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This composite image shows the progression of a total solar eclipse over Madras, Oregon, on Monday, August 21st, 2017.  | Image: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani Things are going to get a little wacky on April 8th, when a total solar eclipse will darken skies over North America. The Moon will line up perfectly to block the face of the Sun. Temperatures will drop around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Birdsong will change from daytime to nighttime tunes. And millions of people are expected to hit the road to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. The Verge has your guide for how to partake in the fun. What exactly is happening? And what will I see? “The disk of the Moon is in just the right location, just the right distance to completely cover the disk of the Sun. And when that happens, magic happens,” NASA heliophysics research and analysis lead Patrick Koehn told The Verge in an interview... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/SPBDmzQ

Spotify says it will continue working on its generative playlist feature “over the coming months.” | Image: Spotify / Verge After experimenting with AI playlist generation in its DJ feature last year, Spotify is now launching a beta tool that allows users to create a curated tracklist based on text descriptions. Its new AI Playlist beta is initially rolling out to Spotify Premium subscribers on mobile devices in the United Kingdom and Australia. Android and iOS users in those locations can find the AI Playlist generator by heading into “Your Library” and tapping the “+” button at the top-right of the page. After selecting the AI Playlist option from the drop-down menu, users can type in a prompt — such as “music to read to on a cold, rainy day” — to get a playlist of 30 songs that match that vibe. The results can be tweaked using additional prompts like “more... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/yK3qg6B

Donghua Jinlong’s factory. | Image: Donghua Jinlong Chemical Co. TikTok isn’t just useful for videos on robotic tape storage , Radiohead songs on step motors , and regretful congressmen . It’s also a place where businesses can go viral by marketing their industrial products. Because of that, I now know that a company called Donghua Jinlong Chemical makes food-grade glycine which, as the company reminds us in its TikTok marketing video, is “suitable as a flavor enhancer, sweetener, and nutritional supplement.” Not only that, but it’s “also used in pickles, sweet sauces, soy sauce, vinegar, and juices to improve taste.” And, bonus, it’s “a well-established brand in a large factory.” If that doesn’t get you ready to get some Donghua Jinlong food-grade glycine, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do for... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/25npXsL

Image: Wes Davis / The Verge Earlier this year, there were enough rumors about imminent new Apple products to make for a big spring event, but the company instead announced its new M3 MacBook Airs via press release — and new iPads haven’t shown up since. Today, Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg that the big spring iPad update, which includes new OLED iPad Pros, is due on May 6th — about 19 months since the last one. But why upgrade? My 2021 model still feels like new, and I know at least one person who says the same of the 2018 iPad Pro. Unless it does more than what’s been rumored, which is precious little at this point in the grand scheme of things, it narrows who it’s for to just the very specific subset of people who like iPadOS a lot... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/npvJOY6

This massive, chonky Louis animatronic has almost as much range of movement as I do. | Image: Disney No matter your opinion on the current state of its animated movies, Disney is proving that it can still knock animatronics out of the park. This week, the entertainment giant gave us another early look at the new audio-animatronics being prepared for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure — a retheming of the iconic ( and controversial ) Splash Mountain ride — and the demonstrations so far have been breathtakingly impressive. Recognizable characters from The Princess and the Frog (2009) have been brought to robotic life across various social media posts and Disney’s new “ We Call It Imagineering ” YouTube series, including Princess Tiana herself, Mama Odie, Charlotte La Bouff, Louis the Alligator, and a host of other swamp critters. I compiled all the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MoLfpqF

Illustration: The Verge Google is working on a feature that is so simple and so useful that I’m shocked it hasn’t been part of our lives for a decade: a way to look up a phone number that just called you, right from your recent calls screen. X user AssembleDebug tipped off PiunikaWeb to a new “Lookup” button in the beta version of the Google Phone app that, when tapped, brings up a Google Search with the number already entered for you. Although the Google Phone app is the default for Pixel phones, other Android owners can download it. The new Lookup button lives with other options, like “Block” and “History,” that you see when you tap on a recent call in the Phone app. In an age where so much spam comes from spoofed phone numbers made to look like local calls,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ydWOkYH

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that AI companies were running into a wall when it comes to gathering high-quality training data. Today, The New York Times detailed some of the ways companies have dealt with this. Unsurprisingly, it involves doing things that fall into the hazy gray area of AI copyright law . The story opens on OpenAI which, desperate for training data, reportedly developed its Whisper audio transcription model to get over the hump, transcribing over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4, its most advanced large language model. That’s according to The New York Times , which reports that the company knew this was legally questionable but believed it to be fair use. OpenAI president Greg... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/pci1Zf5