Technology

You can be a lead in a romantic film promoting an airline and global travel, or at least your face can do so thanks to a new Qatar Airways campaign. The airline has a new AI Adventure campaign combining a short film and deepfake tools as a way of literally seeing yourself having an exciting trip around the world.  

You can try it out for yourself here. You just need to upload a photo of your face and pick a scene from the film put together by the airline. There is a male and female lead; some scenes have just one or both, though you don’t need to upload two faces if you choose not to. Once the picture is approved, you have to pick your skin tone to ensure the result looks as much like you as possible. 

The nonverbal film tells the story of an actress completing a film in London who bumps into a man and drops her earrings. The man tries to return them to her, traveling to places as far apart as Cape Town, Tokyo, and New York before barely missing her. Eventually, he succeeds in giving them back at an airport in Doha, and they have their own romantic trip, with a Qatar airplane flying overhead. 

“Featuring pioneering AI capabilities unseen elsewhere in the airline industry, our latest campaign not only showcases the innovative spirit driving our brand, but also encapsulates our customer-centric approach, helping to turn every journey into an adventure,” Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori said. “After all, there’s no limit to how far a dream can take you.”

You can watch the original film and a couple of examples of edited clips below.

AI Ad Magic

The altered films are mixed in quality. The facial expressions and basic look are surprisingly smooth, but the fact that the hair stays the same is a little disconcerting, though not as much as seeing your face on a body type unfamiliar with what you see in the mirror. It is notable how strict the rules regarding what faces you can upload are. 

The airline doesn't explicitly say you can't use photos of someone else, just that they can't be inappropriate. Yet, after several experiments, the website clearly prevented any famous people's faces from being used. The only loophole was if the photo was not very high resolution. The reason is likely how you have to own the content (the picture) you share with the website. 

In other words, you have to be the star. That's probably because the terms and conditions state that while you retain some rights, Qatar Airways can use and modify the video as they choose.

This isn't Qatar Airways' only AI experiment. The airline also offers an AI-powered digital human as cabin crew named Sama 2.0. The virtual being is designed to assist passengers with basic in-flight queries, providing an assistant to complement the human cabin crew.

These ads are definitely a step up technically from the more satirical deepfake Jennifer Lopez employed by Virgin Voyages, at least. In that case, the personalized ads you could make were altered only in the names and aspects of the company Lopez mentioned. 

Whether this is the dawn of a new age in marketing and advertising is unclear, but you can bet there will be at least a few more attempts as AI video tech becomes better and cheaper.

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The deal is valid until Wednesday, Sept. 11.

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now nearly 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #957) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #957) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #957) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #957) - hint #4 - starting letters (1) Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #957) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• L

• T

• B

• P

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #957) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #957, are…

• LASSO
• TILDE
• BUNCH
• PRONG

Today's Quordle is packed with tricky words. BUNCH is a bit of a nightmare for a Wordle-style word game, on account of there being so many similarly spelled options: PUNCH, HUNCH, LUNCH, MUNCH and BUNCH itself, meaning you may have needed to play a narrowing-down word in order to identify the correct one. That's what I had to do, with HIMBO (sorry, but it was accepted!) being my choice; this gave me the B I needed.

But that aside, TILDE was tricky simply by virtue of being an uncommon word, and LASSO on account of having a repeated letter and also just being spelled wrongly. Go on, say it – it should be spelled LASOO, surely? Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, I got there in the end, but it was a struggle all the way.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #957) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #957, are…

• TROVE
• PATIO
• BELLY
• TIGER

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #956, Friday 6 September: FARCE, WOOLY, LOCAL, NIGHT
• Quordle #955, Thursday 5 September: SNIDE, EGRET, AMONG, SHINY
• Quordle #954, Wednesday 4 September: POINT, WITTY, GAFFE, ABUSE
• Quordle #953, Tuesday 3 September: ATOLL, ANGER, OCEAN, SWEEP
• Quordle #952, Monday 2 September: HABIT, LODGE, PLAIN, DRIFT
• Quordle #951, Sunday 1 September: RABBI, CRAWL, GUPPY, BRAND
• Quordle #950, Saturday 31 August: AWOKE, TIBIA, ITCHY, SNACK
• Quordle #949, Friday 30 August: ARISE, OLDER, ISSUE, ERUPT
• Quordle #948, Thursday 29 August: DECAY, DRUID, AVOID, KNEED
• Quordle #947, Wednesday 28 August: VIOLA, GONER, CAVIL, SHARE
• Quordle #946, Tuesday 27 August: ABYSS, DAILY, AGONY, MUSKY
• Quordle #945, Monday 26 August: NEVER, CHUNK, AUNTY, CROUP
• Quordle #944, Sunday 25 August: APTLY, LEVER, STORK, WIDOW
• Quordle #943, Saturday 24 August: EVENT, APNEA, SWATH, IRONY
• Quordle #942, Friday 23 August: LAUGH, SATYR, CACHE, CLONE
• Quordle #941, Thursday 22 August: BEARD, PAYER, BROWN, TRUCK
• Quordle #940, Wednesday 21 August: ALOFT, SNUCK, LAPSE, COMIC
• Quordle #939, Tuesday 20 August: CHIEF, SNORT, OUNCE, MILKY
• Quordle #938, Monday 19 August: GIVEN, STIFF, STOOL, ANTIC
• Quordle #937, Sunday 18 August: DEPTH, JUICY, GAWKY, INLAY

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #188) - hint #1 - today's theme What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Know your material

NYT Strands today (game #188) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• MUSIC
• SLIM
• FAIL
• DINE
• DINER
• DINES

NYT Strands today (game #188) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• What are you wearing?

NYT Strands today (game #188) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: right, 4th row

Last: left, 4th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #188) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #188, are…

• DENIM
• CHIFFON
• VELVET
• SATIN
• SPANDEX
• JERSEY
• MUSLIN
• SPANGRAM: FABRIC

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 1 hint

I'm a simple kind of guy. I wear denim on my bottom half, cotton (or more likely polyester) on my top. And that's that. SPANDEX? VELVET? CHIFFON? Nope, nope and nope again. I have heard of them all, however, which is why I was able to solve today's Strands puzzle, albeit with one hint along the way.

The problem today was that lots of these words are unusually spelled: SPANDEX has that X in it, VELVET has two Vs, CHIFFON two Fs… it's not like they will have stood out unless you knew what you were looking for. As a distinctly unfashionable type, I didn't really, so this one took me a fair old time to solve it.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Friday 6 September, game #187)

• PORRIDGE
• BEDS
• CHAIRS
• MAMA
• BABY
• PAPA
• HARD
• SOFT
• SPANGRAM: THREEBEARS

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #454) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• TANK
• GLOVE
• SCALE
• TEE
• COACH
• ROCKS
• POLO
• CROP
• FILTER
• BALL
• ROTATE
• MUSTANG
• GODIVA
• FLIP
• PUMP
• DRIVER

NYT Connections today (game #454) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• Yellow: Photoshop skills
• Green: Tiger essentials
• Blue: Fish things
• Purple: Equine badges

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #454) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE
• GREEN: THINGS USED IN GOLF
• BLUE: AQUARIUM PURCHASES
• PURPLE: LOGOS WITH HORSES

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #454) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #454, are…

• YELLOW: WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE CROP, FLIP, ROTATE, SCALE
• GREEN: THINGS USED IN GOLF BALL, DRIVER, GLOVE, TEE
• BLUE: AQUARIUM PURCHASES FILTER, PUMP, ROCKS, TANK
• PURPLE: LOGOS WITH HORSES COACH, GODIVA, MUSTANG, POLO

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 3 mistakes

Here's yet another super-tough Connections puzzle, guaranteed to get the old gray matter working – or to leave you frustrated at its obtuse nature.

In fairness, a couple of today's groups aren't too bad. I use Photoshop on a daily basis, and so the yellow WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE connection stood out to me immediately. Green, THINGS USED IN GOLF, caused me more problems – mainly because I thought some of the words went elsewhere, for instance BALL, FILTER, TANK all seemed like they might be related. But I got it in the end – which left blue and purple.

Purple – which is LOGOS WITH HORSES – was ridiculously difficult. I've not even heard of a company called GODIVA or COACH, though I assume one exists or this group would make even less sense. But I solved it through a combination of trial and error and guesswork, in that I knew GODIVA, POLO and MUSTANG all had a horse connection, and got lucky by adding COACH to it.

That left, blue, AQUARIUM PURCHASES, which was also tricky – but by then I was able to solve it by default, with one guess remaining. Phew!

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Friday, 6 September, game #453)

• YELLOW: QUANTITY AMOUNT, COUNT, NUMBER, TOTAL
• GREEN: INCIDENT AFFAIR, EPISODE, EVENT, MATTER
• BLUE: THINGS RECEIVED IN THE MAIL BILL, CARD, CATALOG, LETTER
• PURPLE: WHAT “SPRING” MIGHT REFER TO BOUNCE, COIL, GEYSER, SEASON

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

The executive vice president of SAIC, MG’s parent company, stated that the automaker will begin introducing solid state battery (SSB) technology into its line-up as early as next year.

Speaking at the Chengdu motor show last week, Yu Jingmin discussed a new solid state battery technology that has been developed in-house and is planned to be introduced to numerous upcoming EV models from SAIC brands, including premium offering IM and the more affordable Wuling volume brands in China.

If successful, the introduction of SSBs will occur a full 12 months before the company’s original timelines, putting MG, as well as the other previously mentioned brands, well ahead of the competition.

Toyota, for example, has previously said that it hopes to bring similar technology to market by 2028, while Volkswagen has partnered with US research company QuantumScape. The pair have said they have reached an agreement to industrialize the technology, but no actual timelines have been set.

(Image credit: MG/SAIC)

Unfortunately, Yu Jingmin didn’t provide any details about battery specifics, but sister company IM Motor has already revealed its new L6 Saloon, which uses an early example of the company's solid-state battery research.

In this case, IM Motors claims its tech has double the energy density of current lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which means the manufacturer has been able to stuff the L6 with a 133kWh battery pack without impeding interior space or causing the overall curb weight to sky-rocket.

The result is a car that can achieve a 673-mile range on China's Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle (CLTC) and can add a staggering 249-mile range in just 12 minutes from a high-powered rapid charger outlet.

Despite the lack of official details of MG's chemical makeup, it is highly likely to follow a similar pattern to those used by IM Motor. The introduction of the technology across the wider SAIC portfolio means the company can benefit from economies of scale and help keep the sticker price of its surprisingly affordable MG models low.

What is solid state battery technology?

(Image credit: Volkswagen Group/QuantumScape)

The current generation of lithium-ion batteries, including those that use a lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry, use liquid electrolytes between their electrodes.

Although the technology has become ubiquitous among modern EVs, it has its limitations. Chiefly, energy density is relatively poor, the battery packs are heavy, and that liquid electrolyte is relatively volatile and can, in some cases, lead to fires and explosions.

A solid-state battery contains a solid lithium metal anode and a solid ceramic electrolyte, so there’s no need for a volatile liquid electrolyte. This equates to a battery pack that offers greater energy density, reducing the overall weight of an electric vehicle and leading to much greater efficiencies.

Solid state batteries are also claimed to be much safer, as they have much higher thermal stability and can tolerate more extreme temperature ranges. This, in turn, allows them to charge at much faster rates, which is a bonus for EV owners sick of hanging around at charging stations.

But it isn’t all plain sailing. Both researchers and the automakers funding this stuff have found that producing solid-state battery tech is complicated and expensive. They also rely on even more lithium than their LFP counterparts, which isn’t great for the planet or a company’s bottom line.

What’s more, many researchers have found that the biggest roadblock is the potential longevity of these new packs. To get very technical, lots of rapid charging can lead to a build-up of dendrites on the lithium electrode.

Like plaque on teeth, this build-up can eventually cause the system to short-circuit and eventually kill the battery. 

To make matters worse, there is limited understanding of how to recycle SSBs, meaning a lot of research and funding has to be poured into this area if we want to avoid a pile-up of dead batteries in five to ten years.

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The phone that ushered in the modern mobile age was a Nokia, but not the one you’re thinking of – not the Nokia 3210 (the one with Snake). The Nokia N95, a multimedia wonder, predated the iPhone by a year and offered more features than the iPhone would have for generations. Finally, the rumored iPhone 16 might bring back one of my favorite lost features, the same camera button as the N95 – and it would be the best thing that ever happened to iPhone photos. 

If a camera button sounds simple, I swear it’s the biggest change that will come to smartphones this decade … forgetting AI, of course. This camera button will make all of your photos better, especially when you zoom. This new camera button is going to do more for smartphones than the invention of the Megapixel. It will be bigger than selfies. It’s the button I’ve been begging for.

The Nokia N95 had lots of buttons – lots of buttons. There were 13 buttons on the front of the Nokia N95, including Send and End, and a 4-way pad. You could also slide the phone one way to reveal a 12-key number pad, or you could slide it the other way to reveal media playback controls. The iPod was all the rage, so media playback keys were a standout feature. Those aren’t the buttons I’m talking about, though.

Nokia N95 with media controls on left and camera button on side (Image credit: Nokia)

On the side of the Nokia N95 was a camera button, much like the Action Button on today’s iPhone 15 Pro. You could press and hold the button to activate the camera. Actually, the very first Nokia N95 had a sliding camera cover, and the camera turned on when you slid it open. It still had this awesome camera button, the same type of button you’ll find on any standalone camera today.

What makes a camera button awesome? If you press it just a little, the camera will focus first. Then, you squeeze harder to take your shot. There is even some resistance when you press halfway down to let you know it’s focus time.

All standalone cameras have this type of shutter button, and other smartphones, including recent Sony Xperia phones, have used it as well. The ill-fated Windows Phone OS required a two-stage camera button on all Windows Phones.

A shaky hand is a photographer's greatest enemy

I’m so excited about this feature ... that I may have to upgrade

The biggest problem with my camera phone isn’t the camera, it’s me. My shaking hands ruin far more photos than my iPhone could. 

A good rule of thumb for photography is that you can reduce hand shake if you use your focal length as the fraction's denominator for your shutter speed. I’ll explain: if you use a 35mm lens, you would need a 1/35 second shutter speed to eliminate shake. If you have a 200mm lens, you need a shutter speed of 1/200 second, or faster. 

The 5X zoom lens on my iPhone 15 Pro Max is equivalent to a 120mm lens, and lo and behold, I see that my iPhone shoots photos at 1/120 second when I use that lens. That’s good, but it could be better. Knowing that my iPhone is shooting at the lowest shutter speed for my shaky hands makes me wish I could shoot faster or shake less.

That’s what my favorite old Nokia button is for! The camera shutter button helps me shake less. Actually, it helps with the shakiest moment of all – the moment I tap the shutter button. Think about it: I have my photo lined up perfectly, my hands are steady, and then I go and poke my phone?! That’s how I take my photo? Of course, my shots look blurry. I moved my camera at the worst moment.

Of course, there are other options on today’s cameras, but they aren’t as satisfying as a real, two-step camera button. On many phones, like my Galaxy S24 Ultra, I can activate voice commands to take a photo. With a Samsung phone, I can just say “Shoot,” or “Cheese.” Um, yeah. That’s not ideal. Try walking around a crowded arboretum yelling, “Shoot!” “Shoot!” at your phone for a day. You’ll get plenty of looks.

(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)

You can also use the volume keys by default on almost every smartphone to take photos. However, that still adds a little bump to the side of the phone when you want to take a photo. What I need isn’t a bump or a single press: I need to squeeze.

The two-stage camera button lets me squeeze the shutter slowly. I line up my shot and then press a little bit, which tells the camera to autofocus. It also gives me a slightly tighter grip on the camera, which means there is less travel when it’s time to press the shutter. To take the photo, I just squeeze a little harder, and it's done. I’ve moved as little as possible.

This is a feature that makes me want to upgrade

I’m so excited about this feature coming to the new iPhone 16 Pro that I may have to upgrade from my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I wasn’t going to; I felt like the Action Button was enough, especially once I learned I could press it to open the camera and then again to take the photo. It’s like having the camera button I crave … but not quite.

I promise, whatever upgrades Apple makes to its camera, nothing would improve photo quality for all iPhone users like a two-stage camera button. We would need to teach iPhone owners how to use it properly, but that’s our job here at TechRadar. We’ll write the How-To story, Apple. Just give me my camera button, please. I’ve waited too long for this advancement to come back.

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An 8-bit plumber with a mustache and a taste for mushrooms was the height of cutting-edge entertainment in 1985. Now, an AI model can recreate the entire game based on some basic prompts (and with sometimes hilarious glitches in the process). 

The MarioVGG demonstrated in a new academic paper by video game character developer Virtuals Protocol shows how AI might help collaborate in future AI-driven video game production or possibly why it shouldn’t. 

MarioVGG is an experiment in getting AI to produce plausible gameplay videos from a series of prompts on how the environment should look and behave and how characters should act. It’s a long-form version of the kind of text-to-video tools quickly growing in popularity. It is trained on more than 737,000 frames of gameplay footage from Super Mario Bros. 

However, the AI Mario doesn’t do everything the character in the Nintendo game does, as the researchers limited the model’s interaction capabilities to just two moves; “run right” and “run right and jump.” The resulting images form a video, albeit one suggesting a player deliberately making it more challenging by avoiding power-ups, only jumping to one height, or moving left.

You can see a bit of MarioVGG’s performance below. It’s simultaneously astonishingly good at recreating the game's look while also full of glaring errors and flaws. Though the AI-generated sequences are mostly coherent in matching a user’s input to the way Mario acts, it’s very much not the same speed, with each frame taking a little bit of time for the AI to create. Not to mention the occasional disappearance of Mario from the screen or his transformation into an enemy character for a bit. 

(Image credit: Virtual Protocol) Super MarAIo Modeling

Still, seeing the AI show a partial understanding of cause-and-effect between user inputs and the resulting gameplay moves potential code-free video game development a lot closer to reality. AI models like MarioVGG aren’t going to replace video game developers or the standard engine any time soon, but the idea of just explaining to an AI how you want a game’s physics and environments to function instead of coding it all manually is far too tempting for technical obstacles to discourage. 

There’s a lot left to solve since video games involve a constantly evolving series of interactions between the player and the game environment. That’s much more complex than static images or simple actions in a video. Accurately recreating this interactivity in real-time is a challenge that MarioVGG has not yet solved – not that MarioVGG is the only effort in that regard. 

Google’s GameNGen recently showed off a playable version of Doom produced by an AI model. Despite being an older game, Super Mario Bros. requires more nuanced control over character movement and environmental interaction than Doom, so the result is not quite as fast or accurate. AI is currently much better at text-based games with occasional illustrations than something like a Mario game. But, like the early days of video games, an evolution toward the fast-paced, interactive video games of Nintendo’s golden age could be coming faster than any goomba.

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Despite its limitations, the makers of MarioVGG think AI video could one day replace game engines.

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As smartphones become more and more integrated into our daily lives, we’ve noticed tech companies have begun to implement features that prioritize the wellbeing of users. 

For example, Nokia manufacturer HMD markets its line of feature phones (sometimes called dumbphones) as a way to escape from heavy social media use, and companies like Honor have released phones with eye protection technology built in. 

TCL is seemingly looking to bring users the best of both worlds with its 50 Nxtpaper 5G and 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G smartphones, which the manufacturer revealed at IFA on September 5.

The phones both sport a 6.8-inch 1080 x 2640 anti-glare display with a refresh rate of 120Hz, which TCL says adapts to lighting conditions to minimize blue light, and a new, physical anti-distraction switch. 

The switch, which TCL calls the “Nxtpaper Key”, allows users to choose between standard full-color epaper and a Kindle-style viewing mode which the company calls Max Ink, described by TCL as “e-ink format”. It's unclear whether TCL is using E Ink technology, licensed from the company of the same name, or another form of e-paper. We've reached out to TCL for comment.

Is it really E Ink, like this Amazon Kindle? Probably not (Image credit: TechRadar)

TCL says that this Max Ink Mode “limits social media apps/notifications” in a bid to dissuade users from unnecessary scrolling and encourage more focused use, particularly for reading.

In recent months, the term “brainrot” has joined “doomscrolling” as a common way to reference the effect of heavy social media use, and it seems TCL is looking to combat and capitalize on this trend of dissatisfaction. 

By implementing this “Nxtpaper Key” option, TCL may be looking to court customers who want to cut down on social media without losing access to valuable smartphone features like maps or web browsing. We’ve reached out to TCL for clarification as to what “limits social media” actually means.

The TCL 50 Nxtpaper is more power than feature

AI features come courtesy of a partnership between TCL and Microsoft

Despite TCL’s focus on mindful use, the 50 Nxtpaper 5G and 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G are most definitely not feature phones; their respective specs are, on paper (pun intended), relatively impressive.

The 50 Nxtpaper 5G comes equipped with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, a 108MP main rear camera, an 8MP selfie camera, and a 5,010mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging.

The 50 Nxtpaper Pro, priced at £279,99, ups the RAM to 16GB and the storage to 512GB, and bumps the selfie camera to 32MP. 

AI features come courtesy of a partnership between TCL and Microsoft, and the phones offer translation, voice memo transcription, and text summarization.

The two new phones launch alongside a tablet, the TCL Nxtpaper 14, which is equipped with a 14.3-inch 2400 x 1600 display and the same Max Ink capabilities as its smartphone cousins, for a price of £399.

At the time of writing, none of these products have a confirmed US release date, and the base 50 Nxtpaper has yet to be given a UK release date. So, be sure to keep up with our phones coverage for updates. 

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The US Department of Homeland Security has outlined plans to enhance cyber security through the Maritime Transport System (MTS).The department’s aim is to protect the system and infrastructure used to ensure safe and free navigation of US waterways.

Ports are a vital part of the US economy, contributing $649 to GDP and generating 13 million jobs. The request for information will be used to help develop research to test the vulnerabilities of the port infrastructure.

The study will help to develop a virtual ‘testbed’ which researchers will use to test the functionality of the port and determine any exploitable gaps in the systems. By identifying the weaknesses, the MTS aims to mitigate and close vulnerabilities.

Upping the ante

Recently, Biden introduced a baseline standard for port cybersecurity, requiring any ports who did not meet requirements to make improvements. The executive order gave the US Coast Guard more power in its response to cyberattacks, and ring fenced $20 billion to be invested in port infrastructure in the next five years.

Homeland Security commented, “Recent events have highlighted the fragile and complicated nature of the [maritime transportation system], as well as primary, secondary, and further reaching effects once there is a tragic disruption.”

In 2023, a port in Japan was shut down in a Lockbit 3.0 ransomware attack that halted all shipments through the port for two days. The total losses were not revealed, but severe disruption is said to have contributed to ‘massive’ financial cost.

Cyber security has become a growing concern for government agencies on both sides in the wake of the Russian war in Ukraine, as threat actors look to cause as much damage to infrastructure as possible. Malware attacks have become a common technique to gain leverage over targets in order to disrupt operations. The MTS research should strengthen the position of the US ports against malicious cyber operations.

Via The Register

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