Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: It's been two long years since the launch of Matter -- the one smart home standard designed to rule them all -- and there's been a fair amount of disappointment around a sometimes buggy rollout, slow adoption by companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google, and frustrating setup experiences. However, the launch of the Matter 1.4 specification this week shows some signs that the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA, the organization behind Matter) is using more sticks and fewer carrots to get the smart home industry coalition to cooperate.

The new spec introduces 'enhanced multi-admin,' an improvement on multi-admin -- the much-touted interoperability feature that means your Matter smart light can work in multiple ecosystems simultaneously. It brings a solution for making Thread border routers from different companies play nicely together and introduces a potentially easier way to add Matter infrastructure to homes through Wi-Fi routers and access points. Matter 1.4 also brings some big updates to energy management support, including adding heat pumps, home batteries, and solar panels as Matter device types.

During its MAX event yesterday, Adobe teased some experimental photo and video editing tools for PhotoShop and Premiere Pro. There are a total of nine features, which include being able to rotate vector images, produce sound effects from text descriptions, and generate images in various shapes and sizes. Engadget reports: [W]e'll start with Project Perfect Blend for PS, which improves natural blending and makes shadow casting more realistic, creating more lifelike images. Project Clean Machine removes photo flashes, fireworks and objects blocking the camera's view. One feature that stands out is Project In Motion, which lets users transform custom shape animations into video by entering a prompt, while Project Know How is a content authenticator tool that can search for a video file's source online. Project Turntable lets users rotate 2D vector art in 3D, thereby allowing the 2D vector art to face a direction of their choice. The generative AI model fills in any blanks to create presentable 3D vector art.

Another standout tool is Project Super Sonic, which generates sound effects via prompts or clicking on objects in a video. The latter method can create sounds without typing prompts into the generative AI model. Project Super Sonic seems helpful for people looking to design the sounds they want. Adobe is also working on Microsoft Copilot integration in Project Scenic. This tool creates 3D scene layouts using Copilot prompts, and the camera and objects in the layout can be tweaked. Project Remix A Lot leverages generative AI to create images in various shapes and sizes, all fully editable. In other words, users can "remix" creations into shapes they like, including unusual ones. Finally, we have Project Hi-Fi. With this tool, it's possible to transform sketches and concepts into high-quality images. These images can easily be dragged into PhotoShop for editing.

Google is testing a "desktop windowing" feature for Android tablets that "will let you resize apps freely and arrange them on your screen at will," reports The Verge. It's currently available as a developer preview. From the report: Currently, apps on Android tablets open in full-screen by default. When the new mode is enabled, each app will appear in a window with controls that allow you to reposition, maximize, or close the app. You'll also see a taskbar at the bottom of your screen with your running apps. [...] Once the feature is rolled out to everyone, you can turn it on by pressing and holding the window handle at the top of an app's screen. If you have a keyboard attached, you can also use the shortcut meta key (Windows, Command, or Search) + Ctrl + Down to activate desktop mode. (You can exit the mode by closing all your active apps or by dragging a window and dragging it to the top of your screen.)

Google notes that apps locked to portrait orientation are still resizable, which might make things look a bit weird if certain apps aren't optimized. However, Google plans to address this in a future update by scaling the UI of non-resizable apps while maintaining their aspect ratio.

Google's new ChromeOS 128 update introduces a feature similar to Windows 11's Snap layouts. Called Snap Groups, the feature enables users to organize on-screen apps in various fullscreen layouts. "When you pair two windows for split-screen display, ChromeOS now forms a Snap group," explains the ChromeOS team. "As a Snap group, you can bring the windows back into focus together, resize them simultaneously, and move them both as a group."

Other notable features of ChromeOS 128 include Optical Character Recognition (OCR), ChromeVox support for the Magnifier tool, isolated web apps (IWA), and improved settings for the camera and microphone on Chromebook devices.

You can view the release notes on the support document here.

Following the arrest of its CEO Pavel Durov last month, the encrypted messaging service said it has disabled some "outdated" and "misused" features used by anonymous users. The Verge reports: The first changes to the app following his arrest in France last month affect its built-in blog posts and a "People Nearby" location-based feature. [...] Durov's first post-arrest statement Thursday said, "Telegram's abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That's why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard." He also said that during the four-day interview after his arrest, "I was told I may be personally responsible for other people's illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn't receive responses from Telegram."

Telegram has since reworked some of its language surrounding private chats and moderation and followed up with these new updates. It's also adding Star giveaways and enabling a reading mode for its in-app browser. "While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities creates a bad image for the entire platform," Durov's message says. "That's why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise."

Durov says the service has stopped new media uploads to its standalone blogging tool, Telegraph, because it was "misused by anonymous actors." Telegram has also removed its People Nearby feature, which lets you find and message other users in your area. Durov says the feature has "had issues with bots and scammers" and was only used by less than 0.1 percent of users. Telegram will replace this feature with "Businesses Nearby" instead, allowing "legitimate, verified businesses" to display products and accept payments.

At the Flash Memory Summit 2024 this week, NVM Express published the NVMe 2.1 specifications, which hope to enhance storage unification across AI, cloud, client, and enterprise. Phoronix's Michael Larabel writes: New NVMe capabilities with the revised specifications include:

- Enabling live migration of PCIe NVMe controllers between NVM subsystems.
- New host-directed data placement for SSDs that simplifies ecosystem integration and is backwards compatible with previous NVMe specifications.
- Support for offloading some host processing to NVMe storage devices.
- A network boot mechanism for NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF).
- Support for NVMe over Fabrics zoning.
- Ability to provide host management of encryption keys and highly granular encryption with Key Per I/O.
- Security enhancements such as support for TLS 1.3, a centralized authentication verification entity for DH-HMAC-CHAP, and post sanitization media verification.
- Management enhancements including support for high availability out-of-band management, management over I3C, out-of-band management asynchronous events and dynamic creation of exported NVM subsystems from underlying NVM subsystem physical resources. You can learn more about these updates at NVMExpress.org.

Apple has introduced a new feature for Safari that allows users to block distracting elements on web pages, such as sign-in popups, some autoplay videos and even ads (temporarily). The feature is called "Distraction Control" and is rolling out today in iOS 18 beta 5. 9to5Mac reports: Distraction Control is accessible via the same Page Menu interface in Safari as Reader and Viewer. Here, users will find a new "Hide Distracting Items" option to enable Distraction Control. Users will then be prompted to select different elements on a webpage that they feel are distracting. Users will have to manually choose each item on a webpage that they wish to hide. Distraction Control will persist through page refreshes and reloads, assuming that the hidden item does not change. Apple says that nothing is proactively hidden with this feature; only items that a user manually selects are hidden.

Apple also emphasizes that this feature is not meant to serve as an ad blocker. While a user can technically use Distraction Control to hide an ad on a website temporarily, that ad will re-appear when the page is refreshed or otherwise reloaded. In fact, the first time a user activates Distraction Control, Safari will display a pop-up that emphasizes the feature will not permanently remove ads or other areas of a website that frequently change. If a user chooses to hide something like a GDPR banner or a cookies request pop-up, Distraction Control behaves in the same way as if the user manually clicked to dismiss that pop-up. This means Distraction Control will serve as neither an "Accept" nor "Decline" for that cookies request. Finally, if a user wishes to unhide an item, they can click back into the Page Menu interface in Safari and choose "Show Hidden Items."

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple plans to add its "Apple Intelligence" AI features to visionOS and update its approach to in-store demos of the headset. The Verge reports: The company is adding a new "Go Deeper" option to its in-store demos, Gurman writes. That reportedly includes testing office features and watching videos, as well as defaulting to the Dual Loop band that sends straps over the top and around the back of wearers' heads instead of the single-strap Solo Loop band, which some find uncomfortable. Apple will also reportedly let people view their own videos and photos, including panoramas, in the headset. Adding the sentimental touch to the demos could work out, especially once visionOS 2 comes out this fall, with its "spatialize" option to turn 2D photos into 3D ones -- a feature that's more impressive than it has the right to be (though still a little quirky with hair and glasses, like Apple's Portrait Mode feature).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you're tired of Google's AI Overview extracting all value from the web while also telling people to eat glue or run with scissors, you can turn it off -- sort of. Google has been telling people its AI box at the top of search results is the future, and you can't turn it off, but that ignores how Google search works: A lot of options are powered by URL parameters. That means you can turn off AI search with this one simple trick! (Sorry.) Our method for killing AI search is defaulting to the new "web" search filter, which Google recently launched as a way to search the web without Google's alpha-quality AI junk. It's actually pretty nice, showing only the traditional 10 blue links, giving you a clean (well, other than the ads), uncluttered results page that looks like it's from 2011. Sadly, Google's UI doesn't have a way to make "web" search the default, and switching to it means digging through the "more" options drop-down after you do a search, so it's a few clicks deep.

Check out the URL after you do a search, and you'll see a mile-long URL full of esoteric tracking information and mode information. We'll put each search result URL parameter on a new line so the URL is somewhat readable [...]. Most of these only mean something to Google's internal tracking system, but that "&udm=14" line is the one that will put you in a web search. Tack it on to the end of a normal search, and you'll be booted into the clean 10 blue links interface. While Google might not let you set this as a default, if you have a way to automatically edit the Google search URL, you can create your own defaults. One way to edit the search URL is a proxy site like udm14.com, which is probably the biggest site out there popularizing this technique. A proxy site could, if it wanted to, read all your search result queries, though (your query is also in the URL), so whether you trust this site is up to you.

This week, in celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple is introducing several new accessibility features. Noteworthy additions include eye-tracking support for recent iPhone and iPad models, customizable vocal shortcuts, music haptics, and vehicle motion cues. Engadget reports: The most intriguing feature of the set is the ability to use the front-facing camera on iPhones or iPads (at least those with the A12 chip or later) to navigate the software without additional hardware or accessories. With this enabled, people can look at their screen to move through elements like apps and menus, then linger on an item to select it. That pause to select is something Apple calls Dwell Control, which has already been available elsewhere in the company's ecosystem like in Mac's accessibility settings. The setup and calibration process should only take a few seconds, and on-device AI is at work to understand your gaze. It'll also work with third-party apps from launch, since it's a layer in the OS like Assistive Touch. Since Apple already supported eye-tracking in iOS and iPadOS with eye-detection devices connected, the news today is the ability to do so without extra hardware. [...]

There are plenty more features coming to the company's suite of products, including Live Captions in VisionOS, a new Reader mode in Magnifier, support for multi-line braille and a virtual trackpad for those who use Assistive Touch. It's not yet clear when all of these announced updates will roll out, though Apple has historically made these features available in upcoming versions of iOS. With its developer conference WWDC just a few weeks away, it's likely many of today's tools get officially released with the next iOS. Apple detailed all the new features in a press release.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's I/O conference is still happening, and while the big keynote was yesterday, major Android beta releases have apparently been downgraded to Day 2 of the show. Google really seems to want to be primarily an AI company now. Android already had some AI news yesterday, but now that the code-red requirements have been met, we have actual OS news. One of the big features in this release is "Private Space," which Google says is a place where users can "keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication."

First, there's a new hidden-by-default portion of the app drawer that can hold these sensitive apps, and revealing that part of the app drawer requires a second round of lock-screen authentication, which can be different from the main phone lock screen. Just like "Work" apps, the apps in this section run on a separate profile. To the system, they are run by a separate "user" with separate data, which your non-private apps won't be able to see. Interestingly, Google says, "When private space is locked by the user, the profile is paused, i.e., the apps are no longer active," so apps in a locked Private Space won't be able to show notifications unless you go through the second lock screen.

Another new Android 15 feature is "Theft Detection Lock," though it's not in today's beta and will be out "later this year." The feature uses accelerometers and "Google AI" to "sense if someone snatches your phone from your hand and tries to run, bike, or drive away with it." Any of those theft-like shock motions will make the phone auto-lock. Of course, Android's other great theft prevention feature is "being an Android phone." Android 12L added a desktop-like taskbar to the tablet UI, showing recent and favorite apps at the bottom of the screen, but it was only available on the home screen and recent apps. Third-party OEMs immediately realized that this bar should be on all the time and tweaked Android to allow it. In Android 15, an always-on taskbar will be a normal option, allowing for better multitasking on tablets and (presumably) open foldable phones. You can also save split-screen-view shortcuts to the taskbar now.

An Android 13 developer feature, predictive back, will finally be turned on by default. When performing the back gesture, this feature shows what screen will show up behind the current screen you're swiping away. This gives a smoother transition and a bit of a preview, allowing you to cancel the back gesture if you don't like where it's going. [...] Because this is a developer release, there are tons of under-the-hood changes. Google is a big fan of its own next-generation AV1 video codec, and AV1 support has arrived on various devices thanks to hardware decoding being embedded in many flagship SoCs. If you can't do hardware AV1 decoding, though, Android 15 has a solution for you: software AV1 decoding.

Kyle Wiggers reports via TechCrunch: OpenAI announced today that premium ChatGPT users -- customers paying for ChatGPT Plus, Team or Enterprise -- can now leveraged an updated and enhanced version of GPT-4 Turbo, one of the models that powers the conversational ChatGPT experience. This new model ("gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09") brings with it improvements in writing, math, logical reasoning and coding, OpenAI claims, as well as a more up-to-date knowledge base. It was trained on publicly available data up to December 2023, in contrast to the previous edition of GPT-4 Turbo available in ChatGPT, which had an April 2023 cut-off. "When writing with ChatGPT [with the new GPT-4 Turbo], responses will be more direct, less verbose and use more conversational language," OpenAI writes in a post on X.

Telegram is enhancing its platform for businesses with the introduction of Telegram Business, offering specialized features like customizable start pages, business hours, and chat management tools, while also initiating an ad-revenue sharing model for public channels with at least 1,000 subscribers. "As a whole, the features could introduce competition into a market where Meta's apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp have a hold on business communication," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The features arrived just a couple of weeks after Telegram founder Pavel Durov told the Financial Times in an interview that he expected the app, which now has over 900 million users, to become profitable by 2025. Telegram Business is clearly part of that push, leading up to a future IPO, as it's an offering that requires users to subscribe to the paid Premium version to access. Telegram Premium is a bundle of upgraded features that cost $4.99 per month on iOS and Android and is also available as a three-month, six-month or one-year plan.

Telegram Business will likely give Premium another bump as it offers tools and features that can be used by business customers without needing to know how to code. For instance, businesses can choose to display their hours of operation and location on a map, and greet customers with a customized start page for empty chats where they can choose the text and sticker users see before beginning a conversation. Similar to features available on WhatsApp, Telegram Business will offer "quick replies," which are shortcuts to preset messages that support formatting, links, media, stickers and files.

Businesses can also set their own custom greeting messages for customers who engage with the company for the first time, and they can specify a period after which the greeting would be shown again. They can manage their availability using away messages while the business is closed or the owner is on vacation. Plus, the businesses can categorize their chats using colored labels based on what chat folders they're in, like delivery, claim, orders, VIP, feedback, or any others that make sense for them. In addition, businesses can create links to chat that will instantly open a Telegram chat with a request to take an action like tracking an order or reserving a table, among other things. Business customers can also add Telegram bots, including those from other tools or AI assistants, to answer messages on their behalf. The company said more features will roll out to Telegram Business in future updates.

Microsoft today announced a preview release of Windows Notepad, with built-in spellchecking and an autocorrect feature. BleepingComputer reports: Microsoft says they are rolling out this preview to Insiders in the Windows 11 Canary and Dev channels, but it may take some time before it's available for everyone. "With this update, Notepad will now highlight misspelled words and provide suggestions so that you can easily identify and correct mistakes," reads Microsoft's announcement. "We are also introducing autocorrect which seamlessly fixes common typing mistakes as you type."

Once installed, Notepad will now show a red squiggly line under misspelled words that, when clicked, shows suggestions on the correct spelling. It's also possible to ignore words in a single text document or add them to the global dictionary so they are not shown in the future.

Microsoft says that this feature will be turned off for log and source code files. This is because it's common for non-standard words to be used in these files, triggering multiple spellcheck errors. Users can control this setting globally or for specific file types in the Notepad app's settings. The autocorrect feature is a bit more seamless, automatically making small changes to grammar and punctuation as you type.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, AirPods Pro will gain a new "hearing aid mode" with the release of iOS 18 later this year. MacRumors reports: Writing in the subscriber edition of his regular Power On newsletter, Gurman claims that the "big news" for AirPods Pro in the near term will be support for a hearing aid-style function when iOS 18 drops in the fall. To be clear, this isn't the first time we have heard a potential hearing aid feature for AirPods Pro. The first rumor appeared in a 2021 Wall Street Journal report, but it was previously framed as a feature that would be exclusive to a next-generation model of AirPods Pro. However, Apple in September 2022 released the second-generation AirPods Pro, while the company more recently released a refreshed model with a USB-C port.

AirPods Pro already offer a Conversation Boost feature, which boosts the volume and clarity of people directly in front of the wearer, but Apple has not advertised the earbuds as a hearing aid device, because this would require FDA regulatory approval. As per the FDA, a hearing aid is defined as "any wearable device designed for, offered for the purpose of, or represented as aiding persons with or compensating for, impaired hearing." This definition encompasses both air-conduction and bone-conduction devices in a variety of styles (for example, behind-the-ear, in-the-canal, or body worn). [...] It is not yet clear whether Apple will need FDA clearance in order to make explicit or implicit claims about the rumored "hearing aid mode," which may not even adopt this exact name. If, for example, Apple subsequently suggests that AirPods Pro are for users with certain types or severity of hearing loss/impaired hearing, or for use as an alternative to a hearing aid, then they will require FDA regulatory approval to be marketed as such.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In 2015, as part of the wave of encrypting all the things on the internet, encouraged by the Edward Snowden revelations, Facebook announced that it would allow users to receive encrypted emails from the company. Even at the time, this was a feature for the paranoid users. By turning on the feature, all emails sent from Facebook -- mostly notifications of "likes" and private messages -- to the users who opted-in would be encrypted with the decades-old technology called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP. Eight years later, Facebook is killing the feature due to low usage, according to the company. The feature was deprecated Tuesday. Facebook declined to specify exactly how many users were still using the encrypted email feature.

OpenAI's "ChatGPT with voice" feature announced in September is now rolling out to all free users on mobile. Engadget reports: When the company first introduced voice chats, it admitted that the capability to create "realistic synthetic voices from just a few seconds of real speech" presents new risks. It could, for instance, allow bad actors to impersonate public figures or anybody they want. As a result, it decided that ChatGPT's voice feature will focus on conversations. It's powered by a text-to-speech model that can generate "human-like audio from just text and a few seconds of sample speech." OpenAI worked with voice actors to create the capability and offers five different voices to choose from.

Emma Roth reports via The Verge: YouTube appears to be testing a new "play something" button on its mobile app that directs you to a random video when you don't know what to watch. As first spotted by Android Police, the prompt shows up between content as you scroll through the feed on your homepage -- but only some users are seeing it. While Android Police mentions that the button only directs users to YouTube Shorts, one of my colleagues here at The Verge found that the feature also shows them random full-length videos. It's still not clear if YouTube takes your watch history into account when picking the random videos it plays or how widely Google is rolling out this feature.

Since 2012, Google Pixel phones have had a Photo Sphere Mode, allowing users to capture 360-degree images. Now, according to Android Authority, Google has dropped the feature from the Pixel 8 series with no explanation given. From the report: Photo Sphere Mode allowed you to capture panoramic 360-degree pictures by stitching multiple images together. The feature was first introduced back in 2012 on the Nexus 4 and persisted well into the Pixel era, with the likes of the Pixel Fold and Pixel 7a still offering it. The act of capturing a Photo Sphere wasn't exactly seamless owing to the sheer number of images required, although it had an admittedly intuitive UI. Significant stitching issues and exposure/white balance differences were also very common.

We're therefore not surprised Google has decided to drop the feature. Even without taking the aforementioned issues into account, the mode's utility seemed limited beyond some scenarios like mapping purposes (e.g. viewing environments in Google Maps) and VR. In saying so, we hope the company rebounds with a more polished take on 360-degree photos in the future.

Mia Sato writes via The Verge: Spotify is rolling out auto-generated podcast transcripts to more creators in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday. The text transcripts will also be time-synced so listeners can visually follow along as a podcast episode progresses. Transcripts are available by scrolling down below the podcast player and tapping into a "read along" section. A transcription of a show makes the podcast more accessible to users and allows listeners to skip around and skim an episode without listening through.

Spotify says "millions" of podcast episodes will get the tool, and in the future, creators could add media to transcripts -- a useful feature if a creator is describing an image on the show, for example. Beyond transcripts, mobile podcast listeners globally will now be able to jump around an episode using chapters as well. Podcasters can add time-stamped chapters to their shows that briefly describe a segment of the show, allowing listeners to preview topics or start listening at specific points. The feature follows the recent addition of an AI-generated voice cloning tool that translates podcasts into different languages.