This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/16/1059598/this-artist-is-dominating-ai-generated-art-and-hes-not-happy-about-it/

Those cool AI-generated images you’ve seen across the internet? There’s a good chance they are based on the works of Greg Rutkowski.

Rutkowski is a Polish digital artist who uses classical painting styles to create dreamy fantasy landscapes. He has made illustrations for games such as Sony’s Horizon Forbidden West, Ubisoft’s Anno, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. And he’s become a sudden hit in the new world of text-to-image AI generation.

His distinctive style is now one of the most commonly used prompts in the new open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion, which was launched late last month. The tool, along with other popular image-generation AI models, allows anyone to create impressive images based on text prompts. 

For example, type in “Wizard with sword and a glowing orb of magic fire fights a fierce dragon Greg Rutkowski,” and the system will produce something that looks not a million miles away from works in Rutkowksi’s style.

blue dragon flies up behind a wizard with hair but no head and spikes where his arms should be.
spiky-headed wizard with two swords confronts a one-winged dragon

But these open-source programs are built by scraping images from the internet, often without permission and proper attribution to artists. As a result, they are raising tricky questions about ethics and copyright. And artists like Rutkowski have had enough.

According to the website Lexica, which tracks over 10 million images and prompts generated by Stable Diffusion, Rutkowski’s name has been used as a prompt around 93,000 times. Some of the world’s most famous artists, such as Michelangelo, Pablo Picasso, and Leonardo da Vinci, brought up around 2,000 prompts each or less. Rutkowski’s name also features as a prompt thousands of times in the Discord of another image-to-text generator, Midjourney. 

Rutkowski was initially surprised but thought it might be a good way to reach new audiences. Then he tried searching for his name to see if a piece he had worked on had been published. The online search brought back work that had his name attached to it but wasn’t his. 

“It’s been just a month. What about in a year? I probably won’t be able to find my work out there because [the internet] will be flooded with AI art,” Rutkowski says. “That’s concerning.” 

Stability.AI, the company that built Stable Diffusion, trained the model on the LAION-5B data set, which was compiled by the German nonprofit LAION. LAION put the data set together and narrowed it down by filtering out watermarked images and those that were not aesthetic, such as images of logos, says Andy Baio, a technologist and writer who downloaded and analyzed some of Stable Diffusion’s data. Baio analyzed 12 million of the 600 million images used to train the model and found that a large chunk of them come from third-party websites such as Pinterest and art shopping sites such as Fine Art America. 

Many of Rutkowski’s artworks have been scraped from ArtStation, a website where lots of artists upload their online portfolios. His popularity as an AI prompt stems from a number of reasons.

“Secret Pass – Eagle Nest” is a personal work featured in Rutkowski’s ArtStation portfolio.
GREG RUTKOWSKI

First, his fantastical and ethereal style looks very cool. He is also prolific, and many of his illustrations are available online in high enough quality, so there are plenty of examples to choose from. An early text-to-image generator called Disco Diffusion offered Rutkowski as an example prompt. 

Rutkowski has also added alt text in English when uploading his work online. These descriptions of the images are useful for people with visual impairments who use screen reader software, and they help search engines rank the images as well. This also makes them easy to scrape, and the AI model knows which images are relevant to prompts. 

Stability.AI released the model into the wild for free and allows anyone to use it for commercial or noncommercial purposes, although Tom Mason, the chief technology officer of Stability.AI, says Stable Diffusion’s license agreement explicitly bans people from using the model or its derivatives in a way that breaks any laws or regulations. This places the onus on the users. 

Some artists may have been harmed in the process

Other artists besides Rutkowski have been surprised by the apparent popularity of their work in text-to-image generators—and some are now fighting back. Karla Ortiz, an illustrator based in Los Angeles who found her work in Stable Diffusion’s data set, has been raising awareness about the issues around AI art and copyright. 

Artists say they risk losing income as people start using AI-generated images based on copyrighted material for commercial purposes. But it’s also a lot more personal, Ortiz says, arguing that because art is so closely linked to a person, it could raise data protection and privacy problems. 

“There is a coalition growing within artist industries to figure out how to tackle or mitigate this,” says Ortiz. The group is in its early days of mobilization, which could involve pushing for new policies or regulation.  

One suggestion is that AI models could be trained on images in the public domain, and AI companies could forge partnerships with museums and artists, Ortiz says. 

“It’s not just artists … It’s photographers, models, actors and actresses, directors, cinematographers,” she says. “Any sort of visual professional is having to deal with this particular question right now.” 

Currently artists don’t have the choice to opt in to the database or have their work removed. Carolyn Henderson, the manager for her artist husband, Steve Henderson, whose work was also in the database, said she had emailed Stability.AI to ask for her husband’s work to be removed, but the request was “neither acknowledged nor answered.” 

“Open-source AI is a tremendous innovation, and we appreciate that there are open questions and differing legal opinions. We expect them to be resolved over time, as AI becomes more ubiquitous and different groups come to a consensus as to how to balance individual rights and essential AI/ML research,” says Stability.AI’s Mason. “We strive to find the balance between innovating and helping the community.”

snaky dragon comes up behind a wizard with a malformed face. A glowing dragon-shaped fireball is in background, and something that looks like a cross between a sword and a pterodactyl is in the foreground.

Rutkowski’s “Castle Defense, 2018” (left) and a Stable Diffusion prompted image.

Mason encourages any artists who don’t want their works in the data set to contact LAION, which is an independent entity from the startup. LAION did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Berlin-based artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst are working on tools to help artists opt out of being in training data sets. They launched a site called Have I Been Trained, which lets artists search to see whether their work is among the 5.8 billion images in the data set that was used to train Stable Diffusion and Midjourney. Some online art communities, such as Newgrounds, are already taking a stand and have explicitly banned AI-generated images.

An industry initiative called Content Authenticity Initiative, which includes the likes of Adobe, Nikon, and the New York Times, are developing an open standard that would create a sort of watermark on digital content to prove its authenticity. It could help fight disinformation as well as ensuring that digital creators get proper attribution. 

“It could also be a way in which creators or IP holders can assert ownership over media that belongs to them or synthesized media that’s been created with something that belongs to them,” says Nina Schick, an expert on deepfakes and synthetic media. 

Pay-per-play

AI-generated art poses tricky legal questions. In the UK, where Stability.AI is based, scraping images from the internet without the artist’s consent to train an AI tool could be a copyright infringement, says Gill Dennis, a lawyer at the firm Pinsent Masons. Copyrighted works can be used to train an AI under “fair use,” but only for noncommercial purposes. While Stable Diffusion is free to use, Stability.AI also sells premium access to the model through a platform called DreamStudio. 

The UK, which hopes to boost domestic AI development, wants to change laws to give AI developers greater access to copyrighted data. Under these changes,  developers would be able to scrape works protected by copyright to train their AI systems for both commercial and noncommercial purposes. 

While artists and other rights holders would not be able to opt out of this regime, they will be able to choose where they make their works available. The art community could end up moving into a pay-per-play or subscription model like the one used in the film and music industries.   

“The risk, of course, is that rights holders simply refuse to make their works available, which would undermine the very reason for extending fair use in the AI development space in the first place,” says Dennis. 

In the US, LinkedIn lost a case in an appeals court, which ruled last spring that scraping publicly available data from sources on the internet  is not a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Google also won a case against authors who objected to the company’s scraping their copyrighted works for Google Books. 

Rutkowski says he doesn’t blame people who use his name as a prompt. For them, “it’s a cool experiment,” he says. “But for me and many other artists, it’s starting to look like a threat to our careers.”  

via Technology Review Feed – Tech Review Top Stories https://ift.tt/oZVli9c

September 16, 2022 at 10:02AM

Whistleblower Tells Congress: Twitter ‘Doesn’t Know What Data It Has, Where It Lives, or Where It Came From’

https://gizmodo.com/twitter-whistleblower-peiter-zatko-congress-testimony-1849529511


It probably sucks to be Twitter today.
Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP

Twitter essentially received a shellacking on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after its ex-security chief Peiter Zatko told a room full of senators that the company is essentially an insecure hot mess infiltrated with more than one foreign government spy.

Hosted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the hearing covered a range of serious allegations against Twitter made by Zatko, who in July sent a 200-page whistleblower complaint to federal agencies and lawmakers. The former employee, who was fired in January, lambasted the Twitter on numerous fronts, claiming that the social media network had cybersecurity failures that made it vulnerable to exploitation; that executives prioritized profits over security; that Twitter doesn’t know “what data [it] has, where it lives, or where it came from”; and that employees have access to too much user data and too many systems; among others.

Although Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was invited to attend the hearing to offer the company’s point of view, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that Agrawal had declined to attend because it would “jeopardize” the company’s legal fight against Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk is trying to get out of his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter. His legal has subpoenaed Zatko, who will comply.

The refusal didn’t go over well with Grassley—a self-proclaimed lover of Twitter—who criticized Agrawal’s decision.

“Many of the allegations directly implicate Mr. Agrawal, and he should be here to address them,” Grassley said. “So let me be very clear: The business of this committee and protecting Americans from foreign influence is more important than Twitter’s civil litigation in Delaware. If these allegations are true, I don’t see how Mr. Agrawal can maintain his position at Twitter.”

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After Zatko’s testimony, a Twitter spokesperson told Gizmodo in an emailed statement that the whistleblower’s allegations didn’t make sense.

“Today’s hearing only confirms that Mr. Zatko’s allegations are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies,” the Twitter spokesperson said.

Furthermore, Twitter underscored that foreign influence does not play a role in its hiring. In addition, the company explained that it had measures in place to monitor access to its data. These measures include background checks, access controls, and monitoring and detection systems, among others, according to the company.

Alexis Ronickher, an attorney for Zatko, did issue a statement after the hearing, calling it a “watershed moment.”

“Mr. Zatko is hopeful that the Committee’s work today has helped educate the public about just how dire the security and privacy situation is at Twitter and how impacted we all are by these failures,” Ronickher said. “He continues to believe that through this public disclosure process, real world harm for Twitter users may be avoided and our country’s national security better protected.”

While three-hour hearing featured many astounding revelations, here is a breakdown of the moments that most stood out to Gizmodo.

Twitter Doesn’t Know What Data They Have, So They Can’t Delete It

In his opening statement, Zatko cited novelist Upton Sinclair, famous for his 1906 novel The Jungle, who once said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

This can be seen among the executive team at Twitter, Zatko said, explaining that the company doesn’t know what data it has, where it is, or where it came from. Consequently, according to the whistleblower, they can’t protect it.

In addition, when it comes to deleting user data, Zatko commented later on in the hearing that Twitter can’t delete data because it doesn’t know where it is.

The FBI Told Twitter That It Had At Least One Chinese Agent in the Company

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said that the FBI had informed Twitter that there was at least one Chinese foreign agent in the company. In addition, the senator revealed that it was suspected that India had managed to place at least two foreign agents in Twitter.

While CNN and the Washington Post, which had access to Zatko’s whistleblower disclosure, had previously reported that foreign agents were inside Twitter, it was not clear what countries they were from.

Zatko was also asked why Twitter did not have a system in place to limit the access spies from countries like India, Nigeria, and China possibly have at Twitter, which they could use to identify and punish dissidents. His answer was mind-boggling.

“I think they would like to, but they’re simply unwilling to put the effort in at the cost of other efforts, such as driving revenue,” the whistleblower explained. “I’m reminded of one conversation with an executive when I said, ‘I am confident that we have a foreign agent,’ and their response was, ‘Well, since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more? Let’s keep growing the office.’”

Twitter Has Way More Data on Users Than They Might Think 

At this point in our digital lifetimes, it’s clear that online companies have way more information on us than we’d like to think they do. According to Zatko, Twitter has the following information on the average Twitter user:

  • Phone number
  • Latest IP address they’ve connected from
  • Other IP addresses users have connected from
  • Current email address and how long users have been using the email with the account
  • Prior emails for the account associated with the IP address
  • An inference of where users live
  • Whether they’re connected to Twitter right now
  • Whether users are still connected even if they’re not actively using the information on Twitter
  • Type of device users are connected with
  • Type of browser
  • Brand of the device and possibly specific device model
  • What language individuals are using connect to Twitter

It Seems Like One of Twitter’s Most Infamous Users Was Watching 

As we all know, tech’s wackiest CEO has been searching high and low for a way to get out of buying Twitter and is currently battling it out in the courts. Although Musk did not explicitly say he was watching Zatko’s testimony to Congress, he did tweet out a popcorn emoji around the same time the hearing started.

In addition, Musk tweeted out a story from the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow, published the same day of the hearing, detailing how many of the whistleblower’s former colleagues had been approached and offered money for information on him by numerous companies on behalf of their clients.

“Anyone know who the secret clients are? Let’s out them on Twitter rn haha,” Musk tweeted. In a subsequent tweet, he underlined that Zatko’s colleagues wanted to defend his credibility.

Lindsey Graham Seems to Have Given Musk an Assist 

Focusing on the platform itself, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Zatko whether he would recommend that people continue to use Twitter or “take a time out.” The Twitter whistleblower explained that he felt the social media platform was a “hugely valuable service” that he didn’t want to see shut down. He wanted it to get better.

Here’s where things got a little weird. Out of nowhere, Graham suddenly asks Zatko whether he would buy Twitter, given what he knows about the company. Considering we’ve been talking about topics like privacy, security, data access, and foreign agents, that question seemed a bit off. Could Graham be trying to buddy up to Musk?

Zatko seemed taken aback and appeared to laugh nervously.

“I guess that depends on the price,” the ex-employee said.

Thousands of Twitter Employees Had Access to Advertisers’ Banking Information

It seems that all platforms tell us that access to our banking information is sacred and super protected. According to Zatko, not so at Twitter. The whistleblower explained that when he first joined Twitter, “thousands of users [workers] had access to the advertiser’s information, including their bank accounts and routing numbers.”

“When I first joined, people could change that information,” Zatko pointed out. “And you can understand why changing the banking account information of a company such as Apple or Nike might be problematic.”

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

September 13, 2022 at 09:42AM

This Startup’s Free Software Could Prevent Satellite Collisions

https://gizmodo.com/this-startups-free-software-could-prevent-satellite-col-1849531806


The company launched its Beacon software a year ago.
Photo: Slingshot Aerospace

Space is getting a little too crowded, increasing the risk of orbital collisions. Slingshot Aerospace, a company specializing in space data analytics, is now offering a solution to regulate some of the traffic up there. The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out a free version of its space traffic control system to help satellite operators dodge collisions.

“Space connects every single one of us every day,” Melanie Stricklan, co-founder and CEO of Slingshot Aerospace, told Gizmodo. “Our lives have become dependent upon space, and that dependency means that there’s actually a growing vulnerability,” requiring us to better “manage these critical assets that are over our heads.”

The company’s Slingshot Beacon software works like an air traffic control system, but for spacecraft in orbit. It pulls in public and private data provided by Slingshot’s customers to create a space catalog. The system then sends out urgent collision alerts to satellite operators worldwide, coordinates satellite maneuvers should there be a risk of collision, and allows operators to communicate with each other, especially during high-risk moments.

Slingshot Aerospace launched Beacon a year ago and is now offering a free basic version to satellite operators in hopes of increasing the number of users on its platform. “We’ve been testing it for the past year with a select few so as not to get overwhelmed by the data,” Stricklan said. “And we have 100% confidence that we are ready to scale to a global scale.” By offering the free version, the company anticipates that some satellite operators will seek the software’s advanced options, which offer more accurate and refined data.

There are more than 9,800 satellites in orbit today, with more than 115,000 planned to launch by 2030, according to Slingshot’s space object database. And that’s in addition to the thousands of pieces of space junk currently in orbit around our planet. Some satellite operators are currently working with outdated technology that wasn’t designed for the volume of spacecraft in orbit today, making then unreliable when it comes to issuing warnings of potential in-space collisions. “There’s a lot of noise out there,” Stricklan said. “They’re getting thousands of [collision warnings] a day, so it just turns into noise.”

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The U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron provides satellite operators with collision warnings, but it often generates thousands of warnings that include those with very little chances of collision. But Slingshot Beacon promises a more accurate model that eliminates the extra noise and helps satellite operators navigate a more crowded orbit.

“Right now, there’s not really a way to grab on to the debris and deorbit it,” Stricklan said. “We can’t continue to study the problem, we have to have capabilities like Slingshot out there that can present a solution…time is of the essence.”

More: Europe’s Space Agency Invests in an Orbital Trash Removal Service

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

September 14, 2022 at 11:02AM

Amazon is buying a company that makes pallet-stacking robots

https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-buying-a-company-that-makes-pallet-stacking-robots-141405354.html?src=rss

Amazon has agreed to buy Cloostermans, a company that makes robots capable of stacking pallets in its warehouses. Amazon says it already uses Belgium-based Cloostermans’ tech, which can also package products.

After the acquisition closes, Cloostermans’ 200 or so employees will join the Amazon Global Robotics division in Europe and likely dedicate their time to solely building tech that suits Amazon’s needs. "By focusing Cloostermans’s deep experience in engineering, machinery, and robotics, we will more rapidly deploy solutions in our workplace that support employees in their roles and improve safety at work, and also help reduce packaging waste," Amazon said in a press release. The company has previously spoken of its belief that having more robots will improve worker safety.

Amazon has been introducing more robots to its warehouses to increase automation. In June, it revealed Proteus, its first autonomous warehouse robot. The device is capable of moving carts filled with packages by itself.

While Amazon has been relying more on robots at its fulfillment centers for several years, the Cloostermans acquisition comes soon after employees at a Staten Island facility became the first Amazon warehouse workers to win a union election. The company said in 2019 that automation isn’t expected to replace human workers at warehouses for at least a decade.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

September 9, 2022 at 09:26AM

Apogee Boom brings its DSP-powered plugins to a budget-friendly audio interface

https://www.engadget.com/apogee-boom-audio-interface-does-dsp-on-the-cheap-170031686.html?src=rss

You might know Apogee for its pocketable headphone or guitar interfaces. Or maybe its microphones. But ask a bedroom producer and most will tell you they know the company for its audio interfaces and software tools. Today, the company unveils the Boom ($300), a new 24-bit/192kHz desktop audio interface with both studio and mobile creators in mind.

Like the popular Duet series, the Boom incorporates a dedicated hardware DSP so it can run Apogee’s Symphony ECS channel strip plugin directly on the interface. This can help take a load off of your CPU and also help reduce latency. DSP-enabled interfaces aren’t uncommon, but the Boom is considerably cheaper than most entry-level offerings with similar onboard hardware. A copy of the ECS plugin comes bundled in with the Boom via the companion software. You’ll also be able to pick up a "native" (separate/DAW-friendly) copy for half-off – $50 – when you register the device.

The Boom has a pretty standard 2-in/2-out configuration with one XLR-combi input and one 1/4-inch input for instruments. For outputs there’s a pair of 1/4-inch outputs and a headphone jack around the back. The rear placement of a headphone connection always seems a little unhelpful as you fumble trying to find the port, especially if you use your headphones for other things so end up doing this often. There is a gap at the base of the Boom you can feed the cable under which makes things a little neater, but a port on the front seems more practical.

The new Apogee Boom audio interface is pictured with the headphone cable running through the gap in the base.
James Trew / Engadget

Fortunately, the Boom is USB-powered so there’s no need for a separate power supply. There is iOS compatibility, too, but given the USB port does double-duty for data and power, this is limited to the iPad Pro as the iPhone won’t be able to drive it, even with a camera-connection kit. Of course, a full-size interface like this doesn’t make much sense for a phone anyway, but in case you were wondering, now you know.

While there’s only one XLR input, the pre-amps are plenty loud enough and can drive hungry microphones like the SM7b easily. Using the Symphony plugin’s EQ and compressor allows you to fine tune that sound (whatever the mic/instrument). There are a bunch of presets that should cover the most popular recording scenarios, but you can obviously EQ and compress things to your own personal preference, too.

For musicians, this can really help you perfect a mix without having to interfere with any plugins you might have running in your DAW. But for podcasters and streamers in particular it means you can control how your voice sounds without a DAW or other host application running at all — your mic simply presents the EQ’d signal as the standard output. For now it’s only Apogee’s ECS channel strip that will work with the Boom, though the company confirmed it’s entirely possible for its other plugins to be brought over to the DSP side of things.

Apogee’s desktop products often feature a sleek design and the Boom is no different. The purple-colored steel casing gives it some reassuring heft while the single rotary dial is a neat solution to controlling multiple things (two channels of gain and two effects).

At $300, it’s a shade over some of the most popular interfaces like the Scarlett 2i2 and UA Volt – both of which come in under $200. However, with that DSP Apogee might be pitching this as a simpler alternative to the like of the Apollo Solo ($499) also from Universal Audio or the MOTU UltraLite-MK5 ($595).

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

September 15, 2022 at 12:06PM

Galaxy Z Flip 4 Review: The Foldable to Buy

https://www.droid-life.com/2022/09/09/galaxy-z-flip-4-review-the-foldable-to-buy/

I’m just going to come right out and say it – the Galaxy Z Flip 4 has mostly won me over. This is a foldable experience, at this stage of my life, that I could absolutely get behind.

I’ve had a Galaxy Z Flip 4 in pocket for almost a full month now. Samsung sent us one for review shortly after they announced it, plus I pre-ordered my own and have used one of the two since I unboxed the Bora Purple version on August 11. For review purposes, this is a long time to be with a phone, much longer than we often spend with phones.

At this point, I really do know all that I need to know about this phone in order to tell you what I think. You might already know enough too, so let’s just jump into it – this is our Galaxy Z Flip 4 review.

Galaxy Z Flip 4 Review

What do I like about the Galaxy Z Flip 4?

Backing up for a minute before we dive in, here’s a recap of the Flip 4. This is Samsung’s new $1,000 foldable flip phone with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, 8GB RAM, up to 512GB storage, two displays (one that’s 120Hz), a 3700mAh battery, dual rear cameras, and a freaking hinge that folds the phone in half. It comes in graphite, purple, gold, or blue, plus you can make a custom color combination through Samsung’s Bespoke program.

OK, now onto what I like.

Size, design, and durability. Flip phones are not a category of phone that I’ve had much praise for. If you go back to my review of the Moto Razr when it returned, you’ll know that I was not kind. I also skipped the first couple generations of Samsung’s Flip series, then gave the Flip 3 a serious try last year before returning it. For reasons I still cannot quite explain, the Flip 4 has got me.

In the opening of this review, I mentioned that the phone makes sense for “this stage of my life.” I think what I mean by that is that I’m loving the ultra-portability of a folding phone that’s this small. I can toss it in any pocket, it’s light enough to handle when I need to, and the clamshell styling also has me less worried about how I handle it. I’ve chucked this phone around the house or car and I’m just not worried about it. I don’t even know if I’m more active now than I was a year ago, but folding a phone into a little square and then moving about has been refreshing in 2022.

With this Flip 4, Samsung has really refined the overall design. We have flattened edges that are properly grippy. The new hinge is stiff without being difficult, so opening and closing the phone is not at all the nuisance of some other foldables. The width of the phone, when open, is also perfect for my hand. You can easily get your paws around it and hold it for lengthy sessions without tiring. It may be tall as hell, but it’s not a phone that you’ll struggle to hold.

For the past month, the Flip 4 that I made in white with a black frame has held up well. I’ve used it a ton. It’s been tossed onto plenty of outdoor brewery tables. My kid has used it for mobile gaming. And the screen is still flawless, as is the outer body. I’ve even set it in a bunch of weird places, because I use Flex Mode for Google Duo calls with my wife, and yeah, it looks great.

I know that this phone isn’t that much different than last year’s model, but everything about it has felt right this time. The phone is also quite the looker, at least in this white-black combo that I made.

Performance and battery life. This new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip is doing a lot right. The phones I tested earlier in the year that used the 8 Gen 1 might have run smoothly, but none were as efficient as this chip and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 really shows that.

As far as general performance goes, yep, the phone is buttery smooth and feels fast. Not only do you have plenty of RAM (8GB) and fast storage, you have a 120Hz display that looks great no matter the content on screen. But when you do throw on a game or watch a video or utilize multiwindow, the phone doesn’t heat up and it stays humming. This chip seems to run so much differently than the earlier 8 Gen 1 that I’m not sure they really compare.

Now, when it comes to efficiency, you have to remember that this phone only has a 3700mAh battery. Sure, that’s bigger than last year’s, but it is also small when compared to almost any other flagship-level phone. Most phones have batteries over 4000mAh. The only phone that doesn’t is the regular Galaxy S22, which also happens to have a 3700mAh cell. The battery life on that phone is awful – so bad I couldn’t bring myself to use it for long and used it as my trade-in for this Flip 4 after only a few weeks of use.

The Bora Purple Flip 4 that I tested initially was easily getting 4 hours of screen-on time in a day with 20% battery remaining. Again, for a battery this small, and knowing what I was getting for the Galaxy S22 with the same size battery, this is pretty incredible battery stuff. When I switched over to this white-black model, I haven’t had the same battery life, but I’m also had a Galaxy Watch 5 Pro attached and I actually think it’s draining battery. I say that because the phone warned me today that the Wear OS app (which it shouldn’t need to use) was causing battery drain. Also, I didn’t attach a smartwatch to the purple model.

If there is one complaint, it is once again in the charging speed department. Samsung is not like the rest of the big Android industry players when it comes to pushing charging tech. This Flip 4 can charge at 25W wired speeds, but that’s not really that fast. The claim is that it can charge from 0% to 50% in 30 minutes. However, that’s actually pretty bad. 30 minutes is a long time to only get to 50% when you consider the OnePlus 8T can go from 1% to 100% in 20 minutes. Samsung really needs to step up their charging game.

So overall, I think this phone runs like few phones I’ve tested from Samsung with this 8+ Gen 1 chip and also gets surprisingly good battery life that should get most people through a full day.

Displays. I’ve been opening a closing Samsung’s foldable phones for 4 years now, probably open and close this phone 100 times a day, and yet I still find myself amazed at the fact that I can do that to a display over and over again. Foldables are wild, man. Technology really can be fun in 2022, even if it’s something we should have grown used to after a few years.

Anyways, the displays on this phone are good! The inside foldable display is the star, measuring in at 6.7 inches with a 1080p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. Because it’s a fancy foldable piece of glass, you might worry that it’s not up to the same color standards as a phone like the Galaxy S22, but I’d argue that it is. Colors here are excellent, without that old school punchiness in older AMOLED screens. In the “Vivid” setting, I get a great balance of natural colors and a pop of color here and there. Out of the box, this phone’s main display is so pleasing to the eye.

Of course, since this is Samsung, you get lots of options to customize the screen experience. There is a dark mode, adaptive brightness (on the main screen), a blue light filter, and advanced color profile settings. In general use, the screen is very responsive to the touch with decent viewing angles, gets plenty bright in outdoor situations, as well as dim enough in bed at night. I really have no complaints about the display. There aren’t any huge tradeoffs here compared to a normal smartphone display, other than you should probably take a bit of extra care with it.

If there is something you’ll need to get used to, it’s the feel of the display. Obviously, there is a bit of a dip or crease in the middle where it folds and you will indeed notice that as you swipe across the screen. I’m used to it at this point, but even my mom pointed it out as being a thing when she stopped by a couple of weeks ago. I can also tell you that my wife bought a Flip 4 and finally ditched her Note 20 Ultra, and she hasn’t complained about the dip yet.

But the other thing is that the screen has a softness to it that you might not be ready for. Unlike the glass on your normal phone that feels as hard as any piece of glass, the Flip 4’s screen really does feel softer. It’s quite pleasing to use, although I could see the flipside of that idea and someone missing rigidity you might be used to on other phones. It’s also kind of a fingerprint magnet and needs to be wiped regularly.

As for the cover screen, it has limited uses, but mostly does what it needs to. It’ll show you the time and gives you limited interaction options with notifications. You can use widgets on it to control music, see the weather, run timers or setup alarms, that sort of thing. You can customize. it with different colors and backgrounds and really make it your own, which is fun. I can tell you that I really haven’t found much use for it other than being a clock, a battery meter, and taking quick glances at notifications before then opening the phone to deal with them. In a way, I treat the cover display like a smartwatch.

You may think that this cover display needs to do more, like give you a keyboard to type or let you run full apps, but I’m not sure that would make for a good experience. It’s small enough to show you information that then lets you decide if it’s time to open your phone and deal with something or not. I’m really not sure you want it to do anything else – I sure don’t.

I do have a complaint about using it as a viewfinder. One of the cool features of the display is to use it in conjunction with the rear cameras to take higher-quality selfies. Unfortunately, the viewfinder doesn’t show you the full picture, so framing can be somewhat difficult and the final shot often includes a lot of extra space you might not have wanted. I’m sure someone could get used to it or crop heavily.

For a double-screened experience, in a package this small, Samsung has dialed in what they want to accomplish. I think for the most part this all works together, especially if you treat the cover display like I do, as I would a smartwatch that’s good for notifications, telling the time, a timer or two, and not much else. In addition to that, you get an excellent internal display that also happens to fold in half.

Software. One of the biggest reasons we do our “First 10 Things” series is because Samsung’s One UI skin has become as bloated as ever and most of the stuff they include needs to be turned off or buried away. Once you do that, this is a decent software skin and we all know that Samsung is king of updates. Buying a phone like the Flip 4 means a yearly cycle of skin updates with new features as well as one of the longest support periods in the world of Android.

Out of the box at launch, this phone is running One UI 4.1.1 and Android 12. It’ll see an update to Android 13 quite soon I’d imagine, as Samsung typically updates its recently launched phones in a hurry. They’ll also push monthly security patches for a number of years, with official support ending after a full 5 years of updates that includes 4 OS upgrades.

I’m hesitant to re-tell the story of the rest of the software here because I’ve written about One UI and its features more times than I care to. Like, if you want to know what’s great and not about One UI, feel free to dive into my Galaxy S22 Ultra review (or watch our First 10 Things video below). This phone basically does everything that phone does, outside of the S Pen stuff. It has tons of display settings, ways to customize sound and vibrations like few other phones offer, wallpapers and themes, plenty of security choices (both fingerprints and face unlock), battery and device management, and some advanced settings. It’s One UI and it’s mostly good once you figure out what you need and don’t need.

What I’d like to highlight is the stuff Samsung included that makes the Flip 4 special, and well, it’s not much. The only real feature you’ll find that utilizes the folding display is something called Flex Mode. It’s actually quite useful because it lets you fold the phone to a 90-degree angle, set it on a surface, and then run apps that show up in the top portion of the phone. Using the camera viewfinder in this way, calling over video, or even running an app like Twitter or Chrome is kind of nice. Even Instagram, if you were lying in bed and set the phone in Flex Mode on your chest in the ultra-laziest fashion, can be used this way. So yeah, Flex Mode is neat.

Other than that, it’s just Samsung’s One UI and that comes with tons of software support. You gotta love that.

Fingerprint reader. It feels weird pointing out a fingerprint reader, but because Samsung used a side-mounted fingerprint reader that isn’t in the display, I have to confirm how good it is. In-display fingerprint readers are almost all bad and I wish companies would stop using them. My opinion on that idea becomes clearer every time I use a classic fingerprint reader like Samsung used on the Flip 4. This thing reads your finger every single time, but it also does so in an instant. Rarely has it told me I scanned improperly or asked me to do it again. I have zero complaints about this reader and really just want the world to know that this is the way.

What’s bugging me about it?

Camera. If there is one area that would make me hesitate from using the Flip 4 going forward, it would be in the camera. Samsung kept the same dual 12MP wide-ultrawide setup from the Flip 3 and probably hoped that the new chip inside would improve things and it probably did on some level. Did it do enough? Eh, I guess that depends on your needs.

I took a ton of outdoor shots that all came out pretty good if not excellent at times. The weather has been stellar in Oregon over the summer and so all of my summertime pictures from family adventures are solid. But like any non-top-tier camera, it’s when indoors or with poor lighting that you hoped for more. I can’t tell you how many pictures I tried to take of my kitten walking around my house and each one is blurry. I even stopped taking indoor food shots because I wanted to keep my appetite. I also had a ton of issues with lens flares with the sun around that I didn’t notice until after the photo was snapped and my picture had a giant half ring through it. You’ll see a couple of examples below.

Did I stop taking photos with the Flip 4 because of major frustrations? No. I still used it a lot. It was often the only camera I had on me and many of the photos I took were totally great. In fact, I’d still say that this camera is quite good most of the time. My issue is that this is a $1,000 phone with a camera you’d probably find in a $500-$600 phone. I compared it at times to the Pixel 6 and found similar shots. I know that the story with Samsung’s expensive foldable phones from the beginning has been that they need top tier cameras, but I just want to be clear that it’s still the case with the Flip 4.

This camera is fine most of the time – it’s just not all of the time.

As far as camera software goes, you have portrait modes, video at up to 4K/60fps, a night mode, pro camera and video modes, and plenty of other settings, including QR scanning. It’s a well-stocked camera app, just like every other Samsung phone.

Unfolding it all the time. As much as I’ve enjoyed the size and design of the Galaxy Z Flip 4, I have got to admit that unfolding a phone all day can be tiresome. It has that little cover display that will help you out at times, but it’s limited in function and you almost always have to fully open the phone to do anything. After days and weeks of unfolding and folding over and over again, I’ve got to admit that I’m kind of looking forward to taking a break from the Flip 4 and going back to a regular phone. It’ll be a good test to see if I could truly live with the Flip 4 or if my life is better served with a classic smartphone design.

As I’ve been writing this review, I tossed my SIM card into a Pixel 6 to get prepared for the Pixel 7 and can already tell you that I’m not so sure I don’t want the Flip 4 back already. Sure, flipping and unflipping can be tiresome, but the compact nature of the Flip is really, really appealing. I’ve been doing it a month and my hands and routines are all used to it. I guess time will truly tell how this story ends.

Video

Unboxing and first look

First 10 things to do

Should you buy a Galaxy Z Flip 4?

It took me several years to come around to the idea of a flip phone and I think the Flip 4 finally convinced me that this could be a really nice future. The compact size of the Flip might be the option for those of us who don’t like all of the oversized phones that companies keep making. The phone is quite tall, but its thinner profile makes for a device that is easy to handle and that can’t be said for so many phones these days.

Outside of size, the software here is good, the battery life is better than expected, durability also is, performance is top notch, and the camera can probably pass the test for most people. The only thing I worry about is whether or not people will like to constantly fold and unfold this phone for the next couple of years. Knowing the popularity of the Fold and Flip series, I’m guessing most will be just fine.

This is an expensive phone at $1,000, but you all know how to get it at a steep discount using Samsung’s trade-in program. I think you’ll enjoy the Galaxy Z Flip 4.

Read the original post: Galaxy Z Flip 4 Review: The Foldable to Buy

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September 9, 2022 at 12:22PM

Logitech About To Reveal Its Steam Deck Competitor | GameSpot News

https://www.gamespot.com/videos/logitech-about-to-reveal-its-steam-deck-competitor-gamespot-news/2300-6459483/


Logitech is unveiling a new gaming handheld, a September Nintendo Direct is happening, and confusion over the new Assassin’s Creed. All this and more on today’s GameSpot News.

Logitech is unveiling its own gaming device on September 21. In the wake of Valve’s successful handheld, Steam Deck, the PC peripheral manufacturer is attempting its own portable gaming console, although it will be significantly different compared to what is available on the market already.

The product, which Logitech is partnering with gaming giant Tencent on, will have a focus on streaming games. The company revealed that it is working with Microsoft and Nvidia to make sure that their services, Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now respectively, work smoothly on the device.

It seems, however, that the device won’t solely be for streaming games. Images of the device that leaked in August showed a ‘Google Play’ front and center on the console’s homescreen, which if indicative of the final OS that will ship with the device, suggests that the hardware’s processor will be beefy enough to run native Android games as well.

A tease for the September 21 event suggests that the device will have a yellow button adorned with the Logitech logo, identical to the one in the leaks, possibly confirming the validity of those images.

From one handheld to another, a Nintendo Direct is happening tomorrow, September 13, the company not breaking its streak of having a September Direct every year since 2016. It will include “roughly 40 minutes” of new information, focusing on games coming to Nintendo Switch this winter.

Multiple games are rumored to be part of the presentation, including two ports of The Legend of Zelda–Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD–as well as a remaster of the original Metroid Prime. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, which are scheduled to release on November 18, should feature during the event as well. Other than Metroid Prime 4 and the Breath of the Wild sequel, Nintendo’s first party slate of officially announced games after Scarlet and Violet is completely unknown.

Here’s hoping for Mario Kart 9! Just kidding. They’re going to sell Mario Kart 8 forever. Why do you think it’s logo is infinity?

Another showcase of games that happened over the weekend was Ubisoft Forward, which included a presentation on Assassin’s Creed celebrating its 15th anniversary. A smaller, AC1 inspired title called Mirage will release early next year, set in Baghdad and featuring a young Basim, a side character in 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Two additional games for console and PC, similar in scope to the recent, larger entries, were also announced; Project Red will allow players to finally climb around feudal Japan as a shinobi, and the spooky Project Hexe which is rumored to be set during the Holy Roman Empire and focus on the witch trials of that period. Red and Hexe will kick of Ubisoft’s hub for Assassin’s Creed, Infinity, which Ubisoft has confirmed will feature multiplayer elements in the future.

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September 12, 2022 at 06:00PM