment. In 2018, the company also reached an accord around a data breach and misconduct in trying to cover up the scope of the problem.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/the-ftc-is-investigating-uber-for-its-subscription-policies-232453366.html?src=rss

It may not be Black Friday yet, but the holiday shopping blitz is already well underway with some significant discounts on games and gaming devices. Steam is in the middle of its Autumn Sale that runs until December 4 and includes a discount on the LCD Steam Deck.No, its not the OLED Steam Deck, but Steam is offering the 512GB Steam Deck with a 25 percent discount that brings the price down to $336.75. Steams sale also offered the smaller 64GB LCD model with a 15 percent discount for less than $300 but theyve already run out of stock.This may be the best time to pick up a Steam Deck since last summer. In June, Steam knocked down the price of the 64GB variant to just under $300 and the 512GB version for under $400. The 64 and 512GB models are discontinued and wont be available once Steam runs out of stock. The 256GB LCD model is sticking around for a little while longer for those gamers who cant afford the fancier versions.If youre going to buy a Steam Deck, youll need some games to play on it. Steam Autumn Sale also includes some sweet deals on games like Baldurs Gate 3 for $47.99 and Total War: Warhammer III for $23.99 and early access to Supergiants Hades II for $26.99. Steam also has some cool discounts on older games that youve been meaning to play like Double Fines Psychonauts 2 and Ubisofts Assassins Creed: Odyssey for $6 each, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Orderfor $4 and Cities Skylines for $3.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/steams-autumn-sale-sees-deep-discounts-on-lcd-steam-decks-and-select-games-202918983.html?src=rss

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Bitcoin climbed back over $96,000 on Wednesday following a pullback this week from its recent record.