Chinese gadget maker Xiaomi recently announced plans to launch its first electric car in the first half of 2024. It’s part of a growing interest in translating personal electronics to the booming electric vehicle (EV) market in a move that could make cars that feel more like smartphones. “The mobile-first revolution, which has led to over 6 billion smartphone users today, has caused consumers to expect and demand mobile-first designs and experiences in every facet of their lives,” Nakul Duggal, an auto expert at the semiconductor and wireless company Qualcomm, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Grab your copy: All you need to do is open the eShop on your Switch and search for Jump Rope Challenge. As of now, it’s prominently displayed on the main store page, but that may change. Download the app, take the Joy-Cons off your console, and make sure they’re paired. Polygon notes that the game will only be available through September, so get your own copy now. Not the first: Nintendo has been creating fitness games for quite a while now, most famously with Wii Fit on the original Wii console back in 2008....

Buy Someone an Apple Gift Card Give the gift of Apple Music through Apple’s website. Apple’s gift cards work for anything payable through the App Store, including apps, music, books, games, and related digital subscriptions, as well as products at the Apple Store. Apple sends an email with your gift card to the email address provided. If you selected to send by mail, the physical gift card will be shipped to the address provided....

Google just announced a slew of features for the second-generation Nest Hub, according to a company blog post. This update expands the device’s sleep-tracking abilities with a brand new algorithm for sound detection that can better distinguish between sleep sounds and, say, the sounds of a neighbor or beloved pet. The company also unveiled a new feature called Sleep Staging, which Google describes as a detailed analysis of the various stages of sleep....

Google revealed a number of improvements to the way it collects and presents search results, along with updated tools that make assessing the legitimacy of those results a little easier. So, at the very least, you won’t need to rely on advanced search commands quite as much to find what you’re looking for. Featured snippets (the first non-sponsored result) were adjusted so Google’s systems can cross-reference other sources it considers to be reputable to look for a consensus....

This includes the oldest Android OS versions, such as Android 1.0, 1.5 Cupcake, 2.0 Eclair, and 2.3 Gingerbread. All of which are over a decade old. This decision first was revealed to device owners through an email from the company, posted by a user on Reddit. The email states that the affected phones no longer will be able to sign into Google Apps starting in late September, and recommends that users update their devices to Android 3....

The new privacy policy has some concerned that it allows WhatsApp to share messages with its parent company, Facebook. WhatsApp said recently that users who don’t agree to the policy by May 15 would no longer be able to send or read messages from the app. Fortunately, there are many other secure messaging apps available if you don’t agree to WhatsApp’s terms. “The best alternative is to switch to a messenger like Signal, which does not collect user data and share it with Facebook or other third-party advertisers, while also providing strong end-to-end encryption for messages,” Ray Walsh, data privacy expert at privacy website ProPrivacy, said in an email interview....

What Is an ‘Ultimate’ or ‘Game of the Year’ Edition? Usually, these editions are titled “Ultimate” or “Game of the Year” (They only have to win 1 GOTY award, no matter how small, to claim this title by the way) or “Complete” edition. They usually come with all of the DLC that was released as well as the original base game. The Xbox One has seen a new surge in so-called “Definitive Editions” that are HD re-releases of last-gen games....

Overall Findings If you learn how to play a real guitar after playing Guitar Hero, you may be surprised by how similar it feels to the game. The biggest similarity is in the chords. Two-button power chords are exactly like power chords on a real guitar. Three-button chords are also similar to full chords on a real guitar, particularly in the transitions between them. There is a difference when you play six strings rather than five buttons, but the basics are the same....

EleutherAI is a recently formed collective of volunteer researchers, engineers, and developers focused on open-source AI research. The organization uses the GPT-Neo and GPT-NeoX codebases to train massive language models that it plans to release under open licenses. “Open source data benefits researchers because scientists have more free resources to use to train models and complete research,” Edward Cui, the CEO of AI company Graviti, told Lifewire in an email interview....

It contains user-specific configuration information for all currently active users on the computer. This means the user logged in at the moment (you) and any other users who have also logged in but have since “switched users.” Each registry key located under the HKEY_USERS hive corresponds to a user on the system and is named with that user’s security identifier, or SID. The registry keys and registry values located under each SID control settings specific to that user, like mapped drives, installed printers, environment variables, desktop background, and much more, and is loaded when the user first logs on....

It’s getting to be that time of year again when we travel around the state, country, or even world to hang out with friends and family—and Google Maps’ latest updates can help with that. Granted, a couple of these features aren’t new, but they are being made available in more areas. The augmented Street View feature, Live View, is extending availability to six new cities, allowing you to look through your camera to find marked points of interest....

Meta recently demonstrated Galactica, an AI method designed to “store, combine and reason about scientific knowledge.” But testers found it could also generate nonsensical papers that could fool readers. The company quickly took Galacta offline, but experts say it may be a sign of things to come. “Fraudsters can apply AI to generate fake research papers or scientific images,” Hong Zhou, who leads AI research and development for Wiley’s research business, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Picture Your Contacts When someone calls, your iOS mobile device displays their number and name on the screen. The iOS operating system is smart enough to guess who might be calling by taking a look at your email messages if a phone number is not in your contacts. However, one way to make it easy to tell who is calling you is to add an image of your contact. That way, you know who is calling with only a glance....

Video conferencing software Beacon uses end-to-end encryption and a host of other features to enhance security. The software is being released as privacy concerns mount over breaches in popular conferencing platforms like Zoom and Google Meet. The market for video conferencing is booming as the coronavirus pandemic pushes more people to work from home than ever before. “I don’t know why the details of your life are [anyone’s business],” said Angel Munoz, CEO of Mass Luminosity, the company set to release Beacon next month, in a phone interview....

While only a relative handful of recent gaming acquisitions have made national news, such as Microsoft’s $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda Softworks, video game mergers and acquisitions (M&A) reached a fever pitch last year. The venture capital firm Pitchbook tracked over 1,500 transactions in the field over the course of 2020, with major companies like Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Tencent making significant buys. That trend is likely to continue into the rest of 2021....

Dropping the price on perishable food before it goes bad is a staple of supermarket strategy. You can exploit the system—shopping late on a Saturday can net some bargains if the store closes on Sundays, for example. Wasteless uses AI to dynamically vary pricing automatically to ensure that as many goods are sold before they spoil as possible. It’s kind of like airline seat pricing, only in reverse. We’ve all seen special offers on short-dated items in the supermarket....

Ty Baka started streaming in the gaming world in 2016. Baka has a knack for reinvention, now existing as your friendly neighborhood streaming coach. What will she do next? Even she doesn’t have a clue. “I always told my mom I wanna do whatever I want to do, and I want to get paid…and that’s kind of what I’m doing. Right now, it feels like I am in a bit of an evolutionary phase like coming out of the cocoon,” she said in a phone interview with Lifewire....

Through Vtubing, this former nurse has amassed an audience of 200,000 affectionately nicknamed Lamp Champs across all social media platforms. Her largest platform? Twitch, where she recently celebrated her 100,000-follower milestone. “I don’t care about the numbers too much nowadays. When I first started, I did, but now? All I want to do is make people laugh, spread happiness, and harvest a community that fosters positivity with like-minded individuals huddling in one area, having a good time,” she said in a phone interview with Lifewire....

In its latest efforts to keep users free from online hate speech and bullies, Instagram is using a new method of filtering message requests for offensive words, phrases, and even emojis to keep them from ever reaching people’s inboxes. In addition, it is working to make it harder for bullies to repeatedly bother the same people by opening different accounts. “Unfortunately, there are many groups and individuals sending abusive DMs and DM requests,” Damon McCoy, associate professor of computer science and engineering at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, told Lifewire in an email....