John Routledge - Technoshia

26 Jan

The MicroKorg 2 hands-on: A stylish update to an iconic digital synthesizer

John RoutledgeLatest News

The MicroKorg 2 has some big britches to fill. The original MicroKorg is one of, if not the best selling synthesizer of all time. It's also probably the longest continuously manufactured synth, having hit the market in 2002. Of course, technology has advanced quite a lot in the last 22 years and it was time to give what is arguably…

26 Jan

Ultrawings 2 hits PS VR2 early and even the developer was surprised

John RoutledgeLatest News

To the surprise of just about everyone — seemingly including the studio behind it — virtual reality game Ultrawings 2 has hit PlayStation VR2 earlier than expected. Developer Bit Planet Games wrote on X that "shadow dropping Ultrawings 2 on PS VR2 today was not on our 2024 bingo card but, well, here we are." (A shadow drop refers to…

26 Jan

Samsung’s AI features on the Galaxy S24 in China reportedly ditch Google for Baidu

John RoutledgeLatest News

The Samsung Galaxy S24 isn’t taking Google’s Gemini AI with it to China. CNBC reported Friday that the Chinese version of the flagship phone uses Baidu’s Ernie chatbot to power the phone’s AI-powered features. Ernie arrived last August after reportedly receiving Chinese government approval. “Now featuring Ernie’s understanding and generation capabilities, the upgraded Samsung Note Assistant can translate content and also…

26 Jan

George Carlin’s estate sues over AI-generated comedy special

John RoutledgeLatest News

George Carlin’s estate has filed a lawsuit against the makers of an hour-long comedy special featuring an AI replica of the comedian, as reported by NBC News. The late comedian’s estate, including his daughter Kelly Carlin, filed the suit in a Los Angeles federal court last night. It claims the online media company that posted the video, Dudesy, violated the…

26 Jan

Amazon’s 2023 Echo Show 8 is back to $90, plus the rest of this week’s best tech deals

John RoutledgeLatest News

We've reached the end of another week, so it's time for a roundup of the best deals we could find on tech we like. Happily, a couple of the items we saw at CES (and named among the best) are already seeing decent discounts. So those who want to smoke meat indoors or invest in home back up batteries are…

26 Jan

Apple’s rivals aren’t happy about its EU App Store changes

John RoutledgeLatest News

Last year, the European Union implemented new laws to make big tech open up its platforms to competitors. The deadline for compliance is March, and all eyes were on how Apple, which is famous for not playing nicely with others, would react. Now the company has set out how it will comply with the law, and the result is the…

26 Jan

EV maker Polestar cuts 15 percent of its workforce globally

John RoutledgeLatest News

Swedish electric car company Polestar is slashing its workforce by 15 percent globally. About 450 employees are expected to be let go due to “challenging market conditions.” The news comes despite its six percent increase in global car deliveries compared to 2022, according to its recent fourth quarter global fiscal report.The company did, however, warn that it would reduce its…

26 Jan

GM’s Cruise division is being investigated by the DoJ and SEC following a pedestrian accident

John RoutledgeLatest News

GM's driverless Cruise division is under investigation by both the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), The Washington Post has reported. The probes follow an incident last year in which a jaywalking pedestrian was struck by a Cruise autonomous vehicle and then dragged 20 feet, worsening her injuries.At the same time, yesterday Cruise released its own…

26 Jan

AI is coming for big pharma

John RoutledgeLatest News

If there’s one thing we can all agree upon, it’s that the 21st century’s captains of industry are trying to shoehorn AI into every corner of our world. But for all of the ways in which AI will be shoved into our faces and not prove very successful, it might actually have at least one useful purpose. For instance, by…

26 Jan

Google Chrome for Windows is finally getting native Arm support

John RoutledgeLatest News

A large downside to Windows PCs with Arm64 processors like Microsoft's own Surface Pro 9 5G has been a lack of native support for Chrome, the world's most popular browser. Now, Google has finally released a Chrome Canary beta version that fully supports the Arm64 architecture, Windows Central has reported. The new version should significantly accelerate Chrome performance on Arm64 PCs,…