Latest news with #Gizmodo
Gizmodo
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Microsoft Quietly Pulls the Plug on Its Movies and TV Store
Microsoft abruptly shut down its online movie and TV store. On Friday, the tech giant quietly updated both its general and Xbox support pages to reflect the changes. Users will no longer be able to buy new content from and the Microsoft Store on Windows and Xbox. Thankfully, Microsoft says if you already own movies or shows through the store you can still watch them via the Movies & TV app on Xbox and Windows devices. Microsoft says technical support will also continue for issues with any previously purchased content, at least for now. Unfortunately, Microsoft says it is not providing any refunds or ways for users to transfer their libraries to other digital video services. However, U.S. users can link select titles to Movies Anywhere, a platform that consolidates digital purchases from participating retailers into a single library. Microsoft did not explain why it suddenly shuttered the service. A spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email that the company 'has nothing further to share at this time.' The move appears like a quiet retreat from digital video, as video streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video reign supreme. Microsoft's support page even directs users to use competing services. 'The Xbox and Windows stores have other entertainment services that offer the latest home entertainment releases. The following transactional services are available today: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home, among others,' the company said. Xbox users posted on Reddit that they started receiving notifications about the change this morning. 'Microsoft Movies & TV will no longer offer movies or TV shows for purchase. You can continue watching your previously purchased and personal videos on Xbox. Thank you for being part of the Xbox community,' the notification said, according to a screenshot on Reddit. Some Reddit users also said that they saw this coming when they noticed the number of sale promotions on the store started to dwindle in recent months. Others are worried that the Movies & TV app will also eventually be shut down and that they may permanently lose their purchased videos. This isn't the first time Microsoft has backed out of digital media. It shut down its Zune music service in 2015, then closed its successor, Groove Music, in 2017, when it told users to move their playlists to Spotify.
Digital Trends
18 hours ago
- Automotive
- Digital Trends
A Swedish 6G lab is trying create crash-free driving
What's happened? A research laboratory in Sweden – The Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) – built AstaZero, the first proving ground for connected vehicles, and has now given more information about what it's trying to do. Gizmodo has gained further information on the goals of the lab. The CEO, Peter Janevik, outlined how it believes the facility will use 6G and other advanced connectivity tech to have a significant impact on the deployment of vehicles. This can dramatically reduce road fatalities and provide advanced disaster relief during emergencies. He has also highlighted how the scenarios might work. This includes a drone that can scan an accident site, creating a map of potential obstacles and dangers that can be deployed in real time to vehicles and allow safe management of future situations. This matters because: 6G is tipped to be an ultra-low latency, high-reliability technology that will facilitate true autonomy in vehicles and drones in a seamless infrastructure. This technology could help reduce accidents in urban areas through smarter vehicle responses. These technologies could also cut congestion and emissions, meaning cities can expand in a more environmentally friendly way. However, until reliability of connection can be proven to be over 99.999% effective, safety concerns will remain, hence the need for the testing environment. Facilities around the world have tested 5G for autonomous vehicles, but this is the first that allows all brands to come and pay to use the facility to test the deployment of 6G, hyper-connected tech. Recommended Videos What are the risks? The facility also allows brands to mitigate risks through the testing, such as ensuring the security of the connection to stop hackers from disrupting communication between devices. Drones tracking in urban environments could also create privacy or surveillance concerns. 6G deployment will require massive investment, so making sure it's done correctly and in a cost-effective and useful manner is key. What's next? The facility will expand further into AI-powered testing, to allow it to understand the situations contextually, as well as greater understanding of how these components will work in times when connectivity is degraded. 6G is slated for release within the next decade, and regulatory frameworks will need to be created to ensure its safe use, especially in the sphere of connected vehicles and drones.
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Gizmodo
The Big EV Tax Credit Mystery
If you're thinking about buying an electric vehicle, brace yourself: the federal tax credits that offer up to $7,500 off new EVs and $4,000 off used ones could change as soon as September 30. But here's the real issue: Nobody knows for sure what happens next. Carmakers, consumers, and even some dealerships have been operating under the belief that a signed contract before September 30 locks in the credit. But now, some automakers are quietly admitting that the IRS has not finalized that rule. 'It is our understanding that a signed contract is required to qualify for the federal tax credit, and that the contract date serves as the determining factor,' a spokesperson for Honda told Gizmodo, while noting the government is still working it out. That caveat is huge. With no clear guidance from the Treasury Department or IRS, consumers are left in the dark just as they're being asked to make expensive decisions. The Inflation Reduction Act created a powerful incentive structure for EV adoption, including: These benefits have helped reduce upfront costs for many buyers, but they come with fine print, and that fine print may be changing soon. September 30 has become an unofficial deadline based on how the law was initially interpreted. The industry believed that signing a contract by then would preserve your eligibility, even if the car arrives later. Now, that interpretation may no longer be reliable. Gizmodo reached out to several car companies. Most pointed to the IRS website and declined to provide clarity beyond current offers. Nissan confirmed that vehicles like the Ariya and new LEAF—built in Japan—don't qualify under current rules, and had nothing to share about what will happen beyond September. 'We can only provide information on our current offers,' one spokesperson said. 'At this time, we don't have anything to share regarding additional incentives or rebates.' This silence has left buyers confused. Many still assume any EV qualifies, but that's not the case. In fact, most foreign-made models don't, and even domestic ones may only qualify for partial credits based on battery sourcing. The IRS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The lesser-known $4,000 credit for used EVs applies to: But just like the new EV credit, it could be impacted by any regulatory shifts post-September. Bottom Line: Act, But Cautiously This is about timing. For buyers, a delay of even a few weeks could mean the difference between a five-figure incentive and nothing at all. With the government still working out the final rules, the best advice is to stay alert and sign your contract before September 30 if you're planning to buy. If you wait, you might not just miss the credit. You might miss the window entirely. For the most detailed and up-to-date information on eligibility and how to claim these credits, always refer to the official source: the IRS website on Credits for New Clean Vehicles:
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Your Pooch's Personality Influences How They Watch TV
When a doorbell rings during your favorite TV show, does your dog leap up and start barking or cock their head inquisitively? According to a new study, the answer to this question may be linked to your pup's personality. This doesn't just apply to TV shows meant for human consumption. In recent years, dog-specific TV programming has become a popular enrichment tool among owners who want to keep their canine companion calm and entertained while they're out of the house. Today, there are many TV shows—even entire cable networks—designed for dogs, but the science behind them is limited, Lane Montgomery, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate at Auburn University, told Gizmodo in an email. She and her colleagues investigated what drives dogs to exhibit certain TV viewing behaviors, finding that temperament plays an important role. 'A dog's interactions with televisions can be both positive and negative,' Montgomery said. Understanding the factors that influence TV-watching behavior in canines can help increase positive reactions and prevent negative ones, depending on a dog's unique personality and the stimuli presented to them, she explained. The researchers recruited 650 companion dog owners to participate in an online survey that asked about their dogs' TV viewing habits. This included questions about whether the owner trained their dog to watch TV, the average number of hours per week the TV is on, and the average number of seconds the dog spends watching TV. The survey also collected demographic and behavioral information about each canine participant. The final sample of 453 companion dogs ranged in age from two months to 16 years old and included both purebreds and mixed breeds. Montgomery and her colleagues assessed the dogs' reactions to animal stimuli, non-animal stimuli, and the extent to which they followed objects on screen. Their findings, published Thursday, July 17, in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and breed do not influence dogs' TV-viewing behavior, nor does prior TV exposure. Rather, it appears that the type of stimuli and dogs' temperament traits, such as excitability or anxiousness, shape how they interact with TV. The researchers found that dogs are generally more likely to react to seeing or hearing animals on-screen than other stimuli, with about 45% always responding to dog noises such as barking and howling. Fearful or anxious dogs, however, were more likely to respond to non-animal stimuli such as car horns or doorbells. Owners who described their dogs as excitable more frequently observed them following objects on-screen as if they existed in real life. 'Practically, this study helps inform what types of dog-specific programming would be most valuable for dogs,' Montgomery said. For owners, understanding how different canine temperaments respond to TV stimuli could help them select the right programs for their pets or inform training approaches to correct problematic behaviors toward TVs, the researchers concluded. The authors note that the findings may not be representative of all dogs, as all survey respondents were pet owners whose dogs regularly interact with TV. Going forward, Montgomery hopes to examine these results in an experimental context. 'Studies have begun to do this, but it would be interesting to conduct additional research concerning how personality and television stimuli interact and how these findings translate into a real-world context,' she said. Such work would further inform best practices for using TV to enrich the lives of companion dogs.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
CERN Physicists Find Key Piece of the Matter-Antimatter Puzzle
All matter in our universe has an evil twin: antimatter. Cosmological models suggest that the Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter that cancel each other out. But for reasons physicists still aren't completely sure about, that didn't happen. As a result, our universe today hosts slightly more matter than antimatter—our very existence being clear, physical proof. Now, we might be one step closer to explaining why there's an imbalance between matter and antimatter, an unsolved mystery in physics formally known as the charge-parity (CP) violation, or CP asymmetry. In a paper published today in Nature, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN, Switzerland, report the first experimental verification of the CP violation in the decay of baryons—fundamental particles that make up most matter in the observable universe. The results were announced earlier this year at the Rencontres de Moriond conference. 'Until recently, CP violation had only been clearly observed in mesons [or] particles made of a quark and an antiquark,' explained Xueting Yang, LHC physicist and study lead author, in an email to Gizmodo. 'This result shows that baryons—which are made of three quarks like protons and neutrons—can also violate CP symmetry.' While a significant first step, the new finding still falls short of observing baryon asymmetry, which refers to that paradox of there being more matter than antimatter in the universe today. What Yang's team observed specifically was an instance of CP violation in baryon decay, or the slight difference in behavior between a baryon and its antimatter counterpart as the particle breaks down into smaller particles. 'Well, it's a small part of a much bigger puzzle—but you know, every part matters,' Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University who wasn't involved in the new work, told Gizmodo in a video call. 'It's intrinsically interesting when you find a phenomenon that has never been observed before, but…maybe it will teach us something about why there are more baryons than anti-baryons in the universe.' For the study, Yang's team took around nine years of data from observing the decay of almost one trillion beauty-lambda (Λb) baryons, the heavyweight cousin-particle of protons and neutrons. In about a mere trillionth of a second, beauty-lambda baryons and their antimatter counterparts break down into smaller parts, requiring the technical prowess of something as big as the LHC to capture. From the data, the researchers sifted through the different interactions to pick out the ones of interest to them, namely the decay behavior of beauty-lambda baryons and their antimatter counterparts. 'If CP symmetry were true, you'd have exactly the same rate for these interactions,' Carroll explained. 'But it is violated, so you get slightly different rates.' That rate was about 2.5%, a small but statistically significant difference—at least, enough for the team to start brainstorming ideas for how they'd like to build on this result. 'Studying how baryons are formed, how they interact, and how they decay is essential to understanding the fundamental forces of nature,' Yang said. 'This observation marks just the beginning. To answer why [the universe contains] more matter than antimatter, we need more sources of CP violation than the current [Standard Model of particle physics].' The Standard Model—the theory that describes particle behavior with chilling accuracy—is both the magnum opus and the punching bag of particle physics. It explains everything so ludicrously well, while missing some huge chunks of known physical phenomena, such as gravity or dark matter, to name a few. And so, when the LHC came along, physicists expected it to achieve great things—which it did, and continues to do. But as with all great physics discoveries, it's a holy grail that'll take some more time to realize. 'We were, to be honest, a little bit disappointed that the Large Hadron Collider hasn't found any physics beyond the Standard Model,' Carroll said. 'But I think it's super important to keep looking. The LHC is a beautiful machine that has done amazing work—and yet, it hasn't quite taken us to the promised land. So it's another reminder that there are really big questions out there, and one way or the other we, as the human race, should be doing our best to answer them.'
