Richard Speed reports via The Register: Asahi Linux, a project to port Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, has reported a combination of bugs in Apple's macOS that could leave users with hardware in a difficult-to-recover state. The issues revolve around how recent versions of macOS handle refresh rates, and MacBook Pro models with ProMotion displays (the 14 and 16-inch versions) are affected. According to the Asahi team, the bugs lurk in the upgrade and boot process and, when combined, can create a condition where a machine always boots to a black screen, and a Device Firmware Update (DFU) recovery is needed.

Asahi Linux's techies have looked into the issue, having first suspected it had something to do with either having an Asahi Linux installation on a Mac and then upgrading to macOS Sonoma or installing Asahi Linux after a Sonoma upgrade. However, the issue appears to be unconnected to the project. The team said: "As far as we can tell, ALL users who upgraded to Sonoma the normal way have an out-of-date or even broken System RecoveryOS, and in particular MacBook Pro 14" and 16" owners are vulnerable to ending up with a completely unbootable system." While this might sound alarming, the team was at pains to assure users that data was not at risk and only certain versions of macOS were affected -- Sonoma 14.0+ and Ventura 13.6+.

The first bug is related to macOS Sonoma using the previously installed version as System Recovery, which can cause problems when an older RecoveryOS runs into newer firmware. The second occurs if a display is configured to a refresh rate other than ProMotion. According to the Asahi Linux team, the system will no longer be able to boot into old macOS installs or Asahi Linux. "This includes recovery mode when those systems are set as the default boot OS, and also System Recovery at least until the next subsequent OS upgrade." The team noted: "Even users with just 13.6 installed single-boot are affected by this issue (no Asahi Linux needed).

"We do not understand how Apple managed to release an OS update that, when upgraded to normally, leaves machines unbootable if their display refresh rate is not the default. This seems to have been a major QA oversight by Apple."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: More and more companies are running large language models, which require access to GPUs. The most popular of those by far are from Nvidia, making them expensive and often in short supply. Renting a long-term instance from a cloud provider when you only need access to these costly resources for a single job, doesn't necessarily make sense. To help solve that problem, AWS launched Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Capacity Blocks for ML today, enabling customers to buy access to these GPUs for a defined amount of time, typically to run some sort of AI-related job such as training a machine learning model or running an experiment with an existing model.

The product gives customers access to NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs instances in cluster sizes of one to 64 instances with 8 GPUs per instance. They can reserve time for up to 14 days in 1-day increments, up to 8 weeks in advance. When the timeframe is over, the instances will shut down automatically. The new product enables users to sign up for a the number of instances they need for defined block of time, just like reserving a hotel room for a certain number of days (as the company put it). From the customer's perspective, they will know exactly how long the job will run, how many GPUs they'll use and how much it will cost up front, giving them cost certainty. As a users sign up for the service, its displays the total cost for the timeframe and resources. Users can dial that up or down, depending on their resource appetite and budgets before agreeing to buy. The new feature is generally available starting today in the AWS US East (Ohio) region.

An anonymous reader writes: Adobe has unveiled a sparkling, interactive dress -- and got the research scientist who created it to model the high-tech couture. Video of the dress debut shows researcher Christine Dierk wearing the slinky strapless number that, upon first glance, looks like the average sequined cocktail dress. With the click of a handheld remote, however, the dress began to shift patterns like something out of a fashion-forward science fiction film. Created under Adobe's "Project Primrose" initiative, this "digital dress," as Dierk described it for the audience at Adobe's MAX conference last week, "brings fabric to life."

"Unlike traditional clothing, which is static, Primrose allows me to refresh my look in a moment," the Adobe scientist said, demonstrating the clothing's capabilities by having its colors go from light to dark in an instant. The digital dress patterns can also, as Dierks demonstrated, be animated, and will even respond to movement -- though that last feature appeared glitchy and didn't work at first. The researcher-turned-model also told the hosts of her portion of the convention that she not only designed the dress with the help of her team at Adobe, but also stitched it herself.

While the specs of this particular smart garment haven't been published, the high-tech sequins used for smaller Project Primrose offerings, a handbag and a canvas, were described by Dierks and her co-researchers last year in an article presented at a tech conference. As the article explains, those "sequins" are actually "reflective light-diffuser modules" that use reflective-backed polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLC), which are most often used in smart lighting. Technically, all those sequins are tiny screens.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: New York State officials on Wednesday unveiled a bill to protect young people from potential mental health risks by prohibiting minors from accessing algorithm-based social media feeds unless they have permission from their parents. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, the state attorney general, announced their support of new legislation to crack down on the often inscrutable algorithms, which they argue are used to keep young users on social media platforms for extended periods of time -- sometimes to their detriment. If the bill is passed and signed into law, anyone under 18 in New York would need parental consent to access those feeds on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and other social media platforms that use algorithms to display personalized content. While other states have sought far-reaching bans and measures on social media apps, New York is among a few seeking to target the algorithms more narrowly.

The legislation, for example, would target TikTok's central feature, its ubiquitous "For You" feed, which displays boundless reams of short-form videos based on user interests or past interactions. But it would not affect a minor's access to the chronological feeds that show posts published by the accounts that a user has decided to follow. The bill would also allow parents to limit the number of hours their children can spend on a platform and block their child's access to social media apps overnight, from midnight until 6 a.m., as well as pause notifications during that time.

The bill in New York, which could be considered as soon as January when the 2024 legislative session begins, is likely to confront resistance from tech industry groups. The bill's sponsors, State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, said they were readying for a fight. But Ms. Hochul's enthusiastic support of the bill -- she rarely joins lawmakers to introduce bills -- is a sign that it could succeed in the State Capitol, which Democrats control. A second bill unveiled on Wednesday is meant to protect children's privacy by prohibiting websites from "collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data" from anyone under 18 for the purpose of advertising, unless they receive consent, according to a news release. Both bills would empower the state attorney general to go after platforms found in violation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A California judge has thrown out a $32.5 million verdict win for Sonos against Google after two of Sonos' patents were deemed unenforceable and invalid. As a result, Google has started to re-introduce software features it had removed due to Sonos' lawsuit. In a decision dated October 6, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that Sonos had wrongfully linked its patent applications for multi-room audio technology to a 2006 application in order to make them appear older and claim that its inventions came before Google's products, as first reported by Reuters.

"Sonos filed the provisional application from which the patents in suit claim priority in 2006, but it did not file the applications for these patents and present the asserted claims for examination until 2019," the decision (PDF) reads. "By the time these patents issued in 2019 and 2020, the industry had already marched on and put the claimed invention into practice. In fact, in 2014, five years before Sonos filed the applications and presented the claims, accused infringer Google LLC shared with Sonos a plan for a product that would practice what would become the claimed invention."

The decision states that the two companies were exploring a potential collaboration, but that it never materialized. Alsup goes on to note that Google began introducing its own products that featured multi-room audio technology in 2015, and also that Sonos waited until 2019 to pursue claims on the invention. "This was not a case of an inventor leading the industry to something new," Alsup wrote. "This was a case of the industry leading with something new and, only then, an inventor coming out of the woodwork to say that he had come up with the idea first — wringing fresh claims to read on a competitor's products from an ancient application." "We recently made a change to speaker groups for Nest speakers, displays, and Chromecast where certain devices can only belong to one speaker group at a time in the Google Home app," the company wrote in a blog post. "A federal judge has found that two patents that Sonos accused our devices of infringing are invalid. In light of this legal decision we're happy to share that we will be rolling back this change."

Business interest in AI PCs is fizzing, at least according to IDC, even though the analyst admits "use cases have yet to be fully articulated." From a report: Such is the hype around generative AI since ChatGPT was made publicly available that big software and hardware brands are looking to shoe horn the tech into every nook and cranny. Just last week HP boss Enrique Lores and Lenovo exec Luca Rossi joined in by confirming both companies are working on a range of AI PCs for general availability between July next year and early 2025. Neither went into fine technical detail on what those machines will have inside because they aren't close to release.

IDC research veep for Devices & Displays, Linn Huang, didn't pour any cold water on the hype this week when he said: "Generative AI could be a watershed moment for the PC industry. While uses cases have yet to be fully articulated, interest in the category is already strong. AI PCs promise organizations the ability to personalize the user experience at a deeper level all while being able to preserve data privacy and sovereignty." That's quite a billing. HP and Lenovo certainly seem to think there's margin potential. Huang agreed. "As more of these devices launch next year, we expect a significant boost to overall selling prices."

Google's newest flagship phone is finally official. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro were both unveiled today, with the headline changes being a whopping seven years of updates, flat screens across the board, new CPUs, and a $100 price increase. The Pixel 8 Pro is officially $999, while the Pixel 8 is $699. ArsTechnica: As for specs, the Pro display is a 6.7-inch, 120 Hz, 2992x1344 OLED. Google is branding this display "Super Actua" because it's one of the brightest phone displays on the market at 1600 nits for HDR content and 2400 nits in sunlight mode. That beats the sunlight modes on the S23 Ultra (1750 nits) and iPhone 15 Pro Max (2000 nits) but not the Xiaomi 13T Pro (2600 nits). The storage situation here isn't great. The Pixel 8 Pro has 12GB of RAM and storage tiers of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. Most other phones in this price range start at 256GB, and the 8 Pro uses slower UFS 3.1 storage instead of the speedy UFS 4.0 a lot of phones ship with now. The 8 Pro battery is 5050 mAh, and there's 30 W wired charging. Wireless charging will hit 23 W on the Pixel charging stand, while Qi chargers will only hit 12 W (it would be great if Qi2 would get its act together). Both phones have IP68 dust and water resistance. On the software update support lifecycle: This year, there is finally something tangible to point to -- 7 years of OS updates. Unlike with previous models, there are no games being played here, as Google says there are "7 years of OS, security, and Feature Drop updates." That's more major OS updates than even iPhone owners are getting, with the iPhone X getting iOS versions 11-16.

The VR blog Nifty Sparks made an interesting discovery: In a strategic move that could reshape the gaming industry, Epic Games, the creator of the widely-used Unreal Engine, is reportedly considering native integration with Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro.

The mixed-reality headset, slated for a 2024 release, could greatly benefit from this integration, but the timing of this development is particularly noteworthy, as it comes amidst ongoing legal disputes between Apple and Epic Games and a recent controversy surrounding changes to Unity's pricing structure.

Victor Lerp, Unreal Engine XR Product Specialist at Epic Games, has indicated that the company is actively exploring native support for Apple Vision Pro.
In Unreal Engine's developer forums, Lerp turned up in a thread titled "Support for Apple Vision Pro in Unreal ??" Someone had posted "Please tell me there is support coming?" and in June Lerp had first responded "We don't have any information to share at the moment, but stay tuned for the future."

But four days ago, Lerp returned to the thread with an update. "Internally we're exploring native Unreal Engine support for Apple Vision Pro, but it's too early for us to share details on the extent of support or timeline. We have access to the public SDK's like everyone else, and there's nothing fundamentally stopping us, or you, from developing support, or shipping Apple Vision Pro applications with Unreal Engine."

The VR blog notes that this follows Unreal Engine 5.2's native support for Apple Silicon Macs. And "meanwhile, Unity's recent pricing changes have led some developers to consider alternatives like UE and Godot."

Thanks to Slashdot reader NiftySparks for sharing the article.

Earlier this year, Singapore-based embedded security researcher yeokm1 built a ChatGPT client for MS-DOS.

Now they're back with a new project: HDMI is a relatively modern video connector we take for granted on modern PCs and monitors. Now vintage PCs can join in the fun too with a native connection to modern HDMI monitors without any additional adapter.

Two years ago, I learned of an open-source project called Graphics Gremlin by Eric Schlaepfer who runs the website Tubetime.us. It is an 8-bit ISA graphics card that supports display standards like Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) and Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA). CGA and MDA are display standards used by older IBM(-compatible) PCs in the 1980s. The frequencies and connectors used by CGA and MDA are no longer supported by modern monitors hence it is difficult for older PCs of the 1980s era to have modern displays connected to them without external adapters. Graphics Gremline addresses this problem by using techniques like scan doubling (for CGA) and increasing the vertical refresh rate (for MDA) then outputing to a relatively newer but still old VGA port.

I fabricated and assembled the design then installed it into my IBM5155... I decided to modify the Graphics Gremlin design so it can connect natively to an external HDMI monitor and service the internal Composite-based CRT at the same time.
The post concludes triumphantly with a photo of their IBM 5155 running the CGA Compatibility Tester displaying the color palette.

Lenovo's upcoming 27-inch 4K monitor offers a unique experience unlike any other display: glasses-free 3D that can be toggled on and off. According to Ars Technica, the monitor features a lenticular lens and real-time eye-tracking to create the effect. It's being targeted at content creators, like 3D graphic designers and developers. From the report: Like other glasses-less 3D screens, [Lenovo's ThinkVision 27 3D Monitor] works by projecting two different images to each of your eyes, resulting in a 3D effect where, as PR images would have you believe, it appears that the images are popping out of the screen. Lenovo says the monitor's 3D resolution is 1920x2160. The lenticular lens in the monitor is switchable, allowing for normal, 2D viewing at 3840x2160, too. The ThinkVision's 27-inch display gives workers a bigger palette. It also means the monitor can be a regular 2D monitor when needed. [...]

As a regular 2D monitor, the ThinkVision's specs are pretty standard. It's a 4K IPS screen claiming a 60 Hz refresh rate, 310 nits, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, and 99 percent DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color coverage with a Delta E under 2. Like a proper workplace monitor, there's also a strong port selection: two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4, four USB-A (3.1 Gen 1) ports, one USB-C port (3.2 Gen 1) with up to 15 W power delivery, RJ45, a 3.5mm jack, plus an upstream USB-C port with up to 100 W power delivery.

Microsoft is extending the repairability program it introduced for its Surface PC products to include replacement parts for its Xbox Wireless Controller and Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 products. Neowin reports: The page on the Microsoft Store site shows that replacement parts are available for the top case for both versions of the controller, along with replacement buttons. In addition, Microsoft is selling Replacement Input PCBA boards for those Xbox controllers, along with the Replacement PCBA and Motor Assembly parts as well. The parts do come with a one-year warranty.

In a new support page, Microsoft makes it clear that these parts should only be purchased and used for Xbox controllers that are out of their normal warranty period. On another support page, the company adds: "These types of repairs require moderate technical skill, and are suited for enthusiasts, professionals, or those with prior experience in electronic disassembly. If this is your first attempt at performing a repair, use caution and follow our safety recommendations and step-by-step instructions."

Microsoft also says that certain tools, which are not directly sold by the company, will be needed to replace and repair the controllers. They include a plastic pry tool, TR8 and T5 Torx screwdriver bits and plastic tweezers. Microsoft does offer PDF files (PDF) and even offers YouTube video tutorials for repairing the Xbox Wireless Controller and the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2.

Apple's increasing use of "serialization," which pairs hardware components with the logic board using proprietary software locks, is making simple repairs on devices like iPads and iPhones harder and more expensive. In a recent Forbes article, a repair expert claims the Apple Pencil won't work properly on the iPad Pro if the display is replaced with a non-genuine Apple part, or even a screen from another iPad. From the report: This has now been extended to the displays of fifth and sixth generations of the iPad Pro 12.9-inch and third and fourth generation 11-inch tablets, repair expert Ricky Panesar, founder of iCorrect.co.uk, told me. While repairing a customer's device, Panesar found that the Apple Pencil wasn't delivering straight lines when the iPad display was replaced with a screen from another Apple iPad. "We found with the newer versions of the iPad that when you put a new screen on, even if it's taken from another iPad, the pencil strokes don't work perfectly." Panesar explained to me.

"They have a memory chip that sits on the screen that's programmed to only allow the Pencil functionality to work if the screen is connected to the original logic board." He continued. In practice, Panesar found that lines drawn on the replaced display (Panesar says he doesn't use aftermarket parts for repairs) with the Apple Pencil aren't completely straight. He demoed this in the video [here]. Panesar isn't the only person to discover this, a Reddit post from May complained about the same issue. The poster claimed to have bought a sixth generation iPad Mini from a reseller, which is having the same squiggly line problem. Commenters pointed out that the issue is likely related to serialization and linked to Panesar's video.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to transform the world, the company then known as Facebook struck a deal to buy all the augmented reality displays made by British firm Plessey. At the time, the deal appeared to be a savvy way of squeezing out Apple in the competition to develop AR glasses, as Plessey was one of the few makers of AR displays. Three years on, however, the deal has turned into a bust for Meta. Development of Plessey's technology has stalled, say people with direct knowledge of the effort. Facebook, now called Meta Platforms, has struggled to make Plessey's displays bright enough for use in its AR glasses under development and to reduce defects that crop up in the manufacturing process. Earlier this year, Meta decided to abandon Plessey's microLED tech in favor of an older display technology, liquid crystal on silicon or LCoS. The decision is one of several Meta has made, for either technological or cost-saving reasons, that will reduce the edge that the AR glasses have over existing AR headsets like Microsoft's HoloLens.

The episode highlights the twists and turns Meta is navigating as it tries to stay ahead of Apple and other rivals in the still-developing market for AR and virtual reality. Meta was early to the VR market with its Quest headsets and has been working on developing AR glasses to get ahead of rivals like Snap which are trying to develop similar products. Now it faces competition from Apple, which last month unveiled its mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, which will be available early next year. At the same time, Meta is under pressure from investors to curb the more than $10 billion it is spending annually at the Reality Labs division developing its AR and VR products. Technical setbacks have forced Meta to delay the timeline for releasing AR glasses multiple times, and it isn't anticipating releasing a pair of AR glasses to the public until at least 2027.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The four astronauts assigned to soar beyond the far side of the Moon on NASA's Artemis II mission settled into their seats inside a drab classroom last month at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was one in a series of noteworthy moments for the four-person crew since NASA revealed the names of the astronauts who will be the first people to fly around the Moon since 1972. There was the fanfare of the crew's unveiling to the public in April and an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There will, of course, be great anticipation as the astronauts close in on their launch date, currently projected for late 2024 or 2025. But many of the crew's days over the next 18 months will be spent in classrooms, on airplanes, or in simulators, with instructors dispensing knowledge they deem crucial for the success of the Artemis II mission. In the simulator, the training team will throw malfunctions and anomalies at the astronauts to test their ability to resolve a failure that -- if it happened in space -- could cut the mission short or, in a worst-case scenario, kill them.

"In order to do those things, what knowledge do we have to impart to them? What skills do we have to teach them?" said Jacki Mahaffey, NASA's leading training officer for the Artemis II mission. "Overall, our goal is we've got a little bit in the classroom, but the more that we can get the crew in front of the displays in the vehicle mockups and really kind of immersed in that environment, the sooner, the better. Commander Reid Wiseman and his crewmates -- pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen -- were named to the Artemis II crew on April 3. Much of their time over the next two-and-a-half months was devoted to making a public relations tour, giving interviews, going to NASA centers around the country, visiting Capitol Hill, and meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Mahaffey said they also got a pre-training pep talk from Charlie Duke, who walked on the Moon on the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972. NASA hasn't trained a crew to fly to the Moon since Apollo 17 at the end of 1972, the last time astronauts walked on the lunar surface.

Telly's free 55-inch 4K dual-screen TV sets are set to arrive at users' homes this week -- but of course, there's a catch. From a report: The start-up, which plans to ship some 500,000 free, ad-supported TVs in 2023 in the U.S., is calling the initial wave a "public beta program." The company says the new Telly households represent a diverse cross-section of the U.S. population, although the initial user base overindexes on education level and household income -- and also skews toward Gen Zers and millennials. According to Telly, more than 250,000 people have signed up to receive a free TV set, which displays an always-on, rotating ad unit on a 9-inch-high second screen situated below the main 55-inch one. Each unit also includes a free Chromecast with Google TV adapter. The bulk of the half-million TVs will go out in the fourth quarter of 2023, Telly chief strategy officer Dallas Lawrence said: "We think there's no better Black Friday deal than free."

To receive the free TV, Telly users must submit detailed demographic info (such as age, gender and address), as well as purchasing behaviors, brand preferences and viewing habits, and they must agree to let their data be used for serving targeted ads. Telly's TVs include a sensor that detects how many people are in front of the screen at any given moment. So what's the catch? Telly users must agree to several conditions under the company's terms of service. If someone doesn't abide by the TOS, Telly reserves the right to demand the TV be shipped back -- otherwise, it will charge up to $1,000 to the credit card associated with a given account. Also read: Telly, the 'Free' Smart TV With Ads, Has Privacy Policy Red Flags.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will introduce an external Mac monitor that can act as a smart home display when a Mac goes to sleep or is shut down. Ars Technica reports: The feature would be available on at least one monitor in an upcoming lineup that will likely include successors to Apple's Pro Display XDR and Studio Display. The newsletter didn't go into much detail about the upcoming displays beyond the smart home feature. Like the Studio Display, a new monitor with smart home capabilities would run on a chip first seen in the iPhone. The Studio Display contains Apple's A13 chip -- the same seen in the iPhone 11 line of smartphones. The upcoming smart display could potentially run on the A16 seen in the iPhone 14 Pro, since that device introduced a similar always-on display feature to Apple's smartphone lineup.

The iPhone 14 Pro's always-on display currently shows what you'd see if you tapped your iPhone to see the lock screen: the time, wallpaper, and app widgets -- albeit at a very dim brightness. Later this year, Apple will launch iOS 17 alongside the upcoming iPhone 15. iOS 17 will introduce a new smart display mode for the iPhone that makes that always-on display mimic the features and information you'd see on a Google or Amazon smart display, a product category that was all the rage at CES a couple of years ago but that has not exactly become ubiquitous. It's fair to expect the Mac monitor's smart display to work a bit like that iOS 17 feature. But while iOS 17 is slated to launch this fall, Gurman predicts that the new Mac display won't hit the market until next year at the earliest.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: China imposed restrictions on exporting two metals that are crucial to parts of the semiconductor, telecommunications and electric-vehicle industries in an escalation of the country's tit-for-tat trade war on technology with the US and Europe. Gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, will be subject to export controls meant to protect Chinese national security starting Aug. 1, China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Monday. Exporters for the two metals will need to apply for licenses from the commerce ministry if they want to start or continue to ship them out of the country, and will be required to report details of the overseas buyers and their applications, it said.

Impact on the tech industry "depends on the stockpile of equipment on hand," said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC. "It's more of a muscle flexing for the next year or so. If it drags on, prices will go up." China is the dominant global producer of both metals that have applications for electric vehicle makers, the defense industry and displays. Gallium and germanium play a role in producing a number of compound semiconductors, which combine multiple elements to improve transmission speed and efficiency. China accounts for about 94% of the world's gallium production, according to the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre.

Still, the metals aren't particularly rare or difficult to find, though China's kept them cheap and they can be relatively high-cost to extract. Both metals are byproducts from processing other commodities such as coal and bauxite, the base for aluminum production. With restricted supply, higher prices could draw out production from elsewhere. "When they stop suppressing the price, it suddenly becomes more viable to extract these metals in the West, then China again has an own-goal," said Christopher Ecclestone, principle at Hallgarten & Co. "For a short while they get a higher price, but then China's market dominance gets lost -- the same thing has happened before in other things like antimony, tungsten and rare earths."

"In a 2022 survey of 1,200 people, language learning company Preply determined that 50% of Americans used subtitles and closed captions the vast majority of the time they watch content," writes IndieWire.

They delve into the reasons why so many people want to read dialogue: The first is that, for a lot of people, it's become a lot harder to understand dialogue on the TV. That's the top reason cited in the Preply survey, with nearly 72% of respondents who use closed captions marking that as one of the main reasons why.

The causes behind muddled dialogue are many, multifaceted, and might vary between person to person. For some, the problem is the design of modern televisions; the majority of which place internal speakers at the bottom of the set instead of facing towards the audience, causing significantly worse audio quality. Other issues are caused by sound designs optimized for theatrical experiences, which can result in compressed audio when translated to home. Whatever the reason, a lot of people struggle to hear dialogue now, so turning on closed captioning to decipher what people are saying has become a no brainer move...

Gen Z is, overwhelmingly, the generation most likely to be turning on subtitles according to Preply's numbers, with 70% of respondents in the generation saying they use closed captions "most of the time" compared to 53% of Millennials, 38% of Gen X, and 35% of Baby Boomers. As to why Gen Z likes to turn on text while watching their shows, part of it is that people in the generation grew up watching videos on social media, where subtitles are the algorithmically encouraged default.

Another reason is that Gen Z displays starkly different viewing habits than Baby Boomers in terms of where they're watching their movies and shows. According to Preply, 57% of all Americans watch shows or movies or videos in public on their mobile devices, but a very significant 74% of Gen Z do the same. Even if you're (hopefully) using headphones while in public, it's likely you're getting poor audio quality and hearing background noise if you're watching "The Irishman" on public transit.
The article also cites a three-month study in 2020 by Parrot Analytics (which studies trends in entertainment) which discovered non-U.S. shows accounted for nearly 30% of the demand from U.S. audiences. (And even English-language shows may still have characters speaking with difficult-to-understand accents...)

According to an industry insider, LCD TVs won't see any further development because all new R&D money is being spent on self-emissive displays like MicroLED and OLED, as well as on backlight technology like Mini-LED. Tom's Guide reports: According to Bob Raikes from Display Daily, it's all about OLED development. "I asked EMD (which is the US name of Merck KGaA and is by far the dominant supplier of LC materials), what they were doing to push LC materials for displays onto the next stage ... They are developing LCs for privacy windows and antennas, but they told us that 'there is no pull from clients' for significant development in LC materials," Raikes wrote in a recent article. "That shouldn't have been a surprise to me -- I have been talking about the switch to OLED and other emissive displays for the premium end (and later the mainstream) of the display market for a lot of years. Still, after decades of reporting on LC developments, it took a moment to sink in!"

As for what, specifically, manufacturers are working on, it's the production of QD-OLED panels for use in the high-end Samsung and Sony TVs like the Samsung S95C OLED and Sony A95K OLED as well as the development of PHOLED panels that use a blue phosphorescent material that has a longer shelf life and can go brighter than the traditional organic material in OLED panels. [...] Sadly, LCD TVs' days are coming to a close, but OLED TVs are still going strong.

An anonymous reader shares a report: PC gamers could easily make a joke that three things in life never change: death, taxes, and the classic look of Steam. One of those things just changed, though; Valve just released the most substantial overhaul to Steam in years, including a visual makeover and several new features. Further, the company has brought the Mac and Linux versions of Steam closer to parity with the historically superior Windows version. Valve says "the most impactful changes" are actually under the hood. The company's developers put effort into achieving greater consistency between how things work in Steam for desktop, the TV-oriented Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. This codebase overhaul means that new features that come to the desktop version of Steam can simultaneously ship on Steam Deck with minimal effort.

As for stuff that's visible to users, though, the entire application's look has been overhauled and modernized. In most cases, things are more or less where they used to be in the interface -- they just look a little different, with new fonts, colors, sizes, and so on. That said, the in-game overlay has received a more significant overhaul, as did notifications. Steam users have access to more customizations about how and when notifications are displayed, and the notifications panel displays only new notifications, with a "view all" button for digging into older ones. In general, the overlay has more information about the game you're playing, from achievement progress to playing time and beyond. Valve has made big changes to the controller configurator from the Steam Deck, which is now part of the overlay whenever a game is connected.