Humane AI Pins are being returned faster than the company can sell them


Humane’s universally derided AI Pin (“”) is not exactly flying off store shelves, according to internal sales documents published by The Verge. Worse, returns are apparently outpacing purchases. The company had once hoped to sell 100,000 in the first year — but there are only around 7,000 units out in the wild. In our review, we had issues with reliability, how slow it was to process requests, its price and its poor battery life. Its shelf life may be even worse.

— Mat Smith

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Fujifilm’s X-T50 is a big improvement on the X-T30 II, thanks to its higher resolution sensor, in-body stabilization and upgraded video capabilities. However, the high price — an extra half grand over the X-T30 — makes it harder to recommend. We’ll also likely see the X-T30 II heavily discounted in the near future. Read on for the full review.

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A few months back, Disney promised to further crack down on password sharing. It started targeting account sharing in Canada late last year and, in June, in select other countries. It’s about to expand those efforts in the coming weeks. In a fun bit of timing, this expanded password-sharing crackdown is scheduled just before Disney increases its streaming prices yet again.

The company will apparently also start rolling out what it’s calling “continuous playlists.” These are effectively cable-style channels that will stream around the clock, which will juice its viewing numbers and possibly keep you glued for longer to whatever reheated Star Wars / Marvel creation is currently doing the rounds.

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Balatro

Balatro, the surreal card game vaguely related to poker, will get its first major gameplay update in 2025. Developer LocalThunk promises it will bring “new ideas and strategies to the game.” What’s more, it will be a free update “as a token of huge appreciation to the game’s brilliant and passionate community.” This is the first of three Balatro announcements/surprises LocalThunk and publisher Playstack are revealing this summer. Hopefully, one of them will be the mobile version.

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AI-generated emoji could soon come to the iPhone


Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that AI-generated emojis may be one of the new features Apple shows off at WWDC next month. If the current emoji library weren’t overwhelming enough (let alone my increasingly growing sticker collection both on Messages and WhatsApp), Gurman writes that the company “is developing software that can create custom emojis on the fly, based on what users are texting.” Niche food emojis? Yes, please. :tunamayosandwich:

– Mat Smith

ICQ is shutting down on June 26

Doctor Who: 73 Yards review

The best Memorial Day sale tech deals we could find

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Engadget

The Clara Colour is a $150 ereader that taps into Kobo’s own book library (and local libraries), but augments the experience with color book covers. Yes, Kobo beat Kindle to the punch in getting a color ereader out the door. While Amazon is busy experimenting with everything else, ereader-wise, it’s safe to assume that a color Kindle will land at some point. For now, though, Kobo’s Clara Colour is the consumer-friendly color ereader to beat.

Of course, I love that Kobo spelled color with a ‘u’, but I’m not sure I can explain why.

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Resident Evil 6 has sold surprisingly well on the Nintendo Switch since it was ported to the console in 2019, despite it being almost universally panned by fans. The game was just added to Capcom’s Platinum Titles list, meaning it’s crossed the threshold of one million units sold. Don’t do it to yourself, please. May I suggest the remade RE2 (or 3), or one of the myriad Resident Evil 4 remakes. Or if you feel like having a heart attack, any of the Resident Evil games made for VR.

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Playdate

A Flappy Bird tribute for the Playdate is now available to play, if you’re up for sideloading something onto your cute little crank console. Surprise: using the crank to control the bird makes it even harder.

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80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions comes from just 57 companies


A new Carbon Majors Database report, which examines carbon dioxide emissions, found that just 57 companies were responsible for 80 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions between 2016 and 2022. ExxonMobil, which topped the list of United States companies, contributed 1.4 percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions. It has net zero emissions targets.

Nearly 200 parties adopted the 2015 Paris Agreement, committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, 58 of the 100 state- and investor-owned companies in the Carbon Majors Database have since increased their production.

The International Energy Agency found coal consumption increased by eight percent over the seven years to 8.3 billion tons — a record high. State-owned Coal India is one of the top three carbon dioxide producers. Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom and state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco rounded out the group.

— Mat Smith

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When you apply sports logic to a music festival.

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YouTube

YouTube is hyping its exclusive Coachella streaming coverage, which starts next week. The headlining feature is the platform’s multiview experience (already familiar to sports fans) — but who wants to watch up to four stages simultaneously, with audio for one of them. It’s… a music festival. Coachella runs from April 12 to 14 and April 19 to 21.

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If you want 4K 200Hz display, you’ll need an extra $1,700 and a bit of time.

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Razer

Finally, after a reveal at CES, the 2024 edition of the Razor Blade 18 arrives for $3,099. The base system has an i9-14900HX processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, Wi-Fi 7, a triple-fan cooling system and a six-speaker array with THX spatial audio support. You can equip the laptop with up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (the base model has a 4070 graphics card). In what Razer claims is a first for a laptop, there’s Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, but only if you opt for a 4080 or 4090 GPU.

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Eight offices in Santa Clara, California were affected by the layoffs.

Over 700 people at Apple have recently lost their jobs, mostly from offices in Santa Clara. The location that dealt with the company’s electric vehicle projects has lost 371 people. There may not be enough space at that new home robot project.

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