Month: February 2024

Thinking about switching to the iPhone? These are the preferred models for those coming from Android (and with a discount)

According to a report, 13% of new iPhone buyers come from the Google operating system.

The transition from Android to iPhone is a phenomenon that continues to gain traction year after year. A recent study by CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners) sheds light on the preferences of those Android users who decide to make the leap to the Apple ecosystem. According to the report, 13% of new iPhone buyers come from the Google operating system, highlighting the curiosity and interest in switching platforms.

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The iPhone 14 as the clear favorite

But, which iPhone models are these users switching to? The latest data from CIRP in the United States reveals that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are the clear favorites —now at their all-time low price—, capturing 26% of Android to iOS switchers in 2023. Right behind, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max represent 25% of the choices of these new Apple users, showing a slight preference for the more affordable versions of the previous generation of iPhone.

This suggests that, although there is considerable interest in the latest Apple news, Android users are not predominantly inclined towards the latest models. In fact, the study indicates that twice as many Android users opt for an iPhone SE or an iPhone 12 compared to those who already come from an iPhone. This trend could be explained by the generally less expensive Android devices, making previous versions of the iPhone more attractive depending on the previous phone.

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If we are thinking of switching from Android to iPhone, it is possible that we have already noticed, like others before, certain specific models that balance quality, features, and price. Whether looking for the latest technology with the iPhone 14 or opting for more affordable models like the iPhone SE or 12, there are options for all tastes in the Apple ecosystem.

Rediscover the most beloved superheroes of your childhood thanks to this Netflix movie

Netflix has in its catalog a superhero movie from 2017 that, despite not doing very well in theaters and being criticized, is actually a very good update of one of the most important legends of the nineties. We are talking about Power Rangers, the film by Dean Israelite that passed with more shame than glory in theaters, but that years later since its release we have realized that it was much better than it seemed to us.

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Whether you have already seen the movie or not, it’s worth taking a look on Netflix. Why? You will rediscover the Power Rangers in a way you have never done before. You will relive nostalgic memories of your childhood but in an updated way, and you will also be able to enjoy and laugh with a story full of humor and action.

A story full of humor and action

Power Rangers follows five young people destined to become something extraordinary when they discover that both their modest town, Angel Grove, and the rest of the world are on the brink of annihilation by an alien threat. Our heroes quickly realize that they are the only ones who can save the planet, but to do so they will have to overcome real-life problems and come together under the name of Power Rangers before it’s too late.

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The movie is starring Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin, Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston, Bill Hader, and David Denman. It is clearly seen as a reboot of the entire Power Rangers franchise and is produced by Saban Capital Group, the acquirers of the original franchise from Japan for reproduction in the United States. Undoubtedly, it is a fresh and fun reboot that could have had more luck at the time. But who knows? Maybe with its success on Netflix, someone changes their mind.

This new science fiction series on Netflix will delight manga lovers

The era of Netflix live action is becoming more powerful. After the successes of One Piece and Avatar: The Last Airbender, it was clear that the platform was not going to stop, although the latest live action series based on an animated work that has been released has more to do with works like Alice in Borderland.

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Netflix will release on April 5th the series Parasyte: The Grey, an adaptation of the manga published by Hitoshi Iwaaki between 1988 and 1995, which is a historical horror gem in Japan. The director of the series will be Yeon Sang-ho, the fantastic filmmaker behind Train to Busan, although this is not the first time the manga has been adapted: it already had its own television series between 2014 and 2015 and even two Japanese live-action movies.

Parasyte arrives on Netflix: Is it good news?

Parasyte is one of the most popular mangas and animes in history. However, the new Netflix series will not be based on the manga, but will be a new story based on the same premise. This can either be a great success or, as happened with Death Note, a great failure. Only time will tell, although the director seems very excited about the project:

“I am excited that it is a new story. (…) The ‘Parasyte’ manga is like a child to me, born from my own work in a small room, while the anime and live-action film were like grandchildren. (…) It makes me very happy to have this other grandchild, born in Korea. I believe that this new story set in another place will take us to a world beyond what I could have imagined”.

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Koo Kyo-hwan, Jeon So-nee, and Jung Hyun Lee will lead the cast of the series, which will tell the story of a young woman who becomes the host of an extraterrestrial entity. At the same time, we will witness the search undertaken by a man looking for his missing sister, while closely following the actions of “the grays,” a collective determined to combat the threat represented by the parasites.

Steam Deck: This is how you can see the FPS of your games

For practical purposes, Steam Deck is more than a portable console: it’s a PC. Essentially, that means that anyone with enough technical knowledge can push the limits of the Steam console and modify it to their liking (or almost). One of the most sought-after features is how to be able to see the frame rate of games. If you also have the same question, we will quickly resolve it for you here.

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While it wasn’t easy at first, this has changed as time has passed. And the best part is that you just have to follow these steps:

  • First, access the quick access menu, also known as the Quick Access Menu (QAM for short). This is done simply by clicking on the button with the three dots (…) on your Steam Deck.
  • Afterwards, click on the battery icon (lightning symbol) to access the Performance section, as shown in the image.
  • Here, go to Performance Interface Level. It is usually inactive, but you can move the slider between 1 and 4. When activated, you will be able to see the frame rate of the game you are playing in the upper left corner.

Each level will give you more or less information about the frame rate, the performance of the CPU, the GPU, and much more. At this point, you decide the amount of information you want to display on the screen.

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Elon Musk has not undergone therapy and wants the public to know

Last Wednesday, Elon Musk posted a curious message on his profile where he claimed to have never received therapy. In fact, he is so proud of it that he even wants to immortalize it on his tombstone.

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The truth is that Musk’s post doesn’t contain anything special. Just take a look at X to find hundreds (even thousands) of very similar claims. However, it must be something very important for the South African, as he hasn’t stopped talking about it.

On January 8th, Musk posted the following message in response to a post about Harvard students and mental health: “Please put on my tombstone ‘Never went to therapy‘ and ‘Invented farting cars‘. Those are my only requests.” Below is the original post.

Later, on January 29th, he posted the following in response to the death of Wernher Herzog, film director: “He’s dead, right? Please put ‘Never went to therapy’ on my tombstone”.

Now, on February 28th, he insisted on the same topic again: “Put ‘Never went to therapy’ on my tombstone”.

Ironically, Musk has reiterated on several occasions the struggle he maintains against his mental health issues. Just recently, during his appearance on Lex Fridman‘s podcast, the South African described his mind as a “storm”: “My mind is a storm. I don’t think most people want to be me. They may think they want to be me, but they don’t know, [people] don’t understand it.”

However, mental health is not a topic that should be taken lightly. According to a study conducted by the INE, in 2022, 4,227 people died in Spain from suicide and self-harm. Furthermore, this is a figure that sadly continues to increase every year. If you think you may be going through a difficult situation, here are The Suicide Prevention and Crisis Lifeline of the United States and the Spanish helpline for suicidal behavior.

Source: Gizmodo

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More companies join forces against AI: OpenAI and Microsoft on the ropes due to copyright

The news organizations The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement during the training of their AI models.

The three lawsuits, filed in the Southern District of New York, accuse ChatGPT of reproducing journalistic works without proper attribution. The plaintiffs argue that if ChatGPT had been trained with data that included copyright information, “it would have learned to communicate such information by providing answers”.

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Raw Story and AlterNet argue in their lawsuit that OpenAI and Microsoft knew that ChatGPT “would be less popular and generate less revenue if users believed that ChatGPT’s responses violated third-party copyright”. Both companies provide legal coverage to paying customers against potential lawsuits for the use of Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise.

The lawsuits also point out that OpenAI provides an exclusion system for website owners to prevent their content from being tracked. This point reinforces the idea that OpenAI and Microsoft are fully aware of possible copyright infringement.

Previous cases in California involved American comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors, who claimed that OpenAI intentionally removed copyright information when training their models. Although a judge dismissed the lawsuit, the central argument of copyright infringement persists.

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In December, The New York Times also sued OpenAI and Microsoft alleging that ChatGPT faithfully reproduces their journalistic work. In addition, Getty Images and Universal Music Group have taken legal action against Stability AI and Anthropic, respectively, for the use of protected images and lyrics without attribution, highlighting a growing legal scrutiny in the field of AI and copyright.

About to finish ‘GTA 6’, Rockstar makes a decision about its employees for pure safety

At Rockstar, they have decided to celebrate by requiring all employees to return to the office starting in April.

Do you remember the pandemic? Well, of course, how could we forget. It was a time when we truly believed that we were going to come out better. Even old-fashioned companies like Rumagosa SL (fictional name, mind you) had realized that workers didn’t need to spend over an hour commuting to an office for a job they could perfectly do, better and more comfortably, from home. Time passed, remote work remained, and at some point, Rumagosa SL decided that everyone should return to the office with flimsy excuses. Now replace “Rumagosa” with “Rockstar”… because that’s exactly what just happened.

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Stars, yes. Rock, not so much

There is not much left to finish ‘GTA 6’, after years and years of development, and at Rockstar they have decided to celebrate it by forcing all workers to return to the office starting in April. The reasons they have given, of course, are far-fetched: productivity and security. The first one is, to say the least, questionable. The second one has to be recognized as making sense: it hasn’t been long since that massive leak by a hacker who exposed the game on the Internet and reportedly cost the company 5 million dollars.

Furthermore, the trailer for ‘GTA 6’ was also leaked a day earlier than expected. Regarding productivity, in an email Rockstar has stated that they have found tangible benefits in people working in an office, especially during the final sprint. Without giving examples, for whatever reason. Obviously, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, the workers have reacted with icy coldness, probably thinking about traffic jams, buses, and how nice it is to be at home.

Just what you want at the end of your game development, angry employees with the company! As some comments on Twitter say, it is possible that the best developers, upon hearing the news, are already looking for another job, and they can turn this end of the road into a real journey through the desert. Don’t be surprised if in a few weeks we are talking about Rockstar backing down. It would be the right thing to do.

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The video game that lost its Twitter account due to Elon Musk’s silliest mistake

Now we have learned, in the most hilarious way possible, the rule that Twitter is not going to allow anyone to bypass: being over 13 years old to create an account.

We all have more or less clear the four basic things about social networks: you should not insult others, you should not impersonate someone else, you cannot spread hate messages. And then there’s Twitter, the Wild West social network commanded by sheriff Elon Musk, that capable of putting a giant X in his general offices just to be forced to remove it a few days later. Brilliant strategy, sir. Now we have learned, in the most hilarious way possible, that rule that Twitter is not going to allow anyone to break: being under 13 years old to create an account.

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Escape from Twitter

And the thing is that ‘RuneScape’, the MMORPG that has been running since 2001 and continues to function without much problem, found the other day that Elon Musk had decided to close his account. The reason? When he started it, he was under 13 years old and it was illegal. But what are they talking about? Was Andrew Gower, the game director, a teenager when he created it? Not at all. It turns out that when he created the account on the -then- new social network Twitter in 2009, he decided to make the joke of putting 2001 as his birth year. And now, 15 years later, justice has caught up with him.

Apparently, even if you have many more years now, Twitter justice can fall upon you at any second. That’s what happened to ‘RuneScape’. In order to restore the account, Twitter usually deletes all tweets written during the period when the person was a child, but in the case of the video game, it was returned in its entirety after verifying that it was indeed a mistake. Just wait until TikTok starts doing the same. The online purge.

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The second season has not been released yet and Amazon is already working on the 3rd season of The Rings of Power

The showrunners of the series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” are already working on the stories for the third season of the Amazon series.

As a true lover of Middle-earth and J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe, I wasn’t sure if I liked the Amazon series or not. Luckily for me, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns this year for a second season and we already know that we will also see a third season.

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As part of their new agreement with Amazon MGM Studios, the showrunners of the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are already working on the stories for the third season of the series for Prime Video. This comes as Prime Video prepares a late-year premiere for the second season of the series.

The writers’ room for the 3rd season is not yet open, but the showrunners are already working on the initial outline of the story. According to the studio, it is likely that the third season of “The Rings of Power” will be filmed at the Shepperton Studios in the United Kingdom, in new production facilities.

Payne and McKay, the showrunners, wrote and produced the first season of The Rings of Power and they were also showrunners for the second season.

According to Amazon, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (which premiered in the fall of 2022) was the most-watched Amazon Original series in all regions and debuted at number 1 on Nielsen’s streaming list.

“We continue to be amazed by the scope and scale of its vision and the tremendous global success achieved by ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ in its first season, which has broken records,” said the head of Amazon MGM Studios TV.

Despite Amazon’s optimism, we cannot forget that the critics were not very benevolent with the series, which started promisingly but ended the season with a noticeable decline in terms of script and quality.

Creating fuel on satellites in space? The US is testing it

Satellites are humanity’s great allies, helping us in meteorological, communication, navigation, and even space observation tasks, although when their propellers run out of fuel, they can no longer maintain their orbit and inevitably fall into the atmosphere, becoming space junk.

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But this could be about to change. An initiative by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) of the Department of Energy and academics from George Washington University (GWU) is developing prototypes of electric propulsion systems that generate energy from the scarce air at the outer edges of the atmosphere, and that could propel satellites in very low Earth orbit (VLEO) without the need for conventional thrusters (in theory).

The “air-breathing electric propulsion” (ABEP) is a system in which the satellite emits gases on the go using the air it flies through. The operation is simple: a device on board a VLEO satellite draws air from the upper atmosphere and channels particles into an ionization chamber to create plasma. The resulting charged particles can be accelerated outward to propel the spacecraft.

Air propulsion prototype – Yevgeny Raitses via PPPL

The issue is that these systems, whose development has received funding of $400,000 from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), only work in very low Earth orbits, at altitudes of 100 kilometers, where there is still enough weak atmosphere to collect air.

“In VLEOs there is available air. So, instead of launching rockets with these propellants – like xenon, krypton or argon – we can use what is naturally available: air”, explained Yevgeny Raitses, principal research physicist at PPPL, who leads the project. “This should allow us to reduce the mass of satellites or allocate the mass difference to other aspects of the device. It could also extend the device’s lifespan“.

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Michael Keidar, a professor at GWU who runs a micropropulsion and nanotechnology laboratory and works on this project, wrote previously: “In addition to the payload advantages, these altitudes are not crowded, provide a rapid drop into orbit to maintain the environment, resistance to difficult-to-propagate orbital dynamics, and provide the propellant – air – for air propulsion options.”