Category: Technologies

Google’s Duet AI tools for Google Workspace are now available for anyone to try, giving an artificial intelligence boost to the company’s widely used apps including Gmail, Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Meet.

As with Microsoft’s rival Office 365 Copilot tools, they aren’t free. After a 14-day free trial, the set of tools, which Google calls Duet AI for Google Workspace, costs $30 per user per month for big businesses, with pricing details for consumers and smaller businesses to be revealed in coming months, Google said.

The AI tools are designed to build new smarts into some of Google’s most widely used services. With a text prompt, you can instruct Duet to prepare a resume template in Google Docs, draft a birthday party invitation in Gmail, add illustrations to a presentation in Slides or create a custom form in Sheets.

Google has been testing Duet AI since the May debut of the tools at Google I/O, with more than a million people trying them out, Google Workspace chief Aparna Pappu said in a blog post Tuesday in conjunction with the company’s Google Cloud Next conference. Now Duet AI is available to all 3 billion Google Workspace accounts, she said.

It’s a big bet on AI, a computing technology that’s been revolutionized over the last year by the adoption of large language models. These AI systems are trained to recognize patterns in vast swaths of training text drawn from the internet, and with another powerful option, generative AI, can create their own words and images based on prompts.

The AI technology combines the power of computing with an interface that’s fundamentally closer to how humans work.

But there are big problems with AI tools, like their tendency to write text that seems plausible and sounds authoritative but that might not actually be true. Using the “help me write” tool in Google Docs, you’ll see this warning: “This is a creative writing aid, and is not intended to be factual.”

Though Apple has a new MacBook Air with an advanced M2 processor, the previous-gen M1 model is still our favorite option for students, thanks to its smooth performance and solid battery life. And if you’re gearing up for fall classes, then we’ve got a deal you won’t want to miss. Right now Amazon has all color variants on sale for just $750, which saves you $250 compared with the usual $999 asking price. There’s no set expiration for this deal, though, so you may want to get your order in sooner rather than later if you don’t want to miss out on these savings.

Like all the best deals on Apple’s laptops, this one is available for multiple colors, so be sure to pick the one that suits your look. With space gray, silver and gold to choose from, we reckon there will be one for every taste.

Regardless of the color your MacBook Air comes wrapped in, you’re going to get the same speedy M1 performance, thanks to its eight-core CPU and seven-core GPU. That power won’t impact its battery life though: The M1 MacBook Air still boasts up to 18 hours of runtime on a single charge.

On top of all that, you can enjoy a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM as well as good old Touch ID for authentication for things like apps and Apple Pay.

Whether you’re kitting someone out for a new school or looking to take your work to the local coffee shop, this 13-inch MacBook Air will be a great option, especially if you’re looking to get a new laptop without spending four figures. And if you’re in the market for a different model, you can check out our full roundup of all the best laptop deals for even more bargains.

Amazon customers who don’t subscribe to Amazon Prime will have to buy more if they want free shipping.

The minimum threshold for free shipping on Amazon for non-Prime customers increased to $35 in some markets, as earlier spotted by CNBC. Previously, shoppers had to spend only $25 to quality for free shipping.

“We continually evaluate our offerings and make adjustments based on those assessments,” an Amazon spokesperson said Tuesday via email. “We’re currently testing a $35 minimum for non-Prime customers to qualify for free shipping. Prime members continue to enjoy free delivery on over 300 million items, with tens of millions of items available for free Same or One-Day Delivery.”

Amazon Prime currently costs $15 a month or $139 annually. The company said in 2021 that it has more than 200 million Prime subscribers.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has changed its minimum. Back in 2013, the retail giant made a similar jump from the long-time $25 minimum for free shipping to $35. Then raised it again in 2016 to $49. In 2017, Amazon went back to the $25 minimum after other retailers began offering free shipping.

The increase in free shipping comes before Amazon’s second Prime Day sale of the year. The deals event will happen sometime in October with expected discounts happening all across the site.

Bone-conducting headphones work by resting on your cheekbones, delivering the sound to your ears through vibrations — and that open-ear design can help you stay aware of your surroundings, which makes them a safer option for runners. These ninth-gen bone-conduction headphones are the current flagship model from Shokz (formerly AfterShokz) and earned a spot on our roundup of the best running headphones and earbuds of 2023.

Normally listing for $180, Amazon has slashed the price by 22% right now, meaning you can snag a pair for $140. That returns the OpenRun Pro to the lowest price we’ve seen. We don’t know how long this offer will last, so we recommend making your purchase sooner rather than later.

The lightweight, wrap-around design should remain comfortable and secure regardless of how intense your workout gets. And you’ll get up to 10 hours of battery life per charge, with a 5-minute top-off giving you up to 90 minutes of playback when you’re short on time and need a boost. They’re also IP55-rated water-resistant and come equipped with dual noise-canceling microphones and more powerful bass than its predecessor, which makes the OpenRun Pro a solid option for listening to music and podcasts or taking calls on the go. And you’ll also get a hard carrying case with your purchase to keep your headphones safe.

The M2 15-inch MacBook Air is among the best laptops you can buy for the vast majority of people right now — and that’s when it’s at its normal price. But right now, with $200 off? It’s impossible to beat.

Amazon is now selling the M2 15-inch MacBook Air for just $1,099, which is a big discount on the price that you’d normally pay. In fact, this is the lowest price that the online retailer has ever offered this particular laptop for, and you even get to choose from all four colors. Although, really, we all know that midnight is the only one you should pick. But it’s your money, your choice!

No matter which color you choose, the laptop will be the same on the inside, including that super-speedy M2 Apple silicon with its eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU. You’ll also get 8GB of RAM and a fast 256GB solid-state drive thrown in as well.

There’s more, too. This 15-inch MacBook Air is silent thanks to the lack of a single fan, while the 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display offers 500 nits of brightness and support for P3 wide color. Battery life is plentiful as well, with Apple saying you can expect up to 18 hours from a single charge.

Apple’s new laptop comes with MacOS Ventura installed out of the box and will support MacOS Sonoma when it’s released in a month or two, while your new Mac will work seamlessly with things like the iPhone, iPad and even the Apple Watch.

Amazon hasn’t said how long this price will be in effect, but considering it’s the lowest yet, we don’t expect it to be for long.

While most people are waiting for Apple to release iOS 17 in the coming weeks, the tech giant still released iOS 16.6 on July 27. The update doesn’t bring many new features to your iPhone, but it includes a lot of bug fixes and security patches, with some for a few issues Apple said might be actively exploited.

To download the update, got to Settings > General > Software Update, tap Install Now and follow the onscreen prompts.

Apple said the iPhone update patches two issues that might be actively exploited. One issue is in WebKit — the engine that powers Safari and other third-party browsers on iOS — and might lead to an arbitrary code execution. That means a third party could steal your data or hack your device for other nefarious purposes, according to the IT services company Okta. The second issue allowed an app to modify your iPhone’s core iOS code, called the kernel.

The update also fixes other issues, including one with the Find My app where an app might be able to read your sensitive location information. Apple doesn’t say this was actively exploited, but you should still download iOS 16.6 to fix this issue.

What else is new on iOS 16.6?

Other than patches and fixes, iOS 16.6 doesn’t bring many new features to your iPhone. An early beta version of iOS 16.6 appeared to have some of the framework for iMessage Contact Key Verification. But that framework isn’t included in the final version of iOS 16.6.

There are some new prompt messages in iOS 16.6 that you might see, like if you try to log into iCloud for Windows when your iPhone and Windows computer aren’t on the same Wi-Fi network.

The website Gadget Hacks also reports there are new alerts for Apple Card, Apple Card Family Sharing and Apple Card Savings. Some of those new alerts include a prompt asking you to verify a purchase with your Apple Card and a prompt asking you to complete your savings account information by including your employment status and source of income.

For more iOS news, check out when Apple might release iOS 17, features we’re most excited about in iOS 17 and five hidden iOS 17 features you should know about.

TCL is revealing its first phones with NxtPaper screens Tuesday, which the company says will have a paper-like appearance for improved eye comfort.

The TCL 40 NxtPaper and TCL 40 NxtPaper 5G are both being released globally later this year, first in Europe, before moving to other territories. TCL has not yet confirmed if the phone will receive a release in the US.

Both phones include a sensor that adjusts display brightness and color temperature in order to optimize how it looks based on environment and time of the day. When using the phones for reading, TCL says its NxtPaper UI can toggle between full color or a black-and-white mode when a reader wants a more book-like experience.

The non-5G model will ship with a 6.78-inch display, 256GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, dual speakers, a 32-megapixel front-facing camera and a triple-camera system that’s anchored by a 50-megapixel main camera. It will cost 199 euros when it’s released in Europe this September, which converts roughly to $215, 170 and AU$330.

The 5G model comes with a 6.6-inch display, 256GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, a 50-megapixel main rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. This model will cost 249 euros and ship in October.

This screen technology has previously been released on TCL’s NxtPaper tablets and laptops. Back at CES 2023, TCL showed off a concept NxtPaper phone ahead of today’s official reveal.

The Oppo Find N3 Flip was officially unveiled on Tuesday. It’s a follow up to last year’s popular Find N2 Flip. Oppo released a series of images of the Find N3 Flip, which is bound for a global release following its launch in mainland China today.

One of the most obvious changes to the Find N3 Flip is the new circular camera bump, which reminds me of the one on the Huawei Pocket S released in late 2022. Oppo ditched the dual circle camera housing design in favor of a larger circular bump that can house more cameras.

The Find N3 Flip features a trio of Hasselblad-branded cameras on its cover: a 50-megapixel main, a 8-megapixel ultrawide and a 32-megapixel telephoto. That’s one more than found on the Find N2 Flip, the Motorola Razr Plus or the Galaxy Z Flip 5. In fact, the Find N3 Flip is probably the first clamshell-style foldable to feature three cameras on its exterior cover.

Read More: Samsung’s New Flip Phone Highlights the Clamshell’s Comeback

In its press release, Oppo bills the Find N3 Flip as the one that “rewrites the flip phone rulebook” and cuts back on compromises – but it excludes camera performance from that tradeoff. Flip phones have been known to have less-than-stellar camera performance compared to similarly-priced slab phones. This is due to the physical and engineering limitations of the flip phone design.

I have to give it up to Oppo for adding an extra camera and refreshing the design of the Find N3 Flip. But I hope that extra camera adds enough value to be worth the tradeoff for a visually more cluttered design and possible higher price. Oppo hadn’t shared pricing information at the time of this writing. For reference, last year’s Find N2 Flip was 849 which converts roughly to $1,070. Compare that with the Razr Plus and Galaxy Z Flip 5 which each start at 1,049, $1,000. Oppo won’t sell the Find N3 Flip in the US.

The Find N3 Flip has curved edges, compared to the boxer sides of the N2 Flip, and an alert slider, a hardware switch popularized by OnePlus (a subsidiary of Oppo) on its phones since it made it easy to toggle between ring, silent and vibrate modes. The N3 Flip also features a fresh color palette of black, light pink, and gold finishes.

“For Find N3 Flip, we’re bringing upgrades across the board – elevated styling, an improved cover screen experience, and a game-changing flip phone camera – simply put, expect the exquisite from Find N3 Flip,” Pete Lau, SVP and Chief Product Officer at Oppo said in a media release.

The Find N3 Flip has the same 6.8-inch 120Hz refresh rate display as the N2 Flip, but Oppo removed the screen’s polarizer which should make it easier to view with sunglasses and save a bit on battery life. Perhaps the biggest change however, comes to the cover screen’s software which can now run apps like YouTube, TikTok, Gmail, Reddit and Google Maps.

Oppo hasn’t been shy about its commitment to foldable phones. The Chinese company made a series of high profile sports partnerships including one with Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, to promote its Find N2 Flip. That marketing push is expected to continue this year. Foldable phones currently represent a small sliver of the broader smartphone market, but that piece of the pie is growing. According to the IDC, global foldable phone shipments will hit 21.4 million in 2023, which is up by more than 50% compared to 2022. By 2027, IDC projects that number to balloon to 48.1 million.

Oppo unveiled its inaugural flip phone, the Find N2 Flip in December last year, which was followed by a broader international launch in February this year. With the Find N2 Flip, Oppo shook up the design of flip phones by debuting a 3.26-inch vertical cover screen. At the time, the Find N2 Flip’s outer screen was one of the largest you could find on a foldable flip phone.

PC shipments have still yet to match the record numbers from 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID pandemic as many people bought new devices for working from home. And in 2023, shipments are forecast to drop again by 13.7% year over year to 252 million PCs, according to the latest International Data Corporation tracking numbers published Monday.

But the steady decline recorded since the pandemic could be coming to an end — shipments are predicted to grow to 261.4 million PCs next year, IDC says.

Part of the continued decline is due to PCs competing now with smaller smart devices like phones, tablets and gaming consoles.

“Consumer demand remains tepid at best as the segment continues to face economic headwinds,” Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, said in a statement.

Artificial intelligence is also affecting PC purchasing decisions within businesses, including whether to postpone buying new computers until they’re better equipped for AI tasks, IDC says.

“The introduction of generative AI has all IT decision makers questioning where to prioritize budgets,” IDC said. “While AI-capable PCs are not ready today, they are coming.”

If you’re looking for a new PC, here are the best budget laptops for 2023, the best 15-inch laptops for work and gaming and the best laptops for college.

OpenAI is pushing further into the workplace. The company on Monday unveiled ChatGPT Enterprise, a new corporate version of its generative AI chatbot designed to be used by large companies. This version of ChatGPT is the next step toward building an all-encompassing “AI assistant for work,” the company said, adding that it believes AI can “elevate every aspect of our working lives.”

OpenAI said ChatGPT Enterprise, which is now available, will offer enhanced security, advanced data analysis functions, new abilities to input longer prompts and include a range of customization options. It will give businesses access to GPT-4, the latest version of the company’s AI technology. With the enterprise edition, OpenAI will also eliminate usage caps and promises performance up to twice as fast as previous versions.

OpenAI said that ChatGPT has already been used in 80% of Fortune 500 companies, and the company is promising new privacy safeguards. OpenAI said that ChatGPT Enterprise will not be trained on a company’s conversations, data or usage. Companies who have already tested the new corporate ChatGPT include Estée Lauder, graphic design software company Canva, content management platform Asana and the payment app Klarna.

OpenAI also offers a free version of ChatGPT for consumers, as well as a $20-a-month subscription option. There are also paid options for API access that let developers build ChatGPT into their own apps and services. An OpenAI spokesperson said pricing for ChatGPT Enterprise will vary depending on each company’s use case.

Since OpenAI’s initial release of ChatGPT late last year, generative AI has disrupted the workplace, education, fitness and more, leading to questions about its usefulness and impact on society. Nearly every major tech company has developed or implemented its own AI-powered features and chatbots. Both Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s Search have been implementing generative AI in their search experiences, while Amazon uses AI in its cloud service, and Meta has experimented with chatbots and language translation services.

In the workplace specifically, AI has been met with mixed reactions. According to predictions in a March report from Goldman Sachs, generative AI could potentially replace 7% of “current US employment” and complement 63%, while 30% could be unaffected by AI automation. However, many US workers are more hopeful than concerned about the impact of AI on their jobs, according to a recent Pew survey, even in jobs where key activities could be replaced by the technology.

In hiring, software has long been used for recruiting and screening applicants, though rapid adoption of ChatGPT and other AI tools for hiring has raised concerns. Earlier this year, CNET’s Laura Michelle Davis reported that it’s now common for job seekers to be “rejected by a robot before they’re connected with an actual human in human resources.”

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see this post.