Netflix is rolling out changes to account sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain after trialing the change in Latin America. If you live in one of these countries, you must set a primary location for where you use it. Then, if you have friends or family who want to share your account, you'll have to subscribe to either the Standard or Premium tier and pay a fee ($8 in Canada and New Zealand, €4 in Portugal and €6 in Spain) for up to two extra users outside of your home.
In Netflix’s words, “Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films.” It's not clear how new regions will take to the policy. Many rival services don't have account-sharing restrictions, and given how many options there are now, this could coax users elsewhere. Or maybe people will rediscover illegal streams, torrents and all the other methods we used to watch video before the streaming boom.
– Mat Smith
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Google’s Bard chatbot confidently spouts misinformation in Twitter debut
It falsely said the James Webb Space Telescope took the first pictures of exoplanets.
This week, Google posted an ad to Twitter showing off the natural-language AI model displaying false information. A short GIF showed an example of a Q&A with Bard: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?”
Among a few facts, Bard says “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.” However, the JWST didn’t take the first pictures. That honor belongs to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004. Chatbots get things wrong, sure, as did search engines before them. However, stripped of much context, there’s a higher chance of picking up errors and not even knowing.
Google Maps' Immersive View is rolling out in five cities
It should make it easier to view directions from your lock screen.
At I/O 2022, Google revealed an Immersive View feature for Maps that uses computer vision and AI to combine Street View and aerial photography into a 3D format. The feature rolled out today in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. The feature adds contextual information, including traffic, the weather and how busy a location typically is at different times of the day. You'll be able to soar over buildings and see things like the location of an attraction’s entrance.
Twitter is shutting down its free API. Here's what's going to break
Change your logins before it's too late.
Twitter announced it would no longer allow any developer to use its APIs for free. Other than confirming a February 9th cut-off date – that’s today – we don’t know much more. Musk has suggested Twitter could charge $100 a month “with ID verification,” but hasn’t elaborated. Once free access is shut off, thousands of apps, research projects, bots and other services will stop functioning. We break down what you should probably do – if things still work. Tweets and DMs were recently not functional for many users.
Someone made the AirPods Pro case repairable with a USB-C conversion
He designed an open-source PCB available to buy online.
AirPod repair options are limited if something happens to the charging case, and your earbuds aren’t under warranty. Apple will replace the case for a fee – but that creeps close to the cost of an entirely new set of AirPods. There’s no easy way to repair a set of AirPods Pro and limit your electronic waste. Replacement parts are expensive, hard to find or non-existent. Engineer Ken Pillonel, who also created that USB-C iPhone, is trying to fix that. With his latest DIY project, you can swap the battery in your AirPods Pro case rather than replace it altogether.
Watch Link ride a huge drone in the new Zelda 'Tears of the Kingdom' trailer
Other transport options are available.
Nintendo closed out yesterday’s Direct showcase (a remastered Metroid Prime is available to play now!) with a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showing off the game's traversal mechanics and dramatic cinematics. Oh, and Link takes to the skies above Hyrule on a gigantic drone.
