A College Student Created an App to Detect If Essays Were Written by ChatGPT

https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-essay-detector-college-princeton-edward-tian-1849946535


Photo: rafapress (Shutterstock)

A college student has created an app to help us humans decipher whether text was written by a human or generated by OpenAI’s crazy new chatbot, ChatGPT.

Edward Tian, a computer science and journalism student at Princeton, says he created the program, which he dubs “GPTZero,” to help combat academic plagiarism generated by the new AI-powered chatbot.

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new large language model bot, has been stunning audiences with its ability to spit out human-like text. Here at Gizmodo, we have used the program to do a number of things, including pen an entire science fiction story and write one of our blogs for us. The tech has impressed a lot of people—but it has also worried them. In particular, critics fear that the chatbot will potentially doom the college essay, lead to a swell in disinformation, and prove otherwise disruptive to major media industries.

Thus, Tian’s program—which analyzes text for complexity and “randomness” to assess whether it was spawned by a human or machine—seems like a pretty good thing.

The college student shared links to his creation on Twitter this week, explaining how it was designed to “quickly and efficiently detect whether an essay is ChatGPT or human written.”

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GPTZero seems to work pretty well. In my initial run with the app, I plugged in some text from a recent conversation with ChatGPT and, within seconds, it accurately deduced that the copy was “machine generated.” Next, I plugged in some writing from a recent blog of mine, and, again, it quickly figured out that it was written by a human. The more text you plug into the program, the better the results seem to be—so it helps if you add at least several paragraphs of copy for an accurate readout.

If you’re curious about how the whole thing works, you can head to Tian’s website to check it out for yourself.

GPTZero is pretty cool—though it just goes to show that, in our dystopian present, not only are machines writing stuff for us, but they’re also telling us whether they wrote it or not. Will humans maintain any cognitive abilities in the future or are robots going to do literally all of our thinking for us? In short: things seem pretty grim for future IQs.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

January 4, 2023 at 11:27AM

New York City Schools Ban ChatGPT to Head Off a Cheating Epidemic

https://gizmodo.com/new-york-city-schools-chatgpt-ban-cheating-essay-openai-1849949384


Photo: Sean Gallup (Getty Images)

The ChatGPT backlash has officially begun. On Wednesday, New York City public schools officially banned teachers and students from using the AI-powered chatbot, apparently fearing that it would lead to a tsunami of cheating.

The ban was originally reported by Chalkbeat New York, which wrote Wednesday that the city had blocked the program on school internet and devices.

Why are the Big Apple’s schools putting the kibosh on America’s new favorite chatbot? In a statement provided to Gizmodo, New York City Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle broke it down like this:

“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices. While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”

Roughly translated, what the city seems to be saying is: students are definitely going to use this thing to cheat on tests, to “automate” their essay-writing, and to otherwise avoid learning how to write anything themselves. NYC Public Schools’ statement also seems to make reference to ChatGPT’s accuracy problem(the chatbot’s answers are often full of factual errors and it has a penchant for making shit up). Of course, New York’s administrators aren’t the first to express concern for how OpenAI’s chatbot might impact local education and students’ learning experience, but they’re the first in the country to actually do something about it.

More and more people seem to be waking up to the darker implications of ChatGPT’s technology. While the chatbot has so far managed to impress users with its ability to spin up a wealth of creative material (its short stories and screenplays are admittedly pretty wild), concerns persist over how it will inevitably be misused. When it comes to education specifically, many have predicted that ChatGPT will be used to cheat, to automatically fabricate college essays, and to otherwise hamper students’ ability to learn and do things for themselves.

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On a related note, a college student spent New Year’s Day creating an app that can decipher you decipher what content was written by a human and what was spawned by ChatGPT—because that’s a thing we apparently need now, an algorithm telling us if something was written by an algorithm. Hoo boy, the future sure is going to be weird.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

January 4, 2023 at 04:43PM

U.S. Approves First Vaccination of Honeybees

https://gizmodo.com/honeybee-vaccine-american-foulbrood-usda-1849952784


Honeybees are a crucial piece of the global ecosystem, but a bacterial infection called American foulbrood can destroy an entire colony.
Image: Joe Raedle (Getty Images)

The bees are having a rough go of it, and that’s news bad for humans—we need bees to pollinate our crops. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given the green light to a biotech company to vaccinate honeybees against a fatal infectious disease, one of the major threats to these creatures.

Dalan Animal Health developed the vaccine, which recently received a conditional license from the USDA and is designed to protect honeybees against infections of American foulbrood. American foulbrood is a fatal disease caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae; it can kill honeybees in the pre-pupal or pupal stage of their life cycle. The disease is spread through bacterial spores and can take down an entire colony.

“We are committed to providing innovative solutions to protect our pollinators and promote sustainable agriculture. Global population growth and changing climates will increase the importance of honeybee pollination to secure our food supply,” said Dalan Animal Health CEO Anette Kleiser in a press release. “Our vaccine is a breakthrough in protecting honeybees. We are ready to change how we care for insects, impacting food production on a global scale.”

It would be a challenge to give shots to baby bees, so a dead version of the bacteria will be added to the food eaten by worker bees. Those bees then pass the vaccine into royal jelly, a milky secretion that is fed to the colony’s queen. From there, the vaccine will transfer to the queen’s ovaries, granting immunity to developing larvae.

“This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers, as we rely on antibiotic treatment that has limited effectiveness and requires lots of time and energy to apply to our hives,” said Trevor Tauzer, a board member of the California State Beekeepers Association, in the company’s release.

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Honeybees pollinate everything from blueberries to avocados to agave. But bee populations are on the decline, potentially threatening the world’s food output and delicate ecosystems.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

January 5, 2023 at 09:15AM

Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634


The new Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License, a document which allows a vast group of independent publishers to use the basic game rules created by D&D owner Wizards of the Coast, significantly restricts the kind of content allowed and requires anyone making money under the license to report their products to Wizards of the Coast directly, according to an analysis of a leaked draft of the document, dated mid-December.

Despite reassurances from Wizards of the Coast last month, the original OGL will become an “unauthorized” agreement, and it appears no new content will be permitted to be created under the original license.

What is the Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License?

The original OGL is what many contemporary tabletop publishers use to create their products within the boundaries of D&D’s reproducible content. Much of the original OGL is dedicated to the System Resource Document, and includes character species, classes, equipment, and, most importantly, general gameplay structures, including combat, spells, and creatures.

The creation of the OGL version 1.0, which was originally published in 2000, has allowed a host of outside designers and publishers, both amateur and professional, to make new products for a game that remains entirely owned by Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast (WotC). While this arrangement sometimes created products that directly competed with WotC publications, it also allowed the game to flourish and grow thanks to the resources created by the wider D&D community.

In 2022, when WotC announced plans to develop a revised edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, codenamed One D&D, the company said it would update the OGL as well. The OGL has been tweaked multiple times since its 2000 release, and WotC has at times transitioned to other royalty-free licenses, but the original OGL 1.0 had essentially remained intact until the company said it would develop OGL version 1.1.

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What is in the new OGL 1.1?

A lot, actually. While the original open gaming license is a relatively short document, coming in at under 900 words, the new draft of the OGL 1.1, which was provided to io9 by a non-WotC developer, is over 9,000 words long. It addresses new technologies like blockchain and NFTs, and takes a strong stance against bigoted content, explicitly stating the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”

One of the biggest changes to the document is that it updates the previously available OGL 1.0 to state it is “no longer an authorized license agreement.” By ending the original OGL, many licensed publishers will have to completely overhaul their products and distribution in order to comply with the updated rules. Large publishers who focus almost exclusively on products based on the original OGL, including Paizo, Kobold Press, and Green Ronin, will be under pressure to update their business model incredibly fast.

This is no mistake. According to the document procured by io9, the new agreements states that “the Open Game License was always intended to allow the community to help grow D&D and expand it creatively. It wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors, especially now that PDF is by far the most common form of distribution.”

This sentiment is reiterated later in the document: The “OGL wasn’t intended to fund major competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming. We are updating the OGL in part to make that very clear.”

Paizo Inc., publisher of the Pathfinder RPG, one of D&D’s largest competitors, declined to comment on the changes for this article, stating that the rules update was a complicated and ongoing situation.

Chris Pramas, founder and president of Green Ronin Publishing, said that despite the fact that one of their own products—Mutants and Masterminds—was published under the Original OGL in 2002, and is still available today, they had not seen the Updated OGL, and they do not believe there is “any benefit to switching to the new one as described.”

Wizards of the Coast declined to comment for this article or answer specific questions about the leaked OGL document. A spokesperson directed io9 to a blog post the company published in December, which reassures the community that this OGL will not materially affect the majority of people working in the industry.

What will happen to the original OGL?

The original OGL granted “perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license” to the Open Game Content (commonly called the System Resource Document) and directed that licensees “may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.” But the updated OGL says that “this agreement is…an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement.”

The new document clarifies further in the “Warranties” section that “this agreement governs Your use of the Licensed Content and, unless otherwise stated in this agreement, any prior agreements between Us and You are no longer in force.”

According to attorneys consulted for this article, the new language may indicate that Wizards of the Coast is rendering any future use of the original OGL void, and asserting that if anyone wants to continue to use Open Game Content of any kind, they will need to abide by the terms of the updated OGL, which is a far more restrictive agreement than the original OGL.

Wizards of the Coast declined to clarify if this is in fact the case.

Who will be affected by the new OGL 1.1?

If the original license is in fact no longer viable, every single licensed publisher will be affected by the new agreement, because every commercial creator will be asked to report their products, new and old, to Wizards of the Coast.

Additionally, while the original OGL did not specifically outline what kind of content third-party creators could make available and profit from, the updated OGL is very specific: The updated license “only allows for creation of roleplaying games and supplements in printed media and static electronic file formats. It does not allow for anything else, including but not limited to things like videos, virtual tabletops or VTT campaigns, computer games, novels, apps, graphics novels, music, songs, dances, and pantomimes. You may engage in these activities only to the extent allowed under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy or separately agreed between You and Us.”

The Fan Content Policy can be read here, but in broad strokes, it allows for free content “based on or incorporating our IP. Fan Content includes fan art, videos, podcasts, blogs, websites, streaming content, tattoos, altars to your cleric’s deity, etc.”

The leaked OGL 1.1 draft indicates that WotC may not give licensees a a lot of time to adjust and agree to this new policy: The document reads, “if you want to publish SRD-based content on or after January 13, 2023 and commercialize it, your only option is to agree to the OGL: Commercial.” io9’s source indicated that the final version of the document was originally intended for release on January 4, which would have given companies and creators seven business days to agree and comply.

What’s changing in the new OGL?

The Updated OGL is divided into Non-Commercial and Commercial agreements, and the rules are slightly different if you’re making money from direct sales or access to your work. The biggest change between the two sections is a Tiered Earning system (more on that later), new royalties, and rules for the use of crowdfunding. There is some clarity given about Patreon and tips—basically if your content is available for free elsewhere, but people can support you voluntarily without having their access affected, you are considered non-commercial.

Additionally, all creators will need to clearly and deliberately distinguish “their content” from “licensed content.” The new document reads that this must be done “in a way that allows a reader of Your Licensed Work to understand the distinction without checking any other document.” The Updated OGL suggests a different color font, asterisks on the page, “or putting a separate index or list in the back of Your Licensed Work that lists out what, exactly, You used from the SRD.”

Other parts of the new OGL document create a tiered system of categorizing licensees based on their revenues from commercialized work under the updated OGL.

Will OGL publishers have to pay royalties?

Probably not. Unless they are making over $750,000, licensees get to keep the money they earn. But the new OGL states that the Commercial Agreement “covers all commercial uses, whether they’re profitable or not.” So if you go into the red on a Kickstarter that earned $800K in backing money, you will still owe Wizards of the Coast, regardless of the fact that you did not profit from your venture.

“Note that if You appear to have achieved great success… from producing OGL: Commercial content, We may reach out to You for a more custom(and mutually beneficial) licensing arrangement,” the document notes, indicating that WotC is open to creating custom contracts and agreements, but at their discretion. This could indicate that “subsidized competition” like Pathfinder might not get a great deal.

The revenue tiers are as follows:

A. Initiate Tier. If You have registered at least one Licensed Work but haven’t generated $50,000 or more in total (gross) revenue from OGL: Commercial products in a given year, You are at the Initiate Tier.

B. Intermediate Tier. If Your Licensed Work(s) have generated more than $50,000 in total revenue in a given year but less than $750,000, You are at the Intermediate Tier.

C. Expert Tier. If Your Licensed Work(s) have generated at least $750,000 in total revenue in a given year, You are at the Expert Tier.

According to the document, “If, and only if, You are generating a significant amount of money (over $750,000 per year across all Licensed Works) from Your Licensed Works, The revenue You make from Your Licensed Works in excess of $750,000 in a single calendar year is considered “Qualifying Revenue” and You are responsible for paying Us 20% or 25% of that Qualifying Revenue.”

The draft goes on to explain that if you make $750,001, you will owe Wizards of the Coast 25 cents, as they are only asking for royalties on the one dollar made in excess of the Expert Tier. As stated in their announcement in December, WotC suspects that “less than twenty” companies are at the Expert Tier.

Who has to register work with Wizards of the Coast?

The Updated OGL says that “no matter what Tier You are in or how much money You believe Your product will make, You must register with Us any new Licensed Work You intend to offer for sale… including a description of the Licensed Work. We’ll also ask for Your contact information, information on where You intend to publish the Licensed Work, and its price, among other things.”

Creators will also be required to use a specific badge in order to publicly and obviously identify their work as covered by the updated OGL, and they will have to give WotC a copy of the publication. The early draft suggests that many of these processes will be handled through the company’s official digital toolset, D&D Beyond.

This is a significant change from the original OGL, which allowed creatorspublish without reporting. While it makes sense that Wizards wants to monitor who is using the Open Game Content, this feels like an impossible task. People are selling their work across dozens of platforms, and sometimes one product is being sold on multiple platforms. Whatever the reporting system looks like, the biggest burden will likely be on the smallest creators.

Kickstarter is D&D’s preferred crowdfunding platform

Online crowdfunding is a new phenomenon since the original OGL was created, and the new license attempts to address how and where these fundraising campaigns can take place. The OGL 1.1 states that if creators are members of the Expert Tier, “if Your Licensed Work is crowdfunded or sold via any platform other than Kickstarter, You will pay a 25% royalty on Qualifying Revenue,” and “if Your Licensed Work is crowdfunded on Kickstarter, Our preferred crowdfunding platform, You will only pay a 20% royalty on Qualifying Revenue.”

This means that the Updated OGL is directly encouraging Kickstarter over any other platform, including private company sites, as any non-Kickstarter revenue over $750K will incur a 25% royalty, and only Kickstarter revenue gets a break. There is no reason stated why Kickstarter is Wizards’ preferred crowdfunding platform.

There is also a section in the Updated OGL dedicated to conditions surrounding crowdfunding. Even for Initiate and Intermediate tiers, there are strings attached to using any crowdfunding platform, not just Kickstarter, to get a project off the ground. The two main points are that “you may only crowdfund the production of Licensed Works,” and that “no infringing materials are given out as perks or rewards.”

The power is back at Wizards of the Coast

While there is plenty more to parse, the main takeaway from the leaked OGL 1.1 draft document is that WotC is keeping power close at hand. There is no mention of perpetual, worldwide rights given to creators (which was present in section 4 of the Original OGL), and one of the caveats is that the company “can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days’ notice.”

WotC also gets the right to use any content that licensees create, whether commercial or non-commerical. Although this is couched in language to protect Wizards’ products from infringing on creators’ copyright, the document states that for any content created under the updated OGL, regardless of whether or not it is owned by the creator, Wizards will have a “nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.”

There are a lot of implications in this extended policy, and the ramifications of this updated OGL could have a chilling effect on new licensed products. As only “static” products are included, all work that publishers do for virtual tabletops may have to be offered as non-commercial, free products, which de-incentivizes their production. The royalties associated with any company making above $750K could also prompt publishers to hold back extra products or scale down projects so they stay under the Expert Tier.

Wizards of the Coast is clearly expecting these OGL changes to me met with some resistance. The document does note that if the company oversteps, they are aware that they “will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We’re more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision.”

io9 has reached out to additional publishers and creators, and will update this article as new information becomes available.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

January 5, 2023 at 09:25AM

Razzmatazz review: A delightful (and delightfully pink) drum machine

https://www.engadget.com/1010-music-razzmatazz-review-tiny-delightful-pink-drum-machine-140013901.html?src=rss

Earlier this year 1010music released the Lemondrop and Fireball, two surprisingly full-featured synths in unbelievably tiny packages. The company’s Nanobox lineup covers a lot of ground between those two instruments, but neither was particularly well suited to handling drums. So the company took the same core hardware, put a percussion-focused FM engine in it, along with a sampler, gave the whole thing a playful pink paint job, and dubbed it the Razzmatazz.

The latest member of the 1010music family is a rich sounding drum machine with a simple 64-step sequencer. While it may lack some modern amenities you’d expect from a $399 instrument, it makes up for it with a robust set of sound design features. And yes, even 10 months later, the Nanoboxes are still shockingly small.

Hardware

1010music Razzmatazz
Terrence O’Brien / Engadget

I won’t spend too much time rehashing the hardware since I’ve already covered it in my review of the Lemondrop and Fireball, but here’s a quick recap. The whole thing is 3.75 inches wide, 3 inches tall, and 1.5 inches thick – small enough to fit in even the tiniest of bags or a large pocket. There’s a two-inch touchscreen on the front, plus four navigation buttons and a pair of encoders. Around back you get ?-inch MIDI in and outs, ?-inch audio ins and outs, a USB-C port for power and a microSD slot (pre-populated with a 32GB card) for storing samples and presets.

The only notable exterior change from the previous Nanobox entries is the color. There’s no functional advantage to the Razzmatazz being hot pink, but I love it. As I mentioned in my review of Cre8Audio’s East Beast and West Pest, synths should be fun. I have nothing against the Korgs, Elektrons and Moogs of the world. But their instruments often take themselves quite seriously. And I, for one, think the synth world could use a splash of color now and then.

The Sound Engine

1010music Razzmatazz
Terrence O’Brien / Engadget

At the core of the Razzmatazz is an eight-voice engine that combines FM synthesis and sample playback. Each pad can be either or both, which is fairly unique. I can’t think of another affordable hardware drum machine that allows you to combine FM tones and samples in quite the same way. You can simply layer the two, but you could also, for example, use a sample of an actual timpani for the attack, then let the synth fade in after.

It’s a really fun effect and similar to what you find Roland’s late ‘80s Linear Arithmetic synthesizers like the D-50. The only issue is that figuring out how to achieve it isn’t immediately obvious. Since the two envelopes here are simple sustain / decay affairs, you can’t just soften the attack and be done with it. Instead you have to assign the envelope to control the volume of the digital oscillators, but set the mod depth to negative 100 percent, at which point the decay acts like the attack.

Another key difference is, the Razzmatazz can’t be played chromatically. So you can’t craft a room shaking bassline to accompany your drum pattern. You also can’t pull the trick of using the modulation sequencer to control pitch, like you could on the Lemondrop and Fireball. In fact, there is no modulation sequencer, just two LFOs and two envelopes. And pitch isn’t a modulation destination. You can change the tuning of individual pads and create something melodic that way, but that’s it.

The sounds themselves are excellent, though. The collection of 120 preset kits tend toward the glitchy and electro side of things. Since there’s a sampler, in addition to the FM engine, however, you can get convincing real drum sounds too. Most of the included samples don’t lean into the acoustic realm, but you can easily load or record your own if you like. The one thing to note is that there’s no way to chop up samples on the Razzmatazz. So if you want to slice up a breakbeat, you need to do that before you import it as separate files. Same for loops.

1010music Razzmatazz

The top left-most pad has two special modes called Slicer and Clip. These allow you to get some of the benefits of chops and loops. But they’re a tad cumbersome and require some prep work. Slicer will playback bits and pieces of a sample, but you have to mark cue points using the company’s Blackbox or in software like Reaper or OcenAudio. Of course this is different from chopping up and rearranging a sample. Instead Slicer works its way through a full sample in a particular direction or jumps around randomly.

Clip mode is primarily for loops, but again, you need to trim up the sample beforehand. Make sure it’s a full number of bars and roughly within 20 BPM of the playback tempo. If you try to stretch it too far, or leave a bunch of dead air before or after, it may not deliver great results.

You also can’t just connect the drum machine to your computer via usb and transfer files. The USB-C port here is for power only. You’ll actually have to take the microSD card out and put it in a reader to move samples around. Frankly, that’s a little cumbersome for my tastes, and I usually preferred to just record directly to the Razzmatazz. You can’t trim or alter samples once they’ve been captured, but the threshold option at least means you won’t have a ton of silence at the start of a recording.

Interface

1010music Razzmatazz
Terrence O’Brien / Engadget

Unsurprisingly, the actual act of using the Razzmatazz isn’t all that different from using a Lemondrop or Fireball. You still get a UI organized by sections, and within each section are layers and then each layer has pages. It’s a little more work to find your way around the Razzmatazz because it has eight individual voices with their own set of parameters. And sound design is a bit more complicated because the synth engine is FM based, and FM is notoriously difficult to wrap your head around.

But credit to 1010music for trying to streamline things as much as possible. The first layer beneath each pad is a collection of eight macro controls. And from here you can also change the “model” of the pad to quickly dial in generic sounds for kicks, snares, toms, etcetera. These two things alone let you cover a decent amount of the basics. But you’ll definitely want to explore beyond there, to all the pages you can access from the pad dashboard. Here’s where you’ll find all your oscillator options, FX sends and modulation controls.

1010music Razzmatazz

If you hold down the home button, though, you’re brought to the “Teleporter.” Here you can jump to almost any page or submenu you want with just a single tap. It’s a much faster way to navigate the UI. In general the Razzmatazz makes better use of the touchscreen than its predecessors. That’s partially just down to the kinds of machines they are. Tapping in sequences and playing one of eight reasonably sized touch pads just makes a lot more sense, than trying to play melodies on a grid of notes sized for a toddler.

Unfortunately, the X/Y macro mode from the Lemondrop and Fireball is gone. Your performance options are largely limited to playing the pads live, switching sequences and muting individual pads. Using the touchpad to control pattern-wide parameters, or engage a stutter effect would give it a lot more flexibility as a performance tool.

On the plus side, the sequencer is extremely straightforward. It lacks ratchets, microtiming, probability and almost any other modern amenity. But its simple TR-style makes it easy to quickly toss together patterns or alter them on the fly. The main sequencer page lets you swap between patterns, and the changes are tempo synced so you won’t awkwardly cut one off before its natural conclusion.

Wrap-up

1010music Razzmatazz

The Razzmatazz is a welcome addition to the 1010music Nanobox family. Similar to its stablemates, the Fireball and Lemondrop, there is no direct competitor due to the depth of the sound engine and stunningly compact form factor. I’m unaware of any drum machine in the sub-$500 space that combines FM synthesis and sampling in the same way. And as far as I can tell, only Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators come close to being as pocketable. Of course, those offer less sound design options. But combine a Razzmatazz, Lemondrop and Fireball with a small mixer like the Bastl Dude or (if you like setting fire to money) the TE TX-6, and you’ve got yourself a portable music making rig that could fit in a couple of coat pockets.

There are a few features and changes, though, that seem like no-brainers and would greatly improve the usability of the Razzmatazz. Some form of basic sample editing, for instance, expanded sequencing features like ratchets, and performance-focused master effects would really elevate the instrument. Right now the Razzmatazz is a very good drum synth, but it’s potentially only a firmware update away from being a great one.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

December 27, 2022 at 08:11AM

Razer’s Leviathan V2 Pro PC soundbar can adjust 3D audio based on your head position

https://www.engadget.com/razer-leviathan-v-2-pro-pc-soundbar-kiyo-pro-ultra-webcam-194832210.html?src=rss

Razer has shown off its first slate of products for 2023 at CES. Along with new gaming laptops, the company revealed the Razer Leviathan V2 Pro beamforming PC soundbar. The company says it has an infra-red camera that can detect where the user is. Razer claims the soundbar can adjust the 3D audio beams in real-time based on your position to make sure optimal audio is reaching your ears.

There are two modes for the 3D audio: THX Spatial Audio Virtual Headset and THX Spatial Audio Virtual Speakers. Razer promises to deliver "crisp, clear treble and deep, punchy bass" with the help of multiple drivers and an included subwoofer. There’s Razer Chroma RGB support too. You’ll be able to pick up a Leviathan V2 Pro for $400 later this month.

Next up is the Kiyo Pro Ultra. Razer claims it has the biggest sensor ever used in a webcam. It has a Sony 1/1.2? STARVIS 2 sensor with a 2.9 ?m pixel size. According to Razer, that helps the USB 3.0 plug-and-play webcam to offer DSLR-level detail. It should perform well in low light too. There’s an F/1.7 aperture lens that Razer says can capture nearly four times more light than other webcams.

Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra webcam
Razer

In addition, the company claims the Kiyo Pro Ultra offers face tracking, auto-focus and background blur features without the need for additional hardware or software. However, you’ll be able to adjust the settings to your liking in Razer Synapse. The webcam, which arrives almost two years after the Kiyo Pro, is available starting today for $300.

By the end of March, Meta Quest 2 users in the US will be able to get their hands on Razer-made peripherals. The company designed the Adjustable Head Strap System and Razer Facial Interface to make it more comfortable to use the headset. Razer says the latter has medical-grade hypoallergenic materials to help reduce skin irritation. It’s said to offer ventilation while blocking out external light.

Razer also revealed Project Carol, a head cushion with near-field 7.1 surround sound and HyperSense haptic feedback. Razer says the cushion can fit on any gaming chair and convert game audio into haptic feedback in real-time. It’s a concept design for now, but if and when Project Carol comes to market, it could offer a deeper level of immersion when you’re playing games.

Elsewhere, Razer confirmed the release date for its cloud gaming device, the Razer Edge. We had the chance to try out the new, high-performance Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops too. Take a gander at our hands-on coverage for more details.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

January 5, 2023 at 02:21PM

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Satellite will let Android phones text off the grid

https://www.engadget.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-satellite-messaging-android-211037007.html?src=rss

Last year, Apple introduced Emergency SOS, which allows the iPhone 14 to connect to satellites to send emergency calls and texts. Now, Qualcomm has unveiled its own satellite messaging features for Android phones. It’s called Snapdragon Satellite, and it will allow devices equipped with the company’s X70 modems to connect to satellites in order to send messages when no cellular signal is available.

The feature, which is expected to be available on phones beginning in the second half of 2023, is the result of a partnership with longtime satellite phone maker Iridium. Thanks to the partnership, Android phones equipped with the X70 modem and Qualcomm’s SOC will be able to connect to Iridium’s satellite network for off-grid texting in both emergency and non-emergency situations.

As with much of Qualcomm’s tech, exactly how these features will look and feel will largely be determined by the individual phone makers. Device makers will have considerable flexibility in terms of how they implement satellite messaging, particularly for person-to-person texts. But while we don’t know exactly how it will look when it launches, Qualcomm offered an early look at the technology at CES, which provided a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of functionality.

A demo version of Qualcomm's satellite messaging tech.
Karissa Bell / Engadget

As with Apple’s Emergency SOS, you’ll need to be outside with a clear view of the sky in order to use satellite messaging. When enabled, an on-screen message will offer guidance for where to point your device in order to connect to a satellite.

The demo we saw wasn’t exactly an off-grid location. The desert campground about 30 minutes away from the Las Vegas Strip may have looked the part, but it had full 5G service during our visit. However, Qualcomm reps demonstrated the process for connecting to satellites and it only took a few seconds to move the phone into position. And they claimed connecting in a true off-grid environment should be nearly as seamless.

Once connected to a satellite, the demo devices were able to send text messages to a preset whitelist of contacts. Qualcomm says that feature will remain in place to ensure spam texts won’t clog up the satellite networks. However, the company noted that OEMs could make the messaging feel more like a traditional messaging app than the demo interface we previewed. 

There are a few other limitations compared with standard messaging apps. Satellite messages are limited to 140 bytes or about 160 characters, making them more like an old-school SMS than what you’d expect with modern apps. And you can’t send photos or videos via satellite.

It will guide you to position the phone in the optimal spot to connect to a satellite.
Karissa Bell / Engadget

It’s also worth noting that unlike Apple’s Emergency SOS, Qualcomm intends Snapdragon Satellite to be used for non-emergency messaging as well. That could make the Android version a little more useful as you could use satellite messaging to stay in touch with family and friends in areas where you’d normally be out of reach. However, there will likely be additional charges associated with non-emergency texts so you’ll probably still want to moderate your usage of the feature. (Qualcomm declined to speculate on how much these messages might cost, but it seems safe to assume these messages will be costlier than a typical SMS.)

Also, unlike Apple’s satellite communication features, which also allows people to make emergency voice calls, Snapdragon Satellite only allows for emergency texts, not calls. For truly urgent situations, the company has partnered with Garmin, which makes a satellite-based emergency communication device of its own called inReach. That means emergency texts will be routed to the same team that handles SOS calls from inReach devices.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of specifics about when we’ll see phones with Snapdragon Satellite hit shelves, or how many devices could have these capabilities. For now, Samsung says it expects to see satellite-ready phones from “multiple” OEMs starting in the second half of 2023. At the same time, that doesn’t mean the features are guaranteed for all Android phones with an X70 modem and Qualcomm SOC. According to Qualcomm, that’s because X70-equipped phones launching before the second half of the year don’t have all the necessary hardware to support Snapdragon Satellite connectivity.

But, now that we know the hardware requirements, in the coming months we should begin to get a better idea of which devices will have the satellite messaging capabilities.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

January 5, 2023 at 02:21PM